Hi Geoff,
A lot to reflect on here!
per your suggestion i've been looking daily (not every hour) I found on the LU website a podcast by Christian that is an excellent exercise in going sense by sense and looking to see if there is anything but experiencing. There a glimpses each time. It's that chipping away you are talking about.
Great! The glimpses will join up the more you have them :)
Great questions! fyi i'm finding it hard to find non-dual awareness when contracted or in a reaction. It becomes intellectual. Otherwise I can definitely sense it though it takes a moment.
There may be an expectation here that there will be no reactions or contractions, or that non-dual awareness will become permanent. This may be because of my guiding and the experiences I have had and if so I apologise, as expectations can be hindrances. Remember that all we are pointing to here is the seeing through of separate selfhood, and any deepening after that is dependent on the paths that are available (I will let you know about a few afterwards) I believe that this seeing through starts a process of awakening in which that awareness, a less rufflable mind which is less full of chatter and self-reference, becomes clearer and deeper.
I am seeing the contrast between the bodymind and the awareness in terms of experience.
I think I understand what you are saying but could you say more please?
In one of the podcasts Christian asks:
Is there anything in experience of seeing,hearing, thinking, sensing, other that seeing hearing thinking sensing? I listened to this podcast 5 times and looked each time until an answer came. I thought the "correct" answer would be "No", but I wanted to see for myself.
The answer is yes. There is the KNOWING of each of these things. This knowings is in no way separate from any of experience. But the knowing remains as silence or presence when it is not knowing experience. So it looks like knowing arises as part of phenomenal experience. This knowing is everpresent in experience. Experience is constantly changing, never the same, yet the knowing of experience is never changing, always the same. It's not a thing, the knowing of experience. It's not an object.
IN the knowing of all experience is there a me? a self? Is there Duality? Seperation?
The answer is NO. There most often the knowing of a story of a me. A constantly changing story.
Does this "knowing" choose, do, or feel? No. there is simply an awareness of doing, or feeling.
Is the sense of I Am and the knowing of experience the same thing? Not clear.
Is this ever present knowing what we actually are? YES. (but I dont hear any angels singing!)
How do I feel as this is seen? There is no "Pop" of any kind. Maybe i'm just beginning to see I really don't know.
This looks like it was a good exercise for you, and it seems as if you are clear that there is no separation, and no self. I want to ask about this sense of 'I am' though,
what in the knowing or presence is there to suggest that there is an I who is?
Also, just to get clear - is this knowing another way of describing the fact of awareness or presence? For me the awareness is like a mirror, and all that is perceived is reflected in it - which as you say is changing. I am not sure whether knowing and experience and perception can be separated so clearly - in the sensing there is sensing and any processing of it (like understanding words which are heard for example) happens in mind afterwards.
Is the sense of I Am and the knowing of experience the same thing? Not clear.
Is this ever present knowing what we actually are? YES. (but I dont hear any angels singing!)
To keep it simple, and this process won't necessarily answer all the unanswerable questions, I like to distinguish between thoughts and awareness. So there is all that we add to experience through construct and thought, and direct experience. In DE, none of these labels truly describe what is happening. Knowing, I am, presence, are of course labels. In that experience there is an undivided, clear field of
awareness or experience. What we have to see, is that in that, there is no self or split or duality. If 'I am' is just a phrase to describe this presence, fine, but if it is literally a sense that there is an I who is present, then we need to look again and see if we can find that I.
Is this ever present knowing what we actually are? YES. (but I dont hear any angels singing!)
How do I feel as this is seen? There is no "Pop" of any kind. Maybe i'm just beginning to see I really don't know.
It may be words and the difficulties of language again, but again,
is this what we are? When you look into presence, or present knowing,
can you find the I who is aware?
I guess I am trying to work out whether the knower, or knowing, is another way of describing this I who is aware :)
I wonder if this will help: it is to look again at seeing but with eyes closed -
Close your eyes.
With eyes closed, you will now experience 'blackness'. There may be other things you can find going on, sure. If you are looking at a bright light, there may be a red glow. There may be sparkly bits or cloudy flecks appearing and disappearing - It really doesn't matter about the specifics.
Just to make things simple, whatever you can see with eyes closed, I'm going to refer to it as 'black' or 'blackness' just for simplicity.
1) With eyes closed, can you confirm that what is experienced is 'blackness' as I mentioned?
2) Is there anything else in 'seeing' other than 'blackness'?
3) Can what is witnessing the blackness be found?
4) Can a pair of eyes, an 'I' / 'me', a person be found that is witnessing the blackness? Or is there just 'blackness' to be found?
What do you find?
Can an INHERENT SEE-ER be found? Would anything that is suggested as the see-er, be anything other than a concept/idea/thought?
Keep it up, it could happen at any moment :)
Nic
