Hi V,
I feel like I've slipped into playing a chess like game with you, where the entire goal has become to convince you that I have seen (whatever that means I don't know), and any actual change taking place at the location here was/is irrelevent.
It is as though I have consciously or unconciously projected my trauma, anger and frustrations at my life onto you and the opportunity for communication the forum here gives to somehow try to feel better about my experience of life. Like the therapy client who sits in the chair, will say a few bits while being too scared to really open up, and then blames the therapist for not fixing them.
Not just here and now with you, but I can see how many avenues in my life have been somehow dressed up to try to fix this core trauma. Of course, it cannot simply be resolved like that (but the seeker keeps trying).
I suppose this isn't unique to me but quite a common human behaviour. I appreciate this insight, disconcerting and uncomfortable as it is.
It really sounds that you are after a new identity.
But what do you need an identity for?
And more importantly, what is it that needs a new identity?
Yes. Everything I have have done here has been an attempt to escape or change who I am, with little real wish to see who I really am (if indeed there is anything to see or find there). This was mainly an unconscious deception, but interestingly it seems it had to surface eventually, and here it is.
Seeking is such a barren desert. Especially when seeking is simply a mask for not being happy or comfortable with yourself and your experiecne of life. Doubly what is sought for doubly cannot be got.
A new identify (or wider new life experience) is sought because of the shame, fear and rejection I feel for myself and consciously and unconciously try to move away from. Of course, bypassing or burying isn't effective, and always feels a bit like a band aid plaster over the crack.
But what do you need an identity for?
And more importantly, what is it that needs a new identity?
It is wished for and shows up in both sensations and shows up as a narrative in thought. Its is deeply rooted in the subconscious but I can see part of it in operation.
All my activity in the sphere of non-duality (for want of a better word, I'm not a fan of that one) over the last six years has been like a damaged person trying to become a 'therapist' themselves, all the while retaining their core trauma, shame, incompleteness and loss but burying it deeper, simply bypassing, while masquerading as a 'therapist' in an attempt to feel better about themselves.
what makes you think that you haven't seen it?
This insight (if that's what it is) helps reset things. I suspect I have no real inention of seeing and I'm just after a less uncomfortable version of Ian, which is a well worn path that keeps getting dressed up in fresh clothes. So either I have seen, but of course it hasn't given me what I'm after, or I'm so mired in self deception that I can't even imagine what seeing is.
How embarrasing (but also a relief). Thank god I have no choice over this. Imagine the apology I would have to offer if I had chosen this?
What kind of shift do you expect?
I want a less uncomfortable verison of me. I want escape. I may pretend I'm after freedom but that's nonsense. Of course, these expecations cannot be met so I am stuck in a loop. This insight and honest is refreshing, and constitutes a shift in itself, but far different from what I was seeking. Instead, I get a little insight into the games I play and their source.
How would you recognize a shift? What are the signs?
I don't know and not sure how much I care. It would appear that I am trapped in an illusion that I myself addictively stoke the fires of to preserve and maintian at all costs.
That being said, there is a relevence to 'not knowing' what the shift looks like. As guides are so fond of saying "it cannot be known in advance" because of course any sequence of thoughts about something not here and now is just a fantasy story. So by definition this makes it hard to know in advance what it will be like, and this is a little bit of a trick question.
I do believe there must be some sort of felt movement (that can be communicated, that is picked up on by the guide). A little like my insight into my motivations spelled out above. No euphoria or fireworks, but some sort of core way of looking/being must slightly turn and be seen to move. Like a painting of a portrait on a wall that once a year at halloween winks at you before returning to normal. Like stepping out onto the balcony of a tall building, there is a moment of vertigo, of surprise, that settles into naturalness as the self deception is lowered.
Surely there has to be less adhesion to the addictive story of self and the never ending seeking patterns, somehow things becomes at least a little more fluid? So all that further work you describe to maintain and continue may be entered into.
What would shift?
Good question (as they all are of course). I love how questions like this just leave me fumbling, unable to answer, a screen of confusion and incomprehension suddenly appears. Perhaps nothing shifts. Perhaps simply life plays out exactly as before and exactly as it would regardless. Perhaps there is a realisation that I am never ever going to get what I really want.
Thanks.
The Longest Journey you will ever take is from your Head to your Heart. Sioux Indian
