Understanding but not knowing

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Mon Sep 11, 2023 7:33 am

Good morning!🙂 I hope you have been well.

Thank you for your message. What you have described below is work I have been doing that I would personally refer to as shadow work and inner child work. It is true, I have abandonedmet issues for sure (and other things like most people who was not able to be brought up in picture perfect environments).

What's led me to you and this forum is this. I know the pain I have experienced was terrible and shaping of my coping mechanisms etc. And I can sympathize with myself for going through that. But, at this time, it doesn't matter anymore. It's happened already. I'm not in those disempowering situations. I have worked out the root course of my feelings and actions, seen how my childhood has created them, but now, I'm just re traumatising myself thinking about it again, acting within that thought process is refreshing something that is no longer happening, and now imagination based so not real.
I went through the trenches getting to this point exposing pain in myself and really getting in there but now I am just not interested in doing that anymore. I don't need to be feeling the raw hurt from the past it's not real anymore I am free and safe in all comparison and it's my re imagination that is hurting me now and Im fed up with that and no longer 'indulging' in this anymore (for the most part). I am no longer going 'oh 'yes you react that way because of that trauma you experienced at xyz situation' bla bla bla. I used to but not anymore. Now I am like ' Yes your reaction is rooted in that experience but that experience is not happening now' so it's a bit frustrating knowing you are in a habitual loop and just wanting to flush those habits down the toilet.

With the work you have being doing with me I am Knowing (not just thinking) with clarity that my responses and reactions to situations are not real, as they are based on re-imagined and falsely linked experiences which creates my perception.

I just look at everything now like it's all fake! We are just these robots- we think we are acting with control and correctness yet we are so far removed from reality it's disturbing. Just acting on repeat. There is nothing clean about our experience.

I am battling with the notion of the experience itself now. Everything has a cause and effect. If there is no 'me' eating that chocolate, who is? How is that occurring? I drop a pencil to the floor. The pencil is dropped by whom?

Thank you for your time☺️

Kind regards
Angelfire

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Thu Sep 14, 2023 12:11 am

Hi Angelfire,

It's great to know you have done shadow work and inner child work previously.
I have worked out the root cause of my feelings and actions, seen how my childhood has created them, but now, I'm just re-traumatising myself thinking about it again... I don't need to be feeling the raw hurt from the past, it's not real anymore
Read your previous reply again and answer these questions:

What is labelling your unconfortable sensations as 're-traumatising myself'?
What is that 'I' that doesn't need to feel hurt again?
Where can you find it in direct experience?


My childhood was also traumatic and I went through a similar unconfortable 'no men's land' phase for several months!
But I didn't resist it. I wished many times that it could finish soon. But I had no control over it and I surrendered to the process. I felt all the raw hurt, anger, ressentment, sadness, grief, etc...until one day I woke up and felt lighter and joy gradually returned. The emotional storm was over!

You have to understand and accept that the awakening process has deep effects in your body-mind, but your mind can not grasp it or control it. Every time a self-structure falls away or is about to fall away, there is the release of energy, somatic pains and painful emotions may show up and a flushing of past memories happens. The right attitude to have with those memories is to say 'thank you for showing me the root cause of my pain, now you are free to go!'. In other words, the light of counsciousness is illuminating your unconscious mind. Don't resist the process, don't intellectualize it either. Gradually your behaviour will adjust to the new expanded level of consciousness :-)
I just look at everything now like it's all fake! We are just these robots- we think we are acting with control and correctness yet we are so far removed from reality it's disturbing. Just acting on repeat. There is nothing clean about our experience.
It's your heightned awareness that allows you to SEE how we all behave according to our conditioning, as a robot. I went through this phase also. Give it time and everything will fall into place.
If there is no 'me' eating that chocolate, who is? How is that occurring? I drop a pencil to the floor. The pencil is dropped by whom?
You should ask instead 'Can 'eating chocolate' happen without a 'ME'?
Is that 'ME' in your mind? Is that 'ME' your body?
Can you find an inherent self anywhere, outside of thought?
The story of "ME’ can seem to have continuity. Is it really continuous? Or are there simply isolated thoughts that never can truly touch each other, some of them claiming that there's one continuous story?


Warmly,
Atmajnani

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Sun Sep 17, 2023 1:53 pm

Hi there

Thanks for commenting about having similar experiences, it's good to know it's l part of the process.

The last point I made, where you came back to me with questions relating to the actions taking place without a 'me', this leaves course and effect dangling a bit. Every action has a reaction. The wind has to blow the leave for it to russle.

How would this be different from a me making something happen?

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Sun Sep 17, 2023 5:38 pm

Hi Angelfire,

You are missing the point! You said:
Every action has a reaction. The wind has to blow the leave for it to russle.
Of course every action has a reaction. It's a law of physics that applies to the physical world that we know.
But does the leaf THINKS 'oh wind, I hate you, you are so mean to blow like this', and the wind THINKS 'I'm going to blow this leaf because I don't like it', etc...?
There are no identities or egos in nature except in the human mind. Wind just happens, sound just happens, movement just happens, colours just happen, smells just happen. It's the mind that judges what happens as pleasant or unpleasant, and creates a 'ME' to whom everything is happening.
Your mental labelling and mental reaction is not governed by the physical law of action-reaction, but rather by your personal, familiar and social conditioning, your 'unconscious mind'.

Try again to look within for a reply to my questions in my previous post. For now it's okay to identify with your body.
But where or what is that mental 'ME' that you identify with 'Angelfire'?

Warmly,
Atmajnani

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Wed Sep 20, 2023 7:27 am

Good morning!

The question that you have asked is where I am battling at now for sure.

I am unable to correlate actions, identity and 'me'.
The way I am seeing it is that the identity of me is a collection of experiences that creates a narrative on my day to day and influences how I interact, feel and carry out my day to day. It takes me back to the past, and then the future not with the use of gaining knowledge out of the experience to be useful but mostly to cling, hope and desire onto things to keep them as they are and create a false sense of control. It's a constant state of imagination. I don't like raisins, I like traveling etc are ways to try to create that sense of permanence.

But then I will have a moment coming across something saying 'you are not reading this-reading is happening' and this starts to confuse me as I am like, reading is an action. The action is being done by something that is absorbing the reading information, how can there not be a 'something' aka me, if I am not reading?

I get the emotional/mental side of identity is false, and things are happening are just as quickly not happening as they become the past which is imagination (unnerving how there is nothing to hold on to which I am adjusting to but it's the truth). It's the blunt actions and not correlating them to a 'me', an auctioneer that I am stumped at.

Sorry if this is a ramble!

Thank you as always.

Angelfire.

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Sat Sep 23, 2023 11:36 am

Hi Angelfire,

I suggest that we move forward with the LU exercises that will enable you to better understand the nature of thoughts and desidentify with them. The illusion begins with the identification with thoughts. They will continue to arise in your mind even after the illusion is seen, but your 'relationship' to them will change and consciousness will expand.
'you are not reading this-reading is happening' and this starts to confuse me as I am like, reading is an action. The action is being done by something that is absorbing the reading information, how can there not be a 'something' aka me, if I am not reading?
Of course your eyes and brain enable the reading to happen, plus your previously learned reading ability. It feels like it happens automaticaly. But if you hadn't learned how to read english and the alphabet, your eyes and brain would only see colors and some patterns. Is there a 'ME' (the psychological character that you called Angelfire) that is doing the reading? Where is it? If there was a 'ME' doing the reading, was it inexistent before you learned how to read?
...things are happening just as quickly not happening as they become the past which is imagination (unnerving how there is nothing to hold on to which I am adjusting to but it's the truth)
It seems you already started seeing the illusion of a 'ME' and you are experiencing some unrest to let go of the 'Controller', which never had the control in the first place... Breath and relax, life will continue to happen without a 'ME' character.

This next exercise is quite clarifying:

1. Hold a hand in front of you; palm turned down.
2. Now turn the palm up. And down...and up and so on.

Watch like a hawk.
Don't go to thoughts – examine your direct experience. Do this as many times as you like, and each time inquire:

How is the movement controlled?
Does a thought control it?
Can a ‘controller’ of any description be located?
How is the decision made to turn the hand over?

Track any decision point when a thought MADE THE DECISION to turn the hand over and the hand turns over immediately.
Who or what chose which hand - the left or right hand for the exercise?
Can you find a separate individual or anything that is choosing when to turn the palm up or down?


Warmly,
Atmajnani

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Mon Sep 25, 2023 6:32 am

Good morning! 😀

Thank you for this, I actually had a bit of 'ahh' moment of recent, but inevitably has led me to another question. Sorry! 🤪
See below my enquiry I carried out in a train during the weekend:
Do I sleep?
No. The body sleeps.
If I became brain dead would there still be a body sleeping?

Yes. The body would still sleep.
Am I the body?

No. Because you can be brain dead , can have amnesia etc and the body would still continue.
What is I ?
I is a concept. Inmaterial. Illustrative process analyser. Imagination.

Ok so what are thoughts. Thoughts (like I) are an analysis programme.
So the brain makes thoughts.

I am currently at the conclusion that thoughts are part of the body. Like hair, or appendix.
Your body doesn't need hair it can continue but it gets some benefit.
The appendix is no longer used,but it's still part of the body.
Thoughts (along with the concept of me) are not the body or it's owner, but a part of the bodiesb processes. It's not a controller, it's one of it's programmes.

How am I doing here Atmajnani?🙂

Kind regards as always!

Angelfire

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Wed Oct 04, 2023 9:23 pm

Hi There!

I'm not sure if you have received my message?

Angelfire

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:59 pm

Hi Angelfire,

My apologies for taking so long to reply.
I started a new full-time job and my spare time decreased dramatically. I haven't had the energy to reply in the evenings, but I hope to restart regularly from today on.
I is a concept. Inmaterial. Illustrative process analyser. Imagination. Ok so what are thoughts? Thoughts (like I) are an analysis programme. So the brain makes thoughts. I am currently at the conclusion that thoughts are part of the body. Thoughts (along with the concept of ME) are not the body or it's owner, but a part of the body's processes. It's not a controller, it's one of it's programmes.
Indeed, the brain produces thoughts as the butt produces farts! (sorry for the language...)
It's a valid conclusion, but it's a deductive reasoning and not a direct experience!

It is important that you answer the questions in the exercises using direct experience, otherwise we don't make advances.
Please read my last exercise and send the replies. You can have an intellectual understanding that there isn't a separate inherent SELF, but that is different of having the direct experience of positively seeing without doubt there isn't a ME, MINE, MYSELF anywhere to be found.

Warmly,
Atmajnani

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Sun Oct 22, 2023 9:26 pm

Hi Angelfire,

How are you doing in relation to the self-inquiry?

Was I too strict in my last post? I just want to see you succeed in direct looking and not conceptualizing.
I know that is very difficult for mental people, but the purpose of our inquiry is to deeply understand the nature of thoughts using DE in order to desidentify with them.

Let me know if you are ready to continue this dialogue. Let me know how do you feel.

Warmly,
Atmajnani

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Mon Oct 23, 2023 7:29 am

Hi Atmajnani

So sorry, my father in law has passed away. It has been an exceptionally busy time for us, and we will be heading back to South Africa tomorrow for a few weeks to deal with the house, things etc.

I'm still continuing the enquiry but not as focused at the moment. I am probably not going to be able to reconnect untill mid November in all honesty but I will definitely at this point.

Thank you for the check in ♥️

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Wed Oct 25, 2023 9:55 pm

Hi Angelfire,

My condolences for your loss!

I will wait until you are ready to resume inquiry.
I'll be travelling for business between 13th and 16th of November, after that I will be available to reply your posts.

Warmly,
Atmajnani

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Thu Nov 23, 2023 7:41 pm

Hello Atmajnani

I hope you have been well in the last month or so since our last correspondence.

The time has been taxing personally to say the least. My husband and I went to SA to clear his home and that was quite emotional as he lost his mother and sister in the same home. Having to throw away years of family memories was hard for him, but the time constraints helped prioritize him to a degree. Unfortunately, we went for ultrasound scans and they said they found a mass on my kidney. I'm fine im so happy to say(I'm a tiny minority of people who has a mass shaped lobe) but we had to wait to come back to the uk to have a CT scan. As you can imagine I was in no state to practice direct looking during this time and along with my suffering of being told I have a mass tangled up with guilt that my husband was having to be strong for me during his own emotional upheaval was not great. Ironically, after getting news that one could only wish for, I feel like I have survivors guilt, most people coming out of my appointment would be preparing for treatment.

If it's OK do you think we can carry out some exercises in relation to these experiences? I'm hoping it could be an opportunity to break some beliefs/habits.

Thank you 😊

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atmajnani
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby atmajnani » Sat Nov 25, 2023 8:19 pm

Hi Angelfire,

What an intense month you and your husband had!
It certainly brought up many emotions and feelings to process and release.
Can we really control anything in life?
One moment we are feeling okay, the next moment we fall ill or suddenly die. Everything in this manifested dimension is impermanent, in constant change. But we suffer with change because we resist to what is already happening! Life presents itself in a way and we prefer and insist it could be another way.

Imagine for a moment a scene, one of a little water stream which is tumbling down a hillside gully, not far from its source. It has been raining and so the level is quite high. Consider in your mind's eye, if you can, how it flows to the right over a little rock (where, had the level been lower, it would probably have gone around the rock), then the flow goes to the left over a tree bow, and then slows a little in a broader place, before splashing over a small cascade into a pool, and so on down the mountain side.
Does it choose any of its directions?
Is it even really a separate entity different from the water deposited in it, in the rocks, in the depressions, in the ground etc?
Is it even the same entity moment by moment, or more the product of weather conditions and water, like an ever-changing pattern?

1. Can you find anywhere where 'Angelfire' autonomously intervenes into life, choosing something that is not the product of all the elements; that is not a part of the overall flow?

2. Now please consider a regular decision made, eg. what to wear in the morning, and describe to me what happens. There are environmental factors, there are colour preferences (but where did those come from - any autonomous intervention there perhaps?), practical issues (such as what is available), available time for dressing up, purpose (eg; need to fill up for the day, or to look hip and cool for that person!) etc.
Where in there is an autonomous entity intervening in the flow of life? Can you find someone somewhere?
3. Can anything be found for which 'Angelfire' is responsible – if so responsible to what and for what?

Warmly,
Atmajnani

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Angelfire
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Re: Understanding but not knowing

Postby Angelfire » Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:23 pm

Hi there!

Been doing the excersises I hope you have been well during the festive period.
1. Can you find anywhere where 'Angelfire' autonomously intervenes into life, choosing something that is not the product of all the elements; that is not a part of the overall flow?

Only through thoughts nothing else.

2. Now please consider a regular decision made, eg. what to wear in the morning, and describe to me what happens. There are environmental factors, there are colour preferences (but where did those come from - any autonomous intervention there perhaps?), practical issues (such as what is available), available time for dressing up, purpose (eg; need to fill up for the day, or to look hip and cool for that person!) etc.
Where in there is an autonomous entity intervening in the flow of life? Can you find someone somewhere?

No. I don't. Life is happening all around 'it', a being with decisions made from experiences creating thoughts.


3. Can anything be found for which 'Angelfire' is responsible – if so responsible to what and for what?

No, Angelfire feels like a robot with programming.

The sense of this programming is strong, even though there is now awareness of how thoughts are just another bodily function. How does one separate from this programming, it's automated everything through that false reality?

Thank you 😊


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