1) Please re-do the visual practice, removing labels so that there is only a direct experience of the visual field WITHOUT ANY LABEL. Stay here a little while. What is found and how does it FEEL?
Feels good, peaceful.
YES
What is found and how does it FEEL to read these words emphatically?
Less peaceful with the mind activated, slight tension to comprehend it.
YES
Which experience seems more effortless, flowing, expansive?
With thought labels?
Without thought labels?
Without thought labels.
YES
And so, can you see the mind is still in action here:
How can you define something that cannot be found in direct looking? You have yet to find actual proof of an 'I'!
Good questions, let me try and prove then. Proof of an "I" - it's awareness. It's always present and self-evident. Cannot be seen (as an object) in DE, but perhaps irrelevant - it's self-evident because without it, no DE exists.
What is self-evident? Evident to what or whom? Awareness?
Awareness/"IAM sense" is self evident. It is evident to itself.
How can you deduce or prove anything without thought?
To say something IS self-evident, there would have to be some knowledge of 'it', of 'this'.
But how can we know 'it' without projecting qualities (thought labels) onto it?
To say it is evident to 'itself' there would have to be knowledge of it as a 'self' as something separate, autonomous, independent of everything else.
Is it possible to be sure and certain about this? Or,
Would it not be more correct, if we have to discuss or talk about it, to use words like it appears or seemsto be?
In our conventional language we use words such as Awareness, Presence, Radiant Being, IAM sense etc.
And that is fine, so long as it is SEEN and understood that this is a naming of the un-nameable in order to discuss, teach, dogmatize, philosophize, spiritualize about.
Can you see this?
STREAM EXERCISE
Imagine for a moment a scene, one of a little mountain 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, the rocks, 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 "you" 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, or what to eat for lunch, and describe to me what happens.
Consider that there are environmental factors, consider any preferences like color, shape and texture. Consider where did those preferences come from?
Was any autonomous intervention actually involved?
Consider any practical issues (such as what is available).
Consider the time factor, i.e. for preparation.
Consider the purpose (eg; need to fill up for the day, or to look hip and cool for that person!) etc.
Where in all of the above is an autonomous entity intervening in the flow of life? Can you find someone somewhere? (No just thoughts, and thoughts about the thoughts (thought bundles), none of which are solid even if they seem to have some solidity for an instant.)
Do you control attention?
Do you control feelings?
Do you control choices?
3. Can anything be found for which 'you' are responsible – if so responsible to what and for what?
Love,
Rowena
