Aftershock

[DonnBeach]

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
There is absolutely no self in experience. 'I' is a thought-claim that reproduces itself. If it is sought, a new 'I' is created to seek it.

What are you looking for at LU?
I'm looking to sort out some after-the-fact stuff of a long search that essentially has come to an end. I'm also hesitant to do this because outside validation isn't something I'm keen on, especially with regard to self-discovery.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
I have no idea. I could see it going nowhere (the highest probability), but I could also see it being a helpful place to serve as a backboard to sort some things out. Since I have to write 200 words, this is the last sentence.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
I started to notice how baseless things were toward the end of graduate school, even things I was doing myself. I had read somewhere, a long time ago, a short story that ended with the phrase "I am". It stuck with me and kind of grew like a seed. To cut some details, I began seeing through a lot of things in my life such as my career motivations, my relationship, and more generally society's expectations and behaviors. I came across Ramana Maharshi's "Who am I?" and intensely investigated in that way for a few weeks until a "pop" in perception occurred while on a bench: that projected thought-self essentially vanished and what was left was the entire field of perception, visually oval-like (eyes) with nothing behind it. I actually looked over this in hindsight and kept seeking.

I came across Jed McKenna's book, which set me on the right track and got me focused. I spent the next three years trying to determine what was true. I wrote a lot and thought a lot. My relationship was breaking down, and I was isolating myself from pretty much everything because I was extremely one-pointed on finding truth. I suppose what I was attempting to do was determine the "ground of being", what reality really is, what "the ultimate witness" is, what Truth is.

The 'pop' situation from earlier I could make come on and off; one of the things I'd do was have it 'come on' and try to deepen into it. I'd then try to see what was seeing even that "no-I" state. This was in fact almost impossible to do without losing it again. I was essentially just creating new vantage points from which to see what was false.

When I looked at 'I', I created another version of 'I'. I actually didn't realize this for an embarrassingly long time until a couple of weeks ago, when I had my line of questioning reflected back to me via an LLM (I was pretty desperate). If I can only exist in states, and I am looking for a non-state (truth), I am chasing a ghost. 'I' was chasing 'I' round and round and round, like light bouncing off of two mirrors facing each other. There is no 'I' aside from a heavy mental thought-idea that comes and goes. And whatever truth is, it is not a thing to be attained, and it can't be hiding somewhere that I have to go to. Truth is here and now, ever present.

This realization is majority intellectual, but it is a certainty. Now, I see things pass by and happen. 'I' actually still pops up a lot but is seen through pretty easily. Looking directly, it is also obvious it's a fiction. There is more to this, though; the attempts at determining what reality is or isn't are also futile. They are conceptual overlay. If I claim that what is in front of me right now is real, I am fooling myself ('real' is arbitrary and meaningless). If I say it is not real, I am also fooling myself. What is left is an odd disorientation that includes the fluctuation of separation and non-separation. Every attempt to speculate things (self, world, whatever) is seen through and comes to a halt, and every attempt to not speculate things is seen through as well. And even the recognition of these is seen through.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 11

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[graceabounds]

Hi DonnBeach,

Thank you for your patience in waiting for a guide.

It has been a little while since you wrote about what was being experienced. Have there been changes since? What is seen now?

Did the ghost of I ever exist?

Is searching energy present?

In gratitude,
Becca

[DonnBeach]

Hi DonnBeach,

Thank you for your patience in waiting for a guide.

It has been a little while since you wrote about what was being experienced. Have there been changes since? What is seen now?

Did the ghost of I ever exist?

Is searching energy present?

In gratitude,
Becca

Hi Becca,

Thanks for your reply. After some time, I have realized that the state I found myself in isn't absolute--it is more so an intellectual/experiential realization. That 'I' is a fiction is a realization, no doubt, but what is left is still separation and relative. 'I' am at a paradoxical position now, because there is nothing I can search for anymore, yet there is something to be uncovered--some absoluteness. I have also realized that my realization bypassed some psychological issues that I am now exploring. This isn't intimately related to the topic except for the fact that ego is made of these psychological defects/aspects. I'm uncovering things that create 'blockages' to truly going *through* myself instead of around. Hope all this makes sense to you. I'm happy to provide more details or clarify anything.

Mike

[graceabounds]

Hi Mike,

This makes a lot of sense, everything comes up to be seen, and bypassing it doesn’t work at a certain point in the process.

How would ‘absolute’ be known exactly, except to step back into thoughts of past and future and compare something that simply exists now to an idea of something else?

Most importantly how can I support in the current psychological exploration?

-Becca

[DonnBeach]

I think I understand your comment about the 'absolute'. But what is here now is simply an instantaneous slab of perception, let's call it, which is aware of by awareness yet not separate from that awareness. One could say that awareness itself is absolute, but I think this is cheeky and more theoretical than people let off.

I also recognize that (if it is any-"thing") it is not something I can truly know, but only Be. Thus, whatever may be absolute (which would be the *only* thing ever) would be realized through more 'subtraction' (neti neti).

The psychological stuff is pretty new, and I'm not sure what to say other than uncovering some default modes of my persona was surprising and seemed like unfinished business. The person has to be fully seen through and not just seen through in various moments such as much of the work I've seen on this site.

Thank you very much for your time and responses.

[graceabounds]

The mission of the site is narrowly focused. When the self illusion is seen through there can be a bit of a honeymoon period (of variable duration) and then many other layers of illusion can be processed (I hesitate to use the word ‘worked’) through. Seeing through self makes this possible.

There are various maps and landmarks for this, which some find useful but they are also unnecessary.

What expectations exist for ‘something to be uncovered’?
What is missing?

[DonnBeach]

That's a good question. I'm not sure what the expectations are other than absolute completion and knowledge of that completion (whatever that looks like). What is missing is absoluteness or realization of absoluteness. Right now, there is only relativity. There must be something looked over, or not realized, or something assumed to be here that is really not here.

[graceabounds]

Being not sure is interesting… everything else reads as heady. Who decides what is or is not realized?

Take a look around, directly, what is missing?

How will absoluteness be known? What will be different experientially?

[DonnBeach]

Looking around, directly, nothing is missing. Actually turning mind on low frequency and just looking, there is nothing missing. Only perception/consciousness/movement.

I don't know how absoluteness would be known. I assume experience would not change.

In bodily death, this direct nothing-missing looking would disappear.

[graceabounds]

In bodily death, this direct nothing-missing looking would disappear.

How too could this be known?

Could right now be the absolute?

Peer under the rock of dissatisfaction. What is found?

[graceabounds]

Also what is the experience in the body when mind is ‘low frequency’?

[DonnBeach]

In bodily death, this direct nothing-missing looking would disappear.

How too could this be known?

Could right now be the absolute?

Peer under the rock of dissatisfaction. What is found?

It can't be known. But it can't be disregarded either, right? It is something I desire to know. 'Sages' seem to know, and I want to know. It's the only thing worth knowing.

The Now is an instantaneous portal containing change. I could always say that the portal itself is the absolute, but I think I'd be lying to myself if I asserted this with certainty.

Underneath this dissatisfaction: uncertainty, fear, a purgatorial feeling or in-between-ness (life/pain, and death).

Also what is the experience in the body when mind is ‘low frequency’?

Receding into that witnessing state produces an ethereal or dream-like quality. Body sensations remain as they were but are known from a "far-off" or disconnected vantage point.

[graceabounds]

'Sages' seem to know, and I want to know.

Do they?
Do they possess conceptual knowledge? If you gained they what will this give ‘you’? What is that expectation?

Of what use is knowing about death? So ‘you’ can be right about it? :)

Look right into that fear, sit in the unknown for a while…


Receding into that witnessing state produces an ethereal or dream-like quality

[graceabounds]

Clicked send button too soon…

Receding into that witnessing state produces an ethereal or dream-like quality

Are you the one who recedes or the one who experiences the dream state?

Body sensations remain as they were but are known from a "far-off" or disconnected vantage point.

Where is the vantage point? Could you pinpoint it?

[DonnBeach]

If I gained what they had, I'd know for certain what part of me survives death. I could locate that piece of me and count on it.

The fear is essentially the fear of death itself. I have this one life presumably that is rather empty most of the time. Yet, it is a waste of existence not to know myself truly.

Are you the one who recedes or the one who experiences the dream state?

The thought-me recedes ("is detached from" is better phrasing). What is left is consciousness being aware of its contents with no personality-self, like a movie screen. There is still a vantage from which all this appears, namely the screen itself, let's say. Your question is interesting, and I'm trying to sit with this deeper to ponder if I'm missing anything here...

Where is the vantage point? Could you pinpoint it?

I can't pinpoint an actual vantage point, although it feels like there is a center of the screen, so to speak.