Would someone be willing to guide me please?

[kvotski]

Has your perspective changed? Do you now know the self is an illusion?

[Matt13]

Has your perspective changed? Do you now know the self is an illusion?

I feel I want to say yes Sunil, but something makes me hesitate. Perhaps because if true, it's so undramatic compared to the expectations I had before this conversation. Also, I'm worried that I am kidding myself in order to protect the self.

Let me dwell on that question. I want to give a real answer. If no, I want to keep pushing. If yes, I want to be sure.

Matt

[Matt13]

Hi Sunil,

On a practical note, as I mentioned at the beginning, I'm away from Sunday until Friday and won't have wifi where I am. I may get connection as I travel around but can't guarantee it. Hope that's still OK.

Matt

[kvotski]

Of course.

Our experience here is that most awakenings are undramatic.

Ttyl

[Matt13]

Hi Sunil,

I'm uncertain how to answer your question about a changed perspective. If I ask 'am I typing?' than the answer is no, when I look I can't find an "I" directing events. When I realise I am caught up in a train of thought and feel ownership of those thoughts, I look for the "I" and can't find it. What confuses me is why I keep getting caught up. Go back to your earlier example of whether I would look for a unicorn, or the example often quoted in 'Gateless Gatecrashers' of believing in Santa. I absolutely don't believe in either of those, and I will never find myself geting caught up in those beliefs. So, if I have genuinely seen through the belief in the self, surely I should not get caught up in it.

Matt

[kvotski]

Hi Matt,

The key still is expectation. "Getting caught up in thoughts". What does this mean? What gets caught up? Isn't it just another thought claiming to be something like a self?

What can make thoughts stop arising? Thoughts can range from traveling to the moon to killing some one who has wronged you. There are no boundaries. So to expect them to be all lined up is absurd.

What do you do when you have nonsensical thoughts like I just mentioned?

When you do the same to thoughts that claim that the self is real and not an illusion, you are done.

Are you done? If not why are these thoughts reasonable and not nonsense?

[Matt13]

Hi Sunil,

Managed to find a signal so I can post.

"Getting caught up in thoughts". What does this mean? What gets caught up? Isn't it just another thought claiming to be something like a self?"

When I wrote it I was thinking of times when certain thoughts fill my experience, along with physical reactions, emotions and feelings. But, now I examine it again, I can't say that a me is caught up in thoughts, just that thoughts happen and fill experience. Then afterwards I say that 'I' was caught up. So ownership thoughts are arising after the event.

What can make thoughts stop arising?

Nothing, it's what the brain does.

Thoughts can range from traveling to the moon to killing some one who has wronged you. There are no boundaries. So to expect them to be all lined up is absurd.
What do you do when you have nonsensical thoughts like I just mentioned?

Discard them. Or if they are powerful emotional experiences experience them and then discard them. Sometimes I hang on to some thoughts, perhaps a hope that something will come true one day, for example. But then, when I look at that, I don't see anything doing the hanging on, there are just some thoughts that repeat over and over and then a thought or feeling that it is happening to me.

When you do the same to thoughts that claim that the self is real and not an illusion, you are done.
Are you done?

Is it just this intellectual agreement in the proposition of no-self that you call done? Or by done do you mean a permanent change in belief?
I can agree intellectually, but there's still an expectation that really seeing this will change my belief in self, remove it. And that changed belief will permeate everyday life, not just apply when I focus on these kind of questions.

If not why are these thoughts reasonable and not nonsense?

Intellectually I can agree they are nonsense after all the questioning we have done so far, but the instant, instinctive reaction is to believe in the self, perhaps out of habit. It's only when it's consciously examined that the self seems ridiculous.

Sigh... It's almost like I'm going backwards...

Warm regards

Matt

[kvotski]

Hi Matt,

You are not going backwards. Check and see, you already know that you can't stop thoughts and self is a nonsensical thought. That's big. You expect that there will be some permanent shift and that too now. That is an unreasonable expectation. Many including myself still struggle with me as a passing thought. Just like the absurd thoughts we spoke of.

I worry about the words " believe in self". If you intellectually know there is no Santa nor self, how can you believe in either? That word believe has permanence and not just a passing absurd thought.

Check that if the self thought is a belief or a passing absurd thought?. Look not intellectually but with your heart.

[Matt13]

Here is what happens when I look.
The feeling of self seems to permeate all of waking life. It's an automatic association of everything to the idea of self. I cannot instantly see that self is just a thought. I have to stop and concentrate and pick a specific example to work through in order to see that it's just a thought assigning self to an experience. Whether its a belief or not I'm not sure, I'm a little uncertain of your definition. At the very least its a very well established habit and seems to be the default thought for everything. This is how it is when I am going about my daily life, essentially fulfilling the role of Matt.
It's different if I stop, stay quiet and watch. Then, instead of having to study and focus on a single thought, I am able to broaden my perception. Then a broader feeling gradually appears, a feeling that seems to sit behind and contain everything that is happening. Then, when I think of an I, it seems to refer just to thoughts, and not to the whole experience.
I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say look with heart Sunil, but all if this I have written feels like analysis. I'm getting a tremendous reluctance to explore all this. I don't mean I want to stop, just that it feels oddly hard to focus on it.
I'll keep looking and write again tomorrow.

Matt

[kvotski]

I can sense your frustration, Matt. But that frustration is also a thought.

Definitions are not important. You define the way you like. But self can not permeate through anything if it doesn't exist. So you need to look if there is a self at all.If you find it, define it for yourself. If it permeates everything in your life then you must be able to find it, define it, experience it.

Perhaps find another thing that permeates your life. And spot the similarity between that and self.

Is there anything that permeates life?

Yes, I too have thoughts and they are associated as you say. But often it is a sense or another thought that starts the chain. I smell coffee and I want some. I see a beautiful woman and I want to fall in love. I see a a fancy car and i want to drive. is that what you mean?

so which of these is you? the one that sees the car or the one that wants to drive?

You can share your experience if and when you wish.

[Matt13]

Hi Sunil,

I'm still contemplating this. Yesterday I had an odd experience. I was lying down and relaxing after a yoga class, thoughts running through my mind, when I suddenly realised that there isn't a self. There was a real feeling of everything just happening, of the others in the room not being others but being part of everything just happening, the same as 'my' body and 'my' thoughts. Whereas I have appreciated the idea that there is no self intellectually, this was a felt experience, almost an instinctive acknowledgement that the self is just a bunch of passing thoughts. I had doubts about my intellectual appreciation of all of this, but right then and there it felt real, no doubts.
That experience didn't last, the feeling of self returned quickly, but unless I imagined or made up the whole episode, it seems that it may have been a piece of what we are talking about, if that makes sense.
I'll keep looking.

Warm regards

Matt

[kvotski]

That's precisely what we are talking about. It grows as you keep remembering that when you are all tied up in the self, that this is an illusion. The doubts are an illusion, even forgetting is a thought.

Some time ago I saw a steven king movie called the longeliers (spelling?). It was about something called nothing that whenever it touched something it disappeared. Spira talks about the mirage we are chasing while collecting jars to collect the water that we will find when we get there. Some day hopefully soon, you will realize that your jar collection is also useless, there is no water up the sand dune.

Just keep remembering that the self, I and me is an illusion and lets see.

Useful experiments when in yoga is to focus on touch with eyes closed and try to see whether you feel the finger tips or the object you are touching or neither. Give yourself a big facial rub and note if it is really your face or some smooth surface. All these will remind you of your true nonexistent self.

Cheers.

[Matt13]

Hi Sunil,

Your experiment suggestion had a real effect. I wasn't doing it in a yoga class, just at home. In doing it looks like the touch is just a physical sensation, all the rest is interpretation. The sensation of touching something is real, and there is something physically there. The face is real and physical, but it's just a thing. It's only 'my' face because an I thought crops up and says it's my face. Otherwise it's just something, being something. For the last hour or so it's as if my mind and body are going about their business on their own. In peaceful moments even the idea that it's 'my' mind and 'my' body seems to fade away.

The thought pops up that I am still imagining things, but that's what's happening when I try as you suggest.

Matt

[kvotski]

Please keep doing this many times a day, your face will look brighter too. Definitely when the doubts come in that there s a self conducting business. To add variety you can just watch your fingers moving in front of your face for a few minutes. Don't force the fingers let them just do the dance.

[Matt13]

Hi Sunil,

I've been exploring the physical sensations as you suggested. It's reached the point where I can quietly focus at will and see that the sensations are just there, not necessarily happening to a 'me'. But when things are less quiet the idea of me still steps in and takes over the experience. Plus, when I focus quietly on the physical sensations, I still get a sense that there is an 'I' doing the focusing. I then try and find that 'I' but there is nothing there. It feels like I am playing some sort of mental gymnastics game, splitting attention and getting one part of the mind to pretend it's watching another. Meanwhile the sense of 'I' pops in and out of existence, hiding when I look and taking over when I revert to habitual behaviour.

Matt