Requesting a guide

[Metta777]

Hi Simon,


What does your direct experience tell you? If awareness were just confined to the body, there would be no awareness of anything outside the body.

I understand there is no self. I'm now mindful of the way language and neurobiological imprints distort the perception of reality. All that really exists is awareness? This therefore means I'm not a body then? I am just awareness? But I am tangible. I have substance to me. But this is just the product of a bundle of energy?

Could all be just conscious awareness? Can you find an end to awareness or an edge where it stops? Just in consciousness can you find the separation between you and the environment? Not physically. Just using consciousness as the arbitrator. Is it just the vehicle, what do your senses tell you? Why can't you clearly remember your own face in detail when you leave the front of the mirror?
I have decided not to guide much longer, but will stick with you until we both feel it's completed.

Love, Metta

[Metta777]

Hi Simon,

You might want to post for another guide though, i will not be guiding anymore. I may not have continued access to the board and you will want to be in the group after. We can continue talking if you like, if not Good Luck to you!! Love, Metta

[Anotherway2b]

Hi Metta,

I'm sorry to here you are leaving. Thank you very much for your guidance. I have appreciated your encouragement and knowledge. Good luck to you too.

Simon.

X

[Metta777]

Hi Simon,

Here is a link to an excellent group for finding what you want, you must request entrance, closed group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheDirectPathGroup/

Metta

[The-Song-Of-Me]

Hi Simon,

My name is Silvia and I would be happy to take over and continue with the guiding process if you'd like.

Let me know

Best wishes
Silvia x

[Anotherway2b]

Hi Silvia,

Thank you very much for your offer. I'd be interested to know if you think I've passed through the gate. You may have read the previous posts shared between Metta and me. I definitely feel different. They way in which I relate to the idea of the self has changed. I believe in a here and now experience as opposed to preoccupations with the past or future. Towards the end of my correspondence with Metta the concept that everything was awareness was being shared with me and this understanding was creating some difficulty for me.

In sum, I think there has been a shift although I'm not completely sure! If you could help me to verify I'd be most grateful.

Just to add, I appreciate that daily contact is necessary but I'm away next Wednesday for a week. I will struggle to have online access so it will be hard to commit to the process throughout this time. Should things be best picked up once I return? It's come at an awkward time because I'm reluctant to lose the momentum that has been built up.

Thanks again for your offer,

Simon.

[The-Song-Of-Me]

Hi Simon,

Good to hear from you and that you wish to continue.

Before we continue, I'd like to make sure you are not working with any other guides or groups, here at LU or elsewhere.
I know Metta suggested a group on Facebook, and it's a very good group, but this works better when you put all your focus on this process. Otherwise it can end up in confusion. Likewise, please put aside any other teachings or readings for the time being. Continuing meditation if you have a practice is fine.

I've read through the thread but in order to get a better idea of where you're at, please tell me first, and in your own words how you understand intellectually the concept or idea of no-self.

Then please describe your own experience. What areas of experience are clearly seen to happen without a separate self to make them happen, and what areas need more exploring. For example, is Simon still seen as as separate entity living inside the body, pulling the levers and pressing the buttons, is he the do-er, the witness, the thinker of thoughts?

I look forward to your answers
Love
Silvia

[Anotherway2b]

Hi Silvia,

Thanks for your post. I can confirm that I'm not doing any reading or working with another guide.

In terms of how I understand the idea of no self on an intellectual level, I understand the self to be fiction. I was struck by how shaky the concept is when you start to challenge it. It's a label for some something that simply isn't there. I think that previously I used to understand it as an umbrella term that encapsulated me. Developed through my history, living in the present moment and having a future. An idea drummed into me when I was young through interactions and language. Now I don't see that.

There is no self. The past is just what it is; past. The future doesn't exist either. All there is is the present moment. Life unfolding, happening in the here and now. Moment to moment awareness.

For me this is how I understand no self.

I was struggling to understand what Metta was explaining about how everything was awareness. I think I understand it better but I'm wondering if I need clarification here?

In terms of what I've experienced, I think the first time this came to to my attention through a conversation a few weeks ago it created a change in me. I remember the following day feeling a pleasurable, dropping sensation, feeling lighter. There has been a bit more happiness. I've been taking a bit more perspective of things happening within me. Simon is just a label. Thoughts are being thought, feelings are being felt. It's been an interesting journey in that it has felt a little painful at times to realise the simplicity of it all. To realise there is no I or Simon has produced that. I do still wonder if I'm rid of that completely. There's a little fear, I suppose then. Am I in transition or have I just arrived and I have not completely realised it?

I hope Ive spelt this out clearly enough.

Thanks,

Simon.

[The-Song-Of-Me]

Hi Simon,

The past is just what it is; past. The future doesn't exist either.

So what is the past? What is the future?

Love
Silvia x

[Anotherway2b]

Hi Silvia,

The past is an experience that no longer exists. If the past consisted of some kind of significant event, a moment of learning or perhaps a moment where a particularly strong emotion existed, it has left an imprint. This imprint occurs on a neurobiological level. It has conditioned Simon to behave in a particular manner. The future is an abstract concept. It can only exist as a prediction, based on previous and current experiences. In one sense the immediate future is being played out as life unfolds moment by moment. But the more distant future can only be seen as as a prediction. The past has happened, the future has not happened.

Best wishes,

Simon.

[The-Song-Of-Me]

Hi Simon,

So is past and future anything more than a bunch of thoughts happening NOW?

Remember to check with your direct experience before you answer. And to answer only from what you see in direct experience. Anything else is just more story. Just look. Now. Is there a past or a future as anything other than a mental concept?
When thoughts of past are not present, what happens to the past? Is there A Past?

When thoughts of future are not present, what happens to the future? Is there A Future?

x

[Anotherway2b]

Hello Silvia

So is past and future anything more than a bunch of thoughts happening NOW?

No! If I use direct experience, when I stop thinking about the past or the future they cease to exist. So therefore the past and the future are just cognitive processes: thoughts, ideas, images, judgments, opinions. There is nothing concrete to them because there can’t be.

Is the A Past? No there is not. The past exists as a mental concept so when it is not brought into awareness it does not exist. It is a story that can be tuned into and out of at will.

Is there A Future? No there is not. This is an imagined story, a projection. A story that is yet to be written.

The words Past and Future are just that, words. They are words that are used to wrap around these thoughts. I’m looking and finding that all that really exists is direct experience.

Thanks,

Simon.

[The-Song-Of-Me]

Hello Simon

Excellent! :-)
So, in direct experience, what do the words I, self, Simon point to?

xx

[Anotherway2b]

Hi Silvia,

I, self and Simon are words or labels. They can be brought into awareness at my choosing. They carry the same apparent existence as past and future. As long as they remain in awareness they have a true feel to them but they are simply not real. When I break it down and go with direct experience, there is nothing to them at all. I, self and Simon, like past and future, are just mental concepts. They have lost the meaning they previously held.

The words seem synonymous with past and future in that they carry with them a story and there are aspects of the story that are yet to be written. But in reality all that really exists is moment to moment awareness. No I, self or Simon, just direct experience. Life living life in the here and now.

Many thanks,

Simon.

[The-Song-Of-Me]

Hi Simon,

I, self and Simon are words or labels. They can be brought into awareness at my choosing.

Yes I, Simon, self are labels. What's interesting is that in the next sentence you assert that you can choose to bring them into awareness :-). So there is a you that can choose to do or not to do things then?! Where is this you? Can you find it anywhere other than in thought or imagination? How can a thought think, choose or do anything at all?

How is a choice made in direct experience? Investigate and then answer.

Love
Silvia x