I Need an Experienced Guide

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

Are you sure you want the fear to be the enemy which takes over all?

I don't need the fear to be an enemy. I just don't want to have to spend time and energy trying to defuse it by addressing every cause of the fear.

If not, then make friends with it. Fear is a mechanism, it's only trying to protect. It's doing it's job perfectly. Can you see that?

I can see that it is doing its job.

So hating it is like hating the lock on the door that you yourself put there to guard the precious thing behind it.

Makes sense.

Yes, you see, when looked behind, there is nothing there. Look again.

So I looked behind the fear some more, and I will continue to do so.

Are you willing to entertain this circus further or are you ready to let go of this mind gymnastics that is only taking you away from being at peace?

I'm ready to let go. I will try.

What is next?

Brent

[Ilona]

I don't need the fear to be an enemy. I just don't want to have to spend time and energy trying to defuse it by addressing every cause of the fear.

That's why we look at the whole mechanics of how it works. It's a security system with alarm bells felt in the body. It comes in where there is something threatened. There is a belief that something is not safe, needs to be guarded. This is where we look- behind it- to find out what needs protection. And as you see- it's nothing.

Some hidden beliefs may be not easy to spot. These will need to be addressed one by one, when situations arise.


How was your day yesterday? Anything interesting to report?
Is there much worrying lately?

Sending love.

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

Yesterday was ok. There is still quite a bit of worrying. For the last couple of days, I've tried to look behind the fear. That helps some. I've also been trying to use fear, anxiety, and other unwanted emotions as a point of focus to look for the self.

Although I can never find evidence of a self in direct experience, I still can't shake the feeling/belief in a self. I know it doesn't exist, and I feel like the belief is hanging on by a thread at times, but I spend too much of each day having to do activities that seem to reinforce the sense of self. It is very frustrating to feel so close yet so far from liberation.

Brent

[Ilona]

Although I can never find evidence of a self in direct experience, I still can't shake the feeling/belief in a self

What is the I that is trying to shake off belief in I? A thought?

Focus in the sense of self.
Now find sense of aliveness, being. Is it the same sensation? Does labeling it differently make it something else? What is it without naming anything? Does this sensation need to disappear? Or sense of self is more like sensations of frustration, contraction, resistance? Do these sensations have to disappear?

Do you expect to feel high 24/7, always at peace, joyful and happy?

Sending love.

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

What is the I that is trying to shake off belief in I? A thought?

I don’t know what it is. Sometimes it just seems like a thought. Sometimes it seems like an entity. But I can’t pin down its precise location or nature.

Focus in the sense of self. Now find sense of aliveness, being. Is it the same sensation?

That’s a good point. It could be the same thing.

Does labeling it differently make it something else?

No. But it can change the interpretation of whether it is a problem or not.

What is it without naming anything?

That is unanswerable.

Does this sensation need to disappear?

I don’t think any sensations have to disappear. The belief in an entity that does things and to whom things happen has to disappear.

Or sense of self is more like sensations of frustration, contraction, resistance?

Those certainly add to the sense of self. But even “good” sensations can strengthen it. Or any feelings of doership, control, or that things are happening “to me”.

Do these sensations have to disappear?

No.

Do you expect to feel high 24/7, always at peace, joyful and happy?

No. I just expect the belief in the entity to be gone.


Brent

[Ilona]

I don’t know what it is. Sometimes it just seems like a thought. Sometimes it seems like an entity. But I can’t pin down its precise location or nature.

Have a look, it seems like it's a thought, it seems that it's an entity. Seems like.
It is a thought. There is no other place where I shows up, other then thought. Face that.

Can a thought believe another thought?

Wait for next thought to come up. Where does it come from? Is I thought coming from the same place or from another thought? Can a thought think?
How thoughts appear- in a bundle or one after another one at a time?

You expect the belief in entity to be gone. Examine this. There is no entity already. No believer in thoughts, just thoughts coming up and passing away. What do thoughts stick to?

Sending love.

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

Something has begun changing over the last few days. I’m going to tell you a bit about it rather than answering your last set of questions. We can always return to your questions later.

I didn’t want to mention this change a day or two ago when I first began noticing it because I wasn’t sure it was real rather than in my imagination. But it has become too significant to ignore. It may still turn out to be a product of my desire for this investigation to be complete. We’ll see.

So how should I describe the change? I think it is fair to say that the feeling that there is an entity here has clearly been getting progressively weaker. I’m not sure I would go as far as to say that it is 100% clear all the time, but there is a definite shift from 3 or 4 days ago, and it seems like the momentum of this shift has been building since I first noticed it beginning.

There have still been plenty of negative thoughts such as “I don’t want to do that” and “I don’t like that”, but I’ve been seeing them more and more just as thoughts rather than true statements about an entity. I’ve been using negative thoughts and thoughts about “me” as a point of focus to see how they are just thoughts and don’t relate to a real entity, and that seems to have been helping the process along.

There was a decent test yesterday when I had some problems at work. There was still some identification with the problems, but not as much as there used to be. It is this sort of thing that indicates that the change is still happening and is not complete. But it feels like the dam has broken and now it may just be a matter of waiting for the water to finish emptying out.

Another aspect of the change is that I feel much less like “I” am doing things, or even that “I” am watching what is happening. More and more there is a sense that there is just a seeing of what is happening.

Maybe this is all wishful thinking, but I can’t pretend it isn’t happening.

Thanks for your time. I hope you are doing well.

Brent

[Ilona]

Another aspect of the change is that I feel much less like “I” am doing things, or even that “I” am watching what is happening. More and more there is a sense that there is just a seeing of what is happening.

Beautiful! From your description I can see that you are in the right track. Change is happening and it's a process in unfolding.

Yes, thoughts are just thoughts, carriers of meaning, not the actual objects, subjects and entities. They don't need to be taken for truth. This is really good to notice!

Tell me about free will and choice, how decisions happen, what drives this body and how does it all work.

Sending love.

[NoOneHome]

Ilona,

I feel like I have taken a step back. I was up until about 3 am last night struggling with doubts (about my old "friend" the brain), and the sense of self has been stronger today. I probably am going to wait until tomorrow to answer some of your questions. I'm feeling burned out from too much seeking. I probably made the mistake of trying to directly address the content of my thoughts rather than focusing on direct experience. I'm hoping that if I take a short break that I will get back on track.

Brent

[Ilona]

Don't worry, there is no step back or step forward. There's only what's happening now. And now there are no steps, it's just what is.
All this mind processing is happening, it's all good.
Write when ready.

Sending love.

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

I only have the energy for a quick post today. Things really seem like they’ve unraveled between yesterday and today. I’m going to answer a couple of your questions, but you shouldn’t feel any obligation to reply. I need to get caught up replying to what you have already posted.

Yes, thoughts are just thoughts, carriers of meaning, not the actual objects, subjects and entities. They don't need to be taken for truth. This is really good to notice!

Somehow I’ve lost this perspective and I’m struggling to get it back.

Tell me about free will and choice, how decisions happen, what drives this body and how does it all work.

When I look closely, I can’t find any indication that a choice is anything but a spontaneous event. I don’t see any evidence in direct experience of actual control or free will. I don’t know what drives the body. Thoughts don’t seem to. There is no direct evidence of a controlling entity. Which makes it even more irritating that it still FEELS like “I” am in control of the body.

(For completeness I should mention that even if there were a self, I do not believe it is logically possible for there to be free will. I’m not going to try to explain why right now because it is off-topic. Anyone who wants to discuss it can PM me.)

Brent

[Ilona]

When I look closely, I can’t find any indication that a choice is anything but a spontaneous event. I don’t see any evidence in direct experience of actual control or free will. I don’t know what drives the body. Thoughts don’t seem to. There is no direct evidence of a controlling entity. Which makes it even more irritating that it still FEELS like “I” am in control of the body.

How should it FEEL?

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

Which makes it even more irritating that it still FEELS like “I” am in control of the body.

How should it FEEL?

Apparently I still have an expectation that there should not be any sense of control.

Now, on to some of your earlier questions that I did not answer:

Can a thought believe another thought?

No. A thought can arise “I believe such and such”, but the thought doesn’t do anything. Thoughts never do anything.

This morning it occurred to me that every belief is just a thought. What makes any thought more important than any other? Is a thought that says “I believe in a self” more significant than a thought that says “I hope it doesn’t rain today”?

Since thoughts don’t do anything, and they don’t even seem to lead to anything happening, they could all be insignificant. Whatever happens does so regardless of whether there was a thought about it first.

Wait for next thought to come up. Where does it come from?

I have no idea where the thoughts come from.

Is I thought coming from the same place or from another thought?

Every thought seems to come from the same unknown place. Thoughts often come in related streams, i.e. one after the other on a single topic, but I wouldn’t say that one thought causes any other thought.

Can a thought think?

No, thoughts can’t do anything.

How thoughts appear- in a bundle or one after another one at a time?

They have to come one after the other because I can’t have more than one at a single time.

You expect the belief in entity to be gone. Examine this. There is no entity already. No believer in thoughts, just thoughts coming up and passing away.

Yes. Now that I understand that a belief is just a thought, it makes sense that there is no entity believing, but just thoughts “I believe X, Y, and Z” passing thought the mind.

I need to stop making assumptions. For example, I shouldn’t assume that there is a self. I shouldn’t assume that there is control over what happens. I shouldn’t assume that any belief is more than a thought that is as meaningless as any other thought.

What do thoughts stick to?

Sometimes thoughts just pass through without any trouble. Sometimes there are just so many coming in rapid sequence that they overwhelm me. Other times I have a thought that is so troubling that my mind turns it into a big problematic situation that I have to resolve. But I don't know that I would say they stick to anything.

Brent

[NoOneHome]

Hi Ilona,

Today I continued focusing on not making assumptions. In particular, not assuming that the contents of thoughts are true. And to a lesser extent, not assuming that there is an “I” who is doing things. This seems to be helping. I’ve gotten past the funk that I was in for the last few days.

But I’m not sure what to do to push things along or how to do it. Of course, that thought doesn’t make much sense if there is no one here. But things can be pretty confusing when trapped between the realization of no-self and the “normal” state of mind.

Brent

[Ilona]

Hi Brent,

Great work! Yes, you are starting to see what this is all about- thoughts are telling stories, stories can be entertaining or painful, but none are the truth! It's all thoughts about thoughts...

Apparently I still have an expectation that there should not be any sense of control.

What is this sense of control? If a thought says "I am in control of this" is this thought telling truth? How about thought "I am not in control of this" or "there is no control over this"?
There are many ways to describe what is appearing. Naming sensations creates a story, but is the story truth about what is? Can story replace experience?

Try this simple exercise. Get some fruit. Have it in front of you. Close your eyes and imagine that you take the fruit in your hands, feel it. Texture, weight, shape, colour. Imagine that you are smelling it. Take a bite. Feel the sensation of taste. Hold the image for a couple of minutes. Then for 2 minutes describe what was experienced, to the smallest detail.
Now take the free it in your hands, examine it, bite it, smell and taste it. Explore the actual experience of it.
Then again, for 2 minutes describe the experienced.

What is the difference between experience of real fruit versus imagined?
What is the difference between experience and description?
Does description of experience change experienced?

Can you see how labelling happens where focus goes?


What else did you notice?

Sending love.