The Gate

Hi Matt,

One reason we like you to post each day in to maintain momentum which seems to be gone. We will have to recycle some. So lets first start by reselling what this "I" is that keeps you occupied? Read some of your earlier posts if forgotten. Can you find this I? D the pointing experiments. Close your eyes and point to where you think I is? Then open. What are you pointing to?

Hi Sunil,

Thanks for persevering, and yes, I think I've lost something through reneging on our agreement. As I read earlier posts, some of them seem to have been written by someone entirely different.

If I do the pointing experiment, with my eyes closed, my immediate reaction is to point back at my own head. It takes a while and a lot of looking to gradually see that I am not in there. With my eyes closed there is actually nothing there, just thoughts and sensations. So, I can't point to to an I anywhere, but the habitual and instinctive feeling is that it is in the head.

I also have a very strong resistance to this process, similar to that I felt several days ago when we exchanged posts about fear.

Warm Regards

Matt

Great. Resistance is good. Don't deny it. Sit with it and gently find out why?

Check my blog on I, me, self was born out of love on may 18th. May explain why there is resistance.

Hi Sunil,

I read your blog, and maybe it does explain it. I've found coupled with the resistance I've been snappy and short tempered, unusually so. I could put it down to tiredness or similar, but it feels more fundamental.

As to why the resistance and the possibly linked emotional reactions, seems to be frustration and fear. The frustration seems to be 'Why is this so hard? Why does it take so long? Why can't I get it?!'. The fear seems to be because if the I drops, what is there? If the I drops it dies. The I thought has provided meaning, purpose and even explanation of everything for all of it's life, so to lose it, to drop it, to let it cease to exist (or stop seeming real) is a huge change, a massive leap of faith.

Matt

Hi Sunil,
The fear seems to be because if the I drops, what is there? If the I drops it dies. The I thought has provided meaning, purpose and even explanation of everything for all of it's life, so to lose it, to drop it, to let it cease to exist (or stop seeming real) is a huge change, a massive leap of faith.

This is very often the case. This is still part of the illusion. Sit with the fear and look if life will be any different if there were no you. Would you be driving different, doing your business different, relating to your loved ones differently? For them to be different, there must have been a you doing those things. We have gone through how the decisions are made and life lived.

What meaning has "i" provided you in life? Look in direct experience not thinkiing.

What is your purpose? Do you know it? If yes, is it really yours? Look if isnt borrowed from a parent, society or some wise person's saying? Were you born with all this knowledge?

And what explanation? If you did know how things worked within and without you, would you be suffering?

The fear is also a thought, just a thought. See it and things will fall into place.

I will be away for the long weekend but hopefully will have the net.

Thanks Sunil, I'll think on what you've said and post again tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend.


Matt

This is very often the case. This is still part of the illusion. Sit with the fear and look if life will be any different if there were no you. Would you be driving different, doing your business different, relating to your loved ones differently? For them to be different, there must have been a you doing those things. We have gone through how the decisions are made and life lived.

Relating this to personal experience and trying to work through it...
This evening I had a phone call from a friend that resulted in us meeting to catch up in a local town.
Although I had thoughts all afternoon about whether or not to meet up, the actions when they came weren't deliberate, planned and controlled by 'me'. They just happened. A call, a conversation, an arrangement.
In looking to try and see how this works, and I suppose if I was to try and be rational about this, I would say that the actions came from my subconscious. But then I can not see or claim to own my subconscious, not through direct experience, so that is the same as saying that the thoughts just appear.
So, if my thoughts and actions just appear, then they will carry on appearing whether or not the thought that they are mine crops up.

What meaning has "i" provided you in life? Look in direct experience not thinkiing.

It's odd, and circular. It's like the idea of meaning only exists for the thought of self. 'I' want meaning and create a story about 'me' in order to try and make importance and meaning. So 'I' has meaning only for 'I'.

What is your purpose? Do you know it? If yes, is it really yours? Look if isnt borrowed from a parent, society or some wise person's saying? Were you born with all this knowledge?

I don't have a purpose. I feel I should and I often wonder what it is, but life just goes on anyway, sometimes mundane, sometimes exciting.

And what explanation? If you did know how things worked within and without you, would you be suffering?

This I don't know. I can see intellectually from all the discussions so far that its the self that wants the meaning, the reasons, the pleasure and not the pain. But, for me, here, now, it's only an intellectual understanding.

The fear is also a thought, just a thought. See it and things will fall into place.

This I do see. I still feel it and for long periods I can be lost to it, but equally I have periods where the fear is just thought and sensation moving in space.

Hi Sunil,

Just reflecting a little more on whether 'I' am in control.

Because there are often thoughts about an action for hours, days, or weeks before the action it always seems as if the thoughts cause the action. But if I pay close attention, the action arises in the moment, and its an abstract concept to relate the memory of previous thoughts to the action.

Again, if I was being rational I would try to understand the processes going on in the brain. From direct experience I cannot see the earlier thoughts directly triggering the action.

Matt

Hi Sunil,

Today is feeling like one of those times when you see two mirrors opposite each other and the reflections of reflections seem to go on forever. What I mean is I watch what is going on, both in thoughts and in the 'outside' world. Then I catch myself thinking that 'I' am watching, and that realisation has the effect of seeming to step back further and just encompass more of what is happening, and then the 'I' thought comes up again and the process goes on. I know that sounds like I'm getting tangled up, but is actually quite clear. The thoughts play out and is all fine just as it is.

Matt

So, if my thoughts and actions just appear, then they will carry on appearing whether or not the thought that they are mine crops up.

IS there a doubt in this?

It's odd, and circular. It's like the idea of meaning only exists for the thought of self. 'I' want meaning and create a story about 'me' in order to try and make importance and meaning. So 'I' has meaning only for 'I'.

There is no you to want any thing inluding a meaning, It is just a thought and conditioning and habit to call it yours.

I don't have a purpose. I feel I should and I often wonder what it is, but life just goes on anyway, sometimes mundane, sometimes exciting.

It is the same with everyone and everything.

And what explanation? If you did know how things worked within and without you, would you be suffering?

This I don't know. I can see intellectually from all the discussions so far that its the self that wants the meaning, the reasons, the pleasure and not the pain. But, for me, here, now, it's only an intellectual understanding.

And you have a problem with intellectual understanding? Isn't that how everything starts in life? You understand something first, your brain checks it out over and over until there is no doubt and then it becomes a heartfelt understanding. See if that is not the case with everything that you hold true. Take anything.
Your work. You do a task by first learning it then practicing it and then it becomes automatic.

Pain in your chest for example. If you knew why it was happening you would either cure it if it is medical if not you would solve your emotional issue. But first you have to understand it.

The fear is also a thought, just a thought. See it and things will fall into place.

This I do see. I still feel it and for long periods I can be lost to it, but equally I have periods where the fear is just thought and sensation moving in space.

How is that different if you stub your toes? First you will feel pain then you will tend to it and it will go away. Same with irrational fear. It hurts then you know it is irrational and it goes away becoming a passing sensation. Would this go on? yes, until the brain becomes so habituated to quickly rush in and fix the problem and it will be very brief. That is the experience among most awakened people. There are some who have gone so far that you could kill them and they won't feel it but I have only heard stories about them.

Matt, there seems to be a irrational streak running here. Everything I am talking about is a rational process, we observe, check it out and decide if it is true or not. Truth we keep, false we discard. Long held beliefs feel like they are true but upon examination we find them to be false. But even after finding it to be so, you insist that you are not sure. The only thing you can do is check again.

Not so differnt from grade 9 geometry or algbra if you had problems with those. If I asked you to recall when you learnt two plus two equals four, would you go and find two apples and add two more and recount them? Why don't you do that for everything that your body does automatically?

Hi Sunil,

Just reflecting a little more on whether 'I' am in control.

Because there are often thoughts about an action for hours, days, or weeks before the action it always seems as if the thoughts cause the action. But if I pay close attention, the action arises in the moment, and its an abstract concept to relate the memory of previous thoughts to the action.

Again, if I was being rational I would try to understand the processes going on in the brain. From direct experience I cannot see the earlier thoughts directly triggering the action.

Matt

Have you had moments when you are driving and you know you are supposed to take a certain exit but just when it comes, the mind is distracted and yo do not? If you were in control would that happen. Do you beat yourself up for that mistake? If you do it is just a way of training your brain to not forget? Check this out.

If we were in control, mistakes won't happen. No body will be obese, no one will smoke, no wars, no doemstic fights. All going on becuase we ARE NOT in control.

And this too is rational. The illusory self wants to skip over this and put in front a belief that it is in control and it is someone else's fault. But that someone else is also an illusory self thinking it has control. But it is an illusion and it too has opearted without control, reacting to something else which is an illusion. It is all happening in error.

Hi Sunil,

Today is feeling like one of those times when you see two mirrors opposite each other and the reflections of reflections seem to go on forever. What I mean is I watch what is going on, both in thoughts and in the 'outside' world. Then I catch myself thinking that 'I' am watching, and that realisation has the effect of seeming to step back further and just encompass more of what is happening, and then the 'I' thought comes up again and the process goes on. I know that sounds like I'm getting tangled up, but is actually quite clear. The thoughts play out and is all fine just as it is.

Matt

All is well. There is no I thought. Just a thought. See if all thoughts are unmarred if you took out the word I from them.

So, if my thoughts and actions just appear, then they will carry on appearing whether or not the thought that they are mine crops up.

IS there a doubt in this?

No, no doubt.

And you have a problem with intellectual understanding? Isn't that how everything starts in life? You understand something first, your brain checks it out over and over until there is no doubt and then it becomes a heartfelt understanding. See if that is not the case with everything that you hold true. Take anything.
Your work. You do a task by first learning it then practicing it and then it becomes automatic.

Pain in your chest for example. If you knew why it was happening you would either cure it if it is medical if not you would solve your emotional issue. But first you have to understand it.

Yes I see that and I agree with it. Like anything though, it seems to be taking a while to get to the heartfelt understanding, I still have to focus on it. Though, having said said that there are longer and longer periods when things are just happening without the sense of a 'me' trying to control events. One of the hindrances that comes up is a lingering expectation or hope that amazing experiences will happen. Sometimes there seems to be a sense of looking for brighter colours, or sharper senses, or some experiential sign of approaching liberation.

There are some who have gone so far that you could kill them and they won't feel it but I have only heard stories about them.

Just so long as I don't have to look for direct experience of that particular phenomenon :-)

Matt, there seems to be a irrational streak running here. Everything I am talking about is a rational process, we observe, check it out and decide if it is true or not. Truth we keep, false we discard. Long held beliefs feel like they are true but upon examination we find them to be false. But even after finding it to be so, you insist that you are not sure. The only thing you can do is check again.

Yes, I can see that. (Don't want to use the word I but feels pretentious, still, to say something like 'it is seen'). Seems a bit like a flinch at a shadow. Irrational and unneeded, but instinctive or habitual. Another analogy would be working hard to create a logical argument at work and then in the next moment reacting completely illogically to an event. There may not be any control but looking, or being aware of what is going on seems to change things slowly.

Have you had moments when you are driving and you know you are supposed to take a certain exit but just when it comes, the mind is distracted and yo do not? If you were in control would that happen. Do you beat yourself up for that mistake? If you do it is just a way of training your brain to not forget? Check this out.

This very situation happened today. The interesting thing was that the wrong turning, the mild cursing, the course correcting, all seemed to happen of their own accord. So yes, 'I' beat 'myself' up about it a little, but that was OK, it was just part of what was going on. Maybe that's a sign of progress.

All is well. There is no I thought. Just a thought. See if all thoughts are unmarred if you took out the word I from them.

I or not makes no difference to the thoughts. I want to write sentences without the I as well, but the seeking world is so full of people muttering sentences like 'it is seen here' that it feels like trying to mimic language rather than look closely at what is going on.