The Gate

Hi Des,

Now that you see this, how are thoughts created ?

How does it feel to be enlightened ?

Love,
Akash

Now that you see this, how are thoughts created ?

In general they just show up. If someone, for example, tells me to think about something if seems a little different. Let say someone tells you to think about your living room. Now you examine the room in you mind and inventory what's in there, etc. That feels like an intentional action.

Its still an experience, but the "I" concept can be invoked by it.

How does it feel to be enlightened ?

Have no idea about that. I could take a guess, but that's not how we conduct these conversations.

Hi Des,

:) Hope you are doing well.

Have you felt a shift that has happened since we have started talking ? If yes can you please describe it.

Love,
Akash

Have you felt a shift that has happened since we have started talking ? If yes can you please describe it.

I have become more aware of the nature of the self, and that it is basically a thought. But as I have said a few times, when that though takes root, the experience is that I am that thought. I still identify with that idea of "me." I think that as time goes on with the understanding of "I" being just an idea, that idea will be less and less compelling, it will just feel like an idea rather than something real.

I have noticed that during emotionally charged situations the thought of "I" is more captivating. When something is at stake, when loss is experienced, something that evokes attachment to something, those experiences resurrect the thought of "I" the most. I will have to see if more of a shift happens in that regard as time progresses.

Hi Des,

Do this exercise. Take your time.

take a chair.
Really look at a chair.
What exactly gives that object it's 'chairness'?
Imagine back when that chair was being made.
When exactly did the components become 'chair'
think and picture in your mind all the infinite different sorts of chairs. really make it vivid.

What makes them all 'chairs'?....

then think of the words 'i' and 'me' in the same way...imagine all different people saying 'i did this, i am that'- whilst watching tv with all the different characters etc.
Whilst with group of people in conversation...
What makes them all 'i'?
tell me what comes up.

Love,
Akash

OK ... I will do this exercise, taking my time ... and update.

What makes them all 'chairs'?.

At some point the shapes, various components just come together and become a chair. Perhaps when the back and seat are joined together, at some point its labeled a chair. But exactly when seems somewhat arbitrary, or based on the perception of when a chair becomes a chair. The most honest answer is that it just happens spontaneously when my mind decides its a chair.

What makes them all 'i'?
tell me what comes up.

My mind will label them as "them" in the same way it does a chair. If another person refers to themselves as I or me, they are describing an event or experience that involves them. I associate that description with the person when they describe it that way. Its an automatic process.

Hi Des,

Do you recognize this as all thought stuff ? What credibility does it have inherently and what credibility are "you" allocating it ?

Please be more verbose.

Love,
Akash

OK ... let me give it some more observation ... I'll be back with a reply.

Do you recognize this as all thought stuff ? What credibility does it have inherently and what credibility are "you" allocating it ?

Please be more verbose.

Sorry for the long delay. As we continue these discussions I find it more difficult to say these things in a different manner.

I do recognize it all as thought stuff, although in the middle of these occurrences that recognition is lost. When the idea of the self emerges, it becomes more than an idea, it formulates an identification. If "I" am evoked, it FEELS like me, I know intellectually that its a thought, an ideal, and I even know what triggers it. But it still feels like me. Yes, I have moments where through conscious effort I look for that little space that is NOT me, to find the place where suffering cannot exist. But the space is tiny, and that feeling that I am there is very real.

So I understand on an intellectual level that there is no self, and I have SEEN how the self is created in a flash, out of nothing. And I can, sometimes, find a little space around that self, which precludes it being something that arises in space. I have, to some degree, understood that the space is likely who I am, and certainly not whatever arises within it.

Even the idea that "space is what I am" is something that arises in the space ...

What I experience over and over, along with most people, is the identification with that thought of I when it arises. That identification doesn't go away just because you know about it.