The Gate

awesome annie, thank you.

will do as suggested.

I am delighted to accept your request to point out if your thoughts are spinning stories.

so glad, thank you!

in believing the stories, do you see how the story of 'poor liv' is created, and you suffer accordingly and keep yourself trapped in that illusion?

yes.


(to be continued a little later)

ah, i just saw, that you also made several posts.
i had just started answering the last one.

so i will read your prevous posts also and adress them later also :)

good morning annie,

when I read words of you wanting the body to die, I am still concerned for the story teller.

what you wrote here has been churning over and over in my mind, as it is an 'issue' that has been confusing me in satsang for a long time. it's the same when adya shanti uses the word 'unfortunately' or 'dangerous', or when in satsang it's said : 'you have a choice' or 'you conditioned yourself' or 'you believed'.

now i just wrote 'what you wrote'. neither i wrote this nor did you write that...writing happened, thoughts happened. coming here to be guided into seeing that all happens to noone, happens.

I am still concerned for the story teller

so here there is a belief in an 'i' that is concerned. concern is a form of worry, is a form of fear. it takes believing in an 'i' for there to be the perception of fear. and it takes a belief in there being a story teller, another identification with someone, something. it takes belief in death. it would take all these beliefs, being unrealized as beliefs, for the perception to happen to be concerened about a story-teller. when thinking is dropped, where is concern?

the other day walking to the bank, a woman suddenly fell over flat on her face on the other side of the street. i immedeately crossed the street, not waiting for cars to stop, knowing they would not run me over, helped her get up, my hand layed on her shoulder, sharing comfort and presence, giving her a hankerchief and shortly after moving on. all this happened automatically. no thought or feeling of concern or fear. it just happened as if there was no mind involved and hence no emotions where detected as there was no space for reflecting back, this came afterwards.

wanting the body to die

a description of past thought. this thought comes as a habit, because it seemed in that moment how sweet it would be, to die. at the same time it is known, that non-existence is non-existent. it is a wish for 'what is' to go away, to stop. a wish for total stillness and total peace. the thoughts 'i want to die' are only standing for the wish 'stop'.

in that state of stress and fatigue it has been hard to open to what is and realize this is happening to no-one, it's just what is, it's hard to turn around to what's hearing, 'what is experiencing'. it's hard to see what is real and what is not (that has been the experience so far) and i would like to come to a point where even in the most challenging experiences, when stress, fear and fatigue all come together to remember what is true and what isn't. and as it seems this is a practice. because although in such situations it seems to be that the majority of suffering is coming from the body and not from thoughts being believed, it is so and this wants to be seen, fully. it is seen when the volume is low and then there seems to be a limit, when the volume gets to a certain degree of fear...ahh now, overpowering of fear happens, this is the limit. which means that the seeing isn't fully established and fades against a certain degree of physical stress.

Dear Liv,

Imagine you go to sleep and start to dream, and in that dream you are telling me a sad story, and I tell you I am concerned about your wellbeing. When you wake up, the dream has gone, and with it the sad story and the dream character of Liv and the dream character of Annie.

While we're investigating what is dream and what is reality, we will carry on behaving as if the dream is real. And even once there is full clarity, we still carry on with the dream, but now knowing it is only a dream.

now i just wrote 'what you wrote'. neither i wrote this nor did you write that...writing happened, thoughts happened. coming here to be guided into seeing that all happens to noone, happens.

Yes, writing happened, thoughts happened. And still we write 'I am concerned'. 'I wrote'. But we know it is just for communication.

with love
annie

oh i just wrote another post and after i posted it i came to this post, which you must have posted at the same time, and what do you know...my post is gone...

need a breather, i'll be back :)

Hi Liv

the seeing isn't fully established and fades against a certain degree of physical stress.

Is the physical stress happening to 'you'? Where is this 'you'?

Just keep on looking, looking for what will never be found ;)

And even once there is full clarity, we still carry on with the dream, but now knowing it is only a dream

in dreams in which there is knowing that this is a dream, there is no fear, there is no dramatic emotion, regardless of what is happening.

And I've found it's also important to be honest about asking directly for what you need from others, rather than hoping that someone will guess.

Yes, thank you for encouraging this.

Yes i had read the disclaimer. And no meds, drugs or alcohol here, just loads of chocolate.

What is actually present right now??? Check right now.

Remember that you checked this and found just 'life life-ing'? You can check this any time. It's a helpful practice as it keeps attention focused on the 5 senses.

So let's just check where 'you' are still identified:
1. are you the body?
2. are you the thoughts? are you the thinker?
3. are you the feelings?
4. do you control the body, the thoughts, the feelings?
5. are you the experiencer of the thoughts and feelings? do they happen to 'you'?
6. do you own the body, the thoughts, the feelings?
7. are you the awareness that everything occurs within?

Please just answer a simple Yes or No to each one, and then we'll look at any Yes answers one by one.

1. no
2. no
3. no
4. no
5. yes
6. no
7. yes

this was hard because i know the correct answer is no to all, and yet it feels sometimes still that i am the thinker. e.g. When i asked myself the question ' am i the thinker of my thoughts?' then in that moment when posing the question, it seemed that i was posing the question that i was making those thoughts, or speaking them in my mind.

Also it still seems that i do have some controle over feelings depending how i focus. And it still seems that thoughts and particularily feelings happen to me.

And we've been through it all and i know better and yet there is this overwhealming sense.

And i just had a huge fight, so much anger was triggered. The feeling is that if i do not fight 'for my rights', i will be bulldozed to the ground, like i don't matter at all.

I get that realizing that there is no me, does not mean being passive. Yet it takes a strong belief in a seperate self' in order to feel attacked and angry, or afraid.

This 'fighting for rights' could look very different if there where no sense of me. it could be calm communication of perception.

so there is still a strong belief in a seperate self going on here, eventhough i've questioned it and could not find it. This is insane.

I will end here and lay down and simply feel the emotions...

hello annie,

i would like to sit down later on and go through your list of questions once again and really let the answers come experiencially. so i will make a post later on. i don't want you to get the impression from my last post, which was immedeate and candid as always and subject to the current weather in my mind as always, as if all your guidance and all this looking has been for nothing and i am still at the same point where i started off, consciousness-wise. that is not my overall experience. sometimes it seems that way when coming from frustration. ' why can't this 'i' -thougt be done already?!' you know?... so much for now,

hug,
liv

Annie,

I realized that being frustrated that the i-thought-programm is still runnin' the show much of the time, after years of seeking intensely and especially after our journey here of looking, envying those that have clearly seen through the illusion, is another story of the loser-type hero liv in a dream. The stage decoration has changed and now looks just like a stage and the hero's costume looks like normal clothes, but it's still a great drama continuing the 'poor liv' story. „poor liv, can't even wake up, after all this effort, while everyone else (on youtube) is wakin' up left and right“.

Also i chuckled about the „if i don't stand up for my rights, then i feel like i'll get run over by a bulldozer, as if i don't matter at all“. How small acts of infrindgement upon my space are experienced as being run over by a bulldozer and how this could trigger so much anger as if it where a matter of life and death. So the exaggeration of emotion comes from believing in a story about someone else moving objects around in space. A story in which 'i' am not being respected. Which is remarkable. When i look for the 'i' , i have not found it, where i was taking it for granted to be, and hence how can i respect what is not there ? And yet action and feeling on behalf of an 'i' still happens. and when someone else does certain things with my things or my space, i feel disrespected, hurt and angry...this is something to look at.

OK, I will get to the questions later in the next post.

:) liv

Hi Liv,

Will await your experiential responses before writing anything more, except to say that all that happens in the story is happening automatically. So if anger arises, that's what's happening. What is anger? Maybe a hot feeling in the chest? A stream of words in a loud tone? A series of thoughts. All just happening. And the mind puts the happenings together to make a story. As you are seeing more and more clearly :)

annie

thank you annie,

What is actually present right now??? Check right now.

Remember that you checked this and found just 'life life-ing'? You can check this any time. It's a helpful practice as it keeps attention focused on the 5 senses.

So let's just check where 'you' are still identified:

1. are you the body?
2. are you the thoughts? are you the thinker?
3. are you the feelings?
4. do you control the body, the thoughts, the feelings?
5. are you the experiencer of the thoughts and feelings? do they happen to 'you'?
6. do you own the body, the thoughts, the feelings?
7. are you the awareness that everything occurs within?

Please just answer a simple Yes or No to each one, and then we'll look at any Yes answers one by one.

1- no
2- no, no
3- no
4- no
5- yes
6- yes, no, no
7- yes

i wanted to say yes to ' am i the body' too, but then i just ask ' am i doing the breathing or any other bodily function? So, no.

Hi Liv

Good, so we are both clear where 'you' identify yourself.

The illusion of a separate self happens when you identify with your experience. The process of identification involves believing that there is an “I” that experiences phenomena. For example, there is identification if you believe that when a sound arises, there is an “I” that hears the sound. In reality, through direct experience, you can see that there is just hearing of the sound. The addition of an “I” that hears the sound is merely conceptual and is unnecessary.

Focus over the next few days on the direct experience of sounds. We say, we think: 'I hear a sound'. There's 3 separate parts to that in English, a subject, verb and object. In direct experience, is there any separation of these 3? What is the 'I'? Tell me what is directly experienced, and not what you thought. (Thoughts are real, but the content of thought is often just a story.)

with love
annie

wonderfully explained!
thank you annie.
off to observing...:)