My humble and sober request for a guide...

[Delma]

Look more closely at whether the location is in the body.

Can you feel both sensations and the body or is the body a series of sensations? Are there two things?

Is the body just sensations?





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[Dimitri]

This helps Delma. Like so much of what we've looked at, this seems to be another both/and proposition. With eyes closed and body still, the body seems to simply be a huge bundle of sensations - that's it.

However, when I open my year and move my arm, I can reach out and touch a location on the body, just like the vase and then it is an object in space.

Place on the body and sensation can be correlated in this way. I can reach out and pinch my food, like touching the vase, and I then feel the sensation of being pinched... seemingly in the same place as I pinched myself.

Now when I try this again, keeping an eye on both sensation AND the body, I'm not so sure that sensation is happening at the location I pinched or not... and in some way it is because if I pinch hard enough, that part of the body recoils.

This is what I can see so far.

But as far as

[Delma]

Can you look more closely at "seemingly the same place I pinch myself?"

Why did you say, "seemingly"? It is a bit fuzzy? But yes, there is an image of fingers and body. Fingers move, sensation felt. Does the body need a you to feel physical sensation? The self has supposedly traveled through time and space for many years (depending upon how old you are). Where is *that* self when the pinching happens? Is it needed for the sensation to happen?

Is it needed for any feeling or sensation to happen?

Delma

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[Dimitri]

I'm sorry Delma, I think I got off track. We are still looking for the self. I seem to have forgotten this. No, no self needs to exist in order for the body and the body's sensations to both exist, even for them to have a relationship.

This body stuff really seems to be the water I'm swimming in and it's kind of besides the point. Body, sensations, memory, thoughts, feelings - these all can exist without a self. I can't find no self that can be quantified or identified in any way. Ownership is a complete fabrication. Not sure why this happens but it seems to but how we humans do it.

[Delma]

I don't think you went far off track, though.

Seeing through the illusion happens two ways. One is intellectually. It appears that that's where you might be. But the shift comes in experiencing it. Since the body is so often where the self is felt, and it's felt through emotions/sensations, we've been exploring them to see whether a self is attached, connected, or otherwise a container. What you're exploring is whether it is a container of sensations.

So, where are all of these things... sensations, memory, thoughts, feelings? Are they inside a container? Or do they sort of float without an owner.

Really feel for the answer. Intellectual understanding won't help.

What does it feel like upon examination? Rather than the immediate response (which will be the conditioned one), is there a deeper realization of what you've found to be true?

Is there still a lingering self? Where?

[Dimitri]

I can't find an owner or a container. View just is. Sometimes view seems in relationship to the body, sometimes it doesn't.

Sensations are felt. Thoughts are thought. Feelings are felt. The body exists. All of it is real but the contents of thoughts and feelings are not. Thoughts and feelings seem to have no container, no owner, no manager. They just show up and fade away, all on their own.

Life simply runs through this organism like a current runs through a wire. Talk about hitting a pin head with a sledge hammer! What a simple occurrence, happening in the most complex way. I'm blown away. AND... I still don't feel as if I'm there, though I can't say why.

[Delma]

Ok,

It must be time to look at expectations, which most people do right from the start. I don't like to give a bunch of stuff to read right away, but like to get a feel for where you are in the process.

You've done quite a lot of investigating, and from what I can see, a great job with it too. The repetitiveness is about learning to move into another 'mode', which is out of the head and into reality. I think we've covered that and then some.

So... tell me honestly. Was there an expectation that the self would disappear?

But also, I think now is a good time to give you this if you haven't seen it already. http://liberationunleashed.com/faq/

Very specifically, I'd like you to take a run through this section:

Throughout the years our many guides have discovered that one of the major obstacles to the direct, clear seeing of what is already magnificently the case is a thick layer of expectations and narrative about a self’s journey towards enlightenment, built up by years and years of seeking. Getting these expectations out in the open and out of the way is an important first step. Below is a list explaining what the LU process is not:

This is not a way to escape your daily life.
This is not about gaining something extra, becoming something special.
This is not about cultivating an altered state of consciousness.
This isn’t a trick of the mind, or twisting the mind into believing certain thoughts.
This is not about gaining a particular bit of knowledge.
This is not about having a certain thought or sequence of thoughts.
This is not about becoming a holy, good, moral or better person.
This is not a belief, religion, or a philosophy, it not magical or mystical.
This is not going to lead you to eternal peace and happiness, it is not about happiness.
This is not about freedom from emotions and intense feelings.
This is not about getting rid of self, ego, I.
This is not a solution to problems in relationships.
This is not a way to get free of depression or other diseases.
This is not about stopping thoughts, changing thoughts, getting rid of thoughts.
This is not a way to make the story of you disappear.
This is not about convincing you of anything.
This is not something that will lead to accumulation of money or things.
This is not a self improvement program.

Was there an expectation that any or all of this might occur?

That you said, "I still don't feel as if I'm there" suggests a there to get to, when there isn't one. This is actually about a dropping away, not an adding on to. What drops away is simply belief, and it drops because it can't stand up to reality. Every single time the self is checked for, is it there?

Let me ask you this.... has a self "Dimitri" ever been there? Throughout all the years?

You're doing so well. This process can tend to make the "you" feel as though it's going backwards or failing. But the good news is that that's the entire idea! What's left? All of life. All of it. Completely unimpeded, naturally occurring, and perfectly orchestrated. Everything continues but because it's unimpeded, there's an ease. At first the 'you' keeps checking for the self, but every time it's looked for and not found, the pattern begins to break down. And every time it's seen that nothing stopped, trust flourishes. Ease and trust. I'd say that waking up to the absence of a separate self was mostly about that.

I wonder why you don't have any questions?

:)

Well done. Seriously. You're a joy to have an exchange with because you really work at this.

[Dimitri]

Ok, let's see what's what. Yes, in a way there was and expectation that the notion of self would go away... and I suppose it has to a degree. More than that, I think I expected a more noticeable shift and yet something does seem to be shifting.

I know there was never anything to "get" just a slight refocusing of the lens. None of the things in your link or your list surprise me. These expectations didn't exist for me. The nice thing about my practice before coming to you is that traditional non-dual tantra minces no words about any of this, no fantasy, no transcendental escapism, none of it - just life going on the way it always did.

No, I cannot say that Benjamin Dimitri Parco ever existed as a self. A boy was born, like any animal, just with a bigger brain. He was given a name. Life was lived.

Hmmm, no questions. Yeah, I'm not sure I have any that can ever be answered. What a mystery it all is. I suppose I'm sitting with it, maybe basking in the truth even. I feel quiet, still.

[Dimitri]

Thank you Delma. You've been wonderful with me. I am super grateful.

[Delma]

First, let me say that you have a great name.

Yes, it's a label, and some might say it's a label for a body and brain. But that's just part of the story. It's actually a sort of "address" in time and space, for a process. This process isn't different that other life processes, it's part of it. And looking 'inward' reveals no separate thing or entity that is directing it. It's not A life, it's Life Itself.

It's so important to remember than when looking, there is nothing but the view. Why this is important is that it's clearly evident, at all times, that no matter what emotions or thoughts come up, they never, ever actually affect the field of experience. Instead, they are the overlay, the interpretation. And they come and they go. They're also often contradictory and confusing *because* they're not real.

What we've been working on here is teasing apart reality from fantasy. Reality from Conditioned Reality. Seeing through the separate self is just the beginning. What we've been doing is practicing use of the tool that can be used to examine all aspects of reality going forward. Time, Space, Objects, Others, The Body.... Looking at the difference between How Things Actually Exist, and how we *think* they exist, is what awakening means.

The self won't go away because it's an appearance. What doesn't actually exist cannot disappear.

With that said, do you want to answer the questions we usually ask at the end of this exchange? We call them confirmation questions, but they can also be used to spot areas we need to cover.

Is that good for you or do you feel we have something more to cover?

Delma

[Dimitri]

Thank you Delma. So what I'm hearing is that the notion of self may still be there at times but that the belief in it is something that can fade. I get that.

And like I said, I don't quite feel as if I'm "through" and yet there is some other part that is like, "yup, you're through, you just don't like that it's not all big and dramatic."

So I think working with the confirmation questions sounds like a good place to go next... and we'll see what's what. : )

Ben

[Delma]

No need just yet. You've just given us something to work on.. a big one.

How do you suppose the belief in the self got there? Where did it come from?

And... did you ever believe in Santa or the tooth fairy? What happened to change that? Did Santa go away?

Delma

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[Dimitri]

I did believe and Santa and the tooth fairy as a kid. These beliefs went away once enough evidence to the contrary made it impossible for me to believe.

I'm not sure if I know how the belief in self got there. I know it happened a long time ago. I'm guessing it was conditioning plus some supporting (if wrongly viewed) evidence as a very young child. I imagine it was an accretive process after hearing enough of "you are, you aren't, you should, you shouldn't, you're good, you're bad, etc." I imagine that after hearing "you" enough times in enough contexts, that you begin constructing a "you" that magically matches all of the language.

[Delma]

Yes. Correct answer. But...

Did you FEEL that answer and how very simple and basic it is? Did you see it as irrefutable?

What is the difference between a self and a Santa in terms of reality. Can you list the difference?

Delma


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[Dimitri]

Hi Delma,

No, I can't exactly say that I feel the answer... at least not as loudly as I might like. That's the part that tells me I'm not quite through.

Is it simple and basic? Hell yes! It's like the most obvious and simple things going... and oh so tricky a thing to see.

Santa and self? Not really much different except that with self it's as if everyone has been telling you the YOU are Santa the whole time. And so I can understand how that one is a little trickier to unwind.

Santa has a beard. I do too. : )

Santa is a name or label, so is Ben.

Santa has no physicality, nor does Self.

Santa is a character in a story, so is Self.

Santa is an idea or thought, so is self.

Neither are real. Both are ideas.