The Gate

Hi Yari,

Here's what has been going on today:

Yari wrote:Now imagine your whole life as impersonal. Like you are just watching a movie on a screen. Where does all the anger go? Where is it that worries arise? It just doesn't touch you anymore.

tkblumin wrote: Yes. The recognition that there is no I is reverberating through the system. The story is playing out and it is not happening to me anymore. It feels detached.

After I posted this the thought kept coming that I missed something here.

As there is no me to be touched or not touched, I looked at what it is that feels unaffected.

The opportunity came to watch a very powerful emotion rise in the body. It appeared that there is a silent space that feels constant and unmoving. Observing seems to flow from this silent space and is of it at the same time. The emotion shows up and is also of it, not separate. What is labelled fear just has a different flavour. The feeling and the watching and the silent space are not separate. Just experiencer experiencing experience rolled into one.

I realized that what bothered me about the previous post is that the word detachment suggested there is an I over here and the rest of life over there. When an emotion rises it feels very immediate and present and real. Even the feeling of detachment is right here, right now. Yet at the same time there is the awareness of that still, silent space that is untouched by it all and contains it all.

Is this making any sense? I'm trying to express that which is whole by chopping it into pieces. What an exercise!

Life lifing is so much easier :-)

what bothered me about the previous post is that the word detachment suggested there is an I over here and the rest of life over there

The point is, where is this "I"? And if you cannot find it, what is it then and why was it mistaken for your own identity?

Is this making any sense?

Yes it does...but you know if it makes sense in your experience. Just keep exploring.

Hi Yari,

Yari wrote: The point is, where is this "I"? And if you cannot find it, what is it then and why was it mistaken for your own identity?

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There is no I. It is just a thought and a convenience of language.

Why is it mistaken for my own identity?
There is no identity. Thinking that there is an identity is the mistake.

Do you exist?

Do you exist?

No.

Who is there?

Who is there?

Nobody. A vast empty stillness that is aware. Life vibrating. Awareness of the thoughts, emotions and sensory inputs processed in the brain of the body known as Tracey. Life, awareness, consciousness .... any word to describe what is there is incomplete.

What is the "me"?

What does it refer to?

What is the "me"?

"Me" is one of the names that the voice inside the head calls itself. It also calls itself "I" and it talks to itself. This mental chatter contributes to the illusion of a separate "me". The mind's habit of tagging labels onto experience with "I" "me" "my" "myself" and so on reinforces the idea that there is someone who is doing something.

What does it refer to?

Nothing real. "Me, myself, I" are just pointing to the same illusion of self.

"Me" is one of the names that the voice inside the head calls itself.

Right. That is exactly how ego-identification starts: I am me. But who does that "me", that "I" refers to? Nobody.
Do you see it? What is left to discover?

Is there separation in life?

Yari wrote: Right. That is exactly how ego-identification starts: I am me. But who does that "me", that "I" refers to? Nobody.
Do you see it? What is left to discover?

Yes, I see it. There is nobody and nothing left to discover there. "Me" and "I" were only ever thoughts, words, pointing to nothing except themselves. As long as the belief was there that they were real, they seemed real. Without that belief, they are empty, nothing. Just noise in the head.

Yari wrote: Is there separation in life?

Nope. Life is all one flow.

Excellent. Congratulations Tracey.
Now please answer these questions for the confirmation process:

1) Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever? how about self, is there anything that is separate from everything else?



2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works.



3) How does it feel to see this? describe in detail.



4) How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about this illusion but is curious about it. 



5) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look? was there a specific moment when seeing happened or was it gradual? what exactly happened?



6) When you say "I", what are you referring to?



7) Is there an experiencer experiencing, or is there only experience?



8) Actually look. Does experience belong to the body, or does the body belong to experience?



9) What did you experience at the moment you awoke?



10) Describe your experience in the hours and days following awakening.


Hey Yari,

here goes:

1) Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever? how about self, is there anything that is separate from everything else?




Nothing exists separate from everything else. "i", "me" "my self" are only thoughts. Thoughts themselves are not separate from life. Even the thought "I am a separate entity who needs protection from life" is not separate from life. That's the joke of it all. We aren't separate and never could have been.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works.

The illusion of a separate self is a mental construct. It is a conglomeration of thoughts and memories and mental habits that reference a fictional character called I or me. This idea that there is a separate entity that experiences something is embedded in language. "I think" "I am hungry" "I am sad" can be a convenient way to communicate what is happening in the moment. Until the underlying assumption that there is a real somebody there who is hungry or sad is questioned, this pattern of language serves to reinforce the illusion of a separate self.

I don't know exactly when the illusion starts. I don't know if there is something fundamental to human neurology that is reflected in our language or if our language influences our neurology. Probably both. What I have seen is that as children learn how to speak, we train them to believe in the separate self.

As a child I learned my name and the basic rules of ownership. While some rules seemed arbitrary, the one object that everybody agreed belonged to me was the body. If I said "my cigarettes" I was quickly corrected. Toys were debatable. Sometimes they were mine, sometimes not. If I held up my hand and said "my hand" nobody ever objected.

The lesson was learned. This body that I can move is mine. Everything that is experienced within the body must also be mine. Thoughts became my thoughts, emotions my emotions, pain my pain, and so on. The idea of a separate self that is defined by the limits of the physical body was established. From there on life was experienced as "me in here" and "everything else out there." That is why the illusion of a doer is so strong. As long as I believe in "I", if it happens in my body, I must be doing it.

The illusion stays intact because it is accepted as reality until it is questioned.

3) How does it feel to see this? describe in detail

.

It is a great relief to recognize the mistake. As long as I was searching, I felt trapped inside the body and kept trying to find out how to connect "my consciousness" with "Consciousness". Recognizing that "I" is just a sticky thought in the mind that likes to glue itself to other thoughts and is mistaken for an actual being opened the door for the seeing that there is no such thing as my consciousness. Consciousness is. Watching happens. Thinking happens. Nothing to be done, nothing to be connected.

4) How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about this illusion but is curious about it. 








It would really be context dependent. If I think about all the times I heard a metaphor like "here you are living in poverty and you don't realize you are a millionaire" or "The chief of police can't find the murderer because the chief of police IS the murderer he is searching for" I just laugh. Now that I have seen through the illusion, I totally get what they were pointing to. Really, though, it is like trying to describe the taste of a lemon to someone who has never tasted one. No matter how good the description is, the person has to taste a lemon to know how a lemon tastes.

If the opportunity presents itself I would ask a question that causes a gap because it is the glimpses in the gaps between thought that allow the illusion to be seen for what it is.

5) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look? was there a specific moment when seeing happened or was it gradual? what exactly happened?




It was an unfolding over a couple of weeks. These key events stand out.

First was finding the LU site and considering the question "Is it possible that I don't exist?" After all the years of asking "Who am I" asking "what if I am not? What if it is there is no I?" cracked the iceberg. Big cracks. Pieces falling off all over the place.

One night I woke up in the middle of the night and heard the question "how can a piece of life separate itself off from life and claim ownership?" Suddenly my whole identity fell away. It felt like naked seeing. I experienced myself as part of a continuum with no separation from all of life. It was completely clear that what I needed to know would present itself exactly when it was needed, and all of the mental chattering and trying to plan and anticipate was merely complicating something that was very simple and already taken care of. I knew that this was it, this was what I had been searching for. It had always been there.

Then the expanded state passed and the mind went into turmoil wanting to get it back.

The big click happened when I went through the exercise of becoming one with the present moment, the satori exercise. There was no grand expanded state, just clear seeing that when all the labels are dropped there is no separation. No inner, no outer, no self, no other. One flow. Simple. It was only the belief in a thought that kept the illusion of separation intact.

6) When you say "I", what are you referring to?

"I" is a linguistic shortcut. It is easier to say I than to spell out this body sitting here typing thoughts that are appearing in awareness.


 "I" is a label for this body, this life story, this personality, even that which has no name. It is too weird to try to talk without using a personal pronoun.

7) Is there an experiencer experiencing, or is there only experience

Experience is.