Seeking help getting to the exit door

[MerlinC]

Thats where feeling is important, your mind may feel as if its a team of football players jumping on each other for the ball but that awareness is watching from the stands, yet the players are in your face their angry and sad and disgusted and annoyed and you feel every step but maybe we can just watch the game even if our team is losing. Awareness is their for the game even if the game is in tormoil. Eventually the players run out of juice and drop out of the game making the game less noisy. And in time we can just be but untill then we have to be with thoughts and their emotions. Mind gets uneasy around silence and throws more balls youll believe you cant be aware to but it is just a practicing of knowing where you are in the here and now. Its not an over night thing but you're already sencing it. You're learning to live in your skin and its not easy stuff. Emotional stuff will come up but its the feeling it that deplets its batterys. Its a path of courage to face ourselves without flinching or as much running and flinching as we once did.

[Darrell]

Thats where feeling is important, your mind may feel as if its a team of football players jumping on each other for the ball but that awareness is watching from the stands, yet the players are in your face their angry and sad and disgusted and annoyed and you feel every step but maybe we can just watch the game even if our team is losing. Awareness is their for the game even if the game is in tormoil. Eventually the players run out of juice and drop out of the game making the game less noisy. And in time we can just be but untill then we have to be with thoughts and their emotions. Mind gets uneasy around silence and throws more balls youll believe you cant be aware to but it is just a practicing of knowing where you are in the here and now. Its not an over night thing but you're already sencing it. You're learning to live in your skin and its not easy stuff. Emotional stuff will come up but its the feeling it that deplets its batterys. Its a path of courage to face ourselves without flinching or as much running and flinching as we once did.

We'll see what happens with the sitting with things. What do I do when I make time to just sit with emotions or feelings, and there aren't any in that moment?

I'm actually really comfortable with silence. I prefer it. I'm toying with the idea of a ten day Goenka retreat this summer, just so I can have ten days of it, uninterrupted. Although it's hard to say how it would be if all the distractions were removed from the house. I did a ten day retreat in 2019 and had no problems with silence. It's *really* nice not having to speak, that's for sure.

So you're saying in time, with this being with emotions, these internal characters, these believers in a fiction of "me" will drop away?

I think being comfortable in our skin may be in part a result of facing or looking directly at early trauma, abuse or neglect in our early years. I've done so much of that, especially in the last eight years. I'm sure there's more lurking.

Sorry for the delayed response, the last four days or so have been impossibly and unexpectedly weird, with a capital W.

[MerlinC]

Well I see stillness as a symptom of harmony which should be natural and it is but things often come up like a pez despenser when your done with one thing its onto another, I heard some where that one of the things that catch people trying for enlightenment is that we obtain a good degree of mental clearity so we say I dont really need to go farther and it seems at least on the surface that allot of folks not on a spiritual path are like that, now I dont know any buddhas so I dont know the end result but I can say my mind has given up a metric ton of hate and sadness and greif disgust and so on. And its saved me and made me far stronger of a person without being emotionally drained all the time. In the moment you have nothing to adress to you can enjoy that or do something else, sometimes when I do it I get bummed out that it doesn't but really its just time to rest youve come so far to know that it doesn't matter if more spiritual work cant be done that moment, I find too much food makes the mind scatter and the focus is gone the mind jumps to the next thing to quickly but any mindfulness is good mindfulness its just unlikely it will be deep shadow work that sitting. I feel that all the monkey mind comes from neglect of sitting in our truth. Its reasonable to say that if we never accepted ourselves emotionally then we have split ourselves from ourselves. So you have to ask yourself what would be clouding my thoughts but emotions? I Wouldn't just look at early life it can happen anytime someone says something hurtful and makes us go ouch. We just need to be there for ourself even the crazy parts. Their is an alchemy that happens when our truth touchs untruth it dissolves into more truth, more stillness and inner peace. When we were kids we didnt need all this practicing for peace but we were pecked at lol. Let me guess allot of coincidences happened to you lol

[Darrell]

Well I see stillness as a symptom of harmony which should be natural and it is but things often come up like a pez despenser when your done with one thing its onto another, I heard some where that one of the things that catch people trying for enlightenment is that we obtain a good degree of mental clearity so we say I dont really need to go farther and it seems at least on the surface that allot of folks not on a spiritual path are like that, now I dont know any buddhas so I dont know the end result but I can say my mind has given up a metric ton of hate and sadness and greif disgust and so on. And its saved me and made me far stronger of a person without being emotionally drained all the time. In the moment you have nothing to adress to you can enjoy that or do something else, sometimes when I do it I get bummed out that it doesn't but really its just time to rest youve come so far to know that it doesn't matter if more spiritual work cant be done that moment, I find too much food makes the mind scatter and the focus is gone the mind jumps to the next thing to quickly but any mindfulness is good mindfulness its just unlikely it will be deep shadow work that sitting. I feel that all the monkey mind comes from neglect of sitting in our truth. Its reasonable to say that if we never accepted ourselves emotionally then we have split ourselves from ourselves. So you have to ask yourself what would be clouding my thoughts but emotions? I Wouldn't just look at early life it can happen anytime someone says something hurtful and makes us go ouch. We just need to be there for ourself even the crazy parts. Their is an alchemy that happens when our truth touchs untruth it dissolves into more truth, more stillness and inner peace. When we were kids we didnt need all this practicing for peace but we were pecked at lol. Let me guess allot of coincidences happened to you lol

That bit about not just looking at early life is a helpful pointer. For some reason attention seems to fall there, even though some of the most traumatizing things happened in my teens and in the last ten years.

There's been an interesting turn of events today. I don't know if you're familiar with the Finder's Course, its alumni group Perfectly Okay aka POK or Pernille Damore and the FetterWork. So there was a meeting/group presentation for POK this morning, and Pernille was the guest. Having been directed to her FetterWork on YouTube about six or so weeks ago, I had an intense interest and was there to ask her a question regarding the first fetter, also known as identification with thought or belief in a solid, enduring self. So my question for Pernille was basically what do you do when you are still identifying with this false self even though intellectually you see there is no such thing? She said she could show me right then and there.

Boy did she.

She walked me through a process that is almost the same thing you've been having me do, but with a few twists. In a moment it became so perfectly clear that all of this is thought. The self that is believed in, the thing thinking it sees this, the beliefs that it is seen through intellectually, the belief that there's someone seeing that, and on and on. Pernille asked me at one point if I coulsee that I was her and she was me, and I could. There's no distinction, it's all just words, and there aren't any boundaries or barriers. There isn't Pernille or you or I.

There's still work to do, but there's not that subtle sense of being anyone. The idea of being me is laughable, and in fact is pretty funny. That sense of agency, no matter how subtle, is seen through, and it's so completely obvious that it was and is nothing but a thought, even if that thought isn't verbal, but only a mental sense. Sort of a pre-verbal thought, if you will.

This doesn't eliminate the use or need for what you've asked me to do. There's still use and value there, but the reason for doing it might have shifted. Or not. All that emotion and feeling that needs to be released is still acting as a glue holding together something that isn't actually. giving sense of substance to that which doesn't actually have any.

Let me know how we proceed from here.

[MerlinC]

That's fantastic! great work, all the emotional stuff is a sort of stuck since of you that is just thoughts and emotions otherwise we would be living in complete stillness and using the mind as a tool as it should be. are you still living from that truth of being? we could do some more inquiry or I can get you to answer a few questions and see if the admins accept that you seen and you can be apart of the Facebook group and if you wish to help other souls find themselves, its your choice.

[Darrell]

I think further inquiry is a good idea. I wondered about the post self illusion/post awakening questions that LU uses to determine if the self has truly fallen. Perhaps that would be applicable? If not, further inquiry is fine with me.

[MerlinC]

found them, Alright here they are once your done I'll send the answers off to the non duel wizards over at Facebook and see if you can be in the group which has allot of people, tools and stuff to further you along on your journey and for you to become one of the guides on here as well if you wish.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?
2) Describe how the illusion of an independent, self came into being by giving examples from actual experience.
Then give some experiential examples of how life changed for you after seeing through this illusion.
3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
4) Can you remember any specific inquiry that resulted in an epiphany? ..a before and after seeing the actuality of the Self. Was there a point when you ‘got it’?
5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work?
Give examples from your own recent experiences to how these things happen and how they work.
b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
6) Anything to add?

[Darrell]

found them, Alright here they are once your done I'll send the answers off to the non duel wizards over at Facebook and see if you can be in the group which has allot of people, tools and stuff to further you along on your journey and for you to become one of the guides on here as well if you wish.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?
2) Describe how the illusion of an independent, self came into being by giving examples from actual experience.
Then give some experiential examples of how life changed for you after seeing through this illusion.
3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
4) Can you remember any specific inquiry that resulted in an epiphany? ..a before and after seeing the actuality of the Self. Was there a point when you ‘got it’?
5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work?
Give examples from your own recent experiences to how these things happen and how they work.
b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
6) Anything to add?

Hey Merlin,

Taking my time with this. Is that okay, or do I need to do this quickly?

Thanks!

Darrell

[MerlinC]

Take your time.

[Darrell]

Take your time.

Merlin,

I began working on writing the answers to those questions. I've stopped, as I find those questions very difficult to answer in many ways. What's more, the profound shift that took place when I did the one-on-one inquiry with Pernille Damore seems to have vanished. I find myself getting identified with feelings, unconsciously taking ownership of experience.

I think we should just start over. All the way to absolute zero. As if all the shifts and transitions have never happened. Because it feels like they haven't. I think we should just act like I'm someone who is coming to this all brand new. I mean, how can insights and shifts/transitions happen, yet you feel like you always seem to have? Yeah, I can see there's no one there, and that no one is in control, but it all seems intellectual. It's not deep down or intuitive. It's not where I'm coming from in my actual moment to moment lived experience.

Let me know what you think of this. Frankly, I'm quite frustrated, ready to chuck the whole thing. I see other people who go through the dukkha nanas/dark night, have deep or profound insight, see through self, and it seems to take and change how their life is lived. That doesn't seem to be the case for this guy.

Thanks,

Darrell

[MerlinC]

Lets look at reality as long as it takes, forgetting happens time to time just remember to keep meditating keep feeling. Your meditating and feeling from an advantage point of where you are. Stopping to look and feel and hear where you are will get you more and more comfortable with this. Were just trying to find the stillness, can you stop right now take a listion to your surroundings? We talk often about life but does it talk back? Use your ears like a hunter does. Keenly observe what is.

[Darrell]

Lets look at reality as long as it takes, forgetting happens time to time just remember to keep meditating keep feeling. Your meditating and feeling from an advantage point of where you are. Stopping to look and feel and hear where you are will get you more and more comfortable with this. Were just trying to find the stillness, can you stop right now take a listion to your surroundings? We talk often about life but does it talk back? Use your ears like a hunter does. Keenly observe what is.

From the advantage point of where I am? Could you clarify? Otherwise, I comprehend.

[MerlinC]

Where your sensing from, observe sensation, notice how its seemless even with thoughts coming and going, feel that space all the images feelings thoughts, sensations of cold, hot where is all of that just take that moment to see do be in a hurry to answer this just experience on experiences terms in this moment. Can you be their for reality just a moment how is it there?

[Darrell]

Where your sensing from, observe sensation, notice how its seemless even with thoughts coming and going, feel that space all the images feelings thoughts, sensations of cold, hot where is all of that just take that moment to see do be in a hurry to answer this just experience on experiences terms in this moment. Can you be their for reality just a moment how is it there?

Just checking in. Things have been completely nuts in our house for the last week. Finding time to just sit and be quiet for thirty minutes or so, it has been all but impossible. Hopefully things will settle down shortly.

So in re-reading I see you wrote, "do be in a hurry to answer this just experience on experiences terms in this moment"

So you're saying to not delay/be in a hurry to answer to that experience? Am I misunderstanding this?

[MerlinC]

Witnessing life takes no time at all, watch it through your day. You cant fail because you are life.