The Gate

Hi Sandy,

You managed to post. Great.

Perhaps that is not the "self" but it seems like it is. When I plan out a course it seems to me like I am dialoguing with myself.

Well, the main thing is, is that a separate entity or not?

Does a 'self ' 'think' ?

Does a self plan? or is there an assumption that becaue the planning is getting done and was done it had to have been done by a 'me'?


Jon

Hello swami Jon,
Able to get onto the forum after all this morning. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Really don't think that the thoughts are a separate entity, they are definitely a reaction to something that pops up from the environment or from the body. Believe that as in Kübler-Ross's the "Five stages of Grief" , the body has to go through stages when something dies, be it an idea, concept or relationship. It's a natural process and it has got to flow , any damming or denial of emotions can be harmful to the body. This is not to say that the body is a "self" and most definitely my thoughts are most definitely not my "self". Thank goodness this is the case. Definitely, absolutely , thoroughly convinced no "selfie" here. You can even look in my pockets. All gone.
Love
Sandy

Hello again Jon,

Does a self plan? or is there an assumption that becaue the planning is getting done and was done it had to have been done by a 'me'?

In response to your question, The way that this apparent entity sees it is that it is much like a tennis match, when planning the ball, or something, pops up and is heading in my general direction and it helps to have a tennis racket to get the ball to head towards the right direction. The planning for the course or the mental dialogue is the racket, if I want the course to happen concisely and be fun, I think I need some help from the voice over (racket), I am really not brave enough to go into the situation without planning, could be done, but I think the ball would head over the fence, then we would have to change the name of the game. It would no longer be tennis. Hopefully this apparent entity is making sense. Meaning to read that book, " A Stranger in a Strange Land".
Sandy

Hi Sandy,

How does apparent entity see anything?

The planning for the course or the mental dialogue is the racket, if I want the course to happen concisely and be fun, I think I need some help from the voice over (racket),

Or perhaps the voice over thinks this and there is identification as the voice-over?

The planning for the course or the mental dialogue is the racket, if I want the course to happen concisely and be fun, I think I need some help from the voice over (racket),

There is no suggestion that 'planning' does not happen and that it is not helpful but you seem to have sprung a self that does this, that can even make planning happen?

love

Jon

Hello Jon,

You are suggesting that the voice is just a voice and that nothing is there to identify with it , if this is to be understood . O.k. This apparent entity is in agreement.
Love
Sandy

Hi Sandy,

Yes. That's right. But more than this. When something ike 'planning' or 'learning' takes place it can seem then as if thoughts are somehow 'my thoughts' and that 'I do this'. There is the idea of intention, of decisions and choosing, all of which appear to happen.

It isn't as if everything is chaos and anarchy. Many things get done in complex and organised manner. The issue is just the belief in the 'doer', that for stuff that needs to get done it follows that there really is a 'doer'.

Sometimes there is a confusion about this. That 'no self is all very well and true but someone still plans and does things' the implication, of course, is that there has to be some kind of self doing these things. Is there?

If it is assumed for a moment that a 'self' has never existed, that self has always been an illusion, then the merit of this illusion may have been in helping humans to survive. There is a perception that an 'I' 'needs to survive' and it is a very short step from that to 'I make things happen'. But both these are assumptions and there is an assumption of it all 'happening to' and getting 'done by' a 'me'.

'Me' doesn't do anything becasue 'me' has always been an idea.

If it appears that 'you' 'plan' then look again at how things happen.

Look at 'choosing' and 'deciding', since these are at the heart of the illuion that 'I plan'.

If you are ambivalent about any of this I can suggest some simple exercises again that show up the illusions of 'choice' and 'decision'.


love

Jon

Hello Jon,
I get it, it is mental habits that triggers the illusion of "self" to appear, especially when this body is tired or at the end of the day. What happens to this apparent entity is inner dialogue . When body or whatever has had enough or the discourse is redundant or painful , it now floats off and is not seen as belonging or of possession. This is not to say that anything is doing anything. I understand that it is all a chain reaction, cause and effect, karma. If you know of some simple exercises that show up the illusion of "choice' and "decision" it would be appreciate.
Love,
Sandy

Hi Sandy,

Karma, cause and effect.

Pour water on the floor, it gets wet. That can be seen happening. It can be sensed directly.

Can karma be sensed directly? What is there in experience that can be tested to prove either way that karma either is or is not happening?

It is pretty clear that lots of things do happen. These appear to the senses. But is it possible to observe anything 'giving rise' to anything else. There are plenty of theories that say this is how things work, such as karma and causality and it is possible to think that actions or events are causally linked in some invisible way, perhaps according to some 'law' or mechanism.. But what if the whole shabang just appears as it appears with no explanation offered? What is there to find in experience of life to say that it does not?


OK I promised some exercises.

Choice: Place both hands in front of you on a table surface, palms facing down. In a few moments one hand must get raised in the air whilst the other will stay where it is. This exercise is about looking to see where the exact choice-point happens. If choosing happens then it must be possible to see the choice being made and the precise moment of the choice? It may take a few moments to do this but one hand must go up.

Did you find the choice-point?

Decisions:

Next time you go to work, about half way through the journey look to see if a decision has ben taken to go to work, or whether this just happened automatically and now you find that you are in the car (or whatever) already motoring along?

And about that, whether you drive, bus, train or walk, do you notice a series of decisions being taken about how that all happens? Is there a 'decision' before indicating to turn? There may have been a look in the mirror first but was there a decsision to do that, or does this all flow?

In activities that are less routine, for example, loss of kar keys, you go in search for these and eventualy find them somewhere. Was there a decision to look for them or did looking just flow?

Even in learning a song. There may be the thought that 'I intend' to learn this. If asked after the event if a decision had been made to learn, there is a moment of thought and at that moment the assumption that 'I decided' appears as a current thought and the illusion of 'having intended and decided to learn' appears with it. In reality were actual 'decisions' being made?

What do you find?


Jon

Hello Jon,
O.k. for the next 2 days I am going to relinquish the delusion of control and I will get back to you.
love,
Sandy

OK,

Jon

Hello Jon,

I found that I can go through 2 days without any doing. There is a lot less mental anguish. Things were a little dull.

Love
Sandy

Hi Sandy,

Er...how do you mean 'without any doing'? Were you trying to do not doing?

It's very like seeing that there is no self. Plently of things can get done, thoughts, actions, emotions, conversations, work and so on.

Did you try any of the exercises I suggested? What were your findings?

love

Jon

Hello Jon,

Er...how do you mean 'without any doing'? Were you trying to do not doing?

I put my brain on cruise control instead of manual control for the past 2 days. No Mr. Doing steering the car. Mr. Doing isn't necessary , we are getting a divorce. He's too bossy anyway , although I do appreciate all that he's done. Just skidding, we still do have a lot of ice on the roads up north.
Yes Jon, I did your mental exercises and no there is no point of decision, no doer, so , no , I did not put my brain on cruise control, since there is no I.
Tell me swami Jon , do you feel at one with the universe, no mental anguish?
Love
Sandy

Hi Sandy,

I apologise if I have been pushing you rather a lot lately. At various times and stages your answers about 'choice' and 'decisions' have repeatedly implied that there somehow still is an idea that a 'me' is choosing and deciding. This is why I have been asking you so many (possibly tedious and repetitive) questions. This is why I gave you those exercises.

Yes Jon, I did your mental exercises and no there is no point of decision, no doer, so , no , I did not put my brain on cruise control, since there is no I.

Great. Glad you did these, though I wouldn't characterise them as 'mental'. More 'practical' than anything else.

Tell me swami Jon , do you feel at one with the universe, no mental anguish?

There is no discontinuity between mental anguish or any other sensation that is part of the universe. I don't feel 'at one' with anything. A feeling of not being a person, separate from nature, thoughts and feelings is great. But of course there are sometimes unpleasant thoughts and feelings. These can happen just as a storm in nature can happen. But since crossing the gate thoughts are no longer interpreted as 'mine', 'my thoughts'.

Having said all that there are plenty of times when the normal cut and thrust of getting on with other people and earning a crust is all there appears to be. The illusion is quite immersive.

But feeling at one with the universe is what a lot of people come to LU hoping to experience and not finding exactly that they can feel disappointed.

I have a question for you Sandy. In this conversation we have been having, looking back across it, would you say there was a point or a particular page on which there was a shift and you began to see no self?


love,
jon

Hello swami Jon,

I have a question for you Sandy. In this conversation we have been having, looking back across it, would you say there was a point or a particular page on which there was a shift and you began to see no self?

I think the point at which the "self' started to dissipate was when you described thoughts as though they were like clouds in the sky, when you replied that there was no need for there to be a buoy to hang on to in the river of life and there was also a good image in a forum of the self as being as useful as a house plant.

I still have moments of "self" , when I congratulate myself and say things like, "you are so imaginative."
Also I have moments of "self" when I am extremely "self" conscious because I am animating a group that doesn't particularly like me. I really have to work on letting that one flow by like clouds in the sky.

This is a process for me , Jon, but I think some grocking is happening.

Love
Sandy