Hi Steve,
I and the two guides who've been helping me recently have also not been entirely sure what to make of your experience - so this is why we've been pressing and probing and so on. This process obviously hasn't been as efficient as it would be in a perfect world, but that doesn't matter. What matters is your "success"/happiness and our attempts (including yours) to do our best to achieve that. I think we are getting really close now.
Okay. I just feel like I imagine I did before I ever got into anything spiritual, which was very different than how my days went when I had gotten into it. Not much fervent seeking/searching, philosophizing about life and my experience, interpreting my experiences in some spiritual way, and thankfully little to none thinking there is some other reality other than my present one. It's just that I may not be walking around like Thich Nhat Hanh while I do my chores and go through my day.
I think that the experience you describe above is the no-self realization we are looking for. But your experience can only ever be a thought for me. Only you can truly know. It describes my own experience pretty well. As one of my fellow guides said to me recently, sometimes life is experienced as a flow, and sometimes it isn't. On a good day I feel very ordinary, but "light" and calm. Months later, good days now dominate. The only "unusual" thing is the contrast with the seeking/tight/contracted energy before LU. I feel a lot better now than before. It's a revolution, yet more "ordinary" than I have ever felt before. Some people describe it as the natural state of a human being, but not the normal state for most people.
So would you say that a good rule of thumb is feeling lighter and more calm? Today, I sort of slipped into this weird state that I used to experience and spend a lot of time in and I haven't been at all lately. Everything gets really quiet, yet my thoughts simultaneously go on so it can be both loud and quiet if that makes any sense. I feel completely not my personality, not Wesley; it's as if I'm something entirely different looking out my eyes. My day-to-day worries and troubles don't make sense to me or really matter to me. I walk slower and my sense perceptions change. To be honest it's basically like I'm high. However, I noticed that this time as it happened, I felt some fear come up. Sort of like being high, everything is amplified and I either feel blissful or in a nightmare. I experienced this almost every single day for a while (partly because I wanted to live in that place all of the time) and what started happening was that it seemed like my psyche was becoming unstable by it. I would start having these incredibly fearsome thoughts, dread, anxiety, depression, etc. I felt like I was going a little crazy, or like my mind specifically was going a little crazy. It would get worse and worse and then reach a point where my thoughts just got really really quiet and I felt very peaceful again. But it progressed and pretty soon I felt very depressed and had loads of anxiety that at the time I interpreted as say a "dark knight of the soul" rather than just anxiety/fear. However, still with periods of peace here and there. But not a consistent, stable type of peace that you described above and I know feel. And unlike what you described before, I don't feel normal at all, if anything I imagine it to be some what some yogi in the himalaya's would be experiencing or something. So I think the result is that I now avoid this experience in rather the same way you may choose to avoid doing drugs: not that it doesn't have the potential for something good, but it also has the potential to be very scary. And instead I feel very very normal, like my personality is stable and functioning properly. If I fantasize and dream of things, it's not returning to some spiritual state or being enlightened, it's meeting a woman or traveling, or pursuing my education, or dancing, or whatever. From the get-go, Sandra had me putting all of my spiritual daydreaming to question it seemed and I recall her suggesting to try stopping the meditation and the spiritual seeking and try out some fun things that I thought I would enjoy. And I did that and am continuing to do that...But from time to time I think about how I lived before and (especially when I am experiencing doubt or confusion) I wonder if I'm like avoiding some spiritual journey/life. But at the same time I'm afraid of going back to it because of what I described above, as well as because from a more rational perspective, I don't even know if that's real or just some bundle of thoughts and beliefs through which I interpret what happens. Some spiritual teacher, some yogi or zen master begins talking about the spiritual path and where it leads, how do I know they aren't just believing in their own thoughts about a spiritual journey/path and the validity of it? However, despite this cautiousness and doubt, I still have some curiosity and openness to these things. It's just that I feel like I take little nibbles and I play it safe because I think if I take a huge bite, like going on a meditation retreat or something, I may experience that scary stuff as well as my doubt still says "why do I need to do that?"
Have you heard of anything like this happening? What does all of this have to do with the no-self realization or LU, if it even does? Sorry to make you read so much but I hope this helps you guide me.
Some people describe it as the natural state of a human being, but not the normal state for most people.
Hmmm. See when I'm in that weird la la land place, I definitely would describe it as not the normal state of most people because it's pretty obvious I think. But how I am now, the difference of my state of being from the next average joe seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Except maybe if someone were to ask me who I was, or what reality is, I may answer that a little differently now.
The subtle shift I got from LU was more intense than anything that had gone before, and it has been lasting. I think for you it was in some ways the opposite situation.
That's very interesting, yes. And I agree with you that it seems to be the opposite. But then how do I know that I'm through the gate? How will I know whether I've done this right or not? Obviously there must be loads of people who do this and who come from different backgrounds, yet here they all are pointing to truth that there is no self. I understand however that what follows after the realization can vary greatly from person to person; I watched the interview with Ilona and Elena and they talked about how for one of them life just became very stable and easy whereas for the other their life sort of fell apart as if it was being rearranged massively. Not in a tragic way of course but like needing to melt down an old structure to make room for something new. But both of them describe it like they really had no control over what followed their realizations, and I feel the same, I just don't really know how to orient myself.
I don't think you do, but I can't answer this for you. If I told you there was nothing to find, it would not help. You need to satisfy yourself that this is so. If you really need to keep looking before this happens, then you need to. BUT - consider the possibility that maybe you don't need to look harder.
Well I don't know if this is about what
feels right or better, but actually if you told me there was nothing to find I would find it very freeing and helpful. It makes me relax and breath and my attention just goes to what's happening because it isn't anymore focused on finding/seeing something. So yes I strongly consider that possibility that I don't need to look any harder.
This seems like where the problem is. Do you think so?
Yes, I think it could be.
Here's a possibility: As you said, a lot of the time you don't see a self and you don't feel like a self. Then self thoughts pop up and you feel like a self again. At this point, doubt creeps in. Your experience of not feeling like a self felt real at the time but it's now nothing but a memory. Of course it's nothing but a memory at this point, because that's how mental states work. So you start to wonder if it was an illusion. Were you just fooling yourself?
Yes, I definitely follow you here.
If I am right (and I may not be: I am describing my own experience here), then consider this: The thing is, this process is not about mental states. It's about what is true. Experiential confirmation is important, but states change like the weather so they can't be the reliable anchor you are looking for.
I agree they don't seem to be a reliable anchor. As far as seeing what is true, that's where I feel stuck. If you say there is no self I would agree with you, and more importantly when I look for the self to find out experientially whether there is or not, I never ever find one. However I think I'm stuck in seeing and saying beyond any doubt that this is so.
So do this: When you don't feel like a self, enjoy it. When you are in doubt mode, find out whether a self can actually be found or whether it's just thoughts about a self. Once you're reasonably satisfied it's just thoughts about a self (it may not be perfect, given the circumstances), then accept, accept, accept! Remember that feeling bad is part of the flow in spite of appearances. That's what thoughts do: they project false realities. You don't have to believe them.
Yes, okay. I think I have been doing this lately. The suffering/bad feelings I experience are bad no doubt, but I don't feel like a self always when this occurs. Because I remember what it
was like to both suffer and feel like a self who is suffering, and that was altogether a different caliber. I was not "free" to suffer if that makes sense, I was trapped in it if that makes any sense. Instead of being creative with it and perhaps channeling it into something like art, I would just feel crippled. I am going to keep trying this and when I feel like a self to look around and see if I can find it.
So do this and tell me if it helped or not (and if not, what the remaining problems are). When I get your reply I'll talk to my helper guides. We'll keep going until we are finished and then we'll stop.
Okay I will have this be my focus of attention for the next day or so and I'll get back to you on the results. I'm going to really try and see where my sense of self is. A lot of my confusion I think is maybe due to a mixing up of mindfulness with no-self; what I mean by that is I don't go through my days now practicing something like "picking the coffee cup up, I
know I'm picking the mug up", in part because when I try doing that now, my thoughts become really sticky and it seems to be easier when I just don't think or fixate my attention on anything at all. In other words I just go through the motions, not even knowing whether there's an
I doing them or not, it just happens and it seems much easier and more effortless. But I don't know if this is good or bad, because it sounds an awful lot like just being "unconscious" or "unaware."
Anyways, to sum all of this up, despite all the details I just yammered on about, you said the LU process is about what is
true, and that's all I want. I'm sharing where I'm at but I am sure that some of it, if not a great deal of it, is just thoughts that don't need to be believed.
I think that the problem here is that most spiritual teachers are quite advanced spiritually by the time they start teaching, and this makes them unwittingly set up expectations that are counter-productive because they don't fit the experience of someone at the point of gate crossing. For example, a feeling of oneness with the world, collapse of subject/object duality, lack of desire, lack of anger/reaction to criticism/etc, a sensation of all phenomena as arisings in a vast open space. These all usually happen some time after the gate, not at the gate. I am just getting inklings of some of these things many months later.
That's an interesting thought, I've considered that too, big time. Oh gosh, yes I don't like going by the expectations because then I think I am doing something wrong. I don't know about the collapse of subject/object duality, I've heard quite a lot of people talk about this with conviction, but I think I desire more now, I get angrier now and react more to criticism now, and I'm not sure about the last one either. Perhaps it's just the recent change in my living situation or some emotions, I don't know. But I don't think I can really change it or do anything about it and I don't think it's healthy for me to go searching for or even pay much thought to these expectations. I'm familiar with all of them whether I've experienced them myself or not, and was doing nothing but seeking these things before LU and it didn't seem do anything for me besides keep the seeking mechanism going. "Oh a sensation of all phenomena arising in open space, I want that! Wait, why don't I sense that now? Something must be wrong, better meditate more." Or, "oh I remember when I felt a lack of desire, and felt like I needed nothing, and that nothing could make me angry, and criticism would just go right through me...I want that again! What's wrong? What am I doing wrong?" It isn't to say that I don't want to take healthy steps to address these things though, I just am careful of trying to change what I can't change. If you recall much earlier, I wrote about feeling like my heart was closed off and Sandra replied with an interesting response that was, "I looked in my experience and didn't find 1) a heart that could be closed or open and 2) a reason why it would be better to be open rather than closed other than some second-hand assumption.
It's fascinating to listen to people talk about these things, especially when I have gotten a taste myself, but most of the time I think it just makes me overlook what's happening right now and want to get
there. Which brings me back to what I said above, that I just want to see what's true and not worry about any expectations.
My gosh, I was super lengthy here. I'll keep everything I wrote but am going to try and be more verbose because I feel like I could be overcomplicating something very simple.
Wesley
