Seeking a Guide

[Tyler]

What a beautiful post, Andy!

It seems like you are now writing from a place of seeing. Are there any doubts about seeing through the illusion of the separate self? When the I is seen fully and completely as illusory, what is left?

[AndrewGBL]

The senses alone.

As the Heart Sutra says: "The body is emptiness, therefore emptiness is this body". Emptiness is not empty of itself--so this exists.

Doubts? yes, but the motive is laid bare and exposed. There is no doubter. Just doubting.

[Tyler]

Doubts? yes, but the motive is laid bare and exposed. There is no doubter. Just doubting.

I love that. Doubts are thoughts, and thoughts will continue just like sensations and emotions. What is typically different post gate is a new seeing of how thoughts and emotions create the illusion. You may find, like many at LU, that life continues as it always has. Don't be surprised when old conditioned beliefs and concepts of self try to arise (what is referred to as "selfing"). When they do, they can be welcomed as part of the movement of now, and seen for what they truly are—illusory. Remember, liberation is a beginning, not an end.

It seems to me the next step would be to ask the "final questions." Feel free to take some time answering these. When you post your response, I'll look at the answers, and I will also ask other guides to read them, to see if there is any further guidance we can offer in dispelling the illusion of self. Here are the questions. I look forward to reading your reply:

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there
ever?
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from
your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.
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) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How
does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.
6) Anything to add?

[AndrewGBL]

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there
ever?

No. Whatever is, is awareness alone, held in place by God only knows what. Andy didn't exist in any world. The world, it seems, only existed in perception--an appearance.

As Rumi said, "You are not a drop in the ocean, but the ocean in a drop." Sounds nice, but when the world inverts and it's all in a mind, some mind, it can seem very odd.

The "self", the "I", the sense of a doer is pure mirage, granted faith, and held in place by fear. There was/is no mirage. Nothing was ever out of place. In my mind's attempt to organize chaos, it created a receiver--one that everything happened to.

I have no mind. "I" am what the mind makes up to get through doing dishes and work and playing xbox with my son. Awareness has no son.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from
your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

When did the separate self start? Never. When did it end? Never. What doesn't exist can't stop existing. Never born, never die. Is the glass half empty or half full? Both and so, neither. Concepts and duality swallowed up by silly pessimist/optimist riddles.

Again, even these words are empty. There is nothing behind them. No words, thoughts, or beliefs are anything more than the rustling of leaves.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?

It feels weird, honestly. Awareness is fascinating: without qualities, without state. Before this dialogue there was still more road to go. More work to be done. More this. More that. Not there yet. Seeking. Addiction to greener grass--set up for eternal frustration by the rigid notion that there was ever such a thing as enlightenment. There is no such thing. There are no people to enlighten. There are no people. No me, no others, no world, save the appearance of one. NOTHING WAS EVER WRONG.

Now, that's a lot of syrupy talk to say that the first step on the search for liberty leads to slavery. But that's just a dream as well. There is no slavery.

Please report from the past few days.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

Holding everything up to a mirror to find no reflections. Ghosts at best. Processes as blind and empty as a vacuum that's sucked itself up. Feels like I'm walking an empty city, and the voice in my mind that I thought was a person is just a worn out recording on a record player up high in some apartment window. Nobody playing it.

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How
does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

1. Decisions: Thoughts and feelings the body/mind believes it summons and acts upon. What makes decisions happen? There are no decisions, how could they happen at all? If I decide to go to the park, the chains are back on...parks appear, but nobody goes to them. People appear too. Appearances. Choices are fine when two things can be chosen from. But no two things exist. I'll even go this far: evil = good. Good = evil. Milk = my foot.

No difference.

2. Free will: As opposed to non-free will? We're still in duality. Free will implies an opposite. It forces a shadow to appear. Shit just happens. Forrest Gump nailed it. It's all doing itself.

3. Choice: Wind in the pipes. Nobody home but us thoughts.

4. Control: Attachment.

6) Anything to add?

No. I'm more in love with subtraction right now and even that's just a line, a good one, from a book never written.

[AndrewGBL]

Hi Tyler,

Two more things. Are you familiar with interfaces? This whole experience feels like the body is just an interface into the world. A thin wrapper or boundary that shows how awareness and its objects are one.

Yes, thoughts keep coming today, "Nope. Not there yet, this isn't it." So the mirror comes back out and I ask...

Who says this? Who knows this? Still, nobody there to know, ask or even make the inquiry.

Blessings,

Andy

[Tyler]

Hey Andy,
I've read over your answers a few times and everything looks good. There is one statement I want to ask about:

Choice: Wind in the pipes. Nobody home but us thoughts.

I'm pretty sure I know what you mean, but it did catch my eye, and I imagine it would also catch the eyes of other guides. It would be helpful if you could clarify what you mean by, "Nobody home but us thoughts."

Beautiful answers. Talk to you soon.

[AndrewGBL]

Hi Tyler,

Sorry for the late reply.

What I meant by that statement was that there's really nobody home but thoughts, and I now know what thoughts are: just mere mental phenomena. It's like they think they're alive, but thoughts are unaware of their own presence, obviously. Nothing is aware of itself but awareness. And what's been very interesting is continuing to observe the senses, how none of the senses are aware of themselves, or each other. I Am awareness and unknowable. The brain is orchestrating the senses together to make sense of the world, but as I was driving the other day I realized the feel of the road below my car had nothing to do with what I was seeing. The smell of the air had nothing to do with the temperature. Sort of strange. Everything is blind to its own existence within "Andy'.

Only awareness exists.

Also, and this is cool, I woke up laughing last night and I clearly recall the overwhelming sensation of having nothing to grasp, nothing to do to be awareness. Being done at the zero point, if that makes sense. It just nailed me so clearly laughter came pouring forth and I woke. In my dream before I was standing in a river the flowed backward and upstream. There was a city next to me with tall skyscrapers. I stood there in the water looking as these enormous white flowers that were bigger than the skyscrapers came floating around the street corner like a parade. From there I knew everything had changed. The grace of knowing what is was flowering and overflowing the hardness of life. The purity of the white was lovely.



Blessings,

Andy

[Tyler]

Here is a question from another guide: would you now say "I am awareness?"

[AndrewGBL]

The attempt to land on an identity is most certainly there in mind, but there is no footing. To say "I am awareness" would be to box awareness in an "I". There is watching, there is tasting, there is feeling, smelling, etc. When the sense of Andy arises, which it does, there's now a reflex to see it come, operate, and cease. And it's funny how Andy doesn't exist until the name comes up in thought or speech.

Whatever awareness is, it is not identifiable. The world, all that's known seems to no longer be out there, but rather an inside job. Nothing can be known outside of this, at least that's my experience. Perhaps this is just solipsism. But even that would be another fluid motion in perfection. There is nothing but perfection. Imperfection can only be known by standing in perfection as contrast, and so, there is no imperfection because perfection rules out what may be wrongly understood as an opposite.

If there's delusion here, be frank. You have a good BS detector--what does it tell you? I remain open.

[Tyler]

I love your last statement about BS detector. That's precisely what I'm trying to figure out. You're using a lot of flowery language about what is being seen. Sometimes that makes it hard to tell if it's genuine. That's what the guides are looking at. Why don't you answer your own question without quoting anybody, adding any metaphors, or being poetic. Is there any delusion about whether you have seen through the illusion of self? Make sure that you are writing from your own experience and no one else's. Raw honesty. Throw out everything you have ever read or heard, and tell me about what is seen in direct experience.

[AndrewGBL]

Taking some time here. I will reply when I've sorted out what's going on.

[Tyler]

Don't over think. There is nothing to sort out. Answer from what is seen.

[AndrewGBL]

Hi Tyler

Keep realizing that the guy that wants to look more, investigate more--whatever, is keeping the search on. Then there's the guy that wants to end the search--another manifestation. Frankly, at this point, I feel like I need an exorcism from this "I", "me"--really.

That's where we're at.

[Tyler]

Perfect, Andy. You're doing great! The search can end at any point because there is nothing to search for. The answer is here now—it always has been. I'm going to ask a few more question and I want you to answer them right away. Don't seek out an answer. Just look gently and softly at what is seen in direct experience. Stop seeking—just look at what is.

What is the I that wants to keep the search on? What is the I that wants to exorcise? And what is the I that needs to be exorcized?

[AndrewGBL]

I just replied but saved as draft. How do I get that into a real reply? Sorry.