I have a pain in my face with Spirituality, I’m going home.

[Truthfull]

Ok, I am clear. Leave it with me. 👍🏼

[Elad]

Ok, I am clear. Leave it with me. 👍🏼

All right 👍 let me know tomorrow about experience with the exercise and where the investigation/looking is at.

[Truthfull]

Ok, I’ve been doing it 1.5 days now, on and off when I remember.
When I sit and do it, it feels ok. I sometimes need to close the eyes to focus on one or two (sound, sensations). Sometimes it feels over powering. To much inputs.

When walking around if feels like training a baby. It stops the mind running away into atory. It’s a little bit frustrating sometimes. It seems to promote a stopping.

It feels like attention is being used skillfully to cut my Spider-Man webs, before I shoot tyrm. I’m left at home with no one calling around for a date.

I’ll seek doing it when it comes to mind. Any tips welcome.

[Truthfull]

A few typos in that last msg😀.

[Elad]

A few typos in that last msg😀.

All right, nice.

Has been seen clearly that there is no separate self, except thoughts that are habitually indulged and believed, that none of it is in control or a real separate self?

Please notice that either:

A) yes this is clearly seen. Even if forgotten often it is seen. Like we know 4+5=9 and we might forget but it's easy to see when looking.

B) something is still believed to be a separate self.

If (A), just rest in the seeing when it is remembered. Write me tomorrow how it feels.

If (B): look for what is being believed to be a separate self and is it a separate self? Be really simple and investigative about it.

[Elad]

Here is also a couple of exercises to clarify/deepen seeing. Do them over one or two days as you wish:


Stream Exercise

Imagine for a moment a scene, one of a little mountain stream which is tumbling down a hillside gully, not far from its source. It has been raining and so the level is quite high. Consider in your mind's eye, if you can, how it flows to the right over a little rock (where, had the level been lower, it would probably have gone around the rock), then the flow goes to the left over a tree bow, and then slows a little in a broader place, before splashing over a small cascade into a pool, and so on down the mountain side. Does it choose any of its directions? Is it even really a separate entity different from the water deposited in it, the rocks, the depressions in the ground etc? Is it even the same entity moment by moment, or more the product of weather conditions and water, like an ever-changing pattern?

1. Can you find anywhere where 'insert name' autonomously intervenes into life, choosing something that is not the product of all the elements; that is not a part of the overall flow?

2. Now please consider a regular decision made eg; what to wear in the morning, or what to eat for lunch, and describe to me what happens. There are environmental factors, there are colour preferences (but where did those come from - any autonomous intervention there perhaps?), practical issues (such as what is available), available time for preparation, purpose (eg; need to fill up for the day, or to look hip and cool for that person!) etc. Where in there is an autonomous entity intervening in the flow of life? Can you find someone somewhere?

3. Can anything be found for which 'insert name' is responsible – if so responsible to what and for what?


Explore ‘Sense of Self’


Let’s say that you have lost your keys and you swear that you left them in your coat. You go to look and check all the pockets - the keys are not there. You swear they must be as that was the last place you remember them. You have a vivid memory of putting them there after you left the house. But when you check they are not there. At this point you can keep believing that the keys are in your pocket, or you can admit you were mistaken. This is just like that. You may see clearly that the self is an illusion but still feel a sense of self - just like the keys. But feeling something to be true and seeing that it is or is not is different. This is why we may find ourselves coming back to your expectations at the start and at the end.

Now, I’d like to ask you to explore this SENSE of self very-very thoroughly. Not by thinking about it, but by FEELING it.
Keep the focus of attention on the sense of self and inquire:-
Does the sense of self have a location?
Does the sense of self have a shape or a size?
Does the sense of self say or communicate anything?
If the answer is yes, how does the sense do this exactly?
Does the sense of self have any characteristics or attributes?
What is the sense of self ‘made of’? An image? Sound? Taste? Smell? Sensation? Thought?

[Truthfull]

Is "insert name" = Denis ?

Answer is B, still feel like a separate self here. I will do B today. Thanks

Reading the other post and feel relaxed, drunk and giggling a bit, like a child that has been caught doing something nougaty. I'll reflect on it all now, once you confirm "insert name", or have you give name my new enlightened name 🤣.

[Elad]

Yes Denis ;)

For this investigation to succeed it is crucial you refocus your interest on what is actually there, and not on what it "feels like" which just means what is habitually believed. We are not here to change the feeling of your habitual belief, we are here to see what is seen to be true in direct experience, irregardless of feelings.

[Truthfull]

The silence is what feel separate. I am is in front of it it’s a thought, but the silence is the centre on me. The separate self we call Denis. That centred silence in not over their in the cup or my child.

[Elad]

When I look directly, everything has silence in it, as it.
Only thought seems to divide it.

You are contradicting yourself. Read these former words of yours above. Reread the questions from me that led to these words.

In any case, even you did think "silence is you" (just a thought, just putting "I thought" on silence, but ok), and if that was the only identification, there would be peace. It would be clear everything is a free flow with no separate agent.

Look deeper, do the exercises. Look more.

[Elad]

Once you really get into being sincerely simple and only attending to what can sensed here and now, you can speak in a simple language. Nothing will sound complicated. You don't even need to use the word silence. Much less to create a story about identifying with it. Take as a sign you are in the right direction if your answers become short and simple, language a child can understand.

[Truthfull]

I can’t find the I/self. But it feels like it’s looking so it must be here.

[Truthfull]

The sense of self is located in the head. It feels like a looking. It has no other quality’s,

[Elad]

Hi Denis. I will respond to these messages after I get your answers to the two exercises.

[Elad]

Actually lets take them one at the time. Start with the river one and send that to me. We will work with that one. Then move to the other one.