The Gate

If you need to question unhelpful beliefs that still operate, I find this free TheWork AI BOT quite impressive:

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-tRFAZymCM-the-work

1) Is the sense of the self there most of the time? Is it ever not there? How real does it seem to you?

No, the sense of self is not there all the time. it is rarely there when I am engrosed in something creative or when I am resting after some kind of action.
It is often not there if I search for it or reflect upon it. It is the habitual parts of my character that seemed to make it most present. For example, I am currently trying to buy a house. Because in day-to-day life this process needs a decision all of my character flaws and anxieties come to the surface and this really feels like self to me. Even though I genuinely feel that I have no control over what will happen in the future I am still, with my character flaws, trying to overcome this and overthinking this process in the hope that I will be able to control the environment that I live in. I know there is no control, I genuinely feel it, but they're still seems to be a me that feels the need for it.

2) These changes you speak of (it *can* be freeing, it *can* be more compassionate and less judgemental, etc.). Say more about that please. How often is it so? For how long at time? When is it so and when is it not so?

A lot of it is there all the time. I have no fear of death, I have lost my old fear of embarrassment and looking foolish or being known to have made a mistake. I am generally now more understanding and compassionate.
it is when it comes to issues of anxiety and control that I still feel like there is a huge me. I am actually failing to buy a house because my anxiety about getting it wrong is so great. I genuinely feel that where I live doesn't matter - what matters is the thoughts, anxieties and neuroses that I will carry to that place. I feel and know this to be true but I still can't stop it. there is still this thought created me that I cannot resolve.

3) Do you feel a wish/need to seek for a deeper/clearer realization? Is there a wish to seek and find something else?

I don't think I want to find something else, I think I want to lose what I'm carrying around with me. But yes, I think that does need some deeper or clearer realisation.

4) Is there anything with regards to seeing through self you would like my help with exploring?

I think it is my crushing need for control that makes the acceptance of no self so difficult for me.

It's very difficult to put into words. I feel and know that I have no significance in life and absolutely no control over it, but I feel that habitual thought patterns are preventing me from embracing this and this is the self that I can still see. I think it's perhaps true that when I'm unencumbered by anxiety or indecision or the desire for control I actually do see no self, so I see the self as the thoughts that I can't let go of.

I think you're right, that I've had no shift. I have had flashes of seeing the reality of what life is and the beauty of the lack of control but they are only flashes.
I'm in the circular position that if I had no anxiety I think I would be able to feel it but if I could feel it my anxiety would be gone.
I can't feel it as an absolute. I think if I did I would be able to let go of these thoughts and see them for what they are, but I cannot so I think I am still accepting self and cannot really feel the world as it is.

I just wanted to make it clear I'm not trying to do therapy on myself with this it's just that when I'm in a happy go lucky state, that's when I'm closest to feeling no self.

Thank you for the sincere and elaborated answers, Lucy. Let's inquiry more into the remnant belief in the separate self.

It seems like when you have the thoughts and sensations that you label as anxiety and insecurity, there is an extra strong tendency to believe this "is you" and implies "you have a self". I do not say this is your intellectual conviction, I assume it's not. I say this is how you experience and interpret it in the moment. So, whenever this happens, explore:


Are these sensations truly a self or does it truey imply a self?

Are any of these thoughts and sensations a self or imply a self?

Do any of these sensations truly imply that there is some important and flawed self at the center of experience now?

Remember, these are not questions for you to answer based on your conviction. This is something to LOOK into in real time, when the experience of being an important flawed self, in the middle of an anxious or shameful experience, comes up.


In parallel with this, I might recommend working with this at an emotional level. I.e. shadow work. Weather you do psychotherapy, do TRE (tension and trauma release exercises), working with TheWorkBot, etc etc.


A couple of final things:

1) While there is no controller at the ultimate level, obviously there is control in the conventional sense. If I ask you to lift your right hand, you can. If I ask you to stop beating your heart, you can't. Also increased control and skills on the relative level can be developed, we can develop more concentration, loving kindness, problem solving skills, etc. etc. This process is not about stopping or denying any of that. It is just seen that all that happens without a truly self-existing separate controller. Which helps deal with life at the conventional level more lightly, even while we - conventionally speaking - do our best to control the things we want to control.

2) Saying that you have no significance in life is tricky and can be misleading, if it gives rise to the belief that you are insignificant. This is just lack of love, and an idea based misunderstanding of this process. Significant or insignificant ultimately only apply to something we believe exists. On a relative level you have many significances... To people who love you, etc etc. On a ultimate level, yes, there is no separate self to be either significant or insignificant. But the insight is not to go from belief in significance to belief in insignificance. It is to see clearly that what is evaluated either way, does not exist as a true separate self.

Just to clarify, I know that I am significant to my loved ones and that my behavior towards others can be significant.
I just meant that I no longer see myself as the center of something and that I'm much more away that my needs and my desires can be based in falsehood and the needs and desires and belief of others are never really any less significant than my own. I do see a greater unity in the whole of life than I did before.

Lovely

Hi Elad,

I believe that I can feel that there is no separate controller - if I think an anxious thought it's not because something I've done has caused it. If that was the case I could choose not to be anxious. It's just a thought that I'm judging to be an anxious thing. I can see that a thought is just another thing I'm witnessing, like the sun shining. If I analyze the sun shining the way I do my thoughts I would probably be in constant anxiety of the Sun not coming up. I can see that a thought is just another thing to witness. I can see that there is no controler yet this for me does not provide a shift. It does not provide a substantial change in feeling that others seem to describe.

Also, I cannot lose the feeling that at the core there is something that needs protecting and keeping safe. Even if I cannot witness this controller I cannot lose this sense that there is a core that I need to keep protecting.

The feeling is that even though there is only witnessing and no control, this witness is an entity that needs to be preserved. And even if I really look this is what I find, that there is only witnessing and so the witnessing needs to be preserved. This still feels like a sense of self to me.

And also, if I really look I can only find the presence of this witness. This suggests to me sometimes that this is a singularity. This can lead into that circular thing of 'all I can find is witnessing so it feels like I am the witness'.

Hi Lucy

Lets look at this

And even if I really look this is what I find, that there is only witnessing and so the witnessing needs to be preserved. This still feels like a sense of self to me.

Where is this witness? Does it have a location?
Can witnessing be found or just experience?
Can awareness and something that is aware be found as two things?

Remember to look not in the mind (analyzing thoughts and beliefs) but in life (what actually is seen and felt here and now).

And can awareness and the content of awareness be found as two?

Or there is just experience without an experiencer/witness - and this is just an added thought?

Hi Elad,

I did bear in mind what you said in your last post but I found that these questions were just making me intellectualise again so I did try to just look and, yes, when just experiencing I can see that there are the product of my senses and there are thoughts and that's all there is - just an awareness of noises, smells, sights and thoughts and not of anything else. I have felt this way very many times, but for me there is no shift. There is nothing that is making my view of my normal daily life substantially different in any major way.

Through this work I can know that dwelling on the self is pointless. I can know that seeing everything from the point of view of the self is unhelpful that and that nurturing ideas of need and desire for the self have no merit. And I don't just mean that I know it intellectually,I can feel it too. I can feel that my needs are often an illusion. This has increased my realisation of all these things and that I should let go and just experience what I can find now but they're really is still no feeling of any radical shift.

Lucy

Good to hear from you Lucy. Not everyone has a big shift. Sometimes its more like getting slowly wet in a mist, but at a certain point you notice you are thoroughly soaked, same as if you had plunged into a pool. What is important to look at, is if there is a true sense of clarity and freedom from doubt, release from ego (ego patterns will show up, but be seen more as impersonal habits, and be more easily released), peace and compassion within normal life. Everything changes, everything is the same. And neither.

If you want you could try watching "the awakening curriculum" on YouTube. Watch the playlists on fetter 1-2-maybe-3, see where it takes you. And share with me and ask questions if any come up.

Or maybe you don't feel any need for further clarification, in which case we could go for the check-point questions and see what they bring up at this time, and what other guides might help clarify then (within our cooperation).

Hi Elad,
Sorry for the delayed response. I haven't abandoned this at all, I have just really been trying to dwell with it because sometimes it does just seem to drift away from me and I am back in all that old ego stuff.
I don't really know where to go with this next but I am trying to examine what this feels like without any of the examining or thinking or talking about it - just what it feels like.
Sometimes I feel like there is a change but sometimes I really feel that there isn't. I think I am generally more compassionate and less ego driven but can't really get beyond that.

Lucy

Hi Lucy,

It does not sound to me like the self belief has truely been seen for what it is. It sounds more to me like a belief in the non existence of self is strong, which can actually make it harder to see the illusion for what it is, because the illusion is ignored or denied. It also sounds like there has been many small insight moments. The effect of more compassion is beautiful. So the process just needs to continue.

The main thing I would recommend now is to be curious about the existing sense of self and how it is experienced and how it is believed. Look again and again.

I would also recommend you to get Christiane Michelbergers book about seeing through the self illusion, read it and do the exercises (it can be bought electronically on Amazon). And keep me in the loop about all that is noticed.

Also consider returning to writing here every day (there will always be exceptions, but as the norm). I know that can be challenging and frustrating, but it probably will help. If you chose to do so, make it an exercise to just report what there is to report, letting go of any judgements of how you or the process should be.

Hi Elad,

Apologies, I took a long while in getting back to you to see if things might change. I think that for the time being this is a bit lost to me. Firstly I think that I have a lot of stress and strain in my life at the moment that is clouding my judgment, but secondly I think that I have seen all there is for me to see, it's just that I don't have that belief that it makes anything feel any better. The belief that this is a wonderful enlightening thing just isn't there for me. For me it just is what it is. It's an inert thing.
Currently I don't feel like I can move any further forward with this but I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for all of your compassion, kindness and understanding.

Lucy