Support in self inquiry to see through the illusion of self

[Tessmus]

The feeling is one of light bodily disgust, like the body want to shiver, or like something wanting to explode inside, or throw up, or get out of its skin perhaps. I am trying to asking it what it wants, but I don't really get any clear answer, a thought of a circle or expanding circles comes up, but I am not sure if this was just something random, nothing that feels strongly associated.

[graceabounds]

Regarding “expanding circles” Is the felt field actually expanding, or is that a mental overlay? Is there an inner layer and an outer layer? Where are those located?

Find the most intense spot of this disgust. Put a fingertip there (or hover over it).
Now name only raw qualities:
size/shape (blob? line? sphere?)
edges (sharp/fuzzy?)
temperature (warm/cool/neutral?)
movement (pulsing, swirling, expanding?)
texture (gritty, slick, spiky, pressure?)
…Keep it to single words.

Then invite it to be bigger, to expand in concentric rings. What changes? Where next? Does it morph, move, dissipate, or intensify?

Give it full permission to do what it’s already doing. No need to fix. If a shiver, swallow, breath change or tremor wants to happen, let it flow. If thoughts appear, note ‘thought’ and return.

Lastly, scan the exact area for any separate “someone” inside it.

If it gets to be too much, pause, ground (feet on floor, feel contact, notice the colors in the room), then re-enter gently.

[Tessmus]

The expanding circles was just a mental overlay, an image appearing when trying to name it, not sure they were anything significant or just a random thought.

I have done these mirror excerice quite a lot now, the feeling is a bit similar to what I can feel just before thowing up, but less intense. It is in the solar plexus, like a sphere but with sharp putrutions, I think it is icing cold, not really moving, but its shape is kind of changing, spiky texture perhaps. It is really like the physical aspect of fear without any experience of fear.

Inviting it to be bigger or giving it permission to go on, not much really happens, if anything, hovering with the hand over it, makes it less intense. There isn't "someone" in there I think. There is also a kind of "shakiness" to the whole body, but it never becomes any real shakes. The feeling doesnt seem to grow over a certain limit, even if I stand there quite long.

However, during the excerice just recently I was staring into my own face during a longer time, and after a wihle the face started to change and morph, and then almost fade out, for a moment everything felt very unreal and my pulse went up a lot, almost like the beginning of a kind of physical panic, but I wasnt really afraid. However when it became too intense, I moved my gaze and and it stopped.

[graceabounds]

Very good.

When you hold a gaze long enough, the mind’s ordinary “stitching together” of self-image gets overloaded. Old perceptual filters break down. The sense of “me” can feel like it’s about to vanish, or at least lose its bearings.

There isn't "someone" in there I think. There is also a kind of "shakiness" to the whole body, but it never becomes any real shakes

This is a big insight. The body/energy is doing something, but there’s no “self” at the core of it, just sensation, movement, maybe some meaning-making thought content.

But here’s the thing: ‘I’ never existed to begin with.
So these sensations are just happening, no center, no me-ness. Appearing and disappearing.

Does anything need to be done about the energy in the solar plexus, or can it just be? Does it change if you shift into complete curiosity, with no attempt to fix or alter?


Here’s another exploration, without the mirror:

1. Close the eyes and hold up one hand. Pay attention only to the felt sensations ‘of the hand’.
2. Open the eyes, and now observe the hand by looking only.
3. While looking at the hand, pay attention to the felt sensations.
Repeat 1 to 3 as many times as needed and investigate…

Normally we believe that the sensation is coming from the sight, the ‘object’ seen (hand). But if you look, is there any link between the sensation and the sight? In other words, is the sensation ‘coming from’ the sight (labelled as hand) or only thoughts and mental constructs link them?

Can you see that both the ‘visual sight’ and the sensation appear simultaneously but ‘separately’, meaning that none of them is coming from the other or contained by the other? So they just appear equally, ‘beside’ each other without any hierarchy or link between them?

You can repeat the exercise with other body parts. Try the solar plexus.

[Tessmus]

Yes, I can def see that the sensations and the visual image appear in parallel with each other, and that they exist independent of each other without any link. I have seen this before as well, for example when standing in the mirror and feeling sensations in the body and looking at the image. When looking at the hand, it feels as if the sensations in the hand (kind of like a vibrating ball of energy) is just at the same position in space as the image of the hand appears. I can see there is no hierarchy or real link. I can do it also for other body-alerts, feet, face, solar plexus. It is kind of obvious to me that the sensations exist in parallel on its own with no link. But it still feels linked when I am not doing these exercise or if I am not thinking/focusing on it.

[graceabounds]

Yes, so what is going on here?

Take a look.

When not doing the exercise, is it that the link is felt, or is it that the story of “my hand, my body, these are linked” runs automatically, unseen? Is it ever anything other than a narrative, a thought-label, a quick, habitual conclusion? If you pause, and look, does the sense of “link” have any substance of its own, or is it only inferred by memory, by habit, by story?

And to go one step further:
Is there, in any way, any separate entity here, any “you” that is linking experience together? Or just a cascade of sensation, image, and thought, each arising on its own?

[Tessmus]

Okey, yes I can definitely see that all that can be experienced are these parallel "unlinked" streams of sensations, images, audio, and that the experienced link is an assumption based on thought or idea. However, I still believe (although it is also as story) that the imagined "link" has been learned because there have previously been "real" links between the different experiences, such as if you hit your hand on something sharp (visually), it hurts sensorially, and you can hear the sound. So, as I see it, thoughtforms has "modelled" this "real" link, so that it seems to us all the time that sensation and image is linked. But the experienced link, is just a thought or a story, and it can never be "proveen" that there is a real link, but there could still be one, and I do believe there is (even if this is of course also a story).

I can also understand that there is nothing in experience itself suggesting the existence of a self other than thought/story/imagination. So, no separate entity, however a very useful "idea" that over and over again seem to prove its worth as events are linked in time etc .. However, even if I can clearly understand this, and that it is also based in my experience, that there is nothing else experienced than these streams arising, the sense of self is still there, solid as ever. Which is a bit strange, because I def can not pinpoint it in experience.

[graceabounds]

However, even if I can clearly understand this, and that it is also based in my experience, that there is nothing else experienced than these streams arising, the sense of self is still there, solid as ever. Which is a bit strange, because I def can not pinpoint it in experience.

Good. So right now, there’s a clear recognition that the self can’t be found anywhere in experience.

Next, HOW is this “sense of self” appearing?
…Not as a sensation, not as an image, not as a sound, not as a taste or smell….
Is it not just a vague feeling + a thought-story—“this is me,” “I am experiencing this,” “these things are happening to me”? Is that real?

Don’t answer from what you know. Don’t go to “useful ideas.” Stay only with what’s happening right now.

What exactly is this “sense of self”?
Where is it?
What is it made of?
Can you find it, or is it always just a label quickly attached to something felt or thought?

Try to get underneath the story, not to explain it, not to theorize, but to feel it in real time.
What, specifically, does the “sense of self” consist of, this thing you say is “solid as ever”?

… You have been practicing looking, so now turn the looking around and find the one who has been looking… can you find that one?

[Tessmus]

For me, this sense of self seems rather to be kind of a projection area or point, where sensations, stories, emotions, stories etc attaches itself to, so even if there is no entity of its own underneath, it is this kind of gathering node for all that is experienced. Something like this is what it "feels" like to me right now (but perhaps it is not a feeling but just an idea as well). But in this sense the self "itself" is not made out of anything, or it is rather made out of everything projected upon it, or attached to it.

Going into real time to say what it is right now, this self can not be pinpointed, it can be anything that attaches itself to it, depending on what is focused on, it can be the physical sensations, it can be the thoughts, it can be the drive or will towards something, depending on what "I" look for, it can be different things, or it can be all things at once. The "hollow" area underneath everything attached to it. Even if this area is nothing in itself, it is anyway defined by all that is on its surface.

I guess, when I say solid as ever, I don't really mean solid, I mean "same as it has been before", but I guess it was never really substantial. And in a way, it sometimes actually feels more substantial when focusing on these things, then when I am absorbed into thinking or doing, then there can often be no sense of self at all, only the thing absorbed in.

I am sorry, I know much of this is still stories and trying to understand, I find it very hard to let go of the "trying to figure it out", even if I understand that it can never be figured out, its a habit that just pops up by itself all the time, both during the exercises and during trying to report on experiences.

Anyway. Looking for "what is looking", I can only find the experience themselves. Like the image, is only the image, the sensations is only the sensations, the sound is only the hearing. I guess in a way, it seems like there is space around all this things, but this space can not be pinpointed or caught either.

[graceabounds]

Yes.

In the heard, only the heard…
In the seen, only the seen…

What I have been asking you to search for doesn’t actually exist, never existed. It will not be located by thinking or reason, only by looking. It is not something to be proved or even understood, only seen.

Going into real time to say what it is right now, this self can not be pinpointed, it can be anything that attaches itself to it, depending on what is focused on, it can be the physical sensations, it can be the thoughts, it can be the drive or will towards something, depending on what "I" look for, it can be different things, or it can be all things at once. The "hollow" area underneath everything attached to it. Even if this area is nothing in itself, it is anyway defined by all that is on its surface.

That’s it. The “self” is nothing. Just a conceptual placeholder, a hollow, a gathering point defined entirely by whatever is “attached,” whatever arises. Never itself experienced. Never ever found.

And you’re absolutely clear here…
When focused on, it can seem more substantial, but only as a “space,” a hollow, a background idea, never as a thing!
When absorbed in activity, there’s no sense of self at all, only “what’s happening.”

I am sorry, I know much of this is still stories and trying to understand, I find it very hard to let go of the "trying to figure it out", even if I understand that it can never be figured out, its a habit that just pops up by itself all the time, both during the exercises and during trying to report on experiences.

No need to apologize, there is a lot here in what was written today. And who is apologizing anyway? The one who wants to figure it out and get it right?

The habit to “figure it out” is itself just another event, another pattern arising. It’s not “you” doing it, it’s just happening, like the weather.

No need to get rid of the habit of the ‘I’ thought. Just look at what ‘I’ really is… a thought. Not an orchestrator. Can thought think? Does it?

Is there a you thinking thoughts or are they just flowing by without a thinker?

[Tessmus]

Well, they are just flowing by I guess, but they still feel as if "I" am doing it, same as it feels as if "I" am moving my hand.

[graceabounds]

Bit quick there…

Before we circle back into hand exercises, go back and look into (not think about) the pointers in my last post.

and then,

I guess, but they still feel as if "I" am doing it, same as it feels as if

What is a ‘guess’?
What is ‘feel’ or ‘feels as if’?

:)

[Tessmus]

Thought can not think :)

A guess, something believed but not sure of? A thought.
Feel or feels as if, I "guess" :) its a thought as well, but one that is so overlayed on experience, that it almost "feels" like an experience, like that of "walking" or having a body etc ...

[graceabounds]

That’s it. Digest this :)
Almost feels like an experience… but when looked at, it’s nothing but a story, a habit.
No “I,” just content.

Is there, anywhere, an experiencer—apart from the content of experience?

What happens if you stop searching for an answer and just let it all be, without adding anything?
Is there any lack?
Anything missing?
Anything to do?

In other words what remains without the “I” story?

[Tessmus]

I see where you are pointing, but it feels impossible to take the step from intellectual understanding to "really seeing it". Something is holding me back. It's not fear anymore (at least it doesn't feel like it), just a strong desire. I am not sure what it is that holds me back, perhaps the desire in itself, perhaps some other beliefs like: "my mind is ready but not my heart", or "you are not worthy", or something like this. Just a story of course, but one that I don't know how to let go of.