Unravelling (seeking a guide)...

[unravelme]

Everyone seems to have different post-gate experiences. Particularly, following this initial seeing, this period can be very fruitful in that more layers are seen through, and the "self" bit by bit is completely taken out of the picture.

Your experience of "melting away" is a common one too. It's seems to be the natural process of clearing away.

After my initial seeing, there've been about five clunks of seeing, some scary, some not, but always peeling away a layer. Life really is not as it appears to be.

All that said, it does settle into an new orientation being of life. The feeling of aliveness may be simply life being allowed expression in the body.

Hope that is useful...feel free to ask away if something should come up in response to this.

WIth warm wishes,
John

Thank you, John. That feels congruent with my experience so far. Yes, layers of self being seen and released. Mind growing quieter, whole system/body relaxing. Less emotional reactivity. More rest. And an ongoing process of enquiry. Thought or the brain wanting to understand its own dynamics somehow - how the whole illusion of self and separation are put together. So grateful for yours and others' guidance and this forum! :)

[unravelme]

p.s. I now understand why many other approaches to teaching this don't work - because they speak of this self that has to surrender or be dissolved or be purified as if it were real, and yet say it is an illusion. Have spent a lifetime wrestling with a phantom of imagination!!! Trying to be so goddamn virtuous and perfect. Oh my God! By confronting the ego, by trying to overcome it, we make it more real. We give it more substance. I guess this approach arises in other teachers out of incomplete seeing - perhaps still believing that somehow they have done something to 'achieve' enlightenment. That somehow all their efforts helped them, and that therefore others must strive as well. So much pointless striving! When all that is needed is seeing. This is the great equalizer - anyone can see this, if they look closely enough. If they want to enough. And therein lies the paradox. An insolvable one perhaps. Unless it is just that life wants this for itself and we are the process through which desire moves. Anyway, greater minds than mine have pondered this and written much about it.

Enough for 'me' to keep seeing, to keep feeling, to keep being. As if there were anything else to do!

[s-p-a-c-e]

Hi Nicola,

Enough for 'me' to keep seeing, to keep feeling, to keep being. As if there were anything else to do!

:D Quite!

Best wishes,
John

[s-p-a-c-e]

Hi Nicola,

Have sent you a PM, could you check your private messages when you get a moment.

With warmest wishes,
John