The Gate

Hi Karloyn:

Well, YA think! made me laugh. The mind is "such a trouble maker" only if you believe the stories it spins. When you don't believe it anymore, it's actually more of an entertainer than a bothersome house guest.

I'd like you to really just look at this one question again....is there a self anywhere that you can find, is there an I at all?

Remember that there are thoughts, but have you ever noticed that thougths don't think?

hugs,

Lori Ann

"Thoughts don't think" .... LOL ... that's good ... guess I haven't. And right now I'm certainly reacting to thoughts, pictures, images that are rolling around in my head regarding my son and what's going to happen next ... will he be ok or will he go down the rabbit hole ... out of my control, I know ....

.... between doctor visits, attorneys, the story just keep spinning ... way more drama than I've ever had in my life and I'm in resistance to it ... I don't like it .. LOL ... But at the same time I know everything is perfect ... I just don't like it.

The body reacts to it ... and there isnt a self ... but I must still be attached to that "me" thought. Clearly I am ... it's a bugger that one ... I got out Vicki Woodwards book yesterday, Life with a Hole in it ... thought it might help me gain a perspective that I've seemed to have lost ....

My quandry is always, when caught in one of these webs of illusion where the body is reacting ... where is the door to self ... I am in the dark in those times and feel like all I can do is hang on. Even checking to see if there is a self doesn't do much .... I'm on Mr. Toads Wild Ride ....

But I won't give up .... thoughts don't think !!!

I just wrote a review for Vicki of her book, posted it yesterday and just read it myself...ha, life if funny that way, the interconnections.

karolyn, when my 12 year old is screaming at me, when my puppy is nipping at me, when my partner is grumpy or even wanting out of this relationship, when life is lifing it certainly is not always pleasant. What changes when the me is seeen through, is not the pleasures and pains (I know you know this) but the attachment and reactions to either.

You are doing great by being able to see that you are not your reactions, you are not your adrenalin (though the body is), you are not your anxiety, you are not your future oriented worries, you are not your rescuer personality...yippee!

All that is left is to see, through direct investigation that you are also not a "me" to whom all of these happenings, are happening to. It's really simple, but not easy, to just look. Look right now..really, in the middle of whatever is happening, in the midst of feelings and thinkings and doings, is there a central entity that you can actually find as real to whom it all happens?

Or, is everything just passing through and the habit of "I" is claiming a central role?

Lori Ann

The habit is claiming the central role. Poop

Re-read the Limbo of Letting go in Vicki's book....and also, check out that habit...is it even real? What power does a habit have when the self that habits is just a thought?

I love how Vicki writes .... limbo .... letting go ...

I can feel that I've not let go ... with the "I" thought ... or with what appears to be the life that I'm living. When I think if the I, my body feels energetically different .... more condensed, tense. The letting go is more relaxed .... and the word "limbo" feels like free fall.

I an tell myself that I'm open to what's happening here, with my son, etc ... but the word "limbo" flushes out the truth. The "I" doesn't like that word .... but all there is, is limbo.

So maybe I'll soak in that word for a bit ... and feel the "free fall-ness of it" ....

Going lower ..... allowing ..... surrendering .... trusting .....

I sure must be a tough nut to crack ... thanks for hanging in .... Much love ... K

Hello tough-nut-to-crack :-)

I see that falling, limbo are by nature things we avoid at all costs. I am going to let you in on a secret, okay? The free fall is not without a sweetness, because there is such freedom and peace of falling from the mind into the SELF.

let me ask you, when you are "more relaxed" and when you are in the space of letting go, when you are spacious and still even in the turmoil, do you cease to exist? Or do you exist differently?

I am pointing to something subtle but important karolyn...is there any point, ever, that existence is not here?

Lori Ann

LOL ...maybe that should be my new name ...

No, existence is always there ... in silence, peace, turmoil ... just in turmoil I am less aware of it ... but I do my best to feel that space ....

tomorrow my son is going to be picked up and taken to a hospital for evaluation and will probably stay for a bit while he heals. My nervous system will welcome the respite from the rages, paranoia and appreciate the support .... I still am struck by the parallels of his process and mine ... We are both being asked to let go of the illusion and drop into sanity ...

And the idea of falling from the mind into Self sounds delightful ....

Just watched a you tube by Gangagi ...love her .... I don't know how many times I need to hear the same message for it to stick ... to drop into what is here ... into what never changes ... And John Sherman ... to just look .... To let go, to surrender to what is here ....

It's so obvious ... What is here holds everything ... My experience of "what is here" has been the outer and that's never been so comforting ... but that tiny little glimmer that I get when I bring attention to that place that is quiet, deeper is soothing, and soft, and accepting .... there is no me there, there is just experiencing, just being.

Was thinking that what I've been hoping for is for all experiencing to feel good ....for everyone to be loving and happy ...for "mean" people to become kind ... LOL .. but that cuts off a whole slice of the drama that is being played out ...

But it comes back to here ... to that which never changes ....

It's me again ....

What I just can't seem to find peace with is the knowing that awareness is the essential self while the outer drama rages and I feel and experience it as well. Vickie Woodward posted tonight that if your heart hasn't been broken you haven't found god ... paraphrasing .... what's happening with my son breaks my heart while at the same time I trust that the world is unfolding as it is meant to and that it's perfect ... wherever it goes .... There are just so many feelings .... sometimes overwhelming. I think that I've imagined if I can find a way to stay within that soft sweetness of the no self, that i won't have to feel the sadness, worry, concern anymore ....

Guess I've looked to this journey as a a hope that there is an escape ....

Every person's liberation is different and for some, seeing through the illusion of self brings an immediate relief from suffering--that was the case here, with me. Yet I like what Adyashanti says, that when we wake up it's like taking our foot off of the accelerator. The car might slow to dead stop, or it might have more momenutum..the car is the mind/emotions that might have their own playing out to do, before the full STOP...it's okay to feel sad, and to feel angry, and to feel afraid, and for the heart to break if that is what is here, it is what is moving through and to argue with what is here, well, that is suffering too.

Karolyn, it sounds like you have grasped the essential truth and more than that, are realizing it in discrete moments...these moments are without interruption, but you are able to access that stillness, that which does not change, that which is here all along.

There does come a point where the suffering ends--because the resistance to what is, has dissolved completely. I can attest to this possibility, and that you have ended up here, with me as your guide, is not by accident.

I want you to let go of trying. Don't try to be peaceful or try to find equanimity, if it is not there. Instead, see what happens when you let go into the fullness of whatever IS HERE. Fully allow, embrace, be with the movement of feelings as they arise. Dive in...I promise, you won't drown.

Let me know how this is, when you allow the heartbreak in all the way.

I trust you will report back in in your perfect timing.

big hug,

Lori Ann

This is perfect Lori .....
I watched a quick you tube by Ben Smythe this morning that said the exact thing. He said that sometimes when you stop running, and you start slowing down and begin to feel what is .... it can be like a freight train where the engine slows down but the cars behind haven't and start piling up behind. That all the junk that's been stored just can't be held back. His counsel was to be with everything as it is because that IS WHAT IS ... in that moment ....

That's what I feels like is happening ... I have been on the run my entire life, trying to escape the emotions that are here now .... I guess what I needed was the permission to feel all of them ... but this time it's within a frame work of "presence" ... I guess I was hoping I could say they were illusion, thoughts, and that would be enough ... but clearly there is more to it for me.

There is a difference, for sure ... I'm not identified with them nearly as much in terms of being this person going through whatever drama is happening ....

As you said, .... Maybe it comes down to being true to your own unfolding and not trying to emulate or copy someone elses. I am feeling my way through this and letting my body go through the waves that appear ... the fear, sadness, the uncertainty .... everything I've tried to make go away my whole life .... I can sure see where I have been using "spirituality" as another escape.

You're right, I won't drown ... LOL .... and sensations/feelings never killed anyone .... so let the freight train cars slam up behind me. This must be what will bring me to the opening that I now is there.

Thank you again for your wisdom ... it's incredible how it always dovetails with everything I read, or see, ... .DUH ... of course it does. But just know that I've never been a quitter ... (ok maybe a time or two, but now when I "know" to keep going.

Love you for loving me through this ....

Just checking in.....

Thank you ....

Still on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride ... and yet not resisting it like I was.

There is something that's coming with acceptance of Life as it Is .... maybe not in every single second, but when I remember ... The I thought continues, but at least I see it as an I thought ... and I'm able to feel the deeper quieter place.

I was listening to Gangaji again and she mentioned an addiction to suffering. I think that has been something that got engrained ... conditioned. When I open to what is, I am at peace. My son continues to provide the show and just can't seem to understand why I am not up in arms and enraged at how he's being wronged ... but there isn't anywhere where it finds a home.

I can see that the search has been to help the conditioning go away ... to feel better ... never considered opening to what I have worked so hard to avoid ... the anxiety, the fear, the worry .... but seems it's just a matter of not taking it seriously ....

And in the end there is no me to take anything seriously ... it's always been the physical sensations that I found difficult ...the anxiety, the dissociation ... but when there is no fight to make them go away they do ....

So I'm riding the ride and managing .... not disconnected from the I thought quite yet ... but believe that will happen naturally in it's own time.

Yes, in its own time, which might be now!

liberation is not freedom from experience (as you are noting) but freedom to experience! And yet, to not get caught up in that experience.

So, then, again my dear Karolyn: In the midst of all this play of life, as you see it now. Is there a you? Is there a separate self, and "I" any where at all?

Lori Ann.