The Gate

Here is my into letter to Ilona, her response -- and my response to her respone (yikes : ) The problem is that "I" will never get there and no matter how silly I know that is -- I stumble on that capital "I".

Hi brook.
You are awake already. Just a matter of admitting it.
I gave you posting rights, feel free to engage.
You may copy this message on one on One section as intro. If you like somebody specific to guide you just call up the name.


Much love.
Quote brook Re: Hello
Sent: January 9th, 2012, 10:43 am
by brook

Thank you Ilona -- I read your conversation with Esther on your blog -- I see you discussing exactly this "dark" place I entered as the idea og self began to be released (the sense of "everything will turn to light") --

"Dear Esther, yes doubts come back as cleaning up process starts. All conditioning and programming that was connected to the I thought has to be cleaned up. Just like after a storm there is lots of rubble. Mind is seeking to be hooked up with I again, but it's not there anymore. So the structure, habits of thinking is starting to fall.


Good thing is- all is happening by itself, no matter what you think about it. So trust the process, and examine the old beliefs, check if they can stand the fire of truth."

You said it. That is exactly it. The good news is something is knowing that here -- there is a deep trust in this process -- especially in the automatic nature of this process. I even want to talk myself out of it by saying "yeah but I was almost awakened and then BAM!!! right back to the drawing board." But something just keeps watching and being here. I can't go back even if I try -- as It seems I am right now : ) It's all part of it. I think it might be helping that I didn't have any idea of a spiritual path before this stuff started to happen.

I will post tonight when I get back from work -- thank you so much for your reply. xx
Quote Ilona Re: Hello
Sent: January 9th, 2012, 9:37 am
by Ilona

Hi brook.
Welcome here. You got posting rights, feel free to engage.
You can start a topic in home section an just paste what you wrote here. I'm sure somebody will have a few questions and once it's clear that you have seen through illusion of separate self, we'll make you blue and invite you to unleashed. If you inspired to help others, we'll help you with that


Much love.
Quote brook Hello
Sent: January 9th, 2012, 12:17 am
by brook

Hello Ilona,

I am writing you as the first step in contacting this group.

My story is fairly simple -- after having had some experience of the truth at a young age I went on with my life very identified with the whole dream. I had never been much of a spiritual seeker and I forgot about it.

A couple of years ago (2010) I became involved in Oneness (Sri Ammabhagavan) through an old friend.

Fairly quickly through this experience -- deeksha -- and the Oneness processes; I found that my mind was operating as usual but that I wasn't that concerned about it.

About a year later, after many experiences of being no person at all in what seemed like "higher states" of conciousness, something happened -- a sort of permanent shift that I called "180 degrees".

I walked out of the train here in New York City and I just saw that the states come and go. I didn't need to seek anything anymore. Something -- a voice -- very strong in my whole being just said -- stay right here -- let it all come at you. There is no need to go anywhere, there is nowhere to go.

After that followed many many months of peace (since March 19 this year). Things came and went. I knew I was not fully enlightened or anything but I really didn't care anymore. It was clear that in a way, it's inevitable, and it was just amazing to experience truth in such an immediate way, the comings and goings of the mind be damned.

At one point, in October of this year -- the presence of this sort of -- completely blank and totally all encompassing joy at existence -- this sense of complete unconditional love -- grew so great that I remember going to sleep one night -- maybe around November 1st or so -- and again a clear voice said in my whole being "everything will turn to light" and I knew that there was no doubt of that.

The next day I woke up and found myself in a state I would describe as very similar to all the years previous to this breakthrough. I felt as though I had passed through some sort of wall or membrane -- into this light but what I saw when I woke up was that everything had been left behind. The joy, the peace, any ideas I had of it. God. Love. Everything. The only thing I could still find there was a sort of emptyness -- but the potential for joy and bliss was always there -- still arises -- yet there is no more sense of any meaning to it.

Since that day I have spent much of my time (as always) going about my tasks in the everyday world (I am married with two children 7 and 8), which are quite extensive in a pracitcal sense. I am not sure what state this is called anymore. My teachers in the Oneness community called it Awakened State, but not full awakening. I think that's a pretty good description. There is a process here, there's a sense that it's just needing to happen and that there is nothing to do.

As I go deeper and deeper into it -- without the thrill of the spiritual chase so to say -- I question everything.

I like the format that i had read from Lori Ann on her blog about this group dedicated to discovering what you are not. Some deeper voice lets me know that this is where the truth lies.

So I come here, not so interested in whethere i am awakened or whatever you call it -- but more interested in interacting with anyone (and I can definitely tell just by speaking to someone , that's the other shift) who is on the other side and who can help me see what I am not -- how I am still asleep and what this dreaming is all about.

Thanks for creating this site and please let me know how to proceed : )

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Brook!

i too know the potency of deeksha--this experience in 2005 really rocked my world. It was as you say, "an awakened state." Through other modalities, (kundalni yoga, tantra, life!) I also was graced with awakened states.

I hear you saying you are wanting to have an exchange with others on the other side of the gate, a kind of check in to see if you are still asleep..

You mentioned a kind of "emptiness" that you've been experiencing since the march dream. Can you tell me more about it? DO you find your thinkings and feelings are running the show, in daily life? Is this emptiness operational? If so, how?

curiously!

Lori Ann

Dear Lori Ann!

I am so happy it is you who replied as your blog led me here : )

About the emptiness:

At first -- about two years ago -- I noticed immediately that my thoughts and feelings were not running the show anymore. That is -- they were no different but I was not feeling like I needed to engage them any further than just seeing that they were there. This went on until last March.

After the "turnaround" at the subway -- I noticed that it was the same with states -- all kinds of states could come and go but they were not me -- I didn't feel bound to them. That included any sort of bliss or "higher" state; it was just another state, not better or worse.

Recently -- about two months ago -- the peace that accompanied being free of feeling bound to states and thoughts and feelings seemed to bloom into a sort of sensation -- like my whole being was vibrating with it -- with this quiet joy and appreciation for whatever was there.

Then this total emptiness came -- literally one morning.

What I mean by emptiness is that the fullness of that joy -- that sensation of -- um -- I guess unconditional love is a good word but it doesn't so it justice -- vanished. I felt like a large empty lake. I felt like nothing.

The reason I am engaging now is that into this nothing seems to arise every clutching, wrenching sense of being tied to thoughts and feelings and obsessions etc. Nothing different in my head really, just that it's grabbing at me now successfully after 2 years -- very intensely. Also I am struggling again with drinking, smoking, and waves of self righteous self importance and feelings of being victimized, etc. -- not that none of that stuff had been there over the past two years -- just that I didn't feel trapped EVER in it -- now in some ways i do.

It seems as though since this pulsing joy and sheer love of being had emptied out into a sort of knowing nothing and not needing to be anything at all -- these old machines have more pull or something. I guess I could say that I am actually suffering now again -- in the sense of not being able to be with suffering without fighting it. The trust in the process is still there -- but it's harder now.

So emptiness -- a sense that this vast and wonderful nothingness is so close and so perfect -- but that it is easier to get pulled out of into a self than it was to be pulled out of fullness.

Hope that makes any sense!

Love,

Brook

More direct answer : is this emptyness operational and if so, how?

It just came right out that this empytness makes it impossible for any idea of the self to hide anywhere anymore. Part of me wants to totally gag at that, which surprizes me, since I really seemed to love the truth. So much for that idea.

Hello Brook:

i get that the some of your last "karma" for lack of a better word (the last vestiges of a self selfing) are rising up in the compulsions such as the drinking, or the thoughts that suddenly, after two joyful years, have traction

I also deeply sense that you are awake. I see my own journey in your narrative, and I also see a journey I have not perhaps taken. I know that every awakening state/or full awakening is unique, even as signposts have been put in place by Buddha et al.

Adyashanti says that he first woke up in his mid twenties and then spent 15 years in various degrees of suffering and drama pull, before his second big awakening from which there was no more self to ...well, slide back into. :-)

My humble sense here, is you went well past the gate. But let's play here, and see what happens. In the spirit of curiousity and wonder.

So two questions:

If the idea of the self cannot hide anymore, where does that leave you?

What part of you wants to gag?

hugs

Lori Ann

Yes Lori Ann-- it's so true that it has already happened -- that realization cannot be undone by anything or anyone or any mind.

Yet -- in this process -- apparently, because it's happening LOL -- there is room for all sorts of stuff and different ways of moving. Maybe this is happening because I was not on a spititual path -- maybe it's random.

But one thing is for sure -- it's not a compulsion or a feeling or a thought that we are investigating but this emergence of somebody -- or this really powerful illusion of somebody whose got it, that compulsion, that thought, that belief -- that we can investigate -- if it's ok with the rules of the board. Maybe it's useful for people down the line? I am strongly guided that it is useful to me to do this -- to investigate the after effects as if they were exactly as the initial dream -- just because I sense it -- but also because it seems to speak to the deeper realization -- that it is not whether I am awake or not awake -- but whether I am awake right now or not. So right now I am simply READY. (Ugh -- I hate that word -- brilliant choice : )

So -- if that's okay -- lets do it! Just as a note -- NONE of my process so far has ever been in inquiry -- not one single word -- with another human -- so perhaps that is a missing link for me. Thank you so much.

To answer your questions:

You: If the idea of the self cannot hide anymore, where does that leave you?

Me: That's really hard to say. Before the idea of the self was there, it's not a problem. As soon as the idea of the self is there, it needs to hide. So not hiding the self or the idea is .... LOL!!!! The only word I can think of is exhilirating. I mean it's a feeling like walking into a wind turbine fully concious. The sensation is amazing. But an instinct says -- STOP. So I am left in conflict with this instinct.


What part of you wants to gag?
The part that gags is the part that had hidden itself from death. I don't know what that means -- it just came out.

Love,

Brook

SO Brook:

As i read back a bit on this dialogue, I see it's not the thoughts or sensations or compulsions arising that are causing this sense of suffering, but rather the sudden resistance to them again, resistance which arises as thoughts of inspection/doubting/concern.

I trust a sort of implicit flow to all things, and this morning while I was sorting bills, I was listening to Lisa Cairns online utube satsang--and she was going on about this very thing, that an awakening is a not about and I WHO AWAKES, but is rather a FALLING AWAY OF THE I so that what is here, is seen. What is here, is here! And she mentions, that fear or anger arising when one's SELF has fallen away, are simply experiencings without thinkings/judgements/resistance that the "I" would have created.

So back to you-no you. :-)

The part that would gag you sense is that which did not die/fall away; It's rising up as a story of a no-self who was awake and unbound by conditioning/nonreactive and joy infused, then got into an emptiness that then resulted in a strange return of clutching/grasping.

So this is fun. It's like the hall of mirrors in a carnival funhouse. The return of story in a storyless place. The emergence of selfing in no-self. I wonder here. What if you play it full out. Go with it. Resist not. ENgage fully. Let it run the show, or let it die, or let it..be! There is no real you that affected one way or another.

What do you think. Just be with it? And what would that look like?

Lori ANn

Can you be still as this r

Just be with it. From the deepest place I can see -- that is truth. And actually, that is already what is there. To tell you the truth -- I see the arising of the story in the "no story" came out of a feeling of lonliness. And somebody got born into that experience. What it would feel like to have only the lonliness, the utter responsiblilty of that lonliness which is only and only an experience with no one at all to claim it. When I allow that there is peace. No -- there is joy. A great stillness. Our lonliness. Our great human jewel. Such a many-faceted brilliant feeling with such deep color. but so deeply intertwined with becoming "me". Bt's not really, is it? It's just a great deep song. When everything and everyone is real except for me -- there is a love -- a depth of love and peace -- that is so acute that somehow in that moment the thought " I wanted to share this!" created a person to share it. No, first it creates another person to share it with, and then I was there. LOL !!!!

I see that perhaps I need to take that self as is .. to hold it as something just as vivid as an experience. I don't know. Maybe there is no self, there is only the self. What if this is all there is?

Then there is a great big NO!

What if that great big no is just a no.

I think of holding that great little no like a child.

Could I love this?

Just like I love my own children in what ever way they are.

I don't want to know if I can or can't.

I just want to hold it.

I don't want to do it right anymore.

I just want to do it.

hehe

Then as Nike says, Just Do It!

I will get back tomorrow if more arises here, in the writing backness

hugs Brook (the brave and true)

Lori Ann

YES !!!!!!!

You pointed it out. It happened after I poured my selfing there and then sat with it today during work. I wanted to write you all day to thank you but I am not on email there.

It was such a simple error I can't believe it ::: )))))

The realization that there is no self came through experience (in the past) of actions "thinking" "seeing" etc. etc. -- you know -- I know -- no one is doing them. So that realization came through that experience that no one was there and not through it being pointed to -- it was just obvious through experienceing without resistance -- which the deeksha helped with.

But here!!!!

AFTER the realization a new action arised -- an action based on the realization itself -- "selfing." The Return of The Self LOL.

It has the word self in it -- even if I didn't call it that -- I was experiencing the action and I felt the word.

So I made a mistake.

I thought selfing must be somehow more connected to the fiction of a self than any other action.

Whoops!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so funny. You are right. What a house of mirrors.

That's what tipped me off in your words -- its fun -- its a house of mirrors -- its selfing.

There is selfing but no selfer.

Love to you!!

Brook

Beautiful seeing, beautiful truth! "There is selfing but no selfer." I'd say you are cooked for now. :-)

Here are some rudimentary funhouse questions from the LU handbook to play with, slightly modified here:

1. Is there a you, at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form that is selfing?
2. Explain in detail what the selfing is and how it works.
3. How does it feel to be liberated from the mistake of perceiving a self who is selfing?
4. How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about no separate entity ‘me’?

Or also you might just want to share what arises, the the wake of this freedom from a simple perceptual mistake?

big hug

Lori Ann

1. Is there a you, at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form that is selfing?

No.

2. Explain in detail what the selfing is and how it works.

Selfing is a thought creating the appearance of a self-vestige after the core belief in the existence of the self has been seen to be untrue. Because it has never appeared in this way until after the realization that there is, in fact, no self -- it feels very vivid. It works by attaching itself to various other thoughts if concern and feelings of inadequacy that had previously been attached to, and arose because of, the orginal belief in a separate self. In some ways it is identical to the original sense of separate self that was created, but there are subtle differences. It is not as all-encompassing or threatening as the orginal sense of being a separate self. It operates like a smell which evokes a vivid memory.

3. How does it feel to be liberated from the mistake of perceiving a self who is selfing?

Great! Confident. Empty. Patient. Allowing. Safe. Generous.

4. How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about no separate entity ‘me’?

I am not sure it would make any sense to describe this exact thing unless someone has had the first realization -- but to describe the first realization and the deepening of it now: the problem is not the self. The problem is that there is no self. If there were, we'd all be fine and everything would work for us pyschologically. But, because everything we are attempting to become and do and all ways in which we relate to others and the world and ourselves ASSUME that there is a separate self at bottom, we are in great conflict, not because it's selfish or "wrong" or that we should change, but simply because it isn't true. This false assumtption is so deeply unconcious and so central to our interpretation of everything that is happening to us, that we are able to speak about it at great length and still not see that we believe something that is untrue. This assumtion must become concious and be examined in the light of reality in order for the truth to be seen. After it has been clearly seen -- everything makes much more sense. As far as any further "selfing" -- it's important to continue to confirm that something seeming to be there doesn't have any impact on whether it really is or not. It's important to continue to confim to ourselves that thoughts cannot tell us what is true, no matter what they are (or how they smell : )

Yes! i love the analogy of a smell/fragrance.

I think what is here is a liberation from the intoxicating scent of selfing :- )

I'm going to ask Ilona and some others to peek in on our thread here and see if they have any more questions for you. Stay tuned!

hugs

Lori Ann

Dear Lori Ann,

Thank you so much for all your help!

I think this was important for me -- I really feel a deepening here of this liberation. What's interesting about it is that it does have a different flavor now ... it seems more in line with the blooming of allowing that emptiness. It's a very very subtle "realness" that is even less dependent on states than before. I really welcome it and I am very grateful ::: )))

A while ago I had the insight that "doubt and belief are two sides on the coin of ignorance" (another one of those things that just pop up). I seem to have been working through the belief side for some time now. I feel like our work has been on the flip side, adressing the untruth of doubt -- just as important.

Love!

Brook