Who else is ready to look?

Postby **Ilona** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 6:55 am

Come in, bring your self for examination, we'll do it together.

Postby **Brant** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 7:16 pm

Hi Ilona.

I'm ready to look. Where do we begin?

Postby **Ilona** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:46 pm

Thank you for coming here, Brant.

Ok, so let's start from agreement. I ask questions, you look for the answer and you have to be honest 100%, answer at least once a day. It's up to you to come back, if you want the truth, I will help you see it, but I can only show you the door.

So, say agree and let the process begin.

What are you expectations?
Make a list of all that you expect this liberation to be like.

Postby **Brant** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:38 pm

Thanks for being available to guide!

Yes, I agree to the conditions. :)

For the moment of liberation I'm expecting a mental weight lifting away from (my) mind, like a feeling of knowing but from a deeper place. I guess a lasting and more profound version of my first and only minor insight I had a few weeks ago where I was brushing my teeth and realised I am not the sum of the parts of my body. I looked at my hand and 'knew' that my hand is still exactly the same - warm, with sensation but the me in the equation was totally redundant. It was only fleeting, but I'm pretty sure I was in the right ball-park for 'looking' albeit not intentionally.

After the moment of liberation, I'm expecting to be less judgemental and less resistant to what is. I will be less inclined to go down a spiral of negative thinking blaming things on external factors, making imaginative assumptions of people I've labelled in one way or another.

Is this enough?

Postby **Ilona** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:50 pm

Great, yes, that is fine. Now I'm not gonna say anything, but ask you to leave your expectations here and take a fresh look.

What comes up when I say:

There is no separate being/ entity behind words me/ I/ self, none at all as in zero. No controller, no manager, no witness, no nothing.

What comes up here, please inspect the feelings and thoughts.

Postby **Brant** » Sat Nov 12, 2011 7:39 pm

I re-wrote this and deleted what I had about 4 times over the past day.

I looked deep into this a few moments ago, and kept seeing a thought-feeling that there was a me doing the looking and seeking. I try to trace the origin or see what it is that's creating this thought-feeling and it sidesteps and I can't go any further. Not sure if I'm looking int eh right area here.

On a conceptual side, yes it definitely makes sense there is no me in control of things. This would mean the body/brain would be automatic which I've observed over the past year or so in bits and pieces of evidence - driving, scratching, eating... I'll do this without any conscious decision to do so. Control of thoughts - I can't seem to see where they originate... I can also see that I can't actually choose a thought - they all link from external sensation or from one cue of a memory to another - all like a chain but at times very subtle and hard to trace.

Postby **Ilona** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 2:48 pm

Sorry I was not here yesterday. We can carry on now.

You say that thoughts are not something that can be controlled. Yes, that is spot on. Now look at thought me/ I that is also a thought. Can a thought think or do anything?
Are these words special?

Postby **Brant** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 3:21 am

I really can't focus today, but I'm going to just write to make sure I don't go stale... looking at the I/me thought in comparison to an ordinary thought (like a table) did give me an 'aha moment' earlier today where I caught myself looking at the problem through the perspective of a self.

A thought can't think or do anything other than appear, but they seem to affect the path of thoughts and give the impression of choice of the next thought. These thoughts also have a distinct feeling that they belong to a me.

Are these words special?

I compare a thought of a table to a thought of myself. A table seems very simple and I have no emotional ties to it. The thought of myself however is always changing and it seems to have far more resources behind it than the simple table thought. I need to think on this some more, but I wanted to get something posted today...

Postby **Ilona** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:55 am

Yes, thoughts appear in trains, hehe. Or if you look at the sky, you see formations of clouds, none of clouds is more special to the sky, they all are clouds.

Look at word I and how the language is constructed. I is being used everywhere, but is it a special thought? Does it hold a view? Does it hold 'amness'? It's a label. Same like table, only word table points to something real, unlike the word I.

Notice how I is a word precede other words in the train of thought. Does it make it a driver?

Is there a thinker/ doer in the form of entity that is separate from everything else?

Postby **Brant** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:13 pm

Look at word I and how the language is constructed. I is being used everywhere, but is it a special thought? Does it hold a view? Does it hold 'amness'? It's a label. Same like table, only word table points to something real, unlike the word I.

The labels are just that - a label which contains a set of shifting thoughts / images. The label 'table' contains a bunch of different looking tables from memory mixed with imagination and a lot of blur. There is no emotional reaction when this thought arises.

The label 'pickled onion' is similar to table except it causes a physical reaction in the mouth. So the body / mind can't distinguish that this thought isn't real.

The label 'me' is similar to 'pickled onion' in that it creates an emotional response or a feeling. The mind / body can't distinguish this label from reality.

Does it hold amness.... this is a good question - it can't be answered with thought - only sensing. How can a thought have amness.... i need to think about this and post later.

Postby **Ilona** » Thu Nov 17, 2011 4:08 pm

It's not a thought that creates a feeling, it's attachment to it. identification is the glue that holds illusion together. i is just another word, with no power behind it. same as table is another thought with no power behind it. thoughts only point, they are not things in themselves. they are pointers.

tell me, what thought I points to?
what does thought 'me' point to?

have a close look and and answer, what does word Brant point to.

Postby **Brant** » Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:55 am

It's not a thought that creates a feeling, it's attachment to it. identification is the glue that holds illusion together. i is just another word, with no power behind it. same as table is another thought with no power behind it. thoughts only point, they are not things in themselves. they are pointers.

You're doing a really good job steering this - I never thought about things in that way before.

what does thought 'me' point to?

I sat down and kept repeating 'me' in my mind to see where the feeling would arise. At first me pointed to my body - each time I would say it my body would light up. After looking at it and questioning the validity of this I soon saw through it. Then I would say 'me' more and this time it hid behind the role of the thinker and seer. I'm finding it difficult to see through that as a lie. I know I can do it... just need to keep pushing.

Postby **Ilona** » Fri Nov 18, 2011 9:22 am

Look- thought me points to other thoughts ABOUT me, but no real me to be found.
You can spent years looking for it, or you can turn around and face it.

There is nothing behind thought me.
Me does not exist in reality.
It's just an idea, like idea batman. It's not real.

There is no me at all as in zero.

Write what comes up here.

Postby **Brant** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 7:30 pm

Label Brant is a bunch of thoughts. Me, I etc is a bunch of thoughts. This seems to be independent of an idea that there is a me. Like separate functions. How is it possible that a bunch of thoughts can have any physical relation to a controller of the body and mind?

Me seems like an empty word right now... it has no meaning. There are thoughts / images of the characteristics that make up the past but they seem disconnected from the operation of the mind/body.

How can there be an owner of this body? There was no-one for it to be given to. Me is the owner but there is no owner any more than the scarf on the wall owns itself.

Postby **Ilona** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 8:28 pm

Scarf analogy is very good, ha. Yes, what owns the body if not life itself?

Now look at a character brant. How does that work? What drives it? Can you see that is a fiction, brant is as real as character batman, it's got likes and preferences, but is there anything that directs it in a form of 'me'?

Let's see what you got here..
Going well. :)