I'm new here

[kookookachoo]

I'd like to start a dialog

[kookookachoo]

In reading other posts on here it seems a common practice to tell how you came to be here and what your expectations are.
I have been confused all my life, as long as i can remember. Trapped by thoughts. uncomfortably suffocated by endless chatter, trying to analyze and understand and figure it all out. like playing tug of war with life and people. Even when i was a small child.
Just in the last few years something has opened inside of me. There have been many many signposts along the way. Books, movies, seminars, conversations, arts.
i have changed. the world has changed. but what next, what do i do with it? I'm still hung up on me...

i don't pretend to expect to know all the answers but i will do my best to be honest in every way. no expectations

[Eloratea]

Hello K,

This is not about knowing the answers; it is about freshly looking into the actual experience as never before and answering the questions with 100% honesty.

If you feel ready to do it I would be glad to chat with you.

:)

[kookookachoo]

Thanks Eloratea-
i'm ready, when you are :)

[Eloratea]

Great :)

Do you exist?

[kookookachoo]

do you exist?
RIGHT TO THE POINT...i like it.

this question made my heart jump. and my head swim.
I know the canned answer from investigating and navigating the website, blog and forum.
I want to say no, that i am nothing. BUT.. i do exist. i am a part of this. whatever this is. i think therefore i am.
it feels like i understand it, like those "seeing eye" illusion trick books...
i know what it is, it makes sense, but cant really see it yet

[kookookachoo]

i like your avatar btw, really cool

[Eloratea]

Thanks for honest reply, K.
Yes, need to forget now about the canned answers as we have to do the „math“ here and come ourselves to the result. And just by looking into the actual, ordinary, direct experience, here and now.

So, does this what is right now includes you or it is just this - experience with the body moving, eyes looking, ears hearing, thoughts coming and going, but no actual self doing it? No thinker thinking the thoughts.

What if „I“ was just one of the concepts used to describe the experience, body-mind connection, but without anything real behind. And people start to believe in it, never checking what's behind, if anything?

Look into your actual experience, see how this idea fits and describe what you have found.
:)

p.s. I also like that pic, it seems to be someone, but if you really look…

[kookookachoo]

El-
the "I" that i refer to being a part of this is the one who feels and remembers and experiences this life.
I'm a part of this life force that is ever circling and ever changing and flowing
I make choices based on what i've learned from experiences that have occurred in this life. my ego drives my
motives. i do believe that i'm connected to this force... like a wave is part of the ocean.
my experience is different than your's or his or hers. although there are similarities to be found and
connections to be made, my experience here is my own. your reason for asking me this is your own.
who is asking questions if not you?

[Eloratea]

Hi there,

Are you talking from your actual experience or from borrowed information and beliefs?

who is asking questions if not you?

Question is being asked and answered or not.
There is an endless cause and effect play in life, which brought also to this communication right now.

Even machines can be programmed to apparently make best choices among more possibilities, but it is just a program running out.
Every snowflake has a unique shape and trajectory, still it doesn’t mean that there is a different self behind each of them.

How humans differ from this? If there is one life, like one ocean, how can anything be excluded?
And what is ego when you talk about it?
No learned definitions.

Stay well!

[kookookachoo]

EGO?
Good question. this really makes me think.
my EGO is the Judge. the ruler of desires. the one that lives and dislikes. the mode and median.
these are just identifiers. this is all just language, i can see that.
i've searched very long and hard for my identity. where i fit in. typically i don't feel like i fit in. this is confusing.
why do i always want to fit in?
to be told now that i have no identity beyond the self serving labels humans and society have given me... that's a big pill to swallow. but if it means what i think it could.. less complexity, less confusion, this liberation from thought and unfullfilling desires then i don't know why i wouldn't accept this reality.
i agree very much with cause and effect being ingrained in life.
i like your snowflake analogy. i just imagined a snowflake with a cute little face, like in the Disney movie Fantasia. and i thought how humans do this frequently, give identity to inanimate objects.
when i was a child i talked to the creatures that i imagined dwelling inside the trees. so this is something i picked up at a very young age. what a silly idea- i wonder why we do this?
is this the same as me? this "I" this character that was imagined to live with? It seems this is somehow connected to communication. a means to communicate and connect with others .. maybe? communication has always boggled me.
well im on a roll now but i fell the need to sit with this stream of conciousness for a bit.. wow.
:) well done El you sparked something here i think

[Eloratea]

Good inquire.

to be told now that i have no identity beyond the self serving labels humans and society have given me... that's a big pill to swallow. but if it means what i think it could.. less complexity, less confusion, this liberation from thought and unfullfilling desires then i don't know why i wouldn't accept this reality.

Yes, this is life’s movement toward more clarity and freedom.
It is not liberation of some imagined “I”, but liberation of life’s energy from projecting and protecting some false self. Ego is just a concept connected with the way of life based on belief in that non-existent self. Drop the belief in self and see what happens with ego.

when i was a child i talked to the creatures that i imagined dwelling inside the trees. so this is something i picked up at a very young age. what a silly idea- i wonder why we do this?
is this the same as me? this "I" this character that was imagined to live with?
It seems this is somehow connected to communication. a means to communicate and connect with others .. maybe? communication has always boggled me.

Imagination seems to be one of the mind’s faculties, creative tool, not silly in itself, but it becomes silly when we can’t know the difference between direct perception and thoughts and fantasies.
Children feel more naturally oneness of life and maybe express it that way, also as a way of connection when the feeling of separation begins.
See how it begins? Once the imagined entity “me” is created in imagination everything else through that lenses seems to be also separate entity and there comes a feeling of a big gap. But if you remove it, if you see that it is just one of the concepts, one of the interpretations of experience, which actually doesn’t fit very well, whole outlook is changed, gap begins to disappear.

well im on a roll now but i fell the need to sit with this stream of conciousness for a bit.. wow.

Good. Sit with this possibility that there are lots of unexamined beliefs and concepts not necessary for life. Keep looking into direct experience and see how things just unfold and how mind operates as a translator of what is going on, as a concept-maker; Sometimes useful, sometimes, just reality distorting.

El :)

[kookookachoo]

it seems like i've scratched the surface but i really want to go deeper. i'm trying to kind of free write so it may get a little jumpy
since this realization yesterday of the character ficticous person i imagined into being i've been observing more intently.
since yesterday i've been watching my life like watching a movie as it happens. feeling a little disconnected from emotion, but not really. it feels lighter. i'm watching my thought processes and even saw a gap between some thoughts. today i shared a puzzle with some co-workers to see how fast they could figure it out. and doubted that i myself could figure it out. most of us figured it out in about the same amount of time, but one just gave up. i felt accomplished at figuring it out. and wondered why would he just give up the chance to feel this accomplishment. so i assumed he was afraid to look less smart in front of others. that would be my fear. but trying to figure out why he would or wouldn't do it and although i know that this is superfluous perception, i still do it. i barely realize that i'm doing it. i felt connected to the ones that completed the puzzle and separated by the one who did not.
this feels expanded. fears come up momentarily then subside. it seems like its starting to make sense. and now its like its all around me, something opened up. and i don't doubt where this will go or anything but, right now. something has shifted in a huge way. it was there all the time but it was transposed by distractions. i feel like i'm on a roller coaster climbing the first hill with anticipation of the drop coming but i'm not afraid like i would have been on the true roller coaster. because i know that there is nothing to fear. its just an experience. flow with it.
this is my thought process tonight.

[Eloratea]

Great.
Watch that space between the thoughts; how thoughts come and go there.
Is anyone thinking them?
Is there anyone having an experience or it is just an experience?

[kookookachoo]

El-
the thoughts just come and go.. i don't know where they come from. they don't stick (obsessively) like before. they just glide in and out. just like i'm not sure who controls the breathing and the pumping of blood it just happens.
i don't feel attached to them. its like feeling the breeze