The Gate

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
Babies live in undivided spaciousness but later language develops in us a feeling of separation which leads us to have a sense of an individual, personal self. Guiding would help remove the concepts and conditioning that have covered the unity of what truly IS. I feel I need help to return to this simplicity from someone who Sees in this way.

What are you looking for at LU?
I have been seriously seeking since I was 19 and am now 71! I think I may have learnt so much that I could have lost my way! I realise that the desire for liberation has underpinned my whole life and although I know so much and have practised so much that the clarity still eludes me because the sense of a me is still in the way. I want to return 'Home'. I yearn for a release from myself, free from looking to the past and future, from oughts and shoulds and all the concepts and labels that have tied this sense of me into knots. I want to finally drop the sense of me and all its unnecessary thoughts about it so I can see clearly and freely.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
I am sure I have blind spots which prevent me seeing clearly but which a guide would see more easily and help me to address. They could help me to look at where all my learning about all things spiritual and otherwise have clogged 'me' up and led 'me' to thinking I am a me. I am not afraid of being challenged (I used to be a therapist) and think I need to be kindly shocked out of this sleep or seeming 'hypnisis'. The guide would have seen it all before and know, from their own experience before passing through the Gate and also their experience guiding others. Because of that they would see what sticky areas of erroneous seeing remain and what needs to drop away.
I have read some of the cases in the Gateless Gatecrashers book and seen the skilful way the guide responds to their client. It can be so simple and I hope I am not one of those people, referred to in some of the clips I have seen about LU, who have used their intellect and head a lot in life and sometimes makes it hard for the Guide!
I expect mutual confidence, patience and courage in the process. I also want to be open to it in a way that I go into it in an open minded way. I will try not to second guess what might be said or try and protect the self but I think that is where the guide will recognise if I do.
It would be such a real gift to have someone who is on the the other side, so to speak, to point and prod me in a direction where I have the courage or ease to take the steps through the 'Gate' once and for all.....though this sounds, on reflection, as if I have expectations which I know I must leave behind for the non self to be seen for what it is ...nothing!
I feel great gratitude that I came across LU and to the guides that do this wonderful work.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
My first experience of meditation was at 19 with the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society. I then learned TM in my twenties whilst doing a degree in Religious Studies and doctoral work on CG Jung. When I was 30 I was initiated by a Guru in India and faithfully followed that for 25 year ~ I still feel very close to his teachings.
I worked for many years as a counsellor but towards the end of my practice I felt I would have liked to have done it more from a spiritual angle and looked into certain models but at that time I was unsure how much I would still want to be seeing the client from a personal point.
For the last 10 years I have been very taken up with non duality (many of the people you mention on your reading list I have looked into and many others I've read, watched and even met). It's only been in the last couple of years that I have been attempting self-enquiry which feels like a whole different muscle

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 10

Hi Debtree,
I'd be happy to work with you if you wish.
I'm a relatively new guide, by the way ,so certainly don't feel I have all the answers or that I've seen it all before - I'm still learning!
What seems to be important in making progress is commitment to posting AT LEAST once a day. That builds intensity so that the inquiry can be effective. Are you up for that? If, in exceptional circumstances, you are unable to post on any particular day, I ask that you let me know.
What do you think?
I look forward to hearing from you
Sioned

Thanks so much, Sioned,
I would very much like your help. New to it can often be a good thing! I’ll try not to have expectations and be a white board! I’ve been reading Gateless Gatecrashers and can see the way the mind resists and wants to fall into its usual patterns but I enjoy seeing how the guide helps the client to see past that. I very much look forward to you helping me and I’ll try to be a regular poster! I’m so grateful to you. Debtfree

Lovely to hear back from you, Debtree!
What would you like me to call you?
And where are you based? (It''s helpful for me to know if we're in different time zones). I'm in the UK, North Wales.
You've said something of your hopes and expectations in your initial post, but I'd like us to explore them a bit more now.
What do you think it would be like to see through the illusion of the self? What would you hope to get from that?
And do you have any fears at this point?
XX Sioned

Hiya, thanks for getting back. I am not so far from you, half an hour from Lancaster UK. Call me Deborah or Deb!
I suppose I’d love to be free from constantly owning so much I think, feel and do as an imaginary self because the assessing and judging as good or bad etc. is so tiring and creates no end of other problems and fears. All of that seems to just go to solidifying the sense of someone called Deborah and it is felt as very visceral in the body. I seem to keep checking and then judging feelings and sensations and seeing them as problems to the extent that I notice bodily tensions e.g the shoulders being unnecessarily raised rather than ‘dropped’ and at ease. It’s almost as if I’m trying to protect and hold myself together! My hope would be that all that would begin to be dissolved as I see that there’s no me and so no one there to have to look after ‘me’ and all is just living and experienceing without the help of an imaginary me. What I would hope to get from that would be a natural trust and ease of just being.
No, presently, I don’t have any fears as the fears I do have are all tied up with thinking I’m a separate me!
Deborah x

Hi Deborah,
It doesn't sound like there's anything unrealistic there. Though of course the reality usually doesn't turn out to be as we expect it will!

It sounds as though, for you, the strongest sense of a self is in the body, and that's an area we can focus on, at least to start with, and we can see where that leads us.
Do you agree?

Firstly, though, consider the following statement:
There is no separate self at all in reality. No agent that is in charge, no manager, no watcher, no owner of life; all there is is life flowing freely as one movement.

What comes up?
Sioned

Hi, what comes up with that sentence is a feeling of relief and although I’ve heard and read that before it still brings a feeling of ahhhh, lovely. I wish I could really know and feel that, embody it. As I sit writing this I can feel the calm of it right through the body but as soon as I get up or feel I should be doing something or if I start to think about what I should or could do the calmness goes and I’m back in a sense of me. There’s a whole story around being inadequate instead of allowing myself to just be. Would be lovely to have the sense again of a small child before it has any idea of what makes it good or bad and it just is.
Yes, maybe it would be good to work with the body, it’s not something I’ve done much. Deb

Hi
Lovely response!

Before we do anything else, I need you to get familiar with is the understanding that looking and thinking are not the same thing.
This inquiry requires you to simply look, to see what's there in your direct experience, right now.
An example of this is, if I asked you to describe what is behind your back right now, you can answer from memory (thinking ), or you can turn your head around and see, then describe what is there as you actually see it.
In this work you will need to look in your experience and put aside all that you "know", all that you think is true, all that you've heard or read. You need to simply trust your direct experience, to just explore from that..

Here's your first exercise!
Imagine that you are holding a spoon. Imagine form, size, weight, temperature. With eyes closed, feel the imaginary spoon.
Open your eyes: is there a spoon there in real life?
So how did you see that there is no spoon?
What happened to the spoon?
Did it disappear or did it never exist?

Let me know how that goes X

Hi,
I felt the spoon, it was cool, smooth, had curves, not heavy or particularly light. On imagining it I’m looking at it, it’s a dull metal and it has a bowl at the end of a longish handle and if I turn it over it’s got a rounded oval appearance and smooth and rounded surface and the handle feels different turned this way around. At the end of the handle there’s a different detail this way up. It’s comfier to hold the other way round. With eyes open it’s not there and never was there.

?! X

Excellent!
So you can imagine something very clearly, even though it's not actually there? It's not real?

Here's another..
Close your eyes and imagine you are in the kitchen. Visualize it. Look around, notice where things are put. Notice the space, the feel of it.
This is an image, it can it can trigger feelings and contractions or expansions, thought stories and feelings which are attached to them.
Open your eyes and again see how an image can be created and explored in the mind.
Then, go into the kitchen and look at the same things you saw in the image.
How does imagining and experiencing differ?

Let me know what you notice
X

What I noticed whilst imagining were lots of ‘stories ‘about decisions made, even arguments about choice of colours, where to put things, and then how different things were got rid of, old things brought into it and new things chosen. Also the pleasure of changes and choices and the enjoyment of having people in it, cooking, more arguments, disappointments. It was full of objects and feelings. When I went back and I looked it was seen as much less about feelings and memories and more about how it just is, more functional, pleasant to see but not charged with mental,feelings and emotional etc stuff.

That's interesting!
Try it again, but this time using the bathroom x

I imagine how it was when we moved in, the stuff we’ve changed and who got them, how we had to mend things and get new things and repairs done. I see myself in the bath and shower, on the loo, and how I was feeling, strangely often not very happy. I think of other people having showers, baths, etc. Strangely, it brings up more emotions and feelings and I feel a sadness and a sense of loss. There’s a sense of a lot of comings and goings. There are one or two things I want to change in there. Although it’s more of a functional room I feel more emotions, not sure if it’s just the mood I’m in although I wasn’t feeling that way before I started.
After feeling this way I felt a bit fearful before going in for some reason and when I looked at it I saw it more in its isness and I could recognise what thing was whose and memories of them being got but it was more factual and less charged with emotional memories. It just kind of looked back at me in a factual way. It looked a bit more untidy!

Isn't that interesting! Really strong differences for you, based on memory and imagination compared to the reality.
What about if you now bring Santa Claus fully to mind? Is he real?

Haha, memories of me in the bath, shower etc are all as real as Santa Claus but how to avoid them creeping in? Obviously once he felt very real but as soon as I no longer believed in him he was only real as a memory of when I believed in him. Is that the same as a constant streaming in the background of a memory and present belief that me is real?! Am I to try and avoid or distrust memories altogether? Very radical if so! I sort of get what’s going on in that only what’s seen now in front of my eyes can be reliable?