The Gate

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
In 1985 I "experienced" being no self. I couldn't find myself or time. I saw that I was making up pictures/movies in my mind outside of time and calling those made up movies the past, I saw that I was not talking, not moving when I was speaking or walking. It was visceral and a giant relief. It faded quickly and now I occasionally "experience" it.

What are you looking for at LU?
For years I've been looking for some kind of final push over the edge - permanently - so that I could completely snuff out the habit of identification with separation from Reality. My wife and I frequently talk about the "gap". The gap is almost always there in my experience. There is almost always an "I" observing a two-dimensional projection that poses as the world. It's like the world appears cradled in my Being as ONE seamless "thing". It is a very visual and real "perception". But, there is still a gap between I and IT, between what feels like "me" and what is appearing as a unified wholeness that we call the Universe - suspended in my Being (not outside of me). I intuitively feel that LU will be a big help in that regard. That's all that I'm looking for - the permanent dissolution of the gap where there is no distance between I and IT.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
I expect the guide to point out where I am attached to certain erroneous beliefs, misunderstandings, habits of labeling perceptions, etc. that keep the sense of a separate I in place.

I expect the guide to reflect back to me the obvious incongruities that are keeping the sense of a separate I alive within me.

I expect the guide to notice when I am faltering in my commitment to be totally honest during a guided conversation and to point that out to me.

Even though I have directly experienced the freedom of life without a self and I know the giddy relief the comes from the direct perception that all my stories about my personal life are about as solid as a soap bubble, my mind still conjures up some trepidation when contemplating its own demise. So, I expect the guide to assist me through any fear, hesitation, or a wanting to turn tail and run from the demise of my fabricated self.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
I'm almost 70 and I've been "on the path" all my life. God and religion were my favorite focuses when I was a kid. Done all kinds of things. Learned TM at 20 years of age. Became a TM teacher at 22. At 35 I found myself "on the road" with a couple of American “gurus” who focused on the direct experience of pure energy and its relationship to the Divine. Traveled all over the US with them doing all kinds of practices that were designed to raise energy, raise vibration, raise our consciousness of the presence of God. That's when I had the direct cognition of no-self I briefly describe in my first answer above.
To elaborate on that, under the direction and supervision of one of the teachers, I was doing a three-hour "be-with" with another student. That is, we were sitting across from one another and simply looking into the other's eyes. About an hour or so into the exercise I felt that my partner was consciously approaching and about to gain access to an area within me that was off-limits to her and everyone else. She was knocking on the door of the mental room where I stored all my secrets, all my hidden inadequacies, and fears. I started to freak out. I knew that if the exercise continued she would unearth those secrets, and that couldn't happen. Every fear in the book raised its ugly head. What if she sees I'm a complete spiritual fraud? What if she sees my constant and deep need for approval, to be better, more wise, more enlightened than everyone else. What if she exposed my core fears of I am never going to be "good enough", "spiritual enough", or "pure enough"? What if she saw through my facade and had a direct look of who I really was. What if she saw all that stuff I was doing my best every day to hide from everyone? That was frightening beyond measure.
At one point, when I had no place to run, no room to turn away from her. Her gaze was just too intense, too conscious, probing, and honest. And, because if I did not finish the exercise my time with the teachers would come to an end (at least that's what I believed), I felt that I had no option but to open the door and let my partner in. So, I felt forced to decide between letting her into the most intimate part of my heart or running out of the room and cutting ties with the teachers and the work, which I really didn't want to do.
So I let her in all the way. As soon as I did I disappeared. I jumped out of my chair and started yelling out loud. “I’m gone! I’ve disappeared!” I can’t find myself. I remember looking at the chair I’d just been sitting in and looking for myself. I actually looked at a mantle thinking somehow I’d find myself sitting up there. Everywhere I looked I could not find my self; I could not find an I . And it was a colossal relief!
I had never heard of or given much thought about being without a self. It was totally new, unexpected, awe-inspiring, freeing, energizing, mystifying. Not only was it clear that I did not have a self, what was equally clear was that I had never had a self. The whole thing of self had no reality whatsoever. The clarity of the “experience” last a half an hour, perhaps. Yet the reality of it has stayed with me through the intervening 35 years. All the meditation, contemplation, spiritual inquiry that I do is to “get back” to the continuous experience of that.
To that end I’ve done some pretty intense self-inquiry (The Enlightenment Intensive) for the past 25 years with my wife. I do TM a few times a week. I do some kind of meditation every day. Usually, I do a technique that I call “Awareness Aware of Awareness.” That involves sitting down for an hour or two allowing the attention to be on awareness. When the attention wanders I just gently bring it back to Awareness. That’ it.
So, I do a lot of reading meditating and contemplation. These days I find myself reading non-dual books, especially Rupert Spira's books and YouTubes. I've studied Tolle, Adyashanti, Mooji, Ramana Maharishi, Wolfe, and more.
Four or five times a week for an hour or so my wife and I will practice non-dual dialoging of what we call the “Direct Experience of Reality. The intention of that dialog is to close the gap between the observer and the observed. Included in that is the intention to have a direct experience of no distance, no space, no choice, no inner, no outer, just THIS as it is.
All of the above seems to help, a little. But the nagging sense of a separate self usually is apparent during and after whatever technique I’m doing. So, I want to close that gap - permanently. That’s my whole purpose in contacting LU.

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

Hi release100.

Warm welcome to the forum. We can have a chat and see where it takes you.

I hear what you are saying. And can you do this- find the sensation that you are calling the gap and really look at it. Where is it felt? Is it something that life is happening to or life is happening as? Is that sensation in between you and life?

I made this video, that will help to see https://youtu.be/LXrfQqvwIcU
Write what you notice in your experience.
Is there a sensation that can be identified as separateness.
How do you know? And what is this separate from?

Love.

Ilona,

Thanks for doing this for me.
To answer your question, what I call the gap is not a sensation. It is more like a seeming-ness. In other words, it seems like there is a subtle difference between me and what I am aware of. Does that make sense? I directly experience myself as being the context/container/screen of a seamless UNITY that I know is me but I still feel separate from IT. Make sense? There is me and there is this UNITY of EXISTENCE (which most people would call the outside world) that exists within me but feels separate from the me that contains IT. I don't know how else to describe my "situation".

I don't think there is a sensation that can be identified as separation. Or perhaps I could describe the sensation as a lack - a lack of feeling/sensing/seeing/directly experiencing that the computer screen is me, for example.

Hope this makes some sense. I'll wait for your reply. Thanks!

And my name is Blaze.

Yes, it seems, I hear you.
But is there?
Did you watch the video?


Love

Is there?

I know it is not.

Yet at times I am aware of the intimate UNITY and other times that awareness, that intimacy is not there. That's when it seems like there is a gap.

When I notice that seeming gap I can get quiet and in that quietness, the gap dissolves and I can become aware of the ONENESS, the intimacy. But not always. And it seems like the gap is there most of the time. That is, most of the time I don't have the luxury of sitting down somewhere and quieting myself so I can "tune into" gapless UNITY. Also, it seems that the gap dissolves as an activity of the heart.

Another way to put it is that most of the time, almost all of the time, I have a sense of a personal I that observes an outside world. I know that the personal I is just a hypnotic suggestion but I can't seem to shake myself free of that suggestion most of the time.

I watched about 1/2 the video. I'll watch it again from the start. What I saw was very good.

Put your hand over right side of the chest and feel the sensation there. Just honest sensation, without trying to manipulate it or name it anything.
How does that area feel?
What are you noticing when putting attention on the energy?


Please spend your time with questions. No rush. Examine throughly. Spend a day.

Love.

The first thing I notice when I put my hand on the right side of my chest is is that the experience does not belong to me. I notice that the "me" is superimposed over the experience and really has nothing to do with the raw experience of hand on chest.

I also note that, at times, I seem to be waiting for something, some kind of merging experience. Some shift, some insight. I want to get this exercise right.

And there is also a tendency to want to impress you with how good I am at this. Better than most. A standout. Just being honest.

I also notice that my mind toggles between claiming the sensation of hand on chest is happening first outside of me, then inside me, then outside of me, then inside of me, and on and on. I am aware that this toggling and habit of needing an "inside me" or an "outside me" location really does not have anything to do with the raw experience.

I notice that my awareness toggles between experiencing first my hand then switches to the sensations in my chest. But in the final analysis, its really only one sensation, one experience.

If I really focus as much as possible on the sensation only, if I close myself and relax into the one sensation and do my best not to resist the buzzing in my ears, the intruding thoughts, emotions, the habit of identification (more thought), the toggling, and whatever else is not actually the raw experience of hand on chest - I notice that the "experience" fills up awareness (or being or whatever you want to call it) and there is nothing else. The awareness/sensation is very much alive. Pulsating. Real.

You stand out with your honesty, so thank you.
Let’s look at that energy that wants to merge. When it shows up, notice it and observe that energy. It’s a sensation, and an invitation to look at it. Wanting to merge is calling. Acknowledge that. Meet that energy, agree with it. And then inspect, what is there that is separate? Look behind that wanting and see what you find there.

Describe your experience

The wanting to merge, a longing of love, a call home. Follow it.

Then look, is there I that can merge?
And what is here already?


Love

Will reply tomorrow. I want to sit with what you suggest for a while.

Well, it is a sensation. One I've never thought to investigate - taking it at face value - a raw urge to drop the self and merge with God. It has thoughts attached to it. And feeling. And emotion. The thoughts are about "another" or "another state". God, Highest Self, the Love of the Universe, and the state of Completion, Unity, etc. The feeling is longing, wanting, deep desiring. The emotion is missing something deeply intimate to me. Some frustration at times because I know what that is (the freedom and instant relief on no-self) yet can't seem to "return to it". The sensation is around my chest and heart area and its a welling up sensation - a welling up of "longing energy." As I pay attention to it I notice that it actually starts in my solar plexus area. I also notice a very slight, almost imperceptible clenching of muscles in the chest, shoulders, and upper arms. A slight increase in the cadence of my breathing. It is definitely an energy. A familiar energy.

Is it a separate energy? No, it is one with everything else that is arising. I don't seem to have any control over it. Just like I have no control over the clock ticking in the room. It just comes up (along with all the thoughts, sensations, emotions and feelings described above). The intensity changes. Sometimes loud. Sometimes subtle.

As I experience the sensation of the longing, I notice in an odd way that it is not really personal. The deep intimacy is not personal although my personal self wants to claim it as "all mine." That's a revelation.

As I follow it, the sense that it is just "another thing appearing in me" becomes clear. Following in more deeply I sense or notice that what I am wanting to merge with is that which is aware of the longing - awareness itself. As I follow it with the intention of only observing it, it diminishes and disappears, leaving awareness in a quiet, undisturbed state.

So, to answer your last question of "And what is here already?" I would have to answer, just me, just myself, just me the observer.

Great work. Thank you for looking
And let’s take a step further.
Is there an observer?
Or is there observing happening?
Is there A being? Or word being is a verb?

What do you find?
Love

Is there an observer? Or, is there just observing? Your questions strike at the heart of my "quandary."

In the direct present moment direct experience of observing a sensation such as my hand on my chest, I notice only observing and I do not notice an observer. There is just awareness. It is clear there is only awareness on that razor's edge of real NOWNESS. Only awareness.

Actually, there seems to be just the experience, just the sensation without any observation from an external observer. It is almost as if the experience itself is both the observed and the observation simultaneously - at that would make the experience itself the observer, that would make experience itself its own observer. Hope that makes sense.

From another point of view, the sensation of my hand on my chest is that which is ising NOW. And that ising-ness (Being) seems to arise by itself independent of both a need for or dependence on an observer.

Further noticing shows me that it really doesn't arise in time and space and that it just is.

What I am most interested in is maintaining "this" point of view most of the time - my current situation is I notice all of the above mostly when I am quiet, and that usually means eyes closed and sitting. That's my real quandary. Or maybe I am deluding myself.

Thanks much for your deep "pointing." I love where this "is going."

You are very welcome, and thank you for looking at this deeply.

This is not a point of view. It’s what is. Clearly and obviously here. And it’s always here now, in the present. Is there other time than present moment?

You may watch this video by Alan watts and tell me what you notice from this angle? https://youtu.be/G4j6cUwCRmI
Is there a permanent state?
Or this, that is is ever fresh, spontaneous and free to show up as it pleases?

What feels true in experience?


Love

Watched the video. Powerful. Clear. I notice, after watching it, that This (what I call the observer/observation/observed) is IT. This is IT. That's what I notice. Somehow more freedom from the past. Oneness is more prevalent. Less need for control. Less seeking. Unmasking of the compulsion to find a non-existent permanent state. This, and always This, is the permanent state no matter what it looks like, feels like, or seems like. I feel a bit untethered from everything other than This. It's a very real sensation/experience/Reality. This kind of stands out. By Itself. Independent of...anything but Itself. This is now. This is here. And although change seems to be happening, there is a non-changing texture to It. I can't verbalize that. It's the intimate beingness of it all.

I see clearly that my need for a permanent direct experience - how that need shows up - is also It when it shows up. I hope that makes sense.

All this is becoming clear. Not just because of the video. Your pointing and prodding is a big part of it. Yet, there seems to be something bigger at work here, too. Not sure what that is but I know it has to do with This. Just This.

The fullness, the completeness, the only-ness, the obviousness of This is what feels true in experience NOW.

Wonderful! You are staring right at IT.
Can you tell me what are you noticing in every day ordinary happenings? Is there a difference from before? What hasn’t changed? What looks different?

Have your expectations been met?

Love.