The Gate

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
In the early human experience, there is a focus on the internal mind dialogue, backed by external factors (parents, siblings, teachers, society, etc.), in which a false sense of identity occurs. A sense of self, or person, is formed and in doing so, separates itself from others. From this sense of separation, there is a sense of lack that occurs.

What are you looking for at LU?
To stop learning. To start experiencing from the Truth. To bypass the sense of self and tap into Oneness as the primary awareness. To find a method in order to do this as all previous methods seemed to be from the perspective of the personal self, trying to find real answers.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
I would hope for direction; a process that will undo the sense of self. To be able to get help in uncreating the personal self and its attachments. To have one-on-one guidance and the ability to ask questions and have questions asked would be wonderful. I look forward to sharing experiences with someone who has dropped the personal self and has witnessed the Truth.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
I studied with Mooji in Portugal. I have also spent time with Byron Katie and Abraham Hicks. My primary go to references are Nisargadatta maharaja and Anthony DeMello.

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

Unfortunately you had to wait for a long time due to the high number of new applications.
Are you still interested in having a guided converstaion?
If so, has anything changed since your intial responses?

Hello Matthew. Thanks for replying and I have no problems with the waiting. I appreciate anyone who offers their time for someone else. Nothing has changed in regards to my desires and I look forward to the guidance.

a process that will undo the sense of self

To be able to get help in uncreating the personal self and its attachments

So you want to undo, uncreate the sense of self.

To bypass the sense of self and tap into Oneness as the primary awareness

What if this sense of self was just one of a myriad of glorious aspects of this Oneness, this primary awareness.
An innocent appearance. Like colour, like sound. Like a tree, like a bird.

No need to undo a tree, right?
No need to uncreate a bird, right?

How come you want to undo and uncreate this sense of self?

I agree that it is likely as you describe. However, the personal self seems to be foremost in the awareness; attempting to control life to gain a sense of security, criticize and judge one's self and others, seek attachments for sense of fulfillment, and others. It seems that the identification with this personal self is the source of one's suffering. If one's aware was just as focused on the bird and the tree, it might change perspectives. :)

What changes perspective is to see that "personal self" for what it really is.

Then it may appear or not.
Like a tree or a bird.
You won't be fooled by it anymore.


The personal self that you believe yourself to be right now.
With name, age, gender, political view and so on.

1. How is that any different to a dream character?
2. How is that any different to a movie character?

Cognitively, it appears to be the same. Within the phenomenal reality, does the individual have will power or is it just part of the movement of consciousness? There appears to be a dynamic state and a still, awareness state or emptiness, which the dynamic manifests. When "my" attention moves from the dynamic back to the stillness or vice versa, who is making that decision? Isn't consciousness all that is and that it is the body-mind and yet the body-mind is within the consciousness? Or is it simply the phenomenal and the awareness of the phenomenal? Thanks.

Isn't consciousness all that is and that it is the body-mind and yet the body-mind is within the consciousness?

The body-mind does not preceede consciousness.
Consciousness preceedes the body-mind.

The inaccurate materialistic view goes like this:
World -> Human -> Consciousness

Reality though looks like that:
Consciousness -> World&Human

Furthermore, what you call body-mind is just a patch of colour at the end of the day.
A patch of colour, which thought labels as body-mind.
There is nothing special about this patch of colour compared to others.
Colour labelled "body-mind", "person" or "human" is no more special than colour labelled "car" or "door".
(Buddhists speak of the form realm.
Moreover, looking even closer, there are not even separate patches of colour. It is all one huge patch of colour. Not even colourS, just one colour.
Not even colour. On the closest possible look, it becomes apparent, that not even the terms colour, sound, sensation and thought are inherently existent. They are also made up, superimposed upon reality.
On the closest possible look, all terms subside.
What remains here is naked experience/awareness.
Buddhists speak of the formless realm.)

does the individual have will power or is it just part of the movement of consciousness?

Colour does not have will power.
Colour cannot want or do anything.

When "my" attention moves from the dynamic back to the stillness or vice versa, who is making that decision?

There is no such thing as attention or attention movement.
That would be just more content, story, movie.
Experience is always exactly as it is. Nothing is more or less in focus.
Attention or attention movement is just a thought addition to experience.

who is making that decision?

Attention is made of thought.
What is making the decision for a thought to come up?



Think of a number between 1 - 100.

...

...

Did you choose what number would appear?
Where did the decision and the number come from?

If all of the phenomenal is but a thought, where is the thought arising from? If the phenomenal does not exist, why does their appear to be experience?

I will answer your questions.
But you have to answer my questions as well!

Ok. Many thoughts appear from no-where. At times, thoughts appear to rise from memory. If I want to drive from Washington state to Texas then my memory tells me which direction and where I need to go. Thoughts seem to appear from no-where as a response to memory but then return from where they came. I can claim to have memory, but when I say it is mine, I realize that there is no me.

The number 50 came into my thoughts. It came from no-where and retuned to no-where.

thoughts appear to rise from memory

And what is memory?
Is it an apparatus that creates thought?
Isn't memory also a thought?

Is there anything special about a "memory-thought" compared to a "fantasy-thought"?

Have a look!

Memory appears to be a collection of thoughts based on past experience. I wake up in the morning and I remember from previous days. In the phenomenal, memory appears to give the perspective of time and space. In my dreams, there is little memory, so there is no perception of connecting one dream to the other.

In the phenomenal reality, memory-thought appears real and not a fantasy. From a higher perspective, none of it is real.

A thought appears that my friend Byron Katie said, "When you stump your toe, the pain is real." How can we say that the pain is not real when our sensory tells us otherwise? Cognitively, we can believe that it is not real, but in perceived reality, it appears to be real.

"When you stump your toe, the pain is real."

No - absolutely not!
Pain and suffering appears to be real in a movie, too, doesn't it?
But in the end, it's just an empty image. Pixels.
There is no real suffering in a movie.

memory-thought appears real

What says that memory-thought appears real?

Memory appears to be a collection of thoughts

"Collection" is also just a thought, or isn't it?

I wake up in the morning

No, you don't. You never sleep and you never wake up from a sleep.
The only thing you TRULY know is to be awake.
Or don't you?

If I am watching a movie, I do not perceive the pain. However, if I am experiencing the movie, I appear to be experiencing the pain.

A person appears, there is recognition. A tree is visualized, there is recognition, etc. Memory is responsible for the recognition.

Collection is just a thought.

It appears to come down to experiencing. If there is an object that experiences another object via the senses, etc., there appears to be separation. However, if consciousness is all that there is, then is there just experiencing, or is there no such thing as experiencing?