Hi Clarrie,
What a pleasant surprise. Such a quick response to my request for a guide. Thankyou so much. I’m looking forward to this journey. And very grateful for your time and energy.
You are most welcome :) It’s nice to meet you, even if just virtually.
Before starting, I would like to ask you to learn to use the quotation function, so our conversation will be easier to read later for both of us.
So here is the link to a video again how to quote:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=660
Thank you for getting through these questions about expectations. It’s important, because every expectation is in a way of seeing what is here, right now.
Every expectation is a ‘hindrance’ in realizing what IS. Expectations result in comparison. Comparison between what is happening, and the imagined expectation. Thus what has been seen can be thrown out or ignored, since it doesn’t match the expected outcome.
I will go through them, and notice if there is any resistance to any of it.
After much thought and a list of dot points ultimately this would be ‘inner calm and peace with however things are and with whatever arises’.
Yes, this is what we all want. But seeing through the self illusion is not about getting into a special state of inner calmness and peace, and not having half of the human emotions (the unpleasant ones).
Happiness or peace is a state, and no states are permanent, they are all subject to change. Seeing through the separate individual is not about not having any ‘bad’ or uncomfortable feelings any more. Rather it’s about seeing that emotions don’t belong to anything. They are free floating without being tied to or anchored to anything.
Many seekers believe that seeing through the separate individual is a completely different state that they are currently having, with some special qualities (happiness, bliss, constant peace or whatever). However, this is not the case. Seeing through the illusion that there is a separate entity (self) is not a state. When it is SEEN it, the knowledge becomes factual. Many seekers have the impression that seeing there is no self is a state to ‘abide in’. It's not.
It may slow down a bit. I may choose to spend more time being, rather than doing.
And what if there is no you how could spend more time being rather than doing?
But I would hope that however my energy was being channeled it would express itself more fully through kindness, connection and compassion for all of life.
What you are talking about is self-improvement. To be a better, nicer, kinder person. But seeing through the self is not about changing this self-phenomenon. It might happen as a by-product, or might not.
I hope my self perception/view changes. I hope my ‘other’ view changes. I hope that some fear drops away. Fear of what might happen to ‘me’ if etc,etc,etc. Fear has really dominated my life in so many obvious and subtle ways.
This might or might not happen as a by-product. It cannot know in advance how it will be. Why? Because all expectations come on behalf of a separate self, who is always in a search for peace, happiness, lack of fear and suffering. We simply cannot imagine it, since we cannot step outside form the separate self’s perspective. We can only imagine within the dream of me. The illusionary me is simply unable to imagine how it would be if it were discovered to be just a fictional character, and not a reality. It can only imagine what it wants for itself.
And the personality stays almost completely intact when the self is seen through. All the conditionings from childhood, all the traumas, all the gathered emotional pains won’t dissolve in an instant just because the self is seen through. These most likely will stay, however, they are much more accessible and easier to work with after seeing through the illusion. This is just the first step, just the beginning, and not the end. The falling away of conditioning can last at the end of the organism.
And I hope that I stop, or at least slow down the seemingly endless search for love, approval, connection, the next pleasure etc.
These will probably require some further investigation.
Please ponder on these comments to see your expectations from a different perspective. Because what I can say for sure, it won’t be how you imagine it to be. Since it cannot be known in advance. It’s never how one imagines it to be.
So it would be the best, if you could drop all your expectations, and just to be a clean slate.
I feel that I Cant shift this intellectual understanding into an experiential One
This is what will be the goal of our exploration, to see it experientially that there is no separate self, and not just understand it intellectually.
All I ask for is answering from your own experience, as you see it. Put all the books and videos aside, we are going to be focusing on what you experience, rather than what you have learned/know.
The basics of looking is this: you can tell me what is behind your back in two ways
1. You can think about it, remember and tell me from thinking.
2. You can turn around, see it and describe.
So in this investigation I ask you to look at and
describe what you experience and not what you think, remember or imagine.
Do you feel ready to start the investigation? If yes, please investigate the followings:
As you go about your everyday life, how does the self/I/me show up?
Don’t go to the story about the me, rather look at the me itself.
What is it like? What is it made of? Does it have a shape or a color? How big it is? And where is its exact location?
What does the word I actually point to? If you take a finger (literally) and land it on I, where does it land?
Can you see, smell, hear, taste, touch the I? Try it, with each sense.
Vivien