Hi Stacey!
I hope you've had an excellent couple of days. Thank you for your comment, which I've reflected on examined against my experience inside and come to some insights; none of what I described is real of course.
Yesterday was another tear and laughter inducing day, which I want to share with you first. Who knows, it may be of use to someone to read it.
I spent the day working and by the late afternoon, all my thoughts were running, the veil of Me had well and truly come back over. I felt like I was me again and that I had lost what is real. In case anyone has read Zen, what is real is called Satori, a shift in perception that happens to be the Gateless Gate and where all concepts cease having any direct meaning. Want to be one with the universe there? Want to love and feel deeply? End suffering? All of that and more is available, and it's real.
I was a bit disappointed and thought I'd lost all of this. Doubt thoughts crept in, like, "Am I really ready for this? Maybe I have more work to do on myself, maybe it will be years until it comes back. I mean, many people spend a decade or more in a quiet monastery without permanently achieving satori and I'm just someone who's had a more normal life and I have to do a job that involves thinking all the time. Liberation Unleashed is great and all, but maybe it doesn't really help normal people to achieve full enlightenment, but only gives them a glimpse to get them on their way, maybe I'll have to read more books and do more seeking..." Then, of course, I felt the seeking and yearning feeling and tension start coming back into my body. All the while, I listened to another little voice in my head which knew, and told me, that these thoughts were all fake doubts.
Then, I reasoned that I had already had several brief glimpses of satori, beyond the Gate, in the past, including one many years ago when I was younger, and I saw that one of the main reasons I had "lost it" each time, or failed to come back, was precisely because I had let the seeking/yearning (and these thoughts) become my reality, as if I believed that there was something to come back to.
I told myself I cannot attain this by grasping for it. The only way one can "get it" is by truly letting go. So then I truly let go and the thoughts came: "You know what, even if it doesn't come back for years, it truly doesn't matter. I'm happy and content with the progress I've made, happier than I've been for a long time. I don't desire anything different. This time round I am just going to be content, because I am, and I feel life is teaching me what I need to be taught. Maybe I will be the Gate-crosser-back-outerer for a while, and that's OK." Acceptance came.
Then, sure enough, less than an hour later, I was reading pointers in the LU Enlightening Quotes app and did the following inquiry from it, while sitting in a crowded restaurant waiting for friends to arrive:
"How does your "I" work? Where did it come from? Is it the same "I" you were then years ago? [the answer is yes, btw] Where does it reside? Shift attention to seeing what is true about the sense of "you". Stay focused as much as possible on investigating "you-ness". Look now in your experience, and keep looking, at what "me" or "I" is, and relate what you see here. Really stay one pointed on that specific process."
Then...the shift came...back through the Gate. Yippee! I was now the Gate-crosser-backouterer-crossbacker-again. :-)
So, in case people wonder whether you can really still work a normal busy job and stay in this state, or come back to it easily if ever you feel you've lost it, the answer is definitely, "Yes". The universe is just flow, including your work and whatever is going on in your life.
I also wrote this reformulation of a pointer, in case it helps someone who chances across it:
STOP THINKING THAT WHAT YOU FEEL TO BE YOUR SELF IS JUST YOUR BODY/EGO!! That part of you which you feel most to be yourself, which you think is your ego and which has the seeking and suffering, is actually the Most Real part of you and is itself that which you are looking for. It's right in front of your face. You just have to SEE IT!! See what is real, and drop what is not real.
Now, to the last questions:
Describe choice & give examples from experience.
As I wrote in my last post about free will, choices are something that we think we make when we have the false sense of being a separate individual. We don't make any choices in reality.
It might be said that the Universe make choices, but that is not totally true either. Rather there is just choice happening. The only thing that we might say is true and permanent is change itself. Change creates the illusion of choice when it happens in the body/mind...
There are no choices here anymore. No me. There is only what the Universe wants. Fortunately the Universe still wants me to work, to help my clients in my work, to spend time laughing and playing with my son, to love my son and wife and family, to catch up with friends and have great conversations, to exercise...
Describe control & give examples from experience.
There's no control. Being through the Gate is the opposite of control. I still discipline my son and tell him off when I need to, I still "control" our pet cat by keeping him confined to our yard and house, but it just happens.
A more personal example for me is control when it becomes jealousy, in a relationship. Due to my past baggage and traumas, until very recently, I used to get jealous and insecure when my wife went out with her friends at night. I would be left at home looking after our son and, despite trying so hard not to, part of me would still be simmering, worried, insecure and suffering, despite also knowing that my wife is the love of my life, and that we are both completely faithful to each other. I would try to break the suffering by telling myself that if she wanted to be free, then of course she could be free. I would never take it out on my wife but, she is an Empath, who takes all feelings to be as if they are vocally broadcast to her, so she would still feel the undertones which I tried so hard to hide from her, and she would then get frustrated and tell me I was being controlling. This was so funny in retrospect, as at one level I felt I was always guilty without charge, but at a deeper level I knew she was right, and pointing to the truth.
I have realised that even saying to myself, "She can be free if she wants to", is subtly just another form of control because I am putting her in the box of someone who may want to be free, from me. In truth, there is no me for her to be free from and I know she doesn't even think in any of these terms, it was all just my projection. True freedom is leaving all this behind. Letting life be life, and love be love. Last night she happened to be out with friends, and so I just messaged her, "Love you babe, hope you're having a great time. Enjoy yourself", and she liked it. That was it, all else was dropped. No more insecure thought trains. Just mutual love and affection. Afterwards, my wife and I happily chatted to each other with none of the former dynamic.
What makes things happen? How does it work?
This may sound philosophical, but I promise it is from my actual, direct, perceived experience, that I once saw with my eyes, before the normal world came back:
Everything is love. All there is, is one infinite and whole expanse of love, which expresses itself as light, energy, being, warmth and energy. Because it is alive with its own love, it is constantly moving, expanding and folding back within itself, expressing its completeness and its wholeness. All of the universe, including all of us, are that. This is what all of creation is and it's life itself. It's our minds, which are themselves part of this creation, that bring the impression of this universe into being, but underlying it all, inside of it all, our essence of unfolding light and love never changes. Everything truly is one. And as that one is love, everything is perfect and is exactly as it's meant to be. [Drumroll questions about suffering and death from seekers....lol] [And btw, I saw all this without any drugs...know it's possible... and know too that some drugs, in moderation, even alcohol, can help the mind relax into these temporary states, if it's ready]
What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.
I feel responsible right now to maintain this state I have started to settle into. Of course, I know now that 'I' need do nothing in particular and it will maintain itself.
I feel responsible to let my heart unfold, to give expression to the love inside me and let it be expressed in any way it wishes.
Last night, I was walking back home and passed a busy, local restaurant. We live in a good suburb where people are generally happy and well-off. The restaurant was beautiful, with glowing lights in the darkness and silhouettes of all the diners there, and the lights, and sound of everyone happily talking and laughing enveloped it like a warm embrace. It was beautiful. I reflected on what a wonder life is and humans especially are: many of these people were no doubt still stressed and thinking that they were separate individuals, with their own lives separate from life. Though having a good time on a Friday night, I knew that they are all still busy in their lives, working hard, paying bills, having stresses in their families, marriages and careers. All I could think though was how perfect this scene was, and how perfect all these people are, even if they don't know it themselves. If I had gone in there, and listened to their conversations, I know that many of them would have been talking about things that are not even real. They would have been talking about their issues at work, gossiping, about their houses and whether property prices were going up or down.
But all I could think was that they were Heaven itself, that this scene and the people in it, were living and breathing perfection. All people are: the greatest treasure, more valuable than anything else, is inside of them, and yet they often can't see it. Then the realisation came to me, subtly, that this is why people who are "enlightened" often have this calling and desire to help others, and not just any others, not just people who are so obviously already happy and well-off (although it's perfect to help them too), but there is often this drive that appears, as enlightenment deepens, to seek out the poor or needy and help those who "need it most". The reason people feel this way is because the less people have in life, and the less we have too, the clearer and easier it is to see and experience who we all really are, which is perfection. Being close to this can be like living in Heaven itself. In our society, we all get apartments, houses, desks, cubicles, cars... and we spend our time working very hard to separate ourselves, to be individuals, and to be apart, which only takes us away from what is Real.
Anything to add?
Thank you Stacey and Ilona. Here I am crying and laughing again. Crying and sobbing now because the love can sometimes be too much to bear. I'm so happy and grateful. It's been such a long journey and, like it is for almost all of us, so tough and painful at times. I cannot express any more of what I'm feeling right now but gratitude and wanting to hug everyone. It's morning here, time to go out and enjoy the day!