The Gate

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
This, for me, is about recognising we are one consciousness, there is no distinct ‘me’. I have had glimpses of this being at one with the vibration, and I have sensed and experienced a peace, before unknown in my life, where the attachment to ‘me’ drifts away (fleetingly). My understanding is that when I let go of ‘me’, the Self will be at one.

What are you looking for at LU?
I have already undergone a great transformation in my life and my intention is to continue with this, especially now that I recognise this as no great thing, but rather the simple cleansing and letting go of illusions. My life is simply dedicated now to the furtherance of my spiritual journey (liberation). There is a positive off shoot of this, that it helps me support others on their journey whether through coaching or facilitation work. But the crux is always to come back to self-enquiry. What I’m looking for, therefore, is a place to continue this work on identifying and shifting patterns and negative inner self-talk, connect more strongly to subtle energy, and to have more presence in the here and now. That is, to continue the cleansing process to more fully reveal who I AM.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
The beautiful thing, for me, that has come out of my engagement with tantra (both neo and classical) is the connection it has opened-up in my heart. That is a process that now can’t be stopped. I am looking for conversations where I can fully embrace this open mind, open heart principle, but shaped within a context of bringing focus to the question of who Am I?

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
I consider myself a practicing Tantrika. I have had some amazing experiences that I could never have imagined only a few years ago.; some ecstatic, some blissful, some traumatic, some painful. Yet whatever experiences I have had have all been no more than glimpses and temporary.

To support my spiritual practices I have undertaken a Tantra Diploma and Tantra Teacher Training certificate in neo-tantra through Tantra 4 Gay Men (practice based, incorporating spiritual enquiry/coaching and facilitation), and a certificate in classical tantra through the Centre for Excellence (theory based). I have a Kundalini Tantra Yoga Teacher Training certificate through the Mukta Tantra Yoga School in India, which my daily practice is based around.

Although initially trained in neo-tantra, I find I am greatly influenced by classical tantra, and other more direct approaches to awakening based on self-enquiry, such as, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Adyashanti, Christopher Wallis and Rupert Spira.

What I lack is a focussed self-enquiry context.

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

I'm not convinced you want what you say you want here Robert. This is not about "moving toward" no self, it's about the Life Blowing realization that there is NO self. All this that you're talking about here is about a "YOU", and there isn't one. Are you willing to give all that up to know the truth? That is what the question below is referring to.

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

Is that true?

Thanks @dkelso I think you are right, but I am still at the stage of needing some guidance to 'realise' this.

I think I can help you with the direction on the self inquiry. To save some time in this process, take a look at my website at deepselfinvestigation.com and let me know your thoughts about the approach.

Thanks Dan, I've had a look and this is exactly what I need. I've tried asking some of these questions myself through self-enquiry, but find I just go round and round in my head.

Hi Robert. Do this for me, describe step by step how you investigate the sense of self. How it starts, questions you ask, how you proceed, what answers arise, where you get stuck.

Hi Dan, an example was just prior to opening the email saying you had sent your message. I was sitting with a sense of pleasure vibrating throughout my body.

I enquired first where this was located in the body. After initially feeling it was all over, I realised it was focussed in the heart/chest area, emanating upwards to the head and down to the gut.

I then enquired about who was having this experience, feeling these vibrations? I instinctively thought ‘me’. So I enquired as to where this ‘me’ was located. My initial response was all over, within the interactions and the sensations vibrating throughout my body. There is no fixed me.

At this point I went into my thought process, located in my head. No fixed me, we are fluid, there is no fixed Self, we are performative. This is my habitual thinking based on Queer Theory. Not that there is no self, just that the self is not fixed.

So I thought, what if I didn’t have to believe this? What if, rather than no fixed me, there was no me? I couldn’t find anything. It was like there was no response. Initially I thought I’m not having an experience. But then I thought everything is an experience, so what was actually going on? There seemed to be silence.

But then my back started to hurt and I found myself asking who is it that is experiencing a hurting back if there is no me? It can’t be the witness, even though it felt like it was, as that would imply a ‘me’, and my mind flipped back to the notion that there is no need of a specific, fixed me, when I am the fluid interactions between all sensations, thoughts etc etc.

And I’m back in the mind …

Thanks for this.

Actually Robert, you never really left the mind. This was more a series of thoughts about the sense of self. The habit of attention is to follow thinking about things, circumstances, etc., (in this case the sense of self), and believing thoughts are the things/circumstances themselves. The way to gradually disarm this habit is to attend to perception increasingly more than thought. Self inquiry or investigation done effectively is 95% perceiving and 5% or less of thought.And it's important to know the difference, which most are confused about. This is all in the instructions sections of my website, so you may want to refer back there.

An example of confusing thinking with direct perception:

I then enquired about who was having this experience, feeling these vibrations? I instinctively thought ‘me’. So I enquired as to where this ‘me’ was located. My initial response was all over, within the interactions and the sensations vibrating throughout my body. There is no fixed me.

Questioning, "Who was having this experience?" Then there is an "instinctive thought (assumption) "me". The mind is now done for a while. From here on it's predominantly perceiving, what is this sense of "me"? There is just looking, probing, scanning with attention through the present experience of "me" to see what is actually there. See if you find yourself there. It's important to hold off on concluding (thought) when doing self investigation. Concluding something like, "all over", "no fixed me", are just ideas. Not only that, both ideas are completely false. You are not all over, you are getting a glimpse that there is no you!

This heavy attending to thought creates the illusion of understanding without any actual insight. That just leads attention to travel around in circles, never really leaving the mind. It's critical at this stage to shift habit to focus attention on direct perception and become very reluctant to rely on the mind to come up with answers.

Make sense? Give that a try.

; )

This is really useful, thanks Dan

Great, try that approach and let me know how it's going.

By the way, what country/state do you live in Robert? Also, I can't always get the LU site to open for me, so consider just using regular email to communicate. It will be a lot more efficient, and I check my email several times a day. I would suggest you check out my website, deepselfinvestigation.com, and contact me through email from there. There is also a lot of free instruction on there about self investigation, and It might be a good idea to do a video chat at some point. There are no fees for any of this.
Talk to you soon,

Dan