Strange Farewell

[SoulSail]

Hello All,

Admittedly, I've been very absent, so I can't say that I even have much familiarity with everyone that comes around Astral Dynamics now. Several names here are still familiar, I haven't been gone that long, but probably long enough so that some of you reading this may have zero idea who I am. And who I am isn't at all important.

I came to say goodbye nonetheless. The long "search" for "enlightenment" ended today. It's over. Not that I went anywhere at all, other than away entirely. I didn't give up, there was just the last fatal seeing. The man I thought I was, was in fact a fiction. Funny, after years of meditation and reading about Awakening and practicing everything under the sun, there was only a madness about my head, a constant rustling and turning over in frustration at coming up with fumes rather than freedom. Awareness dodged me often. Just this churning ache to get free. Well...

This morning as I drove to my girlfriend's house the conflict reached it's peak and with one wide sweep of intent and urgency I planted my resolve to wake up. Wake up and do so without apology or thought for any other thing. I felt like a bomb going off from it all. Now or never. Now or never. Now. Now.

At around 2:00 today I was there again, in the struggle, trying to figure out how "I" was an illusion as The Buddha and pretty much every Advaita-thinking human insists or insisted on. How was it that I could will my hand to move if I didn't exist? How could I will thoughts forward in the mind if I wasn't willing them? No need to argue with the experience, things move, thoughts come, but there "I" was all the time. Everything to that point was restless struggle with mere intellectual knowledge.

Then came the snap.

The realization. "I" was doing everything all along, only, "I" wasn't Andy. Almost like possession with no entity possessing the body. The true mover is moving and here this mover saw nothing of Andy in this shell, only itself. Those "I" impulses were always the One, but with a mind like we humans possess, the impulses, thoughts, feelings, all got hijacked and turned inward, creating something it could comprehend and protect while blocking out the real source of thought, will and intent. But I won't bash the ego, that was all part of the plan it seems. Nothing has ever been out of place for one second.

I never had time to say goodbye to that man. There was no such thing. As I write, I feel rather stunned. This isn't the liberation Andy went out for years ago, but it's truth. There is one thing. Period. There is only One thing. Look in the mirror and see yourself. Look in your dogs eyes and see yourself. Pick any set of eyes and you're what's looking back.

In our dreams, mind creates an environment, a hologram of sorts and our dream self moves around there. Upon waking, the dream ends. In this case, one level up, while awake, when the dream ends it's the dreamer that's vanished and what was previously perceived as real is shown for what it is. Vanished is poor word for what was never there to start with. It's all negation. You ask, "Is it this?" to find that it's not "that", but something is forming in the white space between all the things you wonder about.

And as I write, whatever IS, is sitting amongst the ruins of what it had only been pretending to be all along. The jig is up. Game over. Thoughts of how to navigate this all are very present because there is no more reason for any search. There was nothing here without a point in being here before this. What now? There is no what. The last analogy that comes to mind is that of a stage.

"I" was on it all my life, playing the role of this Andy fellow, and suddenly he remembered it was all for fun, just fiction and his real persona recovered or is recovering from that long amnesia. Done acting the role, there's only this. The story is still writing itself, still there is movement and experience, but like a sock puppet or wind through an instrument. I figure that the neural channels in this brain are still so wired around the experience of what was that it will take time to settle with what is now, but It's all so very odd.

Before I sign off, I want to say this to anyone that's reading with interest. If you want to know what IS, you are slotted for it. It's in the mail. Be careful it's what you want--with truth, that is. I sought relief from suffering and never found it. When that longing was discarded for truth regardless of consequence--collapse followed rapidly.

Meditation is nice. Teaching's are nice but almost entirely churned out to make us energized and triumphant or better or more knowledgeable or fitter or happier or more realized, but that world is nonsense. Notice, there is no semi-apologetic tone here any longer. No more "IMHO", thank God. I'm not concerned about anyone's take on this because, as Nisargadatta Maharaj so aptly put it when asked why he didn't feel compelled to help others he said, "There are no others". You are me. I am you. One thing.

Just this knowing this.

I wish you all the best, please feel free to email or post here if you have any comments or questions. Just realize I'm holding no special position. It's your position too, whatever it is, and when I say "your" position, I mean it's really mine.


Andy

[wstein]

:)

[CFTraveler]

You humans make me smile.

[SoulSail]

You humans make me smile.

Especially while playing Hide and Seek. Really, you should see the expressions I see when "you" see what's hiding in the most unsuspecting of all places.

[IA56]

Hi SoulSail,
I might missunderstand what you write here, but the feeling what your Writing gives me...is....that you are somehow dissapointed??
When I did discover the same (if it is the same thing as my Discovery of the NOW)...so I am surprised you give the feeling of dissapointment and have to say Farewell...for me it was to embrace the ALL.
So..am I missunderstanding your Writing so totally??
I have to re-read your post again.

Love
ia

[IA56]

Hi SoulSail again....You write...
"I'm not concerned about anyone's take on this because, as Nisargadatta Maharaj so aptly put it when asked why he didn't feel compelled to help others he said, "There are no others". You are me. I am you. One thing".

As you write that we all are ONE and the ONE is collected from many fragments, right? and as long as not all fragments has come to ONE I feel responsbillity to stay around to wait for everyone to come and understand. So everyone every fragment is me, right?...then I am not totally ONE Before all has come home so to speak...I am sure you will see this too...I am not trying to stop you, you do as you feel you have to do...but are you truly ONE when not all fragments has understood that yet??..still you are out there and seeking to become ONE, right?..so I am staying and helping the rest of me to become whole too..:-)

Love
ia

[ButterflyWoman]

Andy, all I can do is smile and nod. :)

Well, I can share something else. First, the mountain is a mountain. Then, the mountain is not a mountain. Then, the mountain is a mountain again. Right now, for you, the mountain is not a mountain. How long it remains that way, well, that's an individual thing. But one day you'll realise, "Hey, it's a mountain again," and even though you will know that it's not really, it will be, simultaneously, and you'll be okay with the mountain being both not a mountain and a mountain all at the same time. Might not make sense to you right now, but it will. ;)

(Apologies for probably mangling up with is undoubtedly a beautiful koan, especially in the original Japanese. The mountain being not a mountain is a classic Zen saying, however. And the day I finally got it was a very entertaining day, indeed. :) )

[Sinera]

"I'm not concerned about anyone's take on this because, as Nisargadatta Maharaj so aptly put it when asked why he didn't feel compelled to help others he said, "There are no others". You are me. I am you. One thing"
I wonder if solipsism is really the best and only conclusion one can or 'must' derive from the awakening-to-oneness process.
:|

[IA56]

I wonder if solipsism is really the best and only conclusion one can or 'must' derive from the awakening-to-oneness process.
:|

Hi Sinera,
I do not understand what solipsism does mean, is there Another Word for it??

Love
ia

[ButterflyWoman]

I wonder if solipsism is really the best and only conclusion one can or 'must' derive from the awakening-to-oneness process.
It isn't solipsism. It just isn't. Oneness and solipsism are entirely different worldviews.

What SoulSail is talking about is the realisation that there is no need or requirement to act or not act in certain ways.

[EDIT] Solipsism is the inverse of Oneness. Solipsism is EXclusive. Oneness is INclusive, in the most universal way possible, although that's actually only just barely scratching the surface. I could write paragraphs about it, but it wouldn't matter, so I won't.

[IA56]

Hi Sinera,
I do not understand what solipsism does mean, is there Another Word for it??

Love
ia
Solipsism (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Speakerlink-new.svg/11px-Speakerlink-new.svg.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/En-us-ncalif-solipsism.ogg)i (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:En-us-ncalif-solipsism.ogg)/ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English)ˈ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)ɒ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)l (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)ɨ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)p (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)ɪ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)z (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)əm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English#Key)/ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English); from Latin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language) solus, meaning "alone", and ipse, meaning "self")[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism#cite_note-1) is the philosophical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy) idea that only one's own mind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind) is sure to exist. As an epistemological (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology) position, solipsism holds, that knowledge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge) of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism) and other minds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds) cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics) position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.

I did find this...

I can only say what I have noticed...it is that the field...is us...and that to experience one self is through this field...so to speak...you arise im mids from the field..you are the field so to speak...it is beyond duality totally....in duality is what can be named so to speak...but as a field or essence...is only ONE and that is us all ...It is very hard to try to explain with Words though..it is an experience and a knowing as a field filing...when you enter into NOW you can sense it already to be this way...

Love
ia

[Sinera]

The way it was worded sounded a bit like solipsism to me. Also the conclusion of this person mentioned (Nisargadatta Maharaj) is not understandable to me: Why not feel compelled to help others? Why refuse compassion and help?

For me it would be the other way round: if the others are me and we are all one, wouldn't it be the first logical thing to "help my...self"? ;)

[ButterflyWoman]

Why not feel compelled to help others?
Do you understand what "compulsion" is?

[IA56]

Hi SoulSail again....You write...
"I'm not concerned about anyone's take on this because, as Nisargadatta Maharaj so aptly put it when asked why he didn't feel compelled to help others he said, "There are no others". You are me. I am you. One thing".

As you write that we all are ONE and the ONE is collected from many fragments, right? and as long as not all fragments has come to ONE I feel responsbillity to stay around to wait for everyone to come and understand. So everyone every fragment is me, right?...then I am not totally ONE Before all has come home so to speak...I am sure you will see this too...I am not trying to stop you, you do as you feel you have to do...but are you truly ONE when not all fragments has understood that yet??..still you are out there and seeking to become ONE, right?..so I am staying and helping the rest of me to become whole too..:-)

Love
ia

Hi Sinera,
Why did you take SoulSails quote out of my Writing, and it does look like I said it when it is Soulsail who did wrote about Nisardagatas saying?? and made it look like I said it?? That is totally missleading.

Love
ia

[Sinera]

Do you understand what "compulsion" is?
Yes, I think so, alhtough as you might know I'm not a native English speaker and some connotations or denotations might of course escape me.

The way I understand "feeling compelled" does not imply an outside force for me, it has to do with one's own will - hence the 'feeling' aspect. And that has also to do things out of love and compassion, it is maybe an idiomatic expression of how your feelings for s.o. else or your feeling of compassion 'drives / compells' you to act and help / assist another 'fragment of me'. At least that's the way I understand it.

[DerFürst]

If you do not feel compelled to do anything, then that probably means everything that you do will from now on be completely your decision. Not being able to be excited nor disappointed means clarity all the time.

[ButterflyWoman]

If you do not feel compelled to do anything, then that probably means everything that you do will from now on be completely your decision. Not being able to be excited nor disappointed means clarity all the time.
Yes. YES. This, exactly this. :) Except that you still have the ability to feel stuff like disappointment and anger and joy and pleasure and everything else. It's just experienced from a very different perspective.

Sinera, I didn't mean to imply anything about your English. I know you're not a native speaker, and I wasn't picking on that (I think your English is excellent, by the way). I meant for it to be something you had to think about (the concept, not the word, necessarily). To be compelled to do something is not that far off from feeling something is required. You "must" do this or not do that, etc. I just meant that from the point of view SoulSail is experiencing, there is no compulsion, and no requirement. It is truly liberation. :)

[eyeoneblack]

Inspiration is a commodity like most any other; no matter how much you start with, at some point in time your stock will run low. The important question is - shall I pine for the lost inspiration, try to refill the coffers, or simply accept, as far as inspiration is concerned you have come to end of line and just simply BE?

If there is some wisdom here it depends on that answer. Yesterday I was baby-sitting my 10 yr old grandson and he was complaining he was bored. I told him that a whole lot of Life is Waiting, that's all. People of the World hate waiting. It's got to be one thing and then another, an another and on and on.

How can we know and be comfortable with ourselves if waiting, enjoying our experience of ourselves, is boring? What can be boring about BEING? The landscape of our expanded self that is not self is wondrous beyond description. What can be lacking then?

Drop me a PM anytime you may think to Andy. I check in now and then.

Richard

[SoulSail]

So I just finished writing a swell reply to everyone's points and it was shiny. Then I hit Post Reply and it was gone at needing to log on again. Bummer. I'm not going to try for it again, so I'll leave with a little story.

You hire a magician to come to some important event. This guy is good. You and all your guests watch magic trick after trick after trick. You "ohhhhhh" and "ahhh" the night away. He turns the room into a scene from days gone by and there you are in it. For a time you almost forget, or do forget, what's happening. And as the evening draws to a close, just as your attention begins to wane, he says he's going to perform his best trick yet. You wait in anticipation. You're really focusing now. The room is so quiet. He tells you all about your life while slowly waving a wand overhead. How does he know everything? It's all there! Your whole life! He looks over the room and suddenly you're seeing through his eyes. How can it be? Did he actually conjure you into existence? How on earth did he pull you into his view like this? Just then you hear him whisper, not so much in a voice, but in a subtle knowing--"You, dear one, were my best trick yet.'"

"I am?"

"I am."

You pick your wand, shake it all off and walk past the mirror in the lobby. There is no reflection. Story ends.


Questions for you:

1. Who went hungry?
2. Who suffered?
3. How many fixed and independently existing people are in the room?
4. Who is heartless?
5. Who is bored?
6. In what mind did everything originate?
7. Did any of the conjured characters interact with reality whatsoever?


That about covers it though my analogies have never been very good.

All is well...


Soul

[wstein]

Hi SoulSail,
I might missunderstand what you write here, but the feeling what your Writing gives me...is....that you are somehow dissapointed??
When I did discover the same (if it is the same thing as my Discovery of the NOW)...so I am surprised you give the feeling of dissapointment and have to say Farewell...for me it was to embrace the ALL.
So..am I missunderstanding your Writing so totally?? NOTE: I am not speaking for SoulSail but from my experience.

From what I know, the 'NOW' is not what SoulSail realized. First there was no discovery, only realization/remembering.

The few people I know that have become awake/aware/enlightened to some degree all have a kind of dismissive tone when talking about it. This is true to the point that it seems anyone still looking forward to or happy about it hasn't gotten there yet. The thing is that it lets all the air out of the sails, then the sails blow away too. Rather than be left with something, one is left with less than they 'had' before. Its all so disappointingly simple, obvious, almost uninteresting. While this may seem like disappointment, its not even that. Geez thanks.

[SoulSail]

I did try to address IA's point, but lost it, so I'll have another go at exactly what's happening in my present experience.

Before I do that, let me say that any mention of "I" is me using the most familiar handle there is. But make no mistake, there is no I. It's more than "one is left with less than they 'had' before'". That's close, but it's not only less--it's all. Sure, there's a body here, thoughts humming as they did before, but there is nobody home. No-body is doing this. And what is here is, as ButterflyWoman pointed out, a mere interface, the point at which one experience (for lack of better term) meets another. This body is the interface, or channel, for something else that was mistaken for a 43-year-old man. An independently existing human.

There is no more need for an I. There is perception, but who or what that is can't be found either. Andy didn't have a brain (ha), the brain conjured up the sense of him all along and he mistook conscious awareness as something he possessed. Thoughts don't think. Andy was a thought, a complex one, but nothing more than smoke with the appearance of order and meaning. The fire that's out was the I.

So what's in my experience now?

1. Relief. Massive relief. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing right for that matter either. Pick a duality, any duality, spend some time with it to see it crumble. I don't need any more search or answers because there never existed a valid question to start with. I mean that. Pack up all your questions if you like and toss them into the sea. The answers won't satisfy anyhow. Really. None.

What happens after this dies? Seriously? I don't die. How many past lives have I lived to get to this? All of them, which means none of them because there's only one casting all of reality for view. Seer and seen are one. Consciousness may play out the experience of a life carrying on from body to body, but I assure you, there are no independently existing people in those bodies. The work is done. All that remains is what is, so yeah, what's here is finally enjoying the ride.

2. There's a sense of spookiness about it all. The Universe just may be haunted. Walk its rooms and look for others and all that exists is this. Look someone in the eye only to realize they're you in a different interface. My girlfriend's dog has followed me around all day today. He never does that. He won't quit staring at me and it seems a little odd. Maybe the dog knows ;)

3. Now. IA, you mentioned that it didn't seem like I'd found the Now, which you said brought you peace. What went down yesterday was more of damn bursting than anything else so that was just a weird ride. Do I get to rest in the Now? I don't know how to convey what's here, now, but it's stillness. I AM silence. That's my lineage. Sure I want to hide in a cave, but only so I can lose every last remnant of Andy and vanish into stillness. This is hard to explain, but there's just this, and it is absolute and it is still. In bed last night I heard energy soar through me from feet up and out of crown. Another first. Just this pulsing.

The reason I'm saying goodbye here isn't because I've outgrown everything that can be or is discussed here. It's not like SoulSail went to the head of the class and is now beyond it all. But the single-pointed drive that brought me from sleep is still here and there's no real interest remaining for duality. When the time came I dropped everything I was holding and demanded truth. Here I mean I was willing to give up anything for truth. Forget enlightenment, it doesn't exist, but truth, now that's different. And as Jesus said, the truth will make you free. How? By helping you die to your-self. See? There's no cleaning up to do. You're higher self is a fiction just like your lower self. There is no arranging what's already perfect so you can finally arrive in peace. Peace just is. Peace is the end result when self is gone.

That's it. Done.

Love you all...

[ButterflyWoman]

That about covers it though my analogies have never been very good.
I thought it was splendid. :)

[IA56]

Hi SoulSail,
Wonderful :-)
I am so happy...Now it is different energy around you...yes you made it!!! Hurray....

Love
ia

[ButterflyWoman]

The thing is that it lets all the air out of the sails, then the sails blow away too. Rather than be left with something, one is left with less than they 'had' before. Its all so disappointingly simple, obvious, almost uninteresting. While this may seem like disappointment, its not even that.
*nodnodnod* You give up everything in exchange for Nothing. But, to quote a sixties folk song, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, and nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free". The realisation, the remembering, is liberating, it is Liberation (salvation, even), but it's the liberation that comes with dropping the facade and the pretense. So it's more of a kind of relief than some great elevation to... well, something. Anything.

[DerFürst]

This was an extremely powerful thing to read. So many questions have been brought up to me, but then again, what can be considered "I" now? If "I" is only a perspective that considers itself to be an individual, then there is no such thing as "I" because it only exists in the perspective. So what is the purpose of that which is everything deciding to limit itself so far that it perceives itself as only being something? What could possibly be gained from limiting all's perspective to such a narrow point?

I don't even exist then. What does that make "me?" There isn't a "me" then, as "I" is only a point through which all can experience something. That thought makes my ego shudder in fear, and subsequently causes this body to experience emotional sickness.

What I felt as an empathetic simulation of your experience was absolutely horrible. Everything that "I've" done up to this point has been completely invalidated. My original plan for life and afterwards was to free this perspective from the experience of linearity and re-understand the ability to experience anything until eventually all the possibilities become exhausted. Only then would it make sense to me to want to become "one with everything." What was described here, however, makes it seem like even that goal is, once again, pointless in consideration that no plan can have a worth.

So, what makes liberating a perceived "one" from the concept of "self" something any perceived individual perspective would desire doing? From what I've read, and what I've felt, the only thing that's there is loss. "You lose everything and gain nothing" is exactly what it sounds like. Again, that seems horrible. I'm only an actor and will eventually come to some realization as we all must, but for now, it doesn't make any sense. The final purpose of living a life is to disappear and become nothing, as the drop of water that was your life is swallowed up in the sea of everything? What kind of realization is that?

Do we at least get some choice as to how we do things before we ultimately surrender?

[CFTraveler]

You don't always have a choice, DF. That's why it's called 'realization' and not 'achievement.'

[DerFürst]

You don't always have a choice, DF. That's why it's called 'realization' and not 'achievement.'
After throwing it all away, it won't matter anyway. Scary thoughts for something so faint as I.

[SoulSail]

Hi DF,

I hear you. I hear every word. Know I won't convey this well. It can't be reasoned around or somehow worked out with words. Words are the very things that while existing as thoughts, prevent clear seeing. But what you're expressing here does not intersect in any manner with what's at hand. I'll try to explain this, but if you feel like just getting some ice cream, I highly encourage that as well.

So...

There is no loss here, or sense of loss at all at present. But there will be. So? Then there won't be. Then...

The sensation of loss works by measurement. It slides up to something opposite to create contrast. Duality doesn't work. That's best seen from this side of the door, but trust me, it does not work anywhere. So no, no loss, only seeing. You have no independently existing feelings or thoughts whatsoever, but you're seeing through the "I" so it's pretty damn convincing that you do.

But that's like reading the best book never written.

Look closely, you're paper thin and don't know it because it's not possible to know anything. Duality is an illusion, and Reality has no opposite. What IS feeling those feelings is God. Your thoughts then wrap around those feelings and pump out the sense of ownership, and so enters illusion. But were you paying attention to that last sentence? Those weren't your thoughts to start with, nor your illusion to suffer. But something got confused the moment "your" thoughts got mentioned as if real. Senses, impressions, perspectives--these are mere thoughts as well, and thoughts don't think, and yes, they may be willed forward from behind a curtain, but you're not willing them--just seeing and feeling the willing. All you ever do is experience my friend. You have no attributes. You're odorless, colorless, splendidly transparent, and you are the terminal end point for all senses. Every nerve ending in all eternity leads to awareness--the only thing home.

Now, I've used the term God as a convenience here for what's unknowable. But what's written under your name here on AD are God's sentiments about what my post entailed. Does that make you God? Don't be silly, "you" don't exist.


Let me honestly convey some personal experiences (see, there's the illusion again) here unless I sound like hot air too soon. When this broke there was nothing but amazement. By this morning, after being up meditating loooong into the night, everything went upside down again. All words went. No meaning for any single one of them. Clouds. But the sky only grew brighter for it. Concept after concept vanished. No-thing existed there. It was what IS plus nothing. Let me assure you what appear to be old Andy reflexes and sensations were front and center there at The Void.

I sobbed (who? really?)

Not out of sadness, but for what, I don't know. There's a lot of bad info out there on what happens in awakening, but even then, it doesn't happen to all the same. You can guess why, right? There is nobody in need of enlightenment. The word is a terrible construct entirely. The minute it exists in the mind, it's evil, illusory shadow called un-enlightened springs up. All the same, "some" experience unbearable love while others an unbearable vacuum at the shift in perspective. But let me clear, these words included, no awakened person has ever, ever given you their personal account of waking up. That doesn't happen either. Just this. Just this happens.

Best to you

[ButterflyWoman]

I'll try to explain this, but if you feel like just getting some ice cream, I highly encourage that as well.
See, this is why I love you. That's perfect, right there. :)

DerFürst, your post actually made me laugh, but not in a mean way. I had to chuckle because if there's one thing ego-self knows how to do, it's spin a story and create drama. Your ego-self is so convinced that if perspective shifts away from it, the world will end. Pretty dramatic. ;)

And I doubt very much that you had any actual empathetic contact, though I don't doubt that your ego-self is insisting you did, because if you did have that sort of contact, you wouldn't be afraid. The "loss" is no loss at all. Ego-self thinks it's the greatest, most important thing ever, because that's its job, to differentiate itself and make itself important, but... it's just a character in an infinite story. The statement that you give up everything in exchange for Nothing is a koan, and not only is it actually intended to induce dissonance (which I can see that it did!), it's a paradox that isn't a paradox (Zen is fun ;) ).

And by the way, YOU are not your ego-self. YOU are much more than that, and that's the true heart of this realisation. Whatever you REALLY are, it's not your little human mind, your material body, some discrete soul in a sea of other discrete souls. You are the very the substance of Reality. You are the Creation, and you are the Creator, simultaneously.

And for what it's worth, the ego remains. It is a necessary interface in experiencing the material world. It doesn't die, it just eventually learns its true nature so that the greater True Nature can awaken to Itself. It is shed for a while (maybe a short time, maybe a much longer time, depends on the individual story), but it's never destroyed utterly.

Here's a metaphor. Suppose people were, upon birth, sewn into a costume of some sort. Animals, plants, different genders, whatever. From that time on, they're treated like whatever their costume is. If you're in a pumpkin costume, people treat you like a pumpkin, if you're in a zebra costume, people treat you like a zebra, etc. You learn that this is what you ARE. You're a pumpkin, isn't it obvious? Round, orange, and everyone says you're a pumpkin, so you must be. You know you're a pumpkin! You're male, you're white, you're Hispanic, you're weird, you're whatever labels match up with your costume. And you believe it utterly. You are whatever it is that your costume has indicated you are.

These costumes are more than just clothes, though. They include all kinds of stuff you need to interact with the other costumed entities in your world. Communications, various tools to manipulate your surroundings, pick stuff up, all kinds of stuff. It's a pretty complex and intricate costume, to say the least. ;)

But one day, a rip starts to form in your costume. And it gets bigger, and you panic, because, this isn't normal. This isn't natural. How will you function if your pumpkinness is compromised? What if your pumpkinness falls off entirely? YOU WON'T EXIST!

Eventually, it does fall off, because generally speaking, once things start to unravel, they continue until they finish (though it may take a longer or shorter time). Now what? You're naked, you're cold... but you're... much more comfortable, strangely. The pumpkin thing was actually really itchy and a little too warm, and kinda tight in places, only you might not have noticed, or if you did notice, you didn't think anything could be done about it, so you just accepted it. And as you walk around a little more and get used to it, you find that, hey, you can do stuff you never could before. You can see a LOT better, because the costume (as you're starting to think of it now) obscured a lot of your vision. And you're much more able to reach stuff and you can feel things you never could before because the costume got between you and the things, only you never, ever knew it (though once or twice you might have suspected it). And, yeah, it's pretty weird, and you now have to learn how to live and function without your pumpkin costume, but, you know, it's actually okay, because now you know that you were never a pumpkin, anyway, you just thought you were. Eventually, you'll put the pumpkin costume back on when you need to interact with the other costumed entities, because, well, you have to. It's got all the tools to communicate in it, it's got all the controls you need to operate in the pageant. No costume, no pageant, so on it goes again, and, yeah, it doesn't fit quite right now, and you always know, "Even though I'm wearing this, I'm not really a pumpkin."

And by the way, if you try to tell any of the costumed entities that they're not what they think they are, that they can shed their costume, they won't take it well. They'll freak out, or they'll call you a liar, or they'll say you're insane, or, mostly, they'll just completely ignore you because they have no clue what you're talking about, and why should they? As far as they know, they are their costumes.

It's an imperfect metaphor, but ALL metaphors are imperfect when it comes to this kind of realisation. There are no material words or emotions or experiences that really convey the whole of it. Bits of it, kinda, but words are very clumsy tools, to say the least. But this story can at least give you something to ponder. It's actually a lot more comfortable without being permanently sewn into the costume. ;)

I haven't written anything about this in a very long time. I guess it was time that I did. *shrug* I don't really know what the point is of talking about it. Might be better just to have some ice cream. ;)

[IA56]

I haven't written anything about this in a very long time. I guess it was time that I did. *shrug* I don't really know what the point is of talking about it. Might be better just to have some ice cream. ;)

Hi BW,
I might give you a clue why you ought to continue your stories when it seams you do not yet know or you only say so :-)

If you have not decided yet....that one of your purpouses is...to tell your story for others to understand how it can be to keeping up the good work...or
..then it might be ...that your self-confidence is not there to support you...yet....to the fullest....

..see...
this is one of your and mine disputes what I have tried to make my Point in...for you to share your knowings...off course...
No one can force you...but my Point has bean that you will do it willingly for the greater good if not for anything less...

I love you.

Love
ia

[susan]

BW, I really enjoyed reading your post and feel a lot better . I could understand what DerFürst was feeling .I know we are all at different stages but you brought it down a twitch for easier understanding of SoulSail's experience.
It would help many if you did post more of your experiences and your understanding even though you have said it before there are new people here who would benefit, including myself.

[ButterflyWoman]

BW, I really enjoyed reading your post and feel a lot better . I could understand what DerFürst was feeling .I know we are all at different stages but you brought it down a twitch for easier understanding of SoulSail's experience.
My experience is essentially the same as his. I've just been in this shifted perspective for longer, so I'm better... acclimated, guess. The newly awakened stage is actually totally awesome, you look at EVERYTHING as see ... uhm... You know that scene in "The Matrix" where Neo sees all the zeroes and ones? Kinda like that. You can see the substance of the One in everything, including yourself, including the desk, including your cat, including stuff you can't see but suspect might exist, in everything. It's damned amazing, and that's a significant understatement. I can actually step into that any time I want to, but I haven't got a lot of reason to do so. I did while writing this paragraph, just to revisit it and see if it could be described (it can't, but one thing this particular human interface enjoys doing sometimes is trying to describe stuff, even if it is futile, heh).


It would help many if you did post more of your experiences and your understanding even though you have said it before there are new people here who would benefit, including myself.
I don't know if it helps or not, to be honest. I know you say it does (and I respect that), but does it, really? Really, really? If it's all illusion (and I do most definitely see and experience it as such) then who is helping whom, and in what way? Is anyone really helping or being helped? I think not, but it's a fun game to play sometimes (which is why I still sometimes play it, as I'm doing right now :D ).

I do know that nothing I have to say is any different from anything that dozens or even hundreds of people have already said in various ways. And, to be honest, I do get tired of being accused of all manner of motivations that I just don't have. As SoulSail said, he's no different from anyone else, and neither am I. Hah. The depth of that just hit me. Beautiful. :) (And he thinks he can't write good metaphors!) For me, the urge, the compulsion, to "help" and to "teach" was an attachment that dissolved. There is no need, there is no obligation. I do it sometimes because it presents itself in my reality and I engage with it, so here I am, typing away and hoping I don't sound like a ninny using some sort of weird guruspeak (because I hate that) and hoping I don't sound condescending (honestly, from my POV, there is no descent, and no con, so I promise I'm not doing that).

Generally, I just assume I'm writing to myself, because, uh, I am. ;)

But, you know, having some ice cream is a good option, too. It's also part of the whole of Consciousness, and a pleasant experience. ;)

And for the record, I still have and use and experience: humour, joy, love, sexual arousal, hunger, anger, fear (though not as much as I did once, happily), satisfaction, smugness (try not to do that one; it's not a good look and I don't like doing it or being it), exhaustion, pain (physical and emotional), all manner of pleasure (physical, emotional, all of it), frustration, annoyance, exasperation, amusement, bemusement, I'm still ticklish if you know the right places, and every other thing you would expect a "human being" to experience, feel, and perceive. It's just that I know these things to be aspects of the dream, of the game, of the ongoing soap opera that is reality in time-space. I still have them, feel them, all of it, but unless I let myself get very involved with it (and I sometimes do, just as you would with a good book or a movie), I'm not affected in the same way. I can be if I want to be, or if I'm getting into the story (of my life), but I can "snap out of it" more or less at will. (Admittedly, very strong emotions are extremely compelling; it's much harder to snap out of being furious than to do so when I'm sitting calmly at my computer typing a post on a forum :D ).

In many ways, it's like becoming lucid in a dream. You are still dreaming, still experiencing the dream, but you know that you're in a dream. Once you get used to doing that, to being conscious and aware, you can start to influence the dream (or not, as you like) in interesting ways. In every sense, awakening is only the beginning, not the end. (And I have no idea how "far" it does, how "deep" it goes, how much "more" there is, nothing; it's all just a big adventure and a bottomless rabbithole. Wheee!)

[SoulSail]

I have nothing to add to Butterfly woman's post other than a little game for anyone to play if they want to see what's going on here in simple sentences...repeat out loud or in quiet...

"The thinker is thinking about who's thinking. The ponderer is pondering who's pondering."

Just this, and know that if this doesn't clear things up, it is all incredibly well. No problems are real, so go enjoy your day.


Love to you

I love you

I am love

So are you

There is no 'Thinker'

There is no 'Who'

[ButterflyWoman]

Love to you

I love you

I am love

So are you

There is no 'Who'
:heart:

I have some ice cream. Strawberry. Mmmm. Enlightening.

;)

[SoulSail]

Any and all,

I won't be here as SoulSail any longer as posted, but please free to email anything whatsoever to: souldotfloat@hotmail.com any time you like. No matter how old this post gets.

Andy

[ButterflyWoman]

A friend posted this on Facebook today. I was reminded of this thread for various reasons, and thought I'd share it.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
- slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.

- Thich Nhat Hahn

(Feel free to replace "tea" with "ice cream" and "drink" with "eat". Or, in fact, replace "tea" with any noun and "drink" with any verb you might enact on that noun. Same same. :) )

[CFTraveler]

I want to mention that I never talk about this because I can't- whatever I can write would come out as a trite 'new agey' statement of 'truth', and even the idea makes me cringe. That's why many of us don't talk about this.
.02

[SoulSail]

(Feel free to replace "tea" with "ice cream" and "drink" with "eat". Or, in fact, replace "tea" with any noun and "drink" with any verb you might enact on that noun. Same same. :) )

And when you're done replacing, replace "you" with that into which the tea drinker unfolds and appears in as experience. On the next page is perhaps a story of someone going to work. The page is unconcerned and there is no book.

Was that New Agey enough for you, CFTraveler? :-)

[SoulSail]

Thought I'd step away from the New Agey stuff and speak logic in few sentences...

1. Truth must exist. To say it doesn't would be asserting an absolute truth, thus forcing its existence.
2. Truth is All. Absolute.
3. Consciousness exists.

If all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, what is Socrates?

If Truth is all and Consciousness exists, then Consciousness is All. Anything beyond this is fancy New Agery, empty, and without legs. Why go any farther?

Drink your tea.

[CFTraveler]

I was thinking in terms of eternity, and reality, and "I" and all that other stuff. But you get my gist.

[SoulSail]

How could I not have? You taught me everything I know.

I'm thankful AD has you. Always have been.

[Eyeswideopen]

For me having Soulsail share his awakening experiences in the now has been more than interesting. Apart from enjoying this thread I have splintered off looking at others journeys. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to experience myself authentically, always yearning for something that I know is home. But I don't know if I want now to experience a long period of time of feeling disassociated from my body, what does this do to ones life and close relationships. Is this my fear talking, I guess I am not 100% sure but I do wonder why I am in the dense tangible world wanting to experience myself as everything. With a feeling that when I am everything am I somewhere queuing to get back down here to experience through the senses like we do. Life is a gift so why am I yearning for an ethereal experience that could to others appear I am in the middle of a mental breakdown. Perhaps this is my fear talking as I do realise that tasting the I Am vicariously through Soulsail is right now far more stable and safe, my risk curve is retreating.

[SoulSail]

There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to experience myself authentically, always yearning for something that I know is home.


Looking is rough business, especially when awareness goes looking for itself among that which it's aware of. It can kill a body.




But I don't know if I want now to experience a long period of time of feeling disassociated from my body, what does this do to ones life and close relationships. Is this my fear talking, I guess I am not 100% sure but I do wonder why I am in the dense tangible world wanting to experience myself as everything.


My disassociation was brief. Intense, but brief. A couple days of not knowing where I was located, whether inside the brain or outside. But that's over. Nothing lasts. Resist nothing.





Life is a gift so why am I yearning for an ethereal experience that could to others appear I am in the middle of a mental breakdown. Perhaps this is my fear talking as I do realise that tasting the I Am vicariously through Soulsail is right now far more stable and safe, my risk curve is retreating.


You have no risk curve. What you do have are stories about what might be lost, and even these are not your own. The story of what's happening in life is being played out in the center of your true self, which is no self at all. You don't have Buddha nature, you are that. Andy, after all his searching turned out to be nothing but a madman holding enough psychic pressure to force him toward truth rather than enlightenment. Had he been forced to a choice, he would have chopped off an arm. Spared nothing. Nothing noble about it--madness. The end of 43 years of misery and games to find out he'd never experienced anything directly or even existed.


Let me tell you a secret. When the dreamer wants out, the dreamer gets to come out under one condition: the dreamer ceases. Nobody will change the dream, ever. It ends with the false "I". I will tell you that there was considerable fear in realizing this. Under the sudden reality of endlessness, emotions surge. You stop. You watch. Nope, not your emotions either.

Then, you get ice cream. Then you get to chase conscious exploration all you like knowing you can never die and nothing can destroy you. As the Buddha said, "Merging with the deathless are all things. Terminating in Nirvana are all things." CE is best done from this angle because the element of risk is gone. You go see what there is to see and that is all unless you want to watch form play out the dream from another angle. Perhaps sometime I'll share my encounter with a demon in this process. Now that was enlightenment.

Face it. You're home already. You are the deathless. All reality ends in Nirvana.

[ButterflyWoman]

Looking is rough business, especially when awareness goes looking for itself among that which it's aware of.
This is the key. The whole thing is not about "you" or "me" or "I" or "mine" or any of that. It's about Consciousness becoming aware of Itself. This "you" convention is just the means by which Consciousness does that. Nobody becomes "self-aware" (though we may use the term) because your "self" is a shell of automated habits and functions with a story-spinning machine that is your mind, animating it all and making it think it's an independent, autonomous entity acting on some sort of will, usually perceived to be free. That's the illusion to which Consciousness wakes up. The ego-self, being a story-telling machine, then incorporates that into its own story, and can tell it, but it's never actually about "I-me-mine". It is always about Consciousness.


My disassociation was brief. Intense, but brief. A couple days of not knowing where I was located, whether inside the brain or outside. But that's over. Nothing lasts. Resist nothing.
*nod* But the thing is, it happens as it happens. It's like giving birth. Labour starts and it continues until it finishes. It's messy, it's inconvenient, it's potentially dangerous, and every birth is unique. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's extremely difficult, usually it's somewhere in between. And so it is with every awakening.

[wstein]

Thought I'd step away from the New Agey stuff and speak logic in few sentences...

1. Truth must exist. To say it doesn't would be asserting an absolute truth, thus forcing its existence.
2. Truth is All. Absolute.
3. Consciousness exists.

Drink your tea. Sadly truth can't force anything nor can assertion. There is no 'exist'.

May as well pretend to drink your tea and pretend to enjoy it, 'cause that's all you got.

[ButterflyWoman]

May as well pretend to drink your tea and pretend to enjoy it, 'cause that's all you got.
Indeed. I went through a fairly lengthy period of existential angst about this, and eventually came to the point where I thought, "Well, I'm here, in whatever capacity "I" and "here" exist. This dream of "reality" is continuing. So I may as well engage with it." And so I do (again, "I" being a construct).

[IA56]

When I look back at my Life I have gone through so many phases as well faces :-)
There was a period I was so afraid I will never feel a thing ....I was in a Place where I could look at all horrors without feeling nothing, and it was nessessary to be able to sort painful things out in small portions to digest and get out them of my system..now they are only memory of my Life story...nothing more...
And when I then ended up in the NOW and really feeling to be in this vertical energy..I call it because I can find it when I Think...from up to down...like drawing a vertical line...and when thinking of my Life as horisontell line...as it is like thoughts...if I let them intrude it will never end...it is on going useless in terms that if I let them in again I will start over like a Wheel ...round round round....but I can stop it at will because I have a clear Picture of my Life story...but thoughs are so intrusive and sedusing...so I at least need a firm line to bring me back to the NOW.
But it has really bean many sleepless night´s and oceans of tears.

Love
ia

[Osiris]

I've seen, done, and felt alot of ugliness and goodness, Im not so sure I'd change a bit of it, It has enabled me to see the beauty in Others as well as in myself. I hope it does the same for you brother. Dont be afraid for a second to break away from those things and ideas you once held so closely, all that glitters is not gold, as they say. The portrait that is your life is full of many colors , ever changing and often times full of despair and disappointment but it is always tempered with warmth of shade and tone.
The seeds that you have planted here will, I think, bare fruit for you down the road.;)

[LPCF]

I remember you so well, Soul! I have watched your evolution from negative entity possession (as you perceived it then)...to this profound state of ultimate awareness. I'm not sure that "I" agree with "your" perspective totally, but it doesn't matter. (Oh, no! Do I have go through and put speech marks around every "I" and "you"? Can't be bothered!).

Soul is such a good nickname for you. May your soul remain always enlightened and full of life. I will miss you on this forum - even though I have been absent as much as you. I'm afraid I'm not ready to give up helping others yet, even if it is all an illusion.

Many, many blessings to you, dear Soul! You will be sorely missed. My love to your boy and your dear dog. I know that you will take good care of them, even if they are illusions, too ;)

[eyeoneblack]

Good-bye, Andy.