tsuki

@now is forever Nothing. It just is. I suppose that I've chosen sensations as a framework to describe myself with. Touch is one aspect of 'me'. In this perspective, everything is reduced to one from of sensation or another and I establish relationships between them. I have already convinced myself that short-circuiting is the experience of falsehood of this perspective, a paradox. Senses are not disjoint like this perspective assumes. Short circuiting is a form of obviousness and in this particular instance - obviousness masks a paradox. If I am the obviousness of things, then am I a paradox? A false assumption? Do I feel this? Kind of... It is mostly a logical reasoning for now.

@Zweistein I can't really say that I am nothing, because I cannot locate it in my direct experience for now. Anyways, thank you for reading my journal @Zweistein and @now is forever. It is a pleasant feeling to know that some people find my thoughts interesting.

Close your eyes. Touch your index finger to your thumb and start moving them in circular motions. Concentrate on the feeling of touch. Stop touching your fingers and listen to your thoughts. Concentrate on them and notice the chatter. Open your eyes. Look around. Notice that you are seeing. For me, these are three distinct areas of senses. Normally, I think of them as separate spaces that are disjoint. Sight does not appear in the space of touch. Thoughts do not appear in the space of sight. Etc. Now, start touching your fingers again, but with your eyes open. Look around. Can you see where your fingers touch? The assumption that senses are disjoint is false. You can clearly see where the sensation of touch occurs. This knowledge is not 'visible' and you cannot 'touch it'. It is simply obvious where your fingers touch. The intersection between the sight-space and touch-space is what I call a short-circuit. This particular sight-touch short-circuit is what I recognized to be direction. There are other short-circuits, such as sight-voice. There are sights that you can witness that will trigger an inner dialog. This very text is a sight-voice short-circuit because (at least for me) it triggers an inner dialog that I recognize to be this text. You can start touching around things and seeing where they are in the touch-space. This is how you can know the extents of 'your' body. Touch is only associated with a certain shape in your sight-space. It is a sensation. I cannot explain it in terms of anything else.

@Nahm Beautiful. Thank you ?

Is the inner and outer sphere of "Me" really separate? Since there is an inner and outer "I", and all senses seem to have an inner and outer counterpart, then maybe I am my senses?

I was just reading about that earlier today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense

So, what am I? A thought came up that I am a thought. Lets investigate that. What is a thought? There is the inner voice, inner sight and inner hearing (like a catchy song gets stuck in the mind). To some extent, I can conjure a taste of yesterday's dinner, or the smell of my wife's hair. So - thoughts are a space of sensations. How are these sensations distinct from the 'outer' ones, so that I classify them as thoughts? There is the social aspect - the imaginary sensations are not shared with others. People do not hear my inner voice. I can call them all kinds of names and they do not react to them. They do not react to what I imagine. I can visualize all kinds of situations and they stir emotions within me, but others do not seem to be receptive to them. Are emotions thoughts? I can bottle up my emotions and not let others see them (up to a certain point), so they can be private. However, I can see somebody else's emotions if I know them well enough. I can also share what I feel by talking, or through actions - like displays of affection/love, or outbursts of anger. It is then immediately clear what I feel even if I do not describe it. In intimate relationships, my emotions can even get interlocked with other people. Their sadness is my sadness. Their anger is my anger. Emotions seem to be this grey area between private and public sensations. Are they special in this regard? Perhaps there are also inner and outer emotions, like there is inner and outer voice? That is an interesting way of seeing it, I have never thought about it before. There seems to be a connection between emotions and this inner feeling that I can induce along the spine. When I'm being mindful when I am angry, for example, I can feel the boiling sensation in the area of my chest. I even successfully extinguished my anger/fear/anxiety in the navel area once by stirring the inner feelings. So, maybe the inner feelings should rather be called inner emotions? Again, it hits me how strange it is that I can locate sensations between orthogonal spaces such as touch and emotions. Anger in the navel area. What?! So, sensations seem to be divided into two spheres - inner and outer. Private and public. The private sphere is what I call thoughts. Am I a thought? If thoughts are defined like that, then no - I am not a thought because other people seem react to what I do. If that is the case, then I am not private (at least not entirely). So, perhaps there is the inner I and the outer I? This reminds me of the Jung's model of the psyche: EDIT: Now that's an interesting thought: maybe, 'the social aspect' is a way to divide 'me' into inner and outer sphere?

Does this influence my notion of what I am? Not really? Kind of? I feel differently. Am I my body? Why is the touch so important to me? It fascinates me that there is this visible surface area around 'me' that I can feel. I can see two cupboards that touch in front of me, but I can't feel it the way I feel when I touch something with my hand. Do they really touch if I can't feel it? What does it even mean that two things that are not me touch? Do they? I'm getting sidetracked again... Why do I so stubbornly insist that I am the body? Oh right - I don't. I just flipped back to being obviousness, huh?

Oh shit. I just realized what direction is. It's a short-circuiting of senses! What the fuck! There is this obviousness related to where sensations occur. They occur in one field, but this field is partitioned into various categories such as sight, sound, thoughts, etc. Direction is the obviousness of simultaneity of sensations. Hahaha what the fuck?! Direction is a paradox. It doesn't exist!

Now, that I think of it, these 'inner' feelings actually do have a kind of directionality if I can shift them around on the inside of my body. This directionality is defined, again, by touch. I can see my hand touching my chest, feel the touch on the hand and on the chest and induce the inner feeling in this area. The inner voice also has a kind of directionality, because of reading. hmm... Does this somehow help me answer the original question?

The inner voice is a different thing, because it has no locality. It is not conflated with sight in the same sense as touch. As I look at my hand that touches a keyboard, I can see where I feel. With the inner voice however, there is no such place wherever I look. Or rather - all places speak equally. There is no difference between how I hear my thoughts, regardless of what I see. If that is the case, then why do I (again) locate my thoughts in the space orthogonal to sight? I usually perceive my thoughts as if they were behind my eyes, inside of my skull. Does the inside of my body have any sensations? There is a sensation of movement when I tense my muscles and it is often conflated with sight (I can observe my body moving). There are other feelings however that are not observable via sight. I used to describe them in terms of spaciousness in this thread: Again, these feelings are not conflated with sight in the same sense, as the inner voice. Their intensity is not directional and I recognize them to be inside of my body. There's been a progress in development of these feelings. They are not only located inside of my skull and stop at the throat, but also expand down to the base of my spine. I can shift these to my arms and to my legs. They seem to be conflated with my breath, because when I focus on inhaling and exhaling, I can make these feelings more intense. They can become so intense, that I cannot stop myself from tightening my chest, the back of my neck, and my anus.

Is obviousness a product of the functioning of my body? There is a brain, but the appearance of this 'solution' is not rooted in anything. It just is. It is obvious that the brain creates consciousness. That is, until it is obvious that it is doubtful that it does and I start to question this assumption. This questioning of the assumption is not questioned, however. When I am convinced that it is not obvious at all that the mind creates consciousness, I do not ask questions about whether I should question it or not. I just do. So, obviousness is something prior to body - body is rooted in obviousness. When I try to locate the feeling of I, I usually focus on my sight. Then, everything I look at is not-me, so 'me' is located to the space orthogonal to sight (like touch, hearing, thinking). It is strange how touch is conflated with sight when it comes to the feeling of spaciousness of the body. I can see my hands move to touch my keyboard and I can feel the pressure of the keys. It seems however, that sight and touch are somehow separated, orthogonal. Like they occur in different spaces, even if the sensation of touch is exactly where I would expect it to be given the motion of my hand. Touch is somehow on the inside of my body and sight is external. And yet - I feel the touch in the same field where I see. In space (?).

@who chit What if you recontextualize this neo-advaita saying into Ralston's words like so: there is nothing to do -> you should realize who you are RIGHT NOW! You are IT! You do not become anything else! etc.

So, ever since it came to me that I may be the obviousness of things (their -ness), I found myself in a new perspective. Whereas before, I've been kind of 'stuck' behind the eyes, inside of the body - now, I'm 'out there', intertwined with things that "I" perceive. It is not a new state for me, but the last time I've been this way, it lasted for several hours. Now, it's the second hour and I can't shake it off. As I look around, it seems like the things that "I" look at are somehow accented. Everything seems to 'stick out' from its background (unless I look at the background). It kind of reminds me of videogames where the hud is contextual and objects are highlighted when you hover your crosshair over them (minus the explicit glow).

@winterknight Can you re-phrase this sentence and elaborate on what do you mean by realness? Is seeing through the falsity of the mind related to polar thinking?

All mental categories are false in the absolute sense? For example: If I say that this particular car is a Mercedes, then this is ultimately false because as I look closely and examine into what a car is, it turns to something intangible, without clearly definable boundaries. A 'car' is just an appearance because I am not looking closely enough? The above paragraph relates to my question about Maya, meaning and understanding. Would you agree with the following sentence: "Everything is relative and that in itself is absolute"?

Can you elaborate on that? Can you establish what do you mean by experience (and perhaps say why is it said that enlightenment is not an experience)?

Does it feel like an empty/cloudy/nebulous mind that knows that it knows, but just can't put it to words? It does to me. It's like - certain paths resonate with me and I like the way they put it, but it just doesn't do justice to this feeling so I try and try and try... It sometimes seems like an endless source of creativity. Can you relate? Your question is a perfect answer to what I was asking about. The fact that what I say is not what you read (and vice versa). How do you reconcile with it in your answers? I was also asking about 'who are you talking to?' and you pointed towards Maya. What is the relationship between meaning, understanding and Maya? It may seem like I'm picking your answers apart, but I bear no malicious intent. Given your previous neo-advaita-ish answers, do you mean that thoughts arise by themselves, or do you not experience the inner voice at all? Is the calmness simply the lack of the mental 'hiccup' when we are presented with something unexpected, or is the mind completely dead? In a sense, I can relate to having no thoughts, but only because of not taking the seriously (learning their nature by observation). I am not identified with thoughts that arise. They are not 'me' and 'me' can never be found.

Do you have the feeling of absurdity when honestly trying to put it to words? Like: having the urge to say it clearly, but it always turns to ash in your mouth when you try your best? Are you aware of the fluidity of meaning when you are answering the questions? Are you trying to meet the person that asks the question at their level, or do you simply 'drop the nukes'?

@winterknight What is your reason to talk about enlightenment after you're enlightened? Who are you talking to?

I wouldn't call it a secret, or ultimate truth, but a very powerful tool of emotional mastery. I think that people should learn to appreciate death and find solace in it. Contemplation on the passing nature of things gets emotionally brutal very quickly, but then it leaves you in the state of equanimity and peace (if you are willing to bear it).

There is no need to hasten the inevitable. Maybe that is the real problem that you are trying to masquerade by blaming your lucidity within the dream world? Your logic works by subjecting the 'dream world' perspective to 'real world' perspective and finding it somehow less real. What would happen if you reversed the roles? What if both of those perspectives merge into one, once you are willing to explore both of them?

Are you behaving in a way that would justify sending you to a mental hospital? Why would merging the dream reality with the waking reality make you behave in such a way? Breaking the dream rules gets you woken up and breaking the real rules gets you killed. Don't do that and you're good.

What I noticed is that once I realize that I am within the dream - I start to do things that are unwelcome, breaking the rules. Like teleporting, or telling people that it is just a dream, or having sex with random people, etc. That very quickly wakes me up / 'ejects' me out of the dream. What I was describing was not unwelcome, I resisted the ejection and wanted to see what would happen. I could have woken up easily. My all experiences with lucid dreams were pleasant/meaningful/refreshing. I think that there is nothing to fear, even if what happens seems unusual. The fear you are experiencing seems like a fear of dissolving a very solid boundary between waking and sleeping consciousness. What do you need this barrier for?

What kind of answer are you looking for? A story that explains your situation? Or a consolation? I had a fair share of lucid dreams in my teenage years, but they stopped occurring in my early twenties. Recently I had two lucid dreams that had collapsed and instead of waking up I fell into a space in between dreams. A mishmash of colors, symbols and sounds with the feeling of my gross body being limp. This happened when I forcibly tried to break the rules of the dream (teleporting).