seeking_brilliance

@Wisebaxter if you want to experience 'no-self', there is a forum where a person like winterknight will step by step guide you to this realization, with no judgements to how silly your replies may start out. https://www.liberationunleashed.com/nation/ You can at least go on there and comb through the archives to get some cool insights and answers (though answers are crap without experiencing it for yourself. Answers you read or hear can only point you towards the realization experience, after which these answers take on a new context and meaning. )

@Wisebaxter well, definitely don't go by what I said... But that's how it seems to "me"

@Leo Gura thank you! @Wisebaxter I think : within the context of Maya (illusion, hallucination, etc) , there are lots of human mothers giving birth to human babies, none of which need a "you". These human bodies have brains or minds or whatever, which interprets the constant rise and fall of thoughts, and then there is the perception or awareness of these interpreted thoughts, still none of which can be labeled as a "you". The you that you think you are is like a mixture of this awareness of the thoughts and these interpreted thoughts by human mind. But even that isn't a you because ultimately there is no you, because that implies a separation from the infinite Self. I really hope someone replies and corrects the hell out of that....

@Mikael89 how long have you been feeling abandoned by God like this? Is it something new or does it come and go?

@winterknight when getting psychoanalyzed, what is being analyzed? The mind? The mind of what? The brain of the particular body? Because of how it interprets the thoughts it perceives? If there is no I, (as far as the one being identified with/mistaken as thoughts), then what is being analyzed? And for what purpose?

@winterknight within Maya, if we were to akowledge it, what is memory, where is it stored, (brain, body, somewhere else?) and what is its relation to thought? What is a human, and why do they seem to be different than other animals?

Yes, can you elaborate? It's just that many things seem to be propelled by story. A life. Ideas. When observing thoughts, many of them seem to cluster in favor of a story, as if propelled to do so. Stories seem to be a large part of experience. Self must love a good story....or at least a good laugh..

@winterknight it seems that when observing thoughts, they take on a random train of subject matter, or otherwise follow a succession of thoughts that build upon each other. By holding a certain intention in mind, the thoughts that arise tend to be about that intention, which I refer to as - "I am steering these thoughts toward so and so." Am I searching for this I that can steer these thoughts, or is it an illusion that "I" can do this? Also, are thoughts consecutive, or am I only perceiving them in a consecutive order? (that's probably a silly question, you don't have to answer that)

@winterknight thank you! Why do we like a good story? I hope that makes sense... I can elaborate if you wish...

Ok. Could you give a beginners explanation to that method? Sorry, this thread is long so you can just link to one if you've already covered it.

@winterknight I've understood about the idea of me for a while now. But I still struggled with feeling like an I. Feeling like the thinker of thoughts. But what clicked is that there is only thoughts of an I, not an I(persona). Only the thoughts. No thinker. Even now as this is being typed, it is a succession of thoughts which does this, not I. Again, please straighten me out if needed. I will find the I that observes. Thank you.

6w5 6 with a wing of 5, according to a free online test Edit : oh oops I took a modified test that gives a subset. So 6.

@electroBeam I like what you did there

@winterknight thoughts seem to come like an unending train. When I observe them, they jump around from random thoughts to ones that seem to build upon the last. There are me thoughts, and there are not-me thoughts. Is the "I" I think I am just a train of me thoughts? There is no controller... The thoughts just keep coming, building upon the last, sometimes they verbalize through vocal cords, and say that I am this and that, but that's all I am. I am thoughts. There is no I. There is only thoughts of an I. And there is awareness of these me thoughts. Please forgive any ignorance on this matter... I've just been learning to observe thoughts and something may have clicked together, but sometimes I come up with some off the wall crap and learn by having others set me straight.

@winterknight what are thoughts, why do they arise, and what propels them to arise?

Tonight I want to do something a little different. This post will be focused on sharing gratitude for everything in life. First, I will use a method I like to do, letting go and writing the first thing that comes to mind, while maintaining the query: "I am grateful for-" It's a good look into how thoughts arise. It also shows how even though thoughts seem to appear from and dissolve into nowhere, each one totally independent of the one proceeding, they also seem to have some sort of interaction, through memory, perhaps, because just one can steer the random train in its favor. This method also sheds light on which topics seem to arise in thought more often, or with higher priority, (again, showing thoughts' relationship to memory) Ok so here goes. I am grateful for : Love. Romance. Lust. Quietness. Parties. Sex. Food. Anger. Smart. Jealousy. Salad. Jerry. Pam. Sampson. Mariah. Snow. Magic. Wonder. Sarah. Micah. James. Potter. (stopped to edit a part above, but I'll revisit this method at random to observe the nature of thoughts.) As you can see above, starting out with love steered the train of thoughts towards a very egoic interpretation of it. Then it broke away and went to random words, then from one name got kind of stuck spouting off random names, then went back to random things I'm grateful for, and then back to names. I've done this method before, but this is the first time I see the true potential of it. To study the nature of thoughts and how they constantly try to weave into some kind of story, like they can't help it. (sounds familiar...) So another way I will show gratitude (gratitude stands for great attitude) - - that thought came to me and made me laugh... Lol.. Anyway, I will show gratitude by also steering the thoughts toward memory, whatever that means. Who steers it though, if there's no I? Regardless, for this post, I will use two methods to study the nature of thought: letting them come to me (listening in), and (somehow) steering them towards memory and consciously(?) listing what I'm grateful for. So now I'll start pulling from memory and go into listening for thoughts at random. I am grateful for Michael. I'm grateful for my business. I'm grateful for my mother (oops that one kind of slipped in without selecting something from memory) **(switched to text-to-speech, listing things out loud because my hand was cramping)** VvI am grateful for my employees. I am grateful for my washing machine at work. I am grateful for my pets Luna and Charlie. I am grateful for this beautiful house that I live in. I am grateful for my garden who I have tended and built. I am grateful for the sun which feeds my plants and the water that falls from the sky. I am grateful for love and kindness. Okay interesting, I'm noticing that I can't entirely steer it towards memory. It's more like a combination of doing that but I'm still hearing the thoughts pop up before steering it to a memory. Although it could be because I have switched to text to speech and am doing this faster than writing. With writing I can finish the thought before writing it down. But that doesn't make sense, how can I finish a thought when I can't even completely steer it towards something. Okay I get it... I'm steering it towards memory, but still listening to the thoughts that pop up. Because that's all I can do. The thoughts are not mine. I can only steer it towards memory somehow. (the expectation was that this method I would consciously pick something I was grateful for, but I was finding that it still seemed I was listening for thoughts.) How do I do this? Well when I switched to text-to-speech, I was using visual memory to steer the intention of the query "what am I grateful for" (held in intention), plus the visual location of what I'm grateful for, in this case I was thinking of things at my shop (visually scanning the shop in the mind) , and then the thoughts begin to rise in that sort of manner.(hence naming the washing machine at work which kind of made me chuckle.) So if there is no thinker of thoughts, is it possible that I am even steering these thoughts? (that these thoughts are being steered) Does it take a thought to steer the train of thoughts in a direction? Or is will and intention something separate than thoughts? Of course I don't have any idea what thoughts are anyways. But I'm finding it fun to study them. Ok, this explanation took longer than doing the actual excersise, and now I have to go, but I'm glad I did it and it worked some kinks out for future exercises using these methods to study the nature of thought and perhaps throw in some shadow work too. Signing off for now

@luckieluuke Have you read Gateway to the inner self? I love this book https://www.amazon.com/Lucid-Dreaming-Gateway-Inner-Self/dp/193049114X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541770544&sr=8-1&keywords=robert+waggoner

Just talked to two. One was an old lady in a high school. Decided to ask her what her earliest memory is. She said it was when she was 11. It's also when she met a boy. (presumably who became her husband) I'm forgetting now but she also implied that she is now dead and somewhere near the age of 206. She wanted to hug me, but I felt scared and wouldn't let her because I sensed she would do something scary and I had just passed a scary part of the dream. Unfortunately her eyes melted soon after and she keeled over. Rest in peace, old lady. Hope I didn't kill you.... ? Later I asked another girl (in her 20's or so) her earliest memory. Damn, it's fading... but she remembered being in the back of a boat with a guy, (a guy who was a dream character earlier on) and another girl. Apparently the guy was in the back of the boat and passed some book up to the front, and then he fell out of the boat. Wow these answers really surprised me. I expected them to get stumped with these questions since it involves them remembering an event that happened prior to their presumed creation. Yet they we able to come up with these answers on the spot, with no hesitation and very detailed (much more detailed than what I am able to report from memory) Wow... This is interesting...

That's funny, because when I read this post I was in a very similar situation to what you described. Today is a late day for me. I'm used to going in anywhere from 7 to 8 a.m. every morning without missing a morning, for the past four years. Recently, we have been slow enough that I can afford to come in at 10 or even 11 sometimes on Wednesdays. Today is one of those days. I actually had a client at 9 , but I called my receptionist and told her to give it to another groomer, so that I could go take a walk in the park and reflect. While on the phone call I learned that the phone has been ringing, and the receptionist has been too busy to answer it. But I still went ahead and gave away my first client, in hopes to have extra time to walk in the park. Reading your post made me begin to think about it a little bit. First I struggled a bit. There's things that happen when I am looking, and I always worry about what will happen when I'm not there. And I felt bad that I'm taking this time for myself when I could be there improving our customer service. If not only to help answer the phones. Then I decided to let it all go. I'm tired of trying to control everything. My employees know what to do and what is expected of them. The worst thing that can happen is something will get messed up on a groom. And that may include me having to apologize to the customer. And I hate having to do that because... well... I don't know if it's because of fear or guilt or shyness. Course it could be all three. But I also realize that it could give me an opportunity to connect more strongly with the client. And if I were to approach it from that angle, it's possible that I could eliminate my fear of things going wrong completely. I've had this Insight before, so it just shows my inability to listen to myself. But also plays into how emotions do alter thought processes. A calm Samuel remembers this insight, but one in fear only knows fear. Through experience, I've learned to introduce positive emotions when experiencing a negative one. I don't always remember to do this in the moment, but when I do it does work. A lot of my issues come down to not listening to insights that I've had, or forgetting about them completely when I need them. I sure hope that gets better with time.

@Telepresent sorry, I was being a bit fecetious with that reply. Im sure there's plenty of overthinking here, but I think I see now what you (may have) mean(t) about relating from experience, instead of spewing out word salad, which I will try to do better going forward. Still, I feel I should mention that usually when I do this, I go into a sort of free flow writing, and it helps to get alot of ideas and conceptualizations out of the head and visible so I can see them from another perspective. This method does lend towards getting off track of subject, but many times I'm surprised what insights come from getting sidetracked. (and if not insights, then an irrational belief that I can notice and correct, or others help me to do.) This free flow writing also does not worry too much about hitting every non-dual note, or the correct pronouns (or lack of) that I may do when responding casually to posts on the forum. This writing is like a voice wanting to get it all out there. All on the table. And it helps when I am answering something, instead of coming up with my own topics. It likes it that way... I dunno... Ok so here goes... Are feelings and thoughts the same or separate? I suppose feelings could be thoughts. Here I am talking about emotional feelings. What is an emotion, if not a thought? When I feel angry, am I really angry, or do I only think I am? Is there even a such thing as anger, or have I only been imitating what I learn to be anger, and mistaking this anger for real? Fear is another emotional feeling. So do I feel fear, or do I only mistake myself to feel fear? I mean, of course there is a definite feeling, but what if I only think/feel it to be fear? What if in the truth, the feeling is a type of excitement, and could be a desirable feeling, if only I didn't mistake it to be an undesirable one? But fear and anger are definitely two different feelings. I can't explain exactly how they are different, but I know they are, through experience. I'm getting that writing out how to explain different emotions would be beneficial.... I can say that I feel a prickly heat in the back of the body, from the crown of the head, down the neck, sometimes the whole upper back, and in my face as well. I like to say that I don't feel anger often, but that's not really true. I'm just good at masking it, and releasing it, but I do feel it when things don't go the right way at work, because it is in the service industry and I have a strong desire to make all my clients happy.(There's an assumption there that I can make them happy when instead I could just be myself and their happiness is up to them. I don't think that's entirely fair though, because I also want to help the ones that don't have the power over their own happiness. Because I've been there. Gave that power away and fought tooth-and-nail to get it back. Of course that power never went anywhere, I just hid it from myself.) Anyway, depending on the issue at work I can feel fear along with anger, so using this as an example can be hard to say which feelings can be discerned between the two. But the question is, are these feelings the same as thoughts? I'm still struggling with what are thoughts, and who thinks. So at this point, I could say either way that emotions are the same as thoughts, or that they are two separate things... without further context I just can't say. If separate, do they interrelate, and if so, how? I do see a cycle, if separate, between thoughts and feelings. Whether thoughts arise from feelings, or feelings from thoughts, or neither, or both, I can't say. But I can say that they feed each other. When something goes bad at work, I feel the heat on my body and my thoughts begin to race about the implications of this. Many times the implication is going to involve me going up to apologize to the customer and explain the situation. So these thoughts make me more angry, because I don't want (selfishly) to have to do that. But when something really bad happens, like a pet gets injured from grooming, which is sometimes common when putting sharp instruments to moving targets, I am overcome with fear, and anger at the situation. I know this is wrong to do but the emotional feelings alter my consciousness, and restrict thoughts that won't help to feed the said emotion. When angry, the thoughts tend to rise as more angry ones, I suppose as in hopes of survival of the feeling of anger. Thankfully, I am strong enough to break the vicious cycle quite quickly, at least with anger, and steer the thought train back to the lighter side. Perhaps I even invoke another feeling to aid me in this task, I can't say. Well that's all I got for now... maybe there will be some fresh ideas on this matter after a good night's sleep. Charlie says goodnight!

I'm not sure if I can meet your expectations on that, or even sure what it means to not think about it... But I'll try... Stay tuned

An arachnid that has the head of a dog. Awesome (and hilarious) evolution!

@SoonHei thank you for that reply, you've given me some good stuff to contemplate I wish you would start a journal and dig into some concepts. It would be a fun read.

@SoonHei yeah, it's confusing. But as I've seen you write a few times: it can't really be explained. That's too bad because this ego wants it goddamn explained!! Anyway, I still struggle with how thoughts work, and where they arise from. It's so easy to say they are "my" thoughts. But then I hear that they aren't really my thoughts, thoughts just arise. Well, ok, then why does @seeking_brilliance seem to have different thoughts from @SoonHei ? And perhaps they aren't really different, but shaded differently depending on our separate experiences. But that can only be said about some of them. Surely there are thoughts that "I" have that "you" don't have. So how are we not the thinkers?

I feel ya. Like I said, Its a two-edged sword. It expands consciousness (or dissolves the walls of ego, whichever), but it has a dark side too. Sometimes I need just a little bit to feel normal, otherwise I get foggy and irritable. And then even when I smoke a little, I am withdrawn and in my head. Only rarely does it make me feel outgoing like it used to. Even if you didn't originally use it to help with anxiety, I'm sure you have noticed some anxiety creeping in when not using it, perhaps not. as @aurum said, you have probably gotten from it what you need, and its time to let go. Easier said than done though, as I have been trying to do that for a long time now.... if you can't let it go then you have to accept it as it is.