Endangered-EGO

I believe I had an important realisation a few weeks ago. I have no real identification with thoughts anymore. I'm not in the absolute, or any awakening, but I am pretty grounded. My mind just plays games with itself and when it's pointless it collapses. I don't meditate anymore, but when I do nothing, I fall into meditation. The mind doesn't direct my life. But what does? I'm just sitting here clueless and waiting. But not for something to happen, I'm just waiting. I don't even know what waiting is, if there is nothing to wait for. Being? I don't "desire" love, happiness, emotion, food, drugs, truth or anything. There is nowhere to go to, or to attain. I wrote this, hoping I would have a question at the end of it, so I'll just ask: What should I do? I don't want anything. Who can convince me I actually do want something? What is it? Note: I just let this post write itself spontaneously, sorry for the vagueness, but I felt like it was the best way to communicate where I am at.

No, this is the book https://www.amazon.com/True-Meditation-Discover-Freedom-Awareness-ebook/dp/B003X27LB8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1607516883&sr=1-1 Sorry for the late response forgot the post. @The0Self No, he especially states, that the do nothing is not "the intention to drop all intention" It is: Whenever you NOTICE the intention to control the attention, drop that intention. He says that the goal is not to wait for the intention to want to manipulate the attention. It is to drop the intention *IF* you notice it.

Thank you, I believe that is what I needed to hear.

It's not that I claim to not need to do that. I'm just not sure I am doing it right. I am not sure what this feeling of being a "me" is like. I'm not sure I am resting awareness on the me. Is it the same as "being aware of being aware"? What is the "feeling of being a me" without thoughts? Is it part of the method to struggle doing that? In that case I'm doing it right, if it's "being aware of being aware" that is the "me-ness" outside of thought/concept/percept's. @Someone here Yeah well, it's like I know there is nothing to do. That I could do things, but I just don't feel the need to "go anywhere"? I don't feel the need to find chase anything, including awakenings. Not even love. A part of me still does, out of "functioning reasons". I am not used to function without needing to get anywhere. @Mu_ That "state" I am in came from the fact that I had a non-awakening (without changes in perception) realisation that the "thing" I was trying to enlighten was already enlightened, awareness doesn't care. Do you have any things I could read about this integration phase? I know that adyashanti talks about this. And I just don't know what to do. I know what I could do, which is deconstructive mindfulness and reconstructing love. But I also have the freedom to just do nothing. I had a sober "heaven" realisation a few weeks before the enlightenment-realisation (I call it liberation, because it's more neutral).So I know it is possible to perceive the world like that. When I was into that state, I had no intention to try to keep it up. And afterwards it's only the thoughts that wanted to go back there. But now, I am not really motivated to do things to be in that state. I wouldn't mind it. I would in fact love it, but I don't want to do something to get there... Okay, that's not entirely true I'm curious how to get there and how to get other people there actually. It's just not that big of a deal let's say. I know that the thoughts are reactive, but the reactive loop used to get me the motivation to go towards "feeling good" and away from "feeling bad". Is there a motivation of being possible? I would intuitively train to find love in everything I do, just for doing things right, but I'm also okay with not feeling love. @Tim Ho I wouldn't call that "down", it's actually really liberating and calm, but confusing. I might need some time to adapt to that. How do people who are in bliss all the time get themselves to do anything? Habits? Empathy? If there is nowhere up to go, or no need to go anywhere? There are still things to do, but it's like getting a donkey to move who isn't hungry for carrots. (I am the donkey)

@Nahm Okay, that type of self inquiry I already do, but not strongly enough. For example, the me-ness is different. There is me-ness in the image-thought of my face, but there is also the me-ness in the association of head-space and visual darkness. I guess divide and conquer? To realise the me in my head. Is just an association of dark sight + head feeling + body/face image that occures. Oh damn, that is very very subtle.

Well there is this space, but there are still concepts like the Body. I'm not sure If there is space awareness or if I am aware of this space. How can I find out if there is any "me-ness" to that space?

Yes, I am just being practical by explaining that. One of the problems with self referetial thoughts, is that I believe I am aware of them, and as soon as I notice them, they kind of collapse. They can't really maintain themselves for a long period of time. But those are just the one's I am aware of. Maybe there are other self referential thoughts I am not aware of? Maybe I should look for thoughts that I'm not aware of. However I am also aware of the space in-between thoughts.

I had a Kundalini rising, that was the most intense Bliss I ever experienced. There is a part in Sam harris book "waking up" where he talks about ethics and a Guru who was told by his master "as long as you are awake, there is nothing you can do wrong", so he convinced heterosexual men who followed him, to have sex with him, which might have been a method to subdue the ego. But that of course resulted in dozens of people getting AIDS from him. @Leo Gura Maybe a good read for Connor would be Sam harris book "waking up". Sam example of a guru who thought he couldn't do anything wrong if he is awake. Including sex, and giving people AIDS.

@Moksha No it's not DP/DR. I had it 5 years ago, trauma induced. @Javfly33 Yes, I am the awareness, but I haven't integrated it in my life. I don't function properly without identification of thoughts. Not that I functioned before haha. I didn't function and suffered. Now I just don't know what to do and where to go. Yes, My Body wants food and drink. After ignoring it for a few hours I finally eat. The problem is we are all locked down here so I used to go for a walk, but I used to do that to calm the mind/feel better. I don't even truly desire that tbh. @Swarnim I kind of know what I COULD do, and I am doing it, but there is nothing FUELING what I do. No fear pushing me. No love attracting me. I have, and I have my approximate life direction for the life purpose. I'm currently studying psychology and want to develop mindfullness teachings with psychotherapy and a wellness center. One thing I need to do is deconstruct every percept and concept, and then reconstruct love. Kind of a step by step towards heaven. But I notice I could increase "love" right now, but I don't really feel the desire to do that... Maybe I need time to adjust. Or maybe I just convinced myself I don't want anything. @seeking_brilliance I would love a dog, unfortunately my life circumstances don't allow it. I'll just go pet dogs while taking a walk haha.

I once had a dream about waking up and seeing his new video "What is Creation?". I hoped that the video would come up a few days later, but unfortunately it didn't happen haha. No psychic abilities here.

Promising women spiritual enlightenment by having sexual intercourse with them. Yeah definitely not gonna result in hundreds of rape charges in a few years. How can someone not realise the danger of this?

Hello I noticed something My base level of concentration and sensory clarity had a huge increase during the last few weeks. My equanimity (letting the objects of perception come and go, without resistance) too, but it is not as developed as the other things. I trained concentration and sensory clarity by focusing on a lot of objects. Now I notice the SUFFERING of some things way stronger. For example today I had a little bit of nausea, and when that occurred I suffered WAAAYY stronger than usual. Fortunately it went away quickly, but still suffering more. It seems to be dependent on the object, for example some thoughts and emotions just flow through me, and I wonder how I don't suffer by observing some of them, like mild fear, sadness, frustration but for example emotions like despair, feeling trapped and of course physical discomfort are being noticed more intensely, which leads to more suffering under specific circumstances. I guess this is the hard part of mindfulness, dealing with painful objects, it's not yet possible for me to "take a step back" from identifying with them, like with the thoughts, and I just stand there and suffer for a while until they disappear. Does anyone have a few tips on training equanimity for when it is very intense? I know it is magic for mild suffering, but what about "big" suffering? Equanimity is also sometimes refered to as love, but I am not loving the objects of perception I am merely observing them and allowing them, maybe this is key? I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention to transcend physical torture fast, but I want to go into the direction of reducing suffering in general and in every aspect. Every time I suffer this gives me training, and I want to train correctly, so that I can at least have a positive thought going through situations in which I suffer haha.

@Javfly33 This is exactly my case 2 weeks ago. I made a post about that, and @Nahm made me realise I identify with the "seeker" the spiritual ego. Maybe reading my post might help you realise the same thing. I am not sure if you actually need to awaken to be "liberated". I had a lot of awakenings, but they were never permanent and I thought I had to get there. Pursuing awakenings is not necessarily pursuing liberation. I'm avoiding the term enlightenment, because I consider "liberation" being a part of enlightenment but not the whole thing. Here is exactly what I did, I contemplated free will, thoughts, effort etc. I noticed I differentiated between the random thoughts and the controlling thoughts. Differentiated between the "spiritual ego" and the "ego". I had to contemplate all those things to realise that a thought is a thought. Write down every different type of thought, everything that leads to a thought, every thought that is reactive, and every thought that come out of free will. What is the difference between a thought that leads to action, or a thought that isn't followed. Who decides what to do? What is the decider? Make up thoughts, make free will experiments (like write down what you think you are going to do next, and see if you can do something else). You need to differentiate every thought, every combination of thought-emotion-action-time. The chain of thought. thoughts reacting to thoughts etc. This doesn't even take long, just contemplate it, write it down, as much as possible with the intention to find out what types of thoughts there are. Again, I am not sure if you need to have had awakenings or be very mindful to be able to do that. I just see similarities between your situation and my previous situation. And read my post: @Leo Gura I'm not sure forcing yourself to meditate more than you can handle is better or even faster. Adyashanti said that, going at it with determination like an athlete just worked for him because he struggled so hard he finally gave up everything and had an awakening. Most people aren't ready to experience hell in order to "know the truth about hell". Forcing yourself to do self inquiry and meditation is just not a long term solution for most people who desire changes in perception (awakenings) or "liberation from suffering". If you truly want to experience "GOD's mercy", just give him no choice but to have mercy, go get tortured closing the door behind you. You'll give up any sanity you had left for truth. If you enjoy meditation, and it feels good, your mind will simply end up desiring to meditate more, and fall into mindfulness meditation during the day. Mixing effort- with effortless-meditation raises concentration too. You cannot start to sprint in the middle of a marathon. Keep the pace. The mind needs to build up momentum, by desiring to meditate. If it feels good to be focussed, the mind will naturally enter that state. If it feels bad the mind will try everything to get away from "IT". Same with psychedelics. If you expect a bad trip every time you take a psychedelic there is no way you are going to take them any longer. Every Master worked hard and smart. Smart being more important than hard imo.

@Swarnim Yes, it is not my intention with this practice to be awake 24/7. I have seen the nothingness, and I do self inquiry and use the deconstruction of reality with neti-neti in combination. I have a lot of "associations" of objects that I consider a thing. On that I am working too, I am also doing that with every suffering that occures, using shinzen youngs mindfullness methods. Unfortunately I am not aware of all the associations I have. An awakening into the nothingness can help I believe, but I'll exercise mindfullness with what I have now. Unfortunately It is hard to deconstruct every association of "bad pain" that occures, because it doesn't happen really often, and I don't want to deliberately hurt myself. I'll just wait for the suffering to happen, and not cause myself for harm than necessary, because I am more interested in relieving suffering than in truth atm. I have seen the nothingness and had countless awakenings. I want to "stabilise" and fall deeper into enlightenment in the now.

@Swarnim There is possibly a lot of "Me"-ness in physical discomfort. I just don't see it yet.

@Seraphim Thanks, one more teacher I probably need to listen to

I don't agree. The do nothing is the contrast to meditation with effort. It is so the mind learns to meditate on auto pilot. Of course it needs to be alternated with meditation with effort/concentration. The do nothing meditation is for people who already meditate. People who don't meditate cannot not-meditate, because their doing-nothing is always the same. It is also a good to notice how the attention has changed from regular meditation. Advanced meditators just sit down, close their eyes and meditations just happens.

@r0ckyreed Shinzen young has a guide (5 ways to know yourself) you should read that. I recommend reading Shinzen Youngs guide I just mentioned and Adyashantis "True Meditation" Book. I'll give you a hint, there is no difference between meditating or not meditating. There is no doing or not-doing. Shinzen Young uses the "Do Nothing Meditation" in contrast to the "labelling meditation". Meditation vs anti meditation he sais. The do nothing meditation is pretty easy. "Whenever you realise(!) you have the intention to control the attention, let that intention go" It's not trying not to meditate, it is meditation without effort. If you meditate and you do that sometimes, you'll notice you will simply fall into a concentrated effortless state sometimes. "If labeling makes you too racey do nothing, if do nothing makes you to spacey, label" - shinzen young Adyashantis Meditation is maybe perfect for you. It is meditation with as little effort as possible. About 99percent "allowing everything to happen" like the do nothing meditation, and only IF YOU NOTICE you are to deep into thinking, (so you don't have to put effort into it) you bring the attention as gently and calm as possible back to the object of concentration. You let go of the thoughts instead of switching with effort. You might not be there yet, but a lot of people "fall into meditation" instead of being bored while having to wait for something. You have to find just the right amount of effort to meditate.

I am just contemplating a little bit, feel free to tell me your POVs. The paradox of free Will. I got that there is no "decider" in the mind. The mind is not the primary thing that makes things happen. The mind can only fight itself, and it does so not because of free will, but because of circumstances outside of it's capacity to manipulate. So then, who/what decides? Religious people would say "the soul". With the realisation that the mind cannot do anything on it's own, not create anything but just react, it needs to be pointed in some general direction. But who/what points it? You guys point my mind into the direction of pointing the mind toward itself, because you realised that paradox, but if reality is not (pre)determined, and there is nothing "I" can do but to react in a way that my entire being didn't decide. I kind of (want to) believe, that the soul, the source, "god" or whatever, that formless thing decides the reality it wants to experience. So the mind has no other choice but to follow/react to "IT". The mind also somehow also seems not to be able to manipulate IT. The ego wants to manipulate the reality while realising the nothingness, but it just doesn't seem to work like that. So basically the mind either feels like a trapped slave, which desperately wants to have things go it's way, or realise the futility of trying to manipulate reality in a metaphysical way and just adapts as good as it can, because anything else would lead to suffering and nothing else. Now how does that change anything? It doesn't that's the best part of the paradox, there is nothing the mind can do to get out of it. Consciously doing the opposite to experience free will, is also an illusion, because without the previous experience of the paradox of free will, it wouldn't have tried to do the opposite, which is a purely reactionary action it takes because of the circumstances. The weird part is, while the mind ceases to try, there is a freedom that arises.

My results: 2 seconds of "nothingness" in total (not God) and merging with the perception of the hand a few times. Been really really grounded. However no eternity, no love, no reality is a dream, no illusion, no me creating reality, no concept shattered etc. I usually dismiss the nothingness really fast, because I had none of the above but I believe this was the nothingness very shortly. (defined by the thinning out of reality and no-self.)

@lmfao Hey, that is the first instinct of someone who starts to realise that there is no free will. Being trapped by circumstances. Do what I did, contemplate thoughts and decision. Just test out thoughts/action/effort/emotions with free will. Somehow this gave me a HUUGE sense of freedom, because I realised I have no choice but to follow my Intuition/heart. This also took away the "effort" part of deciding. @Someone here Yes that is exactly what I did-observing and questioning thoughts-, ever thought is reactive and not creative. Thoughts reacting to each other in a self nourishing loop, without any foundation. I am just using the ego as "the sense of identification with thoughts", I m using ego because it s easier to write. Not in my experience, the realisation of No free will came with a big sense of freedom, freedom to not have to fight thoughts with thoughts, the mind realises the futility of fighting itself, it is like a knot that just gets bigger the more it tries to resolve itself. There is no problem for the mind to solve. Having no free will is one of the biggest freedom of the mind. But the mind in fact never decides, it can only learn outside of it's control. That is exactly the point. The free will illusion is from the mind, but the mind needs it to make decisions based on everything else but the free-will paradox. The paradox needs to be taken out of the equation, for the mind to function: The mind cannot say "Well it doesn't matter what I do, because there is no free will". This is just not working, because that's also just a reaction, and a harmful one. Tricky mind haha. @Javfly33 About pain: It is possible to enjoy physical discomfort, like cold water and heat. If you voluntarily go to the sauna, you can enjoy it for a very long time, but if you were trapped into one, you would suffer right away. But that's just survival, the alarm about being close to death is ringing, if you know you can get out any second, the pain is not making you suffer.

That's what I just implicitly "understood": And it is the first time I am going to say the same "semantic confusing shit" all the other people that understand it said. I always saw what they told as a paradox, because it doesn't help to hear that "there is nothing you can do to awaken" A big thank you to @Nahm that led me to recognise that I identified as the seeker. And I finally went meta. So there it is: The Seeker never awakens, the ego can only realise the paradox of the "path to enlightenment", by seeing that the more you try to solve that riddle the bigger it gets. The harder you try, the harder it gets. The paradox of the paradox is that there is nothing the "I" can do or not do. There is not even a possibility to allow everything that happens to happen, because that is something the ego does to try to not fight with itself. But trying not to fight with itself is trying to do or undo something(which is also do-ing). So there is "not anything" you can do (or not-do) to either get to enlightenment. "Do nothing" is also not something you can NOT do, because it is just the opposite of the same coin. Meditation vs anti-meditation. I had a lot of "awakenings", but those were not the enlightenment insight. Realising the paradox of enlightenment right now, has not in any way shape or form changed my perception on the world, or how I feel (except freedom). "Now what can I do" is the thought that came up most often during the last few hours. Should I meditate now to get an awakening? Should I stop meditating? There is NO ANSWER. Not even do-nothing is the answer. There's not anything anyone can do in either way. The ego/the thoughts are not creative in a free will kind of sense. They are reactive, reactive to everything else that occurs including itself. There is no doing anything. It does so by itself. The seeker will continue to go the path, no matter how much it tries to do the opposite, it just fights with itself gets a few nice things a few bad things, but it can not get anywhere. "I am going to stop meditating, because there is nothing I can do" - But stopping is doing something. The mind can never ever get you anywhere. If this is the first time you hear something like that, and you want realise the futility of the ego trying to resolve itself, try to contemplate thoughts, thinker, decider, do-er etc. My mind now knows that there is nothing it can do or not do, or try to do or try not to do to get anywhere anytime. That's the paradox realisation I just had. Now I heard that this is enlightenment? Apparently it is enlightenment as long as I don't forget it, (and there is also nothing I can do to remember or to forget it). But I expected the nothingness to come up the second I realised that fully. Or heaven. Or at least ego death? I had those awakenings multiple times, without consciously realising, that the ego and seeker, were a strange loop of illusory self feeding identifications. So, now what for me? I know I cannot stop, I cannot decide, it's kind of deterministic in nature because the mind is reactive. And the seeker wants awakenings, but also knows now that there is nothing it can do. Is this enlightenment? Is this the realisation, that the thing inside of me always was enlightened? Can I now start a cult and confuse people with this? (jk but it would be hilarious though)

@VeganAwake That's what I thought, I'm observing it beginning right now. Checkmate atheists!

@EmptyVase I contemplated a lot of thoughts, I am right now contemplating effort too. Because I honestly don't know what effort is, and curiosly I am not being productive, because of the effort. But maybe there is no effort. I realised the effort needed to "do something" is in the thinking before you even start doing it. The second you decide to take action there is no real mental effort. I believe that effort are contradicting thought loops or resistance. Only time will tell. Yeah well, the problem is, there is not anything the ego can do to remember it's futility. I remember it now, but I will continue to look for "an answer" an probably sometimes struggle very hard, until I realise the futility again. I don't even want to contemplate it right now, because I still know it is futile. You can send me the thread if you want, I also had a "heaven" realisation a few weeks ago, when everything was love and perfect, and there is nothing that is not perfect, however that was more like "There is nothing I have to do, everything is perfection"-insight instead of "There is nothing I can do or need to cease to do" right now. @Breakingthewall Do you know the illustration of the guy running on a path, slowing down, sitting and finally laying down? You are the path, not the runner, the path doesn't change, the runner looks for truth, but you are the path. The runner (ego) can do whatever it wants, the path is still the same. The awakenings don't change the path, it's the runner that changes. There is also nothing to learn from what I said, because it doesn't change anything. It's like realising, the ego is in an infinitely big prison. How could it be different? The structure and it's contents are one thing.

@iameternallife By that I mean, there is no controlling the awareness with ego. We talk about the same thing. @Nahm Yes, thoughts are probably the thing I am the least mindful with. When I do that with the thought it kind of feels like I am forcefully stopping the thought, and not allowing it to vanish. I probably need to notice the beginning of the arising and not the thought mid-thought, correct?