Telepresent

My head is not my head My hands are not my hands Sensations within a sensory world Corresponding to something 'out there'? Perhaps, but not the thing. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did exist And here I am the devil Slamming an imaginary head against metaphorical walls While the walls are made of sensation of skull and skin But not really there because My head is not my head. And talk of all-as-one and I-am-all Useless while playing with the sensory me The me of perception and imagination and metaphor Glued together with emotional bonds This body is not a body These thoughts are not in this head And the suggestion that all I see is within my head Is useless while my head is not my head. My head, my not-a-head Contained within the sensory world itself With thought-words ascribing that this is my head And thoughts and imaginations trying to connect how All I see and all I feel is in my head While my head is within all I see and feel And so my head is within my head? No. My head is not my head My hands are not my hands My body is not my body And if there is an 'out there' It is not here And if there is a real body It is not here. And perspective is a key An artificial perspective Drawn of lines in the sand 'Me' and 'not me' Lines of thought Lines of habit Lines of learning. But 'out there' is also 'in here' The same sensory place Even if all in my head, my real head Then the walls the limits the ends are invisible (Or not there?) And my head, my false head Is a trick sitting within my real head. My head is not my head My hands are not my hands My body is not my body And whether or not there is an 'out there' A 'real body' or a 'real world' This is not it.

And that's really the fight right there, isn't it? The constant attempt to recognise to really feel that this is all sensation and therefore not real this is all perception and therefore not real that there may be a real but this is not it and all the thoughts and all the imaginings and all the feelings and all the rest are just perspectives just interpretations that's all they all are just interpretations given meaning because that's what we do given patterns because that's what we do but overall and all not true not the thing never the thing And I cannot stay this body if I want to move on I cannot stay this identity if I want to move on The precious imiginings that 'I' might survive Might be somehow made bigger and better And connected with all And negative feelings and emotions And positive emotional identities Will have to be put aside. For as long as I identify with my not-me Then I will be restricted and small and believing non-truth Contained and restrained as a tiny point within a large and separate other. And yet having ventured out and returned I find 'myself' wanting The thoughts once again demanding Return! Return! We must try and struggle and fight to get back But the thoughts cannot go The I cannot go It still clings still fights to its imagined salvation. And fears arise "Wasting time! Wasting time! All the things you have to do!" Clawing like harpies grasping at my back Dragging me in, in, into the head the head that is not a head but the more inside the more solid the more real it all feels inside the thoughts the fears the have-to's and need-to's and time ticking away tick tick tick and another objective between lunch and emails cannot be treated as such Locked in time is locked in false Locked in fear Locked in locked in locked in. A whole world, a whole world around the 'me' A whole world ready to be felt If 'I' just let go Just release that grip Just calm that fever to cling to cling To be in control. 'I' claiming it wants to be free but the freedom is restricted the freedom to control to only have what is wanted to not accept and not allow to demand and to cry out "THIS IS NOT RIGHT!" and be heard. But what but who is there to listen? Only 'I'. Screaming at itself, over and over. Thirty-one years of screaming And never one of listening. Believing thoughts believing divisions Believing lines drawn in imagination Believing Believing Believing.

Ok, this is fresh and I'm writing it pretty much to clarify it for myself! So apologies if it doesn't make sense... The mind is essentially a pattern-creating machine. It gets small pieces of data, and creates hypothetical models based upon them. Case in point, the Necker Cube: The cube doesn't exist in that image, right? It's a hypothetical cube, created by our mind's tendency to create patterns from raw and incomplete pieces of data. And it's actually really hard to look at and not see the cube: that's how intrinsic our pattern-making machine's operation is. It actually takes more focus to see what's really there, than to see what isn't there. Now, expand this concept out. Connect it to how you experience life. You have a few 'data points': sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, internal sensation, emotional energy, and thought. And from these, oh boy... EVERYTHING ELSE. But look closely, look really closely, and something odd starts to become apparent: almost everything we think about, act upon, fear, love, engage with - in short, everything we think we experience - exists in the gaps. In the negative space between the data points. Very little is actually what IS: it's the thoughts and judgements about what is, the projected/imagined future consequences (often established from patterns interpreted from past events). It's the "what does this mean?" instinct, rather than "what is this?" In other words, it's an incredibly complicated hypothetical pattern. In other words, I'm living in a hypothetical world. A hypothetical person, living a hypothetical life, in a hypothetical world. Blimey.

I'm also spending a moment here to extend this thought experiment out: turning mug/table into "mugetable", then adding the book next to them, and the remote control next to them - hell, let's just do the whole room - and now we've done that let's go for the whole house... and before too long everything becomes one thing. Of course it does. One big jumbled dance of whatever. In all kinds of colour and sound and scent and all the perceptual elements you can think of, but it's all one cat (to pinch a phrase from Alan Watts). But funnily not the universe as is commenly thought of: not a huge space 'containing' everything. Containment doesn't fit here. I like this experiment.

Dammit @StephenK, you're good at this! This is all connecting to a TED talk I saw recently which provided a real 'aha!' moment. The gist is that this guy has modeled that evolution not only doesn't guarantee that our sensory interpretation of the world is 'accurate', but that it actively works against accuracy: that shortcuts, simplifications and symbolic representations are selected-for, and that organisms that see things more accurately go extinct. In other words, our perception is most likely the product of millions of years of evolution geared towards fitness for survival, rather than truth. Makes sense. And I wonder if this talk stops short of the biggest implication. Because he talks about how we don't see the world accurately, but doesn't talk about how we THINK. The possibility that our entire mode of conceptualising, understanding, pattern-making, etc., may be entirely at odds with objective reality is hugely liberating. It seems we mostly go about imagining that, ok, we might not quite see accurately (i.e. "how can I know your red is the same as my red?") but that's it's mostly accurate. And this shit goes frighteningly deep. Because there comes a point where you have to start asking whether any of the basic principles we take for granted - including matter and energy - are true. Which is where it gets really tricky, because again dropping them leaves a hole, and we don't have anything to fill that hole with (of course, the question is "does it need to be filled?") But using the analogy from that TED talk, if we percieve matter and energy as being constituent elements of the universe, but everything within perception is the equivalent of a computer's GUI compared to its source code... how do we know that the source code of the universe has anything remotely close to 'matter' or 'energy' running the show? It's back to that idea that all I can know for certain is that experience is. Everything else, drawn back far enough, becomes an interpretation. And yet, I'm so deeply enmeshed in these interpretations, I KNOW there are many more to be worked through!

Thank you for this reply, @StephenK - I've been trying to deal with relativity and what I'm calling 'heirarchical/relative mapping' for a while now, and the visceral application or reality of perspective/context, but this simple description summarises it perfectly. But the step I hadn't taken yet was your next point. Instead, it seems, I have been attempting to establish a 'deeper truth' of each something I see, hear, etc. - some kind of absolute that I can hold onto (i.e. some more 'advanced' version of 'the mug is hard') Of course the really interesting thing here is that without perspective, there is no absolute. Wait... hang on... [at this point I go off on a bit of a stream-of-consciousness. Sorry if it reads a bit weird, but I needed to write out what I was working out, and it felt best to leave here] Extrapolation: "I" is a perspective. It is also a product of perspective - self-defining particular sensory attributes to itself as an absolute thing. God, what even is a thing? I've been tied up in knots trying to understand something/nothing, but they're both objective approaches aren't they? Both definitions, both bordered with start and end and perspective and definition. Mind stuff, not true, can't be true, only the extrapolations from the negative space... Ok, wait. I is a self-perpetuating, self-referencing, and self-constructing objective perspective? Perspectival object? Things, there's something important in things. What is it what is it what is it? WAIT! Objective reality. Always believing things have objective reality. Rejection of one objective reality with the expectation of a replacement. What do I mean, what am I saying? Ok, let's say I'm English. Part of my identity, right? Not an absolute truth, of course, but a label used to categorise and stereotype and put me in a particular box with particular expectations and... and what? And we reject this notion and we say that it's just an idea just a thought a concept and we throw it aside all proud of ourselves. But there's still a hole there, isn't there? A hole where it used to be. A hole of identity, and on a very deep level we're waiting for something better, something bigger, something else to come and fill the hole. Another thing. Another bloody thing. Only... all the things are mind-objects, aren't they? All relative definitions in one way or another. All false. In absolute terms, all false, because they all rely on relativity to be considered anything. Everything sodding everything full of these MADE of these. Object, object, even just looking at the mug and thinking OBJECT. What is object? Isolated, culled from what is around it by mental lines edges beliefs assumptions shit. Always this idea this idea that there is SOMETHING. Of course cannot deny experience that is but the SOMETHING: sneaky little mind-objects. Sneaky little buggers. Just the word: some thing. Thing. In isolation, in separation. Ah, man, I need to sit with this a bit.

Brilliant @Buld, thank you - I'll look into that! A quick search brough this series of lectures up: having neither read the book nor watched these yet, I have no idea if they expand further on the ideas in the book, but I figured you might want to have a look too!

Ok, fair warning: this post is a little long! I've had a very interesting morning so far. I have an autolysis practice which I do (at least) every morning. Today something lifted for a little bit. I've considered trying to summarise or explain it, but I think the best way to share it is actually to copy the raw text that I was writing as it happened; a kind of real-time documentation of my attempt to work through it. This hasn't been edited, so please excuse any proofing errors, etc. Also, it's not exactly written to be read, so might be a bit incoherent at times! *** So there’s something happening other than thought. This space (for want of a better word) within which thought arises. Also the same space within which sight, sound, the rest, arise. Easy to think of sensations as more real than thought, or as prior to thought, to hierarchise them, but they’re all arisings (something in me wanted to say ‘energetic’ arisings then – and my thinking stopped it). So there’s a something – that something is these sensations arising. Any interpretation of them – even the most basic, this is a body, this is my body – come from and through thought/mind. Constructs, concepts. Useful, but mind stuff. Contents. So what actually are the sensations – what are they made of? Where do they come from, where do they go? We’ve fobbed ourselves off by saying ‘colour, shape, tone, pitch, texture, temperature, etc.’, but those are descriptions, labels, more mind-stuff. Shortcuts meaning we don’t need to look closer. Dismissals. And here the mind chips in with pre-ready answers: awareness, consciousness, energy, the ocean. All names for things that I don’t know, haven’t experienced directly. Avoidances. What actually are these sensations? What are they made of? So full of myths. So full of ideas. Writing in the hope that it’s not a distraction, but a getting out of the system. Trying to align my experience with the ‘path’ laid out by McKenna (what would he say to that? Kill Jed McKenna, probably). Constantly wondering if I’m nearly ‘there’. About to launch into an imagined something. Imagining being seen, adored. The movie of my life, right? Interesting how thought pulls me back into a position of being ‘inside’ body. Whereas when thought is not thought, there isn’t… it’s not even that I’m ‘outside’ body. There just isn’t that dynamic at play. It’s a non-issue. And of course not how the mind imagines. Because the mind tries to locate. The mind tries to place this and that. Drawing boundaries, drawing barriers. Now imagining other people reading this – want to suddenly be seen as great or smart or wise or some other crap. Filtering filtering Constantly, constantly, feel that? Over and again: expand, thought, SUCK! back into body-mind. I, I, I, I, I, all the thoughts all of them each one predicated on central I figure even if not saying I each one pulling sucking back inwards inwards rebuilding the concept the structure every single time “What is this song?” reduces sound to defined structure of song spatio-temporal object being listened to by body-mind ‘me’ Reducing it reducing it Still imagining a future of being great Particular section of visual sensation called ‘fly’ – separated from the rest and defined, observed in relation to my separate body Where does this come from? What is it made of? What the hell is it? “What’s the name of this song?” See the division there? The sounds changed and you’ve given them a barrier. The end of one thing and the start of another. All one stream of sound, demarked by rules of where song starts where song stops what song is named. Don’t fall into excitement. Excitement lives in future, in thought. “Am I about to?” Irrelevant See the separation there? Now and future. I am no not and I am about to. Where is the line between now and about to? The same as the line between two songs? But the line between two songs is man-made: the sound-stream just continues. What is it made of? Misleading question. Suggests substance. Suggests an ‘underneath’ that it’s possible to break through to. Not quite, not quite. In and of raw truth. Raw is. Too conceptual. Trying to define Back into “I” thinking “I” building “I” through thought identification each thought saying “I” called “I” calling itself “I” and linking to every other thought calling itself “I” as if there is a constant as if there is an ongoing “I” and not just this fucking pile of thoughts all calling themselves “I” all holding hands with one another and pretending they’re one big booming monster Every thought a definition a separation inherent lines and boundaries and separations and concepts and constructs and objects and dividing and splitting and breaking breaking breaking everything apart Five senses. Five senses. Five senses. Right? Right? Really? One field. One ‘space’. Different qualities, different types, different forms. But are they five or are they all part of the same thing? (Thoughts, as well!) Phasing back and forth back and forth into mind out of mind. Mind is not happy. Mind is bothered and confused and wants to get into petty dealings of the day. Something else is happy or maybe happy isn’t the right word but it is right it is raw it is Indefinable But kind of wants to cry Look at this. Just look at it. How cool is this? Just stop believing the “I”. Just for a minute. What a trick. What a clever fucking trick. “I” is not just me, is it? Not just thoughts and body, but every piece of separation. For “I” to exist, there must be separation. So the printer, the laptop, the mug, the song, the ache in my foot, the pillow, the bag, the television, the wall, the tree – in all these things being separate things, there must also be a ‘me’. Separate, separate everything, and separate me at the centre. Even trying to name this thing this process this experience is separating it through defining it. Making it a spatio-temporal finite experience, which by definition will end and return to ‘normal’ or to ‘me’. Still imagining futures constantly imagining futures. So easy, so easy and tempting to fall back into. So easy and tempting to believe the fear, the fear of need to have to got to must do must do this thing time ticking away going to mess everything up got to get on with work got to do all the things or the world will end Doing doing doing the doer always doing. I the doer. Without doing, without thinking about doing, without planning doing, without avoiding doing, what am I? Lost it. See – now in the past, in the past, only a thought a memory where has it gone? Not gone, not gone, can’t be gone; the layers have come down and obscured it again. The boundaries. Boundaried objects, boundaried time, boundaried definitions, boundaried me. Treating as bad. Not bad, no such thing as bad. Subjective. Thought-game. Just is.

Something that demonstrates this, that people generally don't consider, is that clocks don't actually measure time: they measure other clocks. That is, time experienced is not an absolute or a constant, but it is relative. So you can't actually 'measure' time, because it's a subjective experience. So what do you do? You have one clock somewhere, which you call 'correct', or 'absolute', and all other clocks then measure time relative to that central clock. But - actually - how long is a second? Ask a fly, ask a tortoise, ask someone who is bored, ask someone who is sitting on a hot stove, ask two lovers together, ask someone who is leaping out the way of a speeding car...

I think there's a problem people come across, which is effectively trying to do everything at once. Trying to take one giant leap, when you may need many small steps. So, in this case, I see people who hear about this idea that the 'real "I"' is awareness, and they try to break straight through into that. Problem with doing that is that you have a very strongly reinforced pre-concept about what "I" is, and so you may be trying to bring that with you... trying to make the two fit together. Certainly I have spent a lot of time doing that. Perhaps another approach is to spend some time just gently questioning what exactly you think "I" is, right now. Don't worry about outcomes, or enlightenment, or anything like that: just pay attention to what is happening every time you think "I". Something like: "I need to go to the shops". Ok, what just happened? There was a thought, the thought referred to some kind of concept or idea of a central being, attached to that thought, called "I". It also stated that "I" needs to do something. So what is the "I" concept to which it refers? Do I actually know for certain? If not, how might I begin working it out? What do I believe I am, and what evidence for that belief is there? Is there any evidence which contradicts it? Etc. If it sounds like a slow process, that's because it is. It's not going to result in a sudden flash of realisation. But, like the turtle, slow and steady wins the race, and if you keep interrogating yourself and your "I" thoughts/understandings, you'll slowly come to a much, much clearer understanding of what you (and other people) mean when they say "I", and what it might mean in different contexts.

If I can throw in my two cents on this: I'm not a fan of the term 'enlightenment'. I'm not 'seeking enlightenment'. The reason being that the term enlightenment is such a convoluted mess of concepts and ideas that it's impossible to even say without conjouring up all kinds of (often contradictory) mental constructs, images, and abstractions about what it really is. What I consider myself to be doing is trying to work out what is absolutely true in my experience. Maybe that will lead to what people call enlightenment, maybe it won't. But whether or not I 'reach' it (another tricky term), what this process has done is given me a far, FAR greater understanding of my sense of self, how my mind works, how I react emotionally to all kinds of things, how my emotions relate to thoughts and actions (both mine and others'), how I relate to and understand other people, how I understand the world around me... Now, I consider that to be of IMMENSE value, whether or not I 'reach enlightenment'. It makes daily life easier to deal with, it makes difficult situations easier to deal with, it helps me to be much calmer and have far fewer negative emotions, and I often feel absolutely great for no external reason: I just feel great. However, the process is also very hard. I've said elsewhere that I am primarily focussed on Spiritual Autolysis as described by Jed McKenna, who describes it as 'like a zen koan on steroids'. It is a rather extreme form of self-enquiry, and it leads you to question very, very fundamental things about how you understand the world, and yourself. And that can at times be very emotionally difficult. A lot of the time you feel stuck, or frustrated, or like you're smacking your head against a brick wall. And it takes time, and committment, and quickly turns into a drive so that it's the only thing you want to focus on (which means you need to be disciplined enough to do it alongside work, personal commitments, etc.) I had a lot of emotional issues a few years ago, which is what led me to start on the self-development road. I agree that I would not have been able to do this when I was in that part of my life. Meditation and mindfulness would have been extremely helpful, but the places the deep self-inquiry take you? I'm not sure I would have been emotionally ready for that. So... what's my point? I guess that whether this leads to an ulitimate somewhere or not, it comes with its own benefits that I think can't be achieved through more foundational self-development work or meditation practices, but that it is HARD WORK, and absolutely I think that you need to be in a sturdy place emotionally before embarking on it. At least, that's my opinion!

I'm going to struggle to articulate this correctly, so bear with any rambling. I've been focussing on two questions recently: what is emotion, and where does sensation come from/go? So I've played with a little thought-experiment, which for a moment felt like it opened a door to something important, but I'm still trying to recognise it properly. Throwing it out here... I'm not sure why. To see. Emotion appears to be a name we give to states of energy - some high, some low, some intense, some calm, but it all seems to be various waves of energetic sensation. Which leads to the question, does the energy ever go away? Answer: no (or at least I've never experienced it, and doubt that it's possible to and still be alive). So we've got a permanent something (metaphorical ocean, perhaps) we call energy, which rises and falls and manifests in different ways and we call that emotion. What happens if we extend the manifestations of the metaphorical ocean to include other forms of sensation? Light and sound and friction and thought... arisings and fallings and eddies and flows and peaks and crests and troughs of this metaphorical ocean we call energy? (Or perhaps it goes by other names too) Where does a wave come from, and where does it go? The permanence, the ocean. Where do sensations come from, and where do they go? Into the ocean. I feel like I'm on the edge of something big, but I haven't got quite there yet...

@Saarah No idea! And I wouldn't want to speculate until I have a better sense of it. @99th_monkey Thank you. There's a hell of a something here to dip into: it's good to get encouragement to feel my way into it! @HereNowThisMoment Tracing back as far as I can, and stillness... there's something extremely potent there. Ties into that sense of constancy, what we were talking about elsewhere about the core of Now; how all the manifestations, all the sensations and thoughts and perceptions, are inherently temporary and therefore can't be the absoluteness of the present. It's all the same thing: the waves, the manifestations, compared to the constancy, the stillness... And here's me trying to put into words something that seems like it can't really be conceived in thinking. I think I have some sitting to do!

I like this. "Am" prime. Seems like a good way to look! I find the word 'real' becomes tricky when considering things this way. It's the subjective/objective distinction, I think. Subjectively, my thoughts are just as real as any other sensation: either perception (sight, sound, etc.), or bodily sensation. The thought is here and that is indisputable. But objectively, in the 'external' world, they don't have corporeal substance. So what do we mean by 'real'? Of course, this might lead us on a loop to say that 'real = tangible'. But there's an argument to be made that all you can ever know for certain is that which you experience, in which case a thought - which you cannot deny you experience - is just as real as a sound, which you also cannot deny you experience. Whether or not the sound is indicative of the actual corporeal existence of, say, a singing bird is irrelevant - the sound itself is real to you, right now. So which is more real: the sound or the object it 'comes from'? *EDIT* No, wait, hmm... I both agree and disagree with what I wrote there. About thought, specifically. It's... gah. The thought is here and that is indesputable, but the content of the thought, that's something else entirely...

Also, for some extra fun: what is an object?

No, please don't apologise: it's a heck of a wall to be knocking your head against! A biggie, and I'm not nearly through it myself. In a similar way, I'm knocking my head against "I", which is probably why I keep focusing on that part of the discussion! Probably they're related. The struggle I have with "I am" = the present moment is that there's still (in my head, at least) an implicit element of distillation/separation in the use of the word "I". Always a label, always an idea. But then it's pretty much impossible to write about without doing that, so... yeah... Have you addressed time at all? As in, have you clarified for yourself what time IS? What it actually is, versus what most people think it is? Again, being and thinking are very different things, and time resides almost entirely in memory and future projection. The reason I ask this is because Now means different things to different people, and I'm trying to gauge what your meaning/understanding/definition of Now is. I think a lot of people fall into Now being a moment in time (hence the question "how can we remain in the moment if it's always slipping away?") But I wonder if you've already dealt with that, seeing as you state: Once I recognised - really recognised - that my concept of future was imaginary, and my concept of past was memory and no longer real, I calmed a great deal. I wonder if you've done the same? However, there's a third note to hit: what is Now? What is the moment? I'm still batting that around and I'm happy to keep knocking ideas about, but alas can't give a quick answer! But let's look at a couple of things you've said. Great, cool: we have a constant, and we're calling it Now. What I'm investigating right now (no pun intended ) is "what is Now, and what is not Now?" It can be very easy to look around and go "well everything that's here/happening is now, isn't it?" But you've identified Now/the moment as a constant, and that means that almost everything (if not, in fact, everything you perceive) CANNOT BE THE CORE OF NOW, because they are all temporary. So - for me - it's a question of stripping away again: take away everything that arises and disappears, and what is left? (I recently started a thread called 'Energy' which addresses one of my thoughts about this) But to return to your very first question: Maybe I'm interpreting you wrongly, and you're actually ahead of the things I've just written, but if not I wonder whether asking if "nothingness" and this moment are the same thing, is putting the cart before the horse. One of the perennial issues I find in this work is a desire to understand, understand, understand: "is this that?", "oh, does that mean XYZ?" and so on. Questions that are very useful as a process of inquiry, BUT if you actually get given an answer, then things may halt in their tracks. I wonder here if you're asking this because you are striving to understand "nothingness"? Trying to define it? And if so, my only suggestion would be to focus on getting to the truth of what this moment is. Once you have the truth of it, you will know whether or not it is the same as "nothingness". And if not... well, there'll be a new question to ask!

@HereNowThisMoment Yeah, I can see that. It's tricky to get across quite what I mean, but I certainly agree that going around pointing out every object you see, hear, etc., and going "that's not me!" won't do very much. I suppose what I mean is more mental than that; more internalised or personalised. So... when I focus on the idea of me, I do it based on the structures and definitions I've built up in my head. A very simplified version might be ideas such as "I am educated, I am English, I am capable but slightly lazy, I am left-wing, I have trouble with authority, I don't like rules, I have to have a job to be successful, I need to be seen to be smart", etc. (The problem with stating them like this is it makes them look simple - they're more like a Gordian Knot of inter-related complexities). And so when I start deconstructing 'me', determining what I am not, it is a process of untangling these mental definitions I've made for myself. Definitions which come from all kinds of influences: parental instruction; cultural and societal rules; the limited understanding of the world I had when I was three or four years old which has been taken on as 'true'; what other people have told me I am (particularly when I was a teenager); what various pieces of paper (qualifications, or job history, or passport) define me as... none of these are existentially me, but for the most part when I refer to myself as a person, a conceptual object, it is these ideas that I refer to. There is a whole other issue of body-vs-the rest of reality, and going around separating my physical body from, say, the cup I see or the keyboard I am touching very much labels things in a physical duality the way you say. What I found helpful when attacking that issue was to take things one sense at a time: what do I see when I see? What is sight made of? Where is me/my body in sight, and where is everything else? And what - if any - is the distinction between them? All of this, of course, is not to say "I am / my approach is right" - I'm still working out this game myself! You probably are. But frameworks aren't de facto bad, or wrong, or anything else. So long as you recognise them as frameworks, and don't treat them as absolutes. The mind works by abstraction: it's how we understand anything. The trick with this, of course, is that ultimately we're seeking not to understand existence, but to experience it. However, if frameworks help to progress things, I don't think they're necessarily to be avoided. Just dropped when the time is right. I've played with a lot of frameworks which have helped me to see through some much deeper-entrenched frameworks (those ones that are effectively assumptions posing as FACT). Seems to me that the importance in doing it is to remain aware that that is what you are doing, and not allow your new framework to take the position of FACT in your head... Awareness, awareness...

@WelcometoReality I've been batting that around since posting the above. It's tricky: like an arms-race against my mind which is trying to turn it into a concept I can hold onto. I've already dropped the 'ocean' metaphor - it did its job in helping me to see something, but to keep using it will be playing with the metaphor rather than with experience. There's an underlying constancy that I'm feeling my way around: very grounded in tangible presence, seeming as though it couches everything else inside it. I'm wanting to use the word 'infinity' (not as in 'very big', but as in not of dimension - not of time/space, but containing time/space) but I think at this point that's the mind trying to revert to something I've heard and mentally constructed, rather than the felt-perceived reality of things.

That's a very important question, and a difficult one to deal with. I certainly find myself returning to it again and again to check my approach. There's a very real risk of building a conceptual or intellectual model as a 'goal' or 'target', and calling that "enlightenment" (in fact, I'm willing to bet almost all of us on this forum do that almost all of the time). Because that's how we typically understand things. It's a problem calling the 'end result' a result, or enlightenment, or anything else, because as soon as you do that you've turned it into a mental object and you're dealing with that rather than what IS. On the other hand, intellect and inquiry are incredibly useful for recognising what is not. And that, for me, is the distinction: it's a process of using intellect to recognise the mental objects that I hold, seeing that they are not absolutes and are in fact concepts/structures/models, and seeing what's left when you look past them. Then rinse and repeat. In that process I continually make new mental models, and then have to rip them apart, which makes a new (but slightly smaller) model, which I then have to rip apart, which leaves a new model... I'm not sure where this all leads but I've had a couple of glimpses of something behind the curtain, leading me to understand that it cannot be understood as a mental model. The word "I", on the other hand, implies a mental model: an object or thing you can point at and say "that's it, there: that's 'me'!" I'd suggest when you focus on "I", focus on what is not, and when you focus on what is, try not to label it (I, enlightenment, non-duality, whatever... they're all mind-objects)

Hello! "I really don't feel like I need someone else to make me happier. I'm extremely happy as it is. I just feel that the further I progress towards liberation the harder it is going to be to find someone. " I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused: this seems - at least to me - to be a massive contradiction. "I went on this journey to improve myself and make myself happier. I'm making some progress and there are girls interested just because I'm happy and a mystery to them. It's just funny how now I'm like "meh whatever I don't really need this". Maybe my mind is just making up another story. That would be funny. I don't know, I really don't." I would suggest your mind is making up multiple stories: about what is happening in these encounters (because you never know what is in someone else's head), about your responses to them (because you are sounding rather defensive), and why you are posting this here (because it feels like you're seeking validation). Of course, you may disagree with me, but I feel like you're trying to work something out and so I don't want to mince words.

Agh, this stuff is so tough to talk about, isn't it?

Right, ok: this kind of question is impossible to answer, because we can't see through your girlfriend's eyes. Sorry. If anything, I'd say she's equally confused (we usually imagine that other people know what the hell they want, or what they are doing: they don't). Ultimately, we can't tell you what to do or what not to do. If you want to try to keep it moving forwards, then you try to keep it moving forwards. If not, you don't. But I think it has to come down to you: is the potential relationship worth the pain? Be honest in trying to be objective: your emotions may scream "NO IT HAS TO BE THIS GIRL!", but... Look, I also don't want to advise you to not try. I don't want to tell you to do ANYTHING. I'm not qualified to do that. I suppose the point of this post is to try to point that out to you, too. We can't tell you what to do, because we're not you. Now, if you want to talk about what you want from relationships, your experience with this girl, what you hope for the future, what you fear for the future, etc., great! And that may help you reach a better understanding of yourself which may help you to reach a better conclusion for what you want to do here. But I'm afraid we can't tell you what to do. In the murky world of relationships, there are no fast answers

@Actualizer That is a beautiful and cogent reply (and far better written than I would have managed) But can I be a little heretical, and suggest the spirit of my question was that it is impossible to answer? So, right now you've landed on an answer. Which leads to a wonderful paradox: you've answered my question fantastically, and yet I know your answer is wrong because it has joined the binary. You've written it, which means it says "X, not Y", and no matter how many caveats you write down, anything you write will also have that problem? I'm sure, from what you write, you see this problem: how anything you try to express is just... flattened. Although, I might be massively wrong. I am nothing but another player. But I will leave you with a challenge: You say "It's a good thing". Why?

Hello! Can you clarify something for me? In your description about dry-heaving because of an and, you say that it "wasn't really voluntary". But then you say" I'm not sure if it was the right move but I've had other things going on and it was all to much." What was the difference between these two moments of being?

Also, the very most important thing: forgive yourself. If you slip up, if you cave in, FORGIVE YOURSELF! It is in the past, you can't do anything to change it, so allow it to be what happened, and look forwards, not backwards!