Travis

@Telepresent Yeah, it's confounding me too. I've been thinking about just setting a few days or a week aside to just practice presence. Do nothing else but watch thoughts/feelings/emotions/notions of I and other and object just come and go, while practicing non-attachment and non-judgment. What do you think about this strategy?

I'm asking myself: "Is awareness bound by anything?" 'I' experience. 'I' see. Awareness contains me. The dualistic nature between 'objects' and 'my' awareness still exists. What are some exercises/contemplation questions that have pushed you through this question? I'm on the verge of breaking through, and would love a signpost

I'm at the same place as you on the path. Hello! lol. I just keep coming back to the first fundamental question: who is doing all this? Why do I feel this way? Ahhh, because of thoughts and feelings, and thoughts creating more feelings, and feelings creating more thoughts. I'm not going to find solace in thoughts or emotions or feelings. They come and go within what? Your awareness. They seem to me to be signposts to discovering what's not real. What's not real. What's not real. Because I can recognize their fleeting nature, right? So what am I, and what am I scared of? I would sit with this question for a while: Who am I? If I'm not my thoughts, beliefs, attachments, desires, impulses, then what am I? Don't be so quick to discount what you think you are. Do you believe that you are some beliefs? A belief? Investigate this. Just to reiterate, I'm on the path too and am right there with you at the same spot. I don't have anymore direct experience than you have. I'm just honestly questioning. That's all it comes down to. Honestly inquiring within the depths of your being.

@Ayla I appreciate you sharing.

@Ayla I really appreciated your posts on handling the attacks of the mind when pursuing enlightenment. I have a good intellectual grasp now, finally, on what enlightenment is, and as I've been contemplating and being honest with myself, I've realized that the road ahead is temporarily not going to feel nice I know enlightenment is not an intellectual realization, but intellectually stripping away what is false has made truth appear less cloudy, and I'm grasping the ramifications of stripping away this false self and it is scary thinking about it I've printed off some of your posts about handling the inevitable protests from the mind and I just wanted to say thank you for sharing! I have them printed out to read when the mind attacks occur.

That's been on my mind a lot lately, as well. I'm getting to the point in my contemplation where the ego is not jiving with my direct experience and it feels like I'm going to be imprisoned within my own mind (but I recognize it's a feeling/emotion that is creating the thought, so that helps Speaking of contemplation questions, and linking them to these experiences, I ask, What am I worried about? I'm worried that I'll lose my mind and become completely disconnected with reality. With what reality? What am I afraid of losing? I'm afraid of becoming cognitively/emotionally/spiritually disconnected from what is. What is? And how would I become disconnected from it? Also, something that goes overlooked in me when having these thoughts is "I want enlightenment now" and "I need to get it before I die" which activates this sense of urgency and can contribute to anxious, panicky feelings that in turn produce more white noise mental chatter that jumps from thoughts to emotions, feeding further thoughts etc. Asking these kinds of questions bridges the gap between what we fear and what we want to achieve. It shows us there's more to the story, and it's all just a story Peter Ralston's "The Book of Not Knowing" is a great read and will also help form more questions to contemplate.