Viking

cant do that. isnt that neti neti what youre describing? and what questions am i supposed to be asking? if i ask who am i, i get an answer -"no idea"

im doing a classic 10 day vipassana. no self inquiry. I did see both leo's videos on self inquiry though. I think I have some problems with my brain, when I ask a question I dont get the meaning of the question, hence i dont get an answer. im saying the question in my head and continue feeling the sensation. I can realize though that im not the sensation, but not because im something other than the sensation, but because i somehow know that im not the sensation, seems kinda obvious.

aware of awareness, that is. when I ask the question "am I aware", my answer is obviously, because im always aware, but the answer is more intellectual than experiential in the moment. I deduce im aware because otherwise i couldnt answer the question, but i cant experience my awareness.

I dont understand what you mean by relaxed attention, its either on or off. when i ask a question i can either ask the question or be aware of the sensation, not both. if i ask the question and then become aware of the sensation there comes no answer. haha im confused as fuck, but nevermind, thank you for trying to explain. I think ill be able to become aware at some point with my meditation practice.

wow I watched that video so long ago and only now I realize it's importance. Thanks, I have a vipassana retreat in a month, i hope ill see what you mean. im extremely mind dominant and my connection to the heart is very weak, so its going to be quite difficult, but ill push through regarding the belief work, I have peter raltson's the book of not knowing, which I started and dropped, maybe ill go back to it.

there seems like theres always something there, i can't not put my attention on something

i said earlier that i have no idea gow to focus on consciousness

@Preetom but how do i get rid of a belief? and it seems very tricky not to replace it with another belief, how do i do that? also how do i know that i got rid of a belief? its certain and obvious that i dont know that theres an external reality, but do i repeat it like a mantra every day until i stop believing it?

it seems to me like in order to become aware of awareness i have to dissolve my beliefs about who i am but in order to do that i have to become aware of awareness. i feel like self inquiry is useless because i cant disprove that theres an objective reality. sure its groundless, sure it doesnt account in consciousness, but those things dont disprove it. i simply dont know whats true. to be certain of the consciousness paradigm i have to be certain that other paradigms are false, and i cant.

maybe, but its a reasonable belief. i have to make some assumptions about life because my time here is limited.

@DesertRat in response to what are you saying that? I cant seem to be able to be aware of it. I know its not a thing, and it seems to me like i can only be aware of things (sensations, see, hear...)

Happened to me today. A few days ago I went to a healer. it was some sort of energetic massage, it was extremely weird, she made me visualize certain things, touched me with a lot of force in certain points in my body, and some more stuff i wont get into now. Usually I feel pressures in my body, aka chakras, or call them emotions if you want. after the massage I felt the pressure in my chest much stronger. Anyway, today I sat before my kriya routine and felt that strong pressure in my chest again. I felt like I wanted to cry, but I usually cant. I didnt have any sad thoughts, any logical realizations or anything, I just sensed my body. I started to sort of cry but not really, just vocalizing crying sound and getting air out of my lungs in a crying manner. as I did that more and more (without thoughts) i started to feel that feeling getting stronger and stronger and eventually it developed into a very real crying. I didnt cry like that in years (except during my LSD trip) there were so much tears and I felt very refreshed after. Crying like that without going into my past and thinking or anything like that after going to a "chakra healer" may support the chakra system. At least it makes it valid to say theres stuff we dont know about the human physiology, and maybe the chakra system is the way people long ago described it.

@Saumaya that was extremely eye opening, but what do you guys @Nahm @Saumaya mean by consciousness/awareness? can I be aware of it?

can you explain what the consciousness paradigm says exactly? is it that everything is one? or that everything is consciousness? or that there's infinity? or all of the above? from the materialist paradigm there is also no "me", and consciousness is a byproduct of matter- whatever matter may be, even if reality is groundless, it doesnt mean that it's consciousness, it could be some fields with no substance.

even though every animal senses the chair in a different way, there is still a commonality, all sense something. how can I know why there's something rather than nothing? any explanation i would give would be a belief, the answer is "i dont know".

Didnt you decide to be loving in order to increase the well being of yourself? that would mean that your well being is still your number one priority.

@InfinitePotential didnt understand anything, can you elaborate?

you mean that I have certain sensations, and I could interpret those sensations in an infinite amount of ways? If so, the question then becomes if there is a sensation at all, why cant there be a true "thing" that causes those sensations? without that "thing" there would be no sensations.

i get that, though there is a possibility that theres a table there. i also cant prove that theres no table.

what do you mean by "Strain"? when I raise my eyes, should I feel the sensation of kind of stretching? I dont feel any pain, its rather a pleasant sensation. at the start a while back it did hurt sometimes though. I feel weird when I do it, like something bad is going to happen (or cool).

I also feel sensations, sometimes in the back of my head, sometimes in my heart, sometimes between the eyebrows. I felt once when doing the wim hof method like my head exploded. this shit happens, any ideas you have about it are just ideas. if you dont want to distract yourself with beliefs, what the fuck is that "im gonna break my psyche because of some sensations in my head" belief? see your hypocrisy? Either study kundalini stuff or shut up and let go of the need to interpret those sensations. The whole chakras thing is just a useful model, you dont have to believe anything. it might help you achieve your goals of disidentification with the ego, or at least calm you about the speculations you run in your head about any sensations you have. Rare, rare, rare... its like dying when flying on an airplane. will you not fly it if you have a chance of dying? edit: ill give you an analogy for the use of the chakra system. say you want to build an airplane, would you study aerodynamics, physics, and all that stuff? of course, even though its just beliefs, there's no such thing as a "force" or "vectors" or whatever, but its helpful in order to build an airplane. You could build an airplane without all that knowledge but would you try flying it, not knowing whether it would crash? or at least knowing what's the probability of crushing? wouldnt you feel more secure if you knew that on some level it should stay in the air?

@Arman I am well aware of the glamorous shit new age people get attracted to like flies, but the key is to be aware of that. Maybe it works just for me personally to listen to content without concerning myself with the provider of it. I can weed out the speculation and remain with the golden nuggets as Leo likes to put it. I accept only what makes sense to me and what I can prove for myself, I dont believe in stuff I cant know for myself, like other earths, multiple lifetimes, divine grace or whatever. I dont fully agree, because you never know. Imagine stumbling upon leo's recent videos while being deeply orange/blue. you would just dispute whatever he says because you'd think he's a bad source of information.

what's the difference between personal awareness and source awareness? isnt it the same thing

I wouldnt start comparing channeling/no channeling because its pure speculation. as far as you can tell he can fake it, or have a mental disorder or whatever. all that matters is the content. waste of time to speculate

I watched the videos you're talking about. its true that psychedelics dont give you a permanent high, like yoga does, but he neglects the positive effects psychedelics can have, especially in western society. psychedelics can reveal to you a bunch of things you didnt know, which can change your life, even though they dont make you permanently enlightened. If I would have the chance to learn it directly from isha, go to their events and stuff I would, but its extremely expensive and time consuming. i think ill do it somewhere in the future but now i cant, so should i do nothing then? Maybe you can harm yourself if you half-ass the practice, but I think its highly unlikely. think of the people who came up with yoga, why didnt they harm themselves? I think its bullshit that you cant learn it from a book, sure maybe its preferable if you have a guide, but you also have your inner guide, which is better than all guides.