Seeking Experience After Self-inquiry. Help/advice?

[Torkys]

I thought about the question "Who am I?" and did the Neti Neti guided meditation by Leo with great effect. I thought I knew the answer, but knowing that enlightment isn't rational knowing, I started my first session of self-inquiry.

My thought process in a nutshell:

I very quickly scanned through the body and with the knowledge of if my body parts were changed piece by piece I would be still me (sort of a Ship of Theseus  story), I realized that I am not the body, with the exeption of my brain which has to have the same neuron connections as "my old" brain.

With a very similar process of thinking I discovered that I am not "my" experiences. I found one experience which I couldn't say I would exist without: my birth.

Here I wasted around 5 minutes thinking that this birth experience I am looking for is the one when I experienced the "real world" for the first time. I realized that the moment I am looking for is when I started experiencing life in my mother's womb.

What can I pinpoint? - I asked myself. I am not the human being - this thing could experience life in a body of a turtle, any time, any place, so I am not linked to time and place. I am not the first sound - I would be still alive without it. I am not the "touch" - I could exist without it. This is where I started becoming frustated.

What is it that makes me me? I believed the answer before: consciousness, awereness, or presence. The breakthrough was this question: If there is nothing sensory to experience, what would I be? "I created" a term for it: ability to experience. Again, I believed what Mooji said: "You are awereness without the concept of awereness". I asked myself the question: Would the "ability to experience" exist without the concept of it? "My" answer was a definite yes. Here is where I am stuck.

Thoughts can only work in concepts. Without a concept, I couldn't know myself. I am looking for an experience with which I can "shut off" my mind and become one with the experience itself, so there is only the "ability to experience", which I can only think is the true I, remains.

Did I fuck up? What should I do next?

Namaste: Torkys

Edited May 26, 2017 by Torkys
Making all first letters of the words of the title uppercase.

[Leo Gura]

Good start at inquiry. But there is no way you can go from nonenlightenment to enlightenment. No way at all. It's a discontinuous jump. Not a path. You have to "teleport" to it, so to speak. And you have no idea where to teleport to or how to teleport. And the worst part is, you will never know no matter how much you think about it.

Now, just do it anyway.

Notice that "the ability to experience" is just another experience for you. Every thought is an experience. What you need to teleport to is not-experience. How? There isn't one.

Keep chipping away at it. Don't stop inquiry.

[Torkys]

@Leo Gura Thank you very much! Can you suggest any techniques for this? Sufi Whirling and Osho's Dynamic Meditation and Osho's Kundalini seem good for me, maybe I'll try those.

[Leo Gura]

@Torkys Inquiry is the technique. You're doing it. Don't stop just because you get a little stuck. You must be prepared to do it for 10,000 hours if necessary.

[Torkys]

@Leo Gura How to continue my self-inquiry? I feel stuck. Different angle? Continue from here? Ask the question again?

[Guest username]

@Torkys You said you think you are the brain. Notice that that is just a belief, just a thought. 

You identified with your birth, but that is just that thought. Who is it that was born?

You are also hung-up on who is it that has the ability to experience and went back into concept instead of direct experience by theorizing that there is an ability to experience without the concept of it.

But since it's giving you trouble, try investigating that belief. Is there really the ability to experience without the concept of it? What is ability? What is experience? Who is that does the experiencing? 

[Visitor]

@Torkys Leo said...

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

... Not a path. You have to "teleport" to it, so to speak...

Inquiry does not necessarily mean to ask a question. To ask a question already puts you onto a path. And as long as you are on a path you are stuck on the path.

You may have a question but then let go of it, don't hang on, accept, accept, accept...

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Torkys said:

@Leo Gura How to continue my self-inquiry? I feel stuck. Different angle? Continue from here? Ask the question again?

You just sit down every day and keep looking at the situation from scratch.

What are you?

Start from zero every time. See where it goes. The questioning will take you to many different places.

[Torkys]

@username This was a really helpful comment. Thanks for pointing out that I was in armchair philosopher mode! Another question I should ask myself is: "What is it that I am identifying as?"

@Visitor Thanks for the tip! One question: what is it that I need to

19 hours ago, Visitor said:

accept, accept, accept?

@Leo Gura This was my best guess. If I keep identifying with what I concluded before, I will never get anywhere.

By the way, I did another 30 minutes of self-inquiry today. My conclusions are: I am NOT the one who is awere or percieving. Experiences can exist without 'em.

Edited May 27, 2017 by Torkys
Grammatical error, making the question more understandable.

[Torkys]

20 hours ago, username said:

You said you think you are the brain. Notice that that is just a belief, just a thought. 

@username It was just a temporary opinion, which I broke later on in my inquiry.

[Guest username]

14 minutes ago, Torkys said:

@username This was a really helpful comment. Thanks for pointing out that I was in armchair philosopher mode! Another question I should ask myself is: "What is it that I am identifying as?"

@Visitor Thanks for the tip! One question: what is it that I need to

@Leo Gura This was my best guess. If I keep identifying with what I concluded before, I will never get anywhere.

By the way, I did another 30 minutes of self-inquiry today. My conclusions are: I am NOT the one who is awere or percieving. Experiences can exist without 'em.

Yeah, that's good. Keep playing around with the verbiage. I find that the mind has a tendency to just start taking the questions as background noise if you keep asking the same one monotonously. So instead of just asking "Who am I?" every time, I also like to ask:

• "Who is perceiving?"
• "Who is aware?"
• If I want to make the feeling more visceral, I try to connect with my environment and ask, "Who is perceiving/ is aware of ALL OF THIS"?"
• "What am I?"
• "Where am I? Can I find myself?" 

I also like doing this exercise where I try to locate myself within the body. I put my hand on some part of my body ask play a game of "Warmer or Colder" or trying to pinpoint the Self in Cartesian coordinates (you will always fail since there is nobody to be found), however you should notice that you have a definite sense of self.   Right now I'm stuck because once I "find myself" right behind my pupils, and fail, nothing happens, which I believe is supposed to happen since there is Nothing to find, but I am still not really being conscious of it directly.

Also, cultivate your concentration ability and achieve access concentration  or the first jhana. I'm taking time off of inquiring to double down on meditation and concentration to prepare the mind for self-inquiry.

Also, try cultivating a sattvic lifestyle so the mind is more naturally tranquil as well. An addicted, crazy monkey mind is severely handicapped in it's investigation ability.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with vedanta, but here's where I learned the little I know about it from:

 

This playlist should cover the basics.  I find a good karma yoga practice+ mindfulness throughout the day is very powerful.

Edited May 27, 2017 by username

[Nahm]

@Torkys Just chiming in...I would do what Leo says. This is the center of his wheelhouse from my perspective. I would also write on a dry erase board:

"I"

"Me"

then write your personal definitions (connotations) next to it. 

I think you'll erase the definitions many times and be left with the realization of what you actually are. 

I think then you'll see that part of what was preventing you from seeing what you want to see, was that the definitions you held for "I" and "me" were changing as you spoke / typed, and you weren't noticing that. 

From my perspective.... Me is someone that eats. Also, me is something that holds a belief that I must eat, and therefore I must. Me is also an ineffable substance.  Same goes for "I". 

helpful?

 

[Torkys]

@username Thank you very much for your response! My mind tends to go to other places. I already have a concetration exercise habit, I am at the start of it. I can focus on my breath for 2 minutes very well, today I will try 5 minutes.

20 minutes ago, username said:

Also, try cultivating a sattvic lifestyle so the mind is more naturally tranquil as well. An addicted, crazy monkey mind is severely handicapped in it's investigation ability.

I can't find an online source which would explain the sattvic lifestyle. Can you recommend me something, please?

[Torkys]

@Nahm I don't have a dry erase board, but I will try it on my laptop in a Word document for sure.

[Guest username]

@Torkys The Vedanta workshop I showed you talks about sattvas and many other important concepts.

[Leo Gura]

@Torkys Do a good solid month of daily inquiry before you start to get too worried about being stuck or asking questions. You need a solid base of experience, just like with anything in life, before you are even remotely capable.

[Torkys]

@Leo Gura I will get it done.

[Visitor]

@Torkys

8 hours ago, Torkys said:

@Visitor Thanks for the tip! One question: what is it that I need to [accept]?

Everything that comes to mind.