Trouble with self-inquiry..

[Cody_Atzori]

I’m a beginner to self-inquiry and for the last week I’ve been having a problem not associating myself with my body. My mind justifies it as if I’m not the body how come I expereince everything from the perspective of my body. If the ‘I’ has no location how do I experience everything  from the perspective of the body. If the body is just a thought or a feeling, wouldn’t that be the brain/body going meta and just thinking about itself or experiencing the sensation of iself. Additionally, if the body is just a visual experience and can’t be me because it changes, shouldn't that be pruicley who I am, a forever evolving human being. 

I'm not trying to seem closed minded, but my mind is lost in the idea that I'm the body. Can someone please give advice on how I can transcend my assumption that I am the body, Or try to refute my justifications?

[Rilles]

A body exists with sensations and it has convinced itself it is an I. If you put a shoe on your foot how come you dont believe that you are that shoe? Its attached to you isnt it? Are you your hair?

Your nails?

Your legs?

Keep deconstructing and eventually youll get to what you really think you are; a perceiver.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Rilles

[NoSelfSelf]

You can ignore your body or give it attention to specific area and you are aware of that that means you are not the body

[Ingit]

@Outer I’m just practising meditation... Can i do self inquiry or should I do???? I just want to be aware of my mind... IM a medical student... I don’t want to be deep in these stuffs but is it OK to practise self inquiry to improve my life quality????? ? Thanks

[Gabriel Antonio]

8 minutes ago, Ingit said:

Can i do self inquiry or should I do???? I just want to be aware of my mind... IM a medical student... I don’t want to be deep in these stuffs but is it OK to practise self inquiry to improve my life quality?????

To improve your life quality, you can start by putting fewer "?" on your questions lol 

 

Self-inquiry has never appealed to me, because I am very prone to mental masturbation. So it would likely turn out to be a huge monkey-mind thing, with little to no breakthroughs.  

Here are some questions:

> What is your motivation for doing self-inquiry? 

> Have you ever tried psychedelics? (They can help you see the illusion of self/identity) 

> Have you already worked on your low-level self-development? (Self-inquiry is a very advanced technique...) 

[Ingit]

@Gabriel Antonio no no im not that advance... so what should I do along with mediation... MY motivationfor self enquiry is just to understand my mind and what i think as myself

Edited August 21, 2018 by Ingit

[Leo Gura]

@Cody_Atzori What if the mind is deceiving itself that it is the body, in the same way that a religious fanatic deceives himself?

How do you know what you are supposed to be?

Where is it written that you are supposed to be a body? Why can't you be omnipresent consciousness, and the body is just another object like all other objects?

Does the body really have any special boundary around it? Is it really any different than a coffee table? If the body is really you, how is it possible that you can perceive the coffee table? After all, the coffee table ceases to exist if you close your eyes. So clear the coffee table is a creation of your mind. As is your body.

Why are you trusting those bodily sensations as evidence of your identification with the body? After all, you have sensation of the coffee table (you see it), but you do not identify with it. Who says that bodily feeling is more real or determinative of your identity than colors? Why are feeling superior to colors? Who said so? Why are you blindly trusting your feelings? Who said feelings have any meaning whatsoever?

Who said the feeling of a body = you? How arbitrary is that?

[Cody_Atzori]

@Leo Gura thx for replying, youv'e cleared some confusion 

[NoSelfSelf]

@Mikael89 because what you call brain is also seen so you are not it

[Shin]

5 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

How come?

The Absolute/God etc. is Self aware so why can't the brain be?

You can have an headache and feel your brain.

What is feeling the brain ?

 

[Shin]

7 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

The brain itself obviously. (Maybe).

Are you sure ?

Let's say you are, then what is conscious that the brain is aware of itself ?

??

Edited September 13, 2018 by Shin

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Mikael89 said:

How come?

The Absolute/God etc. is Self aware so why can't the brain be?

How can thing A be aware of thing B?

If a brain can be self-aware why can't a coffee table?

To say that God is self-aware is to say that everything is self-aware.

In fact, there is nothing in existence but self-awareness. Name one thing which is not self-aware.

Self-awareness has no opposite.

[Leo Gura]

@Mikael89 You are failing to question the metaphysics of awareness or perception.

How is it possible for thing A to see thing B?

You are taking this ablility for granted. As if it is possible. It is not!

[SoonHei]

1 minute ago, Mikael89 said:

Maybe because the brain has a enough complex nervous system

notice your assumption that having a complex nervous system is what allows self-awareness 

 

 @Mikael89

[Samuel Rdz]

4 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

Maybe because the brain has a enough complex nervous system, while the coffee table doesn't.

You are separating yourself from the table, that is the main distortion, you are the table and the brain at the same time which, so in order that table and brain can exist it must be an awareness creating them, the illusion is that you are wanting to see awareness as separate from things but things are awareness.

[SoonHei]

@Mikael89 keep in mind. this understanding as to what to look / un-look for during your practices is important

 

Dreams is the best way to understand

 

say if you have a dream

in your dream, you are walking/taking/eating etc whatever. your entire body is appearing in a dream, including your brain inside (well, it aint inside there until you look, but let's keep it simple for now  ) 

so just like your body appears in that dream

so does a coffee table for example

or a car

or a bed

they all appear in your dream

 

now from your sleeping self POV

what are you in that dream? are you the body? are you the land? are you the walls of the room?

 

all of that dream world is appearing in your "brain" - the "brain" which is currently asleep

 

right?

 

so now use that understanding and cancel out the "brain" from the equation and replace it with ONE-LARGE-CONSCIOUSNESS

 

just like how your "brain" may create the dream world

the current waking world is created by the "one-large-consciousness" 

 

infact, the dream world and the current world are not different in any way

while you're dreaming, it seems as real as your current state right now when you're reading this sentence

it's only when you wake up it seems like it was all over in a flash

 

just like how it will be when you "die" in this current waking dream

your whole life will "instantly flash before your eyes" as you might have heard some people say during close-calls with "death" 

[SoonHei]

12 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

coincidence

there are no coincidences <3