I just can't get over the "I am a mortal human"

[Pouya]

Everytime I sit to inquire/contemplate I just realise that I honestly believe in a physical world and I am a human that will die and stop forever.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Pouya

[Pouya]

@David Hammond I ask who is aware and the belief slaps me and says "you the human being"

[Jkris]

@Pouya Instead of bottom up try the top down. Meaning trust what they say is true.  Get enlightened and after that you can have this inquiry. 

[SriBhagwanYogi]

After this you will do it right trust me if you wannt just watch second video 

[Forestluv]

I think it’s cool you are being honest with where you are at. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince myself of something I didn’t truly believe and it didn’t work. For me, the direct experience is primary, the concepts are secondary.

A couple of things that helped me: without the story of being a finite human, what is there? I had to be careful not to engage in the opposite thought story of “I am not a finite human”. Rather, in the absence of any thought story what is there? This allowed me to go beneath the surface level of thoughts and concepts into the deeper level of body sensations.

Also, engaging in flow states was helpful. Being in awe of a beautiful sky, being in the zone playing a sport, being in a flow with a musical instrument in which the instrument is playing itself. In all these states, there is no “me”. No human, no story. It is simply being one with the environment and what is actually happening now.

[Nahm]

12 minutes ago, Pouya said:

@David Hammond I ask who is aware and the belief slaps me and says "you the human being"

Can you remember, or guess, when you learned that? When you learned the words “human being”?  Maybe you can’t remember, but you’ve seen kids maybe 2,3,4 years old. You can see they learn words. Someone said “you are a human being / we are human beings”, and they identify themselves. What is aware of words? 

The truth is always in plain sight -( “Nothing is hidden from you” )....   you’ve got a ‘glass half empty’ situation there. Why didn’t it suffice, for people to simply use the word, “human”? Why “human being”? 

[FocusOnTruth]

12 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

I think it’s cool you are being honest with where you are at. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince myself if something I didn’t truly believe and it didn’t work. For me, the direct experience is primary, the concepts are secondary.

A couple of things that helped me: without the story of being a finite human, what is there? I had to be careful not to engage in the opposite thought story of “I am not a finite human”. Rather, in the absence of any thought story what is there? This allowed me to go beneath the surface level of thoughts and concepts into the deeper level of body sensations.

 

I agree. I think that's really solid advice. What's more is I think that, while shedding the self-view is a milestone in one's growth, qualities like self-honesty never cease being important and cultivating that quality is progress in and of itself. 

[Pouya]

@David Hammond yes its a thought, but it seems pretty true. If someone shoots me in the head what is remaining of me? 

[Pouya]

@Serotoninluv Thank you.

What I see in actual first hand experience is just experience happening. There is no human. But when I do self inquiry its like my beliefs are at sake and being attacked. My counter argument is always that its all just human exprience that will end eventually. Why does it have to be immortal infinite intelligance with infinite love? 

Here comes the brains doesnt exist

[Pouya]

@Nahm i don't actually know why I say human being instead of just human.

But sometime in my early childhood I vividly remember the day that I learned that I have bones in my body and muscles for moving them and I control them. I was touching all over my face skull and ribs to feel what are bones. It was very weird and terrifying to start to see I am a body??

 

That is kinda when it started. Around 3 year old. 

[Nahm]

@Pouya RIght on. Do you see that if you were just the body (bones, etc) then there would have been no possibility of the reaction you described, or of any reaction at all. But there was. Just as you are aware of  the body, you can not therefore only be the body. Simply put, are you aware of the chair you’re sitting in? If you’re aware of  it, you can’t possibly be it. You must be the awareness. 

[Forestluv]

18 minutes ago, Pouya said:

@Serotoninluv Thank you.

What I see in actual first hand experience is just experience happening. There is no human. But when I do self inquiry its like my beliefs are at sake and being attacked. My counter argument is always that its all just human exprience that will end eventually. Why does it have to be immortal infinite intelligance with infinite love? 

Here comes the brains doesnt exist

This is just what is arising for me. . . There is a difference between the mind trying to explain something in words vs. something trying to explain itself through the mind /  words.

Consider someone who is color-blind. That person reads about colors, conceptualizes about colors and has many discussions about what colors are like. He tries to explain to himself what colors are with thoughts and words. That will ultimately fail, right? 

Now imagine this color-blind person receives stem cell therapy and can now see colors. He is amazed. His color-blind friend approaches him and says "Omigosh, you can see colors now??!! What's it like?". The person who can now see colors tries to explain it in words, yet cannot to his color-blind friend. He does his best by saying things "It's sorta like this. . . ". Yet nothing can quite capture it. This will ultimately fail as well.

Can you see how the two approaches are totally different? In the first, he had no direct experience of seeing colors and trying to figure out what it is like through words. In the second case, actual colors are trying to explain themselves through words.

[Pouya]

@Serotoninluv Should we give up using words before having an actual experience in the first place?

Can it be helpful?

[FoxFoxFox]

@Pouya Who is having this problem? In deep sleep these issues don't arise. So who is it that is having these doubts while awake?

[Pouya]

@SriBhagwanYogi Thank you for the video. I've never seen this rupert spira video on self inquiry before. 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Pouya

[Pouya]

@FoxFoxFox The mind is asking why here. I dont think mind is asking while in deep sleep.

Who is aware of the mind? The mind itself? If not, I dont know.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Pouya

[Forestluv]

5 minutes ago, Pouya said:

@Serotoninluv Should we give up using words before having an actual experience in the first place?

Can it be helpful?

Ime, words and concepts are helpful in a certain context.

For example. . . for many years I was in what some refer to as the "oberver + object" phase. I could reach a place in which it seemed like there was a neutral observer simply observing thoughts and stuff in my environment. When I sat in buddhist groups, many beginner's would get confused by this concept, yet I just understood the teacher because I had direct experience. . . So, a couple years ago I'm watching a Rupert Spira video in which he talks about the "observer + object" stage as a halfway point. I had thought it was the final destination, so I was perplexed. Rupert describes merging observer and object into one as the next stage. He gave an analogy of a movie screen and pixels. I remember not really "getting it". My mind really wanted to figure it out and advance to this stage. It was frustrating at times. I spent a couple days trying to figure it out and at times convinced myself I had figured it out. Yet my direct experience was still being "observer + object". I just had to let the "advanced" stage go for a while. Then I started getting curious about it - but not in a "figure it out kind of way". In a curious way. Like I would go hiking in nature and look around me and the thought would arise "How is this like a movie screen?". It was like the Universe was teasing me. This disappeared for a while and then one day I was out in nature and just had this experience and it was like "that's it". That is what Rupert was talking about. It was just a glimpse, yet it was crystal clear and I started laughing. I realized there are many different ways one could try to explain it. Rupert's is just one way.

So here's the thing. . . if I didn't watch that Rupert Spira video, would I still be locked in the "observer + object" stage like I was for 20 years? Did he plant a seed through words and imagery into my mind? I say he did. I think that imagery was a seed. Over-analyzing it was like putting the seed in rotten soil with no water. Yet just being chill with it and curious was like rich soil and water. Then one day that seed sprouted like magic.

Now, consider the opposite. . . what if I had that realization without watching Rupert's video? Would I have been aware of the realization? Would I have "caught" it? Or would it have slipped by? Even if I did notice it, would I have dismissed it as being "kind cool, but 'woo woo'"? How many glimpses have I gotten in my life that slipped away? I would say a lot. 

Overall, I would say words and concepts are valuable in what people often refer to as "pointers", yet it is important for me to not analyze the pointer itself. Rather, to relax the mind and get curious as to what is being pointed to. Let the pointer get planted in my mind like a seed. I think it's good to water it from time to time, yet digging it up to keep checking if it sprouted yet, getting annoyed it hasn't sprouted and adding lots of chemicals on it to make it sprout is counter-productive.

[Dumb Enlightened]

7 hours ago, Pouya said:

Everytime I sit to inquire/contemplate I just realise that I honestly believe in a physical world and I am a human that will die and stop forever.

Sit down and try to imagine how would be your experience if you were a new born baby (had zero knowledge) play with this idea a little, and see what conclusions you will get from this

[FoxFoxFox]

@Pouya Awareness is a quality or mode of the mind. The Self, your real being is prior to mind or awareness. It is unbroken. The mind is aware of the world in the sense that it creates it through the senses, but we are not really concerned with the mind here. As yourself who you are and trace that back to its source. Once the mind subsides the truth is self-evident. It doesn't matter how the truth looks like, it is self-evident.