Non-Duality Conference (Sep 19th & 20th)

[Nahm]

@arlin

(In the simplest sense) You are knowing of this universe, and this you in it which you speak of, yes? You’re aware of it, yes?

[arlin]

I know that i live in a universe or in a reality but i don't know what's real anymore and i don't know if i really exist.

@Nahm

[Nahm]

@arlin

But there is knowing, there is awareness, yes?

[arlin]

@Nahm There is awareness yes.

"knowing" i don't know... i don't know if there is knowing. I know nothing anymore.

Maybe i have to start looking for things to know in which to ground my sense of reality.

But even when i think that there is this chair which is essencially nothing, it has no substance and yet is a chair.

It is non existance chairing.

then this disturbs me.

 

you can see why my sense of reality is fucked.

[Nahm]

21 minutes ago, arlin said:

you can see why my sense of reality is fucked

I can’t yet, but I would like to understand. 

22 minutes ago, arlin said:

It is non existance chairing.

then this disturbs me.

Can you explain how / why that is disturbing?

[arlin]

1 minute ago, Nahm said:

I can’t yet, but I would like to understand. 

Thank you, this makes me feel relieved

1 minute ago, Nahm said:

Can you explain how / why that is disturbing?

because what if im not really living? If this is so then nothing matters, my dreams and goals and visions. Nothing.

And all of my decisions, im not really making them,they are inevitable and i have no free will. I seem to have this experience, or i seem to over obsess about it. I mean it's unlivable like this. A split second after reacting to something, i see how it just happened without me deciding it sometimes.

I don't choose my preferences like for example i like tomatoes. Why do i like it? Because yes, because i can not like it.

Can i really make a decision to not like tomatoes? Or not like sex? I can't.

 

If this is just overthinking, i want to stop it and move on. Never questions those things again.

I have listened too much of jim newman.

 

[arlin]

Also, this is applicable to others. If others i interact with don't exist, then connection is pointless.

Can you see how this can make somebody depressed.

Edited September 5, 2020 by arlin

[Nahm]

3 minutes ago, arlin said:

Can you see how this can make somebody depressed.

Indeed I can, thank you for elaborating. 

There are those thoughts...and there is that feeling. 

I want to offer something that may bring more relief, but first a foundation, or us ‘getting on a same page’...do you see that you can not ‘take off’ or ‘turn off awareness, nor feeling...like you could a pair of shoes?  In the simplest sense, you’re aware, and there is feeling, yes?  If you try to ‘turn them off’ right now, you find that you can not, right?

[arlin]

7 minutes ago, Nahm said:

do you see that you can not ‘take off’ or ‘turn off awareness, nor feeling...like you could a pair of shoes?  In the simplest sense, you’re aware, and there is feeling, yes?  If you try to ‘turn them off’ right now, you find that you can not, right?

Well, when you say that to me, no i can not turn them off right now. 

 

[arlin]

@Nahm I have to say that when i do something for example like drinking water, i think at the same time of many things and it confuses me, then when i stop it all and i get more "clear" it seems like it was turned off 

[Nahm]

@arlin

Thoughts are not quite like awareness or feeling in this regard though, yes?

Thoughts appear and disappear, come & go. 

Yes?

[arlin]

2 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Thoughts are not quite like awareness or feeling in this regard though, yes?

 

Well, even awareness comes and goes of example when you are sleeping. 

OR like i said before, when im doing so many things at the same time it might seem like i have more awareness at one moment, and less in another.

[Carl-Richard]

@arlin That isn't awareness. 

[Nahm]

14 minutes ago, arlin said:

awareness comes and goes of example when you are sleeping. 

You bring up a very important distinction. Momentarily, it will be felt as more relief. To see through this distinction takes patience & humility, which I believe you have plenty of...

Is there awareness - that awareness comes and goes?

Or is there awareness of the thought - that awareness comes & goes?

[arlin]

3 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Or is there awareness of the thought - that awareness comes & goes?

Oh yes, you both guys are right.

@Carl-Richard

[Loving Radiance]

@arlin So, what is going on with sleep then? If I got you correctly, you said that awareness ceases in sleep. How do you see the thought of awareness coming & going in connection to sleep?

Edited September 5, 2020 by Loving Radiance

[arlin]

@Loving Radiance no.

[arlin]

9 minutes ago, Loving Radiance said:

@arlin  Have you experienced anything that wasn't in your subjective experince?

 

no.

2 minutes ago, Loving Radiance said:

@arlin So, what is going on with sleep then? If I got you correctly, you said that awareness ceases in sleep. How do you see the thought of awareness coming & going in connection to sleep?

I didn't understand your question...

im concerned about the fact of no free will. 

[Nahm]

 

So awareness & feeling do not come and go. 

Thought, comes and goes. 

 

Now we are in the light of awareness, so to speak.

Now let’s look at this for more relief...patience & humility still being the key....

1 hour ago, arlin said:

what if im not really living?

Awareness of “living”, that distinction, requires the ability to compare “living” to “not living”. Awareness is not aware of “not living”, or of “living”. Awareness is aware of the thoughts - ‘living’, and ‘not living’. 

That is what is meant by duality. This or that, this and that. Again, awareness is aware of the thoughts - “this”, “that”, “living”, “not living”. 

“What if” implies a future scenario. But that what if, is nothing to be concerned about. That what if, is not possible. There can not, and will not come a day, where a realization occurs that are, or are not, “living”, or “not living”. This is self evident, as you are aware, right now, of the thoughts - “living” or “not living”. There is, in your direct experience, no awareness of living or not living, only of the thoughts - “living”, “not living”. 

 

Philosophically speaking, to mistake my thought about something, for the actuality, is not really ‘living’ this life at all. To realize what is being shared here, is to realize one does not need to believe thoughts. Once the dualistic nature of thoughts is realized, it actually becomes challenging to continue to believes them - especially when they don’t feel good. Thoughts have always appeared & disappeared, and thoughts will continue to appear & disappear. What appears and disappears - is magic, and unexplainable. Explanation, is really, just more thoughts. 

 

The concern “what if I’m not really living”, is revealed to not be a concern at all. You felt concern, you expressed & inquired, because something didn’t feel quite right about the thought. Believing the thoughts, is the matrix, the prison of the mind, and indeed does not feel quite right. Concern was felt... ‘what if I’m not living’ was a thought. What didn’t feel quite right was the thought about yourself - not the content. You are beyond, transcendent of, thought. This is self evident, as again, “you” is a thought, the real you - is the awareness of that thought. And you, awareness, do not come and go. What does not come and go, does not really live and die. “Live” & “die”, are thoughts, eternal awareness is aware of. These thoughts come and go, appear and disappear. 

1 hour ago, arlin said:

If this is so then nothing matters, my dreams and goals and visions. Nothing.

In the matrix / prison of the mind, the believing of the thoughts... “nothing matters” is indeed concerning. But ‘nothing, or better said, ‘no thing’, is awareness. 

“Nothing matters” can be taken as a thought, and the feeling response is ‘not good’, if you will. The feeling is responding to the misunderstanding. What is misunderstood, is that ‘nothing matters’, in the way you’re interpreting it, is just a thought. As in, “then life won’t matter, life would be pointless & meaningless - because nothing in life would matter”. That is what does not feel good. The misunderstanding is what does not feel good. 

So what to do about misunderstanding, which does not feel good? 

Understanding, of course. Which feels wonderful & liberating.

And you are in luck when it comes to misunderstanding & understanding, as other people have already figured reality out. For you, there is only to choose to spend some time on it, to understand and realize. Nonduality teachers, gurus, presenters, whatever you’d like to call them, understand & have realized, what quantum physicists have proved over a hundred years ago. 

‘No thing’, awareness... in quantum mechanics jargon, you might call “superposition” - that which is infinite emptiness & fullness, infinite potential, formless & limitless - Awareness - and therefore can appear as anything. ‘It’ does this, this appearing, by vibrating. This is referred to as M theory, or string theory. This vibrating can only be referred to in theory, because no thing vibrates and appears as the very thoughts, and therefore the very theories....about....that which appears as all ‘things’ by vibrating. You can experience much liberation, many great feeling epiphanies, in understanding these things, just by spending time on YouTube. Patience & humility are key. 

As great as it feels - even understanding reaches it’s natural ceiling, because understanding is essentially, thought. It’s still appearance, but it is the understanding that thought, and therefore understanding - is appearance. By the time this ceiling of understanding is reached, so much misunderstanding has been seen through and shedded, that you are mostly out of the matrix. 

Then, if interested, there is the ‘going and seeing for yourself’, so to speak. Experiencing that which is prior to experience itself. That which is prior to thought & understanding. That which is prior to the vibration of itself, prior to it’s appearance. 

1 hour ago, arlin said:

And all of my decisions, im not really making them,they are inevitable and i have no free will. I seem to have this experience, or i seem to over obsess about it. I mean it's unlivable like this. A split second after reacting to something, i see how it just happened without me deciding it sometimes.

This is the matrix. Reactionary living. You are becoming aware of this. You are ‘waking up’. This is good. You are realizing why people let go, listen to feeling, meditate, do yoga, express how they feel, seek more understanding, take psychedelics, go on retreats, etc. You might say that all of these are doing more about the situation of misunderstanding, than just thinking and settling for thoughts that don’t feel good. 

1 hour ago, arlin said:

I don't choose my preferences like for example i like tomatoes. Why do i like it? Because yes, because i can not like it.

Can i really make a decision to not like tomatoes? Or not like sex? I can't.

This is thinking, and thinking won’t be resolved by more thinking. Instead, recognize the limit, the futility of thinking. Tomatoes are chosen or not, because of feeling, sensation. Not thoughts. If you think you love tomatoes because of how they look, but they taste terrible, you won’t eat them. Taste buds change. Every thing is really vibration, which appears to be a ‘thing’.

1 hour ago, arlin said:

If this is just overthinking, i want to stop it and move on. Never questions those things again.

I have listened too much of jim newman.

To ‘move on’ from thinking...abide in feeling. This means if a thought doesn’t feel good to you, you will swiftly and effortlessly let it go. In truth, thought appears and disappears already anyways. So it is so effortless in fact, that you don’t even have to let it go. Without your continued focus - it’s gone. Magic. And another thought appears. A better feeling, more insightful thought. There is no limit or bottom to this good feelingness. It takes time, there is momentum, there is letting go of thoughts of misunderstanding....but there is orgasmic thoughts. Imagine sitting quietly, and genuinely preferring not to have sex, because it would actually feel slightly less amazing, than the peace, bliss, and appearing thoughts. You don’t hate Jim Newman. You just want to let all misunderstanding go, to be in the state he is in. Patience. Humility. Listen more to what he is saying. Listen less to any thoughts of judgement of him. Tastes change. You might profoundly love him one day. That might be just such a blissful thought. 

1 hour ago, arlin said:

Also, this is applicable to others. If others i interact with don't exist, then connection is pointless.

Can you see how this can make somebody depressed.

If the separation of others doesn’t exist - then only ‘connection’ exists. For example, I am a dad, and I have a son. There is connection between us, there is a bond if you will, between us. See what that connection is, see what that bond is made of, prior to, and beyond, just the appearance. 

[arlin]

@Nahm Thanks i will come back to this.