Self-Inquiry, please help!

[Itsokimok]

I've new to self-inquiry and feel frustrated. I ask What am I? Immediately get a sense of the body and I say, not that and what am I? The body is too close to me and dominates my experience. I keep getting the body and the head. I know that I'm aware and trying to focus my awareness on awareness and it's so slippery. When I try to focus, I'm also using words and saying "I'm aware of being aware. I'm not the body. I'm not the pain in the arm. I'm not the feeling of anxiety in the chest. I'm not a mental image of the face. Awareness is aware. I'm aware of awareness. I'm aware of the knower of these words spoken etc. etc." But these are words. I'm saying these words to myself as I do this. Aren't words coming from the mind? So am I doing this right or wrong? 

Also am I supposed to keep my eyes open during this? 

 

[Leo Gura]

You are doing it right, but this is just the early phases of self-inquiry.

For self-inquiry to get serious, now you have to keep focusing awareness on awareness itself while quieting the mind down so it just rests on the awareness of awareness without moving. And just sit like that for as long as you can.

It takes lots of training. The "What am I?" question should become internalized, so to speak, such that it doesn't need to verbalized non-stop. You just sit in silence and focus the awareness of awareness.

Or just take a psychedelic.

[Arzack]

52 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Or just take a psychedelic.

Or just follow bashar's formula, check my sign. too.

[Itsokimok]

Thanks guys!

[The0Self]

We’re all just pretending that we aren’t god. We can’t handle it’s incredible profundity and infinite magnitude, so we hold back. To the degree that you aren’t all that is, you’re pretending to be this or that.

[Someone here]

Just realize that you are.  You just are. You are not this or that.. You just are.  Don't expect an answer to the question "who am I"?  Whatever answer is wrong. Is not who you are. What you are is not an answer. Athere is no need to question it. You are already what you are!  You cannot not be what you are!    

"What you seek is so near you that there is no place for a way " - Nisargadatta maharaj

[The0Self]

If it feels like you can only "do it right" when you're sitting down in a quiet place with your legs crossed, work towards getting to the point where you can constantly see that you are aware of everything you experience, thus not the experiences/thoughts, but the awareness itself. Not awareness as you know it, as what you are is not known to anyone. If it feels like you've gotten an answer as to what the I is or where it is coming from, that's just the mind playing tricks, be aware of it and intend to increase consciousness and increasingly look forwards to the "goal" until no detours or excuses exist. Basically every thought is just that: an excuse.

Edited September 7, 2020 by The0Self

[Itsokimok]

On 9/7/2020 at 10:51 AM, The0Self said:

If it feels like you can only "do it right" when you're sitting down in a quiet place with your legs crossed, work towards getting to the point where you can constantly see that you are aware of everything you experience, thus not the experiences/thoughts, but the awareness itself. Not awareness as you know it, as what you are is not known to anyone. If it feels like you've gotten an answer as to what the I is or where it is coming from, that's just the mind playing tricks, be aware of it and intend to increase consciousness and increasingly look forwards to the "goal" until no detours or excuses exist. Basically every thought is just that: an excuse.

Good point man!