Practicing Self-inquiry Work

[Epsilon_The_Imperial]

I have watched Leo's video on the Netti Netti method as well as some of his other Enlightenment videos, and I haven't been practicing Netti-Netti yet because of this one hang-up that I'm having.

How can I question the self if I already have the intellectual concept in my mind that, " Oh, well Leo and the others tell me that I'm pure awareness or nothingness detached from the identity of the ego- eternal, nondual, etc. etc."

So when I'm doing it, that concept always comes up in my mind and I can't shake it. It feels like I can't genuinely question the self because whenever I start to question something such as the sense that I'm in my skull, it always goes something like this.

" Am I somewhere in my skull?"

" Well Leo said that I'm not because any sensation that you have is not there constantly, you are not aware of the sensation that you are the skull, so at that moment do you disappear?"

" I guess not, it also seems like an illusion because it's the center of the senses, but we are not merely a collection of senses."

" GAAH what's the point of going on? I already think that I'm nothing or awareness or some crap like that."

I don't think that I can genuinely question myself because the conclusion is foregone.

I mean, what else can I question other than my senses, my memories, and my mental processes? Or maybe I'm not questioning them deeply enough?

[Telepresent]

From my experience - which is incomplete - the issue here is that you're approaching questioning with the intent of finding 'the' answer.  So you're intellectually approaching your enquiry, with the hope of finding an intellectual solution.  So you've been given a pre-packaged answer.  You've landed on the problem when you say "I already THINK I'm nothing or awareness..." You think, rather than experience.

The thing is, this is a very nuanced and progressive work, and it involves depth and subtlety.  As you've mentioned sensations, let's start there.  Have you sat down to really, deeply, investigate what a physical sensation IS?  What the texture, tone, shape of it is?  What part is actually being felt, and which parts are accompanying thoughts (for example, your finger hurts.  It's the whole finger.  So the pain is in the shape of a finger... is it?  Or are you PICTURING a finger because you know that this sensation corresponds to the visual/mental image you have of finger?)

Where do thoughts happen?  In the plane of experience you have, where do thoughts exist?  Where does pain exist?  Is it even possible to talk about "where" as if there is a 'true' space within which everything occurs, or is space simply a reference system used to codify the contents of awareness?  You have an emotional reaction - is that reaction the deepest truth of itself (for example, yesterday I briefly got angry.  I could believe the anger if I wanted, but digging through it, it became clear that I was angry because I felt ashamed, because somebody said something that made me feel stupid, and I have a programmed need to NEVER appear stupid, so the anger rose as a defence mechanism against the vulnerability that was being exposed...)

What is sound?  What is colour, or shape?  And here's a big one: what is nothing?  I mean, you've used the word - do you know what it means?  Really?  Picture nothing right now: you're wrong.  That's not it.  You CAN'T picture nothing, but you can get a taste of it: click your fingers.  Wait a moment.  Where is that sound now?  Partly it's a memory-thought, and partly...  What about with your vision: what is JUST out of your range of sight?  You know, that bit that we never really pay attention to, but just in the corner of our eye, the SOMETHING we are seeing disappears into...  (You'll know when you hit this for the first time, because it will scare the crap out of you).

I hope this helps in some way - I realise it's a bit of a rambling incoherent thing, but there we go.  If you struggle with doing this mentally, I suggest writing it down.  I find it much easier that way.

[RossE]

When Leo refers to meditation with self-enquiry is he talking about Neti Neti or is there a different video where he demonstrates this?

 EDIT: never mind, found it on his channel.

Edited August 31, 2016 by RossE