Making ego-reality thinner vs being deep in illusion.

[Endangered-EGO]

Hello, I have a questions about some self inquiry methods that work for you.

I have had a lot of awakenings and semi-awakenings (how I call them)

I define the semi-awakenings by the thinning out of reality. The sense of detachements and unsubstantiateness of the objects of perception.

I find myself most of the time IN the illusion of the ego, and still trapped by it.

I have had a lot of sober awakenings, some of them were so beautiful, others were maybe even more incredible but not necessarily beautiful.

Unfortunately the awakening always comes down, and I am trapped into the ego elusion again.
So I am asking what methods do you guys find very useful to make the ego/reality "thinner".
Its kind of frustrating to remembering that the suffering that comes with the ego is illusion, but it feels real.
In some sense I am an awakening-junkie, because awakening is the only thing that is really satisfying me deeply.

I'm sure I am not the only one who struggles with this, and struggling with not-being free of the ego makes it even worse.

How do I deal with the ego desperately trying to awakening, while simoultaneaously trying not to try to awaken?
What methods/habits do you guys use to make reality thinner that can work 24/7. It doesn't even need to be very noticeable.

For now I don't really want to use psychedelics, because I don't want to break through with violence to avoid the dark night of the soul.
I'm sure there will be a time for that though.

[No Self]

You have to keep doing what you are doing. Ramana said, "Steady determination is what is required."

That said, are you strongly identified with the seeker? It is the Ego wearing fancy white robes. 

[VeganAwake]

1 hour ago, No Self said:

You have to keep doing what you are doing. Ramana said, "Steady determination is what is required."

That said, are you strongly identified with the seeker? It is the Ego wearing fancy white robes. 

Like ? ❤

[Endangered-EGO]

@No Self I wish I was only identified with the seeker, I am identified with the entire ego haha.

No matter what I do I cannot stop being persistent in seeking, even "calling of the search" or that kind of giving up is kind of a seeking.

 

I'm going to continue the practices then I guess haha.

[73809]

Let go of it. Be willing to let go. The ego wants you to cling to it. But you can let it go and be spacious presence.

[Preety_India]

How can you an awakening by the thinning of reality? 

It's like you're doing the opposite 

[Endangered-EGO]

@73809  I let go of it and then it comes back, but then it goes away and I want it. It is very counter intuitive haha.

@Preety_India  Do you mean that reality becomes thicker if you awaken? That is not the experience I have made. For me personally its more like everything outside of perception doesn't exist or seems to be in a quantum superposition (metaphorically). I talk about the "material" reality, physical stuff seems to have no more substance than any other object of perception.

[Preety_India]

@Endangered-EGO do you think that this is just another illusion? 

 

[Endangered-EGO]

@Preety_India The illusion is the ego making physical reality seem thick, I guess. Usually when I am "falling" into an awakening reality gets thinner and thinner until there is only love or nothingness. But maybe that's just me not being grounded, could be a side effect though and not an indication, I don't really know for sure. I simply never had an awakening with reality seeming as "dense".

[Preety_India]

@Endangered-EGO I feel like understanding reality and being fully aware of it is also a process of coming closer to the truth, aka awakening. 

 

[Nahm]

@Endangered-EGO

When you talk about yourself, who / what are you even talking about? 

When you talk about the ego, what are you even talking about?

Are these ‘there’, or are you making the story up as you go?

Not ‘some other time’, right now - what are you even talking about?

What are you trying to accomplish with all this?

Are you accomplishing anything? 

Or are you avoiding something?

[Endangered-EGO]

@Nahm

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

@Endangered-EGO

When you talk about yourself, who / what are you even talking about? 

When you talk about the ego, what are you even talking about?

Are these ‘there’, or are you making the story up as you go?

Not ‘some other time’, right now - what are you even talking about?

What are you trying to accomplish with all this?

Are you accomplishing anything? 

Or are you avoiding something?

On a subjective level:
I am talking about the perceiver that is trapped in this Body/life.

Ego is the thing that distorts reality, making things up, drawing conclusion, having beliefs, judging, filtering reality in a way that's useful for survival, avoiding pain, and seeking pleasure.

Those awakenings are not there NOW, but occur once in a while before they dissapear. Right now reality is thinner than compared to other days, but not even close to a full or even partial awakening.

Right Now, I'm trying a little bit to get somewhere I am not. Which I know is futile, but trying not to try is harder than trying ^^

I try to accomplish an end to suffering and starting 60 years of bliss.

I'm trying to avoid the suffering of daily life (and the mind).

I don't know if that is going to lead me somewhere, but that's just where I am at right now.
What can I do? I'm lost and trapped into this spiritual vicious circle.

[Endangered-EGO]

To be honest I have no Idea what-the-fuck I am doing and everything I do seems absurd in retrospect.

[Nahm]

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

@Nahm

On a subjective level:
I am talking about the perceiver that is trapped in this Body/life.

Are you aware?

Are you aware, that you are aware?

What in this entire world, is also aware?

Is there awareness, and I, an ego, and a perceiver?

Exactly how is there “the perceiver” in a body and or life? Literally explain that in detail, and you might realize there is only the story about it. It’s a thought story about a ‘me’. 

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

Ego is the thing that distorts reality, making things up, drawing conclusion, having beliefs, judging, filtering reality in a way that's useful for survival, avoiding pain, and seeking pleasure.

That’s what you’re focusing on, doing, and spending time on. There’s no “ego”. (Tough love ?)

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

Those awakenings are not there NOW, but occur once in a while before they dissapear. Right now reality is thinner than compared to other days, but not even close to a full or even partial awakening.

 

That’s just thoughts arising. That’s diet related, activity related, too-much-thinking & to-little-creating related. It has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘reality’. Believing the thoughts, there seems to be a ‘you’ “in time”, there seems to be “some other time”, other than now. No thing or event, namely awakening, “occurs once & a while”. That is a thought story - no time or place has ever been experienced but here - now. Anything & everything beyond that - “the past” - “the future”...it’s all thought story, thoughts being believed - about a “you”. 

You’re aware. Only awareness is aware. No thing else. You must = awareness. If there is a “second you” - write about “it” in detail, to uncover that there is not - it’s just thoughts. 

Awareness is aware -> of ->  thought. There is no “thinking -> awareness”. That is not possible, has never, and will never happen. “You” will not be the first to do it. “You” is a thought, that (actually you) awareness is aware of. Thus, every single thought about yourself (which pretty much all of this thread is) is not, and can not be ‘true’, in the sense that the thought ‘says’ or describes anything about you whatsoever. There is absolutely no need to think about yourself. That is energy for creating the experiences, the ‘life’, that you actually want to create & experience. (Again, tough love, intention is to help ya see).

There is no “those awakenings” “in my past”. There is no “separate self” which experienced or experiences “partial awakening”, “full awakening”, etc, etc. That is a thought story. That’s how you keep pretending there’s “an ego”, it has nothing whatsoever to do with - literally - anyone. 

The ‘thin’ / ‘thick’ ‘reality story’ - you want to feel more, love more, and think less, true? 

Recognize all of this is thoughts, thought stories, which amount to nothing more that thinking about yourself. You can not think about yourself - you are yourself, awareness. The tongue can not taste itself. The finger can not point to itself. 

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

Right Now, I'm trying a little bit to get somewhere I am not. Which I know is futile, but trying not to try is harder than trying ^^

“Trying not to” (sorry, tough love) equal avoiding feeling. Feeling is actually what is wanted. Avoiding feeling is suffering. 

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

I try to accomplish an end to suffering and starting 60 years of bliss.

Let that thought go. It’s the story about “the you”. You’re the awareness of those thoughts, about yourself. The thoughts are a mirage, they’re never actually going to be, about yourself. Believing they are does not make it so.....

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

I'm trying to avoid the suffering of daily life (and the mind).

....it just suppresses feeling....which is how you create suffering. Suffering is believing the thought stories about yourself, believing you’re in a “past”, will be in a “future”, etc. That is a thought. That is not, you. That is why it feels that way. That feeling is ‘coming from’ you, awareness, love. What you are seeking is feeling, while feeling is always arising, and is never not arising. Reacting to arising thoughts, without pause, is very subtle, yet is ample to keep feeling suppressed.....”while   ‘you’   look  for  ‘it’. 

“What you seek is seeking you”. - Rumi

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

I don't know if that is going to lead me somewhere, but that's just where I am at right now.

That’s more thoughts, a thought story, about yourself, as if you were ‘separate’, ‘in time’. You’re nowhere! Now. Here. Now-here. 

You are the awareness, aware of those thoughts. You’ve never not been aware. You’ve never been anywhere but here. You’ve never been any time but now. 

35 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

What can I do? I'm lost and trapped into this spiritual vicious circle.

What you can do is literally what you want to do......then a thought arises “I’m lost and trapped into this spiritual vicious circle’ arises.....and is believed reactionally, and you actually believe the ‘you’ thought about is actually ‘somewhere’, ‘trapped’. The vicious circle, is believing thoughts about yourself. There is also perception and feeling. It is effortless for awareness to be aware of feeling & perception. Effortless. Yes, feeling will arise, and you will feel, and you will no longer avoid or fear feeling, and much understanding will arise ‘behind’ that arising of feeling. This will require NO effort on your part whatsoever. The effort is all in the avoiding, reacting, suppressing, thought-story-ing, suffering & then trying to make ‘your self’ feel better. You already are yourself. You......can not make.....a “yourself”.....feel better.  Good feeling is the default, is ever present. There is only to let go of the thought stories. Effortlessly. 

18 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

To be honest I have no Idea what-the-fuck I am doing and everything I do seems absurd in retrospect.

Same here.  

Hope something here is helpful, and not seen as anything else. 

[Endangered-EGO]

@Nahm
 

Am I aware?

What in this entire world is also aware?

There is just awareness of things. I noticed

I just caught myself thinking about the vicious circle again, somehow I get really identified with it. Even though there is just awareness of it like awareness of other "things"

Wait I am going to try to observe the awareness doing it's thing...

I think I am the meta-thinker, the thoughts that stop the thoughts or decide which thoughts I want or don't want. I am the thoughts fighting with the thoughts.
Maybe that is what I am identified with. I'm observing it happening as I write this.

5 minutes later:

Oh damn, all these years and I just identify with the second thoughts that fight the first thoughts as soon as awareness comes to the thoughts, but there are only thoughts...

I'm going to continue your experiment and describe the perceiver : it's awareness. I imagine a Body and life without a perceiver being a robot in meat "without awareness". That's a thought about the material universe and souls...
But there is just awareness.

I know what I am doing, and just realised how stupid this is: I made the distinction between thoughts that happen, and thoughts that are controled and controling in nature. If I adopt the do-nothing meditation successfully, I don't identify with thoughts, because they are not controling thoughts, because I let them free.

I bet I am going to identify with the 3rd thoughts that arise now haha. first random thought -second controling thought - followed by "aha that's a controling thought, that's not me, this thought is me"- thought.

I don't believe that it's that simple, but the not-belief are also thoughts, just inside awareness.

Dear God maybe you just triggered a chain reaction... I hope so.

"That said, are you strongly identified with the seeker" @No Self put it in 3 words, but I needed it explained to me like you did.

What do you believe I should do? I bet that If I am not identifying with the controling thoughts, I am going to identify with the 3rd thoughts or with the "stopping-thoughts-thought" or the "accepting-thought thought" or the "switching awareness process" that stops thoughts by focussing on something else.

I am also going to let what you wrote sink in, reread it tommorow and see if that is still has the same effect on me.

Any other advice? You just opened my eyes to the obvious fact that I identify with the seeker.

@No Self Next time explain it to me as if I was a little child, or else I won't get it haha.

[Byun Sean]

you've separated ego as a separate concept from you in your mind. Another classic egoic delusion.

As long as your not fully awake you have no idea what your calling 'the ego'.

If you were aware of what 'the ego' was you would be dead.

 

All of that aside:

Your desire for awakening must be burning hot. Don't be worried about desiring awakening and more consciousness.

 

Your practices should be about surrendering to love. To now. 

Not seeking an external experience.

But desire is the source that drives us to pursue the path until the end.

 

[The0Self]

On 11/20/2020 at 8:50 AM, Endangered-EGO said:

What methods/habits do you guys use to make reality thinner that can work 24/7. It doesn't even need to be very noticeable.

 

You may already know this, but: If something seems solid, maybe try intuitively pouring open-hearted energy into it. Develop the subtle art of holding the solidity as divine, and wishing it well; fill it with happiness. The trick is, while doing this over and over, to observe what happens when you do this. Does the solidity get... less solid? And why does it do that? And how? Solidity feeds on need -- when you offer abundance to it, it may dissolve a bit. Time in relation to the solidity may get less solid itself; self in relation to solidity may get less solid itself; perception in relation to solidity may get less solid itself. Notice this. It's kind of like artificial intelligence learning what makes reality do what it does -- elevating consciousness by exploring its inner workings.

Edited November 22, 2020 by The0Self

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, Endangered-EGO said:

Any other advice?

Awareness of self talk / inner monologue. Specifically, seeing through thoughts which suggest there is a second entity involved, like the ego, or the I, or a me. Read some of @Faceless posts from his profile. If there are some you don’t get yet, but intuitively feel the hunch there is something there to be recognized, do like you mentioned about this thread...read it a few times, then let it go for a while, then read it again. ??

[Manusia]

On 21/11/2020 at 8:34 AM, No Self said:

That said, are you strongly identified with the seeker? It is the Ego wearing fancy white robes. 

Well said. This is what happened to me now. 

[No Self]

2 hours ago, Manusia said:

Well said. This is what happened to me now. 

Gracias. It happens to us all. The 'spiritual ego' initiates the process of truth-seeking, but cannot follow through because it is not itself true. The mind will start to go crazy in the throes of death. It is now a sinking ship, and your job is to hop onto the lifeboat of truth.  Hint: your nature is silent, innocent, uninvolved, no past, no knowledge, like you've just been born into this moment. Hint 2: in practice, this letting go of all thoughts (including 'spiritual' ones) is being done over and over. Don't give up.

There was this crazy guy, Fred Alan Wolf, from a New Age documentary who said the following: "The trick with life is not to be in the know, but be in the mystery."

Ramana said the following:

The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ The thought ‘Who am I?’, destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre. If other thoughts rise one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire ‘To whom did they rise?’ What does it matter however many thoughts rise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly enquires ‘To whom did this rise?’, it will be known ‘To me’. If one then enquires ‘Who am I?’, the mind will turn back to its source [the Self] and the thought which had risen will also subside. By repeatedly practising thus, the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.