Your Experience With Self-inquiry?

[123456789]

Hey, I saw that a few people here have some experience with self-inquiry. Basically, my questions are:

1. How did you start out doing self-inquiry?
2. What changes have you noticed in your day-to-day life.
3. After how much time did you have a no-self experience?

Replies will be greatly appreciated!

Edited October 30, 2016 by Mr Lenny

[Bob84]

1. Leos videos

2. Nothing (just the way you see things change thus everything)

3. Dont remember (3 months maybe)

[Telepresent]

I'm wary to write this because I'm sure I come across as 'the guy who always harps on about Spiritual Autolysis'.  However:

If you haven't heard of Autolysis, isn't the technique described by Jed McKenna as 'like self-enquiry on steroids'.  It's a process by which you attempt to write the truth.  Just try to write something that is true, then examine the foundations upon which that truth is based, then examine the foundations upon which those foundations are based, and so on, until you reach bedrock.

I primarily use autolysis, and as a result I'm now in a point where I'm more or less in a process of self-enquiry 24/7.  From this experience, the thing that I wonder about with self-inquiry, is that it can feel very easy to do, with very little result.  I sometimes feel like people are sitting in meditation and occasionally politely asking themselves 'what am I?', and hoping for an answer.  Which won't happpen.  There is no forthcoming answer: that's the point.  You have to DIG and DECONSTRUCT.  It can sometimes seem like an 'every now and then during a meditation' approach is what it's about.  But it's not.  It's about disturbing the bedrock of your life.

So I've been in a process of autolysis for about a year, after I read McKenna's Spiritual Enlightenment: the Damndest Thing.  It immediately struck a chord.  I've been writing for at least 20 minutes every day, but there have been some days where I've written for hours and hours.  And then it carries on when you're not writing.  It's a very addictive thing.  That's how I got into it.

As for changes I've noticed in my daily life: I have an entirely different perspective on my life, on other people, and how I react to 'negative' outside influences.  I don't believe a lot of the shit that my ego was so afraid of before, and I can actively recognise when my ego is trying to re-construct itself based around new stimuli.

No-self experiences.  I don't know.  I've had a number of experiences where my perspective has fundamentally shifted for temporary periods.  One was similar to that which Leo describes in his video about being at a meditation retreat.  Others were very different.  But there was always an "I" hiding in the background.  That's the thing.  It's always there, but hiding.  However, I'm now at a point where I recognise "I" so clearly, that I understand the stillness that various teachers refer to.  I understand and feel the void, emptiness, whatever behind the experiences I am having, despite the fact that I am still identified with ego.  Truth is, I'm always very wary of any idea of 'an experience', because it gives you an object and a target and an idea that the Truth is something like an emotion or a sense or anything else that lives in your perspective.  It's not.  I can feel that.  I can't tell you what it IS, but I can tell you it's not that

Edited October 31, 2016 by Telepresent

[123456789]

@Telepresent Sounds cool, but what do you do when you reach the bedrock?

[Telepresent]

9 minutes ago, Mr Lenny said:

@Telepresent Sounds cool, but what do you do when you reach the bedrock?

I have no idea!  I'm only taking it on others' words that there is a bedrock, and as I'm not accepting anyone else says without checking it for myself... I'm either going to reach a point where I satisfy myself that, despite all my efforts, I cannot go further (and in that satisfaction, I will have to reconcile myself to the possibility that I might be wrong); or I'm going to keep digging forever.  Neither seems like a worse pursuit that living the consciousness I lived five years ago, though, so I'm going to keep going and maybe I'll remember to post a reply on my deathbed