What Are Good Self-Inquiry Questions To Ask?

[Rilles]

Questions seem to help sometimes if you couple them with direct experience. For noobies/intermediate.

 

Who is aware? (Obviously.)

Who is aware of the subject that is aware of the subject that is aware of the subject...? 

Does awareness have a color?

Does awareness have a shape?

Does awareness have a boundary?

Is awareness a material? What is it made of?

Is there a boundary between perception and awareness?

What does the subject look like?

Where are thoughts occuring?

What are the main "features" of awareness?

Is there anything behind your visual field?

Do you have a face?

 

These questions are meant to be deeply pondered and not answered haphazardly.

Any other pointers you have? Thanks. 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Rilles

[Tim R]

Can you feel any difference between the feeling of "I am" and the feeling of "existence" as such? 

 

[RedLine]

Don´t ask anything, just look who is behind, look back again and again, you can use noting to objetualice the stuff you find and watch again.

Edited December 5, 2021 by RedLine

[Rilles]

@Judy2 @Tim R These are great! I like the one about the tension in the body! I often forget the body and focus too much on the head. 

[Rilles]

6 minutes ago, RedLine said:

Don´t ask anything, just look who is behind, look back again and again, you can use noting to objetualice the stuff you find and watch again.

You can use different tools. Sometimes language helps. If Leo hadnt told me "You dont exist" back in 2016 I would have never started this journey.  

But I agree, its 90% direct observation. 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Rilles

[Nahm]

SELF INQUIRY

This is a meditation technique of enlightenment, i.e. "self realization". By realizing ‘who’ you are, the bonds of suffering are broken. Besides realization, self-inquiry delivers many of the same benefits as other meditation techniques, such as relaxation, enhanced experience of life, greater openness to change, greater creativity, a sense of joy and fulfillment, and so forth. 

Focus on the feeling of being "me," to the exclusion of all arising thoughts. 

1. Sit in any comfortable meditation posture. 
2. Allow your mind and body to settle. 
3. Let go of any thinking whatsoever. 
4. Place your attention on the inner feeling of being "me."
5. If a thought does arise, ask yourself to whom this thought is occurring, as this returns your attention to the feeling of being "me."
Continue this for as long as you like. 

This technique can also be done when going about any other activity. 

Many people misunderstand the self-inquiry technique to mean that the person should sit and ask themselves the question, "Who am I?" over and over. This is an incorrect understanding of the technique. The questions "Who am I" or "To whom is this thought occurring?" are only used when a thought arises, in order to direct attention back to the feeling of being "me." At other times the mind is held in silence. 

This practice of turning awareness back upon itself, prior to the ‘I’-thought, is a gentle technique, which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self-enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not.

In the early stages effort in the form of redirecting attention from the thoughts to the ‘thinker’ is essential, but once awareness of the ‘I’-feeling has been firmly established, further effort is counter-productive. From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be.

https://www.actualityofbeing.com/self-inquiry

[Shin]

Don't really ask questions, be intuitively interested on what's true.

Look at the wall, your hand, other people and just focus on what's true without any thoughts or assumptions.

[Rilles]

8 minutes ago, Shin said:

Don't really ask questions, be intuitively interested on what's true.

Look at the wall, your hand, other people and just focus on what's true without any thoughts or assumptions.

I think it helps to clear up unconscious assumptions. We all have images of what certain words should refer to. Growing up in the materalist paradigm I used to have an idea that consciousness was some brain thingy. Obviously its not. But someone had to point it out first. Now its a question mark and an empty cup, which is way better.

[Shin]

28 minutes ago, Rilles said:

I think it helps to clear up unconscious assumptions. We all have images of what certain words should refer to. Growing up in the materalist paradigm I used to have an idea that consciousness was some brain thingy. Obviously its not. But someone had to point it out first. Now its a question mark and an empty cup, which is way better.

Tbh I didn't read the op when I replied, sometimes I'm dumb and arrogant like that sorry

Yeah at first you can't even do what I just said anyway, or at least that's not everyone is capable of inquiring like that.

[Salvijus]

Define the term "is". That's the most profound one for me.

[Rilles]

2 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Define the term "is". That's the most profound one for me.

I can see how that conversation would go,

"What is is?"

"Is is what is."

"Yeah but what is it?"

"It is what it is"

"Got it."

 

[The0Self]

That doesn’t really describe what is usually referred to as self inquiry. See Nahm’s response (which include Ramana Maharshi's instructions).

Edited December 5, 2021 by The0Self

[Rilles]

1 minute ago, The0Self said:

That doesn’t really describe what is usually referred to as self inquiry. See Nahm’s response.

I know what self-inquiry is. Read my previous posts before you post yourself. 

[The0Self]

1 minute ago, Rilles said:

I know what self-inquiry is. Read my previous posts before you post yourself. 

Sorry, wasn’t implying you didn’t. Just saying the process of self inquiry can be a lot simpler. But inquiry as a whole in the way you describe can be fruitful, sure. Idk, maybe try “what’s left?” or “for whom?”

[The0Self]

@Rilles

Page 25-30 of Adyashanti’s The Way of Liberation pertains to your post very directly.

Here’s a quote from page 30:

”

Inquiry is the art of questioning all of one’s assumptions, beliefs, and interpretations as a means of opening up space in the mind for intuitive wisdom to arise. Once space is opened up, simply rest the question in the stillness of conscious being.

Watch. Keep faithful vigil with the unknown. The vital moments of breakthrough come when you least expect them.

”

[Gesundheit2]

Is there a self? Why would there even be one?

What exactly is the thing that we refer to with the pronouns?

[The0Self]

Just to reiterate, if you're talking about the particular, same "self inquiry" that I am, then any questions are kind of just taking you in a direction away from the direct actual technique. But inquiry as a general practice in stillness, such as Adyashanti's description, can be wonderful as well -- reminds me of a sort of blend of Culadasa's analytical meditation and still point meditation, if you've read TMI.

[Rilles]

5 minutes ago, The0Self said:

Just to reiterate, if you're talking about the particular, same "self inquiry" that I am, then any questions are kind of just taking you in a direction away from the direct actual technique. But inquiry as a general practice in stillness, such as Adyashanti's description, can be wonderful as well -- reminds me of a sort of blend of Culadasa's analytical meditation and still point meditation, if you've read TMI.

Awesome stuff! My way be would sort of like Rupert Spiras way. Ask a question like "Where is the boundary of awareness?" and then look inside yourself to see if there is one. Kind of like quickly glancing at a map when youre traveling up the hillside. 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Rilles

[VeganAwake]

Who is asking the question "what are good self-inquiry questions to ask"? 

[Breakingthewall]

34 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Who is asking the question "what are good self-inquiry questions to ask"? 

is made by the self, which senses its unreality and has the intention of surrendering its control, but cannot, since to do so is to cease to exist. when it ceases to exist , or better, it dissolves, it realizes that it is just a set of preferences with the function of the human avatar surviving. without it there is no separation and the experience that is remains, but this unlimited being that unfolds once the structures of the self dissolve, is in turn a self, only it is not a self that asks questions, just is. Really it's the same self that was asking and trying things, but shapeless , since he has seen that form and structure, essential at a certain moment for survival, have become a hindrance and must be discarded

Edited December 5, 2021 by Breakingthewall