Self Inquiry Help - I Am Experience?

[100rockets]

I'm having trouble going deeper with self inquiry because Ive come to the logical conclusion that I am experience that arises from this body. Any and all experience that arises from the specific body that is writing and thinking this - that is me. Experience is thought, taste, smell, sight, hearing, touch and all other minor sensations we are not always consciously aware we have such as balance, temperature and more. I'm not a scientist but to my understanding, meditation and drugs of any kind (all the way from alcohol to psychedelics) alter brain chemistry or activate or deactivate different regions in the brain and so give us a different experience. In my strongest mind altering experience my every day sense of self was gone, at one point I even stopped existing as a human but I still experienced something.

When I reached this conclusion that I am experience I tried to break it down to am I really experience? Which experience? What if I had no sight, couldn't hear? couldn't smell, couldn't feel etc' I always come to the same conclusion that yes, I am any experience that arises from this body. If thought is gone, I still have other senses that are there. Where this really hit me is when I asked, what if i had no experience? I tried to find times when I had no experience, although imo this is somewhat impossible but the times I don't recall an experience is before i was born, in deep sleep and when I was under anesthesia. I cant recall any sense of awareness or remembering being nothing, I was gone.

In a meditative state I sometimes reach a point where I feel as if I'm not attached to this mind or to this body at all. Where I can sense what I really am and it seems like all this thinking about it is a pointless joke but with self inquiry I am forced to think through it and logically this is where I'm stuck at. It makes me wonder, is this state of hyper awareness during meditation, as pleasant as it is, is it just another illusory experience? And who is it behind the experience? The brain is such a tricky thing could this be a trick too? just another part of my brain that is aware of itself? If there was no experience there would be nothing to watch and I would be gone. How do I know that I would be gone? Well I don't but I remember nothing from the few times that I can recall experiencing nothing.

This is a whole thing in itself... if there was no experience perhaps there would be no memory of any experience to remember. It seems that awareness or the true "I" that I am looking for has no memory in itself (because it isnt a brain..?) So could I recall being aware while not having an experience? I just came up with this now my god this doesn't end

The bottom line is that in order to be aware of whoever it is that im trying to find it must be while I am having an experience but I am convinced that I am experience in itself and I cannot find out it if this is not true because I cant be aware of not having any experience at all, even if I could how could I recall it?

 

Edited February 11, 2017 by 100rockets

[PureExp]

I think you are doing great. Those are honest thoughts. I don't have much to say, but my 2c -

3 hours ago, 100rockets said:

Any and all experience that arises from the specific body that is writing and thinking this - that is me.

If you pay attention, the body itself is an experience

What does that tells us? The body is as illusory as any other object. So is the brain. There are contents in the awareness that do not arise via a body or senses. They are thoughts, memories, imaginations, hallucinations, and non-physical experiences of non-physical realms (e.g. during dreaming, lucid dreaming and astral projection). Sensory contents are a small part of what we can experience. (See this and this for more)

3 hours ago, 100rockets said:

The bottom line is that in order to be aware of whoever it is that im trying to find it must be while I am having an experience but I am convinced that I am experience in itself and I cannot find out it if this is not true because I cant be aware of not having any experience at all, even if I could how could I recall it?

This, IMO, is the classic issue of the mind trying in vain to know the consciousness/awareness. It cannot. The mind cannot find the experiencer, it is itself an experience. The reverse is possible, the experiencer can find the mind. So when the mind is gone (e.g. in deep sleep or meditation), it forms no memories of the experience, and when it comes back, it recalls nothing about the experiencer. So you can't recall your experience of "consciousness without contents". But you can get a taste of it. And surely you can experience it, its the classic Nirvikalp Samadhi. (See this for more).

[Barna]

You are right. Let's call it experiencing instead, because that includes the awareness of it as well.  

When you realize that experiencing IS the awareness of it, then you are fully awaken to Awareness. (You can do it right now ) After you realize it, you cannot "lose" awareness anymore, because every experience IS awareness. And you are it, all of it!  

As Rupert Spira said:
"In ignorance, I am something;
in understanding, I am nothing;
in love, I am everything."

Edited February 11, 2017 by Barna

[Nahm]

@100rockets "Going deeper" is done by letting go of all this thinking.

Deeper is nonthinking