Locked in a small realization

[Jordan]

I just wanted to share a realization I had today to help me get on the same line of thought again. I hope to pick up where I left off here during my lunch break at work. This morning I was planning on meditating for an hour in the morning just concentrating on one point. After 10 min or so I started getting curious about what I am and did self inquiry without even realizing it or thinking of it as self inquiry.

The line of thought went that several years ago, I used to think I was my body and my mind. I realized since then that I am aware of my body and mind but I really feel more like the observer of experience. It seems more like I am a passenger in the body and just able to experience the mind without controlling it although it sometimes feels like I am the one making goals and decisions. I remembered in my first or second 5MEO DMT trip I could see that there was an experience with no observer there but did not really get the significance of it.

Then I thought that if the observer could be observed by itself, those sensations would still be the experiential object and it wouldn't make sense being both the experiencer and the experience. It seems the observer has no location, size or shape which literally means it is nothing. If it has no location then the distance between the observer and observed is 0.  If that just leaves the experience with no observer then why does it seem so much that it is being observed from a point of view? It seems that the experience made up of sensations have the quality of knowing themselves completely right from the lowest level up to the highest. 

I felt my world view shift a bit. I have been feeling pleasant all day watching my ego take over but seeing though it as an illusion when I have some time to reflect. 

I don't really have a question about this. Just trying to get in the same frame of mind as this morning.

[BipolarGrowth]

The observed and observer are essentially identical. 
 

Seeing yourself as the observer is an important step in the path but not the end. It’s good that you’re starting to see this more for yourself. 
 

This reminds me of something Daniel Ingram wrote:

”1) the total and final elimination of any sense that there is anything called “attention” or “awareness” that is different from, separate from, or unrelated to bare phenomena;

2) the perfect direct comprehension of all sensations in the entire field where and as they are by themselves, as perception and the sensations are the same thing, so the parity between perception and reality is perfectly one to one at all times, meaning that the question of parity is actually completely eliminated perceptually, as there are just sensations;”

[Jordan]

I watched an interview with Daniel Ingram recently and have been listening to different videos on spirituality. I don't remember him stating this sort of thing exactly but he did explain how his experience was in different situations. I am sure something he said influenced my train of thought today.

This sort of topic, like who am I, or how to know the truth about something relative, through direct experience, leaves me feeling like I am on the edge of understanding something important but it doesn't fully come to me all at once like I would think it might be possible.  

I am beginning to think that I should work on my meditation more, and see what makes sense from a more concentrated meditative state. I feel like I can't think or focus properly when trying to understand things from a point of view of non-duality when my thoughts, beliefs and assumptions are rooted in duality.

[BipolarGrowth]

14 hours ago, Jordan said:

I watched an interview with Daniel Ingram recently and have been listening to different videos on spirituality. I don't remember him stating this sort of thing exactly but he did explain how his experience was in different situations. I am sure something he said influenced my train of thought today.

This sort of topic, like who am I, or how to know the truth about something relative, through direct experience, leaves me feeling like I am on the edge of understanding something important but it doesn't fully come to me all at once like I would think it might be possible.  

I am beginning to think that I should work on my meditation more, and see what makes sense from a more concentrated meditative state. I feel like I can't think or focus properly when trying to understand things from a point of view of non-duality when my thoughts, beliefs and assumptions are rooted in duality.

Honing your understanding while in deep meditative states is a great idea. Fear, aversion, clinging, egoic tendencies, and plenty of other stuff will be reduced allowing you to really get to the core of whatever understanding you’re trying to improve. 

[WelcometoReality]

@Jordan Thx for sharing! ?