Experiment: Embodying 'No Self' for a Day

[caspex]

I believe that I can do it. It'll be hard, but not impossible. I don't know to which degree it is but I can enter 'No Self' in seconds on a good day and in minutes on a bad one, hence my belief that I am capable of embodiment.

It has been maybe two years since my first understanding into No Self but I have never really tried to embody it, but to only take it deeper everytime. It's about time that I tried.

The rules are simple, I'll meditate after releasing this post and try to go as deep as possible into No Self and maybe beyond if I am capable. Once I am there, I'll attempt to stay in it for the next twenty four hours.

My prediction is that as I interact with people my state will go down, but after several dips back into the ego, I'd learn to keep my head afloat, a low degree of No Self.

My goal is simply embodiment, even if it means the shallowest possible degree of No Self, but not a fake idea of No Self and the real deal.

I welcome anyone else who'd like to try out this challenge. It doesn't have to be No Self, but the highest possible state you feel that you can reach.

I'll post my results after 24 hours of this post.

[caspex]

Quick Note: I have gotten sick again even though I recovered from yesterday's sickness. So I apologise if my explanations are not great. Furthermore, my keyboard broke down so I am writing on my mobile, which I am not comfortable with therefore affecting my explanation.

 

Results:

 

I would call the experiment a mild success. I have learnt a lot from trying to embody No Self for 24 hours, but I can't do it completely just yet. At this pace, complete embodiment should take a week or less.

I had some insights regarding No Self when trying to embody it permanently. Which gave me a further insight when I compared it to insights gained when trying to deepen the experience.

It was that when you try to embody some truth, you get wildly different insights than when you try to deepen it. Embodiment requires a further understanding of a state without deepening it.

While trying to embody a degree of No Self, I gained an insight into the character's relationship with everything else.

To start off, let's clear a few things. The character, the witness/observer and the cone of perception originating from the observer are all part of a single experience. Perception is therefore without boundaries or center, and not a cone. This whole cone of perception along with the observer and the character all take a back seat once one sees that experiences don't originate because you see them but that your character, witness and cone of perception originates as an experience with everything else. In fact, the cone is seen to be entirely false originating from the false idea that the witness is the center.

Furthermore, the character and the witness actually do not possess any substance since they are also infact just an experience. With no source for experience to originate from, it's simply a hologram. There's no self. If you must call anything a self, it's this hologram.

How I term such things is the following. I call the witness, distinguished from the character, as the atma. While I call this hologram as Paramatma.

Here's how the insight regarding embodiment goes. The reason one falls back to ego identification is because the Atma habitually takes a major part of the experience. An illusiory center is created which the Atma thinks to be itself. In reality the Atma is a undefined however smaller part of the overral experience and there is no center.  For proper embodiment, one(Atma) must practice surrender. Surrenderring oneself means to dissolve, which only happens when one let's go of itself. But what is it that is being held together? It's experience. Atma is dense experience. Once the Atma surrenders, focus(where experience is the most dense) naturally spreads out evenly. This is the state of No Self.

So, the key to embodiment of No Self is surrender, which I am sure you have heard for years, but hopefully my explanation can help you understand it yourself.

This lead to a bigger insight that if you view reality as a giant muscle, all these different objects, people, your focus, you, are simply a contraction. The degree of density although varies.

This also explains why distinctions are always blurry and what distinctions truly are, since you can imagine, there would no clear boundry between where the contraction in the muscle ends and the relaxed muscle begins.

All no self is, is relaxing that dense contraction of experience that 'was' you.

Interestingly, just like you can't simply decide to relax the density that is a rock in front of you, making it dissappear, you can't do it with the character either. Sure, the kernal is gone, but the character still functions absolutely fine, and this is exactly how 'you' will operate when you embody No Self, without paralyzing yourself.

 

This insight also helped me draw parallels and integrate Bhakti and No Self together, which previously seemed exclusive to each other. I'll write about this in my "Upasana Journal" soon.

 

 

[Razard86]

9 hours ago, Swarnim said:

Quick Note: I have gotten sick again even though I recovered from yesterday's sickness. So I apologise if my explanations are not great. Furthermore, my keyboard broke down so I am writing on my mobile, which I am not comfortable with therefore affecting my explanation.

 

Results:

 

I would call the experiment a mild success. I have learnt a lot from trying to embody No Self for 24 hours, but I can't do it completely just yet. At this pace, complete embodiment should take a week or less.

I had some insights regarding No Self when trying to embody it permanently. Which gave me a further insight when I compared it to insights gained when trying to deepen the experience.

It was that when you try to embody some truth, you get wildly different insights than when you try to deepen it. Embodiment requires a further understanding of a state without deepening it.

While trying to embody a degree of No Self, I gained an insight into the character's relationship with everything else.

To start off, let's clear a few things. The character, the witness/observer and the cone of perception originating from the observer are all part of a single experience. Perception is therefore without boundaries or center, and not a cone. This whole cone of perception along with the observer and the character all take a back seat once one sees that experiences don't originate because you see them but that your character, witness and cone of perception originates as an experience with everything else. In fact, the cone is seen to be entirely false originating from the false idea that the witness is the center.

Furthermore, the character and the witness actually do not possess any substance since they are also infact just an experience. With no source for experience to originate from, it's simply a hologram. There's no self. If you must call anything a self, it's this hologram.

How I term such things is the following. I call the witness, distinguished from the character, as the atma. While I call this hologram as Paramatma.

Here's how the insight regarding embodiment goes. The reason one falls back to ego identification is because the Atma habitually takes a major part of the experience. An illusiory center is created which the Atma thinks to be itself. In reality the Atma is a undefined however smaller part of the overral experience and there is no center.  For proper embodiment, one(Atma) must practice surrender. Surrenderring oneself means to dissolve, which only happens when one let's go of itself. But what is it that is being held together? It's experience. Atma is dense experience. Once the Atma surrenders, focus(where experience is the most dense) naturally spreads out evenly. This is the state of No Self.

So, the key to embodiment of No Self is surrender, which I am sure you have heard for years, but hopefully my explanation can help you understand it yourself.

This lead to a bigger insight that if you view reality as a giant muscle, all these different objects, people, your focus, you, are simply a contraction. The degree of density although varies.

This also explains why distinctions are always blurry and what distinctions truly are, since you can imagine, there would no clear boundry between where the contraction in the muscle ends and the relaxed muscle begins.

All no self is, is relaxing that dense contraction of experience that 'was' you.

Interestingly, just like you can't simply decide to relax the density that is a rock in front of you, making it dissappear, you can't do it with the character either. Sure, the kernal is gone, but the character still functions absolutely fine, and this is exactly how 'you' will operate when you embody No Self, without paralyzing yourself.

 

This insight also helped me draw parallels and integrate Bhakti and No Self together, which previously seemed exclusive to each other. I'll write about this in my "Upasana Journal" soon.

 

 

Good job keep moving forward. But question. Bhakti is literally referred to as the direct path. Understand that exclusivity....is created by your mind. Aim to simplify your labels that you are using, because personally speaking it confused me. 

For example you created a distinction between the observer and the character: Some people do not perceive a difference between the two. So notice that distinction is one that you are drawing but some people may not draw that distinction.

You talk about a cone. Some people do not perceive their experience as a cone. I liken my experience to a screen, that is how I choose to hold it. Why? Because when I close my eyes there is a screen and that screen is still there when I open it. Notice when you say cone of perception, character, and observer, you are now telling us there are three things. A witness, a character, and then some cone. So your map creates a cone. 

You also said experience doesn't originate from a source. That would be confusing to somebody. Because they would ask you if there is no source then where is experience coming from and what is experiencing it. Your map is very limited. You have left questions that cannot be answered. Also the no self awakening robs you of responsibility because everything is just happening, to no one. 

This type of map denies what is appearing because clearly something is happening to something...otherwise you couldn't be writing a post right now. Remember we talked about honesty? The No Self awakening is dualistic. For you to get rid of the dualism you need to marry it to the self awakening. Self and No Self together resolve the paradox. So I challenge you to become aware of what the source is. 

What is the source?