What is PCE?

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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 10/30/10 9:53 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 10/30/10 9:53 AM

What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
I've been reading trough threads on PCE and it has left me with some questions. I've decided to base the questions on an experience I've had, I don't believe it to be a PCE but I think I can relate better to what a PCE feels like if someone can debunk or affirm concepts I have about it.

1) When you enter a PCE does it feel more real than how you experienced life before? Will it make you think (at least to some extent) "I've been living a lie/illusion"?

2) Does it give you a realization that everything you thought of as not-now is in fact now. (aka echart tolle-style)

3) When I had my experience it gave me a strange feeling like I was in a video game, not meaning I was hallucinating or tripping out, but just because a) it was so completely different from 'normal' reality, and b) my relationship to my "self", my body, was very third person-ish, I had the same relationship with myself as the unknown people I was passing on the street.

4) Is PCE an yes or no thing, meaning there isn't a gradual build-up to the moment, or there might be but the experience is either on or off?

The reason I don't think my experience was a PCE is because it didn't feel that good, or at least not blissful, I just felt fine. That being said I didn't get much time to experience it, when I started reflecting on how I was feeling it started fading, lasted a total of maybe 10-20 seconds.

Additional questions:

5) Can you say that AF is the full realization of no-self, in other words can you reach it if you are able to fully eradicate the concept of self, or is additional perception abilities(?) needed?

6) Someone else touched on this before; is AF the realization that nothing is good or bad in and by itself, only human interpretation makes it so?

It would be really interesting and helpful to get a reply from someone experienced with PCE's.
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 10/30/10 6:58 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 10/30/10 6:58 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
P O V:
I've been reading trough threads on PCE and it has left me with some questions. I've decided to base the questions on an experience I've had, I don't believe it to be a PCE but I think I can relate better to what a PCE feels like if someone can debunk or affirm concepts I have about it.

1) When you enter a PCE does it feel more real than how you experienced life before? Will it make you think (at least to some extent) "I've been living a lie/illusion"?


The experience is one of wonder, immediate, fresh, clear and new. Its almost as if there is a new dimension to perception (not a change in depth of perception) that enhances the sensuous aspect of the actual world.

After the experience there is that wow factor questioning what was that? The very knowledge of the experience provides the impetus to get back to a PCE

I suggest you read this http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/attentivenesssensuousnessapperceptiveness.htm


3) When I had my experience it gave me a strange feeling like I was in a video game, not meaning I was hallucinating or tripping out, but just because a) it was so completely different from 'normal' reality, and b) my relationship to my "self", my body, was very third person-ish, I had the same relationship with myself as the unknown people I was passing on the street.



In a PCE there is no first person experience or the third person experience. These experiences are just changes in point of view or our depth of perception and state of consciousness. Often we feel that one ‘reality’ started where the other stopped.

In PCE it is an immediate experience with no room apart from the direct perception and sensation of this moment.

cheers
Jeff
ps I will respond to the other questions a bit later as I have to take off
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 10/31/10 4:08 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 10/31/10 4:08 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for the reply Jeff. When I said third-person I meant to reflect the neutral feeling/relationship I felt towards my own body. Looking forward to more answers, I am also curious what awareness feels like, or rather where it seems to be "located". For example is it located behind the eyes or "in the head", or is it panoramic; surrounding the body?
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tarin greco, modified 14 Years ago at 10/31/10 4:17 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 10/31/10 4:17 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 658 Join Date: 5/14/09 Recent Posts
P O V:
Thanks for the reply Jeff. When I said third-person I meant to reflect the neutral feeling/relationship I felt towards my own body. Looking forward to more answers, I am also curious what awareness feels like, or rather where it seems to be "located". For example is it located behind the eyes or "in the head", or is it panoramic; surrounding the body?


while not a response to your question(s), i am writing to point you to the following page on the af trust website if you have not seen it already: Descriptions of Pure Consciousness Experiences

tarin
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 11/1/10 10:39 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/1/10 10:39 AM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for the link Tarin, I find it rather hard to navigate that actual freedom site as it seems to be designed by a twelve year old girl. Anyway the descriptions were good but most of them is about the vibrant and clear sensual reality etc. I'm more interested in what other qualities PCE includes and what separates it from other "direct reality" modes of perception.
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/1/10 9:17 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/1/10 5:27 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
P O V:
2) Does it give you a realization that everything you thought of as not-now is in fact now. (aka echart tolle-style)


The feeling of (movement in) time is a reflexive instinctive response (fear, agression, nuture, desire - projection and reflection).
When in PCE this very mechanism is in abeyance (the self), there is only this moment. A PCE provides insight into this process (self) by its very absence.
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/1/10 9:38 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/1/10 9:38 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
P O V:


5) Can you say that AF is the full realization of no-self, in other words can you reach it if you are able to fully eradicate the concept of self, or is additional perception abilities(?) needed?


5) Can you say that AF is the full realization of no-self, in other words can you reach it if you are able to fully eradicate the concept of self, or is additional perception abilities (?) needed?


No-self is often described as experiencing the ground of being that everything rises and falls from (empty center), suchness or thusness. My experiences lead me to describe it as unbounded but at that stage I could not recognise that it was bounded by my internal view.

If you do a search of the web you will find similar descriptions of the No Self experience

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/likefire/1.html
No Self - From this point onward the mind experiences mental & physical phenomena with a sense of being dissociated from them. One simile for this state is that of a hide removed from the carcass of a cow: Even if the hide is then placed back on the cow, one cannot say that it is attached as before, because the connective tissues that once held the hide to the carcass — in other words, passion & desire — have all been cut (by the knife of discernment).

Again you can see that there is experience still “the mind experiences mental & physical phenomena with a sense of being dissociated from them” or that passion and desire still exists “Even if the hide is then placed back on the cow, one cannot say that it is attached as before, because the connective tissues that once held the hide to the carcass — in other words, passion & desire — have all been cut (by the knife of discernment).”

ttp://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/nonduality_katz.htm

[An] impact of an awakening nondual awareness is an enhanced capacity to be with what is. The living insight of nondual awareness is that everything already is accepted and embraced just as it is. As awakening deepens, the judging mind loses its grip and attention becomes increasingly innocent, intimate, and impersonally affectionate.


The mind, body, and emotions no longer referred to anyone - there was no one who thought, no one who felt, no one who perceived just an empty center.

Notice in the previous sentence there is still an empty center. This is the empty center that the swirl of passion arises and fall around without sticking. But while the empty center exits there is a response which is still a self experience


AF is more then understanding of a concept of self it is the eradictaion of the very mechanism (the source) of the self, the self is extinct, gone.
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 11/2/10 5:35 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/2/10 5:35 AM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
I see, so you can say that AF is doing a different take on the no-self thing. Traditionally we are trying to understand that the self is nonexistent, seeking to realize that this self can not find a no-self, it would just end up with another version of a self; this being the standard non-duality paradox. AF seems to be attacking this problem by shifting awareness "forward" so that perceptions are met before they get sliced trough a filter and used as construction for the self. The self never gets initiated. Therefore the self/no-self distinction, and the question itself, is not really relative anymore.

Am I getting closer?
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/2/10 10:12 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/2/10 5:27 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
4.
The reason I don't think my experience was a PCE is because it didn't feel that good, or at least not blissful, I just felt fine. That being said I didn't get much time to experience it, when I started reflecting on how I was feeling it started fading, lasted a total of maybe 10-20 seconds.



So insidious is the self is that it is both the desire to attain a PCE and the fear of not attianing a PCE but both are oportunities to investgate the self in action.

This is also why faking it till you make it is an important part of the practice do not worry about honesty as this is only another trick of the imposter.

Tarin created a flowchart which follows an algoritim and can be found here http://i43.tinypic.com/34owzld.jpg

By dismantling the emotional programs the unconscious energies can be directed into raising the bar of EE until it is a PCE. By relaxing our compulsions and habitual ways of overreacting, loosening the defence mechanisms in place since early childhood we can direct our energies into felitious feeings.

P O V:
I see, so you can say that AF is doing a different take on the no-self thing. Traditionally we are trying to understand that the self is nonexistent, seeking to realize that this self can not find a no-self, it would just end up with another version of a self; this being the standard non-duality paradox. AF seems to be attacking this problem by shifting awareness "forward" so that perceptions are met before they get sliced trough a filter and used as construction for the self. The self never gets initiated. Therefore the self/no-self distinction, and the question itself, is not really relative anymore.

Am I getting closer?


Try not to direct your enegeries into reflecting on the differences between no self and AF as they are 180% opposite. To get closer you need to attend to this moment and investigate how your emotional program operates, the self in action. It is as easy as HAIETMOBA which this is the most efficient path.

How is your practice going?
Have you tried a soft focus around the dantain about 3 fingers width below the belly button which is also around your center of gravity and how we find ourselves spatially located.
Investigate any visceral movement in response to your changeing enviroment
Notice reactions in this area to your changing attention. Investigate HAIETMOBA with this

cheers
Jeff

Edit: to add in question 4 as I could not get the quotes working this morning as it was coming out as one long sentence. Gave it another shot during work lunch break
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tarin greco, modified 14 Years ago at 11/2/10 5:49 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/2/10 5:49 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 658 Join Date: 5/14/09 Recent Posts
P O V:
I see, so you can say that AF is doing a different take on the no-self thing. Traditionally we are trying to understand that the self is nonexistent, seeking to realize that this self can not find a no-self, it would just end up with another version of a self; this being the standard non-duality paradox. AF seems to be attacking this problem by shifting awareness "forward" so that perceptions are met before they get sliced trough a filter and used as construction for the self. The self never gets initiated. Therefore the self/no-self distinction, and the question itself, is not really relative anymore.

Am I getting closer?


closer, though it is not that perceptions get used as construction for the self... rather, it is that the self (the feeling of being arisen of the genetically-endowed instinctual passions) is what 'slices' perception to begin with.

in any case, you might find the following passage interesting (and more so provided you don't misread it/you read it carefully):

Richard:

When one first becomes aware of something, there is a fleeting instant of the clean perception of sensum just before one recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception) and also before one identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Clear perception is in that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one affectively subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from the rest of pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous heedfulness ... in a word: apperceptiveness.

(Dictionary Definition: ‘apperceptive’ (a.) of or pertaining to apperception (the mind’s perception of itself). Thus: ‘apperceptiveness’ (n.): the condition or quality of being apperceptive; also: ‘apperceptively’ (adv.): the experience of being apperceptive and: ‘apperceptivity’: (n.): the capacity to be apperceptive).

In that brief scintillating instant of bare awareness, that twinkling sensorium-moment of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness, one apperceives a thing as a nothing-in-particular that is being naught but what-it-is coming from nowhen and going nowhere at all. Apperceptiveness is very much like what one sees with one’s peripheral vision as opposed to the intent focus of normal or central vision. One experiences a smoothly flowing moment of clear experiencing where one is interlocked with the rest of actuality, not separate from it. This moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperceptiveness – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone ... and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ ... a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’. In the process of ordinary perception, the apperceptiveness step is so fleeting as to be usually unobservable. One has developed the habit of squandering one’s attention on all the remaining steps: feeling the percept, emotionally recognising the qualia, zealously adopting the perception and getting involved in a long string of representative feeling-notions about it. When the original moment of apperceptiveness is rapidly passed over it is the purpose of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to accustom one to prolong that moment of apperceptiveness – a sensuous awareness bereft of feeling content – so that uninterrupted apperception can eventuate.


if that resonates with you, the whole article can be found here.

tarin
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/3/10 2:53 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/3/10 2:53 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
P O V:

6) Someone else touched on this before; is AF the realization that nothing is good or bad in and by itself, only human interpretation makes it so?
.


Moral choice is the self in action, an instinctive response at its source. You will find that each and every decisions is influenced by emotional judgment and we are not free to make a choice of what is good and what is bad. Without a self there is still an intellect and the ability to make intelligent decisions which are not coloured by emotional judgment. This allows a new perspective to what is occurring in this moment.

cheers
Jeff
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 11/4/10 4:10 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/4/10 4:10 AM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for taking the time Jeff, really useful stuff. Some quick additions if you don't mind: 1) What is EE? 2) What does the physical body feel like when having a PCE? Do you feel energy releasing when you go from normal mode to PCE? 3) Would you say it's good advice to "be the body" (while practicing)?
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/4/10 5:59 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/4/10 5:52 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
Paul S.:
Thanks for taking the time Jeff, really useful stuff. Some quick additions if you don't mind: 1) What is EE? 2) What does the physical body feel like when having a PCE? Do you feel energy releasing when you go from normal mode to PCE? 3) Would you say it's good advice to "be the body" (while practicing)?



Hi Paul

1) EE stands for Excellant Experience it is when felitious feelings are maximised but the self identity is still there so its not quite a PCE

it is described here http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/excellence.htm


2) The body is just vibrant immediate sensations.

3) Could you explain a bit about Being the body?

If you mean awareness of change in the body, it is a good practice to be aware of these changes in response to your changing focus of attention due to the changes in your surroundings.

But having said that it is essential that you initially focus on maximising those felitious feelings until you land a PCE.

Do not get distracted with any changes to that method as once you experince a PCE the knowledge will help you be resolute in maximising time spent in PCE. Then you can investigate the bodily response and how it interrupts you PCE.

thanks
Jeff

Edit: spelling
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 4:01 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 4:01 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
What I found confusing though is this: You read and hear about all these different 'spiritual' practices that's focusing on being present, seeing that time is an illusion, dissolving the ego, connecting with your senses instead of thought&emotions, resting as awareness, mindfulness of this moment, etc. I understand how the end result of AF is different from the spiritual approach, but the techniques seem so similar. How is it that asking yourself HAIETMOBA is supposed to branch off to PCE/AF while practices that are focusing on related aspect leads you in the opposite direction?
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 5:59 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 5:20 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
Paul S.:
What I found confusing though is this: You read and hear about all these different 'spiritual' practices that's focusing on being present, seeing that time is an illusion, dissolving the ego, connecting with your senses instead of thought&emotions, resting as awareness, mindfulness of this moment, etc. I understand how the end result of AF is different from the spiritual approach, but the techniques seem so similar. How is it that asking yourself HAIETMOBA is supposed to branch off to PCE/AF while practices that are focusing on related aspect leads you in the opposite direction?



For one HAIETMOBA is not a spiritual practice. It is not concerned with a soul, relating to a "God" or belonging to a church or a religion. Nor does it identify with an Atman a Non Self or a True Self.

Further the method used leads to different results if I was to ask "Who am I" or What am I experiencing" it would lead to a different results as to "How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?".

What Am I Experiencing is self perpetuating. Who am I leads to the ground of Being. How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? gets to the root of the issue

Other practices may focus on maximizing positive feelings while minimizing negative ones for instant focusing on compassion.
Whereas practicing HAIETMOBA you are maximizing felicitous feelings. When you are happy, bright, vibrant there is no sorrow and malice you are redirecting unconscious energy into the EE and with continued practice this will become a PCE


Edit:
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 5:41 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 5:41 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for clearing that up. I think I got a bit lost in translation there as I use translated version when I ask myself. I interpreted it to something closer to 'how is it to be alive in this moment', but from what you're saying it's closer to 'how am I able to experience this moment of being alive' ?
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Jeff Grove, modified 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 5:52 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/6/10 5:52 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
Paul S.:
Thanks for clearing that up. I think I got a bit lost in translation there as I use translated version when I ask myself. I interpreted it to something closer to 'how is it to be alive in this moment', but from what you're saying it's closer to 'how am I able to experience this moment of being alive' ?


it is ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?

Here is a good intro to read

http://actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/path2.htm

thanks
Jeff
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 11/23/10 4:38 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/23/10 4:38 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
I can't seem to shake this 'no-self'/nonduality in relation to PCE. Obviously AF takes a different approach to attaining nonduality, but how is the end result different? Imagine if I were able to completely 'remove' any sense of "me" and personal identity. All of the sudden there was no longer any "me" in this body; wouldn't that bring on a PCE? The testimonials of those who have had PCE's seem to match perfectly with testimonials from people who have had no-self experiences. Without the self wouldn't "you" be experiencing 'this moment of being alive' as fully and with as little hesitation as humanly possible? If there is a difference how can you know? Have you experienced both?
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Daniel Johnson, modified 14 Years ago at 11/23/10 5:46 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 11/23/10 5:46 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 401 Join Date: 12/16/09 Recent Posts
Paul S.:
The testimonials of those who have had PCE's seem to match perfectly with testimonials from people who have had no-self experiences.


I suggest re-reading the testimonials with a bit more discernment. Or perhaps read up on how Richard describes the differences. So far, the testimonials I've read which are clear and comprehensive are very distinct between the two experiences.

Paul S.:
If there is a difference how can you know?


Here's one clear difference to look for: affect, emotion, or feeling of any kind

Here's another: being (in all it's forms... Presence, Awareness, God, Self, Is-ness, Emptiness, Suchness, etc...)
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 1:03 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 1:03 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
In my quest for a real PCE I find it useful to first dissolve the 'soft self'. This way the accumulated knee-jerk defense mechanisms are dampened and I can better tune into sensuous experience. At best I get to what you might call an EE but still the instinctual fear and passions are there, together with a core sense of being. While the 'soft self' feels more like a bag of concepts or feelings, the instinctual stuff comes across as almost hard-wired. Any ideas on how to approach this?
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tarin greco, modified 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 1:46 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 1:46 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 658 Join Date: 5/14/09 Recent Posts
Paul S.:
In my quest for a real PCE I find it useful to first dissolve the 'soft self'. This way the accumulated knee-jerk defense mechanisms are dampened and I can better tune into sensuous experience. At best I get to what you might call an EE but still the instinctual fear and passions are there, together with a core sense of being. While the 'soft self' feels more like a bag of concepts or feelings, the instinctual stuff comes across as almost hard-wired. Any ideas on how to approach this?


see this post as well as the one by martin m to which it was posted in reply:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1191336#_19_message_1347738

do you find that anything in that exchange applies?

tarin
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 2:11 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 2:11 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
Yes the 'I am my feelings...' phrase is very useful. In my mind there seems to be two outcomes of this. 1) I notice the feelings and I see that they are me and vice versa, so the duality disappears, but only to be replaced by a new duality (the one who applies the 'I am me feelings...') so I just level up. 2) There is a switch-over into 'I am my feelings...' mode where duality can not arise (for x amount of time).

So far I can only achieve #1, is this the right approach; keep at it and the duality will desolve itself in time? (resulting in #2) or is #2 the initial goal?

(this post ended up quite weird, hope you understand my intent)
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tarin greco, modified 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 2:23 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 12/12/10 2:23 PM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 658 Join Date: 5/14/09 Recent Posts
if you find doing 1 leads to 2, do 1. if you find doing 1 does not lead to 2, do something else. if you can do 2, there is no need to do 1.

don't be enamoured by 2; it's just a more refined state of the same. what you're aiming for is beyond 2.
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Pål S, modified 14 Years ago at 12/13/10 4:11 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 12/13/10 4:11 AM

RE: What is PCE?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
Got my first PCE today. Thanks Jeff and Tarin!