Hello Florian

My experiance is also similar.

Whenever I focus my attention on this question, in that moment it is know, there is no self. When doing this, it is my consistent experience about there being no self. I would like to believe that this is experiential and not just intellectual understanding.

But when engaged in other activities of daily life, the default mode of operation is that of self, for e.g. I do the work, I drive the car.

Yesterday, I took this question while I was driving; the first reaction was an impulse to take the hands off the steering wheel followed by a strong fear so immediate that I almost missed the impulse. The resultant thought/feeling was I have to drive; are you nuts, driving cannot happen on its own. It was fun to actually see the selfing process in action. I followed it up with more contemplation but then it seemed more like thinking/reasoning it out so I dropped it.

Don't know if this type of contemplation/enquiry during the daily activities will result in a permanent shift. Maybe first I need to drop these doubts for it to work

How should I take it further?

Thanks
Sanjay

Hi Sanjay,

Doubts are just doubts, they arise, doubt a bit, vanish.

How do you know you own them (which you do, because only then can you feel the need to drop them)?

Can you describe the sense of ownership regarding these doubts? Location? Feelings - whatever? Type as you observe.

Yes all thoughts vanish; some are more persistent and keep arising again & again but do keep vanishing after a while

No I don't own them, doubts just arise, identifying with them, getting sold to the story they tell me is what is happening.

The sensations are mostly located inside the head, a kind of buzzing, throbbing, also somewhat in the chest region but the one inside the head are more prominent.

When I am thinking / contemplating on this stuff I am also getting very distinct vibrations on the crown, strangely this gives a feel of happening outside the skull and not in the head.

Thanks

So, those buzzing sensations - are they you?

No.


When I focus the attention to look for sensations then there are only sensations, no self is felt/seen, but otherwise It seems like a default mode of operation, looks like every thought carries an I component in it.



.

So, thoughts. Assuming there is an "I" associated to thoughts, can you pin it down, by describing it? How does it present - is there some spatial thing, or a set of sensations - nose maybe - or something?

Describe as you look. Post it hot off the griddle, as it were.

I can't pin it down, don't know how to do it.

Sitting in front of the mirror, looking at myself, I can see my image.
Closing my eyes, the body image feels like it is a part of me (not the actual body but its image in the head), but not in a completely identifiable way, more like there is also something else in the head that controls it, focusing again on that, trying to see whats behind that, is it just a thought or also some feeling/sensations, can't get a handle on it, now i am looking for any sensations that i can connect to this self/ i, nothing . . .

Thinking of getting up and walking a few steps, the initial thought seems like I am getting up, 'i am' walking. Focusing back to what is this "I am" that is walking/typing? Again cannot really associate a sensation/felt sense or any thing with this "I" stuff.

It seems there is this 'I' thought which sneaks up with every thought and action, it somehow attaches it self to everything, but it is a real slippery sob, can't find it when directly looking for it.

Is it just a learned way or habit of being, anyway saying the walking/typing is just happening also does not sound ok to me . . . not sure why?

What if there's nothing behind that, plain and simple? How could you test that hypothesis?



"It seems". What if it's not slippery at all, just plain not there?

Taking that as a hypothesis, you don't have to look for the slippery s.o.b., and can instead look at what makes you think there is such a clever, slippery thing.

What are the sensations trying to make you believe that there is something cleverly hiding from your gaze?

I have really spend a lot of time thinking about it how do I bring a closure to this hypothesis . . . .

• I continue to live out of my old belief of there being a thinker/doer/controller/observer self.
• Continuously looking for it, and not finding it or not able to see it, feel it, am having serious doubts about it existence
• While continuing to live out of the old belief, I am started to form a new belief about there being no self

All this seems silly, now on one hand I feel I know, I really know that this sense of self is an illusion but on another hand I continue to live as if "I" the doer/controller is real. but don't know how do I prove it or bring it to a final closure




Yes doing this makes more sense now, presently it just seems a habit, I will be with it for some time and get back.

Thanks

1 is out of the question, what with you posting to the DhO. No going back.

You will do 3 later - I mean, before you start integrating, there has to be something to integrate.

2 is what you're doing here, only you're not trying to somehow gently doubt the existence of your self, but to challenge your self. This is about you. Yourself. Your self. This is not idle speculation about the existence or nonexistence of a god, maybe (because existence of gods doesn't really matter, it's okay to doubt that, that's not about your immediate sense of existence as a self). This is really about you.

So, that was clever of your self, but not clever enough. Now that you've gained a sense of what you're looking for - will you continue to look?

Still there? How's it going?

Hello Florian

Sorry for no post from my side, my home pc was down so could not post earlier

Yes dealing with the questions of existence or nonexistence of a god would be easier


Earlier I had an interaction with nick regarding my inability to sit for meditation, where he had guided me to use the urge to get up & the thoughts associated with it as the meditation object, using this resolve I managed to sit with the restlessness.

When Elena sent me a pointer "The thought is real, but the content of the thought is not" or something to that effect, I recalled this experiance.reflecting on it I had a small insight about "Thoughts are Not Us". I believe this is what is called the seeing. I had few doubts, what with the AF concept about all the feelings being me etc. but i guess for now its best to focus on this one aspect about the 'I' being just another thought and not something special.

So far my experiance with this direct pointing is very positive. This kind of honest looking with everything can be very helpful.

I would like to have your feedback on how to take this enquiry further.

Thanks
Sanjay

Yeah, thoughts are not us. The self can't hide in thoughts. (Actually, it's not hiding at all...) Great insight.

We can proceed here, or take it to email or skype, if you prefer. I think you should be able to see those addresses when you click on my icon in the "online friends" thing at the botton, when I am online - but I'll send you a PM as well.

The skype thing (or google chat) seems to work quite well, from what I can tell from one instance where I did it with someone.

Always felt "trying to stop the discursive thoughts" was the right thing to do,

Something to take to my next sit.

Thanks
Sanjay

Are you sure you want to do this via mail? We could continue here, as well.