Author: Joe G

Interested in mindfulness meditation that helps quiet the mind and increase concentration, among other benefits?

Please start with this video from Gary Weber.

This technique requires at least 45 minutes a day for at least two months to begin seeing benefits.

Use self-inquiry to help quiet the mind. Ask:

• Who Am I
• Where Am I
• When Am I

These questions do not admit of an answer, but serve to  invert the mind on itself and cause the root thought to stop.

Then, basic meditation practice.

Help in breaking the thought stream.

Consider a daily journal:

How many minutes did you sit?

Not as much to write these days as things have slowed down considerably, though not stopped. Upon refection I don’t miss the intense experiences, and am glad not to be having them, but am also glad to have had them. All of which is irrelevant since “I” had nothing consciously to do with making then happen – at

Experiences of “non-ordinary reality” Have ceased. Odd to call them that, though. It seems they are the ordinary reality and the “normal, day-to-day” existence that does not include trips to the Vast Vastness or the Peace that surpasses understanding or Sat Chit Ananda or intense mental clarity or energy or channeling or such are “non-ordinary”.

A few things worth mentioning. Ongoing work on opening the Heart Chakra is progressing once I realized the Heart Chakra is not the Heart organ itself.

Breathing into the Heart Chakra, I can feel it expand and that now seems to be in sync with the Third Eye Chakra – and both seem to expand together. These with the electric tingle in my hands form a nice triangle. At times the distance between the Third Eye and Heart Chakra seems to get smaller and there are experiences of them “joining together”.

More and more I come to notice the inner stillness and “quietude” when meditating. I am working on being able to notice and focus on this when doing practical tasks like seeing, hearing, talking and moving.  I practice when on the elliptical first thing in the morning and at times remember to do this throughout the day. I could do that more.

I don’t suspend the interpretive narrative as much or as pronounced as I did a few months ago. May be that I don’t need to and narrative is pretty bland and quiet – except when driving.

A few weeks ago I woke up feeling deeply in love with the stillness and quietude. Since then I have been looking to notice it more and more. And it seems this is what I truly am – nothing-ness – just stillness in which it all occurs. There is a distinct sense of all of it happening ” within” me – the stillness.

Kitties are not sitting on my lap during mediation, though it can be an effort to get them both to sit and settle down so close to each other. And Rocketman is spending more time in the evenings with us and even on the couch with Ripley and I.

Noticing I don’t feel any different than I ever remember feeling — certainly not like a few months ago when I had the distinct feeling of being different. The noticing of the difference has faded, just as I wrote it would.

Mantra and focus these days is “Right Here, Right Now” and “Remain Vigilant”. So, not thinking about retirement or any of that. Working on just being here and that is enough.
Just what is directly in front of me in the moment. And growing out my beard.

I do seem to clear more quickly, not get stuck as often or as deeply and much less edge. And coming into 4 months clean and sober and news free.

Watching movies = no thoughts

As I practice suspending the intermediate internal narrative thought-stream – called no-self or being a nobody or Presence – there is no sense of knowing or understanding. And there is clear sense that “traditional” knowing – and the familiar feel of knowing is unnecessary. It All functions just fine – and better –  without it.

And I’m finding this is accompanied by a feeling of alone-ness and even longing for it. It’s a very familiar and an old mental habit and seems to have a comforting feel to it -possibly not unlike Linus and his blanket. I wonder if this is akin to what I felt when I threw away my security blanket as a young child. I can still see the long march to the trash chute – the long narrow hallway, the grimy trash chute door and how heavy it felt to pull it open, the feel of putting it into the chute and letting go and the finality of the slamming metal door.

While there is no doubt that this is the right way to go and even peace at the thought of dropping the intermediate internal narrative thought-stream, there is still some fear of letting go. Will there be anything to take the place of the discomfort and alone feeling right now?  Will this pass – of course it will – and in a year, as the periods of no-thought increase and become longer and more frequent, will this time fade into memory? I assume so, which is one reason I continue to blog this.

Still, there is some sadness and tinges of fear mixed in. Talking to my self has been my primary comfort and security for a long long time. Am I that unusual n this respect? Do I have it to much greater degree, or am I just  more aware of it?
Do most peo0ple have this and just aren’t as aware of it as I am? I notice how my mind wants to both make me wrong for being so dumb and doing this to such a degree for so long, and at the same time special for being able to be so much more “broken” than others.

I find it interesting that Eckart Tolle talks to this directly – sitting with another in Presence – no thought, no judgment, etc. As does Ram Dass – “being nobody”.

Knowing is of the mind and in the past. Papaji says something similar.

One thing I notice is that when there is no intermediate narrative there is no “knowing”. So I look at my cat, but there is no sense of “knowing” it’s Ripley, or even a cat. So knowing is a product of the critical, narrative, mind, always in retrospect and therefore not available in the moment.

Yet it all works OK. All things still function. The cat still gets walked.

The last week has mostly been integrating “forgetting to remember to be Joe”.

Asking folks “have you ever had an experience where you forgot to be you” – were so immersed in the experience: walks in nature, sports, movies, drugs, etc., is a good way to talk about what seems to have happened to “me” spontaneously. No “me” of course, and “me” and “I”
make less and less sense and have less and less relevance.

I move between having no thoughts and there is just the experience and times of stopping the intermediate narration.  And times when the narration is still present.

This video was useful in how they talk about the “natural state”.

So, the practice continues, sitting in silence, focusing on the heart and letting it all unfold.

Without non-ordinary reality experiences, there seems less and less inclination to blog.

Though, laziness is talking over and there is less and less inclination to do much.

We’ll see.

December 17, 2022

I have been pondering why I am feeling resistance to the many direct insights, recognitions and mind-blowing (literally) Realization of the Non-Dual nature. At least 8 within the last 6 weeks.

Then it hit me – I want the experience of loss of identity – physically experience the loss of separation between  this body/mind and all else. That will do it.

Or would it?

Saturday December 17, 2022

“I’m always baffled by how in-character people are, how themselves they are, how good at being who they are they are. “Wow,” I’m often tempted to say. “You’re so you!” It’s like living in a wax museum and marveling at the realism of everyone you meet. Personhood is very mysterious to me. I myself am not very me, in fact, I’m barely me at all. I could change my planet, species, gender, nationality, community and family without blinking an eye, but I can’t imagine Goober changing his brand of pipe tobacco. ”
– McKenna

To See or Not to See 3

THIS I can relate to. I feel less and less like “myself” each minute Whatever the F that even means. I have no idea anymore, if I ever did (didn’t).
W/o a cosmic optometry switch – before/after…
It gets harder and harder to tell.
The no-self shock blew a lot of wiring.

It seems that when I meet people I know now they “fill in the blanks” with ‘old Joe’ crayons. There’s not much of me showing up these days & not much embellishment – very simple and direct.
Yes, I make jokes and stuff. I’m actually very good at a party and in social settings – now that “I’m” not doing it. Nice, polite, friendly, witty, insightful, occasionally snarky if called for. I literally have no idea what’s coming out of my mouth next – versus all the rehearsing I used to do. There was maybe earlier, a little filter – just to check I won’t get hit or arrested – but that is fading. F’ it.
I show up very simple, even dry to an extent and even more so now after the shock.
So people who know me just fill in the blanks and color in between the lines, I guess.
When I meet new people, they have nothing to compare to, and enough of me shows up that I seem like a person and they still probably fill in the “person” blanks.

This is actually a good analogy: I feel like a line drawing in a coloring book and others will fill in the colors for me. I don’t have to do anything.

Of course, that is what we do with everyone all the time. I’m just aware of it.

Speaking of not having to do anything…Here’s the shirt I picked out for tonight’s Xmas party. No idea it had the masks on the cuffs or the stitched writing. I swear, I don’t have to think, plan or do anything – it’s all done for me.

Direct experience of no-self faded. I think it served to show what is possible/coming? Also to assuage fears and prepare – lay the groundwork. Plus there were other effects – can’t seem to manufacture the “I” -thought and it is easier to get to meditative state and stay out of the “gap” . LIke driving 70+ mph with little or no thought.

And I’m in contraction of a backlash from the intense no self experience – an experience that there’s nowhere to hide from.
It was so intense,  it was so brutal. It was so without possibility of contradiction or escape.

While I’ve mouthed the words: accept the truth of your own non-existence for decades, it’s a whole different matter when it happens and it’s ripped away completely.

Ripped away is a good term. This stuff does not happen by choice – who could want this and how would they know what to want? No, it’s foisted or even forced on us.

There is no model for this – how could the mind know what to make up?

Brought awareness to it and sat for a bit and came out of contraction.

Started with literal feeling of “hole” inside the center of the body  and something “gone” – or was never really there.

Then quote From Mckenna popped in – Never understood what he meant – then got it tonight:
(paraphrasing) We create the story of us to hold  off the unacceptable truth of no-self. Any story, no matter how good or bad is better then the truth that “we” do not exist and never did and are merely sock puppets on the hand of the One.

Well…quite the night.

(Note: The One in this context is not intended to imply any form of duality at all. Just the Source, the IS appearing as emptiness and fullness. )

All action is spontaneous of the Source. Collapse of ego and no longer a “me”.
All is the Source. Complete freedom to act. Complete liberation.
There is no me and never was – only the illusion of a separate self. That is gone or rapidly dissolving. There may be some residual “fear” around: what if the Source chooses to do xyz and we hurt others, or get hurt or wind up in prison, yada yada. Without me, the ego to watch over and control, we’d be out of control and could do, well, Anything!🙀
But that freedom has always been the truth and Right Action always arises. The ego never chooses or has any choice or volition.  The Source has never ‘made the choices’ the ego fears…why would it start now?

You can’t make it happen, you can’t prevent it from happening has always been true for the ego. It can’t act.
Tried meditating- unable to generate the I-thought with out forcing it and that feels wrong. Barely able to generate Who am I – but that’s all beside the point and no longer needed, as there is direct access to Self/the Source, Stillness, peace, wisdom. All right here when needed w/o the filter/interference of illusory egoic self.

No longer need to work through I/Who Am I for 30 minutes to “quiet the mind”. The Source is readily in and below all thoughts and sensations and experiences. Simply closing the eyes, or not even that and it is here. “I Am That: is no longer needed as it’s redundant and introduces duality where there is none.

Question of why to ’practice’ at all comes up for contemplation. If it arises I do it. If not I don’t.
This has always been true but now more direct and unfiltered.
Rock solid-ness w/o any doubt. Direct, unquestionable, feels almost  arrogant but so what? The Source is The Source. Period.
I don’t think this is just egoic posturing in a new way.

Huge lifting of responsibility of ego. Huge relief of no longer carrying that burden. Not that it ever did.
There’s more here. No need to try and force the stopping of narration between insight/intent/will and expression, I don’t think. It will wind down of its own accord.

Also, a sense that some/all? of the “flowery” drama of how Joe shows up and speaks is just trapping added by the ego to have a hand in things and take ownership.
No talking is needed – so maybe Bob is right.  Like putting a cap on Michelangelo’s David or putting a ceramic cherub on a fence post at the end of the trail (this was really seen once – a friend threw it down in disgust). Totally unnecessary decoration that really adds nothing to the moment and the perfection of the One. Example- the Rocky Mountain High quote on the front page of this blog. Ugh. Will leave it for now as a signpost-memento of egoic Joe. And my sister liked it, so it may work for others. (removed it 2022-12-18)

This is all still very fresh. We’ll see how it plays out and evolves, but hard to imagine going backwards.
😊🙏🏻

From July 23, 2009:

We are all blind.
It takes losing all we hold dearly,
before we can see clearly