Daily Diary Monday, November 7, 2022 – Seeking Resumes

Clean sober
And shamed
Fuck
I cant even assemble a fucking lasagne w/o thinking I’m fucking it up and feeling shame and like a failure (this happens almost every time I put a lasagna together you think after 25 years or more I’d get over it – you’d be wrong🤨)
AND stepped on kitty tails and toes by accident while assembling
(Big screams and kvetching)
Kitties are fine and finally ate.

Usually I’d take something
But -no weed or pills
And
Choosing not to drink -so as not to pollute my consciousness.
I consider that a big success.

And sure, I know
The lasagne will be fine.
🫣🙄😓😑🥸

My fucking ego.
It needs to be taken out and shot.

Staying clean is much easier than my next goal.
I want to stop looking at news. I’ve deleted the news app off my phone and iPad. We’ll see.
I’ll leave it to D to tell me anything critical.

Daily Diary, December 15, 2022 – No-self on Manual

Since a very early age  – I don’t remember when, i have been talking to myself in my mind.

An ongoing narrative about myself, life and others.

Over the years it developed into an automatic habit and eventually took on  negative “tapes” and would run these tapes. It also includes the ability to play songs in my head and hear them almost note for note.

These both served to take me out of the current moment slightly – thus avoid pain suffering and embarrassment and insecurity  -at least to some degree  -or so I thought.

I also become very good at rehearsing what I would say and do in coming situation. I effectively ran simulations of all possible outcomes so I would be ready.

This also avoided real feelings and being here now to a great degree.

I did – at times over the years – notice that I could suspend this narration. When an insight or intent or will arose, I could simply not generate the narration and go right to action. Or, when watching a sunset, for example, simply watch it and have no narration. But these were few and far between.

Even when I was practicing for real in the early 2000’s and I noticed this, there was an intuitive sense this was the thing to do – but I did not pursue it.

Talking to myself is very familiar and comforting. It’s like having a friend to talk to and talk back 24×7. Like a security blanket or frankly even masturbatory.

Fast forward to the last few weeks. As the Realization hit: First There is only the Source manifesting as all and I am that source as well – the belief in Joe as the doer and separate self began to vanish and the negative parts of the personality – sadness, worry, insecurity, fear dropped away and the second Insight I am that hit with rock solidness. But I think only the belief went away. There was still the narration. Good narration – no old bad tapes, so a huge improvement and resulting change in personality – but still narration and so stull a “self”.

And again came the impulse to practice stopping the narration.

One thing I’ve been struggling with almost daily is the idea of no-self. It’s talked about a lot and I just did not get it.

Finally, today, I worked through this at length with Dave and as he explained the sensation of no one watching the sunset, just watching or no one doing. I thought: He is talking about when I suspend the narration!

Because that’s the exact experience! When I suspend the narration and there is the insight/intent/will bubble up and it goes straight to action – word or deed – there is no “sense of being the doer” nobody in the middle so to speak.

And when I suspend narration when there is a stimulus – like a sunset – there is only watching the sunrise happening -no experiencer to know there is sunset being watched. And even then only in hindsight is an experiencer injected.

But in reality there is no one here -no experiencer,  no knower no doer. Never was.

When people have intense experiences – walking, sports, sex, drugs, there is no narration, but they may go back and in “hindsight’ fill in the imaginary self as the doer.

My text to Dave:
Because

At the core

There is no one here and never has been.

Wow 🤩 to type those words and feel it head to heart

Rock solid.

Or balls to bones if you prefer the matrix.

I prefer yours.

And nothing to be scared of

Or sought after or attained.

It’s a stopping, a dropping of a mental ‘tic’ essentially.

Like saying ‘Ya’ know’ after each sentence.

I see this as a conditioned habit. Probably so severe in my case that for most people the Realization is enough to snuff out the narration if there was not much there.  Their’s went to “automatic” – while mine stayed manual. I have to remember to do it; It becomes part of my main practice. I wonder how this will work in mediation.

But in my case, it was strong enough to keep going on its own.

And I was scared of what no self would be like. And resistant to it.

Now I think it will wind down on its own little by little until there is just the intent-action or watching a sunset.

I think this is what Papaji is talking about when he says just stop thinking for one second.

If I do not suffer and do not seek –  why bother with it then. Well, there may be a slight polluting of the direct experience of Self.

And the narrative can get in the way and sustain the ego. I would say it is the final remnant of egoic activity.

It will cease and probably all that will remain is the memory of a long time spent over-thinking things.

I should add – when I suspend mind talk – practice no-self — now that I know what it is called — the results are better- direct, insightful, compassionate.

Example – clerks at Hallmark and Costco.

Mckenna was right: we create the story of a false self to protect us from the unacceptable truth of no-self. It is simply not acceptable or us not to exist – to be sock puppets on the hand of the One.

From December 12, 2009:

Sensory forms versus thought forms – each sense of the object – is a separate thought form. I saw this early on , that the juncture of sensory thought forms, and mental thought forms, this juncture is made real by me, and is the “self” that is “assumed’ or filled in by the mind. If there is seeing, there must be a see-er, and in that instant “i” as seer seems to exist. Such is the nature of perception and thought: if there is a thought, there must be a thinker and I am the thinker.

But no, simply an illusion, the mind filling in pieces.

Daily Diary, December 14, 2022 – Intro to Samadhi

2 hour deep meditation- no thoughts, mind with very little  narrative/interpretation.

Need to pee arose.

Able to use bathroom and (mostly) maintain concentration/state

Body took care of itself – very little attention needed.

Same when saying “meditating not sleeping” to D – more like pushing it out then talking normally felt.

Finally really ‘get’ what the walking is about at the breaks in Seeshins.

Easily returning to:

Between breath
Between heartbeats
Between thoughts

Thundering silence.

Daily Diary December 12, 2022 – Peace that surpasses understanding

In meditation this morning, the first half hour was tough as usual and then got much easier. Actually it might not have been the first whole half hour. It might be getting easier sooner.

But once the first half hours done, the remaining period of time was simply amazing – no sense of time passing – the alarm would go off and I’d reset for another five minutes and another five minutes and another five minutes and would’ve kept going if I didn’t have a call at the top of the hour.

The piece was phenomenal – I don’t know what to say about it.

There was still some very light mind activity and thoughts in the background way in the background. But even so, I need to just keep bringing my attention back to my hands or just simply the peace itself would work.

I did notice that even a little bit of thought in the background detracted from or ever so slightly polluted  the overall peace. There also is also a sense of seeing something or going somewhere deeper, and that was effected by the thoughts as well.

So next time, need to work much more carefully and clear the thoughts and keep them clear and keep bringing it back to the peace and stillness.

Also ran over how I would take someone through a meditation from initial questions of how do you value truth & how does it feel for you to be in alignment with truth, to do you exist, to feeling presence, to thoughts ,to illusion of thoughts, to illusion of thoughts of self, and eventually focusing on the presence itself.

Daily Diary Friday December 9. 2022

Friday December 9 2022

Biggest thing today was trying to remember a negative life shock to demonstrate the clearing process for Dr L. I searched and searched and searched and really could not come up with a negative life shock. I had a wowser the day after, but at that point no life shock.

So I pulled a minor one out that was recent – that in the old days wouldn’t even have counted. LOL.

I re-experienced the life shock, felt the emotion and feeling and started in on the mind talk and quickly, after one sentence, got to:
“Well maybe he was mad or maybe he was disappointed or maybe he was something else.”

At that point, I abruptly stopped looked up and realized I’ve never in all my years of probably hundreds of clearings – both for myself and others – ever, ever heard the mind use the word maybe.

That was such a shock it blew me right out of the process. The intense laugher cleared me right up. I was just laughing for so long because very few people would even be able to appreciate that!
I could appreciate it and it was just great – that the mind is changed so much that it doesn’t really even in do mind talk in absolutes.

For example, the mind typically says things like this persons an idiot this person is trash. She’s a bitch, it’s always gonna be like this,  it’s never gonna be like that, they’re always gonna do this to me. Absolutes,.

I’ve never heard a “maybe” in my life and  maybe turns out to be true mind talk – maybe he was mad. I don’t know, I haven’t checked it out yet so that would turn out to be a real don’t know. Pretty funny.

So, more to the point, the mind has changed and the mind talk it produces is less caustic and less seeing or experiencing situations as so negative.

Until the next day. More on that December 11, 2022.

Another thing  being noticed is what I’m saying. Usually there’s nothing in my head I haven’t rehearsed anything and what comes out is just what comes out,. Talking to a clerk while buying some cards at a Hallmark store, she said no use complaining it’ll never change. and I said ” well maybe it’s the way you complain”

and she said “maybe i don’t need to complain so loudly ”

I said well, not necessarily maybe it’s how you do it. And then from somebody else popped out the words “it’s OK to ask for what you want.  And it seemed perfect for her.  Wow love it.

 

 

Daily Diary December 11, 2022

Saturday December 10 – Sunday 11, 2022

A very difficult couple of days .I spoke with an old friend yesterday and the conversation did not go well. As a result, I was in contraction most of the day and evening and into today.

Spent two hours in I/who am I meditation this morning. First hour blew through and I was noticing feelings of sadness and suffering, which I haven’t felt in weeks and weeks. There was concern around that and even the possible thought that I have a “lost it”. But since there’s nothing to actually lose and that most of that’s just an experience, I just let it go and continued to sit. But, I could feel my gut was tight – a sure sign of egoic reaction.

Couple things dropped in-  something someone said to me about watching ego versus insight and then something else about carrying someone else’s sadness and suffering. It was almost like the David Bromberg song “Somebody Else’s Blues”. I was wondering where was the sufferting coming from? It wasn’t coming from me. And then after a while, it hit me.

I need to let this friend go.

I’ve been in an enabling, codependent relationship with him, almost from the first time we met. And after sitting and meditating on that I wrote the following:

13 years ago and just a moment ago I picked you up at the side of the road hitchhiking.
And now 13 years later and a moment later, I open my door and let you out , apparently pretty much at the same spot.
I have carried you literally and figuratively for all those years.
I thought I could save you,  guide you, protect you, heal you.
I thought I could sit with you and be a big  brother and keep you company while you – and I – suffered.
I see now clearly that is all ego. And any action I take in this just sustains the ego. I surrender you to the Universe, the Self, knowing you are in better  hands. And always have been.
I realized something was amiss when yesterday I was saying that my personality had shifted and it was permanent and I was just about to say the words ‘and that is why I keep practicing to ensure it’ when you jumped in before I could finish, to say or question if the shift was really  permanent.
I am done. I’m done with my spiritual seeking and I’m done with suffering and sadness and am moving on.
And I am done with us.
I did not send it. As that seems like ego as well. I simply blocked him and deleted him from my address book. Little by little, I relaxed and the tension in the gut when away and my normal well-being stillness, joyfulness and playfulness returned. Actually, the thing to do and probably the hardest thing I’ve done so far along this path.

Daily Diary December 9, 2022 – The Macro and the Micro

Attempting to find a way to convince? talk to? “radical non-dualists” who reject the micro – the ground state awareness/Atman.
It seems objectively absurd to ignore or deny awareness as the ground state.
But they do it. Getting a whiff of flat earthers…

I made a final attempt with the micro/macro idea -and now will drop it. Seems to me that they are coping out with the whole “It just is” line as frankly a lazy way to avoid doing the work needed for the micro.
Like in 3500 years o one else thoguht of the Macro. I would suggest that it was seen early o as a “duh, no kidding, that’s obvious, and then was rejected and the micro – the Atman/Awareness/Consciousness approach was followed instead. I think the macro is useful for possibly collapsing insincere seekers,or for the beginners,  but for those who insist on the the Truth, the micro is the only way to go. There’s a reason it’s hard and Maya has the reputation she does. And maybe why McKenna does not even mention it as do no other sages.

Awareness requires or, at a minimum, implies that there is someone to be aware.”

I can see why you would say that – it implies an infinite regression – which cannot be true. I would say the awareness is self-aware/self-evident and so no infinite regression.

But the word awareness does not work for you. Just like Consciousness does not work for me. Fine.

Personally, I think there is a background of awareness/attention when fingers are typing, but it so subtle that it goes unnoticed. This is what I thought you meant in your comment weeks ago that “it’s always been there. ” I “got” the “message” of “This is what is happening” decades ago.
The difference was becoming aware of awareness – sorry 😉

This is what the Realization showed. “I” am that awareness = I am that – that is what it points to. If you re-read the dedication of I AM That you will see that is what it means.

Ofc “This is all there is and what is happening. ” Agreed.

Yet, the Self turned up the volume of awareness/attention – or the subtle background presence of the Self – to such a degree it could not go unnoticed. The “background field” of awareness/Self shifted to foreground. (apologies for mixed terms here, please bear with me). That is the Realization. It is so subtle that the immersive aspect of perception and thought hides it. Any action taken hides it. One must quiet the mind, ala Ramana’s I/Who Am I, for example to discoverer it. That is so funny, you were using self-inquiry to take me to “the message” (iI think) and I was able to use it to Realize my true nature. The Self/IS is amazing and efficient!

WRT Advaita as a process – There is a reason there is a process to it.

TL;DR: You learn needed things along the way. Even Doogie Houser had to complete Medical School. I know Doogie is not a real person – but then neither are we;-)

Longer version: Taking a shortcut can have repercussions. Gary practiced for 20 years before he reached that and Tony as well and Nisargadatta 3 years and Ramana – they did it through individual efforts and did not the “help” of external substances. I used psychedelics to “see the door and walk through” get a glimpse of what was possible in liberation- but could not “stay” I always came down. Then I did the internal work through study, meditation, contemplation and eventually self-inquiry to get there on my own.

I question the validity and efficacy of substance-generated “realization” “shortcuts” – I would wonder if all the pieces really were in place sufficiently to sustain the “final answer’ – as a teacher, there’s a reason there is a process of learning that takes time: doctor, lawyer, airplane pilot, nuclear physicist – it takes a long time to learn and master these skills. Otherwise there can be dire consequences down the line. Some excited new physics student goes right to nuclear fission class and lets the 1/2 the ball of uranium come into contact with the other half because they just don’t know the repercussion or are careless and poof. (true story, by the way, you can look it up).

This may be why there are no authentic stories of people spontaneously Realizing – or so they say on reddit – so it must be true 😉

Yes, those realize that the micro level get the macro level for free. I don’t think the reverse is true.

Addicted to Thinking

Wednesday, December 7, 2022.

I just got that this whole me- self thing is just basically a big crutch – very much like being addicted to a drug – and I have quit drug addictions before  – I stopped smoking in 1998 and quit carbs 4 years ago and I can quit this one as well.

Another crutch is some internal narration that continues. Much lighter and less than before but still there.

And the last one is a little more esoteric there’s noticing that there’s an arising of intent or will – something needs to be done or there’s some kind of desire to do something, and then there’s an interpretation – what I call a stop in storyland – where a narration occurs – words and thoughts and concepts, and then the action occurs.

One of my practices is to eliminate that stop in  storyland, and go right from sensing the intent or will directly into action without having to generate the narration. The whole self referential internal narrative feels like sitting in a sewer. Dark and dirty and smelly, but very warm and familiar.

Talking to my cats is an example of this. Seemingly harmless, but still maintains the narration and separation.
As this work deepens, such subtitles need to be noticed, understood and then annihilated.

Daily Diary December 7, 2022

Meditations on unconditional love and sat-chit-Ananda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satcitananda, which
Is a description for the subjective experience of the ultimate unchanging reality. It represents “existence, consciousness, and bliss”.
A friend encouraged/pushed me to look at unconditional love, but his definition of it did not map to mine whatsoever. This caused some initial contraction and even some thoughts of failure…
So I quickly told him that I dropped that – I would not be pursuing that line of inquiry.
I am the only thing that is real. I am the only one who knows what’s true.
The One who brought me here will bring me home and show me what to do. As it went on to do this morning.
There is an all-pervading sense of joy, rightness, lightness at just being at all times (occasionally contracts, but is Very short lived or easily ignored). Having fun and playing in and with the world. If those characteristics define UL for him, then that’s it for me.
While meditating this morning, became aware of and was contemplating ‘sat-chit-ananda’. And could feel the bliss of consciousness and existence. Once it’s recognized, looking back, I can say I experience this almost all the time now. Though I haven’t  consciously been aware of it,  now I’ll be more  aware of it. It’s not tied to anything it simply just is. Without being wrapped up and lost in thought, the simple bliss of being conscious and existing. I would say for me, it’s the simple joy and acceptance of what is – without judgment or thought, or labels. The bliss of being in existence and consciousness of a sunset without labeling it sunset, let alone a beautiful sunset, and without an object.
I would say for me that ‘feeling’ of acceptance, bliss, consciousness and existence goes beyond the word love, which for me seems somewhat limiting. Yes, i know there are many types of love. For me I would not say I love the antelope and love the lion or love the inter-play.
I would say I accept it w/o judgment and labeling  and there is complete joy in watching it occur. that’s about as far as I would go. for me love is more like what I feel for my cat Ripley as I said.
And once again, I admit that my mind set up sat-chit-Ananda as something over there that I have to get to. Instead of seeing clearly it’s right here, right now, at all times.
I’m sure this is not the last time it’ll happen, but it is a good reminder.
AND, just a reminder -the experience is just happening – seeing, hearing, feeling joyfulness, peace are just happening  – to no one.
The idea that it’s happening  to “me” -which still appears today, is simply not true. Could be old “sloppy” mental habits.
And it’s not a case of oh, I feel really good now looking at stuff or wow I feel joy just being or wow I’m in bliss just emptying the cat box, or wow this is really wonderful that my leg hurts so much.
it doesn’t work like that. It’s an all pervading always there feeling and sense of well-being joy acceptance.
But we all get so busy and lost in doing and lost in thinking that we miss the simple truth of the joy of just being existing and being conscious and present in the Now. That feeling of joy, acceptance, bliss is our ground state, and, it is subtle and easily missed when overlaid with constant mind-noise. Quiet the mind and see what’s there.
My meditation practice has expanded to include focusing attention on the buzz in my hands, which may be a point of I am in my body and connecting that with the I am spaciousness in my head, allowing the field to expand to encompass my head, my neck, my shoulders and my arms down to my hands, possibly eventually the entire body. Maybe tomorrow.