From self-referential thoughts to freedom

[Serenity]

@Phil

 

Just a question that popped into my mind tonight. Could you narrate us how you went from having self-referential thoughts to someday not having some. Was it a gradual process? Did it happened from one day to the other? When did you realize the self-concept was gone for good?

 

🙂🤍

 

 

[Phil]

14 hours ago, Serenity said:

@Phil

 

Just a question that popped into my mind tonight. Could you narrate us how you went from having self-referential thoughts to someday not having some. Was it a gradual process? Did it happened from one day to the other? When did you realize the self-concept was gone for good?

 

🙂🤍

The narrative would essentially be daily meditation… and inspection & expression… and aligned diet, behavior, actions, relationships, etc.

Went to sit on the cushion one miscellaneous day and it was like a light switch was flipped. Like oh ya that’s right, I’m infinite. Makes total sense. 

Still laughing.

🙂🤍

[Serenity]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

The narrative would essentially be daily meditation… and inspection & expression… and aligned diet, behavior, actions, relationships, etc.

Went to sit on the cushion one miscellaneous day and it was like a light switch was flipped. Like oh ya that’s right, I’m infinite. Makes total sense. 

Still laughing.

🙂🤍

Did your life changed significantly after it, or was the things already mostly set in place? For instance, someone like Tolle got taken in a totally new direction.

 

[Loop]

13 minutes ago, Phil said:

Still laughing.

So the laughter never does end huh? 😂🤣

It is the best way to bring It out of ‘everyone’, so why not! 
We all understand the language of Joy. 

🤍
 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Loop

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Serenity said:

Did your life changed significantly after it, or was the things already mostly set in place? For instance, someone like Tolle got taken in a totally new direction.

 

Yes and no. ‘My life’ was really dispelled, and also changed in taking part in sharing the message. 
 

1 hour ago, Loop said:

So the laughter never does end huh? 😂🤣

It is the best way to bring It out of ‘everyone’, so why not! 
We all understand the language of Joy. 

🤍
 

🙂

[Serenity]

6 hours ago, Phil said:

Yes and no. ‘My life’ was really dispelled, and also changed in taking part in sharing the message. 
 

🙂

Do you still have a will of your own?

 

I befriended a seeker who compared losing one's sense of self to turning into some sort of empty puppet with no more 'will of its own' 🤔. Like... it's some great void. He was somewhat very morbid and dramatic about it. 😂 I must say, he got me a little bit scared by contagion 😌.

 

I get we never really have a will since there isn't a separate self in the first place, but the illusion is somewhat familiar and confortable, if that makes sense...  Do you still feel like choices are yours to made etc?

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Serenity

[Phil]

@Serenity

If that was scary my honest answer would probably drive you crazy. 🙂

 

[Serenity]

32 minutes ago, Phil said:

@Serenity

If that was scary my honest answer would probably drive you crazy. 🙂

 

🤔

 

I didn't get it. What's your honest answer, then?

[Serenity]

🥺

[Mandy]

@Serenity Ain't no thing. 

[Serenity]

What remains from before, after then?

 

Interests? Love? Whatever brings joy?  Whatever is true in us, and already set towards a higher purpose etc?

[Phil]

@Serenity

Choice is vibrationally apparent but not actual. That there is a chooser or things to choose from is illusory. Will is conceptual.  
 

This is how it is you can write what you want to experience on a dreamboard and it happens. 

[Phil]

3 minutes ago, Serenity said:

What remains from before, after then?

Eternal peace, silence, stillness, repose, serenity… appears as thoughts about time. 

 

3 minutes ago, Serenity said:

Interests? Love? Whatever brings joy?  Whatever is true in us, and already set towards a higher purpose etc?

No, just Me. 

[Joseph Maynor]

Meditation is key to having a blank mind more.  But you have to do it.  Like 2 hours a day minimum every day.  I’ve been meditating for 5 hours per day most days recently.  My mind is totally blank after those sessions.  Just still with no monkey mind.  I still get monkey mind and triggered but not as bad and not for as long.  I can tell people who never meditate because their conceptual mind is racing around like a neurotic beast trying to force a sense of peace through hope for conceptual control of things leading to actual control.  But that isn’t necessary to achieve peace.  A daily meditation practice brings that peace.  

Edited December 3, 2022 by Joseph Maynor

[Serenity]

On 12/3/2022 at 6:47 PM, Joseph Maynor said:

Meditation is key to having a blank mind more.  But you have to do it.  Like 2 hours a day minimum every day.  I’ve been meditating for 5 hours per day most days recently.  My mind is totally blank after those sessions.  Just still with no monkey mind.  I still get monkey mind and triggered but not as bad and not for as long.  I can tell people who never meditate because their conceptual mind is racing around like a neurotic beast trying to force a sense of peace through hope for conceptual control of things leading to actual control.  But that isn’t necessary to achieve peace.  A daily meditation practice brings that peace.  

That's right! There is nothing like meditation to disidentify oneself from the mind.

 

I'm trying to get into the habit, despite the cold, of going for a walk in the park without thinking about anything. This works well, although depending on the day, I can be completely carried away by emotions that prevent me from being present, or sometimes by intellectual work that requires the use of my mind. In this case, I often come out very identified again because my mind has taken over.

[Phil]

@Joseph Maynor

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. 

 

@Serenity

So to speak, emotion brings you more into the present. It might be a presently counterintuitive framing, but that’s actually what you want. Emotion is the direct path of feeling. Can’t get anymore direct. 

[Serenity]

21 minutes ago, Phil said:

@Joseph Maynor

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. 

 

@Serenity

So to speak, emotion brings you more into the present. It might be a presently counterintuitive framing, but that’s actually what you want. Emotion is the direct path of feeling. Can’t get anymore direct. 

I suppose then that there are many moments during the day where I emotionally dissociate because if I were to follow and feel the emotion to its roots, I wouldn't be able to do what I need to do.

 

Is there any tips you've got for people who are dealing with a lot of negative emotions due to a current life situation, but do not have the opportunity to go to the bottom of them all as they arise?

[Phil]

@Serenity

Yes. There is no such thing or experience of ‘negative’ emotions. I know teachers say it, I hear em too. But there isn’t. Imo it’s way too big of a concession. To the point of confusion. This is the finite mind, or, thought, pretending what is felt, is dual. ‘It’ isn’t. 

 

Then I’d toss out the ‘going to the bottom’ concept, along side the ‘carries me away’ concept. It is enough to allow, and not to suppress or resist. Beliefs, interpretations, concepts, perspectives, etc, can be deeply inspected and dispelled. But emotion is right-now real-time actual guidance, and it is never, ever, wrong, nor is it ever untimely, or more than you can handle. 

 

To really ‘hone in’, even pitch the concept of a separate self which ‘dissociates from emotion’. That mentally places you on the other side of emotion, which you are not. You are prior to, and experiencing emotion. 

 

Emotion is feeling and a thought. So when there is the experience of ‘negative’ emotion… just stop and question:

- What am I thinkin about?

- And in what way am I thinkin about it?

 

That leaves the ‘meat on the inspection bone’ of investigating that ever elusive “doer” who “does”… the “one” which wouldn’t be able to “do” if emotion was fully allowed. Fully allowing emotion, receiving the guidance, actually dispels the beliefs in a doer… and all the tension, stress, disharmony and potential impacts these have to the health of the body, relationships & communion. 

 

[Cathal]

On 11/28/2022 at 11:19 PM, Serenity said:

@Phil

 

Just a question that popped into my mind tonight. Could you narrate us how you went from having self-referential thoughts to someday not having some. Was it a gradual process? Did it happened from one day to the other? When did you realize the self-concept was gone for good?

 

🙂🤍

 

 

There is really just the change in the relation to the self-concept through practice, the self-concept may arise despite meditating for 30+ years but with actual insight practice you naturally let go of clinging to 'I/mine/self'

[James123]

On 11/29/2022 at 12:19 AM, Serenity said:

@Phil

 

Just a question that popped into my mind tonight. Could you narrate us how you went from having self-referential thoughts to someday not having some. Was it a gradual process? Did it happened from one day to the other? When did you realize the self-concept was gone for good?

 

🙂🤍

 

 

Where are the thoughts? Any naming and labeling is self referential itself.