No me, no you

[the system made me]

All this self-referential thought stresses me out. But there is no one here. I thought I had to vanquish my thoughts. To be fair I'm working on reducing self-referential thought by meditating. Shame upon shame. I used Nonduality as a rod to beat myself with. I get stressed over how people will treat me if am happy. Having whatever Jim Carrey has seems to have made him not be that funny and kind of annoying. Maybe people won't like me if I don't have as much self-referential thought. It is about having less thoughts because they are largely stressful. I don't know how I couldn't see it. I've seen it before again and again in bits and pieces. I don't need to beat reality or understand all of it. I don't need to get one up on God. There is this not knowing which is peaceful. I don't know tomorrow. I don't know yesterday. I know this. But I don't know it intellectually. It's a mystery that I've not been able to get to the bottom of. This is a bit like CBT. It's just being rational about what I actually know, which is very little. 

 

It's too simple. There is nothing to do. There is no object that is me. And yet the appearance of the self happens with objects. There is no subject that is an object. I don't need to impress you or have you like me. It's the trap - what if I get ostracised or assaulted? I must have to control everyone to make them like me. It's a delusion that people all like me. The only suffering there is is born out of thought. Trying to control people is stressful. Everything is just happening. 

 

 

[Phil]

@the system made me

One way to spot self referential thoughts is to read what’s already been written (above) and point them out. The recognition is shining the light of awareness, and the (self ref) thoughts occur less and less. At presently they don’t seem to be noticed. The subject matter of self ref thoughts seems to be grasped, but the arising thoughts don’t seem to be noticed. (Neither is there is any ‘fault’ on awareness’s behalf!)

 

Careful with expression / suppression. Express whatever arises. When expressing such as journaling, my two cents would be not to do so using self ref thoughts, but rather, to express the emotions experienced. This is no longer perpetuating the illusory identity, and simultaneoulsy allowing the expression of what is. 

[Daniel]

On 8/10/2023 at 6:42 PM, the system made me said:

No me, no you

A-ha?

[the system made me]

@Phil, I understand on some level everything you write I think. 

 

But I have a problem on the relative plain. There is no them and no me. But one of these selfless beings I am sharing a house with in rehab has been sleeping with prostitutes and him and another one have been doing laughing gas in the house. They stay up late drinking energy drinks and getting high on Nitrous Oxide. I have been drinking energy drinks and vaping inside the house. I felt like shit keeping it a secret for a couple of weeks. Today one of them was lying about why he didn't want to go to the NA meeting this evening. I didn't know what he was thinking. I thought, "if he scores and all three of my housemates relapse then the one who is serious about not going back on heroine will be on my conscience". I figured I had to say something. Between me drinking energy drinks and not saying anything for two weeks I fear they will discharge me. I was scared to put my foot down initially and spoil their fun. And then it became me not wanting anyone to get discharged because of me. And now I might get discharged as well. I know there is no separate self and I am just oneness and everything. But these feelings suck. I'm not scared of death because I believe in God and Heaven. God's teachings are getting harder and harder. I figure this is all for my learning. I didn't want to spoil their fun and then I didn't want to be a rat. It's such bullshit. I didn't see this coming. Hindsight is 20/20. I know the absolute message. But I guess I can talk about how it feels. I feel shame - shame, shame, shame. I feel shame for my parents and how angry they will be. I feel shame for betraying the rehab. I feel shame for having shitty boundaries. I feel shame for me being me. Honest to God, I really do understand that there is no separate self and that I am consciousness - I am everything. But I am feeling the separate self being torn up about this. On top of all this there is the global fear of retribution and my paranoia that the gang-stalking will never stop. I don't even know where my principles are. I thought I was doing the right thing by covering for them and I felt enabled to drink energy drinks because they wouldn't rat on me. I get the absolute message but I feel shame on shame. I was in a situation like this once 9 years ago. Because of that I made the decision to never be a rat again. Well that went out the fucking window. When I look at my life I see that God is a trickster and teaches me in a Gurdjieff way. I don't think it's just an intellectual learning. I think it's emotional. The emotion sucks. The situation sucks. There never was a good way out of it. If I had put my foot down the first time he said he was going to leave to fuck a prostitute it could have made things sour. The last two weeks could have sucked. Maybe this is worse. I feel shame because I really liked these guys. But that's dead now. They are going to hate me, if not already. I feel shame and despair and loss. We were friends, I thought. But I guess not because it was a friendship based on enabling and lies. I know that when you fuck someone over in rehab they fucking hate you for it. Anyways I'm just going to ramble on with the same stuff if I keep writing. It's shit. I'll tell you what happens tomorrow when we have our house meeting with a support worker or counsellor which they don't know about yet.

 

 

[Phil]

@the system made me

Just opinion here, two cents on a buffet. Pick it up if it’s helpful, leave it there if it isn’t.

It’s not a problem with a relative plain. It has nothing to do with no self or selves, God, oneness or the like. While obviously you have to address the challenges of your immediate environment as best you can, imo it’s not about that either. 

 

It’s about reaching for another spiritual concept or thought story about a self in time… or expressing an emotion. 

 

Everything seems to be interpreted as fault & shame, as not to express an emotion.  

 

Even emotion is being interpreted as fault & shame, and is categorically judged before it’s explored. 

 

Every time the concepts of shame, faulting yourself or someone else, a past or a future arise… is an opportunity to to shift focus to the growth-productive & recognize and express what emotion you’re experiencing right now, in the present. Doing so is the allowing of the clarity & progress sought. It’s liberation from rumination. It’s freedom. 

[the system made me]

Thanks @Phil. I think the reason I can't just jump over the hurdle of the self is because of fear. I'm scared the sky will fall, the ground underneath me will cave in, Hell's demons or whatever will come for me. I see that there is no separate self. But I have fear around letting go of it. 

 

I think I know how today will feel. In the past I would try and be nice and explain everything. But these guys are going to be fucking pissed off, especially if they get discharged. They're going to hate me. I'm prepared for that. It was a friendship based on enabling and lies so it wasn't real. I'm just drinking lots of coffee. It's a bullshit situation. 

[the system made me]

I've come to the conclusion that expressing my emotions takes the edge off. But feeling them is where the learning is. I was viewing it like I have a stuck emotion that if I feel it enough it will eventually go. Then I viewed like a river flowing through me. The currents and blockages are making it feel a certain way that appears to not change. And now I think God is a teacher and the point is to learn. It's an intellectual and an experiential learning. God is the teacher and I am learning. These emotions are mine. I can write shame but that isn't the experience. Words are blunt instruments at best. I have these emotions and they are mine. I betrayed my housemates. But they pushed me around with their activities and now I'm about to get some strong emotions to sit with, I think. Sincerely, nobody. 

[Phil]

@the system made me

Sounds like you’re not quite ready for change. Or maybe getting ready to, which I can certainly respect.

Much love. 🙏🏼 

[the system made me]

@Phil, each to his own. I've met so many people online and in person who say the way is this or that and they can be completely opposite. I guess I'm not ready for change because maybe it would happen if I were. Two of my housemates are getting kicked out. Some people will hate me or already do. I don't why I am justifying this. I'm me. I mean what are they going to do - gang-stalk me? That's already happening. I'm already a schizophrenic. If I get kicked out then it will be that. I haven't relapsed. 

[Phil]

@the system made me

Totally. ♥️

But inspecting what you’re already experiencing isn’t a way to anywhere or anything. Inspecting, non-denying, non-overlooking might be other ways to put it. Not imagining, pretending, making up stories, projecting or bypassing might be more ways of saying the same. Sort of like how oneness, awakening, enlightenment or even self-realization could seem to point to, imply or define something in need of being sought, obtained, integrated or realized… whereas nonduality simply points to what you aren’t or what isn’t you already.

[the system made me]

@Phil, that all sounds convincing but I have my experience. Those concepts don't. There is the reality of the constant shame I feel in a knot in my stomach. I'm desperate each day. I get that there is no one here; but the body keeps the score. Writing about how I feel or telling people how I feel can make me feel better or worse depending on their reaction. If expressing the way I feel worked I would give up rehab and spend 14 hours a day constantly expressing it until it all left. I don't know if casting awareness onto the shame and not tensing up around it will work but it's where I am at. I'm attached to negative emotions. I reach for self-righteousness, indignation, anger, the moral high ground, despair, loneliness, shame, fear, rage and hatred because they're familiar. I can see the reality of no-self all I want and nothing changes it, it seems. Writing on here takes the edge off. Saying how I feel, expressing it helps. But it only goes a bit of the way there. I've met so many people who are convinced their way is the way but it's just not for everyone. I think it's hubris and a lack of humility that people who find lasting happiness and peace get endowed with and they never say, "I don't know". I don't know if this is the right path for me. I don't fucking know very much to be fair. I'm sorry to be rude and I am grateful for your website and that you don't give up on me. I had a counsellor who I believe is Enlightened and he got fed up with me after a few sessions. All this rubbish of having no preferences, no self-referential thought, Enlightenment is bells and whistles and nonsense. It's pedalling a lie that everyone can find this state of perfection. But, oh, it's not a state, right? I have an emotional addiction. I'm addicted to shame. The shame is why I drank, why I am smoking, drinking too much coffee, binging on food etc. I am insufferable, exhausting, too much, too sensitive and angry when anyone but my parents get close to me. When I'm around my Mom and Dad, it's not perfect, but I'm just the real me. You can say this is all projection, transference, not reality, rumination and imagination of separate selves that don't exist. But none of those concepts make one iota of a difference to the core of the shame I feel. They take the edge off of it sometimes but that's all they do. It's like my medication makes things more bearable but I have "fuck you, me, whoever" shame in me. Personally I think Nonduality is a racket. It's a fancy word that doesn't pay dividends. It's interesting and temporarily satisfying. But if it actually did what it claims to provide to more than 0.001% of the population governments and secret service agencies would shut it down. It's a lot of hullabaloo about nothing. I don't rate Nonduality. It is the thing that it is trying to unteach. It's a separate word, set of concepts and projection. Nondual teachers assume they have found the elixir of life, the secret of life. But no teacher knows anymore than I do about what I experience. They know themselves and they're experience to a degree just like I do. But no one understands this intellectually. Nonduality is just an intellectual pursuit and keeps people addicted to it by giving false hope that one day a follower may have this wonderful gift. But how many people have it? How many contradicting teachings are there? How can so many conflicting teachings be right? I've wasted years of my life trying to do everything the right way. I don't know what to do. But I have this faith that I will relax into emotions and feel them to learn from them and hopefully grow and wake up. Nonduality is just a pointing. Solipsism and Nonduality comes out of projection - it assumes to know the word salads, mental gymnastics, eloquent explanations and beautiful experiences that it talks about. I don't need to read 'ACIM' or 'I am that' or whatever to know that I feel like shit. I don't know what to do anymore. I can write, "I am angry" and I still feel angry. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm inconsistent and stupid. But, fuck, I'm roasting in the fire. I'm destroying myself with addictions. Expression takes the edge off. Concepts are tangential to reality that barely touch it and I feel all the shame I was running from two years ago and twenty-five years ago. I do appreciate and think you're cool. But I've never met anyone who understands my experience. And then if I say that the recipient will judge me for implying I have a harder life or that I'm so up myself that I think I'm special and different from everyone. But I don't understand anyone else's pain. All I know is what I experience. I don't even understand it fully. And I try to escape it. I don't want to run anymore. I want to feel it fully. 

 

[the system made me]

@Phil, I do think you're cool and I'm sure you don't need my approval but I just want to say that. I mean you put up with me and you keep responding. That's what I care about. I tell you who I am, all the ugly little thoughts and judgements. I'm glad you found what you've found. I do feel better for writing all that. But the shame will come back. My rant was a power trip. It's just the "I'm right" competition that I don't think you're playing. But that's a projection. Maybe you're a liar and judge the hell out of what I write. Or are thinking with a sigh, "here I go again responding to this moron".  Or not. It's like the meetings I go to. They take the edge off but I'm coming from a place of shame and self-hatred. I don't know. I feel like shit. Sorry. No one can teach me out of this. I think I just have to feel these feelings fully and grow and learn from them. I'm not going to drink but I feel like it. Anyways, I don't know. 

[Phil]

@the system made me

Yes, of course. You can call it shame and there will be the same experience and feeling. I’m suggesting acknowledging emotions instead of calling the experience shame. 

 

The one who gets there isn’t someone there is the one that isn’t there. 

 

Expressing the way you feel does work, you just haven’t started doing it yet. You’re still at conceptualizing. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s suffering. 

This is has nothing to do with giving up anything you want, such as rehabilitation. What I’m suggesting is also rehabilitation. Think additional, not supplemental.

 

You’re not attached to negative emotions. You refuse to express them. Again there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is suffering.

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

self-righteousness, indignation, anger, the moral high ground, despair, loneliness, shame, fear, rage and hatred because they're familiar

These aren’t familiar in terms how feeling.

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

I've met so many people who are convinced their way is the way but it's just not for everyone. I think it's hubris and a lack of humility that people who find lasting happiness and peace get endowed with and they never say, "I don't know". I don't know if this is the right path for me.

You aren’t allowing the hearing of what’s being said. Expressing emotions already felt isn’t a way. That’s like saying dropping a burning hot coal is a way to something.

The only point is not burning… but you add to what’s being said by talking about people, what you do or don’t know, etc, to make it sound like something else is being said. None of that is what’s being said. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

All this rubbish of having no preferences, no self-referential thought, Enlightenment is bells and whistles and nonsense. It's pedalling a lie that everyone can find this state of perfection. But, oh, it's not a state, right?

None of this has anything to do with what’s being said. It’s all being added uneccesarily.

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

I have an emotional addiction. I'm addicted to shame. The shame is why I drank, why I am smoking, drinking too much coffee, binging on food etc

Shame’s a concept not an emotion. Emotion refers to how the concept feels. You drink, smoke, binge etc, instead of expressing emotions. There’s nothing wrong with that but it is suffering. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

I am insufferable, exhausting, too much, too sensitive and angry when anyone but my parents get close to me.

These are discordant beliefs, that’s suffering. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

Personally I think Nonduality is a racket

Nonduality means not two. Therefore it’s not a racket. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

But none of those concepts make one iota of a difference to the core of the shame I feel

Claiming there is what there actually isn’t, discord is felt. What’s being said here is not a suggestion to entertain or belief any concepts. 

What’s being suggest is expressing the emotions felt. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

Personally I think Nonduality is a racket. It's a fancy word that doesn't pay dividends.

It’s not being said because you’re going to get something, it’s liberation from suffering. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

It's interesting and temporarily satisfying. But if it actually did what it claims to provide to more than 0.001% of the population governments and secret service agencies would shut it down. It's a lot of hullabaloo about nothing. I don't rate Nonduality. It is the thing that it is trying to unteach. It's a separate word, set of concepts and projection. Nondual teachers assume they have found the elixir of life, the secret of life.

Nonduality means not two, so it’s one of those, nor does nonduality have anything to do with a “nonduality teacher”. 

You’re adding all of this. This is not what’s being suggested. What’s being suggested is expressing emotions. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

But no teacher knows anymore than I do about what I experience.

 

Nonduality meaning not two, has absolutely nothing to do with anything that could be known or anything anyone else does or doesn’t know. Whatever you’re implying that might be, it would be ‘second’.

 

There’s no suggestion of anything at all that needs to be known here. Again, you’re adding that. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

They know themselves and they're experience to a degree just like I do.

That’s an assumption from the belief you do or could know yourself. Obviously you are yourself. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

But no one understands this intellectually. Nonduality is just an intellectual pursuit and keeps people addicted to it by giving false hope that one day a follower may have this wonderful gift.

Nonduality means not two, intellectual pursuit would be a ‘second’. Nonduality ‘says’ - not that either. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

But how many people have it?

Zero.

Nonduality means not two. So nonduality does not point to something you could have or something someone else has. Again, this is being added.

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

How many contradicting teachings are there?

With respect to nonduality there are no conflicting teachers. The conflicts arise of the purporting, the claiming to be a teacher of Nonduality. The word nonduality ‘says’ that would be ‘second’. Not two. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

How can so many conflicting teachings be right?

Care more about feeling than being right or anyone else being right. Again, what’s being suggested has nothing to do with knowing anything. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

I've wasted years of my life trying to do everything the right way. I don't know what to do.

Acknowledge emotions experienced. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

But I have this faith that I will relax into emotions and feel them to learn from them and hopefully grow and wake up. Nonduality is just a pointing. Solipsism and Nonduality comes out of projection - it assumes to know the word salads, mental gymnastics, eloquent explanations and beautiful experiences that it talks about.

Not two. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

 

I don't need to read 'ACIM' or 'I am that' or whatever to know that I feel like shit.

That’s a belief. You don’t know anything about yourself. You are yourself. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

I don't know what to do anymore.

Acknowledge emotions experienced. Give what you know and being right a break. 🙂

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

I can write, "I am angry" and I still feel angry.

I am angry is a false concept. 

Anger, is an emotion experienced. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

Maybe I'm wrong.

Let being right about what doesn’t even feel good to you go and you can’t be wrong. 

 

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

Maybe I'm inconsistent and stupid. But, fuck, I'm roasting in the fire. I'm destroying myself with addictions. Expression takes the edge off. Concepts are tangential to reality that barely touch it and I feel all the shame I was running from two years ago and twenty-five years ago. I do appreciate and think you're cool. But I've never met anyone who understands my experience. And then if I say that the recipient will judge me for implying I have a harder life or that I'm so up myself that I think I'm special and different from everyone. But I don't understand anyone else's pain. All I know is what I experience. I don't even understand it fully. And I try to escape it. I don't want to run anymore. I want to feel it fully. 

Understanding, other people, wether they understand or not… there’s nothing wrong with any of that, but that is all being added to what’s being suggested. If how you feel is more important than what you think, understanding or being understood no longer matters.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, the system made me said:

@Phil, I do think you're cool and I'm sure you don't need my approval but I just want to say that. I mean you put up with me and you keep responding. That's what I care about. I tell you who I am, all the ugly little thoughts and judgements. I'm glad you found what you've found. I do feel better for writing all that. But the shame will come back. My rant was a power trip. It's just the "I'm right" competition that I don't think you're playing. But that's a projection. Maybe you're a liar and judge the hell out of what I write. Or are thinking with a sigh, "here I go again responding to this moron".  Or not. It's like the meetings I go to. They take the edge off but I'm coming from a place of shame and self-hatred. I don't know. I feel like shit. Sorry. No one can teach me out of this. I think I just have to feel these feelings fully and grow and learn from them. I'm not going to drink but I feel like it. Anyways, I don't know. 

You keep assuming there’s a separate self, a “Phil” or something. 

[the system made me]

Thanks @Phil. I'm not understanding but I am trying..