Is the void alive,is it me?

[giannis]

Hello forum.

I admit that when I'm looking to find myself I can't find anything. I find a "nothingness" in which everything appears. I wouldn't even call this empty space since it's dimensionless.
I can understand that or better: see that, if I look honestly.

Seeing that does not give me peace though, I don't feel it with all my heart, I'm not sure, and I don't feel that I've always been that (shouldn't I?).

I don't know if that nothingness is actually "me" since I feel alive and this seems dead, foreign to me.
How can I know that what "is perceiving", is this nothingness?
Does this no-thing do the perceiving?
Can I verify it?

Can nothingness perceive at all or am I telling myself another oriental style story, just like the many stories we humans are telling ourselves?

Might I be idolising the concept of "nothingness" and losing the facts?

Can you point to me a way out of this dead end?

I could try to express the question with more words, but it won't make any difference I guess.
How can I know that the "no-self" that I find is alive, or how can I know that there is life in me (what that "me" may be)?

Thank you very much.

[zendancer]

Giannis: Yes, you are that no-thing which is perceiving everything. We can call it the Void or Reality or God or Tao or Oneness. You cannot see it directly because it is what is doing the seeing. You can no more see it than your eye can see itself. Using "your" body/mind It is trying to find Itself in the ultimate game of hide and seek. However, there is an experience in which it can directly perceive itself, and you will be one-with that perception. Such an experience will give you unimaginable peace and joy, but not in a way that can be imagined.

You ask, "Can I verify that this no-thing does the perceiving?" Well, not exactly. At the moment, there is some psychological separation between "you" and "It," and one of you has got to go. LOL. I think you can guess which one. When "you" disappear, there will be no need for verification. You will realize that who you are was what was seeking itself.

You are facing what some people have called the stone wall with no door. There is nothing "you" can do to proceed, and yet.......you have a burning desire to find a way through the wall. It is that desire and your persistence that will create a door through the wall. Some people at this point pray for help. Other people simply stay focused upon "what is." How the door opens is a total mystery.

The reason that you don't yet feel at peace is because what you intuit as possible has not yet been actualized. It has therefore not yet become fully embodied. The good news is that what you are experiencing is evidence that you are in the tiger's mouth, and I suspect that you aren't going to get out alive!

[Portto]

Dec 6, 2009 7:32:35 GMT -5 giannis said:

I admit that when I'm looking to find myself I can't find anything. I find a "nothingness" in which everything appears. I wouldn't even call this empty space since it's dimensionless.
I can understand that or better: see that, if I look honestly.

I don't know if that nothingness is actually "me" since I feel alive and this seems dead, foreign to me.

Hello Giannis,
ZD's post is great. He really knows what Zen is about.

What do you see when you're not looking for yourself?
Anything / Everything?

Would you be looking for yourself if you didn't exist?
For example, would you be looking for water if you were not thirsty? Would you be thirsty if the need for water wasn't there all the time (built-in). And yet, did you create the need for water? Is the body looking for water, or the "built-in need?"
What can the body do completely by itself?

Whoever is looking for the self must be the one who "created" the self. Who is no other than the self...
Only source/self/oneness can be looking for itself...

[klaus]

Dec 6, 2009 7:32:35 GMT -5 giannis said:

Hello forum.

I admit that when I'm looking to find myself I can't find anything. I find a "nothingness" in which everything appears. I wouldn't even call this empty space since it's dimensionless.
I can understand that or better: see that, if I look honestly.

Seeing that does not give me peace though, I don't feel it with all my heart, I'm not sure, and I don't feel that I've always been that (shouldn't I?).

I don't know if that nothingness is actually "me" since I feel alive and this seems dead, foreign to me.
How can I know that what "is perceiving", is this nothingness?
Does this no-thing do the perceiving?
Can I verify it?

Can nothingness perceive at all or am I telling myself another oriental style story, just like the many stories we humans are telling ourselves?

Might I be idolising the concept of "nothingness" and losing the facts?

Can you point to me a way out of this dead end?

I could try to express the question with more words, but it won't make any difference I guess.
How can I know that the "no-self" that I find is alive, or how can I know that there is life in me (what that "me" may be)?

Thank you very much.

Hello Giannis,

You're not alone in feeling the way you do.

I've had what I call glimpses of IT and become IT for short and long durations and I feel I am IT just beneth the surface.
Yet for a long while there was no feeling of peace, love etc.
But as I began to surrender to IT I saw that peace, love is IT also.
As I've said in another post, enlightenment is a process. Just surrender into IT.

I know that's easy to say, and I think that some, although they may not have forgotten their struggle forget to take them into account in helping others to understand. What you're going through is probably the d**n hardest thing you'll ever do.

[karen]

A while ago, I was pondering the question: if there was no spirit, and radical materialism was the reality, how would I deal with this?

If absolute oblivion proceeds my experience here, and I return to oblivion after death, what is this awareness in-between? And does this awareness I feel now in life obliterate oblivion such that there is discontinuity in oblivion?

I feel this awareness that seems to fill all, but I don't know that this is all or simply a projection of my mind: an anthropomorphism of space as it were.

[zendancer]

Karen: What Zen calls a "kensho" experience is the direct realization that there is only Oneness and that Oneness is alive, intelligent, infinite, and aware. It is the direct realization that who we are (Oneness) is looking out of the eyes of every living thing. It is the direct realization that who we are was here before the universe began and will be here after the universe has disappeared. One experience of kensho and all doubt about what's going on will disappear forever. However, for most people kensho does not lead to lasting peace. It is simply a glimpse into the true nature of reality.

Christians use the terms "mystical experience" or "epiphany" to describe a wide range of insight experiences, but some of these do not appear deep enough to include the kind of realization I'm referring to. I prefer to use the term "kensho" for the direct realization of Oneness and the term "insight experiences" to describe shallower experiences. I use the Zen term "satori" to refer to the experience of becoming free from the illusion of selfhood. Satori is sometimes called "final enlightenment," but I don't use the word that way. Satori does result in peace and contentment (because one is no longer searching for anything), but it doesn't mean that other realizations can't occur. It has been my experience that there is no end to the depth of possible clarity, so I don't see any definite end point to the journey. Even when one's formal search comes to an end, and every question has been answered, one can still discover more and more. The path of non-duality is a journey of Self-exploration and the Self/Oneness is infinitely deep.

After my search came to an end in 1999, I turned to more mundane issues (like writing a book, getting out of debt, building a new home, etc), and spent the following nine years ridding myself of various obligations. I now have a more relaxed lifestyle, and finding this website shifted my attention back to writing and interacting with people who share an interest in existential issues. I now have more free time to walk in the woods, and each day is a gift. I hesitate to say that my life is full of joy (that sounds a bit over-the-top), but underneath everything there is a deep sense of joy, gratitude, contentment, and fulfillment. Like Byron Katie, I have fallen deeply in love with "what is."

Last week I caught a bug (first cold I've had in years), and one day I was too sick to get out of bed. Nevertheless, there was even a kind of joy lying there in bed and feeling the body be 100% sick. Life is fascinating, isn't it? Day after day after day........Cheers.

[lightmystic]

Hey Giannis,

I would suggest that the Nothingness only looks like Nothing because the mind gets confused and cannot deal with it. After all, how can the mind conceptualize (i.e. put boundaries on) something that is infinite? It cannot, so it often just calls it Nothingness and decides that there's "Nothing" further in there. In reality, the idea of Nothingness is just another idea. It's totally valid for first finding the experience, as that is what it feels like at first, but the recognition that it's not Nothing, but so much more than that can allow you to start to feel into it more. You can start to form a relationship with it. Seriously, say hello, see what it says back. This starts to form a permanent closeness with it so that it is no longer being separated from you. After all, if it's really only Nothing, then there's nothing to do with it, you cannot get closer to that which is not there. But it's definitely there, it's just that what it is cannot be conceptualized, only felt directly. So feeling into it helps bring about a much much closer relationship. And, when there is enough closeness, there is satisfaction.

In other words. The Nothingess, is another object of perception, put there by the mind to represent the infinite that it cannot conceptualize. So, who/what is viewing that "Nothingness?"

Dec 6, 2009 7:32:35 GMT -5 giannis said:

Hello forum.

I admit that when I'm looking to find myself I can't find anything. I find a "nothingness" in which everything appears. I wouldn't even call this empty space since it's dimensionless.
I can understand that or better: see that, if I look honestly.

Seeing that does not give me peace though, I don't feel it with all my heart, I'm not sure, and I don't feel that I've always been that (shouldn't I?).

I don't know if that nothingness is actually "me" since I feel alive and this seems dead, foreign to me.
How can I know that what "is perceiving", is this nothingness?
Does this no-thing do the perceiving?
Can I verify it?

Can nothingness perceive at all or am I telling myself another oriental style story, just like the many stories we humans are telling ourselves?

Might I be idolising the concept of "nothingness" and losing the facts?

Can you point to me a way out of this dead end?

I could try to express the question with more words, but it won't make any difference I guess.
How can I know that the "no-self" that I find is alive, or how can I know that there is life in me (what that "me" may be)?

Thank you very much.

[giannis]

Thank you all, each one of you, really!

[karen]

Me too. Thanks.