Gimmicks and Tricks

[karen]

Thanks to all for your great contributions!

I have a spin on the "who am I". Because when I ask that, it's all so very half-arsed. They one I do is:


****WHAT THE
PHUCH IS
THIS?!!!!?!!!!****

...meaning existence; looking around at the world, my body, my awareness, EVERYTHING like as if I am a microscopic fetus attached to this yolk we call existence - which is how I often feel when I'm not bogged down in ignorance an inadvertence.

When I'm alone, I will often spontaneously shout out that question.

[question]

Karen, that's exactly how it is for me.

Sorry if I offend someone, but I have to admit that I've always felt the "who am I?" question, which should be more like "what am I?", to be the dumbest question ever. What kind of an answer do people expect? It's so obvious to me that whatever spoken answer comes, it's false. It's trick question, like "Do you still beat your wife?".

But the "the f is this?"... stops me at once. And there's no place for pretty words in that place, it's like a sledgehammer.

[maggie]

When I asked "who or what am I", the first time it was at an Adyashanti week long silent retreat. He asked us to ask the question and the direction was not to supply an answer...but to pay attention to the question....I watched the mind resist ....oh I heard this before, done this, so what....so the decision made was just try it like I never heard of it before so I did....all day through all the sittings, dinner, walks by the ocean...later that evening ....IT showed up and although it was not something it was not nothing either.....I drove home from that retreat out side of "me", looking at me driving the car to the left and behind me.....slammed out of whatever this thing is and aware of a vastness all around....not saying anything special about anything because of it just that Ive not been the same since and other related events of this sort since......you just never know....the object is not to get or find.....but to open.... Nisargadatta's way of saying the same is paying attention to the sense "I am", and nothing else, something to that effect. Thanks for getting me to clarify this, to look for myself...

[robert]

Q, i beg to differ, what am i? is actually THE only question. it took me years to realize the truth. where people make their mistake is that they expect the knowing. to take all negative, or perceived negatives out of their lives, which by the way it does, just not in the fantasy based ideas that we have been sold by the book . and believe me i own ALL of those books. but back to the question. i promise that the question has an answer and , what the f**k is this? is just the same question as what am i? you will not be able to answer one without being able to answer the other. and your ability to answer one will be directly influenced by how well you are able to first ask the question, and then listen for the reply in the silence, with the silence being the key.

[karen]

Not getting much out of the "who am I" question for me - that I ask it halfheartedly - seems to indicate that I think I already know who I am. I could blow smoke up my arse and say I don't, but the fact is I believe I do know. That's why pointing to the world and asking "what is that" has much more power.

Now I have often surmised that asking what is that - existence, and who am I are the same things. But I don't know that in my bones to be equivalent. And I will not short circuit myself by pretending to "know" when all it is is intellectual parody.

[question]

Interesting. From my point of view it's a given that there is no fundamental "I", it's an intellectual understanding, as easy as 1+1=2. So then I can't ask "what am I?" because I know there is no absolute I. The question doesn't make sense to me, it has no context from which it can be asked. Because there is no I, I also don't get why people are so fond of Nisargadatta's "I am". "It is", "this is it", ok fine that'll work. But "I am"... uhm, what "I"? We're probably simply referring to different versions of "I". The only "I" that I'm capable of referring to is a relative, temporary and limited "I", a phenomenon of evolution, biology, psychology etc.

The "what is this?" that I believe Karen is asking (Karen, please correct me if I'm wrong) and that comes up for me all the time, isn't really a question. It's not intended as a question. I don't expect some understanding to dawn on me telling me "what it is". It's just an overwhelming feeling of total cluelessness, like this is it and despite all my history, my efforts, everything, I'm absolutely naked and powerless at the presense of reality. Reality just blows you away, all the Gurus are telling pretty stories, but the reality is nothing like it. Maybe I just don't understand the teachings, but in that moment it's like everything they're talking about is totally incompatible to my actual experience. There's no concept that can be attached to reality, as if a fire sword protects it from the tiniest spiritual concept.

When I say "what is this?" I could aswell just say "wow". It's just that the attention is directed to reality. It forbids any question, in the face of reality it's too late to ask, what, who or why.

[robert]

it seems to me that asking the world and asking yourself are the same because you are still asking. unless you are trying to gauge how many people will answer the same as you. i know that i have done the same. but if you do know then be content with the knowing.

[karen]

I definitely ask. But I know no one can answer the question to my satisfaction. I ask and hang onto the question like a koan.

I'm quite sure that Nisargadatta's "I AM THAT" is far deeper than I've been able to penetrate - probably due to underlying assumptions.

Ramana's "who am I" too was far far deeper that I've been able to ask. Perhaps due to his early questioning, maybe not as many assumptions were there. I'm not sure. But when I ask that, I ask about sock puppets.

[robert]

Q, yes in the end there is no i fundamentally you are correct. the i question is only a jumping off point. the nisargadatta book consciousness and the absolute was the text that i found to be the most beneficial for me. it is written over the last year of his life and at this point he dosen't answer questions that he considers unimportant. thus the text is more refined. plus it was written by someone whom had been with him for over around twenty years.

[lightmystic]

Hehe, I think the question is asking what we are referring to when we think "I".....it helps us find any construct in the way of what we are....

and even then, the feeling of existence persists, it's just that the feeling is recognized to always have been coming from something unlimited, something that cannot be pinned down....same feeling though....

Feb 28, 2010 15:47:01 GMT -5 question said:

Karen, that's exactly how it is for me.

Sorry if I offend someone, but I have to admit that I've always felt the "who am I?" question, which should be more like "what am I?", to be the dumbest question ever. What kind of an answer do people expect? It's so obvious to me that whatever spoken answer comes, it's false. It's trick question, like "Do you still beat your wife?".

But the "the f is this?"... stops me at once. And there's no place for pretty words in that place, it's like a sledgehammer.

[karen]

I've heard pointers for years about how one should look between thoughts, and I was never able to get that so well. Looking for the spaces made my attention focus on the thoughts book-ending the space.

But I've had a few really really bad days here - very depressed - crushing so. But I didn't go to my usual crutches; I just rode it out. I tried to do my meditation and was hit and miss.

And then the night before last, as I was in bed trying to sleep but being wrapped up in thoughts, I finally went to look at where they appear. It looks like almost a trough in the middle of nothing and thought.

Not really looks like, but that's the best description I can muster. And I put my attention there. Sometimes the thoughts would continue slowing and stop, and other times they'd stop. All the subtle thoughts about what was happening was still there, and so I tried my best to put my attention before them and to varying degrees succeeded briefly.

I've been alone for hours and sometimes whole days on end and it's been difficult to cope without the crutches, but this has helped.

[lightmystic]

Karen,

Very cool. I'll be interested to hear how that progresses. Are you finding that putting attention on the source of your thoughts is getting more natural bit by bit. From what I've seen, it tends work such that we start noticing, more and more, the ways in which we've already been identifying with various thoughts, and then we start to let those go. As we do, the attention naturally is able to go to the source of thoughts more and more without getting caught up in other things.

Anyway, I would love to hear how things progress.

[karen]

Hi LM,

I'm also curious about how it will progress as well. Will it be a flash in the pan? We'll see.

I can already say that it's been a bit easier to go to that place directly rather than trace the thoughts down to their source*.

I say it's been a bit easier but this is when there is simple busy-work-chatter, the emotionally charged thoughts are much harder. Typically, when I'm worked up, when I try to go there, I find I seem to go to a mental construct of that place - not the place itself.

*Tracing the thoughts to their source came about after remembering a PBS astronomy show where they were looking for ancient super far off galaxies where they'd point the telescope to an empty spot and then stuff would come into focus, then adjust again to an empty spot and again stuff would show up, and they'd do this many many times until they got to their target. That was sorta like how I found this spot. Focus on the actual structure of the thought and follow down as far as I could go at that time.

[lightmystic]

Hey Karen,

Yeah, when we are not actively resisting, that place is the natural result. So it's true that one cannot go there if they are feeling overshadowed. But then it's simply a matter of attending to whatever we are resisting. When that processes through, not only can we find that place again, but the process of unwinding that resistance deepens it, and so we then have it more deeply and more constantly.

[karen]

LM, I've had a big challenge last night and today. Mostly due to this headache that is behind my eyes. Every-time I'd look for the source of my thoughts/feelings, my eyes would want to track there too and totally hurt.

There was a time, on the path that I could accept headaches and go right into them, and they would be tolerable, but that has been lost to me for a few years now. I tried to do it with the pain too - to look at the source, but not getting anywhere.

I've tried to use other senses but haven't been as successful.

Feels like a firestorm's ahead for me.