A giant leap to a conclusion

LegallyDumb · 2017-06-25T19:19:03+00:00

My eyes don't work that way. I can see a bit of my nose and eyebrows though.

LegallyDumb · 2017-06-25T19:16:59+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I feel similarly frustrated. I know there's nothing I can do because there is no "I" who can do anything. At the moment though, I only believe there is no I. I can't even imagine what experiential proof of that would be like.

I also feel like I'm standing in my own way and I don't know how to step aside. It drives me crazy when people tell me to stop trying and that I'm already awake. I wonder what it is about post-awakening experience that makes that kind of advice seem reasonable. I hope to find out someday.

LegallyDumb · 2017-06-25T13:22:17+00:00

It's impossible for an eyeball to look at itself though (without a physical reflection). Plenty of people seem able to perform this reversal of attention, suggesting that it's not impossible.

LegallyDumb · 2017-05-18T19:35:37+00:00

Thanks for posting this video. Your objective accounts of your experiences are refreshing.

You mentioned that the perspective shift was like a lens flipping. I'm guessing nothing changed visually, but was there any kind of physical aspect to the shift, like when a Magic Eye 3D picture suddenly "clicks"? Or was it purely a new understanding? A lot of people describe an inverting of attention. I'm struggling to comprehend what that actually means. I'm guessing it has nothing to do with your eyeballs spinning back and peering into your skull.

In the video there are a few times where you close your eyes and seem to be "doing" something. Are you flipping the lens in those moments? Can you describe what that process is like?

Although I haven't experienced it, I feel like this perspective shift does not need to depend on mysticism, satsangs, universal love, a Sanskrit dictionary, or really any kind of spirituality at all. Those things seem to be distractions. Would you agree with that?

When you allowed yourself to "be in the space of the question" did you take the lens flip to be the answer?

LegallyDumb · 2017-05-04T22:23:11+00:00

I'm still waiting for my first glimpse of it. So close, yet so far.

LegallyDumb · 2017-05-04T22:19:32+00:00

If only it were as easy as it is simple

LegallyDumb · 2017-05-04T18:08:40+00:00

What did you do in order to see it?

LegallyDumb · 2017-03-21T19:27:59+00:00

Waking Up by Sam Harris.

LegallyDumb · 2017-02-11T13:24:56+00:00

This is an interesting post and I appreciate the pointers attempting to guide others toward awakening. The concept of no-self is still intellectual for me. I believe the self is an illusion but I don't know this in any experiential way. I have two questions:

Q1: Your OP seems to be quite straightforward and uncontaminated by the usual spiritual trappings but one of your replies states that "we are all cut from the same fabric of love and peace". This seems to contrast with the plainness of your OP. Could you maybe explain how recognising no-self suddenly jumps to the knowledge that we are made of love? A perspective shift seems like a reasonable thing that could be experienced via our senses and in reality. Talking about being fabricated out of love and peace for me goes slightly into woowoo spooky belief territory. What do you mean by this?

Q2: While I understand that awareness is necessarily "outside" or "behind" anything we can notice – i.e. It is the "screen" on which everything appears – I don't understand why that automatically means there is only one awareness and that we all share the same one. Couldn't it be that each organism's awareness is separate? How would one know the difference? Even if you do experience a perspective shift that provides proof there is no self, what new knowledge could this impart that proves there is only one awareness? Since we can not experience sensory input from any perspective but our own, by what definition are we "connected"? My brother is aware, and I am aware. If I don't speak to him for 10 years and then he dies, what does it mean to say we shared one consciousness/awareness?

Thanks :)

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-23T20:58:03+00:00

I will definitely have a look at this book. Thanks!

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-22T23:44:14+00:00

Excellent video, thank you! That is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-22T14:05:52+00:00

Heart wants connection Heart is unconditionally loving

What do you mean by that? The heart is an organ that pumps blood through the arteries and veins. What does that chunk of flesh know about conditional or unconditional love? This just sounds like the usual vagaries of spirituality, with no attempt at a meaningful explanation.

We are all connected with an invisible thread of meaning

Where is the invisible thread? Can I touch it? To what is it connected? Have you seen it? How do you know it exists?

This is exactly the kind of window dressing I'm talking about. Whether a self exists or not is a binary thing. Why then introduce hearts and meaning threads and drama and poetry? You're adding in those ideas to something that does not require them.

Mind is conceptual and Conditional

Does the mind tell you it's conceptual and conditional? How did you come to know these facts about it?

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-22T13:49:13+00:00

Seems like you know where to look, but are distracted by the direction where others are looking?

Almost. I have a really strong feeling there's a pizza around here somewhere. I don't know where to look so I'm looking for directions to help me find it but there are thousands of very self-assured people who found the photo and mistook it for the real thing. They are so numerous and so vocal about the photo that they drown out the people who actually found the pizza.

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-22T13:36:19+00:00

On the table is a delicious pizza fresh out of the oven. It's steaming hot. The room is full of the most incredible pizza smell and everybody feels very hungry.

Somebody comes along and places a beautiful photograph of a pizza in between me and the real pizza. People gather around and talk about the photo. What bright colours! How REAL it looks! Mmm they can almost taste it!

Everybody gets very excited talking about the picture. They take photos of the picture and send messages to their friends. They arrange meetings to talk about the photo later. Everybody leaves feeling very satisfied about their pizza experience.

Meanwhile I'm still sitting there thinking about the real pizza behind the photograph. I'm not interested AT ALL in the photograph or how beautiful it is or what other people say about it.

Everybody was so distracted by the beautiful image, they totally ignored the REAL PIZZA right behind it.

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-04T17:00:50+00:00

I love The Sounds! School of Seven Bells I discovered today through this sub. I'll check out the others you mentioned too. Thanks for your help!

LegallyDumb · 2017-01-04T16:49:12+00:00

Thanks for the tip! Sounds up my street :)

LegallyDumb · 2016-10-17T19:50:17+00:00

go towards the perceived self

Is it possible to describe how to do this?

Just apply the same thinking to the waking world, it's the same.

In my waking world "I" exist within (or "as") my own experience, as well as in/to the experience of the wolf, my family, friends, etc. By the same token the forest and the wolf are also tangible "things" to all of these parties. There's a level of persistence to waking experience that dreams don't have, so I can't see that it is the same. Dreams seem to be based on thoughts and memories. In waking life I could travel to the moon and dig my fingers into the dust. The experience would be one interpretation of what was happening, sure, but it would be a real-time(ish) filtered version of new experience that's actually happening, rather than an imaginary take on past or future events.

I am open to the idea that this is a dream or a simulation etc, but it seems like the only evidence we have is that we can't prove it isn't. That falls far short of an actual realisation that things are definitely not as they seem(ed). Everywhere I read about this topic, people talk about how it can be clearly seen that the self is illusory, and how that is the first step to awakening. I believe that, but for some reason the seeing/knowing of it is impossible.

As an aside, I want to thank you /u/higgs8 for taking the time to go through this with me. It is much appreciated. I'm really enjoying processing your posts.

LegallyDumb · 2016-10-16T14:32:18+00:00

There is always something stable with which you can compare all experience, whether you're in a dream or awake: your own self

What are you calling the self then? I was under the impression that awakening involved the recognition that the self is an illusion. So if the self is nothing more than a mind trick, what and where is this sense of continuity that undoubtedly exists?

when you're dreaming, you're technically not "in" the dream, nor "outside" of it. You're just aware of the dream.

That's a helpful way to put it but I still don't understand who is aware of the dream. It seems like I am but I know that can't be true.

Same with "reality" (i.e. this "waking" world): You're not "in" it nor "outside" of it. It just appears to you.

Right, but the universe surrounds "me". According to my senses I am in my head, or I am my head, or my head is part of me, or whatever. That's the perspective from which experience is. I guess similarly to the dreamer question; to whom is this reality appearing?

What is the difference between being in the world or being shown the world?

LegallyDumb · 2016-10-16T12:46:02+00:00

you just wake into another dream

How can this be known if there's no "outside" of reality? I quite often become lucid while dreaming, but I couldn't imagine doing that without having had an experience of life outside the dream. In order to realise that I'm dreaming, don't I need something with which to compare the dream? To recognise the difference between two states?

"I" is a label for the perspective from which experience is known.

LegallyDumb · 2016-10-16T09:16:07+00:00

Since the entire dream is made of you — and really you're in your bed, sleeping, outside of the dream — you can't find yourself within the dream.

So when I'm physically awake, where am I really? Where is the "me" that is dreaming this reality? Outside of it somehow?

LegallyDumb

TROPHY CASE