- Elena: Hi, Liana! I am sure you are scratching your head "What is this group of Enlightened people?? What?? Hahaha. It's actually a paradox. Do you want to find out? We say that there is no person, what would you say? Let's look together? Would you?
- Liana : Hi Elena, Thanks for the welcome. Head scratching isn't really happening since I came here after reading through your blog and becoming hollow. Nobody is at home at this point. It was all a bit calmer the last few days but this morning there's some freaking out happening. Off for a long walk so won't check in till later but would be happy to hang out in the 'looking' place once I return. Legs off to walk, eyes to see, arms to swing on a lovely steep hillside close by.
- Elena: Liana, oh, great! Love when somebody reads a blog and come back free of self:) So yes, go for a walk, enjoy. When come back, can you answer this: what is "I" really? Is anybody living life? What in a blog exactly, if you can pinpoint, spoke to you.
- Thanks! Liana : Right now I would say that 'I' seems to be a hammock or a piece of weaving that was tied between thoughts, emotions, perceptions, etc and ended up being created out of nothing but appearing quite real. Definitely the belief is gone, the experience is gone most of the time, but when intense emotion is suddenly felt - especially to do with romance - it shows that the possibility may be there that all the associations are not dissolved. And that some of the habits of relying on an 'I' to 'explain' things are not gone.
- Liana : As far as living life goes. Even before getting this experiential realization that 'I' was always a construct, life was not only living itself through this body/mind etc but it was often very clearly experienced. It's hard to explain how this was the case even though the experience of the 'I' was still there but there were really clear understandings that life was living through 'me.' For years more and more of this was the case and the last few days few interruptions from this knowing. Even today, in the midst of life unfolding romantic angst, the strong feeling would appear and at first it was almost irresistible to not attach to someone, but then it became clear that feelings of rejection, doubt, etc were simply there being experienced, but there was no separate experiencer.
- Elena: Same here, Liana. Of cause feeling will arise, and in some cases, a lot of them, and thoughts and sensations - all this is real and true. The only what's not is you as a label that attaches itself everywhere - claims ownership of the impersonal experience.
- Liana : Can't say what exactly spoke. The post I read was the one about 25 years of meditation. I'll go back and look at it and see if pinpointing is possible. Life seems to be particularly fascinated by and curious about how this unfolding is happening. Letting go to life happened several years ago. Ruthless Truth was read last year but not related to strongly. Neelam and Pamela Wilson and Nirmala were really frequently listened to for the last few months. And the curiosity is still really big - but clear that there is no one who is curious.
- Elena: Curiosity is very big! Child is very curious. Curiosity is a state of being without fear. Curiosity is a driving force to investigate feelings and thoughts that arise here too!
- Elena: And bring that piece here that spoke to you.
- Liana : OK. So I looked it over and it's not so much a literal 'piece' as it is certain ideas or a certain mood and openness. One of them definitely is the idea that there is a hoax as to how complicated it is supposed to be when in reality it is super simple. In the last few months there was a lot of discovery of what was labeled 'hoaxes' in my life. And so the mind jumped at the idea that here was another one. Plus your straightforward non-pretentious insistence without being tough. You felt very caring even in the midst of the insistence which kept me reading. And the loveliness of K who was really honest and although powerful in expression etc clearly needed some support. I think all of those things. I'll look again later. So it's really about the fundamental idea that the self does not exist being placed in a certain background which makes people dare to look.
- Liana : But in the end it's life unfolding in this particular way isn't it? No real choice but I guess life has decided it likes acting curious about this through you. (And through me pretending that there was some logic in it. Ha Ha)
- Elena: Ha!
Liana : Stickiness of romance and relationship is the only place where - after a few days of lightness from no longer lugging the heavy suitcase of self - the experience and label of 'I' is seeming to reappear - and maybe even reattach. Even before the non-self clarity many other areas of life no longer held roles or labels. But in this area, especially today, the fiction of self seems to be trying to reassemble. I clearly don't believe in 'I', and many times after a few minutes of experiencing a 'personal' take on an intense emotion, there is the ability to look really hard and see it in a particular part of the body and although the feeling is still intense in its experience it's not attached to anything. So unraveling on this end seems to be happening not completely.
- Elena: When you go to a really engaging movie: like he loves her, she is not sure, there is another one there...crying, kiss, kiss, lovemaking, crying again, hit with a pot on the head, kiss again...At the end you live the movie theater knowing it was an illusion:)
- Elena: so all these feelings arise, make it so believable - the whole Beethoven concert for string orchestra, sometimes Bach....:)
- Liana : Ha Ha. Don't be so sure! The 'I' used to fall in love with movie stars. But definitely what you are saying makes sense. And I know it. I just saw a thin, transparent ghost of the I trying to reappear. I guess that it's just showing up the biggest place that there was buy in.
- Elena: I is always trying to attach. Maybe when you are dead or in a nirvana in a cage - then you are free from a little bugger. But liberation also is just releasing that constant wish to get rid of "I". Just hit him, your lover with the pot, you know?:)
- Viv: Yes, Liana. And a part of human relationships is that the interaction happens AS THOUGH there is an 'I'. There are preferences and likes and dislikes - and it's all being done without a self. It happens just like everything else.
- Liana : Thanks Viv and Elena! And what's absolutely hilarious is how life is playing with it. Today on a common group that the long-distance partner and I are in it showed him logging in from close to me without having told me! And he's supposed to be 3000 miles away. So that created quite lovely intense emotions until I checked to see if it was true. And looking was also really really intense also during the whole time. So lots was revealed about where stickiness may still lie, it was something to just sit with for a while. And yes, hopefully life unfolds with the pot in hand and him close by.
- Liana : So so glad about that comment Elena - that re-attachment may continue to happen. Was not aware of that before in these blogs or this approach. And to think of liberation that way.
- Liana : Viv, I once saw two snakes dancing together twined around each other relating. They probably wouldn't say they were having a 'relationship' and in my life, although I may use the word conveniently to communicate, how on earth can a relationship exist? No one is there to have it. But moment by moment there can easily be relating. And even some animals, although they live in the present moment or with life flowing through them, mate for life. So many possibilities exist even without the I. Just sticky sticky here for me.
- Viv: Yeah, sticky-sticky. Why not? Animals wouldn't say they are having a relationship - it's a concept. And humans talk in concept. There is no-one relating. There IS relating. Whatever that is. In fact, there is ONLY relating. This and that, you and me, him and her, them and us. An endless, ever-changing process. The great thing is, there are no rules. We seem to think there should be. Human love to try to fit living into some kind of structured framework.... don't work like that though. And we're all just living in the present moment (whatver that is!). Does life flow 'through' anything?
- Liana : Hmm. That's good to pay attention to. What I was saying was life flowing through life and that probably is focusing on some sort of separateness. Thanks for that. My system has lots of activity to the no-rules idea. Not in any other area of life but definitely here. Lots of curiosity about how that is and maybe will be from a no-soul perspective. No change? Change in perception only? Wild bonfire dances? Ha Ha.
- Viv: Well, whatever floats yer boat, Liana. If it's wild bonfire dances... yeah.. why not? ;-) What is the activity to the no-rules idea. Do you really see no-self, Liana?
- Liana : In an almost undefinable relating with someone with no rules/no limits including physical proximity - he lives on a constantly moving boat. And strong emotions continue to arise in certain situations to do with this - usually in the chest area. Actually it is not that these emotions are arising to the no rules 'idea', they are arising within the no rules way of relating . Is there something you would suggest looking at more closely? Even before no-self I would sit with the feelings and just sit. Now I've been sitting and watching the feelings and watching a strong wave of identification being generated (never been watched before) until it is looked at really closely and usually it then dissolves. That's what I mean about activity. And I'm not getting picky about language here. If I need to I will be more accurate about what is actually doing the doing. Just conventional forms of expression being used here. And interesting with this questioning to notice the same kind of thing. An arising of emotions with a strong 'personalized' component but with nothing to attach to when looked at
- Elena: Liana, it there you in any shape or form in the reality? Let me know!
- Elena: what's there?
- Liana : Looking and seeing the same hollowness. And feelings (lots of moving feelings), bodily sensations, thoughts, fast fast fingers typing, hearing my daughter's voice, heat in the room, dogs barking, strong feeling in the chest.
- Elena: welcome all these feelings - they are there anyways. It's a Beethoven now? So look behind, behind the strong feeling in the chest. What's there?
- Liana : Looking looking. Nothing is appearing. Just burning, movement of feeling up to the throat and stopping of tightness in chest.
- Viv: What produces those feelings, Liana?
- Elena: Ok, darling, sorry for grilling you on that pan:) Much love♥
- Part 2 is in the making. Stay tuned.
