Strange Farewell

[SoulSail]

I did try to address IA's point, but lost it, so I'll have another go at exactly what's happening in my present experience.

Before I do that, let me say that any mention of "I" is me using the most familiar handle there is. But make no mistake, there is no I. It's more than "one is left with less than they 'had' before'". That's close, but it's not only less--it's all. Sure, there's a body here, thoughts humming as they did before, but there is nobody home. No-body is doing this. And what is here is, as ButterflyWoman pointed out, a mere interface, the point at which one experience (for lack of better term) meets another. This body is the interface, or channel, for something else that was mistaken for a 43-year-old man. An independently existing human.

There is no more need for an I. There is perception, but who or what that is can't be found either. Andy didn't have a brain (ha), the brain conjured up the sense of him all along and he mistook conscious awareness as something he possessed. Thoughts don't think. Andy was a thought, a complex one, but nothing more than smoke with the appearance of order and meaning. The fire that's out was the I.

So what's in my experience now?

1. Relief. Massive relief. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing right for that matter either. Pick a duality, any duality, spend some time with it to see it crumble. I don't need any more search or answers because there never existed a valid question to start with. I mean that. Pack up all your questions if you like and toss them into the sea. The answers won't satisfy anyhow. Really. None.

What happens after this dies? Seriously? I don't die. How many past lives have I lived to get to this? All of them, which means none of them because there's only one casting all of reality for view. Seer and seen are one. Consciousness may play out the experience of a life carrying on from body to body, but I assure you, there are no independently existing people in those bodies. The work is done. All that remains is what is, so yeah, what's here is finally enjoying the ride.

2. There's a sense of spookiness about it all. The Universe just may be haunted. Walk its rooms and look for others and all that exists is this. Look someone in the eye only to realize they're you in a different interface. My girlfriend's dog has followed me around all day today. He never does that. He won't quit staring at me and it seems a little odd. Maybe the dog knows

3. Now. IA, you mentioned that it didn't seem like I'd found the Now, which you said brought you peace. What went down yesterday was more of damn bursting than anything else so that was just a weird ride. Do I get to rest in the Now? I don't know how to convey what's here, now, but it's stillness. I AM silence. That's my lineage. Sure I want to hide in a cave, but only so I can lose every last remnant of Andy and vanish into stillness. This is hard to explain, but there's just this, and it is absolute and it is still. In bed last night I heard energy soar through me from feet up and out of crown. Another first. Just this pulsing.

The reason I'm saying goodbye here isn't because I've outgrown everything that can be or is discussed here. It's not like SoulSail went to the head of the class and is now beyond it all. But the single-pointed drive that brought me from sleep is still here and there's no real interest remaining for duality. When the time came I dropped everything I was holding and demanded truth. Here I mean I was willing to give up anything for truth. Forget enlightenment, it doesn't exist, but truth, now that's different. And as Jesus said, the truth will make you free. How? By helping you die to your-self. See? There's no cleaning up to do. You're higher self is a fiction just like your lower self. There is no arranging what's already perfect so you can finally arrive in peace. Peace just is. Peace is the end result when self is gone.

That's it. Done.

Love you all...

[ButterflyWoman]

That about covers it though my analogies have never been very good.

I thought it was splendid.

[IA56]

Hi SoulSail,
Wonderful
I am so happy...Now it is different energy around you...yes you made it!!! Hurray....

Love
ia

[ButterflyWoman]

The thing is that it lets all the air out of the sails, then the sails blow away too. Rather than be left with something, one is left with less than they 'had' before. Its all so disappointingly simple, obvious, almost uninteresting. While this may seem like disappointment, its not even that.

*nodnodnod* You give up everything in exchange for Nothing. But, to quote a sixties folk song, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, and nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free". The realisation, the remembering, is liberating, it is Liberation (salvation, even), but it's the liberation that comes with dropping the facade and the pretense. So it's more of a kind of relief than some great elevation to... well, something. Anything.

[DerFürst]

This was an extremely powerful thing to read. So many questions have been brought up to me, but then again, what can be considered "I" now? If "I" is only a perspective that considers itself to be an individual, then there is no such thing as "I" because it only exists in the perspective. So what is the purpose of that which is everything deciding to limit itself so far that it perceives itself as only being something? What could possibly be gained from limiting all's perspective to such a narrow point?

I don't even exist then. What does that make "me?" There isn't a "me" then, as "I" is only a point through which all can experience something. That thought makes my ego shudder in fear, and subsequently causes this body to experience emotional sickness.

What I felt as an empathetic simulation of your experience was absolutely horrible. Everything that "I've" done up to this point has been completely invalidated. My original plan for life and afterwards was to free this perspective from the experience of linearity and re-understand the ability to experience anything until eventually all the possibilities become exhausted. Only then would it make sense to me to want to become "one with everything." What was described here, however, makes it seem like even that goal is, once again, pointless in consideration that no plan can have a worth.

So, what makes liberating a perceived "one" from the concept of "self" something any perceived individual perspective would desire doing? From what I've read, and what I've felt, the only thing that's there is loss. "You lose everything and gain nothing" is exactly what it sounds like. Again, that seems horrible. I'm only an actor and will eventually come to some realization as we all must, but for now, it doesn't make any sense. The final purpose of living a life is to disappear and become nothing, as the drop of water that was your life is swallowed up in the sea of everything? What kind of realization is that?

Do we at least get some choice as to how we do things before we ultimately surrender?

[CFTraveler]

You don't always have a choice, DF. That's why it's called 'realization' and not 'achievement.'

[DerFürst]

You don't always have a choice, DF. That's why it's called 'realization' and not 'achievement.'

After throwing it all away, it won't matter anyway. Scary thoughts for something so faint as I.

[SoulSail]

Hi DF,

I hear you. I hear every word. Know I won't convey this well. It can't be reasoned around or somehow worked out with words. Words are the very things that while existing as thoughts, prevent clear seeing. But what you're expressing here does not intersect in any manner with what's at hand. I'll try to explain this, but if you feel like just getting some ice cream, I highly encourage that as well.

So...

There is no loss here, or sense of loss at all at present. But there will be. So? Then there won't be. Then...

The sensation of loss works by measurement. It slides up to something opposite to create contrast. Duality doesn't work. That's best seen from this side of the door, but trust me, it does not work anywhere. So no, no loss, only seeing. You have no independently existing feelings or thoughts whatsoever, but you're seeing through the "I" so it's pretty damn convincing that you do.

But that's like reading the best book never written.

Look closely, you're paper thin and don't know it because it's not possible to know anything. Duality is an illusion, and Reality has no opposite. What IS feeling those feelings is God. Your thoughts then wrap around those feelings and pump out the sense of ownership, and so enters illusion. But were you paying attention to that last sentence? Those weren't your thoughts to start with, nor your illusion to suffer. But something got confused the moment "your" thoughts got mentioned as if real. Senses, impressions, perspectives--these are mere thoughts as well, and thoughts don't think, and yes, they may be willed forward from behind a curtain, but you're not willing them--just seeing and feeling the willing. All you ever do is experience my friend. You have no attributes. You're odorless, colorless, splendidly transparent, and you are the terminal end point for all senses. Every nerve ending in all eternity leads to awareness--the only thing home.

Now, I've used the term God as a convenience here for what's unknowable. But what's written under your name here on AD are God's sentiments about what my post entailed. Does that make you God? Don't be silly, "you" don't exist.


Let me honestly convey some personal experiences (see, there's the illusion again) here unless I sound like hot air too soon. When this broke there was nothing but amazement. By this morning, after being up meditating loooong into the night, everything went upside down again. All words went. No meaning for any single one of them. Clouds. But the sky only grew brighter for it. Concept after concept vanished. No-thing existed there. It was what IS plus nothing. Let me assure you what appear to be old Andy reflexes and sensations were front and center there at The Void.

I sobbed (who? really?)

Not out of sadness, but for what, I don't know. There's a lot of bad info out there on what happens in awakening, but even then, it doesn't happen to all the same. You can guess why, right? There is nobody in need of enlightenment. The word is a terrible construct entirely. The minute it exists in the mind, it's evil, illusory shadow called un-enlightened springs up. All the same, "some" experience unbearable love while others an unbearable vacuum at the shift in perspective. But let me clear, these words included, no awakened person has ever, ever given you their personal account of waking up. That doesn't happen either. Just this. Just this happens.

Best to you

[ButterflyWoman]

I'll try to explain this, but if you feel like just getting some ice cream, I highly encourage that as well.

See, this is why I love you. That's perfect, right there.

DerFürst, your post actually made me laugh, but not in a mean way. I had to chuckle because if there's one thing ego-self knows how to do, it's spin a story and create drama. Your ego-self is so convinced that if perspective shifts away from it, the world will end. Pretty dramatic.

And I doubt very much that you had any actual empathetic contact, though I don't doubt that your ego-self is insisting you did, because if you did have that sort of contact, you wouldn't be afraid. The "loss" is no loss at all. Ego-self thinks it's the greatest, most important thing ever, because that's its job, to differentiate itself and make itself important, but... it's just a character in an infinite story. The statement that you give up everything in exchange for Nothing is a koan, and not only is it actually intended to induce dissonance (which I can see that it did!), it's a paradox that isn't a paradox (Zen is fun ).

And by the way, YOU are not your ego-self. YOU are much more than that, and that's the true heart of this realisation. Whatever you REALLY are, it's not your little human mind, your material body, some discrete soul in a sea of other discrete souls. You are the very the substance of Reality. You are the Creation, and you are the Creator, simultaneously.

And for what it's worth, the ego remains. It is a necessary interface in experiencing the material world. It doesn't die, it just eventually learns its true nature so that the greater True Nature can awaken to Itself. It is shed for a while (maybe a short time, maybe a much longer time, depends on the individual story), but it's never destroyed utterly.

Here's a metaphor. Suppose people were, upon birth, sewn into a costume of some sort. Animals, plants, different genders, whatever. From that time on, they're treated like whatever their costume is. If you're in a pumpkin costume, people treat you like a pumpkin, if you're in a zebra costume, people treat you like a zebra, etc. You learn that this is what you ARE. You're a pumpkin, isn't it obvious? Round, orange, and everyone says you're a pumpkin, so you must be. You know you're a pumpkin! You're male, you're white, you're Hispanic, you're weird, you're whatever labels match up with your costume. And you believe it utterly. You are whatever it is that your costume has indicated you are.

These costumes are more than just clothes, though. They include all kinds of stuff you need to interact with the other costumed entities in your world. Communications, various tools to manipulate your surroundings, pick stuff up, all kinds of stuff. It's a pretty complex and intricate costume, to say the least.

But one day, a rip starts to form in your costume. And it gets bigger, and you panic, because, this isn't normal. This isn't natural. How will you function if your pumpkinness is compromised? What if your pumpkinness falls off entirely? YOU WON'T EXIST!

Eventually, it does fall off, because generally speaking, once things start to unravel, they continue until they finish (though it may take a longer or shorter time). Now what? You're naked, you're cold... but you're... much more comfortable, strangely. The pumpkin thing was actually really itchy and a little too warm, and kinda tight in places, only you might not have noticed, or if you did notice, you didn't think anything could be done about it, so you just accepted it. And as you walk around a little more and get used to it, you find that, hey, you can do stuff you never could before. You can see a LOT better, because the costume (as you're starting to think of it now) obscured a lot of your vision. And you're much more able to reach stuff and you can feel things you never could before because the costume got between you and the things, only you never, ever knew it (though once or twice you might have suspected it). And, yeah, it's pretty weird, and you now have to learn how to live and function without your pumpkin costume, but, you know, it's actually okay, because now you know that you were never a pumpkin, anyway, you just thought you were. Eventually, you'll put the pumpkin costume back on when you need to interact with the other costumed entities, because, well, you have to. It's got all the tools to communicate in it, it's got all the controls you need to operate in the pageant. No costume, no pageant, so on it goes again, and, yeah, it doesn't fit quite right now, and you always know, "Even though I'm wearing this, I'm not really a pumpkin."

And by the way, if you try to tell any of the costumed entities that they're not what they think they are, that they can shed their costume, they won't take it well. They'll freak out, or they'll call you a liar, or they'll say you're insane, or, mostly, they'll just completely ignore you because they have no clue what you're talking about, and why should they? As far as they know, they are their costumes.

It's an imperfect metaphor, but ALL metaphors are imperfect when it comes to this kind of realisation. There are no material words or emotions or experiences that really convey the whole of it. Bits of it, kinda, but words are very clumsy tools, to say the least. But this story can at least give you something to ponder. It's actually a lot more comfortable without being permanently sewn into the costume.

I haven't written anything about this in a very long time. I guess it was time that I did. *shrug* I don't really know what the point is of talking about it. Might be better just to have some ice cream.

[IA56]

I haven't written anything about this in a very long time. I guess it was time that I did. *shrug* I don't really know what the point is of talking about it. Might be better just to have some ice cream.

Hi BW,
I might give you a clue why you ought to continue your stories when it seams you do not yet know or you only say so

If you have not decided yet....that one of your purpouses is...to tell your story for others to understand how it can be to keeping up the good work...or
..then it might be ...that your self-confidence is not there to support you...yet....to the fullest....

..see...
this is one of your and mine disputes what I have tried to make my Point in...for you to share your knowings...off course...
No one can force you...but my Point has bean that you will do it willingly for the greater good if not for anything less...

I love you.

Love
ia