Steps To That: 11/30/2024

November 30, 2024

Last night, resting in awareness, I was really embracing everything I perceived, and it was really.. Loving.

Meaningful in my heart and warm. Kind of makes you want to cry.

D: If you can feel warmth in your heart, you can–you are ready for the rest of the Path.

Yeah, you're speaking from the Knower.

Do you think you are awakened yet? Does it feel like you have [cleared your vision permanently]?

Yeah, there have been permanent changes.

The way I used to see it was: "becoming awakened."

Now it is: "Clearing the vision."

Then, it is: If you can stop thinking you are all of the perceptions..

Then: You are the being you always have been.

It's 'normal' to have a frozen heart in society today.

There is no such thing as a frozen heart I see now.

It's just not coming outwards, because there's too much fixation.

When they say, "There is no moment when you aren't awakened."

You really are at all times feeding all things with your energy.

And when I pulled back, I'm the one who feeds things with energy, with my attention.

I'm the one creating.

How do you experience this?

It's pretty much the same as awareness.

To formulate it as a process, I'd say it as:

Move your attention into your body.

Notice who is sensing.

I start to self-inquire, who is here, who is the one who is aware, who is the one who was always here, before this life, after this life, the one thing that has never changed..

Eventually, I start to focus my attention on that unknown, as a fixed point in space.

And then, I use all of my strength from my emotions and sensations and perceptions to intend to be more alert and more aware.

And then, I look at what is alert, what is aware.

And, as soon as I can notice that unchanging thing, I apply one of the 112 techniques to focus on a fixed point.

Last night, it was focusing on the middle of the breath, on each cycle.

I don't always focus on a fixed point.

Sometimes, I just keep my intention on being alert and aware.

I stop applying meaning to perception.

So, I'm listening to a speaker guide a meditation, listening to my thoughts.

I stop adding understanding to it, and think, "That's just sound."

Where is the sound coming from?

Piercing through the perceptions, until I can see that they are just not like objects. They are not hard.

Eventually, I start observing the watcher and see that it is a thought.

That all of my perceptions are thoughts arising.

Then, I start to rest in the space around all of the perceptions.

When I first talked to the teacher, she would tell me I was afraid to just rest in being.

And I would say, "I can't do that."

And she would say, "I don't believe you."

And she explained that, I wasn't trusting that love was there.

And I wasn't resting there long enough to see clearly.

D: You're looking at direct perception and not just thinking in circles. Learning to rest in silence comfortably, that's the beginning, and then looking at direct experience.

Yeah.

First, there is being alert and aware.

Then there is, as I perceive it, using all perceptions as mirrors.

To recognize that everything is just happening right now.

And then, using the past and the future as mirrors as well.

Seeing that, the imagination of the past and future is happening right now.

Then the deeper practice–which is what really takes work,–is allowing everything to be there.

And then,

Who is the one who is allowing things to be there exactly as they are?

That one must be me, or God.

And then, when understanding comes later, the understanding is that I always am.

I always am the one who intends for love, intends for awareness. That's me.

But, that me is arising.

From nowhere.

That nowhere must be where I am.

And, I'll never be able to look into it or know it.

But, if I trust it, then I can let it absorb me.

D: I am tired of people not meditating, and, making things up in their head.

That is why I started with saying my first intention is: to be alert and aware.

Notice how that's different from trying to become something?

That's why I love Osho too. He's got his priorities straight.

D: No, can you please elaborate, I don't get it fully.

I mean, right now, in this second, I intend to be alert and to perceive everything I can.

D: I heard someone say, 'Try to notice something new every time, in this moment, how you are now, not how you were, yesterday or a month ago.'

Trying to notice something new helps me, rather than 'rest on one's laurels' of previous 'levels' of awareness.

Exactly, because you can't get back to previous levels of awareness.

It's not possible.

It doesn't exist anymore.

If you use effort to perceive for a little bit, then, you can notice that your whole idea of right now is a perception.

All your ideas about your current state, and how things are is all just an idea.

My intention to be alert and aware is to notice things that are actually happening.

My attention, and the things arising are actually happening.

The idea of trying to become something is not happening in the reality.

But, then, after sitting with that for a bit, then I can look at that idea and see that, it's just another floating thought form.

And it is arising, and it is a part of all this.

But, it's just a shadow that I was perpetuating with my attention.

It would have disappeared already, if I hadn't supplied it with my focus.

I believe that my priorities being different is part of why I'm able to be on this path.

D: What do u mean? What are your priorities?

To use Osho as an example, I think Osho cared about, "Who am I really?"

That was his priority.

Not anything in the world.

Not who he was in the world.

Not who he became in the world.

Those are priorities too, but they are not the first priority.

My first priority, my only top priority, is to be here.

D: I'm trying to [do this and that,] and then [I feel distress..]

It's the same for me.

I focus on trying to build something, and then get frustrated.

Then I get sucked in to thoughts, and become unaware.

In that time, I have gotten sucked into the dream of an idea of who I am.

Or, I have gotten so fixated on my thoughts that I have forgotten my being.

And so then, my thoughts are just running by themselves, the mind believing it is the master.

This is what you're seeing with these people not really practicing.

Their mind is the master.

D: It seems that, unless one is pretty enlightened, there is a narrative or story defining oneself, and that's the master more than the present moment being.

What others tell me is that I would, so to speak, get farther on the path, if I stopped seeking.

I saw it last night, as you say, there is a narrative about me seeking.

I saw it that it is not me.

D: A teacher said to relax the eyeballs, the muscles around the eyes, and the jaws and mouth. I heard it stops the seeking mode.

Yeah that's good. Relaxation is how you get the mind to slow down the thoughts.

I'm not having any issues in my meditation right now, my beingness isn't thinking.

The process right now is: I'm being aware of these thoughts, so that they can be dissolved.

Some hallucinations are really good at hiding in the background.

Some monsters are really good at hiding, because they know if they are exposed, they will vanish.

And with more awareness, you're able to look at them.

D: All I know is, to get awakened, you need to look [directly at the self in your head] until it dissolves.

Yeah. First, I start with perceptions.

Then, I look at these subtle ideas.

And then, the real practice is:

Resting within awareness, and then embracing everything.

That's the actual development, so to speak.

Another way to say it is, you're teaching the mind to let go into awareness.

Which, you are.

It's only that the mind is afraid of dissolving into nothing.

Because, it doesn't know that, nothing isn't being sensed into enough.

Nothing is not being sensed with enough clarity to see that it is everything.

The perception has just dulled so much that the mind thinks there is nothing there.

But, the source of perceptions contains infinity, everything, light.

When a person is inebriated, the outside world begins to become dull, and then it seems like nothing is outside oneself.

Really, everything is out there you're just not sensing it anymore.

There's no real problem.

The only 'problem' is that you're not sensing deeply enough, intricately enough to perceive the beauty.

Clearing the space is only the first part.

Then, you are looking at nothingness.

It's going to take some time for your senses to readjust, so that you can then actually perceive the pure awareness.

Now there is just darkness, but you are temporarily blind to what is in the darkness.

After a few minutes, your eyes can readjust, and then you can perceive what is within the darkness.