Then there is no abiding, no straining, no efforting, mere spontaneous presence and self liberation, dependent origination and emptiness.

“(2:17 PM) Thusness: with the condition of a body, manifest along with the condition of a body. just like the 'eye' can only 'see' certain range, let it be. Not to strain the eyes for what it is not. but in each experience, discern with clarity the luminous presence.”

The straining and efforting in fact becomes an unconscious habit. It is not so much that you consciously "efforts" into grasping at a background or foreground, you can't help it. To use a poor analogy, a house cat always returns to its home at night even if free to roam around the city. Because of ignorance that projects inherent existence, one has a very strong identity of a "home base" as a "background", this "background" is just a conjured image, a fabricated image of a moment of nondual luminosity that is reified in a dualistic and inherent way, it is not the true nature of that luminosity. By sheer habit the mind always returns back to this conjured image of a "home base" like the cat, unknowingly and habitually. This referencing back to a background becomes a momentum of its own until it goes so deep into the sleep, even if you fall asleep you suddenly snap out of the dream state or thought back to a witnessing background by your own karmic momentum, and this wakes you up because you cannot 'be' the sleep non-dually (and as Thusness said, deep sleep is a natural nondual samadhi, a precious state). That was my experience during the I AM. Luckily the problem didn't develop very much and I proceeded into nondual and anatta not too long later. Only insight into anatman can truly break through that illusion of a background, and for some people even after the anatman breakthrough it takes 1 or 2 years to stabilize (for me it merely took months).

Likewise if one experience intensity of luminosity in the foreground, actually there is nothing wrong with that and this is a natural state after anatta, but if there is even the slightest grasping or straining or efforting, that is like not 'manifest along with the conditions', that is not being fully aligned with the empty, spontaneous, ungraspable, unlocatable, dream-like, reflections/mirage-like nature of empty-presence-appearance. Everything becomes light and traceless without subtle straining or grasping at what was never truly 'there'. Wanting to experience more of what is empty, ephemeral and ungraspable in any way is the problem. That is not being aligned with the empty insubstantial nature of presence and dependent arising

In short, all the problems arise when one over fixates on the luminosity or focus on it more than its empty nature. Be it background I AM or foreground PCE. The karmic momentum can be so strong as to cause serious energy imbalances. So over focusing on the luminosity aspect rather than realizing and actualizing fully the empty nature of luminosity/presence is the root of many such problems. http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../putting-aside...