I have been practicing a lot of Self Inquiry during the past week. I’m reaching that thoughtless state and when I inquire “Who’s aware of this experience?” there’s no change. Is just this boundless space where there’s just awareness.
I read your journal and you describe being in a blank and asking “Who is aware of this experience?” and having a experience of being.
I wouldn’t say that the “place” I dwell it’s blank because it is very clear. And there’s a feeling of just being That. But at the same time I don’t feel anything really different in my perception of reality (beyond few thoughts and higher space awareness)
What you experience is good. Continue inquiring.
Session Start: Sunday, 25 October, 2009
(2:07 AM) AEN: just now it occurred to me that the places i've been are hazy like a dream, they come and go.... then i realised my thoughts also are like a dream, they come and go... when i dropped that theres only my own existence and presence left which is real and not hazy at all and doesnt come and go
(2:34 AM) AEN: then for a short while i was only aware of my own existence... until i got distracted :P
(5:16 AM) Thusness: not bad... 🙂 That is the beginning phase of I AM.
(5:19 AM) Thusness: first drop ur thoughts, drop all sort of mental chattering, drop everything, don't think of non-dual. Allow urself to be filled with only this sense of existence. This is the first phase.
(5:20 AM) Thusness: then u will realize what existence is. 🙂
Mr. C:
That’s good to hear. I’ll keep working 🙏🏼
You said to keep inquiring, but this advice from Jon about dropping everything and allowing to be filled with sense of existence, to do this I need to stop the Inquiry right?
To clarify, this state of Being is different from the blank state. If it is the blank state I should keep inquiring but if it is the Being (sense of existence) should I let go of Inquiring?
Soh replied:
i still inquired all the way to February 2010 when I realized I AM
inquiry is supposed to lead to the non-conceptual taste and realization of Existence, so its non contradictory
as long as there is slightest doubt what Existence is then continue inquiry. if you are just resting as Existence then just go into it
Mr. C:
Yeah my question is during practice. If I should stop inquiring when I’m just at a state of Being, not a blank state but a very clear Existence.
Thank you Soh!
Soh replied:
yes. the purpose of inquiry is not to keep repeating the question but to turn your attention to the Self
5. Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 6: if or as soon as anything other than ourself appears in our awareness, we should simply turn our attention back towards ourself, the one to whom all other things (all thoughts, forms or phenomena) appear
Regarding your statement, ‘I keep doing the enquiry “to whom these thoughts arise?”, “to me”, “who am I?” but I don’t know what I should do more’, these words, ‘to whom does this appear?’, ‘to me’, ‘who am I?’, are a very useful pointer given by Bhagavan, but we should understand clearly what he meant by this pointer. He did not mean that we should repeat these words to ourself whenever anything appears, but that we should simply turn our attention back to ourself, the one to whom all other things (all thoughts, forms or phenomena) appear. That is, he did not say ‘ask to whom’ or ‘ask who am I’ but ‘investigate to whom’ and ‘investigate who am I’, as he wrote in the following portion of the sixth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?:
பிற வெண்ணங்க ளெழுந்தா லவற்றைப் பூர்த்தி பண்ணுவதற்கு எத்தனியாமல் அவை யாருக் குண்டாயின என்று விசாரிக்க வேண்டும். எத்தனை எண்ணங்க ளெழினு மென்ன? ஜாக்கிரதையாய் ஒவ்வோ ரெண்ணமும் கிளம்பும்போதே இது யாருக்குண்டாயிற்று என்று விசாரித்தால் எனக்கென்று தோன்றும். நானார் என்று விசாரித்தால் மனம் தன் பிறப்பிடத்திற்குத் திரும்பிவிடும்; எழுந்த வெண்ணமு மடங்கிவிடும். இப்படிப் பழகப் பழக மனத்திற்குத் தன் பிறப்பிடத்திற் றங்கி நிற்கும் சக்தி யதிகரிக்கின்றது.
piṟa v-eṇṇaṅgaḷ eṙundāl avaṯṟai-p pūrtti paṇṇuvadaṟku ettaṉiyāmal avai yārukku uṇḍāyiṉa eṉḏṟu vicārikka vēṇḍum. ettaṉai eṇṇaṅgaḷ eṙiṉum eṉṉa? jāggirataiyāy ovvōr eṇṇamum kiḷambum-pōdē idu yārukku uṇḍāyiṯṟu eṉḏṟu vicārittāl eṉakkeṉḏṟu tōṉḏṟum. nāṉ-ār eṉḏṟu vicārittāl maṉam taṉ piṟappiḍattiṟku-t tirumbi-viḍum; eṙunda v-eṇṇamum aḍaṅgi-viḍum. ippaḍi-p paṙaga-p paṙaga maṉattiṟku-t taṉ piṟappiḍattil taṅgi niṟgum śakti y-adhikarikkiṉḏṟadu.
If other thoughts rise, without trying to complete them it is necessary to investigate to whom they have occurred. However many thoughts rise, what [does it matter]? Vigilantly, as soon as each thought appears, if one investigates to whom it has occurred, it will be clear: to me. If one investigates who am I [by vigilantly attending to oneself, the ‘me’ to whom everything else appears], the mind will return to its birthplace [namely oneself, the source from which it arose]; [and since one thereby refrains from attending to it] the thought that had risen will also cease. When one practises and practises in this manner, for the mind the power to stand firmly established in its birthplace increases.
The verb he used here that I have translated as ‘investigate’ is விசாரி (vicāri), which in some contexts can mean enquire in the sense of ask, but in this context means enquire only in the sense of investigate. Asking questions is a mental activity, because it entails directing our attention away from ourself towards a question, which is a thought and hence other than ourself, so as long as we are asking questions we are still floating on the surface of the mind by attending to things other than ourself, whereas investigating ourself means being keenly self-attentive, which causes the mind to sink deep within and thereby return to its ‘birthplace’, the source from which it had risen, namely our real nature (ātma-svarūpa), which is our fundamental and ever-shining awareness of our own existence, ‘I am’.
Therefore what Bhagavan is pointing out in this passage is the direction in which we should send our attention. Instead of allowing our attention to go out following whatever thoughts may arise, we should turn it back towards ourself, the one to whom all thoughts appear. ‘To whom?’ is not intended to be a question that we should ask ourself but is a very powerful pointer indicating where we should direct our attention. Asking the question ‘to whom?’ may sometimes be an aid if it helps to remind us to turn our attention back towards ourself, but self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is not merely asking such questions but only fixing our attention on ourself alone.
Another point worth noting here is that what Bhagavan means by ‘thought’ is anything other than our fundamental awareness ‘I am’, so it includes all perceptions, memories, feelings, ideas and other mental impressions of any kind whatsoever. As he says in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, ‘நினைவுகளைத் தவிர்த்து ஜகமென்றோர் பொருள் அன்னியமா யில்லை’ (niṉaivugaḷai-t tavirttu jagam eṉḏṟu ōr poruḷ aṉṉiyam-āy illai), ‘Excluding thoughts, there is not separately any such thing as world’, and in the fourteenth paragraph, ‘ஜக மென்பது நினைவே’ (jagam eṉbadu niṉaivē), ‘What is called the world is only thought’, so when he says here ‘பிற வெண்ணங்க ளெழுந்தால்’ (piṟa v-eṇṇaṅgaḷ eṙundāl), ‘If other thoughts rise’, or ‘ஒவ்வோ ரெண்ணமும் கிளம்பும்போதே’ (ovvōr eṇṇamum kiḷambum-pōdē), ‘As soon as each thought appears’, he means that if or as soon as anything other than ourself appears in our awareness, we should turn our attention back towards ourself, the one to whom all such things appear.
6. If we are vigilantly self-attentive, as we should try to be, we will thereby ward off both thoughts and sleep, but when we are tired we are naturally less vigilant, so we may then fall asleep as a result of our trying to be self-attentive
You ask, ‘Should I keep doing Self-Enquiry all day for hours in seated position? Should I continue the enquiry in bed as well before sleep? Or should I stop the enquiry from time to time to give some rest to the body?’ Firstly, self-investigation has nothing to do with the body, so we can practise it whether the body is lying, sitting, standing, walking or doing anything else. For the same reason, we do not have to stop being self-attentive in order to give some rest to the body, because being self-attentive cannot strain the body in any way. In fact, when the body and mind are resting is a very favourable condition for us to be self-attentive.
Regarding your question about continuing the practice in bed before sleep, that is also good, but since we are generally very tired at that time, we usually subside into sleep soon after trying to be self-attentive. There is no harm in that, because when we need to sleep we should sleep. There is no time and no circumstance that is not suitable for us to be self-attentive, so we should try to be self-attentive as much as possible whatever the time or circumstances may be, but we should not try to deprive ourself of however much sleep we may need.
If we are vigilantly self-attentive, as we should try to be, we will thereby ward off both thoughts and sleep, but when we are tired we are naturally less vigilant, so we may then fall asleep as a result of our trying to be self-attentive. As Sadhu Om often used to say, when we are sleepy we should sleep, because when we wake up again we will be fresh, and we should then make use of that freshness by trying to be vigilantly self-attentive.
I do not know whether anything I have written here is of any use to you, but I hope some of it at least may help to point you in the right direction.
7. What the word ‘I’ essentially refers to is only what is aware, so if we are just being aware of what is aware, we are thereby meditating on ‘I’
In reply to my first reply (which I adapted as the previous six sections) my friend wrote again about how he was trying to practise self-enquiry and the problems he was facing, in reply to which I wrote:
When you say ‘The practice of Self-Enquiry, especially in seated position (just being aware of awareness itself, not meditating in any object or form etc, simply just being, not even “I” in the “I am”) boosted my kundalini’, it is not clear to me what you are actually practising, because you say you are ‘just being aware of awareness itself’ but then seem to say that you are not meditating even on ‘I’. Meditating on ‘I’ means attending only to yourself, or in other words, just being self-attentive, so if you are not meditating on ‘I’, what do you mean by saying that you are ‘just being aware of awareness itself’?
In this context ‘awareness’ means what is aware, and what is aware is always aware of itself as ‘I’, so what the word ‘I’ essentially refers to is only what is aware. Therefore if you are not meditating on ‘I’, what is the ‘awareness’ that you are being aware of? Unfortunately ‘awareness’ is a potentially ambiguous term, because it could be taken to mean awareness in the sense of awareness of objects or phenomena, so when you are ‘just being aware of awareness itself’, are you just being aware of what is aware, namely yourself, or are you being aware of your awareness of objects or phenomena?
If you are being aware only of what is aware, namely yourself, then you are meditating on ‘I’. That is, what you are meditating on is not the word ‘I’, but what the word ‘I’ refers to, namely yourself, who are what is aware. If you are not meditating on what the word ‘I’ refers to, then whatever ‘awareness’ you are being aware of is something other than what is aware.
This is why Bhagavan gave us the powerful pointer ‘to whom’, about which I wrote in my previous reply. If we understand this pointer correctly, it is directing our attention back towards ourself, the one to whom all other things appear. In other words, it is pointing our attention back to what is aware, away from whatever we were hitherto aware of.
If you are aware of any phenomenon, such as the boosting of your kuṇḍalinī, your attention has been diverted away from yourself, so you need to turn it back to yourself, the one to whom all phenomena appear. If you turn your attention back to yourself and hold firmly to yourself (that is, if you just remain firmly self-attentive), whatever phenomena may have appeared will thereby disappear, because no phenomenon can appear or remain in your awareness unless you attend to it at least to a certain extent.
8. No matter what may distract us or seem a problem to us, let us not be concerned about them but just patiently and persistently continue trying to be self-attentive, unmindful of everything else
Regarding the boosting of your kuṇḍalinī you say, ‘By boosting I mean that I feel an energy in the spine passing through the chakras’, but the energy, the spine, the cakras and the energy’s movement are all objects or phenomena, so you should ignore all such things by trying to be keenly self-attentive. However much such things appear, they need not concern you. To whom do they appear? Only to you, so you should just persevere in trying to attend only to yourself.
Whatever may appear or disappear is other than ourself, so it should not interest or concern us. Such things distract us and become a problem for us only to the extent that we take interest in them or are concerned about them. Why should we be concerned about them? Our only concern should be to investigate and know what we ourself are. If we are not interested in or concerned about anything else, we will not attend to them, and hence they will not be a problem.
If we find ourself being concerned about such things and therefore distracted by them, that is due to the strength of our viṣaya-vāsanās, and the most effective means to weaken our viṣaya-vāsanās and thereby wean our mind off its interest in all other things is just to persevere in this simple practice of being self-attentive. Therefore, no matter what may distract us or seem a problem to us, let us not be concerned about them but just patiently and persistently continue trying to be self-attentive, unmindful of everything else.
....
Mr C:
Yeah, it seems that I was still inquiring even when I was aware of Being. That's why I was feeling stuck. I will now Inquire only there's something othar than "myself" appearing.
This pointer "To whom?" is really good. Short and direct.
Hey Soh, just wanna say that those last instructions made a huge difference.
Practice now is really sharp and asking “To whom?” has been the perfect inquiry to return to Being.
Outside formal practice the sense of self is expanding everywhere even though there was no “eureka” moment yet. There’s a feel of awareness being 360 degrees specially behind my head and shoulders.
Soh:
(thumbs up)
Told someone something similar today:
[5:19 PM, 8/4/2021] Mr. W: Trying to find the unfindable "me"...
"Where" the hell is this "awareness" if it is not inside my head?
[7:03 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: If you are trying to locate it in your field of experience thats like looking in the display for the screen. Looking for the experiencer in the experience. I AM realization is the realization of You, so you don’t look for You outside anywhere
[7:03 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Find out to whom does head and everything appear to/in
[7:05 PM, 8/4/2021] Mr. W: I suppose that's being aware of being aware?
[7:06 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: You can say so. Turn your attention around to realize what You/Awareness is
[7:11 PM, 8/4/2021] Mr. W: Yah, will focus on this
[7:11 PM, 8/4/2021] Mr. W: As in one of your recent comments... it's not an intellectual questioning yah?
[7:24 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: You need to investigate but investigation is not verbally repeating a question
[7:24 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Investigate means you distinguish what is you and what is not you
[7:25 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Then you turn away from the not you to realise you
[7:25 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: All these is done in a non verbal manner
[7:35 PM, 8/4/2021] Mr. W: I know the answer is the one that is aware of experience. But what is missing?
[8:06 PM, 8/4/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Realization comes with total certainty and direct taste
[8:25 PM, 8/4/2021] Mr. W: Okay, keep trying. Hope the Eureka moment happens sooner rather than later.
.....
As Jayson pointed out, with any of these perceptions,
experiences you can simply inquire “who is the one perceiving?” Then look
“there.” Also can just notice the
vantage FROM which you seem to be perceiving each experience and rest
there. Often this comes with a sort of
stepwise inward moving experience but hold that description loosely. When you
come to a truly contentless experience there will be nothing to do no where
specific to look and an alertness to any arising thought or perception which
will be immediately discounted as such. Once this is clear there’s not a lot
more to do but stay with it, stay alert but don’t strain. There are a few
expected “reactions” at this point one being physiologic fear/terror. If it
comes and you remain in thoughtless clarity it will pass. Practice this way and let me know what you
find. I’ve worked with a handful of
people in exactly the way you are practicing in last couple weeks who all broke
through. You got this. But you gotta go
where you no longer know where you are 😉
- Angelo Dilullo
“Inquiry for First Awakening
The inquiry that leads to first awakening is a funny thing. We want to know “how” precisely to do that inquiry, which is completely understandable. The thing is that it’s not wholly conveyable by describing a certain technique. Really it’s a matter of finding that sweet spot where surrender and intention meet. I
will describe an approach here, but it’s important to keep in mind that
in the end, you don’t have the power (as what you take yourself to be)
to wake yourself up. Only Life has that power. So as we give ourselves to a certain inquiry or practice it’s imperative that we remain open. We have to keep the portals open to mystery, and possibility. We
have to recognize that the constant concluding that “no this isn’t it,
no this isn’t it either...” is simply the activity of the mind. Those are thoughts. If we believe a single thought then we will believe the next one and on and on. If
however we recognize that, “oh that doubt is simply a thought arising
now,” then we have the opportunity to recognize that that thought will
subside on its own... and yet “I” as the knower of that thought am still
here! We can now become fascinated with what is here once that thought (or any thought) subsides. What is in this gap between thoughts? What is this pure sense of I, pure sense of knowing, pure sense of Being? What
is this light that can shine on and illuminate a thought (as it does
thousands of times per day), and yet still shines when no thought is
present. It is self illuminating. What
is the nature of the one that notices thoughts, is awake and aware
before, during, and after a thought, and is not altered in any way by
any thought? Please
understand that when you ask these questions you are not looking for a
thought answer, the answer is the experience itself.
When we start to allow our attention to relax into this wider perspective we start to unbind ourselves from thought. We begin to recognize the nature of unbound consciousness by feel, by instinct. This is the way in.
At first we may conclude that this gap, this thoughtless consciousness is uninteresting, unimportant. It
feels quite neutral, and the busy mind can’t do anything with neutral
so we might be inclined to purposely engage thoughts again. If
we recognize that “not interesting, not important, not valuable” are
all thoughts and simply return to this fluid consciousness, it will
start to expand. But there is no need to think about expansion or watch for it. It will do this naturally if we stay with it. If
you are willing to recognize every thought and image in the mind as
such, and keep your attention alert but relaxed into the “stuff” of
thought that is continuous with the sense of I, it will all take care of
itself. Just be willing to suspend judgement. Be willing to forego conclusions. Be willing to let go of all monitoring of your progress, because these are all thoughts. Be open to the pure experience. Just return again and again to this place of consciousness with no object or pure sense of I Am. If
you are willing to do this it will teach itself to you in a way that
neither I nor anyone I’ve ever seen can explain, but it is more real
than real.
Happy Travels.
Art by: Platon Yurich”
- Angelo Dilullo
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