hands off!

Sitting here listening to Paul Hedderman and looking at my hands and the skin condition that is now healing quite fast, but required me to wear gloves even to drive and it hit me. What i am telling myself (my self! ha! ownership of a non existant thing - self!!!) is HANDS OFF!
Stop trying to control the world. 
In the words of that Beatles song...
"Speaking words of wisdom, let it be."
Stop trying to 'get a grip' on it. It doesn't need handling. i don't need to manipulate life (manipulate verb [ with obj. ]1 handle or control 2 alter, edit 3 control or influence) 
Hah! the irony of all this is that i can't do any of the above anyway. i can only have an illusion of control.


---- sleep ----


Woke up with the saying "you can't get a handle on this"
It can't be understood. It is beyond mind.

speaking to Eric

We spoke last night for just on an hour.
The thing that resonated with me most was when Eric spoke about trust. (hmm, already like a dream it has started to fade)
i now don't remember the words he used but the gist of it as it affected me was that the use of the mind is inappropriately overplayed. Of course it is something that i already knew (in an intellectual/mind way!!) but the way he put it felt right.
To just acknowledge a thought stream as i would a tree i was walking past. My continual analysing of my thoughts (and others behaviour) was keeping the peace experience away. (see Seekers and their Mosquito Bites)
i notice that i am breathing differently this morning. Lots of sighs and a deeper more relaxed breathing with the emphasis on the exhalations, just as in meditation or hypnosis or sleep. Less inclination to pontificate at every opportunity.
My skin condition seems the same though, or maybe a little better.
There is also less energy for expounding on this blog.

Has a point been reached,
where the ride to awareness
has reached no return ?

What do i really want ?

i had an epiphany yesterday, and like a lot of really good things it almost snuck by to be forgotten.
Even though my reaction to it was Wow! Ah!  and i enthusiastically shared it with my wife (who gently waved it away as just more of my babble) here i am a day later struggling to remember the details of it.

How it happened is that i caught myself daydreaming of a time, somewhere in the future, when i would have a life where i could do what i wanted, when i wanted. i woud be contented.
It was somewhat vague, just as in a dream.
The feeling of contentment was the main feature of the fantasy.
THEN I REALISED that we already had the lifestyle i was fantasizing about but without the contentment.
That was the epiphany. That i already had it but without the contentment. Well there is contentment, but it is more a construct of mind than a feeling.
There is resistance to accepting that i already have it. It's subtle, but there it is.

waiting for Eric.

Even though i know that nobody can do it for me, (trigger enlightenment)
Even though i know that there is nothing i can do to realise it,
Anticipation sneaks around inside me.
What do i hope for when speaking to someone who is 'awake'?
i don't know, but hope exists.
When i met Sailor Bob my expectations/hopes were disappointed.
Can i try not to have expectations? Sure i can try, but if they're there, then they are there.
i don't (think i) judge them. They are just there, fluctuating from invisible to really strong. That's just habit.
My hands are giving me hell with the dermatitis. The skin on my right index finger keeps opening up in a fissure that hurts a lot. I have to keep moisturiser on all the time or the skin dries up and cracks.
What is this trying to tell me? It is big for the condition to be so demanding of my attention.
Maybe Eric will trigger some awareness of this.
The internet keeps dropping out, the rain on the caravan roof when heavy is very noisy. Not good omens for a Skype conversation. What will be, will be.

i'm waiting, wanting
hoping Eric will reveal
how i am Oneness.

The absence of what you are doing -- trying to understand, or trying to change yourself -- is the state of being that I am describing U.G. Krishnamurti.

You can’t have a scratching problem without the bite and the scratcher. You can’t heal the wound of the enlightenment bug with more or less scratching or more aware scratching.
The bite is the idea that you have to be different from what you are and the mind is the scratcher.
Can you stop the itching? Can you stop scratching? Eric Gross Seekers and their Mosquito Bites

How hard is it to accept that what i am IS what i am seeking, once i no longer seek?
Oh! i say,
but i have so many shortcomings...
It's not that i am in pain, or suffering, it's just that i could be so much better.

Analyse this, i say,

Ok, Who could be better? Who is obviously not the thought construct, the concept i call me.
Maybe it's my body (i believe that's not who/what i really am), but it sure could use improvement.
My emotions are experienced in the body, they could be better.
The way i express myself in communicating with others could be better. (hmm, not sure how that is me...)

What is better?

My body could be healthier, more energetic, less overweight. i could lose the dermatitis.
My emotions (thought reactions) could be more happy/satisfied/contented.
My interactions with others could be more satisfying, less arrogent (on my part, always telling others how they could be better).


The non acceptance of 'what is' starts the seeking. Begins the itch.
It seems like i am seeking what i don't have (being better), so how can UG say that i already am what i am seeking?
Oh, i see, without the seeking i am what i now seek to be...
The itch will vanish when i stop scratching it...

uncorking some dribble...

i don't know what i am going to say (type). i'll just let it ooze out or erupt out or however it wants to out.
What might ooze out is some boredom that this stuff is always about me.
What might erupt out is "why the bloody hell is my skin (some of it) so itchy and ready to slough off ?!*
What i see when i ask this question is puzzlement.
Currently this 'dermatitis' is mainly on my hands, on the ball at the base of the thumbs and up and around the inside of the thumbs and some at the ball of the index finger on the right hand  and at the inside of the top joint of the little finger on the left hand.
The striking thing is the big ones at the base of the thumbs are a mirror of the one on the other hand. When i had it on my feet, it also mirrored in the position on each foot. i have a little on the inside of each elbow trying to erupt.
i don't understand the significance of the mirroring.
i do believe that it is trying to tell me something but as i am so thick it has no option but to express itself physically.
i used to believe that as skin was the outer casing of the physical body that it was here that the interaction between me and the rest of the world took place. Metaphorically that represents relationships. Relationships between me and significant others and relationships with everybody else.
With my seeking, (yes, i admit it. yes, i understand that seeking won't achieve success - i'm helpless. It's the only meta-interest i have), i hope to resolve the ultimate relationship conundrum, where (as reported by awakened ones) there will be no separate identity called me to have a relationship and there will be experience of the interconnectedness of everything and everyone.
i.e. metaphorical skin won't be necessary. There will be no boundary as purportedly there isn't one now. i just imagine that there is one and behave/perceive as it there is one.
Another technique i employ is to use organ language. It goes like this; What sayings that have meaning for me involve any restrictions i experience from the condition. e.g. "I can't come to grips with this." or "i can't get a grip on this" or "it is difficult to handle ..." or "it's hard to give the thumbs up on this" or "twiddling my thumbs is uncomfortable" or "thumbs down hurts" or "difficult to grab the moment of opportunity as it flashes by" or ...
i then review the list of sayings i came up with.
The order that i thought of them is significant.
Some don't 'ring any bells' while some shout out to me their rightness.
The first three are variations of the same thing, difficult in coping with something.
The next spoke of approval and the next of the bad feeling from time wasting.
The next was approval again. Here it started getting difficult thinking of more sayings.
The last one is a saying i heard many years ago which resonated with me.
Then review the review. The first three all saying the same thing - very significant. i will investigate what might i be having trouble coping with. Nothing in particular jumps out at me, but then it is obviously something i don't want to face or it wouldn't need to manifest physically in such a shitty way.
i will go to sleep asking myself this question. "What would be the consequences of facing something that i'm not coping with ?"
see you tomorrow...

What is an appropriate relationship to those people...

What is an appropriate relationship to those people whose world view is very different to mine ?
i can say that i don't even know myself very well, so how is it possible to have even the slightest knowledge of anyone else ?
Am talking about everybody else ?
There are some people who share some attitudes with me, but nobody who does one hundred percent.
If i ask myself "where did the question come from?", i get an image of a particular person.
i know this person a bit. i have experienced them in their private lives and know them to be a nice and good  person. Their interests are very distant to mine, they see the world so differently that i have no confidence that anything i say will be interpreted in the spirit, or with the meaning that was intended.
And so, here is the answer to my question. A benign indifference might be appropriate except for needed contact and navigating through necessary interaction.
An all important aspect of this is the experience of equanimity.

Looking directly...

"You just need to look directly without expectations or assumptions."

i just can't get it !
i "look directly" by asking myself "where is the I?"
i watch my thoughts, how they come, whether they include expectations or assumptions, i watch my thought reactions to those thoughts and the feeling reactions. 

i can't find an I.
i understand that there is no I.

i believe that there is no I.
i grok that there is no I.
But still i want to be different to the way i am. i want to experience Oneness.
i understand that this wanting is still wanting to be a me (albeit an improved me.)

i understand that there is nothing i can do to change this. 

Nothing can facilitate the 'shift' from believing that there is no I, to experiencing that there is no I to experience that there is no I.

Does Truth matter to me?

Does Truth matter to me?
If my experience is just that, my experience, and my reaction to that is what it is, how does it matter if there was Truth somehow involved?
Believing that Truth was part of my experience could certainly enhance my experience, but that is an overlay applied by my mind and of zero value in my intention to relate to 'what is'.
I think Truth is only conceptual, whereas i seek to interact with the actual. 
Emotion clouds. Emotion is always preceded by thinking.
Thinking leads to perceptual ineptitude.
If I mistake a piece of rope for a snake, Truth is that it is not a snake. Truth is I reacted to a snake. Truth is that Truth is inconsequential to my experience. (Though perhaps it is Truth that makes it a peculiarly human experience??)

Truth - revisited...

Socrates taught us not accept our existing thoughts as true. Step back and reevaluate the truth and veracity of your opinions and beliefs. Seek to know your real self and seek truth.With this in mind I will here undertake a verbal/thought journey of self discovery by asking the question “What is a Truth?”

I won't be seeking to perform an intellectual exercise but rather to discover what my current beliefs are about truth and how my daily life is affected by those beliefs.

“What is a Truth? Is it a thing, separate and definable? Can it change?”

If I accept the premise that truth exists as something separate and definable, then I have to do something (focus) to experience it or stop doing something that stops me seeing it (e.g. having beliefs). Having put considerable effort into both, I have to date not been able to reveal an objective Truth.

Maybe “what is truth” should be “what is true”
Seeing what is “out there” that is an objective thing – truth is quite different to seeing what is inherently true in things!!

I can't hold a truth. It doesn't exist as an object. It is an impossible noun, but certainly exists as an adjective. The quality of trueness exists in things and situations and ideas.

“What is a Quality of Trueness?”

I don't know, but I recognise it? When something resonates, it feels right. It's true for me.

But I have experienced knowing something as true, only to later know it to be not true.

“Is there Truth in Knowledge ?”

Because I recognise the uniqueness of my sensory inputs and in particular the unique experiences that have brought me to who I am now, I know (believe in an intellectual way) that I know nothing. That I have no absolute knowledge.
I believe that nothing can be known with absolute certainty. Here is my logic;
In a dream I believe I am real. My belief is as strong the belief I have now that I am awake and typing this. But how do I know that I am not dreaming this.
I can only know that I am dreaming this after I wake up.
I can't know that I am NOT dreaming this.
When I was a kid I dreamt that I woke up and went to school, then my mum woke me up and told me to get ready for school.
Logic tells me that it is feasible that if that happened in a dream then I might have been dreaming that I had a dream.
So you see, it is impossible to actually know anything.
Do I know this ? Obviously if the above is true and complete I can only believe this.
Even with this logic, it is always possible for somebody to come along and point out a flaw in this whole line of thinking.
So, on the assumption that I can't know anything, I can only talk from a position of believing...
“Can you Know what you experience?”
My experience = my interpretation of my sense input, or rather, my interpretations of my reactions filtered through my beliefs.
How is my experience and my mind separate ?
Isn't my physical/emotional experience greatly influenced by my memory of my previous experience? Isn't my memory open to corruption from my beliefs about my self.
Isn't most of my experience largely the result of my expectations ?
I don't think that I can give any more credibility to my experience as being related to truth than I can my beliefs.

“Is something a truth because I hold (believe) it to be truth? If a group of people hold it as truth? If science can measure it?”

Personal and consensual beliefs are often referred to as Truths, but investigation reveals them as convenient beliefs to oil the workings of society. Even scientific results are held as a temporary Truth until more is learned and a 'deeper' Truth is revealed.
Seeing what is true in things is a way of seeing ...

Seeing (as it is used here) is a metaphor for knowing.
This knowing transcends the thing. It transcends You. You (your sense of a separate person) becomes lost in Experiencing the thing. The idea of a thing becomes lost in the Experiencing.

You and It become the Experience. I believe it is here that Truth may be tangible, but certainly not separate.
I have a feeling that truth is there to be ‘known’ by looking with the right kind of eyes. I think it isn’t something separate or different but a way of seeing ‘what is’ without the coloration of opinion – not that I can disappear opinion, but if I am alert then I can see what coloration it causes (in myself)

To Summarise;

I can't know anything, I can only have beliefs.

In order to navigate through life I need to behave 'as if' certain of those beliefs are True.
This is my Truth.

hate

All conflict with which we personally identify reflects a defensive posture from a Fear-Self. When the desires and needs of a Fear-Self are blocked, serious and emotional conflict will ensue. Fear-Selves hate anything that prevents them from getting their way; this applies to all kinds of situations, from long lines in the supermarket to threats to our loftiest aspirations. Every such obstacle pushes us into the shadow of the Wound, and that means suffering. When there is suffering, a Fear-Self will instantly emerge, full of rage, complaining bitterly about the presenting situation and looking to do something to 'correct' it. This is the source of nearly all violence in the world. Eric Gross p424 Liberation from the Lie


i wonder where hate sits with lack.
How do i experience hate?
As a mind/body which expresses most things passionately, it is easy for me to say "i hate idiot politicians/repressive regimes/people who litter/etc, but is it really hate? 
It doesn't matter if it is hate or something else, it is my awareness of the process as it occurs that has the potential to free me from this suffering.
If recognition of the upwelling of emotion happens then it will flip me into a different perspective. One which will remind me that the 'hated' are also people who are reflecting their own conditioning.
i can hope that circumstances will arise for them that will facilitate positive change in their motivation for the shitty behaviour, but that is me attempting to fill a lack in myself.
The intensity of the hate emotion could be addictive. The kind of addiction seen in the religious. Certainly the single minded focus of intense hatred might be described as orgasmic. (in that the left [thinking] brain shuts down and the right [feeling] brain enjoys uninhibited [by the rational left brain] expression)
A relaxed consideration of my own process of hating is possibly the best chance i have of changing my own conditioning.
If my sense of lack is a result of my experience of being invalidated, and hate expressed is certainly invalidating for the recipient, then there is some kind of projection taking place. At least the internalised invalidation process is being perpetuated.
Is it compassion realised (not fake/overlaid compassion) that can act as a circuit breaker.
Let's not hate the haters for they are us and we are them. (stones in glass houses)


i hate the hating,
that separates me from you
please, give me a hug.

lack

"The feeling of lack is the 'mother' of our dreaded emotional experiences. It is a physical/bodily sensation. We experience it as a kind of inner hollowness or emptiness. We try to fill this lack with some kind of 'doing': We shop, start projects, dream about new relationships, practice a religion, join groups, have children, and whatever else we think can fill this hollow core.
This emotion - the feeling of lack - is anxious, insecure, and compulsive.

As long as we are identified with the experience of lack, we will operate from a position of insecurity and fear.

As long as we believe that we are lacking, we will live in fear and desire.

We are constantly calling out to the world, "Fill me - I need another hit!" People try to fill the void with accomplishments, acquisitions, hopes, and dreams. But our holes are bottomless. No amount of material goods or achievements can ever remove the painful identification with lack that will always return in moments of doubt, boredom, crisis, or fear." Eric Gross from "Liberation from the Lie"

Do i have a feeling of lack?, now, sometimes, always?

How can i determine if i have lack?, or maybe a better question to 'reveal' if i have lack would be, "is any of my behaviour a response to lack?"

Answer is "of course."

When i am hungry i am responding to lack when i seek food.

But then, there are times when i think i am hungry but i recognise that eating is a substitute for another unspecified wanting.

When i feel cold i seek a coat or heater, but then i recognise that there are times when i feel cold and everybody else is feeling warm... More often i am taking my coat off while everybody else is keeping theirs' on. This is a case of responding to a lack of 'cool' (pun intended)

When i could use a took to facilitate a job, i am responding to a lack of finger strength to turn a nut, but i have a shed full of tools 'just in case'

At a more subtle level is the question "how does a sense of lack determine my identity?"

Before i get into "my identity", i need to reference "a sense of lack".

It is a 'sense' of lack that we are talking about. Actual lack isn't the issue here. It is perceived lack that is the issue. That is the lack, when filled, promises a feeling of satisfaction. In particular a feeling of satisfaction in how i feel about myself.

This bring me to "my identity". This is my 'sense' of me. The concept i hold of who/what i am. This concept was being formed from birth and an early lack was probably when i was prohibited from suckling my mothers breast. After that there were a profusion of frustrations where i was stopped from doing what i wanted or made to do what i didn't want to do. Maybe even more basic is the (possible) lack of security i felt when i was expelled from the womb.

Regardless of the details, i recognise a lifetime of trying to be 'more' than i thought i was.

But now...

Have things changed? Am i still 'ruled' by a sense of lack? Am i writing this from a sense of lack?

Certainly i experience from time to time overeating. i experience anger and frustration when politicians talk rot with an attitude of knowing. (and many other examples)

So yes, lack is still in my life. I cope with disapproval with hardly a raise of emotion these days. Overeating happens a lot less often than it used to.

i feel lack but have a choice about responding to it.

Meditation seems to be what has given me the space to 'see' situations more objectively. To see what i would have done automatically with enough space to decide to do something differently.

Vipassana Meditation in particular has shown me that pain is only partly physical. That pain when tolerated, it changes. To be more precise, my attitude to pain changes. The pain is still there (say the pain in the legs from sitting in one position for an hour) but i don't need to be ruled by it. In extreme cases the pain that i thought i couldn't tolerate any longer has transformed and become a doorway into amazing revelations.

It has shown me that suffering is the mental overlay placed on pain. That suffering is self perpetuating. We feel a pain then tell ourselves how bad it is going to be and respond to that. Sometimes building a large complex story with immense suffering.

i am standing. i am breathing. How wonderful is that? How amazing it that?

How can there be actual lack while that is happening?

How can there be lack,

when this organism works?

i appreciate.