Experiments are helpful for expanding and deepening our field of experience. Or at least they can be, when performed with an openness to whatever happens to happen. I invite all of us here to share our experiments in the ‘lab of self’ and, if appropriate, share our results.
Experiment: Moving towards the present moment
Normally our thoughts-feelings keep time traveling between the present moment, past moments (via memory), and future moments (expectation). Krishnamurti and others tell us that the present moment is the only truly real moment and that clarity and energy arise when you inhabit the present moment, i.e. when you are fully present.
- Get good sense of the time travels of your thought processes.
- Do whatever works to reduce time traveling and move towards present moment awareness. The extreme would be no past, no future, only now, can you get close to that?
- Observe the results and share (if you’re into it).
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How can i share when I’m there?
Can I still share when I’m not there?
I can only share my faillure for results!
I appreciate this approach so long as we are not being prescriptive - So, for example, when you say
there is a perhaps hint in it of method, of a desired outcome?
But if we take your suggestion in a spirit of pure experiment, then all that is being communicated here is to ‘slow down sometimes and find out what is taking place’ - right?
So we don’t need to have a particular motive or expectation with regards to outcome.
Then I can get onboard!
Then share that. Without pressure, share if you want to share. ?
By all means ‘tailor’ the experiment to your needs and understanding. What I was specifically going for is the experience of being on the crest of the wave of time, zero lag, razor’s edge! I think it’s utterly fine for you to use the guideline: ‘slow down and find out what’s happening.’ Good?
Question arises for me while doing the experiment: Does attention (as narrowed focus) bring time into the equation? For me it seems to, rather than ‘open awareness’ which doesn’t (or does less).
What is seen here is that in the moment, there is no ‘me’. There is no ‘room’ for the Me or ‘I’ that is the product (continuation) of the ‘past’…of thought.
Is there the sense of a center? Not a ‘me’ center, rather a concentration of energy? I’m not sure if there is for me, when I look for it the looking brings time in. But when I visit (via memory) the relatively timeless state I was in, there is a sense (real, imagined?) of centeredness.
The ‘center’ is the past. The center is thought? With the center or ‘me’ gone, even for a moment, you can see what he was trying to describe as ‘being in everything’?
But the thing I’m calling the ‘energy center’ feels like both a concentrated center and the totality.
The “concentrated energy” is the body / brain isn’t it? It’s what’s “exchanging with the environment: breathing it in transforming it and breathing it out…energy (food) coming in through the eyes ears skin nose mouth …processing it. The body is a center in that sense. A transformer?
Interesting to recall K saying that its death is a triviality!
What is it about the human being then, if anything, that isn’t part of the ‘triviality’?
Feels like it’s different from the material body-brain. Bigger, deeper. But I don’t know, and I’m aware that obsessing on it is likely to lead to confusion for me. I’ll stick with the fact that it’s what I feel from time to time when I’m present, and not worry if the feeling’s real or illusory.
I think that’s right, it’s very personal in a way and language, description is all over the place.
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Experiment: Feeling your self
- Find the feeling of what it’s like to be you. Go as deep as possible.
- Rest without time/analysis/judgement in that feeling.
- Take note of the results.
It’s surprisingly hard to find the felt-sense of ‘me.’ Maybe that’s because it’s too close, too present, and I think it has to be a struggle to find it. Or maybe it’s because ‘I’ is a subject and finding and seeing is reserved for objects. But if I stick with it I (sometimes) get there and it feels like home.
The moment I know there is no I, I is knowing, so I can never know when I am not. If the absence of I is recorded as memory, it’s the only way I can know I can be absent.
It may be that I can’t die until I is either too sick and tired of itself to continue, or I sees itself for the first and last time.
Is this like the fish that couldn’t see the water? Even though they really, really tried?
Sounds nice - do you mean that “feeling like this central first person experiencer” feels very familiar?
May be!
I would say it feels complete. It feels kind of like the source of me, and maybe more than me.
Feelings, be they good or bad, are usually a conditioned response, so why not be more skeptical than for or against?
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