INVISIBLE GURU FORUM

*reading above*

Sorry, that was all a bit flowery wasn't it?  Here's why I'm here.  I have the feeling I may have something in me which could lend itself to seriousness about TR....or, at the very least, about making some sustainable gains into HA.....but I have trouble with the "sustain" part.  I've dabbled, in my own personal efforts, and like the "taste" of it...I like the way "it" feels when I'm honing in on consciousness, pure and simple.  I like the energy and intensity and, even, the intermittent sense of awe of it, at the most unlikely-est of times...awe at the way things feel just living and breathing around me...things previously taken for granted.  So, I've done some work....I've seen and felt and have cultivated something of a value for what it is I'm after...why I'm here.   But, I must say it....I historically suck at sticking to anything.  It may very well be an insoluble flaw...my laziness...my lack of sustained interest.  But there's only one way to find out.  To give it the best possible shot and see what happens. 

Brass tacks....nice!

Ok, here's what I want.  I want you to help me learn to sustain focus...until I burn through.  Until I cut through to the empty core.  I think I know how to focus....or, rather the kind of focus necessary....I think.  I've been dabbling with that focus for many years now, and it's time to quit f*cking around, is what something inside me is saying.  I've been playing around with that focus..and, yes, it certainly can bring some of the more fringey/outrageous aspects of Maya's amusement park to light...some cool experiences, which I've enjoyed.  But, the truth of it is that I know why I've been introduced to that focus...and it's to use it to cut all the way through.  I just don't know how to gather the inner fortitude/fierceness or whatever necessary to focus on bringing that blade down, again and again, to that spot through which a merciful kill will result. I make a few determined hacks...and then, soon shy away to indulge, for "a little while longer" in the solace of the self.  I wake up for a moment....to soon roll over, flip over to the cool side of the pillow, and then go back to sleep.  I've done this about a billion times.....and I'm afraid of myself....how good I've gotten at it.....going back to sleep.  Distraction is my nemesis.... and it's kicked my ass for years.  Can you help me find a way to sustain that focus necessary to cut through?  I don't know how to get past what's been thwarting me for so long

Tried Supressitall.....gave me the trots  

Guess I'll have to do it the old fashioned way....the axe grinding way.  But wait.......Yes!!!  I've had that impression...about using distractions in a more intelligent way....to use the  transmogrifier instead of fighting with them head on, beating my head against the wall.  To transform them from the inside out....or something like that....*BOINK!*  I'll try that for awhile.  I really want to make a run at this....and I can't do the whole SuperZen-sit-and-stare-at-a-wall-until-it-all-dissolves approach.  I have try to do this amidst all the stuff I've become embroiled in.....job, husband/father-hood....the typical American life stuff.

Have you every had anyone cut through right smack in the midst of their "daily lives".   Without leaving everything to go sit on a farm in Iowa?  I guess I just want to know that it can be done

Quit before I'm finished...and move on to the next thing...and the next..and the next.  I think I get it....stay moving, all the while taking that adaptable, "welcoming" yet sustained focus with me from "thing" to "thing".  Embrace the compulsion to distraction...with my awareness.  And transform it with that embrace.

ha HA!  That's genius!   Totally fits my style, which is ADD to the max.  Which just means that I like near constant movement of my attention from this to that (which is why I get into video games, which is often one of those distracting elements when I sit and play in it too long)

I'm stoked, man!....thanks a bunch   I've found a good place here, to give it all the best possible chance.  I've got to work within my tendencies.....and find a way to sustain my focus within that to hone a discipline that doesn't feel compelled to try to force it through boredom....even though boredom, I guess, is inevitable every once and a while

Anyways, I will give this a go...this technique.  Can I report findings here...kind of chronical progress?  Or should that be kept private and elsewhere, saving this place for questions?  Whatever you want here, I'm game. Thanks again, mon frère.  Love to you!

Ok...so experimenting a little today with my task.....kind of rolling it around, goofing off with the dials...calibrating here and there.  Setting aside time to sit and gaze and just kind of focus in on the substance...the meat...of consciousness.  I used to time these silent sessions, to get a daily quota under my belt or whatever....but now I see a new way (thanks Jed!)...sitting still for a bit and then when the urge to move comes in, get moving...but the intent is to keep that central consciousness front and center and kind of observe where it wants to go when it wants to get away.  What is it?  That's kind of the question that's the impetus behind the focus....where is it coming from?  My awareness....awareness?  Where is it?  It just seems to be kind of here...so I'll just try to sit right smack in the middle of it and stay here...see what happens.  Need to go play some Battlefield 4 on my Playstation....get a sense of movement...doing something...getting busy, even if only by remote control?  Go for it...but keep that central inquisitiveness at play while I'm playing....the "what is it" of my awareness...the form and shape of it.  The buzz of it.  Need to sprawl on the floor, if I'm whipped...dead tired?  No probz.  Sprawl I will do...but I can take that endeavor to awareness with me, right there on the floor.  Doing chores?  Going to work?  Interacting with my wife and kids?  Anywhere...ANYwhere.....the question goes with me, right here and now.  What is it?  What IS it?  What is this?

I remember when I was a kid, I would pick a word, sitting there in my room...and I would say that word over and over and over again...sometimes out loud...sometimes silently within.  And, pretty soon, the familiarity....the feeling of meaning of the word....would start to unravel...and it would create the strangest sensation, that unraveling.  Sometimes I would do it while staring at my reflection in a mirror....and the same would happen in terms of a sense of familiarity with the "me" I saw in the mirror.  It kind of freaked me out....but, then again, I kind of like that sensation of being freaked out in that way...the sense of being grounded in the self suddenly start slipping away.

The focus I'm after maybe has something to do with that game I played as a kid...but instead of a word....or my reflection.....I want to play that game with the whole feeling of the self....the sense of encapsulated consciousness that feels familiar within comfortable boundaries.  Just hone in on, over and over and over and over and over again, that awareness of self...until it unravels.  I want to see what's under the covers

So, today...playing with that...but loosening up the whole parameters of "my practice" and what that's supposed to look like.  I'm all over the place.....so then all over the place is where I'll practice..where I'll focus that questioning awareness.

Dear BG: Yes, you are here for the time being and it will benefit you, I hallucinate. You will benefit from letting to, non-attachment to both bliss and bad feelings. Each a trap in itself. None better than the other. Go to the other side of both and start small. It's a bit of a muscle that we have never developed well. Love ya, Jed.

Thanks Boney:

Keep in mind, fear is just the manifestation off resistance. Watch, listen and learn, but not from me, from you.

Love ya, Jed.