INVISIBLE GURU FORUM

I have a couple questions that have been bothering me for a while now but first, a little about myself.  I read your books many years ago and it got me contemplating truth and just beliefs in general ever since.  This is actually quite the understatement since it led to many epiphanies that came and went like everything else, never really creating any lasting impressions even though they really seemed like they would at the time.  One day I sat in meditation and for the first time ever, watched as every aspect of my mind began to slowly dissolve.  After only about 5 to 10 minutes of thoughtless focus there was no me anymore, just awareness itself.  It was, I must say, the best experience I've ever had.  It was as if someone through a bucket of water over me after being on fire my whole life.  But I came back, slowly, after about an hour or so, with some residual, uh, "blankness" for a day afterward.  I think the Buddhist monks had a word for this but I forget what it is.  Did I visit T/R?

P.S.   I had to edit this a bit.  200 word rule and all.

And...further, I take it?  Speaking of which, I'm actually a little confused as to how the whole "spiritual autolysis" thing works so I created a scenario in my head a couple weeks back.  It's me, a french guy and chinese person all sitting along a round table with a ball in the middle.  I pick it up, drop it and call it "gravity".  The french guy exclaims, "la gravite" and the chinese dude says, "Zhongli" (thank you, google translate).   Different words to describe the same thing, but we all perceive the same force, the same event of the ball falling.  I could repeat this with millions of different people from different cultures and languages but we'd still all perceive the same thing, even though the word itself, no matter what the word is, is just made up.  To me that solidified the concept itself, even though I no longer believe in the word, "it" is still true.  Or...at least it was solid.  I contemplated the term for a couple days and started thinking about what I really know in this scenario.  Do I know for sure that everyone will perceive the same thing?  I think they would, but I can only believe it, I can't know it, not for absolute %100 certainty anyway.  Since then, "gravity" has become a little less solid and a little more, uh, fuzzy, if ever so slightly.  So, Jed, am I doing this right or am I just intellectualizing myself in circles?

It's all stories anyway.  Long drawn out bullshit leading nowhere, which, I guess means it really doesn't matter whether I get anywhere in this process since I'll eventually be dead and then, voila!, freedom.  But that's just another story I guess.  Still, it begs the question, which path is the most optimal; The clawing, teeth gnashing madness of monomaniacal spiritual autolosys until you've just burned everything down, including the debris?  Or should I just relax, breathe and take it all in equally until it kills "me" one way or another?

Except if there's no me then there's no one to make that decision and is therefore of no consequence either way.  It's just a bunch of stuff happening on its own.  An existence being lived by no one and with no one there who/what can say what is or isn't.

So, just two people lying to each other about nothing and for no reason.   But I guess lying seems like the right thing to do right now so I guess it'll just have to happen.  This is an odd place to be for me, kind of like having one foot out the door into the void and it's created a kind of oil and water feel.  I guess truth doesn't mix well with the endless lies.  On the bright side, I've dropped a lot of drama from my life.  I used to be terrified of what people thought of me and was very shy.  Then this all happened and for a while I just didn't want to talk to anyone cause I knew it was pointless, depressing and caused me to withdraw.  Now, I kinda just don't give a **** and just let the words come out much of the time.  To my surprise I've found that I can actually be a rather jovial, quirky thoughtful person.  Imagine that.  Maybe I never knew me.  Hopes, dreams, beliefs, personality traits, etc...maybe they just exist for their own sake and have nothing to do with me.

Well, to say that I've completely stopped caring about others' opinions is a bit of an exaggeration.  I still care a little every once in awhile depending on what's going on.  The thing is, I never really used a method to get over that aspect of myself.  It was just a weight that I eventually got sick of carrying around.  Or maybe I just lost the energy to keep it up.  But it's better this way.  I'd rather be surrounded by enemies and not care about their opinions than have dozens of friends while always being nervous and trying to keep up appearances.   In any case, I think this is taking me a little off track.  Frankly, I don't know if I'll be writing to you much more since I seem be getting low on questions and to be honest, I'm in a very "I don't know" kind of place right now.  It seems like everywhere I look around, the less I see, every question I ask the answer doesn't make sense and yet everything seems to happen like clockwork anyway.  Maybe this is waking up.  Or maybe I'm losing my mind.  Course, I was never all that bright and haven't been sleeping well for the last few weeks so maybe I'm just getting really stupid.

There is something that has been weighing on my mind for close to a year now.  Or maybe I should say my body since I understand this stuff well enough in my head but I never really did the work so my body still doesn't get most of it yet.  I've found myself in the habit of trying to find the me in each moment but it keeps slipping through my grasp.  Each moment in time it feels like I exist but what happens to me after that?  The person that existed just a few minutes ago when he was at a red light is no longer there.  He was immediately replaced by the person who put his foot on the pedal and drove off.  Every experience, every new moment it feels like that person is destroyed, annihilated and replaced by someone else doing, thinking something else.  It's as if each "me" in each instant in time is just a page in an infinitely long book.  I wish I could say I was ok with this but whenever I think about it its very disconcerting.  I keep trying to hold on to a "me" but it just seems to die every instant.  I can't find a lasting "me" and it is scary.

Double hmm.....