INVISIBLE GURU FORUM

Hi Jed and friends,

Blech, I don't know how I want to start this post. Can we just pretend I wrote something clever which said "I'm here! I'm interesting! I have some great perspectives and you should want to exchange yours with mine! " while maintaining a definitive air of self detachment? I'll trust that is acceptable so I can move onto other things.

First, since I only get one thread, I want it to have the best name... Check.

Next, thanks for the books. I've enjoyed listening to them a few times over. They taught me some good stuff. I like your technique of using dialogs to explain /demonstrate concepts. Let's me see how things might look from different perspectives a bit. That captain Ahab stuff is inspiring. The sea diddy that plays in the background during those parts is perfect. I'd love a book with just that and Julie's rants as she went through her process. Perhaps the whale's perspective could be included as well. Then again, if Ahab and Moby are used as a counterpoint for Julie and her phantoms maybe the whale shouldn't have a perspective at all... Except in Ahab's imagination! "harr matey. In that whale's calls I heard a distinct insult about my mother. Not to mention his gurgling sounds like peg-leg, peg-leg. He trolls me Starbuck." OK, I'll stop now. 

I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing here, but it seems like a good place to spend some time for me. I might try your online courses. I'll probably post some more stuff in here. It won't all be fluff, some of it may help me and perhaps others who struggle in the same ways that I might. I promise next post will be more than just an elaborate howdy.

No I'm not on social media. I do have a Facebook account but I really don't use it. I have never had a Twitter account or anything like that either. I have posted some on a couple casteneda related boards under this name. I don't think I'm allowed to post links here but if you Google you should be able to find a couple forums I've posted regularly in if you'd like.

lol, Well I am insane, but I think I'm a lot less insane than normal people.

As to my purpose here, mainly I'm just trying to progress on my never-ending quest for POWER!, ( over my own life ). This quest requires me to talk with wise people and/or those with secret magic powers. I found some, and pestered them for a time, and a couple of them took pity on me and started teaching me about enlightenment and referred me to your books. I persisted, reading and learning in spite of myself, ( think "sure this enlightenment stuff is okay, but when are we going to start talking about plants Don Juan?" ). Somehow over time I became a wiser fool than I was, (no copyright infringement intended), and I feel I've made good progress towards my own enlightenment and magic powers. However, those whom I've known have gone their separate ways, busied themselves with life-stuff, and become much less accessible to me of late. So, I thought I'd look here.

Also, the timing seems right. I believe I'm at a crossroads. I'm going to quit my job in a month and maybe switch careers. This will free up time for more meditative and related practices. I wonder if the courses you offer here might be a good use of that time as well. Also, my energy has become different. I'm becoming more childish in good ways. Last weekend was the NFL season opener and I enjoyed the great plays by the opposing team as much as by my own. I focus on different qualities of sleep-energy as it's affected me. There's the detached, sober sleep energy that seems to come from behind the roof of the mouth, and then there's the more intense stuff around and behind the eyes that tries to make me close them and makes it hard to put my attention on anything other than sleep. My emotions seem to be a bit quicker and more intense than usual, but also much quicker to end. Also, I've been having more cool realizations of late. I don't have an example that wouldn't require quite a bit of typing so I'll not provide one unless you request it, but they pretty much always relate to how people think and perceive the world. So things are changing for me quickly and I'm thinking it might be prudent to have some more wise-seeming folk to chat with should I become lost when sailing these turbulent waters.

Well, since you've practically made it obligatory, Why?

Also and this is probably a stupid question, how do I improve at listening to my self?

Thanks Jed :-)

Hi Jed,
In another thread you recently agreed that after T/R there are no thoughts. That was new and surprising  to me and I'm going to consider it a moment, because it sounded interesting and I've been moving in that direction. I'll start with a few observations.

Observations
1. Thoughts affect my interpretation and experience of the world.
- If I feel an itch, I can think "Agh! It itches! It itches sooo much!" and that will increase the degree of itching sensation I feel. If instead I think "Meh" that will decrease it. The first prolongs the duration. "Meh" usually ends it quickly. My working hypothesis is that this is caused by bringing the experience more into my attention, (or vice versa, as in bringing my attention more into the experience. I think both interpretations are equally valid. For a long time I only did the latter, {not yet having conceived that there was another option}, but I'm trying to turn that habit around so I model it as an internal affair, at least for now), or pushing it away. I've tested this phenomena with other things as well; sensations of pain, taste, etc. and so far it has always shown to have an affect.¹ I've read accounts of others doing similar things and I've seen lots of them reporting similar results and no one really arguing that how they focused their attention didn't have any effect.
2. Thoughts are not required to interpret and experience the world.
- I'm using a definition of a thought as an idea comprised of words. I still experience the world when I'm not thinking. Actually, with the hope that readers will forgive me for thinking off the cuff instead of doing it before putting pen to paper so to speak, I'm inclined to think that my thoughts never experience the world directly but only interpret it, which is how they affect the experience. Likewise, images I generate in my head, (which in theory might include the images of the world I interpret as external, but I haven't experienced that yet... not fully), do not seem to directly experience the world but can have a similar impact to thoughts.

Possible conclusions
1. As I continue watching how words and images as pointers for my awareness, (and possibly nothing else), I'll eventually conclude that thought itself is pointless and a waste of time.
- This would likely mean that I'll find there are better tools I an use to accomplish what I attempt with thought. This seems to be what the idea "In truth realization there are no thoughts" means. If this is the case then when I express myself with words it could still sound like thoughts to others, (as Jed's words sound to me), assuming of course there are others. Furthermore this suggests that I ought to be choosy about what others-generated thoughts I give my attention too. Not in a self-censor-evidence-contrary-to-my-worldview way, but as a means of bringing experiences I prefer and avoiding those I'd rather avoid. If everything is all illusion, this is probably even moreso the case.

I may come back and work more with this later. Jed if you have anything to say about this I'd be interested in it. If not I hope you post it anyway so others might see it and I can come back to it, thanks.


Footnote
1 - At a couple points in my childhood I was subject to the brutal authority of despotic English teachers. Ending that sentence that way delights my inner child because I imagine those teachers would reflexively condemn that sentence for ending in "have an affect" instead of "have an effect". Since the dictionaries at that time, (and likely still), defined 'effect' as something like "resulting from a cause" and 'affect' as something like "impact", and since 'effect' is almost always the word meant after "have an ..." when the other option is 'affect', and since 'effect' does make sense in that spot I imagine those teachers would be quite confident in their wicked condemnation of my sentence. However, ending the sentence with effect would be a weaker point, and affect is what I intended. So neener, neener, English teacher. As to the rest of you, I acknowledge that my usage of run-on sentences and placing a parenthetical aside within a parenthetical aside was shamefully indulgent. I apologize for any pain this may have caused you. I hope my usage of color and other markups has helped make things a little easier to read.