Author Topic: Do you have a body? Seriously... let's explore that....  (Read 4303 times)

Jenci

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It's so simple. it's just obvious.

Why is that not my experience though ??? ??? Everything i believe is not real.

The experience is not real but the experiencer is trying to get it, trying to understand. It's hurting my head that something so simple is so complicated for me.

Jed McKenna

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Hi Jenci:

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your contribution. You are contemplating these matters in a way that I approve of... and your concluding question is good, but there is no answer to any 'why' question. All answers are made up after the fact.

I sometimes watch the price of gold, it interests me and I think it's indicative of certain worldly situations, but I often note that all the predictions are not predictions at all. They are self-serving-after-the-fact and selected in an effort to make sense. Yes, gold just went up because of blah, blah, blah, just fill in the blank. All 'why' questions are the same. Reasons are made up by a mind in an effort to explain something that has already happened... when in truth, there is no reason at all. The only honest answer to a 'why' question is 'because' or 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'. Anything other than that is just made up.

This is not a minor matter. It is a rather profound point and once you understand it, you can take it even further. The application of 'why' questions, usually have as it's root, a desire of the questioner to attach blame for something, to appear smarter than another or in order to stop another party from thinking clearly.

'Why' is one of Maya/ego's favorite words and it serves the purpose of separating and duality. If you want to ask a good question, ask 'how' questions and you will learn, relate, and generally be a wiser person. The reason for that is 'how' questions reveal how something happened and promote understand, plus the possibility to change something. It lack the guilt-attaching nature of 'why'.

Much love and stay health... why? Because.

Jed.

Jenci

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So if I say, why can't this be my experience, I am creating otherness and any answer has to just re-enforce that separation, by its very nature. No wonder it is such a struggle. I feel it physcially.

Thanks Jed. I shall give the whys and the hows some contemplation.

Jed McKenna

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Excellent Jenci, I enjoy your openness and willingness. You can always write back and tell me what you experience. Never forget, any research in the field of 'you' is only about 'you' and no one else. I sometimes call it constructive selfishness.

Love ya, Jed.

Jenci

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Why has that plant only got flowers on half of it? Why is combative and resisting. Suggests there is a problem.

How did that plant flower like that? How is more open, in alignment. It flowers like that because that is just how it is.

Why do they always make me feel like that? Suggests blame is on them, nothing to do with me.

How is it that I always feel like this with them? How opens up an enquiry into how I am feeling rather than what they did to me.

Why have I got all this stuff left over? Why says I am to blame, it's problem and I need to solve it.

How has this happened that I am left with all this? Maybe there is a reason that I am not aware of yet. How opens up the possibilties. Maybe it is not a problem and the solution will be revealed if I am patient.

Why is a question that I can ask when I already know the answer but the mind is being deliberately obtuse so it can hide behind a lie when I really know why that has happened but the mind doesn't want to face the reason. So why keeps the question in play and the situation can remain in place until the next time and so on ....

Why is an easy question to ask. It's very habitiual and often gets asked before I even realise it. Why stands alone by itself and doesn't usually need a longer sentence.

How doesn't feel natural. I have to think about it. It doesn't seem to work with just the word How but needs a complete sentence.  Maybe that's because it is not habitual that it just seems odd. I have to really think about how to structure the sentence which begins How.

Jenci

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If I know the mind and the body are not real, why is my experience of them both real?

Why suggests there is a problem that I need to fix. Something has gone wrong somewhere.

Of course, I already know the answer. The mind is using why to hide itself. The mind and body is not real and Maya is threatened by that. No mind and body, no Maya. Maya has to create a problem to maintain her existence. Maya only exists in problems.

If I know the mind and the body are not real, how is it that I still experience both of them as real?

The mind (not real) is believing that the mind is real.

The thorn needs to remove the thorn but then both have to be thrown away.

How do I throw them both away?

If an imaginery dog came into the house, how would I get rid of it? Simple, i just stop imagining it. If I picked up the imaginery dog and put it outside, then I am playing along with the dream of the dog.

Any way the mind tries to stop believing that the mind is real, just re-enforces the imagination that there is a mind.

Something else has to be involved here which is not mind.....Or maybe not.  ???

Jenci

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Maya can only exist if there is a problem .

What if there is no problem?

What if the imaginary dog yapping at me, is not a problem?

Death_by_SallyD

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Yeah, that which precedes birth, succeeds death and through which this life appears and disappears, shifts and changes, grows and recedes.

Awareness.  Always and forever.

In meditation there was this progression once, after the body disappeared, into an dizzying array of ever shifting abstractions....organized/intelligent/frenetic but progressively less and less recognizable.  I never lost consciousness...I was awake...but eventually was cast into a state in which there were no reference points whatsoever.  Awareness was there, I know....but upon reemerging back into body, form, recognition of the elements of this dream....looking back, I couldn't remember what I experienced.  It was as if I blacked out.  Awareness was there.....but no reference points to recall.

Deep sleep is no different, is my feeling.  Course, I can't prove it

guest1907

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Does the body experience pain due to the ego? The ego is dominated by Maya. Is the body afraid of pain and fully serves the ego / maya?

Jed McKenna

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Hi Bek, thank you for your excellent questions. The ego wants desperately to survive and in order to do that, one or it's games is to habitually combine pain and survival. OMG, I have a lump on my butt... it must be cancer. Perhaps a minor cut is going to go gangrenous and leave you minus a limb. A toothache is definitely an impaction that will send toxins to your brain and give you galloping senility in your 30's. Yes, ego and Maya definitely contribute to bodily pain. Pain serves survival, but is always being hijacked for secondary applications. Once you discover there is no you, much of the 'sting' will have been taken out of pain because much of the sting is ego Mayaic add on.

Take care, and stay healthy.

Love ya, Jed.

Jenci

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Extensions of the body create a bigger sense of Mine and therefore a bigger sense of Me.

My house, my car, my clothes, all the things I own, my possessions.

My family, my friends, my neighbours. What they think about Me - My reputation. What concerns they have about Me.

All stuff external to the body which creates a bigger sense of Mine.

Internal stuff - My knowledge, my opinions, my beliefs, my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings. My aches and pains, My stories about me. The more the mind collects of these, the bigger the sense of Mine is, therefore the bigger sense of Me.

I once heard someone say that you can tell someone’s age and importance by the size of their bunch of keys. The more you own, the bigger the bunch. I have a large bunch of keys  ;D

I say it’s all mine. If it belongs to me, it cannot be Me. Thats two - Me and Mine. Both can’t be Me. That’s obvious. How can something so blindingly obvious be hidden for so long? How did the error originate, that I started assuming that everything that was mine, was actually Me?

It’s all subject to changes. Things come and go. Nothing that changes can be real. I think that I change - either grow or diminish - depending on the gaining or losing of anything I call mine. But is that true ? Is that another error that has been made?

Jenci

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I'm 52. My appearance has changed over the years. I look older, I have shrunk. I've got grey hair. How I think has changed. I don't really relate to younger people. Outwardly I appear to be a middle age woman. But inside, despite all the physical changes, I still feel like Me.

The same Me is here today as it was 30 years ago. From speaking to other people, I know this is common. When you are 20, you think 50 is old. When you get to 50, you feel the same as you were at 20 and wonder why you looked at people that way. I would expect the same applies when you reach 80.

Something stays constant. If the body - senses and mind - detects changes in the ageing process but the I still feels the same, then where is the I getting feedback from to get to that conclusion? It can't be the body.

Jenci

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My foot. Is that Me? Do I exist there?

No.

My knee. Is that Me? Do I exist there?

No. That's just silly.

What about this belly that I hate? Is that Me? Do I exist there?

Surprisingly no.

What about my head. Is that Me? Do I exist there?

The force is strong with this one!  Intellectually, if the other body parts are not me, then I know the head cannot be me but experientially there is a sense that I exist in the head.

There's a contradiction here. How do investigate that?

Ask again. This head, is this Me? Do I exist here?
 ???
 ???
No, I am more than that.

Jed McKenna

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Yes, the only conclusion can be... I am more than that.

love ya, Jed

Jed McKenna

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Slicing it even closer to the bone, there are two 'I am's' and that contributes to even more confusion, especially with Nis, as he doesn't differentiate. He take Truth and the ultimate 'I am' and then the personal sense of the self as what might be called the 'lessor I am'.

Give it some thought and share you ideas on that one. Otherwise, stick with your current search... excellent work.

Love ya, Jed