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Jack
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Dear Jack,
I liked the discussion from last sunday on the witness. It reminds me of a kind of experience I have once in a while: when completely out of nowhere (while I’m for example just having a chat with a colleague, or cycling home), comes this feeling/experience of suddenly being extremely aware of the realness of the world around me together with a strong sense of ‘being in this world’. Not in an euphoric way but more in an existential way. When I read the chapter about the witness I was thinking about these type of experiences. This week I thought that in fact it feels a bit like those rare moments when you start to realize that you’re dreaming (lucid dreaming). Is there a connection/similarity between the ‘witness’ and ‘the recognition of being in a dream’ when lucid dreaming starts?
Or is this really something else?
Eric.
Dear Jack,
I just did my first trial of exercise #15, revising my memories, and instead of reaching any connection between past and present that could make them intaract more, I felt a strange feeling that my linear past is too much in my present. Not as a reference and construction of present but as a constrain of freedom to be. It is like a persistent line of ideas grasping my moves/ideas/opinions… even when I am trying to make different, to be fresh, this conceptual line of perspective is there in some forceful way.
And it reminded me of a situation that happened to me some months ago, when I was meditating… Without any reason I remembered a situation I had lived many years ago, which was too strong for me. But the scene came different from the one I have being repeatedly had as the memory… It was as another perspective, one I had never thought about, as filming from another direction the same situation, with the same actors…and it was quite clear to me I could access different views and feelings related to that situation seeing it from this diverse angle.
My question is: Could I had opened the “filter” of my memory of this situation when it came to me from another point of view I had never thought about, although I had talked much about this situation, even in terapy? Would it be a way to experience my past moment, free of some ideas, memories and pre-concepts attached to the memory of the moment? Or would it be another construction of memory?
Viviane
Hey Jack,
I have not got my phone link yet and was wondering about that. Hope you are well…
Looking forward to the conference call tomorrow…
much joy to you…
Moving in the direction of letting go of the urge to plan and structure seems valuable for you, at least at this time. It makes sense to me that this is so, because this is probably the part of the mind’s operation that the self identifies with most strongly. At least, that’s my experience.
Thank you Jack, your suggestion to relate my observations to time made a great change…as bringing other things together…
I started to see this situation of 2 mind directions in different contexts and as more recurrent (or I am more aware and including the second…?)
Like a second internal opinion or voice, that intuition seems to turn some of my plans, expectations, even decision open to change. I notice I start to feel less stressed with that, as more confident I can recognize it better and not miss-consider it as lazyness or distraction…
And it also seems to have open an interior space so that I do not feel that bad in arriving home with results diverse from what I meant to reach – elaxing and learning…good and new.
And finally, directly about time, it seems to me that when I am doing a strange sequence of activities, as a list I did not racionally organized, time goes smoother, sometimes even looking I work much faster…may be because I also feel less stress to keep in mind all things together, for linear situations – it is like things come from diverse directions, when and if they have to. I remember things that seems disconnected to what I am doing, that turn useful. And I forget things I was so worried about before, that in the end appear to be no necessary that time (as I told in previous post).
This is a response to Viviane’s question (really, it is more of a comment).
Viviane, your suggestion is that there is a self that makes plans and lists, and gets tense trying to accomplish all of that. But there is also another self that seems able to connect with a more intuitive.
The two levels you describe certainly seem right to me. I don’t know if I would link the second one to a self or not. We cannot speak only in black and white (self operating and no self operating). So maybe we could say it is a different level of the self that operates when intuition seems more active. But it goes in the direction of not having a self active at all. The ‘deeper knowing’ you describe may not belong to a self. That is the question to explore.
One way to explore this question, which is related to the readings we are doing right now, is to ask about the relationship you have to time in these different approaches. When you make a list, the relation to time, and to the clock, is very clear. But when you rely on a deeper knowing, what is the relationship to time then?
Dear Jack,
I was out of some classes, but I am trying to make the exercises and sometimes I am quite lost if my interpretations are going to the direction of the understanding of how self works. Could you comment a situation I was quite lost this week?
I had planned a sequence of activities in my work, concerned with time and responsabilities. During the day, although aware of the planned list, I worked in other way, which let me very tense. I was questioning who was the one deciding differently, who has the tension for not following the list…but in the end, it was clear to me that the list was related to a kind of convencional way to do things, and I was tense for not follow that. Nevertheless, it was like, in a deeper place I knew the way I did was related to prioritize what I really had to do first, what really mattered for that context. After the day, I could see some items of the list were not so important for that day…
This situation has happened somethimes before, and I wonder who is this “deeper” self, that seems to know more, and that is hard to connect to the other (why these diverse options of priorities, for instance, don´t come to my mind when I am deciding my list?), and I feel sometimes as being guided, like a moving body, with thoughts different of what I am doind, that stay complaining but has no strengh to stop an intention that I tend to consciously understand only after finished the tasks?
Viviane
Hi Tina
I’m not sure either. Keep trying every few minutes until the top of the hour. Maybe they have tech problems
David
Are we having a class today? I did not receive the usual email with a link, and last weeks link is not working.
Dear Jack and all,
Unfortunately I will not be able to listen in on todays and next weeks talk. I hope the recordings will succeed so I can listen in sometime later.
Next week I will be in Teheran by the time of the session on my way to Cambodja, so I will listen in if I can, but I doubt it.
Thanks for the new insights and I am looking forward to a new series of sessions next year.
Wish you all a smooth soltice and your “Selfes” a great start for 2010.
Thieu