Claudiu: It has really struck me and dawned on me experientially that I am nothing but feelings.
For past few days while working I’ve noticed feeling of being driven, of pushing, this has felt different from working in the past where I would just be working and not noticing this feeling per se. Now I wonder if it’s not that anything has changed in terms of what I am feeling, but my perception of it has changed, as a result of the latest PCE on the rock face. IOW that which had been more subconscious is now conscious. I would certainly know I’m driven in the past too but it felt different now.
And as I sat and contemplated about it yesterday I realized that this is literally who I am, I am these feelings, in this case the driven feelings. I am just one feeling after another, this is it, there’s no me that is separate or different from the feelings, no me at the center. In other words it is only an illusion that there is a me different from the feelings – I know you wrote, Vineeto, that this is confusing me but I’m not sure entirely how it is the case?
Hi Claudiu,
“That I am nothing but feelings” is a useful experiential insight – usually people experience themselves as one feeling or the other and when the feeling is strong and persistent they say there is ‘nothing but sadness’ or ‘nothing but love’, yet without the full recognition that ‘I’ am indeed nothing but my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. It’s also the very recognition that allows the choice from being sadness, for instance, to being felicity.
Claudiu: It’s different than in the PCE of course, in the PCE there just never was a ‘me’ in the first place. I do feel myself to exist now, but I am seeing that I’m just the feelings one after the other, nothing besides this. It is taking a bit of time for it to sink in but I can already see the benefit, there is nothing really at stake if I am nothing other than these feelings. Another way to put it is everything is at stake, these feelings is all that I am haha… but what I mean is it seems it will become more clear that nothing of value will disappear when I disappear, no one will die, it will only be an illusory death, so there is more confidence to proceed (have to go with where I am at even though in the PCE it was all perfectly clear to actual Claudiu lol).
It was only a suggestion of mine to watch out to not inadvertently “transfer information gained from apperceptive seeing during a PCE into the passionate realm of ‘me’ – what Richard had called from “3D-stunning” to “one-dimensional thought””. (link)
Even though you say that “there is nothing really at stake”, “nothing of value will disappear”, “no one will die” and “it will only be an illusory death”, this evaluation is not sufficient for self-immolation to eventuate.
These passions are nevertheless your very survival passions –
Richard: … it is the instinct for survival that got you and me and every other body here in the first place. We peoples living today are the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes … we are the product of the ‘success story’ of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Is one really going to abandon that which produced one … that which (apparently) keeps one alive?
Do you recall those conversations we had about loyalty (familial and group loyalty) back when you and I first met … and what was required to crack that code?
That was chicken-feed compared with this one. (Richard, AF List, Vineeto, 30 Sep 1999).
Only altruism (survival of the species) is the more powerful instinct to overcome selfism (survival of self) – and even a “nothing of value” self passionately wants to survive –
Richard: Speaking personally from experience, eventually – and ultimately – all the instincts are undone instantly via psychological and psychic ‘self’-sacrifice. This is, purely and simply, altruism at its very best … and altruism’s energy is an instinctual passion (this is indeed hoisting oneself by one’s bootstraps … writ large). However, until the initiation of the process that leads to ‘self’-immolation is consciously triggered – whereupon the ending of ‘me’ happens of its own accord – one can become acutely aware of the operation of the instinctual passions as they are experienced moment-to-moment. It is but the same ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ investigation of beliefs and feelings … only extended deeper into one’s psyche. (Richard, AF List, Mark, 18 May 1999).
Claudiu: The upshot is I can fuel all this powerful and passionate affective energy into the propitious direction towards felicity and naivete. Instead of trying to stop or calm down this drive, it’s more about redirecting this same energy with equal (or even more) potency into being felicitous and naive, this is clear now. (link)
Yes, and this is wonderful.
Now the only (open) question remains – who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to?
Cheers Vineeto