I think there are two issues in one here. The first is that I think that this relates to what y’all talk about when you refer to getting “all of your being” on-board. It feels like I’m split here. There’s a part of me that’s fearful.
I’ve been examining this topic lately and it’s hard to find the objections. The one I keep coming back to is, “it’s weird” and the more I dig into that the more silly it seems. You may recall when I visited you a short exchange we had. I believe we were talking about an experience of sweetness that occurred to a handful of people at the same time. I said something like, “The universe is so weird,” and you corrected me saying that, “It’s the human condition that’s weird.”
I have things 180-degrees backwards here, because even a brief examination of the human condition reveals it’s perverse. It’s so easy to project oneself onto actuality and find blame where there is none.
The second issue is this “being on the lookout.” Since starting the method, I’ve been more aware of how I’m feeling, thinking, etc. I think about PCEs and immolating every day. At times as I swing more into the direction of feeling gooder and gooder, “I” can get excited and then slip into reverie.
I’ve been catching it more, and writing about it certainly helps to recall.
I remember in your video with Richard the two of you talking about the absolute end of everything. Was oblivion on your mind back then? How were you relating to it at the time?
After the PCE and when I thought that I must die, even though I knew it wasn’t to be a physical death, it felt like the absolute end of everything. But that seems like a trick - because immolation isn’t the absolute end of everything. Life continues on. The body continues on.
I guess I wonder if you ever resolved that fear of oblivion or if instead you took that leap of faith. Maybe it looks like a mix of two. I wonder if the immanence of immolation at that moment brought this resistance up.
This fear of oblivion feels like what I am at the core. I understand this echoes Richard’s language, but I can remember a few years before my PCE lamenting to an enlightened guy that all I am is fear. A fear-driven problem solving machine.
To me, it’s like resolving this fear would mean immolating altogether. But I can see that there’s more room in the meantime for naivete. There’s room to contemplate and lean into the fact that it is actually safe here. Fear seems to be why we lose touch with naivete and fear seems to birth control.
I had a chat with my girlfriend a few days ago about death/oblivion. She mentioned she wasn’t so much scared of oblivion but rather the prospect of suffering - ie. a painful death. I agreed that I felt the same way.
But reflecting on this, I can’t help but to wonder if I am tricking myself. I suspect that if I were in a painful situation, I’d still rather live than die to relieve my suffering.
To me, the issue of oblivion seems like a big deal - like if I could resolve it, there’d be nothing left to keep me around.
My experience of this thusfar is that I don’t have the ability to immediately control how I feel. In the moment, feeling the fear can dissipate it, but returning to feeling good is a more gradual movement.
Can I eventually flip it on like a switch and just choose to be whatever feeling I want? Or is it a matter of realizing, for instance, that if one can be fear/sadness/aggression than one can also be happy/harmless/joyful and choosing to figure out how to spend more time as the latter than the former?
Like with the previously mentioned reverie - I can catch myself doing that, and see that I’m back in this habit that leads nowhere. Then I’m back on track to being happy/harmless. But I can’t necessarily choose from that point to start feeling excellent. Or can I? If that’s the case, why not choose to go into a PCE or immolate?