Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

Hi Master Ed


thanks for the continuous help through your website..It is a blessing. There is something I feel compelled to tell you, I hope you can give me some directions..


the last month I spent a 3 weeks holiday on a foreign country by myself, I was there working on a  photo project that required making interviews.


Most of them were sad tales about life and during them I got emotionally involved with the people
I was interviewing. At the end of my trip I went throught an emotional breakdown... my body was numb and I could barely walk/eat for 2 days. My body/mind was like in a storm....as a witness I experienced the "I feeling" struggling from the desire to change the events I was witnessing.


After 2 days the storm passed away and I was back on my feet...


But something has been missing ever since...the "I" feeling seems to be subsided.


There is a constant experience of emptiness, silence and peace even if the consciousness keep moving and changing.


Following the advice you gave Raji I started to include two 20 minutes (or more) session of meditation
during my days. My body naturally let this happen, I sometimes seems to have to make effort in order 
to keep my body/mind from naturally falling in meditation ( the body freeze ) while working during the waking state.


During meditation there is no effort involved...
consciousness play in front of me and subside on Its will, I stand apart  and from a silent and peaceful
standpoint witnessing happens. There is no entity involved...and there are no words for defining this state.


During witnessing, in meditation or during the waking state, there is no feeling of joy arising...but a a feeling of sadness.


It naturally arise from the witnessing of an ever changing consciousness...a consciousness bound to suffer
from It's incapacity to find peace, where every form It assume is bound to struggle and finally die.


There is no identity able to do anything about it....and all this show is too much and sadness mixed with love, for 
all this struggling forms, spontaneously arise.


Often there is a feeling of wanting all this to disappear forever....the waking state feels too sad to witness,
and I naturally feel the inclination to be in deep meditation.


I pray for your directions...


with gratitude


M.


RESPONSE:


Yes, as Robert often said, this world is the lowest hell. Only an idiot would want to stay here too long.


However, the more you practice, you see that the world and you as a human are unreal, and your real nature is beyond all this.


There is a happiness resting in oneself no matter what is happening outside.


No guru ever lived a very long life except Nisargadatta who lived to be 82 I think. Most died in their 60s and 70s. They don't want to stay, but they are always happy because they do not identify with the play. You do.


You need to find the witness and identify with it.


Ed


TO ME:


35 Days Later:


Hi Master Ed


I hope to be blessed by your guidance once again.


I have difficulties to express my state at the moment but I'll try to be concise and clear about it.


Days are passing and I have no memory about them. Around me things are happening but I am not experiencing them directly....witnessing  has no subjectivity anymore. 
The predominant feeling is peace while everything happen...but there is nobody feeling it.


This is a constant feeling during my waking state and the mind flow happens without breaking it. I noticed that I don't seat for meditation as before but it just happens sometimes.


There are still moment when my body feel sick or it is disturbed by something... but this is happening without the interference of a personality. It is just part of the continuous movement and change in the waking state experience.


In the meantime life is going on as before but I lost interest in everything... sometimes I get passionate about something but soon this feeling subside and I have no more 
interest in it. 


I hope you can guide me.

Thank you
M.




P.S. sorry for my english...It is my second language and I am not really good in it.




RESPONSE:


M.


Whatever you are doing is correct.


Where you are is very good.  You describe well. I understand perfectly.


You are going beyond the world to your true state.


Don't be afraid.


However, it would help to sit for formal meditation until you have gone all the way.


Ed