Syed
The three layers are thoughts, feelings and emotions. By observation and asking the right questions, the thought layer gets empty, and we watch the drama without getting pulled into.
We get to the second layer, observe and feel the waves rise and fall and these waves could pull you back into the old track. It takes some time to master this stage.
Emotions stir the thought-feeling energies movement. When the emotions run, we have a great opportunity to watch these three layers interact, but we also risk getting pulled back into our old patterns.
Let’s say we have a pain body, have some past attachments, and we start investigating. Once we reach the root of the problem our mind becomes silent, there are only feelings, and we see how everything is connected.
When we feel lost the thoughts keep running. When the emotions take over, I shake things up and try to break free from the old patterns and see how to detect these foggy feelings beneath the surface.
Step by step we became empty, become clear and connected.
Christian
Thoughts, feelings and emotions are certainly entangled. I always refer to thought-feeling energy, indicating that those two come in pairs.
Michael
I have moved back to the “I am” methodology as I realized that 99% of my thoughts and emotions are not helpful. Don’t identify with your thoughts and emotions. Memories are gone. It is us who are holding on to them. Send them love and move on.
Why to do self-inquiry? Both Socrates and Ramana Maharshi advocated them. That’s a pretty strong endorsement. There is nothing in the external world that can bring happiness; only finding it within gets us fulfillment.
Corinne: I am on both ends of the spectrum. I am super-connected with my feelings, but I am equally linked to the intellect. Yet there are times when the emotions take over and there is little I can do about it.
For me it’s about finding the balance between the heart and the mind. Finding the distance and assuming that I am probably not responsible for everything that happens is a good start.
John
The vast majority of spiritual seekers want to create some distance to the thoughts, feelings, emotions. They are all linked together. They all rise into our conscious awareness. We can’t stop them, and we are aware of how disruptive they are to our general sense of peace and our ability to react in a measured way. Self inquiry enables us to create that distance. We are operating in the background watching them arising, even in some very emotional moments. After a lot of practice, we have the choice to stay in the background. There are many different methods to get to this stage, but eventually we have to find the one that sticks.
Mindfulness is the starting point. Everyone can do that. Eckhart Tolle has many talks on this. Be in the moment. Don’t project. Watch what you are doing and thinking, and then the next stage is recognizing where you are watching it from. You are watching it from the background. Then you can look at the background and that is self inquiry.
Christian
The way Ramana Maharshi puts it, at the end of the questions, the questioner disappears, which is a difficult feat to accomplish. A simpler technique is to always have an eye on the agenda. Who is giving this speech? Is an agenda giving it, or is there a true inquisitiveness, a true sharing of ideas. Sometimes having an agenda is ok, but always knowing why something is being done or happens is already a big accomplishment.
Syed
Emotions are the energy that shape our thoughts and feelings; there are the basic emotions and the modified emotions like shame or guilt. We need to transform these emotions into nothing. With this transformation we have more energy, we become more alert and present. Some people are fearless. They have access to that energy that otherwise is being consumed by fear.
I consider myself an emotional person too, but I have let go of a lot of stuff. We have to transform those energies.
Christian
This transformation is a big undertaking. It’s a different energy that becomes available to us. If we are extremely jealous, extremely angry or greedy, there is also enormous energy. It’s just much more destructive. Stepping out of these energies we become an entirely different person, and that’s what the self inquiry and spiritual inner work is all about.
Syed
I draw a circle around this jealousy and keep inquiring until I find out what’s truly going on, and when you become jealous again you simply watch it but it doesn’t get to you quite the way it did before. The energy is not different. It moves from dark to light.
Corinne
If there is good energy and bad energy, let’s say anger versus happy, is it our goal to become happy or to become neutral that the anger doesn’t affect us.
Syed
There is a third way. Observe the good and bad. When we observe from now, we realize something deep. It’s a different view.
Corinne
Something that we consider bad, like fear or anger, may occasionally be a good thing.
John
As the observer, seeing from the background, then you are in a peaceful state. You can respond rather than react. Occasionally, very rarely, anger is the right response. As the observer, you know that if anything arising is egoistical, you let it slip. The key thing is the neutral position in the background. It almost becomes a habit. We can create the habit of mindfulness, that’s us watching thoughts and feelings. Be in the background until it becomes habitual, and don’t be disheartened when you get pulled into thoughts, feelings, emotions yet again. Somebody is bound to push your buttons and it is ok.
Christian
Every moment properly perceived is either an opportunity to co-create or to revisit a “me, myself and I” energy. John uses the expression background, witnessing consciousness is another one or my favorite expression, acting awareness. It is because of our presence that things happen the way they do without our self involvement. Whereas, when we are pulled back from the background there is something lingering that life wants you to face.
The duality that Syed and Corinne mentioned, it’s easy to say that we can sit in the background realizing the neutral energy. I would say instead that we have to earn the seat in the background. We have to dive into the duality and get our hands a bit dirty to gain access to this seat. When we truly get the yin and yang, as Corinne mentioned, a moment of tough love maybe exactly what the doctor ordered, but if we really get the duality at work, that’s how we earn the seat in the middle of the circle watching the world spin. Teaching ourselves to be calm even though we want to explode, or to meditate 20 minutes a day, is a method. These methods might be very useful. They may make us much better off, but they are not quite the real thing.
John
Michael, what’s the reason why we do self inquiry? Ultimately, what is the end goal?
Michael
I want to understand myself.
John
That’s your answer but it is not the answer.
Syed
Self inquiry is an interim state.
John
That’s why we start it. That’s how we get to the observer. But once we are there, we understand what the true ultimate reason of self inquiry is.
Christian
We pee the onion; we peel it, until are curious what we find after all the peeling is done.
Michael
It’s Self with a capital S that appears when the peeling is done.
John
Michael’s answer is right for him, and that’s what everyone believes, but there is more. Actually, you won’t believe me when I tell you the answer. It’s beyond believing. It’s beyond any imagining. It’s impossible to express. It’s end of the individual self.
The dissolution of the self in the Eckhart Tolle way is a temporary experience, and we cannot experience from our temporary experience the eternal. When people say, “At the end of the dissolution process there is the Self, I had that in moments.” No, you haven’t! It cannot be expressed, and that’s why Ramana Maharshi is one of the very select few. Who knows how many truly enlightened souls there are. The majority of those who have gone beyond the individual self and come back from it have probably never even been heard of. We cannot possibly know until it is our eternal state. Anything temporary cannot possibly it no matter how beautiful and wonderful the experience is.
Christian
I take no issue with any of this next dimension that opens up for a select few, but I would remind that for many of us the feat of being here and now is already a big step up from the state of the conditioned self, and working towards that lower dimension may be all that we are presently able to. When we get our arms around the workings of duality it is a big step up for someone who is deeply jealous, deeply angry, deeply conditioned.
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