Dear Francis,
Experience is that there appears there is only an approximate locality for this ‘I’ that I used to be called ‘me’. This ‘I’ exists as a spaciousness that appears as both empty and full - I can’t find ‘me’ anymore.Can you elaborate on this empty/full dichotomy?
This loss seems like a very welcome relief/release yet since this occurance experience is also that of a profound vulnerability that can at times highlight certain features of my remaining character.This helplessness appears strange at times. I feel like one of those cartoon characters who runs off a cliff and remain in the air still running dispite the knowledge that there is no ground beneath them….. I guess I felt that this loss of a ‘me’ would magic the manifestation of ‘this life’ into a more obviously ‘blissful’ and balanced state? I guess this continues to develop…. any clues from yourself?
Warmest regards,
Michael
Dear Michael,
If you describe it as a vastness, or as a fullness, or as an emptiness, you are still superimposing objective qualities onto that which is not an object. The guru may use for instance such qualifying words and images in his teachings, but they are never final. Their purpose is the removal of other preexisting superimpositions, the word “fullness” being used, for example, to remove the disciple’s preexisting objectification of the Self as “emptiness” . It is therefore only normal that you encounter such apparent “dichotomy” as you try to describe to yourself or to others the reality of your experience.
How can you say that you have lost your “me”, since your “me” is very present in this moment, aware of these words you are reading? If you are saying that there were two “me”s, the“I” that perceives and the “me” that used to be perceived and has been lost, you are obviously the former, since the latter has disappeared and is therefore no longer a valid candidate to be “you”. The problem is that there are at any time many other potential candidates to be you (all perceived objects). What would be interesting would be, not to loose your “me”, but to find it in a way that forever invalidates any of the other potential candidates and, having found it, to get firmly established in it, in the knowing of it, in the loving of it, and in the perceiving of it in all the forms, gross and subtle. Only in the finding of your true Self and your subsequent establishment in it can you find the peace and happiness you seek, not in the loosing of one of your false identities.
Love,
Francis
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