Anton Rogachevski

Thoughts by themselves are real, yet their content, or rather story is of illusory nature. You will feel it one day when your awareness increases dramatically, it takes a lot of practice. The need to understand, accept, free yourself, is the need of the ego. The only way to be free is to inquire into the nature of it by self inquiry until the need to associate yourself with anything at all will dissolve. it's very hard for you to imagine after a lifetime of being a self, to realize that no such gadget is needed. The need to identify yourself with anything at all comes from that same need, the fear of losing identity. Although it is a good idea to connect to your body sensually, and being aware of it without calling this phenomenon by any name. your body is as real as it gets, and theoretically the only reality for you, but let not the beautiful concepts fool you into "thinking your way" into this state. I've caught myself doing it a lot after listening to beautiful ideas by Alan Watts : ) The fact that your awareness is actually the whole works, means that maybe you won't hear, but any other being will, but what separates you from them, even after death?

I would like to tell you about a technic I've developed for self inquiry. I haven't seen it anywhere and it came to me as a sudden insight during meditation. I won't take credit and all I want is for you to try it out and tell me about your experience. Breathe and get into the present moment let yourself sink in for a good 5 or 10 minutes. Now while letting the mind do it's thing try to capture the closest seperation you are experiencing. Good. Now find it's opposite and focus on both. Get a good feeling of them and now start alternating between them back and forth. You may speak it out loud or in your mind and see what happens. I imagined it like the yin yeng spinning at first and it felt like the seperation was slowly melting, slowly turning into a clear state of mind. The cool thing is that you can find a whole lot of them, and do those that feel most real and concrete to you. Here are some examples you may use: Self other Yes no True false Nothing something Someone no-one Inside outside Internal external Here there Everywhere nowhere Is isnt Being doing Reality imagination Existence non existence Voluntry involuntary Let go hold on Let be resist Let go control Similar different Unity seperation Reality illusion I hope you enjoy it as much as i did and reach new heights : ) At first i felt a little unsure if i should share and feared that it will be ignored and missed. But the thought it could bring benefit to someone really convinced me that i should post. Thank you so much for reading.

@Zephyr I believe what you are describing is mindful meditation, which is beautiful and i'm also practicing it : ) But the process i'm describing is a type of self inquiry, which is different in a sense that you are investigating actively into your own mind by asking questions. Watch Leo's video on how to become enlightened to learn more ; )

@brovakhiin Thank you for highlighting such an important matter for me : ) i guess having some experience in meditation allows you to get a sense of it. But interestingly enough when i say "nothing" to you, it's quite clear to you as a concept. The NOTHING you are talking about is something in between, and it's exactly what we might get a glimpse of by spinning these concepts. See that whenever you say no self, nothing, non existence you are quite sure that you know what i'm talking about and the fact that it's so, means that you are believing that you know what they are. this is the power of the grand illusion (maya) : ) Keep raising you doubt and keep asking and inquiring deeply!

so i will return your question and ask you this: how do you know for a fact that it's wrong. (also wrong-right what a tricky duality it is, let's add it to our list : ) the thing is that it's not impossible, but is that it's irrelevant in the first place, and arises out of a need to understand what cannot be understood. ask yourself, what is a "question" what is an "answer" are there even right answers? isn't it basically noise? It's good because it's useful to us. We as humans need conventions, so that we know for example where to meet. (although coordinates don't exist but just a measurement instrument glued onto reality) Thanks to it, i could tell you: "no don't go there it's a bad place." and isn't it wonderful that you would know what i'm talking about?

@Telepresent Imagine a back yard and a fence separating your side and your neighbor's side. Is the fence yours or is it his? Or are the two the different sides of a single fence. Also the other is always implied by the first. Lets say that saying that something is beautiful implies that there's also ugliness They are inseparable and in fact one, but our mind sees things as separate. I suppose it's an ancient mechanism of survival. For example the ability to separate objects from background gives us the abilty to identify them. But there's no real seperation. We see good and bad as things that might be beneficial or dangerous. It's a good thing, but as any other good thing too much of it is starting to cause confusion.

Through deep self inquiry it occurred to me that we as humans like our language and we give a lot of meaning to words. So when we try to get a good feeling of our presence it might be useful to know all the back doors through which the ego is evading our awareness. I'm working on a list of all the words that the ego will try to use in order to stay hidden. For example: "if im not I, then i am myself". Later this list will help you in the initial phase of getting in touch with the feeling of I So i ask for your insights into this by helping me expend my list. The many masks and backdoors of the false self: I Me Myself Someone Someone's Person Man Human Presence Being Conscious attention Experincer Preciever Awareness Thinker A body A mind Owner Organism Electrochemical activity Life Individual Thank you very much, i would love to hear your opinions and experiences : )

@cetus56 Like a father that left his children to play in the sand box. So we build castles of concepts to form new models of reality, trying to impress everyone, and hear that our castle is the best, and all others are stupid and suddenly an older kid comes and destroys it all. We keep building again and again throwing sand in the wind arguing which castle is better, mine or yours, until we get so tired of it. That we look aroud and see that we are in the most amazing amusement park we've ever seen.

@Ayla I think we are losing ourselves in words. The whole point of this post was to see that being attached to words can support confusion. Believe that belief is false. Just like the old paradox: This sentence is a lie. I think that the existence of such paradoxes in logic suggests it's falt. We transcend logic here. So let past be past : )

@charlie2dogs Anything I would say including this very sentence cannot be the right answer. As I said before I don't know that i don't know. Following this arises the question what is "to know"? Or can you know anything at all? But i guess we gotta keep asking till the mind is convinced that it can't answer. Mine still thinks it can so that persistence is what i would call ego.

I'm sorry if I offended you@charlie2dogs I see now that i misunderstood and had been neurotic. I think you should also know that i was offended.

@charlie2dogs Actually they are very good questions and they come to me when i inquire. The very act of asking depends on the illusion to be in tact. Besides, Who doesn't know? What is knowledge? Do you in fact KNOW that you don't know? Or rather don't know that you dont know that you.....

@charlie2dogs What's a question? What is what? What is is?

I believe i have stumbled upon an intresting contradiction, and I was wandering what's the missing piece. 1. If my s.o cheats, who is he cheating on? And who cheats (if the self doesn't exist presumably) 2. If i were to forgive, would i let go of ego? And if not then how does the ego triumph? I wish to clarify. Assuming that the thought that someone is my s.o. is part of my self created identity.

@Harry @Mal Thank you for your amazing replies. It's uncanny how much can you read and listen about this stuff and still when it comes to you be deceived.

In an un-aware state the ego is driving you to self destruction. How can such a thing exist?

@Emerald Wilkins It's funny i think evolution is trying to get rid of us by this very subtle mean. Thank you for your reply, it's indeed useful and profound : ) I also liked you video very much! @Corte It's a beautiful way of thinking about the opposite positions of the self

I've recently broken up, and now I realize that I was actually very needy, because I'm having a very hard time to let go. Im also drowning in dramatic self pity. First question, How does a fully actualized person feel when breaking up? How to know that you are not entering another dependant realtionship?

You are very wise, and I really love your way of thinking. Thank you so much everyone

@Elton Is it acceptable to take some time to heal, or is a self pity deception that will actually turn out longer than expected?

We always hear how the the let go of control is liberating and lets us go with life more freely. How come a bum isn't being liberated by letting go?

First of all let me say how much i appriciate our community Also I would like to raise a debate about the possible effects of belonging to such a forum as ours. Would you say it's advantageous to have many people agree with you on your thoughts constantly? Let's look at it like that. A student has a question of a spiritual nature, what would the master say to him? Of course he would say something like "go wash your bowl" He's trying to raise the student's doubt, cause that the way to break through to truth. Should we create a place where surely everyone agree and make you sure of your believes?

What methods have you tried so far? The first and the most powerful is self acceptance (have you seen the new video?) love and accept fully the one sitting there who's not good enough and can't do anything right. I assume you've been beating youreslf up about it and as you can see. "Yourself" doesn't like to forced just like any other person Second of all I would suggest affirmations. For example: I'm successfull I'm doing everything right I'm the best there is Watch Leo's video and sit daily for 5 or 10 minutes repeating them, even outloud in front of a mirror. Also, don't say I'm lazy it's a mentality on which one isnt taking responsibility and blaming his laziness. Also, the thing you're saying about forgetting stuff and being out of focus, it appears like a symptom of increased mind chatter. Meditate to silence that and be focused at doing tasks Good luck, I hope to see you improving very soon!

@charlie2dogs Perhaps on the surface they don't, but a certain skeptical mindset is also a belief. If you say "we don't know", you know that you don't know.

@Anicko And if everyone is saying the same, you are more likely to believe in it.