self inquiry

[Flora1437]

Hello everyone,

I would like to hear your perspective on this self-inquiry experience. I am relatively new to the practice of self inquiry.(started around two weeks ago) This practice was not the exact way Leo describes it. So I would like to know what others think about of what I believe I found out.

Spontaneously I was calming my mind and I was just listening to my heartbeats for a longer period of time. Then started questioning the experience. Asking myself. "Is this your heartbeat?" And the answer was, no this is not your heartbeat. But this "no" was not a forced answered at all. It seemed like the most true thing to me. Although of course for the mind it makes no sense to say this. I had to repeat this idea many times so that my mind can open to this possibility even. Then I asked myself "Is this a heart?".And the answer again was,no this is not a heart. I started focusing my attention to my body asking the same question whether this was a body but the answer was no. Then I shifted my attention to other objects (bed, chair, room...) and always the answer was "no". Then a very strange idea occurred to me. It occurred to me that all those "things" have in common is me. Myself. My attention on them. I realized that if "myself" was not to be reflected upon those things their real nature would be absolutely unknown to me. I would not know a single thing about anything without the Ego, because that is the only thing I have ever seen. Also I had an insight that the Ego is absolutely unnecessary. In fact its a made up thing. Unreal. Everything would still "be" without me being reflected upon them. Without "me" being in it.

I also came to realize that with the "birth" of the mind(however it came to be),that labels everything around us, the birth of ego was inevitable. The only thing that causes separated forms of "being" in our experience is our mind. Our Ego. 

Of course my mind can not yet fully accept this truth. But strangely enough after the practice I felt a very slight sense of "unity" and peace inside me. Which did not last for long sadly. But it was remarkable compared to my normal state of being.

 

Please tell me what you think. I would like to know what you think. Am I mislead by my mind still?

I am so grateful this forum exists and people can share their opinions and experiences.

Thank you

[Nahm]

@Flora1437  Imo, self inquiry and “reality” inquiry compliment each other well. I found breakthroughs from doing both; meditation to go deeper within and asking what am I - learning about superposition, quantum erasure, schrodinger’s cat / uncertainty principle and entanglement to open up my mind on what ‘outside reality’ is and what is “my” relationship with it. Though this is not what is traditionally meant by self inquiry, it was useful in revealing the facets of the illusion, and what I am.