Are you still identified with THE VOICE IN THE HEAD after many years of spirituality?

[DoTheWork]

In my case YES.

After more than 8 years of hardcore spiritual work, I still feel like I am writing this post. I still feel I control The Voice, I still feel like I am thinker/doer.

What about you?

[BipolarGrowth]

It undulates. Maybe 80-90% of the time I don’t have thoughts in the head anymore no matter how detailed the words I’m saying or typing or whatever is. It does itself. I call it “thoughtless thought.” To that extent, I have no thoughts that I could attach to for that majority of my day. The arahant (4th path or fully enlightened in Theravada Buddhism) Daniel Ingram says that essentially the patterns of sensations of a sense of self still occur after full enlightenment in his opinion. I don’t see him thinking this doesn’t extend to thoughts in the head. The difference is that the insight into no self is so clear that those patterns are not seen to have any self in them even if they are more or less identical to what the unenlightened you would’ve said was what made you have a self. Enlightenment is not about some locked in and consistent state of consciousness that can’t think or any other benchmark really that depends on a single factor of experience like that although it does usually come with some “baseline upgrades” in a sense for most people. 
 

I’m probably at 2nd or 3rd path in the 4 path Theravada system IMO if I’m following their designations as much as I honestly can. I feel much of what Daniel says about sense of self sensations to be true to my personal experience more and more as I go along. The biggest shift for me has been in how resistance occurs. Rather than me having a sort of meta-resistance on top of the natural resistance interactions of different sensations occurring, I just allow the various aspects of my human system and the environment to interact in a natural way. Plenty of times this involves things like complex emotions which are easy to link to a sense of self. I just don’t try to resist having a sense of self nor resist not having a sense of self. Self vs. no self is not just an on and off switch. It’s more like a continuum and different experiences and stages of the process of insight (which enlightened people still cycle through according to Ingram) call up much different levels of sensations of self. 
 

If you find yourself in the Mind & Body insight stage, you’re probably going to have more sensations which feel like a self than some of the more mystical and positive feeling stages. Mind & Body feels like being dipped back into a truly ordinary human perspective as much as you can be even for enlightened people although their Mind & Body might be above the highest baseline states you’ve experienced. It’s just a natural part of the stage. It doesn’t matter how enlightened you are. Don’t let someone convince you of the magical, beautiful, and ever-present level of their enlightened reality. From my research, there are a lot of highly awake people whose experience is far more subtle than you think. Ideas like never having a sense of self are the ones which make me curious to proof test with a bear or flaming sword or chainsaw. There’s probably more of something there than they are trying to admit. 

[WokeBloke]

As far as I can tell you are the one that writes the post. To regard yourself as not sounds like delusion.

[Surfingthewave]

@DoTheWork

Yes the voice is still there but it is more like the sound of a river. This river changes alot. Sometimes it is loud like huge waves/ a storm and sometimes it is silent like a calm lake. 

I have days where I laugh at the voice, it will want to pull you back to identification of content. 

I have days where I fear the voice, usually those days I haven't done any meditation, slept well or exercised. 

Through meditation and consciousness work I have been able to see it less as the voice and more of part Source/consciousness etc. When you listen to your deep Inner Voice it can guide you (which is often drowned by the other voice) heal you and help you. 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Surfingthewave

[Breakingthewall]

No. It's being a fast evolution. It is clear at practically all times that the voice is a parrot that says empty things, to which it is not necessary to pay attention. I identify with what happens, the experience, and the moment takes on richness and depth, great beauty. it cannot be explained because it is the opposite of explanation. interpretation, and sharing ideas with people who interpret everything, is sterile, meaningless. I still do but i see it's emptiness. Only be is fullness

 

[Carl-Richard]

Yes. No voice is too scary for me 

[kamwalker]

Not really. I almost don’t hear it these days unless I want to. Very occasionally it becomes louder and then I assess what is going on. 

[Random witch]

I do have thoughts of course but I'm aware that it's not me. Same with my name, with my past, with my identity.

I feel it's like a character in the game that I constructed.

It doesn't belong to me but it has a function in the survival world.