Witnessing Without Thinking

Category Enlightenment, Presence, Surrender

Light of Life by Floris van Breugel

A transformation is happening again. It seems to be slower and more deliberate this time, like a bulldozer that’s wiping out all sense of “me.”

The Process Develops

Previously there were glimpses into my true nature, but the mind was still quite active and so it was very easy, and almost desirable actually due to habit and familiarity, to recreate a sense of “me” out of the nothingness, a false sense of self who was experiencing all this stuff.

What’s happening now is more of an unfolding process it seems. Because the mind is quieter, there’s not much thought left with which to recreate a self. Thoughts arise, but they are brushed off instantly and automatically. It’s like they don’t stick to anything. There is the ability to think thoughts deliberately, but it’s actually quite challenging and not a pleasurable experience at all. Even if thoughts were thunk (is that a word?), there’s not really much ability to actually believe in the thoughts anymore anyways. They’re just thoughts that arise.

The Body Keeps Moving Right Along

The body is somehow still operating just fine. It can brush its teeth, turn on a tv, get something to eat, and so on, but I have no idea how this happens. When something is looked at such as my face in the mirror, the tv, or food, it just is what it is. The appropriate labels and concepts are hard to conjure up into the conscious mind, and even when they are, they aren’t very meaningful or helpful anyways. The body simply seems to just know what to do and how to interact with the world. It’s a great mystery.

It’s kinda like when you’re riding a bike. It all just seems to happen. You don’t think to yourself “pedal, foot, turn, handlebars, tire, brakes, other foot.” You don’t think about any of this stuff. It’s not necessary. The body just moves. Yet this is beyond that because even thinking about the “parts” is tough too.

Everything Just Is

The physical world seems to be just one of beingness. Its expression is an expression of colors and shapes and stillness. You could say there’s movement if you thought about it, but the stillness is the main event, the only event really.

There is a sense of appreciation for having gone through similar experiences before with a talkative mind. Now it is being realized just how valuable it is to have the mind go quiet during this transformation.

It’s not something that’s being forced. It’s just happening seemingly all on its own. Surrender and allowing is the default state of being, if you want to refer to states of being. There is really only beingness itself. Isness. Pure existence.

Knock knock. Who’s there? Silence

Looking within, there is no sense of self. There’s a sense of emptiness and spaciousness. It feels like as if there was an egg, a hollow egg inside me. There is this body and emotion and energy swirling about, yet at the very center where “I” should be, there’s nothingness. Just stillness and space.

It’s like there is a home that is alive and active, yet there’s no one home to make it this way. It is simply alive and active because that’s the natural expression of what is in this moment.

Unforced Happenings

A big and critical difference that’s present this time is not trying to hold onto this experience, but allowing whatever is to be. Whether I’m enlightened or unenlightened is totally okay. All options are completely acceptable. There’s no clinging to any experience. There’s just stillness.

What is is always here and so trying to hold onto it is a ridiculous notion anyways.

Total surrender into what is until there’s no one left to do the surrendering. What an irony…

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10 Responses to “Witnessing Without Thinking”

Sumiran said:

hi,
It is intoxicating even to hear from you.
Cheers!

Sumirans last blog post..Destiny or Freewill?
Nichi said:

God bless you
buddhaofhollywood said:

You have a wonderful gift with words.
Your story is so well crafted, so perfect.
How do you comment on that?
You don’t, you just enjoy it.

buddhaofhollywoods last blog post..Living in a material world – Part II
Lissa said:

Thank you soo much for sharing. Very reassuring!

Lissas last blog post..My decision

Marko Reply:
February 7th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Well Ariel, this sounds like a temporary state people get in where by the mind is extremely quiet like being on natural tranquilizers.

It’s interesting and fascinating to hear your articulation of it. How long will this last is the million dollar question.

I like when you end with “A big and critical difference that’s present this time is not trying to hold onto this experience, but allowing whatever is to be. Whether I’m enlightened or unenlightened is totally okay. All options are completely acceptable. There’s no clinging to any experience. There’s just stillness.”

“Not holding on to the experience but allowing whatever is to be” is probably going to extend the length of the experience.

What interest me is, if this is a prolonged experience of weeks or more etc. and you stay on this level of beingness, how does that change the way if at all, how you respond to the world or others etc. Do desires now take a back seat or front seat? Neither or both, or something else?

What do you do if anything different when you really hit what would be termed a very negative experience or high frustration that would put you in a place where you had to process your emotions to find your way back a certain equilibrium. Or does that simply not show uP? Or, if it does, the process work of the past is not needed as you accept and surrender to whatever is regardless? Including the need to change what might be subjectively termed a negative painful suffering experience?

I look forward to the uPdates of whether this experience keeps going on and spreading itself or you come back to a state of being you were in earlier. Will it be permanent and now all things are seen from this perspective or will it become a reference point of sorts to look back on?

Regardless blessings to you and all the others.
preeti said:

Its like a Screen on which a movie is screened and screen is not affected at all is it that kind of state ? non attached ,witness state.

Ariel Bravy Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
That’s a way of putting it.
BINNOY said:

Dear Ariel
I just had a doubt about something.
It is said that enlightment is all about seeing the world as it is.But isnt this an effect that one experiences only after enlightment(i.e once one gets enlightened, automatically he/she surrenders to the now moment) or is it that surrendering and accepting the now moment without resistance is also one of the fastest way to enlightment(or may be a meditative state that leads to growth of conciousness).

I had been following a bit different approach for so long. In every given moment, i used to track back any belief i had about anything or any subject, stay with the sensation corresponding to that belief and then sit with it until and unless it was released.Do you feel that in this approach i am taking my awareness to a past issue and thus resisting the now moment.I would have to say that though i take my awareness to a belief formed due to an unresolved past issue,i dont get entangled in the thinking process.I just remain with the feeling of it.

How different is witnessing the now moment as it is different from emotional healing since even emotional healing can take place only in the now moment.

Now would witnessing the now moment as it is give me the same results as emotional healing.Wont the trapped in emotions inside come out to the surface since now when the mind is atlast silent(which happened as an effect of witnessing the now moment as it is)there is nothing to stop these emotions from releasing out.
Isnt it true that many of the people who attain enlightment hardly know anything about emotional healing.They do this through meditation which is nothing else than witnessing the moment without resistance.

I often get confused on how to approach the current moment after knowing about these two wonderful ways.
Would be waiting patiently for your answer.
With Love ALWAYS
BINNOY

Ariel Bravy Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Emotional healing and awakening are both wonderful things, but they are different things. They may assist one another, but they are different.

If you feel guided to heal yourself, do that. If you feel guided to awaken, ask yourself who is it that wants to awaken and who is it that needs to be healed in the first place, and do that.

But both are valuable experiences. When you become fully enlightened, there will be nothing left to heal in yourself, and no more negative emotion experienced in the first place.

Also, it can be helpful to bring awareness into the “past” now and help let it go from time to time, certainly. No need to ignore energies that arise in the moment. This doesn’t mean that you need to go in and fix every single thing wrong with you, because if you ask your mind what’s wrong, it can come up with an infinite number of responses, and you’ll be digging forever.

Your emotions are not separate from the now. Your mind is not separate from the now. It’s all happening in the now. It’s not like only the experiences happening outside your body are the Now. EVERYTHING exists in the now. If you feel energy arise within you, bring awareness to it and allow it to be, in the now. No need to segregate the past from the now, because it’s really all now anyways. The past is not the past, but an energy you’re bringing up in the now and calling past.

Kaushik Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Hi Binnoy/Ariel,
My experience was similar to Binnoy’s and it may be helpful to share. Being in the Now is a powerful technique. Alan Watts said the Now is it. However, for quite some time the feeling of being in the Now felt artificial and lifeless to me. I realize now that there was a lot of grasping going on (Krishnmurti called it “becoming.”) When there is this feeling of lurching, we are not present, we are trying to be present, and that’s not the same. Persistence can help. It can also help to be present with what is already present: body sensations, breath, perceptions.

The technique of Inquiry, as you said deconstructing beliefs, can be effective for some. I have a strong intellectual leaning, so my mind immediately wants to analyze and form ideas. In this case, what helped was the intention to rely only on direct experience, not on beliefs or concepts, not even spiritual concepts. Abiding in the sense of I AM is helpful to some in this case, but I can’t consistently find the sense of I AM; aware of awareness works better for me.

Emotional healing certainly smooths out the turmoil that can come up. For me, the Sedona Method is effective, as well as heart techniques like gratitude, acceptance, forgiveness, metta meditation and so on.

Of course this is my experience. Yours will be completely your own.

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