Just One Look Forum Archives

I'm new to the forums, nice to meet you all (whoever reads this post).

I don't have any support or anything where I am, in regards to the looking, but somehow, through a stupid amount of effort

I think I have a handle on it, and what I'm supposed to be looking at.

That said,

The "path" I took in accomplishing this looking is more akin to going down every avenue and dark alley (not dark in a bad sense, just I don't know what lies there)

to find what it is that I'm looking for. Aka, this ME thing. All this work definitely has given me a "lay of the land" , at the very least.

Anyways, from John's videos I know the ME is a faint thing, that is in the background that you don't notice readily.

I have only (at this time) two things I've identified that could possibly be this ME thing.

1. A feeling-sense that "owns" everything in my experience, my vision, my touch, my sense of body , etc.

2. The actual presense of myself , the presense that overlays my physical body itelf.

I could say a third thing, which is quite amazing but doesn't really have a "feel" to it, which is the fact that there's awareness.

I'm aware of things, and I can't really understand or "see" where this awareness is coming from.

Is this awareness (just the plain and simple awareness of things) besides the point of the looking?

Or is the ME the feely sense of ME within this realm of awareness, which obviously I can't exist outside of?

Maybe I'm getting the looking right, maybe not.

If you see something I"m missing here, pls let me know!!

My times up in this computer. Later!

Hiya! I could bet that you have succeeded regardless of what your mind is trying to say about the 'thing' that is being looked at; awareness, me, the container of the senses etc.

the very fact that you have had the intent and tried to accomplish it, for me, means you cannot of failed. I believe if someone has the intent and they move their attention towards 'that which is seeing' they will succeed. (almost sounding like John now :P) the trying is the succeeding...

George

Hi,

It's quite natural that you are confused in the beginning as to whether you did the looking right or not. I've had the very same experience. Just don't bother about it, it has already worked. What might be important to consider is that you do not need to imagine anything or get any theoretical explanation as to what it is that you are looking at. Just focus on the act itself, that's all.

Hope this was a useful answer...

Peace

Wolfgang

Well said George, the trying IS succeeding, just as you said, but turning your attention to "me" is much closer to the mark than "that which is seeing".

- John

Thank you guys for the replies.

Yes, I have had some interesting experiences with the looking in these last few weeks that (at least to me) do confirm the looking. I won't go into what those are, for the moment.

And more recently I have had boughts of agonizing unconsciousness and unconscious behavior, and it's only with intent (seems to me) that I go back to the looking and ME.

The Looking does sometimes (usually when a good mood comes around, or a just feel good that time of day) start on its own, then drop off shortly thereafter.

I can make it stay longer if I notice it (and i usually do) and insert the intent to keep it going, keep my attention on me. The me me.

Sorry if I confused anyone, I'm not looking for any intellectual framework or set of ideas to build a nice fortress in my mind to explain the looking or me, or where it is or what it is.

I've spent a good portion of my life in academia, and around top-heavy mind-centered intellectual types to know the answer doesn't lie (or lay) there. I've had professors and colleagues next to me who were "masters of the universe" and intellectual badasses in their own right, yet they were still suffering, and

darkening the atmosphere around them, and other's spirits. Creating problems for people where there was no problem originally. Innocent by-standers who are just trying to get on with life.

Really just looking for clues, maybe there's a better way to streamline this, for me. And each person is different. So I'm just looking for clues, for me.

If it really is just a sense-feeling of ME, without any geometry to it, or structure of any kind, then that's a good clue. Whatever the case, I will continue the looking and just see what I find O_O.

Again, thanks for the responses guys.

Ttyl

Welcome to the forum, Ttyl. I think it really is a sense of me, without any geometry or structure. Great way to put it and it seems you've got it. I can only speak from my experience, but I don't use the looking to feel better in the moment, although sometimes I do. The effects are very subtle, cumulative, and long term.

I just told a friend about the looking yesterday. She is suffering greatly over her son, not sleeping well, etc. I tried to explain that this may not help her son, help her to sleep, etc., but that over time these things will fall into place......that patterns set in motion and energized by the context of fear don't simply reverse or transform themselves magically in the short run.

It's been over 3 years since I began looking. I can say that my mind has been gradually freed up to make good choices, or the best possible choice given the array of options. These choices, be it the food I eat, the comment I make or don't make, the way I move my body or how I choose to occupy my mind, form a new totality or pattern which tends to produce positively and optimism. Obviously, I don't always make the best possible choice and I'm very much encumbered by old instincts and behavioral patterns at any given juncture, but overall, positivity is the tendency over negativity.

I do get a somatic sense of relaxation, a kind of stillness within the movement of life, which I call the flow, when I am highly attentive and engaged with life. This is not a state so much as as a subtle sense of rightness, but it is not there all the time and I don't seek it, it always comes as a bit of a surprise. It sounds like you're on the right track......I can remember the many months I fretted over whether I was doing it right and hyper vigilant for the effects. They will come, probably when you least expect it, and not the manner you imagined.

Hi!

I had the same problem when starting. I browsed the forums and looked for tips to make sure I did it right. However, I've found that for me the best way is to just feel what it feels like to be me. Every time you wonder whether you did the looking right, just look again instead of intellectualizing it. At some point the confusion just goes away. Some of the confusion about looking can come from the fact that you expect "me" to feel somehow special or that you get some message that you succeeded. That doesn't happen, and the feeling of me is very ordinary, just the normal feeling of being me. If you read someone describing it in poetic terms and making something big out of it, it's because the experience of being yourself somehow deepens with time (by continuing to do the looking or simply because the effects of the fear of life diminish, I don't know). However, the "sense of me" itself is very ordinary and feels very familiar.

Thanks for the kind words, Kismie.