@Jarrod Don’t worry too much about the Sedona Method. It is a very useful process IF you are still identified with the “me” or ego. It works wonders. However, once you see beyond it, no need to do it. Actually, the point of the method is to take the mind to the point where release naturally occurs. As they like to say: “you give the mind something constructive to do so it doesn’t chew up the furniture.”

@Dan Hmm…. what if I said that the egoic self has no free will? What if it were just a conditioned to the hilt series beliefs that had no more choice than the man on the moon? I don’t know if that is true, but my experience has led me to a conclusion like that. Who knows if it is right or not. The only freedom seems to be freedom FROM this conditioned thing called ego.

@Ariel I’m not down on searching per se. It seems for most people to be an inevitable part of the journey. The usual advaita line “there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go” is often quite useless. However, that said, when the searcher drops away, so does the search.

As for how Consciousness operates, to be honest, I have no idea. It just does. Stuff happens. As I open to it, as I realize that I am that (to borrow from Nisargadatta), Life begins to just happen. I like it that way. Endless happening. Not trying to be vague, but it seems to me that it is a mystery, unfathomable.

The search is a part of the very thing that keeps us stuck.

This is true, but it seems searching gets an unnecessarily bad rep.

People know there’s something more to life and start searching for higher level Truths, perhaps in books, teachers, ideas, concepts, exercises, meditations, and so on. It turns out the search leads them to looking within and finding out the Truth of who they are and the seeking/searching turns into self-inquiry and taking a deep look within, but it’s generally the searching that helps lead them to this stage.

So yes searching is something to eventually be dropped, but it’s not necessarily something that should be avoided by all. Searching is just one stage, a stage that’s eventually transcended.

Waking up to the truth in and of itself strips away all the layers in sense.

That’s a really good way of putting it!

Coming back to the appearance of free will, it seems that instead of there truly being a doer, it’s more like Consciousness continuing to attract like energies unto itself. The more it makes a certain level of decision, the greater the likelihood to “choose” something and flow energy into an aspect of life that vibrates on a similar frequency of vibration.

So it’s more about Consciousness abiding at a particular level and attracting like energies than it is a decision maker making decisions based on this or that.

Ariel’s last blog post..Struggles Cease When You Cease Struggling

If you watch for feelings you can see them as they arise (or you look back into your past), once observed you can let go. No need for the mind, just consciousness. This is probably what it is getting at (I don’t own it myself so I don’t know). I don’t really want to turn this into a Sedona Method comment thread so I’ll stop.

Jarrod – Warrior Development’s last blog post..Life is Simple

@Jarrod I read the Sedona Method that Tom is touting and am having some amazing results.

@Tom Great site! Lots of good stuff here.

That is the sense that I meant it. Not a mental activity of stripping away things, more of a direct perception.

I’ll check out the methods you mentioned. I find direct observation to be very useful. Thanks.

Jarrod – Warrior Development’s last blog post..Life is Simple

@Jarrod It depends on what you are after. For waking up to the truth, stripping layers is completely unnecessary. And a hindrance, to be honest. There are always more layers. If you simply want to have a better functioning life (that will still screw up from time to time), then stripping layers is useful. But you will always be stripping layers. Waking up to the truth in and of itself strips away all the layers in sense. At least, you see behind them. And as the awakening progresses, you keep getting called into action to see past all the layers. It is really more of a “seeing past” than a stripping. Things like the Sedona Method and Byron Katie are good at stripping layers.

Jarrod – Warrior Development’s last blog post..Life is Simple

RJ’s last blog post..The Joy Of Now

Notice that the Buddha, Jesus, various Zen masters, you name it, they all keep bringing us back to the fundamental. Always the fundamental. We notice, we experience, we allow for what passes across awareness, but we always know we are the awareness. We find ourselves acting, we notice thoughts, we feel feelings, but again all that is experience. My main point is that wondering about the different notes is more of the ego’s game. We simply notice A is not F sharp, we love the difference, but we have no more invested in it than that. Does that make sense?

@Takuin Too much to make one little comment! Basically, you and I see free will in the same light.

“As for where thoughts and feelings come from: now THAT’S another interesting question! Short answer: they come from Self because ALL IS SELF. There is and can be nothing else.”

Well sure. Everything in the universe is energy, the energy of Self. It’s characteristics vary depending upon its frequency of vibration. The ego is simply a collection of thoughts and thoughts are pure energy. So in essence, it is made up of the same “stuff” but the experience of the energy and what the awareness is aware of is very different whether the energy is filtered through the ego or not. Love and fear may be made up of the same energy, but the experience of them is radically different. The musical note A sounds different than the musical note F, despite them simply being vibrations of sound waves.

@Taukin

The term “listening” was not intended to be limited to sounds only. It was meant to be what’s taken in by all five physical senses as well as the sixth nonphysical intuitive sense. “Listening”, as discussed in this context, is an awareness of the way energy is input to the body. Sorry for the confusion.

The ego can not “flower” the way a flower literally does because it is representing a separate human mind, not the consciousness of a flower. It is representing a different aspect of Allness yet it is made up of the same “stuff” (energy) as the flower.

“If you are speaking to me, and I am “listening” with the ego, am I hearing you at all? Or am I referencing my own old material to see if I agree or not? If you say something and I disagree and become angry, is it because of you, or is it because of what the self has referenced within it self?”

That is an excellent point. Its reactions are certainly a projection of its own state of being and it mistakenly labels external events as “causes” to its state. Pure ego takes in data, compares it to what it already knows in its memory bank, and then produces a reaction based on its own internal programming. What you pointed out is accurate in the sense that it’s really dealing with its own narcissistic self, not so much external reality. All of the “good” and “bad” things in external reality are simply egoic projections based on its judgments.

“The divided mind believes it can make a decision. But this is based on what happens within; its reaction to itself.”

Awesome.

“It is an identification with itself. If I see something and identify myself through it, is it due to the object, or my idea of the object?”

Bingo. It’s dealing with its own mental boxes of external reality, its labels and judgments. It’s dealing with the appearances of objects, not the essence of external objects themselves.

“The self can only work with what it already knows, so how can anything outside of us be responsible for anything?”

We are responsible for what happens outside of our selves in the sense that we created it within our reality. We’re certainly not responsible for the choices and actions of others, but only for our own actions and who we choose to be. Who we choose to be an our actions lead to an inevitable creation of consequences which are neither good nor bad, but similar in vibration to its sponsoring thoughts.

“If you have no knowledge of something, no experience, no memory, can you choose at all?”

Yes of course. The paradox is that it’s free to choose whatever it wants, but ONLY within the context of known possibilities.

Yet even within the limited realm of possibilities ,and assuming we are closed off from the infinite creative Source of all creation whereby new ideas and concepts can flow into us, so assuming we are coming purely from the ego and its known number of (seemingly finite) choices, there is no limitation on which choices can be selected. Which choice is selected is determined by a seemingly infinite number of variables that the ego processes in parallel, with some variables being more important than others.

It’s much like a car that can go up to 100 mph. It can do any speed between 0-100mph. It has an infinite number of selections and is thus unlimited despite apparent limitations.

I hope this makes sense.

Ariel’s last blog post..My God can beat up your God

@Tom: So you are saying that SELF ‘appears’(thought) is then conditioned by SELF (ego) and then SELF(observer) lets SELF(thought) go.

I don’t know if I agree. When I was totally identified in thoughts/feelings I would feel unconnected with the external world. Then I discovered the ability to observe thoughts/feelings and started discarding them. I felt a connection to people and the physical world but a different connection to thoughts/feelings.

I’m not saying they are ‘not’ me, but maybe more that they are a different me. Like a layer of complexity on top of me. When I strip everything that makes a thought a thought away rather than being left with nothing I find an element that feels like me the observer remains where the thought was.

That reads very confusingly

Jarrod – Warrior Development’s last blog post..How to Not Hate your Job

Most of us accept that freewill is a voluntary choice or decision. At least, that is how the term is generally used.

There are many questions that arise from your wonderful comment.

It seems that in essence, the way you describe the ego reacting is the same way I’m describing it as listening. Input/output. It’s reacting to what it listens to.

Can the ego, the self, or whatever it is called, listen? Listening implies an active movement. If one is listening, he or she gives attention to sound. It is something that is unfolding from moment to moment. But can the ego unfold, or flower? Or is it only capable of referencing what it already knows? If it only references old material, how is it possible for it to react to anything outside itself? Does this make any sense to you?

If you are speaking to me, and I am “listening” with the ego, am I hearing you at all? Or am I referencing my own old material to see if I agree or not? If you say something and I disagree and become angry, is it because of you, or is it because of what the self has referenced within it self?

It is simple, really. The divided mind believes it can make a decision. But this is based on what happens within; its reaction to itself. None of this is good or bad, right or wrong. Find out for yourself what is there. Don’t believe me, whatever you do!

Some have said it is an identification with whatever the self comes into contact with, but that is not quite right. It is an identification with itself. If I see something and identify myself through it, is it due to the object, or my idea of the object? The self can only work with what it already knows, so how can anything outside of us be responsible for anything?

Free will is not free from something that doesn’t exist. It’s free from limitation. It IS freedom.

Freewill is decision making. Are we together here? Decision making is the domain of the self that believes it has a choice. I choose this, and not that. I choose her, and not him, and so on. Now, can you choose something you do not know? If you have no knowledge of something, no experience, no memory, can you choose at all? Are we still together here? So, is choice, freewill, etc., based on what has come before? Go into it and see.

If freewill is based on memory and all its devices; thought, the self, the center, etc.; is it limitless? Thought itself is limited, so how can the design of thought be limitless? We may have made a jump here if you do not see the limitation of thought, but look into it and find out what thought is, how it moves and operates. If freewill is based off of thought, what happens? If thought is limited, and freewill is built from that limited matter, can it ever be unlimited?

I am not saying yes it is or no it isn’t. One has to be curious enough to see it all without accepting it from anyone.

I’ll stop here as it is becoming rather long.

Takuin Minamoto’s last blog post..What is Your Point of View?

So would you say that like the experience of physical reality, free will is something that we experience despite the fact that it doesn’t truly exist?

I agree with you in that there is only one Self. Higher and lower selves are both aspects of one “YOU” in the same way that you and I are unique aspects of one Oneness. It’s a way to talk about “us” as we vibrate on multiple frequencies simultaneously, not necessarily a way to break up Oneness into separateness.

Your/Ramana’s model certainly does simplify things, however.

It seems that in essence, the way you describe the ego reacting is the same way I’m describing it as listening. Input/output. It’s reacting to what it listens to. The intuition (one method we use to communicate to the ego) is one thing the ego could react to.

I’m not sure I can understand that there is no deciding taking place. There are emotions, but no one to actually have the emotions. There is decision making, but no one to make the decisions.

Maybe the flow of Life model is somewhat limited. For example, a droplet in a river doesn’t decide which side of a rock to flow around. It just flows along the pathway of least resistance. On the other hand, the body/mind has the ability to decide which side of a rock to swim around. There is a decision-making process going on on some level.

As for what “free will” is free of, it’s free of all limitation. Like Life, free will is limitless. It has the capacity to limit itself by believing it is limited, but that is just one of the infinite possibilities. There exists the capacity to believe or choose anything and thus experience it, regardless of if it’s ultimately real or not.

Free will is not free from something that doesn’t exist. It’s free from limitation. It IS freedom. Life is freedom. Freedom is analogous to Life, God, Love, Truth, and Joy.

It still feels like decision-making is happening despite the fact that there is no one to make the decisions. Thus, if there’s no one there, it must be happening autonomously…

Question I have is where do these thoughts/feelings come from, are they separate from ‘Self’?

They seem more separate from ‘me’ than say the laptop in front of me.

Jarrod – Warrior Development’s last blog post..How to Not Hate your Job