BARRY LONG

[enigma]

Well now let's see, if I self reflect - on my memory(past), my emotions(past), or what I know(past), then self appears.

What you are pointing to is prior to this moment. You are pointing to the moment when I come out of the state of nonduality due to this idea that I exist, and I then identify with what appears in my inner space, the memory, emotions or what I know. The question at this precise point is- Does an entity now exist or does it not?

Does a ghost exist if you see one? Sure it does even though it may disappear next moment. To say I am that ghost is obviously an error. But you are not saying that, you are saying the ghost doesn't even exist.

So I see it is true that a false idea is the start of it. But further on, once I have identified with that idea that I exist and the psyche has created a ghostly entity I now identify with as my self.

So I reckon your statement that my self does not exist is even more confusing. It is everybody's experience.

Here is a better explanation:

You have to stop thinking, wishing, dreaming while you’re awake. While I do that, I exist. I only exist in the past – as a reflection on my memory, my emotions, or what I know. When there is only perception, now, in the senses, I disappear. Then there is the state of absence – no person, no individual. Just what is.

How about that? It explains everything.

It's not wrong to say I exist in the past, it's just careless, imprecise and confusing. The identification is a bundle of memories; a set of labels, qualities, personal experiences, etc. There isn't an 'I' (or a 'me' to be less confusing about it) at the root of those thoughts, and to imply a set of memories somehow amounts to existence is to lend them some ultimate reality, and to refer to it as existing also lends reality to a past. To say "I only exist in the past" is to imply that the conceptual 'I' does exist in some conceptual past. It doesn't.

I know this isn't what he wants to say, since he also says "no person, no individual. Just what is.", but if this is so, what is it that exists in the past? A more precise reference for existence would be that which is aware of this bundle of thoughts, which is not an entity, and does not come and go with the thoughts, and does not exist in some past.

[Mouse]

To say "I only exist in the past" is to imply that the conceptual 'I' does exist in some conceptual past. It doesn't.

If there is no "I" there is no perception. Are you not your perception? You are obviously wrong in saying there is no "I". The question is what perception or I is identified with.

Only self exists and is identified as "I". "I" am not the entity/self but the ghost of self is real, when it is appearing.

Why does self disappear when I come to my senses? My experience is I have come out of living in the past and am present now.

Is this what is happening? Is there past in the present, resulting in perception being slowed or slower than the infinite now. I say yes this is what is happening perception is being slowed, and you therefore get distance between one speed and another, and where there is distance there is time and therefore past. That is not conceptual that is my experience.

It all depends on what I as the perception or pure intelligence reflect on. What can I reflect on? -either the infinite now or my self. And it is all important what "I" realise not what someone tells me is the truth.

Have I any distance in myself, any separation? Then I have past. Separation is any thing arising in inner space.

[enigma]

To say "I only exist in the past" is to imply that the conceptual 'I' does exist in some conceptual past. It doesn't.

If there is no "I" there is no perception.

The "conceptual I" is a concept. Surely that's clear. Concepts are part of perception, they don't perceive stuff. Perception is not dependent upon the object perceived.

Are you not your perception?
You are obviously wrong in saying there is no "I". The question is what perception or I is identified with.

To suggest that you are your perception is the identification with the perceived. How can you be what you perceive? How can you show up as an object of your own perception?

Only self exists and is identified as "I". "I" am not the entity/self but the ghost of self is real, when it is appearing.

If only self exists (whatever that is) then 'I' (whatever that is) does not exist in some past as was stated. So I exist in the past and am my perception but I am not the self, even though only the self exists, and then there is a ghost of self that is real when it appears? This looks like confusion to me and I don't how to unravel it.

Why does self disappear when I come to my senses?

If by self, we now mean the concept of 'I am this person', it disappears because your bodily senses are happening now and the 'I am this body/mind/person' concept is happening in memory.

My experience is I have come out of living in the past and am present now.

I can't tell in what way that may be true, but if there is an "I" that is thinking about having an experience of being present now, I don't see any trace of anything actually being present. Do you mean you don't think about the past much?

Is this what is happening? Is there past in the present, resulting in perception being slowed or slower than the infinite now. I say yes. That is not conceptual that is my experience.

Your experience is that the past is in the present? Yes, the thoughts of the past are happening now. It's not just your experience, it's everybody's experience, though it is just thought. It isn't, however, what is meant by being present.

It all depends on what I as the perception or pure intelligence, which is not conceptual either, reflect on. What can I reflect on? -either the infinite now or my self. And it is all important what "I" realise not what someone tells me is the truth.

[/quote]

Yes.

[karmarider]

Is there past in the present, resulting in perception being slowed or slower than the infinite now. I say yes this is what is happening perception is being slowed, and you therefore get distance between one speed and another, and where there is distance there is time and therefore past. That is not conceptual that is my experience.

This may be the key to the misconception.

When Barry Long in the quotation above says that that I is in the past, he is not talking about something mystical. He is not saying that the past mystically unfolds in the present.

He is saying that the I is just an idea. It's a persistent idea, very prevalent in the inner world, but nonetheless just an idea. Every idea is from the past, in that an idea is made up from memory and belief, and in this the I too is from the past, but it is in the present that it deludes us.

The other part of what you are saying here makes sense, that interpreting perception slows it down, and our sense of time may actually be the mental interpretation. I think JDK puts it well when he says "time is the distance thought travels." That's interesting. But not as useful, in my opinion, in awakening as seeing the I is a false idea.

[arel]

He is saying that the I is just an idea. It's a persistent idea, very prevalent in the inner world, but nonetheless just an idea.

Saying ego sense is just an idea is not enough. That's too much credit to our little silly minds, looking at it's own projections, trying to figure itself out. The idea, the projection, is given rise by the very real sense in the body. Look there and see through it.

[enigma]

The sense of existing arises with consciousness. Nobody has called this sense an idea (not that I recall).
The ego is a set of identifying thoughts that are built around that sense of existence. Nothing has to be done with the sense 'I am', just cease relating it to the thoughts.

[karmarider]

The sense of existence is innate.

The I-thought is an idea.

[karmarider]

Saying ego sense is just an idea is not enough.

Maybe it is. When we actually take a look, it's not to be found.

[Mouse]

Nonduality as I understand it reduces identification with the I-thought. But clearly Barry Long is stating that whenever there is a reflection on the memory, emotions, or what is known (which makes up the complete repertoire of personal self reflection), personal 'I' then exists.

I don't hear any nonduality proponents saying that. Do nonduality proponents say that no 'I' exists despite the continuing reflection on memory, emotions or what is known.

This is a very important point, so if you know please explain how.

[karmarider]

Identity remains. It's just not my identity. Reflection on memory continues. It's just not my reflection and when the reflection is about me that is seen clearly as an idea and not reality.

I don't really know what non-duality says about this.

It's possible that a deep level of enlightenment (Ramana for example), even identity vanishes.

[enigma]

Nonduality as I understand it reduces identification with the I-thought. But clearly Barry Long is stating that whenever there is a reflection on the memory, emotions, or what is known (which makes up the complete repertoire of personal self reflection), personal 'I' then exists.

I don't hear any nonduality proponents saying that. Do nonduality proponents say that no 'I' exists despite the continuing reflection on memory, emotions or what is known.

This is a very important point, so if you know please explain how.

No personal I exists. Unique individualized vehicles of Consciousness appear so that experience can happen, but such appearances don't constitute an actual, separate, volitional person. It has no more or less existence than a tree or a rock. If somebody wants to say everything that appears in form has existence, I guess that's okay, but there is still distinction between form and formlessness in that form is a temporary movement of formlessness. As such form is not other than the formless, but it is a temporary and changeful expression of formlessness.

[Mouse]

How do you see it as not yours Karmarider and everyone else that states this? Is that because you know you are not the coarse, slowness of the person?

Yet even though having seen you are not the person, the person might still be there as in still arise and obviously be identified as 'my' person. I think this is everyones experience.

I find it a bit of a cop-out to state that you are something else while that is arising. Yet I experience the relief from that detachment from the I-am-the-self fixation when I put that to the test "get rid of the 'my' ". Because when I do, self completely disappears, along with the identification. But to hold that space I stay in my senses without thinking and identifying again with self. (Barry Long therefore recommends feeling the inner sensational state, the pure-self,which is always a direct reflection of now and a substitute for false-self identification of thinking etc).

To permit this pure space to be filled with reflection on memory and emotions requires that my perception must downgrade to this seemingly lesser or slower reality of the self. But you are saying that that happens to you but you don't identify with it. To my understanding that can only be achieved in retrospect. There is momentary identification with self but then the realised consciousness breaks the identification with that condition. Meanwhile I subtly remind myself "I am not that", meaning I am not that self that was appearing in me just now. And then I would have to do that in the next moment when self arises, and the next, and the next. That process is part of detaching.

And then there is the nondual reality which contains, and is beyond, all that personal relationship to existence. So while identifying with the personal relationship to existence, it is not true to claim in actuality "I am the nondual reality". That is just fantasy to me.

But I hear the trick, and I use that word deliberately, is to get rid of the identification, the "MY". How do you maintain the absence of relationship?

I would say the only way is to sever the relationship altogether because - I know it is not me.

How do you do it? Surely the whole 'show' would disappear if you did it effectively.

[Mouse]

No personal I exists.

But you possess an ever brightening individual self knowledge, that maintains a detachment, from any lesser energetic reality than what you are. That is 'I'- the individual self knowledge- it is not personal but individual. I hope you can follow that.

[karmarider]

Thought creates a thinker. There are thoughts, and so you believe there is a you experiencing these thoughts. But the you is just an idea. Thoughts exist. You do not.

A personal I does not exist.

We think it does, so awareness becomes my awareness, life becomes my life. But it's just awareness. And just life.

There is a body. It's just not your body, because you do not exist. You is just an idea, which came about from reflection on memories and self.

First there is a body, and mind, and awareness, and life, and individuation of consciousness. Then sometime later, when you are 2 or 3, an idea of you comes around and then it is not just body, it is my body. And it is not just life, it is my life, and my thoughts, and my awareness and my individuation. The idea of you comes around later.

The possessed exists, but the possessor and the possessing are fiction.

It's not about expunging identity. It's about seeing the I does not exist. Everything can remain as it is. It's just that the I is an idea. So it's not about changing anything in experience. It's not a mystical or magical thing. It's not about the I jumping from identity to awareness. It's seeing that the I does not exist.

[Mouse]

So I imagine your experience of being now is observing the body perform actions while being completely detached every moment from the scene - the existence movie. You do not make decisions. You are completely one with the pulse of the moment allowing the body to do what it does. You are in the effortless state of being. Zero identification with being in existence.

Is that so or is that just my interpretation of your description?