Nowhere to Get Out Of
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A dialogue exploring how thoughts and reactions are simply part of a wider field of experience, and how intimacy with one's own experience becomes the ground for connection with others.
Nowhere to Get Out Of
A dialogue exploring how thoughts and reactions are simply part of a wider field of experience, and how intimacy with one's own experience becomes the ground for connection with others.
When you say to swim with what I just described, do you mean to just swim with it, leave it alone, and it settles on its own? In the midst of all this, every sensation, just leave it and it fades by itself? Is that what you mean by allowing it, by self-embracing it?
Swimming with it means allowing that to be known as part of your experience. You can also see it as just one part of a much larger field. There are thoughts, there are sensations, there are sounds, there are colors, there are shapes, there is movement. What you described, the communication and thoughts and reactivity, is just like a little fish in the river you're swimming with. There is much more happening. But if you focus on that one experience, that one thing, that one concept, then you're forcing it into something, rather than simply swimming with everything that is happening.
Right now, for example, you can recognize that this conversation is a very narrow part of your experience. There's breathing, there are skin sensations, there are sounds. My words could be just sounds, blah blah blah, with no meaning, no point of communication. Your thoughts, just noisy clouds, shapes, forms, sensations, everything you're seeing. Forget about the concepts, forget about the memories and tomorrow. There is just this. And then a thought arises, you're supposed to say something. Just more blah blah, thoughts, concepts, not important.
The more I worry about going into thought, the worse it gets. It pulls me in more.
That's another thought shape.
Yes, it's another thought, and it comes so quickly and jumps right in. There's no way out, I can't get out of it. And that's another thought.
There's nowhere to get out of. Thoughts are like smoke, like a cloud. Where are you trying to get out from? It's always here. It's always mind doing some funny shapes, with breathing, sensations, colors, sounds, and the mind doing funny things. The monkey mind. Nowhere to get out of.
Yes, that's been repeated enough now. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Shifting between contraction and play
I want to share my experience. Things have shifted a little for me. I feel a bit braver and freer from thoughts and sensations, in the sense that they no longer control me or take over. But before joining this call, I was thinking, what am I going to say? How do I say it? I felt stuck in my head. I thought I would just show up and share, but suddenly all these fears came up, different sensations in my body, and then there was me thinking, "Why is this coming up? This shouldn't be here. I thought I was free of these things."
It's hard to describe, but there's a lot of expectation. Lately in the satsangs a question has been coming up: why am I here? What do I want? It used to feel like I could talk about these things and get freer in a group of people. Now it seems like all I want to do is play. Everything else feels like it's coming from an agenda or an expectation that I need to ask the right kind of questions, and all of that just shuts me down. The play, the just being the sky, is there, but it gets kicked to the side a little. That's where the confusion comes in, and the fear. I don't know if there's a question, but maybe you have something to add.
It sounds lovely. You're describing this movement and shift between a habit that is more worry- or fear-based, contracted...
Yes, and there's also a need on my part to get my point across, to sound like I know what I'm saying. All these aspects were more potent before. They are less now, but they still take over energetically.
There's a place where what's really happening now is we're just sitting here going blah blah blah blah. And you do yours.
Yum yum yum yum yum.
And then I say something, and there you go. That's all we're really doing. And on top of that, maybe something else.
So the confusion for me is that sometimes it doesn't feel like that. And I just want that play all the time.
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Thoughts as already known
That's the interpretation. That's the belief. We are always just making sounds with our voices, and the meaning in them is only the interpretation. The thoughts you are having that seem to have such a specific, clear narrative of reality are only colors, shapes, sounds. Just blah blah blah. Even all the thoughts and concepts...
But you also talk about tasting. They may be thoughts and concepts, but they all want to be seen in some way.
They are already seen. When a thought appears, it is seen.
Not always consciously.
Are you sure? You might not focus on it, you might not recognize it as a thought or name it as a thought. But if you are having a thought, it is being known. Don't take that on my word. Look at it.
Okay. I'm having a hard time understanding these concepts, but I just feel a stronger sense of connection to people.
Did you notice that you just took a breath?
No, I did not notice that breath.
You don't remember it. I paused you a little too late. So there's another aspect, which has to do with recognizing the experience and then having the memory of it to recall it. But when you breathe, all of the sensations of breath are known.
Interesting. So how does that work?
If they are not being attended to, if you are not paying focused attention, you might not have a foreground experience of it, a focused, heightened experience. They will be in the background, at a distance, but they are there and they are known. The same is true with all thoughts.
Okay. I'm not sure I'm following. Maybe my attention is not so clear right now. I was feeling a lot of fear at the start, wanting to share. But I feel the value of being around people doing this work, who can experientially just be with me. The talking is valuable, but the experiential aspect feels deeper to me now.
Yes, the talking is a very narrow part of it.
You could read all the books and see all the videos, and it's just more and more. The experience is something fresh, something raw, something closer.
That's why this question came up for me: why do we have these satsangs? What are we getting at? It's a good question to ask yourself. For me, I can say I enjoy it. I enjoy the sharing, and it's a pleasure to be together. There's a certain flavor in coming together.
Connection begins with your own experience
Maybe because of that, I feel a bit more sensitive to certain environments. I'm just looking for that connection all the time, looking for that intimacy. It comes in the form of wanting to connect to someone spiritually, but sometimes it comes across as not being able to connect, and avoiding situations. Just feeling different. And there's sadness that comes with that.
My recommendation is to see that that relationship starts with your own experience. The way connecting here feels, that flavor of openness, intimacy, and transparency, can be there with your own experience: with your own breath, your own feelings, your own mind, your desires, your wishes, all of it, when you're on your own. The more you can connect in that way, then when you are with others who don't connect in that way, you are still connecting with yourself in that way. The more it begins there, the more that flavor will start to invite others. But it begins first only with yourself. Then someone who isn't connecting in that way will either react, or might actually come into that flavor, be invited and drawn into it, even if only for a moment.
Yes, that does seem to be happening frequently. It feels like there is some sort of middle ground, a choice to make: whether I want to continue prioritizing distraction and all these things in my life, or whether I want to ask myself what really is important, what do I really want. It's that back and forth, an alliance to one side and then to the other. Lots of confusion, lots of sensations. I feel I'm handling it okay, but I just felt this desire to share it with you and the group.
Thank you. The more you describe the confusion, the more you are savoring your own experience and knowing it and going deeper. The more you have intimacy and direct, transparent knowing of all of your experience, the more that is with you always, wherever you are, with whomever you are.
Thank you. It feels like being born again, in a way.
That's beautiful. I'm glad. Thank you all for coming and joining. Lovely to have you. Have a beautiful day.