N1
I’d like to know if there are students of Jed’s (success stories, meaning those who have reached abiding non-dual awareness, as Jed has) who would be willing to be a reference for the Spiritual Autolysis process.
Jed says in his books, “Don’t you think it’s reasonable to ask to know a teacher’s success rate? The proof is in the pudding, right?”
I’m doing Autolysis, because I can’t think of anything else to do anymore and because I can’t go back, either. AND, I take Jed literally when he says stuff like the above. I’d like to know there were real ego-identified people who did this process and succeeded.
N2
I sent you an e-mail yesterday asking for references for Jed. Just forget that request, if you even look at it.
That request came from ego-based desire to hook on to another teacher. If there’s one thing I’m learning from Jed it’s that I’m my own teacher or at least the answers, if there are any, are what I have to find on my own.
It doesn’t matter if Jed is false, fake, phony. In fact, he would have to be, from what I can tell, he wouldn’t call himself a teacher. It is just me looking for more outside distraction.
N3
Aahhh. more about Death. I just was doing some work on my 12 steps and wrote this: “Even today, I’ll do anything to avoid boredom, and I think boredom, means being without outside stimulation or even being without inside stimulation. I don’t mind just sitting, when my mind can entertain me, but when there’s nothing going on out there OR in here, it feels like death.” When there’s nothing going on in here, it feels like death. It IS Death. If there’s nothing going on in here, where am I? There must be something going on though and the something that’s going on must be the ego trying to stir up some excitement, so it can identify who/what it is and its relation to things. This must be what DEATH is really all about. The ego fears its death, meaning nothingness, non-existence, what really is here when there is nothing going on upstairs? Nothing, and yet that doesn’t seem right either, since there still appears to be something. But “I” don’t know what that something is. “I” don’t know what that something means and “I” am threatened by it, because it can’t be named or controlled or even better, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. “I” don’t count in that equation at all. “I” hate that. Oh, God, not that; not oblivion, lack of control, not being able to be, no “I” in that. And yet, how can “I” be separate from that, except in concept only? In other words, that is always there, happening, whatever it’s doing or being, and “I” am not in any way apart from that, except in “I’s” conception. There is only an “I” because there is some thought that there is an “I.” In fact, how the hell would I know if there is an I? How would I ever be able to prove there is an I? Jed, you say the only truth is “I am,” but how is that even true? The only proof for that is the “I” itself, and where the fuck is this “I” that I think I am? What I? This body? No. Maybe the death of the I is realizing that there is no I. Maybe that state that “I” consider boredom is really death.nothing happening, no stimulation, no stimulation of “I.” “I” don’t mean a hill of beans, “I” don’t count for ANYTHING, “I” mean nothing, and “I” have no purpose; none! I mean, whatever I consider myself, woman, wife, I can hardly write these words right now without feeling nauseous. Why would I continue to try to hold these up, put life into them? For what purpose? So “I” can exist? To have drama, to have stimulation. Oh my God.the stimulation never came from outside here in the first place. I don’t think it did. “I” stimulated “I.” What do I do now? Yet this still feels like head games. I notice I’m still not going to go out and kill myself (meaning the physical body). So I must still think I exist because my physical body exists. I still think I exist because there is a physical body here. Is it just the presence of a physical body? No, if I had no mind, how would I know “I?” “I couldn’t. I don’t think my cats think “I.” It can’t be that the “I” is here because the physical body is here. Or can it? If all the functions of this physical body stopped, then “I” would stop. That’s the truth, as far as I can tell. My grandmother is no longer here, because her physical body stopped. And yet, I could argue that “she” was gone long before that, since Alzheimer’s took her mind. Okay, so all dead bodies are no longer “Is”. But that doesn’t mean that all live bodies are “Is.” It seems that there can be no “I” without a physical body, although the presence of a physical body does not guarantee and “I.” Babies don’t seem to be “Is.” Alzheimer’s patients don’t seem to be “Is.” But I can’t think of any case where there are “Is” floating around without a physical body within which to be an I. In fact, it seems that not just a physical body needs to be present, but also a certain brain structure. Would a baby ever think of “I” if it wasn’t for the conditioning it receives from others? “I” might be a learned concept. Oh my God. Am I nothing more than a learned concept? Yes, I am nothing more than a learned concept. “I” am nothing more than a learned concept. How do I unlearn “I”? How do I unring that bell?
N4
So I go online and look at pictures of people jumping from the World Trade Center towers. There’s one there of a person’s body after it hit the ground. His (I think it was a he) guts are totally laid out on the ground. He has no legs although one looks like it just crumpled up like an accordion, and one is laying out straight, but it’s just the skin. Like the contents of the leg were suctioned out and the skin was left laying there intact. Very weird. My whole physical reaction is one of morbid fascination. I wonder what he felt as he hit. I wonder what his thoughts were on the way down. Was he freaked out? Did he panic? Jumping seems like a smart thing to do. It reminds me of the interview that you give, Jed, in the bonus material of your first book. That guy was the guy in the office. He was REALLY dissatisfied with the office; so much so that he jumped. And I know that guy is me. I’m in the office, 60 billion stories above ground. I’ve got very few choices, even if I don’t have the intelligence to see it right now. That guy in the picture was smart. He knew what his choices were and he took the one that made sense to him. At least I think so. In any event, it doesn’t matter for him now. He’s no more. And I won’t be any more eventually, either.
I think what you’re trying to tell us is that we might want to cultivate that sense of urgency. Or maybe you’re trying to tell us that it takes that sense of urgency to go through this. I’m the man in the building, no doubt. There IS a fire coming, called Death, and I have only one choice. I can choose to die. That’s it. There’s no escape from Death. I can jump out the window-and die. I can wait for the flames to get me-and die. I can run screaming out the office and through the flames-and die. In other words, there’s no way out, and no choice. I can die. I’m going to die. I can choose to die or I can die without choosing it. Either way, I’m going to die. I mean, holy fuck, I’m going to die. The MOST I can hope to do is postpone it; and still what does that get me-the chance to die. I’m going to die. There’s no getting around it. As far as I know-death is where I’ll end up. I don’t know ANYTHING about an afterlife. What the hell would that look like anyway? NO ONE, at least as far as I know, has EVER shown any proof whatsoever that there is more than this. At least not to me. There are a lot of books, channeled material, I still haven’t had any direct experience of it. What would survive, anyway? I mean, really, what could survive? My brain won’t, so where are the thoughts and emotions and concepts that make up “me.” Gone. Where would those concepts go after this brain is gone? I sure don’t know. I will not survive. I mean that literally. There is a fire in this building, and I will not survive it. The flames are getting closer and closer, the smoke is getting thicker and thicker, and even if I live another 50 years, they’re going to reach me. The only “choice” I have is to choose Death, before it chooses me. Self-annihilation. Self-annihilation, whether I get rid of the self through physical death, or whether I get rid of it through surrender-I will not survive. I’m nothing but the skin suit. Where is the “person” who lived in there?
N5
I’m doing my analysis of Spiritual Enlightenment – the Damndest Thing (by the way…thanks for the referral to How to Read a Book) and I’m caught by this sentence, “The power of our devotion to teachers and teachings is not a reflection of their value, but of ego’s will to survive.” I don’t have any problem with the statement per se, but what I don’t understand and what I’m having trouble with is the concept that ego has a will to survive.
How?! It seems to me that ego has no more existence than any other thought that runs through this brain. Ego – it’s not real, except as thought, and yet there is all this talk of how the ego wants to survive, the ego wants to hang on, the ego structure. As if it were something real.
I’m not real. How can I be? I can’t prove that I existed at all before the earliest memory I have. I can’t even prove that that memory is real. How can something like an ego be real? How can it have a will? I mean, I’m watching this thing I call me as it goes through the day. I have NO idea how it makes decisions, takes action. It’s so obvious that the thing I used to see myself as is not real. It has no power. All it can do is think…at least that’s what I see now. Ahhh! cogito ergo sum….hmmm…is that what you mean? All “I” can do is think. Maybe that’s what ego is…not sure…more to ponder.
