Self-Inquiry (The I Am Sense)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2021
- What is the "I Am" sense? A commenter asked this question so I made this video to point to what is meant by "resting in the sense of I Am." To clarify, the experiential taste of I Am before awakening is quite possible but it is not the same thing as awakening to pure Being, to the I Am sense as primary to all experience and "just there," regardless of momentary thought or perception. With that said resting in the I Am sense is excellent practice and lays the groundwork for further insights.
![Existential Terror and Loss of Self [Trigger Warning!!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OD_bBy0nxLI/mqdefault.jpg)
This video caused me to go into a state where I felt exactly what you mean here. Thank you 🙏🏽
this video is a gem. so on point and vibrationally transmitting the experience. grateful for all you are bringing to this platform. 🙏🏼💜💎
Of all your many videos I’ve watched in the last weeks, this is one of the most helpful - I drop in and listen every couple days. This video embodies what draws me - and gently nudges me to settle to what is embodied. I send this video to others. Lynn
This is exactly what I need to get - 🙏 😊 Thank you! Realizing I’m going at it from the outside looking in - trying to understand it with limited concepts. I’m going to go within and sit with it, allow it, rest in the sense of it and notice it. Like trying to “find” and understand your breathe - you don’t have to, it’s here. Nothing even to try to understand because I am experiencing it in the raw. You don’t have to understand astronomy to appreciate the sky at night, or analyze language to enjoy a conversation.Going to try less and be like a child again, maybe go play and have some fun with this!
I love this response. Me too.
thank you for your comment.. it has brought clarity
What a great teacher you are! I’ve experienced this state through breathwork and meditation. Practicing cultivating in more ordinary circumstances, and your book is super helpful! Thank you!!
You’re welcome!
Which book???
@@dancerdiya7677
“Awake” It’s Your Turn
❤
Youre a really good teacher man. There was a sense of profound peace I haven’t felt for years maybe. I used to have it more often, then got distracted by the needy demanding world. I traded for beliefs and empty ideas. What a bearish deal!
I’m glad to hear it :)
Simple and Nice one. I liked the word INHABIT it rather than saying something complex. This is the best one I received on feeling I AM NESS. Thank you so much.
These videos are so nourishing !!!!!! Such clarity, I seem to just flow with the pointers...........Thank You.
You’re welcome ☺️
This is an incredible 12 minutes. Extremely helpful as I am nearing the end of your book.
Of your many awesome videos on self-inquiry, this one is absolutely the clearest and most helpful for me, experientially.
Oh good to hear 😃
I would also agree :)
Yip, this is where its at
It's truly easy to fall into it. It's just awerness. I haven't experienced non separation yet but this sense of awareness is so much closer and so much more me than what I thought I was. I guess its just about resting in awerness and allowing all the emotions and discomforts to come up. What more do you want after that haha
I like it when you said "pay attention to who's paying attention" that made a lot of sense to me.
Can you maybe make a video about bringing your thoughts closer? You talked about it in the book. I'm not sure I'm doing it right.
Perhaps yes :)
Absolutely beautifully said. Something in the ego resists understanding this by complicating it, but in actuality, it is the most simple thing.
Great pointer. Thanks a lot 😊
Thank you! This is an extremely helpful pointing towards “I” that reinforces my recent practice.
Glad it was helpful!
The freefall at the end is incredible. Thank you for this channel :)
thank you for this. I love the comments in this video too.
JUST THIS. 🛑 Full stop 🛑
Thank you for lovely voice n info. Xx
Thank you brother !! Deep and insightful !!
Result of self-inquiry - the 'I am' sense is energy/chi/qi/prana. It can be sensed within, outside, anywhere, no where and transcend space/time.
Beautiful :)
A clear pointing of Pure Simple Being ❤
Thank you for this video. I have been searching and thinking, thinking, thinking-and it ends up being what I knew it was all along! whew! It is so simple.
Awesome
How to just "be" around others is (has) been tough
@@davidholm645 it takes some adjustment for sure.
Thank you, that works for me, yeh!
Great talk. Thanks Angelo and Nargis. Can relate to so much of your story Nargis. The body never lies! ❤
Thank you!
You’re welcome!
This is so good. Perfect description. 10 out 10. Can't say this enough. I'm there but this really helps solidify me in the real me. Thank you so much!
Nice to hear from you
omnious music
The most useful pointing I've ever encountered. Thank you
Very welcome
Thank you! Another great video session. I have been doing a lot of self inquiry. I feel this will be very helpful. 🙏
🙏🏼
good video, thank you.
Perfect Pure Pointing my dude. X
☺️
Nice effort. Though I am reminded of a Zen saying: "The more you think and talk about it, the further from the truth you will be." I would wager the I AM sense does not capture everything. In fact, the limits of ownership are central. I can lift my arm, not yours. When I am sad, I know it is my sadness, not my neighbor's sadness. When I am irritated, I know I am irritated, and I do not think the asteroid in outer space is irritated. So the I AM is quite limited to MY being.
After a while i felt like disappearing and a more subtle being was there.
I am you 🤲
Thank you! Liking!
When I eventually upload my consciousness, exactly what is being transferred?
Sending gratitude from a Daoist monastery near Seattle!
💙😁🙏
Very cool, nice to hear from you
The only truth is an impersonal sense of I am, everything else is a concept. Ramesh Balsekar.
Thanks!
Thank you!
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake No need, my fingers just pushed the button without any decision whatsoever, but also you could not help thanking me. 😄 It just happened but everything is just happening so there is no real meaning for happen since it doesn’t have an opposite. So I said nothing really with so many words. 😉
Lol what’s with the wind tunnel video and soundtrack at the end, made me laugh! More random comedy outtakes to these videos please 😂
Just to clarify: the I AM sense is (by definition) outside thought, but thoughts arise under its knowing. So we don't necessarily need to have no thoughts to perceive our I AM sense. Moreover, the I AM is never directly known but reflected in experience. Would you agree? It's kinda tricky, sometimes it seems to be "just there", sometimes it's more like "in experience". And sometimes it's neutral and sometimes it's friendly. :)
I Am sense definitely does not require complete a sense of thoughts. However I would say it can be directly known, in one sense it’s the only thing that can be directly known, but this really boils down to what you mean by “know.” If knowing is defined as having to have a thought object of knowing then that is the I AM thought one would be referring you. The I Am sense is self validating and more real than real. Clarifying non dual vividness in senses comes later.
Could also be called knowingness. A dzogchen term might be rigpa, however rigpa also has deeper meanings as insight is clarified.
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Okay, I think I am somewhat fluctuating between sensing pure knowing resp letting pure knowing know itself(?), and trying to hold on to the I AM thought, I guess. Because sometimes it takes effort to hold that sense, which is probably an indication that it's a thought. Or it's some kind of resistance, kinda difficult to tell.
@@s5saweig exactly! When you notice trying to hold anything that’s always a thought. Also I am as a thought object is not the IAM sense. The I AM sense is what that thought appears in and is also what “you” appear in, seamlessly one
Hi, Angelo!!
I have this deep curiosity surrounding the nature of I am. I know that the “I am” sense is beyond that of thought and mind understanding, but please hear me out :)
I have heard non-dual teachers discussing the emptiness and nothingness of realization (a journey beyond the I am sense of the initial awakening). There is talk of “non-doership”, “there is no one there to do anything”
Is this referring to the fact that there is no literal PERSON doing because a person is a construct of the mind, beliefs reflections, and conditioning, but there still is the “I am” that is below, in and around these concepts? I only ask because I am intensely seeking truth and what is real- is the “I am” real or is that just a gateway to the no self? Am I searching for another construct that will ultimately reveal itself as an illusion? I don’t know if this makes sense.
As I type this I am in awe of the ease with which you explain and point to these profound knowings. Thank you for the gifts you have given and continue to give to us 💜
I would love to hear your perspective on how to cope with empathically feeling others’ pain. You mentioned developing energetic boundaries in your chapter on emotions. Can you clarify what you mean?
Thank you! These post are like a salve to me. :)
Great questions, I may make a video about that in the future. :)))
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Please do. :o)
Hahaha, the ending is great
One question, some teachers of Ramana Maharshi’s self-inquiry method advise focusing on the “I-thought” and stop it from latching onto other thoughts. This will result in the “I-thought” to subside and the true self emerge. The “I-thought” (inner feeling of I) is of course a thought and I find that it is not always easy to identify and focus on. I understand you rather recommend not to focus on the I-thought but rather on “what is aware of the I-thought”. If I feel an “I” when focusing on the “I am sense” isn’t this still a thought? In other words, I should loose the sense of “I” when doing self-inquiry? I often experience that when thoughts subside, that I feel body sensations more strongly, nearly as if the body says “I am here and you are the body”. Do I at this stage focus on “who is aware of the body sensations”?
Yes you do. Then go quiet. Don’t think the answer. 🙏🏻
It's taken me years to get to this point, following the 'stay with the I Am' instructions from Maharshi and Nissargadatta, and it's so simple. Why has this been so unnecessarily overcomplicated in spiritual teachings, and held aloft as some barely possible goal for people on the spiritual path, when's it's so obviously simple and basic? I really appreciate your simple teaching anyway, stop thinking about being, just be :)
@3:02 "that distraction will catch your attention early..." - it is attention itself that's the "I am" sense.
Recent phenomenon. Having a lot of deep emotional trauma. Lately as I allow the emotions to fully play out. A visual story is seen that has no connection to any reality that I have experienced. It's as if these emotions have been buried for so long. That the memories attached to them have been lost . So the mind is creating stuff that seems to fit. It's so weird. Anyone else experience this 😀
To clarify, I'm pretty confident that these images are not forgotten memories. Partly because the story the mind creates isn't traumatic. They are often simple stories with no point.
I think I figured this out. I have delt with most if not all of the memories of my trama. Years ago in therapy. But the emotional aspect of that abuse. Not so much. So these emotions that I am allowing to play out is the healing I need now. And the mind created stories that overly thes emotions is just what the mind does. It does this with everything I experience 😂
This life impuls,THAT is,makes all things happen and it is known by itself without thoughts and with thoughts ,that's me.....now,also thought,that is descriptive ...and this thought is me too....all what is,is me,also the thought about separation...but this "feeling","knowing",is not constant!Is this part of a prozess?
Now it shows ...
You are just like THAT, like me, who shows in the crazy game how to become perfect again, although there was never a separation .... it's like a shift in view🙃
Thank you for the video. Almost right away, once I “sense” the “I am” presence or me, resistance and strong sensations arise. Is that the mind trying to take me away from being? A natural habit of being mind identified?
Hey Angelo! Would you describe the I AM sense as a feeling? Or is it even beyond feeling? I have this sense of "me" that isn't my ego identity. But it's hard to say if that is what I'm looking for. It just feels like me. Not necessarily boundless. It's not a visceral realization but subtle
Does anyone feel breathless when focusing on the "I" sense? My breath stops when I focus on it, but it's involuntary - I'm not doing it on purpose. I've tried different postures and even lying down. Same thing. Makes it difficult to stay with "I am" for more than a few seconds. Anyone else?
Yes it's a thing... the thing is it is an opportunity to notice an associated thought that says it's a problem. Rather just start breathing again and return to inquiry/ I sense. Repeat as necessary. It some point the problem will subside. The associated thought has more influence than we realize
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Thanks Angelo, that's reassuring that you know of this being an issue. I thought I was doing something wrong. Although I noticed that was a thought (doing something wrong), I missed the one you pointed out about it being a problem. Will look again with fresh eyes. Thank you 🙏
I have this experience, too. The thought arises, “I can’t breathe”. Once this is seen as a thought, a breath happens. It is still uncomfortable. Great to have Angelo’s reassurance that this is a common experience.
Wow. I have only just realised that “something” is thinking of the thought I am thinking about. I have never thought that the “something” is actually the “I/me” - it’s abstract, yet so simple. Thank you for pointing this out.
Yeah man, crazy haha. Its our consciousness. The source of it
That last frame reminds me of something--can't remember where-- I heard that awakening is like falling, terrifying untl you realize there is no ground :)
That’s pretty accurate
I am is simply aware that you are aware. It is in a way still a thought but one that is unique in the sense that it is directed at the source or self. It is simple if you are relatively free from thoughts but extremely difficult if you have non-stop incessant thoughts arising.
Once you are familiar with that, ie you aware that you are aware or conscious, you need not repeat it. You are already aware. There is no need to keep reminding yourself. It then can be dropped. Just be. This just being, is no longer I am, it's just I.
I feel like the video would be vastly improved by putting your face on the skydiver at the end.
Well I thought about it then decided to put my original face before my parents were born there instead.
@@SimplyAlwaysAwakeLaughing so hard right now xD
@@sebwest11 😂
I feel like I intellectually know what you are saying but I just don’t experience it. It’s so close though I can almost taste it. It’s like I feel like my perception is on the edge of shifting
Wonderful
Can we simply REST in our PRESENCE which is 'I'? Will this be the practice?
I figured that most of reality can't be put into words. Using words is like measuring, and all measurements are aguable. So every description is aguable.
So, if I hang out in this experience of “I am” for long enough it will eventually lead to awakening to the “I am” sense that is primary to experience and is “just there”?
🗻
Francis Lucille in a recent YT video clip argues that “ being aware of being aware” is not enough, What is needed is to know yourself as “ Infinite Consciousness”.
Will resting in sense of I AM take one to this place of hard and fast knowledge that I am infinite limitless consciousness?
It really depends on what one means by these terms. I agree that being aware of being aware (for a moment or as a practice) is not the same thing as awakening. I do equate awakening with experiencing oneself as undivided consciousness. However that cannot be a mere experience but rather a pervasive alteration in one’s fundamental experience of existence. Resting in the I Am sense (only after realizing the I Am sense) is equivalent to that. What tho it the realization of I Am, trying to rest in the I Am sense will be tenuous and experiential, in which case self inquiry can be very valuable.
Are rhe PHRASES "I AM" and "YOU ARE' pounting to rhe same rhing?
When i feel this I am my mind goes what about that thing and that thing like I / we need to worry lol instead of sitting in thia comfortable place I amness lol
I feel pressure a lot and often in the back in my head and also sometimes i Little bit of fear how am I going to be am I going lose it all. Lol
These are common experiences. regarding the pressure, it can be helpful to inquire into beliefs about it (ie "it shouldn't be here or I don't want it " etc
So....awareness without thought? What the egoic sense of self would label boring?
Not being identified with this egoic mental construct would be key? Am ‘I’ close?
A thought could easily say boring , but that’s just a thought 💭 exactly , not being identified with any thought construct, then what is left
Question; has anyone else while meditating experienced a frequency that feels like love, while observing as awareness, as the sense of I am?
As if similar to an AM Radio spectrum we can dial/tune in to the electromagnetic frequency spectrum of love and could it be that this love frequency is = to God?
I’ve had similar experiences for sure
I have twice. I felt connected to All That Is then I thought how cool it was and it disappeared immediately both times. It was Love and Inclusiveness
Yes! Absolutely!!!
Yes! On a few occasions a felt a new type of stirring. Something deeper than the typical calmness.
Does the I am sense dissolve as an identity with inquiry? Is the I am sense also a thought?
I would say it is suddenly seen to be different than it initially appeared. As Nisargadatta said, "If you regress properly the I Am thought will subside."
Just BE 🦉
I know what you know in this video, and I have also seen the truth of it directly via Cessation (obliteration of the material universe + spacetime). But I am not enlightened, yet I am not ordinary. Yet I don't know what more to do because I am already living with all this knowledge, but I do not have the sense of having done all that needs to be done, or that rebirths have ended. I guess I am saying that even knowing with certainty that all this is true is not enough. But what to do now?
Look into reactivity and equanimity is what I would recommend. See what is left :)
The fact that you think you know and the desire to be enlightened means that the mind is not yet set on the Right Understanding. When the mind is set on the Right Understanding it realizes there are no ordinary or extraordinary human beings and it no longer seeks. It realizes that when it goes to sleep the world disappears and there is nothing but light every where. As a result, it is no longer afraid of death and it treats everybody and everything with kindness and compassion. " If you understand the true meaning of mind, you have encompassed all understanding ". The mind seeks because it suffers, but it continues to play games with itself. In order to set the mind in the Right Understanding, you have to dive within and hold on to the ego. The ego is the internal consciousness ( or energy) contaminated by thought. If you hold on to the ego then a major force will star to emerge. That major force is pure consciousness. The more you hold on to the ego, the more you expose the mind to pure consciousness. the more the mind is exposed to pure consciousness, the more it will be set on the Right Understanding. Only its maker can guide the mind to its true nature.
Bingo
Sat chit ananda, consciousness , existence , bliss. The I am itself is not real . Prior to consciousness , is awareness . Awareness for no one . Naked awareness .
I get a bit confused about this approach of resting as the I Am sense vs. the use of self inquiry (asking Who Am I?) to rest in/arrive at a state of beingness or presence. Are these just different approaches to reach the same space?
Essentially yes, though it takes sone discernment bc it’s pretty common for someone to think they are resting in the I Am sense but it’s actually a thought identified state, just with a quieter mind. That can be achieved through meditation alone. I Am sense has to be realized through inquiry.
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Thank you for responding - I know you must have so many comments to reply to! I’m a long time meditator but your work is helping me with inquiry, which is something I haven’t understood well in the past - and also recognizing and dis identifying from thought. The practice you give in the book of looking in the fishbowl of the mind and Identifying thoughts and naming them, then just returning to the space and resting until a new thought comes (I call it thought watching) seems to work better for me right now than asking a question. My follow up question is - if it’s not easy to just rest in the I Am without inquiry, is there some practice that you recommend engaging in when not meditating or inquiring? It seems like it’s too distracting to try to practice inquiry and find the I Am state when doing everyday things like working or engaging with people. Or will inquiry eventually become easier to do during those times?
Or is it worthwhile to just try to rest in the I AM state if not able to practice inquiry in that moment, even if it might have some subtle thought? Maybe this all becomes a moot point once one gets the hang of inquiry? It’s just challenging for me to do it on the go right now bc i get too distracted and attention is split with the activity I’m engaged with ;)
@@bkny108 oh it’s much more challenging off the mat. Especially at first. Give it time and most importantly it’s a heart based commitment primarily
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Thank you!
if one awakens - does it happen only once? or is it ongoing? like waking up and then falling back asleep, then waking up again. and even if one awakens, does this eliminate suffering all the time? does one never suffer again after you awaken? for real?
initial awakening is not the end of suffering, rather it is the beginning of the end. Beyond that there are other shifts, some call them awakenings others don't :)
Is this something like I am I exist ? Never felt that before I mean its so obvious but in busy life we dont even bother this
Right?? I love it, just attune to THAT
I think I am starting to get it but why do guided self inquiry often use this confusing “I AM” sense or “I-thought” when guiding and explaining to the mediator or the one doing the self inquiry? When someone is new and have no idea what that means, what to do or think in self inquiry, they may be confused and wonder am I supposed to complete that sentence or answer that thought consciously? Why couldn’t it just be explained in simpler terms e.g. become aware of the awareness of any thought and not the thought itself?
It's doing the seeking? 5:11 I wasn't aware, awareness did anything? There's no boundary 7:53... Awareness is everywhere? Is it just the sense objects that make us think it's in the head? Eyes, ears, nose, mouth attached to the head making us think awareness is in the head? If we are awareness we are nothing? No thing...and everything? Awareness is not in us? Awareness is knowing?
To know awareness would make it an object and if it's an object, it's not us?
When meditating with eyes closed we see a black sphere and silence. Words attempt to arise but we keep them at bay in the beginning of the meditation. They then seem to come in without us knowing until we realise they've infiltrated and then we go back to focusing and keeping thoughts out. Eyes twitch a lot sometimes and sometimes they're perfectly still. Everything is quiet. Thoughts aren't trying to arise... The sweet spot. Is that where we need to stay? Thanks Angelo.
1. Consciousness is doing the seeking, the seeking mind is the sought after mind. Not talking about awareness here. 2. There's no boundary in consciousness realized. No inside, outside, subject, or object. In reference to the questions about the head and sense organs, when practicing in the way described in this video those are simply recognized in thoughts. As are the ideas about awareness "I am awareness, I am nothing" etc Just the activity of the curious mind. The practice of regressing to the I Am sense is to clearly realize what is fundamental to all of that conceptualization.
In your final description there is too much emphasis on trying to keep thoughts out, rather recognize the substance of a thought and that which seems to be perceiving all of this happening.
can a AI have Self Awareness?
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I unfortunately feel I haven’t reached this place. I am aware of my thoughts but I’m defined/contingent by my thoughts. Sometimes some meditation can really expose behaviour/trauma patterns but it’s very hard for me to pay attention to paying attention.
That îs why the Halleluiah îs Sining !?,,,,,,,
Mooji has taken this concept and run with it, making millions and a false guru devoted status. Beware of false prophets in sheep’s clothing, ravenous as wolves 😉
«I an sense» seems like a misnomer .. what is described here has nothing to do with «me» or with «being»
What do you think is being described here ?
@@SimplyAlwaysAwake Well, pretty much the complete opposite of the sense of "being" or of "me" really .. In my tradition we call i "The Mystery" .. the whole point is to get away from the idea of "me" or of "being" .. and what do you have left? A complete Mystery .. I see this happen a lot - people just switch the thought-self with the "higher" og "true" self or with "pure being" .. they just move the goalpost and are still as identified as before .. (except that they had a taste of it maybe) .. but reather than keeping it open, they instead land in what is really an *interpretation* of the experiece .. such as this is "who I really am" or something similar ..
@@stiankjand you don’t think “The Mystery” and “moving away from the idea of me” is an interpretation? I’ll ask you, how exactly are you going to move away from the experience of being you? What would be the mechanism for such a movement?