My name is Mark. I live in the United Kingdom. In 2018, a sudden awakening occurred in which the superficial structure of self broke apart. It was clear that my thoughts and sensations were happening based on the changing environment, none of which had any personal essence.
It was also understood that the superficial structure of self was a poor attempt to avoid a lot of emotional pain; being in the story of Mark was a rather clever mechanism to defend myself from myself. The task then was about looking into these hidden unconscious schemes, many of which were very painful, and were now unavoidably at the forefront of my experience. After several years of agony, I found a person who was able to guide me the rest of the way.
As I trawled through my mess, further awakenings occurred, until one night, after laying my head on the pillow, I appeared to completely and utterly die as any sort of person. Shortly afterwards, something called out from the heart, “the job is done”.
I intuited that this was going to happen. It was inevitable. The more things evolved, the more I couldn’t see myself in the future. I came into being, and saw the present moment for what it was, completely unfiltered and free of conditioned interpretation. No centre could be found. The sensory world blended into itself as the environment merged into the body. All borders forever disappeared, and a deadening peace as loud as thunder prevailed.
I sometimes play around with the sensory aspect, but it’s clear that all sensory information, including the entire universe, happens inside an immovable dimensionless awareness. The term ‘awareness’ isn’t the best term. There is no sense of time, length, breadth, or width; no sense of up, down, left or right; no sense of shape, colour or any object that holds those things; no sense of north, east, south or west; no sense of good nor bad. Nothing is being critically discriminated from one another, but the body is able to function, and does so far better.
Since everything is seen as one dimensionless awareness appearing to do many things - a car passing by in the road, a woman pushing a pram, a TV playing in the background - one could say it is love of the highest order.
As an innocent child, I was unintentionally duped into believing I had a centre.
In the final end, it’s not that I realized something, and I certainly didn’t get anything. I just stopped being silly with myself. In that stopping, I vanished. All along, I had thought myself into an excruciating existence - but even that very ignorance was a celebration of love.
These days, I like to directly point people using the Ten Fetter model, which you can read about by clicking here.
During the pointing, I typically engage in an email dialogue where I ask you to look into your experience in very particular ways. It’s helpful to at least build some daily momentum in doing this type of looking, or else the mind will bowl over the inquiry with its arsenal of avoidance tactics.
What then happens is, after you’ve looked in the way I suggest, you respond with details of how the looking transpired, what you felt, what thoughts were present, and how you experienced the looking. In that way, a natural dialogue will follow, centred around looking for the sense of self. This dialogue can result in a radical shift in identity.