Hi Edward
I hear your frustration, and I wonder whether somewhere along the line you've developed some sort of idea that prevents you from 'looking', so I'm going to throw in a few ideas here to show you how different things might be if thought wasn't always believed.
What is it that makes you doubt? You need to discover what it is. Keep looking. Is it anything more than thought?
I doubt almost everything, I am not 100% certain of anything, besides the existence of this experience. I'm not 100% certain that 2+2=4, or that I have legs, although both of these things seem to be true. This is what I don't understand; people keep saying that it's possible to know that there is no self or that the self is not controlling anything, but I don't seem to be able to know anything (besides one thing).
You didn't answer my question about whether the things that make you doubt are thoughts or not. Please reply to that question.
As for knowledge, there really isn't any such thing. All "knowledge" is just a collection of thoughts about concepts and other thoughts, and that's the reason why we are trying to get you to go 'back', before concepts, and just be aware of subjectivity itself.
We only have concepts and words to try to point out something that is beyond concepts. We have to use concepts to show that concepts have no 'reality' in and of themselves. Vivekananda called this using a thorn to remove a thorn. Once the torn is removed, both thorns can be discarded.
It's up to you to try to understand this, and to try to use concepts to see through concepts.
It requires a certain amount of deep introspection, and discernment between thoughts that can be verified by direct experience, and thoughts that are just stories about direct experience. For example, a memory can not be considered direct experience because it's only a presently appearing 'thought picture' about something that is not verifiable in direct experience. Time itself is not verifiable through direct experience, and can also be seen as nothing but a thought generated story about what is appearing in direct experience. Do you understand what I mean?
I understand what you mean about memories not being direct experience (well, the experience of the memory is a direct experience, but it's not the same thing as the events that the memory is saying happened), and time not being verifiable through direct experience.
What do you mean about thoughts that can be verified by direct experience, though?
Basically what I said above, and as I described in my very first post to you on this thread. It is looking at direct experience, and attempting to remove as many concepts as possible about that direct experience. So you could notice pain for example. There may be the thought story that the pain is in your foot, but if you look at that direct experience VERY closely you will discover that "pain" and its location "in the foot" are purely thought generated stuff. If you look very closely you'll notice that the sensation itself doesn't say that it is "pain", and you could look at the sensation very closely and try to describe it as if to someone who has never felt pain. You will discover that it is entirely impossible to describe the experience of pain, because subjectivity/awareness is completely concept free. In the same way you could never describe the experience of green to a blind person.
In the same way, the "location" of the pain is purely an idea. The location seems to be "down there", but if you take a look at pain very closely you will discover it is "right here", as close as a thought is. So when speaking about pain, to talk about it's location is just believing thought ABOUT experience. Even to think of it as "pain" is ANTHER thought story because the concept of "pain" has a lot of negative thoughts associated with it. In actual fact "pain" is just a sensation like "cold" is, but thought tells different stories about them. And even though we have labels for sensations, the sensations are not separate. Sensation seems to have a spectrum but only thought divides that into different sensations. Put your hand in a cool basin and slowly add more and more crushed ice and you'll discover that cool can become cold can become icy cold can become pain can become hot, and that there are no dividing lines between them.
Emotion is the same. It is only divided into different emotion'S' by thought. If you really look at the experience of emotion, without attaching labels to it, and examine how you would describe the feeling of fear or he feeling of hate to someone who did not know what emotions felt like you would find that love, hate, joy, sorrow, fear and anger are all just different points on an indivisible spectrum of emotional experience. Only thought divides them and labels them.
Thought tells a story that there are divisible lines and divisible "things" in that sensation spectrum, and then labels them pleasant or unpleasant. It says pain is unpleasant and must be avoided, but there are those for whom the sensation is actually pleasurable.
This is why it's ESSENTIAL to strip away as many concepts and thought stories as possible if you want to get to the bottom of this.
We've looked only at physical sensations here, but you'll find that you can do the same exercise with your eyes open, and you will discover that just like sensations, "distance" and perspective are all based on thought. What you call "over there" is "right here" and as close as any thought or memory.
You can never describe the direct experience of love with the word love, and so on, and so on.
Similarly if you look at the field of vision very closely you will discover that the only separation between anything is in though only. Without thought, and resultant concepts, nothing is separate. Imagine being a newborn baby with zero concepts. Could you in any way separate yourself from anything? How would you. What would tell you that the hand was "your" hand? What would tell you the world was separate from you? What would tell you that there was any awareness/subjectivity ANYWHERE else. What would tell you that "others" were not you?
It's the nature of subjectivity that is under investigation here. Thought says that subjectivity is in a body in a world, but what does direct experience tell you? Doesn't direct experience tell you that the world and the body are in subjectivity? Why should thought be believed?
Ever noticed that the "big bang" is aware of itself either way you look at things? Think about it carefully.
If the thought story about the world and the universe is true then the big bang cooled down into particles and became a universe of planets and people who know about the big bang. So essentially the universe is aware of itself. So if the big bang is aware of itself now then was it always aware of itself, or did it suddenly become aware of itself at some stage? (Rhetorical question)
And if the thought story is not true then "this" (meaning EVERYTHING - including thoughts, sensations, planets, people, and including the awareness of it) is aware of itself. So you can't perceive awareness as a "thing" in "this" because awareness is "this" IN ITS ENTIRETY as an entirely seamless and undivided One.
So either the thought story of a "universe out there" is aware of itself, or the directly experienced "universe in subjectivity" that appears right "here" right "now" is aware of itself.
To me it's not a surprising coincidence that the thought story of physical science says that matter can not exist without awareness of it. See the book Quantum Enigma if you're interested in the thought story.
So now I've shown you that what thought says about "this" does not necessarily have to be true. Particularly if you are not the thinker of them. Think of the flow of thoughts as a continually running commentary about this that just appears out of nowhere. Unless of course you can find any direct experiential evidence that you are the thinker of them.
Keep looking.
Hmmmm. Perhaps I need to understand what you are expecting. How are you expecting experience to change? Are you expecting the discovery of the lack of a personal I to change experience? Again it seems that you are results focussed rather than investigation focussed.
Nothing about experience changes. If there never has been a personal I then there never was, so how could experience change?
The experience remains the same, but it is perceived differently, and thoughts seem to respond to this change in perception, so the way of thinking about reality changes.
If the discovery of the lack of a personal I didn't change experience in any way, then there would be no point in having this website. You said, "it is perceived differently, and thoughts seem to respond to this change in perception, so the way of thinking about reality changes". These are all changes in experience.
No, it's not a change in experience, it's a only a change in the **thoughts about** the experience. The direct experience of pain remains the same, but thoughts about it are different. Once thoughts undo themselves from their self-created centre they are free.
