Thank you Shiv, it resonates deeply. To see every moment in which the separate self in a world out there is again created and to truly feel the suffering that it causes is indeed the most painful and perhaps most necessary work🙏🏼
This "phantom solution to a phantom problem" is fascinating! I had read about this mirror solution to phantom limb pain before, but never have I heard anyone applying this idea to the imaginary self. Thank you for your brilliant insights, Shiv.
Even though my experiences of what I might call my essential self are fleeting compared to your and others seemingly profound experiences, I cannot deny it's reality.
At the same time living life as "me" especially when trying to deal with my life story (which includes living with a family member dealing with addiction) has become increasingly painful. None of the self improvement programs, the thousands of hours of meditation and the rest of it has yielded anything but momentary relief.
It was when you spoke about the nervous system that provoked a recognition in me. And about the Buddha's seemingly contradictory acknowledgement of two "realities" or understandings.
I'm not putting this very well but your words seem to suggest a drawing together of some threads for me.
This one cuts close to the bone. Awakening isn’t a magic guillotine that severs ego once and for all. It’s an amputation that leaves a ghost limb. You know it’s gone, yet the ache remains. The mistake is thinking you can shame the nervous system into catching up with your insight. You can’t argue a phantom into silence. You soothe it. You re-train it. You learn to walk again with a ghost at your side. The paradox is that even your false self needs rehabilitation. Not worship, not exile. Care. Otherwise you’ll spend your life pretending you’re cured while limping in secret.
The analogy of the phantom limb added so much clarity. Thanks for sharing these personal experiences. Very helpful and practical advice, which frankly, often feels lacking in non-duality teaching.
You’re welcome. It’s lacking in non-dual teachings because most teachers of non-duality are able to intellectualize it but are unable to internalize it and integrate that perspective into their everyday lives. Once you do, you come to realize it’s nothing special. Just plain ‘ol life :)
I relate to every part of this article and the person who asked the question. My “awakening” lasted 6 weeks but upon the ego’s return, I experienced unbearable suffering, worse than the one that brought about the experience. I’ve been into non duality for years but I’m completely done with it now, another dead end leading nowhere, blind leading the blind. Thank you Shiv for this amazing article, integrating the phantom into our lives as part of us is much better than pretending it doesn’t exist, I’m done with that completely
Thank you, Shiv. I could repeat some of the wonderful comments here, there too a deepening for me. Thank you all!
Deep resonance. Love how you dive a bit into the vasanas and speak of taking accountability. That word, to be accountable. Yes.
The last line, “to live so fully that it has nowhere left to haunt.” Yes, please! Where even this is okay to be fully lived. An opening that is not a seeking, into and as that which is, at this very moment, already the case and here fully lived. This too this too this too. The narrative too IS the play of the emptiness expressed - why not?
Re the ego: It’s as if, once awareness makes the choice, in its VERY freedom, to belief in separation, all subsequent movements and experiencing within it are subservient to this primary choice. A feature built in through freedom indeed. It’s what I can and must work with until it hurts too much, or there are too many doubts and yes, it is real. The joys and terrors that come with believing in Santa Claus are also very real, even if SC is not:)
In any moment we free ourselves, I think someone said. In any moment we bind ourselves. (Krishnamurti called it our first and last freedom, maybe, not sure?)
Makes me so grateful my own process has somehow avoided this back-and-forth. For me, just steady meditative practice over decades, often so deep I can hardly feel my breathing, has slowly infused my day to day experience with enhanced awareness and grace.
Author’s Note: After reviewing the piece I wanted to add this for the benefit of my readers. The reference to Dark Knight Journeys at the close isn’t included to sell or promote. It’s simply a part of the same conversation as the rest of this piece - another format in which I’m living and expressing the insights that I’ve described here. Whether or not anyone joins, the insights themselves are the point.
Thank you Shiv, it resonates deeply. To see every moment in which the separate self in a world out there is again created and to truly feel the suffering that it causes is indeed the most painful and perhaps most necessary work🙏🏼
This "phantom solution to a phantom problem" is fascinating! I had read about this mirror solution to phantom limb pain before, but never have I heard anyone applying this idea to the imaginary self. Thank you for your brilliant insights, Shiv.
This is such a fantastic response to the question. Thanks Shiv
This is really interesting Shiv. Exciting even.
Even though my experiences of what I might call my essential self are fleeting compared to your and others seemingly profound experiences, I cannot deny it's reality.
At the same time living life as "me" especially when trying to deal with my life story (which includes living with a family member dealing with addiction) has become increasingly painful. None of the self improvement programs, the thousands of hours of meditation and the rest of it has yielded anything but momentary relief.
It was when you spoke about the nervous system that provoked a recognition in me. And about the Buddha's seemingly contradictory acknowledgement of two "realities" or understandings.
I'm not putting this very well but your words seem to suggest a drawing together of some threads for me.
Wow. This is terrific, thank you!
This one cuts close to the bone. Awakening isn’t a magic guillotine that severs ego once and for all. It’s an amputation that leaves a ghost limb. You know it’s gone, yet the ache remains. The mistake is thinking you can shame the nervous system into catching up with your insight. You can’t argue a phantom into silence. You soothe it. You re-train it. You learn to walk again with a ghost at your side. The paradox is that even your false self needs rehabilitation. Not worship, not exile. Care. Otherwise you’ll spend your life pretending you’re cured while limping in secret.
The analogy of the phantom limb added so much clarity. Thanks for sharing these personal experiences. Very helpful and practical advice, which frankly, often feels lacking in non-duality teaching.
You’re welcome. It’s lacking in non-dual teachings because most teachers of non-duality are able to intellectualize it but are unable to internalize it and integrate that perspective into their everyday lives. Once you do, you come to realize it’s nothing special. Just plain ‘ol life :)
I relate to every part of this article and the person who asked the question. My “awakening” lasted 6 weeks but upon the ego’s return, I experienced unbearable suffering, worse than the one that brought about the experience. I’ve been into non duality for years but I’m completely done with it now, another dead end leading nowhere, blind leading the blind. Thank you Shiv for this amazing article, integrating the phantom into our lives as part of us is much better than pretending it doesn’t exist, I’m done with that completely
Thank you, Shiv. I could repeat some of the wonderful comments here, there too a deepening for me. Thank you all!
Deep resonance. Love how you dive a bit into the vasanas and speak of taking accountability. That word, to be accountable. Yes.
The last line, “to live so fully that it has nowhere left to haunt.” Yes, please! Where even this is okay to be fully lived. An opening that is not a seeking, into and as that which is, at this very moment, already the case and here fully lived. This too this too this too. The narrative too IS the play of the emptiness expressed - why not?
Re the ego: It’s as if, once awareness makes the choice, in its VERY freedom, to belief in separation, all subsequent movements and experiencing within it are subservient to this primary choice. A feature built in through freedom indeed. It’s what I can and must work with until it hurts too much, or there are too many doubts and yes, it is real. The joys and terrors that come with believing in Santa Claus are also very real, even if SC is not:)
In any moment we free ourselves, I think someone said. In any moment we bind ourselves. (Krishnamurti called it our first and last freedom, maybe, not sure?)
Thank you so much..
Brilliant.
Truly pathbreaking insights.
Makes me so grateful my own process has somehow avoided this back-and-forth. For me, just steady meditative practice over decades, often so deep I can hardly feel my breathing, has slowly infused my day to day experience with enhanced awareness and grace.
Author’s Note: After reviewing the piece I wanted to add this for the benefit of my readers. The reference to Dark Knight Journeys at the close isn’t included to sell or promote. It’s simply a part of the same conversation as the rest of this piece - another format in which I’m living and expressing the insights that I’ve described here. Whether or not anyone joins, the insights themselves are the point.