I'd love to read how you experienced this pointer! Let me know in the comments. Don't worry if you couldn't quite connect with my instructions here, this is just one of numerous explorations. Be open and curious and that which is true will eventually shine in all its obviousness.
Appreciate your video. I've done a few of Hardings exercises before, I can observe clearly that instead of a head there is space, but it doesn't seem to provoke a shift in identity that can be described as my sense of self becoming that space. There are times the space becomes very lucid and whole, yet never feels anything like a cure to psychological suffering as claimed by those who advocate for the headless way. Though I do believe it's possible! I'm curious in your experience what status do sensations of the body play during your visual experience of open spaciousness described by Harding's headless way? In traditional mindfulness practices, sensations of the body become extremely vivid and pacifying with practice - stillness of awareness becomes more easily perceptible. It's a brief momentary relief best described as tranquility, but doesn't stick around longer than a few moments for me.
Maybe this will be useful for you: Something that one needs to aware of is that what is being pointed to here is not a space, even though that word is sometimes used in reference to it. Recognize the emptiness that is "behind" the space, that which is aware of the space. This exploration is not supposed to point to the space of the visual field, but to that in which the space of visual field appears. I would rather not describe it as a shift of identity, but moreso a recognition that what we thought existed as a separate observer never existed in the first place. When this emptiness recognizes itself, all sense perceptions are included in it, including of course physical sensations. As a result of this the fixations which we often have on our physical sensations are let go of and we therefore can feel a great sense of relief, as you described.
Thanks a lot Sam for the pointer and walking us through. While you suggested to do this exercise as true self, somehow am missing the trick and the mind/false self became dominant and started questioning and rejecting as how it can be headless when it exists and other sense organs are functional. Yes finger points to head which we are not able to see by ourself through this exercise, but how could that mean we don't have head ? I know words and languages does have limitation and I might not have put it correctly..that case apologies
Douglas Harding's book "On Having No Head" is certainly worth a read. It provides a graphic demonstration of the fact that subjectivity - awareness, or whatever name you give it - can never be objectified. The Hindu scriptures, such as the Vedas and the Upanishads, say that the eye can see all things, but cannot see itself; the finger can point to all things, but never to itself, and fire can burn all but never itself. Therefore, subjectivity is forever utterly ungraspable, you can never make it a thing, and thus it must always appear to the mind as void, as emptiness, as nothingness. God Himself cannot even objectify Himself, and forever remains mysterious to Himself. Thus science, which is the study of phenomena, can never discover ultimate reality, because it is impossible to objectify it. And because it can never find it as an object, it rejects it as a fantasy.
Thanks, great that you found the video useful :) I too always return to the headless way. The simplicity and directness of it is something I really cherish deeply.
This only reinstates what my experience shows me! We never really and truly examine all our experiences, and if we do and are honest we can seriously consider that we are not what our culture may have taught us . This I think requires an honest examination. I can relate to your way of teaching . Simple and direct.
so liberating,i done this practice many times and it helped,bbut today it started to work in a much powerful way than ever,thank you thank you thank you 🙏
this was awesome - great way to illustrate the concept. The point that everything that appears as form is actually awareness, then connecting that with how we typically see the body as form...thus awareness and not "self"...was powerful.
Systemic practice leads you away from true, unconditioned freedom. There's a good koan, something along the lines of thought being a boat that is needed to reach land, but once on land you do not bring the boat with you
A very Happy New Year Sam. I just discovered you and I love how clear and easy to understand you are, on such a difficult subject! And these type of practical pointings are really helpful. Thank you so much for your love and for your sharing. Cathy, in Ireland. ☺
So seeing our own head in a mirror is the illusion? I’m beginning to experience being the screen, and my head is missing here. What am I seeing in the mirror? Thank you for such a powerful insightful enquiry, Sam.
Hi Suzie, I'm glad you enjoyed the video! In this video I explore the experience of looking at oneself in the mirror: ruclips.net/video/5duwRbaoHic/видео.html
@@Sam_Gow thanks Sam, appreciate it. I’m home 😉, you opened up my eyes to Douglas Harding. Had never heard of the man. I wonder if this is why people are seeing their faces become distorted looking into a mirror for too long. People in the manifestation communities tend to do these crazy things 😞 the forms awareness takes can change & mould into something else? I’m having the experiences you share, I feel to rest there & over time allow it to deepen, I’m on the surface, I’m experiencing & had some wow aha moments, they just need to deepen & take hold I think. I will keep using the experiments & see what changes. Thank you so much for sharing it all with us. Appreciate you 👍
I would love some more guidance on this practice. I hope to setup a session with you Sam but currently I only have Wednesdays available. Hope to chat with you soon
Our awareness is a relationship between our individual energies and our physical bodies. We are connected together as one in the web of consciosness. The web of awareness. We need more people to understand that we are energy, embodied through mental phsyical and universal energy. You can understand more about this on my channel. This saturday, i'll be going over individual energy on my twitch channel as well.
While meditating it’s easy to experientially realize that I am awareness, however during the day I find myself identifying with the mind again. Is there solution to this? Or does consistent inquiry and meditation eventually break this tendency?
@@Sam_Gow I misspoke I meant to say that thoughts pop up and I find myself drifting off towards them without even noticing, only when I notice that I am drifting off to thoughts i bring my attention back to the awareness. English is not my first language so apologies for any miscommunication.
@@Amaterasu77306 In my view the goal is not to be in a constant state of awareness. It is quite natural for thought or other expierences to sometimes be in the "foreground" of experience. It is the nature of Awareness to sometimes seem more veiled and other times seem more open and obvious. But at the same time I see that the understanding of our True Nature changes our thinking and the general "feeling" of our thoughts. The neurotic patterns of thought which seem to create this very concrete sense of being a seperate self tend to get more and more weak through this understanding of What we really are.
Hello sam thus this means it is the consciousness hears the pointing and it reveal itself to self Understanding is also an activity of awareness and not the mind
Hey Sagar, I understand and had similar frustration in the beginning. What helped me is realizing the mechanics of it. In reality, we’re imagining we have a head and are in a body. Look closely at this from your own experience. What is seemingly fact of “I have a head” (for eg) is, I imagine I have a head. There’s a thought that we’re living through as a sort of filter. Also, be easy w/it. Like Sam said, it’s not something you do. It’s more something you notice as a kind of “huh,…how about that”. Instead it’s more of a realizing or different way of understanding. Also look to your expectations. If you’re expecting some type of ‘grand awakening’, this is a set up. Not only are these rare, they’re also unrealistic. The majority awaken slowly, like grass growing. You may find instead that you notice your perspective shifting. Just consider the idea that your true reality is open awareness, not being in a body. Do you have the thought, “no way-I’m totally in my body. “ I had this and still do sometimes. It’s an old program that we’ve bought into for decades in many cases. This game is set up for the illusion. All our sensory perceptions are here to function in this world we live in. They’re constantly reinforcing a separate identity. Society upholds it as do our peers. It’s not conspiracy woo woo stuff. It’s simply the way it is. Instead just question these long standing beliefs, the ones of separation. Notice the mind and how it comes up w/justifications and has feelings to support the idea. In the end, remember it’s an idea. Eventually the structured walls of thought and belief in them start to falter. One last thing. Eyes open can be a challenge for some. Our circuits are set up for visual perception and “focused attention”. Try closed eyes experiment. It’s basically exploring feelings and thoughts of who you are really. I find all this is to be an investigative process. Remember too, there’s no end game or arrival point. Life and consciousness continues and just keeps unfolding. Take care. Feel free to share thoughts/experience. 🙋🏻♂️
@@johnnywlittle Thanks a lot Johnny. Really appreciate your comment on this. I think the expectation of grand awakening is putting me off. I like when you said its a continous process. Thank you. 🙏
@@sagargiri3145 Only the mind, the "I", want to illuminate it. The mind is in the awareness. So it's impossible for the mind to do it. Just understand it, like Johnny Little explained it. 🙏
Johny already provided you with some beautiful word of guidance with which I agree. It might be the case that you are approaching this from a dualistic perspective, meaning that you try to use your attention to find "something". Instead relax your attention, let it completely dissolve. Relax and fall into the Openness of your Being and this Awareness which I am pointing to is recognized spontaneously. I will also add to that that you shouldn't fixate on any particular pointer or method. What is being pointed to, our essential Nature, is what matters, but the particular pointer that leads to this recognition is not important. I understand your frustration with this method, but don't struggle with it. Things very often fall into place when we least expect it. The pathways of Understanding are endless and very often we return to something we once struggled with and realize "Oh of course! This is what it was pointing to all along". But again, the pointer in of itself is seen to be unimportant. Your True Nature is already here and ever-present and you are it!
I have something to say. The reason why I can't see my head is that my eyes are placed at the front of my face. They are not above my head. What I am experiencing visually is the result of light shining into my eyes, and then my brain processing that information to make me aware of it. Another thing. What do you mean by "feeling like you're a separate entity"? Separate from what? I agree with you in that awareness is all there is. But awareness is limited by and "processed" though a brain. I can't experience something that my brain isn't creating. Everything I experience is the result of my brain activity. The question of why I am aware of this brain activity in the first place remains unanswered. Why this brain and not another?, for example. The brain activity of other people is still happening but I am not aware of it. That doesn't mean that they're dead. Why am I aware of the brain activity of this specific body?
Hi Ivan in this video I explore a model of reality that makes Awareness primary and addresses a lot of the points you raised: ruclips.net/video/EeJw3lRwQjs/видео.html In a nutshell: Awareness is Ground-Reality. According to this model the brain doesn't create Awareness, but rather the brain is an image of what the first-person activity of the body-mind looks like from an outside perspective. Regarding the Headless Way Pointer: There is nothing magical about the head in of itself. This is simply a pointer that allows for Awareness to recognize itself. If our eyes were located in our stomach we would presumably feel as if we were localized in the stomach. I would therefore point to the Awareness that seems to be looking from the stomach.
When I move up to my head, there isn't wide open awareness, there is all the feelings of my head, and they are attached to the feelings of my body. My experience is not only visual - so this feeling of my head extends out into the visual field too. The feeling of the visual world in front of me is as real as the feeling of my head - they are seemless - it's just that the feelings associated with the visual world are a different vibration. There isn't this distinction that you make in the video of feet, legs, body, then nothing. There is a seemless continuation of perceived vibration.
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I'd love to read how you experienced this pointer! Let me know in the comments. Don't worry if you couldn't quite connect with my instructions here, this is just one of numerous explorations. Be open and curious and that which is true will eventually shine in all its obviousness.
Appreciate your video. I've done a few of Hardings exercises before, I can observe clearly that instead of a head there is space, but it doesn't seem to provoke a shift in identity that can be described as my sense of self becoming that space. There are times the space becomes very lucid and whole, yet never feels anything like a cure to psychological suffering as claimed by those who advocate for the headless way. Though I do believe it's possible!
I'm curious in your experience what status do sensations of the body play during your visual experience of open spaciousness described by Harding's headless way? In traditional mindfulness practices, sensations of the body become extremely vivid and pacifying with practice - stillness of awareness becomes more easily perceptible. It's a brief momentary relief best described as tranquility, but doesn't stick around longer than a few moments for me.
Maybe this will be useful for you: Something that one needs to aware of is that what is being pointed to here is not a space, even though that word is sometimes used in reference to it. Recognize the emptiness that is "behind" the space, that which is aware of the space. This exploration is not supposed to point to the space of the visual field, but to that in which the space of visual field appears. I would rather not describe it as a shift of identity, but moreso a recognition that what we thought existed as a separate observer never existed in the first place.
When this emptiness recognizes itself, all sense perceptions are included in it, including of course physical sensations. As a result of this the fixations which we often have on our physical sensations are let go of and we therefore can feel a great sense of relief, as you described.
Thanks a lot Sam for the pointer and walking us through. While you suggested to do this exercise as true self, somehow am missing the trick and the mind/false self became dominant and started questioning and rejecting as how it can be headless when it exists and other sense organs are functional. Yes finger points to head which we are not able to see by ourself through this exercise, but how could that mean we don't have head ? I know words and languages does have limitation and I might not have put it correctly..that case apologies
Douglas Harding's book "On Having No Head" is certainly worth a read. It provides a graphic demonstration of the fact that subjectivity - awareness, or whatever name you give it - can never be objectified. The Hindu scriptures, such as the Vedas and the Upanishads, say that the eye can see all things, but cannot see itself; the finger can point to all things, but never to itself, and fire can burn all but never itself. Therefore, subjectivity is forever utterly ungraspable, you can never make it a thing, and thus it must always appear to the mind as void, as emptiness, as nothingness. God Himself cannot even objectify Himself, and forever remains mysterious to Himself. Thus science, which is the study of phenomena, can never discover ultimate reality, because it is impossible to objectify it. And because it can never find it as an object, it rejects it as a fantasy.
San, I always come back to the headless way! Your clarity in its description is excellent.
Thanks, great that you found the video useful :) I too always return to the headless way. The simplicity and directness of it is something I really cherish deeply.
10/10. No more comment. The mind shut up. 🙏
A true Master. Thank you
You are very welcome!
Your tips with the vision field are GOLD. Keep them coming
Thanks.
this is just amazing, heartfelt thank you and immense gratitude for this experiment and demonstration
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you,this is new method for me,never heard of it! Precious content!
You're very welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it. This can be a beautiful path of inquiry.
This only reinstates what my experience shows me! We never really and truly examine all our experiences, and if we do and are honest we can seriously consider that we are not what our culture may have taught us .
This I think requires an honest examination.
I can relate to your way of teaching .
Simple and direct.
Yes, an honest examination of our experience is what it's about.
so liberating,i done this practice many times and it helped,bbut today it started to work in a much powerful way than ever,thank you thank you thank you 🙏
this was awesome - great way to illustrate the concept. The point that everything that appears as form is actually awareness, then connecting that with how we typically see the body as form...thus awareness and not "self"...was powerful.
Yes! The body is just another form which our True Nature takes. All of experience is our True Nature of Awareness.
nice video very direct way of showing it. i wouldnt call bodily awareness centerless though because it appears to be centered in the body and senses.
Thank you ever so much for this pointing 🙏💖. I find it very helpful. I'll need to watch again though. Infinite gratitude for your sharing 🌟
This video brought it all together for me. Great stuff.
Glad it was helpful!
So glad to see this Sam ❤
Thank you
The only way to freedom is sincere, untired, consistent, systematic practice with faith and devotion, preseverence and infinite patience.
Or a lightning, strike, a rumble, and a roll❣️❣️❣️🌄❤️🔥🌩️
Systemic practice leads you away from true, unconditioned freedom. There's a good koan, something along the lines of thought being a boat that is needed to reach land, but once on land you do not bring the boat with you
damn i feel Enlightened.
A very Happy New Year Sam. I just discovered you and I love how clear and easy to understand you are, on such a difficult subject! And these type of practical pointings are really helpful. Thank you so much for your love and for your sharing. Cathy, in Ireland. ☺
Happy New Year to you as well, Cathy! I appreciate your very kind words, thank you! I'm glad you are enjoying these explorations. All the best to you.
It occurred to me that generally while reading we are reading with awareness and we are not conscious of our identity as a separate self
So seeing our own head in a mirror is the illusion?
I’m beginning to experience being the screen, and my head is missing here. What am I seeing in the mirror?
Thank you for such a powerful insightful enquiry, Sam.
Hi Suzie, I'm glad you enjoyed the video! In this video I explore the experience of looking at oneself in the mirror: ruclips.net/video/5duwRbaoHic/видео.html
@@Sam_Gow thanks Sam, appreciate it. I’m home 😉, you opened up my eyes to Douglas Harding. Had never heard of the man. I wonder if this is why people are seeing their faces become distorted looking into a mirror for too long. People in the manifestation communities tend to do these crazy things 😞 the forms awareness takes can change & mould into something else? I’m having the experiences you share, I feel to rest there & over time allow it to deepen, I’m on the surface, I’m experiencing & had some wow aha moments, they just need to deepen & take hold I think. I will keep using the experiments & see what changes.
Thank you so much for sharing it all with us. Appreciate you 👍
🤩
Can it be explained or clarified how true nature creates this fixation?
I would love some more guidance on this practice. I hope to setup a session with you Sam but currently I only have Wednesdays available. Hope to chat with you soon
Sure, we can definitely get into this more in-depth! Just write me at forordinaryminds@gmail.com and we can set an appointment :)
Where can I find that clock. Love it
I can't tell you where exactly, but if you google "now clock", something should come up.
Our awareness is a relationship between our individual energies and our physical bodies. We are connected together as one in the web of consciosness. The web of awareness. We need more people to understand that we are energy, embodied through mental phsyical and universal energy. You can understand more about this on my channel. This saturday, i'll be going over individual energy on my twitch channel as well.
In it, but not of it. Empty always your always seeing what's not there. My nature never leaves me its in everything and nothing.
While meditating it’s easy to experientially realize that I am awareness, however during the day I find myself identifying with the mind again. Is there solution to this? Or does consistent inquiry and meditation eventually break this tendency?
Hey there, what exactly do you mean by "identifying with the mind"?
@@Sam_Gow I misspoke I meant to say that thoughts pop up and I find myself drifting off towards them without even noticing, only when I notice that I am drifting off to thoughts i bring my attention back to the awareness. English is not my first language so apologies for any miscommunication.
It's not about how long you are present. It's about how often you are present (paraphrasing Eckhart Tolle)
Edit; just be present now
@@Amaterasu77306 In my view the goal is not to be in a constant state of awareness. It is quite natural for thought or other expierences to sometimes be in the "foreground" of experience. It is the nature of Awareness to sometimes seem more veiled and other times seem more open and obvious. But at the same time I see that the understanding of our True Nature changes our thinking and the general "feeling" of our thoughts. The neurotic patterns of thought which seem to create this very concrete sense of being a seperate self tend to get more and more weak through this understanding of What we really are.
But without the head …you can’t see that you don’t have a head! The eyes are a must to see!
I shall never have a face, unless i seak it within and face it one to one
We are nothing!
It just IS
Hello sam thus this means it is the consciousness hears the pointing and it reveal itself to self
Understanding is also an activity of awareness and not the mind
Yes, only Awareness itself knows Awareness.
Then, although seeing is happening, no one is looking at anything?
I already tried this in sam harris's app - Headless way.
Didn't work for me then.
Didn't work for me now.
This frustration is killing me..
Hey Sagar, I understand and had similar frustration in the beginning. What helped me is realizing the mechanics of it. In reality, we’re imagining we have a head and are in a body. Look closely at this from your own experience. What is seemingly fact of “I have a head” (for eg) is, I imagine I have a head. There’s a thought that we’re living through as a sort of filter.
Also, be easy w/it. Like Sam said, it’s not something you do. It’s more something you notice as a kind of “huh,…how about that”. Instead it’s more of a realizing or different way of understanding.
Also look to your expectations. If you’re expecting some type of ‘grand awakening’, this is a set up. Not only are these rare, they’re also unrealistic. The majority awaken slowly, like grass growing. You may find instead that you notice your perspective shifting. Just consider the idea that your true reality is open awareness, not being in a body. Do you have the thought, “no way-I’m totally in my body. “ I had this and still do sometimes. It’s an old program that we’ve bought into for decades in many cases.
This game is set up for the illusion. All our sensory perceptions are here to function in this world we live in. They’re constantly reinforcing a separate identity. Society upholds it as do our peers. It’s not conspiracy woo woo stuff. It’s simply the way it is.
Instead just question these long standing beliefs, the ones of separation. Notice the mind and how it comes up w/justifications and has feelings to support the idea. In the end, remember it’s an idea. Eventually the structured walls of thought and belief in them start to falter.
One last thing. Eyes open can be a challenge for some. Our circuits are set up for visual perception and “focused attention”.
Try closed eyes experiment. It’s basically exploring feelings and thoughts of who you are really.
I find all this is to be an investigative process. Remember too, there’s no end game or arrival point. Life and consciousness continues and just keeps unfolding.
Take care. Feel free to share thoughts/experience.
🙋🏻♂️
@@johnnywlittle
Thanks a lot Johnny.
Really appreciate your comment on this.
I think the expectation of grand awakening is putting me off. I like when you said its a continous process.
Thank you. 🙏
@@sagargiri3145 Only the mind, the "I", want to illuminate it. The mind is in the awareness. So it's impossible for the mind to do it. Just understand it, like Johnny Little explained it. 🙏
Johny already provided you with some beautiful word of guidance with which I agree.
It might be the case that you are approaching this from a dualistic perspective, meaning that you try to use your attention to find "something". Instead relax your attention, let it completely dissolve. Relax and fall into the Openness of your Being and this Awareness which I am pointing to is recognized spontaneously.
I will also add to that that you shouldn't fixate on any particular pointer or method. What is being pointed to, our essential Nature, is what matters, but the particular pointer that leads to this recognition is not important. I understand your frustration with this method, but don't struggle with it. Things very often fall into place when we least expect it. The pathways of Understanding are endless and very often we return to something we once struggled with and realize "Oh of course! This is what it was pointing to all along". But again, the pointer in of itself is seen to be unimportant. Your True Nature is already here and ever-present and you are it!
@@Sam_Gow ❤️
I have something to say. The reason why I can't see my head is that my eyes are placed at the front of my face. They are not above my head. What I am experiencing visually is the result of light shining into my eyes, and then my brain processing that information to make me aware of it.
Another thing. What do you mean by "feeling like you're a separate entity"? Separate from what?
I agree with you in that awareness is all there is. But awareness is limited by and "processed" though a brain. I can't experience something that my brain isn't creating. Everything I experience is the result of my brain activity. The question of why I am aware of this brain activity in the first place remains unanswered. Why this brain and not another?, for example. The brain activity of other people is still happening but I am not aware of it. That doesn't mean that they're dead. Why am I aware of the brain activity of this specific body?
Hi Ivan in this video I explore a model of reality that makes Awareness primary and addresses a lot of the points you raised: ruclips.net/video/EeJw3lRwQjs/видео.html
In a nutshell: Awareness is Ground-Reality. According to this model the brain doesn't create Awareness, but rather the brain is an image of what the first-person activity of the body-mind looks like from an outside perspective.
Regarding the Headless Way Pointer: There is nothing magical about the head in of itself. This is simply a pointer that allows for Awareness to recognize itself. If our eyes were located in our stomach we would presumably feel as if we were localized in the stomach. I would therefore point to the Awareness that seems to be looking from the stomach.
@@Sam_Gow Thx! I'll check it out.
,,,contenment -------
When I move up to my head, there isn't wide open awareness, there is all the feelings of my head, and they are attached to the feelings of my body. My experience is not only visual - so this feeling of my head extends out into the visual field too. The feeling of the visual world in front of me is as real as the feeling of my head - they are seemless - it's just that the feelings associated with the visual world are a different vibration. There isn't this distinction that you make in the video of feet, legs, body, then nothing. There is a seemless continuation of perceived vibration.