Associating 'death of I' with vivid luminosity of your
experience is far too early. This will lead you into
erroneous views because there is also the experience of
practitioners by way of complete surrendering or elimination
(dropping) like Taoist practitioners. An experience of deep
bliss that is beyond that of what you experienced can occur.
But the focus is not on luminosity but effortlessness, naturalness
and spontaneity. In complete giving up, there is no 'I' ; it
is also needless to know anything; in fact 'knowledge' is
considered a stumbling block. The practitioner drops away
mind, body, knowledge...everything. There is no insight,
there is no luminosity there is only total allowing of whatever
that happens, happen in its own accord. All senses including
consciousness are shut and fully absorbed. Awareness of
'anything' is only after emerging from that state.
One is the experience of vivid luminosity while the other is a
state of oblivious. It is therefore not appropriate to relate
the complete dissolving of 'I' with what u experienced alone.
Hi, is this description by David Carse a description of the
'state of oblivious':
"Still later that night in the jungle, toward morning, lying
there in Presence, there was a point when all the experiencing
stopped. The thinking and the feeling and the processing that had
been happening all completely ceased. I was not aware of it 'at the
time,' because there was no thought and no awareness of time or
indeed of anything; only in hindsight is there a looking back and
realizing that there was a 'period of time,' out of time, when
there was no thought, no experience, no thing, nothing.
It may have been hours, it may have been an instant; it was
not of time, Only in retrospect can it be called a place or a time
of stillness or emptiness, because when it was occurring there was
no time and no place and no sense or awareness of anything
happening. I was not asleep. It was a condition of complete
stillness and completely alert awareness. But there was nothing
there to be aware of, no sense even of self to be self-aware. It
could be called a completely empty stillness and awareness. I have
no idea how long this lasted.
Eventually, at some point, in this place of no time, no
thought, no place, no self, there gradually began a creep in an
awareness that there was a simple watching of something. As this
awareness distilled out of the emptiness, attention focused; and
the realization was that what was being watched, what there was
awareness of, was a guy lying in the bamboo hut in the jungle. This
continued to focus until there was awareness, a kind of
recognition, of what had always been thought of myself, 'david,'
lying there on a matt in the middle of the rainforest. And there
was an abrupt realization: "my god, there's nobody home."
This was the moment at which nothing happened. Like a 'pop'
of a bubble bursting, a shift in understanding. I am not 'david:'
there has never been a 'david:' the idea of 'david' is part of a
thought, something like a dream, that doesn't matter. The
individual 'self,' the one I thought resided in that body, looking
through those eyes, the one I thought a few hours ago had woken up
enough to perceive Presence, is not there, does not exist, never
has. There is nobody home.
This was not an 'out of body' experience. I have had these,
in which 'me', my'self,' experienced being out of this body rather
than inside it, and experienced looking at the body from outside
instead of looking out through the body's eyes. This was not like
that at all. What was being watched here was not only the body, but
the whole 'david' apparatus; body, mind self, soul, personality.
What is watching is All that is. The watching, what I came to know
as 'witnessing,' is neither other than the body or mind or the
whole 'david' thing, nor not other. IT does not originate from
here, from the body/mind; but also It does not stand apart from it,
because It is inclusive of it. The witnessing is clearly not being
done by 'me,' even a disembodied 'me.' This witnessing is not being
done by anyone, any entity. That's the point: there are no
entities, there is nobody home. There is only the
witnessing.
Abruptly, instantly. Effortlessly, out of
stillness.
A moment, an instant, of radical, severe disorientation,
discontinuity; then a stepping through into perfect clarity, not at
all unlike the experience of waking up.
A dream, seemingly real, lasting all one's apparent
life.
A stirring, and the sleep dropping effortlessly
away.
A moment of disorientation as the dream is recognized as
dream and there is waking to the Real.
Immediately, the dream falls away and it is known that the
dream was never real, that one never was what one had been
dreaming. There is no 'before and after,' no moment when I was 'no
longer' david. This is the 'gateless gate:' only the seeing that
david never was. As near as can be said: the perception now is that
there is no 'me,' no 'david;' and 'I' is that which has never not
been All That Is. Always everywhere prefect Brilliant Stillness,
and no-thing which has no name continually outpouring, seen now
always not as from this mind/body thing.