Probably the most frequent questions i get are "How do i surrender?", "How do i get rid of my attachments?", "What is the actual process to do this?", etc. It is a crucial, and unavoidable, step in nondual awakening. If you are attached, as the Buddha said, that's the source of our suffering. Here are two recent (redacted) dialogues that might be useful:
Q. As for the surrender practice: can you recommend anything to me, I'm not sure how to do this...what has been most joyful for me is kind of just dropping into spontaneous meditation. This isn't something I really know how to actively do and don't know if it's the same thing...but the word that comes to mind trying to describe it would be just "surrendering".
G. i recommend you work w/the two surrender approaches in the blogpost "Surrendering the 'I', letting go of suffering". These two approaches, Byron Katie's and Sedona's are "a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause all the anger, fear, depression, addiction, and violence in the
world." (There are many vids on youTube that demonstrate both approaches well, esp. Katie's.)
Q. Your translation of "Shiva" as
"everything" is rather puzzling. It's closer to
an interpretation rather than translation methinks.
G. It seemed pretty obvious that the original was referring to Shiva, so it was a question of how best to embody my personal experience of "Shiva" so that others might better grasp it, particularly non-Hindus. i really directly experience that everything is One, and along those lines that it is all Her, or Shiva dancing, whichever embodiment of the Divine one finds most useful. So for "me", translating Shiva as "everything" is my on-going direct experience.
Q. Your translation, therefore, is not incorrect but it just seems contradictory to hear a person saying "I am not this body but I am everything", wouldn't you agree, sir?
G. If you personally work deeply w/Nirvana Shatakam as a practice, rather than as philosophy, and experience fully all of the negations in the first 3 lines of each verse, including "I am not this body", you will find that you have removed all of your attachments. you will then directly realize the line 4 refrain of each verse, that you are in fact "everything" or Shiva as you prefer. It is "if not this, if not this, if not this, then that" - all lines are not meant to be equivalent - it is a process.
Q. Do you have any attachments whatsoever?
G. Not that i can ascertain by the techniques i've used to reveal them. Many folk only read through Nirvana Shatakam and say "Oh, yes, I've gotten beyond my attachments", until i work with them and discover otherwise. The strongest, clearest tools i've discovered to reveal remaining attachments are:
a) Do you ever have any suffering?
b) Do you have any self-referential internal narrative?
Both point directly to attachments and an I/me/my that has them, which shows the need for further self-inquiry, and/or surrender/letting go. i have had many changes in "my life" that have given me the opportunity to test that understanding, but there's no way to know what lies ahead. It's an ongoing unfolding as awakening continues to deepen.
Q. So perhaps it is only at the point of departing one's body that we can see most clearly what remaining attachments we have?
G. Yes, it is certainly true that whatever attachments we have
remaining when we are in the process of departing our "form", will
have to be let go of, but we don't need to wait for that moment, or we might not
want to. we can never be sure how lucid we will be, or how much time we
might have to observe our remaining attachments and surrender them. we
might miss the moment entirely.
i do a guided meditation on this process around the letting go of final attachments as if one were "passing", and it has been very useful for some folk. The overarching thesis is, "you're going to be dying someday, and you'll have to let go of everything then, so why not do it now?" It can be a very profound process if they let go into it.
As with the "letting go" process discussed above, this too is all about feeling, and working one's way into the underlying structure of the attachment, carefully, and with great curiosity. If one looks @ "i have no family", that seems an impossible, absurd and illogical statement.
Yet, if you hold that, stay with it, and look at the nature of our attachment to "my" family, is it possible to feel a way in which there is something/someone who is not part of that family, who is not defined, bound or limited by those relationships? Going back to the "letting go" questions; "How does it feel when you have that attachment?", "How would you feel without it?" Is there something that is beyond these relationships, untouched by them?
It is critical to realize that this is not about pushing your family members, or any of your attachments, away. It is about feeling and touching the attachment and questioning its nature and perhaps ultimate value to your freedom from bondage and all that it entails.
There is also another path to nondual awakening - by devotion, or bhakti. The blogpost "Can i reach "nondual awakening" through devotion? Is it the same as "self-inquiry"?" discussed this in detail. Ramana said the two were equivalent; i found both necessary. Unfortunately, this path is not really available for Buddhists or Judeo/Christians as their doctrines preclude it. Bhakti is invaluable for disabusing folk of the "spiritual egos" that can emerge.
BTW, David Newman, to whom i gave his first meditation book and sitting bench, long ago, is now a highly-regarded chanter. we serendipitously reconnected last year, he arranged for me to give a talk near Philadelphia, we met before and the morning after. he describes the meetings in his new book "The Timebound Traveler: How My Journey as a Seeker Came to an End" in a chapter entitled "The Blah Blah Circuit".
Q. As for the surrender practice: can you recommend anything to me, I'm not sure how to do this...what has been most joyful for me is kind of just dropping into spontaneous meditation. This isn't something I really know how to actively do and don't know if it's the same thing...but the word that comes to mind trying to describe it would be just "surrendering".
 |
| Byron Katie |
Take some thoughts on a particular subject which are particularly problematic and "sticky", and create a one sentence summary, like "My mother never really loved me" or "This relationship is hopeless", or "I'll never get a good job"...whatever is problematic.
Ask "Is this
true?". Consider that carefully.
Then ask "Can i be
absolutely certain that it is true?"
Then ask "How do i
feel when i have that story?"
Then ask "How would i
feel if i didn't have that story?"
Then turn it around 180
degrees, i.e. "My mother always loved me." or "This relationship is not hopeless" or "This job will prepare me for a better job", and
see if that is at least as true as the original story.
Then ask "Could i let
go of this story? Yes, or No.
Then ask "Would i let
go of this story? Does it serve me? Is it useful? Yes, or No.
Then ask "If i wouldn't
let go of it now, when would i?
IME, this only works deeply when you honestly, and openly, feel the energies of the thoughts, feel their being there, feel their not being there, etc. The great surprise, for me, was seeing that we can in fact just let go of these stories. They aren't written on some stone tablet somewhere. They are there because we believe they have some protective value, some ability to prevent future disappointment, or a repeat of some suffering from the past.
Amazingly, if we examine carefully and tactily whether they provide enough value to warrant our keeping them with the pain they cause, and find they don't, we can just let go of them and they can just fall away, like a leaf from our hands...
Interestingly, even if in the act of considering letting go of them, you give "No, No, Never" answers, they begin to lose their grip. The brain, comparing both options, has to entertain the sense of the alternatives, which it has very likely not done before. This makes the other option a "real" possibility, which it may decide is preferable, even if "you" don't. As virtually everyone who has gotten further down the path has reported, at some point as the "I"s are deconstructed, it is apparent that the brain is "running the show". It was all along, "we" just didn't recognize it.
 |
| Where your stories aren't |
Amazingly, if we examine carefully and tactily whether they provide enough value to warrant our keeping them with the pain they cause, and find they don't, we can just let go of them and they can just fall away, like a leaf from our hands...
Interestingly, even if in the act of considering letting go of them, you give "No, No, Never" answers, they begin to lose their grip. The brain, comparing both options, has to entertain the sense of the alternatives, which it has very likely not done before. This makes the other option a "real" possibility, which it may decide is preferable, even if "you" don't. As virtually everyone who has gotten further down the path has reported, at some point as the "I"s are deconstructed, it is apparent that the brain is "running the show". It was all along, "we" just didn't recognize it.
As far as identifying your attachments, and working through them methodically and systematically, there is no better source, IME, than Nirvana Shatakam (NS). i fought for years against learning Sanskrit and any "ancient" texts, but a fellow traveler, Gary Kraftsow, a well-known viniyoga teacher, taught me NS, one night @ his house half way up Haleakala on Maui.
NS, composed by Shankara 1,200 years ago, is arguably the best known, nondual chant on attachments, and awakening. It is in Happiness Beyond Thought, and there is a video "Shut Up and Chant", by Professor Rich Doyle and i, of our chanting NS, that goes through it w/word-by-word translation displayed. Here are some comments from youTube:
 |
| Haleakala Sunrise |
G. It seemed pretty obvious that the original was referring to Shiva, so it was a question of how best to embody my personal experience of "Shiva" so that others might better grasp it, particularly non-Hindus. i really directly experience that everything is One, and along those lines that it is all Her, or Shiva dancing, whichever embodiment of the Divine one finds most useful. So for "me", translating Shiva as "everything" is my on-going direct experience.
Q. Your translation, therefore, is not incorrect but it just seems contradictory to hear a person saying "I am not this body but I am everything", wouldn't you agree, sir?
G. If you personally work deeply w/Nirvana Shatakam as a practice, rather than as philosophy, and experience fully all of the negations in the first 3 lines of each verse, including "I am not this body", you will find that you have removed all of your attachments. you will then directly realize the line 4 refrain of each verse, that you are in fact "everything" or Shiva as you prefer. It is "if not this, if not this, if not this, then that" - all lines are not meant to be equivalent - it is a process.
Q. Do you have any attachments whatsoever?
G. Not that i can ascertain by the techniques i've used to reveal them. Many folk only read through Nirvana Shatakam and say "Oh, yes, I've gotten beyond my attachments", until i work with them and discover otherwise. The strongest, clearest tools i've discovered to reveal remaining attachments are:
a) Do you ever have any suffering?
b) Do you have any self-referential internal narrative?
Both point directly to attachments and an I/me/my that has them, which shows the need for further self-inquiry, and/or surrender/letting go. i have had many changes in "my life" that have given me the opportunity to test that understanding, but there's no way to know what lies ahead. It's an ongoing unfolding as awakening continues to deepen.
Q. So perhaps it is only at the point of departing one's body that we can see most clearly what remaining attachments we have?
G. Yes, it is certainly true that whatever attachments we have
remaining when we are in the process of departing our "form", will
have to be let go of, but we don't need to wait for that moment, or we might not
want to. we can never be sure how lucid we will be, or how much time we
might have to observe our remaining attachments and surrender them. we
might miss the moment entirely.i do a guided meditation on this process around the letting go of final attachments as if one were "passing", and it has been very useful for some folk. The overarching thesis is, "you're going to be dying someday, and you'll have to let go of everything then, so why not do it now?" It can be a very profound process if they let go into it.
As with the "letting go" process discussed above, this too is all about feeling, and working one's way into the underlying structure of the attachment, carefully, and with great curiosity. If one looks @ "i have no family", that seems an impossible, absurd and illogical statement.
Yet, if you hold that, stay with it, and look at the nature of our attachment to "my" family, is it possible to feel a way in which there is something/someone who is not part of that family, who is not defined, bound or limited by those relationships? Going back to the "letting go" questions; "How does it feel when you have that attachment?", "How would you feel without it?" Is there something that is beyond these relationships, untouched by them?
It is critical to realize that this is not about pushing your family members, or any of your attachments, away. It is about feeling and touching the attachment and questioning its nature and perhaps ultimate value to your freedom from bondage and all that it entails.
There is also another path to nondual awakening - by devotion, or bhakti. The blogpost "Can i reach "nondual awakening" through devotion? Is it the same as "self-inquiry"?" discussed this in detail. Ramana said the two were equivalent; i found both necessary. Unfortunately, this path is not really available for Buddhists or Judeo/Christians as their doctrines preclude it. Bhakti is invaluable for disabusing folk of the "spiritual egos" that can emerge.
BTW, David Newman, to whom i gave his first meditation book and sitting bench, long ago, is now a highly-regarded chanter. we serendipitously reconnected last year, he arranged for me to give a talk near Philadelphia, we met before and the morning after. he describes the meetings in his new book "The Timebound Traveler: How My Journey as a Seeker Came to an End" in a chapter entitled "The Blah Blah Circuit".
Hi Gary. Thx for the blog! I've incorporated the techniques in my daily routine.
ReplyDeleteMaybe helpful: one question that the teacher from satramana.org suggests to use if you feel like you're lost in the garbage of daily life is:"Where is my happiness"? He says "just see where your bliss is, you'll be drawn to it." It's essential to realize that all the happiness comes from within, not without. That question on happiness interestingly takes you to the same place as the question "Who am I", thus the conclusion that your very being is happiness/bliss. What do you think about that?
Best,
Chris
Hi Chrisd.
DeleteGreat that you are finding the blog useful. If "Where is my happiness?" works for you, that's good, but i believe there are better questions that accomplish more, faster.
i have found in my own practice, and in working with others, that the more direct and unequivocal inquiry questions are, like "Where am I?", or "Who hears?", the more powerful and deeper the practice is.
Self-inquiry is most effective when it isn't about teaching you some other message, but when it is directly pointing to the unreality of the "I". The point is stopping the self-referential internal narrative, and showing the stillness that is there, when the mind can't come up with an answer. That space is the data the brain needs to begin working on to construct a better operating system.
It also directly calls into question the reality of the "I". Done enough times, it will crumble.
Stillness
gary
Hi Gary, thx for the reply.
DeleteConsidering that the point is stopping the self-referential narrative. Outward grasping and the following self-referential narrative is usually (if not always) based on the idea/feeling "I will get my happiness from that place". I've found that sometimes that urge for happiness is too powerful to loosen up with questions such as "Who, where am I". The emotional load that comes with it isn't broken, so stillness is not found. This is where stuff like Byron Katie can come in, or the question "where is my happiness?,"where is the happiness I'll get from this activity"? Which can be followed up again when there is more space with the usual questions such as Who/where am I etc.
What I've also found useful is, when I feel like I've done stuff wrong is ask: "Who acts"? That just cuts through the emotional garbage. Useful especially straight after social situations where you can pick up the idea/feeling "I should have done this and this but I didn't".
I get the idea that you have a broader view with practicing what Ramana refers to as the Self within. He says "The very purpose of Self-enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its Source. It is not, therefore, a case of one “I” searching for another “I.” Which seems to be the case when you're asking "Where am I" and looking for it in the field of sensation. I think Ramana also disapproved of denying practice or affirmations.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Many teachers from old/new days emphasize how their methods are the one and only thing leading to liberation, which seems silly. If you've found a new way that works, that's great. I'm a big fan of your operating system theory :-)
There seem to be multiple ways to go at this thing, and the more we know about it the better, distinguishing properly between stuff that is effective and stuff that isn't. As you said in your talk on OS, the ego will block you so then you have to find another way to get in. I hope people can continue sharing on this journey and you keep up the good work!
Best,
Chris
Hi Chris.
Deletei have no idea who your teacher is but your/his perception of Ramana's teachings is incorrect.
As far as Ramana "disapproving of denying practice or affirmations", if you go to Ramana's first written teaching "Who am I?" (free download), which Ramana actually wrote in the sand w/his finger as he wasn't then speaking, the very first answer to the "Who am I?", is a long list of negations/"not this, not this". The very first thing he wrote in his first teaching was negations/denying practice.
You will also see in "Who am I?", several questions arise in addition to "Who am I?", including "To whom does this thought arise?" and "In which place in the body does the thought "I" arise first?".
Ramana's first "group instruction" for folk around him was to chant the Ribhu Gita every night; the Ribhu Gita is virtually all negations/denying and affirmations, like "The "I am this body belief" is the great limitation, the source of all sorrow, the cause of death, the great misunderstanding, etc. The affirmations are "I am the supreme Brahman, the teacher of all the teachers, the divine Light, etc.". This goes on for many, many verses.
If you read "Talks with Ramana Maharshi" (also a free download), you will see Ramana's daily responses and recommendations over four years to many, many different folks with many different answers depending on the "readiness" of the questioner. Often the same question was met with different answers for different folk.
He gave very specific instructions on things like how to work with chanting, for example, which was "to observe where the sound of the chant arises from."
i encourage you to explore the breadth and depth of Ramana's teachings and to use them as the ego/I comes up with so many clever diversions as one goes deeper. The more tools that you have at your disposal, the more likely you are to be successful. And above, all as Ramana said "Persistence is the key. The successful few owe their success to their perseverance."
stillness
Hi Gary
ReplyDeleteHope you are well.
This is what I understood from the Direct Path Self Inquiry from Ramana Maharishi's 'Who Am i?':
During the day, at any point when a thought arises, I ask myself 'who is having this thought?' and then, it's likely the response "I am" will arise. Then, the question should be "who am i?" and that will take the mind back to the source.
- If the thought is "I need to take out the rubbish", "I need to do the washing up" - do I ask for these questions or just the "sticky" questions ?
- When the mind cannot find the answer to the question "who am I?" what should the experience feel like? Is it simply that the mind cannot locate the source of the "I" and therefore has nothing to focus on? The reason I ask is because I want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
- Am I able to do this effectively 'on-the-go', during daily life?
- From reading your blog post and responses to the posts here, I should do the Direct Path Self Inquiry alongside the chanting and Byron Katie's method (which I need to do because attachments constantly come up for me). Is this correct?
Would very much appreciate your guidance.
Thanks, Mandy
Hi Mandy,
DeleteWhen you ask yourself, throughout the day, or during meditation, "Who/what is having this thought?", you may get "I am", and if you ask "Who am I?", you will get a gap while the brain tries to come up with an answer. With practice, it is increasingly likely that you will just go directly to the gap w/o going through "I am".
This gap will appear with any self-inquiry question, like "Where/what is this?", "Who hears?", "When am I?", etc. Then the brain will find something, anything to try to deal with this unexpected "gap", and close it down.
With continued practice these gaps will increase in length, and the brain will realize that these "gaps" are really a desirable state, far preferable to the unceasing "blah, blah" that is normally there. Then the brain will begin working "off line" to work to stabilize those gaps.
The brain doesn't want to be stressed, anxious, frightened, and depressed...it wants to be peaceful, still, and orderly, so it will move, "all by itself" to increase the depth and length of the still space.
Yes, self-inquiry is really suited to putting it into your daily life. It can be asked anywhere, anytime, in any situation. It can be useful to put a reminder app on your smartphone to prompt you several times a day to ask your chosen question.
Doing it this way is an even more powerful way to change the brain as the difference/contrast between what was there before and what is there when it asks the question and gets these gaps, is greater than it might be in sitting meditation.
The brain "likes" contrast, so these minute or two questions during the day have great "data value".
Yes, you should couple the self-inquiry with some letting go practices, like those described in this post. The first five questions are from Byron Katie's process, the last three are from the Sedona method. you may find that the combination works well for some attachments, fears, or stories, or that just using one or the other works better.
The more you use them, the faster the brain will be able to run through the questions, to where it is hardly visible in consciousness. Once the brain learns the power of these tools to deal with these types of problems, it will use them automatically.
As far as chanting, that is not as critical as coupling self-inquiry and letting go practices, but it is a powerful tool as you progress further that you may find useful.
stillness
Thanks Gary
DeleteHow does this actually link to everyday life?
If I let go of my storylines (I've just done your guided meditation), then I'm letting go of the things that make me do things in life and against which I feel judged by. For example, letting go of the attachment to a job: I feel now, whether as a result of letting go of my attachment to it or just sheer frustration with it, as if the job is superfluous and consequently I'm losing the thought that it is important or necessary. Is it a question of adjustment to this understanding i.e. carry on doing it but now with a different approach - a more liberated approach that the job is just a manifestation and almost empty, nothingness? Or have I got it wrong: am I becoming depressed and detached?
Thanks again
Mandy
Hi Mandy,
Deleteyour attachments aren't what make you "do things in your life", they are what make you feel "judged by", and why you perceive your job as "superfluous", "sheer frustration", and not "important or necessary".
Yes, just adjust to doing your job without attachment, realizing that "you" don't really do your job, your job "happens" all by itself, and whether it continues or not is out of your control.
The blogposts "Are our lives controlled by our unconscious brain?" and "There's no free will...accept it, attack it, hide it, or ignore it?" and the recent "Right sizing your 'I', understanding confirmation bias...new studies" will give you a perspective on how unimportant "you" are to what happens with your job, or with "your life".
If you feel yourself getting "depressed and detached", see "What is feeling depressed?", and explore the stories and fears that are behind "depressed and detached", and use the "letting go" practices on them. They are just stories and the fears are illusions.
stillness
gary
Thanks again gary. You're very kind to offer this guidance.
DeleteSo I am trying to deconstruct the he/she/they/it etc. Thinking about the 'objects' is endless, so as per your guidance, I bring it back to 'who is seeing the he/she/they/it etc. It follows that 'I am', so who or where am I? ...
BUT
Then I closed my eyes and asked who is feeling the laptop on my legs/some pressure? (i.e. he/she/they/IT). But something was having the sensation of the laptop/pressure and it was a body - my body! It can't be another object because I can't feel the chair on the other side of the room. What am I missing? Is it the fact that it's not the laptop I'm feeling, rather just sensation? Is it that the brain has constructed the notion of a laptop? It feels that the body has sensations so how can it be no place/no being?
I feel a little confused because I can deconstruct mental constructs - I think; however, if I try it with something simple (like a laptop) it seems to reinforce a thing there. Please could you clarify, if you don't mind.
Thanks so much.
Mandy
Hi Mandy,
DeleteAn important practice is to realize that if there is a subject perceiving something and an object being perceived that they can't be the same thing.
If there is a laptop on your legs and there is a sensation of that, realize that what is experiencing that sensation cannot be the same thing as the sensation, or the object, or what the object is resting on.
you can work your way around "external objects" like the laptop that clearly aren't "you" in this way. However, very importantly, you can also do it with your right foot, or your left ear, or your nose, or tension in your left shoulder or jaw. Whatever can be experienced, can't be you, the experiencer.
you aren't your body, as you can objectify every part of it that you can experience. you are always the subject. you can keep doing this until you try to "objectify" the "subject/watcher", and see what happens there.
stillness
gary
Thank you - that's actually made it much clearer for me. That being said, I have now come up with some alternate and conflicting(?) outcomes. Please could you kindly offer me a suggestion about which one is more ok?
ReplyDeleteFollowing what you say in your response to me, I came up with:
1. Based on the idea that whatever can be experienced can't be you, the experiencer; does it therefore follow that since I cannot experience the "subject/watcher" that I must be that/it (because I don't experience it)?
Or
2. Does it therefore follow that because I cannot find the "subject/watcher" there isn't one. But that sort of leads to duality - there is no "subject/watcher" but there is all the rest i.e. sensations, thoughts?
Or
3. Does it therefore follow that because I cannot find the "subject/watcher" there isn't one and that in turn leads to thinking that the sensations, thoughts are unreal/not there?
Please could you clarify if i'm on the right path? Point 3 brings me closer to the understanding of non-duality but I'm totally unsure if I'm doing this right.
If I continue to practice this then eventually the brain will reside in the non-experience or the stillness/emptiness?
Thank you!! I hope you are ok to respond to so many emails.
Hi Mandy,
Deleteyou're right that 3. is the closest, but only the first part is correct, IME. When you do the self-inquiry questions and/or explore where the subject/watcher is, and if it is, the discovery is made that there isn't one.
This is also what the neuroscience shows us...there is no single, permanent ego/I/Mandy, but instead there are countless ad hoc, pseudo-entities that manifest as functions change.
On the subject of reality/unreality, the blogposts "What is really 'real'? What does 'nothing is real' mean?" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-is-really-real-what-does-nothing.html and "How our brain creates a useful version of reality - latest neuroscience" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-our-brain-creates-useful-version-of.html discuss this in detail.
Basically, the brain evolved to produce a most evolutionary "useful" version of reality, not a true, perfect or correct one. The brains that produced a perfect version, aren't here any more...the lions ate them. So fundamentally, neuroscientifically, what we see isn't real, "on purpose".
Trust this is useful.
stillness
Hi gary
DeleteWhen the sensation came to be translated into the thought of pain (in my back – just a muscle pain) this morning, a thought came that this is a thought of a sensation of pain. Who feels the pain? …
Then another thought: If this mind has created a thought of the feeling of pain then another mind can also contrive such a thought. Therefore there are multiple bodies/minds. Then surely this is duality?
Then the thought: But if that mind/body asks “who is feeling this pain?” there is the potential for recognition that it is a thought of pain and the potential to find the source.
Only one source – non-duality? Please could you tell me if this correct? Because the thought keeps on coming back to the idea of non-duality – that there are other minds, but this is just a thought, and others have thoughts. Where are their thoughts?…
Also, a thought that keeps returning. Watching your videos with Rich, you mention many times the idea of serendipity in your life. It’s a hurdle for my mind because if no one is having the thoughts, then who is there to believe in this serendipity and why is it important? Do you mean that the random thoughts are so fantastically random to open up the doorway to nonduality and this in itself is serendipitous?
Thanks again
Mandy
Hi Mandy,
DeleteThere is no point in worrying about the thoughts of other bodies, as you have no way to know them. Even the "mirror neurons" that we have evolved to try to guess other bodies' emotions and thoughts, base their assumption on what our own thoughts are when we have those face twitches, body language, etc., or perhaps have seen them in other bodies. It is something that we evolved to protect our body, but it has a big assumption that others' minds work the way ours does.
As you watch carefully, particularly when you do the "When am I?" self-inquiry during your day, you will see that there are many ego/I/Mandys that manifest for every different relationship, situation, occasion, etc. on an "ad hoc" basis. As the famous English writer, Virginia Woolf, wrote - "we have as many "I"s as we have relationships". Those "relationships" can be with other folk, possessions, emotions, tasks, etc.
This is an important understanding as it undermines the belief, which neuroscience supports, that there are countless ad-hoc ego/Is, not one constant "I" that needs to be appeased, listened to, etc. Inquiring into each of them quickly shows they are not "real" in any persistent sense...only fleeting phantoms.
On the serendipity question, you are asking it from a dualistic perspective with an ego/I/Mandy that wants to find some problem with the teachings so it can disregard these "dangerous" (to it) questions on its existence.
Just watching in your own life as you go through a day and see a) if you think up your thoughts, b) if everything that happens is what you anticipated, c) if you think up what you say, and d) if any of these unanticipated events were likely or could have been predicted, or if they were extremely unlikely but very useful.
The ego/I/Mandys are so afraid of the discovery of "serendipities" as that demonstrates clearly that they are not in control of what happens, and have no idea how it could have happened, nor could they have made it happen. This undermines the core of the ego/I/Mandy operating system.
That's why it's important for you to see if it is true for you in your own life, not because Rich and i have seen it. It isn't something to "believe" but something for you to discover for yourself and see if it opens "the doorway to nonduality".
In the end, it is all out of our control, every bit of it as Einstein and Ramana Maharshi both said as discussed in the video "Everything is Predetermined - Einstein and Ramana Maharshi" @ https://youtu.be/XqLDWyk1uLQ and in the "Free Will, Control, and Predetermination" playlist @ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuH37Fyz9VEOnY_lUcblS8aI0hF7oNMj6.
stillness
gary