Context

A. suggests that he can experience the nondual Self during formal seated practice, and yet, as he’d say, during the course of the day this nondual Self has gone missing. This is his sticking point.

Experiment

Dear A,

A simple experiment to try:

• Close your eyes and then gently move the head back and forth.
• Ask yourself, “Am I moving, or is there just sensation-energy that’s unfolding?”
• Notice that, without nama (as in namarupa), you can’t really say: “My head is moving” or even “Head is moving.” In fact, all you can really say is that sensations are appearing and disappearing. 
• But then it’s clear that these sensations are appearing and disappearing within ME.
• In short, try to get a decent experiential feel for the Vedantic answer: I remain unmoving while, only apparently (maya), arisings appear gently within ME.

This experiment gives the flavor of experiential understanding: activities or movements occur within the non-doer ME.

A’s Reply

I’m lost once I get to Step 4: “But then it’s clear that these sensations are appearing and disappearing within ME.”

When I move my head back and forth, while I do feel that my head as an organ is moving. When it stops moving, I also feel that it is an energy sensation. As I see, it seems to be both. I don’t understand what I’m missing.

My Reply: Namarupa

Dear A,

Let’s look more closely at namarupa.

Nama refers to naming/labeling/conceptualizing. For instance (some random cases):

• Thought #1: “That’s a robin!”
• Thought #2: “Look at how old my hands are.”
• Thought #3: “The pain in my leg is killing me!”

Rupa can be said, by contrast, to be non-nama mere perceptible appearances. Like:

• Just seeing (where “just” means “without labeling”).
• Just hearing
• Just experiencing sensation/sensation-energy
• Just tasting

In which case, what this experiment (above) reveals, to begin with, is that there’s no direct experience (pratyaksha) of “my head” moving. There’s just moving or, better yet, just sensing. (Why just sensing? Because memory is also nama, and memory is necessary for the idea that “my head” is “moving.”)

And so, you start to slowly experience just moving or just sensing without nama (labeling). 

Next, you might wonder IN WHAT this (for instance) sensing, or mere sensing, or just sensing is appearing? 

Visualize Yourself as a vast space (cf. akasha). Then let go of this visualization and ask: “Is it the case that this sensation is appearing within ME, the Self, or Consciousness?” Play with it. Relax.

You can, by the by, also move a foot, a finger, etc. 

What’s the darn point of this experiment/inquiry? It’s an experiential taste of the Self being THAT in which all (apparent) movements are taking place.

And what’s the larger point? To start to get an experiential feel for what it’s like “during the course of the day” to experience movements (or, better yet, arisings) of all sorts just unfolding without believing that one is the doer or the enjoyer (to use Vedantic language). You might have a “slight experiential feel” of being uninvolved. That uninvolvement is indeed the Self simply being Itself.