Your answer to your questions was exactly what I thought when I read your post.
quote:
Has anybody else had to go through this phase?
Absolutely, yes. When I do formal practices, the I sense is strengthened. Just to sit and observe is the best practice for me. I might do Om chanting if inspired to, but just for the love of the Om sound, not as a practice. Why do formal practices sometimes strengthen the I? Because structured practices are a subtle doing, and its hard to avoid them containing an intent and sense of doership. In just sitting still, which is no practice at all, even the doer comes undone.
The Self, in its aspect of formless awareness, has no agenda, no motivation, no goal, no desired outcome in mind. It illumines ignorance and enlightenment equally, regarding expressions of hatred and malevolence with the same gaze that regards love and kindness. It's altogether beyond these opposites.
To simply sit still and observe (when you have cultivated enough witness consciousness) is the most powerful practice for ego-undoing. Because the ego is always trying to get somewhere, do something, achieve something.
The Self doesn't share this nature. It's absolutely fine with whatever appearances pass through it. It's just like the empty space in a room, the space isn't affected by what happens within it. The space doesn't say "No, I want to see good things in the space" or "Oh yes I like this!". It's free from such preferences, content with what is.
Just sitting, and observing, we let go of that identification of trying to get somewhere or do something, and we ourselves become like the empty space in the room, content with whatever appearance may arise.
What is happiness? Not a particular feeling surely. All feelings, all states, come and go. It is the nature of things that pleasure and pain chase one another. True happiness is not a move to a positive state, it's just the total absence of resistance to whatever is taking place, right now.
Do you feel me or am I ranting?
love
josh
