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Sum Nihil: Dissolving the Self

In this tutorial we're going to take a look at the third nihilism mantra, which the most important one. It's purpose is manifold, where you are trimming away all of the false identities you have picked up, releasing your intellect from being a chaotic mess, and undoing the remaining perception distortions you may still have, to restore the clarity you once had.

Just because it’s sharp, it does not mean it’ll be effective because sharp intellect or a sharp knife can cause any amount of damage to you. 
If you have a sharp knife and you don’t have a steady hand, you will cut yourself all over the place. 
That’s all that’s happening. Human suffering is just this. 

You don’t know how to hold this intellect in your hand properly. Every day, you’re cutting yourself. 
All suffering is on self-help because your own mind causing this to you all the time. 
No matter what happens, people suffer, whichever way, they suffer, because they don’t know how to hold this intellect. 

If you had the mind of an earthworm, you would be quite peaceful, yes? 

You’re trying to do it in so many ways to reduce the sharpness of the intellect by drink, by drug, by overeating, by doing all kinds of things, 
somehow to take away the sharpness because the damn thing hurts.
It hurts not because that’s its nature; it hurts because you do not know how to hold it.

As the intellect is the knife, the identities that you have picked up are the hands that wield that knife.

Which is more important ?

There is a reality everyone seems to forget, a context to be more precise:

Do you know how big this universe is ? Do you know Where it begins, and where it ends ?

So in this Vast universe there are a few grains of sand that you call the milky way

in these few grains of sand you have got some microscopic particles of that cosmic sand you call the solar system

In those microscopic particles called the solar system, there is a supra-microscopic particle called planet earth

And in that tiny, minuscule planet, you are a very big and important man are you ?

Step down from your high horse, a little cosmic wind happens and your entire world as you currently percieve it just evaporates. All of those things you believe are very important, your family, your work, your house, your wealth, all those things you identified with up until now, these are all minuscule and insignificant happenings in the grand scheme of things.

Are you truly special ?

"Alright, i'm a small happening in the grand scheme of things, but there's no one else like me! Right ?"

How many trillions of humans have walked the earth before you ? Tell me, do you think you are doing anything new ?

Humans have done just about anything for survival, for pleasure, and for control, since the beginning of time.

Just like you and me they were all born, they worked, they reproduced, and they all died at some point.

They all did what they had to do to survive, they reproduced, they got themselves a place to live in, and then they died.

How are you different, from all those people ? Take a good look at the reasons behind what you are doing currently.

As far as i'm concerned, more than 90% of the people on this planet are all doing things for their own selfish interest, one way or the other. Be it for Survival, Pleasure, or Control.

For someone to start acting outside of their own interest, it takes that someone to put himself out of the way of his own actions

Until you manage to completely put yourself out of your own way, and start to act beyond your own interest, you shouldn't think you're any special.

Who / What am I ?

We as humans we are able to accumulate many things. We accumulate money, we accumulate trophies, we accumulate movies, whatever staircase we have found we try to have just one more.

All of that effort to try and accumulate more and more of something. Tell me are you going to be able to carry all of it from this world to the next ?

No you're not even going to be able to take a small needle with you after you die, everything you try to keep to yourself you will anyway have to release it sooner or later.

Let's say you are a very successful businessman, your staircase is to accumulate monery, by selling oil. You managed to become a millionnaire, and you have all of the money you'd ever need for multiple lifetimes.

Luxurious lifestyle, lamborghini, house on the beach. From society's standpoint life is settled and you've got everything. Now the neighbor is a multi-billionnaire with a much bigger house and 4 lamborghinis, for some reason you're not satisfied anymore with what you have isn't it ?

All that is happening is that you are looking at life from the minuscule keyhole vision that society prepared for you, and you believed that was all there was to it.

What's happening is that you have become identified with things that you are not, and have never been.

You are not your house, you are not your lamborghini, you are not the clothes you wear, you are not that sum of money, you are not even special in the end.

If you look at it correctly, you are not even this body and mind of yours.

The body is a heap of food, and the mind is a heap of impressions. Back when you were 3 years of age you had a small heap of food, and a small heap of impressions

And now 30 years later you managed to accumulate that big of a heap of food, and that big of a heap of impressions.

But you are not what you accumulate. So you have the following mantra:

Sadhguru's Shambhavi Mahamudra: (no need to pay for it, here it is) :
Inhalation: I am not the body
Exhalation: I am not the mind

Human suffering happens either in the body, or the mind. On a daily basis, if you distance yourself from both, this is the end of suffering for you.

That's how i have been introduced to this original mantra, It is about dissolving what you believe you are (including all of the poison you've picked up from outside), so that in the end only what you truly are remains.

Effectively to my amazement it lifted off the depression i was going through, like a weight had been put down from over my head. Since then (more than 10 years ago) this practice has never left me, i kept practicing it on a daily basis and refining it more and more, to keep trimming away more of everything that i didn't need to have on my mind.

The mantra below is the result of that rewriting of the mantra over 50 times over all those years, to make it as efficient as possible, and i am quite proud of the result frankly.

Nihilism: Dissolving the Self

Modern Nihilism, as i am pionnering myself, is a set of sentences, or mantras, to be repeatedly mentally thought of, in order to change yourself from within, this aims to alter your perception, your beliefs, and your actual sense of self.

This is to be practiced with your eyes closed, as otherwise the outside may distract you. It is a matter of focusing on what's happening within you, as this is where the change must happen.

Sum Nihil:
Inhalation: I am nothing
Exhalation: I am noone	

As the identities are the hands that wields the intellect, the more identities you pick up, the least able you are to stop yourself from thinking.

This mantra is designed to trim out and get rid off of all the false identities you have picked up, the first thing you may notice after using this mantra for a while, is that you are able to sit still without a thought in your head. If you have gone on for years without having been able to stop your thoughts like i used to be, you'll see that this is going to feel like a huge relief, like a weight has been put down from over your head.

Too many identities also distort your perception, to get rid of them, or to distance yourself from them, is to bring back your clarity of perception, to see things as they are once again.

You'll see also that it is very easy to fall into the trap of getting identified with things that you are not after that, which is why this mantra is to be practiced very often, to be able to maintain your peace of mind. Over time you'll need to do this less and less as your mind gets used to it.

If you try to do this mantra extensively for more than 10 minutes, you may even experience Ego Death (as this is the actual goal of this mantra), here is the description from effect index to highlight what it feels like:

Ego death (also known as ego suppression, ego loss or ego dissolution) is the temporary experience of a partial or complete disruption of a person's sense of self, which often results in a range of profound changes to how the person perceives and interprets their own sense of identity and the nature of agency and self-hood.

[...]

there is a profound experience of no longer having an “I” experiencing one's sensory input; there is just awareness of sensory input as it is and by itself without a conscious agent to comment on or think about what is happening to it.

A little distance is all it takes: Suppose you are stuck in traffic for more than 3 hours, from your perception traffic is a horrible thing to be in. But if you go in a hot air balloon, go way up and then look down upon the traffic, you'll now think that traffic is looking preety good!

In the same way, if you spend your whole life on the ground over time you'll end up thinking that the earth is flat, but if i put you in a space rocket to go up in space far enough, with enough distance you'll be able to percieve that the earth is round.

To distance yourself from your thought process is essential to have clarity on what it is doing, and to have clarity on what it should be doing aswell. Yes we're talking neuroplasticity, you don't need to be taking psychedelics anymore with this mantra. With this you are effectively rewriting your way of thinking, trimming out the unecessary patterns, leaving room for the ones that truly matter to you.

Anonymity, when you don't matter anymore.

Suppose you want to start your own blog like i did, what are you doing it for? what is the reason behind it ? Are you doing this out of self interest, to grow your fame a little, to get recognition, applause, external validation, squeezing money out of your viewers, or perhaps improving your CV for your IRL career ? Or are you doing it because this work needs to be done ?

Who are you ? Are you someone that works for personal gain ? Or are you someone that works because the work needs to get done ?

If you go through my blog a bit, you may stumble on anonymous contributions, people that contributed to the blog anonymously. For them, it doesn't matter who did the work, all that matters is that the work gets done.

This also means that they are not looking for fame, recognition, applause, external validation. After all if you know you are right, why does it matter if people agree or disagree ?

These anonymous contributors may have also put their monero address on their blogposts, that way they can recieve donations, while maintaining their anonymity. After all, why would you need to have a name, to get paid ? Isn't Monero the purest form of money currently available ?

Actually, is money even money at all when it is tied to your name ? isn't it tainted with lowly personal gain intentions all over ? Anonymous money is the purest form of money, as it is free from lowly personal gain aspirations, and it is money that you actually own, it is 100% yours. While the money you have in your bank account is not even yours, it belongs to the bank, which can seize it or terminate it whenever they feel like it.

Think for a while to reflect on the reason behind your actions, are you going to remain immature your whole life, trying to preserve your meaningless fame, and public image? Or are you going to start doing things not for personal gain, but to change this world for the better?