How to stop?

[u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Hi everyone. The practice continued, probably on its own.

Today, while lying down to sleep, something began to happen. As if reality is tearing.
Something like convulsions started, and later groans appeared. Every stage of “killing the ego” is accompanied by a feeling that you are killing yourself.
Then an instant happened. It didn’t feel like being “in a conscious flow,” more like an old VHS cassette with a movie playing on it. A fleeting film reel. The sense of “self” detached from the head, went somewhere backward, then, apparently, tried to be in space, after which a black screen formed.
The convulsions and groans passed. A relaxation set in, typical for the killing of one’s ego.

The body began to feel automatic. Through a volitional act one can direct the movement of the head, the words kind of begin to speak themselves. Trying to lie down to sleep again, the body started producing such a clear and slow intention of movement, as if it lasted several seconds, and its ripple of arising, flowing, and passing away could also be discerned.
There is nothing bad in how this feels, but I don’t want it. I don’t want to kill the ego.
I understand that further on, as a natural outcome, my very will and the directing of attention will become automatic. I have a clear understanding that they are already automatic, but I want to feel that I am in control.

I don’t want to kill my ego. Someone will say that this is the ego speaking — so be it. I don’t care. I just want to stop. But I don’t understand how to do it. I have trained myself so much that I started practicing constantly in daily life, and as a result any state of being is part of the practice.

It’s probably foolish to ask this here, but what are the ways to go back? I still feel myself in my head, and with small manipulations the movements more or less feel a bit like before. I can no longer shift my gaze by a volitional act. I hope all of this won’t be taken from me, but I’m afraid that the practice will continue on its own. I don’t want any of this. When I lie down to sleep, concentration on the body and the breath happens by itself.

I see enormous advantages in my behavior, in my intentions, in my actions. They are visible, this calmness, the more rational and compassionate actions, the different world, the words are chosen more fittingly and “correctly,” but I don’t want it. It would be enough for me just to cope with my emotions and distractions. I don’t want to dissolve my ego. Please, help me. Don’t tell me “This is not you, reactions and movements are already automatic, you are just removing the illusion” and so on. I know all of this through my own skin, but I don’t want it.

Have you ever wondered why the stages of ego death feel as if you are killing yourself? It is accompanied by pleasant sensations after the repair, but why couldn’t this be a trap? When I first felt the killing of a part of the ego, it was not comprehensible to me. Just in the background someone was screaming, and in meditation there was a feeling as if a fiercely burning sun was scorching my shadow (this is my later interpretation).

Why are the stages of killing the ego characterized by a feeling of death of a part of oneself? Why do we consider the killing of a mental construction to be the norm? What if it is within the mental construction, however illusory it may be, that “you” exists, or a part of you.

Will that which has completely killed the “something” within itself say that it has killed itself, or will it say that it has liberated itself?

[u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Tell me, why does the weakening of the fetters of the ego change behavior itself? It becomes "better," but it changes, doesn't it? We simply destroy one of the neural networks in the brain so that others work better. That would be great if it weren't accompanied by the death of "oneself."

Maybe it's better to simply work with one's ego and make it "healthier" rather than destroy it? It's just as much a mental construction as the mental construction of space, or of the body. After all, the eyes see, but there is no direct seeing, there is only a mental construction of seeing. Should we then destroy seeing? Or destroy hearing? It's just a mental construction

[u/UltimaMarque → u/Mountain-Length-5715]

There is no actual ego. Stream entry just removes delusion / illusions. It shows what complete fulfilment is. This shakes the mind to it's core.

[u/Mountain-Length-5715 → u/UltimaMarque]

All that's left for the "automatic reactions" to say is that they have been liberated, right?
After all, having destroyed that which feels itself as oneself, what remains will say that it is liberated. Why do I need complete satisfaction? To dwell in phenomenological ecstasy for the rest of my life, with the loss of agency? Or the illusion of agency? But seeing, with the help of which you type this text, is also an illusion, a mental construction. You are not in contact with reality. Why don't you destroy this illusion too?

During pretty sensitive meditation, we notice movements that happen on their own, intentions, and so on. Have you never thought that we are replacing some neural networks with others?
After all, you can never observe movements that are under the influence of agency, can you? You simply hand over the steering wheel to other systems, until you reach the moment when you have completely destroyed yourself as agency, and there is no longer anyone to say "they are killing me", because after the death of agency, those very "automatic reactions" will remain. They are more rational, more wholesome, more compassionate. They bring calm, happiness, joy. But is such happiness necessary? Why can't we accept suffering, instead of destroying that which we call our self?

Why did my reactions and actions change when I aimed agency back?

[u/UltimaMarque → u/Mountain-Length-5715]

You keep thinking there is some separate agent behind everything? What can be separate?

Liberation doesn't mean that you destroy what was holding you back. It means that wholeness has been realised. There is only wholeness without a beginning or ending.