Greetings all, thank you for receiving me and letting me post on here.
My name is Leigh St John Hollis and I currently reside in Cornwall, England and I am 25. I find myself back in this lovely part of the world after completing my degree. ”. I have had an interest from a young age about what happens after death, the proper way to live life and other questions of that nature, I was lucky to have a lot of my own time and space growing up as a young kid and teenager and would often sit reflecting on the nature of things.
My main interests are the mind, thought, human suffering and connecting with the divine as such I ended up writing my dissertation on “An exploration into whether mindfulness meditation can increase academic performance in University students through the reduction of the symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression
An inspiration for this other than my natural inclinations was that the vast majority of my peers at university seemed to be suffering from some form of deep depression, social anxiety which they haven’t experienced before university (normally triggered by excess use of Marijuana) or were just so stressed that they were finding it difficult to function.
All of this in what was advertised to be a joyous and wonderful experience to us, I certainly found it to be so but I would say about 70% of my peers seemed to be suffering greatly. None of them had any mental training and would often complain of not being able to sleep at night due to excess thought, I would let people know at any opportunity that this does not have to be the way and suffering is a choice and I was able to help out a number of people which was nice. In turn I got to learn about what they were going through and what they thought was causing the issues, almost always it came back to thought about things that they identified with.
I have been meditating every day now for around 3 years and reading about esoteric or occult topics since I was 18, the catalyst was when my father got terminally ill and subsequently died 2 years later from a form of cancer, this time period also included losing a grandma, a friend at my local football (soccer ) team and having to move from my dream house of my childhood. All in all it was a difficult time for my family and despite maintaining a base of positive thinking it may have resulted in me suppressing emotions as the culture over here is very much that “real men” don’t cry, something I have since learnt to be a ridiculous notion and now I feel much more emotionally open, in part thank you to my girlfriend who I met at university.
I started off playing around doing 10 minutes a day for the first year of university, exploring lots of different paths and ultimately trying to find a sense of identity, I remember thinking “I must have been native American in a previous life, looking at how they live their life in a peaceful and free manner it makes sense to me” in a society which made very little sense to me. Despite the lack of conviction in my meditations I would still experience blissful waves now and again but was essentially fumbling round in the dark.
Near the end of the first year of uni I picked up a wonderful tome on Kriya yoga, and started practicing diligently for about a year and a half and enjoyed some altered states of consciousness and overall better physical and mental wellbeing but I found the practice cumbersome as there were around 15 different techniques used in each session.
I read about concentration meditation and the jhanas online last August whilst in Malaysia to see my girlfriend and found it made a lot more sense to me, immediately I dropped my kriya yoga practice and started picking up concentration meditation, I feel this is where the majority of my progress has come from combined with insight practice mostly based upon the writings of Nisargadatta Maharaj. Focusing on the sense of I am, and slowly dropping identifications with thoughts, the body and various other things that one becomes attached to throughout one’s life, to the point where I am left fairly naked and bare and am very unsure about anything now, including all knowledge I thought I had of various things. I recognise now I know nothing about my own nature of that of the world, but that stance has left the mind a lot freer and quieter, aided by the practice of concentration.
I have been experiencing various states of bliss as a result of the practice of concentration but im not at the point where I can enter 1st jhana every time, im not even sure if what im thinking of as 1st jhana is the 1st as descriptions seem to vary. It is like the peak of orgasm spread over the whole body for around 15 minutes or for however long it can be maintained, it feels as if there is mental and physical bliss although the physical is the most dominant, I have slipped into emotional joy a few times to the point of having an extreme sense of gratitude ( I remember thinking at the time “this feels like the fruit of every bit of meditation I have ever done coming to fruition” rather intense and wonderful. When concentration on the object is fairly continuous I feel warmth, and physical bliss arising from the depths of my being, I then switch focus onto this observing it and allow it to wax and wane as it will until it spills over into what I am currently calling 1st jhana. This is a result of concentration but if anyone would like to correct me I am here for advice, as there seem to be many skilled meditators here. The meditation “experts” that I have spoken to around here still seem very identified with their body’s and thoughts making them suffer, intuition and instinct told me that these were not people I wanted to learn from, a sentiment echoed on this website.
I also recently had an experience of what I would describe as unity which was by far and away the most intense but wonderful thing I have ever felt. My friend put a random video of angels singing slowed 800% on YouTube and it sent me instantly into a state of focus on the beauty of it, I couldn’t talk and warm tears streamed down my face, the sensation was that of all barriers of separation being removed and becoming one with all ( sounds cliché ). It was accompanied by an extreme sensation of bliss and it felt as if when I breathed the cosmos was inside my heart, breathing in union. It was a difficult experience to describe but it has stuck with me and the sense of my identity has been stripped away at some level, although of course the “personality” is still there and has to be to function in the world.
My current goal is to try and enter into 1st jhana in every meditation session and I would say I probably have about a 20% success rate at the moment, although I try not to strive upon begging my sit I simply bring my focus back to the anchor of the breath. Conceptualizing the object of meditation as an anchor as seen on here has helped. I find generally my focus is pretty good, thoughts that do arise tend to get cut off at the first thought and are not followed through and allowed to spawn infinite more thoughts; they are in the background, wispy and thin. I have been developing a much quieter mind whilst walking around as well, playing more of an observatory role instead of always thinking, of course sometimes the mind is racing, replaying past events etc but I find I am far less attached and identified with these now so they tend to slip away rather quickly. I am cutting out masturbation, am becoming a stricter vegetarian to try and aid this goal, and it is the natural path anyway when I listen to my intuition.
I should mention as well that there is a constant high pitched noise that pervades my awareness at all times which seems to grow louder when meditating, this is often accompanied by a lower pitched Hum or roar as well. I have briefly experimented with this as a meditation object but someone has told me that it is focusing on the “earth” element where as the breath is the “wind element” and thus harder to transmute, and I do find the breath easier to gain one pointedness with.
My degree is in Education Studies and I would like to try and implement mindfulness into schools as there is a wealth of science and study to back up the efficacy of it as a form of keeping people mentally healthy. Something which seems ridiculous to me that we don’t include in schooling, we get taught how to function in society as a peon but not taught how to take control of our mental states.
A friend of mine was in deep depression last year and I gave him a book by Eckhart tolle about mindfulness and he took the practice on board and is far happier and looks so much healthier now. His mother is the head teacher of a school and has implemented mindfulness into her school now after having seen how it helped her son. This is something I would like to try and get nationwide, Im not sure if it is an unrealistic or ego driven goal but I just want people to be free of the illusory mental baggage they carry around as when they get into adulthood it often manifests as excess stress, anxiety or depression.
Long winded post
but if anyone has any advice or tips or even clarification of what I am thinking jhana might be that would be wonderful, I must say as I type this I have a lovely sensation in my heart area, so I feel finding this community was a rather wonderful gift! I look forward to conversing with you all
