Meditating, crying, releasing

[Tad]

So I had a good meditation session yesterday. Then today I felt like something was brewing inside the mind. There was a strong stream of depressing emotions, all kinds of fears of existence, etc. Then I went to do a laying down meditative session. I felt quite tired and even fell asleep at one point intentionally. Then woke up and continued. I kept going back to the breath as my anchor and felt like it was cutting through that stream of traumatic emotions. After about a couple hours I stopped. The body felt light and good. Then a memory of my dad come to my mind. Then a thought occurred to me that deep inside we are still like little children. We just stuck in this world of multiple selves and bodies because we got tempted by desire for things and experiences. But all we really want is to be safe and free from suffering. I remembered that innocent and pure feeling of happiness of being a child. Then I was able to cry and release a lot of tension. It felt like a great relief.

[Jhanananda]

It sounds like you had an excellent meditation with a great deal of progress. I expect the primary reason why so few ever get to deep meditation is because of the kind of experience you just shared. For most people that would be pretty traumatic and they would likely never meditate again, instead of realizing the contemplative life is an interior journey through our inner most mental landscape.

Yes, we all want to be free from suffering, but suffering is an essential feature of material exitance so if we want to be free of suffering then we must leave the material plane and take up our home in the immaterial domains, and that is what the fruitful contemplative life is all about.

[Alexander]

I believe these are phenomenal emotions to experience in meditation, and are half the purpose of it; it is the process of introversion and going within. When we introvert ourselves, we see who we really are, see our negative emotions and memories, see our wickedness and failings, confront our mortality, and see the things about ourselves that repel us or horrify us. But in doing so we begin the process of reconciling those emotions and reaching a more integrated state. This is the emotional sophistication of the great saints and yogis.

Some reading materials on this that are out there are: John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul, Jesus and John the Baptist's Metanoia, Evelyn Underhill's Purgation, Alchemy's Nigredo, Carl Jung's Shadow Self, Teresa of Avila's Second Mansion, and more.

[Tad]

That is why I find this forum and GWV very valuable due to abundance of info about such aspects of the path. I've been more or less sticking to the training regiment as described by Jhananda on GWV. Except that my morning meditation is typically a work out. But before bed I now sit for at least 1 hour, sometimes even more. I don't set a timer. I just go by how I feel and then check my watch to see how long the session went. On weekends I try to do extra meditation and just sitting in the backyard with a cup of tea in silence. It seems that mind calming practices and habitual investigation of the reality result in guaranteed progress.

[Jhanananda]

Thank you, Alexander for expressing your excellent thoughts, and your excellent reading list.

Tad, it sounds like you are doing very well.