mapelis blog

[mapeli]

Hi all. I'm quite new around here and have just started reading through the forum. I'm not new to the GWV however. I will attempt to blog a little bit so those who want to can get to know me, to follow Jeffreys great example of actually speaking of the religious experience/life.

I have had some time off from any worldy activity recently and have gotten into a great groove of meditation. Besides the sits of morning and evening, whenever I'm tired during the day I will sit some more. Whenever I'm too tired to sit I will lay down and meditate. Then I will let myself drift off. Yesterday I fell asleep and dreamt that I was doing sitting meditation. This seems funny and confusing, but a very efficient way of doing sitting meditation, energy wise. Then I had a deep kundalini experience, while meditating in the dream. I felt it building up and just had time to surrender to it. Every time it's like deciding to die.  Then it's like "ah yeah, it's not hard at all" ... and gone.

Thinking about it afterwards made me think of a few years back, when I used to feel like I was getting annihilated in white light just before transitioning into sleep. I read GWV back then and started to understand what was happening, but also I would always need to admit that I would never stand a chance in having to react, to submit, in time not fight it, because it would hit so fast and from nothing.  I think that having developed higher sensitivity through practicing meditation I'm now able to feel it in time to face it and surrender. That seems like measurable progress, I think.

I also never had the up-the-spine thing - for me it's a build up from below, but before it progresses upwards it's like getting sucked into the sun.

I would also like to have those experiences while awake in sitting meditation, as I have had a couple of times, but recently only in my sleep, and then not frequent enough for my satisfaction. But maybe that's the thing, if the sleep and wake state of the body gets mingled up, or less of a difference for the psyche, then maybe it doesn't matter. It most certainly felt wonderful in the body that was feeling it at the time, and waking up it certainly felt like it was the same body that had just had the experience. Like I said, confusing.

To morrow I will have to get up early and make a trip to the place where I will be spending the next month. I will have very little todo and will be in a beautiful peaceful environment, with few social obligations around, so hopefully I will get much peace and quite time. And hopefully another contemplative experience or two to share with you. I'm a bit sad that I will not be able to make the GWV summer retreat, because I live across the atlantic, but hopefully it will happen another time.

[Jhanananda]

Hi all. I'm quite new around here and have just started reading through the forum. I'm not new to the GWV however. I will attempt to blog a little bit so those who want to can get to know me, to follow Jeffreys great example of actually speaking of the religious experience/life.

I have had some time off from any worldy activity recently and have gotten into a great groove of meditation. Besides the sits of morning and evening, whenever I'm tired during the day I will sit some more. Whenever I'm too tired to sit I will lay down and meditate. Then I will let myself drift off.

I too use fatigue as a sign to meditate.  I typically start with sitting meditation, and often the rest found there revives the body and energy (virtue, virya) arises, and after an hour I find I am ready to work a few hours.  Sometimes I resort to laying down meditation, which often takes me into the immaterial domains, which refreshes the body even more.

Yesterday I fell asleep and dreamt that I was doing sitting meditation. This seems funny and confusing, but a very efficient way of doing sitting meditation, energy wise. Then I had a deep kundalini experience, while meditating in the dream. I felt it building up and just had time to surrender to it. Every time it's like deciding to die.  Then it's like "ah yeah, it's not hard at all" ... and gone.

Dreaming that one is meditating shows deep saturation of your contemplative life.  It is a good sign of attainment, and a worthy goal to seek, because meditation during sleep often results in profound religious experiences.  It suggests that when one dies one will go into meditation upon death, which will take one into high domains of existence.

Thinking about it afterwards made me think of a few years back, when I used to feel like I was getting annihilated in white light just before transitioning into sleep. I read GWV back then and started to understand what was happening, but also I would always need to admit that I would never stand a chance in having to react, to submit, in time not fight it, because it would hit so fast and from nothing.  I think that having developed higher sensitivity through practicing meditation I'm now able to feel it in time to face it and surrender. That seems like measurable progress, I think.

The genuine mystics of very religion express themselves within a context of surrender to the religious experience. The terms used are: submission, letting go, thy will be done, refuge, etc.  When we see the language of letting go to the religious experience we see the signs of a genuine mystic.

I also never had the up-the-spine thing - for me it's a build up from below, but before it progresses upwards it's like getting sucked into the sun.

I would also like to have those experiences while awake in sitting meditation, as I have had a couple of times, but recently only in my sleep, and then not frequent enough for my satisfaction. But maybe that's the thing, if the sleep and wake state of the body gets mingled up, or less of a difference for the psyche, then maybe it doesn't matter. It most certainly felt wonderful in the body that was feeling it at the time, and waking up it certainly felt like it was the same body that had just had the experience. Like I said, confusing.

Just extending your sitting time is likely to increase the intensity and frequency of religious experiences both during the sit, and while asleep.

To morrow I will have to get up early and make a trip to the place where I will be spending the next month. I will have very little todo and will be in a beautiful peaceful environment, with few social obligations around, so hopefully I will get much peace and quite time. And hopefully another contemplative experience or two to share with you. I'm a bit sad that I will not be able to make the GWV summer retreat, because I live across the atlantic, but hopefully it will happen another time.

I too am sorry that you will not be able to attend this summer's GWV retreat; however, it sounds like you will be on a personal retreat of sorts, so I look forward to reading your blog posts. 

Please note I move your blog to the section we have here for contemplative blogs.

[mapeli]

Yesterday I arrived at where I will be spending about a month. It is up north from where I live and life is slower here. There is more nature and less people around, and the people I have met so far seem healthier and calmer than what I am used to.

Yet, traveling and changing surroundings, means initially a lot of new impressions, which made me tired and a bit stressed, and meditation was not as blissful as I'm used to by now. The room I'm staying in turned out to be next to a spartan but fully functional gym so I did some physical exercises to calm the body down and get some endorphines going before sitting. This helped a bit but also made me a little too happy/elated and not just the calm I'm used to.

Today I was a bit sore from the exersises and tired from the travels, but being tired I don't mind. It is a lot better than being stressed out or having to fight off an excess of impressions. I meditated blissfully this morning but not as long as I wanted to. I'm still working on extending my sits. Sometimes my enemy is that my body is not used to longer sits, sometimes I don't make it to a stable 3:rd jhana before I get overwhelmed by restlessness or hunger or something. But like I have learned around here, I just keep appreciating the joy of sitting and feel good about once again having exposed myself to these wonderful energies.

I had some things todo before lunch but after I got time off and did laying down meditation. Drifting in and off from sleep I would sometimes find my self in a deep, calm immaterial bliss (no visions or nothing, just light and delight), and sometimes I would find myself in the body, which was glowing. Lying like that I sometimes wonder what will ever make me go up again, as I can't seem to move and it seems almost impossible that I ever would. It is like wearing a misty blanket of bliss, that I really don't want to disturb. Alas, the phone rang and here I am, active in the world again. After that session at least I'm am almost back to pre-travel standard of peacefulness in body and soul but I really wouldn't mind if it took another few days. Now adays I'm getting more used to my sensitivity of surroundings, and getting more confidence in that my meditation practice will bring me back eventually, if keeping my life oriented around it.

Dreaming that one is meditating shows deep saturation of your contemplative life.  It is a good sign of attainment, and a worthy goal to seek, because meditation during sleep often results in profound religious experiences.  It suggests that when one dies one will go into meditation upon death, which will take one into high domains of existence.

Thank-you. Your encouragement, support and insight is truly invaluable. It brings me confidence and joy.

Please note I move your blog to the section we have here for contemplative blogs.

Thank-you. There is ambigous information on the front page of this forum, as it says "feel free to blog", or something, in the description of the "general discussion"-board, and as I wasn't too sure how I would feel about blogging I figured I will start there. However, I seem to like it and it seem to inspire the contemplative in me so it seems correct to have it under the blogging section.

It turned out that I will be a lot less online than I would have thought. This is a good thing for an old IT-guy like me, but it does limit my blogging/forum time alot. But I will try. A good thing about it is that I will still have some unread corners of this forum to enjoy when needing more contemplative inspiration in the future.

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, mapeli, for posting your blog.  I am enjoying reading it.  59 others are apparently enjoying it as well, so please keep posting content here.

[mapeli]

I find it beneficial to write down in black and white, my progress and challanges in contemplation, and I encourage any reader to do the same. Externalized and written down things clear up. At least for me, it seems.

Not too long ago I decided that it was time to increase the lenght of my sits up above the one hour mark the seniors of this forum speaks so fondly of. I thought that this would be a simple matter of more dedication and willpower. Alas, since my last post I have realized that I have not increased my sitting time as much as I wanted to. I do have increased it a bit, but it is still an exception when I actually sit for an hour. This I had to face.

There is that kind of will that is more of a wish, or a longing. Wanting to have more depth and intensity of absorbtion doesn't mean anything if I don't do what needs to be done. I had to face this and surrender to my will and decision and come up with a plan. My first action plan is called "divide and conquer". As I didn't seem to be able to maintain a deep enough absorbtion to spontaneously sit for more than an hour, I will have to make the duration of the sit the primary objective, temporarily, in order to get the body used to it. So I would set a timer for a bit over an hour and getting down to business. I will not go up until it rings, and I will have to forgive myself it a session is interrupted prematurely because of the timer.

To make it through the first session I needed to give up or surrender to a new set of impulses (that would have me going off the cusion before) and when this was done (during one session) it would benefit me a lot sooner in the next. The experience has so far been very concrete (more than "mystical" of any sort) - first, going over the time limit of my usual sit (after the storm of impulses that would usually get me up), I would get the feeling of freshness - like I was breathing fresh mountain air. Things seemed to clear up alot. Then my body started trembeling and vibrating. More subtle than then tensing of muscles, but also more coarse and deeper than the tingeling of the skin that is familiar to me. This kept going on for a while and then by left arm would start moving and tensing (kriyas I suppose) and appearantly needed to squeze out some tension. This disturbed my groove a bit but after a while the tremblings came back, and it felt great.

Some time later, I felt like I had received some kind of spiritual remake, or internal clean up or something. I felt more peaceful than ever and the energy within felt a lot more fine and subtle. More soothing and harmonic. This was unexpected and most wonderful and the only thing I did was sit for a bit longer. There really are steps. The whole experience was very bodily, but that also makes it propagate out into my everyday life more easily.

My dreams that night became darker though. This felt a bit weird at first but then I figured that the psycho-soma probably let go of some more junk that needed to be processed. After having slept for just over an hour or two I woke up and had this intense dream that I needed to jot down.
I think the dream was about reincarnation, because I would go down a spiral slide into the baby-stuff department of a huge warehouse (that seemed to have closed for the day), where I would then roam around feeling lonely and lost. At the end of the dream I was somewhere else, feeling drunk and unawake and tried to turn on an old tape recorder that wouldn't work (yeah I know...). I could tell someone was coming in to my room (in the dream) and I thought that it was an old friend, but when I turned around I saw a shining, white human walking past me into a huge portal of light right next to my bed. Funny thing was, that when I saw that I got so scared, or startled rather, that I woke up fast enough to be aware that the angel (?) was actually walking next to my actual bed and into a light. One meter from my body, tops. Freaked me out a bit. The angel (?) didn't look at me but I had the impression that I had been helped out of my darkish dream. The grace it walked with made a strong impact of me, when I had calmed down, and I really got the impression of something holy or sacred. The light was very warm and beautiful.

I wanted to share this with you, and also to encourage you to strive to extend the sitting time. But maybe I'm the only one around here that haven't gotten this simple and often repeated message yet.

Now I'm looking forward to each sit even more. I really want that simple, fresh, atmospheric vibe again.

Thank-you, mapeli, for posting your blog.  I am enjoying reading it.  59 others are apparently enjoying it as well, so please keep posting content here.

I realized, after reading through some old threads where I read your encouragement for posting, that one way of helping out, paying respects, inspiring others and propagating the message, is to provide content and that this is something that you appreciate (at least that's the impression I got). As I'm a bit shy I wouldn't dream of wasting forum space of my success and failures, if I didn't think it would benefit anyone. But now it seems, I actually enjoy writing.

[Jhanananda]

Well, I for one, am enjoying reading your blogs, so I hope you continue. 

It is good to know that you found some depth in meditation from sitting longer.  Doing so is not a guarantee that your dreams will be blissful.  There might, as you experienced, be some cleansing of the past, possible previous life time content.  And, the result was a visit from and angel/deva.  Good work.

The use of a timer can be most helpful; however, I have found ticking is most distracting, so one would want to have a meditation timer that only makes a noise when it goes off.

[mapeli]

In just a few sessions I have gone from relief to a slight dissapointment when the timer has gone off. It seems that I had some specific stuff I needed to face in order to sit longer, but once that was out of the way it is a lot easier. Especially restlessness was a problem I would not admit that I was having, but reading through the discourse on mindfulness of body helped a lot and now I am alot more rigorous in establishing a good, calm bodily ... abiding.

I'm starting to see clearly that the depth and energy of the jhanas really comes in waves (as has been written around here and discussed in the video series as well) and one of the tricks that I needed to learn for the longer sessions go get more enjoyable is to remember to shift attention when dropping down a jhana. As soon as there is some internal dialogue, there needs to be joy. But as soon as it quiets down again, the joy can fade too. It requires a different kind of wakefulness than is needed when doing a shorter session, where I would sit until I dropped down and then go off. There seems to be many levels of skillfulness to this simple pleasure of meditation.

Between sessions I have been thinking about what superficially seems to be contradictions in attitude recommended towards meditation. For example, I need to expect to get some thing out of meditation. I might even expect to get a lot out of it, otherwise I will not prioritize it correctly. However, expecting anything when actually sitting, besides the specific joys of each jhana, seems to be detrimental to the actual experience. It's the same with effort. I need to have some kind of effort. I need effort to put my self on the cushion. I also need a kind of effort to relax and quiet down the body as well as the mind. But I also need to drop the effort and go with the groove. It seems like a subtle balance thing. Maybe like the opposite of what is known as boot-strapping, where you would start from nothing and end up with something great. But from the everyday-walking-around perspective, it would be starting with heaps of crap and ending up with nothing. Or rather, 'being' nothing. Or maybe it is like a chess game where you would play both sides (effort and non-effort, or doing and being), with the aim of exiting the game without anyting left on the board. But maybe I'm over-stretching it a bit now.

I'm pushing my self a bit now, to see what happens. I hope to get four one hour+ sits each day, and at least two lying down sessions, not counting the night. I have some bodily adjustments that I need to make in order to manage the longer sits (a bad hip that sometimes rips my bliss apart before I have reached deep enough not to care about it) but it's doable and not that big of a deal.

I got both startled and motivated by the deva visit the other night and it seems I need to start adjusting to a radically different perspective of reality. I need to have stuff like that happen so much that I get used to it so I don't get too startled. Or be better settled in equanimity, I suppose.

I have had a couple of experiences of scenes playing out "like a movie", with me being able to do nothing about it, but have not considered any of them an experience from a past life. However, since starting out on the spiritual journey years ago, my dreams and visions have followed a pattern that seems reasonable and I have been tracking most of my neurosis and fears, and the workings of the night. And some time ago, things really cleared up and I have not had much new unknown "psychological garbage" surfacing. Nothing has scared or surprised me, except for an occasional religious experience - but that would just be blissful. But some time ago I have been getting quick images and visions that I have not been able to track and have been a bit strange for me. I wasn't at all sure about the past life stuff before, but I have started to consider it a likely possibility, from my own experience. And comically I would have had to conclude that I was most probably some kind of floor-level animal mostly because I would always see a rug or a being very close to the ground and stuff like that. Different floor-level stuff each time though. This was not something I took very seriously until it hit me that maybe that was what I had seen when leaving that particular body. That would actually make sense. Hitting the ground is probably often a part of dying.
All these different kinds of dreams, especially the more familiar ones - like "things-that-happened-during-the-day processing" or "psycological-garbage puke" or "neurosis-and-complex stuff"  - they all "taste" different. Also, the random crap type imagery that the mind throws at me when progressing into meditation, they are very easy to just dismiss. But these possible images of previous deaths seem to be a bit more ... persistent and clear.
When having a help-I-cant-open-my-eyes type of "movie" vision, it is often clear that it is not just my unconsious. These seem like ultra-light versions of the same. But still.
I don't know if I'm making any sense out of this, but maybe some one can relate. At least trying to express these subtle type of things seems to have a positive effect on me.

During one of the lying down/drifting off type of sessions I had most recently (today? to night?) I saw a person (white against black background) that then turned into a group, then into a crowd, then into a huuuuge crowd, then into a field of just dots of light, and beautiful wave like motions would go through it. It was very beautiful. And I thought, either is this past lives of mine, or there is this place in space where a bunch of angels are standing around really close to each other, being really still and just ... doing nothing. I don't really trust my instincts and intuition because these kind of things are really new to me, but both ideas seem to make sense to me. And somewhere deep inside of me I feel like crying writing this, so it was obviously important for me.

Thank you for your kind support. Although I have been realizing that the blessed life truly is accessible to me, as to everyone, as it unfolds there is really a progression from one unbelievable thing to the next. And each ... step ... seems beautiful and vulnerable. So, seeing how long the road is, it is truly amazing that you can stand as far down the road as Jef, and reach a guy like me six years ago. And as I progress, I still need a helping hand for each step. Again, thank you.

Now, I'm going to try show my old hip some yoga-love and see if we can agree better next sit.

[mapeli]

Hi all! As some of you might have followed in previous posts, I'm currently right in the middle of a solo-retreat of sorts, and having just extended the sitting time, I find lots of progress.
Besides being more sensitive to the up and down progression of the jhanas, I find that when I know I'm going to sit for a longer stretch of time, I seem to spend more time in the beginning making it comfortable - that is - meditating a little extra upon any disturbances.

The pre-bed session last night I reached a level level of ecstasy. (This has been happening pretty much every other day lately btw - it seems I had some catching up todo.) Funny thing is, I thought I had the Jhanas nailed, at least one, two and three, and I must have been in the fourth, because I have had both OBEs and some kundalini-experiences - but I'm very sure that I have not ... mastered the fourth. More like stumbled through it once in a while, and the occasional multi-hour peak-sit. But now since last night, I got a bit uncertain if I had misunderstood and hardly been in the third either. I had to go and borrow a digital surf-machine so that I can go to this wonderful place and revisit the good old jhana descriptions. I'm still uncertain though.

Having pondered it for a while, I now think what I experienced was the fourth jhana, but clearer than  ever. This is because, it all started with an escalation of the charisms, which are really a third jhana thing right? They all came together as though being a single "thing", a charming, liquid, loving ... "thing", that just grew and grew in intensity. There was a buildup that felt familiar, but this time it didn't stop. I thought - "man, this is getting intense... I better buckle up" and I had to really stretch my surrendering. I have had previous experiences with certain hallucinogenic drugs, but only the strongest had this level of intensity at take of. So I celebrated, thinking, finally, meditation has become better than any other experience I have ever had. And all I do is just sit here. Then I seemed to get almost emotional... almost erotic... It was so nice. Then I surrendered some more and almost got pulled into the sensation (as all charisms had become one - now there was just "sensation" - no different kinds) - like we merged - the observer and the observed - the sensation and me, the guy sensing it. And I had neither choice nor anything to do with it. It was deeply pleasurable. And then, when having merged, the sensation was now just a single electric kind of energy, "exploded" - like my own body would fall into smaller and more subtle pieces and then drifting away in the wind. And there was just blackness, emptiness left. I was still there though. Deeply relieved. I was waaay to excited to go any further into the stillness though. I felt like yawning and maybe giggle a bit. Like I was home and safe and warm after a long journey. I just sat there, quite aware that I was a bit too excited, but the state was very stable and I didn't have to maintain it. Nor did I deepen it or explore. Now it was just silence, calm and black. Eventually I got up. I was no big deal. I was very surprised that the feeling of ... electricity and stillness ... was still with me. I looked in the mirror a long time, and then I stood on the balcony watching the landscape. It was in the middle of the night, but it was  still bright outside. This time a year night is just one long dusk/dawn thing, that makes the trees and grass glow in deep green. It was beautiful and I was very content.

When I woke up this morning, I noticed that my usual grumpiness didn't seem fitting any more. Not that I usually think of my self as depressed or anything, but somehow now I didn't need not to be glad any more. I had recalled and recorded a few dreams but nothing spectacular or startling. I got very happy remembering last nights session, and hurried to do my bathroom routine to get back to the cushion. I noticed that I was expecting all fireworks and stuff again, and had to calm my self down and sit down in the simple pleasure of the first jhana. I actually got to something similar as of the previous session, but a lot less intense. That subtle electric energy, clean, simple "atmosphere" was there, and was not that hard to get to, although it took the better part of the one hour sit.

I have been busy out in the world during the day, but I'm hoping to get back to my little one-man-retreat and have another go at it. I can feel it move in me right now. Another good thing, is that this is just the first week out of four, that I have planned to dedicate primarily to meditation, as I know that during this time I will have time for at least three sits each day.

I would much rather have been over in the states at the GWV retreat, but at least I'm paralleling it here, in northern Scandinavia.

Another funny thing BTW, just before the burst of the peak of last night, not the entry into the fourth (?) but rather the escalation of the third(?) - I got a vision (that is - image crap that won't go away, and has another palette and "weight" than junk) of just the head Jhanananda sitting in a desert environment against a dark blue radiant night sky, and it seemed really blissful. This inspired me a lot to whip up more bliss and joy, that eventually triggered the entry into the next level. What ever number. So I guess the distance doesn't mean much on the higher planes.

However, I do hope that there will be some internet connectivity where ever they are, as I appreciate communication during this intensification of practice I'm currently trying out.

[mapeli]

I just figured, another reason for me believing that maybe the experience described above was at least the fourth jhana, is that because lately I have been having charismatic indications of an opening of the crown chakra. And recently, I find that one of the surest way of deepening the experience having reached a certain plateau, is let go of holding on to an activated third eye chakra. Letting go of the throat chakra was easier, as its' grasping tells of it self by a sense of choking, but the next is more subtle, so I got stuck on it without noticing. I don't know if this is in alignment with more experienced meditators experiences, but it's my bet until corrected.

[mapeli]

Yesterday was a little too filled with activities and social interaction (not a lot but I'm used to none at all) and I got to the last meditation session way too late. So this morning I had trouble getting up, but I do find that a tired body is not at all a bad thing for meditation. It makes me calm an I am less easily stimulated by worldly input. However, after the morning session and some food, I was going to do laying down meditation as my schedule for the day was completely cleared, but instead of sinking in to that sweet semi-sleep state of bliss I usually go to, I fell deeper asleep and slept like a log for a few hours. Woke up and felt a bit ... depressed about it. Not very disciplined.

I do feel a bit low today. But one thing I've learned over the years is that the charisms doesn't really care about how I feel about things. In fact, when not happy, they are more valuable than ever. I cooked some food that will last a couple of days and then walked to the office where I can borrow a computer, and as I turned out to be alone here I have now spend some time reading through this forum and the GWV. There is almost nothing unread for me, but I still find that I can get some inspiration from reading old stuff.

One of the major steps for me was discovering that I got in touch with these absorbtion-states when reading about them on the GWV. I now consider this a part of the fruit of intuition, which means I have to recognize that I had a some fruits ot the contemplative life prior to that. But still, it was a major step for me ... "fearlessness... Ah yeah, that is true ... I don't really care enough about stuff anymore to be fearful of anything but things that disturb my peace". I have since tried to remember that I read somewhere that at least one tradition had a term for the phenomenon of transmission of states of mind through reading the words of a master. Sounds hindic or sufic but I'm not sure at all and apparently too uninterested to find out.

Now I'm leaving temporarily leaving my small world a while to go to a recovery meeting. I find that although I'm almost free of a lot of addictions and addictive behaviour, I find that keeping in touch with a serious recovery group, like AA or NA, helps me in many ways. People are honest, they are great at unpacking garbage and it seems, it helps my contemplative life in many ways. Also, it is good for humility. It has been many years since I quit drinking and drugging intensively, but I still prefer to keep in touch. And, as I'm lazy, it is good to have a sponsor to help unpack the bitterness and hurt of past.

[mapeli]

I'm a hanged man in paradise.

The intense beauty of nature hits me. I know, I want to say, I feel it too. The bliss of being alive. I desperately want to get back to what I tasted the other day. Me and my senses married. We had previously accepted each other. Letting each other be what ever, without grasping. Seeing each others beauty, like I'm seeing this park. Letting the charisms play. I see now why we kept our distance for so long. Because we both died. Now I'm a hanged man in paradise.

I want to say to the flowers and trees, I know I felt it too. Before, in meditation. I felt how you feel. Undivided. Dead to all, but the bliss of being. They look at me, unable to understand. No matter how I twist and turn, I can't get there now. I'm stuck moving around in this machine. We parted again. It's like being a hanged man in paradise. I can't move, I can't be. I cannot even try to get there again, because I will miss the entry point. A hanged man can't move.

First enjoy. Then calm down. Then let to. Then let go. Then let go. Then ride it and surrender. And surrender. And surrender. Then, my friend, I'll be there with you again, in the pure bliss of being. But now I can't get there, I must steer this machine. I must be I. It must be it.

Platon said, that the words for body and grave stem from the same root. I get it now.

I'm a hanged man in paradise.

[mapeli]

I seem to have suffered a hang over. For every day there is a night. For every night, there is a lesson. "One step forward, two steps backwards" someone sang. It is because we meditators always have to get back to the first step. The first jhana. Then the patience of the second jhana. The let it play for a while.
I'm in no hurry. The previous sentence was a lie. I want to get back.

This has been my crisis the last couple of days. I seem to have lost my humbleness. I lay down to meditate and soon all I feel is that golden glowing mist of subtle bliss, and the sound of the heart beating. It's wonderful, but I want more. I seem to have lost my humbleness.

Very well then, back to basics. If you can't beat them, join them. I took my body out for a walk around a beautiful lake, and had it lift some weights and do some yoga. Some endorphines wont hurt. In order to make something constructive while finding balance and humbleness again, I'm going to attack my weak spots. Previously this was the hip. Now it has become the neck. It seems I can sit with a decent posture, but only up to the neck. There the weight of the head makes it slope forward too much not to strain the muscles in longer sits. I decided to record myself meditating so that I would easier understand how to correct it. Having seen the disastrous upper back slope I found motivation to fix it. The following couple of sessions I have been really trying to push the neck backwards. This feels really unnatural, as I'm used to a more vulture/computer geek type of positioning. I can tell my body is not used to it. But it was a good exercise to meditate on/in this new posture. Almost immediately I got good results, as the charism of sound changed in new ways. Previously I have gone from a high pitch sound to a more chirpy, digital, morphy kind of sound, but now it turned to a deeper rain and roar. I was seriously tempted for a while to go see where the rain came from. Outside was just a beautiful summer night without a cloud in sight.

When I was out doing errands some guy started talking to me about stiff and straight back ("like the British", he said) and it took a while before I realized I was walking around trying to keep my back straight. It turns out my upper body likes it too, although still a bit new and unused to it.

I am happy that a sting of the nights has surfaced. It means progress. It is only the superficial self that complains. And he doesn't have a whole lot to do with things anymore. The deeper wounds, and the deeper will, surfaces on the cushion, where they are also easily disposed of.

[mapeli]

During laying down meditation yesterday afternoon I saw a road, that seemed familiar. One I have been on many times, near my home town. I was going forward on it, and the colors of it morphed and became inverted, like the negative of a photo, but clearer. Like it had depth too. Then a pattern started to surface, then the whole image morphed into the now fractal like pattern. It was nice.

I have realized that keeping a journal of dreams doesn't only mean the bigger/longer dreams of the night, but also these "less", visions. Contemplating why this is beneficial, I realized, that those experiences really are experiences, and that they are away from the body. It's really quite simple.

Although, I would really like to reach a state of volition and lucidity of these experiences so that I can fly across the landscape, explore space and planets, and then go through the higher sammadhis.  But then, who wouldn't? I wonder who would pay the price, if only the fetter of sceptical doubt was lifted. I wonder, if I will pay the price. Back to the cushion.

[mapeli]

I have started to explore the jhanas a little bit, as I'm getting more familiar with their progression and deepening. The idéa is that I'm probably going to spend a lot of time in the lower ones, so I might invest some time in developing them, and see how I could get the most out of each one. I have concluded, for instance, that I can be a lot more aggressive in actively stilling and tuning things down, than I thought from the beginning. Then I did very little, except as gently as possible steering the attention towards the meditation object. I really took the surrender part of meditation seriously. However, as I get a clearer idea of what kind of, and how to, surrender in each step, I can in fact add a little control too, to make sure that stillness, relaxation and enjoyment is balanced and strong. So it seems, right now, at least.

Some days ago I saw a vision of a bar-stool like chair with four legs, and one was bent and did not add any stability or support. I interpreted that as the four aspect of mindfulness but did not know how to incorporate it into my practice, and to correct the bent leg (or which it was). Now I'm trying to circle through them in meditation asking my self what I can do to increase a wholesome state at each level, at each corner. This I find I can do as "meditation" during the first Jhana, and it seems to be beneficial. But perhaps I'm just fooling myself.

I have also read somewhere on the GWV that Jhanananda suggests that each sense is meditated upon and incorporated into the building bliss. This, at the time, I was not solid enough in my practice to do, but I'm getting patientl enough to do it thoroughly and it seems like a good take off configuration. Most striking is that the senses that I have previously neglected as meditation objects are really giving a lot of payoff almost immediately, as if they were starved of attention. For me, it was the smell. But it gave the sweetest, very present, unpredictable kind of aspect to the bliss as the absorbtion deepened. And it is as if I have catching up to do, because thinking about it I feel a longing to get back and use the sense of smell as primary meditation object.
But more to the point - it seemed, the first time I read it, like the way to go. To "dress up" for the meditation, by dressing each aspect of being accessible at any given point into wholesomeness. But perhaps I'm just over theorizing. We'll have to see.

These are the things I'm currently thinking about.

[Soren]

This has been my crisis the last couple of days. I seem to have lost my humbleness. I lay down to meditate and soon all I feel is that golden glowing mist of subtle bliss, and the sound of the heart beating. It's wonderful, but I want more. I seem to have lost my humbleness.

Some days ago I saw a vision of a bar-stool like chair with four legs, and one was bent and did not add any stability or support. I interpreted that as the four aspect of mindfulness but did not know how to incorporate it into my practice, and to correct the bent leg (or which it was).

Feeling
"Now what, monks, is the allure of feelings? There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful (mental) qualities — enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. At that time he does not intend his own affliction, the affliction of others, or the affliction of both. He feels a feeling totally unafflicted. The unafflicted, I tell you, is the highest allure of feelings.

"Again the monk, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, enters & remains in the second jhana: rapture & pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation — internal assurance... With the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, 'Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding'... With the abandoning of pleasure & pain — as with the earlier disappearance of elation & distress — he enters & remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity & mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain. At that time he does not intend his own affliction, the affliction of others, or the affliction of both. He feels a feeling totally unafflicted. The unafflicted, I tell you, is the highest allure of feelings.

"And what is the drawback of feelings? The fact that feeling is inconstant, stressful, subject to change: This is the drawback of feelings.

"And what is the escape from feelings? The subduing of desire-passion for feelings, the abandoning of desire-passion for feelings: That is the escape from feelings.