Rougeleader (beginner)

[rougeleader115]

Hello friends,

I have made the transition to a new living space over the past few months. It has been quite a difficult but empowering process. My dog has been dying slowly for the past year, and we are now at weekly vet visits which is a stress in itself. But he honestly deserves it for being so good to me through all of the darkest points of my life so far. I have actually been going through a lot in terms of death, old age and sickness in my life for the past few years. I’m very grateful for my contemplative life at times like this.

Besides all that, I am currently getting lucid enough to know I am dreaming at least 2-3 times a week. I still dream every night and journal most of them. I am also more often falling asleep while meditating, and realizing right away that I am dreaming while still being in the bed. This compared to having a strange occurrence in the dream making me realize it. My meditative practices are also the foundation of how I stay lucid and present in a lucid dream. I may hold a hand mudra or object, stand in any variation of yoga poses, focus on my breath, or focusing on the blissful swirling energy I feel as “me”, especially if I have no body. This all occurs while I am lucidly  dreaming and feels exactly the same as real life, except the energy is often far more intense.

For the past year since that Native American man experience, it has felt like a whole dragons worth of energy is waking up through my entire body. I train 2-3 hours of yoga and martial arts literally almost everyday because that seems to be the only thing that can ease it enough for me to integrate and sleep. Otherwise I feel like I’m a constant nova explosion. I still do most times anyway and it can make me worn out or anxious. Like a few years ago I would describe my internal state as a whirlwind. But now it feels like there is a black hole in my head, a star in my chest, and a dark moving universe in my belly.

St Catherine of Genoa’s books have been a most lovely experience to revisit these past few months. I’m not sure why but I really really relate to her and St.Teresa of Avila’s expression of experiencing these energies and feelings.

I hope you are all well, I just wanted to check in.

[Jhanananda]

Hello friends,

I have made the transition to a new living space over the past few months. It has been quite a difficult but empowering process. My dog has been dying slowly for the past year, and we are now at weekly vet visits which is a stress in itself. But he honestly deserves it for being so good to me through all of the darkest points of my life so far. I have actually been going through a lot in terms of death, old age and sickness in my life for the past few years. I’m very grateful for my contemplative life at times like this.

It is so good to hear from you again, rougeleader115. Yes, awareness of the impermanence of the material life I find is a critical step in our spiritual growth, when we realize that since the material life is impermanent there is no reason to obsess over the material life, and it is therefore at least pragmatic to prepare for the spiritual life.

Besides all that, I am currently getting lucid enough to know I am dreaming at least 2-3 times a week. I still dream every night and journal most of them. I am also more often falling asleep while meditating, and realizing right away that I am dreaming while still being in the bed. This compared to having a strange occurrence in the dream making me realize it. My meditative practices are also the foundation of how I stay lucid and present in a lucid dream. I may hold a hand mudra or object, stand in any variation of yoga poses, focus on my breath, or focusing on the blissful swirling energy I feel as “me”, especially if I have no body. This all occurs while I am lucidly  dreaming and feels exactly the same as real life, except the energy is often far more intense.

Gaining lucidity in your dream state is a good sign that you are growing in your spiritual life. And, I found journaling my dreams was a significant aide in gaining lucidity. It sounds like you are meditating while lying down waiting for sleep.  I have done this for 50 years.  I found it a valuable spiritual activity for a number of reasons, increasing lucidity in the sleep space is certainly a significant aspect of this practice.

For the past year since that Native American man experience, it has felt like a whole dragons worth of energy is waking up through my entire body. I train 2-3 hours of yoga and martial arts literally almost everyday because that seems to be the only thing that can ease it enough for me to integrate and sleep. Otherwise I feel like I’m a constant nova explosion. I still do most times anyway and it can make me worn out or anxious. Like a few years ago I would describe my internal state as a whirlwind. But now it feels like there is a black hole in my head, a star in my chest, and a dark moving universe in my belly.

It sounds like you have developed access to spiritual energy, which was called 'viru' in the Pali Canon, which is related to the English term 'virtue',' which historically referred to both an abstract energy, and the 7 virtues, or ethics.

St Catherine of Genoa’s books have been a most lovely experience to revisit these past few months. I’m not sure why but I really really relate to her and St.Teresa of Avila’s expression of experiencing these energies and feelings.

I hope you are all well, I just wanted to check in.

I'm not sure if I read any of St Catherine of Genoa's books. Please let us know what you get from her writing.  If you are finding something in her writing, then it sounds like we all should spend some time reading her work.

[rougeleader115]

As always it is good to hear from you also Jhanananda! I know I have said this elsewhere, but you really are the spiritual father of my life. I don’t mean to sound cheesy, I just want you to know, because life is so fleeting.

As for St. Catherine of Genoa, I found her when listening to some audiobooks of St teresa years ago of LibriVox. The woman who did St Teresa’s readings only had a few other books at the time and some of them were by St. Catherine.

Here is a small except about her:

Saint Catherine of Genoa (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, born Genoa 1447 – 15 September 1510) is an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor. She was a member of the noble Fieschi family, and spent most of her life and her means serving the sick, especially during the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. She died in that city in 1510.

In 1551, 41 years after her death, a book about her life and teaching was published, entitled Libro de la vita mirabile et dottrina santa de la Beata Caterinetta de Genoa. This is the source of her "Dialogues on the Soul and the Body" and her "Treatise on Purgatory", which are often printed separately. Her authorship of these has been denied, and it used to be thought that another mystic, the Augustinian canoness Battistina Vernazza, who lived in a monastery in Genoa from 1510 till her death in 1587 had edited the two works, a suggestion discredited by recent scholarship, which attributes a large part of both works to St Catherine, though they received their final literary form only after her death.

In the first part of the Spiritual Dialogue, St. Catherine relates in what manner she was captivated by worldly allurements, and how, from this state, she was entirely converted to God, and devoted herself to austere works of penance. In the second, she describes the sublime perfection of the spiritual life in which she is engaged. In the third, she discourses of the divine love and of its wonderful effects, and how she has experienced them all in herself. (Summary by Wikipedia and Introduction)

Here is a link to one of the  audiobooks:
https://librivox.org/spiritual-dialogue-by-saint-catherine-of-genoa/

Her talks about being so divinely enraptured by by love and fiery passion are the things that hit me most. Being so deeply communed with the divine that one finds one’s own face is the same face of god. And being dissolved over and over throughout her life to find ever deepening layers of love and infinity that confound her. Some of her descriptions sound artistically dramatic or simply poetic. But I find very often that the words she uses to describe her experience are the same ones I would without question. We just don’t live in a time where I can use the language she does without sounding hyper religious or downright crazy. But she does describe it very well. I can’t say she mentions the “stages” per se, but her expression brings layers to her religious experience, from the mundane all the way to rapture.

I hope you all can find any other information to help define where she sits mystically.

Thank you

[Jhanananda]

As always it is good to hear from you also Jhanananda! I know I have said this elsewhere, but you really are the spiritual father of my life. I don’t mean to sound cheesy, I just want you to know, because life is so fleeting.

Thank you for expressing your kind thoughts.  I am so glad that I have provided you some inspiration to lead a fruitful interior life.

As for St. Catherine of Genoa, I found her when listening to some audiobooks of St teresa years ago of LibriVox. The woman who did St Teresa’s readings only had a few other books at the time and some of them were by St. Catherine.

Here is a small except about her:

Saint Catherine of Genoa (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, born Genoa 1447 – 15 September 1510) is an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor. She was a member of the noble Fieschi family, and spent most of her life and her means serving the sick, especially during the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. She died in that city in 1510.

In 1551, 41 years after her death, a book about her life and teaching was published, entitled Libro de la vita mirabile et dottrina santa de la Beata Caterinetta de Genoa. This is the source of her "Dialogues on the Soul and the Body" and her "Treatise on Purgatory", which are often printed separately. Her authorship of these has been denied, and it used to be thought that another mystic, the Augustinian canoness Battistina Vernazza, who lived in a monastery in Genoa from 1510 till her death in 1587 had edited the two works, a suggestion discredited by recent scholarship, which attributes a large part of both works to St Catherine, though they received their final literary form only after her death.

In the first part of the Spiritual Dialogue, St. Catherine relates in what manner she was captivated by worldly allurements, and how, from this state, she was entirely converted to God, and devoted herself to austere works of penance. In the second, she describes the sublime perfection of the spiritual life in which she is engaged. In the third, she discourses of the divine love and of its wonderful effects, and how she has experienced them all in herself. (Summary by Wikipedia and Introduction)

Here is a link to one of the  audiobooks:
https://librivox.org/spiritual-dialogue-by-saint-catherine-of-genoa/

Her talks about being so divinely enraptured by by love and fiery passion are the things that hit me most. Being so deeply communed with the divine that one finds one’s own face is the same face of god. And being dissolved over and over throughout her life to find ever deepening layers of love and infinity that confound her. Some of her descriptions sound artistically dramatic or simply poetic. But I find very often that the words she uses to describe her experience are the same ones I would without question. We just don’t live in a time where I can use the language she does without sounding hyper religious or downright crazy. But she does describe it very well. I can’t say she mentions the “stages” per se, but her expression brings layers to her religious experience, from the mundane all the way to rapture.

I hope you all can find any other information to help define where she sits mystically.

Thank you

Thank you for posting your review of St. Catherine of Genoa. I plan to invest some time in the study of her writing.=, as I expect others here will as well.