Fruit of the Contemplative Life
Fruit of the contemplative life: => Contemplative Blogs => : mapeli June 10, 2013, 08:44:27 PM
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Thank you Soren for your reply. I find it immediately helpful. My intent with this blog is to just write as honest and simple as I can, whatever I feel like each day, and then to read through and evaluate in the end. Then it is really helpful to get input from others. I encourage and appreciate all comments, questions and thoughts to this blog (that are in reasonable alignment with its' purpose of course), privately or publicly. As I'm in a learning-process, all help is welcome. So, it turns out that "the four Jhanas" were a better and more contextual interpretation than the "four corners of mindfulness" as the answer to the riddle of "what I sit on" that the chair tried to communicate. At least that's the new working hypothesis. ;)
I have been in touch again with the sensation or state that I reached, which I still guess was at least the fourth jhana. And I think that I'm slowly starting to get the hang of it. But I don't get there each time, and when I do it's a lot more subtle.
It feels like the awareness of the charisms and bodily sensations shifts about an order of magnitude or two in resolution (or depth, or clarity), and sort of "float out" and goes from being boolean, black and white, to a gradient, and it feels very electrical. Perhaps this is the "awareness of energy". I just thought that the energy of the fourth jhana would be like a fire burning in the stomach or something, but this seems a lot more sublime and very elegant. But what do I know, perhaps it's neither. But, supported by Sorens comment above, and independently I have started to think I'm slowly learning about the fourth.
The first time I reached it, described above, I also later on merged with it and it all disappeared into blackness. But that has not happened since. The actual merging was the coolest thing in meditation so far. But yes, I get the message, I must not cling to desire-passion for feelings nor sensation. And doing so, that is, clining to it, clearly makes one miss the mark. I think I have proven that for myself as of recently. ;)
I have also been questioning if I know anything at all about these things and perhaps I hardly know the jhanas at all and am just starting to get in contact with it. I wouldn't mind because that would mean that the roof is heightened, so to speak. But it would go against my experience and what I have learned theoretically from Jhanananda.
Now I just sit, trying not to crave progress of any sort. Meditation/contemplation has become more a continual "sinking into", with the occasional step, or jump, but I try not to seek it nor focus too much on it and just go with the flow. But then again, knowing ones surroundings sure is helpful when trying to navigate.
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I might have previously mentioned an increase in dream recall since I started this intensification of practice. Now I often wake up and have to write down things after only an hour or two of sleep (and feel surprisingly rejuvenated). I often have a couple of more by the morning. This has been great. Going through the day contemplating (the thinking kind) the symbols of the dreams, trying to get the message, trying to distinguish the types of dreams,... it all gives me great pleasure and company and I can see both my intuition and knowledge increase. Slowly and by small steps but still.
I have gotten more glimpses into what I think must be previous deaths. For instance, I saw a guy in a car, that looked a lot like me, and was me, but different too, and I knew him, I felt him. I liked him too. I seemed to be him. And he seemed to be an undercover police officer. And then the ground would go away from underneath the car and tomato soup would be spilled all over the car. I tried to use the communication system to call back to the station but I couldn't work it. And then some weird one-man-helicopterish-thing came to get me instead. So, I think the tomato soup was my blood, and I was dead, but didn't really get it. And I was picked up.
Stuff like that has been coming up. That one was pretty nice actually, because I seemed to have been a very untroubled type of guy, and it was all relaxed and movie-like. But the same night I was a little girl with a baby sister, going up on the hill-side surrounding the village, to hide behind the grave stones of our ancestors before the army came. We seemed to be the only ones left. Before not too long we realized that we would have no chance of hiding and would soon be found. That was seriously devastating and scary. They will find us soon and they will kill us.
Then all of a sudden I'm awake and this life seems to suck a lot less. That kind of dreams (or recollection) is a serious motivator for both the practice of writing things down ("de-brief", externalize etc) and starting each day with meditation. Because to sit down on the cushion and take a breath into the first Jhana is really something I want to treat my self with after such a trauma. I can tell that the feelings from the dreams linger on a little bit.
These dreams (hypothetically past-life/death-glimpse dreams) also contrast very well against the symbol ridden get-the-point dreams. So I slowly learn how to approach each kind of dream. As an example of something else I also dreamed this night that I got educated about something, and I was very happy because I had met just the right teacher for a problem I had been pondering, and woke up assured that all such problems would be taken cared of. The teacher was a small kind old man, and I can remember him still. I also know what kind of things he would teach me (intellectual things actually) but I have not the faintest idea what he said. But I know I will not have to ponder that problem any more. That was cool and seriously helpful.
I hope that these experiences will continue because they are very fulfilling. I also, secretly against my false humbleness, hope they will develop and deepen.
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Greetings.
I got some more data for the hypothesis of the experiencing of glimpses of deaths of previous lifetimes during dreams that I talked about in previous posts. Tonight I woke up after a few hours from a seriously disturbing dream. I saw a friend getting killed by a spear in the stomach so I tried to sneak off, but the super mad leader of the evil killing-spree gang found me and started chopping at me with a knife, after having first told me about it and watched my fear. That was traumatic. I screamed HELP, HELP, HELP in panic and woke up.
It took a while to collect my self but as I was getting back I realized that it doesn't matter if this is a trick by my subconscious or if it's from a past life - to get through the emotions and memory of the dream still required the equanimity to revisit the situation and just let go of the panic, and the whole situation. Letting go of life in that body. Facing death. It was a useful experience and a training of letting go. I could feel two different places of my current body becoming relaxed and probably letting go of some trauma. But the feeling of being stabbed to death has followed me through the day. A bit weird.
I have also been contemplating the content of another thread of this forum, can't remember which one, where Jhanananda says that annihilation is the most scary thing one will ever have to encounter. And I have been trying to get to know that fear of annihilation in me, which I can relate to from certain childhood experiences.
I'm also starting to get seriously freaky good hearing. I can hardly walk through the village without hearing the cars on a larger road pretty far away, cut like razor blades through my silence. And last night I almost had to get up from meditating when hearing a neighbor get home and I could almost swear he walked into the house where I'm staying although I knew he was not. Need to re-calibrate sound/room-estimation ratios. And get further away from ... noise.
Oh yes. Sometimes it strikes me that there are not many places on earth where one could write things like this blog post without needing to leave forever. :)
The universe is vast and it is mostly empty space and silence. As far as I've been told.
Blessings.
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Some outer and inner circumstances conspired against me and I lost a bit the good groove I have been in lately. I could see I got off balance and I felt ... troubled, tired and weak. I had noticed that memories from an episode in my life that became traumatic and exhausting for me had surfaced, and I felt a bit conquered by them. "Oh no that crap again". But it ain't over 'til it's over. When it became time for the pre-sleep sit I noticed that I really did not look forward to it and wanted to skip it. So I diagnosed my will as compromised and sat down. When the curtain of the charisms came down over me, after a couple of minutes, I felt serious and deep gratitude. It did not matter that I had lost some saturation during the day, but as the contrast was larger than normal, so was my gratitude. But I really was a bit weak and tired too, so I had to buckle up a bit to sit through the one hour minimum mark. And so did I have to do this morning. This too was a good experience because it made me notice that I didn't have to struggle much as of lately, except for the occasional sore muscle, but I have not had any problems with impatience and such.
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Yesterday I went swimming in a fairly fast and lively river, with cliffs to jump from and such. A real nature-experience in a beautiful area that only the locals here know of, and deemed me worthy enough to see and enjoy it. When I came home I felt deeply refreshed, relaxed and alive, and when I lay down in mid day meditation I felt that longed for tingle in my lower spine. It build up a while and then started to jolt up a bit but I got too excited and exalted and did not know how to surrender to it or greet it properly so eventually I lost it. But it was nice and still very joyful as a sign of progress. I have experienced these energies before but mostly in sleep or visions and mostly through the base chakra direcly, or very fast flashes in the head, but never the building-up, wide awake type. So that made my happy.
I have noticed that the thoughts that are arising during the Jhanas, when sinking back into them, are taking clearer and clearer form, or theme. Often I can afterwards see that this particular memory or scene was it that surfaced, even when not engaging in the thoughts. For example, it could be something that has been in the most back parts of my awareness for a long time but I have not been in conscious contact with - so that my response to it becomes "ah yeah, that scene, now why has that been lingering for so long". Sometimes it will tell me something, sometimes it is garbage. But I have noticed that it is getting clearer.
I also "dreamed", during laying down meditation, that I experienced what I belive was my birth. Which otherwise must have been a seriously disturbing kind of vision. :) It was very undramatic and felt familiar. Another strange thing was that I also got some information about an unknown relative (of my mom) that I saw clearly and thought "oh, so that's him that we didn't know". That was pretty cool but I'm not sure if I should tell anyone about it.
In meditation I'm also sometimes getting tired of the soreness of the body so in parallel with trying to work on my posture I've been contemplating existence without the body. For instance, in absorbtion, it is easy to see that if all body awareness would disappear, after the charisms have faded or merged, only blackness would be left. I remember that Jhananda (in another thread or video) proposed that the material jhanas are also partly (or mostly) immaterial and I thought, maybe they are mostly immaterial, I am already in the domain of infinite space of blackness but just obsessing manically about the sensations in the body, or the contents of the mind and such things. That would certainly be typically human. So I'm starting to prepare the mind to just leave the body behind, as I suspect it is more natural than I'm making it up to be. I also remembered the astonishing realization of the falseness of the self, so my guess is that the obsession of the body is because otherwise there really would be no I. Hence - the dimension of infinite blackness. Now the trick seems to be to remove stuff in the correct order.
Today I had to sit in a chair and look like I listened to a conversation. I only needed to be there and give the impression of observing, so I meditated. As I did my body was falling more and more a sleep and a couple of times I reached that twitch/blinky thing that happens on the way to sleep and I thought that maybe I could just follow that out of the body, because it certainly feels like I'm suddenly on the outside. But I have not idea how to test it as I don't know how to move out of body. And I suspect it would be better to test it with eyes closed. But I have always wondered how that happens. If leaving the body when it has closed eyes, does one start seeing immediately as the OBE takes off? No clue.
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I have also noticed that I have started to help others in my dreams. Sometimes a dream would be just absurd if I interpret the content as something within myself, then I get a realization of my own self-centered-ness and a sting of shame, and then go on to do what ever I can to help out in the situation of the dream. Mostly bring light, bliss and comfort, and often the situation will resolve and I feel very fulfilled and happy.
Now Jhanananda says we begin helping others when our own shit is worked through. I know that I have stuff left, obviously, but I also know not to interpret things too black-and-white. I have been working on my shit for a long time and got some results. Obviously I can help others too.
The night to today I visited a friend who was very happy because he had manage to implemented sobriety in his life, which for him was a big deal. This time I didn't help out, but there was just happiness and nice to greet an old friend I haven't seen for a while.
I have to admit that the dreams have been a lot more fulfilling and valuable for me. Although I'm still a bit reluctant to call them OBEs, although they obviously are "experiences out of the body", that also have the benefit of providing value for me. But in order to make myself claim such fruit I will have to have learned how to experience leaving the body and have full volition. I would really like to fly around earth and space and such things. Maybe it means another ten years on the cushion, but so be it. I'm not going to be ashamed of my goals and wishes. Of all things that are to strive for, I could see few things cooler, that any of the superior fruit of the contemplative life.
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Last night I tried meditating with a lot more 'intent' that usual. I found that 'intent' for me does the trick of balancing between effort and groove. I got inspired after watching the video with 'nick' where I could see he seemed more aggressive about it (talking about the fourth and fifth sammadhi) than I had been so I thought I would try it out. It got a lot more intense and I got deeper a lot faster than I normally do. After a while I felt a rising of energy and then like a wind came over me and the bliss became more intense and concrete than ever. Erotic almost. All the bodily aches and soreness were gone and I definitely felt like I could sit for ever. I got very joyful because this means I got a glimpse of post-posture-problem-bliss and I could put that focus behind me. Afterwards I felt very refreshed, and all tiredness was completely gone. I did not feel at all slow or empty headed or dreamy but very balanced and alert.
Dreams have been pretty non lucid and boring old neurosis stuff though. The darker but old news kind.
I have however noticed that in this contemplative life, with a map so detailed as the GWVs, there is always at least some charisms playing or something going on, to keep me inspired. The blinking and moving lights of different colors always brings me joy during the day and seem to bring insight as well, as they often show up in significant moments. But the point is, when not being as inspired by dreams that I have been lately, now all of a sudden something else happens. That is a blessing, because if I can trust that this process will continue, I can drop worries of depression and lack of inspiration completely. Like I shouldn't already have done that anyways... ;) But you know, "when being tired, old conquered thoughts can revisit and have the best of you" or something similar (Nietsche said).
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I just watched the video describing the four jhanas to verify that what I experienced last night really was the fourth Jhana. And it turns out the description matches my experience. This I pretty much knew, but verifying each experience is a part of a sort of review process that help convince me I'm on the right way. I don't know if I'm abnormally insecure about my self or inner experiences nor do I care. Another way of seeing it is as if I'm investing 'interest' in the subjective contemplative life.
Now I will have to make sure I can reach the fourth Jhana as often and as cleanly as possible. The increase of intent that I described above really made me relate to the concept of God as the 'consuming fire' - just sit through any sensation, in fact, step into it, cling to it, do not look away, and as it ends, so does I. And only that mist of bliss is left. It seems.
On this more aggressive way of entering the ecstasies, I noticed that the breath changed a couple of times, like different pranayamas started spontaneously to push through bodily 'blockages' and stiffness. I just kept being one with the meditation object and time and again stepping into the fire, and breath changed, came and went.
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In just a few sessions I have gone from relief to a slight dissapointment when the timer has gone off.
During one of the sit at this retreat I found myself in deep absorption when the timer went off, so I just sat through it until the ecstasy was over. So, there is no reason why you could not sit through the timer, unless your timer does not stop beeping, to get more meditation time, or absorption time, if you want it.
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.
Getting through the many obstacles to deep meditation is essential. One of those is learning to relax deeply. I have found is certainly a component in learning to meditation deeply.
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.
I agree
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.
I agree that we need to expect to get something out of the practice of meditation, or otherwise we will not find anything. I believe that expectation is what drives our instincts to find the religious experience.
However, expecting anything when actually sitting, besides the specific joys of each jhana, seems to be detrimental to the actual experience.
Well, I agree that at the same time we need to let got of our expectation when we meditate, because out expectation might mislead us. Also, until we have a religious experience, we will have no idea what that experience is about anyway.
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.
We could just say there are many contradictions in the contemplative life. While we need to apply effort, we need to also learn to let go at deep levels.
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.
It sounds like you have set a very good practice strategy for yourself. At the GWV retreats we tend to sit 4-6 1-hour sits lus 1-2 laying down sessions each day as well. I am not big on meditating on the pain, because I believe it is better for people to learn to love to meditate, or otherwise they are not likely to develop a long-term sitting practice that leads to bliss, joy and ecstasy.
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.
When your contemplative life is more consistent, then you are likely to have visits from angels (devas) on a regular basis.
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.
The other possibility is that you might have been an infant human.
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.
Not being able to open your eyes while in a dream is classic pre-OOBE. It is also part of the sleep paralysis sequence.
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.
This "crowd" could be the angels of heaven, or it could be seeing a glimpse of all of your previous lifetimes. I have had both experiences, and cannot determine which one applies to your case without more details.
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.
You are welcome, and good luck with the hip. At 60 with lots of arthritis, I have recently found up to 1 325mg aspirin 5 times a day works great for me.
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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?
Yes, it is my experience, and many of my case histories support this finding, that the charisms tend to arise in the 3rd stage of the religious experience (3rd jhana), and intensify as we go deeper into the religious experience
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.
If you were still aware of the external world, then this is a reasonably good description of the 4th jhana, because it is better than drugs.
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.
This sounds like the 5th stage of the religious experience (5th samadhi)
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.
The excitement of siting in meditation is a characteristic of one who meditates deeply. However, none of us ever meditate at the same depth every time we meditate. One just gets used to the ups and downs of deep meditation, which nonetheless, leave us more fulfilled than anything we have ever done, so we keep coming back for it, and even reorder our life around meditation.
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.
This sounds like one of my many nights of solo meditation in the desert. For the last 3 years I have been meditating in the mountains, and I often have a jaguar that has taken interest in my meditations to accompany me as well. I take him (or her) as a friend, whether hungry or not. I quite like the idea of being food for an endangered species.
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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.
Feeling energy (virtue/virya) in the chakras is just one of the many charisms that one who meditates deeply. So, you will no doubt get so used to the chakras that they will become common place for you.
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.
The genuine mystic finds the charisms a constant companion, and comfort. Christian mystics called it the Holy Spirit. It is called the Shekhinah in Jewish mysticism; and it is called Shakti in Hinduism. I believe the origins of the term Shekhinah is in the Hindu term, Shakti, which means the Holy Spirit of Christianity is none other than the Shakti.
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
I would agree, otherwise what else would bring one to the GWV website, and to take up a rigorous, self-aware, contemplative life, that bares fruit?
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.
It is good to find you are sober, because I found sobriety to be a core principle in my contemplative life, which led to the sweet fruit of attainment.
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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.
Years of bad posture can often reduce our success in meditating deeply, so it is good that you are working on improving your posture; and I am not surprised to read that you found results quickly. Do keep it up.
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.
You are now honing the depth of your meditation, this is skilful means. Very good work. If you keep going you will find that you will hone, and hone the ecstasies until you have milked them for every drop of nectar.
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I might have previously mentioned an increase in dream recall since I started this intensification of practice. Now I often wake up and have to write down things after only an hour or two of sleep (and feel surprisingly rejuvenated). I often have a couple of more by the morning. This has been great. Going through the day contemplating (the thinking kind) the symbols of the dreams, trying to get the message, trying to distinguish the types of dreams,... it all gives me great pleasure and company and I can see both my intuition and knowledge increase. Slowly and by small steps but still.
I too noticed greater recall of dream content, and more detail, which represents the growth of lucidity in the dream, back 40 years ago, when I started a contemplative life. Now, I am lucid all night long during sleep. So, it is reasonable to believe that you too are experiencing increased lucidity in your dream-world.
I have gotten more glimpses into what I think must be previous deaths. For instance, I saw a guy in a car, that looked a lot like me, and was me, but different too, and I knew him, I felt him. I liked him too. I seemed to be him. And he seemed to be an undercover police officer. And then the ground would go away from underneath the car and tomato soup would be spilled all over the car. I tried to use the communication system to call back to the station but I couldn't work it. And then some weird one-man-helicopterish-thing came to get me instead. So, I think the tomato soup was my blood, and I was dead, but didn't really get it. And I was picked up.
I too noticed the recollection of past lifetimes and deaths from lucid dreaming. And, sometimes the dream content is odd, as your dream was, but we can interpret tomato soup as blood.
Stuff like that has been coming up. That one was pretty nice actually, because I seemed to have been a very untroubled type of guy, and it was all relaxed and movie-like. But the same night I was a little girl with a baby sister, going up on the hill-side surrounding the village, to hide behind the grave stones of our ancestors before the army came. We seemed to be the only ones left. Before not too long we realized that we would have no chance of hiding and would soon be found. That was seriously devastating and scary. They will find us soon and they will kill us.
Then all of a sudden I'm awake and this life seems to suck a lot less. That kind of dreams (or recollection) is a serious motivator for both the practice of writing things down ("de-brief", externalize etc) and starting each day with meditation. Because to sit down on the cushion and take a breath into the first Jhana is really something I want to treat my self with after such a trauma. I can tell that the feelings from the dreams linger on a little bit.
Yes, recalling previous lifetimes leads to recalling previous deaths, which can be a difficult thing to do, but learning to take refuge in the religious experience (jhana) through meditation gives us strength to get through the day.
Also, recalling previous lifetimes gives us a deeper sense of impermanence than any other practice or observation. This also bolsters our resolve to lead a contemplative life, and to complete it to full liberation.
These dreams (hypothetically past-life/death-glimpse dreams) also contrast very well against the symbol ridden get-the-point dreams.
Yes, I agree, from being lucid in my dream state for nearly 40 years, I too have found some dreams are highly symbolic, and thus dream interpretation is needed to understand them; whereas, recollection of previous lifetimes can be taken on face value.
So I slowly learn how to approach each kind of dream. As an example of something else I also dreamed this night that I got educated about something, and I was very happy because I had met just the right teacher for a problem I had been pondering, and woke up assured that all such problems would be taken cared of. The teacher was a small kind old man, and I can remember him still. I also know what kind of things he would teach me (intellectual things actually) but I have not the faintest idea what he said. But I know I will not have to ponder that problem any more. That was cool and seriously helpful.
I hope that these experiences will continue because they are very fulfilling. I also, secretly against my false humbleness, hope they will develop and deepen.
If you maintain your contemplative life, then it is reasonable that your lucidity in the dream will increase, as well as your dream recall. Good work.
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Greetings.
I got some more data for the hypothesis of the experiencing of glimpses of deaths of previous lifetimes during dreams that I talked about in previous posts. Tonight I woke up after a few hours from a seriously disturbing dream. I saw a friend getting killed by a spear in the stomach so I tried to sneak off, but the super mad leader of the evil killing-spree gang found me and started chopping at me with a knife, after having first told me about it and watched my fear. That was traumatic. I screamed HELP, HELP, HELP in panic and woke up.
It took a while to collect my self but as I was getting back I realized that it doesn't matter if this is a trick by my subconscious or if it's from a past life - to get through the emotions and memory of the dream still required the equanimity to revisit the situation and just let go of the panic, and the whole situation. Letting go of life in that body. Facing death. It was a useful experience and a training of letting go. I could feel two different places of my current body becoming relaxed and probably letting go of some trauma. But the feeling of being stabbed to death has followed me through the day. A bit weird.
This is the down side of recalling previous lifetimes, because we tend to call the death, when we do, and those deaths can be quite traumatic, so we are going to want to have developed some equanimity by meditating to the depth of the 3rd jhana, which is where we find equanimity.
I have also been contemplating the content of another thread of this forum, can't remember which one, where Jhanananda says that annihilation is the most scary thing one will ever have to encounter. And I have been trying to get to know that fear of annihilation in me, which I can relate to from certain childhood experiences.
We have discussed annihilation several times on this forum and the old forum. Essentially every stage of the religious experience (samadhi) is characterized by in creasing stages of loss of self, or annihilation. So, the deeper we go into meditation, then the more sense of loss of self, or annihilation, we experience.
I'm also starting to get seriously freaky good hearing. I can hardly walk through the village without hearing the cars on a larger road pretty far away, cut like razor blades through my silence. And last night I almost had to get up from meditating when hearing a neighbor get home and I could almost swear he walked into the house where I'm staying although I knew he was not. Need to re-calibrate sound/room-estimation ratios. And get further away from ... noise.
Yes, extremely sensitive hearing is a product of deep meditation. It is one of the many things that tends to drive mystics into the wilderness. It requires lots of equanimity, which is acquired in spending lots of time in the 3rd stage of the religious experience.
Oh yes. Sometimes it strikes me that there are not many places on earth where one could write things like this blog post without needing to leave forever. :)
Sadly, even though there are lots of people practicing meditation, there are so few places where the phenomena of deep meditation can be discussed. My conclusion is, even though there are lots of people practicing meditation, too few meditation deeply.
The universe is vast and it is mostly empty space and silence. As far as I've been told.
Blessings.
Yes, the universe is a big, beautiful place, but this tiny little planet is teaming with noising beings.
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Some outer and inner circumstances conspired against me and I lost a bit the good groove I have been in lately. I could see I got off balance and I felt ... troubled, tired and weak. I had noticed that memories from an episode in my life that became traumatic and exhausting for me had surfaced, and I felt a bit conquered by them. "Oh no that crap again". But it ain't over 'til it's over. When it became time for the pre-sleep sit I noticed that I really did not look forward to it and wanted to skip it. So I diagnosed my will as compromised and sat down. When the curtain of the charisms came down over me, after a couple of minutes, I felt serious and deep gratitude. It did not matter that I had lost some saturation during the day, but as the contrast was larger than normal, so was my gratitude. But I really was a bit weak and tired too, so I had to buckle up a bit to sit through the one hour minimum mark. And so did I have to do this morning. This too was a good experience because it made me notice that I didn't have to struggle much as of lately, except for the occasional sore muscle, but I have not had any problems with impatience and such.
Life has many difficulties, and deep meditation is not about burying those difficulties under a mountain of mantras, or religious practices, so the journey of the mystic is the most difficult of all journeys. As we negotiate the difficult internal terrain of the contemplative life we learn to rely more and more upon deep meditation for our sole refuge. Good work.
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Yesterday I went swimming in a fairly fast and lively river, with cliffs to jump from and such. A real nature-experience in a beautiful area that only the locals here know of, and deemed me worthy enough to see and enjoy it. When I came home I felt deeply refreshed, relaxed and alive, and when I lay down in mid day meditation I felt that longed for tingle in my lower spine. It build up a while and then started to jolt up a bit but I got too excited and exalted and did not know how to surrender to it or greet it properly so eventually I lost it. But it was nice and still very joyful as a sign of progress. I have experienced these energies before but mostly in sleep or visions and mostly through the base chakra direcly, or very fast flashes in the head, but never the building-up, wide awake type. So that made my happy.
If you maintain your contemplative life at its current pace, then you will experience these energies, which are classic kundalini, on a regular basis, so you will learn from experience how to let go and surrender to the experience of the rise of energy/virtue/virya.
I have noticed that the thoughts that are arising during the Jhanas, when sinking back into them, are taking clearer and clearer form, or theme. Often I can afterwards see that this particular memory or scene was it that surfaced, even when not engaging in the thoughts. For example, it could be something that has been in the most back parts of my awareness for a long time but I have not been in conscious contact with - so that my response to it becomes "ah yeah, that scene, now why has that been lingering for so long". Sometimes it will tell me something, sometimes it is garbage. But I have noticed that it is getting clearer.
Themes that need deeper levels of equanimity will keep arising. One just gets used to it.
I also "dreamed", during laying down meditation, that I experienced what I belive was my birth. Which otherwise must have been a seriously disturbing kind of vision. :) It was very undramatic and felt familiar. Another strange thing was that I also got some information about an unknown relative (of my mom) that I saw clearly and thought "oh, so that's him that we didn't know". That was pretty cool but I'm not sure if I should tell anyone about it.
Just as we can recall previous lifetimes, we can also recall previous births, and we learn quite a bit about who we are through doing so.
In meditation I'm also sometimes getting tired of the soreness of the body so in parallel with trying to work on my posture I've been contemplating existence without the body. For instance, in absorbtion, it is easy to see that if all body awareness would disappear, after the charisms have faded or merged, only blackness would be left.
When we increase our sitting practice we are often presented with bodily pain. It is OK to back off a little to prevent the body and mind from a major rebellion. The contemplative life is a delicate balancing act, so one is not likely to learn all of the skills one needs to right away. So, give yourself some time for development.
I remember that Jhananda (in another thread or video) proposed that the material jhanas are also partly (or mostly) immaterial and I thought, maybe they are mostly immaterial, I am already in the domain of infinite space of blackness but just obsessing manically about the sensations in the body, or the contents of the mind and such things. That would certainly be typically human. So I'm starting to prepare the mind to just leave the body behind, as I suspect it is more natural than I'm making it up to be. I also remembered the astonishing realization of the falseness of the self, so my guess is that the obsession of the body is because otherwise there really would be no I. Hence - the dimension of infinite blackness. Now the trick seems to be to remove stuff in the correct order.
Yes, some schools of mysticism, such as Sat Mat, teach that all of the 8 stages of the religious experience are 'locs' (loca, domains) of existence, which are immaterial in nature. I agree that the chairsms are clearly immaterial, because they cannot be recorded.
Today I had to sit in a chair and look like I listened to a conversation. I only needed to be there and give the impression of observing, so I meditated. As I did my body was falling more and more a sleep and a couple of times I reached that twitch/blinky thing that happens on the way to sleep and I thought that maybe I could just follow that out of the body, because it certainly feels like I'm suddenly on the outside. But I have not idea how to test it as I don't know how to move out of body. And I suspect it would be better to test it with eyes closed. But I have always wondered how that happens. If leaving the body when it has closed eyes, does one start seeing immediately as the OBE takes off? No clue.
The OOBE requires more development of skills. Movement in the OOBE requires different skills than movement in a material body. We tend to be habituated with the human body, so when we try to move in the immaterial domains, then we tend to attempt to move the physical body, which leads to sleep paralysis.
Employing alternate movement metaphors can help. Some use the super-man metaphor of flight, in which one lies out in horizontal flight with metaphorical arms held in front. Others resort to the weeny-roast roll-out, in which one rolls out-of-body as if one were a hot dog rolling on a hot rotating bar. Others use the record disc metaphor to spin head to heels rotating around the belly as the center, to roll out-of-body. Others use the head-over-heels tumbling in a washing machine metaphor. So, try some of them to see what works for you. Perhaps you will find another metaphor that works better for you.
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I have also noticed that I have started to help others in my dreams. Sometimes a dream would be just absurd if I interpret the content as something within myself, then I get a realization of my own self-centered-ness and a sting of shame, and then go on to do what ever I can to help out in the situation of the dream. Mostly bring light, bliss and comfort, and often the situation will resolve and I feel very fulfilled and happy.
Western psychology tends to interpret dream content as purely emotional baggage that the subject who experiences it needs to work out; however, since too few people meditate deeply, then psychologists almost never meet someone who meditates as deeply as you do.
My interpretation of the dream-world, is that it is an immaterial domain where dreamers and the dead reside. They interact in automatic and unconscious ways, so when a lucid dreamer, such as yourself, gets there, then often one finds the content of the dream is totally irrelevant to one. At that point we may help beings there, or we might travel out of there to higher dimensions.
Now Jhanananda says we begin helping others when our own shit is worked through. I know that I have stuff left, obviously, but I also know not to interpret things too black-and-white. I have been working on my shit for a long time and got some results. Obviously I can help others too.
Nothing is black and white. We are all shades of gray. So, those who meditate deeply have more together than those who do not. So, we help them, as we move forward on our own internal journey to liberation.
The night to today I visited a friend who was very happy because he had manage to implemented sobriety in his life, which for him was a big deal. This time I didn't help out, but there was just happiness and nice to greet an old friend I haven't seen for a while.
I have to admit that the dreams have been a lot more fulfilling and valuable for me. Although I'm still a bit reluctant to call them OBEs, although they obviously are "experiences out of the body", that also have the benefit of providing value for me. But in order to make myself claim such fruit I will have to have learned how to experience leaving the body and have full volition. I would really like to fly around earth and space and such things. Maybe it means another ten years on the cushion, but so be it. I'm not going to be ashamed of my goals and wishes. Of all things that are to strive for, I could see few things cooler, that any of the superior fruit of the contemplative life.
Eventually you will get it, sooner or later. In between time we just meditate deeply. The skills needed for immaterial mastership will develop in their own time.
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Last night I tried meditating with a lot more 'intent' that usual. I found that 'intent' for me does the trick of balancing between effort and groove. I got inspired after watching the video with 'nick' where I could see he seemed more aggressive about it (talking about the fourth and fifth sammadhi) than I had been so I thought I would try it out. It got a lot more intense and I got deeper a lot faster than I normally do. After a while I felt a rising of energy and then like a wind came over me and the bliss became more intense and concrete than ever. Erotic almost. All the bodily aches and soreness were gone and I definitely felt like I could sit for ever. I got very joyful because this means I got a glimpse of post-posture-problem-bliss and I could put that focus behind me. Afterwards I felt very refreshed, and all tiredness was completely gone. I did not feel at all slow or empty headed or dreamy but very balanced and alert.
This is classic 4th stage of the religious experience (4th jhana).
Dreams have been pretty non lucid and boring old neurosis stuff though. The darker but old news kind.
I have however noticed that in this contemplative life, with a map so detailed as the GWVs, there is always at least some charisms playing or something going on, to keep me inspired. The blinking and moving lights of different colors always brings me joy during the day and seem to bring insight as well, as they often show up in significant moments. But the point is, when not being as inspired by dreams that I have been lately, now all of a sudden something else happens. That is a blessing, because if I can trust that this process will continue, I can drop worries of depression and lack of inspiration completely. Like I shouldn't already have done that anyways... ;) But you know, "when being tired, old conquered thoughts can revisit and have the best of you" or something similar (Nietsche said).
There are always ups and downs, even when one has the charisms 24-7.
I just watched the video describing the four jhanas to verify that what I experienced last night really was the fourth Jhana. And it turns out the description matches my experience. This I pretty much knew, but verifying each experience is a part of a sort of review process that help convince me I'm on the right way. I don't know if I'm abnormally insecure about my self or inner experiences nor do I care. Another way of seeing it is as if I'm investing 'interest' in the subjective contemplative life.
Road-maps and validation of the inner journey are essential. Since I found none, other than those buried in ancient documents, I decided to provide this material for the benefit of the few who take up this valuable journey.
Now I will have to make sure I can reach the fourth Jhana as often and as cleanly as possible. The increase of intent that I described above really made me relate to the concept of God as the 'consuming fire' - just sit through any sensation, in fact, step into it, cling to it, do not look away, and as it ends, so does I. And only that mist of bliss is left. It seems.
I have found that if one were to consistently sit at the level of the 4th jhana, then one will soon be free of addictive behaviors (sins/fetters) which means one becomes an arahat. So, keep it up. You are doing very well.
On this more aggressive way of entering the ecstasies, I noticed that the breath changed a couple of times, like different pranayamas started spontaneously to push through bodily 'blockages' and stiffness. I just kept being one with the meditation object and time and again stepping into the fire, and breath changed, came and went.
Yes, I too have found that as I negotiate the terrain of the interior world of deep meditation, then my focus changes and my breath changes. No one can tell you how to do it, so you just have to work it out as you go, but stories from the mystics help us along the way.
Thank-you mapeli, for sharing your inner journey with the members of the Fruit of the Contemplative Life forum. I am confident that some of the few rigorous, self-aware, contemplatives on this planet will value reading through this thread.
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Thank you Jhanananda for comments, guidance and inspiration. It is truly invaluable. I had not expected to get such detailed commentary. It does help a lot. I feel somehow a bit lighter, and as dedicated as ever to keep going.
I will continue sharing my story because it seems to help me in many ways and if some one else might find inspiration through it, it is very good. I find that it is often some ones description of a subtle phenomena of meditation that can give me just the shift in attitude to get further, so I figure, the more the merrier, when it comes to sharing experiences. But then, when an enlightened master keeps giving you comments and encouragement, then it is simply too good a bargain not to keep it up.
I must also say, in the name of truth and encouragement of others, that I have not been able to keep up the four sits and two laying-downs each day. Mostly it is three sits and one laying down per day. Some times only two/one (sit/lay), but that has been the absolute minimum. But I have been trying to implement attitude of 'life as a meditation retreat' that was recommended, which helps me to keep up an effort of mindfulness and ethical living in general.
I have also found that although I am in some kind of retreat, I do have some worldly obligations. And exchanging one sit+lay-session (I usually pair them up) for nature-walk and physical exercise makes me a lot more balanced and less prone to grumpyness during the day, which I reap the efforts of in meditation. A proper retreat would not have made that trade though, I suppose. I will still have to look forward to that. For me, I will have to return to my home city soon, and I need to prepare to integrate and negotiate to bring the retreat home. I will have the opportunity to keep up at least the first/last-sessions of the day, and my lifestyle has been relaxed/contemplative for a number of years so that will work out fine. But I will be in a city, and I don't look forward to it.
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So to the inner worlds...
After having clearly obsessed a bit, well, at least thought, about OOBEs I have been starting to take refuge in that Jhanananda says that the main message, the focus, is about the four Jhanas, that is, the material Sammadhis. I have not been comfortable doing exercises for body-detachment neither sitting nor laying down, as I find I it takes the focus away from the bliss. I currently enjoy feeling the play of the aura as my body gets more relaxed and my awareness more subtle. So I guess there is a time for everything. Hopefully.
Ironically, or maybe, just because of this, I think I received some OOBE-training last night. I dreamt I got to go sky-diving. Or rather, tag along with someone. This relaxed guy pointed to a camera on top of his head, meaning, I would tag along, but I somehow got the impression it was not about me so I wasn't scared. Then he very casually just dropped out of the "airplane" (I never saw it) and I was most definitely tagging a long, like we did one of those pair-dives. We went down with incredible speed and I felt it in my stomach and eyes. Then I got adjusted and could enjoy the fall. We came down over the ocean, he somehow shifted and we flew in parallel with the ocean waves and could see a lot of big fish and whales and stuff in the crystal clear ocean, and then, very skillfully we landed on a beautiful tropical beach. I noticed that he was such a skilled sky-diver that he didn't actually have to use his parachute, but had some kind of wings-device. On the beach another skydiver awaited us. He had a similar device. And of course, neither of them had neither camera-helmets or parachutes, but wings. But to me, they looked black. I had expected white, of course. That was pretty cool. I think of it as training. Or rather, maybe just a mercy kind of showing me what it is like.
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Sometimes I start worrying about lifetimes and salvation and things of the infinite. A bit of lack of faith perhaps. But it creeps up on my awareness from time to time, and I'm starting to see that it has been bugging me for quite a while. During one of the laying-down sessions today though, I just noticed it and thought, "f*ck it, it might be so or so, and my destiny might be this or that, but I'm gonna bliss out no matter what anyway" and I felt a shift in me, and a joy. A letting go. With a smile I got back to the golden glow.
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I was thinking about how Jhanananda seem to encourage the practice of 'dressing' the senses and all sensation of ones being with bliss and joy and relaxation and I got encouraged to continue with this practice. Sometimes I don't find the intent or ... dedication ... to go deeper after having come down a bit and then I use that time to polish on the current jhana and explore it.
Today I noticed that I have a hard time meditating on just the smell, without also not meditating focusing on the nose and breath area. Same with taste. I have experienced some shifts in relaxation towards the tongue and jaw-areas since meditating on the sense of taste. Seeing that the higher states of meditation seems to drift towards synesthesia rather than separation, I thought I would see what happens if I encourage this rather than fight it.
I followed, and kept, the sense of smell, meditating also on the nose and throat and eventually it lead me to the lunges. This was great news because I have had some trauma in that area in this body (pneumo thorax, and a few blows to the ribs, used to smoke etc.) so I was very joyful that I could get such contact with my lunges. I could feel them move and what movement options they had. Up, out, down etc. So then I meditated upon incorporating them into the bliss and the bliss into them and it was very refreshing. I also had to go do the same with the diaphragm, also with great results. Often I find that the movement of breath distracts me during meditation so I felt we made peace in some way. This was during a sit.
When I lay in shavasana I did the same with the taste, mouth, tounge, all the (surprisingly long) way down into stomach. I did not focus on getting a high-res "picture" of the intestines but rather on getting the bliss going below the diaphragm as well. Around here, things were not as dynamic as with the lunges, but the peace that arose was incredible. My whole body got extremely still and quiet. I have not been so still and relaxed before.
I look forward to incorporate these new sources of joy and peacefulness into my practice.
I think that meditating on the senses and making sure that they are blissful are what the gospels are referring to with the five wise and five foolish virgins. When the senses have the oil of bliss they can go to the wedding where two become one and experience non-duality.
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Now a days, these last years, but even more this last time since the start of the intensification of the contemplative life, I get almost excited when coming into contact with a trauma or wound. This means new progress has been made, and it provides raw material for the alchemical process, so to speak. Or more plainly - it means healing can take place and level of well-being rise a notch. Often I rush into it, that is, I watch it in meditation, try to get into contact with the underlying emotions and memories and make peace with it.
Often, I will think, when the emotions surface and are about to leave, that I must be a bit weird looking forward to this, because becoming free of them often means reliving, or at least being in contact with, the emotions, so that they can be let go of or assimilated. But the peak of this process is always truly non-pleasant, and requires some kind of back-burner equanimity. Or remembrance and faith. That this is some thing I chose to enter into in order to heal myself a bit. Because it is not necessarily so, that the memory or emotions surface during a meditation session, but it can come later too.
I hope that many of you will recognize at least something of this, but I suppose that each of us will use different words to describe it, and might even have a different way of dealing with this kind of stuff.
I also suppose that dealing with this kind of past wounds is at least one way of understanding the concept of karma. Especially now that I have come to experience that sometimes these traumas seem to come from previous lifetimes.
I'm quite used to the process described above, but today I experienced what I think was more of a root cause, than an actual trauma. Because it did not follow the usual process. I was doing laying down meditation and incorporating the new way of meditating on the body that I described in previous posts. I started with taste/stomach and then moved up to smell/lungs, but after that I noticed that I need to meditate upon the rib-cage too, the externals of the body surrounding the lungs because I often feel a bit uncomfortable there. I decide where to go next by keeping the bliss growing and glowing and noticing what in any of the four corners of mindfulness that makes ... resistance. What is not yet blissful. Often it will be parts of the body resisting the breath, or, of course, the graspings or aversions of the psyche.
This time I noticed a heavy weight upon my upper chest, that also put tension and resistance in the diaphragm because of the pressure I suppose. The body is in many ways a 'closed' mechanical system so tension will often propagate. I was in meditation and could without trouble spot that the origin of this resistance was in my soul rather than my body, and it was the feeling of 'not being good enough'. This supposedly came from a traumatic childhood with abandonment issues and stuff, but I also guess that it can happen to pretty much anybody, as most families and societies are dysfunctional one way or another, and could propagate such an attitude to a young child in many different ways.
Any way, this realization was very undramatic and the tension lifted. I was a bit amazed that I could actually find such a deep psychological issue and 'work it'. It seems like one of those things that I thought was carved into my soul and I would have to live with. But now I threw it away from me like an old used blanket, at least during meditation.
I do not care to worry about whether it will come back, or rush to implement a new day to day psychology with all the 'software patches' implemented in my psychology to work around such an issue removed. I have tried to work things out at that level before, and the results are often questionable. What matters, and what works, is that I can lift off this burden again and again, organically, when going deeper into the bliss, and in that way associate - that is, 'hard (or wet) wire' - freedom from that issue with the ever deepening bliss and joy of the first (to fourth) Jhana.
This way, even the deepest wounds and bugs of the soul will not get primary attention, but their resolve will always be a by-product of some thing very nice, that is, meditation. The contemplative practice will go on, and will be the joyful driving force in the healing. This way the tendency of making past trauma into new fixations and just make worse complexes and neurosis out of it all is avoided.
This turned out to be a long post about the bridge between 'psychology' and deep meditation, among other things. What I had intended to write about, was the astonishing fact that such a deep wound as 'not being good enough (to ... x,y,z)' was 1) actually found in a concrete way 2) lifted off 3) without any drama. This was surprising and joyful.
Thinking about it post-writing, maybe it is not a root cause, but rather a consequence of traumatic experiences in the past, that is why it was easy to get rid of and did not come with a memory. It was something learned, and integrated into ones sense-of-self, from, and in relation to, the world. "If I am treated like this, I must not be good enough to be treated better." Or something.
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I have known through reading and practice that applied and sustained attention are only factors of the first jhana and then falls away. This I have previously noticed gradually but it has become clearer lately. What happens is that all of a sudden the attention itself seems to disappear. First, it seems like nothing is 'grippable' by attention anymore but all of phenomena seems like a single image where attention has nowhere to rest. Then I saw that a better description, would be that attention it self has fallen away, and what is left is awareness. Attention and awareness has separated from each other and one of them died.
This is strange as I hardly noticed they were the same prior to this. Awareness has no problem focusing on silence, but attention cannot.
This is great news, because the disappearing of attention can yield sort of a whiplash effect in the experience if not aware of this transition. Like someone would pull out the rug from underneath the feet. Then I will have to stumble around a bit before adapting to the new configuration. But when this phenomena has been befriended, the transition can be smoother and more skillfulness has been implemented.
So it seems for this one right now at least.
Slowly, the truth of the GWV is revelaed in more clearity. Indeed a good description for this would be that of a factor of one stage disappears in the next.
Another good lesson from this is that each Jhana and the transference between them need not to be mastered before going further and deeper, so it is important to see that in some sense, the abstractions are secondary and will unfold as long as meditation is practiced as skillfully as possible at any given stage.
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Last night and the end-of-day sit I ended up in what I think is the 5th Sammadhi again. I hardly noticed getting into the fourth Jhana but all of a sudden all bodily contact and sensory stimuli just dropped off and all went black. It was very nice. I knew that I had a body but it did not intrude at all. All was just black and silent. It was funny and I felt like giggling a bit. I felt really good and a great relief. It was not at all hard to maintain this state and after my initial exaltation from reaching this state wore off, I just lingered and enjoyed myself.
After some time the awareness and sensory input of the body very gradually and slowly came back. During this coming-back I realized that I have been in between these states many times before when younger, because I had memories arise from hearing my father speak right in front of me but he would seem very far away and his voice would hardly reach me, like he was standing behind a sound proof wall of glass or something. So I knew I had been here before.
Sometimes I can end up in that in-between state almost by accident, but not having meditated properly before it is often like one sense is still left behind. Like it is partial. Like I turn thin like a paper - I lack some dimensions, but am still in the world. It is a very cool experience.
But last night was the second time I was completely in that state of infinite blackness and silence without any sensory stimuli and much bliss and relief. And joy.
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Today I have had a day of rest. I went up and meditated. Had breakfast. Went into laying down meditation. Got up and meditated again and so forth. As I was tired I did not use a timer when laying down but wanted to allow my self to drift off to sleep if needed. This way I got a lot of experience and training in recognizing the different stages of sleep.
I found out that I start dreaming a lot sooner than I thought and some times it seemed like the lucidity of the dream and my sense of my physical body was mixed and super-positioned on each other. I got to experience more lucidity in the dreams than I have had before and I got hope for progress. I noticed I was dreaming and remembered Jhananandas reply earlier on this blog that I don't have to stick around in the scenario given in the dream, so I decided to go somewhere else (as it was a fairly uninteresting one) and left the dream with ease. But then I didn't know how to go somewhere else, so I just ended up in white bliss which then turned into those wonderful fractal patterens and when they faded I seemed to be back in my body again. I did not know how to go to a certain place, but maybe I should have stuck around in that dream world, but my interpretation of leaving seemed to be dimensional, rather than spatial (if there is such a thing as locality in the dream world).
The coolest proof of success for me would be to be in the room where my body is, but I don't know if that is even possible.
But today was just about rest and meditation and I don't care too much about success in OOB-travel, as I decided a couple of days ago. But I notice that my mind has started thinking about ways to sleep outside to experience meditating upon the stars. You see I live where there is this peculiar problem of light pollution ... by the sun it self. During summer nights are not nearly dark enough for the stars to be visible. It is not dark at all in fact. But in the winter, it is waaay to cold to sleep outside. So I wonder, do I need to find a house with a glass-roof? Or maybe I need to buy a coffin from a burial agency and install a window in it, and make it heat-isolated. Then I can just have it somewhere in the forest and go sleep in it. But that would probably be a bit unsafe, considering all the vampire movies that people are watching now a days. ;)
On the same theme I have been thinking about making my self some kind of portable mosquito-net-tent so I can meditate in the forest, because it is way too much mosquitoes around here. It is a bit sad because there are forests around. However, it is a fairly simple practical problem.
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I have noticed since trying to implement moment-to-moment awareness by keeping in contact with the four corners of mindfulness, that every time I make an effort to implement a wholesome mental state, by the recommendation of flooding the dark night with wholesome states, the most horrible of my internal states seems to rise to fight it.
This could mean that I'm usually in a state of anger and despair, and just notice it when trying to adjust my attitude to loving-kindness or compassion. Or it could mean that I'm usually neither, but setting a thesis means confronting an anti-thesis. Or to go from gray to white requires letting go of the black. I don't know. But I thought I should mention it here, because I almost gave up a while ago until I saw how silly and 'thin' the opposition was. The trick is just to call the bluff and recognize it and again and again reach for that loving-kindness. And finally, when it sticks, at least in meditation, I find that it is a lot easier to handle any other thing that surfaces, in body, mind or soul, whether it is a sore neck or a sad memory, when it can be greeted with loving-kindness and compassion.
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Today I woke up really early, as have been the tendency since I started to meditate more rigorously. It is quite a lovely feeling to set the alarm "really early" compared to my previous standard, and still be up earlier. And waking up wanting to get up and meditate rather than snooze is a new feeling too.
During the sit, it was one of the most challenging sessions so far though. The dream that was in my head prior to waking up was one of the heavier ones so far, psychologically, and I had a hard time regaining my balance, as I on top of this was sore and stiff in the body as well. A bit into the session I had to notice that my usual bliss-groove was not running and I had to get back to the basics a couple of times. It was like I needed another kind of grip on my self now when both mind and body was in sub-optimal and abnormal conditions. I felt tremendous resistance but after some struggling I noticed that I had a huge weight and tension in the lower neck/upper back and once I found this hot spot I could meditate on it and get into the groove. But getting into it and releasing that spot was rather like bench-pressing on maximum capacity. It was a humbling experience. The bliss was as fine as ever when I got into it, but it seems I have gotten used to having the Jhanas more accessible then I had today.
I think that the lesson is that to some extent, each sit is its own, and I can never guarantee with certainty any depth. But if things don't go the usual way, something is probably wrong, and that something can be found and corrected. And today it was not obvious what it was, the way it usually is.
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I was out canoeing almost all day yesterday and when I got back and sat down I noticed the sense of balance was conditioned heavily by being on water. It was fun to meditate on for a while but as meditation deepened I got almost too sensitive and had to switch to another meditation object because there was too much turmoil. I noticed that I was also very tired so I meditated upon the sensation of almost falling asleep until it became a blissful presence that did not threat my meditation.
Some serious frustrations has been coming concerning mostly things that I think that I lack. Mostly regarding intimate relationships. I have missed some one most of my life and I've started to question it, trying to think what life would be like if I didn't miss anything at all.
I considered my self free from addictions when dropping even coffee to be able to prove to myself that I don't have any addictive behavior of the body any more. But it seems like I have addictions to the fetters of the soul as well. Sometimes I seem to be addicted to misery, but I think it is mostly unskillfulness. Sufferings exist. Need not get to worked up about it.
I have not been very deep lately but I do enjoy every meditation session, and I need to not be pushing my self right now, I think.
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I have now relocated back to my usual place of living. I am not equanimous enough to be completely unaffected by changing environtment, rather, I seem to become more sensitive, but less anxious about it. Meditation last night was a bit of a struggle, compared to what Im used to. My body and emotions seem to be abit worked up. Like constantly having to tame a racing horse, or driving just a bit too fast to be comfortable.
Today, I decided to warm up before meditating in the morning. Around here there was already noise around by the time I get up, so I need to develop a new schedule. 'Warming up' I do by sitting in a chair, resting in the surroundings and directing my eyes to some mystic text, today browsing this forum until I find dedication arising again. Sinking into rest, soon the charisms arise, and I let them play a while without shifting focus too much. In this state I can 'find myself', recollect myself, which I need todo in order to adjust to this change of location. It is sort of just lingering in the first jhana, drifting back and forth into the second.
After a while I spontaneously want to go deeper, and then I go sit on the cushion and close my eyes.
I notice that it is really helpful to have this blog to share and report to, because by writing here, I constantly debrief, and it also gives me a kind of verification of dedication.
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Another thing that I would like to report, that is most surprising, is that the shifts between the Jhanas have become more and more clear. At some point not too long ago, it seemed like they would develop into more of a single continuum, just one big movement through ever subtler shadesof gray. But now I notice clear, distinct points in time for each shift. "ah, there's the that shift".
I think this is a good thing because it gives me confidence and rest in the practice, when I know I can count on noticing the shifts, I can linger with more relaxed comfort at each state. But as always, I might be fooling myself, and as always, appreciate beeing corrected if someone has noticed a similar experience that have turned out to be counter-productive in the long run.
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Still adjusting a bit to having moved back, I have had the chance to practice moment to moment mindfulness. When I lose that, I will almost immediately find myself annoyed and uncomfortable because of the road of cars I can hear constantly in the background or some social relationship that I had fled going up north.
I'm not yet fit for the mendicant life-style and live where it is too cold most of the time to camp even in a van. So I always figured I would have to find some way of living in between. A simple cottage away from noise will do, and some work I can do from there with as little effort and time as possible. But now I find myself looking at camp gear and contemplating relocation to a hotter country.
I think that I have started to trust the process of negotiation a bit. So far I have ended up on the contemplative side of available choices without having any options really. It has been the way it has to be. So keeping up this direction by daily meditation and stillness of lifestyle, things will have to work out. After all, it was soon five years ago that I quit my last employment, and I still don't know how ends have met. But compared to my friends I live really simple and cheap. So, quitting the day job was the large step, after that things have been simpler.
I like the term 'negotiation' the way Jhanananda talks about it. It is one of those things that really stand out as brilliant and unique. There are many more such things, of course.
Having been around this forum for not too long, many more such concepts have uploaded into my mind recently, to great joy.
The negotiating is not just life, but every day. Learning to keep equanimous in new environtments and new situations seems like an essential part of the training. I seem to have a couple of areas where I am under-developed, but these days I discovered something that helps a bit in those situations, so I will share it with you.
Since becoming comfortable in the third jhana, and after Jeffrey pointed out the connection between the jhanas and the chakras, I seem to be able to fall back on, or rather flee to equinimity even when my saturation in penetrated, by simply treating my loss and lack of equanimity equanimous (note to future self: invest in spell checker). That is, when annoyance has its course through this body and mind, I 'apply' equanimity to it by accepting it and sort of smiling kindly towards myself instead of working up more unbalance. When I can't find the stepping stone to do this I focus on, and flee to, the third-eye chakra.
This might not be very sane, because the spontaneous thing to go for when losing balance would be the first jhana and thereby the heart chakra. But I find that usually the heartand throat are too much compromized and don't give enough pull into wholesomeness, in a 'war situation' outside of a meditation session, that is.
As always I might by fooling myself and over theorizing, but I guess I might also be right. "What ever works for you. No one can tell you how todo it."
When in meditation, I go for permanence, saturation, 'becoming' and all stems from peace and stillness and surrender. Therefor it was not obvious to me how to 'apply' things found in the jhanas outside of meditation, outside of saturation.
I think in terms of backburner-bliss or meta-joy. 'A joy that is not of the senses' even when the senses and mind signals unjoyfulness.
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Thank you Jhanananda for comments, guidance and inspiration. It is truly invaluable. I had not expected to get such detailed commentary. It does help a lot. I feel somehow a bit lighter, and as dedicated as ever to keep going.
I am only too happy to offer some guidance to a fellow contemplative, because I had so very little skilled guidance on my inner journey. Without skilled guidance and validation we cannot hope to negotiate the inner terrain of the mind and spirit.
I will continue sharing my story because it seems to help me in many ways and if some one else might find inspiration through it, it is very good. I find that it is often some ones description of a subtle phenomena of meditation that can give me just the shift in attitude to get further, so I figure, the more the merrier, when it comes to sharing experiences. But then, when an enlightened master keeps giving you comments and encouragement, then it is simply too good a bargain not to keep it up.
I am glad that you are continuing your journal, because I am sure other rigorous contemplatives will benefit from reading about your inner journey. There is just too few such reports.
I must also say, in the name of truth and encouragement of others, that I have not been able to keep up the four sits and two laying-downs each day. Mostly it is three sits and one laying down per day. Some times only two/one (sit/lay), but that has been the absolute minimum. But I have been trying to implement attitude of 'life as a meditation retreat' that was recommended, which helps me to keep up an effort of mindfulness and ethical living in general.
The rigorous, self-aware contemplative will want to sit and lay in meditation at least once a day, if not 3 times a day. Those who want enlightenment in this very lifetime will just have to figure out how to do that. For some it is living out of a backpack. For others it is handing over the business to competent people, for others it is some other strategy. In the 90s I had a modestly profitable computer business that only took 4 hours of my time each day. I was able to spend the rest of the time meditating, close to nature. It helped me a great deal. I got some much out of my meditations that I ended up neglecting my business too much, so kept declining until there was nothing left of it by 2000. Then I took to living in a van.
I have also found that although I am in some kind of retreat, I do have some worldly obligations. And exchanging one sit+lay-session (I usually pair them up) for nature-walk and physical exercise makes me a lot more balanced and less prone to grumpyness during the day, which I reap the efforts of in meditation. A proper retreat would not have made that trade though, I suppose. I will still have to look forward to that. For me, I will have to return to my home city soon, and I need to prepare to integrate and negotiate to bring the retreat home. I will have the opportunity to keep up at least the first/last-sessions of the day, and my lifestyle has been relaxed/contemplative for a number of years so that will work out fine. But I will be in a city, and I don't look forward to it.
I found regular exercise helped me in my interior journey. I hiked or cycled daily through the 90s, and I still hike daily.
if you can maintain the meditation sits at the beginning and end of each day after this retreat, then you will have been successful at developing a lifestyle of retreat, which I am confident will be as successful as mine was. Too few meditation retreats even encourage this.
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So to the inner worlds...
After having clearly obsessed a bit, well, at least thought, about OOBEs I have been starting to take refuge in that Jhanananda says that the main message, the focus, is about the four Jhanas, that is, the material Sammadhis. I have not been comfortable doing exercises for body-detachment neither sitting nor laying down, as I find I it takes the focus away from the bliss. I currently enjoy feeling the play of the aura as my body gets more relaxed and my awareness more subtle. So I guess there is a time for everything. Hopefully.
Ironically, or maybe, just because of this, I think I received some OOBE-training last night. I dreamt I got to go sky-diving. Or rather, tag along with someone. This relaxed guy pointed to a camera on top of his head, meaning, I would tag along, but I somehow got the impression it was not about me so I wasn't scared. Then he very casually just dropped out of the "airplane" (I never saw it) and I was most definitely tagging a long, like we did one of those pair-dives. We went down with incredible speed and I felt it in my stomach and eyes. Then I got adjusted and could enjoy the fall. We came down over the ocean, he somehow shifted and we flew in parallel with the ocean waves and could see a lot of big fish and whales and stuff in the crystal clear ocean, and then, very skillfully we landed on a beautiful tropical beach. I noticed that he was such a skilled sky-diver that he didn't actually have to use his parachute, but had some kind of wings-device. On the beach another skydiver awaited us. He had a similar device. And of course, neither of them had neither camera-helmets or parachutes, but wings. But to me, they looked black. I had expected white, of course. That was pretty cool. I think of it as training. Or rather, maybe just a mercy kind of showing me what it is like.
In my experience any flying dreams are OOBEs. Sometimes our mind just makes up a story to going along with the experience.
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Sometimes I start worrying about lifetimes and salvation and things of the infinite. A bit of lack of faith perhaps. But it creeps up on my awareness from time to time, and I'm starting to see that it has been bugging me for quite a while. During one of the laying-down sessions today though, I just noticed it and thought, "f*ck it, it might be so or so, and my destiny might be this or that, but I'm gonna bliss out no matter what anyway" and I felt a shift in me, and a joy. A letting go. With a smile I got back to the golden glow.
As you are noticing the bliss is proportional to your ability to let go, surrender, submit, or whatever terminology you like. It is the bliss that makes all of the difference, and the rest is just icing on the cake.
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I think that meditating on the senses and making sure that they are blissful are what the gospels are referring to with the five wise and five foolish virgins. When the senses have the oil of bliss they can go to the wedding where two become one and experience non-duality.
I believe that you are correct in your reading the allegory of the five wise and five foolish brides maids. It would be worth a discussion on this subject.
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I also suppose that dealing with this kind of past wounds is at least one way of understanding the concept of karma. Especially now that I have come to experience that sometimes these traumas seem to come from previous lifetimes.
In my experience working through past traumas, whether from this lifetime, or a previous one, is all par for the course, but it is hard to explain to others until they start experiencing it.
I'm quite used to the process described above, but today I experienced what I think was more of a root cause, than an actual trauma. Because it did not follow the usual process. I was doing laying down meditation and incorporating the new way of meditating on the body that I described in previous posts. I started with taste/stomach and then moved up to smell/lungs, but after that I noticed that I need to meditate upon the rib-cage too, the externals of the body surrounding the lungs because I often feel a bit uncomfortable there. I decide where to go next by keeping the bliss growing and glowing and noticing what in any of the four corners of mindfulness that makes ... resistance. What is not yet blissful. Often it will be parts of the body resisting the breath, or, of course, the graspings or aversions of the psyche.
This time I noticed a heavy weight upon my upper chest, that also put tension and resistance in the diaphragm because of the pressure I suppose. The body is in many ways a 'closed' mechanical system so tension will often propagate. I was in meditation and could without trouble spot that the origin of this resistance was in my soul rather than my body, and it was the feeling of 'not being good enough'. This supposedly came from a traumatic childhood with abandonment issues and stuff, but I also guess that it can happen to pretty much anybody, as most families and societies are dysfunctional one way or another, and could propagate such an attitude to a young child in many different ways.
Any way, this realization was very undramatic and the tension lifted. I was a bit amazed that I could actually find such a deep psychological issue and 'work it'. It seems like one of those things that I thought was carved into my soul and I would have to live with. But now I threw it away from me like an old used blanket, at least during meditation.
I do not care to worry about whether it will come back, or rush to implement a new day to day psychology with all the 'software patches' implemented in my psychology to work around such an issue removed. I have tried to work things out at that level before, and the results are often questionable. What matters, and what works, is that I can lift off this burden again and again, organically, when going deeper into the bliss, and in that way associate - that is, 'hard (or wet) wire' - freedom from that issue with the ever deepening bliss and joy of the first (to fourth) Jhana.
This way, even the deepest wounds and bugs of the soul will not get primary attention, but their resolve will always be a by-product of some thing very nice, that is, meditation. The contemplative practice will go on, and will be the joyful driving force in the healing. This way the tendency of making past trauma into new fixations and just make worse complexes and neurosis out of it all is avoided.
This turned out to be a long post about the bridge between 'psychology' and deep meditation, among other things. What I had intended to write about, was the astonishing fact that such a deep wound as 'not being good enough (to ... x,y,z)' was 1) actually found in a concrete way 2) lifted off 3) without any drama. This was surprising and joyful.
Thinking about it post-writing, maybe it is not a root cause, but rather a consequence of traumatic experiences in the past, that is why it was easy to get rid of and did not come with a memory. It was something learned, and integrated into ones sense-of-self, from, and in relation to, the world. "If I am treated like this, I must not be good enough to be treated better." Or something.
This is how healing works on the level of the mystic.
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I have known through reading and practice that applied and sustained attention are only factors of the first jhana and then falls away. This I have previously noticed gradually but it has become clearer lately. What happens is that all of a sudden the attention itself seems to disappear. First, it seems like nothing is 'grippable' by attention anymore but all of phenomena seems like a single image where attention has nowhere to rest. Then I saw that a better description, would be that attention it self has fallen away, and what is left is awareness. Attention and awareness has separated from each other and one of them died.
This is strange as I hardly noticed they were the same prior to this. Awareness has no problem focusing on silence, but attention cannot.
This is great news, because the disappearing of attention can yield sort of a whiplash effect in the experience if not aware of this transition. Like someone would pull out the rug from underneath the feet. Then I will have to stumble around a bit before adapting to the new configuration. But when this phenomena has been befriended, the transition can be smoother and more skillfulness has been implemented.
So it seems for this one right now at least.
Slowly, the truth of the GWV is revelaed in more clearity. Indeed a good description for this would be that of a factor of one stage disappears in the next.
Another good lesson from this is that each Jhana and the transference between them need not to be mastered before going further and deeper, so it is important to see that in some sense, the abstractions are secondary and will unfold as long as meditation is practiced as skillfully as possible at any given stage.
Yes, applied and sustained attention, or what is also called 'concentration' is cognitive; whereas, the religious experience is non-cognitive. Thus, awareness can be sustained, as you observed, without the need of engaging the cognitive mind.
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Last night and the end-of-day sit I ended up in what I think is the 5th Sammadhi again. I hardly noticed getting into the fourth Jhana but all of a sudden all bodily contact and sensory stimuli just dropped off and all went black. It was very nice. I knew that I had a body but it did not intrude at all. All was just black and silent. It was funny and I felt like giggling a bit. I felt really good and a great relief. It was not at all hard to maintain this state and after my initial exaltation from reaching this state wore off, I just lingered and enjoyed myself.
After some time the awareness and sensory input of the body very gradually and slowly came back. During this coming-back I realized that I have been in between these states many times before when younger, because I had memories arise from hearing my father speak right in front of me but he would seem very far away and his voice would hardly reach me, like he was standing behind a sound proof wall of glass or something. So I knew I had been here before.
Sometimes I can end up in that in-between state almost by accident, but not having meditated properly before it is often like one sense is still left behind. Like it is partial. Like I turn thin like a paper - I lack some dimensions, but am still in the world. It is a very cool experience.
But last night was the second time I was completely in that state of infinite blackness and silence without any sensory stimuli and much bliss and relief. And joy.
This is an example of the non-cognitive nature of the religious experience. The best thing we can do is show up, in case one happens, which is what daily meditation practice is all about. Then when a religious experience occurs, then our best option is just to savor it, as you did.
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Today I have had a day of rest. I went up and meditated. Had breakfast. Went into laying down meditation. Got up and meditated again and so forth. As I was tired I did not use a timer when laying down but wanted to allow my self to drift off to sleep if needed. This way I got a lot of experience and training in recognizing the different stages of sleep.
I found out that I start dreaming a lot sooner than I thought and some times it seemed like the lucidity of the dream and my sense of my physical body was mixed and super-positioned on each other. I got to experience more lucidity in the dreams than I have had before and I got hope for progress. I noticed I was dreaming and remembered Jhananandas reply earlier on this blog that I don't have to stick around in the scenario given in the dream, so I decided to go somewhere else (as it was a fairly uninteresting one) and left the dream with ease. But then I didn't know how to go somewhere else, so I just ended up in white bliss which then turned into those wonderful fractal patterens and when they faded I seemed to be back in my body again. I did not know how to go to a certain place, but maybe I should have stuck around in that dream world, but my interpretation of leaving seemed to be dimensional, rather than spatial (if there is such a thing as locality in the dream world).
This is very good success in the OOBE, which is learning control in the dream world. The "wonderful fractal patterns" are classic transition from one domain, or plane to the next. Sometimes we just get dumped back in the body.
The coolest proof of success for me would be to be in the room where my body is, but I don't know if that is even possible.
You will get there.
But today was just about rest and meditation and I don't care too much about success in OOB-travel, as I decided a couple of days ago. But I notice that my mind has started thinking about ways to sleep outside to experience meditating upon the stars. You see I live where there is this peculiar problem of light pollution ... by the sun it self. During summer nights are not nearly dark enough for the stars to be visible. It is not dark at all in fact. But in the winter, it is waaay to cold to sleep outside. So I wonder, do I need to find a house with a glass-roof? Or maybe I need to buy a coffin from a burial agency and install a window in it, and make it heat-isolated. Then I can just have it somewhere in the forest and go sleep in it. But that would probably be a bit unsafe, considering all the vampire movies that people are watching now a days. ;)
On the same theme I have been thinking about making my self some kind of portable mosquito-net-tent so I can meditate in the forest, because it is way too much mosquitoes around here. It is a bit sad because there are forests around. However, it is a fairly simple practical problem.
There is a tradition of mosque architecture in Turkey, which uses an oculus, which is a circular opening to the sky. It is used also in the Pantheon. The ladder opening in Hopi Kivas goes through the roof, which I believe was originally intended to be an oculus, or observation opening to the night sky.
The oculus is a way to have an unobstructed view of the sky while remaining relatively warm inside. A box, or coffin, as you described it, might also be useful. I found mosquito netting too obstructive of the night sky to see much of the stars, but I use it to meditate without being eaten alive by the mosquitoes.
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I have noticed since trying to implement moment-to-moment awareness by keeping in contact with the four corners of mindfulness, that every time I make an effort to implement a wholesome mental state, by the recommendation of flooding the dark night with wholesome states, the most horrible of my internal states seems to rise to fight it.
This could mean that I'm usually in a state of anger and despair, and just notice it when trying to adjust my attitude to loving-kindness or compassion. Or it could mean that I'm usually neither, but setting a thesis means confronting an anti-thesis. Or to go from gray to white requires letting go of the black. I don't know. But I thought I should mention it here, because I almost gave up a while ago until I saw how silly and 'thin' the opposition was. The trick is just to call the bluff and recognize it and again and again reach for that loving-kindness. And finally, when it sticks, at least in meditation, I find that it is a lot easier to handle any other thing that surfaces, in body, mind or soul, whether it is a sore neck or a sad memory, when it can be greeted with loving-kindness and compassion.
Many of us come from a dysfunctional family system or childhood trauma. These traumas tend to come to us when we are deep in meditation. When I think of my childhood I am presented with much darkness. So, for me it is easier to just still the mind, than to try to cultivate some positive state, which just ends up with the kind of internal battle that you described.
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Today I woke up really early, as have been the tendency since I started to meditate more rigorously. It is quite a lovely feeling to set the alarm "really early" compared to my previous standard, and still be up earlier. And waking up wanting to get up and meditate rather than snooze is a new feeling too.
During the sit, it was one of the most challenging sessions so far though. The dream that was in my head prior to waking up was one of the heavier ones so far, psychologically, and I had a hard time regaining my balance, as I on top of this was sore and stiff in the body as well. A bit into the session I had to notice that my usual bliss-groove was not running and I had to get back to the basics a couple of times. It was like I needed another kind of grip on my self now when both mind and body was in sub-optimal and abnormal conditions. I felt tremendous resistance but after some struggling I noticed that I had a huge weight and tension in the lower neck/upper back and once I found this hot spot I could meditate on it and get into the groove. But getting into it and releasing that spot was rather like bench-pressing on maximum capacity. It was a humbling experience. The bliss was as fine as ever when I got into it, but it seems I have gotten used to having the Jhanas more accessible then I had today.
I think that the lesson is that to some extent, each sit is its own, and I can never guarantee with certainty any depth. But if things don't go the usual way, something is probably wrong, and that something can be found and corrected. And today it was not obvious what it was, the way it usually is.
At these times we just have to remember that there are always ups and downs in the contemplative life. So, we just show up for meditation to see what is going to come of it.
Some of my deepest meditation came from having to sit through an hour of nothing, before the rocket took off into a 2 hour bliss bomb.
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I was out canoeing almost all day yesterday and when I got back and sat down I noticed the sense of balance was conditioned heavily by being on water. It was fun to meditate on for a while but as meditation deepened I got almost too sensitive and had to switch to another meditation object because there was too much turmoil. I noticed that I was also very tired so I meditated upon the sensation of almost falling asleep until it became a blissful presence that did not threat my meditation.
Some serious frustrations has been coming concerning mostly things that I think that I lack. Mostly regarding intimate relationships. I have missed some one most of my life and I've started to question it, trying to think what life would be like if I didn't miss anything at all.
I considered my self free from addictions when dropping even coffee to be able to prove to myself that I don't have any addictive behavior of the body any more. But it seems like I have addictions to the fetters of the soul as well. Sometimes I seem to be addicted to misery, but I think it is mostly unskillfulness. Sufferings exist. Need not get to worked up about it.
I have not been very deep lately but I do enjoy every meditation session, and I need to not be pushing my self right now, I think.
Having come from a family that never expressed love, let alone appreciation for me, then seeking love externally in relationship became my greatest obstacle. Eventually I deepened the depth of my meditation sessions to the 4th jhana and beyond, where I found so much bliss, joy ecstasy and fulfillment, that I found no need, or interest, in sex or human relationships. It sounds like you will be there quite soon, when you can consistently meditate to the depth of the 4th jhana on a daily basis.
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I have now relocated back to my usual place of living. I am not equanimous enough to be completely unaffected by changing environtment, rather, I seem to become more sensitive, but less anxious about it. Meditation last night was a bit of a struggle, compared to what Im used to. My body and emotions seem to be abit worked up. Like constantly having to tame a racing horse, or driving just a bit too fast to be comfortable.
I find bringing the retreat home with you is aided by maintaining moment-to-moment mindful-self-awareness; and especially, in keeping the mind still all day long.
Today, I decided to warm up before meditating in the morning. Around here there was already noise around by the time I get up, so I need to develop a new schedule. 'Warming up' I do by sitting in a chair, resting in the surroundings and directing my eyes to some mystic text, today browsing this forum until I find dedication arising again. Sinking into rest, soon the charisms arise, and I let them play a while without shifting focus too much. In this state I can 'find myself', recollect myself, which I need todo in order to adjust to this change of location. It is sort of just lingering in the first jhana, drifting back and forth into the second.
After a while I spontaneously want to go deeper, and then I go sit on the cushion and close my eyes.
I notice that it is really helpful to have this blog to share and report to, because by writing here, I constantly debrief, and it also gives me a kind of verification of dedication.
I found reading contemplative journals, such as this; or reading contemplative writing of the mystics, such as the suttas, before every meditation served to inspire me to meditate to depth. I found once I could get to the 3rd jhana, then the noise of the neighborhood would not disturb me at all.
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Another thing that I would like to report, that is most surprising, is that the shifts between the Jhanas have become more and more clear. At some point not too long ago, it seemed like they would develop into more of a single continuum, just one big movement through ever subtler shadesof gray. But now I notice clear, distinct points in time for each shift. "ah, there's the that shift".
I think this is a good thing because it gives me confidence and rest in the practice, when I know I can count on noticing the shifts, I can linger with more relaxed comfort at each state. But as always, I might be fooling myself, and as always, appreciate beeing corrected if someone has noticed a similar experience that have turned out to be counter-productive in the long run.
I too noticed that at first the shifts from stage of the religious experience to the next was subtle shades of gray. However, the more time I spent cultivating the religious experience to more I too realized the very real divisions that exist between the stages.
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Still adjusting a bit to having moved back, I have had the chance to practice moment to moment mindfulness. When I lose that, I will almost immediately find myself annoyed and uncomfortable because of the road of cars I can hear constantly in the background or some social relationship that I had fled going up north.
I'm not yet fit for the mendicant life-style and live where it is too cold most of the time to camp even in a van. So I always figured I would have to find some way of living in between. A simple cottage away from noise will do, and some work I can do from there with as little effort and time as possible. But now I find myself looking at camp gear and contemplating relocation to a hotter country.
There are many ways to live a dedicated contemplative life. One way is just to get good at the moment-to-moment mindfulness; and learning not to get distracted by life.
A few years ago I was in Alamosa, CO, for the summer. The summer was quite pleasant, and there was a shelter where 3 free meals a day were served. I washed dishes to help out after each meal.
There I found a secret place behind some bushes along the Rio Grande, where otters, beavers, geese, ducks, fish, etc. lived. It was a beautiful and inspiring place, but the temperatures dropped to freezing each night by September first, because Alamosa, CO is at about 7,000 feet (2100M) of elevation. The winters can drop to -30 F/C. So, I considered digging a pit house in the bank of the river.
A bit house is a simple igloo-style house made of mud, and dug at least 1/2 way down into the ground. Sticks and limbs are used to build a vaulted ceiling; and a fire-pit is in the middle of the floor, and the vent/smoke stack is directly above the fire. There is typically a short crawl space that is commonly dug below grade to accommodate entry. A skin or blanket can be placed across the entrance to keep the wind from howling through. A pit-house should be quite warm regardless of the outside temperature, as long as there is wood for making a fire. It would not have to be a large fire, because the house is the fireplace.
I think that I have started to trust the process of negotiation a bit. So far I have ended up on the contemplative side of available choices without having any options really. It has been the way it has to be. So keeping up this direction by daily meditation and stillness of lifestyle, things will have to work out. After all, it was soon five years ago that I quit my last employment, and I still don't know how ends have met. But compared to my friends I live really simple and cheap. So, quitting the day job was the large step, after that things have been simpler.
I like the term 'negotiation' the way Jhanananda talks about it. It is one of those things that really stand out as brilliant and unique. There are many more such things, of course.
Having been around this forum for not too long, many more such concepts have uploaded into my mind recently, to great joy.
The negotiating is not just life, but every day. Learning to keep equanimous in new environtments and new situations seems like an essential part of the training. I seem to have a couple of areas where I am under-developed, but these days I discovered something that helps a bit in those situations, so I will share it with you.
Since becoming comfortable in the third jhana, and after Jeffrey pointed out the connection between the jhanas and the chakras, I seem to be able to fall back on, or rather flee to equinimity even when my saturation in penetrated, by simply treating my loss and lack of equanimity equanimous (note to future self: invest in spell checker). That is, when annoyance has its course through this body and mind, I 'apply' equanimity to it by accepting it and sort of smiling kindly towards myself instead of working up more unbalance. When I can't find the stepping stone to do this I focus on, and flee to, the third-eye chakra.
This might not be very sane, because the spontaneous thing to go for when losing balance would be the first jhana and thereby the heart chakra. But I find that usually the heartand throat are too much compromized and don't give enough pull into wholesomeness, in a 'war situation' outside of a meditation session, that is.
As always I might by fooling myself and over theorizing, but I guess I might also be right. "What ever works for you. No one can tell you how todo it."
When in meditation, I go for permanence, saturation, 'becoming' and all stems from peace and stillness and surrender. Therefor it was not obvious to me how to 'apply' things found in the jhanas outside of meditation, outside of saturation.
I think in terms of backburner-bliss or meta-joy. 'A joy that is not of the senses' even when the senses and mind signals unjoyfulness.
Well, it is best to find some comfortable place in the religious experience that one can get to every time one meditates. If it is the 1st jhana, then one starts there; but if one can keep the mind still all day, and equanimous, then one can start at the 3rd jhana. Or, maybe one can start at the 4th jhana, every time one meditates.
When one can meditate deeply, then the world is not so distracting. However, when one gets to considerable depth in the religious experience, then one no longer has need for the world. So, we work from where we are, to maintain progress.
Excellent progress. Now see if you can maintain some stability.
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Thank you again for awesome advice and kind encouragement!
Last night I got to the fifth sammadhi again. This was the first since coming home, but also, it means it has happened three times in less than two weeks (or something). This is most astonishing and cool. Coming here to report about it I find Jhananandas unvaluable comments encouraging stability, and I for once feel up for the challange and on par for the course. It seems my conscience is alot more content since actually living up to the rigorous contemplative life, and not just reading or thinking about it.
I still have an ongoing posture experiment and the last few days ive been integrating some old yoga techniques into the sitting. That means starting with yogic breathing (integrating both belly and torax breathing) and applying the bhandas to the lower chakras on exhale, and relaxing them on inhale. This circulates energy around and the bliss intensifies faster. After a while I will keep all the lower locks and really suck the belly in and lift up the ribcage.
As I did this last night I just drifted right through the fourth jhana into the fifth sammadhi, very surprisingly, and that deep gratitude and bliss and joy was all that was. I felt like crying and laughing, I felt like running over to my neighbours to hug them. As my body awareness faded away I felt I was sinking through the floor and felt hilarious about it. As the body was left to do its own business a last bit of worry came over me, wondering If the body would collapse on the floor or pee itself or something, but instead it felt good too so I faded away into a sphere of blackness and joy. Man, these states are awesome.
Afterwards I felt like going out to stroll through the summer night, but I also need sleep and another session this morning, so I just ended up on the balcony overlooking the forest, and feeling really connected and blissful, content and like life is sacred.
I moved away from yoga some time ago after realizing it is far too easy to strain and force what should be natural and hard wired, so Im reluctant to recommend any yogic practice without staying one step ahead in meditation, so that I will always promote surrender rather than forcefulness.
This night I dreamed new traumatic dreams of being bullied. Pretty sure it was a recollection of a previous lifetime. It had that flavour, and it was more like a movie than the ones where lucidity is discovered. I then got up and felt a bit heavy about the dream content but also motivated for a morning sit.
When using the yoga-techniques I move alot faster into higher jhanas and was not disturbed at all of the surroundings, the way I was the first days here. It seems each place has its own requirements and teachings embedded for the mystic. I totally missed out on some stuff I should have noticed, so I was at least in the third, but I also tink I got into the fourth because I got that feeling of being out in the clear, like I could sit for ever.
I also learned something about silence these last days. I used to consider silence "the pause between the words of thought" but I now concluded that that is the wrong domain - the silence of the second jhana is really another place than that of the thoughts, that is why a single thought will not ruin the jhanas straight away. Like Jhananda says, it seems odd, but one really can focus on silence.
Love and blessings to all!
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Thank you again for awesome advice and kind encouragement!
Last night I got to the fifth sammadhi again. This was the first since coming home, but also, it means it has happened three times in less than two weeks (or something). This is most astonishing and cool. Coming here to report about it I find Jhananandas unvaluable comments encouraging stability, and I for once feel up for the challange and on par for the course. It seems my conscience is alot more content since actually living up to the rigorous contemplative life, and not just reading or thinking about it.
Continuing to find the levels of the religious up to the 5th samadhi available to you while home after your retreat is certainly an encouraging sign of success in your contemplative life. So, just remember that there are ups and downs in any contemplative life, but one aspires for some stability, and a base attainment. If your base attainment, for example, is the 4th jhana every day several times a day, then you are likely to get to the place where you are completely free of cravings. At that point we can then call you an arrahat.
I still have an ongoing posture experiment and the last few days ive been integrating some old yoga techniques into the sitting. That means starting with yogic breathing (integrating both belly and torax breathing) and applying the bhandas to the lower chakras on exhale, and relaxing them on inhale. This circulates energy around and the bliss intensifies faster. After a while I will keep all the lower locks and really suck the belly in and lift up the ribcage.
The important thing for any mystic to find is what works for you. What works for you may not work for another, so we cannot demonize a lifestyle or spiritual practice that works for a mystic. We can only look at the method, and maybe try it out for our self, to see if it works, if not we move on.
As I did this last night I just drifted right through the fourth jhana into the fifth sammadhi, very surprisingly, and that deep gratitude and bliss and joy was all that was. I felt like crying and laughing, I felt like running over to my neighbours to hug them. As my body awareness faded away I felt I was sinking through the floor and felt hilarious about it. As the body was left to do its own business a last bit of worry came over me, wondering If the body would collapse on the floor or pee itself or something, but instead it felt good too so I faded away into a sphere of blackness and joy. Man, these states are awesome.
Afterwards I felt like going out to stroll through the summer night, but I also need sleep and another session this morning, so I just ended up on the balcony overlooking the forest, and feeling really connected and blissful, content and like life is sacred.
From the level of bliss saturation you got, then you know what works for you. So, keep it up. Find what works, and keep doing it. Over time see if you can hone it. Honing the spiritual practice and lifestyle typically results in more bliss saturation.
I moved away from yoga some time ago after realizing it is far too easy to strain and force what should be natural and hard wired, so Im reluctant to recommend any yogic practice without staying one step ahead in meditation, so that I will always promote surrender rather than forcefulness.
I found a regular daily hatha yoga practice helped me to modify my posture so that I could maximize my meditation sitting time; and increasing my meditation sitting time maximized my bliss, so I recommend a daily hatha yoga practice, but I never found it had anything directly related to increasing my bliss. It is just an exercise system that works for me.
This night I dreamed new traumatic dreams of being bullied. Pretty sure it was a recollection of a previous lifetime. It had that flavour, and it was more like a movie than the ones where lucidity is discovered. I then got up and felt a bit heavy about the dream content but also motivated for a morning sit.
Recollection of a previous lifetime during dream time is common for me, so I would expect it to be common for other rigorous, self aware contemplatives, such as yourself. At those times we receive insight as to its origins. If insight says it is a previous lifetime recollection, then it is.
Insight is not mindfulness. Mindfulness leads to insight. Insight is intuitive and revelatory and subjective. Only the subject knows whether it is insight.
Insight and Recollection of a previous lifetime are both superior fruit (maha-phala) of attainment. They are a sign of success in one's contemplative life.
When using the yoga-techniques I move alot faster into higher jhanas and was not disturbed at all of the surroundings, the way I was the first days here. It seems each place has its own requirements and teachings embedded for the mystic. I totally missed out on some stuff I should have noticed, so I was at least in the third, but I also tink I got into the fourth because I got that feeling of being out in the clear, like I could sit for ever.
I also learned something about silence these last days. I used to consider silence "the pause between the words of thought" but I now concluded that that is the wrong domain - the silence of the second jhana is really another place than that of the thoughts, that is why a single thought will not ruin the jhanas straight away. Like Jhananda says, it seems odd, but one really can focus on silence.
Love and blessings to all!
You know you are making excellent progress when you can sustain your level of attainment when you return to the world after a retreat. And, as you keep returning to these religious experiences you will continue to learn new things from them. If you listen to this intuitive inner advice, which is true insight, and head the advice, then you will progress. If you begin to ignore the advice, then you will begin to lose yourself into worldliness, which is enticing, seductive, and delusory. Good work. See if you can keep the momentum going for the rest of your life.
By the way, since you live in Scandanevia, then you might enjoy seeing this YouTube video of a guy who runs on old Volvo truck from WWII on wood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSgL0Ie4zrI
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So, coming out of retreat it seems like I'm not blogging here as much. Every now and then I check in and re-read Jhananandas replies and scan the forum for new topics, but it seems like I'm a lot more passive and I will not log my progress and practice for a while, perhaps until next retreat, or when I have something particular I want to share or discuss. I just wanted to make that known, so you know that I'm still around and am keeping up my practice, although not posting as much.
It seems progress outside of retreat still happens so I am happy to keep practicing although sadly a lot less intense. Lately I had a most wonderful but super-simple revelation - that silence is a skill of the faculty of (inner or outer) speech, not of hearing. This explains why I felt that the silence to be focused upon is located "somewhere else", and independent of the charism of sound. At least it seems so for me right now. I think it is a good sign to seek joy in the simpler insights and phenomena of meditation, and not just the full blown wiping away of everything. But yeah, I'm probably just compensating for the longing after the deeper states.
Like the rich youngster in the gospel who turned away from Christ, maybe his so called riches where psychological compensations.
There is an interesting possibility that Christ was not only not paranoid, but that he was not sane at all, and that the expression "the Kingdom of Heaven" refers to a state of mind not likely to be had by sane people. Let us discuss some of his utterances in the light of this possibility.
Matthew 13: 45-46
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Mark 8: 36-37
What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and loose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
To suggest that one single thing could be worth more than everything else put together is, I feel sure, an immature attitude.
Matthew 7: 13-14
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
This is scarcely democratic and I do not see what a modern Christian can make of it. But it is a realistic assessment of the number of people likely to take up single-mindedness at all seriously.
Matthew 22: 37-38
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
Matthew 7: 7
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Sane people are obviously not likely to qualify for anything on these terms.
They cannot want anything very much, or try to get anything very hard. They accept the first compensation that comes their way.
Luke 6: 24-26
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.
Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Does this really sound as though he was in favour of the jolly, well-compensated man-in-society?
Matthew 19: 21-23
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
Then Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
A rather more interesting reading becomes possible if it is supposed that "riches" means "compensations".
The above is from the wonderful "The Human Evasion" by Celia Green (found here: http://deoxy.org/evasion/) where she explains the concept of "sanity". I suspect at least one around here might enjoy her wit.
Blessings to all of you, and thank you for this wonderful community of contemplatives.
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After having posted the above yesterday, some time later I almost started laughing. What an utter fool I must come off as. Regarding, at the moment, the issue of silence manifested and speech vs hearing. It is strange both how things separate out when meditating, and how things have been and are grouped together in strange ways. Erroneous bindings seems to be the recurring theme in the life of the contemplative.
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Thank-you mapeli, for keeping your blog going. I think reading how you are attempting to keep some rigor in your contemplative life after your retreat is as useful as what took place during your long retreat. The challenge in life, is not how we set aside a small amount of time for a retreat, but how we integrate the contemplative life into our day-to-day life, and how it results in manifestations of the charisms.
Also, you do not seem to be ranting, and contemplatives, who meditate deeply, tend to be hypersensitive, so I suggest that you drop the "rant" from the title of your blog, and you might find more people reading and responding to it.
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I have re-read your last two messages in your blog several times. I agree, that psychological compensation is what is behind all of the 7 deadly sins; and the sins are just old terms for obsessive-compulsive behaviors. People learn to cope with their anxiety in many unsuccessful ways, which are the 7-deadly sins.
The successful contemplative becomes a mystic, and in that process learns to not bury their anxiety under a mountain of lust, or greed, or addiction, but to deal with anxiety directly. To me the modern life is anxiety producing; whereas, the hunter gather lifestyle, which I believe is at the heart of the mendicant life, is essentially anxiety freeing.
However, sadly, those who give up everything for the holy life are seen as insane by this insane world, because to the masses addiction, and anxiety are normal. So, taking the retreat home, is learning how not to take on the anxiety, and the unwholesome coping mechanisms that the masses believe is normal, and live in the world without anxiety. This, I believe, is being in the world, without being of the world.
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Thank you for your comments and encouragement. I agree that sharing the challenges of life outside of retreat is also an important part of being part of a fellowship of aspiring contemplatives.
Regarding the use of the term 'compensation' it hits just the spot for me, in explaining why I keep enforcing fetters or sinful or addictive behaviour. Like you wrote, it is because I'm not facing the anxiety or suffering directly. But also, it explains why such behaviour becomes less and less relevant as the mystical life unfolds. The price increases and the effects diminishes for the compensations of the world, whereas the joy of the contemplative life increases. So, I agree, the conclusion for the brave is to be not of the world at all.
For periods of time this works for me, but every now and then the fetter of sexual lust makes it self known and I find myself engaging dishonestly in some worldy activities, like a party with some old friends. But I soon leave and get back to my rented room filled with sadness and wired up by having been out in the social wilderness. I feel like crying both from feeling lonely, and from having fooled myself thinking I would enjoy it and maybe find someone to have an intimate relationship with.
After having stopped feeling sorry for myself, I can find joy and gratitude in this. Because never am I so glad to be the way I am, doing what I am doing, as when I'm walking home with Beethoven in my ears to drown the noise of the city, and reaching the outskirts where I hide, hearing the noise tune down and the starry sky making it self known, knowing that soon I will be calm again, after having navigated through all the upsets, and starting to relax again. I do feel lonely and sad, but now I know that I can't seek release from that in compensations like a party or something like that.
Outside of retreat I need to have a more sensitive relationship with meditation and with myself. Resting and relaxing and letting the absorbtions come and go on their own. A softer grip perhaps. This has started to become a more trusting relation. When I slack to much in my practice, for instance, ending the night sit too early because of some excuse, the next day I will feel the charisms more intensely than usual, like they are reminding me, or seducing me. This works for me, like, oh yeah, that's what it is about, I better shape up.
I also find that I need to keep a bit more actively interested in the topic of mysticism because through reading I reach the absorbtions and the cushion seems closer. I think part of the value of this is explained by the fact that these meditative states really are altered states of consiousness, and the ordinairy life state keeps forgetting what the jhanas are about, until they arrive, and then I can't understand how I could forget.
Maybe I should rename the blog and lose the ranting-part, but I do have issues with an awareness of how poorly my words matches any truth and how probable it is that I mislead anyone rather than help out and inspire. So I called it ranting so that anyone could discard it as mumb jumbo. Yes, I am now compensating for lack of self esteem and fear of not being understood.
I do get encouraged by your replies though, it seems, so I will attempt to keep this going.
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Thank you for your comments and encouragement. I agree that sharing the challenges of life outside of retreat is also an important part of being part of a fellowship of aspiring contemplatives.
It is good that you understand the value of fellowship both for you, and for inspiring others to fallow your example.
Regarding the use of the term 'compensation' it hits just the spot for me, in explaining why I keep enforcing fetters or sinful or addictive behaviour. Like you wrote, it is because I'm not facing the anxiety or suffering directly. But also, it explains why such behaviour becomes less and less relevant as the mystical life unfolds. The price increases and the effects diminishes for the compensations of the world, whereas the joy of the contemplative life increases. So, I agree, the conclusion for the brave is to be not of the world at all.
I think your use of the term 'compensation' is right on the mark as how the whole world seeks to avoid their anxieties by compensating for them through the pursuit of the 7 deadly sins, instead of dismantling them, through leading a contemplative life.
For periods of time this works for me, but every now and then the fetter of sexual lust makes it self known and I find myself engaging dishonestly in some worldy activities, like a party with some old friends. But I soon leave and get back to my rented room filled with sadness and wired up by having been out in the social wilderness. I feel like crying both from feeling lonely, and from having fooled myself thinking I would enjoy it and maybe find someone to have an intimate relationship with.
The species Homo Sapiens Sapiens is a gregarious species, so seeking the necessary solitude of the contemplative life is at odds with an essential species survival mechanism. However, since the species at large is in mad pursuit of the seven deadly sins, then we contemplatives are constantly bombarded by innumerable opportunities to evade the source of our anxieties in endless distractive pursuits when we hang with the herd. So, we have to seek solitude, but when we do, then we become lonely for company in the herd again. However, when a contemplative becomes deeply saturated in the deeper levels of meditation, then the longing for being part of the human herd diminishes, as we learn to savor the succor of the religious experience.
After having stopped feeling sorry for myself, I can find joy and gratitude in this. Because never am I so glad to be the way I am, doing what I am doing, as when I'm walking home with Beethoven in my ears to drown the noise of the city, and reaching the outskirts where I hide, hearing the noise tune down and the starry sky making it self known, knowing that soon I will be calm again, after having navigated through all the upsets, and starting to relax again. I do feel lonely and sad, but now I know that I can't seek release from that in compensations like a party or something like that.
When the charisms become your constant companion, you will never experience loneliness again. You will then miss the solitude of seclusion every time you find yourself back in the herd.
Outside of retreat I need to have a more sensitive relationship with meditation and with myself. Resting and relaxing and letting the absorbtions come and go on their own. A softer grip perhaps. This has started to become a more trusting relation. When I slack to much in my practice, for instance, ending the night sit too early because of some excuse, the next day I will feel the charisms more intensely than usual, like they are reminding me, or seducing me. This works for me, like, oh yeah, that's what it is about, I better shape up.
Yes, the charisms of the holy spirit are seductive, intoxicating, and transformative.
I also find that I need to keep a bit more actively interested in the topic of mysticism because through reading I reach the absorbtions and the cushion seems closer. I think part of the value of this is explained by the fact that these meditative states really are altered states of consiousness, and the ordinairy life state keeps forgetting what the jhanas are about, until they arrive, and then I can't understand how I could forget.
We cannot meditate all of the time; however, we can remain saturated in the charisms of the holy spirit all of the time. So, reading the writing of the mystics, makes for excellent company, and companionship. I have only left a short list of the mystics who inspired me, but surely there are many more. So, I look forward to the mystics here who discover other mystics and share them with us here, so that we can all be enriched by a shared experience of the sacred, which is as uncommon and as elusive as the North American jaguar, but it is nonetheless there for those to find who seek it.
Maybe I should rename the blog and lose the ranting-part, but I do have issues with an awareness of how poorly my words matches any truth and how probable it is that I mislead anyone rather than help out and inspire. So I called it ranting so that anyone could discard it as mumb jumbo. Yes, I am now compensating for lack of self esteem and fear of not being understood.
I do get encouraged by your replies though, it seems, so I will attempt to keep this going.
If you had not said that English was not your native language I would not have guessed, because your use of the language is excellent, and you are clearly an accomplished contemplative and well on your way to being a full-blown mystic. So, I am pleased that you have found this forum, and that you have chosen to share with us your journey, and I hope you continue to do so; because accomplished contemplative and mystics are too few and far between to meet them in person, but if we can find those rare people, such as yourself here, then others will find company and companionship in reading our story, even if we are long dead.
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I will go on then.
Tonight I managed to do a new thing in the area of dream recollection. I would drift in and out of dreams and in between I was somewhat more lucid, so that I was able to remember not only the most recent dream but the one(s) before that. So between each dream I got to reiterate the list of previous dreams and so could remember more than I am used to when finally sitting up in the body and grabbing the pencil to record it.
The only relevant dream that has kept me company during the day was about a kindof race, or competition, like that odd sport that combines shooting with skiing. I was going around the circular track crosslegged and in bliss. The only trouble was I seemed to rotate slowly towards the center of the round track, like towards the center of a wheel. The others aimed their guns (I had none) outwards so I was a litttle bothered at first. But it was great fun not having to ski but going faster effortlessly, up and down the not too steep slopes of the track, so I didn't mind.
When I started thinking about what I should do, a door opened out of nothing in the center of the large track. Someone spoke to me reminding me that the race was just a game and the lesson would soon be over, and I knew that it was so, and that all that I thought I needed to do was completely useless. I also understood that that was the reason I had been slowly turned - I had started to drift towards the center, whereas the other competitors, that seemed unaware that it was just a lesson (like a PE class in school) was turning outwardly, trying to shoot on their targets. This was very clear from the insight - like a game during PE is forgotten when the bell rings, so would my worldly efforts be forgotten. Or rather, useless. This was not sad nor a relief, it was just so. I did not feel any urgent conclusions neither, things were already in order and all was fine.
This might seem like a cynical or self centered experience, but I don't mind. It was inspiring and uplifting, and I feel encouraged to carry on.
On the worldly side of things this body seem to have contracted a cold or flu and is rapidly degrading its comfortability in order to counter the attacks. I have spend the evening and afternoon laying down and the blissful states have been the most wonderful company. I do feel a bit like I am cheating though; my awareness hoovering just outside the reach of the uncomfortability, enjoying the charisms.
Every now and then that state is broken and I need to treat the unrest. I wish I had the company of a beautiful woman that would give me chicken soup and hugs. Like I would also like to be on a beach in the Bahamas smoking a ... Something legal. But neither scenario is compatible with my lifestyle since long ago and nothing more than idealized brain farts. It would be like turning outwards, trying to shoot on just the right target whilst balancing on skis. I just don't think I would be able to accomplish such balancing acts anymore.
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I will go on then.
Tonight I managed to do a new thing in the area of dream recollection. I would drift in and out of dreams and in between I was somewhat more lucid, so that I was able to remember not only the most recent dream but the one(s) before that. So between each dream I got to reiterate the list of previous dreams and so could remember more than I am used to when finally sitting up in the body and grabbing the pencil to record it.
This is excellent results. It means that your sleep state is becoming more lucid.
The only relevant dream that has kept me company during the day was about a kindof race, or competition, like that odd sport that combines shooting with skiing. I was going around the circular track crosslegged and in bliss. The only trouble was I seemed to rotate slowly towards the center of the round track, like towards the center of a wheel. The others aimed their guns (I had none) outwards so I was a litttle bothered at first. But it was great fun not having to ski but going faster effortlessly, up and down the not too steep slopes of the track, so I didn't mind.
I would call this an OOBE; after all you are flying, even if close to the ground. Also, flying with crossed legs means that your meditation practice is penetrating your sleep state. Very good.
When I started thinking about what I should do, a door opened out of nothing in the center of the large track. Someone spoke to me reminding me that the race was just a game and the lesson would soon be over, and I knew that it was so, and that all that I thought I needed to do was completely useless. I also understood that that was the reason I had been slowly turned - I had started to drift towards the center, whereas the other competitors, that seemed unaware that it was just a lesson (like a PE class in school) was turning outwardly, trying to shoot on their targets. This was very clear from the insight - like a game during PE is forgotten when the bell rings, so would my worldly efforts be forgotten. Or rather, useless. This was not sad nor a relief, it was just so. I did not feel any urgent conclusions neither, things were already in order and all was fine.
This might seem like a cynical or self centered experience, but I don't mind. It was inspiring and uplifting, and I feel encouraged to carry on.
Another side to this "dream" is you were the only one in the "dream" who was lucid enough to know that it was not just a dream. They were, on the other hand totally caught up in the story of the dream.
On the worldly side of things this body seem to have contracted a cold or flu and is rapidly degrading its comfortability in order to counter the attacks. I have spend the evening and afternoon laying down and the blissful states have been the most wonderful company. I do feel a bit like I am cheating though; my awareness hoovering just outside the reach of the uncomfortability, enjoying the charisms.
I believe you have already found that retreating into the religious experience is a far better way to treat a health condition, than wallowing in worldliness. Keep it up, because it only gets better.
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It has been a while, a month or so, but as often I find myself back here after something cool has happened. Ironically I rather like that this forum has a rather slow posting frequency, because that means that I can catch up even if I haven't participated actively for a while, and it also means that whatever is actually posted is probably going to be interesting.
The last night I have had rather good depth in meditation, which has not always been great since coming out of retreat. And during sleep tonight I found myself walking among some warehouses in the dream world. I was fully consious and walked around pondering something. I then decided that it was just silly thinking about what I was thinking about, and let go of it, and felt a great joy and a longing for flying. I was a bit unsure if I was in a domain where flying was possible or not, and I chuckled because I knew "as a matter of fact" that flying is surely impossible, and I wondered when I made the transition into considering a part of my natural experience. I chuckled some more considering what people would say if they knew I was seriously considering flying, and felt in my memory what it feels like, as I have done it many times before. I decided I didn't care at all and started jumping a bit, trying to get stuck in the air, growing less and less certian that flying is impossible (actually, more in regards to what domain I was in - I was absolutely positive that it was this ordinary earth plane) - and on the third attempt I stuck in the air. And I remembered. Oh yes. It is possible. I keep forgetting. Man, this feels wonderful. I felt a deep joy and love, and my whole body started tingeling with intense energy and the heaven (of that plane) opened up in to an ever increasing bright light that sucked my in and I dissapeared. It was one of the coolest, most wonderful experiences so far.
Then, coming back I'm back in my body. Seriously confused. The kundalini is still moving around in my body and I feel truly great. But really surprised that I'm back in my body (because I did think I was already, remember) - and a little bit dissapointed. Like, having gotten access to flying, first thing I do is traverse that domain, going through the teleporting light and ending up back in my body where I'm pretty sure I can't fly. Or wait minute... Nope. Can't fly here.
Good thing is though, it was all worth it. Because that white light teleporter thingie is awesome. I used to do drugs a while back, but that is nothing compared to this. The transitional effect is still fresh in my memory and I enjoy it alot.
I went up and realized I had slept for just over an hour, it was 1:30 and I was feeling as fresh and alive as if I had been on a spa for a month. And this world, and my room seemed just wonderful and I greeted this world with love. Today I will try to stick away from reflecting on the bitterness and sickness of our society and just soak in that loving feeling instead.
Blessings to you, fellow contemplatives and friends.
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I will also add one more thing to the above post, that I need to put in black and white. Reality is started to get seriously confusing. I used to see how it could be like that and have it as a philosophical point, but now I'm getting seriously messed up. And it seems to be a good thing. It's seems to be going from better to better, and I hope it will get good enough for me not having to come back to the more hellish domains ever again.
The last period of time for me has been about renegotiating a lot of what I considered non issues, in the domain of ethical living, and what an ethical life style (as Jhananda puts it) consists of. It all started with another addictive behaviour dropping off. I quit drinking black tea. I prouded myself quitting coffee and nicotine some six month ago, after having spend the last years letting go of alcohol and other drugs. But I was absolutely shocked what an impact black tea had on my body and after the initial head aches where wearing of my body felt awesome. Super calm and relaxed. The meditation quality deepened a lot. This made me consider what else I could do to help my meditation, because now when not in retreat I need all the help I can get. So I started a rigorous diet (from drbass.com) and PE-routine (settling now with the so called Five Tibetans) and I'm also getting interested in Qi Gong. All to preserve energy and saturation.
Besides now starting to pay off in my religious experience, one major benefit is that I don't seem to need as much sleep anymore, and therefor can do my daily survival chores and still have time for my spiritual aspirations. That is very good.
Up here in the northern Scandinavia, the fall is very beautiful currently, and everyone, man and nature, seem to collect themselves for the coming darkness of the winter. For a contemplative, it is a rather nice period. Really dark most of the time, but the few hours of daylight is really bright because of all the snow. Hopefully I will have an economic arrangement set up soon, so I will be able to be stress free and focus on contemplative matters throughout this period.
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It has been a while, a month or so, but as often I find myself back here after something cool has happened. Ironically I rather like that this forum has a rather slow posting frequency, because that means that I can catch up even if I haven't participated actively for a while, and it also means that whatever is actually posted is probably going to be interesting.
Welcome back mapeli. It is always good to read your meditation reports. When I was a seeker I always found it inspiring to read about the religious experiences of the saints. We here can serve as living "saints" to inspire each other, if there is a community who care to listen. However, the lack of posting here shows that there are very few people who are willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to meditate deeply, and therefore very few people meditate deeply.
The last night I have had rather good depth in meditation, which has not always been great since coming out of retreat. And during sleep tonight I found myself walking among some warehouses in the dream world. I was fully consious and walked around pondering something. I then decided that it was just silly thinking about what I was thinking about, and let go of it, and felt a great joy and a longing for flying. I was a bit unsure if I was in a domain where flying was possible or not, and I chuckled because I knew "as a matter of fact" that flying is surely impossible, and I wondered when I made the transition into considering a part of my natural experience. I chuckled some more considering what people would say if they knew I was seriously considering flying, and felt in my memory what it feels like, as I have done it many times before. I decided I didn't care at all and started jumping a bit, trying to get stuck in the air, growing less and less certian that flying is impossible (actually, more in regards to what domain I was in - I was absolutely positive that it was this ordinary earth plane) - and on the third attempt I stuck in the air. And I remembered. Oh yes. It is possible. I keep forgetting. Man, this feels wonderful. I felt a deep joy and love, and my whole body started tingeling with intense energy and the heaven (of that plane) opened up in to an ever increasing bright light that sucked my in and I dissapeared. It was one of the coolest, most wonderful experiences so far.
This "dream" indicates a number of things:
1) Your deep meditation practice is paying off in the form of increasing lucidity in your sleep domain.
2) You are developing the OOBE.
3) You made it into one of the higher stages of the religious experience (high samadhi).
How we know that you made it into a higher stage of the religious experience (high samadhi) is the deep sense of joy (sukha), love (piiti), and whole-body tingling with intense energy (virya) and the heavenly plane (Deva loca) opened up to you in ever increasing bright light that sucked you in and you disappeared into a non-dual plane of existence (loca/ayatana).
It sounds like you made it to the Domain of no evil (Akincannayatana), Absorption or union (yoga) with the Infinite in a non-dual state such that the contemplative cannot distinguish between either this nor that, neither self nor other, neither self nor god. "I am That" Tat Twam Assi.
Then, coming back I'm back in my body. Seriously confused. The kundalini is still moving around in my body and I feel truly great. But really surprised that I'm back in my body (because I did think I was already, remember) - and a little bit dissapointed. Like, having gotten access to flying, first thing I do is traverse that domain, going through the teleporting light and ending up back in my body where I'm pretty sure I can't fly. Or wait minute... Nope. Can't fly here.
As you can see that, no we cannot fly here, even though there are lots of religious myths about levitation. You can also see that the religious myths about levitation are most probably driven by the experience of an OOBE, because the OOBE is so lucid it is hard to tell at first whether one is in the physical world, or an immaterial domain.
Good thing is though, it was all worth it. Because that white light teleporter thingie is awesome. I used to do drugs a while back, but that is nothing compared to this. The transitional effect is still fresh in my memory and I enjoy it alot.
Yes, the religious experience is so compelling, ineffable, that it surpasses any drug experience.
I went up and realized I had slept for just over an hour, it was 1:30 and I was feeling as fresh and alive as if I had been on a spa for a month. And this world, and my room seemed just wonderful and I greeted this world with love. Today I will try to stick away from reflecting on the bitterness and sickness of our society and just soak in that loving feeling instead.
Blessings to you, fellow contemplatives and friends.
Yes, the religious experience is more revitalizing than any health experience, because it fills us with virtue (virya/kundalini). Enjoy the after-glow high of virtue (virya/kundalini), and keep coming back for more.
I will also add one more thing to the above post, that I need to put in black and white. Reality is started to get seriously confusing. I used to see how it could be like that and have it as a philosophical point, but now I'm getting seriously messed up. And it seems to be a good thing. It's seems to be going from better to better, and I hope it will get good enough for me not having to come back to the more hellish domains ever again.
Well, you can see how the religious experience is so compelling that we will want to keep coming back for more, and more; and we are even compelled to make radical changes in our lifestyle to the point that some of us might just take up the homeless life for it.
Also, the contrast between the heavenly planes (deva loca) and here becomes so dramatic, that here starts to look more like hell every day.
The last period of time for me has been about renegotiating a lot of what I considered non issues, in the domain of ethical living, and what an ethical life style (as Jhananda puts it) consists of. It all started with another addictive behaviour dropping off. I quit drinking black tea. I prouded myself quitting coffee and nicotine some six month ago, after having spend the last years letting go of alcohol and other drugs. But I was absolutely shocked what an impact black tea had on my body and after the initial head aches where wearing of my body felt awesome. Super calm and relaxed. The meditation quality deepened a lot. This made me consider what else I could do to help my meditation, because now when not in retreat I need all the help I can get. So I started a rigorous diet (from drbass.com) and PE-routine (settling now with the so called Five Tibetans) and I'm also getting interested in Qi Gong. All to preserve energy and saturation.
The genuine religious experience is truly transformative, it compels us to give up our bad habits, and take up good one.
Besides now starting to pay off in my religious experience, one major benefit is that I don't seem to need as much sleep anymore, and therefor can do my daily survival chores and still have time for my spiritual aspirations. That is very good.
The result of giving up bad habits and taking up good ones, and developing the religious experience is it makes us more productive.
Up here in the northern Scandinavia, the fall is very beautiful currently, and everyone, man and nature, seem to collect themselves for the coming darkness of the winter. For a contemplative, it is a rather nice period. Really dark most of the time, but the few hours of daylight is really bright because of all the snow. Hopefully I will have an economic arrangement set up soon, so I will be able to be stress free and focus on contemplative matters throughout this period.
Thank-you for posting.
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To my great joy, frequency of OOBEs seems to be increasing. I more often am able to remember that flying is possible in the immaterial domain. Lucidity comes gradually though, because often I will at first not recognize that I am dreaming and can do what I want and go where ever - no at first I often find myself sick of having to walk, walking to some perceived destination, and then realize that it would be faster and cooler to fly there. Or I will simply feel a longing for flying.
Some times I seem to be meant to go somewhere, and flying somewhere else becomes almost a struggle, like I am pulled towards where I was going. I think this happens when I am supposed to see something, in the psychological-lesson kind of dream.
At other times I become seriously extatic like described in a previous post, and just go up and dissapear into the light.
Last night though was the first time that I could lift off and fly out into space. When realizing I can fly I got very happy as usual and just soared upwards. Soon I came out of our atmosphere and saw our beautiful planet. I stopped there and was full of awe. Both of the view and that I was fortunate enough to have this kind of an experience, that I have longed for. Then I got back into this body.
The pattern for me seems to be that these things happens afterhavig sleept only an hour or two, and then I wake up. The rest of the night was mostly symbol/lesson-style dreams.
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To my great joy, frequency of OOBEs seems to be increasing. I more often am able to remember that flying is possible in the immaterial domain. Lucidity comes gradually though, because often I will at first not recognize that I am dreaming and can do what I want and go where ever - no at first I often find myself sick of having to walk, walking to some perceived destination, and then realize that it would be faster and cooler to fly there. Or I will simply feel a longing for flying.
This is a good sign of increasing Lucidity in the sleep domain. When you are lucid 24/7, then you will have arrived at the deathless (amatta).
Some times I seem to be meant to go somewhere, and flying somewhere else becomes almost a struggle, like I am pulled towards where I was going. I think this happens when I am supposed to see something, in the psychological-lesson kind of dream.
As the mystic progress he/she loses the volition to do anything, and is pulled to wherever he/she goes.
At other times I become seriously extatic like described in a previous post, and just go up and dissapear into the light.
Yes, exploring the immaterial domains (ayatana) is ecstasy; and the ecstasy becomes greater and greater the deeper/higher we go.
Last night though was the first time that I could lift off and fly out into space. When realizing I can fly I got very happy as usual and just soared upwards. Soon I came out of our atmosphere and saw our beautiful planet. I stopped there and was full of awe. Both of the view and that I was fortunate enough to have this kind of an experience, that I have longed for. Then I got back into this body.
I found exploring space the most beautiful, and awe inspiring. It is surely much better than any astronaut would ever experience.
The pattern for me seems to be that these things happens afterhavig sleept only an hour or two, and then I wake up. The rest of the night was mostly symbol/lesson-style dreams.
Yes, in the beginning we require rest prior to gaining lucidity; however, as we learn to manage our energy (virtue, virya, kundalini) then the less rest we need to gain lucidity in sleep until we are lucid 24-7. This is excellent progress in the immaterial domains (ayatana/loca). You are making excellent progress. If you keep it up, then it will only get better.
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Many times on the contemplative path I have had to revisit the same insights and attainments again and again, until they have incarnated fully.
Recently I again discovered what I suspect is the correlation between "awareness of energy" and freedom from fetters/skandas/bad vibes. I'm however not quite sure so I thought i would post it here for feedback.
I have noticed that i can very often choose between an unwholesome mental state and a blissfull sensation of energy. Now this seems to be an easy choice but for me it is a matter of remembering and having available space, like, not being too disturbed. But when i do remember, any mental state can be let go of, and often its source seems to be a kind of enery in the body that is really blissful.
That blissful sensation is very intense and often make me unproportionally and unexpectedly happy, and is very available outside of the stillness of meditation, to the extent of me remembering to let go, all the time.
Is this a reasonable conclusion - the possibility of switching between unwholesome mental states and their underlying bodily energies?
If so, this would also explain the bad temper and harschness of the mystic, as when the energy starts increasing because of meditation, when the unwholesome mental states invade, they also gain intensity, until let go of. So the worst tempered person in the world would be the most intense mystic. Perhaps that is what Jesus ment wih "those who have had most forgiven, loves most", or somehing.
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Many times on the contemplative path I have had to revisit the same insights and attainments again and again, until they have incarnated fully.
Recently I again discovered what I suspect is the correlation between "awareness of energy" and freedom from fetters/skandas/bad vibes. I'm however not quite sure so I thought i would post it here for feedback.
I have noticed that i can very often choose between an unwholesome mental state and a blissfull sensation of energy. Now this seems to be an easy choice but for me it is a matter of remembering and having available space, like, not being too disturbed. But when i do remember, any mental state can be let go of, and often its source seems to be a kind of enery in the body that is really blissful.
That blissful sensation is very intense and often make me unproportionally and unexpectedly happy, and is very available outside of the stillness of meditation, to the extent of me remembering to let go, all the time.
Is this a reasonable conclusion - the possibility of switching between unwholesome mental states and their underlying bodily energies?
Yes, when you become skillful as a contemplative and mystic you can change energies/moods as easily as changing radio stations. In fact I brought my prolonged dark night of the soul to an end with this realization.
If so, this would also explain the bad temper and harschness of the mystic, as when the energy starts increasing because of meditation, when the unwholesome mental states invade, they also gain intensity, until let go of. So the worst tempered person in the world would be the most intense mystic. Perhaps that is what Jesus ment wih "those who have had most forgiven, loves most", or somehing.
Well, I believe there is a better explanation for the occasional ill temper of some mystics, such as myself and Teresa of Avila, who is the patron saint of fowl language in the Catholic Church. When a mystic finds that the frauds have been all along misdirecting us, and later do everything they can to obstruct our work, then we can get angry, especially when it starts looking like there is absolutely no way we will get our message out to those who want, or need it, most.
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Mapeli, your blog has been such a joy to read. Such amazing things you have experienced. Here on I will attempt to follow along and comment when appropriate. Keep it up, friend.
Jhananda said:
This sounds like one of my many nights of solo meditation in the desert. For the last 3 years I have been meditating in the mountains, and I often have a jaguar that has taken interest in my meditations to accompany me as well. I take him (or her) as a friend, whether hungry or not. I quite like the idea of being food for an endangered species.
I'm not sure I fully understand this. Are you saying an actual physical north american jaguar will chill with you while you meditate? AND that mapeli witnessed this remotely? Forgive for needing to confirm, but if so, that is remarkable.
(I have many experiences with cats coming out to join me when I meditate outside. I wonder if there is anything to this.)
Again, please forgive the newbie question. Obviously there have been many remarkable posts on this thread, of which I don't have the experience to comment on. Will start my own blog, soon.
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I'm not sure I fully understand this. Are you saying an actual physical north american jaguar will chill with you while you meditate? AND that mapeli witnessed this remotely? Forgive for needing to confirm, but if so, that is remarkable.
(I have many experiences with cats coming out to join me when I meditate outside. I wonder if there is anything to this.)
Again, please forgive the newbie question. Obviously there have been many remarkable posts on this thread, of which I don't have the experience to comment on. Will start my own blog, soon.
Well, it is hard for anyone to believe, so I wont make a stand on it, but a large black cat about the size of a Great Dane has taken an interest in my for the last few years. I think it is because it is a predator, and predators sample the urine of their pray, and I happen to be diabetic, which, to a predator, means I am dinner.
Having meditate outdoors in the wilderness for decades to depth means I have had numerous close encounters with wildlife. I found that if one meditates deeply, for long enough, then creatures just ignore your presence and go about their activities.
What comes to mind right now, is I recall once while meditating at depth hearing the movement of silence coming toward me from the right, then passing over my head, then going to the left. I know it sounds weird, hearing silence move, but I opened my eyes just as the silence was in front of my face, because it came so close. It turned out to be a great horned owl that was hunting, and it passed so close to my face that I could have stuck my tongue out and touched it as it passed. That is when I realized that owls are the "stealth fighters" of nature. There feathers actually absorb sound so efficiently that one can actually hear them pass in the absence of sound being absorbed by their unique feathers.
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Its been a while since Ive posted or read here. Ive been avoiding reading too much. More business, less words. There are times for everything.
Recently Ive noticed that the excellent practice of refering to experiences of the religious co templative life to the various religious canons, the idea that Jhananda has been promoting of seeking canonical support, ironically has almost a opposite effect of what I expected. People seems to get more pissed off for each reference.
I need to stop grasping after the idea that most folks are not retards. I also need to stop averting AND grasping my bitterness.
Bliss and joy, tranquility, equinimity, fearlessness, virya and shalom to all of you.
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I think that most people wants what is best for them and the world simultaneously. This desire is fallacious since it's a desire. I personally do not do that as it is futile. What I would do is find my own happiness first then spread it slowly. Furthermore, I don't really care what others think about me as that would be to conform to what others think which is not fruitful. Cheers
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Good to hear from you again, mapeli.
Its been a while since Ive posted or read here. Ive been avoiding reading too much. More business, less words. There are times for everything.
Recently Ive noticed that the excellent practice of refering to experiences of the religious co templative life to the various religious canons, the idea that Jhananda has been promoting of seeking canonical support, ironically has almost a opposite effect of what I expected. People seems to get more pissed off for each reference.
I experience that as well, the more I provide a cogent and logically true argument for whatever research I am doing, the more offended people become.
I need to stop grasping after the idea that most folks are not retards.
I had to laugh here, but the fact that people become angry whey anyone provides them with compelling evidence and a cogent and logically true argument only proves that they are profoundly retarded. Sadly, it is the case for most of the world. All I can do in the face of consistent rejection is retreat deeper into my solitude.
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Jeffrey, You are a scholar and most people do not like a scholar's rational critical thinking because they believe what they believe no matter what... Stu
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Thank-you Stu. I agree; however sadly, with your assessment. My experience shows people just want to believe what they believe, and sadly, they would rather crucify anyone who proves their belief system to be in error.
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Thank-you Stu. I agree; however sadly, with your assessment. My experience shows people just want to believe what they believe, and sadly, they would rather crucify anyone who proves their belief system to be in error.
Oh, how true that is...
And, yes, Mapeli, humans are insane. I used to always be surprised when a human treated me poorly (and I just mean in general, not in regards to discussing the path). I would think "Wait, what could I have possibly done better?" And then I would arrange to interact with them even better. But you know what's funny? After all these years, I realize it only made it worse. And it doesn't matter what I did. I strongly believe what they are actually persecuting and rejecting is my own inner development. Because I look back on all these kind, helpful, supportive things I've done for people, and how they blow up anyway--It's insanity.
Forgive the lack of lucidity in this post. I'm just trying to crank it out quickly. But my point is that humans are mostly, indeed, insane. What I do now is when I meet someone new, I treat them as I would like to be treated. If they persecute me, I give them an opportunity to later explain themselves. If they blow this opportunity, then that's the end of my willing relationship with them. I will not treat them poorly, but I will not spend time with them if I don't have to.
And, yeah--most people from my past fell away. They're gone, after making it clear where they stood. Some grew with me. And many other new ones were attracted to me, and I to them. I just keep growing. Some grow with me, but some still fall away. I just keep growing. Or, rather, ungrowing. LOL.
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... my point is that humans are mostly, indeed, insane. What I do now is when I meet someone new, I treat them as I would like to be treated. If they persecute me, I give them an opportunity to later explain themselves. If they blow this opportunity, then that's the end of my willing relationship with them. I will not treat them poorly, but I will not spend time with them if I don't have to.
And, yeah--most people from my past fell away. They're gone, after making it clear where they stood. Some grew with me. And many other new ones were attracted to me, and I to them. I just keep growing. Some grow with me, but some still fall away. I just keep growing. Or, rather, ungrowing. LOL.
Yes, I too have followed this lifestyle. It has led me away from my family and friends into isolation, which I prefer over abuse.
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Dear Sanga
I’m rebooting this blog.
Shortly after I stopped writing I met my wife, and we started a family.
I already lived a double life if you will, in that I was also interested in Churchianity, as a hope to get external support for my inner experiences, and also, primarily, to feel less lonely. Church at the time and place was disproportionately good. I connected with a few fellow contemplatives, and in many ways got to externalize, or birth, my spiritual life. Been born and raised an atheist, having hardly ever met anyone but atheists, in a 100% secularized country, meeting others was a powerful thing for me at that time. Of little surprise to this congregation it eventually dried up. I had gotten the important connections I needed up front and the rest of it eventually seemed like little more than a sort of day care center.
I started investigating the more hard-core alternatives, such as the orthodox church and certainly thought I got something out of reading the mystics and the church fathers. But I couldn’t, and cannot, bring myself to convert and adapt all that religious behaviour. And I can’t help thinking they don’t teach the real stuff.
I also ended up spending quiet some time in 12-step fellowships, coming from a dysfunctional family and at one point needed to stop over-use of alcohol and cannabis.
I think that both of those adventures in the end was more about loneliness than anything else.
That taken together with the family life I gradually drifted away from my daily meditation practice. I knew when Jhanananda wrote up above that what remains now is keeping it up, that I would not be able to. I don’t know when I stopped. The charisms never left me. The inner silence never ceased. Or, the at least it was always accessible to me.
I think perhaps that I was not done with life. I would look at even some of the worst of my friends, a no-good divorced father comes to mind, and think that although most of his life is one big mistake, he gets to spend time with his son every other weekend. He had someone to love and care for, and live for. I think I put out the intension to the universe that I also wanted to make such mistakes.
And traversing and investigating the religious belongings available to me might seem like a strange step for this sangha, but my first real major break-through experience did have very distinct and intense Christian themes, so I felt obligated to investigate. And the 12-step movement does, supposedly, claim to be about meditation and surrender. And the insight and intuition that follows from what rigorous contemplative practice I had had up to that point, allow me to see the truth in much of the symbol space, and the good ideas behind the form. I thought I could navigate that without falling asleep but I’m not sure I was able to.
When I met my wife she thought I was so pleasant to be around because at that point I was doing an hour, at least, of meditation morning and evening, and was spacing out often during the day as well. I recently read a thread here on the forum about how things turns out serendipitous for the practitioner of Jhana-meditation and so it was for me as well, to her amazement. I realized I needed a job if we were starting a family, and right after a friend came up to me and offered me a job. I wanted a better job, that had some of this and that, and I was offered a job that matched exactly. That last job had the added benefit of bringing me to the US. One of my many reasons for writing now is to reconnect with this forum in the hope of catching a retreat and get to sit with Jhanananda in person one day. I hope it will play out.
The years went by and all my clinging after belonging and religious ritual eventually has plunged me to a state where just reading about my previous accomplishments on this blog is something I both cringe and dread doing.
Just before the big lock-down of COVID my wife was diagnosed with Cancer. A bad one. Our marriage was already not in tip top shape, but this challenge made things way worse. She went through enormous amounts of treatment and suffering and none of us handled it very well. I started over using THC again and eventually all type of inner work faded away and I would cry every night at what had been lost and about my powerlessness to do something about it. I was on the receiving end of much of my wife’s frustrations, especially after having decided to focus on keeping the kids afloat, as I saw that they were not doing great under our circumstances.
At the very bottom I decided to start praying and meditating again, despite the challenging circumstances. As life slowly got less intensely painful, a little bit of maneuvering space allowed me to start the awakening negotiations again, to re-evaluate.
Churchianity had been almost completely useless during this time as they all seem to be stuck in a chess game between various non-fruitful activities and perspectives. But this one time I felt a tug to go to a service. As per usual I sat in the back meditating, when I realize I had been called there because some discarnated (? - no longer living among us) spirits of people was hiding under the church. It was as if there was a portal to the under-world under the benches ahead of me, in the back. A little girl reached out to me and I reached up to the light and helped guide her home. Some sprits in the light above came and greeted her and the delight they felt to be re-united still gives me goose-bumbs and makes my heart sing. My body was pulsating with that energy all the way home. That has happened a few more times. But I can’t help feeling sad that no one in the congregation had picked up on it.
After that I had absolutely no desire to go again so I figured my adventures in Church is over. Even the fathers I liked to read talk and talk about the purification of the soul and all the do’s and don’ts, and oh me what a sinner I am, and fasting and all of that. But they don’t mention all of that fruit is a consequence of a skillfully navigated contemplative life. Probably because they don’t know. They get the cart before the horse. Or at least the teachings that reaches us has not made me much smarter.
I happened to live in these end-times when there was internet. And my friends happened to find the GWV. And this guys says that he doesn’t loose consciousness when he sleeps. Or ever. That is still the most amazing thing I know of. That it is possible, and that the road to that is made clear. So clear.
Throughout these years, all of the GWV has for me boiled down to two teachings. “The Joyful Home of the Way”. And the parable of the good chef. Or whatever it is called. The idea of being able too “cook” or “work on” ones inner experience seems so trivial it’s almost mundane. It’s so “given”. Yet people not only resist it, but pretend like it’s not a possibility. But it is a possibility, so what is the recipe to cook with then? Well, it starts with joy. It’s the Joyful home of the way. And supposedly it ends in a humorous nothingness.
I started lurking on the forum again. A tad anxious of the harshness of the teachings here. But I’ve come to agree. I tried to save religion. I tried to save some of society. But it’s all rotten to the core. And that is a blessing, because what remains standing becomes more clear. Even though I hope a time will come when the path will be less lonely.
After making it my daily reading to lurk here, I started picking up some good ideas I hadn’t heard before. And then after a while, while reading through a thread of one such idea, someone references me being part of a discussion of something. I found that comical and I realized that someone had gotten something out of me writing here. So perhaps I should start participating again.
And just reading a little bit up in this thread, Jhananda points out how his dark night of the soul ended. The insight discussed there, although cloaked in my confused ramblings, and his confirmation of it, that’s major stuff. It is as if things are just where I left them. I picked up that insight and am trying to saturate my daily life with it. I truly can separate from, or transmute, negative emotional states by meditating on where they are in the body, while reframing my thoughts. That ability and many, many more is a gift from practicing these meditation techniques taught here, and I’ve come to learn that the doors that are opened are not accessible to all. Or, they are if they would practice. But they are the fruits of meditation and a “rigorous contemplative life”, that no one seems interested in.
So I started practice more rigorously again. My body is not used to the longer sits, and it took a while to remember what height of cushion works best. But the Jhanas are where I left them. And the charisms. The “oil” floating down the temples. The top of the forehead cracking open. The unification of the various qualities in to one. The unified sensory experience becoming one and suddenly popping into a distinctly more fine tuned one, as if from begin a landscape, to gravel, to dust. The coming and going of the depth of the Jhanas, like waves. The transmuting of caffeinated stress into almost an elongated orgasm.
But I don’t have the time or space. I have two small kids, a sick wife and a very busy company. I have not skillfully navigated this. Jhanananda says “dumpster living” at a certain point. And I go fill up my calendar for 20 years to come. I’m a tinge ashamed, and this is in part a confession. But there is peace and surrender at the bottom. Even if I have to live many more life-times I will make this one count. Even if I end up in the depths of hell, the prescription is the same. I will meditate.
Because I don’t have much time, I’m trying to prepare for the next steps by way of insight in between sessions. Prepare to see this body as something other than me. Prepare to the best of my ability to not get sucked into the beauty of the temptations of this world. I try to live at peace even with the cockroaches in my kitchen. But I also do not want my discipline to backfire so I’m trying to walk the middle path and play the long game.
And my game have to be saturation. I meditate while putting the kids to bed to have a good groove going before sitting down on the cusion. I meditate in secrecy standing up many, many times a day. Just drop in to the ecstasies and soak a little, then on with my day. Seclusion is not an option for me, but stability is. And I’ve noticed that since I rebooted this practice, that the Jhanas start coming to me without my volition as well.
I want to learn more about what the Buddha said, and perhaps one day try to become a meditation teacher of the GWV. But I’ve tried so hard to keep an intact idea about religion alive in myself, that now I cannot bring myself to become a serious student of Buddhism. I seem to have fully embraced both a dualistic and a non-dualistic world-view and I don’t have any issues with that. I think I’m too confused for religious studies, and I really don’t want to learn new things. But I am thinking about the whole of the system he thought, and I wish I could get it to me on a single page or a book that wasn’t too terribly corrupt. But for now I’m re-reading all the GWV texts and I am content with that, as I read very slowly. But I would lie if I said the Noble Eightfold Path wasn’t on my mind. The phrase I mean. I wonder what it is. I guess I have to start study at some point.
I’m depressed and disillusioned and probably a bit bitter. Maybe even angry and sad. But that’s superficially, and I almost don’t care bout it. It is almost as if it acts as a shield to world. And inside of it I am ecstatic and happy and at peace, and have no clue what is going on.
But I know how to survive if my wife dies. I will meditate, an hour both in the morning and in the evening, and all will be well.
Forever (seriously) grateful to Jeffrey and the GWV.
I guess this blog is officially rebooted. This is my recommitment to the life of the mystic.
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There was a time at which I felt the amount of truth that needed to be told to traverse the throat chakra was daunting. But now most people think I have some degree of Aspergers, because I’m so direct. I mention this to high-light progress. That some of it happens gradually over time and I can only see the change when looking back.
I am curious about the phenomena of being visited by the discarnated spirits both from above and from below. The thing I mentioned above in church has happened a few more times, and each time I feel so blessed to be able to be of service like that.
I have also had visitations the other way. A guy I hardly know at work, his mother came to me and explained that she had intended to say something to him but died before she could. That was an awkward conversation starter at the office but I followed through.
I wonder if those things are considered a part of the way of the mystic. I can’t help feeling like a strange person in one of those TV shows. Perhaps I should start selling “energy cleansings” and “tarot readings” and wear strange clothes. :)
Surely I will regret sharing this and all else above, but life is not about being perfect. Shame and regret will get to me either way. “For every word you will be held accountable” or what was it now.
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Welcome back Mapeli. It is good that you are returning to the contemplative life. I found the spiritual journey is something we do in between when life is happening and sometimes takes us astray, but if we just keep coming back we may not lose so much ground, and might be able to to keep making progress.
It would be very nice to sit in meditation with you at a retreat; however, I have been far too ill to lead a retreat for about 10 years and now regret having led some in that time. Others will have to step forward and carry the gantlet forward. And, perhaps you noticed that a few of our most senior members have permanently left the body, and I am surely not far behind.
You mentioned returning to the Church. Perhaps you notice our recent dialog here regarding the origins of contemplative Christianity. It of course starts with Jesus, and necessitates a retranslation of the Bible and New Testament. And, it goes through the thread of the Apostle Thomas, and Eastern Christianity, and Arianism.
So, it is good to read you have been reading here, and that you are returning to the contemplative life. We are going to want someone to take over after I am gone, which is surely soon. So, perhaps it will be you. I would like a community of senior contemplatives to take over, and it should be soon, because I am definitely running out of time.
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Good to hear from you mapeli. Yes, I did save one of our dialogues from years ago which I felt was very interesting. Good to hear you are still committed to the quest.
In regard to your struggles - know I am in the same boat. I often sit for hours fruitlessly, get frustrated (my new health issues don't help either - or the exhaustion I have after the work day), give up praxis, then repeat. But, I am always inspired by the experiences of others here.
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So good to hear back from you, that you for your replies. Loneliness keep coming up as a theme currently so even a "hello" every 7th year is fantastic.
I wouldn't say, Alexander, that it makes me happy that you are in a similar situation, but it does make me feel less lonely and more included here.
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Regarding the Gospel of Tomas, I found it amazing to see that recommendation coming up here, because while contemplating the idea of basically changing "moods" (or negative states) at will, as discussed above, the idea about "eating a lion or being eaten by a lion" came up as good image for that. Either the negative states consume me, or I consume them. I knew it was from one of the "other" gospels, and now it showed up here. Thanks for that that!
I also think it's an idea that has been undersold then. If it's the thing that got Jhanananda out of the Dark Night, then that's a very important piece of information. Perhaps I should start a separate thread about it? Writing this, though, I realize that as much as I know most of the classic GWV articles by heart, I have not kept up with this forum so perhaps it's here already.
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I've started contemplating (in the pondering sense) the topic of the OOBEs as I feel that it is somewhat unclear to me whether I need to "do" something (besides keeping a rigorous practice) to get there or not. Sometimes I read that it comes naturally, then I read "but some exercises what useful for me" or something like that. I know it doesn't really change anything either way, I'm investing in cushion time with or without OBEs, and I feel less intent on chasing fruit, and more intent on peace and soaking in non-suffering right now.
But. I have also notice that I've been frequently told that I'm sleeping (because of snoring or heavy breathing), and have been for a while, whilst I feel like I'm still meditating and am not asleep at all. When I'm woken up at those moments I don't perceive having gone from waking to sleep and back to waking but others in the room say that I've no undoubtedly been asleep.
So I'm playing around a little bit with that in-between state and am trying to prepare myself to be a bit more detached to this body than I'm accustomed too. It also helps that I don't know how much cushion time I can get each evening so I've started practicing my lying down meditation more intently.
So this night the dream world gradually introduced it self, and I saw myself crossing a road and sneaking over a hill, and a beautiful village emerged on the other side. And the colors where deep green and radiant, just like those never-ending summer sunsets up North, where the green somehow looks a bit purple. And I was thinking, oh so this must be a dream-place and I'm here fully conscious. It had nice wooden houses and a beautiful lake a bit off. And I was thinking how lucky the people living here must be. As I was wondering if I'd meet someone I became too self-conscious and figured I need to quiet myself down more, as the village seemed to be very quiet, and I could still feel myself too loud within and was worried that I would come across as loud or crude. At that point I decided to go back to my body and practice some yoga before my next bedtime and work on having stilled my mind more before getting back there. But somehow that place made it into my heart and as I'm writing now I really hope I can get back there tonight. I'm feeling a tinge sentimental, and full of love and joy thinking about that place. And I mostly certainly didn't notice an interruption in the stream at all. I also know what in my body and sleeping habits made me want to go back to the body so I will work on addressing those issues.
Wow, reflecting on this, somehow I really love that place.
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Regarding the retreats, I suspected the case was that I had missed my chance of that, Jhanananda. Is it any day now you will leave us, or is it just that you can't do retreats anymore? I would very much like to meet you in some capacity, face to face. I'll even settle for Zoom, that cursed replacement for real human interaction, if it's all I can get. If that is too much too, then I will gladly accept. I've had plenty of time but used it unwisely. And it's not like you haven't left a written legacy. :)
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One of the many things to understand about a contemplative life that seeks depth is humans are just another animal on this planet, and all animals have powerful biological drives, which are imperatives for survival. So the sexual drive and loneliness are all part of that biological imperative.
As a contemplative seeking depth we shed the elements of identity as we go deeper into meditation. Aspects of our identity is bound up in our human biology. Thus, at some point we stop being human and we start becoming pure spirit. When we are spirit we are no longer animal. We become spirit when we leave the body in an OOBE; however, in the lower levels of the OOBE we still retain a lot of the programming of what it is to be human, so we have to move above the biological programming when we get to the 6th samadhi, which is the second level of the OOBE (2nd ayatana).
So, when we are out of body and yet experience being in a body and communicating with beings who appear to be in a body we are still functioning on a fairly low level of the OOBE at the first stage.
When we rise above the lower levels of the OOBE we become pure spirit, and thus we cease to have a body and interact with other anthropomorphic beings and are functioning on a level in which we are just a point of awareness, love and light; and all others we interact with are also just the same.
So, keep meditating with the aspiration for depth. One who seeks depth in meditation will occasional have an OOBE. When one consistently mediates to the depth of the 4th samadhi (4th jhana), then on will begin to be consistent in having OOBEs to the point that one may become self-aware 24/7 as I have become for the last 47 years. At that point one will traverse the 4 primary levels of the spirit domain on a nightly basis.
As for my health. I was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure over 10 years ago. Diabetes is not seen in the medical community as something one gets over. It is known as a progressive debilitating disease that shortens one's life so that one is not expected to live a long life. And combined with high blood pressure and age, heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease and cancer are the likely and expected outcomes.
A little over 3 years ago I was diagnosed with COPD. When you get the diagnosis of COPD they don't tell you it is a death sentence. They tell you it is a progressive debilitating disease, which means you never get over it, and for the rest of your life you will be dependent upon machines. Combining the COPD diagnosis with my age and other comorbidities means death is likely to come sooner than later.
However, through research and development I have developed a set of respiratory equipment that has improved my health significantly. If I ever see my doctors again I think they will be very surprised to see my improvement. So, the reality is that I could drop dead any minute, but if I can keep my respiratory equipment running I may live a few more decades.
I like the idea of participating in some kind of group video call; however, most days I only have access to the internet with a smart phone with an unlimited plan, but I am rural, so cell service is not good, and the unlimited plan throtles back to barely functional most of the month.
And, I am working on moving to a ranch where I have been asked to caretake. It is so remote that just to communicate with anyone I have to put my cell phone up 20ft into a tree just to send a text. Or, drive a few miles so make a phone call.
So, for the present this is the best we are going to get, and I may not be able to get on line every day to check in here, so you all are going to have to belly up to the table to support each other, because I am surely not long for the world.