Hello to all, and apologies for the rambling post!
I thought it would be a good idea to introduce myself. I have meditated and practised Hatha/Prana/Raja Yoga for about 30 years. During that time I have also had a very active interest in/study of Taoism, the I Ching and Zen Buddhism.
I suppose my interest in the nature of consciousness started many years ago in my late teens, when I experimented with all manner of psychedelic substances e.g. marijuana, LSD, magic mushrooms. This was partly for the pure pleasure of it but also partly as investigation into the nature of reality, supported by the writings at various levels of insight from Carl Jung, Carlos Castenada, Timothy Leary and other contemporary and ancient investigators of this mental space. I had all the usual experiences of visual and auditory hallucinations, sudden insight (which usually turned out to be correct), seeing inside the atomic structure of solid objects, creative frenzies etc.
One experience in particular is indelibly embedded in my memory - I still can see it very clearly in my minds' eye which is more than I can say for most things from that long ago in my life! Strangely enough, this was not connected to the strong psychedelics but to a long night of smoking hashih followed by a determination to try out a new meditation method where I visualised myself going down, down, down in a lift, hundreds of floors into the 'centre of myself'. Suddenly I was in a mental state that I have never experienced before or since, but the closest description is a lucid dream, I suppose. I was no longer in my body but a form of pure consciousness, observing an enormous space filled with a huge number of 'brains'. These were all interconnected by red connecting paths that glowed and pulsed, forming a network of unimaginable complexity. The closer ones were larger and the farther ones were pin pricks. In the far, far distance were what looked like fine mesh curtains of red, green and yellow that seemed to define the edge of this space, and as they billowed around and moved across each other they formed moire patterns of infinite beauty. I somehow 'understood' what this space was and that this was a message that was important to me. Then I apparently blacked out. I later woke up on the floor of my bedroom in the middle of the night, lying on my side with a very stiff neck and feeling rather confused, but the vision was still in my head and I rushed to find some coloured pencils to try and recreate the vision on paper before it left my mind.
Much more recently, my first Vipassana retreat (S.N.Goenka in Hereford, UK) caught me by surprise on the very first afternoon of Vipassana practise when I had a very powerful experience; my body suddenly disappeared or at least I felt that I was a long distance from it, I developed a wide grin and would have laughed out loud if I hadn't been in the constrained atmosphere of the meditation hall, there were intense rushes of blissful energy & quite violent kriyas which left me exhausted and sweating after the ~20 minutes that it lasted. When the session ended it took 5 minutes for me to be able to compose myself and stand up.
I was blissed-out, slightly shocked and a little afraid of what I had 'unleashed'. I asked the Asst Teacher about this as soon as I could but he was absolutely no help at all (the only weak point on the course which I thought was otherwise well-organised and run, if a little 'Nazi'), saying in a bland and off-hand way that "it was probably just some mental defilements coming out". Having a lot of experience of my own internal states, I was not really satisfied with this explanation but he did not seem remotely interested in going any further. I get the impression that the Goenka tradition just wants you to experience everything "equanimously" - which might be correct for all I know, but perhaps there might also be more to it than that? I have continued to experience these states, rarely (but occasionally) as intense as the initial one. They seem to arise spontaneously, but perhaps I have noticed a correlation with deep breaths being taken/released and also with equanimous awareness of isolated 'gross physical sensations' when in a state of almost complete bhanga/body dissolution. Something appears to 'flip' and then suddenly it's all happening.
The energy that is present in these states appears to be partly under the control of consciousness, leading to the apparent ability to self-heal e.g. a serious 10 year old shoulder injury that required reconstruction has always been a problem since despite careful rehabilitation. It requires regular exercise (swimming & yoga) and still sometimes the internal aching and stiffness is a problem. Thai-style acupressure massage almost always helps. However, since being in these states I have noticed this as a blockage - or perhaps more precisely a 'turbulence' or a 'bubble that needs to pop' - in the energy flow through this area. Simply focusing on it with awareness almost always has one of 2 effects:
- the blockage appears to soften and dissolve without any further effort
- sometimes, I am catapulted into a big rush of blissful energy which takes my breath away and produces kriyas
I am now curious to understand whether these states and their related phenomena should be actively encouraged (and with what outcome?) or observed equanimously and deliberately allowed to pass.
Metta to all
Michael
