Meditation, some answers

Originally Posted by rainbowlady

Hello Zinnat (and others),

I have not read the entire thread but I read quickly through your posts and found it very interesting. Since you have been meditating for many years and seem to know what you are talking about, I would like to hear what you have to say about what I've been experiencing recently.

I have been meditating for not even a year and this turned my life upside down.

I started in summer 2020. In September I did the Inner Engineering program with Sadhguru.

Let me say all my life I had some mental issues fighting depression, anxiety, emotional instability and 10 years of psychiatric follow-up did not have much effect. After the Sadhguru program these problems just disappeared.

I continued meditating on a regular basis and my wellbeing improved day by day until I became more happy and joyful than ever before. I am just summarizing this, the benefits I had from it are multiple.

Recently during a meditation, I was focusing on a mental image so hard, all of a sudden my mind just surrendered and I found myself "dissolved" into the atmosphere. I don't know how to formulate it any other way. The music that was playing penetrated me entirely, it was as if I became the music. There was no "screen" in between the music and the room around me and myself, it was a very intense experience, like I was nothing BUT experience. I felt a tingling sensation and an immense happiness, literally invaded by.. by what?.. by something bigger.

This only lasted a few seconds because I stopped breathing and I had to come back to catch my breath, but every time I focused, it happened again.

I was so amazed by this experience! I had no clue what it was, so I googled into at and came across some articles talking about Dhyanas or Jhanas in Buddhism, and they described exactly what I experienced.

Now, I am not an example of righteousness, I don't have much theoretical background and I have not done much shadow work. But I automatically started training my thoughts and reflexes and I'm having lucid dreams so I can decide what I want to have in there and what not.

I am so amazed by all of this, but I have no one to talk to about it, so I came here and stumbled upon your posts.

What do I do next?

Regards.

Rainbowlady,

Sorry that i missed our post yesterday.

Your narration of your experience is not enough for me to suggest anything. I would apricate if you can provide more details. Please do not skip anything even if that looks unimportant to you. The more details you provide, more chances are that i would be able to provide some useful help.

What happens sometimes that because of some past lives developments, some individuals skip many initial steps and gets directly to higher stages. That seems to be your case prime facie. I am not sure but it looks to me that perhaps you are talking about crossing second major hurdle. I have not talked about this here yet but it will do so soon so keep reading.

You mentioned about breathlessness during your experience. This may explain many things. Tell me more about that how exactly you felt at that time, how you reached at that stage and how you withdrew yourself?

lastly, i would suggest you read my all posts in this thread. Perhaps, you may get something useful there.

with love,
sanjay

[Gem]

Originally Posted by zinnat

As i found it from my experience, the mantra should be synchronized with the breath. If the mantra is not long, it can be done easily. Even if it is long, one can break it into parts and so that each part can be synchronized with the breath. This method may be a bit difficult in the starting but proves very helpful later.

Could be an idea, but my critique would be, breath awareness has an underlying purpose of cessation of volition - non volitional, so layering a volitional exercise into it defeats the purpose. For example, a mantra is chanted and takes a time, so if you couple the mantra with the breath you also start to control the timing of the breath, whereas in breath awareness one does not control the rate or depth of breathing. It is possible it could enhance the purposes of mantra meditation, but due to the volitional component, it's actually incompatible with breath awareness meditation itself.

The advantage of of this method is that once coming into practice when subconscious forms the habit of repeating the mantra in perfect synchronization of the breath, merely focusing on the breath would start the repetition of the mantra without any effort of the conscious mind. One may call this phenomenon as indirect/secondary habit.

They want the habit to make it seem as if the mantra is non-volitional, but mental habits are volitional, just not intentional. Most of the volitions we generate are not consciously intended, and a core purpose of breath awareness is noticing these 'unconscious tendencies' and ceasing to perpetuate them. Therefore if the mantra occurs unintionally out of habit during breath awareness, one would notice that as an unintended mental fabrication and have no interest in continuing to regenerate it. In that way breath awareness meditation defeats the purpose of mantra meditation and vice verse.

Therefore, breath coupling with mantra is grand, could be an good idea, but that would not actually be breath awareness meditation. It would remain a volitional meditation technique.

[Unseeking Seeker]

comic interlude:

I am not there but the breath is there
I am not there but heartbeat is there
I Am, awareness self-aware

Originally Posted by zinnat

Two important things here which should be kept in the mind. First, though the posture does not matter but it is very important to be absolutely still in that posture throughout the whole session. Not even a tip of the finger should be moved.

Hello Zinnat,

What do you do about spontaneous movement that may start, like the spine starting to rock by itself by the prana moving in the body or any form of spontaneous kriyas. Trying to stop those spontaneous movement would it not involve our lower monkey mind to try do so instead of watching the universal mind moving our body?

Regards,

[Still_Waters]

QUOTE 221 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by zinnat

As i found it from my experience, the mantra should be synchronized with the breath. If the mantra is not long, it can be done easily. Even if it is long, one can break it into parts and so that each part can be synchronized with the breath. This method may be a bit difficult in the starting but proves very helpful later.

That is an excellent point which has been standard practice for me for some time. It is interesting that, no matter how long or short the breath is, the mantra synchronizes quite well ..... dynamically adjusting (elongating or otherwise) to the cadence of the breath.

As you noted, most mantras are relatively short but there are always exceptions to every rule.

I once gave a talk on mantra meditation in keeping with your post. After the talk, a young fellow with "sleeping problems" came up to me to request a mantra. Since I was meeting him for the first time, I was not sure what mantra would work best so I asked him if he had any affirmation, prayer, or uplifting saying that really absorbed him. He immediately responded with "the Serenity Prayer".

My reaction was that, although it was a bit long, he should use it anyway and to synchronize the parts of the prayer with the breath exactly as you described in your post. I would see him on and off during subsequent months and he would check in to say that the Serenity Prayer mantra was becoming increasingly effective with his "Sleep Problem".

Finally, after probably about 9 months (not exactly sure), he indicated that, as soon as he went to bed, the mantra would start immediately and he was able to dwell on the mantra and fall asleep.

He then conceded something that I had suspected all along. When he had "sleep problems", he indicated that he would go out for a fix as he was a drug addict. Once the mantra took full effect, however, the thoughts about drugs vanished since they were replaced by the mantra. Lo and behold, his drug habit was gone.

Your post brought that memory to mind and I thought that I would share it here.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by Legrand

Hello Zinnat,
What do you do about spontaneous movement that may start, like the spine starting to rock by itself by the prana moving in the body or any form of spontaneous kriyas. Trying to stop those spontaneous movement would it not involve our lower monkey mind to try do so instead of watching the universal mind moving our body?

strangely, this happened some time back, like a million volts of electricity passing through, from root to medulla, that is, entire spine. Lasted quite a while too, before ebbing away. now a grid line from third eye to guru chakra to crown, Bindu, Medulla and halfway to spine is in focus, shifting into the Anahata, connecting the three main chakras (third eye, crown and heart).

earlier on, the energy rise, crown piercing, polarity balance, descent to heart and ignition ... have already taken place. what I mention, are recent developments.

your expert comments are needed!

Unseeking,

I am not an expert in anything Simply learned to listen to the flow within, that I don't even know now if it is within or without, any difference there?

Must say that reading your words brought shivers all the way to my skin as it seem to reproduce an experience that I am living and lived also.

I will have to read your post again and go meditate on it, to see if I can get to feel the noumenom of what you are describing in more details so that may be we can learn more from each other in our next exchanges.

Enjoy!

Hello Zinnat,

Don't know if your post are only directed to people who start meditation.
But I feel the need here to comment on your emphasis of people needing to meditate the eyes closed.
As it is well known the Tibetan and other cultures also insist more on the necessity to learn to meditate the eyes open.
Yes our monkey mind is strongly associated to our eyes looking, and closing the eyes helps to let go of this monkey mind to explore clarity of mind.

But there is a trap in doing so. It brings a distinction to the state of having the eyes open and the eyes close. It limits, meditating the eyes close, the possibility to the one meditating to be in a state of clarity even when walking or acting in day to day life with it's eyes open.

At one point there should be no difference in the state of mind one is, would that person be still or moving, eyes closed or not.
A simple opinion here.

Regards.

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

Now a grid line from third eye to guru chakra to crown, Bindu, Medulla and halfway to spine is in focus, shifting into the Anahata, connecting the three main chakras (third eye, crown and heart).
(...)
your expert comments are needed!

Hello Unseeking,

I have not told this to anyone yet, (no it’s not true I did tell it to someone I was exchanging privately here on SF), 91 weeks ago, when I started my symbolic study of the Tree of Life and some hold Tarot decks going up the serpent path of wisdom, I did lower voluntarily my frequencies, to take an expression used by some here, in order to explore deeply each archetypes going up this Tree, a path among others as they are so many in this world.

Lowering my frequency in this way was very much worth it, as now in the third World of Briah, the world of Creation, or the archangelical World to put some colours to it, as I have reached the third eye, new, more subtle, energies are starting to show themselves that I did not see as clearly then before I started this study.

As you may already know, this week I am finishing to explore the horizontal path in this World of Creation at the third eye level, where the Medulla is at the center.

https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/s...&postcount=157

And I am feeling this grid, pretty much intensively, that you mention between the heart and crown chakra.

Not this Sunday, but the next one, I will allow to the archetype linking the Heart (Tiphereth) and the Crown (Kether) to fully shine, where the meaning of this grid between those two chakras should reveal itself more deeply.

Hope it makes sense to you since we are not using the same terminology to express ourselves in words.

Regards,

Antoine

[Unseeking Seeker]

@ thanks Legrand! will look forward to hear from you at the optimal time. Although I do not question whatever is, simply accepting and allowing, it would be good to know from the view of he who has trodden the path longer and before

I do not follow any formatted practice, having simply released myself into the void, metaphorically speaking