The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

[chocolate]

TH, I have a question. I was doing a practise described in the book by R.S. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/...GA010_c02.html

"To begin with, the attention of the soul is directed to certain events in the world that surrounds us. Such events are, on the one hand, life that is budding, growing, and flourishing, and on the other hand, all phenomena connected with fading, decaying, and withering. The student can observe these events simultaneously, wherever he turns his eyes and on every occasion they naturally evoke in him feelings and thoughts; but in ordinary circumstances he does not devote himself sufficiently to them. He hurries on too quickly from impression to impression. It is necessary, therefore, that he should fix his attention intently and consciously upon these phenomena. Wherever he observes a definite kind of blooming and flourishing, he must banish everything else from his soul, and entirely surrender himself, for a short time, to this one impression. He will soon convince himself that a feeling which heretofore in a similar case, would merely have flitted through his soul, now swells out and assumes a powerful and energetic form. He must now allow this feeling to reverberate quietly within himself while keeping inwardly quite still. He must cut himself off from the outer world, and simply and solely follow what his soul tells him of this blossoming and flourishing."

The first time I tried I had definite feelings forming, but not in the mind, or even in my head space, it was in my heart. Both when observing a blossoming life ( a rose I am growing ), and a decaying life ( a rosebud that had been fallen dry together with yellowing leaves ).
Is this something that is specific to me, or is it like that with most people? Or at least if you try, how does it feel?
I am trying to figure out my own ways of non-material 'perception', that is why I am asking for an opinion.

[TraineeHuman]

Yes, at first it's much easier to use one's heart center (the physical heart center and also the astral heart center) to receive or understand what the Higher Mind is communicating. I've made a number of posts trying to explain, though, that eventually one learns -- hopefully! -- to receive those communications more completely and powerfully through the oversoul area, and, prior to being able to do that fluently, through the inner eye or pineal center better than through the heart center.

When people say things like "listen to your heart" or talk about "heart math", they really mean listen to your intuition -- and let's hope the person involved manages to fully separate intuition received via the heart center from the ego's trademark dramatizing emotionality and ultimately phoney "passion".

The pineal center has much to do with mental/emotional independence and breaking beyond conformity, and with creativity and originality. The oversoul center has to do with enlightenment (and greater bliss and peace and divine love) and universality and Infinity, but also with Consciousness or Spirit as a contrast to Matter.

If you go to the top of any page in this thread and click on Search Thread, then type the word heart into the space, and then click on Search, that will bring up all the posts with the word "heart" in them. In about half of these, I provided information that responds to your current question, chocolate. Alternatively, you can look at most of my posts between 28th October 2013 and 7th November 2013 (pages 64 and 65), though I've also discussed this topic in some earlier posts too.

Lately I've seen a demonstration of how the Higher Mind worked to alert me of a serious physical problem. As I've said, I believe I've undergone, and am still delightfully basking in, a prolonged kundalini release. But the beginning of it was very physically uncomfortable indeed for two weeks, because the Higher "energy" managed to make me perceive -- physically feel, in this case -- my physical problem in a greatly magnified form, as a timely warning. It's unusual and atypical, at the beginning of a prolonged kundalini experience, to feel a pounding in one's arteries in the legs. The only reason I felt that now seems to be that those arteries were getting slightly blocked, or crowded at any rate, by fungi and parasites. Once I became aware of the pounding, it had served its purpose of alerting me through creating discomfort. But the only fully effective way I have found I had to remove the discomforting side of the energies has been to send the discomfort energy into my oversoul area and thence out. I even suspect my chest pains, which have now gone, would have been caused by some of the discomfort energy getting stuck at my (3D or 4D) heart center -- and the heart is basically an amplifier, energetically speaking.

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by aranuk (here)
Hi, I don't know if this question has been answered, but 59 pages of 30 posts are a lot to read. When I go to bed and try to get to sleep, quite often, I feel as if my entire system is switched off and complete darkness and silence is all that remains. On every experience like this I think I have just died and I let out a loud roar of fright. My guess to what is happening is that I am conscious of the exact point of falling asleep. I then normally just drift off to sleep slowly and gently. My question to Traineehuman and Jake is this: If the next time this happens and I don't get frightened, what will I find happens?

Stan

I replied to Stan by PM back when I was taking a break. But I'd like to add the following.

When you say that sometimes you manage to observe the exact point when you "go to sleep", I take it you're saying that such "sleep" includes an "awake" or observing component, at least initially. If that's the case, congratulations, and then the self-watching mode you manage to get into is the higher consciousness, the Higher Self, in action. I guess at that point you might attempt to look up even though your eyes are still closed. If you see, say, the ceiling, if you concentrate on that ceiling you'll probably find that you float up to it.

But as far as I'm concerned, the more important thing is that you're accessing your Higher consciousness. There's currently a Spirituality thread with a video of Eckhart Tolle. Tolle spends much of it talking about simply being "present", which is the doorway into Higher consciousness, and it can and usually will be done by you while your physical body is awake. My suggestion to you, Stan, is that you could practice simple "presence" during the day, whenever you get reminded. This will greatly strengthen your ability to "go places" astrally whenever you successfully remain "present" through the falling-asleep process. There are more important things regarding the Higher consciousness than just its role in astral travel. I talk about these in the posts you can find if you Search for the word stillness
in the Search Thread option at the top of each page in this thread.

[TraineeHuman]

The Higher Mind or soul is invisible to most people in our society, or certainly seems invisible to them. On the other hand, the truth is it's a very great "energy" or "force" or "intelligence" -- quite apart from being who we actually are, at a truer level of reality. Isn't that the ultimate "conspiracy"? That who you more truly are masquerades as something non-existent, or at least invisible! What a slap in the face to who you truly are. What a castration (or the female equivalent of castration).

This is a paradox, a dilemma. The only way to begin to resolve it seems to be for us to clearly observe that the HM does produce palpable results in our lives after all, and in a big way -- both inwardly and outwardly. If it didn't do so, what would be the point of even talking about it? But how to observe it properly? That's the question.

Well, one point where a person might begin is the Eckhart Tolle video that's in a current Spirituality thread. Most of the time in that video, Tolle is talking about simply being present, such as when one sits idly on a bench in a beautiful park. This is useful in two different ways, from my point of view. Firstly, whenever you do practice such presence, however laid back you may be you're in fact still temporarily bringing your HM down and into your physical body and location at that time. So, notice any way that this feels different from "normal". Notice as deeply as you can, without any straining -- because that would erode your presence. Also, as you get more absorbed in the pseudo-lazy ease of this experience at an inner level, you naturally start to disconnect at least a little from your physical senses. This means that you directly get to experience a mostly non-physical reality that's inside you, and therefore must be you, or a true part of you.

Secondly, notice that while you're idling away in presence as you sit on a park bench, the negative emotions of the ego and of the body-consciousness just quietly get left behind for now. So, we have at least one simple tool for gently but totally mastering our negative emotions and desire. In addition, we have a way of extending some of the features of what we experience during meditation to a part of our ordinary life outside of meditation -- even if it's only the presence-idling part.

To develop our awareness of the HM further than this, we need to work a little, rather than just idling away. We need to develop some of our "mind" powers and abilities, or else notice that they have gotten developed on their own steam while we were meditating over a long period, and we just didn't notice that we've become lions rather than kittens.

We need to eventually get to the point where we can deliberately steer the mighty wheel that controls what our HM does, and to call our HM in as we call in our intuition or our pure intention. Until that point, we have to rely partly on faith in its existence or at least in its power. But also, we need to watch ourselves and keep observing how whenever the HM comes in there are direct results. We also need to learn to respect the greatness of our HM. It's not unlike the way a fundamentalist Christian respects and has a personal relationship with "God" -- except in this case we happen to know, or have faith, that "God" is actually the truest and most central part of us.

[TraineeHuman]

I'd like to say some more things about the role of the heart in the spiritual life. I've recently reaffirmed that at first one "hears" the Higher Mind most easily through the heart center. Actually, though, I would say it's desirable to work on the heart and the will and the mind all in combination -- and therefore as soon as possible to open up the will center that's in the middle of the brain and also the mind center, that lies a few inches above the top of the head. Not only that, but when I say the Higher Mind comes and is found via stillness, I really do mean through silence, through not even one scrap of a word or concept. Call it "the sounds of silence" if you like. But in a Forum of words and concepts, this is kind of going against the prevailing current, in a sense. The actual practice of spirituality is not a matter of discussion, but of bringing huge spaces into the very fabric of all your life -- and, ideally, absolutely loving them, and constantly noticing their presence, interwoven into everything you do, every moment. Lots of beautiful "space" in your life, lots of "nothing" interweaving with you, that isn't really "nothing" but it's more like everythingness.

And the role of the heart is to find love in a sense equally for all people, all beings, for existence itself, and all that ultimately as an inevitable part of one's love for the Divine, for the Whole, as the quote in post #1773 explained so well.

Let’s clarify some of the relationships between the heart, the will and the mind a little. For one thing, desire (most kinds of it, except desire for the Divine, for the whole) doesn’t come from the heart. We have a strong conditioning to follow or seek "our heart's desire". The entire advertising industry is based on this. But I suggest that conditioning is misinformation. Desire itself (unless it is for the Whole, or unless it's something like genuine biological hunger) is an impurity of the will involved in the emotional parts of our being. When the emotional desires interfere with where the will puts its attention, all our thoughts then becomes subservient to those desires. Our mind, our mental functions become distorted and out of touch, having fallen under the spell of attachment. This is a good example of why the Higher Mind is useful and necessary. Its understanding is what lifts us beyond the grasp of emotional desires. But for that to work, we have to first make ourselves emotionally pure.


The will to enjoy what's pleasant or beautiful is quite wholesome and right for our feeling/emoting part. But our feeling/emotional being isn't content with what it gets, and jumps into attachment. Attachment is precisely what destroys love, of any kind.


Attachment occurs precisely whenever we fail to work with and submit to our Higher Mind. Our lower self needs to learn to accept whatever enjoyment comes to it, but it needs to drop its initially ceaseless craving for more. Instead, it needs to learn to live on trust in the Higher Mind. Create a gap and faithfully trust that it will be filled with delight, and the Higher Mind will oblige, as long as the impurities of past attachment don't interfere too greatly.


We also have cravings that come from our attachment to the body-consciousness. These manifest as the negative emotions of fear, anger, lust, envy, and so on. We do need to find a way to leave all these behind eventually.

Yes, the will to love is proper to the heart, but even here the choice and reaching after love have to be made less immature, and the heart has to be taught to love, yes with depth and intensity but also with a calm depth and a settled presence. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry paints love as something fraught with egoic restlessness and impulsivity and attachment -- often as infatuation, which is merely the ego trying to do what only the Higher Mind can achieve. Some very reliable psychological studies have found that over eighty percent of the population in Western countries marry the person who in their psyches/minds most resembles their opposite sex parent. And that eighty percent in turn of these individuals don't marry the partner who would have been best for them. That's one example of the damage resulting from the prevailing gross misunderstanding of how to develop the heart and how to relate to and work with one's emotional being.

[TraineeHuman]

The following is a quote from Torkom Saraydarian titled: "What Controls You?" I'm posting it because it provides some good insight into what stillness means when applied to daily life and why stillness is so important; and why it's so different from the life that many people lead:

Things control you when you are identified with them. For example, if you are really, really identified with your wife, your wife controls you [husbands too!]. If you are really identified with your money, your money controls you. If you are really identified with your hatreds, your actions, your emotions, your mind, they always control you because you are them. And because they are always in agitation, you are in turmoil. You are not an independent source of light, of control, an independent unit of consciousness.

People think this is not important because they are so identified with their not-self. Not-self means your body, your emotions, your possessions, your mind, your thoughts, your ideas. They are not you, but because you are identified with them, you think that it is very painful to detach yourself from your not-self and watch it and observe it.

Once you start observing your not-self, you feel joyful, independent, free, powerful. It is not easy to do that, but the whole Teaching is based on observation. The whole Teaching is a progressive development of going toward your Real Self and becoming your True Self. This is the whole purpose of the Teaching.

I would presume to add, though, that when you begin or continue to truly observe yourself it can be very painful or uncomfortable, but if you persist and discover the truth -- which everyone must do for themselves --, then eventually you will indeed discover great joy and freedom and inner power.

To quote Torkom further:

The second step [to freedom] is the step of facing up to the facts about himself. He holds all expressions under survey and tries to find the why of all his reactions and responses on the three levels of his being. He analyzes his thoughts, his emotions, his actions, and he tries to find the urges and motives behind them. He does not do these things as some introspectives do, identifying themselves with their inner and outer states — as he analyzes, he views himself impersonally, and thus cultivates within himself the attitude of a detached observer. When he succeeds in observing himself impersonally, he tries to view others and all events with the same impersonality.

Through this process he discovers the pseudo-rulers in his subjective and objective worlds and gradually decreases their number, until eventually the observer himself becomes the sole ruler of his being. This means simply that the man is no longer the victim of his physical urges, of his emotional waves, or of his different thoughts and momentary tendencies. He tries to face himself at every turn and attempts to unmask every activity and every state of being which pretends to speak or act in the name of the True Self. Here the man becomes a duality. There is the objective world and the one who rules it, but the latter is not yet a clear-cut figure.

Ages pass, and the observer gradually distinguishes between himself and the physical body. Now he thinks and assumes that he is the emotional man. In the next step he leaves behind the physical body and emotional states as not-selves and identifies himself with the mental world. Here he lives for quite a long time, identifying himself with many different states of being, until one day he surpasses his mental world too and becomes a deeper being, a deeper observer on a higher plane. This is called “the path of detachment” and “the path of facing oneself” upon every turn of life….

[aranuk]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)

Posted by aranuk (here)
Hi, I don't know if this question has been answered, but 59 pages of 30 posts are a lot to read. When I go to bed and try to get to sleep, quite often, I feel as if my entire system is switched off and complete darkness and silence is all that remains. On every experience like this I think I have just died and I let out a loud roar of fright. My guess to what is happening is that I am conscious of the exact point of falling asleep. I then normally just drift off to sleep slowly and gently. My question to Traineehuman and Jake is this: If the next time this happens and I don't get frightened, what will I find happens?

Stan

I replied to Stan by PM back when I was taking a break. But I'd like to add the following.

When you say that sometimes you manage to observe the exact point when you "go to sleep", I take it you're saying that such "sleep" includes an "awake" or observing component, at least initially. If that's the case, congratulations, and then the self-watching mode you manage to get into is the higher consciousness, the Higher Self, in action. I guess at that point you might attempt to look up even though your eyes are still closed. If you see, say, the ceiling, if you concentrate on that ceiling you'll probably find that you float up to it.

But as far as I'm concerned, the more important thing is that you're accessing your Higher consciousness. There's currently a Spirituality thread with a video of Eckhart Tolle. Tolle spends much of it talking about simply being "present", which is the doorway into Higher consciousness, and it can and usually will be done by you while your physical body is awake. My suggestion to you, Stan, is that you could practice simple "presence" during the day, whenever you get reminded. This will greatly strengthen your ability to "go places" astrally whenever you successfully remain "present" through the falling-asleep process. There are more important things regarding the Higher consciousness than just its role in astral travel. I talk about these in the posts you can find if you Search for the word stillness
in the Search Thread option at the top of each page in this thread.

Thanks TraineeHuman, I'm not sure what you mean by "includes an "awake" or observing component." Can you elaborate what you mean by that description?
I will try to explain again maybe more clearly. Most times when I go to sleep I drift quietly away into dreamland without being aware of the transition between lying there having an assortment of thoughts and these thoughts which I could describe as being of my own volition and in a dream state where the images seem to come from either a deeper layer of my unconscious mind or from some other source. This must surely be what most people experience. However, the state I was referring to is more like this. I am lying there thinking thoughts of my own choosing and suddenly it as if someone has switched me off. Instead of these thoughts in my mind turning into dreams there is suddenly nothing at all. It seems as if my entire body and mind has been switched off.

Stan

[chocolate]

Hi TH and aranuk!
May be, aranuk, you can understand what TH is saying if you imagine that at the moment of absolute silence you are perceiving 'reality' mostly from the point of view of the higher mind (as TH has explained in detail in previous posts) instead of having mostly our body-consciousness perception.
'being awake' is you having the perception from the point of view of your body-mind;
being the observer is again you, but from the position of the higher mind/self.

A bit the same as in some dreams when you are playing as part of the dream, and also somehow outside of it observing the action, or so it seems.

At least that is how I understand TH's words.

I have had several moments such as the one you are describing, and not just as I am preparing to sleep. That is why I decided to write this post. Otherwise I am sure TH will answer much more eloquently than me.

[aranuk]

Posted by chocolate (here)
Hi TH and aranuk!
May be, aranuk, you can understand what TH is saying if you imagine that at the moment of absolute silence you are perceiving 'reality' mostly from the point of view of the higher mind (as TH has explained in detail in previous posts) instead of having mostly our body-consciousness perception.
'being awake' is you having the perception from the point of view of your body-mind;
being the observer is again you, but from the position of the higher mind/self.


A bit the same as in some dreams when you are playing as part of the dream, and also somehow outside of it observing the action, or so it seems.

At least that is how I understand TH's words.

I have had several moments such as the one you are describing, and not just as I am preparing to sleep. That is why I decided to write this post. Otherwise I am sure TH will answer much more eloquently than me.

Hi Chocolate, thanks for your comments. So, what do you do when this happens to you when you are going to sleep? Or, does something happen before you can do anything? You say this has happened to you a few times too, would you like to explain in your own words? Could it be I am experiencing pure awareness as the HS out of the body then? So it would seem that this blackout is similar to the experience of death?

Stan (Aranuk)

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by aranuk (here)
Could it be I am experiencing pure awareness as the HS out of the body then? So it would seem that this blackout is similar to the experience of death?

Yes, that's exactly what the "blackness" is, Stan. The next step is to somehow become more and more aware of its continual "watching" presence in all your everyday life. This takes long, long work. As far as I know, proper meditation is usually the quickest and best (and safest) way to cultivate such awareness. It won't remain like seemingly inert "blackness" once you've developed your awareness of it further. The "watching" presence lies at a level above the physical but also above the emotional and mental worlds that all people are familiar with, but penetrates into these as well.

As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing is to get to a point where you have a strong ongoing constant (nonphysical) "sense" or "feeling" that everything related to the body-consciousness is like an island that's contained within something bigger and more intelligent, though subtler.

Everyone has to find their own way there. Phony shortcuts, such as drugs, won't do it, but will just slow things down. One of a number of ways I've nourished this "sense" or "feeling" most of my life -- and it does take serious nourishing, as the most important thing in your life bar nothing and no-one else -- has been through the practice of creativity, including gradually learning to more and more be an "artist of (ordinary) life". Creativity is based on tuning into and receiving inspirations, even little ones. Inspirations are always full of bliss, even the little ones. These are always clearly wordless and pictureless and formless when they arise, but you get to see yourself rather magically transforming them into words, ideas, pictures, actions, feelings.

Yes, this has connections with what everyone experiences at death. That's why there's all the stuff in the New Testament about needing to be "born again", for instance.

[aranuk]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)

Posted by aranuk (here)
Could it be I am experiencing pure awareness as the HS out of the body then? So it would seem that this blackout is similar to the experience of death?

Yes, that's exactly what the "blackness" is, Stan. The next step is to somehow become more and more aware of its continual "watching" presence in all your everyday life. This takes long, long work. As far as I know, proper meditation is usually the quickest and best (and safest) way to cultivate such awareness. It won't remain like seemingly inert "blackness" once you've developed your awareness of it further. The "watching" presence lies at a level above the physical but also above the emotional and mental worlds that all people are familiar with, but penetrates into these as well.

As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing is to get to a point where you have a strong ongoing constant (nonphysical) "sense" or "feeling" that everything related to the body-consciousness is like an island that's contained within something bigger and more intelligent, though subtler.

Everyone has to find their own way there. Phony shortcuts, such as drugs, won't do it, but will just slow things down. One of a number of ways I've nourished this "sense" or "feeling" most of my life -- and it does take serious nourishing, as the most important thing in your life bar nothing and no-one else -- has been through the practice of creativity, including gradually learning to more and more be an "artist of (ordinary) life". Creativity is based on tuning into and receiving inspirations, even little ones. Inspirations are always full of bliss, even the little ones. These are always clearly wordless and pictureless and formless when they arise, but you get to see yourself rather magically transforming them into words, ideas, pictures, actions, feelings.

Yes, this has connections with what everyone experiences at death. That's why there's all the stuff in the New Testament about needing to be "born again", for instance.

Thanks TH, just for the record I have been practicing meditation now for some 57 years. That sounds like a lot of time but it is not. Many years ago after reading Krishnamurti, he explained how to stop the internal dialogue by just observing and letting it pass. A few weeks later the internal chitter chatter ceased. After that I was successful at getting into a peaceful mind. I don't have a visual mind so when I meditate it is in total darkness and no pictures are there. However when I am getting to sleep in bed at night the pictures start and last a wee bit longer than when I am meditating. This sudden darkness I spoke about is similar to the meditative state which is achieved through relaxing and letting the images flow past and not holding on to them. So the difference between meditating and achieving darkness which is a reasonably slow process
and this sudden blackness and switching off the machine is not comparable.

Stan

[TraineeHuman]

Stan and chocolate, you might like to look at what is meant by "the inner body". This was invented by the late Barry Long, who was one of my spiritual teachers and also Eckhart Tolle's. The way Barry described it, your "inner body" is the sum total of everything you feel or "sense" inside you. (Tolle, in his earlier writings, would also talk about it close to word for word the same as Barry did.) Barry used to say that you can imagine your inner body as having exactly the same shape as your physical body. And that when you die, what survives death is everything that's in your inner body. In the terms I've been using, that would be the same as "everything that's inner, or that's within you".

If you can form some kind of clear understanding or "feeling" of what your inner body minus all your neuroses and complexes and beliefs is, that's the Higher Mind, right there. It's something you "feel" in a non-emotional way (if you'll accept my definition of "emotion" as not including genuine love or any of the other purely positive feelings). It's something you have a "sensation" of that's not a physical sensation, but still something you directly receive (from), and even directly are.

Eventually it will become obvious to you that the Higher Mind is vast. It doesn't really have the shape of your physical body. Even though it may seem to lie "inside of" your physical body, it's clearly not physical, and therefore really lies "beyond". But you can only find it by looking "inside" because -- amazingly -- it's closer to the real you than your physical body is. It's actually the one who is doing all the looking "inside".

I don't know if this will be helpful for you. But at least it's one way of getting largely beyond any concepts and looking directly at what you feel instead.

[chocolate]

Hi Stan,
to answer your question, I don't feel uncomfortable when that silence occurs. I actually feel really peaceful and comfortable in those moments.
One may call it an escapism of mine, but in fact I look forward to this stage. I also sense this occurs during meditation, which as many reading here know I don't do, according to TH. ( no offence here, I think for my own standards, and yours probably, I need to practice it more, and not to be distracted ).
I am only enjoying qi gong stance meditation, because it realigns my energy, and through this creates a fine buzz in my mind, that later on translates - or morphs into - that stillness and lack of sound.
But I don't necessary see it as blackness... I can't put a color to it right now.

The instances this stage occurs, right at this point in time, are more rare, because I am sleep-deprived.

As far as the inner awareness goes, TH, thanks to some past experiences I did develop (as much as I could) of that.
I am sure it is an ongoing process.

PS. I have practiced dying for years, which is something not many will understand, and it wasn't much fun, but it has its good sides. Death and I, we know one another intimately already.

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by chocolate (here)
I have practiced dying for years, which is something not many will understand, and it wasn't much fun, but it has its good sides. Death and I, we know one another intimately already.

Would you perhaps care to tell us some more about what you learnt in your experiences with death, chocolate? The way I see it, spiritual evolution always means the death of something lower, such as, and especially, a part of the ego. Sometimes the death happens very gradually, but after a time it's clear it has happened. Or to put it another way, in my experience greater inner freedom always requires outer death in some sense or other. So, would you care to say something about how some little deaths you have experienced were the passage to your greater fulfillment?

I have found that in some people the HM comes into its own, with its great calmness and vastness becoming very apparent to the individual, when the individual reaches a "stage" I would call "the death of desire". It's not that one stops having needs, but rather, one clearly sees that the indulging of desires doesn't bring happiness. And in my experience, each such death, even if little, is really a rebirth, as it brings an increase in one's inner guiding wisdom, a kind of compass that guides one in the right direction to go. Yes, there is certainly unpleasantness and suffering to go through because of the ignorance our conditioning has stuck us in. But here surrender to the HM's inner guidance, or to "God", if you like, is what will make the period of such great suffering much shorter. The Bhagavad Gita says: "practice the meditation unfalteringly, without despondency" because, it explains, after you've finished the spinach you are promised the dessert will come, and it will be all that's left for you then. From death to deathlessness, released from the ego, maybe even from restriction just to being in time and space eventually.

I believe that death stops being linked with any suffering for us when,or to the extent that, we have totally let go of attachment and our attachments, and ditto our desires.

By the way, I certainly do consider qi gong a valid form of meditation, if it's practiced daily.

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by aranuk (here)
Thanks TH, just for the record I have been practicing meditation now for some 57 years. That sounds like a lot of time but it is not. Many years ago after reading Krishnamurti, he explained how to stop the internal dialogue by just observing and letting it pass. A few weeks later the internal chitter chatter ceased. After that I was successful at getting into a peaceful mind. I don't have a visual mind so when I meditate it is in total darkness and no pictures are there. However when I am getting to sleep in bed at night the pictures start and last a wee bit longer than when I am meditating. This sudden darkness I spoke about is similar to the meditative state which is achieved through relaxing and letting the images flow past and not holding on to them. So the difference between meditating and achieving darkness which is a reasonably slow process
and this sudden blackness and switching off the machine is not comparable.

Stan

Are you saying, Stan, that through stillness you feel or move fully into a unified or greater whole as distinct from the rather fragmented and limited "you" of more everyday existence?

Or that through stillness, you release within your (greater) self, or open up to, a greater power coming from beyond the physical, emotional and mental dimensions and where, for example, you feel you are only a kind of conduit for something greater, something Divine?

In either case, you would be encountering an intensification of the power of (higher) consciousness. Is that what you're referring to? If so, I guess this involves the paradox that Source seems to be passive in its underlying and supporting of all this (and all existence), and yet at the same time active because of its power and its full-on self-giving.

Or maybe you're referring to something else?

[aranuk]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)

Posted by aranuk (here)
Thanks TH, just for the record I have been practicing meditation now for some 57 years. That sounds like a lot of time but it is not. Many years ago after reading Krishnamurti, he explained how to stop the internal dialogue by just observing and letting it pass. A few weeks later the internal chitter chatter ceased. After that I was successful at getting into a peaceful mind. I don't have a visual mind so when I meditate it is in total darkness and no pictures are there. However when I am getting to sleep in bed at night the pictures start and last a wee bit longer than when I am meditating. This sudden darkness I spoke about is similar to the meditative state which is achieved through relaxing and letting the images flow past and not holding on to them. So the difference between meditating and achieving darkness which is a reasonably slow process
and this sudden blackness and switching off the machine is not comparable.

Stan

Are you saying, Stan, that through stillness you feel or move fully into a unified or greater whole as distinct from the rather fragmented and limited "you" of more everyday existence?

Or that through stillness, you release within your (greater) self, or open up to, a greater power coming from beyond the physical, emotional and mental dimensions and where, for example, you feel you are only a kind of conduit for something greater, something Divine?

In either case, you would be encountering an intensification of the power of (higher) consciousness. Is that what you're referring to? If so, I guess this involves the paradox that Source seems to be passive in its underlying and supporting of all this (and all existence), and yet at the same time active because of its power and its full-on self-giving.

Or maybe you're referring to something else?

Hi TH, nah Nothing as you described Sir, just perfect, peaceful, lonely darkness. In complete silence. No audible sounds. A void. For many many years I thought I must be doing something wrong. Most of the teachers on meditation seem to assume that everyone when in a relaxed state see pictures sometimes just to focus their attention on and some pictures or images come fleeting by. If I close my eyes and imagine a Bengal tiger it flashes before my eyes in what seems like a nano nano second. Even in meditation when in complete darkness in my mind if I think of that same tiger it comes and goes so quickly that it doesn't interfere in the slightest way to the darkness. Over the years I have read many teachers who say getting to the stage where there is complete darkness and complete silence is quite an achievement. I know many people who meditate and would just love to be able to do what I do. I would rather swap my darkness/silence for a few images now and again. The darkness and silence I get when meditating, comes after maybe 10 minutes, and it comes slowly and seems to be a reward I would say, but the sudden darkness and silence I am referring to is not the same. When I achieve this silent state I feel very much in control of the situation. Both Rudolf Steiner and Krishnamurti spoke of the space between thoughts and I rather think that is a clearer way I can relate to the thing. They both also said that only in that space between thoughts is the purest state of being. I would agree with them on that. To be in that space between thoughts you have to observe the first thought as being a thought and also the next one as a thought in order to perceive the space in between. When I started following Krishnamurti's instructions over a period of maybe 3 or 4 weeks the thoughts became fewer so the space between became longer as it were. I don't really like being switched off without my will being violated. Do you see where I am coming from TH?

Perhaps it's these little scalawags the elemental beings having a bit of fun at my expense. This happened about 16 years ago and apparently was the work of a friend of mines apprentice guide or something. That is another story.

Stan

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by aranuk (here)
Nothing as you described Sir, just perfect, peaceful, lonely darkness. In complete silence. No audible sounds. A void. For many many years I thought I must be doing something wrong. Most of the teachers on meditation seem to assume that everyone when in a relaxed state see pictures sometimes just to focus their attention on and some pictures or images come fleeting by. If I close my eyes and imagine a Bengal tiger it flashes before my eyes in what seems like a nano nano second. Even in meditation when in complete darkness in my mind if I think of that same tiger it comes and goes so quickly that it doesn't interfere in the slightest way to the darkness. Over the years I have read many teachers who say getting to the stage where there is complete darkness and complete silence is quite an achievement. I know many people who meditate and would just love to be able to do what I do. I would rather swap my darkness/silence for a few images now and again. The darkness and silence I get when meditating, comes after maybe 10 minutes, and it comes slowly and seems to be a reward I would say, but the sudden darkness and silence I am referring to is not the same. When I achieve this silent state I feel very much in control of the situation. Both Rudolf Steiner and Krishnamurti spoke of the space between thoughts and I rather think that is a clearer way I can relate to the thing. They both also said that only in that space between thoughts is the purest state of being. I would agree with them on that. To be in that space between thoughts you have to observe the first thought as being a thought and also the next one as a thought in order to perceive the space in between. When I started following Krishnamurti's instructions over a period of maybe 3 or 4 weeks the thoughts became fewer so the space between became longer as it were. I don't really like being switched off without my will being violated. Do you see where I am coming from TH?

I certainly agree that it's a significant achievement to get to a point where one clearly distinguishes between mental representations of one's transcendental experience/being and the pure experience/being itself.

I do tend to give a "dark emptiness" that sounds similar to what you describe a name, and that is "the Void". In my experience the Void feels like a kind of black hole, except that I experience/be it as something very positive, and as something closely connected to, or the same as, Source. I "feel" that gigantic positivity, but would claim that such "feeling" occurs beyond all words or concepts or emotions. As I understand J. Krishnamurti, though, not to mention the Advaita Vedanta and Zen writings, the great Silence, the Unknowability, is not destructive of activity, and one normally progresses to maintain a great inner calm and motionlessness in the midst of everyday activity. Inwardly you'll be totally impersonal, yet outwardly you'll show a "personality" that hopefully works powerfully to produce positive results. And there's no contradiction between the two, somehow. As I understand it, that was the most central point of both Krishnamurti's and the Buddha's teaching.

You seem to me to talk of the great Emptiness almost as if it were a problem perhaps, or as if you considered there should be something further, beyond that. Surely, though, when one enters that Emptiness one knows wordlessly that there are no problems?

Certainly, consideration of these things leads us to see how feeble and confusing and misleading words are. And to see how narrow our individual (ordinary) mind is, because it proceeds by highlighting one aspect of the Unknowable at a time while ignoring all other aspects. Indeed, the Emptiness, for me at least, brings a sense of how dreamlike and illusory all else is.

[aranuk]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)

Posted by aranuk (here)
Nothing as you described Sir, just perfect, peaceful, lonely darkness. In complete silence. No audible sounds. A void. For many many years I thought I must be doing something wrong. Most of the teachers on meditation seem to assume that everyone when in a relaxed state see pictures sometimes just to focus their attention on and some pictures or images come fleeting by. If I close my eyes and imagine a Bengal tiger it flashes before my eyes in what seems like a nano nano second. Even in meditation when in complete darkness in my mind if I think of that same tiger it comes and goes so quickly that it doesn't interfere in the slightest way to the darkness. Over the years I have read many teachers who say getting to the stage where there is complete darkness and complete silence is quite an achievement. I know many people who meditate and would just love to be able to do what I do. I would rather swap my darkness/silence for a few images now and again. The darkness and silence I get when meditating, comes after maybe 10 minutes, and it comes slowly and seems to be a reward I would say, but the sudden darkness and silence I am referring to is not the same. When I achieve this silent state I feel very much in control of the situation. Both Rudolf Steiner and Krishnamurti spoke of the space between thoughts and I rather think that is a clearer way I can relate to the thing. They both also said that only in that space between thoughts is the purest state of being. I would agree with them on that. To be in that space between thoughts you have to observe the first thought as being a thought and also the next one as a thought in order to perceive the space in between. When I started following Krishnamurti's instructions over a period of maybe 3 or 4 weeks the thoughts became fewer so the space between became longer as it were. I don't really like being switched off without my will being violated. Do you see where I am coming from TH?

I certainly agree that it's a significant achievement to get to a point where one clearly distinguishes between mental representations of one's transcendental experience/being and the pure experience/being itself.

I do tend to give a "dark emptiness" that sounds similar to what you describe a name, and that is "the Void". In my experience the Void feels like a kind of black hole, except that I experience/be it as something very positive, and as something closely connected to, or the same as, Source. I "feel" that gigantic positivity, but would claim that such "feeling" occurs beyond all words or concepts or emotions. As I understand J. Krishnamurti, though, not to mention the Advaita Vedanta and Zen writings, the great Silence, the Unknowability, is not destructive of activity, and one normally progresses to maintain a great inner calm and motionlessness in the midst of everyday activity. Inwardly you'll be totally impersonal, yet outwardly you'll show a "personality" that hopefully works powerfully to produce positive results. And there's no contradiction between the two, somehow. As I understand it, that was the most central point of both Krishnamurti's and the Buddha's teaching.

You seem to me to talk of the great Emptiness almost as if it were a problem perhaps, or as if you considered there should be something further, beyond that. Surely, though, when one enters that Emptiness one knows wordlessly that there are no problems?

Certainly, consideration of these things leads us to see how feeble and confusing and misleading words are. And to see how narrow our individual (ordinary) mind is, because it proceeds by highlighting one aspect of the Unknowable at a time while ignoring all other aspects. Indeed, the Emptiness, for me at least, brings a sense of how dreamlike and illusory all else is.

Hi again TH, I don't try to give as many explanations to my experience of complete darkness and silence as you do. It is a mistake I think to use definitions of darkness and silence to fit pseudo definitions of that unique experience. I would certainly not describe my experience in the same terms as you do. We may in fact be wiser to discuss these situations in order to understand what we are experiencing. God, Higher Self and such only complicate the reality I feel. When I am in Silence/darkness there is absolutely no description that makes any sense to that experience. No talk of Divine, Source, Higher Self, there is nothing and no mind, complete freedom I would say. No Love, and nothing else really. Just nothing that I am experiencing. No words can come close to describe it really. Maybe I AM no- thing and no- body, no personality, nothing at all.


Stan

[chocolate]

"YE SHALL BE AS WISE AS SERPENTS”

The Function of the Connection - i.e., the Human Kingdom. - is Redemption of Consciousness from Its Attachment to Form
-Dr Bruce S. Fisher

[chocolate]

Posted by aranuk (here)

... When I am in Silence/darkness there is absolutely no description that makes any sense to that experience. No talk of Divine, Source, Higher Self, there is nothing and no mind, complete freedom I would say. No Love, and nothing else really. Just nothing that I am experiencing. No words can come close to describe it really. Maybe I AM no- thing and no- body, no personality, nothing at all.

Stan

And that is how death felt like. ( because TH asked me. I just won't mention the amount of tears that came out of my eyes after I read his post. No, TH, I's rather not talk about it, at least not in public. Not even in private, if I am not in the right company. )

Thank you, Stan.