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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
 Posted - May 08 2006 : 7:32:05 PM
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Something very strange happened this evening. My daughter and I were waiting in the car outside my other daughter's piano lessons. We were going over the study guide for a test tomorrow. We were almost done, during the last 3 questions.. I read them, then my eyes closed.. I could hear my daughter.. but did not know what she said.. so I forced my eyes open.. and asked her to repeat. Somehow finished the 3 questions, and told her I had to close my eyes for a few mins. For the next 15 mins, my eyes were closed and I was "i am" ing.. I was not asleep, I was not meditating, I had no thoughts, I was completely alert.. I could hear my daughter playing with her game, I could move, but I could not open my eyes and I could not stop "i am" ing. After 15 min my eyes opened.. I was fine, no discomfort, nothing..
What happened here? |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 08 2006 : 8:26:40 PM
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This was one of the "experiences" yogani talks about as being mere side effect of practice. This one's a pretty disruptive one, and the point of all this isn't to have our lives disrupted; quite the contrary, we're trying to smooth things out. So it's a sign you need to back off (are you meditating more than 20 mins at a stretch? Are you taking proper time to rest after meditation?).
The ultimate goal isn't to go into some samadhi coma, drooling ambrosia out of the sides of our mouth. So when stuff like this happens, 1. it's transitory, don't worry, 2. if it's disruptive (as this was), it's a sign you need to exercise the self-pacing AYP is always talking about, and 3. try to avoid the impression (always mistaken!) that something big and dramatic is about to happen and you FINALLY MADE IT! There's nothing to attain, we're just cleaning mud off our windshield and that's it. See the note about jolts and baby steps in this lesson: http://www.aypsite.org/280.html |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 08 2006 8:27:52 PM |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - May 08 2006 : 8:52:51 PM
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Jim,
I did not think it was something big.. I did not think I finally made it.. I did not think anything about it.. I just wasn't sure what happened that's all. As for self pacing.. I have cut stuff down a lot.. I an almost down to the bare minimum that I think is possible. My evening session is almost down to 15 mins and morning to 5+20+10(SB+meditation+shamyama). Please donot keep saying I am making a big deal about everything. That way it becomes hard to share something that scared me.
-Shanti. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 08 2006 : 8:56:08 PM
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Wow...I had my own "experience on that"! I didn't see your nametag, Shanti, I thought it was posted by someone new. Now THAT is strange!! I would have written it differently if I knew it was you!
Maybe I need to scale back, myself!
How long ago did you do the cut-down of practice time? As you know, there's a time delay sometimes on these things.
Are you getting exercise? Yogani mentions the benefit of it in his early lessons, and I've tried AYP with and without exercise, and can attest to the fact that "with" is a lot better!
In the end, see if it repeats, or if there are other disturbances. If so, you may indeed need to scale back more. I've had periods when I was doing the very minimum...sometimes it's like that. If it was a one time thing, it may have just been an energy thing or a particularly large block dissolving. Read the trends, watch the weather, etc. And only you can do this, there's a limited amount anyone else (even Yogani!) can know for you. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 08 2006 8:58:41 PM |
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - May 09 2006 : 12:38:13 AM
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Shanti - Your experience sounds very deep and I'd be very encouraged by it. Note that it didn't happen while driving or during some other activity - it happened when you were able to follow the mantra inward, which is apparently where you needed to go at that moment. I think the main question is how you felt afterward, and you seemed to be fine.
Jim - I wouldn't worry about this experience of yours too much, but who knows? Maybe something big and dramatic is about to happen to you. :) |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 09 2006 : 12:55:20 AM
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Actually, strange things ARE happening......
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - May 09 2006 : 08:03:25 AM
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Thanks Jim. I think you worked overtime yesterday anyway.. so its OK. Yep, I will keep an eye on this.. maybe it was just a one time thing. The experience itself did not scare me.. it surprised me, what sacred me was.. what if it happened when I was driving. Oh! well.. it did not and so that's that.
Thanks Meg, yes your are right.. it was deep.. and it did happen only when I could really be with myself. Thanks for your insight.
So Jim.. what are these "STRANGE THINGS" happening to you?
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 09 2006 : 11:51:31 AM
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Meg, Kundalini seems to be coming back up for round 3. And my bottomless capacity for disillusionment has reached a new low. I'm not sure if that's good or not for my sadhana, but, hey, I'm practicing and that's what matters. Basically, the first time, the opening led to bliss (ALL new openings offer a temporary bliss cookie). And the first time, I thought, as always, I was on the brink of something GREAT. Second time less so on both. This time, I'm shlepping around unshaved with a toothpick drooping on my lip, taking out the trash and looking as bedraggled as anyone....sort of like Larry King getting married a seventh time.
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 09 2006 : 11:52:23 AM
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This thread is a good opporunity to post one of the more surprising conclusions I've reached over time. It was mostly inspired by reading Sailor Bob (< http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7/ > and < http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0954779207 >), a nondualist/advaita teacher who's sort of the Yogani of advaita.
Sorry, but I'm going to have to approach this a bit roundabout...I hope you stay with me through all the verbiage!
The silence and stillness Yogani writes about is also (as Yogani himself says) an awareness (another word for "witness"). At your deepest level, this is your sentience, your awareness. Your mind might be totally immersed in thought, but you still hear the traffic outside. You may not be listening, but you're hearing....and that distinction means your mind's off it but your awareness is, unavoidably, on it.
Your awarenes is ALWAYS on it...that's why it's called your awareness! When an athelete or musician manages to get into the flow, he's bathing in that awareness, close to the silence, and it makes performance more beautiful, intense, and perfect because self-consciousness and other forms of post-processing have dropped away.
At our core is not spacing out. At our core lies the very opposite: awareness (that's a really important sentence...please reread!).
We recede from the world to do our practices - go somewhere quiet, close our eyes and pull back - but that's just to give ourselves a little push away from worldly stimulation, which normally preoccupies us 100%, so we stand a better chance of transcending mind. We think we are transcending the world, because to us, the world is our mind! But we're not receding in meditation because the world distracts, but because the mind grasps at the world, and THAT distracts! Your awareness has no problem with the world.; it shirks from nothing.
Once you get some stillness in your meditation, and you start getting an affinity for the silence and the state of raw awareness, you don't need to meditate to return to that (you DO need to meditate, however, to purify and remove blocks....which is a whole other thing). You can be deeply in your silence while bowling, driving, or shopping. If your mind doesn't grasp at the world, you live through your awareness. And that's quite enough, unless you need your mind for something (in which case, the tool is available). Those passing you in the street don't notice anything unusual. You're not a tranced out zombie, you're just quiet and happy. You dont' walk into fire hydrants, because your awareness alone is sufficient to protect you (religious version: "God will protect you").
So here's my point. Since your awareness is AWARENESS, all spacing out happens in the mind. You can walk, talk, eat, and not walk obliviously into walls even in quite a deep state of silence. You may stop using your mind to process the data, but the data still comes and is acted upon, because, again, that is awareness. In your awareness there is only crisp clarity. In your awareness you are wide awake. Your awareness is all that's required for you to deftly go about your business. Mice and amoebas do quite well getting through their days without self-awareness, judgement, and all the other swell features of this human mind!
Among the myths many of us have is that spiritual practice makes us spacey and untethers us from mundane daily activities. It only does that if you are doing your sadhana within mind, and thus trying to project some image you have of what a spiritual person is like so that those around you are aware of your spiritual attainments (in which case you may have also started wearing Easternish garb and smiling beatifically at everyone).
IMPORTANT: I'm not saying Shanti was doing this or is like this!! No, in her case, it was a spontaneous energy burp of some sort. But my point is that as you become clearer and deeper in your silence (which is what we're working to do!), you get more aware, not less. You don't space out. So any spacing out is a sign of overdoing, energy issues....PROBLEMS. Falling into trances and such sounds like the good stuff. It is not. The good stuff is clarity. Peaceful, content, non-grasping and non-discriminating clarity.
I find this a very handy yardstick indeed. Tranformative, even. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 09 2006 2:09:43 PM |
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - May 09 2006 : 1:30:08 PM
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| Thanks, Jim. Good points all. |
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Something strange.
