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lmaher22
USA
217 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 19 2012 : 1:42:53 PM
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| If you can have a spiritual awakening can you also have a spiritual 'going back to sleep'? Also, if you brain advances a bit from meditating will it revert back if you stop? |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2012 : 2:11:06 PM
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I guess so...
Meaning... spiritual awakening happens as the layers of conditioning are let go to reveal the stillness/truth...and going back to sleep is the truth getting hidden behind the various conditioning of the mind... and once we stop living aware(of our mind), layers of vasanans (impressions) can conceal the stillness...like clouds hiding the sun. The degree to which this can happen though, depends on how much we have "seen"... after a certain point I think it's hard to allow ourselves to become completely lost in the mind again. 
The brain makes constant new neural connections... and as they say if you don't use it you lose it... so not 100% sure, although I wont say anything can revert back, but you may lose some of the things that may have been gained by meditation. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2012 : 8:01:54 PM
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| You certainly can, although once you have been awake its pretty difficult to forget about it. You have to keep working at it. Sometimes I bum a few hours off, its like going to a show where you get totally engrossed and carried away. Can't stay like that because I know where it leads but its definitely fun for a while. |
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lmaher22
USA
217 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2012 : 12:17:36 PM
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| Thanks guys, either you exercise and diet or you get fat. On we go in life: This tale told by an idiot. |
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Sover
Sweden
4 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2012 : 05:00:39 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
You certainly can, although once you have been awake its pretty difficult to forget about it. You have to keep working at it. Sometimes I bum a few hours off, its like going to a show where you get totally engrossed and carried away. Can't stay like that because I know where it leads but its definitely fun for a while.
This rings very true for me, being living proof of it.
I had an "awakening" due to a drug-related episode. At the time I didn't practice any practices related to yoga, and so I gradually fell "back to sleep" with the occasional periodical awakening. About a year after my experience I discovered AYP when I was (still) searching for more information on what my experience actually was. At the time I had lost the "enlightenment" but there's no way I could have forgotten about it. I'm very glad to have found a way back to the state of natural bliss and inner stillness - although this time around it doesn't come for free or as suddenly. |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2520 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2012 : 06:36:46 AM
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quote:
although this time around it doesn't come for free or as suddenly
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just practice with no expectation and with no need to revive the same experience you had in the past...things will comes by themselves in due time |
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boiica
Croatia
1 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2012 : 08:59:37 AM
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I was wondering the same thing and recently realised that after certain point it's very difficult to go back to sleep.
After seven or eight weeks of doing meditation (and getting wonderful results), i felt ready to try pranayama and the first time i did it it helped me to visualize one of my problems completely.
Also i noticed that i was aware of this problem in meditation but spinal breathing threw it in the open completely.
Once i saw it detached from me i realized that it was part of me but it didn't belong there. I can recognize it now for what it is and i don't think i could identify myself with it again.
Also i have this urge to tell someone about experience, hope it doesn't get lost in translation :) |
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k123
118 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2012 : 09:40:20 AM
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Thanks boiica, good to hear things are working for you and opening up areas. I too have found that once I have recognised certain things there is more space and it is hard to identify completely again. I have not had a complete awakening, but on a relative level it seems to be true too.
It doesn't get lost in translation and it is good to hear from you |
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Johnluke
5 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2012 : 10:20:14 AM
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Waking Up to the perfection of Self for most of us will be a lifetimes loving work and it is much the same as waking up from a Very Deep Sleep....you will first wake a little and have glimpses then back to sleep then another glimpse each time getting a bit brighter and so on, then finally you Know you have to get Up.... and the distance between the snoozes gets less and less, at least that is if we keep the daily practices going in a self willing/self paced manner.
As for the physical body i would not concern yourself too much with it as long as your not destroying it, it will take care of it self with a balanced life style and as the Light of Self shines through as you wake up due to your loving inner work you will naturally Know what it needs.
I think the real question on this site/forum that many should ask them selfs is what is a "Spiritual Awakening" it seems a popular word used in lets call it the main stream Yogic/Spiritual circles today. And indeed it will serve as a spring board to propel the aspirant forward but we don't want to fool our selfs as so many will. To experience something and have a mental impression left in the mind means it was not direct still illusionary in quality ...what i mean if you have memory as experiencing it then it is still diluted by Mind. At the end of the day we want to have Samadhi the No Mind State and this is the Yogic conundrum when one does have Samadhi you will have No Memory of it!! When you come back into Mind you will Know something has happened and you WILL be speechless you will not be able to refer to it as This or That as there was no separation... Now you don't want to chase Samadhi as that is pointless just do your loving work and when the time is right for you the Atman will shine forth!
:)
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Edited by - Johnluke on Oct 21 2012 10:31:57 AM |
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awakening
