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Juliet
43 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 04 2007 : 4:45:55 PM
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Hi all you yogis and yoginis out there,
I am a seldom poster but a fairly often reader, and have been doing AYP, oh, about a year and a half now, with previous roads traveled down hatha, TM, et al.
I have read quite a few descriptions here of various exhalted "experiences," that is: the stars, tunnels, caduceuses, ourobouri (plural?) and so on. Okay, maybe no ourobouros.
But I haven't seen (maybe I missed it) anyone talking about weird, more yucky "shadow" type experiences. Am I the only one who ever has those? I mean the kinds of things that can only (hopefully) be explained as the result of REALLY YUCKY TOXIC stuff coming out.
I have had a couple of yucky OBE type experiences, one recently, that are a bit unsettling, nothing I'd want to tell my mom about, and I'm wondering if I'm alone in this. Is is karmic detox symptoms? Symptoms that some creepy entity is glombed on to me?? Something I ate?
The other night as I lay in bed, somewhere in that hypnogogic zone, not really meditating but sort of contemplating so hum or something--and I found myself suddenly "exported" into a wild, warm kind of wind tunnel or chute. I was not in control of the ride, but I was not scared. It seemed like I was traveling quickly through some kind of, well, "entrails" --with all the yucky stuff one might expect to find in entrails. Yuck. Right in my face. Nevertheless, I attempted to maintain my equanimity--kind of like a guard at Buckingham Palace. Then I turned some sort of corner and was hit in the face again but now with a bunch of filthy coins! Money! I somehow managed to try "oming" and a trap door opened and I landed in an elegant living room with an elderly couple who resembled Barbara Bush and an old version of Bill Clinton (!). The Barbara Bush type glanced up from her tea and said "well! You look like you've really been through it! You need to get into bed!" At which point I was released from whatever was gripping me and I "woke up" in my bed, slightly shaken but intact.
Yuck. What was that?
It was very visceral and I was "awake" the whole time.
Is it a bad sign? A good sign? Or just a sign of more garbage coming out, not to be taken any more seriously than the "good" experiences?
Looking forward to any insights.
Namaste,
Juliet
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Aug 04 2007 : 6:39:50 PM
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I'd say you have the answer to your question in your last part of the post. It is not to be taken any more seriously than the good experiences. It is your mind taking you on dream trips to spaces and places you need to face for one reason or another. I interpret journeys like that (of which I have had quite a few) as either (most common) own stuff coming up, or sometimes (very rarely) linking in to some collective junk stuff. (Very sensitive persons that are "energetically flexible" and open may go and visit quite a lot of different places in the astral world - can be confusing if it is uncontrollable and undesired.) Without diminishing your experiences (they can be quite profound and strong and "REAL" sometimes) I guess that's why it is so seldom spoken of in this forum - mind cleansing like that is normal and not much to interpret or dive into really... People here are often more interested in the higher frequencies beyond astral experiences. 
If you just stick to the knowing that nothing can harm you in any way and meet what you encounter with love and thankfulness because it's showing you all junk you have attracted during the past, you will be able to get out of the most uncomfortable rides with new insights. Eventually those rides will diminish. The higher you get in your own frequency the less you will attract those lower frequencies of thoughts and feelings from the astral band.
This quote from Gandhi has helped me realize what those peeks into ugliness is about:
quote:
The only devils that exist in the world are those running around in our own hearts, and that's where all our battles ought to be fought.
Thank you for sharing and good luck on your journeys.
PS: Sometimes if I'm low frequent and get visits of whatever yucky stuff, I pray and ask for peace and to be left alone. That is usually respected... If you have that "awareness" during the ride you can always ask for what you need and I hope you'll find that whatever you encounter is actually on your side and willing to follow your wish.
PPS: Dark stuff has been discussed though, have you seen this thread for example? Perhaps you'll find something nice in that one...
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....OPIC_ID=1243 |
Edited by - emc on Aug 05 2007 03:22:45 AM |
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lorf
48 Posts |
Posted - Aug 04 2007 : 8:29:46 PM
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Juliet,
Reading your text I come to think about Carlos Castanedas book "Art of Dreaming" where he travels in realms similar to what you describe. In this book he really got posessed by the experiences and got himself in trouble. It may be good to read but it may also have opposite effect. Just as EMC pointed out, we tend to attract whatever we set our focus on. And these experiences depend very much on the quality (frequency) of energy we are open for. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Aug 04 2007 : 10:06:24 PM
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quote:
The only devils that exist in the world are those running around in your own hearts, and that's where all our battles ought to be fought.
I couldn't possibly disagree more,, and I'm chagrined to see that Gandhi said this. The very foundation of his philosophy of non-violence is that violence begets violence.
Don't fight the devils. The devils will always beat you at the fighting game. Instead, love them. The way a small child loves her teddy bear.
How we deal with nightmares is a great laboratory for our handling of our subconscious shadows. Love the monsters. That's the only way.
Buddha's Metta Sutta:
With a boundless heart
Should one cherish all beings:
Radiating love over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths
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Kyman
530 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 01:23:33 AM
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I had a similar experience laying on my belly after doing so mantras for the first time. All of a sudden it was like my body was a sheet or a kite tail blowing the wind.
My normal body consciousness was not retained, it was if I fully melted or dissolved on the inside. Kinda like going on a magic carpet ride where you are the carpet. But you do know that you are simply laying there.
You might having more inner body experiences than outer. Who knows, but it'll be fun to observe what life is up to!
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Edited by - Kyman on Aug 05 2007 03:21:57 AM |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 03:31:37 AM
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Jim, I do believe that Gandhi was referring to the inner struggle we encounter when we meet those deamons and get scared of them. Then there is sort of a battle with your own fear before you get the courage to let go, face them and love them. That's the battle going on - the one daring to face your fear that is actually just manifested seemingly outside of you as that "deamon". When you realize it's your own creation and bravely face - and love - that fear without escaping, it goes. My deamons often cracked up in the biggest gentlest loving smile when I got to that point, blinking an eye and saying "Now, see... I just wanted to show you this. Now when you've got it, I'm not needed anymore. Bye!"
It's all love! All shadows are pure love! |
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Juliet
43 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 04:32:04 AM
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Thanks for the reality check, emc (well, maybe that's the wrong expression). Low astral is exactly what it was. Visceral.
I was thinking the strategy might be neither love nor battle, more like neutral witnessing stance.
Especially, I appreciate being able to put it out here so I don't feel like I need to worry about it or think about it further. Gone from mind.
Thanks,
Juliet
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 09:44:39 AM
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EMC,
I wasn't misunderstanding.
We produce the devils, we are the devils. We produce the fear, we are the fear. It's all effect of our self-creation of a supposed identity standing in hermetic separation (and thus opposition) to What Is. Fighting the devils or our fear of them is just yet more opposition. It deepens the problem and fuels both devils and fears.
You cannot fight fear, and you cannot fight the shadows. It is quite literally shadow-boxing. They cannot be vanquished. We can just let them be. It can all stay, just exactly as-is. We have only to melt into it all. Melting is love. Start by melting in love with that which is provoking.
There is absolutely no element - not one iota - of the spiritual path that's about tension or conflict. If you find yourself going in the direction of tension or conflict, know you're off course.
Juliet, love is not the opposite of battle. They are not twin phantoms. Battle (i.e. opposition) is illusion, but love is reality. Love is all there truly is, and any seeming absence of love is a willfully created situation. One can't add love...one simply stops withholding it.
But if the love angle doesn't speak to you, then, indeed, witnessing is the wisest strategy. If the notion of "loving the monsters" does happen to ring a bell, however, it's definitely something to pursue, inspired, hopefully, by Buddha's Metta Sutta, which conveys the entire picture (present topic would, naturally, represent the "downwards to the depths" part!  ) |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Aug 05 2007 09:53:35 AM |
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Juliet
43 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 10:51:35 AM
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Good one, Jim. Love is not the opposite of battle. You are right. Love (in my limited experience) can be the great dissolver of illusion.
But, isn't the idea of the witness one of dispassion?
Like the guards at Buckingham Palace who will never be distracted from their one-pointed duty? Neither exhalting nor recoiling?
Does the witness love?
Just curious. |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 11:13:57 AM
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| Sometimes rides like that can be a tour of what's inside you mentally. The line-up of things waiting to be purified. |
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Juliet
43 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 12:22:32 PM
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Thanks, that resonates, Etherfish. It *was* kind of like shooting through some yucky nadis.
Guess I better roll up my sleeves. Sheesh. Just when I thought I was making some progress... Oh, well, no time like the present.
Namaste to all the sanity and wisdom here! |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 1:03:26 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Juliet
But, isn't the idea of the witness one of dispassion?
Great great question. it's something that knocked me off kilter for decades.
Non-attachment, emptiness, stillness, and dispassion are terms translated from Eastern languages where they were coined by Eastern folks whose culture is different from ours. We read those words, and we see a cold emptiness of space. And, indeed, there are plenty of western seekers who, misunderstanding, get very brittle and icy and robotic. You may have met this type; they're in many ashrams, seminars, yoga classes. The problems is exacerbated by the "style" we associate with yoga, which is natural fabrics, tinkly music, and dry dry sandalwood.
But that's a total misperception of what it all is. You've surely noticed by now that paradox is where it's all at, so hopefully this one won't irritate you, but will, instead, open you: Emptiness is full of love.
Emptiness IS love. The energy which animates you is love. The mantra is love. Kundalini is love. The building block is love. The empty insubstantiability of it all (akasha!) is nothing but a vast potential energy of love, a pre-orgasmic lurching forward toward an iminent, gushing, crashing yelp of total love.
Did you ever really knock yourself out to make something as a gift for someone else, took WAY more time and effort and consideration so that everything about it would be just absolutely rife with love and care, and have them not particularly notice? They just scarf down the soup, or carelessly throw the painting in a closet, or daydream while you kiss them, or mentally go through their shopping list while you play them a concerto, or they throw on the hand-woven sweater like they bought it at Walmart?
That's how God must feel. The dollop of transcendence you feel every great once in a while during sex or while enjoying great art or on a gorgeous day is just the tiniest glimpse of the intense, throbbing, endless love in which we are continuously bathed. We just never notice. In fact, to the contrary: we use every bit of energy in every moment of our lives to build defenses against it. We pile the furniture against the door, and then we sit and tearfully bemoan the emptiness of our lives and attend spiritual workshops to find that which we block.
So....what is the teaching of non-attachment about? It's about ceasing our thirst to find this love in specific things - to only let this love in via certain specific lenses (sex, plasma tv, power, fame, money, comfort, sensory stimulation, the usual stuff). Ease up on the grasping, and just melt into the gushing, crashing yelp of it all!
What is dispassion/detachment? It's about opting out of our mind's unending obsession with dividing the universe into stuff it wants more of and stuff it wants less of. And it's about failing to be enticed by the carrots which lead us through day to day life wherein we're always approaching yet never arrive. For example: watch closely when the train arrives, and those waiting on the platform await the door opening. They are living for the door opening, to a really alarming degree. They are slaves to the doors opening! They do not exist - life doesn't exist - until the doors open. Will they be happy when the doors open? No, they they'll be living for finding a seat. Then living for the train arriving. Then living for getting out of the station. Etc ad infinitum. We're never actually living. We're slaves, no better than dogs running on the track following the mechanical rabbit.
We will not get anywhere by becoming neutered emotionless cold-hearted brittle drones. We are on a path of discovering that we are steeping in throbbing cosmic love (in fact, we spend lots of time cautioning each other about the dangers of overdoing...i.e. overdosing on love!). It's anything but dry. In fact, Indian gurus warn their students gravely about dry sadhanas. The aforementioned dry joyless people spend their lives dryly practicing, without loosening any of the ties binding them (and they too are steeping in love, ARE love...it's all there is...even their illusion of dryness, resulting from delusional thinking and a whole lot of missing what's right in front of them, is an unthinkably beautiful and intrinsic part of the collaborative art project with which we're all engaged...you're always "in it"!).
If I could offer one word of advice, it's this: practice with feeling. Let (don't "make"..."LET") your bhakti blow the doors off. It's about joy. It's about love. It's about orgasm. It's just not so much about grasping for and recoiling from the stuff you love and hate, and other muckings around in the trivial details of day-to-day life. I exist in peace and happiness regardless of the state of the train doors on the platform. And a traffic jam's as good as a Caribbean vacation. It's all just stuff.
But you asked about witness. The witness has no flavor. It is not the flavor of love or battle OR "neutrality". The witness is the screen on which the flickering images of the movie play. We are entranced by the phantasmagorical images, but the screen is an unchanging mirror. The witness is not your point of view. It's not your interpretation. It's not the flavor of your inner or outer perspective or perception. It's way behind all those things. And, indeed, to reach a point where the mirroring is seen clearly - relatively undistorted - you need to be unpeeled from the grasping and recoiling...i.e. exhibit detachment and dispassion. But in the sense per above, not in the sense of binding your heart more tightly than ever. That's what got you into this mess! |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Aug 05 2007 1:20:34 PM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 1:28:17 PM
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I must note that none of this is stuff you need to try to do or become. It's what naturally happens with practice...so long as you don't get in your own way. Deliberately stripping love out of your equation or trying to affect a certain style or point of view as you practice is an example of the latter!
Sit, say "I am" a lot, and utterly let the Cosmic Barber trim your hair. The rest follows in due course. "Let" happen, don't "make" happen. That includes letting love happen (love is not an add-on, love is the default, so if love's not happening, it's 'cuz you're not letting it!)
And if, in your daily life, the monsters provoke you, love the monsters: Radiating love over the entire world; Spreading upwards to the skies; And downwards to the depths
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Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Aug 05 2007 1:34:08 PM |
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gumpi
United Kingdom
546 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 2:19:53 PM
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Hi, gaurds at Buckingham Palace remind me of the gold coloured men near charing cross station that pose as statues for ages and then move. How do they not blink??
They must be in samadhi, lol. |
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"Shadow" Experiences??
