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brushjw
USA
191 Posts |
 Posted - May 02 2008 : 10:17:35 PM
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A while back I was confused as to how I could be experiencing bliss as a fruit of my meditation practice yet still be in a prolonged place of despair. After I was able to get some distance from the despair I realized that they both were a result of my practice. "Pure bliss consciousness" and "purification", as Yogani puts it.
Here's how Franklin Merrell-Wolff puts it in Pathways Through to Space:
"A fire descends and consumes the personal man. For a time, short or long, this Fire continues. The personal man is the fuel, and the fuel, in greater or less measure, does suffer. But fire does not destroy; it simply transforms. The fact can be realized by an analysis of what takes place through the action of ordinary fire. If a log is burning, the fuel is principally, if not wholly, in the form of carbohydrates, and the fire transforms these into carbon dioxide and water vapor. There remains a small amount of ashes, the persistently earthy portion of the log. The carbohydrate in the log was a fixed form, partaking, for a time of the earthy solidity of the mineral associates in the log. But as the carbohydrates become carbon dioxide and water vapor, they take on new form in the freer world of the air. So too, does the Fire which descends and consumes the personal man but Transform him. Only the ash of the personal nature is left behind, while the rest, the best of the personality, is taken up to be conscious in airy spaces. The ultimate state is one of a far, far greater Joy."
Words like these are truly food for my soul.
Namaste,
Joe
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brushjw
USA
191 Posts |
Posted - Jun 03 2008 : 8:11:15 PM
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I'm finding that FMW often has better words to describe my experiences than I do. For example:
"I happened to glance out of the door where a small yellow kitten was playing on a broad cement platform. It ran across the platform and I felt a thrill of delight. It was as though a tiny melody from out of the Cosmic Symphony had trilled joyously in my mind - a little sketch born forth from the Grand Harmony. And from this a wave of Joy was distilled and pulsated through me." (p. 16)
FMW being who he is, he immediately tempers this poetic description with a more logical explanation, which I also appreciate:
"It is not that the physical or photographic fact became different, but surrounding the incident was an enveloping matrix of meaning. It was this matrix that sublimated the ordinary so that it became joyous."
I had a similar experience a little while ago with the pattern of steam forming on a coffee maker. Nothing anyone would normally notice, but the sublime pattern was beautiful in its simplicity as the steam waxed and waned in quick patterns, all in a canvas of about two inches square. Encapsulated within that dance was a matrix of meaning that sublimated the ordinary so it became joyous. Yes, indeed.
namaste,
Joe |
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anaitkes
USA
12 Posts |
Posted - Sep 28 2009 : 9:44:07 PM
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| Although FMW's words are indeed beautiful here about the Cat and the Cosmic Symphony, it is good to be aware that such experiences are not necessarily the exclusive property of yogis and anyone can experience such a thing through drugs, or by simply being in a receptive mood. Children may experience life already in such a way without any prior training or teaching or drug since they seem to live predominantly in the world of impressions, i.e., the dreaming capacity of mind. |
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Franklin Merrell-Wolff
