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ycloutier2000
Canada
78 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 20 2005 : 7:35:19 PM
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The peace from meditation lingers on with me for many hours. You know that space where the emptiness just feels so good (I like to call it "the zone")?
The mind seems uninvolved during activity - as though there is only the witness. No problem there, I could live in that peace all the time. What I am finding is that since mind is empty, I don't feel as though I have to anything to say. There is only the witness and the doing.
Now, at work, people like to talk, to chit chat incessantly - they have not tasted the silence. Many are incapable of silence. Most are uncomfortable with silence - especially around other people. It's like a reflex, if someone is there, they need to talk, almost as though the world would end if they didn't say something.
Though I have no problem with silence, I sometimes feel I give off the impression that I am a snob or something. I feel as though I have to force myself to think of useless things to talk about, just so others don't feel so uncomfortable around my silence. I feel I have to say something for THEIR sake.
Am I worrying too much about what others might be thinking? Should I simply not worry about it and be in that silence if that's what is there at the moment?
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Dec 20 2005 : 11:26:44 PM
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You won't love my answer, I'm afraid, but you're describing something so classic that it'll be of great use to all reading along.
If you find yourself getting annoyed by the normal "noise" of the world, that's a symptom that you need to pull back. Any time you're not smooth with the world, you need to heed Yogani's frequent warning about self pacing. Do less, add nothing new for a long while, and even stop doing whatever last practice you've recently added.
AYP is a practice for those of us who choose not to live naked in caves, and to continue worldly engagement. You're describing an iconic example of clash with worldly engagement. And you must understand that the clash isn't spiritual (God is in the noise, God is in the chatter, God is in it all), it's just about energy and nadis. This is step one of what it's like to get toasted by too much practice. Next step is feelings of real irritation. If you don't pull back at that point, things get really unpleasant. AYP is about slowly stepping up the silence and the purification so you can accept the world precisely as it is. Surrender and acceptance in a way that's ultra smoothly and without the slightest irritation. Irritation is not a good sign, and neither aloofness. It reflects something gone wrong on your end.
In other words (again, I apologize) it's not that you've grown so much that the world is too coarse and vulgar for you. It's that you've scrubbed too hard and your nervous system is irritated. Ease up. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Dec 20 2005 11:28:43 PM |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Dec 21 2005 : 06:40:37 AM
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Hello Y,
for further perspective, if you have a newly quiet mindspace, you can come across as aloof until it is 'integrated'.
One way of looking at what mantra yoga does is quieten and stimulate the head and it can take some time for the 'energy' to 'work its way down' and integrate in the body. When it does, the apparent aloofness will go away.
Also people probably won't complain about any aloofness if they feel from your energy that you are on their side. What they see, if they feel you are on their side, they will probably not label as 'aloofness'.
Question: What would make them consistently get the feeling from you that you are on their side?
-D |
Edited by - david_obsidian on Dec 21 2005 06:41:44 AM |
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ycloutier2000
Canada
78 Posts |
Posted - Dec 21 2005 : 10:49:02 AM
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See, that's the thing. I really don't think I'm doing too much - just meditation, without any other practice, brings me to this lingering quietness inside. I'm naturally a quiet person to begin with. Meditation simply accentuates it. After meditation, I am active in the world - I go out, do my work...only, it seems the level of involvment by the mind is lighter, subtler.
I have been doing the AYP meditation for almost 4 years(only I was initiated with a different mantra). For the first few years, I was doing pranayama also. However my commitment to my practice had been less intense, less consistent during the last year. I have received a second wind from AYP and have recomitted to my practice, but I have only started with meditation in siddhasana for now.
I'll give it some, maybe there is a period of readjustment going on, but if it's not that, then I'll try doing just the before-dinner meditation. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Dec 21 2005 : 11:52:08 AM
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how much meditation per session are you doing? Yogani doesn't recommend (much) more than 20 minutes. You can work up to more - a lot more! - but it becomes progressively harder to live in the world. Everyone seems chatty and noisy and vulgar. It gets irritating.
The goal is to reach a point of slippery emptiness where you may be quiet - even silent! - and everything in your environment passes through you (without even slowing down) like Godly love. Irritation is the precise exact opposite of what we're shooting for. Irrititation is blocking, it is a dividing up of some parts of God as positive and other parts as negative. Conducive and non-conducive. Pairs of opposites that the mind uses to pull us out of unity.
I was in a bar last night sitting next to a 64 year old transit worker named Fred who wanted to use me to bounce off his vehement theories of racial inferiority and "the problem of black people." He would not stop. After an hour, we were fast friends. Nothing he said got "stuck in my craw", as they say. I felt 100% comfortable sitting next to him, even with Britney Spears blasting out of the jukebox. It's all God.
I'm not telling you "act more like this". That's not how it works; action and behavior are a result of neurological change which are a result of practice. I'm just trying to show you that there's a different potential outcome.
I'm betting you're meditating a lot longer than AYP recommends. I'd strongly suggest scaling back. If I'm wrong, then hopefully Yogani will stop in and offer some wisdom. but, in any case, I hope I've conveyed at least the notion that the problem may be on your end, and not with the world. The world is perfect and permeated with more love than we can possibly stand (even in the most obnoxious racist bad breath chattering). We are, all of us, maladjusted to it.
PS--the more slippery and open and receptive and unbound and unirritible your practices make your nervous system, the more of that unwithstandable love you can stand! ;) |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Dec 21 2005 12:03:02 PM |
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ycloutier2000
Canada
78 Posts |
Posted - Dec 21 2005 : 2:58:47 PM
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| No, I do about 15 minutes, give or take. I think what I was trying to explain is what you are referring to as "slippery emptiness, where things just go through you". I'm not feeling irritated, not at all. On the contrary, I just let whatever is happening happen... |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Dec 22 2005 : 02:59:02 AM
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Well, I suppose I took your original posting completely wrong. Rereading, I get the identical impression, but sometimes consistent results are consistently wrong results! :)
Perhaps someone wiser and more perceptive than me will respond. But hopefully my thoughts will prove helpful to others reading along. |
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yogani
USA
5241 Posts |
Posted - Dec 22 2005 : 12:07:12 PM
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Hi Y:
As the witness comes up, there can be that sense of separateness. It can be misinterpreted as an aloofness, but that is only a temporary situation or stage that we can easily let go of in favor of so much more. Inner silence wants to move out from us into the environment in many ways. That is its (our) nature. In fact, the expression of concern you have given here is a symptom of silence wanting to move outward!
It is a normal evolution of consciousness you are going through.
In the new book, Deep Meditation, the progression is covered from inner silence to witness stage, to rising ecstasy, and to the unity of outpouring divine love. It just keeps evolving like that.
Good experience ... it is freedom on the rise ... your freedom, and everyone's. Carry on! 
The guru is in you.
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
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Nicole
USA
46 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2006 : 11:31:34 AM
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Hello ycloutier2000,
I think, and this is only my opinion, that you are encountering a new thought process and simply analyising the changes. Their is no need to worry, as far as what others think or what your doing, or should be etc. Be patient live in the present and enjoy the journey. When I first started meditating I noticed a lot of differences in myself and others and I know what you mean about the silence thing, especially in an elevator you know? :)
In time, with continual practice everything will become a lot clearer.
Hope this helps.
Nicole
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Nicole
USA
46 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2006 : 11:37:16 AM
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| Just realized this is an old post oops :) |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2006 : 12:05:13 PM
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It's quite OK to reply to an old post, Nicole. People do it all the time.
The replies aren't just for the person who placed the question, but they also help other people who look over the posts later. 
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Edited by - david_obsidian on Jan 25 2006 12:12:55 PM |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2006 : 1:58:37 PM
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I found this thread interesting.I can definately empathize with ycloutier's experience but also with Jim's take on what he thought Y meant .
I definately have been an over meditator in the past and I think reading a lot of Ramana Maharshi or rather maybe misinterpreting Him to view the world as an illusion and end up with some psychotic feelings in the bag .
When I started doing the divine light med we were encouraged to be aware of the breath 24/7 amongst other things and the whole trip divided ones attention from the work being done in the world and made it all very dream like.
I hate to realise it but I was so into it that when I look back and see how much of living I was not in touch with because I didnt think it important I could cry.
The traditional eastern view of the world (more Indian rather than the pragmatic chinese/japanese)just doesnt seem to fit in with this culture but was very attractive in the swinging 60's and following decade,I definately fell for it. |
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Frank-in-SanDiego
USA
363 Posts |
Posted - Jan 26 2006 : 11:43:36 PM
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Hari Om
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Hello ycloutier2000
If I may share with you what I have been taught - We're simple people when it comes to meditation and touching this SELF within...Follow your bliss...its that simple.
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
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Meditation, Detachment and Daily Activity
