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Anthem
1608 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 19 2006 : 10:36:57 PM
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I was meditating tonight and from the beginning, it was one of those sessions where there was a lot more energy than usual. I thought nothing of it, other than noticing it, and continued on. The mantra was staying with me more than usual and near the end of the session all the energy started to pull me up, I think my even my head was being pulled up and definitely my eyes, and all the breath too. My attention was pulled up to the top also, to my crown and all my breath felt pulled up out of me, but my lungs were full (at least the last I remember they were). I was aware of an empty dark void, like the night sky without any stars. I don't know why but all I could think was that this was similar to being dead and then I became a little scared when I noticed I wasn't breathing for so long and then I kind of came out of it. Then of course I remembered to go back to the mantra. Afterwards I felt a little physically drained from what felt like an exertion.
I can't help but wonder if I had not been scared that I wasn't breathing if I could have been in that place a little longer? It happens to me almost every meditation where my breath pauses or supends at one end or the other, but never the feeling or sensation of it being pulled out of me (when I think I was at the top of my breath) or falling back into this inner space?
Anyone ever have this happen and if so, what happens if you just go with it longer? |
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MatthewC
Japan
13 Posts |
Posted - Jan 19 2006 : 11:33:06 PM
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Hi Anthem11,
I have only been using the AYP practices a couple of months (though meditating about 4 years) and I have experienced similar sensations. Breathing seems to be suspended, (and time too on a couple of occasions). My awareness seems to be pulled up as well and it ends up feeling like I am either just above my body or in deep space just hovering there. The first time it happened it felt as if my head was being twisted off. Not painfully, but rather my awareness was just that if I opened my eyes I expected to be able to see the wall behind me. That freaked me out a bit and I ended up putting my hands up and touching my nose just in case!
Now, it's just another of those experiences that I suppose happen when meditating, and when my mind decides it wants to join in the fun by thinking about it, I just do what you do and go back to the mantra and leave it at that.
All the best,
Matthew |
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Frank-in-SanDiego
USA
363 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 12:09:20 AM
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Hari Om
~~~~~~
quote:
Originally posted by Anthem11
I can't help but wonder if I had not been scared that I wasn't breathing
Hello Anthem,
I do not have an answer for you , nor do I believe there is one. Meditations change as time and experience unfold. That said, my breadth was lost most recently, and frankly I just don't think much of it any more... it was to the point that I wondered if my body forgot how to do it!!! ((( ))) and I fogot how to start it!
We take it easy and take it as it comes...alls well because in the final analysis the DNA-intelligence in us all will rule and prana returns.
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 01:18:39 AM
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Thank you for your replies Matthew and Frank. I realize that ultimately any experience doesn't last and it is fleeting and not the important part of the journey. I just keep at my practices and all will unfold in time. This however was different than any other time I have been meditating (many years) in terms of breath suspending. That happens a lot and like you Frank i don't notice it much anymore, it just pauses somewhere along the line in a subtle way and starts again at some point just as quietly.
The points I found curious about this time were that it felt like it was dramatically pulled up and out as all the ecstatic energy pulled up and then the associated fear with my breath feeling pulled out this way. I would be in denial if I didn't admit that part of me was worried about what would happen if I stayed too long in this place without breathing. I wondered if anyone had a similar experience and what happened if they stayed longer. With ordinary breath suspensions, they have never grabbed my attention this way so there was never concern associated with the experiences and I just kept meditating away oblivious. <<-- Hopefully I will be more this way the next time something like this occurs again! |
Edited by - Anthem on Jan 20 2006 01:20:18 AM |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 03:46:02 AM
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Anthem.
I know exactly what you mean by the experience you describe,it has happened to me quite a lot,mainly when I was doing Hong sau,1st time it frightened the s***t out of me but each time I tried to surrender to it more.One of the things that I remember distinctly was having an electric shock each time I realized I wasn't breathing,as though the shock was needed to breath again.
It's quite sometime now since it happened and I felt at one sitting that if I went any further I wouldn't return.I don't think about it now but your post refreshed my memory.
Another thing that used to happen was a lot of spinning experinces ,not unpleasant like when people have inner ear disease but like a vortex of energy that got faster and faster.
I used to go hunting for this stuff but I now feel it's energy doing it's stuff . |
Edited by - snake on Jan 20 2006 09:17:59 AM |
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yogani99
USA
153 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 10:41:39 AM
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Hi Anthem and all:
Good perspectives on the experience here. It is purification to a degree more noticeable than has happened before. So we can get used to that. It can be with light or darkness, joy and sometimes a little fear. Hopefully not too much of the latter, especially not overflowing into daily activity. If so, then we know that extra attention on self-pacing of practices will be in order.
A theme in the replies that is clear is the gradual rise of surrender. By this, we do not intend to let the energy go to excess, and surrender to the resulting chaos. No. What we want is a stable unfoldment, and then gradually increasing levels of surrender within that platform of stability. Eventually, the platform of regulated practices will become completely transparent, just as our nervous system becomes a pure channel of divine love flowing into the world. Then our surrender becomes unconditional, and the world around us is transformed by the infinite divine flowing through us.
I remember for quite a few years I was chasing spiritual transformation. That chase is what drove my path. Then, when things started to break loose, I soon came to realize that spiritual transformation was chasing me. That changed the whole dynamic. That was when I had to get serious about self-pacing, and also about letting go, surrendering into what was happening. There is really no other choice, because the process itself comes to be in charge at a certain point (it always was) and the best we can do is learn to navigate skillfully like we are in a kayak going down the rapids. Sometimes we are in total surrender. Other times we are holding back so as not to overdo.
We could call this process navigating the awakening of kundalini, but that is sort of a cliche. I prefer to call it navigating the process human spiritual transformation, which includes so many more nuances than the cliche.
The John Wilder story is about this transformation from seeking to self-pacing and surrendering, and the ultimate consequences of that. In the end, it is no longer about our individual self, but the common good (universal Self). The metaphor of the caterpillar transforming into a butterfly captures it. Total sacrifice leading to radiant new life that uplifts all of nature. We are that...
In any case, it is what it is. All paths are determined by the natural processes of evolution occurring within the human nervous system. All we are doing here is awakening them in the most progressive and safest ways we know. The final destination is not determined by us. It is determined by our letting go -- our surrender by degrees to what will be. In doing so, we open the door to our illumination and to the illumination of the world.
The guru is in you.
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 12:14:43 PM
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Anthem said:
I can't help but wonder if I had not been scared that I wasn't breathing if I could have been in that place a little longer?
Yes, but that's par for the course in meditation and you can't really do anything about it that's any better than following the practice as taught. The 'being scared' and the way you responded to it is like any other thought.
Anthem said:
I would be in denial if I didn't admit that part of me was worried about what would happen if I stayed too long in this place without breathing. I wondered if anyone had a similar experience and what happened if they stayed longer.
There are times when Mr. hard-nose can be reassuring.
Yes Anthem, I have had experiences very like that.
I want to assure you that you won't die from asphyxiation. Not a chance. The need to breath is heavily over-engineered in the body. There are all sorts of mechanisms making you breath. People cannot willfully kill themselves by holding their breath, for example. When the brain reaches a certain level of oxygen-deficiency, an automatic mechanism kicks which over-rides the conscious will and starts breathing. So even willful breath-holding, even if 'extreme' is I believe quite safe, provided you have a healthy heart.
The second thing is to understand that these spontaneous 'Kumbhak' events (breath-holding events) are going hand in hand with a significant drop in metabolic rate. The breath is slowing down, or even stopping, because less of it is needed. The drop in metabolic rate can be at times remarkable.
ya said:
I wondered if anyone had a similar experience and what happened if they stayed longer.
I have had very similar experiences.
You would emerge at the other end of a worm-hole in a parallel universe, and Jody Foster would tell you this is her movie and she'd whoop your ass and send you home. LOL.
Seriously, if and when you do stay there, it will represent progress in your path, but it will be no big deal. You'll adapt. Just like you've adapted to everything else that is happening.
As Yogani said, and I think it is great to keep in mind, 'All steps are baby-steps'.
And regarding the void, this is my experience: that vast emptiness which appeared to you/me as a black starless sky --- it can be a little dramatic and scary to experience it for the first time(s), but it's quite harmless.
Our fear is not actually of the void, which is harmless and lovely, but our fear is really of what else we think we might find in there. As a child afraid of 'the dark', is actually afraid of what it might find in the dark.
But we won't find anything at all in the real void. There's nothing there to bite us at all. Once the crap of clinging and being-scared clears away, it has absolutely zero bite. So we can relax -- it's soft and kind and empty, like sleep. Make that empty blackness your friend, just as sleep is your friend, and ultimately, death too, when its time comes, is your friend.
And, though it's quite paradoxical, that empty blackness actually is the 'Eternal Light'. 'Seen' more closely, it is as much bright as dark. Maybe in a way similar to how people can find deep silence to be 'loud' in a way, this void is actually bright/light/fullness as well as dark/darkness/emptiness at the same time! Darkness and light lose their distinction in the true void, just as all forms do.
'Darkness without darkness, light without light' --- I think that is Sri Yukteswar quoting 'Babaji' about these states in Autobiography of a Yogi.
Regards,
-David
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Edited by - david_obsidian on Jan 20 2006 1:38:05 PM |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 7:10:44 PM
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Thanks Yogani and David for your replies they are reassuring.
The fear in the experience was related to not breathing for so long not the experience of the void. That part just was what it was. In know crappy explanation but that's the best I can do.
No fear has carried over into my daily life, on the contrary there has been a very positive carry over. I am more aware of my breathing in practices since then however, but I am sure it will dissipate in time. |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2006 : 12:02:44 PM
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Anthem said:
The fear in the experience was related to not breathing for so long not the experience of the void. That part just was what it was. In know crappy explanation but that's the best I can do.
Good. I am happy to have that reassuring stuff about 'the void' there though, because it may help someone sometime. It's quite possible to frighten ourselves about the void, though it isn't scary in itself.
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2006 : 1:24:27 PM
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The first time I remember going into the void was after a week long Zen retreat. It did not happen during the retreat but as soon as I sat down and meditated at home - wham - straight into a dark void.
Because of my Christain fears around darkness, at the time, I was very scared of this and after a few time I willed in light to fill the darkness. This did replace the darkness but it also brought me out of the void.
The problem was, the Zen master had returned to Japan and there was no one else around to direct me. Something that is clearly redressed here and is a wonderful support.
With regard to the breathing. When I read that book "The Power of Now" by Eckart Tolle and he talked so convincingly about simply stopping thinking. I began to experiment with this and found that for me to stop thinking I had to momentarily stop breathing. I would take a few deep breaths and when it felt natural would pause and stop thinking. This was quite a revelation for me and after a while I discovered a vast emptiness, which I'm happy to say was nothing like the scary experience of the dark void.
I know this is a different approach to AYP but I had not heard of AYP untill recently and just thought I would offer the experiences.
S
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