I listened to many hours of video teaching, by Osho, by S. N. Goenka, by Ven Ajahn Brahm, by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, by Rabbi Erez Moshe Doron (Author of the book "The Warriors of Transcendence").
Cross referencing all the sources I mentioned above, and comparing them with my personal experience I concluded the following:
Meditation is about detaching consciousness from the senses. In the waking state, both the senses and consciousness are awake. In the sleep state, we lose both – our senses and our consciousness. What we try to do in meditation is to lose our senses, but keep our consciousness, and thereby break the identification of consciousness with the limitation imposed on it by the senses.
The five senses are sending us signals, each of these signals becomes a stimulation, meaning, it creates a sensation - pleasant or unpleasant. We react to the stimulation, not to the external object. As this lady says and I agree:
There is no problem in reaction to stimulations, as long as it is not an automatic reaction, or as Osho says - there is a difference between a reaction and a response, if you react, you are controlled by an external force. What makes the difference between a reaction and a response is the awareness. If you don't react immediately to a stimulation, you leave room for awareness; for mindfulness; for discretion.
If consciousness is attached to the senses, than a pleasure sensation imprints an addiction in the consciousness, and a painful sensation imprints a trauma in the consciousness.
Trauma and addiction are the reason why we react automatically to stimulations. How do we stop it? We let the light of awareness go into our consciousness. As Osho says, the light of awareness melts down all the negativity suppressed in our subconscious.
How do we amplify our awareness? We need to give it some room. If we don't leave room for quiet, between the time the stimulation hit us, and the reaction, we don't leave time for awareness to happen, and separate the consciousness from the senses.
Ven Ajahn Brahm says, the human being has two main aspects, the 'doer' and the 'knower', and we need to take the energy, or the attention, from the 'doer' to the 'knower'. Osho also says something similar, "meditation is doing nothing at all – just be the watcher on the hill. Contemplation is also doing, concentration is also doing. you can't practice it, you just have to understand it" I think that's way, in meditation, we put our awareness on one continues stimulation, like the breath, because moving the attention from one stimulation to another, is also a reaction. And even keeping the attention on one object forcibly, is a reaction – it is also a form of doing. You need to simply let-go, and sink into the object of meditation, effortlessness is the name of the game. Ven Ajahn says, you don't realy need an object to meditate on, if you are experienced enough, you can by pass this stage, and jump right to pure awareness. or as Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it: the main thing is not the object of attention, but the attentiveness itself. Eventually the object of attention drops down by itself; you don't wait for the right time to drop it, as this is also 'doing'.
I find that the main purpose of a mantra is to quiet the mind. Also S. N. Goenka said so. I see we have 6 tools of doing, 2 hands, 2 legs, the sex organ, and... the head. The head is doing the thinking and the talking. In the middle of all the action organs is the heart, where the attention /awareness is. In meditation you stop the activity of all the doing organs, and activate the mindfulness organ - which is the heart (spiritually speaking). 'Doing' is a distraction, and disturbs the 'knowing'. As Ven Ajahn Brahm says: "if you take notes on a lecture, you don't hear parts of the lecture". The 'doer' and the 'knower' don't work together.
S. N. Goenka said: in vipassana, don't use a mantra. it quiets the mind very easily, but ... and then he gives reasons why not to use it. None of those reasons made any sense to me. And from my personal experience, if you are not a monk, living outside of the action, it is very hard to quiet the mind without a mantra.
In the YouTube movie "Spiritual Reality - The Journey Within" we are introduced to a form of mindfulness meditation and the instruction is not to chant a mantra, because chanting a mantra is an activity of the mind, and there for it should be stopped. This makes sense, as in meditation we try to stop the 'doer' and activate the 'listener' or the 'knower', as mentioned above.
I once heard in a YouTube video by Abraham-Hicks: "the way to meditate is feeling for a vibration or listening for a vibration… until before you know it you'll feel a detachment from your physical environment, and the reason you feel a detachment from your physical environment is because you are tuning into your inner world, where there is not sight, and there is not sound, and there is not smell, and there is not taste, and there is not touch…" According to that, how can a mantra be a meditation object? It is not a sense object that keeps your attention active, while the 'doer' goes to sleep; it is a doing by itself. Transcendental meditation always made me wonder, what is the object of attention in this meditation technique? In transcendental meditation you don't mess with your attention at all. once the mind is quiet, the attention moves naturally inwards, the technique itself is a mechanical process of repeating a thought in the mind, as I heard Maharishi saying so himself.
Therefore I think a mantra is not an attention object to keep the 'knower' awake, it is activity, but an activity that eventually brings the mind to its rest. From my experience, quieting the mind, on the one hand, while channeling your attention to a soft stimulation - like the breath, gives me the best result, therefore, on the out going breath I think the mantra, while on the incoming breath, I put my attention on the sensation of the breath. This way I cover both aspects, I stop the 'doer', while channeling the energy to the 'knower'.
How does the mantra quite the mind? I heard a few explanations: One is that you disturb the activities of the inner chattering of the mind. Or that the inner chattering becomes regulated and disappears like a background noise, like the constant sound of a refrigerator. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is quoting a sutra that says, the only way to quiet a disturbed mind is by doing one thing, he says it has to do with creating boredom on the thought level
Maybe it's the boredom that is causing the attention to move away from thought, because by its nature, attention seeks for interest, and attention feeds the thinking process. Once attention detaches from thought, the minds activity is slowing down, even though you're not supposed to resist your thoughts, because that would be also a form of 'doing'. The byproduct is the quieting of the mind, even if it's not the immediate result. Anyway, whatever the explanation is, my experience is that repeating a mantra quiets the mind, and it is a very powerful tool.
Hope you find this interesting. You don't have to agree with me, but I like to hear your comments.
Regards,
Daniel
Now that I think of it, even if the mind is constantly chattering regardless of what you experience at this moment, and not as a reaction to current events, you still have to have a specific issue in mind. The mind can't do real multitasking. It can jump from one task to another, back and forth, very quickly, but it can't process 2 things at the same time, so focusing is essential for the mind to be able to process.
OK, I'm not saying that the moment I stop focusing, my head becomes empty of what ever it has accumulated previously, but the mind needs the division of time and place, otherwise it can't process. If you don't focus on a particular point in time and space, the mind can't relate to it, so if you perceive things without the division of time and space, you are going to a place where the mind can't follow you.
Is there anything wrong with my reasoning?
Yes, you and your mind (consciousness) are one, it is not a separate entity to you that you can try and separate yourself from, that only creates division and conflict, this is where acceptance comes into its own, we stop fighting self and allow ourselves to be.
I mean do you think the processes that go on in your mind, can be totally unrelated to your current experience? There has to be some association to what you are currently experiencing. Even the constant chattering that goes on in your head must be triggered somehow by current events.
Everything that is happening within you is current, there is a misconception that something which has already occurred and no longer exists can somehow move forward in time and create a problem, the event is not happening right now, but what is happening right now is the inner divisional conflict that was set up at some point past the event, we chose to judge and reject the event which judged self and that created a conflict, that conflict has been in the present ever since.
Normally it is a background chatter, simply because it has been rejected by self, we are repressing it and keeping it down, but as you are aware if something similar happens in the present, then it brings the existing divisional conflict back into to mind with clarity so that it can be resolved.
Now that I think of it, even if the mind is constantly chattering regardless of what you experience at this moment, and not as a reaction to current events, you still have to have a specific issue in mind. The mind can't do real multitasking. It can jump from one task to another, back and forth, very quickly, but it can't process 2 things at the same time, so focusing is essential for the mind to be able to process.
If that was true, then you could not have an inner divisional conflict! An inner divisional conflict arises when two or more opposing thought patterns and/or beliefs arise within consciousness at the same time, this is the constant chatter that most people experience most of the time.
Focus allow us to focus upon one thing, if I read an interesting book then I focus upon the words I am reading to the exclusion of everything else that is happening within the vicinity, I become absorbed with what the words are revealing to me, but if I am dong something like cooking, then I am multitasking, one thing goes on the stove for a while, whilst I am preparing the next thing, it is all in focus, because I have not set a singular focus on one part of the process in isolation to the rest.
You might find it helpful to think of consciousness rather than thinking of a singular aspect of our consciousness as in the thinking mind, we have several aspects of consciousness that are very capable of doing lots of different things at the same time, they can function as one or they can function in opposition to each other, that is the difference between a calm and clear mind and a disrupted mind that is in conflict.
we chose to judge and reject the event which judged self and that created a conflict, that conflict has been in the present ever since.
Normally it is a background chatter, simply because it has been rejected by self, we are repressing it and keeping it down, but as you are aware if something similar happens in the present, then it brings the existing divisional conflict back into to mind with clarity so that it can be resolved.
Why do we have to bring the conflict back to mind with clarity so that it can be resolved? Can't we just resolve it while it runs in the background? (As with most of my questions, I know this to be true, but I'm interested in the "why?").
An event that gives us an experience of trauma lasts as long as it needs to heal the symptoms, you have an accident and break your leg, you experience great pain and in a while the break is mended and you can walk about again without pain, an event that we perceive as a pleasant experience lasts as long as it lasts and then ends, we have to understand that any event that allows us to experience is completely neutral, the event that we experience does not know if we are experiencing pain or pleasure, it is our interpretation of what is that makes one person enjoy something whilst another person thinks that it was terrible.
This is a quote from a post not so recent. When you say pain or pleasure is our interpretation, this can be said on emotional pain, certainly you don't mean to say that physical pain is our interpretation. Pain is an experience, an inner experience, but non the less, an experience. And pain had been used for centuries, by governments to condition their subjects to follow their laws, and by parents to condition their children to follow their commands. It's the most primitive and old form of conditioning, so how can you say it is not a form of conditioning? and how can you say there is only self-conditioning?
Maybe in this case, your belief, that a person is totally free, and totally responsible for his experience, which - if I understood you - is a projection of himself ("our life experience is one of awareness into experience") has taken you a little too far...;)
Why do we have to bring the conflict back to mind with clarity so that it can be resolved? Can't we just resolve it while it runs in the background? (As with most of my questions, I know this to be true, but I'm interested in the "why?").
The only reason it is running in the background is because we are repressing it, it is a simple case of 'talk to the hand the face is not listening'. 🙂
This is a quote from a post not so recent. When you say pain or pleasure is our interpretation, this can be said on emotional pain, certainly you don't mean to say that physical pain is our interpretation. Pain is an experience, an inner experience, but non the less, an experience. And pain had been used for centuries, by governments to condition their subjects to follow their laws, and by parents to condition their children to follow their commands. It's the most primitive and old form of conditioning, so how can you say it is not a form of conditioning? and how can you say there is only self-conditioning?
Maybe in this case, your belief, that a person is totally free, and totally responsible for his experience, which - if I understood you - is a projection of himself ("our life experience is one of awareness into experience") has taken you a little too far...;)
Because no matter what other people say to us, we have to choose to embrace it to make it so for us, someone can tell you a 1000 times that you are useless and will never achieve anything and it will have no impact upon what you are (it might make you feel all sorts of things, but that does not make you anything), but if you spit your dummy out and choose to agree with what this person is saying once and tell yourself 'yes I agree, I am useless and from this moment forth I will never achieve anything', then you have set up a core way of being, this will impact upon the way you think and what you are able to do or consider doing from that moment forth until you choose to do something about it.
This is in opposition to what you truly are, so you now have an inner divisional conflict that you have chose to set up within self and since you do not like the internal arguments that it has caused within your aspects of consciousness, you repress it, I don't want to know this, I am not going to listen to you, you are not me etc.....
Now if we take free choice to its ultimate form, if someone holds a gun to our head and tell us that we are going to do whatever they tell us to do, or else, we do have a choice to choose or else, some people would call that no choice, but the reality is there is a choice to make between one course of action and another course of action.
It is our underlying thought patterns and beliefs that are the driving force of our life experience, as we choose to be the way we are, then we are responsible for our own thought patterns and beliefs as well as anything which manifests from them, when this is embraced people become self empowered, when it is rejected, people simply disempower themselves, the choice is as always a personal one that each individual is free to make for themselves. 😉
someone can tell you a 1000 times that you are useless and will never achieve anything and it will have no impact upon what you are
It has no impact upon me but why? I'm rejecting it. I choose not to accept it, yet this rejection is not called a "repression"; it doesn't create an inner division, why? Why if I reject self and choose to accept an external suppression, it turns into an inner conflict, while if I choose to accept self and reject the external suppression, nothing is pushed to the background, why the difference? These are 2 conflicting voices within self, why is one of them treated by the mind/consciousness different from the other?
And why once you stop repressing, the division stops? Before it was in the background and now it's on front, so what? You didn't forget it, did you?! What makes the conflict disappear/stop just because you brought it up front?
And can you please define what is front and background. Front means on our "attention stage", while background means out of our "attention bubble"? In other words: background is what we distract our mind from - don't want to hear or know about?
I can also find philosophical distinction between the sound of self and the sound of suppression, but remember I'm interested in the technical mechanism of how things work. Technical details not abstract distinctions. If you give me a philosophical distinction, it gives me nothing, unless you explain how this distinction is causing the actual difference in behavior; how it is causing the difference in the final result.
It has no impact upon me but why? I'm rejecting it. I choose not to accept it, yet this rejection is not called a "repression"; it doesn't create an inner division, why? Why if I reject self and choose to accept an external suppression, it turns into an inner conflict, while if I choose to accept self and reject the external suppression, nothing is pushed to the background, why the difference? These are 2 conflicting voices within self, why is one of them treated by the mind/consciousness different from the other?
So full of questions are you. 🙂
An external conflict can be rejected (forcibly if needed) and it goes away, it is external to us so does not create an ongoing inner divisional conflict.
An internal conflict is something we create within self, we can't just then choose to reject it and walk away no matter how hard we try, it will always be in the background in order for harmony to be restored.
Now as to why one aspect of consciousness treats the other aspects of consciousness is down to the way we function, our everyday thinking aspect of consciousness is closely linked to our physicality and the emotional responses it creates in response to our thoughts, it thinks it is all knowing especially when we start to make judgmental choices surrounding self, it learns to almost blank out the rest of our consciousness so that it can be what we have deemed ourselves to be.
Intuition is a quiet voice that whispers guidance and information from within, it cannot compete with the loud voice of our thinking aspect of consciousness exerting its dominance, it can be shouted over so it becomes background noise. 🙂
And why once you stop repressing, the division stops? Before it was in the background and now it's on front, so what? You didn't forget it, did you?! What makes the conflict disappear/stop just because you brought it up front?
And can you please define what is front and background. Front means on our "attention stage", while background means out of our "attention bubble"? In other words: background is what we distract our mind from - don't want to hear or know about?
Acknowledging an inner divisional conflict, will bring it into focus so that it can be examined, the fact that you have chosen to acknowledge it, means that for a time you have stopped fighting it for a while, now you can choose to resolve it thought acceptance or you can once more choose to reject it and put it out of mind once more.
Foreground and background, we should not have this at all, we should have clarity, what is in the background is not clear because we are distracting self from being able to focus directly upon it, we do not agree with the intuition that is being given to us from within, we know best etc so we do our best to repress these thoughts and push them out of our mind. 🙂
I can also find philosophical distinction between the sound of self and the sound of suppression, but remember I'm interested in the technical mechanism of how things work. Technical details not abstract distinctions. If you give me a philosophical distinction, it gives me nothing, unless you explain how this distinction is causing the actual difference in behavior; how it is causing the difference in the final result.
Yes there is a very distinct difference between self when whole and in balance, all is quiet and calm unless a situation requires something different, but we require quite a lot of aggression and bloody mindedness to maintain an inner divisional conflict, which is why they are so draining and unsettling.
The difference in behaviour is to do with the way we are, when in balance and harmony we are not forced to react to things, we have nothing to prove to others, we have the peace of mind to allow us to stop and choose how we wish to be or if a respond is warranted at all, put simply it is the difference between being happy to be or not happy to be. 😉
So full of questions are you.
You are so full of information and insight so I'm taking the opportunity to take as much as I can, but if you want to take a break or you had enough then we can stop 🙂 (I do have more questions though...:rolleyes:).
Meditation is a spiritual practice that helps one disconnect from the superfluous and transient world and connects us to our higher self, our consciousness and to God.
When the mind is cut off from worldly desires and distractions, then peace prevails within. By constant practice of meditation, one can get free from the bondage of joys and sorrows, suffering and grief, tears and fears and from attachment. The one who is able to practice a sustained state of meditation attains bliss.
Lets be kind to the Mind and meditate for 10-15 minutes to add some quality to our health and well being-- Dr.Rakesh Kumar- ishwarcenter
You are so full of information and insight so I'm taking the opportunity to take as much as I can, but if you want to take a break or you had enough then we can stop 🙂 (I do have more questions though...:rolleyes:).
You can find what I am relating to you from within the fullness of self, but that might take longer to do than asking me, I am happy to help. 🙂
Foreground and background, we should not have this at all, we should have clarity, what is in the background is not clear because we are distracting self from being able to focus directly upon it, we do not agree with the intuition that is being given to us from within, we know best etc so we do our best to repress these thoughts and push them out of our mind.
I'll just summarize:
The inner conflict between what you truly are, and the fake personality you think you should be, and doing your best to impersonate, is just one example of a conflict between knowledge and understanding. Let me explain.
If you see something, and therefore you know it is there, but you don't like what you see, because it is out of context; it doesn't fit your paradigm; it doesn't fit your world-view and therefore is totally unexpected to exist according to your understanding of things, and you are not willing to accept, that your understanding of things, was proven wrong by this "new information", you activate the "Suppression mechanism".
This mechanism lets you ignore the facts you don't like, by simply not paying any attention to them - you choose to ignore them. they are still part of your "pool of knowledge", because they have already been recorded at some level of consciousness, and they will stay there, constantly knocking on your door, begging to come in, but you are not willing to let them into your awareness, so they will stay hidden under the table. They are not part of the knowledge you are aware of, but they are part of the knowledge you know at a subconscious level.
Now there is a barrier created between the things we are willing to pay attention to, and the things we choose to ignore, and push out of our "attention bubble"; between the things we are aware of and the things we know to exist but are unaware of, and therefore we don't really see them. This is the root of the inner conflict, not only the fake personalities we try to impersonate. the root of it is a conflict between our knowledge and our understanding.
I've heard Maharishi Mahesh Yogi say that in meditation you expand you awareness to conquer areas you were previously unaware of, you make the unconscious become conscious.
But how? In what way?
You explains very nicely how the subconscious or background is created - it is a direct result of our suppression mechanism, but now that I'm asleep, what makes me wake up again by doing the meditation practice? How during meditation, all the repressed knowledge is bubbling up again, and why? When I started doing meditation, I did it very simple, putting my attention on the breath and it happened - everything I have repressed started popping out, it wasn't very pleasant at first, but I felt it was healing me, but why did it happen? what did I do? I know what I should do, I know what happens as a result of what I'm doing, but I want to know how the practice is bringing about this result.
Now there is a barrier created between the things we are willing to pay attention to, and the things we choose to ignore, and push out of our "attention bubble"; between the things we are aware of and the things we know to exist but are unaware of, and therefore we don't really see them. This is the root of the inner conflict, not only the fake personalities we try to impersonate. the root of it is a conflict between our knowledge and our understanding.
Yes we can turn a blind eye at times when we encounter something which challenges what we believe to be right etc, now that will trigger an inner conflict, but it can only do that if we have set something in place that is ready to trigger, if you remember that an inner conflict only applies to something inside, hence inner, then they can be triggered from external things outside of us, but the conflict resides within us. 🙂
Yes knowledge and understanding are not always the same thing, I am sharing my understanding which came before my knowledge, I know that sounds back to front, but I work in concepts, so when I first encountered the oneness, I could perceive and understand the concept of it long before I could rationalise it and turn it into working knowledge, the reality is that the understanding turned my knowledge on its head and made me re-evaluate what I thought I knew. 🙂
I've heard Maharishi Mahesh Yogi say that in meditation you expand you awareness to conquer areas you were previously unaware of, you make the unconscious become conscious.
But how? In what way?
No that is almost there, we meditate to expand our awareness into areas of self that we did not previously know existed or did not understand, it is a journey of personal discovery, much the same as healing is, we do not have to conquer self, we only have to accept self for all to be revealed, acceptance is the key. 😉
You explains very nicely how the subconscious or background is created - it is a direct result of our suppression mechanism, but now that I'm asleep, what makes me wake up again by doing the meditation practice? How during meditation, all the repressed knowledge is bubbling up again, and why? When I started doing meditation, I did it very simple, putting my attention on the breath and it happened - everything I have repressed started popping out, it wasn't very pleasant at first, but I felt it was healing me, but why did it happen? what did I do? I know what I should do, I know what happens as a result of what I'm doing, but I want to know how the practice is bringing about this result.
Sort of, what you are referring to as the subconscious is there irrespective of how we are, mine is still there but because I am not rejecting self, it is quiet unless I make enquiries of self, or something needs to be brought to my attention, like when driving and you become aware that you need to be carful because something is going to happen.
When you meditate you are simply moving into a more receptive mode, you are putting time aside for self, you are lowering your barriers so that you can understand by creating a distraction to occupy your everyday thinking aspect of consciousness (focus upon the breath, become the breath), once distracted the rest of your consciousness is allowed to come into your awareness and share what is actually going on inside you.
So now you have the knowledge to go into a meditative sate of being at will, you now need to start using this state to address the things that are creating the unrest and disharmony within your being, please tell yourself that you wish to perceive the problems in an open and non-judgmental way (this will stop the emotions being created within your body in response to your thoughts), now look at what is being revealed like watching a television screen, if you are not ready to change something right now, then just tell self that you have acknowledged this and will sort it another time, if you see something which you feel able to change, then make a choice to embrace and accept it in an open and non-judgmental way, make a mental note of it and when you come out of your meditative change you should be able to think about it clearly in a neutral way (no emotional response) and that is sorted.
Once you have the hang of it, the rest will be a lot easier, fear of change is the main thing that gets in the way of being open, do not be frightened to ask the fullness of self for help in this matter. 🙂
Yes there is a very distinct difference between self when whole and in balance, all is quiet and calm unless a situation requires something different, but we require quite a lot of aggression and bloody mindedness to maintain an inner divisional conflict, which is why they are so draining and unsettling.
If keeping a group of skeletons we want to forget, in the closet of the subconscious takes a lot of effort and energy (Osho also said that much energy is released when we stop repressing) then you don't have to do anything in order for the repress knowledge to bubble out of your subconscious. You don't need to do anything in order to end the conflict and remove the border between the conscious and the subconscious. You are the one how is keeping it in place, by putting effort in keeping it there each and every moment.
Why do you put so much effort in keeping it there?
the suppression mechanism is driven by our need for understanding. Knowledge is just bits and pieces of information without context. It's the understanding of that knowledge which is connecting the dots. Without understanding we don't know what to expect from reality. That's why we hang on to it, it gives us a sense of stability and meaning to life. (it's not a bad thing to have an understanding, but if new information comes along, which demands a change of understanding - refining it or replacing it - then one should know how to let go).
If we can find a way to stop understanding for a while, not stopping to form new understandings, but stop caring for any understanding all together for a while, the force that pushes the repression will stop pushing, and the locked up information will be released.
In my experience, meditation is taking you to a place of direct experience, pure experience with no concepts to filter it.
If keeping a group of skeletons we want to forget, in the closet of the subconscious takes a lot of effort and energy (Osho also said that much energy is released when we stop repressing) then you don't have to do anything in order for the repress knowledge to bubble out of your subconscious. You don't need to do anything in order to end the conflict and remove the border between the conscious and the subconscious. You are the one how is keeping it in place, by putting effort in keeping it there each and every moment.
Why do you put so much effort in keeping it there?
We do not put any effort whatsoever in keeping our inner divisional conflicts in place, we spend energy attempting to keep them out of mind, the conflicts are stored permanently as a core way of being until we choose to change self. 😉
the suppression mechanism is driven by our need for understanding. Knowledge is just bits and pieces of information without context. It's the understanding of that knowledge which is connecting the dots. Without understanding we don't know what to expect from reality. That's why we hang on to it, it gives us a sense of stability and meaning to life. (it's not a bad thing to have an understanding, but if new information comes along, which demands a change of understanding - refining it or replacing it - then one should know how to let go).
yes but that requires change and change is often frightening and alien to a being that has spent a lifetime defining self rather than being self. 🙂
If we can find a way to stop understanding for a while, not stopping to form new understandings, but stop caring for any understanding all together for a while, the force that pushes the repression will stop pushing, and the locked up information will be released.
In my experience, meditation is taking you to a place of direct experience, pure experience with no concepts to filter it.
No what you are advocating would require us to stay in a meditative state all of the time, that is not reality, is a diversion or escape mechanism to give us some respite, on its own done in a passive form it cannot resolve anything, all that has happened is you have gone into a more receptive state by diverting the mind for a time, do you not think it would be a lot beter to set about creating a permanent lasting change?
No what you are advocating would require us to stay in a meditative state all of the time, that is not reality, is a diversion or escape mechanism to give us some respite, on its own done in a passive form it cannot resolve anything, all that has happened is you have gone into a more receptive state by diverting the mind for a time, do you not think it would be a lot beter to set about creating a permanent lasting change?
Your way is more intentional, and the effect might be lasting longer. Maybe yours is more of a way-of-life, then a practice you do twice a day. It might be better, but I don't have enough experience with it yet, to have an informative opinion. I wasn't comparing the 2 ways, just wondering how even a simple meditation, like I did, had a long lasting effect on me, and it had. So my explanation was that as you meditate, the information you have repressed is bubbling to the surface, and now you can process it. After you have processed it, then everything is fine. The meditation just gave the conflict a chance to resurface, which gave you a chance to accept it and process it, which is what happened to me in meditation. After the practice, it's not going back to repression again; once it was processed it's not repressed again. You became aware of it, and by that you healed the wound. It's not a short break in the conflict.
It seems as if you think the meditation object is there only so we can distract ourselves from thoughts, when ever a thought comes along, I simply distract myself from it, so I need something to distract my attention to, and that would be... the meditation object. If that was true then meditation would be like going to the movies - you forget your troubles and worries for a while.
I suggested in a previous post, and you agreed, that this is not what the meditation object is for. You don't concentrate on it forcibly. It keeps your mind busy with something simple that involves no conflict; something repetitive and boring that needs no decision making; something that can be done on autopilot, and there for it doesn't need your attention to be focused on it.
If you go to a movie to entertain yourself for a while, you engage in something which is more noisy than your thoughts, so the noise of your worries is lost in the noise of the distraction - your attention is distracted to the noise of the movie which is stronger then the noise of your thoughts. So in a movie your attention is captured even more. The distraction is now even stronger then before. But when you are engaged in something simple and repetitive, that needs no decision making, your attention is now free from having to be focused on anything, so you can sink into a state of pure awareness with no focus.
Once focus is out of the way, understanding is out of the way (so I think) and many good things start happening. You become aware of knowledge you have repressed and you can now process it; you start hearing the voice of your intuition, which was not repressed but was so soft it couldn't be heard while the mind was noisy and stealing all the attention.
After a while you go back to the everyday state, your understanding aspect is back - up and running, but you are not the same. The conflicts have been surfaced and have to be dealt with, and the insights you got from your intuition are now part of your pool of knowledge for good.
As I have said many times, everything begins and ends with a thought, it took one intentional directive through to set up an inner divisional conflict and it takes another intentional directive thought to transform the original one and set us free, yes my aim was always to learn a permanent solution to this sort of problem for self and others, along the way I learnt lots of different things, the majority only created a temporary distraction so they did not complete my search, meditation helped me to connect with the fullness of self, but not by just creating a distraction (think of the breath) like it is normally taught, I had to give the meditation a directive to allow me to move beyond my self imposed limitations so that I could become aware of what actually is, rather than the self imposed perceptions of what is I had created for myself. 🙂
After a while you go back to the everyday state, your understanding aspect is back - up and running, but you are not the same. The conflicts have been surfaced and have to be dealt with, and the insights you got from your intuition are now part of your pool of knowledge for good.
This contradicts what you have been putting in your posts, you appear to still need to meditate in order to subdue the endless chatter and find quietness within your mind, that is not a permanent solution at all (I appreciate that this is what you have), it is a get me by or a work around at best, you now have some new knowledge to consider, but it is just head knowledge and will remain that until you choose to put it into practice, then it will become understanding as well as creating a new way of being for you to experience. 🙂
You gave me a lot to read...:)
I didn't say I've finished reading and understanding it all... 😉
Now I'm like a snake that swallowed an elephant...:D I need to digest all that you have written.
Will take me some time...
Also I don't understand why you keep saying the effect of meditation is not a permanent solution, you keep saying it's just a workaround. When I said: "After a while you go back to the everyday state, your understanding aspect is back - up and running", I did not mean that you go back to what you were before the meditation, your understanding has to be changed to give context to the new information that has surfaced onto your conscious mind, are you the same as you were before? No you are not, because the conflicts are being resolved now that they have bubbled up and we are aware of them, so why do you say nothing really changed?
My main point is and was and stayed the same: that the goal of meditation is not focus but awareness, and now I've added that even the meditation object is not there for the purpose of focusing.
Also I don't understand why you keep saying the effect of meditation is not a permanent solution, you keep saying it's just a workaround. When I said: "After a while you go back to the everyday state, your understanding aspect is back - up and running", I did not mean that you go back to what you were before the meditation, your understanding has to be changed to give context to the new information that has surfaced onto your conscious mind, are you the same as you were before? No you are not, because the conflicts are being resolved now that they have bubbled up and we are aware of them, so why do you say nothing really changed?
As our perceptions of reality can get a little clouded at times, let me transpose this into a real world event, you knock off from doing something to have a relax and enjoy a cup of tea or whatever for a while, you go into a room that is more conducive to relaxation and sit down and start to enjoy your cuppa, you notice that one of your panes of glass in your window has a crack in it, you acknowledge that there is a problem and earmark it for sorting out later on, you then finish your tea have a cat nap and get up feeling refreshed and continue with what you were doing before you had a refreshment break.
Now how has that resolved the problem of the cracked pane?
Acknowledging something and doing something about it is two completely different things, like the cracked pane of glass, you have acknowledged it, it is something which requires fixing, you might well come out of the room and get absorbed in something else and completely forget about the cracked pane of glass until you see it again or something else reminds you about it, but it is still there all the same but out of mind, until it is replaced with a different pane of glass it is a problem that requires sorting out. 😉
Please apply that understanding to your current understanding of meditation and see what you end up with. 😉
My main point is and was and stayed the same: that the goal of meditation is not focus but awareness, and now I've added that even the meditation object is not there for the purpose of focusing.
That sounds good, however I think that it is only when we choose to focus our awareness upon something that it can be fully perceived, without a directional focusing intent we just have a jumble of things without any real clarity. 🙂
As I've said, I need to digest all that you have written, now I need some time to process.
By the way, you know there are drugs that induce a state of mind that is similar to what you experiencing in meditation - like Ayahuasca and others, they are used by shamans to connect with the spirit world. Some drugs are even used by psychiatrists to induce a state of empathy and acceptance and forgiveness, these drugs are called: Empathogens.
Wikipedia:
Empathogens or entactogens are a class of [url]psychoactive drugs[/url] that produce experiences of emotional communion, oneness, relatedness, emotional openness—that is, empathy or sympathy—as particularly observed and reported for experiences with 3,4- Methylenedioxymethamphetamine ().
The interesting thing is, one chemist that was researching these drugs, says they make you stop focusing and this opens you to experiencing reality to its fullest (just as I described my meditation experience - interesting). here is the link:
I might be able to find Ayahuasca tea, does anyone have an opinion about having such an experience? can it cause any damage? are there any benefits?
As a pharmacist my feelings are playing around with MDMA is unwise, unsafe and illegal. Psychoactive chemicals of ANY sort are potentially dangerous
As a pharmacist my feelings are playing around with MDMA is unwise, unsafe and illegal. Psychoactive chemicals of ANY sort are potentially dangerous
I'm not talking about taking illegal drugs, or drugs that need a prescription, I was talking specifically about Ayahuasca which as far as I know, is not illegal, and is not causing any health issues.
We have a very good imagination if we want to utilise it and virtual reality, not to mention lots of books that are capable of guiding us into alternative realities without resorting to drugs. 😉
Have you to tried accepting and becoming one with whatever you become aware of rather than choosing to perceive it as a problem that requires side stepping?
Something only needs accepting once, but to reject something requires us to work at it all of the time, hence the endless chatter and the need to keep on meditating over and over again to try and stop it.
As long as you hold on to a beliefworld viewperception, or "understanding" as I like to call it, and this understanding is not in line with your experience, then it will be a challenge for you to accept this experience, you will have to adjust your belief/understanding to be in line with what ever you become aware of. Problem is that you show resistance by repressing this experience, and keep it out of your awareness. So how can you ask "Why don't you just accept everything you become aware of?", when the problem is that the suppression mechanism you activate - while desperately holding on to your belief - keeps you unaware of it. Unless you compliantly stop trying to understand the world you are living in, and this looks to my like a defeat, and if you do it, life stops being a learning experience, and you are better of dead. if you want to keep learning, you form understandings, and if they fail, you refine of change them, and if you have unnoticeably repressed something, it will surface when you do meditation, which is like resetting your computer, it gives you a chance to become in line with reality again by suspending your understanding for a while.
Yes we can turn a blind eye at times when we encounter something which challenges what we believe to be right etc, now that will trigger an inner conflict, but it can only do that if we have set something in place that is ready to trigger, if you remember that an inner conflict only applies to something inside, hence inner, then they can be triggered from external things outside of us, but the conflict resides within us.
The suppression mechanism does not look to me as just "turning a blind eye at times", it comes out of a passion we have for understanding life and knowing what it is all about. We hate doubt, we hate living in a random and meaningless world, so we crave for a word of truth, that will give life meaning and purpose. this is not a bad thing, but like in every aspect of life, we might look for the easy way instead admitting we have to change something in our belief system. I can not see any thing you can do to resolve this magically.
As long as you hold on to a beliefworld viewperception, or "understanding" as I like to call it, and this understanding is not in line with your experience, then it will be a challenge for you to accept this experience, you will have to adjust your belief/understanding to be in line with what ever you become aware of.
Yes that is what is supposed to happen, our life experience unfolds and we expand our understanding through being. 🙂
Problem is that you show resistance by repressing this experience, and keep it out of your awareness. So how can you ask "Why don't you just accept everything you become aware of?", when the problem is that the suppression mechanism you activate - while desperately holding on to your belief - keeps you unaware of it.
Yes the experience we judge and repress is self, we are the experience that we are judging to be wrong, the judgment creates a separate perception to what is, it is 'what actually was' that is being repressed to allow a personal judgmental perception to replace 'what actually was' with a judgmental perceptual belief we have chosen to replace it with, we have created an alternative reality within self.
The perception of self is now separated from our life experience, it is no longer something which flows with us, it is now judged to see if it is in alignment with our chosen alternative reality, we now have a purpose to prove to self that we are right and what actually was is wrong.
Unless you compliantly stop trying to understand the world you are living in, and this looks to my like a defeat, and if you do it, life stops being a learning experience, and you are better of dead.
I see it a little differently to that, our life is our life experience, it just requires us to be, yes we learn new things all of the time, but understanding is not as important as the main main thing which is the life experience itself, it is after all what we are. 🙂
The suppression mechanism does not look to me as just "turning a blind eye at times", it comes out of a passion we have for understanding life and knowing what it is all about. We hate doubt, we hate living in a random and meaningless world, so we crave for a word of truth, that will give life meaning and purpose. this is not a bad thing, but like in every aspect of life, we might look for the easy way instead admitting we have to change something in our belief system. I can not see any thing you can do to resolve this magically.
My understanding of life is in the last paragraph, I have found that the key to a happy and fulfilled life experience is simply to allow ourselves to be, our life experience is complete within itself, it does not require dissection, judgments, understanding, wisdom, purpose or beliefs, it just requires us to allow ourselves to simply be happy to be.
Self acceptance healing is not magical or mystical, though the effects are often perceived along those lines when 30 years of inner turmoil is instantly replaced with inner peace and harmony, understanding what the problem is and being able to resolve the problem is often two different things
I have found that the key to a happy and fulfilled life experience is simply to allow ourselves to be
Certainly, I've felt it myself. Life experience itself, is the biggest pleasure of all, if you let it in without filtering and you are fully aware, colors are 10 times stronger and everything is sharp in full HD, tastes and smells are so powerful - it is the most joyful thing you can experience.
But without understanding there is no action.
why?
Because If you don't decode your experience, by giving it some kind of evaluation, how can you choose how to react to it? whether to embrace it or reject it? If we don't know what it is how can we decide upon a line of action?
Understanding is simply the first step towards action. If you don't have any intention to act, you need no understanding, but if you do, you must have it.
None of the Yogi's I have listened to, was ever against action. Osho says, "there is a difference between a 'reaction' and a 'response'" but he was never against action. He said explicitly that meditation is not against action. Meditation has 2 stages, he said, first we learn to stop reacting mindlessly to stimulation, for that we need to stop all action for a while to gain awareness. Stage 2 is going back into doing action, but learn to act without losing awareness, without being distracted by action - action goes on flowing on it's own, and you stay the watcher on the hill - he said.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says it's like going to the bank and back to the market and back to the bank and so on, you energize yourself by meditation, and then go back to activity. These 2 aspects of the self - the 'doer', and the 'knower' - are somehow feeding one another.
These 2 aspect of self - the aspect that is experiencing, and the aspect that does the understanding followed by action, are both 2 sides of the same coin, and are equally important.
So I don't know what you mean by saying: "but understanding is not as important as the main main thing which is the life experience itself", I'm not giving up on any one of them - to me they are equally important, down playing one of them is not a way to resolve the inner conflicts.
But without understanding there is no action.
why?
Because If you don't decode your experience, by giving it some kind of evaluation, how can you choose how to react to it? whether to embrace it or reject it? If we don't know what it is how can we decide upon a line of action?
Understanding is simply the first step towards action. If you don't have any intention to act, you need no understanding, but if you do, you must have it.
I have not said that we should not evaluate what we are currently experiencing so that we can choose what if any type of response we wish to implement, but there is a difference between being able to evaluate in an open and non-judgmental way and being forced to react through some pre existing judgmental core beliefs.
It is all down to choices, choosing to be free to choose in the moment, is a choice; choosing to implement a judgmental belief that will pre-empt our action, is a choice; choosing to do nothing, is a choice, we are making and acting upon thoes choices all of the time. 🙂
These 2 aspect of self - the aspect that is experiencing, and the aspect that does the understanding followed by action, are both 2 sides of the same coin, and are equally important.
So I don't know what you mean by saying: "but understanding is not as important as the main main thing which is the life experience itself", I'm not giving up on any one of them - to me they are equally important, down playing one of them is not a way to resolve the inner conflicts.
It is peoples current understanding which is creating their inner divisional conflicts, this is what is directing their general state of health and wellbeing, as well as their life experience to emulate those conflicts, understanding that we have choose to embrace a core way of being that has resulted in an inner divisional conflict, will not in itself heal or resolve the conflict, just acknowledging something does not change it, it just means that we have chosen to place our awareness upon it, we need to choose to act in order to create a change.
Your chosen medium is meditation, meditation done in a passive receptive way to receive, will allow you to become aware of inner divisional conflicts that require attention, but whilst you choose to stay passive, nothing else can be achieved, you have achieved your stated goal of becoming aware.
If you wish to do something else whilst meditating, then you will have to set a secondary focus that allows you to move beyond the constraints of just being aware, to move into an active position so that you can now start doing something about it, you have now moved from a passive receptive position into an active doing position, everything begins and ends with a thought, you can utilise your thoughts to achieve more than one goal at the same time. 🙂
to move into an active position so that you can now start doing something about it
Is there really anything more to be done? besides being aware? What was the problem? Your unwillingness to be aware of something that negates your belief system. Now that you are, what more is there to be done? :confused:
Is there really anything more to be done? besides being aware? What was the problem? Your unwillingness to be aware of something that negates your belief system. Now that you are, what more is there to be done?
All that you can achieve through choosing to perceive something, is to bring it into your awareness, how has that changed anything?
Can you switch on a light by observing that it is getting dark? Do you not have to perform an action to go and switch the light on, or do your lights come on just by you become aware that it is getting dark??
Can you quench your thirst simply by becoming aware that you are thirsty?
Can you respond to this message by simply choosing to be aware that I have posted one???
You were aware of the conflicts when you created them, but that did not stop them coming into being, how do you think that choosing to once more bring them back into your awareness will transform them now???
how do you think that choosing to once more bring them back into your awareness will transform them now???
Paul, if you could define/describe in details what this transformation is, and explain in details what exactly happens during this transformation, I might get to the bottom of what you mean.
And why do you think this transformation has to happen while you are in the meditative state? Why do you say that when I get to the meditative state using the meditation object, now is the time to catch the moment, and set another attention to resolve the conflicts, can't it be done after the meditation, while you gain back your normal state of consciousness again?
Paul, if you could define/describe in details what this transformation is, and explain in details what exactly happens during this transformation, I might get to the bottom of what you mean.
To heal an inner divisional conflict requires us to transform the original division that we created within self into wholeness, we do that in an active manner, we firstly need to be ready to change, then we have to acknowledge the conflict which we want to heal and replace the judgment which caused the division with acceptance, division can only divide, acceptance will make whole.
And why do you think this transformation has to happen while you are in the meditative state?
It does not have to, meditation is something you practice to allow you to move beyond the constraints that you have placed upon self, so it is a medium which you can choose to utilise to heal the divisional conflicts once they come clearly into focus, personally I understand the process of change so I just do it, I can reprogram myself at will, which enables me to help others as long as they are happy to embrace change. 🙂
Why do you say that when I get to the meditative state using the meditation object, now is the time to catch the moment, and set another attention to resolve the conflicts, can't it be done after the meditation, while you gain back your normal state of consciousness again?
I don't say that, what I say is that you can utilise your meditative state to become aware of the divisional conflicts that give you unrest, but you do not set your attention to resolve the conflicts, you utilise your intention to set up a new intentional directive to replace the original intentional directive which created it.
Yes it can be done outside of a meditation, the meditation just allows you to communicate in a more direct and focused way with the fullness of self, once you are out of the meditative state, your conflicts are coming back into play together with the judgmental perceptions that drive the unrest, your focus has now changed back from singular to divisive, you now have to argue with the conflict to try and assert a new intentional directive to replace it.