The Minds Fear of Inner Silence.

I think our mind really is our mind, but we can do things to ourselves with our mind, as the Baghavad Gita says "The will is either a friend or foe of the self." Meaning the mind can play tricks on you, but it's really you playing tricks on yourself with your mind.

Meditation can involve some extremes, especially if you read "no-self" Buddhism which is basically a type of nihilism, I do not believe in a "no-self" Buddhism because I believe that the Buddha's nirvana was an absolute perfection and thus can not be a non-existent thing. That is what Jesus and the Christians perceived as God. I believe Jesus was a Buddhist or at least was influenced by Eastern wisdom, maybe some type of Buddhism hybrid like Sufism but the point is that although the Buddha does not claim he is a god, he basically calls himself higher than god by saying he is the teacher of man and god. Either way, the goal of meditation is not so much an extinction but a knowledge of truth, and so if in our human bodies we are incapable of simply seeing the truth and instead must evaluate it step by step, then what that means is we have to engage in contemplation and not just meditation. Perhaps this is why you are afraid of the silence, because your mind knows it must continuously act. As the Bhagavad Gita says, "all beings must perform action. Act, without attachment to the fruit of action, nor hesitating to act."

reply to post by ancient_wisdom


I liked your post because when others speak of this noneness state, or nirvana, they seem to be relating to a non-existence. Our minds do not stay static. When I meditate and reach a state of deep altered state and I can feel the state deepen, and my mind stilled, I fall asleep and then awake roughly a half an hour later, which is unlike normal sleep even. Every time I have had a nap in late afternoon or early evening for example, I will sleep for hours. And wake feeling really groggy. This is a short term timed sleep. It almost feels like missing time to be honest.

We have chemical releases and front lobal activites occuring during meditation that relate to a state of "something" versus none-ness.

In fact I'm reading this short ebook right now:
www.scribd.com...
Techniques of Modern Shamanism Vol 1

Its a good read! It talks about the biochemicals and front lobal anomalies they know of and have discovered in studies. It discusses schizophrenia as a disease that is only acknowledged in slave system economies tied into to wages and paid employment where such onsets would disrupt your ability to hold paid employment. In a more natural tribal community, this occurs often young, has so much variables in how often an episode may happen, wether or not it lasts or goes away. There, while having these symptoms they are cared for by family doing simple chores and tasks and if continues they become shaman apprentices and are trained to control what is viewed their paranormal insights and visions, and valued by the communities. Makes you wonder since this occurs here on average 1/100, if this isnt natures natural selection of spiritual leaders and shamans. Makes you question our entire system of looking psychoses.

Also, it does appear, that visions, and active mental states occur during our more psi or spiritual moments, including in meditation.

I think its more natural to look at meditation in a variety of ways. For example, chakra meditations or sending healing to another or using your imagination to envision and manifest in your life, or to attempt to open a door and connect to something (ie. a past life memory, or something you are attempting to search) are all meditations. But the stilling the mind meditations and relaxing into calm still states, shouldnt be this unnatural push at trying to hold noneness for extended periods of time. We really should be alot more responsive to what we are recieving in meditation and to even how our bodies work.


[edit on 28-1-2010 by Unity_99]

reply to post by Unity_99

When I meditate and reach a state of deep altered state and I can feel the state deepen, and my mind stilled, I fall asleep and then awake roughly a half an hour later, which is unlike normal sleep even. Every time I have had a nap in late afternoon or early evening for example, I will sleep for hours. And wake feeling really groggy. This is a short term timed sleep. It almost feels like missing time to be honest.

Im not 100% sure here (maybe someone can correct me) but I have always been told to never fall asleep in meditation. To fall asleep means you have lost focus and have gone beyond alert meditative awarness into actual sleep. Your maybe experiencing the astral or lucid dreaming in these times when you sleep for hours that almost verge on missing time.


EDIT www.meditationexpert.co.uk...

The level of awareness that one aspires to reach during meditation cannot be attained during sleep

Found this link , it seems to say the same that if at all possible one should learn to stay awake whilst meditating. This is probably why a lot of teachers say first thing in a morning is one of the best times to meditate, this will be the least likely time we fall asleep I guess.

I think this is especially important when working with the prime energies that manifest in deep meditation. It is from these that progress is made and if I was asleep I would be less aware of them and their inner messages.



[edit on 28-1-2010 by Mr Green]

reply to post by Mr Green


When it happens, its often just after a deeper stage is reached, its like I can feel it kick in and can't quite explain it, and then I'm suddenly waking up, usually around 30 minutes later.
Once in this time, more recently. Just as it deepened, I saw something. First it was like a cafe curtain, in a kitchen window, and then suddenly it was like a movie theatre screen with a big curtain. Now at this point I would normally, blank out for at least a half hour, but my son started shouting and I had to force myself awake and deal with an argument they were having at the time.

reply to post by Unity_99


I really dont know about that or if it is a stage of meditation? Maybe someone else will recognize what it is from your description. I cant say I have missing time as such as you describe, hopefully someone else will know more.

reply to post by Unity_99


Unity I have spoken to a friend who is very experienced in meditation and they say no not to do it. You are not meditating if you are asleep or even dozzing off. It is a process some go through when they are learning to meditate, its very common and with work and intent on awarness it does go.

Meditation should be done with complete awarness of self.

The link i posted has some hints on how to achieve this without sleep.

It is possible to take simple measures to stay awake such as meditating in slight discomfort (seated upon a hard chair, for example), not meditating laying down and avoiding meditating in your place of sleep. Additionally, it is possible to meditate seated, with arms slightly raised: if you nod off, your arms will fall, thus waking you!

Using these methods, and remaining attentive it is possible to minimise the risk of falling asleep, whilst accepting sleepiness as it occurs. Meditation, whilst being a form of relaxation, requires an attentiveness to the moment.

Maybe your going into some other state of awarness, not sure only you can truely tell what this sudden waking is.

[edit on 28-1-2010 by Mr Green]

reply to post by Mr Green


This happens anytime I meditate, if I reach that stage. I meditate, morning often, afternoon, or evening. And its very essential to me to meditate, another core need.
But the state of reaching the curtain/veil and blacking out is not harmful. It either implies a strange type of sleep is reached that only lasts for a short period of time (unlike any other naps I've ever had), or it implies I go beyond the veil but this is information, much like the dream time meetings I've had, that I am not allowed to recall in my waking life.

In one more recent dream, last couple months, I was aware of being in a big meeting. It was all veiled, as if greyed out. We were basically hanging out together in a greyed out location. I was in company with others and recall how connected we were, the love we felt for each other, and information was being exchanged. I was one of those giving an answer to another. I was not allowed to remember what the question or answer was, but was allowed to experience feeling the connection and love for whoever had asked this, and responding naturally almost like a mother or teacher. Though I imagine I was also being taught there.

So, I will continue to meditate. But we don't always get the same noneness answers. Sometimes in that void there is a bigger mystery.

And to add: Just recently, I've become aware that I've been having some instruction at night for longer than that one dream, it wasnt a stand alone experience, that we go someplace for instruction. I've had a connection to a "place" and read something where I knew them, and memories of meetings or instruction have come, again, general, not allowed the specifics. I think it may also happen when people meditate that they slip there.



[edit on 28-1-2010 by Unity_99]

reply to post by Emptiness Dancing


i really appreciate your postings "emptiness dancing". the spirit of nisagardatta is truly evident in your contributions.

you are certainly blessed to experience that state for 2 and half months.

years ago i listened to a drug addict relate his experiences to a lady friend of mine in mackay, queensland. i found his description quite boring but for some unaccountable reason i stayed focused on his upper dorsal vertebrae during his "lecture". when i awoke next morning i could sense something approaching me from very far away and seemingly at a great altitude. i had to skipper a 30' boat to an island 70 km away to the southeast. i had 2 passengers with me but not my drug addicted friend. 30km out a small chop came up and the tiller broke in my hand from dry rot. 2km away was an island so we headed to it for repairs, very slowly. all this time the "unknown" came closer and closer from above and behind. we beached at high tide and i threw a rope around a pandanus tree and leapt from the boat, telling my passengers i would be back later.

at the instant my feet hit the sand, the state of heightened consciousness arrived. i walked through the island immersed in bliss, knowing no separation from rocks, trees, earth and sky. it lasted about an hour and then slowly withdrew. i agonised over its withdrawal and pleaded for "it" to stay, but to no avail. i was back in duality.

14 years were to pass before another far lesser event. today, nisagadatta is my bible, and i wait, and enquire.

reply to post by Unity_99


I read today that the pineal glad is most active in the early morning , just as the Sun rises after we have slept. It is for this reason most results are obtained from meditation in the early morning. I know this to be true from personal experience that if I wake up very early and then stay awake in a meditative state I can see and experience things that are never possible say later in the day.

Originally posted by ancient_wisdom
I think our mind really is our mind, but we can do things to ourselves with our mind, as the Baghavad Gita says "The will is either a friend or foe of the self." Meaning the mind can play tricks on you, but it's really you playing tricks on yourself with your mind.

Meditation can involve some extremes, especially if you read "no-self" Buddhism which is basically a type of nihilism, I do not believe in a "no-self" Buddhism because I believe that the Buddha's nirvana was an absolute perfection and thus can not be a non-existent thing. That is what Jesus and the Christians perceived as God. I believe Jesus was a Buddhist or at least was influenced by Eastern wisdom, maybe some type of Buddhism hybrid like Sufism but the point is that although the Buddha does not claim he is a god, he basically calls himself higher than god by saying he is the teacher of man and god. Either way, the goal of meditation is not so much an extinction but a knowledge of truth, and so if in our human bodies we are incapable of simply seeing the truth and instead must evaluate it step by step, then what that means is we have to engage in contemplation and not just meditation. Perhaps this is why you are afraid of the silence, because your mind knows it must continuously act. As the Bhagavad Gita says, "all beings must perform action. Act, without attachment to the fruit of action, nor hesitating to act."

Again for me another difficult post to follow, very deep thinking .

"The will is either a friend or foe of the self."

Perhaps and maybe the fear felt depends on how one wishes to use their will along side their beliefs. I believe we are all in a process of moving back to a state of one beingness. I also believe I have chose this life time to return back to the One but my physical body/mind is from fear thinking otherwise. I feel it is becoming more and more threatened by this intent and will my spirit is taking as this will mean the "death" of the body and mind.

Either way, the goal of meditation is not so much an extinction but a knowledge of truth

Ultimatly I think the goal has to be an extinction of mind and body. Source IMO is not of these it is pure cosmic consciousness, is is both ALL and NOTHING. The Spirit alone (all -one) through knowledge of absolute truth will gain its right of passage back to the One.

Perhaps this is why you are afraid of the silence, because your mind knows it must continuously act.

Yes it must continously act if it is to survive, but it is this continous act that is possibly stopping the spirits progression and the minds main tool for this act of staying alive seems to be fear.



[edit on 30-1-2010 by Mr Green]

reply to post by Mr Green


I love your new avatar.

I just want to add, I've never seen the ultimate goal of just dissolving self, as this is not what the multiverse or even oneness represents. We are many in ONE. This is always the way it is, like cells in the body of the Creator, each resonating at our own signature vibration. We are a family of light. Its a steep learning curve as we evolve or progress to the next level. Our tasks become different. One way of seeing it is like the chakra system itself, lower level chakras, core survival issues, sexuality versus generosity to others and creativity, empowering self, the love of power, over empowing and supporting others or being a defender of freedoms, these all fit into the lower levels, the sense of instinct, the knowing or intutive psi that gives us glimpses, (the third chakra). As we move our awareness into the unity and compassion, and really develop our higher gifts, we are ready to move onto a whole new level, as individuals who exist in awareness of family.

Originally posted by orangutang

i really appreciate your postings "emptiness dancing". the spirit of nisargadatta is truly evident in your contributions.

you are certainly blessed to experience that state for 2 and half months.

Thank you for your kind words orangutang. I found Nisargadatta's writings within days of my awakening experience. Now I can't count the number of times have have read, re-read, pondered and meditated on the concepts he communicated. I still to this day go back and read again to reclarify and glean the depth of his perceptions.

What is so striking about Nisargadatta is the plain spoken simplicity that he frames the concepts he teaches. He's one of the more profound sages of our modern era - IMO.

I also like the writings of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharaj

www.happinessofbeing.com...

This simple practice('atma-vichara') of keeping our mind or attention fixed firmly in our own essential self – this is, in our thought-free self-conscious being – is clearly described by him in the sixteenth paragraph, in which he says:

... The name 'atma-vichara' [is truly applicable] only to [the practice of] always being [abiding or remaining] having put [placed, kept, seated, deposited, detained, fixed or established our] mind in atma [our own real self] ...

In both Sanskrit and Tamil the word atma, which literally means 'self', is a philosophical term that denotes our own true, essential and perfectly non-dual self-conscious being, 'I am'. Hence the state that Sri Ramana describes in this sentence as sadakalamum manattai atmavil vaittiruppadu is the state of just 'being', in which we keep our mind firmly fixed or established in and as atma, our own essential non-dual self-conscious being.

the tiller broke in my hand from dry rot. 2km away was an island so we headed to it for repairs, very slowly. all this time the "unknown" came closer and closer from above and behind. we beached at high tide and i threw a rope around a pandanus tree and leapt from the boat, telling my passengers i would be back later.

at the instant my feet hit the sand, the state of heightened consciousness arrived. i walked through the island immersed in bliss, knowing no separation from rocks, trees, earth and sky. it lasted about an hour and then slowly withdrew.

""the tiller broke"" ... Seems there is much meaning here. And from dry rot none the less. I'm not sure what you get from that but it seems to me to be the mind and it's distortions of perception of our reality, societal structure imprinting and programming on the mind to "be this" or "be that."

It was this very struggle that turned my attention inward to investigate inside what and who I really am. I cast aside any and all concepts of religion and society and turned my attention inward. I released the struggle, let go and me awakening was was instantaneous. It was like being stuck by lightning.

(hope i'm not boring you all with this)

What you experienced put well into words what happened to me after an undetermined period of time shooting through what I perceived as space into the outer universe, immersed in tears of joy, bliss and feeling one with a universe teeming with life energy. From that point on, to varying degrees of intensity once I came to, I was one with everything. Birds flying through the sky, rocks, trees ... everything ... for 2.5 months! I was shocked when meeting complete strangers and I looked into their eyes only to see myself staring back.

i agonised over its withdrawal and pleaded for "it" to stay, but to no avail. i was back in duality.

14 years were to pass before another far lesser event. today, nisagadatta is my bible, and i wait, and enquire.

Your choice of word here "agonized" I can relate to. I did the same wondering if I did something wrong. I know now I hadn't.

Thank you for relating your experience.

Peace

Originally posted by ancient_wisdom
I think our mind really is our mind, but we can do things to ourselves with our mind, as the Baghavad Gita says "The will is either a friend or foe of the self." Meaning the mind can play tricks on you, but it's really you playing tricks on yourself with your mind.

Meditation can involve some extremes, especially if you read "no-self" Buddhism which is basically a type of nihilism, I do not believe in a "no-self" Buddhism because I believe that the Buddha's nirvana was an absolute perfection and thus can not be a non-existent thing. That is what Jesus and the Christians perceived as God.

(snip).

Either way, the goal of meditation is not so much an extinction but a knowledge of truth, and so if in our human bodies we are incapable of simply seeing the truth and instead must evaluate it step by step, then what that means is we have to engage in contemplation and not just meditation. Perhaps this is why you are afraid of the silence, because your mind knows it must continuously act. As the Bhagavad Gita says, "all beings must perform action. Act, without attachment to the fruit of action, nor hesitating to act."

ancient wisdom - I really appreciate your postings. I spent some time ready back pages in this forum reading your postings. Your contributions are profound and well researched.

Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully so as to not cause confusion and misunderstanding misleading a sense of nihilism.

I used "extinction" where I should have conveyed as an 'abeyance of the mind in atma' - it's source, with full awareness rather than an extinction.

Only by the investigation 'who am I?' will our mind subside, become still, become firmly fixed of the primal "I" - an abeyance or subsidence into it's source, the atma, in complete awareness. Not an 'extinction' but a subsidence into it's non-dual source unencumbered by dualistic thought and otherness.

reply to post by Unity_99

I love your new avatar.

thanks! It is what I am working towards, it is a work in progress you might say!! To become ONE .

I'm not sure I understand the post or maybe my view is just different.

Inner silence is a goal and when achieved it brings a happiness and great love from within that fear is no where near the truth of what occurs at that moment.

Fear is rooted in absolute boredom. Absolute power is not corruption. It is boredom one achieves with absolute power. It is boredom that one can find reason to destroy everything when one holds absolute power in hand.

There is no fear in my inner silence. I rely on the fears of others and sense them through empathy in order to measure what I should fear.

Originally posted by dzonatas
Inner silence is a goal and when achieved it brings a happiness and great love from within that fear is no where near the truth of what occurs at that moment.

On occasion I have reached this but it seems the fear of silence does return. It is also the faces that appear within the silence that can be frightening for me. Ive no idea who or what they are but Im always aware they might appear at any moment. Im getting better at just staring back at them but some times they can make me jump quite a bit. More often than not they dont look human.

Fear is rooted in absolute boredom. Absolute power is not corruption. It is boredom one achieves with absolute power. It is boredom that one can find reason to destroy everything when one holds absolute power in hand.

Im not sure I understand. The fear in the mind is rooted in absolute boredom? That inner silence is reached and because this is boring we feel fear? But its not boring though, it is the complete opposite because I have no idea where the silence is going or what is beyond it, it is the total opposite to boredom.