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Jnana Yoga/Self-Inquiry - Advaita (Non-Duality)

Can meditation be a hindrance?

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			$Prayer [/\]$

[quote][i]Originally posted by Anthem11[/i]
[br][quote][i]Originally posted by CarsonZi[/i]
[br]I don't *have* to face my own tendencies and can just "let it all slide" and simply abide in that wonderful sense of "all is perfect as it is."
[/quote]

Having gone through this over the last year, I have intimate appreciation of where you are coming from. It was a big adjustment, the transition to no longer meditating, particularly the first days after stopping and then again months later. I also had become very dependent on the twice daily upswing in equanimity/ bliss and life was very smooth, it was an enjoyable phase, just like kundalini awakening was an enjoyable phase. It was challenging to face emotions raw and vulnerable but the increase in inner silence that had occurred from all those hours of meditation practice is what made it possible to handle the intensities of emotions that I was no longer accustomed. The limited thinking in my mind did become easier to notice and without regular meditation practice, there was no other way then to face what needed to be faced.

My personal opinion is this benefit of meditation can not last forever though I am sure some others will disagree, particularly those who have had it last consistently a long time. That said, personally I would do it all over again and I would enjoy it while it lasts, if/ until life says this is not the way for you anymore then the timing will be right to do it differently. I say this because the body and heart are wise and will lead the way, not with ideas or concepts of what should/ could be done, but with clear physical input and impulses that you can't miss.

After a year of no meditation I can say that the equanimity or the bliss never really goes away completely, but the "insolation" between thoughts and emotions is stripped away.  It is all there in plain view, no hiding. One thing I see with certainty, is that the process of becoming unlimited doesn't end with any big realization about our true nature. The trueness of our actions, our understanding of the world of form will continue to expand indefinitely. Not sure about this and think you've reached some end-stage of "enlightenment" then just try something new.
[/quote]

T O P I C R E V I E W
CarsonZi	Posted - May 06 2012 : 09:46:23 AM As some of you probably know, lately I've been inquiring into exactly what meditation does to me and whether or not it is actually helpful or if it is a hinderance (at least at this point in my journey). What I have come to realize is that meditation can be a lot like opiates for me. Regular twice daily meditation generally has me in a state of blissful equanimity, unaffected by Life to a point where I wonder if it is perhaps hindering progress. What I've been inquiring into lately is whether or not I am actually benefitting in the long run from the state of equanimity and unaffectedness that I experience when I engage in regular twice daily practices. The reason I compare it to opiates is because this is generally what opiates do to me as well. They put me in a state where it doesn't matter what happens around or to me as I am unaffected by it all. For most, it seems that being in this state is generally a positive thing. For me, I'm wondering if it is just delaying the inevitable. I've come to realize that a very important part of my path is to come to know all about myself... my tendencies, my instinctual reactions, what makes me tick on an individual level. But I've noticed that if I'm in a constant state of unaffectedness, I don't get to go deep into my own conditioning, I don't have to face my own tendencies and can just "let it all slide" and simply abide in that wonderful sense of "all is perfect as it is." I'm wondering if this is just delaying things, if I'm actually making it more challenging to come to know all about myself. Now that I am only meditating about 4 or 5 times a week I've noticed that the "unaffectedness" is generally much less and I now have a greater ability/opportunity to notice and inquire into my conditioning and tendencies. Yes it's more painful and challenging, but the amount of clarity with regards to what makes me tick as an individual has increased probably about 100 fold since limiting my meditation practice. Maybe this is just proper self pacing, I'm not sure, but I'd appreciate any feedback if any of you feel so inclined. Many thanks. Love, Carson
25 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)
eyeknownothing	Posted - Aug 10 2012 : 12:07:34 PM Indeed - nothing is sacred. The emperor has never worn any clothes or had any actual power to decree what makes a woodchuck chuck. But if we're all made of nothing, then is everything sacred? What if we just need a little more juice to fuel taking the reigns of that authority?
escapado	Posted - Jul 04 2012 : 05:29:51 AM hey there carson I had something like that (not the exact same thing and maybe not as dramatic as that) going on here in the past few weeks. You know that anaesthesiatic feeling you sometimes get after smoking pot? That's what has been haunting me for 6 or 7 years (as far as I remember, could be more) now. When you don't know what you're here for and/but you don't feel comfortable with yourself at all. So lately it was just too much for me. I couldn't stand it anymore (especially since it's been returning and leaving again and again making myself fight and struggle with my energy), it was simply ruining me (as for what I wanted it was the opposite). I had to jump off of the meditation stuff, too - for a week at least. It seemed like meditation was for no real reason at all, just draggin myself over the floor. Like it fueled the immense amount of friction that had gathered up in me. So I took a rest from it but I couldn't stop there. I made myself the vow that I wouldn't stop until ... eh not so sure about that right now :P (but instinctively my wish has been unbound freedom ever since I can remember feeling - feeling had always been a seeking with me) In that time off I somehow summoned all my will power and then it made click "I can and I will do that" and that's the part where _I_ decided how I wanted to devote myself to this again freely because _I_ want that so! (manipura is oh so beautiful!) In the end we might all just be illusions but this one illusion here nicknamed escapado wants to be free to be like it is so I support myself and fuel myself and I found this positivity to be the right way (for me)! it was all too dull and I knew I needed balance but I didn't know what the missing counterpart was. Looking back I could say maybe or probably it was just an overload, too. LOL So much 'bout that,huh. Hope you get everything as you really wish it to be!
tonightsthenight	Posted - Jun 22 2012 : 10:05:22 PM Hi Carson, I am reading this entire thread for the first time.... but I understand exactly what you are saying and I empathize! Wanted you to hear that bro!
BuddhiHermit	Posted - Jun 22 2012 : 5:46:00 PM In most traditional approaches, two elements are identified ; Equanimity, and Insight. Silence grows into blissful equanimity and remains there, containing life, but not enlightening it. Some, enter the stream of Bliss, and ride it home. Others grow Insight on the foundation of Equanimity, deepening both over time, and see their way home. Namaste
karl	Posted - May 14 2012 : 05:20:31 AM Except there was never an enemy, it is all an illusion. The battles are real enough though I do have scars, they are marks of progress and are only given by love.
maheswari	Posted - May 14 2012 : 03:21:23 AM excellent quote from Platoon btw i never managed to watch this movie...too violent for me
Bodhi Tree	Posted - May 13 2012 : 9:54:18 PM quote: Originally posted by karl quote: Originally posted by maheswari quote: Carso, Namaste to you. Not as a friendly greeting but as a salute. You are breaking the mirrors that hold the individual reflections. When the last one has been smashed, then the self can be known. very nice Karl how many times did you watch Enter the Dragon Many times and then I lived it. Excellent metaphor, maheswari. I bet Karl's even got some battle scars from the man with the steel claws...brutal, those are. I've got a few myself. It reminds me of the ending scene from Platoon, when he's flying away from his tour in Vietnam and says: "I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us." The enemy is in the mirror, but so is the hero. Onward.
karl	Posted - May 13 2012 : 3:04:28 PM quote: Originally posted by maheswari quote: Carso, Namaste to you. Not as a friendly greeting but as a salute. You are breaking the mirrors that hold the individual reflections. When the last one has been smashed, then the self can be known. very nice Karl how many times did you watch Enter the Dragon Many times and then I lived it.
maheswari	Posted - May 13 2012 : 09:08:45 AM quote: Carso, Namaste to you. Not as a friendly greeting but as a salute. You are breaking the mirrors that hold the individual reflections. When the last one has been smashed, then the self can be known. very nice Karl how many times did you watch Enter the Dragon
Delara	Posted - May 13 2012 : 06:41:08 AM quote: Originally posted by chas Also, I don't know how common the following events are... the energy was like a veil over stillness. I hadn't recognized this until one morning last spring when there was a pulsation of emptiness/energy... like a Sri Yantra energy explosion moving through stillness. The pulsation was at the solar for quite a while, eventually moving up to the heart. This was also when I first noticed very subtle bliss, deeper than ecstatic sensations, and pure expression of stillness (divine love, pure joy, etc.). A pratyahara in stillness/bliss developed and seems to have supported further expansion...With this, the flow and engagement with life increased as 'stillness in action', 'outpouring of divine love'. So I guess the point in all this is that inward attention seems to be a necessary step to go beyond ecstatic, and bliss is not to be avoided, but sought. Then at some point inner and outer attention merge and is both inward and outward, or neither (words are useless here:)) ...'non-dual awareness'. Love Beautiful
karl	Posted - May 12 2012 : 9:38:20 PM Carso, Namaste to you. Not as a friendly greeting but as a salute. You are breaking the mirrors that hold the individual reflections. When the last one has been smashed, then the self can be known. It's a hard route to take. It is relational self inquiry so it should be plain sailing. I packed in under similar circumstances and when I returned to it, all the practices had become devotional. I gave up independence, surrendered and became a servant and a dependent. When the mirrors break there are no independent selves, just one self everywhere, no requirement to control anything when the self is infinite. May the mirrors break quickly.
chas	Posted - May 12 2012 : 5:53:00 PM quote: Originally posted by CarsonZi I don't know if this is something that everyone has to go through in the process of unfolding to their greater potential, but it is certainly something that I seem to have to go through. Hi Carson, I went through something similar, it seems. It was an attachment to ecstatic energy sensations... Not sure if this is the same as with you, but sounds similar. Also, I don't know how common the following events are... the energy was like a veil over stillness. I hadn't recognized this until one morning last spring when there was a pulsation of emptiness/energy... like a Sri Yantra energy explosion moving through stillness. The pulsation was at the solar for quite a while, eventually moving up to the heart. This was also when I first noticed very subtle bliss, deeper than ecstatic sensations, and pure expression of stillness (divine love, pure joy, etc.). A pratyahara in stillness/bliss developed and seems to have supported further expansion...With this, the flow and engagement with life increased as 'stillness in action', 'outpouring of divine love'. So I guess the point in all this is that inward attention seems to be a necessary step to go beyond ecstatic, and bliss is not to be avoided, but sought. Then at some point inner and outer attention merge and is both inward and outward, or neither (words are useless here:)) ...'non-dual awareness'. Love
jeff	Posted - May 12 2012 : 3:08:12 PM Your line of reasoning (and questioning) is completely valid. Meditation alone can become a "bubble-like" practice. The key is the full integration into the practice of "life/existence". The perception of "meditation" or "non-meditation" is only a perception. Trust your "inner guru", you know what you are doing. The distinction drops and all your daily life becomes a meditation (living Samyama). Love
CarsonZi	Posted - May 12 2012 : 11:27:07 AM I just thought I would mention the following in case it helps to add a bit of clarity for those who are wondering what my motivation for opening this topic may be. I can imagine that some of you may be thinking that I have perhaps taken a step backwards (as Karl mentioned above) by choosing to meditate much less than I have been over the past several years and to be questioning whether or not meditation could actually be slowing down spiritual transformation. I just want to mention that the reason I've been going through this line of questioning is because, again as Karl mentioned above, nothing is sacred (for me) at this time. And when I say "nothing is sacred" what I mean is that everything that is believed has to be subjected to the light of awareness and inquiry and has to stand up to the test of being weighed against the resonance in my heart. This means that even the beliefs I have in what meditation does and how it affects me have to be questioned. I don't know if this is something that everyone has to go through in the process of unfolding to their greater potential, but it is certainly something that I seem to have to go through. It can be very unsettling to be honest. It was easy for me to land in the safety and security of a life lived from a belief set that made sense to my mind, but at this time it seems that safety and security is not what I need. It seems that I need to be okay with not-knowing, with having no solid ground to stand on, and to be comfortable questioning absolutely everything that I have held to be true. I know that this could easily slide into "non-relational inquiry" if I am not diligent in staying aware of how engaged the mind is in the process of inquiry, but that too seems to be part of the process.... learning to notice when the the mind is trying to run the show. Anyway, I just thought it was worth mentioning why this line of questioning came up. Love, Carson
axelschlotzhauer	Posted - May 09 2012 : 01:58:15 AM Gardening is a spiritual exercise for Zen monks for training full presence doing nothing else also mentally. Here it is escape from to much kundalini and overload and meditation being no hindrance this way. Axel
Etherfish	Posted - May 08 2012 : 11:10:12 PM I love hardcore gardening. I've been digging up very invasive trees and cutting them up.
Parallax	Posted - May 08 2012 : 8:13:11 PM Hey Carson, Love you my brother...admire your honesty, openess and willingness to look deep. You've done a lot of practices, classes and retreats over the past 2yrs; grounding and integration are going to be your good friends for a little while, I suspect, as all of your openings continue to "bake in"...but of course thats just my intuition and has nothing to do with reality Follow your heart because you've got a good one Give your beautiful family some hugs for me
CarsonZi	Posted - May 08 2012 : 12:32:51 PM quote: Originally posted by Bodhi Tree Now you're getting to the heart of the matter, mate! A day of hardcore gardening will do that to anyone.
karl	Posted - May 08 2012 : 03:10:52 AM It's the tricky mind. DEFCON1 couldn't be maintained in light of the answers given and your willing openness in discussing the issue, so it got down graded to ordinary overload. That's why this forum is so great, it really helps to give perspective and reflection even if the solutions don't entirely fit, the breathing space allows some internal searching and finding our own answers. I found that twice a day meditation was too much, so I cut back to once a day. I attempted to go back to twice, but found it didn't work well as there seemed a lot of frustration and teeth gnashing during the normal day. Got to do what the Guru says. Less is definitely more. Glad you found your answer.
Bodhi Tree	Posted - May 07 2012 : 8:38:31 PM Now you're getting to the heart of the matter, mate!
CarsonZi	Posted - May 07 2012 : 8:13:22 PM I realized today as I hand tilled my garden, that the word "hindrance" is without a doubt the wrong word to use and that this is really just a topic about self-pacing. I could have titled this topic; "Can you meditate too much?" to which I think we all know the answer. Where we each draw that line between 'just enough' and 'too much' is going to be personal and will change for each individual as we continue to open I think. Love, Carson
Bodhi Tree	Posted - May 07 2012 : 4:28:34 PM Splendid, Karl. I read you loud and clear. I dig your metaphors and imagery. Catch you on the flip side.
karl	Posted - May 07 2012 : 07:39:21 AM Nothing Sacred, meaning a constantly and consciously changing view which requires no permanency. Existing as change on a material level in keeping with the ebb and flow of everything. Doing that with reduced friction and in some cases the complete absence of friction. Working on the sticking points when they inevitably crop up. I came to see that when I don't allow this expansion and movement to occur then the reaction is thought. I am learning to go wherever the tide is going, occasionally I forget to let that happen and then the thoughts come. The thoughts tell me of how I will drown, be lost, or smashed against rocks, but only when the ebb and flow is resisted. Only when I think that I have control and then the Ego leaps to oblige. Once I find a sticking point then it is traced to its roots and found not to exist. How many and how strong these attractions and attachments are I don't know. I do know that over time they have become easier and easier to dispense. Each one is less of a jolt and more of a pleasure to solve, it's like the best work in the world and I look forward to each one, like a magnificent jewel. They are full of love. None are meant to harm, only to educate. I feel that love in almost everything now, where once there were only deserts, now flowers grow. Just like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz, I have discovered the heart that was never really missing. I'm not yet a surging river of out flowing love, but I can see that I'm no longer squeezing a rock.
Bodhi Tree	Posted - May 07 2012 : 06:57:03 AM Nothing is sacred to you, Karl? Interesting. Quite the opposite has been happening to me as I float along. All seems to be becoming more sacred, more worthy of kind awareness, non-judgmental in its scope. Lately, the earth is especially revealing herself to be a sacred organism, and she calls me to be more conscious of her sanctity, which motivates me to move away from my consumerist habits and more towards sustainable ones. You know me, I just like to challenge (respectfully) positions that lean to certain sides, but that's probably because I lean to a narcissistic side myself. I think that's a good balance in the forums (ego playing with no-ego), and I like tossing you whiffle-ball pitches so you can knock them out of the park, as you so skillfully do. You make some illuminating posts. Man, I am really psyched about the release of Yogani's upcoming addition to the Enlightenment Series: Liberation. I am hungry for THAT! Good literature motivates me to keep up with practices and expand my involvement in the world. I've started drumming a djembe in the gospel group at a metaphysical church. There is unity and divine love there--no doubt about it. You can feel the purity and boundless connections in your bones when the singing and music resound in the sanctuary.
axelschlotzhauer	Posted - May 07 2012 : 05:15:00 AM I shared the experience of Carsonzi. I got separate from normal life by big amounts of Tibetan mantras. Though tantra the isolating and protection covers where so thick that there was no danger when a woman walked at my side and tried to stimulate. At the same time bad emotions affected me to much. For coming back and grounding more I put my secretary on the lap. I needed time till it worked. I am skeptical on such never interrupting employment machines for monasteries. Naturally you have to learn being steady in your practice for getting concentration and deeper insights also in the practice. But the promises are to big manipulating you by not giving necessary pieces and informations for reaching such goals. Dulling meditations can be indeed a hindrance and also the Tibetan monk has as coronation of his career go to the market and meet a low cast fisherwoman for flying into the heaven with her. Also a good catholic shall sexless live like old Joseph and Mary. Getting other informations needs much time and effort and the readiness to meditate showing also other sex approaches as losing energy for more equinanimity. Nothing to say againstb the production of peace energies by prayers. But it easily produces the trap of special holiness. Axel