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embodhi
USA
1 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 15 2013 : 11:17:47 PM
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Thank you for the opportunity to post on your forums. I have a real appreciation for the AYP lessons and the opportunity to reflect on experiences within these forums. I've been a casual "lurker" on the AYP forums (and lessons) for years.
I am writing to describe an experience that occurred a couple of years ago. This is the first time I have written about this experience.
A bit about my practice: I am a long-time, daily meditation (Zen) practitioner (with some yoga and chi-gong) of about 20 years. I meditate for at least 40 minutes to one hour each day. My primary practice is in the Soto Zen tradition, and I use a “just sitting” (shikantaza) or “silent illumination” method. My experiences with yoga and chi-gong have given me a lot of sensitivity to “energy” (chi, prana, etc.) both in the body and outside. Working with this energy is not the focus of my meditation practice; but, it is also not separate from my meditation practice, and actually, I can't avoid it.
My experience:
It was an April evening during a meditation session at the zendo where I practice daily. There was nothing unusual about the day or the meditation session. I sat in a half lotus position and employed the “just sitting” (shikantaza) method, with a focus on openness and awareness.
The meditation sessions at the zendo are normally 40 minutes in length. Several minutes into the session I noticed a marked increase in the rate and intensity of my heartbeat. I relaxed into this and observed. My heart rate increased and the sensation dropped into the lower part of my body, into the solar plexus and naval areas. The beating in my naval area became a very pronounced throbbing, as if my heart had dropped into my abdomen, and began to quickly increase in rate, almost exponentially. I remember a very clear series of thoughts that went something like this, “Wow, I am going to have a heart attack. This is odd ... I'm a relatively young person. Let’s see what happens. At least if I do have a heart attack, there are others here who can get me help.” My heart rate continued to increase, still throbbing in my lower abdomen, at a pace that seemed unrealistically and dangerously fast. There was no feeling of fear or exhilaration. Instead, I relaxed into the experience and became more of an observer. My overall feeling was one of simple surrender to what was happening … watching.
At this point in the experience, time and space became distorted, so I don’t know how long into the experience the change occurred, a change I can only describe as some sort of phase shift. Suddenly my awareness was no longer of the room in which I was sitting, the others present, my body, or my rapidly beating heart. Instead, I found my conscious awareness had shifted to the inside of a long, vertical channel that was somehow inside my body (this is what my intuitive sense told me). My entire awareness was of the inside of this channel. I still had a slight awareness of my physical body, the beating heart, and the others in the room, but they seemed to be on the other side of a membrane of awareness. I felt my consciousness was in a new, but parallel space inside of this vertical channel. In this new space, I had no body. I seemed to be pure awareness.
My awareness inside of this vertical channel was unbelievably clear. It did not have the blurry distortions of a dream or hallucination. The experience could be described as some as a product of phantasmagoria, but it was, and remains, the most real and lucid experience/period of awareness of my life. The channel itself was dark and I could see in all 360 degree directions simultaneously, though I could focus my attention to one area if I chose. The walls of the channel were not solid. They were made of an ever changing, moving mist, or smoke that was a dark grayish in color. This mist was vaguely illuminated with phosphorescent light, the way the moonlight sometimes hits the soft ripples of water in a bay or pond. In the channel below me the space faded into darkness; above me there was a sense of light; though neither the spaces above or below me really captured my attention. My awareness was just natural, being right were it was.
I don’t know how long my awareness was “suspended” in this channel as I had lost all sense of time and dimension. The one thing that kept me connected to any sense of material being was the, although faint, perception of the hyperactive beating of my heart. At some point, with my awareness still within the channel, my beating heart became more pronounced, beating even faster, and my awareness was propelled, like a massive adrenalin rush, upward through the channel at an unbelievable speed. The sensation was like being on an amusement park ride where you travel from 0-100 mph in a split second, though much faster – inducing feelings of fear, vertigo, exhilaration, confusion, ecstasy at all once, with no particular experience of any of them. The propulsion upwards also had an orgasmic like quality; once you are past the point of no return, there is no way to stop what is about to happen, so just enjoy the ride. I traveled upward at an enormous pace through the channel for what seemed like an instant, though it had a definitive quality of timelessness. The experience of upwards movement was filled with a downloading of information that was somehow being given to me, though I have no way of consciously recalling any of it. It eventually became clear that my awareness traveling upward through the channel was moving into the middle of the head of the physical body I seemed to have left behind. As the movement approached the region of the head, the two different phases (the one of the body and the room in which it sat, and the other of the timelessness inside the channel) began to merge. As the movement reached the center of my skull there was an upwards explosion of light and energy into, and out of, the center and top of my head. The explosion itself had the quality of a massive burst of fireworks, bright and illuminating everything (inside and outside of my body) with a luminous white light. Even with all the fireworks, I found myself simply back, sitting upright, calmly in my body. At the point of this explosion, my awareness had shifted back into my physical body. But things were different.
I could now feel my physical body – torso, head, arms, crossed legs, hands in the sitting mudra, etc. No adverse physical reactions were present – my heartbeat had returned to normal, no sweating, no labored breathing, no wild or jerky movements, etc. But, things clearly were not the same. The explosion in the center of my head had opened my awareness in a profound way, to a profound yet animated emptiness. It was as if every tiny point in space was alive and illuminated: the elements of my body, the fabric of my clothes, the wood of the floor, the air my body breathed – all glowed with a faint illumination. What I would normally understand as the empty space around me was somehow thicker, like it had substance, like it was no longer separate from my body, like I was literally not separate from any part of the world around me. I’ve experienced these feelings of interconnectedness many times before, but on a much less profound scale, and without all the fireworks. I sat in and with this open and alive emptiness, until the bell rang to end the meditation session.
After the meditation session, I got up to say good night to the members of the sitting group, and my teachers. Moving my body was done effortlessly and with clear intention, but this body did not seem to belong specifically to me. In fact, nothing really seemed to belong to anything or anyone. Everything was alive but still – unmistakably and unavoidably – it was just as it was. It was as if my awareness had been blown completely out of what I knew as my body and mind and into the space around me. The body seemed more like a traveling companion than who, or what, I was. And, in all honesty, I had no idea who or what I was … and it didn’t really matter to me. Instead, there was just this moment … and this moment was alive, ever-changing, and vast, all at once.
At the time, I had no intention or desire, and actually no way, of talking about this experience. Immediately after the meditation session, I think I tried to make small talk with the folks around me, but all I ended up saying was “good night.” I made my way to my car and wondered if I really should ask someone for a ride home (my sense of awareness was not settled into any specific sense of embodiment). I sat in my car for awhile, and somehow I knew things would be ok on the way home, and made the drive (just a few miles).
I went to work the next day and throughout the subsequent days (I am a social science teacher), hoping that I could stay grounded. I didn’t seem to have any problems, though daily responsibilities certainly had an alien quality (and they still do). This expanded state of awareness stayed with me for many weeks, and certainly has attenuated over time, but I am sure it has never completed faded. I feel like a bell that has been struck and hasn't stopped ringing.
I have no real explanation for the experience, and hesitate to impose interpretation on it. And, of course I have many questions about it. It may have some of the elements of kundalini, but I have not really been a kundalini cultivator, and I am not by any means an expert in kundalini. The one thing of which I do have a clear sense is that my experience was in no way a conclusion to a journey; it was just one step on a path.
I know that many yogic traditions have a rich base of knowledge and “cartography” for understanding such experiences. I offer this account to the insights and reflections of the AYP community. Over the years I have spent a lot of time with the AYP lessons and forums, and though this is my first post, I have found a lot of helpful advice posted by AYP members in the lessons and forums. I welcome your insights.
Sorry for the long post. I hope this account finds you well.
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2013 : 11:13:38 PM
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embodhi,
Welcome to the forum!
quote:
Originally posted by embodhi
I feel like a bell that has been struck and hasn't stopped ringing.
That's a good description. I can relate. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Dec 17 2013 : 12:02:37 AM
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Sounds like you dropped into the sushumna (the central channel of the spine), and then your crown burst open.
This happened to me about 3 years ago. But, instead of meditating, I was driving a car. Fun times. For me, it came with fireworks as well, and everything became increasingly luminescent, as you so crisply describe. Interconnectedness reached a new level, and I saw clearly into planes of reality I had only glimpsed on strong psychedelics. However, the swell subsided, and it's been a transformation of character since then, slowly but surely stabilizing and working within the limits of the body-mind.
Your descriptions and story are both sane and sound, and thank you for unwinding the details in an easily digestible way. It's an adventure, isn't it?
Godspeed, and glad to be on the journey with you.  |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 18 2013 : 5:57:52 PM
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Hi embodhi!
Thanks for sharing.
Your experience reminds me of a profoundly significant enlightenment milestone Adyashanti described in one of his videos. Similarities: his background was in Zen meditation, it happened when he was in seated meditation, there was a racing heart rate at onset, radically shifted perception, a download of information, profound aftereffects.
Namaste,
PS. The description of the "kundalini" experience starts at minute 19 of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUTF8n_WJko |
Edited by - bewell on Dec 18 2013 6:22:25 PM |
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Evannon
USA
26 Posts |
Posted - Feb 22 2014 : 09:13:45 AM
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Embodhi -
Though I'm late to this thread, I can't help posting a reply; I hope it makes its way to you.
THANK YOU for describing your experience in so much detail! It parallels my own in many striking ways: I was sitting in a meditation hall surrounded by many others, though my practice was Vipassana. Not only was I "not a cultivator" of Kundlini; I had never even heard of Kundalini. My heart started pounding as I was focusing my attention on the sensations of the inside of the body, as instructed by the teacher, Goenka. Same racing heart, and same tranquility at the same time. I had been well coached to "just observe, no attachment, no aversion to ANY particular sensation..." The vast majority of sensations I had experienced up to that point had been painful, so I was astonished when the racing heart became accomanied by an upward rush of ecstatic energy that began in the root chakra region and gradually rose all the way to the crown, where extroardinary fireworks as you describe ensued. My experience was profoundly erotic and ecstatic - the sensation just prior to orgasm, but throughout the center of my body. And yet - there was no sexual object in my mind. Nothing to stimulate such arousal, no craving... just the ecstatic energy of that life force coursing through me.
I too was at a total loss for how to describe this; I felt I should talk to the assistant teachers, and tried at one point, but it became immediately clear that they had no idea what I was talking about - or they pretended to make nothing of it.
My story from that point forward is a long one. Suffice to say, this mysterious and miraculous energy has not left me alone - it came back a year later at the next retreat, and the year after that (by which time I had learned about Kundalini) it returned in a powerful way that made me realize I had no choice but to learn how to engage with the energy and direct it productively. That journey led me to this site, where I found the tools I needed. So keep exploring - here, and in your meditations! Sounds like you're on a good path that allows you to maintain stability if or when Kundalini rises again.
I wish you well!
(though my original name on here was Evannon, I've become known to my closest friends by a new name...)
Vajra Bell |
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Evannon
USA
26 Posts |
Posted - Feb 22 2014 : 09:57:15 AM
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OH - one more thing... I meant to mention the feelings of spaciousness, timelessness, body-less-ness, and interconnectedness. Absolutely! I had no idea how long the experience went on, other than judging by the bell ending the session.
I've had countless experiences like this over the years by now. The first happened when I was 35; I'm now 46. Even yesterday I experienced a somewhat milder "connection" (as I now call it.) During the most profound experience, I had a kind of insight - a certainty, like knowing one has a body - that I've never quite been able to put into words; the most succinct formation I've found is this:
My brain is not producing this consciousness; the consciousness has produced my brain.
This can be understood as happening in the present moment, or over time. The "over time" interpretation sees the brain as arising through evolution of life on Earth. Biologically, my brain is produced by genetics, through the reproductive combination of chromosomes from mother and father, who received the same from their parents... back to the primordial sludge - but what was the initial spark? Still no one knows. I'm not talking about "God" in the Judeo-Christian traditional sense. I agree with the physicist Amit Goswami in seeing "consciousness" more as a natural phenomenon in the universe, as fundamental as gravity or motion. (Google Amit Goswami if you're not familiar!)
To understand the phase above as happening "in the present moment," however, is even more interesting to me. As Einstein showed us, time is relative. Contemporary physists tell us there's no physical reason for it to exist, or for it to go only forward and not backward. So perhaps it's irrelevant... or, more precisely: an illusion arising from the way our brains have evolved to perceive the energetic fields in which they have arisen. So from the timeless perspective, whether our consciousness is produced instantaneously or over millennia through evolution makes no difference.
I am not producing my own consciousness, period.
Precisely why this hit me like a ton of bricks I don't know. I never feel like the words quite capture the knowing. I think it has to do with the fact that if you know your brain is simply one little product of a much more vast and profound consciousness, you see how limited it is. It is time-bound (usually) and self-identified, and it thinks the way it understands everything is the way everything is.
But everything isn't.
This is the first time I've tried to write about this experience, so, embodhi, thank you for prompting it, and thank you to anyone who reads it for your indulgence!
Vajra Bell
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Feb 22 2014 : 10:37:03 AM
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| Awesome story, Vajra Bell! Thank you. |
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Evannon
USA
26 Posts |
Posted - Feb 22 2014 : 6:51:06 PM
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| Glad you liked it Bodhi Tree! I wondered, as I wrote it: Why am I writing this now? I doubt anyone will look back to a thread that died out two months ago. But I knew the answer immediately: I was writing it for me. (I'll be saving it in my journal.) Nevertheless I'm glad it got read by at least one soul! |
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BillinL.A.
USA
375 Posts |
Posted - Feb 22 2014 : 7:12:38 PM
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Evannon most regular visitors to the forum click on the "Active Topics" link at the top of the page under the "AYP Support Forums" title and all new posts are listed since the last visit.
Your shared experiences touched me deeply even though you may have done it to be honest with yourself. Thanks mucho much!!!
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AumNaturel
Canada
687 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2014 : 10:23:45 AM
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| Embodhi, very much appreciating the keen and detailed account. Above it's timeless, inspirational value, I also find it it invaluable in a practical sense as well. For example, your and others' descriptions about the "heart rate increased" parallels a similar sensation I've encountered while transitioning into sleep consciously where it feels like there's a second pulse overlaying and blending the physical one resembling the description "sensation dropped into the lower part of my body, into the solar plexus and naval areas" which is distinct from the usual vibrations or other hypnagogic sensations of the transition since it carries well into wakefulness. |
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an experience ... kundalini?
