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lanphuonglien
Bahamas
1 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 24 2017 : 1:36:35 PM
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Hi,
Sadly, I still don't get it.
I meditate every day, two or three times a day, using the "I AM" mantra.
Almost all of meditations result in being immersed in a sea of visions, colors and lights. It is like being in a storm on the ocean and I am really fighting to even think or repeat the mantra. I have to put in a whole lot of effort just to get one complete mantra out without being sidetracked into 'vision land'. A lot of effort! It feels like I'm doing pushups or climbing stairs!
Even when I start to focus on the "I" in the "I AM", the I becomes a thread of color leading to a scene or object or face. I don't get it. Is meditation supposed to be like that?
What is inner or deep silence? You'd think that after three years of regular meditation I would get it.
Tonight I was observing my thoughts and I came to the question "What if inner silence is exactly that, absence of the voices inside your head that keep talking out the thoughts?" In other words, what if inner silence is strictly on the 'sound' level? Does inner silence mean the absence of the sound of thoughts? Does it mean "No more voices talking in the head"?
Most all of my thoughts are verbally repeated to 'me', that is, a voice in my head says the thought out loud and then 'I' grasp it (or the witness hears it). There are many voices that do this. I say 'most of my thoughts' because some thoughts are pictures or visions, and when that happens, there is no voice that repeats anything. Isn't light silent?
Does inner silence simply mean shutting down the mechanism that sub-vocalizes one's thoughts in the head, like what happens when you listen intently? If you really listen intently and you don't hear any thoughts speaking to you, is that inner silence?
Comments anyone? |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Aug 24 2017 : 6:24:47 PM
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Silence is the absence of sound, and stillness is the absence of movement. They are two aspects of the same presence, the same void.
Sometimes I disappear in meditation. Into a place where there is no sound, no movement, no subject or object. Nothing to witness, and no one to witness it. It's addictive. But there are layers to sift through, so like you, I hear my voice(s) and see images and other scenery. The mantra is like a thread that weaves it all together, so that transcendence is more coherent and fluid.
The main thing is to take it as it comes, and sometimes, stillness/silence will creep up on us "like a thief in the night". That's why it's important to be loose with the mantra, in a way that allows for getting lost. It's the magic of active surrender, and easily favoring.
As you probably know, the barometer of Deep Meditation's success is gauged by an improvement in the quality of our life well beyond the session. That is a key thing to remember. We can have a noisy meditation, but if we feel cleansed afterwards and more in the smooth flow of our activity, then it's working.
Your language is sharp. You're on target. Continue to find the small miracles within and around you, and you will get increasingly closer to your Ishta.
Love. Radiance. Unity.
(P.S. Samyama is a great way to increase stillness in action). |
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Blanche
USA
859 Posts |
Posted - Aug 24 2017 : 8:00:52 PM
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Hello Langhounglien,
Welcome to the forum. Your effort to meditate is very impressive. What happens if you do not make any effort? Just once sit and do not fight the images when they come, if they come. Let them be. See if you can still be with the mantra. Or if "the show" is too intense, just wait until the images subside. Go like this for 20 minutes. See how you feel afterwards. Let us know how it goes.
Best wishes,
Blanche |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1532 Posts |
Posted - Aug 25 2017 : 01:01:26 AM
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Dear Lanphuonglien,
Welcome to the forums. You should have dropped by sooner rather than wait 3 yrs - 
It sounds like you are overdoing. Have you read up on self-pacing? I would advice that you meditate only 2x a day (not 3x) and that you cut back DM to 10 mins and see how it goes. DM is supposed to be easy, effortless. You are clearly exerting yourself too much. That leads to you closing up in concentration, instead of opening up in a listening, relaxing manner.
To better help you, can you tell us more about your practices - are you doing only DM or have you added spinal breathing and other techniques? Please take a moment to describe exactly what you do when doing DM
Sey  |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Aug 25 2017 : 03:06:22 AM
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Inner silence is equanimity, no ups and downs. Just be, no matter what is happening inside or out. It will happen if we stop trying to be still. If we surrender. This is easy said but we can not do it. It is a falling away of the desire to become still.
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1730 Posts |
Posted - Aug 25 2017 : 05:06:12 AM
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HI lanphuonglien
Welcome to the forum. Good to hear your voice in here.
I would give a good try to what Blanche has suggested. You should not fight to keep up the mantra. "easily pick up the mantra" - remember? - this is part of the deep meditation instructions.
And yes, you might be overdoing, as Say has suggested. Have you happened to try other forms of meditation - breath focused for instance and if yes, how did that feel?
I'm sure the 3 years of meditation have done something useful. It sounds like there is a lot of emotional energy there wanting to come out. My guess is that there will come a point when you will see the progress. No spiritual effort is lost.
All the best. I look forward to hearing more from you. |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 25 2017 : 7:36:03 PM
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| Look at you. Continuing to meditate even though you're not getting the " right" experience. Kudos to you my dear. |
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colours
Sweden
108 Posts |
Posted - Aug 28 2017 : 8:46:48 PM
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I suggest listening deeply to the mantra, and not forcing it. "If the mantra is hard to pick up, we don't do it".
There really is no goal in meditation, because when there is a goal, to have a certain experience, the meditation is somehow lost... In my humble opinion.
What if you just sit there with all thoughts and visions, no mantra, no nothing, just listen deeply...maybe if you listen the thoughts and vision will subside and there is the mantra, the silence, the stillness...
I was recently where you are, struggling to keep the mantra up, and to keep focusing on it, and one meditation I just thought "what if I DO NOT focus on the mantra, just repeat it silently and effortlessly in my mind" and I did. Ever since I have not been struggling with the mantra one meditation... Just a natural attention...
I can feel you are there also soon, otherwise you would not have written this post, I think :)
Good things are happening!
/colours |
Edited by - colours on Aug 28 2017 8:53:45 PM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Aug 29 2017 : 04:32:48 AM
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Hi Lamphuonglien,
Welcome to the forum. 
You have received some good advice from others above. As Colours mentioned, if it is a real struggle to come back to the mantra, then we don't do it. Simply rest your awareness gently with whatever is happening until it calms down and you are able to pick up the mantra easily again. This is covered in lesson 15:
"Sometimes physical discomfort can happen during meditation. This is usually a symptom of the release of obstructions in the nervous system. If it interferes with the easy process of meditation, then pause with the mantra and allow the attention to be drawn to the physical discomfort. Just be with it for a while. Usually, this will dissolve the discomfort naturally. Once it does, go back to the mantra and continue your meditation until your time is up. Count the time you spent with your attention on the physical discomfort as part of your meditation time. If the sensation does not dissolve, lie down for while, until the sensation subsides. It is a good thing. A big obstruction is going. Let it go easily, naturally. The same procedure applies if you are overcome with a barrage of overbearing thoughts, which may or may not be accompanied by physical sensations. If you can't easily go back to the mantra, just be with the thoughts until they dissipate enough so you can easily pick up the mantra again. Remember, meditation is not a fight with physical or mental activity we may have. These are all symptoms of the release of obstructions from deep in the nervous system. We just let them go. Our job is to follow the easy procedure of thinking the mantra and allowing the process of inner cleansing to happen. This is not a war on the level of the conscious mind. You can never win it that way. We are working from the inside, within and beyond the subconscious mind. In order to do this we must allow the natural ability of the mind to take us in. So learn to think the mantra easily, and let it go in. " [Yogani]
This is from one of Yogani's forum posts:
"As we know, "achieving stillness" as an experience during practice is not the goal in either deep meditation or samyama. The goal is to continue with the procedure of practice. The results we will find in our daily activity. It is not uncommon for a topsy-turvy session to be followed by smooth activity during the day filled with stillness/witness, creativity and positive energy. Why? Because we have gotten rid of a bunch inner obstructions during our topsy-turvy practice. House cleaning sometimes kicks up some dust, but the result is a cleaner house.
If the mind is full with thoughts or the body is full with restlessness or sensations during practice, these are a direct result of purification occurring, which is a good thing. If such symptoms become excessive to the point where we cannot pick up the mantra or sutra, then we can just ease off for a few minutes allowing our innocent awareness to be drawn to the overwhelming sensation. See Lesson 15 for details. "[Yogani]
3 years is actually not a long time when it comes to the spiritual path. It can take many years, or even decades, to clear out the karmic obstructions that have been accumulated in the subtle and physical body. It can take patience. Be kind to yourself.
Inner silence can be experienced as the absence of sound. But inner silence can also exist when thoughts and the mantra are present, underlying and permeating everything else that is rising and falling in the mind. Meditation is not a process of trying to stop thoughts in the mind or any mental activity. It is a more subtle process than that. The first stage, and a very important one, is the stage of coming into the witness. This is when we start to notice that whatever is happening in the mind, we are aware of that and it is not who we are. It is simply arising and passing away in the light of awareness. The cultivation of the witness can happen whatever is going on in the mind.
When we begin to come into the witness, this will have an effect on what is happening in the mind in terms of thoughts and sensations, as we are no longer fueling it, or identifying with it. So it is a two way process. From the witness, it is only a small step into samadhi.
None of this can be forced, so it is a matter of being gentle with yourself and allowing things to play out as they will. If you follow the meditation instructions as they are given, it will all work itself out.
This is from lesson 157: What is Inner Silence?:
"The difference between inner silence and the other three states of consciousness is that inner silence is unchanging and can be cultivated in the nervous system as an unending presence superimposed under, in, and through the other three states of consciousness. Those who have meditated for some time find this to be the case. It starts as some inner peace and an awareness of a silent quality coexisting with and within the objects of our perception. This happens with external observations through the senses, and with our thoughts and feelings too. We see them as the objects that they are, occurring external to our unconditioned inner silent awareness. With daily yoga practices, inner silence grows and becomes the movie screen upon which all our experiences are projected. We become the movie screen - the infinite movie screen of life.
Is inner silence "the space between mental words" (thoughts)? Yes, it is. It is the gap we sometimes experience as we pass from one thought to another, and from one state of consciousness to another. When the music stops for an instant, we are left with inner silence, our Self. For the yogi and yogini, inner silence is also experienced behind and within the thoughts, and within all of life. So, when we let go into inner silence during samyama, there may be no mental activity, or there may be some. If we are letting go, our attention will be in inner silence, assuming we have cultivated some in deep meditation beforehand. Samyama and enlightenment (first stage and beyond) depend on innate inner silence that will be there whether the mind is "burbling" or not. It also comes up in dreaming state and deep sleep - that's 24/7 inner silence (means 24 hours per day, 7 days per week). Once we have that rising, we are becoming ready for serious yoga, union of the subject and the object, and that is the union of the divine poles within us leading to the unity condition where all is experienced as a divine flow of the One." [Yogani]
Spinal Breathing Pranayama is a powerful technique for clearing obstructions and I would recommend adding that to the front of your meditation practice, if you have not done so already. You could also add a light asana practice on to the front of that, if you wish to. Asana practice also helps with clearing obstructions in the subtle neurobiology.
Christi
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colours
Sweden
108 Posts |
Posted - Aug 29 2017 : 12:04:40 PM
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Christi: Just a question. Is it correct to say that silence/stillness is what is between two thoughts, and Samadhi is when you are absorbed by this silence/stillness?
I have wondered about the difference...
/colours |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Aug 29 2017 : 4:05:48 PM
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Hi Colours,
Yes, Samadhi is becoming absorbed in inner silence.
See here:
"Samadhi is the eighth limb of yoga and means "absorption in pure bliss consciousness," or "abiding in inner silence," "the witness," "stillness in action," etc., all which we talk about so much around here from an experiential perspective. Everyone who loses the mantra during deep meditation enters samadhi.
There are as many types and grades of samadhi as one might care to define, and it can get very technical in splitting hairs. It really depends on experience. Before then, it is mostly academic. " [Yogani]
Just to clarify though, as I was explaining above, silence/stillness is not only experienced between two thoughts. It can also be experienced as our own awareness (pure bliss consciousness) which is that within which thoughts and the mantra arise and dissolve. This is important because people can develop the idea that the goal of meditation is to stop thoughts/ the mantra, in order to experience inner silence, which is not correct practice. The goal of meditation is to follow the simple procedure of returning to the mantra whenever we realize that we are off it. It is a subtle difference, but it is important.
One of the simplest ways of describing samadhi is by it's accompanying conditions. Early stages of samadhi will be experienced as peaceful, blissful, balanced and silent (though not necessarily because of the absence of sound/ thought). It is not necessary that all of these conditions will be present, but most of them will be. It is as if the background (awareness), comes to the foreground and the foreground (the objects of the senses and the objects of the mind) goes to the background. What we did not notice before (pure bliss consciousness), because we were occupied by and identified with things that are temporal, becomes our fundamental condition of being.
In higher states of samadhi, with a purified (ecstatic) subtle nervous system, we become fully absorbed in the Self and the experience of this is one of unity, freedom and divine love.
Christi |
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colours
Sweden
108 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2017 : 7:19:40 PM
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Thanks Christi for the quote and explanation. I think I get it in a theoretical way at least. I am beginning to see that samadhi might be the key to meditation, and enlightenment. To be absorbed in silence, the witness dissolved in unity. Etc. I guess what is missing is the experience... I have had it, or close to it... a few times. But not enough to fully understand. But as you say, it isn't only in that experience when you dissappear for a while in silence and unity, it is also those small moments after you loose the mantra and before starting to think those thoughts which you recognise later that you are thinking instead of the mantra... I guess. But as you say, this is mostly splitting hair, and I guess you can not cover all aspects of it in a thousand books, but it doesn't hurt to know the most important aspects to prepare for coming experience's... :) and writing is a good way to do this I think.
Thanks again!
/colours |
Edited by - colours on Aug 30 2017 7:30:37 PM |
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sunyata
USA
1507 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2017 : 10:10:50 PM
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Good advice from All.
Being saturated with Stillness/Samadhi/Inner Silence is sometimes compared to dipping a white fabric in dye. Each dip permeates the fabric with the dye until the fabric is not white anymore.
Happy Practicing!
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Blanche
USA
859 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2017 : 11:17:50 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by sunyata
Being saturated with Stillness/Samadhi/Inner Silence is sometimes compared to dipping a white fabric in dye. Each dip permeates the fabric with the dye until the fabric is not white anymore.
And then one day you realize that this silence/stillness/Samadhi is here all the time, it has always been here, you know it, but somehow you did not quite notice it. It becomes very obvious, and it becomes obvious that everyone is in silence/Samadhi, and somehow amazingly many people do not seem to notice it.
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Aug 31 2017 : 6:38:55 PM
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Chard
250 Posts |
Posted - Sep 05 2017 : 01:12:07 AM
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Greetings Lanphuonglien!
Great question and great answers! When I think of inner silence, the image that comes to me is my mind being as still as a crystal clear lake that you could throw a pebble into and it would ripple.
I think an important question is, "What does inner silence look or feel like out in our daily life?" To me, it's an increasing inner unshakability in the midst of people, places, things or events that normally would have thrown me in the past. When I have those moments of saying "hey, that's interesting how that such and such doesn't throw me like it used to and even have a newfound lightness around whatever that is. I've learned that when I've lost my sense of humor, I'm rattled and I've lost my inner stillness and I'm thrown!
I think the rewards of this practice are noticing overtime inner silence increasing in our life and then, in contrast, humbly noticing at the same time how easily certain people, places, things and events still goddamit lol! throw us to the ground in a heartbeat!
Cheers to inner silence! Blessings all! Love, C |
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Will Power
Spain
415 Posts |
Posted - Sep 13 2017 : 4:38:38 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Christi
Spinal Breathing Pranayama is a powerful technique for clearing obstructions and I would recommend adding that to the front of your meditation practice, if you have not done so already. You could also add a light asana practice on to the front of that, if you wish to. Asana practice also helps with clearing obstructions in the subtle neurobiology.
Christi
Totally agree, asanas and pranayama make the Prana and thus the mind still, making it easier the subsequent meditation.
Thanks for all the quotes, Christi
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jclone
United Arab Emirates
61 Posts |
Posted - Oct 06 2017 : 10:15:32 AM
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| Silence is not just about without hearing any noise. Silence for me is more of having a peaceful life... a clean heart and clear mind. A heart without hatred and a mind that stays positive no matter how hard life is. |
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What is inner silence?
