Journey to the Abstract

See everything ‘as it is’. Feel all emotions completely without any controlling. Every belief is limiting, imprisoning you in a self-created prison. Every belief is giving away your power. Drop all beliefs and you have infinite power. There is nothing called power, love etc. or any emotion or experience outside of you. There is no outside. It’s your belief in separation that’s giving you that feeling. Thinking something is good/moral/right/correct/noble is also a prison just like thinking something is bad/evil/despicable/shameful is equally imprisoning. All beliefs can be traced back to some person/people who gave you that. There is no reality to any of that besides your belief. You are the space in which everything arises and you are eternally this infinite space. All goals are based on your existing level of wisdom. If you elevate your level of consciousness, your goals could transform. You can be the most insignificant thing in the world OR the god of the world depending upon your beliefs. You can believe that you are the son of god and have the greatest purpose to enlighten people OR you could believe you are a ‘nobody’ and absolutely worthless. They both are still beliefs creating different experiences. Belief is needed for experiencing. Without belief there is no experience.  Also, from direct intense observation, it can be seen that if there is an ‘experiencer’, then the experience is temporary. The ultimate knowledge is simply seeing the totality of everything which automatically creates perfect intelligence, perfect intuition, and effortlessness. The question is “who are you?”; find the essence of this entity with the fire of awareness and it will reveal itself.

People would often settle for ‘you are a part of the universe’. But on further examination, the whole universe is you. When you are deep asleep there is nothingness. When you are awake all perceptions come back. You evoke the whole universe from your point of view while dreaming or awake. In the awake, dreaming state there is just perception. The ‘you’, mine, other is a division within the same space. ‘Time’ and ‘space’ are also part of this perception. Everything is eternally present and is ‘just is’. If all experiences are completed they leave the empty space you truly are without a trace. Like when a new born child moves from one room to another – everything is totally different.

First times are usually a cocktail like mixture of expectations/anticipations (origins from a plethora of sources), excitements, fears (rejection, acceptance), anxieties, pressure (performance), urgency, grasping,  pleasure, the process of trying to interpret – fitting the new sensations into some mental model, sometimes shame.

If I look at my life history impartially, there have been people who really enjoyed and liked my personality and there have been people who have been indifferent or abusive. But somehow I have a tendency to view myself as a person who is not liked much or accepted by people in general. Why do I identify with this image more? Does it truly reflect the actual reality? Why do I tend to choose to be alone rather than with people? Why do I choose hobbies that greatly lower the need for interaction with others? Afraid of rejection, abusive people, exploiters, predators, indifference, judgments – anything that dis-empowers my perception of myself? Am I attached to an image of grandiosity about myself? And only like people who continually validate that? Which is why self-absorbed people don’t interest me since they are all about themselves and nothing is coming out?

Everyone is running after investments in all forms. All relationships are investments, all job work performed is an investment, traveling around/exploration is an investment for interesting social conversations. There is a mindset where I can see everything reducing into some form of investment in anticipation of future reward/security.

All your life energies and EVERYTHING that you can possibly imagine and beyond is in a certain configuration at this moment. These energies are constantly in a flux and are ecstatically moving. The “I” concept filter acts as a huge barrier to the free movement of these energies. I force myself to think in a particular way, suppress feelings which arise which don’t seem right and encourage only certain patterns in myself. I also control my attention in definite ways which have been taught to me by society.

Everything is seamless besides the boxes we put around things. Can you really say that each birthday is a milestone personality changer for you? When you cross countries, can you really feel that you are going into a distinctly new land besides the artificial fence? All boundaries seem to be artificial man made concepts created for convenience. In truth everything is seamless. I can take this a step further and say the physical world itself only exists as a mental concept in your perception which is the actual reality for you. The passage of age, the passage of time is just seamless. The molecules that make up air and the molecules that make up a solid just differ in their energies and frequency. That too is seamless. The appearance is just a product of our perception.

I always had this feeling that the act of sex itself was very ordinary. It’s the projection, imaginations, bio-chemicals that make the day and night difference. Maybe that’s why it’s called chemistry.  Attraction is a mystery. What attracts me and how and when is it sustained? I am looking for some external magical object that will satisfy me supremely. It’s hard to even imagine what such an object will be because my imagination of this ideal object keeps changing all the time. However, in my past, I have had people with whom I was very comfortable and satisfied to a fairly high degree. They have appeared in certain situations and given me satisfying experiences which is why I am able to project right now.

Today was my first REALLY sincere attempt at Jhana meditation.
I read the following article: http://www.metta.lk/english/accessing-jhana.htm

It absolutely intrigued and inspired me and I was ready like never before to attempt it. I had a very intimate encounter with my own mind in these 23 minutes. My mind is like the ultimate hypnotist. It would get me out of the object chosen blistering fast and suddenly I would be like ‘where the hell did I land up?, where was I?’, just like a super fluid dream of continuously changing perception. Another very interesting thing I observed is that, I hold awareness of the actual real sensation for just a blip and quickly a mental concept takes over and like a change blindness trick I hold on to that instead. I think this is what the Buddhist texts meant by mental factors. Now this mental concept being in the fluid mental plane starts morphing into something else and I start to perceive something entirely different. The mental plane is like sinking sand. I would like to call it a ‘dancing fluid space of continuously changing perceptions’ rather than ‘monkey mind’. The actual physical sensation appeared to change much more slowly. However, I could not observe it continuously since the mental factor distractions allowed me to only come back to it intermittently.

Its becoming a super interesting inquiry. Its like what is left when you let go of everything. I found that there are layers and layers that hypnotically pull me in. The real effortless reality lurks behind all those obfuscating Maya like layers which draw my attention and interest very easily. I watch this mental movie like an enraptured kid and then suddenly I’m like ‘I was supposed to be observing the REAL breath sensation’.

I had previously taken an intro 45 minute session, so I had a bit of idea as to what to expect. Reaching the space where your body is almost in-detectable (similar to the float tank) and exploring the mind-space. When I started off with my 2.5hr-3hr session, first I found those uncomfortable lightheaded energetic sensations which kept getting more intense as I continued. Surprisingly, I did not get tetany at all. Lying down in shavasana or with a similar position and legs folded worked out very well. After around 30-40mins of breathing, I suddenly fell into the holotropic state and was drawn into dreamlets. The dreamlets were quite similar to hypnogogia and were no more easier to observe. Whenever I tried to verbalize or conceptualize with my mind, the process would stop. Its almost like only one of them can function i.e. either I get enjoy the flow of images or have a blank screen where I think in words.

I recall around 3-4 dreamlet like scenes. The scenes were emotional but of medium intensity just like usual dreams. One interesting part was when I saw orange symbols like art flash in front of  my eyes. It was like my eyes were wide open and looking but I was wearing a mask and they were closed. That was a really interesting moment. It would be wonderful if I could get that kind of clarity with hypnogogia. Another very interesting moment was when a particular song was playing, it created really great feelings in me in those moments, like a real WOWW kind of feeling. My body felt really cool at the end like the energy has been totally cleansed. Only my entire right shoulder to right arm was paining and that also went away once I got up.

The interesting pointers for exploration are: how do you navigate and allow the flowing imagery to operate fully without the verbal, analytical and conceptual mind interruption? and the second is: How would you retain a strong memory of it without any conceptualizing? would it be like eidetic kind of memory training?

During the sitter role, the people crying and screaming around me coupled with the super loud emotional music (tracks played at the end of heroic and romantic movies) really moved me. I was thinking about my own suppression and how much energy would be released if I just let it go.

I got thoughts about a cell with a small nucleus at the tip of it say. The nucleus is the controlling inhibitory rationalizing part of me. But there are these whole cell contents pushing me in various directions. The nucleus decides whether to follow it or no but the pressure is nevertheless there. I thought about how divided my mind is and what wholeness might feel like. Why are all my actions so divided? That’s why there is so much of stress, tension and indecision.

I can meditate on each aspect of my suppression and release it. The only suppression which I cannot fully release is with respect to moving the physical body, unless my work is in a lucid dream.