Experienced Meditational expert, would like to debate...

[joejoeson]

...Or answer questions.

Hi, I searched but could not find a meditation thread on here, I hope this is the right sub-forum. Anyways I've been a student of meditation for about 12 years and really enjoy it. I would be happy to debate it but I would also like to hear your meditational experiences. If you would like to hear mine I would be happy to share or answer any questions you have. If no one responds I will post a longer comment on what I view meditation as and how to practice it. Thanks.

[Divine Insight]

I'm very interested in mediations and I have practiced various forms of meditations over the course of many decades. I would be interested in hearing your experiences and how you view mediation, or what particular type of mediation you practice. And even more interestingly, why you practice mediation.

I have personally been attracted to two different forms of meditations:

1. Transcendental Meditation.

And by this I mean an attempt to achieve a state of pure conscious awareness were I am no longer focusing on any thoughts that flow through my mind.

I confess up front that I have not been very successful with this type of mediation. I have achieved some pretty profound experiences but they were always very short-lived and very difficult to replicate purposefully.

Part of my problem may be that I am very intellectual and I absolutely LOVE to think. For this reason the very moment I slip into a truly transcendental state, (often accompanied by pure white light) I think to myself, "Ah! I'm here!" (with the intellectual agenda of taking notes and analyzing the experience). And of course those very thoughts instantly crash the mediation and I find myself sitting their fully aware and awake thinking to myself, "Darn it, I blew it again!"

It's actually quite hilarious how I keep destroying my own experiences. But I think the root cause of the problem truly is that to analyze the experience is a very large part of my very reason for attempting to obtain the state of transcendental consciousness. So it should come as no surprise that I keep crashing when I get there.

In any case, I eventually gave up on transcendental mediation, and moved on to something else that may or may not even been seen as "meditation" depending on who is defining these terms.

2. Shamanic Journeying.

There are probably many other names for this. But this is a type of "meditation" where I focus on creating a dream and then become involved within the dream to the point where I have lost myself in the dream so completely that it has become my cerebral reality. (I suppose this could also be called "lucid dreaming") except I do this whilst awake as a meditation rather than actually falling asleep and having lucid dreams.

I've tried lucid dreaming without much success. I have had some pretty awesome lucid dreams, but I'm not very successful in causing them to happen at will. In fact, some of my best lucid dreams were totally unplanned. In fact, my best lucid dreams occurred BEFORE I started trying to control them deliberately. And that was part of the motivation to try to learn how to induce them and control them at will. But I found that gaining control over the practice is not easy. At least not when I'm actually sleeping.

What I have had the best luck with overall is the Shamanic Journeying where I'm not really asleep but rather I enter into a "daydream" state whilst sitting in a mediation poster. I typically begin those with a pre-planned dream to get things established, and then allow the dream to take on a life of its own. I have had pretty good result with this and I now consider this to be a form of "mediation".

But I guess it's more like just a controlled "daydream"?

In any case, I would be interested in hearing your experience, and what type of meditations you do. And it would be interesting to understand why you practice your meditations as well.

[joejoeson]

Getting to the point of the pure white light is I think the real goal of meditation. And all philosophers throughout history report that it is nearly impossible to document or analyze this state. The way I look at it is our mind is like a camera, normally we are taking pictures of the world outside of us, but when we meditate, we turn the camera inwards and capture what it is we see there, but if we try to analyze it, it would be like trying to analyze the camera itself that is taking pictures, which would be impossible, since the camera (the mind) is the only thing we can't take a picture of.

Also, the light within us is said to be a non-duality, so it is hard to analyze it in the normal way we think about it, namely through relativity. We know when something is hot or cold because of how it affects us, otherwise it is just degrees of temperature with little to no significance. 4 million degrees F as opposed to 6 million degrees F, what's the real significance of this except to maybe some astrophysicist. So without relativity, it is hard to really understand what it is that we are meditating upon (the white light).

So I guess you are already there, you just have to let go a bit and experience it. I can feel a kind of peace and euphoria when I do transcendental meditation. You can always think and analyze it afterwards, but while doing it our mind is somewhat detached and so it is hard to analyze while also engaging in it. I think this is normal though, as I will give you an example.

You know how to drive a car (presumably) like most people, but while you are driving a car, do you have to think to yourself "okay, I'm stepping on the gas to go forward, then I turn the wheel slightly, etc" no you just do it. If you did have to think every step while driving a car, you'd probably get side tracked and crash. So when we are meditating, it is kind of like a mental action, and so while doing that action, it is hard to think about the action while also doing the act, because both require the mind. Meditation is an act of the mind, as is thinking, so it is hard to think about meditating, while also engaging in meditation, it's like too much for our minds to process.

[bernee51]

[Replying to post 3 by joejoeson]

Can it be truly said that mediation has a goal in the same way a journey has a destination?

It's not mediation a journey? An enquiry?

[joejoeson]

[Replying to post 3 by joejoeson]

Can it be truly said that mediation has a goal in the same way a journey has a destination?

It's not mediation a journey? An enquiry?

Yes, the goal of meditation is to experience the light within the soul, at least for transcendental types of meditation (Samadhi). It's a 'destination' in a metaphorical sense because you don't actually travel anywhere, but practicing meditation is kind of like a journey, you experience things you've never experienced before, and maybe even change as a human being.

[bernee51]

[Replying to post 3 by joejoeson]

Can it be truly said that mediation has a goal in the same way a journey has a destination?

It's not mediation a journey? An enquiry?

Yes, the goal of meditation is to experience the light within the soul, at least for transcendental types of meditation (Samadhi). It's a 'destination' in a metaphorical sense because you don't actually travel anywhere, but practicing meditation is kind of like a journey, you experience things you've never experienced before, and maybe even change as a human being.

Ok, now you are going to have to explain exactly what you mean by soul.

And as for the light...a wise man once noted...In a pinhole camera, when the hole is small you see shapes and colours. When the hole is made big the images disappear and all one sees is light. Similarly when the mind is small and narrow it is full of shapes and words. When it broadens it sees pure light. When the box is destroyed altogether only light remains.

[joejoeson]

Ok, now you are going to have to explain exactly what you mean by soul.

And as for the light...a wise man once noted...In a pinhole camera, when the hole is small you see shapes and colours. When the hole is made big the images disappear and all one sees is light. Similarly when the mind is small and narrow it is full of shapes and words. When it broadens it sees pure light. When the box is destroyed altogether only light remains.

By soul I mean the inner self that is different from the body and ego, I am using soul and the pure white light as being the same thing.

The characteristics of light can be a good analogy. For instance pure light is said to contain all the colors but it is not normally seen this way. So if someone were to say, "colors don't exist because I only see white light," then they are looking at the light in its pure form and not for example through a prism. I think this is similar to the camera pinhole analogy. So if there is a pure light in your mind, then that could contain all the different levels of consciousness, such as senses, reason, imagination, memory, everything that requires some lesser form of light that our mind sees which is then communicated to our brain and body. Meditation is trying to see this pure light in its original form.

[bernee51]

Ok, now you are going to have to explain exactly what you mean by soul.

And as for the light...a wise man once noted...In a pinhole camera, when the hole is small you see shapes and colours. When the hole is made big the images disappear and all one sees is light. Similarly when the mind is small and narrow it is full of shapes and words. When it broadens it sees pure light. When the box is destroyed altogether only light remains.

By soul I mean the inner self that is different from the body and ego, I am using soul and the pure white light as being the same thing.

The characteristics of light can be a good analogy. For instance pure light is said to contain all the colors but it is not normally seen this way. So if someone were to say, "colors don't exist because I only see white light," then they are looking at the light in its pure form and not for example through a prism. I think this is similar to the camera pinhole analogy. So if there is a pure light in your mind, then that could contain all the different levels of consciousness, such as senses, reason, imagination, memory, everything that requires some lesser form of light that our mind sees which is then communicated to our brain and body. Meditation is trying to see this pure light in its original form.

Who is seeing the light? If the light is an object in awareness, who is the observer?

Where has your meditation taken you in regard to 'who am I?'

[joejoeson]

Who is seeing the light? If the light is an object in awareness, who is the observer?

Where has your meditation taken you in regard to 'who am I?'

Who is seeing the light? You are (the individual doing the meditating)
If the light is an object in awareness, who is the observer?

There are two phases to this question, first it is the mind turning inwards to see the light, at this point you can say there are three entities, the body, the mind, and the light. When you realize that this light is you, then the seeing goes away and there is only being.

I think I can see where your argument is leading, "if the light is you, how do you observe it?" This is a good question and the answer is that when you experience Samadhi or transcendental meditation the light is no longer seen and you simply experience what can only be called enlightenment, a more confusing term would be 'out of body experience' which I don't personally like but that is an adequate explanation. In other words, all that there is is being. No subject or object, no form or idea, nothing but pure awareness. Some call this 'emptiness' which is also a bit misleading. The Upanishads describes it in this way:

"As a man in the arms of his beloved is not aware of what is without and what is within, so a person in union with the Self is not aware of what is without and what is within, for in that unitive state all desires find their perfect fulfillment. There is no other desire that needs to be fulfilled, and one goes beyond sorrow."

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, translated by Eknath Easwaran

Where has your meditation taken you in regard to 'who am I?'

I feel as if I am that light, I am not just a body, or a statistic, I am the eternal light, it makes me happy knowing that I am part of something much greater than my mundane self.

[Danmark]

...Or answer questions.

Hi, I searched but could not find a meditation thread on here, I hope this is the right sub-forum. Anyways I've been a student of meditation for about 12 years and really enjoy it. I would be happy to debate it but I would also like to hear your meditational experiences. If you would like to hear mine I would be happy to share or answer any questions you have. If no one responds I will post a longer comment on what I view meditation as and how to practice it. Thanks.

You mention you want to 'debate,' but there is no issue presented for debate. This appears to be a discussion rather than debate.
Is there a particular position regarding meditation that you want to advocate or argue about?