Arman

Hi Martin. Congratulations on having meditated for a month. Yes, posture does indeed have effects on consciousness and awareness and therefore our meditation because it changes our bodies energy. This is however not a big issue, especially for beginners. I suggest that comfort and sustainability are more important factors for establishing long term meditation practice. Some believe that pain and discomfort should not be avoided in meditation, but this should not be at the cost of body and joint health. In time as you meditate more, it will become more obvious how posture effects your consciousness. If in the future you want to experiment with new postures, then do so. For now, pick a posture that is comfortable and sustainable for you. I suggest using back support as a general rule. If you wish to lay down, that is ok too. Position your hands where they are most comfortable. For you it seems the hangup is not so much the postures themselves, but the worry that you will do it incorrectly or ineffectively; overcome this by choosing a comfortable posture and sticking to it. The difference between meditating lying down and sitting cross-legged is not worth your worrying over. Set your intention to stick to a posture and release opposing thoughts and doubts into awareness. All the best in your practice.

Are you putting yourself in a situation where you need to rely on others to reach your goals?

When life is holding you back from what you want, perhaps it is because there are far greater things in store. I have heard this idea and have found it to be true. There have been periods of great discontent or suffering and one can wonder why you are seemingly barred from what you desire or what you believe will make you fulfilled - but that is when breakthroughs to greater landscapes occur. Part of the realization in this is understanding that if you had received what you thought you desired, the attachment to would have created would have limited you a lot and hindered much progress. When you do see why you were being 'held back' then you realize it wasn't even possible for you to perceive the next 'greater thing', because it was beyond your imagination. If you could have imagined it, then you wouldn't have bothered with the desires you had because they don't compare. Life leads you to far more beautiful and fulfilling states. Think of every desire and state of possible fulfillment that you can imagine, and then pray you don't receive it, because it will distract you from the real joys that life is delivering. Accelerate this process by being content now. Just a thought I wanted to process.

It's hard to stay alert, alive and happy doing something we don't like, are not passionate about, and/or don't believe is truly beneficial for us. Perhaps this accident occurred for a reason? I heard it stated recently that our environment and people around us are not so much responsible for our state of energy, so much as they are a reflection of it. Do you love what you do? If not, what does this mean for you now?

Excerpt from the book 'Levels of Energy' by Frederick E. Dodson

if you love us so much why don't you marry us?

I think it is about what the mind, brain and body are energetically trained with. The states that we are most often experiencing become more and more magnetized and they become our baseline. For most of us, that baseline is the feeling of discontent and seeking - so even if we shift into something else temporarily such as the experience of satisfaction or happiness, then it is short lived because the energetic state that we've practiced most is that of unhappiness, powerlessness, desire, etc, and it pulls us back to its center like a magnet automatically because that is how the brain and energetic system has been grooved as the path of least resistance. This is the heartbreaking reality of the masses who are taught to desire and work hard until they have what they want. Therefore I think it is useful for one to practice happiness regardless of circumstance. To learn how to sit and cultivate contentment and happiness by simply sitting. That way you learn that happiness is created within and not without. Then we can cultivate the experience more and more often, and consciously bring it into life so often that it becomes more and more magnetized. Eventually when we stop feeding the other reality of powerlessness, it loses its momentum and the body and mind become habituated to another experience that can become the baseline. Then, instead of being unhappy most of the time, then temporarily happy, and automatically drawn back into unhappiness - we are instead happy most of the time, then temporarily unhappy, and automatically drawn back into happiness, because that is the most practiced state.

If you are concerned, then just don't push your practices or take on any new ones for a while. Eat clean, stay hydrated and rest. Beyond that, just don't worry about it too much. It's unlikely something is just going to explode within you - sometimes initial experiences are just signs of good things to come or signals that you are doing well and that there's no need to push too much. There is no advantage to worrying. These energies unfold with a higher intelligence. The primary advice under all circumstances is to relax.

Annoyingly long post incoming: I can't say for sure what is occuring within you, but I can share with you my own experience and the framework of understanding that I've developed to make sense of this phenomena. I have had, and still have similar sensations in various areas of the body. Some of the primary ones seem to be similar to the area's you described; lower torso or a bit lower than the bellybutton, as well as chest and back. The experiences manifest as tension, resistance and discomfort of various degrees from a light humming to a sensation of emotional distress, and something a dull or sense pain or pressure. My understanding is that these are blockages within our personal energetic system (Look up the Meridian system for reference). For assistance, imagine the body as a series of threads through which light or energy move. When the body is healthy and balanced, then this energy moves freely through the system. Different aspects of this energy system correspond to the activity of the nervous system and organs, as well as our emotions, expressiveness and how we operate in the world. When the various centres of flow are open, then we are said to be effective, light and loving, and when the various centres of flow are blocked, then we are said to be ineffective, contracted and dense. As different areas of the system are 'lit up' by energy flow, it activates different aspects of our being which comes into awareness. Focus and intention are one way to channel this flow of energy. This can be discovered experientially by focusing on various energy centres and seeing the way in which this effects consciousness and the body. For example, by breathing into the perineum to create a sense of grounded stability, or by meditating on the heart and chest area and seeing what effect this has on our emotions and how we relate to ourselves and others. When blockages occur, then the energy flow of particular centres or channels of energy (meridians) become stifled. This stifled movement manifests itself as the experience of resistance, recurring and exaggerated negative emotions, neurosis, thoughts, feelings, belief systems, selfishness, destructive behavior, bad luck, and an endless variety of physical symptoms and ailments. The theme in which a particular blockage manifests itself depends on the area in which the energetic system is stifled/restricted. There are a few different ideas as to why these blocks or restrictions in flow occur. Some say it is partly due to what we put in our body. Some who follow new age or religious beliefs may say that it is a karmic inheritance from a soul level that is descended or reflected into our earthly vessel. I suspect that the primary factor (and especially the reason for which these more intense blocks that you described) is traumatic experience of our youth. Here is my unrefined theory on this subject: When we are young (from birth to maybe very early teenage years) we are essentially energetic sponges and our brains are not yet operating in the way they do for us now. When we are young, we are constantly being imprinted by the energies of our environment (parents, language, emotions, belief systems, etc). This is a life function that makes sense because it's how we learn and adapt to our world. This causes issues because not everything imprinted is useful, but that is another discussion. We are healthily able to process and integrate much of this energy, but at some point in a child's life, we come upon an experience that we are simply not equipped to process and integrate. This can come in the form of abuse, emotional distress, confusion, discontinuity of experience, or quite anything, really. Even the most seemingly benign, innocent and mundane thing can be potentially highly traumatic for a child. When an innocent child is met with such an incomprehensible tension that he or she can neither interpret, process or deal with, then this triggers the mechanism of contraction/resistance; So as not to be overwhelmed by this energy, the child reflexively tenses, either physically, psychologically or otherwise, as a means to sedate the experience and protect him or herself. The greatest way we seem to do this is by contracting muscles and shallowing the breath. The energy of that experience, instead of flowing and being integrated like other experiences, is then pressed (or IMPRESSED) into the subconscious. Because this imprint has a higher degree of magnetic charge than other experiences, in time, it reoccurs within us and is always attempting to return to the surface of our awareness in order to be integrated. Like a cork in water, when we are not expending the energy to push it down, it floats to the top. Now, in an ideal world, this child would grow and learn to integrate and release these imprints as they arise, but we don't live in that world. Rather, when these magnetised charges of suppressed energy return to our experience and awareness, we instead develop and act out countless means to avoid, sedate and suppress what is arising to be integrated. This escapism is one of the primary forces behind unconscious, neurotic and destructive behaviors. In order to avoid having to experience these charges, we either consciously or unconsciously restrict energy flow within our body so as not to 'activate' or light up the imprint. Therefore, there is a tremendous degree of unconscious contraction being held within our bodies at all times in the form of muscular micro-tensions or what Wilhelm Reich refers to as 'muscular armouring' (For more information on this topic in general, read Bioenergetics by Alexander Lowen). So to be clear, there is not really anything 'real' blocking energy flows, but rather it is our unconscious effort to not want to deal with something within us. Meditation, other practices and spiritual experiences can increase energy flow, and naturally as we release unconscious tensions, there is more light and energy being moved throughout the body which causes increased energy flow in areas which we had been previously restricting this flow. This in a sense 'lights up' those suppressed traumas and that is why you suddenly feel them, or why you may feel them at some times and not others. (Smoking, for example, is one way to restrict energy flow.) This phenomena is part of the reason why meditation can make us happy for a while, but then seems to throw the practitioner into great distress! - this is because unconscious imprints are no longer being hidden from ourselves in the way they previously were. We can only suppress so much of this energy for so long. All this contraction limits a great degree of our life energy and manifests itself in undesirable ways. These energies are more obviously seen as emotions like fear, anger, etc. Even these emotions, however, are usually only the surface level of the imprint, and may only be further reflexive resistance to the deeper aspect of the imprint, which can be an abstract sensation that unlike many emotions, is more difficult to describe in words. Once the surface level emotions are released, then the deeper, more abstract aspects of the suppressed energies can also be experienced and released. The deeper root energies of the charges are usually not as bad as the resistance that we were holding towards them. As children we resisted the experience, but as adults we resist the resistance, which perhaps compounds the energy. The real boogie monster isn't scary when you shine the light on him and discover he was only ever a shadow on the wall. The way in which these blocks are released and healed is through the light of unconditional awareness. The basic idea is that these stagnant energies will simply and automatically release themselves when we stop 'doing' anything else. This means allowing them to arise and allowing them to be as they are without wanting to change or judge them. We stop being afraid of what is inside us, and instead we greet and embrace it as a catalyst for our growth and maturation. Being with experience unconditionally is a skill that developes with meditation practice. Once an imprint is held within awareness, then the higher intelligence of God or your body knows what to do. We can only resist what we don't understand, and within the light of awareness is pure understanding and intelligence. The experience arises, unravels, and releases. It is that simple. Is it easy? Perhaps not, but it is simple. I think that about sums up my understanding. Id be interested to hear your own insights on the experience. ---- I'll provide an illustration of an experience I had and the effects it had on me as a real life example of this subject. When I was more active in trying to heal, I would devote a lot of sitting time to the release of emotional energies and I was used to sitting with them for extended periods of time. One day something triggered anger within me and so I instinctively sat down in my room to try to allow it to dissolve. This particular charge, however, didn't want to go anywhere any time soon. As I sat with it, I got angrier and angrier and it was like a rage in my chest. As the anger slightly subsided, it was replaced by a stinging pain and tightness in my lungs as I would reach the end of each breath. I sat for hours and the discomfort in my lungs and feelings remained, so feeling overwhelmed, I gave up and decided to nap on the floor in order to not have to go through it anymore. I woke up half an hour later and within a few moments the experience was back, so I returned to the sitting. About a half hour after that, the tension was still there but something within it gave way. As I breathed in deeply, there was a very odd sensation in my lungs when I would reach the end of my breaths. It is like a tight tension was released and although it was very, very tight, I find myself being able to force breath into a deeper part of my lungs that I had not been able to breathe into before. After a few minutes of trying to pace myself breaths in a way to get every single last drop of air in so as to expand my lungs further, I would get to the end of my breath feeling all this pressure, then suddenly it was like a new place opened up and I could inhale even more. As I breathed into this seemingly extended range, an increased energy flooded me and I felt indescribably alive and vital. It was really incredible. I spent the next hour pacing around my room as it became more comfortable to breathe into that part of my lungs because it felt so good. The experience stabalized and my lung capacity increased. It went from feeling wild to breathe into that range, to feeling natural. From that day forth, my breathing was permanently improved to be more relaxed, natural and deeper than before. I still get angry, but not quite to the same degree of intensity of that period of life. My resistance, in the form of long held muscular contractions in the chest (in order to shallow the breath and sedate something) had loosened and dissolved, allowing a breakthrough of life energy, and this was the result of releasing only part of that particular imprinted energy.

I've heard this recommended a few times. I wonder how bald people feel when the idea of shaving your head is thrown out as an ego-annihilating exercise

If fapping makes you enlightened then my 14 year old self should have been enlightened a thousand times over sometimes multiple times a night

Do you mean you experience it in dreams or you speak and act while asleep, similar to sleepwalking?

There is a stage in which focusing on purification seems necessary. It is insightful and useful, but I'm not sure you can 'finish' it. In my experience, it doesn't end that way, or if it does, maybe it'll take decades or a few lifetimes. If you want to wait till the catharsis is over, you are holding yourself hostage and reinforcing the idea that there is a problem that needs purging, this just creates more and more. You can go through all these intense traumas and energies, waiting for the u-bend in which you can now start allowing the next phase, but are you sure it will come? My suggestion is that it is not necessary to dedicate the entirety of your meditation to emotional purging, at least not forever, at least not for a very long time. It is useful, insightful, and creates shifts, but eventually you have to simply give yourself permission to choose to shift into something else and assume the next paradigm. This is because if you are waiting for the universe to give you the green light, then you are perpetuating the energy of 'waiting' and so you'll have the experience of needing more to heal, because you can only wait if there is more to do. Purging heals, but so does the joy of awareness and higher experiences. Consider making 'emotional release' a process you can almost casually do throughout the day as they arise. Note, accept, let go, move on. It can be done in a few moments. When heavier stuff comes up, you can give it more time. It may not be wise to give too much energy into purging. Purification happens naturally with the higher intelligence of the body so it's not like you need to give it much thought anyway. You may be familiar with resisting negative emotions, but be wary of the way you might be resisting higher states as well.

Autobiography of a Yogi might be my favourite book. Doesn't really offer much in the way of direct advice other than briefly talking about the art of Kriya Yoga. Really inspirational book though and was the turning point of agnostic to theist for me.

Yes, emotional purging can be very physical. It can get weird, very, very weird. I have had lots of different kinds of sensations and experiences during emotional release. The sensations can get indescribably strange but usually come with a vague sense of familiarity. From my experience, oddities during release either occurs from sudden energy flowing as a result of now loosened blockages, or as a result of the charge acting itself out. Sometimes it seems that within certain emotional charges, there are certain kinds of behaviors, actions or muscular programming locked into them. Sometimes it may feel as though your face is contorting into a mask - like an expression that feels like it is cemented on your face. I think that is because the muscles are still partly hard coded to the unreleased trauma or energy. Hand gestures may very likely be an automatic mudra like PureExp suggestion - that can be common in energetic openings within certain spiritual practices. I have also experienced sudden heart rate increase. You can also experience severe itching, nausea, sudden fatigue, sudden emotional flare ups, extreme thoughts, just to name a few things, but anything could happen, really. In my experience, as mild or intense as the symptoms can be, there has never been any danger for me. When these things occur, I suggest you don't resist them and allow them to play out. Nothing to be worried about. You are doing well and making progress. Get used to strange experiences, as I think for you that may happen often if you choose to continue with emotional releasing. There will be cycles of release, then shifts in awareness. The shifts in awareness may not always last but of course your overall consciousness 'increases in baseline' so to speak. This kind of work is some of the most insightful things you can do. Bit of a sneak peak. Body and mind are mostly autonomous forces. When you become more aware of the energies of the body and release the stagnant ones, you begin to realize that you are not these forces and so you shift into becoming aware of the awareness in an interesting way.

Time to stand on your own two feet

I think of it as the only unchanging quality of experience. Strip away all form or anything that changes, and what remains is awareness. At least that sounds nifty on paper.

It sounds to me like you're doing a wonderful job in identifying and placing awareness on these themes. I would take a moment to acknowledge the significance of such a discovery. I will say a few simple things - firstly, the important of these 'imprints' is not necessarily in discovering the exact story of 'why' they came to be the way they are. Knowing the story and specifics can help, and it is certainly insightful, but it is not necessary for healing. What is more important is the recognition that the imprint or trauma simply is. The awareness of the imprint/trauma/energy, and becoming aware of the way the imprint is reflected into your life is all that is required, and this is the same intelligence and awareness that will automatically unravel it on behalf of you. Secondly, take some care in not demonizing traumas and going on a witch hunt to uproot them. In my experience, it is not common and sometimes counter-productive to make large leaps or undergo forceful measures to uproot traumas. If you feel an urge to 'fix it', that is usually a sign that more patience and relaxation on the subject is required. Self love, temperament and conscious awareness are good qualities to cultivate and will serve you more than most methodologies or active efforts to heal and uproot. As a practical suggestion for shifting into a preferred version of yourself, here is something you can do: When you recognize that these imprints are active in your life, simply place awareness of the energy of it within your body, relax, send it a bit of love and acknowledgement (you can thank it for having served to protect you in the past) and then instead of reacting as the imprint would have, simply choose a new, preferred behavior, thought, feeling, response, etc and consciously play that out. In this way you may begin to shift without suppressing or rejecting your innocence. You can do this any time you wish, as often as you wish.

Don't think I've ever heard that expression before?

I think the overuse/misuse of psychedelics when I was younger has definitely had detrimental effects on my brain. Memory in particular, but it is hard to describe the exact effects. Specifically one experience with an analogue ayahuasca was pretty traumatic to the old nogin' and took quite a while to recover from. I believe most of these issues could have likely been avoided or reduced if I took them less often, allowed my mind, body and brain more time to rest, and was taking better care of my health in general. I was also young, around 18, and I think the brain is simply still developing too much at that time. Personally I would suggest to wait until early 20s for most folk. It is hard to say what the culprits were. LSD and Psilocybin seem, in my experience and observation of others, to be the least likely to have much detrimental effect on the brain. I would not recommend 25i, DXM, and would really limit the use of MDMA to once or twice a year as a suggestion. I would avoid research chemicals; there are so many and I'm sure many can be useful and fun, but I suggest that it's wiser to stick to more time tested entheogens. Part of the issue with those who promote psychedelics is that there is a kind of informational backlash against the disinformational propoganda of the 60s, in which people were told outright blatant lies about the dangers of drugs. The knee-jerk reaction to this by a lot of people is to now tout these drugs as being perfectly safe, when in fact, this is not always the case and this kind of fanaticism can be harmful. It makes me cringe when people say that absolutely everyone should try psychedelics and that it'll make them a better person. I used to have this opinion when I was younger and thought all the scary stories were just made up. Unfortunately as the years passed, I both personally experienced the repercussions and have seen friends have psychotic breaks or severe incidences that have left long term issues. Personally I would not take back my experiences because I feel that I'm a better person for them and the benefits have seemed to have outweighed the negatives. Still, I would not recommend the path I took to others. I was young and foolhardy. When used correctly, safely and responsively, they have the power to massively awaken consciousness and accelerate self-development. Still, they must be treated with incredible amounts of respect.

I never knew it was possible to have so much fun and excitement. The stuff fairy tales are made from. Then ego death, like the entire OS of my mind was reformatted. An hour and half later I felt very accomplished as I finally remembered what I was "Oh my god, I'm a human. Oh yeah" - Was really exciting about living a life now totally free from conditioned programming, and was then really disappointed as the conditioning immediately came flooding back in as the experience wore off. Also, aliens. out of curiosity what was the dosage?

Probably fluctuates. I bet in the womb we feel whole, one, unconditionally loved because there is no sense of separate self. We are one with the nourishment, with the warmth, with the red ocean of rest. Reality has not yet been fragmented and partitioned. Then when born there is likely traumatic sense of separation. When hungry and frustration, there is desire and sense of separation, then when at our mothers breast, we probably feel whole again. As we grow, reliance on the external world probably reinforces the sense of separation. I think much of peoples desires and behaviors are an attempt to return to that sense of unity; an experience we consciously or unconsciously recognize is available to us, either from deep spiritual knowing, or from imprinted experience of being at the womb/breast.

Cool thread idea. I'm going to post a cool expert that I was reminded of from Frederick Dodson's book 'Parallel Universe of Self'

How can we experience anything outside of ourselves? Within and without is same. Continue to observe yourself and you may discover everything is emanating from within. Still yourself, feel the energy of our body, and then feel the space in the room surrounding your body; feel if one is truly more you than the other. Answer may surprise you. No such thing as negative energy really, energy is just energy. Judgement can make energy seem negative or positive. Likely this energetic experience is arising because when you meditate you are releasing resistance, and this long since repressed energy is slowly releasing and coming to the surface of awareness. Keep allowing and observing, and release labels of the phenomena that arises and it will reveal its gifts.

Haven't tried 5meo but my personal experience with n-n-dmt has been that it can sometimes trigger a kind of waking dream-state. I don't know why, but suddenly it's like the mind releases from its waking-state functionality and enters a mode more akin to what it's like when we're dreaming - namely, reality seems less convincing and the emotional neurosis become automatic behaviors, the same way they are in dreams. Kind of how like in a dream you can find yourself in an argument, or having sex, and it is not necessary for the mind to know how you got there or connect any dots - it just expresses whatever emotion is in flux. It's an odd state to interact with someone in because in some senses they seem very coherent and lucid, but they are not 'themselves' (they are kind of not at the wheel, so to speak) and behavior can become erratic. This may also explain why you can't really remember it, since it's really hard to hold onto what happens in the dream-state. Whatever the case may be, I'd offer a sincere apology to your guide. Of course it wasn't your fault and as a guide you have to be prepared for these things; still, it can be really unpleasant and a small gesture can will diffuse that.