Henri

@Ayla Is there a feeling of gratitude or bliss?

@Mattylonglegs Confusion is good, you are so lucky to be confused all the time. That means you are progressing. Confusion happens when a set of ideas break and a new set has not yet formed. But that’s a temporary state. When new ideas come, you move on to that and again confusion comes when that breaks. So you are moving ahead.

@FindingPeace Erasing traumatic events is hard, even harder when aspects of it joined your so called `shadow`. The best technique I`m aware of is a breathing technique called `The sudarshan Kriya`. Here you work on the prana-level with a powerfull breathing technique. That means you don`t have to relive all the trauma`s and that`s really amazing. It`s such a success that governments around the world are sponsoring this for vets, victims of war and also prisoners.

Beginner meditators often feel that they are sleeping during their meditations when in fact they have entered the meditative state. This is quite natural because, until we are familiar with meditation, we associate deep relaxation mainly with sleep. Of course, sometimes we do fall asleep in meditation, but that is fine. It is important to not be vigilantly guarding against falling asleep during meditation. Take sleep and dullness in meditation to be the release of fatigue and stress. For some of us, it will be necessary to go through a lot of sleep and fatigue during meditation, and sometimes even after meditation, but know that it is a very beneficial clearing process. If you have an overwhelming feeling to lie down and sleep during meditation, then do that, and when you wake up, sit up and meditate for five minutes or so. Your system would have cleared some backlog of fatigue and so even a short meditation after waking will be very useful (don't lie down unless you feel you absolutely have to!). After a few meditations, it usually becomes clear that sleep and meditation are quite distinct states. Coming out of sleep, one feels a little dull, but emerging from the deeply settled "no mind" state, one basks in clarity, feels peaceful, and is often joyous. Also, the breathing pattern during deep sleep and meditation are quite different. Deeper states of meditation are associated with very feeble breath or even suspension of breath, whereas in sleep, respiration does reduce, but to a lesser extent. (Please don't try to figure out during your meditations whether at certain times you were sleeping or deeply meditating. Whatever is happening is fine is the attitude to take.) The key distinction between meditation and sleep is the presence of alertness in meditation and its absence in sleep. But meditative alertness is of a different quality to that of the waking state. To understand that distinction, and also how meditation and sleep are different, we need to consider how the four modes of consciousness—mind, intellect, memory, and ego—operate in the waking, dreaming, and sleeping states and also in the fourth state of consciousness, which is experienced in meditation, traditionally called the turiya state. In the waking state, the mind, intellect, memory, and ego are all functioning to some extent. In the dream state, only memory (chitta) is functioning. In deep sleep, all four are in abeyance—the consciousness is devoid of any activity. In the meditative state, the mind, which receives input from the senses, is in abeyance. Ego is also not active, but the intellect and chitta are functioning subtly. Meditation is is very like sleep, but with a subtle idea or trace of intellect and, in turiya, a spontaneous perception of our real nature. There are two types of letting go. One is where everything is dropped and you sink into an unconscious state—this is sleep. It is a tamasic state, where knowledge is not available. The other type of letting go is where you completely relax, but with a trace of intention or feeling that very subtly continues to be—that is meditation. Meditation and sleep are both hypometabolic states, that is, breathing and other parameters of body activities decline. Both release stresses, but the rest that meditation gives is much deeper than that provided by sleep, and so deeper rooted impressions or samskaras are removed from the system. Yet meditation is completely beyond sleep. It is consciousness knowingly becoming conscious of itself. That same consciousness is present during waking, dreaming, and sleep, and is the witness of them. Although in sleep the consciousness is not active in any of its "modes", it is still present as the witness to sleep. This is how you know that you had a "good sleep". "Wakefulness and sleep are like sunrise and darkness, while dreams are like the twilight in between. Meditation is like the flight to outer space, where there is no sunset, no sunrise—nothing!"

@Valium That`s good! Go for it mate!

The present moment is vast and deep. It contains the past and the present. It is limitless like the sky, like your consciousness. To be still and established in this is liberation.

@Markus Hatha yoga together with pranayama`s will help. Join a group for some months, it will be easier.

Quote: The main impediment of many seekers in the path is that they want to surrender. Don’t say that you want to surrender; know that you already are surrendered. Wanting to surrender becomes an impediment on the path. This is like a child saying to the mother, ” I want to love you.” No child ever tells the mother,” I want to love you”, love is evident there. Surrender is not an act, it is a state of your being. Whether you acknowledge it or not, it is there. The wise wake up and see, the unwise take a longer time. Know that you have no choice, you are in a state of surrender deep within you. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

@Emerald Wilkins Yes, surrender! The hidden key! So much misunderstood!

Getting tired of all those fancy people hijacking thousands years old wisdom and coming out of a country that`s fucking having no culture at all. Taking parts of profound wisdom, giving it fancy names and make dollars out of it. The guy looks like he`s trying to convert himself! It strikes me that most of all the videos and books mentioned on this site are US- origin. Why?? No profound wisdom, yoga or techniques are coming out of the US. With the exception of Ken Wilber off course.

@Valium What do you want?

Whatever you do, you have to accept the consequences. You can`t run away from them... Otherwise it`s mostly a matter of time.

Or with your name probably a lion..!

Only in front of a holy cow...

Doing it all and even more... Once in an ashram I was the only one among about 5000 people who just continued smoking. When I do something I do it for the full 100%, that includes meditation, drinking, writing, partying, traveling or whatever. My guru told me so. He even said to dive in the world and come back when I`m tired of it. So that`s what I`m doing up till today. `When you follow fun, misery follows you. When you follow knowledge, fun follows you.`

@TruthSeeker Truth cannot be understood through proof. Anything that can be proven can be disproven also. Truth is beyond proof or disproof. @TruthSeeker

Contemplate as much time as you play the video-game and look of all your questions still exist.

@electroBeam See a mistake as a mistake, not as "my" or "his" mistake. "My" means guilt; "his" means anger.

You should take it easy. There are never two options in life but countless ones, you are just not aware of them right now. You are a creative type. Work on your personal development and your creativity will blossom, your choices will be limitless. Be kind to yourself because not a lot of people did. Learn, develop and enjoy. A lot will happen on your journey anyway, because your young and have a lot of experience already. Be patience!

@Mariem Definitely Yes. In a course I have followed they had those funny exercises. One for example was going to meditate in another room and afterwards they asked me to describe what was in the room. The great thing about it was that I was concentrated and focused on my meditation but afterwards could easily describe all the attributes in the room. So in a way you can say I was aware of all that without really paying notice. Once someone asked my guru how it was possible he was so immersed in doing the good for the benefit of mankind and still know so much about the welfare of all his devotees. He replied that even when you are busy you will be total aware if someone pulls out one hair of your head. Despite you have millions of hair.

In a way you can consider a philosopher a jnani-yogi. A jnani-yogi uses the methods of the intellect to achieve knowledge about the deeper aspects of surpreme reality. This he does by the neti, neti way what means not this, not that... Finally you end up with nothing, the thinking stops, the consciousness went back to the lila-point, back in itself. With the right intentions in the heart the consciousness transcends from there and knowledge will flow. The yogi knows that, he`s looking for that. But when one does that out of just a odd wanting of relative knowledge as the philosopher does, he can end up there as well, comparable with the `dark night of the soul`. He will not have the right intentions and coming out of it is eventually only granted by bliss or good luck if you want. Not able to get out you will become insane. Nietszche is a famous example, God was really dead for him... On the other hand the famous Schopenhauer always said he was saved by the knowledge of the Upanishads, thus saved by his heart.

Cultivating love towards a concept of God is definitely a profound method because you can surrender all your desires to the one desire that is the longing for the missing one. Many schools consider it to be even the easiest and shortest way to self-fulfillment. Love and surrender are the most powerful techniques and the main reason that western Buddhists are mostly attracted to the Tibetan version of it.

Taking a pill and become enlightened is total nonsense. You will get the same effects as those poor ones who where playing with the kundalini and ended up totally freaked out. Your machinery, body, kosha`s, need to be ready, not to mention highly developed morals. There`s no biological short cut to the mysteries of life!

You can do pranayama`s. Do service, it changes your awareness. Meditate with a group. Gain more knowledge on thoughts and emotions. Be kind to yourself.

@bazera It`s a topic that goes all the way to the root of manifestation and one that`s terribly understood by western society. At first, when new on the path of self-development, it is important to make the distinction between emotions and feelings in, lets say a raw way. So emotions dwell up after a thought has arisen and is situated in the head. Being aware of that makes it easy to deal with them by doing meditation. Emotions are therefore mostly negative forces like anger, worries and so on, though positive emotions are also there but they are of no problem. Feelings however are located in the heart-section and are independent of all the thinking stuff. These feelings are compassion, love, happiness and so on. You could even say it`s the place human values arise from and they are your very nature. This makes it easier to distinguish between happiness from the mind where the ego is involved and happiness from the heart which is a total different story. This is all like a practical advice and not a profound theoretical framework because when you move further up the road things change. You can find out that emotions in the head are linked with sensations in the body, thus being able to heal yourself from past errors. You can find out that feelings is not only situated in the heart but can be experienced in all chakra`s. The profound differences there are in the different kosha`s regarding feelings and sensations and the science of prana. And so much more. If you want to dive a little bit deeper into this topic a good starter would be `The Human Psyche: In Love, War and Enlightenment` by Peter Snow. Regards