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@All_Around_Me I'm so glad to hear that. You had a busy week to say the least. Let it just gel for a while and when you feel ready, do some nice easy breath meditation for relaxation and you'll be just fine. Nobody ever forgets their first time and you will look back on this someday and exchange memories of it with others as we do. You could start a journal too if you want.

@JustinS If absolute awareness is only a belief or concept at this point, the first hand experience is needed. Even if it only last a couple of minutes it can still show you the true direction and open up a part of you that was dormant. After the experience I constantly slip back into being centered within the body again. It is a constant struggle to keep that door open. But I know it's always there now. Some days it's easy and everything is right in front of you (as it has always been) and some days it's not so easy and it is more illusive. For me it's a constant struggle because the body/mind is always pulling me back. It is getting somewhat easier by the day. Eventually it will totally consume "me" over time. I'm optimistic. For an example: On Wednesday after I meditated pure awareness was particularly strong. Everything surrounding me was bathed in an ocean of pure presents. It felt as if I was at the bottom of a sea, but instead of being surrounded by water, I was surrounded by pure awareness. Just thinking about now that gets my back there and reopens that gateless, gate. Everything around us is submerged in an ocean of pure awareness. It's a unified field. It's always there.

@All_Around_Me How are you feeling? Did you get some sleep?

@actualized1 Yes, plastic surgery is too.

@Arik To sit in the forest and see the splendor of new growth is easy. Finding splendor in what is returning to the forest floor is hard.

I know, that joke doesn't deserve even the sound of one hand clapping.

Good one! I started meditation because I heard it would silence the constant chatter in my mind. It's not working, I can still hear the wife.

No, not "reckless", you didn't know. Now you do and we all learned something here. Stay with what is in harmony with your true nature. That is where everything exists.

So true. I felt like I had a foot in each world for a couple of days. Good thing I didn't have to go to work or I would have to of called out sick. It was the worst hang over I ever had.

@All_Around_Me I'll check it out. I used to do ?436hz or something like that . Yea, it got a little weird and I stopped listening.

@All_Around_Me What B-beats were you using?

@All_Around_Me Go out and do something you really like to do. Have some fun. Enjoy yourself and relax. That's the best medicine for the mind.

@All_Around_Me If you think you don't feel right, by all means see a doctor.

@All_Around_Me This is universal awareness you explain here. Everything in existence shares that. That is what we are. God, the universe, however you see it, That is looking through all our eyes.

@All_Around_Me You experienced pure awareness. What exists beyond the illusion of what you "thought you were. That is an awakening. You what to fall back into the illusion of self again? Why? It scared me too my first time. Now we are best friends. I can't get enough of that!

@All_Around_Me Yea. sounds like you had a nice breakthrough. Good going! You will be just fine. Your first time experiencing this I presume?

@Arik It sounds like a cloud on a Tuesday morning

@Meave Hi, when you open up to what has been buried inside and allow it to come to the surface, It can manifest in all kids of weird ways. Nothing new there! Just let it surface, acknowledge it in a detached way, than let it go. Think of it this way, it's a lot like cleaning out a closet that you have been subconsciously storing a lot of old useless junk in. You have to make a mess by pulling everything out first so that you can put back what you choose to keep. It's all part of the cleansing process and everybody experiences this in a different way to different degrees. Unless of course you think there could be a true medical condition. That would be a different story.

@John I sometimes listen to this with headphones and place awareness on the breath for approx. 25 min. I'm experiencing some really deep meditations that are beyond self, time and space. Awareness is sometimes beyond my body location. It feels as if awareness has entered a dimension of it's own. Just a glimpse of that is all that's needed because it is infinite. This is just a suggestion to maybe try some day. See if it works for you too.

@Psychonaut This part reminded me of something I read in the Tao Te Ching "care about other peoples approval and you will be their prisoner"

@Elton Haha, if only that was true.

@student Think of this in a positive view. What has always been the truth is changeless and permeant. The only thing that can change is a personal (and often distorted) mental view of what reality is. If everything is seen as wagon wheel, at the center of the hub there would be what is changeless. As you get farther away from the center hub, the outer wheel is where existence and constant change/mind is happening. Stay connected to that changeless center hub at all times. Connect with that center and from there move out into everyday existence onto the wheel and find a direction to pursue what is in harmony with the natural flow of everything. The only thing to be scared is the mind having to finally except the fact that there may be something much bigger than it at the center of everything. I'm saying this because we do need a lot more people on this planet to persue careers that are in harmony with that center. How many people persue careers that are completely motivated by only knowing (and accepting) what is on the outer part of the wheel? They end up spending their whole life, not just their career constantly running on the outer wheel and never realizing that there is a stable hub at the center of everything that connects us all. This planet needs many more people with a heightened sense of awareness in all different aspects and walks of life. The mind making divisions when riding the outer wheel is the very reason this planet is having all the problems thus far. That if anything is scary.

@cle103 I have never done a lot of self inquiry as a practice so I don't know if this will be much help. I do start meditation with getting a good sense of self, than I shift that awareness on the breath only. A sense of self slowly diminishes and pure awareness slowly becomes the overwhelming presents with me being less relevant and only a "very" silent observer. I just came out of 25 mins. of meditation and it was really deep. All sense of self vanished and there was only pure awareness that was no longer localized at the body location. Pure awareness had entered a dimension of it's own that was beyond time and space (me). What I'm saying is. if I had been doing mostly self inquiry, maybe there would have been no experience like that because I feel it would have kept me grounded in mind. My practice is to transcend mind at all costs. If you find self inquiry to be useful, try this, do it until there is a strong sense of self (however long that takes), than purposly let go of that sense of self and head in the opposite direction toward no-self. I would think the contrast between the two extremes would open up some huge insights. **Take everything I say here with a grain of salt because I only know from my experience of what works for me. I hope you find some of this useful.

"We work with being. but non-being is what we use" (Tao Te Ching)