How To Handle Insights During Meditation ?

[Shan]

I get a lot of insights during meditation and these are very helpful and much appreciated !

However, I don't think it's a good idea to break meditation to note them down. When meditating for 45 minutes it's hard to remember them for later contemplation as sometimes I have many of them. Making a mental note is also distracting and could cause further distraction.

So it seems to me that we should label an insight as 'just another thought' and 'let go' of them. Is there a better technique to handle insights? 

 

[Afonso]

Trust that they'll reappear when needed.

[Guest Annetta]

I dunno, I'll tell you, the three awakenings I had, I would meditate and write them (insights) down in my journal.  A few days later I'd have an awakening.  If your intent is very powerful and the insight comes from deep within then writing it down will bring that into your awareness easier.  For me at least, I can only speak from my own experience.  

[Toby]

Letting them come and letting them go. Everything real and important will stay - even if it seems you loose it.

[Arkandeus]

I'd put it this way, an ''insight'' to your conscious mind is but a translation of a psychic event, an inner vibrational change.

but the very fact that you had insights, means you had new and fresh thinking which means you achieved a higher vibrational state, that is very nice. 
the best insights are the ones that come and go, you may forget the words, but you never forget the vibration, you may forget your insights during a meditation but you don't forget how you felt, you don't forget that feeling, that vibration. 

to put it simply if you didn't forget how you felt during your insight then you didn't forget the insight, the feeling is the real message, the real insight

Edited July 7, 2017 by Arkandeus

[Shan]

Sorry all for reopening this thread but I'd like to be clear on this.

 I'll also  press this @Leo Gura bell in case he has a way to remember insights early in his meditation.

Problem : Meditation is observing and letting go thoughts.  Sometimes I get wonderful ideas or insights but I still have 40 more mins of meditation. If I let go of them, they seem to have permanently lost and I cant recollect them.

Should we attempt to remember such ideas or thoughts and is there a technique ? If so , isnt that counter-intutive to meditation.

Suggested Answers so far : 

1) If its really that important it will come back. Just trust .

I say :  They dont.I sometimes have multiple insights. 

2) If you remember the feeling you can later collect the thought. 

I say : Again, I sometimes have multiple insights. Hard to track.

 

[Torkys]

@Shan I had and still have this "problem" too.

Ask yourself the question: "Why am I meditating?". If your answer isn't "for consciousness for it's own sake", you are doing the wrong technique to get what you want. 

I used to meditate for insights but contemplation and Infinite Intelligence gives me these more directly. 

If you are really committed to increasing your consciousness, you should be able to let go of the most precious insight for consciousness. If you aren't there yet, work towards it. When an insight comes, detach from it and observe. Making mental notes will only distract you. 

[PsiloPutty]

I think your subconscious mind takes a lot better notes than you think. I don't think writing down insights is necessary, but by all means do it if you like. I think that you will carry the benefits of the insights along with you, whether you train them into your conscious mind, or just let them exist peacefully in your subconscious. It's kind of like having a full belly and being okay with not remembering all the good foods you ate to get it that way. Enjoying the fullness.

[dorg]

@Shan In my experience it is better to 'break' meditation in order to 'take note' of an insight. I mean isn't that the reason you are meditating, to gain clarity... And if an insight arrives due to increasing stillness it will be something important to realise for further clarity.

IME looking at the insight is not actually breaking meditation, it is rather deepening it, and meditating or 'seeing' greater depth or clarity.

Best wishes,

Edited April 4, 2018 by dorg

[Shan]

Thanks for your input eveyone.  Below are summarised points for the question how to deal with insights during meditation so far :

1) If its really that important it will come back. Just trust .

2) If you remember the feeling you can later collect the thought. 

3) Realise you are meditating not for insights BUT for conciousness. Observe the insight like a thought and sacrifice it by @Torkys (My Favourite answer so far)

4) Break meditation and right them down (I donot think Gura does this though).

Does anyone have bettter than point#3 above , agree / disaree with it ? 

 

[Nahm]

Write em down, and get back to it, also do deep dives and let them go, a deeper one always comes. 

[cetus]

2 hours ago, Shan said:

Realise you are meditating not for insights BUT for conciousness.

@Shan Your so close here.  Wanna have the insight to end all insights? There is no one meditating. There is no one having insights. There is only consciousness which all meditation and insights happen within. Bottom line: go directly to the source of of all. The next time you have a deep meaningful insight in meditation- that is consciousness. Assign everything to consciousness.

 

[Truth]

Just do it, be mindful as your writing down your insight, that's the only real struggle here is staying conscious as you're writing your insight.