Direct Experiences Of Truth On An Enlightenment Intensive Retreat

[Kazman]

Hello there!

This is kind of a long post, but I thought it could serve as an inspiration and maybe a clarification of certain nondual aspects to others on the path. Feel free to disagree with and/or correct me. 

Sorry if it's lengthy at times or a bit repetitive, I wrote a lot of it for myself and some things came up as I was writing and I was curious to see where they were going. It helped me to clarify some things for myself. It gets a bit preachy at times, but again, that is just me reminding myself of what I need to be aware of.

Anyway, here it is!

 

A couple of weeks ago I was at an Enlightenment Intensive 3 day Retreat. And I had enlightenment experiences every day for three days!!! Were they the deepest most profound enlightenments possible? Definitely not. Am I enlightened now? Not even close. But my spiritual game has gotten seriously transformed and is now much more on a heart level, in a lot of ways my seeking has ended. 

Before my spiritual practice was to attain something, to explore and try to figure things out, I was seeking out of curiosity to discover what the hell this god-thing was all about. 

What I now feel is that my spiritual goal is that I want to serve the Truth. I want to be a vehicle for Truth. I want to allow myself to be the expression of Truth. To live in the presence of the Lord, as close as I possibly can, from moment to moment. Not out of curiosity or a sense of wanting to be superior, but out of love, out of the recognition that Truth is what is real and that Truth is the only thing that truly matters.

I want to describe my experience as well as I can but I will leave certain things out to make it more anonymous.

First off, if you don't know what an Enlightenment Intensive is, it's an adapted Zen practice turned into a retreat where you sit in so called Dyad-contemplations with other participants. Two and two you give each other a question (Tell me who you are) to contemplate, and the contemplation takes place in a certain specific way that they teach you there, and every five minutes you take turns to switch who gets to contemplate. This goes on NONSTOP (more or less) for 3 days (or more, on longer retreats) and allows for very intense concentration and emotional releases and insights.

The first experience,  Day 1

So anyway, at the end of day 1, I was in a Dyad, and at this point of the day I was pretty bored and exhausted. I had been going on the entire day without much happening, just an uncomfortable feeling in my legs and in my back from all the sitting, and a tired feeling in my brain from the constant having to focus. I knew that all I could was to continue doing the technique. A thing I need to mention about the technique here is that at the end of it you just open and allow for anything to arise in the present moment.

After you've done this for a while, you communicate to your partner as accurately as possible what your experience is, no matter how mundane, uncomfortable, embarassing etc it might be to say it.

So this is what I'm doing. I'm opening, nothing's happening, and I feel that I just need to keep it up. So I communicate that to my partner in the following way:

"I can only be here and now." (Said in a tired manner, as in: "nothing's happening, just gotta keep it up I guess, just gotta keep doing this boring thing")

But as I hear myself saying the words "I can only be here and now" something happens, and an addition that I didn't expect comes right along. 

The voice saying it sounds very triumphant: "Where else would I be?" 

And then I just start laughing. A lot.

I know I am here. I know I am. There's nowhere else to be and this is TRUTH, its obviousness is unquestionable and therefore it doesn't even seem like a breakthrough, it's just fucking obvious. Where else would I be? Am I an idiot? Of course I'm right here!

At the time, I felt something was definitely happening, but I didn't think I was having a direct experience. Soon after it had happened, the bell rang and the dyad was over. I had to go out for a walking contemplation for a while and I felt it messed with my flow. 

"If only the bell hadn't rung, I was so close!" Is what I thought.

I was walking in a field and heard myself laugh. Not my usual laugh, it was much more lighthearted, much more liberated. I've only heard myself laugh like that on mushrooms. Everything was beautiful; the moon, the sky and the trees, but it soon faded, and I was back. Sigh.

 

The second time, Day 2

The next day during the mid-day break, I spoke to the master of the retreat about my experience. S/he asked me exactly what I had thought and felt at the time it was happening, and as I communicated it to him/her, it happened again!

It hit me with full force and I started laughing a lot once more. 

So silly of me to come all this way to the retreat (I'd travelled from another country), to do all this meditation, to read all these books, just because I didn't get that I'm RIGHT HERE.

I was surprised and unsure about this. It was nothing like I had imagined it to be. I had all these ideas and words I was measuring my experience against floating around in my head, but it wasn't like any of those. The best way that I can describe my direct experience is that it was completely transparent. NOTHING changed. I just saw everything for exactly what it was. And I saw that it was REAL.

I didn't know what to make of it.

S/he asked me if I was disappointed. I said that I didn't know, that I was unsure, that I thought there was more.

S/he said that there was a lot more, but that the way that I was beaming and the way I described it made him/her pretty sure that it was a direct experience.

This happened during the resting period of the day so I had about an hour to think about what had happened. I couldn't possibly go to sleep, I had to make sense of this.

I had been expecting TRANSCENDENCE, NOTHINGNESS, EMPTINESS. EGODEATH! Something scary and mystical.

But what I experienced was the opposite.

IMMERSION. MERGING WITH REALITY. FULLY EXPERIENCING LIFE. BEING!

It hit me right in the face. 

I'd been so obsessed with finding something beyond the senses, something beyond reality, that I'd totally ignored the present moment! Always!

Ignoring it to the extent that I have a fucking enlightenment experience and I don't even acknowledge it!

I saw how I'm always doing this. As soon as I get something, it's somehow not good enough anymore, anything within my reach is not what I want. Anything real is not what I want. What suffering! What a way to doom oneself into eternal misery! Such incredible ignorance, such foolishness, absurdity beyond comprehension!

I started crying. How could I have been so cruel to myself? My entire life! I had always denied what was real. But now I had found out that I MYSELF WAS the essence of reality! I couldn't do anything but cry.

You have to be grateful for what is. I have to be grateful for what is. Why? Because that's all there is!

Because there can't be more than what is! Stop looking for anything more than what is. I repeat, please understand, it is a LAW that there can't be more than what is! If there could be more than what is then THAT would be part of what is, and there would still be nothing to look for outside what is.

What is = What is

What is ≠ What isn't

This is just silly. It's so obvious. But that's enlightenment for ya. We're so unconscious that we don't know the difference between what is and what isn't, and how we suffer for it.

Realizing that made me weep so much. And laugh. Weeping and laughing took turns, sometimes with pauses of beautiful tranquility in between.

After a while a thought occured.

"I'm so happy that I've realized this."

But see, even this was suffering, as I saw immediately. How silly of me, to be happy because of something. These were the words that came to me:

"Why be happy because of anything?"

And I laughed a lot again.

It wasn't a depressive thought, not at all. It was beautiful truth. How silly, even moronic, to take a moment in life and turn it into a trophy, to value it and cling to it and make something out of it that it is not and that it doesn't need to be. A memory, a medal, a prize. You don't need to hold on to anything to be happy, you need to let go! All conditional happiness is suffering! OBVIOUSLY, yet again, and STILL we make the same old mistakes. You don't need to perceive yourself as "somebody who got the necessary insight" in order to BE the wisdom. You ARE THE WISDOM. Always.

 

Day 2, second experience of the day

I was in a Dyad later in the afternoon and a lot of embarassing uncomfortable feelings, fears, desires and fantasies were coming up for me.

It made me very anxious to communicate them to my partner but we'd just been given a talk about not holding back no matter what the content was and I was totally dedicated to surrender into Truth.

After all I had experienced, I just wanted to prove myself worthy to Truth so I could experience it again. It wasn't easy though. I communicated things I've hardly admitted to myself. Things I've never said, and would never say, to any of my closest friends, to my wife, to ANYONE. Things I feel tremendous guilt about. Things that almost makes me hate myself. 

I felt I was interacting with Truth, showing it I was ready to give up all my barriers for it, all of my defences, all of my dignity. 

Suddenly the whole process changed and I saw it in another light. 

I thought: "must I go on like this, forever? Must I rabble my entire list of uncomfortable awkward confessions before I'm allowed some sort of experience?" 

Then I realized that "of course not! I'm saying what I'm saying because I WANT to say it! The resistance I feel towards saying it is actually a fear of having the desire to tell the truth, but it is NOT not wanting to tell the truth." 

I'd never seen this before, what an insight! Resistance is not true, it's just me lying to myself about not wanting something that I secretly do want!

I had to communicate it to my partner. This is what I said:

"It's like I have to prove myself worthy to Truth by revealing all my secrets. But then I realize that I WANT to say these things... And then it's like truth said to me:..."

And as I finished my sentence, I BECAME Truth. (But actually, I didn't become Truth, because then and there I had ALWAYS been it)

The following words that I spoke, the reply that I got from Truth, was: (In an almost bored tone, like it was nothing)

"Well if you want to you can just BE IT."

And in that moment I was Truth.

In the state of Truth, everything is obvious and self evident and lacks beginning or end. 

It made me realize something about the interconnectedness between our free will, Truth, and God. 

We ALWAYS have the power to choose. We just choose something that isn't in alignment with Truth most of the time. Almost all of the time. Because of our ignorance. Martin Ball talks about this. Bashar talks about this. 

Fundamentally, I, Truth, and God, are the same thing. 

It made me understand holism on an entirely new level. A meditation technique isn't just some intellectual thing, or something in the mind. Every moment, ALL of our faculties are interacting, and nothing is more important than the ALIGNMENT between our emotions, our thoughts, our expression, our truth, our reality, our words, our energy. It is all energy, it can all work together and open the gate to Truth. Alignment, wow, such a huge thing. Maybe the thing. It is not the words you say in themselves, it is how they align with everything else. This is how magic works, this is how reality works. I find it hard to put into words.

Maybe something like this: 

To be truth, you need to open your energy. Opening your energy is achieved by honesty and openness on all levels of being. 

We're talking inner attitude, body posture, letting go of rigid beliefs, self acceptance, relaxing muscles, not getting distracted, not manipulating your words or anything in your experience. Not holding back on any negative emotions. Not holding back on any positive emotions, any sexual sensations or desires, or whatever. Not holding back at all, which is true surrender. It could be called holding forth, perhaps, the opposite of holding back. To hold forth is to serve your entire self on a silver platter for the universe to do whatever it wants with. And you don't need to worry AT ALL, because NOTHING WILL BE DONE TO YOU. Because what's there is just there! All the bad stuff that is done towards what is already there, is only done by YOU! You are the one who is hurting yourself by denying yourself, as soon as any aspect of you is accepted to be true, TRULY ACCEPTED, nothing else could ever harm it.

So anyway, I was Truth, there was nothing else, and it was all completely obvious.

I laughed a lot, the same whole hearted mushroom laugh, laughing to the beauty of the simple but powerful implications of the words: "well if you want to you can just be it".

When I told the master about this experience later that day I said that:

"Truth is always there. But it is up to my free will if I want to live in accordance with it or not".

It really felt like even though I was Truth, Truth was also something external that I could communicate with. It was me and yet it was other, a beautiful paradox. It functioned according to laws, you could join it or struggle against it, because that is how reality is, and I saw that there was intelligence in truth, it was very lively, and willing to interact with you if you so wanted.

This made me cry, how emotionally moving and magical to see that Truth is intelligent, vibrant and alive!

I've found it to be really helpful to treat entheogens as teachers and guides, to ask the mushrooms questions and relate to them as entities. But now I'd done it with Truth itself, and completely sober at that! I had to weep a lot again.

 

Day 3, last experience

The last direct experience was very brief, but in some ways its message was the most beautiful.

It happened during the most emotionally intense Dyad of the retreat for me, and even though I'd gotten a direct experience during it, I felt awful afterwards. I wanted to sink through the ground and disappear, I was so ashamed. I can't go into detail about why exactly, out of respect to the others on that Intensive and the person I was in the Dyad with, but it had to do with memories of how I had always been having a really easy time in school. I just got things quicker than most others and I've had to struggle much less in my life than my autistic brother, and there's this intense guilt I feel about that. Also, I always maintain an image of false humility, but deep down I think I'm absolutely superior, and I look down on everybody else. This humility-pretention that I always want to maintain was completely shattered in this Dyad and it made me sooo ashamed of myself. 

So anyway, there I am, totally ashamed, and I communicate the shame, and just like in the previous experiences on the Intensive, AS I'm communicating, I tap into Truth.

I could sense my shame in my body. Exactly where it was. It had a golden, purplish, shimmering quality to if. And what I saw and communicated will be revealed soon, but first I must mention the quality and the delivery of the words, as they themselves, in written form, do not come close to the magnificence of the moment.

The words came out in an extremely calm way, with a voice in complete, still ecstacy, like it was an ocean that was roaring with laughter just below its mirror-like surface, almost about to tremble the whole time, but never doing so. Discovering and slowly  and carefully tasting one word at a time, not making any haste, and speaking the end of every sentence with impeccable certainty. The voice said:

"I have shame. But that is okay. Because it is real.

...

And nothing that is real need to be struggled against.

...

And

...

(What delight, as I knew what words would manifest!)

EVERYTHING IS REAL."

 

Thinking about this still makes me emotional. 

Nothing needs to be struggled against. Everything is, and what isn't, isn't. 

And that in itself is DIVINE, totally sublime. The eternal heavenly peace of God.

 

After thoughts

I was really puzzled by the fact that my experiences weren't at all like I was expecting them to be. But I had some insights regarding that shortly thereafter. Here is what I came up with:

The experience of Truth is Truth. It is OBVIOUS. So obvious and self evident that it becomes transparent. You can't measure it against anything else, it's just there. It is not an experience of "ahaa, this is false, and this is false, and also this, and I can compare this state to this, and a little bit to that." NO! It is not like any one thing in particular. Or all the things. It just is what it is.

When you are Truth, that realization doesn't come with a list of adjectives and descriptions that you need to think about or read through in order to understand what you already ARE. NO, that's what you do when you're asleep. When you're AWAKE, you just are what you are!

The intellectualizing and rationalizing and descriptions and metaphors occurs when you COME BACK from your experience and try to make sense of it and communicate it to others. And the only way I can describe the Absolute, when I think about it, is the same way that all the books and masters already do, even though I think those descriptions led me astray quite a bit.  

It's not the absolute because it's big and grand, which is what I always thought. If you go looking for something huge and awesome you won't find it. Size is relative, even the biggest object in the universe is relative, it is not Absolute. The Absolute TRANSCENDS sizes. Absolutely. So it IS actually transcendent, in that sense. But that doesn't mean it's OUTSIDE of reality. It IS reality!

Also: Truth doesn't change ANYTHING. I was doing some simple yoga and stretching on the third day and it was still really challenging and uncomfortable. Even shortly after a direct experience. Of course! Because that is what's true, that's where I am in my practice! Change is change, truth is what already is. If you want stuff to change, if you want to improve in a certain field, you have to work on THAT. Specifically. If you want to see stars and galaxies and beautiful mandalas and patterns, go look at them in a book or in a telescope, or take psychedelics. You can experience all kinds of things, they're there. But pursuing THOSE experiences or visions in PARTICULAR is very different from pursuing Truth. Truth isn't some other realm that is somehow better than the ordinary realm. Truth is what is, and a psychedelic experience may be a part of what is, but everything else is also a part of what is. You have to make the distinction between the two desires, the pursuit of some wild and sparkling hallucination and the pursuit of Truth. Do you want the room to collapse into pure space with galaxies and entities and sparkles and fairydust? That can be a genuine desire, I know it was for me. But the Truth is there regardless of what experiences you might have. Think about WHY you want the stars and sparkles. To prove something? To whom? And WHO is it that wants the stars and sparkles? Kind of a strange wish, really (Preaching to myself here...)

I also realized that my sense of being here and now that I got in my direct experience WAS actually a sort of ego death, although it wasn't anywhere near as violent as that word implies. It was ego death in the sense that I was here and now REGARDLESS of Kazman(which is not my real name obviously). Regardless of where he is or what he's thinking or doing, I AM. That isn't some weird or mystical special I AMness, it's the very same one you're feeling right now. It just comes prior to all the things you do and think you are. Ken Wilber calls it Pure I Amness. Ego death doesn't mean that "okay, I'm not the mind or the body... I'm actually THAT piece of grass over THERE." No! That's ridiculous. You are nothing in particular, you just ARE. You may not be able to know it right now, because as you are now, your experience of having a body and an ego is completely intertwined with your sense of I am here. But one is not dependent on the other. It is not I Am because you are, it's just I Am. Period. God this sounds stupid.

Also, it is HERE, regardless of location. Regardless of where Kazman is. Which is omnipresence. But when you get to experience Truth it doesn't feel like omnipresence, since it is here, and you are also here. But the thing is, it is here regardless of where you are, regardless of where it is, it's always here. Prior to location, it is Here.

And I love it. I'm totally in love with it. One night by the end of the intensive I was standing in a field looking at the sky and the words that reflected what was in my heart the most, that I spoke out loud, were:

"Father. I want to live serving you."

It's my new life purpose! I don't know how to best embody it but I'll do my best. This is what I want to dedicate my life to. Surrendering into Truth. Because I see that things will just be more and more beautiful the fuller I am able to surrender.

But how the fuck do I do that? I'm a 100% back now. Just as far away from it as always. But now I've seen that it's always there at least, regardless of whether I acknowledge it or not. But I want to keep acknowledging it, as good as I can! I want to become a powerful mystic! Now comes the process of building habits and infrastructure to support a more authentic spiritual life. A life of purification, devotion, service, work on myself, a life of love. It all has to be done out of love. And I have that love now. Although, which saddens me deeply, the normal state of l, the ego, has a tendency to make all of this stagnate veeery quickly. As I've been writing this, I've been painfully aware that the words are becoming more and more just that: words. I find myself thinking more about how to represent a concept in the way I'd like to see myself presenting it and less and less about communicating Truth. I've done my best not to write in a romantic language, but when i read through it, it all seems to be totally inaccurate and misrepresenting. It's scary and heartbreaking to see the ego fall right back into place. But regardless of whether I succeed with my life purpose or not, I know that a life of heartfelt dedication to surrender as fully into truth as I possibly can will be the best one, it is my life and I love it.

 

Smaller Insights or Phrases

There really isn't any difference between being open and allowing in the present moment and having an enlightenment experience. Because that is as close to your true nature you're ever gonna get.

I have a lot of problems with relating authentically towards other, most of my energy goes into easing tension, making myself be liked, people pleasing, withholding negative emotions and stuff like that.

I make things so goddamn complicated. The Truth is simple. REALLY fucking simple.

I had a beautiful experience, by the very end of the intensive I was in a Dyad and witnessed another person have an enlightenment experience. It was so beautiful and we both cried a lot. It was almost nicer than getting one myself somehow. I feel truly priviledged to have been a part of that. I can't tell anything more specific about it to respect the other person but wow.

I got overwhelmed at times during the intensive with all the flaws I found in my personality. "i'll never finish my personal development process" I thought. But then I realized that self perfection as a goal in itself is not the point. It's not like there's some ideal state you get to where you are the perfect human and you have to take all the steps to it before you can live the good real life. It's just a simple matter of not doing what isn't serving you. If you notice you're hurting yourself through your behaviour, you stop. Of course you have to be ridiculously conscious to see all the ways you hurt yourself but there you go.

I use food to feel in control. Sometimes by eating exactly what I want when I want it and sometimes by setting up rules and avoiding eating those things. But both allowing and disallowing myself to eat certain things is control. Those mechanisms are sooo sneaky and hard to miss.

You can say Namaste. And you can BE NAMASTE.

I want to be as present as possible in my family life. Relating to other humans and all that comes with it is the most important part of life.

I love humanness. There is no dark secret or impure desire of anybody that I can't sympathize with as long as it is being communicated honestly and authentically. It is misrepresentation and upholding a nice picture of oneself that I have a problem with.

I want to be truth's BITCH.

Entheogens = truth medicine. And the truth always SETS YOU STRAIGHT

I'm very scared of the dark but I noticed that after the intensive, that was completely gone. It's back now, however.

A nice part of going on a retreat instead of a psychedelic trip is that even though mushrooms may get you somewhere MUUUUCH quicker, it ends just as quickly. What I find good with the Intensive is that while it takes a lot longer to go deep, you don't fall right back afterwards. This gives you a golden opportunity to notice things in your everyday life to correct that you just wouldn't pickup otherwise. I still love entheogens though, but I've seen that it's kind of an instrumental love, and what I REALLY love is Truth (should be clear at this point)

I want to be a vehicle for truth. A light in the dark. I don't wanna be talking the talk, I HAVE to be walking the walk! I don't want to be a voice in the dark telling the others that there are lamps somewhere. I NEED to BE the lamp, lighting shit up! Helping people see! No doubt about it!

A little Poem:

I thought I wanted something

I thought I wanted everything

Then I thought I wanted nothing

Now I only want the absolute

And it is neither of those

(To clarify:

It is not NOT one of those either. It is just no thing in particular)

A certain pain is associated with being Kazman. It comes often with doing something from duty. Feeling obligated. Not being authentic

 

Final words

Of course my understanding and embodiment will just deepen as my life goes on, and I'm sure I'll change my mind and find errors in my descriptions that I've just given. Maybe I'll have completely opposite experiences in the future. I'll do my best to be open for anything. 

About a week after the intensive I got the chance to speak with a person I look up to a lot who is around 35 years ahead of me on the path. He was quite upset when he heard that there was something called an Enlightenment Intensive. He said all of these modern spiritual approaches, all the Eckhart Tolles and Moojis, can never produce enlightened beings, they just won't. And that one must not get hung up on experiences. And he is right in many ways, I totally agree with him. However, in my view, a few experiences can really help you sort things out so that your determination and faith on the path can  be much stronger and grounded in something real instead of grounded in illusions and fantasies. I really recommend these kind of retreats, but make sure you do a lot more as well. 99,999% of the work has to be done in your ordinary state of consciousness, in your ordinary life, because that is where you always are and that is what is keeping you from truth. And that's kind of a big obstacle. Life. Is there anything larger? Yes. 

I see now that Truth is larger than life itself.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Orange]

Thanks for this ! It was long but worth reading. To me it sounds like you have come to a complete state of acceptance also? Acceptance for who you are, your flaws and the imperfection of the present moment; like when you describe it here: 

3 hours ago, Kazman said:

I got overwhelmed at times during the intensive with all the flaws I found in my personality. "i'll never finish my personal development process" I thought. But then I realized that self perfection as a goal in itself is not the point. It's not like there's some ideal state you get to where you are the perfect human and you have to take all the steps to it before you can live the good real life.

 

[Kazman]

@Orange thank you!

There and then at least, I was self accepting, because I was open.

Like I'm writing somewhere, you don't have to communicate your entire existence with all its facets to your partner, but on an inner level, you can't deny anything about yourself. You cannot resist or deny any part of yourself, which means that you have to accept it all, to reach the required open state. You have to accept everything that is true. But you can accept the resistance and lies within yourself, that is good enough. You don't have to get rid of them.

[Viking]

@Kazman I didnt read all of it, just the day 3 part and I think i experienced the same, on psychedelics though, exactly as you describe it, but a little less intense than you described it, just peaceful. just pure acceptance of what is, surrender and the obviousness, after extreme fear. you managed to describe it much better than I did.

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/13882-what-did-i-experience/

[Kazman]

@Ilya Thank you!

[DoubleYou]

@Kazman Thanks for sharing. That was a great read. 

The silliness of seeing it is something that really fascinates me. 

Quote

What is = What is

What is ≠ What isn't

This is just silly. It's so obvious. But that's enlightenment for ya. We're so unconscious that we don't know the difference between what is and what isn't, and how we suffer for it.

That's really all there is to it. Funny how those simple words can mean so much when you actually realise it. And then when you 'lose' it, they just end up being silly words again. I think that's beautiful, and at the same time, the biggest joke there is. 

[Kazman]

@DoubleYou Amen, fellow aspiring baboon 

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, it means a lot!

I love the silliness of the descriptions that come up. Trying to communicate the incommunicatable. It's impossible but entertaining. Beautiful and the biggest joke, for sure. Just endlessly fascinating.

[Soulbass]

Wow, it seems to be a profound experience.

By reading your post, I only get like 0.1% of what you mean by "true".

It's something that have to be experienced.

Very inspiring!

Thanks for sharing.

[Kazman]

@Soulbass thank you so much for reading and commenting!!! It means a lot to me.

Yes, a profound experience in many ways, and it has shed a lot of layers of my life that were just getting in my way. Layers of false pursuits, layers of desire for things that I now see has nothing to do with what i really want etc.

but at the same time, like I was writing, it wasn't like anything I thought it would be. It didn't feel PROFOUND at all, just obvious, almost to the point of feeling mundane. But it has shifted the direction of my life on a deep level, so for sure, it was certainly SOMETHING.

yeah I guess it's something that cannot be communicated. At all. I wish I could just "get people there" and most of all, get myself there more! In the end everything has to be personally experienced and only very vague directions can be given. 

much love

[cetus]

2 hours ago, Kazman said:

Yes, a profound experience in many ways, and it has shed a lot of layers of my life that were just getting in my way. Layers of false pursuits, layers of desire for things that I now see has nothing to do with what i really want etc.

@Kazman All a great read. But what you said here really hit home. I look around me now and all I see is false aspects of me. I'm realizing this same thing today especially reading the Ox' herding picture -stories and I'm rethinking everything in my life and practice. Probably a good thing to do from time to time. So this part of the ox story shown me something that wasn't quite correct in my practice.  Just wanted to share.

If you see yourself as separate from your true nature then you’ll try to act on it from outside and make your mind be still. This is impossible so you’ll never succeed. But that’s okay because your true nature is naturally still. You don’t need to struggle. Everything is as it is. You can let it be, and let your mind be, and the disturbances and ripples in the water will slowly disappear.

[Soulbass]

8 hours ago, Kazman said:

I guess it's something that cannot be communicated.

Yep, I'm not meditating these days. I'm in the middle of the night, and it feel dark AF!

Thanks for sharing your experience, it gives at lot of motivation for pursuing a meditation practice sooner rather than later.

[Kazman]

19 hours ago, Soulbass said:

 it gives at lot of motivation for pursuing a meditation practice sooner rather than later.

If that's all I ever did, my efforts have not been in vain ?