10 Day 1st Retreat Report and Questions

[Cocolove]

I just got back from my 10 day meditation retreat. I signed up for the vippasana ones but got declined the past two years because I'm under 18. I got my mom to let me stay at her cabin for the retreat although I had to text my parents daily. I sat 6 hours a day. 4 hours vippasana 2 hours kriya yoga. I did this because I was sleeping a lot, cooking my own meals, and I wanted time to just sit informally. No fap no distractions so it was a legit retreat. It was a sick location, saw lots of wildlife.

The first few days were super hard emotionally but that passed and the rest were brutal too. Halfway through the first day I was just planning when I would leave early.

At the end of the second day I was doing kriya yoga and my body was pulsing with energy, at the top of the breath on kriya pranayama. I left my body and just felt a singularity of energy, and saw spinning red fractals. This happened again about half a dozen times. 

On the 6th day this happened and I think I entered some kind of state of cessation or some altered state. I came back to my body falling to the floor in a state of sheer confusion. It took me a while to figure out who I was or what I was doing. I think this was a result of the cessation of the narrative of the ego because I couldn't remember thinking or experiencing anything in that time. This state emerged after seeing the fractals and feeling the buzzing, and hearing alien clicking I might add, it felt before it like I was going through a  tunnel.

I also felt extremely, distractingly creative for some times, and experienced some pure joy for a while towards the second half of the retreat.

The vippasana felt like a failure. I know it wasn't because I worked through the resistance that lingered through it. Regardless I never got into many deep meditative states from it because of all the emotional resistance physical pain, restless energy. My Question is whether this was a result of the low amount of the technique or if this is all fine and good for a first retreat, i.e. was this an error or part of the process.

 

[Leo Gura]

Regardless of your results, that was a very powerful step in your journey.

Congrats for doing it! Anyone who completes a 10-day solo retreat has my respect. It's one of the hardest things in the world.

To get serious results on retreats though you should be meditating/concentrating 10-12 hours per day. It takes enormous effort.

P.S. Next time, double the volume of your microphone. Very hard to hear it.

[Cocolove]

Yea I'll use my actual camera instead of a phone next time.

Next time hopefully will be at a real retreat but regardless I'll do 10+ hours

[Nahm]

Great work and thanks for taking time to share! Those experiences and states will contrast others in your day to day, and you’ll dial in more and more. No failure at all, solid efforts imo. Impressive man, keep rockin. 

[Gili Trawangan]

5 hours ago, Cocolove said:

At the end of the second day I was doing kriya yoga and my body was pulsing with energy, at the top of the breath on kriya pranayama. I left my body and just felt a singularity of energy, and saw spinning red fractals. This happened again about half a dozen times. 

On the 6th day this happened and I think I entered some kind of state of cessation or some altered state. I came back to my body falling to the floor in a state of sheer confusion. It took me a while to figure out who I was or what I was doing. I think this was a result of the cessation of the narrative of the ego because I couldn't remember thinking or experiencing anything in that time. This state emerged after seeing the fractals and feeling the buzzing, and hearing alien clicking I might add, it felt before it like I was going through a  tunnel.

I don't understand, this happened to you and you are saying you didn't get any results? What else did you expect?!

[SoothedByRain]

Xxxx

[Space]

@Cocolove Very impressive! Doing Vipassanna for long hours is brutal and grindy (for me at least). Maybe you should try the Awareness of Awareness technique if you ever do another retreat. More direct, easier and much more pleasant imo. 

[Gili Trawangan]

7 minutes ago, Space said:

@Cocolove Very impressive! Doing Vipassanna for long hours is brutal and grindy (for me at least). Maybe you should try the Awareness of Awareness technique if you ever do another retreat. More direct, easier and much more pleasant imo. 

@Space Yeah, I've dropped Vipassana altogether, it's just not enjoyable.

[Cocolove]

9 hours ago, Gili Trawangan said:

I don't understand, this happened to you and you are saying you didn't get any results? What else did you expect?!

I meant that I didn't seem to get results from the vipassana, but come to think of it you can't really separate the two, I'm sure being on the retreat & vipassana put the kriya on steroids.

 

Yea I think I'll try another technique. I have a solid foundation with self-inquiry(which involves awareness of awareness at least how I do it) and do-nothing

[SunnyNewDay]

cool job doing this at your age. sounds like you did it well. I'm wanting to do something like this but I don't know kriya, just vippasana.

I wonder what a 10 day retreat with some breath work mixed in daily would be like.