Close mindedness in spiritual circles: Vipassana

[Damien]

Dear Forum,

I have been on the path for a few years now, meditating, going to retreats, doing psychedelics and experimenting in a broad way with the tool and techniques to expand awareness. Favoring the ones that worked and abandoning the low yield stuff. 

I happen to have some free time in the months to come and thought about serving a Vipassana course. I attended two such retreats as a student. My intention was to give back and take some time off society. 

I filled the questionnaire about my health and other spiritual practices honestly. Mentioning about my occasional psychedelic use in a PD context and the other practices I have explored in parallel with Vipassana meditation / strong determination sitting. I told them about holotropic breathwork and Kriya yoga.

To my great surprise, my application got rejected because of having practiced other techniques since my last course. 

This situation is confusing because I thought that when people increase their awareness they would come to the realization of the validity/utility of different practices for different goals. 

Do you guys see any legitimate concerns in a person like me cooking and cleaning a meditation center or is this stage blue conformism entrenched in the Vipassana structure?

From your POV are there some obvious things that I don't understand about the working of such a system?

Thank you for your time 

[Recursoinominado]

Yeah, they are notoriously dogmatic about vipassana meditation, i was advised to conceal my psychedelic experiences from them when applying, just straight out lie to them. They surely have some spiral dynamics blue in them. 

[oMarcos]

Isn't obvious? you mentioned psychedelic use. Vipassana tool is only your body, period. From their point of view, having a servitor that uses psychedilcs must be unortodox. The system is even against samadi with the mind's eye... 

 

 

 

[Damien]

@oMarcos The curious part was that they only mentioned the Kriya yoga and breathwork in the refusal email as the reason why I wasn't eligible.

[oMarcos]

It's so unortodox that they even didn't had the balls to mention that  

Edited October 15, 2019 by oMarcos

[Aeris]

Don't loose your time. If you want hardcore méditation do it by yourself.

You Can vispa alone. This Will train your full will.

 

[outlandish]

15 minutes ago, oMarcos said:

It's so unortodox that they even didn't had the balls to mention that  

Lol totally

The topic of psychedelics makes many people very uncomfortable. Over the years I've learned to avoid mentioning them most of the time, sadly.

[Flowerfaeiry]

@oMarcos they don’t consider psychedelic usage a problem because it’s not a practice 

[mikelyons]

@Damien maybe God's telling you that you are ready to start doing solo retreats ...

If you need Goenkaji's discourses, download them from the oldstudent website.

Use a ringtone of a gong tone and set alarms to time your day.

You can do it, I believe in you! 

[Damien]

Thank you all for your insights! @mikelyons @Aeris Solo retreat it will be! Thank you for the encouraging words

[okulele]

@Damien Yeah, I wanted to serve there also, but mentioning self-inquiry banned me from that The rule is - vipassana only, or no serving.