An Experience Of Stillness And Altered Awareness Last Night

[Emerald]

I was laying in bed last night at around midnight and I had an interesting experience.

I often bring my awareness to the sensations in my body as I go to sleep. So, because I recently switched to a Vegan diet, I was bringing the focus to the areas of my spine where the chakras are said to be located. Many say that going Vegan raises your vibration, so I was scanning the chakras regions to see if I noticed any changes from the norm. I have also been having some strange emotions relative to the change in diet/lifestyle which have been very uncomfortable, and I wondered if it had energetic origins.

I noticed that my solar plexus area was pulsating and the pulsating sensation seemed to be rippling outward. I found this interesting because the solar plexus chakra is said to correspond to identity and sense of self, when I decided yesterday that instead of trying to diminish my ego, I am going to create my ego as a masterpiece as I did prior to my enlightenment experiences. Only this time I would create the ego with full knowledge of its illusory nature.

So, I watched the sensation for a couple minutes, and here's where it gets a bit fuzzy. But it was very clear to me when I was going through the process despite the fact that it's very fuzzy to me now. I began asking myself internally over and over "What's experiencing this?" As I asked this question, my vision changed a bit. It was dark in the room so things were already fuzzy. But my depth of field easily flattened. Many of the darkest areas of my room began to shine a little bit with almost like a white noise look but not quite. It was a more subtle effect than what I wrote implies. It was more of a visual disturbance than a hallucination.

Then, there was a strong surge-like sensation through my entire back and for a moment I was in sleep paralysis where I was paralyzed and hearing a strong vibration in my ears. I get sleep paralysis all the time, so I recognized this. But then I pulled through to another vibrational state where I was feeling a more subtle vibration in my arms and hands but I was no longer paralyzed. This was when I got really fuzzy about what had happened just before. I could barely remember despite having just done it in a full state of awareness to what I was doing.

I felt fear and a little frustration at the fact that I couldn't remember. I continued to ask myself "What is experiencing this?" My depth of field was still flat and the visual disturbance was still going on. As I asked, I felt a little fuzzy about who I was. And then I felt a sense of stillness and timelessness. It was as though my flattened visual field was just floating there in stillness. Fear was still slightly in the background. Some thoughts still came and went, but few and far between. I still slightly remembered who I was and where I was. But I kept asking "What is experiencing this?" I was a lot more open to this inquiry because I was already tired.  So, I was in a deep meditative state experiencing this stillness for a couple minutes. Then the fear got louder and thoughts got more frequent. I began to wonder if it was enlightenment. Then I found my thoughts urging to "kill the ego". My husband then came into the room and I began telling him about the experience. He's not very receptive to my interest in spirituality, so he just rolled his eyes and said that he's going to bed. Then I was mad and got all sulky, and I realized that the ego was still alive and well.

Anyone had a similar experience to this? If so, I'd love your take on if this relates to enlightenment or is some other state of consciousness. Thank you!

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2016 by Emerald Wilkins

[Falk]

Sounds like a cool experience ...nevertheless I get the impression you went a bit obsessive about the need to ask that question "what is experiencing this" (and i guess we all somtimes do, especially when we realy feel like now we REALY want to get to the point of enlightenment  which usually should be a warning sign that we are waaay offtrack)  

I know there are some teachers like papaji who recommend to ask " who am i" over and over and over again , but it can be a trap of limiting oneself to the small part of yourself that asks questions and wants "logic" answers...

It might have been a good idea to instead just dropping the question and be ready to surrender to whatever happens without any expectation... and to ask "who is experiencing this" lets be honest! this heavily implies to get THE ANSWER!!  right? so this question basicly says : I WANNA GET ENLIGHTENED!! GIVE ME IT!! I WANT MY PRECIOUS"  

You might limit yourself to staying in the logic mind. practice to drop the words alltogether and what you experience can be way more radical than just some white noise  

Edited June 19, 2016 by Falk

[vizual]

Yeah.. when you reach enlightenment there is no one wondering anymore if it truly is enlightenment.. It's the ego that wants to kill the ego. There comes a time where you have to let go of your fascination with "chakra's", state's and mystical experiences. And the ego loves to reach spiritual milestones and put a big "THIS WAS ALL ME" sign on it.

[Toby]

My teacher would say: "leave the experience and find out who/what had the experience". Other than that I cannot give advise. I could give you my opinion but it won't be of any much help.

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Falk said:

Sounds like a cool experience ...nevertheless I get the impression you went a bit obsessive about the need to ask that question "what is experiencing this" (and i guess we all somtimes do, especially when we realy feel like now we REALY want to get to the point of enlightenment  which usually should be a warning sign that we are waaay offtrack)

Asking myself this over and over actually allowed me to focus and drown out the logical answer to the question and to hone more in on my awareness separate from thoughts. I may not have given the impression of this from my post, but this was what I believed enabled me to be the stillness because I wasn't consulting my thoughts for the answer, I was really observing in a state of receptivity using the question as prompt to observe without losing awareness of what I was looking for. The question was like a magnifying glass through which I was focusing my awareness to make the focus more penetrating.

To go in a little more detail, when the visual field was flattened I still saw my nose, part of my cheek, and my body. So, those parts of me were just part of a 2-d screen. I've known this for a while. But in asking what's perceiving, it separated my awareness from this 2-d screen, and so I truly didn't identify with the image of the body or anything within the visual field. The same was true of my sensations and my thoughts even though this was less pronounced. These were floating in the stillness too. There was a time of compete quiet and timelessness too. But this was only a brief part of the experience.

I suspect that the stillness aspect is what is referred to as "being" and "emptiness". So, I believe that this was a firsthand experience of this. Although I didn't get the overwhelming experience of unconditional love, oneness, and feeling of heaven that I got during my two enlightenment experiences. But I believe the other aspects of the experience relate more to physiological brain wave states that relate more to sleep and also changes in energetic resonance due to lifestyle changes.

 

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, vizual said:

Yeah.. when you reach enlightenment there is no one wondering anymore if it truly is enlightenment.. It's the ego that wants to kill the ego. There comes a time where you have to let go of your fascination with "chakra's", state's and mystical experiences. And the ego loves to reach spiritual milestones and put a big "THIS WAS ALL ME" sign on it.

Oh yeah. Definitely. But I wouldn't say that I'm particularly interested in chakras or anything super spiritual. I have sort of a resistance to it for fear of seeming non-credible so I don't like to be associated with anything too new agey. But I try to operate from the idea "There is no way to enlightenment" and I also try to stay in a state of not believing but not not believing, if that makes sense. So, from that standpoint, couldn't it be true that there may be an energetic component to the realization of enlightenment? If so, applying awareness to the sensations of the body (chakras or not) could potentiallyhave some kind of effect.

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Toby said:

My teacher would say: "leave the experience and find out who/what had the experience". Other than that I cannot give advise. I could give you my opinion but it won't be of any much help.

They probably would. But I'm looking for a chat with someone who's had a similar experience for emotional reasons rather than to ask advice or something like that. It's nice to converse with someone who can relate.