09 June 2012

I know by the comments I get when I talk about the ecstasies, bliss, or sexual feelings that SOME people begin to feel as their practice deepens, that there still is so much negative conditioning wrapped around spirituality, God, meditation, Guru and sex. Sex and ecstatic feelings are frowned on is so many ways by all societies because they break barriers and breach boundaries of propriety and conditioning.


You see, the more you get out of your mind and obsessive holding on to the outer world, the more your attention descends into your body, the more sensitive you get to inner phenomena that were always there but you were not ever aware of.  A whole new world of inner energies, bliss, ecstasies, sexuality, love, and inner flowing of emotions suddenly present themselves center stage.


Along with opening one's inner awareness, especially of the rich life of the Subtle Body, one becomes aware so much more deeply of the energetic and beingness aspects of others.  One--not everyone, but for many--begins feeling the inner states and emotions of others around you, such that when you touch an emotion in them, you also touch it in yourself.  Sometimes you discover new phenomena within others which leads you to finding them within oneself. This is true empathy.  After a while all ability to hurt others disappears.  You will not be able to hurt a fly.  This does not mean others won't feel pain around you because of what you say or do, but it will be their's, due to their conditioning and needs, not because of ill-intent on your part.


It happened to me and it is happening to many of my students.  I have many empathic students open deeply to their own inner worlds, energy phenomena, love that flows like a river upwards from their feet, into their guts, then to the heart, through the throat into the head, which fills them with flowing bliss which transmutes into static ecstatic states followed by varying forms of Samadhi and emptiness.  I have six such students that I know about, and probably many I am not aware of. A large percentage of students who attend Satsang feel these energies and love, or the Void during and immediately after Satsang before the experiences fade away. The more frequently you have these experiences, the easier it becomes to have them.


I can feel each of these people within my own sense of presence once I turn my attention to them, and they, I.  When we get together, we can feel the ecstatic embrace of the others, and it is sort of amplified.  True, these are only experiences, but as the experiences mature, one recognizes that these experiences are signs of the arising dominance of our own SELF emerging from the depths of Turiya and deeper "states," coming up into ordinary, everyday consciousness.


As you can see, the neo Advaitins know nothing of this. They mostly talk just of "Beingness" without distinguishing its various colors and guises.


During Satsang I feel these energies pass through me very strongly and many people at Satsang say they go unconscious or experience something else. As a matter of fact, I really was not aware of most of these energy phenomena until Satsang attendees told me about their experiences, or in direct conversations with students about how they felt me during various times of the day. It is only during the past two years that I have learned to be aware of and to a degree, control these inner phenomena.  All this stuff was going on before that, the Shakti of Robert and Ramana's lineage was playing through me, but I was not aware of it until 2002 or 2003.


These sorts of experiences happened around Robert also; people went into "trances" of varying sorts, and went "away" into the Causal Body of forgetfullness, or deeper into the Self itself. This happened with some people when they went to lunch with him.  They just froze and went into trances for hours. One such person was Michi, who moved with him to Sedona.  Probably another woman named Samantha.  Whenever I was with Robert, I was useless the rest of the day, and just had to sleep off the tremendous energies that moved through me.


So, those who have not yet experienced all the love, ecstatic and sexualized experiences may laugh at them, it is only because you have not experienced them YET.  Ditto with emptiness and the profound peace of silence, whether is is the Background Void that one deliberately falls back into when falling into the  Witness, or the visual Void, that is illuminated by its own light from withion and which encompasses everything, or the dark Void of the Causal Body, of unknowing, unknowledge.


While these experiences can become a distraction and an indulgence, they also tend to spur on further effort, attachment to the unfolding process, and to increasing feelings of love and well being that are markers of the Big I emerging and swallowing the small I. Yet even after self-realization, there is a long way to go.


There is so much that is new in your inner world once the attention begins to sink below the mind.

9 comments:

  1. Thank you very much for this. In my opinion, these blissful feelings are so important as they give the 'oomph' and energy to spiritual practice, trusting the process of unfolding freedom from the mind and the world.

    It should be noted (maybe especially by the author of the critical comment on your blog, who refers to the 'Path of Purification') that even the Buddha with his rather ascetic teaching insisted that this bliss is very important.

    "Here, bhikkhus, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in [samadhi]. This is called the bliss of renunciation, the bliss of seclusion, the bliss of peace, the bliss of enlightenment. I say of this kind of pleasure that it should be pursued, that it should be developed, that it should be cultivated, and that it should not be feared." - Majjhima Nikaya 139

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  2. Another, 'it just makes sense' to me post.


    Thanks,

    D.C.

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  3. To hear these words means so much. That others in Ed's sangha have and are experiencing these "variations" of the dissolution of separate self brings me such joy, and a sense of welcome I cannot explain. For many years, I was the only one in a small sangha who had blisses, and "breakthroughs" in Consciousness, resting for even extended periods as the Witness. There was so much fear and jealousy going on that I didn't have close friends even with those I had been living with for many years. They didn't get me...wanted all the experiences, etc., but had no idea about the deep internal changes that accompanied them even as the personality itself outwardly seemed "pretty much" the same...

    That is not entirely true any longer, because what I see in "others" now, I see as myself as well. The old imagined boundaries between self and other are falling away...and in its wake there is an embrace of the good, bad, and ugly just as it is and without reactivity or fear. It is all myself and, all of it, worthy of love. All the emotions arise as before. It's just that they can no longer be claimed as "mine." They just come and go like the weather.

    The last post of Ed's and the "bliss-ninny" comments cracked me up. All I can say about that is that if you can't stand to see someone else's "undoing," how do you think you will be able to allow your own?...for this will crack you open and suck you right out of all those neat, compartmentalized self-images and drop you way outside any box that you ever clung to for solace. And...you will fall in love with the tender, open-hearted one you find there! The love you always sought on the outside was right there where you stood all along.

    For some years now, all this has gone from a background awareness, to the foreground, and back again. I see that [in a sense] as lingering habits and presumptions based on the old belief in separate self. It doesn't have much substance left, so the old "habits" can fall away. I have never met a Teacher before, who understands this quite as perfectly as Ed...
    Thank you.

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  4. Victoria,

    Isn't amazing how everything unfolds perfectly indeed? We got to have few blissful experiences and those triggered all kinds of mirrors for us to see and claim our own hatred, jealousy, attachments to bliss itself, you name it. As painful as it's been it's been liberating too.

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  5. I am not at all surprised by the "seemingly" negative attitude toward experience as previous posts indicate or that Victoria lived through.

    What I am in awe and gratitude for is that we have a teacher SO OPEN, one who exudes such EMPATHY to WHAT IS!

    Zahhar's comments including the warning of what he called "romanticized idealism" is very valid. I certainly am not interested in the silly approach which itself becomes a "trap" to spiritual growth and it appears most if not all who follow this site also do not.

    But as D.C. alluded when it is part of one's experience it is also valid.

    For a long time I have recognized that we as humans are like receivers and transmitters of energy much like radio's and other technological devices that are also products of the mind.

    I have also noticed that so many of the experiences one has of pressure between the eyebrows or the top of the head and many many other energy fluctuations occur when we are very concentrated during inward contemplation or meditation. Too many to go into but there have been explanations in Hindu and Theosophic writings I believe.

    Perhaps neuro-biology and science will incresingly shed light on the brain-neurologic responses to what occurs when the mind becomes SILENT and STILL and sensitive and receptive to the Subtle body. From the standpoint of those aware of the experiences of those subtle energies called bliss and beyond no explanations may be necessary. But as pointers, explanations may have merit.

    That is the beauty of your teachings, Edji, including the acceptance of WHAT IS and you ability to articulate that for and with us.

    We are in the presence of true teaching when our experiences are validated and become an educative process of SELF discovery. We and the Teacher, together, discovering together. Marvelous. Freeing.

    Respectfully, Mike

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  6. I agree Victoria.

    Though I must admit, jealousy is a bitch.

    I don't mind hatred, despair, loneliness, fear, lust,...I'm even doing better with shame and it's cousin guilt.

    But jealousy...

    I am just becoming able to extend some sort of welcome to this guest, who like the rest, shows up uninvited, but wreaks havok in my house.

    But I hate the feeling of jealousy. I'm just being honest.
    I feel it right now. I am not resisting, but I don't like it.

    It feels like a hot iron claw, gripping and burning my heart.


    This is the one guest that I think should have to send a hand written invitation and get permission before it can come in.

    But, yes, as painful as it has all been, it has been, and is liberating as well.

    D.C.

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  7. This feels like the most beautiful thing you've written, Edji! It touches me very deeply. Thank you for these words and for your depth that is our depth.

    "Sometimes you discover new phenomena within others which leads you to finding them within oneself. This is true empathy. After a while all ability to hurt others disappears."

    Beautiful! So beautiful!

    rich

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  8. Just now as I was standing at the stove preparing lunch. I felt my Lover's presence within me. Immediately, the sensation was as if a warm, sweet, tantalizing energy began to course through my body setting off a series of mini orgasms, as it moved upward, I felt these same orgasms in my heart as a feeling of expansion and contraction. This warm, lucious, tantalizing energy continued to move up into my throat, exiting out my mouth as steaming air. Most often, when this movement of energy happens, it is about the desire to surrender the Love I feel moving through my body to the Love that I feel in my lover. Just Love surrendering to itself using the body as a vehicle to experience: to touch, to taste, to feel, to see, to hear. Day by day this changes. This is how it is today. Yesterday was different, but I barely remember yesterday.

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