I am in a pickle now as are my students.
For the last year of two I have been so happy, so
serene on the inside no matter how “Drama-prone” our Sangha appeared to many,
that it has been difficult for me to do anything.
Sitting in my easy chair, or at Coffee Bean, after
answering emails and doing chores, I would just lie back and rest in my bliss.
It is so very difficult to describe this bliss. For me it is like dropping into absolute zero degree level of activity, and in this complete rest, my “beingness” rests in a state of zero vibration or reactivity to the world.
This rest is so complete and so deep that the bliss felt touches every molecule of my sensed body. Even the energy body is quiet. I am resting in a pool of liquid joy, happiness supreme, of lighted, self-aware Consciousness that is undifferentiated.
I can sit there for two or three hours without moving a muscle except to breathe. This is perfect happiness, perfect peace.
Two problems: How do I “give” this to someone else when they are more interested in conversation than liberation? And, my body falls apart because any moving exercises or expressions of truth cannot match the supreme bliss of being and doing nothing?
It is so very difficult to describe this bliss. For me it is like dropping into absolute zero degree level of activity, and in this complete rest, my “beingness” rests in a state of zero vibration or reactivity to the world.
This rest is so complete and so deep that the bliss felt touches every molecule of my sensed body. Even the energy body is quiet. I am resting in a pool of liquid joy, happiness supreme, of lighted, self-aware Consciousness that is undifferentiated.
I can sit there for two or three hours without moving a muscle except to breathe. This is perfect happiness, perfect peace.
Two problems: How do I “give” this to someone else when they are more interested in conversation than liberation? And, my body falls apart because any moving exercises or expressions of truth cannot match the supreme bliss of being and doing nothing?
Our last retreat made me realize that most
students are searching for something undefined to them, through the use of mind
and understanding. Most everyone there
was just talking, exchanging ideas, jokes, etc., rather than find the Self
within. The retreat was used to gain
understanding or knowledge for some future potential awakening rather than to
find the Self here and now, which is always freely available to be experienced,
once one focuses one’s attention on one’s inside, one’s subjectivity, one’s
knowingness and sentience.
If only I can get them to shut up, look and feel
within, and while doing so, to feel our common Self within. Please feel my energy.
The other growing problem is that with many
students around always wanting to do something for me, I am growing fat and
lazy. The bliss of stillness grows and
grows, and my body deteriorates. What
will be our (Sangha's) new balance?
Hi Ed,
ReplyDeleteI don't expect you will publish this comment, but how is this different from heroin addiction?
Love, Jeremy
THAT is an interesting observation(at least to me) and might even apply to other addictions. One embarking on the "path" to Self-Realization and then fully ensconced in the blissful state that characterized it should ideally recognize the sometimes intense pull or attraction of the addictive aspect in addictions and as such let go of them. In fact, I've been under the impression that meditation was an effective "prescription" for addictions but for me it emerged as an addiction in itself; I'd take that blissed out, spacious state any day over the mind with its trouble generating agendas.
DeleteBut at some point just giving myself a "vacation" from this showed I managed to overcome the craving aspect or much of it at least.
Mark
I have no idea as I have never tried heroin or other addictive drugs. But I would speculate that drug-induced highs are temporary and depend on a continuous supply of drugs to maintain, while the rest and bliss one feels after awakening depend on nothing, as they are part of your true nature.
ReplyDeleteYou know, this is a hypothetical problem for so many commentors who have not even begun to taste the bliss of the Self.
What would they say of Ramana who barely moved for 15 years while first knowing the Self? So many are willing to see unsolvable "problems" with anything associated with paths and Self-Realization.
The happiness iof knowing and being your true Self is ot to be shoved into a category of simple drug or pleasure addictions as it comes on when you are completely yourself. I use the term "bliss," but state I really can't describe the experience. But everything feels so perfect, so complete, and I am so happy, I don't want to do anything to disturb it.
ReplyDeleteBut this does not mean I don't do my chores, or that I can't do them when needed; only that I do not want to move. I choose not to move for long periods.
But I have a medical problem: a collased lung of unknown origin 30 or so years ago. This cost me 40% OF my lung capacity.
In addition, since my surgery a year ago, I have had students at home trying to make my life easy by doing chores for me, feeding me too much, getting gifts of chocolate, etc., that the excess weight snuck up on me. Now, unlike most, I don't have excess lung capacity, and need to drop 40 pounds.
But anyone who equates the bliss of Self, Robert's Unalloyed Happiness, with drug addiction is entirely talking only about their own selves.
Ed.......
DeleteYes, it seems that many equate "bliss" with an uncontrolled kind of ecstacy and they are not the same as you pointed out. The latter could be a drug induced high though I've had infrequent experiences of meditation doing something like that such as more frequent periods of a full body laughter which I relish and which I know resulted from long term meditation(and you laugh just the same so you'd know what I'm getting at :-).
Mark
Mark
I have tried the addictive drugs and also experienced the tremendous highs of the Bliss state. They are totally different states with totally different foundations.
ReplyDeleteThe induced drug states are just that, with usually immediate effect and directly concentrated within the nerve system. Usually short term effects that seem to create a demand within the body for more
The Bliss state, has developed for me over time by using Edji's method of focusing on the 'I AM'. A Love state with the 'I AM' also developed over time. This state is much much deeper and does not have a withdrawal episode nor a demand by the body for more. It is very hard to describe why I continue to repeat this meditation day after day for hours on end...Its kind of like being in a cave and very very slowly opening the door to at first a ray of sunlight and because of not ever seeing sunlight wanting to experience more as the sunlight is also an experience of many other dimensions while heroin is boring because the rush is strictly confined to the nervous system.
Like they say in AA - you take a drink and sooner or later the drink takes you. You need more heroin and more heroin to sustain that original high. In Vietnam mamma-sans would leave 95% pure heroin on your bed...a free gift from your local Viet Cong.
What a excellent way to destroy an Army and it worked.
They never left a book on meditation on my bed.
In the Bliss state attained through meditation the feeling of peace and well being is always available and deepens and deepens with no dreaded effects upon the body. Actually the importance of the body diminishes, for me it is useful only for meditation.
When it boils down the Bliss state is only a small part of the whole. The acceptance of the states of depression, anger, hate, sadness, fear (this is damn difficult) actually balances out in higher and higher states of Bliss. This way you keep your expanding Humanity.
I know the Bliss state is not the desired goal as taught by Edji. Far more important is Self-Realization.