Realizing the Manifest Self--the Life Force permeating our humanity--and the Unmanifest source from which it arises.
25 February 2014
VIDEO: There is a fine line between madness and enlightenment--Robert Adams
It is not all bliss and divine energies that are encountered by those who seek the Self. Consciousness has many "layers" such that inner exploration is much like exploring new lands were for 18th Century explorers.
One encounters Subtle Body energies, Kundalini phenomena, porous boundaries of unitary Consciousness, No-self emptiness, the Void, the Void filled by the light of Consciousness, and for many, experiences of the world of shamans, astral projection, and awareness of a hidden world underneath the conventional world.
Some of these experiences can be frightening or even terrifying and may require medications to solidify boundaries and abate anxiety, and are not unlike hallucinatory experiences of a mental disorder. That is, there is a fine line between madness and enlightenment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
advising the use of antidepressants or antipsychotic medication for difficult states brought on by meditation is a very bad idea, Ed. Your own experience taking such medications, as well as your experience as an assistant working for a psychologist is not justification.
ReplyDeletea much better - safer, easier - alternative is the very same advice that Ramakrishna gave to Vivekananda when he was having experiences of divine energy and felt he was God, or a divine instrument. Ramakrishna said to stop the sadhanana and to come back down to earth.
maybe you haven't seen the reports that have been published of late reaching the following conclusions: (1) the biochemistry model of psychiatric health has no empirical proof; (2) SSRIs and relatively low-strength anti-psychotics have no measurable benefit in the treatment of depression, anxiety etc. there is virtually no experimental body of evidence to support their use.
large pharmaceutical businesses have flooded the shared the collective consciousness with money. medical professionals have lost their moral compass in supporting dubious claims and the lies have filtrated down into well-meaning practitioners. much has been written about this widespread corruption of the mental health field. GSK was sued recently for 3 billion USD for related cases of corruption.
sources:
http://www.benzo.org.uk/ads.htm
in fact, many people have suffered serious side effects while taking such medications. many people have suffered serious side effects after getting off such medications, as well.
Trevor
it's essential that we realize some essential facts if we're to have a meaningful conversation about meditation and the experience of disturbing phenomena.
ReplyDeletewhen one meditates one is magnifying and bringing to the surface conflicts that lie at the deeper layers of consciousness. this may rightly be called our samskaras, products of karmic events (Robert Adams talk 27-1-1991), AND shared experience of the current collective human consciousness (Robert Adams and Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now). Shared fear, pain, and desperation in the face of wide-scale violence are aspects of our a shared human consciousness - our evolutionary level of being, as a species. We literally suffer together, as our reality is one.
The depression, the pain, the anger, the anxiety, etc is inside ME. thus, as a meditator, the surfacing of such deep feelings and experiences is the wonderful opportunity to experience them, in all their raging intensity, in the light of awareness, in awakened consciousness, in ME here and now. Such surfacing allows for true healing: I see myself at new depths of experience, I live the energy, I accept the pain, and thus it all becomes integrated. Ultimately, through repeated practice the pain gets transmuted into love, into greater dimensions of being and presence.
i have experience taking medications, as well, Ed. For myself and for many others, the medication deadens the emotional energetic load. you numb yourself to the experience of your feelings.
ReplyDeletewhy, after doing so much work to bring up feelings, would you advocate for people to deaden them back down? it would be a lost opportunity to experience ever deepening feelings; to truly be with the deeper aspects of your human experience.
if true transcendence means to accept, to see, to really be with...this all points to the word "compassion", we need to be awake not numbed to what ails us.
acceptance, awakened awareness and love of beingness, is the threshold where the human meets the truth, where the deeply felt experiences of pain and fear of annihilation and suffering can be transmuted into love.
Trevor