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@preventingdiabetes @preventingdiabetes@preventingdiabetes I tried to last year but my physical health is too bad to be able to sit still for that amount of time without destroying my back. Maybe one day I'll try again when I've built up some finances and health. I'd like to summarize what I've been trying to communicate in my previous posts: 1. Happiness is non-duality. It's important to know this experientially. Love and appreciate it wherever it's found. 2. Open your second chakra, it's the ability to enjoy, feel pleasure and passion and to be connected with life. When you suppress desire you can feel a somatic contraction in your lower back and you go into a subtily painful and fearful state. It makes you feel separate from life which is dualistic. That's not a quality of an enlightened being. Bliss is the road to God.

Life is harder than just bliss. Some of us can't just go 'straight to bliss'. That makes no sense.

Doing more could look like following your bliss instead, for if you follow that which makes you happy, well you will be happier, and if something is relevant for you to look at in terms of past traumas etc, it will appear to you along the way. If you look at trauma from a blissful state, it's quite easy to dissolve, if you look at it from a not so blissful state, in general one simply start seeing more and more and more trauma and feels overwhelmed and trapped inside a life determined by event they didn't choose to experience and starts seeing how it affects them now in relationships or whatever, etc. So yeah, just do what makes you happy in each moment (it doesn't have to be big things, it can look like eating chocolate or going for a walk).

As long as there’s stillness, transformation, bright alertness, and bliss, you don’t need to tweak anything you’re currently doing — otherwise, you perhaps could. Researching the jhanas can be useful if you come across any sticking points or profound states that scare you and render you unsure of how to proceed — Daniel Ingram gets into probably the most technical detail of anyone; Rob Burbea provided complete info on it as well. Many other sources for kundalini progression. The gist of it can be found in Culadasa’s TMI. Keep on doing your practice though. Sounds like it’s going very well. Tailoring and tweaking your practice with increasing subtlety is the name of the game; a very beautiful part of practice. Perhaps begin with openness, and then develop each of the following: steadiness, sensitivity, patience, and play.

I made the mistake last autumn and started to basically force myself to do kriya sessions with a 'kill-the-ego' Jed McKenna'esque zeal. Did like 1h+ sessions. At first tried to be strict but then started to explore the technique and let intuition guide through it. Then learned some tidbits from SantataGamanas books. Breathing and focusing solely on point between eyebrows (head chakra) and 'knocking' on it with 6 oms every in and out breath. But I freestyled it and started to switch between head and crown chakra which had an orgasmic effect to it, pure bliss, but it was not lasting, and some sessions felt really painful emotionally, like I was going crazy inside before I came to that point. Finished sessions with yoni mudra, also recklessly focusing on crown chakra. I later learned that going too quickly towards crown can have serious negative effects. Throws your energy off balance, basically too much upper chakras focus and not enough lower chakras or something like that. Then again it produced some natural highs I can compare to peak psych experiences (ego death, 'falling into void or sky' that was very similar to 5meo breakthrough, and also energy focused on abdominal area and a powerful sense that I am the devil and that I had all the power of the world like I'm going to get what I want no matter the consequences - kind of stuff) right after yoni mudra (also done recklessly, I think like 3 yoni mudras in a row focused on crown chakra after having done 1h of pranayama got me those peaks) but more 'clean' so to speak, but still fleeting as I feel kriya can get you to peak states very quickly, but unless you deliberately remain there then it wont have much effect outside sessions. Negative side effects started coming, I did a deep dive into experimenting with kriya after 5meo breakthrough. But I started to feel extremely depressed, lots of mood swings, and weird bodily sensations, like a cracked out feeling in my head, etc. But also very profound peace, and ineffable states of pure bliss outside of kriya sessions in daily life aswell. But it was too uncontrolled, very rollercoastery with my emotional state, i started to become disfunctional with work, took a brake from school, made an irrational decision to move cities during covid and leave old study-career plan behind without much financial security, ended up as a bolt delivery driver for a fee months before returning). I went down some really really bad places emotionally, like 10/10 nihilistic depression holes. But they passed when I somehow accepted these places. And finally I stopped kriya sessions because I needed to start recovering from the symptoms which had become so unbearable I was basically suicidal for most of time. In hindsight I'd say I developed Kundalini syndrome symptoms and aggravated them further by forcing myself to do kriya even when i didnt feel like it. And being too reckless with it. And I let my daily life go through a rollercoaster, basically 1 year wasted i that regard, but lots of peaks and downs, lots of wisdom gathered. Lots of wisdom about the negatives of spiritual work mostly, and what can happen if you take it too quickly too far without having basic needs met and a healthy ego to begin with (finances, social life, sex, etcetc) but it waa covid and I was sick of life so whatever, guess i needed to smack my head against the wall until I decided to begin actually loving myself. Tbh I now kind of understand what probably Connor Murphy has gone through, I feel similar streaks of manic unhinged creativity but I can always control whether or not I let them amok or not. Anyways, lessons from me to you - intuitively working on it good, but don't stray from technique too much, mb they just need time and practice. Probably don't abuse yoni mudra and crown chakra, also kriya supreme fire is abuseable if you have heard from it. Heart chakra, good to focus on (read more from books about this). Also don't neglect basic needs etcetc. And probably the best advice from this response of mine - learn to actually enjoy and love kriya sessions (rather than force yourself to do it). But if your practice doesn't do much for you yet then maybe you need more gasoline to feed the flames so-to-speak (experiment with more powerful techniques, variations), just dont overdo it and learn when to stop. As far as books to have a much better understanding of kriya techniques and stuff read SantataGamanas books on it and def Ennio Nimis' book aswell. To counterbalance them if you do get some negative symptoms then Tara Springett is your gal to turn to (Enlightenment through the Path of Kundalini, Healing Kundalini Syndrome, Higher Consciousnes Healing books). Basically she's no1 person a jhana junkie crackhead like me needed to get myself out of this. But yeah, TLDR kriya yoga works, and doing it your own way is good, but best to read more, to make sure you arent making mistakes and fucking up your energy body.

Believe it or not, I actually agree with both of you. There is no external "goal" of a blissful state. It's about recognizing the bliss that's already available.

Have you started seeing the futility of this grand, bottomless project of trying to make yourself happy and secured? Has it worked? Are you completely at ease, bliss, secured, without fear and anxiety? If not, what's the percentage of progress you made in this grand project over your 10-20-30-40-50 years of lifetime? Do you see the impossibility of this game which is rigged against you? Why do you even try? Why do you still believe you can make yourself happy, secured, fulfilled permanently? Why not simply acknowledge and accept the utter fragility of yourself? Happiness and wellbeing is NOT something you deserve. When did you buy into this bullshit story? Have you lost your mind? Just look at you! If you were a Greek god with a lifetime of 10 billion years, who knows no physical or mental exhaustion, who possesses immense prowess and can survive even a planetary destruction; it would be rational to claim that such a being has legit high chance of deserving and claiming happiness, well being and permanent security. On the other hand look at you! How fragile and vulnerable you are! It takes a zillion things in proper place in your environment and psycholology to make a moment of respite for you while a minor little thing like a virus, temperature, gravity, accident, discomforting thought, tough emotion can legit screw you over. It takes like 15-20 years of healthy childhood, education and environment to have a decent, high esteemed self, while only one traumatic event or imagination can plant a deep imprint in you and screw you over badly for life! Can you simply let go and accept your vulnerability? Can you let go of this impossible project and assumption that you can actually secure yourself? Can you totally accept your fate for having pain, grief, fear, depression as your usual and natural condition and simply stop trying to make it otherwise? Just look at you trying so hard to build and maintain your sand castles in midst of a gigantic Tsunami. See how easy it is to disturb you and your fickle boundaries.. What happens if you simply give up on chasing this impossible dream? You are already bound to be screwed, right? How worse can it be? Maybe a new dimension will open up if you simply give up and accept your fate?

Oh yeah you wouldn’t pray like that unless you believed in a God outside of you. No such God exists. You are God (or there’s no you, only God), but if you haven’t recognized that, prayer can be used. Inquire into who it is that’s praying — that’s God wearing the ego mask. The point of prayer at the highest level is realization of union with God / lack of separation between you and God. Because if God exists, you are God, since God by the definition I’m referring to has no other. The means by which this happens is complete and utter stillness of mind. You may want to become skilled in meditation first, but really they’re kind of the same thing as long as you can produce at least some modest level of well-being at will (getting to that point is the hardest part so don’t worry, it’s normal if you can’t already) — this enables less restlessness and more stillness, which produces more pleasure, which produces more stillness, and so on to an inflection point called jhana where the bliss takes off exponentially and you feel so unimaginably good you basically won’t even believe it — it’s a different order of well-being; shocking, even. Then it’s all over — you’ll never search for happiness primarily outside yourself again. I’ve heard credible rumors that jhana may not be for everyone, but the important thing is bliss-on-demand, and that is in fact available to everyone with a bit of practice.

@m0hsen And progressing in jhana is about releasing attachment to the current level — the later Jhanas basically have no room for physical pleasure because it’s old news — it’s recognized that the ultimate reason you like the pleasure is the peace it provides, and then you essentially absorb into pure peace, which interestingly is immeasurably more sublime than pure pleasure. Though you can always revisit earlier Jhanas. You generally pass through each one distinctly on the way up and down — known as the jhanic arc. Letting that arc flow naturally is the best way to practice them. With great skill you can enter into specific jhanas without having to follow the arc, but again the best way to practice is to let them progress naturally: i.e. the mind naturally begins to sense that the overwhelming exhilarating body buzz of 1st jhana is less sublime than the bliss itself produced by that exhilaration and so it absorbs into the blissful happiness of 2nd jhana like a warm bath (ecstasy/exhilaration now in the background); then mind begins to tire still of the overwhelming orgasmic exhilaration and so turns away from it entirely, giving way to pure happiness completely divested of bodily-exhilaration (3rd jhana), which is almost certainly not something humans are capable of outside of jhana. Abandon pleasure for peace itself (4th), abandon materiality; space; consciousness; nothingness; perception-landing (8th)... Even 1st jhana will knock your socks off though, so don’t worry about the later ones. The best word for 1st jhana is probably YEE HAW!! ? ?

@DrewNows Yeah my habits are terrible, i'm banking on these neo advaita teachers paying off but i'm not so sure at this point even though I do think i'm progressing. The thing is, I know how deep a singular meditation session can be, albeit with psychidelics. I have felt so deeply into the sensations of my head that it literally wipes out suffering and leads to tremendous bliss and perceptual shifts. This stuff didn't come from clear eneergy, or life style changes... it was singular times of deeply sinking into the now and letting go of thinking and just focusing on being aware and conscious. I was thinking of working with a guy who talks about healing your inner child, I think of it as basically working on undoing your conditioning you got from your parents

@DrewNows I have a question for you. How come simply being aware isn't enough to bring happiness and bliss? I think I clearly understand the neo advaita teaching of bring attention to the simplicity of being aware or being conscious at all. And I can notice some energetic shifts when I do this, but I still haven't reached LSD levels of clarity and bliss, even though I'm pretty sure I am doing the techniques properly.

@Blackhawk terrifying the first time. Then after surrendering your life, completely extacy and bliss.

Agreed. Some of my best psychedelic trips came about when I completely let go of expecting any sort of experience and resulted in feeling bliss and euphoria on levels that were so incredibly powerful in my body that it almost felt unfair. I like reading and watching videos about all of this stuff, but sometimes I find myself digging too much or even just trying to digest too much at a time and is no longer enjoyable. I get back to the basics once I notice that happening.

Yeah I honestly until this thread thought it was a bit more well-known that meditation was so powerful, but I guess it makes sense: until I experienced first jhana, while I did have faith, I was essentially in the dark. I guess that's why the Buddhists say even experiencing first jhana one time for 1 second is enough to secure a good rebirth -- I happen to think that's allegorical, not literal, but it absolutely makes sense! -- (It really is an otherworldly level of intense exhilarating pleasure -- I'm not exaggerating the least bit when I say it's many times more powerful than cocaine and heroin combined.) -- Because ever since that experience, I've known for a fact that all the bliss anyone could ever want is within and not to be found outside themselves -- not known as a mere belief, but as an absolutely clear and obvious lived reality... Just from that one time! And it only got better. I would revise it and say it not only applies to experiencing 1 second of jhana, but to having the ability to induce some level of bliss, no matter how modest, at will -- which you seem to be able to do now. Disclaimer: Jhana seems to require a level of either diligence and/or talent that some people never reach, but as long as one has the ability to produce some level of bliss on demand in meditation, the whole field is open to them, whether or not it progresses into jhana... but if their desire is strong enough, it certainly will progress into jhana.

Harsh, or it depends on how you feel about it ofcourse, a nightmare or a bliss experience ? I am certainly open for such a thing but I have no idea how I would handle it IRL and not just as a fantasy. But that kind of sexual fantasy has grown forth since I started working on my self, years ago I was jealous as fuck and get mad, not anymore, atleast not extreme. But I think somehow that you could appreciate that sorta thing too, but it is trying to either solve it and look within or you should try out different sexual experiences

^^ Btw, that is huge. View that modest joy/bliss as the heat from a small kindling fire that you've started, view subtlety/stillness as the bellows, and view relaxed diligence as the wood you add, until you've got yourself an inner blazing bonfire of powerful serene well-being. "My cup runneth over." The hardest part is actually starting the fire -- which you've done already! Good luck friend. @m0hsen

@tlowedajuicemayne nice. I liked how you said every moment in history lead to that exact point as the fiction is. It really does feel like that. Within the dream, you think I'm just taking a psychedelic, but then you look back at every point leading to your awakening and it was all just a master plan, planned from the highest good and Love. Everytime it just drops my jaw to the floor in shock and bliss.

Do you know what jealousy is? Jealousy is knowing that you could be doing so much more than what you are doing. It's a shitty feeling but it's good because it points the way. So what way are you trying to go? Follow whatever resonates and don't be afraid. This means, don't judge. Don't be critical. Don't see whatever it is you are looking at as separate from you unless you are trying to learn from it. The mind believes it's separate but the heart knows it's not. Follow your heart. Follow your bliss! How much can you love? If you don't know, what are you jealous of?

I feel eternally grateful and full of love and bliss. So thankful for you sharing and for this forum!! Ohhh youuuu!!! hahaha. Well, it came at the perfect time because I just read a chapter in a book last night that was another expression of this and if I didn't read that I might not have understood this. So everything is happening in divine order– as always.

True story: once a guru had a connecting flight in an airport. She then went to find somewhere to sit and wait. She found a nice seat, next to a middle aged woman. The middle aged woman took no notice of this woman, that was seated next to her. In a few moments, tears of bliss and surrender, was flowing down the middle aged woman’s cheeks. Crying like a small baby. That is how you know, that someone is enlightend.

The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa Seeing That Frees by Rob Burbea Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington The 2019 Practicing the Jhanas retreat on dharmaseed by Rob Burbea Yeah it certainly is life-changing. Makes sensation-seeking utterly laughable. Even pleasure itself is unsatisfactory relative to the otherworldly bliss of the later jhanas.

I was talking in terms of pure physical pleasure and bliss. It beats heroin and cocaine, but generally 5-MeO-DMT; mushrooms; etc can have the potential to be a bit stronger. But yeah TMI by Culadasa is good for building the foundation. Once you have mind control you can essentially produce as much bliss as you want, any time you want it -- like more pleasure than you can stand. A really solid 2nd jhana (nowhere near as amazing as it can get) can have so much pleasure it's actually agonizing. I'd say it takes maybe 2 years to get there if you're serious, but even in the first month of actually getting the hang of it, a meditator will be quite happy.

I don't know man but I don't think meditation at least without many years of experience can get me into a state similar to my first mushroom experience which was 2grams lemon tek, the amount of love and pleasure on every part of my body while I was conscious that I'm God I experienced in that trip was absolutely beyond my imagination and out of this world like I was in fucking heaven man. after that Trip I worked a lot with my life force energy and meditated on my heart chakra a lot but no, nothing even close. the closets to that experience was the bliss and joy I could induce with Microcosmic orbit meditation but even that is far far away from that state. any meditation you know that can get me this high?

Had my first experience of God on LSD in April and this song was playing in my headphones at the time (Sea of voices by Porter robinson). Earlier that day I'd taken one tab of LSD and about 8 hours had gone by at this point. I had some small insights during the lsd experience but nothing crazy. I smoked a little weed with some friends thinking that the trip was over. It wasn't. Once the weed hit my system it knocked the wind out of my lungs. I got an intense feeling that I should be alone in a dark, quiet place. I told my friends that I was being called to be alone and I went into an empty bedroom with my meditation cushion. I sat down on the cushion and waited. The room glowed and colors were vibrant. I looked at the large California king bed in front of me with its large solid oak frame. The lines in the wood wiggled and swirled around in a pretty way. Then all of a sudden the bed and I entered dharma transmission. Full on telepathy. It spoke to me directly without words and it told me its secrets. We engaged in dharma war. I don't know how to explain what that is, i don't think that there are words for this kind of thing. But essentially, I showed it my spiritual practice and it showed me how to deepen it. I deepened it, and met it on a deeper level and it showed me how to go deeper. We did this together time and time again and every time I met it on deeper levels it was happy and excited that I was able to do it! It was pleased that I was practicing this without psychedelics and that I had meditative insights without drugs. The bed and I engaged in telepathy until i was conscious enough to begin showing the bed how to go deeper and expand its understanding. It was so pleased! Suddenly my attention shifted. I looked around the room and began to notice that all of history has led me to this very moment. I saw the light come in through the blinds, the dust in the air, the little items on the bed frame and realized that everything that ever occurred in my life led me here. To this moment, in this place. I didn't know what was about to take place in the coming moments. I spent a while looking around at the room and noticing how beautiful it was. I would occasionally go into a dharma transmission (telepathy) with inanimate objects and liberate them. The world was pleased. Suddenly, Out of nowhere I put my hands in the prayer motion, It was as my body were being controlled and had no autonomy. Tears rolled down my cheeks but I didn't know why. I began to witness all of the things that I had done in my life (as a human), it passed me by in a single second yet I saw everything with profound clarity. The good and the bad, the ugly. The bad things that I had done struck me mercilessly to my very core. I felt so awful about myself and how ugly I was. Then suddenly, out of nowhere I bow as hard as I can. I pressed my face against the floor so hard I nearly broke my jaw. Then it happened to me. God. GOD. GOD!!! IT took one look at all of my ugliness, evil, self hatred, pity, envy, jealousy and all the things that make me terrible and before I could even speak a word, I was immediately forgiven. I let out a cry so hard it was as if I'd never breathed air before. I let out all the air in my lungs in a single breath I cried so hard. I've never felt acceptance like that. I didn't know love like that was even possible. I couldn't see God, I could only see white light but I knew it was there, just out of view. I dared not look, it was far too Holy to even dream of looking at directly. The divinity was so intense that I didn't' dare to even breathe. I let out all the air in my lungs and choked...then before I passed out, It breathed life into me and I breathed it out...choked till i almost passed out...etc. As I was nearly passing out again and again, it was pure ecstacy. Choking and nearly dying again and again was pure bliss. When I thought it couldn't get any better, a feeling came over me that said 'look at me!' and I looked up and I saw God Directly. I was shocked to my core. It wasn't a man in the clouds, not a ruler, a king, or a transcendent being. It was a bed, a blanket, the sun coming in through the blinds, the carpet, the walls. It was physical reality. I looked down at my hands, and saw that I was also it. I looked at my hands and saw that they were made of the same material as everything else. Suddenly I became one with the fabric of reality. I was alone, as my Self. No more tears, no more divinity, no more special-ness, just I AM. A thought appeared that said 'What is it?' and my attention focused so hard on a point in space, smaller than an atom. I focused so hard, yet effortlessly till space and time itself broke open and what was there? What was I made of? Nothing at all....NOTHING. Emptiness. Forever. I laughed harder than I'd ever laughed in my life. Of course its nothing! How could I have ever forgotten this?

Yeah...and as another mentioned Alan Watts. You can be a mystic and still have addictions. It comes down to whether the mystic desires to overcome their addiction or not. Because they are totally self aware and have the ability to. To me the most pristine and blissful state is the sober state...just resting in Being one can bliss out far greater than the euphoria you can experience on alcohol- without the come down or damaging effects alcohol will ultimately have on the body. So it's a no-brainer. It surprises me that someone as wise as Alan Watts would still allow himself to be a slave to a drug. But perhaps there was a hole somewhere within him that he used alcohol to fill and did not have the desire to overcome his addiction. I don't know..but enlightenment itself can liberate one from the need to do this - so again, surprising to see guys like this not overcome their addiction. But then, once you have transcended death you may just not care about survival anymore. He may have just lived out his days precisely as he wanted to.