How to get meditation to work: deconstruction

[Carl-Richard]

Why is meditation so controversial? Why doesn't it work for some people but for others it explodes?

Some people approach meditation like a technique only, a practice, a thing you must do with great focus, without deviation, without error, like following your breath, or "doing nothing", or watching your thoughts. This forms a central aspect of meditation, of cultivating awareness, attention, single-pointedness of mind. However, it is not the whole story.

If meditation is supposed to transform your very relationship to reality, the very way you interface with life, your meditation must reflect this. Such a thing is not simple. It's a complex equation that involves unwinding patterns of your mind, of beliefs, attachments, desires, drives, reactions, responses, habits, notions. In short, it involves deconstruction. In meditation, you have to deconstruct the notion

• that you are a person sitting with your eyes closed
• that there is a world outside with things happening and things needing to be done
• that tomorrow or today or right now there are things needing to be done
• that you fundamentally care about what happens today, tomorrow or at any time
• that you have a life with goals and places you want to be and places you don't want to be
• that you are in control of your bodily movements
• that your bodily sensations correspond to a notion which you call your physical head or face
• that you have a head or face
• that you are sitting somewhere
• that you are sitting
• that you are breathing
• that you are awake
• that you have eyes that are looking at an empty space behind your eyelids
• that the feelings under your butt or feelings all around in your body correspond to the notion of a body that exists in physical space
• the list goes on...

You want to identify and go underneath all the notions that you project onto reality, consciously and unconsciously. For example, when identifying the notion that you are sitting on your butt and that your feelings under your butt reflect this, drop the notion and focus on the feelings. Feel them for what they are in themselves. Harvest all your effort and attention and try to feel exactly what they are. Then contrast the feeling with the notion you previously connected to them, the notion of a butt sitting on some surface, and see how vacuous that notion was.

The notion created an imaginary object in your mind that the feelings were slotted into. But when investigating the feelings themselves, the object was nowhere to be found. The feeling in themselves are like vaguely scattered pins and needles and feelings of pressure with no definite location or structure. But this is only one trivial notion out of hundreds and maybe thousands that you have to sort through before your consciousness lightens to the point where it can uphold states of Enlightenment. For every notion you investigate and drop, your consciousness becomes a little more fluid, a little more clear, a little lighter.

Additionally, meditation is fundamentally experimental. There is no set recipe for what to tackle first or for how long to tackle each thing or in what way. It's whatever your mind throws at you, and you attend to that with all your abilities. There are so many different moods, states, headspaces and bodily configurations (breathing, posture, feeling into energetic movements, devotion, sensuality, vulnerability) that you are capable of inducing and that can be conducive to deepening the meditation, and they must all be tested. Harvesting the power of your intuition and imagination and fundamentally trusting yourself and trusting the process is the only process.

All in all, your full energy and attention should be on how you can crack this nut of existence and dissolving the patterns that keep you stuck, harvesting your imagination, intuition and reason to uncover the techniques and hacks on how to do that, while releasing all blockages on all levels (bodily, emotionally, psychologically). It's the biggest project that you can embark on and requires all of your intellectual capacities, all of your intelligence, all of your devotion and passion. And in the end, you have to willing to give up everything for knowing the truth of existence and merging with Divine Love and Consciousness.

Edited June 27 by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Why is meditation so controversial? Why doesn't it work for some people but for others it explodes?

Some people approach meditation like a technique only, a practice, a thing you must do with great focus, without deviation, without error, like following your breath, or "doing nothing", or watching your thoughts. This forms a central aspect of meditation, of cultivating awareness, attention, single-pointedness of mind. However, it is not the whole story.

If meditation is supposed to transform your very relationship to reality, the very way you interface with life, your meditation must reflect this. Such a thing is not simple. It's a complex equation that involves unwinding patterns of your mind, of beliefs, attachments, desires, drives, reactions, responses, habits, notions. In short, it involves deconstruction. In meditation, you have to deconstruct

• the notion that you are a person sitting with your eyes closed
• that there is a world outside with things happening and things needing to be done
• that tomorrow or today or right now there are things to be done
• that you fundamentally care about what happens today, tomorrow or at any time
• that you have a life with goals and places you want to be and places you want to not be
• that you are in control of your bodily movements
• that your bodily sensations correspond to a notion which you call your physical head or face
• that you have a head or face
• that you are sitting somewhere
• that you are sitting
• that you are breathing
• that you are awake
• that you have eyes that are looking at a dark room behind your eyelids
• that the feelings under your butt or feelings all around in your body correspond to the notion of a body that exists in physical space
• the list goes on...

You want to identify and go underneath all the notions that you project onto reality, consciously and unconsciously. For example, when identifying the notion that you are sitting on your butt and that your feelings under your butt reflect this, drop the notion and focus on the feelings. Feel them for what they are in themselves. Harvest all your effort and attention and try to feel exactly what they are. Then contrast the feeling with the notion you previously connected to them, the notion of a butt sitting on some surface, and see how vacuous that notion was.

The notion created an imaginary object in your head that the feelings were slotted into. But when investigating the feelings themselves, the object was nowhere to be found. The feeling in themselves are like vaguely scattered pins and needles and feelings of pressure with no definite location or structure. But this is only one trivial notion out of hundreds and maybe thousands that you have to sort through before your consciousness lightens to the point where it can uphold states of Enlightenment. For every notion you investigate and drop, your consciousness becomes a little more fluid, a little more clear, a little lighter.

Additionally, meditation is fundamentally experimental. There is no set recipe for what notion to tackle first or for how long or in what way. It's whatever your mind throws at you, and you attend to that with all your abilities. There are so many different moods, states, headspaces and bodily configurations (breathing, posture, feeling into energetic movements, devotion, sensuality, vulnerability, etc.) that you are capable of inducing and that can be conducive to deepening the meditation, and they must all be tested.

All in all, your full energy and attention should be on how you can crack this nut of existence and dissolving the patterns that keep you stuck, harvesting the full potential of your imagination, intuition and reason to uncover the techniques and hacks on how to do that, while releasing all blockages on all levels (bodily, emotionally, psychologically). And in the end, you have to willing to give up everything for knowing the truth of existence and merging with divine Love and Consciousness.

Yeah fucken, hell yeah. 

This has always been the way for me. 

[VeganAwake]

It slows and can even temporarily stop the endless conditioned mind chatter or monkey mind distraction.

Recognitions occur easier with that distraction eliminated.

There are many different meditation techniques, and one isn't really better than the other because every body is wired a little differently.

I personally recommend the focusing on the breathing technique 👌 

❤️ 

 

[Carl-Richard]

On 16.6.2025 at 4:29 AM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Yeah fucken, hell yeah. 

This has always been the way for me. 

That's good. It's really the only way it works.

Edited June 17 by Carl-Richard

[Oppositionless]

Stop being a pussy and go to a hardcore meditation retreat . I just got back from a 7 day zen sesshin . Meditation works if you work it.

[Carl-Richard]

23 minutes ago, Oppositionless said:

Stop being a pussy and go to a hardcore meditation retreat . I just got back from a 7 day zen sesshin . Meditation works if you work it.

Did you deconstruct anything during those 7 days?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Did you deconstruct anything during those 7 days?

He certainly didn't deconstruct that aggression 🫠 😂

[Oppositionless]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Did you deconstruct anything during those 7 days?

Yes profound fucking suffering . When there's nothing to do with sit but yourself deconstructing is the only way to survive . 
 

The hatred in my heart before retreat was so immense. I have literally seen through it and realized it is completely fucking IMAGINARY

i literally wanted to kill this fucking person and now I have deconstructed . I got insight into Love. NONE OF THIS MATTERS it's a joke :))))

 

If God is Love and Suffering exists, how could that be anything but a joke? But you're creating it because you're tricked into it, by yourself.

Edited June 17 by Oppositionless

[Eskilon]

On 15/06/2025 at 8:57 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Why doesn't it work for some people but for others it explodes?

Genetics, stage in life, method, values and so on. You will not go deep in meditation if you are not ready to die -- period. If you have a bunch of worldly desires meditation will not have the intended results. You much better doing a more violent method -- psychedelics. But that too is dangerous so yeah lol.

 

On 15/06/2025 at 8:57 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Some people approach meditation like a technique only, a practice, a thing you must do with great focus, without deviation, without error, like following your breath, or "doing nothing", or watching your thoughts. This forms a central aspect of meditation, of cultivating awareness, attention, single-pointedness of mind. However, it is not the whole story.

If meditation is supposed to transform your very relationship to reality, the very way you interface with life, your meditation must reflect this. Such a thing is not simple. It's a complex equation that involves unwinding patterns of your mind, of beliefs, attachments, desires, drives, reactions, responses, habits, notions. In short, it involves deconstruction. In meditation, you have to deconstruct the notion

• that you are a person sitting with your eyes closed
• that there is a world outside with things happening and things needing to be done
• that tomorrow or today or right now there are things to be done
• that you fundamentally care about what happens today, tomorrow or at any time
• that you have a life with goals and places you want to be and places you want to not be
• that you are in control of your bodily movements
• that your bodily sensations correspond to a notion which you call your physical head or face
• that you have a head or face
• that you are sitting somewhere
• that you are sitting
• that you are breathing
• that you are awake
• that you have eyes that are looking at a dark room behind your eyelids
• that the feelings under your butt or feelings all around in your body correspond to the notion of a body that exists in physical space
• the list goes on...

Well, if you have a very fat and gross ego, then sure you need to deconstruct all that. But not while you are in meditation itself. You are not sitting there saying to yourself "I am not this body, I am not this mind" that helps with nothing. You might engage with this sort of thing after meditation.

--------------

You also need to deconstruct deconstruction itself. Deconstruction is a trap too if you want to reach pure consciousness and know what Death is. You want pure being and that requires that you be absolutely clean and a virgin state. You need to BE.

Edited June 17 by Eskilon

[Carl-Richard]

39 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Genetics, stage in life, method, values and so on.

Genetics, stage in life, method and values predict deconstruction. Some are born more deconstructive than others.

 

40 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

You will not go deep in meditation if you are not ready to die -- period. If you have a bunch of worldly desires meditation will not have the intended results.

Seeing through worldly desires and being ready to die requires deconstruction (implicit or explicit, deliberate or unintentional).

 

43 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

You much better doing a more violent method -- psychedelics. But that too is dangerous so yeah lol.

You can do psychedelics and ignore the invitation to deconstruction, and you can avoid integrating it into your life.

 

32 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Well, if you have a very fat and gross ego, then sure you need to deconstruct all that. But not while you are in meditation itself.

Yes, in the meditation itself. That is when you have the mental capacity to do it effectively. You are noticing the contractions and subtle mental imagery around various patterns and notions your mind and body is holding on to and then you let them go.

 

35 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

You are not sitting there saying to yourself "I am not this body, I am not this mind" that helps with nothing. You might engage with this sort of thing after meditation.

That's actually a meditation mantra recommended by Sadhguru. After meditation is just a state where you're distracted and your attention is constantly wandering to objects. Why that is a better state to do deconstruction? You integrate the deconstruction in that state. Uncovering the things that need to be deconstructed needs more attention and awareness.

 

46 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

You also need to deconstruct deconstruction itself. Deconstruction is a trap too if you want to reach pure consciousness and know what Death is. You want pure being and that requires that you be absolutely clean and a virgin state. You need to BE.

Deconstructing deconstruction is a mental game. Deconstructing your notions and bodily energetic patterns goes deeper than that.

[Oppositionless]

I think one reason it might not take off is, some people might just get good at meditation, but not have a desire for truth. Good at sitting still but not particularly interested in understanding reality. It might have a lot to do with spiral dynamics and the fact that historically monks have been mostly blue, not yellow or turquoise.

one of the things I missed most at retreat was being able to approach truth from an intellectual angle. But now it's informed by a little more silence which is quite nice.

Edited June 17 by Oppositionless

[Eskilon]

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You can do psychedelics and ignore the invitation to deconstruction, and you can avoid integrating it into your life.

Only if it is not a breakthrough psychedelic. Some psychedelics will go only to the chimp(ego) level and purify and upgrade that -- but it will not blast you straight into nothing and force you to confront Death -- you have no say in the matter. Good luck ignoring that invitation.

 

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

After meditation is just a state where you're distracted and your attention is constantly wandering to objects

If that's the case, then the meditation session wasn't that deep. You need to come out of meditation in a dissasociated state, where you are here and at the same time you are not. In that state focus is pretty easy, because you're not attached to anything in particular -- you attention has a diffusive quality to it, you pay attention to everything and nothing at the same time.

 

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Deconstructing deconstruction is a mental game. Deconstructing your notions and bodily energetic patterns goes deeper than that.

No, deconsctruction itself is a mental game, an illusion -- but a necessary and useful one. Deconstruction is not the final destination and can't be Truth. Reality is not designed like that, no part can have more importance than any other part, no monopoly, and no hierarchy -- that's what it means by a selfless design. If that's the case, then, deconsctruction is not the be all end all, and you need to go meta and let go of that too.

Edited June 17 by Eskilon

[Oppositionless]

38 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Only if it is not a breakthrough psychedelic. Some psychedelics will go only to the chimp(ego) level and purify and upgrade that -- but it will not blast you straight into nothing and force you to confront Death -- you have no say in the matter. Good luck ignoring that invitation.

I agree with that , both psychedelic breakthroughs and hardcore meditation make it such that destruction is not an option. It's deconstruct or die. Or, die or die . And you can either go with it willingly or kicking and screaming, in the end the result is the same.

Edited June 17 by Oppositionless

[Eskilon]

1 hour ago, Oppositionless said:

I agree with that , both psychedelic breakthroughs and hardcore meditation make it such that destruction is not an option. It's deconstruct or die. Or, die or die . And you can either go with it willingly or kicking and screaming, in the end the result is the same.

Yes. And to me, that`s what is so beautiful about it. Death is the only certainty you have in your life. Everything else is open to debate and questions, but not Death. Death WILL happen no matter what you are or what you have done it. It`s the most powerful force there is. The most selfless too because you are guaranteed to experience it

In a way Buddha was a Death fetishist. He only cared to know what Death is, everything else was meaningless to him. This is the most optimal attitude to spirituality, when you see the world as meaningless, you will start to befriend Death -- and know its ways.

Edited June 17 by Eskilon

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Eskilon said:

Only if it is not a breakthrough psychedelic. Some psychedelics will go only to the chimp(ego) level and purify and upgrade that -- but it will not blast you straight into nothing and force you to confront Death -- you have no say in the matter. Good luck ignoring that invitation.

Ask Leo if he is in a non-dual state right now.

 

3 hours ago, Eskilon said:

If that's the case, then the meditation session wasn't that deep. You need to come out of meditation in a dissasociated state, where you are here and at the same time you are not. In that state focus is pretty easy, because you're not attached to anything in particular -- you attention has a diffusive quality to it, you pay attention to everything and nothing at the same time.

Meditation is like going to the gym. You target specific muscles, you break them down, and then after the gym, you rest and grow.

Deconstruction can be done anywhere, but it should definitely be done during meditation.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Eskilon said:

No, deconsctruction itself is a mental game, an illusion -- but a necessary and useful one. Deconstruction is not the final destination and can't be Truth. Reality is not designed like that, no part can have more importance than any other part, no monopoly, and no hierarchy -- that's what it means by a selfless design. If that's the case, then, deconsctruction is not the be all end all, and you need to go meta and let go of that too.

Of course you have to let go of letting go if letting go is the only game in town 😉

[VeganAwake]

You guys need to let go of letting go of letting go.....

🤣

[James123]

@Carl-Richard it is actually easy. Thinking is an illusion. That's it.

[Carl-Richard]

1 minute ago, James123 said:

@Carl-Richard it is actually easy. Thinking is an illusion. That's it.

Was it that easy for you?

[Oppositionless]

10 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Deconstructing deconstruction is a mental game. Deconstructing your notions and bodily energetic patterns goes deeper than that.

Just Die. It's that simple.