Is It Ok To 'think' To Increase Awareness/consciousness?

[step1]

Last night after meditating, I started to begin trying to contemplate life to see if I could have any epiphany.  After about 30 mins of thinking around the subject of non dualism, a thought came to my mind that at one point a very long time ago, everything was just 1 single small entity physically.  I then came into realisation that we are still all just one single entity meta physically.  All of a sudden lots of things fell into place and made sense..  It was quite a profound moment and I started to feel very connected to everything.  It is hard to explain but I felt like I was everything and everything was me, and there is only 1 thing, and that 1 thing is not anything, but is everything.  If that makes sense....  After that I felt really warm inside, and very peaceful.   I fell asleep after that and today the peacefulness is not as strong but I still feel it a bit.

 

So, during meditation we just notice our thoughts, and we become still/present.  What I am finding though is that it's the actual thoughts about stuff that is really opening things up for me...  The question is are these experiences I am having legitimate as they are brought about using my mind rather than being free of it. 

[electroBeam]

I had a similar experience. Once Leo called science a perspective, and I said to myself, what is a perspective? Its the data(brain impulses) humans use that represents reality. AHAH! science is full of thoughts, and I developed symptoms you described. Since then I got what leo said about science being like religion on a qualitative level.

Though ask yourself, while the thought triggered it, was it just more thoughts that occurred? Or was it a qualitative experience? In my case it was a qualitative experience. Make sure that the experience you had was qualitative and not more thoughts. logically speaking(I have to resort to thoughts like philosophy because this is a communicative format) to reach enlightenment it needs to be on a qualitative level.

The almighty Leo, king of us all, said specifically that meditation is not philosophy, and told us to avoid thinking. Though if the thoughts trigger qualitative experiences, your on the right track from my limited understanding.

 

[step1]

7 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

I had a similar experience. Once Leo called science a perspective, and I said to myself, what is a perspective? Its the data(brain impulses) humans use that represents reality. AHAH! science is full of thoughts, and I developed symptoms you described. Since then I got what leo said about science being like religion on a qualitative level.

Though ask yourself, while the thought triggered it, was it just more thoughts that occurred? Or was it a qualitative experience? In my case it was a qualitative experience. Make sure that the experience you had was qualitative and not more thoughts. logically speaking(I have to resort to thoughts like philosophy because this is a communicative format) to reach enlightenment it needs to be on a qualitative level.

The almighty Leo, king of us all, said specifically that meditation is not philosophy, and told us to avoid thinking. Though if the thoughts trigger qualitative experiences, your on the right track from my limited understanding.

The experience that came after realisation of those thoughts was weird.  I'd say it wasn't more qualitative as I can't really put it into words what I felt completely.  All I do know is was whilst it was quite a beautiful realisation and profound, it also scared me a bit.  It made me realise that the ego tricks us into thinking we are all separate..  I guess my ego is still trying to resist it.  Perhaps I got the tiniest of a peek of what the truth is..  Although perhaps I am kidding myself, I only started meditating 6 weeks ago lol. 

7 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

 

 

[electroBeam]

@step1 lol Ive only meditated for 4 weeks in a year and I have more arrogance to say I had a qualitative experience. It sounds like a thought triggered a qualitative experience. Like if it was just more thoughts you would be able to describe it, but if you kind of got a sense of umm feeling bigger than what you acutally are, kind of a distancing from your world view, it probably was on a path towards what your looking for

[Neo]

I think Leo calls it "traction" in some of his videos. During my life I occasionally get the thought "I actually exist!" just occur to me randomly without meditation of any kind, and it's the feeling which accompanies the thought, which I describe as "mind expanding" which is the main form / substance of the feeling and not the thought itself.