Near Enlightenment Experience Or Panic Attack

[arberor]

I have been doing inquiry for a month now and last night I had an unusual and terrifying experience. Before I go and describe the experience I wont to let you know that I had enlightenment experiences in the past. During the inquiry I was questioning existence in general, existence of things and existence of concepts like time, mater, etc. After a few moments I was made conscious that existence have no supporting structure to stand on (it doesn't lie on anything). Than concepts like people, relatives, family, mama,papa started to disappear also they didn't exist in the first place. After that everything started to disappear, the things where there but they never were there (example: the floor deaspeard even though it was there, the best feeling in the word you should try it (I'm joking)). So in the end I was made conscious that nothing exist even though it is perfectly lying there (and this was not a good feeling, at all), then a black hole (as a concept) started to suck every thing on it, I tried to accept it but it was too powerful and to negative so I tried to grab on things and concepts by saying " this or that is real''. Meanwhile I had pain throughout my whole body but more intensely in stomach and head area, my heart was pounding like crazy I was not able to breathe even though I tried hard and for a moment I thought "that's it for me". Then I started to grab on things very hard, long story short I was able to get out of that state (after a few hours). I'm sharing this experience because I want to know your perspective on it, also:

How should I interpret this experience?
What can I do, to minimise the after effects of this experience (because the floor is disappearing even today, from time to time)?
Am I doing something wrong with my inquiry?
How should I do inquiry from this point on?

Any opinion is welcomed even if it doesn't answer the questions.

Ps. You should get one of those ''no floors" experiences, they are so enlightening ;).

[Ether]

That is just your imagination, not actual reality.

[Nahm]

@arberor what are you afraid of?

[Bas]

5 hours ago, arberor said:

Am I doing something wrong with my inquiry?

Sounds to me like you're doing it perfectly! Now go deeper into the fear.

[arberor]

Well in general I fear a lot of things (as any body else), but if you are referring to this particular situation, I fear that if I try again and the same situation occur and I go blindly even deeper it could damage me in some way. The other times that I had an enlightenment experience it was what much slower than this even if the happening process was closely the same. This means that I had more time to accept what was happening, but yesterday felt like a punch. The first time that I had this experience the process lasted at least a month (and i was not even trying to get enlightened) but yesterday from the point of first realisation to the point of the black hole lasted less than a minute. I hope that I'm clear enough in describing my experience, if not just let me know (english is my third language).

[Lauritz]

I had similar experiences. In the end you realize that the only thing there is are your perceptions. There is no actual reality behind it. No solid matter. 

It is one thing to know it and it is another thing when those false concepts you are holding are actually dropping away. It is like a believe that is only true because it is stored in your brain. Your intellect has probably already seen through those illsuions. And now your subconscious is catching up with that. 

At least that is my explanation for it. Could be wrong of course. 

I compare it to a bad habit. Your intellect might know that it is bad for you, but you are still doing it. Until you have watched yourself doing it often enough (with awareness) and then suddenly you stop it. Something in your subconscious has shifted.

[Leo Gura]

@arberor Now you can appreciate the need for surrender that folks keep talking about.

That's exactly right! Everything you see is nothing, even though its sitting right there. Nothing isn't nothing. It's everything exactly as you see it.

Keep going deeper!

[arberor]

Yes, I want to go deeper even though one part of my mind is shouting '' F... that, you can do this at 75, when you have nothing to lose", but going deeper with the risk of health consequences, it is not a very wise decision. Are there any mechanism that help to minimise the physical responses of the body, or any other way that I can slow down the process, to have more time to accept it? 

[Ether]

4 minutes ago, arberor said:

Yes, I want to go deeper even though one part of my mind is shouting '' F... that, you can do this at 75, when you have nothing to lose", but going deeper with the risk of health consequences, it is not a very wise decision. Are there any mechanism that help to minimise the physical responses of the body, or any other way that I can slow down the process, to have more time to accept it? 

Dont go deeper. Analyse the thought and see if there is any validity to it. Ask questions, factual questions and then fear will dissolve. IF you go deeper you just creating unecessary suffering.

[Viking]

I realized the fear of getting health risks is itself the health risk. I would watch more videos and read more about surrender. I was in a position like yours with psychedelics and what helped me is surrender. I think that when the fear goes up to a certain level, surrendering becomes easier. watch also shinzen youngs' videos on equanimity.

[cetus]

@arberor Sounds like you had a breakthrough. An ego death. Your conceptual model of reality broke down. You briefly seen through the magician's tricks to realize the truth, that things are not at all as they seem to the mind. Bye-bye terra firma.

"He who thinks he knows where he is standing -is in trouble". 

To answer your question, it was both. Your mind quickly turned a breakthrough into a breakdown of sorts.  Next time try totally surrendering when the floor disappears. I know that's easier said than done. And it's not your fault that you bailed by mentally creating a bond to firm ground when you seen there was really none. Evolution has instilled a fight or flight mechanism for survival in humans over millennia. It has never been to 'totally let go' of everything. That's just the nature of the mind. It's Default Mode Network or (ego) must be overridden. That I believe is a remnant from our caveman days. Who will stand guard to keep my body safe while the mind has left it's guard post in the physical world? What if I don't come back? What if I totally let go and just keep going?  Can I let go 'too much'? Will the world ever be the same again? I demand order and predictability!  haha All this is just the mind doing it's job and perfectly normal.

*To anyone here who may think that enlightenment is something to 'attain' or to add to their list of 'accomplishments' to put under their belt, this is the real deal. I don't mean just understanding all this conceptually. I mean actually experiencing it. Finding that place where there is no place to stand. The life you see around you may seem to be at a fixed position. But if you look deeper than your immediate surroundings, you find that impression totally collapses. The truth is that reality is in free fall. Therefore, so are you.

 

[cetus]

On 11/6/2017 at 5:01 AM, arberor said:

How should I interpret this experience?

@arberor Just downloaded Peter Ralston's new book, 'The genius of being'. I only listen to the first chapter so far but it sounds like he will address some things you experienced. He said how our beliefs dictate the world we see as a second hand experience. And that the mind needs to be"'reverse engineered" so it can see beyond the limitations of belief. Very cool! That relates well to what you experienced as letting go of your belief in a solid floor beneath you.

You see, it's not about whether or not there actually is a solid floor. That's just the physicality of it. The mind fuck part. Don't let that freak you out. Instead transcend it. Rest in that very place where there is no concept of a solid floor. No floors are needed. Can you feel the spaciousness of it? That's the spaciousness that comes with letting go. Funny how it hides in the very last place you dare to look. But isn't that what it's really all about? Peering out to see beyond what is known?         

[arberor]

Thank you cetus56, thank you Leo, thank you guys, for your help and support, really appreciate it. I will definitely check out your recommended sources. Hopefully this goes the right way to the end.

[arberor]

@cetus56 The other times that I had this experience I was feeling the the spaciousness and every thing expanding to nothingness (if that make sense), but the last one that we are talking about it felt different, It felt like nothingness was collapsing everything down to a point and that gave me a strong strong feeling of claustrophobia, even though it was the same experience.

[cetus]

31 minutes ago, arberor said:

@cetus56 The other times that I had this experience I was feeling the the spaciousness and every thing expanding to nothingness (if that make sense), but the last one that we are talking about it felt different, It felt like nothingness was collapsing everything down to a point and that gave me a strong strong feeling of claustrophobia, even though it was the same experience.

Everything you say here makes perfect sense. Not that it needs to though. It usually doesn't make sense to the mind. When that happens, you know your really getting somewhere. Your doing fine. Just keep hitting that wall. You'll break through sooner or later. Embrace that claustrophobia! It's a gift even though your mind may strongly disagree.

 

31 minutes ago, arberor said:

It felt like nothingness was collapsing everything down to a point 

Oh yea!! Sweet!          

*I just contemplated that one. Everything did collapse down to a single point- including me.

[arberor]

Yes. What was lelft of me at that point.

[cetus]

@arberor Yea. I'm sure you've heard the saying, "enlightenment is not so much about gaining something as it's about losing something". Now you have a direct experience of exactly that. But that's still looking at it from the ego's point of view. Who is there to give away anything? Getting deep now.  And yet, who knows this? Or maybe better said, what is it that knows this? Now everything is becoming that singularity again. Something is at the core of it? What is that?

[arberor]

I don't want to say some name for it, also don't trust what I'm going to say because my ego distorts this experience every time after I have it and the more time  passes more distorted it becomes. Anyway, there is this being or thing that wants every thing on it including me, and it sucks everything on it and I'm the last thing being sucked by it. At this moment there's the realisation, I am it and it is nothing also everything at the same time. After this realisation it fully let go and give everything away by a big, big, infinite expansion that is infinitely powerful and it remain like that forever. At the end my ego starts to emerge again piece by piece.

[doronshadmi]

Hi arberor,

Please pay attention that you describe your experience by opposite aspects:

1) The smallest thing (point).

2) The biggest thing (infinite expansion).

By (1) alone you may feel claustrophobia.

By (2) alone you may feel agoraphobia.

In both cases you are in fight or flight state of mind (emergency state of mind, which may be experienced as anxiety).

But you see dear arberor, (1) and (2) are actually two extreme aspects of the same thing.

The same thing can be described (by using an analogy, which is not the thing in itself) as a sea, where its calm aspect is unbounded and non-local (known as (2)), and each one of its wavy aspects is bounded and local (known as (1)).

If you get (1) and (2) in terms of a sea, you are not trapped anymore by emergency states of mind (you are the sea and you are your own Home (you are naturally fearless)).

From this non-dual sea awareness there is nothing but an everlasting bliss.  

 

Edited November 8, 2017 by doronshadmi

[arberor]

@doronshadmi I perfectly understand everything you said but how can I reach that position where nothing and everything  exist at the same time?