Sacred space

[Bill W]

2 hours ago, tsuki said:

I am very conscious of just how every single thing the body does is aimed at survival.

Powerful quote. Gets me thinking. 

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #13

Today, I woke up frightened, remembering some peculiarity about the work I was supposed to do. I penetrated that thought and saw that it was fueled by my subconscious fright that manifested as dreams. I dreamed of getting in a car accident. Releasing identities related to work and life allowed me to calm down. Practicing meditation was very helpful for the past two weeks.

Yesterday I bought Yoga Sutras with commentary by Sri Satchidananda and I find it remarkably illuminating. It seems to confirm the insights I had during my latest awakening when I understood everything. Shimmer is the Iśwara's whisper that is called OM.

Inspired by the book, I was contemplating what a mug is and it had struck me that I'm expecting to see something within it with my eyes. It struck me as absurd that I'm focusing on my sight and started to feel it with my hands as well. I understood that my perceptual boundary is not at all in the shape of my body, but my body is a shape-less singularity that I imagine to be of human form. The perceptual contact with the mug via touch, the boudedness of 'my' body, is just the extents of my mind from which sensations sprout. The boundedness of the mug, just like my own boundary, is how I know that the mug is conscious and the thing that perceives me through the mug is as empty as me. I am the mug and the mug is me - my skin is not a boundary, but a mirror.

The mug did not contain any coffee that day.

Edited September 17, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

 

[tsuki]

Quote

Let us see why it is so. The name OM can be split into three letters: A, U, and M. That is why it is often written AUM. The entire Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad expounds the meaning of OM. There it divides OM into four stages: A, U, M and anahata, or the one that is beyond verbal pronunciation. A is the beginning of all sounds. Every language begins with the letter A or “ah.” A is pronounced by simply opening the mouth and making a sound. That sound is produced in the throat where the tongue is rooted. So audible sound begins with A. Then as the sound comes forward between the tongue and the palate up to the lips U or “oo” is produced. Then closing the lips produces the M. So the creation is A, the preservation is U and the culmination is M. So A-U-M includes the entire process of sound, and all other sounds are contained in it. Thus, OM is the origin, or seed, from which all other sounds and words come. So, in actuality, OM is dormant in all other words. After the verbal sound ends there is still a vibration. That is the unspoken, or anahata, sound which is always in you, even before saying the A and after finishing M. There is always a sound vibration in you that can never be destroyed. You can always listen to that sound if you remain quiet. For that reason it is also called ajapa, or unrepeated. Japa means repetition, but the ajapa is that which need not be repeated; it is always going on within. It is heard only when all the other sounds cease. Even thinking creates a sound, because thought itself is a form of speaking. By thinking you distort the original sound which transcends the beginning, continuation and end of the OM sound. To listen to that sound you have to keep your mind quiet, stop the thinking process and dive within. Then you will be able to listen to that hum.

That hum is called praṇava because it is connected with prāṇa. Prāṇa is the basic vibration which always exists whether it is manifesting or not. It is never-ending. It is something like when we think, speak and act during our waking state, whereas in the sleeping condition the mind seems to keep quiet. But actually, even in the sleeping state, movement is still there. Vibration is still there in the mind in an unmanifested condition. Scientifically, we can say that when manifested objects are reduced to their unmanifested condition, they go back to the atomic vibration. Nobody can stop that atomic vibration. We say that animate objects move while inanimate ones do not, because it appears that way to our eyes. We can’t see any motion in a stone, but that does not mean it is motionless. We need not go to the scriptures. The scientists themselves have proven that.

Similarly, even without your repeating it, the basic sound is always vibrating in you. It is the seed from which all other sounds manifest. That is why OM represents God in the fullest sense. It has the power to create everything. If you make an apple out of clay, paint it beautifully and put it on a table with a real apple, an ordinary person cannot see the difference between the clay apple and the real one. They look alike and have the same name. But if you plant them both, your clay apple will not create an apple tree, but the real one will. The true apple has that creative capacity within itself because the seed is there.

Satchidananda, Swami. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Commentary on the Raja Yoga Sutras by Sri Swami Satchidananda . Integral Yoga Publications. Kindle Edition. 

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #14

While reading the yoga sutras, I became inspired to fill my mind with the sound OM. On every breath out, I imagine that sound. Firstly, it occupies the mind and stops the restless chatter. Secondly, it helps to give the reference point for the intensity of breath and helps to notice the moments when the mind becomes scattered. I need this to become my second nature.

Today, I decided to start chanting OM and listen to the reverberations of the body. My throat is very tense, it's like I have never learned to use my instrument properly. The voice originates in the belly, that is where the "A" of AUM comes from. Since all human sounds are modifications of the "A", my voice is needlessly weak. It all comes back to the scattering of the mind. When I speak, I need to focus on the instrument. Lack of awareness is the cause.

The chanting is very powerful. When I stood up after ~20 minute practice I was happy to the point of being light-headed. It also struck me that the lesson of AUM is different from the lesson of AMEN, even if the latter originates from the former. The Yogic AUM has no beginning and no end - it is eternal, while the Christian AMEN is about death and rebirth. AMEN is about the path of the individual being while AUM is God.

[tsuki]

https://youtu.be/gcmkmOqT63Y

Sadhguru on the memory of the body. Very, very interesting.

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #15

Yesterday, I kept reading yoga sutras and meditating on the breath. Every other week I'm alone in the office when I work late shifts and I had the opportunity to chant OM out loud for half day. This is the most pleasant thing I've done in a while and I learned a lot about how to use my voice-tube. I'm starting to zero in on to what I want the OM to sound like, how it is supposed to feel. It is absolutely amazing how every twitch of the mind, any minuscule fear gets reflected through this sound. When I'm very still, I can even hear my heartbeat.

The pleasurable part is the vibrations of the body. The sound originates from the belly, passes through the heart and out via the throat. The three stages correspond to the deep "A", middle "O" and the nasal "M". Feeling the vibrations seems like the Kriya initiatory practice of scanning the spine. 

Today I decided to chant during morning meditation and after initial resistance, my wife decided to join. After I tuned her, she relaxed and started sounding 'right' to the point where she felt good. I even caught her humming throughout the day .

After some reading, I started to contemplate the feeling of "I". I started to touch walls and observe the boundary of my flesh. This boundedness is what I take to be the designation of 'me' being 'inside' of the body. Having practiced my voice-tube, I noticed that this boundary is not only the external skin, but it is actually also inside of my body. I literally have a channel down to my lungs through which food and air come. This skin is then split into myriad of fractal tubes that connect me to the 'outside' air. The same thing applies to food, it is digested and incorporated into my body and the waste is released in the other end. It is all a matter of subtlety - I am the air and food as much as I am the bounded flesh. 

There is this question that keeps bugging me for quite some time: "why do I experience everything just through one body?". Why can't I experience through the eyes of another AS WELL as mine? I guess that this is a more general form of question relating to "why am I confined to this particular body?" and that is ultimately a question about life purpose. Why is awareness localized like this? Why is it not a uniform field and some things seem to be more intelligent?

Coffee is still off-limits. I'm looking fondly towards tea, but I know that it's a gateway drug!

[Aakash]

It’s a gateway drug 

illuminati confirmed. 

(Joke) but it’s a gateway drug. 

We drink it because it stops our processing of food in the morning. (Direct experience) when we are in the rat race, nobody eats breakfast properly ... they go straight to work and have a coffee from home or there, same with tea. 

Coming from a person who drinks hot chocolate, tea and coffee! 

[DrewNows]

Enjoying your journal. In my last trip I also realized the voice is not outside of awareness and that it functioned best through intelligence without any ego resistance (obviously), and as you said can be tuned like an instrument 

I’d like to share some thoughts on the questions you brought up with awareness and localized experience. So I guess people have “experienced” outer body travel or what ever you call it, for this to happen perhaps there would need to be a redirecting of attention away from experience in all the senses especially sight. I am sort of embarrassed to admit this but on my trip at one point I felt as if I’d completely embodied a girl. Of course there was no me as an ego but I felt like a shapeshifter of sorts. 

Anyways I think of it like we are ants apart of the human colony, playing a role in the total realm of consciousness. Do you believe in raising vibration, cuz I think it definitely plays a role in our realms of possibility. Synchronization has that thread up about multiple dimensions / experiences / versions of life and I think he’s trying to explain the same ideas as what I’ve said about how awareness appears with/out physical form 

[tsuki]

@DrewNows I thought that practicing OOBE or astral projection may get me out of this identification. Ever since yesterday's meditation, this boundary is no longer solid and closed so I'd say it has gotten better. It's like my center of gravity is firmly seated in my belly and properly open. I feel like I'm permanently connected with air as an organism, that it is my internal organ in which other people reside as variations of density.

Strangely enough, I had a semi-OOBE while watching Leo's video on what is Truth. I felt as if my point of view shifted downward to the right from where I usually experience. 

@DrewNows @Aakash Thank you for your comments.

Edited September 20, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #16

The mind is the sneakiest in the morning by either providing amazing insights, or spiraling down in subtle fears.
Noticing fears became very easy when they reach a certain threshold and thanks to meditation, my 'I don't give a fuck' muscle is strong enough to release them. Being lured in by insights is much more deceptive because it is so awesome that I forget that peace is the highest bliss. Surrendering this creative energy is so counter-intuitive that fall into this trap over and over again.

Today's session was short, but powerful. I started as the person, AUMing my voice-tube, tuning it, and releasing various tensions. When I close my mouth at M, there is this weird nasal reverberation that I could never put my finger (tongue?) on. As it turns out, I can actually steer the sound with my throat and have it expressed through my mouth, or my nose without using my tongue. Having the air exit through both openings gives a very pleasant sound and a very smooth transition between the 'letters'. 

Speaking of letters, once the sound is properly set up, the mind can be tuned against it by contemplating the meaning of the mantra. The more mechanistic the chanting is, the less surrendered the mind is. The chant needs to be a smooth, pure and uninterpreted sound, without any linguistical distinctions. The reflex to recognize letters, change facial expressions rapidly, move the tongue, and all bodily tensions need to be surrendered until, what Allan Watts calls "am I doing it, or is it doing me?" happens. Of course, this tuning process is mechanistic in itself, so grasping it tightly can give its own set of needless tensions. At some point, devotion came up and I stopped being a person tuning my voice-tube, and recognized AUM to be the name of God. At this point, deep flow happened and I surrendered in a semi-religious/mystical trance.

Yoga sutra was immensely illuminating today. It theoretically answered my questions regarding confinement to particular body, but I will need to stay grounded in direct experience and perhaps, become enlightened to this facet of reality:

Quote

The womb of karmas (actions and reactions) has its root in these obstacles, and the karmas bring experiences in the seen [present] or in the unseen [future] births.

Here Patañjali tries to explain what karma is, how it is stored and how it functions. The Sanskrit term “karma” can mean two things: action and/or the result of action. When you do karma, you reap karma. But, generally, when we say karma, we are referring to the reactions to past actions. Every action will leave its result; every cause will bear its effect. It is impossible to say which comes first. For instance, how does a tree grow? You sow a seed. But where do you get the seed? From another tree. Which comes first, the tree or the seed? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? It’s impossible to find out. Likewise, it is impossible to know the origin of karma. No one knows where and how it started. But it is here, we see it and we should try to put an end to it.

So, no action goes without its reaction, and these don’t go away but are stored. The receptacle for the karmas is called the karmāśaya, or womb of karmas. The karmas wait for an opportunity to come to the surface and bring their reactions. The kleśas cause these karmas, which may bear fruit now or in a future life; in other words, they are seen or unseen. According to the number of our karmas, we will have births.

But there need not be a separate birth for every karma. Karmas may group together. One strong karma may call for a body, and all other similar karmas that can make use of that particular vehicle to bring their reactions will join in. It’s something like a taxi driver collecting a number of people at the airport and bringing them into the city instead of picking up just one person. First, one person hails the cab, and then a few others who want to go the same way will jump in and then drop out along the way to the city. In the same way, one very strong and powerful karma will say, “I must have a body. I have to express myself.” When such a karma brings a new body and starts working through it, all the other karmas that can take advantage of that body join in. When that karma is over, there will be many more waiting in line.

Even your present body can be changed if you have an intense desire. If your mind is consumed with intense anger, for example, the whole face and body will change to express that emotion. If your present body can’t change enough to fulfill the purpose of a particular thought, the body will be disposed of and you will get a new one. Karmas are that powerful.

Just imagine how many actions you perform, how many have brought forth reactions, and how many reactions must be pending. Good and bad actions bring either meritorious or demeritorious reactions. So, when you take a birth, you are not only enjoying the reactions to previous actions or purging karma, but you may be creating new karma also. There are, then, three kinds of karmas: those being expressed and exhausted through this birth (prārabdha karma); new karmas being created during this birth (āgami karma); and those waiting in the karmāśaya to be fulfilled in future births (sañjīta karma). These are something like the paraphernalia of an archer. There are a number of arrows in the quiver. A really expert archer can take one arrow, fit it into the bow, aim and release it, and immediately take up a second arrow to fit. The arrows would then be in three different stages: one has already left the bow and is on its way. You have no more say over it. You can neither stop it now nor draw it back. This is like the prārabdha karma which has caused this birth. As long as the body stays, the karma allotted to it will continue. Even a person who has transcended the mind and realized the Self still appears to be doing something because the momentum created by his or her birth is still continuing.

The second arrow, ready to be aimed, is like the new karma you create at each moment. You have full control over it. And the quiver represents the karmāśaya. If you want, you can aim the arrows from the quiver. Otherwise, you can take them out. It is in your hands. They are called the sañjīta karma. We control the āgami and the sañjīta, but we can’t do anything about the prārabdha; we just have to accept it. So this cycle continues until Self-realization comes.

Satchidananda, Swami. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Commentary on the Raja Yoga Sutras by Sri Swami Satchidananda . Integral Yoga Publications. Kindle Edition. 

I was also watching some of the RSD material because I'm tempted to get my social skills in order. While I gained very little theoretical understanding, I felt a shift in energy after watching these videos and I know that projecting it in social situations would be beneficial. There is a part of me that is in resistance because I view these kinds of interactions with strangers as shallow (in the sense of depth, penetration). I do not mean this in a derogatory way, they are simply a beginning of something deeper. It is probably a form of impatience that I must work through.

Maybe, my 'lack of order in social skills' is simply a wound I need to heal. My next LSD trip will be a massive shedding. I'm excited. 

[tsuki]

 

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #17

Yesterday evening I felt immense desire to get away from breathing, stop listening to sages and distract myself.
I deliberately started watching some starcraft matches on youtube, but the relief they brought were minimal.
When I got home from work, I started watching cat meme videos because I understood that I simply wanted to laugh.
I came across contagious laugh compilation and I started to laugh, and at some point, that laughter suddenly changed to tears of sadness.

Today's morning practice was very scattered. My wife had told me that I sound sleepy and groggy.
My voice was very unsteady, my throat was hoarse and my voice transmitted the heartbeat.
I noticed that my diaphragm was visibly beating like my heart. I couldn't focus when I was reading yoga sutras.

Edited September 21, 2019 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

Pssst Tsuki.... listen to an Abraham Hicks video. 

Edited September 21, 2019 by mandyjw

[Aakash]

@mandyjw Aahah mandy looks like you found that love you were searching for   but there's always more to be had 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Aakash

[tsuki]

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Pssst Tsuki.... listen to an Abraham Hicks video. 

Thanks Mandy.

I actually seek the opportunities to cry. That one felt like induced through the body, like something was released. 

[mandyjw]

@tsuki Oh good. I get worried sometimes. I find that no mind is better as a resting place and not an ideal, it's very easy to trick myself into an imbalance of one or the other and convince myself that thinking about not thinking is not thinking. I'm probably projecting that past expereince on you so I apologize as I admire your dedication. 

[tsuki]

 

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #18, #19 and #20

OM changing continued, but I was not focused enough because my wife was preparing for her medical examination.
Thanks to the tuning, I started to enjoy the sound of my voice and became much more conscious of how I use it.
I find this mild fascination very healthy and it makes me feel much more confident and grounded.
Two days ago we had a small party and I had an opportunity to dance. It was extremely pleasant to release tension this way.

My mother in law visited us yesterday. The three of us went for a long walk to the forest and visited my parents.
After she left, me and my wife fought over the fact that we fight a lot. lol.

 

[tsuki]

So, the past few days were pretty hectic, details are no longer important because they mostly slipped my mind.
Yesterday was our first anniversary and we had a good day together despite being on the verge of a fight.
Later that day we had a big discussion/fight and for now, we're putting the pieces back together.

I bought a book about herbalism written by Thomas Easley and Steven Horne.
For the time being, I decided to dedicate my attention to studying herbs. I always wanted to know their properties.
I'm currently testing the Tilia tea out as it seems to have warming and relaxing properties.
So far, it proves to be effective. I even felt dizzy while drinking it.
I also decided that I will be making some herbal tinctures soon.

Coffee is long forgotten and that is precisely why I need to be vigilant.
I slipped back on my meditation habit. I need to get it back up.

[Bill W]

So is your caffeine consumption virtually nil now? @tsuki