hi all
First i just want to let you know that i never post on this forum
and that English is not my native language, so please excuse my
French ;-)
i practice meditation quite a lot ( 3 to 5 h/day), went to many
retreat too ( like the SN Goenka one) but now focus more on jhanas (
similar to the one taught by L.Brasington)
To my experience those jhanas are not only mental altered state
of consciousness but also very physical one where all body sensations
disappears or let say are replaced by some kind of energetic feeling
going all over the body, i can now easily go into the "materials one "
but have difficulty to clearly identify immaterial one which seems to
me more like some kind of declination of the 4 th jhana.
Anyway i had a very strange and new experiencefor me lately and this
is why i came here ( not very easy to find information of that sort ), i
was in what i would identify as the 7 jhana ( nothingness ) a "jhana
feeling"that i quite like. While i was very focus, my perceptions slowly slip and i
found myself in what could be the 8 jhana, not sure , the feeling i had
remind me a very odd experience i had decades ago in India in Goa, i
went off the road with my bike( no light on the bike but it was full
moon ) , not very fast but strangely i fainted, then i enter a dark
space, absolutely dark and i had no sense of self at all even though i
didn't realise it on the first place, my consciousness was very clear, i
then saw some kind of "multidimensional train light" which appears to
be kaleidoscope of life and after what seems to be quite a long time i
realised that "I" wasn't there, i could watch those potential life but
"mine", couldn't be find, i was 22 years old and i really, really freak
out and finally wake up.
This is this kind of feeling i had during that meditation (
by the way this souvenir hadn't appeared in a very long time)
fortunately this time i was perfectly at ease with the no self feeling,
it was like returning in that space and realising that it is a really
good space to rest, then without any warning everything just SHUT OFF,
like an underwater blast, i just had the time to "think": wow! then , no
more mind, no perceptions of anything physical, sounds ( birds sounds
from my window ceased immediately), etc , just nothing except some sort
of bare consciousness , then the "current" came back, i immediately
focus on sounds because i was still feeling very little but slowly i
could hear the birds again.I just would like to know if any of you can explain this kind
of shut off , i ( partly ) read the book of Daniel Ingram speaking about
Nirodha Samapatti but frankly i don't know...
Also, at the risk of shocking some of you i would like to add
that i am not really into that "enlightenment path " way of thinking , i
do not aim toward arahantship, i practice meditation for very personal
purpose, rather like an athlete would practice his sport, also i little
like a scientist would use his body as a guinea pig and also to enhance
my lucid dreaming practice so i you can provide some very practical
information rather than "spiritual one" i would be grateful...thanks a lot
Fabrice
