4th Path = comfort in the 4th Jhana?

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Simon T, modified 3 Years ago at 10/19/20 2:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/19/20 2:43 PM

4th Path = comfort in the 4th Jhana?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
After second path last summer, it's appears that the tradionnal Therevada mapping is breaking down. That is, having a clear cessation followed by a review phase leading to a change of lineage. Perhaps this will show up again. I still have dominant stage-like cyles and can see how breaking the equanimity ceiling of this lineage could be significant at some point.

That being said, it's getting easier and easier to dwell in the 4th Jhana no matter the dominant sensate experience. Dwelling around my throat and third eye still create out-of-focus distortion but it's progressing very fast. As I bring every parts of my being to an higher vibration, it's getting easier to move my attention freely. The feeling that attention feel better at position X over Y in my body is slowly disapearing. 

The sense of duality seems to be created out of the fact that we jump over the low vibration areas of our being. We know information is being slowed down or blocked between the brain hemispheres. By bringing energy in the third eye area, I force the communication between the hemispheres and imagery is becoming more unified. Similar mechanisms are at work with lower chakras. 

My theory is that at 4th Path, someone should be able to move attention without encountering significant pockets of low vibration. A feeling of integration of the senses is likely born out of it. Ironically, as we purify the senses (in the seen, only the seen...) it open the door the an integration of the senses.

I would like to hear people's take on this framework.
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 5:13 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 5:13 PM

RE: 4th Path = comfort in the 4th Jhana?

Posts: 1072 Join Date: 2/22/20 Recent Posts
Simon T.:
My theory is that at 4th Path, someone should be able to move attention without encountering significant pockets of low vibration. A feeling of integration of the senses is likely born out of it. Ironically, as we purify the senses (in the seen, only the seen...) it open the door the an integration of the senses.
Do you experience synesthesia?
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Simon T, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 9:46 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 9:46 AM

RE: 4th Path = comfort in the 4th Jhana?

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
Ni Nurta:
Simon T.:
My theory is that at 4th Path, someone should be able to move attention without encountering significant pockets of low vibration. A feeling of integration of the senses is likely born out of it. Ironically, as we purify the senses (in the seen, only the seen...) it open the door the an integration of the senses.
Do you experience synesthesia?


I wouldn't call that synesthesia. It's getting a clearer experience of formations. When aspects of high equanimity presents themselves, I'm getting with eyes open an experience close (but not that close) to the experience of formations that led to 1th and 2th path. With closed eyes, it means that all senses doors turn themselves into vibration and become of the same nature and synchronize themselves. A trick I would do what indeed to mess with my senses, like attempting to taste sounds, see sounds, etc.. But it's not proper synesthesia as I seen it described. 

So, perhaps 4th path would be experiencing formations, or something close to it, all the time? Or at least, this frame of reference would be available at will. So, someone can still make one sense more dominant, as this is obviously useful, but all senses are operating at the same frequency. So, moving from one sense to another doesn't involve a change in frequency, accelaration or deceleration. There is an efficiency in that. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 10/28/20 2:31 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/28/20 2:31 PM

RE: 4th Path = comfort in the 4th Jhana?

Posts: 1072 Join Date: 2/22/20 Recent Posts
Simon T.:
A trick I would do what indeed to mess with my senses, like attempting to taste sounds, see sounds, etc.. But it's not proper synesthesia as I seen it described.
People have all sort of crazy types for sure.
There are two thresholds depending on strength of experiences. One is projection when you actually experience stuff over senses and other is associator when you experience something internally but it doers not draw over actual sense doors. Through practice I got quite a lot association types and some projection types and learned how to control the strength. When I dwelled on synesthesia reddit some examples I experienced exactly how people described, some not. Interresingly my main type: experiencing colors as tastes/smelss is quite rare. Most often people experience colors when they see letters and it is most often just assotiation, meaning they do not see letters as colors with their eyes, just kinda visualization of them being colored. I have this type also. When I concentrate on it can increase its strenght but I never passed threshold of it becoming projected to replace letters, only to kinda add halos around letters with kinda momentary flashes of colored version on sight. I'd say it is pretty ordinary synesthesia.

From what I can tell this needs to be separately discovered/practiced from normal paths. People simply do not repost things like these. I would assume not everyone has the capacity to even practice this but if you pass tests designed to show that ordinary people kinda have synesthesia like jumping power lines gif then you are good to go and only need to discover what is preventing positive feedback loops and condition yourself in such a way to allow these feedback loops. For vision related synesthesia I completely changed the way I use eyes. It was in order to improve sharpness and all the synesthesia was just side effect. Then I mainly practiced synesthesia. Over >10 years I improved my eyesight by a lot a lot. I can stress people who think they see properly by reading text they could not possibly see from given distance emoticon

So, perhaps 4th path would be experiencing formations, or something close to it, all the time? Or at least, this frame of reference would be available at will. So, someone can still make one sense more dominant, as this is obviously useful, but all senses are operating at the same frequency. So, moving from one sense to another doesn't involve a change in frequency, accelaration or deceleration. There is an efficiency in that.

In a sense your assumption about formations is true. It is however something somewhat different than EQ formations and more ability to trace back all experiences to all consciousness which create it and ability to experience these consciousnesses. In own body it is pretty straightforward. This is however but a one aspect of 4th path. Also it is always like that, just mind does not interfere itself with this experience and that is why it is readily available.

Changing frequency... I actually did that very little. Very interresting effect is in vision when frequency is lowered. I noticed that my vision consciousness runs faster than normal consciousness and there is a kind of skipping. It isn't all that obvious normally but when I match consciousnesses speed by slowing down vision it is more obvious and any skip that happens then is more obvious. Kinda like in computer game, when you have 200fps and run on 60Hz monitor then image is stuttering so much it becomes not noticeable. But when you run ~60fps and there is either 59fps or 61fps for a moment then the difference between fluid movement and any skip is more noticeable. Main consciousness can be overclocked also but it is bigger undertaking and more tiring to brain.

Otherwise I worked more with phase of stuff vs consciousness. Changing phase is also something which happens during normal process of insight and is responsible for some of nanas effects. Of course by the time you get 4th path it is obvious how to change these things.

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