I have stopped meditating for a couple of weeks. I have meditated before that for 5 years, at first following the breath, after that Do Nothing style. I have seen the emptiness and can channel it, my mind slowly turning inside out, I have had flashes of nirvana but every time I see it I get terrified. My whole being feels like it should avoid it. When I first saw it I've had the whole I am god type of thoughts, after that more simply put I felt like I was a sheet on which physical frames of happening  fall. The latest insight formed as follows. 2 mirrors reflecting each other to infinity and the current moment goes from one mirror to the other. I have realized what no self is, I have realized that when I awaken nothing will be me. I will be a witness to whats happening without having influence to whats happening. I have realized that I am floating in nothing and that each sense is kind of like a sphere that happens in spacetime in between the 2 infinities. I am really afraid of constantly feeling the intensity of infinity and of nothing. The things I would like to hear is how do you deal with all this? How are you not afraid of that? How isn't that madness cause from here it seems like such? How do you move from nothing and disconnected senses to the flowing feel you currently have? Can the void and infinity not be seen and can you function in the timespace world without having a black hole "at the back of your head"? I don't know where I am along the path but I would say that I'm past stream entry. I am afraid of not liking what enlightnment is like, of not being able to coexist with my fellow humans, that I will be inhuman. What motivates you to do what you wanna do? I realize this question emplies a self, but do you feel unwholesome things after enlightnment. Do any of you arhats actually prefer their previous way of viewing the world? Sorry for this many questions but it is getting pretty existential and any persons input would be appreciated

Hi there,

I'm sorry to hear you are going through a challenging crisis. It sounds tough.

I'm no arahant, just somewhere in the middlepaths, so I hope others will chime in. In the meantime...

as far as I understand it, when you are awakened, the you that arises temporarily in the moment will be capable of anything you did before. You won't lose anything that you ever had to begin with. There never was a continuous and separate and independent self. That didn't stop you from being engaged and fully alive, did it? So why would it now? 

Emptiness is no other than form. It's a vaste potential, not a desert. What to do now is to bring it back into the form, to open up possibilities and enjoy the miracle of life manifesting from nothing. One way of looking at it might be that we are the potential of joy that makes the world appear and reappear. 

Hey Aleksandar - huge metta and support to you winging through the internet-ether.

Briefly - being awake is better, but you need to wake up all the bits, and sometimes when you wake up some bits but not others you get a couple of unfortunate effects, particularly if you are really focussed inwards.  One is you can get the remaining defence mehanisms freaking out.  The other is that, because you don't have the concepts for the new ways of being and thinking, the mind overlays different (wrong) ideas to try to understand them, and a freaks out a little bit more because these are obviously wrong.

So I would suggest you need to come down a bit, and balance out your practice. Try to stop being asorbed in these new insights that you haven't integrated yet.  Try moving out of your mind-sense into the other physical senses.  Enjoy the taste of food.  Appreciate the beauty of a tree.  Move your hearing into some warm music.  Do some fire kasina.  Contemplate how you and your loved ones have built a shared non-separate world together, like a garden.  Sure somtimes winter comes, but it is followed by spring, and gardens are ever changing and growing.  Form a subtle intention to act skilfully and with compassion, and to be your best self.  Encourage the things you like about. yourself, abandon the things you don't like. Walk oustide and breathe with the trees. You don't have to do this all the time, but try to be more externally focussed in this way for half an hour each day, and then again a few times during the day when you remember it.  The breath, the outdoors, and the external senses are key.  And forgiveness.  Forgiveness for yourself, forgiveness for others. Forgiveness is the most powerful force in the universe, even stonger than jealousy!

And yes it is heaps better.  Sometimes I look back with a little bit of nostalgia at who I used to be.  But that person is still part of me - they just aren't in the control room randomly pushing buttons, bouncing off the walls and running away from their own emotions. 

With love

​​​​​​​Malcolm 

Have you ever felt this fear before? Have you read MCTB? Do you know of the Progress of Insight? Especially the Knowledge of Fear stage?

As I have approached each new awakening I have felt an existential fear that I might break my mind and similar bull shit. Then I get the deletion of the unnessisary subconcious process and everything is fine and dandy. I stopped worrying about it now.

Please read -
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5800908

This is my take on awakening, as far as i've gone so far. It is not complete but somewhat of a useful model.

If you skip over stages of the deletion process then you are going to run into problems of your subconcious continuing to make a SELF and the flight or flight response will be screaming PROTECT MEEEEEEEEEEEE. This is because the higher levels that you skipped to is saying "there is no self". My advice is to look at the levels I point out and perhaps go back and work on the lower levels so that the subconcious Selfing Processes are not in conflict.
This problem might also just be the typical Dark Night "knowledge of fear" as explained in MCTB. If so, you will move on to the next thing - Knowledge of Misery, which also sucks. But knowing that the progress of insight is standard and typical will at least tell you where you are.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB+6.+Fear?p_r_p_http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liferay.com%2Fpublic-render-parameters%2Fwiki_nodeName=Main&p_r_p_http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liferay.com%2Fpublic-render-parameters%2Fwiki_title=MCTB%206.%20Fear

Previews of advanced stages of awakening can be scary but useful if that is what happened. As you can see there are a lot of things that might have happened and it would be a lengthy conversation to pin down what it is. Diagnoses is difficult without a verbal conversation.

Good Luck
~D

Thanks for replying. It is hugely uncomfortable as every time I go through the dukkha nanas I get flashbacks to some trips I have had and it twists my mind in a lot of ways. I have an idea of how it is but since my mind has no stable ground I accept it as truth. Visions of infinity staring into infinity, real time space existance being just a wave with absolutely no substance (which for my self creates detachment from everything to a bigger degree then I would like kind of like apathy but not quite). All of this worries me because of my lay life, girlfriend, friends, music.... I get surreal imagery which I know to be true in a way (emphasis on in a way). 
I have trouble staying outwardly oriented, as when I relax to sleep my mind just starts dropping to emptiness and then I don't feel grounded and feel like im going crazy. I was going to try fire kasina as Dan has talked about it quite extensively. I need to ask though. Since my mind can start generating images, visions deities and other such things, how can this help me stay grounded? What other practices are there to keep me grounded?

Tonglen as suggested by Shargrol could be a good alternative for "getting outside your own head" so to speak. 

If interested I can find the instruction in my last log and copy paste it here. 

Actually let me find it and you see if it resonates well with you. It really helps with overwhelming or lacking experienced, or when feeling stuck or in much pain etc ... 

Off to find it ...

Ok here it is. Btw I used to see demon images and used this Tonglen method on it.

​​​​​​​ Let me copy paste in here this form of Tonglen by shargrol;

"There is a version of tonglen that I highly recommend:

1. Find some aspect of your present experience that is lacking, is difficult, is suffering, etc.
2. Feel that experience. It can help to name it.
3. State the intention: "if there are any other beings out there that are experiencing this and having too much difficulty with it, may I experience it for them. May their experience come to me. May I fully experience it with no resistance. May they find relief."
4. Feel that experience again. Soak in it, dwell in it. Also imagine the joy the other feels being free of it and how they can gain perspective/insight because they now aren't overwhelmed by it. Go back and forth between you and other.
5. After a period of time that feels right, drop the intention and say, "May all beings be free from suffering, may all beings awaken, may all beings be happy."

And then repeat the whole cycle again when it feels right.

The benefit of this practice is you are not taking on anything new, you're experiencing what you are already experiencing, but you are taking on what you are already experiencing with a much deeper intention that goes beyond yourself.  And it ends with a reaffirmation that we're all worthy of peace, awakening, and happiness.

Give it a try. And feel free to disregard if it doesn't seem like a good match."