For the first time, I have made it to the pure land jhanas. Whilst I have continued to believe I attained stream entry in early December, I have never been able to prove it. However now I feel the attainment of pl jhanas to be a trophy or plaque celebrating the fact. A summary: In the year 2011 I experimented with all sorts of drugs and chemicals in an attempt to find something beyond the mundane not merely hypothetical. I believe use of lysergide brought about the a&p nana temporarily, but after the drug had worn off, it's like it never happened. So I don't believe there was a crossing of the a&p event which occurs when one is to continue past it.
I eventually grew dissatisfied at having to force this a&p culdesac through repeated chemical ingestions and searched for a more serious solution. In late 2011 I grew very fond of the copies of Bhagwan shree rajneeshes speeches, finding the stories and analogies very inspiring. However no real practical advice for meditation was given, so I improvised a sort of watching of things.
I remember stranger and stranger occurrences but knew very little of nanas and the like.
In April 2012 I reached the a&p and enjoyed it for a long time, probably suffering what is called the imperfections of insight.
Due to the massively awesome things that I kept feeling, I made erroneous claims of stream entry, clearly not getting what it was all about. They were the cosmic bliss outs I associated with enlightenment. I recall at least 10 times where my body started getting seizures and thunderbolt like shocks, and I crumpled into a chair with convulsing body, watching the clouds and sun move through my head.
In October I had the grandest one of all, and it happened exactly like bhagwans supposed enlightenment experience. I imagine that was the a&p event, for I became mundane and unimaginably for a while after this, though now I was following the hardcore dharma map. I used my strongest asset, concentration, to blast through the Dukkha nanas using jhana. I arose with equanimity, and for a week I bare insight-ed it. I then rose through all of the jhanas and arupa jhanas and attained stream entry at the eighth, by means of suffering. All my arupa jhanas were so soft that I could hardly tell what was going on after 7th, but I remember a sucking in.
Anyway, since that, my fruitions were minimal, my ability to enter old nanas weak, and the new insight cycle started, and I found jhana very hard to attain. A few days ago I have made it to this new a&p, and I now realise my ability to recognise the characteristics of jhanas and nanas is much improved, and I can enter jhana again.
Today I wanted to see how far I could go, I went through the jhanas and arupas (all rather soft aside from the eighth) and at the eighth, I was in a new place.
It felt like while the 8 jhanas were subtle layers of mind, this level was absolutely supramundane ( well relatively at least). Even though they must be soft, they blew me away. They are the closest to my dream of ideal meditation. I remember three levels. The first was subdued, feeling great like a warm animal fur but not a spectacle like 2nd jhana. I turned my mind to a feeling of expanse and immediately I had a gigantic bliss wave, visualising titanic palaces where whole landscapes and clouded could fit beneath the ceiling. I then felt a gigantic presences ahead of me, like a seated Buddha statue.
I felt as though I was really at one with all those who reached this stage, like it was a club. It was extremely enjoyable even soft. I imagine a fourth pathers pure land would be truly great.
My longest prior sit was an hour and three quarters, my regular sits between 50 mins and that. Today I did three hours easy. It was so good, I feel I must revisit and investigate it more when I have time to.
