Sharpness, Silence, Perspective Shift and Light Emanation

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Stirling Campbell, modified 7 Years ago at 5/19/16 2:47 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/19/16 2:47 PM

Sharpness, Silence, Perspective Shift and Light Emanation

Posts: 622 Join Date: 3/13/16 Recent Posts
Anyone have a feeling for what might be going on here?

On 5/17/16 I started having a number of ephiphanies attached to a book I ingesting. They seem to be the start of this so far, whatever it is.

From my journal:

5/17/16
There is no need to be attached to outcomes. I feel like I can abide in an acceptance of everything as it is today. I can't think of a more clear way to say it than that. Not sure how long I can pull it off, but for the first time ever, after hearing his explanation I think I can give it a sporting try - like its a very real possibility. It feels like such a relief - it feels "right". This one comes with a beautiful, creamy warmth on my face and on the crown of my head that I have been enjoying for about an hour. 
This last bit has changed over the course of the day. This morning it was this amazing creamy warm feeling that bled into everything - eating, breathing - and an amazing feeling of calm comfort. This afternoon that has faded somewhat and I am sort of overwhelmed by how quiet everything is… the silence of it all. Everything feels so still. My thoughts seem to be another level of magnitude quieter, and I feel even more removed from the “front” of my experiencing of the world. I asked myself on my walk this afternoon at work if my “self” was gone. I honestly am not sure. I don’t think so, but there was a moment of doubt - a “huh” in my mind - open to the possibility that it is true. It might be just more gone, or maybe sporadically present? I think I need more time with this, but I feel like a real perceptual shift has occurred again - though I’m not yet sure on what scale.

5/19/16
OK I think this is another big shift. I am starting to think that while I sorta feel I am losing my mind in a comfy way, that I am probably only losing my MIND, which seems like the point, really. 

Yesterday, 5/18, getting out of my car at work in the AM, everything continued to be uncannily still. Walking out to my car after work, the campus populated as normal, the stillness persisted. As I came to a “cathedral” of redwoods, I involuntarily started to walk softly as though I was going to disturb someone. The atmosphere was heavy and thick. I had the thought that it was like I was in a church. Surrounded by people, yet wrapped in a preternatural stillness. Some kind of underlying thing that is the bed of everything else, or every other sound at least. I was also conscious of having stepped “forward” a bit from my usual body perspective. Like I’m more separate and less part of the old perspective of things emanating from somewhere on my forehead/eye area as it did.

This morning when I got out of my car, after a few small steps in the the quietude, I realized that everything was ultra sharp and hyper focused, and that if I put my attention on something it would snap into a further hyper focus. It almost seemed that the quality of it somehow exceeded the physical limitations of my eyes. Yes, I know that sounds crazy.

Taking a fifteen minute break to walk around I was conscious of a peculiar feeling in my eyesight. Maybe a little like I was wearing the wrong prescription glasses (I only wear them to read). Dropping something off with a colleague on my way back to my desk I was conscious thatf this feeling was a "light" coming out of my eyes - like it is almost illuminating things somehow. It's been like this for a few hours now. This one is tougher to characterize because of it’s newness. Not sure it will persist.

The whole experience over the last few days is also accompanied by things striking me as funny in kind of an inappropriate social way, and some involuntary tears as things strike me as beautiful.This whole experience has the feeling of unfolding as it goes. As the effects multiply, none have dropped away so far. I truly hope it lasts. It's blissful.


- Perspectives greatly appreciated. 
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Chris M, modified 7 Years ago at 5/19/16 4:03 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/19/16 4:03 PM

RE: Sharpness, Silence, Perspective Shift and Light Emanation

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Your words remind me of the experiences I had while in the midst of third path in the MCTB Theravada models. Stillness, stillness, stillness. Feelings of warmth and well being. Easy to focus, easy to see the oddities in normal events and experiences, almost as if from a weirdly "other" point of view - not first person but not exactly objective, either.

Just typing in what comes to mind reading your post.
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Stirling Campbell, modified 7 Years ago at 5/20/16 10:55 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/20/16 10:55 AM

RE: Sharpness, Silence, Perspective Shift and Light Emanation

Posts: 622 Join Date: 3/13/16 Recent Posts
I appreciate your input, Chris.

Doing some reading on some old threads about 3rd path, I am starting to wonder if that's where I am. I was suggested by another poster before, but I keep thinking I'm not that far along. It seems as though there is great variety in what happens after stream entry, and even in what awakening looks like. I am genuinely not concerned about attainment, though I really wanted some reassurance that I wasn't losing it when I had my non-dual experience. What really what concerns me is that I am working on the appropriate skills to continue. The sphere of what is arising for me at present is all about sensory change/expansion/? so I'm paying attention to that, gently exploring it, not grasping but accepting any changes (as unnerving as they can be) and staying, as I usually am, in a kind of 1st Jhana awareness off and on when not sitting.

I should also say, though I read the accounts of other practitioners here, that I never seem to advance on the cushion - always when I am out in the world practicing. Not sure if this is a factor of my non-Vipassana practice or not.

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