Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Richard, modified 7 Years ago at 2/13/17 2:36 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/13/17 2:28 PM

Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Posts: 7 Join Date: 2/4/17 Recent Posts
Hi,

I have gotten into pranayama without knowing what it was some 6 years ago or so. I had found a book on concious breathing, immitating the natural breath. I do not have the book anymore so i couldn't tell you the title. I would do thoses exercises lying down in my bed while listening to some Brain Sync binural beats. Anyhow, it was at that time in my life that I felt some unsusual sensations that I remembered from my childhood. I have been calling these states as the Void for many years. A state in which my body seems to become particularily absent, far or at the very least with unclear boundries (hands at my sides often felt superimposed and placed on me stomach) at the space in which my mind is becomming impressively vast. The fact that I had had similar sensations as a child sparked my curiosity, particularily one event when I got really close to what I belive would have been orgasm which frightened me and out of which I forcefully left. 

Other early life sensations have returned since then. A feeling of dark modular shapes opressing mostly my mind but also my body. The other that I can note is that of my thoughs slowing way down, a slow motion thought pattern that contrasts greatly with the normal movements of the body.

Could I have been living a life of DN without knowing it?

Since then I have started to meditate in the Goenka style, attending two 10 day retreats so far. My last one being in mid January. Since then the more opressive feelings have been manifesting but I find them quite interresting now rather than frightening.

I would say that I am not to keen on establishing what stage I am on as I seem to have difficulty in not creating attachment to "progression". However I am most certain that I have attained Dissolution at least one in my first retreat, having went from a deep unexplainable sorrow to the next instance wonderring how I was actually maintaining the kneeling position I was in since my body was but waves of feathery like substance.

The most notable sensation in my last retreat was one of levitation while being a luminous cottonball.

I am interrested in hearing what you think about all that especially about the fact of non meditative progress.
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Bruno Loff, modified 7 Years ago at 2/13/17 4:50 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/13/17 4:50 PM

RE: Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Posts: 1094 Join Date: 8/30/09 Recent Posts
Briefly:

I think most people reach A&P via means other than meditation. Then they get into DN territory, get in trouble, look for a way out, and find meditation. This story is repeated 100s of times in this forum. It's my own story.

Indescribable sorrow and the like, followed by Feathery substance, Luminous whatever: Could be desire for deliverance, transition to equanimity. If Luminous whatever is very calm, wide, panoramic, then it's equanimity. If it's blissful, rushful, thrilling, then it's A&P, and then I dunno about the sorrow.

(Roughly speaking, you didn't give me much to go on)
Richard, modified 7 Years ago at 2/13/17 5:14 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/13/17 5:14 PM

RE: Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Posts: 7 Join Date: 2/4/17 Recent Posts
Thank you for the answer. 

I would say I have but very limited experience in the likes of sharing my experiences, even more so for sharing with people who avec experience in meditation practice, so I guess I am not likely to expose usefull details unless led in someway.


I would say that the sensations I have felt and described as the Void have been felt idependantly both as blissfull, thrilling and very calm. Although I don't recall it as being thrilling ever since I have started to meditate.

As for the sorrow it first manifested as tighness in the abdomen, and the same feelings that I recall sensing the last times I cried. I was doing Goenka body scan around my feet at that time so I did not investigate the sensations any further. The transition was quite instatanious.

I have trouble understanding the vipassana janas in the MCTB as a lot of the descriptions seem to use some form of will, the likes of the wording you used "desire for deliverance". I don't belive to have had "will" experiences other than those of wanting to relive blissfull moments. My understanding of anicca has since grown and I tend not to have these "wills" as strongly or as often.

I would say my retreats are calm, like extremely calm. I have as of now no understanding of how it can be difficult/painfull/challenging for most people I talk to befor and after the retreats. I believe it is a DN thing but my main difficulty is boredom.
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Bruno Loff, modified 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 12:15 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 12:10 PM

RE: Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Posts: 1094 Join Date: 8/30/09 Recent Posts
I usually understand well when the qualities of vibrations are explained to me. Also helps to describe what you were focusing on, and how that focus was like. I generally don't understand when people use nomenclatures such as "self", "emptiness". E.g. I have no idea what this void is that you're referring to. But other people here understand that language well, so using it may lead to useful exchanges with others.

Given your description of how retreats go, I would guess you can attain equanimity at this point. Boredom is a typical sign of equanimity. The right thing to do to deepen equanimity is to maintain a very subtle, calm, and *WIDE* attention. Try to subtly and calmly pay attention to everything at once. Focus will become so panoramic it might not even be clear what you are focusing on. When you think you've made it as panoramic as you can, check if you are including in your focus things that are normally left out, such as: sense of space, sense of the passage of time, "the present", "knowing", "looking", "meditating", and so on. Really everything should be there all at once.

The next logical thing to do would be to try and have a fruition. It could be that you already can do this, or not yet. In any case it's an important attainment, and even if you can do it without having tried explicitly (as some people can), it is important to know how to recognize it and trigger it at will.

One way of triggering a fruition is by reaching high equanimity, and then focusing on the vibratory phenomenon happening in the middle of the head, and trying to relax it. This may prove very difficult without extreme equanimity, as the vibrations otherwise tend to drag attention and make it stuck. When this succeeds, the mind may very momentarily tune out, and then there should be a "blip" of connectivity / sudden darkness followed by bliss and brilliance. The feeling after is as if the mind had a reset, and was now calm and alert.
atomheart, modified 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 3:26 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 3:09 PM

RE: Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Post: 1 Join Date: 12/6/16 Recent Posts
Hi Richard,
Not sure why you call it non-meditative. I'd say pranayama is a form of mindulness meditation and binaural sounds are meant to create altered states of consciousness. The fact that you were a child would have made the process even faster!  Like you I started at around 5-6 years old, and to cut a long story short found myself in decades of DN until my first retreat. As a child I had A&P events from pranayama and mantras. In my 20s I had A&P events from binaural sounds also. It is very possible you had multiple DNs if you had multiple A&Ps. (At least that's the way I understand this process.)
Richard, modified 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 5:02 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 5:02 PM

RE: Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Posts: 7 Join Date: 2/4/17 Recent Posts
atomheart:
Hi Richard,
Not sure why you call it non-meditative.

Hi atomheart,

I might have mixed things up a bit to much in my first post. The sensations I refered to during pranayama and retreat, I did in order to explain what I had felt as a child. 

The pranayama was done in my early 20's and I am now 28.

I am also not certain how it happens that I can have multiple passes through different stages without going full circle. I believe I read something about regressing in the MCTB however that happens I have no clue.
J C, modified 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 6:38 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 2/14/17 6:37 PM

RE: Dissolution or A&P as a non meditating child

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Richard:
I am also not certain how it happens that I can have multiple passes through different stages without going full circle. I believe I read something about regressing in the MCTB however that happens I have no clue.


If the farthest stage you've reached is dissolution, you don't just stay in dissolution - you move back and forth through the stages, stopping at the farthest stage you've reached. Insight practice speeds this process up and moves the "leading edge" further along.

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