Stages & Experience

Olivia Henderson, modified 6 Years ago at 5/11/17 7:58 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/11/17 5:47 AM

Stages & Experience

Post: 1 Join Date: 5/11/17 Recent Posts
Hi there,
I've been studying buddhism, yoga for several years. I have a decent understanding and practice of impermanence, non-attachment and non-self. About 4-5 months ago I went through a really hard breakup in which I had a hard time coping, ended up taking prescription pills too often to dull the emotions.  About 4 weeks ago I got back into sitting/vipassna meditation, never having really dedicated myself to it in the past. I've always been consistent with yoga practice, however.  Anyways, about 1.5 weeks into about 45-75 minutes of meditation a day, I smoked a bit of weed before meditating, this was a particularly challenging meditation, about 30 minutes in I started to see a blue and yellow bright halo, and completely connected to my inner self, had this absolutely profound experience that my inner conciousness was speaking to me and that the universe was a complete connected conciousness.  I expreinced this for the next 3-4 days, having several experiences while meditating of seeing eyes, different colours, lights. I was basking in the fact that I was now fully connected to my higher conciousness, the universe, my ability to sit and be with myself was an amazingly freeing feeling. I had a realization that everything is connected, that the answer to all problems is love, that genuine connections are what joy is, and that I had been living fully through ego for years. My ability to connect and converse with others was better than ever, I was able to focus and remember things better than ever. I was also having extreemely vivid dreams, which I historically never have.  The dreams were about past relationship's past partners, seeing myself holding onto these relationships. They lasted about one week. When the dreams first started, I woke up on two of the mornings in complete misery.  I felt like I was going through the worst breakup of my life.  I'm not sure if I solely attributed my emotional turmoil to the dreams or it was a rationalization of my own inner processing. Either way, I cried the entire few days and shut out to the world. After a couple days, started to feel better, However now I notice my emotions/feelings/thoughts to feel heavy.  I fluctuate betwen feelings of emotionally and physicially drain and contentment/satisfaction. I try and meditate on metta and practice compassion, as well as meditating on seeing things solely as they are without identification, and it seems quite difficult.  I dont feel like I'm making as much progress now as initially, I read so much about being with this phase (I'm not sure if this is said phase), however I'm not sure.. I guess I'm just feeling a bit lonely in this right now and confused becuase I don't know anyone else that has gone through it.  I have this strong desire to heal, work through the conditioning of my ego.  I'm very aware that despite the feelings of lagging, to just be with it, continue my practice and trust this is the path I'm supposed to be on.  I suppose I'm looking for some feedback.  Do you think this stage I'm in is the "dark night of the soul"? I just wonder because I only had my "profound experience" a week and a half into the beginning of my vipassana practice. 
Would love to hear anyones thoughts/feedback on this emoticon I love reading all your posts. So inspirational. 
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Stick Man, modified 6 Years ago at 5/11/17 6:32 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/11/17 6:32 AM

RE: Would love some input on my experiences and stages

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
Wowser!
Lots of people here have experiences like these. Not convinced about the inevitability or necessity of a "dark night" myself, but some swear it's guaranteed to happen.
HC, modified 6 Years ago at 5/15/17 5:47 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/14/17 7:14 AM

RE: Blue and gold visuals

Posts: 6 Join Date: 7/4/16 Recent Posts
RE: Stages & Experience
  I have the expereience of blue and gold visuals a lot. I also have the expererience that after the meditation I would feel very agitated for a few hours to a day then I would feel great for about a day. This was happening with occasional practice then I rededicated my pracice and got up to about an hour a day and the negative emotions started to last for days to weeks. It just seemed like I was opening up or diving into old repressed feelings. Some of them were recognizable phobias and fears that had haunted me for my whole life and I feel like I am working through them now.  
 One concept that helped me was Shinzen Youngs description of "The primative infant" He says when you get very close to the deepest experience that a human can have you also go though the second most primative which is the pure feeling of the primative infant.
 Now I use the blue and gold visuals to track "gone" to use Shinzen's language. The negative feelings are diminishing and or occuring in more in a mindful space so they don't impact me as much and have become somewhat facinating to me becasue it seems like I am investigating my past emotional scars and cleaning them out.
 Hope that helps. I would like to see what others think of my expereiences too.
CHC
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streamsurfer, modified 6 Years ago at 5/15/17 1:07 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/15/17 1:07 PM

RE: Stages & Experience

Posts: 101 Join Date: 1/19/16 Recent Posts
Hi Olivia,

trust yourself, lonelyness and confusion can sometimes be your companion but will not for long ;)

Personal meditation insights about the way you live can have heavy impact and cause the feeling like you had been a blockhead for way to long. Notice what you've learned, integrate and appreciate it, and then let it go, cause the attachment to get rid of your ego, or to get insights about your ego, is all an ego function by itself. I wouldn't care to much about that than rather continuing serious practice and living a skillful live.
That all sounds like A&P symptoms and further, like the opening of chakras / kundalini. To my mind smoking weed while dealing with energy symptoms is a BAD idea since it can get you more of it that you can handle. There is a lot of useful information to kundalini and such in the internet. All the best and please be careful emoticon