This was written by David on an earlier post:
>> if you live in the Antarctic and suddenly get a Mediterranean breeze, a sudden shift to Mediterranean inner weather, you will notice it instantly. If you migrate over the period of years from the Antarctic climate to Mediterranean climate you may not notice any sudden change at any point in time. But you may notice a profound change on reflection.
There is Samadhi-the-instantaneous-weather-change ( Savikalpa Samadhi ) and Samadhi-the-long-term-climate-change ( Nirvikalpa Samadhi, with all sorts of school-varying grades and definitions).
This is a great metaphor, and it works, for the most part. But I have to say that as I become more familiar with samadhi (the nirvikalpa sort), I’m a little disappointed. I liked the savikalpa; I miss the astonishment of it. Here’s another metaphor:
Before I’d ever heard of savikalpa samadhi, I experienced it like a tiger that suddenly leapt into my brain and upper body and lingered there for a short while. I had no idea whence it came, how it got there, and then it was gone. This would happen every 3-4 months I think, and it was a profound experience; a bit frightening at times, but I liked it.
Now that I have some understanding of it, and have cultivated it through the ayp exercises, I experience it as being slightly more domesticated–maybe not a house cat, but a feral one. While I like the fact that it comes more often, and is significantly more predictable, I miss the ferocity and drama of the tiger.
What I’ve described may be unique to me, and it may be that I’m working through a phase of my practices which has less ‘drama’ and more of the taming aspects of meditation. I’m wondering if anyone has thoughts on this. Specifically, as samadhi, or ‘inner silence’, is cultivated, does it lose its intensity? If you move to the Meditteranean, you get used to the warmer weather, so a warm breeze isn’t so big a deal.
m
Hello Meg,
Thanks for the post… great insight and painting your experiences with words…
What I have learned over time, is one of settling in of the experience. The body and “being” getting comfortable with this new but so personal Samadhi.
What I am now cognizing/gaiing awareness of is SELF. Very simple very short glimpes of this outside of meditation, and can understand why the SELF realizes itSELF by itSELF… because we (me) cannot direct it or push it one way or the other… its there to experience itSELF of its own accord.
That said I can now understand the instuction given to me -
“Expect nothing”. Once you “expect” you influnce, and the simplicity is lost, and that is when the SELF is most obvious or most at home; when simplicity prevails.
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
Thanks for the replies. Once you’re IN samadhi, there is a cessation of thought and expectation. Or, to be more accurate, my thoughts don’t cease, I just become completely uninterested in anything but the absorbing experience at hand. But outside of samadhi, my expectations are that it will return as it used to, like a tiger or a hot wind, and my disappointment is that is has tamed considerably.
So there it is: expectation <--------> disappointment.
I’m only disappointed b’c I know what it used to be, and am comparing my current experience to that. (I know that this is not highly recommended, btw). And I’m wondering if, based on others’ experiences, I might expect the savikalpa to return, or if indeed samadhi changes with familiarity. To use yet another worn-out metaphor, expecting it to retain its original luster may be as silly as expecting your mate of a 44-year-old marriage to bring butterflies to your stomach.
Merry Christmas everyone!
meg
Hello Meg,
There are layers and layers of knots as we were discussing. ‘Yogic Transitions’ seem to be a matter of releasing knots and, in the releasing, something is activated, something which was stuck before.
A sudden descent into to Samadhi is a sort of Yogic Transition. There are other Yogic Transitions that are not Samadhi.
A nervous system which is suddenly cleaned-or-activated feels very special for a time. This can be true for any sort of Yogic Transition, including Samadhi.
Then, that level of cleaned-or-activated-ness starts to feel ordinary. Which is, I think, exactly what you are experiencing and expressing.
Meg said:
To use yet another worn-out metaphor, expecting it to retain its original luster may be as silly as expecting your mate of a 44-year-old marriage to bring butterflies to your stomach.
It’s also possible though that you are not (yet) going as ‘deep’ as you were before, I can’t know. So the ordinariness of it could be a result of (i) getting used to the new states or (ii) not getting as far in the new states as you were before or (iii) any combination of (i) and (ii). We can’t know which it is, and it doesn’t matter so much.
As regards the old marriage analogy, well, there can be something like that going on, but at least in Yoga may be sure though that there are more layers of knots (does this translate to endless affairs in the marriage analogy? Or a partner who can always bring something new after 44 years of marriage…) . There is no knowing how much is going to be cleaned/activated in one person in a given lifetime. So there may be more of the profoundly noticeable ‘samadhi’ experiences in your case. Or there may be a slow release over time, which is less noticeable.
Profound, sudden breakthroughs are very pleasant when they happen. I don’t complain about any I had, but the truth is, any experience I had that was sudden, I’d have been at least as well off, and maybe better off, if it was released slowly instead, over a period of months. If it was released slowly over several months, I might not have noticed it so much. And if I hadn’t noticed it, I might have been better off…
Because profound sudden breakthroughs have a disadvantage – you notice them and love them and they are addictive in a way. You can actually start to get dependent on them, like a drug. Or you can get into a pattern of wishing-for, and searching for, the next… Are you showing a tendency to crave them already? And that pattern is deeply contrary to spiritual living… so it is better to expect nothing as had been said by Frank…
They have an advantage too — they make it clear to you that the yoga is really working.
Probably the best you could hope for is a few profound breakthroughs to tell you that this advanced yoga really works, so that you are motivated to stick at it, and after that, all your knots are released slowly from then on, so you don’t notice them so much.
In other words, a good blessing to offer a person on the advanced yoga path is, May your progress be slow and steady and noticeable only on reflection
and, indeed, there is merit in not wishing someone progress at all, at least within their earshot — because the idea of progress can upset the spiritual path.
Hello Meg,
May I say your response… perfect!
the other word that comes to mind in your explaination
sanskrtam: sam = to make complete,perfect + kr or to do.
Peace.
Frank In San Diego
Hello David,
I read your response and am perplexed… something as simple and pure as samadhi , now sounds like I may need a Max Mueller 20 volume excylopedia to “get it”…
Its just not that complex…by my experiences, or what I read, or others. In my humble observation the caveat-dejour is not needed for something as intimate as SELF-seated samadhi.
Perhaps I have ingested too much tofu on the brain and am missing a salient point or two?
Frank In San Diego
Frank,
I don’t know what you are having a difficulty with… perhaps it is just my writing style?
Meg is asking for some ideas about why she is experiencing her meditation-states now as ordinary, or no longer experiencing them as unusual or dramatic. That piece is part of my answer to that question. It’s that simple. Don’t let the numbering fool you. The point isn’t that complex.
Frank said:
I read your response and am perplexed… something as simple and pure as samadhi , now sounds like I may need a Max Mueller 20 volume excylopedia to “get it”…
No, I don’t think you need to understand my answer to Meg’s question to “get it/samadhi”.
Look, if it’s a writing style issue, just be happy that Yogani knows not to write like a software engineer. For the rest of us, don’t expect too much.
Hello David, thx for the note… perhaps its one of typing vs. talking, where, in talking more is communicated. There is no angst on my side or furter debate needed.
My professional carreer is that of communication ( Marketing Director) - with multiple audiences and various mind sets and opinons. So, my “listening meter” is tuned/adusted/honed daily. Simplicity is so important to me. Both in career and in SELF- development. I watch for it and applaud it.
Appreciate you taking the time to explain…your example of the software engineer is a great example. thx.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Einstein
Frank In San Diego
Originally posted by david_obsidian
A nervous system which is suddenly cleaned-or-activated feels very special for a time. This can be true for any sort of Yogic Transition, including Samadhi.
Then, that level of cleaned-or-activated-ness starts to feel ordinary. Which is, I think, exactly what you are experiencing and expressing.
Actually it’s just the opposite of what you describe. My most dramatic experiences with samadhi occurred long before I started to meditate, so a squeaky clean nervous system apparently isn’t a prerequisite. Now that I have some understanding of what it is, it’s clear to me that I’ve been experiencing samadhi since I was a kid. That’s what I find disappointing - that it was so powerful then, and now, when I’m all grown up and spiritual it’s lost its edge. That’s what I find odd: if that which we call “inner silence” or “pure bliss consciousness” or “samadhi” goes through qualitative changes as we go deeper, it would seem logical to me that the quality would improve, not weaken, with experience. But perhaps ‘yogic transitions’ are one place where logic should be left behind. Thus far I haven’t heard two people describe the same experience, so that in itself precludes an objective description of what to expect. So when Frank says, ‘Expect nothing’, it’s not only sage advice, but the only option.
Thanks again for your replies. I think what I might be hearing is that I’m thinking about it way too much.
meg
Meg, you may have misunderstood me. You are saying,more or less, (in red ) that things are the opposite of what I describe , and in the example of your own case (in blue) you explain that they actually are as I describe…
What I am saying is that in the nervous system which has been squeaky-clean for a while, the experience would be less of a big deal.
Think of living in a house that is an absolute mess. Think of the worst mess that you can imagine. One night while you are asleep, a small cleaning crew comes in and works on it. They don’t get it by any means perfect – let’s suppose it goes from terrible to bad. You wake up in the morning and you are ecstatic.
The transition from terrible to bad may be subjectively as wonderful as the transition from bad to good.
After a time though, the dweller in the house gets used to how clean or unclean it is. That becomes the baseline then. The house can be cleaned more, and if it happens overnight, it is experienced as wonderful in the morning.
Being suddenly much more clean/blissful/bright/orderly/restful/ awake/friendly than usual is experienced subjectively as more wonderful than it is experienced when you are used to it. So it makes sense that, against a baseline that was less ‘pure’ (before you started to meditate) the samadhi experiences seemed more profound.
I hope that clears it up.
Regards,
-David
Hi Meg
I cant possible Match the expert advice you are being given here and I know I am coming in late on this but I would like to just stick my oar in a little bit.
I have experienced what I thought was Samadhi only twice in my life, both times were some years ago and were brought about by the Shamanic methods I was using at the time.
In no way could these experiences ever be diminished or become mundane. In fact they have become my goal and the thing that pushes and pushes me every day of my life, I just want to get back there.
I will try and describe them for you, In both cases thought in the normal way ceased completely and I simply became aware. This experience is extremely difficult to describe but the best I can do is that I became everything at once. The prerequisite of this experience in both cases was the surrender of my Identity, rather like death, very scary this but it does come back afterwards.
I have learned by AYP and being on this forum that there are levels of Samadhi and it is interpreted as simply a cessation of thought. Perhaps it will not always lead to the sort of experiences I describe but I do know they are there for the taking so don’t despair Megsy just keep trucking on and surrender yourself to that silence.
RICHARD
Yes, I didn’t say (or mean to say) that all experiences become mundane.
I think we can also get previews of states that we won’t really return to for years … or, if reincarnation is correct, until future lives … This fits in to what I said about not getting as deep as before…
But the truth is, I think several effects are happening at once. You can be getting a peek into something you won’t really have for a long time, while at the same time, experiencing something which is felt to be wonderful particularly because it is new.
Richard said:
just keep trucking on and surrender yourself to that silence.
This is the best advice. A little bit of analysis can serve you to orient yourself sufficiently, according to your natural level of inquisitiveness and enquiry. But we really cannot get a detailed grasp of what is going on.
-D
Hi All:
I view the various symptoms being discussed here as manifestations of inner silence and its first child, pranic energy flow which is where the dramatic experiences come from. The manifestations can be called “grades of samadhi,” but I think it is not important to be categorizing these, especially since they have no bearing on our practices themselves (AYP style, that is). Some teachers attempt to categorize levels of samadhi among their adherents and then assign different kinds of practices for each. I think this is a fruitless task – not to mention that having “adherents” is not part of the new paradigm of knowledge transmission anyway. Last year I was chastised by a well-known guru for taking the view that categorizing levels of samadhi is not relevant, and for refusing to impose a “samadhi ranking system” on the AYP readers.
As you know, my point of view is that the relevance is in the practices themselves that will lead inevitably to all the rest, and we do not have to be measuring results except for the purpose of regulating our bhakti and practices for speed and comfort. In other words, we don’t get hung up in the “scenery.”
Having said all that, let me throw something into the samadhi discussion…
First off, samadhi has no edges. If we are feeling any drama or excitement, we are having an energy experience, not a samadhi experience. Of course, we can feel the edge after the samadhi experience, but that is energy too. We can have inner silence and energy mixed, and to the extent it has an edge, that is the energy moving. Inner silence has no edges. Energy is very edgy, and that edginess is due to “friction” of the energy moving through the obstructions in our purifying nerves. Ecstasy is that also, until it has been refined and joined back with inner silence. With the refinement and joining of the edgy energy experiences with inner silence, a new dynamic is begun which ends up being anything but flat and boring. Inner silence (the witness) alone can be flat and unedgy, but it is a step on the way to a new dynamism that makes our original peak experiences pale by comparison.
Inner silence wants to move. The more of it we are experiencing (or becoming), the more we want to move. That movement is something different from our old energy experiences, and it is not ego-based. It is along the lines of samyama, which is inner silence expressing out into the world on waves of ecstatic bliss, or divine love. Then we are a channel, rather than a purifying vehicle sputtering on the energy boiling out from our newly cultivated inner silence trying to get free to flow into the world in huge endless waves of divine love.
So we go from inner silence, to energy experiences born of the friction of neurological purification, to the flat witness, to energy becoming ecstatic conductivity, to the merging of ecstasy and inner silence and becoming ecstatic bliss, to the unity experience of outpouring divine love.
Maybe there are samadhi labels corresponding with all of that, but I think not nearly as descriptive of what is happening. It is a neurobiological progression, after all.
So, we just keep doing our practices and take the rest in stride. What was dramatic will become flat, will become ecstatic, will become quiet again (ecstatically blissful), and then the avalanche of divine love will be pouring out constantly as thundering silence.
Not to worry, it will all be there. It is already written in our nervous systems.
And yes, we do get used to each new stage quickly and the contrasts fade accordingly. Going home is like that…
The guru is in you.
Thanks, David and Richard. My misunderstanding of what you wrote, David, was in reading into your message that you assumed that I’d reached the more profound states of samadhi as a result of cleansing my nervous system and to going particularly deep during meditation, which wasn’t the case, as I hadn’t done any work on myself at all at that point. So yes, I did misunderstand, or misquote, as it was another portion of your text that inaccurately described my situation. I get what you’re saying about the clean room, or, to use your previous metaphor (which I like very much), the hot wind being more noticeable in Nome than in the Bahamas.
Richard wrote: In no way could these experiences ever be diminished or become mundane. In fact they have become my goal and the thing that pushes and pushes me every day of my life, I just want to get back there.
I can relate to this, and my assumption was that as I went deeper, the inner silence would continue to deepen, so that the contrast would remain and my experience of it wouldn’t diminish. But in order for this to happen - to keep having these peak experiences - the wind in the Bahamas would need to turn icy cold, or the tiger would have to become completely ferocious - all in order to fulfill my craving for experience. It starts to get tedious, the chasing and the expecting, and the mundane 44 yr. old marriage starts to look more attractive.
m
Yogani - “Inner silence (the witness) alone can be flat and unedgy, but it is a step on the way to a new dynamism that makes our original peak experiences pale by comparison.”
YAY! Thanks for that, Yogani! I finally got the answer I wanted.
m
Great Meg:
I made a point of covering this in the new book, “Deep Meditation” too, because invariably when people find themselves becoming “the witness,” they ask, “Is that all there is?”
There is much more. 24 hour witness is stage one enlightenment.
The guru is in you.
Dear Yogani,
Do we also get ‘brownie points’ for being in the top ranking? This seems to be comletely against ‘normal’ teachings where the experiences are simply experiences.Whatever is relevant to you is not relevant to me or any other and vice-versa.As you so rightly say, we just keep on with the practices and we will know when we have reached the end(we will simply expire won’t we? LOL)I think too many people make too much of experiences but I guess it’s a benchmark for ‘something is still happening’ even though we know it is anyway.
L&L
Dave
‘the mind can see further than the eyes’
Folks, I believe this is so important to appreciate. I am sure all you fellow sadhu’s have a handle on this, but thought it valuable bringing this up as a point of reference.
Not only are there no edges there is no “deeper samadhi”. If in fact there is deeper, then there is shallower. If there is this deep-shallow, then its still on the relative field of existance - and what is being experienced is variations of silence…a wonderful, useful experience, in the progress of events, and “sensed” but it is not samadhi.
Samadhi is ubiquitous, uninterrupted pure being, pure intelligence, pure consciousness ( pls pick the description that is right for you). Like that, homogenous, and beyond the relative field, which is left behind once absorbed in this Samadhi state.
Peace and abundance in your practices,
Frank In San Diego
Or a partner who can always bring something new after 44 years of marriage…) . There is no knowing how much is going to be cleaned/activated in one person in a given lifetime. So there may be more of the profoundly noticeable ‘samadhi’ experiences in your case. Or there may be a slow release over time, which is less noticeable.
it’s lost its edge. That’s what I find odd: if that which we call “inner silence” or “pure bliss consciousness” or “samadhi” goes through qualitative changes as we go deeper, it would seem logical to me that the quality would improve, not weaken, with experience. But perhaps ‘yogic transitions’ are one place where logic should be left behind. Thus far I haven’t heard two people describe the same experience, so that in itself precludes an objective description of what to expect. So when Frank says, ‘Expect nothing’, it’s not only sage advice, but the only option.