Greeting Folks,
I am a new member and would like to share my experiences in this area. I spend most of my time over at DMT-Nexus but I am hoping to meet other like-minded individuals and compare notes, so to speak. Please forgive the duration and seeming departure from the simple format of this intriguing thread but I do feel this digression has some universal merit and may shed some light upon my particular meditative practices and way of living.
I first began to meditate in 1975. I was involved in martial arts and my teacher introduced us to Seon meditation. Seon is the Korean version of Chan Buddhism, which originated in China over 1500 years ago. It is the same as what the Japanese refer to as Zen. We started each class with just 10 minutes of sitting, prior to beginning the martial aspect of the art. Right around the same time, I began to smoke marijuana. This symbiosis opened my mind to a whole new level of consciousness and I haven't looked back since. :shock:
These experiences fueled my interest and I embraced TM (Transcendental Meditation) in 1976. This was very popular in the 1960's and 1970's. I was drawn even deeper into myself, through it's routine practice. I found the repetition of mantra far easier than merging with the emptiness of Zazen. When I first dropped LSD-25... the process became more of an entire way of life, rather than a methodology of centering my awareness and stilling my restless thought waves. My desire to search for 'The Truth', exponentially increased with each psychedelic session. This path led me through many voyages with acid, mescaline and psilocybin mushrooms.
I was initiated into Kriya Yoga in 1980 and Surat Shabd Yoga in 1982. After a decade of mantra meditation, I was able to pursue direct contemplation upon the empty stillness of the Void. My psychedelic voyages had taught me much about the formless essence of Universal Mind or God. While this continuum was taking place, my journey into the realm of spirituality, steered me towards moving meditations like: Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan and dancing. For myself, the path of the Sage and that of the Shaman, were one way, with a single, central focus... The Divine.
Along the way, I trained my capacity for prolonged sessions of sitting meditation. Ironically, I spent far too much time observing and measuring the process of seeking enlightenment. This becomes a meaningless divergence from the true purpose of said 'meditation', which is freedom from self and the desires which run contrary to our soul's own spiritual needs. Still, through a process of discipline, it became a morning, afternoon and evening continuum (it still is).
The longest time I ever spent in this state of intentional sensory-deprivation (i.e. meditation), was around 8 hours. Way back in 1985, as I recall? That being, 4 separate sessions of approximately 2 hours each, in duration, over the course of the day. It had taken me quite some time to be able to devote this much of my attention within these immaterial, internal explorations. It was an extreme and I soon realized that given the illusory nature of time, this was unnecessary effort.
In all honesty, just how much of this experience was truly meditation and how much was another mental projection of ego? Maybe a more 'spiritual' ego' but still a fixed state of self-awareness, by which I qualified my experiences. Another, far subtler way to conceal self in the drama of the enlightenment game? Yes. Frankly, it doesn't matter if one sits for 2 minutes or two hours, for without merging into the stillness, the external ritual of this meditative posture, is essentially meaningless. Paradoxically, it takes thousands of hours of sitting meditation and contemplation, to realize that any significant degree of awakening exists beyond the boundaries of time, space and thought.
These days, I only sit for an hour or so, depending on worldly obligations and the degree of inspiration I feel, at the moment. This is not to say that the meditative state is not perceived throughout the flow of my daily activities, rather, it the end result of a good deal of internal saturation. Like dying a piece of cloth blue, through repeated immersions, the color is intensified until it becomes our very being. We become the blueness itself. No beginning, no ending, nor form. Without parameters, the Spirit exists in complete spontaneity... simply exuding the vibration of oneness.
Only through immersion with the essence of our true being, Spirit, are we able to make any genuine progress towards discovering our truest state of being. Unless the internal witness to the phenomenon is silenced, we are merely replacing one mindset for another. Granted, through the release of our quantification of subject and object, our habit of self-orientation, we are free to exist in a state which is pure awareness. One without methodology, form or substance. This enlightenment occurs spontaneously when we surrender our fixation with being the watcher of the phenomenon. This is not something we can measure with our rationale or put into any logical time-frame. It is releasing the unreal, in preference for reality, as all is one. Paradoxically, it took thousands of hours in silent contemplation to glean this understanding. :idea:
After 15 years of psychonautical exploration, I was directed by a higher force, to take a sabbatical from the use of Sacred Medicine. Having had over 300 trips (2/3 of which were with LSD-25), it was time for a break in this pattern. I feel it is neither, necessary for everyone who has been involved with psychedelics, nor do I believe that the cessation of this psychonautical approach is key for any spiritual growth. All roads lead to the summit. It was my own personal destiny and I do not believe that this would be so for another soul. I needed to learn the lesson of patience. Waiting for fullness is.
You see, for myself, the way of the Sage and that of the Shaman, are one. That being said, within my personal mirage, my own dream of Dharma, I needed to stay sober for a good long stretch, so as to integrate much of what I had been shown from my symbiosis with entheogens. I needed to find ways to alter my consciousness without chemical enhancement. Actually, I was instructed by my higher self to await, 'The Calling' and I did just that... for nearly 18 years. In 2010, I received an invitation to return to the way of the Medicine Dancer and I experienced an incredible awakening, smoking DMT for the very first time. Since then, I have had a few more profound immersions and eaten psilocybin mushrooms, smoked Salvia Divinorum and been completely shattered by the power of these powerful teachers.
Ultimately, time is an illusion and our mirage of our physical existence is born of our ego-mind. for when we expand our concept of meditation, we find it is an entire way of life, 24/7. When we vigilantly train our attention to focus upon a still, single point of consciousness, we release the need to label one thing as this and another as that. Everything becomes the unbound dance of Spirit and we are spontaneously drawn into the spell of it's Divine Radiance. We eventually learn to merge within the Clear Light of the Void. Our journey of awakening is the remembrance of our own eternal being, the Godhead.
Essentially, when we surrender our habitual mental process, we open ourselves to the interior nature of existence, the most Sacred of all truths... the Indivisibility of the Omniself.
Please forgive this lengthy digression form the criteria of this thread but I feel that some biographical detail was necessary to communicate my intention, my ideas on meditation. Sometimes I think that my user name should probably be Long Wind, instead of Rising Spirit? :wink:
