Theravada

[Happyslap Buddha]

Well this incarnation I got stuck in a white boys body . Long story.

But.... since you ask.

For 10 months now I have been training pretty hard at "astral projection". Much better to say "returning to the source." or soul travel. For the first 3-4 months it was totally frustrating. Couldn't do or perceive a thing. Then I started to make breakthroughs. Could have visions, or enter into a state I called "The galactic sea of love" or "The cosmic nothing." It was very healing. That came about mostly when I focussed on my Lower Dandien, or on the kidney area.

What frustrated me, but I have learned to chill out about, was that I could not completely "drop the body".... i.e half of my awareness was roaming infinity, the other half was very much back on Earth. So I can bilocate pretty much anywhere I want, but still chained to the Earth suit. I tried to push on, but the more I wriggled, the more I got stuck. You have to let the process ffllowww. Now I am losing my instinctual animal fear of fully leaving the flesh by degrees.

Its just a case of persistent training. I use the Gayatri mantra a lot. So much more to say...

[Royal]

1. Hike a difficult mountain.
2. Sit up on the highest rock on the peak.
3. Focus on your breath and the sun hitting your body.
4. Feel the sun and sky reeling out the bad energy inside you outwards. Much like a fishing string reels out to the sea.
5. Continue this visualization process until there is nothing to reel out. Toss it into the sun.
6. Don't get burned. Enjoy the day.

[Pana]

This might help?

Thanissario says to approach the points where you are 'stuck' with patience and exploration. You're stuck until you understand the nature of it.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... ffort.html

[Pana]

PS-

I read a whole slew of Suttas last summer that dealt with the 'obstacles'. I'll try and find them again.

An approach, if you haven't done so already, is just to 'let it be' - to not start making your meditation focus only on that as then it becomes a force for you to push against. Instead of diminishing, it becomes a wall in your mind.

[Happyslap Buddha]

That's a very insightful essay, Pana. Thx. I read it twice. It corresponds exactly with my current level. I like the way Buddha didn't give explicit instructions, and asked his students to explore their meditation themselves. Its the only way, IMO. It also says meditation should be enjoyable exploration instead of dreary practice. Very true.

Of course, saying that meditation should be enjoyable doesn't mean that it will always be easy or pleasant. Every meditator knows it requires serious discipline to sit with long unpleasant stretches and untangle all the mind's difficult issues. But if you can approach difficulties with the enthusiasm that an artist approaches challenges in her work, the discipline becomes enjoyable: Problems are solved through your own ingenuity, and the mind is energized for even greater challenges.

This joyful attitude is a useful antidote to the more pessimistic attitudes that people often bring to meditation, which tend to fall into two extremes. On the one hand, there's the belief that meditation is a series of dull and dreary exercises allowing no room for imagination and inquiry: Simply grit your teeth, and, at the end of the long haul, your mind will be processed into an awakened state. On the other hand there's the belief that effort is counterproductive to happiness, so meditation should involve no exertion at all: Simply accept things as they are — it's foolish to demand that they get any better — and relax into the moment.

While it's true that both repetition and relaxation can bring results in meditation, when either is pursued to the exclusion of the other, it leads to a dead end. If, however, you can integrate them both into the larger skill of learning how to apply whatever level of effort the practice requires at any given moment, they can take you far.

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An approach, if you haven't done so already, is just to 'let it be' - to not start making your meditation focus only on that as then it becomes a force for you to push against. Instead of diminishing, it becomes a wall in your mind.

Haha yes. The day before I read that post, I decided exactly that. To accept where I was, to let it be and just relax without pushing. It's completely true that if you get frustrated it'll just make the problems bigger.

The Robert Monroe Gateway course is excellent help. Has anyone tried it?

Peace

[Pana]

Weird how that works, hey? Synchronicity. Think something one day and bammo! the next few days you see the same message everywhere.

I have not heard of the Gateway program until you mentioned it. Would you care to explain how its helped? Im interested to know!

i liked how Guatama kept telling his son to look at all his actions/thoughts as he lived day to day. That that is a measure as well of the practice.

Yeah, all the miracle seekers and new wavers would have been driven mad by Guatama's style.

[Happyslap Buddha]

The Gateway program helps me zone out very quickly. Its also a full on course for astral projection or 'phasing' as Monroe called it. This link is free.

http://www.monroeinstitute.org/gateway_ ... -exercise/

Yes, there are no real short cuts in meditation, only discipline and glacial progress.