Mystic Experiences ...

[Orbit]

Fear can be thoughts. Absolutely. I suffered from panic attacks earlier in life and they were 99% of the time triggered by fearful thoughts. If i read it into it wrong then discard this reply. Here is some buddhaism on fear for you. Food for thought. 

 

Fear, axiety and phobia

Fear isn't a thought. Fear is your reaction to a thought. Fear is an emotional state.

[Guest Furball]

If i understand you, you can have fearful thoughts, but without the "feeling" of fear?

[Orbit]

If i understand you, you can have fearful thoughts, but without the "feeling" of fear?

Yes, but that would be unusual. Thoughts can produce fear, but thoughts are not fear--they are thoughts. Conversely, the emotional state of fear can produce negative thoughts.

[Ravenstar]

In the meditation I practice the skill needed is to become entirely effortless… states of consciousness are reached by not reaching for them. When I began my practice I was given a mantra (one word) to mentally recite… after a while the recitation became more of a examination of the sound of the mantra, then just a mechanical buzz behind the floating thoughts… which also became, though kind of fascinating.. also a background buzz to the actual meditative state. I have never experienced fear during meditation though. The only emotion I feel when in deep is a kind of humorous wonder, acceptance and peace. It's the opposite of logical thinking though… it comes softly, and just is.

 

It's VERY hard to put into words… words don't have much meaning in certain states. But I understand the oneness and expansion others speak of.

 

Another form I use for when I am confused about something in my life is to turn inward and kind of 'drop' into the darkness inside… the odd thing about this particular form is that the farther I go (it seems based on the centre of my abdomen - around the area of the solar plexus) the more expansive it becomes… until it (and I) are existence itself.

 

I've had many 'mystical experiences'… some during meditation and others quite spontaneous. They are very personal and usually contain some revelation of the state of reality. (at least as I interpret it) Sometimes they show me something about the world I could not have known.. sometimes it's very trivial, but interesting. (I'll know who is going to call, or knock on the door… or, weirdly - what someone on the tv is going to say next). I get a lot of Deja Vu. Whatever it is it usually increases my sense that ultimately, all is well.

 

These things do increase with how much I meditate - which I've kind of let slip.. so I think I should carve out more time for it.

[Joshpantera]

I have not gotten into the meditation where you recite or do something. I sort of skipped ahead to not do anything. This is mainly because Peter Russell is who peaked my curiosity in meditation over his well rounded physics and mind exploration platform: 

 

 

Around 17:00 forward he discusses his 2nd trip to India and meditating for 24 hour periods. I find that interesting as hell. He's really big into awareness. He argued elsewhere that awareness seems to go all the way down into the sub-atomic, and that Consciousness is primary - the one thing we can not doubt. When I answer the questions of a religious belief survey to the effect that I believe that matter is a manifestation of Consciousness I'm rated as an Idealistic Pantheist. I don't know if that's true or if it just seems that way, so I'm actually agnostic about the claim that all is Consciousness. But I'm open to that argument. In the event that it is true Idealist Pantheism results from it. 

 

I'll use the Advaita Vedanta mantra suggested by Orbit and see where trying to do something takes me, as opposed to the not doing anything method described by Russell. So far I have not experienced any fear through meditation, but rather peace. The only real fearful, traumatic experience was that in between waking and dream state where I was pouring through thoughts, accepting them as valid, and then feeling like I was going out of control and fading away. It was a knee jerk to stay alive type of feeling. I don't see that type of fear of not returning coming from meditation. Probably because meditation is sort of controlled, you can come back out. This seemed way out of control and it was the loss of control factor that scared the shit out of me. 

[Ellinas]

I can relate to the "dropping into the darkness inside" idea.  I've always seen this as being as if we exist on the surface of reality, and to reach the greater whole (if all that isn't a nonsensical misuse of language - I don't quite know how else to express it) requires a counter-intuitive reaching inwards and downwards rather than outwards and upwards.

[Ravenstar]

that fits my experience.. and yes, language is inadequate

[Leo]

I haven't had the kinds of experiences you all describe here. But it's like I have two selves. I don't even really understand the 'self' the way the mystics or even the Christians do. On the one hand, I see the world all naturally, cause and effect, empathy vs. psychopathy, stuff like that. But then this "other self" bubbles up at times: I get some kinds of odd connected type feelings I neither understand nor know what to do with. I stood outside in the street one early morning, and hearing the birds awakened, just thought: this could be any time in human prehistory, or before humans, after birds appeared of course. Naturally, there weren't any cars going by at that tine. I even found myself stepping off the sidewalk onto the grass just taking it all in.

 

I also always get some kind of feeling when people are looking at the moon and stars at night. I have never had eyesight, but have read a lot on astronomy. But even as a little boy, I always particularly liked being around that: not just other describing what they saw, but just the "vibe," if you will, to co-opt a sixties term. There are times when the Wife radiates, often when She is experiencing something spiritual; She is still a Christian. But now that I'm out, I realize what I always liked about that was Her radiating.

 

What is this? What is this other "self" that seems to be independent of me, and always has? It seems to seek the sublime, to co-opt a 19th-century term, it seems to seek those types of "radiating" experiences, or something deeper than mere sentimentality. I read about things like the druids and bards of old, I in that other self seem to somehow connect, or relate, to those. Of course, I know rationally the stories are myths, the people were humans who were doing the best they can in a very different world from our own. But it happens. I cannot seem to meditate, but I will take my Native American flute and just play on it, breathe long and from the diaphragm as I was taught playing other wind instruments in the past. But having a love affair with paleoarcheology I learned that the pentatonic scale, from which Native flutes are made, was the original scale of the Neanderthal bear bone flutes. So I today was playing around with Brian Boru's March, an old Irish tune from the year 1000.

 

I guess I don't connect with a force or oneness like many talk about on here, but with natural things in an extraordinary way, and from another "self" that I don't always relate to very well. I know this sounds crazy, and if I did not have this "other self" I would be one of those skeptics that pooh poohed it all: I'm a software developer by day, have been tinkering with things electrical / mechanical since I was a kid, fully embrace the sciences as a way to explain how things work.

 

But what is this "other self?" I don't believe in a soul anymore, I'm not even uncomfortable with the idea of a "final end," although we cannot know for sure of course. But it has only been in recent months that this confusing aspect to me has been something I can better describe, as ineptly as I might be doing that now. It seems to be stimulated from without as well as within: I haven't been able to meditate. But I end up coming face to face with it when observing birds, a hobby of mine, or doing any of the other things I've mentioned. Or sometimes, for no reason at all, there it is. Surprise. I think it used to scare me when I was younger. Not now, I'm merely left confused about its presence there. I probably sound nuts I guess, but I lead a very average "normal" life in many ways. It's just something I have, be it mystical, natural, or a combination of the two, or something else altogether.

[Ellinas]

The "other self", if i understand you correctly, is you.

[Leo]

Well, if that's all. Hmm, that leaves me perhaps more confused than when I first wrote this.

Not sure what to make of that last post, actually. It's an odd situation I'll grant you that.

[Joshpantera]

What I find fascinating is the entire blind experience, including dumping Christianity despite it's promises.

 

In terms of meditation, you would seem to have a great advantage because you're not having to close your eyes and set aside the sense of vision which basically gets in the way. Being tuned in to a strong sense of hearing, touch and smell seems like such a greater mystical foundation to set out from. It would be interesting to see what type of experiences meditation would bring you.

 

I've noticed that in a lot of movies there'll often be some type of mystic who is blind and yet sees not through visual perception. In the matrix, for example, Neo had to go blind in order to "see." 

[Ellinas]

Well, I might be completely misunderstanding you.

 

However, seems to me that you do not believe in the soul, you are accepting of the concept of a "final end" and that can only lead to the conclusion that you see life and consciousness as physically generated.

 

So, any idea of self you have you would have to see as emanating from your own brain.

 

How can it be other than you?

 

There are other ways of seeing this which, I accept, would allow for the non-physical.  I rather suspect even on that basis I would have said the same - the "other self", whatever it's ultimate nature, is ultimately you.  However, for now, I confine myself to the belief system you appear to suggest.  On that basis, I am a little puzzled by your confusion.  What alternative to some sort of experience of your own consciousness is possible?

 

Apologies if I am adding to your confusion as a result of not comprehending your meaning.

[Leo]

I guess you're right Ellinas. So the apparent confusion I experience re: some sort of duality that I have overtly stated I don't believe exists, and yet I have also said I kind of run into, perhaps such confusion is my own and not really worth much for this topic.If it's simply me, which I'd assume that it is, it's scertainly quite different than the "me" I deal with on an ongoing basis under normal conditions. I don't think it's a fairy or a god or something, if that's what you meant.

 

Joshpantera, the Christians also would claim that I should somehow be more spiritual. I said before I cannot seem to meditate. I have all the same problems with meditating that I used to with Christian prayers. I think this idea that since I can't see makes me more spiritual is just in the imagination of the observer. You did mention movies. Surely we know there are black spiritual types in books and movies, and in fact I know a couple black atheists who struggle on account of said stereotypes. The neuroscience is clear, however: irrespective of inputs, the "visual" centers of the brain light up with and without sight, as do other parts of the brain with or without the accompanying sense intact. I'm as distractable as you are, in fact more than most. And no, that's not because I'm blind. Some people are distractable and some aren't. I see the mystical blind mythology in the same way as many might see the mystical negro. It's mythology, and especially before advances in neuroscience which have totally debunked the ideas that I should be able to perform better in some areas because I lack in another.

 

I told a psychic recently at a bar: If you really believe this about senses improving, next time you can't hear someone on a call, or they can't hear you, break the camera on your phone and see if the situation improves.

Personally I think it's something in the brain that lets people pray and meditate more easily. I can't prove it, and don't have the professional cred to try. But it's interesting how some of these things can continue to be perpetuated, irrespective of the science on the topic.

[Joshpantera]

I guess you're right Ellinas. So the apparent confusion I experience re: some sort of duality that I have overtly stated I don't believe exists, and yet I have also said I kind of run into, perhaps such confusion is my own and not really worth much for this topic.If it's simply me, which I'd assume that it is, it's scertainly quite different than the "me" I deal with on an ongoing basis under normal conditions. I don't think it's a fairy or a god or something, if that's what you meant.

 

Joshpantera, the Christians also would claim that I should somehow be more spiritual. I said before I cannot seem to meditate. I have all the same problems with meditating that I used to with Christian prayers. I think this idea that since I can't see makes me more spiritual is just in the imagination of the observer. You did mention movies. Surely we know there are black spiritual types in books and movies, and in fact I know a couple black atheists who struggle on account of said stereotypes. The neuroscience is clear, however: irrespective of inputs, the "visual" centers of the brain light up with and without sight, as do other parts of the brain with or without the accompanying sense intact. I'm as distractable as you are, in fact more than most. And no, that's not because I'm blind. Some people are distractable and some aren't. I see the mystical blind mythology in the same way as many might see the mystical negro. It's mythology, and especially before advances in neuroscience which have totally debunked the ideas that I should be able to perform better in some areas because I lack in another.

 

I told a psychic recently at a bar: If you really believe this about senses improving, next time you can't hear someone on a call, or they can't hear you, break the camera on your phone and see if the situation improves.

Personally I think it's something in the brain that lets people pray and meditate more easily. I can't prove it, and don't have the professional cred to try. But it's interesting how some of these things can continue to be perpetuated, irrespective of the science on the topic.

 

 

Apologies if that came off as offensive. I see your point. It's the stream of thoughts that are the main distraction. And I need to look into what neuroscience has revealed up to date because I just don't know.

 

So you've pretty much exhausted your efforts into meditation?  

[Orbit]

Personally I think it's something in the brain that lets people pray and meditate more easily. I can't prove it, and don't have the professional cred to try. But it's interesting how some of these things can continue to be perpetuated, irrespective of the science on the topic.

 

Leo, there is actually quite a bit of science behind meditation. Zen monks have been hooked up to EEGs, meditators have been put into MRI machines and given PET scans. Something happens to the brain during meditation and that is a scientific fact. Certain brainwave states are induced. We have good medical research establishing the value of meditation in treating panic attacks and reducing stress and anxiety.

 

Beyond that, what you experience in the meditative state, which is more properly termed an altered state of consciousness, is up for human interpretation. I personally think that meditation is how you access your deepest self, your consciousness, which is the closest thing we have to what might be called God.

 

Anyone can learn to meditate with practice. It's not that meditation is any easier for me, it's that I put the effort in.

[DayLight]

I didn't really have a mystical experience in the sense that people usually talk about.  But, since I like to think (process data in my mind), I had an experience related to that.

 

I just remember the most glorious two weeks where my mind became sharp and I could process information really well.  And it's interesting that the words on the screen felt like candy to me.  I see this long email and I feel excitement... seeing so many bits of information that can be processed.... I thought that was weird, this excitement about seeing bits of information... (aka words on the screen).

 

But it was SOOO nice to be smart for that short period.

[Guest Furball]

Last night i decided to meditate to the soundscapes music channel on my tv. While doing this, i had a mystical experience that i was one with the universe. Like i actually could sense (feel) it.

 

Years and years ago i was meditating out on a mountain and i experienced the sensation of there being no time, only eternity. I literally felt time disappear and could feel myself in an eternal existence.  

 

-now if you'll excuse me i have to go drink some more cool aid

[Leo]

Joshpantera, I challenged your response but was not offended in the kind of modern foot-stamping way you see on the Internet. I assumed it was innocently stated, but merely tried to perhaps rectify some aspects to a believed blind / spiritual connection that many seem to think.

 

Orbit, fair enough. I'd be more likely to work at it if I got any traction at all in understanding how or what the results were supposed to look like.

 

By way of example, I've met people who claimed they don't know how to do push-ups. I've also got down on the floor with one, both of us doing a few push-ups, explaining how it should feel in the core and pecs and such. And in my case having someone nearby who could see to direct the other's movements. It may be that that is my problem. Admittedly prayer was more of a duty and a discipline, more to prove you had done it than anything else.

 

But the way I've heard people talk about meditation it is more of a workout where you're supposed to acieve some kind of results. It's probably the failure to gain any form of traction or even understanding as to what's supposed to be happening, that has been more my issue than anything. Similar to learning to play the Native American flute: Sure I have played other instruments and understand the importance of the discipline of practice. It wasn't until I actually watched some Youtube videos where they explained how to get certain sounds out of it, that I was able to really make any headway with it, putting aside recorder technique and doing things exactly as they were showing us, and afterwards developing my own style. That's probably more my problem than anything else.

[Joshpantera]

So Leo, as a musician of sorts, what's your take on guys like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder?

 

I've always thought that their lacking in one area led to greater development in other areas. Without sighting an instrument it all rolls over to a very keen sense of touch and sound in order to play the instrument without seeing where you're at and what you're doing.

 

Do you think science has proven that either of these guys didn't develop much stronger in their touch and sound senses due to their lack of vision? 

 

 

[Leo]

Those two are good musicians though I have never gotten into Stevie Wonder. How does one account for Richard Wakeman of Yes? Or John Lords of Deep Purple? Or Oscar Peterson or David Bruebec? Or Jimmy Smith or Joey D'Francesco? All great keyboard players with amazing chops most of us only wish we had, and none of them blind.

Both Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles are simply products of their time, and leaders of their own kinds of soul / jazz / whatever parts of their respective careers you're referring to. Both can play and sing, that's a talent I don't have. But many people seem to, and most aren't blind.

So in order to make the blindness connection, one would have to produce a blind guitarist who is better than Steve Vai, violinist better than Pagamimi, keyboardist better than the aforementioned, then prove that it was their blindness that did it.

 

 

You know what I do think? If a reasonably good musician happens to be blind, everyone wants to attribute it to their being blind. <Insert any superstition about other senses here>. I, for one, was at best a reasonably good but not excellent keyboard player. To some young kids who didn't grow up with the kinds of chops we listened to in the 70s and 80s, raised on a diet of Taylor Swift or The Decemberists, they might claim it was being blind, if they heard it. But to anyone who was a kid in the 70s and 80s, when keyboardists were a dime a dozen, they might not even notice the stacked keyboards, the chops such as they were. I did have a teacher once who said, "It's ten percent inspiration and 90% perspiration."

 

I don't think you'll get any traction from the neuroscience RE: your question, but yu'd probably have to ask a neuroscientist. However, if you read up on the Tunnel Rats of Vietnam, a fascinating read, you'll learn that human beings can learn to adapt quickly to a new environment, like soldiers plunging into dank, pitch-dark caves and fighting it out with Vietcong. I can tell you one thing, though: as for me, it's never been any secret to fellow musicians what I am, and more importantly perhaps, what I'm not. And, being musicians, they've never withheld comment.

[Joshpantera]

I think you're still missing the point I've been trying to make, Leo.

 

It's not comparing blind musicians to other musicians and claiming the blind musicians are better or out perform. I don't know of any who are better. This is more to the point of how it's harder for them to simply play the instrument than it is for others who can see the keys or fret boards and know where they're at. Wonder and Charles are not superior piano players as far as I know, it's just that they've had to develop stronger in other areas simply to play at all. 

 

With guitar it's even harder than piano:

 

 

Jeff Healey had to develop a method of laying the guitar on his lap and playing it more like a keyboard in horizontal position. He's using his thumb where you'd normally be using your pinky finger and his hand is completely reversed. He's not Steve Vai, no, but he can at least hold ground with Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vahn and other blues based guys. If I close my eyes it's a lot harder to do something like improve in G minor on the 3rd fret and then jump on octave and back down again without sighting the fret board position. I'm a blues based guitarist myself so I appreciate the hurtles he's overcome to play as good as he does.

 

But that's all an aside really.

 

What I was originally saying was that when it comes to meditation there's a level of distraction of having your eyes open and looking around at the world. The first stage is to close your eyes. Then next comes slowing down the stream of thought process. Being blind, you're already into the second stage having surpassed the first. That's all I really meant by it. I had no intention of the "spiritual negro" or some Christian idea that blind people are more spiritual in the way that you responded. What I was suggesting is that maybe you'd be surprised at the results if you just gave it a try. But from your response I take it that you've already tried and basically don't do well with it and have already given up. 

 

There's an issue with sight when it comes to the mystical. We're perceiving the world around us as discrete and separate, but the deeper level issues concern the unity underlying and interconnecting everything that appears as not unified. So sight, as it turns out, becomes a stumbling block to higher spirituality. That's why in the movies and so on you'll see blind mystics who "see" not through visual perception. I think that's why they tied that dynamic into the matrix....

[Leo]

I've never laid my guitars down on my lap to play them. Perhaps there's something unique about what he's trying to produce when he does it. He does, after all, have a very unique sound.

Certainly my ears are distracted. I can't close my ears to the world and block out sounbd. I guess I could close them with earplugs. A blind friend of mine puts it like this: You can close your eyes and remove the distractions. But how do I do that with sound?

 

I guess it's no more and no less than discipline of mind since we can't close our ears.

 

Quite obviously, I can no more know what it is to see than you or I could know what insects experience by seeing in infrared.

 

But if this blindness business is a break point for spiritual people, then perhaps it's why I've had difficulty making that connection. After all, there's the mythos behind the blind or black thing, and then there's the reality.

 

Oh and FYI, it's not harder to play an instrument blind or sighted. I was told this all the time growing up from all my instructors, all of whom were sighted. That's true for at least piano / keyboards, guitar and bass, fretted or fretless. Because sighted people don't look at their hands when they're playing.

 

What you see with Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder are two innovators of style, two musicians who changed the face of their respective generas.

[Joshpantera]

You don't really have to block out sound in meditation. I listen to some guided meditation from time to time with brain wave technology. I like the voice of Kelly Howell! I guess I have a soft spot for New Age chicks.  I'll post a video below.

 

 

The sound is a big part of the experience. Eyes are closed, however. You do this long enough and you can feel a real buzz in your forehead, filtering into a full body buzz if you get into it enough. 

 

Don't you see music itself as spiritual, in a natural way? The out pouring of energy within you coming out into the world through your playing. I've been into improve and playing by ear. That in particular I see as worlds more spiritual than reading sheet music.  

[Leo]

I've got to hand it to you, that one was interesting. Though even with that, I had a lot of trouble keping my mind focused and not thinking of other stuff.

 

Music is obviously moving for us. I know how to read Braille sheet music, but the process of learning using that is really rather arduous to say the least. So yes, once you can do it by a combination of listening and theory it gets much easier, more flowing.

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing that vid.