What is it actually like to be immersed in this technique for three days? What is it like when you break through? Different for everybody of course. Here is one account from our December Intensive 2008. Inspiring. Not everyone is as clear as to what's happening to them. Enlightenment Intensive, December 2008 by Asa Medhurst "Meditation is the new rock and roll!" Day one After
the first few hours (which seemed like a hellish eternity) of self
reflection, dissection and dismantling of everything I perceived to be
me, I came to the realisation that everything I knew to be 'me' was an
illusion. I could not be defined by my physical being, my thoughts,
memories, experiences, desires nor conditioning. They all contributed
to a sense of I, but fell away under my intention to directly experience them. In
the sitting contemplation I grasped a sense that all that remained was
conscious awareness and that this was of the same consciousness as
everything else. This sense of undivided consciousness being the only
truth led to a rush of realisation that this consciousness was God, and
that I was in fact God IN THIS MOMENT. God experiencing itself at the
cutting edge of this moment. God experiencing itself embedded in time.
Suddenly my sense of ego dissolved and I felt myself to be infinite in
nature. The only truth was a sense of unbound infinite consciousness in
this moment. This
experience faded and my further dyads revolved around expressing this
insight from different angles in an attempt to directly experience it
again. Day Two Once
more in sitting contemplation I grasped a sense that I was
consciousness alone, the same consciousness as everything else, God
experiencing itself in this moment. I experienced a sensation like a
nutshell breaking open and falling away. Unlike
the previous day I experienced a sense that there was a greater part of
me holding the small husk of my ego awareness. While I identified with
this infinite part of consciousness I still had awareness of my ego and
had the direct experience of being held in a giant hand: that I was
loved, looked after and held by my Holy guardian Angel, soul or aspect
of universal consciousness most intimately experiencing I. In
the most comforting way I could have imagined all my fears, guilt,
shame and sense of loss were washed away by the ultimate parent. In
addition while I sat with my eyes open I could see the manifest word
around me dissolving into light. I knew the solidity of the objective
universe to be illusion - a light construct, a hologram formed from
consciousness WITHIN the body of God. I knew reality as a
construct created within the body of God to allow God the experience of
coming to awareness in the illusion of time and separation. I
looked up and saw Shivam's body in front of me as if for the first
time; ethereal and constructed from light but with a core pillar of
dense white light running through. The
sensation of being held by my love, my soul, the grown up, divine part
of me lasted for the rest of the day, throughout the dyads. I felt
blissful, reassured by a deep rhythmic throbbing at my crown and top of
my forehead. Day Three Though
I struggled to recapture the direct experiences of the previous days,
retracing my footsteps through the logic to the realisations, I could
not recapture the direct experience. The experiences remained
intellectual rather than experiential. I realised I could not spring
the cage of ego awareness the same way twice. "Always take a fresh
approach." I had to let go of the highs and sense of accomplishment I
believed I had achieved in the previous two days. Again
while in sitting contemplation I caught a sense of 'I' and as I gripped
on to it, it shrank in my mind to a black micro-dot wriggling to be
free of my unyielding gaze. With determination I continued to grip on
to the diminishing dot until it vanished in a 'poof' triggering an
overwhelming experience of unfolding from the centre of my being. Like
a web being flung out in all directions, or a geometric shape unfolding
one face at a time this expansion continued to encompass 'everything’.
I was God once again, but the experience this time was almost
exclusively regal. No bliss, but an intense detached regal overview. I
was the king of everything, aloof and over-viewing. I was Shiva and
Parvati in the centre of this web, like they were sitting at the centre
of the Sri Yantra. I was not observing them I WAS Shiva and Parvati
observing the extension of my own body: the manifest universe. I was
home and always had been. I
found the sense of detachment and regality unnerving, unlike anything I
have experienced before. The absence of bliss was the marked difference
from the previous day. I
was unable to go further with any more direct experiences that day and
found a strong urge to sum up and 'work it all out' which I fought
against, applying and reapplying the technique as best I could. Later that evening... That
evening I talked freely with other participants of the intensive and
quickly our conversation dissolved into laughter. This built up until I
had a conversation about parents and drugs. Suddenly I felt a deep
sense of shame and flushed as heat poured through my body. In that
moment I felt as if a final piece of ‘self’ has come loose. I was
surprised as I 'thought' I'd dismantled all these feelings through the
first intense day of dyads. I realised the process was far from over,
despite my ego telling me how well I'd done. That
night I just could not sleep. My crown felt as if it was going to
explode. As I lay with my eyes open I 'saw' at the end of my bed,
myself as a child dressed in a St-George fancy dress outfit my father
had made for me, one of my earliest memories. As I looked at this
image, my child self smiled with joy and nodded - I had killed the
dragon. Before the retreat I had dreamt of St-George and dragon slaying
- the dragon of mind. All very obvious symbolism I noted at the time,
but seeing the figure before me I started crying. At
this time I also saw Shivam, sitting in meditation with a fixed corpse
like gaze, surrounded by a host of ethereal burgundy robed monks inches
from his face peering inquisitively at him. Checking him and his
technique out I thought! Returning
my attention to my child self still standing at the foot of the bed, I
felt waves of ‘energy’ bubbling up through my body, as if I was going
to vomit light. The waves intensified until I felt myself on the verge
of bursting. I ran outside and exploded into the richest laughter I
have ever experienced. I laughed uncontrollably, passionately each
laugh building on the last, falling to the floor, whooping, hooting,
howling, gripping my sides and thumping the grass. As tears streamed
from my eyes, I surrendered unconditionally to the laughter. My back
arched and with arms wide I fell to the grass. As my head hit,
suddenly ‘I’ was gone. My entire awareness was consumed in divine
laughter. I laughed at everything laughing back at me, the moon, the
stars, the earth. I knew why the laughing Buddha laughs. I was the
laughing Buddha! That was the joke, it was all so obvious! I
felt no heat, no cold, no bodily sensation except unending waves of
warm blissful laughter cascading through my body. I had no sensation of
time or place. No sense of I whatsoever. When the laughter began to
subside I suddenly became aware I was freezing cold and should go back
to the house. I stood and felt strange in an unfamiliar body. I
stumbled back to the house for a warm cup of tea. The
next morning in an optional dyad, the laughter resurfaced. But I was
not alone! Open and infinite hearted the laughter rippled around the
dyad, one two three four people began to laugh unconditionally, each
laugh rebounding of another until we were in tears. No fear, non
restriction, no limits, just pure joy. >>> |