Taomeow, I am thoroughly intrigued by your description of this practice. Descriptions of this detail are hard to come by in general written media. Is this the way it is taught by teachers in your experience?
The way you put it reminds me of statements from this essay on sufi meditations and the imaginal realm:
In my own experience, relying on intuition and personal resonance with the simplest teachings (rather than, say, detailed instructions by a human teacher in one of the lineages from which those words are used), I came to interpret the terms "turning the light around on itself" in the following manner:
There is an impulse behind the urge to "pursue" things with one's senses… In other words, for whatever pops up, be it concrete or subtle, to any sense, there is a whole lot of habitual pull… This "pull" is tied to an addiction of sorts, the addiction of scattering the light of awareness into the senses and thoughts-- while we remain disconnected from the integrity of its (potentially infinite) finer operations. When we get experience with letting this "pull" pass without giving into the urge to pursue it, more of our awareness accumulates within and we become more aware of the subtle foundations behind this phenomena. Deep in these subtle foundations, there is some kind of threshold or gate from which a primordial fount of pre-awareness emerges and flows into the mind and senses. Distilling one's senses back into this primal light and then returning it to itself, directing it upon itself, allowing it to manifest qualities within its own non-projected, non-reflected domain, produces the inversion of ordinary existence into trans-mundane illuminations. This new "light turned in on itself" allows one to explore the authentic inner body and universe, and is some kind of "substance" of its own which transcends ordinary limitations. (All in a manner of degrees, it seems. I can only speak in terms of glimpses. )
I'm curious how this take of mine relates to the one you've shared, or how it doesn't. Any thoughts?
