de_paradise

dat

Thanks for reviving this topic. I had some more thoughts recently, in that a whole era or group of people get boiled down into one archetype that represents the whole. We need archetypes, otherwise, our brains simply cannot cope with all the data. Interesting that someone pointed out that it appeals to adolescent mind not the mature mind. I would go further, and it really speaks to the primitive rage that people repress, the Jungian shadow. Possibly maturity allows a person to integrate these primitive emotions, or perhaps not. Very few are the people who roam the earth who have truly integrated their primal rage and shadow self. If you follow prof Jordan Peterson's talks on the subject, you may understand how its more likely that 90 plus percent of us are much closer to homocidal or genocidal potential given the correct social and political circumstances, drawing from the fact that 90 percent of Germans tacitly or directly aided in the holocaust, even though they were no longer adolescents, and had mature, civilized minds. Mosh pit dancing is trance inducing, as well as becoming unified with the crowd via the music, Some Sufi and Hassidic dancing is similar, jumping around with the boys in a music trance. its not a unique spiritual experience, except that in grunge the unspoken rules allow you to be somewhat more violent as you jostle around. So we were able to release alot of emotions, positive and negative all at once. Extremely healthy. My last point is about the "teen angst" which is really a recognition of the unsatisfactory nature of life, in Samsara. And the gen X'ers who, after their little rant, found meditation and yoga to be a more long term solution to the ongoing up and down nature of human existence.

There are two different possible conceptions of God in this verse. One is panentheist (not pantheist) where God is everything and creates everything including what we call "evil" which is not evil if God created it. This is a Kabbalist or higher understanding, a kind of enlightened understanding similar to Buddist or Taoist, which is why the Kabbalists hid this kind of teaching. Most people are not ready to step out of ethical monotheism because many people would not act in a virtuous or healthy way if they understood that pursuing evil was as much of God as pursuing good. They would simply just follow their pleasures and ego inclinations or worse. Ethical monotheism sets out what is right and wrong. This is orthodox Judaism, who would interpret the verse as something like God created evil so that you may go towards the good. Link to article Further in Isaiah 45, God says further qualifications similar to this, 25Through the Lord shall all the seed of Israel find righteousness and boast. You can study this concept and others in a book called, The Secret Life of God

I watched the first 27 seconds and conclude that he is having a kind of temporary awakening experience, not stable. His grinning at his hand is all the clues one needs.

I developed a system of yoga that takes main points above discussed. To a simple asana routine, I add a smile, or varying emotions similar to the secret smile. I call it "heart yoga" because it tends to open the heart energetic center. As far as starting practice with the perfect emotional state, don't worry. The masters knew that we all come into practice at many different emotional states and mindsets. Its the practice that can transform this in a jiffy, because as you increase your qi flow, you can use that as a lever to amplify a positive emotional state. Over time the practice becomes your "happy place" and is an instant emotional anchor. This is what the masters mean, when they say with so few words, to just be that positive emotional state. Another interesting comment I'd like to address is if these emotions are "just" passions. Yes on a lower level, but much more than passions as you develop the heart. The power of higher love reveals itself within the passion all along, but subtler, less attached, having more in common with some level of emptiness. However the way to achieve the higher quality of love is through the frequent practice of the heart center. The effectiveness is born out by all the many schools that practice some form of devotion, such as Tantra, Hassidut, guru yoga, etc.

-practise in front of a mirror -thank the audience before you start -its ok to admit to nervousness because it inspires empathy, (although never admit to being tired if you are) -talk as if to one person, a friend

Hi Shad, I have the same symptom of painful ring thing around the heart, that I can sense more easily at night in bed, and you can perhaps look at my own diagnosis and compare to yours, although I dont have meridian pains or some other sexual energy build up issue you mention, I do have sadness, which upon closer study is due to a very selfish lifestyle. When people are absorbed in themselves only, its very easy to feel depressed. The heart center is the physical entry point of our ego, the thing which binds us to this programmed attached life, fear and desire, samasara. Why I say it is the center of the ego, is that is where the first pain (of and fear or pain of a desire being thwarted) actually hits the body, it comes in energetically like a squid around the heart center, and it gets subsequently translated into physical tension of muscles and nerve around the area. The physical tension gets interpreted by your mind as negative feelings, and the mind spins in negative thinking thoughts. The solution I have come up with is just witnessing the heart center, turning my attention to the heart as various physical tensions or feelings tend to waft around. I have tried breathing into it, however it is too deliberate, too strong, and tends to suppress not dissolve the pain away. So to witness and to not attach interpretations of the pain, not to label it, turning it into a kind of meditation on the heart, is how the solution works. But alas this is only a temporary ointment to a larger problem, which I have mentioned, is selfishness, and the general use of your heart only for fear and greed, instead of higher emotions. In summary, I think this is far from opening the heart center as some have mentioned, but it is closer to discovering the pain of existence of an unenlightened human, and localizing a key source of the pain, a place where subtle energy body interfaces with the physical body.

I am going to address the topic of deep trance, so that we can form educated opinions about what it is versus typical (somnabulistic state) hypnosis, why hypnotherapists avoid deep trance, and why it may be helpful for spiritual seekers. When a subject reaches a state of deeper trance, Esdaile and below, they are no longer responsive to suggestion in the same way. Their mind is hyper-aware, but they are also aware of how good they feel in the deep state so they tend to disregard whatever instructions the therapist give unless its something they completely agree with at the time. In deep states communication is more of a negociation. These deep states are useless from a typical hypnotherapy perspective, except for pain-control, such as dental hypnosis because in deep trance you are numb to pain stimuli. Deep states of hypnosis are also used in the field of "metaphysical hypnosis", which is a kind of experimental and based on getting in contact with your higher mind for reasons of self-healing, healing others over a distance, enlightenment, life problem solving, and various other metaphysical topics. What I'd like to stress here is that key for deep states is the subject does the work themselves, and the hypnosis is only meant to guide them to this higher mind state, or states, and up to them and their higher mind to decide if there is any benefit. Metaphysical hypnosis is not lucrative or well researched because people pay therapists to solve mundane problems, yet I personally have had good results from deep trance, leading to a "samadhi" or temporary enlightened state that lasted about 10 days. The mind-to-mind healing research is about putting one person into a higher mind state, and allowing that superior, extra-body consciousness diagnose and heal another. This is something that the Sichort and Ramey were experimenting with, as well as Gerald Kein in ultra-height.

I would argue that the "regular" hypnotic state and deep trance states are quite different There is little research on deep trance states, as they tend be more rare, a little more hit-and-miss, as you see with Sichort's research. There are perhaps many levels of consciousness that we are unaware of in this material plane that we may accidentally somehow access by deliberately plumbing our minds via hypnotic inductions. We can look at hypnosis as a tool or a process, just as meditation is a tool or process, and both can open up areas of mind, that even though the state is temporary, can have a sticky or lasting effect on one's waking consciousness. We may be able to unlock some hidden capacities or abilities just by attaining a particular deep state for a little while. At the very least, it can serve as first-hand proof of different states of consciousness other than the mundane. My theory is that even though hypnosis, as TM puts it, fractures consciousness, we can also perhaps instantly repair the fracture through suggestion. Nothing is ever really fractured anyway. I think its a matter of guiding the subject up to a slightly "higher" level of consciousness to where the deep states can be experienced and remembered. Anyway, I will create this deep trance session based on this theory and put it on my youtube channel in the future, and you may message me for the eventual link. I may call it "Hypnosis: deep trance experience: plumbing deep consciousness" or something like that.

These are good questions, and no definitive answer, primarily because people do not agree on what is the meaning of hypnosis, and also "meditation." There are large areas of overlap obviously. But here are my answers: I think that deep meditation differs from deep trance hypnosis in that the general intent of meditation is to keep a single-pointed focus, whether it be repetitive mantra, noting, or breath etc. This tends to "clear the slate" of the mind until it becomes automatic, and when a person goes deeper into subconscious mind, towards alaya (deeper level) mind, this automatic slate clearing programming continues as a sort of auto-pilot. At certain points a person can experience special spiritual altered states, such as velvet blackness, blue, some kind of samadhi state, etc, and maintain a fairly good degree of consciousness, so you can experience these states as if you were there in an alternate world. In summary, the key to meditation is that ongoing repetition (of noting, breath, etc.) and intent to continue that meditation even as you start to move to the edge of your consciousness. Because normally, when we move to the edge of consciousness, a kind of babbling dreamscape comes along: words, pictures, (known as vritti) scenarios drag us into dream or unconsciousness. Only by relaxing, surrendering and a thin mental tenaciousness, letting go, but still holding onto the meditation can you proceed deeper. In contrast, hypnosis does not emphasize being conscious. Hypnosis is a quicker access to deep states because your intent is to allow yourself to let go and go deeply as possible, you don't have to maintain any one-pointed focus as you arrive at the gates of subconscious and dreaming. But you do have to have an external voice guiding you, and they must know what will work. In ultra depth, or even in a fairly good state of hypnosis, you can just zonk out, and will not have recollection of any deep states that you experienced, similar to not remembering what went on in dreams or other states of sleep. I hope you do find some more references and people working with deep states of hypnosis. I took the ultradepth course with James Ramey (RIP), but I haven't checked lately to see if anyone has been working on this.

Throughout all my years with Kundalini, I've come to the point of narrowing it down to 2 simple guidelines, for life, work, lifestyle, friends, partners, investments, etc: 1. Simplify and and do not complicate. When in doubt go towards what brings peace. 2. Go towards people whose energy makes you feel good, and away from people whose energy messes yours up. These seem quite easy to follow, but they are also easy to forget.

No matter what you do, in a very short time you will end up as a handful of dust, as we all will.

How about start with gettting deeper into vispassana? Why is it that when we find something that works for us we get greedy for something else?

Audio waves are the pathway. Video is a pathway. You supply the intent. Of course you must have that power or ability or it wont work very well, (similar to being able to move your fingers). So either you train that ability or are somehow bestowed it, or were born with it. My teacher said it was possible so I tested the hypothesis a few years back, and it seemed to work with a video recording.

Whenever the opportunity comes up, I tend to reinvent the word "faith" for people as well. This is only because I discovered it to be a useful way in to a higher, more connected state. But I have discovered that one needs no particular object to have faith in, only to put the state on like clothing. Once you understand that the object or set of beliefs is actually a throw away part of what faith is about, that it was all about your inner consciousness along, not all the exterior jazz, you can really start to work with faith. Faith evaporates the ego and connects you right into whatever scene you may have around you. A state of faith may have some trance-like qualities, such as a sense of well-being, perhaps an outward confidence in movements due to a lack of conscious mind interference. Maybe it becomes less trance-like and more like an awakened state as one's own Understanding grows.