What is the longest you've ever meditated?

[Spotless]

18 hours.

 

The amount of time one meditates is only important in that you move through the unconscious stages at least in the beginning years.

It usually takes at least 20 minutes and often students leave their bodies by this time and the rest of the meditation is really just an out of body experience.

Breathing really helps in this regard.

 

For most students seeking deeper states at least 40 minutes is necessary to settle into a more aware state and get past unconsciousness. Generally, real meditation takes place from this point onward.

 

Breathing - a sort of maintenance breathing - is often necessary to maintain through some of the changes that take place as blocking patterns reach a peak vibration and then blow. These cause many short unconscious variations and also frequently they create popping sounds in and around the neck region.

 

Outside of 1 hour, staying awake should not be a problem. If you are in fact not up to meditation at a certain point because your body needs rest, then you should rest and not practice poorly.

 

In our practice we may be at times driven to meditate for long periods of time. Certainly many of the great masters tell us of their long meditation sessions and hardships so it is natural for some to meditate for what is to some a ridiculously long amount of time.

Yet for many of us who have done long meditation, we do not understand some of the problems others have with staying awake.

Staying awake during meditation becomes easier and easier as you move along in a sitting - after an hour or so one becomes more and more awake. By the 4-6th hour I am typically wide awake, spine very straight and no limbs are numb at all. At the end of 18 hours I was very wide awake but my body signaled that it was time to end it. (I was never forcing myself to push the hours, it just was a wonderful experience and I had no wish to stop).

 

14 hours into the 18 hour meditation my kundalini exploded - it was an exciting ride with a nice landing and on I went for the remaining hours.

 

In my meditation practice I avoid trance and stay in my body (I am not interested in a "trance" debate)

 

My meditation is a concoction of many forms but chiefly Raja Yoga and I am in the center of my head.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Spotless

[joeblast]

I also am very averse to using the word trance. It was used as an analogy by a popular someone whose native tongue was not english, and has been repeated far too often.

 

 

trance¹ [trans, trahns]

noun

1.

a half-conscious state, seemingly between sleeping and waking, in which ability to function voluntarily may be suspended.

2.

a dazed or bewildered condition.

3.

a state of complete mental absorption or deep musing.

4.

an unconscious, cataleptic, or hypnotic condition.

 

 

Although, the "mental absorption" aspect does ring true, it strikes me as one of the rather lesser thought of notions of the term.

 

3. physics a reduction of the intensity of any form of radiated energy as a result of energy conversion in a medium, such as the conversion of sound energy into heat

 

anyone that performs some dantien breathing....upper, lower, whatever....is doing this process of absorption, which becomes more efficient with practice and the building of habit energy.

 

J<>Q<>S

[thelerner]

18 hours.

 

14 hours into the 18 hour meditation my kundalini exploded - it was an exciting ride with a nice landing and on I went for the remaining hours.

In my meditation practice I avoid trance and stay in my body (I am not interested in a "trance" debate)

 

Yowza.

[Spotless]

For those of you that do prolonged meditation, how do you get past the nodding stages and what I call unconscious energy.

Breathing has always been my greatest help in this.

 

I ask this partly because we have here some very good technical people who can articulate all sorts of things that I do not have precise language for. I have notice that many meditators are astonished by long meditation but the reasons seem often related to staying conscious - even if they have plenty of reserve sleep recently backing them up.

 

It is true that the more you do it the longer you can do it but any thing helpful in this regard would be good to add here.

 

I have found doing Qi Gong prior to meditation makes everything sync well and quickly. The physicality of meditation is much easier after Qi Gong for say an hour.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Spotless

[joeblast]

Agreed on physical movement

 

In my experience the unconscious energy is best surpassed with coherent breath mechanics, which eventually extends into correct energy mechanics in some sense. Making efficiency gains is important. So the answer to the question changes as one's meditation changes, to a certain degree.

 

The biggest key for me was working with the niwan, techniques like "turning the light around" from secret of the golden flower, which basically becomes a calm clear "abiding" (since not all definitions really fit) in the light that manifests there. The better that happens, the more "meditation" becomes "sitting peacefully for a short while."

 

But those things dont seem to happen solidly until things like breath mechanics until maximal efficiency, dantien breathing, other things like harmonizing the waxing and waning of the niwan and lower dantien...

 

This is why as a beginner it might not necessarily be productive forcing oneself in the more stern interpretation of the term abiding. The energetics that make it a nice short peaceful sit where the clock as ticked many more times than it feels like become important for long sessions, imho. Other than that it really does feel like hours on end, and your brain not being in an optimal energetic configuration will note those hours on end, all sorts of mundane energetics that consume a lot of mental energy (think thoughtstreamenergy) take their toll and then the consciousness becomes dull.

 

So when I stress shutting up the cranial nerves - doing so also usurps the potential normally manifested as thought stream energy - and there are less of these drains on the conscious energy, making deep states and long sessions a great deal easier.

[goldisheavy]

What is the longest you've ever meditated straight in a single session?

 

Three long aeons.

[KenBrace]

Three long aeons.

 

What the heck is that supposed to mean?

[silent thunder]

About 25 years ago I went through a period where the meditators were talking about the star above the head. I really wanted to see it so I was bound and determined. One afternoon I sat in my lazy boy chair in easy posture and said to myself: "I'm not getting up until I see the star above my head!"

 

I focused my attention above my head and tried very hard to see the star. I put in lots of effort.

 

Well 3 1/2 hours later there was a loud popping sound and I came out of the top of my head. I found myself in a huge open space that resembled outer space. It was a vast dark blue open space and I could see very faint stars in the far distance. There was a part of me that was still anchored to something below and when I tried to move out into the vast expanse of space, it felt like I was going to die. A very strong fear overtook me, that I was about to die, so I quit the "meditation".

 

I did not see a star above the head.

 

However, right after standing up to get a drink of water from the fridge, two fairies came floating through the wall (I was in a basement sweet). I asked them what they wanted. One said that they were here to entertain me. I told them that I did not want to be entertained and asked them to leave. They left, but a few days later, they came back. I eventually made friends with them. They were called Ishta and Faedra. They were quite beautiful and were as big as humming birds. They had lovely translucent wings that looked like dragon fly wings and were wearing each a pink-flesh garment, like scintillating robes draped around their shoulders and waists. They would fly about and leave trails of star dust as they moved about.

 

I realize now, from learning about the practice of phowa (Buddhist practice of leaving the body through a hole in the top of the head), that the 3 1/2 hour effort of projecting my attention up through the crown had broken the seal to the other planes. But it took allot of effort and determination. And since then, I can see a white star directly above the head when I switch to inner sight.

 

During later meditations, I had some interesting experiences in that space. I discovered that no matter how hard I tried, I could not go out into the space. There is an invisible barrier, like cellophane which prevents you from flying or jumping out into the space. When you hit it you are immediately bounced back. When you hit it an array of rainbow lights appear, which suddenly makes the barrier visible.

 

I also discovered that you can get to that space by using the small tunnel at the top back of the head, by spiraling outwards into smaller and smaller spirals. Yet, I am always trapped or anchored down to something and just can't leave. The anchor looks like a jellyfish of light, or the rays of light which resembles a bar magnet's magnetic flow. Perhaps the anchor is a bubble of rainbow light with me, a little speck of light imprisoned on the inside? And I can't break out of the shell?

 

That was the longest I've ever meditated.

 

I had a very similar experience in the Void.

It was the absence of everything that I could conceive of and it was terrifying, I ended the trip abruptly.

Soon after I had another spontaneous trip into the Void while taking a shower, which led to a long vision.

This time it was absolutely spirit filling and renewing...

 

Longest I've meditated in seated, traditional posture is 4-6 hours.

My usual time is around 45-120 minutes, depends entirely on the day and my schedule and inertia.

Though I've gone longer in a waking trance like state, walking around and interacting in a remote sort of fashion for far longer.

[MooNiNite]

Though I've gone longer in a waking trance like state, walking around and interacting in a remote sort of fashion for far longer.

 

love doing this man, especially through the busy cities