Nikolai's Practice notes, Phase .2.

But what is happening to me? I am going through the weirdest of phases. A dark nightish onslaught of negative sensations flowing at all the chakras, particularly the throat and heart. And the thoughts that arise and pass away without being fed anything to grow and linger, continue to seem like a chorus or an orchestra of voices wanting to be heard, but falling on deaf ears. There really is nowhere to land, nowhere to stick. It is a strange , strange experience. I ask myself...Am I suffering? But that thought itself evaporates. I ask myself again, Am I suffering? There are miserable sensations and miserable fragmented thoughts arising like there is no tomorrow, but...the answer is obvious... "I" am not suffering. What is "I" anyway? , not what it seemingly was before.....trippy. There seems to just be suffering without the stickiness, that's all, no "I" attached to it...without the belief that there is an entity that is suffering. Trippy!

"Nick", the fabrication that was "Nick" is still arising and passing away. The fact that it was and still is a fabrication is loud and clear. But it continues to arise and pass away in all it's ugly and beautiful glory. Hehe! Man, "I" have got some integrating and acclimatizing to do. Elephant gestating period indeed!

Another thing. Kenneth has asked me if I would like to post some of my experiments and stuff I've written in the guest writing section. Someone asked him to ask me. I am kind of unsure exactly what I should put there. So if anyone would like to tell me what they'd like to see me post in the Guest Writing section, please advise me here on this thread.

Ta!

Metta!!!!

Nick,

I think the fruition/Goenka piece you wrote is a fabulous resource, and there are probably a lot of folks like yourself who started in that tradition and would find it immensely helpful. I found it helpful and I am not a Goenka practitioner.

TaTa!

Nikolai,

Actually I already kind of wrote about this at the 'Paying it forward' thread, but no matter. I have found your writings to be extremely helpful in my practise! Especially the points that you wrote recently in the 'Paying it forward' really made things click for me. I have now finished reading your entire practise journal; I think it is one of the most shining jewels in this cave of treasures called KFD. As such it is priceless. I was just thinking that if you would like to summarize some of your experiments and put them in the Guest Writings section that would really help starting new yogis by making this information even more accessible.

Some things that came to my mind:
- Excellent writing you had at Dharma Overground about getting the first path
- Different experiments with jhanas
- Experimentations with fruitions.
- Also if you could write some kind of summary of the stages you have gone trough with your own practise, I think many people would find it very helpful.

Metta,
Antero.

Ok! for those who asked, I just posted my account of stream entry in the Guest Writing Section. It is a revised version from the original that was posted at the DhO. Feel free to ask any questions here in my practice notes thread.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Niko...ount+of+stream+entry

Thanks, Nick. Great story. As you clearly pointed out (twice!), your experience is not typical, so no one should expect their own practice to look just like yours. Each yogi will have his or her own unique story.

Metta,

Kenneth

Nice article you wrote! I can relate to a lot of what you wrote there.

Regarding the article:
'When you are ready to move to the next stage of enlightenment, '¦ , you drop back into the 1st nana, Knowledge of Mind and Body to start another insight cycle' '“Nick

Shouldn't it be 4th nana instead of 1st? For me at least, I seem to be thrown back into 4th nana (A&P) whenever I complete a new cycle of insight. Not a big deal, but might be a bit misleading to beginners:)

"
Regarding the article:
'When you are ready to move to the next stage of enlightenment, '¦ , you drop back into the 1st nana, Knowledge of Mind and Body to start another insight cycle' '“Nick

Shouldn't it be 4th nana instead of 1st? For me at least, I seem to be thrown back into 4th nana (A&P) whenever I complete a new cycle of insight. Not a big deal, but might be a bit misleading to beginners:)"

Hi Evan,

Actually in the experience of many yogis, including myself, when you are "ready" to move on to the next stage of awakening, that means from 1st path to 2nd path, from 2nd path to 3rd path, then one "usually" drops back into the 1st nana to start the new path cycle again. If we are talking just the review cycles then yes, a yogi drops back down to the 4th nana each time after a fruition. Once you are ready for third path , you might drop down in the 1st nana again. Make the resolution to get to third path and you might see this occur. (I am assuming it is the same for all yogis. I could be wrong)

Nick

Hello! Thanks for clarifying that

It's an interesting topic you're covering there. It seems like there's something I don't quite understand here. The whole topic of reviews, mini-cycles, cycles within cycles, Review Phase A/B, path cycles e.g. are very confusing to me. That's a possible topic of your next article, hint hint

My original understanding was this: A yogi starts at 1st nana, and then goes sequentially up to 11th nana (equanimity) until he gets a path moment (1st path). That's called a complete 'Progress of insight cycle'. After that stream-entry, I got a 30 minute long walk through the whole cycle again. In this walk I went all the way up to 11th nana and a fruition until arriving at A&P again. I interpret that as a Review Phase A. After arriving at A&P again, it took one week to go (slowly) all the way up to equanimity and then get 2nd path.

After 2nd path, things speeded up. I went all the way from A&P up to a fruition and then back to A&P again in just a few minutes, sometimes it took just seconds or milliseconds. Nowadays things are very confusing, and I've given up positioning myself on the map a long time ago. It seems like I'm walking some kind of slow high-level cycles, and then some more low-level quicker and less affecting mini-cycles within there. But overall, it's hard to understand what's happening.

Things I struggle to understand here, which could be a good topic for an upcoming article, is the following:
1) The 30 minute cycle I did just after stream-entry, was that a Review Phase A?
2) When I did one complete cycle in over 1 week after stream-entry, that wasn't a review I guess?
3) How do you know when you're having a review, and when you're having progress toward the next path?
4) At what time does one start experiencing the transition from Review Phase A to B?

(cont)

5) At the time one starts experiencing Review Phase B, are the A type then lost? Or is it possible to experience a mix of both A and B?
6) Does one experience only one review after completing a cycle, or may it go more randomly, like this: cycle, review, review, review, cycle, review, cycle'¦?
7) I'm sometimes experiencing many tenth or hundreds of cycles each day these days. Are these reviews or a regular cycle?
What's a mini-cycle? I think I read that each mini-cycle are also followed by reviews, is that right?

I'm sorry if some or all of these questions are answered somewhere else, but it might be a good idea to gather a summary of how reviews work.
Even

Two more, while I'm in 'the flow'

9) Is it correct to say that a review doesn't give any new insight? In that sense, experiencing a review might be just a waste of time if the purpose of meditation is to gain 4th path ASAP? Is it then smart to make a resolution: 'May I never ever experience a review'?
10) Is it also possible to experience a review whenever you want, through resolution? Have you tried that, and does it actually work?

Very good questions Even!

Although thinking these questions made me even more confused than before. I have found myself to be cycling through nanas for one week after a rapture, that may or may not have been a fruition. I can find no logic in the cycles I go through during the day. At first the cycles started from A/P, went up to equanimity and then teleporting back to A/P. After couple of days the cycles began always from the 1st nana. Then suddenly the cycling stops and I find myself to be at the 11th nana all day long. The next day I am cycling through nanas 1-11 again. Are these cycles called reviews?

Antero.

"Excellent! Thanks Chris.

You know, we have no way of proving if this works, but it could be just the fact that I know you are including me in the generation of metta which could synch up with me here and that same generation of metta start occurring within myself FOR myself. Same thing as the jhana tour videos. I'm tuning up to your generation of metta vibes within myself. Does that make sense? So maybe the key is to tell that person that you are generating metta for them, then they resonate with that act and generate metta within themselves. Similar I guess to the placebo effect. Or we can believe that those vibes can TRAVEL THROUGH THE AIR!!! WOOOOOOT!!!


P.S. Sending you some powerful fruition bliss wave soaked metta vibes to you and all your family including your aussie dog!!! Should be traveling over Peru as we speak! Hehe!"

im definitely digging this. We create our reality every moment. There is proof in the Emoto water crystals, in the verifications of Morphic Resonance, of the vibes of Metta, and I also learned from TripleThink's description of his experiences in his posts in DHO, and then finally our own experience. When you told me you got Third path, the next day, I got third path. I also feel very strong pull & strong energy when I know that a group of people I know are meditating. There are also places that have stronger energies, like as there are chakras in our body, the earth also has Chakras and some places have more concentrated energy. They say 'intention' is very important. If you wished for me to attain enlightenment, then I resonated with that and shared in that wish.

I am not familiar with the inner workings of the practice of Vajrayana Tantra Diety Yoga or the Guru relationship of trust but I assume its the same thing. If the Chakras are allowed to connect and resonate with each other, energy exchange and communication can happen. Perhaps this is also what the whole stargate stuff.

"continued.."

...is about.. having a portal here on earth and connecting that 'chakra' or energy portal to another one somewhere out there in space, and exchanging/receiving energy.

Hi Mindful1983,

On Nikolai's Practice notes, today, you wrote: "When you told me you got Third path, the next day, I got third path."

I have asked you before not to make claims on the forum. Please do not do it again. When people make claims of attainment without first establishing their practice over a period of months through a personal relationship with me or through a well-documented practice journal on this forum, it tends to reduce the credibility of this community. After all, anyone can claim anything and the whole purpose of our site can be compromised, essentially making a mockery of awakening/enlightenment.

I am not denying your claim; I frankly have no idea where you are on the maps because you have not told us anything substantive about your practice.

I believe you are a fine human being, sincere, enthusiastic and dedicated to your practice. But I cannot allow you to continue to violate the culture of the site. Please be more respectful of what we are attempting to accomplish here and avoid all claims or hints of attainment until you have shared the details of your practice, got feedback from me and from others, and established yourself as having a credible voice.

Thanks in advance for understanding.

Sincerely yours,

Kenneth

I'm passing through a pretty cool phase or whatever it is. Who cares!!! I am just being attracted to being normal. Listening to music, having fun, having a beer, laughing my arse off with my friends. Being crude with my jokes, being a sarcastic funny basatrd that i used to be long ago before I caught the insight disease. I'm loving it. Just eating nachos with melted cheese and thoroughly enjoying it. Just downloading 22 episodes of Glee to see what the fuss was about and actually enjoying it a lot. Listening and singing to the entire Beatles discography (jeje maybe half) and taking salsa lessons with my fiancee. Just living life with a fun and embracing attitude.

I had some exchanges recently with someone that made me realise how much of a fool I am due to my projections and "ideas" I still hold onto. I really know sqwat. I know nothing of the universe really. I might come across like I know a little but I think that's the stink of enlightenment talking. I know nothing but that is ok. I love it in fact. Just going with the flow just not clinging to it. I am learning a lot about who "Nick" is and isn't. So much garbage surfacing that was always there but now I can change the way I approach certain things with greater clarity and less projecting of my usually nonsense ideas. I love the fact I can admit my mistakes and faults without a hint of embarrassment and shame. I really love not having a stake in appearing like a fool. Cos I am one, and at the moment a happy one.

Sorry about not posting anymore of what some have asked me to post in the Guest Writings section. I just don't want to right now. I feel no pull to get into all of that and would prefer to just sit on the side lines for a bit. Feeling too much of a pull to be normal with out the stinky big E influencing how I am. Anyway, that's the phase I am in. Could get worse, could get better, could stay the same. WOOOOOOT!!!!

About all the questions about cycling during the 2nd path or any path. I really have no idea about it all. Kenneth is the one who has a better idea, me thinks. My experience was a confusing jumbled mess of cycles and I really couldn't make head nor tails of it. I reckon my best advice would be to just keep practicing and stop worrying about cycles. Just let them happen. Keep noting, keep dwelling in the witness as it really doesn't matter too much if you know where you are. 2nd path is but a rest point on the road to town as Kenneth once said. I really agree with that. Don't get caught up too much in the specifics of what you think a path needs to be. Everyone is gonna have differing experiences and really, just go for 4th path. It leaves all the rest for dust. No need to wait around in one path to "explore" it. 4th path all the way, man!!!

My 2 cents.

Now back to listening to the rest of the Beatles discography

"Day after day alone on the hill
The man with the foolish grin
is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer

But the fool on the hill
sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
see the world spinning 'round"-- speaking of the Beatles

"
"Day after day alone on the hill
The man with the foolish grin
is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer

But the fool on the hill
sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
see the world spinning 'round"-- speaking of the Beatles"

YES!

Nick, we all pretend we know stuff, and we are all mistaken a lot of the time. It's natural because it's comforting to think we know. It feels better than always being uncertain and not knowing. But not knowing, and knowing you don't really know, is what I'm finding to be the best place of all places.

I'm loving all this talk of "not knowing."

There appears to be developmental changes as a result of practice. Many of us have been experiencing such changes, and it's beautiful.

But, I'm continually amazed at just how vast this reality truly is. No system can contain it. No map can accurately chart it. No mind can truly fathom it. So there are landmarks, yes. But there is never an end to this path of discovery. There can't be. That's my opinion, at least. As always, I could be wrong. But isn't that the point?

I love you guys.

Jackson

"I am just being attracted to being normal."-Nikolai

Nick, I chanced today upon this wonderful quote from Annie Besant:

"But has earth lost her child, is humanity bereft of her triumphant son? Nay! He has come forth from the bosom of the light, and He standeth again on the threshold of Nirvana, Himself seeming the very embodiment of thatalight, glorious beyond all telling, a manifested Son of God. But now His face is turned to earth, His eyes beam with divinest compassion on the wandering sons of men, His brethren after the flesh; He cannot leave them comfortless, scattered as sheep without a shepherd."

A couple of things strike me as particularly noteworthy here. One is the accuracy of the observation; enlightenment is not a one-way ticket to a transcendent cosmic bliss-out. Reality testing shows that awakened/Self-realized/enlightened folks routinely find themselves "back in the marketplace with help-bestowing hands." This return to daily life and service to others, is, in fact the natural maturation of the enlightenment process. The vaunted cave-dwelling ascetic is either a case of arrested development or simply not-yet-fully-cooked.

Second, there is the image conjured up by Besant's breathless rhetoric. This "embodiment of thatalight" that she describes sounds entirely superhuman. Surely this enlightened sage glows in the dark and performs all manner of miracles before sitting down to breakfast each morning. We should be able to see from this poetic description of enlightenment written by a well-educated and rational woman just a little over one hundred years ago that literary depictions are not to be confused with scientific observations. If, 2400 years from now, Besant's Theosophy has become a world religion, will fundamentalists cite this very description of enlightenment, using it as proof that "true" enlightenment no longer occurs?

Thanks Kenneth. We humans like to make stuff up, exaggerate and stick the tag "the truth" to almost anything we wish to give significance. Hard habit to break. That is why I'm sticking to knowing that I know not much at all. Hehe!

I gave the impression in the last post that I am crazy normal now. That is far from the truth really. Hehe What is normal anyway? What i am doing is just having more fun. Doing fun things and I kind of consider that to be normal in a way. It is kind of different from before when i had insight disease which really kind of sucked the fun streak from me. Even my friends are saying that I am more fun these days. A nice development.

I still practice though. A couple of days ago I had an unexpected visitor. The dreaded iron skull cap and a nasty version of it indeed. I must still have a little energy blockage to clear out. It left me lying in bed with the nastiest of headaches. It was interesting to watch the body suffer this pain as well as the occasional cry of despair from my lips. But it is a different experience than before. It is like watching a pure act of being human but without a "Nick" that has a stake in whether that suffering ends or not. Strange experience really. It was like suffering in suffering....just no-one suffering it. Just a mass of habitual tendencies arising and passing away. That seems to be the big difference. I made sure to note the pressure and pain. It lasted a whole day. Today it has returned to a pleasant flow of energy/vibrations.

Continued from above...

I have returned to concentration practice. I have some goals in mind which I will leave out of my practice notes as they are not conducive nor helpful for other yogis to read. Siddhi stuff best left for when you've gone and got it done already. However the concentration practice I've taken up again is interesting and bringing interesting results.

I am using a red kasina. i stare at it for 3o minutes at a time non-stop. There comes a point when the mind flow is flowing directly at the red kasina and nothing else. All thoughts and extra mind stuff are pushed to the background or out of the mind completely. There is something physical going on when I get powerfully concentrated. The third eye sweet spot is activated and it feels like it flows with an increase in energy/vibrations. It almost feels like it flows "towards" the object of concentration, falling only on that object. When I close my eyes, I get the visual image through my eyelids of the red kasina in the negative. But that is not what I am paying attention to. It is more the image in the mind's eye of that actual kasina.It is getting stronger and stronger. Kind of a memory of it. I am seeing that it can be "held" onto by activating that flow of powerfully concentrated energy/vibrations to fall on that mind's eye image of the red kasina. When that happens the mind zooms in on it and the flow of energy/vibrations at the third eye spot strengthen and flow unhindered. The concentration gets "otherworldly". I will continue on this route and see where such a powerful ability to concentrate takes me. Even after a day of kasina practice I am finding that when i close my eyes, and the image of the red kasina is focused on in the mind's eye, the concentration quickly returns to that "otherworldly" level of concentration. Having fun indeed!

So Ive been researching kasinas and using different ones and I came across the 10th kasina which is called the Consciousness Kasina in the Vimuttimagha. You can access a copy on scribd.

www.scribd.com/doc/32131566/The-Path-of-Freedom-Vimuttimagga

"THE CONSCIOUSNESS KASINA
Q. What is the consciousness kasina?
A.It is the concentration of the sphere of infinite consciousness. This is called the "Consciousness Kasina."

Not much more instruction nor elaboration is given than this. So is the consciousness kasina the Witness? I think it is. You stare at the Witness as if it was a kasina. Interesting indeed....So can taking the Witness as object develop access to the jhanas as do all the other kasinas? Of course, you can ride the entire jhanic arc! Has this been talked about before? This is the first time I've even read about the consciousness kasina. Hmmm...

**continues researching...**

Sweet!