Meditation experience in day-to-day life

Dojo
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Hello,

I wanted to ask a question regarding meditation and also psychedlic experiences. I’ve been meditating now for approx. 5-6 years most of the time quite regularly. The last couple of years have been quite rough for me, therefore I’ve meditated only for small periods of time. Now I implemented a more stable structure again which is helping me.

I had this feeling around my solar plexus or chakra rung 3 for quite some time now and I definitely can tell from reading Ken’s books that I have a “dysfunction” of not wanting to control or not being in control.

After finishing the course integral mindfulness and understanding how power works in a more dialogical and monological aspect. I can’t quite grasp, yet how I can make it translogical. I have a decent amount of practices/ methods that I can draw upon and which I started again. For example a forgiveness practice as well as a gratitude practice, which help to manage my drive to control and allows a we space to fruition.

At the same time this power to control feels like it wants to be very “gaiacentric” or one with the earth. This is where my psychedelic experience kick in, since I felt I once became one with an animal, especially birds. The experience drove me deeper and deeper into a deep state of samadhi mentally.

I notice that I can use this power to control towards a more dialogical approach, yet I miss the translogical aspect and this is where I feel I can direct my power towards. It mostly feels like holding others pain or holding my own pain with a high level of concentration or completely releasing it.

I am training with the unified mindfulness system from Shinzen Young and attend retreats from time to time online. (14 days a year is the goal every year ). The point now is if I recall the concept correctly, since my enviroment is still in shambles in order for more order…

There was a concept IIRC in the religion of tomorrow called split mind and I often experience hearing voices, especially my name and the name of people I desire. Which is very very very weird.

I can not tell if I am fooling myself or this is part of something more spiritual in nature. For example when I go shopping and I feel that my 33% of a higher stage (according to SD) kicks in it feels very transpersonal it is like it is being forced into my cognitive understanding and this is where I feel I hear voices or spirits or call it what you want. It somehow drives my crazy sometimes because nobody can validate that experience when I ask them did you hear that or did you hear this.

Did anyone of you experience something similar ? While growing transforming and translating through the stages ? This also happens very often when I hear audiobooks, when I speak inside the audiobook it somehow “mirros back” my subconscious / chitta. Yet, this only works for me with spiritual audiobooks / timeless audiobooks like Eckhart Tolle or Shinzen Young or Allan Watts. Is this mirror mind ? There are so many deeps concepts in integral.

Did anyone else had the same level of experience ?
How does translogical power manifest in day to day life for you ?
Should I be worried ? I am often afraid of asking questions directly based on childhood experiences

This especially manifest if I practice in a sangha and when I think about holons or feel holons. Yet, there needs to be a receiver somehow who is morre deeply grounded. This all feels very weird.

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Another example is I hear a voice saying I am conscious or I hear it through the echo chamber of societies sounds.

I am unsure if this is relateable in any sense, yet this is what I experience now deeper.

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Thank you for the comment. I can empathize with the experience now better that I experienced it myself. I still feel scared noticing this. I mostly notice it is somehow my unconscious desire or my chitta speaking in forms of other people. Basically anything that I imagine or have imagined comes up in sound space for me from time to time. Internally and externally.

It is definitely comforting to hear that this is common. I’ve never done brahmavihrara meditations neither do I know what that means. I started doing kriya yoga 1 month ago and I am doing a couple of pranayama exercises and learning the sanskrit terms helps me to understand shinzens system better.

That is good to know that having solar plexus problems and exercise helps, gyms are currently closed in my country and knowing that this helped another human being is great. This is also a form of trauma release IIRC. That is why I wanted to practice kriya yoga because kriya means sacrifical rite in order to get closer to human existence. I once had an kriya experience during a retreat where my solar plexus started pumping like an engine and I started crying like I was releasing steam. It did not hurt, yet it feelt like “needles of pain” where taking out of my solar plexus. Shacking up the Sanskaras IIRC this is the correct term or the emotional patterns. I am unsure if this conceputal understanding is useful, yet I definitely wanted to share that and thank you for commenting !

This definitely validates my experiences to a degree and helps me to feel understood. Thank you !

If I may ask what kind of voices do you hear ? Are they positive or negative ? Or how do you perceive the experience ? Are they helpful ?

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You mention both meditation and psychedelic experiences.
In my experience psychedelics introduce a “wildcard”. I believe increased frequency and dosage exponentially increases entropy, but few to zero actual studies have been done on psychedelics combined with a long term meditative practice so it’s hard to say for sure if psychedelics help or hinder, or do either under different conditions.

In my experience, this effect is much stronger with the addition of psychedelics.

For myself, translogical is a new word for me but does describe my spiritual practice. Mythic concepts just seem a lot easier to apply and save a lot of time than trying to find a logical or scientific explanation with a physically observable cause-effect. The caveat for myself is that I never try to apply these same mythic concepts outside of myself, and do not allow the mythic concepts of others onto me without first doing a check in if it’s for my benefit in the long term, and I can nullify any mythic relationship / “contract” at any time with or without cause, lol. That’s how I keep myself “safe”. I neither try to apply my mythic on others nor tolerate another’s attempts to apply their mythic onto me.

A lot of times mythic traditions have hidden levels of control built into them. I call this the “Oracle Shadow”, where someone tries to influence others for their own benefit based on their interpretations of hallucinations. Divination or fortune telling is probably the most obvious examples of this, but there are other subtle elements of control even in branches of Buddhism and Yoga, for example.

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I am unsure how far I understand entropy from looking at it through Wikipedia. I understand the term so far as to that a certain level of randomness needs to be balanced or grounded. On a microcosm and macrocosm scale ? For e.g that the composition of the molecules / atoms changeds for e.g similar to morphic resonance which Rupert Sheldrake invented ? For e.g when a de novum substance is created and that substance receives a catalyst now all over the planet the same substance now catalyzes faster. Even though the substance was created and a catalyzer added for instance in Australia and now it also happens in England etc. How do these compounds atoms, molecules or whatever now can catalyze faster. I remeber this from his audiobook the science delusion.

I am unsure how far this goes since I just started psychotherapie and there are so many problems already. Sometimes I am unsure how far I delude myself because when I watch Sadghuru or other “spiritual teachers”. For instance doing a dark room retreat can produce DMT in the brain and this is where I’ve talked to a guy because he started to notice and or hear entities and he became scared. I am pretty sure he did not know how this happens. Yet, I often refer to the snake analogy that is present in buddhism ? Where instead of the snake “fear” in reality it is a rope. Similar to these “hallucinations” etc. Apparently melatonin can’t be converted into serotonin during a dark room retreat and produces DMT and we have canals in our brain that can activate the usage of DMT, when it is produced. I’ve never tried it and tbh I am already afraid being alone in a dark room sometimes, because of my religous upbringing. Or in general societals body of thought…

Ken’s book “The religion of tomorrow” explains a lot of phenomenon that can occure for this, yet this is quite deep and I understand these concepts somewhat superficially. It is difficult if there is no consens on the terms or scientific evidence. For e.g bodichitta already explains everthing above for me bodi = enlightend chitta = subconscious. In case the terms are correctly translated… from Sanskrit. I presume you’ve read the book from reading the entire comment, I am trying to understand most of this, because it helps me to stay safe or keep my sanity in check. Because I often feel subconsciously threatend by others based on my skin color or based on the fact. That I am going to be quite frank, see myself as more valueable because I am bi-racial and bi-national then others, because they embrace diversity and at the sametime you see this hierachy ranking and subconscious chatter going on for ever… This is just my personal experience. Relating compassionately helps a lot and holding that compassion in a dialogical space clears out a lot of misconcepts and also airs out a lot of subconscious believes. When a person is willing to accept this.

I can see for instance how an “Oracle Shadow” was or can be misused for instance in stage purple socities. Although I’ve never read about a certain tribe etc. Or the egyptians having vision on how to build the pyramids, because the feat of bulding these pyramids is simply amazing. Anyway a lot of conjecture here.

What I often feel is that I am not grounded enough into physical reality and that I need some form of physical exercise or meditation practice that grounds me more. To not be influenced as much by others subconscious attemps to control others. Through lying, manipulating, overpowering, “overshadowing”.

I am still new to all of this stuff, yet I find it very fascinating.

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I guess for me, for most of my life I’ve had a high degree of agnosticism, likely because my family moved from a cosmopolitan city to a rural, extremely religious village when I was 6. I got quite obsessed with Christianity until I realised people’s views on anyone who wasn’t a Christian, which included my family. Then I completely broke with Christianity.

I started to hear echoing voices from people, but I think because I’d thought so often about heaven and hell and magical powers etc while I was in the church and for a while afterwards, I was very predisposed to reject them. Now I do often hear voices from other people, but it’s completely different to someone actually talking, so it isn’t confusing. It’s also often hard to distinguish because there are so many voices. think it is much more difficult for people if they are heard in the same way as normal voices. For me it’s more like in another dimension, and it’s the same when i see visual things - it’s not the same as the real world so it isn’t confusing. I think it also depends on how much you want magical/spiritual powers. I never really wanted them and so didn’t develop a Jesus/superhero complex. Even if I hear spiritual beings or what I think might be messages from the universe, i always recognise it might just be my imagination.

I think it also depends on how much you care about what others think of you, and also about rescuing people from danger. I used to get obsessive about rescuing people (likely also because of the links to rescuing people from hell) and would also get upset if I thought people were thinking negatively of me, and still can sometimes do both those things. But I think developing equinimity has been extremely helpful for me, realising that no one really exists anyway and so nothing really matters, and to the the extent that we do all exist, that people are free to think whatever they want. Also, when I have tried to rescue people, it can sometimes just send them on dark trips because they think I’m messing with their heads. If their thoughts are stuck in my head, then it’s mine to deal with - i will often just do metta meditation towards them and that usually makes it better.

I’ve had that ‘needles of pain’ experience you describe a lot too - on intensive meditation retreats and on psychedelics. I feel like that is the sankharas being released. It’s quite miraculous, but also extremely painful. I’ve had the worst migraines I’ve ever experienced as well, like my head is actually being crushed in a vice, and just sitting through it afterwards I was suddenly able to see clearly, read faster, all the normal world things. It is strange. I’m actually quite scared of meditation at the moment, because i don’t want to experience that kind of pain again and it not have a permanent effect, as now I’m kind of back to normal again, slightly stuck in a dream world, but nowhere in particular. I feel it might be what Ken Wilber describes in religion of tomorrow as the rejecting everything in existence shadow.

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This sounds similar to my last kriya experience during a micro-retreat. I felt I could read faster and had some sort of quantum leap. I perceived very very very weird things that I will not type, because they are very personal and I am pretty sure that to some degree I am deluding myself and I am pretty sure I will delude others.

I can relate to the christianity background when people I grew up christian too, yet rejected it fairly early because of my disbelief in a beared man in a sky and disliking singing in general just was way to weird for me. My part of my family is also agnostic and very open-minded which I felt was very good in hindsight, yet when I retrace all of my experiences I notice that just praticing any form of religion would have been fine. There are other problems I have in daily-life, yet I do not intend to let this thread go wild and post 10x personal problems.

Yes, I can also relate to the helpers high, I often attracted very manipulative or corrupt people in the past and setting up boundaries and being assertive can be an issue for me sometimes. For me it is similar I do not know how to deal with these experiences my teacher explained to me or shinzen explained to me to somehow deal with it with equanimity, yet I had no mental capacity or concentration to do that even though I went for it.

There are some things that people explained to me … and it is also written in wilbers book with influx and reflux and archetypes. Which is just to high of a level for me to conceive right now, yet a lot of this magic-mythic shadow or archetypes is present in people today.

Did you ever get fully rid of the emotional pain in chakra rung 3 ? During a retreat. I am a bit scared that I will just get thrown into “bhanga” which is another term I am not all to familar with, where people started seeing entities like giant centipedes, in technicolor.

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Oh my gosh, bangha is the most blissful state in the world. Well, I’m learning about the Jhanas in Buddhism at the moment and I would describe the bangha state as being the same as the third Jhana. Some things I’m scared to read of as the experience just felt like a dream, like heaven. But I’m trying not to turn away from things. Hallucinations I don’t think are that scary, except when they’re showing you shadow, but then that shadow stops being scary anymore, in my opinion. I usually hallucinate during meditation, but on this retreat they were incredibly vivid.

What is said to happen when you are in the bangha state as well is that when you are in it the most deep routed most painful sankharras will rise to the surface, and that’s exactly what happened to me, and it’s said you must meet them with equinimity and they will dissolve, and they did for me. And I left the retreat in a complete samadhi state. I felt I was in the causal/non-dual realm for weeks. But it still scares me.

The emotional pain in chakra rung 3 isn’t completely gone, there’s still a niggling, but it’s not so much a bother to me anymore. And I feel I can speak confidently to any one. My worst chakra is my third eye. I’m going to put more effort into meditation again though and not turn away from it.

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Thanks for the feedback ! This definitely helps some of the shadow stuff I intuit could come up is unfortunately one of the scariest for me. I am fine with certain insects, yet I feel it is going to be freaking spiders if it is shadow stuff. I am amazed by how easily you can take on these visual phenomena. They are quite scary for me, I feel I could handle it the anticipation of it is what makes it worse. I wish I would just get slapped into that releam for some time instead of climbing a ladder step by step or rung by rung. Yet, this is what it takes. This is very nice I unfortunately have stronger reactions physicall reactions to this stuff.

I intuit strengthening my body and becoming more flexible is a good prophylactic measure to meet archetypes and enter suble/casual releams. Dunno if this is more of a “men” thing. Will definitely remember 3 Jhana is similar to bhanga.

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I haven’t experiences insects through meditation - just with psyches.
So I’m not sure how much this transfers over to spiritual experiences like Jhana or bhanga.
I really don’t like insects crawling on me in real life (much less inside me), but somehow in an entheogenic induced altered state I sensed they were benevolent and I actually enjoyed connecting to these things in what I call my own shadow world.
I would suppose that in a similar blissful state aroused by a spiritual practice one would also have a much different awareness - and perhaps fewer shadows after a months long daily spiritual practice.
I don’t recommend trying to do this with psyches - too many uncontrolled variables.
But I believe well established spiritual practices are safe and you might even see spiders in a different way. :wink:

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I have a book from Martin Ball about this entheogenic stuff, yet I was unable to read it because my plans were canceled. I definitely checked this out the YouTube channel 434, or similar explains how he talks to entities and machine elves and stuff like this. Which is very interesting or terrance terence mckenna’s views around this stuff. I did not fully check it out I wanted to dig into psychdelics more when my life is more stable. Otherwise, I will cause horror trips for myself, yet I can relate to what you mean I did the 3-2-1 shadow practices under the influence of mind altering substances and I definitely felt that I was able to tap deeper into darker aspects of my shadow/fragmented self.

I also do not know what etheogenic means, so I can only relate so far.

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I would say bangha and jahna or more causal, and so it’s more a bliss state and you don’t hallucinate. It’s dissolution. But they can bring up shadow material which can appear in subtle forms and so cause hallucinations, both positive and negative - I’d say it’s about the volitions (sankharas) of craving and aversion, so it can be the most positive human emotions you can feel which would be cravings, like love, and those feelings can all come up, and it’s somewhat incredible in that you realise those normal human emotions are nothing compared to these states.

But I think a lot of people have these hallucinatory experiences. But then other people don’t, which can perhaps make it easier to focus. But then other people have internal monologues it’s difficult to disidentify with.

It can be terrifying when you grasp the implications though. Like seeing a spider or crocodile crawl out of your belly - like I had - it’s like you feel that must be you, and that’s something you never wanted to be. But, how is a kitten different to a crocodile? They are the same. Both deserve love.

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I have similar experiences i feel like two low levels entities one in the face and one inside the body like blocked there. The sensation its like there is a central chanel ho’s function is to clean energies and there is there a blocked entiti or energi. But i asume its shadow material. Its not a good strategie to force it to go out. The best strategie I founded for me is to do things associated with base chakra and try to transcend me as separate. Yesterday i practiced the hungrr and sex mindfulness and the part ken invites you to transcend the magic part of you it get better. There must be some part of me stuck in there.