Self-Realization and Memory/Jan/David

[Guest guest]

, "Harvey Schneider" <harvey_s@h...> wrote:

> David, when you came out of Nirvikalpa Samadhi how did you know you

> had been in Nirvikalpa Samadhi and not waking up from deep sleep?

 

In one sense

samadhis are *like* waking up from a deep sleep.

 

In another sense the variations of samadhi

all occur within the realm of sleep

in the sense samadhi is not real.

 

It's a *reflection* of who we are,

but still

but a reflection nevertheless.

 

States coined the term samadhi

are not to be taken seriously.

 

Sadly, many (myself included at first)

believed samadhi to be special and meaningfull.

 

That's a seductive and normal reaction

and also the main reason

I tend to avoid talk about such states.

 

I used to talk about them at first

when I believed they were important.

 

All of our experience is a reflection

of who we are.

 

There are degrees of how accurate

this reflection presents itself.

 

Sometimes the reflection is more confusing

as when we experience ourself

as a limited little

self,

lost in an imposing world.

 

There is an infinite scale

of increasing clarity of that reflection

which reveals a greater and greater sense

of unity and infinitude of Being...

 

When that reflection is

no longer a reflection and completely pure...

 

...no one can say and not be lying.

 

Blessings,

David

 

 

 

 

 

 

> Harvey

[Guest guest]

On 3/7/02 at 8:57 PM Harvey Schneider wrote:

Hi Jan/David

 

I thank both of you for your response to the questions I asked about sleeping.

 

Both of you brought up lucid dreaming in response to my question about

awareness during sleep. I have heard about lucid dreaming and

probably would do well to learn more about it. But I wasn't talking

about awareness during dreams. Even in our ordinary non-lucid dreams

our awareness is quite evident. What I was asking about was a claim I

think I came across of someone who said he had cultivated awareness

during sleep. I might have been more clear if I had asked my

question using the expression 'deep sleep'. I have heard teachers

try to get away with saying that consciousness is the ultimate

reality and it never disappears even in deep sleep. But that claim

is not true to my experience. I have found no way to corroborate

that consciousness or awareness is present in deep sleep.

 

Whatever is cultivated can be lost again: Awareness is unbroken but without mind and senses

functioning, there is no reference. Like when moving in a space ship, there is no sense

of movement unless there is acceleration, or see changing position of celestial objects.

Awareness is self-evident but is the subtlest of subtlest - hence all practices of meditation/yoga

aim at decreasing the content of awareness - as to obviate its being self-evidential.

 

Jan, thank you for trying to explain the difference between sleep and

Nirvikalpa Samadhi. In fact your explanation was a bit complicated

for me. You said:

 

"During sleep, all cognition stops, the mind shuts down which can be observed too, at the

risk of being catapulted to full awareness from the 'between awake and sleeping'.

Whereas during Nirvikalpa Samadhi, functioning of mind and senses is suspended while

the potential to function fully remains, contrary to sleep where that potential is switched off.

 

Reading this explanation and trying to make sense of it is giving me

feelings of inferiority. Do you think you could do this answer as a

version of 'Sleep and Nirivikalpa Samadhi for Dummies'?

 

The possibility to feel inferior, or fear, (and much more) is a

potential: it will only become active

when triggered. When the source for the activity has subsided, the potential is inactive again.

Such terminology may sound complicated but is based on the experience that those potentials

can dissolve. Knowing that awareness is the subtlest of the subtlest, it follows that as long as

embodiment lasts, there is always some content.... As from Nirvikalpa samadhi there is awakening

too, awareness still is 'caught up' with the return from the samadhi, and other functioning of the

mind-body: hence the term 'suspended potential'. In Nirvikalpa, the engine (mind) keeps turned 'on'

so to say but has nothing to do - in sleep, the engine is turned off for housekeeping.

 

But instead of theory, get to work: When going to sleep, relax, don't

play with thoughts but when they

arise, let them subside. Gradually the mind-body will prepare for sleep but you are passively alert

with the relaxation of a resting cat. Under those conditions, it is

possible to experience some strange

effects, like intense lights, a blow somewhere at the solar plexus, to mention but a few.

When noticing that, find out, why that wasn't noticed before...

 

The other issue is to make a summary of the day's activities and after having slept, to notice

that you wake up as if there was no gap between making the summary and continuing active life.

This shows that apart from some 'housekeeping' during sleep, all activities only were suspended.

No matter the duration of the sleep...

 

Jan