Thank you for your response, Vaj. In your posts, over time, you have pointed to a few phrases, which upon some research and study, have led to clearer experience and understanding.
> The reason is you have to know how to create it in order to control it. I have been able to create the bliss at will for some time. Though it may a primitive and self-learned method, it works. Usually its done in quiet activity. Its not something that sought, but more stumbled upon. Its useful to know that there are a series of refined methods to achieve it (which I infer from your comments.) > Otherwise it's out of control. Its not out of control. As your article states, it can be diminished by applying it. That is my experience. (However, it can also be enlivened and expanded by applying it, but that too is "created and controled".) It has always found a direction to go, to be applied. Though I also term this practice as primitive, in that it is unlearned, not from knowledge gained from a lineage. My questions yesterday dealt with how to better or best apply it 9the bliss). For years I have applied it in my own ways, sort of a primitive nature worship. With groves of trees, even flowers, forming temples of sort. The premise, perhaps deluded, but still quite a real sense of its validity, was that any place, or spot could be made holy, even become manifest with the divine, if enough (aka sustained and repeated) "bliss attention" were focussed on it. Some key words you provided have helped trigger how to use this primitive practice in a new way, from a new perspective: applying to the whole of the emptiness of the world -- not just a focussed part of it. While the ananda sheath is still a sheath, it thus far has an ability to "bridge": To make the "outer" blissful like the "inner". While the sense of identity is still in that sheath "I am bliss", and thus an illusion, it can extend from inner bliss to outer bliss. To unify it so there is no inner and outer, its all one bliss. > If I want to generate bliss, it's > because I want to. If it becomes samsaric or is taking too much > attention, I turn it off. Yes, I can turn it off. Or difuse it, by applying to things. > The methods for dealing with it are given when one receives teachings. Can you identify the class of teechings, the names of the teachings, (not the teachings themselves). And or thier teachers / traditions? > Basically one has to make sure the karmic pranas enter the central > channel. . I am unclear as to "karmic pranas enter the central channel" -- though sometimes various specific "dramatic" patterns of breath occur during the bliss sessions. > This is maintained by placing awareness on parts of the subtle body By subtle body, I assume you are referring to pranamaya, manamaya and vijnanamaya koshas. My primitive practice has to do with inner attention. -- to an inner physiology or sorts. Until today, I have not much studied the names and functions of the five sheaths, so I have never tried to map these names to experience. There is a type of attention on one type of physiology that maps quite well to the name/function of vijnanmaya kosha -- the core of which I equate with buddhi. I have spent a lot of time in that awareness area -- and recently have felt it has "matured" or "flipped" -- that it is now tame in the sense that a wild horse is tamed. This attention on inner terrain / physiology -- there are some variations of practice -- creates the bliss. From your comments yesterday, about touching the bliss body, anandaymaya kosha, I assumed my practice was touching that (casual -- not subtle body). Do your practices generate the bliss by touching the subtle bodies (pranamaya, manomaya and vijnan maya koshas), instead of the anandamaya kosha? > or adjusting posture, meditating on an aspect of the inner mandala > (transparency, mirror-like awareness, discriminating awareness, etc). Discriminating awareness was important in "healing" or "maturing" the vijnanmaya kosha. > I'm guessing, but I suspect your bliss might be coming from mantra > meditation--the mantra keeps bringing awareness down to the bliss-body > and is constantly touching it. No, the bliss generation comes from my primitive sort of awarenesses of inner terrain --- not learned, but found via stuff happening -- and then exploration of those areas. > A good solution can be to drop the > mantra and just use meditations that favor awareness, rather than > form (mantras). If want to favor the emptiness side, try meditating > on the empty nature of awareness. But as to what type of meditation, > that's really up to you. I am sure there are many paths to generate the bliss. I will keep exploring other avenues. > Meditating on the mind as the sky or something like > that can help because they are so formless. If you have instructions > for resting in the non-dual state you can use that. The "bliss-bridge" method that I mentioned that has come to me is a sort of resting / acting in non-dual bliss. Though its non-dual, it is still a sheath, or shealth generated, and thus I know its not the ultimate non-dual state. (Its occurred to me though how one could be "trapped" into thinking and feeling that this was THE non-duality state. > This is why it is helpful for anyone to have a range of skillful > instructions from a teacher or teachers--then you have the tools you > need when you want them. yes. i understand and appreciate that. Without prying, your listing of any specific techniques, lineages, teachers would be helpful in pointing me in the right direction. Though the bliss body / anandamaya kosa is a maya sheath, the home of samsara, I assume that when it is transcended, it still remains, but is purified. While the analogy of roasted seeds makes sense, more so the analogies of refinement, transparency make better sense. My experience thus far is that samsaras within the anandamay kosha can be "blissified" (or bliss-a-fried -- fried in bliss). Or, an other analogy somes to mind: noisy rowdy, very mischievous (but sweet) children growning to adults. They can now sit still, but arise to serve a purpose when called upon. Indeed the great saint Anandamaya Ma was named after this kosha -- so I assume in its purified form that it serves a function. In darshan with some teachers, experientially it seems to fit an image that comes to mind: sitting within, or being enveloped by, the bliss body of the saint. Is that what occurs in darshan? This image also fits the experience of swallowing others up in ones bliss. Its like ones bliss body grows to include them. Is there any knowledge in your tradition(s) that have this view or describe its mechanics? To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! 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