--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > However for many simply the cessation of thoughts does > not give rise to pure consciousness because of the > foundational projection/identification of > consciousness with chitta. Cessation of > thought/vrittis in chitta while identification is > still present is a laya and not samadhi. I believe > many of the decades long meditators are stuck in a > laya when they meditate. They experience peace and, > bliss, but it rarely moves into pure consciousness.
Well said. That's *exactly* why I suggested that having been given a strong intellectual framework that appeals to the normal (that is, unenlightened) waking state can actually be an *obstacle* to the appreciation of enlightenment when it dawns. *During* the experience, however long or fleeting it may be, it can be an actual experience of samadhi, because while it is going on, the intellect is "not at home." But *immediately* afterwards the intellect logs back on and tries to superimpose its programmed intellectual understanding of "what samadhi is" onto the experience, most often with disastrous results. The result is often finding some way to deny that the experience took place, or that it was actually samadhi. What it usually took for a long-term TMer to recognize that samadhi was taking place was for it to last for an extended period of time -- say ten to twenty minutes. After such an experience, it was difficult for even the most conditioned intellect to impose its preconceptions on the experience. We're all talking "around" an experience here that cannot be talked about, and many of us are using different terminology to "talk around" it. It's like we're all pointing at the moon, but some of us are using our fingers and some of us are using big Bozo The Clown gloves. The moon is still there, but some can't recognize that it's being pointed at unless the person uses a finger they're familar with and comfortable with. :-) The thing that's fascinating to me is that it's pretty easy (at least for me) to tell which of the participants in this particular discussion have actually *been* to the moon and thus are speaking in their own chosen language "around" an experience that was actually an experience for them personally, and those who have *never* been there and are only mouthing what they've been told. Pretty interesting that that difference can come through, even on the Internet.
