Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
Hey Xeno, about my always being nit picky, won't apologize since unlikely to change. So thanks for replying and for writing interesting stuff in the first place which is what inspires my nitpickiness (-: Here's something of yours I enjoyed from another post: It is said that those who are enlightened know that that state applies to all beings at all times and places. That is all beings are in the enlightened state. They just have some problems with the way they think about what state they are in. From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 12:35 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot] --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: Well Xeno here I am again, awash in the clear blue waters of your writing. Hanging on to my question like a branch I grabbed as it floated by: If indeed you lose instead the pursuit of an unreal dream how is it that you still have what you call pesky delusions and residual delusional thinking? Maybe the delusion is thinking they're delusions (-: For most people, realisation does not come completely clean, and maybe it never does come completely clean. 'You gain fulfilment in Brahman Consciousness but the unstressing goes on forever' as Maharhsi said once. That is not the image we are told when we start TM. Adyashanti calls the inducement to enlightenment 'bait and switch', you are told a lot of glorious things in the beginning, but at some point you realise that what is happening is not about you as an individual or person, its about unvarnished truth without your ego being a participant. A lot of the behaviour of 'masters' is to crush the ego, to not pander to it, so being around these people can be rather uncomfortable, because they really do not care about what you think you should be and how you think you should be treated. Of course one of the problems is these teachers, and their disciples, sometimes begin to think they should be treated in special ways. Am I being nit picky? Always From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2013 3:19 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot]  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
Xeno, that's a beautiful post as a whole. I just pick out a few points for question. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: In all these years I have found three kinds of meditation useful: 1. Guided Meditations 2. TM 3. Zen, Vipassana, mindfulness kinds of meditation where instead of a mantra, one comes back to the breath if one drifts off, and attempting to be as physically still as possible (with minimal effort). I could not do this kind of meditation four or five decades ago, but now is more or less the pervasive quality of most of my meditations, even if I start with TM. Does this sequence indicate that you see TM somewhere in between guided Meditation, and Zen, Vipassana? Also interesting that you do/ or did guided meditations. Could you give an example? I did it as self-test, at the time I worked in an esoteric bookshop. If everything is 'transcendence', one cannot meditate to transcend, one meditates because among other things, it is something to do or not do. Meditation is really culturing not doing anything, that mysterious quality of letting the world get it on and having a ball. Exactly.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, navashok no_reply@... wrote: Xeno, that's a beautiful post as a whole. I just pick out a few points for question. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: In all these years I have found three kinds of meditation useful: 1. Guided Meditations 2. TM 3. Zen, Vipassana, mindfulness kinds of meditation where instead of a mantra, one comes back to the breath if one drifts off, and attempting to be as physically still as possible (with minimal effort). I could not do this kind of meditation four or five decades ago, but now is more or less the pervasive quality of most of my meditations, even if I start with TM. Does this sequence indicate that you see TM somewhere in between guided Meditation, and Zen, Vipassana? No. Guided meditations were the first kind of meditation I learned. Then I learned Zen meditation, and then TM. That was what fell my way. These are tools. Guided meditation is easy, because you are just following, not dividing the mind by trying to implement and follow instructions at the same time. The TM checking process is actually a guided meditation; but TM is more self contained as a process, so unlike a guided meditation, it tends to work when the instructor is not present. The mantra gives the mind a bone to chew. Zen meditation tends to be harder for people to do, but a lot of people do this with good results, the traditional postures etc., tend to be difficult for westerners, I could not do those. I think one of the reasons this latter kind of meditation creates difficulties for people is you just sit there and not do anything. The mind is not pulled in so readily as TM, but on the other hand, you get to experience what happens when you do not do anything, not scratching an itch, or shifting around trying to get comfortable. It is a whole different experience because the mind is not isolated from the world by being distracted and pulled in by a mantra. You experience your 'stuff' to a greater extent this way. Absolute being is equally everywhere, so you are not losing anything by not being pulled in so easily. You are absolute being so you are not actually 'contacting' it in TM, rather you are experiencing what absolute being is like when it is still, if in fact you settle down in TM. It is really hard to compare. These are tools. Find the ones that work best for you. The simplicity of TM really enscapsulates the basic principle of meditation, which is the absence of resistence. Guided meditations usually have a different goal, they provide a means to poke around in your experience with a bit more focus, without concentrating excessively. Also interesting that you do/ or did guided meditations. Could you give an example? I did it as self-test, at the time I worked in an esoteric bookshop. I have been (as relatives drag me along) to church services where there are guided meditations. I do not do these very often. If you are alone and have one in digital format, you could listen on an iPod or an mp3 player, with the volume low, sitting quietly as with more formal kinds of meditation. Just like other kinds of meditation, they can leave you feeling rested or not depending on what comes up. I do not think guided meditations are a replacement for a more regular meditation practice, but they can add something, although I am not really sure what that might be. Judy mentioned that TM lets you get out of your own way some posts back. I think that also applies to guided meditations to some extent. Sample guided meditation - I tried to upload a couple of short ones I found on the Internet, processed to make them clearer, but the Yahoo server allotment for FFL is almost full. Try couple of samples: the first about ten minutes and the second about six minutes. http://media.dharmaseed.org/recordings/2010/08/20100804-Tara_Brach-IMCW-meditation.mp3 http://www.adyashanti.org/listen.php?filetodownload=Guided%20Meditations%20Vol.%202_lrg.mp3avfile=Audiotype=high I have not done these myself, I just pulled the URLs off the Interent and listened to how they began. If everything is 'transcendence', one cannot meditate to transcend, one meditates because among other things, it is something to do or not do. Meditation is really culturing not doing anything, that mysterious quality of letting the world get it on and having a ball. Exactly.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: Well Xeno here I am again, awash in the clear blue waters of your writing. Hanging on to my question like a branch I grabbed as it floated by: If indeed you lose instead the pursuit of an unreal dream how is it that you still have what you call pesky delusions and residual delusional thinking? Maybe the delusion is thinking they're delusions (-: For most people, realisation does not come completely clean, and maybe it never does come completely clean. 'You gain fulfilment in Brahman Consciousness but the unstressing goes on forever' as Maharhsi said once. That is not the image we are told when we start TM. Adyashanti calls the inducement to enlightenment 'bait and switch', you are told a lot of glorious things in the beginning, but at some point you realise that what is happening is not about you as an individual or person, its about unvarnished truth without your ego being a participant. A lot of the behaviour of 'masters' is to crush the ego, to not pander to it, so being around these people can be rather uncomfortable, because they really do not care about what you think you should be and how you think you should be treated. Of course one of the problems is these teachers, and their disciples, sometimes begin to think they should be treated in special ways. Am I being nit picky? Always From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2013 3:19 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot]  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent, and the tendency to want to be regular on that basis, there was always in the 'back of my mind' a remembrance of the experiences that led me into meditation, which were, for want of a better way to say it, 'mini-awakenings', brief flashes of insight. The memory of these experiences acted as a kind of mental rudder in what developed subsequently in experience. After about a half-decade of meditation an experience similar to the description of CC developed. One day it vanished. I did not even realise it had vanished. Several months went by, and one morning I awoke and realised that the inner silence was completely absent. The witnessing was just gone. Now I continued to meditate, but that experience never returned; something like it developed, almost like
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck wrote: Xenophaneros Anartaxius; Being. Solid and stable. Very real. What a wonderful post. I ask and survey around and a lot of old meditators here are having number one experiences like this too and also practice fluid meditation this way of the three forms you mention, even in the Domes. You are not alone in this description but this seems the way it has gone for many. Established in Being, perform meditation. Or something like that. Then also the field effect of sitting in groups meditating doing spiritual work. Throughout the week there are ongoing groups of meditators in Fairfield practicing forms of the three meditations you mention in combination. I read what you write and think you'd be a fine addition to our Quaker meeting on Sundays. The Monday eve heart meditation. The Tuesday light-lunch meditation at the Mother Divine Church. Weds Circle of Sophia. Thursday Satsang. 2:30 everyday at Revelations. Friday shaktipat 7:45pm. Waking down, Waking up, Ammas, Shri Shri. The Domes twice a day. All week long every week. This is Fairfield, the Fermilab of consciousness spirituality.Evidently according to the science of field affect there is safety in numbers and proximity matters spiritually too. You should come visit. YOu'd like it. We will even pay people to come meditate here now. With experiences like this you should Be here with us. You're invited, -Buck --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent, and the tendency to want to be regular on that basis, there was always in the 'back of my mind' a remembrance of the experiences that led me into meditation, which were, for want of a better way to say it, 'mini-awakenings', brief flashes of insight. The memory of these experiences acted as a kind of mental rudder in what developed subsequently in experience. After about a half-decade of meditation an experience similar to the description of CC developed. One day it vanished. I did not even realise it had vanished. Several months went by, and one morning I awoke and realised that the inner silence was completely absent. The witnessing was just gone. Now I continued to meditate, but that experience never returned; something like it developed, almost like a ghost, a sense that
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck wrote: Xenophaneros Anartaxius; Being. Solid and stable. Very real. What a wonderful post. I ask and survey around and a lot of old meditators here are having number one experiences like this too and also practice fluid meditation this way of the three forms you mention, even in the Domes. You are not alone in this description but this seems the way it has gone for many. Established in Being, perform meditation. Or something like that. Then also the field effect of sitting in groups meditating doing spiritual work. Throughout the week there are ongoing groups of meditators in Fairfield practicing forms of the three meditations you mention in combination. I read what you write and think you'd be a fine addition to our Quaker meeting on Sundays. The Monday eve heart meditation. The Tuesday light-lunch meditation at the Mother Divine Church. Weds Circle of Sophia. Thursday Satsang. 2:30 everyday at Revelations. Friday shaktipat 7:45pm. Waking down, Waking up, Ammas, Shri Shri. The Domes twice a day. All week long every week. This is Fairfield, the Fermilab of consciousness spirituality.Evidently according to the science of field affect there is safety in numbers and proximity matters spiritually too. You should come visit. YOu'd like it. We will even pay people to come meditate here now. With experiences like this you should Be here with us. You're invited, -Buck --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: In all these years I have found three kinds of meditation useful: 1. Guided Meditations 2. TM 3. Zen, Vipassana, mindfulness kinds of meditation where instead of a mantra, one comes back to the breath if one drifts off, and attempting to be as physically still as possible (with minimal effort). I could not do this kind of meditation four or five decades ago, but now is more or less the pervasive quality of most of my meditations, even if I start with TM. Right too, as if Maharishi was going just with the mantra all the time when he'd close his eyes in meetings with us. -Buck It is an interesting thing that Maharishi's last technique that he was working on even as he was at the end of his mortal life was in dealing with 'illumination' of the Unified Field within the body physiology, the subtle system of the Field soul manifesting in the body. His Ved and Physiology technique is very definitely a composite technique of all three meditation modalities which Xenophaneros Anartaxius mentions here in his essay. Xenophaneros evidently in evolution is spontaneously ahead of things with his own long and growing experience as a meditator. It's very beautiful. -Buck If everything is 'transcendence', one cannot meditate to transcend, one meditates because among other things, it is something to do or not do. Meditation is really culturing not doing anything, that mysterious quality of letting the world get it on and having a ball. As for creativity, I feel meditation and the release of various impediments allows it to flow better; I have never felt meditation enhances creativity. Whatever creativity we have is already there. Believing strongly that meditation enhances creativity seems to be a good way to banish creativity from experience and replace it with a veneer of creativity platitudes. Creativity just comes if it is there and there is no resistence. There are people in this world who really do lack creativity. Unblocking that results in the same lack of creativity. I often think these people gravitate to bureaucratic jobs. MUM administration comes to mind. Experiment. Be curious. Think. You cannot learn about your own life by sitting back and letting someone else tell you how to live it. Make use of advice, but do not get sucked into it. Do not believe a word I say.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
And of course I was aware of that. It's something called poetic license, and it's employed by writers and even others when they want to make a particular point. I can explain more about it if you want. You might want to lighten up a tad and just smell the roses. They should be coming up soon. (-: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Buck wrote: Xenophaneros Anartaxius; Being. Solid and stable. Very real. What a wonderful post. I ask and survey around and a lot of old meditators here are having number one experiences like this too and also practice fluid meditation this way of the three forms you mention, even in the Domes. You are not alone in this description but this seems the way it has gone for many. Established in Being, perform meditation. Or something like that. Then also the field effect of sitting in groups meditating doing spiritual work. Throughout the week there are ongoing groups of meditators in Fairfield practicing forms of the three meditations you mention in combination. I read what you write and think you'd be a fine addition to our Quaker meeting on Sundays. The Monday eve heart meditation. The Tuesday light-lunch meditation at the Mother Divine Church. Weds Circle of Sophia. Thursday Satsang. 2:30 everyday at Revelations. Friday shaktipat 7:45pm. Waking down, Waking up, Ammas, Shri Shri. The Domes twice a day. All week long every week. This is Fairfield, the Fermilab of consciousness spirituality. Evidently according to the science of field affect there is safety in numbers and proximity matters spiritually too. You should come visit. YOu'd like it. We will even pay people to come meditate here now. With experiences like this you should Be here with us. You're invited, -Buck --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: In all these years I have found three kinds of meditation useful: 1. Guided Meditations 2. TM 3. Zen, Vipassana, mindfulness kinds of meditation where instead of a mantra, one comes back to the breath if one drifts off, and attempting to be as physically still as possible (with minimal effort). I could not do this kind of meditation four or five decades ago, but now is more or less the pervasive quality of most of my meditations, even if I start with TM. Right too, as if Maharishi was going just with the mantra all the time when he'd close his eyes in meetings with us. -Buck It is an interesting thing that Maharishi's last technique that he was working on even as he was at the end of his mortal life was in dealing with 'illumination' of the Unified Field within the body physiology, the subtle system of the Field soul manifesting in the body. His Ved and Physiology technique is very definitely a composite technique of all three meditation modalities which Xenophaneros Anartaxius mentions here in his essay. Xenophaneros evidently in evolution is spontaneously ahead of things with his own long and growing experience as a meditator. It's very beautiful. -Buck If everything is 'transcendence', one cannot meditate to transcend, one meditates because among other things, it is something to do or not do. Meditation is really culturing not doing anything, that mysterious quality of letting the world get it on and having a ball. As for creativity, I feel meditation and the release of various impediments allows it to flow better; I have never felt meditation enhances creativity. Whatever creativity we have is already there. Believing strongly that meditation enhances creativity seems to be a good way to banish creativity from experience and replace it with a veneer of creativity platitudes. Creativity just comes if it is there and there is no resistence. There are people in this world who really do lack creativity. Unblocking that results in the same lack of creativity. I often think these people gravitate to bureaucratic jobs. MUM administration comes to mind. Experiment. Be curious. Think. You cannot learn about your own life by sitting back and letting someone else tell you how to live it. Make use of advice, but do not get sucked into it. Do not believe a word I say.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
Xenophaneros Anartaxius; Being. Solid and stable. Very real. What a wonderful post. I ask and survey around and a lot of old meditators here are having number one experiences like this too and also practice fluid meditation this way of the three forms you mention, even in the Domes. You are not alone in this description but this seems the way it has gone for many. Established in Being, perform meditation. Or something like that. Then also the field effect of sitting in groups meditating doing spiritual work. Throughout the week there are ongoing groups of meditators in Fairfield practicing forms of the three meditations you mention in combination. I read what you write and think you'd be a fine addition to our Quaker meeting on Sundays. The Monday eve heart meditation. The Tuesday light-lunch meditation at the Mother Divine Church. Weds Circle of Sophia. Thursday Satsang. 2:30 everyday at Revelations. Friday shaktipat 7:45pm. Waking down, Waking up, Ammas, Shri Shri. The Domes twice a day. All week long every week. This is Fairfield, the Fermilab of consciousness spirituality.Evidently according to the science of field affect there is safety in numbers and proximity matters spiritually too. You should come visit. YOu'd like it. We will even pay people to come meditate here now. With experiences like this you should Be here with us. You're invited, -Buck --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent, and the tendency to want to be regular on that basis, there was always in the 'back of my mind' a remembrance of the experiences that led me into meditation, which were, for want of a better way to say it, 'mini-awakenings', brief flashes of insight. The memory of these experiences acted as a kind of mental rudder in what developed subsequently in experience. After about a half-decade of meditation an experience similar to the description of CC developed. One day it vanished. I did not even realise it had vanished. Several months went by, and one morning I awoke and realised that the inner silence was completely absent. The witnessing was just gone. Now I continued to meditate, but that experience never returned; something like it developed, almost like a ghost, a sense that whatever meditation was doing, it was not localised as a still awareness inside. Also during this period, which lasted a long time, my
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent, and the tendency to want to be regular on that basis, there was always in the 'back of my mind' a remembrance of the experiences that led me into meditation, which were, for want of a better way to say it, 'mini-awakenings', brief flashes of insight. The memory of these experiences acted as a kind of mental rudder in what developed subsequently in experience. After about a half-decade of meditation an experience similar to the description of CC developed. One day it vanished. I did not even realise it had vanished. Several months went by, and one morning I awoke and realised that the inner silence was completely absent. The witnessing was just gone. Now I continued to meditate, but that experience never returned; something like it developed, almost like a ghost, a sense that whatever meditation was doing, it was not localised as a still awareness inside. Also during this period, which lasted a long time, my attention, which for most of my previous life had been pretty inner directed - not because I was spiritual, but because I liked to think about things and lived in my head a lot - pretty much went to things outside, girls, food, movies. There were certain kinds of spiritual yearnings, what I think were the remains of early religious programming, and these became rather diffused over time. Sometime before 1990, those yearnings came to an end: they just stopped dead. I continued to meditate, all the while grumbling about it not working out. That CC experience had been very intriguing, a sense of interior invulnerability walled off from the world, and being identified with it rather than the ego, which nonetheless continued to seem to be real as a sense of a separate entity. By the mid 1990s my ties to the movement pretty much ended; I seem to have survived primarily on luck. During this whole period after the first five years of meditation, I did not round much, and even if I had the opportunity, I did not always take it up. By the mid-2000s something odd happened, life seemed, psychologically, to be easier. I was unemployed at the time, it just seemed I was lucky. I am not saying here I was somehow in accord with the laws of nature and they were supporting me. It was more just dumb luck. There was also a sign of some shift in meditation, the tendency to not want to pick up the mantra, but just to sit quietly. After a couple of years, I developed a strange unrest - I kept remembering an event from the early 1970s, over and over, day
[FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
That post made it completely worth the time it took for me to write my own to serve as your writing prompt. Fascinating, thoughtful post. I'll read it a few times, but thanks for such an honest description of your own relationship with meditation and different states of consciousness. Your post was FFL at its best! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent, and the tendency to want to be regular on that basis, there was always in the 'back of my mind' a remembrance of the experiences that led me into meditation, which were, for want of a better way to say it, 'mini-awakenings', brief flashes of insight. The memory of these experiences acted as a kind of mental rudder in what developed subsequently in experience. After about a half-decade of meditation an experience similar to the description of CC developed. One day it vanished. I did not even realise it had vanished. Several months went by, and one morning I awoke and realised that the inner silence was completely absent. The witnessing was just gone. Now I continued to meditate, but that experience never returned; something like it developed, almost like a ghost, a sense that whatever meditation was doing, it was not localised as a still awareness inside. Also during this period, which lasted a long time, my attention, which for most of my previous life had been pretty inner directed - not because I was spiritual, but because I liked to think about things and lived in my head a lot - pretty much went to things outside, girls, food, movies. There were certain kinds of spiritual yearnings, what I think were the remains of early religious programming, and these became rather diffused over time. Sometime before 1990, those yearnings came to an end: they just stopped dead. I continued to meditate, all the while grumbling about it not working out. That CC experience had been very intriguing, a sense of interior invulnerability walled off from the world, and being identified with it rather than the ego, which nonetheless continued to seem to be real as a sense of a separate entity. By the mid 1990s my ties to the movement pretty much ended; I seem to have survived primarily on luck. During this whole period after the first five years of meditation, I did not round much, and even if I had the opportunity, I did not always take it up. By the mid-2000s something odd
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot....]
Well Xeno here I am again, awash in the clear blue waters of your writing. Hanging on to my question like a branch I grabbed as it floated by: If indeed you lose instead the pursuit of an unreal dream how is it that you still have what you call pesky delusions and residual delusional thinking? Maybe the delusion is thinking they're delusions (-: Am I being nit picky? From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2013 3:19 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation Hijacks Achievment? [was MUM kid expelled for pot] --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emilymae.reyn emilymae.reyn@ wrote: Does meditation work to balance out the chemical makeup of one's physiology? Does it release our natural feel good chemicals within the body? Or, maintain balanced levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc. My experience with TM meditation and its associated practices is that it is a way to hijack our usual brain reward system for achievement in our lives. And this was Maharishi's stated goal, fulfillment divorced from achievement. If you keep mediating you cultivate the mind to trigger highly pleasurable states. It becomes very addictive. Many meditators show signs of extreme irritation if they miss a mediation once they get hooked on it just like any other addict. So IMO mediation can become a problem like any other form of hijacking the pleasure states, meant to reward our species for doing things that promote our survival or express our creativity. I believe there is no neuronal free lunch, every pleasure state has a cost. Of course this is a highly heretical view in circles where regular meditation and more meditation are both seen as only positives. But for me the balance is trickier. I use meditation when I need some of what it does for my brain, but regular meditation just leads to me getting hooked on the mental states it produces. And for me these states do not produce my optimum functioning. They are as advertized, very charming to our minds. But they can easily lead to an end in themselves since our brains are inherently lazy and getting the quick reward is neurologically preferred. Unfortunately that does not lead to my fullest creative potential any more than hitting the slot lever again and again. Although they say that meditation is a preparation for activity, and I don't doubt that for really impulsive people it is a real benefit, for people like me who have perhaps cultivated this functioning a bit too much, it can become a real distraction. I get a lot more done with my eyes opened! This understanding is still just a work in progress. I am fascinated that some like Barry maintain that other forms of meditation do no exhibit some of what I see as downsides of TM's passive bliss states style. Curtis, I found this little post really interesting. While I found TM blissful to some extent, and the tendency to want to be regular on that basis, there was always in the 'back of my mind' a remembrance of the experiences that led me into meditation, which were, for want of a better way to say it, 'mini-awakenings', brief flashes of insight. The memory of these experiences acted as a kind of mental rudder in what developed subsequently in experience. After about a half-decade of meditation an experience similar to the description of CC developed. One day it vanished. I did not even realise it had vanished. Several months went by, and one morning I awoke and realised that the inner silence was completely absent. The witnessing was just gone. Now I continued to meditate, but that experience never returned; something like it developed, almost like a ghost, a sense that whatever meditation was doing, it was not localised as a still awareness inside. Also during this period, which lasted a long time, my attention, which for most of my previous life had been pretty inner directed - not because I was spiritual, but because I liked to think about things and lived in my head a lot - pretty much went to things outside, girls, food, movies. There were certain kinds of spiritual yearnings, what I think were the remains of early religious programming, and these became rather diffused over time. Sometime before 1990, those yearnings came to an end: they just stopped dead. I continued to meditate, all the while grumbling about it not working out. That CC experience had been very intriguing, a sense of interior invulnerability walled off from the world, and being identified with it rather than the ego, which nonetheless continued to seem to be real as a sense of a separate entity. By the mid 1990s my ties to the movement pretty much ended; I seem to have survived primarily on luck. During this whole period after the first five
