Meditation Questions

[Astral Steve]

Hello there. I'm rather new to meditation (excluding prior astral/vision experiences) and I would like to ask a few questions some of you might be able to shed light on.

I'm on my 5th day of what I would presume to be meditation. During these sessions, I'm usually able to sense or "visualize" objects I can't seem to explain. I use "visualize" loosley becuase I'm not seeing anything physically, but sensing something with my mind; it's VERY hard to explain. I've done all my meditation laying down to this point and plan to sit on my next few sessions, see which one works better for me. Some of the objects that I can explain would be such things as an Ankh (which I had no prior knowledge of other then seeing a few somewhere down my life), a purple cosmic eye (very odd), and others I can't recall at the moment. The only way I can relate to how I experience these objects would be somewhat like those optical illusions where you see certain shapes when a color is burned into the eye.

My first question would be if any of these 2 objects have any significant meaning in the context of meditation or any for that matter. Also, could meditation be related more to deep or light sleep? I sometimes recall going into a deep sleep while being concious and when I try to figure the state I am in, I wake up and find myself breathing deeply. Am I doing something wrong? My final question would be, what can be the cause of a tingling sensation on my right leg and unvoluntary movement of both my leg and my jaw during these sessions. Thank you in advance!

-Astral Steve

[Tutor]

certainly these are universal symbols and symbolic in/of you. i imagine all this is specific to you. keep a journal as you go, draw pictures/sketchs. it takes time for a lot of this to be understood, even as one can research and think to know; like what an ankh represents. knowing what an ankh is has little to do with understanding it in the context of your relationship to it and it to you.

the latter requires patience to allow life's reveal.

i've waited years for such to reveal itself. and sometimes it might be the very day of.

[Korpo]

Hello, Astral Steve.

The easy thing to explain first: Your body is moving because of the increased energy flow you are experiencing. When being conscious in a deeper state of trance this automatically triggers a bigger flow of energy through you - even your etheric body, which governs the processes in your physical body. By itself this energy flow does nothing. However, when energy flow hits energetic blockages within you then all kinds of things can happen depending on the nature of the blockage. A spontaneous memory could arise (mental block), an emotion could be triggered without apparent cause (emotional block), or a part of your body could start to itch, slightly spasm, tense up - all kinds of spontaenous physical events (physical/etheric block).

In this sense the current of energy wears down the resistance. Other sensations might accompany the process, like for example heat. Increased energy flow simply is cleaning out the pipes, and where the pipe has not got enough capacity to carry the pressure, these sensations arise.

Robert Bruce described this at different times for example - the "cobweb sensations" (see AD-Pedia on this site) he experienced with increased energy flow. He also names itches and other sensations as side effects of energy work - for the beginner in energy work often a blessing in disguise as these sensations tell him or her that something is indeed happening.


The objects you've been seeing might be input from your "inner senses." When out of body, for example, you do not perceive with your outer senses. You have other senses. We often expect these senses to work just the same, which is not the case and the cause for a lot of frustration. So, your intuition about what you call "visualising" here is a very valid clue - just welcome this sense material and see what it gives you. Your inner senses are your gateway into the energy bodies, into experiences on various planes of existence and experience. So, this is what you might have been experiencing, and it is by itself a valid and important experience.


Concentration and meditation are concepts with a lot of meanings for many people. What I think you are practicing I have seen called trance or "Psy-Time." This is also what people are trying to do that use HemiSync sounds to induce trance states called "Focus levels." Trance is a state consciously experienced that for the body is somewhere on the spectrum of relaxation and sleep. It is, in a sense, a turning inward, and that's why you could call what you are sensing with then "inner senses."

Sometimes I have seen that this trancing is called meditation, though it is not the same as what is meant by meditation or concentration in many schools. It is, again, a valid experience and can be part of psychic and spiritual development.


Concentration is a practice where you train your mind to stay with a certain object of the mind for prolonged periods of time, learn to maintain awareness of that object, learn a certain "mind discipline." When the mind has stabilised to a certain point this object can then be continually observed. Once this stage is reached the practice is often called meditation. In the stage of concentration you mainly focus on building up this "awareness power" of keeping your mind on something. In the stage of meditation you have achieved this skill mostly and can actually deal with the perceptions you get from that object of meditation and learn from it in certain ways described again by many traditions.


Of course all of this comes with a certain restriction: You didn't exactly tell us what your practice is. Terms like "meditation" can lead to misunderstandings, so if you could just tell us more about what you're actually doing, step-by-step, before you have these experiences, your actual practice, that might help others to tell what is going on. These misunderstandings happen quite often when different people try to relate these unusual experiences to each other - sometimes a word even has several meanings we're not usually aware of. Most of the time it is easier to just spell out what you did in detail than trying to fix the terminology, for example.

Generally I would say that these are interesting and validating experiences you are having, and hope you will enjoy exploring them!

Take care,
Oliver

[CFTraveler]

I just wanted to add that the eye is not rare, most meditators see it. Not all the time, but eventually. For whatever that's worth.