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I Remember When I First Got Into Meditation!
It was about 12 months ago from today, and the experience was so powerful that it had me shook! Weeks after, I found myself searching the web to find a reason for my experiences or why I felt the way I did. There’s a million different articles written on the topic and everyone had something different to say.
In fact, one article even explained that the experience I felt was when an individual is nearing enlightenment!
And this my friends is absolute bonkers! So today we are gonna be talking about spiritual experiences during meditation and yoga.
If you’re looking for a post that tells you why you’re experiencing what you’re experiencing, you’ve come to the wrong place.
There’s a million articles that talk about these things, and probably most of them are all inaccurate to some degree. When it comes down to it, all you or anyone else can do is speculate. “I felt this way, so it must be as a result of this”. This is nothing more than making an assumption!
Spirituality: Entertainment For Some, Life For Others!
Well well well. First and foremost I should start off by saying that there’s a lot of “jokers” when it comes to spirituality. By jokers I mean there are a lot of people who see spirituality as a means of entertainment.
In many ways, it’s the new fad; it’s trendy to be spiritual and since everyone is meditating, I should too!
Nope that’s not spirituality, that’s entertainment! Spirituality is about total destruction; it’s about destroying everything you think you are, slowly peeling away at your ego layer by layer until all that’s left is simply life. The biggest tragedy in the world is that people will not understand this, and will continue to stumble their way through life until death.
If you’re serious about spirituality, then you will know that there is nothing in this life but spirituality. The rest is just an illusion. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin rightly said:
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
If you’re not serious about spirituality, and are just here for the entertainment value, I ask you to please reflect at your life. You are alive at this moment, and because of this you have the greatest gift in the universe. The gift of being able to experience pure consciousness! If you take these words seriously and make spirituality a constant part of your life, your life will be transformed in ways you can’t imagine. Let this inspire you to reflect within yourself to make this transformation possible!
Spiritual Experiences During Meditation: Are They Important Or Should You Ignore Them Entirely?
The crux of this article. Is it important to reflect on your spiritual experiences during meditation, or should you simply ignore them? Please realize that the question itself is highly subjective. I should warn you then that my response will also be subjective!
Who am I to speak on the subject? Well truth be told, I’m a nobody. In many ways, i’m an ordinary joe who consistently does his yoga and meditation, so while I may be ordinary, I do have solid discipline.
You can choose to listen to what I say, or you can simply ignore it. That’s entirely your call.
If you ask me, I think one should not dwell on the spiritual experiences felt during meditation, nor should they be ignored entirely. Most people are on either side of the fence; they’re way too caught up on their experiences, or they completely ignore them. Both extremes I don’t agree with.
Having a balance is always the best bet, if you ask me!
What’s a balance look like? A balance is when you see a spiritual experience for what it is: that is, nothing more than an experience!
But experiences are important in one’s spiritual journey because they serve as milestones. Sometimes an experience can tell you how far you’ve progressed since you started with a certain practice. In these cases it’s nice to reflect over a period of time to understand the transformations.
But you must never forget that an experience is simply an experience, nothing more! You don’t do your practices because you want these experiences, you do your practices because they will one day lead you to ultimate truth!
And honestly, there’s nothing else that really matters. If you have pleasant experiences along the way, then good. If you have unpleasant experiences along the way, then no problem, you will simply continue to push on! But the moment you start to dwell on your experiences, you start to hallucinate. You create fanciful illusions in your mind and the experiences become more important than reality and the practice itself.
Reality is right here right now! Your experiences, your notions, your thoughts and emotions are your rubbish!
So How Do I Maintain A “Balanced” Approach With My Spiritual Experiences?
One way that I’ve found works really well is to focus your undivided attention 100% on your practice. In the case of yoga, if you’re performing a certain asana, do so with utmost involvement. Do so in such a manner that you become one with the posture, such that every single part of your being is fully engrossed in the practice.
If you do your practice in this way, there’s no room for distraction, there’s no time to dwell on experiences!
After you’ve completed the practice, then you can sit for a few minutes with your eyes open (or closed) and reflect on how you felt, and what’s changed over the months. Again, don’t overthink things! A couple minutes of self reflection is all you need.
What Are The Best Tools To Go “Inward”?
A little off topic here, but I think it’s worth spending some time talking about spiritual practices that can help direct you inward. There’s tons of guided meditations and various forms of yoga one can practice. It really boils down to what you want to do.
If you ask me, what we refer to as universal truth can be sought in different ways!
Whether you choose “this way” or “that way” is entirely up to you. The way I tend to look at it is like this: there are technologies, call them spiritual technologies, that if consistently practiced for a period of time can lead you to truth. Obviously, some technologies are much more effective than others. Therefore is it not in your best interest to pick the most effective technology!?
When you look at spirituality like this, you won’t entangle yourself with belief systems and ideologies. You’ll have developed a conscious understanding that your practice is nothing more than a technology for your liberation.
Since we are getting into the specifics, the 2 practices I follow on a daily basis are:
- Isha Kriya—Which is a free guided meditation offered by Sadhguru (founder of Isha foundation).
- Shambhavi Mahamudra—A 21 minute intense yogic practice taught in the Inner Engineering program (a paid Isha program).
I’ve written about both of these practices in great detail. You can check out my reviews of each by clicking the links above.
So To Summarize…..
Because we’ve discussed several different concepts in this post, here’s a quick and dirty summary of it all:
Are you serious about spirituality or is it entertainment for you? Truly ask yourself this question. Inspire yourself to try meditation and yoga, and see what it feels like. You might be pleasantly surprised!
Are spiritual experiences during meditation important or can they be ignored? Neither one. It’s best to keep a balanced approach and see the experience for what it is…..nothing more than an experience!
The best way to maintain this balanced approach is to remain 100% focused on your practice. Do your practice with complete involvement, so that there’s nothing that can distract you (not even super pleasant experiences!)
So as to not get entangled, you must look at spirituality and spiritual practices as technologies. If ultimate truth is important to you, you must pick the most effective technology that can help you achieve this!
To Really Drill It Home!
Really there’s nowhere to go and nothing to be done. Sadhguru says it best in the video below (Credit: Sadhguru).
I hope the video inspires you as it did me. I hope this post has provided some value with respect to spiritual experiences during meditation. Please know that the information presented in this post are simply my opinions and observations based on doing my practices. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to drop a comment below.
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