Meditation 30 day challenge

[spiritualcookie]

Tara!

I would also like to go deeper into meditative states this year.

Thank you for reminding me of a Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda book. I used to read it in winter times always leaving the last pages unread somehow and restarting again next year. There are so many people devoted to spirituality... it is so inspiring.

It's such an inspiring, magic & miracle-filled book!

Yes, so many paths to spirituality! Today I was reading up on how people get into a state of joy during meditation and it led me to a Buddhist reddit forum where it seems there's a whole road map for the different levels of meditation you can reach. Apparently the level of joy is actually only the "First Jhana" - quite a low level on the scale which surprised me! There are 2 more Jhanas above it, an then 4 more above that! I thought joy was quite high - but from what I've read this morning it seems there's plenty further to reach after that!

-

I've been reading about Jhanas today and comparing what I've read about them to Esther's experience when she first started meditating, and I'm certain that what Esther Hicks experienced when she thought she first experienced Abraham was actually the First Jhana!

Esther said:

When the timer went off and I came out of the meditation, my teeth chattered like never before. Buzzed would be a better word for the experience. For nearly an hour, my teeth buzzed as I tried to relax back into my normal state of awareness. At that time, I didn’t realize what had happened, but I know now that I’d experienced my first contact with Abraham. While I didn’t know what had happened, I did know that whatever it was—it was good! And I wanted it to happen again. (Hicks Ask and it is Given)

And the description of the first Jhana is:

"The first jhana is not a calm, peaceful state. Its energy is pretty intense. It can be finger-in-the-electrical-socket intense. It can be intense so that you are actually vibrating to the point where it is visible to others." And with that, it comes with a sense of joy / delight / ecstacy.

[abrahammer117]

Day 20:
Updated Goals:
a) 3 x 15 minutes sound of silence meditations each day.
b) Cold shower first thing after waking followed by meditation
c) No superfluous internet of any kind (no news, football, YouTube etc.) - Sunday cheat day
d) No food before 6pm - Sunday cheat day. Today's body fat 20.5% from 20.9%
e) Wim Hof breathing until I reach 3.30min breath hold - once a day if I have time

Progress definitely continuing. Thoughts of worry or concern that were once just settled in my mind (and somehow felt like due diligence) now feel like poison when they come up and I really wanna shake them off - so I do shake them off fairly quickly.
Keeps popping in to my mind the guideline 'don't dwell on any thought that is not optimistic, constructive and kind'
Now when worry or criticism pops into my mind, it feels like common sense to just change the subject to anything where it is easy to feel optimistic and kind rather than trying to 'work' on the tricky subject.
Really starting to feel a zest for life creeping back in

[spiritualcookie]

a) 3 x 15 minutes sound of silence meditations each day.

hey Andy, Just out of curiosity - what do you experience during your meditations? Is it just blackness and nothingness? or do you experience stuff like feeling tingles / sensations.. feeling like you're floating / feeling like you lost a distinct sense of your physical body parts? or do you get visuals coming in? Do you feel a complete calm, peaceful neutrality of emotions or do you feel a sense of contentment or even amazing joy? or something else? just wondering

[spiritualcookie]

Off Topic

Reminder:

Jhana Meditation Technique

• Focus on the breath until the breath becomes so subtle it's hard to notice, then
• Focus on a positive pleasant-feeling tingle / sensation somewhere in the body, and focus all your concentration on it. If you can smile when you meditate, it works very well for generating a pleasant sensation to focus upon.
  Note: You're not focusing on the location of the feeling; you're focusing on the feeling itself, regardless of where it flows during the meditation - because it is likely to shift locations and change as you go. The aim is to immerse your awareness in the pleasant sensation—its texture, warmth, or vibrancy—rather than being attached to where it is happening in the body. Allow the Sensation to Flow Naturally. By staying with the quality of the sensation, you allow it to flow and transform naturally, fostering the development of joy (pīti) and ease (sukha).
  That's it! That's the whole meditation.
• Continue doing this during meditations day after day, being patient, raising your vibration day by day, until one day a switch flips and you're in the First Jhana, experiencing joy and ecstasy brought on by the meditation. It may take a while of practice before anything happens. You can't hurry it along. You just have to be patient and continue doing the work. It'll happen when you're vibrationally ready.

Don’t try to do the jhanas. You can’t. All you can do is generate the conditions out of which the jhanas can arise. Be patient, trust that they will come in time, however long it takes.
Recognize when you’ve established these conditions, then patiently wait for the jhana to come find you.

- Leigh Brasington

Day 20:

Day 20 of the Meditation Challenge
Day 2 of the Jhana Challenge

30 day grid:






-

Day 21:

Day 21 of the Meditation Challenge
Day 3 of the Jhana Challenge

In today's meditation I got to a state where I lost distinction of my hands- they were resting on my thighs as I meditated and the sensation was like my thighs and both hands were one thing - I couldn't distinguish where one started and another ended. From what I've read - I think this is all part of the journey, a step on the documented path. Next level up I believe is losing distinction of all body parts during the meditation.

30 day grid:






-

Day 22:

Day 22 of the Meditation Challenge
Day 4 of the Jhana Challenge

In today's meditation I experienced a feeling as if I was being tickled from the inside I focused on this feeling, as the Jhana meditation guidelines recommend - it felt pleasant as the ticklish sensation moved around my whole body. There were a few moments of a feeling of energy swelling/ surging around the chest area, like an ocean wave. A little like the feeling before going down a rollercoaster. I guess this must all be energy moving. I find it so interesting seeing what experiences come up during meditation

Now that I've finished the meditation, I can still feel the ticklish energy moving a little!

30 day grid: