Re-Awakening...or something.




It's been a long time. I could make a Led Zeppelin joke here, but I can't be bothered.

Anyhow, it has indeed been a long time. A long time away from this blog, and probably even more time away from discussion of spiritual progress and meditation. Not that it's something I've ever lost interest in; on the contrary, I still walk the Path and practice daily in some form or another but I lost interest in talking about it. It's only now, as 2020 takes its first burning breaths, that I feel moved to begin writing again.

Let's cut to the chase: I claimed to be 'enlightened' but I can quite confidently state that I am not.

What I do know for certain is that I have experienced several different, what we could call “shifts” for the sake of convenience, wherein my baseline of consciousness has changed dramatically and without ever reverting to its previous state.

Having been actively engaged in meditative practices for about ten years before the first shift occurred, I was no stranger to altered states of consciousness. As an avid psychonaut too, self-induced state changes weren't new either and so, although I had many odd and informative experiences under my belt, this was something very, very different.

To this day, I don't know what these shifts are, were or whether any more will occur, but I feel that I need to set the record straight on my own past claims to various attainments and my descriptions of various states. As I said, I'm not enlightened but I believe it wouldn't be incorrect to say that I've experienced some level of awakening. I also believe that these awakening experiences I've encountered are perfectly natural and within the reach of anyone who is willing to commit to doing the practices; practices which seem to reliably induce these seemingly more purified experiences of consciousness.

I wanted to clear some of this stuff up, and I'll continue in future posts, but the matter of claiming to be enlightened or in any sort of special position, spiritually, is first on the list and probably the most important to address. My intention is to rework this blog, cut out all the nonsense about enlightenment and using fancy words for this or that state of consciousness so that we can focus on the practical. I want to be able to get back to basics and strip everything down to its nuts and bolts, so that anyone can take these meditative techniques and utilize them. There's a reason they've been used for thousands of years and it's because they actually work when done correctly!

So, where does this leave us?

Who knows? The only thing I can say with certainty is that I have the intention to write more regularly and to rework this blog into a more down to earth approach to serious meditation.

Best of luck to you all for 2020.

- Tommy M







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Methods of Awakening - Access Concentration

Image
[Edited January 27th 2020: Corrected a few bits and pieces, but I've generally left this one intact. I don't know for certain whether or not I've actually attained "Stream Entry", but it doesn't really change the nature of this post and the practical advice which has proven useful to many (based on the very kind e-mails I've received).] Audio Version - Subscribe on YouTube Access Concentration One of the things that threw me when I started seriously meditating and using the Buddhist framework was the concept of "access concentration". I had spent a long time working with other conceptual maps and meditative techniques, over a decade of experimentation with everything from raja yoga to ritual magick, but I thought that this was some major meditative accomplishment which would require decades of practice. It was only when a more experienced yogi pointed out that, since I was claiming to have attained "Stream Entry", t...
Read more

Did You Get Your Free Book?

Image
I've published two free ebooks on meditation and mindfulness , aimed at beginners. These have both been based on reworkings of some of the content on this blog, but both have been updated quite a bit. Please help yourselves to your free copy by clicking the links below! If you enjoy my content, please let me know in the comments or via e-mail. I'd love to hear from you and hear more about what you'd like me to talk about. Stay tuned for much, much more activity from your friendly neighbourhood agnostic mystic! The Urban Yogi's Handbook Vol. 1: Concentration The Urban Yogi's Handbook Vol. 2: Mindfulness/Attentiveness Audiobook Version Open Skies: 60 Minutes of Meditation Music
Read more

Methods of Awakening - Stop! Jhana Time

Image
[Edited January 27th 2020: Corrected a few bits and pieces. At the moment, I am undecided as to whether to continue using the term, "jhana", to describe the concentration states I'll be discussing. Without going into detail, I would rather develop a more universal framework than confuse matters by appropriating Buddhist terminology, and particularly if the states are not in keeping with traditional understanding. An audio version of this post will be made available in coming weeks, so stay tuned.] Stop! Jhana Time In a previous post, I talked about access concentration as being the foundation of meditation practice, so I suppose it makes sense to continue the discussion by talking about what gets built on top of this fine, but very basic foundation. I will use the Buddhist framework to describe this as it’s a simple but incredibly accurate model, although I’ll try my best to describe any map-specific terminology in terms of actual practice and physical/mental...
Read more