two spiritual paths

[amazingjourney]

I am not new on the spiritual paths anymore. Reading and picking up quite a few methods here and there, I have noticed some differences in two paths--one is through meditation on the now, the other is through OBE and exploring the dream land.

Started as a daily meditator during a rock bottom period. Meditation transformed me totally in weeks. I went from a broken-hearted, deeply depressed and desperate, not being able to function productively, to finding my inner self, genuinely happy and joyful, suddenly creative and intuitive, seeing divinity and truth in all things and people around me, constant urge to share what I found and serve others, compassionate and loving to all beings....I know that if there is god, this must be how god feels. And OBE, lucid dreams, and magical dreams are all parts of this. After two years, the intensity died down a bit. The impact remains with me until this day. I would say the main thing is really the realization of an inner self, pure, divine, and powerful.

Last year, I started to do chakra work as the next step. As a result, I started to have floating experiences and then OBEs more frequently. I also tried methods that I picked up here and there. They are quite effective. When I do get OBE or lucid dreaming, I am happy. However, on the consciousness level, I didn't experience or I wouldn't say it's close to what I experienced through intense meditation. I wouldn't use the words such as inner realization, divinity. It just feels totally on different levels. Sometimes I even feel anxious if I don't get OBEs or LDs for a while.

These both are hard paths, but it seems to me that the differences lie in the following:

1. In meditation, the result is total stillness, no sensation on the body, no steps of attemps, breathing reduced to a few times a minute, sensory awareness dimmed to practially nothing. At such time, the consciousness gets to its highest clarity in one point of awareness. In total Consciousness, we only feel compassion, love, all being one, all being nothing

2. When we use methods to induce an OBE and finally get out, we are thrilled and we feel powerful. The way it has long lasting impact seems to be when we have enough exploration in the astral and interact with other beings. In meditation, the impact is both physical and spiritual in that the inner energy ground and center us and we feel powerful, joy, loving, focused emotionally all day long. Physically, we feel energetic, something powerful in the belly, light, smile on the face all day long, everything tastes so good however simple the food. Even in our dreams, we fly, we are in magical places, we encounter beings from other worlds. We see our guides following us in our dreams, We also pray autimatically every night.

3. A very big thing I notice in meditation is the strong urge to serve others, which comes from self realization

I was wondering if others have any input on these. I have been totally swamped with work for past months and have not focused on experiences during sleep.

[CFTraveler]

I only have insight based on my own experience- I realize that others' motivation/experiences may and will vary.

In my case, I started out at point 1 and continued on to point 2. It's almost as if OBE and out of body states are a side effect of seeking out the first.
When I was young, I had a variety of what would be called mystical experiences, that it colored how I saw the world, and my world was a world of wonder, and it became a world of possibilities.
I strove to try to understand myself and my relationship with/and my view of God, and the Universe. In this striving, I came upon meditation (and other things, like service and gratitude) and practiced it on it's own sake for many years. Of course, at the time I didn't understand that it could be a starting point for further exploration.
And that's how I see it- I see OBE and other types of structured 'technical' discipline as 'further exploration', which can enhance your initial immersion into oneness or distract you from it, depends on what your path is.
Maybe that's why Patanjali said what (he) said about achieving siddhis and then letting them go.

[amazingjourney]

Thank you CF.

Actually what you are doing here is serving others already. Many of us are following your foot steps on this path that you have lightened up so we can all coming along.

Yes, I do see energy work as further development as well. I was in that joy and awe for too long. With those strong energy and truth, I needed to do something with it, either to serve others, chenaging the surroundings, or to explore the astral.

After I have explored the astral a little, then I was made to serve as a leader in the community and can start fulfilling my outer purposes that way.

The hard part is there comes to a point when I have to make a decision on how to use my energy and what to use it for. In meditation, the mantra sustain and intensify the energy and the experience. And the mantra is the divergent points.

If my intention is going deeper to be in touch of my inner self, I say to myself " total honesty" " this is this" " this is being" which really doesn't take me anywhere but deeper. I get to the point where I don't really need to go anywhere spiritually, because there is no where else to go. All is one.

If my intention is to direct my energy t explore the astral, I am pursuing somewhere else by using this energy. I say to myself " third eye" " is there vibration?" " what is that sound?" "why is that ball of dazzling curtain forming?" But this surge of energy is not the totality of inner self. There seems to be a disconnection with my truth when I am directing my attention to go somewhere else.

This is something I need to consolidate in order to move forward. Sometimes I deliberately ignore experiences in order to go deeper, because it just feels different and there is a divergent point.

Maybe this is just short track away and eventually they will come back together. I think this is what I should find out.

[wstein]

I would suggest that these characterizations are NOT inherent to these two paths. Much would seem to come you own experience and your view of your experience.

<1> Meditation (path) seems to diminish in the beginning because the cacophony of surface 'stuff' (mind chatter, distractions, ego) is greatly reduced. With more depth comes expansion as one discovers one's inner self. Lifelong practitioners can eventually expand even further as they realize their connection with everything (oneness). Depending on your outlook this can make you feel enormous (bigger than the universe) or tiny (just one tiny spec of dust in the universe). The power of the universe (part of self) is far greater than the physical human filled with chatter. Sometimes you feel the awesome power of divinity, other times the powerlessness of being incarnate.

<2> For some, OBE is a great expansion as they discover the universe and their own capabilities far exceed anything they imagined. For others, it's a terrifying and limiting experience as they discover all kinds of danger they are far too limited to protect themselves from. I would suggest that lucid dreaming is a far better avenue for feeling powerful, as with a couple years experience there are basically no limitations (you can act as god)- till you wake up of course.

<3> The call to service is NOT part of meditation but a product of other factors. The most obvious are: 1) service is your inner purpose newly discovered, 2) you have been conditioned by the training and tradition of the form of meditation you practice, or 3) a response to feeling connected with all things (a step to self realization). Mediation is A method to achieve self realization but not the only one.

[amazingjourney]

Thank you for your insights. Wstein. I appreciate.

<2> For some, OBE is a great expansion as they discover the universe and their own capabilities far exceed anything they imagined.

I have had two kinds of OBEs--one is with strong (almost frightening) energy flows that results in a rebirth type of sensation inside and out of my body and being, the other is without such stunning power but almost dreamlike, only that you know it's not a dream. In the first type of experience, it does feel very powerful and magical. But this type of experiences are not very often and they do leave me with long lasting impact--physical rebirth type of awe lasting three four days and then taping off, spiritual type of awe really will stay with me as long as I live.

<3> The call to service is NOT part of meditation but a product of other factors. or 3) a response to feeling connected with all things (a step to self realization). Mediation is A method to achieve self realization but not the only one.

From my own experience, the urge to serve is a very apparent and definite result of meditation resulting from self realization. This is how my physical and spiritual development turns out. Because it's physical, emotional, and spiritual, there is no resisting or denying or mistaking it. Seeing all kinds of things happening around you or people suffering, you are touched by it and your energy wants to flow over to balance it out. I wasn't like that before. In the past, it's all intellectual or moral only. But after transformed by meditation, serving feels like the whole me and every part of me.


Yes, maybe meditation is not the only path to achieve self realization, but I would say that it will have to be through inner energy, no matter what path we take. And the inner energy needs to combine with self realization through step by step of knowing ourselves. (I wrote another thread on inner energy)

If through OBEs, we will still need to use the experiences to go through all our thoughts, emotions, memory, until we work through all these in dreams or OBEs, until finally we get to our inner self and to self realization.

At that point, it merge back to what meditation does.

Just my 2 cents.