Mark's 2nd Practice Journal

The 4th path moment didn't radically alter all things. But a few things seem like they were solidified in consciousness, going from "I hope they are true" to "definitely they are true, though the depth of the truth remains to be discovered"

1. Reality now definitely seems both dual and non-dual. Not in a samara=nirvana way, but just that it is somehow both. Formerly there was doubt about the latter, now there isn't. How deep non-dual reality (for lack of a better word) really is--and how deeply one can experience that--I honestly don't know.

2. The energetic circuit seems completed in a foundational sense. The energy has been everywhere in the body. However, the energy hasn't been *completely* anywhere--all chakras still need work. There are still stress points, blockages, and impediments in the system. I would say that kundalini's work is not done. This is like saying that by 4th path the phone company has laid down phone lines in all the local districts, but it hasn't made it to every home or to every room, particularly the ones in deeply wooded areas.

3. For me, the major stress point continues to be the heart chakra. That is where the most pain, anger, grief, and blockage is. It seems like the energetic seat of the small self. When the heart chakra is open that corresponds to the deepest feeling of openness, clarity, and insight. My teacher's teacher's teacher said, "The heart is the hub of all sacred places, go there and roam." I connect with that phrase and yet see that it will require a lot of patience and a great deal more practice.

Thought I would do a new practice journal for post 4th path. I am pretty sure I have passed that, as I had a moment about two weeks ago that is very similar to what others have described and a set of changes that is as well (at least somewhat similar--seems like there is no total uniformity).

What does 4th path feel like? It's hard to say. The feeling of being off "the ride" is definitely there, but it is accompanied by the feeling that growth and development are still very important and crucial in my case. Off the ride, perhaps, but very much on a journey. A couple of analogies stand out for me. Back in the day I earned a black belt at a local martial arts school. When I got it--it took about two or three years and a lot of hard work--I was told by my instructors "Well, now we can actually teach you something." That is how I feel; that I have the tools to continue on. An additional analogy is that 4th path is like graduating from undergraduate with a good gpa. Takes a great deal of effort and discipline, there is a real sense of accomplishment on some level, and yet in someway the undergrad degree is only the precursor to lifetime learning.

P.S. If I had said this to my pre-4th self, it would have depressed the hell out of me, as I desperately wanted to be done and doner. And yet now there is a feeling that growth might be endless, but it is okay, mostly compelling and exciting rather than depressing (though occasionally depressing too).

7. My practice now is what I can handle, which seems about 1.5-2 hours a day. Every day is different. I am losing hope that things ever stay the same.

4. Another way of saying some of this, is that I've accumulated 35 years of (sometimes hyper) negative thinking about the self as well as untold other karmas of anger, fear, and so on. I have a wild horse of a mind. There is no free lunch, so those keep arising, and the feeling at this point is that I have to be with them, accepting responsibility for them that they represent my past false perceptions. It's not that I was a total emotional dolt before--earlier paths, psychotherapy, and experiences helped a great deal--but but there was a deep set of negative feeling that I couldn't handle being with, so I pushed them away. At 4th path it feels like I have the detachment to be with them a bit more, if not necessarily enjoy them.

5. I have more confidence in my abilities at 4th path. It's nice to have reliable access to states, though the ride up can sometimes be a bear. Prior I was extremely insecure about whether I was doing the right practice at the right time, or was having the right insight. Now I can stand more strongly in the awareness that it is up to me, that I have to practice but I can do the practice I like. Simple realization, but a long time coming in my case. In this sense I have been doing all the practices--noting, mantra, 2nd gear, chanting, surrendering, watching the breath, 3rd gear every once in a while--but doing so more spontaneously and with somewhat less argumentation in my head (though it still happens).

6. It seems that 4th path has made, in my case, 3rd gear feel more real and more possible as a lived insight. That is my current north star: Deepening my understanding of 3rd gear. Right after 4th I had my most significant 3rd gear experience, which I can best describe as coming into the present moment, the BIG NOW. But it' still work and still surrender.

Mark, thank you for writing about your 4th Path experience. It is good for a newbie like me to have some idea in advance where a particular practice leads. I have been lurking in KFD for a while now, and have always been impressed by the honesty, kindness and humility in your posts. I find it inspiring and exemplary, and I'm glad that your work is paying off.

Robert

Congratulations Mark!

Awsome! Reports like these are really inspiring and reinforce one's motivation.

Antero.

What a wonderful post, Mark! Thank you for writing it and for posting it here on our forum.

Mudita,

Kenneth

Thanks guys!

Huge thanks and bows are in order from my end. First to Kenneth, who I credit with pushing me (however nicely) to practice harder and not give in to some resistances in my practice which I had had for a while. Though I've been practicing for about 17 years, the end progress was quick--about two months to get 3rd and then 4th. But I have little feeling that I would have done it without his support and the support of this very specific community. The jhanic maps and the addition of noting practice to my tool bag were incredibly useful--helped me disembed from some subtle states by describing them and encouraging me to name them as well. They also engendered more and deeper states--let go and more comes. The journaling also really helped. Actually, it hurt. Every post hurt to write, in the sense of making me feel (or, rather, revealing me to be) somewhat desperate for approval, proud/inflated, and vulnerable. I'd say the journaling effectively brought up a lot of my ****, as well as allowed me a place to brain dump and let go (a process which continues).

Additional thanks to Nick, Chris, mumuwu, Alex, and others who engaged me and gave me some great specific feedback and helped keep me motivated. Actually, everyone's posting helped motivate me and I was checking in pretty constantly.

Anyway, call me a Hindu softy, but you are only going to be as good as the company you keep. I'll even say something a bit woo-woo "spiritual" and suggest that there is a subtle energetic component to this community, comprised as it is of so many advanced practitioners, that goes a good deal beyond all the practical advice, social pressure to practice, and the maps. Not that one can just coast along on someone else's chi, but if one is willing to paddle out in the wave to catch it I think there is something a bit ineffable to be had here.

Congrats Mark! welcome to the world!
Now living becomes effortless! what a wonderful thing that it.

This Sangha IS amazing. It does feel like everything comes together!

...now, keep us posted on your experience post 4th path!

with metta,
JF

I've been digging back into the Hindu Tantric literature, as that is what I am drawn to do lately.

Abhinavagupta, who is the central writer in Kashmir Shaivism, created a synthesis model of practice that incorporated a number of traditions he had been exposed to and that were present in his time. The model is hierarchical and contains four methods or "upayas".

The highest method is called anupaya, which essentially means no-method. Here you don't do anything, you just see the big It and that you are It. Practices are not necessary or are considered attempts to do something when there is nothing to be done.

The second highest method is the path of will: Practitioners make subtle adjustments in intention that allows them dissolve their individual consciousness and achieve full realization.

The third highest method is the path of knowledge or power: This is, generally speaking, most of we do here, in terms of applying meditation techniques in order to gradually pave the way for 3rd gear realization. This was a quote I found that really struck me, and I think still describes a good deal of my practice currently post 4th path. It is drawn from Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka (his major work), translation by Paul Muller-Ortega.

"The one who wishes to penetrate into that realm of the divine nature of the supreme Lord, should quickly and expeditiously carry out the purification of thought and the refinement of mental states. One such refined or purified mental state produces another which is refined by itself, and then another similar to it, and then even another, and then yet another mental state similar to it in its very nature. Thus, by degrees and through a succession of four different mental states, thought is gradually purified and refined, beginning with an unclear and contracted state, moving then to a state that is about to become clear, then to one that is yet clearer, and then to one that is blossomed and fully expanded into clarity. Then, an even clearer and more expanded state of mind ensues, until in the end thought becomes clearest, most refined and most fully expanded. In each of these states of mind, beginning with the first and least clear, there are intermediate levels. Then, because of this progressive refinement of thought, consciousness which has thus been fortified by this extremely clear, refined, and noble state of thought finally enters into the stainless condition that lies beyond all such differentiated states of mind and thought. And, as a result, for those who practice and meditate in this way with self-reflexivity, the splendorous fire of Bhairava (God), who very nature is transcendent consciounesness, reveals itself in its highest degree of clarity, expansion, and unfolding."

A while since I did an update. Not that that much is happening, but since I've been thinking about it:

My practice is pretty much the same, with somewhat less intensity, than it was before 4th path. Some days I just do short lying meditations at night, other days just a walking meditation, and other days I feel very motivated and will do a walk, a longer sit, and 2nd gear while driving. I'm still reading spiritual literature and listening to teachers and all of that. Hasn't changed.

In some ways, this period reminds me of 2nd path in that things just cycle around with a gradual sense of deepening--though with more centeredness. Each trip through the cycles is 0.01% easier, and when in deeper jhanas the "veil" feels thinner and lighter.

Also, the lessons come back more quickly, even though I still need reminders. For example, I almost inevitably forget that the first 20-30 minutes of meditation is going to be harder, that thoughts will be heavier and less porous. So I end up getting frustrated, wondering where all that clarity went. But I catch myself a lot faster, and the reminders I give myself feel more potent; I actually relax a bit instead of just coach myself to.

It is less upsetting to feel "disconnected"--whatever that feelings is when the meditative transparency goes into hiding. A few days ago I was practicing a lot; things felt deeper and clearer. Then yesterday I woke up and just felt totally "kicked out" of it. But it wasn't a big deal. I don't know why it wasn't a big deal, in the past it would have been. It's not like I've got some stable insight passing through all states. It's more of an embodied feeling of "well, okay, not a big problem". And when it does feel like a problem--and sometimes it certainly does--it is also less of a problem. Not a big realization, but more like a sense of trust.

A few thoughts and updates... I find if I don't brain dump speculations they just collect in my head. I don't suggest anyone take them seriously; I'm not sure I will once I type them out.

I've been thinking lately about Kenneth's updated model. I'll be honest and say that I can't seem to get attracted to direct mode and the practices or attainments as he (or Owen or Nick) describe them. Sometimes I think maybe I'm not ready. Most of the the time though I just think that it isn't the exact practice and outcome for me--outcomes being somewhat different, depending on what exactly you do to your brain. Just as the old 4th path model really was the practice for me for a few months, sort of out of the blue. It's a very quirky thing, what practice you are drawn to.

What has become clear to me though is that emotions really do have to be transformed after 4th path in order to go deeper. You can't just watch, but must transform as well. I am now thinking of meditation as "cortical-limbic" practice. Meaning that the changes engendered by the 1st 4 paths are primarily cognitive--cognitive first, emotional second. Also, I am thinking of early awakenings as primarily cognitive with emotional changes also being secondary.

However, after 4th path deeper changes must include a shifted emphasis, adding "limbic-cortical" as an additional direction of change. This is my sense of what makes the direct mode practices (or something analogous, or at least related) important after 4th path. Going back to pre-DM ideas, I would agree with Kenneth that ancillary practices that don't deal exclusively with disembedding--like metta, etc.--are not necessary for "awakening". But they are necessary for "self-realization"--a deeper embodiment of "awakening" that penetrates into the whole being (borrowing Rupert Spira's distinction).

What actually spurred a lot of this was a dream I had recently. I was feeling pretty dry inside and detached, somewhat dissociated. Not my normal mo. It just seemed that all of that noting and 2nd gear had gotten me stuck in a kind of "emptiness". This is something they talk about in the Adya community, getting stuck in emptiness.

So I can't remember the dream exactly. But I do remember the word "stuck" along with a vivid feeling and then the name of a scripture with the ending "gita." I know the actually name of the scripture; it's a collection of wisdom saying from my root lineage. But when I woke up I didn't fulled pulled to read the scripture, as I had read it just a few weeks before. So I let the dream go, couldn't figure it out.

Later that week it came together. I was feeling dry, dissociated and I realized that I had let go of almost all of my emotional and devotional practices when I came to this community. Particularly chanting, which is the emotional practice most recommended for transforming feelings out of the standard and into what might be considered spiritual feelings. Then it hit me that the word "gita" means song.

So the upshot is that I replaced my 2nd gear practice in particular with chanting, on walks and during drives. This feels like it has shifted things significantly. The energy move from a greater depth inside the body and the brain as well. Singing engages the limbic system, transforms emotional energies, and it's automatic. Sort of like noting has a kind of automatic effect. When you sing just certain parts of the brain light up even if you are distracted. But chanting is a concentration practice as well, so there is a secondary cortical component. Limbic-cortical instead of cortical-limbic. I am thinking about other devotional practices that I don't do, and seeing them through this lens as well.

Anyway, these are my crazy ramblings.

On additional practice notes... A more frequent experience in meditation that seems to be happening is that the "present moment" breaks through at certain points, the feeling of time becoming illusion, that nothing exists outside of now. It feels like all of that meditation practice has thinned out a certain set of cognitive filters. These have as much to do with projections of time as space. The "timeless now"isn't quite like impermanence, or experience breaking up into component parts. In that, even though things break up, there is still a sense of sequence, even if the sequence is not contiguous.

How it came to me last night: The timeless now feels like being in a "energetic hot pocket" just outside the body--like one of those microwave sandwiches. The crust of the sandwich is the boundary of past and future. The time and energy inside the hot pocket are all in the present moment--a slightly extended version of the instantaneous "right now". But the past beyond the crust doesn't arise. Nor does the future. It's like the thoughts and beliefs all just bump up against the crust of the hot pocket and just kind of get reabsorbed. The past and future don't form as cognitive processes. It sounds cognitive, but it's also visceral.

Last night I was able to stay in the present moment for just a few minutes after meditation. Short, but certainly the longest (by far) I've experienced. Seems like a place to return to as often as I can. I'm thinking now of Bernadette Roberts as describing being unable to leave the present moment. Also, Adya has said similar things. Another teacher I know of said "I only see everything as the perfect pulsation of the Supreme Omnipresence". The "now" pulses, it's alive in some way.

From Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's "Merging with Shiva" This quote is all contiguous; it doesn't jump from page to page.

"As you unfold spiritually, it is difficult to explain what you [will] find... At first you feel light shining within, and that you think you have created with your mind, and yet you will find that, as you quiet your mind, you can see that light again and again, and it becomes brighter and brighter, and then you begin to wonder what is in the center of that light. "If it is the light of my True Being, why does it not quiet the mind?"

Then, as you live the so-called good life," a life that treats your conscience right, that light does get brighter and brighter, and as you contemplate it, you pierce through into the center of that light, and you begin to see various beautiful forms, forms more beautiful than the physical world has to offer, beautiful colors, in that fourth-dimensional realm. And then you say to yourself "Why forms? Why color, when the scriptures tell me that I am timeless, causeless, and formless?" And you seek only for the colorless color and the formless form. But the mind in its various and varied happenings, like a perpetual cinema play, pulls you down and keeps you hidden within it ramifications."

quote cont...

"In your constant striving to control that mind, your soul comes into action as a manifestation of will, and you quiet more and more of that mind and enter into a deeper state of contemplation where you see a scintillating light more radiant than the sun, and as it bursts within you, you begin to know that you are the cause of that light which you apparently see. And in that knowing, you cling to it as a drowning man clings to a stick of woods floating upon the ocean. You cling to it and the will grows stronger; the mind becomes calm through your understanding of experience and how experience is created. As your mind releases its hold on you of its desires and cravings, you dive deeper, fearlessly, into the center of this blazing avalanche of light, losing your consciousness in That which is beyond consciousness.

And as you come back into the mind, you not only see the mind for what it is; you see the mind for what it isn't. You are free, and you find men and women bound, and what you find you are not attached to, because binder and bound are one. You become the path. You become the way. You are the light...

quote cont...

As you watch and wonder, your wondering is in itself a contemplation of the universe, and on the brink of the Absolute you look into the mind, and one tiny atom magnifies itself greater than the entire universe, and you see, at a glance, evolution from beginning to end, inside and outside, in that one small atom.

Again, as you leave external form and dive into that light which you become, you realize beyond realization a knowing deeper than thinking, a knowing deeper than understanding... You realize immortality, that you are immortal--this body but a shell, when it fades; this mind but an encasement, when it fades. Even in their fading there is no reality.

And as you come out of that samadhi, you realize you are the spirit, consciously, if you could say that spirit has a consciousness. You are that spirit in every living soul. You realize you are That which everyone, in their intelligent state or their ignorant state, everyone is striving for--a realization of that spirit that you are.

And then again for brief interludes you come into the conscious mind and relate life to a past and a future and tarry there for a while. But in a moment of concentration, your eye resting on a single line of scripture or anything that holds the interest of the mind, the illusion of past and future fades, and again you become that light, that life deep within every living form--timeless, causeless, spaceless.

quote cont...

Then we say "Why, why, after having realized the Self do you hold a form, do you hold a consciousness of mind? Why?" The answer is simple and complete: you do not, of yourself you do not. But every promise made must have its fulfillment , and promises to close devotees and the desire they hold for realization of their true being hold this form, this mind, in a lower conscious state. Were the devotees and disciples to release their desires for realization for but one minute, their satguru would be no more. Once having realized the Self, you are free of time, cause and change."

What does 'God' mean to you Mark?

The creative ground out of which everything arises, is sustained, and then dissolves. That which expresses itself as me, and not me, and as beyond me. That which manifests as time, and yet is timeless. Love.

A bit of practice update, as the last few nights have brought something new to my meditation, or expanded something which I've experienced only briefly before.

A touch of context: My schedule is ramping up quite a bit after about a five-month relative lull, so my mental energy is being taxed more. So I was motivated to meditate prior to sleep (a normal time for me) but I was too mentally fried to concentrate. So I just lay there but consciously did not engage any concentration--no "firing up" the frontal cortex--in the normal way I would when beginning 1st or 2nd gear practice. What occurred is that I seemed to meditate without active concentration, without effort. There was clear energetic and jhanic activity, but almost no sense of strain at all. This was unlike previous attempts of mine at making "no effort" in that didn't also feel like I was slipping in attention, just allowing myself to defuse or space out, or just feeling my body (not that those things are bad, they aren't, but they don't feel like meditative practice in quite the same way). But this state was extremely lucid in that things just seemed to arise and happen--more lucid than regular meditating but without actually trying to meditate.

Another difference was that it had some similar features to 2nd gear practice--in that things were just happening in "front" of me. But in this case there wasn't really any sense of witnessing, as in someone watching energetically from the back or the top of the head. It was effortless watching that didn't seem to have an obvious presence or imprint in the mind. Regular witnessing is much less compelling to me at the moment, as the witness I know tends to take up some mental space. Things don't feel as free or quite as spacious as when it isn't present.

The accompanying feeling with this is one of light and increasingly luminosity in the inner field. I normally see a dark field mixed with tinges of blue and purple that gets punctuated by an intense A&P-ish strobe-effect when I have eye kriyas. I also often see what my tradition calls the "blue pearl"--a very small, shimmering point of blue light that comes in and out of focus. But now there is a kind of whitish/yellow hue that seems to be emerging from the background. I also notice this more after practicing NS (taking a recent pointer from Antero).

This light experience has been coming on a little bit for a few weeks, but seems to be getting more pronounced and is something I am more and more compelled to experience. As much as its just another experience, it is almost like I am going to meet a very peaceful good friend. In my brain, it feels as if the same part of the wetware that gets activated in daily life when someone turns on an actual light is starting to get engaged. I also have had this "duh!" kind of insight that there is basic illumination/light in all of the inner field, that even the inner darkness is lit up.

I have heard about this a zillion times, of course--the pervasive sense of light or luminosity as an aspect of meditation, that awareness is self-luminous. But now it feels like it's actually starting to happen in experience (or I am ready to notice it).

"But now there is a kind of whitish/yellow hue that seems to be emerging from the background. I also notice this more after practicing NS
- mdaf30"

Hi Mark,

What you are experiencing sounds familiar to me. What happens if you do multiple rounds of NS? For me the light gets brighter with every round. One way is to incline my mind to experience the space around me. I try to sense it as a field that fills the entire universe. It works especially well when exiting NS. The light also gets brighter when I let myself merge with it, surrendering my will completely.

Antero.

Hi Antero.

Thanks for the comment. The sense of light emerging is pretty new, and I have a feeling that I ought to let it come and integrate slowly. Therefore I haven't tried taking any conscious intentions or experiments with it. I'd like to get more used to it and have it stabilize before I try anything else.

I usually do two rounds of NS. Your post on that was very helpful and motivating. I've just noticed, because of your recent post, that the light grows after NS. I was just starting to notice the light in other states, so it wouldn't have made sense to me much sooner than that. I will notice and see if after two rounds of NS it is brighter than after one. I might try three as well.

Yours,
Mark