Tolerating meditation

[fopylo]

I've just done a 45 minute meditation focused on emotional awareness. I'm reading the book Ask and It Is Given by Esther Hicks, and a lot of the content is focused on thought vibration and LOA. As I'm meditating I have thoughts, natural thoughts, that arise. Each thought that arises has a certain feeling to it, which translates into body sensations and a general intuition of harmony/discord, of whether this is in alignment or not, of whether it is closer to the experience you truly desire - the relationship with YOU. And the more you ponder a thought, it expands and becomes clearer, attracts similar vibration thoughts, and the vibration becomes more powerful to notice how you feel.

With that said, when I was meditating, thoughts arose, and with each one I was assessing how it feels in my body and what it tells me about my relationship (alignment) with my true self. Assessments are also thoughts. So when I'm having a thought I am trying to assess it with feeling it, which is another thought, holding onto the original thought. I am basically scared of dying into the thoughts. I am scared because when I die into a thought, experiencing it, there is no room for a different thought (the assessment) to intervene, and I want to assess, I want to understand, but when I'm dying into a thought there is no room for that - there is also no I for doing so.

I know you might say that this is good to die and lose your sense of self in order to experience fully. However, in this stage of trying to understand what the book is talking about, I value understanding the experience, and to know from direct experience how this LOA works, in real time.

But yeah, this was a recipe for disaster. I was experiencing so much resistance, and still pushed through. Even when I was experiencing this strong resistance and had enough already of this session, I still focused on feeling the discord, and more importantly, on the feeling, for feeling tends to move towards alignment. But again and again, I fell back into this pit-hole of strong discord, and I really hated that experience. Sometimes meditation do be like that, and sometimes not. Fucking hell, 'just enjoy meditation' - that was my initial intent.

[Phil]

There’s basic fundamental meditation, and there’s meditation of Mental & Emotional Equanimity. 

You might find it easier to practice one or the other, as the intentions might be clashing resulting in a frustrating experience. You also might not. Just a suggestion to try it out & see. 

 

The discord felt might be of the thought ‘dying into the thoughts’, and not of an actuality of anyone dying into thoughts. The ‘separate self’ which can be falsely believed to exist, is only “in” thoughts -  is literally thoughts. Exact same for ‘dying’. There’s no actuality of that. Just the thoughts / beliefs. 

 

This is key to loa, because there is communion. An intending & receiving experience of manifestation.

 

Assessing thoughts with feeling isn’t something one can do. The ‘doer’ is like the separate self and death. When ‘doer’ thoughts are recognized, they fall away naturally. Effortlessness, which is synonymous with loa, is more clear, more pronounced. All effort is also like the doer, separate self, and death, in that the thought experientially exists, but not what the thought is about. Like unicorn. 

 

Ego, depending on how the word is used, is also a unicorn. Thus, “ego death” is one of the most rampant spiritual misnomers. It is a claim by ego, which again doesn’t actually exist. 

 

Resistance is let go, relaxation is willingly chosen and employed. Resistance can’t be ‘pushed through’. Pushing through is resistance. Consider allowing & receiving. Not just in practices, but in life, in relationships, in conversations. Notice thoughts arising as to what you’re going to say, and return attention to listening instead, letting the thought go. It’s an astounding experience, hearing what someone is saying for the first time.  🙂

 

There’s a pinch of confusion in regard to understanding and knowing via direct experience. ‘Valuing understanding the experience’ is a veiling concept. Kind of a cluster of concepts. 

 

Instead of ‘focusing on the discord’, use the emotional scale and focus on which emotion is felt. Then, you’re oriented to feeling better, via expressing the next emotion on the scale. The significance is the ‘other option’ is typically unconscious rumination on concepts. 

 

Feeling doesn’t ‘move towards alignment’. Feeling is what thought is aligned with. That can be a huge game changing insight, if one is trying to force or manipulate feeling. The ‘answer’ is always letting the discordant thought go. It’s not a ‘changing feeling’, it’s an allowing of feeling, unfettered by the activity, and sometimes over activity, or over-focus upon or of, thought. 

 

One experiential difference that is worthwhile in this regard, separate self thoughts like “I fell back into” or “I hated”… become recognized as, thoughts about a self, and are more clearly seen or experienced as thoughts and not believed, as if there were an actual separate self. 

 

An ‘overall’ ‘theme’ consideration might be inspecting for a deep seated belief something has to be done or change, or effort has to be expended - to feel good. If so, there might be an a priori (a prior and yet inspected) belief one is x, y or z, which might be ‘not good’, ‘not good enough’, ‘have to change something or get something or create something to be happy’, etc. The relevance here of the emotional scale, is the shift from believing the discordant thought… to expression, and therein the clearer & clearer recognition of the emotional guidance. “I am _____”, vs, “oh, when I think _____, I experience the emotion _________”. 

 

Just what comes to mind. Maybe helpful maybe not. 🙂 

[fopylo]

42 minutes ago, Phil said:

You might find it easier to practice one or the other, as the intentions might be clashing resulting

@Phil I am interested to here as to why. How the intentions might be clashing results?

 

49 minutes ago, Phil said:

‘Valuing understanding the experience’ is a veiling concept. Kind of a cluster of concepts. 

Yeah, but I can tell you something certain: My life experience would have been much worse if I hadn't come across Leo's channel and consumed his content, if I hadn't read your replies, had a session with you, read some mind blowing books. I have to get the theoretical understanding first, no? I mean, pretty much everything you're talking about is wisdom, but where did you get this wisdom from? You surely are a fan of Esther Hicks' teachings. You use terms like 'belief', 'thought', 'resistance', 'letting go' - which I bet you wouldn't have used if you were not to read some books and/or learn about this wisdom of reality, conceptually.

 

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

use the emotional scale and focus on which emotion is felt.

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

expressing the next emotion on the scale.

This is too much engagement with the mind

 

57 minutes ago, Phil said:

Feeling doesn’t ‘move towards alignment’. Feeling is what thought is aligned with.

I meant more like if you give space for your feelings, and prioritize feeling the thoughts rather than engaging with the thought, then you are more in contact with the way you feel, and naturally prefer better feeling which will happen automatically, I guess.

 

59 minutes ago, Phil said:

letting the discordant thought go

I find 'letting go' to be quite misguiding, as it seems to mean 'push the thoughts aside'/'get rid of it', and also a subtle implication that it is better not to have a thought than have a thought. The key missing point is that you always have thoughts arising, you're living within a sphere of thoughts, of mental evaluations, which are always here and you can't get rid of it. You can only distance yourself for playing with it. Letting go means shifting focus to a better feeling thought.

 

1 hour ago, Phil said:

It’s not a ‘changing feeling’, it’s an allowing of feeling

What? but you are the one always talking about 'moving up' the emotional scale, which is changing emotion. What does it mean to allow feeling?

[Mandy]

Gratitude is a bit different from appreciation. It might seem like if you never came across such and such or found such and such that life wouldn't be good or as good as it is. But it's really more perpetuation of the belief that the right things have to occur to me and for me to make my life good. Then there's thoughts that try to control and secure and worry about luck and chance that cloud the present unconditional peace of the moment. Life is Good, always an expression of Good, and it's more the examination of thoughts about the me and the good being absent that are seen through than believing, doing and coming across the right things. 

[Phil]

2 hours ago, fopylo said:

@Phil I am interested to here as to why. How the intentions might be clashing results?

Your op. Sounded like you’re trying to do both at once, and it might be easier to look at that as two different intentions and or practices. I didn’t mean the intentions clashing with the results. I meant two intentions of the practices clashing with each other. 

2 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

Yeah, but I can tell you something certain: My life experience would have been much worse if I hadn't come across Leo's channel and consumed his content, if I hadn't read your replies, had a session with you, read some mind blowing books. I have to get the theoretical understanding first, no? I mean, pretty much everything you're talking about is wisdom, but where did you get this wisdom from? You surely are a fan of Esther Hicks' teachings. You use terms like 'belief', 'thought', 'resistance', 'letting go' - which I bet you wouldn't have used if you were not to read some books and/or learn about this wisdom of reality, conceptually.

I don’t disagree. In addition, I don’t ‘hold’ wisdom in the same way. I don’t have any wisdom to value. It’s like the wind. Infinite. When it blows I am appreciative of it, when it does not I am appreciative of it. 

2 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

This is too much engagement with the mind

Could also be seen as not-engagement of the mind. Like “I feel anger”, “I feel discouragement”. Like, very literally, expression and using the scale can be that simple. There is no actual need for thinking or understanding, in the practice of using the scale. 

2 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

I meant more like if you give space for your feelings, and prioritize feeling the thoughts rather than engaging with the thought, then you are more in contact with the way you feel, and naturally prefer better feeling which will happen automatically, I guess.

Yes, I agree. Also, one doesn’t necessarily have to feel thoughts, in a ‘doing’ sense. One already automatically effortlessly is feeling thoughts. 

 

2 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

I find 'letting go' to be quite misguiding, as it seems to mean 'push the thoughts aside'/'get rid of it', and also a subtle implication that it is better not to have a thought than have a thought. The key missing point is that you always have thoughts arising, you're living within a sphere of thoughts, of mental evaluations, which are always here and you can't get rid of it. You can only distance yourself for playing with it. Letting go means shifting focus to a better feeling thought.

This might only amount to a pointing at the moment, but that I find to be indicative of belting thoughts and not actual in regard to thoughts. Might be actual & true for you presently, ‘where you’re at on the path’, but it’s not ultimately true. The mind so to speak can be very literally ‘turned off’, such that there is no activity of thought or thoughts in experience whatsoever. This is like living in the punchline of the entire cosmos - that everything is always going perfectly… aaannnnddd…. sometimes thoughts make that seem like it is not the case. No mind is not some impossible “state” or zombie like experience. It’s blissful, not concerning. 

 

2 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

What? but you are the one always talking about 'moving up' the emotional scale, which is changing emotion. What does it mean to allow feeling?

Change the thought focused on, not feeling. 

 

This might be the clarifying point, but you’d have to let me know… in your experience, there are feelings (plural)… in this experience there is feeling (not plural). 

 

Also, “tolerating” meditation is like ‘tolerating relaxation’. You might have meditation framed up kinda, wrong. As if it’s for fixing, solving, changing, obtaining, making you better, making life better, etc… vs, relaxation and thought settling, such that it is seen (felt) everything (you) is already pretty awesome as is. Yes, you have ambitions, stuff and experiences you want. That’s also awesome.  Meditation isn’t a cure, it’s no longer believing the thoughts that there are problems. Ultimately, if you will, it’s simply no longer believing any thoughts, and no longer an experience of, experiencing thoughts. 

[fopylo]

3 hours ago, Phil said:

I meant two intentions of the practices clashing with each other. 

@Phil Yeah I know, this is what I didn't understand. How are those intentions clashing? What intentions?

 

3 hours ago, Phil said:

Like “I feel anger”, “I feel discouragement”. Like, very literally, expression and using the scale can be that simple. There is no actual need for thinking or understanding, in the practice of using the scale. 

Creating the many distinctions among the different emotions - "anger", "discouragement", "blame" - is certainly engaging with the mind.

 

3 hours ago, Phil said:

Also, one doesn’t necessarily have to feel thoughts, in a ‘doing’ sense. One already automatically effortlessly is feeling thoughts.

Good point. Haven't considered that. But then the question that comes to mind is - what does it then mean to be consciously aware of your thoughts vs not being aware of your thoughts? What is the difference in experience between meditating on thought/emotional based meditation and just going about your day to day 'normal' life?

 

3 hours ago, Phil said:

The mind so to speak can be very literally ‘turned off’, such that there is no activity of thought or thoughts in experience whatsoever.

Well then I guess this occurs in a progression towards no mind, allowing your vibration to be very high, rather than by trying to shut it off.

 

3 hours ago, Phil said:

This might be the clarifying point, but you’d have to let me know… in your experience, there are feelings (plural)… in this experience there is feeling (not plural).

You knew before you posted it that you wouldn't get away with it easily ha ha

 

3 hours ago, Phil said:

You might have meditation framed up kinda, wrong. As if it’s for fixing, solving, changing, obtaining, making you better, making life better, etc…

Well of course! When people like Leo say that they've meditated for a long period of time and starting to achieve permanent results such as inner peace, self love, authenticity - it obviously sparks something in me to want to chase it as well, not to mention the pressure of trying to start early so that my 20's will be great.

 

4 hours ago, Phil said:

Meditation isn’t a cure, it’s no longer believing the thoughts that there are problems.

If beliefs = focused thought(s), and you feel the thoughts (like you said "One already automatically effortlessly if feeling thought"), then why am I still suffering from beliefs?

 

4 hours ago, Phil said:

and no longer an experience of, experiencing thoughts. 

Why? Isn't it awesome to experience thoughts of joy? Thoughts spark emotion, creativity, and many other stuff.

[Blessed2]

17 hours ago, Phil said:

Ego, depending on how the word is used, is also a unicorn.

 

When you use the word "ego", what do you point to with it?

[Phil]

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

@Phil Yeah I know, this is what I didn't understand. How are those intentions clashing? What intentions?

Bringing discord (thought activity) to rest… and mental & emotional equanimity. Those two links may be an easier way to go. Just a suggestion thought, not a ‘right’ way by any means. 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

Creating the many distinctions among the different emotions - "anger", "discouragement", "blame" - is certainly engaging with the mind.

Yes, whereas the practice of basic meditation is typically allowing all thoughts to come & go, returning attention to feeling breathing in the stomach. Might be much easier to go about as two different practices. 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

Good point. Haven't considered that. But then the question that comes to mind is - what does it then mean to be consciously aware of your thoughts vs not being aware of your thoughts? What is the difference in experience between meditating on thought/emotional based meditation and just going about your day to day 'normal' life?

Try the awareness of thoughts & the mental & emotional equanimity meditations, and compare to going about your day. 🙂 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

Well then I guess this occurs in a progression towards no mind, allowing your vibration to be very high, rather than by trying to shut it off.

Letting go / allowing / feeling breathing from the stomach… vs a progression. 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

You knew before you posted it that you wouldn't get away with it easily ha ha

🙂 There isn’t that plurality either. Me & feeling. 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

 

Well of course! When people like Leo say that they've meditated for a long period of time and starting to achieve permanent results such as inner peace, self love, authenticity - it obviously sparks something in me to want to chase it as well, not to mention the pressure of trying to start early so that my 20's will be great.

The natural isn’t a result, it’s you. The ‘you’ that’s chasing the natural / you… isn’t a you or an entity, it’s just the thoughts. It can be helpful to point to who / what’s chasing & who / what’s being chased to notice there are not really two / to see & be aware of the thought attachment. 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

If beliefs = focused thought(s), and you feel the thoughts (like you said "One already automatically effortlessly if feeling thought"), then why am I still suffering from beliefs?

Inspect beliefs until it’s seen they’re beliefs / not true. 

14 hours ago, fopylo said:

Why? Isn't it awesome to experience thoughts of joy? Thoughts spark emotion, creativity, and many other stuff.

Oh it’s unbelievable. Any “why” would be more activity of thought. 

[Phil]

@Blessed2

Same as unicorn. 

[fopylo]

3 hours ago, Phil said:

Bringing discord (thought activity) to rest… and mental & emotional equanimity. Those two links may be an easier way to go. Just a suggestion thought, not a ‘right’ way by any means. 

@Phil

What I meant is that I don't understand what you meant when you said the intentions are clashing. So you say that the intention of emotional awareness meditation is mental and emotional equanimity, and the intention of basic meditation is to bring discord to rest... How both these intentions might clash?

3 hours ago, Phil said:

Letting go / allowing / feeling breathing from the stomach… vs a progression.

Allowing, yeah. I like this, especially this:

3 hours ago, Phil said:

The natural isn’t a result, it’s you.

This is a nice way to frame it. I'll start thinking about it that way: it's not about you, the one who is suffering, slowly becoming better at accepting yourself, having inner peace, authenticity, and progressing towards enlightenment. But rather it's about allowing the clutter of thoughts and beliefs to settle down and know that you are already the result you want (this inner peace, authenticity, joyful), and it is a process (meditation and expression) of allowing your source to flow through you.

[Phil]

55 minutes ago, fopylo said:

@Phil

What I meant is that I don't understand what you meant when you said the intentions are clashing. So you say that the intention of emotional awareness meditation is mental and emotional equanimity, and the intention of basic meditation is to bring discord to rest... How both these intentions might clash?

If you go back and read your op in that light, that answer will probably be clearer now…

55 minutes ago, fopylo said:

Allowing, yeah. I like this, especially this:

This is a nice way to frame it. I'll start thinking about it that way: it's not about you, the one who is suffering, slowly becoming better at accepting yourself, having inner peace, authenticity, and progressing towards enlightenment. But rather it's about allowing the clutter of thoughts and beliefs to settle down and know that you are already the result you want (this inner peace, authenticity, joyful), and it is a process (meditation and expression) of allowing your source to flow through you.

… apparently it’s already clearer.  
🤍

[fopylo]

5 hours ago, Phil said:

If you go back and read your op in that light, that answer will probably be clearer now…

Because the meditation of emotional awareness (my experience with it) creates discord and is antithetical to the basic meditation? I would still like to meditate on emotional awareness without all this discord arising...

 

5 hours ago, Phil said:

… apparently it’s already clearer.  
🤍

I think it's still important to mention that it is quite a 'practice', which is - the practice of allowance, which isn't for granted. Allowing isn't easy for everyone since we hold on to many things we truly believe. I think there's some beauty in it