I am going to post this on each of my website blogs as well as my newsletter. Why? Some information that recently crossed my path explained many of my meditation experiences of the past and currently as well. Many students of the psychic development class and those interested in spiritual and psychic/intuitive development may have had similar ‘signs’ of their spiritual progress or evolution.
Before I go into what those are, it’s probably best to offer the disclaimer that if one looks for these signs or tries to manifest them, they will be blocking their energy and possibly delaying further consciousness expansion in some way. My teachers have always guided me not to get “hung up” on manifestations and to take with a grain of salt. It is just the natural process of the mind—don’t be overly concerned, they’d say.
If you have read much on my website (www.psychicjoystar.com), you will see that I’ve mentioned mysterious occurrences that came about as part of my meditative absorption over the years. Those were a total and complete mystery to me until this past week!
The history of experience for this life has always evolved in a way that much later explanations arrive that validate occurrences and I’ve always been grateful for that as it assures me that there was no conscious influence on my part.
As many readers may know, my tendency is to reach toward eastern philosophy my deeply personal effort to understand life, the mind, and of reality itself. My studies and meditation time have not been in vain and have helped me to cope with some very difficult life circumstances. Yet, there were always those mysterious events lingering in the memory of my mind. Up until now, there were not fully explained in any kind of satisfactory way.
Then this past week there comes the information that does so! I simply must share it. It will be a brief outline and I will paraphrase some of it while keeping true to the text. I will add some personal notes in parenthesis. I hope this will be of use to others.
The signs of meditative concentration are known as “nimitta” and include the following:
- For beginners, it is usually grey smoke color appearing in front of them. When this occurs, the instruction is to concentrate on the natural breath; and gradually then, the breath and nimitta will become one. In this stage the mind usually stays automatically will become one. (Personal note: when I would go hiking and be breathing more heavily, I would see more of this grey smoke in front of me. By the way, it started out looking like black ink in the atmosphere, as if someone dumped a bucket of black ink in the sky. I could see around it and through it and then gradually it lightened.)
- As meditative concentration develops further, the gray smoky nimitta will change in color to white. (This is exactly what happened to me.) This is given the name of “the learning sign”. As one continues to concentrate on the learning sign, the white form nimitta will change to a transparent nimitta and this is called “the counterpart sign”. (I was in Sedona, Arizona atop a mountain at the time this occurred. That was sometime in the late 1990’s. I was still working as a Physical Therapist at the time.) The instruction in the text is that one should concentrate on the transparent nimitta until a state of full absorption is reached.
- The text says that unless one sees the counterpart sign, the meditative attentiveness or concentration is superficial. (Again, I did not have any of this information until a few days ago and therefore did not know of the instruction to concentrate on the transparent nimitta.)
- (In the eastern philosophy, the word used to describe these stages of meditation is called “jhana”. I did not know that word until this past month actually. And there is the discussion on audios that I’ve heard about maintaining states of absorption for 2 and 3 hours at a time without interruption. This I was able to do when living alone in the mountains many times. Since I’ve moved from the seclusion of the mountains–for approximately the past 6 years—that is rarely the case.)
- The text says that once a person’s meditation practice is very clear they will, one day, see small particles, called “kalapas”. When one see’s kalapas, they have reached the last stage of samatha(serenity/calm/tranquility) and the beginning stage of vipassana (insight/seeing things as they really are). At this stage, one understands reality as small particles.
I must pause here to explain that this next part totally blew me out of my seat, so-to-speak! I wrote about this on my website eons ago and this occurred, also, in the late 1990’s just before I moved (from Florida) to the mountains of North Carolina. Here it is nearly 20 years later and it is only now that I understand what all of these experiences were about! The book in which this information is contained was published in 2008, ten years ago. Yet, it has taken me nearly all of the past ten years to adjust to the huge transitions in my life and to release a significant karmic relationship connection. It hasn’t been until recently that my personal journey has directed me back to seek deeper levels of meditation, reaching for Samadhi again. Anyway, this light, so white and so bright and it occurred when I was meditating on a star in the sky at twilight one evening. I felt myself moving toward it and then the white brilliant light sort of frightened me. It was everywhere I looked and lasted a good chunk of time and it faded finally as I looked at a large pine tree. I’ve never seen it again all these many years.
- The text says that there is a visual-like nimitta which is ‘the best one’. (Again, the word nimitta means sign/mark/appearance.) It is not seen with the physical eye. It is purely a mental phenomenon. It appears as if it is like a headlight in front of you, incredibly brilliant, so much so that you don’t think you can stare at it any longer. (At the time I thought perhaps I drew the star right down in front of me – I’d been staring at a star during meditation at the time.) This is not a visual thing at all and even though it is like looking at the sun, it is quite safe, because it is a pure metal image—according to the text.
If one tries to have any such experiences as described, the effort actually blocks the meditator’s tranquil absorption. Actually, I recall trying to stare at a star again at various times in the past and could not reproduce that event –or any other unusual experiences of my past for that matter.
I wanted to put this out today so that it may be helpful to others. Maybe I will save someone 20 years of wondering and never really knowing what those signs are really about!
The text that I’ve been referring to is called “The Experience of Samadhi” by Richard Shankman and the specific information at nimitta were from interviews with Pa Auk Sayadaw, the abbot of a Forest Monastery in Burma and Ajahn Brahmavamso, who studied with Venerable Ajahn Chah and is the abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery and Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society in Australia.
I am so personally grateful to them for the information shared in the text which has helped me considerably and renewed my meditative effort.
May it be that this information reaches the right person for the right reasons and be of the highest service.
Most recent newsletters:
07/10/2018 – Ringing in the Ears – It can be Mystical
06/26/2018 – Visions and Insight Flashes in Psychic Work
06/18/2018 – Spirit Guides or Wishful Thinking?
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