Losing interest in worldly desires; emotionless robot ensues
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Apr 23, 2016
Frank 3 years ago
I have been practicing meditation every day for 30-60 minutes for the last 45ish days. As the days go on, I've noticed the meditation becoming more and more intense.
the feeling I am left with after meditating is electric, I cannot better explain.
At first the feeling lasted only seconds. As time went on, the feeling started lasting longer, and longer. No longer than 30 minutes. Getting the peace of mind from the pieces of my mind that have caused me a whole lot of suffering is truly one of the greatest feelings I have ever felt.
I've been reading a lot on my free time. I've noticed a reoccurring theme in the purpose of meditation...
and that is more-or-less to stop giving a shit about the things that normally everyone would give a shit about (worldly desires).
In the process I have discontinued my 7 years of heroin abuse and I have cut down 75% on the amount of nicotine I consume on a daily basis.
however...
with the continued practice of losing interest in worldly desires, I've noticed that I am becoming super neutral to an unsettling extent. With the deterioration of my objective lifestyle, I have found that things that would normally make me happy no longer affect me the same. I have also found that things that I once thought negatively about no longer affect me the same.
if the goal is to always remain neutral under any circumstance,
what exactly are you supposed to find happiness in, if it's not materialistic or a relationship you have to someone or something?
what i mean to say is-
after meditating i feel indifferent towards the things in life most care
about.
i understand that attachment to the material and having desires is the cause of
suffering.
it just worries me to be so (for lack of a better word) uncaring about
life.
i want to walk a middle path... i want to walk down a path that is taking me
towards enlightenment but i also want to interact in the material word (not to
the point of being absorbed by the material... rather to be there for my loved
ones and provide for a family). Is there a good way to walk down this middle
path?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Frank Wrote:
I have been practicing meditation every day for 30-60 minutes for the last 45ish days. As the days go on, I've noticed the meditation becoming more and more intense.
MiBeloved’s Response:
You are assuming that what you do as meditation is what people normally do as meditation. Please abandon this idea and instead describe what you do so we can know what process you follow.
There are a variety of meditation styles and some are completely different to others. To assist you, we need details of exactly what you are doing during your meditation.
=====================
Frank Wrote:
I've been reading a lot on my free time. I've noticed a reoccurring theme in the purpose of meditation...
And that is more-or-less to stop giving a shit about the things that normally everyone would give a shit about (worldly desires).
MiBeloved’s Response:
This is true in the beginning stage of meditation practice and it is also true for those meditators who stagnate in the beginning stage and do not reach a more advanced level.
Worldly desires remain in the psyche and they are also impressed into the psyche by outside influences. Therefore in the advanced stage one gets meditative procedures on how to manage these worldly desires, and how to fulfill some and put some into dormancy.
Initially, desires will seem to run away from a person who is meditating but they will return with full force and force that person to operate for the fulfillments. There are nice verses in the Bhagavad Gita which comments on this:
When such a person pulls fully out of moods, he or she may be compared to the tortoise with its limbs retracted. The senses are withdrawn from the attractive things in the case of a person whose reality-piercing vision is established. (2.58)
The temptations themselves turn away from the disciplinary attitude of an ascetic, but the memory of previous indulgences remain with him. When he experiences higher stages, those memories leave him. (2.59)
Concerning an aspiring seeker, O son of Kuntī, concerning a discerned educated person, the senses do torment him. By impulses the senses do adjust his mentality. (2.60)
Restraining all these senses, being disciplined in yoga practice, an ascetic should sit, being focused on Me. The vision of a person whose sensuality is controlled, remains anchored in reality. (2.61)
The act of considering sensual objects, creates in a person, an attachment to them. From attachment comes craving. From this craving, anger is derived. (2.62)
So this means that eventually the senses being spurred by those dormant desires will return with a greater compulsion force and you will be forced to fulfill them. In the meantime you can enjoy the holiday.
============================
Frank Wrote:
In the process I have discontinued my 7 years of heroin abuse and I have cut down 75% on the amount of nicotine I consume on a daily basis.
however...
with the continued practice of losing interest in worldly desires, I've noticed that I am becoming super neutral to an unsettling extent. With the deterioration of my objective lifestlye, I have found that things that would normally make me happy no longer affect me the same. I have also found that things that I once thought negatively about no longer affect me the same.
if the goal is to always remain neutral under any circumstance,
what exactly are you supposed to find happiness in, if it's not materialistic or a relationship you have to someone or something?
MiBeloved’s Response:
Meditation Time is an open site but that does not mean that we are going to be nice to you and that we will answer your queries in a way that is pleasing to you.
Open on this site means that we are free to tell you anything and you are free to write anything and also to become offensive and to fire back. So think about this before you write anything on this site, because we may be unwilling to put a pamper on someone’s buttocks and you may get the crack of a whip instead.
In the first place it is great that you have reached a stage where you can open up about your heroin habit for if that was going on for 7 years then it means you have stockpiled tons of bad karma and so I want to keep a distance from you. If you have dead weight around your neck and you are trying to swim to a safe island which is far away, then only a foolish life guard will put his hands on you. So yes, you ask for assistance but it will be given in a very careful way. We don’t want to lose any lifeguards who might clutch on to you and sink because of the weight of bad karma you are carrying.
To be on heroin for 1 month is bad enough what to speak of 7 years. This means that you were irresponsible towards many people and events, because we know from personal experience that heroin, any opiate derivative, causes a person to unhinge from the proper sense of responsibility and to neglect the purpose of which the person has this material body.
Seven years of heroin is like a life sentence, like you were locked up in the heroin maximum security prison. So now you are getting free, all you have to look forward to is to catch up with your responsibilities.
Why did you take the material body, because on heroin a person gets insight that he or she is not the material body and there is a subtle body or psychology which exists totally apart from the body? So why did you take the body? What were you to fulfill? How much time is left in the body before its death? And how much of what you came to do can you do with that remaining time?
Those who take hallucinogenic drugs or any narcotic substance and who do not come to the realization that the body was taken for a specific purpose, obviously were not given any insight through the transcendental experiences gained through the drugs. Whose fault is that?
====================
Frank Wrote:
what i mean to say is-
after meditating i feel indifferent towards the things in life most care about.
i understand that attachment to the material and having desires is the cause of suffering.
it just worries me to be so (for lack of a better word) uncaring about life.
i want to walk a middle path... i want to walk down a path that is taking me towards enlightenment but i also want to interact in the material word (not to the point of being absorbed by the material... rather to be there for my loved ones and provide for a family). is there a good way to walk down this middle path?
MiBeloved’s Response:
First of all detachment has various stages and modes or level in which it is felt. Your detachment with total indifference to your sense of responsibility is detachment without sensitivity and therefore it is detachment in the mode of ignorance.
This means that you have by the grace of heroin, nicotine and other such substances, lost contact with your sense of purpose, your mission in life. The real use of detachment is to step back and look at a situation so as to make a decision on what to do when one reenters into the circumstance.
We have heard of supremely detached people who reached enlightenment but after that enlightenment those persons took up responsibilities in the world. An example is Gautama Buddha. He first separated himself from the world and then he became enlightened and then he went back into the world and took disciples and instructed others for their wellbeing.
Therefore detachment which is not followed by a purposeful life has to be indifference in the mode of ignorance and that is not desired.
Your sense of responsibility and your mission in life was disrupted by the heroin habit. So now you have to meditate deeply and repossess your purpose. The first thing you have to do is to sit with yourself and have a good discussion that you were ripped off by heroin, that it tried to erase your usefulness to others and make you into a worthless entity. Once you do that, then you can begin to turn your face away from it in meditation and gradually over time, you will begin to see your purpose formed in your nature again. It will take time. It won’t happen over might.
The heroin devil has left you already but its shadow effects will remain with you for a long time. You must be tolerant of these shadow effects and also accept that as a fitting penalty to you from Nature. If you know you were speeding down the highway at 30 miles above the speed limit, then if you get a ticket there is no point in hiring an attorney to defend you. It is best to just own up to what you did, and pay the fine and accept whatever penalty the court imposes.
So, you have to be willing to accept that it will take time for you to resume your normal purpose and with that attitude you will get back on the road to a mission gradually.
Frank 3 years ago
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my question. While I was in a treatment facility, I had a roommate that helped me understand a lot of things that I had questions about, that could only really be answered in a hands-on environment. He spends a few months in India with his guru every year, and he introduced me to Kriya yoga (forgive me if I didn't say that correctly).
The meditation looks like this:
I sit with my legs crossed in a half lotus position and I inhale and exhale for 10-20 minutes. Upon inhale I say "I am not the body" when I exhale I say "I am not even the mind" -not out-loud or anything.
I then inhale, and as I am exhaling I let loose a deep Ahhh sound, like the A you would pronounce in the word fAther, feeling it around my naval. I do this for another 10-15 minutes.
after that, I sit and just breathe. whatever thoughts come to me I openly accept them and realize that they are just my thoughts, not me.
Did he introduce me to a normal meditation technique.. and by me doing this, I am not hurting myself in any ways, am I?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Frank,
Thanks for those details about your current practice. That is very helpful. I refer you to Alfredo who was formally in the kriya lineage through Srila Hariharananda Yogiji.
I am in the succession but only astrally. Since Alfredo is in it physically, he is the one to talk to. Let him know what you learnt and he can advice you on how to proceed.
Also get my book Meditation Pictorial and read it and see if you can begin some of the methods described in it.
If you give details here by filling daily posts about what you experience during your meditation sessions or the trouble you are having, we can assist you also, but that is up to you.
Alfredo 3 years ago
Hello Frank!
Best wishes to you!
Meditation techniques are galore.
The act of meditating is unlikely to hurt anyone; on the contrary, it is very likely to help.
You can contact me at my personal email peje@bellsouth.net, if you want to discuss the Kriya Yoga meditation, or any other related topic.
However, since you are already acquainted with this site and Michael, and my knowledge is very limited, my advice is the following:
One - Buy "Meditation Pictorial" from Amazon. It is a unique book: http://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Pictorial-Michael-Beloved/dp/098193322X
Read all 8 customers reviews.
Two - After we discuss the Kriya Yoga meditation you are doing, and you receive the book, let's switch to Michael's meditation approach. You can check out many older files in this forum where that technique is explained. I can also help you with the transition.
Three - Slowly incorporate Bhastrika Pranayama as the breath infusion before the meditation proper. Watch Michael's video here as a primer: http://www.veoh.com/watch/v207109612W6t7wb2
Four - Avail yourself of the invitation to file daily practice posts, describing your experiences as you advance and practice, and people here will help you.
