Higher States of Consciousness

Philosophy / Spirituality / Literature / Higher states of consciousness

[sfsolstice]

Anaïs Nin, in a letter to Henry Miller, d. March 9, 1932, from A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953

[poetic-questions]

—Virginia Woolf, "The Waves"

[lazyyogi]

Ground-Level Meditation Advice

A friend asked me for some meditation tips recently, and I figured I’d share what I told them here too—because honestly, most people don’t get useful advice when they’re first starting out. It’s either too vague or way too abstract.

So here’s a simple, real-world breakdown:

1. Application of attention is the foundation of every technique. No matter the form—breath awareness, mantra repetition, body scanning, focusing between your eyebrows—you’re paying attention to something. That’s it. That’s the whole root system of all meditation: deliberate attention. It's what differentiates meditation from relaxation exercises, “zoning out,” or other spiritual practices.

2. It’s focused and relaxed. The sweet spot is being concentrated but not tense. One metaphor I often use: imagine you’re a sniper waiting for your target. You don’t know if it’ll be five minutes or five hours before they appear. So you’re alert and watching, but also relaxed enough to sit with that uncertainty without burning out. That’s the presence cultivated during meditation.

3. Boredom is peace in disguise. A lot of people find meditation hard simply because it feels boring. But that boredom? It's just peace we don’t recognize yet—because we're used to always solving problems or being entertained. When we stop doing both, the mind gets fidgety. Our continual restlessness becomes more obvious. Learning to sit with that restlessness is part of the work. You will notice yourself feeling more at ease in your daily life in proportion to the degree that you release your restlessness by staying with it during meditation practice.

4. Consistency is everything. Like exercise, one day of meditation won’t change much. But a little bit every day does. Fifteen minutes daily will do way more than a three-hour session once a week. Meditation is a cumulative practice.

5. Make it part of your rhythm. The easiest way to stick with it is to link it to another part of your daily routine. I usually meditate at the end of the day after exercise and a shower. At other times in my life, morning practice worked better. Try different times and see what sticks—then build around that.

6. Keep it simple. Commit for a while. There are tons of techniques out there. The simpler ones are often the hardest, because your mind has less to chew on. Try a few and then pick one. Stick with it for at least a month. That’s long enough to know if it’s working. Apps like Headspace or Insight Timer can help if you're starting from zero. I never used them—I started before apps were a thing—but they might help you find your groove.

Meditation doesn’t need to be mystical or performative.

Just sit, watch, stay.

And if you can’t sit today, sit tomorrow.

No drama. Just return.

LY

[weltenwellen]

Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

[lazyyogi]

Hi lazyyogi. In previous asks you mention you felt society couldn't offer you anything of value. I feel the same way. But everything feels pointless. How did you find a career in medicine? How did you find a purpose? Thank you.

Just because you don’t want something doesn’t mean you can’t give something. 

Artists give in their own way, healers give in their own way, inventors give in their own way, and so on. 

Everything feels pointless because it is. If you are searching for meaning, the only place you will find it is within. 

Then that is something you too can give in your own way. What matters most is finding that inner contact with yourself. That is one reason why I recommend daily meditation. It will put things into perspective and take you deeply into yourself. 

How you choose to bring that meaning into the world is up to you, there is no wrong choice. There is only the mistake of not following through with it. 

Namaste :)

[lazyyogi]

11 Bits of Wisdom from Eckhart Tolle

1. Doing is never enough if you neglect Being. 

2. What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself. 

3. Attachment to things drops away when you no longer seek to find yourself in them. 

4. The past has no power over the present moment. When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to exist. You do not need it any more. 

5. Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose. 

6. You are not ‘in the now’; you are the now. That is your essential identity–the only thing that never changes. 

7. Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not. 

8. Sometimes letting things go is a far greater act of power than defending or hanging on. 

9. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being.

10. You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. 

11. I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten. 

Namaste.

[lazyyogi]

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Thomas Merton

[lazyyogi]

What are your thoughts on romantic love? For more context... I find that when I start to love someone I lose balance. Very strong obsessive feelings quickly appear. Attachment appears. I feel less present. I feel far less centered within myself. I feel less empowered. I feel less interested in spirituality and the unchanging. It’s basically the biggest possible distraction and addition. I now understand why people go celibate, and I find myself quite uneager to fall into love again and enter that state.

Whenever I give teachings about non-attachment, invariably someone will ask how love is still possible without attachment. They can't imagine a circumstance in which they could love something without the fear that defines attachment.

Because that is all attachment is: fear. Fear of impermanence, fear of change, fear of losing something that makes you happy.

Romantic love is not necessary for a good human life. I am not here to advocate that everyone fall in love. Lasting peace, freedom, and happiness does not depend on romantic love. And there is plenty of love that you can experience in your heart that has nothing to do with romance.

But should you be inspired into romance, then that is also no problem. Like any other experience in our lives, it can highlight where we still have work to do. The more accustomed we are to feeling centered, lucid, and peaceful, the more disorienting it can be when we lose our balance.

It is natural to be obsessed with happiness. It is very easy to focus on something you are super into, like watching a captivating movie. Those who are not on the spiritual path will seek happiness in temporary things. Those who are on the spiritual path seek happiness by awakening from ignorance.

It sounds like when you fall in love, you mistake the source of happiness. Instead of knowing the source of happiness to be your own natural state, you seek it in that other person. Then all of the suffering that comes from seeking happiness in samsara arises. And that suffering triggers the ego.

Maybe you just need more time on your own to deepen your practice and realization. Or maybe you need to work on mindful relationships, working with your partner on these obstacles as they arise. You can sort that out as you feel most appropriate.

In the end, this issue is not due to any inherent problem in the nature of romance but rather the workings of your own ego and confusion. So you don't have to give up and forgo romance if that is something that inspires you. It just means you will need to adjust the way you relate through the whole endeavor. And if you commit to doing so, it will have a beneficial effect on your awakening process.

LY

[thegirlthatcriesacademia]

Mostly it is loss which teaches us the worth of things.

Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom Of Life

[thegirlthatcriesacademia]

The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.

― Osho

[thegirlthatcriesacademia]

— Trista Mateer, “Peaches”

[higherstatesofconsciousness]

"I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning."

- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

[higherstatesofconsciousness]

"This pain is unbearable. At times -- at certain times -- the pain deepens dramatically, as if it has a direct link to the centre of the earth... It has robbed me of many things, but in return it has given me much. Deep, special pain bestows deep, special grace..."

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

[panatmansam]

Is forgetting bad memories a good way to process them?

If you can actually do it could see how it could be beneficial but you would lose any lessons learned from the experience.

More often people just cram these experiences down, keep them buried and unresolved where they can lead to serious problems.

It is best to work through them, then let them go. We do not have to keep revisiting them neither do they have to destroy us when they do crop up.

[classicbooks101]

“Colours shone with exceptional clarity in the rain. The ground was a deep black, the pine branches a brilliant green, the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits that were allowed to wander over the earth on rainy mornings only.”

— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood 

[panatmansam]

what are THE most important things to remember in one's life?

That's funny you should ask me that. I'm an old man. This kinda crept up on me and came as a surprise. Old people spend a lot of their time looking back. That's because we have more back to look at than young people.

A lot of this looking back can take the form of "I've lived in vain" lamentions. Old people can "see" every every mistake along the way but with hindsight that turns us into fools.

The memories that I treasure are the little ones where I can say "I was decent human being". Times when I did the right thing without thinking about it. They're little nuggets of cheer in my visits to the past. I don't mean this to sound overly sentimental but I'm still learning how to be old. I'll get it figured out.

[quotemadness]

“Don’t wait too long. Life takes unexpected turns, and we don’t always have the time we think we have.”

— Sylvain Reynard