A most profound meditation experience.

I have been meditating on and off for around 10 years now. Tonight, I had an experience which I have never had before. I would even label it as profound. I am use to my mind using interesting tricks to distract me, but I think I came across something else entirely, and would love any feedback from those who may have experience.

My meditation session for tonight consisted of one hour of seated meditation. For the first half of the time, my body and mind was unusually restless. I then reached a point where I finally began to relax deep into my meditation. A little while later, I began to notice that my body felt heavy. A little at first, but I kept my concentration, and kept my mind focused on my mantra.

As this progressed, my body began to feel heavier and heavier. At this point, it now felt like my whole body was made out of stone. It wasn't uncomfortable, it just felt heavy. My hands began to feel like they were growing larger and larger. At the peak, it felt like my hands were giant boulders pressed together. I then began to feel like the room was being sucked away, and like my mind was being pulled upward. I held on to my mantra, chanting it internally the whole time as it felt like my body, the room, and even my own breath had fallen away. There was also a dim orange glow from beyond my eyelids as if there was a lone candle in the dark room.

I don't know how long I was in this state, but I began to slowly shrink back down into myself. My breath came back, the glow diminished, and my body began to return to its normal proportions and weight. A little while later, the bell sounded, and my meditation ended. Most of this is reconstructed from memory of the event, because at the time, it was just me and my chanting. No other thoughts or senses were present. I thought that maybe I had fallen asleep during my meditation, but I have experienced that before, and this was different. I was completely present.

I have been meditating every day, twice a day, for a whole month now. I have never been so diligent in my practice as I have been since coming in contact with this group. The thing is; I found this experience enjoyable, but I don't feel like I have to return there. I feel no attachment to the experience itself. Just a kind of peacefulness. Thank you all for listening to my rambling. Any comments are welcome and appreciated.

Considering you were using a chant, it sounds like you were in a transcendental state briefly...

I appreciate the insight Ryujin. I just recently began using mantras, so am rather inexperienced with them. It wasn't a well established mantra. I honestly was chanting the first line of the code. "Emotion, yet peace." I have been doing that as kind of an experiment over the last few days, rather than my normal Vipassana technique.

I kind of feel privileged. People pay a lot of money for those transcendental meditation classes. I can honestly say I prefer good ole poor mans mindfulness techniques.

The thing is; I found this experience enjoyable, but I don't feel like I have to return there. I feel no attachment to the experience itself. Just a kind of peacefulness

Sounds excellent...

Thank you for sharing....

Noob here, What is meant by a chant (not english-speaker) and a question;

What exactly do people hope to achieve by meditation? As I would see it, wouldn't it be better to improve yourself in the things you want to during the time you meditate? I always saw meditation as something to do when I need it but not as a ritual. (Because you say you do it twice a day)

Thanks

Chant is actually the wrong word, but is often interchanged with the word "mantra"...it's simply a word or sound that gets repeated while meditating...

Meditation is used for various things but most often for relaxing or clearing/calming the mind and body..

EEJim wrote: The thing is; I found this experience enjoyable, but I don't feel like I have to return there. I feel no attachment to the experience itself. Just a kind of peacefulness. Thank you all for listening to my rambling. Any comments are welcome and appreciated.

You might have crossed over a bit to the other side, no not the dark side :lol:

By that I mean in some Buddhism they have the concept of periodic meditation (done as an exercise with a beginning and end) and continuous meditation which, well just continues on all day. What could happen is when a person who continuously retains a meditative state sits down to do a periodic meditation - its not the beginning of a periodic meditation its actually the end of a periodic 'period of living in delusion'. Since they also might view all normal things as aberrations of karmic stains etc. That meditative state then could be considered by them to be accessing more of ones 'true' nature.

As, if you wanted to link Buddhism to the Force, you could say the Force body was the Buddha-body, the state of Buddha-hood... and so this energetic body becomes the goal of the practise. As a Jedi I incorporate this into my practise, but for me it's not the purpose of a Jedi to dissolve into the rainbow body and leave behind only hair and nails, at least not yet hahaha.

So I'd say you just are making progress on having a deeper connection with your subconscious, which I associate to concepts like the Force (or at least a greater capacity to know the Force with). I remember I got to a point in my meditation where I just didn't need to do it anymore. I was able to carry the same feeling with me almost without effort and did so for many years until returning to it through Jediism.

Silence.

That is where you will enter a full meditative experience.