On Meditation and Mystical Experiences From It

Introduction

So I have been meditating since 2008, and like some mystics I came to meditation from a point of severe despair in my life. What started me meditating was simply reading a book called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle-- and though I love the book, at this point I think it is good for more of a mindfulness-focused practice than the best possible mystic practice. I want to say that I am doing my best to reason about this stuff based on my experience, other mystic's experiences who I respect and see as being advanced, and mystic teachings I find similarly most worthwhile.

With that said, I want to make it clear that my focus has been more on the most effective practice based on my experiences and what I think some of the best teachings are, rather than meticulously collecting the most collaborative evidence for my claims in a more scholarly pursuit which would cut into my desire to be more like a polymath; and also I acknowledge that my claims, even if they happen to be more true than false, aren't comparable in discerning probable truth to that of whatever might be accurately defined as good statistical data.

My original plan was to take years worth of notes, do more research, and spend years working on a similar project to this; I have a feeling this may have never gotten done though. So I had planned on doing a conversation with the Navigating Patterns YouTube channel to try to explain my views on meditation and mystical experience, and there was a mutual decision to take some notes first. There are core ideas I want to try my best to get right though, and so my notes have turned into over 10,000 words, so I decided to do a stand-alone post for Substack and Rumble based on them first. To use a lame pun, I hope it's somewhat enlightening.

Defining Critical-Thinking For Better Outcomes in Meditation and Mysticism

So first I want to start with a possible definition of critical-thinking and why I think this is important for the discussion: Critical-thinking is the combination of awareness-changing/critical-thinking techniques including the avoidance of logical fallacies and cognitive biases, with reason, evidence, and intuition.. where all of this is in service to probability deduction in search of the most probable truth about reality, and intuition combined with the other things ultimately has the last say in this for an individual; and it is both unhealthy to never skeptically analyze anything and unhealthy to be constantly analyzing, so the pursuit of constant, healthy balance between the two must be struck. I think this definition of critical-thinking, as opposed to most other definitions, or not having one, can potentially help give more direction to the study of meditation, and more probable outcomes in the practice of meditation.

So although critical-thinking and science has the problem of being stuck in symbols and the linguistic, and can only address aspects of meditation.. we have to use critical-thinking around aspects of meditation, if we are trying to be virtuous or morally excellent in understanding meditation and mysticism, because this helps stops the harmful effects of less accurate information, which can allow for the formation of more cult-like and more abusive groups around meditation and mystical experiences.

I think we have to zoom in enough on aspects-- or we could also say subtopics-- of meditation and mystical experience, that we can look for probable first principles.. and through reason and evidence, separate these first principles from other less concrete claims.

And I would argue through this difficult process we can stop less people from being taken advantage of in the realm of meditation and mysticism teachers, and give these meditators more sovereignty rather than less in the understanding and practice of meditation.

Introducing the BITE Model For Better Social Outcomes in Meditation

Popularizing the idea of cult exit therapist's Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Mind Control also goes along with helping meditators potentially stay more sovereign and be less likely to be abused; and also if someone tries to teach meditation or mysticism, the BITE model helps them look at the way they teach, and the interactions in any kind of group they are teaching, in order to try to safeguard against abusive behavior.

So the BITE model is a way of looking at how potentially abusive or authoritarian a group is getting based on how deeply they are vying for behavioral, informational, technological, and environmental control over others. As far as I know, there is no absolutely perfect formula for knowing if a person or group is becoming too irrational or controlling, so it has to be somewhat intuited, but I think at least understanding this basic premise of the BITE model does more good than bad. However, more details on the BITE model can be found at https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/.

Defining Meditation

So now I want to get into attempting to define meditation and mystical experience. First, I want to define meditation. So good things can happen that you didn't know for sure would from meditating, going along with the idea of second order effects-- as opposed to first order effects where we could define those as you knowing they would happen-- but I am more mysticism focused and find there needs to be some sense of a goal for greater likelihood of success in mysticism, so I will be framing meditation here partly with goals in mind. Now it appears to be the general case in meditative practice where it is necessary to forget the concept of the goal therein in order to better pursue it, and this is a problem with frenemy relationship between language and meditation, where they both can help and hinder each other, which I'll talk about more here later.

I would say that it seems the goal of meditation is some form of desirable consciousness in which there is separation of the sense of oneself from mental chatter, which can either be the sense of being a silent observer/awareness, and/or a lack of mental chatter/mental quietude, where either of these experiences is most often temporary. Also, just to cover people who say they don't have an inner mental dialogue, we could say that the term mental chatter is being used here as a synonym for labelling, in the sense of using language to label forms.

I believe there is an extremely rare potential for a permanent loss of mental chatter from mystical experience or consciousness as a result of excessive meditation, and if so, it should not ever be confused with the destruction of the ego or personality, which which seems to me that it would make someone totally unable to physically function in the world.. and is thus a poor frame or view of meditation and mysticism-- so it's important to suggest that the personality and mental chatter are somehow separate things.

But depending on the meditative practice one chooses to do or creates, this separation from mental chatter could also be extended, for example, to things like past memories, future visions, and negative emotions. From what I remember about therapies designed to help heal trauma like EMDR and AEDP, there is a sense of feeling present being held alongside a sufficiently safe summoning of a traumatic memory with as little judgment as possible, with the goal of a deeper sense that it is in the past, it is not preventing the capacity for love of oneself or others, and it is in a peaceful and holistic relationship with the entire mind and body; given the definition of the goal of meditation I have presented earlier, these therapies come across like forms of meditation to me.

Although whether or not you try to observe things while feeling separate from them, or deny them, can depend on the meditative practice-- for example a mindfulness practice will probably have you observing thoughts impartially but not necessarily denying their existence, whereas an Advaita Vedanta/Jnana (pronounced "Gyana") Yoga mystical practice will at times have you denying all thoughts as existing, in the sense that they are not separate forms from non-dual consciousness or pure consciousness; so the mindfulness practice is trying to get to a non-dual sense through observing, and the Advaita Vedanta practice is trying to get a non-dual sense by using mental chatter in a particular way to stop mental chatter as one aspect of it, the rest of it I will talk about it further on.

So anything can arguably be a simple meditation practice if it partly separates your sense of identity away from mental chatter. I would consider these simpler meditation practices: Listening to rain sounds, binaural beats, or calm music. Repeatedly focusing on physical feelings. Repeatedly focusing on your breathing. And any kind of stretching or exercise.

Jnana Yoga means union through wisdom, it's yoga with mantras instead of stretches, and I could be wrong but my understanding is that it is synonymous with Advaita Vedanta, which is a Hindu mystic school. Before yoga became popularized with stretching or asanas and the health benefits of such activity, the highest traditional goal of yoga was samadhi. The word samadhi can take on different definitions depending on tradition, but I'd argue samadhi is generally defined as any kind of altered consciousness from meditation, and the basic goal of meditation where identity separates from mental chatter, generally happens in the case of samadhi through mental silence, as a foundational characteristic of samadhi. So Jnana Yoga is yoga that has nothing to do with stretching because it is the most mental form of yoga, and this kind of yoga can exist because the highest traditional goal of yoga is altered consciousness or samadhi.

Also the term samadhi is not the same as the potential for scientifically-valid spiritual enlightenment which I personally believe exists. I don't claim to be enlightened, but I do claim that it probably exists as permanent mystical experience in a human being, which I will get more into later; and I am going to use the term "meditative enlightenment" in place of the term "spiritual enlightenment" to pull in the more hardcore skeptics that might be interested in this topic.

In meditation, there is arguably some need for the use of language, in the form of teaching, to direct the present average mind to reach one's goal in meditation, which as I've recently said seems at the very least to be some separation of one's identity from mental chatter, going along with mentally and physically speechless-leaning consciousness, which I'll just call desirable meditative consciousness. So desirable meditative consciousness may have other aspects to it depending on how altered it is-- for example it is my understanding that Wim Hoff is able to increase his body temperature with altered consciousness from his own version of Tummo Meditation, which is said to raise body temperature-- and monks have been said to make steam come off of wet towels on their back while sitting in the cold outside while doing Tummo Meditation; but there seem to be general biological limitations with this meditation where the temperature increase is moreso in the center of body. We could refer to Tummo meditation as a scientifically-valid siddhi power, in the sense of an ability that seems to generally be acquired through meditation.

So mental chatter, as opposed to enjoyed silence, and the sense of a meditation goal and future vision, as opposed to present awareness, are both generally needed somewhat for meditation but also detrimental to meditation. This "language as a frenemy problem" in meditation has to be navigated to get more desirable outcomes, and there's a couple things I have to say on that which I think may be broadly applicable to people and differing goals. The first thing I see for navigating this problem has mostly to do with an ecology of practices, but if the goal is more than having a quieter mind or a more focused mind, and the goal has more to do with altered consciousness in the sense of what might be considered abnormal consciousness, with whatever benefits might come from that, I would say that in the pursuit of mystical experiences not all meditative practices are as equal.

Now ecology of practices is a term John Vervaeke has used for the pursuit of enlightenment, except where I understand his version of enlightenment is broadened to mean moving away from nihilism and towards greater meaning in life, not necessarily purely having to do with some kind of scientifically-valid meditative enlightenment, and I have no agreements for an ecology of practices in that context. But I believe that the meditative practices that are best for the pursuit of altered consciousness or mysticism, are generally mantras and/or visualization techniques which work for the seeker, moreso than practices involving bodily movement-- with one exception being the power of breathing techniques and oxygenation, going along with Kriya Yoga for example. But this is not to say that one shouldn't attempt to meditate while moving their body if they want to.

My bias with the reason I think mantras and visualization techniques are generally more important for meditation-based mysticism-- with breathing techniques or pranayama as the exception-- is because while any kind of bodily movement can potentially help reduce mental chatter, I think most people want and would find more meaning in desirable altered consciousness from meditation and will go deeper into this later; and based on my experience and some of the people I think are the most advanced mysticism teachers, I think that the mental dimension is generally more powerful, or at the very least more presently accessible, for bringing about mystical experiences and consciousness.

So there is a holistic, ecological, or somewhat mutually-supporting nature of distracting aspects of your life, including mental chatter that isn't focused productively on your desirable meditative consciousness, and this causes you to get distracted from whatever your goal is in meditation-- we could call this parasitic processing as it applies to meditation-- and this happens for instance with mental chatter, past memories, future visions, and negative emotion; where all of this can work together as a side-tracking or distraction team, which you can mitigate through an ecology of meditative practices, which you use based on your intuition, including with what you intuit or know has worked in the past-- and thus this is a more holistic, dynamic way to address the distraction problem.

This is what mystic Advaita Vedanta texts like the Avadhuta Gita, Ribhu Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, and Vivekachudamani do, if you are able to properly and effectively translate them, they hammer your ecology of more mental distractions with the practice of whatever faith you can give to an ecology of mantras, which are ideally written by people in deep mystical consciousness, and are about aspects of that consciousness; and this potentially directs mental chatter towards the cessation of itself and causes altered consciousness or mystical experience.

So in the particular pursuit of making it easier to have and maintain desirable speechless consciousness from meditation, on top of an ecology of practices, I think there is a necessity in developing the ability to hold desirable meditative consciousness in place through intuitive focus, and while this leans towards physical and mental speechlessness, it can include other aspects that make it even more difficult.. for example, in my view, for someone who is more of a beginner or intermediate mystic, they might be as silently focused as possible on inner light, like light in the mind's eye, or they might be as silently focused as possible on outer/physical light; and this at times can feel like the mental version of walking a tightrope. So this feeling goes along with a quote from the classic novel that is partly about mysticism called "The Razor's Edge" which goes: "The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge."

And it's important to add that this quote isn't necessarily purely framing salvation about some kind of scientifically-valid form of meditative enlightenment, synonymous with permanent and effortless samadhi or desirable altered consciousness, that makes it okay and morally excellent to be anti-social.. because the main character in this book leaves India after having his enlightenment experience, and eventually finds a job in the United States, where I would insinuate that in a 1940's sense he has quietly re-entered the social world, and is back to chopping wood and carrying water so-to-speak.

And going along with the idea of a broader, multi-faceted version of the word enlightenment, as a way out of nihilism, it's reasonable and fair to say that meditation by itself doesn't produce the most meaning in life no matter how speechlessly profound, peaceful, and loving the experiences from it are, for example because it is simply not exactly the same as the pursuit of deeper distributed cognition or social brilliance, deeper moral excellence or virtuousness, deeper conceptual understanding of probable truth, and greater manifestation of generally agreed-upon beauty.

So that is my attempt to define meditation.

Defining Mysticism

Now onto defining mystical experience. While I dislike Wikipedia's definition of meditation, I like the first sentence for their definition of mysticism, so first I'll start with a definition of mysticism using the first sentence in Wikipedia's definition which says:

"Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning."

Types of altered consciousness, ecstatic or not, can happen in different ways. Rather than talking about parallels between mystical experiences from meditation and other experiences like ecstatic moments in adolescence, speechlessly enjoyable Near Death Experiences, and experiences with some drugs, I want to focus on mystical experiences from meditation, but briefly touch on drugs.

Mysticism and Drugs

So in pursuit of transparency, I want to add that I have a somewhat Libertarian-leaning view on drug policy and use, but I also think that greater public wisdom is required to handle lesser amounts of regulation as the dismal state of Oregon's drug legalization attests to in 2024. I quit nicotine in 2014, had to quit marijuana from serious chronic fatigue in early 2024, use a little caffeine every day, and drink alcohol sometimes, but I have never seen any of these drugs as being in the same category of mysticism, despite that they alter consciousness, because they aren't the same as the blissful meditative experiences I have had for years which I'll talk about more later. I also believe that it's a fair statement that drugs are generally avoided in the mentally and physically healthiest people, but that we also live in a wild and imperfect world.

With that said, I don't respect the belief that mysticism is best achieved through a reliance on drugs, even though drug use can meet some of the definition I've given for mysticism, at the least going along with altered consciousness. The reason for my lack of respect is because I think this belief or framing is less healthy; I think the maximum potential for progress in mysticism is less in comparison with a good, disciplined, and more sober practice; subsequently I think this framing is less profound; and this framing is less useful because mystical experiences are tied to the need for a substance-- where the ecologically-minded walking of the mental tightrope to realize altered consciousness, via meditation, has been taken more out of the equation.

Undesirable Altered Consciousness From Meditation

So I think it's important to note that not all forms of altered consciousness that can come from meditation are desirable, but we could still argue that undesirable altered consciousness is a mystical experience.. because it is a form of altered consciousness. Going along with this, when you are in a movie theater, you can sometimes notice the screen behind the movie, and there is a sense that the whole picture of the movie is unreal because of that, like a mirage; in Depersonalization disorder, your physical body gives off this sense of being like a mirage.. and in Derealization Disorder, the environment around you, can give off this sense of being like a mirage-- even though for me, when I caused Derealization Disorder from meditation, it was strangely always just non-living things that had the mirage-like quality. But as an example, either of these mirage-like senses spontaneously taking up too much focus aren't considered very desirable, and I've had this happen to me from different types of meditation I was doing, along with other things that could be classified as Kundalini syndrome symptoms.

Desirable Altered Consciousness From Meditation

So I want to narrow my focus further on exploring mystical experiences by talking about desirable altered consciousness from meditation. There is a particular potential kind of altered consciousness which I will mostly focus on here, which I often refer to as bliss; and this is the only way I personally use that word.. but it can also be referred to by others familiar with the concept as ananda, love-bliss, or love-light, and that's still too vague to most people who don't have a lot of experience or study around this phenomena. So I want to point to the word bliss as I use it being extremely out of ordinary consciousness in the average human being as of writing this in 2024, and to help with that pointing, I will refer to it here as ananda consciousness.

Introduction to Ananda Consciousness

So first off the reason I think ananda consciousness is important to talk about is that when you feel loved, it normally tends to either come from the affection of other living things, or a sense of taking good care of yourself. As of writing and talking about this in 2024, the average person isn't likely to regularly feel loved where it is not coming from one of those two factors.

So with the experience of ananda consciousness, from the point of view of your personality and mental chatter, you feel loved, but it appears to come from nowhere, or alternatively it appears to come from itself to itself which is beyond all speech; and so it doesn't have to do with labelling, which our conceptual sense of the world or environment and our personality requires. So we can tease out aspects of ananda consciousness into language-- which is what I'll be doing-- while the whole of it is sensed as a permanent unspeakable mystery. And the ability to feel loved as effortlessly as possible, within more virtuous boundaries, which is what ananda consciousness appears to me to be, seems to be like a highly desired thing in life. So it's worth trying to understand it conceptually in order to make it more accessible in meditative practice.

Ananda consciousness is primarily where my meditation and study of meditation is focused, admittedly both on hedonistic and virtuous grounds; on hedonistic grounds, no other form of meditation creates as much pleasure and with little negative consequences in comparison to many other forms of hedonism outside of meditation, and on virtuous grounds, it can make someone feel more loved more often; and as a result this can potentially make them more loving more often, but hopefully within reason. And I see scientifically-valid meditative enlightenment at it's most profound to have to do with sustaining and deepening ananda consciousness.

Now I think there is at least one less advanced but still very profound version of scientifically-valid meditative enlightenment having to do with permanent mindfulness; which we could also refer to this permanent mindfulness as a permanent and effortless detachment from mental chatter-- and this might have profound feelings of peace attached to it. It's debatable whether or not we could classify permanent mindfulness as Sahaja Samadhi, which arguably means effortless mystical experience-- because some teachers might only consider Sahaja Samadhi to be a higher effortless mystical experience that goes further to include permanent ananda consciousness which I will explain further in a bit.

Now with full realization of ananda consciousness, we could also classify this under Sahaja Samadhi, or maybe call it complete Kundalini awakening. And in my view, full realization of ananda consciousness includes the altered consciousness of permanent mindfulness while also going beyond it, maybe having something to do with ananda consciousness creating deeper feelings of being loved which is not the same as the potential to feel profound peace; because loving is foundational to life, in the sense where love is defined as caring where the means is also the ends; and caring is necessary for survival, reproduction, and growth. So here is my long-winded attempt to help other mystic seekers and/or scholars, by giving a theoretical list of the first principles of ananda consciousness which I will number:

An Attempt at Listing the First Principles of Ananda Consciousness

1. All of these principles of ananda consciousness come together like holistic parts of an alternative reality, like their own dimension of consciousness that is permanently outside of mental chatter or physical speech.. or we could combine those two things together and say permanently outside of language. Some of the most foundational aspects appear to be a particular way of feeling loved, inner light experiences, and the sense of a usually subtle electrical current, which I will go on here to talk about.

2. In ananda consciousness, you feel loved in some part of your body, or your entire body if the realization of ananda consciousness is more advanced. This love feels impersonal, as though coming from nowhere; or alternatively, as though ananda consciousness is offering devoted love to itself outside of language.

So there is a kind of a subconscious-generated intimacy that your consciousness is having with whatever it happens to identify with as being part of ananda consciousness, where the non-linguistic identification expands with more non-duality, going all the way to the point of the perception of pure consciousness; which in a realization of pure consciousness, this sense of non-duality appears to not extend to mental chatter but requires it to disappear or be seen as something like a separate reality or consciousness.

3. There are seemingly endless possible flavors or variations on this feeling of being loved.

4. There is most likely always some kind of inner light experience in ananda consciousness, inner in the sense that it is mental light rather than light from the physical world like the light in a daydream or sleeping dream; and it is always spontaneous or pleasantly surprising, in the sense that you do not control it in the way you feel you do with thoughts and physical actions you see yourself as controlling; and this inner light is also inevitably subject to endless change if you are able to maintain it through focus and receptivity. This inner light experience can appear in the moment to be white light, a pattern of one or more colors, or imagery.

This spontaneous inner light experience always symbolizes and is part of the flavor or variation of feeling of being loved happening in ananda consciousness; for example, a different solid shade of color of inner light might come with a different loving feeling.

So while I previously talked about this feeling of being loved seeming like it comes from nowhere, or alternatively seeming like the dimension of ananda consciousness is loving itself; we could also say that this feeling of being loved can be speechlessly sensed as coming from the sense of all possible phenomena combined, where there is also a sense that all possible phenomena is a limitless, never-ending, or always expanding whole. So with that said, we could say that the feeling of being loved takes on a particular flavor or variation in any given moment, despite it feeling connected to all possible phenomena-- non-dual-- due to the uniqueness and limitations of a person's awareness.

So as a side note, sometimes, this inner light experience can seem like it's not happening in combination with you feeling loved, where you only sense the feeling loved part, because the part or parts of your body where you feel loved is being spontaneously visualized as you would see it in reality.. and this is causing you to tune out that you are seeing this in your mind's eye. So for example, you feel loved in your feet, but you are seeing your feet as they normally would appear in your mind's eye, so the inner light experience is happening but you aren't noticing it.

5. Trust and faith in ananda consciounsess advances it. I have only had temporary experiences with ananda consciousness but I've been able to make it temporarily self-sustaining, including falling asleep in it and waking up in it, and part of that was a trusting acceptance of not knowing how the colors and patterns of the inner light experience would change; but also a trusting acceptance that this altered consciousness is safe because it has rules of operation based on my many past experiences with it.. where I know that it is simply speechless loving inner light moving towards non-duality if the light is not already perceived in that way, and it's not moving so much towards non-duality that there would ever be permanent loss of functioning in the world, nor is the experience, being outside of language, going to distort reality in a way that would reduce my ability to operate morally towards reality; and so I could feel enough safety and had enough quiet focus to sleep in it-- which also caused my dreams to get closer to lucidity or what I desired to dream about; however I've never had fully lucid dreams in the sense of knowing I was dreaming, or committed to any kind of practice for that.

So going along with trust, ananda consciousness is enhanced by viewing it as something to be loved rather than feared. This gets harder to do as it gets more intense, depending on how far someone is trying to go in the realization. If they are spending all of their free time in ananda consciousness they can eventually get to a Near-Death Experience level of fear because the light, bliss, and it's sense of movement or electrical current, gets so ridiculously intense and unlike anything someone has ever experienced. Sometimes breaks are needed because of this. And it requires time, practice, and the desire to be dedicated to get past instinctual fear of the unknown that comes with the wildness of prolonging and intensifying these experiences. So that's number 5.

So before I get into these next couple principles dealing with theoretical biological changes in ananda consciousness, I need to give some context. There is a website called KundaliniAwakeningProcess.com, which makes the claim that their method has been.. "..successfully empirically tested with all manner of practitioners for almost 35 years.." and goes on in describing that.

I have respect for them as teachers based on what I've seen in how it lines up with other teachings I respect, and I also know their information is both potent and potentially physiologically dangerous if abused, from finding a way to abuse it in 2011, which was a 20-something's juvenile and utilitarian attempt to create the fastest possible process of meditative enlightenment based on their publicly available information. Which for time's sake I won't get further into, other than to say instead of what I intended to do, I created a method for severe Kundalini syndrome symptoms.

But K.A.P. acknowledges the danger of misusing their information, with unnecessary Kundalini syndrome symptoms having to do with it, and they work to mitigate it in their students-- which I use the term mitigate because some symptoms are part of the path. I also think there are other possibly tamer mystic paths like Jnana Yoga/Advaita Vedanta and Bhakti/Devotional Yoga. In my opinion, I think Bhakti Yoga is best practiced by devotion to an ecology of personalized symbols that act like personalized faces of God, rather than real people, which comes with less risk of abuse. Lastly I would add that I see Kundalini as the mystical experience expressway, though Kriya Yoga also seems to be one and I don't know much about it; and with these two practices this means more danger is implied but with more potential power and speed, but only if the practice is an effective one; there are Kundalini yoga classes which don't generally produce mystical experiences and are just stretching.

But anyways, on the K.A.P. website, where they describe Kundalini, one of the things it says is, "On the biological level, Kundalini is a response of the nerves and the endocrine system." So going along with this, I need to say that everyone has a body budget in the sense that their bodily resources are inherently limited. Structures in the endocrine system secrete hormones which are chemical messengers that change things in the body. So because of the body budget, without any knowledge of biology, we can assume structures in the endocrine system generally don't secrete hormones in a perfect endless stream, and are thus more wave-like.. and this theoretically explains why there is a temporary, and sometimes wave-like-feeling nature to flavors or variations of the loving inner light of ananda consciousness; as it's somehow working partly through the endocrine system and body budget. So the wave-like nature of loving inner light in ananda consciousness, from one variant or flavor to another, is my principle number 6.

7. Going along with K.A.P.'s biological claim about Kundalini relating to the nervous system, Ananda consciousness can feel like an electrical current in the body, I would wager it is usually felt extremely subtley. This sense of the current might often have a tiny popping feeling, like the feeling of tingling in the body, almost like ridiculously subtle static electricity-- and maybe this is partly the nerves feeling blood flow.

There can be a strong temporary sense of this current with involuntary movements known as Kundalini kriyas, which is not something that necessarily has to happen in ananda consciousness, but is something related to whatever Kundalini syndrome scientifically is. This sense of a current can also be more extreme with other Kundalini syndrome symptoms, and can feel like there is an invisible electromagnetic part of your body, maybe like a toroidal field, which is expanded outwards.

Alongside the K.A.P. website, a mysticism teacher I have great respect for named David Spero also corroborates this feeling of an energetic current as something that can be felt in mystical experiences. So the sense of this usually more subtle electrical current, alongside the particularized sense of the flavor or variant of feeling loved and it's symbolic inner light experience, all is felt as being connected together in and as ananda consciousness.

In more advanced ananda consciousness, there is a sense of an absolutely non-stop movement of this electrical current going with inner light and the feeling of being loved. This kind of current feels sort of like being in a moving vehicle even though the movement is entirely within the body, so there's a sense of fear that can come with it because of this, just like if you were in a vehicle going 55 miles per hour and it never stopped, but the movement was somehow happening inside you instead of outside you. When ananda consciousness starts to be self-sustaining I have always had this feeling. I talked about how ananda consciousness can feel as though it's related to all possible phenomena which also feels limitless, and there is the idea that smallest unit of matter is energy in constant movement, so in this more advanced current, the sense of limitless phenomena is somehow felt in a present flavor or variant through the feeling of absolute non-stop current, feeling loved, and inner light or non-dual light. There is also a sense of stillness in it in that seems to be defined by a lack of movement of mental chatter, and subsequently also a lack of speech, in that dimension of consciousness.

8. You have to reach ananda consciousness through some amount of mental direction and some amount receptivity and surrender. So it is not something you directly will with your mind like maybe doing your laundry, but something you allow to happen to you with a particular focus. Physical relaxation as close as possible to deep sleep without being sleepy is another aspect of how to intensify ananda consciousness, going along with receptivity and surrender; while different things, I've decided to bunching these together all in this one principle.

The idea of mental stillness shows up in meditation teachings, and goes along with slowing down or stopping mental chatter; physical stillness seems to help with mental stillness because mental resources aren't being used as much on movement, and because of this it seems likely to me that it is easier to have a quieter and more focused mind, or go into altered states of consciousness, in meditative practice, with a physically still body-- this is not to say one has to absolutely meditate with physical stillness though, or that they should not practice moving forms of meditation if they want to, and reap the benefits of getting better at that.

9. The sense of being loved, combined with the light you see, can feel like any positive adjective imaginable from your perception, including sacred, serene, peaceful, sensual, joyful, euphoric, and/or divine love.. but to paraphrase the mysticism teacher David Spero, to a person in full realization, no matter how profound the present experience is, that person has adjusted to it where it somehow simultaneously becomes mundane and normal. And to be more accurate, the person in full realization senses themselves as safely inseparable and indistinguishable from the altered consciousness they are experiencing.

So as a disclaimer I use the term inner light as opposed to light or non-dual light, because I'm trying to list aspects of the ananda consciousness experience as a primer-like teaching practice, speaking about it from a more beginner and intermediate-friendly level, rather rather than purely writing things out like a non-dual gita's teaching practice where one would simply only try to teach it from the most advanced level-- which can still be done for anyone, even beginners, if it's done with enough skilled personalization of teaching for the student, but I believe that furthering the skill of such teaching requires deepening understanding of the aspects of meditation, going along with deeper understanding of the philosophy of it.

The most advanced level of light in ananda consciousness as I understand it, going along with non-dual light, matches up to seeing oneself as inseparable and indistinguishable from the altered consciousness they are experiencing.

10. Ananda consciousness seems to be advanced by a detachment from mental chatter and speech, and quieting of them, going along with my definition of the basic goal of meditation; this goes along with maintaining speechless focus on the spontaneous loving inner light, but also without trying to push away any other aspect of one's present non-linguistic consciousness through the use of language, labeling, or judgment.

But also to say it again, the experience of light is not foundationally distinguished as being inner or outer, or mental or physical, in advanced realization of ananda consciousness. Also, the judging of such consciousness as "advanced" can be a pitfall in that it is an act of mental chatter and labelling.

11. The sense of being present advances ananda consciousness, as opposed to being focused on the personality's past memories or future visions.

To put on my tin foil hat for a moment, I admittedly use the idea that the past memories and future visions detrimental to ananda consciousness are ones that are sensed as being possessed by the personality, just to guard my claim against the slightest possibility of remote viewing be real.. which if so, I would probably categorize as a scientifically-valid siddhi power alongside Tummo meditation.

So the inner light experience always has a fundamental sense of deep presence or "right now-ness", that makes it differ from the personality's sense of past memories and future visions.

12. The sense of feeling innocent seems to advance ananda consciousness while the sense of shame or guilt seems to weaken it.

13. Ananda consciousness seems advanced if you can be receptive to the incorporation of your desire, inclusive of sexual desire, being felt in the most loving manner possible, as a part of the inner light you are experiencing. And also it is more advanced by the sense that both genders are incorporated into this more foundational consciousness that is ananda consciousness. These are some different principles but I think it's useful just to include them together in one principle.

Now you can only be receptive to meditating your way out of desire to the degree this is rational. It's irrational to think you can permanently meditate your way out of all desire, or that it's healthy to do so, while you could be celibate, whether or not you choose to be celibate you'd still have to eat, drink, and sleep; I also lean towards the belief that celibacy generally doesn't affect the ability to realize ananda consciousness-- but the word generally is important here, because we all have a body budget and taxing it too much can have negative effects. It's perfectly fine that there is a personality dimension of your consciousness that still has desires for forms like food, or sleep in a bed, or a romantic partner, but you have to give space in your attention for the realization of ananda consciousness or the personality's desires will completely block it.

So it needs to be said that feeling non-duality in regards to gender, as an aspect of the inner light or non-dual light experienced in ananda consciousness, doesn't change your personality's gender or sexual orientation, and it's possible to be deeply uncomfortable with this if you are thinking only one dimension of consciousness can win in the end between your personality and ananda consciousness. So to be comfortable with this I would argue that you should simply see ananda consciousness as an underlying sense of non-dual-leaning identity, having to do with non-dual light, that the personality and mental chatter somehow branch out of, but are not cancelled by. And I would also say you have to see this aspect of non-dual light as simply being a dimension of consciousness that neither threatens to change, nor is totally bound to your gender and sexual orientation, which lies in the dimension of personality-- which is arguably somehow not the same as mental chatter. And as a mystic, you have to find a sense of familiarity, safety, and functionality with perpetually holding and acknowledging both dimensions of consciousness as equally valid.

14. We could say that dedication, discipline, or devotion is important for advancing ananda consciousness. This is emphasized in an ancient mystic text known as the Vivekachudamani, for example. Self-sustaining ananda consciousness is perceived as devoted to itself, and full-realization of ananda consciousness is arguably perfectly self-sustaining ananda consciousness.

15. Sufficient oxygenation can help deepen realization of ananda consciousness, along with seeing the breath as synonymous and undifferentiated from the loving inner light or loving light. K.A.P. talks about the importance of sufficient oxygenation for mitigating Kundalini syndrome symptoms; my understanding also is that Kriya yoga is based at least partly around utilizing breathing techniques, or pranayama, to pursue ananda consciousness.

16. If you are struggling with getting to the realization of ananda consciousness, getting extremely subtle with your expectations of experiencing aspects of ananda consciousness can advance realization of ananda consciousness. Sometimes this can lead to the exact opposite of subtle experiences-- maybe having something to do with the non-dual-leaning nature that seems to exist within the practice.

17. Ananda consciousness can gain enough intensity and sense of momentum with the current carrying the loving feeling that it becomes somewhat self-sustaining, where mental chatter will not immediately stop the sense of loving inner light being experienced; but this is not full realization and it can potentially trick someone into thinking they've gained full realization. I do believe that this self-sustaining momentum is a requirement for getting to full realization; and this can cause increasing amounts of fear due to it's weirdness which has to be passed through to get to full realization.

18. So this principle will be very long-winded in order to lay conceptual groundwork, and will be about what I think is the relationship between ananda consciousness and it's full fruition into scientifically-valid meditative enlightenment.

So I want to suggest the idea that we as human beings are complex patterns, at least in part, and we are somehow branching or emerging out of the sum-total of everything, inclusive of all patterns, similar to a shape emerging in fractal geometry. Going along with this, we as human beings are somehow multi-dimensional and complex geometry, and there is some geometric standardization between us as humans. An example of this geometric standardization is that most people having strong identifiable similarities between cells and organs in the body, and so I think these genetic similarities could be called a human similarity fractal-- where the term fractal refers to a repeating pattern. Theists might like taking this idea further by entertaining that we are souls in bodies, where each individual soul is unique, but where there is also a human similarity fractal and a soul similarity fractal-- and they might find it agreeable to say that the soul and human body are temporarily bound together and created by the sum-total of everything and all patterns, which is God.

So we are not individuals in a materialistic and wholly separate sense, because if whatever forms that make up a human are taken apart sufficiently on a physical or mental level, the parts eventually lose uniqueness in some sense; even though each cell and organ is arguably wholly unique in it's sufficiently zoomed-in structure like every snowflake, it is still an observably repeating and common phenomena. And the most unique English sentence that is thought up in the mind can be broken down into repeating and common words or letters, even though in some sense the most common linguistic thought is wholly unique in that it comes from a wholly unique being. Since each human being appears as a whole to be completely unique, we still need a term to talk about individuality in that way, while rebuking the illusion of materialist individuality; so I want to suggest the idea that we could refer to this as fractal individuality, as opposed to the illusionary idea of materialist individuality-- where the repetition of patterns that makes materialist individuality illusory also works in such a way to make true uniqueness or fractal individuality real.

So there's another mysticism teacher I respect named Nisargadatta Maharaj, and one of his quotes is this: “Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows.”

Now he is pointing the student towards this realization and not only saying it about himself; and I believe what he means by the idea of wisdom saying we are nothing is not a suggestion of the loveless and ugly idea that we are some kind of void or space without content.. but what I think he's doing is that he's making a distinction about the illusion of material individualism and mental chatter versus the reality of fractal individualism and ananda consciousness that is somehow connected to a deeper realization of fractal individualism and it's ground or source which is the sum-total of everything or pure consciousness-- which includes any perception of the existence of unconsciousness. He is also pointing at the limitations of language to define ourselves and reality as a whole by pointing to mental chatter being nothing. So the "I" made up of mental chatter is "nothing" to ananda consciousness; and in the context of the term "love" he is talking about, this is ananda consciousness, in which love comes from and is received by itself in endless light.

This loving inner light and subtle electrical current can feel as though it's raising up through the body, particular the center of the body, having to do with the Vagus nerve connected to the spine according to the K.A.P. website. If this happens, the risk of Kundalini syndrome symptoms intensifies, along with the intensity of the feelings of being loved and the inner light experiences. Different variations of this loving inner light seem as if they combine together as advancement and greater intensity of ananda consciousness happens, so there can be a greater sense of a quiltwork of color and light.

Some Kundalini syndrome symptoms are part of this advancement process and cannot be stopped without abandoning it; and the process is trying to make some of these particular physiological symptoms permanent changes, like the inner light, while other physical and mental symptoms are from doing the process in a less effective way. For example, based on some of my most profound experiences in mysticism, I theorize that at the highest level of realization of ananda consciousness, Depersonalization and Derealization disorders somehow are permanently happening in a partial manner alongside the kind of normal sense of physical phenomena without them existing.

If there is a felt and spontaneous raising of this light and current up through the head, which can come with varying degrees of Depersonalization or Derealization, it is called a Kundalini awakening. There can be degrees to the strength of this, and it doesn't necessarily equate to full realization of ananda consciousness, but based on my understanding it is a requirement to reach it.

So to get deeper into explaining more aspects of the full realization of ananda consciousness, I need to talk about what I believe is an aspect of more advanced mindfulness practice. So there is a type of altered consciousness that probably goes along more with mindfulness, where the mind has enough stillness and receptivity to outer light, that all of the outer light of physical reality appears as if it is glowing in a particular way, like a backlit picture where the light is shining through the entire picture.. where the picture we are speaking about is all of physical reality including one's physical body.

There's a Kriya yoga teacher on YouTube I respect who goes by Yogiraj SatGurunath Siddhanath, and has an incredibly epic hair and beard combo; and while I don't always understand where he's coming from as he's deeply traditional in his teaching methods, I think he has something to say that can apply to what I'm talking about here.

Although I believe he's talking about this backlit aspect of consciousness as part of fully realized ananda consciousness, while I am talking about it purely with outer/physical light experiences, he puts this backlit phenomena another way that I like, which is that, "Everything is shocking and new from moment to moment." As for how this sense of shocking and new applies to physical or exterior light like what I was talking about, the phrase I personally like to call it is "the glow of Being", and I'm using the word Being with a capital "B" to talk about physical phenomena as a whole. But I admit there could also be a semantic debate if this term for Being should expand out to non-physical phenomena.

So just to add a rabbit hole-esque note and put on my tin foil hat once more, Yogiraj claims that the light in mystical experiences is the light of the human soul which is what one is in contact with during these experiences or realization, and along with the idea of the universe and God having to do with fractal geometry, these two claims are corellated by popular metaphysical claims from people connected to Ufology. Dan Winter is an interesting figure in this regard.

But anyways, if a Kundalini awakening is powerful enough, and the altered consciousness from it is maintained, I believe it results in permanent Kundalini awakening, or the highest level of scientifically-valid meditative consciousness-- which at that level, inner light becomes partly indistinguishable from outer or physical light, and the glow of Being also is constantly happening alongside the aspects of ananda consciousness that I have previously described; and it's my understanding based on words of teachers I respect-- and based on my temporary experiences with this very deep meditation years ago-- that mental chatter is most likely perceived as having disappeared if the experience advanced enough, and if maintained long enough it becomes permanent while the personality somehow remains in the silence.

Also as I said before in Principle 7, there is the sense of the electrical current being in absolute non-stop movement, almost feeling like being in a moving vehicle but the movement is going on inside of the body with love and inner light, making up the feeling of meditative bliss.

So I believe this full realization of ananda consciousness is most likely a deeper realization than the average human being currently has of the structure of reality, but it is only on speechless level, and comes with the weaknesses of being on a speechless level.

19. While this doesn't purely apply to ananda consciousness, I want to briefly talk about the general differences between mystical experience from meditation, and the loss of touch with reality from mental disorders like schizophrenia and psychosis; I think there is only an extraordinarily rare chance of loss of touch with reality from extremely devoted meditation in the sense of hallucinations or delusions on the level of these disorders, but how mental chatter and the personality perceives strong inner light experiences plays into this too.

Kundalini syndrome symptoms can include being stuck in forms of undesirable or uncomfortable altered consciousness, but generally and usually I would argue that it is incredibly unlikely that these symptoms are reality-altering in a way that it is comparable to schizophrenia and psychosis, with the exception of the power of mental chatter, and subsequently beliefs, used in an unwise manner around mystical experiences-- which is why I think my definition of critical-thinking alongside the BITE model is important for gaining a more accurate and less destructive understanding of mystical experiences; and on top of this, rarely do any symptoms of altered consciousness from meditation, desirable or undesirable, seem to become permanent without seriously devoted practice-- the most likely thing being kriyas or a tick disorder, which is a Kundalini syndrome symptom, and which-- in a traditional Kundalini understanding-- kriyas happen because the Kundalini process has become stuck in some way.

So some Christians see Kundalini as demonic, and this might be because involuntary movements or kriyas gets seen as demonic possession. But I don't see Kundalini kriyas as being synonymous with demonic possession, and I would counter this by saying that any theist mystics having experiences with ananda consciousness are having experiences no different than experiences that can happen from effective Kundalini practices, but likely not as intense as those practices in some way biologically related to kriyas, which results in less likelihood of kriyas or other Kundalini syndrome symptoms.

Energy in the form of tension can be stuck in the body from traumatic memory to paraphrase Dr. Bessel van der Kolk in his bestselling book on trauma science called The Body Keeps the Score-- and this might go along with humans and animals sometimes healing from traumatic events through somatic experiencing, for example, with either trembling or shaking after a traumatic evidence. And also, without getting too much into it for the sake of time, I see Kundalini kriyas more theoretically likely having to do with healing trauma through somatic experiencing on a level so deep it's some sort of subconscious somatic experiencing attempt at healing the deep physical and mental conditioning of material individualism-- not necessarily being effective-- and if this healing happens there is a deeper realization of the divine-feeling reality of ananda consciousness, going along with some kind of realization of the relationship of fractal individualism with the sum-total of reality and consciousness which appears to be the source or ground of it.

I have to add that I am not saying here mentally ill people cannot have mystical experiences or even the chance for effortless mindfulness or effortless and full realization of ananda consciousness.

Going along with the idea of The Razor's Edge or the difficulty that can come with realizing mystical consciousness through meditation, for the average meditator at present, they have to struggle with a deep particularized focus to have and maintain altered consciousness from meditation; and it simply doesn't distort reality with as devastating consequences, nor generally as easily, as these mental illnesses, and is different from struggling to stay in touch with reality as a result of such mental illnesses.

20. In less advanced stages of realizing ananda consciousness, the world disappears in loving inner light, and then further advancing from there, the sense of the body can even disappear in a sense of pure consciousness, this seems to go along with the idea Derealization disorder followed by the addition Depersonalization disorder with the more pleasant trimmings of ananda consciousness; but in even more advanced stages, the non-linguistic ananda consciousness dimension of you recognizes everything as part of itself, and sharing in itself, in its spontaneous waves of loving light, and you return to the sense of your body and the environment, in a speechless sense that I would argue is somehow branching out from this loving light. So there is a principle of the re-emergence of the physical and material in and as this loving non-dual light, and David Spero has talked about this.

The beloved mystic teacher Ramana Maharshi has referred to loving non-dual light as the Self with a capital S, which is closer to speechless feeling than any kind of declaration which would be mental chatter. Ramana has also used capital I's with a hyphen between them, the I-I, to refer to the Self with a capital S. The idea of the second I in the I-I is the idea that absolutely anything that is noticed in consciousness is also seen and felt as non-dual-- and even in the case of things that might be seen as negative or destructive, the non-dual is a separate dimension of consciousness from any valid and wise judgment on such things. The Self or I-I can be meditative consciousness based on the most basic goal of meditation I've given, or at its most realized appears to be ananda consciousness

So we could call the non-dual light oneness to help it be more understandable to some degree, but the problem with the term oneness is while it's arguably more easy to grasp than the term non-duality.. oneness suggests duality, because to the average person it's suggesting an inherent existence of both the experiencer and the experience of oneness, which immediately suggests some form of division.

21. So going along with more advanced ananda consciousness, to quote another mystic teacher I respect who goes by GuruSwamiG on YouTube, "Everyone has an equal amount of the Divine Is." Another way of saying this is that everyone has an equal and infinite amount of present divinity or ananda consciousness manifesting in their limited human awareness, whether they realize this or not.

So to address the issue of solipsism and megalomania emerging from mystical experiences, if the personality and mental chatter aren't sufficiently coming to terms with what Swami G is talking about, then solipsism and/or megalomania can develop on the personality and mental chatter level or dimension of consciousness. This can happen from being in the less advanced, less non-dual mystical experiences, like with ananda consciousness when the sense of the world or physical environment disappears, because there is total focus on loving inner light experience and it hasn't carried over to other physical or material phenomena; in this sense, outer or physical light hasn't integrated with inner light as an experience of non-dual light, and there isn't sufficient direction in the dimensions of mental chatter and visualization that any mystical experience is secretly equal in everyone and everything; there also has to be sufficient acceptance of this reality and the sense of extreme vulnerability that can come with it in order to not shut it out-- identifying as a polymath and therefore often distracted by the non-mystical, I will fully admit to having not mastered this yet as of writing this.

And also with this point, from a Theist Mystic perspective we can define what Swami G is saying as the idea that God's love and light is equal in everyone, regardless of what their realization of it is. And that sort of goes along with the theist idea that it is worth pursuing moral excellence or virtuousness with other living things.. because you see them and yourself as permanently conscious souls with moments of unconsciousness, rather than a temporarily conscious material accident like in the common view of scientific materialism. However I empathize with people who are struggling to see evidence for metaphysics, and however bizarre it is to say at present, and while not being religious, I was myself lead back to believing in an infinitely loving God and the immortal soul through Ufology research, somewhat in combination with my experiences as a mystic.

22. It seems that mental chatter alongside past memories, future visions, and negative emotions, can cause people to be temporarily blocked out of realizing ananda consciousness, including experienced mystics who haven't reached full realization. So to state it again as a principle, an ecology of meditative practices can help someone get unstuck in whatever meditation they are doing.

For example in seeing that one has been too focused on mental chatter, giving it too much emotional momentum where it feels like it can't be easily stopped, one can embrace that the mental chatter is going to last for awhile, and try to direct it towards thinking up consistent mantras they find effective.

So when a particular practice starts failing to help you realize what you were previously with ananda consciousness, with the exception that inner light, the positive feelings it elicits, and the intensity might be different, you can switch techniques in order to get your foot in the door again.

So that's my attempt to offer the first principles of ananda consciousness.

The Quality of Mysticism Teachings and the Lindy Effect

So if Wikipedia isn't lying to me, bearing in mind that it has some tendency to do so, it says about the Lindy effect: "The Lindy effect is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age. Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy."

So one example of the power of the Lindy effect is with looking for the best life values and seeing that virtues as life values have something to do with that, and with the prospering of humanity, and that the concept of virtues dates back a long time in human history.

In my view the best mysticism teachers align with the Lindy effect on what I see as the best teachings around ananda consciousness, and I've listed out most of those teachers already. So many ironically aren't the most popular mysticism teachers as of my saying this, as opposed to many more popular people who I see as inferior teachers in this subject-- like needles hiding in a haystack. But the teachers I respect seem in my experience to have the most knowledge to bring the greatest sense of being virtuously loved in a meditative context into someone's life, along with the meaning in life derived from that.

One of the World's Greatest Mystic Texts: The Ribhu Gita

The mystic and mysticism teacher Ramana Maharshi inspired the teacher in the classic novel The Razor's Edge, and Ramana promoted my favorite mystic text to his students which dates back to the BC era and is known as the Ribhu Gita. Something I've noticed about the English translation of the Ribhu Gita is how much it mentions bliss possibly compared to any other mystic text, and I think this is important, because as I've explained bliss is partly a synonym here for being speechlessly loved.. and everyone desires to feel loved and finds it meaningful, and many if not most people likely would like more access to that feeling in their lives. And I recommend an English translation of the Ribhu Gita by the late Dr. H. Ramamoorthy and Nome, who also have my respect as Advaita Vedanta scholars and teachers.

Possible Common Mistranslation Hurdles for Practicing Advaita Vedanta

In my view, one of the big hurdles for people understanding mystic teachings like Nissagardatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi, the Vivekachudamani, the Ribhu Gita, the Ashtavakra Gita, the Avadhuta Gita, and similar Jnana Yoga-like teachings, is when such teachings do some kind of rebuking of something, the person should see it as rebuking mental chatter and concepts, while simultaneously see any teaching therein as pointing to the realization of speechlessly peaceful and loving feeling-based identification with the sum-total of everything as non-dual light and consciousness, the most advanced ananda consciousness. In Advaita Vedanta gitas, "Atman" can mean the soul, and "Brahman" can mean the absolute, I believe if a practitioner has read all of this, it is best for them to read these both these terms as full realization of ananda consciousness, or some useful synonym pointing them towards that, like "love-light-bliss-consciousness".

On Bridging Ananda Consciousness or Bliss with Buddhist Teachings

To briefly speak about Buddhism, as a generalization, I think to get the most from Buddhist teachings on a mystical level one should rebelliously define it's use of terms like nothingness, emptiness, space, or the void, not as purely an absence of form, but as synonymous with the full realization of ananda consciousness as I've described it.

A Warning About Risks in Mystic Meditation

As of writing this, science and medicine seem to know little about mystical experiences and things that can go wrong with them, generally going along with Kundalini Syndrome symptoms. Science and medicine generally appear to me to be stuck in a less virtuous crony capitalist operating capacity, and as my post on covid has shown, modern medicine is riddled with crime. So there is less institutional grasp of potential dangerous physical and mental effects in the pursuit of a full realization of ananda consciousness for differing individuals. Kundalini syndrome symptoms and mystical experiences can easily be misdiagnosed, and the risks of pursuing mystical experience on the level of Kundalini awakening aren't fully known-- which doesn't necessarily require a Kundalini-style practice but sufficient advancement of ananda consciousness-- so it's worth warning people about these things while encouraging adults to go as far as they wish, and are able to. It's always okay to take a break or change to a different meditative practice.

Mysticism and the Meaning Crisis

It's my understanding that you can temporarily shut out loneliness with meditation, but you can't permanently shut out loneliness even in the most advanced mystical consciousness. You can have this dimension of altered consciousness in your life through meditation, which to the degree it is able to take up your focus in contrast to the pain in any particular moment, doesn't register that pain-- and while I don't condone it, I think the stationary nature of self-immolating monks points to this as a reality.

After finishing watching the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis series in my final comment I wrote that it seems like to do the most to get out of the meaning crisis requires walking two paths, social wisdom/brilliance and meditative wisdom/brilliance-- with the implication of going along with ananda consciousness-- and you can only walk one at a time in any given moment; this is because the pursuit of social wisdom is the domain of language, and the pursuit of meditative wisdom, as far as the experience, is a mentally and physically speechless domain. Which is not to say the non-meditative relationship to the self, to non-living objects, and to our surroundings and nature, should be ignored, but don't seem to me like the primary causes of the meaning crisis in comparison to the unwise treatment of these two paths. And when framing the meaning crisis as the intimacy crisis, there is a kind of intimacy and meaningfulness in the pursuit of each path that simply cannot be gained from the other.

No non-linguistic experience, no matter how profound or loving, accounts for the benefits of deepening conceptual wisdom, including understanding around virtuousness or moral excellence-- so in this respect, if it's possible to be an enlightened master.. then an enlightened master can still be the least moral person among a group of people who have spent more time and gotten further with thinking about moral excellence. And then, in a sense of enlightenment that includes wisdom, there is a philosophical question about who is more enlightened.. the person with meditative enlightenment, with more sense of being one with everything.. or the person who is not but has more understanding of moral excellence, and as a result, who is maybe more able to impart the sense in other living things that they are one with everything through moral excellence.

But if these two paths I've laid out of meditative brilliance and social brilliance are particularly meaningful in life, and we can only follow one at a time, going along with the degree with which we consciously manage our body budget, we might think of them as one of many calls for the necessity of fostering balance in our lives.

Thank you for your time and attention.

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Picture source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/frozen-wave-against-sunlight-1210273/