Meditation is erotic

I often hear things about meditation and the ending of passions and desires, etc.

My experience is completly opposite. I've started enjoying, and seeing the benefits of, meditation when I realised that meditation was the joy of life, the sensuality of everything, the passion for the awareness, the desire to love life in all it's aspects.

What do you think?

 

I definitely agree. There's a whole school of thought that associates meditation with asceticism, quietism ("a living death", etc.), the "spiritual" (whatever that means) and whatever simplistic moral formulas our discursive thinking conjures up.

It also associates meditation (listening to both sides) with some definitive progression toward an end (the basis of all dualistic thinking): enlightenment. I am proud to say that I do not seek enlightenment. I am simply happy the moment I meditate...and for that reason, I hardly ever even refer to it as "meditation" anymore. It's "happy practice."

It isn't a future or permanent happiness; it is happiness moment-by-moment. And a happiness that cheerfully lives with suffering, as opposed to the complete absence of it.

That is the problem with clericalism in any religion...including Eastern religions. Clericalism and monkhood tends toward the moral, the ascetic, and the quietist, the idealistic.

To me, meditation is of the body. And of the material world. Meditation to me is a ruthless act of taking possession...taking possession of my body, the moment, and ultimately the world. In meditative states everything is my own...and I can play with it as I see fit.

Contrary to the school that tries to suppress thought and emotion in meditative practice, I welcome them. I actively invite them to grow to their outer limit...until they have run their course. Be they "good" or "bad." "Positive" or "negative." "Pleasant" or "unpleasant." "Useful" or not.

And indeed, after meditating my senses are heightened. And it is no surprise that I often find myself delightfully sexually aroused after 20-odd minutes of it.

In fact, I am moving away from posture meditation exclusively. And I am incorporating movement into my practice more and more (but without following any school or tradition)...trying to find my own way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcIhTOJQjo&feature=related

 

Yeah!!! Happy practice, I love it...

 

Meditation is the most blissful thing I've ever experienced.

 

Meditation itself is extremely blissful, but in addition, it makes everything else seem more real, more intense. If a healthy meditation practice was more socially widespread, I'm sure the worlds problems would melt like snow under the sun.

 

Everyone meditates in some shape or form. Some people choose to practice it...but social problems are personal problems.

This is one of the best discussions I've read in a while, btw.

 

How true! People rarely turn inward. They are so busy extending their efforts outward that they don't take moments to just "be."

Meditation can be many things to different people.. and if I could recommend any two things to people it'd be ganja and meditation. I just feel they would naturally lead people to be peaceful, chill, and hopefully loving.

 

I feel that when I meditate I can hear God talking to me. It feels very powerful way beyond mere sensuality.

 

Yeah, it was through meditating I realized that life was really only one huge wet dream, and all acts are at least latently sexual. Spirituality itself is said to only be sexuality brought to a higher level, as in sexuality without attachment to physical form, reminiscent of the Vajrayana path of Tibetan Buddhism where meditation is not neccesarily linked to the physical posture, and all things are meditation, all things are equally sex. What is sex really? An expression of love, that brings about the full circle of existence (even to death, non existence). Seeing all beings as they truly are, manifestations of one energy (the sun, earth, prana, whatever concept you go by), life is just a huge self loving fantasy in the mind of brahmin. Of course, sex and meditation become eachother, like ascetism, sensory deprivation becomes hedonism when even the smallest sensation is amplified to universal proportions because awareness has come to rest there, such is the alchemical function of time, but really all these words are nothing. All paths lead here.

 

Practice what you like. Why knock someone else's practice? A lot of people have found monkhood and ascetic life the way for them. And if it weren't for the monks, the teachings of yoga and meditation would never have been preserved over the centuries. Your path is yours. But why denounce someone else's?

Also, I feel you have misunderstood the teachings you describe. Yes, withdrawal from sense pleasure is recommended. This is because our mind is habituated to gettign attached to these pleasures, hanging on to them and becoming dependent on them for joy. In meditation, we are seeking true joy within ourselves. Therefore it makes a lot of sense to withdraw from that which distracts us from the inner joy.

The focus here is not on suppressing emotions at all. It is about sublimating them. That's the true meaning of Patanjali's statement that Yoga is chitta vritti nirodha (the sublimation of the mind's thoughts). It's dealing with emotions, taking good care of them, without getting carried away by them and losing ourselves in emotion. It's about remaining working through emotions while remaining peaceful and centered.

And when meditation reaches its culmination, the realization and abidance in true Self, then all things are seen as manifestations of that Supreme alone.

Then, there is no question of not enjoying the world. Do not the Zen monks write ecstatic Haiku about the beauties of nature? The Hindu literature is filled with inspired descriptions of the beauty of life manifested as living beings, cities, forests, mountains, rivers, jewels, and also of passion and love and inspiration. That's what the Gopis' dance with Krishna is about - they have gone beyond materialistic enjoyment and their burning, all-consuming passion is for the divine as it manifests in all things.


You may not agree with what I say, but why knock someone else's path?

 

The problem is not that people (monks, etc.) are enjoying living an ascetic lifestyle. Ok for them as long as they're happy.

The more I meditate, the more I realise that the key is inside... meditation is just another world for "being yourself".

The problem is that most westerners (including me) would not benefit from a meditation practice that is based on ancient ascetic texts and teachings. Instead they should just accept themselves as they are without suppressing or even sublimating anything within themselves. But they think that what meditation is about is living like a monk or withdrawing from sensual pleasure, but for them, it's not.

I think this is partly what is preventing meditation to be more widespread... it should be seen as a Whole Lotta Love, but it isn't. So sad.

 

Yes, we disagree about the sensual part. I have never experienced any inherent habituation of the mind. In fact, I prefer not to see inherentness. Or, if I do, it's the inherently inherentlessness of stuff. Most times...

But I was not intending to knock it for someone else, more to state that I don't like the way of rigidity for myself (at all times).

I love my monks!

 

Don't be sad, bubba.

 

I would agree with that but I met a lady that said marijuana makes her angry, like all day afterward she is being a total bitch, it was funny and sad at the same time.

 

So a serial killer should just accept himself? Pedophiles should love and accept their tendencies and not make any effort to change or heal themselves? We all have flaws and a big part of the spiritual journey is to acknowledge them and then work on improving them. This is not about judging oneself, but about growing and evolving. If I sit back and say I am perfect as I am, I don't need to change a thing, then I will never grow, in fact I would only stagnate and sink deeper in my erroneous ways, multiplying the problems in my life and in the lives of those around me.

 

Eh. None of my personal change has come of a concerted effort to change myself according to a preconceived moral checklist. Accepting my failures, however, has helped a lot.

 

Yes. Accepting your failures. You recognize them as failures and do better the next time. That's trying to grow. That's what I'm talking about.
But sitting back, saying "I'm flawed and cannot change. This is what I am and what I always will be" is closing the door to growth.

 

Accept yourself as you are and already you're not the same person you just accepted. If you TRY to change first, you're ''accepting'' a human being that is not you, but rather the projection of yourself in a positive futur.

I think you totally misunderstood me. It's not about thinking your perfect. It's about seeing yourself as you really are, without preconceived idea of how it should be, allowing your body to do it's own healing.

And, my experience is that in the state of complete bliss that comes from a totally free meditation, I see myself as I am much better than if I decide in advance what I want to change, what I should '' work on '' or if I do any type of meditation that doesn't fit my body.

But I don't consider myself spiritual at all. In fact I don't even know what the word means. DIFFERENT PERSONNALITY, DIFFERENT MEDITATION, THUS THE SKEPTICISM TOWARDS TRADITION.

Peace

 

I totally agree, man. But again, in my experience, saying the opposite, that I'm not going to do such and such etc. is just as deleterious and adds a pressure cooker element that eventually blows up or sucks the life force out of me.

I don't think my growth comes from a purely discursive source. I can't get caught up in the value-judgment dialectic. I have to change naturally somehow...otherwise I relapse and relapse and relapse.

 

I agree entirely. Everything involving yoga, meditation and the like is really erotic and relaxing.