Cool Meditation Experiences

General Meditation & Mindfulness
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With the upcoming Heartfulness Course starting, I was trying different ways to open and expand my heart during meditation. I thought it would be great to hear other’s experiences with mediation in general, and related to opening the heart.

My morning mediation is typically following the breath and continually coming back to it as my monkey mind creates stories. But this morning I tried something different. I wanted to see if I could expand my heart and feel compassion and love for all beings. I try different things with this same Idea and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t…as it is, right?

So this morning I created a love blanket. I wanted a visual because it seems to help my mind settle. I started with this love blanket around myself, feeling the weight, cradling me, absorbing the weight and thinking/feeling love. The feeling part didn’t come right away, but eventually I did feel self love. Then I expanded out to my family members, then friends, placing the blanket around them, making the blanket bigger and bigger. Then I put the blanket on a person that I don’t have a lot of respect for he’ll remain nameless (remembering when Ram Dass said that on his puja table there was a photo of Caspar Weinberger…lol). Then an amazing experience happen, focusing on the blanket around this person and absorbing love into them, I felt lighter and brighter. A bright light surrounded and it felt like pure awareness…all of the blanket, etc. was gone and it was just a restful experience in this light…amazing. This state remained until my alarm went off and I came back into my surroundings.

Do you ever try different practices in meditation, any unique experiences? Would love to hear and learn…thank you :pray: :pray: :pray: :heart:

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My most recent metta meditation practice began with me and expanded to include others. This brought the emotive experience beyond where I am usually ‘living’, helping me realize and encounter more expansive states to build upon. Something I have yet to revisit or reinforce with much habit, but hope to do so within this course.

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Thanks for sharing Travis…I’m looking forward to this course also! :pray:

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I love this.
Most of my meditations start by justing “be-ing” - listening to the birds and wind, watching the cardinals and squirrels. Then I close my eyes and do something similar - invite in a counsel of people who shine their loving awareness onto me.
Then I join that loving awareness by falling into the vibration of a mantra.
Then I try to send this blessing out to folks at the end.

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Thank you for sharing Jacquelyn, I can’t really do mantras that early in the morning…don’t want to wake my partner up, do you know if they can be recited internally with the same vibrations? I guess it really doesn’t matter, it all is divine…I was just curious of your thoughts? :pray: :green_heart:

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Though I am a but late to the conversation (two months later isn’t terrible lol) I had a very powerful experience during a Metta meditation. I was attending the Love Server Remember mountain retreat last year. Sharon Salzberg had zoomed in to lead the meditation. AS we meditated, I began to cry. This was not a visceral and loud cry, but simply a few tears silently rolling down my face. It was an a extremely powerful meditation. Once we had finished with the meditation, a woman, who had been sitting behind me throughout the meditation approached me and gave me a hug. She had said “That was beautiful - I saw your heart opening”. This was shocking to me. Because I was sitting infront of her with my head turned away she shouldn’t have been able to see my tears. Still to this day I wonder what she saw. Regardless, I find it fascinating that one of the most powerful mediations I have done was so strong that someone felt the need/ desire to speak of it. I think this experience really highlights the strength of an open heart. It is proof we are spiritual beings living a human life. I would love to hear other peoples stories of their hearts opening!

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Try guided meditation.

From Thich Nhat Hanh.

You can say this to yourself on each in & out breath, with a few minutes of just breathing in and out between each verse.

Breathing in. I know I’m breathing in.
Breathing out. I know I’m breathing out.
Breathing In.
Breathing Out.

Breathing in, my breath grows deep.
Breathing out, my breath grows slow.
Breathing in (Deep)
Breathing out (Slow)

Breathing in, I’m aware of my body.
Breathing out, I calm my body.
Breathing in (Aware of body)
Breathing out (Calming)

Breathing in, I smile.
Nothing is more important than my peace, my joy.
I smile to everything
Including my suffering, my difficulties.
Breathing out, I release, let go.
This is the practice of freedom.
Breathing in (Smile)
Breathing out (Release)

Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment.
Breathing out, I enjoy the present moment.
Breathing in (Present moment)
Breathing out (Enjoy)

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I’ve had a profound experience during a deep mediation that I’ve not been able to clarify or quantify or verify intellectually.

I believe I witnessed my soul to clarify I didn’t experience this from my soul’s perspective (I think).

During a height in meditation, (eyes closed) I saw (inner sight) a ball of pure light about the size of a softball that I knew to be the source of consciousness in my physical body. I knew it was connected to my nervous system and mind and the seat of who I am.

I only saw this for a flash - and it then morphed into a more abstract object that was a personified ball of light surrounded by a library.

What I experienced was housed just under my right chest under the ribcage.

After this experience I read through the Gita and found I had a great deal more understanding of the subtle language of the Krishnas messages to Arjuna.

I’ve not been able to find other accounts of this experience and I am just as well able to chock it up to just my imagination, but it was so profound and demonstrably true at that moment I cannot just brush it off.

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this or something else?

I am a practitioner of Kriya Yoga and was doing my mediation practice which is meant to connect you with your higher self.

Kindest regards :slight_smile:

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Hi, my name is Adrienne I had a really deep spiritual experience I want to share. It’s really mind blowing. I have been in this path for 4 years and I want to share with you my experience I had ago with Ram Dass in spirit that has brought me here now.

I remember I was meditating in my living room, just sitting, going within. I got into a really deep space where there is no time, no place, no thing …just consciousness. Then all of a sudden the feeling of the room changed. I could feel there was a presence… the feeling of peace, warmth, and love. I did not know who it was. Then I wasn’t in the room any more I was in a different plane. Soft light surrounded me like a light cloud. As I look around me, Ram Dass appeared right in front of me. He looked like he was in his early thirties sitting cross legged his eyes closed and had the biggest smile on his face.

Then I got into my thoughts. “Is this real? Am I imagining all of this?”

Ram Dass said to me “They are just thoughts, let them go and come back into your heart”

We were not talking through our mouth. This was like we were talking telepathically.

So I went back to my heart for a few seconds then I went back to my thoughts. “I losing my mind, this is insane. Hahaha. I think I’m going insane!”

Ram Dass calmly said “You are back in your thoughts again…let them go and come back into your heart.”

I went back into my heart for a few seconds. But I went back into my thoughts again. “I don’t know what is happening.”

Ram Dass come really close to my face like an inch away locking eyes with me and he said “Adrienne …quiet your mind open your heart.”

I got really shock hearing him say my name so I asked him. “You know who I am?”

He smiled still locking eyes with me, “Yes, I have known you for a thousands and thousands of lifetimes.”

My mind tried to figure out how. My mind went on and on in the past it the future as far i could and around in circles. I tried to process what he said. Then “poof” my mind stoped. When I finally looked at Ram Dass into his eyes…something happened. Through him I could feel the essence of God, unconditional love that I haven’t felt before and the light that was coming through was so beautiful I can’t describe it. In that moment i merged into the beloved, into unconditional love I started crying…crying because I knew that I am home. I am home.

When I opened my eyes I was back in my room. But I forgot where I was it took me a few minutes to realize I’m back in my living room and I still had tears streaming down my face. I don’t fully understand what happened. But I know what I experienced is :100: real. There a several experiences I had with Ram Dass in spirit but this experience that had shifted me into loving awareness. I feel that Ram Dass is my guru in spirit within me.

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