Hello Everyone,
I want to share of my experiences of the last few weeks because they raise many questions for me, including the nature of my current path and even destination. I'm not even sure what all of my questions are, but I hope by sharing my experience that they are somehow on a path that has been travelled many times before me!
This year has been one of exceptional suffering for me during which time I had unknowingly been the cause of most of it. A turning point was reading "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. I believe anyone can find something of meaning from that book. For me, it was realising that regardless of our outside circumstances, it is us who choose our reaction to these: whether we choose to be human in the face of such adversity, or choose to define ourselves by what happens to us. I decided at that point to bring out my humanity again, to the point of being kind and grateful, even to those who would see me suffer. I noticed an immediate improvement in mood, and of feeling whole, despite the 'suffering' situation still ongoing.
By its very nature, this attitude requires the giving up of the outcome of actions of generosity. It was only in the last week or so that I discovered there was the path of Karma Yoga, which might be just what I was practising without knowing. It was part of my motivation to search for this forum today.
About a month ago, I had begun the practising of meditation daily. At first loving-kindness meditation, and then just quietening the mind and seeing what comes up. At first, there were colours.. mostly yellows. Then over some days these became purple and more and more intense. Some days later I trusted to surrender and there was intense bliss in my head during meditation. After a day or two of this, the bliss started even when I wasn't meditating.
Although I experienced the bliss as intensely pleasurable and like a divine connection, there was at the same time the feeling of infinite compassion... someone could be trying to kill me or make me suffer, and all that would be on my mind would be to see their own suffering and to wish for them to find peace. Anger was a distant memory. I paused for honest self-reflection regularly. At the same time, the simplest things would make me smile and content. My eyes were soft with compassion. And everything was slow. I walked slowly, I smiled slowly and frequently. But everything was deliberate and compassionate.
The experience got me through a very stressful time and then the feelings slowly started to fade. Was it Divine grace? I grasped frequently... whether in meditation, reading, talking... perhaps even with this message! I can say to myself, with the most honest intentions that I would like that infinite compassion back... how I could help people... and then I think "and maybe I'll get that bliss back too!" by which time, I already feel corrupted!
I have wondered if this was a taste of enlightenment. I have read many promises of this kind of bliss as a permanent state in enlightenment on various paths (e.g. Kundalini) but after googling people's experiences of actual enlightenment, it appears to be much more based upon a deep stillness and non-attachment... this intense bliss and compassion seems not to come into it.
So I am curious. What is my path? Is there such a goal as this bliss and compassion and non-attachment, or is it only a distraction on the path? I find it hard to believe that such infinite compassion could be merely a distraction... yet it seems to be inseparable from the bliss. I sense the only way to experience this compassion or bliss again is to give up trying. And like I hinted before, this attachment to bliss/compassion has been the motivation of my meditation and life for a week or two now, with only frustratingly small experiences... which come when I observe having given up looking!
Any help or advice is most welcome. Especially those words that answer the questions I cannot even think to ask