Post-Vipassana: Experiential Understanding of Suffering

The day after the Vipassana ended I stayed at a friends place in Lima (whom I met the final 20 minutes of the workshop).

He was going to smoke and offered the opportunity to me, though warning me that it may not be good after all the work I did with the Vipassana.

He had to go out to meet his girlfriend, but left a packed bowl for me if I decided to.

I meditated, which was great, and then decided to smoke on his roof.
Afterward, I knocked out the ash into a sink in the bathroom. The ash got everywhere and was wet. By this point I was full of these old habit patterns of anxiety I used to frequently encounter after smoking. These were habit patterns that arose sometimes when I had to do a task and it was overwhelmingly difficult while high.

Then I noticed I could not see very well. My vision wasn't blurry, it was more like I just wasn't perceiving as well - not focused. So I tried to really focus on my hand and the toilet paper I was about to tear for the cleanup. As I did this I remembered a conversation from the previous day with my friend Carlos. He discussed how he likes to really take his time while making and eating food, really being with each moment. These led to me looking up into the mirror.
Suddenly I returned to my peaceful, equanimous, post-Vipassana state of mind.
The anxiety was abruptly swept away.

Then I received the download...

Experiential Understanding of Suffering:

The change in my consciousness was so tangible and substantial. I saw how states of anxiety, worry, fear (all negative emotions/thoughts) drive our consciousness towards 0, towards nothingness and an equanimous mind, a calm and peaceful mind take our consciousness up towards God, towards Infinite Consciousness.

From My Journal: "I was full of anxiety in the bathroom and I yanked myself out of the lower Reality into a higher Dimension of Consciousness or Frequency of Conscioussness...I became above the lower Reality like vertically, like I was on a higher level."

It was like I popped out of a smaller Russian doll into the next largest one.
One thing that is interesting about this design of Reality is that you can view lower realities, but you cannot perceive the higher realities.


More insight the next day: "An equanimous and peaceful mind does not force you into such a definite Reality"


This peaceful and loving state of mind, directly following intense suffering, evoked a memory from an Ayahuasca ceremony where this happened.
In both situations, after recovering the peaceful mind, I felt so humble towards God and I felt like a little child who was back in God's arms - I was back to a place I had been before and I could not believe I had forgotten yet again. I felt so exhausted from the suffering, like a slave who finally was told he would not be whipped any longer and he is filled with ecstasy and gratefulness.

Wizard of Realities: (20 min later)

I was chatting online to my mother and Zach and suddenly I thought of this joke to make to my mom, then I pictured myself on stage as a stand-up comedian and how I would pitch the joke. Then (through remaining equanimous) I "snapped out of it" and suddenly it was like I zoomed out of the "stand-up comedian Reality/thoughts/story-line" and I saw it just existing in front of me to the right. It was one path I could choose (putting my full attention to my imagination of myself as a stand-up comedian, which was completely consuming my consciousness - hence it was my Reality). But it was just one path of the infinite possibilities that exist for us each moment. This became experiential for me in this "zoomed-out-state". Then I felt like this Wizard hopping in and out of Realities. Wild!!

Moses and Egyptian Magic:
From what I have read about Egyptian science/magic (mostly from Sign and the Seal) the Egyptian high priests (of which Moses, as the son of the pharaoh, was a part) could actually do the types of things discussed in the Exodus (like the plagues, turning a stick into a snake, etc.). It seemed to me this "Wizard of Realities" archetype I experienced would be a similar state of being to that which the high priests embodied (especially when performing this magic).

The craziest thing to me, is the only way I could really explain how a high priest could perform magic would be through quantum physics. It is my scientific knowledge of the basis of Reality that sent me upon this spiritual journey.

Exercise:
Try to experience the fact that literally anything is possible and the only thing possibly keeping you from experiencing this is your own consciousness - your own state of being.