Category: mind changes

UG Krishnamurti and the Calamity Experience

Years ago I found UG Krishnamurti’s books alongside Jiddu Krishnamurti’s books at the bookstore. I started reading and was immediately fascinated. UG came to a place in his mind without Buddhism, though it was influenced by Buddhism, he basically got there without consciously playing the role of a follower of Buddha. He sort of stumbled into it.

I just found this amazing video by Ian McNay of UG that I hadn’t seen before. The sound quality is atrocious, but, with earplugs on my computer I can hear it OK.

I’ll put the video below.

My experience has been very similar to UG’s, and yet different in some ways. I understand everything he is saying when he talks about his experience and the state of his mind… I’ve been there, I am there. It’s interesting that he says “you don’t know what hit you.” When describing what happens when the questions about enlightenment hit. You have no way of knowing or explaining what it is… and yet there is a change. Then a new equilibrium settles and you go on…

I wonder if I’m in that new equilibrium settling down point now, or if I still need to spend time in the silence. I am definitely at a point where I cannot describe what is left of ‘me’ and what it means, if anything. It is not a bad state, a harmful state, an unhealthy state… but it is certainly an odd state that is neither on this side of the fence, or that. It is as if I have been teetering on the top of a very thin branch – almost going off into the unknown.

Anyway, this video was fascinating – and there are more parts to the interview I’ll have a listen at now –

Memory is Not Right On

I was just listening to some audio by Ajahn Nyanadhammo, once the abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat. You can hear it at the link below. He was talking about being at a cave monastery and sitting meditation in a cave one time when a 4 meter king cobra entered the cave and came up onto his lap. He said he the cobra was close to his face and hissing. He could see the white circles on the hood of the cobra. He realized that it could spit venom, and he jumped up all in one motion, up onto the bamboo bed in the cave.

There’s just a few things about this…

1. King cobras do not hiss. If you are within an inch or so you can hear its breath, there is never an audible hiss.
2. King cobras have no white rings, those are monocled cobras, and the circles are on the back of the hood – not the front where he would have seen them, as the snake was facing him.
3. King cobras don’t spit.
4. He said he was chanting and the king cobra started swaying back and forth… king cobras do not sway like that. In India the monocled cobras sway when faced by a flute playing snake charmer who is also swaying.
5. He said another monk was meditating, and then felt cool. He opened his eyes and a large king cobra had wrapped around his body and put his head on his shoulder. This is also highly suspect, as a snake knows what living beings are, and in all liklihood would avoid him.

So, whether Aj. Nyanadhammo’s memory is fading, or whether he was in a strange state of mind, I can’t say. What I can say is that there are a few things about his story that absolutely do not match up to the reality of behavior / appearance of king cobras.

Our memories are faulty. I have had many experiences where I’m relaying a story that happened 20 years ago with my family members, and they are shaking their heads no. It didn’t happen that way in their minds. It is bizarre that we can remember an event so differently.

As logical as we think we are. As objective, as much as we think we are basing our behaviors, our lives, on the truth that we are experiencing through our minds. We are off. We’re not seeing through a clear glass. Our experience, and our memories, are distorted a bit. Twisted. Blurred. Soft.

Ajahn Nyanadhammo’s Audio Talk – about supernatural experiences

Stopping – Starting, A New Observation

Though I have not meditated much lately, very little actually, I am seeing a new development that is strange and a bit discomforting.

Over the past few days – maybe 5 days ago I noticed it first – there has been a new state of the mind. I notice it most when I’m driving, but there have also been other times here at home or elsewhere that it occurs.

Here’s how it goes:

I’ll be driving, looking forward at where I’m going. I’ll glance down at the speedometer and it’s like I’m in a different world almost. It takes me a fraction of a second to realize I’m in the car and what I’m doing. It’s like a start over for the brain… the brain didn’t bring the previous context – the fact that I’m sitting in the car and driving down the road – with me. It started over to figure out what I was doing, where I was. It’s the briefest little blip.

The stopping part then, occurs as I look down away from the original scene. It stops completely. There isn’t any residual memory of it at all. It’s just gone.

I look back up at the street and bam, it happens again. I have no recollection of what I did the instant before (looking down at the speedometer) and it is like the brain restarts to figure out what it is doing – driving down the road looking forward.

It is like consciousness doesn’t flow like it did previously. You know how your experience of consciousness, of waking life – is continuous, as one continuous experience? This new state isn’t like that at all… there are many starts and stops throughout the day. It is an awareness of the starts and stops to each experience or scene.

I think I’ll do a video about it because maybe some more will come out of my head about it – a better explanation.

Will put below: