I have never practised Yoga and yet many Yogic terms have meant a great deal to me such as as Jivan Mukti (Mukta) of which there are several translations, the one that I feel for is 'self realisation' and one that says 'a free person, liberated whilst still in the body'. I feel occasionally and associated with SHACK 731 this ocean of emptiness and nothingness is bliss and sometimes ecstasy and does not feel just an endorphin rush or just a psychological high and then settles to a quiet undisturbed calm, like the Zen 'dead log and yet so much going on inside the log all the transforming bacteria that alter the physical structure and the energy and intelligence at work there' so it feels in the quiet of Mukta that there is a river of light and life going on underneath the calm body.
Samadhi which is felt as the union with the divine and to me a Satori of Zen(Ko Satori minor satori and O Satori major or big Satori--Satori being awakened to one's real authentic nature) and to me it suggests Mukta because self realisation is one's true nature and one awakens from the chatter of the egoistic mind and a calm peace follows.
Then there are names such as Nirvikalpa, formless Jhanas, Dyhana all of which suggest that when this experience is felt there is 'never wavering, admitting no doubt, free from change and so on'.
However it has been my experience that there are stages to reach the above and as I scribe this I have intermittent experiences of the bliss / ananda and they seem highs because the contrast and comparison to the 'monkey mind chatter, worry, and internal dialogue is so vast and the relief naturally is felt like a large sigh and then it quietens to a steady calm and peace.
Many years of the Zen meditation has led me to feel there are stages; it is said that there is sudden Satori which a good description is in Eckhart Tolle's books and of course in Indian, Chinese and Japanese writings and the slower path of gradual realisations until the brain washing and its component agendas and subterfuges are peeled away like the layers of an onion and finally the last layer and then Sunyata which is often translated as 'emptiness or void' however to me it meant that the forms of thought, the world of solid form which quantum physics proved to me was temporary, a mistake for solidness, atoms are empty and so on, all things come and go and my true nature my intrinsic nature was emptiness. This Sunyata was not a blank despairing depression or a meaningless life of woe and misery it was the opposite, it was the liberation from a body although beautiful and and nature although exquisite which eventually all rot and decay and are subject to birth and death as indeed is the Universe and its contents, yet these all arise from the formless, the invisible from the emptiness from the void and from this fountain and womb of creation from the formless whatever arises the form of apparent substance only on scientific examination to found in essence and its intrinsic -ness to be just an illusion of solid formation.
To appreciate this conjurer's illusion, this magic trick, the magician has to reluctantly reveal his tricks and how they are achieved. The magician is the Great Ego and by the world brain washed ego and dubious cunning manipulation beliefs are impacted and tightly compressed and from the beliefs one assumes and believes one's reality. Once through Dhyana and its practice one peels the layer and experiences first hand so to speak the true nature of thought and through this exposure to the truth of thought and beliefs through being still and seeing these beliefs and notions pass by in a non judgemental non opinionated manner then an intuitive spontaneous 'inner' realisation takes place and it can be a shock.
One such experience; I was in meditation, everything went quiet and my thoughts seemed so loud like a 'ghetto blaster broadcasting device' or 'Boom Blaster' and after that experience thoughts began to get less intrusive. However even after many years thoughts still have a tight hold on me and my brain washing so intense that it is only lately that the intervals are not only wider and longer but a perception that the thoughts are on the surface and I can feel the river of my essential intrinsic self beneath which means that fear, anxiety are less intrusive.
Relaxation becomes almost second nature and when I surrender with joy and love, bliss, then joy and love greet me and the noisy mind of the market place of the world subside and drifts away to where it has its place.
SHACK
