To recap, Vipassana meditation requires the individual to observe the gross and subtle sensations throughout the body to directly experience ‘Universal truths’ and ‘Laws of Nature’ (as taught by the Buddha Siddharta). When the meditation was given to the group on Day 4, I smiled widely knowing how complimentary it would be for my KSMO journey.

The meditation takes the individual into the body and through the process the individual develops a deeper connection with the body. Leaving the meditation course I had connected with my body far more intimately, and deeply than I had ever had before. I was given the chance to see the reality of my self, took that chance and experienced the brunt of my reality in the moments throughout the course.

Knowing that subtle sensations were happening at all times in all places throughout my body was a refreshing and liberating experiential understanding to receive. It gave me a great foundation to understand part of the KSMO process. That is, the Echo Effects that we experience in response to the Key Sound are subtle sensations. The Key Sound resonates with erotic/blissful sensations throughout body, and the connection is made between the sound and sensation. The feedback from this connection is the Echo (the Echo Effect), the sound bouncing and reflecting off the sensation making them apparent to the individual.

I had a twenty minute session the day I had returned from the meditation course. At the time I was very eager to see how my KSMO prowess had benefited from the things learnt and experienced. I had come back more aware of my body and its sensations, more capable of experiencing stillness of mind and thought and a greater capacity to remain objective and unmoved to thoughts and sensations. To me, all of these are extremely beneficial and/or essential to success with KSMO. A few Key Sounds I had noticed the increased sensitivity to subtle sensations and experienced a variety of them in response to the Key Sound. It was truly an interesting session for me and I was very much looking forward to the next session. Unfortunately, the day after I had fallen in and did not recover for a week.

Things were once again different for me when I had returned to KSMO after recovering from the cold I had caught. My general meditations had begun to get noisier, as the calm state of mind I had cultivated at the meditation course began to wear off. Likewise, my KSMO sessions were also characteristically noisy and also revealed the presence of an emotional furball. I decided to take a break from my direct experience with the Key Sound so I could deal with the emotional furballs that had popped up.

Life in general has also been interesting. Think of how muscles are developed for the athletes who intentionally use weights for conditioning. The weights provide resistance, breaking the muscle and allowing it to grow larger when the body is re-fuelled and at rest later in the day/evening. It is a build-break-build process. I feel as if the meditation course put me in the ‘break’ cycle of this process, and slowly I am building on the new beliefs and/or the deepened understandings of existing beliefs that I have acquired since the course.

I am far more aware of the present moment and far more conscious of the importance of this awareness. My connection with nature and Mother Earth has deepened. When my mind is noisy I find it incredibly soothing to go for a walk and to keep my focus with the nature (trees, gardens and the sky). An extension of my strengthened appreciation for the present moment is a fondness for silence. I find myself choosing to be silent more and more often. I choose silence for silence (as opposed to conscious exercise for introspection or reaction to an introverted personality trait). I am far more comfortable with silence and far more comfortable in my own skin. I also consider myself comparatively more spiritual than I how I was before.



KSMO certainly helped with how open I was to the experience of Vipassana. The pain/pleasure transmutation I believe was more an exercise in objectivity, seeing reality as it is and observing sensation without judgment. Pre-Vipassana I would often chase sensations away (i.e. the fawn!) with judgment and in my latest sessions I have noticed a marked improvement in that area. I am allowing sensations to be far more and giving myself the opportunity to allow myself to relax into the process.


I haven't spoken about that particular experience (pain pleasure transmutation) with others who have taken the course.



Wake up bell at 4am was even crazier (especially when I am used to going to bed at 4am )

Being silent for 9 days and then being allowed to speak to your mind’s content is quite the rush. My mind went from quiet and calm to its other extreme, reactive and noisy, seeking out all conversation and all social interactions. It felt like a sugar rush or a big caffeine hit. If you want to know how it feels, stop yourself from consuming all refined sugar for two weeks. If you can do, then eat three or four glazed donuts and let me know how you feel J. Or if you are not a coffee drinker, drink two or three cups one after the other. If you really want to know what it feels like, remove yourself from communication and meditate for 10 hours for 10 days, then try to catch up on 10 days of speaking.




It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed their (Abraham-Hicks) material, but as I remember it ‘blending’ is the transformative process where one moves being away from self (the ‘little me’) to Self (the ‘big me’). I also believe that they are more about transcendence of ego and a moving away from ego to the larger more wholesome Self.



And how did my blending go? I am not self-actualized yet. Or maybe I could be and I just dont real-ize it yet. The transformative process, the transcendence of ego is a life-long journey my friend, and for some traditions, a multiple life-time quest.




Cheers,

Lopez