Ego-death, Passing Out, and Eye Fixation

from Ee-mail, September 5 2006

E wrote: >most religions and philosophies condemn ego, when it
> is merely a primary response mechanism and quite mechanical
> and reasonably predictable for a trained person.(to some degree)

Ramon:
Ego-chasing is a all-consuming hobby in spiritual groups, it seems.
Interesting, because I don't think you can live a fully committed
planetary life without an ego. You can "kill" the ego - or perhaps
a spiritual master will help you out and 'kill you' as a favor, but
the irony is that all that happens is that you imprint the master's
ego instead. Or if you kill your own, then you imprint your surroundings.
Tim Leary caught onto this via his LSD experiences, which is why he
recommended an ideal 'set and setting' for lift-off. Thus it may be
best to 'start at the top of the mountain' as jax suggests, and get
'killed' there, so to speak, and then imprint 'the view'.

Jax writes:
>In Dzogchen we start from the "top of the mountain" as VIEW
>(non-conceptual). . . . Dzogchen is taught "all at once" from the
>view at the top, hence it's unrivalled power to liberate. So powerful,
>that if followed diligently one's entire physical manifestation dissolves
>in a flash of rainbow light!

R:
Or I suppose, you might say "relax into your true innocence," which is
all and everyone and everywhere.' It is such an unimaginable experience to
be free of the smaller self, even for an instant.

My main complaint with most traditional paths is that they are only for the
few and privileged, but I don't think Mother intended this to be so. For
this reason, She has created for us a plethora of methods and exercises and
devices all of which actually are very worthy, and some quite easy.

E writes:
>So the issue becomes, what works for each and what is it that one expects
>for an outcome and at what realistic effort makes this all happen. I view
>that as a rational approach.
R:
The rational approach - yes, although I would suggest, at the risk of boring
those here who are 'few and privileged', that we start with one of the
easiest that many of us practiced as kids: hyperventilating and then
holding one's breath to pass out. We did it a a lot as kids, and once as an
adult I got three or four dudes in an Oakland bar to try a combination of
bellows breathing ('bhastrika') on their knees, then leaning forward,
holding their breath and straightening up into the camel asana -- rearing
back and grabbing their heels. They all passed out, one by one, and came
back to consciousness with beatific smiles. We could have started a new
religion that very day, but it seemed time for my fast exit.

What does passing out teach us (sort of an interesting phrase, 'passing
out')? I think it teaches us that dying -- dropping the individual self --
is very blissful. It also underscores that 'passing out' into sleep is
also blissful -- something else we knew as kids. This is why I use a
'snoring' mantra that resonates the trachea on both in the inhale and exhale.
"Ten death rattles a day keeps the coroner away."

Passing out has a long history that includes Christian baptism,
which in its true form is a near-drowning experience -- the baptizer closes
off your nose and mouth so you won't inhale any water and then holds you
under until you stop struggling and 'see the light.' (I've checked this out
with various seminary-trained ministers and they agree with me, amazingly
enough). Baptism had to be a pretty strong near-death experience to allow the
first Christians to face wild animals in the arena with such impressive
equanimity.

E writes:
>In the world of dualism, few understand the deep connections we have, and
>fewer still have the ability to take some abstract concept like "not-dualism"
>and incorporate it into their life's engagement. In disengagement it is pretty
>easy but in active engagement, it is most difficult when working, raising a
>family, attempting to stay healthy and just generally going about all the
>things one does in living a full life. If one wants to be a monk, or is
>totally supported by others, that is different, but the masses do not have
>such a luxury so it is difficult to say the least.
R:
So then, the question is, 'How do we stay 'passed out' and blissful , and
still function in bodies, go to work, raise families, etc.?' I think this is
the basic question E is addressing, yes?

For lack of a better approach, I've been focusing on fixation -- one-
pointedness -- or as I posted here a few days ago:
"Why doesn't eye-fixation get talked about more in the preliminaries - or
perhaps I just overlooked it?"

Answering someone's question on another list, I wrote:

Smiling 'widely' so that the lower lids 'scrunch up,' and fixating without
blinking (tratakam in Patanjali) on a small dot (size of a period) 4 feet in
front of my eyes, after about ten seconds comes a mild sensation of
'dryness' on the eyes followed by a pleasant energy in the solar plexus that
spreads to the arms and feet -- actually, to the whole body. By twenty
seconds, tears accumulate that the 'scrunched-up' lower lids (from the broad
smile) hold against the corneas and thus moderate the 'dryness' sensation as
the energies flowing through the body and limbs intensify. A slight sideways
tremor comes and goes around the 60-second mark, and occasionally a blink
happens so I raise my eyebrows slightly, keeping the smile wide and the
tears contained by the lower lids. (Others recommend furrowing the eyebrows
slightly as in the classic sambhavi mudra.)

Three minutes is about as long as I go before relaxing totally. The energies
continue flowing in a kind of bubbly relaxation response for some minutes
after. It seems as if the one-pointedness of mind created by this exercise
continues even if the eyes begin to move and blink naturally. Thus it's a
good entry-exercise for normal meditation, but thoughts really do seem to
disappear during those three minutes -- perhaps because my attention is
locked onto the eyes?

If I now close my eyes completely and focus on a dot -bindu - on the inside
of the eyelids, it seems as if I can more easily enter into a deeper state.

Does all this make sense?

A variation on this exercise: on the inhale, roll one's eyes upwards as far
as possible (without straining or doing anything painful), and then hold
them there as you breathe normally four or five breaths. Then lower the eyes
and relax. This also triggers perceptible energy flow in the same way as the
other exercise. Actually this is a variation of the classic sambhavi mudra
in hatha yoga. For a detailed description by yogani, one of my favorite --
and still anonymous - teachers, see:

http://www.aypsite.com/56.html

As Yogani points out, furrowing the eyebrows slightly is 'the other half'
of the sambhavi mudra. He also encourages a breathing meditation up and down
the spinal nerve while this is being done, and says that over time this exercise
will 'purify' the connection to the various chakras.

Ramon
"Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar..."
[Traveler, there is no path, you create the path as you move forward...]
Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Gloria Lee quoting Bob O'Hearn:

"In this light, one might say that we practice to commit suicide --
the suicide of all our hopes, dreams, notions, distinctions, ideals,
preferences, sense of self. Now, why would someone find that
appealing? Well, only if they recognize the utter futility of any
other option, would such a practice be taken up.

"It requires the utmost humility and honesty to admit that all the
cherished and hopeful strategies only lead to further suffering. This
humility and honesty is nurtured in zazen, and so zazen is a kind of
preparation. On the other hand, this zazen is not a strategy, but the
expression of the death-activity itself. it doesn't lead anywhere,
it's just that the concepts we've accumulated lose their power to
distract us, and thus we sit in the unknown, as the unknown, and in
the midst of the ashes of all our beliefs and ideas, a kind of sprout
may push up, breaking through the dreamy fabric of our consciousness,
a kind of awake-ness, and this awake-ness has no name, though people
like to name, and so we have all the sutras and commentaries and
whatnot, but at heart, it is really a very simple thing, the most
simple thing there is, our original innocence."

As with all my posts, these are for your information only. Try them at
your own risk.