Started packing

Saturday 6.00 p.m.
                             I've got most of my packing done. The problem has been that I've never been away from here for three months before. How long does a bar of soap last? I'd been puzzling this out and decided to leave it at two bars when I re-read the emails. They provide the soap. Anyway, I remember from visiting the Samye Ling that most of the stuff you take with you is completely unused. But there is an anxiety.
                             I don't know what kind of retreat place this will be. I assume that I may have to come home at some point, but the Domestic Bliss isn't expecting me. I told the kiddo that her maw was a bit unwell and I would have to wait and see .... and that's given short shift as well. So it looks like the two folk I thought  ... anyway, off you go, they say, and don't come back for three months. I was a bit concerned about the Domestic Bliss, but her disease seems to be receding.
                             Today I finally stopped to strangle the Nicotine Dragon. Despite smoking practically every day since the start of September, stopping today wasn't too bad. The physical withdrawal I can handle. It's the horrible thoughts!!! But there weren't any today. So the first days on the island will not be too bad from the nicotine anyway.
                              I just checked and I started doing these blogs on February 2005. Brian Wilson told me to start a blog to help me find a literary agent. God, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since 2005. Of course, I'll have to take a break in a couple of days.
                               
                         

Christmas Day

Christmas Day 1.55 p.m.
                                      I'm having a great Christmas! Nothing has happened yet.
                                       I was feeling a little delicate this morning, but as soon as I closed my eyes for the first meditation, I knew things had progressed. Profound was the bliss! And it had developed a little so that I thought I really need to do a retreat because I think you could sit for a long, long time in bliss like that. You drink and you smoke and it doesn't really seem to matter so much, apart from it stopping you meditating properly and making you feel like crap. But it is a wonderment, so it is, Jack.
                                       

Barbituates for Christmas!

Christmas Eve 10.43 a.m.
                                       I used to dread these holidays from about August, so things aren't as bad as they used to be. These holidays are when I have to give up doing anything I enjoy and am forced to do things that I know I will not enjoy, which is why I have been usually dreading them for months.
                                       Last year I had the perfect Christmas. I managed to be on my own and had a wonderful day! I ate fresh bread and made a nice pot of soup. Sometimes I felt like singing.
                                        We're having Christmas in the flat for the first time ever this year. This might be a good time to get carted off to the looney bin. I wish there was a heater in my hut. And a camp bed.
                                         I can't stop thinking about the Holy Isle and what it might be like going there. It's going to be pure hell if I haven't wrestled the Nicotine Dragon to the ground beforehand, at least for the first week. My latest plan is to start it off the day after Boxing Day. I should be able to say to folk that I'm going to the Holy Isle on the third and why don't they leave me the fung alone. A three day fast. That would be perfect. No New Year. Stay in. Tell the flatheids to fung off.
                                          'You're caught in a vicious circle, surrounded by your so called friends'. The inimitable Lou.

Another Funeral

Tuesday 2.25 p.m.
                            I went to the funeral of a very nice man today, the best friend of my brother in law.  He was only fifty. Handed the black spot in  February. The best memory I have of this guy was having a chin wag with him about faith. He was a devout Catholic.
                             Of course, in the Disbelieving Congregation me and the spam robot are not interested in having faith in anything. We believe in less things than anyone we know. We believe in disbelieving things. Or in ignorance. Or in the illusory nature of reality.
                              But I have no problem with people being religious and having faith as long as their religion makes them better people. I'm sure having a strong catholic faith was a big help to the boy when he was handed the black spot, and afterwards.
                               From The Autobiography of a Yogi, it seems that yogis think that God is knowable, so you don't need faith. What you need is to get God realisation.
                                I'm very suspicious of faith, but I'm embarrassed by devotion. A lot of hindus are into this Divine Mother stuff and grovelling away there devotedly, and I don't like that. It's not a path that suits my  disposition.
                                Buddhists don't talk about God, and they don't have a creator, but they talk about Mind. In English it's translated as Mind anyway. If you get rid of the deus ex machina aspect and the creator bit, God and Mind don't seem to be very different. Each is without qualification or defining characteristics. And some people talk about Self realisation. This isn't any different from God Realisation.
                                 I haven't had anything like the religious experiences of Paramahansa Yogananda, but I have seen a higher self. This is not to say that I believe in it. And I'm not saying it's there. I saying I've seen it, that's all. This is nothing like as good as having a strong faith in God. When I was a kid, I had a very strong belief in God and that was much better.
                                  When Yogananda got God realisation, he didn't know that's what it was. I think he was expecting to see somebody.

Some books

Sunday 10.11 p.m.
                             After the various sifting and liftings and moving the books around the flat for the last two or three years, I ended up with four books. The ones to save. I took them partly because I would like to be more normal and read a book.
                              Leon Trotsky, 1905.
                               When I was mentioning all the smart jewish people, I forgot Trotsky. I read almost everything I could by Trotsky is my early twenties. Apart from having more brains than anyone deserves, he could write brilliantly. I have read this book before, but it was nearly forty years ago and can't remember a bloody thing about it. So I kept that one.
                               Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
                               I must have bought this decades ago and I don't think I've read it.
                               AJP Taylor. English History 1914-1945.
                                I've read a lot of books by this author, but a long time ago. All I know is that he was especially good at writing history and I'll have a go at that one again sometime.
                                Wilhelm Reich. The Mass Psychology of Fascism.
                                 I wrote two quotes from this book on my wall, but never finished it. It is the worst translation of anything I've ever read. One of the quotes on my wall isn't even in English: "The guilt experienced from playing with one's sexual organs stands at the top of the lists of forbidden deeds.". I will re-read that sometime. It's a very interesting book because Marxists had a problem with why the collapse of capitalism lead to Hitler and not the dictatorship of the proletariat. Reich, I think, said it was all down to the marching up and down ... def, dight, def, dight ... and not getting your rocks off properly. I'll read that again sometime. It was an interesting challenge to orthodox Marxism from a marxist, but a psychologist. I'll read that book to the end sometime.

Not Going on Retreat

Friday 10.21 a.m.
                           Whilst waiting for the white van man to deliver some furniture.
                            I've been thinking a lot about the Holy Isle retreat, not surprisingly! I've been trying to make life as quiet as possible so that when I go away it won't make much difference. Also, since I saw the lama, my weight is down to eleven stone and I'm not even drinking once a week. I'm really getting quite fit with all the prostrations and shadow boxing and all.
                            It never does to anticipate things too much. I'm not the only one around here and the other one if off her work just down with a condition turning a bit chronic right now. It's not the black spot getting handed out, but if it doesn't clear up before the start of January ....
                            But there have been a lot of black spots handed out recently. I expect to be going to a funeral this Tuesday. It's like the Somme out there, so it is! My advice to anyone who gets handed the black spot is to do what Albert did. He died years ago, but it didn't stop him getting around. You could also consider the folk who haven't been given the black spot. Look at Brian Wilson. I think he should get a dog because he's going to start trying to bite the men digging up the road and then they'll put him away.
                            So much for the flatheids, Jack. Still funged, eh, Hotboy? Well, if they'd started meditating when they started reading this blog they'd be doing the bliss by this time!!
                             I think I may not need to go to the Holy Isle. It would be wonderful if I could go there, but if I can't, I can do it here. Every day sees developments in the bliss. A breathless state becomes easier to imagine.

In the war against the machines. Part 4

Wednesday 7.30 p.m.
                                 I went out for my constitutional this afternoon, heading for the Botties in the bright, cold, wintery light, my camera with the new rechargeable batteries at hand. I skipped along then stopped to take a photie of a line of trees in Inverleith Park. Unfortunately, I could not take the photie as the camera said Low Battery despite the new batteries it got. That's what it said with the other batteries. Low Battery. Could it be that they sell rechargeable batteries without a charge in them? Could it be that they don't sell you a battery at all, but an empty battery which you have to fill yourself? Anyway, it only cost me about fifty quid for the battery recharger thing and I will attempt to use it sometime and see if it works.
                                 This all started because somebody bought me a mobile phone a few years ago and I said it was the last bloody thing I wanted and someone else said I could put photies onto my blog with it when I found a cable ....
                                  I cannot adequately express how much I hate footering with these toys. I do not think it is wonderful how complicated these things can be and how many functions one of these gizmos can have. ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS POINT AND CLICK!!!
                                   You know, Jack, I've got better things to do. It is much better just to sit still and do the bliss.
                           

In the war against the machines. Part 8

Friday 9.00 p.m.
                        I think I've worked out the Picassa thing. It's got all the photies I've ever put on the blog and so it won't give you the chance to delete them. So that's it unless anyone knows any better. I guess I could get round this by starting a new blog with new everything, but I can't be bothered with that just now. So no photies, which is a drag because I'm going to buy the proper batteries and learn how to use the bloody thing.
                        Brian Wilson is worried that ten years after Independence the peasants will storm his castle and send him back to England just because he likes creekit. If I was undecided about voting YES before this, that clinched it! It would also be good if we could have a vote on bringing back hanging and then hang all the vote who voted for hanging to be brought back, and that would probably get most of the creekit lovers anyway! And also most criminals who are very right wing. I'll have to write about politics if I can't put in photies!!!

In the war against the machines Part Y

Thursday 2.35 p.m.
                              I'm in the library!
                              Beautful day yesterday and I took some photies, but when I tried to upload them here, the machine told me that I'd ran out of I GB of memory that I had free from Google for Picasso Some Nonesense. I had nothing to do with Picasso and thought I was saving my photies onto a desktop folder. But, oh no. I've to pay them money now or no more photies. What kind of way is this to treat an old person? Just as well nobody reads this blog or I'd start a campaign!
                              I had the most marvellous meditation sessions this morning. I thought this must be the start of a breakthrough. Another one. Oh, ra bliss! Ra bliss! Ra bliss! I was going to leave here and go up to the allotment and wait for it to get dark, but I've just discovered that Brian Wilson is coming to visit.
                              The last time I saw Brian Wilson he ended up having to be cajoled down from the flag pole, but since that fateful night I'd heard that his long suffering wifie thing keeps him in a cage in the attic. Well, he must have got out on a good behaviour pass or escaped somehow because he is on his way.
                               What do you think, Jack? You've got a free bus pass, Hotboy. Make a break for it!

A Typical Day!

Tuesday 11.09 a.m.

                             Today is not so typical because I started meditating about half eight and recently I haven't been starting till half nine. I usually meditate for about two and a half or three hours in the morning. Then lunch. I haven't been having a wee lie down recently, but I sometimes do that. Then I meditate again. Then it's time to go outside. Sometimes I feel a bit hyped up with nowhere to go. I go to the library these days and log on. Then I might have a cup of coffee, walk in the botties, go to the allotment or whatever. Then I come  back and start meditating again. Prostrate. Meditate. Prostrate. Have a bath and something to eat. Then I meditate for a couple of hours in the evening and recline on my bed watching the telly. That's about it.

                            In the morning, I try to have done dog poses, a backbend, a headstand. Sometimes I shadow box instead of prostrating. 

                            The meditations over the last couple of days have developed again. It seems to involve levels of concentration along with the white out bliss and all. It's as if the higher levels of concentration are out there and you somehow penetrate them, but they seem to be penetrating you. They're waiting to encompass you when you do the right things with the juju and all.

                             I'm hardly drinking, sometimes smoking. If I could just show you the bliss, you'd see what a fortunate creature I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!

Why they are going to hell!

          I got an  email from someone who landed on one of my old blogs. It shows quite clearly why the evil bourgeois should be shown no mercy when we finally gain independence and can be a nation again.

I am pleased and proud that he is/was still remembered by the people of the community in Bellshill/Mossend where he and his/my family lived and grew up.

We had a council house at 576 Main Street, Mossend. 

My grandfather had been unable to acquire “gainful employment” after becoming politically involved in a Dispute over working conditions at the Stewart & Lloyds Steelworks. 

He had discovered that their intention had been to bring in cheap labour from Ireland and to pay the incomers lower wages then the local lads.

So he organised the workers to support the incomers and demand for them the same working conditions and wages as the locals had.

The employers never forgave him for that. 

He was “blackballed” by ALL the industries in the area and was unable thereafter to get work. 

He did however continue as a full time organiser for the Labour Movement and worked with the Communist Party until he died – of a “broken heart” my father (also Bernard “Barney” McCourt – also deceased) said.

 

Basturns that they are!!

Auntie Kathy

Friday 11.15 p.m.

                           So I goes to see the Auntie Kathy, who is living in the heaven for old people, but it is in the west. The man on the other table won't let them put a green vase on their table and swops it. So they are not discrete. At least, they are in your face. She says she doesn't let them know which side she's on. She's called Kathleen O'Connell. I've heard it said that her father came to Scotland and called himself O'Connell when he was really called McConnell. And he called his son Daniel O' Connell. So not much cover there!

                             I'm an atheist, buddhist, libeertarian socialist, but only in the west do I feel like a tim. Thank God we won't have to put up with these unionist folk, and they can all go to live in England, with their warm beer ... actually, I really like the English. Much more than I like the Scottish, puss bags of prejudice that they are.I think I'll have to make preparations for going back to my own planet.

                              We were brought up to believe the Orange basturns were ignorant. Pay no attention. They're ignorant. Why should anyone have to put up with that?

Ironies

Wednesday 7.24 p.m.

                                 I don't usually comment on politics on this blog. This is partly because most of the folk who come to this blog (apart from the spam robots!) were brought up among the evil bourgeois and are, therefore, almost bound to have fascist tendencies.

                                 It's not their fault, Hotboy. I know, Jack, it's the way they were brought up .... by the left .... def, dight, def, dight, def dight!

                                  But this isn't a post about politics. It's about historical ironies.

                                   I was thinking the other day that Israel is almost bound to get nuked sometime over the next twenty years. With the advance of technologies, etc., it'll be a lot easier to get hold of them, or make them from now on in. Of course, if this happens, all that stuff about Jerusalem and Armageddon and whatnot won't look so silly since there's bound to be a big hole in the world where the near and middle east used to be.

                                   Anyhow, one of the most densely populated places in the world used to be the Warsaw Ghetto. Now it's the Gaza Strip.

                                    Adolf Hitler did not like particle physics and all that because he said it was Jewish science. Unfortunately for nazi ideology, a great many of this "inferior race" were dead smart (Okay, where there any smart folk who weren't Jewish: Christ, Einstein, Freud?) and buggered off if they could. The Manhattan Project was full of Jewish scientists and they didn't have any problem nuking Hitler. Some of them weren't so happy apparently about them nuking the Japanese. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

                                     I reckon the Israelis are going to get nuked because I don't trust religious people. Of  course, a great many of us could get nuked right afterwards.

                                      Are you worried, Hotboy? Am I hell, Jack! It's great to be nearly sixty two. Almost ten years in the gravy alreadys!!!

                                  

Sunny day constitutional!

Saturday 6.53 p.m.
                             Things proceed better when one doesn't drink. I'm still as crabbit as hell though.
                              After meditating in the morning, often I go out for a walkabout, a bit of a constitutional really. During the week there's nothing out there but old folk and young mothers and the generally economically unproductive. But it's so much better than walking about in Bellshill!! You just open the front door and it's all there.
                                I went a walk through the Botties today because the light was so great.
                                The meditations are definitely going somewhere else these days. Somewhere much better. Even with the sometimes inconducive lifestyle choices. The retreat would take away these choices of course. They've said to bring mitts of some kind or oven gloves to help you slide your hands over the shiny floor whilst doing the prostrations. What a bunch of wimps, eh?

Blog reflections!

Thursday 8.17 p.m.
                             Back on the beer. I stopped the nicotine today. I'll be back soon. So sometimes today I'm thinking that I can't wait till the evening when I can start getting pissed, and, hopefully, forget about the nicotine withdrawals. Then I goes out for the beer and I've had two, and it's still not great.
                              I used to really like blogging! I used to like reading it when I was half pissed because then I thought it might mean something. But I enjoyed it. Now I'm enjoying looking forward to stopping it, but it's a wee bit like enjoying looking forward to stopping nicotine. Except I think once I stop with this, I won't go back.
                              At first I was really bursting to tell somebody (else) about the bliss. I thought even the biggest moron in this world would want to meditate once they heard about the bliss, but the trouble with meditating is that you have to make an effort, and for the sweetie eating I didn't realise how difficult it would be for them to make an effort. Of course, I was used to trying hard. But only with things I wanted to try hard with. Like keeping fit and healthy. Like trying to write books when you knew you weren't really all that talented, and realised that the currants who ran this world would not like what you were writing because it basically told them, when it was good, to go and extinguish themselves. Because it is because of the bourgeois scum that the world is organised the way it is.
                               There is a person with a sore back. I said to this person a couple of decades ago that maybe they should get a decent sitting position (couches, chairs, etc. should all be set on fire!) and then the better alignment might help their back. Well, this is like trying to get the sweetie eating person to do something that might make them less unhappy in the future. So what happened? About thirty five the person has a sore back. No helping themselves. Twenty years later they've still got a sore back. Sometime over the next twenty years this person will be completely incapacitated by back pains.
                                Nothing anyone could ever do in the face of the stupidity.
                                 I don't have an answer for the big things, but little things like that ... of course, I'm  so crabbit and getting drunk from a similar source. Smoking. But even that is not as stupid as sitting all your life in a way that will hurt you. It is pretty stupid though. Are folk addicted to sitting in stupid positions? I think not. Lazy stupid basturns!
                                  So, I thought if you told folk about the bliss, they would meditate. Ha, HA, HA, HA!
                                   It's hard to do the juju when you are surrounded by folk who haven't the slightest interest in this and who are obviously suffering from the results of not doing it.
                                    The bliss that came on today was saying to me that this is what you can get if you stop smoking. This is the start of what you can get if you stop smoking today.
                                     I used to look at these wee baldy guys in the claret and amber and I wondered why they weren't as open as I thought they should be with other people. There is no point in telling flatheids about the bliss. The folk who are going to get into the bliss are going to get into it and there's probably nothing can stop this latent propensity from engendering something ...
                                     There will be a break at the beginning of January. I will be away from the beepy beepy clicky stuff. It has been nice being able to keep some contact with some folk through this blog, but all the reasons for starting it (Brian Wilson hassling me; the search for an agent, etc.) have gone now. It's really just another addiction.
                                       If I get to the Holy Isle and spend three months there, when I get back... dearie me! I hope I have the compassion that the juju folk have about the flatheids because right now I think it would be better for them and the future of the world if they would all just spontaneously die. Right now. This is not a compassionate position. No points!

Mare Cyclisting

Tuesday 6.32 p.m.
                            I went a cycle run today. I've been doing more cycling just recently, but Poisonous has been out of action for the last two weekends with a sore back, so it was nice to get out again. Finally reached Cramond, but did not stop in the wonderful bar down there for a drink. When I got out of the bath back here, I scaled 10st 13lb. It's been quite some time since I was ten stone anything, so that kind of widened my eyes. I'll make welterweight yet!
                             The damn camera gobbled up another three batteries in super quick time. It cannot endure. It cannot.

Recent Photies!

Monday 7.08 p.m.
                            I took these photies while wandering about the neighbourhood over the last few days. I try to do that every day. A break. I've started walking down to the library. I'm trying not to write or do anything useful at all.But today was great. Fabulous meditations like better and better and then go for a wee walk. Apart from the nicotine, everything is great. I'm  much fitter than I was since I stopped bevvying and started adding in the prostrations. Onwards and upwards!

Autobiography of a Yogi

       

           I was going to buy the kiddo's boyfriend the Johari book about chakras.  I couldn't find it, but I found a copy of the Autobiography of a Yogi. I read this book nearly thirty years ago and it had a big influence on me. Hope he likes it. I got it from the Big Jambo. Pass it on. I've started re-reading it. Must be the third time!
          The Domestic Bliss should be back sometime tomorrow morning. I've been meditating on and off all day. Yesterday I wondered if I'd meditated for 40,000 or 30,000 or 25,000 hours so far yet. During this time, the last quarter century or so, I have also drank, smoked, and behaved generally as badly as anyone else I know.
           So this evening I'm meditating and I lean forward into the dark quieter place and then straighten up. I cannot explain what that's been feeling like this evening. But it arises and floods through your body, and it feels as if everything has opened up, and it comes on brighter and better than ever before.
           Over the last day or two, despite the self imposed difficulties, the meditations have been wonderful, truly wonderful. As the boy says, this is my second pension and I'm so pleased that I'm going into my old age with this building up at my back!!
            What about the flatheids, Hotboy? Well, Jack, we are truly the authors of our own misfortune. And if they're too dumb to meditate, there's nothing anybody can do about that!!

Still home alone

Sunday 6.50 p.m.
                          The photies are from walkies in the Botties.
                          I've had an interesting week. Since last Saturday, I've smoked on probably just under half the days, so the purification has been more difficult than I anticipated. Thank God for that!! As the purification is making the meditations better, I've had trouble settling due to the johnnyjumpup effects of the withdrawals! But I have been making progress. I think the kundalini is moving further up the blue channel, if that means anything to anyone!!
                            I put on a few pounds this week. I scaled about eleven stone three or four after doing my shadow boxing session this evening. What a joy it is to do that instead of the prostrations!!
                           

A week home alone!

Thursday 1.16 p.m.
                              I meditated this morning for two and a half hours without changing position. This means that the jumpiness from the nicotine withdrawal has largely abated.
                               There are five sheaths mentioned in yoga. The bliss sheath is the third sheath. The fourth sheath is where your I-consciousness dissolves into the ocean of consciousness. I've been getting the odd intimation of this here and there, and I hope that's something I can get to when I go to the Holy Isle.
                                Why would anyone ever want to go into permanent retreat, the kind you die in, the kind you might be walled in for, Hotboy? Well, Jack, you might be able to get into samadhi, which is the fifth sheath, and that might feel so, so amazingly wonderful that there wouldn't seem to be much point in doing anything else, or hanging about in places where everyone else acts like a moron, and wanders around with their heads stuck up their backsides. Hmmm? Maybe still got a wee while to go with the nicotine.
                                I have to speak to folk today. I've been three days on my ownio, just speaking to shopkeepers and that. Just now I'm settling into it, but I have to go forth and interact today. Tomorrow I'll be going to Bellshill. God protect us from the flatheids!

Monday Monday

Monday 4.05 p.m.
                            Well, the good news is that I haven't had any nicotine since Saturday. No nicorettes. No nothing. It's not nice, neither it is. I thought I had enough on my plate so I didn't start the fast today.
                             Poisonous had a sore back, so we couldn't cycle on Saturday. So we went shopping. For twenty quid, I bought a head torch for the Holy Isle. I put it in my shoulder bag thing. We got pissed and the next day the shoulder bag thing had disappeared.
                              Until then it was quite good fun! We started in the Cameo Bar and ended up in the Sandy Bells, which is probably my favourite pub.
                               The bliss/heat effects are tremendous, but I'm too restless with the withdrawals really. Still, meditated most of the day today till I had to go out to see the dentist. Onwards and upwards.
                                Brought to you from a computer in the local library - which is free. What a wonderful country this is!!!

Home alone

Thursday 11.13 a.m.
                                I'm going to be on my own for about twelve days. By Monday I should have tapered off with the nicotine sufficiently to go ahead with another three day fast. I've been re-reading Harish Jonari's wonderful book about chakras. Really, it's about raising kundalini. This responds to purification. Purification is everything with his juju. Here's what he says about fasting:
                                 "Ayurveda, the Indian science of medicine, prescribes fasting as the most effective method. Three days taking only lukewarm water cleanses the body of toxins and cures disorders without medicines."
                                  The last big jump in progress started with the last three day fast. After a while I could hardly do any breath holding at all due to the force of the blissiness, but the book I'm re-reading has been brilliant on that.
                                   Anyway, I think I have to see people till Monday. After that, cue the wonderments!!
                                    The photie was taken as I left the airport this morning. But I think there's something wrong with this crap camera. It's telling me the battery is low all the time. And I can't find the box with the manual in it. Oh well. 
                                     Johari gives 28 points to follow to help live the life of a household yogin. Number 20: Survive on the minimum requirement. 
                                      I love yoga.

Since August.

Tuesday 12.10 p.m.
                              Since I got back from the Samye Ling at the end of August, I've hardly been drinking. Mainly due to this, I think, I've lost over a stone in weight and now weigh in at eleven stone. I can't remember the last time I was eleven stone, probably a decade ago.
                              When I got back from the Samye, I put my jogging on hold and started being a bit more serious about prostrating. I've been doing about eight hundred a week, probably. I'm also trying to keep up my yoga, shadow boxing and tai chi, but the prostrations tend to push the rest into second place.
                               I've reached a new stage in the meditations, I think. I think I'm starting to stretch into something quite wonderful. All the effort has been so worthwhile. This is the hope and joy of my retirement. I find difficulty expressing how fantastic this feels because this blog is read by some of the most unfortunate creatures to walk the earth. Fancy hearing about the bliss and all and still being too dumb too meditate. It's beyond stupidity. It's tricky being a humanist when all the humans are walking around with their heads stuck up their backsides!!
                                 The Domestic Bliss is going away for nearly a fortnight towards the end of this week. I'll be days and days without having to see anyone. Hurrah!!

Pratyahara and chemicals.

Pratyahara:
For Patanjali, it is a bridge between the bahiranga (external) aspects of yoga namely, yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, and theantaranga (internal) yoga. Having actualized the pratyahara stage, a practitioner is able to effectively engage into the practice ofSamyama. At the stage of pratyahara, the consciousness of the individual is internalized in order that the sensations from the senses of taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell don't reach their respective centers in the brain and takes the sadhaka (practitioner) to next stages of Yoga, namely Dharana (concentration) and Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (mystical absorption), being the aim of allYogic practices.^[3]

          Never liked the idea of withdrawal of the senses. Sounds like death to me. Things closing down. Diminishment.
           I'm  a bit wary to taking serotonin enhancers with the bliss being the way it is. It must have a physical base in the hormones, chemicals, electricals and whatnot, and I assume it must have something to do with receptor, inhibitors, neurotransmitters and whatnot. And that's what the serotonin enhancers do as well. So you think you maybe should dodge that one.
             Hotboy, you should have dodged the fags and the acid and the drink and the speed and all that stuff, but you didn't, did you? Well, Jack, I don't dodge it so well these days either.
             The first time I sat down on the carpet and closed my eyes and there was the bliss as usual. Then everything went bigger and the voices around me started to grow distant and I couldn't properly communicate at all, and the bliss ... Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
              When the senses diminish in this instance, the consciousness expands wonderfully. There is no minimisation, or diminishment. It's big, big but you're kind of on your own what with being effectively deaf to the world.
                This happened again last week.
                 I don't know if this is a hint of pratyahara or not. The above definition isn't really what I take it to be, but what do I know?
                  In tantric terms the winds are supposed to be entering the central channel. When this happens and the winds stabilise and whatnot, you are supposed to go into something akin to death. This removal of senses, in the way I was talking,  is a wee bit scary because you do feel as if you are going away. Bye bye, world. Also when you die the bardo is supposed to start with you being in a huge, lonely limitless space. Well, good luck with that if that's what happens.

Photies