Misc. questions

KevinSLC,

First off, it is good that you have been so regular in your practice. Your experiences show some advanced signs. The basic advice will be to continue what you are doing.

"I believe that (my opinion) most of my stresses and sleep deficit have been released/ addressed..."

Sometimes people don't believe that their experiences will change over time, but they always do as the pattern of remaining stresses changes.

"I experience huge gaps in lost conciseness, sometimes lasting as long as an hour."

This is completely natural, and shows that you are now releasing very deep-rooted stresses indeed.

What happens is that as we pick up the syllable, the mind begins to enjoy subtler states of the syllable. The mind and body enter a unique physiological state of restful alertness that we call Transcendental Consciousness (Dr. Coppola and I have submitted a new paper to several psychology journals on the relationship of restful alertness with Self-Actualization).

As the body and mind acquire this state of consciousness, the nervous system begins to dissolve stresses. As the stresses dissolve, we have various sorts of experiences associated with those stresses. One kind of stress release experience is an apparent loss of awareness, the "gaps" you have described. It isn't that the mind has stopped functioning during these gaps, but that certain kinds of stresses prevent the nervous system from maintaining normal alertness, normal awareness, at those times. Hence our apparent loss of consciousness.

The style of stress release that happens during the gaps is very profound. It is the dissolving of the illusion of the subconscious mind. When these stresses are gone, alertness will remain no matter how deep our consciousness becomes. Instead of being unconscious, the entire range of the mind will become accessible to our awareness. Another way to say this is that we will maintain awakeness or awareness even when the mind is filled with the wholeness of inner silence and joy. This gives us tremendous mental energy to use as we please in our daily activities.

All that is needed is patience and continued practice. The result will be marvelous, and nothing short of fulfillment in life.

"it is rather enjoyable but with the change in seasons I don’t feel like spending more time than necessary meditating."

Yes, it is enjoyable to experience inner peace, and is also enjoyable to get rid of the blocks, to dissolve the stresses. However, I don't follow your reasoning concerning the change of seasons in relation to spending time meditating. Perhaps you can clarify this for me.

"As for side effects I have experienced a slight dull headache on occasion but have increased my rest time coming out which seems to have solved that problem."

Yes, that is the usual solution to such headaches. We need that transition between the depth of silence during meditation and dynamic activity afterward.

"The only other symptom I am experiencing is that I can become rather docile afterwards...so much for challenging the bliss."

No, the docility has little to do with challenging the bliss. Docility is a temporary symptom of stress release. It will go away with time. "Challenging the bliss" refers to diving into daily activity rather than sitting around feeling happy but accomplishing nothing. Challenging the bliss is a choice we make, docility is a temporary symptom. Let me know if this is confusing and I will explain it more deeply.

"Do you think this could be a personal reaction with the mantra?"

No. Everything you are experiencing is well-understood as resulting from stress release, which is the desired result of effective meditation. Nothing you have reported indicates that the mantra is incorrect in any way.

"All in all I would rate what is happening in my life as a result of NSR as very positive and only regret not finding it sooner."

That is very good.

"Do you think I would benefit from a phone consultation where all questions could be addressed as they come up?"

Yes, that is exactly why I offer them. Sometimes a private consultation is much more useful than a public one, and a phone consultation can be better than a text-based consultation. It depends on the individual.

David Spector
NSR Meditation/USA