Mrs Tigersoap said:
Many of us have seen people, faces, etc. during the breathing program. I don't know who/what these are exactly. I guess they could be 'symbolic' parts of us/, ourselves in alternate realities, etc.
The faces I see always look at me and yesterday, for the first time, I felt that not only I was observing these faces, but they were observing me as well. And I was kind of scared.
When I was about eight years old, more or less, I used to lie in bed in my room before falling asleep and see the most horrible faces in the patterns and shadows on the curtains. I would see them, and I was certain they could see me. If the curtains were moving in a breeze it was worse. I had forgotten about this until I read your post, Mrs T. I think that part of the work of the breathing program is to clear long held programs from childhood, and so I wonder if the faces you are seeing are related to traumatic childhood memories. Just a thought, fwiw.
nicklebleu said:
After the Prayer I felt that I needed to do more Prayers on my own, but here I totally struggled. I had total blanks, I couldn't remember the verses. I just remembered the rhythm, but not the words. I tried again and again ... until I finally gave up and fell asleep. I can normally recite the Prayer almost automatically, but yesterday all that was all but gone.
I think the important thing to remember, nicklebleu, is that even though it was very difficult, you still struggled and tried your best to remember. That is very valuable. You were exercising your mental muscles. Our programs are very devious and do not like us to do anything that might lead to their removal. I have had similar experiences to yours, and just did the best I could. The effect of the meditation and breathing program is cumulative, and every little thing we do is a step in the right direction, however small.
kujo said:
Reading through this thread, and the descriptions of each of our experiences with the breathing program, I see the phrase, "zoned-out" quite often. Those who have experienced this zoned-out feeling... can you elaborate on that? If you had to describe the "zoning-out" another way, how would it go? I'm curious if "zoned-out" could have more of a definition... more for us to see in our experience. Is it a blankness? A lack of focus?
I experience the zoning out as not being there. I can’t remember anything about it, apart from snapping back to normal consciousness. It happens during the Prayer of the Soul. During the BaHa portion, I experience what I think of as ‘spacing out’ which is more like daydreaming to avoid what is going on. But the zoning out is quite different. It’s rather difficult to describe, except to say that I am not there, at least as I know myself. I snap back to normal consciousness sometimes in the middle of the prayer, often with a feeling of mild panic, but almost immediately I’m zoning out again.
Did you read what Laura wrote about this? She says that with time and practice, we will be able to bring back more memories from that state. She also says that in that state we are taking ‘light baths’, which is interesting because it feels like darkness. If you consider that everything in our world is a mirror image, or inversion, of a ‘true existence’, then true light would seem like darkness, in our current state of being.
