I have had unusual experiences during meditation and become scared of them. It happened several times that I began loosing identification with my body during meditation and sometimes I feel like spinning around while in fact I'm sitting still. It makes me shake with terror and I stop the practice! What I'm afraid is that I jump out of my body ad never return back. Should I stop in these situations? How can I overcome this fear? It's silly but often I'm afraid I can go mad.=)
—Irina, Russia
Dear Irina,
I know what you are talking about, I have had the same. When we are loosing contact with the body we get really scared. It’s like the bird, Yogananda said, which has been used to its cage for eons, and now, when suddenly it stands on the exit door, this new cage-less feeling is just too much. In time the bird (our soul) returns to that door again, and slowly it gets used to it. Then the bird begins to fly, and again it has to get used to it. In the end the soul enjoys in the freedom from the body, and from our personal self (“I, Irina”), and the joy is great. It is the process of freeing our soul from the identification with the ego, with the body.
What I have done is, whenever I got scared, is to take a few deep breaths. The breath immediately reconnects you to the body. The experience is over. Just don’t push. Whenever it’s too much, breathe, move a little, and you’re in the body again. Go only as far as you can enjoy it. But it’s a challenge for sure. True spirituality needs an adventurous spirit, in the end even a heroic spirit, because you give up everything about yourself that you knew to be true.
The spinning you feel goes hand in hand, it’s energy rising, pulling you into this kind of experience. It is a divine thing which is happening to you, but go only as far as it feels healthy and good to you. If it goes too far, tense the body and send that energy into it.
For some time I have had the same fear of maybe getting crazy. Don’t worry, you won’t. For me personally it was a test, I think. Finally I said, ok, I’d even go crazy if that is the price for divine elevation. But I never did… it is nothing but the conscious mind fearing to lose its control.
You are doing absolutely well. But you need to be really stable physically, doing manual labor, or sport, to feel grounded, also eating well. Otherwise, I found, we feel too airy for such kind of experiences.
God bless you, you are having God-speed right now, keep going “with slow speed,” as Yogananda said,
jayadev
