17 On the Importance of doing the
Mahamudra work in proper order
Beloved Shya,
Love.
The Mahamudra is one way to describe the state of enlightenment.
The work which I am talking about in this series is a particular layered
form of meditation practices.
It is not that any one of the meditation techniques described in this series can't necessarily be helpful by itself, but to work the technique of Mahamudra it is important to take each step at a time.
In particular, the warning I gave in that instalment is in regards to
the fact that some of these meditations, especially the ones on dreams,
could lead into delusional ideas of effectiveness when done outside of
the process of the Mahamudra work.
These techniques I am describing are highly esoteric, and thus the potential
to slip into esoteric bullshit is likewise high.
There is no problem for you to try to be aware of your dreams, at your
current position.
The warning was for other people.
There is a habit that people will want to try whatever I am talking about
at a given time, whatever they currently read, because it is new or different
than what they are currently doing, without considering whether it is
what they need to be doing right now.
There is also a risk for some people that they may think that they can
jump to a further step on the Mahamudra work, before successfully establishing
themselves in the earlier steps.
They may even believe that they have already established themselves on
those earlier steps, when the reality is they simply don't find those
earlier steps as "exciting" or interesting as some of the later
steps.
For some people, these meditations are going to be risky; for some people
other techniques would be better right now.
Consider yourself "authorized".
Love
Swami
