Introducing Myself

[cognazor]

Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself. I am new to this forum and new to meditation in general. From what little I know from the "Quick Start Guide", I am intrigued by Kenneth's approach. It seems to combine different seemingly disparate elements I have been dabbling in. To briefly summarize my path:

I experimented with meditation and hallucinogens in high school, had some crazy experiences, and then jumped deep into the Baha'i Faith, which emphasizes prayer and devotion a lot. Then a few years ago I lost faith and became agnostic/atheist and lost interest generally in spirituality. This occured concurrently with the feeling of being stuck, unable to overcome my psychological complexes. Then last year somebody introduced me to Echkart Tolle and a whole new world opened up again. He emphasizes being in the now, surrendering to this moment, realizing you are already enlightened, etc. Very third gear stuff it seems to me. Then I got into Gary Weber's book, Happiness Beyond Thought, and got really into self inquiry, really getting to the root of who I think I am. Very second gear stuff. Then I stumbled across Shinzen Young and Daniel Ingram's stuff and became interested in the Vipassana approach. First gear. A lot of intellectual energy has been wasted in me trying to resolve these apparently different approaches, so when I saw Kenneth's integration (around the same time as Shinzen and Daniels stuff actually, this wasn't totally linear) I became intrigued.

I have been meditating for about a month now. One hour per day during the week and 2 hours per day on the weekend. I am developing a sequence for myself during meditations of concentration practice-->Insight Mediation/noting practice-->Self Inquiry-->Surrendering/just being present to finish it up. I am sure questions will arise as I go so I appreciate being part of an online community on a similar path...especially since I am fairly isolated right now in terms of having a spiritual community, teachers, etc.

[Bill29ish]

Hello: Welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have a solid and consistent practice down. If you would like you could put future practice notes in the practice journals section.

Bill