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My Meditation Experience with a Koan

Experience submitted by Trent H.
Experience submitted by Trent H.

In one of Belsebuub’s books, I had learnt about several meditation techniques to silence the mind, and I decided to try out one of those meditations called a koan. I wanted to experience what it would be like to fall asleep with no thought in my mind, and have an out of body experience into the 6th dimension.

I practiced during a 2-week period trying to achieve this.

Setting up a Schedule

During this training period, in addition to the Koan meditations, I trained my mind to concentrate better using three concentration/visualisation practices per day, and try as much as I could to concentrate on what I was doing during the day.

I would meditate on the koan two to three times a day, with one time usually in the early evening, which seemed to be the best time for me to do it.

The 2 weeks were almost over with seemingly no progress in getting any closer to silencing the mind or falling asleep while meditating. I seemed to continually get taken away by other random thoughts and images in my mind and into a fantasy/daydream.

A Breakthrough

During a meditation session towards the end of the two-weeks I had set, I really tried to get beyond my mind, to not allow any thought apart from those related to the koan exercise come in, and really try and quieten my mind.

Towards the end of this particular meditation, some results started to show. I could feel everything that I thought I was start to drop away, while I simultaneously started to feel like I was “collapsing” into myself — which is just as Belsebuub described this type of experience happening.

Image by Pexel
Image by Pexel

Then all of a sudden, I could feel that I was a part of everything and that everything was a part of me. Yet I still had my sense of self.

This feeling only lasted for a moment before it was smothered by an overwhelming reaction to what was happening, which subsequently separated me from everything else and had me thinking about ‘me’ again.

While I didn’t have an Out-of-Body Experience into a higher dimension, this experience made me question if this oneness is something that could be felt all the time?

15 comments
  • Thanks Trent for sharing your experience,
    I recall these similar moments when there is so much clarity, especially following a mantra or spiritual practice, it is beyond the mind to comprehend. The heart and body during this feels so alive.
    All the best…

  • You’ve inspired me to go deeper with koans & silencing the mind practices Trent. I’ve had some moderate success at being able to quiet the mind. But I can’t remember ever feeling this ‘I am one with everything and everything is part of me’ feeling. Yet many people have related these types of experiences in deep meditation… So I’ll look at my current goals and see if it makes sense to re-prioritize to incorporate this new direction, or if I can work towards it harmoniously with other goals as well.

    Thanks for the inspiration.

  • Hey Trent wow what a great experience sounds like one of those experiences that really stick with you, thanks for sharing

  • Hi Trent, I really enjoyed reading your experience and found your determination and efforts very inspiring as well – thank you for sharing.

  • This is quite an inspiring account Trent on how you felt that nothing was any different from trying the meditation for the two weeks you had set and your mind just kept getting pulled away, and then one time you increased your resolve to the maximum and had this incredible spiritual insight/experience. So it makes me think how important it is to persist and put in the 100% effort of what we’re able to at any given moment.

    Too often it happens to me that I set myself a goal or want to increase my level in a practice in some way or achieve something but when nothing seems to be happening after a time, I lose faith in it and let my resolve and efforts go loose rather than maintaining them or increasing them. Maybe it’s pride thinking that since I’m going through all this trouble trying something, results should be showing up immediately? But it doesn’t work like that, not on my terms. I need to have more faith that the sincere effort will produce something eventually, whether or not it is what I’m expecting, and focus on learning and improving.

  • Hi Trent,

    You say you set up a two week schedule to work towards your goal. The need to plan and set goals to achieve results is something that keeps popping up in some of the experiences of people I read. Even reading you had a two week goal makes me wonder: ‘when was the last time I had a goal that had enough staying power to even reach that two week mark?’ I mean I’ve got certain deeper goals that I naturally pursue, but on a more practical level with practices I seem to lack this currently, whereas I could benefit a lot from it I believe. Something I’d like to address in action, we’ll see.

    Thanks for sharing your experience. I didn’t know such a result or feeling was possible with this practice like that. It makes me think that I shouldn’t just expect a certain result from a practice but rather be open-minded because I don’t know what I can experience, so better to just focus on the technique wholly and see what happens.

    Koans. I’ve felt more successful effects with Koans only a number of times, where I was really focussing on and really went ‘over that hill’ where I’d tired down my mind from all the thinking. But it can be difficult without the proper goal and dedication to get over that hill.

    I did a little silencing the mind practice tonight and it reminded me just how incredibly nice it is to have the mind silent for a bit. You’d almost forget normally how it just doesn’t give us a break with all the constant chattering.

    • It brought out a similar reflection in me Karim, about the possible need for such concrete time frames and goals. They were obviously a big part of the structure of learning in the way Belsebuub organised his courses for a reason, but I’ve found it very hard to continue with them alone, without some kind of group support. But I’d like to be able to. I recently set a two week goal, and at the beginning I saw I had some real encouragement, experiences that boosted my focus and made me feel that there was a lot of worth in pursuing this goal, but even then my efforts waned and time slipped by without working on it, and I realise I’m back to square one. I can see that sometimes the value of these focuses is in making you see how unfocused you are, and then you can find the resolve to change. Without these clear goals it can be easy to remain in the illusion that you’re making progress with things, when really you’re just meandering here and there dictated unknowingly by ‘interests’ that actually just weaken you. Learning how to break through to a ‘higher octave’ I’ve found is an incredibly difficult but essential thing to learn, and I’m starting to believe that having a clearly defined goal is important for this, otherwise it’s hard to measure and monitor.

      OK – so back to my finding my focus!

  • Hi, Trent, thanks a lot for sharing this experience. It’s inspiring to read how dedicated and dilligent you were to your goal. I’ve experienced that ‘collapsing’ into yourself feeling a few times. I think besides astral projection this has been another thing that really made me question what am I and how I function.

    Reading your experience and that quote from Belsebuub makes me think what a profound meaning and knowledge is probably hiding behind those words.

    Wish you more explorations into the 6th. Hope you have been well!

  • Hi Trent,

    that sounds like a nourishing and memorable experience. It was interesting to hear about it in the context of you setting yourself a 2-week goal, and persisting though little seemed to be happening – and then how this glimpse into a higher state inspired you to reach a new level in your daily life. It’s quite incredible to realise that there’s such a profound reality just beyond our veil of perception, and reachable too, should we learn how to lift that veil …

    That’s an amazing quote from Belsebuub! Really puts things into a bigger picture.

    I have to admit koans are my least favourite practise! I’ve always preferred ‘sideways’ battles with the mind – finding a stillness through the gentle focus of a mantra for example, or the interest and life that helps you break out of the mental images and chatter of an awareness walk. Only recently have I started to enjoy and get much back from practises that struggle with the mind more directly … perhaps it’s time I revisited koans, if anything could inspire me to do it, this article has!

    I feel as though I’ve had glimpses of what you describe over the years of practising the mystical exercises Belsebuub shares, “I could feel like I was a part of everything and that everything was a part of me. It was as if nothing separated me from anything else, yet I still had my sense of self.” When I first came across Belsebuub’s work and thought “OK, I’ve got to give this meditation thing a go”, and just sat down and closed my eyes, not knowing really what to do or what to expect – I’m sure I was helped (my Being finally got me where they wanted after watching me running around wasting time for years!) because after a very short time I felt as though I was ‘collapsing’ into something within and beyond me, or merging with it, and that somehow the whole universe was behind my closed eyelids, and reachable through them. It was something incredibly mysterious, and I felt intuitively not to tell anyone, but that it was my secret encouragement.

    Thanks for sharing your experience!

  • Thanks for sharing that experience Trent. It’s great that you were able to persist, despite not getting the results at first. It sounds like a profound experience and shows that there can be great insights just around the corner, if we keep on trying.

  • Thanks for sharing that experience Trent, it sounds amazing. I once had that collapsing in feeling for a moment but was so surprised and unfamiliar with it that I stopped the experience there.

Belsebuub

Belsebuub is a British-born author who writes about out-of-body and other types of mystical experiences. He withdrew from public life in 2010. Read more here.

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