Bliss is what I said and meant, intending the full meaning of the word. In some earlier post, I mentioned this. I was under the impression that there was some end-point with meditation. Remember, we used to be told that we had to 'realise' knowledge, and I took this to be the same thing as achieving samadhi. After a few years of meditating, I had some interesting experiences, but most would fit into the the category of 'peaceful and happy'. I figured I wasn't really trying hard enough, so eventually I decided just to keep on meditating, and did so for a month solid, apart from eating, sleeping etc. I certainly experienced samadhi at the end of that time - it was quite different to 'peaceful and happy'.
I had assumed that samadhi was a one way trip, and that after experiencing that, I would be walking around in some kind of permanent God-consciousness. That wasn't the case.
I didn't meditate for a good while after that - there seemed no point. I was peaceful alright, and fairly happy, but a bit confused as to what it all meant. One curious side-effect was that for a couple of weeks afterwards, I had a photographic memory - I could scan through pages of books, and later visualise them quite easily, and 'read' them as I needed to (this was very handy at the time...). Anyway, the memory soon reverted to normal (pretty crap).
I guess I had expected some philosophical insights to come with such an experience, but if I have had any, they were much later and very simple - that is, that since this is an entirely internal and subjective experience, you can pretty much interpret it any way you like. The ecstasy came with a great feeling of meaningfulness. It seemed 'real' - just like Scared Mushroom was blithering about. But the realness is also subjective...
I think this is the sort of experience that gets the mystics and gurus going in the first place - it would be so easy to associate it with lots of stuff you can read in the scriptures. It might seem reasonable to go about telling people that 'Truth is the consciousness of bliss' (remember that one?), but I think the connection is spurious. Consciousness of bliss is consciousness of bliss, and that isn't necessarily the truth.
That's my spin on it anyway. There are plenty of people would interpret it other ways, but as I say, I think it is all down to interpretation and context.
What I had been trying to say was that that experience has nothing to do with the techniques or M. I can get to that state again, just sitting quiet enough for long enough, but I have given up on playing with myself to such an extent.
