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Ups and Downs in Meditation

Deep meditation is not a steadily ascending experience. Sessions cycle between deep stillness, bliss, restlessness, chaotic mind, plateaus, and apparent regressions. This is a normal feature of human spiritual transformation — not a defect of practice.

Addition 13.7: "These are symptoms of purification and opening during deep meditation, which will always be changing as the process of inner awakening advances, and gradually settles in stillness over time."

The cardinal rule

The session is not the measure of progress. Daily life is. Subjectively "deep" sessions and subjectively "rough" sessions can both be productive. What matters is whether the quality of daily activity is improving over time — calmer, clearer, more peaceful, more energetic. If daily life is steadily better, practice is working, regardless of what any individual sitting felt like.

Addition 13.10: "Results in daily activity are the true measure of our practice, not experiences during practice, which can be anything according to the process of purification and opening."

Common patterns

  • Honeymoon → roughness → stabilization. Strong bliss early on, then a phase of restlessness as deeper material surfaces, then gradual settling.
  • Cyclical swings. Days or weeks of deep stillness alternating with chaotic-mind sessions. Addition 13.7 describes a practitioner whose state "swings from one extreme to the other and back in some sort of cyclical fashion" while daily life remained stable — Yogani's response: this is normal, just carry on.
  • Plateaus. Sometimes weeks or months of seeming non-progress. Don't change the practice impulsively; plateaus happen with any system.
  • Mixed states. Eventually, inner silence and thoughts can coexist within the same session.

What to do

  • Keep practicing daily. Consistency is the only thing that matters in the long run.
  • Take more rest after meditation when sessions get rough.
  • Use the witnessing technique if a session becomes overwhelming.
  • Self-pace if roughness spills into daily life.
  • Don't judge by the session. Look at the trajectory of daily life over weeks and months.

The cloudy sky — AYP's canonical image

Lesson 225 gives AYP's most vivid metaphor for the ups and downs pattern: the sky clearing.

The sun (pure bliss consciousness) is always there — it never stops shining. The clouds (obstructions/impurities in the nervous system) obscure it. On a cloudy day, there are moments when the sun breaks through; on a sunny day, a few clouds may still pass. Over weeks and months of practice, the clouds thin and clear. Eventually, it's all sun, with only an occasional passing shadow.

Lesson 225: "Maybe we have clarity at the start, and then the clouds move through on their way out. Or maybe we are cloudy from the start and then the light shines through later, all at once sometimes, or bit by bit a little more each month."

Hedonic adaptation to rising silence

A subtle point from Lesson 225 that many practitioners miss: we adapt to rising silence very quickly. When a new level of clarity arrives, it feels dramatic for a few days, then becomes normal. The "wow" fades — not because the clarity has faded, but because the baseline has risen and the contrast between the old level and the new one has compressed.

Lesson 225: "We get used to rising pure bliss consciousness very fast, and the contrast will not be noticed as much after a few days of more clarity. Then we become eager for the next level."

Practical implication: absence of the "wow" feeling is often a sign of progress, not stagnation. The baseline rose; the inner silence is more present than before; you just can't feel the difference anymore because it has become normal. The way to check is to look at daily life over months — more peace, more energy, more patience, more natural kindness? Then the baseline has risen, regardless of what sessions feel like.

Source lessons