going beyond form

what is the nature of 'going beyond form' also known as 'Second Initiation'?

This is where there is a shift on consciousness during meditation and you suddenly seem to have entered a vast void. In my opinion it is the same as what Theravada Buddhists call the Sphere of Infinite Space. It is also called the 5th jhana, the first of the formless or arupa jhanas.

This is what Daniel M Ingram has written about the Sphere of Infinite Space in his book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha "When this state is really cultivated, all or most images and a sense of body are gone, and almost all that is left is vastness.".

I am not sure if it is necessary to go through the first four jhanas to get to the 5th. Perhaps it is just something can occur with some people who have an aptitude for meditation. It seems that people in Lifewave also got to the 6th jhana (the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness). I suspect that they never got to the 7th and 8th jhanas. The last two are not characterized by a sense of vastness.

There is also a 9th jhana, but this is unavailable to people who haven't done insight practices (a whole different axis of development). Ingram mentions a different jhana that isn't mentioned in ancient texts: the 'super-pervading Watcher'. This perhaps is something experienced as a temporary state by insight practitioners but can be a permanent state for others. This may be the Lifewave 'enlightenment', or connected to it, the subject of my next post.

Below I have quoted someone from a forum called iamthat (Malcolm) who was part of Lifewave and who wrote an account of his experience of going beyond form.

"Three of us were sitting down to go beyond form. The first two days passed fairly uneventfully; my mind became slower and slower, and I was getting more and more absorbed in meditation without having any clear idea of what I was meant to be doing. By the third day I was ready to surrender, and I was meditating on the light and sound with all the love and devotion I could manage. The inner light was very clear and bright, when suddenly it was as if some Being reached down and plucked me up into Itself. I found myself resting in a vast void, where all was silent. I don’t know how long I remained in this state, but gradually I returned to normal awareness. I then noticed something had changed. Previously my thoughts seemed to fill my awareness. Now my thoughts occurred only within a small bubble which was contained within my Being. My thoughts did not touch me – instead there was (and still is) a vast part of me which had no relation to thought. Later that evening while eating our rice and toast the three of us compared experiences, and we all seemed to have had similar experiences and realisations at the same time."