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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 15 2012 : 08:12:06 AM
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Its not often I ask these days, but after some exchanged posts I thought it worth asking.
In what way do you visualise the silver nerve. I gave up a while back and just traced the spine with sensations, but that only happens when the energy gets going and I'm following the energy instead of just tracing the spine.
So I went back to try the visualisation. I m really asking from what perspective are we supposed to visualise. Are we actually inside the spine like a lift in a building. Are we to see the back like looking at a map and forget about any sensation and just imagine this body in front and the breath lands where it may.
I have tried all versions  and none of them seem to stick. I know this is analysing but I'm stuck with doing it, until I can find the right approach. Otherwise I just have to return to the energy tracing and following the wave as it goes up and down.
Finally, when I first started SB, the rush of upward cold energy was like a tidal surge. I could feel it in every part of the spine. The downward energy was negligible. That has more or less reversed. The warm downward flow is like sticky Magma, it clearly follows the route from brow to root. The cold upward flow is far less obvious, I just skip the bits in the middle where it gets muddled and go straight through the head ( quite easy to feel ). Wondered what might have changed? |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Feb 15 2012 : 08:23:08 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
Otherwise I just have to return to the energy tracing and following the wave as it goes up and down.
I would say go back to following the energy. Some of us are born third eye blind. 
I still dont see the spinal nerve from outside or inside or above or below.... . Just once during energy practice I had seen a silver thread (like a thread made of white light) from root to crown... but that was it, never again. And since I did see that, I know imagining is not like seeing it... so I dont waste energy on it... if it is to happen it will happen... for now, I would say, follow the energy. 
quote:
Originally posted by karl
Finally, when I first started SB, the rush of upward cold energy was like a tidal surge. I could feel it in every part of the spine. The downward energy was negligible. That has more or less reversed. The warm downward flow is like sticky Magma, it clearly follows the route from brow to root. The cold upward flow is far less obvious, I just skip the bits in the middle where it gets muddled and go straight through the head ( quite easy to feel ). Wondered what might have changed?
I have found the heat energy more than the cold as well... though there are times when the cold energy is higher (minty cold) ... Think it depends on what and how we are processing stuff. I would not worry about it much. Have you touched the crown? Try a couple of rounds of breathing to the crown instead of the third eye and see how that feels. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Feb 15 2012 : 09:05:36 AM
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Cheers Shanti,
That's like Danger Danger Will Robinson don't touch that crown
It was in also in finding Nemo " don't touch that Boat " .
Ok I will give it a whirl and monitor. |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Feb 15 2012 : 09:17:40 AM
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AumNaturel
Canada
687 Posts |
Posted - Feb 15 2012 : 6:10:25 PM
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From SFP, you can start out with visualization, which then moves to a feeling, and then being a feeling exclusively. Sounds like you have a very strong feeling of it, so maybe there's no use in trying to go backwards to visualizing.
To date I do get a sense of feeling, and I try to favor it almost entirely. The visualization and sensation to me is more like a type of tactile awareness, so both visualization and sensations feed into each other to guide the body's proprioception even if the sensation may be vague at times or visualization isn't very 'visual' but more an imaginary following along such spatial nodes. As for the cool and hot SBP enhancements again it's vague for me, but I imagine the rising as cool and descending as hot even if it's hard to tell what's visualization or what's actual sensation. There are definite times when heat is sensed but not really on command, and it is more generalized and stationary. As for actual seeing, only during yoni mudra kumbhaka (when doing the routine in the morning right after waking) do I see a crystal clear bright white 2D 'ring' with dark inside and very rough edges, quite thick, but never yet seen any colors inside the ring (which are supposed to be images of the chakras while looking straight down or up the spine). It has its own after image which occurs on the next inhale, so the inside turns bright and outside turns dark, and repeats. |
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Holy
796 Posts |
Posted - Feb 19 2012 : 6:36:49 PM
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Even if the friction for visualization is high now, at least be open for the possibility that sooner or later it may happen with much more ease. It is highly worth it.
And no worry about the perspective, start with something you can do. You'll learn from inner experience how to do it correctly.
The reason for visualization is to refine and presize the energy flow within the sushumna nadi and to enter the even more thin vajra and even more thin chitrini and even more thin brahma nadi.
If you just go by feeling, it will turn into seeing too. Seeing is refined feeling. The more precise, small and slow the tracing by attention, the more feeling, the more seeing, the more being. It is a process that refines over time into timelessness.
Don't put this on your ignore list forever. Just a hint of love :) |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Feb 20 2012 : 08:03:16 AM
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Karl! I was just doing spinal breathing this morning, and rather than having a clear image of the "silver thread", I had a continuous stream of words I wanted to post in this thread.
What comes to mind regarding this inquiry is a very good lesson of Mr. Yogani:
Big little nerve -- http://www.aypsite.org/52.html
Also, in one of the interviews with Dr. West, I recall Yogani saying that we can be immersed in "a column of ecstasy" during spinal breathing.
An important and subtle point I have derived from these lessons, and most definitely from my personal experience with this practice, is that it's more effective to focus on the trajectory and path of the nerve, rather than the nerve itself. Focusing on the route from root to brow is a very dynamic process, whereas simply trying to visualize the "silver thread" could lead the mind to a static obsession. The spinal nerve can manifest in the mind in countless ways other than as a silver thread. I see images of waterfalls, animals galloping, the infinity sign whirling up and down the sushumna--or simply as blissful space, as mentioned in the lesson above.
Another really helpful dynamic can be recognized in the playing of music (which you said you're beginning to explore). If you notice when you're keeping a beat, it's not so much that you focus on the individual beats of 1-2-3-4, it's more that you softly focus on the beginning and end points of the beat pattern--i.e. the space that starts the rhythm and then begins it again. If you even just tap your hand on a table, you will notice that this dynamic is true. The focus is not on the individual beats per se--it's on the repetition and pattern of the beats as a whole that makes the process of rhythm automatic and enjoyable.
In the same sense with deep meditation, I think it's important to remember that we favor repeating the mantra, rather than on the mantra itself (as something permanent or fixed, which would be an illusion).
So, my suggestion is, let the nerve be what it wants to be.  Having read quite a few of your posts by now, I gather that you have quite an active and creative mind that might not settle with just seeing the nerve as a tiny thread. |
Edited by - Bodhi Tree on Feb 20 2012 08:07:21 AM |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Feb 20 2012 : 1:22:08 PM
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Yes, it might object to a specific visualisation.
I get the music metaphor, that definitely helps. Cheers |
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Visualisation of the silver thread.
