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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
 Posted - May 19 2014 : 10:28:40 PM
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After 40 years of sadhana (including 10 years of AYP), here are the two things I wished I'd understood at the beginning. The two things I wish I'd figured out earlier. The two things I'm certain of even as I'm less and less certain of anything. The two things I was wrongest about, and the two things that held me back the most.
I think they're probably also the two factors most often responsible for "Not Much Is Happening" situations (though, in my case, lots was happening).
Here goes:
1. Meditation with a closed heart isn't worth much.
I know how to open my heart - various asanas will do it, chanting will do it, and reading bhakti-filled books ("The Way of a Pilgrim", "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna", etc) will do it, as will service, art, poetry, and new love affairs. But while my heart opens and closes periodically, seemingly of its own whim, I haven't intermediated. I chose to leave it alone as a beneath-the-hood issue I shouldn't fool around with.
I was wrong on this. While heart-opening needs to be self-paced, and should never be forced (or obsessed over) by beginners, for those of us with deep experience in open-heartedness, it's not something to allow to intermittently slip away. Kundalini can slip away, silence can slip away, bliss can slip away, focus can slip away, but open-heartedness must be maintained for meditation to be fully effective.
2. Meditation is easiest when it's dualistic.
For a long time, I resisted Yogani's suggestion of letting go in meditation to an ishta - a personal "higher something". It can be God, "The Goddess", "What Is", that dude with the elephant trunk or even your recollection of your childhood teddy bear. But while it's fine and even helpful to study Vedanta, Advaita, and other non-dualistic philosophy, the letting go in meditation works a lot better when you're letting go to someone/something, however arbitrary or abstract, even if that might rub you the wrong way philosophically. The nondualism comes naturally, later. Meditation, which is ultimately a pragmatic pursuit (like tooth-brushing), isn't the place to be philosophical. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 19 2014 11:41:07 PM |
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Omsat
Belgium
267 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2014 : 12:34:37 AM
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Thank you Jim, for sharing your long sadhana experience.
Your sharings resonate. Sometimes I found meditation itself fosters heart opening. Perhaps it goes in two ways..
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AumNaturel
Canada
687 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2014 : 07:25:18 AM
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Thanks Jim for those insights.
Omsat, I share that observation as well, where meditation unlocks the potential for the heart to open more. |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2014 : 10:18:42 AM
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Thanks Jim, agree completely.
I would add to #1, bhakti comes from the heart, and bhakti is the key to getting into the fast lane.
PS love "that dude with the elephant trunk"  |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2014 : 1:36:53 PM
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It's true that meditation will, eventually, crack that nut for you (i.e. open your heart). But my point is that if you're very experienced, and if you're someone who knows how to easily crack that particular nut, meditation will be vastly more effective if you attend to that as part of your daily practice, rather than letting meditation do it for you (IF, that is, you already know how to do it and IF you self-pace it and IF you don't get obsessive about it. I'm talking only to advanced practitioners who already know about heart).
If you feel it's better to simply let meditation take care of it, that's fine, I respect your view, but know that you are completely contradicting what I'm saying here (fine, no hard feelings!). I wasted much time with that same assumption, so, believe me, I can relate!
One important note: Heart opening feels like the gates of paradise opening, and heart closing feels....normal. Like the way you've lived most of your life. So it's easy to know when it's opening, but darned tricky to recognize when it's closing. You can walk around with a closed heart for quite some time without knowing it (same's true for kundalini, silence, equanimity, and all the rest of it). You think you've simply gotten used to having it, when, actually, it's plumb gone away. Over and over, the yogic path makes us repeat the experience of "Oh, now that it's reappeared, I suddenly recognize that it had gone missing!"
None of those things should be grabbed at. It's counter-productive. I'm fine with kundalini waning, equanimity waning, and silence waning. I understand that other things are being worked on. I don't try to "manage" it all, I have no stake in maintaining this or that experience or sensation. AYP taught me to just let the Cosmic Barber cut my hair.
But heart, no. That's the exception. If (and only if) you already know how to open it, I'd strongly suggest you do so (with all caveats I've now repeated several times). It was a huge error on my part to do otherwise for years. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 20 2014 1:45:48 PM |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2014 : 01:25:55 AM
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Noted. Thanks Jim.
I have been feeling I have a heart obstruction lately and was considering targeting it for further opening but was holding back as I am already tackling the 'middle' with Navi Kriya. Actually the one lead me to realizing the other, that my heart was obstructed.
Sey |
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Omsat
Belgium
267 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2014 : 07:14:46 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
None of those things should be grabbed at. It's counter-productive. I'm fine with kundalini waning, equanimity waning, and silence waning. I understand that other things are being worked on. I don't try to "manage" it all, I have no stake in maintaining this or that experience or sensation. AYP taught me to just let the Cosmic Barber cut my hair.
But heart, no. That's the exception. If (and only if) you already know how to open it, I'd strongly suggest you do so (with all caveats I've now repeated several times). It was a huge error on my part to do otherwise for years.
Thanks Jim  |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 22 2014 : 1:21:57 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by SeySorciere
I have been feeling I have a heart obstruction lately and was considering targeting it for further opening but was holding back as I am already tackling the 'middle' with Navi Kriya. Actually the one lead me to realizing the other, that my heart was obstructed.
Well, there's something to be said for not taking on new stuff when you're in the middle of some issue or other. But if heart opening is a "taking on" for someone, then my advice here isn't for them, at least not yet.
I'm talking to people at dramatically different perspectives here, so assumptions don't necessarily match. So when I say this is a suggestion for people who already have deep understanding of heart opening, that can be misinterpreted. "Deep" is the ultimate relative term!
So it's awfully hard to quantify, objectively, but let me put it this way: if you're able to easily open your heart inside of a few minutes without doing anything particularly special (though, like everyone who's not a complete Buddha, you frequently backtrack - easy to happen because, per above, heart closings are so very unremarkable), then I'd suggest it's something to be maintained steadily, within the borders of smart self-pacing, gentle non-forcing, and general non-obsession/striving. It is, in other words, something to keep letting happen....but not something to keep making happen.
If not - and/or if that last sentence didn't ring bells for you - then my advice doesn't apply. Meditation - or even just life - will eventually yield this. And I'm not being condescending....you surely have bells ringing that are stone-silent for me. Everyone's partial. Everyone's murkier on some fronts than others. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 22 2014 1:25:35 PM |
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AumNaturel
Canada
687 Posts |
Posted - May 22 2014 : 1:49:58 PM
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| Appreciate the clarifying pointers and descriptions of what no doubt is a challenge to adequately put in words. |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - May 22 2014 : 2:55:18 PM
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Hi Jim
I have read this thread many times in the last days, and I really appreciate your intention to share your experience.
However, to be honest, I can't fully understand and apply your advice in my own practice.
What is an "open heart" vs. a "closed heart? What is duality vs. non duality? I am a beginner (2 years of yoga and 6 months of AYP) so I think it is hard for me to understand things that one only can learn by direct experience.
But something in your post really resonates with me, so I hope I will remember it when the right moment will come for me to understand it.
Thank you again. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 22 2014 : 4:41:42 PM
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Hi, Ecdyonurus,
If you understood (and even memorized!) every word of every holy book, and had expert understanding of every topic discussed in this forum, that and $2 would buy you a cup of coffee! You will notice, in time, that there are people out there with vast yoga knowledge who are more self-deluded, selfish and unhappy than most anyone.
Knowledge is essential to rebuild a car engine or to play the violin. But not in this stuff. The beauty of AYP is its simplicity. Do the simple practices. Cut back if bad things happen. Add more if you get bored. That's it! Nothing more needed! Nothing to "know".
What you feel resonance with isn't the PARTICULARS of what I'm saying. The resonance is with the place I'm saying it from. The heart likes this, but the mind hates it. Mind is convinced that because mind isn't fed and satisfied that something essential is missing (the mind, naturally thinks the mind is the most important thing!). But there's no need to fill in with your mind. The resonance you feel isn't a shallow thing, needing to be deepened with knowledge and facts. It's the other way around. Yoga's weird. A certain amount of "understanding" just sort of comes, but it's not the good stuff, it's more like sawdust spraying as you make cuts! It was never the goal, and, even when it comes, it's more of a side-effect. It's shiny though, so people pay attention to it (in themselves and in others).
quote:
I hope I will remember it when the right moment will come for me to understand it.
Yes, as I said, above, this is advice for practitioners who very well understand what I'm talking about. If not, then it's not something to worry about yet. So: right! Maybe come back to it later.
By the way, check out pinboard.in. It's a very inexpensive bookmarking service. Whenever you find a page you like and might want to refer back to later, you have it stored on the pinboard site (you can also include notes and tags), and the site not only preserves the link for you forever, they also keep a copy of the web page, so pages which disappear from the internet will forever be available for you, so long as you've bookmarked it. I use it a lot! If you tag and note carefully, you can build up thousands of bookmarks and still have them be useful. And you can search for text WITHIN those pages (such as, if you bookmark this page, "heart resonate open ayp" or whatever you might eventually think to search for in recovering this.
Anyway....my suggestion is that you not worry about heart, non-duality, and all that. And that you not read forums like this, because it will only get your mind stirred up - and there are better ways to seek resonance than in online forums! See Yogani's book list, or else I really love
Ram Dass' book list from Be Here Now.in
Crap, I always go on too long. Wish I could be terser. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 23 2014 5:21:33 PM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 22 2014 : 5:31:27 PM
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Sharp-eyed readers will spot a contradiction. I'm saying this is an advanced issue... which beginners shouldn't worry about....and yet I noted in my first posting that I wish I'd known this from the beginning. That's because I got the heart opening thing early on. (There's plenty of stuff others get easily, but I got late...or not yet at all. We're all set up differently, but it's all going toward the same end.)
Whoever you are, if you solidly know what I'm talking about in that first posting, you know what to do. But it's not something to grasp one's way toward. If I've left you scratching your head...or thinking you MIGHT know what I'm talking about....it'd be counter-productive to give it another thought at this point. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 22 2014 5:32:44 PM |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - May 23 2014 : 12:03:40 AM
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Hi Jim, thank you for your answer. Don't worry about that contradiction, since life is full of contradictions. By the way, writing in a forum that obe should avoid reading forums is even a more interesting contradiction. 
It is 5AM here, I expect a hard day on my job today, reading this thread made me feel less stressed about it - you see, a very contradictory thread in a yoga forum can have a nice impact even on raw beginners...  |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2520 Posts |
Posted - May 23 2014 : 02:22:14 AM
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quote:
AYP taught me to just let the Cosmic Barber cut my hair.
beautiful |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - May 23 2014 : 06:23:00 AM
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Thanks Jim
I resonate with you about the heart opening, so easy to feel it opening but it seems to fade away to closed without me noticing.
Saying this however I do know people who notice their heart closing immediately as they meet something stressful or if they have a negative thought about someone and they use this as a barometer to guide them through their days, in so far as life lets them.
As you say there are many ways we can open the heart and for me it has been connecting with others in some way or another.
You mentioned loving someone and if we are fortunate to feel deep love for someone at a heart level then we are lucky.
The most powerful practice for me in relation to heart opening has been Insight Dialogue retreats. Two people coming together out of a place of inner silence and meeting and resonating from a place of silence can be very powerful and if a heart is anyway ripe for opening it will surely burst open in this scenario.
Certain yoga postures for opening the chest and heart are great. I seem to remember that you had a thread about placing something under the back and lying on it to open the chest and heart. This is very good for combating low mood and depression as it is impossible to be depressed if the heart is open. I think you were making that point at the time.
With regard to your second point. My personal experience of this has been that I had an Istha from a very young age and have gone the other direction of meeting the world of relationships through my heart and baring myself to this in as much as the openness of my heart will allow. This allows for some sort of compassion which could be seen I suppose as an Istha in itself, regarding something as higher or lower doesn't resonate here any more, although I acknowledge fully other realms of existence.
My 2 cents |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - May 23 2014 : 08:40:42 AM
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Hi All:
And there is this lesson on heart opening and the heart breathing technique: http://www.aypsite.org/220.html
All the best!
The guru is in you.
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 23 2014 : 10:47:40 AM
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Ecdyonurus:
I love paradoxes - they relax me - but I don't see these two points as contradictory. I was wrong to say/imply that the heart opening suggestion is for advanced yogis. It's actually for advanced heart-openers, which is a little different. You can be a beginning yogi (or not spiritual at all!) and still have a wide open heart...as I once did. And as for cautioning against yoga forums in a yoga forum...where better to do so? We put health warnings on cigarette packs, not jogging trails!
Forums like this are mind-y. The less you talk and think about the practices (and your "journey"), the better. Sadhana is best done like brushing one's teeth. I'd suggest you come here for specific clarification when you need it (e.g. where to put your feet in sidhasana), and otherwise just do the darned practices and get on with your life and don't steep in all this as a lifestyle or a tribe to join. If you're looking for inspiration, go to the roots, not the twigs (and I definitely include myself under "twig"). Twigs are cool when you stumble upon a good one, but rifling through twig piles is inefficient. Anyway, that's my suggestion.
Sparkle:
quote:
I do know people who notice their heart closing immediately as they meet something stressful or if they have a negative thought about someone and they use this as a barometer to guide them through their days, in so far as life lets them.
I know that's popular, but I think it's a trap that leads yogis back into the habit of dividing things up: positive situations/negative situations; positive thoughts/negative thoughts; heart open/heart closed; spiritually conducive/not spiritually conducive, etc.. I do yoga to dilate my acceptance of all in unity, not to find new ways to fracture that unity.
Or, to come at it from a different angle, heart never closes, and it's naive to imagine it could. What happens is that sometimes we choose (mostly unconsciously) to clench there in reaction to whatever drama we pretend to be having in the world. If we notice the clenching (we often don't!), then we blame the person, the circumstance, the thought. We find "negativity" in the world or in our minds. But it's projection. It's always just us clenching needlessly and gratuitously against love; against What Is. So...no need to turn it into a gauge or litmus test. It's simpler than that: just let go.
Yogani:
I'd missed that lesson. Thanks for linking that, it really pulls this together. It may be naive of me, but I think there are three ways of looking at heart: the blood-pumping organ, the chakra, and HEART, which is just sort of everything (much more than a chakra). Maybe call it "heartedness". That's really the one I'm talking about in this thread.
I agree with your hesitance about individual chakra openings, and you expressed some important cautions in that lesson, which is about working (gently/carefully) with the chakra. In my experience "heartedness" can be approached safely, and un-clinically, via pure love and bhakti (you also say this in the lesson, I know!). Also, not to get too Christian, forgiveness. But to understand what I'm talking about requires previous experience with Heartedness. Those who lack that can work (with all your wise caveats and cautions) via chakra, and via all the other lessons. It all goes there in the end.
But the thing is that there are people out there reading this and silently nodding. They know Heartedness, and they know how to live from there, but in their yoga wisdom about "letting go and letting god", they choose to let it be haphazard. What I'm saying boils down to: if heartedness is available to you, let yourself be Hearted, in the never-ending moment. Make that choice. Other places may be explored, but explore them from THERE.
Interestingly, my second tip, about letting go TO something in meditation, is also about making a small choice; letting things be one way rather than the other. Making such choices doesn't come naturally to anyone earnestly devoted to surrender. That's why it took me 40 years to see that these particular two choices are worthy exceptions. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 24 2014 11:39:57 AM |
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Mykal K
Germany
267 Posts |
Posted - May 23 2014 : 2:27:34 PM
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Ayiram
88 Posts |
Posted - May 24 2014 : 05:56:41 AM
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“Beloved True Source, open all hearts to the silent presence of your spirit. Lead us into that mysterious silence where your love is revealed to all who call. Thank You True Source. Amen.”
~Steve Ficks, from the Living Unbound site |
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - May 28 2014 : 5:00:57 PM
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Thank you Jim for this topic.
I have been doing the Heart Breathing per Yogani's instructions and was about to stop for no good reason 
I really like it before SBP. so thank you for the push to keep at it. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 28 2014 : 7:28:59 PM
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Glad to hear it, Jonesboy.
Here's a taste of what I mean,btw. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2014 : 1:15:00 PM
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| And, way better, this |
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galen
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - Jun 03 2014 : 4:04:14 PM
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Thanks for these thoughts, Jim.
I'm having some trouble reconciling your second piece of advice with other advice that you have given on the forum: namely doing less in meditation -- just sitting there and saying I AM to yourself over and over. Isn't surrendering doing more? I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have about this.
Thanks! |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Jun 03 2014 : 7:52:30 PM
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heartspace indestructible:
coming and going
the breeze that is blowing
will take away all of my pain
cinnamon rolls and midnight strolls
orange juice is king. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Jun 04 2014 : 2:52:37 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by galen
I'm having some trouble reconciling your second piece of advice with...doing less in meditation
As well you should. Like I said just above:
quote:
Making such choices doesn't come naturally to anyone earnestly devoted to surrender. That's why it took me 40 years to see that these particular two choices are worthy exceptions
Of course, this isn't a "doing" so much as an attitude. But, yes, surrender means dropping attitudes, as well. So my suggestion (to advanced meditators) is not to clench to this (or, certainly, not intellectualize/narrate it), but just lightly scent your meditation with it and otherwise let go. I can't remember which lesson, but I believe letting go to an ishta (of whatever stripe) was Yogani's suggestion, as well. I just chose not to follow it.
Of course, it doesn't escape me that will-to-surrender in and of itself is an attitude, as well. But, hey, you can't escape the paradoxes (nor can you unravel them one by one), you can only unclench the realm in which they exist. "Letting go" in meditation helps, and "letting go to..." helps yet more. It's been said many times in many traditions, and I'm finally convinced.
It's true even if you have a deep inner awareness of Nothing, so the inherent dualism of "letting go to..." seems spiritually incorrect. Meditation is, again, not a philosophical trip. It's a pragmatic pursuit (like tooth-brushing), so....whatever works, etc. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Jun 04 2014 3:29:09 PM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Jun 04 2014 : 2:58:33 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bodhi Tree
heartspace indestructible:
coming and going
the breeze that is blowing
will take away all of my pain
cinnamon rolls and midnight strolls
orange juice is king.
Girl you thought he was a man
But he was a muffin
He hung around till you found
That he didn't know nuthin' |
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Two Hard-Won Meditation Tips
