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Here and Now
Spain
9 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 26 2014 : 4:31:16 PM
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Hello all,
I have been practicing AYP for around 2 years now and I feel well on my way. I couldn't have asked for more, and in a period where I want to incarnate, on a deeper and deeper level what I have discovered myself to Be.
I have convinced a very dear friend of mine to start AYP 2 weeks back. She has been doing pure silence meditation for a couple of years (like Adyashanti's true meditation). She enjoyed deeper and deeper silence but I felt that she has the potential to advance much more quickly, with AYP, in a controlled manner.
Since she was a girl, she has a natural ability, kind of like a natural siddhi, that makes her be extremely permeable to everything everyone around her is feeling. For closer people in her life like myself, she can feel precisely what they feel even at a distance. She does not know how to shut this ability off, or control it, and this has caused her much suffering from her adolesence til today. In the past she has tried to cover this up with activity, work, even pills from time to time.
Since starting ayp, 10 minutes Spinal Breathing with 20 minutes DM and some integration silence at the end, she inmediately felt a sharp pain around her third eye. So we reduced SB to 5 minutes and the pain usually did not appear anymore. She also stopped the I Am mantra except for certain ocassions. One week into it, we were having dinner and she saw my aura, at least three layers of it (white, then golden, then vibrant blue, around my head expanding to my shoulders). This had never happened to her and she was terrified and began reliving the feeling of being erroneous and desiring to just be normal. However, she managed to continue with practice once a day sometimes twice as discussed above. Today, two weeks in, while meditating she completely slipped out of her body and observed the room and her physical body meditating. She had trouble getting back into the body and a few seconds later came back completely terrified, trembling and crying. Again this was the first time this happened to her.
It seems that at current levels her meditations leave her refreshed, with no headaches, bad temper, etc. so I don't know if this could be considered an overload / self-pacing issue. It's more like she has tremendous spiritual potential and as soon as she realizes some effective practice the scenery effects become too much for her to handle. She recently saw two separate guides (one channeled a guide) the other was a very sensitive friend. Both mentioned independently that she was a Goddess that through a tremendous amount of compassion had incarnated to help the living, and both said that in some time they would be the ones asking her for guidance.
So many things happening at once, aside from other things that might be more easily dismissed as suggestion or something more earthly (like lately dreaming with dead people who communicate with her).
She understands that what she feels is fear, and that it appears like whatever she does, if she wants to advance practice-wise, will bring upon these sorts of experiences. She also regards these experiences as unnecesary and pure scenery as I mentioned previously. But she is so scared, feels so out of place, that she sees an increasing resistance to conduct any practice (on a deep, conscious and unconscious level), and when she does practice, she can detect a deep aversion to anything that might happen in the practice. Something that gets in the way of her letting go and therefore truly advancing in this "path".
She has allowed me to post on her behalf, as we would love to understand the views of experienced AYP members who have gone through similar issues. I know for example that Christi had a very fast transformation when she started, I don't know if emc as well. The opinion of Yogani would be tremendously reasurring as well of course, and I don't know who else might shed some light on this issue...
Advancing toward a fuller enlightenment is the conscious priority in life for my friend, but the resistance based on fear is so high that this advancement is placed in jeopardy. It would be amazing to receive some advice that will allow her to truly open up and continue advancing. My hunch is that she will reach tremendous levels of clarity in a very brief time period.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance for your help and time you may dedicate to helping her out. Beside reasurring her that it is all still a product of Maya, and gently nudging her to face her fears I don't know how else to help her. And if anyone can shed some light on how to manage this tremendous empathy, feeling everything around one, it would be a tremendous help. For the time being she had to go on antidepressants again to numb the feelings a bit.
My unconditional love to all of you, sweet manifestations of I Am.
Here and Now |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Aug 27 2014 : 4:17:15 PM
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Dear Here and Now,
Here is what the longtime participants will tell you, I think (I am not one of them, but have been reading the forums for a while):
1. Your friend's courage in continuing practice under the pressure of such uncommon experiences and high expectations, and your compassionate clarity in describing her predicament, deserve recognition. 
2. Even when pulled in different directions by destiny and fear, your friend will probably find, deep down, that she knows whether this practice is something she should be pursuing now or not. If Yogani and others are correct in saying that our true nature will find a way to unfold itself in every case, then there is less at stake in this choice than might appear. But an AYP advocate will put in a good word at this point for a balanced system of practices that makes steady progress possible, with provision against overloading.
3. In fact, your friend may well be overloading--it's often not accompanied by headaches or irritability. People can go for weeks without noticing anything unusual. In your friend's case, though, I'd say the persistent sense of fear itself may possibly be an overload symptom, and a sign that it may be wise to reduce the scale of practices for the time being: the DM could be reduced to 15 minutes, or 10, or even 5 (no lower). The SBP, which many people find to be a powerful energetic stimulant, could be cut back almost to nothing; for a while, when conscious of very active prana, I was just doing three breaths. The point is, though, that there's still room for adjustment to see if a lower level of practice is sustainable for her.
4. Most commentators will also recommend grounding activities, which may involve long walks, contact with nature, helping others, hard physical work, etc.
5. When you say, "she also stopped the I Am mantra except for certain occasions," it almost sounds as if she had been reciting the mantra continuously throughout the day and still repeats it occasionally in daily life. We're not supposed to do that in AYP; the mantra is reserved for the twice-daily DM session only. I'm not clear on the reasons for this, but it seems like it's both "to keep the blade sharp" and because too much spiritual activity risks overload. I may have misinterpreted your comment here, however.
AYP aside, just me: While your friend's empathic gift, and its burdens, are something I can barely imagine, I know so well what you call "the feeling of being erroneous and desiring to just be normal", which in some of us does not arise or vanish with the teenage years! From an early age I have been aware of, and as it were centered in, the sensations of my own body to a degree of minuteness that I've since realized must be unusual. As a result, I think, I had trouble even recognizing my own emotions, the forest, for the trees of sensation. Certainly the language that people use to describe their experiences didn't convey much to me, because my experience of myself was so different. Nor did I even have--at least, as a child--the ordinary degree of empathy that enables strangers to find common ground without a common language. I felt like some sort of alien.
I concluded that there was something wrong, either with me or with everyone else, or most likely both, and I still haven't entirely let go of that baleful valuation. Many of my life habits answer to the resulting imperative not to stand out from normal people, and, like your friend, I've found various ways to distract from or deaden the offending sensations.
As you might guess from my bringing up the topic, I am now learning to see my burden of bodily focus as a gift, and gradually to take up activities -- tai chi, dance, etc. -- in which it manifests as such. My first tai chi teacher, seeing how nervous and hunched-over I was in standing meditation, instructed me, "Enjoy being yourself."  I resented this advice, which seemed to be meant for someone who wasn't a monster. I don't know how I managed to follow it, but it has led me here. Perhaps it would help your friend to hear the same advice? |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Aug 27 2014 : 5:43:35 PM
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Solid, solid, solid comments from Jourdain. Keep stability and comfort at the forefront, and all else will fall into place.
It is helpful to remember that empathy is merely a wave on the surface of the oceanic Self, and that such vibrations do not fully encompass the depth or magnitude of our expansiveness. When I sit in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, it can be like a mud bath of friction and empathic pea soup, but with increased inner silence and grounding, I can slowly slip between the cracks and reside in the vast spaciousness which is even beyond empathy.
I love storytelling, but being unpeeled from the Velcro of identification is paramount, especially when navigating waters in which I am surrounded by heavily identified people. The unpeeling results in more fluidity and resilience, but it cannot be done in an escapist manner. There must be integration, which is an ongoing process that has fortunately smoothed out with time. Yogani recently said that self-pacing is moving from the school of hard knocks to "soft knocks". And so it is. 
 Love. Unity. Strength. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Aug 28 2014 : 07:44:51 AM
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On one level the empathetic gift is simply the growth towards unity-seeing all things as the same thing. On another the push away from unity is strong identification with self which is the opposite.
There is something in the ' goddess' description. No one is a God or Godess, thinking on an unconscious level that one has somehow attained this position is ego illusion. It is stronger than the illusion that one is 'enlightened' or 'attaining'. This is all just scenery but can sometimes be so incredibly attractive as to stall out further progress and is the sort of thing that can feel like being torn apart.
Pace, pace, ground, ground, pace, pace, ground, ground. If she doesn't then sooner or later the neutral hand of reality will ball into a fist. For some it can be a mild disappointment but for others it can be a traumatic shock that wastes considerable time and energy. |
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Here and Now
Spain
9 Posts |
Posted - Aug 29 2014 : 9:17:31 PM
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Thank you so much for your responses! My friend feels very grateful as well as myself.
We were reading and discussing them yesterday. We have come to see that overloading is just going faster than one is ready to handle, it doesn't have to manifest in physical sensations. Just the fear resulting from the experiences can be a sign of this occurring. And there is no need to suffer, no rush to remember more deeply our timeless nature. Pacing and grounding will be at the forefront of attention. And in doing so, hopefully she will be able to recite the mantra again (Jordain, this was only done during DM)
With regards to the empathy, thank you Jordain for sharing your story, same to you Bodhi Tree. It helps to feel less alone in that. This sensitivity is truly a gift, and should be celebrated. A beacon of light that reminds others that it is OK to feel deeply, that a heart doesn't break as a result but rather the contrary, an invitation to all to stop running from emotion and instead to understand more deeply who is experiencing those sensations.
Karl, we agreed with what you say. Thank you, it was helpful to identify certain stickiness in that thought. In the end it is all scenery. There are no Gods or Godesses except for one's identification with such a concept. Just one God that we "all" are, and even that is not the most essential truth.
In terms of the hypersensitivity to emotional energy fields, on one hand it is clear that in the end it must be dismissed as pure scenery. On the other, if identification with this scenery is still too high, does anyone know of certain techniques that could be practised to reduce permeability from time to time? Something that later on will also be dropped, but that might have less side effects than a numbing pill?
Thanks again to you all :) |
Edited by - Here and Now on Aug 29 2014 11:00:26 PM |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2014 : 12:11:26 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Here and Now
In terms of the hypersensitivity to emotional energy fields, on one hand it is clear that in the end it must be dismissed as pure scenery. On the other, if identification with this scenery is still too high, does anyone know of certain techniques that could be practised to reduce permeability from time to time? Something that later on will also be dropped, but that might have less side effects than a numbing pill?
Tonglen. http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/p...tonglen1.php
It uses breathing, awareness, and the inner light to filter and dissolve suffering in the energetic field.
A similar AYP practice is heart breathing, which is kind of the reverse of tonglen. Breathe in the liberation; breathe out the obstructions.
Peace be with both of you. Tranquility. Resilience. Versatility. |
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Mykal K
Germany
267 Posts |
Posted - Aug 30 2014 : 5:49:58 PM
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Yonatan
Israel
849 Posts |
Posted - Sep 07 2014 : 11:11:24 PM
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Hi Here and Now 
Regarding the hypersensitivity, I too am very sensitive to the surroundings and energy fields. I don't know if the same as your friend, maybe more toned down, but still I can feel the fields around me very acutely. I have a suggestion which is more new-age-y, but I feel it helps me. A psychic I talked to said that I was very "open" to everything around me and suggested that before I go out of my house I imagine a golden light around my body. It is meant to help me receive the high vibes and less the lower vibes from around me. I do it now for about a year and I think it helps. I know it is more new age thought but maybe it can help.
Much Love to you both and success on your paths!
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Here and Now
Spain
9 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2014 : 09:34:18 AM
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Thank you Bodhi Tree and Yonatan. I have just forwarded your suggestions to my friend.
Let's see how it goes!
Love to you all.
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First few days, scared at the tremendous effects
