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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 28 2019 : 03:41:41 AM
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Hello everyone,
I am calling this thread "the middle years" taking the first 10 years of AYP to be the beginner years. I am now close to 13 years of AYP and moving into year 14. So how has it been?
The first 10 years were very stable, exciting with ever new experiences and perceived growth - ever new milestones. The middle years have so far been somewhat un-stable, oscillating between the higher centers and lower centres daily. The key enlightenment milestones make no sense anymore nor do I care. I struggle to maintain my once-a-day practices, never mind twice a day. It is all very routine and very boring. Bliss-filled days are rare and far between (that I can notice). Sessions do remain ecstatically blissful. My life has undergone (and still under-going) dramatic changes over the past three years. The feeling that one has in the beginning that one is shielded from life's dramas by the practices is gone. sh*t happens to me just as much as the next person; only I get to Witness it sitting from the audience (mostly). Aloneness is a common feeling.
On the very positive side, I have been blessed with brief experiences of complete ego-dissolution /no self and now have a grasp of what Truth is and the meaning of "eternal life". By the way, this carries with it its own set of psychological adjustments. It's not all Lala land. I am "freer", I suppose, than the next guy on the street but still far from Liberation.
In conclusion I am finding the middle years tough but do I regret setting out on this journey? Absolutely not.
Sey 
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sunyata
USA
1513 Posts |
Posted - Mar 28 2019 : 08:54:57 AM
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2019 : 01:19:01 AM
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Let me add some more meat to this little compte rendue. There is a feeling of amazement. I am amazed by everything. And amazed at my amazement. I see patterns in nature where there were none before. It is all very, very clever. I catch the sunrise rise in the morning and often it seems to be rising just for me. And this morning, I swear, it seemed to be rising within me.
Sey
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Christi
United Kingdom
4512 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2019 : 11:48:13 AM
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Hi Sey,
I am also in the middle years, if 10+ is the middle. 
And I certainly experienced the highs and lows of ecstasy that come with the opening of the higher centres. It is quite a journey and not always an easy one!
quote:
I catch the sunrise rise in the morning and often it seems to be rising just for me. And this morning, I swear, it seemed to be rising within me.
The sun certainly is rising just for you. That is obvious from reading the lessons that discuss the nature of the Self and other. But seeing it directly is a different matter. From lesson 333:
"The witness gives us great unifying power to promote this process in our daily practices, in the expansion of ecstatic conductivity, and particularly in samyama and relational self-inquiry, which act directly in dissolving the witness into unity. It can also be viewed as dissolving the world (our fabricated perception of it) into the witness. It is the same - a merging of Self with all, and all with Self. Then the separation goes." [Yogani]
And the sun is certainly also rising within you every day. That is discussed in lesson 350:
"What changes is our sense of self, our I-sense. It moves out slowly from the objects of perception into our emerging unbounded awareness. As it does, the initial duality between the witness and the objects of perception becomes gradually less dual and more non-dual. This means that the two gradually become One. With the loosening of identification of our awareness with the objects of perception, our sense of self expands to become increasingly universal, not tied to any particular object, but found to be underlying all objects. No longer self-identified with objects, but underlying them in a way that we no longer see ourselves as being in the world, but instead, the world being in us. At that time we are justified in replacing the small "s" with a big "S." We have gone from being a small identified self, to being the big universal Self. This is not philosophical. It is experiential. It is not a concept. It is a condition that we find ourselves in 24 hours per day." [Yogani]
Good things are happening! 
Christi |
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Dogboy
USA
2293 Posts |
Posted - Mar 30 2019 : 1:03:05 PM
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quote:
The key enlightenment milestones make no sense anymore nor do I care. I struggle to maintain my once-a-day practices, never mind twice a day. It is all very routine and very boring. Bliss-filled days are rare and far between (that I can notice). Sessions do remain ecstatically blissful. My life has undergone (and still under-going) dramatic changes over the past three years. The feeling that one has in the beginning that one is shielded from life's dramas by the practices is gone. sh*t happens to me just as much as the next person; only I get to Witness it sitting from the audience (mostly). Aloneness is a common feeling.
On the very positive side, I have been blessed with brief experiences of complete ego-dissolution /no self and now have a grasp of what Truth is and the meaning of "eternal life". By the way, this carries with it its own set of psychological adjustments. It's not all Lala land. I am "freer", I suppose, than the next guy on the street but still far from Liberation.
You insinuate in this first paragraph, the lack of care of milestones, the knowing you are detached but not shielded from suffering, and the sense of aloneness are negative things (as you start the next paragraph "On the positive side..."). I don't feel that is necessarily so. Your practice has led you to this buffer, and as we are born, meditate, and die with only ourselves, being comfortable with aloneness is a valuable operating system while carrying on in these meat suits of ours. Lalaland is overrated; Self awareness can be overshadowed in the pursuit of happiness and earthly comfort.
My practice (five and a half years in) has similar characteristics, ecstatically blissful sessions that fuel a mundane daily grind, but when drama arises in my outer world, the inner silence I have cultivated over time comes forth and allows me to see and know that I am not the drama, and act accordingly. The rise of the Witness, as subtle as it is, has made me a better human being, and has increased my capacity for empathy for those within my sphere. Did it not help you in the tragic loss of your son a few years ago?
Dear Sey, it has been a pleasure these many years to interact with you, your posts are always filled with observational nuggets of unvarnished truth. You may feel at times these middle years are tough, but there is freedom in the realization that it is not necessarily that. Were you drawn to AYP from a premature awakening (as many here are) or did AYP practice, like me, awaken ecstatic conductivity from scratch? |
Edited by - Dogboy on Mar 30 2019 1:04:30 PM |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 01 2019 : 06:41:28 AM
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@Christi - thank you for helping to put it into context of the lessons. Perhaps when I reach 20+ years, I will revise my yardstick to 20+ years = beginners years 
@Dogboy - that was a mixture of positive and negative all packed together within the natural flow of my expressing myself. You are right - no longer concern with milestones is a positive. Aloneness? Not so much. And indeed witnessing /dispassion was what helped me enormously with the loss of my son. The true negatives here are my struggles to stay stable and to keep at my daily practices. In-stability manifest in irrational fears and nightly visits by astral entities. And it must be mentioned that the in-stability was started by a very traumatic event but it's been over a year and I can still feel the impact.
A colleague introduced to AYP through the gift of the DM booklet. I had no previous experience of meditation nor kundalini awakening. I have practiced only AYP since (barr six months experiencing with Kriya Yoga alongside AYP). So I am truly a child of AYP. I am a perfectly normal, rational person from a reasonably healthy and happy childhood, never used any form of drugs. Work-wise, I come from an engineering /scientific background. I say all this to point out that I am a good sample on how effective AYP is.
Sey
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 01 2019 : 07:10:33 AM
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Another little story - I don't think I have shared this one with you guys before (apologies if I have, I am growing old )
I have often in the past talked about how meeting (and losing) my twin-flame was what triggered my awakening, leading me to AYP. There was another incident prior to that, that I did not consider nor realise its importance until a much later date. I believe my mother gave me give shaktipat upon her passing.
My mother (devout catholic) and I would often argue about God and life after death. In my opinion back then, there was no scientific evidence of either. And I would say to her - when you die, come back and tell/show me. On her death bed - she being barely conscious - I whispered in her ear, "It is ok to go. I love you. Remember your promise (to come back and tell me)" She mumbled her agreement. That night, I dozed in and out of sleep, naturally upset, expecting a phone call anytime. At about 11 p.m. "someone" hit me between the eye-brows, with a flick of the finger and inside my head, everything expanded and went still. I open my eyes knowing that my mother had passed. The phone call came 5 mins later.
Sey
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1734 Posts |
Posted - Apr 01 2019 : 08:54:02 AM
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Hello dear Sey Thank you for sharing.
quote:
Originally posted by SeySorciere
I struggle to maintain my once-a-day practices, never mind twice a day.
I have the same experience - self pacing on the edge... It's hard to draw the line between practice and daily life. I meditate while walking, I meditate through routine physical activities. Yesterday I had a two hour walk in blazing sunshine. It was beautiful. In the aftermath, I'm feeling fried. Like after a short circuit in the neurobiology.
quote:
Originally posted by SeySorciere
sh*t happens
It does. Dramas are playing out that were started a long time ago. Unconsciousness handed down the generations. Does it happen to me? Or to you? Well, I don't know.
Best wishes
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 04 2019 : 05:36:51 AM
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Sey |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Apr 04 2019 : 05:42:48 AM
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Christi
United Kingdom
4512 Posts |
Posted - Apr 04 2019 : 07:54:59 AM
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Hi Sey,
quote:
You are right - no longer concern with milestones is a positive. Aloneness? Not so much.
Interestingly, Sanskrit does not actually have a word which corresponds with enlightenment. There is nirvana, which means "without flame". There is also moksha, which means "liberated". There is jnani, which means "one who knows" and then there is kaivalya which means "alone".
It is a strange kind of aloneness though. At first it feels like a separation, but the more we begin to see the divine in everything and everyone around us and to recognise that as our own true nature, the more we see that it is an aloneness without any "other". So, it is not a separation, but a merging.
Once the stage of kaivalya begins to emerge, the path becomes more about service to others, than about where we are at on the journey. It becomes more about what we can give away in terms of our love and compassion and also in terms of our limiting ideas and attachments.
This is discussed in lesson 392:
Lesson 392 - The Aloneness of Enlightenment
There is more on this in lesson addition 426.2:
Addition 426.2 - Assigning Enlightenment Status
And lesson addition 333.1
Addition 333.1 - Is the Witness a Retreat from Life?
"The duality of witness and external perceptions is a normal stage that many have experienced. It can also be felt as a kind of separated aloneness, while life goes on quite normally on its own. The sense of duality will pass in time and we will continue on. It is an in-between stage where ego motivation is becoming less, and divine motivation is yet to pick up fully. It is the duality of witnessing." [Yogani]
It is also discussed on page 85 of the AYP book on Liberation:
"It is impossible not to fall completely and totally in love with this Self . We may call it God, or by any name that resonates with our perception of the divine. It is Self. It is God. In one way or other, it is the object of our bhakti, and has been the essence of our chosen ideal since the beginning. The bhakti we have experienced has always been an expression of That . We have never been alone. And now IT comes before us in fullness, expressing through the vehicle of our nervous system. The experiential recognition of this is a milestone in dissolving the limited self in the eternally joyous Self . We have been that in seed form all along, and by our dedication and effort, we can move beyond the witness stage and realize That in fullness." [Yogani]
It is one of the most beautiful stages of the path, if we can surrender ourselves to it.
Christi
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 05 2019 : 07:27:05 AM
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Thank you, Christi. It is all beautifully said by Yogani. And I recognize the truth of his words. Still, at the stage I'm in, it's a little like moving from childhood into teenage. When you're a child, you can't wait to become an adult but as you move into adulthood, a sadness lingers at losing the innocence of your childhood. 
A sadness lingers at losing the individuality of my loved ones, my relationships. I am not quite there yet but I fear this.
Sey |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4512 Posts |
Posted - Apr 05 2019 : 08:04:33 AM
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Hi Sey,
quote:
A sadness lingers at losing the individuality of my loved ones, my relationships. I am not quite there yet but I fear this.
Don't worry, you won't lose anything. You can't. Not anything that is real at any rate.
Everything that is real remains, especially love. It expands to encompass everything and everyone, including yourself.
One day you will look back and laugh and laugh!
Christi |
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Dogboy
USA
2293 Posts |
Posted - Apr 05 2019 : 8:46:10 PM
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2019 : 02:47:47 AM
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quote:
.... and then there is kaivalya which means "alone".
But “We” never liked being alone in the first place, isn’t that the whole reason for this circus of life? 
I look forward to the day that I will laugh and laugh. I look forward to the day that I will open my eyes in the morning and not groan at having to get up and go to work. I look forward to the day that I will live life fully and joyfully un-hindered by thoughts of material insecurity and anxiety.
Anyone living like that right now?
What I can do is retreat into my Self and let go /be at peace when I realize the little dramas of the day is getting to me. But there is a difference between being spontaneously joyous in every moment and retreating to safe grounds when you realize you are getting too engaged / attached to things going a particular way.
Sey |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4512 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2019 : 04:59:14 AM
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Hi Sey,
quote:
But “We” never liked being alone in the first place, isn’t that the whole reason for this circus of life?
We "think" we don't like being alone, because we don't know who we really are. If we knew that, then we would know that we could never be alone. It is just an illusion. Like looking at a rope in a dark room and thinking it is a dangerous snake. It isn't and it never was. It was always just a rope. In the sdame way, the concept of "separation" is simply a trick of the mind. Possibly the greatest trick ever created and the cause of all of the suffering in the world. Seeing through this trick is the goal of yoga and the cause of liberation (moksha).
But it has to be done one step at a time, and can only be achieved through practice and patience. Practice every day, but do remember to self-pace continuously and to remain grounded through daily grounding practices such as walking. Gradually attachments and false identifications with the objects of the mind will fall away naturally. This is the stage of viveka, or discrimination between what is real and what is not real. Then, more and more, we find ourselves to be simply residing in the Self, as the Self. This is the stage of vairagya. But the whole process cannot be forced and has to come at the right time, when we are ready.
There is more on this process here:
Lesson 327 - The Evolutionary Stages of Mind
There is a natural expansion of the samyama effect that happens during this stage in the journey. As we develop the ability to release things into silence during our samyama practice sessions, we find that we are able to do that just as easily with issues or difficulties that arise during the day. Some issue or thought or memory will arise, that we would normally have become attached to, or trapped by, but instead of getting attached to it, we realise that we have a choice. We can choose to get attached, or we can equally choose to simply release it into stillness. Usually, the second option is the one which does not lead to suffering. The first option, usually does. When we begin to see which choice leads to suffering and which does not, then we find that we are naturally always choosing to let things go into stillness because it is the path of joy. So, samyama is actually one of the highest practices in yoga, leading naturally and spontaneously to liberation.
The gradual expansion of samyama into daily living is discussed in chapter 4 of the Samyama book:
Samyama- Chapter 4: Stillness in action.
Christi |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2019 : 08:51:23 AM
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Thank you dear Christi for making time to always respond to my meandering experiences. It is much appreciated. It is good to know you (and other good souls) are always at hand to provide feedback and guidance.
Sey |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4512 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2019 : 09:20:37 AM
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Jun 07 2019 : 03:23:30 AM
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Dear all,
I would like to share another phenomenon that I am noticing. In the past year, I have found myself "in conflict" with my work colleagues more than ever before in my working life. I seem to rub a few persons up the wrong way. But often "I" (ego) am not even present - if you catch my drift. I feel like a mirror, just mirroring what is there. And that seems to be the trouble.
I feel I have grown in patience and listening.
But feel so Alone sometimes.
Sey
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sunyata
USA
1513 Posts |
Posted - Jun 07 2019 : 3:41:12 PM
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| Hugs dear Sey. |
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Dogboy
USA
2293 Posts |
Posted - Jun 07 2019 : 8:48:52 PM
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| The life as a mirror doesn't seem all that bad, reflect away! |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Jun 08 2019 : 08:58:07 AM
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| I'll read the whole thread later. Got no advice. I just love you, Sey. |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Jun 09 2019 : 01:50:17 AM
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Thank you all
Sey |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Jul 12 2019 : 04:54:59 AM
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Karma... Unfathomable karma
Oft, self dissolve and only clarity of purity remains. Nothing there at all. Then I sit in meditation and I see this tangled mess of darkness and I wonder - what am I looking at? Is that still me? Still so much clearing out of stuff to do? How come one moment I can be pure, the next messed up? Or is it Cosmic karma that I am seeing? That we all have to keep working at?
Any thoughts?
Sey |
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uniath
Finland
30 Posts |
Posted - Jul 12 2019 : 06:50:03 AM
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Cosmic karma.. this reminds me of an experience I had in the early days of my awakening. I had just devoured through AYP lessons and my bhakti was at an all time high.
One night, in a dream state, I realized that I am awake. I don't exactly remember what the dream scenario was, but anyways, I decided to sit down and do spinal breathing. I was almost immediately drawn out of my third eye and suddenly my awareness was roaming in cosmic regions; all the while feeling those ecstatic sensations in my sleeping body.
So yes, I believe the simple practices we do here impact not just the self, but the Self. |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Jul 12 2019 : 07:34:27 AM
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quote:
Karma... Unfathomable karma
Oft, self dissolve and only clarity of purity remains. Nothing there at all. Then I sit in meditation and I see this tangled mess of darkness and I wonder - what am I looking at? Is that still me? Still so much clearing out of stuff to do? How come one moment I can be pure, the next messed up? Or is it Cosmic karma that I am seeing? That we all have to keep working at?
Any thoughts?
Sey
Isn't an open heart receiving everything that is?
quote:
So yes, I believe the simple practices we do here impact not just the self, but the Self.
I use the AYP heart-breathing practice during some daily moments. Since Love became my Ishtha, this practice feels as a doorway for Healing. Breathing in the Love of the Universe and breathing out, letting go the suffering of all beings.....
Lokah, Samastah, Sukhino, Bhavantu |
Edited by - Charliedog on Jul 12 2019 11:15:56 AM |
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The Middle Years
