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SuperTrouper
USA
49 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 26 2020 : 7:26:51 PM
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Good day, everyone.
I practiced AYP as it's taught about 5 years ago. My experience with it in the 3 months I practiced it were relatively profound. I stopped, because I reached what felt like a spiritual precipice. I'd been in that situation once before, when I was 21 (I'm 35 now) and had been practicing from "A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya" for about 7 months, and at that time had the courage to 'step over the ledge' and what I experienced on those two consecutive nights of meditation profoundly influenced my life ever since. But this time I did not have that courage, and let go of my AYP practices.
At the time of my first practice of the AYP system, though, I hacked away at the techniques for a couple months with little to show for it. DM, spinal breathing, sambhavi, mulabandha, siddhasana, a program of asana, kechari, and even the chin pump jalandhara. I know that that is technically a lot of stuff in a fairly short time, but most of these were not new to me, from my extensive experience with advanced yoga techniques from the coursebook I previously mentioned.
But when I added Samyama to my twice daily workload around the 3rd month, everything changed. I started to genuinely feel benefits from what I thought were the techniques. But I still didn't enjoy the DM technique as it was taught and spontaneously began modifying it so that it mimicked the methodology used in Samyama. Once I did that, DM reeeaaally took off, and within a month before I quite AYP, my life had become a radical experience all day long of highly unusual coincidences (some seemingly miraculous, given how unrealistic these frequent coincidences would've been in my normal life), a sense of being just a witness to experiences occurring at all moments, a deep well of internal silence, extraordinary mental clarity, a pervasive happiness/gratitude/pleasure, a feeling of emotional imperturbability, and a sense of unconditional goodwill towards others -- even my boss at the time, who was a cruel and deeply disliked tyrant in my department.
But I didn't quite piece together that 100% of the benefits, success, and progress I'd experienced came from Samyama and the DM-Samyama hybrid technique I'd made.
In the intervening years since, I attempted to practice AYP 3 or maybe 4 times without success. Always starting with the standard routine of DM, asanas, and adding SBP after awhile twice daily. But I always ended up frustrated that, not only was it not doing anything, but it actually seemed to be making life more difficult. I always gave up before adding Samyama.
But recently I decided to revisit AYP since the last attempt a couple years ago. Except, having had experience with much of the baseline system, I decided to completely do away with the parts that I never liked and didn't feel I was getting anything out of.
.... which left me with Samyama. And this time, the DM-Samyama hybrid modification I'd made at my first go at AYP. And it feels wonderful. I tried to add DM as it is taught here, and found that the way it made me feel and my distaste for it was still unchanged. And as for SBP, I don't know that it's genuinely necessary (for me). My experience with all forms of kriya-like techniques over the years, including from the book I mentioned, as well as ones from other systems, like Taoism, is that they are more a distraction. Energy DOES flow within those paths, but moving the attention through them purposefully has never given me anything but trouble. Not the kundalini kind of trouble, but rather dullness, anti-social personality changes, difficulty with being able to think intelligently and clearly, etc.
But because I've gone 'off the rails' of AYP to do my own thing with it that doesn't seem to have any precedence, I'm left to wonder if anyone else has done this, too. Or what other's thoughts might be regarding this?
Thanks for your time and thoughtful responses.  |
Edited by - SuperTrouper on Feb 26 2020 7:32:21 PM |
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Dogboy
USA
2192 Posts |
Posted - Feb 26 2020 : 9:46:05 PM
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I get a lot from the basic AYP practice, full mantra, just as it is, results do vary yogi to yogi. Samyama is the game changer, I’ll give you that  |
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SuperTrouper
USA
49 Posts |
Posted - Mar 02 2020 : 7:10:27 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dogboy
I get a lot from the basic AYP practice, full mantra, just as it is, results do vary yogi to yogi. Samyama is the game changer, I’ll give you that
See, that's what I thought the first time around. And the second and third.
And initially I tried it with the full mantra this 4th (or maybe 5th?) time around, but have come to conclude that it's only the methodology of samyama that does anything for me. And that's after having omitted everything but Samyama/DM-samyama hybrid, as well as trying a couple additional times to return to the standard DM. It's really more about the methodology of applying the mantra as samyama vs DM. If I practice DM the way that it's taught, I don't feel I really gain anything from it. But if I use the methodology of Samyama on DM (my samyama-DM hybrid), gently letting go of one syllable of i...am... every 10-15 seconds, then I get all the benefits of samyama while avoiding the drawbacks of DM. |
Edited by - SuperTrouper on Mar 02 2020 10:25:10 PM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4363 Posts |
Posted - Mar 03 2020 : 1:46:46 PM
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Hi Supertrouper,
It sounds as if you overloaded yourself with too many practices, too fast. Taking on all of those energetic practices in such a short space of time can quite easily result in energetic overload, even for experienced practitioners.
I would suggest going back to the beginning, and building up a full-scope practice gradually, taking much more time between adding on one practice and the next. Even adding one new practice each month would be considered fast.
It could be that you are still experiencing energetic overload from overdoing things before, in which case proceed carefully, maybe even beginning with breathing meditation, rather than with the mantra. You could have made yourself over-sensitive to the AYP mantras. Nadi Shoddhana can also be used instead of spinal breathing, if you find SBP too much.
See this lesson on working with over-sensitivity to practices:
Lesson 367 - Suggestions for Over-Sensitive Meditators
You may find the following 9 lesson additions useful as well. (Lesson additions 367.1 - 367.9)
Christi |
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SuperTrouper
USA
49 Posts |
Posted - Mar 03 2020 : 2:55:47 PM
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I appreciate it, but this isn't overload. I'm familiar with what that feels like in the context of different systems. This is just a better way of doing things. It works, directly, without all of the additional attachments. It is reminiscent of the flavor of the only times I've ever truly succeeded in meditation.
I was just seeing if anyone else had the same experience as me. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4363 Posts |
Posted - Mar 03 2020 : 4:00:37 PM
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Hi Supertouper,
The symptoms you are reporting- symptoms of "dullness, anti-social personality changes, difficulty with being able to think intelligently and clearly, etc." are symptoms of energetic overload, even though they may not be the symptoms of energetic overload that you are used to, or which you normally would associate with the term.
I wanted to point this out, because you may not be dealing with the issue in the most effective way. Samyama is not a silver bullet. No practice on its own is.
Of course, if you have found something that works for you, then that is also valid and can be explored. You may find this lesson useful:
Lesson 384 - Baseline Systems of Practice and Research on Modifications
Christi |
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kumar ul islam
United Kingdom
791 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2020 : 3:01:06 PM
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if the only thing you do is delay the mantra because you count or tend to pass a momentary amount of space between the repetition then this is just preliminary to what goes on after ,your not really using it as samyama as samyama comes after mantra use ,sometimes the mantra is fast sometimes slow ,non existent ,frictional ,depending on you ,your state your approach your intention belief etc ,in my experience mantra produces a state this carries on into normal life outside the practice ,sometimes good sometimes not so so good ,life happens it affects everything practice included ,bad boss bad weather ,bad president,the opposite also good food ,good children ,good nieghbours ,meditation is tool like any other pick it up,press its button ,drive fast slow ,the only rule is to repeat over and over and over again ,some doors close others open then close and open again . |
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Samyama Only?
