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Blanche
USA
859 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 15 2020 : 08:41:03 AM
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Hi Nirguna,
The Inner Silence is the silence in which you dissolve during meditation. It is the underlying ground of Being, a stillness that is unshakable, a peace that embraces you, where everything is ok just the way it is. It is a peace in which you recognize yourself. It is the Silent Self of everyone. It is here now, and the spiritual practices enliven and awake it. It is beyond the edge of mind. It is the silent pure awakeness, pure consciousness.
You could think about the mind as a glass of water. The thoughts are moving the water, distorting its transparency. You cannot do something to still the water, you cannot press on the water to stop its movement - and you cannot push the thoughts away to still the mind. When you stop touching the glass, when you let the mind settle, the water in the glass comes to stillness by itself. In the same way, to get to stillness it is not a doing, but a letting go. When everything is still, it is not that you see transparent water in a glass – everything becomes transparent. You see that what you are is not only the still water in the glass – you are everything: the glass, the water, and everything outside them. When the mind is still, it becomes transparent, so transparent that it disappears and the consciousness sees itself.
You have already got excellent advice, so it may be hard to get any more hints. It seems that you have had an extended practice, so adding more to it may not be useful. I generally advise not to engage in practices that you do not find useful. If samyama or inquiry do not work for you, it is fine to put them aside for now. The main practice is deep meditation, and it can take you all the way. The spiritual transformation is less a doing and more an undoing.
Going on this path without an open heart brings a rather dry sparse experience of the pure bliss consciousness. Focusing more of the heart will help. Service to others is service to our higher Self. Allow yourself to be the tool of the inner silence in this world. Heart breathing helps to clear the heart chakra. The shatkarmas (cleaning techniques), a vegetarian diet, and practicing ahimsa (non-violence) help to refine the inner senses for a riches inner life.
The guru is in you.
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Nirguna
Australia
57 Posts |
Posted - Nov 15 2020 : 09:01:06 AM
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Blanche, Thank You. Your words are like a nectar. I will re-read them often, until they sink to cellular level and beyond.    |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4369 Posts |
Posted - Nov 15 2020 : 3:34:30 PM
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Hi Nirguna,
quote:
My understanding of inner silence is absence of thought procesess, but maybe I am wrong. I don't know yet.
The mantra, thoughts and inner silence can all exist simultaneously. It is a bit like with a room which has furniture in it. We tend to notice the furniture and the other objects in the room. But in fact, most of the room will be empty space and it is the space which allows us to be in the room and notice the objects. It is the same with the mind. The mind is in fact almost entirely silent. But we tend to notice the objects in the mind: Thoughts, feelings, memories, sensory perceptions and so on. As the mind begins to become more still through meditation, we start to notice the silence more, the space around thoughts. We also start to notice that thoughts and emotions arise and pass away, without the need to identify with them. This is the rise of inner silence/ the witness.
Inner silence can also be without thoughts. And thoughts can come and go, whilst inner silence remains.
Christi |
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Blanche
USA
859 Posts |
Posted - Nov 18 2020 : 07:32:24 AM
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dietarydongguan
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - Nov 23 2020 : 07:04:09 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Christi
Hi Sey,
Yes, certainly a beginner could not do that safely.
This topic is an example of an intermediate level practitioner, who at that time had an 80 minute practice, twice a day.
Christi
Hi Christi, thanks for looking up this here, my niece who's just starting would need the guide you posted on this link. :) |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4369 Posts |
Posted - Nov 23 2020 : 07:18:43 AM
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Hi Dietarydonguan,
The practice routine linked to there is more of an intermediate level routine, suitable for someone who has spent many months or years building up their practice gradually. It would not be safe for a beginner to use a practice routine like that.
If your niece has just started out, then she would be best to begin with 20 minutes of meditation twice each day and gradually build up from there, following the instructions in the main lessons. I am assuming that your niece is over 16 years old.
Christi |
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zamolxes
Romania
93 Posts |
Posted - Dec 01 2020 : 8:08:56 PM
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Hello everyone, I'm happy too see so much struggle for the beyond and I hope my case could be of some help.
For me, since my childhood I have been acting as a witness, I would rather watch things happen than have a reaction. This attitude was even better while in my mind. A child would not force his thoughts, would not supress them and would not avoid them. Bu a child did something with them.
I suddenly came aware of the thinking, I had a tendency to trace them back towards the first one. This was me acting as a witness rather than a thinker. Oher times after becoming aware of thinking I would watch and see when would I forget what I was thinking about, having the impression that I would die with it. These peculiar happenings smoothened my current practices a lot, and I would reccomend retunring to a child attitude to those who see no improvement. The innocence and naturalness of children brings creativity in spiritual practices.
Another thong would have been some special sensations that I felt, as if some peculiar realms flowing in my awareness and yet completely unrelated to me. These sensations sometimes came with very familiar images or feelings, as if I was living two lives a the same time.
Again, diferent dimensions of perception would in a way showcase the underlying inner silence, so trying to observe something out of yourself may help in leaving behind your current predicament, as if forgetting it.
The next event came when I was 16, there was one night before sleeping when I imagined myself to be a drop of water, and so falling down from a waterfall and merging with the river. Unaware of myself I actually merged with a free flowing river whit my entire being. I opened myself to an unimaginable vastness of ecstasy and bliss, and something in me pushed for it, as if that was it, the goal, the secret.. this would be my kundalini awakening, coming unexpectedly to a boy unaware of spiritual matters.
After 2 years of not having contact with any spiritual matters, some events in my life made it so, that either I picked up spiritual practices or turn crazy. And so, in my first year the only thing I did was breathe, not daring to look into my mind. Since morning to night I would mostly be aware of that. Combined with non-dualism teachings I slightly tortured myself haha. But it did help, I wasn't pursuing too much, I was just trying to see myself, the outcome would have been to become the Self.
Then the ayp teachings came into my life, and in 3 or 4 months I was doing samyama pretty naturally. And yet this advanncement gave me too much hopes and pride. This would be the opposite of Nirguna. And yet I found out from all this experiences that the leap in spiritual development doens't really come from practices, but from chance. Truth, as said by Krishnamurti, is a pathless land, and when you least want to arrive somewhere, that is when It shows itself.
My current practices come and go as they pleased, I almost never had a routine, and yet I almost never miss them. Sometimes I feel the need to do them, almost naturally fallin in meditation without notice, then I do some spinal breathing, going with it up and inside myself and almost out of the tip of my head, then down with the breath as if hugging the earth. I do it until I feel it has s#232;rved its purpose, sometimes it may be 2 minutes sometimes 10 and sometimes not doing it. Then I sit in silence, or rather I let meditation happen, merging with with the surrounding and underlying radiant silence. Sometimes this is enough to release a fair ammount of obstructions, and in that opennes, the sensations coming from the process allows the silence to appear inside of the process. If I'm not there yet I chant mantras of ayp, depending on how aggressive or smooth the process develops I use a simpler or a complex mantra. Sometimes I combine them with some others (the most effective is Om ah hung Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hung). Sometimes I don't use the mantra at all.
After being with the process I begin Samyama to dissolve the obstructions from the inside out. If there is something stubborn I let my mind show me the corresponding content and then formulate a sutra that would make the content whole and so dissolve.
The practices time range from 5 minutes to 40 minutes. If the process is aggresive I then let my mind run free to release the tension. While in activity I sometimes travel through my imagination or sometimes be one with my breath and with the work I do, simply flowing. I also realese the tension playing the guitar, allowing my hand to dance as they please. Sometimes I write, summoning the joy and inspiration that resulted from the practices into whatever words best hold the feelings.
From these you may see that the spiritual game is one with our everyday life, one in which we surrender and let happen. The case of Nirguna seems to be either one in which there are some complicated obstructions, or the desire for advancement has become the obstruction.
At this point there is nothing else you can do, maybe try not doing anything? There only room to inquire, into what you practice, what you search for. What is it? Inquire and surrender. Turn your plateau into frustration, and your frustation into desire. And inquire into this desire. Who is it that feels it?
And so the observer is the observed, and you shall find that you are observation itself.
One dies as he lives, one lives as he's dead.
A child is born, the cries of the wolves, the falling of the stars, the ineffable splendour of the moon. Through the cries of nature the newborn moves, as a ripple through water. The child grows up as a tree does. A mirror his eyes, from which the world sees itself. A single light, and one with darkness.
This child laughs as he cries, for his eyes have seen the end of winter. He cries a tear of sadness for each one of joy, for he has seen autumn.
This man has lived the earth, as each sunrise and sunset, so his soul cries for heaven, and heaven he shall reach in his eternal quest. A mountain as his abode, and as a turtle's his steps. And yet who could tell which goes further, the horizon or man?
Sorry for the long post haha, keep at it everyone, I pray for you.
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Nirguna
Australia
57 Posts |
Posted - Dec 02 2020 : 01:09:55 AM
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Zamolxes.
Thank you for sharing.
Its nice to see your view which seems to me opposite side of spectrum from my experience. I see beauty in it even though it is soo far. I would appreciate grace bestow me little of your sensitivity. I am that sturdy rock on the shore witnessing and admiring graceful falling drop that merges with the river.
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Edited by - Nirguna on Dec 02 2020 01:59:23 AM |
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kensbikes100
USA
192 Posts |
Posted - Dec 23 2020 : 08:18:58 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Christi
Hi Sey,
Purification is different for everyone and changes over time for an individual person. People who are under sensitive can practice for longer periods of time, whilst people who are oversensitive need shorter practices to achieve the same results. And as someone progresses on the path, they can (and usually do) become more sensitive to spiritual energy, and so can and should reduce their practice times accordingly. I have known advanced practitioners who have become so sensitive to spiritual energy that they only did two breaths of spinal breathing in each sitting. That was as much activation of prana as they needed and then they would go into meditation. No advanced pranayama at all. So, longer sittings are certainly not necessarily an indication of how far someone is on the path.
And in terms of being stable, everyone can self-pace their own practice as necessary. If someone is not feeling stable, then they can reduce their practice times, and the number of their practices, and keep reducing them, until they reach a stable level. And that can mean self-pacing to zero for a time if necessary. But self-pacing to zero is only a last resort, and when it is necessary, it is usually only because someone did not cut back on timings, when early indications of overload started to appear.
Christi
Christi and Sey,
I am getting older and perhaps memory is not what it was, but I know we talk about overpracticing as a sign that better self-pacing is needed.
But what is meant by "stable/unstable"? Where could I find a good presentation of what that means within AYP? I'm retired now and so I'm able to maintain focus on actually meditating regularly. A general definition based on psychological science can imply very dire consequences, so I think AYP means something different.
One thing I've discovered is that ecstatic conductivity is greater than it was when I returned ot meditation, between 5 and 10 years ago. It's especially strong if I do pranayama before DM. And if I practice before bed sometimes I sleep less. This by itself can have negative consequences.
So, I'm curious. |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1532 Posts |
Posted - Dec 26 2020 : 12:08:14 AM
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Dear Ken,
It is not over-practicing that you should watch out for - as seen in Nirguna’s case, there is no point of over-practicing for her - but rather over-loading from practices which leads to instability. And some people can become un-stable with just 5 mins of DM. Hence the classification of under-sensitive (the former) and over-sensitive (the latter). Symptoms from over-loading are varied from physical ones like headaches, irritation, skin rash to emotional/psychological ones like paranoia, irrational fears and depression. It can be too hyped to sleep /insomnia to too sluggish, fuzzy headed to get up. All of these need adjustment in practice time or need of grounding or less /more of one particular practice (a dance between ratio of energetic practices to DM )
I hope this answer is useful
Sey
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Christi
United Kingdom
4369 Posts |
Posted - Dec 26 2020 : 07:22:41 AM
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Hi Ken,
The key word in AYP, when it comes to measuring whether or not your practice is stable, is "comfortable". If things are happening which are uncomfortable, then this is a sign to self-pace your practice downwards.
If your practice is making it difficult to sleep, then this can also be uncomfortable, and would be an indication to self-pace. If you are meditating after dinner, or close to your bedtime, then a simple solution could be to move your meditation to before you eat. Food has a stabilising and grounding effect. Having a period of activity between meditation and sleep will also help.
If you do need to self-pace your practice downwards, then it is also a good idea to make sure you are getting sufficient rest at the end of meditation, and making sure that you are remaining grounded during the day, when off the mat. Quite often, a slight reduction in practice times, combined with increased rest and increased grounding activities can be sufficient to bring things back into balance.
Self-pacing is not covered in one place in the lessons, but is scattered throughout the lessons, with constant reminders.
See especially these lessons and lesson additions:
Lesson 15 - Restlessness in Meditation
Addition 15.2 - Picking Up the Mantra - Easy Versus Too Much Strain
Lesson 69 - Kundalini Symptoms, Imbalances and Remedies
Lesson 125 - Kundalini Heat
See also the topic index on self-pacing and grounding.
Christi
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Practice duration
