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qspadone
31 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 03 2024 : 3:02:01 PM
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So, this is it for me, guys.
Trying to get the DM procedure right through daily practice over the last couple of months has nearly destroyed everything that I hold dear in my life.
Let me explain.
Rarely have I ever felt as lonely, out of wreck, and unstable as since I have started trying to get the DM procedure right. I nearly lost my job, my marriage and many others things.
I have found another practice which works wonders, and that is not the Deep Meditation as taught by Yogani.
Eckhart Tolle puts it simply: The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. |
Edited by - qspadone on Jul 03 2024 3:08:34 PM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4520 Posts |
Posted - Jul 03 2024 : 5:27:18 PM
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quote:
So, this is it for me, guys.
Trying to get the DM procedure right through daily practice over the last couple of months has nearly destroyed everything that I hold dear in my life.
Let me explain.
Rarely have I ever felt as lonely, out of wreck, and unstable as since I have started trying to get the DM procedure right. I nearly lost my job, my marriage and many others things.
I have found another practice which works wonders, and that is not the Deep Meditation as taught by Yogani.
Eckhart Tolle puts it simply: The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life.
Hi Qspadone,
Sorry to hear about the difficulties you have been having. You did write a post a couple of weeks back saying that you had cut Spinal Breathing and Samyama out if your practice for self-pacing reasons and were down to only Deep Meditation. But you were asking at that time what would be the best practice to add to your daily routine in order to increase your practices again, so I assumed that you were stable, or at least had the situation in hand.
It does sound as if you have not been self-pacing as needed. If anything is happening in your practice that is uncomfortable then you need to be self-pacing downwards and if you still feel uncomfortable then you need to cut back more. The bottom limit is zero, meaning no practices at all. You certainly should not be in a state where your life is falling apart and you are still trying to work out how Deep Meditation works! You should have self-paced to zero long before anything like that happens.
If you find yourself in a similar situation with spiritual practices in the future, then cut back and keep cutting back, until you find a stable level of practice, and at the same time increase daily grounding practices to keep yourself stable and balanced.
This is a video I filmed for YouTube on managing a painful kundalini awakening.
https://youtu.be/uFzmaLQ7mw0?si=aW4NAfOrRFgpICzN |
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qspadone
31 Posts |
Posted - Jul 03 2024 : 10:35:22 PM
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I?m currently 27 yo.
I smoked a lot of weed in my late teenage years and into my mid twenties. I don?t know why I kept smoking; I quickly developped regular panick attacks, and paranoiac type of symptoms when high.
I tried mushrooms and LSD a couple of times and had major, profound spiritual experiences.
The last time I smoked weed, I did it 24/7 for about 3 weeks, still engaging in daily activities, going to work, driving, ? This was a year or two ago.
I took a lot of other drugs too: MDMA, cocain, ?
I did a lot of excesses when it comes to alcohol, too.
I was in recovery for sexual compulsive behavior for a couple of years, recently.
My partner is an active alcoholic.
Anyway, my 12 Step sponsor at the same kept pushing me to do more and more spiritual practices, to the point of turning every self-centered thought into a God-centered thought.
At that point my main relationships were still a complete disaster.
I believe my first spontaneous kundalini awakening happened while on a trip with my brother and dad. Being with them has always been extremely difficult with all the abuse (physical, sexual) that went on after my mom died of cancer at age 12. I was bullied at school, too.
I believe this was a spontaneous spiritual awakening because my mind suddenly went quiet and this lasted for a solid several weeks. I barely got any sleep during that time and spent more than 10 hours a day doing automatic yoga. Most of the advanced techniques (mudras, bandhas, ?) described in the AYP lessons happened by themselves during that time. I was not engaged in AYP at the time this happened. The only experience I had with AYP prior to that was approximately 5 years prior, where I did asanas, SPB and DM for a solid six months. It did not go well and I had to stop all practices, unfortunately. Back to the spontaneous spiritual awakening: I remember calling a 12-Step fellow whose first reaction was: ?dude, don?t forget to engage in the world and keep grounded?. Around that time, and still with no AYP routine whatsoever (I was however engaging almost 24/7 in a practice which you could call body scan, where I would try to flood my inner body with attention, sometimes without a specific location, sometimes with a specific one), I experienced what I believe was a heart chakra opening. Unending waves of pleasure were coming out of my chest. It reminded me of the feeling you get after taking ecstasy pills. Intense sh*t. It stopped by itself, I think. This happened after I specifically targeted my heart chakra with sustained attention for long periods of time. I wanted to learn about chakras at the time and spent all day targeting all of them, trying to find them, and amplify the energy sensations where I thought they were. Now, I had some pretty positive results but it was too chaotic and I began to think this lacked structure.
Few months later, I believe I had a crown opening. I was engaged in structure AYP practice, at that time. I remember that from the day I started doing structured AYP, it has been nearly impossible to find any sort of steady result or stability. I have yet been unable to completely quit practicing, as I am afraid that if I stop practicing, my ego will remain a block to the life that I want to live. I have a really tough job which requires me to be focused in front of a screen for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and it has been close to impossible to find serenity in it. The reasons I do spiritual practices is to get rid of my ego. I don?t see myself stopping. So, here?s the deal: when I seek God, I experience things which are uncomfortable, and when I don?t, my ego is in the way of the life that I want to live. I have been unable to find middle ground. I meditated for 2 minutes the other day and my head was filled with energy and I felt completely separated from the world. Other times when I go to work, despite the morning meditation, this ball of stress eats me from within. It lasted a week, last time. The following week-end I did SPB and DM and was bed-ridden for two whole days and the only thing which relieved me was to concentrate on my inner energetic field and feel it until all energy dissolved. This is what I currently do. It brings me more peace and serenity than any AYP practice.
I have so much anxiety that I have been prescribed xanax, twice, over the past two months. Mainly because of work burn-outs.
Everything scares me. But I have always been like that. I can?t say it?s all because of AYP. The reason I?m seeking God in the first place is to be rid of my fears and insecurities.
So, back to this practice that I currently do: this is the only thing which brings me peace and serenity, and helps me engage in the world in a sane way. I don?t know why, I don?t know how it works, I just know that it helps. This is the technique that I described earlier, when I flood my inner energetic body with attention. I can do this continuously, all day. Maybe this is grounding my energies, I don?t know.
At other times, I?ll let go completely and not even do this practice, but I?ll still experience a lot of uncomfortable things such as head pressure, eye pressure, automatic sambhavi, automatic asanas, ? maybe I just haven?t given enough time off practices. There?s something in my, maybe a fear, which keeps bringing me back to them sooner than I probably should. This fear that without the practices, I won?t be able to cope with the harshness of the world and its demands upon me. I need something to protect me, and this is why I use those practices. I don?t know. Just trying to make sense of what?s happened, and keep happening. This loop which I?m stuck in.
I tried for a few days to follow what Yogani talks in Lesson 367:
If structured sitting by the clock with the passive awareness technique is still causing too much purification and discomfort, then you can step back from the sittings altogether, and simply notice what is impacting your awareness during daily activity, and gradually learn to allow it to go as it will without excessive judgment or attachment. This is more in the realm of self-inquiry, where there is no intention to do anything with mind or awareness, except noticing impressions as they occur and allowing life to proceed according to its own flow. In that, we can come to know that all is happening as it should. This is the least proactive of all the styles of meditation and, in fact, is not a structured form of meditation at all. But it is a practice, or a way of looking at the world that can be cultivated with beneficial results over time.
However, I was hoping that this would finally bring about the stillness in action which he talks about, yet nothing got done at work that week. It then triggered some fears of getting fired, and I felt compelled to start the DM routine again.
Something else I thought I would mention: I found a lot of peace in doing ujjayi breathing while engaged in daily activity. I took it to the point where I would do it all day, several days in a row. There was also periods of time where I kept my awareness of my breath, all day, for several days in a row.
I think that I want to escape so bad the suffering my mind creates that I do not have any problem whatsoever doing practices around the clock. I even tried holding the mantra in my mind for hours and hours on end. |
Edited by - qspadone on Jul 04 2024 01:09:29 AM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4520 Posts |
Posted - Jul 04 2024 : 10:58:06 AM
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Hi Qspadone,
It sounds as if you have quite a complex history with possible drug abuse, a possible drug induced premature kundalini awakening, repeatedly practising to excess and attempting to micro-manage the activation of chakras. It also sounds as if the drugs and the excessive practices have induced a premature crown opening. That can be quite destabilising and the instability resulting from that can go on for a long time.
So far, what you have been doing has not been AYP practice. AYP practice involves self-pacing downwards whenever needed and engaging in grounding practices as needed. This includes self-pacing to zero whenever necessary. There is nowhere in the AYP lessons that says that if you are worried about your ego, you do not need to self-pace to zero.
So, what you have been doing up until now has been your own experiment. And it sounds as if it is not working very well. The practice you are currently using of bringing your attention to your inner body sounds as if it may be helping to ground you. However, that practice does not have a good history of providing stability over the long term. It can become energising. That is why it is not listed in lesson 69 as a grounding practice. So, that is something to be careful about going forward.
To practice AYP properly you would need to wait until you are stable and then introduce practice gradually in a measured way, always self-pacing downwards as needed and stopping practices all together if necessary. |
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AYPforum
351 Posts |
Posted - Jul 04 2024 : 11:10:10 PM
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| Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement |
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qspadone
31 Posts |
Posted - Jul 22 2024 : 06:49:39 AM
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So, it turns out that the technique where I bring attention to my inner energetic body did not work at all and brought about more problems.
You're absolutely right in saying that I have been doing my own experiment.
I think that what I have been unknowningly looking for is effective ways to ground myself.
I'm a bit confused as to why one needs to ground themselves on top of doing spiritual practices. Like, why isn't meditation grounding? Shouldn't spiritual practices be grounding by essence? Isn't that what an awakening is, being permanently grounded?
I probably should go and read the lessons again. I'd probably find a lot of answers.
Are there any lessons which you think I should prioritize?
In the meantime, I'll take your advice, hoping that I can find stability again.
Thank you. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4520 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2024 : 4:55:03 PM
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Hi qspadone,
I would suggest reading again from the beginning of the lessons, and pay special attention to anything on self-pacing.
Be sure to review lesson 367 which contains advice for oversensitive meditators:
I would strongly suggest not to use any grounding practices that are not included in the main AYP lessons. The internet is awash with suggested spiritual grounding practices, but often the people suggesting them do not have a lot of experience with the process of spiritual awakening. They are simply recommending the latest thing that they have discovered on their own path, without waiting to find out if it works for others, or even for themselves. |
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qspadone
31 Posts |
Posted - Jul 26 2024 : 8:30:22 PM
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Hi Christi,
Thanks again for your reply.
I have a question: where is the crown chakra located exactly? Is it associated to any physical part of the body? |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4520 Posts |
Posted - Jul 27 2024 : 1:34:05 PM
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Hi qspadone
The crown chakra is located as a point of light in the middle of the head, in the centre of the brain. It radiates upwards from there in a cone shape. By the time its energetic radiance moves through the skull on the top of the head it is already several centimetres wide. Then it expands more as it radiates above the top of the head.
It is related to the pineal gland. |
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qspadone
31 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2024 : 5:19:04 PM
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Thanks for that explanation Christi.
Edit: I seriously need to stop doing anything spiritual and ground, ground, ground. This is the real difficulty for me: letting go of spiritual practices. |
Edited by - qspadone on Aug 02 2024 09:59:40 AM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4520 Posts |
Posted - Aug 02 2024 : 9:57:10 PM
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Hi qspadone,
Try to see grounding practices as spiritual practices, because they are. They are some of the most important practices we need on the path to enlightenment. |
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qspadone
31 Posts |
Posted - Sep 09 2024 : 10:54:40 AM
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jzatopa
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2024 : 8:44:43 PM
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qspadone I have done a very large amount of trauma healing and this is part of what you are working on in these practices. My own path to a full awakening following meeting God included healing my trauma. This took the form of sitting in meditation 2-3 hours a day after work (when things were their worst) and smoking a small amount of weed and meditating into the most painful experiences of my life over and over again. I now teach this as climbing down the tree of fear but previously I called it taking a mental sh*t (despite the fact it's also an emotional and physical experience as well.
What's happening in your yoga is that the somatics and patterns from your experience to this point of existence is causing friction. To become healed one must let go of all story, and allow the yoga to change who we are and how we respond to things from a pained reactive or hurt place, to one of healthy wholeness. This takes time and practice and somethings that help are things like emotional release tools, neo-tantra with a partner (sacred sexual healing the shaman method is the book I recommend), massage, exercise and journaling. There are more tools, and if you want an outline, I'd be happy to make one.
The way the meditation works is that all you have to do is touch inside where you are hurt, recognize it's root and allow the meditation to continue. So for example, my boss was actively trying to get me fired. I was upset and it hurt but why. Sure the Job loss would hurt but what else was in there, I had had other jobs, I have had great and ungreat bosses....so what was the root of my pain. In that meditation the next layer that came up (and it just comes up as we sit with the discomfort with the intention of getting to the root) was that I wasn't feeling valued, I was doing good work and being treated bad, I got my sense of self worth from the work I did and the community at work I loved. But I could be valued somewhere else, I could do different work and I could learn to see my self worth born out of something else....eventually you get to the root and its that I was feeling abandoned by someone/something I cared about (core wound). Sometimes this meditation would become visual and I would pull things out of me or move things. I did this for a year day in and day out at my worst after a long life of abuse and other things that had been part of my life. By the end, it all released.
If you do this, you can be sober, the pot just helped me feel deeper into things that hurt and allowed my creativity to open when I was closed. I do not recommend it except if it is required to even sit and feel.
I hope this helps you - also this site, when read to yourself in the mirror or to others can help the process much like the hoponoonono - Churchofinfinitelove.com
If you need more, I'm on here on occasion and I can always be reached on my site jameszatopa.com |
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Giving up on AYP
