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Zelebe
Netherlands
35 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 04 2007 : 08:07:52 AM
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At the moment, I'm in the not much happening phase, just passed the headache phase  At least, things (emotional) that happen during the day I don't connect to the practice.
Spinal breathing pranayama and deep meditation are going well; no headaches or whatsoever afterwards. During meditation I loose the mantra, get sucked and absorbed in imagery. At this moments I loose sense of my body. When I realize I lost the mantra, I go back repeating it and regain sense of my body and surroundings again. |
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Richard
United Kingdom
857 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2007 : 09:26:39 AM
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HI Zelebe.
Sounds like you are doing great 
I take it by your topic title you have read this Lesson.
Lesson 14 - Meditation Q&A – Not much Happening
Just keep cracking on the way you are by what you are experiencing at the moment I would say everything is coming together perfectly 
All the best Richard
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Zelebe
Netherlands
35 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2007 : 11:09:36 AM
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Hi Richard, yeah read the lesson, thanks for your response. It's that I envy people that feel moving all around energies in their body, I'm feeling nothing  But meditation is pleasant and sometimes I also have sensations already (heel that is closest to the perineum feeling hot during practice). First 20 mins I thought of as a long time, but now it's normal  Onwards for more |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2007 : 2:32:21 PM
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You can make a difference if you lose any expectation of anything happening. Don't think about other people's energy experiences.
Just increase your bhakti by knowing that God is peace, and those 20 minutes are your most peaceful moments of the day, so look forward to being closer to God for that time. Then just surrender and realize God is with you, so you don't need or want anything.
When you realize this concept is true, the peace you feel will be incredible. |
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2007 : 4:40:01 PM
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| Zelebe - I agree with Ether that expectation is counter-productive in meditation. If you can just be with what is, you're home free. I also wanted to add that "losing sense of your body and surroundings" sounds like a fantastic experience. I've experienced that just once, and have been wishing to find my way back there. Also, it's been said many times elsewhere, but worth repeating: a heavy energy flow is indicative of a lot of purifying going on; it does not in any way suggest a higher level of awareness. Which makes me wonder if an enlightened person experiences any energy movement at all. Anyone know? |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2007 : 10:25:20 PM
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Can't answer the last question, but I've heard people write that they feel energy exploding all around them in a blissful state, and some say their energy flows out into the world.
But about losing sense of body and surroundings; I go to this strange place sometimes and I haven't heard anyone else describe it. I feel like I am not in a "place" because there is nothing there, but it feels sort of like in outer space. it's dark all around, and I feel like I am the only thing that exists. And I feel like God is watching me, he is benevolent, and I don't need or want anything. Don't know what that is, but I like it. I have a body, but there is no thought of earthly things and I feel everything is perfect. |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Mar 05 2007 : 06:46:37 AM
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Ether, Isn't that a description of The Nothingness, The Void, The Emptiness, The Silence, The Darkness, The Stillness, Ginnungagapet (Asa faith)...?
I get to that place as well, and the first time was under guidance from a self-realized person who helped to open the gate. Now I enter it sometimes during meditation. It begins with a dark spot that I am sucked into, and then I fall, and fall and fall in a vacuum of softness. You say you have a sense of your body in that state. Try to bow your head and take a look at yourself when you are there! When I do that I realize I have no body, I am nobody, I actually only AM the Void I AM in, and I see that I AM PURE LOVE! And the bliss in that moment is so strong I can only BE THAT for a moment, and during that moment there is a big sign all over saying: WELCOME HOME! And should another person be present when that happens (as it was during the first opening situation, and a few times later that week when I was in a really open mode) I only see pure beauty and oneness.
PS: Cool... after writing this and reading what I had written to check spelling etc, automatic ujaji started, and I was immediately drawn into a state of higher awareness/stillness. |
Edited by - emc on Mar 05 2007 07:08:20 AM |
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Zelebe
Netherlands
35 Posts |
Posted - Mar 05 2007 : 4:38:48 PM
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| Well, losing sense of my body and awareness of my surroundings I don't consider so special. It's a sortoff dreamlike state where I am passive and not aware. I repeat the mantra I AM over and over and suddenly I find myself absorbed in some kind of imagery. This goes best when like Yogani says you're very easy with the mantra. When I become aware of it, I get zapped back to physical reality. What I'm trying now is to make the transition between being absorbed and returning to the mantra as smooth as possible. I experience it like a shift in consciousness, only now it's still almost a jolt Never thought repeating a mantra would be that fun I'm gonna try losing all expectations and see how evrything unfolds... |
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snake
United Kingdom
277 Posts |
Posted - Mar 05 2007 : 6:22:20 PM
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"I'm gonna try losing all expectations and see how evrything unfolds..."
Isnt that an expectation? :) |
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blujett8
USA
47 Posts |
Posted - Mar 05 2007 : 9:06:24 PM
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is it?
seems like an intention....can you have an intention without expectation..?..I say yes....
peace-heather |
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snake
United Kingdom
277 Posts |
Posted - Mar 06 2007 : 03:44:40 AM
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| Agreed:) |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 08 2007 : 2:03:23 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Zelebe
Hi Richard, yeah read the lesson, thanks for your response. It's that I envy people that feel moving all around energies in their body, I'm feeling nothing
I've had the feeling of seas of tempestuous energy running rampant all over the place for as long as I've been doing AYP. It's affected my health...I'm always just on the verge of pitta overload, and I have a borderline high blood pressure problem which is probably dietary but may also stem a bit from my energy issues. I have a really ugly little rash on my lower back which worsens when energy increases and improves when it decreases. And, toward the beginning, I suffered mild-to-medium versions of the classic overload problems.
Also, the quantity of energy has magnified a block I'd been long aware of...energy goes up a lot easier than down...which has made spiritual practice a bit like a ratchet wrench set the wrong way.
None of this is addressable via self-pacing because I've hardly been doing anything. 20 mins meditation, 10 mins pranayama (with bandas and mudras), and, for the past year, samyama. There wasn't much to trim. There were times I did half the meditation and half the pranayama, or even skipped evening practice entirely. Still lots of energy.
I'm not saying I've been living a Gopti Krishna horror. I haven't. In fact, I've been perceiving most of the energy (after my early bumps) as bliss. But I had the uncomfortable feeling of surfing a half inch in front of the wave...i.e. no headroom at all. And I am not in this to get a "high"...I'm interested in liberating myself and clearing my delusions. As such, the bliss is sheer distraction.
It's very sloowly calmed down. I'm now in my third year of practice, and those storms are finally starting to fade. No more headaches at all, the rash isn't receding but isn't spreading. I've spent literally hundreds of hours working on the downward blockage, and learning what it actually means to bring prana down, and it's about 50% better. And whereas I used to find it hard to find silence in meditation amid all the crashing waves (the silence I did find was achieved at the very beginning of practice, before things stirred up), I'm starting to feel like Moses at the Red Sea (not delusion of grandeur, more just being picturesque), watching the turbulent waters part and finding safe passage inside.
All along, I'd have errant moments of spiritual calm when meditation felt like a clear lake surface. Or like I was utterly transparent, and the energy flowed unimpeded by anything that felt like "me". That was the good stuff. If I could press a button and have the energy movements and bliss subside, I'd lunge for the button.
So be careful what you wish for!
To clarify...the energy we perceive as we open up is what was already there in the first place. We're not increasing our energy, we're learning to recoil less against the energy that's always been there. It's very helpful to bear in mind that yoga's subtractive, not additive. We aren't gaining energy, we are dropping your defenses to energy that's always been there. We aren't getting wiser, we're just wiping off the mud that had covered our windshields. We're not gaining cosmic power, we're dropping our notion that our individual personalities and egos are someohow divorced from the cosmos.
Meg asked whether the enlightened feel energy movements. My view is that most of us aren't even aware of energy (except re: sexual urge), bunkered down as we are in our attempt to keep us in here and the universe out there. In time, we drop our shields a bit, and feel pummeled (either delightfully or painfully, depending on how sudden and dramatic the shield drop was, and various factors I can't pretend to understand). Once we've utterly stopped fighting the universe and dropped our screens - once we have thrown open and surrendered every cell to what is - we are not pummeled by it all, because we ARE it all. Exactly as the reed wouldn't think of complaining about (or even delighting in) the wind. The reed's not complaining about its being tossed around unmercifully by the wind. The reed doesn't distinguish between itself and the wind.
My turbulence, my bliss, is the friction of my remaining fight for control with a universe that will have its way regardless of my own personal agendas. One day, I'll achieve reed-ness. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Mar 08 2007 2:41:29 PM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 08 2007 : 2:12:36 PM
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PS-- more practically, the question to ask yourself is: is your lack of perceived energy the result of being more reed-like (i.e. you're calmly accepting, more and more, 'What Is', blessedly free from tempestuous distraction) or is it that you're still fully bunkered down (numbly insulated from 'What Is')?
The energy and its movement are "What Is". In fact, that's ALL there Is. No reed, no wind. Just THAT.
If it's the former, enjoy, and keep surrendering to the winds. If it's the latter, don't worry, the fact that you're even working on this indicates that the Delusion is dropping. You can do more AYP practices (which heighten the perceived energy level, which may eventually convince you who's boss), or you can dig down deep and find your bhakti....which, like everything else that Is, has never left you... it's just a matter of fighting less against it. We pile all our furniture against the door we say we're trying to open. What are you afraid of? What are you attached to? What do you have at stake in the maintanence of your illusion of separateness? What's keeping you from feeling like this: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....OPIC_ID=1189
I'll give you a hint. You know the childhood game of Trust, where one kid turns his back to another and falls backward? Some kids can't do it and some can? That's what it feels like...bhakti, surrender, the whole thing. Cultivate that flavor. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Mar 08 2007 2:39:28 PM |
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Zelebe
Netherlands
35 Posts |
Posted - Mar 08 2007 : 5:26:31 PM
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That's quite an elaborate reply you wrote there Jim, thank you for the effort taken.
I consider myself very reed-like. I have a calm nature and accept things easily. It's only lately (last 2 years) that I learn to really think and stand for myself and follow my heart.That's also why I'm now actively and persistently do my best to follow the AYP practices.
Maybe some part of me considers it best for me not to perceive these energies we speak about. I consider them fine energies. With these energies I mean energy that I strongly believe exist in and around me, although I don't perceive them. I believe my physical being is materialized existence of consciousness, identity and intention.
What I would like to and why I follow the AYP practices is to become aware of and come in contact on a conscious level with the cause and origen and propulsion of myself on the most basic level
I'd love to expand my consciousness. I'd love to dissolve all the fears and obstacles that exist in me that impede this expansion.
This deepest longing stimulates myself to let go of all possible fears I might have in everyday live.
And then I realise I have fun and enjoy life being me and expressing and understanding myself through life
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 08 2007 : 10:03:02 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Zelebe
Maybe some part of me considers it best for me not to perceive these energies we speak about. I consider them fine energies. With these energies I mean energy that I strongly believe exist in and around me, although I don't perceive them
My point, which maybe got lost amid the elaborateness, is that you don't perceive energies. You just perceive your resistance to them. The experience is a byproduct of energy working through resistence. It can be quite distracting...so, again, be careful what you wish for. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Mar 08 2007 10:07:50 PM |
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Not much happening-phase
