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AYPforum
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Posted - Jul 08 2005 : 12:47:57 PM
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1107 From: meg Date: Fri Jun 24, 2005 9:56pm Subject: pure bliss consciousness??? margaretsueh... Send IM Send Email Hello - I'm a brand new member of this group, and am so excited to be part of a larger group of people who are into these practices. I9ve been following the lessons in Yogani9s book for about 4 months, and am really impressed at how intelligent and insightful his writings are. However, I have to say that I have yet to feel anything resembling 3pure bliss consciousness2 (PBC) and it9s kind of bumming me out. I9m getting a lot out of the lessons (i.e., it9s had a very calming effect in my life), but when I read about how other practitioners are feeling everything from tingling in their gut to throbbing in their big toe, I have to wonder if I9m missing something. Needless to say, I9m not at the kechari stage yet, but I9d love to hear from some of you about your initial experiences. Namely, what is PBC? Will I know it if/when I experience it? Do some people just never experience it? How much weight should one give to the physical sensations as signs of progress?
Thanks for your responses. I9ve enjoyed reading your discussions on marriage.
meg
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 1108 From: victor yj <vic@yahoo.com> Date: Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:19pm Subject: Re: pure bliss consciousness??? vic Offline Send Email Welcome Meg, I would say that it is a gradual process. Many of us have come from long practice in other styles (I did Iyengar pranayama for over 20 years) and so when we tried the AYP practices it was like shifting into high gear and the change was very swift. In the case of someone starting Yoga for the first time with AYP I would expect the process of deepened practice to take some time and that most sensations or experiences would be primarly blocks or energetic obstructions showing up rather than "pure bliss conciousness". I would just advise you to persevere, don't rush ahead too much and do it for the long run not the short term high. Little by little the practice itself will teach you and you will find yourself opening up in perhaps mysterious ways. Just do the practice, self pace and pay attention in the moment to how you feel doing the practice. Then just keep plugging away........
meg wrote: Hello I9m a brand new member of this group, and am so excited to be part of a larger group of people who are into these practices. I9ve been following the lessons in Yogani9s book for about 4 months, and am really impressed at how intelligent and insightful his writings are. However, I have to say that I have yet to feel anything resembling 3pure bliss consciousness2 (PBC) and it9s kind of bumming me out. I9m getting a lot out of the lessons (i.e., it9s had a very calming effect in my life), but when I read about how other practitioners are feeling everything from tingling in their gut to throbbing in their big toe, I have to wonder if I9m missing something. Needless to say, I9m not at the kechari stage yet, but I9d love to hear from some of you about your initial experiences. Namely, what is PBC? Will I know it if/when I experience it? Do some people just never experience it? How much weight should one give to the physical sensations as signs of progress?
Thanks for your responses. I9ve enjoyed reading your discussions on marriage.
meg
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 1109 From: "obsidian9999" <obsidian9999@yahoo.com> Date: Sat Jun 25, 2005 1:04am Subject: Re: pure bliss consciousness??? obsidian9999 Offline Send Email Hello Meg,
welcome to AYP.
I9m getting a lot out > of the lessons (i.e., it9s had a very calming effect in my life),
Glad to hear it is working well for you already. If it has a calming effect on your life, it is working. The following two lessons are very appropriate ---
http://www.aypsite.org/35.html http://www.aypsite.org/185.html
Some words in particular about other peoples "experiences" --- don't worry about not having them. Experiences are all so varied and particular, and many of them mean no more than having indigestion.
> to hear from some of you about your initial experiences. Namely, what is > PBC? Will I know it if/when I experience it?
If PBC comes on to you suddenly you will notice the change immediately; if it comes to you gradually over the years (and this can happen too), you may only notice it on reflection as a happy change that has come to you over time.
(Actually, the more technical truth is that we all have some PBC always. So it is *always* a matter of degree, kind of like temperature. So if you were living in Arctic weather and you suddenly felt a warm Meditarranian breeze, you'd notice it and say something had happened. If your inner weather changed over a period of twenty years from Arctic to Mediterranean, you might never notice anything happening at any particular time, but you would notice the changes on reflection.)
Sometimes people experience a very immediate, deep inner silence, like a sudden phase change. It is like as I mentioned, someone living in the Arctic suddenly experiencing a Mediterranean breeze.
It is a little like this --- you know about the idea of 'acute illness', being an illness that is with you for a short time -- and 'chronic illness', being an illness that is with you for a long period --- well, let's use 'acute' and 'chronic' in a non- negative way if you could imagine a counterpart like 'acute health' and 'chronic health' :), so we could talk about 'acute Pure Bliss Consciousness (PBC)' and 'chronic PBC'. Acute PBC is like the meditarranean breeze; chronic PBC is like living in the mediterranean.
Obviously, just as chronic health is better than acute health, so chronic PBC is better than acute PBC.
Now, another twist is that the length of time acute PBC lasts can be as little as a fraction of a second. Sometimes people get acute PBC in meditation, sometimes it is only a fraction of a second, sometimes they can learn to sustain it for longer. Sometimes acute PBC happens outside of meditation, spontaneously, as spiritual 'peak experiences' (although not all peak experiences are acute PBC). If this happens to you, at least in a very deep form, you'll notice it. In a very deep form it generally brings 'spontaneous kumbhak' with it, which is a sudden slowing of the metabolism causing immediate cessation (= near-cessation) of the breath for as long as it lasts. There may well be more shallow acute PBC experiences too, which are less noticeable.
If you can develop and sustain acute PBC, chronic PBC will generally begin to take root over time. However, I believe that chronic PBC can start to take hold without acute PBC ever happening. This should be some comfort to people who don't ever get any acute PBC in meditation.
I have heard that Pema Chodron, the esteemed Tibetan buddhist teacher, despite having meditated for decades has never had acute PBC at all, but I see a lot of evidence that she has it in the chronic form.
I have coined some pretty clinical terms here for things for which much more poetic, beautiful terms are often used. What I have called 'Acute PBC' is called 'Savikalpa Samadhi' in the yoga tradition and 'Chronic PBC' is called 'Nirvikalpa Samadhi'.
So, maybe I've said enough about PBC. I'd say read those lessons I mentioned, be glad your practice is working, take it all as it comes. Don't over-fuss about either presence or absence of particular experiences. Congratulations on starting the practice. It is inevitable that you will discover who you are in time.
Blessings,
-David
--- In AYPforum@yahoogroups.com, meg wrote: > Hello - I9m a brand new member of this group, and am so excited to be part > of a larger group of people who are into these practices. I9ve been > following the lessons in Yogani9s book for about 4 months, and am really > impressed at how intelligent and insightful his writings are. However, I > have to say that I have yet to feel anything resembling 3pure bliss > consciousness2 (PBC) and it9s kind of bumming me out. I9m getting a lot out > of the lessons (i.e., it9s had a very calming effect in my life), but when I > read about how other practitioners are feeling everything from tingling in > their gut to throbbing in their big toe, I have to wonder if I9m missing > something. Needless to say, I9m not at the kechari stage yet, but I9d love > to hear from some of you about your initial experiences. Namely, what is > PBC? Will I know it if/when I experience it? Do some people just never > experience it? How much weight should one give to the physical sensations > as signs of progress? > > Thanks for your responses. I9ve enjoyed reading your discussions on > marriage. > > > > meg > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 1111 From: "jim_and_his_karma" <jim_and_his_karma@yahoo.com> Date: Sat Jun 25, 2005 2:06pm Subject: Re: pure bliss consciousness??? jim_and_his_... Offline Send Email I can't reply any better than Victor and David, but I'll try expressing it differently, giving you and other readers along a third "flavor" of the same ice cream...
1. AYP is making you feel good.
Really, I should just note that and close my reply. Case closed. It's really all that needs to be said. I don't know how old you are, but at a certain point (and it doesn't take long) most people give up on feeling good. All the heartbreaks, grinds, disappointments, and dashed hopes accumulate and turn life into a drudge. Spiritual practices can help restore youthful vibrancy and happiness, but they've got to work fast enough to at least keep up with the downslope. AYP works exceptionally fast, which is why you're feeling better from practicing it. And that's good enough. It won't awake your inner capacity for ecstacy in a snap (as Victor says, most of us have been working on ourselves for decades...though it'd have happened much faster and less bumpily if we had AYP from the get-go).
Mind you if you did all the AYP practices 17 hours per day, it would happen a lot faster, but it'd also leave you burnt to a cinder. You're not only working up re: your ability to experience higher energies, you're ALSO working up re: your ability to handle them! You're feeling good and calm. Very few people can say that. I'd say to you: enjoy it. That's what you can handle right now. When you can handle more, AYP will ignite more. And (this is the important part): it feels good the whole ride. A little is good. More is good. Lots is good. I despise this cliched phrase, but it really is "all good". Enjoy the ride and don't sweat your position on the road map. If it starts feeling less good, or you plateau forever and ever, you need to tinker with your practice (take on more or back off). You're like a train conductor; all you have are accelerator and brakes, so use them wisely!
2. If you were talking with a bunch of hatha yogis (you actually are - many of us are long time asaana practioners, but that's not mostly what we're talking about) and we were discussing doing terribly advanced things like putting our legs behind our heads and balancing on our forearms and such, and you were just barely able to touch your toes, you might likewise feel "behind". What I'd say to a beginner hatha yogi is this: you get as much benefit and opening and pleasure and just plain old YOGA in wisely, calmly, gracefully working your "edge" (the dividing line between too much and not enough) by touching your ankles as I get from putting my palms on the floor. We're all working our edges, we're all opening more and more. It doesn't matter where you're at...if you're at your edge and I'm at my edge, we're both in the same place.
Same with AYP. Your edge is where you're doing your practices meticulously and creating inner silence and opening your nervous system as swiftly as possible without "overdoing".
If you feel comfortable doing so, you may want to ramp up your practice, and see if you're truly at your edge right now or if you can scale up without ill effect. If you're self-observant, you'll quickly see if you were ready or not (for an example of not being ready, see <http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/AYPforum/message/636>). If not, know that you're exactly where the rest of us are: carefully working our edges. And that for you right now, the prize in the Cracker Jacks box is the glowy calm. Again, if you're doing AYP faithfully, you're getting the energy you can handle, and you're handling the energy you're getting.
As to what it will feel like, it's better than drugs. It's a heckuva kick. Real nice buzz. But it is not, in and of itself, the goal or anything close to it. Ecstasy's actually just a side effect. Calm (deep calm - i.e. stillness or samadhi) is more important and (for me at least) more difficult to achieve than ecstasy. So keep on, you're on track! I think you might find this revelatory: http://www.aypsite.org/258.html
--- In AYPforum@yahoogroups.com, meg wrote: > Hello - I9m a brand new member of this group, and am so excited to be part > of a larger group of people who are into these practices. I9ve been > following the lessons in Yogani9s book for about 4 months, and am really > impressed at how intelligent and insightful his writings are. However, I > have to say that I have yet to feel anything resembling 3pure bliss > consciousness2 (PBC) and it9s kind of bumming me out. I9m getting a lot out > of the lessons (i.e., it9s had a very calming effect in my life), but when I > read about how other practitioners are feeling everything from tingling in > their gut to throbbing in their big toe, I have to wonder if I9m missing > something. Needless to say, I9m not at the kechari stage yet, but I9d love > to hear from some of you about your initial experiences. Namely, what is > PBC? Will I know it if/when I experience it? Do some people just never > experience it? How much weight should one give to the physical sensations > as signs of progress? > > Thanks for your responses. I9ve enjoyed reading your discussions on > marriage. > > > > meg > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 1115 From: "Dave Moore" <riptiz@hotmail.com> Date: Sun Jun 26, 2005 3:50am Subject: Re: pure bliss consciousness??? riptiz Offline Send Email Hi, In actual fact the burnout that you speak of is signs of cleansing and purification of the body. This is a natural cleansing that occurs when you are doing energy work just as one gets a healing crisis from receiving healing from someone.Normally the symptoms would not be a problem if you were doing simply Hatha or say Tai Chi as the purifying effects are not as fast, although some can experience this.A friend of a friend was experiencing tingling sensations during Hatha sessions but her teacher could not explain them so she stopped training as it frightened her.Unfortunately her teacher was not as knowledgable as she should have been which is often the case for many yoga teachers.Many people think yoga is about tying yourself in knots and improving physical health and know little about the spiritual side.Using the Kundalini Maha Yoga system the cleansing effects are a regular occurence because the practice has such a fast effect on the body so one needs to receive guidance along the way. I found with TM that I experienced cleansing also after the initial bliss but it all depends on how your system cleanses and in what condition it is. L&L dave 1116 From: "david_obsidian1" <david_obsidian1@yahoo.com> Date: Sun Jun 26, 2005 0:34pm Subject: Re: pure bliss consciousness??? david_obsidian1 Offline Send Email Hi Dave,
I'm a little curious about Kundalini Maha Yoga which I think you have mentioned in all of your posts. Does it follow the pattern of open teaching, (as Yogani's does) or is it the more traditional closed teaching pattern, given strictly on an initiation-only basis?
>Using the Kundalini Maha Yoga system > the cleansing effects are a regular occurence because the practice > has such a fast effect on the body so one needs to receive guidance > along the way.
Actually, when cleansing gets really fast, that's often one of the times when guidance is *most* needed. That's one of the reasons that this board is here. The very openness of this school (AYP) is based on the idea that the openness itself makes guidance more freely available, higher quality, and stimulates the inner guru to provide more.
I found with TM that I experienced cleansing also > after the initial bliss but it all depends on how your system > cleanses and in what condition it is.
Yup, I found the same --- different cleaning agents often work better in different parts of the house --- the best for the pots is not necessarily the best for the windows. Yogani has put together the 'top gun' techniques so, as you become more advanced in your work you get a sense of what to put more emphasis on. All the good techniques that TM teaches are available here, BTW, without the hefty fees.
Blessings,
-David 1119 From: "Dave Moore" <riptiz@hotmail.com> Date: Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:19pm Subject: Re: pure bliss consciousness??? riptiz Offline Send Email Hi David, I only got as far as using the meditation and alternate nostril pranayams plus a few asanas when I went on a w/end retreat.I never advanced further than that although within KMY it is much simpler than TM. If you mean initiation as in Shaktipat then it is not necessary to recieve shaktipat to start within the KMY system but of course you need a guru.As far as the mantras go you need initiation in them because they contain the energy of the siddhas which makes them very powerful.Don't be misled by the TM siddha program because it is in name only and not as some may think a path to becoming a siddha.In fact the Maharishi is not a siddha or fully realised although he has done much good to make others aware of spirituality.I paid #35 to learn the TM program in 1976 and it now costs #1200 here in the UK.All the teachings and initiations I have received in KMY have been given freely by my guru.I have only paid for my trip to India to recive shaktipat from our satguru in Jan 05. Basically within the KMY system you are given a mantra which you use for meditation and for japa and quite often that is enough for many people depending on how much work you put in.The beauty of being initiated with the mantras is that you then have psychic protection from the guru and after shaktipat you have a permanent connection with our satguru.There are many mantras and not have all the same purpose.Normally you are given one for meditation, later the specific guru mantra, bija akshars(seed mantras for individual chakra work)and after shaktipat the butta shuddi mantra for cleansing and purification.It is imperative to receive guidance within this system as the progress is rapid and cleansing symptoms are definetaly experienced.Obviously not all want to go this way and even with this system it takes many years of daily hard work to make serious progress towards enlightenment.Although enlightenment is the ultimate aim, it is the benefits along the way that most of us will only ever experience.To put this in persective, guruji told us that within the last 500 yrs there have barely been 100 people recieved the grace of enlightenment.At this moment in time there is no one in the Himalayas fully enlightened and only a few in India. L&L dave
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Edited by - n/a on Nov 03 2005 12:37:33 PM |
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