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Originally posted by gumpi

When i am satisfied that nobody can answer my questions i will probably become a materialist.

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Originally posted by gumpi

You asked me, "is matter real?"

My only response to that is that if it isn't real, why do you need to ask me that?

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Originally posted by gumpi

I'm interested in the role grace plays in Yoga. I'm talking about grace of God. No matter how much i meditate or do pranayama practices i do not experience bliss, inner sounds or inner lights. At most all i get is a slight feeling of relaxation. So how does someone get God's grace? Why should i keep up at this game if the biggest ingredient (God's grace) is not there?

A question: how do you offer devotion to God and have no expectations at the same time?

In spinal breathing, it seems awkward or wishy washy tracing the spinal nerve - it feels like i am seeing it in my mind along with feeling it as if i am looking through my left eye - and the eyes always go downwards when i get near the bottom of the spine AND the bottom is not the perineum, it is much higher up.

When i breathe in it takes about 2 seconds. This doesn't seem long enough to trace the spinal nerve. How does the breathing depth increase?

Do brainwave entrainment technologies actually work?

How do yogis slow their hearts? Please give detailed explanation.

I have heard of many people with bodies that are in bad shape have spiritual experiences. I even met a guy who was a strong alcoholic who started meditating and was able to give up the booze and had spiritual experiences even while drinking. I must be doing something wrong, because even though i enjoy a little drink i have been meditating for a long time and haven't experienced ANYTHING.

James Randi did a study on Transcendental Meditation and concluded that it is virtually indistinguishable from taking a nap. He said subjects exposed to soothing music got the same benefits as long term meditators. The level of relaxation was virtually the same in both types. Why meditate then?

I found a post by some guy on a web forum for OBEs wherein he said he had been trying for 40 years to induce an OBE without success. And he was someone who helped Monroe write his books!

In conclusion, it seems to me that there is nothing more involved with meditation experiences than the placebo effect or God's grace or the different make-ups of people's brains. If you BELIEVE meditation works, it tends to work. If you test it with the ordinary sense of experimentation and scepticism at the start and consequently experience nothing of report, it was because you didn't believe it would work and therefore there is no placebo effect.

Regarding seeing the spiritual eye: the only people in the world that report this experience are some people on this forum and the Yogananda forums. I have spoken to 100's of people who are otherwise spiritual and they know nothing of the spiritual eye. Even people who have Near-Death Experiences do not describe the spiritual eye but an altogether different phenomena.

Regarding inner sounds such as OM: i see no reason why this is simply not physiological phenomena such as tinnitus. Hearing "bell" sounds is a slightly different manifestation of tinnitus.

Regarding reduced metabolism from yoga practices - in pretty much most of the studies done on meditation in the lab, the rate of metabolism in meditation when subjects report being in the meditative state is the same rate of metabolism as people in sleep. Breathing slows and sometimes pauses up to 20 seconds at a time, which makes 2 breaths per minute consumed. There is a slight lowering of heart rate but nothing considerably significant. In my own experience of meditation my breath will slow and pause, sometimes for 20 seconds at a time, but there is no perceptible change in heart rate. So how can it be that some people, on this forum included, can say that a yogic breathless state can last for several minutes at a time or even for hours? Why do some people say meditation has lowered their resting pulse considerably? Might there not be other factors involved here, such as regular strenuous exercise and change of diet?

And what about the claims for meditation made by Paramahansa Yogananda? With his hong sau technique he says that the breath stops which makes the heart calm which switches the senses off (pratyahara) which equals samadhi or the thoughtless state. If you fast and eat no meat but just fruits and vegetable, the venous blood is reduced which calms the heart and switches the senses off. Then, when you do Kriya yoga pranayama (spinal breathing), the practice of continuously oxygenating the blood burns out all the carbon in the blood in time and the heart is totally calmed, rendering a breathless state. What is the truth in all this?

Regarding spinal breathing and the breathless state - when you are performing the breathing prescribed you are doing it with force and deliberately. So how then would a spontaneous breathless state occur by itself through this practice? Please give the detailed explanation.

What exactly is kundalini? The explanations i have come across on this website are not satisfactory enough. Sometimes it is sexual fluid, sometimes it is cerebrospinal fluid, sometimes it is astral body. But more importantly the people on this website that claim to have kundalini experiences do not seem to me to be more highly evolved than an average person. There is no increase in IQ, physical power, generation of creative ideas, monetary success, overcoming of sex, control over bad habits, better morality and so on. How do these people even know if what they are experiencing is kundalini or not?

And lastly, i am struck by the apparent absence of scepticism on this forum. While we are asked by yoga teachers to approach yoga with slight scepticism and to test out the methods first without needing faith or beleif and then finding the promised results there seems to be a conspicuous abundance of absence of people posting on this forum raising issues such as the ones i have above. Why? If the said experiences are not there (and they certainly aren't for me and i imagine not for others also) where are the people coming and complaining? Where are the questions? Do people find this website, see the words "spinal breathing" and not even begin to think it might be a bit hokum? After all, the spine doesn't breathe does it? Where are the people that use these methods and not experiencing much? Am i to believe that everyone who finds this website simply has a lack of scepticism? That they don't even question some of the things here? Why doesn't anybody question the existence of prana for a start? Prana is something that hasn't been measured or detected by science, yet science has uncovered mostly every other type of energy there is, down to the smallest of biological mechanisms.

There are apparently eminent yogis who claim to be able to go into samadhi who don't seem to know that kirlian photography doesn't prove the existence of prana. Yet they write about it and state it does. But this is not the opinion of real science. Am i to conclude that samadhi really doesn't convey much, especially if the yogis that enter it come back and tell us pseudoscience is science? What happened to omniscience?

Where is the proof that people levitate? People sometimes post messages on here saying that they hop. If you really do hop, and you aren't deliberately bouncing on a foam mat, please show us the evidence. Why aren't you world famous? Why aren't you on the news? All you need to do is post a video on Youtube with witnesses. You could come and meet me if you don't want "fame" and demonstrate it to me. I would pay a lot of money to actually see this.

How about other claims? Like hair moving by itself. Like people spontaneously moving around and adopting various different physical positions, which they claim are beyond their control. Where is the evidence? Where is the evidence that looking at a picture of a yogi is "shaktipat"? Point me to a shaktipat photo on the internet and let's see if it works for me. I am not a bad person; i want some sort of proof of it. I have seen various saints and yogis photos and films but where is the shaktipat? I need some evidence and i don't understand how there can be no people coming to this website questioning all these things.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=1968#16288

Thank you all for your replies.

I just did a 20 min I AM meditation. I think it worked! I've discovered a few things i would like to share.

Firstly, the most important point i've discovered is patience. When i have expectations in meditation i cannot relax and become impatient. This time, i just sat for sitting, rather like doing something routine like brushing teeth. It works!

Secondly, i changed the music that i can't seem to get rid of in my mind to making I AM musical instead. This was effective enough to block out the background music.

Thirdly, i didn't realise i had such a restless wandering mind before! EASING back to mentally intoning I AM in a relaxed way is really rather easy. But oh how my mind wanders!!

So after i got up i felt 3 distinct things. (a) a tangible calmness with (b) a plesant feeling of relaxation that was also tangible. (c) i smiled a REAL smile and felt happy.

If this is meditation, i want more!


I am sorry i inflicted this post on everybody. I have no right to moan and complain to others. My Impatience really was the problem.

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Originally posted by gumpi

http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3340#28575
Wow, it is amazing! I never thought i would break through into Yoga but 7 years of on and off meditation actually seems to work. That is why i urge everyone to do it regularly to get a taste of it, then you can kind of relax it, but remain non-attached and be moderate in tastes and habits. If you can achieve this, i bow down to you. You are quickly attaining the Godhead.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3941#34167

Whoever wrote what you put in quotes is describing breathlessness predominently on the exhale, yes?

And you say you are experiencing this?

I am experiencing it also. I don't know the physiological exhanges that occur when this happens but i suppose someone can explain it. This breathless state (kevala khumbaka) is the goal of Kriya yoga practice. You don't need to do spinal breathing to get it. I get it with Hong Sau mantra. So far my breathing is stopping for roughly 20 seconds after the exhale at about 30 minutes into the meditation. I want to prolongue the pause but i don't know how to do it. Once the breath has stopped, so has the mantra, and i don't know what to concentrate on.

Apparently, when the breath stops, the kundalini rises. I am skeptical of this though because i find the existence of prana hard to accept.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3678#32269
I don't know how long you have been meditating but i have been practising this technique on and off for 7 years and only in the last 6 months have i started getting breathless states. The last time i meditated i was effortlessly breathless on the exhale for around 20 seconds, then a short inhale, then exhale, another pause for 20 secs etc etc. Which means that i was only breathing 3 times a minute. And i know that the longer i continue to meditate, the longer the pauses will be.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....ID=1968#1968

Hello

I believe in God now because of my experiences with synchronicity and dreams that later come true. However, these experiences just HAPPEN to me from nowhere and i do not will them to happen. Also however, my mind doesnt suddenley go quiet when they happen and i have read many times that intuition develops when the mind is calm. What is going on with that?

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3289#28174


I noticed you also had some beef with Paramahansa Yogananda, saying that he taught that strenuous breathing exercises were harmful. In point of fact he said no such thing. What he did say has to be taken in context and not nit-picking a few sentences here and there to make some type of point. He said that long periods of breath retention can be harmful. In his Lessons he teaches breath retention but it is not holding the breath for extended periods of time.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....ID=3680#3680

[b]Basically, it is not true that when the breath ceases and you notice it that the metabolism speeds up. What does happen is that you notice you aren't breathing and you then think, "Oh my God, i am not breathing!". If this thought itself contains any anxiety then the breath will come back. But if you are used to this experience the breath ceases for longer and longer periods.

Spinal breathing is basically kriya yoga, just with a different name. The goal of Kriya is breathlessness. There are many reasons why this is true. There are Vedic writings saying things to the effect of, "He who has achieved kevala khumbaka is liberated - there is nothing in the three worlds he cannot realise" etc and so on. Breathlessness is not a siddhi, it is just the natural product of deep relaxation. Yogis say that the breath and the mind are intimately connected and so stopping one of them stops the other. Samadhi IS breathlessness. In samadhi all the normal bodily processes have stopped and the cells don't decay - the body goes into suspended animation. The purpose of all this is for a person to realise they are not the body or the mind. Otherwise what else is enlightenment about than being liberated from forced physical rebirth? You are supposed to shed all mortal desires and attachments. Nirvikalpa samadhi is the highest state and this state signifies that a person has cut all the chords of attachment to this plane and earth. Anybody that says otherwise is deluding themselves. If someone says they are in samadhi and they are breathing as normal you can laugh at them. It is like someone saying they are asleep when they are running.

The spiritual eye is not "scenery"! It is the door to samadhi. If nobody on AYP wants to be enlightened and liberated, then by all means continue your practices and ignore the scenery.

And when the breath is calm, the mind is calm, pratyahara happens and concentration is 99% easier. Not to mention the feeling is great!!

Also, someone here wrote that when they have khumbaka they are circulating the ida and pingala currents mentally in their spine. This is simply not true. It may be true for you but this is not supposed to happen. The Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali both do not confirm that experience. "Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath, and the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath the yogi neutralises both and thus realises life energy from the heart". In other words, when you breathe in the prana current pulls up energy up the spine and when you breathe out the Apana current pulls the energy down the spine; and when you neutralise prana and apana (or ida and pingala) there is no flow of energy up and down the spine anymore. The action of the diaphram stops and the breath stops. This is the whole point of awakening the kundalini. The kundalini rises through the central canal of the spine instead of the breath making the spinal currents of ida and pingala.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3680#31997

"I think firstly that your conception of pratyahara is not correct. The senses do not switch off when the breath ceasses. That is not correct at all. The senses only switch of somewhat when you are in a sleep state. The only other way to switch them off is by anesthetic.

But it is true that if you breathe really slowly you see lights in your field of vision, and you feel very relaxed.

What any of that has to do with God i don't know.

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Originally posted by gumpi
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=2973#29462

I've been using the Neuroprogrammer from Transparent on and off for a while now. It definitely works. I haven't gotten into using it much though but the few times i did i got intuitive flashes of a visual nature in the hypnagogic state. Afterwards i felt like i used to feel when i was a child and very nicely relaxed.

I've decided (if i ever get round to it) to use the BB with mantra meditation on the breath at seperate times during the day. I think it would increase my intuition (BB) and enable me to have a kundalini awakening (mantra pranayama) at the same time.

But the BBs definitely work. I wouldn't compare the feeling to marijuana though (which i have done a LOT of). It is SIMILAR. To be perfectly honest, i cannot see how people can smoke dope and try to be spiritual at the same time. They simply don't mix. Dope clouds the mind, increases the heart rate, harms the lungs, and produces pseudo ecstacies. It can lead to paranoia, severe anxiety, depression, and even mental illness. So i wouldn't say that BBs are a replacement for dope or any drug. The effects of the dope, the buzz, is very nice but once you smoke too much all the negative effects happen. It is a risk not worth taking.

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I just don't know what i am doing wrong here. How do people have devotion to God and no expectations at the same time? I can't get my head around that.

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CarsonZi:

You want the evidence of the friuts of meditation but are not willing to accept anothers account as verifiable, yet you aren't willing to go through the proper effort required to make the connection personally that will give you the evidence you look for. None of us can convince you or anyone else of the effects of AYP, only your own personal practice can do that. And that is why there is a real lack of "questioning" on this forum. Because the majority of the people posting on here have been trying the practice religiously and long enough to be able to see our own tangible evidence of improvements in our daily lives just the way Yogani said it would happen.

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I suggest you give it one last try.

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