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You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold on, that is all.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Originally posted by emc

Hi Rho,

Don't worry. The silencing of the mind may take many, many years. But the effects of meditation is not to be measured by the quality of the sessions. They are to be measured by the changes that occur outside of practices, during your daily life! The quality of practices will alter all the time. There will be more silent periods, more mindy periods, more calm, restless, comfortable, uncomfortable, nice, not so nice, wonderful, awful etc etc meditation sessions! They will change. None of them will be the same ever.

I have meditated a couple of years, and my mind and thoughts are still very active! The difference is... I don't care so much anylonger. The stillness is in the foreground, the mind is in the background!

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You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold on, that is all.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Originally posted by rho

What is sambhavi? I have only read up to lesson 45. Also, what is SB?

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So, what we will do now is stimulate the spinal nerve as it comes to the point between the eyebrows. This stimulation is called, “sambhavi.” We will do this during our regular pranayama session at the same time we are doing everything else that has been given. Be sure you are stable in your pranayama practice as you consider taking on sambhavi. Things may still be a bit hectic with mulabandha. It is okay to introduce sambhavi with sexual energy bouncing around in the lower regions, as sambhavi will help bring sexual energy up higher where it will become more stable. Sambhavi and mulabandha work together that way – stimulating and stabilizing sexual energy traveling up and down the spinal nerve during spinal breathing.

There are two main components to sambhavi. First is a gentle furrowing of the brow, the point between the eyebrows. It is bringing the two eyebrows slightly toward the center. This is barely physical, mostly just an intention. It is only physical enough to allow feedback for a habit to form. Under normal circumstances it will not be visible to an outside observer. Maybe only a little in the beginning stage. With practice, you will find that this is really an internal movement reaching back into the center of your brain, pulling the center of your brain forward toward the point between the eyebrows. We begin this internal activity with the brow-furrowing impulse just described. It will evolve naturally after that, as ecstatic conductivity arises. You will feel it working inside your head.

The second component of sambhavi is a physical raising of the eyes toward the point where the furrowing is happening at the point between the eyebrows. The sensation of furrowing at the point between the eyebrows is where the eyes will go. This will involve some raising and some centering of the eyes. We keep the eyes comfortably closed as we do it. We don’t force the eyes. In the beginning, they may not go as far up as we would like. That is okay. Do not force them. Just let them gravitate naturally toward the sensation of furrowing at the point between the eyebrows. Again, it is a subtle physical habit we want to cultivate. Once the habit in place, the attention is free for spinal breathing. All of pranayama is physical habit, except for the attention going very simply up and down the spinal nerve with the breath. As we become adept at it, everything will be happening automatically, with our attention completely free to be easily going up and down inside the spinal nerve, which will be transforming before our inner sight.

As we do these two things simultaneously, the slight furrowing of the center of the brow and the raising and centering of the eyes to that point between the eyebrows, we continue all the other elements of pranayama just as before. It should be pointed out that as the attention goes up and down in the spinal nerve with the breath, the eyes remain aimed up toward the point between the eyebrows. We are not looking through our eyes with our attention. Our attention is going up and down in the spinal nerve. We do not try and look at the point between the eyebrows with the attention through the physical eyes. The eyes are physically going there, but our attention is going up and down in the spinal nerve. In fact, our physical eyes aren’t doing anything other than muscular. When they are going up to the point between the eyebrows, the eyes are physically stimulating the spinal nerve all the way back through the brain and all the way down through the spine to the perineum. We are using our eyes in a physical way to awaken the spinal nerve. Meanwhile, our vision (attention) is in and through the spinal nerve, easily going up and down inside. It is a new kind of seeing we are beginning, an inner seeing.

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Sit comfortably with back support, and close your eyes just as you do
when you meditate. Now, keeping your mouth closed, breathe in and out
slowly and deeply through your nose, but not to the extreme. Be
relaxed and easy about it, breathing as slowly and deeply as possible
without discomfort. There is no need to be heroic. Work your muscles
so each breath begins in your belly and fills you up through your
chest to the top of your collarbones, and then comes back down
slowly. Next, with each rising inhalation of the breath, allow your
attention to travel upward inside a tiny thread, or tube, you
visualize beginning at your perineum, continuing up through the
center of your spine, and up through the stem of your brain to the
center of your head. At the center of your head the tiny nerve makes
a turn forward to the point between your eyebrows. With one slow,
deep inhalation let your attention travel gradually inside the nerve
from the perineum all the way to the point between the eyebrows. As
you exhale, retrace this path from the point between the eyebrows all
the way back down to the perineum. Then, come back up to the point
between the eyebrows with the next inhalation, and down to the
perineum with the next exhalation, and so on.

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Is it normal for tears to stream down my face while I meditate? This happens sometimes, without emotion. I feel normal, just with tears. Also, I feel pressure at my brow chakra while I meditate. I've been having REALLY bad, randomly occurring headaches over the past couple weeks, with the pain being centered near my forehead or eyes. I'm wondering if the two might be related. I've been feeling a little sick lately, so the headaches could be a symptom of a flu or cold.

Finally, when I'm lying in bed at night, I sometimes feel a pressure in my solar plexus chakra or my sacral chakra. It's a really weird, strong feeling, like they're doing backflips or something. Any ideas what this means?

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Originally posted by rho

Is it normal for tears to stream down my face while I meditate? This happens sometimes, without emotion. I feel normal, just with tears.

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