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yogani
USA
5201 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 05 2006 : 10:12:49 PM
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Hi All:
This was posted in a kundalini topic and I thought to repost it here for general information and further discussion on where we can go with these forums:
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David wrote:
Quite some time ago you expressed a wish to be asked questions by email rather than on the forum. I am quite sure many people (many of whom are newcomers since you expressed your wishes) simply missed that . (Or if you told us of a change of mind on that issue, I missed that myself!)
Has that changed though? Have you adjusted happily to answering questions directly?
Yogani wrote:
Good question about where I am answering questions. Everywhere they come it seems! 
Originally, I was concerned that I would be bombarded with so many questions in the forum that the forum would become about me, which I do not want. I want it to be a community where everyone is helping each other at increasingly higher levels. I think this is a healthy path of evolution for the AYP community -- and we all know it will go higher and higher as everyone advances. This will open the door for many more seekers to find assistance, with less reliance on me for the answers. Many of you are answering questions on a very high level already, based on your own experiences. Bravo for that!
So here is the deal. Anyone can ask anything they want here of me or the community. If others can cover the questions, I will not say much (even if it is addressed to me). If there seems to be a gap, I'll jump in. Whatever makes sense. But let's make it a community, not a Yogani Q&A. I think we are doing so, and I hope it will continue to grow like that. The theory is that by the time there are too many questions for me to answer here, there will be many others who can answer them. Let's see if it works.
Given the above community-building plan and my commitment to writing more books and online lessons, I have shifted my position on emails to encouraging everyone to bring their questions here to the forums. That way many of you can help with answering questions and more people will benefit immediately from the public discussion. In other words, the quantity of private emails I will be doing will go down as most of it shifts here to the forums. This is how it should be for all the reasons mentioned. It also adds diversity and more opportunities for exploration of ways to optimize the practices.
Neither AYP nor I have all the answers. AYP is a suggested baseline from which many things can be explored and tested. I believe Jim called it a "safe harbor." That is exactly the function AYP should serve, and yoga should move on to increasingly optimized levels of application as research and practical results warrant. As long as we are working with the underlying principles of human spiritual transformation and a basic set of guidelines like AYP, then we have set the stage for tremendous progress both short term and long term. We are giving birth to a new applied science here...
The language in the forum introductions was modified several weeks ago to cover the shift to encouraging everyone to bring their questions to the forums, and it was also covered in the latest lesson #279 -- http://www.aypsite.org/279.html
The guru is in you.
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Jan 06 2006 : 12:11:52 PM
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Not sure I came up with "safe harbor", but I like it (my usual phrase for it is "level ground"). I hope, btw, that it's reassuring to you that I'm doing some non-AYP things, and, due to energy issues, I'm actually doing very few AYP practices, yet everything - my life! - has been transformed by virtue of the safe harbor provided not so much by the practices themselves but by your cohesive framework. The framework - even just in the abstract! - is super conducive (ouch, that word!). This bodes well for AYP, as it seems it can acceleratively propel people coming in (and going out!) on tangents from the practices themselves. I surprise myself with how smooth my sailing has been in spite of following my inner guru perhaps even more than you think wise! Self-pacing and a framework are key. There's such a huge diff between blundering around lost and wandering on and off a path which is always firmly in site.
Back to the point....I have a follow-up suggestion to add for those reading along.
I'd suggest we make some effort, when answering a question, to respond from an AYP perspective in addition to whatever other thoughts/insights we might offer . I try to do this, ala "here's how AYP addresses this...and here are some other thoughts from other sources or from my own kooky outlook". This serves two ends:
1. it creates less compulsion for Yogani to have to come in and give the AYP "line" on things (letting him gracefully go write books, etc) and
2. it helps maintain a strong core flavor of AYP in the forum, even as some of us "decorate" with other ideas. If we're not careful, it could, as it grows, easily dilute into a random spirituality forum. And entropy is hard to reverse...once it dilutes, that's it.
I don't mean we ought to be really uptight about this. Just remember, when it strikes you, to recite the theme before suggesting variations. if we do this just 25% of the time, it'd be contagious and really set a tone.
That's what we're doing now, as the forum grows. Setting tone for future. The way we post now is like laying a foundation. I'm very optimistic about the forum and AYP in long run...I think we'll have lots of company. It just takes time to build. Slow steady progress, like yoga.
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yogani
USA
5201 Posts |
Posted - Jan 08 2006 : 09:21:24 AM
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Hi Jim:
Thank you. Excellent perspectives on using AYP. You are doing it! And thanks also for your insightful suggestions on keeping the forums grounded and heading in the right direction, which will lead to more for everyone.
While the practices of AYP are effective and well-integrated in their own right, the methodology of application itself (safe harbor/level ground approach, cause and effect testing, self-pacing, etc.) allows practitioners to reach far beyond a "cookbook" approach to spiritual development. That is what I had in mind when writing the original lessons, the Wilder novel, and now the AYP Enlightenment Series of short books -- all tools that enable independent practitioners to fly while relying increasingly on their internal compass rather than an external one.
Once people become convinced of the fact that spiritual transformation is something centered within them, not coming from an external source, then the door opens for huge progress.
It is like the revelation that the earth is round instead of flat. With the new understanding, the paradigm quickly shifts to a new level of progress. Same thing here. With a shift to recognition of the center being in every person, the efficiency of the overall process of human spiritual transformation will increase dramatically.
With this, people don't need to be told where to look to find the divine. They only need an easy-to-use and adaptable methodology that can aid them in unfolding the vast potential that they already know is present within them. It is much easier...
The guru is in you.
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