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Tibetan_Ice
Canada
758 Posts |
Posted - Jan 08 2010 : 4:11:01 PM
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quote: Originally posted by WSH ... I guess that is why I am feeling a little impatient with the DM. ...
Hi WSH, Have you gotten to the point of adding sambhavi to your meditations?
The reason I ask is because, according to Norman Paulsen (Yogananda's disciple) sambhavi is supposed to help steady the mind, silence the thoughts, produces bliss and brings one to stillness. Perhaps that is the part you are missing?
:) TI |
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Tibetan_Ice
Canada
758 Posts |
Posted - Jan 09 2010 : 7:19:33 PM
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quote: Originally posted by WSH
Also, I am still planning on looking into sambhavi as TI suggested in perhaps helping me with the under sensitivity issues with DM.
Hi WSH :) I must say, your post is a pleasure to read. :) All that space!
I'm glad that reducing your meditation times has benefited you. :)
I think you have answered your own question about nadi shodana. If it has a stabilizing effect and that effect is what you need at this time, then I personally would suggest that you go with that. Nadi shodana and Spinal Breathing are two different techniques with two different outcomes. Once you have stabilized yourself with regular practice and are ready to take on more, then I would suggest Spinal Breathing. This is my personal opinion.
Sambhavi is a great way to help stop or ignore the 'outer' conscious mind and go deeper. Do this little experiment right now.. Pretend you are falling into a light sleep. Relax your face and gently roll your eyes upwards like you were looking about 6 inches out from the center of the brows. Keep looking through the eyes, just let go and focus your attention behind the center of your brow like you didn't have a care in the world and were withdrawing from everything to do a little day dreaming. Notice that there is a pleasurable quiet space behind your brows? If you sit and keep your attention in that quiet little space, doesn't it feel great? Doesn't it feel like you could fall asleep and start dreaming? That's the feeling you should have... The main thing is not to try too hard, just relax and get the feeling of letting go, relaxing the face, of becoming focused in that quiet little cave while still looking through the eyes.
For me, performing this style of sambhavi is a great aid to help still the mind and experience the deeper states. It also causes visions and dream pictures to appear on the screen out in front of the brows as you pass through the dream state. You might see things right away or not. It depends on your skill set for balancing the relaxing, looking through the eyes and becoming centered in the cave..
A few cautions: You will at some point, when your focus is continuous for a while experience sexual stimulation at the perineum. Yes, sambhavi by itself may awaken the kundalini. If you experience heat and flames, stop the practice at once and assess your experience..
Now, again, my suggested preliminary practice of sambhavi is a little different from AYP's sambhavi. You can try both techniques and probably should. In AYP sambhavi is not a stand-alone practice as it seems to be documented only as a practice to add on to spinal breathing. In AYP, the focus of the eyes is pointing to the location directly between the brows. And, there is a gentle furrowing of the brow. In AYP, sambhavi is primarily used for stimulating the spinal nerve and releasing ecstatic conductivity which is very powerful.
See Lesson 56 - Sambhavi – Opening the third eye link: http://www.aypsite.org/56.html
quote:
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.
Also, Yogani says, in lesson 104,
quote:
Mulabandha and sambhavi require attention to maintain at this stage, so we don't try and do those in meditation. The idea is to keep our attention free to follow the simple procedure of meditation. This is very important.
In fact, Yogani says that sambhavi can be incorporated into meditation only at a much later time..
quote:
Lesson 190 - Q&A – Sambhavi during meditation?
From: Yogani Date: Mon May 17, 2004 0:36pm
New Members: It is recommended you read from the beginning of the web archive, as previous lessons are prerequisite to this one. The first lesson is, "Why This Discussion?"
Q: I know you do not instruct developing sambhavi during meditation. I have got it pretty well developed in spinal breathing, and now it is happening in meditation without any effort. Is this okay?
A: Yes, this is how it should happen. Meditation is a much more delicate process than spinal breathing, so we use our spinal breathing sessions to do our development work with mudras and bandhas. We make a habit of sambhavi during spinal breathing, so we don't even have to think about it. With the habit in place, as soon as we sit and close our eyes, they go toward the point between the eyebrows. Then we begin our spinal breathing with attention going up and down in the spinal nerve and the eyes automatically continue to favor that direction toward our slightly furrowed brow. When ecstatic conductivity comes up, then we have great pleasure coursing through the whole nervous system as a direct result of sambhavi, and it becomes a habit of ecstasy we do very naturally.
In meditation, the process of favoring the mantra is easy but delicate, and so we are stingy with our attention, not volunteering it for developing or doing other practices while we are meditating. While we are meditating, we just meditate. Even so, if we have developed good yoga habits during spinal breathing, things will occur during meditation without our attention being used to sustain them, and we can let them be there.
Siddhasana is a good example of this. Once we have the habit of siddhasana, it takes no attention or effort to sit in it, even as it is naturally energizing whatever practice we may be doing while we are sitting in it, including meditation.
Sambhavi becomes like that too. In fact, once sambhavi becomes a habit, tied in with the pleasure of ecstatic conductivity between the third eye and the root, then it becomes a natural part of all our practices, including meditation. Let's not fool ourselves on this though. If we find ourselves favoring the development of the "sambhavi habit" with our attention during meditation, then we should easily come back to the mantra. That is always the procedure. When we notice our attention has gone off to anything else during meditation, then we easily come back to the mantra. This does not preclude automatic habits developed in our spinal breathing sessions from naturally arising in meditation. In this way, over time, we find non-distracting habits of siddhasana, mulabandha, sambhavi, kechari and other mudras and bandhas occurring naturally during meditation. This is how it happens. Always follow the procedure of meditation, easily favoring the mantra over whatever else that draws the attention, and the rest will happen naturally.
This is how our inner silence and rising ecstatic energies come to blend in the dance of divine lovemaking. The persistent nudging of our nervous system in these ways through yoga leads to a transformation of our experience of life to unending ecstatic bliss.
Enjoy!
The guru is in you.
The main reason I am pointing out to try sambhavi during meditation is because, if you have tons of thoughts going through your head your eyes will be moving. If you stabilize your eyes, it will help reduce the number of thoughts going through your head. It will also put up a kind of wall between you and your thoughts. If you are going to stabilize your eyes, you might as well get used to rolling them upward.. hence sambhavi..
Again, my advice is my opinion. Other methods of reducing the number of thoughts and taming an overactive mind included regulating the breath by following strict breathing patterns, such as 1-9-1-9 (1 count pause, 9 counts exhale, 1 count pause, 9 counts inhale.. etc). I hope this helps.
:) TI
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