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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 07 2006 : 01:57:05 AM
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I have had a tough couple of days and was a bit frazzled when I got home. Almost didn't do any asana and was just going to do minimal practice this evening but deided to do inversions and then go into AYP sitting practice. Headstand felt pretty good and I went into shoulderstand. I have a very flexible neck so I can go pretty deeply into the pose but do get soreness. For some reason I started to experiment with where to put my gaze and found that when I did an eyes open version of shambhavi the flow of energy in my neck opened up in a deeply releasing way, automatically releasing teh throat and front of the neck rather than teh back of the neck which always feels soem strain in this pose. I had previously been dropping the gaze toward my chest and this time gazing up and away from myself really opened things up. I mean dramatically! This was even more dramatic in plough pose which has been a very difficult and frustrating pose for me for years. My plough felt balanced and integrated and I was able to stay in the pose for about 3 minutes without struggle.
Well this got me thinking a bit about head position and eye position in pranayama and so decided to explore.
I start pranayama with 15 minutes of chin pump in kechari and had previously tried to maintin shambhavi during thsi practice. I now feel that this is an imposition that can block energy. Let me explain...
Shambhavi feels perfect in any pranayama with teh head down in jalandhara bandha and in teh energetic direction. In the neck rolls of dynamic jalandhara I found that I was able to relaese deep knots by allowing teh eyes to flow in a pattern along with the movements of the head as if following a path of gaze from the tip of teh nose to the third eye point so that when the head is back I gaze forward (with eyes closed) as if gazing at the tip of the nose and then as the head drops forward letting the gaze go back up to the third eye as if following the path softly up and down the nose. Again this dramatically opened up energy flow around my spine and I could feel crinkles and releases up and down my whole spine.
In sitting meditation I made a point of not trying to direct the eyes but to allow them to soften and internalize and follow the course that feels the most balanced. this brought the releases deeper and I could feel deep aches releasing from my pelvis to me head. A very encouraging practice and one I hope some of you try and experiment with and give me any feedback that you might have. |
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yogani
USA
5241 Posts |
Posted - Mar 07 2006 : 7:04:33 PM
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Hi Victor:
Are you saying that your eyes stay pretty much in one place relative to a point in front of you as the head goes around? Then the eyes would go up relative to head when the head goes down, and the eyes would go down relative to the head when the head goes back. Left and right too on a chin pump rotation. I have not worked with this, but can see right away that it has a direct effect on the energy flow. Any eye movement will when ecstatic conductivity is present. Then there are all sorts of possibilities.
A more common form of "dynamic" sambhavi is letting the eyes automatically and gently "flex" upward and release in coordination with mulabandha/asvini. With ecstatic conductivity present, this also has a large influence on the pranic energy flow in the body. It is stimulating the spinal nerve on both ends simultaneously. In fact, with ecstatic conductivity, it is difficult not to flex one without flexing the other. The connection is that intimate and instant, not to mention very enjoyable. It is a stepping stone on the way to the merging of our ecstatic energy with inner silence, and then the radiant outpouring that comes from that.
I am sure there will be many further explorations along these lines as more and more yogis and yoginis come into ecstatic conductivity. That is an intimate neurological connection between the third eye (area from center brow to medulla/brain stem) and the root/perineum. Kechari is involved in this also.
Onward and upward! Ecstatically, of course. 
The guru is in you.
PS -- Don't forget to self-pace, taking into account time-delayed effects.
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Alvin Chan
Hong Kong
407 Posts |
Posted - Mar 08 2006 : 02:18:35 AM
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I have a different experience and a question related to that experience. It seems to be the right place to ask.
Before I turned to ayp, I've had a few months of experience in meditation, but very irregularly. Yet I found, at that time already, that placing my eyes in certain ways will instantly make me feel deeper in my meditation. The eye movement is more internal than external, since I can do it without moving my eyes in obvious ways. But it certainly involve some muscles contractions, and my eyes tends to move towards each other a little bit. It doesn't divide my attention since it's natural to stay there. And even now in my meditation, the eyes will do that.
The problem is that when I learnt sambhavi, the eyes will tend to move down (and inwards; instead of up and inwards.). At least when I don't move up intentionally. Recently, I found that if I move my eyes further up, then there will be some nice feeling. But it's not possible to maintain that all the time, so slowly, the eyes will move down again. I discovered later from some books, that gazing the nose tip (though I'm not moving THAT down) is another mudra which has similar effects as sambhavi.
My question is: should I just let the eyes stay down (during pranayama)? Or should I move them up again and again as far as I could?
btw, I have been practising mulabandha/asvini more than 1-3 hour a day (excluding what I do during my sitting practice!) for many weeks. I make use of all the time which I have to wait, e.g. public transport (especially when I have to stand); waiting for food to come in restaurant; attending boring but compulsary seminar, etc. And I started to feel something when I do it. My nose, throat and eyebrow area have some corresponding actions-- still very subtle but noticeable. It's like some "inner smell" or hormonal stimulations. Maybe I should add sambhavi to those 1-2 hour to further speed up my "waiting time practice"!?
Alvin |
Edited by - Alvin Chan on Mar 08 2006 8:30:05 PM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 08 2006 : 12:22:10 PM
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Victor, I had an initial reaction to your posting which Yogani alluded to in his answer, but I want to say it flat out from an asana perspective
when you did sambahvi in shoulderstand to good effect, you might want to recall that sambahvi often triggers some sort of mula bandha action, too (even if unocnscious). So you might want to consider how much that was a factor in your result.
I'll try the same later today and see what happens. |
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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
Posted - Mar 09 2006 : 01:27:02 AM
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| I think that it is possible that my observation was an individual block being dissolved because the release has not becoe instinctive and it feels like my eyes have softened and freed up. During pranayama I can definitely percieve a pleasurable light when my eyes turn up in shambhavi but also a soft release when they turn down as my head rolls back. i have taken the internal gaze farther down to the heart at this time and it feels like a deeper release. Fascinating stuff! |
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Eyes as a key to opening prana
