Continued from above.......

bandika 3 years ago

I would like to ask here a few questions:

If I have understood well, supernatural vision is possible when somebody gathers enough energy in his/her psyche. The key point of that is the sensual energy withdrawal which is detailed in step five. I guess, the techniques in the first chapter of Meditation Pictorial have similar purpose. But how do I know if I have gathered enough energy? Does supernatural vision happen automatically?

I have been practicing those techniques for some weeks. I can reach a stage when I feel that I am in the center of my mind, and more or less independent from my body. I have described that in a previous topic.

http://www.inselfyoga.com/m/forums/topic/Head-Infusion-Vision-Interest-Retracted

However I am not able to perceive any light. It happened just for the first time. Is it because I didn’t gather enough energy?

MiBeloved 3 years ago

bandika wrote:

If I have understood well, supernatural vision is possible when somebody gathers enough energy in his/her psyche. The key point of that is the sensual energy withdrawal which is detailed in step five. I guess, the techniques in the first chapter of Meditation Pictorial have similar purpose. But how do I know if I have gathered enough energy? Does supernatural vision happen automatically?

MiBeloved's Response:

The procedure in chapter one of Meditation Pictorial is for elementary pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal. That is not the same practice as being described here. The reason for this differentiation is that initially the student cannot know what the buddhi organ is nor the sense of identity or the distinct segregated core self. Initially the entire head of the subtle body is regarded as the self or core self. For instance people usually speak of going into the self to meditate but actually that is not possible like that, they are misidentifying the psyche or existential compartment as the self in that case.

There is no self like that which is a psyche. The entire subtle body, (head, trunk and limbs) which is used in the astral world is the psyche of the self. But initially it is regarded as the self. Then when one begins to meditate, one isolates the head of the subtle body and in some cases, some persons claim the chest region of the subtle body as the self.

But in either case that is not correct because the head of the subtle body is a compartment which contains various components of which the self is only one of the supernatural objects.

Chapter one of Meditation Pictorial is where one should start because to be honest, initially one cannot sort the psyche objects and must by necessity of existential ignorance regard the whole thing as the self even though the whole thing is really a chamber in which the self and other supernatural components are existing.

A layman, to be practical, because of ignorance, must see a jet aircraft as just one thing even though in fact it is made up of numerous parts. The technician cannot afford to see the plane like that otherwise the plane would crash. The technician has to differentiate the various parts of the machine and know how to calibrate and maintain each part in a specific way.

If you are doing chapter one of Meditation Pictorial, then please check your practice and then ask questions about what that is and do not mix it with this. I could help you in that way, otherwise there will be confusion which will not help you to progress.

In that practice there is no aim for supernatural vision. In that practice the main thing is to first feel the energy which courses outwards away from the center of the head into space, and to pull back that energy into the self. The whole meditation then has to do with this constant pulling back of that energy which goes outwards. In the Bhagavad Gita there is a verse where Krishna describes this practice comparing it to a tortoise pulling in its limbs.

Instead of perceiving light in that case, one perceives invisible energy and feels the movement of it coursing outwards and also feels a restraining force which one applies to pull it back in. Light in this case is feelings.

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bandika wrote:

I have been practicing those techniques for some weeks. I can reach a stage when I feel that I am in the center of my mind, and more or less independent from my body. I have described that in a previous topic.

http://www.inselfyoga.com/m/forums/topic/Head-Infusion-Vision-Interest-Retracted

However I am not able to perceive any light. It happened just for the first time. Is it because I didn’t gather enough energy?

MiBeloved's Response:

You do not perceive any light when you do this practice from Chapter One of Meditation Pictorial.

Well you know what?

That is all the merrier!

That is great!

That is success. Because you are not supposed to perceive light when you are doing that practice. It has nothing to do with light. It has all to do with pulling in the energy which courses outwards from the aura of the psyche, so that this energy is no longer being forced outwards but instead is pulled inwards.

The filament of an incandescent light is not concerned with light. It produces light and still it has no concern with seeing the light it produces. Its concern is with feeling its energy going outwards or coming inwards. To it, light is feeling only.

So after you have done this practice for about three years, then we can talk about going to the light perception stage which is a totally different matter.

Thanks for doing this practice. Many who read that book, just skim over chapter one and read more exciting things which are elsewhere in the book. They do not want to do some boring practice like in chapter one. But you have the proper instinct and so you might one day become a yogi of value.

Good luck!

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One bad feature about this forum, Meditation Time is that we have both very advanced practice as well as kindergarten level. We are sorry about that. However we are squeezed for time, so like that we have all levels in one classroom. To someone who is learning that 1+1=2, hearing about 1+1=0 is very confusing. We understand that.

Stop listening to the statements made by the teacher to the advanced students because otherwise you will become disoriented. Read the advanced posts as something which is science fiction. Later these will make more sense.

Take care of yourself, which means ask question which apply to your practice. Do not be afraid to stand up and ask about what you need to know in terms of your level of practice.

bandika 3 years ago

Thank you, your explanation is helpful.

I’m a bit confused, because in the first exercise of Chapter One there is a step of establishing a singular optic blast to the point between the eyebrows. I attempted to do that as well –as a part of the whole practice- with the expectation of opening the third eye. Unfortunately I had some difficulties with that because I realised that during this movement I always start to use my (closed) physical eyes and looking forward with them to an imaginary point in the distance. So now it seems hard to send any energy there while I feel myself being in the center of my head, even I can’t locate or feel the area between my eyebrows during that.

MiBeloved 3 years ago

bandika wrote:

I realized that during this movement I always start to use my (closed) physical eyes and looking forward with them to an imaginary point in the distance.

MiBeloved's Response:

It is not easy to extract and isolate the supernatural energy which is combined into the physical optic nerves and the physical eyes. Nature designed the body in a way where the physical reality, forcibly captures and holds the attention of the self. Even though that attention energy is supernatural, still because nature has captured it, it has difficulty releasing itself or extracting himself.

Understanding this intellectually helps because at least the student can then be on the lookout to experience the separation from the physical but this may not happen overnight. Some students get the experience immediately. Others practice for years and then get the experience. And there are others who even after years are unable to split off the two energies.

If you are born as the son of slave, then you are a slave automatically even if you have some idea that you have potential to live as a free citizen. You may know that from day one and still not have the power to free yourself. In which case, you may spend your entire life time in captivity. If this is hard to imagine, just look at the way humans keep animals in pens and limited pastures for the duration of the life of the animals.

The idea that because I know about something, my problems with it, are all over, is not applicable with everything.

The exercise in chapter one of Meditation Pictorial which has to do with the optic nerves should be done day after day, until one experiences the breakaway of the supernatural force from the optic channel for a sustained period of time.

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bandika wrote:

So now it seems hard to send any energy there while I feel myself being in the center of my head, even I can’t locate or feel the area between my eyebrows during that.

MiBeloved's Response:

There is a part of yoga which is sometimes called atmayoga which means yoga practice for discovering and being the spiritual self (atma).

When you are situated in the central consciousness in the head of the subtle body, and you are not in contact with the other components of consciousness, then it said that you are experiencing soul consciousness.

In that state there is no contact with anything else but there you are experiencing at least two realities, namely:

Individual spiritual self

Sense of identity

But these are fused to one another, so that the individual spiritual self cannot easily realize itself as distinct from the sense of identity.

bandika 3 years ago

Okay, I start to understand better the concepts behind these practices. I would have a last question for that: Is there any significance of the presence of thoughts while practicing the third eye focus technique? In other words, is it important to calm the mind completely before starting that?

MiBeloved 3 years ago

bandika wrote:

Is there any significance of the presence of thoughts while practicing the third eye focus technique?

MiBeloved's Response:

Ideally thoughts/images and ideas which relate to the material world should not be present during meditation practice. This is the idea of Patanjali. It is mentioned in Krishna’s instructions to Arjuna and Uddhava.

So the question is:

If there is supposed to be no thoughts/images and ideas which relate to the material world then what should the student do if such thoughts do arise and if he or she cannot command that there be no ideas during the meditation session?

If we attempt to answer this question we will be in serious trouble, because then we are contradicting the statement of the authorities. There was a lineage guru in one of the spiritual societies having to do with Krishna. He said that it was not possible to quell the mind completely. Therefore he said that one should chant holy names and engage the mind like that.

But this instruction goes against the grain of the degree of control described by Krishna in chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita.

As soon as we say that we will have to live with thoughts and that we will have to use some makeshift system even chanting holy names to get rid of thoughts or to at least sanctify thoughts and force the mind to think in a religious way, then we are saying that Patanjali, and Krishna even, were giving us impractical advice and describing utopian states of yoga, which no one can ever attain. You can see that this is very troublesome,

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Therefore instead of doing this, we have to go back over the instruction to see if we missed something in the fine print. That missing something is the practice of pranayama.

If you learn now how to do pranayama properly, then you will not have to deal with these thoughts, images and ideas about the material world.

The mind will be vacant of that because the pranayama will shift it to a plane of existence where those ideas do not occur as a natural course. When riding in airplanes there is turbulence which is very uncomfortable. It shakes the aircraft. But if the pilot can relocate the plane to a different altitude where there is no turbulence, then the vibration stops.

If he cannot relocate the plane, then he has to apply stabilizers and get the passengers to bucket up because there is nothing that he can do to control the turbulence. Therefore the best way to deal with it is to change altitude.

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bandika wrote:

In other words, is it important to calm the mind completely before starting that?

MiBeloved's Response:

It is important to calm the mind completely before starting the meditation but that is true only if you can actually calm it. If you cannot then you should go ahead and meditate as best as you can.

The pilot must keep flying the aircraft even though he does not have an engine which has the required power to elevate the plane to a level where there is no turbulence.

The best thing is to return to the ground level and install a better engine but if you cannot do that, then you should go on with the turbulence and do your best in it.

Do pranayama if you can and let that shift the subtle body to a higher plane, but if you cannot do that, then meditate anyway and realize that you will have to tolerate the impediments.

bandika 3 years ago

Thank you!