Distracted Yogis
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before May 14, 2017
MiBeloved 5 years ago
This morning I was back on schedule for practice, after getting my food, the time eaten and such matters under control. By the grace of fate, I escaped from the situation in which my time for eating, and the type of food eaten, was counterproductive to yoga practice. This body I am using was born under the auspices of a meat eating family. It was conceived in an environment that was hostile to Patanjali yama requirement for ahimsa {a (non) + himsa (killing)}. In childhood this body was not vegetarian, even though fruits and vegetables were part of its diet. This body was omnivorous, eating fish, shrimp, iguana, cow, chicken, sheep, goat, cooked cow’s blood, crab, turkey, duck, and geese.
Some of the original cells which formed this body were taken from a father who in the Amazon rain forest ate snake, turtle, labba (large rodent-like animal), tapir and who knows what.
All such diet is hostile to the yoga described by Patanjali.
I got back on track and so the practice did not have as much resistance as it had a few days ago when my meals went in a direction which is suitable to persons who do not do yoga, who have no view about reincarnation and who have no aspiration for conscious astral projection or the awareness and maintenance of a subtle body.
After about 20 minutes of practice, I became aware of Swami Muktananda on the astral side of existence. I was doing infusion down in the lower trunk of the body. He directed me in a breath infusion mental thrust in the center of the lower trunk. See the diagram below concerning this. When the exhale is made forcibly, then the yogi feels a force going downward which hits the membrane of the psyche which is the base floor of the subtle trunk. Then on the inhale that force flattens out and spreads along that base floor.
About 10 minutes after Muktananda came, Srila Yogeshwaranand came, looked and disappeared.
Students should always be on the alert not to be distracted during practice. There are external and very obvious distractions like lights and noises. Lights are especially troublesome. If you have to, use a blindfold. One member of the site, called once to inform me of an eye to ear cover which he uses and which he said helps him to keep himself within the psyche while doing breath infusion and also meditation. He said he would post it to the sight but up to now he failed to do so.
It is really amazing how much I have to beg students to post things on this site for the interest and also the information of others. There are so many things which must be done on a daily basis and it is become more and more obvious that posting to this site is not that important to most of the members. There is not one single member who is sleeping all day. Each person gets various things done from day to day, everything that is, except posting to this site. This is not a gripe. It is an observation and a very sobering one too about the demands of the material world.
There are essentially two types of distractions which afflict the student during breath infusion and during meditation. These are disturbances from the physical world and disturbances from the psychic world. Those from the physical world can be kept at bay by being in physical isolation. But if that is not possible, one can cover the eyes and even the ears with a cloth or bandage. If you practice day after day and fail to protect yourself from physical lights and sounds, then it is to be understood that you are very stupid and you do not understand how you are shooting yourself in the foot.
Though physical distractions are the easiest to get rid of, still some students fail to deal with it. These might be compared to hard working men who spend their paycheck at a club after working. Instead of saving the money or at least using it constructively for their families, they squander the money on drinks and sexual recreation. They do work and no one can criticize them for living on the dole but they are also very stupid in the way they use income.
The other type of distraction is psychic. Once you shut out the physical distractions, your problems will begin in earnest because then you have to deal with abstract psychic phenomena. These are in your mind but some of these come from outside your mind, penetrate it and take control of it, just the way a virus might enter the nostril, penetrate the mucus membranes and then inflict the body with a disease.
Regardless of whether those psychic distractions are self-created or are alien penetrations, their effect is the same in that they distract you from practice. What is the sense in doing breath infusion in a certain posture which is supposed to infuse energy into the right thigh, while at the same time thinking of last night’s sex with a partner? Does it matter what you think off while you do breathe infusion or during meditation?
Suppose you are meditating on the centre of your eyebrows and you are also thinking about your friend’s new car, does that make a difference?
And it brings to fore the big question: Can these physically external and psychically internal distractions cease during the session?
