Practice Report - Alfredo D - Thursday 12/20/2012
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Jan 15, 2018
Alfredo 5 years ago
ॐ नमः शिवाय
AM Practice
Woke up at 2:30 AM (Brahma-Muhurta). Naad woke me up at 2:30 AM, filling the whole head. This was not a forced wake up, but a welcomed one. There was also immediate mental recall/repetition of the Shiva mantra. I had gone to bed at 9 PM, straight from reading Chapter 3 of “Bhagavad Gita Explained”. Dream recall started immediately and continued unabated.
The longest dream consisted of interaction with 2 members of this forum. Several asanas were entertained, including a demonstration of the Nauli Kriya. Later, I found myself interacting with my deceased father in a house in a Cuban neighborhood, when he finally arrived after we were waiting for him to return from a long trip. Other family members were there.
In my recent experience, dream recall is improved by the following factors: a) Strong interactions with others at the physical plane, especially close family members, tend to affect it negatively; b) Exhaustion of the physical body, will shut down the recalling capacity, thus energization before going to bed helps (prânâyâma); c) Amount and type of food ingested and the time, meaning little amount, Sattvic food, and at least 2 hours before going to bed, all these will help; d) A willing desire to recall the dreams right before falling asleep.
Practice was good and lasted 105 minutes.
Svadhyaya: Continued with Chapter 3 of “Bhagavad Gita Explained” – “Cultural Activity and Renunciation”.
Dedication: Mantra session dedicated to Mahadeva, doing Tratak (eye concentration) on effigy of Lord Shiva using a Mala for 15 minutes.
Breath Infusion: Approximately 30 minutes breath-of-fire prânâyâma while doing several asanas. Kundalini was solicited up sushumna twice.
Meditation: 60 minutes with concentration on naad on back of head.
Sadhana and Tapasya Planning for the Day:
1. Thokar Kriya in between breath-of-fire sessions.
2. As little interaction with others as possible.
3. Eat as little as possible, juicing + flaxseed oil/cottage cheese only today.
4. Long sun bath (body electron energization that complements flaxseed oil consumption – most unsaturated of fats).
MiBeloved 5 years ago
Take care in the use of the word dream.
Normally this means a mental construction which is experienced during the sleeping state of the physical body. In other words, you are in the head of the subtle body as it is interspaced in the sleeping physical one and you become aware of a fantasy film show which is created by the imagination faculty of the buddhi organ.
This is not created by the core-self, even though the core-self may interact in this like an actor in a play. It is created by the buddhi intellect organ all by itself, just as when a projector is accidentally turned on and it has images in it, which begin to show automatically.
Help us to sort between that and astral projection and to be honest with ourselves and others as to which is which.
If you have real subtle experience while the astral body is interspaced in the physical one or while it is separated out of the physical one, then that is not a dream. That is lucid dreaming or astral projection. Lucid dreaming is not a dream as defined above, it is astral experiences with the astral body interspaced in the physical one.
Do you understand the distinction?
Let us begin to pay attention to these details?
Why?
Because otherwise we will not become familiar with the astral side. We know for sure when we are actually walking down the street physically, as compared to when we are imagining in our minds that we are doing so, and we also know when we are imagining about it and also doing it physically.
This distinction we have developed for the physical side. Now let us develop the same kind of clarity about the subtle side.
If we say we are yogis and we are not doing this, then it is bunkum. In chapter one of the Gita, this was the first thing which Krishna got explained to Arjuna about distinguishing between the transmigrating spirit and the physical body of that spirit. There is no spiritual life if we do not have this clarity every step of the way. This is important.
There is one other thing which is that in some experiences one cannot distinguish between the dream part and the astrally projected part. In other words, they might be mixed in such a way, that one is unable to sort it. But then one should know that and should declare that one does not have the ability at the time to sort that.
Alfredo 5 years ago
Thank you very much!
MiBeloved wrote:
[There is one other thing which is that in some experiences one cannot distinguish between the dream part and the astrally projected part. In other words, they might be mixed in such a way, that one is unable to sort it. But then one should know that and should declare that one does not have the ability at the time to sort that.]
Alfredo's Reply:
I do not have that ability developed, it is starting to develop now. How do I know that?
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MiBeloved wrote:
Do you understand the distinction?
Alfredo's Reply:
Because this distinction is very clear to me. I mean, after reading several of your books, including the Sex You! twice, and the Astral Projection thrice, this distinction is very clear.
Of the very few dreams I have described here, I have called "lucidity" in them very sparingly, perhaps 3-4 dreams I knew I was dreaming, which is one of the qualifiers. There was a momentous one I described here months ago, where 3 beautiful angels with wings, all golden/reddish, all females, one a child, the 2 women teaching the little one how to fly, that one had lucidity in it. There was another one also called "American astral tourism", and so on.
But in these 2 described above, I can't say I knew, and given the inability to call them, I simply called them "dreams".
Now you see my conundrum, it is only my limitation. As you once said, I am a novice yogi, and as the saying goes in Cuba...with these mules, I have to plow. It is not concepts that I lack, actually I have enough of them, I am lacking on the experiences front.
MiBeloved 5 years ago
Alfredo wrote:
Of the very few dreams I have described here, I have called "lucidity" in them very sparingly, perhaps 3-4 dreams I knew I was dreaming, which is one of the qualifiers.
MiBeloved's Response:
Knowing that you are dreaming during a dream experience is a big deal. I am sure that Jettins would agree with that. He is really versed at this astral projection stuff. Another completely separate issue is knowing if you are in an astral projection, a lucid dream or an imagination dream.
This means that once you master the skill of knowing or become objectively aware of a dream, it is still a feat to determine if that was one of those three types:
Astrally projected circumstance.
Astrally non-projected circumstance or lucid dream.
Imagined circumstance in the mind chamber (actual normal definition of dream).
I would recommend however that you do not get hung up on actually knowing that you are in the dream. This is featured on just about every astral projection site on the internet. For the purpose of kriya yoga, that is not really an objective, for the simple reason that nature will not allow you to be objective at every time. It is just not going to allow that no matter how a person’s claims to be God or to be one with God or whatever.
The actual attainment is to act sensibly in the astral world, at least as sensibly as one does in this world. That means to carry over one’s developed consciousness to the dream/astral side of existence and to function there sensibly irrespective of becoming objective there.
Our problem for the purposes of kriya yoga is that we are unable to carry over our discrimination to other level of existence and so we act in those places without conscience, which is really insane.
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Alfredo wrote:
There was a momentous one I described here months ago, where 3 beautiful angels with wings, all golden/reddish, all females, one a child, the 2 women teaching the little one how to fly, that one had lucidity in it. There was another one also called "American astral tourism", and so on.
MiBeloved's Response:
Assuming that there are angelic beings who use wings, even then wings are not necessary in the astral world because of the astral body's power to levitate by using will-power alone. In this physical world will-power is useless for flying around, unless one has a bird body.
In the astral world however a bird body is not required. One can do so in any body and without motion of limbs or wings. Birds would look pretty stupid if suddenly the gravitation force of the earth permitted human beings to fly just based on willpower. So you can see from that how silly it is in the astral world to find beings who actually have astral wings.
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Alfredo wrote:
But in these 2 described above, I can't say I knew, and given the inability to call them, I simply called them "dreams".
MiBeloved's Response:
This is good, the uncertainty and the admission about it. What is bad is that you label it as a dream. This is not nice. This is materialistic. If you are uncertain about it then say that you cannot ascertain it as a dream or an astral projection and it would be either. Do not brand it as a dream because the mind will then continue with this incorrect labeling of the experience and it won’t take responsibility to be more alert in these experiences.
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Alfredo wrote:
This is good advice that I comply with, but without compelling the family into it as they do not share my views and I respect that and them also, meaning in my case it is that I have converted parts of the house to accommodate the atmosphere that you wrote about, and that's where I practice Yoga, do Puja, mantra, study, etc.
MiBeloved's Response:
Family means karmic obligation being fulfilled. This is a separate account. To deal with this you practice karma yoga which is yoga maturity applied to cultural obligations. But first you have to master yoga before you can do karma yoga.
In any case however, you should maintain your obligations and see to it that they are properly discharged. Doing yoga is not excuse for slouching on social obligations. Krishna did not allow Arjuna to neglect family responsibilities in the Kuru dynastic clan.
Basically in Chapter one of the Gita, Arjuna was saying to Krishna that he (Arjuna) wanted to cut out, go to the forest to be with yogis who have no social connections, and just chill out. But Krishna said, “No you don’t you little coward! You are going to fulfill your obligations to this family once and for all.”
If you owe the ancestors of your body certain services, then your becoming a yogi does not in any way absolve the obligations. They still stand. In fact if you are any type of yogi, even a beginner, yoga should help you to see how to better manage the discharge of such obligations.
A student should not get any hair-raising ideas about making the family into yogis. That is case of madness. Most of these entities have no interest in doing yoga, especially kriya yoga. You should pay them off for taking the body from them and for getting their services when the body was an infant. But do not try to make them do yoga. What has yoga go to do with them?
If you owe me fifty bucks, then how will you tell me to do yoga as a payment? What is that? You keep your yoga and give me my fifty bucks. Then I will let you off the hook.
Alfredo 5 years ago
MiBeloved wrote:
[This means that once you master the skill of knowing or become objectively aware of a dream, it is still a feat to determine if that was one of those three types:
Astrally projected circumstance.
Astrally non-projected circumstance or lucid dream.
Imagined circumstance in the mind chamber (actual normal definition of dream)]
Alfredo's Reply:
This is also clear to me. Months ago, Jettins had provided the Raduga book to me, and I experimented with it (School of Out of Body Travel).
I had several incipient OBE experiences, such as getting the astral body half-way out, but getting stuck, seeing the astral hands several times.
There were some health challenges and I abandoned that.
Then I got the "Astral Projection" book and decided to simply continue the yoga practice and try astral projection only using the back-of-head meditation explained there, whether it happens. This practice is a double whammy, as it could serve that purpose, and it is also a high meditational practice.
I would be able to know, and separate, an astrally-projected circumstance.
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PM Practice was shortened a little due to a home visit by family.
Most of the day was spent working on the Sanskrit translation of the Tejabindu Upanishad (finished 2 Slokas), reading, and doing Thokar Kriya pranayama, I also took a long sun bath (Miami weather today over 80 F outside and sunny, so I can't practice Arjuna's Kriya for warming!).
20/20 Breath-of-fire/Naad meditation. Naad was as strong as ever in the PM practice, just stayed tethered to it.
