Practice Report - Alfredo D. - Wednesday 9/19/2012

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date: Posted 5 years before Sep 21, 2017

Alfredo 5 years ago

ॐ नमः शिवाय

PM Practice around 4:00 PM: Could only manage a PM practice due to leaving home at 4:30 am for personal engagement.

Svadhyaya: Started 2nd round of study of “Astral Projection” book, this time checking some details against recent experiences during meditation. This was done during intervals of personal engagements.

Dedication: Practice dedicated to Mahayogi Lord Shiva.

Breath Infusion: 35 minutes of Bhastrika prânâyâma in various asanas. Kundalini arouse once first, and forcefully, in a floor asana for the first time in my practice, then a second time with the usual kneeling asana with the straight back and fists to the floor.

Meditation: Meditation was conducted under the guidelines of yesterday’s teachings. Naad sound was strong, but I could never get it to lead me into Dhyana as instructed (I suspect this will happen during Brahma-Muhurta as I was tired), thus I settled for Dharana on the back of the head while letting Naad be heard, and observing where it would lead me. Meditation lasted for 45 minutes, and was done lying on the back on a hard floor over a silk carpet with ear plugs and a black sleep mask over the eyes.

This length of practice would for me be impossible to manage on sukhasana or any other typical yoga posture. There is nothing wrong, apparently, about meditating lying down (as stated in “Meditation Pictorial”). It is usually not recommended because, it is said, the subject may fall asleep. Not in my case, for sure. Not in the afternoon. This length of practice affords a study of the psyche than otherwise would be impossible in my case, thus it is very helpful.

Thus while concentration on the back of the head and hearing Naad, I observed how long before concentration tends to wander back to the front of the head. It does happen after a while. However, today, as soon as I started to meditate, the concentration seemed to go to the back of the head as if by default.

Meditation quality was compromised due to sporadic, but throbbing pain, from the right foot.

Dream recall: One dream recalled of neutral nature.

MiBeloved 5 years ago

Alfredo wrote:

Kundalini arouse once first, and forcefully, in a floor asana for the first time in my practice, then a second time with the usual kneeling asana with the straight back and fists to the floor.

MiBeloved's Response:

At this point of practice after years of doing kriya yoga without the help of an aggressive pranayama practice, it is time to evaluate, if it true that a person can master kriya yoga by skipping strenuous pranayama.

Is it a fact that a person can just sit to meditate and that person will actually get all those experiences which were indicated in the classic book for the West which was Autobiography of a Yogi?

Swami Vivekananda was also responsible for the opinion that one could master Patanjali without asanas and pranayama and Paramhamsa Yogananda Guruji also gave people that idea even though some of his inner circles were pushed in the direction of asanas and pranayama.

The other thing that happened is that Westerners who became teachers modified the system and manufactured various breath routines which now have become standard fare or authorized processes.

Just imagine how pathetic we are, in that we are claiming to be God, to be the Absolute, to be the Ultimate and so on, and we cannot even raise kundalini in our individual bodies without fail on a daily basis. We do it hit and miss as if we do not know what we are doing. But material nature is so versed in the act, that any materialistic person can raise kundalini just by sexual stimulation. Just by looking at a sexually attractive woman, a man can raise kundalini and by a woman seeing an attractive man, her kundalini would be aroused.

And yet many are passing as kriya yogis who cannot raise kundalini on a daily basis and who sit to meditate and imagine this or visualize this or that and then say that they are operating the chakras. What are these people really saying?

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Alfredo wrote:

MiBeloved's Response:

Usually under such circumstances, naad will not lead to dhyana. And the student should just accept that and apply himself in dharana with the understanding that the breath infusion session was insufficient to shift the subtle body into a higher plane of consciousness.

For students who do not follow the Sanskrit terms:

Dhyana is when there is effortless transfer or focus into a higher level of reality.

Dharana is when there is effort to transfer the core-self into or to link into a higher level of reality.

The difference is the need for effort or the lack of it.

Obviously the prize state is dhyana (dhee-an) which means that the student is breezing it, while in dharana (dha ra-naa) some mental work has to be done to keep the link or focus into that higher reality.

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Alfredo wrote:

MiBeloved's Response:

Unless one gets specific instructions from the yoga guru or from his agent to do meditation in a certain posture, one should do it in an easy posture which could be a reclined position even. One should use a hard surface and one can use a cushion on that surface and if that is a problem, then one can use a fully padded seat like the Western sofa (couches).

Student yogis should not sit to meditate and be worrying about pain or strain in a posture. That is counterproductive. However if one is ordered by a yoga guru to use a certain posture one should by all means sit in that pose.

The human body is a crude machine, a pain in the neck. One should know that as the body gets older or if it is damaged in one way or the other, that will cause one not to comfortably assume certain postures, and that is okay.

Alfredo 5 years ago

I am careful here to question any Gurujis because I know you dislike that, so I wait for you to mention it first before commenting in that regard, out of respect.

But what you wrote is true. You also covered that well, I think, in the "Spiritual Master" book.

The tools should match the Bhakti. The student can have good bhakti and be fired up, but improper or insufficient tools or techniques will take him or her so far.

It may be correct for certain Gurus to assume that the student or students, might not be ready because they are greenhorns, westerners, or from a certain polity or country. However, this assumption often leads to a slippery slope whereby the proper techniques become secretly guarded, and soon deteriorate into 2nd-rated, not to mention the tendency to mislead and abuse the Sadhak with promises that can't be fulfilled, just in order to control him/her.

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