Yoga Asana Postures / The Pain of It
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Mar 06, 2018
MiBeloved 5 years ago
From LinkedIn:
Julie wrote:
Yoga asanas to the point of pain?
I have recently heard that several yoga instructors in the states said that in order to progress in the poses, you need to go to the point of pain. This is not what I have ever learned, nor is it what I have ever done. What are your thoughts on this?
MiBeloved's Response:
To improve certain postures one must stretch the muscles and ligaments a little more each time as one does a session of asanas postures. In some postures which one has mastered to the full, the stretching is also done but for the purpose of flexing and then relaxing that part of the body.
To get the full effect of asana, the breathing should be coordinated with the specific asana. This makes for asana and pranayama combined.
Why?
Toxins on the physical side, and negative energies (apana) on the subtle side are released in the asanas but this energy will be recombined into the tissues, tendons and muscles, if it is not pulled out through the breathing process.
For those who are doing celibacy as part of their yoga practice, this is extremely important, because the apana energy is the pranic force which supports downward pressures, like evacuation force and sex energy release force through the sex organ chakra.
These energies are released in the asana postures, but they simply recombine into the cells, muscles and tendons again, so that there is no celibate result from such a practice.
If however pranayama is done with the asana postures, then the released negative energies in both the physical and subtle bodies, can be drawn out through the breath and would not recombine into the system again.
In this respect the student may deliberately stretch to the point of pain in certain postures like for instance the pigeon posture (kapotasana) in any of its variations. The subtle energies in these parts of the body are released more and more as the thighs and the back are stretched to the point of pain and then a little more just a little more.
There remains some hidden parts of the body, which are reached by pushing to the point of the pain and then the energy which is released which is negative, is drawn out by the breathing. These areas of the body particularly the thighs store vast amount of subtle sexual energy which builds up to support the sex drive but if a yogi wants to practice celibacy, this behavior of the thighs is changed through the stretches and the breath extraction process.
There are many persons who are contortionists. They do the most proficient poses and yet these persons may not be releasing out of the body the negative subtle energy. This energy will be moved out of the tendons during the stretches but it is recombined into them on the release. So in fact they are not released. For instance even though a contortionist may do the pigeon poses to perfection, still there might be no extraction of the negative energy and of the stored sexual hormones, but a student who is interested in celibacy and in distribution of the sexual hormone in every part of the body evenly, the stretches will give that effect.
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One other thing is the nadis. You may have seen diagrams of the various nadis. Usually the very tiny ones which to the extremities of the body, like the foot and toes, are hard to reach and flush out. But if one stretches a little into the pain these can be reached and if one includes breath extraction, then these tiny subtle tubings can be cleared so that the energy can flow freely to them and so that the stale energy which clogs them are removed. There are also blocked and one-way nadis all over the body even in easy-to-reach places and with certain stretches which are done to the limit, just to the limit and then a little more, one can purify these nadis.
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Julie wrote:
Thank-you for all of this info, Michael. I'm just thinking that for beginners especially, isn't pushing to this point of pain dangerous in that they might not be as aware of the subtle energies of the body? Injuries can surly happen if not aware. I can see releasing old stale energy by stretching to the point of some discomfort that actually feels like good discomfort. By doing this, I have progressed to a comfortable capacity. I have also pushed myself into a pose and caused injury. I have had an instructor say that if you push to pain, you can actually cause yourself to not progress. If there are parts of the body that seem stubborn, is this about stale or negative energy? There have been times when I have pushed myself to the point of almost pain, and could feel if I went any further, I could have strained muscles and this would have been to my detriment. I have heard of some pretty horrific injuries and maybe this is because they weren't practicing the postures properly. To me there is pain that feels good, and then there is pain that just hurts and leads to injury. Do we just have to be aware of the difference in our bodies?
MiBeloved's Response:
I am in compliance that beginners should be taught not to do. Those who are advanced and have gotten familiar with both the purpose of yoga as well as with their body, may do what you call "pain which feels good."
For that matter pain which comes as a result of over-stretching will just make a situation in which one cannot do the practice or one cannot do specific poses of the practice. Which is, obviously, counterproductive.
Beginners are given the upper hand over the postures if they learn that any phase of yoga has to do with knowing what is happening in your own body. If the student is focused out of the body and does poses with only an external interest in the result of the practice, then the student will not know to what extent a pose should be executed
Internal focus is an absolute must for high proficiency.
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Julie wrote:
Yes, I push to the point of what is pain that feels good in certain poses, as I have become more aware of my body.
Fortunately, I had good instructors when I first started out and they warned us not push any further than what felt good, and to never over stretch. They also taught that yoga was not about competition with other students as they could overdo it, trying to keep up to others or do better. This is where being in a class can be dangerous if students are not taught this on the outset.
I am intrigued by your comments on the negative (apana) energies that can be recombined into the tissues when not pulled out by the breathing process. Can they be properly pulled out by just coordinating the breathing with the posters, or is there more to this?
MiBeloved's Response:
There are basically two bodies involved. If someone is doing yoga for the purpose of benefiting the physical body only, then there are no nadis to deal with. Then the person has only to consider the blood and other fluid capillaries in the physical system.
If however one is doing yoga for transcendental benefits, then if you are doing Ashtanga Yoga you need to sort what is physical and what is subtle. Here subtle could mean psychic or spiritual. In that case then nadis might come into focus. This is about cleaning out the subtle body as contrasted to physical yoga which is for cleaning out the physical system.
If you do postures and you focus down into the body, you will in time realize that in certain stretches energy is being released in the subtle body. The perception of this energy will be accompanied by the colors of the energy. You will see some energy which is wholesome which goes in when the lungs absorb fresh air, and then you will see stale used energy in the system which feeds back to the lungs and is liberated out of the system.
Physically we experience this sometimes like when a person runs and then stops to breathe gasping for air, where the person realizes that the system is absorbing fresh air but does not have enough of it and has to gasp to acquire enough. Simultaneously the system has stale used air which is exhausted through the lungs. This is felt in this system sometimes as a burning sensation, or as a sensation of constriction in the lower part of the chest of the body and sometimes at the navel area.
This energy, once you become familiar with it, can be pulled out using a pranayama practice. If effectively done, it does wonders for upgrading the subtle body, putting it to a higher level vibration which is more conducive to meditation.
There are various pranayama practices which can be used. But whatever it is, one would focus down into the part of the body where the particular postures cause a focus point or region in the body, and one would breathe while mentally drawing the negative energy out.
Prasanna 5 years ago
Very informative !!. Thanks a lot for this article Michael ji !!
MiBeloved 5 years ago
Julie wrote:
I have experienced energy released through parts of the physical body that caused crying while doing certain postures. I thought it was just old trapped emotions in the body being released. Now I'm wondering if it was the subtle body energy. Also, a few months ago, while sitting in quiet meditation, I had what felt like an orgasm in the heart chakra. This was not sexual as it was just in the heart area. Was this Kundalini energy coming up, and did it happen because of practicing the asanas? I have been intrigued by this since it happened.
MiBeloved's Response:
Roughly speaking the mental and emotional energies concerns the subtle body but since these are presently fused into the physical system, we mistake these as part of the physical reality. The mental part which is analytical and which plans, concerns the intellect or buddhi in Sanskrit. While the emotional part, the feelings mostly have to do with the kundalini psychic life force system.
Both energies survive the death of the physical system. They form in their combination what is called a subtle body (suksma sharira).
Right now we are conditioned to accepting these as a physical system but they are actually a separate process which is the subtle body. It is similar to electricity in a wire. We do not have much of an idea of electricity being transmitted without copper wires, and so we do not have much of an idea of the mental and emotional energies existing without a physical body.
Eventually science might transmit electric power to our houses without the use of wires and eventually we might begin to see ourselves as mental and emotional energy apart from physical body systems.
When doing asanas and also when doing pranayama separately or combined with asanas, there will be events just as you described where old trapped emotions are released. Sometimes these energies are found lurking in some part of the subtle body in the form of brick of dense energy, like a granite brick. If you put a sledge hammer to a granite brick, it will break into several smaller granite bricks. If you keep striking those, these will in turn fragment into yet smaller bricks, until you will have tiny bricks like the individual pixels of a photo on a digital screen. Especially when doing pranayama practice, these energy compressions, especially of old energy, might explode and then there is a burst of bliss energy. It might be mild bliss energy or it might be sensational like in a sex experience.
This may happen in any part of the subtle body, but it can happen specifically at the chakra vortex distribution points.
Right now our reference for bliss energy is sex energy, but actually this is not a good reference, because the actual reference for bliss energy is the kundalini itself. Sex energy means the kundalini as it is applied through the sex organ facilities and as it explodes in the sex organ chakra. So this is our hang up where we are stuck using that as the reference.
Question is how to perceive the kundalini itself as the reference. None of us have seen electricity in a wire but we have seen lightning flash, so that gives us some idea of how the energy travels through the wire. Normally we perceive electricity through gadgets like through a blender or through a cooking range, or through an air conditioning system or through a light bulb. So how can we change these references and just see the electricity at the breaker panel, where it comes into the building through a thick wire carrying enough current to kill a horse.
Sugar is sugar all by itself. It has a flavor which is not neutral but which is hard to describe but still we have become familiar with sugar through Coca-Cola and through chocolate bars. So how to just get to sugar all by itself? How to realize the bliss energy of kundalini without its application to sex pleasure? Does kundalini have other applications of bliss force other than sex pleasure? How to enjoy those other features?
Kundalini can burst out in any of the chakras just as it does in the sex experience but nature has shown us the sex experience first and directed us to just stick with that.
Yogis are saying that they are other means of bliss experience besides the sex pleasure explosion.
Kundalini can burst in the heart chakra, in the head, or anywhere in the system, even in the fingers and toes and there will be a bliss aspect felt in those areas when it does, just as there is a bliss aspect felt when by the grace of nature, kundalini is expressed through the sex organ chakra.
The practice of asana can cause these burst of kundalini but the most efficient and reliable way is the pranayama practices. However there are other causes such as meeting other people whom you knew in past lives, and also just the development of your consciousness in the present life, where energy from the sub consciousness might be leaking into your conscious mind and causing triggers based on your activities in past lives.
Special Detail:
The chakras on the spine are not one and the same as their offshoot energies and expressions. For instance the sex chakra on the spine is not the same as the sex organ chakra which concerns the sexual apparatus of a male or female being. The heart chakra on the spine is not the chest bloom chakra which concerns the emotions of love and affection.
One should distinguish these energies and not confusion them. The reason for this is that in the case of say the sex organ chakra on the spine, if kundalini strikes that chakra and does not express itself through the sex organ chakra then kundalini will go upwards to the next chakra, otherwise if kundalini expressed itself instead through the sex organ facilities, it will not necessarily go up to the next chakra.
This might be understood by considering a plumbing system where a generator pumps from a reservoir in the basement of a building. If the water is used on the first floor, then the pressure in the line will be decreased so that when it reaches to say the 7th floor, there is less delivery of water. Each delivery system on each floor is comparable to the expression of each chakra in its own zone but if no one uses water on the lower floors then we can understand that there will be more pressure on the top floor.
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Julie wrote:
Transcending the physical conduits of energy is something that can be a challenge indeed, in order to progress to higher levels of consciousness. I have always just thought of energy as an invisible force and never really considered the physical aspects of how it is conducted and by which means it is transferred.
MiBeloved's Response:
Energy is invisible if we do not have senses to perceive it. When we lack perception we say there is nothing there or that it is a void. Science is helping to free us from that psychic blindness through the use of electronic imaging devices.
Nature has also shown us that it can award some perception of what is invisible to some other species of life. For instance bees can see rays of light which we as human are totally oblivious to. They are not there to us, they are void to us but they are perceived by bees.
Mystic yoga practice can cause us to develop some psychic perception so that some invisible energy can be seen.
If you study the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, you may get information in Chapter 3 about mystic perceptions which occur when a yogi applies what Patanjali described as samyama, an introspective process which is highlighted by Samadhi practice.
Higher levels of consciousness even if they are right before our eyes and nose, are not there, or are voidal or invisible if we have not developed the perception to detect them.
