Day 63 – New start

Since I had a heavy fall from my mountain bike I had to stop my regular exercise routine. Mainly because I was in too much pain. Very nearly broke my leg. Was on crutches for a month. Have finally healed. This whole blog was  a result of that injury, as I got deeply into yoga, mainly pranayama, concentration, meditation and contemplation.

I have found pranayama to be very strengthening, internally, but because I have not been exercising my muscular system and cardio I felt I got to a point of saturation with it. Now I feel it’s time to start working on the muscular and cardiovascular.

The new revised plan is to intersperse running (cardiovascular) with resistance training and specific abs workouts.

So my new routine will run like this:

day 1: Resistance training

day2: Yoga postures

day3: Abs

day 4: Yoga postures

day 5: Running

day 6: Yoga

day 7: Rest

I have decided to chill with the pranayama until I get my general fitness back up to par.

2 months recovering has left me out of shape, just a little.

As soon as I feel my fitness returned I shall restart the prananyama.

Posted this blog to my facebook today. A big welcome to new readers.

Day 50 – Lotus posture.

No physical yoga today, slept late and explored interesting dreams.

Very good pranayama session though.

Am getting used to sitting in lotus. I can see why it is renown as the king of meditation poses. One feels so stable.

Something clicked in meditation today. very subtle. Could really feel apana and prana currents, rise with inhalation and descend with exhalation; the opposite movement to the breath.

Something opened, or, let go.

Have been feeling very positive and energized. Am spinning a new animation, have some great reading material and just feel settled and content.

It has gotten very cold here. Winter has definitely arrived.

Day 26 – interesting comments

abc>

respected sir,

can you throw some light on the practise that you are undergoing and also if possible tell more about the chakras that are beyond the sahasrara

aaaummm>

Respected Sir,

Kriya yoga is the main practice I am undergoing:

https://aaaummm.wordpress.com/

I have also experienced intuitions concerning the higher chakras through the use of crystals, and through Hemi-sync exercises.

The three higher chakras seem to be energy gateways in which one can pull or send energy trans-dimensionally. I believe the chakra directly above Sahasrara to be connected to the causal realm.

I have found through experimentation, if you send love energy from the heart up, through the thousand petaled lotus, then through the higher chakra with the intention of sending love out of our universe, a line of energy can be sent to other realms.

If you send love out and whilst it is travelling at the speed of consciousness, out of our universe, turn off all thoughts, holding the mind empty, this gives the love energy the extra kick it needs to make it out of our own universe into other realms.

By sending love energy to another realm it will invariably make contact with other consciousness. Once a link is formed, love can be sent back and forth between the two realms. The wondrous snowball effect from sending and receiving love, trans-dimensionally, raises ones own energy levels exponentially.

Initially you can practice sending and receiving love to planetary bodies in our own solar system, through Sahasrara. As you become more adept at this practice the higher chakras will activate which allow the sent and received love energy to be strengthened into a potent laser like ray, which is capable of traversing the vast distances involved.

I hope my preliminary experiments will be of some use to you,

Namaste.

Chiraan>

AND what purpose will be solved by sending LOVE back and forth like lasers to some unknown land which we have never seen ?

aaaummm>

The ancient Rishis maintained that the average person utilises merely 1% of their brain matter, which is located all through the spinal column, not just in th head, as well as outbranching nervous ganglia and neurons in the major organs.

Patanjali postulates that as a yogin becomes established in the eight limbs of yogic practice, the brain matter realises it is safe to start to awaken. This awakening allows the yogin to process large amounts of cosmic energy, needed for the higher states of consciousness experienced as the yogin becomes ‘illumined’.

Attainment of yogic siddhis are signposts along the way that show the yogin is making progress.

The practicing yogin needs to find new ways to pull, store and utilise energy.

The causal realm is said to be the abode of our true ‘Self’. It is possible to make contact with this Self and utilise its vaster energy in order to experience greater depths of cosmic consciousness. These cosmic experiences are extremely miraculous and blissful, which is probably the reason why millions of seekers spend so much time, effort and energy in order to experience even a brief mystical moment.

Some people call this true Self God.

Many purport the true purpose of life is to realise this Self.

So it is not so much a purpose to be solved but a method of experiencing greater levels of bliss with the ultimate goal being actual to actually achieve God consciousness.

This may seem far fetched to those without any mystical knowledge, maybe even arrogant to suggest a human being can experience what it is to be a God,

but all the ancient sages say it is so,

and believe me, once you have a taste of God consciousness you will realise that everything in your life so far has been of the quality of a dream.

Imagine you only knew of the dream world and your only experience was of dreaming, then one day you woke up!

How would normal reality seem to you?

Now imagine you woke up from normal reality into Cosmic Consciousness.

Would you ever wish to go back to sleep?

chiraan>

I am wondering at so many words like ” may be, imagine ” , ! why is it that your cosmic experiences are not definitive . ANd why should it not be taken that dream state is still continuing ! what is the exact experience that has convinced you that you have awakened !

And is it not just a great strain to keep drawing the extra energy from some unknown world only to sustain the dream state ?
What is the final consciousness that you must know where you say okay I stop playing football with LOVE back and forth through cosmic lasers and I am stabilised . IS there any human alive who has said yes I AHVE achieved this ?

aaaummm>

Respected fellow,

I shall attempt to answer your enquiries;

My definite experiences are chronicled here;

https://aaaummm.wordpress.com/

The use of words such as maybe and imagine are designed to help someone who has no experience of a certain state to conceive of said states being possible.

Before I experienced such states I was unable to accept that consciousness hid such treasure.

“ANd why should it not be taken that dream state is still continuing ! ”

The dream state occurs usually four times in one sleep episode. When we wake up, the dream state is simply no longer continuing.

“And is it not just a great strain to keep drawing the extra energy from some unknown world only to sustain the dream state ?”

I think you may have misunderstood. The energy sending and receiving is carried out in the waking state. Sending and receiving love is never a strain, it is a continual joy.

“What is the final consciousness that you must know where you say okay I stop playing football with LOVE back and forth through cosmic lasers and I am stabilised .”

Samadhi is said to have nine stages.

Kaivalya is said to be the highest or final state to be reached.

Though I fear you may have again misunderstood.

Sending and receiving energy is simply one method of increasing ones own energy capacity and not a method used to directly experience Samadhi.

Becoming stabilised happens through balancing ones life. This is a side product of practising kriya yoga but not the end goal.

“IS there any human alive who has said yes I AHVE achieved this ?”

I have not met him/her personally.

Though I have read about such people.

Kriya yoga would hold Babaji to be such a one.

I imagine through the different schools of mystical science, such as; yoga, sufism, kaballah, zen, taoism etc People have realised God consciousness. Though,

“Only a few ever hear these truths; of those who hear, only a few understand, and of those only a handful attain the goal.”

Katha Upanishad

Answer me a question if you will –

What else of worth is there to do in this life?

I hope I shall always continue sending and receiving love.

I am sending some to you now..

Day 25 Yoga routine and The Upanishads

Been finding it a challenge to stick to the plan. Sometimes success makes things more difficult than failure. My practise has been up and down. Gone are the 4 times a day pranayama, down to once or twice a day. Had a few days off too.

This morning however I had a 2 hour asana session in which for the first time since my injury, I worked through the chakras with 21 postures, 3 for each chakra. One to warm it up, one forward bending pose to bring energy into the chakra and the third, backward arching pose to send energy up to the next chakra.

This entails 18 poses for the first 6 chakras then 3 poses to strengthen all the chakras simultaneously.

Each pose must be held in a feeling state, as well as utilising a positive affirmation, such as,

“I am health, vim, vigour and vitality.”

This is a powerful routine when carried out correctly.

Today I planned out a routine, so took it slow. Had to change what I might normally do because my elbow is still too sore to hold the weight in the scorpion.

Slow gradual progress!

Next session will flow smoother. Soon, I hope to be able to flow through all 21 poses in a feeling state.

Started reading The Upanishads today. Very nice.

“Only a few ever hear these truths; of those who hear, only a few understand, and of those only a handful attain the goal.”

Katha Upanishad

Day 13 – Onwards and upwards.

Not much to report really..

Changed pranayama practice from four phase motion breath to alternate breathing and sun piercing breath to OM with exhalation.

Upwards and onwards!

Started to reread Autobiography of a yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda. Should help to keep me going on the path. I love his use of language. If you haven’t read this amazing book, you should rush out to your nearest book seller and demand a copy instantly! It is a life changing work. A must for anyone interested in Yoga, spirituality or religion. In one stunning chapter Yogananda’s Guru – Sri Yukteswar appears in a vision from beyond the grave and  explains in detail what happens to us after we die. His description of the after life realms is extremely convincing and enough to change even the worse sinners into saints. I believe this book should be studied in all high schools.

I remember when I first started to read this autobiography, I suspected it was exaggerated or even made up in parts, but having completed it I was convinced of its truth.

Day 12 – kundalini awakening.

Went to bed at 12:30 last night, very tired from a long days cycling.

Up at 6:10 am. Breathe for 20 minutes then back to sleep.

wake at 11:45.

That’s near 12 hours sleep. I have achieved 2 full weeks of Brahmacharya.

A word hangs in my memory from deep in a dream;

Peliathan.

A strange word I do not recall hearing before. I google, it is a Balinese village. Ummm.

Sun was shining in a totally blue sky.

I sit and breathe. In the gorgeous sunshine.

With the bee breath comes something new. A tingling at the base of the spine.

Ah!

I have certainly heard a lot about this. Could it be the start of Kundalini awakening? I guess I will find out with time. I have never felt this sensation before.

I go through the subtle transformations from,

Sense withdrawal – Concentration – Meditation – Contemplation.

In a samadhic trance I see the golden ring at the apex of a triangle.

I have seen this image before.

Day 11 – Cycling and yoga

Went for a long bike ride today. Reluctantly missed my 6 pm pranayama session 😦

Ah well 1 miss in 11 days is not bad. That’s 43/44 Pranayama sessions.

Some days the body needs a different form of exercise – that’s my excuse anyway. Cycling can be a form of yoga, it takes stamina and perseverance, very yogic traits!

My pranayama times have gone very low because have been cycling a lot. Am building the strength back in my injured leg, overdid it though and felt exhausted.

Tut-tut.

This will not do!

Still, did an hours physical asana today.

I understand why Sivananda says the pranayama practitioner should not walk far distances or exert oneself too much physically. Pranayama demands a lot of energy.

Hopefully I have learned from this experience.

Day six – Meditation on unselfish Love

Today I decided to rest from physical asana. My body firmly stated that it required rest and I have definitely learned to listen to my body. Yoga injuries can take a long time to heal. I think this is of extreme importance to the yogin but sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between bodytalk and sheer laziness!

Yesterday I started to read about meditation and refresh my memory upon the topic. Last night at my midnight sitting the investment bore fruit. Previously my style of meditation was simply attentive but completely still. I would attempt to hold the utter stillness for as long as possible. My goal was to hold the openness for 12 seconds. This is no easy task, the mind is a hard beast to tame. I achieved this goal once, almost 4 years ago and experienced my second encounter with the great light. It took a long time and a lot of practice to still the mind completely for 12 seconds. I used to describe this process as meditation but after reading up on meditation yesterday, now I’m not so sure. I have a new understanding of meditation and samadhi.

Last night at my midnight sitting I employed a new technique of simply withdrawing the senses and then holding the breath and going deep into a feeling state of Unselfish love. The resulting feeling state was held for about 10 seconds I would guess, it is impossible to count when in a deep feeling state. I was able to project myself deep into the feeling of love. It’s quite difficult to describe, it’s a subtle feeling at first which grows in intensity and mounting bliss. Accompanied with rushes and tingles throughout the body it was a very pleasant feeling. Recalling feelings of giving and receiving love unselfishly, felt subtly magical as if an ensuing flood of endorphins and enkephalins were somehow Natures reward for sharing the universal energy of Love.

I think previously I had confused the terminology of meditation, the 7th limb of yoga, with the 8th limb of yoga – contemplation, Samadhi. I am looking forward to reading all about Samadhi tonight and hopefully moving another step nearer my goal.

I decided at my noon session today to change my pranayama, again. I was getting an unpleasant feeling in my cheekbones and ear canal from to much Bhastrika. This was a problem last time I practiced pranayama in depth. It’s a very unusual feeling. I feel the cheekbones to have special significance in yoga which I will talk about at another time, when I recount my second encounter with the Light.

I feel I have progressed greatly these last 6 days and feel I should tone down the purifying pranayama a little and move it in a more subtle direction. I decided upon the bee breath, which feels really nice. I also changed the inhalation/exhalation extension practice to the identical breath which is similar but not as strenuous. Lastly I changed the deep abdominal breathing to sun piercing breath which is also more subtle and less strenuous. I look forward to exploring and working with these new techniques.

Day 5 – Hong Sau & chakra positions

Today I began incorporating Hong Sau;

“In Sanskrit, the word Hamsa (Hong-Sau) means wild gander, and has great symbolic significance. No matter how far the wild gander flies, at some point it remembers, and migrates back to its home, always at the proper season. In the same way, we as spiritual beings following a spiritual principle must, like the wild gander, remember, and migrate back to our spiritual home. The spiritual home is the inward state of Samadhi. The Hong-Sau Kriya meditation is a key technique whereby you return to the spiritual home.

In most systems of meditation, there is a particular spiritual result that is sought. This may be trance, vision, or clairaudience. This is not, however, the end goal of Kriya Yoga. There is a higher meditation, in which you enter a state of consciousness with meaning beyond your own mind. In this state of meditation, you remove the illusions, delusions, cravings, loyalties, and prejudices. These states produce emotional ignorance within your everyday consciousness. When these states have been removed, you see the reality.

Higher meditation produces a strength and an intensity of consciousness making you courageous and fearless. The most universally applicable method for developing meditation is attentiveness on the incoming and outgoing breath! This technique in no way interferes with the normal breathing pattern. It is used as a point of concentration. It is a pattern upon which the Hong-Sau meditation technique is based.

 

 

 

 

Taken from “The Spiritual Science of Kriya Yoga” by Goswami Kriyananda.

Was good to find this on the web as it gives an example of Goswami Kriyanandas style of writing; plus I couldn’t think of much to say today ; ) found some nice pictures though. I especially like the one showing the position of the chakras from the side view. For a long time I was never exactly sure where the Chakras were, depth wise in the body. Most images only show the chakras from the front. I wonder how ida, pingala and shushumna fit into this view of the chakras being along the spinal axis? Are the three main nadi channels found simply in the center of ones body or do they also adhere to the spinal axis? Answers on a postcard please..

Day 3 – The hardest thing in the world! An encounter.

Day three, rolled out of bed at 6:35, completed Pranayama, rolled back into bed and went straight back to sleeep! Nice. It’s becoming automatic!

Woke at 10 am to brilliant blue skies, praises to the God and Goddesses! Read up about Dharana – concentration, gorging in the splendid sunshine. Felt like I had discovered a missing piece of the yogic puzzle, refreshing my sitting practice.

Memories of my previous concentration practice came flooding back. My concentration object – a beautiful stone which my daughter gave to me, a fortuitous discovery from a Welsh beach. Oh the hours spent concentrating on this stone! I know its every detail so intimately you could not imagine. Yet somehow it has slipped from my mind recently. I guess the power of my last mystical experience was such a transforming episode and took such assimilation that it has taken nearly four years to get back into the samadhic saddle to make my next assault on the spiritual mountain peaks.

I feel energised today! I felt a little down last night because I chose to say no to various invitations from friends. This feels more important to me at the moment, to ground myself thoroughly in my practice, to create a strong foundation. I’m sure my friends will understand, yet I cannot help feel bad as I am usually a good friend and know the importance of supporting ones friends when they need it. I feel it is the highest privilege to be able to help a friend in need and normally I am unconditionally giving of my time.

Lately I have felt let down by several friends when we have arranged to do something. It felt very frustrating. One of my beliefs is that if you say you are going to do something with a friend you should do it, and if for some reason you really cannot do what you agreed, then you should make it a priority to let your friend know as soon as possible. To me that’s just common decency. I may be being a bit harsh but I am tired of certain so-called friends continually letting me down and so have decided to cut some individuals out.

Any way enough of the rant, let me tell you about my practise. My asana is going nicely, I practice roughly an hour before noon for about an hour. I will post a list of the sequence. Gradual strengthening is already being felt. Coupled with the pranayama it is a very powerful fitness routine. The bellows breath is the best abdominal exercise I have come across. It takes some getting used to but when the flow kicks in it feels magical. My right leg is still a bit sore from my biking fall but today I managed the lotus whilst performing the mountain. So it’s gradually healing. My new problem is my elbow. It got cut up real bad in the fall and was healing well until I did the scorpion on it and now its gone into a very painful blister. I just hope it’s not infected. I have had to cut out the scorpion for now until it heals again.

So why is simply sitting on the ground with your eyes closed the hardest thing in the world? By God its difficult! Don’t believe me? You should try it. It is sooooo hard!

In the past I have always practised meditation lying down and have had amazing results but now I have decided to master sitting asan. The goal is to be able to sit for 3 hours. I have managed 25 mins so far. Today after my Pranayama I went into yoni mudra, a sense withdrawal exercise in which you close all the senses and concentrate on ajna. This feels good. Next I went into concentration on my stone. This was the first time I’ve done it for ages so was a tad tricky. I then went into a Qi-gong exercise called the microcosmic orbit this is not strictly yoga but I feel it helps to speed up the energetic process considerably and have had excellent results with it in the past. In fact I would go as far as to say that it is the most powerful spiritual/energy exercise I have encountered. It is amazing! Let me tell you about my experiences with it.

Firstly it took weeks to get any results. I practised it a lot. I mean a lot. The process is to visualise a small ball of energy, about half an inch inside your skin, moving from the anus up the back, around the head, down the face to the throat as you breathe in. Then move the energy down from the throat chakra back to the anus as you exhale. This completes one circuit. Mantak Chia suggests starting with nine circuits. Later you can train the circuit to spin continually, unconsciously.

At first you may have trouble visualising this process and so to help you can trace a line around yourself with a finger as you breathe. I found yogic concentration exercises to work  great in combination with the microcosmic orbit as they both help your visualisation skills to develop.

So anyway, after several weeks I started to actually feel the energy rather than just visualising it.  It’s as if the circuit is already there but you need to activate it by first visualising this cosmic loop. It first feels like a weak current moving around your body. After more practice the current gets stronger. I actually started to see it with my inner vision as a light blue electricity looking light moving around a channel which was gradually getting thicker with time. This probably sounds far-fetched to someone who never practised any energy work, but if you have felt these astral energies, you will understand.

This  microcosmic orbit for me was the first piece of a combination of techniques that I started putting together which led to a huge breakthrough. The barefoot doctor tells of a shamanistic exercise called scooping the loop in which the microcosmic orbit is utilised in conjunction with visualising three chakras breathing in unison but separately. This takes a lot of skill. visualising one chakra can be a challenge, to hold three at once whilst spinning the microcosmic orbit around it all takes a lot of practise. It is worth it. The chakras start to come alive. After much practise I then added the Dharana exercise of visualising my stone outside of the orbit whilst breathing the three chakras. This is an incredibly powerful technique.

It takes a lot of energy and time to build up.

One day, about 8 years ago, after deeply feeling the inherent power I was determined to master this technique. It was a sunny day and I spent a full 8 hours lay in Whitworth park continually practising this formidably complex visualisation. I had been abstaining from ejaculating for about a month to build up the required energy levels. I was holding the visualisation strongly, for a long time, but without  major breakthrough.

I went home and decided to give it one more try. I lay on the bed and restarted the technique, after a short time suddenly I was struck by lightning! BOOOM! I  left.

I was transported to what appeared to be the depths of space.

I seemed to be stood on a floating rock in front of a gigantic field of energy. This wasn’t a visualisation or a hallucination I was actually there. Though the experience was somehow more real than our usual reality.

I could physically feel the pulsating energy’s heat combined with some sort of solar wind on my skin. The heat was immense. I was extremely terrified. I thought I was going to catch on fire as the heat was so strong. I suddenly realised how people spontaneously and mysteriously combust.

I felt I was too near to the huge light. The light itself, when I say huge, probably the biggest thing we can imagine is our earth or sun, a planetary scale. This Energy/ Light was hundreds of times the size of our sun. It was staggeringly colossal! Imagine the heat of being right close to our sun but it was a different type of heat, more electrical, of a cool blue colour but still Hot. I sensed it was sentient and it was sensing me.

As quickly as I was there, I was back on the bed.

This was my first mystical experience.

Wow!

I didn’t want another.

I was in shock. Serious shock.

I tried to explain what had occurred to my then girlfriend, and later some of my friends. She later put it down to me opening my kundalini. I guess this was the outer edges of her model. How could anyone realise the power of that experience unless they had under gone a similar occurrence.

This was not Kundalini.

Before this happened to me, if someone would have tried to explain this as happening to them I would probably thought they were crazy or exaggerating. After this experience I didn’t practice any yoga or energy work for over a year. I was petrified!

After a lot of assimilation to my new model of the universe, I began again. It was not to be my last encounter with this incredible light.

23-09-2010	Deep abdominal breath	Inhalation/Exhalation Extension	Easy breath	Bhastrika	Total sit time
6:00 am	X7	20/20 15/15 12/12	5in 5h 10ex x3 5–10–10×4	30 30 30 30 30	5 min
12 noon	X7	15/15×2 17/17×2	5- 10-10 x7	40 20 30 30 30	13 min
6:00 pm	X7	17/17×2 15/15×2	5-10-10×7	25 30 30 35	13 min
12 mid	X9	17/17×5	5-10-10×7	30 30 30 30 30	18 min
24-09-10
6:00 am	X10	20/20 20/17 17/17×3	5-10-10×7	35 35 30 30	20 min
12 noon	X12	25/25 30/30 25/25 20/30 25/25	5-10-10×7	35 40 30 30	25 min
6:00 pm	X20	25/25 20/20 35/35 30/30 25/25	5-20-10×7	30 35 30 25	22 min
12 mid	X20	30/30 40/20 25/25 20/20 20/20	5-10-10×7	40 35 30 30	21 min
25-09-10
6 am	X20	40/45 30/30 25/25 20/20 20/20	5-15-10×8	40 35 30	22 min
12 noon	x25	45/45 35/35 30/30 25/25 20/20 20/20	5-10-10×8	60 30 30	22min
6 pm
12 mid

Pranayama times table