Arman

sitting cross legged on my bed against the wall

juuuulllllieeeen bllaaaaaanc!! *evil laughter* I thought it was a solid program. In a lot of juliens content he would talk about the idea of switching your basic assumption to assume abundance as the default instead of scarcity - so in other words start operating from the divine/consciousness. However I didn't feel he went very deep into the 'assume abundance' part of it. A lot of it was about identifying traumas and conditioning and releasing it - which is the stuff that stops us from assuming abundance. He offered great healing techniques. I think the healing journey demands more context though and I am questioning whether true successful transformation into well-being can occur through healing/release work alone, since that stuff can go on for years. It is true that it helps a lot and free's up one, makes one more at ease, more expressive and it just helps one in general, but the gradual benefits of releasing traumas is not the same thing as instantly establishing abundance or a high vibration baseline and moving into a 10. To 'assume abundance' temporarily in the comfort of our own homes after doing a healing session is one thing, but to establish that as our living reality seems like a more challenging feat - one that the program made to sound easy and that in my opinion needed to focus more on. Perhaps I'm complicating things for myself. If anyone has insight into this. please share. I think 'choosing' to align with abundance is a thing that is possible and that has wonderful results, and something I experience, but maintaining and integrating it seems to be a process rather than a switch. Despite this criticism I think it will only benefit anyone that goes through it. Looking forward to watching juliens content evolve.

animal lovers? gross dude, that's illegal

Meditation does passively resolve the traumas of the body but if you want to overcome the roots of your apathy I suggest that you take an active as well as passive approach. It seems to me like you are after something more active and penetrative. I suggest The Presence Process by Michael Brown.

@Epiphany_Inspired hope you're doing well! Last night I found myself fallen into a very dark/upset place and was kind of overrun by negative emotions. I kind of stumbled into a spontaneous exercise that really helped and it made me think of you. I'll recount it cos I think you may find the exercise interesting/useful: I was basically laying in bed like an angry baby with my face into the pillow. I think we are partly trained to avoid certain kinds of thoughts, feelings or behaviors because we deem them as ineffective, unspiritual and as something that we 'should not' do, and I guess that causes resistance, because as I started to allow myself to think certain thoughts, the layers of resistance began to unravel. I have a habit in which when I am upset, I just kind of eat whatever I want as an expression of anger or whatever. Like indulgence. "Fuck it, I'm gonna eat like 8 snickers bars." and so I kind of did the 'thinking' version of indulging in whatever thoughts or behaviors I wanted. I asked myself, "What do I really, really want to do right now?" and I had a thought, (and don't take what I thought too seriously or worry, it was just the flavour/expression of the negativity place I was in, and not how I usually feel) . The thought that wanted to come up was "I want to kill myself out of SPITE so as to prove that the universe really does suck, a kind of middle finger to all the forces at large who promote optimism... yeah... a victim of positive thinking" As I allowed myself to feel/think that thought (express myself), suddenly I laughed because the idea of someone killing themselves from positive thinking was absurd. I felt a little bit of relief. Then I kind of repeated the exercise and I said, If I could do anything right now or express myself in any way, what would it be? The energy in me was now slightly softer. Sometimes I think some youtube-gurus are a little too positive or airy fairy (a thought I think I suppress because I tell myself I shouldn't think badly of others) and so the thought that came to me was "I hope they're all EXPOSED!!!" and as I allowed myself to really think that thought, suddenly I realized that actually I don't want that, because they're just lovely people doing their best and suddenly where there was hate, was now some love coming through. Interestingly it was in repressing that thought that it maintained its negative energy - allowing myself to express it allowed it to transform. Allowing myself to feel that thought (expressing it) released it. Another layer of energy dissolved as I appreciated that even in that space I could feel some love. That once more softened the feeling inside of me and I took a few nice breaths, I repeated the exercise once more "If I could do anything or express myself in any way right now, what would I do?" Now the energy was I really wanted to punch something and scream - but because I live with other people I can't really do that - so what I did was I visualized myself screaming and punching, and with the visualization I kind of physically enacted a 'quiet' version of my visuals. It was still fairly physically intense to act out. So in my minds eye I screamed, yelled, threw punches at a punching bag until I had emptied my lungs. In ""real life"" my body was tensing, and I was inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with the visualization. I often feel like I can't quite up-heave all the anger and frustration, like I want to explode but it doesn't want to arise. By 'acting out' with the visualization, much more was able to come up and though I wasn't truly yelling, I felt like I was getting a similar level of release. I felt a lot of relief. Note that I am not necessarily doing anything during these exercises, just kind of acting them out through thoughts, visualizations and physiology by moving and working with breath and muscles. Once again there was a layer of resistance dissolved, the heavy angryness seemed to dissolve. To cut a long story short, I kept repeating the exercise - after that I simply felt like moving all my body in a crazy loose fashion like someone having a seizure, so I stood up and did that. Repeating the exercise, I wanted to yell at my guides and ask them why they are distant, so in my mind I did - that brought up tears and sadness. I repeated it again, then I wanted to express all the thoughts about the things I'm unhappy with in my life (negative talking is repressed in new-age spirituality so another form of repression) and that brought more relief. Amazingly, after I kept doing this and expressing the different layers and allowing them to dissolve, suddenly a thought came that I wanted to just dip my hands in paint and place them on a white canvas, so in my minds eye I did. Then the thoughts got nicer, and easier. This really gave me an appreciation of expression as a way to release and dissolve. Hope that helped, maybe you can try this type of thing on yourself some time. The cool thing about it is you don't actually have to leave your room or break anything. Go buckwild in your imagination and allow yourself to think, feel and do whatever comes up - and you can meet the visualizations half-way with your body if you like to facilitate it.

I used to experience constant yawning during my meditation practices years ago. I would sit and while breathing, I would yawn, and yawn, and yawn, until my eyes were watering. If someone walked in on my it would look like I was crying. I would also experience discomfort in the breath like I could not fill my lungs and there was a general sense of it feeling off. Nowadays I do not yawn as frequently during meditation, but it can occur frequently during emotional release work or when releasing during meditation. Apparently yawning is a bit of a mystery according to science? I believe strongly that at least one primary purpose, if not its central purpose, is facilitating energic/emotional/physiological release. Certain kinds of breathing allow for greater release. I think yawning does this. Sometimes when going through emotional traumas, during the aftermath I walk around spontaneously yawning, and with each yawn I can feel the left-over discomforts in my body dissolving. I believe that during periods of meditation/release, I was processing a lot of tension and physiological tightness in my body, and the constant yawning was through releasing that. Through that period, eventually the tightness in my chest loosened up, as did my breathing. Both comfort and breathing capacity increased permanently and I do not go into the yawning fits when sitting down every time. In my experience it is not an imbalance necessarily but a natural bodily mechanism. I would allow it.

From what I've gathered, mudras and other advanced yogic practices are usually better left as either taken on by someone with a more adept energetic understanding and good knowledge of the practices, - or as prescribed by an experienced teacher. Some practices can accelerate development or shifts but can also cause imbalances if practiced incorrectly or overdone. When practicing a few years ago I was using a few mudras/bhandas(sp?) as per the system of yoga I was using. One was placing the tongue on the roof of your mouth, another was contraction of the groin/perineum (like doing kegals) during part of the breathwork. These are two examples. There were others as well as hand postures but I don't remember them as well. I believe that even seemingly subtle tools like these can create huge impact. These were generally recommended as to be added slowly and patiently to your exercises after a long time of practice that has proved balanced and grounded. I didn't really listen to those warning and just took em all on, and over time was bit in the ass for this mistake and became unbalanced and experienced discomforts for a long time until I became balanced again. Once there is enough bodily awareness through practice then subtle energies in the body are more easily experienced. Things like what fingers you place together seem to have an effect on how you feel in your body. I would say not to worry about them and just use your own bodies guidance system to sit in whatever way feels comfortable, as the intelligence of the body usually knows best. Sometimes even spontaneous mudras will occur in peoples practice and it can be quite worrying for someone to find that their hand or body is spontaneously contorting in a strange way. If you'd like advice from those with long-term experience with these kinds of yoga practices try the message board on aypsite.org

Interesting. It's kind of like a middle-ground between a sensory deprivation tank and a retreat eh?

+1 Pasting a review from amazon about this book that I like:

Try Bioenergetics by Alexander Lowen

Hmm I'm going to say that divination can be a useful tool to accessing and looking at your own subconscious in different ways. Ajasatya is right in saying that it will often be heavily coloured by our own expectations and conditioning though. There is nothing that is accessed through iching, tarot or otherwise, that can't be accessed within. Still, it is my current belief that if the tools are there... why not use them? I don't think that the future can be predicted though, at least this is what they say. The future is uncertain, at best we can be pointed to probable outcomes based on who we are. If you change, the future changes. Perhaps nothing is set in stone. I used to think Astrology was bunk before I read autobiography of a yogi. I think that pretty much all the material online on it is really low quality though. I'd never really listen to any readings, and I don't think they're particularly helpful... I think the reality of astrology is deeply complex, subtle and a mostly lost art. For this reason I don't bother with it for any reason other than fun. Divination isn't a magic tool and what you get out is directly related to how much you put in.

bruh there's other kinds of laughter beyond laughing at others and self deprecation I think you're right, laughter based in unwholesome thoughts or negativity tends to create seeds that sprout more unwholesome thoughts, but there's other kinds of laughter, for example look at this dog

Someone told me he still takes shits too. I'm not sure if I believe it but it's good to keep an open mind.

that's a little worrying.. you haven't gotten a prognosis or anything have ya?

It's possible to play games while sustaining a meditative state but is it likely? no, at least not unless you are already a seasoned practitioner the mind has a tendency to get absorbed I am doubtful that video games really create much long term relaxation. I feel that it is a short term relief by shifting focus and becoming absorbed in something else. I don't consider that true relaxation. True relaxation let's the body heal. Distraction can be mistaken for relaxation because it feels good only relative to lifes strains. I am not saying there is not value in this, but if ones intention is to make serious gains then it may require reflection. If you want to play video games then play them. If you want to add mindfulness to it then you have nothing to lose. However in practice you may find that it is mostly wishful thinking to make video games into a high quality spiritual medium. Maybe just more thoughts to distract one from actually practicing. Though I suppose anything is possible if you are determined enough.

Neem Karoli Baba aka Maharaji was no ordinary yogi. In fact he may very well have been Hanuman Himself. No, really. If anyone is interested in tasting pure bhakti I suggest the books Miracle of Love by Ram Dass or By His Grace by Dada Mukerjee - the first is a collection of stories about Maharaji, the second is the recount of his closest devotee's time with him.

First time taking any psychedelic. A few grams of a particularly potent Australasian strain of psilocybin. It was all very beautiful at first, lots of fun, joy, light. Then I watched a video... this video by the Madman himself.. Can't remember how I stumbled upon it. God, in retrospect I think this video is actually meant to have been watched under the influence of psychedelics for the very purpose that it lived out that humble evening. Something, at some point, split open in me. I felt a series on unstoppable emotions emerging and expressing themselves. Happiness, fear, anger, confusion, surprise, exhaustion, hilarity, in an endless cycle flashes and expressed themselves in my face many times a second in their exaggerated form. This went on for a minute or two, it was extremely bizarre. After this show all this energy had somehow exhausted itself and suddenly there was some kind of realization. The realization that just like certain beliefs or ideas are adopted, so too was even my most basic assumptions about reality. My interpretation, my experience and complete sense of self were seen as "programs" and as this realization was had, they dissolved. It was like the operating system of my mind had been reformatted. The OS was wiped clean. What happened after that is less englishable. A bit like a new-born baby without the trauma of birth, there were no conceptions. No thoughts, memories, or anything else. I shlepped down off my chair onto the floor and unless memory fails me, I think I may have gently assumed the fetal position. Soon after some level of meta awareness returned. I remember standing and reaching my hand for the lightbulb, I suppose it was symbolic to me, and witnessing my outstretched arm I was saying "I've got it! I've got it!" and some kind of realization was had. I had it. I'd figured it out... whatever it was. Maybe an hour later I remember sitting on my bed and suddenly having the remarkable breakthrough that I was human. It was a comforting rememberance that made sense of the rest of my experience. The seeing, the feeling, the doing, it made sense. That's what humans do. One more mystery solved. I'm on a roll. Still I felt that I had wiped clean so much of the programming. I felt liberated, and in control. I felt that I would never again be a victim, a slave to the programming. I had figured it out. I had got it. Then a little bit later, what it was that I figured out was less tangible. "What was it again? I have to remember it. Oh well. At least I'm a free agent now..." Then disappointingly I had to bare witness to all of that yet again returning. The programming that I was liberated from forever came rushing back to shore. Something in me had changed forever and I'd never be the same, but it solved none of my problems. The programming was still there. Life was no easier. Now... what was the answer? Something about... nowness? hmmm...

ISAYGOODDAYTOYOUTHISDAYOFYOURTIME hooooow-are-you? Gotta love Bashar... thanks for sharing, haven't listened to him in forever.

In order to counter balance these good responses with a shitty response: If you have headphones, you can put them in and listen to something like rain ASMR, or white noise. You may find that going to your room or even putting a pillow over your head doesn't necessarily drown peoples noise, but white noise will usually block everything else out. For the time's when you are not feeling spiritually strong...

Deep physiological rest. Other than meditation, take time to sit and allow tensions to naturally release. If you don't know how to relax, then learn. Relaxation and action are two sides of the same coin. If you can't relax, then you can't act. If you can't act, chances are you cannot relax. So much of the confusion, indecisiveness and sense of general unease about what to do comes from the overstimulated nervous system. The problem is the mind is flooded with signals that something is wrong and tries to translate and solve it at the level of mind (which is not the root of the problem) and this only exhausts the system further. Deep devoted relaxation ( Preferably not watching TV or being on facebook) If you can't devote the hour to consciously relax because you are feeling like you are wasting time, then ironically you will waste 10x more hours spent indecisive and ineffective. Once you have added the ingredient of deeper relaxation into your life, then you will be more grounded. Stress hormones will ease and because you don't feel like something is constantly wrong, you will find decision making easier. Your intuition will be a bit more clear. Then practice following that intuition by taking action regardless of discomfort. Maybe the sense of indecisiveness isn't something that's going to go away by waiting, or even by a clear answer showing up. It is a perpetual energy that is fed by focus and narrative. When it arises, feel it, choose to let it go and take action regardless of the feeling. Any action. Any affirmation is better than no affirmation. Reading any book is better than not reading at all. By taking action on feelings that aren't yet fully formed, regardless of the resistance, you strengthen your will-muscle and your intuition starts to expand. For instance if you don't know what kind of book you want to read, well by reading zero books you compound that resistance and stay confused. By picking up any book at all (whatever is closest!) regardless of the feeling of indecisiveness, you may find that because you have released some of the resistance through taking action, then suddenly after reading for some time, a 'better' choice of reading is clearer. Focusing on indecisiveness to solve it is a tragic irony as it only expands it. So learn to relax deeply (While being awake and gently aware, not sleepy), accept that indecisiveness is there, TAKE ACTION regardless of the resistance, allow and follow intuitive flashes that follow actions, and trust in the process that dissolves the resistance and expands upon the flow of movement.

you know what they say about assumptions, don't you?

Wow. That is intense. Thanks for sharing. How long have you been practicing now and has it had any moderate effect on your experience?

I wouldn't negate any kind of behavior as being off the path of enlightenment, no matter how strange or outside the status quo it might seem. Generally speaking most 'expressing' of emotions that is done in the collective is a form of sedation. It's a reflexive behavior and does very little to respond to the root of the energy. It either perpetuates or aggrandizes the state or just expresses enough of it so that we can push away the rest of it. It also can cause a lot of harm to ourselves and to those around us. However that doesn't mean that expressing is never a good thing. In some cases when certain energies or emotions are habitually repressed, then there can be a blockage of flow/growth in an area and in that case expression of the suppressed emotion can be a healing experience. One example of this is an image of a victim of domestic abuse who is in a state of perpetual apathy. In this case the breakthrough into anger and conscious (mindful!) expression of it would actually be a positive thing. We can imagine how in this circumstance it could also potentially be destructive if over-done so it's good to take care. Some emotional states have more energy than others. From the space of anger it is easier to move to courage than it is from apathy. That would allow a breakthrough of energy that may allow better decisions towards safety and growth. For someone suppressing anger, then moving into anger and expressing is a beneficial thing. For someone who already often has the emotional charge of anger activated without much 'trouble', then trying to artificially drag themselves down into anger through expression or focus may be detrimental. So in situations where there is stifled emotional/energetic flow, then acting out certain behaviors or types of expression can be useful to allow that energy to start flowing. It may be useful for people who have difficulty allowing themselves to feel anger, or who find themselves habitually pushing anger down. When the energy flows a bit more than it can be easier or more effective to work with it. From that space the mindful healing process is facilitated. For someone like myself, I don't necessarily suppress my anger much, so when it flows, there is no need to express it because there is already an abundance of that energy present and most behaviors that could be taken would be me trying to subvert the feeling. Also there is the temptation to express my anger onto others! I can think of no situation where the expression of my anger in words, deeds or subtle behaviors towards anyone else has not been something I have regret. So mindful expression of emotions, I think, should never be directed at others. So yeah it'll basically come down to you and where you think you're at to decide whether you need to simply start to release and let go of what's flowing, or whether it would be beneficial to you to act it out and use other techniques to express that energy to get it to flow a bit more. I guess intuition will let ya know there.

Try metta aka loving kindness meditation also I believe our capacity to love others is roughly a reflection of our capacity to love ourselves

I've heard it's big.