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I'm having difficulty clearly visualising the spinal breathing. Basically I visualise a small needle shaped object travelling up the spine and piercing all the chakras, but most of the time it's kinda patchy and vague with some areas like the top 3 chakras being much clearer. Any tips or recommendations? How clearly can you guys visualise the prana moving up the spine?

I’m 25 and have never really had any sort of relationship with a girl. My social skills in general suck because i’ve spent a large part of the past 2 years by myself. However I know that I can be quite confident, it just takes a lot of socialising and getting past those initial barriers. So I want to start taking some action towards getting this area of my life sorted. I’m quite familiar with RSD and all of the instructors etc. I’d like to get involved with them in some way. But like many guys i’ve watched a ton of videos but have taken very little action. So what is the general advice for someone in my position? Should I be looking into attending a bootcamp (quite limited options for instructors visiting my city - London). Or should I be going to some other live events? Should I be trying to do some day game? Should I be trying to go on dates using dating apps etc?

@Cortex Sounds like you're naturally spiritually inclined, which is pretty rare. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into contacting some peeps. Yea I just meant specifically RSD instructors visiting London for bootcamps.

The issue is I don't know what type of girls I want to meet. I'm not sure I even know what that means. I think I just need a lot of exposure to all types of women first.

@Jacko It's never too late to go to college. You'll find older students on pretty much every college course, and often much older than 26. I was once told by a professor that the older students are the best students because they're more mature, hardworking and usually have a much better idea about what they want to do. So you can certainly still go to college/university at your age. But, it depends on the course and what you might end up doing afterwards. As Leo mentioned recently on a different thread, college is somewhat necessary if you're going to do medicine, engineering, law, nutrition, psychology or something like that. But for a lot of other careers it might not be necessary. As an example, if someone wanted to get into the film industry working in production, going to college is basically pointless. You'd be much better off getting a job as a runner and working your way up.

How do you know it's related to your Kriya practise? Could be caused by a number of different things. If you do think it is the Kriya, maybe try pausing the practise for a while and see if your symptoms improve? Or try reaching out to a professional Kriya Yoga teacher.

@John Iverson 12 chants counts as 1 (6 on the in breath and 6 on the out breath). So you do 108 x 12.

@John Iverson 1. Yes you can. He only advises against it. It's up to you, but personally I do. Holding for 90 seconds is not an absolute necessity, but you want to be getting as close to that as possible. If you can't hold it for atleast half that I probably would work on improving your breath. Work up to it. You know the time by setting a timer at the beginning. 2. You chant Ohm 6 times on the in breath and 6 times on the out breath. 12 chants counts as 1 out of 108. Start with a lower number of pranayama's if thats easier in the beginning. 3. Yes. 4. Google 'where is the 2nd chakra and 3rd chakra'.

1. Yea it takes practise but you can get to a point where the breathing is relatively slow making the 6 ohms easier. In the beginning i'd say just focus on chanting the ohms as clearly as possible in the third eye area and keeping your attention there for the whole duration. Sometimes I like to just tap my finger on the third eye area and that helps to know where to chant. Also, mentally chant the ohms quite loudly. I find this helps with keeping the focus on that area. 2. It just means chant the word in your mind but imagine it emerging from the front of the forehead between the eye brows. Takes a little bit of practise but you'll get it in no time, it's quite easy.

If you have the money, go to one of Peter Ralston's retreats in Texas, ideally the Contemplation Intensive (I think thats the week of dyad self-inquiry). Incredibly direct and effective method for grasping the deep insights you seek. It will also provide you with an excellent foundation for solo contemplation.

I recently changed the order of my routine to do supreme fire first, then mahamudra and then pranayama. I find the pranayama puts me into a really relaxed and quiet state of mind which is great for the after-effect poise. Previously i'd do the supreme fire after pranayama and it kinda disrupted my flow a bit. Worth experimenting with though. What I haven't quite nailed down yet is visualising the energy flowing and down the spine during mahamudra. I'd say this probably makes quite a big difference.

I was going to mention the same thing. Eating a candy in your dream could be a reality check used to make you lucid dream. Not the most practical way to go about it but probably possible, as Leo said.

@Alec Interesting, I didn't know you could have those sorts of insights on MDMA. Thanks for sharing

@Pouya I think you should aim to be doing both. They both have their benefits. The meditation helps to slowly train and re-wire the mind which is very important for your day-to-day experience. Self-inquiry is obviously much more focused and direct. You're just going straight for the Truth without the long arduous path that often comes with meditation. So both are important. Work on establishing a daily meditation habit first. You need to find the balance between doing long enough sits to actually make it worth while, but also not so much that you burn out and quit. If you find Vipassana too difficult, read Culadasa's The Mind Illuminated. It's a very simple to follow technique that will take you all the way if you stick with it. Whilst you're implementing the meditation habit try to get in some occasional self-inquiry sessions here and there. You should read the books relating to self-inquiry on Leo's booklist for guidance. But again, a balance is required because too much information can very much hinder your self-inquiry progress. One very very important piece of advice with self-inquiry is to not just do it for the sake of the technique. Don't just do 30 mins if self-inquiry just so you can say to yourself you've done 30 mins and thats great, and feel good about it. Rather, the focus should be on getting the truth right this minute. If it takes another minute to get the truth then do another minute, and so on. I say this just because I wasted many hours doing self-inquiry just to tick that box for the day, and was not concerned with the actual purpose of the technique.

@Vasiles Stefanis Ralston is completely beyond SD. He's certainly not Yellow.

@Self Discovery Well done for going solo on your first retreat. I recently came back from my second group retreat and whilst they have their benefits, there are also many downsides with meditating with lots of other people. I'm considering going on my first solo retreat later this year so I have a few questions: Were you doing just meditation, or did you incorporate other things like self-inquiry, yoga etc? What did you schedule look like? Did you plan out your schedule prior to the retreat, or did you make it up as you went along? Did you rent a place like Leo has done? Did you find it challenging to motivate yourself at any point?

@Karlos Totally forgot about Ben Smythe! Definitely a great example of Yellow, possibly moving into Turquoise (I think he's had some sort of awakening, not sure though).

It's a contradiction to say you are not your thoughts and then to say you are your memories. Memories are thoughts of course, and only exist in the present. Nor are they continually present, just fleeting experiences. Try to see what memories are in your direct experience. Discard any concepts or ideas you have about what they might be. Don't assume that memories permanently sit somewhere in the back of the mind, or that they are somehow always here. This is just another invention. If you had never heard the word 'memories' would you still identify yourself those experiences? Observe what is true in your direct experience right now. Keep working on it and contemplate it from different angles. Don't get stuck repeating the same line of questioning. Or consider working on Who You Are first, instead of What.

Of course the epitome of Green in the UK is Glastonbury Festival, the biggest non-annual festival in the world. An experience like no other.

@cena655 Clearly a sign it's working for you, just keep doing what you're doing. Count yourself exceptionally lucky that you've only had to do 5 days of practise before getting to this stage.

Don't try to maintain present awareness for your whole 8 hour shift. It won't work and you'll burn yourself out, get demotivated and quit. In the beginning, quality is more important than quantity. So try doing 5 minutes at a time where you're super aware of all the little sensations in your experience. Try taking things slower if the job allows for that. But ensure that those 5 minutes are super high quality meditation. One of the most important things to do is, if your mind wanders, calmly bring it back to the present. This is key if you want to become more present and aware. Try to be very alert, focused and disciplined throughout the 5 minutes. Then over the weeks, increase the 5 minutes to 10 minutes and so on. To make it easier or to just mix it up a bit, you could try focusing on a particular aspect of experience, such as just sounds. So apply the same process but just focus on all the little sounds going on around you. It's good to use different focus ranges.

@MM1988 I think the oil was for additional calories, rather than for filling you up. Personally I only use a small amount of oil to cook down the vegetables at the beginning. There's no need for a large amount of oil. I get the additional calories from making my soup much thicker than Leo's, and I also add in a can or two of beans per pot. Much healthier and filling imo. Boiled eggs are great and super filling as well. Also when you're doing a salad, you should incorporate avocado as its super nutritious and a great source of fat.

@Jamie Universe I think you need to go into a bit more detail if you want some concrete advice. But from what you said, it seems like you're just lost in thought loops about how you could have done the 'weird social thing' differently. Is this the case? If so you need to do 3 things, in my opinion. The first is to develop your mindfulness abilities so that you're more aware of thoughts arising, making you less likely to be controlled by them and get sucked into the content. The second thing is to practise making the distinction between the content of the thoughts and the reality of the thought itself. You will react very differently if you shift your perspective to experiencing a thought just as a thought, rather than as the story about some weird social thing. The last thing you need to do is to stop resisting these thoughts that you say are terrorising you. They're terrorising you because you're a) resisting them and b) getting lost in the content. Instead, accept the thought when it arises, fully allow it to be there, let it be, smile, and watch it fade away. And then repeat that process until these thoughts just completely dissolve. Persistent negative thoughts thrive off attention.

I feel like you're taking the wrong approach with most of the things you mentioned here. It's like you're just going cold-turkey in every case. This can work, with some people, but for most people most of the time changing habits needs to be a gradual process. Otherwise you're just fighting against homeostasis and that'll always be an up hill battle. So for the healthy eating and loosing weight, this needs to be a gradual shift. Try replacing one aspect of your unhealthy diet at a time. Maybe start cutting down on your wheat consumption and work on implementing that for a few weeks or months if necessary. Then work on cutting down refined sugars etc. Then work on eating more vegetables and slowly getting used to those kinds of flavours and textures, rather than the usual saturated fats and super sweet sugary foods. The change has to come from within, not from an external source (i.e. giving away your credit card). With the business, quitting your job probably wasn't the best idea. Don't criticise yourself for loosing motivation on the business though. It happens to everyone. The trick is to push through that lack of enthusiasm and keep working at it even when you don't feel like it. Be disciplined about it. Every job and business has grindy aspects. It's not all fun and games. Maybe you needed to just take a short break and remind yourself of your original motivation for starting the business. To help with procrastination, set aside very specific blocks of time to work on the business. With meditation, trying to go full monk mode when you've barely done any prior meditation is a classic rookie error. Underestimating how difficult meditation can be is so common. I'm certainly guilt of this myself. It's not easy stuff by any means. Selling you're computer and changing your phone was bound to fail. Again, you're just going cold turkey and not understanding the power of homeostasis. Unless you're a super talented meditator and/or spiritually gifted this will just never work. It has to be a gradual implementation. Try just doing 20 minutes a day. And then gradually build up the time when it feels right. But even with a fairly easy session of 20 minutes a day, you need to commit to it for life. You might not actually meditate for the rest of your life, but that commitment needs to be there. I mean, why wouldn't you?!. Also commit to doing it every single day no matter what. Be disciplined. Don't be lazy. 20 minutes a day is so easy. Develop your mindfulness so that you become more aware of all the sneaky thoughts and justifications for not meditating. And then ignore them and sit down on the cushion. With regards to a lack of results, this is common so don't be disheartened. A daily practise is a great foundation, but you need to be either upping the quantity and quality of your daily meditation or attending retreats to see real progress. Also remember that meditation is a subtractive process. You don't gain anything from meditating. You only loose what is not needed. And this is often subtle, hard to identify and is quite different to what you imagine or want the results to be.