Viking

@Mart what lesson are you talking about when you say "first real pranayama"?

am I wrong that the "work" is very similar to what peter ralston does in his book "the book of now knowing". its about getting rid of beliefs. Also, by this inquiry you can only get so far, because it uses the mind, which is limited, but it's very true that a spiritual practice alone isnt enough, dealing with beliefs is also extremely important. what do you think about psychedelics in regards to destructing beliefs? when you become aware of a belief on psychedelics that awareness carries to the everyday life sometimes, and then it is also destroyed, while much more violently.

sorry to break it to you but as I see it you're getting into a trap. if by "meditating" all day you mean not listening in classes, you're just too lazy to study. you're falling into the arms of the ego. dont become a zen devil. the ego likes being lazy and all spiritual and stuff. be really fucking honest with yourself and see if you're being lazy or you're being aware AND studying. "taking lessons here and there" sounds like you're complacent. that LEADS TO DEPRESSION down the road. life is not about being spiritual, it's about balance. you have to study hard, have a life purpose AND to be aware and meditate, because otherwise you're going to be a hippie, and hippies dont tend to get anywhere on the spiritual path much. all you gotta do is: 1) to have some daily spiritual practice for around 20-30 minutes, like meditation, yoga, etc. 2) to self actualize, to read books, learn how to learn, figure out your life purpose, wtf do you want to do with your life and what will make you fulfilled in life, watch 3) to try to be as aware as possible during the day. but WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AWARE? it means not to "be aware of the present moment and to barely listen to what happens in class", but to have laser concentration in class and be engaged. it means not to go to dreamland in your head, to be aware WHEN you go to dreamland and stop it. there is nothing to be done to be aware, you can only add thought stories on top of awareness to not be aware. please be honest with yourself. also dont take anything i said as a given, come to those conclusions by yourself, dont create new beliefs, come to conscious conclusions. do things by yourself, thats the only way to fulfillment and a great life.

how does this compare to kriya yoga

dont know how you meant it, but physically speaking from a perspective of an object with mass light appears to travel for example from the sun to the earth light takes ~8 minutes to travel.

@Matt8800 well, that's exactly what my reaction was, thanks.

ooooh, holy shit, i never did something like that

THIS. following techniques will never ever never ever ever make someone enlightened. in order to get enlightened you have to do your own thing, go your own way to enlightenment using intuition and higher intelligence. I say that because techniques are not truth and no spiritual path is truth, only you can know the truth.

can some explain to me please how to breathe in ujjayi pranayama? i think the author is wrong, because he says when I breathe from the diaphram my chest should expand, but the point of diaphram breathing is that the chest doesnt expand. should i force my chest somehow to expand?

yes, i was actually confused also before about that. but im sure he said somewhere not to focus too much on the bhrumadhya. afterall, we want to get to the ajna, which is on the line from the medulla to bhrumadha, so its like focus on an area you have a mild idea where it is and do that for 5 or more minutes without distraction. seems something that needs a lot of practice to perfect or to understand what is meant.

wait, arent you supposed to focus on medulla? the back of the head? the author said not to focus too much on bhrumadhya i think

wait, i dont get it. it is said later in the book that you move energy up and down the spine instead of into the belly and out when breathing. it is also said that one should expand the chest when one does ujjayi. its doesnt seem possible to get the chest full of air when you move your diaphragm down. i just breathed until now from the chest. im confused about diaphramic breathing and all that.

The pursuit shouldnt be aimed towards "killing yourself", the pursuit should be a pursuit towards wisdom and truth. when you pursue truth, you will naturally die because the ego is built upon falsehood. people i feel get caught up in "getting enlightened" like it's some goal that will bring the ego fulfillment. Im not enlightened but I dont think it's so. when the ego "gets conscious" of what enlightenment truly is it will try to run away from it. only the pursuit of Truth will push the ego over the edge.

during the concentration practice i cant feel the back of my head or my medulla, so i find it really hard to find what to concentrate on. sometimes i feel energy there and then i can concentrate on it and i feel deep peace, but that energy is on and off, when the energy is not there its as though the back of my head doesnt exist. i also have some back neck strain/pain, can that affect how i can feel that area? i also start to feel my pulse in the perineum and its distracting

is it ok to extend the concentration practice at the end for as long as I want, focusing on medulla and looking towards bhrumadhya? I feel like the concentration periods fly by extremely fast and I do 10 mins. also in any meditation posture its says that i should get my foot as close as i can towards me, but then it pushes on my perineum and it's not too comfortable, am i sitting wrong?

I think psychedelics might do the trick for you. It will rid of all the bullshit that you have and will help you with your "numbness". I was the same, and still a bit am. if you think psychedelics are hard to get, so did I, until I tried. go for lsd/shrooms with that said, i would recommend it only after 21 years of age, as it might reinforce some of your beliefs.

@Sukhpaal yeah man, its totally normal, happens to me too. just surrender and itll be fun

thursday I had an lsd trip and i opened myself a lot. now i have a lot of energy in my body. I went to sleep just now and i noticed the energy that was the last couple days in my head. I suddenly using my consciousness moved it into my body and i started to tremble like im cold, my jaw, legs and chest are still trembling. i can relax it but it comes again, its still there. what should i do about it? also what is all that energy about? i also feel like i can laugh and cry much more. my appreciation of beauty increased a lot, im extremely intuitive and creative. I hope its not a premature kundalini awakening or something like that.

@Markus it's actually very pleasant when i allow it, and i think it more has to do with the blockages that i unblocked during the trip

I also had (and still kinda have) that thought. There's not much research about it sadly, so you cant say for sure, but if you do it properly most probably nothing will happen, a lot of people have done it and I dont know of a situation where someone got hurt. energy work I feel is generally scary, see all the kundalini stories and such. psychedelics also can fuck you up, but people still do them. I feel like there's no safety guarantee for anything, but when you think about it people in the materialist paradigm also always take risks like getting kids, building businesses, choosing careers, that's a part of life. dont forget you're going to die anyway one day.

I did it a few months ago and a month after that, a total of 2 times, in a group. I think it's called an osho meditation. the way the group does it is we dance for a couple minutes, the instructions are to move however we want when the music is playing. Then we warm up by laying on our back and "ride a bicycle" with the legs in the air really fast, with breaks, for about 5 minutes. then we breathe on our back for 45 minutes, we are told to do whatever our body wants to, whether it be shout, cry, move arms and legs, etc. then a few minutes relaxation. first time I breathed I shouted a lot and had extreme energy all over my body. I cried at the end because I released social anxiety I had. after that communicating with people became a lot easier. felt energy throughout my body for a couple days after the breathing. I also felt like my consciousness increased, i became more aware of my thoughts and emotions. second time I also mainly shouted from the solar plexus and my body shook a lot, first time in my life that i felt or became conscious of energy, specifically in the back of my head. after the breathing stopped and the relaxation period came to be, the magic happened. I still felt that energy in the head and then it I used my consciousness to spread throughout the whole body, I felt extreme bliss I didnt feel since I was a kid, it faded after a few minutes. in the next week I had annoying energy in my body, didnt know what to do with it, I went to the woods and shouted, didnt help. It subsided after I did a meditation called chakra dancing, it's where you also do holotropic breathing but while standing up, and you focus on your chakras in orderly fashion from bottom to top. basically move energy up your spine 3 times over for about 40 minutes overall. That stuff basically introduced me to the possibilities of energy work, which are bliss, high consciousness and a lot more. recently I had an LSD trip where more of my chakras opened and I feel extreme, but really extreme sexual energy and love. I feel like the breathing contributed. gonna post a trip report soon.

@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj thanks that helped.

that's not practical. in order to survive you have to use concepts. in theory you could sit and not act, not think and be blissed out enlightened but that's the same as being dead, life is not for that. you could be generally happy being mindful of your use of concepts. concepts (or "future") are part of the present. also enlightenment doesnt bring happiness, happiness is a thing the ego desires. happiness could be 99% achieved without enlightenment. I think happiness cant be achieved 100% because the ego wont let you be happy 100%, therefore you need to have no ego, but to not have no ego would mean happiness is the same as everything, therefore it's not achieved 100%. also thinking in terms of eudaimonia is more effective i think.

im 19, and im planning to start yoga. as I understand yoga destroys your reality and as a result you get enlightened. I heared that it's not recommended at a young age to start doing work like that. should i just keep on meditating instead and wait till about age 21? I recently tripped on lsd and I thought a lot about is getting my life in order, find my life purpose, get a girlfriend, etc. I feel like my life is not stable. maybe i should do that instead of doing yoga? or is it not too bad?