Mart

@Esoteric I started of with doing 6 om's in about 10 seconds. Currently, after 5 months of daily practice, I do about 10 in 20 seconds. Just do it so you can exhale and inhale at a decent pace afterwards, your ability the hold your breath will increase pretty quick if you kind of push it without have your diaphragm contract.

@Marcell Kovacs Hi Marcell. I was just reading your reports, very very interesting. I kind of forgot about the technique after about 10 sessions and didn't do it for a while but i am continuing the practice from now on because i remembered this one time i had a strong emotional release. I went to work after (wasn't great). But anyway, i was wondering if you would like to share your experiences up until this point, and any tips and tricks. Thanks for the detailed reports, these work inspiring.

@tyy i have this too. Someone posted that you should just do a year no matter what, then you decide if it’s worth it. I thought this was a good idea and i set the goal for myself. Apparentely, if you practice hard enough, you should not want to give up the practice after a year because it works so well.

@John Iverson i use a bracelet with 25 beads and one little iron thing in the middle. I just grab it at the second one for a full round, or 12 beads from the iron part for half a round. You can also count the joints of your fingers on one hand, you have 12 of them if you’re lucky. Just put your finger on them or hold them to count. And being mindful while doing the breaths is a matter of practice, just do the exercise the best you can, laser focus.

@YogiLogan thanks for your response. Would you please like to share with me your experience with kriya. How long have you been practicing/ what are the effects the practice is having on you/ what have you learend about how to go about it, things to do and avoid etc. I would be very thankful for a response. I’ve been practicing for about 4 moths now and would like to learn more.

@herghly i read that advanced yogi's practice maha mudra for 90 minutes straight at times. Personally, on ocasion i do a very long kriya routine, like 6* maha mudra, 72 pranayama etc. I believe it’s wise to start doing more just one day a week and then gradually build up.

@Paan i do a one hour routine every morning. The book i read recommended a practice before bed also, but i rather use that time for mindfulness meditation. I'm sticking with once a day for the next two months and based on how things are going i might decide to do a second one. How about you ? Do you have a practice rolling ?

Haha, awesome.

@Greenbirch if you’re fully orange you probably wouldn’t even consider this practice. Just get started. Even if it does‘t work right away, it’s a great concentration practice and pranayama works very calming.

@AMS would be hard to do, cause what the hell does that stuff actually look like ? As far as i know: where the conciousness goes, there goes the energy. So directing your focus should be enough, or is at least a good start. J.C. Stevens says you should imagine there is cold energy going up and warm energy going down. Imagining you are feeling this might help to focus better within the spine.

@Viking like the provious guy said, that’s not a very advanced routine. I currently do: nadi sodana & ujajay pranayama 3x, talabya kriya 5 sets, maha mudra 3x, navi kriya 4x, kp1 12x, kp2 12x, kp3 24x flollowed by concentration on bregma untill the hour is full or 6 rounds of slow mental kriya that makes for about 1:20/30.

@Viking i know what you're talking about man. I've been practicing for three months now and even tough i'm spiritually progressing, i don't see how this has to do with the Kriya practice. The only benefit i get is that i can do the slow breathing extremely slow now and that that grounds and relaxes me. It has been a challenging practice, at times waking up at 4:45 to be able to do an hour before going to work. I'm sticking with it for now tough. What does your current practice looks like at the moment ?

@Leo Gura I can't seem to find the instructions to the 'Kriya Supreme Fire' technique you mentioned earlier. Can you help me with this ?

Yesterday afternoon i took 30 grams of wet psilocybine truffels. In Holland you can buy them at the smartshops so this was my psychedelic of choice since i can't get other quality psychedelics at the moment. The truffels were the strongest kind, Mushmagic Valhalla. They come in 15 gram packages so i broke the rules and took double the recommended maximum dose. I am 19 years old and was introduced to spirituality at around the age of 16, that's when i started to practice semen retention and daily meditation, which really got the ball rolling. Through Actualized.org i found out about most of this stuff. After the video 'the importance of real yoga' came online, i ordered the J.C. Stevens book and got started right away (will also write about this experience in a separate post but i thought it was worth mentioning). I took psychedelics about 7 times before, 2 truffels trips and 5 LSD trips. This was the first trip i did without any distractions, i tried to contemplate or just be present the whole time (previous trips were just for fun experiences even though my first LSD trip was quite the spiritual experience if i look back at it now) . I tried to induce the same experience i had whilst doing a meditation session last week. In that meditation session i tried to focus in a different way than i usually do, the idea was to notice the present like you notice yourself talking while you are fully aware of yourself talking, i saw this example in a video and it really worked because after 20 minutes it just hit me that i actually am a nothing that exists in a way, kind of the opposite of all the physical stuff i experience, i'm not my thoughts or this person, i'm just consciousness. Every experience happens within me in a way (estimated pulse was about 180 at the time :p). After a 6,5 hour fast i put the truffels in the blender with lemon- and orange-juice, let it soak for about 15 minutes and drank it whilst listening to a guided meditation as a way of getting myself to let go and surrender to the experience. After finishing the lemontek i took place in the garden and waited for takeoff. 10 minutes after ingestion it started kicking in and about an hour after it peaked. The experience started as fun because i felt my body i a really intense way and the visuals were pretty intense. Soon after i got into a really serious mood and thoughts started going very very fast. I already knew the psilocybine experience is like being in the back of the car instead of driving it and this experience proved this once more. It wasn't like i could really choose where i was going, it was more like what needs to be worked on first came up. The main thing that kept coming up is that i need more concrete future plans. I am starting a bachelor of applied psychology in september and want to get into the self actualization field, guiding people in the process and sharing the knowledge. I always have trusted myself in that i will find a way to do this and get an income out of it, but whilst tripping this didn't seam realistic and i really really had to come up with a more concrete plan in order to be able to sustain myself in the future. The second biggest thing that came up is that i have to work harder on putting all this theory intro practice. I also thought that it's kind of stupid to be so involved into all this super advanced stuff that Leo has been talking about recently without having even mastered stage orange. I also got various insights about the ways in which i am being a total asshole. To sum the whole experience up: it was one of the biggest slaps in the face ever, it really showed me where i'm actually at. There are actually a lot more insights and things to learn from this trip, but keep in mind that it was just yesterday and that the trips was quite strong. I struggled with a lot of things but at the same time it was really hard to make sense of because i couldn't really think in proper sentences so to speak. I was actually quite amazed at how well i handled the experience, i was just able to let it wash over and kind of remain optimistic. I also wanted to share that i also kept in mind that it was very likely that it would turn out like this and that it wasn't fun at all. I restlessly paced around the house and through the garden for a good 4 hours pondering all these things extremely hard (this started halfway through the peak, the first past of the peak i laid down in various placed around the house, really getting sucked in and can't really remember what i thought at the time). So keep in mind that it can really suck and make you feel very depressed for a good chunk of time. Things i remembered later on: - There were a lot of emotions just coming up and that i just wanted to cry certain things out but i didn't manage to do so - I really saw in how many ways i was wrong and that i can't really judge people because everyone holds truth and i right in a way - In the previous two trips i was already a bit further in this work and was practicing semen retention really hard, in both those trips i kind of got into the same "bad" mood, except this time i didn't distract myself Feel free to give some feedback or share about your own experience.

@WilliamFogg i did some research and what i found out is that those cramps are caused by the hyperventilating and that it's not really possible to get around it. You are talking about your fingers and wrists kind of clenching together right ? That's what i always have and it makes going beyond 30 minutes very painful.

But would you perform the Kriya Pranayama 1, 2 or 3 as the J.C. Stevens book discribes ?

Just keep your eyes pointed towards the spot between the eyebrows but kind of pretend like you are watching that spot from the back of the head, for me it kind of feels like visualizing it but without visuals. The point deeper in the head, in between Brumadhya and Medulla, is the actual chackra Ajna, so what you are feeling is probably right.

@Viking i also can't do kechari mudra. I just close my jaws and flip my tongue back as far as i can without having it distract me during the breaths. Later on the book also gives a routine you should do before bed including yoni mudra and one other technique. It's probably a good idea for both of us to also do 50 more talaba kriya sets before bed. The techniques get quite difficult but it does make for a great concentration practice and it really calms the mind. Good luck with your practice !

I am currently integrating Maha Mudra into my Kriya routine. I have some trouble doing the inhale and exhale slowly and only doing the 3 Kriya breaths per set because my body starts protesting when there is that little air coming in. Does anyone have some tips for me ? At the moment i am doing the breaths in like 4 seconds and can barely chant om 6 times before my diaphragm starts contracting and i can hold my breath relatively long. Thanks for reading.

Recently i posten in the Kriya mega-thread to see if someone could awnser my question. I didn't get a reply so i thought doing it this way more people might see it. I posted the following: "So i've been practicing Kriya for about a month now and i've been practicing the first part of pranayama for a week. Also i have been doing semen retention. Usually i would have a noctural emission at least every 14 days, but since is started Kriya i haven't had one. Many times i have read that the energy (or semen) i'm keeping in stagnates at some point and has to release. Is there anyone that could share their knowledge about this ? I definitely believe the practice is working already. I used to have this raging horny-like sensation in the lower part of my body while practicing semen retention, right now it feels more balanced out and my state of consciousness is just different than before, in a positive way although it's like waking up to both sides of the coin. My motivations are shifting too. I had this massive drive for doing everything for my education with excellence, but right now that drive has dissipated a bit and i value time to introspect a lot more, very interesting. It would be nice to hear other people's experiences, especially the ones who are into the first part of pranayama, because that stuff seems to have some intense effects." When i'm talking about the first part of pranayama, i'm talking about lesson 8 in the book. Would be nice to see some reply's and maybe share experiences.

My thumbs get pressed towards my hands and my wrists bend forward really hard, i have to pull with quite a lot of force to straighten them. Apparently this is a muscle spasm from hyperventilating (doesn't seem to be that big of a deal if it's for short duration). Last time i did it for 45 minutes and it also happened with my trapezius muscles. My shoulders where shrugged upwards. Also all the muscles in my face tense up and i can only open my mouth so that there is only a little circle formed by my lips where air can pass through. I never saw something weird or felt like i was high, only felt the bodily effects. What i did notice is that the days after i do the breathing, i dream about scenarios which trigger an emotion in my that i have suppressed. So what i want out of the practice (emotional healing) i believe i'm getting. I hope the emotions start to surface more and more in the future, i really feel like there is some big stuff suppressed and it has to come out.

I think it’s lesson 8. The first one that haa you visualize energy going up and down the spine.

So i've been practicing Kriya for about a month now and i've been practicing the first real pranayama for a week. Also i have been doing semen retention. Usually i would have a noctural emission at least every 14 days, but since is started Kriya i haven't had one. Many times i have read that the energy (or semen) i'm keeping in stagnates at some point and has to release. Is there anyone that could share their knowledge about this ? I definitely believe the practice is working already. I used to have this raging horny-like sensation in the lower part of my body while practicing semen retention, right now it feels more balanced out and my state of consciousness is just different than before, in a positive way although it's like waking up to both sides of the coin. My motivations are shifting too. I had this massive drive for doing everything for my education with excellence, but right now that drive has dissipated a bit and i value time to introspect a lot more, very interesting. It would be nice to hear other people's experiences, especially the ones who are into the first real pranayama, because that stuff seems to have some intense effects.

Just finished an hour meditation session. About halfway through i'm doing a bit of inquiry, looking for what i am, going quit deep. Suddenly the way i perceived changed, hard to put into words, and my heart started pounding like it never did before, really really hard. After what seemed like about a minute my heart rate started to go down and the pounding got back to normal a little later. Right now it seems like my experience of reality is just slightly different, i won't bother explaining cause i don't know how to. What does this mean, what is it ? p.s. usually i meditate twice a day for 30 minutes. Yesterday and today i have more free time so i did six 30 minute sessions yesterday and today i had a very nice first 35 minute session followed by the hour session i just did. Just mentioning this in case it might have something to do with it.

@snowleopard that's helpful. Thank you.