Kriya Yoga Mega-Thread

[Salvijus]

This is beautiful to observe . It's growing so fast, probably in the next 3years the whole world will be populated with Yogis like us. 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, MikeB said:

Practicing for two weeks now.

Asana

Wow my back is weak. Getting stronger quickly though. I find doing some stretches prior helps alot. I hold most of my stretches for 30 seconds. Swaying like a skyscraper. It is distracting. Should go away.

I am trying to follow the book as much as possible. In the book it states "The hands should sit gently on the lap with fingers INTERTWINED, which creates a neutralization of the current". I know it says should, but it seems pretty important. Everywhere I search on the internet, noone is doing this. Only figure 3 shows this .They typically have their hands on their knees. Leo, if you can help with this one please do.

I don't think it matters much. I put my hands on my thighs, palms up.

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Nadi Sodhana Pranayama

I found elsewhere today to count the joints on your hand. 12 per. Right now I am just breathing until it feels good enough which is terrible. Going to test. Should do the trick, I just want to keep distractions to a minimum and keep my focus on the important things, rather than having to count.

3 cycles is what the book says.

That finger technique is however good for tracking your Kriya breaths, which will be in cycles of 12. Works great.

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Blow your nose prior to breathing. Clear your throat.

Definitely a must.

Jogging vigorously in place for 1-2 minutes prior to your sit will significantly help clear up blocked sinuses.

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Ujjayi Pranayama

This is not easy for me. The research I found today made sense though. Get good at Nadi Sodhana. then move on to this.

It's a habit. One step at a time.

It's really easy. You just open and constrict your throat and breath in/out through the nose. You'll get the hang of it in a week or two.

[herghly]

@onacloudynight you are probably right ,  unless I have to share a room with someone during retreats then it may be difficult 

 

@Leo Guraare you going to be adding any more kriya books to the list ? 

 

Im really enjoying this practice , I've found doing kriya yoga for 30 minutes in the morning prior to my meditation makes my meditation A LOT better 

[onacloudynight]

I am a month in.

All I can say is this stuff works! It greatly calms and silences my mind down. After one session it felt like my mind completely turned off for awhile, which was nice.

I can see the light it says to focus on, so I have been focusing on that, which just brings me into a very deep state of concentration. I don't know if you would call it samadhi, but I certainly feel blissed out afterwards. I can't really remember anything when I am in it though.

I can now see the potential of this stuff making one crazy

Edited March 24, 2018 by onacloudynight

[trustyadam]

Okay, so I've been following the Kriya Yoga book on the book list. A kinda scary thing happened to me the other night while I was meditating. I was focusing on medulla while my eyes were centered on brumaddhya. It was maybe my 4th time doing the meditation in a row like that, and maybe my 6th time meditating after doing the whole beginner kriya stuff (the alternate nostril breathing, the ujayi pranayama, and the tongue stretches). 

I got into a really deep meditation and I ACTUALLY lost feeling in my whole body. I also heard the OM sound change for the first time; it started to sound like I was listening into a seashell. At the same time, I kind of felt like I was floating, I felt like reality was vibrating really really hard, the OM sound was also sounding really vibratingish, and I felt like just EVERYTHING was vibrating. My heart also started to race. I felt cold and hot at the same time diffusely, (which was weird cuz I still couldn't feel my body). Anyway, everything kept getting more and more intense and it was quite shocking. It was actually pretty reminiscent of a N,N-DMT experience that I'd had before. Anyway, I felt like SOMETHING was about to happen. In my head I was like "am I about to have a kundalini awakening? Am I unlocking a chakra or something? Am I about to pass out or have a seizure? It was exciting, but very frightening at the same time.

Anyway, I chickened out, I opened my eyes, unclasped my hands, and got out of half lotus. I was so perplexed by this experience that i started looking into kundalini awakenings and searching stuff online to see if I could find similar experiences. I found someone who said that they had a similar experience when they had a kundalini awakening, but then I found some people saying that Kundalini can LITERALLY kill you. Like not ego death. Literal death. Like cardiac arrest. This scared the hell out of me. 

So now I'm actually afraid to meditate. And that's shitty. I'm basically posting this to see if anyone else has had similar experiences, or if anyone can offer insight as to what might have been about to happen, or if anyone can give me some reassurance that I'm not going to actually die. I'm a healthy 24 year old male, and I know cardiac arrest is unlikely, but I've been frightened. Anyone wanna chime in? 

EDIT: Leo if you're reading this, I'd super appreciate a reply. I feel like you've said not to look to you as a guru before, but I'm 100% sure you're vastly more knowledgeable about this than I am, and I'd trust your insight more than a random person's on Reddit or some other online forum. 

Edited March 25, 2018 by trustyadam

[onacloudynight]

17 minutes ago, trustyadam said:

Okay, so I've been following the Kriya Yoga book on the book list. A kinda scary thing happened to me the other night while I was meditating. I was focusing on medulla while my eyes were centered on brumaddhya. It was maybe my 4th time doing the meditation in a row like that, and maybe my 6th time meditating after doing the whole beginner kriya stuff (the alternate nostril breathing, the ujayi pranayama, and the tongue stretches). 

I got into a really deep meditation and I ACTUALLY lost feeling in my whole body. I also heard the OM sound change for the first time; it started to sound like I was listening into a seashell. At the same time, I kind of felt like I was floating, I felt like reality was vibrating really really hard, the OM sound was also sounding really vibratingish, and I felt like just EVERYTHING was vibrating. My heart also started to race. I felt cold and hot at the same time diffusely, (which was weird cuz I still couldn't feel my body). Anyway, everything kept getting more and more intense and it was quite shocking. It was actually pretty reminiscent of a N,N-DMT experience that I'd had before. Anyway, I felt like SOMETHING was about to happen. In my head I was like "am I about to have a kundalini awakening? Am I unlocking a chakra or something? Am I about to pass out or have a seizure? It was exciting, but very frightening at the same time.

Anyway, I chickened out, I opened my eyes, unclasped my hands, and got out of half lotus. I was so perplexed by this experience that i started looking into kundalini awakenings and searching stuff online to see if I could find similar experiences. I found someone who said that they had a similar experience when they had a kundalini awakening, but then I found some people saying that Kundalini can LITERALLY kill you. Like not ego death. Literal death. Like cardiac arrest. This scared the hell out of me. 

So now I'm actually afraid to meditate. And that's shitty. I'm basically posting this to see if anyone else has had similar experiences, or if anyone can offer insight as to what might have been about to happen, or if anyone can give me some reassurance that I'm not going to actually die. I'm a healthy 24 year old male, and I know cardiac arrest is unlikely, but I've been frightened. Anyone wanna chime in? 

I have had a lot of crazy experiences like this. I don't know what would have happened; you should have just stuck with it. Try not to label or categorize these experiences. They are just phenomena.

Think of these experiences like checkpoints you have to go through in order to reach deeper levels of awareness. Your mind will throw all sorts of crazy things at you to see if you will react. The trick is to remain equanimous and unaffected during these types of experiences. Fully open yourself up and surrender to these experiences. Don't try to fight or resist them. They will pass.

Edited March 25, 2018 by onacloudynight

[Jamie Universe]

1 hour ago, trustyadam said:

I found someone who said that they had a similar experience when they had a kundalini awakening, but then I found some people saying that Kundalini can LITERALLY kill you. Like not ego death. Literal death. Like cardiac arrest. This scared the hell out of me. 

Maybe my information is wrong that I've heard from enlightened people, but technically speaking.. ego death is the same as literal death?.. In a sense that the only difference between the two is in one version of the story you keep the body and continue doing shit until the body dies.

Or the alternative is ego death, in which the experience of all that fear and ego death still happens, but you still have a body, in which case it doesn't matter if the body physically died. 

If this is true (And I'm not sure, you may want to research to be sure.) Then your afraid of dying, which is what you set out to do.

[Leo Gura]

@trustyadam Look, you wanted to do spirituality and get results, there you go.

Spirituality is a radical thing. If you don't want to turn reality inside out, then stay away from spirituality.

There are a 1001 different kinds of radical mystical experiences which you could have. Keep calm and carry on, or don't.

Driving in a car can kill you. So what?

[trustyadam]

Thank you guys. You're right. I did go into this with the goal of radical results. I suppose I should have expected really radical shit to happen to me. I just didn't know that this kind of experience was possible without exogenous chemicals, so it was disturbingly shocking. I think I have a better understanding that unexpected things will happen. I've been kind of contemplating 'why so intense so quick?' and I think that might have been shown to me as kind of a taste of what's to come. I'm gonna keep after it.

[Pallero]

Once my book arrives, I'll be happy to post some progress reports!

In the meantime have been practicing some alternate nostril breathing and spinal breathing for a month. The only difference I notice is that at the beginning it was a little difficult and now it's a lot easier.

[onacloudynight]

@Pallero Glad to hear. I'm curious about what everyone is going to report.

[Thinh]

@Martin123 My meditation teacher always said that if you try to awaken your kundalini when your capability is not enough, it would be very dangerous thing. I've seen one in my retreat, who was opened his chakra by another teacher (not by himself) and in the retreat he was like a body with no soul, he just walking around and not talked to anybody. 

[herghly]

Hey guys besides kriya yoga are you doing any other forms of yoga ? 

I"m looking at Hatha yoga it looks interesting 

[Martin123]

@Thinh Yes that sounds like depersonalization. I have gone through a year long period where i had those constantly. Thankfully grounding yoga (Youtube: Yoga with adriene wink wink shes a gem) cured me of those completely.

[moon777light]

i was looking at whether i should purchase the kriya book on amazon or on bookdepository since i dont live in usa and they have free shipping to europe and i noticed that the one on amazon is 422 pages, whereas the one on bookdepository is 362 pages. Why the difference? it says theyre the same book/edition?

[onacloudynight]

@Leo Gura Should you do Maha Mudra with closed eyes?

[electroBeam]

@Leo

@Leo Gura

Do you actually use the term 'OM' in Kriya Pranayama? I tried it for 2 weeks, but I don't understand the meaning, so I switch to instead of chanting OM, I visualise and feel into a heap of energy, because that's what OM means in english.

Also I get extremely frustrated during Kriya Pranayama. Because its so hard to simultaneously do all of the stuff needed, while making sure you're feeling into the chakras rather than just visualizing it. I only do 24 sets as well. Is frustration an impediment? Or is it ok to be frustrated? 

Also it takes me probably 10 seconds to go up the spine, because if I do it quicker, I'll either miss a chakra, not feel into it properly or forget about visualizing the ball of energy there, or forget to do it within the 3rd eye. Should I worry about these things and just be quicker anyway? Because I'm so slow I hold my breathe half way through my spine because I don't have 10 seconds of inhalation space. 

Also I haven't been getting any results from the practice. The only thing I've noticed is sometimes I feel very still and the ego dissolves, and the practice just happens, but this isn't really a mystical experience. Maybe this is a sign that I'm doing it incorrectly? Or this path doesn't suit me? I've been doing it for at least 3 weeks now. 

[Thinh]

@Martin123 It seems like you've gone through some tough time dealing with emotional challenge (I do read your post about emotional healing), if you don't mind, can you share more about your challenge?

[Nexeternity]

@electroBeam   Hey!  Maybe try it for 3 months before quitting?  Being very still, having the ego dissolve and seeing the practice just happen by itself seem like great results to me.

[Aimblack]

@electroBeam You should probably watch the video on Leos blog called 'don't half-ass yoga'.