Kriya Yoga Mega-Thread

[pluto8]

On 3/23/2018 at 2:06 PM, Martin123 said:

.....

After I started doing some yoga grounding exercises, I immediately experienced an enormous shift. Now I can concentrate so much more. I have much easier time communicating and focusing on studying. Also my kundalini sensation changed, it is much more visceral and raw at times.

.....

May I ask which yoga grounding exercises? Mb, there is a link?

Thanks

[Martin123]

@pluto8

 

[Esoteric]

For how long do you guys hold the breath in Maha Mudra? I can find myself having to inhale too hard without much control after the stretch but I am guessing I may be holding it for too long. It is kinda vague in the books how long the "OM's" should be during the stretch.

[John Iverson]

1 hour ago, Esoteric said:

For how long do you guys hold the breath in Maha Mudra? I can find myself having to inhale too hard without much control after the stretch but I am guessing I may be holding it for too long. It is kinda vague in the books how long the "OM's" should be during the stretch.

Just Hold your breath and ohm in your third eye while doing the 3 .. then back to your starting position to send your energy back to the root chakra that's the point.. that's it.. maybe what you are talking about is kriya breath fire you need to hold it 2 minutes that is the maximum... 

[Esoteric]

56 minutes ago, John Iverson said:

Just Hold your breath and ohm in your third eye while doing the 3 .. then back to your starting position to send your energy back to the root chakra that's the point.. that's it.. maybe what you are talking about is kriya breath fire you need to hold it 2 minutes that is the maximum... 

No, in both Santata's book and KSR it says to mentally chant OM 12 times (it says 6-12 times in KSR). So if you chant for 3 sec for each then it's 36 seconds of holding the breath. 12 secs would be manageable but it seems a bit short.

[Leo Gura]

On 8/17/2018 at 1:03 AM, see_on_see said:

@Leo Gura do you do Talabya Kriya / Khechari Mudra at all? For example Gamana's Kriya Supreme Fire says to do it as first step, altho I can barely move the tongue upwards while I'm doing all the other locks (primarily because the throat lock means I have my head tilted downwards). 

Not yet. I've held off on that technique to focus on mastering the other ones. I might add it in in the future.

[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.   

[Esoteric]

32 minutes ago, Mart said:

@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.   

Thanks for the advice. I tend to be kinda neurotic when it comes to doing things correctly (work in progress), but you are right. And I actually did shorter stretches and om's today so I could have a better breath flow. 

[Jordan94]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Not yet. I've held off on that technique to focus on mastering the other ones. I might add it in in the future.

Why did you held off on that ? it seemed to me that the ability to do Kechari was such a keypoint and great booster to progress

[BuddhaTree]

Hey guys!

Got this yesterday through Gamana's newsletter. It has nice info regarding both different pranayamas, with animations: 

 

https://realyoga.info/2018/08/kriya-pranayama/

 

Check it out. I've done both pranayamas, and I do enjoy both, but currently, my stack is 3x Maha Mudra + 5x Kriya Supreme Fire + 108x Kriya Pranayama in the Third-eye + 3x Yoni Mudra + meditation on Being for 20 minutes in the end. Total is around 1h10-1h20.

[Mart]

@BuddhaTree wow that’s hardcore. Doing 3* maha mudra, 72 pranayama and 10 min concentration takes me an hour already. How fast do you do the breaths with pranayama ? 

[Jordan94]

5 hours ago, BuddhaTree said:

Hey guys!

Got this yesterday through Gamana's newsletter. It has nice info regarding both different pranayamas, with animations: 

 

https://realyoga.info/2018/08/kriya-pranayama/

 

Check it out. I've done both pranayamas, and I do enjoy both, but currently, my stack is 3x Maha Mudra + 5x Kriya Supreme Fire + 108x Kriya Pranayama in the Third-eye + 3x Yoni Mudra + meditation on Being for 20 minutes in the end. Total is around 1h10-1h20.

Thanks for the share ! The website and animation about the localisation of the chakras is really nice actually

I'm doing quite the same, except i do the preparations from Ennio Nimmis's book (some japa in kutastha then nadi sodhana then tadan kriya) before 108 pranayama then one yoni mudra plus a few minutes still being in kutastha

The part I'm not really sure about is doing the OMs while "being in Kutastha", does it mean to feel the physical sensation at this area ? to mentally visualise that our "eyes" would be there and look from there ? to look towards it from our inner eyes (that would be in Medulla i guess) ? a mix of all of it ?

Edited August 20, 2018 by Jordan94

[Greenbirch]

What kind of (negative) symptoms have you all experienced after you started to practice?

I don't have the books yet, but I experienced some Kundalini energy going up my spine and now I have physical symptoms. I wonder if it's because I went into it without proper preparation (kriya yoga). Do you think kriya yoga could help lessen any symptoms that might come up? Or are symptoms, physical and mental, a part of the process as chakras clear up? Any tricks to deal with those? Someone mentioned grounding exercises, could they work for all symptoms?

[tyy]

Just curious, as I see a few books referenced throughout this thread, is working exclusively with the one JC Steven's book going to lead to any blind spots or drawbacks? I have held off getting others because I hear about how powerful these practices are and I don't feel knowledgeable enough to mix two teachings (assuming they differ).

Reading through this thread has me feeling I am moving at a turtle's pace with this work. Maybe I am taking the "only move on once you've mastered the techniques" idea and running a bit too far with it.

[BuddhaTree]

@Mart

You are doing them really slow, that's great. When I was doing spinal breathing, it took me about 50 min to do 108 pranayamas, without pauses (average). 

 

With the third eye variant that Gamana says, using ujjayi breathing, it takes me around 30 minutes. It's smoother. 

10 min for Maha Mudra, around 15 min for Kriya Supreme Fire, 5min yoni mudra, and 20min meditation on being-awareness.

 

I do it twice a day. 

[BuddhaTree]

@Jordan94

Yeah, it looks nice. I've tried tadan kriya before. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't. I eventually had to ditch it because my routine, at the time, was taking nearly 2h.

The OMS in kutastha is placing the center of your attention in that space and chanting as if you were there. But if you mean the being in medulla while looking at kutastha during the concentration phase or something like that, as it is written in the big kriya book, then I have no idea. It's too confusing and splits the attention, defeating its purpose. 

[BuddhaTree]

@Greenbirch

I have experienced restlessness, insomnia and stuff like that, but nothing major. I've also experienced urges to do stuff. Like lots of activity, just go stuff. These are rare occurrences though. 

 

Get the books. They will 100% help you. 

If you go into kundalini yoga right off the bat, you may definitely experience side effects. I prefer kriya yoga. It does the job just fine, and I rarely experience negative side effects, as I said above. 

 

Grounding helps, but if you are extremely sensitive, you must go slowly. You don't want to overdrive your CPU! Best grounding for me is doing powerlifting and sports. 

[Jordan94]

@BuddhaTree Thanks for the answer, yea there's a lot of prep in Ennio's book, i'm still trying around see which ones seems the most effective to me, although the nadi sodhana + tadan is pretty fast so I find them quite good compared to the investment

 

6 hours ago, BuddhaTree said:

@Jordan94

The OMS in kutastha is placing the center of your attention in that space and chanting as if you were there.

Does the placing attention means just feeling the sensations that appear there ? or not necessarly ? or not at all ?

[Sage_Elias]

On 02/07/2018 at 3:36 PM, YogiLogan said:

On 01/07/2018 at 5:27 PM, Cliffardo said:

Has Ryan Kurczak on youtube been mentioned ? anyone know if hes any good, no experience in this 

He teaches from the position of an SRF student, his videos are good for beginners and those taking the SRF path. If you read the 'book' you see that the SRF has corrupted the techniques. 

@YogiLogan Not necessarily...I have a feeling that Yogananda gave the advanced techniques to his close disciples while giving the more basic techniques to the general public through the SRF organization.

Ryan's techniques are from a direct disciple of Yogananda so I wouldnt just assume that his techniques are not powerful

[Esoteric]

Does anyone have experience with mixing Zazen meditation with Kriya Yoga? I am a member of a Zen center here and they have weekend retreats and full day retreats sporadically which are very valuable to me. I don't do Zazen as a daily habit though, I just do Kriya Yoga (which has absolutely blown me away in only a few months). The thing is we focus on Hara, the section just below the navel, which is the Manipura Chakra. Are there risks of making this part overactive or shouldn't I worry about it and just let my daily Kriya practice balance it out? Thanks.

EDIT, so I guess Hara is just below the navel and Manipura is at or slightly above the navel. But I would still appreciate some opinions on focusing on this area for a long time while doing Kriya regularily. 

Edited August 24, 2018 by Esoteric