Temporary Kriya Yoga pause

[CVKBT]

Hello everyone, I ask kindly for your assistance to my current situation. I'm not a native speaker, so please apologize any mistakes.

First let me lay out the facts:

- I've been meditating (every day without mistake; meditation from the no BS meditation guide) for about 10 months before I stumbled over Kriya Yoga (first JC Steven's book, since 2 weeks I've included Santata Gamanas book)
- Since February 2019 I'm doing Kriya Yoga
- Ever since, i've made some very big progress in my personal development  (becoming more conscious of my problems and successfully solving alot of them; unsolved problems already have the "solution-lay out" - so these are problems I'm already working on and need time, in order to get solved )
- Through daily practice and heavy engagement and interest I have answered many questions regarding my practice
- A week ago, I added some additional exercises from JC as well as Kriya Bow from Santata to my practice

Hindrances I have come across regarding my Kriya Yoga practice:

- My physiology:

• sitting without back assistance hurts my back,
• I'm unflexible (thus I can't do Maha Mudra or Navi Kriya properly) and
• Due to my body not being fit, I also have a  low breath capacity and bad skills in controlling my breath
• My nasal septum is crooked - often times I couldn't do Nadi Sodhana with one of my two nostrils (surgery incoming)

- My concentration

• I can only fully concentrate for 2 minutes on my breath, before my mind begins wandering off - but in those 2 minutes, not a single thought disrupts my concentration
• Even if it's only for 2 minutes, I get in a deep peaceful state after concentrating (I assume this comes from my previous meditative practice and Kriya Yoga)
• If I have moments of full concentration in a Kriya Yoga session, I immediately notice the big difference it makes

 

What I did to fix the hindrances:

- Regarding my physiology:

• Establish a workout routine for my unfit body
• Having physical assistance
• Going to a very helpful Hatha Yoga class (I learn many things about my body by doing the given exercises and my body awareness rises)
• Stretching exercises

-> I'm doing that since a month now and I feel more alive than ever thanks to the physiological exercises - and as a result my Kriya Yoga practice got better too!

 

- Regarding my concentration: Doing what Leo says in his Concentration vs. Meditation video

 

Why pause Kriya Yoga?

Today I saw Leo's Blog Post about not half assing Yoga. Leo pointed out, that you need to do the exercises with full attention - which I cannot do, due to a lack of concentration. My mind tends to wander off many times during that hour of practice.

I have come to the conclusion, that I need to develop my concentration first, in order to really get the fruits out of the Kriya Yoga exercises and to not do something wrong.
BUT the act of balancing energies has made a huge impact on my life. I feel way better through Kriya Yoga. I do it every morning, directly after waking up - this always gives me a fresh start in the day. A start, I was always in search for.
I'm infinitely grateful to what I could already learn from Kriya Yoga - and at the same time, I'm really sad, that I may have to give up my energy balancing exercise for a while.. Especially since I've learned about non-dual Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga. Parvastha was something, I could really enjoy and melt in. At least for a few minutes. And god, I love Kriya Yoga.

What could be my future routine?

Besides exercises regarding my physiology, I will work on my concentration.
But I want and need something to balance my energies (Hatha Yoga twice a week is not enough for me).

So I thought I'd still implement elements of Kriya Yoga to my morning routine, which would look like this:

• stretching with full body awareness
• concentration on breath with a timer
• Kriya Bow and Talabya Kriya (adding one day KP1)
• Ending with concentration upon Bhrumadhya and Medulla

If my concentration one day hits the 15 minutes mark I will pick up again on the Kriya Yoga routine, as given as in JC Steven's book.

This would also kind of be against what Leo says..you can't just rip apart the given Kriya Yoga instructions.
But cleansing my energies has become something of major importance in my life.
How can I establish this in my routine, without doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance for reading this and every answer coming in!
I'm very glad that actualized.org exists with such a great community.

Edited September 10, 2019 by CVKBT
Better version of the text

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

Sounds just like a normal struggle of concentrating, I would just keep practicing more and more, you could be on the verge of a breakthrough

[CVKBT]

@TrynaBeTurquoise I don't want to hold Leo's words like the bible, but he clearly stated that you need FULL attention - which I simply cannot deliver.

But if it's a normal struggle of concentrating, this would be a huge relief.

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

9 minutes ago, CVKBT said:

@TrynaBeTurquoise I don't want to hold Leo's words like the bible, but he clearly stated that you need FULL attention - which I simply cannot deliver.

But if it's a normal struggle of concentrating, this would be a huge relief.

Hey man you are interpreting Leo wrong. Your attention is like a muscle that you have to grow. You can't just expect to jump into something having perfect, "full" attention, its something that is developed. 

What he means is terms of dedication, what you want to get out of it. You clearly are striving to get that full attention. But if you don't want to perfect your attention over time and are satisfied with mediocrity, that is what half-assing means. 

[CVKBT]

@TrynaBeTurquoise Thanks for clearing this up dude. I really appreciate it! Much love.

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

21 minutes ago, CVKBT said:

@TrynaBeTurquoise Thanks for clearing this up dude. I really appreciate it! Much love.

No problem! Hoping you get that breakthrough soon, I find the slow breathing in the pranayamas help to calm my mind and slow down thoughts, making it easier to chip away at that one pointed concentration. Also JC says you can adjust your focal point of the concentration, maybe the top of your head would work better for you than the point between the eyebrows, im still trying to figure out what works best for me

[CVKBT]

1 minute ago, TrynaBeTurquoise said:

No problem! Hoping you get that breakthrough soon, I find the slow breathing in the pranayamas help to calm my mind and slow down thoughts, making it easier to chip away at that one pointed concentration. Also JC says you can adjust your focal point of the concentration, maybe the top of your head would work better for you than the point between the eyebrows, im still trying to figure out what works best for me

Yeah but it's sometimes really hard to find that "perfect" contraction of the throat, to let the air flow calm but steady.
I don't have problems with the focal points per se, but rather the duration of the concentration.
Generally I find, that a big part of perfecting one's Kriya is through tiny, incremental improvements and adjustments you make session after session.
Be careful  with the top of the head though, as I found that to be a bit too heavy for me. My fear using that specific point was, that I build up too much energy too fast at that point, thus exhausting my overall body-energy. As if like doing a huge skateboard trick, breaking a leg and then afterwards the need to start again from the beginning.

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

3 minutes ago, CVKBT said:

Yeah but it's sometimes really hard to find that "perfect" contraction of the throat, to let the air flow calm but steady.
I don't have problems with the focal points per se, but rather the duration of the concentration.
Generally I find, that a big part of perfecting one's Kriya is through tiny, incremental improvements and adjustments you make session after session.
Be careful  with the top of the head though, as I found that to be a bit too heavy for me. My fear using that specific point was, that I build up too much energy too fast at that point, thus exhausting my overall body-energy. As if like doing a huge skateboard trick, breaking a leg and then afterwards the need to start again from the beginning.

Have you seen this guys videos yet? It goes along with the book and helped me get clarification. The books explanation of Ujjayi pranayama left me confused till this guy simplified it to using the same muscles as whispering which made it easy and effortless to me and I got the shah and shee sounds. 

 

[CVKBT]

12 hours ago, TrynaBeTurquoise said:

Have you seen this guys videos yet? It goes along with the book and helped me get clarification. The books explanation of Ujjayi pranayama left me confused till this guy simplified it to using the same muscles as whispering which made it easy and effortless to me and I got the shah and shee sounds. 

 

Yes, his videos helped me quite a lot when procedure descriptions seemed a little ambiguous. Good guy.