Hi Everybody,
Im new to the forum. I have been praticing AYP for a few months and enjoying it a lot. Thanks to Yogani for such great material.
I have a question about the breathless state. I have read somewhere AYP dont give much importance to this state. If someone want´s to master this state, what he would need to change in the basic AYP routine? To increase the time of the spinal breath? I have read people in the Kriya Yoga tradition practice 6 or more hours of pranayama with no ill effects. What do you think?
Thank You
You really have to know what you are doing first…
When I go into a breathless state (during satsang)…its nice and all but verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry dangerous.
I go into a breathless state automatically when certain mantras and songs are being sung…( no I don not know what they are)
this is the effect…I don’t try to practice this it just happens
at certain times…For me bhakti is guiding me and I am being trained …apart from other things
Your soul can leave you and remain suspended …lord knows knows where and you might not be able to return…I don’t know as much as the others here but… please be careful
PS I haven’t read anything on Kriya Yoga…well not yet…
the others will know about this
Thanks for the reply nsantoo. You are blessed to have such experiences. Advanced yogis are able to enter samadhi just looking in the spiritual eye, or putting the tongue in Kechari position. The air is sucked out of the lungs and the heart sometimes stops, all body sense is lost, complete sense introvertion. The goal of the Kriya tradition is to achieve this at will.
Hi Yogi,
Sorry cannot help you with your breathless state question. However I do want to welcome you and wish you all the best in your journey 
Hi Yogi:
Welcome aboard!
Reduction of metabolism comes primarily from inner silence cultivated in deep meditation, and breath will slow down accordingly. In this case, breath suspension is effect rather than cause. Of course, cause leads to effect, and effect leads to cause.
In AYP spinal breathing pranayama, we easily favor slow breathing, which leads to gradual inner energy awakening. And in several of the mudras and bandhas, we suspend the breath after inhalation, not to the extreme. In both cases the principle of restraint of breath (the meaning of “pranayama”) is applied for this purpose.
As for doing hours of pranayama, it is not recommended when followed by deep meditation, as the effects will far exceed those of doing the pranayama alone, and likely lead to excessive purification and discomfort. It is a matter of efficiency. The more efficient the practice, the less time it takes to achieve results. Less can be more in that case.
As inner silence rises over time, the breath will naturally become less, even in daily activity, and the mind will become as steady as a crystal clear reflection pond.
The guru is in you.
Thank you Yogani, Shanti for the replies.
Yogani - I agree pranayama alone is not the best pratice. I understand in kriya there is deep meditation after pranayama. Lahiri Mahashay stressed this point as essential. I will experiment increasing the time of pranayama very slowly, not to the point of discomfort, and try to find a balance. I understand the more purification your body can handle, faster is your progress, right?
Hi Yogi:
Yes, traditional kriya yoga includes meditation after pranayama, but I do not believe it is mantra-based deep meditation of the kind we use in AYP. Rather, it is a nada practice using OM, which I believe is less consistent in its results. In the modern lineages of kriya, pranayama is usually the main focus, as per your post above, and meditation is less emphasized. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
A balance is essential. This is conveyed in a quote from Lahiri Mahasaya himself (the 19th century father of modern kriya yoga) that is used in a few places in the AYP lessons to illustrate the importance of this balance. He wrote that enlightenment is “a merging of emptiness with euphoria.”
From the AYP point of view, this is the merging of inner silence cultivated in deep meditation and samayama with ecstasy cultivated in pranayama, asanas, mudras and bandhas.
In recognizing this dual-pole strategy and exercising prudent self-pacing while using an effective range of practices, we can’t miss.
As for how much purification can be achieved by any particular individual, it will be a function of the unique matrix of obstructions (karma/samskara) embedded within the nervous system and the means used to loosen and release them. There is a limit to how much can be done in the present, but there is no limit to what can be accomplished over time. With self-pacing, progress can be maximized. Aggressive practice without self-pacing will lead to excesses that can knock us off the path altogether. It is like driving a car. A safe speed will deliver us to our destination in a timely fashion, while driving at top speed all the time will send us into a ditch or off a cliff sooner or later, probably sooner. So it is suggested to drive safely … it is the quickest and surest way home.
All the best!
The guru is in you.
thank you also for the details …for me the sucking of air out of the lungs happens automatically I always wondered why…now you placed alot of things into perspective for me…
I do not consider myself advanced in anything but based on my experiences it seems now I have been practicing Kriya yoga (wow the experiences never ends it goes on…you actually gave me incentive to research this topic)…
Gosh I used to wonder what happened there when I go into this state…especially where all body sense is lost …you become so much closer with the inner self and so forth…
Again thanks alot for your contribution I learnt alot
Yogani - Thank you for valuable insights, and for sharing not only the tecnhics, but your experience with us
nsantoo - Thank you for your kind comments. Please take a look at this book: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. You can read it online at
http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/books/ay/index.html. It will explain a lot of things about Yoga and will help you understant some of your experiences. All the best for you.
Hi Yogi, welcome!
nsantoo, your posts are always very interesting to me. Your experiences are amazing and very entertaining. What a colorful path you have! I don’t know if your kind of experiences are the more rare, or more common than I may know, but I certainly don’t read of such things too often. Thanks for sharing
Alan
Hi All:
This sort of experience (sudden exhalation accompanied by inner expansion) is fairly common in the Secrets of Wilder novel – a story about young Americans charging ahead with powerful spiritual practices. I’m sure we will be seeing much more of it in our non-fictional world too.
Sudden inhalation or exhalation (or both in sequence, which is automatic bastrika) is a normal reflex in the nervous system as it goes through cycles of purification. See here for some more discussion on this: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1383
There may be a tendency to mythologize these things, where, in fact, they are normal functions of the nervous system when stimulated by yoga practices, past or present, including bhakti. I’m not sure it is a good idea to make goals of particular experiences, as some traditions have a tendency to do. Much better to be focused on the performance of our practices than on creating particular experiences. Everyone’s journey will be somewhat different, according to the course of purification going on inside. With sound practices and self-pacing, our inner opening will unfold as it should.
Experiences make much better sign-posts along the way, for inspiration and self-pacing, than they do end goals.
The guru is in you.
yogani, thank you for always pointing us back to the straight path that is always there beyond the distractions
Hi Yogani,
Thanks very much for that info…I never completely read all your lessons please forgive me…but based on those little effects
I experienced how far along am I?
Sorry I don’t have any end goals since I am recently learning…and still purifying myself …
I think my training is mantra based with the help of the devies and dewtas and other shakti persons…especially on saturdays…
I look towards Saturday as further brain rewiring…cause that’s what they do…well I think so. Am I correct in assuming this?
Well lots of strange things started occuring to me…I looked hard to find a common ground …alot of stuff are unexplained or I haven’t read or trained along those lines to completely explain these things as yet ,but you have to understand alot of things are usually well kept secrets in the scriptures (because they say a person is guided to that part ectera…that religious sectors keep to themselves .Persons don’t usually relate their abnormal events but I am bold and carefree I know where I stand with god but like mother teresa I don’t know why God trusts me so much. I find it so hard to believe why he chose me to help others…when all I think about is partying ?..At first I thought it was unfair I didn’t want to experience anything, the more I fight it the more miserable I get …so now I have to accept it and try and find out what’s up…
I found another forum though and they are explaining everthing to me
from a religious point of view ,including topics on the devies and dewtas
Please bear in mind my experiences are not rare …not everyone talks about what happens to them…not everyone that experience these things are behind a computer with internet connection!
Some of the most spiritual persons are tribes in the jungles! or mountains!
Thanks nsantoo
Is that other forum site address something you can share? I would like to take a look
alan
Hi…here’s the info…www.Audarya-Fellowship.com there are lots of topics .
you can start by clicking on new posts
[quote]Originally posted by nsantoo
hello again…
Yogani site is number one right now for me but this other site assisted me for the past few years
www.crystalinks.com
Also click on Crystalink Ezine for the latest on everything
and Ellie’s world for some more interesting stuff
Ellie is really a nice person
Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement
I would love to read a concise summary of the most optimum sequence of bandhas, mudras and pranayama, which leads to the safest and most natural suspension of breath, kumbakha, both rechaka and puraka, and entry into samahdi.
If anyone would care to share…
Paw, kumbakha, as Yogani said, is an effect, not a cause. Aiming for it is a distraction, and may even harm your health. For one thing, excessive kumbakha, especially when it’s something aimed-for rather than a side effect, can create energy imbalances. There are AYP lessons on ways to specifically use kumbakha, but they’re quite narrow and limited. AYP does NOT encourage one to “reach” for kumbakha in meditation.
The most effective formula for entry into samadhi that I’ve seen is this AYP practice right here. And Yogani does not insert his cautions to slow you down. Rather, it’s to speed you up. To steal his metaphor, if you drive your car too fast around the mountain, you will crash before reaching the top. Slow, steady, and careful works best and FASTEST.
I’m a good person to tell you this, because I’m currently having some energy overload problems, and am trying to find ways to avoid kumbakha in meditation (without over-managing my meditation). Involuntary kumbakha is increasing my pitta to dangerous levels. It’s not a good thing. Other people might be more suited to handle this degree of energy, but we’re all different. Enjoy Shiva/stillness, it’s as good as, and a great preparation for, shakti.