How to easily return
to the mantra when AYP makes
you able to focus more, perhaps have more will, and thereby to go deeper?
I tend to use will to sit down to
practice, but also, at times, I use will during practice
to let-go-but-focus-but-let-go-but-focus meditate and easily
return to mantra.
It seems that this paradox still is there for me
to untangle; I just wanted to share my thoughts.
I am not sure there is an answer other than
to live and experience the truth..
..or perhaps the let-go-but-focus-but-let-go-but-focus
is me, today, having sad/angry bhakti fuelling the practice?
I will report back regarding this..
You could be over-thinking things. All you need to do is to repeat the mantra silently in your mind and allow your attention to rest gently with that.
The will is involved, as without a will, you would not able to do this. And focus is involved as you are focusing your attention more on one thing than on anything else. So, as your will becomes stronger and your ability to focus becomes stronger you will tend to find that you stay with the mantra more and notice that you have lost the mantra less.
Eventually you may find that you never need to return to the mantra during a session because you never lose it. That is fine as well, if that is happening.
Maybe this question seem silly, but
willpower, too me, is varied in its intensity.
Depending on day, intent, thoughts and mantra, the will
wavers no?
Oh..Now I felt the longing for complete inner-silence or bliss.
As this would, per my definition, make the intensity of will irrelevant.
And yes, I am probably still overthinking it. Heh
Just keep coming back to your meditation seat and everything else will become clear over time. Keep Coming to the forums daily and reading/listening to spiritual texts help to keep Bhakti going strong and the will to meditate.
If you are referring to the intensity of your will to practice in order to experience complete inner silence, or bliss, then this is bhakti.
And yes, the intensity of this will does fluctuate daily, weekly, monthly etc. Even hour-by-hour. But as long as it grows gradually over time despite short-term fluctuations then we will be O.K.
Eventually bhakti subsides as we begin to realise that we are what we have been searching for.
I guess I jump to conclusions fast and am thankful for your pointers.
Now, later, I know that DM makes my life a bit dark in the day-to-day life. It stirs up this dark moodiness, yet with perfect âsiddhiâ-like material ability to complete my work with great quality. The dark moodiness is usually manageable but is often the grave shadow behind the siddhi-like abilities that comes from DM.
My quesion, and dilemma, is that I may have unconsciously learned to depend on these siddhis of DM. I mean, people, perhaps like me, that is not in deeper states of samadhi would easily fall in this trap and then, years later, see that they created a life dependent on a particular mantra meditation.
I could just continue to practice but it feels wrong. I could just stop, but mantra meditation just feels right to me. I want to follow the recommendation to stick to one system and therefore only do my Kriya-system, at least energy-practice wise. If I only stick to AYPS Dm it still stirs up this dark moodiness-but-soldier-siddhi-like ability thing regardless of mixing with the other system. If I mix, that creates exactly the same reaction, and even, a nice intoxication-like samadhi state sometimes if I do DM 5 hours after my other system.
Should I just start over and try the longer mantra of AYP that may have a softer sweep on my inner matrix of obstruction at this moment? I really want to practice AYP as I know its great potential.
I hope this message was not too messy. Iâm writing this late at night.
Yes, if you are feeling a moodiness (irritable/ angry etc.) during the day and you believe it is being caused by the AYAM mantra bringing you too quickly into stillness and silence, then you could switch to the full AYP mantra to see if this helps. This is described in lesson 367:
In discussing the under-sensitive meditator in the previous lesson, we mentioned that inner obstructions tend to be âdensely packed,â thereby slowing down the flow of awareness inward to more silent levels of the mind. In the over-sensitive meditator, the situation seems to be just the opposite, with inner obstructions being âloosely packed,â and awareness going inward quickly. We could also call this âfast transcending.â It is a two-way street. No sooner does the over-sensitive meditator quickly go in with the mantra, than the awareness comes quickly out again, bringing excessive purification and opening with it. So, while the over-sensitive meditator may have experiences of bliss, ecstasy and rapidly rising bhakti (spiritual desire), there is also the experience of excessive purification. Then self-pacing may be necessary to the point where meditation time becomes very short. A possible way around this situation is to modify the mantra to facilitate âslower transcending.â We cannot suddenly change the nature of the matrix of obstructions in the nervous system we are dealing with. But we can change the vehicle we are using to traverse it, going from the surface of the mind to its silent depths, and back again. There has been some research done in the AYP community on the third enhancement to the I AM mantra, which is the longest mantra we have in the AYP system. The additional syllables reduce the speed with which awareness moves to more silent levels of the mind. In doing so, a longer mantra creates a wider sweep on the way in and also on the way out. It is less prone to âfalling through the cracksâ between the loosely packed inner obstructions and thoughts of an over-sensitive meditator. While working to stabilize our meditation routine, it is suggested to discontinue spinal breathing pranayama and any other energy stimulating practices or activities we may be engaged in. [Yogani]
So, that would mean switching to the full mantra for a while to see if this helps and stopping any energetic (kriya) practices you have going on, for now at least.
Switching to the full mantra does not work for everyone, and could actually make your moodiness worse. So, it would be important to be ready to switch back if necessary, or even to change to breath-based meditation if necessary. That is discussed in the same lesson I linked to above (367).
True meditation always involves the use of an object, and systematically refining our awareness of that object in the mind. In AYP the object we use is a mantra (actually, a progressive system of mantras), which has been found to be highly effective for cultivating abiding inner silence in the nervous system. For those who are over-sensitive to mantra meditation, no matter how it is approached, it is suggested to use an object for meditation other than a mantra. There are certainly alternative ways to cultivate abiding inner silence in the nervous system. An ancient and reliable method of meditation used widely in the Buddhist system, and elsewhere, involves using the breath as object, rather than mantra. [Yogani]
I tried applying your recommendation this week.
Stopping other practices except one simple
spinal twist in the morning 5+ hours before practice.
The long, and full AYP mantra, actually made the meditation less harsh and daily
live more smooth, albeit I brace myself as this is yet the
clunky stage of the new mantra.
I hope this will make the AYP work more smoothly again, as I have been
trying different things for years, ending up with 10 min dm that is
unstable and just OK.
Another question: Should I go up to 20 minutes, twice daily, to integrate the new mantra? Now I am doing 10 minutes, and once daily.
I woukd stick with 10 mins once daily to see if the longer mantra works. If you increased the timing and/or number of sessions a day at the same time as changing the mantra and it did not work, you would not know what was causing the issue.
If you find that you are stable after a few weeks, or months then you could try going to two sessions a day, or staying with one session and increase the timing. But focusing on becoming stable shoukd be the first priority.
Donât forget that AYP goes a long way when expanding the practice and also goes all the way down to zero if necessary when reducing the practice for self-pacing reasons. So, no one should end up in a place that is unstable.
If 10 mins of DM is unstable, I would suggest switching to the breath as a meditation object. If 10 mins with the breath is unstable reduce it to five, and so on until you find stability. Some people need to reduce practices to zero for a while. Doing this is preferable to remaining in an unstable state.
