Energy experience and thoughts on self-pacing

13. Building a Daily Practice with Self-Pacing
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I wrote about an energy experience on Jan. 5 in this topic:
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=686
and I will fill in a little about what difficulties it caused me for 2 weeks and how I think about applying practices in my case. This has been a learning experience for me and I think it could possibly be of interest to others as well.
First, after this happened I immediately dropped Yoni Mudra Khumbaka and Siddhasana, which are major energy producers. However, the ache at the base of the spine continued, no big deal during daily life, but at night time it grew to intense heat, especially when lying on the side, and I could not sleep that way. I tried to sleep lying straight on my back, but that was very difficult, and I got very little sleep. After a few days, when the ache/heat didn’t go away, I dropped Sambhavi and Mulabandha too, with only Pranayama and Meditation remaining. However, often after 15 minutes of meditation, I could feel tingling energy rising in the lower part of the body, which sometimes caused a contraction at the base of the spine, and this would create more heat during nighttime. I had to take down practices to 5 minutes of Pranayama plus 10 minutes of Meditation, then the ache/heat gradually subsided and I could sleep on the side again, and get real sleep. I must say that this was hard to deal with for 2 weeks and feeling like a zombie during daytime because of sleep deprivation.
As some background, I started AYP Meditation in Jan. 2005, added Prananyama in March 2005, and Sambhavi/Mulabandha about May 2005. I had been sitting in a light type of Siddhasana since the beginning because it felt natural, and that was how I had “meditated” on and off (on stilling the mind) for several years before. Throughout most of 2005, all that happened was increasing stillness and stability of mind, and everything was completely stable through practices and daily life. In Oct. 2005 I decided to try to increase energy production somewhat to promote ecstatic conductivity, by moving the heel back and increasing pressure slightly in Siddhasana. And, after a couple of weeks, I started to feel some tingling energy, first in the legs, and later slightly in the perineum. I saw this as a good sign and a step forward. In Dec. 2005, since I felt completely stable in and out of practices, I started with Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka, with 3 breath retentions. When putting the attention on the 3rd eye in this, I could feel a slight sucking underpressure at the base of the spine. The tingling energy would increase slightly and come up from the legs in the lower part of the body as well. I saw this as a good sign and thought it would gradually change into ecstasy or ecstatic conductivity. But it didn’t, instead it erupted into a minor kundalini jolt on Jan. 5 as I wrote before. When it did, it felt like the kundalini tried to rise, but got stuck in the lower area of the spine, and instead spread out evenly into the upper part of the body and head, causing nausea and pressure.
I have read that kundalini should rise through the Sushumna as its proper path, and if Sushumna is not purified then kundalini will have to use Ida or Pingala or other nadis, and that causes problems, like in my case.
I went back and studied the AYP lessons more. The criterion that is emphasized there is that if you feel stable in practices and daily life for a reasonable length of time, then you can add a new practice. In my case, I thought that 6 months with stable Meditation + Pranayama + light Siddhasana + Mulabandha + Sambhavi would be sufficient when advancing Siddhasana and then Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka, but apparently not.
Then I read in AYP Lesson 56 about Sambhavi:
“the spinal nerve is being stimulated and purified by the combined effects of all the practices covered to date. It is only a matter of time before the ecstatic conductivity begins to occur.” It dawned on me that to this date I still have difficulty visualizing and trying to imagine the spinal nerve during Pranayama, and have sensed no currents in it, so obviously it’s not very much purified yet. And I have felt no trace of ecstatic conductivity.
Then I read in Lesson 75 about Siddhasana:
“We are crossing over here into practices that are decidedly more aggressive. Before taking on any of these, it is essential that you be stable in the practices previously undertaken.” and “You may spend years in the other practices before you feel ready for these very advanced yoga practices coming up.”
The picture I get from the quotes from these lessons, plus my own experience, is that, at least in my own case, before going into the more aggressive practices, instead of just feeling “stable”, let the spinal nerve become somewhat purified so you can feel the currents of prana through it, and let some ecstatic conductivity be developed, then you can be ready to add more, and when kundalini comes, she can enter the proper channel. I have heard that premature kundalini awakening can cause a lot of problems.
I am thinking, for safety, maybe it could be good to add more criteria than “feeling stable” before adding a new practice, to let a given practice produce at least a fair amount of its intended results before adding another one, for example:

  1. Start with Meditation only.
  2. When experiencing (stability and) considerable stillness and stability of mind, then you are ready to add Pranayama.
  3. Do Pranayama + Meditation until you (are stable and) find the spinal nerve as described in Lesson 44.
  4. Then you are ready to add Mulabandha and Sambhavi.
  5. Do Pranayama + Meditation + Mulabandha + Sambhavi until (you are stable and): 1) you experience that the Mulabandha is rising prana with some direct stimulation, amplifying its upward flow as stated in Lesson 55, and 2) you experience from Sambhavi that the 3rd eye is opened as described in Lesson 56.
  6. Then you are ready to go further.
    And so on.
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Hi Weaver:
Thanks so much for taking the time to record your experiences over the past year, the snags you have encountered recently, and how you have been addressing them. This will be very useful information to many who are traveling on the AYP fast track. And it is the fast track, for sure.
Your suggestions 1-6 at the end are excellent refinements on the big picture of self-pacing practices over the long term – building a stable routine that is flexible, progressive and safe.
This is real pioneering work going on here. The “leading edge” in modern yoga. We do not want it to become the “bleeding edge,” so this kind of sharing and reflection on what we are doing is very important.
Consider this. It took me over 30 years to take on and assimilate all the practices in AYP. Of course, I spent a lot of time searching and researching, so I am sure I could have done it in much less time had the knowledge been readily available. How short a time? That is what all of you are finding out. This degree of fast track has not been done before. Not that I am aware. So there is a lot of research yet to be done on the cultivation of human spiritual transformation, and you are the ones doing it. I can’t experience it the same way you are. It is too late for me. I’m too far down the road at this point. Hopefully not too far gone. :sunglasses:
So, AYP can be very speedy, limited only by the steps of purification that each person must go through. Something is happening. We know that for sure. Now we have to systematize it in ways that will keep everyone off the guard rails on the curves.
How long is the journey going to be? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? More? We’ll find out from all of you.
In the Secrets of Wilder, I assumed a 10 year journey for John Wilder, which was a big compression of my 30 years. Well, he is a fictitious prodigy – a mythic figure on a fantastic inner journey. Now we have to bring it to earth and make it real. It is going to take some doing, and no doubt some more scraping of the guard rails. Are you all up for it? Or are we going too fast here? Some might be feeling a little weak in the knees and thinking we should pull the plug on all this and go back to the slow track. What do you think?
Weaver, I believe the kind of excess you have experienced can be settled down fairly easily. It is a crown opening that brings the greatest risk. Yours does not sound like that. Your suggestion is a good one, to look for more clarity and fluidity (conductivity) in spinal breathing before turning up the heat with mudras, bandhas and kumbhaka. Then you will have a clear route up and down (it goes both ways). You just got a little ahead of yourself, so turning down the heat for a while is the right thing to do. You will be back.
What we do not want is to be like the guy who strapped some feathers on his arms and jumped off the cliff hoping to take flight. It did not work. Can man fly? Absolutely. We know that now. Can he fly like that, with feathers strapped to his arms? No. With a hang glider? Yes! But only if he knows how. The key is in developing the “know how.”
It is the same thing in this no-nonsense AYP approach to fast track yoga. Do we know that humanity can cultivate enlightenment? Well, we are not as sure about that as we are about man flying. But there is plenty of evidence that a thing called “enlightenment” is inside us somewhere. Will we find it by jumping off the cliff with a smattering of ill-applied practices? Not likely. We have to fully explore the means available, apply and integrate them judiciously, optimize them over time, and so on. Then we will have it.
These kinds of discussions are just for that. Thanks again for sharing … great stuff!
The guru is in you.

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Thank you Yogani very much for your detailed reply. After the heat has settled down at the base of the spine for the last week, I can feel more clarity and stillness of mind, both in and out of meditation. The strange thing is that these 10 minutes of meditation takes me deeper than the 20 minutes used to do before. I originally planned to try to increase meditation time again after 1 week of 10 minutes, but I may wait and see, because I sometimes have the feeling that I have to watch myself so the meditation doesn’t get too deep, because there is an increasing tickling sensation at the base of the spine with increasing depth, and I fear that if I lose control it may erupt again. But time will tell, and when the nervous system purifies more, hopefully the energy can rise in a stable way.

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I can only speak from my perspective of course, but having had a glimpse or two into what life will be like at the end of the journey away from our “Self”, the faster I can shed the erroneous thinking patterns and dirt blocking my connection, the better!
I think the occasional “scraping of the guard rails” makes the journey a fun one as well. You realize big things are going on and that the rough spots are only temporary. You learn about the true functioning of the human nervous system and are wiser for the experiences.
The closer we get, the better life gets, who could ask for anything more? :+1:
When are you going to share some things we can do during our daily lives between practices to help make the journey home?

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Hi Anthem:
It is good to know some are game for the fast track aspect of AYP, risks included. Of course, it can be used much more gradually too. Weaver’s first post here counsels wisely for a measured approach. Each step is a matter of personal choice. When I first started writing a few years ago, I did not really know how all of this would be received. Not too bad so far. The level of responsibility exhibited by everyone has been outstanding. See http://www.aypsite.org/217.html
As for what is to come in AYP, yes, there are more techniques in the works for both sitting practices and in-between. But first, it would be good to see some more formation in the application of the core practices we are working with now. It is a grand experiment whose results are yet to be fully known. Plus, there is a lot of writing and practical dissemination work to do on this end to spread the knowledge out into the mainstream as much as possible – a lot of “catch-up” in the documentation and publishing end of it. That is what the AYP Enlightenment Series books are for, and there are a bunch of those to do. So time is becoming quite crunched here. Logically, the more help there can be from practitioners on the dissemination end of AYP, the better.
So, more techniques? Yes, in time… The scope of AYP will eventually broaden to integrate and optimize additional elements of practice. The project continues!
The guru is in you.