My daily practice is remain aware of the movements and fluctuations of the body/mind 24/7 and to look at every emotional reaction and use it as an opportunity to see myself clearer.
Not really sure how to answer this question with anything that isn’t entirely subjective and likely meaningless to anyone but me.
Honestly I don’t think this is relevant. Experiences don’t really indicate much of anything except for perhaps what stage one is at today (and the “stages” aren’t necessarily linear, so this may actually be a false indication of progress).
There have been SO many that it would be quite hard to list them all. Lets just say that, for me, when I came to AYP I was very much stuck in my mind (10+ threads of thought all day, everyday), a complete slave to my emotions, and unable to let go of anything. Now, my mind is quiet, difficult emotions rarely surface and when they do they are embraced and used as fodder for growth, and there is very little that I can’t let go of immediately (which leaves me free from suffering for the most part).
I would say that, for the most part, yes. Obviously there are going to be some desires and to some degree “mental afflictions” but in general, when compared to pre-AYP, I would say that they are now essentially negligible. When I came to AYP I was physically addicted to methadone (90mg daily dose for the last 3+ years and an IV heroin addict for a half dozen years before that). I did DM for 1 month before adding SBP, and within 10 weeks of starting DM/SBP together I was 100% clean from opiates and had experienced zero withdrawal symptoms. Technically, according to western medicine, this is biologically impossible. This was probably one of the most physically verifiable experiences I’ve seen here at AYP indicating the physical ramifications of spiritual practices.
If you want to read the entire long version of my answers to your above questions you can check out this thread here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8369
Love,
Carson
Namaste, ak33.
I’ve paraphrased your questions and my answers for the sake of brevity:
Firstly what is your daily practice?
How do you view the world on a day-to-day basis?
Can you describe some of your meditation experiences?
Can you describe major shifts in consciousness?
Have you subdued your addictions, mental afflictions, desires?
If yoga is a science, then it is not wrong to ask these kinds of questions.
Being, non-being, becoming.
Existent, non-existent, incipient.
Here, there, nowhere.
Totality, partitivity, narrative.
Over, under, concurrent.
Knowledge, ignorance, experience.
Allow me to submit Alfred Noye’s poetic testimony of utmost and earnest relevance to the topic at hand:
Knowledge, they say,
drives wonder from the world;
they say it still, though all the dust’s ablaze
with marvels at their feet,
while Newton’s laws foretell
that knowledge one day
shall be song.
We seem like children wandering by the shore,
gathering pebbles colored by the wave;
while the great sea of truth, from sky to sky
stretches before us,
boundless, unexplored.
Hi ak33, I don’t have big experience of AYP (AYP regular practice since December 2014, prior to that I had a regular hatha yoga practice for a couple of years) but I hope you don’t mind if I try to answer your questions.
What is your daily practice?
Some asana when time is available - 5 min. of SBP – 15 min. of DM – 10 min. of rest in savasana.
This routine is practiced twice a day, every day, almost without exceptions.
The routine has changed 2-3 times due to some (mild) overload situations (for example, I started with 20 min. DM, reduced to 10 min. and now reaugmented up to 15 min.).
How do you view the world on a day-to-day basis?
Don’t understand this question.
Can you describe some of your meditation experiences?
In the beginning (first 2-3 weeks) the energy was pretty wild and even scary (I reported about it in this forum): energy moving around my body, strange lights inside and outside me, automatic neck movements, automatic kechari. I was lucky that those uncontrolled fireworks mostly disappeared few days after adding SBP as suggested from the AYP community. After a couple of months, the main experience in DM was inner silence, and still is. The wild/scary experiences are gone.
Can you describe major shifts in consciousness?
Don’t know if you would call it a shift in consciousness, but I experience more inner silence instead of a non stop negative chatting mind. More equanimity instead of anxiety in daily life.
Have you subdued your addictions, mental afflictions, desires?
I did not have big issues with addictions and desires before AYP. But I did have relevant mental afflictions (depression, anxiety), and I can say that things are getting much, much better. The last year (my first AYP year) was the best time of my whole life in terms of equanimity, positive thinking, and feeling love for my family, friends and coworkers. Still having breakdowns, but by far not like I used to.
Anima,
LOVE the poem!
Karl,
Nit-picky definitional question that is admittedly irrelevant to this discussion, but just out of curiosity: You said you used to be a “socialist” and now you are an “anarchist.” Which type of anarchist? Maybe you discussed that in your book, which I still need to read. I myself am an anarchosocialist, meaning that in my ideal world of liberty and equality, everybody freely cooperates for our mutual well-being, the workers own the means of production and we make decisions democratically. I understand there are also capitalist and other types of anarchism? I’m reminded of the hilarious scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”:
“WOMAN: We don’t have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting…” etc., LOL
BTW, I find nothing in anarchism per se that would contradict the Grace and Love of God. [sorry if this is inappropriate for this thread, may need to be moved…]
Bodhi,
Love the Bruce Lee quote! I have practiced martial arts in the past and I am a big Bruce Lee fan.
I can call myself doing part AYP for about 3 years. The amount of practice varies. These days, it is mostly DM even while being lazy on bed… or just few breaths of SBP Few times a day (for me, first kriya). it is not regular but on the whole more like an hour a day… sometimes whole practice twice a day… My energy levels vary widely and my practice ends up being around available time, energy.
and i am not lying when I say that (more than a month now) within few breaths I can start smelling sandle wood, and couple of other fragrances. We don’t have those smells around here.
it’s just my brain able to imagine at the level of actually sensing it through nose. May be invoking memory to the level of sense.
For a few minutes following that , I just feel beautiful, blissful, even in the scattered room with mind full of lost love, hatred, anger, math problems unsolved, stress. I can do this even at a traffic stop (not recommended)
and that’s my perception of yoga i.e. we train our brains (and nervous system) to imagine things beyond here
Why won’t a beggar on the streets of Mumbai say , “sir, there can not be anything wrong in my world” (I heard it on a TV show is USA about food, health)
I am glad I am not training my brain to perceive/imagine bad things, … It is bad as it is … No need for movies.
and now over last 3 months, I can understand music beats (I can keep beats, play electric guitar … things like ‘sunshine of your love’ , solo). when I used to mess up a simplest 1-2-3-4, I can play/understand 7/4, 5/8 … it just suddenly started becoming clearer.
and that is about 'waking up ’ a different part of brain.
i practise kriya yoga(similar to ayp in many ways). mahamudra, navi kriya, kriya proper, thokar, thokar adv, and tribhangamurari kriya followed by just being with slight focus on bregma. my experinces have been quite wonderful. ive experinced all sorts of things. i could probably write pages of things many new guys and lay people would find interesting. experinces get rather old though. samadhis have become very common. though there is always flucatation minus once. hopfully im there within a year or two. what i find pretty cool though is sometimes i fall into sleep paralysis n i’ll go to tug myself out of it n pop i astral project. this hasnt happened during meditation , however i have read of it happening. who knows im still new to all this
although I still can not see the face of upside down playing cards… my lifestyle will change that day in poker room. I promise I will fund a commune where everyone is allowed to do their own practice as long as there’re no drugs, <EDIT: changed> firearms and no groupxxx
H[quote=“Radharani”]
Anima,
LOVE the poem!
Karl,
Nit-picky definitional question that is admittedly irrelevant to this discussion, but just out of curiosity: You said you used to be a “socialist” and now you are an “anarchist.” Which type of anarchist? Maybe you discussed that in your book, which I still need to read. I myself am an anarchosocialist, meaning that in my ideal world of liberty and equality, everybody freely cooperates for our mutual well-being, the workers own the means of production and we make decisions democratically. I understand there are also capitalist and other types of anarchism? I’m reminded of the hilarious scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”:
“WOMAN: We don’t have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting…” etc., LOL
BTW, I find nothing in anarchism per se that would contradict the Grace and Love of God. [sorry if this is inappropriate for this thread, may need to be moved…]
Bodhi,
Love the Bruce Lee quote! I have practiced martial arts in the past and I am a big Bruce Lee fan.
[/quote]
Awkward. Suffice to say rendering a detailed explanation of the workings of an anarchistwould be of less value than this thread already is. If this were an economics forum it would be pertinent. All I will say is that my anarchism isn’t derived from the external, although I needed books to interpret what it was that I intuitively understood. It is an expansion from stillness.
At present we are pedaling the AYP bicycle. This is sufficient. Dig the well, then all will become clear. Seeing how everything links and is derived from the same point changes the viewer. This does not confer any advantage. The universe appears with all its glory but the underlying structure is now visible.
Anarchism is an expression of one part, but it is all parts equally and simultaneously. One thing and all things are forever linked. Not one tiny little piece can be removed. It can be seen in a flower, a rock, the sea, a dog, a man, enlightenment, Gravity, electricity, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, economics etc one has only to look properly to see-then the study of that branch can be done if one is of a mind to undertake it.
We have become used to separating things in to objects, fields and subjects but if you have this chink of knowledge it becomes inappropriate. Everything is intuitively the same thing but perceived/experienced separately. The source is infinite but unified, the creation finite but appears infinite in our experience because it is seen through our lens of self without reference or datum.
So, with perfect knowledge ( for want of a better name ) I can see properly. This knowledge though is useless here, in this universe. It is superfluous and can make one feel extremely isolated if interaction, practices and grounding isn’t continued.
It’s like knowing that the Sun makes photo synthesis happen in a plant. However what use is that to a farmer who has learned, studied and has the experience of the branch called farming ? I cannot make him a better farmer, I haven’t the mind or nature to be a farmer so it’s useless to me also . Ask the same of enlightenment. Those that study it and know that branch and have that nature will know about those things. That I know the root of enlightenment does not help him, or those that seek it. It’s like being a one dimensional personal in a multi dimensional universe.
So my branch is economics. I didn’t choose it, it chose me. I had no idea that I had a mind for a nature for it. It has no obvious financial or material benefit for me. It just seems that be what I was made for. I can then interact on that branch with others of that nature. I can gently bend their minds inwards if they have the bahkti to seek the root. It’s not about knowing what is right or wrong here. It’s about the task in hand. Neither have I the faintest clue why that should be the task, it seems churlish to question it.
In the same way I came to AYP and Yogani gently bent my mind inwards. This is his branch on which I sit. I don’t know his branch as he does, but I had a mind to sit here a while and so that is the result for all who come here and want to find the root. I sit on the economics branch and do the same. However that is all in the context of the taste of the fruit not being in the fruit itself. Yogani is the master here, but the teachings are not in Yogani. The most important thing I learned ’ the guru is in you’. Give yourself to the master and the reward comes of its own.
When we look for enlightenment, or economic enlightenment, or any form of enlightenment. We decide to serve faithfully., to do what we are told, how we are told. We discover the root from which it all springs. Enlightenment comes after the root, so it is of no value except in further training.
That’s an awfully long and convoluted explanation I know it would be damned easy and tempting to get into a discussion on your understanding of economics. It would no doubt inflame my passion and have my ego jumping around like a big bouncy bunny but I reserve that for playtime. I think of AYP more as training time.
Oh, gosh, Anima, this would be a pretty long answer and ak33’s might not like having this thread derailed.
Tell you what, I’ll start another topic in “Illuminated Poetry, Quotations and Stories”
Hey guys!
Got curious about one thing,so instead of starting new thread,i’ll ask here on this one.
Did any of you guys practicing only AYP had experience of Kevala Kumbhaka,i.e. breathless and pulseless state?
but I reserve that for playtime. I think of AYP more as training time.