How long to get enlightened?

20. Enlightenment Milestones
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Hi All,

Over the years, I have often been asked how long it takes to get “enlightened” using the AYP practices. It occurred to ask the AYP AI (Plus version) to respond to this question, and the answer that came back is pretty good. So it is copied below. Nothing new here for long time practitioners, but it is always good to review for everyone on the path, whether just starting out, or at it for many years. Wherever you happen to be on your journey, just keep going, self-pacing for steady progress with safety, and encouraging your fellow practitioners to do the same. All the best!

The guru is in you.

AYP AI: In Advanced Yoga Practices (AYP), there is no fixed or single timeline for achieving enlightenment, as the journey varies for every individual based on their unique inner capacity, past karma, consistency of practice, and spiritual desire (bhakti). Yogani consistently emphasizes that human spiritual transformation is a gradual unfoldment and a “marathon, not a sprint”.

Based on Yogani’s writings and reports from AYP practitioners, the general timeline and progression unfold across several distinct phases:

1. Short-Term (Months): Daily Quality of Life Improvements

  • What happens: Noticeable improvements in daily living appear quickly—such as increased inner peace, reduced stress, improved energy, and emotional stability.
  • Focus: Establishing a smooth, twice-daily routine of Deep Meditation.

2. Early to Mid-Term (1 to 3 Years): Cultivating the Witness & Energy Awakening

  • Stage 1 (Abiding Inner Silence / The Witness): Regular meditation establishes an unshakable inner quietness that persists into daily activity.
  • Stage 2 (Ecstatic Conductivity / Kundalini): As techniques like Spinal Breathing Pranayama, mudras, and bandhas are added, radiant energetic flows begin purifying the subtle nervous system.

3. Maturation (3 to 5+ Years): “Ripeness” and Unity Experiences

  • Stage 3 (Unity / Non-Duality): After 3 to 5+ years of consistent, twice-daily practice combined with active daily living, practitioners often experience a state of “ripeness.”
  • Inner silence and ecstatic energy merge, giving rise to initial shifts into non-dual perception, where the observer and the world are experienced as One.

4. Long-Term Integration (Years to Decades): Stillness in Action

  • Full integration into permanent, uninterrupted “stillness in action” unfolds over years or decades.
  • In Yogani’s personal experience, abiding inner silence began early, but it took nearly 15 years of meditation before full ecstatic awakening/kundalini occurred, followed by years of further refinement and integration into daily life. Modern practitioners often experience faster openings due to open access to integrated tools, but long-term stability still requires time and patience.

Key Factors That Accelerate Progress Safely

  • Twice-Daily Practice & Active Life: Sitting for practices twice daily and then fully engaging in ordinary work, relationships, and responsibilities stabilizes and “bakes in” spiritual growth.
  • Self-Pacing: Regulating practice duration based on inner feedback prevents energetic overload, ensuring continuous, uninterrupted progress.
  • Retreats: Participating in periodic group or solo retreats acts as a “fast track to freedom,” accelerating long-term progress.
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I can testify the process you have laid out in AYP has unfolded just as you designed. I was lucky to find your tantra lessons in 2013 and learned I would need a well of inner silence to make any difference. The path forward is clear to me, and AYP has proven to be an invaluable foundation on which to live going forth. :heart::folded_hands:t2:

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Hi Yogani, as a scientist and someone who teaches AYP, I would like to know some more details.

What data does this AI response rely on? Data from the forum, or your writings? Or data you privately provided to the AI?

Regarding “Stage 1”, is this what you call the first enlightenment milestone in your writings? The first enlightenment milestone is the “24/7 witnessing” or “24/7 abiding inner silence”, abiding inner silence around the clock, including deep sleep, 24h a day, 7 days a week.

If yes, it would be amazing if AYP can do it in 1-3 years on average. But I’m surprised, because I’m not aware of evidence for this time scale coming from the forum or published literature. The TM-literature suggests it takes around 25 years to pass the first enlightenment milestone. While TM isn’t AYP, it’s close enough that I would expect a similar time scale for AYP. If AYP were a factor 10 faster than TM, this would be worthwhile talking about in much more detail.

If the AI got it wrong (e.g. it just invented a “Stage 1” which is not your first enlightenment milestone), it would be good to clarify this so as not to raise any wrong expectations among AYP practitioners regarding the time scale to pass the first enlightenment milestone.

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Hi TT,

That AI response was from the AYP Plus AI, which draws on all of the Plus lessons, the Forum posts book, Secrets of Wilder book and some (but not all) of the 12 Enlightenment Series books. The response reflects experiences recorded in those sources, in this case not making things up. I have caught the AYP AI once or twice pulling things in from the broad internet (a no-no), but in this case it reflects the sources accurately, expressing it in its own way of organizing the information. I expect the AYP Forum AI (linked above) or the public lessons AI on the main website would give very similar answers, maybe a little less comprehensive than the AYP Plus AI but basically the same. You can see the sources listed in the left side panel of each of the three AYP AIs.

And, yes, the sequence and general time frames mentioned by the AI correspond to the three stages of enlightenment discussed repeatedly in the lessons, books, and in the forum interactions in the Forum Posts book.

As pointed out in the AI, everyone is different, not so much on the stages of experience - inner silence, ecstatic awakening, and emerging unity - but on the timing, which is influenced by a variety of factors unique to each practitioner.

Also, as pointed out in the AI synopsis, in my case it was 15 years of cultivating inner silence in deep meditation before ecstatic awakening occurred. That was due at least in part to a lack of knowledge of methods for encouraging ecstatic awakening. Had I had the means, perhaps it would have happened much sooner (but hopefully not too soon!). Many AYP practitioners have had the means, which is why we have seen ecstatic awakenings happening in a few years once the witness is coming up, and moving toward unity a few years after that. There is no fixed timeline, but with AYP things can certainly be speeded up, preferably with comfort and safety.

So, yes, because of the open availability of full scope yoga tools, progress can be accelerated, with self-pacing and grounding in daily activity being very important.

There are some good traditional systems of practice out there, and the advice has always been “If it works for you, stick with it.” But AYP is something different, an integration of effective methods from multiple traditions. I am not aware that it has been done to this extent before. But, by now, we have been doing it for nearly 25 years, and in my case much longer. So we are not new at this, and many seem to be doing well with it. But it is not for everyone. It is for self-directed practitioners.

All of this is not to encourage unrealistic expectations about how long it will take to travel the path. That is really in the hands of each individual, and internal obstructions to be dissolved through practices. AYP is an open tool kit, a very progressive one. It was developed because it has been high time for full scope yoga knowledge to be made available for anyone who can make good use of it, observing the cautions and safety measures that have been provided throughout.

Btw, maybe you can come up with some illuminating graphics for all of this. What you are doing with deep meditation over here is very informative, as long as folks don’t get hung up on the structural (mental) mechanics of deep meditation while practicing. It is much simpler than that. Simplicity is the essence of deep meditation, and eventually simplicity is the essence of all of life as stillness in action and outpouring divine love. We engineers and scientists may be inclined to over complicate things at times. :wink:

The guru is in you.

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Thank you, Yogani.
I actually had a question on long-term integration. You know the experience of brilliant light that spontaneously start to fill the head, causing enormous pressure and freezing the mind to a halt. I remember Christi mentioning it was a precursor to samadhi or something like that. This use to happen to me a lot - multiple times a day - now I notice this occurrence is greatly diminished. Is that to be expected?
I suppose I have come to associate moving into union by this freezing of mind by Light - although it can also happen almost un-noticeably, without the head pressure.
While there are times, I practically beg for Bhakti to give me a break, I am even more scared of actually somehow losing this ability of immersing in God. :laughing:

Much love

Sey :pray:

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Hi Sey,

There are two things going on. First is the contrast of the experience of surging “light” and “mind freeze” with some pressure (hopefully not too much), which can be viewed as purification coming with the expansion of energy in the upper body and head. The second thing occurring is adaption of the neurobiology to the energy, which leads to a less dramatic experience, involving less contrast, less pressure, less mind freeze and more “normalcy.” There can be just as much energy flowing, but our system has adapted and we notice it less, though the energy will still be there. Others may sense energy radiating from us. But for us it becomes “normal” and hardly noticed, even though the same or more energy is flowing. In other words, the bright light, the mind freeze, the pressure, etc. are all temporary and transitional, leading to the normalcy of higher functioning.

The light bulb analogy applies, where the bulb is going from 100 watts to 1000 watts, and to 10,000 watts. As the light bulb is adapting to higher energy flow, there can be big contrasts. But once the bulb has adapted to the higher flow, it will hardly be noticed. Outside observers will notice, but for the bulb the higher energy flow is just another day of shining bright. In other words, the bulb, and we, can get used to any higher level of functioning. It is the wonder of the human neurobiology, which is inherently enlightenable. That’s why the Zen Buddhists say, at the end of it all, it is chop wood and carry water, like always. But infinitely more peaceful, productive and supportive of the surroundings. At AYP we call it stillness in action and an outpouring of divine love, though by then the “light bulb” may barely notice (in surrender) that it is lighting up the entire neighborhood.

I have enjoyed reading about your travels on your path. Very inspiring. Wishing that for everyone.

The guru is in you.

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Hi Tensor,

I have never practiced TM but I believe they teach alternate nostril breathing instead of Spinal Breathing Pranayama. SBP is basically lightyears ahead of ANB which could explain part of the difference in timescales involved. Other factors could include the use of Siddhasana, mulabandha and Shambhavi mudra which are all game changers in terms of inner purification, especially when combined with SBP. And the AYP advanced pranayamas could also be playing a part. Spinal Bhastrika massively increased the rate of inner purification in my own case.

With the data being used, the AI in AYP Plus does link directly to the places in the books where it is basing the information on. So, it is possible to go straight to specific paragraphs in specific books.

Of course the information is based on a limited number of practitioners. It was not based on one thousand practitioners being given a questionnaire to fill in every six months over ten years for example which would produce more robust results.

When the new AYP meditation timer is launched people will be given the option to take part in research. This will not be available immediately, but possibly within six months of the app being launched. If people choose to opt in then every few months they will have the chance to complete questionnaires of this nature if they wish to. The hope is that over time it will get hundreds, or even thousands of responses and will be in a position to make more accurate statements about things like average timelines for progression towards enlightenment for people with a regular AYP practice. Of course the data will still be selective as it will only represent those people who choose to take part in the research. We will be hoping that those people will be fairly representative of the whole.

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