Hello th1996,
I also wonder how I could live a fuller live. But many of the things I used to care about a lot, don’t seem so meaningful to me anymore. I used to like things like programming. I just wonder if all these things I used to like will truly make my life better.
I do genuinely find meaning in spiritual practice, and I’m also teaching AYP to some people I know. Like TensorTympani, I’m reluctant to ask people to join my meditations too insistently. If they don’t seem too exited, I don’t really want to bring it up… even if I know they might join if I ask. I feel like part of the bhakti has to genuinely come from within.
I think that generally being overly preoccupied with things like success are not that useful. Still, it is important that we can find meaning and joy in whatever we are doing - even if it is not yoga-related.
Hello everyone and thank u for ur answer. My interest to share AYP is lower than ever. Because for me AYP doesn´t work. It is a fun thing to do while doing it, but it doesn´t produce any significant progress. So, I will continue to do them, bc I have fun while doing them, but I won´t suggest it to others anymore. Only if there is some interest like u said.
My moderate depression is so hard, I am only able to survive, but not live. I am far away (actually the oposite) of being fulfilled. I can do with much effort my job, but it doesn´t get better. My life generally doesn´t get better like promised by Yogani. Maybe my expectations are too high, but the witness in daily life isn´t coming after 9 years of practise.
I do self pace when needed and ground a lot, but AYP does not work for me. I am dissapointed, because my hope was high because it was the best approach to spirituality. As I said, I will continue with practises, so my journey will go on, but with a lot of sadness. Maybe I have to work on that, because I feel a little disappointet by Yogani, but why? I have the feeling he does guranteed progress when done practises. Maybe I do them wrong, maybe AYP is not for everyone. Maybe spirituality and happenisse are not for everyone
Hello everyone and thank u for ur answer. My interest to share AYP is lower than ever. Because for me AYP doesn´t work. It is a fun thing to do while doing it, but it doesn´t produce any significant progress. So, I will continue to do them, bc I have fun while doing them, but I won´t suggest it to others anymore. Only if there is some interest like u said.
My moderate depression is so hard, I am only able to survive, but not live. I am far away (actually the oposite) of being fulfilled. I can do with much effort my job, but it doesn´t get better. My life generally doesn´t get better like promised by Yogani. Maybe my expectations are too high, but the witness in daily life isn´t coming after 9 years of practise.
I do self pace when needed and ground a lot, but AYP does not work for me. I am dissapointed, because my hope was high because it was the best approach to spirituality. As I said, I will continue with practises, so my journey will go on, but with a lot of sadness. Maybe I have to work on that, because I feel a little disappointet by Yogani, but why? I have the feeling he does guranteed progress when done practises. Maybe I do them wrong, maybe AYP is not for everyone. Maybe spirituality and happenisse are not for everyone
Hi th1996,
When you are going through a depressive phase in your life, do remember that it will not last forever, and that when you come out of it into a better phase, you do experience many wonderful things from your spiritual practice. In the past you have reported experiencing the witness, and your heart opening more and more, and a stronger connection with your environment such as in this post:
AYP is not a cure-all for every mental health issue. Some things are simply not affected by the practices. But, if you can remember, when you are on a downer, that it does not always seem that way, then you could bring more balance and equanimity to your life.
Thank u so much for ur answer. Yes, it is true, when I am down I tend to see the bad things. There is something happening for sure. Progress is happening.
And in all fairness I have to say, that maybe I am in an overload. The retreat with pranayama was very intense for me, and I have done more practises in form of the enhanced asanas and cosmic samyama. I have dropped them out completley since a week or so and the time of meditation is now at 7 Minutes, spinal breathing is three minutes and 5 Minutes Samyama. I hope I can find balance in this routine.
It is important for me to bring the focus back to the positive. Thank u for the reminder!
The witness is something the slips into daily life gradually. And so it might help to brake down that first enlightenment milestone into smaller ones. Using such a more detailed map might make it easier to recognize progress. In a book called “Natural Meditation” by Ted Phelps, that in my opinion excellently teaches meditation with the “I am” mantra similar to AYP’s DM, the journey to the witness is described in terms of five phases. Each phase significantly alters the relationship between awareness and the content of experience in and outside of meditation. I took the description of these phases from Chapter 9 of the book.
• Phase 1: Content changes continuously, as does the process of awareness. Sometimes awareness can comfortably hold the content, especially during meditation. At other times awareness is too small, or content too much which leads to overwhelm.
• Phase 2: In meditation, awareness begins to permeate content (like water can permeate sand to make it wet sand). In action, awareness is more often capable of comfortably containing content. Regular meditation practice in Phase 1 conditions the mind and body to retain extra awareness in action.
• Phase 3: In meditation, awareness becomes full and can exist on its own or permeate any content. In action, awareness begins to permeate thoughts, sensations, and actions as it did during meditation in Phase 2.
• Phase 4: In action, awareness becomes full and permeates thoughts, sensations, and actions. In dreaming and sleep, awareness begins to permeate content.
• Phase 5: In sleep, as in all other conditions, awareness is full and can exist on its own or permeate any content
The author also emphasis that the progression through these phases cannot expected to happen monotonously. This is important to keep in mind because a temporary return to a lower phase does not imply that no long-term process is happening. So there is a slow long-term trend that is superimposed with stronger fluctuations that vary on shorter time scales, making that long-term trend just difficult recognize.
The author also mentioned that reaching Phase 5, or the witness, with meditation alone can take anything between a few years and few decades. Fortunately at AYP, we have more tools than just DM to make that journey quicker. At least that’s my understanding and hope.
I know that in AYP we are not supposed to judge progress by what is happening during meditation, and instead only take daily life as a litmus test. But the breakdown of the witness in terms of phases based on the experience of the relationship between content and awareness in- and outside of meditation makes sense to me. At least the first 3 phases I’m familiar with, leaving me little doubt that phases 4 and phase 5 will be recognizable when/if they happen.
Hi TensorTympani,
That’s an interesting way of looking at the rise of the witness, how awareness gradually permeates the content of our experience.
Another way the rise of the witness in daily activity can be noticed is in how long the impressions of experience stay with us. For example, sudden events like a loud noise, accident, or any kind of chaotic or stressful event may stay with us for some time, or make little lasting impression, depending on how abiding inner silence, the witness, is established in us.
Impressions in relation to the rising witness have been described to occur in stages this way:
- A line etched in stone - remaining for a long time.
- A line drawn in sand - remaining for a time, and then gone.
- A line drawn in water - disappearing almost immediately.
- A line drawn in air - no perceived impression beyond the act itself.
As we continue with daily deep meditation and our witness rises and becomes stable, we will notice less stickiness from the impressions of experience. This has obvious benefits in daily life, enabling us to act effectively in whatever we are doing, with less lingering baggage from recent and even long past impressions. It is freedom!
The guru is in you.
So, a little uptdade. I am doing 2 min SPB, 5 minutes DM and 5 Mins Samyama. More I can´t do because of self pacing. The ecstatic conductivity is increasing more and more. Espiacially, after I gave some people AYP and motivated to give DM a try. So, the ups are getting better and better, the downs are getting better and better. My life at all becomes better and better, in a relative sense.
But I am here for the Absolute, for the ultimative truth. And that I don´t find. Not in practises, and not in daily life. Is my DM practise wrong, or is it just for some that decades of meditating are needed?
I have read the autobiographi of a Yogi from Yogananda, and in one chapter Sri Yukteswar says to Yogananada: Your dream should be fulfilled, and then he got him the real samadhi. This is my dream, too. But it is denialed until now: And I am not sure if I will ever experienced this for just a moment, but my goal is a 24/7 experience of this.
Christi, Yogani, do u think I am doing espiacially DM wrong, or is it just for some people that they need decades, and not just years of practises? Is it even realistic to ask for such experiences like Yogananda had…I just don´t want to suffer anymore, and I realise more and more that I need the witness for this. But it doesn´t come, not even a little. Ecstatic Cunductivity, yes. Heart/Crown Opening, yes. Giving it away, yes. Getting a always expanding feeling of expands, yes. But witness, and freedom of suffering, no.
Hi th1996,
Your experiences and sharing with others (stillness in action) are very good. You can take your desire/impatience for more inner silence/witness and use it for motivation to continue practices long term. All is well, and getting better all the time.
The guru is in you.
Hi th1996,
It is the case that some people need to meditate for decades in order to discover the Absolute. In fact, it is common. It is rare to hear of anyone who practiced only for a few years. This is because the subtle nervous system takes time to become purified. If you are needing to self-pace because of the amount of inner purification happening in your body, then there is clearly progress being made and more inner work to do.
The final stages of the path come very quietly, unannounced. It involves a gentle expansion of silence and stillness into every aspect of life, and a coming to know ourselves as that silence and stillness.
If you do not already have a self-inquiry practice, then it could be a good time to develop one. This would be done by spending a period of time, or several periods of time, each day, engaging in self-inquiry, either right after sitting practices, or at a separate time of day. The knowing that gradually develops through our self-inquiry practice then slowly expands to fill every moment of our lives. That knowing is the knowing of the Absolute, which is also our true Self.
I can recommend Yogani’s book on Self-Inquiry which is here:
I have also recently completed a 4-week online video course on Self-Inquiry practice. The course guides people from the basics of self-inquiry up to the stage of pure abiding in the Self. That can be found here:
Hello th1996
Your eagerness is very good but sometimes too much of a good thing can backfire
No one can be like anyone else, you will not be a Yogananda or a John Wilder. … you will be yourself in stillness
Meanwhile relax and trust the process
Thank u so much for your answers. So I think it is best to aim for decades of practises.
But I am not sure if I can do it for so long. Not the practises, but my life espiacially my job. I am going to be destroyed in 9to5 Job. 8 Hours every day is too much. I want to be a meditation teacher, and I will build something with a friend online. Do u think that a wrong lifestyle can be the reason for the need of strong self pacing? I have the feeling without my Job, I could do a lot of more practises.
I know, Yogani says we will find freedome in ordinary daily life. But for me the ordinary life is destroying. I am at a point where I am free of depression without working. But in work I am sooo much in depression.
Sometimes its better, sometimes I can´t do it. But I have doubt that I will find peace and freedome in this lifestyle I have now. Do u think I am just in overload or should I change my lifestyle?
Bc changing my lifestyle is not so easy…my parents make pressure (I am in what we call in German “Ausbildung”, where u go sometimes in school and sometimes in work) to finish succesfully my “Ausbildung”. My Plan would be to build something while I am doing my “Ausbildung”. But that takes too long.
My job is not to demanding, or stressful or sth like that. It just gives me too much time to think…and then my depression hits most of the time hard!!
So, is it overload, or is my sould telling me through the depression that I am on the wrong path???
This question is in my heart for some time now… and I really feel it is the wrong path…but than I am thinking: “Yogani says we will find peace and freemdome in every situation…so stay in this path”, but on the other site my intuition tells me I have to change something for betterment now.
So, over decades I would be able to find peace in this situation, but for now I am spiritual not ready…when this situation is my forever life I think sometimes it is better to finish my life.
I hope I could make my point because english isn´t my native language and my situation is hard to describe. But the buttom line is I can´t live my life with this mental health issuies anymore, I am not able to finish my “ausbildung”.
My parents advise me to forget about the meditation coaching and just going through it. But than I would be rather dead. I suffer too much in work too keep going. And when I am in school I feel much better. For example I am two weeks in school, I feel good. I could increase practise time (I don´t bc I have learned my lection), but than I am in work and the same shit is happening again. I feel day after day worser. At the weekend it is than okay…and than the same again… so this makes me doubt about if this is self pacing issue… and my sould want to tell me something…
Hello th1996
I understood from your post that you had depression before starting spiritual practices
If that is the case, it is better to go into therapy and take a break from spiritual practices
Also i understood that you are young, still in school/ university …so some sort of therapeutic guidance can help you understand what you would like to do in your life whether in studies or work
When you are in a more stable emotional state and know what you want to do in your life…then you can go back to spiritual practices
yes, my depression was before I started spiritual practises. but i am not in school/university. I am in training for a special job…so I have decided for a job, but I am not sure if this is what my heart want. But the pressure of society is too high.
Actually, I know exactly what I want. I want to be like Tristan 
Doing courses, retreats and coachings about spiritual stuff.
And because of the stopping of spiritual practises. I can´t. I am too addicted. I have thought about it often. But I can´t do it. Maybe I can let go of samyama, and mantra and solar plexus enhancements. Maybe, if I try hard I can let go of spinal breathing but I can´t let go entirely of practises.
And to be honest this doesn´t feel right. My Intuition tells me to continue with this level of practises and build a carreer with Yoga/meditation…
Hello the1996
Ok i understand
Just one more thing, yoga does not cure depression nor any other neurotic or psychotic issues
That need to be done through different non spiritual methods…that might go hand in hand with your spiritual seeking
Thank u so much. Yes, I was in therapy several times and I take medications(Anti depressiva). I am trying to do sport etc.
And I am at a point where I have only depression because of work. At the beginnings there was no difference. I always felt bad. But now I feel mostly good at weekends and vacations. This lead me to think that the reason now for my depression is a lifestyle (wrong work) problem.
Hi th1996,
If your depression is not related to your spiritual practices and is not there at weekends and holidays, then there is no need to reduce your practices. It is only necessary to self-pace downward if our spiritual practices are negatively impacting your life.
Having a job that causes you to feel depressed is not going to help your spiritual progress. So, changing to a different job could be a good move.
Hello again, and thank u for ur answers!
Yes, I need a new job…it’s obvious to me now. At least reduce the time. Tomorrow I will have a meeting where we discuss about my future, and if I can reduce to 4-6 hours a day.
My spiritual progress is still limited, because of the whole situation. I was for four weeks or so in vacation, and it was amazing. I have enjoyed it so much. My spiritual practise time I could increase and I practiced a lot…without overload.
Now three weeks into my work I am feeling bad again. Even my practise experience is suffering. The last three sessions wasn´t good. Okay, at the weekend it was very good. And I know, it´s not important. But u know, when the daily life is not getting better, and the practises don´t work it can be pretty hard.
I have read the samadhi topic, and I am pretty far away from entering samadhi in practises.
In practises it is more energetic than stillness. (I am doing the short asana routine, 3 min spinal breathing, 8 Min DM, and 5 Min Samyama)
It´s up and down, not even close something which is abiding. When I was in vacation I was fine, bc my daily life was good. But when daily life is not good, than it is pretty hard to be fine with it.
I am a little hopeless because of my overall spiritual conditions. I am so much identify with my thoughts, emotions and everything. Kundalini is raising in practises, and sometimes outside. My heart is opening in practise. There is even a feeling of expansion in practises. But everything is happening in time and space. In identification. Yes, I notice more and more of how much I am identified. I think, this is progress. But the identification (and with it the suffering) is not fading.
Yogani always point out that stillness is at the heart of yoga. And I understand it intellectually. But in my life there is no stillness. I am more aware than ever how important stillness is. That it is much more important than the energetic side, at least in the beginning.
When I give it away in different form like the practises to some people, only the energetic part is getting more and more. So, it is expanding in space and time…even nearly infinitely. But it is somehow limited to space and time.
What can I do beside self inquiry, daily life, daily practise and service to increase stillness? Self inquiry is very limited for me, because it is not relational, yet. I am not even sure I do samyama in the right way. There is happening in it very much, but only on the energetic side.
Tristan, I want to buy the self inquiry…but I only have paypal to pay u…because I have no credit card.
Hi th1996,
It sounds as if you a developing a good plan of action with regards to work. During my own awakening I took a job as a gardener for many years. It was grounding, hard work but not too hard, and kept me outdoors in beautiful places every day. It worked well with the process of purification and opening I was going through.
And yes, it is possible to enrol for the Samyama video course using PayPal. You can simply select to pay for the course in US dollars and that should give you the option to pay with PayPal. It does not matter if your PayPal account is not in US dollars, it will still work.
If that does not work, just send a request to pay with PayPal using this form and I will send you a PayPal link and a code to enrol to the Samyama course with.
Thank u Tristan, for your answer and for your course. It is amazing.
I am working currently on my self love, and it is changing everything. My practises are reaching new levels, and my daily life is very good.
I really have to say working directly on my beliefs is a gamechanger. I always thought the AYP Practises will dissolve them. But in truth only we are able to dissolve them and create new one. Now, I am in love with me and life, and it feels amazing.
Another thing I don´t understand is why Yogani says that the old feelings and thoughts will stay. I have the feeling the more I am in love the more my thoughts and feelings are love- and my entire environment is love. I am now pure love, manifesting only love. Isn´t this outpouring of divine love?
But I don´t care how it is labeled…as more I progress the more I see how things are, and sometimes words from Yogani dont resonate anymore with me. It´s no offense to Yogani. I am very grateful bc the practises I got.
I will continue with my practises on the level of 5 min SPB, 10 Mins DM and 5 Mins of Saymama. But now I will create what I want. I am now in creation mode. Doing God´s will should happen from creation mode and not a victim mode, I think. Ofc I want to do God´s will, but I think even he wants me to be happy and the creator of my life! I will reclaim it!!!
Perhaps choose an ishta? A year and a half ago I came upon an image of Shiva that entranced me, I knew I had found my beloved. Just saying “beloved” invites an echo in my heart. When this yogi reflects upon love stillness is aroused (paradox).
If you are still from practice and dropping sutras as designed in the lessons, that is the right way, so simple really. I also drop names like sutras into stillness (my daughter got the job!) and “who am I” has made a reappearance after eight years, perhaps not ready for it then.
Walk outside in nature, no headphones, empty your mind, give your breathing and body your gentle loving attention as you move through space simply be there now.