Actually, I did try the “Raw food” diet. Loads of people recomended it to me, so I gave it a go. All that happened was that I felt sick most of the time. This isn’t surprising because when kundalini is highly active, it draws energy away from the digestive process. Raw foods are very hard to digest compared to cooked foods, even if you mash them into a pulp.
It was a couple of years ago that I tried that. I guess I’ll know when I am seriously ready, when I can eat a raw food diet without feeling sick!
That would be a sign that energy was going back to my digestive process.
Thanks for the feedback.
Christi
p.s. It is possible that a mostly raw diet could be useful in the early stages of practice, before kundalini is awakened, as a mostly raw diet could help to purify the body as it is low in toxins. Some even say they awakened their kundalini through eating a raw diet.
Hi Scott,
It could be, but during the time that I was Raw fooding it (not 100% I should add), I did two, 10 day juice fasts. During the juice fasts the nausia went. Juce fasts are more detoxifying on the body than a non 100% raw diet, so if it was a detox effect, then you would have expected the nausia to continue. If the nausia was caused by undigested food sitting in my stomach, then you would expect it to go away, which it did.
You see… I can be scientific when I want to be.
There is a book published by the Bihar school of Yoga, called something like Kundalini and Tantra, where the swami says the same thing, that Yogis should avoid raw food as it puts too much strain on the digestive system during the years of the awakening of kundalini.
Christi
From a scientific perspective the human body lost it’s ability to live on a diet that consist of primarily raw vegetation efficiently thousands of years ago. This is because we no longer possess the enzymes required to breakdown tough raw vegetable matter effectively enough to draw the necessary calories and nutrients from it.
For hominids (i.e. great apes, which includes humans) that are still able to do this, one will notice that they generally have to consume upward of 60 pounds of a raw vegetation per day, in order to remain healthy and active.
I noticed that when I was vegan I had to eat just about every 2 hours in order to not feel lethargic. I eventually got tired of feeling hungry all the time, and switched back to an omnivorous diet, which eliminated the problem.
As for chocolate interfering with deep spiritual practices, I haven’t noticed this in my own life, as I eat it all the time. And, I have no problem attaining Samadhi as a result. Coffee is another matter though, and I only drink decaffeinated so as to eliminate the psycho-stimulating effect this beverage would have otherwise.
Kind regards
Hey,
I feel it is more clean and efficient to follow ascetic path which is one major path under shamanism. This has to do with different types of deprivation to enter in trance and purify nadis.
In the case of this thread, either you eat or you don’t for a given time. Fasting can be highly dangerous but also an interesting ritual because after all, stopping to eat is the archetype of going into death zone which is about ego dissolution.
Albert
Well… there are a lot of people today living on a totally raw diet. They get around the problem you mention by either living only on raw fruits (which are much easier to digest, or they use a fair amount of electrical kitchen equipment to break up raw vegetables into a much easier to digest form.
The people I know who are 100% raw, eat a lot less than 60 pounds of raw vegetables a day!
You may find that as more purification happens in your body, you become increasingly sensitive to substances such as chocolate. A few years ago it hardly affected me at all.
Meditation, and samadhi will have a gentle purification effect on the body, but the process will take many many years with meditation alone. There are much more powerful ways to purify the body. The most powerful I believe, are pranayama and visualization techniques. Spinal breathing pranayama is a combination of both of these.
Christi
You may find that as more purification happens in your body, you become increasingly sensitive to substances such as chocolate. A few years ago it hardly affected me at all.
Meditation, and samadhi will have a gentle purification effect on the body, but the process will take many many years with meditation alone. There are much more powerful ways to purify the body. The most powerful I believe, are pranayama and visualization techniques. Spinal breathing pranayama is a combination of both of these.
Christi
Hi Christi,
As for the raw fruitarians you know, this approach is actually quite different from raw veganism. And, I can see how they'd have no problems with it. Raw fruit is much easier to digest and obtain nutrients from than raw vegetable matter. I could present a lot of scientific evidence as to why this is so. However, I'm sure everyone is capable of Goggling it for themselves.
As for the raw vegans that you know, are they underweight and do the women still have menstrual cycles? Also, are they on a strict raw vegetable diet, with no fruit, diary or bee products to supplement it?
As for pranayama, spinal breathing pranayama and visualization being more effective purifiers than Samadhi (meditative absorption), I totally disagree with you. If those things work well for you and anyone else, great. However, I haven't found them to be necessary.
Since I've been abiding in Samadhi, at least twice a day for the last several years, I'm hardly ever sick now. And, if I do happen to get sick, with the flu for example, I can overcome it in about 3 days. My average flu recovery time prior to this was 2 weeks.
I've even been to totally alleviate all symptoms of the flu while in Samadhi - it was as if I wasn't ill to begin with. Granted, once I came out of Samadhi the flu reasserted itself full force. However, as I mentioned above, my recovery times are very rapid now.
In regards to substances: I've noticed that the effects of psycho-stimulants and depressants has been reduced since my frequent abiding in Samadhi. I've seen mention of other yogis reporting this also.
I can drink a fair amount of alcohol now and remain amazingly lucid. This isn't something I do often. However, I do enjoy a good party on occasion. :grin: I can even be pretty drunk, sit down to meditate, and still attain Samadhi - during which time all the effects of the alcohol vanish.
I've also had a Kundalini Awakening as a result of my frequent abiding in Samadhi. And, Kundalini in and of itself is one of the most potent purifiers, both mentally and physically, known to humankind.
Regarding hyper-sensitivity to certain foods: Yes, I did experience a bit of that many years ago. However, those days seem to be long gone for me and I just eat whatever I like now. What I have noticed over the last several years though is that now if my body doesn't like something I've eaten, it will quickly develop explosive diarrhea or projectile vomiting (usually within 30 minutes) and expel the offender - causing me very little overall discomfort. Prior to this change in my biology, which I'll assume has been induced by Samadhi, I would have experienced digestive upset and discomfort for hours.
As you can see, I've no need to look elsewhere for a purifier, as the one I abide in currently has proven to be very effective.
Kind regards
Some are underweight and some are normal or overweight. Actually I asked one lady who had been on a 100% raw diet for a year, and was still pretty curvey, how she did it. She said her secret was bananas and avacados!
I don’t usually ask women about their menstrual cycles without them bringing up the topic first. I am an English gentleman. They mostly eat anything raw, which would include most nuts, honey, some milk and cheese and all fruit.
I am not sure what you totally disagree about. Is it the statement I made about these practices being more effective in terms of purification than samadhi is? Have you ever tried them?
Personally, when I added pranayama and visualization practices to my set of spiritual practices, I noticed that the rate of purification increased about 20 fold, compared to before when I was only using meditation.
When my most powerful purification practice was entering samadhi, I never had to limit the amount of time I spent doing spiritual practices. I could sit for hours every day (up to 12 hours a day at one point), without putting myself in danger. After adding pranayama and visualizations, I found that the purification process became so intense that some days I could do no more than one hour of practices a day (and some days none at all).
Yes, samadhi is effective (if a little slow), and there is no need for you to change your practices at all. If it works for you, then stick with it. But I do think it’s a great idea if everyone has access to the knowledge about the effectiveness of spiritual practices. That means if something is more effective than something else, people should be alowed to know that.
Actually I think (from my own experience) the most effective purification practice is a combination of samadhi (or failing that, meditation), mantra yoga, pranayama, visualizations and higher tantric practices.
Christi
Hi Christi,
While I have some reservations about continuing this discussion, simply because I don’t wish to get into a “mine is bigger, better and faster than yours” situation - which to me is the antitheses of spirituality - I’ll briefly do so in the spirit of promoting some understanding between you and I.
In regards to the above question: Yes, I’ve visited all of the various practices above at some point during my contemplative career. However, I found them all to be rather ineffective, compared to frequently abiding in Samadhi, which is why I abandoned them.
I’ve concluded, from my considerable studies, practice and experiences, that all spiritual strategies are designed, in one way or another, to promote meditative absorption (i.e. Samadhi). I firmly believe the reason for this is because during meditative absorption is when/where the true purification, transformation and Awakening of the individual actually occurs. And, my experience, and that of numerous others that I know, verifies this.
That being the case, why would I want to muck about, with the overcomplexity, mystification and intellectualism of “this and that” and “so forth and so on,” when I can get right to the point? I realize that some people enjoy those pastimes, to distraction I might add, however, I’m not one of them.
I don’t find Samadhi to be “a little slow.” Quite to the contrary actually, as I experienced rather profound results within 6 to 9 months of making it the primary focus of my practice. Much more profound than the results I got from my earlier years of various practices.
Well, of course there needs to be open access for all, as the days of authoritarian “closed systems” desperately need to come to an end. And, I was never arguing otherwise, nor was I expounding a “one size fits all” strategy, when I was expressing my point of view. I was merely expressing it, nothing more and nothing less.
Kind regards
I guess I’m like Nirodha in the sense that I can eat whatever I want, since I never had to practice and experience came about naturally, but is it really about the food? I don’t know. I mean, it’s pretty admirable the self-discipline that Christi has and he has a really nice disposition and is naturally generous, like the love that Katrine exudes.
It’s weird, since it’s like some people have this natural innate bhakti that is just beautiful and others have this natural innate knowing without as much bhakti or something. I was reading up on Jnana and I was wondering if there is something to that or why one has more than the other?
I’ve heard it said that eating the right foods has a very profound effect on the mind/body. And I wonder if it would be a good thing for me to practice also.
Anyway, I learn from these posts and I wanted to thank you both for this discussion, since I really didn’t know about all of the ins and outs of the raw diet as Nirodha mentioned also. I have read that it is a really one of the healthiest things to do is to eat raw foods. Maybe supplement with these raw foods as suggested?
Namaste:
VIL
I don’t think we are engaged in a discussion about whose practices are the best. I believe that we are both long-term practitioners of Theravadan Buddhism, and we have both experimented with other practices.
There seem to be two matters that we are discussing here. One is the question of whether or not certain practices (other than meditation) bring about a more rapid purification of the body than meditation does. The other question is whether, even if they do, they should be dropped once Samadhi is reached, as Samadhi is the ultimate goal of all practices.
My own experience is that the other practices I mentioned do bring about faster (much faster) purification. If you didn’t find this, I think the most likely cause is that you didn’t persist for long enough, or you didn’t do the practices regularly enough. As I mentioned above, I have no interest in persuading you to do anything other than meditation. Different practices suit different people, and some just are not appropriate for some people.
On the question of dropping all practices other than meditation, once Samadhi has been reached, I think that would be a mistake. Purification of the body continues long after someone is able to enter Samadhi. I have been entering Samadhi in meditation for around twelve years now (I don’t remember exactly), but there is still a lot of purification to do. I have personally found practices other than abiding in samadhi have aided that process. It would be interesting to hear if other members of the forum who have reached samadhi entry, have found this to be the case or not.
I guess fast and slow are relative concepts, so it’s a bit difficult to discuss. In the end (with the current lack of scientific evidence) everyone will just have to experiment for themselves, and come to their own conclusions. I cannot prove to you, or anyone else, that purification practices can greatly benefit a meditator who resides in Samadhi on a daily basis. I believe that there is a point when Samadhi alone naturally becomes the only necessary practice, a point where the purification job has been done so to speak, but I think that is quite a long way down the line. Further down the line than you or I are at.
I also believe that one day scientists will study all of this, and we will have some real data to work with when advising people on which practices to drop, when. But that is in the future.
Take care
Christi
Hi Nirodha and Christi:
Interesting discussion. However, it is not clear to me if you are talking about meditation OR other methods (like pranayama), or meditation AND other methods.
While this old yogi can’t put it in Buddhist terms, there is an opinion here.
If the question is, which is more progressive, meditation OR pranayama? (for example), then I’d have to agree with Nirodha that meditation is the more sure path to samadhi.
If the question is whether meditation AND pranayama is more powerful than meditation alone, then I’d have to agree with Christi, assuming he means that pranayama (and other methods) are practiced in addition to meditation, and not instead of it.
Of course, an integration is what we are doing in AYP, using a full range of methods in a self-paced way, with deep meditation at the center. An integrated approach like this has been demonstrated time and again to be more progressive than using any any single practice by itself, including meditation.
This is why Patanjali documented eight limbs of yoga, instead of only one, and I believe an equivalent multi-tool kit can be found in Buddhism too.
Of course, if I had to pick just one practice, I’d be back with Nirodha with meditation. Happily, we can do much more to accelerate our progress, and do not have to rest on our laurels for long before finding openings to new levels of “stillness in action” with the many tools we have available nowadays.
The guru is in you.
Thanks for that. Yes I thought we were discussing the question of whether or not meditation and other practices is a better route than meditation alone. And the question of whether this is still the case once samadhi has been reached.
I remember you once said that at some point Tantric practices are dropped. Is this because the job of purifying the subtle nervous system has been done? And does this correlate to any point of Samadhi having been reached?
Christi
Hi Christi:
Not dropped, only transformed over time into something much more refined. Erotic becomes ecstatic, and outer lovemaking becomes inner lovemaking. Then a glance or a touch from our Beloved sends the infinite cosmos into ecstatic waves of bliss. It is ecstatic conductivity becoming ecstatic radiance, and then constant outpouring divine love – stillness in action.
This is what the whole universe is about. Not so far fetched, considering the infinite power of Love. An effective integration of practices opens the door. All practices become refined along the way. Nothing is dropped. Everything is transformed until it is all samadhi – living moving samadhi. There is no end of the journey. The journey is the destination, just as unending becoming is the destination of the universe.
Except, of course, for those who want to check out. That is an illusion. There is no checking out. Only more and more becoming what we are. One part cannot be separated from the other parts, even if we call that part absolute. What is has no name, and it is everywhere. We are That.
The guru is in you.
I have noticed this happening to my own Tantric practices. Not quite the “infinate cosmos” yet, by my little part of it at least.
I assume then that other purification practices are transformed eventually in the same way. Pranayama would become just a slight shifting of the attention to the breath and the spine, and the waves of ecstasy would pour upwards.
Visualizations would just become a slight rememberance of light and divine love, and the waves of bliss and love will flow everywhere. Is this right?
I was going to ask what happens to deep meditation, but I think I can guess. You say the mantra once right? And then you’re here, everywhere. Yes?
Maybe it’s time I added samyama to my practice, just to see where that goes.
Christi
No, I don’t practice Theravada. And, in general, I stay as far away from ‘traditional’ Buddhists as possible . There are many reasons for this. However, most of them have to do with the politics of religion - a subject I will definitely not go into here.
Hmm, you’re being a bit presumptuous here; I’ve always been very persistent, consistent and diligent in everything I take an interest in.
Well, Christi, you know where you are. However, you have no idea where I am, as I haven’t presented the full depth and breadth of my wisdom and experience for your review. Nor am I going to under these circumstances.
Yes, yogani, in Buddhism we have the Noble Eightfold Path (Ariya-Atthangika-Magga), which is what the Buddha called his defined practice strategy.
While I’m a bit hesitant to say this - due to flak I got for it from some dogmatists quite some time back - I’d like to share an insight I gained during meditation one night: When a contemplative is residing in Samadhi, that contemplative is simultaneously exercising, refining his/her acquisition of and fulfilling the Noble Eightfold Path. (If necessary, I can quote some Suttas that would support this.)
I do not know if this insight would hold true for other systems and practice strategies. However, I strongly suspect that it just might.
Kind regards
Hi Nirodha:
Yes, I agree (from a yogic point of view).
But it is also true that “magic bullet” thinking will more often be wrong than right, which is why the greatest sages documented multi-fold paths rather than singular ones.
Our wisdom is limited in direct proportion to the degree we believe it to be complete. Speaking only for myself on that, of course.
The less we know, the more we know. Another of those divine paradoxes.
The guru is in you.
Great quote, Yogani.
Corollary: admitting you don’t know something, to yourself or others, will, if you witness quite carefully, result in the tiniest, tiniest burst of ecstasy. So it’s clearly an opening.
To decode God’s plan, it helps to study where he put the positive reinforcement rewards (just so long as you don’t become a reward junkie!).
Hi Nirodha:
Yes, I agree (from a yogic point of view).
But it is also true that “magic bullet” thinking will more often be wrong than right, which is why the greatest sages documented multi-fold paths rather than singular ones.
Our wisdom is limited in direct proportion to the degree we believe it to be complete. Speaking only for myself on that, of course.
The less we know, the more we know. Another of those divine paradoxes.
The guru is in you.
Hi yogani,
I understand your point and agree with it; as I've seen 'magic bullet' thinking crop all too many times as well. However, perhaps it would be useful if I went into more depth regarding the insight I had. And, I think you'll see that I'm not presenting a magic bullet.
What I've found is that by the time one comes to experience this particular insight regarding Samadhi - I know of others that have experienced it also - they're usually quite well versed and well established in the other facets of their chosen strategies - i.e. they're quite advanced. (They'd have to be really, because if they aren't they can forget about Samadhi; as it just wont present itself to them due to their own defilements and hindrances.) And, they find that residing in Samadhi more frequently serves to firm up any other areas that may have been a little weak.
Therefore, I was not trying to diminish all the preliminary work that one puts in prior, nor I was dismissing the other folds as unnecessary: It's important stuff that many us struggle with for decades, and perhaps lifetimes.
All the practices that I did over the years were necessary, even if it was only so that I could 'see' that they had become unnecessary. And, that it was time for me to let them go. :sunglasses:
Kind regards
