Hi Mykal,
You recognize benefits of the AYP practice, but you also suggest that mindfulness might work better for you. Why have you switched?
And do not worry about “I am” - who you are is not at all what you think - be prepared to be surprised. 
Enjoy the practice! 
Blanche
@ Blanche 
@ Sunyata
Hi Blanche,
I switched, because I had symptoms that I could not put understand with normal human reasoning, and I got scared…
I thought I could get support here on kundalini issues, and I feel safer in the community here as opposed to working on my own.
That was my trigger. There was the idea that meditation in AYP style would get me to my goal faster, naturally, but this idea is something that I lately put in question.
I hope that makes it clearer now.
Why do YOU say, that AYP practice more effective than mindfullness practice?
That is something that I still do not see from your answers. I hope you see now why it interests me.
Hi Blanche,
I switched, because I had symptoms that I could not put understand with normal human reasoning, and I got scared…
I thought I could get support here on kundalini issues, and I feel safer in the community here as opposed to working on my own.
That was my trigger. There was the idea that meditation in AYP style would get me to my goal faster, naturally, but this idea is something that I lately put in question.
I hope that makes it clearer now.
Why do YOU say, that AYP practice more effective than mindfullness practice?
That is something that I still do not see from your answers. I hope you see now why it interests me.
Normal human reasoning is only a relative level of comfort, this changes, being scared is understandable it is unpleasant but also passes. Why must it be one or the other? Why not do your AYP Practices in formal sitting and let the practice do its thing automatically? Why not do your mindfulness activities outside of formal sitting? Not trying to answer for another but offering an explanation why AYP practices are superior comes down to one thing. Cultivation of the witness. Concerning Zazen = Sitting Zen very dangerous, this is a mindfulness practice, this can cause Kundalini awakening and uncontrolled and cause damage if the nadis are not sufficiently open. Been there, done that, do not recommend it. Want to talk about being Scared? Have Kundalini awaken and do so much damage that you are walking with a cane in your late 30's with MRI's showing advanced arthritis in every facet joint of the spine. It took 4 years of living with pain before the effects passed and the body healed. AYP practices have the advantage of preparing one for Kundalini, Kundalini is inevitable be prepared. With the advent of the witness mindfulness is assured. I have a dear friend he craves experiences, they do not come easily. He is constantly chasing the high octane practice that will get him there faster. Sometimes ya just gotta pay your dues.
Hi Mykal,
You ask why I say that self-transcending techniques are more effective than attention-focused or mindfulness. My answer is not based on a scientific study. It is based on my personal experience. Again, I am not saying that attention-focused and mindfulness do not work. In fact, I did practice them at different times, and I found out that they did work – I had experiences of transcendence with both of them, less reliably than with deep meditation, but then I have never practiced them with the same intensity and regularity as deep meditation.
As I said, looking at the people I know, the ones who went through shifts in their identity and their relationship with the world have practiced DM or TM for a number of years. I know only two mindfulness practitioners who report shifts, and these people spend months in silent retreats every year. Month-long retreats are not an option for most of the people. Maybe there are many people like you who have great benefits from mindfulness with a practice in the context of an active life – and I just do not know them.
Last year I went through a 6 months yoga teacher training course. We were exposed to breathing meditation and loving-kindness meditation, and encouraged to practice regularly. I tried to talk with everyone (about 50 people in the course). Nobody reported any significant benefits. In fact, the most anybody got was a regular meditation practice, that is, people were happy to say they had a regular meditation practice. Sure, six months is a relatively short time.
In comparison, I have shared DM instructions (and the AYP website) with a number of people in the last two years. Pretty much everybody says that DM is working, that they are calmer, happier, sleep better, work better, etc. Some report “glimpsed” (experiences of transcendence) and the rise of ecstatic conductivity. A number of people said that DM changed their life. Someone said that DM showed her that happiness was possible. And so on. Getting this kind of results, in a relatively short time, with 10-20 minutes meditation twice a day, most of the days (almost everyone told me that they did not practice everyday), while maintaining regular active life – this is remarkable, at least for me. This method works.
Do I think that everyone would get to enlightenment doing DM? I do not know. But I think that everyone would have a better life doing DM. I am not sure if this answers your question. I am not trying to convince you of anything. The truth is in practice.
The guru is in you. Really.
Thank you for your answer.
Whould you say than, that you do not have enough experience with the mindfullness techniques to say to others (from the position of someone whose experience should matter), that DM and TM work better than mindfulness techniques?
IMO there are different people with differents needs and different goals, using different techniques and making different experiences. In other words, what is “good” for one person may be “bad” for another one. Also, even the same person changes, so practices may change radically over time even for the same practitioner. So the main question IMO is not which practice is the overall best, but which practice is best for a given single human being in its current life phase.
[quote=“Blanche”]
You ask why I say that self-transcending techniques are more effective than attention-focused or mindfulness. My answer is not based on a scientific study. It is based on my personal experience.
[/quote]
Ecdyonurus, you expressed this idea clearly.
@ Blanche and Charliedog
I thank you for your answers on Patanjali, but I hope you don’t mind if I don’t write more on that topic in this thread - it would be very much off topic.
Above all,it is my opinion that the desire or bhakti of an individual is what makes or breaks a spiritual or meditation practice for that particular individual.
With that said,IMO,it is the breathing practices such as SBP,before meditation,that make DM and AYP such a powerful practice.One builds upon the other synergistically producing a combined effect that is more powerful than just meditation alone. This in turn accelerates the development of inner silence that,as Pilgrim stated,leads to the cultivation and,in my experience,the experiencing of being that pure awareness or witness consciousness.
Since I am not familiar with TM or mindfulness meditation(other than watching the breath),as a stand alone practice,does it contain an energy or pranayama practice before meditating?
Hi Lateralus, my POV is that we should avoid comparing systems. Even comparing practices is very difficult (actually, it’s probably even pointless): as you say, practicing SBP and DM as per AYP is a very powerful blend, and it would not be appropriate to compare that blend to any other SINGLE meditation technique (actually, not even to DM as a stand alone practice). But even trying to compare single practices (let’s say DM vs. breath meditation) is very difficult : since one does not practice the two techniques at the same time, how can one say which one is better? The only thing one can say is “I had these and these results after using DM as a stand alone practice during the last two years”, but who knows what results breath meditation would have brought in the same two years?
By the way, I think that the concepts of “mindfulness” and “mindfulness meditation” is not very clear for many practitioners. Maybe it’s made unclear because of the huge business about mindfulness, marketing practices and classes and seminars and books… Justvlike the concept of “yoga” is made unclear by the whole yoga business.
for me being mindful is many things ,i am mindful of not driving too fast this is related to action ,i am mindful of what i watch, read ,and eat ,i am mindful of my speech ,i witness these thoughts in daily life knowing that i colour them good bad indiferent neutral they all rise in the mind field come and go creating my stream of existence ,in meditation they arise just the same without the stimulas of the outward going senses i watch them and then let them go ,i am being mindful of what my mind is doing ,behind this lies the one doing the watching the one being mindful ,there is the gross the subtle and casual the levels go deeper ,from being mindful to knowing the subtle patterns, and then the casual from where all the tendencies come from, beyond all concepts the atman, individual merging with the universal …with hope and grace…
I’m replying to myself (how’s that for a bit of practical mindfulness? ):
For me it is better to focus on maintaining and executing my practices at my pace, which leads to a sort of constant attitude of mindfulness as I subsequently move through my little world, than to take on detailed techniques in response to sellers of spirit saying they have what is good for me. As an engineer I have a plethora of new details to add to my iife on a near-daily basis (why oh why are we revising ths procedure again??).
Yes, in a complex world, simplicity is the best path.