Hi Robin,
Welcome, and thank you for sharing your journey.
It appears you had an energy awakening 5 months into practice all those years ago, though a normal routine asanas, spinal breathing and deep meditation would not normally be considered excessive practice. And you have been susceptible to energy overload in the head ever since. So what to do 11 years later?
Your desire to meditate regularly is commendable. And your prudent self-pacing has been very good, along with grounding in exercise, etc.
You are clearly sensitive to meditation with mantra and also with breath as object. Have you tried using the “passive awareness” technique described in AYP Plus? It is first introduced in Lesson 15, and later expanded on in a Plus addition to Lesson 367. It involves innocently allowing whatever is occurring, where attention (passive awareness) alone can help dissolve obstructions in the subtle neurobiology. It can be used during sitting, and also in daily activity, as appropropriate. The Plus lesson addition covering that is copied below.
If I understand, spinal breathing pranayama (short sessions) did not help bring the energy down in a balanced way. It can go either way with SBP. Don’t rule it out until you are sure it is not helping to bring some balance.
Though your grounding activity is good, you may want to try a more intentional grounding practice. A weekly Tai Chi class and daily practice can help with grounding.
Thanks again for sharing here and wishing you all the best in moving beyond the long time sensitivity issue. Let us know how it goes. It is going to be all right.
The guru is in you.
PS: For more on this, you might want to check the Forum AI with a question like: “What is the passive awareness meditation technique?”
AYP Plus Addition 367.4 - Passive Awareness Technique for Very Sensitive Meditators (Audio)
Mar 26, 2015Q: Recently I began deep meditation with mantra “I Am” but very soon I got bad consequences: I got pressure in upper part of my back and I got insomnia and bad dreams!
This is not the only bad experience I have had with spiritual practices. I did Tao practices a few years, and I got similar problems. I did Tantric practice, and had similar troubles. And now I tried mantra practice (I am) and I got similar troubles!
Why is it that my constitution (my body) doesn’t accept spiritual practices?
Now I am thinking of trying breath meditation discussed in your Lesson 367 on sensitivity (above). But I am afraid that I will receive similar consequences.
If so, then what should I do?
A: It is the matrix of obstructions and energy flowing in your subtle nervous system that are causing the sensitivity. Who knows how this came to be? The fact that you are determined to do spiritual practices could indicate that you have had experience with them in a forgotten past. Perhaps you overdid it then and that is why you are sensitive now. Even so, your bhakti is very good, and I am sure you can find a practice you can stabilize that will bring benefits in your life.
Try breath meditation (above) for 5-10 minutes twice each day for a few months, and see if you can find stability with that. It is suggested not to do any other practices during this period, not even spiritual study, and keep active during the day doing other things.
If breath meditation does not work for you, don’t force it. If the first few sessions lead to excessive discomfort in daily activity, then stop. Then you could try a simple passive awareness watching sensations technique for 5-10 minutes twice each day, like Buddhist Vipassana practice. This is one of the simplest and mildest forms of meditation, and least likely to cause discomfort.
You can find a similar technique in Lesson 15, where attention is allowed to be drawn to a strong physical or emotional sensation and just be there innocently without any intention or analysis. This can help dissolve the uncomfortable sensation. In a case of extreme sensitivity, even to breath meditation, this can be used as the only technique for brief sessions, and see how it goes. If you can find stability with daily use of this basic passive awareness technique over several months, then you can cautiously step up to breath meditation, and then to mantra meditation after a few more months, like that, using the passive awareness technique as needed when strong sensations arise, as described in Lesson 15. Or you could stay with passive awareness alone as your structured daily practice for quite a while if this is the only practice that you can do with comfort.
If structured sitting by the clock with the passive awareness technique is still causing too much purification and discomfort, then you can step back from the sittings altogether, and simply notice what is impacting your awareness during daily activity, and gradually learn to allow it to go as it will without excessive judgment or attachment. This is more in the realm of self-inquiry, where there is no intention to do anything with mind or awareness, except noticing impressions as they occur and allowing life to proceed according to its own flow. In that, we can come to know that all is happening as it should. This is the least proactive of all the styles of meditation and, in fact, is not a structured form of meditation at all. But it is a practice, or a way of looking at the world that can be cultivated with beneficial results over time.
Whatever style of structured meditation you try, make sure to keep your practice sessions short until you know the results over days, weeks and months. It may be that 5-10 minutes of meditation twice-daily will be good for you, whereas 15-20 minutes will be too much with any technique.
“Self-pace” the time of your practice (and the intensity of your focus on all sensations in life) according to your capacity and comfort. Effective meditation is about doing and letting go. The same can be said about life in general. This is very important.
All the best!
The guru is in you.