Hello! I have a few questions regarding purification:
-Is purification coming from DM and SBP the same? Will DM increase my progress with SBP?
-What are the different symptomes of overload with DM and SBP? Do we have two different list or just one list?
-Why do we associate purification with karma? Is it a belief or a known fact?
-Why do we say SBP help DM to be more effective? How do you feel it? Does it produce more inner silence, or more overload symptomes with a short practice?
In my practice I feel that inner silence is harder to achieve if I did SBP/khumbaka or any energy practices like tantra. It feels like there is something we need to sublime and then I feel inner silence. When I practice tantra, inner silence is more difficult to reach, I can do it but with a longer meditation.
Thank you
Hi Nick,
Welcome to the forum.
Basically, pranayama is an energy practice, whereas meditation is a stillness practice. With mantra meditation this is a little different, because the mantra itself carries a subtle energetic vibration, so it is both an energy practice and a stillness practice.
Purification from pranayama and meditation are a little different, which is why both are needed in our practice. Purification from pranayama is quite fast and intense, and based mainly in the body, leading to the cultivation of ecstasy over the long term. Meditation on the other hand purifies at the mental level and leads to the cultivation of bliss over the long term. This is an oversimplification, as there is a lot of overlap between the two in practice.
So yes, DM will increase your progress with SBP.
Energetic overload is the experience of too much prana moving through energy channels in the subtle body which are not yet purified enough to take the charge. So overload from meditation is the same as overload from pranayama.
Karma means action/ reaction. It is an established response pattern in an individual to certain events. Something happens, and you react in a certain way because of your karma. Purifying the body and the mind changes the way you respond to events. When you become more peaceful inside, and more sublime, there is much less automated response to external events. Or as they say in India… less karma. Eventually, when the purification process is largely complete, there are no external events, and no automated response pattern. No karma. So it is known to those who know it, and believed by many who don’t yet know it.
Because Deep Meditation is an energy practice as well as a stillness practice, it is more effective when the energy body is activated. Pranayama activates the energy body. Yogani refers to the energy body as the subtle nervous system in the main lessons.
Yes, that is normal. As pranayama activates the subtle energy body, it may be harder to cultivate silence immediately after pranayama practice. But remember that yoga is not a question of silence. It is a question of enlightenment… the lighting up of the whole being and merging with the infinite in a state of ecstatic transcendence and divine love. That can happen through inner silence alone, but it takes a long time… usually lifetimes. The practices in yoga are designed to bring about yoga, or union, achieved through the merging of ecstasy and bliss everywhere in the body and outside of the body in a short space of time. So although it may seem tricky at first, trust that there is some method behind the different techniques.
Christi
Christi,
Thanks for the excellent overview.
I’ll second that. I love reading your posts, Christi. Always good to hear from people who have been at this for decades.
Thank you christi!
And thank you from me too - great answer, very informative!
Excuse me for picking up an old thread, but this feels relevant to my questions.
For at least the past ten years, my focus has been on healing old trauma, anxiety, negative beliefs, and unhealthy thought patterns. I have been journaling, receiving energy healing, and actively working on these issues quite consistently. This has made my life smoother overall. I get triggered less easily and experience less fear and anxiety.
I often hear that old traumas can remain in the system as energetic blockages, and my experience seems to support that view. Certain emotional responses can be felt in specific parts of the body, sometimes around a chakra point.
While this kind of healing has greatly improved my quality of life, it does not seem to translate directly into greater bliss, love, or ecstatic experiences. It makes me think that there are different layers or systems within us that need to be addressed in different ways.
As I have done more of Deep Meditation, I have realized that I have lacked a practice that allows my nervous system to fully relax into a deeply meditative state. This feels like a different kind of purification from what I have mostly been focusing on. I am hoping to clear the levels that may still be holding blockages to experiencing bliss, as that is one aspect my spiritual journey has not offered as much as others.
I would be very interested to hear how you see these differences. Any fresh perspectives are welcome.