Hi Yogani and everyone
Yes this can look like a mine field with all the various approaches.
The type of practice that has helped me immeasurably over the past 15 years is the one of identifying our projections. This of course has been mentioned above and also by you in another thread.
This is the one tool that runs through almost every practice of self enquiry that I know of.
It is, I’m sure you know, a complete revealer of our issues that lie hidden to us, and even though we know how the process of projection works it is still often very difficult to come around to the fact that what we are projecting onto “that disgusting person” is in fact the mirror image of our own issues. It’s an absolute gem.
Yogani wrote:
My limited understanding of vipassana is that it is a sitting practice. Is there a walking around version? If so, then maybe there is some further overlap there, because the success of all these methods depends on the presence of the witness. In AYP, we do that in deep meditation, and then stabilize it in activity. In Buddhism, they do “mindfulness,” a different kind of practice. I don’t think that is what I am suggesting for AYP – we have the witness already from deep meditation. It is mindfulness.
I have’nt practice vispassna formally but read a good book on it years ago. It happened to coincide more or less with what I was doing at the time.
This was:
1.Regognise the projection
2.Make sure you are established in the witness.
3.Allow the thoughts and feelings associated with the projection, which are now in your body and owned by you, to just be there.
4. Breath
For me the feelings would often dissolve in my spine.
The important thing is that these projections can, if not identified, go round and round forever, churning up the same old patterns over and over.
When we hold up the mirror to ourselves we can break that cycle. When it is done with the witness present it, not only is much more powerful, but we can keep our centre and not get overwhealmed by the feelings.
Having said all that, this was my process but I would be at a disadvantage in that I have nat practiced mantra meditation for very long.
I think mantra meditation has a different effect on the system. I have found that if I am angry at someone and I do mantra meditation, the anger disappears and I become peaceful and warm.
So the process might be a little different when practicing mantra meditation, I get the impression that not so many feelings actually come up in the first place - but I could be totally wrong about this, this is just my limited experience so far.
It occured to me that the mirroring type of self enquiry would be very useful if we overdo it a little with the routine practice and find ourselves getting annoyed with someone.
I agree that mantra meditation is “mindfulness”. Mindfulness is origionally a Buddhist term but I think it is crossing into almost every field now. It is really the “here and now”.
I would see AYP as being totally grounded in mindfulness or the here and now, whatever you want to call it.
It is evident that when we practice mantra meditation that we automatically become more aware in our everyday living. This to me is also living mindfully, the terms are different but the effects are the same.
This is the way it sould be of course and it consolidates that the core of all sound practices are the same.
Personally I like to practice mindfulness throughtout the day and find since I started mantra meditation it has become more pleasant more often. It is like the mantra meditation is more powerful for me and leaves me in this beautiful serene place from which I can -look at a cup, see and feel it going to my lips, feel the liquid passing into my mouth etc etc. It is wonderful when it is kick started with AYP.
There is also a book called “The Power of Intention” don’t know if anyone has read it, but it gives another powerful approach.
But enough rambling for now.
Hope this helps 
Louis
Shanti wrote:
I am glad, Shanti
I am inspired by all of you.
And I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to…it is (luckily) out of my hands now. 
May all your Nows be Here
Hi Lili:
Nice to see you again. Yes, creating some separate topics for the different methods may be a good approach, as each method is a world in itself. I don’t know how deep we will end up going into each method. It is up to all of you. I have been looking to light this one off for some time, as I know everyone is interested in “what more” can be done during the day. Hopefully, we can put a good foundation under it – inner silence. Then it will be okay, and all of these methods will be at their best.
Anyone wishing to start new topics on various approaches involving discrimination and the intellect (jnana), feel free. Bhakti and karma yoga topics are good too – there is plenty of overlap.
The guru is in you.
It is really best not to include these into AYP. Not including them definitely makes AYP more saleable than other systems. For the readers/practitioners it is always the effort versus results. The yama/niyamas, self-inquiry and others can really make the practitioner feel that he is doing a lot but not getting any results which might make him move away from the practices.
There were lot of yoga systems but the best thing about AYP is that it will get you started. The writings are very inspirational and stress again and again about the importance of getting started.
-Near
I think a method of self-inquiry should be included in the AYP material. I agree with Yogani strongly that inner silence is the foundation and I also think that good methods of self-inquiry are vital to the evolution of consciousness.
Ken Wilber makes an excellent case for the position that meditation alone cannot truly clean all your junk. In fact he even goes so far as to say that meditation can be a great way to hang on to really dark features of your shadow.
Part of the reasoning is that meditation is limited to taking a first person person perspective to phenemonon which produces a deep awareness of states of consciousness. Whereas very important findings that are coming out of the research of developmental psychologists are ways in which humans develop through stages of consciousness over time. Stages are discovered through statistically analyzing thousands of people and are mostly invisible to a meditator. States can fluctuate from moment to moment. But breaking through to a new stage is permanent. Meditation is probably the single most important thing you can do to move through stages, but again I think it needs help as we can all see from the dozens of highly advanced meditators we all know about that were super messed up in other areas of their life. It’s common sense now that a meditator can stabilize very high states of consciousness while remaining stuck at low stages of development. For example, someone can be blissed out in samadhi yet be at a low emotional or cognitive stage of development. I believe self-inquiry is a absolutely essential tool to couple with meditation to move us past the age of blissful gurus with closets full of shadows.
Just my two cents.
Sean
http://www.thetaobums.com/forum
hi yogani,
thanks for the enlightening and broad reply. surely, i will not try anything like living on the sunlight even if i get that information from somewhere unless and until i have direct experience because as you have told always “The guru is in you” and that is the best part of AYP each having a different kind of experience for the same goal.
Hi Near:
The difference between this discussion and others in AYP is that we are investigating various approaches to self-inquiry with the aim of distilling out a simple and practical approach that will be useful for people who are already practicing AYP deep meditation. So, in that sense, your concern is being addressed. The systems we look at here are not being endorsed necessarily, only examined for their value. In the end, I hope something useful will come out of it. In the meantime, everyone will no doubt develop their own opinions about self-inquiry, which is very good too. AYP does not dictate any particular style for our daily living. These approaches are for daily living, so variations in style are to be expected.
Whichever way it goes, as inner silence rises, most of us are inclined to do something useful with it. Samyama is for that. And so is self-inquiry.
I have seen cases like Sean mentioned, in cloistered meditative environments, where meditators with lots of inner silence could not handle the fact that the salt shaker had been moved to the wrong end of the table. That is a very limited and conditioned enlightenment. We want to take our inner silence and develop it into unconditional enlightenment. That means getting involved in life. That is why I say go out and engage after meditation, and pay attention (inquire). Whether we are using other systematic approaches to living or not, this alone will produce an integration of inner silence into our life. And also ecstatic conductivity, when it rises – there are interesting new perspectives on the relationship of ecstatic conductivity and inner silence in activity in the new AYP Spinal Breathing book coming out in a few weeks – explaining much better what we mean by “stillness in action.”
The guru is in you.
It is really cool that the new book is coming out in a few weeks only. I am looking forward
Hari Om
Hello Yogani,
Yes, this all day thing perhaps may be good for some, yet for the householder, it’s not practical. That said the joy part is so so important. Some may shrug this off as a by-product of their practice, as it comes in ‘glimpses and snippets’. Yet I suggest this is a good thing and is the essence of creation. Do we get attached to it, nope, but do we appreciate it, yes. There is multiple reasons for this joy and delight. This essence of delight is at the core of existence, this is the famed soma that the rishi’s have experienced and expressed in the Ved. This essence is divine.
This soma is rarely understood, and many a scholar ( east and west), not keen on how the rishi’s viewed the works of creation , takes the soma for a physical thing ( of all things wine). Soma is known as a creeper, as the moon, Chandra, etc. Perhaps at a later date a post on this would be of interest to some. I am continually in awe when reading the insights of the past sages and the knowledge they possess. The key is reading from sadhu’s and pundits that ‘get it’ and/or of enlightened sight.
agnir satyam rtam brhat Frank in San-Diego
I agree. There is an area between “all day practice robots” and “all day joy” however for some personality types, and some times.
I have learned that not being joyful can become a habit, or sort of addiction, and it’s not hard to break by endeavouring to keep my perception in line. So at times this might seem like practice robot stuff, but I see it more like “surfing” reality, where certain controls are monitored, and the results are much more pleasurable and fun.
This may only apply to some of us who have learned errant thought or perception patterns, I don’t know. But I’ll start to get in a bad mood (for days) and have to force myself to improve it, all it takes is a decision with volition behind it, and other times I start thinking so much I’m not paying attention to the moment, and again, decide to be more mindful. Other times I may have the habit of concentrating on one goal in the back of my mind, like whether people like me or not, and forget to have fun and not care. So my self inquiry includes a checklist of minor corrections that make a big difference in day to day life.
Hi Ether:
I believe we all have “errant thought or perception patterns” and one of the primary effects of yoga is the dissolving of these. Inner silence via deep meditation will do much of the job on its own, but we can certainly add to our progress by choosing when we can, which is also a function of inner silence, our ability to witness how we relate to our thoughts and feelings, and the world around us.
The primary feedback we can use in this is how we feel. If we feel bad (i.e., “suffering”), then it is a signal of an errant pattern of thought or perception. If we are making others feel bad, it is the same thing, except we might not notice as easily – an errant perception for sure. To get around this we can develop the ability to see the world through the eyes of others as well as through our own eyes. This too is a function of inner silence – the witness. It always comes back to that.
In any case, once we can see our suffering, and the suffering of others (which is also ours), we are in a position to question the thoughts and perceptions that have created that suffering. Life is not inherently suffering. It just is. It is we who do the coloring of it.
Self-inquiry asks us to notice our thoughts and feelings, and question their validity when they create suffering. We can ask ourselves if we need a specific thought that is creating suffering, is it true, and what would we be like without that thought? Then we can turn the thought around and look at it 180 degress the opposite, like a mirror on ourselves instead of focused on the other. This is the Katie approach (in her book – “Loving What Is”), which works like a razor. It is event-specific and therefore practical in the now. Is this the kind of mechanism you use, Ether?
Once we have isolated a thought or perception that brings suffering and sincerely questioned its validity, we can then rest our attention on it, and it will tend to dissolve much the way knots dissolve in meditation when we allow our attention to rest on them when they dominate our session to the extent we are not able to pick up the mantra easily. Like that, errant thoughts and perceptions can dominate the clarity of our life experience at times. And, like that, they can be dissolved once they have been recognized for what they are – isolated and errant, outside the sphere of who we really are.
Of course, this is a simplification of a very complex dynamic. The errant thought and perception patterns are seemingly endless streams rooted in deep traumas of the past. We don’t have to ferret out what all these roots are, thank goodness. But we should recognize that self-inquiry is a long term cultivation of habit in the way we look at ourselves and the world around us, so as to gradually dissipate the energies that are “errant.” The more inner silence we have, the easier this will be, and the more often we will be having those “Ah Ha!” type releases. We do not have to travel down the same errant roads over and over again as we have in the past. We do have the option to choose something more – a road of happiness for ourselves and those around us.
As soon as our inner silence affords us the growing discrimination that comes with the rise of the witness, we can take advantage of it. That too is a choice we can make – to use the witness. It is the big one that changes everything. A sea change in our perception of ourselves and everything around us. Once that happens, self-inquiry becomes pretty much a cake walk, like washing the dishes and taking out the trash. We realize we don’t have to be hanging on to the trash anymore – our ego-driven errant thought and perception patterns. We just let them go in each moment, and find that right underneath them we are an endless sea of ecstatic bliss. In time, we are easily dissolving the errant stuff like patches of brown foam floating on our infinite crystal clear sea.
This is self-inquiry, karma yoga, and bhakti all rolled into one. And thank goodness for inner silence!
The guru is in you.
Can I throw in a very enthusiastic plug here for Sailor Bob as a real good contemplative counterpart to the more utilitarian practices of AYP?
Lots of good reading on his site, at http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7
and his book “What’s Wrong with Right Now, Unless You Think About It?” is just terrific.
Sailor Bob is sort of the Yogani of nondualism. He strips it down to the essence, and reading him is downright infectious (at least for me; this sort of thing is not everyone’s cup of tea…so if it leaves you confused, by all means skip it)
Yogani wrote:
“Then we can turn the thought around and look at it 180 degress the opposite, like a mirror on ourselves instead of focused on the other. This is the Katie approach (in her book – “Loving What Is”), which works like a razor. It is event-specific and therefore practical in the now. Is this the kind of mechanism you use, Ether?”
I think so. It’s not that I blame other people or the outside world for my feelings. i know they come from me, but have certain bad habits in perception that lead me astray that I have to watch. Things will seem to go badly for a time, and i’ll just sort of ignore them, thinking it will go away eventually.
After a while I realize I’m including too many things in that category of stuff going bad that will go away. Then I realize I’m not really ignoring them, but storing them in a category of stuff that has to change for me to be happier. As soon as I see that, I change my attitude and truly ignore them, then everything’s OK.
I used to have a girlfriend who would tell me “You’ve been in a bad mood for a while.” Then I would change, but now i do that myself.
I have been trying something for a month now, just thought I would share it with you. Since the topic of Self Inquiry was brought up… people have given such wonderful ideas. and are making so much progress in their self development… I am really impressed.
This is what I have been doing…a little of Tolle and Yogani I guess. I realized, whenever I am alone, my mind starts working overtime… I keep thinking… thinking… thinking… till my thoughts take a life of its own. These days, as soon as I realize I am thinking, I bring my mind back to where I am… so if I am driving… I watch the cars, the tree, listen to the music on the radio or mantra playing on a CD. Just like I do in my meditation… as soon as I realize I am off the mantra, I go back to the mantra… so too during the day… as soon as I realize I am off on one of my thought trips… I come back to what I am doing. Just like mediation, I may not stay there for long… and go back into my thought land… but again just like meditation, when I realize I am off… I bring myself back. I think it is working pretty well… and for the last 2 weeks I have been able to stay in the present more often. I know I still have a long way to go… but this is one things that has worked for me… esp. since I think my mind does not realize it is losing its identity yet… so I have faced very little resistance. Also since I have been applying Yogani’s meditation technique… to every day life… I don’t beat myself up if it did not work. But then as I said… I have a long way to go… these are baby steps… but steps in the right direction I hope…
Once I get a hang of this, I plan on adding Katie too… I like what she says… I need a lot of improvement in my personal relationships too… actually more than improvement I think I need to reassess and redefine my personal relationships… but need to get one thing straightened out at a time.
PS: One more thing this has helped me with is… when I get stuck behind a slow moving vehicle and I know I am going to be late… I don’t get angry any more… I sort of laugh at the situation… the worst… I will be 10 mins late for some lesson… or work… I know I cannot do anything legal and get around it… if I get angry it does not help the situation… so I follow at 10 mph… I just thank God though that he did not make me is Very Important Person who would lose out on a million dollar deal because I am enjoying the slow drive.
Hey Shanti,
I’ve thought lot of times about doing this. But dint you feel it to be a lot of work?
I would like to hear from Yogani about this, especially regarding the benifits. Are there real benifits or minor ones compared to the effort we put in.
-Near
Hi Shanti:
You are on to something important there. The gentle persuasion of attention over thoughts. It is a choice we can make. No sledge-hammer needed. Only some inner silence and an easy intention. In time it becomes a habit we do not even think about. Keep up the good work!
The guru is in you.
Woke up on Saturday with a whiff of depression… my heart was heavy. I had decided this time I was not going to let this slight breeze become a tornado.
(check page 2 of the thread “drugs, depression, and yoga”… post by Jim
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1016 )
On days like this, all I want to do is be alone, however that has never worked, and it wasn’t going to work this Sat either. So I went ahead with my day.
In this thread I talked about what Tolle says about PMS
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=808
So I tried to feel this negative energy in me. I am not too good at isolating energy or feeling powerful energetic charge… all I felt was this heaviness in my heart. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the silence I do when I meditate. I located it somewhere deep in my stomach or navel area. I tried to bring this up and fill me. This silence filled me… except my heart. I could still feel the tornado building… but it was contained in the heart.
I went through my entire day feeling this heaviness in my heart… and worked real hard on just keeping it there… not letting it take over my entire body. I had a very busy day… went from one thing to the other but all the time being conscious of this tornado building in my heart… but containing it just there. There were a few time my eyes filled up with tears… fortunately I was driving then… and I seem to have better control of myself when I am driving… like I said in the post above, I bring myself to the present by watching the cars and trees. My daughters were reading and were not in a very chatty mood… thank goodness for that… I could concentrate more on myself.
By the time it was 9.00 pm and I finished all the chore and dinner… the heaviness in my heart was much less (I managed to read the AYP book for about an hour during one of the kids practice sessions… that always helps). I had actually made it through the day without the “feeling of depression” taking over me. I went to turn my computer off and there was a “sweet” email there from a friend… that put a smile on my face and got rid of the final signs of the tornado.
This is the first time, for as long as I can remember, I have not gone into a depression after that first smell of it. It was a lot of hard work staying focused on not letting this thing take over. But it worked and I have saved myself from going through 5 to 7 days of an emotional roller-coaster. I had a few more of these feelings of “heavy heart” over Sunday and today… but they were short and easier to control.
Wonder if this will get easier with time.
It will get easier with meditation. Meditation teaches you to neutrally bring your mind back from its wanderings, and that neutrality is critical.
If a depressive who doesn’t meditate strives to keep his/her mind from severely drifting into flights of fancy, the process of noticing and reigning in that tendency to slide will create feelings of anxiety and shame and frustration. And that, needless to say, just makes the whole thing worse (“I suck…can’t even control my mind…look how hard I have to work”).
Meditation teaches us to be gentle in focusing our mind…gentle to the point of absolute neutrality (aka “the witness”). And that’s incredibly helpful, though this is also why meditation is a bad idea for someone in the midst of severe depression (i.e. the full tornado, rather than the light breeze). In those times, the mind is locked like a vise, and neutral gentleness is not possible…so everything feeds the cyclone. Plus introspection/introversion is a huge mistake, as you’ve noticed, Shanti. It’s a closing down, and that also feeds the cyclone. Depressives ought to always opt for action and engagement, to the extent they’re able. (And meditation - at least before the late stages - is the epitome of introversion. The recession of the senses, slowing down of metabolism, etc, exacerbates the whole thing.)
Shanti, this was your first try. Sounds like it worked pretty well. And it’s really quite a triumph to have caught yourself early (can you back up even further, to the point when the mind juuuust starts to slip its moorings next time? The earlier you notice, the more you’ll see it’s a whole lot of nothing…and the easier it’ll be to gently reign in).
But let me correct one thing (and I think this will help). You said “It was a lot of hard work staying focused on not letting this thing take over.” That’s 180 degrees wrong. Rather, “this thing” was doing a lot of hard work to NOT stay focused…and you were chasing it. The energy is lost in the flights of fancy. Don’t chase, don’t try to spew counteractive positivity. Just neutrally, gently, control the wanderings, just as blandly and neutrally as you do in meditation. Again, as I said in the other thread, I’m not talking about a spiritual practice of staying precisely in the moment (aka “be here now”). I’m talking at a much coarser level: containing the extreme excesses of the depressive’s tendency to fly off into flights of fantasy, mulling over the past and fantasizing about the future. There’s a lot of string to be gently pulled in.
The way this all dawned on me was, in the midst of a terrible depression, hearing someone on the radio talking about “out-of-body experiences”. I realized, in a huge jolt, that it’d been ages since I’d had an in-body experience. I was everywhere but here. I was indulging my mind’s inclination to chase after empty fantasy.
Jim,
The only reason I said “It was a lot of hard work staying focused on not letting this thing take over.” … if I did not stay consciously focused on it… I was scared I would get sucked into the black hole … If I did not have control on it… I would, as you said, “fly off into flights of fantasy, mulling over the past and fantasizing about the future”. I did not want to slip. I will not argue with you about it being 180 degrees wrong… just needed that extra push… just needed to see for myself that I could make it happen. There will be many more next times to try what you have suggested. Thanks Jim.
-Shanti.
ok, but to be clear: I wasn’t saying “180 degrees wrong” to, like, beat you up or argue or anything. Quite the contrary. Just trying to help make it a less arduous process…the energy isn’t in the bringing back, the energy’s inthe sailing off. Sometimes a complete flip of mindset can be super relaxing and encouraging (hey, I’d greatly appreciate being shown ways in which I wrongly think I need to work hard when I don’t really need to!).
Glad you’re on a good track. Every minute of depression I can help alleviate .1% is worth the effort. It’s an awful problem, and it’s all about nothing. Blech. Catch it early, and it’s so simple to see. The problem’s catching it early, but AYP has clearly strengthened your witness. And the witness is real good at noticing problems created from nothing!