And for the last time, I’m not “craving” spiritual practices. At this point, I’m “craving” grounding more than anything else. Though, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as “craving”. I simply want to balance my energies and be able to function again.
Why won’t anyone believe me? Is it because most people who come here do so out of “spiritual cravings”?
Sorry I was talking about this thread https://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3236
Don’t know why but I can’t find it on this thread anymore even though I’m sure someone posted it.
Hi Piruz,
The energetic pathway followed in AYP Spinal Breathing is from the root to the ajna chakra going up the inside of the spine, and back down the same way.
It is here:
“with each rising inhalation of the breath, allow your attention to travel upward inside a tiny thread, or tube, you visualize beginning at your perineum, continuing up through the center of your spine, and up through the stem of your brain to the center of your head. At the center of your head the tiny nerve makes a turn forward to the point between your eyebrows. With one slow, deep inhalation let your attention travel gradually inside the nerve from the perineum all the way to the point between the eyebrows. As you exhale, retrace this path from the point between the eyebrows all the way back down to the perineum. Then, come back up to the point between the eyebrows with the next inhalation, and down to the perineum with the next exhalation, and so on.” [Yogani]
Lesson 41 - Spinal Breathing Pranayama
For grounding, see this lesson:
Lesson 69 - Kundalini Symptoms, Imbalances and Remedies
Gentle walking for long periods can work much better for grounding, than power walking. In fact, if anything stirs up the energy in your body, then it is not grounding, it is energising, and will tend to accentuate kundalini symptoms.
In your case, I would suggest leaving out all spiritual practices (including spinal breathing, meditation and prayer) for some time to let things settle down. You have become quite out of balance, so think in terms of taking a few weeks, or even months, to let things calm down.
Christi
Hi Piruz,
Have you tried working with spinal breathing for very short periods of time? Like one minute, maybe two? You don’t have to be fearful of practices that invoke energy. Just respect them for what they are. If you gave grounding methods a fair chance, not doing any practises for a while (and other common advice like physical activity, walking barefoot in nature, eating a heavier diet etc.) and it didn’t work for you, then it may be time to try something differnt. You write that spinal breathing pranayama gave you some relief recently. Why don’t you try a super careful routine of (e.g.) one minute SBP followed by two to five minutes of deep meditation (no mudras and bandhas, no restriction of breath, no siddhasana, just the very basics). You will see if it worsens your problems or gives you relief. If it works for you - perfect. If it does not, simply stop again.
I would advice you to keep doing your grouding exercises and experiment very carefully and step by step with gentle practices.
Remember that constantly thinking/conceptualizing about your energy problems as well as reading spiritual literature (reading the ayp forums) pushes energy also.
If some activity is grounding or not partly depends on what we favour with our attention. Favour external and mundane things for effective grounding. Also try out lying in Child’s Pose, forehead on the ground.
I think the energy simply choses the route of least resistance. This is different for every individual (individual karmic blockages) and this is why there are manyfold kundalini awakening routes. Not all of them lead all the way up to the crown and not all of them are safe or feel pleasant.
The practise of SBP clears out blockages in the shushumna nadi and in the side channels also, in a very gradual manner. This slowly makes it the route of least resistance for the prana energies to flow in.
Hope you are doing well 
EDIT: check out Christi’s last paragraph. This is what I mean by a “a while”. If you are still unbalanced after some months then try out easing into practices again, very carefully.
i would say stop all practices,even the prayers
Spinal breathing gave me some relief at the time but the backlash came a day later. My body (the let side specifically) feels like it’s hotter, and the heart/chest burns like it use to when my heart chakra first opened up 2 months ago. It’s like the “wounds”, which I thought had healed, are now “fresh” again!
Don’t know about the root (the initial phase of my Kundalini awakening) but the heart is something else and it’s dangerous because, I swear to God, at this rate I’ll turn 90 years old when I’m only 28!
Looks like this is it. I’ve had it with self-diagnoses and self-therapy. I need to see a healer or talk to an expert who is qualified to help people with energy problems (meditation induced or otherwise). I mustn’t be doing this all by myself anymore. It was self-help that got me here in the first place (if only someone had advised me on AYP before I started meditating, I bet none of this would have happened). I’m in West London so if you guys know a place or someone who can help, please don’t keep me waiting.
The advice I’m getting here is valuable for sure, but very wide-ranging and the factors at play are too many and vary from one individual to another. Definitely not a case-by-case approach (which it isn’t even supposed to be, for this is a forum and not a clinic).
Funny! I actually practice this everyday during prayers (when my forehead is on the ground and I’m begging God for relief every night. And yes, my attention would be outward not inward). I thought it made me feel more “grounded” but was under the impression it might be placebo. Now I know it is in fact grounding. But I’m only doing child’s pose for like 10 minutes a day.
Update: It’s now in my throat/head (though it hasn’t left the spine and chest, but for some reason mostly there on the left side). Ears feel itchy every now and then, very itchy (from the inside!) and the third eye is occasionally screaming! Energy is spontaneously moving up to the crown, but then settles at the third eye. I can’t stop and have not even tried.
Someone told me that once the ears start feeling itchy, it’s a sign that things are balancing out. I hope they’re right.
Yogani is right. I try to reflect that in the topic, though it’s almost comical how everyone has ignored me.
You basically need to resolve a paradox:
- Discomfort and problems arise, and
- If you get too geared up and immersed in “solving” such outcomes, you create a vicious circle. It’s self-defeating.
You need to experience these things for some time without getting all energized (pun very much intended) about finding a smart solution. If you’ll pull the camera back, that’s what yoga is in the first place. Wanting what you get rather than getting what you want. Fighting the universe is what created these blockages in the first place. It’s normal (though hilarious) to keep battling the flow so you can “find” the flow. But Yogani’s right about the under-the-hood thing.
I tried to thread the needle: offer solutions to try in a mellow, la-dee-da, bemused fashion. Give them SOMETHING to try. But it was like I’d thrown steaks at a swamp full of alligators. Vicious circles just tightened up. Oops. I have not repeated my mistake of offering subtled, nuanced suggestions here.
The ajna question is very much a part of that. If you view my posting as a schematic for redirecting body energies, then, yeah, ajna’s not the all-purpose answer, and can even seem like the problem. But that doesn’t conflict with Yogani, who just says to gently let ajna do its thing OVER TIME. A light magnetism there will align wayward energies OVER TIME. Might it involve three steps back before two steps forward? Yup. Yoga’s like that. LIFE is like that. Scrambling to find the Magic Formula will only set you back.
I realize it’s very hatha yoga-ish to delve into the minutiae; to take it all apart and try to wrap your head around it. But that’s not a good approach here. You need to “Let” and “Favor”. Letting is surrender, aka silence. Favoring is a light, friendly desire for symmetry and smoothness and ajna magnetism. It’s okay to have a light, feathery, simple desire. So long as you don’t, like, NEED the universe to be some other way.
Trying to tune up this misfiring Mustang is counterproductive. Do sadhana, letting and favoring. Maybe follow my suggestions in a light-hearted way (the way Yogani practiced tai chi…in fact, maybe try tai chi!). And let ajna work its magic. It may get worse before it gets better. That’s okay. It’s all okay.
You have not experienced kundalini without having some level of recognition that you’re not driving this car. And I realize this very recognition ignites bhakti, which feels irritating! But the way through is more of THAT. So, with VERY careful self-pacing (we all say it a million times, but people never seem to hear it), and a lot of Letting, and a little Favoring (and sticking faithfully to sadhana), tomorrow will come, bearing a new set of vexations and problems.
The vexations and problems never cease - the ducks never get in a row (despite spiritual mythology to the contrary). The only difference will be in your PERSPECTIVE. You will cease seeing these things as antagonists. So long as you view things antagonistically, you’re getting colder (per the children’s game of “you’re getting warmer/you’re geting colder”). Flip back (and, again, yes, I know the flipping back ignites bhakti, and it feels like a thumb trap. I’m not unsympathetic! I’ve been there!).
I’m going to offer another way to frame this.
The world seems to have problems. Particularly this week! There’s stuff wrong, people behaving obliviously badly, and truth needs to ring out and be heeded. So you can 1. run out into the streets and scream truth, or, 2. if you’re tireless and clever, you can create a mass movement with the same goal.
#1 gets ignored (and probably just makes things worse; hardening people in their stances). #2 never works. Very few mass movements are benign in sum in the end. Gandhi was devastated by the anti-Muslim excesses of the movement he created with beautiful intentions. He couldn’t control it, and his beautifully and otherwise effective movement planted the seeds of nearly every malignancy that’s affected South Asia ever since. And you and I are no Gandhis, so we’d do worse.
The most benign effect we can have is in the micro. How we act NOW, how we treat others NOW. Not trying to take society apart and put it back together better (as if we’re so extraordinarily wise). Not even taking your neighborhood, or your house, or your romantic relationship apart and putting it back together better (we’re not even THAT wise!). Just manage to resist the triggers and take a slightly longer view. Find the comfort and equanimity of the present moment, that’s all. Perhaps your comfort and equanimity will prove just a tiny bit contagious. That’s our best bet. That’s something we can actually do without risking making things worse (the road to hell’s paved with good intentions).
Ok, now here’s how it applies.
This energetic kundalini stuff is going on in the world (that’s what “your” body is). It’s just more of the showy, flashy, ever-changing world. It’s out there, not in here. It’s more of THAT. It’s part of the cinematic friction, strife and tumult devised to entertain the movie-goer, aka the witness. It’s fluffy dramatic narrative.
Yoga adjusts us to the world, not the world to us. “Adjusting the world to me” is what 8 billion people strain to do 10,000 times per day. The yogic way is to embrace, come what may. To make lemonade from lemons, or to simply accept the lemons. Never say “No” to god (or to whatever…sorry to namedrop). You won’t be passive. So long as you’re paying attention to The Movie, you will naturally exert will and summon preference. But you’ll enjoy some perspective and sanity by wearing it all lightly.
Having ignited kundalini, you’ve come to understand a few things about the drama in which everyone is so tightly gripped. You’ve loosened those bindings a bit. Great! Now apply what you’ve learned to the recognition that this energetic kundalini/spirituality stuff is just more of THAT.
Again (for the zillionth time!) I know that I’m suggesting surrender, and that surrender increases bhakti, which irritates right now. So don’t linger here. Don’t obsess and ruminate. Flip to this perspective and go out and be in the world…but lightly. And be in your body…but lightly. Just like you currently laugh off a lot of worldly stuff that painfully grips other people, do that for your body and your energy and your SPIRITUAL JOURNEY and whatever. Those things are all movie moments. Entertainment amid silence. Flashes amid eternity. You are the silence. You are the eternity.
If the above meant anything to you, I’m happy, but you don’t need to endlessly re-tell yourself. Re-read this posting contemplating the metaphor I’ve drawn, swiftly adjust perspective if that’s available (hopefully feeling some burden lift) and then go play softball or something.
The “in here” vs “out there” issue can go round and round. I’m not explaining “Ultimate Truth”, nor am I up for a philosophical argument. I’m just expediently helping you frame the situation. Is it “true”? Well…true enough.
A bonus observation: Your kundalini woes feel super different to you, I know, but they are not some special case happening beyond the playing field; outside the worldly world. From your perspective, Krishna and Christ are thunderously welcoming you to the pantheon, but from my perspective, you’ve got something akin to a hemorrhoid. The faster you can flip to my perspective, the better (I hesitated to make this analogy, because one shops around for hemorrhoid treatments while this is more like one of those syndromes rich people get for which quacks sell expensive natural supplements…but I preferred “hemorrhoid” to make my point).
Hello Jim
Well i have to disagree with you on Ghandi,he was no saint.Even among indians,that dream of Ghandi as a Saint is no longer true. There are facts about his sexual experiments and his racial views. His statue was removed in Ghana ( he looked down on black people) and in the UK during David Cameron as prime minister there was lots of controversy even among the indian community about having a statue of Ghandi in London
What a fine opportunity for an argument on that! Thanks so much!
Okay all the poetry aside (which many of you people never get tired of) I’ve really come to develop an interest (for now theoretical) in Tai Chi and yoga postures (I think they’re called Asanas, I’m not sure). This is why (and this is important): when I’m usually doing something that requires maintaining a sustained posture over relatively long periods, like, say, hoovering the floor, or when I’m cutting my beard and my arms would be up and shoulders tense for a good 15 minutes, I notice that there is a descent amount of energy release from the tense muscles (heat, itching, sweating, like it’s all coming out). The “grounding” effects achieved therein feel more “grounding” than long walks, since walking is not as uniform as postures and can therefore be too much or too little at times. The first time this happened I immediately thought “light Asanas!”
You say, Jim, in your thread about grounding that while walking is a first-line grounding exercise, Tai Chi and Asanas are more advanced. I wonder where I should start. There are many Asanas and each targets a different part of the body. I know which part feels overloaded (how can I not lol!) but I don’t know which Asana is best suited.