Living on light

[Christi]

Namaste Wise Ones,

Just to let you know I have started my gradual transition towards living on divine light as promised in another thread. I have decided to start off slowly, gradually cutting things out of my diet, until I am living on a very pure satvic diet. Then I will reduce my calorific intake until I am being nourished by a mixture of prana, sunlight, and pure divine light.

I have decided to start by cutting heavy and toxic foods out of my diet. I stopped eating meat and fish 22 years ago. Now I have also stopped consuming caffine, chocolate, alcohol and fried foods. I have also started eating twice a day instead of three times, and I have stopped having snacks between meals. I am going to make a gradual transition towards my new form of sustenance, without putting any artifitial time limits on how long it should take.

I wanted to write regular updates in this thread to keep anyone interested informed about how I get on.
Also, if anyone has been through the transition already and has any advice that might help me, please post it here, or send me a personal email.

Love and light

Christi

p.s. I must strongly advise anyone reading this not to try this practice, as you could just get thin and die, which really defeats the whole point of the exercise.

[Anthem]

Hi Christi,

Best of luck to you. Be sure to find some reputable scientists to validate the results if you are successful, it could be a boon to world consciousness if you are.

Wondering if you plan to practice "sun-gazing" during this process or maybe you already do?

A

[yogani]

quote:Originally posted by Christi

 p.s. I must strongly advise anyone reading this not to try this practice, as you could just get thin and die, which really defeats the whole point of the exercise.

Hi Christi:

Wishing you the best in your exploration. Do keep us posted.

It should also be pointed out that there is no procedure in the AYP writings for discontinuing food consumption on a long term basis. It is touched on in several places in the Diet, Shatkarmas and Amaroli book, including in the sections on fasting, avoiding obsessive "flights of fancy" in practice, and the importance of favoring balance via self-pacing in all that we undertake in yoga.

The guru is in you.

[yogani]

PS: Also, this lesson might be helpful:
http://www.aypsite.com/plus/167.html

Let the divine inner light shine!

The guru is in you.

[gentlep]

In the book "Aghora" it's mentioned that to advance spiritually on should control or eliminate food, sex and sleep. It says reducing food or sex will reduce the need for sleep. But that's not my experience. I can go without sex and little food but the sleep is always the same. I would like to know your experience regarding sleep. It would be nice if I can go by with just 4hours sleep a day (as opposed to 7-8 hours now). That gives so much more time for other practices.

[Christi]

Hi Anthem
 

quote:Hi Christi,

Best of luck to you. Be sure to find some reputable scientists to validate the results if you are successful, it could be a boon to world consciousness if you are.

I am already drawing up a list of reputable scientists who could validate the phenomena. But as I am still eating two meals a day, it is perchance a little premature.


 

quote:Wondering if you plan to practice "sun-gazing" during this process or maybe you already do?

i am planning to.  am in south India at the moment, and we are experiencing a very late monsoon, so there is not too much sun at the important times (sunrise and sunset) to gaze at.

Thanks for the good wishes.

[Christi]

Hi Yogani,
 

quote:
Hi Christi:

Wishing you the best in your exploration. Do keep us posted.

It should also be pointed out that there is no procedure in the AYP writings for discontinuing food consumption on a long term basis. It is touched on in several places in the Diet, Shatkarmas and Amaroli book, including in the sections on fasting, avoiding obsessive "flights of fancy" in practice, and the importance of favoring balance via self-pacing in all that we undertake in yoga.

Thanks for the great advice. I do realize that AYP does not advise this sort of thing, and I nearly put this thread under the Other systems of spiritual practice heading. But I put it in this one because the topic is touched on in the main lessons, in the new diet book, and (very lightly, and very beautifully) in the Secrets of Wilder novel.

 I read the new Diet, Shatkarmas and Amoroli book a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was excellent. It was so good to see a diet book that doesn't just say, eat this, don't eat that, because on the spiritual path, I have found that my optimal food intake has changed dramatically at different times according to how the prana is flowing, and how much silence is present. I have never seen a book before which acknowledges this fact.

After reading the book I have adopted amorloi, basti, tratak and the forehead shining pranayama (which really does shine your forehead!) as part of my daily routine and I am having very good results from them.

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

[Christi]

Hi Gentlep
 

quote:In the book "Aghora" it's mentioned that to advance spiritually on should control or eliminate food, sex and sleep. It says reducing food or sex will reduce the need for sleep. But that's not my experience. I can go without sex and little food but the sleep is always the same. I would like to know your experience regarding sleep. It would be nice if I can go by with just 4hours sleep a day (as opposed to 7-8 hours now). That gives so much more time for other practices.

Actually, I am also very interested in the effects between food consumption and sleep. I have observed this in the past during short fasts (10 days duration). I don't think it is a one to one correlation, like, the less we eat, the less we need to sleep. It seems to me that initially, eating less, or fasting for a time, will increase the rate of purification of the body. When a lot of purification is happening we could need to sleep more, as we process a lot of things during sleep. Then, if we continue to eat a nutritious and light diet, and a lot of purification has happened, then we should need to sleep less. That's my own feeling about it. One lady who spent about 6 months eating nothing and drinking only water, said that after several months on water only she needed to sleep for only two hours a night.

But I will certainly let you know what happens to me regarding sleep.

Christi

[david_obsidian]

When you have a plan like that Christi,  I do think it was a good idea for you to bring it up on the forum,  looking for advice and feedback.  My own is to look carefully and self-critically at what is going on with you that you would actually have a plan to live without food -- and feel confident enough of its success to announce it on a public forum almost as if it were a done deal.  That in itself,  never mind drawing up a list of reputable Scientists to analyze the phenomenon, seems to be very premature.

One thing to watch out for is that the scheme seems grand.  Very, very grand.  I've no doubt at all that you are going through some profound yogic phenemena.  But I think it is a mistake to interpret these experiences grandly.  Interpret them spiritually, interpret them lovingly, but shy away from interpreting them grandly.

I don't blame you for interpreting them grandly.  First of all, the experiences themselves, almost due to their very own nature, seem to lead to grand interpretations.  So many famous Yogis seems to have gone down the path of getting too Grand for their Boots entirely.  The too-grand-for-their-boots-ness of yogis would seem to be an institution of the Yogic tradition itself, at least if you look at how it has played in that tragi-comic opera of well-known Yogis of the last century.  (While their are some very few notable exceptions to this excessive grand-ness, like Ramana Maharshi.)

But in the end, all that grandness is a 'flight of fancy'.  Don't take 'Secrets of Wilder' too literally.  Yogis are just people -- imperfect people who have tapped into Something.  The really valuable thing is that Something.

[LittleTurtle]

Hhhmmm....David I can see your point and perhaps even read between the lines unless I'm mistaken. The very down-to-earth and practical part of me responded to Christi's post in much the same way. But then....after all, things are opening up I believe. The stars are shifting. Unless Christi is completely off his rocker..as some of us may be assuming. I think it's kinda cool. I have often thought of the yogis who have done this or something similar and achieved it, and actually felt a bit envious. All of us just plain folks have a hero's soul inside. Just today I read of Sri Chinmoy's passing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/nyregion/13chinmoy.html?em&ex=1192420800&en=12597bbc1a6f10bc&ei=5087%0A
He actually urged yogis to push the envelope a bit. But Christi, please allow it to be an elastic envelope. Not a brick wall.

[Christi]

Hi Little Turtle,

 

quote:But Christi, please allow it to be an elastic envelope. Not a brick wall.

Don't worry Little Turtle, no brick walls around here. I think it is good to try to do the things that we want to do, but if it doesn't work, no big deal! Just try the next thing. Actually I have got a long way in life simply through trying things that I wasn't sure if I could do or not. I don't have any idea how many didn't work out, and how many did. I guess that's not the important thing.
When I was about 20, I signed up for a thirty day silent meditation retreat in Thailand. I had never meditated before. We had to sit in a cell on our own for 8 hours a day. I really thought I could do it. Was I crazy? Probably . Either crazy or inspired. I didn't survive the duration of the retreat, but I learned a great deal about myself, and I'm still meditating 18 years later.

Christi

[LittleTurtle]

Hey Christi. How's it going? Is it yet time to give us an update on your "living on light" transition? (I'm envious you see..) Hope all is going well.

[Christi]

Hi Little Turtle,

Nothing really exiting to report, sorry.
 Well maybe there is.... you see what I am trying to do is a little different than what most people do who make the transition from living on physical food, to living on light. I am not forcing the transition in any way, like by stopping eating or something crazy like that. I am putting out the intent, and seeing what happens, how the universe responds. A bit like samyama (very like samyama actually). I am still eating once or twice a day, and I have to confess, I am still using stimulants occasionaly... caffine, chocolate and white sugar.

But a couple of surprising things have happened. I went on a silent retreat in November led by Sri Karunamayi Ma. I did not speak to her either before or during the retreat, so she knew nothing of my intentions in this matter. During the retreat she was giving a talk, and for some reason decided to describe the process by which yogis are able to live without eating food.

O.k. prepare yourself for a leap of faith...!

She said that what we need to sustain ourselves (physical body) is the lunar energies, but in our ordinary state we are unable to absorb them. She said that seeds and fruit absorb the lunar energies and then we eat them, and in this way we get the energy to sustain our bodies. She said that through activation of the ida nadi, which is the lunar nadi, the subtle body gains the ability to directly absorb the lunar enegies and so we can live without the need for physical food. If I remember rightly she also said that this was closely related to the opening of the throat chakra. She recommended the practice of Sri Chandra pranayama three times a day in order to attain this state, once before sunrise, once in the afternoon, and again around midnight, but the exact timings depended on what the moon was doing at the time.

After the retreat I came accross a book which talked about the production of amrita, the nectar that flows down from the top of the head. It said that Amrita is produced at the bindu chakra, a chakra on the top back of the head half way between the crown and the occipital centre. It said that when the bindu is activated it produces amrita which flows down to the roof of the mouth, and from there down the throat to the vissudi (throat) chakra. Here it is purified and then it flows down to nourish the physical body.

The bindu is described as the lunar centre in yoga, with the solar centre being at the navel. I imagine that the process that Amma (Sri Karunamayi) described in terms of lunar energies is the same as that relating to the bindu and amrita. Although my body has started producing ojas (soma excreted through the skin, mainly through the higher chakras) it has not yet started producing amrita (internal nectar from the bindu chakra).

The production of amrita is related to the general purification of the subtle body, to abstention from orgasm and to kechari mudra (which has a strong influence over it's production and reception).

So... that's as far as I've got so far. It's interesting what happens when you put an intention out to the universe, somehow the universe responds. I'm not going to stop eating until I really feel like I understand the whole process, which is quite complex, and feel that my system on all levels is ready to handle it. I am beginning to see though, that by the time this process gets seriously underway, the physical realm will hardly occupy my thoughts!

As you can probably tell, I'm not really a hero, just someone practicing yoga, like all of us here.

Christi

[Christi]

Hi again Little Turtle,

I forgot to mention one extraordinary thing. Recently the purification process in my physical body has gone into a kind of hyperdrive. This is an internal process not related to what I eat. It seems to be related to the amount of prana moving through the subtle body and to the production of soma in the G.I. tract. The physical purification involves large amounts of toxins being pushed out of the body through the skin. Sometimes I wash my whole body, eat a meal, and then have to wash again withing one hour. Like that.

The whole process involves purification on the physical level and several subtle levels.

Christi

[LittleTurtle]

Very interesting and exciting! Thanks for the update and inspiration.