yoni mudra kumbhaka before rest

[tadeas]

Hi, when starting the chin pump, should yoni mudra kumbhaka be moved to right before our rest? Should it be done even after samyama and cosmic samyama?
Just wasn't 100 percent clear on that
Thx.

[Shanti]

Hi Tadeas,
Here is the full routine as defined by Yogani in Lesson 209 - Fitting daily practices into a busy schedule

Asanas – 10 min
Spinal breathing – 10 min
Chin pump – 5 min
Spinal bastrika – 5 min
Meditation – 20 min
Samyama – 10 min
Yoni mudra – 5 minutes
Targeted or crown bastrika (optional) – 5 min
Rest – 5 min (or more)

So yes, if you have added chin pump, then Yoni Mudra is pushed off to after meditation (or samyama if that is a part of your routine) and before rest.

[tadeas]

Thanks.
I forgot about that lesson 209

[Richard]

Shanti

Thanks for posting that routine, I had forgotten that yoni mudra should be moved when you add chin pump which means I have been doing it in the wrong place in my practices for ages

[sushman]

I have not added Chin-pump yet.

I am doing SB, DM, Samyama and YMK in the order I have mentioned here.

Is that order correct?
or should I do YMK right after SB?

[Shanti]

quote:Originally posted by sushman

I have not added Chin-pump yet.

I am doing SB, DM, Samyama and YMK in the order I have mentioned here.

Is that order correct?
or should I do YMK right after SB?

Yes, YMK is between SB and DM.
 

quote:
http://www.aypsite.com/plus/91.html
Starting out, we will do only three of these yoni mudra kumbhakas
between pranayama and meditation. So it is only a few minutes we are
adding in the middle our practice of pranayama and meditation.

[tadeas]

By the way, lesson 209 leaves out cosmic samyama in the list. I think it is not mentioned anywhere except the 8 limbs book that cosmic samyama is done right before rest, even after targeted bastrika and kumbhakas.

So the answer to my original question is that yoni mudra is done after samyama and before cosmic samyama and rest.

[x.j.]

There may be something that escapes me here, but to say that a person needs to adhere to some exact sequence of yoga practices seems compulsive and arbitrary. It seems dogmatic and counter intuitive.
Maybe for a beginner there may be some justification to adhere to a fixed sequence. But I would suggest that a person just try experimenting and see what is true and what is not based on their own observations. I am aware of Yogani's recommendations on this, but speaking for myself, I just simply doubt that any fixed sequence is necessary in this spiritual practice, except for us to stay centered at the heart in word and deed. And to be quiet and know that divinity resides within you and everything else in creation equally. Sorry to take a divergent view on this, which may be infuriating to some, but on the other hand, that provides a little diversity here.

[tadeas]

X.J.: I think the thing offered here is a tested approach that works. A set of causes which create documented effects. What more is there to say? If you want to use it, use it. If you don't, don't. If you want to dabble, dabble, just be aware that creating different causes creates different effects.

I don't know if it matters much whether the yoni mudra and targeted bastrika are done before cosmic samyama or after it. However, the structure of practices is otherwise pretty obvious I think. Pranayama before meditation is because we want to get inside and loosen it all up a bit. Then we go inside. Then we continue to samyama to take the inner silence out everywhere and infuse it into everything. Maybe the second round of energy cultivation would work as well just before the rest and after cosmic samyama, I don't know. But overall with such a big routine of practices, I guess it's not critical.

Overall I'd say it's more important to offer a simple and clear, yet complex system of practice. I don't think it's effective if people just play with different practices without knowing the underlying (universal) structure of spiritual transformation. That's what AYP investigates and with regard to that are the practices optimized.

Everyone's different in this, but in the beginning I just wanted to learn how to meditate and I wanted some clear, simple instructions. There is so much information available on the internet that to try to figure it all out (the practices) just from experience would take way too long. A thing like AYP is a treasure in the heaps of all the spiritual material.

[Shanti]

Hi x.j.
You have to keep in mind, many who visit us here are starting off, and in the beginning a structured practice is required to get the best out of the few mins of spiritual practice one puts into their day. Once you have been practicing for a while and have purified and opened up from within and are capable of following your intuition, you can judge what is required and what is not. You could change things around to what you think you need and works best for you at that point... follow your inner guru.. but at first you need a structured practice to get access to your inner guru.

Like Yogani says in his book Eight Limbs of Yoga:
 

quote:That is the objective of the AYP writings – to
provide the essential means to stimulate the nervous
system to purify and open itself, which it is very
inclined to do when given the opportunity. Once the
ball gets rolling, many aspects of our natural
inclination toward human spiritual transformation
will kick in. The goal here is to assist everyone to
become self-sufficient in yoga like that.

[Christi]

Hi Tadeas,

 

quote:Hi, when starting the chin pump, should yoni mudra kumbhaka be moved to right before our rest? Should it be done even after samyama and cosmic samyama?
Just wasn't 100 percent clear on that
Thx.

I always thought that YMK was moved to after samyama when adding chin pump, to avoid having two very powerful practices right next to each other early on in the process.

I think cosmic samyama is not added to the practice until there is some degree of stability when attention is put on the open crown chakra, in which case before you add cosmic samyama you would have already met the requirements of lesson 199 and be doing root to crown spinal bastrika.

So by the time you add cosmic samyama you would already be doing asanas, SBP, CP, SB, DM, Samyama, YMK and crown bastrika, so cosmic samyama would be added in right after all those and before rest.

Does that clarify anything?


Christi

[tadeas]

Hi Christi,

I don't have any more questions now. You have it right except that the only requirement for cosmic samyama (per the Samyama book) is to be stable in the standard samyama routine. In any case, I've been doing cosmic samyama for maybe 10 months, without any direct work on the crown. It works. There is some crown activity for sure and cosmic samyama enhances the unity and merging which occurs when the crown opens. It's beautiful, but already on the verge of being too stimulating

[Christi]

Hi Tadeas,

 

quote:You have it right except that the only requirement for cosmic samyama (per the Samyama book) is to be stable in the standard samyama routine.

Well , take a look at this paragraph from page 61 of the samyama book:
“We may find that cosmic samyama, itself, offers additional balance, reducing energy imbalances within the body related to overdoing in other yoga practices. Cosmic samyama expands and balances the flow of our energies between inner and outer expression, reducing the congestion that can occur within the nervous system. This balancing effect is delicate, and depends largely on the degree of purification having been previously achieved at the crown with our other practices. This is why it is preferable to have a stable routine of sitting practices well established prior to undertaking cosmic samyama. From there, we can proceed with our expanded opening, reaching far within and beyond the physical body. Then we may find that cosmic samyama serves as a stabilizing factor for everything else that is going on inside us.”

So it is pretty vague. Yogani only says that it is preferable to have a stable rotuine of sitting practices already in place, not essential which is surprising. He also says that the balancing effect will depend on the level of purification already present at the crown. He doesn't say anything in the samyama book about how to go about measuring the level of purification present. So someone who buys only that book and follows it through including cosmic samyama could be in for a bumpy ride.

I was already doing crown practices when I first tried cosmic samyama, but found it to be too powerful a practice to take on board and had to cut back. Cosmic samyama involves putting our attention directly at the crown chakra, so personally I would not recommend adding it before following the lesson 199 process, and adding root to crown bastrika first. If the crown is not already stable, and we add cosmic samyama too soon, everything could go pear shaped. In fact cosmic samyama does not just involve the crown, but energy centres higher than the crown which relate to more expanded aspects of our being.

I would regard this as the safer route, and I would be interested to know what Yogani thinks if he is reading along.

Good luck

Christi

[yogani]

Hi Christi and All:

Cosmic samyama is a practice that is less likely to produce an overload by itself than to contribute to one if purification associated with ecstatic conductivity (kundalini) is accelerating, with self-pacing being ignored. Of course, the crown is central in this, as you point out, and your suggestions are well-informed by experience.

This varied effect, depending on the degree of energy awakening, is why the guidelines on when to undertake cosmic samyama are flexible, depending more on the individual than on a fixed order of learning. Cosmic samyama can, in fact, be taken on fairly early with little risk of mishap, after deep meditation and core samyama are in place and stable. It is an alternate learning track in the AYP system that is alluded to in the Eight Limbs of Yoga book.    

Keep in mind that the marketplace is flooded with "guided yoga nidra" CDs and approaches, using attention points, that nearly anyone can indulge in with little risk of overdoing. That's because, for the most part, they do not optimize the samyama effect the way we do with cosmic samyama, and most people are not in a situation of rapid energetic awakening, yet.

AYP cosmic samyama is a different situation, especially when prudently integrated into a daily routine covering cultivation of both inner silence and ecstatic conductivity, and self-paced accordingly. This is how it is presented in the Samyama book. Then this form of samyama becomes truly cosmic.

The guru is in you.

[yogani]

PS: Tadeas, with chin cump in the picture between spinal breathing and deep meditation, Yoni mudra kumbhaka can be undertaken between core samyama and cosmic samyama. You have that right.

The exact placements of spinal bastrika, chin pump and yoni mudra kumbhaka in the routine are not critical. They are spread out for comfort. In fact, in the Eight Limbs of Yoga book the placement of spinal bastrika before spinal breathing is offered as an option.

It a balancing of methods and personal inclinations. That's why the Eight Limbs of Yoga book has the subtitle, "The Structure and Pacing of Self-Directed Spiritual Practice."

All of these elements are integrated together, with self-pacing being the vital link between structure and practice.

The guru is in you.