My ever diminishing practice routine

[Anthem]

I decided to share some experiences/ challenges I have been having with my sitting practice routine over the last while as others may find it useful and have perhaps expereinced similar things and it will also be interesting to see where it leads and how it resolves itself.

Since December 2005, after reading the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, I have been experiencing an ever diminishing AYP sitting practice routine.

I used to do 10 minutes of Pranayama, 3-5 minutes of Dynamic Jalandra, 3-5 minutes of Bastrika, 20 minutes of Meditation, 10 minutes of Samyama and 3 to 5 minutes of Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka and occasionally a couple of minutes of targeted bastrika. So 50 to 57 minute sessions twice a day and I often did some yoga postures beforehand. This was pretty much my routine for most of my first year of AYP and although I did have many occasions where I went over and needed to self-pace (I used to like to experiment[)] sometimes it lead to[B)]ouch), overall, it was a fairly stable routine.

For whatever reason, reading the Power of Now seemed to give me a big acceleration in awareness as do many of the spiritually oriented books I have been reading. I mention the Power of Now specifically because it marked the first time that the resulting jump in awareness seemed to affect my capacity in sitting practices. After reading it, I found myself being much more present throughout my day as I am sure others have experienced from reading similar types of books. It could simply be a coincidence, but I immediately had to reduce my meditation time down to 15 minutes and my samyama down to 5 minutes after reading it or else I found myself on the “over” side of the practice equation. I have noticed on occasion since this time, that when I spend more time being in the here and now and very present outside of sitting practices, it seems to have an accumulative affect on practices and on the energy side of the equation.

So over the last year, my sitting practice routine has had to keep creeping towards shorter and shorter times in all aspects of practices. I currently do 4 minutes of pranayama, 90 seconds of Dynamic Jalandra, 10 minutes of meditation, 5 minutes of Samyama and 1 minutes of Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka, for a grand total of 21 minutes or so of practice twice a day.

I had the week off of work last week, so I got the bright idea Monday, since I was able to escape from the world a little bit, to go into “retreat mode” and do an extra practice session mid-day, to push the tantric envelope somewhat etc. (where's that smiley for stupid???). Well I made it as far as day 1 only to find myself well “over” by Tuesday. Since then I have been in self-pacing mode, and cursing/ laughing at my slow pattern recognition that it’s just NOT WORTH IT TO GO OVER!!! I think I will tattoo this to my fore-head so I remember! Lol![:I]

So it has never taken me 5 full days (and counting) to rebalance out the energy etc. before, it usually only takes me a day or 2, but as I sit here and type, I am enjoying (yes slight sarcasm) an inner sunburn of surprising intensity and some lovely emotional instability and over-sensitivity, not to mention the awakening of some formerly dormant thought patterns. Ahh the price of going over, how could I ever think it’s worth it? Fortunately, the inner silence is making it so that only I am experiencing the discomfort and those around me are mostly spared! (Except bad drivers, they drive me nutty and I have been cursing them more than usual![)])

Current plan of action to get myself back onto the right side of the practice equation, as I am getting a little more desperate now since it’s been a while and have to go back to work, is to cut times down again tomorrow. Failing this doing the job, I have two more drastic measures in mind, the first more enjoyable in that I will engage in conventional sex to hopefully deplete the excess energy. Plan b, though less desirable for me, would be skipping a day of practice but I’d rather not do this since I haven’t missed one sitting practice in over 2 years and don’t want to end a good streak!

I am curious about the following things, will my body ever catch up and adapt to the ever increasing levels of energy? Will I ever be able to meditate for longer, I would love to be able to go for longer, I miss this area of practices the most. I also decided that instead of resisting the burning and discomfort which I have come to realize I have been doing for the last week, that I would jump in and let it run it’s course, I am slightly concerned that embracing the energy will increase it, we’ll see.

Any ideas welcome.

A

[Lili]

Hi Anthem!

Sounds like you are making a great progress or something.

Now your strategy is to scale back practice time while keeping all the practices that you do. Another option you might think about is dropping some of the stimulative practices like Jalandara and Yoni and increase back your meditation time to 15-20 min/session.

I was left with the impression that meditation is first priority you know so maybe it is not worth to reduce it to 10 min/day while keeping others that are not first priority. But I guess you will get more meaningful feedback from the more spirituatl folks here.

The more sex idea sounds good also. What a great excuse to get more sex for those who need an excuse -- just kidding

[Hunter]

Hi Anthem,
          Looks like you already have a great plan for what you need to do, so I don't have any ideas to share, all I will do is sit back and cheer for you!


My currents, to share with you:

Since September of 2006 I have been practicing 5 minutes of spinal breathing and 10 minutes of deep meditation (without all the bells and whistles ), twice daily. That's it, and I am really easy with the practice as well, I don't try at all to practice it "correctly". I looooooove it! Everything has really smoothed out for me and I feel so grounded, content, happy in my daily living experience, as well as improving all my personal relationships.

Interesting observation: I reduced the time of my meditation practice, as did I strip it of all the "extras", for the purpose of slowing everything down and making the practice a very small part of my life, but I am finding that less is more. I can feel that this little 15 minutes of practice is really powerful and it will take some time before I will ever be able increase the time or add any extras to my practice.
I have found my groove in this self-pacing practice and I am groovin' and dancing all the live long day...

Now I live by a saying of my great grandfather: Kukefed Nayir!(I am not sure of the spelling in Roman characters) It means: Look after your own good times! Make your own fun! Laugh and dance everyday!

[Balance]

Hi Anthem. Glad you are having good progress.
I often have to chime in when I see similarities to my experience. My practice with any kind of meditation or pranayama is only a couple of years along and has never been a long sitting practice. I know what it feels like to overdo. Ouch! The interesting parallel I find here is the increase in awareness that began about a year ago when I read Tolle's "The Power of Now". The difference I find in comparison to you is that I don't really miss trying to do longer sitting practices, and since I never did sit for very long I find it hard spending a lot of time at it. Even though I go deep quickly and have wonderful results I still have to make myself go and sit. I have a hard time with the distraction game, there's always something else to do first. I'm not sure what that's all about.
Lately I have been eating up Ruiz's books. My self-enquiry type of practice is mostly gleaned from teachers such as Tolle and Ruiz.
Thanks for sharing[]
Alan

[NagoyaSea]

Anthem, it sounds as if you are on a wonderful journey. I guess we each have to define our own best practice, as others have said above. My tendency when having over-done is to scale back to just meditation (always my core practice), and add back pranayama and samyama....  Personally I always try for the twenty minutes of meditation, just because that seems to work best for me.

I'm looking forward to reading Tolle's book 'The Power of Now'. I can tell you his other book "A New Earth--Awakening to Your Life's Purpose' is also good.

light and love,
Kathy

[Anthem]

Thanks to everyone for the helpful replies![]

Lili and all, great advice to scale back the extras. I have for the most part, but I have kept Jalandra and Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka because when I have dropped them in the past, I get headaches. Strange yes, but it coincides with what Yogani once mentioned that lack of energy flow to the head can lead to these types of symptoms.

Keeping with everyone's advice though, I am going to try to cut out Jalandra for a while just keeping YMK and see if this is sufficient to cut down the excesses while maintaining enough energy flow in the head.

Hunter sounds like you have found a nice balance in your routine, your clarity and inner contentment really comes across in your posts. Your great grandfather’s quote is an excellent reminder, thanks for that.

Hi Alan, I really like Ruiz's work too as you know. If you haven't read it already, Byron Katie's "Loving What Is" is the best book for direct Self-Enquiry that I have read. Good point about accepting the positives of my current routine, will keep this in mind.

Hi Kathy, thanks for the feedback, will try to streamline as mentioned above, I have read "A New Earth" as well, really enjoyed it too. It didn't have as much of an impact as "Power of Now" did for me, but I think this is mainly due to the order in which I read them, having read PofN first.

Just to follow up, I cut down again today and have been changing my thoughts to the artic and icebergs (not hard for a Canadian[]) every time I catch myself thinking of the burning nadis. I seem to be making progress as the inner ringing and inner sunburn seem to be calming down a little.

I am curious if taking a day off would help my body catch up, anyone try this when needing to self-pace?

A

[Katrine]

Hi Andrew

Thanks for sharing.....it is much appreciated.


 

quote:I am curious if taking a day off would help my body catch up, anyone try this when needing to self-pace?

Yes.
Especially over the past year. See....the thing is; eventually...it catches up with you. The purification. I may harbour the illusion that i can control it......but I can't. That's why profylaxis is so important. It is much easier to avoid problems than it is to recover from them. IOW: Don't overdo. As you have found out; there is no "progress" in that.

I have payed the prize for overdoing many times. I am a thickheaded, obtuse viking .
The two things that set me me off the most are:
Meditation,  and reading....words from those who sees.

I can tell you - when I read Tolle "The power of Now" (and this was years before the ecstacy....it's about 10 years ago, some time after the cancer)  - I suffered from extreme thirst (I drank gallons of water) for three days. No burning.....just this extreme thirst.....toungue sticking to my palate. My patients laughed at me....joking that I had developped diabetes. And all the time I was in love. I was extremely happy. Not knowing what I was in love with......just in love. Finally seeing - without a shred of doubt - that I was more than a bag of bones. That all carry the same love. Available here. Now.

Since then, the thirst happened every time there were insights...understandings....as to how I had separated myself from myself. These...understandings...were immediately transferred to my students and patients. I didn't intend for it to happen......but they did. I would find myself saying things...knowing things....that i had no idea where came from. This way.....there was some sort of balance. I didn't accumulate the insights.....

However - when the ecstacy started roaming - it would take close to nothing (one line in a poem would be enough.....a slight contemplation on "space".......anything really) to find myself close to "evacuation" (being sucked out through the crown). It scared me enough to self pace accordingly. Also - I got eczema behind my ears and on the eyelids. (This went away early this winter.....overnight. Once it was there - then it was gone. It never came back)

So.
I have tried reducing the meditation time.....it didn't work once the damage was done. It works wonderfully to prevent going over the edge. The signals are there....before it happens. In my case, it is accumulated energy in the head....coupled with constant...almost unbareable ecstacy. Like having a thousand all-over-the-body-orgasms every day. (Yeah....nice though it sounds....it is too much ). I would wake up.....in the morning....as if I was in the middle of meditation.....the spinal channel in my head feeling as if the sun had shone on it (dry and feverly throbbing) all night.

In my case what works  - when the damage is done - is:

1)Walking in nature. Walking, walking, walking. It is very grounding.

2)Not meditating for a few days. That will lower the intensity of the ecstacy (which - when "over the edge" is coupled with a raw....ruthless power....as from a not-hot-generator) to a bareable level. The love in my heart is always here anyway - I cannot not remember the love. That's what I mean when I say it catches up with you. After the meditation break (usually 2-5 days) I start it up again with simply sitting still... doing nothing. Eyes open. Looking at nothing, i simply rest. I pay no attention to thoughts. Everything is allowed, but not hooked onto. No mantra. No nothing.

The ecstacy is always here (day and night) - but the quality of it varies. If I am stable (established in myself) - it is .....simply just lovely (I don't have any words for it). I can then be with it...and not being close to leaving the body. If I am unstable....it is raging like a great not-hot fire......I keep falling into it.....eyes closing by themselves.......Every time I sit down somewhere...I drown in it.

3)Interact socially in any way possible. Engage in practical work. It helps me forget myself.......it takes me out of my head.

I have also tried to not meditate for longer periods of time. It doesn't work. Somehow the short breaks work....while the longer ones...makes me ..muddled. I lose clarity....I lose connection with myself. It makes me feel like a paper doll. Brittle, flat. Depth-less.

Anthem......I am sorry; but sex never worked as a self-pacer for me. On the contrary - it increased the ecstacy.....while at the same time...sort of pulled me down emotionally. It pulled the energy down into the lower chakras.....forcibly. In the long run....how can that work? Maybe it is different for women....I don't know. Sex.....used this way.....it didn't work for me.



All the best, Andrew!

[Sparkle]

Hi Andrew
Thanks for the sharing. I don't have those high energy/sunburn problems thankfully.
I was curious though about what you said about living in the now:
 

quote:I have noticed on occasion since this time, that when I spend more time being in the here and now and very present outside of sitting practices, it seems to have an accumulative affect on practices and on the energy side of the equation.

My experience is the opposite as a rule but there are times when it is excessive and leads to overdoing.

In my practices of mindfulness I narrowed it down to three types of mindfulness.
1. What I term identification mindfulness - which is looking at a tree and just seeing a tree, identifying it, and that's all.
When drinking a cup of tea, feel the cup, see it, feel the tea in the mouth - but all done with identification.

2. The second could be termed interconnected mindfulness, where one looks at say a leaf, sees the leaf, sees the water, the earth, the plant from which it came, the farmer who ploughed the field and did the planting, etc, etc. untill one see the whole universe in the leaf. This is all intellectual.

3. This can lead to the third one where one starts to merge with what one sees, become one with them.
This is the problem one for me. If I engage in this too much I definately need to self pace.

In particular the first I find very grounding and dissipates the energy very well.
I just thought you might be engaging in the third option and that it could be the problem. Would be interested to here your perspective.

Louis

[Hunter]

Great post, Katrine, it was very enjoyable and informative to read what you wrote.

[Anthem]

Hi Katrine,

Thank you for the very helpful post, I have decided to take a day or 2 off, I am feeling a little saturated and my gut instinct says this is what I need. It does give me a little hesitation since I haven’t missed a practice in so long, but I’m going to live it up, crack open a bottle of wine and have a good time![]

I recognize what you say about the love, it is always there and easy to express. The 1000 orgasms a day experience sounds like a hardship I might want to endure,[] I have to admit, I would probably  settle for a  measly 500 though…[)].

For a man it may be different, but I generally do experience an energy decrease from non-tantric sex. Ironically, for some unexplainable reason there can be an increase the day of for me but usually by the day after I notice the energy decrease which takes typically 2 to 4 days to ramp back up to full. I have to admit that this dynamic seems to be ever changing in me but this has been the way it has been until recently at least.


Hi Louis,

For me living in the here and now is more like what you describe in number 1. It is being very present in the moment, bringing my whole self into what is going on or staying with what I am doing right now. It is also living in the silence of mind and not engaging in any thought trips. I usually don’t notice any energy surge from this unless I am lying or sitting very still at the same time. If and when I notice my mind stray, I come back to making the here and now where I want to be.

So although I don't notice any energy surges from this, I do seem to be aware of an accumulative effect, where I feel a little more exposed to the energy of the universe as a whole, which I tend to observe and experience as increased energy levels during practices and overall throughout my day.

The further I travel down the spiritual path, the more I find it easier to be present more often. I also find that it is the only place I want to be, far more interesting to me than the endlessly hypothesizing thoughts of the mind.

Hope this helps clarify[],

A

[Anthem]

Just a follow up if anyone finds themselves in a similar situation as the one I described above.

I ended up taking a day and a half off of practices. This may not seem like much but although I was intending to take two full days, the call to meditate was so strong the evening of the second day, that I decided not to resist![:p]

Things settled down during the time away and when I came back to it, I started again with 4 minutes of pranayama, 1 minute or so of YMK, 8 minutes of meditation with approximately 6 minutes or so of samyama.

Seems to be working pretty well so far, ecstasy levels and good feelings outside of practices seem to be higher, time will tell....

I plan to add back 1 minute of meditation per week if things remain stable.

all the best,

A

[Nirodha]

quote:Originally posted by Anthem11


I used to do 10 minutes of Pranayama, 3-5 minutes of Dynamic Jalandra, 3-5 minutes of Bastrika, 20 minutes of Meditation, 10 minutes of Samyama and 3 to 5 minutes of Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka and occasionally a couple of minutes of targeted bastrika. So 50 to 57 minute sessions twice a day and I often did some yoga postures beforehand. This was pretty much my routine for most of my first year of AYP and although I did have many occasions where I went over and needed to self-pace (I used to like to experiment[)] sometimes it lead to[B)]ouch), overall, it was a fairly stable routine.


Any ideas welcome.

A

Hi Anthem11,

No offense is intended by my reply; however, it sounds like you're doing too much and stressing yourself.

It's fairly common for someone new to contemplative practices to want to do them all, before they settle on just 'what works' and discard what's unnecessary. I went through this as well - if one could examine my old routine, one would probably think I was attempting to be 'Super Yogi' or something.

I'll tell you of my current routine, which I've settled into over the last several years, and, perhaps, you could adopt yours accordingly, if you find it useful: I just meditate, sensitive to joy and pleasure (i.e. Samadhi), 3 times per day - once upon awakening, once at midday and once just prior to bed - for an average of 45 - 60 minutes each session. Also, I'll occasionally recite an inspirational sutra of some sort prior to meditation, but not always. Between meditation sessions, I just try to maintain relaxed awareness at all times, and I'll release all tension if and when I notice it.

I've found the above routines works out quite well for me, and I don't have problems being committed to it, nor do I stress my body and mind by adhering to it.

I hope this helps.

May you all be happy and achieve the highest bliss,
Nirodha

[Christi]

Hi Nirodha,
 

quote:It's fairly common for someone new to contemplative practices to want to do them all, before they settle on just 'what works' and discard what's unnecessary. I went through this as well - if one could examine my old routine, one would probably think I was attempting to be 'Super Yogi' or something.

If you don't mind me asking, what was your old routine?

Christi

[Nirodha]

quote:Originally posted by Christi

Hi Nirodha,
 

quote:It's fairly common for someone new to contemplative practices to want to do them all, before they settle on just 'what works' and discard what's unnecessary. I went through this as well - if one could examine my old routine, one would probably think I was attempting to be 'Super Yogi' or something.

If you don't mind me asking, what was your old routine?

Christi

Hi Christi,

No, I don't mind you asking at all. However, I come from a Buddhist background, so my old routine reflects that.

In brief, I use to do an extended puja (ritaulized devotional practice): with offerings of light, water, flowers and incense, extended sutra recitations, protective meditations - reflections on death, the Buddha's virtues, loving kindness and the law of karma - and two or three other things I can't even remember now. It would usually take about 30 minutes to get through that all, even before I started a formal meditation session.

I'm not saying that it all wasn't valuable, at the time. But, I did progress to a point where it's no longer necessary for me.

May you all be happy and acheive the highest bliss,
Nirodha

[Anthem]

quote:Hi Anthem11,

No offense is intended by my reply; however, it sounds like you're doing too much and stressing yourself.

Hi Nirodha,

Thank you for your feedback, no offense taken[], I agree that what I was doing in the past did definitely become too much, however for a period of around a year it was a good and stable routine for me. It has been my experience that our tolerances and capacities for practices are an ever changing dynamic that we need to be sensitive and adaptive towards, but this could also just be my experience as a result of always pushing the practice envelope.
 

quote:
It's fairly common for someone new to contemplative practices to want to do them all, before they settle on just 'what works' and discard what's unnecessary. I went through this as well - if one could examine my old routine, one would probably think I was attempting to be 'Super Yogi' or something.

Unfortunately, I can't use this as an excuse, as I started meditating along time ago, but AYP might just be the crack-cocaine of practices and maybe I got addicted to all the good feelings from all the powerful practices outlined in the lessons?
 

quote:I'll tell you of my current routine, which I've settled into over the last several years, and, perhaps, you could adopt yours accordingly, if you find it useful: I just meditate, sensitive to joy and pleasure (i.e. Samadhi), 3 times per day - once upon awakening, once at midday and once just prior to bed - for an average of 45 - 60 minutes each session. Also, I'll occasionally recite an inspirational sutra of some sort prior to meditation, but not always. Between meditation sessions, I just try to maintain relaxed awareness at all times, and I'll release all tension if and when I notice it.

Thanks for sharing your routine, it is actually quite a bit more than what I was doing prior to having to cut back, so would find myself on the "over" side of the equation pretty quickly.

 It has been my experience that mantra meditation is pretty powerful stuff. I used to be able to meditate without consequence for far longer when doing contemplative type meditations in the past, but with mantra meditation, I have to measure my sessions very closely in order to not experience the consequences of doing too much. One variable however is that I began AYP practices at virtually the same time that the inner energies first became active for me, so I am not sure if I had continued the former style of meditation I used to do, if I would have found myself suffering the consequences of  doing too much as easily as I do now.
 
 

quote:
I hope this helps.

May you all be happy and achieve the highest bliss,
Nirodha

Thank you for your post and all the best to you too![]

A