A new understanding of Yoga

[ycloutier2000]

I was reading Spinal Breathing yesterday and suddenly had a visualization of the process of Yoga, and what the state we refer to as Yoga might be.  I wish I could draw you a pic but I'll try to descibe it in words.
 
Lets think of ourselves as having a tube that runs vertically through our body.  Essentially that's what we are -physically -when you think about it.  Now there is also an energetic counter part to that which connect the root to the crown which AYP refers to as "spinal nerve".
 
For most of us the energetic tube does not allow for free flow of energy through it.  The aim of AYP is to systematically dissolve these blockages which prevent the free flow of enery through it.  So, slowly, as these dissolutions occur, the energy is able to move higher and higher.  As it does, it stimulates different energetic centers.  The stimulation of these centers as the energy passes through them, can manifest different ways as it corresponds to each center.  For example, like many of us have experienced, as it moves up from the root upwards, one might feel slight sexual arousal.  Perhaps, we experience "visions" or "flashes" as it travels up the higher centers in the head area. But these manifestations are only temporary, and last only as long as the energy is not able to move higher up.
 
This is where I had an epiphony.  Lets think of the spinal nerve as an electrical switch which is part of a larger, universal, electrical circuit.  Once the "energetic tube" aka spinal nerve is free of obstruction, energy is able to flow freely through it.  Lets suppose that the flow of this energy is coming in through the root, flowing up and out through the crown and back out into the universe, to be sucked back in through the root, through the crown and back out into the universe all in one continuous, uninterrupted flow.  The universal energy flows in through us, then back into itself.  We become part of this universal energetic circuit.  This is the state called Yoga.  Union.  One.  One universal energetic circuit.  Not seperate from us, but part of us, and us of it.  Merged.  
 
Only once the universal energy is able to flow freely though us have we reached the state of Yoga.  Prana is everywhere, but we just take in a minute amounts.  Once the "tube" is cleared, it's like turning on the prana tap full blast.
 
Trust me, it makes alot more sense with the pictures:)  

I also am thinking that the reason why we should not get caught up in the sensations, visions, thoughts that are manifested is that by doing so, we hinder the upward movement of this energy.  If we focus our attention on them, then instead of continuing to move up, it gets diverted and stagnates at that particular area where we are focusing our attention.  For example, if we focus our attention on the "sexual" arousal, then by doing so we aer in fact keeping the energy in that chakra, thus feeding further manifestations in that center.  

So, by simply coming back to the practice, we liberate it and allow it to continue its upward movement and allow the process to happen.  

I visualise this very nicely, I wish I had the skills to make a Flash animation to share what I am seeing with all of you.

[alan]

Nice picture, thank you[]You made the image very clear.

The only thihg I would add in "my" picture is once the way is clear of all obstructions the flow not only going in one direction, root to crown, but being actually all pervading as flow in all directions--no directions.....movement--no movement.

[NagoyaSea]

Thank you for this post. Good thoughts and well said.

light and love,
Kathy

[alan]

My apologies for adding on to you beautiful picture[] I can feel the yoga as you describe it so nicely.

I was inspired by your image and took off in another direction of my own thoughts.

Peace, alan

[Jim and His Karma]

That's good stuff. A tad overcomplicated, but you'll surely refine it over time.

We're in the universe. We're of the universe. There is no within and without, there's just our mistaken notion of separateness. We're already completely merged and at union (though, in literally cosmic irony, we simply fail to notice). A fetus is nourished and sheltered by its mother even if it's convinced itself of its own independence. If it persists in this delusion long enough, it will convince itself it lacks connection and nourishment. It will search and pine and suffer...all the while intrinsically nourished and connected.

Yoga practices are skillful means - mechanisms to clear our vision enough that we start to notice that our view of things is mistaken, and that vast amounts of suffering have stemmed from a ludicrously simple error. This realization feels like a process of merging (much as accelerating a car seems to make the world speed up outside), but we've never been anything but merged. Only our perspective changes.

As the perspective changes, we also feel energy "changes". But that's just perspective, too. The energy is the energy of What Is, which we've been recoiling from all along (more than recoiling...we've been piling up furniture and sandbags against that door all our lives*), much as the miserable fetus recoils from the fallopian tube. When he decides to "accept" the nourishment, all of a sudden, he notices a flow there....as if something's changed!



*As part of its "skillful means", yoga removes those sandbags one by one. The result draws us home to reality.

[Manipura]

Dear Y - I found your picture very simple and uncomplicated and beautiful.  Thanks.  It's interesting to me that the energy will sometimes move upward to dissolve blocks in the 'upper' chakras, while bypassing the 'lower' blocks.  I have yet to experience the symptoms of purification 'down there', but have had a considerable amount of activity at the heart and up.  Go figger.  There must be some intelligence in the energy which determines what needs cleaning out first.  Or maybe a vacuum at a particular chakra which draws the energy to it.  

What I find very cool is that in your diagram, there is so inside and outside.  If the energy is constantly flowing in an upward and outward direction, the inside is continuously becoming the outside, which is becoming the inside, etc.  Truly there is no within and without.  The image of a fountain comes to mind - the water moves up, out, down, then back up.  But it's all the same water.  

Thanks again Y - that was helpful.  

[Jim and His Karma]

Argh, I meant "umbilical cord", not  "fallopian tube".

[alan]

I mean no disrespect Jim, but that's some funny stuff![]

[Jim and His Karma]

Glad my hapless verbal slapstick has proved amusing to you.

[Manipura]

quote:Originally posted by Jim and His Karma

Argh, I meant "umbilical cord", not  "fallopian tube".

Well now, that certainly clears everything right up!