Hi Andrew:
Glad to hear you are feeling better. Make sure to give yourself some "headroom" going forward, meaning, room to go over a bit without going over so much that it will require a long recovery. Of course, sometimes it is hard to tell. But going to the crown for extended periods poses obvious risks under any circumstances.
A good and generally safe place to go during ecstatic reverie is
sambhavi - to the brow. Once ecstatic conductivity is resident, it is also a good place to stimulate it in the whole body. This is the "mainstream" approach on the energetic side of yoga. Isn't it interesting that there is no mainstream mudra identified for the crown? ... though the crown is obviously involved in any ecstatic event. This is also true for what we call the "
whole body mudra" in AYP, which is not crown focused, but involves the crown.
With long term practice, sambhavi tends to expand upward toward the crown, where both ajna and crown are involved, a kind of merging. But this is not something we can advise to do arbitrarily. If we do, we face the same risks of going directly to the crown. However, when it evolves naturally, there is generally little or no crown backlash. In short, sambhavi, besides being the master controller of ecstatic reverie in the nervous system, is also a means for naturally approaching the crown.
Of course, we can overdo with sambhavi also (headache is the most common symptom), but generally the recovery is much quicker than overdoing at the crown. In both cases,
grounding methods and
self-pacing in practices are utilized.
As we know, quite a few people who come to us with energy overloads have been involved in crown practices and/or premature crown openings. So it is a real issue. But not one to demonize and run away from. There is a time and place for everything in yoga, and that is certainly true of crown openings too. That is why the lessons do approach the crown later on, with caution. The crown is also incorporated into cosmic samyama (yoga nidra procedure), stimulating the flow of awareness both within and outside the body. I'm not aware of anyone having overload issues with cosmic samyama. It generally has a balancing effect on the energies, while expanding and stabilizing inner silence.
There are those who claim easy crown opening with certain types of practices, particularly spinal breathing to or from the crown -- not an AYP method. I am not sure if this is true over the long term, since we have seen a significant number of energy overload refugees from such approaches. Any clarifications that can be offered on these approaches will be welcome. If we are missing something, it would be good to pin point the dynamics involved. We are not resting on our laurels here, and are always looking for ways to further optimize cause and effect in our practices. The more everyone knows about the journey and its means, the better. Much better we face the issues as they arise and resolve them.
Our goal is to make the full path easily accessible for everyone, leading to the flowering of acts of kindness and loving service, spreading naturally across humanity like an invisible wave. Stillness in action. This will be the outcome of effective spiritual practices occurring in every household.
The message is simple: Enlightenment is for ordinary people living ordinary lives. We are getting our arms around the technology that can enable it to happen surely and safely on a wide scale. This is what will change the world. Not gurus sitting on pedestals.
The guru is in you.