Dear Parvati - Very best wishes on your journey if you do do it, and I'm glad the TPP meditation works for you. I find it extremely useful at times. I'm very pleased that you were inspired and that also you found the course useful.
AK33 - I would not be too concerned with whether or not you can go back to AYP. By all means try. I have certainly tried, tried and tried again :-) But whatever is happening in your practices, whilst it may not align with your personal will, it is most certainly the will of That, the Self, of God, or whatever conceptual label you may prefer to use for The One, which encompasses, and is all. There is only one prayer we really need: Thy (not my) Will Be Done. Overload is often a sign of a ripe and sensitive nervous system, and an indicator to back-off on practices. Everything happens in its right time.
Don't identify with the impulse, which comes from the ego, which is this desperate tendency to drive oneself too hard, with the belief that "If I only practice right/hard enough, I'll get there". This belief needs to be questioned. One of the best pre-requisites for Self-Realization is a highly open, alert, clear, dynamic, flexible and curious mind that will question everything (including whether or not practices are really being helpful at this point). This mind and questioning process must be Sattvic (grounded in peace and silence, having a soft/gentle/harmonious approach to inquiry) as result of having undergone considerable purification through methods like AYP, The Presence Process, and right diet (I find abstaining from intoxicants, having a lot of raw foods and green juices and leaning towards being Vegan/Vegetarian immensely helpful).
If having taken some "time off" from spiritual practices, allowing the overload to calm down, yet you find you are still unable to go back, it's just a sign that more subtle tools are required for your nervous system. This is a theme frequently encountered by practitioners here, it seems. For example, in Carson's recent post in the Jnana/Advaita section, he refers to the fact that he is unable to do anything other than simply sitting in silence.
This is much the case with me also. But far from being an obstacle, it's a blessing. Our intense bhakti & practices have ripened the nervous system, and the energy has built up to the level where we are quite literally FORCED INTO SURRENDER. I discovered this yesterday.
I was overloading even from just spending a few minutes sitting in silence. Or even listening to an MP3 of Adyashanti talking would send me into overload. I just could not do anything spiritual at all. I went into a beautiful huge Cathedral/Church on the lower east side, and kneeling at the bench, I just surrendered. The personal will was desperately trying to regain previously experienced freedom of residing as the Self. The personal will was incapable of achieving this. Frustrated to point of absolute Surrender, I just offered up the personal will saying "Father, THY, not MY, will be done."
This morning when I awoke, identification had just gone altogether, and once again realized my true nature as the empty, formless, blissful, awareness within which all forms arise and disappear. All sense of the body-mind being "me" was gone. Total freedom from suffering, freedom from identification.
The ego does its bit. It longs intensely for its own dissolution into the Self, and it practices intensely to achieve its purpose. But the ego or practices don't actually take one to enlightenment. Practices help ripen the nervous system to receive grace and the ego actually gets forced into surrender by the very frustration of its desire for the Self. So don't regard overload symptoms as a problem, they are a sign that you've done all you can as an ego, and you need to hand over the reigns to grace.
