beginning daily sadhana, crown chakra and shakti

[stillness]

Hello,

First I just wanted to say that I am happy to be participating in this forum. A community of yogis, so cool. I was very hesitant to join as I have had bad experiences with forums in the past. But I am happy to say that I am not afraid to post here as you are all so kind, loving and understanding. The energy is really great. So thank you!

I would like to talk a little bit about my experiences in the past few days and self pacing. Sorry if this post turns out a bit long, as I might cover a bit of my back story here so things make sense.

I first discovered AYP about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time I was just figuring out that I had basically awakened kundalini to some degree. This website answered a lot of my questions and was a great blessing. At the time I tried doing the practices, and it lasted maybe about one week. What happened is that too much energy started rising up in me and I got scared. I woke up one morning with my crown wide open and energy just streaming up. I was used to this happening while half asleep but it didn't go away for a few hours after I woke up, which was a bit unnerving. So I stopped.

Over the past few years I have come back every once in a while to the practices. I think 2 other times I tried doing them again, never sticking with it for more than a week.

Well suddenly I am feeling very drawn to consistent spiritual practice again. Over the past year the main practice I have done is just loving God and worshipping God inside my body through my heart.

I haven't felt much kundalini activity in the past year, compared to in the past. While I do have an incredible amount of sexual energy, I have been releasing it at least once per day with my girlfriend (now fiancee ! ) who I met about 9 months ago. [an amusing side note: right before I met her I was about to take off and live at an ashram in BC Canada and live there for quite a while, but I think that God felt I should be a householder yogi instead]

My bhakti has for a long time been pulling me towards a higher form of sexual expression, tantric love making, with my partner. I have however had a hard time doing this because of fear-blocks I have about kundalini. I have admittedly used sex as a means to keep kundalini from being too active in me.

About 4 days ago I think it was, I decided to begin daily sadhana and stick with it. I feel a deep urge inside me to do this that was not fully present before.

I started with 5 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama (with nothing extra added on) and 15 minutes of I AM meditation. I also talked to my partner about everything, and she was happy to be supportive in undertaking tantric love making practices.

The next day I felt a lot of energy movement in me. I felt the third eye and tailbone connection pretty much all day with energy moving up. I changed the meditation to 3 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama and 20 minutes of I AM meditation, then doing samyama on Love. Due to the increased amount of sexual energy in me, which also seemed to affect my partner, we made love twice but I did not release any energy.

The result was that I felt a bit ungrounded and a lot of energy was moving up. Later in the day we made love again but I decided to release my energy this time to calm things down a little.

I noticed that it did not really make much of a difference, my energy stayed pretty much the same. During the night I was woken up by a lot of electricity going up my left leg, and slightly painful feeling electric shocks in my crown chakra.

I've changed to 2 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama and kept 20 minutes of IAM meditation, then samyama on Love. I think yesterday morning I might have even skipped pranayama altogether and just done 20 minutes of I AM meditation.

Last night I had to stop the deep meditation at 15 minutes because my attention, despite my best efforts, kept being drawn to my crown chakra all by itself, which frightened me a little bit. Even right now as I write this I can feel my crown (I am not trying to put thought there).

My dilemma is that my bhakti is wanting to keep my sexual energy within me but I can't imagine how buzzed I would be after a whole week of not releasing my energy during sexual activity. Also I am a bit concerned by how much crown activity I am feeling.

Also today I am experiencing weirdness with my heart skipping beats doing a little fluttery thing. Feels kinda neat but I am wondering if anyone else has also had this happening. It might be worth mentioning that since starting daily sadhana I have been feeling a lot of energy in my heart, a lot of Love.

Any comments are welcome.

Namaste

[Anthem]

quote:Originally posted by stillness


About 4 days ago I think it was, I decided to begin daily sadhana and stick with it. I feel a deep urge inside me to do this that was not fully present before.

I started with 5 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama (with nothing extra added on) and 15 minutes of I AM meditation. I also talked to my partner about everything, and she was happy to be supportive in undertaking tantric love making practices.

The next day I felt a lot of energy movement in me. I felt the third eye and tailbone connection pretty much all day with energy moving up. I changed the meditation to 3 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama and 20 minutes of I AM meditation, then doing samyama on Love.

Hi Stillness,

Welcome to the forum. It is not recommended to start spiritual practice routines by jumping into several different elements all at once. Adding in deep meditation, pranayama, samyama and tantric practices all at the same time are a recipe for over doing things and experiencing the resulting energy imbalances that you describe.

It would be in your best interest to do at least 1 month of twice- daily, deep meditation before adding in any new practices. Adding in new practices would only be recommended in the lessons if you were stable with meditation as a pre-requisite.

See the AYP Main Lessons tab above and read them in order, it will be of great service to you.

 

quote:Due to the increased amount of sexual energy in me, which also seemed to affect my partner, we made love twice but I did not release any energy.

The result was that I felt a bit ungrounded and a lot of energy was moving up. Later in the day we made love again but I decided to release my energy this time to calm things down a little.

I noticed that it did not really make much of a difference, my energy stayed pretty much the same. During the night I was woken up by a lot of electricity going up my left leg, and slightly painful feeling electric shocks in my crown chakra.

It's been my experience that releasing energy through ejaculation doesn't have a drastic immediate affect on my levels of inner (spiritual) energy, often it will circulate a little more than usual although with less intensity. The next day or two, I do notice diminished energy.

It isn't recommended to have to resort to "pulling the plug" with ejaculation, rather "self-pacing" as described in the lessons would be the way to go.

 

quote:I've changed to 2 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama and kept 20 minutes of IAM meditation, then samyama on Love. I think yesterday morning I might have even skipped pranayama altogether and just done 20 minutes of I AM meditation.

Last night I had to stop the deep meditation at 15 minutes because my attention, despite my best efforts, kept being drawn to my crown chakra all by itself, which frightened me a little bit. Even right now as I write this I can feel my crown (I am not trying to put thought there).

20 minutes might be too much meditation for you at this point. You can only know if you drop all other practices and scale your meditation down substantially until you feel stable. Once you feel stable, you can slowly increase time, in the vicinity of 1 minute per week, in order to determine how much meditation you can handle.

 

quote:My dilemma is that my bhakti is wanting to keep my sexual energy within me but I can't imagine how buzzed I would be after a whole week of not releasing my energy during sexual activity. Also I am a bit concerned by how much crown activity I am feeling.

Also today I am experiencing weirdness with my heart skipping beats doing a little fluttery thing. Feels kinda neat but I am wondering if anyone else has also had this happening. It might be worth mentioning that since starting daily sadhana I have been feeling a lot of energy in my heart, a lot of Love.

This all points to a need to apply some self-pacing to the routine. If you would like to fully realize the benefits from your efforts, then slow and steady is the way to go, no sense popping around like a yo-yo, makes for a bumpy ride...

Best of luck to you![]

[stillness]

Hi Anthem and thank you,

I realize now I was just doing way too much. I skipped meditation yesterday evening, and my heart beat is back to normal today, though I am going to go to the doctor and ask about it to make sure.

I am going to start with 10 minutes of I AM meditation now, twice a day. I'll do that for a month and see how it goes.

[stillness]

Just a bit of an update,

I did 10 minutes of deep meditation twice a day for a few days, and yesterday upped it to 12 minutes. No negative effects and I actually feel really great. The witness is blossoming inside of me. Neti neti!

The energy in me has diminished and when I do notice it it is much gentler. It does not distract me during meditation anymore.

Deep meditation has become interesting and some things have shifted. I have discovered to sort of start the mantra and then just let it run on its own, it has momentum. Then I just watch it. I have found what I think is the difference between the inward i am and the outward I AM, but I don't know how to explain it. It is blissful when it moves inwards, and it is much quieter and sometimes hard to hear, or it gets really fuzzy as Yogani puts it, though that doesn't describe it really. When my watch beeps I don't want to stop meditation anymore.

While reading the secrets of wilder I was inspired to do deep meditation with my girlfriend in the evenings. She has been doing deep meditation for 10 minutes twice a day for about a week now and loves it. We have both found it to be a powerful thing to do together.

I am feeling very drawn to doing samyama on Love after deep meditation and I think I will try doing it twice after my next meditation session. I will see if it creates any imbalances and if so will not continue.

Hope it is okay to post about this here.

Namaste and Love

[emc]

Thank you for a lovely update on your practices, Stillness! The wish to stay in meditation is often very strong! Despite that longing you seem to adjust and self-pace very wisely. That's nice to see. Have a nice journey!