Possible Asana or concentration after effects?
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If you're worried about hallucinations, seeing flies with glowing eyes, etc, then one technique that at least the Zen school does is to consider them as Makyos. Makyos can range from emotional states to seeing faces or animals on the wall. Some of them may even be very pleasant. In any case, the advice is not to consider them either positive or negative. Just observe them and they'll eventually go away. They're not the real attainment of kensho or satori.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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The classics relate this to pranayama, but I'm certain that's just because pranayama eventually triggers early stages of kundalini activity. (I always got this easiest during asana - though it first emerged strongest during asana in periods when I was also doing a lot of pranayama; and yes, concentration exercises can "push" it.)
"Excuse me my noob question
, but only practicing one asana, and among these the God posture?
God posture can really trigger kundalini? -
Any posture at all, if held firmly and unwaveringly for long periods, probably can do this, yes.
With the God-posture, I can't tell you from personal experience that it can trigger it, because I already had it moving pretty well by the time I started working with that posture. But I can tell you that one of the problems I had with the posture at first was that I couldn't hold it for more than a few minutes (less than 5) before kundalini started moving at a distracting volume. I had to learn to bring it more under control. But, admittedly, that could be different since it was already flowing easily.
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I've been reading this thread with some interest as I am in the process of trying to practice asana.
I'm currently using the Dragon and the Half Lotus position, and I'm wondering about the degree of rigidity required.
I usually sort of put the body in the required position and then refuse to move the body from that position, come what may, its not so much that I consciously tense my body, but that it more or less assumes a sort of rigidity of its own due to the pressure of maintaining that posture; is this correct?
Moreover I find that I get a much higher degree of rigidity if i combine it with a sort of pranayama, usually Inhale for 8, hold for 36, and exhale for 16, repeat as nauseum.
so far I haven't had anything that I would associate with kundalini awakening, although I do get a sort of detachment from the body after about 10-20 minutes, almost as if i'm floating above my body. a sort of floating head as it were, although I never lose awareness of the body, but it becomes sort of detached from my immediate awareness, as if it were behind a screen.
Is this right? I'm getting the impression that I should be trying for greater rigidity.
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@Solitarius said
"its not so much that I consciously tense my body, but that it more or less assumes a sort of rigidity of its own due to the pressure of maintaining that posture; is this correct?"
Sounds right. (It's hard to describe exactly what happens, and I would have probably described it differently; but your description sounds like what I've experienced.
The commitment to simply be still causes a 'firmness.' It's as though the body takes on some sort of 'lock,' almost as in perfectly balanced isometrics, but without strain and certainly without consciously tensing.
"I'm getting the impression that I should be trying for greater rigidity."
Variations of the A.'.A.'. standard test apply: Are you actually moving? Simple test: If you balance a book on your head, does it stay?
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I wouldn't say I'm completely rigid as of yet, some days it's like I can do no wrong, in the half lotus I can remain motionless for up to an hour, (I could probably do more if I pushed it, but I haven't done that yet) In the dragon I'd more or less half it as the pain in my legs is too distracting after about 25 minutes.
Ironically enough I find I get greater rigidity in the Dragon.
I think A.C described the state as "braced", like a runner waiting for the gun, and I can see his point.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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With the God-posture, I can't tell you from personal experience that it can trigger it, because I already had it moving pretty well by the time I started working with that posture."If possible, which other asanas/practice you did before the God posture?
In your opinion, theoretically, there are asanas that can better trigger kundalini?@Solitarius said
"Moreover I find that I get a much higher degree of rigidity if i combine it with a sort of pranayama, usually Inhale for 8, hold for 36, and exhale for 16, repeat as nauseum."
With or without Nadi Shodhana?
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@MMe said
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@Jim Eshelman said
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With the God-posture, I can't tell you from personal experience that it can trigger it, because I already had it moving pretty well by the time I started working with that posture."If possible, which other asanas/practice you did before the God posture?
In your opinion, theoretically, there are asanas that can better trigger kundalini?@Solitarius said
"Moreover I find that I get a much higher degree of rigidity if i combine it with a sort of pranayama, usually Inhale for 8, hold for 36, and exhale for 16, repeat as nauseum."
With or without Nadi Shodhana?"
Without usually, If I'm practicing the asana primarily and am using the pranayama to regularise the breath.
I'm not doing so much pranayama on it's own at present although I do do it with the alternating nostrils sometimes, I'm thnking I'd need to do this as a separate practice to Asana as it involves moving the arms, which would kinda mess up the posture.
I have found that if i don't do something like this with the breath then it starts to become yet another source of distraction from the asana. one other thing I've found very useful is the Mantra "Aum mani padmi Hum" although this works better with a fourfold breath (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4: repeat on and on and on and on)
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@MMe said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"With the God-posture, I can't tell you from personal experience that it can trigger it, because I already had it moving pretty well by the time I started working with that posture."If possible, which other asanas/practice you did before the God posture?"
My main posture (and that in which I eventually passed the 2=9 test) was a simple kneeling position. BTW that, also, was all after my kundalini rise. (I was a late bloomer on yoga - had the idea there was no reason to bother until I was 2=9 - and the original main K event was relatively early in 1=10.)
"In your opinion, theoretically, there are asanas that can better trigger kundalini?"
The Eastern teachers sugest so. I doubt it, though. (That is, there may be some that are more advantageous than others, but this varies widely from person to person, and more or less any vertical, straight-spined position persisted in probably will do the deed.)
I mostly don't care (and therefore haven't looked super-closely into it) because I don't think kundalini raising should be a goal. It's just a thing that happens along the way.
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I think, Jim, that the motive why the TC takes a lot for the symptoms of the "lock" to appear is that he uses another way to approach the experience.
In fact, he even says so when he mentions that he learned to use the "corpse" for OBEs. When you practice those authors say to you to relax all the muscles in progression, and this is probably what he is doing.
That's one way to do it. It will come a point when the "lock" will happen also there, but it takes much more, about 40-60 minutes (if not mixed with any sort of pranayama) in confront to when you tense the muscles (where it happens fast - especially when you are good at it - but you have to endure pain before). Strangely enough, while doing the typical "tense" routine as prescribed by Crowley the "lock" works much faster in straight positions, it doesn't work (at last for me) at all while in corpse, and the other way around (i.e. relaxing doesn't trigger the "lock" in a straight position, or very difficulty so, if not aided by anything else).
As for the pain etc. again I think the TC is mistaking what he experiences for something else. While related (because they are anyway still Kundalini phenomena for what I can understand) the type of experience he described is more similar to the first avenues of an OBE in certain specific cases (as they can arise on his own, read for example the Pineal Door method by Oliver Fox) than what it happens in a typical Asana. Still the pain should not be there after, if not for a brief period, so maybe he is tensing hard the jaw in the process (it happens almost always the first times this process kickstart, because you think the experience is physical so you automatically tense the jaw and the neck strongly as a reflex, and this in turns also stops the process).
This coming from my experience in both things. I can be wrong, naturally, but just giving my two cents on the issue.
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"60 - corpse - still floating and feeling incredibly free but feel a huge 'something' building outside/and inside - like a spiritual realm of ultimate freedom is so close. Generally the realisation of this state of being is enough to throw me back into intellectual ganglia of thought and loose the freeness that allowed me to apprehend this 'other ' in the first place."
Now it doesn't take me that long to get to this part. For me this happens around 20 minutes in my practice with padmasana (Full Lotus). I've been doing it for a few (or couple) months regularly (consistence is virtue I'm trying to attain atm), and I can get past the usual pain, tenseness, shaking ect. about 15 in asana. But recently I'm been able to slip into this state, only for a minute or less then I'm thrown back like you said.
And it's in and out like that. When I reach it, exiting thought will come and oops I'm back again. How do I stop this? Do I think back at the thoughts? Or just go back to thinking of being still?
I've experienced this building of something a few times. Recently a couple days ago when I reached the state of "resting" in my body, I heard, felt, and saw a humming that was was building pressure as the pitch got higher like something was going to explode. Then thoughts rushed in and it faded away. But this doesn't always happen.