Overcoming fear felt during practice

[Guest guest]

www.kundalini-matashakti.com, www.yogatech.com

 

Dear Manoj Mhatre,

 

The articles, spiritual texts and sets in these websites may be helpful to you.

 

Concerning postures and movements in Kundalini Yoga: When there is a posture or

movement, it is also important that you stretch. For example, if the arms are

held at 60%, you bring them to 60% (not 45 to 90) and stretch the shoulders,

arms, fingers, opening the armpits, and then the exercise becomes easier and

achieves its full intent The same for raising legs, or arching. There needs to

have an attention and awareness of a full and complete execution of a Kundalini

Yoga exercise, not necessarily to do a posture or movement to perfection, as

with some yogas, but to do ones best to perform the Kundalini Yoga exercise

correctly (and never to over exertion or strain, which might hinder practice

later). A little done right will enable you to do much more later. In time,

progressively, you will find that what you can do now for 30 seconds or a minute

or 2, within a matter of weeks it will be easy to do these same exercises for 3

minutes, 5, 7, 11, 31 minutes. The stretching is the key to holding a position

for a long time, because it vitalizes the entire life system in each area, which

otherwise feels like a deadweight. Also, in movements, begin slowly and feel

the link of the awareness to the prana/radiance, then begin to add breath, then,

to effect the electric charging of the body, begin to gradually increase the

power of the breath and the movement. Then you will see a tremendous difference

in the overall experience and realization of the benefit of each Kundalini Yoga

exercise.

 

It is also very important that you learn to do the breathing properly. The

basic breaths are long deep breathing (yogic breath), breath of fire and

suspension of breath (holding the breath).

 

The bhandas are also important, mool bhand (root lock), udyana bhand (diaphragm

lock) and jalandara bhand (neck lock).

 

In Kundalini Yoga practice, while the importance of stretching may be taught,

the breathing and locks are somewhat different from hatha yoga practices, so

it's important to understand how to do them so that the energy flows easily and

correctly.

 

Finally, it is vitally important to understand that each kundalini yoga has an

active part and a passive part. In other yogas this is not the case. Each

posture is a complete exercise in itself, whatever the series might be or

whether in a series (like a karate karta) or single posture to corps pose. But

in Kundalini Yoga the practice is to develop radiance (laya) and depth

(pratyahar), which is only felt in other yogas much further along their

practice.

 

In Kundalini Yoga you are maximizing and working directly with the systems of

the body - circulatory, pulmonary, endocrine, nervous etc. Each posture and

movement brings about a pressure in a specific area or system of the body. This

pressure means that the blood will saturate in that area. As powerful Kundalini

Yoga breathing techniques are combined with the postures and movements, these

areas put under pressure will have the strong effect of the purified and

energized blood flow into that area. Initially, this means that these areas,

where the capillaries and cells open under the pressure of the exercise,

discharge their impurities and toxins in return for the vitality of the purified

energized blood flow. Moreover, these same areas begin to build a charge - a

voltage.

 

Now, here is the important part to remember. The body is like a car battery,

only with many batteries working together. In a car battery, there is water,

and there are chemicals. As the chemicals are increased the voltage of the

battery also increases - 3 volts, six volts, 12 volts, 24 volts, are a standard

we can buy at any K-Mart.

 

In the practice of other yogas, there is a gradual process in which the tensions

and blockages of the body are reduced and the mind begins to become still. The

process accelerates with increase practice and especially fasting and internal

purification, such as (in the west) colonics (versus Nauli Kriya for cleaning

the large intestine). Then as the energies of the body are used less and less

towards the incessant pressure of thinking and identity encoding, imaging,

impression taking and so on, There is a build up of unused kinetic energy, that

begins to fill through the body, so that the body begins to loose its inertia,

becoming satvic pure, transparent. Awareness to movement and eventually prana,

as in Kundalini Yoga practice, is a key to the expansion of this kinetic energy

in other yoga practices, what in Buddhist meditation and martial arts is called

"Mindfulness." this is because that simple awareness through which we

experience the inner and outer world is really the light of the Infinite Being

 

In Kundalini Yoga, the posture/movement (practiced with still awareness)

combined with powerful breath creates this purification in various areas of the

body directly, and with it comes an electrical charge to these areas. To

support this electrical charge, and this is the very important point to remember

in your Kundalini Yoga practice, the glands secrete very specialized chemicals.

The charge or voltage creates a direct impact on the glandular system to cause

the glands to secrete in order that this charge is sustained and maintained.

Chemical electric pathways open. Once the active part of the Kundalini Yoga

exercise is completed, the passive part begins. The reaction of the glandular

and nervous system to the vitality of the bloodstream impacting the specific

areas of pressure brought about through the posture or movement takes some time

to complete. The time period depends on the duration of the exercise and other

dynamics of the body's ability to circulate the chemicals.

 

Therefore, you have an active aspect of each Kundalini Yoga exercise and a

passive aspect, which must be experienced for the exercise to achieve its full

benefit!

 

Initially, there is the sensation of decontraction of the cells and muscles and

ligaments in the area. Then comes the sensation of opening and radiance. Then

the radiance begins to balance with all the other organs and cells of the body,

strengthening the magnetic field of the whole body, bringing it into balance

with the area affected in the exercise. And you begin to fee the inimitable

sensation of "electric radiance" / "transparent electric" - which grows and

expands (and brings about a deepening) through each Kundalini Yoga exercise (and

kriya).

 

In Kundalini Yoga, we usually diversify the sets practiced in order to bring

about the opening of th cells, glands, organs, nerves and systems in every area

of the body.

 

The body is a mechanism that stores the impressions of who we think we are. (The

body is like the hard drive for computer storage, versus the brain as the

RAM/cache storage.) Because the impressions are stored in the body structure, we

call it the subconscious. With Kundalini Yoga practice, the electric chemical

balance of the voltage of the body increases to bring about a system wide

vibratory frequency that is higher than the frequency of thought vibration, so

that your sense of identity begins to become clearer and clearer, less linked to

thought and sensation. No longer drawn to this or that reactive thought, but

open single clear awareness of the pervasiveness of consciousness throughout the

body field (the ten bodies).

 

At the lower voltage level of the body, the mind's focusing mechanism of

attention needs to be used to see and know. It moves through the darkness

(unawareness) of the body/mind field like a flashlight used to see on a dark

night. Sometimes more is seen. Like the waxing and waning of the moon cycles,

the mind becomes brighter (feelings of love, compassion satvic) and dimmer

(feelings of hate, distrust, judgment - rajasic, tamasic). Many people have no

real sense or feeling of the energy radiance that pervades and sustains the

body, i.e., their own life force, let alone that this force of Life is actually

the Light and Life of the Infinite Being that denotes the single sense of "I" in

the body. We focus to each part of the body and feel that part of the body.

 

But with Kundalini Yoga practice, in particular a daily morning sadhana, the

overall voltage of the body begins to become the same as, even greater than, the

voltage of the focusing mechanism of the mind........ The result of this is

that you begin to loose your experience and necessity to focus as your awareness

now simultaneously encompasses the whole body! You realize yourself to be the

single seer of the whole body and the radiant field around, which you actually

experience.

 

Kundalini Yoga practice includes the use of mantra and meditations. Mantra in

Kundalini Yoga is much different in effect and impact than with other yogas,

because thru the practice of what we might call the yoga of light, as described

above, the yoga of sound is amplified. With the yoga of light, the whole body

begins to resonate. When you add the yoga of sound, the sound amplifies

throughout the body, and has the unique and special effect of integrating the

energy that has been systematically stored from each kundalini yoga exercise.

It's like playing a regular guitar versus playing an electric guitar, where the

reverberation increases with the amplitude of the voltage. But with Kundalini

Yoga, the very use of the mantra also increases the amplitude of the voltage, so

that you have a leveraged effect. Part of this is due to the effect of the

sound causing a breakdown of subtle blockages of energy flow. Part has to do

with the effect of releasing stored energy. And, with the use of mantra, the

glands also secrete to support and sustain the increasing voltage. You may

practice a Kundalini Yoga set for an hour, and feel the radiance throughout your

body and mind, and now you practice a mantra, and within 5 minutes the energy is

so tremendously greater, and yet at the same time easy flowing and expanding,

that there is no comparison.

 

Kundalini Yoga meditations have a very specific purpose of opening the gate to

the Infinite Spirit, which is to say, to subtly dissolve the remaining idea that

the notional sense of "i" we feel as myself in the body is separate or different

from the True "I" of which our notional "i" is only a reflection in the mind of

the Temple of the True "I" in the Spiritual Heart.

 

As the mind becomes pure and satvic, there emerges a sense of a clear force of

Intelligence, that pervades the body field, but is felt initially in the area of

the brain, wherein you feel the question arising, without a thought formation,

of inquiry into where the sense of seeing arises. Yogis call this awareness the

budhi or discriminative faculty of the mind. This is because the mind is

experienced to be radiant, clear, pervasive and still. Abiding in that

stillness and pervasive field of radiance, which has no here or there focus, the

experiencer Itself amplifies Its own Intelligence to ask "Who ...? And suddenly

something new happens, which we can call Yoga - Union. A Hearing, Recollection

and Abiding. You hear and experience with a deep inner clarity that draws your

sense of "i" powerfully inwards to a remembrance of who you are behind

everything. Yogis call this experience Turya. You feel as though a sun is

rising in the Heart, and with it that the moon of the mind is less and less

needed to see and know. The notions of here and there become meaningless, and

you abide in the recollection of your True Identity, as though coming out of an

amnesia.

 

Initially, this "hearing" (sunia, sravana) is felt like a pulsing of "I as I"

reverberating as a soundless sound, like a self-effulgent pervasive screen upon

which everything emerges into appearance, only the images on the screen are seen

from their perspective of the undifferentiated whole.

 

In Kundalini Yoga, the evolutionary/involutionary practice taken as a whole is

called One Star Spirituality, the One Star being the Reality in the Heart that

expands Light of Being outward while drawing the self inward to abide as one's

True Self.

 

All this to say that, if a daily sadhana is taken up and you practice the

breathing and locks properly, and you practice each Kundalini Yoga exercise,

kriya, mantra and meditation understanding that with every active part there is

an equally important (more important) passive part, then fear, imbalance, and

everything related will pass and you will experience your True Whole Self.

"Wait, be patient, relax, consolidate integrate, be You..." Yogi Bhajan

 

Hope this answers the question you had.

 

A New Years resolution: Just practice, practice the right way, and keep up, and

everything that is good will come to you. Sat Nam

 

Pieter