Rediscovery the Kundalini Yoga Teaching of the Path of Radiance (Laya) and Absorption (Pratyahar)

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam Chris,

 

 

It seems that people all around 3ho are rediscovering with their own experiences

the practice of radiance as outlined in the TT Manual.

 

 

 

In this regard, the following may provide some perspective or overview to the

Path one is traveling in the practice of Kundalini Yoga.

 

 

 

All esoteric religious practice from Buddhism (tantric yoga) to Hinduism (Raja

Yoga of Vivekananda) to Christianity (as taught by St John of the Cross and St

Francis of Assisi) to Kundalini Yoga Sikhism (as taught by Yogi Bhajan) has this

practice as one of the fundamental aspects, leading to absorption.

 

 

 

However, unless one is in a monastic setting, the mindfulness meditations in the

various esoteric religions practices take many years to culminate into the

feeling and meditation of Radiance, what takes days and weeks to arrive at with

the daily practice (Sadhana) of Kundalini Yoga, as taught by Yogi Bhajan.

 

 

 

The practice of Radiance and expansion (Laya), includes both Tappa (the Yoga of

Light) and Jappa (the Yoga of Sound). This part of the practice is augmented

with the practice of contraction and withdrawal of attention from the outer mind

with dissolution of attention (pratyahar), and includes primarily slow breath

repetitions (breath simran or sanjam) to develop an awareness of the movement of

prana in the nadis (energy channels), centers, spatially/pervasively.

 

 

 

Together Laya and Pratyahar (in the specific meaning of Kundalini Yoga practice)

constitute the practice of yoga as a yoking (drawing together through effort),

which is to say that, through persistent practice (Kundalini Yoga Sadhana), the

mind is distilled of the dross (Aradhana), resulting in Crystallization

(Pradupati), or yoga in the sense of union, where the individual consciousness

is realized to be none other than the Universal Consciousness. Yoking, which

includes the practice of the negative mind meditation of noticing and releasing

of the feeling of radiance in and around the body, and positive mind meditation

of acceptance of one's self as single pervading spatial consciousness, leads to

Union, the abiding in the neutral mind meditation beyond attention, which begins

with hearing (sunia / sravana), remembrance (mania / manana, like recovering

from an amnesia) to perfect abiding or abiding in love, as the seer, or screen

of Consciousness Itself, within which and upon which the universe, infinitely

large and infinitely small appears without distinction or separation.

 

 

 

For those interested in augmenting their practice with some notes from the

Bangkok KRI Level I Teachers Training Program, here are some links to the weekly

3 hour TT classes taught in Bangkok in association with Sunder Singh Khalsa, who

heads up Teacher Training for Asia and leads Retreats in Thailand and other

parts of Asia several times a year, and 3 other KRI Certified Teachers under

Sunder, who teach an intensive TT class every 2 months in Thai.

 

 

 

While Sunder's Intensives Workshops and Retreats focus on the 3ho experience,

the Teachings from the TT Manual and various 3ho KY yoga manuals and the

intuitive understanding of these teachings through the elevation of experience,

the 3 hour weekly TT classes, designed mostly on the articles here below, are

part discussion, part a going into the proper practice and experience of the

given KRI sets, leading to transformation, through radiance and absorption, to

union.

 

1.. A Proper Understanding the Active/Passive Aspect of Kundalini Yoga

Practice

a..

http://www.kundalini-matashakti.com/worddocuments/Pieters_Articles/AProperUnders\

tandingTheActive-PassiveAspectsofKundaliniYogaPractice5.doc

2.. Sadhana, Aradhana, Pradhupati

a..

http://www.kundalini-matashakti.com/worddocuments/Pieter%27s%20articles/SadhanaA\

rdhanaPradhupati_July_6_03.doc

3.. TT class follow up to Sadhana – Aradana – Pradupati

a..

http://www.kundalini-matashakti.com/worddocuments/Pieters_Articles/Crystallizati\

onThroughSadhana_July_27_03.doc

4.. The Role of the Teacher

a..

http://www.kundalini-matashakti.com/worddocuments/Pieters_Articles/RoleOf%20TheT\

eacher-TTclassSept7-14,03.doc

Other articles: http://www.kundalini-matashakti.com/kyarticles.html

 

 

 

In these 3 hour weekly TT classes, we relate the discussions to the various

areas of the TT Manual and other KRI Manuals, in a way that integrates what some

may call the theoretical sections with the practice and experience, where

considerable practical comprehension and intuitive insight can be derived from,

for example, the commentaries of Yogi Bhajan regarding sets, kriyas and

meditations, and from seeing the interrelationship of the various parts as a

holistic practice. In this way, the Manual becomes functional and real, so that

the tendency to simply memorize for a TT exam is transformed into an actual

understanding that results in a Sadhana and KY class experience that transforms

the mind-body-spirit, culminating in the actual experience of yoga / union.

 

 

 

The topics in these weblinks and others are covered over and over, each time

from a slightly different perspective, because the progressive real experience

of the students and teachers leads to insights that give substantive and

practical meaning to what may have otherwise seemed to be just a concept or

theory or philosophical view-point. There is a particular focus in these

classes to the experience of One Star Spirituality, as a way to see the practice

as a Singularity and Totality, rather than parts and aspects to a diversified

whole.

 

 

 

Then with each retreat lead by Sunder, everyone goes through an experiential

leap and transformation to an elevated level, most may have been unaware of

previously. The overall result of the TT course is the experience of Union

through Awareness - the Yoga of Awareness.

 

 

 

In the practice of Radiance, one begins to become aware of the increasing

voltage and suffusing of light in the nadis (72,000 energy channels going out

from the Spiritual Heart). These nadis are like filaments in a light bulb, but

extending throughout the body from the Heart Center (different from the anahata

chakra), with one major nadi coming up to the brain. The heart provides the

feeling of "I" or consciousness of being within the body, so that we have the

notion "I am this body and its sensations, and the mind of thoughts and

impressions." Over time from birth, the latent tendencies and impressions taken

become stored / encoded throughout the system of nadis, like the programming of

a computer chip, so that our views or ideas of identity we project on the

seemingly separate world begin to solidify.

 

 

 

As the voltage and awareness of Radiance (the pervasive Life Force) begins to

increase, each nadi begins to resonate sound and radiate light. The effect is

similar to watching movie takes, while the light in the projector is turned up,

causing the images to white out. In our case, we continue to see the images,

only the awareness, which is Supreme Intelligence, begins to recognize that It

is not the images, but rather the Light behind the images, and It begins to

reflect inwardly towards Its Source, eventually abiding as That. All the

centers and systems begin to enlighten, and as Awareness deepens and expands,

the various barometric channels, such as the silver cord, along the sushumna

from the base of the spine to the throat, the passage from the throat to the 3rd

eye and crown, the gold cord from the ajna to the crown and the atma nadi from

the Spiritual Heart (One Star - Hrdayam) to the crown all begin to fill

spontaneously with a substance that results in the dissolution of the

distinction between states and levels and conditions of consciousness, the

notion of a seer and objects seen. This is something one might read about as a

theoretical or philosophical discussion, but as one begins to experience this as

one's actual Reality, all interest in the theory and discussion is lost. Even

the use of thinking as a means to focus attention is abandoned, along with the

use of the mind's mechanism of attention itself. Stillness beyond stillness

prevails.

 

 

 

As the nadis fill with Light, they radiate like the filament of a light bulb,

and in the process, our inner consciousness begins to see as the mind sees, in 3

dimensional spatial consciousness. One way of grasping this is to imaging the

effect of a whirling dervish, who in spinning and spinning, begins to see the

entire surrounding as One, not from here and my eyes to there, but as one

spatial experience. As this experience becomes steady, the realization of one's

self awareness as being spatial fills the dervish with such a force of energy

that their astral body rises above the area and they see spatially, and they see

and become aware of themselves as spatial pervasive consciousness, kind of like

the experience some Zen practitioners have in "satori."

 

 

 

Similarly, as the nadis fill with radiance through the daily practice of Tappa

and Jappa, and the mind become very still through sanjam, the yogin sees and

feels without the use of the senses as single pervasive consciousness, until

there emerges into ones awareness the clarity that what is seen and experienced

depends on the seer, the witnessing consciousness. The mind begins to become

utterly still. Suddenly, there is an inward turning or bent of the mind, where

all attention to objects external and internal are simply relinquished, and you

abide as the screen of being consciousness, untouched, touching nothing,

uncaused, unconditioned, beyond any notion of effort, space-like Immortality

Giving Knowledge Absolute.

 

 

 

When Kundalini Yoga practice includes the reading of scripture of the various

religions, the words in the scripture, in particular non-dual texts, such as the

JapJi or Jaap Sahib, or texts of the 3rd and 6th Zen Patriarch, the Diamond and

Heart Sutras, the various Gitas, such as the Avadhut Gita, Ribhu Gita,

Ashtavakara Gita and others, the 4 Gospels of Christ, and so on, have a

particular effect of stirring the True Self, the Light of Awareness within us,

to "hearing" the Truth and abiding as That, an effect that feels like

Remembrance, like coming out of an amnesia.

 

 

 

Devotional texts also begin to have an effect, such as reading about the lives

of Saints and Saviors, as shakti leads to Bhakti and Bhakti to Gyan (Jnana -

Self Knowledge).

 

 

 

The practice of Radiance deepens steadily. As the filaments of nadis begin to

radiate, the consciousness begins to see without the use of the senses, until

there is a subtle linkage or union of the atman with Brahman, the Son with the

Father, the Bride with the Bridegroom, and the seeming differences between the

individual consciousness and Universal, and even the previous interest as to

what each or both might be, simply vaporize, vanish like a mirage, leaving only

and simply pervasive clarity.

 

 

--

 

 

Location of Pieter's KY classes

 

President Park Complex

Ebony Tower - Penthouse 31A

99 Sukhumvit, Soi 24

Klong Toey, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

tel: ++ (66-2) 262-9066 / 661-1711

fax: ++ (66-2) 661-1712

tel: ++ (66-1) 987-1435 mobile

 

 

Pieter's KY classes usually Friday and Monday 7-9:30 and Sunday afternoon 2-5

 

Sadhana Saturday and Sunday mornings. Please call in advance.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Pietersa,

 

For some reason your links are not working. Page not found, or in some cases

when I do find the file nothing but square boxes instead of text.

 

Sat Nam,

Mike