Kundalini Energy - Message #392

[Guest guest]

Message #392

James L Buechler

Re: Sanjam

 

Dear Pieter,

If you wouldn't mind mentioning where in the TT manual is Radiance found I would

be appreciative.

 

Sat Nam,

Karam Singh

 

Dear Ravi,

 

Sanjam is a bit different from the attachment you sent me.  The one you have

attached is similar to what Yogi Bhajan calls the " U-breath " in which you are

holding only when you inhale.  It's part of the Path of Laya (Radiance). 

Someone asked about this a few days after the initial write up 6/29/06.

 

In Sanjam, which is the main component of the Path of Pratyahar (Dissolution),

there is the balance, where you hold also equally on the exhale.

 

Also on the inhale, you need to remember to stretch the spine and bring the

shoulders back and come into neck lock, the way I described.  When you stretch

the spine in this way, it automatically aids in holding attention at the base of

the spine.

 

When you inhale (following the channel down) and hold, you expand the energy in

the pranic center which is 8 vertebra down.  the radiance spreads through the

body, expanding through the heart from there, while you hold.

 

Then you exhale (following the channel up) and squeeze out the breath from the

upper part - the clavicle area, down through the chest, through the solar plexus

until you feel the lower spine pulling  in and the diaphragm  below the navel

coming up and inward.  maintaining that, hold. Then you will also feel a

sensation between the 4th vertebra up from the bottom and the Kandal.  The

effect you will start to feel is the eliminative force of the apana, which you

will feel as a sensation of dissolving, as though the whole body and its

tensions dissolve, along with the mind, making it very still, a stillness that

begins to go beyond silence.

 

And so you alternate prana expansion, apana withdrawal.

 

Just a reminder that Kundalini Yoga has a symmetry.  Within the practice of the

Path of Laya (Radiance), in every set, each exercise has an active and passive

aspect, where in you have the posture or movement combined with various types

of often powerful breathing, followed by the equally important passive aspect

during which period the glands secrete to support, sustain and balance the

voltage created during the active period.  Then at the end of the set, there is

the passive period where the body goes into yoga nidya, like allowing a computer

to reboot for new programming to take.  So too, the whole Path and Practice of

Laya/Radiance is balanced or held in juxtaposition to the more passive, but

equally as important Path and Practice Pratyahar/Dissolution.  So, each opposite

enables another dimension and depth of deepening.

 

Now in pure Laya practice, radiance expands, and with practice, it starts to

penetrate.  In many Kriyas you will fee the voltage through the ida and through

the pingala, in certain centers, and through the sushumna, like a penetrating

electric radiance. Eventually in every cell of your body and throughout the

magnetic field. But in Pratyahar practice, which is exemplified by Sanjam, your

attention alone moves a kind of a joti or light along the nadis, and at the

ajna, base of the spine and muladara.  You become very single, inward bent,

still, empty, clear, motionless, though moving, and as the mind resolves itself

in the heart (spiritual hear, not the chakra), you will notice that you begin to

actually see the nadis in your mind's eye. It's as though you were in a dark

room, where you can't see anything, but you have a pinpoint flash light, where

you can behind to follow the boarder lines of the room your in.  Only in this

case, as you keep on following them, it begins to leave both a trace of light

and the light of awareness your shining along these lines becomes brighter and

brighter itself.  You'll see what I mean when you practice every day, at least

10 cycles per sitting, until you feel / see this, then repetitions add little by

little.  In fact, what your looking at is the under pinnings of the Creation of

the Creator, and as you begin to see it, you also experience yourself seeing

with the eyes of the Creator.

 

Now, the mind's eye is different from the physical and mental eyes.  The mind's

eye is the field of consciousness itself in which the body appears and upon

which the thoughts and impressions appear.

 

If you are practicing Kundalini Yoga, as Yogi Bhajan taught, which is something

completely unique and complete, unlike any other Yoga, you will also feel the

sensations and experiences I'm writing about here.

 

When the mind becomes very still in this way, and you can feel the nadis and

centers as though there was a finger of light moving along them as you watch the

movement with the breathe inhaling or exhaling or holding, then you will begin

to also have a number of experiences, such as feeing your sense of " I " as a

field of consciousness in which the body is indistinct, undifferentiated.  It's

a bit the way baby's see and feel.  Very very pure.

 

You will also begin to notice awareness in dreams, and then the diminishing of

dreams into a pure state of awareness, which some may call the Christ

Consciousness or in all Religions, the Way.  For example, the Third Zen

patriarch says, " The Way is perfect, like vast space... "

 

In this Way, you may begin to hear certain sounds, and have certain sights that

are happening within you.  If you happen to be walking down the street when this

occurs, others will feel and experience it as well.  You will have some idea

then of what it must have been like when Guru Nanak, Christ, Buddha Rama and

others walked the Earth.  In fact you will feel that kind of presence which is

the essence of your True Being.

 

When you practice the Laya Path with all the Kriyas, etc, and also the Pratyahar

Path - Sanjam, then in the Laya practices, you will also notice the

disengagement of the focusing mechanism of the mind and simultaneous total body

radiance, as though the whole body radiates with light without attention.  And

you will feel a sense of spatial consciousness, as though your senses are in

abeyance, not that you aren't using them, but rather that there is a deeper

fuller awareness that pervades and sees truly, and you are within that.

 

As this continues, something new will begin to happen, and it happens to a large

extent due to reading about the Lives and Words of the Sages, Saints and

Saviors, which are the manifestation of the Embodiment of Truth.  In Buddhism,

it's called the Dharmakaya.  It's the expresses when he states " I am the Truth "

or I am the Light of the World " (Consciousness Itself). It;s the same as when

after several weeks in a cave, Guru Nanak comes out and says, " Sat Nam " which

can best be translated as " I am the Truth " - and suddenly you experience that

there is a complete disengagement of attention and subtle awareness to even the

sense of spatial consciousness.  the " field " as Krishna calls it, vanishes and

you are the screen or substratum of being and light.  The Sikhs call this the

experience of the " touch nothing " Saint, Apart from the occasional soundless

sound of the " I " pulsing as " I " , or occasional thought percolating from the

fathomless depths, such as " unconditioned " .... " uncaused " .... " without time "

..... " no space " .... you are here yet utterly beyond. Complete, yet relying on

nothing.

 

What happens as the mind becomes pure, through this practice of the Path of Laya

(Radiance) and the Path of Pratyahar (Dissolution), is that you begin to have

the capacity to " hear " the word, meaning to hear who you are, and suddenly there

is this inner sense of recollection, a feeling like coming out of a stupor or

from a coma, or maybe better said, from a state of amnesia.  There arises this

impalpable sensation of the pulsing of " I as I " and single pervasive abiding in

the Spiritual Heart. (Kartar Purkh illuminates me. " (YB)

 

This is the experience of the " Ik Tar " - the One Star Spirituality.

 

When the experience first happens to you, it is totally and utterly Grounding,

like a Graviton has begun to pulse and suck in and dissolve everything, mind,

body everything, and yet you're trying to find out what happened.  naturally,

you would turn to the lives of the Sages, Saints and Saviors, wherein every Word

fills and grips you in a sense of recognition, acknowledgement, remembrance, so

that you begin to feel the Transfiguration, as though the atoms of the body are

dissipating.

 

All this to say.  Yes, practice Radiance, but also practice Sanjam.  This is

also expressed clearly in the TT manual.

 

There's a lot more I could tell you, but really, everything will become clear

and well understood when you practice. In so many lectures of yogi Bhajan, in

which he describes so many stories and situations people get themselves into,

what you will discover is that the remedy is Sadhana, a daily practice, no

matter what. Then the days events whatever they are also become part of the

Sadhana, and you will understand the teachings better and better, because you

rise through to higher and higher vistas.

 

When the mind becomes very still, the light of awareness begins to light the

body, then the nadis, then the sushumna, and you experience and as it passes the

throat upwards, the crown opens and there is a sensation of " Wha.... "   No matter

what practice one has, whether Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, you will have

this.  All this to say that these kinds of words that we read are archetypal.

 

The world and what we are and who we are is much much more than we can conceive.

 

Pieter

 

---- Original Message -----

Ravishankar B

pieter

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 7:35 PM

Thank you!

 

Dear Pieter,

 

First off, thanks very much for the detailed description on Sanjam breathing and

visualisation during the breathing! I have attached a document with this mail

that should tell you about the kind of breathing exercise that I follow.

Is it allright if I use the same visualisation for this breathing exercise as

the one you suggest below?

I am referring to the 'Anuloma Viloma' exercise in the attached document.

 

Sat Nam,

Ravi

 

On 6/29/06, pieter <pietersa wrote:

 

Sat Nam Ravi,

 

In Kundalini Yoga practice this kind of breathing is called Sanjam.

 

There are 2 basic Paths in Kundalini Yoga, one is the Path of Laya or Radiance,

which is what most people know about, and the other is the Path of Pratyahar or

Inward Withdrawal.  In this case Yogi Bhajan uses these terms to describe whole

Paths versus their specific meaning, for example a Laya Yoga Kriya or Pratyahar,

as one of the 8 limbs of Raja Yoga (what the ancient yogis called Ashtanga

Yoga).

 

In the Pratyahar Path is a specific practice called Sanjam or breath simran.

This is to say slow repetitive breathing as you describe.  There are several

types that involve the breathing while watching the flow of the prana movement

along and within the nadis, such as the ida and pingala. Others watch the flow

over the top of the head where the 2 hemispheres of the brain join, another

watches the flow along the sushumna, and others. 

 

The one you describe is more typically done in a ratio of 1:4:2, which is to say

that you use your left hand middle finger to close your right nostril and breath

in through the left.  As you breath in, you visualize the prana flowing up

through the left nostril, up over the left side of the top of the head, as

though following a fiber optic channel yogis call the ida nadi, where your

steady awareness itself generates the light in the channel.  Then down the left

side of the back of the neck, down the left side of the spine to the base of the

coccyx. Then hold the breath and close the left nostril with your thumb

 

Remember that the neck is straight and stretched upwards, chin in slightly, so

you  feel the stretching of the atlas and axis at the top of he spine.  Also

remember that the lower spine is stretched straight as well, which will cause

the spine to straighten from below, with the shoulders coming back

automatically. You will feel a pressure in the coccyx and an automatic pulling

sensation, as though you were going to do the root lock, which comes from

stretching the coccyx down (nor in and forward, but straight and down).  In this

way, you will be able to easily retain your attention at the base of the spine. 

Sitting in this manner also causes the pranic center in the chest area

projecting from the 8th vertebra down to  radiate while you hold the breath in,

while feeling a flow of subtle current between the coccyx and the Kundal

(located between the coccyx and navel).  This sensation is the location of what

Yogi Bhajan calls the " reverse channels " which triggers the Kundalini through an

electromagnetic sensation at the 4th vertebra. (Learning how to do spinal flex

properly with power and ease from the Laya Path side of the practice is, in this

regards, important.)

 

If you were breathing in to the count of 4, then you watch the base of the spine

for the count of 16, and now you open the middle finger from the left nostril,

while keeping the thumb over the entrance to the right nostril and slowly exhale

to the count of 8 (the 1:4:2 ratio), as you watch and direct your awareness

slowly up through the fiber optic like channel yogis call the pingala nadi,

along the same path as you went down on the left side, only now your going up

and over the top of the head and down to the point between the eyebrows on the

right side.

 

Again at the point between the eyebrows, you close the middle finger over the

right nostril, be sure to sit properly as described above and hold the breath,

while counting to 16, and while keeping a steady flow of awareness directed

through the point between the eyebrows from an area just behind and inward

towards the center of the head, from where the flow of directed attention will

seem to originate.

 

The whole process is very silent, space-like, empty, without any thoughts

whatsoever, just following the flow of light that is created along these

channels and centers by your own light of awareness.  As though your body and

surroundings are a dark space, and you are using the light of your awareness to

see the life force flowing along these channels.

 

Having counted to 16 at the ajna chakra, i.e., the point between the eyebrows,

you now do the same process in reverse, breathing in the right nostril

and following the pingala, to the count of 4, holding at the base of the spine

to the count of 16 and exhaling up the ida for the count of 8, and holding at

the ajna chakra for the count of 16.  This completes 1 cycle.

 

In the practice of Sanjam, which should be practiced in balance with the Laya

Path practices, you should repeat at least 10 such cycles at a sitting at least

once a day, better more.

 

Now, the feeling and sensation and experience of awareness in this practice is

entirely different from the radiance of energy that you might say lasts along

the spine even without attention from the Laya Path Practice of Radiance.  For

example, sitting with your left heel between your buttocks pressing on the

sacral plexus (anal sphincter muscles between the anus ad sex organ, and with

the right leg (calf) across the left thigh, knees naturally on the ground (a

variance from sitting cross legged), you put your right hand behind your back

with the arm pressed against your back and press down.  Then you stretch your

left arm up as high as possible so that the left side of the spine opens. 

Pressing the shoulders back you now begin a powerful breath of fire for 3 to 5

minutes. Inhale, hold, pull the root lock, stretch the left arm up, right arm

down, shoulders back, neck stretched and after 10 seconds exhale, squeeze the

breath out, inhale forcefully and completely, then slowly exhale while slowly

bringing the left are straight towards the side and down to your knee.  Then sit

cross-legged with the hands on the knees. Now, you will feel a terrific flow of

radiance, pranic life force, voltage along the left side of the spine, the back

of the left side of the neck and up over the top of the left side of the head

and down to the ajna, even if you don't pay attention, you will feel it.  From

there, the Radiance will diffuse throughout the whole body.  Then wait.  With

every active part of a KY exercise is a passive aspect, where you just wait. 

During this waiting, the glands secrete to support and sustain the voltage along

the spine and throughout the body.  As you keep practicing in a balanced manner,

and especially keeping in mind that every KY exercise has an active and passive

aspect, a pressure of voltage and radiance will begin to penetrate in and

through every cell of the body.

 

But, as mentioned in the beginning, this radiance needs to be counter balanced

with the practice of inward withdrawal, which is essentially this above

described practice of sanjam - breath simran.

 

You will notice, especially, when you take the time to do at least 10 cycles as

described above, that the mind will begin to become very subtle, extremely

silent and still, like windless night, a placid ocean, and you will begin to

internally see with your mind's eye, which is to say with consciousness itself

the flow of light and sensation in and through these nadis.  What you can see

within will also come to light throughout the body and your surroundings, and

you will experience yourself as a filed of light a field of consciousness of 

pervasive awareness.

 

This whole teaching of Yogi Bhajan is understood and appreciated much better,

when you have a daily Sadhana.  there's so much that he taught, that you can

really only understand through a daily practice.  Then with the practice comes

an intuition of the purpose, meaning, benefit and knowledge about the practice

that the world can only indicate.

 

This deepening also deepens the experience of Radiance.

 

When we come to that part of the TT manual, I'm always careful to explain these

aspects in the TT program.  So as teachers and practitioners, if you were not

explained that the Path of Laya or Radiance is to be balanced with the Path of

Pratyahar or Inward Withdrawal, then, please note it now and practice and

experience for yourself.

 

And you will experience yourself as still, radiant, pervasive being, as

Consciousness Itself. " And you will know for yourself the experience and meaning

of " I am the Light of the World. " and know that the light that lights you, also

is the same light that pervades and animates the universe and lights everyone

born into it.

 

Then with this experience begins the inwards sense of consolidation and

integration Yogi Bhajan speaks about and wishes for us which culminates in the

experience of " hearing " (sunia) in which you say " I am the Truth " or as we say

" Sat Nam. "

 

So, please practice Sanjam, " Staying with the Breath " and become subtle.

Transfigured.

 

Pieter

 

re-post