paramnam

thanks for sharing, forgive me but could someone do give some translated highlights of this? anything is appreciated. thank you

Yogi bhajan spoke a lot about this... he said something like  i dont want you to open it, its already open, you day-dream you fantisize, i want to close it, focus it inward. he also said waheguru mantra is a trikuti mantra (agya chakra). My limited experience and education showed me its seeing beyond duality, seeing your true self beyond labels to see the truth. Bhagti trumps all yogic practices, it gets rid of the spiritual traps or hang ups, just attaching to maharaj gives you all yogic benefit and power. Using intuition, being able to navigate from the soul rather than ego, agya chakra can compute the dualities and see the truth in it...

upper and lower chakras sort of reflect each other in a way so 3rd eye and second chakra reflect 2nd the theme is "who am i" but its more of an egoic identity, 3rd eye theme is "who am i REALLY"
hopefully this helps a tiny bit at least. 
 

difficulty is good, jsut keep going. Do ardaas and jsut keep reciting, listen only to the mantra keep listening, mind will wander and lsiiten to a thought but go back to the mantra. start simple dont worry about nabhi center, that may make you try to influence and experience. just listen to your voice saying waheguru, say it, hear it, feel it and keep going. 
even if the "quality of your meditation" wasnt "good" there is still benefit putting your time and practice into it

I am no expert whatsoever but this is what has helped and still helps me.

Kundalini symptoms does not include fatigue i dont care what anyone has said-so misunderstood. dont worry about these "energy blockages" , let guru take care of them. do your nitnem, drink more water, check your diet and also when the headache starts-look into what happened before it maybe what relievs it. 

Do you do cold showers? that can help with headaches and fatigue.  even just cold water on yourr feet can help a headache. Walking  when you can will cure a lot of issues also. 

Ah ok. I would think tapas because meditation builds tapas which can actually physically heat the body and possibly dry it out if not given nourishment like water, ghee or other healthy fats, good food to balance the the heat. I am no expert, just what it seems like to me, but yes, tapas definitely can physically heat the body 

I took a "sacred sanskrit class" which talked about this. Very interesting. Even the physical letters are representations of effects (my teacher claimed). 

http://www.soulanswer.com/mystical_gurmukhi.html this course also goes more in detail about this too

What makes you say meditation is the cause? I could make up some reasonable links but it would be more accurate to hear why you associate the two first 

I have been wondering about this too and am really trying to reduce sleep. ill share random points that i have heard of and/or experienced. 

I had a nutrition teacher who's colleague would do 8 hours of chi gung each night and didnt sleep at all.

Cold showers help a lot!

I definitely find reading more bani helps reduce sleep but i dont think we can force it i think reducing sleep has to happen naturally. wake up when you can for amrit vela and really really fall in love to quiet the mind, I find if i slow the breath it can help. I might do a big inhale and do a full exhale reciting banis or mul mantar etc.  

Some people may not agree and thats fine but i used to do 30 minutes of breth of fire and i had tons of energy. I have read carbon dioxide in the body can cause tiredness so super oxygenating the blood can help that. 

Sometimes i will wake up at 2am and do my practices until 6 or 7 and sleep for however long i can 30 minutes up to 2 hours depending on my schedule. I find that sleeping after long practices puts you quickly into a very deep refreshing sleep even if it is only 30 minutes. 

At one time i was reading japji 10 times a day and that seems to make up for sleep, tiredness was taken away for sure. but getting up for that has always been the hard part

Moving the body helps too, some stretching, moving lymph fluids

Seems the best thing is to do it keep adding more bani/simran when you can, the mind becomes more subtle and less sleep is needed. between 10pm and 2am is apparently the best time to sleep. I had a yoga teacher in the past also say that each hour slept before 12am is equivalent to 2 hours after 12am. 

Yogi bhajan would say go to sleep as if you are taking a nap. he only slept a couple hours if that each night and was perfectly consistant with his amrit vela practice from what i have heard. He read lots of bani also. 

my goal is to work out only sleeping a couple of hours a night, i am very far from that but would love to be able to do that haha

Most likely he is against that because people tend to strain themselves. this would cause more damage to the flow of prana through the nadis. Kumbakh is praised in many traditions from what ive studied. Just be relaxed with it and don't hold to the point of strain and its good.

It slowed down my mind enough to let me experience a glimpse of the essence. i felt a profound connection to all pervasive power more than i had before. i felt as ease with myself a deeper relaxation. i was more receptive to gurbani too it felt i was touched deeper from doing path 
Actually it also made my brain also seem to work better haha my memory got better especially when i did it for 30 minutes a day. 

give it a try if youre interested i definitely recommend it

also you could inhale waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa hold heeeeeeeeeeeeee exhale guruuuuuuuuuuuuu
or recite to help count saying waheguru x amount of times maybe per 2 seconds or something

16 hours ago, Lucky said:

1 minute breath is 20 sec inhale with a long internal Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaheeeee,....then pause for 20 seconds holding,....... and then a long 20 second Guuuuurrrooooooooooooooooo.......

 

yes and please dont strain yourself if 5-5-5 or 10-10-10 works do whatever you can but keep the same ratio and relax any unnecessary tension in the body especially when holding breath

Ive heard there was a mslim spy present and he saw guru maharaj behead the panj pyare, he saw them put the heads back on. 
no matter what the story is we understand the message he was teaching us and the blessing he gave us. 

this is prana and apana mixing. negative and positive blend. polarities blend to merge with the divine. the purpose of Hatha yoga sun and moon blend and kundalini rises we go beyond polarity. no need to get into the asrtology. all inside

Focussing the mind, mastering the physical body so thoughts can be directed mroe easily, good health making it easier for the mind to be stabile, quiet mind in order to recognize true reality. If you have less health issues its easier to focus on spiritual. 
Yogas often talk about the direct connection between prana and chita the waves of the mind and flow of "breath" slowing breath will slow the mind. also if the flow of breath is brought to a certain pattern it can make the patterns of the mind more elevated like putting a leash on a dog eventually the dog learns to walk with you and not go crazy all over the place this can keep you in your home (body) and not wander around in the "jungles" looking for the God. 
BUT all this can be overridden through surrender to Guru maharaj! you surrender to the form and practices of sikhi and you can master it all without needing asana, pranayam,etc.! better this way because then ego is taken out of the picture too.. ratehr than controlling the body, the body and ego are given to guru, surrender is important and humility... Baba nand Singh ji said a gursikh is a true yogi. 
One minute breath is great especially if you incorporate guru mantar with it. That mediation REALLY changed me in a positive way and brought me to more love of sikhi. 
I'm just ranting but hopefully that was a little helpful at least
fateh!

i would recommend pranayam... left nostril breathing works really well. inhaling and exhaling though the left nostril only.laying on the right side (if thats comfortable) to keep the left nostril open to calm and cool the mind and body

Wjkk Wjkf!

Anyone drink this (yerba mate)? Any negative side effects? Positive? I've looked around a little bit and seem to get mixed messages about it...

thank you !

wow thank you!
I have been doing 32 times for a few days now and for me it does seem like too much at this point, once is good enough for me, Maybe ill feel it day by day. I tend to want a schedule too much sometimes and lose the heart centered practice. thank you
god bless

 

This is one of my favorite techniques. I do simran all sorts of ways but I've kept this one consistant for a while now. I do it at least 10 minutes a day usually longer. I do it in the way Yogi Bhajan taught, he spoke very highly of it. I like it after reciting out loud for a while to get more subtle (going through the levels of speech i guess you could say). He said it was called Sudarshan Chakra Kriya. 

I put it in smoothies, usually with banana and some other stuff. On a side note I have read in the past that too much kale can cause imbalance in the thyroid. I'm sorry I don't have time to do the research right now but here is a google search for it https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=kale%20imbalancing%20thyroid%20lack%20of%20iodine