Meditation - My Experiance, Am I Allowed To Share?

[Sat1176]

25 minutes ago, Ragmaala said:

I pray that veer Ji you come in contact with a "complete being" pooran mahapurakh who can clear all your doubts. Because even doubts are a hindrance to spirituality. Now you have a duality in your mind , which method is correct or what is happening.  I myself do not know anything but I would say stick to your original method of meditation and also keep praying to Guru ji to clear your doubts. He will surely do it in one way or another.

Appreciate your kind words Ragmaala ji. ;-)

I think the key point to take away from this experience is that visions can occur during meditation or dreams which may consist of seeing Gurus etc. They are not to be thought of to being the final goal but a stage one may have to pass through without becoming too attached to it, otherwise it would not have been mentioned in the passage above. I was becoming attached to the images and have been given a shake so to speak to try and stop this mental imagery and try harder to return back to focusing on Gurmantar. Rest we will leave in Waheguru's hands.

[Lucky]

Sat, the key is to just take the message from the dream and not to focus on imagery. All our dreams have some underlying message from our subconscious that is trying to tell the conscious. You have to learn to decipher the messages yourself and what is important in any dream is to try and think exactly what your feeling of emotional state was whilst in the dream..and this usually helps you get the message.

Dreams and thoughts are MAYA and will remain maya, but you have to use it to your advantage to help you swim across it. Avoiding or ignoring maya is not going to help.

They say that the when one transcends maya and conscious connects with subconscious, then there will be no more dreams......remember, just take the message,..act on it,...and move on.. IF you don't get the message and act on it, then the same sort of dreams will keep re-occurring. You never really want to have any sort of recurring dreams because it means you are stuck and not learning the lessons somehow. ....// I'm speaking from what I've learned in my own experience :)

[Sat1176]

Had a strange experience during simran today. Automatically whist doing strong jaap my body jolted up and my back and spine became super straight and I sat up fully erect. I have never sat so straight like that in my life. Was very unusual indeed. It remained stiff like that for a few minutes after which I was able to relax back down. 

[jaikaara]

5 hours ago, Sat1176 said:

Had a strange experience during simran today. Automatically whist doing strong jaap my body jolted up and my back and spine became super straight and I sat up fully erect. I have never sat so straight like that in my life. Was very unusual indeed. It remained stiff like that for a few minutes after which I was able to relax back down. 

I do experience this , specially while doing Brahm Kawach Jaaps..i am a overweight guy so it kinda gets difficult for me to sit upright continuously.

[BhagatSingh]

6 hours ago, Sat1176 said:

Had a strange experience during simran today. Automatically whist doing strong jaap my body jolted up and my back and spine became super straight and I sat up fully erect. I have never sat so straight like that in my life. Was very unusual indeed. It remained stiff like that for a few minutes after which I was able to relax back down. 

Are you saying you weren't able to actively relax or bend your back while that was happening?

[Sat1176]

To be honest I didn't try and counter the movement. I just let what ever forced me upright take control and I tried to keep my Dhyan on the gurmantar. It felt good to be sitting so straight, something I normally can't do, because I'm overweight in the mid section. Have just read that sometimes energy channels can be opening up which causes the sudden jolts.  

After a while the back relaxed by itself.

[BhagatSingh]

21 minutes ago, Sat1176 said:

To be honest I didn't try and counter the movement. I just let what ever forced me upright take control and I tried to keep my Dhyan on the gurmantar. It felt good to be sitting so straight, something I normally can't do, because I'm overweight in the mid section. Have just read that sometimes energy channels can be opening up which causes the sudden jolts.  

After a while the back relaxed by itself.

Sounds similar to my experience. I remember Lucky describing it a long time ago as well. Feeling jolts that straightened the back during simran.

Any accompanying shivers? or shivers by themselves?

[Sat1176]

30 minutes ago, BhagatSingh said:

Sounds similar to my experience. I remember Lucky describing it a long time ago as well. Feeling jolts that straightened the back during simran.

Any accompanying shivers? or shivers by themselves?

Not yet

[Lucky]

No worries Sat, this is not too unusual....It's your etheric/subtle body that is gaining kundalini potential. The etheric body is made up of energy channels called chi, meridians or nadis. These start getting blocked in all of us from when we detached from the umbilical cord and starting to get our minds enveloped in maya..  The etheric body affects physical body and vice versa.  Just as negative emotions, depressed moods etc. can lead to physical illness symptoms., then in the same way, a significant increase in chi or prana flow, can lead to physical and muscular stimulations. This is exactly how acupuncture works to relieve pain. The needle mapping in this therapy works on the Chinese meridian points- which are the same as nadis. Needling the surface of etheric body meridians results in stimulation and loosening of tight muscles. People wonder why acupuncture is not painful and why there is no bleeding,.....This is because, it is the subtle etheric body being poked, and not the physical.... p.s. " I've been having acupuncture and IMS regularly for a few years"

Anyway, I mentioned the above so that you get and idea about how powerful prana actually is..The muscle rigidity and aligning you experienced is because your erupting etheric energies are telling the physical to "straighten up and let us get through". This is why it is important to maintain good postural alignment for both a spiritual and physical well being.

I always imagine the prana flow and channels as thousands of long tubes running straight up your body. If you look at some human biology books or pictures and see the blood flow in veins, then you will see lots of valves that prevent blood from flowing backwards. I imagine the chi channels being blocked as if these kind of valves are closed shut and preventing flow........So when you felt the physical jolt and muscles aligning, ...it was because the prana was desperate to flow through and upwards along kundalini.. This is exactly what you want, but your physical body was not aligned and was obstructing by not helping the valves to open.... Thus, we can understand that to get the internal jog between atma and paramatma, we need to get some physical balance and alignments to help with the process.

I've heard that some people can be so physically unbalanced and unstable, that the prana channels can open with such a force that they get thrown a couple of feet from the floor as if some 'poltergeist' has wacked them whilst they were doing simran! ....On the other hand, some people can also end up passing flat out on the floor with such force when the prana erupts through channels above or near heart chakra.

Sehaj, 24/7 helps. Sehaj in day, no emotions, no regrets, no anger, no praise, no slander....just sehaj ,,,calm  and neutral... This will help all your body layers to stay in equilibrium. It will help prevent abrupt and  sudden flows of energy.

.

 

[BhagatSingh]

46 minutes ago, Lucky said:

I always imagine the prana flow and channels as thousands of long tubes running straight up your body. If you look at some human biology books or pictures and see the blood flow in veins, then you will see lots of valves that prevent blood from flowing backwards.

I always thought that pran/chi was the human nervous system. Same with chakras.

And that by opening up chakras, what we are doing is actually lighting certain nerve networks in the body. Exciting the nerves that have not been stimulated.

And that developing more awareness leads to a higher sensitivity to the information that nerves were picking up and even waking up dormant nerves, esp. in places we tend not to have awareness of, ie, the torso mostly but also in limbs and head.

So since we are less aware of the torso, by increasing awareness into the torso (higher), we gain a level of higher awareness overall, due to the fact that we have woken up our nervous system.

[BhagatSingh]

2 hours ago, Sat1176 said:

 It felt good to be sitting so straight, something I normally can't do, because I'm overweight in the mid section.

3 hours ago, jaikaara said:

i am a overweight guy so it kinda gets difficult for me to sit upright continuously.

I am not overweight but even i can't sit straight for that long, maybe 20 minutes max.

What really helps me is to lie down and meditate in a straight posture. Completely flat, feet spread shoulder length. Arms to the side, palms facing down. Head straight. Preferably on a flat surface, a bed that is not too soft. Good standing posture but while lying down instead.

I discovered this naturally while meditating before going to sleep, but then I later found out this is called teh Shav Asan.

I think this asan reduces what Lucky calls, eruption of energy. I often find that my energy gets balanced out over my body during the meditation and often times, I feel like I am lying on a cloud or floating as a ball of energy.

I don't experience any jolts in this posture. Which I do experience while sitting straight.

It's like a water tank but since you can hear things, you have to practice some dhyan to tune them out.

 

[Sat1176]

1 hour ago, BhagatSingh said:

I am not overweight but even i can't sit straight for that long, maybe 20 minutes max.

What really helps me is to lie down and meditate in a straight posture. Completely flat, feet spread shoulder length. Arms to the side, palms facing down. Head straight. Preferably on a flat surface, a bed that is not too soft. Good standing posture but while lying down instead.

I discovered this naturally while meditating before going to sleep, but then I later found out this is called teh Shav Asan.

I think this asan reduces what Lucky calls, eruption of energy. I often find that my energy gets balanced out over my body during the meditation and often times, I feel like I am lying on a cloud or floating as a ball of energy.

I don't experience any jolts in this posture. Which I do experience while sitting straight.

It's like a water tank but since you can hear things, you have to practice some dhyan to tune them out.

 

I also like to do simran lying down on the sofa but do find myself nodding off and then awaking again 30 or 60 minutes later.. My problem is that I like to meditate at the end of the day which isn't the best time because you don't know if you fell asleep do to a tranquil mind or tiredness kicked in.

[Lucky]

5 hours ago, BhagatSingh said:

I always thought that pran/chi was the human nervous system. Same with chakras.

And that by opening up chakras, what we are doing is actually lighting certain nerve networks in the body. Exciting the nerves that have not been stimulated.

And that developing more awareness leads to a higher sensitivity to the information that nerves were picking up and even waking up dormant nerves, esp. in places we tend not to have awareness of, ie, the torso mostly but also in limbs and head.

So since we are less aware of the torso, by increasing awareness into the torso (higher), we gain a level of higher awareness overall, due to the fact that we have woken up our nervous system.

np. I'm. pretty certain that the nervous system in conventional medicine does not regard prana or chi energies. However, I know it's the sympathetic and parasympathic nervous system controlling and regulating impulses etc, but you could have a strong point and that there is some correlation. I know that there was some doctor back in early 1900's that did some experiments and thesis to prove the medical correlation between nervous system and yogic body mappings, but the west kind of shrugged it off. I will try and locate the pdf if I can and let you know. - I understand your point and it makes good sense that I agree with, but I was trying to show correlation between etheric body and physical muscles etc

 

[BhagatSingh]

15 hours ago, jaikaara said:

 

8 hours ago, Sat1176 said:

I also like to do simran lying down on the sofa but do find myself nodding off and then awaking again 30 or 60 minutes later..

Sofa is not a good place to meditate lying down.

You also have to hold that same pose throughout so that there is a level of alertness. My sleeping pose is different than the corpse pose. So while I maintain the corpse pose I remain awake. When I feel I have done enough meditation, or when I feel tired but relaxed, I'll switch the pose and fall asleep.

This is because in order to maintain the pose, it does some effort on your part. That little bit I think is enough to keep you awake.

But it's no where near as much effort as sitting straight up. You get the same benefits of Sukh asan but without expending so much energy maintain sukh asan.

Does the above work differently for your body?

Quote

My problem is that I like to meditate at the end of the day which isn't the best time because you don't know if you fell asleep do to a tranquil mind or tiredness kicked in.

The way I can tell is how tired I am in the meditation. If I am very tired in the meditation then the dominant factor is tiredness and if my meditation is going well, then the dominant factor is tranquility.

There is always going to be tiredness. I should say first that much of our tiredness can be eliminated via meditation but there is base level tiredness that is the limitation of the body. So if you are thinking about eliminating tiredness completely. Then you setting yourself up for trouble or a very difficult goal, depending on your physical nature.

"My problem is that I like to meditate at the end of the day"

I wouldn't call this a problem at all. Because in order to have simran going on during the amrit vela and it will happen at amrit vela even while you sleep, or throughout the night and dreams even, you need to be meditating at the end of the day.

I would say that meditating at the end of the day, is more important than meditating during amrit vela. It is important for many reasons.

Because after the end of the day, you go straight to sleep. And during sleep, you have dreams, and during those dreams there is much potential for learning, in ways you will have never thought before. If you condition your mind to meditate during sleep, then it's a great boon.

Because when you sleep, you also go into deep sleep, and deep sleep is the closest thing to a samadhi. Deep sleep is basically a samadhi sans awareness, so now if you bring awareness into sleep, you can access states of samadhi without much effort, though at random times outside of your initial control.

Combine the above two, and you can transition from a dream into a samadhi, because in your dreams, you are not held back by bodily limitations.

 

One of the ways Patanjali says that our mind wanders is, by sleep.

वृत्तयः पञ्चतय्यः क्लिष्टाक्लिष्टाः ॥५॥
ਵ੍ਰੱਤਯਃ ਪੰਚਤਯ੍ਯਃ ਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਃ [[੫]]
[[5]] There are (ਪੰਚਤਯ੍ਯਃ) five main types of (ਵ੍ਰੱਤਯਃ) wandering that causes (ਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਃ, ਕਲੇਸ਼ ਕਲੇਸ਼) suffering upon suffering.

प्रमाण विपर्यय विकल्प निद्रा स्मृतयः ॥६॥
ਪ੍ਰਮਾਣ ਵਿਪਰ੍ਯ੍ਯ ਵਿਕਲਪ ਨਿਦ੍ਰਾ ਸਮ੍ਰਤਯਃ [[੬]]
[[6]] 1. (ਪ੍ਰਮਾਣ) Perception 2. (ਵਿਪਰ੍ਯ੍ਯ) Intellect 3. (ਵਿਕਲਪ) Imagination 4. (ਨਿਦ੍ਰਾ) Sleep 5. (ਸਮ੍ਰਤਯਃ) Memory

So tackling sleep is something we ought to be doing. And sleep here is referring to laziness but also as deep sleep.

And one of the ways to tackle sleep is meditation before sleep.

[BhagatSingh]

5 hours ago, Lucky said:

np. I'm. pretty certain that the nervous system in conventional medicine does not regard prana or chi energies. However, I know it's the sympathetic and parasympathic nervous system controlling and regulating impulses etc, but you could have a strong point and that there is some correlation. I know that there was some doctor back in early 1900's that did some experiments and thesis to prove the medical correlation between nervous system and yogic body mappings, but the west kind of shrugged it off. I will try and locate the pdf if I can and let you know. - I understand your point and it makes good sense that I agree with, but I was trying to show correlation between etheric body and physical muscles etc

Yea definitely. That correlation exists.

You are right they don't. Scientists have been holding back science themselves. When they say science, they mean materialistic science. When I say scientists, I mean materialistic scientists. There are plenty of others, who are looking at spiritual phenomenon via scientific methods.

In our culture Yog is a science. The hypothesis is "yog chit vrti nirodh, tda drisht swaroopev sthanam" that through reducing distraction we can merge with our mool swaroop, and gain insights into reality. The experiment is to meditate and draw your conclusions via personal experimentation.

Here's a lecture I saw a while ago, that I thought was an interesting enough lecture to be less likely to induce sleep. :P

 

 

[Sat1176]

3 hours ago, BhagatSingh said:

Sofa is not a good place to meditate lying down.

You also have to hold that same pose throughout so that there is a level of alertness. My sleeping pose is different than the corpse pose. So while I maintain the corpse pose I remain awake. When I feel I have done enough meditation, or when I feel tired but relaxed, I'll switch the pose and fall asleep.

This is because in order to maintain the pose, it does some effort on your part. That little bit I think is enough to keep you awake.

But it's no where near as much effort as sitting straight up. You get the same benefits of Sukh asan but without expending so much energy maintain sukh asan.

Does the above work differently for your body?

The way I can tell is how tired I am in the meditation. If I am very tired in the meditation then the dominant factor is tiredness and if my meditation is going well, then the dominant factor is tranquility.

There is always going to be tiredness. I should say first that much of our tiredness can be eliminated via meditation but there is base level tiredness that is the limitation of the body. So if you are thinking about eliminating tiredness completely. Then you setting yourself up for trouble or a very difficult goal, depending on your physical nature.

"My problem is that I like to meditate at the end of the day"

I wouldn't call this a problem at all. Because in order to have simran going on during the amrit vela and it will happen at amrit vela even while you sleep, or throughout the night and dreams even, you need to be meditating at the end of the day.

I would say that meditating at the end of the day, is more important than meditating during amrit vela. It is important for many reasons.

Because after the end of the day, you go straight to sleep. And during sleep, you have dreams, and during those dreams there is much potential for learning, in ways you will have never thought before. If you condition your mind to meditate during sleep, then it's a great boon.

Because when you sleep, you also go into deep sleep, and deep sleep is the closest thing to a samadhi. Deep sleep is basically a samadhi sans awareness, so now if you bring awareness into sleep, you can access states of samadhi without much effort, though at random times outside of your initial control.

Combine the above two, and you can transition from a dream into a samadhi, because in your dreams, you are not held back by bodily limitations.

 

One of the ways Patanjali says that our mind wanders is, by sleep.

वृत्तयः पञ्चतय्यः क्लिष्टाक्लिष्टाः ॥५॥
ਵ੍ਰੱਤਯਃ ਪੰਚਤਯ੍ਯਃ ਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਃ [[੫]]
[[5]] There are (ਪੰਚਤਯ੍ਯਃ) five main types of (ਵ੍ਰੱਤਯਃ) wandering that causes (ਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਕਲਿਸ਼ਟਾਃ, ਕਲੇਸ਼ ਕਲੇਸ਼) suffering upon suffering.

प्रमाण विपर्यय विकल्प निद्रा स्मृतयः ॥६॥
ਪ੍ਰਮਾਣ ਵਿਪਰ੍ਯ੍ਯ ਵਿਕਲਪ ਨਿਦ੍ਰਾ ਸਮ੍ਰਤਯਃ [[੬]]
[[6]] 1. (ਪ੍ਰਮਾਣ) Perception 2. (ਵਿਪਰ੍ਯ੍ਯ) Intellect 3. (ਵਿਕਲਪ) Imagination 4. (ਨਿਦ੍ਰਾ) Sleep 5. (ਸਮ੍ਰਤਯਃ) Memory

So tackling sleep is something we ought to be doing. And sleep here is referring to laziness but also as deep sleep.

And one of the ways to tackle sleep is meditation before sleep.

You touched upon the very states I was trying to achieve, Bhagat. Much respect. ;-). To make the end of day meditation followed by sleep effective, there has to be loads of jaap during the day so your mind was held in check whilst awake so looks inwards when asleep otherwise it falls into nonsense dreams.  

[Ragmaala]

3 hours ago, BhagatSingh said:

You also have to hold that same pose throughout so that there is a level of alertness. My sleeping pose is different than the corpse pose. So while I maintain the corpse pose I remain awake. When I feel I have done enough meditation, or when I feel tired but relaxed, I'll switch the pose and fall asleep.

 

This is so true. I can never fall asleep in Shav Asana, I usuallyhave to lie down on my side to fall asleep.

Another thing that I have noticed myself is whenever I am falling asleep or waking up in the middle of sleep or feeling drowsy or sleepy then mind wants to do waheguru jaap, wahe with breath in and breath out...also i feel closer to reality when i am sleepy like as if equating my sleep to death so during my sleepy state i feel more separate from the world and closer to something else...i think this is a good habit which has developed without me knowing...does it make sense to you guys?

I think everyone should do waheguru jaap esp when they are falling asleep in whatever position they are lying...waheguru is an easy mantra to do , however i cannot do a long mool mantra when falling asleep....also during bad health states such as extreme nausea due to motion sickness in airplanes i would try to hold on to waheguru mantra for mental support lol...short mantra comes in handy many times and does not cause mental stress or headache.

[Lucky]

Here is that that pdf book I mentioned above about the doctor who studied into kundalini, yoga and human biology. (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put it on or not because it's about 20 bucks on amazon!... so take it while you can)

Vasant G. Rele - The Mysterious Kundalini - The Physical Basis of the Kundali Hatha Yoga in Terms of Western Anatomy and Physiology (128p)

Vasant_G._Rele_-_The_Mysterious_Kundalini_-_The_Physical_Basis_of_the_Kundali_Hatha_Yoga_in_Terms_of_Western_Anatomy_and_Physiology_(128p)_[Anomolous].pdf

[Sat1176]

It's been a while but as I was doing internal simran today every few minutes my head would drop. I would consciously lift it up again only to find the after a short while it dropping down again bringing my awareness back into the body. Anyone else experience that during simran?

 

[BhagatSingh]

2 hours ago, Sat1176 said:

It's been a while but as I was doing internal simran today every few minutes my head would drop. I would consciously lift it up again only to find the after a short while it dropping down again bringing my awareness back into the body. Anyone else experience that during simran?

 

Were you aware of your head as it was dropping?

[Sat1176]

26 minutes ago, BhagatSingh said:

Were you aware of your head as it was dropping?

Not initially, but as it fell like neck was collapsing, it made me regain awareness. Like being given a jolt so to speak.

[BhagatSingh]

1 hour ago, Sat1176 said:

Not initially, but as it fell like neck was collapsing, it made me regain awareness. Like being given a jolt so to speak.

Oh so you were not aware of your body. But as the neck falls, all of sudden your brain goes "wtf just happened?"

[Sat1176]

7 hours ago, BhagatSingh said:

Oh so you were not aware of your body. But as the neck falls, all of sudden your brain goes "wtf just happened?"

Exactly

[BhagatSingh]

@Sat1176

Sometimes my head kinda droops down but never had it drop all the way. I have no experience with head dropping down like that, so this is just an idea.

1. Try tucking in your chin while keeping you head straight.
2. Put your hand behind your skull and then push against that hand with your head.
3. Remove hand but hold that position.

This will stretch the muscles in the back of your neck and contract the muscles in the front. Hopefully making it easier for your back neck muscles to hold your head when your attention is focused elsewhere.

 

In addition to the above stretch, try the stretches in the following video. They might help to reduce imbalance in the neck region.

 

[Sat1176]

I'm not sure yet whether I need to spend more time in this lost awareness state or pull back a bit and try and remain conscious but with a still mind (I'm not even sure if that might be possible). It's not in ones power when they nodd off and may be a natural response to a still mind. Once I was sitting in my local gurdwara and a the guy sitting next to me, was doing bhagti during the divan. I observed the same thing happening to him. Every so often his head would begin to drop and as it fell he would slowly lift it up again only for it to happen again. Some of the other sangat sitting around him thought he was nodding off and laughing but I believe there is more to this than meets the eye.

Trying to find out more...