Ayham

You guys focus on Leo too much

@Yousif huh, another iraqi? The fuck?

@Leo Gura as an iraqi, I can confirm, and if they don't kill her, she will get her reputation ruined and be treated as a whore, and probably will end up alone.

@Anon212 Thanks for sharing your experience, can you tell me if you have any knowledge about the kriya yoga mentioned in books here? is it similar to your practice? and also if you have received sadhguru's most advanced form of kriya or just doing the beginner thing? (i am clueless about his system so sorry if the question is stupid)

@QVx As in, the system is a means to an end, at some point you will have to let go of it, right? have you used something similar?

@Leo Gura got you, i agree it's not applicable for most westerns, imo the main danger of the traditional route would be the dogma that would get rooted in you, you can see this in a lot of kriya schools and basically any tradition, arguments about the right guru, right techniques, etc. Sadhguru seems to be doing a business around teaching yoga superficially to the most number of people, rather than teaching team real yoga I personally found gamana's approach to kriya perfect for me, and also there's a kriya book called "synthesis of personal experience" by Ennio nimis, it's free online, and highly skimmable, it's very high quality. First part is his story, no need to read if not interested, i skipped personally Second part is the "original techniques", you can read the first two chapters which are the first kriya, others are advanced higher kriyas Third part compares different spiritual traditions and talks about why some people practice for years and go nowhere, very useful Fourth part is just other variations of kriya, one of them is like gamana's Personally I like the approach of taking the practices without the beliefs and dogmas, doing them in a modern secular way, but even if though I do that, I still get a lot of unconscious dogmas anyway, but it helps to be aware. It seems to me that you haven't taken spiritual practice as seriously as something like psychedelics, I'm not against psychedelics at all but what's the point of consciousness highs without having a solid baseline?

@Salvijus Interesting, so it's another one of those things that you can find in multiple traditions and religions, I'm not familiar with baptism, though since I'm from a Muslim country, I do know that Sufis also have a form of initiation into their orders When something is found in all great spiritual traditions, it ought to be of value, which is why all of them have it in their own way, you could say the idea of initiation is part of the collective unconscious. Which is why I always think the core of all religions is the same, we can take the core and throw away the dogma. I will take a look into the book you mentioned, and I would like you to describe chi to me, because i have had some "out there" experiences that might be connected, so how do you feel chi? @Leo Gura I like the way you make people here question beliefs and set in stone ideas, especially the spiritual ones, those tend to become our dogmas as "spiritual" people. Your point is that basically initation can be helpful but it's more yogic dogma and you can do it all on your own. But have you directly experienced some sort of initation or transmission? If so, did you feel anything? Are you open to trying it out?

i see, thanks for the detailed reply, i will look into it

@Salvijus got it, so the difference is huge for you, and what do you mean by "where you belong to karmicly" @Ishanga isn't sadhguru shambhavi kriya very watered down and made for a public audience? it is quite different from kriya yoga as I know

@Salvijus I don't really have much of an option of initiation, I am still not an adult and I'm from Iraq, which is hard to leave (I have an escape plan but it takes time) I doubt there's any Kriya guru here lol Have you been initiated? Was it transformative in a way?

@thierry be careful of sexual suppression, allowing your sexual needs to unfold fully is best, you can see a lot of those monks and swamis that have attempted to transcend sex becoming molesters at old age or something. Is it possible to completely transcend it? Sure, but what's the purpose? Sex and masturbation are completely healthy as long as you aren't overdoing it Focus on your spiritual practice and enlightenment work while engaging in sex and masturbation in healthy moderate amounts, and with time, the closer you get to god, the lessser your desire for sex will be.

@Salvijus I haven't stuck to it for long, I practiced last year for a while, switched to normal meditation, and I'm back on it right now but I'm unable to stick to it well because those 2 months will be extremely busy for me, like the busiest in my life so far lol (last year of highschool in an extremely competitive school with extra classes and a whole mess along with other personal matters), so I just practice whenever I can and I am working on achieving kechari.

@Girzo thank you for the answer

@Girzo Can you tell me about Mukherjee's pranayama? Have you experimented with spinal breathing? Apparently with Mukherjee's, it will naturally transform into ocean breathing with time, and since apparently all chakras are contained in ajna, it will achieve the same thing as the spinal breathing version, especially when you get good at it, you will feel each om vibrating at the corresponding chakra, while you only focus on the third eye, it tries to achieve the same thing naturally. I'm confused about which type of pranayama to do and I keep changing my mind and not sticking to one, so I'm curious about if you experimented with spinal breathing

@Girzo How was your kriya routine like?

Have you read any Kriya books? And what lineage did you get initiated into (out of curiosity and it could be relevant)? I recommend you read some kriya books, I like ennio nimis "Synthesis of personal experience" and santatagamana's books which are quite very short

Hey dude, how are you lol I have been there too. I think the advice about actually building an emotional connection in person is valid, though building an emotional connection without setting a flirty sort of frame from the beginning would very likely put you in the friendzone, she needs to feel that masculine essence you got. Best case scenario, you get her, have a good relationship, realize it won't make you happy, continue to focus on other stuff, or you fuck it up because you were too emotionally invested and got too attached (been there), which will be a strong lesson. Either way, the stronger the hurt from rejection or heartbreak, the stronger you will become as a man, so it's a win-win either way. The "how" for actually flirting with her or building a connection isn't something anyone can answer, it must come from feeling and intuition and shutting off your rational mind, acting from your deepest essence, and if anyone gives you a "how" for doing that, it will be fake and cheesy so it will be counterproductive.

Nice to meet you, I'm the same It's all pretty confusing and overwhelming, I have been into personal development, philosophy and spirituality ever since I was 12, I know that's what I like, but I'm trying to find a mix of practicality and what I like, doing something practical and this stuff on the side until it makes me money. Though lately I have been fascinated by science a lot (I'm aware of the epistemological limitations) and I am thinking I could get into medical school and become a psychiatrist especially since medical school is free here. The point is, it matters more how you imagine your life 10 years down the road, focus on that vision and work your way down. Like I have a natural instinct to say things like: oh go read 300 books and master kriya yoga and lift weights and get healthy and work on your life purpose But what I am working towards is different from what you want to work towards I understand how difficult and overwhelming it is with so many options and feeling lost, it's either following the normal path of miserable practicality, or taking the risk of becoming creative and passionate, I am personally trying to balance it out.

Title. Basically for me, if I wake up late, not study/work enough, have a bad kriya yoga session, maybe not eat as healthy, or even just feel like I'm not doing something enough, I start beating myself up, I constantly feel like a failure unless I am doing everything perfectly. In a sense it helps me get things done, but I'm aware it is neurotic and unhealthy. Another thing I beat myself up a lot for, to the degree of almost hating myself, is fucking up my first relationship by being too clingy and attached. Anyways, has anyone been through this? How do you guys deal with it?

I suppose it's true that being aware and detached of your ego mind, self-judgements, etc. is key. Though I doubt most of us modern folk have the capability to maintain that awareness unless one has a very good baseline by a lot of hardcore spiritual work.

Any tips on actually feeling the cool and warm sensation up and down the spine during kriya pranayama?

@PenguinPablo if you are having great results with that, wait until you get to the main practices Start with pranayama asap, that's the most important practice, followed by mahamudra and yoni mudra

@PenguinPablo what is your routine like?

Daily meditation might not bring you awakening But it's very important to be able to sit with yourself for a good amount of time in today's fast paced culture that is full of distractions

I used to meditate everyday for 2 years or so? My practice was about 30 minutes long, mainly noting/vipassana style, and sometimes do nothing For the first 6 months, it was great progress and a lot of desires for the daily mundane stuff was gone I do admit my time was too short for anything else, but I also had trouble increasing the time since I always experienced dullness/ sleepiness Though I did a few strong determination sits of an hour I switched to Kriya yoga lately, I am still a beginner so I can't say much, but it's definitely better I do the kriya routine (gamana's book) then at the end just staying in a self awareness/ self abidance state So in meditation, you try to meditate without being ready, in kriya, you use breathing techniques and other things to still the mind and raise kundalini energy, then you can meditate from that state, which will be 10x more effective