Kriya Yoga - 117 Sessions In What Nobody Told Me

[ROOBIO]

Started March 7th. Two sits a day, started around 30 min to now mostly 80 to 90 minutes each. I'm somewhere in the back half of First Kriya. Yoni Mudra stable at 90 seconds, Kechari, Maha Mudra, Navi Kriya, full Pranayama stack. The first three months were one of the ugliest stretches of my adult life. Nobody told me this part. So here it is.

What actually came up

An ex I hadn't thought about in months surfaced like she lived in my chest. Grief that doubled me over. A "I am fundamentally unlovable" core wound I didn't know I was carrying showed up around session 10 and sat on me for weeks. Refused to mute her on Instagram even though I knew I should. Dreamt she married a prince and I watched it through stories. That's the level of subconscious sludge the breath drags up.

4am wakings with my heart pounding for no reason. Sleep got worse before it got better. Samskaras process at night. 

Hulk level rage at my family. I'm talking visualizations of killing people I love. Then immediately the broadcast samskara fired. I went and told a friend the detail because part of me wanted credit for the catharsis. Caught myself only because I was reporting to a coach. Spontaneous body convulsions during Yoni Mudra. Gag reflex from vagus activation. The "verge of exploding and dying" feeling before the bliss door opens. 

A non-dual experience on a beach where I merged with everything. Woman, dog, ocean, no separation, weeping at the beauty. Followed within hours by a full ego reconstruction panic attack at 4am. I posted about the beach experience on Instagram and texted a friend a screenshot of my own insight before deleting both. That's the loop. Insight, broadcast, identity, pressure to perform, anxiety, shame. It runs in pickup, it runs in spirituality, it runs everywhere.

Around session 92 I had a long conversation with a British woman earlier in the day. She left. Hours later I'm standing outside a cheesecake shop in India and she comes back. Says "hi friends," and jumps into my arms and starts weeping uncontrollably. Not crying. Weeping like something inside her had been waiting a year to come out. I held her. Took her to the side. Said "it's okay, it's okay, cry." Started breathing with her, our stomachs touching, for about 10 minutes. She stopped. I sat her down with the cheesecake and said "feel the wetness on your face, the sadness, the sorrow, it's so fucking pleasurable." She broke into laughing hysterics and we ended up laughing together. I walked her toward my place and decided not to bring her up. Gave her a hug. Didn't take her number. Closed loop.

And right after, I felt the structural pull of how spiritual leaders become sexual predators. I felt it from inside. Regulated nervous system plus vulnerable seeker plus intense bonding plus projection of divinity equals the exact circuit. I understood Lahiri's rule against organizations in my body for the first time. That's the level of clarity Kriya gives you about your own potential darkness.

A few days before session 101 I had another one. Deep conversation, very fast. Dating, sexuality, consciousness, silent presence. She cried during it. I felt the pull, decided not to pursue. Didn't message her. Then a few days later I'm sitting in a cafe working, and she walks in. Says "hey" passing me, sits with another guy. Five minutes later she leaves him, comes over to me, makes small talk about her foot healing for five minutes, says "I need to go, I'll see you again," and goes back to the guy. While she's leaving the cafe she shouts "Bye Hari!" across the whole restaurant. 

I was sitting with an American friend at the time. My nervous system went into the floor. Day-long fear spike. Mind bombarding with guilt, shame, worry, every possible angle. Sexual energy uncontainable, pulsations streaming up and down my body.

That night I woke up hallucinating. My laptop became a boat. There was a crocodile trapped at the bottom of the boat. A lizard popped out of it crawling along the keyboard. Hypnopompic paralysis, couldn't move, just watching it.

I didn't message her. Didn't post. Didn't go looking for her. Brought it to a coach instead of acting on any of it.

Social collapse. Couldn't look people in the eyes. Couldn't smile naturally. Parvastha bleeding into daily life so much I stopped wanting to talk to anyone. Watching girls on the beach instead of approaching, half witnessing, half avoiding, mostly avoiding.

Sloth states after sessions. Lying down "thinking" for an hour. Stopped sessions to write poems. Tried to do three sits in a day. Went over the timer constantly. The mind dresses up self sabotage as creativity, as devotion, as "deepening."

Crying as cathartic relief, not pain. That's the good version. The bad version is hell/bliss oscillation inside the same retention. Pure terror, then pure love, every 8 seconds, for 80 minutes. You don't get to leave the seat.

This is not a hobby. It's a controlled demolition of the self you walked in with. If you have unfinished business with a parent, an ex, your ambition, your specialness, it is coming up, on the practice's schedule, not yours. The bliss is real. The "I am" state is real. But the path runs straight through every wound you've spent twenty years arranging your life to avoid feeling.

Sit twice a day. Don't post about it. Don't make it your identity. Don't join the course. Don't tell people how deep you went. Get a coach or a friend who will call you on your shit.

It is worth it. It is not pretty.

Edited June 12 by ROOBIO

[ROOBIO]

I am interested the peoples experiences with Kriya.

Have you been through a similar path?

[bazera]

That's wild, thanks for sharing. I have couple questions though:

Have you had any other spiritual practices before this? Or are you inclided towards mysticism by default your whole life? Because I think what you describe is unusual set of results after just couple months for a beginner. But maybe you're not a beginner.

Do you practice other practices? Maybe some mindfulness meditation or something like that? Or just Kriya?

And last question, what stack of Kriya exercises would you recommend to a beginner for his first couple months of practice? I am planning to also go into Kriya but with very little experience, I was thinking just focusing on Pranayamas for couple months only to integrate it and maybe feel my spine and the energy better, and then add additional practices if I feel like it like Mahamudra, Yoni Mudra, etc.

Thanks again for sharing your story.

[ROOBIO]

6 hours ago, bazera said:

That's wild, thanks for sharing. I have couple questions though:

Have you had any other spiritual practices before this? Or are you inclided towards mysticism by default your whole life? Because I think what you describe is unusual set of results after just couple months for a beginner. But maybe you're not a beginner.

Do you practice other practices? Maybe some mindfulness meditation or something like that? Or just Kriya?

And last question, what stack of Kriya exercises would you recommend to a beginner for his first couple months of practice? I am planning to also go into Kriya but with very little experience, I was thinking just focusing on Pranayamas for couple months only to integrate it and maybe feel my spine and the energy better, and then add additional practices if I feel like it like Mahamudra, Yoni Mudra, etc.

Thanks again for sharing your story.

Yeah, I was meditating quite intensely in my earlier years, but then I completely stopped for like six years to sort my life out. I kind of just forgot about spirituality. And now, especially this year, I've been practicing very hard: Kriya Meditation, Mindfulness, Psychedelics. And I've always been interested in trying to find out what is true. What am I? What is consciousness? Asking the big questions. 

Yeah, right now I do Kriya, concentration practice, which I think is extremely important, Shinzen Young Noting Technique, zazen/do nothing, some contemplation, but I should do more of this. I don't do enough. 

Don't start with pranayama. Start with the prep, in this order: get a comfortable seat (30-45 min), learn Nadi Sodhana, learn Ujjayi, practice resting in awareness after each round (Parvastha), then learn to hold focus at the eyebrow point, then spend time feeling each of the 7 chakras one by one, then add mental Om at each chakra up and down the spine.

Only after all that ,usually a month in, start Kriya Pranayama itself, 12 breaths building to 24, slow (30+ sec per breath).

Edited 10 hours ago by ROOBIO

[inFlow]

@ROOBIO How old are you?

Seems like you are over-doing it. Kriya for the first years has to be done in an easy manner. I've encountered such trouble with kriya if I indeed tried to push myself "through", but only by relaxing and giving myself less time in kriya did I start to live life better. It's quite counter-intuitive in the start. Ive heard a friend of mine who was doing kundalini yoga, he said that he encountered a very depressive life when doing so and after he quit it all did he start to "be" happy again. Dont quit, but dont over-do it also.

I'm gonna be 35 in a few months, and in this age my ego sort of changed in the direction of destruction and no longer wanting to "be" something. I no longer feel the need to talk about my experiences, to share what I can see/feel/intuite, you just learn to BE with it and there is no need to talk/brag about it, you somewhat dodge these things alltogether. And by reading your post I kinda feel that you are still young.

Im happy to hear that you have integrity.

Be the Light ♥♥♥