A warning against energy practices

[AlwaysBeNice]

Ramana Maharshi warned against.

 

Craig's a good teacher also imo, here's a little bio:

At just 19, Craig began apprenticing under his teacher David in Southwest Colorado. David, a little-known meditation master, (who lives a private meditative life) guided Craig for 20 years, in the lineage of Sri Aurobindo. This relationship deeply shaped Craig’s life and teachings. During the last 10 years Craig also studied with Adyashanti who guided him through 4 profound awakenings (head, heart, Hara and Kundalini). Upon request from others, Craig began sharing these nondual teachings in Satsang. (Batgap interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQhzeoVwnjw)

 

He experienced an intense years of kundalini awakening, often experiencing extreme pain for years (after already having done a lot of practice) which would later transform into bliss if he could surrender to it, as well as experiencing difficulty with motor skills, sleep, memory etc.  and worked with many people whom are also going through a similar energy process (whom mostly come to him asking: how can I stop this?).

He also doesn't recommended energy practices at all, because the goal is self-realization/surrender anyways.

So given we already live in a challenging world full of turmoil, poor support systems, terrible mental conditioning/emotional suppression and a complete ignorance of emptiness: focusing on energy practices might just make things harder on yourself as apposed to doing the self-inquiry/doing nothing or perhaps concentration exercises which is almost always recommended and which has you coming into peace and freedom without adding more buzz than what's needed.

Edited March 9, 2018 by AlwaysBeNice

[Cocolove]

What do you think about yoga then

[mohdanas]

10 minutes ago, TripleNipple said:

What do you think about yoga then

This 

Plus, Looking for Leo Insight. 

[Leo Gura]

You just gotta do it properly.

It's very hard to awaken when your energy is all screwed up and blocked up.

You can read about people who have random kundalini awakenings and are traumatized by them. That's because they didn't know what they were doing. They probably weren't doing a good formal yoga practice.

Yoga isn't just about quickly creating a kundalini awakening. Yoga is a gradual healing and purification of your entire energetic system. Which is arguably more important that having an enlightenment experience. You are going to feel so much better and more grounded when your energy system is purified. This goes to the heart of embodiment.

[Joseph Maynor]

I was watching this video by Leo and Martin Ball and was fascinated with Martin's theory of energy.  It's pretty cool.  I can see how this could be a useful theory or paradigm in this work.  Props to Leo and Martin for doing this video.  It's a great video.  Pay attention to Martin's theory of energy.  Consider it with an open mind.  How could it be useful to you.  Forget about conceptual-truth.  Conceptual-truth is not the only litmus-test for whether a theory is useful on the Path or not.

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[AlwaysBeNice]

And I forgot to mention it can put people on the brink of insanity or make them insane (for some time), if they aren't somewhat settled in consciousness and don't have the wisdom of knowing that no thought or feeling is ultimately true.

But that's significantly harder to do when your system is being flooded by triggered feelings/thoughts because of the energy awakening.

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You just gotta do it properly.

It's very hard to awaken when your energy is all screwed up and blocked up.

You can read about people who have random kundalini awakenings and are traumatized by them. That's because they didn't know what they were doing. They probably weren't doing a good formal yoga practice.

Yoga isn't just about quickly creating a kundalini awakening. Yoga is a gradual healing and purification of your entire energetic system. Which is arguably more important that having an enlightenment experience. You are going to feel so much better and more grounded when your energy system is purified. This goes to the heart of embodiment.

To me it seems like playing with the mind, and playing with energy (which would be the better scenario, as apposed to people (unconsciously) doing it to gain special experience or siddhis to put on their spiritual ego resume).

That can be fun, it can be healing, or it can be destabilizing, and (relatively) rarely awakens people out of ego (compared to other practices).

To each their own, but if your goal is permanent happiness and freedom, I don't see why one would want to go this route.

Because self-inquiry/doing nothing gives you best of both worlds:

-It gives the highest probability of permanent awakening (which is always the nr.1 goal)

-It heals the systems also because the contractions are based on 'I-thought' trauma's/suppression

- It allows for the energy to gently awaken on it's own, but at that point it's more of a reflection of the already open state you're in and doesn't tend to cause turmoil

-

Also asana yoga is good I think, all exercise is great and important imo.

Edited March 10, 2018 by AlwaysBeNice

[Leo Gura]

Self-inquiry will not take most people very far into embodiment. Yoga is far superior for that.

It is crazy how effective yoga can be.

[Joseph Maynor]

3 hours ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

And I forgot to mention it can put people on the brink of insanity or make them insane (for some time), if they aren't somewhat settled in consciousness and don't have the wisdom of knowing that no thought or feeling is ultimately true.

But that's significantly harder to do when your system is being flooded by triggered feelings/thoughts because of the energy awakening.

To me it seems like playing with the mind, and playing with energy (which would be the better scenario, as apposed to people (unconsciously) doing it to gain special experience or siddhis to put on their spiritual ego resume).

That can be fun, it can be healing, or it can be destabilizing, and (relatively) rarely awakens people out of ego (compared to other practices).

To each their own, but if your goal is permanent happiness and freedom, I don't see why one would want to go this route.

Because self-inquiry/doing nothing gives you best of both worlds:

-It gives the highest probability of permanent awakening (which is always the nr.1 goal)

-It heals the systems also because the contractions are based on 'I-thought' trauma's/suppression

- It allows for the energy to gently awaken on it's own, but at that point it's more of a reflection of the already open state you're in and doesn't tend to cause turmoil

-

Also asana yoga is good I think, all exercise is great and important imo.

Self-inquiry seems to run its course I find.  It’s not something that is done permanently like ‘do nothing’ meditation might be.  There’s a certain time for self-inquiry on the path.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Shanmugam]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Self-inquiry will not take most people very far into embodiment. Yoga is far superior for that.

It is crazy how effective yoga can be.

Yoga is actually a preparation for self-inquiry. It prepares the ground by purifying the mind and the body, just like many other practices. 

When It comes to spiritual practice, sometimes people may tend to attribute the ideas of superiority and inferiority. But in reality, nothing is inferior or superior. If a person struggles with self-inquiry, he has to do practices like Yoga to prepare the ground. If a person is just stuck with techniques of yoga and stuck with the idea of becoming 'superior' or become anything at all,  it is time for him for a direct approach like self-inquiry.

Yoga is a doing; self-inquiry is a non-doing. Doing leads to non-doing. Without doing, a person cannot progress to non-doing; without non-doing, a person will be stuck with doing.

None of the steps in the following staircase is superior or inferior to another step: