Consequences of taking a longer break?

[emc]

This has probably been asked before, but I confess I'm too lazy to search in the archives...

If spiritual practices are reduced to nothing for a longer period of time - what will happen? What will happen with the kundalini flow and the stillness cultivation - will it be different effects on the two principles?

Will the journey-development-process-'whatever word you like to use for the stuff we're all doing' stop or will it still go forward but a bit slower or will we close down slowly again?

I haven't kept up with my meditation now for a while, and I must say it's not so much of a difference. But I'm not really a reliable measure of it now, since I'm in a tantric relationship again, so I'm under great influence anyway. So the questions are just what they are - questions about the general view of what will happen if we quit practices.

If you have any input or can point to a topic where it has already been discussed, I'm grateful.

[woosa]

I started meditating a few years ago and not 2x a day everyday. Not disciplined at all. More like 30 minutes before bed a few times a week. Thats if I was sober!

Over that time the witness became subtley prevalent even doing that. So I would guess that nothing is wasted, it all accumulates. Your body is changing and I doubt it will revert back, your mind does not know how to either unless you give your ego something.

Your bhakti is there and always will be, and the practices are here too, when you are ready. Would having an ishta help you?

[emc]

Thanks for your reply, woosa, and sharing your experience! It sounds encouraging, that it all accumulates. I'd like to believe that thought.

[JDH]

Hi emc, I have little experience in this, and you've been doing this a lot longer than me, but I feel like blabbing.  

I remember one AYP lesson (no memory of which one), which was about ecstatic conductivity, in which he replied to somebody that if they ceased practices entirely, their ecstatic conductivity would remain at its current levels.  That's obviously taken totally out of context, but thought it was pertinent.

Who knows for certain?  It's been said elsewhere that meditation practice cleanses lifetimes of built up karmic resistances.  So it would be difficult to undo your progress in one lifetime!  I don't believe in the reincarnation part of it.  But I do believe that lifetimes worth of karma can be passed from parents to child in the formative years.

Spinning, spinning.  Ask yourself truly, has your journey ever stopped?  In many ways I feel AYP practices have softened the transformation that was already happening in me.  Practices have spread the process out over a manageable daily dose, rather than lurching forward in huge, world shattering energetic breakthroughs every few months or years.  Who's to say one way is faster or better?  Tantra is after all, more vast and all encompassing than the entirely of yoga, as Yogani has said.

When we get down to the hard facts, in AYP we are sitting still and repeating a thought over and over again, jamming our tongues into our nasal cavities, crossing our eyes, squeezing our sphincter, drinking our urine, and holding our orgasms in (have I forgot anything?) all in the quest to find something which can't be explained by words, and is already here under our noses!  It is quite silly!  We're all mad!  If the AYP training wheels do not some day come off, I will be truly disappointed.  Surely for the righteous soul that desires truth, there is another path which is born out of seeking itself.  Sometimes I wonder if I have not landed here because I was too cowardly to walk those steps of my own path.

I took one break, just short of a week.  My kundalini remained active as if I were still practicing.  I felt it was calling me back in a way.  I hope somewhere in all that I said at least one useful thing.

Peace.

[Katrine]

Hi emc

 

quote:If spiritual practices are reduced to nothing for a longer period of time - what will happen? What will happen with the kundalini flow and the stillness cultivation - will it be different effects on the two principles?

I have no idea what happens if you stop practices for a long time and cannot speak from experience regarding your question....
I see there are common signposts and milestones on all our spiritual journeys, yet it is also a unique journey for every one of us.

But after reading your post the other day something lingered...so here is a resonance of what your question stirred here:

What helps me if there is doubt or uncertainty regarding a choice or situation is to look closely at my own motivation for acting/not acting on something. In other words.....if I find out what the true motivation behind stopping/starting/continuing something is; in this motivation there will be information that may be far more accurate and helpful than what anyone else might say about the issue at hand. This way I can trust the little I already know and act from here. This honesty towards myself is always enough.

All the best

[emc]

JDH

quote:we get down to the hard facts, in AYP we are sitting still and repeating a thought over and over again, jamming our tongues into our nasal cavities, crossing our eyes, squeezing our sphincter, drinking our urine, and holding our orgasms in (have I forgot anything?) all in the quest to find something which can't be explained by words, and is already here under our noses! It is quite silly! We're all mad!

LOL![] That was really funny! Thanks for your way of putting it!

Interesting memory from Yogani's lesson, that the kundalini will remain at current levels. I remember a topic long ago where I asked if it was possible to shut down an opening. One of my friends claim to have been living as One for a year, and then took a decision to close down and go into mind again. In that topic I remember it was a common view that it truly was possible, which surprised me. I can't find that topic now, though.

Katrine, thanks a lot for your reply. I do believe you are absolutely right, and it's a great thing to take into consideration. It's good self-inquiry. However, I have stopped even self-inquiry for a while, so I guess I will find out for myself what happens to this individual case when AYP meditation and other practices are stopped for a while.[8)]

[lorf]

I see it as three major phases in the journey.
The first phase is before passing "point of no return" I would guess this point  might be more known as "awakening". This is when the "kundalini" is activated. Before this happens stopping the practice might result in leaving the spiritual path.
After the point of no return is passed it is like described in this thread. Stopping the practice will just leave the energy at the current level and resuming practice will be almost at he same level as before the break.
The third level is when so much is cleared that the "gravitational pull" is taking over. The principle is the same as coming too close to a black hole. No getting away. The pull toward stillness is there always, like gravity,  regardless. Getting too much "nonaware" or letting the system be stressed or clogged is no alternative. Disturbances will create "friction" which will start to rip the energy system apart. When the gravitational pull has set in the alternative of taking a break do no longer exist, only two choices remain: System breakdown or to proceed in deepening the awareness without compromising. In your case,you will know if the gravitational pull has set in, and if it has, you might or might not find there is a price your body will have to pay for stopping your practices. This depends on if the tantric practices alone are keeping your system clean enough.

[krcqimpro1]

Hi All,

 I remember reading in a kundalini text that if the K has risen upto and activated Manipura Chakra, then it will remain there even if there is a long interruption, before resuming practices. If not, it will fall right back to Mooladhara, and you will have to start all over again !

[emc]

Thanks for your replies!

Interesting reports! Feels like the levels are pretty much the same, and no physical breakdown as yet, so I guess I'm just stabilizing where I am, and it feels great!

[Holy]

In my experience, stopping for 1 month and starting again afterwards took about 1 month to reach the same level of silence again. Same applied to half a year. But every new time the ride was a tiny bit smoother.

If you have a plate made out of a mirror and start eating on it without ever cleaning it, what will happen over time? An accumulation of residues of things that touched the plate and left it. After months, years and lifetimes you can't see the mirror plate anymore. What you see is something that not even has the shape of a plate anymore. The whole stuff has gone completely out of context.

Then one day here and there you catch a hint: "go into the silent depths, clean your plate to see its core". You say, "huh, what shall that be good for?" But somehow, you are curious and start cleaning that ball of leftovers. You start concentrating cleaning here or there for days and months and somehow manage to see a tiny space of shimmering. Woa, so beautiful. At the same time you are eating again on it and colours, textures change and change. More and more shimmerings are seen. Even if they get covered by new food again, your cleaning method seems to take more away of that (in truth mirror plate) than the food-leftovers can cover it.

So what will happen if you stop cleaning that plate and go on eating on it? The whole process is fully physical, law-based and you don't have to believe. Observe how things happen, it is totally analogous to spiritual practices aswell.

Why cleaning the plate, your body-mind-complex? It is just a gift, a present for you. Seeing the clean mirror-plate directly, what will you see? The silent body-mind will reveal something about you. It is for that reason alone these practices exist.

Not to worry about doing them or not, if it is correct or not. It is about you alone. A present of love.

[emc]

Very interesting reading this topic again.

Now that I have begun to meditate regularly again, self-inquiry comes naturally again, and the depth is back as when I left off... and even deeper. I'm just more stable and grounded, it seems. No signs of overload, except from some minor itching sometimes.

It was a very much needed break and much has settled and integrated. The tantric relationship was obviously enough to keep the system clean, and insights/releases during this time has pushed the process further.

krcqimpro1, I do believe it had reached the muladhara chakra!