Steve, sad fact is that techniques do not work as they have been reported to work. More precisely, Yogananda and SRF make it sound simple, whereas I've spent hours meditating and trying to still the breath with Hong Sau to no avail. Sure that's my fault, but if after 35 years of practice there is such a lack of achievements, I wonder. Everyone would wonder, although the flaw is sure in myself. But I've really been working hard sometimes, with huge willpower.
Of course, every spiritual routine cannot but help one's mental state of health, but I would have expected that by now I would be able to still the breath if not the heart.
Kryia, ditto, you can feel the currents when you practice good, but higher states of consciousness???T hey seem to be more a random occurrance than a consequence of techniques. And I never experienced something similar to the state of samhadi described by Yogananda.
Not complaining, actually, just ruminating.
i know you have heard that God is very shy. What amazes me is he/she never quite fits our description of God. We get these ideas in our head of what our description of spirituality should resemble. Yet in the most peculiar way God does manifest in our lives. Maybe not the way we expect or desire God to manifest but nevertheless it has the imprint of his/her presence.
We think well it seems like I should be able to stop my heart from beating by now. But we may look at our lives and find that instead we had some important person enter our life that we always dreamed about or we are able to manifest a dream we have had or be in a situation where we can work on that dream. Have you ever considered how we get ourselves into all kinds of messes and in some mysterious way God was there to help us when we were in trouble....or just about the time we were going to get involved in something that was not good for us God threw a monkey wrench in our plans to save us from impending doom? i remember having problems with nodding off and sleep in meditation and sometimes i would feel a tap at my shoulder or a voice to help get back at meditation. God knows the desires of our heart and often he goes beyond our preconcieved ideas and manifests very differently than we would think. He may be working overtime just to save us from ourselves.
Yet behind our spiritual practice God is manifesting and the more spiritual practice we do the more we see tangible manifestations of God's presence in our lives. This Kriya practice and having Gurus in my life have given me tangible situations that have shown me God was manifesting in my life. Sometimes what others would term miracles. These are not 'natural' but rather supernatural events and situations. Yet sometimes just to look at the way I saw myself and the world at one time and how it appears now! There has been a lot of mental constructs that I held as sacred cows that had to be torn a way so that a fresher view could be taken.
