Monday, September 04, 2006
Obsessive Bridges, Trataka, and Matters of the Heart (Chakra)
This first note is regarding one of the quirkiest developments in my meditative/subtle-energetics practice to date. First, a bit of background:
I've been in the US for a little over 4 months now, by far the longest I've been back in years. Although I've been travelling a lot to see old friends, along with having spent a good 5 weeks at the Vipassana center in NW Mass., most recently I've been at my parents' house for quite a bit and things run slowly here. I've become something of a compulsive email checker; between yoga classes and meditation sessions there's downtime that I try to fill with silly web sites and blogs and contact with friends, at home and abroad. I'd estimate that I wander by the computer to aimlessly browse around the internet at least half a dozen times per day, when nothing is going on and I've nowhere to be.
And apparently, this compulsive behavior has worked its way into my subtle awareness. I started finding, about a month or two ago, that while I'm meditating, if someone sends me an email during that time, I know when it happens. A little "Inbox(1)" message flashes across the field of my closed-eye vision, no joke. (So far I haven't received more than one email while meditating, so I don't know if it would increment accordingly if there were more.) Even for me, this is a bit bizarre.
I mentioned this to my sister, and for the next couple days she was sending me test emails at random times when she thought I might be meditating. Although it wasn't exactly a perfectly controlled experiment, the, um, ability? worked every time. Since I've mentioned this to a few people, as always seems to be the case when I start blabbing about newfound abilities, it hasn't happened in the past few days or so. I think maybe it shut off, although today when I thought about it on purpose, I found I could still connect to my Inbox status. I haven't really been paying too much attention, ie. marking down each time I'm done meditating whether or not I get any email...it's just not that interesting or valuable a siddhi -- if you can call it that -- for me to pursue. But odd enough to merit a blog post, I suppose.
Re: Trataka, a quick note to say that I've been including 7 minutes (minimum) at the beginning of each meditation session I do when I'm at my parents' house. I've taped up a piece of paper with an enlarged period(.) in the center. I stare at it and do my best not to blink, until the timer goes off. I can usually go the 7 minutes now. Tonight I did 12. My best is 14 minutes or so.
I first learned about the practice years ago, at a Thai Massage seminar at PCYH, maybe 2001. Since then I've heard it mentioned from time to time. It's an important part of the Agama Yoga curriculum, and as I'll be spending a lot of time there next year, I thought I might as well start early. I've found it reduces the amount of time I need in anapanna to calm my mind sufficiently to begin my primary practice of Vipassana. It's said that it makes your gaze steady and powerful; I don't know about all that. I've never had much of a problem looking at people when I want to though.
On a side note, trataka when done with a flame as your gaze-focus is really powerful. It changes the luminscence of your eyes, too, which is fun to play with. Within a week or so of doing flame-trataka, people will start commenting on how bright your eyes are. There are some gaze siddhis that come along with this type of trataka too, but they're full of ego traps, so be careful please. There are enough egotists out there.
Lastly, I had a really nice opening of my heart chakra during metta today. This past half year or so, I've been noticing a difference between what I suppose are different levels of depth in my heart chakra. Whereas in the past I've always felt a very immediate, acute sensation, no more than a few inches off my physical chest when focusing on/activating anahata (heart chakra), sometimes now I don't get a local sensation at all. Instead, up to almost 2 feet out from my body I feel much subtler, but very powerful, currents of loving compassion radiating outwards -- in a much broader scope than what's more or less a cylindrical outpouring from my chest center when it's in close. So as I mentioned, I suppose it's just anahata at a different energy body. There are too many different accounts of how these bodies, or koshas, are structured for me to pay much attention to them though. At most, when I'm working on people I'll be aware that there are differing degrees of sensation as I move farther away from their bodies, and that sometimes there are knots or disturbances in their physical body that only release when I work at one of these more distant levels, or "bodies".
The more I practice, the less interested I am in subtle energy and the more interested I am in peace and quiet. That's all for now...
This first note is regarding one of the quirkiest developments in my meditative/subtle-energetics practice to date. First, a bit of background:
I've been in the US for a little over 4 months now, by far the longest I've been back in years. Although I've been travelling a lot to see old friends, along with having spent a good 5 weeks at the Vipassana center in NW Mass., most recently I've been at my parents' house for quite a bit and things run slowly here. I've become something of a compulsive email checker; between yoga classes and meditation sessions there's downtime that I try to fill with silly web sites and blogs and contact with friends, at home and abroad. I'd estimate that I wander by the computer to aimlessly browse around the internet at least half a dozen times per day, when nothing is going on and I've nowhere to be.
And apparently, this compulsive behavior has worked its way into my subtle awareness. I started finding, about a month or two ago, that while I'm meditating, if someone sends me an email during that time, I know when it happens. A little "Inbox(1)" message flashes across the field of my closed-eye vision, no joke. (So far I haven't received more than one email while meditating, so I don't know if it would increment accordingly if there were more.) Even for me, this is a bit bizarre.
I mentioned this to my sister, and for the next couple days she was sending me test emails at random times when she thought I might be meditating. Although it wasn't exactly a perfectly controlled experiment, the, um, ability? worked every time. Since I've mentioned this to a few people, as always seems to be the case when I start blabbing about newfound abilities, it hasn't happened in the past few days or so. I think maybe it shut off, although today when I thought about it on purpose, I found I could still connect to my Inbox status. I haven't really been paying too much attention, ie. marking down each time I'm done meditating whether or not I get any email...it's just not that interesting or valuable a siddhi -- if you can call it that -- for me to pursue. But odd enough to merit a blog post, I suppose.
Re: Trataka, a quick note to say that I've been including 7 minutes (minimum) at the beginning of each meditation session I do when I'm at my parents' house. I've taped up a piece of paper with an enlarged period(.) in the center. I stare at it and do my best not to blink, until the timer goes off. I can usually go the 7 minutes now. Tonight I did 12. My best is 14 minutes or so.
I first learned about the practice years ago, at a Thai Massage seminar at PCYH, maybe 2001. Since then I've heard it mentioned from time to time. It's an important part of the Agama Yoga curriculum, and as I'll be spending a lot of time there next year, I thought I might as well start early. I've found it reduces the amount of time I need in anapanna to calm my mind sufficiently to begin my primary practice of Vipassana. It's said that it makes your gaze steady and powerful; I don't know about all that. I've never had much of a problem looking at people when I want to though.
On a side note, trataka when done with a flame as your gaze-focus is really powerful. It changes the luminscence of your eyes, too, which is fun to play with. Within a week or so of doing flame-trataka, people will start commenting on how bright your eyes are. There are some gaze siddhis that come along with this type of trataka too, but they're full of ego traps, so be careful please. There are enough egotists out there.
Lastly, I had a really nice opening of my heart chakra during metta today. This past half year or so, I've been noticing a difference between what I suppose are different levels of depth in my heart chakra. Whereas in the past I've always felt a very immediate, acute sensation, no more than a few inches off my physical chest when focusing on/activating anahata (heart chakra), sometimes now I don't get a local sensation at all. Instead, up to almost 2 feet out from my body I feel much subtler, but very powerful, currents of loving compassion radiating outwards -- in a much broader scope than what's more or less a cylindrical outpouring from my chest center when it's in close. So as I mentioned, I suppose it's just anahata at a different energy body. There are too many different accounts of how these bodies, or koshas, are structured for me to pay much attention to them though. At most, when I'm working on people I'll be aware that there are differing degrees of sensation as I move farther away from their bodies, and that sometimes there are knots or disturbances in their physical body that only release when I work at one of these more distant levels, or "bodies".
The more I practice, the less interested I am in subtle energy and the more interested I am in peace and quiet. That's all for now...
