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davesiddha
South Africa
2 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 09 2012 : 08:17:19 AM
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Hi all
First off, i want to thank Yogani and the AYP community for this work. I have just finished reading Yogani's extremely helpful lesson 367'lesson for over sensitive meditators. Over the years I have read Yogani's thoughts about this and it has really helped me with my meditation practice, but I only recently found this lesson 367, and it really hit home and helped.
Yogani mentions self pacing and possibly shortening meditation times to 5 or 10 minutes and if you find less than 10 minutes still overwhelming, then you are probably over-sensitive.
Well, I find 5 minutes or less, mostly very intense and overwhelming and have struggled to keep up meditation practice as it quickly gets too intense. Yogani mentions possibly using a bigger mantra, which is something I have intuitively done before which really seems to help, but then, some of the same problems do seem to return if one meditates too much or often. Personally since I have stopped meditating for a while, and when I begin again, i like to start with the basic mantra and then after about 2 weeks, i feel 'ready' to use a bigger mantra. This seems to work for me...I would like to get to the point where I can stick long term with the same mantra and long term practice. This is my goal.
I have found that instead of meditating twice daily, that once daily meditation seems to work very well for me. Being an oversensitive meditator, I find that meditating once daily allows me to go quite deep and then gives me a good 24 hours for the nervous system to integrate any of the effects. I have used the once a day meditation strategy with very good results for periods of a few months at a time. Whenever I tried to return to meditating twice daily, the same over-sensitivity problems returned strongly, feeling dissociated in activity, fatigued, spacey. Activity was not smooth, but very rough. The balance between inner and outer integration was not going well.
But when I do meditation once daily, it seems to smooth things out nicely and I get to be able to possibly meditate a bit longer than 5 minutes, and can even with practice to 15-20 minutes.
On the down side, if we only meditate once daily, then we only have one session a day of going inward instead of two opportunities. As we know, it is the process of alternating inward activity of meditation and outer activity of action that we stabilize enlightenment. So this would make twice daily meditation more rapid. But then if it is creating too much imbalance, then paradoxically it slows us down and once daily might be better for some oversensitive meditators.
It does seem for me though, that once daily is optimum, and I cannot find any verification for this practice, because twice daily has always been touted as best.
My question is: is it ideal and a good thing for oversensitive meditators to meditate once daily? Or should we be trying to meditate twice daily but for shorter periods? I would love Yogani or other over-sensitives to comment...
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AumNaturel
Canada
687 Posts |
Posted - Jul 09 2012 : 11:05:44 AM
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Welcome Davesiddha,
I'm an under-sensitive so don't mind my audacity to comment regardless: Some do practice once daily for various reasons. I usually like to extend my practice sessions but can imagine a time when that may no longer be possible due to schedule restrictions combined with a need for getting adequate sleep. Then, it might also be a similar question at the opposite end of things: twice-daily 'short' sessions, or one compressed and one longer.
The lessons do mention a fade-out effect that lasts between 5-10 hours between practice sessions, but there are also the superimposing cycles of practice momentum that would be ongoing regardless of doing once, twice daily, or die-hard retreat mode. |
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LittleTurtle
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - Jul 09 2012 : 12:45:09 PM
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| I also meditate once daily and this works best for me. Over many years I've had the chance to experiment, and with twice daily I always end up in overwhelm mode. With once daily I find that I can make haste slowly verses the crash and burn that always comes at some point with the twice daily practices,for me. |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Jul 09 2012 : 3:17:34 PM
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I am also over-sensitive and I do not practice daily meditation regularly. I meditate when I feel the need for it, usually during phases in which I feel particularly grounded.
I don't think twice daily meditation is a prerequisite for movement in your spiritual path. In my opinion, the standard practices are geared toward the standard practitioner who is likely to be somewhat under-sensitive in comparison. They were designed to wake people up slowly and steadily, which would not be the case at all if you were to engage in rigorous practice. In short, what works for everyone else may not work for you.
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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
Posted - Jul 09 2012 : 3:19:47 PM
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| Once daily works best for me as well. If I meditate twice daily it makes me too indrawn and it feels better to me to be more in the world the rest of the time. I do my practice when I get up before I start my day |
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Bourgo
USA
57 Posts |
Posted - Jul 11 2012 : 09:09:48 AM
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I would say that practicing in a way that feels comfortable to you is the best way to go; thus if once-per-day is where you feel comfortable, stick with that. Isn't the ultimate goal to rid your body of suffering 
I would estimate myself to be at least a little undersensitive, so the idea of only meditating once-per-day seems outrageous to me, but everyone is different! In fact, if I only meditate once in a day I can tell a huge difference in my behavior--meditating twice per day I stay calm and feel more inner stillness throughout the entire day.... but meditating only once in the morning leaves me feeling angry and irritable by the evening.
Good luck!! |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1532 Posts |
Posted - Jul 12 2012 : 01:02:25 AM
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Dear Dave,
Please do read up the lesson on suggestions for over-sensitive meditators - let me see if I can get the link in
(Url = "http://www.aypsite.org/367.html)
Sey |
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Assorted Vibrations
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2012 : 01:47:31 AM
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Hey all, its good to hear from some people in the same boat. I recently switched from the longest mantra to the breath technique because five minutes twice a day was making me overload. To my surprise, the breath meditation is the same if not more intense than the long mantra. Has anyone else had this experience? It seems the only option is switching to a once a day practice, and even so I'm not sure which meditation would be gentler. |
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sivasambho
USA
136 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2012 : 09:52:38 AM
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As long as you do eat properly that which is required for your body you could meditate without much issues. At times I have been meditating on an empty stomach and kept fasting and also ended up volunteering selling tickets at the counter for a public event.
I was in the air, somebody who came to buy tickets asked me if I smoked something, he also said I should go eat some meat... :) |
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Holy
796 Posts |
Posted - Sep 16 2012 : 1:26:30 PM
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Even though most of us like to have rapid and smooth progress, sometimes twice daily practice is too much. Had good phases of some years with twice daily practice. For more than a year now it was mostly once per day and not in the morning after getting up but later in the evenings some hours before bed time. It worked fine.
Later on adding some physical exercises and asanas into the game, the capacity for twice daily practice increased again. It is twice daily now for some little months and even though it starts getting much more intensly into nondual living somehow the body does not complain and is pretty strong in taking it =)
Optimizing food for easy digestion but full spectrum nutrition made a big difference aswell.
So the new formula is strengthening the body on all levels + practices for smooth and rapid entry into paradise =P |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Sep 19 2012 : 1:04:08 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Assorted Vibrations
Hey all, its good to hear from some people in the same boat. I recently switched from the longest mantra to the breath technique because five minutes twice a day was making me overload. To my surprise, the breath meditation is the same if not more intense than the long mantra. Has anyone else had this experience? It seems the only option is switching to a once a day practice, and even so I'm not sure which meditation would be gentler.
If you are extremely oversensitive breath practices will blow you up. I wouldn't even consider bringing that into your repertoire if meditation causes overload.
AYP (and many traditional yogic practices) are not meant to overload the nervous system, but to develop it. Any practice that overloads your nervous system will hinder your advancement. |
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Sep 19 2012 : 3:49:43 PM
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I practiced twice daily (or more, religiously) for several years only to find that within the first week of 2012 I could no longer meditate at all without serious overload (which was affecting not just myself but also others close to me). I had to stop all meditation for several months, then tested the waters several different times with multiple different formats/times etc and have settled with approx 5 practices a week (max) for now. This is as much as I can handle without repercussions that take weeks to recover from. Personally, I intuite that at this time in history there is an unprecedented level of sensitivity to spiritual practices as the entire planet is going through a large amount of natural purification. Obviously this is unprovable, but this is how it feels and seems to me.
Love!
Carson  |
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over-sensitive: meditate once a day?
