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emc
2072 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 22 2007 : 11:22:36 AM
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I have just finished the new Samyama book - GREAT BOOK! WOW! Thanks a LOT, Yogani! - and I have one question on the prayer part.
This is what Yogani writes (p 67):
quote:
5-10 minutes is a good period to engage in a prayer when applied with samyama. It will be very powerful, particularly if we have been cultivating inner silence through deep meditation beforehand. Therefore, a good time to engage in such prayer activity is soon after our sitting practices. If this is not the case, then 5-10 minutes of deep meditation right before prayer will help stabilize a good initial condition of inner silence. If we do this, our prayer will be more powerful.
My question is if it these 5-10 minutes of deep meditation (which I presume is on the I AM mantra) are EXTRA, outside the recommended maximum 20 minutes twice a day? I got the feeling that that is the "feel good" time for most people, but perhaps that is only for newbies? If it is supposed to be extra, how many prayer sessions with 5-10 min of deep meditation before could be okey per day? Is the limit only as much as you can take without getting overload symptoms, and you regulate with self-pacing and fine tune the amount of prayer/meditation yourself?
I have just tried samyama for a few days, and only once a day and only repeating the sutras once. So far it works fine, although I feel a bit of settling in symptoms only from this! Very powerful tool! But cool! 
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yogani
USA
5195 Posts |
Posted - Feb 22 2007 : 5:20:50 PM
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Hi EMC:
Glad you like the Samyama book.
In using samyama with prayer outside our regular sitting practices, all we want to do is settle into our inner silence for a few minutes. This might take 5-10 minutes of deep meditation (yes, with our mantra), or less if we have been meditating for years. In the latter case, we will have inner silence resident in us all the time, and go to deep stillness as soon as we close our eyes. This is all we need for prayer utilizing the principles of samyama.
So, in meditating for a few minutes before prayer, we don't do it to cultivate inner silence the way we do when we are meditating for 20 minutes twice a day. We only do it enough to settle down. How many times per day can we meditate for a few minutes like this? Well, not too many. It isn't a blank check to meditate 19 times a day to say a prayer.  If we do, we will pay the price with extra purification. Self-pacing is necessary in all things yogic, and we each will find our balance.
If we are inclined to pray a lot (a wonderful thing), we will gradually develop the habit of relaxing into our stillness on a moment's notice, without actual deep meditation being necessary to do it. We become stillness. Samyama itself (the act of releasing faint thought impulses into stillness) will promote this also, and move stillness outward as the result (siddhi).
There is a section in the Samyama book that discusses the role of samyama in daily living, which is living our life within moving stillness, acting constantly as That. It is a natural development that occurs gradually over time as we continue with daily practices. By then, samyama becomes part of our way of thinking and acting, and stillness flows as a continuous joyful divine outpouring, naturally dissolving all obstructions within and around us.
Even so, we continue with our regular sitting practices, always favoring our practice over the many wonderful experiences that come up. And always self-pacing as necessary.
All the best!
The guru is in you.
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Feb 23 2007 : 04:10:12 AM
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Thanks a lot! That makes it less confusing and the seeming contradiction to the information in the deep meditation book is pretty much vanished. It seems as if quite a lot of stability in deep meditation is needed (having quite a lot of inner stillness) before you can start adding prayer outside of sitting practices. I think the risk of overload is high if you start doing that too soon.
I'm taking it really slow! No turbo button no more!  |
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Practical prayer with Samyama
