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avatar186
USA
146 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 22 2007 : 3:17:27 PM
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if prana is the in breath, being in and up, and apana is out and down, then really tantra only needs the uniting of these flows no?
So that apana beckons more in and up, rather than out and down.
I know this can be done threw breathe control, but anyone have more knowledge of it? |
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avatar186
USA
146 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2007 : 6:16:41 PM
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to circulate the energys up and down at all times internally.
siddha vidya
i guess this is what is tought as spinal breathing. when one breaths in the energys naturally flows a direction, same as when one breaths out, so in accordance with natural flows, how does one breath in order to influence the flows, without going agienst the naturallness of the flow, without creating resistance. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 03:48:54 AM
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Hi avatar
It is not true that prana is the in breath, and apana is the out breath. Prana is a subtle energy, which moves through the subtle body. Prana is divided into 10 types, 5 major and 5 minor. Of the 5 major, prana is the name given to the rising current in the human body, and apana is the descending current. These energies become balanced through meditation practice. When they are balanced, the energy moves into the central channel.
If you want to feel them, try this. It's a bit subtle, so you have to give it some time:
Breathe in and out slowly for a while in meditation posture. Then, breathe out. Wait a little bit, and se if you can feel a slight pull, encouraging you to breathe in. Then follow the pull. After breathing in, wait again and see if you feel a slight pull, when you do, breathe out, following the energy. When you can feel it, you can then hold your breath, and you will feel the falling current followed by the rising current, flowing around your body in a circular motion.
This is prana and apana which normally works to regulate your breathing. But these two forces also follow the breath and are regulated by the breath, so if you slow the breath down, the circular motion of these two energies will also slow down. They also respond to mental oscillations, so a calmer mind will result in a slowing down of the rise and fall of prana and apana irrespective of the breath.
This is one of the ways that pranayama and meditation work together to cause the kundalini to become activated.
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tallis
Hungary
71 Posts |
Posted - Nov 04 2007 : 4:13:18 PM
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| Great exercise, Christi. Thanks! Just tried it, and I can very clearly feel rising/falling currents, especially in the region between the navel and the heart. I know, from reading your posts, how closely attuned you are with your energies. To a novice like me, though, a doubting voice says 'aren't the currents I feel really just nerve impulses to follow my usual breathing pattern?' Can you suggest any more exercises to increase awareness of prana? Much appreciated! |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Nov 13 2007 : 06:49:54 AM
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Hi Tallis
quote:
Great exercise, Christi. Thanks! Just tried it, and I can very clearly feel rising/falling currents, especially in the region between the navel and the heart. I know, from reading your posts, how closely attuned you are with your energies. To a novice like me, though, a doubting voice says 'aren't the currents I feel really just nerve impulses to follow my usual breathing pattern?' Can you suggest any more exercises to increase awareness of prana? Much appreciated!
Glad it worked for you. 
Maybe it is just nerve currents that accompany normal breathing. It doesn't really matter too much. that's the great thing about yoga... you don't have to believe much for it to work. All you have to believe is that doing your practices every day will help make your life better. You don't have to believe that something you feel inside is the beginning of the experience of an incredible super-sensory universe that transcends totally anything we could ever dream of. But one day, we say quietly to ourself... "O.K. this isn't just nerve impulses... this is way bigger than that."
And then the adventure begins, because it is experience that fuels faith.
Sorry... Can't think of any other experiments you can do off the top of my head (no pun intended  ).
Christi |
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tallis
Hungary
71 Posts |
Posted - Nov 14 2007 : 05:07:38 AM
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Christi wrote:
quote:
Maybe it is just nerve currents that accompany normal breathing. It doesn't really matter too much. that's the great thing about yoga... you don't have to believe much for it to work. All you have to believe is that doing your practices every day will help make your life better. You don't have to believe that something you feel inside is the beginning of the experience of an incredible super-sensory universe that transcends totally anything we could ever dream of. But one day, we say quietly to ourself... "O.K. this isn't just nerve impulses... this is way bigger than that."
Of course you're right, Christi, about all this. And the experience of yoga has made a believer out of me in only a few months. Still, I definitely am curious about what is going on physiologically. In my recent post 'strange pulsations,' Sparkle brought up the question of a possible distinction between prana and kundalini:
quote:
'I'm not sure of the distinction between energy, prana and kundalini, if any. I would think that if you are doing pranayama spinal breathing and you are experiencing tingling and static then it probably is kundalini.'
From reading old posts on the forum, it seems like there's a lot of confusion about whether or not there actually is a distinction especially between prana and kundalini. The energy I felt doing your exercise, for instance, feels completely different from the tingly/static electicity kind of sensations I experience during spinal breathing. Would you say that these are fundamentally different types of energy? From your own experience, how would you characterise the difference between prana and kundalini? Or are all the different sensations we feel during yoga just different manifestations of the same energy? |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Nov 16 2007 : 08:36:25 AM
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Hi Tallis
quote:
From reading old posts on the forum, it seems like there's a lot of confusion about whether or not there actually is a distinction especially between prana and kundalini. The energy I felt doing your exercise, for instance, feels completely different from the tingly/static electricity kind of sensations I experience during spinal breathing. Would you say that these are fundamentally different types of energy? From your own experience, how would you characterise the difference between prana and kundalini? Or are all the different sensations we feel during yoga just different manifestations of the same energy?
Well… this is my take on it. Prana exists everywhere; it is in everything, everywhere in the whole universe. It is a subtle energy, and it is alive and vital. It exists in all material objects, but it is especially active in moving things and in living beings. So there is a stronger presence of prana in a tree than in a rock. There is also more prana in flowing water than still water. Prana exists in every human, and it is this prana, which gives dynamism to the physical body, and without it we would die.
Kundalini is different, as it is a word, which describes a particular movement of prana, much like the words “wave” or “torrent” describes movements of water. When our bodies are formed in the womb, the prana enters our body through the crown of our head, and permeates the whole body giving its life essence. A huge reservoir of prana accumulates at the base of the spine. This pool of prana is described as the sleeping kundalini, or kundalini in its potential form. It is stored in a chakra called the kanda chakra which is situated between the muladhara chakra and the swadisthana chakra. So everyone has kundalini, but usually it remains only in its potential form and they die without it ever becoming active.
When, through spiritual practices (or spontaneously) the kundalini is awakened, it means that the prana in and around our body starts to behave in a very amazing way. The vast storehouse of prana at the base of the spine becomes tapped, and begins to flow upward. At the same time the entire prana in the body begins to become energized. It is like it becomes charged, electric, magnetized and amplified many times. This can be felt anywhere in the body in many different ways. In my own case it was initially experienced as a shaking of my body, all over, which lasted for several years. Not all the time I should add, but mainly when I was calm and quiet inside.
Only humans can experience the kundalini effect. All other animals have prana in their bodies, and have chakras, but they do not have the fully developed chakra system that humans have, so they cannot experience a kundalini awakening. This also means that only humans can experience God as their own true self.
The movements of energies we have been discussing above, which I believe are called prana and apana, are two movements of prana, so they are the same energy moving in two different directions. Everyone could feel them whether their kundalini is awakened or not. But there are many movements of prana which can only be experienced by someone once their kundalini is awakened. Uncaused ecstasy (ecstasy existing in the body as a natural condition) is one example. Prana and apana have a different colour, direction of movement and effect on the human system, so it makes sense to talk about them in terms of being different energies.
Kundalini is a very fast upward evolutionary activation of the human system. By very fast I mean in evolutionary terms. It can take only a few years for someone to go from experiencing a kundalini awakening to full enlightenment. So kundalini is the process of transformation; which uses prana as the energy of transformation.
Usually kundalini is used to describe the upward assent of prana, activating and opening the chakras from bottom up, but I have also seen it used to describe the decent of a power from above coming down through the crown. This is called the “descending kundalini” for obvious reasons. The prana does not need to be flowing upwards or descending through the spine in order for a movement of energy to be referred to as “typical of the kundalini”. Most teachers do not use the term “kundalini” to describe the descending power, preferring other names instead, presumably to avoid confusion.
In the Kabala, the term “shekinath” seems to be synonymous with “kundalini”, and they talk about the lower shekinath and the higher shekinath. The lower shekinath is an ascending force, and the upper shekinath descends from above the head. Together, the shekinath is described as the “power and presence of God”
On the question of whether all the energies in the universe are actually the same energy. I would say yes, as everything is manifest from the pranava, the original sound, Ohm, which emanates from the maha bindu. But then this energy manifests in different ways. So I think it is useful to talk about different energies, as if they are different as it helps us to understand the processes at work. If we just go around saying, “everything is one”, it doesn’t get us very far in terms of spiritual progress.
Here is a brief outline of the 5 main pranas in the human body:
quote:
Pancha prana:
prana: has a sapphire blue colour and takes care of breathing. It also takes care of expansion and contraction (heart and lungs). Its seat is in anahata chakra (heart chakra).
samana: has a milky white colour. Its function is heating (which happens by mixing different pranas). It takes care of the absorption of nutrients, digests food chemically and thus takes care of digestion and the warming of the body. Its seat is in manipura chakra (navel chakra).
apana: has the colour of an evening cloud (violet like). Its function is to excrete waste products. Its movement is downwards and thus takes care of gravity. Its seat is in muladhara chakra (root chakra).
udana: has the colour of fire. Its movement is upwards, and thus works against gravity. It keeps the body upright and supports the body in all its functions. Its seat is in vishuddha chakra (throat chakra).
vyana: has a silvery colour. Its function is the distribution of nutrients and energy throughout the entire body. Its seat is in svadhisthana chakra (sex chakra).
That quote comes from this website:
http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseo...n/tantra.htm
Christi
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Edited by - Christi on Nov 18 2007 07:42:09 AM |
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tallis
Hungary
71 Posts |
Posted - Nov 21 2007 : 4:25:28 PM
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Hi Christi,
Many thanks for what is probably the best explanation I've read on the difference between prana and kundalini. I love your analogy between prana and water: quote:
'Kundalini is different, as it is a word, which describes a particular movement of prana, much like the words “wave” or “torrent” describes movements of water.'
Fascinating, too, about the kanda chakra as the seat of kundalini. I wonder why it is, then, that muladara gets all the credit in this respect! Is the kanda chakra located in the vertebra like swadistana and the higher chakras, or more towards the perineum like muladara?
Tallis |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Nov 23 2007 : 03:21:06 AM
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Hi Tallis
quote:
Fascinating, too, about the kanda chakra as the seat of kundalini. I wonder why it is, then, that muladara gets all the credit in this respect! Is the kanda chakra located in the vertebra like swadistana and the higher chakras, or more towards the perineum like muladara?
Tallis
The kanda chakra is located just above muladhara chakra (below swadisthana). It is shaped like an egg, and is white and covered in spots. Serious!
It is also called kanda-moola. I don't know anything about it from my own experience, only from reading, so I can't answer the question about why the root chakra is given all the credit. I can only guess that it is by activating the root chakra that the kundalini is awakened from the kanda chakra. It is said that all three main nadis begin from the kanda chakra, not from the muladhara.
This stuff gets pretty detailed when you get into it. There are nadis inside nadis inside nadis and stuff like that. The sushumna nadi has 3 other nadis inside, like concentric circles. Some meditators are taught to bring their awareness into specific nadis inside the sushumna! Deep
Christi |
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tallis
Hungary
71 Posts |
Posted - Nov 23 2007 : 4:23:45 PM
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Christi wrote:
quote:
This stuff gets pretty detailed when you get into it. There are nadis inside nadis inside nadis and stuff like that. The sushumna nadi has 3 other nadis inside, like concentric circles.
You know, if The Star represents sushumna as it leaves/enters the third eye, then I think I've seen those nadis - or at least some of them. I clearly saw at least two concentric circles* of light within the centre of The Star. I wasn't sure whether there were any more than that because my vision didn't have enough clarity/definition. Better go see an optometrist.
*Actually, I should add that they didn't seem to be perfect circles to me, but slightly elliptical. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Nov 27 2007 : 01:44:33 AM
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Hi Tallis
quote:
You know, if The Star represents sushumna as it leaves/enters the third eye, then I think I've seen those nadis - or at least some of them. I clearly saw at least two concentric circles* of light within the centre of The Star. I wasn't sure whether there were any more than that because my vision didn't have enough clarity/definition. Better go see an optometrist.
*Actually, I should add that they didn't seem to be perfect circles to me, but slightly elliptical.
I don't actually believe that the star does represent the sushumna as it leaves the third eye. But I can't proove this. I believe that the star is a light that is seen inside the sushumna, which is actually formed by millions of lights. These lights are moving in every direction in another world.
But it is quite possible also that what you saw were the outer rims of the inner nadis inside the sushumna. I have never seen them, so I can't say. |
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tallis
Hungary
71 Posts |
Posted - Nov 28 2007 : 04:22:28 AM
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Hi Christi,
Interesting that you say that:
quote:
I believe that the star is a light that is seen inside the sushumna, which is actually formed by millions of lights. These lights are moving in every direction in another world.
because when I saw the core of the star, I felt that it was composed not just of a white brilliant light, but of all the colours of the world as well. Of course I know that white light is the sum total of all the colours in the spectrum, but this was more, as if simultaneously I could see white light and the many many beautiful specks of stained glass which compose that very same white. Does that make any sense?
In which other world do you believe these lights are moving? Are they simply lights or do they represent something else too? And why/how are we witnessing them through sushumna? |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Nov 28 2007 : 10:18:46 AM
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Hi Tallis,
quote:
because when I saw the core of the star, I felt that it was composed not just of a white brilliant light, but of all the colours of the world as well. Of course I know that white light is the sum total of all the colours in the spectrum, but this was more, as if simultaneously I could see white light and the many many beautiful specks of stained glass which compose that very same white. Does that make any sense?
Makes perfect sense. I have only seen this star thing a few times, but I remember the time I saw it most clearly, it was like " Wow... that is amazing" Like the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. And one of the things that was so beautiful was the colours... even though it was white.
quote:
In which other world do you believe these lights are moving? Are they simply lights or do they represent something else too? And why/how are we witnessing them through sushumna?
Well... if you are interested... as I say, it's just a guess but:
I think the lights are soul forms in heaven. As you move down the sushumna you will see two pillars, one on either side. This is the gateway to the kingdom of heaven. The sushumna is our connection with heaven, and we came down it when we were in our mothers womb, and took our seat in the heart. Normally we remain in the body until we die, when we again leave the body through the sushumna and go back into the light of heaven. This is why when people have near death experiences they so often talk about entering a tunnel, and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
But in meditation it is possible to go and visit heaven, and come back again into the body.
This is basically what a man I met in India told me about his own experience of entering the star. There is an almost identical description given in the Secrets of Wilder novel.
Coincidence?
But as I say, I can't proove any of this. |
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tallis
Hungary
71 Posts |
Posted - Nov 28 2007 : 4:10:45 PM
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Yes, I know what you mean by beautiful!
I was just wondering: since you say that you don't normally do yoni mudra kumbhaka, did you see the star during occasions when you were working on other practices aimed at the third eye?
Christi wrote:quote:
As you move down the shushumna you will see two pillars, one on either side.
Are these pillars inside sushumna or outside? Do they happen to be dark in comparison? Do they relate to other nadis, perhaps the right and left channels?
Interesting what you say about the soul forms. Thanks for that, and I'll remember what you said. If I'm lucky maybe I'll get the chance to meditate up one day and get a closer look for myself. In the meantime, I'm just happy, very happy, to have experienced what AYP has already given me.
I haven't read Secrets of Wilder yet, but here's another reason to do so...
(If you get a chance to reply to some of these questions, I won't have access to the internet until Monday.) |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4380 Posts |
Posted - Nov 30 2007 : 01:17:32 AM
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Hi Tallis,
quote:
Yes, I know what you mean by beautiful!
I was just wondering: since you say that you don't normally do yoni mudra kumbhaka, did you see the star during occasions when you were working on other practices aimed at the third eye?
During mantra meditation.
quote:
Are these pillars inside sushumna or outside? Do they happen to be dark in comparison? Do they relate to other nadis, perhaps the right and left channels?
I can't answer any of this as I have never been that far down the rabit hole myself. This describtion was based on second hand information only.
quote:
In the meantime, I'm just happy, very happy, to have experienced what AYP has already given me.
It's really quite amazing stuff. Glad you're enjoying it.
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Holy
796 Posts |
Posted - Jan 09 2008 : 5:00:51 PM
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To add some more information and clarification:
The main prana source is the sun. Go out when it's a sunny day, look to the other sky-direction than the sun and watch the blue space in a relaxed manner. Allow those sparcling little pranas to become visibe. It won't take much time, just go on relaxing and allowing. Those sperm-like little balls seem to come out of nowhere, flow very fast to another point in space and disappear again. When it's a little bit cloudy, the pranaballs are smaller, if you are at the beach in summer, you will see very very big pranas moving at very high speeds.
Analog to that, your pranayama practice is influenced too. In summer, one short round seems to produce same results as one longer round in winter. When you breath in, you breath in prana too, which is splittet into many subpranas as Christi wrote already.
For prana (the splittet specific one, not the general one) that is found in the chest area and apana which is fond in the root area: their unification within the central channel produces much heat. The stronger the unification. The more stable this happening, the stronger all the other pranaflows are attracted by this unification. Together with it, you as a mind/consiousnes mix get attracted too and like a vakuum, you enter the central channel with all you have/are. And what comes next is nothing else than a kundaliniawakening going up the central channel with all the known effects.
There are MANY techniques that bring about this accurence. In general, all Yoga, Tantra, Tao and so on is just about this. There are many entry points to the central channel. One can be found below the navel in the central channel, but in general, all the astral chakras are gates to the central channel.
Mula bandha forces apana to flow upwards and the chin lock with breath retention lets prana flow downwards. If you do it now, you won't experience instant unification, but with some precleansing of the nadis, this can happen spontaniously or at will with ease. |
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avatar186
USA
146 Posts |
Posted - Jan 10 2008 : 9:50:14 PM
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the sun, the moon, as within, so without
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prana ,apana
