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joseph
117 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 12 2016 : 5:10:23 PM
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Is ecstatic conductivity available to all people? Doesn't its development in the nervous system require the person to be in excellent physical condition. But that would be dependent on their circumstances - where they live, how clean the air is, etc - which they might have little control over. There is also the question of how they lived in the past.
If someone develops ecstatic conductivity then suffers an injury and is struggling physically then they may be unable to continue to cultivate ecstatic conductivity, and it will fade over time?
From what I can gather on my own experience I'd surmise that circulation, digestion and breathing are important for developing ecstatic conductivity. Would you agree with that? But some struggle with one or all three of these, and might build up a high level of toxicity in their system, so would they have more 'work' (or yoga!) to do to achieve ecstatic conductivity?
Do many of us bypass the ecstatic stage of the enlightenment process and go straight to the state of unity - Stage 1 to Stage 3 as it were? Would that be a 'complete' enlightenment?
..Some thoughts and odd questions - somewhat clustered, sorry - but if you can shed some light on any of this..
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Mykal K
Germany
266 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2016 : 03:09:00 AM
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In my experience, for ecstatic conductivity you need relexation.
I know people personally who are not in excellent physical condition, I would even say thaz they are far from it, who do have ecstatic conductivity.
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Christi
United Kingdom
4369 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2016 : 06:49:35 AM
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Hi Joseph,
Ecstatic conductivity is something that happens within the subtle energy channels of the body, when they reach a certain stage of purification. It happens because, as the subtle channels are purified, they can carry more prana. This increased flow of prana is experienced as ecstasy as it flows through the channels. The prana purifies and widens the channels as it flows and also purifies and activates the energetic centres or chakras.
So the whole process is not especially related to physical exercise or physical fitness. Someone could be very unfit and do little or no exercise and experience whole body ecstasy. It can be related to breathing to a certain extent, as pranayama practices are usually one of the main factors that bring this about. But it does not have to be. There are spiritual traditions where people do no pranayama and they still experience whole body ecstasy. With pranayama, pure are is always helpful, but it is not essential. You can practice pranayama in a big city full of smog, and still gain the benefits.
Again, physical injury is not really a factor. Someone could be paralysed from the neck down and still cultivate ecstatic conductivity. If they are able to use their attention and to breathe, then that would be enough.
Regular exercise can speed the process up, as can things like a good diet and living a healthy lifestyle. But really these things are secondary to the actual practices of pranayama, meditation, mudras, bandhas and so on. To be honest, brahmacharya, the preservation and cultivation of sexual energy, is possibly as important as spiritual practices in the cultivation of ecstatic conductivity. If the prana is being lost through sex, then the process of the prana rising up through the body and filling the body with ecstasy, is far less likely to happen. So brahmacharya is important, and that can be practised by anyone, anywhere.
As for skipping the ecstatic stage all together and jumping to the unity experience, that is something that can happen temporarily and to a limited degree. It is possible to experience unity, also referred to as the non-dual state, or sahaja samadhi, even if the subtle nervous system has not been purified. Every stage of samadhi can be experienced by someone, regardless of whether they have cultivated ecstasy or not. But the process of awakening will not be complete, because only half of the enlightenment equation is present: Pure bliss consciousness.
One of the qualities of prana, is that prana responds powerfully to the presence of bliss. It will rise up towards it. So if someone enters a state of unity, prior to the purification of the subtle body and remains in this state, at some point the process of kundalini will begin, and the prana, rising up to meet Siva (Pure Bliss Consciousness), will bring the body into a state of body-wide ecstasy. Then the whole process will continue, with ecstasy merging with bliss everywhere in the body, producing a much more complete and stable enlightenment, with both factors (ecstasy and bliss) present and with the subtle body fully purified.
Quite often in these cases, when the subtle body is being purified, it can throw up a lot of stored latent impressions (karmas), which can temporarily dislodge the initial experiences of bliss and unity that began the process. So you may often hear people say that when they began meditation, in their first years they experienced a great deal of bliss and unity and love, but that after a while things changed and they found that they had a lot of issues to deal with and that their meditations were a lot less clear and less filled with peace and bliss. Sometimes the initial experiences can be so powerful and beautiful, that people think that they must be enlightened. And then they get a bit of a shock when the purification process begins.
So there are different ways to climb the mountain, but they all get there in the end. Or you could say that there are different ways to realize that there is no mountain, and no one climbing it, depending on how zen you want to be. 
Christi |
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parvati9
USA
587 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2016 : 09:50:51 AM
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Nice explanation, thanks Christi ..  |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2016 : 10:33:12 AM
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| I second parvati in this, thanks Christi |
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sunyata
USA
1507 Posts |
Posted - Dec 14 2016 : 10:43:56 AM
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Hi Joseph,
Excellent response from Christi.
Also,I thought there was only one flavor of ecstatic conductivity when I started practices. Throughout these years there has been discovery of different flavors.
Ecstasy of Divine Love.
Ecstasy of being alive.
Tantric Ecstasy.
Ecstasy in tasting divine.
Ecstasy in breathing.
And so on....
They all develop gradually and ultimately become abiding and keep deepening.
quote:
Originally posted by Chirsti
To be honest, brahmacharya, the preservation and cultivation of sexual energy, is possibly as important as spiritual practices in the cultivation of ecstatic conductivity. If the prana is being lost through sex, then the process of the prana rising up through the body and filling the body with ecstasy, is far less likely to happen. So brahmacharya is important, and that can be practised by anyone, anywhere
Yes, this is the most important practice for the development of ecstatic conductivity. |
Edited by - sunyata on Dec 14 2016 11:08:21 AM |
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joseph
117 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2016 : 10:50:23 AM
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Mykal this is what I was thinking. In the modern world our nervous systems are always firing off at everything it is no wonder it's so difficult to cultivate ecstasy.
Thanks for the explanation, Christi. It's good to hear there are no absolutes in the matter and perfect health isn't essential to spiritual progress.
Expanding these prana carrying channels is no easy task though. I wonder how fast they can contract again, once widened after practice.
For example, if I'm crossing the road and a car pulls out and I don't know whether it's seen me (just one example) my whole body contracts in preparation to jump out of the way. These reactions happen frequently and the body doesn't easily revert to relaxation. I usually feel a witness to the whole process and that there's nothing I can do to change it. After all the body is only doing its job. And although that's the physical, it certainly affects my mind and thus my meditation practice also. There's no clear dividing line between physical and mental? And mental is subtle, thoughts and feelings, and further along the line, prana.
It's been good to realize this, but on the other hand, how far we're separated from the source of prana, because of the nature of our life in the physical world. How much yoga is required for a person to really receive a lot of prana into their system. A lot in my case, and how quickly it all goes again.
Recently though I thought that it is possible to harness trapped prana in the body and in fact use it in our meditation and daily life. If we don't, it gives more power to whatever we're thinking at the time, and probably will become destructive unless we use it for the good of all.
quote:
Originally posted by sunyata
Ecstasy of Divine Love.
Ecstasy of being alive.
Tantric Ecstasy.
Ecstasy in tasting divine.
Ecstasy in breathing.
And so on....
They all develop gradually and ultimately become abiding and keep deepening.
That sounds beautiful, Sunyata.
quote:
Originally posted by Chirsti
To be honest, brahmacharya, the preservation and cultivation of sexual energy, is possibly as important as spiritual practices in the cultivation of ecstatic conductivity. If the prana is being lost through sex, then the process of the prana rising up through the body and filling the body with ecstasy, is far less likely to happen. So brahmacharya is important, and that can be practised by anyone, anywhere
Would you suppose that some of the obstacles to the development of ecstatic conductivity (that are related to sex) would be hereditary too? I remember a passage in Gopi Krishna's book... A quick google search has found it:
"It is a colossal blunder to yield unrestrainedly to the demands of sexual desire. The cost paid for the momentary thrill when it exceeds a healthy limit is so high that generations can suffer for the unbridled lust of one libidinous ancestor. The emphasis of chastity or brahmacharya, common to most religions, is clearly rooted in the fact that, in the case of earnest seekers after illumination, the need for the preservation of the seed is imperative to meet the exigencies of the awakening."
So perhaps many of us are conditioned to carry less prana than is natural for health and happiness/abundance because of too much expenditure of sexual energy by previous generations.
I often go a month without expending sexual energy; a loss that infrequent shouldn't be a problem? Maybe I should go 100% celibate.. To be honest I have much less desire for sex since I began yoga/meditation. But I know AYP is against forcing these kinds of changes :) |
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sunyata
USA
1507 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2016 : 11:44:58 AM
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Hi Joseph,
Yes, a perfect health is not required for spiritual progress. At the same time, when we eat healthy, exercise regularly and have good sleep habits- we naturally feel great.
You'll also find that exercise becomes necessary to balance the energy once it starts moving.
quote:
Expanding these prana carrying channels is no easy task though. I wonder how fast they can contract again, once widened after practice.
As you noticed, expansion and contraction happens all the time through out the day. Your example of witness is beautiful. It's not about staying in an expanded state all the time. It's allowing both the contracted and expanded states and not clinging to either. This is when life really flows. Hence, the importance of daily practice to clean our channels and maintain it's cleanliness.
quote:
It's been good to realize this, but on the other hand, how far we're separated from the source of prana, because of the nature of our life in the physical world. How much yoga is required for a person to really receive a lot of prana into their system. A lot in my case, and how quickly it all goes again.
Recently though I thought that it is possible to harness trapped prana in the body and in fact use it in our meditation and daily life. If we don't, it gives more power to whatever we're thinking at the time, and probably will become destructive unless we use it for the good of all.
In my experience, Asanas is another effective way to develop ecstatic conductivity besides Spinal breathing and the mudras and bandas. We come to a point in our practice when we realize that we were never separated from the source but that we are the source. It's just the veil of ignorance that made it seem so.
Spiritual growth takes time. Be patient. It varies from person to person. Growth never stops- Is there an end to infinity? As, I type this I'm also on my way to my spiritual growth one step at a time, one day at a time.
Everything in existence in prana really- it’s just that they appear in different forms. It’s all the same cosmic energy. And you are correct whatever we give attention to grows.
quote:
So perhaps many of us are conditioned to carry less prana than is natural for health and happiness/abundance because of too much expenditure of sexual energy by previous generations
It is true that we carry the genes/patterns from our ancestors. However, the whole point of spiritual practices is to take the power in our hands and be responsible for our own development/growth. Our family history/ ancestors may have certain influence on us but practices take us beyond our identification with these things.
quote:
I often go a month without expending sexual energy; a loss that infrequent shouldn't be a problem? Maybe I should go 100% celibate.. To be honest I have much less desire for sex since I began yoga/meditation. But I know AYP is against forcing these kinds of changes :)
I wouldn't think so. You don't have to be gung-ho about this either, take it easy. You need to listen to your body. One can go through a period of time with no interest.
In my experience the fullness of being alive in this world comes with the rise of ecstatic conductivity. Otherwise, people can often get stuck in the absolute which can be feel dry.
It’s really the merging of Shiva and Shakti that makes Life magical.
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Edited by - sunyata on Dec 16 2016 12:01:47 PM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4369 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2016 : 12:02:47 PM
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Hi Joseph,
Once subtle energy channels have been widened through practice, they will tend to contract again after a while. That is why it is important to be engaging in spiritual practices twice each day. That way we stay ahead of the curve. Practising once or twice a week will not work.
As to how much yoga needs to be done, practising twice each day, will be enough. To begin with 20 minutes of meditation is enough. After a while we will be drawn to introduce other practices like Spinal Breathing Pranayama, asanas, mudras and bandhas. The whole process will expand naturally over time and we know when it is the right time to increase our practices. There is a process called the "calling", and that kicks in.
It is true that there is no clear dividing line between the gross physical world, the subtle world of prana and the mental world. They are interconnected. In the Upanishads they are all referred to as "Prakriti", or the "manifest and unmanifest universe". But most of the work that we do in yoga is done on the level of the subtle and the mental. It also happens beyond the subtle and the mental at the level of inner silence (pure bliss consciousness). So that is why we can practice yoga, almost regardless of the condition that the physical body is in.
Of course having a healthy physical body is useful for several reasons, if we are able to achieve that and we can actually make progress on the spiritual path faster if we are healthy.
I don't think it is useful to worry about what our ancestors were doing, or weren't doing with their sexual energy. What we have a choice over, is what we do with our sexual energy now. Losing prana once a month, or even once a week through sex is unlikely to be a problem. Forced celibacy, if it is not in your nature, is more likely to cause issues though. Some people live a celibate life quite happily, so it really depends on your natural inclinations.
The important thing though is that there is no one thing that brings about awakening. It is a balance of factors that need to be present to bring about the right conditions. So enough retention of sexual energy to cause a build up of prana in the body, without it being forced or repressed. Twice daily spiritual practices to bring the mind to silence and purify the subtle channels. Once the mind is established in inner silence, using samyama to increase purification and self inquiry to dissolve the remaining blockages. Ecstatic conductivity is simply something that happens on the way, rather than being an end game.
So it is a gradual process of bringing the parts together to bring about the whole and taking small steps every day. All you really need is the faith (shraddha) that the process will produce benefits to your life.
Christi |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4369 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2016 : 12:11:24 PM
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Hi Sunyata,
We cross posted. |
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sunyata
USA
1507 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2016 : 12:19:47 PM
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Hi Christi,
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Edited by - sunyata on Dec 16 2016 12:20:11 PM |
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joseph
117 Posts |
Posted - Dec 16 2016 : 6:05:09 PM
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Thanks both of you. What an amazing forum (so thanks Yogani too!)
I'm going to let that sink in for a few days. |
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Questions on Ecstatic Conductivity
