MetalNun

Dear Jijaji, You said above, It really bothers me how these people think they can call themselves Jivanmukta, Enlightened or what have you, it is just ignorant and shows how watered down they take it all. [Note, I didn't actually call myself anything; I was just sharing what was said about me by one of several people whose opinions I trust.] I apologize if my freedom bothers you. It would be nice if you would rejoice with me. Honestly, the fact that it "bothers" you says more about you than me. But, aren't we ultimately One? And who is being bothered?! You may want to ask yourself, why are you doing spiritual practices if you don't believe they work?? Or, do they work only for you but not for other people? Or do they work for Tibetan monks, but not for a nerdy little surfer girl from California? If it could happen for me it could happen for anybody, and surely that is reason to rejoice! Although, as my teacher points out, we are all free already and we just don't realize it... But, no doubt you're right, he must have been being facetious. I'm sure you can provide some other better explanation for what has happened to my reality, like maybe I've lost my mind or something (good riddance!). Either way, my burdens are gone, the chatter is gone; blissful Silence, Oneness, I'm totally in Love, and God is right here, closer than my own heartbeat; the ego fears and desires have vanished, and yet "I" can still function in the world. So, call it whatever you like, it's wonderful! Now I must go work on a website and then type some medical reports and answer my clients' calls from Psychic Source and Hollywood Psychics. "No rest for the wicked." (- Ozzy) Don't know when I'll have a chance to come back here. Feel free to email me if you wish. Much LOVE to all of you, especially T.I.!

First, thanks to everyone for their clarifications on the meaning and history of the term "jivanmukta." (yes, he probably said "-a" not "-i", my mistake; and he was probably using the tantric definition). How did he determine this? Well, first I must admit it was not based on just that one meeting, at which he did interrogate me at some length. We had been corresponding for several months, ever since I began doing his particular variation on pranayama (per Krishnamacharya) and about 3 minutes into it, my entire reality changed, and I contacted him and asked, "what has happened to me?!" I would assume it is his job to be able to answer questions like that. Do I "agree and assert the same here?" It's a tricky question to answer because, as I said to T.I., above, language is inherently dualistic and if I say, "I am this" or "I am that"... What I can tell you is that it seems like a reasonable (albeit perhaps statistically unlikely) explanation based on what is happening: "I" am free from all doubt, fear and worry, and from the chattering of the monkey-mind. It feels like the heavy burden "I" have been carrying my whole life has been lifted. Everything is effortless and life just flows in peaceful silence. Infinite Love and Bliss is pouring through "me." When "I" look for "me" there is nothing there, just sort of a translucent filter or lens through which the Divine is manifesting in this particular form; and awareness of my Self as an expression of that Love. My only remaining desire is for more of that Love which is apparently limitless and therefore perfectly satisfied, even while it continues to expand and deepen... This is, after all, what I was told to expect from the yoga practice ("Self-Realization") that I have been doing for 30+ years, although I did not really believe it would happen in this lifetime. You may call it whatever you like; I don't mind. I don't think the label is important.

My Dear T.I., Sigh. I said I wasn't going to spend anymore time here, but you've put so much effort into your thoughtful reply that I feel it deserves to be acknowledged. I have neither the time nor the desire to analyze your discussion in detail. I believe that you and others here, and at AYP, have already done so at great length and depth. On the one hand, yes, your concerns are valid and I understand why you would have these questions. On the other hand, I really think a big part of the problem is just the limitations of language. How can we talk about Silence or the Void or non-duality? Language is inherently dualistic. That's why I said previously that intellectual analysis could become a dead-end. Language can only take us so far. We are trying to define things that are ultimately beyond definition. As long as you enjoy doing that and it is helpful to you, go for it. I truly wish you all the best, dear brother! Love.

Dear T.I., [Once again, I do not know the correct way to selectively quote parts of a post, so I'm improvising, using bold for your words.] Again, please do not take these comments personally. I am simply stating my opinions from my point of view. I don't take anything personally, dear. Why would I? It's quite alright. You know what I mean. I have great respect for anyone who has done 30 years of kriya and has opened the heart chakra. But, you had to pass a certain period of time learning the HOY practices and techniques before Mark would qualify you as fit to be a HOY teacher. Actually Mark accepted me as a HOY teacher at the end of the first day we spent together after he interrogated me and witnessed my practice. He said I was a jivamukti, and, "You are just here for the meeting, you already have the teaching." Did you even finish reading all of AYP's books and all of the lessons? It took me months. Surely, wouldn't if be wise to read them all with discernment before accepting to become a 'leader'? No, I have not read the books, which I understand are collections of the lessons, of which I have read most if not all. When invited to be a leader, I actually told them I was not qualified but they seemed to think otherwise for some reason, and they suggested that I could help out to whatever extent I felt comfortable, which seems like a workable plan. I would be happy to attend the retreat in silence and contribute just by Being in meditation, if there was any concern as to my qualifications to "teach" AYP methods per se. Have you finished reading "The Secrets of Wilder"? Did you find it strange that in "The Secrets of Wilder", the fictional book which is so often referred to as being "Yogani's autobiography" (yet there is no proof), that John Wilder received the empowerment of the "I AM" mantra in a form of shaktipat from Christi Jensen, and then throughout the book continues to 'tap people on the chest' so as to perform the empowerment of the mantra and give a transmission, yet in AYP there is no transmission for the mantra, or shaktipat let alone personal contact with the author? It is all a slick trap. First you read "The Secrets of Wilder" and are seduced by the whole yoga/mystical/sexual aura. Then, when you start to read all the AYP lessons, and you start to wonder what happened to shaktipat, empowerment of the mantra, all the magical powers like floating in the air, healing people.. etc.. I'm not quite finished with the book yet and yes, it is quite seductive! But as far as I can determine, it's actually a NOVEL (i.e., fiction). You know, it is important to be serious sometimes. You and I both know the ill effects of drugs and alcohol. Enough said. Actually my experiences with psychedelics many, many years ago [which, please note, I am NOT recommending to anybody!] were overwhelmingly positive and motivated me to seriously pursue and deepen my spiritual practice. I don't have any use for them nowadays because I am nearly continually in a state that I previously used them to temporarily obtain - the clarity, the Oneness, the freedom, and most of all, the ecstatic bliss of union with God. You are making this sound so infantile. I do not recall saying specifically that. How naive would that be? Apparently I must have misunderstood you. I thought you weren't getting the results from AYP. Sorry! You know, I recently re-read an ebook from what I believe is an authentic case of someone becoming enlightened through self-inquiry. In it, there was mention of a technique of sinking the mind down into the heart, and/or the belly. The person had been performing kriya yoga for 12 years and was now ripe for discovering the self. I thought of you. The ebook is called "Autobiography of a Jnani". And again, here is the technique of sinking the mind into the heart. I believe that this is what you have succeeded at doing: Thanks, that is very interesting. But,I have not succeeded at doing anything. With regard to jnana as such, again, I don't deny that the intellect is a valuable tool on the spiritual path. For me personally intellectual analysis became a dead end. I hope you will have more success with it than I did! The forum served to create momentum in my practices. It also consumed allot of time, time which probably would have been better spent meditating. I think I was deluding myself that my posts were actually helping anyone. If anything, they served to bolster my ego and create attachment to 'being knowledgable". Posting on forums is also very dangerous because ignorant people will post comments which might disuade you or erroneously redirect you on your path. Mostly the forum promotes attachment to mental constructs and inevitably grows it's own kind of group karma. I hear ya about the "time" issue. That's why I won't be able to keep visiting Taobums; it looks WAY too interesting! But I'm so glad that you were involved at the AYP forum because that's how we met. For me it's more of a "social" thing, sharing with all these wonderful like-minded people and inspiring each other. By the way, your thread where you describe all your experiences is very inspiring and quite enjoyable to read! Really? By private, do you mean that there was a consent form that I had to sign in order to be a member? Did I unknowingly enter into some kind of contract? It is restricted to only members? Do you need a password to get into the forum? Does it not appear on Google and many search engines? As I recall, you do need a password to participate in the forum and you also have to agree to "Terms of Service" or something to that effect. Thank you for the mantra. It seems like something that Yogananda would create, trying to blend Christianity with Yoga. Not so much a "blend." Rather, according to my teacher, yoga is a neutral spiritual technology, "whole body prayer" that can be used with ANY religion. You know, I saw a documentary the other day on The Jesus Mantra. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." It does nothing for me except make me feel guilty. Yep, I know what you mean! Many people have had that experience, which is why in the Episcopal Church a lot of times we leave off the "a sinner" part. However, ever since I 'met Jesus' back in 1988, all I have to say is "I ask for love, guidance and protection from God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit" and I'm engulfed in a cloud of tingles of joy, bliss and happiness. Still works for me. That's wonderful, I'm so happy for you! All the best. Thanks for the communications. Same to you! I won't be hanging out here but feel free to email me. In His Love, MetalNun

My Dear T.I., I don't know how to navigate this forum yet so I hope I can make this reply look right; bear with me. "Yes, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any requirement or qualification for becoming an AYP leader." Yes, the fact that they invited ME to be a leader obviously proves that they have NO standards, LOL!! "You know, the first I went for an AYP Satsang, I was offered a beer before the meditation. Afterwards, it was made very clear to me that potent drugs were available, were being kept in the home." Wow, they provide alcohol AND potent drugs?! Excellent! I did not know that. I'm REALLY looking forward to the retreat now! "First off, I've never said that AYP doesn't work." Yeah, I think you did. I'm pretty sure I recall you saying on at least one occasion that you had been practicing it for 4 years and it didn't Enlighten you and that was your main complaint. "What I am concerned about is, among the many other things that I've listed, that when someone creates their own brand of yoga by combining separate teachings, without a correct understanding of the teachings, and in doing so they customize practices along the way, it either renders the practices ineffective, or so powerful that they damage the practioner. I ask you this, have you ever heard of TM style mantra meditation being combined with Kriya Yoga practices? ... isn't there a risk that you'll take the excess prana you've accumulated and fry your etheric, astral and mental bodies?" I understand your concern and I think it is potentially valid. But, I have heard of all manner of different practices being combined in questionable ways by various people including YOU! and you have not spontaneously combusted yet. Not that I should talk. When I was in SRF I combined kriya with all kinds of forbidden stuff, including tantra, LSD and mushrooms, LOL! Yes, any and all of the above can be dangerous. Any time you mess with practices involving kundalini (even in a well-established ancient tradition) there is a potential risk. It hasn't stopped us yet, has it? If you were really THAT concerned you wouldn't have been combining AYP practices with the bzillion other fascinating techniques you described in your wonderful account there... This is why Yogani cautions repeatedly about "self-pacing" and not overdoing it. But like I said, if anybody was going to be injured by combining different techniques, you and I would both have gone up in flames years ago, my friend. "Analysis never gets old. It is how we learn. It leads to knowledge. If we have experiences and we don't analyze and understand, nothing is gained." Whatever. As I said, the intellect has its place. But it is a well known fact that it can be a trap, too. Go for it. Have fun. Knock yourself out. "You know, AYP is lacking in telling people what the rules are. I didn't find out that I couldn't delete my posts or edit them until this summer." Agreed. I did mention this to Yogani. But as I already told you, if you really need something deleted or edited for a good reason, the moderators can do it for you. I offered to have it done for you and you did not take me up on it. Personally I think your posts are wonderful and I wouldn't bother deleting them or editing them one bit if I was you. "Seems to me that the rules are only pulled out and used as justification to ban members when they become overly inquisitive or start exhibiting unwanted behaviour. Now is that fair and honest?" Maybe not. But it's a private forum. I've been thrown out of a private drinking establishment before for "unwanted behaviour" and I didn't think that was fair, either, but the owner of the bar disagreed. Much love to you, bro! Wishing you all the best in 2012. I will be sending you an email shortly with a cool new mantra my teacher gave me that I know you will love. - MetalNun

Hi! I'm new here and as I said in the Lobby, I probably shouldn't even get involved in this discussion because I already spend way too much time online in discussions that may well be pointless. However, I noticed that a couple of my friends (T.I. and Jeff) are on here and I wanted to comment on this thread, for what it's worth. Re: AYP. T.I., you know I love you dearly as a brother in Christ and a yogi, and I have supported you at the AYP forum. So now, to be fair, I would like to put in a good word for AYP. I am still at AYP and neither a "parrot or a brown-noser, or just joined." I did join in July so ok, relatively new there. I've been doing yoga for 35 years, with SRF/kriya as my core practice but have studied various other systems, and since May of this year, primarily Heart of Yoga. I originally went to AYP for specific technical information on tantra, in which I was trained but my male partner was not, and I needed help teaching him. I was very impressed with the huge amount of information available at AYP, some of which I was suprised I had never before found anywhere else despite my many years of study and practice. I have picked up a few useful techniques there. More importantly, however, is the wonderful sangha into which I was welcomed with open arms by everyone (including T.I. - thanks, bro!). I have never experienced so much love, openness and acceptance anywhere else (including HOY). I was allowed to post comments/views which were not within AYP guidelines (this was before I knew how the forum works) and nobody censored me other than to say, "that's very interesting, but here at AYP we use this approach..." Much to my surprise, I was eventually asked to become a leader/ contact person for AYP despite the fact that I practice and teach a different system (although there is a good deal of overlap, as with most yoga traditions). I'm not going to go into all the discrepancies/technical points discussed above because I think you guys have already analyzed them to death. But, in general: Based on my training and experience I would say that AYP is a good system that probably "works." It has certainly worked for many people I have met there. How can you tell if a system "works"? Both by your internal subjective experience of your spiritual growth, AND its effect on your daily life in the world and how you treat "others" [or, other manifestations of the One]. Does AYP work for everybody? No. I don't think there is any one system that does because we are all different. Is AYP consistent with other yoga traditions? To a large extent, yes. Completely? Of course not, because no two systems are. If you want to get nit-picky you can find methodological and philosophical discrepancies between closely related systems and often even within a given system. Should we analyze those discrepancies? Sure, if you want. Personally I find that gets old after a while. The intellect certainly has its place on the spiritual path, but can become a trap, especially for the brightest among us. No system is perfect. Find something that feels right to you and DO it. For me personally, SRF only got me partway There; then when I discovered HOY everything suddenly "clicked." But I am not putting down SRF, because it definitely laid the groundwork for HOY despite the fact that some of their techniques and philosophies are quite different or even opposite. As for the AYP forum rules, their purpose is simply to maintain the coherence of AYP as a system and to avoid confusing newbies; this is why "Other Systems" are discussed in a separate part of the forum. (I did not know this when I originally posted about HOY techniques but in retrospect I'm surprised I was not censored.) If anybody is interested I would recommend you visit AYP and check it out yourself. (www.aypsite.org) Namaste.

Hi, everyone - I am new here. Honestly, I should not even get involved in this forum because I am a VERY busy girl and I already spend way too much time online in discussions that may well be pointless. However, I noticed that a couple of my friends are contributors to Taobums and they were discussing a topic of interest to me that I wanted to comment on. The instructions said I had to post here (Lobby) first. I probably won't be spending much time here but you can email me if you want. Namaste.