For about 3-4 years ago I was working in a company that was newly established. All the people there were new, and no one knew each other on beforehand. Back then money, status and power was all that mattered for me. It was my idea of surviving in the world.
There was a lady there, she worked as a key account manager. But before that she had been working as a healer. I didn't believe in that kind of stuff back then. Anyway, I wanted to try it out so I asked her if she could do a healing on me. So, we had a healing session with me lying on the desk in my office. It was a powerful experience, no words can describe it, but I can only say that my illusion of a scientific explainable world shattered.
I got a few more healing sessions afterwards, and my interest for spirituality gradually developed.
I started on a meditation course where we learned different meditation techniques based on Satyananda%rsquos teachings. After a few months the meditation teacher declared that he had decided that meditation was not the right path for him, and logically he couldn%rsquot teach meditation classes anymore. I was quite confused by this, but more I got a huge respect for him. Here was a man that had been meditating for around 18 years, and he was openly admitting that he felt he was moving in wrong direction. Anyway, he was also teaching physical yoga classes, Iyengar style, so I started going to these classes instead.
The physical yoga worked on changing my whole system, but still I was hungry for more.
After ending an emotional intensive love relationship, following just an intensive heartache, I attendeded a course held by an organization called Art Of Living. The course was great, and I learned three breathing techniques which one was supposed to do daily. The main technique, Sudarshan Kriya, works like this: One breathes in different cycles and patterns %ndash and the different patterns are connected with the different emotional states of the mind. When doing the technique, it%rsquos like washing the brain from the different emotional states it has experienced during the lifetime.
The breathing technique in combination with the physical yoga was great. I developed a healthy self confidence, self esteem and was getting more and more in love with life.
But still something was missing. I noticed that I could get really irritated and frustrated over other people and things happening in the world. I also noticed that I actually got more irritated when I was doing the breathing technique. But the teachers at Art of Living said %ldquoJust continue%rdquo or %ldquoYou should attend the advanced courses%rdquo. But that didn%rsquot felt right for me, so I started to read about different meditation techniques and trying them out on my own, while at the same doing the breathing techniques daily.
I got a book called Kundalini Tantra, and started doing the different kundalini kriya techniques outlined in the book (even though it warned against doing the techniques without a competent teacher). Back then I didn%rsquot believe that kundalini was something real, but when I started to hallucinate and generally getting more spaced out, I figured out that since the kundalini kriya techniques had an effect on my perceptions then also kundalini must be real. I did however not feel that it was safe to continue on my own and sent out a prayer for a teacher. A little time after the www.kundalini-teacher.com site manifested in my life. I got a tummo initation from a lady (probably a former student of Mystress I guess) and after that I joined the FST-school.
When I started doing grounding and surrender I noticed even bigger changes in my perceptions than I had ever felt before. I had been very lazy to do the Sudarshan Kriya technique, but still I was getting more and more happy, and less irritated and frustrated. I noticed, as before, that when doing the Sudarshan Kriya I got more irritated and maybe created more karma?
Today, I did the Sudarshan Kriya, and I noticed that it only creates more tension. So while I was walking in the forest with my dog I asked myself, could it really be that the technique creates more tension? How could that be, it had been working so good in the first year after learning it.
So I surrendered the whole thing, and during the trip in the forest the following insights came:
Attachment to different spiritual techniques can be just a big hindrance for spiritual development as attachment to other things. One should be open to the idea that a spiritual technique that has worked at one point in life, is necessarily not the right tool for further development today.
Let%rsquos say that Grounding and Surrender is a hammer, and the Sudarshan Kriya is a spade. And Karma is all the dirt and blocks of stone in the soil. And the goal or the self, is the center of earth. If one uses the Sudarshan Kriya/the spade, for getting deeper into the earth, it is effective in the beginning, because the spade can move away the dirt more effectively than the hammer. But when the dirt is removed, and there is a block of stone in the way, the spade will only stagnate/create tension and more Karma. Therefore, one should change the tool and use Grounding and Surrender/the hammer instead. That will remove the block of stone without creating more tension. Of course, when the stone block have been removed one can use the spade again if that feels right.
Anyway, to sum it up. One should not be afraid of letting go of attachments to different spiritual techniques that have been useful before, and to try out only doing new ones. That is spiritual development in itself.
Any comments on this are welcome.
Edward :)
I've been on the mystic path consciously since I was 12. I've tried and discarded dozens, if not hundreds of techniques, millions of beliefs, ideas of spirituality.
What is in FST is what is common or relatively universal to human mystical experience, and what is effective, that most people can use to develop abilities of higher consciousness.
There is no "one size fits all" spiritual path, and what fits one year may not fit another. Everything you think you know has to be surrendered to attain Realization anyway, so just go with what works in the Now. Blessings!
: Anyway, to sum it up. One should not be afraid of letting go of attachments to different spiritual techniques that have been useful before, and to try out only doing new ones. That is spiritual development in itself.
: Any comments on this are welcome.
:
: Edward :)