What Are Your Biggest Pitfalls With Spiritual Practices? Are You Stuck?

Howdy, folks. I'm wondering the places where you're stuck in terms of spiritual and stress reduction practices and what not. I create a lot of content in this category and know many others who do as well. What do you not learn when reading literature on the topic? Where are you clueless? Do you reach plateaus in your spiritual practice? What are they and what do you need to know? I may or may not be able to respond to everything sufficiently, but it will be good to know what people are learning or not learning in this area. Info will be used for blogging purposes, maybe some books, etc. It's important when attempting to solve problems to know what people's problems are. Namaste.

 

everything i do is spiritual,because i am a biological and spiritual being.my body is just the vehicle my spirit lives in.

 

Interesting post! I hope you get some good responses.
I'd say meditation is really hard for me to get a grasp on. Yoga and breathing excersises however have already easily been incorporated into my routine. It's just that dang meditation I don't seem to get far with. It's like my mind is silent enough, and there seems to be so many different ways to meditate. I just haven't gotten much out of it yet I suppose. Yoga on the other hand; I have received much positive outcomes, especially with this one... http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2008/02/06/best-hatha-yoga-pose-healing/
And no im not trying to self suck, after doing the forward back bend inthe morning, my calves will feel tingly for the rest of the day and ill just feel oh so so good!

 

Some have said tantra without renunciation leads to serious downfalls. Having been a kundalini adept since age fifteen (30 years), I learned that the hard way. Periods of deep meditation increased the charm of life and then I would ride for the city like the devil wind was at my back, partying hard for not days or weeks but years until I would crash. And I did it again and again.

Until finally I learned my lesson, no drugs. Keep my vows. I reached a total burnout. My spiritual side went to shit. This time it has taken me three years to get my brain and heart back and to rehumanize. I reached a total low and tried to kill myself. I always felt indomitable, and ran myself and others into the dirt. I finally had to rebirth myself into middle age. A really hard chore. Until it wasn't. Now I'm good. Back on the chain gang.

Uh.

 

It hurts my knees and my back to sit in positions for too long.

 

I somewhat agree, I mean how far should renunciation go? I agree with the drug thing, it's been causing me some problems. But what else?

 

Good responses. I'll ask more clarifying questions when there's time. Time's been kicking me in the ass lately. About renunciation, it does work very well for some. I've never taken that route, but some people find that to be their path.

 

It's about the sense of nonduality, or that all things have the same essence. What can happen is that one loses discrimination and indulges activities senselessly until it becomes abuse. It can be overworking too. Partying nonstop. Not sleeping. At some point the imbalances accrue. At that time you try to swim back towards balance against the current. The longer you live out of balance the harder it becomes to get back.

This last time it has taken me three whole years to win myself back from the abyss. YMMV.

Your ability to recklessly indulge depends upon the potency of your path. Sometimes the fastest path isn't.

 

With meditation, "silent enough" isn't really all that silent. It's a daily practice with cumulative effects. You become present with moment to moment experience (thoughts, sensations, emotions) on deeper and deeper levels over time. There aren't "so many different ways to meditate". The object of focus differs, and that's something you want to choose carefully. It can be a word or phrase, a line of a song, a visualized image, the breath, body sensations and many other things. Insight is what you do when you're distracted from your object. You make friends with all these thoughts and sensations and emotions that come up without judgment. Then you go back to your chosen object. Meditation is cumulative, so each session builds on the next, and you experience quantum leaps as more synapses and connections are created in the brain. That stretch you mentioned: If you feel oh so good, use that before a meditation session and see if it helps with the meditation. If you're a little better at hanging with whatever stuff is happening inside during meditation, then it helps. You can try a few physical yoga exercises, and maybe some breathing or visualization after that. Then try a meditation technique that suits you. If you keep meditating, you'll experience those "leaps" once in a while and you'll notice progress in the long term. Short term, you never know. You might even think you're going backwards sometimes.

I didn't proofread any of this. Maybe it will make sense. If it helps someone, that's great.

 

I meditated regularly and deeply from the age of about 18 to 23,by which time I had awakened Kundalini and also had out of body experiences.The last time I achieved Kundalini the experience was so powerful I was freaked out and stopped meditating.I was working without a teacher and was just practicing some techniques passed onto me by my Father who followed an Indian guru.It was mostly just forms of third eye/activation of the pineal gland that I was doing.But the fact is I didn't really know what I was doing and ended up having a nervous breakdown which over the years developed into a mental health problem which I still struggle with,although this is largely now in check.I recently have had to stop drinking alcohol.I am not a chronic alcoholic but I was drinking too much and it was beginning to affect my personal relations.I also saw this as a good time to re-engage with Buddhism and start meditating again.Not to achieve the far out states of my former practice but just to follow the breath and re-introduce some spiritual discipline into my life.I recently joined a local Buddhist group to help facilitate this.They are New Kadampa Tradition which I know has a bad reputation as being a bit culty but I don't believe all it's members are bad people.In fact they are very nice.Anyway I don't want to get caught up in that I just wanted to join a local group and NKT was available locally.I like to meditate in a group because I find the energy levels that are created very helpful.I find it hard to meditate alone these days due to anxiety and frustration,but I intend to set aside time in the morning and evening and just follow my breath,even if that is just starting off at 10 minutes a session.Also drugs are out for me now,including marijuana,which I don't really enjoy anymore anyway.I also realized recently that I have internalized a lot of hatred from society which doesn't really belong to me - this is an obstacle to my spiritual practice and I hope to work this through over time.

 

I've been having more trouble than ever meditating recently myself. Anxiety and frustration, just as you mentioned. It'll work itself out. About the kundalini stuff, I would suspect that some people open up to a little too much consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, and want to numb it down with booze and other things. I've been at points where there was a lot to process and chemicals allowed me to process them at a manageable pace. Finding balance in life is a much better approach, though. It's great you found a "sweet spot" of some kind. Kundalini awakenings can be tricky. Seems like grounding exercises and activities that generate feeling in the body help with that after a while. Some folks switch techniques and find things that are more grounding and that seems to help sometimes. An overabundance of energy moving through the body and brain is not always coherent. It's trying to create coherence, but the system is overwhelmed. Kind of like lifting weights. The muscles get torn up and there's chaos and overwhelm. Then, the system reorganizes things at a more complex and coherent level and the muscles become stronger. The nervous system is even more sensitive. The thing about kundalini is that you can get stuck at that chaos state for a much longer period. Whatever the case, awakening is where we're all heading.

Is there anyone here who's well practiced with fixing problems associated with kundalini? I don't have all the answers on that and would like some more.

 

Thanks for your insightful reply monkeywisdom.It would be good to try and keep this discussion going.

 

Just noticed that. That could be the culprit right there. I run into folks sometimes who have kundalini issues, and some are trying to open their third eyes too quickly without much grounding. Some were doing all kinds of wacky visualizations, too, and nothing that helped bring them in touch with their physical bodies. It can still be hard to form general conclusions, though, because I don't run into enough people having these troubles. There are some people online who deal specifically with these cases. Maybe I can ask some questions. Some people are just glad to help even if you don't need their coaching services.