As I have only just gained access to the website, I would like to add a couple of comments re Unit 1 practices, even though I note that Jack has just launched us into Unit 2.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0I also have tried Expanding and Condensing several times over the last week. I agree with Jack that the dynamics of expanding and condensing are not always what you expect. I am just recovering from an operation, and decided to experiment with expanding the pain that I was still feeling. I expected expansion to make the pain greater but instead it seemed to spread, diffuse\u00c2\u00a0it, making it more bearable when it didn’t seem to relate so strongly to the little entity I considered as my “self”. In contrast, by condensing the pain, its intensity increased as it became more localised. The Expanding Awareness Kum Nye practice came to mind, where the kind of expansion explored leads to a glorious release and a feeling of blending with the universe as a whole – somehow the universe seemed to have taken on part of my felt pain. In contrast, if I try to practise condensing my sense of “self”, there is certainly a feeling of intensification, but also a refinement of this sense\u00c2\u00a0– as though a refined essence of my “self” can yet be maintained, even on the head of a pin.<\/p>\n
As part of our Turiya group student syllabus this year we have also been working with the other practice recommended\u00c2\u00a0for this week\u00c2\u00a0– Marriage of Sound and Breath. This has become one of my very favourite TSK practices. In practising it, we seem to be assuming open awareness\u00c2\u00a0by focusing at the same time on the external world (sound), the pranic world (breath) and one of the chakra centres (throat). If we can do this at the same time, then we really\u00c2\u00a0can have\u00c2\u00a0a widely encompassing\u00c2\u00a0awareness. I have worked on this practice over and over again, but almost every time I notice that when\u00c2\u00a0I thnk that I have\u00c2\u00a0brought the three “attendings” together,\u00c2\u00a0I find that I am actually switching attention very quickly, in almost the blink of an eye, from one to another. One simply doesn’t usually have all three within the awareness simultaneoulsy. Only once did I feel that I had actually ‘captured’ the intent of the practice, and when this happened, the experience was totally unique. The all encompassing unity of breath-throat-sound seemed like being enclosed in a bubble, almost like I felt once\u00c2\u00a0when scuba diving, where the experience seems to constitute a universe within itself – a strange concept, but that’s the best way that I can describe it. Has anyone else had a similar experience with this or other practices?<\/p>\n
Gaynor\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I have only just gained access to the website, I would like to add a couple of comments re Unit 1 practices, even though I note that Jack has just launched us into Unit 2. \u00c2\u00a0I also have tried … Continue reading