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Messages 271-270 deleted by topic administrator 07-14-2011 04:13 AM |
baba peter  02-07-2011
04:07 PM ET (US)
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Update: the 'Bulletin Board' button on the New Yoga site now links to a new blog called 'The New Yoga Forum'. The old Bulletin Board has been taken down but can still be viewed on the new blog under 'Archive'.
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Deleted by topic administrator 02-07-2011 03:04 PM
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baba peter 23-06-2011
04:31 AM ET (US)
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Addition to Lesson 7 of The Manual of The New Yoga
(Mukha and Netra Tantra - The New Yoga of the Face and Eyes)
THE ART OF EYE AND FACE READING
For this meditation you will need a reasonably large photograph of an adult individual (portrait photographs in which the subject faces the camera directly are ideal). Alternatively, study the face and eyes of a partner seeking an inner ‘reading’ of their face and eyes - or else look in the mirror!
1.Take as much time as you need to closely observe and meditate the face and eyes, write down every word that comes to mind in describing the psychological characteristics and emotions you can see in the eyes. Do not worry if some of the words and emotions appear to be quite contradictory – for the eyes can reveal countless emotions and psychological characteristics at the same time, even seemingly opposite ones. If two or more people are studying the same face, then compare and contrast your lists, and describe to one another exactly what features of the individual’s eyes led you to identify a particular emotional quality in it. If there are differences in your lists you might find that you are just using slightly different words to describe the same emotional quality or feature of the eyes, or else that one person is seeing an opposite emotional quality in the very same feature of a particular eye. Alternatively each person’s list might complement the other’s – further emotional and psychological qualities and their expression in different feature of the eyes.
Examples of emotional description words: fear or vulnerability, sadness, disappointment or resignation, anger or rage, naughtiness, humour, shyness or reservedness, ambivalence or uncertainty, hope or despair etc.
2.Do the same thing again as in stage 1, but this time observing and meditating one eye at a time and writing a separate list of emotion words for each eye respectively. Again compare and contrast your lists with that of another person.
3.Now meditate the eyes again but this time with an awareness of other features of the individuals face, such as expressive features of their mouth, brows and facial hair, and asymmetries in the face.
4.Now look at the face or facial image again, but this time imagining that you are not looking at the face and eyes of a mature adult, but rather those of a child. See what new emotional qualities reveal themselves in each eye of the face and write down words for them. Here it will help considerably if you imagine that the individual whose face you are studying is looking at a parent figure and is showing through the different features and emotional qualities of their eyes their own felt relation to that parent - which may have many different and ambivalent aspects (for example desire for love or affirmation, sadness or disappointment at not receiving it, uncertainty at how the child will be seen and responded to or what the adult will do, anger or rebelliousness. Do not restrict yourself to single words but let a feeling awareness arise of what the child’s eyes are essentially saying to the parent and let phrases or sentences come to mind that express this. Remember also that the outer ‘look’ in a person’s eyes is nothing purely objective, but reveals their way of subjectively looking out at and seeing the world – or another person in particular.
5.Now choose just one particularly strong emotional quality that you see in just one eye of the individual, and again, find words to express both its emotional quality and/or what it is saying. If this quality reveals itself in the right-hand eye of the individual, use your own left eye to duplicate it (or your own right eye to mirror some emotional quality in the left eye of the individual). Begin by simply feeling your own eye, right or left, then feeling the emotional quality within it, and seeking to subtly shape your eye so that it mirrors and rays back this same quality - in the same way and through the same features that you see it doing in the eye you are mirroring. Initially you may wish to alternate between looking at that eye and then looking away from it - but holding its image in your mind’s eye and seeking to feel and duplicate its emotional quality within and with your own eye. Pay particular attention to the degree of openness of the eye (for example whether wide open, slightly or half-lidded), the extent to which you feel it is outward looking or introspective, whether the surface of the cornea seems glazed or clear, and the corresponding degree to which the individual’s gaze appears held back at the surface of the eye - or rays out through it towards the other. Take as much time as you need to feel and shape the look in your own eye in corresponding way – for example feeling and giving it a clear or glazed or look, or feeling and intending its ‘gaze light’ to stream out. At the same time, imbue both the outer look and inner gaze of your eye with whatever emotional quality you see and feel in the eye of the other – whether warmth or coldness, sadness or anger etc.
Summary: mirroring the look in a person’s eye requires time to go through four stages: firstly time to simply and fully feel your own eye, then time to fully feel the feeling you wish to imbue its look and gaze with, then feeling that feeling with and within your own eye – and finally finding a way to shape its features in such a way that it shows that feeling through both its outer look and the quality of its inner gaze.
6.Whether you are working with a photograph or a living face, now face it and actively mirror the look you have identified in one eye with your own corresponding eye (remember that this is the eye that directly faces the eye you seek to mirror – even though this may mean mirroring an individual’s left eye with your right eye or vice versa.
7.If you are mirroring the eye of a person actually present before you, move from simply mirroring the emotional quality of the look in one of their eyes to affirming and transforming that quality. For example if you a mirroring a look of sadness or rage, intend, by doing so, to fully and unconditionally affirm the sadness or anger you see in the other’s eye. If you are successful in your mirroring you will be aware that the other person knows that they have been fully seen and fully felt and you will feel a tangible sense of resonant eye-contact with them.
8.Begin to sense with and within your whole body, the purely sensual rather than emotional aspect of what it is you are mirroring - feeling it as a purely sensual tone and quality of feeling that can’t be reduced to any emotional labels such as ‘sadness’ or ‘anger’.
Examples of trans-emotional qualities of the look in a person’s face and eye and in the tone of their gaze: liveliness or deadness, fieriness or iciness, warmth or coolness of feeling, radiant luminosity or darkness, lightness or heaviness, sharpness or dullness, translucency or glazed opaqueness.
9.Now gradually move from mirroring an emotional feeling to mirroring it as such a purely sensual quality or ‘tone’ of feeling. Examples: mirroring an emotion of ‘rage’ as a purely sensual quality of burning (or icy) intensity, strength or power; mirroring an emotion of quivering anxiety as a quality of vibrating excitement; mirroring an emotion of ‘sadness’ purely as a felt sense of profound depth and inwardness of soul.
From Face and Eye Reading to Transformative Resonance:
The capacity to precisely mirror and ‘resonate’ with, unconditionally affirm and then gradually transform an emotion seen in another person’s eyes and face as a whole is central to ‘The New Yoga of the Face and Eyes’ – in particular its use of close-up, face-to-face pair meditation as a powerful medium of wordless therapy conducted through a process of ‘transformative resonance’ i.e. first mirroring, affirming and ‘resonating’ the emotions we see and feel in the face and eye(s) of another, and then gradually transforming the way we see and feel those emotions – no longer mirroring them back as nameable emotions but as pure tones and qualities of feeling. This difference is like the difference between hearing a tone, chord or phrase of music as the expression of a nameable emotion or emotional feeling - or sensing it as pure quality or ‘tone’ of feeling that transcends words, a ‘feeling tone’ rather than an emotion. ‘Transformative resonance’ then, begins with the mirroring and affirmation of emotional feelings and ends with mirroring them in a transformed way as purely sensual qualities of feeling tone.
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Deleted by topic administrator 23-06-2011 02:53 AM
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Deleted by author 23-06-2011 01:29 AM
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Deleted by topic administrator 20-06-2011 05:33 AM
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kevin
15-06-2011
05:34 PM ET (US)
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Sorry to post on here again with my mobile phone.
There is no place that Paramashiva is not. So it is aware of exsisting only because of it's relation to where it is diminished. Like us (Jiva).
Kevin
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George
12-06-2011
07:19 PM ET (US)
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My dear Acharya,
Om Shanti.
May that healing still silent peace be with you, at this time.
As you know from our recent discussions and communications 'feeling' has also become a another focas of my attention and experience practice recently. It has now become obvious that it links with 'I AM' as the pure simple undifferentiated 'feeling of existence' which we previously discussed. As I explained, from a practice point of view, the vital but vibrant 'simple feeling of existence' and the the practice of listening to the 'Sound of Silence' seemed to have a common interlinked connection and were two aspects of awareness itself. Also in an earlier message I have also described the "inner felt in-going and outward flowing 'ripple affect' during meditation", which is another form of subtle experiential vibration too. The other day, during a period of quite reflection, I suddenly realised the common connection for all these is of course vibration! Here I am talking about vibration not as an interesting theoretical philosophical idea, but as the actual experience in practice. I then recalled you have said the vibration of awareness is called 'Spanda', which you also defined: "Spanda in Kashmir Shaivism - normaly translated as 'vibration' but also meaning 'slight movement'."
I realise you have often explained and written about the theory behind the experience, but we still have to find out for ourselves and move on from theory to actual practice and our own first hand experience. As you know I feel true understanding comes through our own realization, based on actual experience. Most of what you teach revolves around practice, in many useful formats, all based on the awareness principal and various forms of awareness practice. I would therefore very much welcome your own observations and deeper insights concerning the vital link of vibration in all forms of practice and experience, as they appertain to The New Yoga and awareness principal, please. I feel these may hopefully be of great interest and benefit for others in their own practice too, as well as myself. May you soon feel well enough to deal with this sincere request in due course, when your health permits and the right time arises.
Meanwhile, many thanks for taking all the time and effort to compile the new blog of our shared correspondence. It has been a great privilege to have been involved and received your teaching in correspondence and directly in person.
With my usual deep respect,
George
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Deleted by topic administrator 09-06-2011 06:23 AM
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Karin
05-06-2011
01:03 PM ET (US)
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Request from the board's administrator:You may have noticed that the last 3 messages have been deleted. Nothing against poetry but - would contributors to this board please restrict their posts to material that pertains to the topics of this site: The Awareness Principle and The New Yoga of Awareness. Edited 05-06-2011 01:03 PM
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Messages 259-256 deleted by topic administrator between 06-05-2011 12:50 PM and 05-27-2011 03:56 AM |
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