Michael:
Thanks. I'm actually thinking of combining AYP with Vipassana since you've had some good luck doing that and made progress. Seems that the spinal breathing in addition to the investigation really sped things up for you.
It might be relevant to say that I was only doing vipassana until stream entry, after which I dabbled into AYP for a while, and now I do only vipassana again. But I believe that MCTB's arhatship is really just a matter of developing the energy body, in particular the crown-to-heart-chakra connection mentioned in AYP.
But AYP spends years and years of effort cleaning up the whole body, not giving any particular emphasis to investigation, but giving lots of emphasis to body ecstasy, divine-higher-self whatevers, and so on.
If I were to recommend any specific energy practice, I would say: do the front part of the microcosmic orbit, up and down, and do tai chi. It goes VERY WELL with vipassana, very well indeed.
Michael:
I'm curious about the I AM mantra though. Isn't mantra practice just concentration and getting into a tranquil abiding state? Or was your experience that mantra practice has a different characteristic?
There's more to it. The actual sound of the mantra, when thought, will produce a feeling-resonance ("Om" feels different than "Shree", just try and feel for yourself). When one's perception of energy stuff is subtle enough, this is glaringly obvious. How it actually works in the nervous system is a mystery to me, I tend to think of mantras as feeling-massages of sorts. I suspect they would do nothing in an actually free person (consciously or unconsciously), but who knows?
Michael:
About PCE, yes it does seem that it's incompatible. My rookie opinion is that it results from overemphasizing body over energy and mind. In Vajrayana, all 3 are equal and neither is more important or worthy of concentration and dissolving into.
My own rookie uniformed conjecture / wild guess / gratuitous speculation is that the mechanism which builds up and directs charge is simply completely destroyed, resulting in a body who's nervous system is completely "grounded," of sorts. This would explain why the practice of "grounding energy in the body" seems to be a way into the PCE. But my conjectures have been many, and this is a topic I find interesting, and would like for some brain scientist to figure out.
Michael:
And yeah, I agree with you about choosing peace of mind over universal love though I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but the whole I am God thing, yeah.. that I can do away with. seems a bit egomaniac-ish and one of the reasons I strayed away from Hindu teachings and got more into Buddhism, the down-to-earth-ness.
Actually, I wasn't a down-to-earth guy at all before I started the meditation thing. It's just that after the taste I had of the "I-am-god thing," I found that although it is trippy and fun for a while, as a way of life it is incredibly deluded and just plain lonely.
Michael:
I read what you wrote about stream entry for you being the relaxation of a certain point in the ajna reason -- so in this regard do you think the AYP by itself can lead to stream entry and beyond without the investigative qualities inherent to vipassana?
And the turning point of second path happened there too, and there is a lot of activity in this region when going for third path. I don't know if AYP can successfully avoid the investigation part, although one could say that since they come to believe they are god, they certainly avoid it to some extent.
You know what? I like investigating. I had to learn a lot of very difficult things, I had to shed tons of delusion, which was and still is a very very difficult and painful process, but I seem to be more and more happy to be doing it. Just that: understanding how I work, and making the possible best I can. It's not a hefty project like "finding your own higher self" or "making contact with the metaphysical source of all things," or "living an orgasm 24/7," but what the hell, it's fascinating stuff.
Anyway dude great luck with your practice

Jeff, thanks for the reference, sounds like a great no-bullshit book on yoga, will read sometime.