I had a Kundalini style experience many years ago that has kept me on my search. It came to me spontaneously during a healing treatment I was receiving and was pretty full on - Large body tremors, shaking and vibrating for 20 minutes that increased to the point where my hands shot in the air in prayer position above me and eveything went still. All I was aware of was bright light and then an angel moving towards me. I felt like I had come home  and was bathing in healing blissful energy. As soon as I acknowledged becoming attached to the experience it started to reverse until I was back in the room laying bathing calmly in the afterglow. I floated around for a few days but things returned to relative normality. Something felt like it had changed within me but the main thing was the desire to go back there and experience it again.. 

Im not going to go into detail about the ensuing 15 years but its been a long, winding search with mixed results. I recently read Daniels book and have not really done any disciplined, regular, structured meditation. 

I would like to know which technique would be best to start with now to set me on my way. Would you please give me your suggestions. 
Thanks
CAP

You've had an A&P experience, so well done.  Not sure what you're looking for, but you've read MCTB, so try some stuff.  Start practicing.

The recommendations from around here would be all over the map, but a midpoint might be to do a few minutes of some kind of concentration practice, then do the rest of a sit as noting, and try to practice every day.  Try to find points in the day when you can practice for a moment or two during your daily activities.

Im currently on a yoga retreat for 3 months with nearly 2 hours a day slotted in for sitting practice where I can do whatever method I want. Given Ive got all that time I want to really focus on what is going to bring the fastest/best results and progress. 

Also what does having an A&P experience once affect long term.. Is there any lasting effects normally?

Here is me:

#1) Tenets I (ideally) try to hold:

-Accept Reality, reject no thing/seek no thing
-Do not act on impulse; delay gratification; follow desires but do not cross the line
-Avoid creating new karmic dramas
-Dwell in equanimity-do non-doing (allow spontaneous activity to operate as often as possible...neither express nor repress, but allow Nature to move)
-Keep the Dharma Eye open-Know nothing (See directly - leave mind empty of fabrications, but full of the Suchness of the moment)-Train within, train without (and see no difference between the two in the end)
-All is Mind (I definitely hold tight to the 'All is Mind' school and not only is this a Buddhist belief, but also has been verified by western science - one of the dominant theories in Harvard is that every thing we experience as a percept is in fact occurring within the mind, which is no surprise to Buddhists of course)...thus, there is nothing that is not 'me,' and seeing every thing as any thing but Self is erroneous.  -no death, no end...endless sea of energy, consciousness, and bliss (Satchitananda)-Consciousness is a series of awake, aware energies of perception (through the watcher)
-Focus is like a flashlight (attenuation model)
-Reality is This (Suchness) and cannot be commented on with accuracy
-Delimit the boundaries of causation - i.e. find the causeless


#2) Theoretical models:

Three minds: 
1) WisdomMind, Godmind, Groupmind, Goodmind, Taomind, SuperSoul, 100th monkey effect, Universal Mind, Oversoul, Overmind, etc.
2) Emotional Mind (female, right, intuitive, Gestalt, etc.)
3) Intellectual Mind (male, left, analytic, categorical, etc.)

then....there are the middle and lower dan tiens (lower corresponding to the enteric nervous system, middle corresponding to...?)
The action of non-action (receiving through surrender of the small self) allows the wisdom to flow from the mind (eye) of God to the seats of intellect and feeling (spirit). Kundalini has something significant to do with this. In fact, Kundalini may actually be the GroupMind - the source of makyos, Mara, demons, angels, and all archetypes of humanity.

#3) Practices:

Basically, what is known as Shikantaza in Zen, is this:

#1: Limit all outgoing nervous system impulses (efferent signals) - relax the body architecture, as in Savasana...let the body breathe itself

#2:Allow all spontaneous movements without interrupting the process (as in Kriya, Kripalu, Siddha, etc. Yogas...I think this is the same as Wu Wei

#3: Maintain full awareness and just observe without interfering. This is called having a fully open Dharma Eye in Buddhism (Dharma Eye -"The spiritual eye that not only penetrates the true reality of all things but also discriminates all things. Bodhisattvas who have realized the no birth of dharmas ascend to the first ground and acquire the pure dharma-eye, with which they continue to help sentient beings according to their natures and preferences")

In the above practice, one allows awareness to flow effortlessly from object to object, neither choosing a path, nor not-choosing (i.e. interfering with the roving of the Dharma Eye). If ones own Shakti is impure, however, you may led down the roads of absolution, which involves the Shakti bringing you to your own dark parts and exacerbating their ego-dross. Be careful! Don't let yourself cross the line and do anything karmically dis-advantageous. Enjoy the sights of your own ego dross, like Shiva riding his own Shakti-snake, but if it comes to the point of causing suffering for others, then delimit this.

This technique is pretty much the best way to chill out and open mind to 'immediate presence.' 

There are other techniques I use besides this one if you like, involving holding focal points at the Thalamus area, or the heart area. I can explain about these if you are interested.

My goal is to enter reality directly without perceiving - if one notes that one is perceiving, then one is in duality - it takes a perceiver to perceive. Direct mergence with the Tao reduces the difference between self/other until there is only the Tao. This is called killing the self, and is likened to killing the Buddha. In order to commit this psychological suicide, I quote Deci Belle: "Perfection is easy for those with no preference. Accept the inevitable at all times without hesitation."

Maintaining this equanimity, neither for nor against, one can still take action through non-action. This is not passive! If someone comes at you with a knife, by doing non-doing, the knife will be thwarted, the attacker nullified, by the Tao itself. When there is 'No One' there, there is still the Tao. By opening to this presence, one becomes full of it, and empty of the self. Thus one is now the Self. See the difference? Little self, big Self. Mind of God, mind of human. The mergence of self/Self is this (from my Taoist mentor Deci Belle): Buddhas step forward to become humans, humans step backwards to become Buddhas. This is the mergence of duality. Same shining mind (always was), but the mind becomes empty of self, yet full of Self. Emptiness and Fullness are the same thing. Little self holds on to ideas. Big Self is moment by moment and does no such thing. This is in fact the development of true Gongfu. Bruce Lee wrote of this in the Tao of Jeet Kun Do.

Next comes the trinity:

Sat Chit Ananda (Being Consciousness Bliss): The seer, the seen, and the act of seeing become one.

Energy, matter, and consciousness become one. They always were of course. 

Is there two or is there three? Maybe there is four! ;) Time is the fourth pillar. To say that time is a concept is true, yet it is also not true. Existence is change, so thus Time is the changing of matter/energy/consciousness in the Space, thus the time/space continuum. This is the four dimensional universe. 

These are the Four Pillars of Zen.

Time=Space=Energy=Matter (time is the space in which change occurs - the melting of the 3 attributes into endless form illusion bliss)

as far as extra dimensions, I am still exploring that.

Know your dimensions! - directly perceive their use/worth/function/place/etc.

Cosmos/Body/Mind/Spirit

The Cosmos exists and includes the Time/Space continuum and contains all things; The Body exists within the Cosmos; the Mind exists within the Body; the Spirit exists within the Mind.

Basically it's like a Russian nested doll.

Whatever the biggest doll is, is the container of us all...if there 12 or 13 dimensions, then it pretty intricate, and is probably hard to see from the plane we are in here. I imagine when our body gets dissimilated, that we can then go explore those other dimensions more concretely. I am having enough fun with the four I know for now...

Song

p.s. You specialists out there! please correct me! I am a maverick, jack-of-all-trades, Sufi, so I have many errors of misperception...I request as much correction as you are inspired to commit. Help me clean my mirror and I will do the same for you. I aim for spotless perception, with no dust. 

Thanks Song.. There's a lot to digest there! 

I'll get my head around it over the weekend. 

Song (the Maverick), gives me too much credit… furthermore, I do not mentor anyone.  If people's PMs are appropriate, I respond; if not, I ignore them.  I do not agree at all with his assessment of buddhist understanding and practice.

"Perfection is easy for those with no preferences" is attributable to Bodhidharma, I believe.  As for the other quote, it is by Dogen, and is worded, "People become buddhas and buddhas become people"— from his Shobogenzo.

May I be so bold as to suggest that these spontaneous experiences are what they are.  One's present state without following thoughts unawares is at all times the basis.

I don't know if it is your intention to re-experience this kind of state… if it is, I would let it go completely because the nature of the sudden is just the way some things are.  Penetration of the source of wonder is endless.  Buddhas don't know anything either— they just know there is nothing to know.  Only by not letting the memory of these occasions sink into a self-reflective view is it possible to pass through self-created psychological barriers because attachment is only relative to the self that exists by self-reflection.  

Since the source is selfless, perpetual penetration is by virtue of harmony with the substance, which is already you.  By establishing an attachment to the source by an experience relative to the individual identity, one has unwittingly created an obstacle (not that you have, mind you).  Just saying.❤

But since I don't know your situation, I must mention it on these terms, because otherwise it could be like beholding the view in a mirror as you pass by.  Just pass by, and you cannot be held by the reflection~ you see what you are capable of at any given time.

Eventually, in terms of clarity by the intent of sincere openness without objective suspended by true wonder, one ceases to reflect by consciousness of separate existence and comes to realize the emptiness of self as the light, no different than…anything, or nothing, for that matter.





ed note: clarify Songtsan's personal ties and quotes that were unwittingly attached to me.

If it was A&P (and sounds like) then it has an effect in your mind (even if you not aware of it). In "technical term" after you are going to cycle in different stages of insight.
If you've already red the MCTB then you maybe also like the Kenneth Folk's book: http://contemplativefitnessbook.com/

If you start meditation practice you have basically 2 options: samatha kind of practice (more focused on developing concentration) or vipassana insight meditation (to get insight into the nature of reality and get the stages of enlightement).
The two is quiet close to each other so at the beginnig is hard to separate them as they support each other anyway. 

My experience is that in yoga retreats teachers are more focused on concentration (which is also very good). And you won't really find this down to the earth approach you can find here on the DhO. So you have to decide which way you want to progress.
(People on yoga retreats many time just mixed up with everything.)


It is also good to keep going with the practice you actually doing to see the result. If you feel stucked (feels no progress, frustration etc.) then time to find something else. There are plenty of practices outside and hard to tell which is the best for you. You have to find out for yourself. 
There is no need for rush or fast progress. (But faster progress can be made on intense retreats) 

And as Deci put in words it is not a good ide to run after experiences it will cause stress. Experiences come and go better not to be attached to them. If the conditions are there they will come anyway.
good luck 

It was for many years my wish to re experience that state as it was without doubt the single most enjoyable (there is no adjective accurate enough) state Ive ever experienced. It felt like home at last. Freedom from suffering. I realised a long time ago that attachment to that would always prove fruitless.  

Intuiting or awakening to one's true identity is like nothing else.  How can we let go of the experience?  Reality is unmistakeable.  We know this is it because we have always known this intimitely, as selfless unity as is, is one's enlightening being without beginning.  Reality has never fallen into the created.  Your potential in the midst of ordinary affairs is this quality of the Unborn.  Your nature is uncreated and enlightening activity is the nature of this uncreated, selflessness: the essence of awareness.

By not following creative evolution, this quality of potential turns into the function of awareness itself, because awareness is the selfless essence of the thing you know to be you.  When we act or think outside of immediacy, we change our unborn potential into karmic energy.

One must endeavor to see the expression of the reality of one's true identity in the midst of ordinary affairs by seeing one's habitual perceptive modes as the world, i.e.: one's self has no separate origination; the world not being external doesn't change the world one iota.  It changes our perspective.  Therefore our enlightening being is activated as the function of awareness itself when we see that there is no thing (to cling to) in the midst of ordinary affairs outside of our spontaneous adaption to ordinary situations without entertaining speculative relationships with objects of sense and thought relative to outcomes.

Reality as is, is the perpetual result of immediate presence.  Nothing needs to be done except for the occasions of meeting creation with one's inherent potential arising out of the situation itself.  These occasions do not admit of one's own power.  These occasions only require our ability to see reality as is in order to ride the energy of spontaneous adaption by virtue of the situation itself.

The ability to see reality as is, is the result of a critical degree of self-refinement, which is a never-ending affair.  There is a saying in the tradition of taoist spiritual alchemy that alludes to this degree of refinement: "Refine the self and await the time".  Self-refinement is a matter of awaiting the timing of the celestial in the course of human affairs.  I will not get into this here, but I will finish up the original response to the OP.

Even our experience of enlightenment is delusion.  Delusion and enlightenment are the same mind.  By not using enlightened mind (ordinary awareness void of self-reflective thought) to interpret phenomena speculatively, our adaption to situations is not a matter of our own power.  This is because the function of awareness, being uncreated, is the power of enlightening being.  Learning to abide in this aspect of awareness, we have turned the light around, to shine on its source.

In turning the light around the whole world becomes the ground of reality.  Whereas the reality of one's true identity in the midst of ordinary affairs by seeing one's habitual perceptive modes as the world, i.e.: one's self has no separate origination; When the world reverts to humanity (by our operation of reversal), reality rests as the nature of no cause.  Causelessness is the basis of innocence.  This is resting in the highest good, in terms of nonpsychological accord.  Whether one rages or gazes on the empyrean, all is naturally so.

In this is the actuality of never not returning to our source of arriving at incipience in perpetuity.  It is the pivot of awareness, the Center, which has no location.  Abiding here has never been dependent on an instant of mystic vision.

So in looking back on your experience, look back into reality as is, perpetually returning to this as is in terms of worldly affairs.  The nature of all at once and gradual is the same.  It is one, and this unity is Mind.  The flavor of unity is the essence of the world.  Since you know what it tastes like, refine the self by turning the light around to the point of recognizing this taste of unity in your worldly experiences, and you will find enlightening being becoming your natural function.

My bad Deci...


Still you are my mentor, in that I have learned from you often. As everyone contains all things, you contain parts that spark my dullness; we have had moments that I considered you mentoring me...which means that for me, you are in fact a true mentor - in this case you have mentored me yet again by saying that you are not my mentor, which is also true. In duality,  all labels are true/false, so anything I say anywhere is just not it, yet also is. But that's getting redundant in any event.

We all stem from the same source, so any disagreements between this OneSelf are merely the Play of Prakriti and Purusha.  

If we all, at root, share this one Mind, then we are all mentors and students at once and will be so forever! Thus, I shut up, because what else can I say?

These peak experiences are a kind of initiation of sorts...I had mine in 1999, and it was delicious. You will have others, rest assured. The whole purpose of the state was to get you hungering for more. This is how Kundalini works - that tricky devil! She lures you in and keeps you moving forward. You basically were shown the carrot, and now you are the horse running to and fro looking for the carrot. In this process, you will expand your boundaries. Simply develop your practice, this is all you need to do. Continual self-cultivation is the key to such ecstasy. Whether you study one system or many, persevere! Tapas! If you burn, you will earn the grace of this shakti...she is your very own body. Prakriti IS Shakti. You live in her. She wants you to refine yourself, so do so, and you will get your state attainments..

I do not agree.  Furthermore, your rambling is decidedly off-topic.

I suggest you endeavor to start your own thread on this subject of yours, dear— and respect the OP.

This seems familiar...perhaps we should endeavor not to repeat old mistakes my friend. Hell is repetition, repetition, repetition...