EXERCISES
One thing that I have come back to recently is the numerous pages of notes on all the exercises that I have experimented with over the last 10 years. Today it has become fashionable in spiritual (especially non dual circles) to say there is only one exercise, asking "who am I?" And while I to came to that as well, by accident just showed up one night, I also think that this ONE exercise is a block as well if there is not some very active things going along with it. I have begun to see that practice- while on one hand a block to awakening, is also the very thing needed for it to happen. At the same time, many of these practices- while they may appear "new agey" at first, were actually important for the breaking down of the reality of reality and reality of the self. They provided practical examples to the concepts of illusion and maya I was coming across in readings and from teachers, thus exercises may be of help to you as well.
I can see that to just offer words on a page (or screen) in this case- without specific things to try is not of that much help. So I will as the months go along, add an exercise here or there that you can try out and see what that does.
One of the things I have found, is that once you have located your "core" exercises- the ones that your form most relates to- they are the one's to turn to in times of crisis or confusion- used to stay strong and break through the layers of conditioned bullshit that keep the wool over your eyes. Yet there is also a time to let a practice, even a core practice go, when it has done its job. That is the trap, so many spiritual seekers out there found a practice- or were told by an "authority" that this is THE practice, so they just keep doing it without checking to see if maybe it is time to quit and move on to something else.
So I will list here the many exercises that I have found along the way. A few I have are personal Native Indian or Oriental practices that I would only reveal in person as the time dictated- but the rest are here. And as I say, as the summer and fall rolls around I will write a few articles with some of these exercises that I listed here for you to try out for yourselves.
Not-doing/Stalking
1- Blindfold, 2-Enegy inventory, 3-No talking, 4-Saving energy, 5-Petty Tyrant, 6- Face masking, 7- Intending appearances, 8-Observing tonals, 9-Erasing Self, 10-Tell lies, 11-Habits, 12- Act for the sake of acting, 13-Change Surroundings, 14-Play the fool, 15-Listening, 16-Heyoka, backwards, 17-Shape changing, 18-Becoming invisible, 19- Fiber practice, 20- Be your own guru, 2 chairs, 21 Stop, 22- Using photographs, 23- Life Timeline, 24 Mapping omens
Prayer/Meditation
1-Medicine Prayer, 2-Sand labyrinths, 3-Art, 4- Listen to sounds, 5-Chakra meditations, 6-wall meditation, 7-Hekaum harmonics, 8-Bowls, 9-Sweat Lodge, 10-Kundalini cleanse, 11-Using smudges, smoke, 12 Divination (astrology, I ching, feung shui etc)
Walking
1-Walking the right way, 2- Silent shadow walking, 3- night walking, 4-Walking backwards, 5- Sneak up on a partner
QI Gong
1- Various forms, 2-Sticky hands, 3-cooling, warming, 4- candle with hands, 5-space between breaths, 6-close all gaps, 7-energy vortex wash, 8-Energy ball between hands, 9-Seeing auras
Recapitulation
Food
1-Healing charging water, 2- Leave a food offering
Nighttime
Routine of close downs, washes, energy balls
Nature
1-Calling animals, 2-Sit all day, 3- sit all day in a circle, 4- solo, 5- Vision quest, 6-Sun Energy, 7-Climb Tree, 8- Talk to plants, 9-Groking, 10-Power Spots, 11- power tools, 12- Learn from stones, 13- Tree gazing, 14 Medicine wheel, 15 Stopping the World
Dreaming
1-Journey, 2-Body of Light, 3-Dzogchen colours, 4-Mirror gazing, 5-Lucid dreaming, 6-Out of body, 7-Gazing practice, 8-Finding hands, 9-meditation as a corpse