Read something interesting in Advanced Yoga Practices...

Meditating without pranayama is like planting a seed without plowing.

Pranayama without meditation is like plowing without planting.

Per AYP, it's okay to meditate as a stand alone practice. Results are more gradual.

But Pranayama, yoga, energy practices etc without meditation create a more powerful nervous system, but no bliss and peace for direction and ballast. So you can get into emotional problems, glitchiness, bad luck etc.

That really hit the nail on the head for me. For the past 2 years since starting chikung, all the high energy practices that I've done esp. standing, retention, and sungazing I love the huge energy levels they confer but I *constantly* suffer from emotional system crashes and then have to back off the particular energy practice.

Since I quit Buddhism, I quit sitting meditation and I think that I threw out the baby with the bath water.

I think I need to get back into sitting.

-Yoda

Yes, some sort of yin type sitting practice would be good. I think we all get overly attracted to physical manipulation -- whether exercises, breathwork, yoga or dietary changes -- perhaps because they are easiest to feel.

But stillness (even "active" meditation stillness like fusion/MCO/etc) is, at least for me, the hardest to make into a habit and, I think, among the most important habits one can have.

Hi Yoda,

I too love spending time at AYP.

I hope to spend more time after i get caught up with my office work

That line: 'The Guru is in you' says it all.

Things got a lot more easier for me when i realized that the energy work that required physical movement were yang and energy work that required no movement was yin.

And like everything else, balance of yin and yang is the key to fruitful progress.