Need help. Suffering after doing Isha foundation Inner Engineering program

Hi sshubh,
Thanks for your interest in helping me. Yes i have overcome from this problem. With the help of acupressure, simple yoga posture and meditation. But sometime it causes me problem. small stiffness in lowerback i still feel sometime. I have small gastric problem. It would be great if you can guide me to completely heal this.

  1. On meditation side, please ensure that the method should cause more relaxation and not more tension. I myself was making this mistake sometime back. A simple method may be to just sit and be in a relaxed suggestion that divine light and bliss are coming to you and you are becoming bliss-full. You can do such mini-meditations throughout the day also of as small duration as 30secs.
  2. Before meditation, if you can do full-body awareness-navigation, that would also be better. Sample is a Yog-nidra session recording from Swami Niranjananda Saraswati on youtube.
  3. Do Surya Namaskar but only to the extent permitted by your body. Start with 2 repetitions and increase based on your recovery. This helped me a lot in healing my pains. Sample video is https://youtu.be/_eCHrcq5wRY
  4. Pay attention to your posture of meditation and posture of throughout the day.
  5. My opinion is that alternate-nostril breathing can still be done for say 5 mins before meditation. You can choose either AOL or Isha method for this.
  6. Another big factor that benefited me is Sun-gazing which I continue to this day. You may search more about it and follow the method of Hira Ratan Manek if you like.
  7. Include raw veg, fruit in food to the extent of maybe 40%,
  8. Try to spent maximum time in open air with trees and barefoot on dry mud (you’ll see this in sun-gazing process also).

Let me know how it goes!
Best wishes,
sshubh

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Hello,
I am too suffering from exactly same issue L5-S1 herinated disc and numbeness in left foot,frequent vibration in left leg.
It is being 5 months I have taken GabaNuron, MRs, My B12 and Vit D was low so have been taking medication for that ( 1 month).
I do following excersises at home:
Bhujangasan (30 sec)
Bridge (30-40 sec)
Other exercises.
But I still can not walk without sever lower back pain and infrequent numbeness and pain in left leg.
Infact I started doing isha kriya online when I was first discovered with slip disc.
And my mental turbulence/ agitation came down.
So I was even thinking of attending full course.
And now I came across your article.I am confused whether to do it or not

Please suggest.

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Hello Sphurti,
I’ll suggest don’t get into this cult of mass enlightenment. We goes for these kind of program when we believe that these kind of program will provide us some distance reward. You can learn whatever you need to learn from books and your personal experience. These kind of program create a sense of lack.

I’ll suggest do simple calming meditation. Just sit straight and focus on your breath. Your mind will wander but don’t be judgemental about that. Bring your attention back gently. Feel your inner body and stay with your awareness. Feel love for you inner child.

Do these pranayam for few days:
Bhramari (Bee breath)
Alternative nostril breathing
MAHASIR MUDRA https://mellowstorm.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/mahasir-mudra/
SAMAN MUDRA https://mellowstorm.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/mukul-mudra-samana-mudra/

Make a routine: Sleep on time and get up on time. Connect with nature. Looks at sunrise. Watch birds.
Once you start feeling improvement. start doing stretching exercise. You can watch few back pain related videos on youtube and start exercise. Have a patience, do not try to rush. You can try small exercise with Gym ball. Gym ball will help you to strengthen you core.

Read few books:
Power of Now
Four agreements

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Thanks @sshubh for your response.

Thank you for your reply.
How is your spine now?

And as you said yes I am feeling empty these days.
Before putting faith in Isha Kriya I watched as many videos of Sadguru as possible. And found he talks much more logical than other gurus.
I being a science student and a skeptic myself have been trying to find a path or a school of thought in which I can keep my complete faith ( Afterall faith plays important role in anything you do in life).

I also started believing that Isha Kriya is The Way of Life. And I want to witness the Life Energy ( Provided it doesn’t make me abandon my family)
I thought may be this slip disc is a much needed break to contemplate on life and re arrange my priorities.

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@Sphurti My spine is perfectly fine. It is now strong and flexible as it was never before. Now i can do different kind of yoga pose including headstand and complete leg split. My body is quite flexible now. All this i made by practice and by not believing in any guru.

Yes he makes lots of sense when he speaks and gain faith of all the followers then he direct that faith to some unseen god and unspoken promise of enlightenment. Once you start following him you start to look every area of your life by his eyes.

Don’t worry these bad days will pass. Don’t believe that isha kriya or isha foundation is only path. Main thing is feeling complete within self. You can get that sense of completeness by training your mind to look for good in every situation. Life is all about choices we make.

We all have lots of unconscious believes which controls our live. If you want to be aware about those believes and want to be aware about how your mind makes decision i’ll suggest read a book called “Psycho Cybernatics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz.

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Your suffering has nothing to do with eggs. I personal don’t eat egg but just telling you that it is not cause.

I get many students like you with issues developed when they try to do something new.

Normally this happens when teachers of gym or yoga are those who don’t assess their students before teaching anything or mostly they don’t know how to assess also. Students on the other side also don’t have patience to wait and watch and they want to achieve everything in short span without knowing limitation of the body.

you have got sciatica pain and you need to fix it before you try anything including your regular practice.

please refer my reply for another similar thread here:

I recently underwent the “Shambavi Mahamudra” course. I have developed a severe left lower back pain almost like stabbing and impacting the sciatic nerve. I feel very week in my left leg and severe pain while I sit or sleep. I went to several doctors to rule out any possible disease and finally ended up going to the orthopedic specialist after spending almost 2 months in chronic pain. I strongly feel that the pathangaasana is the one which puts more pressure on the lower spine which could cause the potential symptoms of as simple as a simple nerve pinch to as severe as slip disc. Seriously if I ever get diagnosed to be this, then I would surely take this up to the Isha Institute so that they don’t go around causing health issues to several other people.

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I am hearing such issues more now a days. I feel bad about teachers who cause these.

I strongly feel that someone should not become teacher by just mimicking others. Yoga deals with physiology directly and that is why teacher must have very good background and experience of human body.

sorry to hear that.stop ur practice immediately dont go to isha teacher for help they will tell you keep doing practices and have faith in Sadguru don’t listen to them otherwise you will regret and I am telling you from my personal experiences.don’t continue any of isha practice only that much I can tell.hope u get well.

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good to hear that you are fine now but believe me not everyone as lucky as you are once they get into the Isha.
Please warn other not to do their courses

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Hi.hope ur fine anxiety, irrational fear,depression ,palptation.these r the common side effects if continue these practice can cause much severe Irreversible damage if you haven’t stop the practice please stop it and don’t listen to the Isha teacher if they say keeping the practice everything will be taken care hope it helps

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You can still help by creating a secret group on social site . I too known what isha is doing and what they are upto . I am trying in my way to alarm people or help them as much as i can .

Do meditation daily , chant r-aa-m very slowly . It’s not that ram ram ram one. R , A, M all this words and sound has meaning and energy of its own . Chant in lower portion in stomach. Not in mind . Don’t move tongue. Deep breath and drink lot of water . You will cured soon . If anything happens or not working text me Here.

**if facing gastric problem do pranayam (kapalbhati) little bit before meditation to balance body .
** if you feel like heaviness or little pain in anywhere let it happen no issue . Deal with it let it go .

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Thanks to isha now ur encouraging people ha ha . Good to known ur much better than ever before . Happy new year

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hello there,
I came across this thread, as I too went through the inner engineering program. There was a gradual change in the sense that irrational fears started creeping in me and I have to constantly counsel myself. Until last year I was doing a very basic meditation in the morning where i just sat and breathed slowly, Inner engineering made me curious and I went for the program. But the thread has people talking about things that I can relate to. I have no substantial damage to my body or any other physical problems but mentally there has been a constant unrest with lot of wavering thoughts after the program in comparison to my earlier state of mind, very similar to how you described it ,

“As i continued this practice my condition started to become more worse. I was so stressed. I started to have fear about my future and started to think too much about my past. I was dying within myself, i was so less focused anything i do, I was never such.”

I have stopped doing the practice…
do you suggest that ,I should start meditating normally as I used to ?
will it help me slowly return to my original mental space?

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Kindly go through this post I have mentioned abouhttps://yogaforums.com/t/regarding-kundalini-syndrome/17702

This seems to be the most audacious claim yet I have heard yet about the negative effects of any yoga program. Any technique is only a tool to discover your own insides, and any technique if it cant enlighten you, surely cant by itself cause ‘negative mindset’ in you.
Having done various programs from various groups including Osho, Art of Living, Isha Foundation, I have the highest praise for all of them. They are all, especially Isha Foundation and Art of Living, volunteer run organizations, where full time working people like yourself volunteer and facilitate the classes, for no other accolade but to spread the inner tools that transformed their lives to others as well. Learning a multidimensional alive technique like Yoga through just books like you recommend is the worst advice ever. Any Yogi would tell you that. Leave yoga, any complex technique, be it dance, martial arts, is best learnt in person by a dedicated, devoted teacher and even better in a group! Buddha talked so much about ‘Sangha’, a group of people walking on the same path, their combined energy helps each one of them. Before buying into such negative baseless chatter it’ll be best to discover these programs for yourself, see the devotion, sincertity of the teachers, who conduct them, the content of the programs and the journey they take you through, before just dismissing anything as a ‘cult’. And regular practice correction sessions happen even for Isha meditators I have heard in all metropolitan cities, where they would be happy to hear and sort out any of your problems.

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Most, if not all, of the large financially well-established yoga organizations are teaching false techniques and are run by false gurus. Anyone joining these organizations will come to harm. They do not have any structure in place to individually observe and monitor every student which is essential in yoga teaching. Every individual needs a different dose of medicine to recover from the illness of materialism. These organizations are prescribing the wrong dose of the wrong medicine every time, and obviously harming the patient(student).
When we have a fracture, the treatment is REST. Similarly in yoga, when these wrong techniques are practiced in wrong doses, there may something similar to a fracture or injury in the subtle body. To recover from it takes a LOT OF TIME and REST. Walking with a fractured leg will only DELAY HEALING. Similarly doing meditation or any higher activity with an injured INNER BODY, will DELAY HEALING. Only way to heal is REST. No technique can heal. Rest can heal. Correct guidance from a true SAINT can heal. Finding such a saint is very difficult. Saints do not live in luxury in large organizations and make money! I have been suffering for 18 years from various problems after practicing yoga incorrectly in WRONG DOSE and under FALSE TEACHERS. Now by the grace of God I have found the right guidance and am healing slowly. But HEALING is always a SLOW PROCESS. Patience is key to healing. A fracture that is healing may go back to square one is impatient and starts walking too soon! Only in this case, the fracture can’t be seen but felt. In such a scenario, the spiritually “fractured” student needs REST and TRUE guidance. Meditation, breathing and any kind of spiritual practice exerts a LOAD on the brain and the body. An injured student can get harmed even by meditating for a few seconds! STOP AND REST. That is the only way to heal. The body will tell you when the healing is over and you can start SLOWLY again, in the steps of a TRUE SAINT, not large oragnizations advertising their products!

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