advanced spiritual techniques

it's important to find an experienced and knowledgeable teacher for learning advanced yoga

There are quite a few individual people and yoga schools that get hold of, sell, and promote books with advanced spiritual practices, from other sources.

I once had a big 'animated talk' (meaning that I "stood up to") with someone who was doing just that: using someone else's books in their teacher training course, with no understanding of how to actually use them. Plus, handing out other intellectual knowledge of chakras and such, that were, well, laughable.

The problem with freely including, and nilly-willy practicing, the techniques in these books, is that, unless you have actually been trained how to use and apply these techniques by practicing them in a structured and methodical manner, you, or the teacher, don't really know what they're doing. 

These techniques are usually taught in a safe environment, like a like an extremely knowledgeable person who has the authority to do so, and who has a strong sense of what to teach a person, and when.

And this is the important part: the teacher knows

• what to teach
• how to teach
• what to have the student do

to get to the stage of the beginning advanced practices. A volatile person, for example, is definitely not going to suit techniques that stir up the internal energy to a point whereby that person is not able to handle their temper. And, someone who has not practiced meditation, simple mantra, and has not started the gentle release of the immense number of thoughts that everyone has inside them, can become a bit unstable emotionally with the very advanced techniques.

The most advanced techniques are working on the very deep contents of mind. Not just those superficial layers, and, those superficial layers need some release before the advanced yoga is taught. This is generally not understood, but is a most important point. 

Start at the beginning. Become conscious first, tidy up your body, your emotions, work on the subconscious via meditation. Then when the time is right, find an experienced teacher for working on the even deeper realms, for the advanced spiritual yoga practices are working on the unconscious mind. This part of the mind is beyond intellectual or emotional analysis, and a process is used to access and traverse it. And, guess what?? That knowledge is not in books.

Do not neglect a small daily practice (sadhana) for it will strengthen your body systems, and, there is a correlation between body and mind. For example, the chakras have a relationship with the endocrine system, the spiritual energy channels (nadis) have a relationship with the nervous system. Build up and harmonise these before attempting the glamorous advanced yoga. That's what the physical aspects, the postures (asanas) and shat karmas (body cleansing practices) are really for. And, the correct pranayama will build up and harmonise a part of the nervous system: this in turn will bring in the spiritual energy, via another part of the nervous system.