It didn't feel that I was trying to open the 3rd eye forcefully, but more like developing deep intuition/vision. The vision of being able to *read* root causes was very important to me because I was working with many clients at the time and wanting to find root causes quickly so as to do deep work .. so kind of like a medical intuitive, but more on the emotional/mental blockages.
I never intended to see auras, but someone once posted on CZ an exercise with mantra to develop 3rd eye, and it only took a few minutes .. and after I tried it twice, I could see some auras (but only when my eyes were shut and sometimes remotely as when on the phone).
But now I have a method to balance all energy centres using Master Sha's work, so that makes me very happy :-)