Birch

I do get what you're saying Cat and i agree. I also feel there's a bit of self-righteousness in your post (my feeling;-)). IMO if a spiritual system is to benefit both individuals and people at large, it is worth looking at in depth, including the attendant risks to people's "sanity" (i know about the issues being "there" anyway btw from personal experience, as mentioned in my post prior). I'm reading an excellent book on Ayahausca at the moment (interviews with Shamans) and they pretty much all mention non-initiates requiring guidance (down to physical diet) in their early dealings with it because of the overwhelm. The guide is as much a part of the journey as the traveller. I think the hard stance you seem to take is an interesting one and i wonder how "anglo-saxon" that might be. A sort of a "just suck it up soldier"? I just can't bear to see casualties that can be avoided on any path. I think everyone has the right to help in their path, even if ultimately you do it yourself.

Oh. I didn't mean anything good about the church. Highly dishonest IMO to attempt to proffer either consolation or incentive upon people for living their own damn lives. Their own:-) As sovereign people. This, IMO/IME is the kind of consolation and incentive I enjoy:-) Yet again i encounter surprise about my lack of beliefs. I think i have far too many left.

I'm willing to bet there won't be as much media cheerleading for this one as there was for the "Jasmine Revolution". I don't like it much if/when stuff gets violent as I'm personally a bit of a sap with no combat skills (except running away). I dunno, I tend to think revolutions happen inside oneself when you realise that you don't need any of that sh*t. You don't even need to go to bat with it. Don't need to engage it. Because engaging it gives it legitimacy. Mr MH, you're not seriously saying that you're surprised that NY Times didn't cover it

This is so important Trunk. Thanks for posting it. I don't know how this is going to come off but IME/IMO defense of "stuff" (whatever the "stuff" might be) tends to come from people who have benefitted from it. And as a result any criticism levelled at the "stuff" is going to meet with varying kinds of response. From the outright "how dare you criticize my stuff" to other more subtle means that I won't bother enumerating as we use them all the time on TTB's:-) Yes I agree, by all means do it to yourself but if this "spread" of weird phenomena happens to people who didn't sign up that's another kettle of fish. However, I feel I'm also "one to talk" because when my K storm hit, i didn't do an excellent time of protecting people close. So i dunno...

Oh, I'd argue that that's the (intended?) effect of going to church. To not have things change :-) But we don't need churches any more. We have other techniques :-) I don't mean 'we' as I'm one of the 'we' btw. And I'm speculating about the amount of intent involved:-)

Mr Chi-Dragon, Your dragon is missing a phoenix. Yes I don't think I'd go for an entire day underwater either, but do you remember this guy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmZPSLL2yXg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Mayol

I found this online http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu-hp.htm Is that it? I'm assuming I can post this here on TTB's (haven't read the copyright stuff).

I mean any way of formalising experience that causes the experiencer to align his or herself with other experiencers, tends to have creation stories, tends to have precepts about the nature of reality and beings, tends to impose social roles and behaviour, tends to establish polarities of "right" vs "wrong", tends to leverage symbols to anchor all of the preceding. But I especially dislike the abrahamic ones :-)

Oh, I don't mind. I have a natural 'anti-religious' bias :-) The thing I'm interested in, is how driving different vehicles gets one to different places. My beef with religions is most of them start out by telling you that your car is the wrong make or colour or that there's a tire missing or that you're not driving fast or slow enough or you could have some really kewl spoilers on the back and a big UV light under it if you only forked out some cash (or devotion) to someone or other. Or that you ought to change your car more often. Or that you're going in the wrong direction and your map-reading skills suck because you're a girl. Or something.

Yep, I'm talking about being able to isolate different types of (what I'd call) 'respiration'. But that term has a very specific medical/scientific meaning so I'd probably best not use it or I'll get slapped on the wrist. Kidding, better to be precise ;-) Here's the link to the pdf http://www.meditatio...com/Stages2.pdf (scroll down to very end) Yes, the two are linked. And I was thinking about it again this morning, it's a good thing IMO that air-breathing is unconscious If it wasn't, I'm probably one of those people who would forget to do it. Sometimes I forget to have lunch.

DB, sounds like a k-thing to me. I'm in "everything is a nail" mood. But i have experienced it a couple of times without doing so on purpose. It's mentioned in that Bodhri pdf i linked to elsewhere. The practice, i figure, helps you differentiate between different types of respiration (and, especially for Chi dragon;-)) between chi and air. If you think about it, the act of breathing is pretty weird. i was thinking, yes the body needs a pumping action to circulate, that's what this air-breathing stuff is for, to create a vacuum so you can do it unconsciously. But that's just a strange idea I had...

-----cheerleading alert----- It's a good book ------cheerleading alert ----- Did I mention MCO has, er, interesting effects on muscle control in the pelvic area? But you gotta do a bunch of it to notice anything.

It's funny (I mean 'weird'). I'd anticipated that 'human' aspect of a potential answer and thought about putting it in, then I figured I was being a bit presuming. I happen to disagree somewhat. But maybe just in the details. By all means be human (no choice, right ;-)). However, in your dealings with people who have come to you to learn (aka 'students') be impeccable. By that I mean not letting yourself take advantage of people in any way, any way at all. I'm not talking about lessons you set up so I'll fall into them and learn something because I fell. If you're not impeccable in your dealings with me, you're not impeccable with anyone, so why teach me the way(s) of so-called immortals and 'real humans' that at some point require impeccability (IMO/IME)? Who am I going to learn that from? Not you. (I don't mean 'you' personally' btw :-)). I guess you can tell I feel pretty strongly about teachers :-) Huge responsibility - especially with spiritual stuff IMO/IME. I feel the same way about anyone who intervenes in mind/body/spirit... I don't think Max set himself up like that, however. He was (is he still?) teaching techniques to what seemed like a lot of people but maybe he only had a couple/a few students that went further.

Oh my! I wonder how you got all that from my posts Edit, ok, you weren't referring to me but AB :-) I think I recall the definition of a 'universal truth' as being one that has to be the same for anyone and however you look at it. I just got an idea that universal truths might be better defined by what they are not...but I digress:-) Are the 'partial truths' 'illusions'? I think those are quite different things. A 'partial' truth looks like it might mean that it's part of a truth but not all of it (maybe that's what some people mean by 'universal' truth too, we'd have to get Apech in here;-)) An 'illusion' I think means something that is perceived but that is either not actually in reality or is different from reality in some way. Otherwise we'd just call it, er, 'reality'. Then there's 'being wrong' which is a whole n'other problem - "What exactly are you doing if do energy work in a certain tradition, which is different from another? Are these channels and whatever the tradition describes fake? If fake, and it's all trickery, how can an unreal thing like that work?" I don't think any of it is 'fake'. If I remember correctly, 'fake' is when you make something out to be something else it isn't. When you're doing 'energy work' IME/IMO you're working with patterns of awareness (or consciousness even, but I'm not sure I can tell those two apart very well) . Neither awareness nor consciousness are 'fake' IME/IMO. Trickery is another (different) thing, I think. The atman/anatman distinction is probably best left to the buddhists to explain. I think there are a few 'levels' to it.

I think it's just different ways of looking at things. IMO the more transcendant and universal something is, the less you can do stuff with it. Try picking up a football if you're looking at it from the grass' perspective. I used to get annoyed at specialisation because i figured they weren't talking with each other. Now it would seem they are and so things are getting much more interesting. I just finished a chapter by Ken Wilber about chakras. It reminded me of the other thread about chemical correlations. I think a trick to not being bound by such definitions is to find out about as many of them as possible. So that would maybe be "amassing knowledge" but knowing what it is and what you're doing with it and what it's doing with you.

Good point JB. I don't think i see a problem with teachers making stuff amenable to folks. Like Cameron said, it's like learning to drive. My other POV is that teachers have to earn trust to some extent (i have in mind a lot of the cult/guru scandals over the years). IMO teachers should be impeccable. Having "faith" blind is IMO every bit as stupid as mistrusting blind:-).

Yeah, unfortunately Exorcist has it nailed. I thought chemistry might save me too but then i dipped into physics (we keep splitty-ing things so we can't get it IMO :-)) and it just flew. IME if you're doing MCO at one point you feel yourself held together in your form by "something". It might be intent:-) I found that batty. But IMO it's just as batty as breaking onself down into tiny molecules and chemical reactions. Don't forget DMT:-)!

Not sure really. I think it's just a habit i've gotten into. Anyways, after a while, how would one know bliss from any other feeling? I guess i had the occasional moment here and there. I'm probably doing it wrong again.

I was thinking about this thread and it ocurred to me that the scientific "chemical" route might be a way to feel less freaked out about such things. It's like being in love but i think somehow people don't want to "know" about the chemical mechanisms of it. So why would one want to know about the (maybe) corresponding chemical/neurological mechanisms of MCO? Feel better? I suppose one might. Come across as "more scientific" ? (which is IMO another set of metaphysical "thingies" :-)) Control? I wonder... Anyway, IME once your meridians are firing/lit up nicely, they look like what I figure neural pathways would look like if we could see them. Or something like that. Point I'm trying to make is as long as your reading of it is helpful to you then I guess that's what it is. But when you start sharing your idea of it with other people and it doesn't match, then look at why it doesn't match, not keep banging heads:-)

I think that folks who figure awakening as always being a blissful walk in the park ought to do a bit more research before embarking upon practices designed to do it very fast. I recall finding many "teachers" energies to be dark. But that's because I am also dark myself. I'm also light btw, no use leaning too heavily on one nor t'other. When I "thought" of Max, the image of a black torquemaeda came to me. But having done a bit of qi-gong, i've found that people like to wear weird dresses for their own reasons. And some folks just have "vibes". The only thing i thought that happened with Kunlun was that folks didn't get lots of access to the teachers when "stuff" happened. I wonder also if the practices themselves carry more risk for "syndromes" of various types but i think many of them do if you get into them.

I figure the automobiles as an exercise in multifaceted futility and cheating:-) Alright, these things got a little more streamlined from production to highway but they're still IMO basically fossil-fuel-guzzling appendages. And as such, they're designed exactly the way they ought to be. Not that I'm knocking the skillz of the designers neither. But if they were solar-powered or water-powered, would they look the same and have the same "efficiency" (hahahaha- seems that catalytic converters are quite recent up North)? Read elsewhere: "People aren't designed"

That was a very good post Mr Cow! I agree that investing one's own authority in an external expert can help as a temporary solution. But really, wouldn't it also be a good idea to help the OP take control/realise control of their experience? Both you and 5ET IMO explain it pretty well but I reckon there might be additional tools on offer. I'd even suggest not paying any attention to entities. Send them on their merry way with a wave and a smile:-) I'm guessing the physical/emotional stuff might be worth looking at too. All of the stuff mentioned by the OP sounds like a fear response to me. You know at this point that I'm going to suggest belly breathing as well as the other stuff:-) Anyway S-O-N, what do you think about all these suggestions?

I suspect Mr MH fully knows he is one. I think he talks like one anyway;-)

Sounds like someone I know :-) Anyway. That aside. Apart from detox ( in other words your "issues" whether they be psychological, physical or emotional - and that is a most arbitrary categorisation I've thrown in:-)) IME, "Kundalini" doesn't do that stuff. Why? Because she's both yourself and your mother. And IME neither myself nor my mother would put me through such things without either help at hand or some way of composing with her. So IMO, you may have drifted into K-syndrome/qi-gong psychosis land. The good news is you can come back, after which turning off K may or may not be an issue. As far as psych doctors go. Try to find one that knows something about this stuff. Mention the practices you have been doing.

That's interesting Witch. The list of horrible symptoms sounds familiar to me. I wouldn't do it (the detox) because of the symptoms. Best to try not to ingest too much of the nasties. I've given up the ones I can't control. Taomeow's post also interesting. Also cuncur about neural paths and being able to open and shut doors at will. Which I can't Btw. So far I can only deal with the consequences of them opening or closing and attempt to do the right thing. Which is mostly nothing anyway.