Birch

Thanks drew (lowercase per your practice :-p) I haven't gotten round to reading the second article yet but I will do. thanks (lower case;-)) for that. Check this out Thanks Scott (nice to read you again), JzujanLi, Eric and NeiChuan for your posts on this topic. I'm getting to a semblance of "getting it"

Right, I'm very bad at this. BUT I kind of wonder. As I told SSW. I'm OLD SCHOOL when it comes to communication via online etc. But this guy seems NEW SCHOOL when it comes to that. Might very well be one of the few (cultural) chances the dude gets to hang with people who have some kind of talent for helping others. As I've already discussed with PW. Seems I might have a vague "messianic complex" (and I'm saying that to make myself look awesome) He was nice and interpreted it as "Bodhisattva" WTEV. Would I like the "responsibility" writing the "wrong thing" that "causes" SSW to take action against himself? Nope. Not on your bloody Nelly. Would I like the "responsibility" of helping someone and trying my best (and WTF there are some heavyweights here, no?) I suppose I might. Yes. My problem? Or, if what SSW is saying. That it's a "society" problem is correct, then might there be a "society" answer? Even if it's a bunch of people online?

Yeh, that was it.

Musing lately on this "i-thought" business. It's always (for me anyway): - after something else (an example is feeling a pattern of feeling that spurs on the thought "I'm happy") - based on previous patterns of feeling (or attempts to attribute to such) - seems to have tenuous (at best) bearing on anything that is actually happening (and in fact "kills" whatever "is" NB my best definition of "is" is the one offered by Ralis most recently.) - is likely useless in the event that anything happening requires immediate action (an example is an accident, I didn't think "oh, here I am having an accident".) So, any ideas on what it might be for? Is it "for something"? If so, what? I mean lots of people seem to want to get rid of this "thing", but why?

Huh, how did this super important post get to page 2??? Alright, let's drive by that one again: - Why am "I" not on page one where the most important looking posts (according to "me") seem to be (and "i" know few people go past page one with any regularity (oh, wait, that would be..."me") and "i" think that what "i" came up with is just so scathingly brilliant (like "no-one" could have come up with a variation of this stuff before "me" - oh wait... - ha, problem solved;-p - time to solve problem - many hundreds of thousands of years.

Thanks Susan! I guess we could start another one. Right after I mention this: "In my experience and personal practice the core channel connects the practitioner between heaven and earth so I see it as connected to the heavens and the center of the earth. The practitioner is a the nexus point between heaven and earth, a vessel of alchemy, as energies move from higher frequencies to lower frequencies, from less dense to more dense, from material to immaterial and back again. So it is important that the core be clear for these purposes." Because IMO and IME a person is just that. Kind of a "converter" for the expression/manifestation of whatever the whatever is (I'll leave the definitions to everyone else) IMO it's "better" that a person does not suffer in their experience of being such a conduit. The "reasons" people suffer are wholly debatable but I keep asking right now, "Why would such suffering be part of the manifestation in the first place"? Feel free to open another thread :-)

"Seems like more people like that are going nuts everyday, but that is just an observation." Interesting. Yes, I seem to see a lot of it but then I guess my own focus is around lots of such issues so I'm hardly surprised We don't talk about the darker side of paths very often on TTB. When we do it seems to be considered as a failure on the part of the teachers or the system. This IMO is counterproductive. I'd say it's very much worth discussing.

Thanks Stig! I got a PM from Stoner and hopefully my reply to him will be helpful to him in some way. What's the forum "approach" for dealing with folks who talk about acting on suicidal thoughts? Is there one? Should there be one?

Hey Stig! I need your help...

Hey Stoner, Dude, I had no idea you were in this trip. Non seems to be around there more or less too. Unfortunately it's the internet and the only companions I have on here are through the written word, sometimes paper (although that can mean a lot!) Despite this handicap, still, lots of very good people. Hit up my weirdo KAP friend Santi for some advice. IME it works (no idea why, still...) If you look at all the diary stuff I wrote as I was practicing (still am, but it has changed somewhat) you might get an idea of the hell I took myself through on path. I don't recall anyone saying it would be easy. I think I jumped in somewhat faster that I ought to have done...anyway I get really upset when I read people on online forums talking about suicide. It's like it's in front of my face and I can't do anything. Every time I read it, I feel like I ought to try to do something, If you're there right now, GET HELP WHERE YOU'RE AT. I know we're in some new "paradigm" of communication where you can tell a bunch of anonymous online people that you want to kill yourself but I'm very OLD SCHOOL (go check out "transitional generation" if you want to understand). Clearly, for me you'll pull through. As I've said to some very good friends, I've got 60 years left.

Nice! It's very difficult for me to say how many authors and artists and scientists came across such things "independently" vs those that merely built upon other's cosmologies. Whether the latter were or were not acceptable to their society and times. I find myself sometimes harping on on TTB's about this idea that some cosmologies already have a workable enough approach to keep many of us busy for a number of years in the applicative sense. However, for others, having recognized "kundalini" as a pretty universal "human" thingamajig, it wouldn't surprise me and you?) in the least that I keep finding symbolism of it over and over again in so many different cultures all over the world. This being said, I LIKE the diversity amongst peoples. I would be very very upset/concerned if we suddenly arrived at an overarching cosmology (say of a "Buddhist" leaning - just as an example) that would be able to eradicate all others. Sounds chillingly familiar to me...anyway, I digress

I keep forgetting when I post here that I have had the privilege of traveling to many different places, learning several different languages and being welcome pretty much everywhere I've been. Travel is a cure for everything.

Thank you for posting August Leo. You have a royal vibe going on. It's nice to see.

"Hehehe. Nice ego you have there Sweetie!" - Yesz. I hasz been polishinzging itz! I tried explaining some of this stuff to a friend and they were horrified. She figured it was dangerous. I said "Yes, it was". She's too polite to suggest I'm nuts. Besides, she's nuts too :-p Shaktimama's post on the Shaktipat thread IME explains some of the dangers. Very very well. I'm presently "cooling off".

What does believing in nothing at all boost?

Gah, there's not one "fits all" type of woman, just as there's not one "fits all" type of man. Here's IMO the real failure of any "-ism" Making one's way in many cultures as anyone is excruciating if you don't conform to what's expected of you. Lumping people into categories in order to assign blame will hardly get us anywhere. The only person I can do anything about is myself, bottom line. Hence all this Taoist and meditative practice. The female Taoist practices are neat BTW.

Then go look in the mirror . - Yeah, there's a magnificent animal looking back at me

oooh. "Thou shalt not worship any but the one god"(or words to that effect) - methinks this would be some kind of indication for a concentration (one-pointed) practice. Anyway, never mind, I keep finding parallels. Just what I do best But think the bestest of best recent comparisons I read/found/heard (now not sure which but anyway)was between the Tibetan BOTD and the Bible rendition of the Apocaplyse and the last judgement. Very cool! That many cultures have guidebooks for navigating life and death (sort of like a course programme in some kind of university)is really pretty cool. That such guidebooks be adopted as "rulebooks" is really not cool. We could maybe stop doing that and look deeper into the guidebooks?

"like inside Dr. Who's police box," Yah, sometimes I find myself hiding inside there like a squirrel (or one of those weirdo rock videos on You Tube - what's their name?) I do feel a difference when I am "everywhere" inside myself (oooh) vs half there and floating around elsewhere. Dumb question of this thread. What (if any) are the consequences of being fully "there" vs half?

:wub: You guy's rock! Awesome thread! And I need to ask (don't ask "who" asks;-)) and ask again "Oh, to liberate" - but from what?" I sorta gotta few ideas but would like more!

"When Spirit completely takes over" Now here's another dumb question. Where was/is "spirit" before it completely takes over? Is it partially there? If so, where? If not then that would be weird IMO. As far as I can tell, "it's" everywhere. So what's the deal? Are we looking at a "place" (I don't mean this as a geography but a geometry) of "non-spirit" where "ego" is in place and basically "blocking" spirit? Are we looking at a case where "spirit" itself = the "ego" (albeit "doing" whatever "ego" does) And so "spirit" is suffering until it liberates? If the latter is the case then why would "spirit" go through suffering? I guess one could say "Oh, to liberate" - but from what?

ooh such neat posts again! The fastest route is just to drop any consideration of this i-business but apparently that's tough to do. It is ;-) Loved the idea that ego is a collection of those i-thoughts strung together. Does getting an earworm count as an i-thought? "I" was singing to myself (in my head, not in the shower;-)) this morning and realised there was no "I'm singing" thought, it was a song that was stuck (an earworm)

Dumb question of the thread. How did we get to "ego" from "i-thought"?

Oh Sloppy, yah, you're out;-) But who says you needed a teacher in the first place? I'm sure you've got it by now ;-) The main reason (and from limited experience) I would now suggest a qi-gong teacher is because of what qi-gong does (there's a neat post on that by Stig hanging around somewhere right now) and if you do that wrong then yes, can have an effect - like doing swimming wrong, or yoga wrong or eating crappy food, or driving badly. Of course, you can try swimming, yoga, eating food or driving and figure out for yourself what works and what doesn't (which IMO is how many systems got formed and how the good ones get refined...)but IMO and experience it's worth finding someone who either knows what they're doing or has enough experience through trial and error to be helpful. Doing swimming wrong might get you drowned, doing yoga wrong can screw up your joints, eating crappy food can mess with your liver, kidneys, spleen and heart and driving badly can just get you killed, really.

Here's my idea. Take what you want. Do EVERYTHING slower. Muchos folks do not understand this crucial point in hot climates. So when (short) hot climate come to them (or they go there, they often don't get it) SLOOOOW DOWN, especially if your buildings, homes and offices are not made with HOT climate in consideration. I'm not sure about AC. - Drink water - Relax - If you have a bathtub, fill it up with temperate (warm) water and hang out there for a while, NOT COLD water, just before that - Worry not. Warm/hot weather can have people not used it freaking out. - Avoid alcohol - Avoid drying conditions - Avoid sex until you have adapted to deal with it when it's hot( if you've ever tried doing it in a sauna, you'll understand what I mean...hopefully!) Chill B)