Birch

No. If I recall correctly it was while I was doing MCO on the bus on the way to work. Definite accident. Maybe I felt like being a dog at play more than I wanted to be on that bus on the way to work:-) The 'big love' experiences have come about in response to a couple of teachers doing whatever they do with no (conscious) intent or anything on my part (TTB's both). The 'love' thing is something that is IMO often thrown about as bait. Same goes with the blss thing. ----opinion alert---

I get your point T_I and indeed many of these things have been 'validated' by various readings of mine. Have not been validated by any teachers in particular. I suspect there's a big old difference in both types of 'validation' ;-) The initial dismissal of many things as 'scenery' was something I did/do for myself during high weirdness (not suggesting you do it and I wasn't intending to sound dismissive of your experiences either) in order to be able to continue 'on path' and in the world at the same time without becoming a basket-case. I'm interested in a specific kind of sanity with not too many bells and whistles. Some other folks drive Guzzis, I'm a bit more Vespa-ish;-) I'm a 'DIY' kid with this stuff and there is no race to the finish-line as far as I can tell, so if my ride is 'easier' if I'm not engaging with Black Kali every evening or traveling during sleep or otherwise to meet distant astral teachers or suddenly perceiving the ground for a split second from inside a dog 200 meters away (happened by accident) then its fine by me! I mentioned in some other post a while back that if I was not of service to anyone much by doing these things then the juice is unlikely to kick in more than that. If I were a shaman serving my compadres, I'm sure things would be very different.

"why am I getting muscle twitches and tingling all over even in my feet ?" I get this 'at rest' pretty often. It's like the muscles are discharging as I relax. I don't know why this happens but a) seems to happen quite a lot some practices seem like they induce it even c) I did come across a few sources who suggested it was natural (Steven Levine is big into it) d) ever see those guys at the office bouncing their legs (not in an 'O at D' thing (c.f. Drew Hempel). The only other thing that comes to mind is calcium/magnesium balance as an issue. But that's a longshot and a guess so please take it as such and NOT any kind of diagnostic. Oh yeah, drink more water:-)

Will vouch for Hundun as (only as I know him) a serious distiller of compassion. Not the kind that comes in words but with words. Oh geez I don't know how to help but it ought to be helpable. And not necessarily just by whoever forum passer-by humans. Right now I'm hanging out in a forest sort of a place. Where do you do best?

Thanks T_I I had started a reply this morning and then the computer went off (nothing weird:-)) Anyway, it's funny that you mentioned the pain thing because when I read your post this morning I was feeling it particularly strongly. Then it went away. I don't always know what causes specific feelings until a bit later afterwards. In fact I have a big question-mark over "causality" in general :-) The things you mentioned experiencing do sound quite similar to stuff that I've encountered too, but I put them under a category called 'scenary' that the path I was following suggested to ignore. I think not ignoring them is a different way of doing things that is highly dependent on one's culture, comfort-level, context and various other things. I also reckon one's personal history comes into play as far as that goes, I'd almost like to suggest something like 'regression" of understanding of one's own role in experience and 'causality' until it 'grows back' in a more 'reality-aligned' manner. It's like tender young shoots:-)

Hey T_I! Thanks for the interest:-) I did have a PPF (personal practice forum) on here where I expounded on many things 'K-related' for quite a few years When I looked back at it it just seemed self-indulgent and a bit too 'out there'. Really a bit embarrassing. So I erased the threads. There was also quite a lot of weirdness of all kinds and 'shit-hitting-fan' in my 'outer life/world' for quite some time. And at the same time there were some interesting 'understandings' that I was able to later validate through studies etc. This forum is especially helpful IMO. I took KAP with Santiago after the first weird stuff had happened. I found him via this website and after reading a lot of Glenn Morris's stuff I went for it. I found the KAP classes very helpful. I also became a regular visitor to my acupuncturist due to the numerous health things that popped up. I've also used this website a lot as a starting point for various readings and practices and studies of various types. Some of the experiences that go with this 'process' are still a bit strange for me to discuss. Not your usual polite conversation I guess:-) I suppose you could say I have gotten used to a lot of the weirdness. Now the 'challenge' (for me) is to live my own life (such as I understand it to be) in such a way that is accepting of a sort of a 'wider impersonal' experience and 'knowledge' of 'consciousness' as being the very fabric of everything as well as, 'regular' things like earning money, relationships with other people, being a person myself etc. Add to that, the bops on my head that my conditioned thinking throws at me from time to time and there's the current situation.

Hey, these are great! I didn't see the cooling parts though. Did I miss something? ---opinion as water person can't get too burned alert-- Thanks Seth!

Ok, I was insinuating that as a society we are rewarding certain aspects of our leaders and not others. In that respect, yes I find we are responsible. "The individual is responsible for his beliefs and values, whether they are aware of them or not, and they have results." I stuck on 'whether they are aware of them or not' part. And I reckon that certain types of training paths exist more especially to deal with "the whether they are aware of them or not" part. I also suspect that this is why societies (despite all claims and practices to the contrary) allow a certain number of mystics/shaman/weirdos/nutcases/left-hand path folks/artists/scientists to exist amongst the 'normal' people, because they know the society will screw itself over and burn itself out without their presence and periodic action.

Never heard of it. But I found the title weird. 'Psych' is IMO just one level. That's kind of interesting by itself. Edit: is it just me or are a lot of 'spiritual system' websites really awful? Anyway, doesn't seem like a lot of care has been thrown into this one. Apologies in advance to whoever set it up.

Dude, you're just projecting your own shadow on an innocent reflection of the Now Bless you :-)

Hehe, the 'controlled' part is in IMO/IME the strangest part. I've had a bunch of dumb luck which really had nothing to do with me doing much, like having TTB's online at the moment at which it hit the fan for me and to be honest I still don't understand a lot about this process - just like I still don't understand a lot about all kinds of things. Then there are things I 'get' but I'm damned if I can explain it coherently to anyone most of the time. This is why not everyone is good at being a teacher IMO and why some people shouldn't, if all they can come up with is 'practice my system' as bog-standard response. I should again underline that this is my personal opinion. I will suggest again that equipping the 'student' with their own 'all-weather toolkit' based on well-trodden experiences as well as some amount of reassurance that successful passage by themselves is possible is IMO/IME extremely important. To quote AYP 'The guru is in you' and to me that means you are your own guru (at various levels) and not dependent on Yogani or the other forum people for your own process. Of course you can share experiences and gain insight and or validation about it all and check out the similarities in experiences and learn techniques and remedies and get feedback from people who have 'done it' (whatever the 'it' is:-)) For me, the clue-in about issues with a system is what happens to people who run into problems with it and/or dissent.

I want to add, some things need to get broken before they can get fixed and some things don't. -----opinion alert -----

I can't find the Sanella link today but I think it was his about 'transcendence or psychosis' that described one man's story of a passage through mental-illness, but he did get through and the story depicts him being stronger for it. Compare that with current tendencies to arrest this passage as a state (and all that goes with that) if you think about it, the desire to 'break down' one's conditioned self is an interesting one, but I reckon people forget what might go along with that. I'm tempted to describe K-practices as an attempt at 'controlled break-down'

Then there's the folks who go through it (or seem to) regardless of practice or no practice. I believe that Grof and or Bentov (and to some extent the author of 'Biology of Kundalini') referred to lifestyles and circumstances that could kick it off regardless of conscious intent. I also reckon that if you do it within the context of intentional practice (even if you have no idea what's going to happen), well, you have this context as well as people you trust who have been through 'similar' (or close enough for it to be recognizable). I do wonder how many people would be 're'-diagnosed as 'kundalini-syndrome sufferers' if that context was on offer to them rather than something else (which I won't get into at this point due to some amount of cynicism :-)) Oh yeah, the more you warn people the more some of them will want to go for it.

Hurrm. Not quite sure what to add exactly except that from my studying and experiences, many practices are intendend both to awaken kundalini and deal with it/her once a person is dealing with it/her. So I gotta wonder here, who is doing the what to whom? --2 cts --- opinion etc---

Weeeell, it's IMO/IME kind of difficult to say "I did this and I did that" and it resulted in a causal combination of stuff I personally do not wish to take on at this point. Personally, I find this one the harder/weirder of the experiences of path/meditation. It xplodes 'causality' to some extent - although not all. I can still kick shit. I mean you (me, we, whoever) are doing these things (whether they be 'practices' or behaving this way or that way or smoking or drinking or exercising or screwing or walking or thinking or mediating or eating for that matter). And you (me, we, whoever) have also done these thing in the past (wherever that might be situated in time/space) and that results (perhaps) in our present for ourselves or others. The latter I'm quite sure of. The actual mechanisms of it, not sure at all although we do our best to formalize (I happen to prefer 5E system theory in the current absence of anything better - not to say there won't be a better one in the future - nor, in fact, that 5E is not a remanent from our advanced past but I digress.) Anyway, 'standard call' IMO/IME for qi-gong and 'meditation' (in general) is that it brings up the 'stuff' to be a gotten-rid-of. Where Cat refers to it earlier as 'detox' she's correct IMO/IME on a variety of levels. I reckon for the timeframe thing, well, my guess is if it's time, it's time. --opinion--etc - hopefully helpful - some idea of hell - and later heaven---

What do you mean Mr John C? No worries if you're not referring to my post but I was (relatively) serious about it. Our current education system for democratic leaders seems to rely on something that seems to produce, well, whatever it is that we're currently all upset about in terms of political leadership. Bear in mind that it might not be the working/operational leadership that requires adjustment. Might be other stuff. And I hope we remember that most of our Western systems are intended to be democratic. If that is not what is happening then IMO we ought to take a gander at what we're doing to cause it. We may say we're doing nothing and are not at fault or are not responsible. As far as I know from a Taoist or a Buddhist or a cultivator POV, there has to be something going on that does include us.

Seems to me we're not training our political leaders properly.

Hi Tibetan Ice! Yeah, I dunno, sounds like the banning thing on AYP is a bit too much. I mean even if AYP has its teacher/leader, IMO most of the folks must be more or less DIY-ing it? It seems counterproductive to embark folks on a system and then not provide for them when that system runs into particularities. It's possible that 'most people' who embark with discipline into AYP will not have issues and will get the results offered by the 'program' and so to take care of 'edge-cases' or even acknowledge them might not seem pertinent to that teacher. But here I'm wildly speculating and it would be better ask Yogani the questions. The other thing is that all systems aside, this 'path' thing is a personal adventure and process. I don't know what else to add except that maybe its the opposite of a training mold. ---opinion etc.----

I agree it's real and that it CAN be avoided. In my case, not all of it was avoided but I can't say whether that was a plus or a minus. The 'general' advice to cultivators is to find a 'cultivation-friendly' acupuncturist/physician/psych/shaman whoever-person. I don't reckon a TCM is automatically going to be aware of qi-progression because he or she is 'TCM'. Did you tell the acupuncturist you were cultivating? I never told mine, aside from 'I meditate'. I wonder if your TCM would have used the same treatment had they known. I can't speak to the substances but I do recall (and have retained a bit) suddenly much greater sensitivity to pretty much everything. My ability to drink was seriously impeded because that produced too many bubbles and rushes and tingles that I didn't find pleasant. Like I could feel the sugar metabolizing and the muscles doing stuff in reaction. I remember Santiago and co mentioning a temporary worsening of 'crap tendencies' in the KAP process. Now I speculate that one's false self may do a bunch of things to one if it feels itself threatened. Yes, this includes upping risky behaviour. I did take GABA supplements at the very beginning. It seemed to help and then not help so I stopped. I found heart-centered meditations very cooling:-)

Vedic or Western? I have Saturn in the 4th Vedic house and am presently about to embark upon a Saturn in Moon phase doo-da thingy. I'm somewhere roughly half-way through the Saturn thing in Vedic terms.. It hasn't always (so far) been pretty. And it's long. Looooooooooooong. Where possible, I do try to cross-reference these things. So far, between the Bazi, the Vedic, the psychology stuff, and some other bits and bobs a few important parts do line up. There are some more 'out-there' aspects to it. Go with each territory. I wonder though, that if a person is going to embark upon the use of astrology for other than entertainment purposes, it ought to be done 'old school', as in the expert puts themselves 'out there' with a chart or reading that any other competent expert could agree with without relying too heavily on feed-back from the subject themselves. IMO that's a recipe for influence-mongering. ----opinion alert etc---

Excellent post Taomeow! I don't have a deeper reply (at present) but your co-creation practice sounds mighty interesting. Agreed that suppressive meditations are - well, for one they make my head hurt, make me too 'yang' for another, 3 don't resolve prior issues (although it's probable that they constrain action sufficiently to avoid provoking new ones, interesting attempt...) ----opinion etc---

Yes, it was a forest thing and it wanted to dance (I understood it would be a bad idea to refuse). I seem to recall it did want something else too but I think i only had the dance on offer. The consciousness "all-inside" vs "all-outside" debate keeps raging in several sectors doesn't it? I reckon sitting either side of that issue is akin to sitting it out entirely. One of those stances may also drive a person insane and the other may make them powerless. I mean at first blush it sounds weirder than the 'all in' stance to suggest that consciousness is both inside and outside and that its contents are too. But take one of those 95% internet thoughts for example, where did it come from and how was it reproduced? Where did it travel? Who forgot it? Who killed it then ressucitated it again? Did someone change it slightly? Was all original meaning lost? Turned upside down? (Here's where that other cat with Egyptian tendencies comes in handy:-)) What about thoughts you are bidden to accept due to their internal coherence (never mind their lack of basis in reality)? Or the ones you attribute to yourself now but were actually someone else's and you forgot? I recently saw something about 'genetic memory' - given the crystal structure and qualities of DNA (well, tgat's what I think, I think it is anyway) I reckon there's a whole taxonomy of different kinds of thoughts for someone like Steven Pinker to write another book on. I don't know about meditation as an addiction. I suppose it depends on what kind and when and where you're at with it (and where its at with you)

Oh man. I just spent about 2 days going over and on and over about whether I should buy a piece of clothing. The mind-churn that went into that one.

TaoMeow, interesting post! I have recently begun to consider many of my thoughts as pure rubbish. Further to this, I pay a bit more attention to dreams, but not all of those either. In reference to your idea about structures, I did imagine a seaweedy thing that I could extract from, well, wherever required. I also met a wind-dancer made out of forest-branches. I danced with it and it scared the crap out of me. This made it obvious that I am no longer primal but I refuse to go inorganic any more than I already have.