Orion

Consciousness and qi that flow properly are synonymous with healing. How can they be separate? There's no separating the physical body and the energy body in such practices. It's all one body.

It's hard to change one feature like that if the whole body is out of whack and I feel that doing it in order to be beautiful comes part and parcel with all the misunderstood recommendations in the modern world. Not saying it's bad advice but... If a person has a crooked spine, telling them to "just stand up straight" isn't necessarily going to make it better. But maybe energetic practices that sort out their governor channel (du meridian) could fix it.

I don't remember where I read this, but I heard that anytime people hear the voice of God, it's actually Metatron talking to them. Does anyone know the relationship to the geometric form "metatron's cube"? Here's a 3D animation of it. I've also heard story that Metatron's cube, as well as the Merkeba, are vehicles for interdimensional travel, but I haven't read any tangible theories on how the whole thing works. The only comprehensive material I've read about it is from the works of Alice Bailey, but there are points when smashing my face through a brick wall is preferable to continuing to read her material, such as Treatise On Cosmic Fire. Surely something worthwhile has lasted the ages that isn't channeled garble. If it's true that ancient generations created locations in the non-physical for gatherings and for storing knowledge, then those locations should still be there.

Makes me wonder what's going to happen to all these children who are being drugged in the education system. I've met many of the early patients of ritalin and the ones with enough self-awareness can tell you that the drugs stunted key phases of development which are now severely hindering their adult lives. In another thread I just posted to we were helping a guy to see that he needs to take action in life and be less reliant on his parents now that he's over 25. I'm wondering what drugging children does to the development of their ego, and in turn how that affects their ability to be a force in the world, among other things.

Wikipedia's editor hierarchy is mostly dominated by people whose expertise is in material reductionism. If it's not something based in modern medicine or modern science, there will always invariably be a sub-topic with a brief disclaimer that modern science doesn't take it seriously, or that double-blind studies found it to not be real. I joined the editing process about 5 years ago but gave it up almost immediately when I realized that in order to get anything meaningful posted I would have to argue endlessly with western scientists. Also, it's just a fact that because Wikipedia is always one of the first Google hits for anything that it's going to have major corporate and political interests vying for control of its content. On most of the pharmaceutical drug pages, you'll never see disclaimers saying that such and such thousands of people have died every year from taking such and such drug. Wiki is a decent primary source reference material for summaries, which should then lead you to other research sources. Don't stop at Wiki. If you want to learn about Ayurveda then go to their sources.

I second the suggestion of lifting weights! If done properly, with the right diet, you'll get lots of yang that way.

Just wanted to say that I agree acupuncture can mess a person up, especially if the practitioner is intentionally trying to influence the subtle energy body. A practitioner who knows a bit (but not enough) about this energy body is more dangerous than a practitioner who knows nothing and only does deep, physical needling. There are only two people in the entire city I live in who I will let treat me. I have seen some very disturbing practices by people combining incomplete understandings with TCM, and even worse by new agers who get their hands on a little bit of acupuncture knowledge. The problem is that people want to demonstrate "powers", but don't want to put in the necessary discipline to hone them. As any practitioner worth their salt can tell you, "powers" are just a manifestation along the path, you're not supposed to get attached to having them. In the beginning when I was ignorant, I got messed up by a few such practitioners. If you're lucky enough to see auras or have a deeply rooted intuition for spotting people with some level of attainment, then you can use those gifts as barometers for finding the right practitioner. IMO 95% of people practicing TCM should not be. They're doing it in a biomedical way with no knowledge of the energetic repercussions. A person should not be treating an aspect of the being that they themselves have not resolved in their own being. Thus we see people working on "crown chakras" from a completely materialistic, "I am this" standpoint without any ability to step out of that. I'll never forget one patient who came in during my schooling years... he had a bright gold aura (quite rare) everywhere except his throat, because recently he had the flu and was feeling run down. He was over the flu but there was a smoldering pathogen in his lungs, also visible in his aura. The teacher correctly assessed the hidden pathogen, but then she instructed students to put 4 needles on his head in what are tantamount to the emanation points of the crown. After they were in, great disagreement erupted about which herbal formula to give this patient. There were literally students standing at his crown arguing, while his crown was being forced open. The poor guy left the school that day with a lacklustre aura, his divine connection was messed up. I couldn't say anything because talk of auras is quack talk in institutions. One of my classmates would, without fail, contract the symptoms of whoever she treated. If she treated leg pain, she'd get leg pain the next day. If she treated someone with heart problems, she would develop arrhythmia for a time. A teacher pulled her aside and taught her, "off the record", that she needed to strengthen her wei qi. This student was addicted to asking for health advice but never using it. She went on to be the highest graded student in the school and passed her licensing exam with flying colours. I would never, ever in a million years let that student touch me. Credentials mean nothing. Anyone can pay money, do the intellectual thing, and pass an exam. There are "healers" in my city who charge hundreds of dollars for koolaid, and might even be messing people up. If only I could be a crooked materialist, I'd be raking it in right now. Seems like people who do things the right way tend to toil in obscurity

Usually you have to reduce the offending foods, as well as increase their counter-nature foods. I am wary of translating a lot of things to modern terms, but internal heat due to improper lifestyle is usually because the metabolites of rich foods eventually cause the body's detoxification pathways to slow down. A liver and kidneys that are constantly being bombarded by the uric acid breakdown of meat, or the constant removal of excess creatine, will show as low grade inflammation in the body, even if the person is not directly experiencing pain or discomfort. These "toxins" have a cumulative effect and they over-stimulate the body's tissues in a negative way, until they are cleared. This is why people with heat signs tend to be excitable, hyperactive, and have difficulty achieving true rest ("yin" is consumed). They are energized but in a wired way. Stress amplifies the effect because when the body is in sympathetic mode the digestive organs, including their detoxification pathways, function far less optimally. The buildup of stimulating food byproducts mentioned above add to this effect of stimulation. There's less over all clearance. Basically, your own native cortisol combined with the by products of rich foods is irritating your entire body. Most cooling foods either supplement the detoxification process of the body (i.e. glutathione in beets, one of the "coldest" vegetables, augments the liver's ability to scavenge oxidizing free radicals from the body), or they promote secondary processes which remove crap from the body. Peppermint, for example, increases flow of bile. Bile contains bilirubin, which the liver scavenges from the blood. Bilirubin is a byproduct of red blood cell breakdown, which in the presence of high cortisol happens more quickly. The token recommendations that modern TCM herbalists make, IMO, are not very useful. We're taught in school to always add these recommendations at the end of every appointment, but a true shi liao (TCM / medicated diet) requires its own comprehensive consult. Most TCM practitioners get less than 30 hours of shi liao training in school, which mirrors other practitioners across many fields: MDs (4 credit hours), NDs (less than 50 hours), chiropractors (none), massage therapists (none), etc. Diet is sooo under-emphasized in modern schools. If your diet is mostly rich carbs and meat, then long-term you're going to have problems. Winter time is the most appropriate for these foods, but once you hit Spring and beyond, they should not be such high quantity. For people with such excess, you could go on a fast and your body will literally burn off all the backlog of crap as energy until it's all gone. No need to feel too bad about it though. Most modern people eat hardly any fresh veggies regularly, and when they start feeling run down they just start drinking coffee to get through their day.

So we all need a guru, except your guru who apparently has no guru? Sounds plausible. I've experienced this, as well as provided this for others. I don't consider myself fully realized but in the relativistic hierarchy a lot of people are attracted to my "energy". They become uplifted, have more clarity -- and to be honest, the practice of transmission and helping them activates/uplifts me as well. It's more than just become compassionate, I'm not sure how to describe it. Likewise I've been around others whose transmission helps me greatly, but then I return to where I'm actually at when I leave their presence. An eastern medicine practitioner from Japan that I apprenticed under taught me some acupuncture techniques for clearing the energy body and facilitating heightened potential. When the patient leaves the session, they are more open with heightened awareness. We always tell the person when they leave the session that if they want to do maintain this state, they need to do the inner work. As a result, he had a few patients coming back over and over again, chasing the heightened state, but were unable to attain it themselves. They were expecting the treatment protocol to do it for them. I feel that a lot of guru / student relationships are unfortunately this way. I do believe gurus can facilitate the entrainment you're talking about, but I'm not totally convinced that the realizations disciples attain in that environment are necessarily complete. The true test is when they are on their own, or go back out into the world of distractions and temptations. At the end of the day, we're all on a solo journey. This is perfect, thank you. One thing this thread has helped with is to provide some words to an experience. I'm resonating with much that has been said here.

This thread is gold, thank you everyone. About gurus... it's not that they're unnecessary, or necessary. It's whatever is called for, and whatever's happening. There's no formula. I can't even tell you how I got to this point. I could speculate but who knows. All I can say is that anytime in my life where I thought I was in control, in hindsight I wasn't. Again, it's all stories: the story that you need a guru, the story that you don't need anyone and can do this alone. If you give up the story then whatever's happening, is just what's happening. Some of the same teachers I've had in my life who impacted me profoundly, no longer talk to me... because they wanted to keep relating to me as the same old person, and I became part of their superficial identity. The only gurus who are worth it are the ones who point you to the truth, without conditional dogma... and those come in all shapes and forms. Today I knocked over a plant in my house that I've been procrastinating about transplanting to a bigger pot for a long time. The soil went everywhere. I got angry and then quickly realized there's no reason to be angry, the plant just needed care and a more stable pot. In that moment, was the plant my guru? Just saying.

I have no choice really, heh... but thank you. Yes, it has reminded me that I need to let go of the words, like "awakening", and all of the extraneous explanation, and simply live my life. The inner work, if you can call it that, is going to arise anyway. I've had many teachers in my lifetime, mostly whom were really dear friends. We connected under unusual circumstances and it has contributed to lifelong learning. I'm not against a formalized student/teacher relationship per se, it just doesn't tend to happen for me. Part of me feels like nobody can help me. It's like trying to grasp onto someone else while everybody is in free fall. Nobody can really save you, they can only direct you to surrender and remembrance. It's at the point now where every day people can provide teachings, without knowing it. Anything that directs you to presence is doing its job, especially that fucking dog that keeps barking its face off across the street every morning at 6am. Thanks for your reflections. I resonate with what you're saying, in a sense. I spent years affirming to myself that I didn't exist, that my personality was an illusion, etc. And although that's true on the ultimate level, an affirmation is not the same as a realization. All I did was deny myself and my own existence, causing great depression. Ego is seemingly there and seemingly wants love. I see no point in vilifying it any longer since seeing beyond it is not difficult. Ego naturally softens and dissipates as the work becomes more potent. In other words, I spent years pretending ego wasn't there, which in of itself was an attachment to ego. I don't believe in karma or reincarnation, nor do I believe in accumulating merit. There's nothing in here for them to attach to; there's nowhere for me to go when I die because I was never here. This is, for sure, one continuous thing, no separations. Therefore, it never ends, ever. Birth and death are inconsequential. Preparing for death is like preparing to return to what you already are, minus the personality that won't be around to quibble over it. But... that said... even this personality deserves the compassion of a peaceful death before its very holographic nature is deactivated. That's not to say I don't take responsibility or that I'm not upright as much as possible. Just that, I can't do these stories anymore. They all feel like untruths. Who was it that said... "all positions are prisons, if I speak for the serpent, the serpent may speak for the bird; this too, all fictions are true." I have the utmost respect for your process and I'm sure if someone examined my life they could find things that don't work for them as well. All roads lead to Rome... eventually. Everything is just food for thought in the mean time. It's like, "Really? I may have past lives? Interesting! Ok, back to emptiness...!" It really does, thank you.

In classical Chinese medicine there is talk of how a practitioner with higher virtue can give more effective treatments, regardless of specific technique. There is also talk of how the greater the disparity of virtue between doctor and patient, the greater the transformative effect on the patient. So, a doctor and patient of similar virtue cannot facilitate as effective a healing. Likewise, a doctor with little virtue can transform very little. I relate to this concept, but it's hard to delineate in words. The more inner work you do, the more crap you clear away, the more refinement, the more clear you become -- then the more in flow with Dao you are. And you are already, but the duality between you and the Dao is greatly lessened. It is from this that Virtue arises, and it can't be described in words anymore than the Dao itself can be semantically discussed. Nothing is wrong. Nothing needs to change. Everything is as it should be. It's akin to the debate on whether there's objective morality or subjective morality. Subjectivists believe morality is flexible because they relate to the concept on a material or mind basis only. The Dao has its own set of rules which are not really a set because they are not static or definable, but they are always appropriate to everything that arises and dissolves. So what is called for in every situation arises of its own accord without a semantic ego deeming it so. It's just what's happening, and that's it. All I can really conclude with is that virtue arises from flowing with the Dao. I feel that the essence of what I'm trying to describe has already been lost in the words.

A lot of people say they want money but what they really want is the thing that they think money will get them, and usually it's not a material thing: stability, security, "success", happiness, adoration, and so forth. Some people associate money with stability -- well, what does stability look like for you? Maybe it's success. Well, what is success to you? These people that "make" you angry because of their achievements and possessions, they're actually pointing you to the truth of what you want in life. You're annoyed that you seemingly can't have what they have because it violates rules that you've imposed on yourself, rules that nobody told you that were necessary to live by. You're totally free, maybe your rules are preventing you from seeing that. I can tell you from personal experience that I've volunteered in shanty towns where people make less than a dollar a day, and they are some of the most happy people I've ever met. I've visited mansions of the uber wealthy in gated communities and seen great turmoil. Everybody suffers. Nobody is above "the system", and by that I mean samsara. Comparing yourself to others is pointless because a) you don't even know the value of what you're comparing (that is, your own unrealized potential), and B: you're just looking at a surface value assessment of whoever you're objectifying. You have no idea what's going on in said person just by looking at them. Some of the greatest masters in the world look like average joes and some of the most outwardly happy people are really dying inside. Once you determine the qualities of what you really want, you can do a lot of self-inquiry on those concepts alone. For example, I used to try to make money like crazy because for me money = security, but what is security? When you die, you lose everything. There no are guarantees. Billionaires die every day, many of them full of regrets. So where does security really come from? Honestly. The same goes for success, popularity, having a good family, having a good career. I'm not saying that you shouldn't pursue these things. No matter what you do in this life, you're still taking your own present awareness with you everywhere you go. You could move to Timbuktuand you still have to deal with yourself. Attainment doesn't mean the material world doesn't matter anymore, it means that you're unattached to results, it means you are awake to the nature of arising and dissolving. It means understanding that the same lessons of your progression will confront you no matter what it is you do. Last year I had a very wealthy lawyer come to see me for acupuncture. He had a very high degree of what I would call attainment. That doesn't mean he won't go home and manage his stock portfolio later. He just knows that he's not "this", when all is said and done. You're ego typing on a forum. There's no point in trying to separate yourself from yourself and pretend it's not happening. You're creating suffering. Pretending that you don't want something, when actually you do, is somewhat obstructionist. I've met a lot of "spiritual" people who use spiritual practices as a pretense to avoid facing the reality that they actually want things, and that it might take work to get them. Yes, the material world and the game of making money really stinks in a lot of ways -- but hey, what an opportunity for you to do inner work across many circumstances! In many traditions, practitioners are encouraged to go out into the world and try to get what they want, live the temptations, etc. Only then can you really understand what the value is of any kind of real attainment. And maybe through those pursuits, you'll find that the spiritual path isn't for you. Maybe you're actually pretty materialistic! Who cares? There's no rights or wrong path here. Admitting what you want is profoundly self-loving. Denying yourself is totally stagnating. I'm not saying that the cycle of desire and acquisition is not without it's pitfalls, but why act like you're above it when you're not? Just admit what you want. My bigger question is, what if you don't actually want anything?

To have gone beyond the story of a nothing, I can only yell from this ledge: "You must jump off a star into the jagged edge of a whisper. You will bleed light. Have no fear. Do not look to your neighbor, no matter how holy his face. Everyone's forehead is too clean. She likes to see her children dirty with dust and ash. If you love the guru with the bright face, make him join you on your knees. She has no mercy. I warn you. Not a drop." - B. Smythe Nobody is above it, but at the same time you can sometimes discern where ego is happening and where it's not. Calling someone a guru is like calling a genius a genius. A genius is just living their life, doing what they do, however intelligently or self-aware; then someone comes along a calls them a genius, and they may shrug it off, or they may internalize the identity. Gurus are pretty much the same. They're just living their enlightened life, like you or I, and someone comes along and calls them a guru. Sure, why not -- it's all relative anyway, right? But then there are those who assume the guru identity and all its mind trips. I dunno, in some ways it's kind of a curse to have fame and guruhood, if you don't have the genuine attainment to match the label. And then there's the deeper question of... who is really a guru? If you're misled by someone who claimed to be a guru, did they not still teach you something? The Buddha can be anyone.

Thank you so much everyone for your thoughtful and well-considered replies, I really appreciate this. I know that this issue is beyond intellectualization, and the truth resides more in silence. I suppose what I've been seeking here is some kind of external reflection of my experience, like a teaching, a reference, or something else... but there is no real reference better than the prime referent, if you know what I mean. I have many other things to say but due to lack of time I have to stick to this point. Something that stands out is the idea of coming back around again, of the return, and of suffering more if you're already awake but misaligned. That has essentially been my experience this year. Over the past decade I've had many death and rebirth experiences within my body, in terms of near-fatal illness. It's always brought on by resistance, either to change or to truth. The death process brings me back to center, through extreme suffering. I don't want to live this way anymore. I must incorporate and integrate all aspects of my life into the awakeness, if I'm to stay alive. (That's an awkward way of putting it, but you know what I mean.) At the same time I have zero fear of dying, so I guess it is what it is. The realization is either completed or it isn't. Maybe the pointlessness I'm experiencing is my current temporal lifestyle and not the nature of the awakeness. Since my lifestyle has been relatively static / stagnant during these realizations I may be conflating the two. I better stop writing. I'm tired and this is likely to get incoherent. Goodnight!

I'm not sure that seeking bliss, or trying to be in any particular state, is useful. A lot of people here are asserting that bliss and full conviction are part of realization and that's essentially what I am questioning. I've met many high level people in my life but never any that are blissed out 24/7. I've definitely experienced blissed out, oneness states at many points along the path, but they're temporary like anything else. I'm not convinced that awakening is synonymous with bliss or even the end of pain, which is an integral part of the human condition. It's more about how consciousness interprets pain, or doesn't. We read a lot of stories about such figures in scriptural and doctrinal texts but when it's pointed out that practically no one "is there" the excuse is generally that we live in a degenerate age and that's the reason why. That seems like a tired refrain. Yes, surely there are many distractions in the modern world but it's not like the nature of samsara has ever changed from thousands of years ago to now. The inner work is the same. It's also apparent that there's no real formula. I question if any ingredient is "necessary", not out of laziness but out of earnestness. When you ask most people what enlightenment is, all they can tell you is what it is not, or quote what someone else said about it. These responses via negativa show that nobody can know as it's beyond mind. Awakening and enlightenment (if there is such a thing) are surely spontaneous. It's hard to judge a person's experience as not being "on the path" when each person is already living their enlightened life, with ostensibly all the ingredients to become awake to their own presence. All roads can lead to Rome, I gather, but not all roads look remotely the same. I was just trying to gauge where I might be at with things but perhaps it was a mistake to try and information-gather in this way. People will read my words and have their own self-reflections about them. I guess my mistake was in trying to look for an external understanding that I could grasp onto in a state where there's obviously no point in grasping. What the grasping mind keeps wanting to ask is, "What is the point?", and I suppose the answer is, "There is no point." If some part of me is having trouble accepting that, then perhaps that's where the remainder of the work resides. Sorry btw if my posts seem curt, it's just how I come across online as I'm not the greatest wordsmith. My real time voice is a lot different. Please feel free to cross examine, etc... I welcome debate and disagreement.

I appreciate everything you've said. The part in bold doesn't really resonate with what I'm experiencing. It doesn't seem like there's much choice at this point given everything that has already happened. Questioning the path doesn't mean the path has been avoided anymore than merely talking about something is invalidating it. We're just conversing, as far as I can tell. Also, respectfully, it's not for you to determine who is or isn't on the path, or whose experience is true or not. That's not why I made my OP. I was trying to seek some kind of delineation for my experience based on people's feedback, to determine if there are "levels" to this. It doesn't seem to me that there are any real "shoulds" here, just experiences. Thanks for your replies.

I've been reading a lot of literature on spiritual retreats lately. I've known people who have done 6 month and 1 year retreats, and others who enjoy the 9 day vipassana retreats here in North America. I understand the value of abstaining, and I'm curious if anyone here has done a totally isolated retreat for 6 months or more? And I mean, no contact with other human beings, combined with some kind of daily discipline. Some of the scientific studies I've read about human isolation imply that isolation for so long is destructive to the human psyche, but these studies were mainly conducted on prisoners who didn't have freedom of movement, or any spiritual practice. Some of the personal accounts I've read talk about how the practitioner often reaches a point where they feel like they're on the brink of insanity, before they push through and have a profound experience of some point. I'm wondering how, as the practitioner, you would self-differentiate between potential insanity and an upcoming breakthrough? Human beings who totally decompensate into a pile of non-sensical mush are not a pretty sight... so how do you avoid this? How do you get at the "treasure" while not destroying your core psyche? Is it just a matter of faith?

The benefit to being a ghost immortal is that you can consciously continue your learning in the afterlife for however long you want, before reincarnating. The claim that they can't reincarnate or eventually return to the Dao is dubious, I think to scare people of other schoools. They have all eternity to become enlightened versus people stuck in the reincarnation cycle. Imagine if you had 500 years in non-corporeal form, with all your memories in tact, to practice? You'd get pretty good. Then all you'd have to do is rebirth yourself into a human body and that single lifetime would be rapidly accelerated. Also... I've heard many tales about the supposed dangers of astral travel. I've had OBEs my whole life and I seriously doubt the claim that an entity can takeover your body while you're gone. When you encounter something freaky on the astral, you either raise your energy state and ascend to a higher plane where it can't follow you, or you default back to your body. Things can definitely attack you or latch onto your body and influence you, but outright possess you and replace your consciousness with theirs? Doubtful. There are very specific conditions for possession to take place and astral travel doesn't qualify. The astral realm isn't really where any of the heavy hitters live.

It's my experiential understanding that the crown is outside of the body, just above the skull (about 2-3 inches). It is connected by what some traditions call the guru chakra, an intermediary energy bridge between the pineal gland and the crown. The experience of transcending duality is not just due to the bridging of the hemispheres, but the bridging of the personal and transpersonal. My energetic understanding, using the chakra model, is that once the crown and transpersonal chakras are activated and divine energy is flowing down the central axis, the pineal gland becomes supercharged and naturally pulls both hemispheres to its influence, creating the void state. If all chakras are connected, then the heart registers this truth, and the root pulls it down into physical, dense, embodied awareness. I liken it to a battery. On its own, it holds its own charge, with its central core (like the middle dantian, or heart). When you plug the battery into a wall to charge (crowd / upper dantian), it's connected to a source much, much larger than itself. The ocean becomes the drop, the drop becomes the ocean. The void state is the unification and dissolution of both, as there's no beginning or end in oneness.

It doesn't mean the loss of anything, it just means being the witness to what is happening. Fear still happens, along with all the other emotions... they're just part of the meat. But because attachment to them is non-existent, they rapidly dissipate. Or maybe not. You could be on a torture rack (which is what happened to me, basically), and it's so apparent that you're not doing anything. You could be screaming in pain but you're the witness watching the screaming happening... the entire self-concept is in agony and you're acutely aware it's just arising on its own, just like the situation itself. There's no "you" in it. I mean... people in the world still call me by my name, by my title. They ascribe characteristics to who they think I am. I may even internalize these characteristics temporarily... but there's no "me" to be found in any of that. It's just present awareness, liberation, love. Fear is useful, it shouldn't be dismissed because it doesn't jive with notions of enlightenment. If the meat becomes incapable of feeling fear then it is subject to more danger, which could mean the end of your enlightened existence. Not that that really matters. Whether or not identity is happening, is irrelevant to being the witness which watches identity. Identity is part of the meat, so that it can conceptualize surroundings and its relation to them, and form behaviors accordingly. One minute identity is there alongside the witness, the next it's gone and there's just the witness. Whatever you identify with or identify as, is all taking place in stillness. The talk of future lives or whatever else... is just a postponement of a plan to be still at another time, when stillness is here in this moment. I know I'm describing a lot of components here, but it's all one thing. The separation of these things is something that mind does, but mind can never really get it. Let me put it this way. This witness has ALWAYS been with you, from birth til now. It'll be all that's there in your final moments of life. Think about babies... they come into the world empty, then people tell you a story about how "you're a you", and this is your gender, and here's what your gender likes, and children go to school, and school is good because you can make a career, etc. All these concepts go poof in the void, including the conversation about it. The more you talk about it and try to understand it semantically, the less you see it's already happening. And that's okay! Because you're it anyway. lol The best advice I've even been given, is: Just. Stop. It's not about focusing harder, or trying. If you're trying, then you're not getting it. It's already happening, right now. Paradoxically, its realization requires you to do nothing to get it. When I first awakened, one of the most challenging things I experienced was, "What do I do with this???" , because my life pattern has been that of achievement and constantly doing. And the overriding embodied feeling was, "Absolutely nothing." It's why people like Eckart Tolle went and sat in a park doing nothing for a huge period of time. When you awaken, there's nothing to do about it. (I find that the awakeness has an evolutionary capacity, but we'll save that for another discussion. ) The doing consciousness is arising from the stillness, it's not separate from it. If you're trying to be still, then you're trying to be still while stillness is already happening. It's no different than someone racing to work in rush hour -- that takes place in stillness too. Or awakeness. Whatever you want to call it. That's what I mean by, you can't get anymore into it than you already are right now. It's not a spiritual ladder, it's just the now. Just. Stop.

I don't think you can tell from someone's face whether they're empty or kind, or both, or neither. Images of gurus are static, and not really them. How can you tell? One thing I've noticed about all awakened people I've come across, is that their eyes are very bright. In TCM we call this the luster of the eyes. When a living thing dies, the eyes become dull, the luster is gone immediately. Eye luster comes from the spirit, so I'm assuming that really bright eye luster is a sign of how strong the spirit is. IMO the eyes reveal things more than the facial expressions, even in pictures. People can smile with their eyes and love with their eyes, even if their facial expression is neutral.

Those are all really good points, thank you. A couple of defining features of the awakeness I have experienced is that I'm not attached to what arises. I'm not trying to peaceful, or righteous, or anything. There is no trying involved. The second part is that, as you described, when emotions arise, I easily pull back to center. The third part though is that, whatever arises, it's not me doing it because there's no "me" in here. What I mean by that is, in addition to being the witness, there is also no part of me that wishes to critique whatever arises. One minute it's there, and the next it's gone. If I get angry, I don't spend days analyzing it after the fact, and feeling bad about it (I used to be that way). Whatever's happening, is happening. I feel great love and compassion, more than I did before, for myself and others, but even that compassion... I can't take responsibility for making it happen. It doesn't mean no accountability or no consequences -- I'm not sure how to describe what I'm experiencing in this regard. I realize that people in this thread will parse my words and look for incongruities, and that's fine. I'm not as big of a wordsmith as I guess I could be if I read a lot more about awakeness and began to try communicating it more accurately. But this thread has been helpful for trying to formulate words that until now I was content to keep non-verbalized, or just couldn't. So thank you!

I'd like to correct some things I said in that post. I was in a hurry when I wrote it. I can't claim that kundalini awakening isn't awakening. It's just not how it happened for me. I had kundalini my whole life and it brought many different states of awareness, but it took losing everything, including self-concept, in the preparation for bodily death, that made me realize true nature. What I meant by practical understanding is that without root, it's difficult to embody the values and discern true from fiction. A person with an open third eye is still going to have trouble discerning if they're ungrounded, because they'll be stuck in the abstract realm of the upper chakras. It's my strong opinion (based on my own experience), that we need this physical body for realization. People with developed upper chakras but weak lower chakras tend to be caught in the myth that awakening means transcendence, so they're always trying to go "up" somewhere. Yes there are other realms beyond the physical and beyond the human, but if you're still stuck in identity/ego consciousness then you'll just be adding more layers to it wherever you think you're going. It also tends to get caught up in feeling bliss, i.e. bliss = awakening, because kundalini can feel so good. Awakeness is right here. It doesn't get any better than this present moment. You don't need to know what chakras are to be awakened, but maybe chakras will be part of your awakening somehow. I don't know. Suffering is a well worn spiritual path and that's how it unfolded for me, but I've met a few other awake people for whom it didn't happen this way. I dunno... it's spontaneous. I make no claims about how it all works, as I'm not responsible for my own awakening.