Bindi

To me the first inner alchemist and Jesus are brothers, different styles preaching the same Way.

Yes, he deemed Apech too moderate. Too open to differing views. Too willing to hear someone out. This is not what is envisioned for the Daobums.

Not seeking out suffering, but accepting what comes along. It’s the aversion to suffering that is at issue. It might not have been Buddha’s conclusion, but it worked for people like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and Padre Pio. It’s not to everyone’s taste clearly, but it does seem to be effective, with stories of saints levitating, bilocating, and healing.

Well, it doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t have value in and of itself. It’s a process, it purges impurities, which brings the Christian into unity with God, and ultimately allows the person to accept suffering for others as redemption for others in the way Jesus accepted that he had to die on the cross for the redemption of humanity. It’s a specifically Christian perspective which IMO works because it coincides with authentic mental health, it makes me think of shadow work, embracing the shadow side of ourselves, it does work (I believe) and it is in essence what certain Christians have been doing for Millenia. For Christians at least at some point this work allows the ‘Gifts of the Holy Spirit’ to shine through - for example my favourite recent saint is Saint Seraphim of Sarov, he followed the Christian suffering path and in later life he developed the ability to ‘hear what was in people’s hearts’ and to miraculously heal people. Real gifts, that really help people (for free).

Suffering is so fundamental to Christianity that this site (for people interested in a Christian vocation) dismisses Buddhism on account of its attitude to suffering: The Meaning of Suffering We live in a world that flees from suffering. Since the time of our youth, we have been raised to view suffering as an impediment to happiness. We are taught to believe that the less we suffer, the happier we will be. This belief is common not only to secular society, but also to religion and philosophies as well. Even certain eastern religions were founded on the principle that suffering is a primordial evil, from which mankind must escape (for example, the central tenets of Buddhism; the "Four Noble Truths"). Suffering, for many people, is viewed as an evil without value, and thus any means should be taken to avoid even a common cold. Yet, in the writings of the saints, we find an entirely different reality; that it is precisely suffering that strengthens us, humbles us, and forges us into saints. But more than this, we discover that suffering is of such inestimable redemptive worth, that nothing equals it in heaven or on earth. As Our Lord told Saint Faustina; "If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering." (p.1805) http://www.religious-vocation.com/index.html#.X_5G2S3CahA

https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/the-uniquely-christian-response-to-the-problem-of-suffering/5497/

I think Christians who really get somewhere spiritually are those that throw themselves into suffering whilst looking to Jesus, this is the way they follow in the footsteps of Jesus, and through deep and abiding acceptance of suffering it seems to me they gain the ‘gifts of the spirit ’.

A couple of things I notice as I’m looking at the above posts, look at the beautifully carved and perfectly repeated detail on the “King of Cong”, versus the rough and slightly irregular hand drawn scratching onto the bi. This suggests, at least to me, that the people who buried these bi with them hadn’t made them, though they had added to them as best they could with the tools available to them at the time (Palaeolithic, 5000 years ago). The second thing I notice is more subjective, I have come across the idea that the central channel is a square tubelike channel, which when functioning properly has a cone like energy field extending from the floor to above the navel, much like Barbara Brennan’s image below. Not surprisingly she sees a cone extending above the head as well, and this image of square tube and meeting cones is certainly portrayed in the cong, though of course their makers might have had something different in mind. The third thing that drew my attention is that the images carved onto the Cong suggest human nature dominating animal nature, by which I understand our higher Self needs to overcome our animal nature. I think this is what we’re striving for?

Jade Cong and Bi - very interesting objects as they were made in a time and place (Liangzhu in the late Neolithic) where no tools were available to actually carve and drill True Jade or Nephrite, and yet there are many examples of beautifully carved Bi and Cong found in graves. I agree that they might represent heaven and earth, could this be a yin/yang type concept that predates ‘yin’ and ‘yang’?

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elizabeth_Childs-Johnson/publication/305993337_Speculations_on_the_Religious_Use_and_Significance_of_Jade_Cong_and_Bi_of_the_Liangzhu_Culture/links/57a8dd4d08aef20758cd0c38/Speculations-on-the-Religious-Use-and-Significance-of-Jade-Cong-and-Bi-of-the-Liangzhu-Culture.pdf?origin=publication_detail

“The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office said that, as of now, Michael’s cause of death has not been determined and said the results may take several week.” https://www.local10.com/news/local/2021/01/07/did-miami-beach-doctor-56-die-from-receiving-covid-19-vaccine/ Best to wait for the actual results, remember the nurse who already had a history of fainting?

The importance of findings from the Neolithic Age in China has been greatly underestimated. Cong and bi unearthed from the Liangzhu historical site represent a unity of values in the region. The complexity of society in Liangzhu was on par with that of a country. This is the origin of Chinese civilization Colin Renfrew, British archaeologist The 5,300-year-old, 6.5-kilogram "King of Cong” found in Liangzhu, the whole article Here from the ChinaDaily newspaper is a very interesting overview of the highly developed ancient city of Liangzhu.

My latest safeguard - if they’re not talking about the Yangshen or illusory body, they don’t know nuthin.

Well this is the first time I have any understanding of why you include Buddhism in your view 🙂

From the Kevaddah Sutra I have never heard of this in Buddhism, though it reminds me of the Daoist Yangshen or immortal body that has to be formed.

Dr James Lyons-Weiler is not an authority I would take too seriously after a quick search of his name: Video shared on Facebook inflates risk of Moderna vaccine 40-fold IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT Moderna’s data shows that 0.5% of people had a serious adverse reaction. See the sources for this fact-check Social media posts are spreading an inaccurate claim about the safety of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine. With the headline, "Do not take the vaccine," a video post published Dec. 6 features James Lyons-Weiler giving this dire assessment of the Moderna vaccine trial data. "21% of people are having serious adverse events from this vaccine," Lyons-Weiler says in the video. The clip is originally from Oct. 20, when Lyons-Weiler, head of the private group Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge, spoke at a PA Medical Freedom press conference. Lyons-Weiler’s number is more than 40 times too high. The video has been shared widely on Facebook in the last two weeks and was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. The data Moderna submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that out of 15,184 who received the vaccine, 82 had a serious adverse event (see page 32). That is a tiny percentage. "Serious adverse effects possibly related to the vaccine were equally rare in both groups — vaccine and placebo — at about 0.5%," said Shiv Pillai, Harvard University’s Immunology Program director. "There was no difference between the vaccine and placebo groups." The FDA briefing paper on the vaccine said it found no patterns to indicate that the vaccine caused these adverse outcomes. We reached out to Lyons-Weiler and had not heard back by the time we published. We did find reference to 21% in a preliminary safety assessment of the Moderna vaccine in November that included a higher dose (250 micrograms) than is used today (100 micrograms). Only 14 people received two doses at the higher level, and three of them — 21% — had a systemic reaction that was judged to be serious. Systemic reactions include fever, headaches and muscle pains. In this study, they were not life-threatening. No one who got the 100 microgram dose had a serious reaction. That preliminary study said that "no trial-limiting safety concerns were identified." An FDA panel recommended the vaccine for emergency use authorization. Our ruling A video shared on social media says that 21% of people getting the Moderna vaccine had a serious adverse reaction. The actual number is .5%. That was the same level for the placebo group. There is no indication the vaccine caused any of these serious events. We rate this claim False. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/18/blog-posting/video-shared-facebook-inflates-risk-moderna-vaccin/

So COVID is just a common flu huh? Even though it’s a coronavirus, not an influenza virus, and clearly has a higher death rate than flu? The organisations rushing the vaccines through are not the ones making the profit anyway, drug companies don’t get to make the decision to rush through approval, that falls to government agencies.

From your link: “The number of allergic reactions worldwide to the coronavirus vaccine is currently occurring at a rate of about one in 100,000 people. Usually, the rate of adverse reactions to vaccinations is about one per one million. "Time will tell whether this rate will continue or whether it will settle closer to one per one million. At the moment, these allergic reactions have become somewhat more pronounced than in other vaccines," Nohynek said, adding that she still urges everyone in Finland to take the vaccine as it provides protection against the virus. "The benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the side effects. Vaccinations should not be abandoned because of concerns over adverse reactions," Nohynek said.” The relatively higher rate of reaction - one in 100,000 people, is likely to be because they rushed the vaccine through, in an effort to stem the 14,000 daily deaths from COVID worldwide.

But is this really Tiffany Dover, or an actor pretending to be Tiffany Dover (because Nungali’s link shows that Tiffany Dover was suspected to have died). Does she really have a history of fainting, or is this just part of the coverup again? Is her explanation scripted?

Not at all, she was trying to protect my child from the perspective of her experience in the hospital. Did the vaccine conspiracies start here? The debate [around the link between autism and vaccines] began in 1998 when British researchers published a paper stating that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism. The paper itself later was officially labeled “fraud” by England’s General Medical Counsel, but it triggered a lot of debate over the safety of the vaccine which continues to this day. The study looked at only 12 children, but it received a lot of publicity because at the same time, there was a rapid increase in the number of kids diagnosed with the condition. The paper’s findings led other doctors to do their own research into the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. At least 12 follow-up studies were done. None found any evidence the vaccine caused autism. An investigation into the 1998 study also uncovered a number of problems with how it was conducted. The journal that published it eventually retracted it. That meant the publication no longer stood by the results. In 2010, the General Medical Counsel declared that the paper was not only based on bad science, but was deliberate fraud and falsifications by the head researchers, Dr. Andrew Wakefield and revoked his medical license. Investigators learned that a lawyer looking for a link between the vaccine and autism had paid Wakefield more than £435,000 (equal to more than a half-million dollars).

I wonder if anyone has ever fainted for reasons other than having a vaccine? I remember I fainted once while standing in the classroom at school, I recall we were standing for morning prayers, maybe it was Christianity that made me faint?

My mother worked with polio patients, when a vaccine was developed she was first in line to get her own kids vaccinated. Seeing the horror of it first hand no sane parent wouldn’t have. When I had my first child in an area rife with whooping cough I was myself unsure about whether to vaccinate my child, as I had heard all the anti-vaccine talk that has been around for a few decades. When I talked to a nurse at the hospital about my concerns, she told me about the unvaccinated babies that come in with whooping cough, how they struggle to breathe and sometimes die, so I vaccinated my child. There does seem to be a mass suspicion of vaccines, not for medical reasons but because of conspiracy theory thinking, which is very likely to affect the course of this current virus for some years to come.

To me, there are the two side channels, and these two have to become united in a ‘divine marriage’ - but this divine marriage in turn has one ultimate function which is to ‘divinise’ the central channel by progressively removing the earthly portion of it and replacing it with what has been cultivated in the side channels. @old3bob, this ^ is my response to your question as well, personally I don’t think we are already divine, we have to divinise ourselves. It is possible though, that before we are born the subtle channels work perfectly, so maybe we are divine then, but presumably they get clogged up very quickly after birth, and then there’s karma to consider, if we arrive with karma then these channels wouldn’t be open even in the unborn. I don’t know the actual answer to any of this, of course, all I do know is the state of my subtle channels in this life as an aware adult, and this I can work with.

If ‘God’ is to run through my veins (think subtle channels) then it must first dislodge ‘Me’, which equates to the death of ‘Me’ - there is a lot of fear around this Ego death, and faith in the value of ‘God’ as the greater good would be required to overcome this particular fear methinks.