juan

This has already happened, at least between my wife and me, but only at short distances. It is obvious now that our nervous systems can work in sync without a direct synaptic connection, as her masculine/feminine orgasms in specific “chakras” (nodes) instantly trigger my feminine/masculine orgasms at the same places, and vice versa. How far this remote influence may travel, and which mechanisms allow it, I don’t know. So far, I still prefer thinking that we know very little about our nervous system and its abilities, especially the so-called autonomous system (which bears an odd cartographical similarity with the ckakras-dantiens-meridians description). But, seeing how things have been evolving, it may be that, as our experiences expand, I may accept as true phenomena and explanations that right now I perceive as spurious. Now I see telepathy with different eyes; that’s a start! Does this have to do with the concept “abiding” or “meditating on”? When one “chakra” fires, I neither think nor see anything. All is formless, and I only feel this thing focused in a specific place within the limits of my body. I don’t think or imagine anything; I “am” there. This is difficult to explain: if I hit my finger I detect where it hurts but I am not there. So may I understand that putting the focus on a point outside the limits of my body I will eventually get the same feeling of “being there” as precisely as I feel inside my body? Is this the technique? I was about to ask you how to distinguish this “outside” feeling, if it happens, from mere imagination. I suppose that the answer may only be “when you really feel outside the same fire you feel inside”? Wow. Finally, I understand what they meant by “spiraling”. So spiraling clockwise is another term for transmitting/pushing/yang and spinning counterclockwise means receiving/yielding/yin (or vice versa)? I assume that everybody tries to define what they feel the best they can, building metaphors based on similar previous experiences. My previous experience, and I think it is a very common one, was the male orgasm. Pushing, explosive. Of course I had no idea about how a feminine orgasm could feel. Until the flow reversed. Then I thought exactly the same as Pilgrim says: “so this is how it feels being a woman, being penetrated” (and enjoying it, I would add). Absorbing, implosive. I enter into these details because I think it is important translating what I feel/mean to people who speaks about the same thing in terms of spinning. Sometimes one “chakra” sends me the feeling of a feminine, implosive orgasm (other people may perceive a clockwise spinning). Sometimes it sends the signal of a masculine, explosive orgasm. But you said: “chakras have their own polarities and so you get the same but a more refined "pleasure" without going cross chakras.” These twenty words may be the seed of a very long conversation. In order to reach practical conclusions I think we need defining with more detail how we perceive a “chakra”. For example, I don’t perceive them as a single point, but (for most of them) as a constellation of eight points in the periphery and a central void, kinda black hole. And, moving vertically from what you call muladhara to sahasrara (right in the perineum and in the top of the head, easy to pinpoint), my total chakra account would be nine and not seven. I detect two different chakras/constellations between swadhistana and anahata, one app. at the navel level (this one is, without any doubt, what Taoists call LDT) and the other at the diaphragm. Does the Buddhist term manipura stands for this “double chakra”? And the other intruder chakra I detect lies between vishuddi and ajna. In this case its central black hole is behind the soft palate, quite close to the void of ajna, but not the same. I would bet this neural node is the target of the practice called kechari mudra. If you can put your tongue on that it should feel like licking your own G-point! There is also a lot of activity in arms and legs, hands and feet… Here we have variable geometry… Next step would be exchanging experiences on the dynamics and mutual interaction of “chakras”. Focusing in one single point (black hole or peripherals) is one thing; connecting these points in the myriad combinations available is a different issue. Practices like the MCO, kinda “joining the dots” would fit into this category. Here the important stuff would be knowing what the results of specific connections would be. But I don’t want abusing your patience, so please tell me if this kind of conversation is possible (and, specially, if it is worth). This all has to do with my first goal: understanding the basic cartography and the handling and safety instructions of this machinery I found inside me. The yiddam/dakini thing goes a step further so maybe I put my comments/questions on that in a different post.

So you mean that gender roles in society, the roles and functions of male and female, are imposed by biology?

Kind of visualisation? You imagine that you are a yidam?

Thanks a lot Jeff, for your kind and elaborate answer. My comments / questions: I feel something, that’s the only thing I can say for sure. At the beginning, the metaphor of removing dirt from clogged pipes with a stream of cleaning agent fitted very well with the feeling: like chunks of dirt removed and taken away with the flow. And it was extremely pleasant. We can tell the same story exchanging cleaning agent by “energy” and dirt by “energetic structures”. But the result will always be a very precisely located feeling which should (IMO) always require some local neural circuitry to convey this precise info to my mind. I still wonder if, perhaps, everything is purely physiological, neuronal play, without requiring any further esoteric explanation. Sorry, I don’t understand that. Concerning vertical direction, what’s the meaning of “going higher than the 7 chakras”? Focusing the perception above the crown? And I can’t see the relationship between horizontal (+ and -) and male and female polarities, could you elaborate a little bit? My only understanding of the male/female dichotomy so far has only to do with expanding/contracting and pushing /yielding. This is also a bit confusing to me. Does “energy flowing back and forth between your own polarities” mean the same as the so-called “inner sex”? Connecting two nearby chakras/nodes and feeling how one acts as male, ejecting “energy” and the other as female, absorbing this “energy”? This is definitely very pleasant, as you feel a masculine orgasm in the former and a feminine orgasm at the latter. But I see no relationship with horizontality; most of these interactions happen in a vertical direction. You also say that “it is somewhat self-limiting on its own, because there is not the natural expansion force of pulling further apart those polarities”. So polarities should be pulled apart? What does this mean? And, yes, I think this may be a problem as this sheer pleasure may very well keep you inside a bubble. Kind of masturbation. But what should be the practice to interact with others? Dual cultivation? To my understanding, very few people do that. Thanks for the quote, Jeff, but I am unable to extract any info from it. I can only read that “practicing the yidam deity” is fantastic, but nothing about the specifics of this practice. Can I find them somewhere? I have a problem with that: when I read “deity” or “worship” my brain shuts like a clam. But if a mortal woman can act as a dakini, I think I've got one... Thank you again, Jeff, for your patience. Cheers, juan

Gender roles are a cultural issue (culture: the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and handed down from one generation to another), and the differences are huge depending on the country, century, social status, education, etc. If you don’t take care of these differences you may easily end up with a series of blanket statements, which in its immense majority are just clichés. If we speak about energy (chi) cultivation, cultural conditioning is important, yes, as cultural taboos are difficult to identify as such. But their blocking effect on cultivation are equally important for men and women. Just my opinion. Anecdote: I heard that in the ancient China daughters were not allowed to learn the family skills on chi cultivation as these skills were considered a weapon, and daughters were property of their husband’s family when they married.

Your input is always welcome, Jeff. Thank you. After four years since I started feeling this thing, now I really don’t care very much about the label attached to what I am supposedly doing. Call it Tantra, Kriya, Raja, Neidan, Chi-kung (as imparted by the umpteenth lineage or Master xxxx), etc. Whatever. The only important fact is that I can feel and, somehow, guide, this thing. Again, call it energy, prana, qi, shen, kundalini. Whatever. Yes, this all started with sex, and I witness that sex (what we do is probably the so-called Tantric sex) has been a powerful trainer in order to make this thing grow and grow. But there is a moment when this “polarity” thing you mention appears, and sex becomes just a small subset of the “energetic” experience. You don’t even need a partner; probably the most interesting experiences happen when you are on your own. Of course I am only guessing what you exactly mean by “polarity”; quite probably my understanding is different, but I think that it has somehow to do with something I have recently read in some posts of a new member (Pilgrim). First time I can read something that reflects our experience! Of course it all started not at the heart connection but through the “2nd chakra”, so this impression of reversing sexual roles was quite realistic. But this feminine, absorbing, yin behavior, as opposed to the previously prevalent masculine, expanding, yang behavior can afterwards be reproduced at every single “chakra” (I prefer calling these anatomical locations “neural nodes”). At this stage, I would say that you have both "polarities". The relationship between meditation and “energy flows” (bliss) is another issue. Again, Pilgrim gives what I consider a very good hint: To me this is the key. When you find bliss, this is the ultimate meditation object, and, as I said at the other place we met, it draws your mind like the magnet draws a needle, and things start to move at a very quick pace. I don’t understand the concept of “blockages” due to specific fears which act as “stored energy structures”. IME, if the mind is enthralled by bliss there is no fear, as there are no thoughts. But of course if you are worried and can’t get rid of your worries/fears, you will never get the necessary mental attitude: 0 thoughts. Finally, the subconscious issue First we should agree on what is understood by “mind” and what is understood by “subconscious”. And I have a lot of questions on that. Can we say that we are conscious only when we are able to translate reality into words? What if what we call “subconscious” was the real “conscience”, only that it exists in a realm without thoughts? Where does “conscience” dwells? In the brain, which can be seen as a hypertrophic neural ganglion, or in this newly discovered inner neural structure – but much older than the brain - segmented and covering the whole body? A funny tech article on that: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html Would be nice having a conversation about this, but my experience is that this subject is a very good conversation-killer, at least in the open forums. Maybe a PPF would be a better place! Cheers, juan

Hello again, Spotless. Maybe I put my words in an assertive format that blocked any answer. Now I will try to say the same but using more question marks, so answering may be easier. My overall question is. What is the relationship, if any, between these currents (wether we call them qi, prana or neural connections) and meditation? The way you answered seems to suggest that they are opposing forces; say, these currents are the wild horse and meditation is the bit. Could you pls tell me if my assumption is right, or modulate your response? I have found the same (seemingly) contradiction in yogic sites, where the currents seem to be actively seeked, even with brute force approaches (bandhas, stances, etc.) just to be considered a "distraction" when they arise; some kind of "scenery" that keeps you away from the nobler objective of meditation. Probably due to my lack of information, it seems to me that they look for these currents just to reject them once they have the first feeling. Could you (or someone else) provide me with the piece of info I'm missing? On the other hand, if I have understood it well, one of the old texts about this stuff, the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, explains 112 equivalent paths to reach what could be called "Illumination". Most of them are the classics of meditation, i.e. focus on the breath, chants, and so on. But one of these paths seems to require, basically, sex (tantric sex): "At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end...” Again, my lack of info makes me think that, in spite of the very different animals that meditation and sex are, they seem to be equivalent vehicles to reach the same objective. Could you or anyone else please give me your opinion on that? Thanks a lot for your help juan

I understand your words as a recommendation to “nondoing” as the only way to keep the process going? (It only stops if you label it…) This is how I perceive it: thoughts, intentions and analysis hinder the “flow”, so you have to stay aware, but without thoughts. I don’t know if this can be a kind of meditation. I tried to follow some instructions on meditation, focusing on the breath and so on, with little results. It seems to me that focusing on the breath is used just as a trick to keep thoughts at bay, but in my case focusing in the “flow” is a far more powerful “attractor” to quiet my mind, as a magnet draws a needle. My use of “where the way ends” had to do with some kind of “goal”. What is this all for? But in a thoughtless state goals simply don’t exist. Even when I am thinking about it now, I find a bit nonsensical having any “goal” when I really have no idea. There is for sure a feeling of progress, in the sense that these “flows” grow higher and higher every day. Is there a limit to their intensity? What will happen when I feel within my head the same intensity I feel now in the, say, LDT? OK, we’ll see!

Hi Daeluin, thanks for your nice support! But you (and many others, thank you all) already gave me the best advice I could get: just let the “energy” guide you. And this is what I have done, or tried to do, without taking into consideration any theory. At the current stage, I would say that all these physical feelings and even mystical “experiences” need no more physical/supernatural support than our nervous system. It would be nice finding correlations between this approach and the different systems/traditions, but more and more I tend to think that this is not so much necessary, at least at the moment. This “energetic”/neural process seems indeed to lead to a gradual shifting of your point of view, which could be labelled as “detachment from the ego”, “dilution” or some other rhetoric term. But again, I prefer not getting tangled with words; just watch and feel. Where this way ends, if it ends somewhere, I don’t know. But the scenery is great! Cheers, juan

Hello again, My first round of questions/doubts deals about the nature and characteristics of this “energy”, but seen from an experiential point of view. I had many doubts before considering these questions feasible or useful, taking into account that “experiences” may not be easy to objectivize, but as we are speaking about the same flows, we can probably find a common language. As I understand it (my knowledge is very limited, so I apologize for my mistakes), Daoist theory considers different types and flavors of this energy. They speak about qi, jing and shen. It can be yin or yang, pre- or post-heaven. Even yin and yang can be mixed in the 8 combinations of three elements, each combination having different attributes. I am not too sure but it seems to me that the ancient elements (water, fire, earth, metal and so on) form also part of the recipe. I will not ask about the symbolic meaning that may be hidden under this enormous complexity, but on how these different types and flavors are felt, because the basic attributes I can feel are only three: intensity, direction and position. Intensity is always growing; it is higher than it was few months ago, and will surely be higher next month than today. Could this different perception, as the intensity surpasses different thresholds, be the reason under different names to energy types, but they are always the same energy? For example, infrared and microwaves are the same type of electromagnetic energy, but their very different wavelengths give them very different properties. The perception of implosions/explosions of energy really make a difference, so my guess is that direction plays a role in the yin/yang dichotomy. Yin inwards; yang outwards. Also feminine and masculine, as feminine orgasms are implosive and masculine orgasms are explosive. My wife and I felt as a big breakthrough the moment when we realized our intrinsic androgyny, but does this mean that we have reached the required yin/yang balance? Or the right tool to reach it, as we can reverse the flow at will? On this same subject, I have seen yin described as cool and yang as warm, but I have this feeling only when intake and expulsion of energy is in sync with breath, so I feel the fresh outside air coming in when energy comes in (yin) and warm air out when energy goes out. Otherwise my warm/cool feeling is quite neutral; is there something missing? Finally, the segmentation issue. The growing intensity of the energy plays surely a role, but its effects seem also to depend on where this energy is felt. I can feel four different segments between diaphragm and perineum, but they all have a similar “taste”, different from the taste of segments from diaphragm to neck and also from the structures located in the head, so this grouping of all segments in just three blocks makes sense to me. From my readings, I understand that the lower segments have to do with, say, “physical” issues: survival, food, mating; the middle block has to do with “mind issues”, i.e. knowledge, love; and the higher block (the head) has to do with the more slippery concept of “spirit”. There is a lot to talk about this; maybe later. The point now is that we can feel energy in all these blocks, but with different intensity. As our “cultivation” method is based on sex, intensities in the lower block are now incredibly high, leading to an implosive/explosive, boundless feeling when our internal nodes (dantien?) seem to fuse together. But the energy is slowly but steadily going upwards, and we have already had some short but quite weird experiences in the middle block (hearth). I wonder what may happen when this middle-block connection gains intensity and we experience this “fusion-like” feeling. And I really can’t imagine the implications of this powerful connection taking place in our heads. When you manage this energy on your own you have a kind of safety valve, as you can have an idea on where your limits are, but when this energy is shared, is there a risk of “frying” the weakest partner? These are my main doubts (for the moment) about the nature of this energy. My other concerns deal about its management and, specially, about its consequences. I will comment in further posts some very deep concepts you mentioned on these issues, but I would like to see first how discussion unfolds on this one. There is a lot to talk about nature, management and consequences, so all together this may lead to an excessively long thread; do you think it feasible, or reasonable? Should I open different threads? Thank you all again for your help. At any rate, your answers so far have been very useful to us. juan

Thanks, Apech, Dawei for these very clarifying posts. I also hope that we can get a fruitful conversation posting our experiences, ideas and insights without sticking to any learned dogma. Now that I am more confident on the existence of this common ground, I am preparing my next round of questions, but I need to be as sure as possible that I state them in the right way, and this is taking me more time than expected. Back soon, juan

I am impressed to see so many people trying to help. Thank you all again for your ideas and clarifications. Each one adds a new perspective and opens the way to more specific issues/questions. I have much to ruminate, but I will try to summarize here my first interpretations. I started this thread with some basic questions: Is this exchange of experiences possible? Is it worth? So I understand that speaking about personal experiences is tricky, if the receiver of this information tries to blindly emulate what the other says. This may lead to frustration if these wonderful experiences don’t come (BTW, I would bet that chasing experiences is not an intelligent objective), or danger, if they come and you find too late that they are too much for you. But it seems to me that the biggest risk is the one mentioned by Apech: if you try to lead this energy to these “learned” paths (but not learned through your own experience) you will miss the signals that the same energy is sending you. It reminds me the joke of the drunken man, looking for his lost keys under the street lamp and saying “I’ve lost my keys over there, but the light is here”. But on the other hand, all we say here must come from some previous experience, so denying its worthiness would kill any attempt of discussion. As usual, some balance must be found. Is there a common area where anybody could speak about common experiences without being biased by specific traditions/schools/lineages? This could be worded differently: Do I need sticking to the specific procedures of a specific tradition in order to get results (or not to be killed in the process)? Most of the answers seem to say no, as long as you are able to read the “intention” of these energies and get all expectations and learned ideas (and fear!) out of the way. So this is what I will try to do. Your kind responses touched a lot of issues which deserve a lot of reflection. I would like answering each one of them later, with still more questions, if I may be allowed to abuse your patience. What I can say now is that the reassurance I got from your first answers seemed to remove some amount of fear I still had, and this intensified the energy flow. Thanks, thanks a lot. juan

Thank you Marblehead, Apech, Wilfred, Daeluin for your warm response. I really feel moved reading your answers; somehow I could feel your compassion in my heart. I still have much to digest, but right now I can feel more confident about the "benevolence" of this energy and my ability to manage it, based on the signals that this same energy is sending me. I quote some of your ideas with my comments: The most shocking reaction so far was when I experienced for the first time this energy imploding inside me. Feminine orgasms should be quite similar, and this perception shaked my ideas about gender identity. But they are so different... seven chakras, shusumna, ida & pingala on one hand; the three dantiens and the network of channels on the other hand. Yes, they speak about the same "subtle body", but lead to some confusion when you feel the energy moving inside. What is exactly a chakra or a dantien, to begin with? I don't think they are the same animals; there are points where you can feel the flow of energy piercing through (chakras?) and points behaving as black holes, sucking energy or super novas, expelling it (dantiens?). The feeling is always orgasmic, but with different taste. I think that when they say "chakra" or "dantien" they really mean a constellation made of a dantien-like thing in the middle with two main chakra-things at the front and back (and still a secondary structure at left and right), and this pattern repeats in several segments. BTW: is there really only one "chakra" between swadhistana and anahata? But I have to agree that all this may be irrelevant. Just the curiosity of an engineer. Absolutely. Does this mean that once you get to this stage, then "forcing" procedures as pranayama or qigong stances are no longer necessary? IME the only thing you need is a fully relaxed body and an almost fully stopped mind. The segmented structure of these energy channels and nodes strongly reminds me the "distributed brain" of invertebrates. May this be our real "basic brain", much older than our more famous "reptilian brain"?. If these primitive beings experienced the world without ear and sight, without a reptilian brain to improve the fly/fight response and without a neocortex with an embedded code of conduct, this could be the most basic experience. But it is hidden under the neocortex (and perhaps under the reptilian brain, too). Letting the energy tell you which are the proper tools and the proper times... Thanks a lot. This is very reassuring. Cheers juan

We are a couple on their sixties who accidentally discovered energy flows when we tried to boost our sex life with the help of cannabis. After three years practice, we see the intensity of these flows growing every day, without limit at sight. This growing intensity goes in parallel with a growing sensitivity to these energy flows, so we can feel this energy moving inside us, even when we are on our own. The energy seems to concentrate, or flow with higher intensity, in precise spots; most of them seem to be the “chakras” described in yoga/tantra, and the feeling is extremely pleasant, even orgasmic. So far we have not detected ill effects, quite the opposite. But we always felt that something could be done with this energy, not only for avoiding undesired consequences, but in order to honor this unexpected gift. That’s why we are here. Our first resource were yoga/tantra sites, but normally they give methods for raising this energy, and say nothing about how to proceed when the energy is already there. I recently discovered Dao in Mantak Chia’s books, and they seem to be much closer to what we are looking for. Googling some terms found in these books, I landed on this site. I see that there is a lot to be learned here, just reading the threads, but especially with the guidance and ideas that experienced members can provide to newbies. Many thanks in advance for that. And please excuse me if my ignorance makes me say stupid things.