Taomeow

You have my respect for stretching into medical Latin then. Oh, OK, you're right -- what's hard/easy is individual. Drew, have you ever noticed that the full lotus sort of reveals where the tensions are in your body if you watch for the physical rather than spiritual effects? I like doing all kinds of stretches from this position -- waist and head rotations in the shape of the taiji symbol, Snake Queen pose (arms behind your head, both elbows pointing to the ceiling, hands in assorted mudras), hopping about on your hands or bouncing up and down (which I'm told the Maharishi used to peddle as the prerequisite for levitation... no levitation yet though... ), and a shoulder stand in lotus (oh, by the way, here's my own area of "can't do that" -- headstand, not that I can't do it physically, I can't do it emotionally, it scares me into birth memories.)

Ouch, this bring back TKD memories! My TKD teacher used to talk on his cell phone from this position -- only HIS split was full. He made you learn this stretch by having you sit opposite another student who pulled at the ends of your belt with all his/her might while pushing into your thighs with his/her heels, while the teacher himself would sit comfortably on your back and roar his disdain for your pain in Korean. O U C H!!! If you join the Korean army, they will teach you how to do this in no time. This stretch is much harder than the full lotus, by the way. I was already quite comfy in full lotus when I learned this, and it is the next and far more challenging level of flexible, verily.

Drew, thanks! This part it is not a bad idea to choose as a continuous lifestyle feature. Gluten-containing grains are the dark lords' food for human slaves. They weren't eaten by humans at all before the introduction of agriculture, which is not part of natural developments in and of itself. We evolved and thrived for hundreds of thousands of years without it. Then, a second ago on the cosmic clock, all of a sudden (yes, historically it was sudden, not gradual) come grain cultivation and slave labor -- together. And we start eating wheat and building pyramids -- simultaneously. Abstaining from grains is a taoist dietary tradition as well (not vegetarianism, which is another dark lords' proposition for human slaves. We ate meat throughout our evolutionary history, for hundreds of thousands of years. Then comes the time when all of a sudden commoners are forbidden to eat meat by law, it is reserved for the overlords. And commoners are fed -- well, gluten-containing grains, of course. Yuck. When Russia conquered Siberia, they enforced bread consumption with sword and fire -- local shamanic peoples resisted for as long as they could...) Gluten-containing grains keep one's mind lethargic -- and today they commercially bromate flour as well, and this, together with fluoride in the water, is a mass-scale CNS suppressor promoting meekness, submissive/passive followers' behavior, "I can't do anything about it" attitudes and flattened "who cares" emotionality.

that's not why I made a face... I replaced a post of mine I deleted with it because after I posted what's "really" and "contrary to popular belief" is involved the words "alien cat" appeared on the right of my avatar that weren't there before. I took it as Her command to stop talking about Her.

Memories erased! Whoever remembers, dies! Thus spake Big Brother.

In a vast majority of cases, it's magnesium deficiency, although Steve F is right -- could be other mineral deficiencies as well, but magnesium is the first and most likely suspect. That's because this is the mineral that acts as a mediator between the muscles and the brain and specifically carries the command to the muscles to "relax." If twitching occurs in meditation, this might be due to conflicting messages -- the activity (or, rather, inactivity) signals "relax," and neural receptors that know how to tell the muscles to relax and rely on magnesium for that go, "like, how?.. Where's the messenger? We keep paging and paging, magnesium, come in, do you read me? -- and nothing happens!" Supplementing with good-brand magnesium (some prefer chelated, some swear by magnesium malate) usually eliminates those twitches if nothing more serious is involved. The reason magnesium deficiency is extremely widespread is the way they process all potable water, normally in its non-chemically-processed natural state the main source of trace minerals in general and magnesium specifically. In Europe, it is processed to ten times lower than the required amount for humans, but in the US, it is over one hundred times lower, so there's going to be ten times as many Americans as Europeans getting those twitches. Twitches is no big deal but heart disease -- magnesium deficiency is the real leading cause, not cholesterol, smoking, stress and what have you.

Thanks, Steam and Drew! Witch, Nibiru is Eris? Really? Could you point out some sources, please? And since you're astrologically savvy, what's your take on Arachne? Is it a hoax? Or the same Eris/Nibiru/Planet X body by different name? I found it highly synchronistic that I came across the original book on Arachne the same day I saw for the first time the photograph of the logo on the owl(god of Death)-bearing plaque adorning the entrance to the infamous Bohemian Grove: "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here." !!!!! Tres profound if Arachne is real by any other name... also the book that got me started with TCM, The Web That Has No Weaver, has come to mind... What happened to the weaver, where did she go once the dark overlords banished her?.. See why I like Haramein? My mind works exactly like that too, connecting everything to everything all the time, deciding if things it connected are connection-worthy later... disconnecting and reconnecting them as necessary, "on second thought..." ...You know, you noticed the comet, I've no strong feelings about that one way or the other except a personal disaster struck exactly at the time of its approach and I do know the ancients connected comets and disasters for millennia. But what I found most fascinating in Haramein's model of the pulsating exchange between vacuum (which looks a LOT like tao in his description) and being was that my mind that has a mind of its own immediately initiated a scan the way it always does in response to no conscious command of mine whenever it encounters an "I've seen/experienced this somewhere... some-when" hunch. A deja vu, a "wait a minute, I know this, it's on the tip of my tongue,' a "this shit happened before" kind of feeling. So you know what it dug up when the scan was completed? Dragon Gate alchemical methods as taught by Wang Liping, that's what. A pulsating in-and-out process I've experienced first hand and keep working with. It's hard to translate a theory into somatosensory language of an alchemical meditation but my trusty scanner just informed me, "these are the same things, same truth, different presentation." I know you know it's fun being you, but it's fun being me too.

Only one will do said the sniper when he lost his trigger finger

Scientific "evidence" is heavily edited before being released to the public as a matter of routine, and the official version is pretty much always a lie. Which makes anyone who offers a version of the event that doesn't match the official version look like a fool. There's lots of things the guy says that might be a far-out stretch, but what size the comet really was may not be one of them. I told someone near and dear that I saw a UFO and he was foaming at the mouth on account of, "UFOs don't exist." Then what did I see? He said, a bird, a plane, Superman... anything but a UFO. Well. It was something I saw, and it was no Superman and it didn't behave consistently with any mainstream explanation whatsoever, but what can seeing it mean to a true believer whether he or she believes one way or the other?.. Interpretations of what we actually see are a matter of -- gasp -- belief. Astronomical data is interpreted based on beliefs as much as any other, and that's where "objective science" always goes down the drain, nothing is "objective," everything we get we get in the form of someone else's interpretations which might have fundamentalist beliefs behind them which might be wrong, or ulterior motives, or, occasionally, sheer stupidity. I'll give you an example... A few years ago I got into a car accident and fractured my sternum. The doctor in the emergency room of a prestigious local hospital looked at the X-rays and said, everything is fine, you just have a contusion, some bruising, nothing serious. I told him, this is impossible. I told him, it can't hurt the way it does from anything other than a fracture. I told him, have another look at the X-rays, please, you may have made a mistake? He became very, very angry. I have been doing this for thirty-five years, he said. I have NEVER made a mistake, he said. Ever. I don't make mistakes. You have no fracture, period. Thank you, doctor, I said, and was taken home, meowing pathetically over every tiny bump in the road, and then spending two hours trying to find a livable position on the couch, and then the phone rang. It was the doctor. You know, he said, the radiologist took another look at your X-rays and pointed out to me that there was a shadow masking this hairline fracture that you have, so I looked and like I said, there's a fracture, didn't I tell you? You had no reason to doubt me. I was in too much pain to laugh, but I bit the bullet and laughed. Thank you, doctor. That, in a nutshell, is how it works... pretty much always.

Thanks! I think this is the one I watched (over a few days, in 45 parts on youtube), I recognize the shirt. I think I saw an early episode a couple of years ago and made a mental note -- aha, sacred geometry, up my alley, I will have to find out what the guy is up to sometime soon... and then I forgot. So you beat me to it. So timing is everything, as always. SHE didn't tell me anything about him. Of human beings, She educated me only regarding my immediate family members. Most beings She chose to introduce were not human. Which makes me think Haramein must be human after all.

I'm aware of physics cranks on the internet, my trusty friend... also buddhist and pseudobuddhist blockheads and maoist and laoist morons and all kinds of riff-raff of all kinds of denominations. However, I have a pretty darn reliable mind of my own to judge the possible level of validity of theories presented, a family of four generations of Ph.D.s, a house choke-full of books on quantum mechanics and a pro on premises to explain them to me. Now then -- why the condescending tone, and why are you calling a scientist you know nothing about a con artist based on no information other than he's unorthodox? Huh?.. I was blown away by parts of his theory precisely because I've been working (albeit very on and off) on something fundamentally similar for ten years and the reason I started was, it started appearing to me in hardcore, very demanding meditations. Who has been conning me in my meditations?.. Certainly not Nassim Haramein. Ah well... maybe I would have been better off just sticking to my first reaction to your entry, which was to inform you that you left me speechless. Well, apparently not quite. By the way, taoism is science to me, and you reference Fu Xi as though you know what he was up to -- well what he was up to is Hetu and Luoshu, and that's the basis of not some but all taoist sciences, arts, and spiritual pursuits... so taoism Fu Xi style is a science, shockingly enough. As for buddhism, you might have to make do with one less buddhist in the world than you hoped there would be. God knows there's quite enough of you without my humble involvement. The only buddha I ever had a chance to communicate with was Maitreya, and only because He-She initiated the contact, I wasn't seeking it at all. But Maitreya is the future buddha, the buddha yet to come once the dharma of yesteryear has expired completely. So I don't think you would be interested. He-She is into science too, you know. thanks, Steve, cool quotes! Little1, it didn't work for me --- nothing came up -- what's up?

Hey, the poll has a "none of the above" choice but no "all of the above" choice. How come? OK, here's something post-rainforest-shamanic that happened to me that I have never seen discussed here or anywhere, so I'll just throw it in, see if anyone else has experienced this. The day after the first ceremony, the sky was higher. Twice as high as normal. Maybe more. Visually higher, and with a clear sensation of twice as much volume of space up there as ever before in my life. After the second ceremony -- more of the effect, and steeper slopes to the sky, like a dome, like a half sphere, very sharply curved waaaaay high. Day and night, same deal. Three weeks later, still much higher and with much more volume than before. Eight months later -- I was just checking today -- still higher. Not twice as high the way it used to be, but definitely much higher than I remember it being before. The effect seems to have been permanent. Subjectively it feels good every time I notice it. Just right. Anyone else has enlarged the sky?.. Anyone know if there's a special term for this effect? Like I said, I've never even heard of it, it just happened...

Reminds me of the completely unbiased way Jiordano Bruno was burned at the stake for saying the earth rotates around the sun rather than vice versa. All the mainstream scientists of his time were outraged! Oh, but Galileo who said it was rotating to begin with rather than sitting still had to renounce his views, bow to the sitting-still model and repent -- peer pressure... totally unbiased. Oh, and that medical guy, forget his name, who said doctors should wash their hands before sticking them in the private parts of women during labor because it might prevent what used to be a common cause of death of young women and newborn children, postpartum "fever" (septic infection in modern terms, introduced by doctors who didn't believe in infections) -- his outraged colleagues had him locked up in the lunatic asylum for the rest of his life.

Um... I don't know the guy and have no opinion besides what can be gleaned from hearsay, which is seldom reliable, but one of the teachers David claims to have studied with is a teacher of mine, and the stories don't match. Since the teacher gave me no reason to doubt him... ...shrug. I actually like the guy (David) from what I heard. He's got fire in his belly. I wouldn't come too close to that fire, but it's a personal opinion, no generalizations. By the way, traditional taoist stories are choke-full of tales of deception, of everyone by everyone. Take taijiquan -- the Yang kid spying on the Chens to get the teachings that weren't supposed to be his... take the higher realms -- the goddess of the moon Lady Chang-O stealing the immortality pill from her husband... even the boddhisattva of mercy, Quan Yin, plotting and scheming nonstop to get what she wanted (a transmission of buddhism to China), and on and on. So even if he's lying, stretching the truth, exaggerating and so on, David is in a good company... long as his intent is ultimately noble. Is it?.. I've no idea... The money is good though...

One of the masters I know has used a special -ism when referring to the phenomenon. I heard it mentioned in a context where precautions were discussed against misuse of teachings received -- we'll do certain things a certain way so as to avoid davidism .

Time swallows our marks Deep rumbling in his belly reveals his hunger

Yes, in passing. No salt -- because it is electrochemically active and interferes with the process. Interestingly, ayahuaska kills all your chemical and food dependencies on the spot, tobacco, coffee, even wheat! -- and if you want to keep it this way, it's easy. And if you don't, in the first few days you simply can't enjoy those things, but then you can revert to your prior metabolism if you choose to. (I chose to stay away from wheat permanently, and it's been eight months.) Another part of the "dieta" is plenty of tryptophan-rich foods, which in the rainforest translates into all kinds of bananas and plantains, which are fried, boiled, mashed, steamed, grilled and so on. It gets old by day four, and the shaman tells you to eat what you like, and does so himself/herself. As for sex, that's something you abstain from a couple of days before the ceremony and a few days after, is all. Ayahuaska is cosmic jing, among other things, so She can't possibly be asexual, in fact She can show you how species that reproduce asexually experience their version of what we experience as sexual desire. Very far out, and connected to sacred geometry, believe it or not. I have a richly illustrated book, Plants of the Gods, by the famous German researchers into the issue, with photographs of yogi sages smoking ganja from huge pipes, for the purpose of facilitating their spiritual advancement. No plant is "impure" and "chemicals" are to plants containing them what your toenails are to your overall person -- one is not equal to the other, your toenails are not you, if you cut them off they have some of you in them... but not enough to make a complete Drew, totally not enough, and it's absolutely the same with chemicals extracted from plants. A plant is not a mixture of chemicals, anymore than you're a mixture of toenails and hairs and DMT molecules. A plant, just like you, is a sentient being not reducible to the sum of its parts. Ayahuaska is known as the Teacher plant, and how is a plant teacher different from a human teacher? only in that the former is millions or even billions of years older than the latter, knows billions of times more, and teaches directly from inside of you rather than indirectly from the outside. There's a fairly famous taoist saying to this effect -- "a good student learns from a good teacher, a great student learns from a great master, and the best student learns from plants." Maybe more later... sheesh, didn't I swear to myself to not discuss it on forums?... but I couldn't resist answering to a post you submitted at 11:11, it's one of my funky numbers...

"Do people gain the life long ability to open and balance their chakras or run the MCO at will after doing Ayahuasca? " Um... You would need to know first hand what you're dealing with to form a realistic opinion in the case of ayahuaska and other sacred plants. For starters, it might not be into solving any of your problems at all. You are dealing with the boundless intelligence of the universe, with what the DNA of all life forms on all planets in all galaxies, the presently-living, the once-alive-now-dead, and the to-live-yet-in-the-future, is up to. No less. And -- you might simply be shown your place in this picture, your personal situation as it really is... and it might crush you or inspire you but whatever it does to you is more or less permanent. It's not "relaxing," it's imprinting. At least if your destiny was to be imprinted with the seal of the universal belonging. (If it wasn't, it will just take you for a ride you will never want to buy another ticket to.) When things most sacred and most mysterious are talked about by people who haven't experienced them, that's when our troubles begin... I don't mean you personally, I mean the whole deal with making altered consciousness appear to be a function of some self-induced chemical abnormality or other in all cases and for all purposes. Yeah right... People in all cultures at all times used sacred plants in order to specifically alter their consciousness away from the everyday toward the -- well, mysterious and sacred. THIS made them human in their everyday life to a greater extent than we are human today in our everyday life. There's scientific evidence out there that these plants have made us human in the physiological sense too, by rewiring our monkey brains the human way. We have receptors in the brain for each and every one of the sacred plants traditionally used by tribal folks for thousands of years. We couldn't possibly have them if these experiences weren't part of who we are as a species. We are meant to have them. It's like a training gym for the soul. You're right, you can't maintain the state you're in when running a marathon 24/7 at all times in your life, but if you never run the marathon, if you always sit on the couch (spiritually speaking), you atrophy... not you personally, the modern soul. THAT's the real victim of the dark overlords' sleight-of-hand mixing together of "drugs" and sacred plants that facilitate the growth (and the growing up) of the human soul. They made it shrink this way... shrink away from the sacred and mysterious -- and shrink into what it currently is, which is pretty much a shameful thing to show to the universal intelligence... She looks at it and shrugs... well, is THAT what you've got for a soul? THAT puny shriveled desiccated thingie?.. Oh... OK. Nevermind. There's no worse hell than this, and whoever or whatever shows it to you does your soul a service you might not be able to repay in a thousand lifetimes... and you're saying it's got no impact on your "real life?" Man... it's one of those "you ought to have been there" jokes.

Neigong.

Thanks! Yes, I've seen what you posted, and I've been there. Interesting how they can't hold their ayahuaska at all, these western adventure seekers, and start throwing up right away! This of course dilutes the effects a hundredfold right then and there. The shaman might tell them to try to hold it in for at least twenty minutes, but then, one who's worked with tourists a lot might not even bother. I don't know how to discuss this, Drew, She told me to write a book but She may have been joking... She showed me the book She had in mind -- "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ayahuaska," but She couldn't have been serious, so... but then, who knows... ...oh, and of course you know my thing when "drugs" are discussed: I find it absolutely horrifying that our dark overlords have successfully managed to convince the population that pharmaceutical monstrosities of their creation and sacred herbs of god's creation are all in the same category -- "drugs." I don't even want to go there... Drugs my ass. I would really like to see an average chemical-dependency fiend on ayahuaska... shudder.

When I opened it a youtube sidebar popped up my teacher's sword demo -- whoever was upset by the thread please watch for a change of pace... he's a former champion of Beijing in this...

If you feel good while your hands turn cold, it means your qigong practice causes qi and blood to be diverted from the periphery of your body to nourish your inner organs, which may be what you need. If you don't feel good while this is happening, it may be your body's way to tell you it's not really into this particular practice, for whatever reason. If you do feel good and still want to keep your hands warm, wear gloves while practicing. I used to do qigong with a group of people in the park in any weather, including in winter (cold East Coast winter), including sitting meditations. Some of the practitioners remained warm and some felt hot, but I was just a beginner then and I used to freeze my ass off, so I piled up layers of clothes shamelessly. But if what you want is some mind-over-matter exercises to warm up the hands, practice visualization -- submerging your hands in buckets of hot coals, or your blood igniting and flowing like liquid lava to your fingertips, or some such. The classic autogenic formula is "my hands are getting warmer" repeated mentally in sync with your breathing. Then you "breathe" the formula into your hands and "breathe out" through your fingertips. With taijiquan I get warm a minute into the routine even if I start out cold, and better yet, it cools me off when the weather is hot. A good practice is smart like this, but this comes with practice , I didn't have these "correct" thermal effects early on.