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I learned energy (and other spiritual things) without a teacher. Complimentary to (medical) Qigong, I suggest learning about meridians used in Chinese medicine, acupuncture, acupressure, etc. There is plenty of free written material and videos on this too. I also suggest learning to make a Chi Ball as big as possible. There are plenty of videos on YouTube explaining how to do this. As you already have some awareness of energy on your hands, it should be easy to get started. The videos only cover tiny balls. It is fairly easy to work up to softball size. Experienced practitioners can make one basketball size. Prodigies can make one larger than their arm span. After learning to make a chi ball the size of a tennis ball, practice removing one hand and holding the ball. When you can reliably do that, replace the removed hand with objects all kinds, learn to distinguish them by feel. Doing this with other body parts and moving your hand along parallel to the surface will allow you to find meridians and determine where they are blocked (beginning steps in medical intuition). Also spread your hands on either side of your aura (palms towards body) and build the aura in the same way you did a chi ball. This is great for overall health and energy defense.

'Spiritual' is the relation of self to not-self. 'Spirituality' is the awareness of or pursuit of the/your Spiritual.

Makes it subjectively real.

I would suggest in addition to 'observing' thoughts, to label each one "thought". Labeling creates some additional distance between you and that which is labeled (thoughts in this case). This method worked for me. Can't say if that's enough of an edge for you as my thoughts were not so overwhelming.

For me the foundation is knowing who I am. In the beginning, as you start to get to know who you really are and a bit of awareness; one starts to notice when they are 'doing' something that is not in alignment with who they are. It can feel forced, uncomfortable, annoying, or just cause you to tune out while doing it. Obviously, one then tries to avoid doing that again. It can be hard if you have responsibilities or other people are involved. As you start to fill your life (only) with activities that align/resonate with yourself, you then can (with more awareness) start to notice when you trying to make that happen. This is a doing versus non-doing (allowing) thing. You can't be fully expressing your inner nature if you are taking action based on what your brain, ego, or emotions are telling you. Though they feel like they are from inside you, they are not your inner nature. They are your tools. This part can be worked on with practices of "being present" or "in the now". What you are trying for while working on this is have your actions come from a natural (automatic) response to your environment, not from a choice. Overall, try to relax and allow yourself to take action rather than allow you or someone else tell you what to do. If you are prone to guilt or shame, this is going to be very hard. Something to be aware of is that most people confuse what they do with who they are. What matters is where the inspiration to act comes from. Doing and results are somewhat dependent on the environment you are in, as such they are not your inner nature. Another issue for some is accepting that they are a spirit being, not a physical being. Its way harder to express your inner spirit if you don't allow yourself to feel it. This practice can still work for a pure physical being though the results are less pronounced. If you are a physical only being, your inner nature is your personality and those aspects that make you not like anyone else.

Spiritual truth has to do with the things not made of matter and energy and the stuff that extends beyond the material universe. ALL of the above is material truth. Its ALL Earth bound and doesn't even cover the full extent of material reality.

Time is a measurement of how far a cause has traveled before it affects something. There is no time in the sense clocks suggest.

Most people in the material world are of course not fully realized yet. As such, they encounter situations that are not as they would have them be. These are what you are asking about. Accepting that which is is usually beneficial. That only means you acknowledge that is the was it is. It does not mean you have to leave it that way. Say you hit your hand on the door frame and it is bleeding a lot. A good first step is to accept that your hand is bleeding and may need attention. Depending on the situation, you may attend to it or not. Should you be of mind to be healthy and there are not more pressing matters, attending to the wound is a prudent step to return your hand to health. Dealing with things as they are makes for more effective responses. True, if you deny your hand is injured because you rather be doing something else, it might still heal more or less on its own. But its hard to tend to your wound if you don't acknowledge there is an issue with your hand. Fighting that which is, is a fruitless activity. It is just wasted energy. If you don't like a situation, do something about it. Or better yet, remind yourself it doesn't have to remain that way. As to the bumpy road situation, worrying about the bumps hurting your back causes you to stiffen up. A stiff back is far more prone to injury (yes this has been verified). So accepting the bumps does not make them less severe, nor does it make the bumps cause less injury to your back. It does avoid additional and unnecessary injury. As to fun versus helping others, did you know that fun makes you less prone to getting sick? Have you heard the announcement on airliners to put your own oxygen mask on FIRST before you try to help others? Attending to your health first makes it most likely you will be able to help others when the opportunities arise. So in this intermediate place, try to START with making sure YOU are in alignment with your inner self. The rest will follow from there. Becoming fully realized is about removing the blocks that are impeding your inner self from radiating forth. There is no point in worrying about the far away blocks when there are others closer. If you remove the close blocks (i.e. the internal ones) you will shine forth at least a short way. With additional realization that distance will increase.

You are NOT trying to understand the fully realized situation, you are trying to understand the partly awake situation (covered below). In the Fully Realized situation there is no need to accept anything, 'take' any actions, decide anything. Whatever you might have decided to do is happening or has happened already. There is nothing to accept, everything just is (a way that you would have it be). If it is in alignment of your inner nature to help others, no actions will happen to impede you helping others. Its highly likely others will be helped without you 'doing' anything. Don't know if you ever read the bible, but many of the healings in the new testament happened by people just touching Jseus' robes. Jesus took no action to heal them in those cases. You would not get sick unless it is in alignment with your inner nature to be sickly.

Again the answers depend on your inner nature. For instance, the noisy neighbors might be really annoying and causing you health problems due to lack of sleep or you might be thankful you can be as loud as you want without worrying about the neighbors complaining. I will make one assumption for each and indicate how a blocked, partly awake, and fully realized being might handle these situations. 1) my neighbors is very noisy .... to remark or not to remark (and why) ? Assumption: noisy neighbor is a potential problem Blocked: yell at neighbor, try to make more noise than neighbor, or call police Partly awake: go talk to neighbor about how noise is affecting you, bring noise issue up at homeowners meeting without mentioning the neighbor specifically, cast a spell to make neighbor move Fully realized: the neighbor would always be making an acceptable amount of noise, neighbor would invite you to party If that is your sort of thing 2) would i take of my coat when the weather gets hot ? Assumption: you would be overheated with coat on Blocked: complain loudly about the weather, make a big scene about having to remove coat Partly awake: not wear a coat when it's hot, take off coat if weather gets warmer Fully realized: you always feel comfortable no matter the weather or what you are wearing 3) when i eat would i take the chocolate i think is tasty or it a salad ? Assumption: eating chocolate is less healthy for you than a salad Blocked: eat the salad now and sneak the chocolate later, eat the chocolate and pretend like you are going to exercise later to make up for it Partly awake: eat a balanced diet including salads and some chocolate Fully realized: eat whatever calls to you whenever you want

Technically its the alignment of your circumstance and your inner nature (not the absolute circumstance). Generally being happy is an indicator of good alignment. Happiness is an emotion, but emotion itself might not be in alignment with your inner being. For most incarnated as human beings, more happiness indicates more alignment. Non-dependant joy is also called bliss in some teachings I've run across. But the state of 'bliss' can also be a false endpoint of the spiritual path. A lot of humans on a spiritual journey seek that euphoric contented feeling where nothing is 'wrong'; which is often referred to as bliss. You are not this bliss, so stopping there is not being fully realized. Not 'wrong' just not as far as one can 'go'. The difficulty with this topic is that as you come closer to fully expressing your inner nature, your circumstance necessarily is just a reflection of your inner nature. So dependent or not, there is no conflict (misalignment) between your inner nature and your circumstance. Eventually internal and external are the same thing, only oneness remains. I have noticed in my own journey and other I know that emotion subsides as one 'realizes' and 'accepts' their true (inner) nature. A lot of emotion is a response to duality which is slowly realized as false and goes away (both duality and emotion).

Whether you consider 'bother' to be a 'problem', depends on your inner nature. Some like the external stimulation, some take that as prompting to grow, and some like to be very sure they are not the only (physical) being. I'm not one of them but each to their own. I take bother to indicate there is a block to me fully and directly expressing my inner nature. Strictly speaking, if you are trying or achieving at all you are over doing it. When fully realized things are ALREADY a way you would have them be. What effort need be made at that point to make them like you wish them to be? On a more practical level for us not so realized there are signs: fatigue, feeling distant, resistance (to doing it), wanting something else, thinking you would rather be doing something else, anger, agitation, thinking please not again.

I'm not sure what you want an example of. You seem to have provided an example. I will try to guess what you seek, but as I likely won't be exactly right, ask another question. ------- If you are see a sunset and it is resonating with you (internally), its likely you are happy. On the other hand maybe what resonates with your inner being is driving to arrive at a sunset. In that case you would only be happy if you had driven to that sunset. In either case of you being happy, you are just expressing that which resonates with you. You can not overdo 'being' yourself. ------- If however you are 'trying' to 'achieve' a quality sunset, you can overdo the 'trying' and the 'achieving' even if in the end you manage to arrive at the sunset in a way that resonates with your inner being. In the case where driving to a sunset resonates with you, overdoing the trying and achieving would look like: racing around all day to make sure you have time at the end of the day to drive to where you anticipate the sunset will be, cutting off an important conversation with your spouse in order to leave right away, driving unsafely to make sure you get to the right spot in time, fussing about the perfect viewing spot when you arrive, etc.

Being happy is just a feeling, a message that you are looking positively on your (current) situation. It does not indicate if your current situation is actually 'good' for you. Being fully realized is about expressing your inner nature. To the outside world, it is how 'you' respond to what is going on. I.E. what actions do you take. But really (internally) it is an automatic interaction between your inner nature and your environment. You are being you, expressing based on your inner nature. There is no way to over do being you. What can be over done is to take actions that lead to something you are trying to achieve. 'Achieve' is not sourced from your inner nature but from an attempt to make the world around you different than it is. This doesn't work as you can only act, there is no guarantee of any results. The destructive cycle begins because one believes the right action will lead inevitably to a specific result. Thus one tries harder and harder to make a certain thing occur. This is in contrast to focusing on the quality of action. Is action occurring that reflects your inner nature? Being you (expressing self) is what leads to fulfillment in life, not your achievements. This way you ARE happy but not because that was your goal.

There are no decisions, there is no need. Whatever you might have decided just occurs without any explicit initiation by you. One might drive to see a sunset (rather than just going outside) because driving might be part of the experience. The sunset might express arrival for instance. If there is no significance to driving, then you wouldn't do it that way.

Sunsets would appear for you to see in a manner that is in alignment with your inner nature. Perhaps after an explicit drive to see one, perhaps at the end of an afternoon hike, or perhaps just by walking out your front door. The sunsets would just be there when your nature expresses 'sunset'.

I *think* this is part of non-doing, but I could be wrong as I didn't learn it from a person or internet. When you are fully expressing your inner nature (inner divine) action happens around you. This may include your body or mind as they are not you, just a place you inhabit. Action spontaneously occurs when your inner nature is in alignment with your environment in a way that is it appropriate for you to act. As a way to make this more tangible, what happens if you come upon a beautiful sunset or a loved one? Do you smile? Notice that you smile because of the alignment of how you align with the environment around you. There is no need to want to smile, nor any need to decide to smile. It just happens. When one is fully realized, there is only alignment and everything is a way you would have it be without any need to fix, change, improve, alter, force, overpower anything. The alignment flows freely form you and reality is thus as you would have it. The biggest hurdle towards this end is to remove all the blocks that prevent you inner nature from shining forth. Also should you move towards something that is not as you would have it be that way, it will be a way you would have it by the time you arrive there. It comes into alignment with you. I know you are wondering how all that is possible. The answer is that this universe is a co-creation in which you are a participant creator. You are continuously creating all that is around you. When there is no obstruction blocking your inner divine from expressing fully into the universe, you always create something in alignment with your inner nature.

Because it is in alignment with your (inner) nature to act. Strictly speaking this is not 'doing' but still is action of your mind and body. This 'non-doing' just occurs spontaneously and is not caused (nor inhibited) by your intent or choice.

Clearly you have little concept of what a real master is about. Sure there are lots of people only acting as masters as there are lots of people only acting like they are Taoist. There is no need to beat on fakers, they are everywhere. Before you get to thinking I am defending my master, a few things to know. I have never had a master nor even a spiritual teacher.

Everyone knows how dangerous casual S&M is, ack!!

Ok This sounds more like pathological sex than casual sex. Lacking self control is pretty much the same as compulsion, seldom a positive or healthy experience, no matter what one is doing. It is entirely possible to enjoy casual sex in the same manner and with the same 'soul' impact as eating an ice cream cone or riding a roller coaster. Depends on the price you are paying. Seems like you expect it to be expensive every time. It doesn't have to be that way. Now we get to the (your) real issues. 1) Apparently you value being virtuous over everything else. In that case, most things you might do are off limits as they are of the physical world not of pure spirit. Approaching this topic sorely from the frame of lust is most likely to end in a negative outcome overall. Lust doesn't even require sex, only the wanting of it. 2) You see sex as only valid for forging a 'true bond'. As long as you can only approach it from that view, then yes, it always has a negative outcome when done for that purpose. The premise of using sex to forge a 'true bond' necessarily leads to a non-virtuous outcome. How is it that a physical act is supposed to elevate your spirit? ------------------ I would suggest living your whole life first and foremost FROM your inner divine (spirit, soul). Allow all your actions to to flow from there. Then everything will enhance your 'virtue' including sex.

Same here Windows 7 Firefox Quantum 72.0.1

There is also no separate 'real'. Thus 'it' all is Maya.

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Welcome, also from Austin