Aetherous

That looks like the inside of my cells. Awesome!

I'm with joeblast...that can help calm the heart quite a bit.

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This one works... Hands on the knees works. If you want to build strong qi while you meditate, stillness movement may be good. If you want to do alchemy and kunlun, that works. All of these have a different feel, and different effect. For sitting and forgetting, ideally the position would be of little consequence...because you're supposed to be forgetting about it. I hope that doesn't sound too unhelpful.

Aaron, your post (not being first in the world, having compassion) reminds me of the eight verses of thought transformation...

The idea was actually kind of cemented into my head by an obscure Christian group, believe it or not, who felt that it was sinful (or not beneficial for oneself) to ever have a say in anyone else's life but your own. Attempting to put it into real action has been the source of a lot of learning.

Maybe lay down directly on earth for half an hour a day. That can sometimes get rid of inner inflammatory issues...but it might not work.

Apologies? I don't see why

Asian pears have been recommended to me as a way of cooling and downward flow. They are related to the lungs (due to the color of the inside) and earth elements (due to the sweetness), I think. Benefiting the lungs has a byproduct of increasing the water element (in the generative cycle). In ayurveda, they say pears are balancing for the three doshas, and also help with cooling and moisturizing (or replenishing water element). They calm the heart. Green tea is also pretty good for calming...maybe pick up some dragon well. Esther Ting's "Total Health" book is pretty good for looking at your conditions and picking foods to remedy it. Maya Tiwari's "A Life of Balance" book is really good for an Ayurvedic perspective.

Thanks! Will do as recommended.

This is normal. If you paid attention every minute, at a few points in the day you'd notice that they are even. Typically this happens at sunrise and sunset, if your body is already harmonized with the external cycles (like the moon). During those times, your central channel is most active, and it's best to be doing nothing. Only spirituality is beneficial at that time. When your left nostril is more open, it means that your left channel is active, and that has all sorts of implications. For instance, doing art at those times or positive types of spiritual practice (like cultivation of virtue) are good. Right nostril open means right channel is open, and physical activity is beneficial. These ideas can be found in more detail in a study of swara yoga. Basically, it's not something to be concerned with. It's totally normal. If you practice spirituality, from what I understand eventually the two channels have less and less activity and there is more central activity (where both nostrils are open at the same time). A direct way to do this is to have a daily practice of the 9 breathings of purification from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's books (or a similar method). Buddhists and others from that region of the world have said that the karmic winds flow in the right and left channels, and the central channel is the wisdom wind. On a practical level of speaking, if you're a very balanced person, don't have too many wild emotions, don't have too much monkey mind...then that should help in making the two nostrils more even, as well. But it's not something that is necessary to do...you are healthy as you are. As Sinfest said, going on your side can help change the flow. So if you feel like one is too open and the other is too blocked, lay on your side that's open for 10 minutes or until you feel it switch to the other nostril. That should kind of help. That's also something that's good to do if you ever feel something randomly negative or unhealthy.

I think we may already be friends on here, Aaron...but to "friend" someone on a forum is almost pointless in comparison to hanging out and perhaps having a deep conversation, or doing something cool together, in person. That type of thing is what creates real friends, and gets rid of loneliness.

Hehe, sounds good actually. Edit: Yesterday I did a ton of HRV breathing (inhale sharp, exhale as slow and long as comfortably possible...or basically 1:2 breathing)...and today I actually didn't have the crown thing the whole day until 11 pm, which was quite a relief. Non-coincidentally 11 pm as we know is the liver time. Looks like the advice of breathing offered here previously was quite good. And that the Taoists were onto something by breathing during the hour of tzu. I will see if this breathing gets rid of the issue entirely, and report back. Yea I've tried to connect with lower chakras, and basically send all of my energies into the earth. At least personally, it causes all of the earth energies to rise in my body and the resultant upward transformation becomes very strong...worse than if I had simply done nothing. What goes down must go up I guess.

Mmmmmm gardenzzz. Good topic. http://www.windowfarms.org/

Yaaayyyyyyyy, you like something I like, Marblehead!!!!!!

This is one of the most interesting things I've ever read on the forum, ShibumiMC...perhaps you could post about your book and ideas in the General Discussion area, since most members don't frequent the Lobby. And welcome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1KKt4h1nYY Comes out on Tuesday.

et-thoughts, Apparently you have never dated a succubus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDbFT0Iy_QM

Supernatural abilities are possible. Everyone has these abilities, but they don't realize it because they spend their time looking for them as if it were something other than what they have. Stop looking. Of course you're not going to find some imaginary thing...the supernatural words (the menu is not the meal) describe aspects of what it is to be a normal human being. Since no one around us is truly normal, constantly doubting and pontificating pointless things...we have to become super normal or super natural in order to be ourselves. Just drop everything. The 'gifts' are more annoying than anything, at least the minor ones that you can experience such as telepathy. Ignorance is bliss.

I have also had a question for a while now... At a certain point, the crown opened pretty much permanently due to alchemical practices. There's a constant sensation of a flame of light dancing above the crown to the forehead area, which seems to be not beneficial despite what we'd assume...like everything in the body is attracted and transmuted into it. I've tried many things...not practicing anything, not being around spiritual stuff, not being overly intellectual, etc. Different sections of the head will have this effect, like more condensed aspects of halo light are streaming out from the brain in different areas. I asked my teacher back in the day and got some decent advice (one thing was laying down and belly breathing with the hands on the navel right outside of left), which didn't "fix it" but only slightly helps. Basically anything I practice, even grounding things, all end up rising out of the head after the fact, and the best thing to do is nothing...which is disappointing lol. So, if you have any tricks up your sleeve, I'd be interested. Seems kind of like...we should not be so keen on alchemy if it's actually a health diminishing result.

That is one good purpose, although perhaps not the original reason. I heard that the main reason for beginning at the age of 40 has to do with their gematria, more so than any other reason...the Hebrew letter mem is equated with 40. This "rule" was actually done away with by major Kaballah figures in the sixteenth century, who thought it should be open to all, according to this book. Apologies for the brief slightly off topic post.

I don't think anyone is planning to use the news article as a means of spreading ayahuasca hatred, necessarily. But that is what has inevitably happened, for the uninformed reader. If my parents were to read the article, for instance, they would tell me to never use ayahuasca. That it's dangerous and kills people. When actually, as Taomeow pointed out, it's more dangerous to swim (or even to drink water...there are more known cases of hyponatremia deaths than aya deaths, lol). Agenda most of the time isn't a conscious thing. The article didn't make any attempt to touch on what the "shaman" said about how the kid died, about an autopsy, about the number of known deaths due to aya, due to mixing it with MAOIs or datura, etc. It's mostly because it was an article about a kid who died tragically...but it also reveals a widespread unconscious agenda against any mind altering substance. If it's that, it must be bad and it must be the cause...right? No? Oh well, lets just not talk about real statistics. It must have been the "drug". Doesn't matter that we don't actually know. I personally have no agenda...have never done aya, and probably will never. Just sayin'.

Eh, some people have this conspiracy theory that government and business interests do only good things in the world, and that the general public is much more informed than to allow news articles to provide them their beliefs about the safety of various substances. And that when you use the word 'alien' even in a context that means "belonging to a foreign country or nation" it implies something otherworldly.