rideforever

There are different kinds of work you can do in Working Meditation. One way is simply to give your absolute best, even if you are chopping carrots. Just do your best with a good spirit. Try to get something out of the experience. Consider on the best placement of the chopping board, knife, bowl, and dustbin. How can I do this effectively. Then you can observe your body, your hands holding a knife, observe yourself. You can also try to do it left handed and see how that is, maybe difficult at first. And you can also feel any inner anxieties that occur, worry or expectation ... and observe that ... and try to come to a place whee you are giving your best effortlessly and full of love, everything engaged, mind body and heart all together. Lots of possibilities for work. With regards more meditative things ... you can rest your nailbinding for a moment then return to abdominal breathing. As you breath abdominally try to "embody" it, this means that it becomes part of your identity, it sort of floats within as part of you. It is you. Then start with the craft and try to maintain it gently. You will find that your craft with your eyes and hands will break your contact with the belly, but that's okay just relax and try to maintain gentle contact. From time to time put down your hands and return to the belly to regain full contact there, and then continue with the craftwork. In this way you gently slip inside to connect the two. Various changes to the way your outer and inner perception are happen are necessary to really bind the two together, it won't happen overnight. Forcing things usually has non-useful results. Abdominal breathing practice. It is recommended by many teachers never to do any practices that adjust the breathing because breathing is the lowest level function that we experience that is directly connected to the source, it is more of our guide rather than something we change. It is our lifeboat out. We should follow it. So with this practice simply follow it, feel it inside and maintain being with it. Later merge with it so that you dissolve and only the breath remains. You have to feel for how these things are done inside, try some different ways, explore. Surrender to it, merge into it, feel into it, disappear into it, until you are it.

Depression happens when one part of you is in conflict with another part. For instance your parents are cold to you when you are young you get angry but your parents don't like you being angry. What happens then is that your organism instinctively splits off the anger into a psychological fragment perhaps located on the right hip. And it seals the angry energy, your real anger into this fragment. Then you can live in the rest of your body doing what pleases your parents. This way you won't be angry at mum and dad and they won't beat the living sh** out of you. That way you stay alive. When you are older it causes problems because you are still really really angry. And it is still in the right hip. But you no longer know where it is because you lived so long with it split off. Not only that but to keep things split off requires huge energy expenditure. So you are angry, you are blocking the anger, and you are splitting the anger ... 3 types of energy drain. And it's a nightmare. Life doesn't work because when things happen in your day you can't really get angry, or assertive ... because all your power is hidden from you. You are like a 75% man with 60% energy drain. You try many things but they don't work. Then it's like your whole life doesn't work. Then you feel depressed. Large parts of society carry internal splits so then if you ask for help they give you pills so you can be just like them !!! This is not ideal. So ... the answer is to go back into the right hip find that energy and re-merge with it so you are one again. This may feel painful and whatever, but eventually you get back all your power and life starts working. Can you do it with qigong? Well maybe if it's small, but not really because the psyche is a complex advanced structure. Working with energy is like trying to fix the roof of the house by fixing the basement, fixing the substructure. You can't really fix the roof of a house by fixing the substructure. You can improve many things by fixing the basements, it's all good. But if you want to fix the roof you have to go onto the roof and use roof like tools. The psyche is a structure up there at the top of the tower, and has its own tools. Some people try to live from the belly and throw away their psyche, to live from energy, that's their solution, well okay. Well it sort of works and it sort of doesn't work ... a human who lives without a psyche is like an eagle that lives without wings ... it's sort of missing the point. You might be able to sorta do it ... but it's not really what you want. An eagle wants to fly. That's my big fat opinion.

The awakened soul does have a subconscious, because the soul is a structure that grows out the primordial chaos gradually creating order through unconscious > subconscious and finally conscious. It is a tower. Once illuminated it simply means the top of the tower is clean and above the clouds, but it still rests on the tower of the subconscious rising from the dark depths of chaos, and if it is not maintained the soul can drop down again. Buddha had already experienced many awakened states, but when he was under the tree he "fought the demons of Mara", meaning what? This is simply the purification of the subconscious. It is common to see many modern spiritual speakers fighting with money sexuality and their "mind". What is all that? It is simply their subconscious. There is no getting away from it as it is part of your tower. There is no real independence of consciousness, it resides on a tower. Why did Ramana Maharshi die of cancer? It was because he was a typical Indian sage, a great one perhaps, but he did no purification of his energy system and was not healthy in the body. He was not interested in that. A real seeker reaches great heights at all levels of his tower, subconscious, conscious, physically, sexually, humanly. All levels of all planes that you intersect. You bring illumination to everything everywhere. Then you are a seeker of the light. Otherwise you are just a fool sitting there with some small "awakening" whilst the rest of you is covered in junk. Some people wish to try a primitive spirituality ... dark spiritualities ... these refer to relative illuminations in the unconscious and subconscious worlds, in the wilderness. Great power comes from those with multi-level illumination, illumination in the entire tower. - but yes going back, being Conscious abiding in a state of Consciousness is a singularity, it is self-stable and you can be absorbed into it as if nothing else exists. When you practice in this way you should practice in that way, that is the practice. But ... many other things do still exist. Life is vast.

He seems like a typical British India-phile. Concerned with Kundalini serpents going up, always up up up to the crown. This is not the same as Taoism, which is the valley of the universe, valley is down, flowing gently. But, in India there undoubtedly is vast knowledge of many sorts. I was just reading about UG Krishnamurti, he seems to have triggered some sort of energetic enlightenment related to Taoism ... but it is different. In India they just want to blow their head off. Everything, even Pranayam, it's simply about exploding your head. It's a bit childish really. Even if you succeed who will be there to enjoy the discovery? They don't care. Perhaps I have some wishful thinking but I have the feeling that Taoists appreciate the enlightenment of the Dantien. They appreciate Earth, and so they have a relationship to Christianity, which appreciates Earth. The Son of God who came to Earth, build a castle on the hill so all can see it and the images of people on the church walls. They like to be people, children of God. In India the only question was ... how the fk can I get out of here?

Yes this area does not exist in other traditions, for instance if you look in the chakra maps from India it is not there. They have the perineum chakra, the sacral chakra, then there is a big gap of about 1ft and then manipura is where the rib cage parts. Sometimes manipura is placed further down, they are unsure what is happening between the sacral and the solar plexus. It is not there in India, although the chakras are poorly understood today so in the past maybe they also knew it. The only other place where it may be is in the Russian crucifix, the lowest of the 3 bars could indicate the LDT. But each tradition has taken thousands if not tens of thousands of years to develop and represents a beautiful exploration into reality by a particular culture. Cultures that were emotional worked on the heart, the intellectual cultures worked on centres associated with intelligence ... and in China the Dantien, perhaps they are grounded people who feel themselves in the belly, or perhaps a transmission happened there from a Being. The regions which can be developed inside us are not really like different coloured M&Ms. They have particular functions and are cultivated in particular ways. Each one takes years of devotion. Being an energy master ... is not more important than feeling the bliss of the divinity of god of the Sufis. We only have so much time in one life.

No it is not. But probably you mean spirituality is spirituality, and that's all. There is something true about that. But I think especially with internal arts where you are cultivating a particular energetic aspect of reality not found in other traditions ... it becomes obvious that your energetic awareness is a particular aspect of spirituality that the Chinese have developed.

Another interesting thought : The human vessel is very flexible and can exist in many states. Why do we exist in this one? The answer is that according to society you are induced to enter a particular type of "consciousness" with particular types of identifications, meaning more psychological less physical more emotional less awareness etc... The society you are born into actually presses you to adopt a certain kind of energy state that you then live in. Others may be available, some states are not available.

A Sufi poet cannot write the Daodejing, neither can a Taoist write Sufi poetry, neither could they write the Upanishads. All realisations are different and the result of long devotion. "awareness" is often the first state people reach. It is a real state but it is also very shallow. Being so shallow people often cannot see how shallow it is, or what is really happening inside them or what the difference is with the state they were born into. Many spiritual people with the "awareness" make statements like: - I am everything - awareness is everything - consciousness is everywhere - nothing ever happened - nobody exists - there is nothing to teach These statements are all rubbish, and simply mean that the state is very basic and so there is no inner orientation ... it is a state so shallow that you cannot even see the situation. Unfortunately much of spiritual history is filled with all sorts of statements like this that mislead seekers. "awareness" is a state that emanates a few inches behind the forehead, in the forward 1/3 of the skull. It is a state that requires no energy-body, or a very small energy-body. Consciousness emanates much further back at the rear of the head this state requires a substantial energy-body. Due to the fact of no energy body, those in "awareness" cannot tell who or what they are. Thus they imagine they are everywhere and that nobody ever learnt nothing and that they are everything. They can tell they are in "awareness" but they can't really feel their own presence due to the small size of the energy-body of the state. They also imagine they know all the spiritual states. But the fact is that due to the lack of energy-body in this state they cannot easily identify where they are. This has caused a lot of confusion in human spirituality and damaged many spiritual seekers, for instance like being told there is no-one and nothing to do, this has probably destroyed the possibilities of many spiritual people. In the Indian Advaita tradition and most other traditions it is understood that you need many years of intensive work ... they simply know that as a practical fact. And it is because it deepens your state so that it matures so you can see that it is only a beginning. "awareness" people often do no formal practice and therefore do not improve their state, and keep boasting about how everything they are until they die. This is actually the false-self using a small state of "awareness" to make itself appear impressive, and is not real spiritual devotion. Which is the value of being in a traditional context. "unconditioned" : existence is not making a mistake by conditioning us. Why has existence created so many planets and people? It is seeking through conditioning through dividing. It is seeking itself, individuation and conditioning is how it does it. An awakened human is an individuated part of existence that has reached self-realisation through conditioning which leads to knowledge. You cannot gain knowledge without experiences thoughts and trials. Only then can the vessel of the human reach self-knowledge and become an individuated microcosm. Realisation is not the result of unconditioning, it is a step change in the intelligence of the being that arises due to the development of intelligence ... awakened states require a subtle intelligence to grab them, and this intelligence is learnt through life. Which is the entire purpose of living. Therefore it is very important for people to get conditioned, and learn from life at all times. Fear of life simply leads to failure and the death of the possibility to awaken. Therefore human life is very important, and this is why Krsna says to Arjuna that "you must fight", because Krsna knows that if you do not fight you will fail to achieve the goal of your existence through lack of knowledge. Knowledge is gained through the experiences of life. That's my opinion.

10 minutes of Barry Long talking about the origin of celibacy as a lower form of purity.

moved

If you work with qi in the internal arts what you are doing is strengthening the energy sub-system of the being, strengthening a routing it through the being in a particular way, developing skill sensitivity intelligence. All good. However none of this is awakening. You are working with the emanation of the Dantien (i.e. what flows out of it and cultivating). Awakening is about going inside the Dantien and being "I" inside there. which means when you walk down the street you see the street from the identity inside the belly, you feel you are down there. This requires particular work especially sitting meditation. (I should just add that most things I say I have been taught by a highly adept teacher and did not originate with me)

Yes the Taoist awakening is of the LDT. The TTC and other texts are written from people who experience the world through the intelligence of the Dantien, therefore they intrinsically feel the flow of energies within the world. This is different to the awakening of the Heart and traditions that do that like Sufism which feel the world through the intelligence of the Heart. Whichever centre your tradition is working on there is actually hidden a centre of centres. This is in the forehead. It is so difficult to awaken that it is always awakened 2nd or 3rd stage, or not at all. And it is partially developed through the awakening of any centre. Perhaps this is not interesting but I say it anyway. So a Sufi has an awakened heart plus a partially developed centre in the forehead (that he might not realise). A Taoist has an awakened LDT plus a partially developed centre in the forehead (that he might not realise). etc... One of the implications of this is that whichever path you work on you should always do some work with the forehead area, either mid-eye brow meditation or tatrak or anapana (even if you are only interested in love or energy) because any good forehead work helps all awakenings.

A thought that I had today is the importance for us to assist evolution. Evolution cannot evolve a species without their help Metaphorically : Eagles did not get wings without the assistance of the eagles, first evolution gave them small things but they used them well, they participated with these small wings and made them part of their life ... and so evolution gave them bigger wings. So it is with humanity and our "minds" we have been given a small thing, we are a monkey with some strange thing on our head it creates mayhem, but we need to awaken this mind and participate and then we will be given a bigger one. It is not inconsequential to help existence, we must try. Evolution is trying to awaken mankind by giving it this "mind" .. but we must participate for the good of all. It is very difficult for a monkey to really understand what is happening, he has an old animal system, there is an ego and automatic thoughts ... there are bad feelings negativity, there is the global economic system and horrible bosses ... wow it's quite a challenge to remain sane. Yet this is the job, it is difficult but we must try to make the best of it.

Awakening is of a particular centre, we have various centres inside ourself like the heart in the centre of the sternum. This is where our feelings emanate from in our human life, that is its function in terms of human life it feels. But to awaken it means it reaches a state of self-recognition ... something like it has intelligence and it's intelligence feels itself and creates a "singularity" it becomes a permanent state of self-recognition or self-knowing ... in the heart. It is the same for all the centres. Dantien, Consciousness, Awareness, Solar Plexus etc... there are many centres. Due to cultural difference (some cultures more grounded, some more feeling, some more intellectual) the culture develops different types of awakening. It is true that behind all of this is a single centre that is the prime centre ... this is in the forehead ... this is the primal centre ... but it is quite difficult to awaken. When you awaken the heart, SP, dantien, Consciousness .... you are also partially awakening the centre of centres in the forehead. Like I said it is very difficult to awaken this one because it is so central so close ... it is too close. So it is easier to work with Consciousness, Awareness or one of the other centres where there is a bit of space to see what is going on. Chinese cultures for whatever reason is grounded meaning it is down close to the earth, therefore Dantien. And because of being down there they have become energy masters hence the internal arts. afaik

I know Damo Mitchell, Michael Winn and that DragonGate teacher in Texas Jeff something, and possibly many others view enlightenment as the same as it is in India as that internal arts are of a lower category of practice. Possibly many others feel the same. It seems that by studying your internal system you can enter the State of Awareness just the same as if you study bonzai. Consciousness occurs uniquely inside the head and its centres. Consciousness is the power of recognition-intelligence. This occurs within the head and not anywhere else. Awareness is a lower level of realisation in the headspace, in fact there are others in the headspace it is quite complicated up there. I can't see any particular benefit to being physically immortal because all your relatives and age-range will die and then what will you do here on your own. It would be sad. So best not to try too much, it is fool's gold. It is easier for people to understand longevity practices because they use it like organic food. Awakening is a very different kettle of fish. Anyway Taoism relates to the awakening of the Dantien which does not really require any taichi or qigong, it is more akin to Indian practice just done at that level. But internal arts have their benefits, but I am sure that most internal arts practitioners, if they do reach awakening they simply get awakened into the State of Awareness which is not the real Taoist awakening. Such a person will have strong qi abilities, the State of Awareness in the head ... but not the Taoist awakening ... strange but true. And, humanity really should be able to be happy without awakening just being normal humans with their psyche and mind but there is seems to be some strange inbalance/disturbance in the species that leads them to uncover deep stuff, but to what end I don't know. Most people want love and good friends don't they. I can't imagine many of them would be happy with no love or friends or sex, and instead have awareness ... that would be like being an alien. But you are not an alien you are human. I have a strange feeling that mankind has confused himself so much that even if he gets awakening it is not really what he wanted. Xing and Ming and the Daodejing ... may be very nice looking but you know it behoves all of us to wake the f up and start checking the details and calling a spade a spade, and learning how to ask our own questions and do our own investigations. We can't just follow behind like dogs with tongues hanging out. The ancient stuff might or might not be all right, half right, or not right.

I think it's much worse than that. In hell you can tell who the bad guys are. Human beings live in a very bad state of "consciousness" which gives rise to incredible barbarity, incredible self-centered confidence, insincerity and so on. Not only is the species not Conscious but it is at a level that is too low to really work on the problem. The state of human Consciousness is also too low to be predictable, many people live from many different types of "consciousness/ subconsciousness". Everybody has countless ideas to fix mankind's problem, but they don't actually know what the problem is. The situation is very unsatisfactory and there is a good deal of anger and revenge (at anyone) in society, and a good deal of complete insincerity. Some of the stupidest people in society are setting the markers for society, and some of the best are hidden. If somebody somewhere does find out an answer then it is quickly buried by the sludge of mankind, it will not survive. Therefore "extreme methods" are required, for instance if you do Vipassana every day it does not actually lead to enlightenment on its own but it does create something useful inside you. Strong basic regular hard practice is needed, whilst also being compassionate on the outside. Fancy stuff is not required. Many choices are not required. Nobody is making it here. In fact many people don't even know if they are enlightened, or even if they are happy or unhappy ... many of these things are assumed indirectly. Getting the basics of life right is important. The world pours out millions of people babbling with their ideas that are fed into an engine like fuel. This world is "better than hell" in that there are opportunities ... but it is "worse than hell" because of terrible flow of billions of ideas and people that is destructive to making progress ... nevertheeless if you can get it together to do regular practice you can make good progress. We may watch the news and hope for some good thing to happen, but after a few decades of this you realise something is very wrong with the whole picture. Emerging from the darkness mankind has made an "as-if world", everything looks just right ... except everything is only "as if", everything looking closer is wrong. It is the world from a species under the threshold of Consciousness. In this world you get into a fast car and floor it to the city limits, do not stop here. That is the only way.

Oh late I have started to think that transendental awakening is unnecessary for human beings and what they really need is to fix their psyche which is more the domain of psychotherapy. Recently something called IFS (inner family systems) has been invented which a kind of therapy where the conscious mind speaks to the subconscious fragments in the psyche. This has a lot of potential to cure mankind. It is a new kind of skill to fix what is actually broken. For humans I do not believe what is broken is their lack of transcendental awakening, that is not really the problem ... although it is fine but probably not what people really want but what they settle for. What they really want is a good human life without insanity within them.

A very important question indeed. The answer is that the masses do not have any veils over their eyes, they are simply of a low level of consciousness, and if you are in exactly the right place ... earth a kind of semi-hell-maya. And you will not move from this place until you have earned your freedom just like Buddha did through great suffering, rebellion, intensive studying and achievement, being lost in the desert, and surrender to the unknown. If that is what he had to do, why do you think it is different for you? Nobody can give you these things, like nobody can give the achievement of climbing the highest mountains in the world. If you don't do it, then you never did it, and you are still on the ground floor. Only the ground floor is given and actually mankind and creatures on the ground floor are used by the universe and get a free life, but only one. Many of the enlightened humans have no idea what really happened, they were close to death and just lived in isolation. They have no real explanations, often they are exhausted people who are not interested in the world ... if you ask them what or how ... what do you want them to say? They found a way to cross and are tired. If you persist they just give you ancient books. Everything is available to everyone. What exactly is hidden ? So many paths of so many sorts are available. But who can read only like sincerely. Sincerity is the narrow gate. Are you willing to be sincere about your life? Humans are confident, they run about with their "plans", they laugh and drink and play. Then they are dead. They don't care to live or die, they don't care why; they are just party monsters, apparitions, and perish. Such creatures as these cannot be permanent parts of existence. Why do we remember someone from 2000 years ago?

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I often have the feeling that what people are doing is not the real thing no matter how much they talk about it. Having amazing power energy is definitely not spirituality. Many people have worked out how to cultivate this or that energy from this or that movement or practice ... it's "very difficult" because it is unfamiliar to you to feel such energies ... masters will meet you in hotel rooms charging hundreds of bucks to show you this practice to make this energy. But this has nothing to do with spirituality because you don't change, your energy system may change, but you yourself do not change. It is like buying an expensive esoteric fur coat. Because it seems "very difficult" - and because you have discovered something you won't see it on msn ... you may feel like it is amazing or the "real thing", you may feel very special ... but it is still not spiritual and you haven't really changed at all ... even if you can fly using these energies. A "master" who can teach you to harness such energies ... he may have absolutely no idea if harnessing these energies will damage your energetic system leading to a slow drain and early death. How would he know? He might sell it to you because it is "very difficult" and "very esoteric" but that does not mean you need it, want it, or it will enlighten you. There are many people who defend lineages, and I suppose there is something maybe good about that ... but many lineages develop power without spirituality, others may develop power with spirituality. And nobody really can tell the difference. People do their thing and follow their lineage ... some follow it over the edge of the cliff, others to "heaven". Such is the low state of mankind that he cannot tell the difference, he does not know what he is looking for. w.r.t the lower dantien, cultivating the energies that flow out of the dantien also has nothing to do with enlightenment of the dantien which does not involve cultivating the energies flowing out ... it is more like self-recognition at the level of the dantien. So you can have a very strange situation where someone with massive qi power has zero spiritual awakening, whereas a total qi nobody can be in the state of dantien self-realisation. Again a very weird state of affairs. Internal arts take thousands of hours to perfect but in the end it is all very very very easy. Yes it is difficult to fully relax, to fully sense inside, to fully this or fully .... it has some "difficulty" ... but it is not really difficult at all, it is fun. Real spirituality is difficult because it involves massive changes to what "you are", rather than "what energy you got". Consider this : I don't believe anyone knows Buddha's actual practice ... he enlightened students in a few days. Nobody can do that anymore. And I see degeneration in all traditions. Light just does not survive here, it is eaten alive and soon. 5 minutes before the patriarch dies already his followers are fighting for the throne. And even if you did know his practice ... where it really leads and what kind of enlightenment he has is an open question. An enlightened monkey may not be a very high being at all. In various places you will find complex diagrams of the purported qigong/neighong/shengong methodologies ... but I think they are mostly garbage ... if you can't feel it inside best to assume it is made up as a kind of advertising. It can take hundreds of hours of intensive work to determine that a tradition or practice is actually not very good - and there does not seem to be any way around this kind of effort that is then discarded, it is the price of being sure. Another thing is w.r.t the secret of the golden flower, in that text the author is giving various specific practices. But today many people teacher the sotgf practice and do completely different practices. This is delusional. I see this in many places. People are selling apples that are labelled oranges, and go home happy. It's quite mad, but that's how people are. The same goes for the Butter meditation of Hakuyu that is contained in the texts of Zen master Hakui ... today there are lineages teaching this but using completely different instructions with completely different results. Crazy. Often insincere people enter into traditions in order to take the lead and lead it over a cliff because they are either vain power-seeking people, or in some cases absolutely hate spirituality. Some of them introduce small modifications to practices which completely destroy them. It is uncommon for someone to take the reigns on the basis of his merit and accomplishment, and few students reach the same height as their teachers. There is a kind of war to find the truth, the barriers are quite large, the unconsciousness on Earth is so thick you can cut it. Okay enough ranting.

Yes it is all conjecture, but all opportunities for trying things out. I don't feel that qigngong is going to lead to flying, nor levitation, these are all quite low things ... although anyone who trains hard give them credit ... but true would involve far great powers or jumping higher. I am talk more of silver surfer flying. Look at my conjectures you could make an experiment with trying to create a qigong body around you, a new structure, and change it's properties and reroute tantien energy into there ... many things to try. That would be one investigation and see what happens. Which would take a considerable amount of effort. But real knowledge has a steep price.

Sure, most people just do what the culture tells them to do. If it tells them to hate Christianity then they will do so. If it tells them to jump in the lake they will do so. If it tells them to be atheists they will do so. Same people in all cases. These people who are automatons of the culture are maybe 85% of people and they will swear on their life that they are acting as individuals.

Would you expand on what exactly you mean by this, how is this mastery used in life ?

What kind of skills might flying require. If you have powerful qi, how can you use that to fly? Conjecturing : could it be that you dissolve the outer body and then are lightweight? Does it involve some sort of qi projection ... for instance that you project a sphere around you with special properties which is beyond the pull of gravity ? Do you re-route qi from the Source directly into thrust coming out of your feet ? Do you create a kind of qi body that consumes neutrinos and converts them to thrust ? Or does it work more existentially by being in a different state of consciousness ... although I consider that cheating. True flying powers must be real in this manifested universe. I don't know, but if you want to fly you will have to find out how it is done. The first stop might be doing something useful in the material world using cultivated qi power.

imo the dangers of qigong sickness are much reduced if you do sitting meditation that cultivates consciousness ... that way your Consciousness is strong no matter the state of your energy or health. However if you do not do that ... then your relative consciousness can be highly disturbed as the qi is modified leading to 'sickness'. The cultivation of Consciousness through sitting meditation gives you an abode that is distinct from the state of your qi. I like this teacher in the videos (Jeffrey something), he has some fantastic forms. I also know (he talks about this on his channel) that he is a Christian and sees that salvation comes from Jesus Christ and that internal arts are a lower category of work.