kakapo

Most paths do not do anything at all, good or bad. The few paths that do anything at all, can be very very dangerous if you are not able to follow instructions to the letter. To know which practices are legit, you should be demanding good hard evidence that the practice does something. If no such evidence exists you should pursue some other practice.

Some systems teach it is necessary to absorb yin chi, which is required to develop in those systems. Some systems do not have such a requirement or belief. I guess it boils down to which teacher, and teaching you believe is accurate.

When I say grounded I meant electrically grounded, it's easy to test if you are electrically grounded. There are plenty of times we are not electrically grounded.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle spoke of the Telos, or ultimate purpose of something. To Aristotle the Telos of an acorn was an oak tree. Imagine the journey of an acorn, how profound and powerful it is. An acorn falls to the earth, and embeds itself in the soil. It pushes it's roots into the soil, and it's shoots into the sky. It hungrily absorbs water, and minerals from the soil, and sunlight and air from the sky. It is able to capture and direct the energy of the sunlight so that it does it's bidding. What does it command this energy to do? It commands it to grow. It hungrily grows more roots, and more shoots, and more leaves, and a bigger trunk. It drinks the sunlight, it drinks the air, it drinks the water, and consumes the minerals. With exquisite precision and intelligence it directs the flows of energy, and grows, and grows and grows. One day many years later it has become a mighty oak tree. While some might read this and assume it is a metaphor for something, I mean it more in a literal sense. The view is that humans are not born with an immortal soul, but rather an acorn. For most humans their acorn never grows because it is never given sunlight, air, water, or soil. The goal would be to grow your acorn into a mighty oak before your physical body dies. That would be to fulfill your Telos, or ultimate purpose as a human being.

When you become an adult you have abilities you did not have when you were a child. Imagine when you grow up you can stay up as late as you want, and eat as much ice cream as you want. While this is true, it is hardly the purpose of becoming an adult. Training in an authentic and legitimate system, might lead to abilities but it isn't the point of the system.

A teaching or lineage being old doesn't make it legit. There were plenty of delusional people back in ye olden times. The advice I would give my younger self would be not to waste your time on a teacher or practice unless there is compelling evidence it does something, personal testimony is not good enough.

The decent argument is that worldwide there are only a small handful of schools and teachers that do something more than placebo.

I would be happy to have that conversation with you, but it will have to happen outside of this forum. https://old.reddit.com/user/I_Am_Kakapo/ [email protected] You can send me an email, or message me on reddit if you prefer.

Bringing me to my next question, what is it exactly that students expect teachers to do? I’m not sure what people expect from teachers? Siddhis

Obviously we've not tested every teacher. You are correct that posting videos of you performing a Siddhi, and then turning down thousands of dollars to replicate it under controlled conditions doesn't necessarily prove fraud, but it is cause for concern. As a potential student it would appear that the teacher was a fraud if they were not willing to do this. While teachers owe us nothing, it doesn't make sense to invest years of our life and spend oodles of money if there is no good evidence the practice does anything at all. If you disagree, then we can agree to disagree.

10 years ago it was in vogue here on thedaobums. It was all anyone could talk about. Also I suppose a bit of a sunk-cost fallacy, hoping maybe next year he could get the real teachings, and graduate from mantak chia nonsense.

As I've stated repeatedly we've done that, and we've found nothing [Redacted]

If the teacher claims to have a Siddhi, and can post a youtube video of it... It would seem reasonable to allow potential students to investigate under controlled conditions, especially if being offered a ton of cash to do it. From our perspective this indicates trickery is probably being used. You are correct a teacher owes us nothing, but we aren't obligated to pursue scam practices either. One of our members trained for 10 years with a very popular school recommended here, and has nothing to show for it. All the practices he learned were something right out of a mantak chia book.