Seth Ananda

Maybe they no longer cared about riches? I know that for my own workings these days, they are almost never for mundane purposes. Magick as a path also does not garuntee getting good exercise or eating healthily...

When you are new, many many practices can seem boring beyond tears. Your sitting or standing there trying to do something, on faith or curiosity. You read or heard somewhere that if you do certain practices something Interesting will happen. You will feel chi, leave your body or... Now you are trying the practice and are starting to wonder if your info source was either lying or just deluded, wondering why the hell you are standing or sitting there doing this, when you could be doing just about anything else... At this tender stage its weighing a strange practice with unknown and uncertain results VS having Sex, playing computer games, hanging with friends and any number of other awesome ways to spend ones time. The decision is on you. All I can say is I am damn glad that curiosity/faith won out when I was here in my teen years. I read so much about practices and energy, and peoples experiences of them that I just couldn't believe [faith]that they were all lying or deluded, and my curiosity just had to experience it all for myself. So I was absolutely tenacious in learning to feel energy, and a host of other things... I learned to feel energy, had out of body experiences, dialoged and communed with strange entities, been in two places at once, swapped bodies with a lover, experienced being everything, Helped heal people from 'incurable' diseases, pulled entities out of people, cursed my enemies {old days}, aquired desired experiences and Items via Magick, Met my future self, and experienced the Heights of bliss and the depths of utter depravity within my psyche, had massive and blissful heart openings, developed Internal skills I still have to this day. And the friends and lovers I found on the way! Amazing people, big hearts, and some amazing capacities... Not a boring muggle amongst them. {excuse my Harry potter refrence, I just couldn't resist!} As far as I am concerned, the experiences available in these realms are the best in the world and easily make up for the time Invested in gaining them. Even more Important is that every experience [hopefully] makes you think and question, and serves to break down the edifice of conventional and domesticated reality that inhabits the minds of the mundanes, like a terminal possessing entity. This eventually turns you Into a Philosopher. Not the dry academic kind, but in the real sense of the word. A vital and questioning lover and Seeker of Truth, willing to experience anything directly and then see what new questions arise. Willing to plumb the depths and the heights of ones being, and to take nothing on face value. The seeds of a Philosopher may already be within you, as you have heard about an experience and are seeking it out to see for yourself... What starts as a tiny seed may become something huge. Blessings on you path.

Cool, Lakshman joo is great. Singh is a scholar but he is also a practitioner, although you wont get much commentary in his works. He just endeavors to provide the most acurate Interpretations he can. If I remember rightly he is or was friends with my teacher, and they and Lakshman joo studied similar places... hmm or was Singh one of Lakshman joo's students?

I'm a Beats Antique fan!

My KS Teacher says Jaideva Singh's work. Osho's is the worst possible translation in print. He had know Idea about KS or Tantrism, yet thought he was an expert because of his English education. I like Odiers works as well but I believe there are translation errors, as from him it comes from Sanskrit to French to English...

Very cool, Thanks Scotty

Hi Aussie Bums! last week I went to a Bagua class and was thoroughly impressed. It had really good foundation exercises, Internal processes and was way better than the other classes I have been to, at least for learning core principles slowly... Its in the Yizong lineage, and the teacher lived as a full time student with his teacher for several years... {By the way, does anyone know anything about this tradition?} http://www.yizong.org/uk/bagua-zhang.htm He wants to keep it small, but spaces may open up as members of this first batch inevitably drop off. He also doesn't want people without some previous IMA experience. If any Melbourne Bums are interested, please PM me and I can try to get you in

Whats Eva Wongs translation called?

Don't be so sure... The I AM phase is easier to access than people generally realize. I am devoting the year to stabilizing it before moving on...

lol, KO delivered!

I have an Experiment for you to try! For one hour use the words 'the Self' to describe what you normally call ones 'Enlightened Nature'. Imagine that that is what it really means, but be aware that others may use the word with a different meaning attached to it than you...

Yes but there is also no no unchanging Absolute, no no unchanging Self, and no no metaphysical essence. This is what I think you miss, being so conditioned by linguistic constructs describing Reality...

lol wrong! No you haven't. What you have seen is how Your view of self shapes perception and leads to clinging. What you haven't considered is that some people may use the word 'Self' with a very different set of meanings, to what you mean when you say 'Self'. Sure, and I agree. But, this does not apply very well to the meaning of the word 'Self' as used by some Advaitins, albeit not many. Their Idea of Self, goes beyond the IAM, goes beyond the Void or nothingness you speak of, to something beyond concepts, beyond existence/non existence... But you have missed what I said earlier, that he also goes beyond the nothingness. I am not so sure about that. The description of 'Self' they give leaves no possible thing to cling to, not a void, no sense of self, no beingness, no IAM, no anything you can name... It has no positive or negative or neutral qualities so what is there to cling to? How can one grab something within all that and try to make it their permanent self, when the teachings are very clear that none of that is the Self? I personally think you are hung up on words and their definitions. When one decides to pick up Buddhisms 'view', to correct ones perception, one sees the view start to bear fruit. But... In striving to see through all false taints of perception, one can get very over sensitive to anything that smacks of 'Self' language wise. This is fine in a monastery or when solely surrounded by Buddhists, but when talking to others or Investigating other systems, we should try to avoid any Knee jerk reactions to the concepts of Self, and be really careful that we are talking about the same thing, and not two very different concepts hiding under the one word - Self.

I am doing no such thing, and for you to say so indicates that you did not read my post properly. For one, In the Advaita school I was talking about, they refer to dissolving into nothingness as becoming the void, and that is considered an experience, and thus an object to be transcended... Again, this is your Belief systems and Dogma at play. You just believe this because Buddhism told you this, and I do also think it is generally true... What some Advaita schools {definitely not most} refer to as Self, is far removed from any I AM state, which they have very clearly laid bare stabilized and then moved past...

Bump! where are those recipes?

It all sounds good and smooth to me anamatva Continue to enjoy, and don't stress if the effects seem to die down for periods, its perfectly natural and cyclical in its intensity... Especially in a system that seems to be quite clear like yours. Also dont take on too much from others experiences of K. You are not 'Supposed to' experience the knots being pierced for Instance. Just Trust and Surrender to her continuously and what is supposed to happen will happen all in its own good time...

Hehe, thanks Taomeow, you always come through with the goods! The most memorable forest meal I remember having {aside from once being forced to eat dog whilst on a survival camp} was Trout tickling then eating eating it raw for lunch like Smeagol in lord of the rings. I got hunting and basic fishing down, including hunting with spears or bows, but I am wishing to know about foods that don't take time, so one can just meditate... When I read about the hermit living on crushed pine needles, I thought, wow, seriously simple... The kidney thing is concerning though...

Wow, this is great! Thanks everyone, and keep it coming Also I have been trying to dig up the Interview, I was sure I had book marked it but i have not found it yet... lol

I get tired of it as well. I think the divide between experience and philosophy can be very huge. For Instance two Philosophies can 'talk' about a set of real world 'experiences' that are actually very close to each other, but with all the words can start to make them sound like they are worlds apart. Some Buddhists here sometimes sound like they are saying that anyone In the I AM stage of consciousness is just a deluded Asshole. Think about Nissargadatta's teachings for a minute. He First has his students return over and over again to the root awareness, the experiencer or I AM state, The Beingness or Self... "Stabilize the I AM first" he says. Once they get this, then he has them take the very easy next step, of seeing that even consciousness itself is an experience, which Includes the 'Self' 'Beingness' and naturally the 'I AM'. This is Identical to the Buddhists recognizing that consciousness is one of the aggregate... What is Left is not an experience, not an object, not a thing and not observable in any way. Observing is happening, but nothing can be said about it. You cant say it exists, because where is it? You cant say it does not exist, because observing is happening. It is free from the extremes of Existence/Nonexistence and Nihilism/Eternalism. So considering how easy the step is, if you already have the I AM stabilized, who cares about Right View? The proponents here talk as if it is some crucial thing that divides the Bodhisattva's from the deluded Idiots. That is just not True. Some paths like Krishna Menon's direct path Advaita, use the horribly offensive word 'Self' [which reeks of delusion and eternalistic ignorance] to describe Enlightenment but when you analyze their descriptions of the Self, you see again, that they are describing something outside all categories, experiences and Samadhi states... Some here may object that calling it the 'Self' will engender deep clinging, but when you actually take the time to read about they describe this 'Self' you find there is actually nothing to cling to in the description... That said, I Love the Buddhist way of describing the path and Right View. It is very clever, and probably does put in a few safe guards for students who are more Interested in Bliss than in Truth. But any sharp and Inquiring Mind will easily pass the I AM stage with time as well, without the benefit of 'Right View'. Seth.

Here are some of the good ones: [as far as I am concerned, the 'double pigeon' stretch he showed is the crucial lotus prep stretch...] And this is good as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWm6CK6lm3M Good Luck

Anamatva, sounds like it is going well so far, Keep us posted I just wanted to chime in and dispel a few myths. 1. Feeling kundalini start in the tail bone is very common. Some people feel it start in the big Toe. Plenty of old texts describe it as living in the Kanda, which according to the texts you are reading may be in one of several different places. Several put the Kanda right in the position of the Lower Dan Tien, which fits the experience of many who through meditating on and building the charge in LDT then felt it suddenly rush down to the perineum, or to the tip of the spine, and then up the spine, as their Kundalini awakening. Some were like "Holy shit! That's not the microcosmic Orbit, what the Hell is that!!?" 2.kundalini is not always ecstatic, some experience crazy fireworks in terms of effects but feel very level headed, clear and dry... 3.Kundalini is not always a certain color - total misconception. Just because one traditional teacher says one thing doesn't make it an absolute truth. Often down there road there is another traditional teacher who says something different... And lastly just because you possibly don't experience some of the written about phenomena at first, doesn't mean you wont later... Have Fun!

One of the great things about it is that with Angola you can see 80+ year old people practicing it. They look so relaxed as they do slow cart wheel kicks... No broken hips in that community... Capoiera Angola is the traditional and slower, less acrobatic form and is a superb body maintenance system.

I have said before, I love Full Lotus. Do I think it is necessary? No. Why? There are enlightened adepts from many traditions that Never sat in Full lotus. Does saying that make me an authority? No, but it does make me clear headed! That said, I think the benefits of full Lotus are so significant that it is definitely worth the effort to be able to be comfortable in the position. All it takes is loose hip flexors. All that takes is a few minutes of stretching each day. Whats the worst thing that could happen? That when you sit down to do your hip stretches, you may enjoy the process and end up doing a longer stretching session of the rest of your body as well!!! When I sit in lotus, my LDT becomes really hot, in maybe 5 seconds? And everything starts from there, the longer I sit...

Hey Rainbowvein thanks for that little diagram Cool Subject. My Seventh Day Adventist great grandpa lived to 106, was a life long vegetarian, did a one mile walk, 10 pushups and 10 situps every morning right till the end. He had all his faculties and never really got got sick.

Congratz! Please keep us informed of your further adventures