alexandrov

no offense bodyoflight but I think while this kind of practice may be useful for very few people it will likley do far more harm then good to the average westerner.

Your views on sexual energy to me seems grossly oversimplified. Many people in the west have so many sexual blockages and problems already that if they are not taken care of before trying to eliminate lustful desires or activate kundalini that these practices will most likley backfire. As a person who has known many westerners (and been one myself) trying the whole eliminate lust business id say ive seen a 90% failure rate. And many times the failure itself is not benign and peoples sexual centers become all screwed up and blocked or they end up being perverted in some way or another. Even if none of these things happen these people tend to be very awkward socially especially when interacting with the opposite sex even if they were not before.

Im not saying its a bad practice I just think its unsuitable for the vast majority of westerners living a modern lifestyle. ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT RULE IN CULTIVATION I HAVE REALIZED IS THAT JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING SOUNDS GOOD IN THEORY DOES NOT MEAN IT WILL WORK FOR A PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL IN PRACTICE.

If you think this practice is for you and you notice no detrimental side effects then i say go for it, however today there are so many people who stick to a practice because they have fanatically instilled some notion in their head that it will give them certain specific reults as promised WHILE IGNORNIG ANY DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS THAT MAY OCCUR BECAUSE OF THE PRACTICE. they ignore the detrimental effects because they believe so strongly that a particular practice WILL give them exactly what they want.

thinking in terms of wasted energy etc is far too simple and is a very common mistake many people make in my opinion, for most westerners they need to focus on better QUALITY sexual energy and interactions before they start focusing on quantity, otherwise most of us just end up with a lot of very destructive energy inside ourselvs.

yes stop the excercises

i can almost 100% guarantee its because of kegels or jelqing

5 years ago i did a lot of kegels religiously for many months and still my muscles around the prostate are not fully recovered and i still sometimes leak semen in the urine. Kegels can cause plenty of problems in some men, dont beleive every technique you read just because it might work for some does not mean it will work for you the same way. especially if you are experiencing something serious like that, your body is showing sure signs of problems.

I say stop now before you cause yourself more harm. If the problem does not go away after a few months of rest i recommend getting a crystal wand to treat any trigger points you may have caused in your muscles.

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/1712-crystal-in-uranus-illuminating-the-male-pelvis/

crystal wand can be read about here

It really seems to me that you like many men i have talked to have caused dysfunction of your pelvic muscles particularly the ones near your prostate.

let us know what happens

I think the problems are largely caused by imbalanced growth of humanity in that our head intelligence has grown very quickly with all sorts of technological and scientific advancements over the generations which have the potential to do much good, while our emotional side or heart has remained retarded. So there has been growth it's just our emotional development has to catch up quickly or there will always be big problems and I guess it is our job in our generation to help that process along and correct the imbalance.

thats a great observation, I had never thought of things in this manner

Some books also mention "raise the anus" to close the Huiyin point to prevent Qi leaking. The principle is correct in theory but the method is wrong and can lead to bowel and bladder problems such as incontinence or constipation. A preferable method is to gently squeeze the toes, which tightens the thighs and buttocks and closes the Huiyin safely. The seated Lotus position also serves the same purpose; keeping the Qi in the upper body to nourish the internal organs.

this is why hard pc or bs muscle squeezes ex chia et al can really cause serious problems in ones muscles

Yes, Testicle breathing converts sperm into jing, which are not the same thing. Sperm is made from jing, but is not jing. The goal of testicle breathing is to reconvert that sperm back into the jing from which is was formed. Then you do the cold draw which is to draw that jing into your MCO which then has the effect of converting this jing into chi.

 

Generally in TCM nocturnal emission is considered a result of kidney yin deficincy. Now I can't see why doing testicle breathing before bed would cause that so what I think it may be is rather than a true kidney yin deficiency it could be a excess of yang thus producing a relative yin deficency. The reason I say this is because male sexual energy is yang, which causes me to suspect that you are not fully completing the converstion process into jing, and thus leaving an excess of male yang sexual energy in your system. If you enter a yang state while awake you can have more conscious control over dealing with it, but if you enter this state before bed then you obviously have less control over it, and the nature of male yang sexual energy is to expand outside the body.

 

If this indeed be the situation I believe that you would benefit from prolonging the amount of time you do testicle breathing just a little to ensure you complete the converstion process completely, and then be sure to run that jing in your MCO which will help convert that jing to chi. Hope that helps, good luck.

I forgot to mention that I do not do testicle breathing or anything afterwards other then bringing the chi i put into the testes back out and putting it into the dantien. doing testicle breathing or bringing the hot sperm energy up may prevent the emissions when i put chi in the testes at night, i am not sure. But like I said I ejaculate like once a week right now and I dont put chi into the testes very often at night so im not concerned if it causes me nocturnal emissions if on occasion i practice at night. Also I am not trying to practice semen retenion right now. Just to clarify when i say i am putting chi in the testes it is not the same as testicle breathing and the prctice involves putting warm/hot chi from the dan tien down to the testes and increasing it there till the testes get warmer and feel full with chi (only way i really know how to descibe) for at least 15 min at a time.

I think your explaination could possibly explain what is happenig in my case I am not sure, but like i said right now i am just concerned with fixing my prostate/testicle problems before trying retention and the like. In the past i did testicle breahing, the big draw, mco, pranayama to bring hot sperm into the body etc. I had relative suces with all of these except the pc excercises involved in the big draw which caused my prostate probs. Its funny i could do the big draw for long periods in the day but because the pc squeezes screwd up my muscles in the area i could still have emissions but almost nothing would come out.

as a side note matt I just read on another thread your sucess with testicle breathing compared to the hot draw/big draw. I fin this very interesting and i personaly prefer more yin method myself.

thanks for the help

Well basically doing testcle breathing/ cold draw sends chi down the the testicles which in turn converts your sperm into jing. My first thought was to say not to leave the chi there when you are finished, but you already said that you do not do this. When I practice the cold draw it makes everything down there shrivel up and get pretty small, and though I am not 100% sure, I do believe that this is the result of the jing conversion as jing is less dense than sexual fluid.

 

As just an aside, yesterday I just finished 100 days of doing the testicle breathing/ cold draw. So as to not retain longer than is healthy I decided to relase what I had in there. Most unusual thing..... it was all prostate fluid, and no sperm at all!! I did not expect this, but then I was kind of like "oh well I guess the conversion process has been working effectively".

 

So back to your concern, I do believe that what are you are doing is beneficial to your problem. Its always good to run your converted jing through your MCO once you finish, cause I notice that if I leave too much chi in the perinium / root chakra area where the prostate is that I tend to get aroused much easier (this could explain your increased occurance of nocturnal emission).

Are you sure thats what the cold draw does? I was under the impression that the warm draw of bringing the heat (dense hot feeling chi) from the sex organs into the head then recirculating it through the body was a jing to chi conversion? I also thought the cold draw helped turn jing to chi as well? I thought the goal of both the cold and hot draw was to take the sperm energy "ching chi" and convert it to chi usable for the rest of the body? I mean jing is not sperm but I know that the energy from jing is used to create sperm if im not mistaken? Also this jing can transform into chi right? Or maybe what you are trying to say is that the cold draw takes sperm energy and converts it back to jing to be converted to chi?

This is why I was thinking that possibly what I was doing is taking bodily chi and converting it to jing or somehow supercharging the production of sperm, I really have no idea though

I have a question.

 

If your side effect is always that you have nocturnal emissions this should indicate something to you.

 

Nocturnal emission is "generally" considered an imbalance symptom.

I am not sure that I can agree with your conclusion that this result is a positive one.

 

If you are doing retention, obviously having emission will change the state of your hormonal system. Again I think in general what you are describing is an imbalance.

 

Craig

I only always get nocturnal emissions when i do this practice close to before i sleep. If I do this earlier in the day nocturnal emissions dont happen. I am not practicing semen retention right now and I ejaculate like once a week on average. I did not come to the conclusion that this practice is positive only that it seems to temporarily relieve some of the issues I have. I only do it very infrequntly and it is not something I do on even a monthly basis. It could very well be an imbalance I create by doing this practice, I am not sure. Everything I have stated about how I think that the emissions are possibly due to the heating of the testes caused by this practice are all merely conjecture on my part and I do not take them as facts. I am just trying to figure out what is going on when i do this practice.

thank you all very much for your thoughtful replies and help

Hello

great to have you here, I know you used to teach in the Washington DC area, wish you were still around!

anyways you have many fans here, welcome!!!

Right, make sure these exercises aren't the things causing the prostate issues. Or perhaps other practices.

chias pc exercises using hard pc excercises just like he recommends caused my problems if you want to know.

I wonder what are the implications of energizing the testicles on procreation. Good or Bad? Encourage your best swimmers...

this techniques def does do something to the testes because like I said if I do it close to night I will always have a nocturnal emission. It could possibly be that the heating of the testes has a similar effect a hot tub would, thus making some sperm inviable (killing them) and thus they are flushed out in a nocturnal emission the same way they happen after you stay in a hot tub for too long.

Right, make sure these exercises aren't the things causing the prostate issues. Or perhaps other practices.

 

If so, it could be a sign to stop. There's often alot of warnings for actual problems but they can be easy to miss.

no, I had problems long before I tried this excercise out, so there is no way it caused the problems, however there is a potential it could make things for me worse but so far it has only helped

if you feel like sharing:

what do you mean by 'issues with your prostate and testes?'

 

I'm assuming prior to doing the exercises right?

by this I mean that I have prostate problems aka prostatitis and I have pain in the region as well as problems with sexual and urinary function. Just for clarification I am not using this technique to supress lust or reduce or increse sex drive if thats what you might be thinking.

I do this excercise at random times really not in relation to my pain or anything. Intuitively I feel it can help with some of my problems, I did not learn this from a book or teacher or anything I just made it up that is why I am a bit concerned.

This interesting mechanism of enzymatic systems turning on and off in response to exposure explains many phenomena people observe when they go on this or that funky diet, lose the ability to digest a normal food, and then when they try and discover it makes them feel bad, draw the conclusion that they've become superhealthy and supersensitive and therefore what they can no longer process was "bad" to begin with. However, in many cases all it takes to get back the enzymes and digest the food without any problems is gradual small-portion reintroduction of the item, and within days the body gets a clue. Enzymatic systems do not work for nothing -- no exposure, no enzymes, we don't waste valuable resources on complex metabolic pathways (which enzymatic ones are) which we don't use. This is worth remembering for someone who's been a vegetarian for a while, e.g., or raw foodist, or alternatively, never ate anything raw that in our culture is not usually eaten raw.

yes i think this is very true from people I have seen

well i wouldent keep the energy there. maybe explain your situation to a chi kung teacher, or acupuncturist and see what can be done

no i definitely do not leave the energy there and always move it back to the dan tien. ya my situation is pretty much under control, though i am still trying to find a good acupuncturist or chi gung master in the washington dc area.

Ok so because of issues i have with my prostate and testes one thing I sometimes do is to put chi in my testes. this warms them up a great deal and also relives some pain temporarily. The technique is very simple and is just deep breathing combined with moving warm chi to the testes. The chi takes a while to travel down the veins/spematic cords or whatever to actually get to the testes but once its there it feels "right" and it feels like this practice helps my condition. One side effect of this practice is that during practice my testes can shrink to about 1/2-1/3 of their normal size and get pulled close to the body especially on exhalations. This goes away immediatly after practice and I think is do to large amounts of blood temporarily somehow leaving the testes and going into the body. Another side effect is that i will always get nocturnal emissions if I do this before going to bed.

I am just wondering if anyone knows if what I am doing is safe or is something that has potential dangers? As a side note I have been doing chigung for years with no ill effects. The only problem I ever had was with the PC muscle squeezes from Chia, and not the energy exercises themselves although I am no fan of most of what chia teaches or any forceful techniques. other then that microcosmic orbit is open along with leg channels arms etc etc to the best of my knowledge.

I have tried and heard of other testicle chigung techniques such as scrotal compression and testicle breathing etc etc, but this is far more powerful for directly effecting the testes and really really gets a lot of chi in the testes especially if done for like an hour.

Also anyone know on a theoretical level what this is doing?

thank you

I am surprised no one mentioned this already

I brush my teeth with sticks. I use licorice roots, peelu tree, and dogwood ocasionally (its free from my yard)

It is a very old practice brushing the teeth with tree sticks. the native americans did it with dogwood primarily, in islamic countries its called miswak and they use various types of trees especially peelu and neem.

its a big deal in most islamic countries and even prophet mohammad is said to have 4 main practices miswak being one of them.

here is a link with some basic info http://www.dentalhealthsite.com/what-is-miswak/

and another one from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak

ive been using this instead of toothbrushes for years. its much softer on the teeth and does a better job in getting rid of plaque for me. it is also used to massage the gums which i find is good for bloodflow. most kinds also have antimicrobial properties in their bark and wood. now if i try using a toothbrush it seems far too harsh for me

licorice root (gan cao)is the one i use most often it has a sweet taste inside and a yellow color. The sweet taste is from glycerhizzya sp? a nonsugar sweet substance. the outside bark has a bitter taste

anyways i was wondering if this practice f using sticks to clean the teeth would be as good as non glycerin soap in allowing the teeth to re-enamalize??? the sticks will clean your teeth pretty good.

to use then you just chew the top of a stick for a few minutes then this portion magically turns into a brush

so sorry to hear about this Santiago, my greatest condolences and all my love to

you, your son, and your family

I had no idea this kind of thing was going on

over the past 2 years I have developed the ability to feel some of the TCM qualities in foods after ingesting them.

One food I can not figure out is horseradish. All the sources I have found list it as a "hot" food, but I do not think it has the same effects on my body as say cayenne, garlic, onion, or other commonly known hot spices.

Most other radishes are classified as having a cooling nature and I have found that radishes have the ability to "clean out heat" from my lower burner area. Based upon my own experience horseradish has this same lower burner heat clearing ability whereas things like garlic and onion create what I describe as "noxius stagnant heat" in the lower burner area. Any ideas?

This is most interesting

It would be great if someone posts a review on this material

I have thought about this too from a similar perspective.

 

Basically, that our desire to have children is not just the desire for sexual experience, but to live on through them in some way.

 

I think alexandrov's ideas have real validity on a deep (possibly evolutionary) level. Though it may not be conscious for some people, I think having kids is a way for people to deal with the reality of death and achieve a kind of immortality. I'm not suggesting this is necessarily valid metaphysically speaking. But, it is possible that we have evolved a reason to have children beyond mere sexual impulse, one that stems from our fear of death and a desire for part of our spirit (or genetic information) to live on through our children.

excellent thoughts, yes you basically summed up in a way something similar to what i was trying to describe in my original post, that there may be some evolved reason, being biological or metaphysical or whatever for us to have kids that has to do with our own individual immortality.

I dont feel this at all. I feel it is something to do with having a huge amount to give. And then some more to give.

 

Hagar got it right. Except I'd add that I feel it is a huge massive priveledge to have children, to get the chance to feel that much love in one's heart, for life.

ok i know my posts come off as cold but im simply trying to look at OTHER reasons for having kids beyond the normally thought of scope. I am not denying that having children is also about giving your all to someone else, etc. I am also not saying that if i was having children myself id approach the whole manner with the kind of reasoning i am using now.

This is absolutely crazy thinking.

 

First of all, there is no guarantee that if you have kids you'll be reborn as one of their descendants. That's not how reincarnation generally works.

 

Secondly, you have a lot of hubris, and in your hubris, you imagine that being your own descendant is a plus. In fact, being your own descendant can be a negative. What if you become a descendant in someone else's family, and that family is a family of enlightened people? Wouldn't that be better? Why would you forgo that simply out of pride for your own bloodline?

 

You worry about becoming an ant too much. That's just a superstition.

 

When you dream, are you an ant in your dreams? No? Then you are not likely to be reborn as an ant. Unless you become obsessed with being reborn as an ant, you won't be.

 

Rebirth is not a punishment. It's not like some God hands down rebirths based on what you deserve. It's nothing like that.

 

Being reborn is no different than walking down the city streets. You go where you turn. If you turn left, you go to the street on your left. The fact that you end up on that street is not a punishment from outside! You went there yourself! Rebirth is like that too. Rebirth is what happens due to your own volition and it reflects your will.

 

OK, so why do sages warn about being reborn in hell? Simple -- many people want to go to hell without knowing it. Many people have contradictory desires, and if you cling to both contradictory desires very strongly, you create hell. So it's not that it's an external punishment, it's just that some people unwittingly use their own volition to will hell upon themselves.

 

So what you should be worried about is this unwitting-ness. You should become more and more aware of what it is you really want and why. This will prevent any kind of "hell" surprise from happening to you.

ok ok its not that i would want to be one of my own descendants and more importantly let me state that i do not believe in the above theory about being reborn as one of my own descendants, its just a thought/question i have about the possibilities of reincarnation. I am not worried about becoming an ant per say that was just an example. the last part of your statement seems to reflect the tibetan buddhism theory on reincarnation ie tibetan book of the dead??

Wow are you being serious right now?

 

edit: more constructively I guess: you really need to reexamine...reevaluate your 'values' IMHO as your current train of thought is in no way a spiritual one, but perhaps ego-fueled pseudo/illusory spiritual, and will only lead you to places you ultimately do not want to be.

 

May the force be with you.

look im just proposing an IDEA, i dont believe in it, its just an idea i had, that i wanted some input on thats all. It just makes some sense to me that because people are so attached to their families and own bodies that they may try to take rebirth in their own bloodline. It could also make sense this way because your bloodline "karma" would be based on how well you raise your kids and also how much wealth you leave with them because that is your work and doing. again just an idea and i wanted input on it

ok if you want to come in here and tell me about my train of thought and worldview based on a few small paragraphs that I wrote in a semi-sarcastic way then i might, again might, because i dont know much anything about you say that you jump to conclusions too quickly. Care to explain your statements? or would your rather just tell me im deluded without knowing anything about me or my worldview and leave it at that like you did? real helpful....

the original post i wrote is in fact written in a hurried and sarcastic manner and it is not 100% serious if you are wondering.

The question you pose reveals a little bag of hidden agendas, like trying to control your reincarnation, and using a blood line to attempt to do so. I'll leave it at this: The only reason valid for choosing to have kids is that you place your kids before yourself, meaning they are more important than you. Basically, you should want to give not gain by having kids. There is nothing really to gain. Its pure sacrifice.

 

1. Having kids in a modern society is about as challenging and thus great vehicle for spiritual practice as one can place oneself in. If I would evaluate what was the most difficult; a. being a reculse eating roots and pine seeds alone in the mountains for 20 years,or b. being a parent in Oslo, my guess would be b. Its Bootcamp.

2. You dont have to worry about the effects of cultivation on your reproductive capacity, nor about your karmic strains. Both are a matter of heresay and belief, not experience.

3. Most people who do have kids didn't plan to, and most who dont have kids whish the had some. But most importantly, being a parent is something granted to you by the universe. We really only give or time to them (or not) and they are on loan.

4. Being present when a child is born is as close you'll ever be to both death and life.

5. Your life is forever changed when you have one, and your old life is gone. period. You'll never have a worry-free day for the rest of your life. But its worth it.

 

That said, I don't know if I'm any happier as a parent than without kids. But probably I've wised up abit.

Thanks for this Hagar

Don't do it. It leads to aggravation and trouble. The embryo might not be created in you

and actually be put in a lower realm, which isn't good. This path is too much trouble. Don't

create something that you might not be able to support.

agreed, except for the embryo part in lower realm i have no idea about that

non my advice to you is this just masturbate every once in a while. I read most of sivanandas stuff and if you practice a "sattvic" diet very strictly without listening to your body's needs you can become extremely unbalanced. especially if you are not doing certain yoga practices.

being someone who has played around with diets, energy techniques etc etc. my best advice to you is to stop thinking about cultivation so much and first learn to have normal social interactions. because to you that is obviously very important. Just stop spending time trying to do things that wont DIRECTLY solve your problems.

I honestly think the best advice i can give you is to be as practical as you can, and work on your self esteem and social interactions. It seems most of your posts are concerned with your lack of self esteem and your desire for a girlfriend. why not aim for these things first, become a more balanced person, THEN concentrate more on cultivation.

i have been thinking recently about having kids. not that im gona have any any time soon or anything, but i have been thinking more along the lines of the reprecussions of having kids. I have found that many of the rather ascetic or austere practices that may have spiritual benefit often are very materially/societally impractical or have some "material" reprecussions. For example long term semen retention is sometimes known to cause the retraction of the genital organs into the body......possibly permanently, and it may take away some of the male seondary sex characteristics if practiced to the extreme level. being vegetarian or avoiding certain foods (im thinking spicy mainly) may make your chakras glow brighter or whatever and you might have more pure chi, but often can lead to other imbalances like weak digestive fire, and weak kidney yang, lack of fat soluble vitamins etc etc. These kind of practices may benefit some people in certain situations but probably lead to more problems especially if practiced by ordinary people. For the common man with too little time to devote to serious spiritual practice the middle way seems to be best in almost all areas of life (this has been my own experience). If one has proper instruction from a real teacher and has the time and willpower to devote themselvs to rather austere practices and such practices do not put too much stress on the mind and body then what i have said may be invalid in such situations.

Now my point here is this I dont want to have kids, because im too lazy and dont have the resources, but but if having kids conferrs some sort of material "spiritual" advantage such as being able to be reborn as one of your descendants than i may consider it. i dont want to end up being the guy who didnt end up having kids and reincarnated as an ant or whatever because i didnt create a "material" line so to speak to come back to. just an idea i dont know how valid it is.

I think being ascetic for the sake of being overly ascetic or trying to seek some kind of spiritual benefit from it is generally to be avoided by ordinary folk. I know people who have screwed up their health, social lives, etc etc because they try to be more spiritual and they were not ready, did not have the time, could not cope with the stress etc.

So the question is kids? have em or not?

and why???

The other confusing thing is the number of bogus traditions, like Freemasonry which claim to be unbroken back to Egypt when clearly they are a 16-17th Century invention. So I agree with you there.

ok maybe freemasonry does not in fact go back to ancient egypt...i would not know, but officially most masons do not claim that they do go back to egypt. And even if they do not I think its a bit harsh to say masonry is a bogus tradition. how can you be sure of this?

an interesting and not often discussed aspect of masonry from the former supreme commander of the southern jurisdiction of the scottish rite.......

but I guess you can ask- who is more powerful? The person who stays as far away from temptation as possible, or the person who is surrounded by it but maintains the integrity of what he or she is trying to accomplish?

 

Good cases can be made for both sides of the argument.

this is something i often wonder and i think different systems are better suited for different individuals

I am surprised freemasonry and rosicrucianism discussions have not appeared more on this thread. maybe some masons or rosicrucians with experience with the eastern traditions could chime in.......Darin? Jedi777?

please if you would more pie give us a link to an old thread or tell us more about your deep trance work

I know you have talked about it before and even mentioned using a specific kind of chair to get better results as i recall, so i apologize for being lazy in advance.

thanks