goldisheavy

The mind's power to create is limitless. Even the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are mind's creations. If the mind can do all that, then talking to an ascended master is piece of cake. But if you know the mind is the source of all appearances, why would you need to talk to a master? If you knew that, then you'd be the master yourself. Hahahaa!

I'll tell you why I did it. I wanted to explore the (what was then) the boundaries of experience, the possibilities. It's one thing to talk about the power of mind and it's another thing to use that power to accomplish something. You must also keep in mind that this "why do it?" question is something you have to ask of things like: Why go to work? Why breathe? Why scratch the itch? Why exercise? Why meditate? Why contemplate? Why want to avoid suffering? Why want pleasure? Why want success? Etc. Don't just limit yourself to "Why astral travel?", because that would be biased. So, if you question mundane actions with the same zeal you question actions you don't fully understand yet, you will make good progress. On the other hand if you question that which you don't understand but don't dispute that which you do, you will be stuck.

Why do you need to do this? What's the motivation for this?

Flying is easy, the hard part is dealing with the consequences of having done so. As soon as you fly even 1 inch, your mind will have to deal with the conflict this action creations with every other belief you hold. The amount of stress and fear this will generate is impossible to describe. However, if you prepare your mind and gently and gradually transform your beliefs through deep contemplation (that is to say, using critical thinking in a quiet, deep, connected. slow, methodical, analytical investigative manner), flying can be as easy as walking or breathing. But by the time it becomes that easy, you won't be a human anymore. You won't be on Earth as you used to know it. You might be on something that looks like Earth and you might look like a human, but you won't be. Don't delude yourself. You should start small with feats that do not jar the mind so much. I suggest you use the mind to heat your hands. Then try to heat your body. Then try to cool the body. Then try something else, like try to fast for 3 days. Use your mind to make fasting into a pleasant and easy and light experience. When you continually apply your mind like that in small ways, eventually you'll get the point that everything you see is just a creation of your mind and that you've never even lived in any substantial place in the first place. You'll understand that feeling substance is a visionary experience, it's basically like a hallucination that you have no reason to question. In order to perform various feats without destroying your health you will also have to learn about the flow of consciousness or Tao. If you fly at the wrong time or for the wrong reason, you can hurt your self-image, that is to say, you can create a health problem. So, you don't go around flinging your power here and there, and nor do you have to conserve it, but the point is to do what is right at the time, and what that is cannot be learned from anyone because ultimately you will have to learn to feel it intuitively on your own. All this takes time and if you strive a little too much or a little too zealously you might become insane. Being insane means you create a conflict in the mind whereby you have uncleared remnants of the old beliefs and also new and vastly conflicting beliefs operating together. This results in disharmony, paranoia, insecurity and so on, because the mind in that state lacks coherence. The good news is that all can be fixed and healed. But do you really have to fry yourself on purpose? The life will fry you just fine, so don't hurry to fry yourself. Anyway, I wish to encourage you. What you want is possible, but the shift in the mindset that's required is so tremendous that I doubt you will find many sympathizers on this forum.

I wouldn't say that. Anyone can become an immortal, but very few will have the genuine motivation, the real intent to become one, because the departure from the mundane mindset is so great, while the benefit from a mortal's point of view is very uncertain and almost fairy tale like. So it's not that people lack the ability, it's that people's beliefs condition the direction and the scope of their intent, which determines the level of motivation and the level of spiritual brilliance the person will experience. The good news is that all the beliefs can be transformed with time. Mind is very creative. Those people that use the power of the mind in small ways see results and gain confidence. Later they attempt bigger creations and again they see results, and again they gain confidence. As long as the practice remains sincere and done with utmost inner honesty (no self-lies), and as long as it is steady, make it into who you are and not just what you do, eventually you get what you want. You have to keep your mind critically thinking though. The reason you need to think critically (which is not the same thing as thinking negatively, it just means thinking carefully and not taking things for granted), is because mind is creative. If you uncritically operate under some assumptions, the mind has a tendency to manifest those assumptions into facts, and you may be none the wiser! You might think you got it, but what you got is just one particular creation of mind! And the only way to see the bigger picture is to challenge your core beliefs and to challenge ALL of your beliefs using your critical thinking ability. Once your beliefs begin to shift, you can experience NEW facts as the mind creates NEW reality. This new reality is just as right and just as valid as the old one, and then you begin to understand that the life is a visionary experience, that it is empty of substance (that is to say, nothing is fixed) but full of radiance and natural play. Also, with regard to the astral travel, whether or not you become a Ghost depends on your intent. It's not easy to become a Ghost accidentally if you don't want to become one, and also, being a Ghost is not so bad anyway. You don't need to eat and drink and you might miss the feeling of substance (feeling of substance doesn't mean there is actual substance though!) and so on. I don't advocate becoming a Ghost, but it's not something that anyone should be scared of. Astral travel is a good thing to do at least once just so you know how powerful the mind is. Then if you want to turn that into a practical skill, you can. If not, you got the point about the power of the mind, and you can move to another exploration. No need to be afraid. Human life is not so precious anyway. It's good, I would say, but to say it's precious would imply one should never let it go, and that's just not the case. Life in general is precious, but this preciousness and this generality includes so many diverse things into it, that the saying is almost meaningless.

This seems interesting. Good luck on your efforts! I'd like to hear more about your teacher, like his personal life story, etc., his views and so on.

If you ask a question like "Am I working enough?" I have to ask "What are you trying to accomplish?" For example, if you want to go from east coast USA to the west coast, and you travel by car, and you cover say 1000 miles a day, you are doing enough if you want to reach your destination in 3 days, but not enough if you want to reach it in one day, roughly speaking. In other words, whether or not something is enough or not, depends completely on your intent.

That's very charitable of you. The way he was talking he didn't strike me as someone who sees it as a process of recognition, it seemed to me that he really believed that he had to reattach separate parts of his being back together to form a whole, like gluing together a broken vase or something like that. I don't like this "working through karma" talk. It's nonsense. Karma just means intent. What does "Working through intent" mean? It means nothing. Intent is what motivates the work so how can the motivating force behind work, work through itself. It just makes no sense. However what you reasonably can do is to understand the nature of your intent. This is a contemplative process where you ask yourself questions like these: Does my intent have a beginning? Does it end? If yes, then when intent ends, are you in a state of unintentionality, and if intent begins again, is that beginning an intentional or an unintentional one? If intent starts unintentionally, how is it intentional, but if unintentionality can be entered into intentionally through relaxation how is it still unintentionality? If intent has no beginning and no end within a person, can we say that multiple people have multiple intents? If that were the case, how would they be resolved to one reality? Etc. Asking questions like this would also be accompanies by actually doing experiments with your intent. You can make a hypothesis about your intent and then use your intent to test it. Etc. After a long while of this the limiting ways in which we allow our minds to structure the intent begin to melt away (but don't take my word for it, you really have to investigate intent for yourself in order to have an authentic experience). The last thing a questioning spiritual person will do is to use their intent to move some energy around. Instead, the first order of business is to investigate intent. Maybe after you investigate it you will realize that it just makes no sense to shuffle the energy around. It's like if you have some object and you pick it up and start hammering away. But what you should do is to take a look at it. Is it a hammer? Maybe it is a feather or scissors or maybe it's a pen, and if so, you are dumb to be hammering away in a hurry. Before you use a tool, examine the tool. Intent is a tool. Examine it. Don't just use it to shuffle energy this or that way. That is not wise. This is the process of clarifying one's intent. It's a very deep and transformative process. "Working through karma" is a completely wrong way to put it. Putting it that way just obscures that which should be examined. It mystifies something that shouldn't be mystified. There is mystery of course! But you don't have to create mystery with confused language! The mystery is there even if you use simple and clear language that edifies and elucidates instead of obscuring the meaning behind the foreign words few people understand properly. Do you know the difference between karma and karma vipaka? Without looking it up? If not, you should not be using those terms.

Simply put a mortal is a being who perceives conditions for birth and death. An immortal is someone who does not. To a mortal, life is attached to an identity. For example, a mortal thinks "Bob is alive". The mortal does not think "there is life". So life is always ascribed to an identity or to an agent that is considered to be the one "alive". Due to this kind of perception, because the agents have causes and conditions for their arising and dispersal, these are called birth and death, correspondingly. So how would you become an immortal? Essentially you have to question the boundaries of your identity. Where does you stop and the world begin? Is there a boundary? What is you? What is not you? How can you know what is not you if all you feel is your own mind? If you feel things that are not your own mind, how do you know what is your mind and what is not your mind? Etc. These are the kinds of questions you should ask. After you realize that identities are not what they seem to be, you will later realize they don't have a clear starting and an ending point. At this point you will lose your identity as a mortal and become an immortal. You won't have a clear identity and nor would you be clearly without one either. You'll see. Another way to put it is this -- an immortal is someone who does not share the concerns of mortals. In the true yin and yang fashion, in order to know what an immortal is you have to know what a mortal is. They both depend on each other in terms of cognition.

My intent was not so much to discredit your perception or your wisdom, but rather to shift the emphasis back to you. I don't know. But since you are questioning, I like to think that question is not a waste of time. And if so, simply by asking that question you confirm what I am saying in some way. Right there in order for you to make a statement like that and be honest while making it, you must sincerely believe that mind, body and spirit are 3 separate parts. This is a problematic assumption that somewhat constrains your perception of Tao. What you see is still Tao, but you don't see all that it could be if you cannot move beyond the assumption of separateness. Imagine I put in front of you a bucket of water. Then I tell you, look here, there is water at the top of the bucket and there is water at the bottom, and there is water in the middle of that bucket. We need to integrate this water so that there is just one water and not 3 parts of water. What am I doing wrong? Well, first I have erected a mental boundary that doesn't actually exist in the water. Second, since I now hold this mental boundary in my mind as if it were a fact, I have now created the conditions in my life and in my mind that make it seem possible and that make it seemingly necessary to reintegrate the split up water parts. You see, the need to integrate was a creation of my mind. It's not a real necessity. It's a necessity born of delusion. Should I cure myself of thinking that water has some kind of real boundaries in it, the need to integrate the water will vanish together with that delusion. I hope this makes sense. All boundaries are mental. If you don't believe me, please show me a physical boundary. The concept of a boundary is that boundaries have no extension in space. Since they have no extension in space, they are mental. I hope this is clear. It's like having meridians on the Earth. How thick are they? They have no thickness, therefore we cannot see the meridians, but you can see them on a model of Earth, like a little rotating globe you can buy at the store. Those lines on it are drawn by men, they are not actually on our Earth. The lines have thickness. And if you zoom in, those lines are not even solid, they are just dots of paint. If you zoom in further, those dots are not dots either, they are splotches. If you zoom in further, the edge of the splotch is not clear. And if you zoom in even more, you cannot even be sure where the atoms are. The point is, the crispiness of boundaries is an illusion. You should investigate the nature of boundaries and see for yourself. It only makes sense to collect something if it comes as separate parts. If you are one whole, there is nothing that needs collecting. Also, having a task before oneself, such as a task to collect something, is a recipe for a busy life that will be far away from peace that you seek. To find peace you have to enter, authentically and not by trying to pretend your way into it, a state of mind where there is nothing that NEEDS to be done. Nothing to collect. Nothing to disperse, etc. That is a state of effortlessness because in that state you don't have mandatory tasks. You can still invent tasks, but they will be ornamental and not seen as dire necessities. When you perform tasks for purely ornamental reasons, life is so very different. Then you will taste what it means to be an immortal. Immortals don't fear death and do not do anything to preserve themselves or any aspect of themselves. Immortals have no need to protect their egos or bodies or energies or any such thing. If an immortal felt a dire need to conserve energy, that would imply a threat of death should that conservation effort be abandoned. An Immortal is someone whose mind is not occupied by threats of any kind. I hope I make it clear. Someone who perceived a condition under which his life ends is a mortal, not an immortal. An immortal is someone who cannot find a condition for either birth or death and therefore has nothing to protect and nothing to dismantle either.

Not quite. Those myriad of things have never departed or separated themselves from Tao. In other words, the Tao is as whole as it ever was and nothing was damaged or improved. It's possible, but the process is not one of integration but one of questioning. As you question your understanding of good and bad and your core beliefs, gradually the boundaries begin to blur under the power of your own wisdom. So it's not like you take one side and smear it with some glue and attach it to another side. That's not how it goes. What happens is a transformation of vision. It's like you've had a finger on your eye ball pressing all your life, because you were taught that if you stop pushing your eye ball you will go blind. And due to this pressure everything appears to be split in half. Then you remove the finger, even thinking you might die from it, but instead of dying, the vision of halves dissolve into the vision of whole. No parts were there to be glued together. There was nothing to integrate. Just take off the pressure and wholeness appears as a vision. Both wholeness and separateness are visions of mind. There are no chunks of yourself or of the world or of your energy that have to be glued together. The process is so easy and simple. Just contemplate. Just examine your beliefs. It's not esoteric even if it does gain you entry into an esoteric realm. In other words, a simple and straightforward process results in all the mysteries. Now that I said this, it's all a bunch of hearsay. For anyone who reads this, if you don't feel it in your own wisdom, it's all just pure speculation and fanciful daydreaming.

The problem you are having is that you believe there is a specific shape that the flow has, and you either match that shape or you have a mismatch. However, by definition, everything flows within Tao. Nothing is outside Tao. Disharmony is a kind of harmony within Tao. For example, if you clap your hands, to someone who only sees hands and does not know that the hands could be attached to a person, it can look like the two hands are fighting. But if you know that both hands belong to the same person, the meaning changes from "hands fighting" to an "applause". Just one additional bit of information and the meaning can flip diametrically. So are you happy with what you did or not? Have you investigated the matter in your own mind? That's more important than to solicit validation or invalidation from a forum. Of course it's good to accept input on your actions, but you don't have to confirm every itch with everyone around you. It is possible to make your own mistakes and take responsibility. After all the point is what? Why are you asking? You want to avoid making a mistake, right? Why not embrace the mistakes instead? Mistakes will sometimes happen. You learn and move on. But it is insane to try to prevent all mistakes. Mistakes are part of Tao. Uncertainty is part of Tao. There is that which is clearly defined and that which is not. Not all movement within Tao is straightforward. There is some aspects of order and some aspects of chaos, but Tao is beyond order and chaos -- it is not limited by these concepts. If you understand what the flow is, you understand there is no way you can act against it, because your desires and intentions are part of the flow and not something outside. Being stupid and making mistakes is part of the flow. Correcting oneself and learning is also part of the flow. Nothing is outside.

There is a connection between what happens "in nature" and how we feel and what we intend to happen and what we believe to be true. Someone who is mindful and contemplative can begin to notice the general flow of mind/experience. So before the cup gets broken they already feel it in their heart that it will break or something similar will occur. In other words, these experiences are not necessarily surprising because you can feel the general flow and you can also guide this flow using your intent. The problem with most beings is that they don't know what's good and what's bad, so they have no idea where to guide it, or they think they know, but they don't. It's like in that parable where a man had a horse who ran away and then later came back with another horse. Then his son broke his leg riding the new horse and then the war started the son couldn't be conscripted due to a broken leg. Each time people kept thinking this is lucky or think it is unlucky, but they didn't know, because there is never a conclusion in life. So the whole point of guiding one's life is to not make any effort to guide it using one's own preconceptions, and then it is well guided, and this state is intentional, because one can just as easily intend to wrestle with life. So when the wrestling stops, it's just as intentional. When the prejudiced guiding stops, that's also a type of guiding and not non-guiding.

I agree with you. Because I also believe that, I want to separate Sufis from Muslims. I think many Muslims are themselves actually hostile to Sufis. There have been a number of Sufis who were harmed by the Muslims, if I am not mistaken. Sufis like Rumi are wonderful people to my mind. I think if Rumi showed up here we could have a good time discussing things. Rumi wouldn't be here telling us that Chi is jinn possession. I don't think Rumi even talked about jinns.

What is logical about it? He just makes a series of unsupported statements. For example he says, "I have been a practioner of the martial arts for over a decade, and that also includes spontaneous Chi Kung. The Chi they utilize is not a harmonious, benevolent, all prevailing, invisible energy/force which flows binds and permeates throughout the Universe, but rather a sentient life form unto themselves (nor are they discarnate spirits of the dead as is commonly believed in the west) which religions around the world and communities & civilizations throughout history have commonly termed Spirits, Jinns or Demons." And I would say, that's precisely what Chi is! Included into that force are the phenomena of sentience, which are also benevolent at the highest level of insight. Even if you kill the cow to make burgers, you wouldn't say the cow is malevolent, would you? This guy is possessed by Islam in the same way a Qigong practitioner is possessed by Qi. There is no difference at all. Islam is basically a jinn energy, because it moves into your brain and starts demanding things, like 5 prayers a day and so on. This jinn also manifests externally as the community that likes to gather at the Mosque, which is the jinn temple. Of course this guy doesn't believe that, does he? But if he tried to explain how Islamoposession is not a jinn, he'd have a VERY HARD TIME if he tried to debate with me. He'd be foaming at the mouth and he'd lose the ability to sleep, but he couldn't do it. I won't seek this guy out, but if he wants to come here and try to prove that Islamopossession is not a jinn, I welcome his attempt.

LOL, this can be very offensive to some people! What job is that? If you think the job of wine is to get people drunk, you can offend a lot of people. If the job of the wine is to expose the tongue to a certain mix of flavors, it's quite conceivable that not just any old wine will do. Either option can be offensive. The second option can be seen as stuck up or snooty and the first can be seen as indiscriminate, low brow, base.

Not every difference is worth objecting to. If someone likes red wine and I like white, I won't be starting a huge debate, but wine is largely inconsequential to me. On the other hand, if you base your entire life on wine, if you're a vintner who is passionate about red wine, this can be a matter of life and death for you.

Let's keep this in mind for future reference. I will offer my 'take' on this. I could be wrong ... the good spirits know I often am, so I would be very interested in hearing your views as well. What do you mean you are wrong? When you are wrong, what happens that's different from when you are right? This is a contemplative question, please do not respond to it, or if you do, please respond in a separate post, because this is a detour from the main thing I am saying here. On a personal level, distinguishing 'right' and 'wrong' is perhaps the biggest malcontent of harmonious inter-personal relationships. That's true, but mindless and uncritical harmony always leads to bad outcomes. And why would I say that? Because if you want to be harmonious above all else, you will have to be accepting of mutually contradicting ideas and of ideas that are bad for your health, among other things. Further, you'd have to completely give up the idea of direction. You'd be going whichever way the winds of intention blow, and if you follow appearances, intention blows in a chaotic pattern (as opposed to what happens if you follow inner vision, then intent is no longer chaotic but directed). This is neither good nor bad, but you have to make a choice here. Are you OK being a servant of everyone? And I don't mean just wise people, I mean most likely you'll be serving ghosts and not even complete beings. If serving ghosts sounds good and fulfilling to you, then taking harmony as the highest virtue is OK. On the other hand, if you value wisdom, harmony has to be demoted quite a few notches. It is still valuable in a sense that if you can achieve the same thing with and without harmony, it's probably better to do so with harmony, as it wastes less energy and takes less effort. However, if something cannot be achieved with harmony, it is to be forsaken joyfully and without hesitation or partiality you can embrace chaos in order to protect wisdom. When we say someone is wrong we invalidate their perception of reality, Exactly right. So instead of not using that power, use it responsibly. This is the same as fire. Fire is destructive, yes, but if you need to clear the field so you can plant crops, it helps a lot. If you need to cook your food or keep your house warm, it helps a lot. It can also burn off your face, and sometimes it will burn it off even when you're careful. It's also very possible to be burned alive even if you personally never touch fire your whole life. we deny them their rightful expression in an infinite Universe. There is no expression that is "rightful". At the ultimate level there is no concept of a "right". When we talk about rights, we talk about agreements. Those agreements are predicated on certain values and principles. So for example, if someone refuses to be logical, I consider this to be a termination of agreement on which rights are based. Suddenly someone can end up with no rights in my eyes, and it's not hard to do. Just like my own arms have no rights of their own, they have to do what I intend. So if I want to do pull ups, my arms do not go on protest because their right to relax has been violated. The same is true with anything else, because the whole world is my arm. But this may be different for you. But we also create opposition and contention because people will very rarely admit they are wrong. When other person admits they are wrong, it is completely useless. The best reason to oppose someone is to symbolically raise the value of something internal and secret. So for example, if I disagree with someone on the basis that what they say is illogical or has unwarranted implications that are not shown to be either logical or illogical (in other words, the implications are not examined, but are sort of just thrown out there for consumption), what I want is not to subdue the other person or to make them admit they are wrong. For all I care they can insist they are right forever. They can incarnate in my field of experience eternally and eternally insist on their idiotic way. I don't oppose that! What I oppose is my own valuing of what's being said. But at the same time, if I don't voice my opposition once in a while, I can't be sure if I truly oppose it, or if I have the guts to say so, in other words, I can't be sure in the depth of my value. Sometimes in order to convince myself I honestly truly value something I also have to expose myself to mortal danger. It's not that I need to kill myself, but it's that if I am unwilling to face any amount of danger, I can't be 100% certain I actually value that secret internal value (I don't have to specify it... you can fill this in with whatever you like of your own -- be creative). Let us say for example we are 'right' and the other person does indeed need to adjust their position. Even if we prove they are wrong through strong words or 'irrefutable logic', due to pride it is the common tendancy to dig one's heels in and defend one's position regardless of being right or wrong. This only serves to create further opposition and separation. This only happens if the benefit to self is not explained. In other words, if we explain to the person who is "wrong" what that person stands to gain from accepting another point of view, this is no longer a problem. The problem happens when the other person thinks they only stand to lose something by accepting a different viewpoint. So to say someone else is wrong is simply poor diplomacy and ultimately will result in everyone being 'wrong'. You jump to a conclusion here. I don't see how the second part follows from the first. Instead of saying to someone, "You are wrong", the suggestion is to confirm something 'right' about the other person. If jostling for a social position is your goal, certainly this is right. However, if protecting internal values is your goal and social position is not important, this is precisely the wrong approach. For example in Tai Chi push hands, if our partner makes a foray into our defences we don't oppose their efforts, we don't say "You are wrong" Of course you do. You just don't say it as harshly as possible, but at the same time, the energy can easily be harsh. After a soft reception you can expose VERY harsh cold steel and get the other person to fly away or to buckle in half. It's not always gentle. The gentleness of tai chi is not to make another person feel better. It is not to heal the other person or to find harmony. The gentleness of combat tai chi is to confound the person, to make them lose their bearings, and to expose a vulnerability, which is then taken advantage of very much. The subtle distinction is using 'and' instead of 'but'. Often we will say, "Yes I hear your point of view, but this is how I see it." Whilst that does make a paltry attempt at union it still creates a contrary and opposing position. Great advice if you want to maintain decent relationship while still advancing your own vision. So there is a deceptive friendliness while the intention is still to advance your own vision. It's just that you do so gentle via "and", but the intent itself is not gentle, because at the end of the day your vision is intended to overwhelm everything. However, if you don't want or need good social standing and you just want to check your values for sincerity, you are free to use both "and" and "but" as you are inclined without having to discipline yourself in that manner. But to the extent you avoid disciplining your speech you have to discipline your spirit to accept internal difficulties, so it's not a freebie. Point is, if you have more inner discipline, you need less outer, but if you have no inner discipline you need outer discipline to have a decent life. If you have no inner and outer, you are screwed, and if you have both, you waste the energy for no reason. EDIT: forgot to add.... if using "but" is wrong, it is still right according to the quote in the beginning.

Not true. I criticized what the post was saying. Bash a sect now? Can you quote where I do that? He isn't sharing any real knowledge by his own admission. He's sharing "baby" stuff. His own words. Of course I agree! From my point of view, I agree totally, that he isn't sharing anything worthwhile so far. He's sharing interesting curiosities, but nothing of substance. On the other hand, I've shared a lot of great stuff with you as a forum, and especially with you lostmonk as a person. I've shared openly and honestly. I didn't share "baby" stuff or any such thing, but gave you the best I have. Unfortunately there are very few people here who appreciate my level of insight. You can take this as arrogance, whatever. But insight into fundamentals of intent is far higher level than insight into the effects of intent, which is what energy work is. I'm not going to beat around the bush about that. Do I know the best? Do I know what's up? I know what's up, but maybe I am not the best. I want to see anyone correct me at my own level though. Oh you speak for the majority now? And you think I have a superiority attitude? That's rich. Look in the mirror moron. My confidence comes from my heart and from the insight into uncertainty. You base yours on the idea that you speak for the majority. You're a fucking moron. I suggest you get the fuck out of this forum. Just like that. Not to do anyone a favor, because I have no idea what that favor would be. I just don't like your attitude. So get lost.

The appearances are really completely unlimited in their variety. There are ultimately no rules on how and when and what should appear. An immortal is someone who understand this. An immortal can make his blood look like Pepsi Cola or like tar or whatever. An immortal can leave a bigger shadow than would ordinarily seem warranted or can leave 50 shadows, or the shadow might not match the person, or there might be no shadow, or there might be 10 people acting as one person, and so on. I repeat again, the appearances have no limit at all. Period. No limit. To try to order and to structure appearances into hierarchies, progressions and access levels and so on is a habit of our particular mindset. Our mindset is also the very thing that blocks immortality from being apparent.

Who said that taoist healings or fu were rubbish? Mak Tin Si, it's obvious you are not actually sharing much or anything of value. The "baby" stuff you share are just cultural trappings and not the essential knowledge that people can immediately put to good use in their homes. For example, information on how to open the lions is of no use to someone in their own home, is it? It's just the kind of information that feeds and encourages useless idle curiosity in people.

This is silly. I am not attacking you. I might, might dispute some opinion of yours, but your opinions are not you, I hope. And disputing an opinion is not the same as attacking it. If you want to put the least charitable interpretation on what I am doing, you can say I am an agitated and discontent debater. Certainly I don't seek to attack your person. On the contrary. What I seek to do is to enable or to assist as many people as possible to gain total power, including the power to destroy me in the blink of an eye, or the power to brainwash me, and so on. I teach people how they can best brainwash me, if that's what they want. I show them where my vulnerabilities are and show them how to use that effectively against me. So far no one actually took advantage of that, but that's not my problem. At the same time, by acting in this way, I do become more powerful internally. But I share everything I know. I don't come here and give people 10% of what I know. I always give 100%. So, whether you know it or not, you are right to call me your friend.

Right-o. Because the Chinese who developed these concepts did not believe in Newtonian materialism. Qi is the subtle feelings you feel in your body. These feelings are left unsystematized by many cultures, but in the Qigong culture they are systematized, structured. The structure is called "meridians". This structure is completely cultural. Other cultures have other structures that work just as well for them as the Chinese qi meridians work for Chinese. Qi is also a concept that refers to the animating principle behind all that is animated. In Chinese "qigong" mind, the mind is not just something the brain produces. The mind is something of itself, like a force field that stretches forever. The mind has intent. Phenomena follow intent (yi). The first phenomena that follow intent are the subtle feelings that only you feel. But if you keep practicing, it's possible that these subtle manifestations become not-so-subtle, and others can then feel them as well. To some extent this requires that those others share in your world view. I say to some extent, because if you are completely convinced it is real, then what others think doesn't matter. But if there is even a tiniest doubt, the other people's minds have to complement your mind in order for your projections to work. In other words, the mind has direct impact on appearances without having to go through the agency of the Newtonian rules, according to qi gong. But waves are forces though. Haven't you ever been knocked off your feet by a big ocean wave?