goldisheavy

Except this isn't exactly true. At least not according to the folk lore. Taoist immortals are often wacky, fascinating, magical and non-conforming characters. In the "Tales of Taoist Immortals" (transl. by Eva Wong) there was one in particular that would stuff wool in his clothing in the summer and ice or something else cold in the winter, etc. This is precisely "it's all an illusion type of behavior".

Happy New Year Everyone! May the coming year, now and beyond bring you complete highest and truest wish fulfillment!

As usual, I was hopping from random video to random video on youtube, and stumbled on this. Actually, I've seen this person more than once already and this time I decided to make a mention of it (unless I already mentioned it before and forgot, in which case I don't care). It's also quite possible that I even learned of this person from someone here on this forum and forgot. In that case I apologize and I don't mean to take any credit. I don't agree with everything this person/yogi says. However, I find what he says interesting, energizing, engaging and worth my attention span. A lot of times he says something that I think is really stupid, but then as he explains further, I begin to see how it's not as stupid as I thought it was. I might still not agree even later, but it's no longer a simple matter. I think it's pretty interesting. http://www.youtube.com/user/DattatreyaSivaBaba And some particular videos: And sometimes he talks really frankly about himself, which is a little surprising. If I remember correctly, I think there is one video where he's talking about his attachment to that little hat/cloth he likes to wear on his head. I thought it was kind of funny and poignant at the same time. In conclusion, please understand I am not promoting wholesale adoption of everything this yogi/person is saying. I just find a significant portion of what he says to be interesting and stimulating, even though I disagree with a lot. So I hope no one takes this as "this is what goldisheavy believes." It's nothing like that. Among some things I like is how much this person/yogi is sharing.

This video is related to the topic of this thread.

Life as you know it does not exist without Marblehead. That's the whole point, isn't it? Just because there is no single objective representation of a doughnut does not mean it doesn't exist. Even though we might all see the doughnut in different ways, some of these ways of seeing the doughnut even include not seeing the doughnut, I can still eat a doughnut. I can't prove that I've eaten the doughnut. I cannot objectively demonstrate the doughnut. Even if I wave some doughnut in front of your face, you'll not get any kind of objective essence or experience of the doughnut. Nonetheless, it does not imply the doughnut is altogether absent. The doughnut is present in some capacity. If you say that the doughnut is present objectively, you simply exaggerate and distort the capacity in which the doughnut is present. At the very least, if you cannot comprehend it yourself, you should at least acknowledge that I don't present non-objective reality as nihilism or as an ultimate absence of any kind. Furthermore, you should acknowledge that I agree that conventionally speaking, we can say that doughnut exists objectively. That's a convention. It's a conversational and worldly truth. It has some use. It's one of the ways to see the doughnut, but if that's the only way you can see it -- through the lens of the distortion called "objectivity" -- then that's a limitation of your mind. Normally this doesn't matter. Most people have this limitation and die with it intact. But if you are here, presumably you want to expand your mind beyond the ordinary perception. Ordinary perception is not the full spectrum of perception.

It's a drawing of a doughnut. But that's beside the point, isn't it? Tao is also the word Tao. It's also the word "foo". And all the other words as well. As well as the space between the words, the negative space. Also Tao is none of the above. And all of the above. You don't know the doughnut. Although you have eaten it, you've never actually questioned it. This is precisely what your problem is and not mine. I accept the doughnut as it is commonly perceived. I do not reject common perceptions. However, I know and see beyond common perceptions. You do not. You get bent out of shape any time people question common perceptions. In other words, you are a fool who has no place on this forum, unless that is, you want to learn something. There is no objective reality. Deal with this truth. Peace & Love.

This is called "bardo" by Tibetans. This is also my view of death. However I am different in that I say waking and dreaming are cyclical. In other words, it's not the case that energy simply fades. Every fade is also a rebirth in process. It's like kinetic energy converting into potential, back to kinetic and so on. Since this process is a process of consciousness, and not a physical process, there is no such thing as friction or loss of energy. It just continues ad infinitum. Soon, new memories appear, and a new person is born. Waking is a kind of dream, and dreaming is another dream and so is death. Tibetans would say, "it's all bardo". There is no state that's not a bardo state of some kind. In other words, folks, you are all dead right now. A-yup. Dead. Yes sirr-ee. You don't think you are dead now, right? Of course not. So when you really die and your new dream begins, you won't think you are dead then either. This is how you go on being ignorant forever, just being reborn forever. Floating from one dream to another and never realizing it's a dream. See, memory is empty. This is why memory can appear. The past can appear. The past doesn't have to be "from the past." When you start dreaming, suddenly there is a coherent, detailed and believable past. You can ask any dream character about the past, and you'll hear a good, coherent, believable story. And all it took was to just close your eyes in bed and relax for a second for all those colorful, vivid, believable stories to appear. So memory appears just like that, together with the visions of the past. This is how time-perception appears. It can disappear and re-appear again. You can change your past, because memory is not solid. The past is not solid. The past is a mind construct. Sometimes it changes by itself due to some traumatic or other events. At other times you can change it consciously. Or you can just be oblivious and float around forever, like ghosts. Just forever floating around, convinced you're all having real life experience. The key to this floating is to never ever question anything. If you begin to question, the dream starts to look less real and more like a dream.

What you call spirit there is actually mind. And what you call mind is actually just a mindset and not mind. Don't pervert the meanings please. Spirit is a wholly unnecessary word. Spirit simply means "breath", which in turn was a way for our ancestors to indicate something subtle. Our ancestors had some wisdom, but mostly they were dumb and used words in a grossly approximate and incorrect way. For example, they would say 3 or 7 to mean "many", or the Chinese version, which is "10,000." That's not a good way to communicate. It's OK if you know what it means, but it's not a general purpose communication. Today we have a better command of language and we have evolved some. Let's please use the full capabilities of expression that we have. Please distinguish mind from mindset. You'll do everyone a huge favor.

Is this a doughnut? Or is this? Or this? If you say only the first one is a doughnut, you don't have a complete vision of what a doughnut is. The second view is a doughnut from far away. The last view is a doughnut from very far away or a doughnut from very up close (through the hole). Which view is the right view? None of them are either right or wrong and all of them are doughnut. If you refuse to train your mind to see flexibly and fully like this, then you really have no business on any cultivation forum, as you're not interested in cultivating anything except your assumptions about what a doughnut is.

Either way, what you are describing here is a state of consciousness, therefore it is a form of life. Death, insofar it is a process you can observe is a modification of structures within consciousness, at every single point of its happening. Yes, that too. We are ever perishing and ever renewing. This is not a contradiction either. It's the same happening expressed in different ways. It's what I am typing. I've died a number of times. I think the word "complete" has no meaning when it comes to death. When I died deeply enough, the concerns of completeness were simply irrelevant. Consider this. Every happening is a modification of consciousness. Therefore consciousness is neither born nor does it ever die, because modifications of consciousness only affect the forms of consciousness but not its being. In fact, if you search for the being of consciousness, it's impossible to find it, yet obviously we are conscious. So from this point of view, insofar as you and I are consciousness, we weren't actually born, and we won't die either. At the same time, we conceive of ourselves in terms of attributes that are attached to a mental hook of a sort. So the hook is what we call "self". So imagine a hook on the wall. And you begin to hang different garments on it. These garments define who you are as a person. So you say, "I am tall", "I am a liberal/conservative person." "I am generous/greedy." "I like/hate ice cream" and so on. Each time you describe yourself and differentiate yourself from potential others, you create a garment, and this garment then goes on this hook. Without the hook, these garments would fall off and would have no anchoring point. So from this point of view, you are exactly this hook with enough garments on it to be able to recognize yourself. So if you remove the hook such that the garments fall off it, or if you remove enough garments from the hook, such that you can no longer recognize yourself, we consider this death. In this sense, we will all die, everything will perish eventually. That's because attributes are always in flux. So the garments sort of have a life of their own. And even the hook has sort of life of its own too. And eventually, one way or another, there will be a separation, which the mind perceives as death, due to non-recognition of whatever it is you think you should look and feel like to yourself. In this sense, we begin dying as soon as we are born. Also we begin rebirth as soon as we begin to die, which is as soon as we are born. That's my opinion.

I love this video. This one is a synopsis or a fragment of a larger presentation. The entire presentation is also available. Thanks CowTao.

It seems like this topic comes up from time to time. When is it OK to charge for instruction? Why is it that some teachers stay away from money, while others take it eagerly? I think everyone has the right to decide this for themselves. To help people, I want to share what I think on this topic. It's pretty simple, and I believe you'll see that what I am saying is eminently reasonable. It is OK to charge for teaching if: 1. You're teaching the person a profitable profession or trade. 2. Your teaching falls into an entertainment category. 3. Your teaching aims to support life in some way, such as healing, or survival and similar knowledge. It is NOT OK to charge for teaching: 1. When you make any claims of or references to the sacred. 2. When you lay a claim to spirituality or transcendence of any kind. Some things straddle these categories, but the more sacred something is, the less money you should charge for it. And this goes all the way to priceless. Obviously if you consider something priceless, putting a price of any kind, be it 1 billion dollars or 1 cent will be impossible without lying to oneself and without appearing as a hypocrite to others. If something is priceless, how is it I am putting a price on it? This should be obvious, especially to truly spiritual people. If something is priceless, it is not for sale, but it can be given freely or shared. The simple principle to remember is this: if what you teach is within the realm of convention, if it is worldly and is part of the world, you can charge money for it. If what you teach is beyond the realm of convention, if it transcends this world, you may not charge money for it. Let's go over some examples. 1. I am teaching welding: Yes I can charge money for this. Welding is a profitable profession. My students will make more money than I charge them. 2. I am teaching scuba diving: Yes I can charge money for this. This is entertainment. 3. I am teaching general or basic philosophy: Yes, I can charge money for this. Philosophy is both entertaining and a life supporting practice. It's life supporting in that it helps you think clearly, and it helps to avoid being tricked by con men who rely on logical fallacies and so forth. 4. I am teaching mathematics: Yes, I can charge money for this. This is a general life supporting skill. At higher levels it can be an essential knowledge for some profitable professions. 5. I am teaching qigong and I only claim health or martial arts benefits: Yes, I can charge money for this. Health and healing are life supporting. Self-defense is another life supporting endeavor. 6. I am teaching lucid dreaming and my promotion stresses the fun aspect: Yes, I can charge money for this. This is for entertainment. 7. I am teaching the history of shamanism with the use of shamanic source material: Yes, I can charge money for this, since I am only presenting it as history. General liberal arts education is a life supporting activity. It enriches our life at a mundane level. 8. I am teaching bird watching: Yes, I can charge for this. Entertainment. --------- Now for some negative examples. 9. I am teaching qigong and I make claims of enlightenment and spiritual development: No, I may not charge money for this. I make claims to something that transcends convention and worldliness. 10. I am teaching lucid dreaming as "dream yoga": No, I may not charge for this. I am making a claim to something that transcends convention and worldliness. 11. I am teaching shamanism, not as history, but as a way of life: No, I may not charge for this. Transcendent. 12. I am teaching Tibetan Buddhism: No, I may not charge for this. Transcendent. --------- If you don't charge for something, that doesn't mean you cannot ask for donations. Asking for donations is OK if you don't make the person feel guilty for not giving. Christians break this rule by passing a collection basket around -- this is not OK, because it psychologically pushes people to donate. Setting up an inconspicuous or a modestly conspicuous donation box at the entrance is OK though. It all boils down to this: what kind of relationship are you looking to enter into? Are you entering into a sacred relationship, or into a mundane one? If you want to enter into a sacred or a transcendent relationship, you cannot charge money or barter. This is one of the reasons why you should never charge your children anything, because the relationship within the family is a sacred one. So a father should not charge his son for helping him with math homework and the son should not charge the father for mowing the lawn. The father may give his son an allowance in a way that makes it obvious it's not a payment for services of any kind. Introducing business dealing into family relations breaks the sacredness of those relations. If you are looking to enter into a mundane/worldly relationship, it's perfectly OK to charge money. There are some people who simply don't think there is anything sacred -- avoid these people. There are also some people who say everything is sacred -- avoid these people as well, because to say that everything is sacred is the same as saying nothing is. It's OK to say that what we consider sacred and mundane are non-dual, like light and dark are non-dual. It's also OK to challenge the notions of sacredness and mundanity. But it's not OK to say that dark is light or that anything mundane is sacred. There is a subtle but important difference there. So, as a consumer, if you want to receive worldly instruction for a worldly purpose within the framework of a mundane relationship, go ahead and pay that money. But if you want to receive any kind of spiritual instruction with elements of renunciation or transcendence, with the aim of liberation, enlightenment or a mystical union, within the framework of a sacred relationship, do not pay anything. But you may want to donate something to a good teacher, or to give the teacher food or other life supporting items, or to put up the teacher in your home. And if you're very poor, then don't worry about donations and wait until your fortune improves first.

Hey, just because you cannot see them, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. *dons a tin foil hat* Right on. This obsession with energy comes from thinking that the universe is a giant machine. So then, if you want to manipulate the universe, you pull the strings of your energy to do it. So the conception of "energy" gives you more levers to play with. However, if you understand the oneness of intent and that the universe is a harmonious emanation of your state of being, there are no levers to pull. Any kind of purposeful pulling and pushing on any lever, at that point, becomes an artifice. You can still retain your integrity and do some pushing and pulling, but only if you push and pull as an ornament, and not in any kind of purposeful way to achieve something. So if I am hanging a Christmas tree ornament on the tree just to beautify it, that's OK. But if I am hanging the same tree ornament on the same tree to make the tree more fireproof or to make the tree turn into a rabbit, then I am strongly deluded and my integrity is shot. Ornamental actions are always allowed. Purposeful ones are actions of struggle, they always involve pushing and pulling on levers of some machine. Purposeful actions make some (small) sense if you interact with your most honest conception-perception of the machine. This conception is not universal though. So the lever that's true for one person can possibly be false for another, because the machines are not necessarily shared.

I agree. This is why the best business is the one that operates on hope and fear. You sell hope, and spread fear about what will happen if you don't buy. It never fails. People want to hope for something, and anyone who has hope also has fear. So if you're a smart business person, you know how to feed into hope and fear to move people to buy. I am thinking of writing my own manual on how to make easy money. Kind of like "locksmith's guide to lockpicking." All the good locksmiths need to also know how to pick locks. This one would be something like "consumer's guide to running a scam." Here are some ideas: 1. Don't sell anything people can verify. For example, if I sell cake, people can test to see if it's a cake easily. So if I advertise cake but sell shoes, I am screwed, because a shoe is easy to distinguish from the cake. A good thing to sell is a hopeful and nebulous idea that cannot be checked. Also, if the person does check it and finds it's not there, you must have a way to blame the person. 2. Spread fear about what will happen if you don't buy this nebulous concept. 3. Spread lots of positive exaggerated stories about the good results of the nebulous concept. Make sure the stories are either impossible or difficult to verify. And so on. That's pretty good for starters. Hope + fear + intangibility of the product = I HAVE EASY MONEY ESP. And one of the best and easiest hopes to sell to people is the hope of making more money. Second easiest is love, warmth and acceptance. People lack that. So sell it! Make it into a product. Exactly. That's at the core of the issue.

Suppose what you say is true? What then? Surely, the devil (and conversely, God) is in the details, n'est pas? You should pick something in particular that thuscomeone is saying and try to argue against it. If you want to argue, that is. And if you don't want to argue, it makes little sense to make vague comments. People say the same thing about God too. Or pink elephants. Or Zeus. Or the flying spaghetti monster, may his noodly appendage touch us all, ramen.

So, in other words, you're trying to be objective? You are biased away from subjectivity and toward objectivity? Maybe fantasy is what is? Have you considered that? If that's the case, your goal is not to find the truth, but to find a good fantasy, and that would then be the truth without being called "truth". Read Old Testament. God is an asshole. The biggest asshole you can think of. God will rape you in every orifice you have, even if you're innocent. No joke. Look at how God toyed with Abraham and his son, for his own amusement. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Make no mistake. I don't believe in any concepts taken from the Bible or Koran. I only use them because I know you believe in them and I know they have impact on your mind, due to your mind's conditioning. The damage is worse than that. You are not mature enough to recognize what's going on. First of all, the most grievous damage accrues to the teacher who sells the unsellable. Secondly, the nature of the damage has to do with how the teacher influences his perception of the spiritual truths by selling them for a price. Since you're not selling any sacred teachings, you don't need to worry about this. Cross the bridge when you get to it. How about losing many lifetimes? Surely no amount of mundane theft can create the consequence that lasts more than one lifetime. First, thank you for admitting that selling the sacred is a wrong thing to do. Second, you have a flippant attitude toward God's forgiveness. If you take God's forgiveness as a given, then God's forgiveness has no meaning. I was getting a feeling that Shaykh Nazim is the one that advocated selling of the spiritual truths. Now I think maybe it's your own delusion.

This is wrong. At first I explained why it is wrong (quality vs. quantity and other issues), but then I realized you're not in it for a discussion. In this case, no, God won't, because there are some aggravating circumstances involved. You should sooner steal from your neighbor, if you can't put food on your table, than to steal from God. Selling God's knowledge should be unthinkable to any Muslim. I shouldn't have to tell you this. Did Shaykh Nazim tell you it's OK to sell God's secrets? I want to know where you get your ideas from. Try to put some thought into what you type before your fingers hit the keyboard.

There is no business exchange in a friendship. The minute you quantify the exchange and turn the exchange into a business transaction, the friendship is gone.

I don't take an antagonistic position to all sages and saints and cultivators. So saying "against" is truly retarded on your part. I am explaining the danger of mixing money and barter with spirituality. That's a pretty orthodox position to take. It's not something new that I invented just now.

Is it always right after meditation? Are you prone to headaches in general? If you're not prone to headaches in general and if you only get a headache right after meditation or in the middle of meditation, that's not normal. So the short answer is that it's not normal.

Do you sell tinfoil hats to go with that? Not everyone who is called "a yogi" knows what's up.

I don't quantify my breaths though. I don't quantify the oxygen coming in or the CO2 coming out. I don't express the worth of the breath as a number. I am not complaining. I say that heroine is not safe, I am not complaining about heroine. You're extremely deluded. And I don't think Vajrasattva is helping you any. He seems to be fanning the flames of your delusion.