Ian

You can get very portable two-litre bag and tube items for next to no money. In my limited experience that's about as much water as you'd want up there at a time anyway, and it is possible to get from, for example, a bath to a nearby toilet without mishap if you concentrate. Where I read him, Daniel Reid very strongly suggests that you need to fast, and to flush twice a day for a week to make it work.

Yes !

I remember someone saying something along the lines that it's not really proper to charge for the priceless gift of healing, etc. But it's perfectly acceptable to charge for your time, provided you don't take the piss. And yeah, maybe all information should be free. Maybe. But it always takes the teacher's time, and room hire, and transport costs, to pass on this priceless info. Basically, if you're not willing to pay for something you don't want it enough. IMHO, obviously.

Warning: controversy. I've been told recently that ALL channelled entities are basically hungry ghosts. Possibly very wise and friendly hungry ghosts with ideas worth listening to, but from the Peta realms, nonetheless. Basically any non-human realms which are, shall we say, advanced, have such a different timescale that no entity is going to step down that far. And mid-causal sounds a lot like "not cheese" to me.

My definition: Karma is everything. I have never had a thought or an emotion, Karma has had them all. This body is the resultant body, built of karma. It's not an excuse, I still do what I can, I've just had to gradually accept that I don't really exist in any of the ways I thought I did. The day carries on...

Didn't see this bit. Here you go: Typical mon, tue, thu, fri: Wake up 7.00am, faff about, stand for 45 mins, take tiny beast coffee, faff more, go to work by nine. Work to five or six pm, maybe lotus walk through the park to home if it's nice, spend evening like a human, unless alone, in which case probably an hour of chi kung or half an hour of sitting. Weds, as above, except 6.30 to 8.30pm I take a chi kung class. Weekend same, except move it all back about two hours and subtract the work. I do lots of little things during the day but am careful not to dignify them with the tag of practice.

I really don't believe it's a contradiction to spend x hours a day trying to "Defeat your karma" / "Unwind your self" / "dissolve your past" / "practice" / whatever you call it, and y hours per day being exactly the kind of human you're trying to stop being. If you try to practice effectively more than 2, 3, 4 hours per day you will get bounced out. Your karma won't stand for it. "It's a 50,000 year old monster and your practice is a tiny baby." We need stealth. Karma needs to be indulged, to an extent, until our practice is 20, 30 years/lifetimes solid. If you think you're practicing 24/7, then you're either very very advanced or kidding yourself. Or so I'm told.

My teacher has said, not to me directly, that if a spiritual teacher does more good than harm, he or she is doing really, really well. And that's assuming that they are fully qualified and well-intentioned in the first place. I also agree with the comment about any group only providing part of what's needed. It's just too huge. How to practice, how to live so you can practice, how to live so you can live, including what on earth to do about the opposite sex,, how to integrate all that, are all vast topics. If you find someone who can cover one of those properly you're very lucky. imho, naturally. Yours, slightly old, and distinctly grouchy, I

Hmm. Confusion, mainly. It's really nice to rub tummies. Unfortunately, most senior teachers of CNT present it as a really painful treatment to receive. And I kind of think that pain, especially applied by another and outside your instant control, discourages release and promotes armouring. Yet Ron Diana clearly did folks a lot of good with it. And Dirk seems to use pain... So anyway I did my courses and about 50 of my 100 treatemnts towards certification, and I ended up being much more into what quality of presence was required and much less into manipulating bellies. And I was vanishing quietly from HT at the time anyway.. I still love putting an elbow into someone's navel and using my hand as an arial and tuning into the depths. And I'm a little closer to that presence. But I find it impossible to maintain it and move... But yeah, everyone go rub your belly. Can't beat it.

I'd suggest: practice enjoying no stimulus whatsoever. Get intimate with the space between the sensation inside the body. Loosen up on the idea that it will be enjoyable in any way you're familiar with. None of the above based on experience, inevitably.

Nice post.

I don't think it matters, because I think you can't do it by aiming to. And I think it's sort of self-regulating, because if you have unfinished business, you will by definition finish it before you merge with anything. Does that make sense?

I don't experience it, but I do believe it !! I think people just aren't very conscious about how happy it is possible to be. So I think when people are just chasing desires and causing trouble, they are trying to be happy, but just don't know how.

The Spell of the Sensuous I totally recommend this book. Just reading for the second time after a gap of three years or so. Just about our connection to the world around, but so beautifully written. That's all.

My re-reading is still ongoing, as I can only digest a wee bit at a time. But boy, is it still fabulous. Every few pages you realise something new about how things work. I'm not on a commission here, btw. Honest.

I was reading last night, and enjoying the book (of which more in another thread) but also feeling a bit indulgent, in that I could have used the time to do something a little more embodifying. So I started subvocalising the words as I read and making sure I could feel the vibrations of them in my body. This led to me using more peripheral vision (ongoing thanks for that one, freeform), making sure I focussed around the book as well as on it. It was a whole different experience. And I mention it, simply because it's one way to test the quality of gnomic utterances. Vibrate the words in your body. See what happens. It may be that some words are very rich in truth for those who say or type them and utterly without value for the recipient. Neither need be wrong.

Very little to add. I just wanted to bring this thread up to the top of list for the benefit of anyone who's joined in the interim, as I still think it's one of the best things on the site.

ESPECIALLY when you go and get some help from a master and you spend a week opening up and effectively telling life, "yeah, come on, I can handle this, show me the filth within." Then you get home and life says, "You don't say! Try this..." and then your world goes mentaltastic.

The real thing makes me uncomfortable.

I think it may be like this: You've got a metaphorical path. The teacher can't move your legs along it, but can direct you back on to it if you're veering off sideways. That way you spend more time on it and progress faster, but it's still you doing it. And sometimes a teacher can tell you that your path is imaginary and heading for a big cliff. Actually, I don't know what the hell teachers do!! But I have heard it said, by a teacher I greatly respect, that if a spiritual teacher does more good than harm he or she is doing very well indeed. Which gives me to wonder....

I've no idea what it is.

I'd like to add two things: One: "Survival of the fittest" originally meant survival of the most suitable, the best fit, in that sense, not survival of the biggest, strongest or most aggressive. We have come to completely misunderstand it. Two: I believe relatively recent research has suggested that the egg plays an active role in selecting the sperm which will fertilise it, rather than just waiting passively for the fastest swimmer. Cheers, I

I recommend experimenting with simply relaxing the PC muscle / pelvic floor. Letting the sexual energy connect down the legs to the earth energy of which it is but an offshoot. Only problem is this can be so effective you completely forget what you're doing.

Last Sunday I didn't do my standing practice. This was the first day I didn't do it in about sixteen months. Of course there were reasons. I was at Glastonbury festival, the whole site was a foot deep in mud and it was pissing with rain and during the quiet time when there might have been few enough people about I had to do my stewarding shift. Still, I could have fitted it in somehow. But you know what? It doesn't matter. I started again yesterday and did it today and I'm going to carry on doing it. Unless I don't. I fear I'm not really articulating how it feels. Initially this practice was the rock upon which I was founded and had I missed a day a year ago I would have wasted a lot of time punishing myself. And so it's good and quite surprising to find that it's just OK. Feel like I grew up a tiny tiny bit along the way. That's all. Thanks for listening.

Have to get back to you on this. No, from Sifu Yap. But Burgs is way cool. He's got weekend days coming up soon, if you want a taster.