windblown

Here's some Taoist things I have done: 1. Chi-Gung-(quit 3 years ago) 2. Painting with Chinese ink on rice paper-(quit 2 years ago) 3. Attempting to learn the I-Ching-(quit today after 2 weeks) 4. Looking at the cherry blossoms blooming (now) 5. Seeing the good in someone when others see the bad and vice versa (now) 6. Vibrating to all the ten thousand things working in perfect rhythm...like airplanes roaring and street lights changing and clouds moving and all of it merging(now) So I've come to the conclusion that 1,2,and 3 for me are 'trying too hard' to be closer to Tao. Being closer to Tao or swimming in the flow is more about small everyday occurrences such as in 4,5,an 6. I may not be an expert in any modality, I may not have anything to offer tangibly... but if I can live in the heart of Tao that's all I want.

These books feature the lives of some Africans living in Botswanna. The Tao flows in between the lines...it is never referenced....which makes it all the more appealing. It is uncanny how this author can get into the minds and hearts of his characters...from ladies to children to even dogs...how does he do this? I have read these books twice. They are best sellers. What are some other fictional works that feature people living simply and humbly...where the Tao flows in between the lines...and teaches without telling?

The harder I try...the further away I get. I have never had a dream, never known what I wanted to BE, I try this and that for awhile...then lose interest and blow into some other cranny. I injured my rotater cuff and have been out of work for six weeks. Here are all the hot pursuits that I have thrown my energy into...I will be a novelist...but writing is really hard, think I'll just be a reader; I will be an artist...but painting is boring...I will get my business license and open a Reiki healing place...but no one is buying massages too much in this economy; I will go back to school and learn secretarial programs and get a job in a law office, I will be a housewife and a darn good one, I will be a Bhuddhist, I will be Wiccan, I will be a Taoist, I will do qi-gong...oops this falun gong thing smells of cult, I will travel to beautiful places with my family...boy that gets pricey; I will be a tarot card reader...but that is too much responsibility because someone might take my advice and what if it is wrong? Everything I get hot on turns to dust. Stop seeking...and it will come. How does one actually 'be' a Taoist...and if I knew would I really want to do it? I feel like giving up. Am I crazy?

All I got in my mediation was this...to discover one's true goal...one must first go to the extreme of having no goal at all. In other words, something can't be found until it is truly lost. So back to the original conclusion that I previously arrived at...in attempting to know something I must first have the anti-thsis...which is to be in the black hole of nothingness. Now the cool thing is...when I get into the nothingness...I realize this IS the goal...the very hing I wanted...because I am at peace and everything flows and I flow with it. When I seek no goals, when I let go of worries, when I stop striving...then my life is peaceful, its actually very fulll...because I am just being, instead of doing. I am not there right now. I am worried about my 18 year old who just went on a three day cocaine binge and can barely go to work and is afraid he will get fired. Being in relationships means constant opportunities for growth. Thank you all for being here on this site...I feel like I have new friends. I wish some of us could meet for tea but it seems we are all over the world!

I have studied the enneagram quite extensively, but I like your suggestion that we all have many selves...an exaggeration of multiple personality disorder! I am an enneagram type 9 and I know that for nines, we see ourselves in every other type so it is hard to pin down just one type. Plus with a 9's amorophous sense of self...cloudy awareness due to day dreaming and disassociating...it is difficult to integrate into oneself into one wholehuman being! So the practice of creating goals and unifying all aspects of myself to reach that goal integrates positively to type 3...which is the direction I need to go in for development! First I have to have a goal then I have to get enough parts on my side to manifest it. So, I quit smoking cigarrettes yesterday. Yes, I know...how horrid that I smoked. But the only way not to smoke was to drink a few beers..and I did...but then I stopped because it wasn't much fun. I am now on day two with no cigs and the cravings are going away and I do't want to drink but I want chocolate pudding and pretzels and new art supplies to create a new tarot deck, and I feel like a nap too, and maybe a trip to the library, i am sad that my teen relapsed on drugs and have been talking with him this morning to see how I can help and to offer support, ...so all these parts of me are needing something. I think i will go meditate and find out what to do. Thankyou for explaining things to me. That was very kind and I will go get quiet now and perhaps find a goal or not...I'll let ya know!

Mma is very intuitive but sees it as something natural....unlike so many of us that claim to be psychic, empathic...blah, blah, blah...as if it is some sort of rare gift! Mma is humble...now that is a rare gift to me. Authentic...that is what these books and characters are...nice description. Guess I'll head to the library and see what I can find to read next. Hate it when i finish a really good book.

Wow that's over my head Jetson! Oh well. Have a peaceful day!

I used to have a friend that was a spiritual snob! She thought she was on such a high level and used to look down on me with a pitying smile. she was in very tight with the qigong teacher at the Shaolin school in town. I tried to be friends with her but she was distant and cold and kept to her own race. Whatever...racism is alive and prevalent today...Then it was announced that she was to go to China with one of the enlightened Bhuddhist monks that came to the spiritual talk sessions after class. I congradulated her and she ignored me. Later I was jealous and was talking to another friend about her and this other friend said very matter of factly... She thinks she has to travel all the way to China with a Bhuddist teacher and become enlightened while giving up her husband and family and job and everything else she has here...when the truth of it is...she does not have to go anywhere....becauae the Bhudda nature is already inside her as it is in each of us. There is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do...we have it all inside of us...right here, right now.

I am a witch. I was born a witch. My rituals are always spontaneous and involve no tools. I believe in the law of three. I don't do a lot of spell work and have never been all that interested in that. But I am constantly working with the four elements of wind, earth, water and fire. I also work with the four archangels and Reiki. I am an astral traveller and it is from my dreams that I have made the most leaps in spiritual evolution. I do not like spiritual practices, discipline, rules, patriarchy, levels of spiritual progress, and heirarchies. My temple is the sky...I can divine from watching clouds. I like Eclectic Wicca and Taoism because they are roomy and as an air witch...I need no boundaries. I am meditating daily and I often take classes in qigong, join healing circles to practice my Reiki, journal, create...every day is a new adventure...like the wind I am always changing...and I love this about me. I am not fully on any one pah but I would say Taoist and Wicca leanings. I don't feel crazy anymore...I am perfect just the way I am. I have an incredible imagination and when I enforce discipline on myself I create something from my dreams and manifest it into reality...a novel...a piece of art. This is difficult though. But I don't beat myself over it anymore...I just flow with my nature instead of trying to change it. When I try to perfect myself is when I get into trouble. Thanks for everyone's Insight here on this thread. My cable was out all day yesterday and it is only now that the i pad is working again. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev was my teacher 8 years ago and I did learn a lot from him. Thankyou and be well Jaggi. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to India and study with him. However, life is much too fascinating and vivid to force myself into doing four hours of yoga a day to the exclusion of my family or other relationships and interests. I do not believe Jaggi is to be worshipped or anyone else on the planet. And I'm not Indian or Chinese...and believe me after you get so far into certain disciplines that are out of your own culture there is a feeling of.....no matter how far I go with this I will never be fully one of them...there is a certain point I got to where I was homesick for my own ancestry...my own roots...Scotland and England...and I am American. So Wicca does pull from many ancient cultures like India, and Egypt but it also reveres the Celtic and Scndinavian cultures and I feel a certain affinity with that. Anyway...thanks to all who have posted here...especially the gentle ones who did not dictate but merely passed on what has worked for them. I admit, my feelings were a little hurt by what old green said...about seeing my judgements and attachments all over my post...but I took it with a grain of salt and realized that I may have triggered him to cut back. I see that the ego is still very healthy here! But I have paid attention and am sifting through each and everyones posts and want to thank you all for joining me on the broomstick ride. Peace and blessed be.

You have great courage.

Deci...the shear beauty of your truthful words...allowed my tears to fall.

What is wrong with being family oriented? It is a natural way to be for me. I have two teen aged sons and a husband and he is my third husband at that! So what's the problem? Your Mother gave birth to you...hmmm...perhaps you have issues with your Mommy? All men are in love with their Mothers...are you?

You are the cheetah You are the wind Flowing...ever flowing...Zanshin and Tao Wheeeeeeeee!

I am a female who loves men. I live with two men at once. I wish I had a penis because they are beautiful. I once made a sculpture of a penis out of clay...the reason it came out so good was because I actually gave it a hand job while making it.

Contains everything. Including the empty womb The dark mother dies

What about the women and the sistas !!!?

Being mentally ill is normal to me!

Well if the rope were attached to a tree on a mountainside...I could pull it down as I grabbed on...then whoosh down the hill and swing in a wide glide over a green lake...and then I could simply...let go

If I must be initiated to call myself a Taoist, then perhaps...I am just a borrower of Taoist thought and ways. I have found it better for me to include all my interests, truths and experiences into whatever I am doing spiritually as this develops into a glittering mosaic of colorful glass. All the different parts together make a beautiful whole...much more interesting than if it was all just say...blue glass. So I shall not call myself anything because labels only seek to box me in and cause arguement as to what the box really is and how to do the correct practices to stay in this box. Tao or Taoism is the antithesis of the box mentality so I should think that Tao doesn't care what I call myself...but people get frisky and bent up about labels. Labels make us feel safe because we think we finally know who we are and what to do every day to further cultivate that. This is a good path for some. But I am of the sky, the wind, the clouds and if you'll look out now...the sky is one way...but five minutes later...it has changed. I'm just a girl and it's just a ride!

After everything I've learned there is only nothing left. This is a peculiar state...it is beyond confusion. It is open and empty as you say...or more like being alright with the shredded fabric of old dreams, old teachers...old ways....that once whisked me across exciting red sunlit skies. In the end...there is nothing left and this is the very thing I was always searching for anyway.

Sadhguru must be confused as well because he can not answer the question of ultimate reality and yet he claims to be enlightened! I spent four months in India with him at his ashram so I know the power of his tongue...mesmerizing like a golden undulating snake... I think the best teachers are our every day people, our every day lives and most likely the best books are fiction...except of course the TTC. But did Lao Tzu claim to be enlightened? I hope not...he seemed to be humble...if he did exist...and the story says that he was asked by the gatekeeper upon his exiting the palace grounds to write down his knowledge in what we have today...the TTC. So it is not like he tried to create a movement like so many gurus do today. Sorry folks...I am too much a rebel...will not be a sheep to a Master. But Tao allows me that privelege and in my mind...encourages independant free thinking...however confused that may be!

Thanks for your posts. I don't feel so alone anymore. Yes, we do live in a pressure filled society where ambition and achievement are super encouraged...throw on top of that a wealthy, old money, southern upbringing with type A parents and siblings...and well...then there's me! There is beauty and divine wonder in the simple things...when I am in that wonder world....is when I am happiest. For instance...amidst the dirty gravel where the garbage can lays is now growing...a tiny yellow buttercup. And I always have the sky to look at with its ever changing panorama of clouds. I see all sorts of beings in these clouds. As much as I hate living in Vegas...the sky here is pretty awesome and offers a different scene in every corner. And being a housewife is not so bad either...I am fortunate in so many ways. Perhaps losing that stress filled job to an injury was a bad thing...but a new life for me has come out of it...with much more time to devote to simple tasks and meditation. Tao can be pointed to by reading a book, but for me, it is only understood by reflecting on my own life. When I want to be a real Taoist is where the research and the trouble starts! Today I will back off from it while being surrounded in IT!

Went to a free qigong class at the park today. I really felt the delicious waves of energy and was better afterwards all day. I am trying to heal a shoulder injury. This Chinese lady sat with me and showed me how to do all the moves and she was really sweet with warm brown eyes...so non arrogant like my last sifu teacher. inreally liked it. Afterwards I was invited to a ladies home that spoke english and she talked to me a lot about Li Hoising or something...the founder of falun gong. She had a portrait of him framed in her living room and i got a little nervous. Is this a cult, i asked...she said no....but wasn't overly emphatic. So is it a cult? I bought $30.00 for two used books that they said were new but the aren't. I thought this was strange. And she said they had to stay wrapped in plastic for protection. I read the beginners book which mostly talked about how one would encounter paranormal experiences and how not to get caught up in them. I'm past that sort of stuff. Anyway...wondering if anyone else could tell me if i should get involved with this?

Kundalini energy risis like a snake up your spine.