solxyz

I would like to draw everyones attention to Quareia (http://www.quareia.com/). This is Josephine McCarthy's new project. It is her attempt to create a complete course of "initiatic" training which will be free and available to all. The language may sound a little pompous, but this woman has a ton of depth and knowledge, which she is basically planning to lay out in a step-by-step system, and make freely available. She currently has the first 16 lessons available on the website, with a curriculum plan of all the lessons she plans to write. However, she is currently trying to raise money for this project through a crowdfunding campaign (http://www.quareia.com/campaign/). So go check it out, and then try to contribute to the cause. I have no affiliation with this project. I just think it will be an amazing resource for many people and would like to see it go forward.

The correct answer is all three. The problem, as one of my teachers would repeat again & again, is that the intuition is a dark and shadowy place. Your imagination can be full of personal projections and whatever other crap you put there just because you felt that you needed to get an answer. On the other hand, it absolutely can be a real mode of perception. Usually it is some blend between the two. As you practice more, not only does that mode of perception open up, but you get better and better and discerning when youre getting a clear signal, and when it is just your own thoughts filling the gap. At some point you will start to have some very clear and powerful contacts with a clear sense that "those dont feel like my thoughts at all" - they will have a different tone to them - its hard to describe, but if you keep going, im quite sure youll have a chance to experience it. Once this happens over and over, you will start to be able to pick out subtle signs that indicate whether you are getting a real signal or not. In the meantime, you should practice trusting your imaginations, since they are the doorway into this practice. In time you will also be able to get external confirmation of some of these experiences, ie getting a very specific peice of information through spirit contact which you can then go confirm if it is true or not, but I dont think you should start putting these practices to the test to early, since it could undermine the basic trust that you need to proceed.

I have 2 of Jason Millers books (including the financial sorcery one), and I have taken his year-long strategic sorcery course. The guy absolutely knows what he is talking about. His background is quite deep, in terms of both study and practice. He has a depth of familiarity with many different traditions and he does a great job of synthesizing them: not in a way that makes a mish-mash of them, but rather a view that sees the basic patterns in magical practice, the strengths and weaknesses of various traditions, and is able to put together a full-spectrum magical approach that can be carried into any domain or symbol-set/tradition. His year-long course is the place where he really lays all this out. I recommend it highly. I took it a number of years ago, and I think the price has gone up somewhat since then, but I still think it is very worthwhile. If you are interested in magical practice, then you will easily spend many times that much money (not to mention time) getting various books that will only give you one tiny nugget of the over-all picture that Miller provides. He really provides the best foundation that I have come across. I bought the financial book after i took the course, and it seemed to be just a pale rehash of his basic ideas applied to money issues, maybe with a few particular techniques thrown in. While I basically agree with his position that as a householder I should learn to take control of my money issues, I also feel like he has strayed a little too far into materialism. I just have the sense that he has sold-out a little bit. Its not for me to judge really: its his path, but I get that sense. Also I dont like his politics, but that is mostly irrelevant to the value of the techniques he offers.

Trust me, I dont underestimate your experience. I know how heavy this can get. You should remember that in a way you are fortunate to have had this experience, because that pain, etc. can become a source of strength. Your resonance with this stuff, and your understanding of its flaws, gives you a chance to redeem this power, in some way that I cannot really imagine or work out for you in advance. Of course, these sayings can be rather useless when the pain gets to the point that it is crushing the soul and you just want to give up. Im curious: what is your current practice and what are your basic models for what you are trying to do with this energy and with your life?

This is kind of speculation is more or less useless. My rule of thumb is that reincarnation/rebirth is basically about resonances. Things in the past resonate into the present, and certain of those things resonate especially with/in you. So, you had a powerful reaction to some satanic shit. Yes, that means there was some kind of resonance between you and that satanic work. Was this because of something that happened in the past? Well, to a certain extent, certainly: the nurturing and development of that satanic stream was done in the past, and it created the conditions for you to have that resonance and reaction. Was it "you" doing it in a past life? Eh... kind of, but also not really. What really matters is where you are now and what youre going to do about it.

Here you go: http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

me four.

I dont have any personal experience, but I have a friend who was involved with them for a while. She says the techniques are legit but the organization is a cultish.

Lots of good movies mentioned here, but for intensity nothing can out-do The Deer Hunter.

I feel a slightly disconcerting dullness in laogong (center of palm). Ive been experimenting with ways to bring qi here and work this out, but nothing ive thought of feels quite right. If I push a lot of qi into the area, it starts to feel like laogong is supposed to be more empty/receptive. If I work on opening or expanding the laogong, the sense of dullness becomes pronounced. Does anyone have any interesting exercises or techniques I might try? Im interested in any ideas, but please mention whether it comes from a lineage, or teacher, or if it is something you invented for yourself, or something you just thought of for me. Thanks.

I would look into the quality of the meat youre eating. What the cows ate and other elements of their regimen makes a huge difference in the nature of the meat that you get. At this point I basically only eat meat from grass-fed cows. You also might try cooking your meat less - this can be risky if you dont have high quality meat, but it does reduce the heaviness factor.

The health of the kidneys and the digestion are intimately linked. There are at least two ways to look at this. First, in terms of yang, which for these purposes I will translate as vital-warmth. Digestion requires yang. A lot of activity is needed to breakdown the food and transform it into something appropriate for your own body. One image of this digestive activity is that the stomach is a pot that is cooking the food; the fire under the pot is the mingmen fire (also known as the kidney yang). Sweet (meaning all carbohydrate) creates dampness. Damp is a yin condition, and so it requires a lot of yang to overcome it. Small amounts of sweet can be vitalizing when one is able to fully digest it, but large amounts will overwhelm the digestive yang and leave you with an encumbrance of dampness, which is directly depleting to the kidney yang. We could also talk about this a little more schematically in terms of qi. There are three basic sources of qi in the body: the kidneys, the digestion, and the lungs. The kidneys are all about storage, so here they represent your reserves. If you are not receiving appropriate qi from your food, you will draw on the kidneys, which over time will drain and then damage them. If on the other hand, you are well nourished, you can put some money in the bank. Im also on a more-or-less paleo diet, although I eat large amounts of yogurt. It has clearly been the best thing Ive done for my health in a while. I would also emphasize trying to get as much fermentation in the diet as possible. The enzymes present in fermented food represent a kind of digestive yang, which as I have discussed is nearly fungible with kidney yang.

#1 activity to directly benefit the KDs: go to bed earlier. Also, to benefit the KDs indirectly, through the Earth phase: remove from your diet as much sugar and carbohydrates as possible.

No special advice for you, Im sure you can figure out what you want to do. Ill just share my experience. I have made 3 one-month-long solitary retreats. Two were in the forest and one was in my apt (during the winter). Basically I sat in meditation the whole time except when taking care of necessities. Its hard to talk about what happens because it is so contradictory. So much happens and yet really i was just sitting there. And again, it felt very far out and really normal at the same time. One's sense of time shifts dramatically so that one month feels like half a lifetime. One really does get more experience out of such a month that out of lots of other activity. I once quipped that the immortals were really just ordinary hermits. From a chronometric standpoint, they may not live longer than anyone else, but in their own experience time seems to stretch out almost without limit. In short, huge breakthroughs were made. It also put me on the path in a new way. An earlier post talked about some people choosing to become renunciates because of the shock of returning. My returning shock was not that great (and anyway it was over after a couple of days), but it has become clear to me that spiritual practice is really the most important thing I can be doing with my life, so I would become a monk or something if that was a practical option right now. (Its not because I have a family to take care of.)

Looks interesting, and Im feeling ready to try a new practice, so Ill do this one for 5 days over the next week and Ill report back.

Neigong is an older term, meaning "internal alchemy" which is contrasted with the external alchemy of swallowing cinnabar pills and such. Qigong is a modern term; it is a very general term which can include almost any kind of cultivation practices, but mostly those which include some kind of physical component. I wouldnt make too much of what name is applied to any particular system.

Seems to me that quieting the mind can be a useful preparation, but at some point it must be abandoned. I could argue this philosophically, saying that this goal of quieting becomes a point of reference or clinging and that full enlightenment should make room even for waves of mental noise, but actually I approach this more practically. In meditation it is clear to me that at sometimes I need to increase focus and precision, and at other times I need to let go and ride the wave of whatever arises. Sometimes I ask myself whether, outside of formal practice, my mind is quieter these days than it was in the past. Im not really sure. I do seem clearer about who I am, and whats important, and more able to focus on tasks at hand, but I dont think there is any less mental chatter while I walk down the street.

All experience is the burning sweet nectar of reality. On account of the sweetness, we want it. On account of the burning, we don't. In an attempt to manage this tension, we have created the great Rube Goldberg of the soul: a demanding jurisdiction of valves, turnstiles, permission slips, color schemes, hypno-codes, blind alleys, by-passes, vantage stations, conundrum clauses, and secret societies. For the purpose of managing, this sometimes works and sometimes doesnt. But it never feels quite right; something seems to lacking, and we start to think that we might be alienated. When we give up on this project and learn to swim in the sea of fire, then we become free people, citizens of the realm of truth. I suppose this is pretty clearly in the "mental" model.

Come on, indulge us.

I think that interpreting qi as lifeforce energy is overly simplistic or reductive, either that or we dont know what we mean by lifeforce energy. Are we talking about ATP, which is what cells use for their energy? It turns out that healthier people actually use less energy for a given task than unhealthy people, so does that mean that they have less qi? Thats not the kind of energy we are talking about. If we talk about qi as energy, what we mean is more like when we say someone's energy has a certain quality, as in "she's got a really fun energy." This is a qualitative phenomenon that requires a holistic experience to perceive and work with. Im not saying that qi is absolutely without any correlates that science could use to track it, but if you really want to work with qi, one is much better off just doing qi gong.

Science has an implicit ontology and epistemology which limits its range of understandings. Qi is not just an energy, it is a higher-order, qualitative mode of experiencing and interacting with the body (it results from an interaction of mind and body), so it is highly resistant to quantification. Science cannot get much of a grasp on it.

yes

Let's see what this community is really about.

over in the phenomenology thread, xenolith made this comment: While I do participate a little bit, Im ambivalent about these kind of threads. Sometimes I find philosophy stimulating, sometimes it seems a little overblown. Overall I find it much more enjoyable to debate with people who see philosophy as a way to meet in the mystery of being, than to debate with people who think they are right. In the end, the Truth is unsayable and it has endless possibilities of expression. Mostly, I see philosophy as a game or a verbal art. (You cant talk about techniques all the time, there's only so much to say about them.) The truth likes to express itself, and this is one of the ways that it does so. Maybe you're not into this game. Maybe you prefer music or darts. Thats fine, but that doesnt mean you have to criticize someone else's game. I also think that philosophy does help a little bit with our cultivation (if it is approached with the right attitude). By hearing how other people have interpreted their experiences, one has the opportunity to check ones own interpretations. By trying to see things as another has suggested, one can open one's eyes in a new way, and maybe come a little bit closer to reality. Others? What is philosophy doing for you?

Because symbolic expression is part of the human form of being. As I said in an earlier post, I see human symbolism just like a plant growing into its proper form. If you said to the plant: "why dont you just let sunlight be sunlight and let soil be soil," the plant would say, this is just what I do. Once you become familiar with the difference between your thoughts/ideas and reality-as-such, thoughts dont have to be a trap anymore. symbolic expression can be a straightforward activity like any other.