dwai

I'd say that Vedas and Tantras are not separate at all, but rather that false distinction was perpetrated by Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries This is an excellent article on the topic (https://www.vedanet.com/vedic-light-and-tantric-energy-yogas-2/) Your calling out the employment of strawmen in 'comparative' discussions is very apt. Only too often I've seen people do that without even realizing that they're doing so.

That is simply too "white-washy" IMHO. If by Indo-European traditions you mean Indic traditions such as Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Yoga and Buddhism, I'd say that nothing could be farther from reality than your statement above All the real work in these traditions IS precisely around dropping of 'extensive and expensive cogitative arsenal' provided by the sensory apparatuses and the monkey mind' and learning how to use the cognitive abilities of a clarified mind.

IMHO, karma supersedes ming. Yes, it might seem like mistakes and accidents can occur. But they're all rooted in karmic issues playing out, usually unbeknownst to the individual. In manifest reality, Karma is the cause. In the unmanifest state, Karma is the seed of manifestation. So long as individuals maintain separate identification with mind-body-energy-whathaveyou, without realizing their true nature, karma holds its sway. That's why 'awakening' is so important -- because one cannot escape the influence of Karma without it. But it is also true that many people without a proper grounding in traditional training can have awakening experiences, and live off the memory of such an experience for as long as karmic influences continue. It is also true that some people, without any traditional training, can have a full and profound awakening to never go back to 'normal' again. One such person was Ramana Maharshi. But that too is a result of karma. For example? Can an enlightened person (complete awakening) not have human diseases? There are many recorded throughout history that have. I think the fallacy, a result of over-romanticized, over-mythicized literature about spirituality in popular (western) culture assumes that enlightened beings are "perfect" in material form somehow. By "material form", I mean the body and its machinations, of course. Phenomenologically, we can attest to this fact in our experience -- whatever has a beginning must have an end. We observe that all the time. Why should the body of an enlightened person be any different? The other fallacy that drives such "rose-tinted" views of what enlightenment entails is the assumption that the body is the source of the person. That the person somehow materializes within the body and is tied to the body. So when the body dies, certainly that means that the person is gone...right?

Thought I'd highlight what I found interesting in your post Awakening is the first step in the journey. What people call "awakening" is basically waking up to reality. Awakening does not equal liberation. For that, what we call "vāsanās" need to dissolve...at least the major ones. Minor ones don't cause big waves, just little ripples...can be entertaining. But certainly, disappearing into a puff of smoke and light is not the goal of the spiritual practices either. But it is never a mistake. Nothing is a 'mistake' in the spiritual path...not when you factor in karma.

I’ve seen this too. Far too often I’ve had people try to give me answers they think is right — sort of like guessing the “correct answer”. Just because there’s a question, there must be an answer is the logic. 😂 It’s amazing how many different ways there are to “get that point”... meditation will get us there, taijiquan, yoga etc. But, IME, completion of knowledge is only possible after the intellect understands and cooperates. Because the mind is indeed involved.

it took a while for me to realize that there’s no “answer” possible. Haha I drove my wife nuts with asking her for this answer and she’d get angry thinking it is a trick question or a trap, because like most people, she expected to find an answer to that question. After the knowing of “I am” arose through consistent inquiry, I set out to stay focused on the “I-am-ness”. But trying to get the mind to stay on its source is like trying to turn the light of a flashlight’s bulb to shine only on itself. not possible. It felt like I was trying to balance two pencils with very narrow tips on each other at those very tips... Eventually, for me, the mind just gave up because it is not possible to maintain attention on “that” for very long. And a relaxation appeared in its place. This (source) can never become an object of knowledge, because it is that which makes knowing possible. It happens in a flash! But this flash is something that keeps happening again and again until there is no need for the flash anymore. But this is a Vedantic meditation. So it doesn’t involve just yogic meditation. It wants the intellect to participate initially, so there is conviction in the practice. What it does call for is cooperation of the mind, because it is the mind itself that can provide the breakthrough. Realization happens only in the mind and the result is ‘no mind’, or what can be called the non-grasping mind.

I like going barefoot from time to time. Very nice and grounding if you’re amped up.

Must the socks be clean as well?

No trap at all I found that one ‘riddle’ was the key to realization. Just sitting with it on a regular basis in introspection led to the “a-ha” of the “emptiness” of the limited self. Without memory there is no self. Even gender or being human is a matter of memory. If the mind is not active (along with memory) one can’t describe (label) the self. It stands on its own, only as pure being, outside space and time. Only existence. If we stay with that presence for an extended period of time, there is an expansion which results in the Realization that the Self is just that...pure Being, empty and full of potentiality, and nothing is apart from the Self. But Being is also Consciousness and never deficient in any thing. So it is Bliss itself. Hence Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss).

When you try to find/identify who you are, in a fraction of a second, without thinking, what do you get?

Is there a decision maker even present?

Nice point hmm...but the reflection is just a reflection. Does it really "realize" anything?

Happiness, as Chuang Tzu once said, is when striving (for happiness) ceases. When does one cease to strive? When there is nothing more that they want. A key in understanding this, imho, is in understanding the difference between wants and needs. The body needs air, water, shelter, food. The person wants to eat candy everyday, or watch a movie, or drive a lamborghini, etc. Does the sage not have needs to preserve their body (I'm not talking about the exalted beings who can appear or disappear like Aladin's Genie)? By Sage, I mean one who is truly 'happy' (per above definition). So having set "striving" aside (because the sage clearly doesn't have to strive any more), will that exclude doing? Some sages are happy to remain as they are, without doing anything -- live the remainder of their lives in their mountain caves. Some sages are moved by the suffering in the world and set out to help others. Some sages live within the world as householders, seemingly normal, average people, but act as a beacon for their communities. Who can say one sage is better than the other?

I see. That makes sense. But the question is, isn't that the natural outcome of 'shravana - manana - nidhidhyasana'? That realization in itself is the unveiling. The stories we tell ourselves in this body-mind-personality complex is precisely that "self-image" one strives to preserve. In response to a question about "Who realizes?", I thought about the answer and this is what I could come up with, and is applicable in this conversation as well imho -- Nature of ignorance is such that it is both there and not there. It is there when there is a sense of “separateness” without knowing our true nature. It is clearly seen through as not there when we see our true nature and realize there was never a moment we are not that. I’ll be wrong if I say no one realizes, and wrong if I say jiva realizes, and certainly wrong if I say Atman realizes. Maybe at the risk of sounding new age, realization always exists.

It works irrespective of whether the recipient believes or not. Why won't it? Very often, the "effect" on a non-believer boils down to whether the non-believer acknowledges that there is some "woo woo" at play. After getting bounced 10-15 feet they'll claim it is just biomechanics. One 300 lb football player type once challenged my Master, claiming it was all bs. My Master looked at him and said, "you look big and strong...I'll have to use two fingers on you." Then he proceeded to tap this guy on his chest with two fingers and he flew into the wall, through the drywall and brick in my Master's school during that time. The skeptic stumbled out of (what remained of the wall), shaking his dazed head, and mumbling "This can't be real...this can't be real" and ran away, never to come back again. When my Master did that to me, all I could sense was the tap on my chest and then sliding off a wall several feet away. My mind couldn't register the time elapsed during which I flew several feet, like the mind had just disappeared. When real power transfer happens, that's how it feels (in case of martial). Another practice of ours is to do a daoist circle (bagua) meditation. Usually involves 8 people. When our master leads the meditation, sometimes he'll add extra yang into the circle, and a filling up starts to happen with a light, expanding, high frequency fluid, coming from the crown down. Sometimes he'll add extra yin into the circle, and a heavy, dense energy starts to fill us up, from the ground up. Well, our main teacher studied with a Daoist monk in Taiwan and was a personal friend of Cheng Man Ching as well. And though our system is "Taiji" it goes far beyond the "Quan" part. I've had very detailed instructions on prenatal meditations (both seated, standing as well as moving) which is unlike meditation I've seen in any other taijiquan school. There are very specific methods for working with and developing the 3 dantiens etc. I think @forestofemptiness had a similar circle meditation experience with our primary teacher (grandmaster) many years ago. I remember he had recounted his experiences here, maybe he'll share.

I think one of the first "esoteric" things my teacher showed me after a few months of studying with him was the "electric" transmission. We don't call it "fa qi", it is a type of fa jin. We had our hands touching in the classic push hands bridge position, actually in the middle of a conversation, and I felt an electric current-like sensation entering my hand (it felt like I'd touched a live wire). We can do that after becoming proficient in what is called "condensing breathing". Master Liao likes to call 'jin' as "jing". https://taichitaocenter.com/how-condensing-breathing-creates-jing-power-new-video-course/ P.S. this is not a plug for the school or this teacher's video marketing, I promise Maybe what you're saying is different from that. The only way for me to know is to feel it from someone claiming to do electric qi emissions. Many senior students of our school are able to generate a field and apply in it for healing, or martially, etc without any significant draining. The only time I've experienced draining is when we've worked on ling kong jin. Ended up feeling tired and woozy-headed. Usually, when I do this without touching, just generate the field around someone's problem area, the person receiving it will say that they feel a pulsing, vibrating sensation. Typically with injuries such as blunt traumas etc, it is very effective in removing the pain completely within a few minutes of doing this. Other times, when I send the transmission as a point, the recipient will say they feel an electric shock. We still consider these things as jin transmission, not qi transmission. To get an understanding of what our system teaches in terms of Jin development and Dantien etc, read the free chapter provided here (click on the look inside) -- https://www.amazon.com/Tai-Chi-Classics-Waysun-Liao-ebook/dp/B01MY1QDML

100% accepting whatever is, won't that imply that you do whatever action is required at that point in time? You don't act, action happens when required. Not doing doesn't mean sitting like a lump of clay, it means you no longer claim doer-ship for actions, and it's not a mental thing. It truly is a letting go of the sense of doer-ship. It is a natural outcome of the dropping of self-identification (with the personality, body, and mind).

This guy is the closest I've seen in terms of articulating what I've learnt in Temple style. What you see as fa jin, is a different form of expressing the same powers. At a milder but more refined level, it looks just like what looks like the Master Zhou video. At a more martial level, it looks like the Gin Soon Chu video (though there's more than just electric/magnetic stuff that's happening with that video -- the master is actually manipulating the energy field around the individual)

Okay.

Come meet me and I'll show you the proof What else do you want to see? Videos? I've posted a few in my PPF. Can you tell the difference between real "qi power" and "physical"? Do you think you'll know the real thing if you saw it?

Why should my ego even play a role here? To appease your ego? No...I don't agree with you because I know what I do is genuine. Where do you live? If you're in the Chicago area, sure, I would love to meet up and exchange notes...might even take you to meet my teacher if I like you. You don't know what I do, but you say its not the same. You have to read the book before you judge it. Just sayin'

Cultural revolution did a lot of damage in mainland china. More teachers and authentic teachings were in Taiwan, etc. Like i said, not emit Qi, but jin. But yes, they can. It is not that hard to do. You're telling me that we develop muscular stuff, and others scoff at us saying we don't do muscular at all...more woo woo No, from a very early stage, we work on the dantien and our way is purely energetic. I won't accept it, because I know what we do and it is a bona fide taoist system

Okay...I didn't have to go anywhere. I found my teachers in the most unexpected place after moving half-way across the world. as far as I'm concerned, 'electric qi' is a misnomer -- it is just a form of jin.

Here's a free session of the grandmaster of my system sharing what this is about -- https://www.taichitao.tv/programs/taichi-connect-restoring-your-original-abilities-master-waysun-liao-5102020

Yes I did I'm saying that you can't say "your mental model" is different from "my mental model" and therefore communication breaks down. We need to go beyond the words, to grasp at the core of what the other is saying -- especially for advanced practitioners such as yourself, that is not so hard to do