Sloppy Zhang

That's good, but even then that's a focus on the positive, rather than the negative. And if you think about filling yourself with divine energy, and focusing with your entire being on Brahman, or whatever you go with, well.... that includes the parts involving sex. So you should be able to have energy circulate through there without being aroused. If stuff happens, don't attached and just let it go.

Hm, well in general I don't like the extremism of the yogic philosophy, and I don't really like the nature of their practice or the verbiage use (it's very heavy on restricting things, on blocking, on strictly adhering to a certain something or another). My own opinions aside, I don't see anything wrong with that description if it is something that you attract. Looking at the way Bardon describes things, physical things only manifest because there are things on the astral and mental levels which create them (and from what others have said, Bardon's system has many yogic elements in it) So, from that point of view, if you, through intense spiritual practice got control over the mental and astral realms, you could effect the physical realm, so if you did not want semen to form, you could make it so that semen could not form. Look at how it is done. 12 years of intense spiritual practice. Yeah. Go up in a cave for 12 years and focus intensely on only spiritual practice. I bet you could do it. But think about what that involves. Getting away from everything. Everything. You're on the internet right now, which means you already fail. And even if you do go for 12 years, and think about how after 12 years you are going to be so free of everything, you know what I think is going to happen? I think you aren't going to get it. Do you know why? It has to do with (again) focusing on the negative. If all you are thinking is, "I'm never going to have any problems with sex", you are still focusing on the issue of sex. And that just isn't going to get you anywhere, I don't think. Also, I think you can run into some serious problems trying to purge yourself in this way. And thus we come back to my reasoning for why I don't really like the yogic way of looking at things and teaching them. It is very easy to get hurt trying to force a practice. Trying to force yourself not to think sexual thoughts is just going to screw you up. Trying to force yourself to sit in lotus position if you can't do it is going to screw up your knees. Trying to force yourself to survive off a glass of milk for a month is going to damn near kill you. These practices and these events should (in my opinion and in my experience) arise from naturally letting go and being relaxed. If you let go and relax this stuff WILL happen, but when the timing is right. There are times when during sex I don't ejaculate. I wasn't trying, I was just enjoying the moment. I don't feel bad, I don't feel unbalanced. It's just not a problem. Then there are times when I try to not ejaculate, and that's when there are problems. There are some times when I just don't feel like eating. I eat a little or not at all, sometimes for an extended period, and I'm fine. I'm just eating when my body is hungry. Then there are other days when if I try to eat less even during one meal I'll feel like I'm starving because, well, my body craves nourishment. And there are times when I think lustful or otherwise sexual thoughts. And there are times when I just run with them and let them go when they're done and it's no problem. But when I try to force myself to stop I fail. Every time. Every time I think this will be the time I will stop, and I fail. Every time. It just doesn't work. I don't have a problem with the techniques or the methods. I have a problem with the way that these techniques or methods are reached. There are people out there who think, "if you attain enlightenment it won't matter anyway", "once you reach a high level of control over the astral you can just reconstruct your body so you can fix yourself." Right, well that's all well and good, but in the meantime? If you fail and are a complete mental and physical wreck? Well, I guess the effort gives you good karma so maybe you can succeed in a few more lifetimes. I'm going to take a page from Christianity and say that you can tell whether something is good by looking at its fruit. If the fruit is good you know that where it came from was good. Good practices will help you physically and mentally. A practice that destroys you physically and winds up your mind so tightly that you can't even stand to think one sexual thought because "the mind is starved to death" is, in my opinion, not the best way to go about doing things. Rather than focusing on starving out the bad things, I prefer to focus on nourishing the good things, while not attaching too much to the bad. I also think markern has a very good point- given your past threads, I don't think this is a good undertaking. Because while you may be doing the right things, I think you would be doing them for the wrong reasons. And when it comes to extreme practices, you cannot do them for the wrong reasons. You will fail, and you will be hurt. Which is again why I suggest you relax and let go from all of the stuff you are worried about. Then examine your motives. Get to the root of the problem. And this will be hard. You don't like seeing parts of yourself for what they are. And always examine what you are DOING, not what you SAY you are doing. You might "say" you are doing some great spiritual practice to absolve yourself of sexual desires so you can ascend and be one with the Divine.... but what are you actually DOING? You may very well be running away from a problem you are unable to accept and solve. Whew, long post. Sorry if it seems very intense and heavy handed. I tried to use the phrase "I think" quite liberally, stressing this is all my opinion, but trust me, this comes from a lot of experience and a lot of self introspection and examination. I hope you made it through at least a part of my post and can take something out of it.

Hey Stais, thanks for taking the time to write all that out. A couple of points: People have mentioned this a few times in a few other threads, but part of what happens when you repeatedly do stuff like this (masturbate) is neural pathways get made and reinforced, your mind starts making associations, and when it sees certain triggers or signals, certain responses get made. For instance- you watch porn, you get aroused. You watch porn, you get aroused. Your mind learns that when you watch porn you should get aroused, so the next time you watch porn, you get aroused faster. If you keep doing this for longer and longer times, when you even THINK of watching porn you will get aroused. Same thing with trying to stop. You can say you don't want to masturbate or ejaculate anymore, and be able to go two weeks without doing it, then watch porn or have a dream and ejaculate. Since you focus so much on that ejaculation and the circumstances around it, your mind puts a signal around the circumstances. So the next time you try to quit, you last a week, maybe a week and a half, then your mind sees the same triggers, the same signals, and even though you say, "no, I don't want to ejaculate", your mind and body think, "oh, well last time I thought this I ejaculated, so time to ejaculate again". Which is why you fail sooner, and sooner, and sooner, until pretty much nothing works. Also, a good quote that I like from star wars: "Your focus determines your reality". If you are so focused on the energy being lost when you ejaculate, you will lose energy, simple as that. Try not to worry about it, and when I say don't worry about it, I mean think of something positive. When you think of the negative, you are still thinking of that thing. For example: if you think "I don't want to ejaculate". What are you always thinking of? Ejaculating. So rather than saying that, think, "I want to play the guitar in my free time." Rather than thinking of ejaculating you think of the guitar. You get into the habit of playing the guitar, and your mind forgets the association of that free time and ejaculation, and replaces it with the guitar. Now, I've had the same experiences as you when it comes to "arousal without ejaculating", namely after a while things get to full and hot, and stuff winds up coming out anyway. There are methods out there to circulate the energy, but that's not really for me, in the long run it just bothers me and I wind up ejaculating anyway. So I suggest not doing that anymore, especially because some techniques can be harmful. The strange orgasm you had, I think, was something getting messed up or stuck somewhere. There is what's called a "ruined orgasm", where you pretty much get the ejaculation but don't get the full "release", which feels funny. And there's also times when you have orgasm but are trying not to and keep everything in, and that feels weird too. In my experience backing off for a week or two and doing normal orgasms/ejaculations straightens everything out. Also, the thing about porn and your body in general.... As you have already figured out your body has natural cycles where you want to be sexually aroused, and when you don't want to be. Well, the more porn you watch and the more triggers you make, the more your body becomes aroused, even if it doesn't want to be. Your body might be saying, "It's time to rest", but your mind is thinking, "I'm watching porn, that means get aroused". THAT is when problems get caused, I think, and that is when masturbation moves to something that can be harmful. If you watch porn when your body wants to be aroused, and don't watch it when you don't want to, well there's nothing wrong with that- it's just adding to an already aroused body. The problem with porn and with all the triggers you make is that it reaches a point where it is hard to really listen to when your body is wanting to be aroused and when it doesn't want to, and that's bad. If that's the case, you gotta cut the porn. You can tell it's starting to happen because of the dreams- I think you said you usually have the dreams when you watch porn, then it got to a point where you had the dreams even though you didn't watch porn, right? What happened was you watched porn, went to sleep, dreamed about sex, porn, sleep, sex. Then you stopped watching porn, but when your body went to sleep, it thought- sleep = sex, and that's when it started. You have to establish some new pathway. And going to bed thinking, "I will not ejaculate" won't help because again, all you are thinking about is "ejaculating". Think of something else!! Hope this helps. If you aren't a native English speaker I hope you understood everything okay, and if not feel free to ask me anything

The body always has semen produced. If you don't use semen after a while (no ejaculation) it breaks the semen down and new semen is made. You don't "halt the process of semen production", and you certainly don't do it by not having any sexual energy. Sex is part of humans. Sex is how you got here. You should not attach to sex or sexual thoughts. But you also should not attach to trying to not have sexual thoughts or sexual energy. That will only produce more sexual energy and give you a hard time. Accept it without holding on to it. Energy going through the sexual organs is part of energy going through your body at all times. When you circulate energy it goes through the higher centers as well as the lower centers. The only reason it would cause a problem is if you have some kind of blockage or some kind of fixation surrounding your lower centers- energy will get stuck or otherwise pool there every time you try to do energy work, because that's where your focus, consciously or not, is. And if you try to avoid the sexual energy and just not have sexual energy at all, and do work with everything else, as soon as you encounter some sort of sexual thing- a thought, an image, a word, well, energy flows from high density to low density, and if you have a high density of energy everywhere else in your body, but not a high density of energy where it comes to sexuality, well... guess where that energy is going? And guess where your focus is going to be? And you will be back to square one.

Relaxing Into Your Being and The Great Stillness are two books written by B.K. Frantzis which give an excellent overview of Taoist philosophy, Taoist ideas on various aspects of life, while at the same time teaching great practices that can be with you for a lifetime.

So I've mentioned it a few times before, but one of the things I have noticed about myself is I can get pretty OCD when it comes to thought patterns. Not necessarily behaviors, but it's more like cycles of repetitive thoughts. It's happened pretty much my entire life, but nothing I really ever took notice of, and nothing that's ever really been a problem- until I took notice of it and tried to stop. It's gotten to a point where intellectually I know that I just need to let go of it all. It's really hard to, say, once I get into some thought cycle, not go through with it all the way. But even if I get through it all, I know I am going to get sucked into it again. I've given it lots of thought. I've examined it as it's all happened. I know where it's going to go- I just can't stop myself from going there. I really am just very tired of it- it's causing me stress that is messing up my health and messing up my life in general. But again, letting go, not intellectually letting go, but letting go with my entire being, seems very hard. On the one hand, there is B.K. Frantzis' method, which I really like, but for this situation it feels like every time I try to let go a little at a time, well it's still there. It might get smaller and smaller and smaller, but it's still present. And in some instances, even trying to let go has caused these thoughts to kick back. So I've contemplated letting it all go, just dumping it all out in one go.... But as soon as I do that, it seems like I can't. So then I think I should go through a little at a time... thus, a new cycle is born. I'm really interested in how you guys view this problem, and any suggestions or experiences you might have. Even with all the trouble this has caused, I've learned a lot about myself, about the ego in general, and about all kinds of knee jerk reactions that people can have

I don't want to speak for gold, but here is a quote directly from the interview:

Two users on http://vsociety.net/, Prophecy and Veos, claim to have attained high levels in Franz Bardon's system. Back when the board was much bigger, they used to have "Vcons", and apparently these guys showed up and displayed a lot of stuff (clairvoyance, certain elemental control) and won over a few students. But that was some time ago, the forum is a lot smaller, and they say they are really dedicated to only training a select few students up to a very high level before branching out. Regardless, they have some good materials posted for free on that website, and both of them are still routinely active members of the forum, and are open for questions. Polite questions anyway. But if you really want to find someone in a high level of western mysticism, these guys are the highest I know that are contactable. And, as a side note, I read through some of the Dragon's Gate book on Wang Liping. While I don't claim to be an expert on either system, there seemed to me to be some pretty noticeable overlap in the methods between what Wang Liping went through and some methods used in Bardon's system. Just saying.

Great interview. I think there are some good points to the stuff that the monks studied- namely the history. It gives you perspective on the ebb and flow of cultures and power amongst countries. One country invades, then years later can be invaded. Victims can quickly become the perpetrators. Not many people see it, but then again, not many people are really looking out for it.

Yeah, I don't know about all the techniques, thanks for the recommendation though. I do agree though, that "letting go" is a whole lot more than just the new-agey buzzword that everyone just keeps using.

That's something to meditate over I think. Thanks Scotty.

I see what you did there A quotation I really like is something Bruce Lee said, which gets to the heart of what I'm trying (or not trying ) to do: "Before I studied martial arts, a punch was just a punch, and a kick was just a kick. After I had learned martial arts, a punch wasn't just a punch, and a kick wasn't just a kick. After I had mastered martial arts, a punch was just a punch, and a kick was just a kick." I'm trying to return (or, not trying ) to a more natural state (or should I say "process"? Damn you English language!!! ) the place where I was before all of this, yet with the knowledge and experience I still have. A more refined me, a purer me that's been distilled through the process.

Yeah, but that sort of thing is not really always effective- it's like, as long as I don't run into a certain stimulus it's fine, right? But whenever I run into a certain stimulus, even after a long time, it triggers the event. Also, even if it is not the exact same thoughts, the same types of thoughts arise. So, I might not get into a 10 minute thought strain about closing the door, but I might get into one about opening the drawers. I gotta get to the root. Thanks for the advice If there's one thing I have given up on a long time ago it is trying to reach some sort of "state". Because every time I get to a "state", a "state" where I'm "done", a "state" where I "have a problem", it always changes and shifts. So rather than trying to get a new state, rather than trying to get rid of a new state, I'm trying to stop channeling "bad energy" and trying to only circulate good kinds. Yeah, the ego is a problem, and I've definitely learned a lot about how the ego can function. Not really looking to get into drugs though Someone linked to an article about some doctor using psilocybin and describing some experience he had, and it reminded me of a lucid dream I had a while ago. Scary as heck Ego's definitely the problem but I dunno if I can handle the full ego death quite yet

The need for humans to categorize, polarize, and limit, is something I too have noticed- but it's pretty inescapable from a logical point of view. The other day I was having a conversation with someone about God. I said, "I don't really like the way that people label God. It's so limiting. I think God is infinite. But that too is limiting. What if God wants to be finite? What if God wants to be 17.5 units (of whatever?) Well God should be able to do that. Because God can do what God wants to do. But that then prevents God from being infinite, which God should be able to do. It's not just an issue of infinitely being everything, and it's not an issue of being one thing specifically. It's being both, yet neither. It's about transcending... but what is God transcending? What if God wants to be right here??? See, there's no escaping!" Or something to that effect..... Why did I quote myself instead of just saying what I thought.... *ahem* the point is that the way we see things is by categories, and we tend to get into fierce arguments and create very complex defenses for why our categories are right, why others' are wrong, whether there should be categories, and all other sorts of stuff.

Yeah that really is a great question! I find myself frequently wondering, if reincarnation does exist, if anything exists really, how I will "stay aware" in the meantime if I can't even get myself to have a lucid dream when I want!

I guess it's possible that negative thoughts are making stuff happen. But I definitely don't think we should discredit the influence that an improved media has. We just hear about stuff more often. Think of rogue waves in the ocean- huge waves that travel around and can easily destroy ships. Back in the past, ships would disappear for no reason. Then we'd get legends and rumors of gigantic waves, but no real confirmed evidence. Then now we know that rogue waves do exist, there's been documentation, and if you want to find out about them you easily can get info on them. Do they happen any more or less frequently? I don't think so, but now that more people know about them, they are maybe more worried about it.

It's the school of Daoism that Bruce teaches. He separates it from various "fire methods" of Daoism in the way that he handles things, focusing more on relaxing and letting stuff happen rather than trying to make stuff happen. But calling them separate "schools" isn't really the right term either, it's more like a way of doing things, "method", if you will I dunno, hard for me to explain clearly, check out "Relaxing Into Your Being", one of his books that describes it a lot. There are a few pages of preview for it on google books I think. Or just buy the book, it's really good

I think one of the reasons we all seem to disagree here is that.... Wait for it... WE'RE ALL RIGHT! No, seriously, this isn't some trippy la la land answer. I've found the water method as taught by Bruce to be the best for me. I've experimented with lots of other methods and approaches, and they didn't work for me. But you know what the crazy thing is? The further I go in the water method, the more and more I naturally discover the things that are present in systems I've already trained with. For martial arts, I did karate for a while and thought, "there's no way karate can ever have the same internal development as an IMA does". Then, years later, as I'm doing some forms and playing around with applications, I see how the same internal characteristics can be put into karate. I'm like, WHOA. A high level karate guy could be getting the same kind of stuff as an internal guy- as long as they follow their training method through to the end, and really put their whole being behind what they do, they will get there. A lot of people on this board put their entire being into what they do- I bet if we were to analyze everything we've ever done and been through, we'd find a lot of similarities and a lot of similar conclusions drawn. But since we have different approaches to get to the same place, it looks different, when in reality, the same underlying current could be taking a variety of forms. And since we have put so much of ourselves into a particular method, when we see other forms it is easy to take offense. Then again, I could be dead wrong!

I'm not familiar with the Rosicrucian system enough to comment. Bardon's system has a lot of parallels with a lot of other systems, uses the same terminology, and in some places even the same techniques. There's some controversy surrounding Bardon, whether he was who he said he is, whether he just took from other people and compiled it, or whether it was really all him. But his system is one of the most complete systems that I have ever seen, and it has been completely laid out, start to finish.

Seriously? I will watch Dr. Oz's show just for you. You need to have a keyword or phrase that way we'll all know it's you. Like.... "yes, so now women can have more hello taobums orgasms. Huh? I didn't say anything, I just said women can have hello taobums more orgasms..... wha?" Then I can tell all my friends I know someone famous.

Yes, Franz Bardon. There are two people on this website, one with the username Prophecy and the other one Veos, that are reportedly quite advanced in Bardon's system, as well as yoga, and they have some rather interesting insights. William Mistele has a good website here. Yeah, everyone sees the same thing through a different lens Sure thing.

I don't want to be "that guy" (not the forum user , but you know the one) and I definitely don't want to be responsible for any deaths.... HOWEVER.... Anyone see the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats? ****spoilers**** George Clooney's character gets hit with a "dim mak" strike and thinks that he's going to die. Ewen McGregor's character was like, "what's Dim Mak?" And Clooney tells him a story of how a Dim Mak master used a Dim Mak strike on someone, the Dim Mak master "lost", but he said, "oh no, I won, you will die soon." and 14 years later the guy died. And McGregor's character was like, "uhhhh....." Then Clooney says he got hit with a Dim Mak strike years before the events of the movie and now has cancer. And McGregor thinks, "uh....." HOWEVER, I will say that as a result of my practice I've started to feel energy more sensitively. And recently I've taken a few walks in and around the cemetery. It's a nice place.

I support the effort... But I think a much better way of doing things is to get people to have these experiences on their own without the use of drugs- as further down the article it says that some people had similar effects even while not on the hallucinogens. Just stuff to think about.

Well, you'd be surprised how deep seated blocks can be. Blocks can also be tangled up with each other, so tackling one block will mess up another one, thereby drawing your attention away, only to have a third block start acting up. Also, working on trying to get rid of blocks can actually work as a block as well. It's quite a long and complicated process! And after that, there's always the chance that new blocks reform. How many times have you told yourself, "I'm never going to do that again, I just get messed up every time I do it?" only for you to get back into it a week later? You learned the lesson, but there you are, back at the old bad habits. Just stuff to think about.

I'm going to say something radical here and tell you that loooooooong before you get a master you should work on cultivating certain qualities within yourself, namely, the ability to "listen". Learn from everything, watch everything, watch how it behaves, how things interact. Observe the flow, see what lessons you can take from one area and use them in another. Masters (and other high level teachers) can be found in strange places, and you won't even be able to find them unless you have the ability to listen, and many of these people are willing to divulge secrets to you if you are willing to listen. But there are many people who say that there are no such things as "secrets", there are only those willing to work at it and those unwilling to work at it. They say that when the student is ready the master will appear, but the student must be ready. You can have the greatest "master" on the planet and not get anything out of it, but taking a long walk in the woods listening to the trees can really get you into a learning mood. You'd be surprised how many things you can intuitively come to grasp if you only take the time out of your day to seriously sit down (or take a walk), question, examine yourself or something else, kick it around, relax, reflect, and do it again. And read. A lot. The amount of material available in print these days is ridiculous, not to mention stuff that's for free on the internet, especially compared to the old days where you had to hike halfway across a country and all the way up a mountain to even get the basics of the basics. Again, listen listen listen.