hyok

Nice thoughts. Only thing I would add to it is... I'm thinking that our bodies are connected to our souls, temporarily. By this I mean that our bodies sort of act like a cocoon through which we develop the spirit and learn until it's time to move on.

"Why do they call you Vaj?" "Mom always said, 'you are what you eat.'" How's that for a snazzy come back?

I think i've only met one teacher who behaved like the way I imagined a teacher to be. Totally humble, funny and oblivious to any type of self-aggrandizing. Other teachers seemed to carry a "holier than thou" air about them, which caused me to clinch my wallet a little tighter. What gets me is when an OLD teacher, like 60+ yo, acts this way. I don't get it. I mean, i'm 36 and i'm starting to get over the euphoria of feeding the ego. I can't imagine being stuck in that rut when i'm 60 and surely it must represent something that is lacking in the character of the teacher.

LOL. Vaj.

1. masturbation is bad! 2. don't date her, boy! 3. Be patient. It'll all make sense one day.

This makes sense in that we're supposed to be trying to create a Yang spirit body. Silver is Yin.

Welcome, man!

tSotGF - Findley edition. I AM PYSCHIC.

I think the use of the word "conspiracy" has been used up on the internet. A few things about EM engines - someone show me an electro-magnetic engine that works and isn't a variation of a perpetual motion machine. I would like to see one powering a fridge or an LCD TV for more than 24 hours straight. Frankly, i've seen a lot of these videos and even attempted to make my own, but i have yet to witness with my naked eye a TRUE EM engine that provides free energy. Not that I don't believe it's possible, I just think it's quite odd that there are so many folks who claim to have built these engines -- yet i can't buy one anywhere! Not even a super expensive custom made one. Also, Tesla said something that was the cornerstone in my interest in spirituality -- "there is a unique relationship between electricity and magnetism in the universe." I took that to heart.

Fantastic Idea!

Why are we brave for taking on human form?

Yes! Massive increase in energy the last two or three days. Like serious blow through blockages type of energy. My head feels like a lightbulb.

That's pretty fascinating, Findley. The whole of it. I look forward to understanding tSotGF better in the future because of this. Thanks for sharing cuz it has definitely imprinted. BTW, I think I know where you're coming from now. It's the fluff that you think is wasteful. Like the whole 'smiling to your organs' and just plain whole focus on harmonious, uber-feminine type of practices that permeate through many metaphysical circles. As a practitioner who has found himself in these types of practices, I find them to be very uncomfortable and misleading for ME, and I think in the big scheme of things, for some people, it is an absolute waste of time, but it certainly draws in a certain demographic as well as makes some people feel better about venturing into the unknown. Cheers!

I'm not sure what voices from a valley sound like, but sometimes when i'm meditating, the air flow from the vents begin to take on a strange chanting sound. It gets seemingly louder and more clear as I think about it. To be honest, I think it's my mind messing with me, or maybe it's not? I don't know. RE: Maturity. In my mind i was emphasizing insight more than maturity, although i really have no idea where the lines are between these two words. Throw in wisdom while we're at it. I guess maybe insight is the ability to pierce into the core of the formless with yang penetration and yin intuition. Basically what i'm thinking is that maybe you needed to waste those years to arrive at a point where you said, "screw this. i'm doing it my way." and then it worked. I can see how this type of development can be beneficial for the practitioner. It's like in that movie, The Last Dragon, where Bruce Leroy kept looking for the master, constantly seeking and searching for the master, only to discover in the end that he is the master.

Findley, may I first say that I appreciate your style of expression because I find it to be very effective, as opposed to the koanish verbiage that normally dominates this site. Of course, I would not be thinking this if you didn't seem like you knew something. SEEM being the keyword here. That said, I haven't read the Secret of The Golden Flower in its entirety so I will read more idiotically than you would want, but my question is this... How important is a practitioner's level of insight and maturity when attempting to open the mysterious gate? Moreover, relative to time, do you think everyone has their own pace, or do you think this method is a working model for anyone? Thanks!

It's Sunday, 91 degrees in Cali and while sitting here watching a Blu Ray 1080p DVD copy of I Am Legend and wondering why this movie was so not-so-good, a flashing thought came to me! I am a noob in the Tao! And i'm stubborn and holding on to my ego for dear life! I don't practice enough, I'm moody and irritable and everything spiritual about me seems like it's falling apart at the seams every second! And I can't help it! Every time I feel like this, which has been lately A LOT a lot, I read the I Ching and it makes me feel better, because no matter who I speak to about this, no matter how much I think about how I KNOW what i'm doing wrong, it does nothing. But whenever I read the I Ching and the texts of the early hexagrams, it is like having a one-on-one psychotherapy session with the Tao. I've been on the Bums for a few months now and I've seen a lot of posts from beginners that mirror my own beginning to the present. Aside from the superficial aspects of feeling within a community, no matter how buried they are, I have discovered that it's hard to argue with the enduring blankness of information contained within the I Ching. There is something so nurturing and reflective within the words that its like mother's milk for the spirit and soul. I highly recommend it for new adepts.

For me, it's helped me feel better whenever I feel weak and unworthy. Just read it. I think one receives from it whatever one needs.

Apparently it's not good to talk about experiences and attainments. That's what I hear. Not that it always stops me because I see it like you do too. I dunno, seems like an arcane and outdated rule considering the state of humanity, but what do i know.

Can someone know if another is enlightened? I'm pretty sure people with auric-vision can see if other ppls chakras are open, but I'm iffy on whether enlightened ppl know if others are enlightened, and i definitely don't think any of us could tell. I imagine the only way to know for sure is to meet up with them on the other side.

Certainly would make things a lot easier! lol. What I would find interesting is reading a detailed description of what one sees. Not just images, but the texture of the images. The mixture of color as well as appearance and disappearance of imagery.

I think it's easy to get lost in all the words and names. When I first started meditation, I didn't know what "emptiness" really meant. First I thought it was "no thought". Then I hear it's not, then I hear it is, then I realized it wasn't. And even "bliss". Sometimes i think that word gets tossed around a little too frequently, cuz bliss to me was ejaculating with my HS gf after the 25th time, or somewhere around there. I haven't felt that while meditating even when people were telling me I was. Meditating in emptiness (generally speaking) , to me, is a process that begins with relaxing the body and taming the mind so we can accomplish different things with different practices - i.e. harnessing chi, raising kundalini, training our consciousness to release itself from the confines of matter. While I don't know how everyone else goes through the process of it, i try to imagine myself as a microscopic reflective orb, or as Wang Li-Ping described stillness, a clear and calm body of water, so calm that it reflects. He added that sometimes in the stillness of mind, a ripple in the image of a friend might appear, and a few mins later the friend might unexpectedly call or visit. Things like this definitely happen and it's kinda cool. lol.

This is an interesting topic for me too because I always found it odd that we should suppress desire, but so many practitioners desire greater spirituality, attainments, abilities, power, and in a sense the practices recommends it. I can also understand the reasoning behind non-attachment, but I would add to it that abysmal and black pain derived from great loss is in-and-of-itself beauty. Its pureness and emptiness is unique in the spectrum of human emotion thus I see value in it, at least in a single experience of it to know what true loss and what attachment can do. Perhaps the teachings are assuming that almost everyone will experience loss and hardly anyone will ever transcend it, but it's a way to make it easier.

Came across this link last year some time. Reading posts on over-population reminded me of it. I highly urge anyone who reads this to click the link below and watch the short animated video that follows. It will, at the bare minimum, really make you think about Earth as well as the nature of celestial bodies in the universe. http://www.continuitystudios.net/clip00.html

I'm not sure if this topic has been discussed before so sorry if it's a re-hash for you oldies. What I appreciate most about the fields of metaphysics is the nature of trusting experience as opposed to words or teachings. It's been said that truth cannot be taught nor expressed in words -- it can only be experienced, and this mentality is basically what has led me where I am now - developing a philosophy based purely on experiential processes and heavily scrutinized analysis of these experiences. However, within the subject of energy centers there seems to be reports of different experiences regarding activation and openings. What I am wondering is how these energy center openings have manifested themselves in your physical body to assure you that it has actually happened. 1. how did you know something had opened or activated? 2. What did it feel like, exactly?

I have actually heard of stories of people born and trained in the ability of market sensitivity. There are actually even financial astrologers out there who've been quite consistent in their predictions. I think with the internet, it's become quite easy to hunt down the Gurus and learn the methods of analysis on the macro level. Long-term investment wise, understanding macro-economics is the key, to me. Mindset and the laws of attraction are definitely important, but understanding of the bigger systems will probably provide more solid results in the long run. For me it's simple -- all gold until the price is set again by The Powers That Be. I think this time period, from now until 2012-2015, is when the tide of investment capital moves out and everyone will see who has been swimming naked and who has not. I think we will soon discover just how broke all banks and most companies really are, and will be in a few years. Whatever awaits, It's my humble opinion that gold will be the only investment that will provide any kind of return of real value. Gold is God's money for humanity and this will be embraced again.