cloud recluse

Actually,it kind of disturbed her.It was like an outside agency acting upon her out of the blue!! Thats why she shut it down.No 'voices' or anything,just a unexpected force dissolving a big blockage ,initially around the upper spine.But yes,veeeerrrryyyyy interesting.( Years ago she did MCO from a book for 2 days,no 'initiation' from anyone,just picked it up & did it.By the second day she was practically on fire! No uncertainty about the reality of chi there!!) Regards,Cloud.

Im assuing 'Dennis' is Dennis Lewis,yeah?I think Ive got a couple of his breathwork books stashed away somewhere,but I wasnt aware of the Advaita aspect,sounds COOL. Anyhow,I certainly agree that I wouldnt go to Adya for Chi gung,but his overall perspective brought a lot together for me.Until Ive dropped all ego & am totally flowing with the Dao,as we all will ,Im going to need technical Chi Gung to embody my energy more succesfully( to which end Ive actually just started a Chi Gung & Yang Tai Chi course,taught at a local Buddhist temple ,5 minutes walk from my house no less.Going to structure training around that & Ken Cohens book. ).But its Adya thats really enlivened the nondual 'issue' for me,& led me to speculate about nondualism in Daoism Regards,Cloud.

Aw comeone man,you cant just say "me".DONT BE SUCH A TEASE Gimme some detail,juicy,juicy detail Regards,Cloud.

Likewise,I came across his stuff in my late teens.Didnt really grasp it then,but the image of the shaman/warrior/sorcerer in a central american setting pushed some buttons(Much more so than the pseudomasonic rites of the Golden Dawn,for example).But part of that appeal for me also was its validating of my own habits of emotional repression & avoidance of intimacy.Lots of"lone warrior,loving only the (impersonal)earth" bullshit.Fortunately ,real life,in the form of very patient freinds,succeded in smashing through my pseudo"stoic" act.Ive skimmed over Victor Sanchez' stuff,but not really taken it in.Does his approach allow for intimacy ?That would definetely be one up on Castaneda. If I recall,Sanchez said hes validated a lot of Castanedas stuff as actual shamanism,and a lot of Castanedas stuff seems to have been culled from the genuine work of other UCLA anthropologists actually working in central america(as well as from the popoccultism of the 60s & 70s). Regards,Cloud.

Is anyone experienced with the BigMind process mentioned on the AYP thread ? Regards,Cloud.

And another thing too Adya pretty much says that the Direct Path will only be undertaken by those with a real passionate thirst for it.Guilt & morality wont succesfully motivate you,Awakening cant be legislated! I get a similair feel from Daoism.Awakening is not motivated by a fear of karmic punishment or world weariness,but rather from a natural development of our passions,a pure passion for uncompromised contact that only the nondual can satisfy.If,until then,you are content to splash around dualistically in the flow of the Dao,fine.Its not a "sin".The nature of your splashing can still orintate you 'towards' awakening without a direct assault on your dualism,participation in flow can be deep whils still dualistic.And Adya doesnt seem fazed by the dualistic self that persists until Direct Awakening,its just a fact of life.His position is interesting here as he actually comes from a Buddhist background,an ideology that I do associate with a compusive-moralistic take on Awakening. Regards,Cloud.

Thrash Campbell to peices by all means.I seem to come from the same situation as you in that respect. As for being a Frank receptacle..UUUURRRRGGHH Still,would I get the pacific island and the "gopi Mandala"girls (wink wink,nudge nudge)?

Chuckle.True enough,but I also like to revel in a shameless fascination with the 'romance' of Daoism,particularly through authors like John Blofeld.So if I can find actual Daoist text refences for something,I find it quite gratifying.And I have come to believe that there are some very particular themes in Daoism,or perhaps just matters of emphasis,that do seem to be saner than other spiritual traditions Regards,Cloud.

SunDog,if you put the lightning proposition to the test,I will definitely be impressed But as to your speculation on summer heat,a freind of mine (I wish I could say it was me) who has a phenomenal knack for moving & sensing energy with no real training ( God I hate her),always found the intense,baking summer heat where she lives to be downright oppressive.But earlier this year,after a spontaneous onblocking of some spinal energy,she found this very same heat to be enlivening & soothing ! As the original phenomena that precipitated the unblocking was actually disconcerting to her, she decided to prevent it going any further.Subsequently,her perception of summer heat once again became oppresssive.Now,all this was without any deliberate technique on her part.Are you at all inclined to discuss whats lurking up your sleeve? Regards,Cloud.

All valid points...BUT ( drumroll as mighty revelation prepares to be unleashed ),I think Castaneda was a particularly 'good' example of a bad teacher,perhaps one of the hokiest.His life seems to expose the 'guru' syndrome with clarity.While he wasnt Jim Jones,he damaged a lot of people.I havent followed it up lately,but at the time of writing SORCERERS APPRENTICE,Amy wallace had good grounds for speculating that Castanedas death was followed by a suicide pact amongst his direct students !!If so,he DID NOT empower these people.Rather , he magnified their instability with his cruelty.He ends up looking like poison,pure & simple. YES there are students who dehumanise their teachers by elevating them to godhood & then persecuting them for their inevitable human failings,despite the Teachers sincere efforts to awaken them.BUT ( another drumroll perhaps) there doesnt seem to be any sincerity in Castenedas final dealings with his own students! Just predation !He may have been sincere,albeit confused,earlier on in the mythology he invented,I dont know.But he was also running a scam on UCLA,allready setting a dubious precedent.So later on,when vulnerable people came to him for help,he more or less scammed them to death! Oh God I seem to be getting worked up again.First the Happy Easter thread & now this.Sorry to everyone for banging on about this,but I do seriously think Castaneda is an important case study in the guru syndrome,PARTICULARLY because of his wide influence! Begging your Indulgence,Cloud.

Yoda,I know this is going to sound a bit shallow,and I am not knocking other traditions approaches,but Im really interested to find out if there is a specifically Daoist approach to Inquiry.Are there any daoist equivalents to Dzogchens 'Pointing Out' instructions,for example, didnt formal Zen Koans emerge fron the informal Daoist use of paradoxical language ?Where can I find the Daoist take on all this?Ive been intruiged by the neo-Advaitins literature,and the Dao must be where you start from (& promptly contract away from),in some manner,PRIOR to all the technical yogas.Where would I find authentic Daoist scripture on this ?Any suggestions? Regards,Cloud ( and yes,I am hung up a bit on "being a Daoist" ).

By "atainment",I was referring to spiritual attainment.I am not denying for a second his impact on the New age ,or whichever term might be suitable.And it is this that makes him interesting,how did so much come out of so little,why did people buy it,and keep buying it for so long?How much is wisdom,how much is destructive ? At this moment ,I do think a lot of people,including ordinary "unspiritual" people, would fare a lot better under the scrutiny that Castaneda struggled so desperately to avoid.While its true that Ive fucked up massively in my own life,and will most likely do so again,I dont have to conceal the origins of my "feildwork" to protect a PhD gained through plagairism.And while my spiritual practice is fairly basic and unglamourous,at least it exists.Castaneda just seems to have set up a cult to collect vulnerable women in,and the odd male to intimidate too,while claiming that ALL other spiritual paths were false & hypocritical. I actually think he was a very sick & destructive person to be around,and at best is a bit of an embarresment.But then,thinking about what Ive just wrote,exactly the same things have been said about me !! Hmmm.Thaddeus,you may have a point,Im not sure I seem to be driven by a particular desire to trash him,far more so than other 'fallen' gurus.Whatever my motives,I think spiritual celebrities should be subject to INTENSE scrutiny,and should at least be capable of the integrity that the ordinary 'uninitiated' display on a daily basis Regards,Cloud.

My SUSPICION is that Castaneda ripped off feildnotes from other anthropologists & presented it as his own,mixed in with encounters from various sources in pop-occultism & a lot of tall tales This got him a PhD & a ready made audience.I dont think his life bears the fruit of any real practice,just a cunning spin on self-promotion,and saddling the study of real central american traditions with a lot of baggage.I think he was a fraud of no significant attainment,and towards the end crumbled into a abusive exploiter unable to live up to even half of his mythology.I think his books,which make a wonderful addition to the fiction section of any library,do contain a few pearls of wisdom,but they also have a lot of justifications for his own neurosis.I think its a shame that so many peoples first notions of the central american traditions are by way of his 'work',I think its time he was forgotten,and Im happy to be proved wrong on any of this,or even just proved to be unreasonably harsh. I do think such mystical traditions exist,I just dont think hes relevant to them Regards,Cloud.

Mandrake,just looked at those links.THANKYOU Now Ive got to actually read them Regards,Cloud

Ya,there is definetely inspiring stuff in there,if taken as fiction,and he probably met people from various actual traditions.But he used his "work' to get a Ph.D ,& evenyually set up what only can be called a cult.And mixed in with the wisdom of the ages is the neuroses of the current age.I do find it kind of interesting to track the origins of his anecdotes.Like many compulsive liars,he derived his fictions from fact.Ithink its in the book on Tensegrity that he states how Don Juan caught him off guard one day by commenting that Carlos was getting a bit podgy.The actual incident was repoted many years earlier,I think by a UCLA colleague,who noted Carlos' surprise when she said that very thing to him,& how it was one of the few times he didnt seem to be in control of his responses.So what Im proposing is twofold.For the info-obsessive like myself,working out the 'Ordinary Reality' of Castaneda-I dont actually hope to accomplish this,but I think its fun-and,more relevant to the Tao Bums perhaps,assesing the actual 'wisdom' of Castaneda,whatever its alleged source.When is it inspiring,when is is toxic?That sort of thing. Regards,Cloud.

Poetry in motion,albeit a grubby,smoky,polluted looking poetry But I see by your comments that your a very bad man,Sean!! Are you possibly suggesting that top-down enforcement doesnt solve everything !!Youll be relying on your own spontaneous wisdom next !!Naughty naughty Regards,Cloud.

Mandrake,thanks for the prompt reply.Perhaps Im the one who has been vague,as it wasnt the relationship of kundalini to absorption states or Enlightenment itself that I was asking about.What Im getting at is Chi Gung.My impression of Dr Morris was that he was an acknowledged trailblazer in this area,especially as his works included a lot of advice on the potential psychological fallout,& subsequent necessary intergration,of high energy states.When you wrote that his work was packed with misconception,was it only due to the absorption-enlightenment issue,or were you dissatisfied with the'mechanics' of his chi gung?You see,one of the first reservations I had was actually his apparent equating of kundalini & energetic renewal of the body with Enlightenment as such.So Im actually quite receptive to your observation in that area.But I found his work on Chi Gung & Kundalini so fascinating,as well as his pomposity-free writing style,that it didnt put me off at all.So thats what Im getting at,did you have technical criticisms of his Chi Gung?If so,THAT is what I would really be interested in hearing about Regards,Cloud.

Hajii,youve just made an old Recluse very happy Tell you what though,if my language or manner ever offends you,or anyone else for that matter,say so straight away!Im an opinionated old shit,but I dont want to actually upset anyone Regards,Cloud

Greetings Mandrake.Could you go into more detail please.Certainly Dr Morris seemed to equate kundalini with Enlightenment per se,& I cant recall any discussion of Absorption states,but I thought his work was mainly about the succesful embodiment of energy through Chi Gung (with martial art applications).You say his worked is "packed" with misunderstandings,are these in the area of Chi Gung?If so ,please specify.I myself have only just begun studying Chi Gung & Yang style Tai Chi (second lesson today in fact ),and as I found Dr Morris' books so inspirational in that area,specific criticisms would be of interest (as long as they are comprehensible to a beginner). Regards,Cloud.

To be honest,I dont think Castaneda even begins to approach Dr Morris.Morris was the genuine article,Castaneda an outright fraud . Time for a Castaneda thread ? Regards,Cloud.

One thing I really regret is not being able to meet Dr Morris in person,I missed both his australian tours ! PATHNOTES was the first book to really bring Chi Gung to my attention,& his writing style was as engaging as it was informative.As far as you can ever say without meeting someone personally,he came across as a man of creativity & honesty,someone who could really take his students somewhere worthwhile.I dont think studying with him would ever have been "easy",I imagine it would have been productively demanding, one could be assured of tapping into something genuine.Castaneda impresses me a whole lot less,but I acknowledge his initial significance in generating interest in Shamanism Regards,Cloud.

Ok Pere-DAFreeSomeoneWasStupidEnoughToGiveMeMyOwnPacificIslandEvenThoughImABoozedOutMisyginistBubbaAnandaEverybodiesGodButSomeAreMoreGodThanOthersDaKalki-Grino .You are really shaking the cobwebs out of my brain trying to teach this old dog a new scholastic trick.Its going to take awhile,but Ill dig up what I can.And now that Im calming down from my kneejerk antichristianity,Girard is sounding more than interesting enough to allow me to see past the christian apologetics.would THINGS HIDDEN still be the best place to start ? Yours truly,Cloud-True HeartMasterSexuallyAbuseFemaleDisciplesButItsReallyTantricInitiationCozImAnAvatarSoThere-Recluse.

Yoda,check out "SORCERERS APPRENTICE" by Amy Wallace(daughter of Irving wallace).Details the last years of Castanedas life & the impact of his death on his disciples.Amy was one of his lover/disciples right up to the end.

Anyone with a "guru-complex" is threatened by the intimacy of freindship (see Anthony Storr's FEET OF CLAY),so Rajneeshs refusal is saddingly unsurprising,especially if Singha had no inclination to submit in the first place.Well,its to Singhas credit for having the kindness to make the offer,& R's loss for refusing Regards,Cloud.

If you have some reservations about Tibetan Buddhism,you have GOT to check out"In the Shadow of the Dalai Lama" by Victor & Victoria Trimondi. I think its at http://www.flameout.org/flameout/gurus/shadow/index.html .If Ive screwed that up,just look for the Flameout site. Its one hell of an expose of Tibetan misogyny.I actually went to the trouble of printing the whole thing out & binding it down at the local Officeworks! Regards,Cloud.