Sahaj Nath

yes, as a matter of fact i HAVE tried green rooibos. a little tangy, IMO. unfortunately, none of my students liked it, so i stopped buying it a couple of years ago. *shrugs* wow, then i applaud Italy for actually caring about the health and well-being of their population. there are a number of really good filtration systems on the market, most of which employ, among other aspects, reverse-osmosis. i didn't go that route, however. what i use is Aquasana. really clean water, at a really good price. the filters are replaced every 6 months, and they really stand by their product. all the other systems that i would consider using cost at least 4 times as much. i almost went for a system that was actually 20 times as much! but aquasana works for me.

awareness is not the domain of any one particular school or system. it makes sense that methods from different schools would overlap, seeing as the sages of those schools are exploring the same territory, reaching the same insights, and therefore fashioning very similar vehicles. Bruce's teacher was not a Buddhist. not sure how you're reaching that conclusion, given that inner dissolving is the TAOIST water method taught to him by Master Liu Hung Chieh, a Taoist Immortal. if you throw out the books and engage the practices themselves, it's easy to see that they are basically the same practice. that's what i think, anyway. i don't know what you mean. insight arises from the practice the same way that it does in vipassana. you're not "doing" energy work; you're simply aware of the energy patterns that arise. nothing is forced. blockages are able to dissolve naturally by simply being aware of the various phenomena arising within the spaciousness of your being. insight arises from the continual process of dis-identification with finite things. you might want to pick up a book or two on vipassana. a book will also break down the difference between the concentration practice of anapana and the actual meditative technique. was this at all helpful, or are you asking something else?

oh, really? certainly not a weak flavor if brewed properly. it has a really robust flavor, surprisingly strong considering it's caffeine-free. for those of you who have kids, i think it makes for a good replacement for lipton unsweetened iced tea. give it a try. as for the fluoride... i never looked into the fluoride content of Rooibos, although, as a general rule, i don't worry a whole lot about naturally occurring fluoride. it's the artificially introduced stuff that's problematic. all of the teas i purchase are organic, and the water i use and drink is properly filtered, meaning no Brita or PUR filters, as they are a joke. but generally speaking, all teas have a certain amount of naturally occurring fluoride, and historically this hasn't been a problem. but in my book, purified water is a definite must. oh, and just an FYI for those of you who might think you can lessen the fluoride content by boiling the water: actually the opposite is true. the boiling point of fluoride is much higher than water, so you end up with a higher concentration of fluoride if you're boiling water from the tap.

Indeed. just for the record, since you brought it up, the company Mikaelz works for has a pu-erh with fairly strong notes of earl grey with bergamot. i enjoyed it quite a bit. Genmai-cha was the tea that first really turned me on to teas. in college i would brew a big pot of it every night and serve it after our nightly meditation sessions. it was a big hit, and it got lots of people into drinking green tea. before that i had mostly thought that green tea was nasty, but that people drank it anyway because it was healthy. SO WRONG! there was this old Japanese lady who owned a tea shop near my school, and she schooled me on proper brewing of green tea. i had no idea that different teas might require different water temperatures. so if the water was too hot, or if i steeped the tea for even a minute too long, the delicate flavors of the green tea would turn bitter. and up until that point i had been doing both of those, so as far as i was concerned, green tea kinda sucked. but once i got it right, i was never the same again. someone on the first page of this thread mentioned the African red bush. Rooibos. now THAT'S a great tea, especially as an iced tea in the summer time! and you can probably find a pound of organic rooibos for $25, so it's really inexpensive. anyone into rooibos, or is it just me and that inflammablefish guy?

Thank you for further illustrating the point.

i remember you from 2 years ago. i remember Ya Mu giving you advice. i remember Vajrasattva offering to help you and asking you to contact him. i remember a lot of people telling you a lot of things, and yet here you are again, with the same complaints and no statement of whether or not you took the advice or assistance of anyone who reached out to you. first of all, you're not qualified to diagnose what is going on in your body. as i recall, you screwed yourself up by making up your own energy exercises. you don't know enough to know exactly what's happening inside of you or why. second, you should have been able to learn everything you needed to know to fix your problem by now. it has been TWO YEARS. what the heck have you been doing with your time, sir??? third, we need to know what you have tried and what has failed. we need to know who you have spoken to and/or met with, and what the outcomes have been. BE HONEST. and finally, you certainly don't need the best qigong healers in the world to fix you. to even write that as the thread topic is painfully immature. there were people around in 2008 who had far more serious issues than you, and some of them are no longer with us. so... my guess is that if you were serious, you would have met Vajrasattva in-person by now, or you would have met Ya Mu in-person by now, or you would have met ME in-person by now, or you would have visited Chunyi Lin by now, or Effie Chow, or Robert Peng, or any number of healers/teachers who AREN'T very hard to find. all of these people and more you could have found in 30 minutes on google. and here we are, 2 years later, and you're making the exact same posts as before. i just don't buy that you're serious. i mean, i don't know Ya Mu's policy, but i know FOR A FACT that Vajrasattva would have worked with you for free if you really needed it. i would have done so as well.

nothing wrong with the english language. it's a beautiful, romantic language if one is skillful with it. if there's any problem i'd say it's a lack of sophistication & lack of maturity in the users, and as cat said, problematic sexual attitudes. i mean, we are living in a time when the TWILIGHT series is passing for literature! our complex technological culture is producing simple minds on a massive scale. there is still brilliance and beauty being created all the time, but the mainstream majority doesn't value those things. perhaps i'm biased because i'm a poet and i love good literature, but i think it's true. can't blame the language. maybe the prevailing culture, but not the language.

good tea, a healthy diet, and PROPER BREATHING. that's all you need, really. the biggest dual killer of the immune system is chemicals introduced through unhealthy food, and stress, which produces cortisol, which suppresses the immune system. avoid eating toxic foods, make friends with green tea and pu-erh, and master your breathing. no more than 3-4 breaths per minute, relaxed breathing- deep into the belly, and don't breathe in through the mouth. i never catch colds. you don't need to perform unnatural acts to shock your system into being strong. more often than not people tend to do more harm than good that way. release the stress in your life on a regular basis. and do a lot of this.

the kundalini gateway list began with el collie's list. she wasn't just some off-shoot. (not sure if that's what you were saying, but i felt the need to clarify anyway.) i needed her. a lot of us did. a lot of us would not have found each other (let alone any answers that worked) if not for what she gave. she meant a lot to me. still does. i would think she'd mean a lot to you as well. maybe i can't accurately judge your tone. don't mind me, though. i was just as over-sensitive about her the last time she came up in a discussion back in '08, which culminated in debate between Drew and Santi about the merits of full-lotus.

i guess i'm behind you by about 2 years. i take it you are familiar with el collie's kundalini support group then? it was the only really functioning one i could find back in 96/97, but i wasn't very good at searches back then. yahoo & alta vista ruled the web back then. i didn't know what had happened to me, either. i was bed-ridden for about a week. my spine felt like it had over a thousand needles in it, and it hurt to move at all. the outside of my spine was like an A/C blowing out cold air, but a thin thread in the center was burning hot. my mother fed me a simple soup made with pepermint stalk, lemon, and chamomile. it was the only thing i could eat. and when i finally became functional again my energy body felt partially shut down, which sucked. i felt short circuited for at least the next year, and i didn't feel as strong as i had been prior for at least another year after that. the master who did it was a jerk. i tracked him down a couple of years ago to tell him what had happened to me and how it changed me, and he was still a jerk. yeah, hoses vary.

wow, as someone who really wanted the topic to stay on matters relating to shaktipat, i guess i should have just kept my mouth shut about the guy from Utah. *shrugs* TheSongsofDistantEarth, i'm having difficulty accepting your question as serious. either you simply don't know any black people at all, or you're trying to make some point that doesn't really need to be made. it's not like we're a different species. we're people. in most cases, what we want more than anything is sincerity. ever heard the phrase, "keep it real"? just be real. personally, i've never really cared that much for the term "african-american," and there have been occasions when i have found it offensive. not because of anything inherent in the words, but because the person saying them was so obviously uncomfortable relating to me in conversation that they substituted political correctness for real relating. people who are sincere can say just about anything, as long as they're being real. and if something accidentally offensive is stated, then there's mutual ground for loving correction with no assumptions about (or defensiveness against) racism. it's not complicated. a man i used to work for used to refer to black people as colored. i never corrected him. he was 94 years old, and he loved me, as i did him. it was never an issue. if you can acknowledge my humanity and genuinely communicate with me, it doesn't really matter much what terms you use. and if you can't, then it doesn't really matter what terms you use.

i doubt Master Lin scoured the earth to observe the level of all black people, so how about we just assume he means American since, after all, that's what he said. he also said he "believes" this to be true. he's not sure. and frankly, it doesn't much matter. master level or not, i just think it would be cool to have some black friends for once!

a similar fate befell a teacher of mine. imprisoned & tortured for more than a decade. i don't remember exactly how long. i used to be a pretty extreme left-wing socialist, and even an apologist for Mao until i began studying the arts and my teacher made it real and personal for me. keeping to the topic, he told me about the systematic extermination of the hermits in the mountains. Taoist, Buddhist, and "old religion". his teacher was a buddhist hermit who was killed, and came to him in-spirit after he had been paralyzed to help him mend his body in the dungeon. more important than the written materials was the way of life that was lost, he would say. He believed firmly that all the secrets could be found again if the conditions which gave rise to them could be preserved. he felt the West was most likely to allow for those conditions without the threat of violent suppression, and so he chose an american heir for his lineage.

so... Utah... he's a white guy, then? damnit! am i like the ONLY brotha who's into all this? Hahahahaha! i will definitely be sending you a message some time soon. we need to know each other, methinks.

Or... how about you just NOT allow your "inspiration" lead you to act like a buddho-fascist. how about extending a little grace by allowing people to be "wrong" once in a while? very few people appreciate your "interventions." i know i certainly don't. maybe a month or two ago, i was interested in knowing you; now, most of the time, i just wish you'd stop.

the initial question, at least the way that i read it, was about your STUDENT, not keeney. we've talked about keeney here before. but how did your student get involved with the Kalahari? what kind of 'high-level understanding' has she attained and shared about? what's HER story? THAT'S what i want to know, anyway.

are you serious? what, were you waiting for a voice to descend up you whilst shaking? LOL! it's about surrender, bro. wu wei. how when nothing is done, nothing is left undone. nobody 'invented' qigong. the energy did. same with hatha. things were mapped and structured and ordered AFTER the fact! spontaneous qigong is truly the art of wandering the territory, as opposed to blindly following a map. patience, my friend. patience.

yeah, and i identify (on most days) as buddhist as well. no one was making a generalization about the character of ALL buddhists. it's just that language is imperfect, and it's easier to lump them under their subject than to name names each and every time. what sucks is that, even with our expressions of dismay, i haven't seen i new thread created for their discussion. whatevs.

um... this is an important topic. a lot of people are seeking information/discussion about shaktipat. however, the buddhist debaters are intent on overriding the intended subject of the thread. can't SOMETHING be done? i mean, it's pages and pages of this buddhism thing now. can't a moderator step in? move the discussion to it's own thread? i know this has been done before. i've gone to numberous threads and just stopped reading them because of the never ending string of comments from Vajrahridaya that have nothing to do with the supposed topic. this thread has now become one of those as well. someone? anybody? Bueller?

hm... that's probably not entirely accurate. pretty sure i only defended max AFTER i met him in-person and came out against him. kinda funny writing that out, but that's how it happened for me. as for "did you give it a try," i made a post about it, which was met with... mixed reviews. LOL! http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/3829-max-and-the-sf-kunlun-workshop/ he really was this nicest guy, and for a month or two after the workshop i was still meditating on the transmission he'd passed me (which i would still argue that he HIMSELF didn't fully grasp), but all of my complaints were sincere. i wasn't just trying to take shots at him. i had some real issues with the guy, and that was mixed in with the confusion of "how could someone so inept and full of it transmit such a complex vibration? what am i missing?" so i defended him against muck-rakers, but stayed critical as i allowed the transmission to unfold within me. it was a confusing time for a little while there. well, i was just shown a page ago that, in fact, Santi DID come out against Max's lies and irresponsibility, almost a year after i did. so it's not accurate to say he won't do what he's already done. and, accepting all comers isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. anyone who teaches publicly kind of has to accept all comers. we got this thing call the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it kind of mandates equal treatment. LOL! seriously though, you could say that about every public teacher. it's not really saying much of anything. Santi's a good guy, and i will certainly have his back if wrongfully attacked. he is of far greater service to others than most of his critics, and that carries a lot of weight with me. what i spoke up about was all in love, and now that it's done, he, susan, and i can all go out and get a couple of beers.

fair enough. it doesn't really change my point, though. as i said in the post, i'm referencing way back when Santi first began posting here (i've been out of loop for a long time), and back then there was a lot of heat directed at anyone who openly criticized "kunlun" as a system or max as a person. what Santi told me about chosing his words carefully so as not to upset folks was accurate. it was during a phone conversation that he and i had at the time when i was considering flying down to Florida to train with him. over time the forum got a lot more accepting of the open criticism of max and his system, but it was damn-near forbidden when i first posted my misgivings, and there were VERY FEW people willing to agree with me publicly. i got emails, but not much public support. but whatevs. my only point is that towing ambiguous lines are a bit of a theme with respect to presentation. i still think that's a fair statement.

i'll run with it a little bit, because i think it moves a step closer to the point i'm trying to highlight. Santi and i BOTH have our misgivings about Max, but i don't think he ever came out and leveled the kind of PUBLIC criticisms that i did. he even told me that he monitored his word choices so as not to upset too many people, but he seemed to be okay with letting loose when he thought he was in good company (or as in your case, in the great majority). i never had a problem with the Yi Gong practice. my problems were all with Max specifically. and right or wrong, i was IN NO WAY ambiguous about where i stood. ambiguity can be a tricky thing. in the experience you described it can be a way of claiming "i'm WAY beyond Max" without ever having to say it. that way, you can always fall back on your public record and past statements of humility. it's the kind of thing that politicians do. making statements without making any "statements." Susan, in case you it hasn't been obvious in my previous posts in this thread: I LIKE YOU! i genuinely mean that, but that doesn't make you & Santi beyond a healthy criticism. too often it feels like i have to choose a side. well, I DON'T. i don't live that way. no matter who i like more in a controversy, my first priority is to the truth as i see it, and as my understanding changes or grows, so does my position, but it has nothing to do with my feelings about you as a person. but here AGAIN you're making it sound as if you're being viciously attacked, even drawing on some past experience in which you actually WERE physically attacked. that sucks, and that should never happen, but that's NOT WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE! so let's put that away. yuanqi is not attacking you or santi, and i'm not either. well, moreso than yuanqi because that's just how i talk, but i'm really trying to be constructive here. people who get that impression of "i'm a master" from you guys are not all just crazy. stating that you are not a master doesn't prevent you from making or encouraging that impression in others. you can bullet-point all the right things that you've said, and there is STILL some validity to why some folks feel that way. i think you would do well to take some of that on-board. now, even having said that, there's no question to me that you are a lot more skillful in your words than Santi has been in the past (i lump you both together cuz you seem to act as a unit around here), but the reference that i made, which you quoted, was to a very REAL post in '08 from a guy compiling a list of "real" masters with "real" abilities who taught publicly. in that list were Wang Li Ping, Robert Peng, Jerry Alan Johnson, Max, and Santiago (with a nod to John Chang thrown in there). Santi never corrected or clarified the association, and later on i think even participated in the thread, so i know he saw it. i can try to find the thread if it matters. i haven't been around much in the past year or so, so i don't have a lot of current examples, but there are lots of times when even at a glance i've seen posts that really, really tow the line. jump in like experts, brag about all the power you guys have and what it can do, then get sniped at from people who don't like it but don't necessarily articulate it as clearly as i've been attempting to, and then it's all about unfair attacks and how humble you guys are. that's just not reality. and i'm not saying you guys are bad people. i think you guys are beautiful. i really mean that. i'm glad you guys are around. but you've gotta OWN some of this, in my opinion. because some of the misconceptions your/santi's mastery has been encouraged by you guys, even though you might never make the statement "I AM A MASTER." i recall more recently a thread about Jerry Alan Johnson (or maybe it was the same thread, i don't know), who is one of the most skilled masters teaching in the states, and whose qigong textbooks are even used in some chinese medicine schools in china. it's hard to dispute the man's credentials. before i knew who he was, i saw him move on a video, and i immediately knew he was a master. he's that good. and yet i recall you commenting very casually about how you did a workshop with his students and how blown away they were by your energy. now, i'm certain that you never claimed that you were on the same level as JAJ, but really? what impression does that kind of statement encourage? and when someone commented about being sick of how you guys hijack threads and brag about how great you are, you responded again about how unfairly attacked you are, and how you were merely sharing what happened, and how it's not your fault you're so amazing. i mean seriously, it happens. it doesn't come out in statements like "i'm enlightened" or "i'm a master," but it does come out. to me it's an issue of maturity, not ability. i know you guys have the goods, that you can and DO give a tremendous amount to those who are willing to receive it. and MUCH of that is VERY selfless and beautiful. that's absolutely true! but the other is there as well. it's not all one or the other. and so when some people are agitated by what they perceive (whether correctly or incorrectly) as intentional deceit or shameless seminar pedaling, there IS a basis for it. it's not just in their heads. you guys are human. you don't need to be perfect, and i'm certainly not trying to hold you to an impossible standard. i'm just saying that there's some stuff you guys could benefit from examining a little more closely, and just own some of it. maybe not all of it, but some. because it's there. and i personally think it does diminish you a bit to deny it.

as i stated earlier, i think you represented yourself rather well, brother. i don't think the problem was a matter of misunderstanding, but instead a legitimate difference of opinion. that's all. personally, i think your position AND susan/santiago's position are short-sighted, but i am far more aligned with susan/santiago's perspective than i am with yours. many of your points continue to not be addressed, but even my mild criticism of susan/santi went mostly unaddressed and obscured, so that happens. *shrugs* i tend to enjoy jumping in the fray, and even when i take a particular matter seriously, i almost never take it personally, so EVERYONE can feel free to tear me apart. i'll respond to arguments, but probably won't bother with immature sniping or name-calling. (which was my MAIN POINT to susan & santi, btw, NOT that all attacks should just be accepted or whatever nonsense) first, let me state what feels kinda obvious to me and seems at least a little bit implied in what you wrote above. the scriptures weren't written for the already enlightened, but rather for the unenlightened. the awakened don't need rule books (except for political purposes). WE do. kinda simple, but kinda true, too. also, the notion of "falling from grace," either as a result of, or as evidenced in, abhorrent behavior, is the same short-sighted understanding that seems evident in a lot of what you've written in this thread. it hint at a mindset of "a Guru must act this way and must be recognize by these people to be legit." i get the need for standards, but it's far from absolute and often gets abused. Muktananda just happened to get caught, but his behavior is far from unique. but i'm getting a little ahead of myself. i think one of the reasons precepts and doctrines are SO important is because in time you reach a state of cognition that is literally beyond good and evil, and the HOPE is that with enough PRIOR training (cuz God knows you're not gonna learn it after the fact) you will tend towards the values that were instilled in you earlier. there have ALWAYS been masters who were considered to be "on the dark side." always. masters who have raped and killed wantonly. indiscriminately. just as the masters who shine like the sun and wantonly bestow blessings. ALL phenomenon is moved by the same hand. but we like to believe in our fairy tales of good against evil, or worse yet, of good OVER evil! and so we tend to follow the "righteous" like lambs to the slaughter... hm... maybe this is a little too "out there" for this community. well, i guess we'll see. all phenomenon is the neverending unfolding of God's self TO Herself. rape and murder (for instance) are part of the natural order of things, and the fact that we find them disagreeable (and we SHOULD, as decent people) doesn't change that. so from where i stand, Muktananda's enlightenment is in NO WAY diminished by his transgressions. nor is Osho's. or the one who put Crazy Wisdom on the map, Chogyam Trungpa. such a mundane level of moral judgment is incapable of evaluating non-rational activity from a higher state of being, yet such judgment is still necessary for the order and well-being of ordinary people in everyday life. so yeah, i think much of your perspective is vitally important, and a lot of folks who aren't giving you enough credit could benefit from at least taking pause and really considering your views, but it's also very limited. now, my issue with susan/santi is like this: they are so right about so much of it that they throw out the Buddha with the bathwater. transmission of energy is easy. opening up to shakti is easy, once you understand. in fact, i would challenge anyone who has trained with them in-person to meet with me and see if my transmissions aren't AT LEAST as powerful. that's the easy stuff. the importance of a truly realized master is about quality, and nuance. and most of the people in this community don't have the training or experience to judge that. most of are going from practices that did 'nothing' for them to a practice (like KAP or Kunlun) that's doing 'something.' and this is NOT to compare the systems, mind you. my issues with what is called "kunlun" has been well-documented here, and i have even sent people over to KAP because i knew they would get a lot out of it. but i've kept my distance personally. i see more than i did last year, which was more than i saw the year before, and so on. but the energies of a realized master are NOT being transmitted by Susan/Santi. i'm not saying this to be inflamatory, but yuanqi is CORRECT on this score, and it DOES make a difference. awakening the Kundalini doesn't require transmission from a realized being, but then most of the people walking around with awakened kundalini are not realized anyway, so it really does depend on what you're looking for. to put Susan/Santi on the same level as a Wang Li Ping or John Chang (assuming he's legit) or other true masters (which HAS been stated in the past, and which Santi did NOT correct) is just naive and silly, and they should at least have the integrity to admit that they are not on that level (which i think would go a long way to answer yuanqi's concerns). to borrow from taomeow in a debate she and i had a month or two ago: it's like comparing a skilled surgeon to a certified message therapist. both can get your body functioning better, but there's just no comparison in their respective skill levels. by susan/santi's standards, i can give shaktipat, too. and it's true. i can. sort of. some of the people on this board can attest to the strength of my energy, and i've never really let loose with anyone here! but my kundalini is flowing, and if you're sensitive you might even be able to feel it in these very words. i'm way stronger than i was 10 years ago, and i was blowing light bulbs and frying electronics back then. for most people who are largely novices in this realm, what i do is MORE than enough to accelerate their growth. in fact, i would even argue that it makes more sense to come to me in the beginning than to seek out a more traditional master-type who will make you wait a lot longer and pay a lot more for the training and the transmission that i can provide in a relatively short time, for a lot less. BUT, i can only take you so far. it often feels like the top of the mountain to newcomers, BUT IT'S NOT. it's a damn good boost, and some believe it's further than they ever thought was actually possible. now, i could run with that and start offering alchemy & shaktipat courses, and would have a lot of supporters ready to vouch for my skill, but it would be a deception. some people even 'light up' just by me walking into the same room, because i'm literally overflowing at this point, but that doesn't qualify me to be on-par with true masters of the mind & spirit. there's a difference. and as someone who can do what santi and susan can do, i think it's important to acknowledge that. i love their work. i think it's important and necessary for a lot of practitioners out there who don't have quality teachers in their area. and as i said, i have recommended a number of people to take KAP. and as a purely technical term, shaktipat, or transmission of shakti, does not belong to a particular tradition or culture. it's nature. it's universal. but truly ALL TRANSMISSIONS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL. so if you want exercises and a transmission that will help to awaken your kundalini shakti, you don't need a realized master for that. but if your goal is true mastery or enlightenment, don't make the mental mistake of thinking that someone like susan, or santi, or even myself (oh no! my stock is dropping! ), is on that level. it's not the case. and when you haven't been around true masters, you really just don't know what you don't know. true, TRADITIONAL shaktipat requires a level of highly disciplined skill that we simply do not possess. but for the average person, people like us are about as good as it gets. i cure cancer with my bare hands, for crying out loud! that's pretty cool, right? LOL! i hope this was fair. but i guess you guys will let me know if it wasn't.