Sahaj Nath

jakara, here's the thing: except for the "not a substitute for a full system of enlightenment" statement, i agree with you. enlightenment doesn't, and never did, belong to any 'gatekeepers' with whom we must align ourselves in order to be granted access. and that has probably never been more true than it is today. one of my guys just got here, so i don't have time to really get into it, but as a former critic of max & crew, and as someone who has been to a workshop: i don't think it qualifies as a 'full system' of anything, but i don't think it has to. i think some of the bogus science and bogus claims reveal an insecurity moreso than a malicious intent. as has been said a ton of times, they really don't make a lot of money, especially given how many people are in their group, so it's a really terrible scheme if that were the objective. nothing you've stated takes away from the value of the practice or the transmission, even if their credibility is shaky. i wouldn't allow myself to practice it because of all my problems with the info and the presentation, and that didn't serve but to show me all the places where i clung to my rational brain and need for control/reason, and how that held me back. being a believer is not at all required. being open to what is offered does not necessitate intellectual agreement or even consistency (or honesty, for that matter) on the part of the messenger. gotta go. maybe i can expand on some of this later when i have time.

good stuff, growant. your story was a very enjoyable read. it was one of those stories where someone would tell you, "you really need to write that down."

fascinating. both videos. i totally believe the guy in the second video, though i think he may be wrong about the engine being alive. symbiotically responsive doesn't necessarily mean it's alive. that's a big jump. perhaps what struck me the most about the video that minkus posted was the part about stephen hawking telling him "we dream on the same wavelength. all my stuff comes to me in dreams. therefore, we are brothers."

if this is THE uriah, then one of your guys already trains with me here in W. Sac and we should talk. i met and had a few chats with Bing YeYoung a few years back. he's a very pleasant guy and i liked him, but in my opinion you will be paying boatload of money for the idea of his credentials. it really depends on what you're looking for. i'll send you a PM when i get home tonight.

so true, so true. and i feel that a qualitative discussion about the nature of the teacher-student relationship would be far more beneficial than a dubious rap sheet of transgressions. not absolutely, but generally speaking. two books (both by Mariana Caplan) that have been helpful to me with regard to this subject are Halfway Up the Mountain: http://www.amazon.com/Halfway-Up-Mountain-...7310&sr=8-1 and Do You Need a Guru? http://www.amazon.com/You-Need-Guru-Unders.../ref=pd_sim_b_9 i make all of my students read these two books prior to swearing total allegiance to me and forfeiting all of their material possessions.

the production quality of the video is great. probably very enjoyable to watch. i'd only watch it for the aesthetic value, not that there's anything wrong with that. for someone whose SOLE purpose is awakening, you seem to spend a lot of time and energy chasing after extra or unnecessary stuff. again, nothing at all wrong with that, but it's something you seem to deny about your own motives. i LOVE to play with stuff! i'm all over the place in my practices, and i wouldn't have it any other way. i'll try just about anything that's beautiful. i'll take the more beautiful over the more powerful any day, so long as it speaks to me. but i would also never state that my sole purpose is awakening. that just wouldn't be true. ANYWAYZ, for whatever that's worth. if no one else wants get the originals from you, let me know. i wouldn't mind adding this to my growing collection.

as always, well said, jane.

your outrage is completely justified, methinks. at the moment, the best 2 things you can do are: 1.) figure out how to minimize your intake in the most practical, realistic manner, i.e., in a manner that others could mimic. and 2.) figure out how to counteract the effects & rehabilitate those parts of you that have been most affected. for #2, brainwave entrainment technology, meditation practice, and cleansing, cathartic exercises. and deep cleansing teas. for #1, filtered water and mindful food purchases. given that 2/3 of our bodies are water, properly filtered water BY ITSELF can make a world of difference. this is about all i do. it's a place to start. and it definitely makes a difference in my mind & body. we're all too cynical for our own good. literally. cynics don't get worked up over much of anything, because it's cooler to project the image that you already "get it" and are over it. EVERYONE wants to be a brilliant cynic these days, not realizing that the cynical disposition is ALSO something that's marketed to us. Harriet Tubman (of the Underground Railroad) once said: "I could have freed more people, if they had only realized that they were slaves." too much expressed outrage will turn off those you want to reach the most. take some time to look more deeply into it. i'll certainly be here listening.

SO... you wouldn't mind a test, right? i'm going to send you a very specific thought, and you reply with what it is. should be easy to catch my mind frequency, being that i'm fairly developed myself. i'll be sending you the same message the rest of the night. you'll know it's me. time to ante up!

yes it can. the fact that you have no experience with it, and that it may not be as consistent as some people pretend it is, DOESN'T mean it can't be done. it can be done. it was done with me. and it's been done with many (though not all) of my students. i'm a big proponent of cultivation, with does take time. but a powerful transmission can open up some abilities in a moment. the ability to heal is one of them. i would gladly invite any two newbies here on TTB to visit me for one day, free of charge (although i wouldn't mind if you brought me a gift of veggies or something ). i guarantee i could open up at least one of you in a day, though i'm confident i could open both. one day. hell, give me two hours! in the last 2 months my success rate has climbed from 80 or 90% to 100%, even with difficult people.

oh. well, good luck anyway.

good stuff. i'm going through a transitional period in which i am reconciling my relationship with scores of people AND practices- reiki included. i'm realizing on a profound level that i don't "KNOW" nearly as much as i thought i did. what's more, i'm realizing the freedom and joy in not NEEDING to know everything! it's great to just be open & available to the tao, and to allow life to simply unfold as it does. i'll be watching for your update.

http://www.futureprimitive.org/mp3/Keeney080522.mp3 this man has really shaken me out of my intellectual/rational dogmatism. i hope he can do the same for at least a few of you, provided that you have the openness to receive him.

i had already been shaking, but not nearly as long or as FREELY as i do it now. it was his discourse/performance that i needed. i've been drowning in theories for the last decade, but it's his performance that made all the difference for me. i had to leave my comfort zone in order to receive his message. the above interview is uncharacteristically tame for Keeney. the Shaking CD set is on another level of absurd! just what i needed! i think seth said it best in his comment in the freemasonry thread: i ALWAYS find myself locked into that paradigm of needing to know, needing to be/get it right, needing to figure it all out. i even clung to the theory of it being ungraspable! i would only let go during peak experiences, and then only for a short time. after that it was back to clinging to knowledge with a death grip, because to be wrong is an unacceptable sin. i always believed that i would eventually grow out of it, and in the past few months i've noticed a significant loosening of my need to define everything, but i was still pretty stuck. hell, i still am stuck by my years of self-imposed conditioning, but it's really starting to dissolve now. and it feels good! after 6 or 7 years of total rejection, i've even come to find redemption for Reiki! and it came to me while i was shaking! my moments of deep openness are becoming more and more, alongside my embrace of ignorance. my friends & students are gonna start thinking i'm schizo. actually, i'm sure they already do! sallcoming togeda.

umm... what do you wanna know?

NO! DON'T buy into it! micromanaging every nuance of your practice is NOT the key! if fact, it's perhaps the biggest lie in cultivation! buy your DVD's and have fun! Do it badly and have fun! invent your OWN bagua style if you want to! control is NOT the key to healing or awakening. FREEDOM is the key! free yourself of the dogma. learn at your own pace, in your own way. don't get boxed in by all the fucking rules. i promise you that you'll be happier AND you'll develop faster. the highest technique is the skillful abandonment of technique! what makes it skillful? knowledge of self! so get to know YOU intimately, and let THAT be your highest rule! with love, The Heretic

pretty cool, right? he could easily become the biggest cult leader in the country if he wanted to, but he's not in it for that. his system isn't really my style, but i appreciate its effectiveness & i admire his integrity.

i'm not a taoist, and i have no intentions of ever becoming a taoist, but i do my best to follow the Tao. it's not about identity. in fact, i would argue that over-identification with ANYTHING gets in the way of the natural flow of the Tao in ones life.

i'm glad you shared that last part. just in case it was something you were worried about, i have a friend who's an 'aspy' as she would put it. she's not exactly a student of mine because she lives in the UK and we almost NEVER see each other, but she definitely has the capacity for it. in fact, i would say that her ability to focus is so acute that it almost scares me what she might be able to achieve in the internal arts. she's a brilliant artist/illustrator. if you can do that chopstick thing, AND you're still unsure about whether you're actually feeling or directing qi, *I* think you just proved that what the guy is doing with the chopsticks in the video really doesn't have to have anything to do with qi! if you're doing some of your forms badly, then enjoy doing them badly. it's important that you enjoy yourself and not be in a rush. you might be surprised at what you can achieve when you do things the 'wrong' way. just keep learning and relax into your process. you're gonna have a tough time building qi in your body if you're worried or tense or stressed about your technique all the time. so YES, you can still build qi by doing your forms poorly. people who take up tai chi because of health problems aren't known for having great technique, but they are still getting some benefit of the practice. so you might not be a very good martial artist with it, but certainly you can open up your energy gates and get the qi flowing. try not to attach to any dogma that says 'you HAVE TO do it this way'. if you're relaxed, breathing deep & slow, stretching & loosening the limbs on a regular basis, moving around through different forms, and keeping your attention on your movements and how you feel, you will eventually get some energy flowing. here's a clip of grandmaster wong of shaolin wahnam. just look at him and listen to his voice. he's so relaxed, filled with peace and joy. compare his energy to the erratic, agitated energy of the host. that host is losing energy with every breath. his tenseness is like an energetic bloodletting. it really is important to relax and have fun. try not to take your movements so seriously. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

beautiful. indeed.

i totally agree with you. i chose spiritual teaching over politics.

saudi arabia doesn't even piss without permission of the US. when the sanctions were first placed on Iraq, the oil production of Saudi Arabia suddenly jumped up from 5 million barrels to 8 million barrels per day; iraq could no longer sell 90% of its oil due to the sanctions, but the oil fields didn't just sit there and rust away. it wasn't about 'imploding' the US or Britain; it was about giving the US the moral authority to do WHATEVER it decided was necessary to protect itself from 'implosion.' it was about creating a new cold war order. in 2005, nearly a month after hurricane katrina (i was still down there at the time), i remember the story on the news about the british military storming an iraqi jail to free two british soldiers. the fulcrum of the scandal was whether britain or anyone else had the authority to disregard/undermine the new iraq by breaking into the jail. only in passing did CNN mention WHY the soldiers had been captured: they were posing as radical insurgents, setting bombs, killing officers. it's chess, not checkers.

aren't there ALWAYS exceptions to ANY orthodox rules? isn't that how the left-handed path came about? i'm not a taoist and i don't know what you know on the subject, but i have yet to meet a rule that couldn't be broken. we know more about the physical body today than we did however many thousand years ago. and if Yang, Jwing-Ming is correct, jing transmutation has more to do with hormone levels than it does semen retention. and if hormone levels are the reason it's perfectly fine for younger folks to ejaculate and less fine for older folks, then maybe there are healthy ways to stimulate and maintain hormone production while still having a good time in the sack. i don't know. what do you bums thinks?

i'll make it a point to be there. and i promise to be on my best behavior this time.

Healing Tao calls it 'the inner smile.' Shaolin Wahnam calls it 'smile from the heart.' you don't need a book for it. you just start doing it and it will become automatic. i do this in addition to counting my blessings every day. i start my day by thinking of all the people, circumstances, and things in my life for which i'm grateful, and i smile from the heart as i whisper 'thank you' to each and every one of them. this is a very easy, very straigt-forward way to cultivate happiness and gratitude. there can be no happy living without gratitude. no book necessary. that's really all you have to do.