Sahaj Nath

where has it been all my life? i LOVE yang style! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!! that's all.

weird questions: how are your eyes & ears? perfect? is one of them overly sensitive, weak, or prone to clogs/infections? how is your anxiety level in general? prone to stress or panic? how deep did you go in your practices? and do you currently meditate? have your hands always been cold, or only since you've been a vegetarian? and how long has that been? you know, you may just need a good daily shaking practice, and then resume practicing what you already know. you wouldn't need a teacher for that. also, hsing yi chuan would be a good way to regulate the organs. maybe control some water. create some fire. spleen & liver.

one last thing that should be pointed out if you DO decide you want this thing: the seller doesn't say anything at all about the size, which means the entire box could be small enough to fit in your hand. make sure you contact the seller and ask them what the dimensions are.

i have to agree with Desert Eagle that it's frivolous spending. what does it being a scam or you being a skeptic have to do with buying something that is for decoration? the seller isn't promising that the 'scroll' will bring you to enlightenment or anything. it's just something that looks pretty that you can put on your wall or your altar or something, which definitely seems like a waste of money to me.

yup. but there are deeper yin cultivation techniques that are far more powerful. this is a good place to start, though.

there's some truth to that statement. most of the time what you feel is either the physical body or the yang energy responding to yin. shaolin wanham has a spontaneous natural flow standing practice that they call 'flowing breeze, swaying willow.' it's very good at inducing strong yin. when your body starts moving, swaying, shaking, or whatever, you can't really feel the energy that's making it happen. you kind of feel like a Ouija board (that's the only way i can think to describe it ). you DO feel the active yang energy, but that's not what's moving you. do some night training. extend your inhalations so that they are longer than your exhalations. and don't try to 'feel' anything. just surrender as you drink with your entire body. just by trying to 'feel' you may end up stimulating yang current, so just let go. gratitude helps.

train at night, some time between 11pm and 1am. outside. barefoot. static postures. for starters try 4 gates breathing where you're drinking in the earth through you lao gong and yong quan points. you already have a measure of development, so i would suggest that you allow the energy to collect where it naturally tends to collect. it may not be the lower dantien, but when in doubt the lower dantien is fine. be open to learning organically from the practice. the feel of yin will be self-evident. and if you've never worked with it, it could feel a tad disorienting. just go with it. i don't do much yin practice in the summer, but that's just me. see what speaks to you. there are plenty of ways to cultivate yin, but first establish a connection with it. EDIT: okay, i should probably acknowledge the kunlun practice here. i think it's a good way to connect with yin energy, and i think you'll recognize the obvious relation between what you feel when doing the kunlun practice and what you feel at night, barefoot, out doors, drinking in the earth. the kunlun practice just might be a good way to accelerate yin cultivation.

hey, i just checked out Dunn's Yang Taiji Long form. weak sauce, IMO. is structure is awful, and his instruction takes into account none of the nuance of the form. so at the moment, i have no inclination to check out his flying phoenix dvd's, even if it IS a cool name. maybe it's just me because his Taiji video got really good reviews on amazon, but i just don't see the skill in his movements. i would be interested in your thoughts on his qigong stuff, but i'm not going to pay money to find out for myself.

thinking that my dsl line was back up and stable, i proceeded to write a long post on this subject. then i hit send, only to find that the line was down again. whatevs. i shall try again, only shorter this time. everyone is right, to an extent. western magick is both a weak waste of time AND a very powerful transformative practice. it really depends on the knowledge, commitment, and maturity of the practitioner, PLUS the strength of the magickal community they plug into. seldom do solitary magicians get very far, unless they achieved a high level in a magickal order and then left the order so they could go deeper. once upon a time, i was a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis. had lots of fun with them. learned a lot about symbolism and sacred geometry. but in the end i became disillusioned all western traditions because of them. very intelligent. masters of symbolism (which makes sense, given that they have a masonic structure). but the spend more time figuring out clever concepts than they do cultivating. make no mistake, real western practitioners DO cultivate. the banishing and invoking rituals are powerful. the middle pillar exercise is powerful. the high rituals are crazy-powerful if you've done the preliminary work. the problem, the way i see it, is that the importance of daily, consistent practice isn't emphasized nearly enough, and discussion about the energy isn't really dealt with at all. so i read a lot of books, and i practiced the lesser banishing rituals of the pentegram, and my energy attainment increased. but that was about it, and many other members of the order, who were of higher grades, didn't even achieve the little bit that i had. strong theorists, all of them, but terrible work ethics when it came down to practice. they were a pretentious bunch that had something bad to say about every other tradition, and they could win most any debate on the occult, but they were severely lacking in real ability. when i left i challenged them to a magick contest and told them that i could get better results with wiccan spellwork (wicca was a running joke among them) than they could with all of their elaborate rituals. there were no takers. the demon evocation rituals (the lesser keys of solomon) were a thing i never played with, and i'm glad about that. not because the demons were too dangerous (that's what made it so seductive), but because i lacked the maturity to understand the nature of the rituals. the demons are ourselves. isolated fragments of ourselves, like if i were to seperate just my lust or just my anger and have a dialog with it (this is a gross simplification, but it gets the point across). with enough prior cultivation, a magician can make these energy expressions visible. i didn't fully understand the purpose of the rituals, other than to control demons. i didn't realize that we employ the same principle in psychotherapy when we learn to embrace the disassociated parts of ourselves. Genpo Roshi's Big Mind Process operates on a very similar principle, but is much safer psychologically, and much more real-world in its application. but the goal is still the same; to acknowledge, embrace, and properly organize all facets of our being to function smoothly and in the service of The One. crowley was very powerful, but you have to remember that he wasn't training so he could do parlor tricks; he was training so he could achieve complete union with the Tao. realization. that's the Great Work. to that end, any and all means necessary is fair game, even bloodshed. and all other motives, no matter how seemingly benign, is black magick. he was able to conjure a ball of light in a pyramid in cairo that was so bright, he was able to read from it. with the incident that scotty mentioned, he didn't just put his walk in sync with the man in front of him, he put his entire being in sync with him. he embodied the other man, and in doing so, was able to influence him physically. there's a real lesson to be learned there if you think about it. it's a crucible in magickal training. i have a ton more to say, but i gotta go. maybe more later.

i'm stuck with dail-up until my dsl line is fixed, so i can't see the video sheng zhen linked here. but probably the most well-known practice for such people is the 8 pieces of brocade. should be extremely easy to find. one the few people know about, but is very simple and well performed is bamboo mountain chi kung. sometimes i use it with my elderly clients. easy and graceful. and it's an older woman perfoming it on the video. not elderly, but probably in her mid- to late-50's. her state of relaxation is contagious. http://www.amazon.com/Bamboo-Mountain-Chi-...5044&sr=8-2

Take Care, brother. i trust that our unity will keep us in touch. i will remember to smile upon your picture from time to time. be well.

i don't have any academic knowledge on the matter, but i'm quite familiar with the phenomenon. sometimes there's a pleasant floral aroma in the room when i'm doing a healing session. it happens most often with one particular client. a woman, in fact. sometimes it seems to just fill the room, sometimes it seems to come from my hands. but i can't recall it ever happening when i was alone. i don't put too much thought into it when it happens; i just smile in gratitude and take it as an expression of something beautiful taking place. a sort of light-hearted inspiration to trust the universe to simply unfold as it will. a joyous surrender.

I'd rather play The Glass Bead Game. http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Bead-Game-Magi...9647&sr=8-1

it's an excellent reference book. every teacher should own it. but it's dense and overwhelming for anyone new to qigong. and if you don't have a lot of experience, it's easy to get the movements wrong. not very beginner-friendly, IMO. too much stuff to wade through.

i appreciate your honesty. really. i have a female student who's going through a similar thing. she just broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years. i'll share with you a little bit of what i shared with her. and just like her, it's something you already know. if you really want to be in a position to have the relationship back and to have it actually WORK OUT next time, the best thing you can do right now is work on your own healing and development. you sound like you have really low self-confidence. this is yet ANOTHER reason to really deepen your commitment to tai chi. pursue excellence in that one thing, and not only will it give you a sense of pride and accomplishment, but it will heal you in ways you might not even realize right now. excellence in any discipline will give you insight into the keys to excellence in many other areas. you can treat your voice the same way you treat tai chi. practice, practice, practice. it's just a habit. your habits of speech will change if you simply put in the time to practice. just like a singer. althogh it may not seem like it, a lot of singers used to suck at one point, but they loved it, so they stuck with it and cultivated their singing voice. you can do the same thing with your voice if you really care about it. as far as therapy and performance enhancement go, i can understand that. honestly, and many people may scoff at this advice, you may want to look into someone like Tony Robbins. there's a reason everyone knows about him, and it's not because he's a fraud. it's because whatever his faults may be, he's gotten results. i'm sure you can find some of his stuff on a bit torrent somewhere or someone might be trying to sell all their used self-help stuff on craigslist. (i'm assuming you live in the states.) he uses parts of NLP, hypnosis, and other skill sets you've probably never heard of, and he uses it all in a format designed to be useful immediately. what's good about that is a.) you'll have those skills, plus his motivating voice on an audio instead of having to read it, and it'll stick with you better that way. and b.) you'll only be getting the skill sets that are most useful without having to study a ton of stuff in order to get to the parts you can actually use. at a time when i was over 350 lbs and suicidal, he made it all sound so possible. and it helped me a lot. just hearing one of his lectures gave me the little push i needed to keep getting out of bed to make my life happen. i'm not at all ashamed to credit him with giving me necessary support at a fragile time. i used to be afraid of the judgment from the cynical crowd, but life is too damn short, and cynics aren't very good at building lives. just consider it. i study everything. EVERYTHING! i'll take an insight from a beer commercial and apply it in my life if it speaks to me. if you want to check out a book, The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence by Josh Waitzkin. he was the subject of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, and he's brilliant. i should probably confess that i'm a chess player, so i'm a little biased. what you may not know is that Josh is also a tai chi push hands world champion. i love the guy. see what you think about him. <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> hope this helps.

doubt it. i already know the form. i'd like to meet him, though.

hmm... you seem like a decent guy that's just maybe a little insecure, and maybe that makes you a little awkward in real life conversations. but your written communication is great, so spectrum's advice is probably pretty good advice. give yourself to your practice more, and your internal resistance will begin to dissolve. take a communications class at a local community college; it's both cheap and very helpful. most of them even have workshop labs where you can work with tutors and have practice conversations or even give practice speeches. the only reason i'm commenting at all is because i see a GROSS disconnect between your stated intentions and the methods you want to explore. hypnosis, PUA, NLP... if you were already a counselor or teacher i would have nothing to say about it. it's fine. but given where you are and what you're claiming your intentions are, it's a little dubious. all the methods you listed are methods of MANIPULATION moreso than communication, and yet you're claiming that you're only interested in being a better communicator. you don't have to respond if you don't want to, but for me it begs the question: what are you really looking for, and why? because your stated intent just doesn't seem to match up with the methods you've chosen. EDIT: i just took a look at your most recent post with the youtube clip. i'm starting to think that maybe i'm onto something regarding your unspoken intentions. the title of the video: "How to use the Ahh meditation to attract what you want" if i'm wrong here, then by all means, set me straight.

hmm... don't know anything about the guy. sorry. i just went ahead and ordered his tai chi long form video. if his tai chi video turns out to at least be decent, i'll buy his other DVD's and then make a post about what i think of them. thanks for bringing him to my attention.

i'm really glad you asked this question! like REALLY glad! you just gave me the topic for my next article, something so simple and obvious that it never would have occurred to me without it being asked. i won't have time to really get into this until later, but for now... truth be told, you DON'T need an energy work practice. technically, ALL work is energy work (and yes, i know that comes across as semantic drivel to many folks). a lot of people get so caught up in the phenomena of qi/prana that they never get anywhere in the real journey, which is deep meditation. so i would say that you have your priorities right. however, qigong and hatha yoga share a common goal, and that's the cleanse the body of blockages and impurities that hinder the natural flow of energy. so it's not so much about energy work being necessary, as energy flow happens simply as a result of being alive. but as you evolve through your practices you will undoubtedly unlock energy gates in your body, and if your body is filled riddled with blocks and tension and impurities, it can REALLY suck! so, what type of meditation do you practice? do you get regular daily exercise, and if so, what type? your average yoga studio doesn't even address the cultivation of prana/qi, so in that sense they're not doing energy work per se. but the stretching and the breathing and the releasing of tension and emotion in the body all contribute to purifying the vehicle so that it can handle the quantum leap as you develop in your spiritual practice. the basis of TCM is that all illnesses in the body are a result of blocked energy flow. as your energy flow increases as a result of your practices (particularly emptiness meditation), the blockages in your body can become severe trouble areas that can lead to tremendous health problems, both physically and mentally. these internal arts like meditation and dream yoga are not just ethereal; they facilitate a very real evolutionary transformation in the physical body, and that can feel like hell on earth if the body is not up to the task. anywho, that's how i see it. feel free to refine and ask more questions.

i a ton of you out there have taiji videos. any recommendation for a video of the complete yang form? i actually don't care about the instruction part that much. i've got that. what i want is a video of someone who's form and grace you would consider out of the ordinary. someone who moves and you just think, DAMN. the most beautiful player on video. any suggestions?

ken is one of the most respected qigong teachers in the country. i don't have that particular book, but you can trust that if he's comfortable teaching it in a book, then it's pretty safe to practice it on your own. he has a course called The Essential Qigong Training Course that you can get on Amazon.com. very thorough foundation for your beginning practices, and it comes with 3 DVD's, 5 audio CD's, and a workbook. many people think that this course contains just about everything you can accomplish without an in-person teacher. also, as i'm sure a ton of others will mention, check out spring forest qigong. totally safe to learn at home. just google it and check out the website. there are some practices that are a bad idea to play with on your own, but you're pretty safe with ken cohen and chunyi lin. also check out Wong Kiew Kit's book The Art of Chi Kung.

thanks you guys! much appreciated! ...and to WYG, um... DAMN! makes me jealous of Australia. is that a teacher of yours/someone you know? very impressive. and the 2nd taiji clip is amazing!

it may take a few days, but i may be able to host these on my website. i'll talk with my guy later today to see if he'll do that for me. thank you SO much!

hey mwight, do you think you could make a 20- or 30-minute audio of 2 breaths per minute rather than 3? i think this is a BRILLIANT idea, but it's too fast for me and my peeps. i would gladly contribute some cash to the cause if you're willing.

yes.