Sahaj Nath

bingo! if these are your influences, why do you insist on calling it poetry or spoken word? it's okay to call it what it is: RAP. and it's pretty good rap, at that. but real spoken word is different, and it's judged differently. rappers are SUPPOSED to be innovative and variant with how they play with rhyme schemes, for instance. but that same skill is not going to impress appreciators or poetry like it does rap enthusiasts. i'm a big fan of BOTH. i started rappin' back in '88 when i was 13. i was IN LOVE with rhyme schemes and played with every cadence that moved me. then after a few years i developed my own unique 'voice' of expression, but i never stopped evolving. BOTH are very healing. very cathartic. for instance, as a teenager who was gang-affiliated, rap allowed me to discharge aggression which ultimately diminished my tendency towards actual violence in the street. at one point even my homeboys wanted to keep me from getting into too much trouble because they thought that i could make it in music, and they wanted me to tell their stories one day. that's why the 90's saw the creation of albums like Crips & Bloods: Bangin' on Wax. that album went a long way toward de-escalating the violence in those neighborhoods at that time. of course, it ALSO had the side-effect of influencing youngsters from BETTER areas to WANT to be crips & bloods because they thought it seemed cool, but that's much broader cultural issue that i DON'T think is the fault of the rappers who needed the outlet. but whatevs. moving on... here's a piece of spoken word i did a couple of years back. notice how it CANNOT be mistaken for rap lyrics: http://bohemiankitsch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/a-sketch.mp3 and here's another piece, without the drumming, a little more contemplative: http://bohemiankitsch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/bathing-in-the-essence21.mp3 these are old and i know my voice sounds really young, but it's the voice that i've got, so... neither piece rhymes in a conventional way, but BOTH are lyrically musical. hope you enjoy. PM me if you ever want to talk poetry. just reading this thread has given me some inspiration.

why was this division made? WHEN was this division made? i was confused as hell about topics disappearing or not showing up. so what's the deal? Taoist discussion only has 6 pages, but it's not accessible from the General Discussion page. i usually only access TTB through my bookmark, so i never even knew the Taoist Discussion page even existed! whoever made this decision, i think it was a terrible one. but since it happened, can we at least get a link to it in the Subforums section?

um.... yeah.... i can IN NO WAY vouch for the new agey direction he went with his "Light of Life" system. it looks a little terrible if you ask me. he may as well have gone with Casteneda's idea of calling his teaching "qigong sorcery" or something equally ridiculous. pretty sure i've shared this story in the past, but i don't think i ever came out and said who it was. Howard Lee was the first qigong master i ever met, back in 1997. at the time, Light of Life was really more of a marketing ploy than anything else. he was doing presentations at all the serious internal martial arts schools in my area and offering to hold seminars on a cultivation form, which included energy transmission (probably not very different from the way Michael Lomax's workshops are set up). at the time i was still a student of my reiki master, and i had recently become a reiki master myself. Master Lee wasn't at all impressed and had no problem sharing the fact that he believed his system to be far superior. at the time i was actually offended that he didn't acknowledge my greatness for being a reiki master. at the start of the workshop he began gathering energy and concentrating it within and around him. there were about 50 of us in the workshop and he was on platform stage, powering up, so to speak. meanwhile, i used a western technique of drawing a symbol above his head that acted as a vacuum, siphoning off as much energy as i could. and when he finally released that energy into the group, i took that wave in (and it literally felt like a slow tidal wave made out of magnetism), as well as dissolving that symbol into myself. ooh, how clever was i. for the next week, i paid for it. i took in WAY more energy than my body could handle. my spinal cord was freezing cold, blowing out air, and a tiny thread in the center of my spinal cord felt white-hot. many of you know what it's like for your outer spine to feel tingly, right? well, imagine if each little tingle sensation felt like a needle or a knife instead. this is what it felt like for nearly a week. i couldn't get out of bed. i actually had to crawl to the bathroom. and i could barely even hold down liquids. the reiki energy wasn't even in the same ball park as what that man transmitted. scared the SHIT out of me! literally took me YEARS to fully integrate that transmission. but it was totally worth it. it's a shame he doesn't teach like he used to. he told me he doesn't do transmissions like that anymore, either. he's got this trademarked, new age thing going, which is both less profound and more lucrative. Plus, he's a bit of an ass. more concerned with his image than his teaching. i don't really dig the direction he has taken, but i do have a lot of gratitude for my experience with him back in 1997. i swallowed that man whole, and he left me bursting at the seams!

nice thread! really hard to boil down to only 5. it's kind of a dog fight at the the very top. plus, a couple don't have any kind of public presence like anamatva mentioned. Top 5 who are still incarnate: (in no particular order) Jerry Alan Johnson (exquisite form and body mechanics. second to NONE in this area) Roger Jahnke (Healing Promise of Qi is the closest thing to the PERFECT qigong book that i have ever found. everything that matters most is right there) Mark Griffin (as wise as Master Yoda, and as powerful as Master Windu ) Howard Lee (choy le fut master, and the REAL teacher of Carlos Casteneda) Yang Jwing-Ming/Wong Kiew Kit (i just can't choose between the two. both have been a tremendous influence on my overall development) i'm leaving out nearly a dozen really great teachers, but these have been the MOST influential, as far as public figures go.

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/17753-seth-ananda-please-teach-me-about-kundalini/page__view__findpost__p__253441 i have a few posts in that thread. feel free to look through them. but in a nutshell, i was genuinely initiated into the Siddha Lineage. i am plugged in. knowledge falls out the sky. teachings on topics i know nothing about come to me during meditation. i witness the fabric of my personality deconstructing, thread-by-thread. and i mean even the smallest impressions/expressions are regularly pulled into 3rd person awareness and traced back to the moment/incident of origin. i have frequent access to what i believe to be savikalpa samadhi, although i cannot quite shift in and out of it at will. but i CAN go pretty deep at will, and even better than that, i can transmit the frequency of that state of consciousness to my students, very much like Mark does. my identity has shifted a great deal over the past year and a half. my trust and openness has been the only thing required. it's had nothing at all to do with any specific practices that i'm doing. it's acquiescence to the elders in the lineage and allowing myself to be a living vessel. before all of this, i was all about qigong and had VERY LITTLE interest in yoga, tantra, or any of the Indian or Tibetan ways. i thought a lot of it was hokey. i don't buy into anything that i can't experience or witness for myself. i don't need to believe that anything is true. it's no secret around here that i'm HIGHLY critical. even the people who think i can be a jerk at times have to acknowledge that there's an integrity in my jerkiness. the only side i ever take is the side of the truth. in the past i have defended a friend in one post and then criticized them two posts later. all i care about is what's true. i believe that if we are able break down our wishful thinking and do away with our fairy tales, we can actually engage a VERY REAL spiritual world that is sufficiently profound without any of the contrived fantasies of so many seekers. THAT is where my deepest personal commitment lies. i have explored, practiced, and discarded SO many traditions and practices over the years. i have committed myself to groups and then flagrantly walked out on them the moment the fantasies and bullshit were uncovered. that's how i roll. i will turn on a group in a second. because life is too short, and i plan to reach completion THIS time around. if that means i must offend large groups, then so be it. what i'm saying is that Mark is the real deal. he's not for everybody. the lineage is not for everybody. but what he and the lineage has done for me is absolutely impressive. and i'm not the easiest guy to please. BUT, mileage may vary. people who have not done the work that i've done or developed the capacities that i have can't expect to be transformed the way that i have been. maybe it can come in time, but for me it began the night before i actually met Mark in-person. that's my story. i wasn't just touched with some shakti energy; i was literally embraced by the Siddha Lineage. they communicate with me the way that Sifu Jenny Lamb described her elders communicating with her. so many new age people make this kind of claim, and it's so obvious that it's delusion. but when it's real, it's real. i live in an entirely new world now. and i feel nothing but gratitude for it.

??? i've never been to India, and i received shaktipat & darshan just fine. he tries to get to India at least once a year. he has an ashram/retreat center there, and he takes a couple dozen people with him for a couple weeks. most lamas and masters of the Indian practices try to make a yearly pilgrimage. my teacher in the Bay Area is in India this week, in fact. EDIT: qigong masters visiting China and hold annual China retreats is just as common. and yes, his breathing IS loud here! he was a really big guy back then, so what can you do? he's actually lost quite a bit of weight since then, but it doesn't even matter if he hadn't, and that's one of reasons i posted that particular video. the juice is there, and he has it. TONS of it. you can feel it. taste it. he made me re-think a lot of my assumptions about his ability based on his appearance. when my last qigong teacher suggested that maybe i go check him out, i looked at a couple of pictures of him and dismissed him entirely. it wasn't until he was recommended here by Trunk that i finally decided to go. it changed my life. my opinions about his health/appearance didn't mean squat.

i know, right? i can tune into him through this video with no real effort, and i can feel the warm waves of bliss energy, and i can feel electricity buzzing through my teeth. a lot of sensitive folks on the board can probably do the same.

it's all love, bro. more than anything, i was mainly drawing a distinction so that you weren't left answering for me or defending something that i had said. that's all. i think it's pretty clear that you and i basically resonate on the same frequency. in a nutshell, no. claims like that are almost never true. you might want to clarify what you mean by "not much happens" and "some other techniques," but as a general rule, the internal arts are more art than science. people are taught in terms of concrete protocols, and so they tend to think that it MUST work that way or that it can ONLY work that way. simply not true. Jerry Alan Johnson, for instance, is a BIG fan of moving qigong, and he believes movement to be far superior to mere standing or seated practice. now, all movements aren't created equal, so it would be misguided to start making blanket inferences from that. let your own practice teach you what is true and what is not with regard to claims like that.

wow, i very much enjoyed that. particularly the answers to the questions of more_pie_guy. thanks for doing this for the community!

repetition is the mother of skill. the more you make a habit of going places that scare you, of facing trauma head-on, the more VOLUNTARY those responses become. but it's not always a safe thing to do. as i said, it may not be for you. in my world, there is no safety or security in spiritual practice. perhaps. fear can make you tense and jumpy when you're in a state of reaction, but it can make you loose and supple when you're in a state of quiescence or acceptance. it's a conscious practice to make the involuntary reactions progressively more and more voluntary. it might take a lot of practice, but it can be done. we are traumatized when events shut us down, never when they open us up. we are traumatized when we try to make reality NOT happen or NOT be true. when we can radically accept the WHOLE of life, not just good stuff, THEN we can be fit to receive. take me. i was homeless as a child, molested, beaten, neglected, then later on i was shot, stabbed, beaten some more... i've seen friends killed in front of me, i have lived moments of incredible bravery AND moments of unthinkable cowardice. i've faced every demon i could possibly face, and the only key which kept me sane was my ability to open up, be naked and vulnerable to all of it. had i stayed in resistance, or avoidance, or denial, or any of that, i would probably be medicated and undergoing psychotherapy today. today i am fearless in life, which doesn't mean that i don't feel fear, but that i am not afraid to feel fear or anything else. i don't avoid. i dive in, with reckless abandon. it's a practice worth cultivating, and i personally believe it's a big reason for why i've been able to exceed folks who have decades more spiritual training under their belt. the whole "reckless abandon" notion is my idea, not Seth's. he and i tread very similar ground, but this is one of those areas where we might part ways a bit. i'm i big fan of "pushing yourself," and i believe that there is a time for both pushing and for following. but i'm pretty sure that my approach is a lot more pushy than Seth's. i'm more concerned with what is effective than i am with what is safe. i seldom give consideration to what is safe. i like to break rules, challenge taboos, transgress dogmas. and i have yet to regret any of it. so... *shrugs* i'd say let go if you can let go, and if you need to throw up, then throw up. purging is a natural process. i say go there. keep a bucket with you if you need to. one of my guys next door does that. BUT, my guy next door has his teacher (me) to guide him, so without knowing you in real life, i couldn't recommend my approach for you. sounds as if you ARE, in fact, worried about the possible outcomes, which would suggest to me that you might want to take a few steps back and re-evaluate why you do any of this. and since it hasn't been asked yet, what is your goal in your practice? what are you hoping to gain or accomplish? the benefit of working with a guru is that Kundalini is almost always a relatively smooth ride when induced through darshan and shaktipat. there might be some bumps in the road here and there, but trust in the teacher and the process goes a long way. you'd be hard-pressed to find kundalini syndrome in any real sangha. i shared a few of the traumatic events in my life above. there's more, but i figured that was enough to make the point. but what i do know is that so long as those traumas remain, there will be limits on your capacity and ability. how that all plays out for you in your life is for you to examine and come to terms with. everyone should respect their limitations, and self-honesty is key in understanding where those lines are. if you know where your lines are, then simply honor that and work at your own pace. forget what i or anyone else has to say to the contrary.

that's beautiful. and that's the Grace of the lineage. before Mark, that kind of thing never happened, except with great effort and intention. whenever i contemplate Mark, Muktananda, or the Siddha Loka, i find myself awash in that same loving feeling. i think maybe you're just getting hung up on the "project" word. FROM THE ARTICLE: so, the way that i read that, if not for his undertaking this so-called project, only a handful of people would have ever had access to him as a teacher. he recognizes that not everyone who meets with him is capable of receiving him, just like in the 70's when not everyone was capable of receiving Muktananda the way that he was. the project is simply the commitment to bring the teaching, and to bring the transmission without dilution, and to allow the individual to decide for themselves what they receive and what they can handle. i don't even do that. i've still got too much ego or whatever, but it bothers me to see people who are basically spiritual tourists, chasing after the holiest of holies, hoping to catch a high or see something neat, and not the least bit ready to become a genuine student or disciple. i don't give away the most precious essences so easily, and i figure i don't have to. if the students are genuinely ready and capable, the energy itself will make that clear to both of us. that was the attitude of my last qigong master. he taught many people various "exercises," but he taught very few people actual qigong. a lot of us who study with Mark feel that same way. if we could, we'd keep him to ourselves! and yet, if not for his openness, many of us would never have found him. *SHRUGS* two words: RECKLESS ABANDON. hold nothing back. ALL IN! there's nothing worth holding onto. there is nothing that you CAN hold onto that won't inevitably be lost to the fires of time, anyway. so give it up. everything that you have to lose will eventually be lost. that's a truth that you can trust. maybe the lineage is not for you, or maybe you're just not ready, but it makes little since to seek his presence and then resist him. you can waste lifetimes in a pattern like that, and a lot of people do. you don't need any special technique. just get naked. let your fear loosen you up rather than tighten you up. and if you can't handle that much vulnerability, i would have to ask what you are doing there. embrace annihilation. it's the only way to be born again.

INTP but with a thinking preference of only 1%, which is as close as you can get to a dead-even split between Thinking and Feeling. i DO tend to privilege thinking over feeling, but i also tend to privilege intuition over thinking, so i guess it evens out in the wash. 67 69 1 44 those numbers are pretty reflective of how i operate. EDIT: took the test twice, about 20 minutes apart, just to see what would change in response to the most ambiguous answers. 67 69 1 44 - First time 67 75 1 33 - Second time i expected maybe the 1% would be the one to shift, but not so much, apparently.

Yes.

yeah, i don't think this is what cihan just described either. what type of meditation are you engaging in? and why is it frightening? it seems really common on this board that so many people seek out esoteric practices, and the moment anything starts to happen they contract. not saying this is the case for you specifically, but it IS something that's all too common around here and it just doesn't make any sense to me. when people get into trouble with spiritual practices, it's almost ALWAYS due to their own self-contraction, and NOT the phenomenon that triggers it, which typically means they shouldn't be playing with those practices to begin with. high-level stuff is pretty easy to come by these days, but it's not for tourists. there are some occurrences that can't simply be turned off because you don't like it or it scares you. again, this is just a general comment, not specifically directed at cihan. cihan, i've been guiding a few peeps through a "So Ham" shaktipat meditation, and what you described is a very common initial experience. with them i've told them to just smile and continue with the meditation, and if the arising begins to overwhelm or disrupt their practice, to relax, surrender, and dissolve into it with no expectation of outcome. relax into the mystery of it all; after all, it's part of the reason why we do what we do. another common occurrence that often goes hand-in-hand with what you described is the experience of timelessness. without describing the quality of that experience, an hour or more can go by and feel like 5 or 10 minutes. but i think you might need to get past the fear that comes up for you before you can be awash in the timelessness. if the energy is intense enough it can throw you into the timeless whether you like it or not (and that can be scary for a lot of people), but typically that only happens when the use of substances are included. does any of this strike you as familiar? please share what you can about what you do and where the fear comes from. but until then, i would simply stay the course and use those punctuated moments maybe as opportunities to face, surrender, and dissolve my fear. can you allow the energy of that fear emotion to flood through you and run its course WITHOUT contracting? this is best done with a teacher. you could be surprised at what a thin line it is between fear and bliss. hope something in there was helpful.

welcome to the forum. a few questions: what is your age, what area do you live in, and what are your goals? are you really looking for a solid system to begin a disciplined practice for yourself, or are you more interested in first having a real experience of qi flow? a lot of us know hundreds [EDIT: okay, maybe not hundreds, but lots] of good, decent teachers around the country, and we can point you in the right direction, depending on what you're looking for. meeting up with the right teacher can help you grow faster than any special technique you might learn. simply being in the presence of their energy field will start to enhance and develop your own. as a general rule i would steer clear of Mantak Chia in the beginning. i don't use his material at all, but especially in the beginning it can generate a LOT of confusion and misunderstandings. it can prove difficult to integrate properly into any other system you might want to explore. one of Chia's students actually got it better, i think, and that's Michael Winn & his Healing Tao University. very clear, direct material. i've studied the material, and while i don't practice Healing Tao stuff either, it is very clear and very well-organized. though i'm not a tremendous fan of Chia or Winn, i DO VERY MUCH like and recommend B.K. Frantzis. don't let your prejudice of physical appearances keep you from exploring an amazing teacher. it's quite understandable that you feel the way you do, but take this as an opportunity to grow past those assumptions. there's a reason he's been around for more than 30 years, and i assure you it's NOT because of his special marketing approach. watch his videos. his skill is quite obvious. there's plenty more to be recommended, but first, please share a little bit with us about what you're looking for, how long you've been looking, where you reside in the country/world, and your general age.

you're right on time! i think my point has been made, but you go ahead and keep clinging to the belief in your teacher's super powers, which he loves to show off, but is too moral and reserved to demonstrate, except when spiritually touched by a witch, apparently. Max might be great teacher to some of you, but you guys really can't defend the man against his own words. you might get the last word in this thread, but you haven't won the debate. i've had some ridiculous teachers in my life. i love them and appreciate them, but that doesn't make them NOT ridiculous. and likewise, being ridiculous did not disqualify their genuine skill. let your flawless, spotless image of Max fall, and what remains is STILL a great teacher who changed your lives. what remains is the only thing that ever really mattered anyway. just stop trying to re-write history or discredit everyone who has ever leveled a criticism at the man, and you won't hear another peep from me on the issue.

Okay. bored now. and while Max seems to have some sort of spiritual vendetta against Witch, i didn't get so much as a hiccup from throwing a couple of black pyramids his way, even yelling into the aether, "Come at me, bro! Cut all the nonsense! Come at me!" guess i'm lucky he's feeling all compassionate and forgiving tonight. or something. i'm out. like i said. bored now.

"At the seminar I went to he claimed to be immortal. He said he had been pronounced dead twenty times. He mentioned something about documentation of this in Hong Kong, so he wasn't referring to past lives." --Todd http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/3829-max-and-the-sf-kunlun-workshop/page__view__findpost__p__38550

dude, STOP IT ALREADY! when he was questioned about ACTUALLY DYING he even claimed that there was a death certificate in Japan from when he was killed by the car! i wasn't the only one there. i'm not over-blowing ANYTHING, and i'm a little bit bothered at the notion that i need to make up crap about Max. IT HAPPENED. DEAL. 1.) he could heal those nerves. 2.) he didn't damage Witch's nerves. 3.) he controls the strength of what he projects, it's not all or nothing. this is getting ridiculous now. you really have no idea what i understand and how far i've gone. Max doesn't scare me in the slightest. isn't that obvious? i'll gladly throw some stuff in his direction and see if his energy and lineage does to me what it did to Witch. nothing harmful, just like she didn't do anything particularly harmful. but just something a little annoying to say "come at me, bro." if he strikes back and hits, i'll openly admit it. even if i don't find it particularly impressive, i'll acknowledge it without criticism. deal? or what's the problem now? i'm not strong enough to reach him or something like that? regardless of what you say, i'm going for it. nobody pray for me. you'll just get in the way.

Fair enough. geeze, this thread is growing faster than i can keep up. and i don't have time to go through everything, so i just want to highlight one point and then move on. dude, you're killing me. do you think i don't know about the death process? if that's what Max was alluding to, i would have said so, or i never would have brought it up at all. i was very clear: the man said he could even ingest poisons, on the grounds that all energy is essentially the same. he claimed he was killed by a car, was killed by a snake, he fell off a mountain, was shot, stabbed, and a bunch of other crap that i can't remember.(i couldn't help but wonder how such a master could be so damn accident prone.) does that sound like the "death process" you're referencing? it was bogus, bro. but i can't wait to see how your re-interpret this! EDIT: is it just me, or did anyone else notice how it was all about healing, love, and integrity when he didn't demonstrate real skill in-person, yet the supporters are all QUICK to sign off on a psychic attack against a woman who just wanted him to ejaculate? a woman that he likely doesn't even know exists, given that they've never met or spoken. you wanna take all that on faith, that he threw some wicked shit at Witch, but he's too good a person for a genuine, IN-PERSON, OBSERVABLE demo? yeah, whatever.

okay, you guys keep focusing like a LASER on the notion that he was being challenged to a physically violent fight. HE WASN'T! if that were the case, i would have said so. IT WASN'T. he was being challenged to demonstrate his skill on someone other than his student. he offered himself for the demo, NOT for a death match. he said he'd be happy with anyone who didn't know Max before-hand. the fact that he WASN'T being challenged to a fight is what made his statement, "i'm not a martial artist" stand out. i'm never gonna convince you guys. but i'm gonna speak it just the same. and i think that my breakdown of the claims and issues has been a lot more sound than the explanations you guys are trying to make, so i'm fine with it. i remember the days of his earlier workshops, and he changed his approach to a number of things after that. btw: go back and read that thread i made from 2007. do i have to bring up the fact that Max ALSO claimed that he was physically immortal and had died at least 10 times? or the fact that he could drink mercury or consume any poison because energy is energy? there was a lot of nonsense that went down, and i'm glad that it's not happening anymore. BUT IT DID HAPPEN! no matter he's teaching today or how he's teaching it, he's still the guy that pulled that shit. it would make more sense to laugh it off and blame it on the business end of things than to claim it never happened. you don't get to speak for her motivations, bro. Seth actually spoke to the woman, and the stuff that she said isn't true is the same stuff that I'M saying isn't true, with respect to the story of Kunlun. given your wording from the very first sentence, i think the REAL question is, do you think he's telling the truth, entirely? you see, my claim is not that EVERYTHING is a lie, but that SOME of the stuff he claims is a lie. and yes, i believe his history of kunlun to be a fabrication. but then what history are we referring to, right? because the story today is NOT the same story of 2007. so i don't have to demonstrate that it's "entirely" a lie, and you don't win by pointing out one claim that might be true. Kunlun was a temple where he trained, and he had many stories about it. people tried to find it, any trace of it or its teachers, and they ultimately called bullshit. THEN, once people found out that Jenny Lamb taught it and that it was from Mao Shan, Kunlun became more of a concept, a symbolism for the crown chakra or something like that. i've always been cool with you, even when we had our differences, but you went too far here. and you know it. Sifu Jenny has been NOTHING but respectful and allowed Max to go his own way. she never came out against him publicly and always speaks of him in loving terms. she's not petty. far from it. but her misgivings about his direction has not been a secret, and the fact that she finally came out and directly articulated ONE issue (because she could have said a lot more) does not take away from her integrity in the slightest. people can listen to her interviews and decide for themselves the quality of person that she is. she represents herself just fine.

*sigh* NO, questioning his alchemy is NOT what i'm doing. in fact, i thought i was actually ACKNOWLEDGING his alchemy by expressing (albeit very generally) the shifts that his transmission made in me. but there's no real way to know what actually happened with Witch. she didn't attack him. she never even met him. and we know little-to-nothing about what internal practices SHE engages in. her experience might have had nothing at all to do with Max. THAT'S why it doesn't fit the criteria. Seth and i BOTH have juice. tons. so do a number of other teachers and practitioners on this thread. that's not the point. okay, i'm going to bed.

she didn't attack him. she never even met the guy. her personal experience doesn't meet the criteria we're talking about, no matter how deep you wanna believe the story goes. personally, i would never have made such a claim! but seriously, read the post. what i wrote is exactly what he said. "in this art, if you don't believe in it, it will not work." "i'm not a martial artist." "it doesn't work if someone's swinging at you." "it works with kunlun people. but it may not work with other people. most of the time it doesn't." you can try to call me a liar if you like, but those are his words. you're welcome to re-interpret them through some cognitive gymnastics that make it more palatable for yourself, but i choose to to examine his words at face-value. then PLEASE be very clear and specific about what i have misunderstood. do you really NOT see what you're doing here? my criticism does not flow from the fact that he didn't meet my standard; it flows from the fact the he did not live up to his own claims and the claims of Chris T. so no, there's no sketchiness in the ONE comment you chose to quote while ignoring EVERYTHING ELSE that is BLATANTLY CLEAR. first, this isn't about what YOU would do; it's about what actually happened. second, he didn't didn't simply say he can't; he said it doesn't actually work that way, that the energy affects students, but doesn't really work on non-students. then he named a number of other masters for whom that was true as well. you're painting a very different picture from what actually took place. i'm not asking you to look to my opinions, as those are just opinions. i'm asking you to look to the actual events as i articulated them. like i said, i had the entire lecture recorded and listened to it as i wrote those posts. i didn't embellish or change a single word in any of the quotes i made. i'm okay with people thinking i'm a jerk at times, but one thing i am not is a liar. that's an issue of integrity which i DO take personally. According to Max, he was trained in Wudang, and they DEFINITELY practice fighting. he claimed that he was trained in 3 schools, remember? Wudang, which was criticized as too militaristic; Mao Shan, which was feared and criticized for their practice of Thunder Magic; and Kunlun, which was criticized for being too esoteric. and he brought all three together. he also claimed that he was one of four masters who were allowed to leave the temple every 100 years, and he was the last one still teaching, because he'd made a promise to one of his dying masters. it's all very romantic, but NONE of that is factually true, which is why Sifu Jenny Lamb could not and would not sign off on it. again, this doesn't mean he doesn't have anything to offer. i know first-hand that he does. but what i stated above is NOT a misunderstanding on my part. after my thread in 2007 bitching about the whole thing, i went through some real shifts as a result of Max's transmission. it took a few days to ramp up, and it really penetrated me after about a week. i give thanks for that. and my feeling about Max are not what they were back in 2007. but the factual statements i made back then are still true. and my greatest frustration was that his real gift was beautiful enough, so i didn't understand the need for all the hype and storytelling. whatevs. i have no ill will towards Max or any of his students. but so long as folks attempt to rewrite history, i will continue to step forward and speak what i know. because for some of us, it DOES make a difference.

Witch, if i recall, tried to energetically connect with him and drink some of his energy at a distance, i believe. she got a bad vibe from it, and it freaked her out a little bit. she never met him, and she never attacked him. so that incident doesn't meet the standard that Seth is looking for. with respect to using energy to fend off attackers, Seth is absolutely right. Max admitted himself that it doesn't work that way, after he was challenged by a martial artist in SF. i was there. http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/3829-max-and-the-sf-kunlun-workshop/page__view__findpost__p__38534 you'll notice later in that thread that Chris basically called me a liar and denounced my skill as a practitioner, but as soon as i let him know that i had recorded the lecture, he wished me well and immediately backed off. also, to add more clarity to the discrepancy, i had a brief back-and-forth with Scotty over this issue a year ago: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/15012-verdesi-sfqguidance/page__view__findpost__p__199826 notice that the videos i linked as evidence are no longer online. neither are almost ANY of the videos from back then. this is only my opinion, but i believe it's because the story has changed and the old narrative cannot be explained away. there used to be dozens of videos and interviews from 2008, and now they are scarce. every statement i made about the man is true. i don't harbor any ill will (although my posts from 2007 are pretty agro), but why is it so hard for Max's supporters to acknowledge that things were a little sketchy in the beginning and has since grown?

i don't think the kuan yin magnetic qigong dvd was ever made available as a single teaching on the site. you have to contact them directly. send a message to [email protected], and make sure they have it in stock. the cost is $108.00, which covers shipping as well. the quality is not great, but it's good enough. in fact, the information that's shared about the practice is not very great, either, but it's good enough. i guess i just have a very high standard because there is more garbage being peddled in the esoteric arts than in most other arenas. but even though there are gaps and ambiguities in the video, i still find the practice enjoyable and beneficial. i don't think it's the safest of practices for newcomers (crown practices can cause a lot of problems without proper guidance), but that's for others to determine for themselves, i guess. as far as learning Sifu Jenny Lamb's Yi Gong, study the video, subscribe to her school's page on facebook (she has written some very good essays that are focused on what matters most: being a great student), and listen to her interviews on youtube. there are a number of them. she is very intelligent, clear, and no-nonsense. no fantastic, too-good-to-be-true stories. and she emphasizes cultivating and trusting in your own connection to the divine, not relying on some other person's transmission. if you do the work, and apply the techniques, you'll get the results. hour 1: skip ahead in the video above and listen to 26:00-32:30 right now. you'll get a REALLY good sense of who she is and where she's coming from. she's amazing. hour 2: in my opinion, Sifu Jenny Lamb is a true master. enjoy your journey.