thelerner

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Everything posted by thelerner

  1. Rats, it coulda been me. I shoulda been more insulting . I hope Mr. Crane can take advantage of it and gives us a write up. It is a very generous gesture. I don't think anyone doubts Mr Clyman's legitimacy, but uh as they say in Star Wars.. the ego is strong with this one.
  2. My comment was intended to be general. Not to make hard and fast rules from what a shaman tells to one person. Though seems like I meandered . Though my comment on how a well rounded fighter needs the feminine comes from Glen Morris who noticed the top spiritual martial artists tended to become more androgynous.
  3. How do you surrender yourself to whatever your doing?

    Great question. In the play Arabian Nights the smartest person in the world was asked the secret of life, she replied "Cultivate Enthusiasm". thats all I got.
  4. The shaman may be right in that case, but different people need different things. Often we're out of balance and need to get in touch with the element we lack. I can see how a drug user could be way too yin and need strong stiff direction. Yet fiery Westerners are attracted to yang but need yin, the feminine.
  5. can't hear you. (What would it imply then in your opinion if Master Clyman in fact would be able to do what he claims (and what his patients obviously confirm in their video testimonials)?) that's better. To me, it would put him in the same category (of amazing healer) as a few people I've seen and heard of. Personally I've read and heard enough to know that even the most impressive of these people aren't god. At times they fail, on the easy stuff and on the hard. That's not degrading there ability, just my belief that there are no magic cure alls. People die. In this way alternative medicine is no different then main stream. Its easy to fool oneself. I saw a documentary of John Of God, the famous Brazilian healer. He did do amazing cures, as shown on TV and celebrate, but in some cases the miraculously cured, came home and died, soon after. I don't think John or his many workers, never heard about many of these deaths or had cognitive dissonance. Thats not to say he's phoney or his treatment is ineffective, its acknowledging limits. And a huge limit is not freakin seeing your patients again after a single visit. In this way many a wonder guru has fallen.
  6. I thought I saw a little bit of a pointed gun; just the muzzle at 6:45.3 in the 14th one. kidding.
  7. KUNDALINI SHAKTI & SIDDHIS

    When I was doing KAP at times I felt like I had a blender going on in my belly. Not very comfortable, but memorable because he didn't use any visualizations, the feeling was not due to suggestion. A couple of years ago I'd gotten into the practice of doing zhan zhang in the afternoon with the sun focused at me. Usually I'm not very chi sensitive, but one session it felt like energy moving up and down way to fast. It made my heart hurt. I took the advice I usually give other and stopped that particular practice. My heart hurt for a couple days afterwards though. No siddhis, more a scare. I've gone back to afternoon 'sun' Zhan zhang but no more intense experiences like that. These days I'm doing a bit more grounding.
  8. au contraire I've personally seen some pretty awesome healers. One guy who had people on their massage table writhing around to the point they needed others to steady them. That was Dirk Oellibrandt. In a class I took at the Healing Tao we had fellow student who did cranial sacrum energy healing. She worked on another student and had him writhing and in the end he was in a fetal position on the floor. She said 'My work here is done, leave him', it was night time, the next morning he joined us and said it was the most mind blowing incredible thing he'd ever experienced. He laid there the entire night having a strange healing time. Again, she wasn't a teacher there but did have her own practice. I've also seen TB's Ya Mu at work, damn impressive, he works with more then emotion. I don't mean to take anything away from Mr. Clyman but even with my limited experience I've seen people out there with amazing skills. They lack the press but may have equal or better abilities, don't know.
  9. I imagine he's quite a self promoter. That evaluation also comes from hearing him years ago. More importantly You're right, they're different, though I notice the new one references the older and they use the exact same graphics.
  10. I'm still doubtful. I think its an ad made to look like an article. I googled the sun times to find a date or any information but couldn't. If you google Louise Leverson reporter chicago, you get nothing. If she was a reporter I assume you'd find other stories by her. Most articles like that have the name of the paper and date on top. That doesn't. I'm not saying the copy itself is wrong, just that its not a real article, its a planted ad and I suspect dollars to donuts its the same copy used in Clymans earlier ad. <edit after reading #13> gloat gloat gloat I was right, partly right, at least 3/4's ... nah nah nah nana... my post Pear-a-dise martini song.
  11. I swear I've seen that ad before or something with very similar wording. Are you sure its not an advertisement disguised as an ad? Not that I doubt Clyman is powerful and worthwhile to have mind/body work with but that (the graphics) reads like an infomercial.
  12. I don't think the 'Are we a butterfly dreaming we're a man' is a serious proposition, but perhaps 'is something powerful and transcendental dreaming they're us' might be. Whether its 'reality' based or not. We might live better lives by (quotingish Robert Moss) taking our dreams life more seriously and treating our waking life as more symbolic.
  13. What Taoists really do

    Is there a template online for the 'What my ___ think' photo meme? Darin here had a great one on Freemasons.
  14. The Kunlun system's main posture is seated and you keep your heels raised. After a few sessions, the heels start bouncing rapidly by themselves, like a nervous school boy. There's some hard wired release mechanism being triggered. I think simple whole body shaking is one the most simple underrated practices (as is zhan zhang). I've done it in Ki-Aikido and in KAP classes, too often its viewed as a warm up when it can be an important practice unto itself.
  15. If you're going to be delusional, its probably better to be hyper-delusional. To be hyper realistic, may be to close some important doors and avenues of experience. The people who believe OBE's are the one's most likely to master the phenomena. Whether its traveling astrally, dimensionally or within a lucid dream, they'll gain an experience a nay sayer won't approach. I trust Rawn Clarks work. Not that he teach's OBE, but according to some of his old writings he had consistent astral meet ups with a group of other high level hermetic magicians. These meetings were preplanned with real people and they'd later talk about it online or over the phone for confirmation. Does he have any proof of the meetings, no. Does he have any interest in proving they're possible or existed, no. Still, there's a large amount of evidence such a phenomena exists. High level stuff, and a telephone is much easier, still.. fascinating..
  16. OBE's should be easy to test. Yet I haven't found definitive proof that such travel is real. Lots of anecdotal stories of astral meetups, but little scientific proof. I'm not looking for lab stuff, just simple, what card is face up in the next room. In his earliest book, Stephen LaBerge who ran a sleep lab that did scientific work and testing on lucid dreaming, having trained oeneirauts, thought that OBE's were a subset of lucid dreaming, and not actual out of body travel. If anyone has links I'd be love to see them.
  17. What should one do/think of while walking?

    I'll feel the bottom of my feet, how they strike the ground. I'll focus on my hearing and turn off my thinking.
  18. Handstand on Mt. Huashan

    For most, it'd be stupid and foolhardy, but if you're really good at headstands, years and years of experience, then its probably as safe as standing. Hell just walking along that path seems a bit crazy. It may not be wise, but I have a certain admiration for those who .. hang out at the edge.
  19. Chinese definition of compassion

    Theres the concept of compassion, in books and theory, then there's how it plays out in real life; say a disaster that strikes a city, then you see how a society demonstrates compassion to those who suffer. That would make an interesting litmus test. Somewhere on the internet there must be a relative apples to apples comparisons.
  20. What does awareness mean?

    hmmn, is awareness a mirror or a flashlight?
  21. Interesting article. I'll have to read it and the links more thoroughly. I was hoping to find evidence that they've done some testing with her. Simple, read a card or message in another room, type test to see if its a case of 'feeling' like leaving the body, or actually leaving the body. Didn't see any such information, unfortunately. Too bad. Just so you guys won't have to do it- here is the Rebuttal: http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/unpopular-science/woman-who-thinks-she-can-will-herself-out-her-body great minds think alike. I was writing above at the same time you printed this.
  22. Maybe not so much trance as one pointedness. Quiet mind, one pointed focus on what one is doing. Even in meditation one tries to stay out of mindless trance and into mindfulness.
  23. Definitely. My sensei would always say 'Don't leave your Aikido on the mat'. Same with a zendo. Sitting is a tool, an exercise, the pointer. Proper mindset, one that penetrates the subconscious and informs all of one's actions.
  24. What If I Am Not The Ocean?

    Personally, I think its possible. That the afterlife is a convenient myth. We are temporary beings using electro chemical processes and when we die, its an off switch- game over man. Don't know, probably can't know for sure. There are hints in religions, direct experience in higher meditation and dreamwork, but I don't think there are any for sures. Yet, I don't think that invalidates the present moment. If anything it makes the present moment that much more important, because after this life, there's nothing. Enjoy yourself, and in my philosophy add to world, make it bit better for those who come next. U may be temporary but you're part of a chain. Your actions do affect the world in some small ways, you have the power to make the world a better place after you leave or worse. and who knows, maybe there is an afterlife and we're judged. and we can walk up jesus, punch him in the nose and say 'Next time write a freakin book yourself, one thats clear so people don't commit thousands of years of violence in your name.
  25. changing the world

    Sometimes changing the world is a euphemism for- I want others to believe and act the way I do. Or worse, I don't do this but you have to. There's an element of evil to that.. maybe necessary evil, but negative nonetheless even for 'righteous' causes. Frankly, no one likes to be told what to do. The best lead by example, but that can be a very slow way of change.