thelerner

Hard core You had me at 2 hours of Zhan Zhan from 4 to 6 am. If I may ask, what is Art of a Proper Entry into the mountains? Thanks Michael

Pu Erh, hmm, its not my favorite but many here have talked about its health properties so I have some. I find it tastes like diluted green muddy water; pungent and earthy. Definitely do a tea ceremony if you can. They're wonderful.

and I'm encouraging Aaron to buy the world's smallest violin and learn to play. <and I say that as someone who usually agrees with his grievances. Imo he has to let things go, a bit more> Its just a forum. All the drama and perceived injustice don't add up to a hill of beans. Its good to make known one's grievances, but if they're not being acted on and the forum causes someone more grief then good, then move on, change the channel, its not worth it, nothing to see here. and <this kind of sarcastic post shows why I should not be a mod.>

Great photos. Can you tell us a little about the retreat?

What's it like. Bit airy with a splash of green and twig?

I was at a yoga ashram this summer. There were two guest lecturer's. One was very scholarly, an older distinguished white guy who embraced Hinduism. His lectures were informative and a bit proselyting and he spoke out against Islam. The other lecturer was a famous singer. Also an American and Hindu of note. Yet he talked about hearing Moslem singing and how he'd put his ear tightly against the fence because he heard the divinity there. His path would be Hinduism, but listening to the Islamic was his first taste of divine song. One speaker was intellectual, the other heart centered. The ashram was relaxed enough so I could share coffee with both. Yet I couldn't help but find the singer was the path I'd choose. The intellectual knew his history, saw differences and nursed negativity, even hate, the famous singer, put his mind and heart towards the divine. I like the singer's way better. The crap said against Islam just mirrors the crap their opposites say against us. Peace won't come until we learn to listen and sing together. We decide which way our world points.

At times I have to, but unless theres a clear and present danger, I fight against my prejudices and often that path has helped me a great deal; opened up vistas and learning I might have missed if I'd clung to them.

Mind is a theater. There's a movie screen. Couple of often hungry guys in the audience. A projector. Sometimes there's a guy in the back row watching the guys who watch the movie. Sometimes that guy is even outside the theater just doing his thing. What else....? I think the guys have faulty remotes, and I don't know who the projector is.

If that's your belief you could have said it 6 7 pages ago and left it at that. But that's not all you believe. I think you're offended that others believe differently and you want to get into a long losing fight to convince others they need to believe the exact same as you. Many on the opposite side think the same way. Sad. You won't change anyone's views, all you'll do is bring out the extremists. Fine, if thats your goal, but its a Pyrrhic one.

I just went to an Adagio tea shop close to me. Good tea, decent value. If you're interested in a tea they'll give brew up small samples to taste. I picked up some Citron Green, I think its a green dragon well $7 for 3 oz loose. Also bought the Blood Orange herbal mix, $7 for a small bag. It makes for a nice mix. Occasionally I'll spring for something special. I like the offerings at http://shop.amazing-green-tea.com. Then again I'll also fall back on nostalgic tastes like Costant Comment and even Lipton, as long as I can get a slice of lime in it. With winter coming I enjoy inexpensive Japanese Genmaichi which is green tea with puffed rice that gives it a full malty sweet taste. I'll drink some pue erh too, more for health then taste.

Side note. There's a good (Itunes) podcast called Evening Inventory Meditation (11 minutes) from 'Meditation Station'. Its a nice mental dump of the day. Instead of forgetting, you remember, then let it go. It can work nicely.

Yet, I think we need to tolerate bigots/prejudiced people, cause we can be bigots ourselves. I am. At times. That doesn't mean you don't post your truth to counter them. In some ways the bigot is someone standing up for a cause you don't believe in. I agree with Seans sentiment. Leading with the heart, giving mods discretion, trusting there judgement while knowing they'll get it wrong sometimes. On the third hand, when an online argument heats up. I try (often unsuccessfully) to give it space. If you've posted your truth you don't need a multi day tit for tat. Give a day or two, read when calm.

You may be looking for the phenomena of polyphasic sleep. There are a number of writings about it. Here is one experiment: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ Here a sample. He also has running history of the experiment after 60 or more days (if you believe him): "Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day instead of getting all your sleep in one long chunk. A popular form of polyphasic sleep, the Uberman sleep schedule, suggests that you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock. This means you’re only sleeping 2-3 hours per day. I’d previously heard of polyphasic sleep, but until now I hadn’t come across practical schedules that people seem to be reporting interesting results with. Under this sleep schedule, your sleep times might be at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm. And each time you’d sleep for only 20-30 minutes. This is nice because the times are the same whether AM or PM, and they’re consistent from day to day as well, so you can still maintain a regular daily schedule, albeit a very different one. How can this sleep schedule work? Supposedly it takes about a week to adjust to it. A normal sleep cycle is 90 minutes, and REM sleep occurs late in this cycle. REM is the most important phase of sleep, the one in which you experience dreams, and when deprived of REM for too long, you suffer serious negative consequences. Polyphasic sleep conditions your body to learn to enter REM sleep immediately when you begin sleeping instead of much later in the sleep cycle. So during the first week you experience sleep deprivation as your body learns to adapt to shorter sleep cycles, but after the adaptation you’ll feel fine, maybe even better than before. It requires some discipline to successfully transition to this cycle, as well as a flexible schedule that allows it. While you’ll be sleeping a lot less, apparently it’s very important to sleep at the required times and not miss naps." Personally, I find I don't make the most of the hours I'm up. Until I do, I don't think hacking my sleep less is going to be life changing.

Picked it up w/ kid today. Preordering from Gamestop got him poster and level 100 critter. Whoopie.? He likes it.

Option 3 please. I'd want to take a time out. Hang out in the astral, talk to people and other beings, spend a few years, maybe a few dozen, learning and consolidating before making my decision. Heck, I'm dead, what's the freakin rush.

Stigweard who doesn't post here much lately was quite an expert on the IChing. Anyone else? And who'd be interested in sharing there knowledge and method with BaugaKicksAss Would someone with experience in TCM like to start correspondence with Uroboros? When we teach, we learn. Especially things like TCM, where you can recommend a favorite book and then go through it together. Same thing with IChing. If there's a book that special to you, they can get it and you can review together.

I'm a Jo (wooden staff) guy , as my sensei said, never needs sharpening, never runs out of bullets. Weapon training sharpens the attention. Cause they're dangerous and require the utmost respect. I've collected Bokken, donated some of the nicer pieces to my old dojo.

Interesting, the book looks good. I've been doing some comparison shopping of amazon(.com) vs amazon(.co.uk). FWIW, on the U.S (.com) its $3 on the British site the Kindle version is 8.04 pounds ($12.80)!! Quite a difference.

I don't think so but he tends to be very elitist. His way is barely possible, all others impossible.

In Roman times in Judea if anyone was pegged 'King of the Jews' by friend or foe, they were dead. You didn't need a crowd complaining about them or formal charges filed. They'd be killed quickly. Herod was a Roman pawn and the slightest whisper of any usurper meant there death. Thus Herod murdered his wife and 2 sons. Pontius Pilate was a historic character, there's a plaque to him in Caesaria, but I believe he was not the dithering character made out in the Gospels. Ancient historian Philo writes that Pilate had "vindictiveness and furious temper" -^ Philo, On The Embassy of Gauis Book XXXVIII 299–305. Historian Josephus is also unflattering. From our vintage point it hard to 'get' how bloody the Romans were. The leaders killed there relatives regularly. They'd lose 100,000 soldiers in battle and send 100,000 more. Non Roman subjects toed the line, or die en masse.

Personally I go with real person, probably a good one, Jewish rabbi, rebel with mystical bend, living in a violent superstitious and chaotic time who's life was mythologized with add ons from other traditions. I didn't expect to find skeptics going over the movie Zeitgeist because it is debunking movie. But when solid researchers did they found it riddled with errors. People don't do research and accept notion after notion blindly. Not that it is proof for Jesus one way or another, just that with out looking a little deeper into internet sources, we're become misinformed pawns of those with agendas. People write lie after lie and with no research its just accepted. Here is a link: http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/ sample from the site: " Horus This is Horus. He is the Sun God of Egypt of around 3000 BC. He is the sun, anthropomorphized, and his life is a series of allegorical myths involving the sun's movement in the sky. From the ancient hieroglyphics in Egypt, we know much about this solar messiah. For instance, Horus, being the sun, or the light, had an enemy known as Set and Set was the personification of the darkness or night. And, metaphorically speaking, every morning Horus would win the battle against Set - while in the evening, Set would conquer Horus and send him into the underworld. It is important to note that "dark vs. light" or "good vs. evil" is one of the most ubiquitous mythological dualities ever known and is still expressed on many levels to this day. At this time, he was the god of the sky, and Ra was the god of the sun. Perhaps inevitable, since he was the sky, eventually the moon and the sun were considered his eyes. At this point he was known as Heru-khuti, and by-and-by he was combined with Ra as the god "Re-Horakhty"[13][11]. While there was a battle between Set and Horus, it was hardly every night. In fact, the battle really only happened once, and had more to do with testicles and semen than night and day[14]. In fact day and night in Egyptian Mythology was much more complicated than the film suggests. The goddess of the sky was called Nut (or Nuit), her name also means "night". At dusk she would swallow Ra, the son god, and he would stay in her uterus until morning when he would be reborn. She wore a blue dress that was covered in stars[15]. Set was the God of the desert, primarily because Horus cut off one of his testicles and he became "infertile like the desert". At this time, Set was not considered evil, it was not until around 100 A.D. that the Romans in Egypt turned Set into a demonic figure[16]. Broadly speaking, the story of Horus is as follows: Horus was born on December 25th of the virgin Isis-Meri. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east, which in turn, three kings followed to locate and adorn the new-born savior. At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 he was baptized by a figure known as Anup and thus began his ministry. Horus had 12 disciples he traveled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water. Horus was known by many gestural names such as The Truth, The Light, God's Anointed Son, The Good Shepherd, The Lamb of God, and many others. After being betrayed by Typhon, Horus was crucified, buried for 3 days, and thus, resurrected.. Horus was not born on December 25th, he was born on the 5th day of the "Epagomenal Days"[3], which does not even take place in December on the modern or ancient calendars, but rather between August 24th and 28th, but in terms of the rising of Sirius (August 4), they are July 30th through August 3rd[4]. His mother was also not a virgin. Horus's father was Osiris, who was killed by his brother Seth. Isis used a spell to bring him back to life for a short time so they could have sex, in which they conceived Horus[5]. I, as well as several others, as well as several Egyptologists you can find on the Internet, know of no reference anywhere to a "star in the east" or "three kings" and "new-born savior"; it is simply made up. I cannot find any source or information proving he was a "teacher when he was 12 years old", that he was "baptized at age 30", that he "walked on water" (but on the Internet, I did find several places that suggest he was "thrown in the water", but I have no direct source at this time for that). More so, I cannot find any evidence he was referred to as "The Truth", "The Light", Lamb of God", "the Good Shepherd", etc. Also lacking is any evidence that he was betrayed by Typhon. In fact, Horus never died, at any time, he later merges with the sun god, Ra -- but never dies and certainly never is crucified, and therefore could not have been buried for 3 days and resurrected. If you want to look it up yourself, you can find documentation of Horus and Isis and Osiris here [6] and here [7]."

Sounds like a worthwhile book. Interestingly, the link took me to amazon's UK site (.co.uk) had 13 well thought out reviews. The U.S site (.com) only 3 reviews. When trying to decide on a book, using a different countries .xx might be a way to learn more about a book.

I agree she's a saint and plugged in to a higher power. (Turtle Shell has a good point, some can 'ride' on other people's energy.) Still, staying up for 2 days giving hugs is far different in magnitude then having access to infinite power. I can't help thinking infinite would mean godlike powers rather then extraordinary ones that are within the far end of human capability.

A little too new age for me. edit> & I was hoping there'd be some nudity involved due to the original title.

edit> It strikes me I didn't answer F.'s question. I think most people start out with IIH, Initiation Into Hermetics. The commentaries I list below are based on it. I'd say warm up the printer and get some ink. The free commentaries by Rawn Clark - http://abardoncompanion.com/CommentariesLinks.html are excellent 'Cliff Notes'. William Mistele has a similar indepth notes - http://williammistele.com/basic.html (scroll down a bit for the commentary) as well as observations and stories. Most of the stuff on Rawn Clark's site is free. He has some audio commentaries on the IIH that are worthwhile but are relatively cheap looks like they're free now - http://www.abardoncompanion.com/Lecture/index.html . Some additional pointers and advice. Both practitioners tell of opening up to a wider world where there are myriad spirits open for communication and seem to have mastered dream work. More importantly they seem level headed not too far out. For a while Rawn had a Q&A forum. When asked for proof of power. He'd only say study and find out for yourself. Which might be an incomplete answer for some. You can find a couple of podcast interviews with him too.