CarsonZi

It's not using Chi Gong but anyone familiar with "Buddha Boy"? He goes long periods of time without food or water. Supposedly. Love, Carson

Hi Drew, Have you had a chance to read Jeremy Narby's "The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge" yet? I know you will love it if you haven't. Then I suggest reading "Supernatural" by Graham Hancock. These two books piggy back off each other and are pretty much the "authority" IMO on the suject of shamanic use of ayahausca. Love, Carson

You can also check out an interesting idea for the future here: http://www.thevenusproject.org . I don't necessarily agree with everything presented here, but it is great food for thought! Love, Carson

Namaste Drew.... You don't waste any time do you? Haha. It was only a week or so ago I remember reading about you saying you had ordered the Mimosa and Syrian Rue.....good on you! Quite the experience ayahausca is, isn't it?! The part about it being "living" or "nature" or whatever is very true. This is THE plant teacher/healer. IMO anyways. I truly suggest you try it with banisteriopsis caapi vine someday instead of Syrian Rue though....it creates an experience that will blow even this one away. Next question is: how much experience do you have with Ketamine? I know it is man-made (hard for me to believe this composition doesn't exist in nature but it doesn't) but K and ayahausca IMO are the two substances able to seriously catalyze spiritual change in a person. Ketamine is much easier to get "attached" to though as the side effects are much much less severe and ever so more enjoyable. Just curious. Thanks for sharing, it was a fun read! Love, Carson

Namaste wenwu.... What you are experiencing is in my experience quite common....Letting the emotions pass while in meditation is a good approach.....If the emotions persist outside of meditation I would suggest that you make sure you take sufficient time to rest after your practices. And participate in some grounding activities like walking, washing dishes, scrubbing your toilet etc. IMO these emotional "releases" are a natural part of the "housecleaning" cause by the practice of meditation. Hope this helps a little. Love, Carson

Here are Yogani's instructions on "Prayer and the Principles of Samyama". (a brnad new lesson posted on Jan 22, 2009) http://www.aypsite.org/301.html Love, Carson

Awesome question xuesheng and yeah, at least I am up for chatting on this topic. Personally prayer has taken on a new shape for me ever since starting the practice of samyama....but essentially I think the basis is all the same. Taking a thought and surrendering the thought to God/Source. Thy will be done right? To me that is true prayer. And yeah, it helps Would love to discuss in depth....not sure exactly where to start though....ambitious topic. Love, Carson

This seems like a very "Christian" way of thinking....not that I have anything against Christians, I used to be one, but in many cases people subscribing to one religion often demonize anything they don't understand as "Satanic". This has been going on since the Dark Ages and perhaps even longer I don't know. Albiet there are some aspects of Christianity (as an example) that deal with kundalini (using other terminology like "on fire for God" and "filled with the Holy Spirit") but as a general rule, many religions (not just Christianity) see anything supernatural (or unexplainable from the perspective of their religion) as "of the devil/dark side". I see this as fear mongering and a control mechanism. Love, Carson:D

Namaste Friends, I am new to TheTaoBums forum and I hope it is not too intrusive to start new threads this early in my TTB's "career". haha This forum is very interesting to me as I have only ever engaged in one other forum (The AYP forum) and that forum is pretty much dedicated to one system. Here it is much different. So many people practicing so many different systems. So my question to all of you is simple.....What is your intention (what are you trying to achieve/not achieve) when engaging in the practice of meditation? (whatever meditation means to you) Wishing you all peace and contentment. Love, Carson

Thank you Mikaelz, I just may do so someday. Love, Carson:D

Well put....thanks for the quote!

Namaste Mikaelz.... I will have to respectfully disagree with you on this. And it doesn't matter that I don't know you . The reality is, there can be no "wrong" time for stuff to happen. What happens happens and it all is as it should be. Whether you see it this way or not is up to you. The only time that exists is now. In hindsight I think you will notice that everything that has happened to you in the past has put you right where you are today, and there is no better place for you then where you are right now. Living this way can be a challenge at first, but it is also very liberating. Then that is the way it should be and you will read it when you should. I wish you the best in China, and I also want to thank you for putting up the pictures of your India trip....I've been saving for two years already for a trip to India and looking at your pictures really increased the desire to get this show on the road...so thank yo,u and best of luck! Love, Carson:D

Namaste Mikaelz! I am very happy that you decided to order this book. It truly changed the way I relate to people and the way I view my own "needs." I would also recommend that after reading Real Love you try and read "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie, because the two books go absolutely hand in hand. Real Love shows you how we are all just searching for Unconditional Love, and how we react when we don't get it....Loving What Is shows you how to do the easiest Self Inquiry I have ever come across (and I am fairly well versed in S.I, from Yogani's books to Adyanshanti's to Katie's and more) and really helps to show how the stories we make up in our minds of what is "reality" is really just projections of our own beliefs. It then shows you how to "love what IS" and stop fighting with reality. Seriously hand in hand. Opened my heart chakra to the point that I had to back off for a while cause I couldn't have a conversation with someone without wanting to cry all over the place and hug them and tell them I am so happy to know them. Doesn't always go over well since I am a scary looking dude (tattooed from neck to toes, and look like I have been around the block a few times, cause I have ) hope you enjoy the book, it showed up at just the right time for me, and I hope it will be the same for you. Best of luck my brother! Love, Carson:D

Namaste Dwai, Agreed. That's why I think AYP is so nice....It combines all the yoga's. (well maybe with the exception of "guru" yoga. Still has bhakti elements though) I didn't try to list them all above, I just said "and many more", and I SHOULD have just said "it combines all the yoga's", but I didn't. Truly sorry. It's like Vajrasattva said "They truly are not seperate from each other". Sorry for blabbing. Love, Carson:D

Hi Unconditioned, Perhaps I should have qualified my statement of "....ideas and beliefs that will later in life need to be transcended" by ending with..."or verified through personal experience." And yes, all "tools" must one day be transcended. Love, Carson

Banisteriopsis Caapi vine is much more effective in creating an ayahausca experience then using syrian rue. Just FYI. And B.C. vine by itself is an amazing journey.....often called ayahausca by Peruvian shamans even without the DMT root bark. It definitely has the "clairvoyance" aspect to it. Very easy to transfer thoughts without speaking and to read others minds. In my experience of course. Love, Carson

Namaste innerspace cadet. I'm biased, but I would suggest AYP! It combines many more yogas then just the 4 major ones......mantra, tantra, bhakti, kundalini, kriya, raja, jnana, karma etc etc etc.....It's a very balanced practice and is easy to be "self guided" and is not necessary to have a "guru" to help guide you through the process of spiritual awakening. Again though, I am biased. Best of luck! Love, Carson www.aypsite.org

I remember once being on mushrooms (a large 7 gram dose) and figuring out the whole e=mc2 deal....And as I figured this out I was about to try teletransporting myself (dematerializing and rematerializing on the other side of the valley I was in) when the friend that was with me walked into a tree, got a branch stuck up his nose and started bleeding everywhere and screaming bloody murder. Obviously I "lost" the Realization and never got it back again. One more reason to stick with meditation over hallucinogens. Easier to remember and retain what you've learned! haha Love, Carson

Me too. I started using marijuana at an early age and this helped me to see through the fallacy of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity which I had been practicing since I was 4. (this happened at age 12). This created a desire to learn what else "drugs" may have to offer and I developed unhealthy habits to just about every drug known to man.....Everything from ayahausca to heroin, ketamine to methamphetamine, 2CB to methadone, MDMA to PCP. But the drugs that most positively benefitted my spiritual journey were the natural tryptamines.....DMT(ayahausca), psylocin, etc, and Ketamine.(not natural nor a tryptamine) Anything that can create true ego dissolution I find can be a useful tool in my "yogic toolbelt". BUT this said, all tools are meant to be transcended in my opinion, and are only useful during certain aspects of the journey. Very fun (albiet long winded) article though. Thanks for sharing Drew Hempel. Love, Carson P.S. I no longer use ANY drugs.....AYP Spinal Breathing Pranayama even got me off of a 90mg daily dose of methadone (had been at that dose for 4 years prior) in 10 weeks with no withdrawals. A medical miracle by any perspective!

Personally I think "formal" education fills the mind with ideas and beliefs that will later in life need to be transcended. I personally feel that those without a "formal education" find it much easier to let go of their beliefs and live based on personal experience alone. This is my experience from teaching meditation and yoga to homeless people...many of which never completed grade school. But, just my opinion all the same. Love, Carson

Glad we can agree. Thank you for helping me to see this from a new perspective. Gratitudes! Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh....stud Love, Carson

Namaste NeutralWire, thank you for the indepth response! Well CarsonZi, I think that you agreed with the idea that 'letting go of success is what brings success', and as far as I'm concerned, every single other difference between us is actually a practicing or a vocabulary difference, not a real difference of understanding. Agreed. Bardon is an Hermetic (magical) practice, so it is literally all about training the intent. Of course, he gives clear instructions how he does healing and you do indeed begin with intent. Everything in magic always begins with intent because the idea is to build up the strength of the will. There are many paths to the same destination. Thank you for elaborating on what Bardon is. I have never had much dealings with "magic" although i did dabble in Satanism for a couple of months.....my paths have mainly been Christianity, drugs/loose shamanism, Kriya yoga and AYP, in that order with a little bit of overlap between them. For example, your self-knowledge practice is about events teaching you. But Bardon begins by having one meditate on all your faults and virtues, and (implicitly) at that point you already have the intent to deal with every single one of them! So if you have fear of failure, it will be rooted out right away. But you still have intent to succeed! It's a difference in method. This goes into what I am learning as we speak.....When responding to White Tiger above, I mentioned at the end that I didn't have an answer to the question he asked "Why have intention at all" and I said that I would meditate on it. I did. I didn't get a definite answer to his question, but what I DID come to realize was that there are what I would term as "gross" intentions and "subtle" intentions. The gross intentions would be the ones that we are trying to get away from having. The subtle intentions will always be there. What you are describing I believe are the "subtle" intentions. This is again, my opinion, and a fresh one at that, so there may be many issues I have yet to find with this theory. Please take it as such. I totally agree that if you 'fail to learn,' life will teach you, and Bardon would have agreed also. But nonetheless in Bardon you do seek and intend to learn from self-knowledge. What I would now consider a "subtle" intention. Because of the magical nature of the practice, this seeking is not the same as 'seeking success' in a regular egotistical way That would be seeking in the "gross" sense IMO. -- as I mentioned, you have to let go of those ideas to have success! But it is still seeking a result -- just not looking for it, worrying about it, etc. Probably a good way to define the difference between "gross" and "subtle" intentions. Well done. It is allowed to arise gradually and naturally. Even the common (mis-)conception about 'magic spells' includes the obvious fact that there is intent in them. But all magicians know that if you think about the result, it doesn't appear. Duh! hahahaha Just joking around. If you think about it, this fact about intention is true of many other practices as well -- for example, the intention to open the microcosmic orbit if you know about that. I'm under-edumacated but I'm not daft! Again, just joking around.....haha. If you force it, if you try to make it happen, nothing happens. But you can still have the intent, without the force (=fear). It's the same with anything. Try to make your wife want to have sex ten times a day, try to "become enlightened"...etc etc. Gross intentions will only beget the opposite of the sought after result. IMO. With Bardon, similarly, you do energy work with organs or areas of your body, different types of energy... impossible to do this without intent as such, but still, to be in the state where you just flow and 'it happens' is very necessary. In other words, there is no 'should' or trying to force it. This 'should' or seeking of results is not the same as intent - or magical will as it is often known. In yoga we call this "automatic yoga". This is when the kundalini energy does what it needs and you let it. Also sometimes called spontaneous kriyas. Learning to "let go" and relinquish control of the body is necessary for this, but it is not only possible, it is necessary. It is the learning to "Let go and Let God." I think it is natural for some practitioners to feel intent starts to be 'trying to overrule reality' but there are other types of practice where intent is harmonizing with reality, and Bardon (to me) is the King of such practices. To me AYP is the King of such practices. Big surprise on both accounts! haha. Interesting conversation! I hope that I haven't poked around too much in your opinions. Like you, I'm very interested in variety... Don't worry my brother....no opinions of mine are set in stone.....always good to check your baggage at the door and to come here with a mindset of wanting to learn, not teach. True in life as well as on this forum. Variety is the spice of life. Thank you for the stimulating conversations. Much love. Love, Carson P.S. Really sorry about the RED text, but I tried everything and for whatever reason I couldn't get the quotes to work....WTF? They worked before! I swear I'm not an idiot! *wink wink*

Hi NeutralWire....will try to explain a little better. Nope. It is important to learn from our mistakes, but "seeking" to do this is "planning" for the future, and that isn't living in the now. Again we just DO learn from our mistakes, just like I suggest we just DO meditation. If we don't learn from them then we don't learn from them and we will likely make the mistake again and be given a second opportunity to learn. Self inquiry (IMO) plays a large part in human spiritual transformation and plays a part in learning from our mistakes, but again, there is no need to intend anything except perhaps to end our suffering, and the best way to do that is to intend nothing.......and instead to enjoy everything that IS instead of battling with reality in our minds. (ie. Life SHOULD be this way even though it isn't) As always, all this is being spouted purely from the perspective of my own experience and others may have a completely different experience/opinion. Interesting.....I know nothing of Bardon....I thought maybe it was plural for Bardo or perhaps a version of Bon Po.....I'm very under edumacated as Stigweard would say haha. Please don't hold it against me, hahaha. You would really have to ask him. I can't tell you someone elses intentions. I would just be speculating. I try to stay away from that. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful here. Love, Carson

Namaste White Tiger.... Fair enough! I'm sure there is LOTS that I'm still missing. haha. I don't claim to have all the answers or even A answer....all I have is my experience and my awareness. That is all. Yes indeed! And in Sanskrit I believe it is "para" or "tatpara". Or at least the adjectives anyway. No offense but I'm not really into "mainstream" anything. *wink* Indeed it is one of many theories. But in my experience it is true. A great question. Not sure I have an answer. Will meditate on it. Thank you for the stimulating conversation! Love, Carson

Exactly. Don't intend, just DO.