Sunya

That's really interesting. Do you have a link to the study? And are you studying to be a doctor or nurse?

I have it. It's great. It comes with a DVD, and the book goes into a lot of detail, very thorough. I'm trying to do the practices everyday. There are 5 outer movements, which are shown in the DVD, 5 inner movements and 5 secret movements. It's all explained in the book in a very detailed manner. The focus is on clearing and purifying the channels/chakras.

We = the masses = the sheep. Not us, obviously. haha :> I think it's funny how a lot of people blindly are devoted to what science can prove... they'll just deny everything that isn't accepted until it is accepted. While this is better than blind faith, I think it puts too much trust in the hands of scientists, and what if they never can prove without a doubt that consciousness isn't just the brain? What if the only way to prove that is through subjective empirical exploration. Well, then a lot of people are severely screwed, kind of like lemmings, the blind leading the blind. Anyway, I think it is good that meditation is being accepted by the masses as having some real practical value. This may be the beginning of a mainstream acceptance of spirituality.

a whole new world...

The point, at least for me, of the science of meditation and the brain is to help people. The 2nd video is by a medical doctor who developed a very popular therapy which uses mindfulness for stress. In this age, science is like the church so we need the approval of science... and it's very good that science is approving meditation

Awesome.

I forgot to mention standing! Yeah, standing definitely keeps you more awake lol

Try taking a cold shower for 5 minutes, turn the lights brighter in your room, meditate outside in a more spacious setting, drink green tea, etc. I'd get sleepy very often during meditation. Doing physical exercises like yoga helps. Also eating a lighter diet with less meat too. I like to meditate before I sleep. I meditate myself to sleep that way, and I think it's a good idea to do that. You'll have a more relaxed sleep instead of going to bed with a bunch of thoughts. Most traditions say meditating in the morning is the best time since you're the most alert.

You haven't understood what emptiness actually means if that's what you're saying. It's not about being sectarian or not. It's about concepts and which insights particular concepts bring us to. 'Self' is a concept with an implied identification that leads to a psychological attitude of grasping toward experience. No-self is a deconstructive concept which has the purpose of eliminating identification and grasping. Truth is completely beyond concepts, but you need the proper raft to get you there. A raft with an anchor won't get you to the the other side of the shore. I'll take you part of the way and you'll think you made it, and then you'll blame Buddhists for being sectarian, spewing their 'nonsense,' and 'not getting it.'

double post

Well I'm still in school, but I'm less worried about going crazy now. I'm focusing more on surrendering and seeing experience as without a self. As for trying to raise kundalini, yes and no. I see 'trying to raise kundalini as an ego trying to become enlightened. Once I actually had a sincere experience, I realized that 'I' cannot pass, so I wasn't ready for that. Be careful what you wish for. In my experience, purification is much more important than trying to raise energy or gain powers. The ego does not become enlightened. If you awaken kundalini without purification, all the unconscious crap will come out and it won't be pleasant. Better clean your house first and explore the attic before bringing in the light that reveals everything, lol. Kundalini will come about naturally. There's no need to focus on it. This happens when the proper conditions are there. Now I'm focusing on purifying the body/mind through Tibetan tsa lung exercises (Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's book Healing with Form as well as his new DVD are great for this).

Yes it does sound Buddhist. The only difference is that the Buddhists don't worship the energy and view it as self-existing and the energy of the universe. It's the inherent purifying wisdom energy of the individual which is of course intertied with everything else. I don't think tantra was corrupted at all. There have been unbroken lineages stemming from the Mahasiddhas of India. Anyway, who cares about this? Who cares who says this or who says that? Just practice and gain your own experience...

No. Kundalini is the awakening of the subtle wisdom energy that when enters and rises through the central channel begins a purification process and eventually brings about nondual realization. I highly doubt Robert Bruce was the only person to experience this, lol.

Wow.

1- Who cares what Robert Bruce says? With all due respect to him, he's not the end all be all, a living Buddha if you will. 2- Kundalini raising does not require mastering trance or energy work. There are many ways to awaken kundalini. Devotional prayer, creativity, physical yoga, or just spontaneously are ways that this can happen without doing any out of body stuff at all. I see you're very rigid. Why does everything have to be so black and white? You gotta leave room for more plurality instead of one ring to fit them all type thinking.

Yes I agree. Robert's method is his own and his "requirement" (which I see more as a recommendation) isn't absolute. I've never had a bona fide OBE and had spontaneous 'classic' Kundalini experiences, but I stopped them luckily from going further because I wasn't ready, had more mind training to do, and had to focus on graduating. About siddhis, well it depends what you mean. In Buddhism, the highest siddhi is seen as enlightenment. If you mean powers that control reality, being able to fly or whatever, then I would say that I have no clue since I never experienced them. Some Buddhist traditions such as Vajrayana develop siddhis and see them as beneficial. Others like Zen view them as a waste of time, though I don't think any Buddhist school denies their existence, that they come about naturally, and that the enlightened have access to them.

Perhaps. But, thogal is a very advanced practice. If you don't abide in nondual presence 24/7 then it is pointless to do thogal. The book Heart Drops of Dharmakaya has (I think) the only public teaching of thogal. This is from that book: "Lopon comments that the distinctions are being made between the two techniques in order to clarify them in relation to one another, and not to suggest that either can work on its own. Without the fundamental practice of the Trekcho view, the Togel will have no meaning, although it will work. Without Trekcho the foundation is not safe for Togel. Many people are keen to do dark retreat straight away, but without Trekcho there is no base for the visions to come." So, if you're curious you can get that book, but there's no point in doing thogal until you can do trekcho. And, from experience, trekcho is far above what 99% of spiritual practitioners can achieve. It is very difficult.

You're trying to get milk from a male dog. If you keep going, you won't be happy with the results. It might look like milk, but it won't be.

I love to do moving meditation while listening to this. Beautiful music. http://filevo.com/rslthsrtz6ss.html Click 'create download link' then download and save the files somewhere. The files are in a zip archive. Unless your computer is from 1994, you should be able to extract the files. If not, you can get 7zip for free. If the music files don't play for you, you need a music player. Foobar is a free and lite player. Enjoy.

In ancient India you could wander around as a monk/ascetic and people would feed you and offer shelter sometimes. They still somewhat do this Thailand to the monks who go on begging rounds. People view it as good karma to feed those on the spiritual path. In most of the world today, that won't happen. I think there is more to a relationship with a teacher than merely learning techniques that you can read in a book. If you're mentally ill, you can buy a book on cognitive behavioral therapy and try it on yourself, but it's a bit more effective when you have a trained therapist, who himself hopefully is a bit sane, to treat you.

Sure Not all the tracks are ideal for meditation, particularly tracks 2, 8, 9 I don't like too much, but the rest are quite nice. Track 3 reminds me of a Chinese style Lord of the Rings lol

Haha What I don't really understand is when people say 'my ego'. Like, if someone gets angry or something they'll say sorry that was my ego. So 'ego' is defined a that selfish aspect of yourself that gets angry, arrogant, judgmental, etc. But if ego is simply the self-contraction, the sense of I as a separate being, then saying 'my ego' makes no sense. It's like saying the river's water. Who's ego is it? If you say 'my ego' then that is saying you are something beyond the ego, but if ego is the sense of self then there is no self beyond ego.