devoid

Hi Marblehead, I think your response is very succinct. I must admit I have disdain for the attempted appropriation to the laws of physics (which I assume are included to make the theory appear scientific sound). Any attempt to argue about life after death or the soul as an entity not requiring the physical body will always be subject to personal experience and belief. Flashing random laws of physics proves absolutely nothing.

Hi kejtan, Welcome to the Taobums

Hi chakra ilumination, Welcome to the Taobums

Hi nialljbyrne, Welcome to the Taobums

Hi HealingPhoenix, I am glad you found your way here - Welcome

Hi rjb, Welcome to the Taobums Many people join here having gotten past a bit of introductory work and then dive into Charles Luk's Taoist Yoga. Most people on this site agree that it is fairly advanced to start with and the question is often asked: where to start? You will find many pieces of advice in previous posts - a good way to start is to do a google search with site:thetaobums.com in addition to your keywords. One (of many) works which is often suggested is that of Robert Bruce - he's just started a new project at which he gives away one of his books away for free (which you'd normally have to pay 20 bucks or so for on Amazon). You can sign up on astralbob.com With your existing interest in martial arts, Qigong Empowerment my Shou-Yu Liang and Wen-Ching Wu is probably a good next step - it is certainly one of my personal favorites. This said, there is tons of good works out there, subject to your preference and angle - and when asking questions here you are likely to get different (and sometimes opposing answers).

Hi torus693, Welcome to the Taobums. I don't have an answer to your question re. the geometry of the skull, but you might want to post it as a question in the general discussion forum rather than the lobby.

Welcome izbell, It's nice to have you on board It is not always easy to learn on this site as many questions typically receive many and often very different answers, but the broadness is part of the fun and quite often really good for adding a new perspective to what you were pondering about.

Hi al. Thanks for posting this! My guess is that the 6th circle represents the alchemical concept of the kidneys (water) being heated by the heart (fire), i.e. the mixing of the kan an li.

Hi Everything, Nowadays, a keyboard lets you type out long texts at an incredible speed. Before that, a type writer at slower pace (if we include edits). Before that pen to paper and before that mixing colors, making a pen and finding a stone to write on - or wood tools and wood to carve - or stone and chisel. Looking at it this way makes it clear why brevity was a necessity rather than a goal - IMHO the real reason why most ancient texts are relatively short. As a natural consequence of the compactedness they appear as more abstract. As you point out, this gives cause to an incredible amount of interpretation and speculation nowadays

Guided meditation is very effective in getting you to the right place. Based on this, you can practice on your own and once you become comfortable with it you will be able to start exploring the wonders of what the guided meditation has lead you to.

There is no permanent opening of the channels. Over time and with practice you can become better and better at clearing a given channel. I think there's a misunderstanding here. Please allow me to illustrate by providing a question: If you wake up at night with a massive cramp in your leg (an example of massive qi blockage) what would be your response? Would you rather attempt to go into Lotus Position and wait for 2 hours till everything is fine or would you stand up and try to stretch the leg followed by some careful movement. I would certainly do the latter. In exactly the same way, stretching followed by simple movements (for instance as in a qi gong system designed for clearing the meridians) is an efficient way to do it - 5-10 minutes per day (every day!). Now, you suddenly have 2 hours extra per day. Don't get me wrong: Meditation is a great thing and I do it too - just not for clearing my meridians.

Hi Friends, As the topic suggest: Resources on Akashic Records. Can any of you recommend any resources on this topic? A quick glance on Amazon brought up a couple of books on the topic - I'd be interested in any recommendations.

Hi Twinner, I totally agree that one needs to be very careful in accepting what one receives through meditation as something really received vs. something made up. It absolutely takes training getting used to staying cool when one is on the brink of an awesome discovery.

Hi ShaktiMama, I am not sure I understand this post and was wondering if you could help cast some light on it? I must admit upfront that I never read any other of the author's works - perhaps that is the source of my confusion. I've been through the text twice now. I see an 18 page rambling which attempts unapologetically (although I am not convinced) to justify the author having money (and spending it) given the authors acceptance and understanding of the concept of Dharma through time. I would be curious to understand what you got out of it or was hoping that your fellow taobums should get out of it?

Hi Hardyg, I think that's really good question. Of course different people or mediums will tell you things based on not only what they can see and sense of you, but also subject to their personal knowledge, conditions and experiences. Thus, you will be likely to hear a bunch of things which can come out quite differently. Some of those things may come across as very accurate while other may not. Only you can be the judge of what to keep as your own and what do discard as 'not yours'. But how to do that? Try to pay attention to your gut feeling while pondering / asking yourself the questions that you find relevant. Connecting with your higher self can be a good way of accessing your own resources for this. Connecting the mind and heart is important for this: The inner smile is one commonly used form / exercise to help arrive at this. About your side note question on reincarnation I have been pondering about that myself a great deal - I am far from knowing the answer, although something inside me suggests a preference for what you came across, i.e. that there may be a correlation although not necessarily a firm rule. I'll be paying close attention to the discussion of that point.

Indeed, pennyofheaven - isn't any study of non-fiction an attempt to connect the dots? What I was trying to say above was that Lumari's book helped me do just that. I was also trying to say that if I had been perhaps a bit more self reliant, Robert Bruce's work might have done it for me on its own whereas Cheryl Trine's work didn't get me anywhere. That's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for when I started this thread - recommendations for resources of the Akashic Records. With the initial help and input from fellow bums combined with my own research I was able to piece it together - had I had my own advice then I could have saved about 20 bucks and as many hours reading. My above post serves as such an advice based on personal experience. If you have any better suggestions based on your own experience, please feel free to post them

Hi Friends, Lately I find more than ever that threads in which a question is asked or a discussion is started are being hijacked by members who inadvertently direct the discussion in question off topic in their never-ending pursuit of personal recognition as well as to flame each other. I am not only talking about "the Dynamic Duo" here although they may be the cause of this outburst. Seriously speaking, I think that every member of this forum (myself included!) ought to consider asking themselves a few questions before hitting the "Add Reply" button. IMHO relevant questions relate to asking one-self (before posting) to consider whether the new reply mainly adds to the discussion in question (the initial post #1 is a good place to look rather than the last post in which one may have felt personally attacked). If one cannot honestly and wholeheartedly answered yes, then give it a rest for an hour or even better a few days. This said, nobody is perfect - I will happily admit that I also occasionally fall pray to my own ego and temper (in real life as well on TTB) - all I am trying to say is: please consider it (especially those who post a lot). Thank you for your attention.

OK - so I promised you guys an update on this. I read: Robert Bruce's chapters on Akashic Records from his book Astral Dynamics Lumari's book Akashic Records Cheryl Trine's book, the New Akashic Records All three discuss the Akashic Records as something more than simply a library. Fundamentally, Robert Bruce interprets it as an underlying force or intelligence of the Astral Planes, whereas Lumari and and Cheryl Trine consider it its own energy entity somewhere far away. In terms of quantity Robert Bruce has probably 5-10 pages on it. Lumari close to one hundred and Cheryl Trine above three hundred. Robert Bruce's interpretation lead me to understand that it is something I should simply treat as part of Astral Travel - from here it's up to the practitioner to decided what to do with it. I think that is a totally valid point - I like this 'minimalistic approach' although it wasn't quite enough for me. Around 3/4 of Lumari's book is written as a transmission from the Akashic Reocrds to the World via Lumari. It tells us what we can and can't do with the Akashic Records and gives us some hints as to how the content of the Akashic Records are ultimately a very personal thing as the information we receive is subject to our existing knowledge, understandings and perceptions. This was my favorite of the three as it really struck a cord with me. Cheryl Trine's Book is made up of sections each divided into chapters. In total the book has around a hundred or so of these chapters. To be honest, I do not consider these chapters of a book in the common sense - rather separate essays compiled together. The stated intention of the book is to provide a new look at the Akashic Records. This is attempted done based on taking the reader through every possible link or connection the author has been able to establish based on reading scripts of various religions combined with a fair amount of self-discovery. I totally missed the red thread throughout the book and to me it served little purpose other than acting as pseudo historic reference of all major things that has ever been said about the Akashic Records. In other words, I fail to see what's 'new' - probably 'detailed' is a more accurate word. Yet, if the Akashic Reocrds are such a personal thing, then I fail to see how all this detail is going to do me any good.

Hi TaoBee, 'Leadership' is a fairly new term - in many of the old works and true to the practice of martial arts for self-defense or even the execution of policy the old Chinese have great works related to strategy (which is important to leadership, albeit not leadership in isolation). I recommend Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Here you will find a bunch of Tao related altruisms. Here's how it starts: Source: http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html As you will notice, this may not be directly applicable to your situation. Yet, look again. The company you work for is the State in this case. You are the Commander. The Moral Law is your ethics and responsibility to your customers and staff. Heaven and Earth constitute your environment (articles of incorporation, the laws that govern your business, the general public and the public's interest). Method and discipline make up how to manage. Now, let's move a bit further into the text: -here, you find wisdom about to the leadership qualities you need to cultivate to lead your army/company. As with many old Chinese texts, you can skim through it in about half an hour - yet you will find yourself coming back to it time and again. I wish you happy trails, Commander TaoBee!

Hi mewtwo, I think you got many good replies to this question from people who have not tried to insult you. I would like to present it in yet another way - the way I like to think about forms: A form will help you get to a particular destination that you may be in search of. The form can only get you to the gates of your destination - once there, it's up to you to explore inside. Training (day by day) and repeating over and again as well as receiving corrections along the way (sit in more - increased you stride - straighten your spine, etc. which your form teacher will tell you) helps you perfect the form. Once perfected, you have a really good map for reaching your destination. As Sloppy tried to explain, once you're there the real fun begins - you now know the form so well that you can do it without even thinking consciously about it, or even play with it if you so chose. Thus, my advice to you is to practice the forms as if you were training to become the world champion in executing the forms correctly. If you do this you may one day realize the specific wonders of the awesome destinations which the forms can take you to. Don't expect this to come over night. Don't get me wrong: playing with your own forms is great fun although it will guaranteed not be anything resembling a martial art. In other words, the grass in your own backyard is probably not as green and lush as that of the promised land. I wish you happy training!

Ahh, but Marblehead, from that very same page - if you scroll down to the section labelled "notable cover versions" you will find:

Buddhism! ...that was even more irresistible than the the cookies! Now, back to talking about singing Brits and 'mericans - have you ever considered the 'who really started it?' controversy between the Rolling Stones and Otis Redding on the unique and fantastic (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Generally speaking I am not much for cover tracks, but whoever covered the other sure did a great thing! (...OK - you're right, apparently Otis Redding did a rendition although he may have made up some of the words later used...) Regardless, it's an awesome track and and some of the finest interpretations I have come across!

C is for Cookie - that's good enough for me! Thanks for reminding me of this all time wonderful song: This thread has been hijacked in the most unexpected yet inspiring way