SFJane

All I can say is that I knew what ba gua I wanted to learn, who I wanted to learn it from and how I wanted my body and mind to move, after watching Bruce walk the circle one time. I thought to myself. "There it is."

I got reeaally addicted to caffeine and sugar in my late teens on account that I had major depression but I had to work fulltime to pay the bills. So, I guzzled down HFCS and refined sugars just to get up and stay moving all day. I drank about 8 to 10 cups a coffee with heaping teaspoons of sugar in the morning and after noon, I drank from a two-liter bottle of Pepsi that I always carried around with me (which I went through usually by nighttime). At some point I realized that all that crap was making me toxic and churning up my insides and hurting my adrenals and so I quit cold turkey one weekend. I locked myself into my apartment. I had some choice nuggets to smoke for the worst of the DTs, I put on some peaceful music, took the phone off the hook and detoxed. It was frankly horrible. I had punishing wrap-around headaches, akathasia (feeling like you can't sit still and wanting to move all the time), hot and cold sweats. I stuck with it and by Monday I was a different person. Within a month my skin looked better. I didn't realize until after I dumped that crap, that perpetually going from one sugar rush to the next was actually creating an underlying state of mania and anxiety. I was basically on low-quality speed all the time and it kept me going physically, but also mentally. The sugar keeps your mind going, not in a good way. So, it had to go and I never looked back and to this day I never drink soda. If I do have coffee or tea, I do not add any sugar. I quit through sheer will. If you don't have the will, don't even try, you'll just frustrate yourself and feel bad for failing. Good luck. Detoxing once you are good and addicted is not pleasant.

Sorry I missed the question when you posted it. Others have answered it pretty well though. The mechanical action of the increasing space in-between your joints is opening. Decreasing it is closing. This is what you are opening and closing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synovial_joint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervertebral_disc

Agreed. Interesting interview Sean!

Hey gang. I don't have a lot of spare time at the moment but I thought I'd share this video with you all that popped into my inbox the other day out of the blue. The video is loaded with water imagery that I thought was representative of water method meditation. I see the rocks as blocks being dissolved by the ocean. Check out 2:20, the mind of a meditator, stillness below, moving mist above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-XrtOa6g0E Speaking of water method, have you guys seen Bruce lately? He's lost a lot of weight. I think he looks great and I am really glad to see it. In fact, I think as he gets older and with his hair and beard cropped the way it is, he kind of looks like an evil Sean Connery. I mean that in the best way, it's a compliment, he could be a villain or an end boss in a martial arts flick. He should totally do it too if he got the chance—he would be awesome at it.

I am pleased that you enjoyed them. Songsofdistant, Paul, Let me clarify the pig comment. I was really into dieting for my spiritual advancement in my early twenties and tried many diets including raw food, macrobiotics (lot of aikido peeps were into that) and Taoist 5 Element nutrition. Convinced I was, that Bruce must also be into min-maxing his chi, I asked one of his students what diet Kumar preferred. I was told, “No diet, just the opposite, he eats like a pig.” It was this student that I was talking to, that seemed proud of that fact, and of how it unsettled me. Because I was so sure that Bruce -must- have some kind of super-secret ultra chi cultivating diet, and I was so surprised to learn that he did not, even being disappointed on my end, when I first heard it. This student did indeed act like he was proud, if not boastful, of the fact that BKF is a happy omnivore and does not play the 'my diet selection is better than yours because it gives me bonus +spirituality points' game, like some others do. These days, now that I am over myself enough to have moved beyond dieting for +1 New Age cultivation points or for 'moral' reasons I can use to make myself feel better and more advanced than others (or to browbeat them with), I too, am proud of that fact, and I emulate him. I happen to like pigs (see my avatar). Pigs are really fascinating animals. There is nothing inherently wrong with eating like a pig. Heck, these days, -I- eat like a (finicky) pig. In terms of Bruce's recent weight loss (compare his body now to his retreat videos from 2008) he has certainly thinned out quite a bit. I've seen him do this over the years, in images, if not in person. He was one size when I first met him, thinner later that same year. But by the next year, was much heavier. I'd say Bruce probably puts on weight whenever he gets into a long writing phase. I've put on some weight myself doing the exact same thing. Eating good food, and plenty of it, while sitting on my butt writing all day. If you eat like an athlete but stop doing athletics for awhile, the calories add up. There is a simple rule about weight. If you stuff yourself with calories and you don't move very much, you will get bigger. If you are willing to sweat buckets and get your cardio going daily, then you can eat like a pig and --lose-- weight, while eating like that. You have to move fast and vigorously enough so fat cells can't bulk up. Simple in theory. Harder to do in practice. I knew Bruce had been in an accident or two since his Big One in Colorado. But in his more recent videos, the announcer (Greg?) stated the Bruce has been in a total of seven accidents. Recovering from an accident is something that can bench you from heavy exercise, so between his book writing, recovery from accidents and his love of good cuisine, its easy to see why and how he got heavy in the first place. What matters now is that, despite all of his writing commitments, deadlines and seminars, and in spite of his many accidents, Bruce is still going at age 60+ and looks better than he has in years. I think that more than speaks to his abilities to repair himself.

I don't read every thread and every post man. If I miss something--I miss it. If I know that I missed it--as in this case, (thanks for letting me know btw), then I will admit my error and correct it. It just needs to be readjusted to take in a new perspective--new data. I do have self-interest here. I do not deny it. Edit: In fact--as I read the thread you linked, I see my main error was failing to do a more thorough intel check on my subject. I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies right now, time wise. And it's true, I didn't scrutinize every single one of his recent posts--which if I had, would have led to a different assessment. Easy enough mistake, easily fixed. As far as me being middle class--that's probably true. Now. It took--30+ years?--to reach entry-level middle class? And, that just barely. Through marriage. I married upwards from my caste. I've been homeless in Boston, and Nashua on the East Coast and homeless in Sacramento and San Francisco on the West Coast. I lived in the American River Parkway for awhile. I've camped by the river eating tuna from a can and picked blackberries off of bushes. In times past, out of desperation--I've stolen, begged, bribed, threatened and beaten-up drugged out psychopathic people up who threatened my safety when I was homeless. You ever live like that, A Seeker? There is no virtue inherent in being middle-upper or lower class or homeless. It does give you different perspectives though.

If you are and I were marooned on an island together I would love to see your hifalutin moral diet constraints last when there are no coconuts and bananas on the island—while there is fish in the lagoon and enough straight wood on the island to fashion usable spears with. I would find it very entertaining to snack on some fish while you starve. I'd even offer you some of my fish—but my guess is--you would turn it down because it's not a compassionate enough energy source—because a poor little fish had to be murdered in a calculated, premeditated homicide so that you or I could live. It's funny how quickly the certainty of self-righteous morality gets put in the crucible of pressure when your life or your death is on the line. Care to tackle that scenario head on? Or will you dodge again—like you did when I asked: Care to address that issue Paul? What say you--about the hawk and the vole and the frontal lobe? Wait—you didn't even know what the contents of the site was—before-- you sent a fellow TTBer there? And you say I am out of line? Then you used RD as a red herring—again. You are clearly trying to communicate to me your disdain for one of the greatest rational thinkers of our time. I get it—you are anti-Dawkins. Now, why don't you go on over to Amazon and write a scathing one-star book review for 'The Ancestor's Tale' and call it pseudoscience. I wonder how long it would take the rational, left-brained sharks over at the infidel forums to detect the thrashing of a bleeding fish in the open water and come for your review to have a feeding frenzy. Let me tell you something. I love all you guys. That includes you—Paul. And Astral. But I am an advocate and an activist. I spit in Big Pharma's eye. I risk being written off as whacko, antipsychiatry $cient0l0gist extremist,--every single day that I leave my highly critical analysis and condemnation of the practices of the American Psychiatric Association and Big Pharma online on my blog for all to see and read. I know pseudoscience when I detect it. I do my homework. I analyze and criticize. I would help raise awareness of the bad science—bad medicine—that is endemic in today's pill-popping culture. I will stand up and tell people who suffer from emotional and mental problems that they are being scammed—lied to—and to stand up for themselves against The Machine. Do you not think that I care as much about my fellow TTBums as I do psychiatric survivors, the mentally ill and those seeking treatment for it? Do you think I would not hesitate to call bs or shenanigans when one of my fellow Bums tells another of my fellow Bums to go to a website selling scams that you couldn't even be bothered to check out first? What is wrong with you Paul? Am I also out of line for telling psychiatric customers that they don't really have a chemical imbalance like Big Pharma told them--and that the pills they take cause addiction and permanent neuropathy—and that there are alternative treatments for it? Because if I am out of line for alerting A Seeker and Co. about the scandalous nature of the metabolic typing site you recommended—then I must also be out of line for alerting the public about the scandalous nature of Big Pharma's debunked chemical imbalance pseudoscience and the sites where those scams are propagated too. Right? Did you just selectively filter out what I recently told you about my diet experiments? Re: Nikolayey: Did you selectively filter out what I said earlier about being on a fast for days under the supervision of a nurse? No clearing up of my schizophrenia mate. The mind is not in the colon. I have been depression free for over fifteen years without relying on fasting, the master cleanse or vegetarianism. Re: Dr Nikolayey. He didn't do original research--he admitted he stole his ideas from Dr Shelton--who loved to practice medicine without a license and got a few people killed with his diet quackery. Then--despite the power of his diet and fasting ideas, Shelton came down with a neuromuscular disease--and nothing he could do about it could fix it. Edit: apparently, according to A Seeker, I called you out as being some middle class yuppie, without knowing that you were not. I apologize for that and I've adjusted my post to correct that assumption. In the future I will simply do more intel on you first before sinking in my teeth.

In 1989, when I went inpatient for the first time, I thought there was going to be a line-up of hippy psychologists with beards and geeky glasses and long hair who talked about Jung as easily as Freud. I thought I would get to pick the shrinks that I got good vibes from and that I would basically get a no pressure, stress-free time to decompress from my inner pain. Be left alone. I imagined I would spend hours in therapy with my favorite counselors when I was good and ready to talk. I believed in the notion of counseling and as yet, did not know what psychiatry was or that their idea of 'treatment' was not at all the same as humanistic psychology. I soon discovered that being inpatient and receiving psychiatric treatment wasn't anything like I had fantasized. I hardly ever saw a therapist. It was just being force marched from one group activity to another, always being made to do what they told me to do under threat of the Quiet Room for acting out or resisting or complaining or questioning why --I-- had to go to groups that I wanted no part of. Eventually, I was forced to take a debilitating overdose of drugs that I never desired or asked for. Drugs that seriously screwed me up and made living with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and my life in general as a teen far, far worse. All the psych nurses told me was, "You are bipolar, these are the drugs that bipolars have to take. Swallow them now, or we'll pin you to the floor and make you." No choice at all. As for my bipolar 'cred'. I was born to an artist and musician mother who was an abuser and who suffered from suicidal depression and manic episodes all while we were growing up. My own depression started at age six, drawing images of my own death with Crayola crayons. Like my mother I am naturally something of an artist and musician. The creativity and interest and ability comes spontaneously from within. I am sure you can imagine the results of a mania-fueled inspiration spree where you simply must finish a drawing or sketch that is fixated in your mind. You tune out everything, forgetting to eat and not needing to sleep, insanely pissed off at anyone who dares to interrupt your muse or distract you, for as long as that image or song in your mind demands that it be realized by your own hands. Only when it is finally the way you want it, does the pressure in your head leave off and you can deal with people and responsibilities again. Basically, according to manic depressive expert Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, I had the classic 'artistic temperament' inherited matrilineally. And the standard treatment for the depression and the recurring manic and psychotic features of that genetic package is: a lifetime sentence to being on lithium and neuroleptics. But I never could accept that I was defective simply by birthright or that creative mania didn't have its uses. Nor did I believe that I would be doomed forever to uncontrollable manic episodes or depression. So, I used my constitutional right to refuse medical treatment ( psych drugs) for my mental illnesses and decided to see if I could do better than the psychiatrist who had Dxd me bipolar-for-life. In the midst of what could only be called a spiritual emergency, after my last overdose and resulting near death experience, I put the brakes on my life. I stopped trying to slot into the rat race, keep up with the Joneses or cut myself a slice of the American pie. I had been diagnosed as a child basically, a young teenager, with a lifetime disability. I could have gone on permanent government disability benefits as soon as I turned eighteen and no one would have blamed me. I experienced a lot of, what they call in Buddhism, 'suffering'. I had a difficult time coming up with reasons why I should continue to remain, and suffer, on this mortal coil for another day. I used to think long and hard about it all the time. I simply refused to accept that I was doomed from birth to a life of mental illness. Which led me to studying meditation with a couple different people. I decided that my next big 'grandiose' plan would be to see if I could put some of the techniques I learned from them into play. And see if I couldn't somehow find the DOS window, the access port to my own inner matrix. Really apprehend the code in my being that programmed me with recurring mania and depression cycles--and play with it. See if I couldn't edit that code just a little and get a noticeable result. What happened is that, slowly, week by week, month by month, year by year, all the intense, uncontrollable-seeming symptoms just slowly started to go away. As if my mental illness volume had started at zero, become about a level six or a seven as a child and evolved all the way to level eleven as a young adult. Then, as I started meditation, my mental illness seemed to begin to fade to ten, then nine, then eight. The better I got at programming my mental Disk Operating System, the closer I got to my madness. For awhile, I even went backward. I had some moments when meditating, that the volume of my mental illness suddenly went from an eight to a twenty-five. That was pretty rough. But I stuck with it and did not give up and the volume went back down again. Eventually, it rarely got higher than a four or five. Then it became a level one or two illness for awhile, barely there. Not really bothering me much. Then the volume simply stopped coming at all. I have often wondered, how that could be? How did I get a cure, when my mother and sister and others do not? What did I do, that my sister and mother, didn't do? Well, Ma went with the, "There is nothing wrong with me," philosophy and so, never got better. My sister went with the, 'It's a chemical imbalance,' idea, took all the right drugs, lithium included, and is, well, mostly disabled and not what anyone would call a happy or motivated person. A lot of people seem to either, deny they have mental illness and therefore don't acknowledge its existence and keep suffering. Or they get on the standard treatments they are told to take for life and get hung up on polypharmacy roulette and all the side effects that come with it. Even those 'proper treatments' don't work one hundred percent. For example, Dr. Kay Jamison says in her own memoir: 'Unquiet Mind', that despite being on lithium, she still has bad times and that it mostly stabilizes her, most of the time. I didn't think that the side effects of this 'mostly' effective treatment which can leave you on the waiting list for kidney replacement surgery and dialysis, are worth it. That's just me. I didn't like the emotional blunting of lithium or how it screwed with my intense feelings. The risk-reward trade off was not worth it in my book. Thus, I was basically doomed to either self-medicate the worst of the depression and manic symptoms forever, or find another path. Unfortunately, psychologists and psychiatrists don't know about other paths, generally speaking, and so can't tell you about them or their effectiveness. So began a quest to learn how to self-heal, which led to meditation. Meditation, it has been discovered, promotes neuroplasticity in the brain. And it does it, in the very area of the brain that has been fingered by some neuroscientists as being defective or underdeveloped in people with manic depression and schizophrenia. That is, meditation causes intricate connections to grow between your prefrontal cortex, your frontal lobe, amygdala and other basal brain structures, like a spider web that keeps getting denser and denser and more complex the longer you weave it. This has the 'net' effect of growing a circuit in your brain that slowly reduces the wildness and intensity and unpredictability of mood swings, severe cycling, triggers, inner voices, psychosis, rages and all that stuff. This makes total sense to me because, I did not get a magical cure. I didn't wish upon a star and it was so a few days or even weeks later. My recovery was very subtle and slow and I didn't even notice I was getting 'better' until I realized one day like, “Hey, when the heck was the last time I was depressed or manic or assailed by loud internal voices?” And the answer was, "Hmm, let me think about that....wow...awhile. At least a year or two.” Those two years became four, then six, then ten then fifteen. I am just as much a passionate person, an artist, with my full creativity intact as I ever was. I just don't get the extremes anymore. It's like I outgrew it. And the PET and MRI scans of brains of meditators show that, well, you do grow something. Greater connections from your frontal lobes to all your mood associated brain structures. It takes years to cultivate this neuronal growth and complexity which essentially is like a self-policing DOS program, a defragmentation subroutine. A debugging utility that looms over all incoming and outgoing thought and emotion traffic like a firewall, opening and closing ports and granting or denying access. That Overwatch program is real neuronal hardware, grown in my head. It's complex and intricate firing would be visible in a PET scan if I had one done. It reliably prevents me from going from one extreme pole to another. No more incredible destabilizing mental and physical energy shifts that used to take over my whole life and leave me exhausted, burned-out, restless and ill-at-ease. So what did I do that my depressed mother, bipolar sister, and most people other people with mental illness don't do? I ground my life to a screeching halt, and devoted myself to becoming a full-time, dedicated mental matrix programmer. And I led a very boring, solitary, quiet life for many years while I did a whole lot of nothing. That is, I did a lot of sitting by the river or on my bed or in a chair, simply scanning and editing my inner software, finding the trojans and logic bombs, disarming them and moving on. Did I discover a cure for manic depression and schizophrenia? Well, not a genetic or chemical one. What I did was, cure my mental and emotional malfunctions with an ontological device: meditation. Which allowed me to directly access my mental and emotional states first-hand in a more intimate and confrontational and intense way than most any therapy that currently exists right now. Nothing counselors can do for you or teach you (that I know of) is as, well, frankly, awesome, as this very ancient method of getting your head and heart under control. CBT and DBT are fairly pedestrian compared to this kind of deep internal diagnostic and editing software. What I mean is, if you are waiting for once or twice a month CBT sessions with a facilitator, you are missing out on a potentially much, much faster but also, much riskier and more painful form of self-therapy which can, to be honest, seriously unhinge you in a hurry, even if you do know what you are doing. However, if you can find inner relentlessness to get through those dark nights of the soul, you come out on the other side, changed. Stronger. Happier. More at peace. Free of your earlier conflicts and pain. Only you can know if you can arrange your life to make that kind of training an obsession. And only you can find out if you have what it takes to work through the quintessence of madness and lunacy as you get closer and closer to your real mind. This is no joke. You can find yourself in dark water quite quickly, lost in your mental illusions, voices, self-doubts and uncontrollable imagery, even derealization or depersonalization, the deeper into the mind that you go. A lot of people seem to endure an alarming array of awful physical and mental dysfunction on psychiatric medications in the hopes it will help. Meditation has its own dues to pay and unlike meds, there is no predicting: “Yeah, just tough it out for a few weeks, you'll get better.” You may come face to face with hell as you realize that you do not need to die to go there. That life itself--is hell. And meditation can open the doors to that hell by sensitizing you to your own demons and head games and making them seem suddenly much louder, much more real and overpowering. But it's just your mind getting closer and closer to, and sensing more accurately, the noise that is going on inside you all the time. If you do persist, you can clear a portion of your inner sky. When you do that, when you achieve the eye of the storm inside your mind, you gain a little of what is called simply, stillness. You can rest and regroup there and recover. You will see that suffering is something your own mind manufactures for you, usually without your conscious awareness of it. When you do realize that, you can achieve a measure of control over it. If you can somehow arrange your life so that you have no obligations, no responsibilities, no worries, and you can create a safe environment where you can be psychotic and ride it out without having a live-in relative instantly call 911 and get you picked up by the men in white coats and delivered with haste to the 'proper' experts on the mind.--If you can arrange that kind of self safety-net and can overcome fear of actually being (even more) insane, then you may just have what it takes to face the whirlwind and come out on the other side using meditation. Your chances of succeeding are higher if you are armed with the technical know-how and experiences that you can learn from meditation instructors. In essence, you get the training and become your own guru, therapist and support group and you fix yourself by riding the lighting deliberately, so you can get the access codes that control the lighting. The thing is this. People these days, unless they work out of a home office or operate a family vineyard or have some kind of slow-paced down-to-earth job, move so fast now, that they never witness changes to their own mindscape. Mood swings, erratic energy shifts and racing thoughts or suicidal ideas come out of nowhere, somewhere between attending a board meeting and picking up the kids from the soccer game. But if you spend hours and I mean hours, of your life in meditation, you can see these mood shifts coming like a cloud on the horizon. You can determine for yourself how your own reactions to stress and triggers bring that cloud bearing down on you. Then you have a chance to reverse the mental and emotional firing, the stress hormones, the high speed chaos and inner turmoil and quite literally, reverse a manic or depressive episode before it even happens. But to gain that ability, to become Network Admin and Head Coder in your mental IT department you may have to radically change your life in ways most people would find unthinkable. I can not guarantee that you would automatically get the same results from my practice as I did, anymore than a doctor can guarantee which drug side effects you will or will not come down with. What I can say with some degree of certainty, is that you have nothing to lose by trying. Even if you can't do or don't want to do what I did, which was, essentially give up on a career, a family, school, romance and dating, in order to devote every fiber of my being to understanding myself (not even knowing if it could work or how many years it would take before it did), you can start the process and give it a shot. What do you have to lose except more years of life enslaved to your own suffering? Maybe you have a lot to lose Maybe you have a corporate job and three kids, two dogs, live-in in laws, sick, dependent or dying family members, a disabled spouse. If you have those kinds of commitments than 'curing' yourself like I did, using that kind of lifestyle is for all intents and purposes, impossible. For you. For the time being at least. Why this lifestyle worked so well for me, was that I didn't have any of those things as a young adult. I didn't have parents calling me to wish me luck on my finals for my grad school classes, pushing me to get into the rat race asap with a shiny new degree and then start making babies so my parents would shut up about wanting to be grandparents. I had none of those pressures. I had a unique situation where I had no life. Nothing worth doing. It was either, kill myself just to stop the pointless suffering of my existence, or evolve into someone and something stronger and better using the only resource and interest that I had, which was spirituality and occult training. Either way, I decided long ago that A: meds were a poisonous and dead end. And B: no one could help me, or hold me or walk with me through this process of self-healing. I had to accept it and know and understand, that I was responsible for everything inside my inner world. Every thought and feeling was mine and I owned them. Not, well my MBTI score says I'm such and such a person and that's that. Not, my planets and stars were aligned at birth in such a way as to be screwed from this life to the next. Not, it's my genes' fault, they made the chemical imbalances which made me be manic. Once I was able to own my suffering and everything inside me and call it me and not 'bipolarity,' I was able to start actually taking control over my supposedly uncontrollable thoughts and moods. You don't have to take that lifestyle to the extreme 'pole' like I did. If you do something even slightly similar, eg, make more you-time, where you turn off the cell phone and log out of your instant-messenger and stop tweeting and blackberrying in order to try a little relaxation breathing, some mindfulness or something similar, your mind will become stronger and more capable of perceiving its own malfunctions and exerting will over them. It's not like the idea of being 'cured' was all that out-of-this-world once upon a time. In fact, if you read the book 'Anatomy of an Epidemic' by award-winning medical journalist Robert Whitaker, what you will find is that, long before New Era biological psychiatrists armed with anti-this and anti-that meds showed up and told us these conditions were incurable diseases, people did recover. They really got cured or went into remission for long periods, while some outright seem to outgrow the disorder. Almost as if their prefrontal cortex had finally fully matured and started doing its job. There is much at stake in the race to win the info war on what people do or don't believe about their own mental illnesses. Some people will come out say, "Recovered, not cured," to draw attention to the fact they are getting by, but they are still bipolar no matter what. In my case, I get to have all the the culturally stereotyped, cool 'bipolarity' traits. Like being an artist, being inspired and having creative phases. But I don't write emo poetry about my awful moods and my gloomy, passionate, but doomed life. I don't draw pictures anymore that use up all my black paint. I don't self-medicate with everything in sight to turn off the voices. I don't talk about 'being bipolar' because I am not. Even though some of my other family members still 'are' by stress or temperament or diagnosis. To be clear, I have not discovered a magic bullet, an easy short cut, a quick fix or a take-it-and-forget-it herbal or vitamin supplement that can clear you up in six weeks. What I discovered was that I was able to cure myself by pursuing a mind-body discipline which works directly with your thoughts and feelings in a profound and transformational way. Years went by before I was 'cured'. It was slow, gradual but also, inexorable cure, as I stuck with my crazy-sounding life of solitude--without a care in the world or a diaper to change or a mouth to feed other than my own. It was not an 'easy' cure. You can't give this cure to someone. You have to teach it to them, then they have to make it happen and start changing their own brain. They may not succeed. So, no miracle cure or alternative supplement. Not like some of the other theories and modalities you hear about to cure mental and physical illnesses. No detoxing and chelating or colonics or gluten free diets. No vitamin overdosing and omega three fatty acids. No distance healing or eating unprocessed honey. But I did try some of those things. For example, I did the raw food diet, crystal healing and somatic therapies because I had little to lose at that point in my life. But most of those treatments really didn't do a damn thing for me. Or, if I felt different initially, it was because I really believed that it would help, or the person that sold it to me had faith in it and pitched it to me very enthusiastically. In short, the placebo effect--which never lasted long before I was symptomatic again. My 'cure' was a lot of often painfully boring, seeming time wasting, self-indulgence spent meditating by myself. Like some 90s era wannabe Neohippy drop-out who decided one day after a revelation, to tune in to a higher spiritual calling than slotting into the rat race just to keep up with the Joneses and hopefully die with the most and coolest toys. In terms of what meditation is and really means to me, allow me to quote a dead guy named Chuang Tze, “Most people would find what I love, to be very uncomfortable or uninteresting.” Meditation is the ultimate journey into inner and outer space. Can you think of a better more productive way to try to unravel yourself, and the meaning of life, at the same time? I don't say that to sound patronizing. I simply mean that, if you had suicidal depression since you were a young child like I did, you too probably spent a huge, ungodly, obsessive amount of time dwelling on the meaning of life and what is or isn't worth pursuing, like social status, material wealth and 'things'. What value is there in stuff if stuff just becomes else to worry about? Why do you buy 'stuff'? Beyond the necessities of life I mean. To distract you? To occupy time? I buy stuff now and read books and watch dvds and have 'stuff' delivered to my door for my amusement. But before I got to that point as an adult, I spent an enormous amount of time essentially dirt-poor. During that time I learned how to amuse my mind and do something useful with myself after a day at the factory. I didn't have to come home from work to feed the kids, pick up the cat from the vet, get my husband's dry cleaning, attend a PTA meeting and all the million things people keep themselves busy with. I had nothing, or, very little, that needed to be done. So I had very little stress to interfere with my training goals. I didn't worry about my GPA because I didn't have one. I didn't worry about my stock portfolio and investments for the same reason. I just had a, well, boring, private, antisocial and empty-seeming life that I filled up by doing spiritual practices and mind-body disciplines. What else was I going to do? Being mentally for ill for life didn't sound like something I could accept nor something I wanted to brag about to others. It was embarrassing and futile-seeming. So, I got to work trying to fix the biggest problem in my life at the time. Me. Meditation was my path to healing. Although I first received meditation training when I was thirteen, I learned it for the wrong reasons. To make myself more powerful and intense and well, strange. Because I wanted a spooky, intangible, psychic edge over other people out of deep insecurity and unresolved post traumatic stress. How much of my psychic experiences were really psychotic ones, is something I still think about and consider many years later. By my very early twenties I had had several different kinds of meditation training and where had it got me? I was still trying to off myself about once or twice a year. And I was not a happy or pleasant person to be around unless I was stoned out of my mind. What was I doing wrong? That is what led me to study with a man by the name of Bruce Frantzis who was advertising his Taoist meditation and dissolving training as something that could smooth out emotions, overcome inner obstacles and find yourself, in the midst of great internal disconnection and confusion. His was a method I hadn't conceived of or heard about previously. Surrendering into your Being--by letting go and allowing transformation to happen. Instead of either forcing it to occur or trying to resist it kicking and screaming. Dissolving is something that you do with your combined intent and awareness. You use this technique to scan and process your inner world. In Taoism, inner world can be a lot things, most beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say, everything from your physical sensations to your emotions can be dissolved with your intent. I used a specific format I learned from Mr Frantzis and his students. One that involves scanning and dissolving myself according to an idea about our ontological makeup called: 'The Eight Bodies of Being'. Using the dissolving process, I ransacked every corner of my heart and mind. I simply started from the top of my head and drained down to the floor of my pelvis with this technique. I released and let go of, everything that I was hung up on that prevented me from taking life and myself a little less seriously. The net result was that I became a little bit happier, bit by bit. year after year. I started this meditation and dissolving method in my early twenties. At a time when frankly, a lot of people first come into contact with a big-time bipolar disorder or depression breakdown on the heels of stressful finals or a new high-pressure job or they start having kids or something. They start hearing voices 'out of nowhere'. Some tipping point occurs to set them off on the downward spiral that they will later be told is an incurable, hereditary, genetic chemical imbalance. My training and experiences did not make me enlightened with a capital E. I do not have a halo nor do I even consider myself to be a good role model. I can still be irritated and annoyed. I am not perfect and without flaws. I did absolutely cure myself of several supposedly incurable diseases: PTSD, manic depression and schizophrenia--so that must count for something. I haven't tried to hurt myself in over fifteen years. I've been depression and psychosis free for well over a decade. I am fairly well-adjusted these days, despite my disadvantages growing up. I healed my inner world with a technique I learned called 'inner dissolving.' Which is Bruce Frantzis' meditation method: The Water Course Way of Lao Tze. In my experience, it is a path to real healing. It's a road less traveled. And it can take you every place you ever wanted to go inside.

It's scamola city. Healthexcel--the company behind met typing--is trying to make cash. That's it. Starting with their test--for $39.95. Why couldn't they just make the test a pop-up window like other companies do for inventories tests of moods and thoughts? You take the pop-up test--get your results--then? The test is the first way to get your money. Out of simple curiosity. If you got the information on your type for free from their site--well--you could move on to other sites for your diet and supplement info and food purchasing advice. No--the test is there as the first-line access to your wallet. Then you will get some completely unproven pseudo-scientific explanation on your what your typing means and suggestions to buy more stuff. The insult to your intelligence starts immediately on that site. Wait--what? What kind of self-contradicting bs is that? Is that like when Big Pharma tries to sell you Zoloft and says that the drug addresses a specific chemical imbalance--then they admit in the same commercial--that they don't understand--what depression really is or how exactly the chemical imbalance works--so how could they make a med designed to remedy it? So what is this site about? Healthexcel bogus? The healthexcel program is a money-taking scam--says one customer Metabolic typing is a scam The fallacy of the metabolic questionaire. Metabolic typing--hooey, humbug and nonscience Just ask Paul Walter why is he is trying to get you to spend your money, in this economy, on a metabolic typing scam. Could it be that Paul doesn't know? Or could it be that Paul--like a lot of Americans--easily falls for pseudoscience in the quest to be nutritionally and spiritually correct? Has the metabolic typing program been scientifically tested? You saw the intro site All they are selling is that test. All the other information--cooking advice--food shopping guidelines--you can get from a double-dozen other web sites. Their first-line major product is simply the test. Everything they offer after that is fluff you don't need. Down with pseudoscience and nutrition scares! Down with money sponge websites I say. So say we all!

I know a few places where talk like that could get you force-medicated with drugs that would quickly shut down the frontal lobe firing that you allowed to occur to come here and type it. Also--I highly doubt you personally, Astral--have any experiential knowledge with demons or deities and the cosmic order of your head. You do a lot of telling, but no real showing. You talk--but how much of this stuff have you personally experienced and lived--compared with reading it from some text? You sound like so many New Age fortune-cookie types I've encountered before. I don't think the human condition is pathetic at all. I am rather fond of my condition--frankly. And I am going to tell you right now—that eating meat or not—had nothing to do with the speed of my progress. Nothing. Long time ago-- when I first got seriously into energy cultivation, I did what a lot of you have done. I read everything I could find about the nature of energy. I happened to find some Bay Area New Age magazine when I was about twenty-one that had an extensive article on 'vibrations'. Now, I first learned of the vibrational quality of chi from BKF's book, 'Opening the Energy Gates of your Body' when I was fifteen years old. I continued to encounter the notion of qualities of vibration from yoga books, other books, books on healing. Books like the 600 page 'Vibrational Medicine' by Richard Gerber MD I found a chart in that New Age magazine that supposedly gave a vibrational level for foods and substances. I don't have—or remember—that chart in detail. I don't remember what the unit of measurement was supposed to be either—it was some new age version of watts or volts or broadcast range. But it went kind of like this: CV where CV= chi-volts or chi vibration frequency (making that part up) Fresh apple off the tree 300 Week-old uncooked organic veges 250 Frozen slab of steak 150 Black coffee 120 Smoke from a cigarette 70 That was not—exactly--how the scale went. But the theory was: Low vibrational=dead stuff=lacking in chi= bad mmkay. High vibrational stuff=alive stuff=more chi=stronger super powers. Real simple—right? What is your goal? Mine was to be as good as—as powerful as—I could be. So, I was super interested—nay obsessed—with making my chi go over 9000 CVs anyway I could. I would set my glass of osmotic filtered water in the sun to 'charge up' with solar rays before drinking it. I would scan apples and mangoes and berries with my awareness, dissolve them with my intent and circulate energy into them—before ingesting them. To maximize on my live, hi-vibe food and substance intake needs. I was so proud of myself—for doing all the right things. +1 spirituality point for going veg. +1 spirituality point for quitting smoking cold turkey. +1 spirituality point for projecting healing chi into my own food to attune myself to it and purify it energetically before I ate it. Etc. Then one day, I finally became acquainted enough with one of Bruce's more senior students. We were sitting around in his apartment getting ripped off his bong. I summoned the nerve to ask this guy something I've wanted to ask Kumar myself. “Hey man, what does the Big Guy eat anyway?” I expected Taoist 5 Element nutrition, dosha regulation, macrobiotics--something. Wouldn't Bruce, as a recognized martial art, chi gung healing and meditation master—want his chi to be maxed out at all times? So I eagerly awaited to hear the great secret of Bruce's diet. “Bruce? He eats like a pig. He eats everything.” Well—holy slap in the face! I thought I was doing everything right. And although I heard my friend say it—I denied it. I ignored it. I was still too hung up on my vibrational chi experiments and was not willing to simply abandon the fruits and knowledge and sacrifice of all my experiments—the fasting, the juicing—all of them. Despite hearing the words that meant my favorite teacher and Taoist role model was in essence, a dietary garbage disposal--I stubbornly clung to my energy food diets. I still had to find the answers for myself. I still had to prove that this vibrational stuff mattered. For years after, I didn't change a thing. I still picked my produce--'intuitively'. By palming fruits and veges and feeling/sensing/hearing/seeing it's aura. Then one day, poverty happened. I lost my job. Couldn't afford vitamins, organic food and amino acids. I couldn't pick and choose energetically correct food. I had to eat what I could afford. That meant some processed food sometimes. Ramen. Mac'N'Cheese. It meant eating produce that wasn't certified organic and pesticide free. That sort of thing. And here is what I found. My body order, skin, breath, urine and stool all became a little bit more aromatic, but that was really it. My punching power was not reduced. My dissolving ability was not weakened. My healing chi worked just fine. I could do fa jin just as well as I ever could. Simply put—most of the benefits of a dead energy free/high vibe diet were in my head. I believed that it would make a difference—and so using my bias—I made heavy use of what is called 'selective thinking' and 'confirmation bias' to selectively notice and confirm that a high-vibe, organic, meat-free diet was really minmaxing my chi frequency. It took me—about ten years—to personally find out for myself why Bruce can eat anything he wants, and still be a powerful Taoist master. About six months ago, I started eating pork again. After a fourteen year hiatus from it. I started with a tiny piece of bacon—about the size of a pea. I carefully monitored my chi, my dan tiens, my internal organs....nothing. No major downgrade of energy. Then I ate a one-inch slice of bacon—repeated the internal awareness and biofeedback monitoring. Again—no degradation of my abilities and senses. Then I ate a full piece of bacon. Just one. And again. No major changes. Your internal amoeba-nature will tell you what you should eat if you stop telling your amoeba what it ought to be eating. There is one benefit that I find useful about going vego, fasting or juicing if you intend on doing some sitting. When you fast--your body is not wasting body chi on digestion. That is, the energy requirements needed to digest a feast of kings in your belly is considerable. That energy is taken from your body's chi-battery reserve. You will find also, that you can feel inside yourself better, when there is no food in your gut. So energy conservation, freeing up chemical digestion processes and increased internal clarity--is why I would fast for cultivation. So it is that--in my humble onion--the benefits of vegetarianism relating to cultivation are largely in your mind. The only person counting +1 spirituality points for being vego and patting you on your back for doing good—is you. Buddha is not watching and smiling. If there's a G O D, he/she/it could hardly care—since the rest of creation can eat whatever. There is no virtue attached to going vego—except that which you project onto the act with your pesky over-active frontal lobe. End of line.

What kind of self-contradicting bs is that? Is it natural—or isn't it? Are you trying to tear down on assumption--an observation really--about our own biology and food needs—by attacking it as 'traditional'? --However natural doesn't mean most beneficial for your goals. Ah..it's about goals then. --Which is actually a good time to say this. If you're not trying to cultivate compassion and attain enlightenment, liberation from the 3 realms and 5 elements then vegetarianism probably wouldn't apply. Again it only seems to be a requisite (TEMPORARY requisite at that) for schools that which to attain the above. If this is not your goal the this doesn't apply to you. Moving on... I see. Okay. If you recall, the original topic heading that you started here on TBB was. “Thoughts on vegetarianism—in regards to spirituality. Nowww you tell us—after three pages—that the topic is officially about vegetarianism—for those doing the compliberlightenment thing with the realms and elements. Are you going to move the goal post again before this topic is done? I'd like to know please. --Understanding that nature is transient allows you to take responsibility for your actions and not just blame things on "heredity" or "well everyone else does it". Really? That is profound. I never knew that. --Knowing that you're not limited by what others do, that you can be anything you want is very empowering and allows you to really face yourself. Powerful words from someone who clearly must know—I mean—I don't really know anything about facing myself and not blaming heredity. --In regards to sitting and meditating it means dick. Anyone can meditate, meditation is just calming the mind. It's through life's challenges that we cultivate character. How did I ever miss what a sage you are? Apparently my meditation knowledge is shit. Any chance you can be my new teacher? --The goal should be to reach such a state of concentration that every day life becomes meditation. Nod. --it's just most people can't focus that well so we start with sitting quietly. I get it. You are so right. --The point is to cultivate LASTING pleasure and forgo temporary pleasures. Lasting pleasure? I thought all things like sensory inputs, sensations—were ultimately temporary. To place value on the temporary and transient, like sensations or emotions—is that wise? --Masturbation only lasts how long? What if you became celebate for awhile, built up your sex energy, learned to transmit it into chi, then shen and learned to have multiple full body orgasms at will? Multiple orgasms even? At will? Can you do this? --and in addition maybe you learn to heal and help others. Much better than simple masturbation. Healing and helping others is a better investment of your energy than simple masturbation—did I get that right? -- it's just tha wwe live in a culture of "quick fixes" and "fleeting pleasure" which isn't bad in and of itself but if it stops you from attaining lasting pleasure or distracts you from your greater goals then it becomes a problem. I see. --I believe we are human because we either chose to be or past life karma allowed us to be. Thats a belief. I have no objective empirical evidence to support this belief. I don't doubt that at all. The part about the evidence. --Purpose is created in the mind and projected upon the world around us. Nothing has meaning, it's we that define meaning for ourselves. How did you learn all this? You co-wrote some of the scripts in the movie 'the Matrix' didn't you? --I used intellect so support our ability to determine what path works for what goals. Ah...I see now. --Nice try, but twisting my words is only going to make you look silly. ----Idk how you planned to link observant advise and muslim extremism, but...well nice try, LOL. No I don't believe in forcing people to pick what you feel is best, however i do believe in sharing your observations and wisdom with others so they can make a well informed choice. Of course they may already know what you have to say, but it's always better to make sure Yea, you got me. I mean--who could possibly interpret this the wrong way? --Don't concern yourself with what you cannot percieve, just keep raising your awareness and see what you find. Roger that. I'll get right on that boss. --Well as I stated before vegetarianism seems only to be a practice for those who seek to be liberated, or get an experience that makes them believe they're liberated. If you're not trying to do this then i'm not quite sure why you're here arguing against it. It' OBVIOUSLY not for you, lol. So don't even try. I've already tried though. It wasn't for me. --Transcendentalism is going beyond your current restraints. For example humans cannot live without food and water. For most people this is true but there are those who have learned to do it. Therefore they have transcended the need to eat. There's alot of limitations we have as humans, not all are bad. For those who want to do great things however, it's better to be able to transcend beyond what most people believe is possible. When I say transcending biology that would fall under immortality, not having to eat or sleep, pretty much being the master of your body instead of a passive observer of the body. Have you transcended any thing in your life yet? If so—how so? I happen to know a thing or two about overcoming (or transcending, if you like) limitations--that is why I ask. --The point is that vegetarianism seems to be a stepping stone into transcending the need for food altogether. Idk if the vibrational theories are true, but i believe if karma is real then it would have an effect on us for the better. You are taking this all on faith then? Have you tested to see if it's true? --As for looking to what others are doing, yes I look to what others have done so I have a method. Tell me would you like to try to do chi-kung without ever seeing anyone else or studying with anyone else? How about you just move your arms and legs around and just see what happens I'll stick with the tried and true. What does any of that have to do with vegetarianism and spirituality? Are we talking about chi gung now? I only mentioned it—because you said-- “you become what you imitate” and I wanted to know if that applied to chi gung as well as say—vegetarianism. --Whatever gets me closer to my goals. I'm not trying to feed sum superiority complex. If there were more of the people i'm trying to be then I wouldn't be concerned with trying to be anything. Relaying information i've heard of a said topic i believe is useful. I think one should be as informed as possible before making choices. Seems to me like that Ratahum guy with the big pineal really impressed you. --What i'm saying is that people are often unwilling to change their habbits to experience/experiment with another side of something. If one is comfortable doing what they're doing then they'll use any excuse justifying not changing what is comfortable for what may be more efficient. For example. Sugar is very comforting. Alot of people like sugar but all is does is fuck you up. However alot of people will justify eating shit with no nutritional value and a bitch ton of sugar. "Oh soda is soo good, i'd never give it up for better health. The bubbles are just more worth it then health." That kinda nonsense. But... what if someone...someone like me...did try vegetarianism—and found it wanting? I was willing to give up the comfort of the known for the un-comfort of the unknown, but I couldn't see/sense/feel that it gave me more power to dissolve, to circulate energy, do to fa jin or to heal—which--along with my interests in cultivation—have a little something to do with the topic—spirituality. My primary teacher--well the guy I learned most of my nei gung and meditation stuff from--isn't a vegetarian either. No one who has felt his hands disputes how much juice he can project. --Or fasting (being a more extreme example), people who want to fast for whatever reason often have a hard time dealing with the uncomfort...and thats fine, but they should keep complaining about how they need to fast and all this nonsense or how fasting is "bad" just because they failed at being able to handle the stress of it. Myself, I've done plenty of fasting. I did my first week-long fast when I was fifteen—under supervision of a nurse.

That's fine. You learn new things every day. I'll edit my post in a bit for stupidity. It really won't take away from my main points. I'll get on your points in a moment.

Mmmkay.

This has been my primary message to people for years!

It's all about cultivating moral correctness and collecting bonus +1 spirituality points to club over other people's head with isn't it? Self-congratulatory pride. That is what you are cultivating in your heart-mind. Your words indicate that you are not cultivating stillness or magnanimity, inclusion or acceptance. Edited for earlier silliness.

Frightening? To you? Certainly not to me. Are we talking about me, or Dawkins? Are you asking me if I see why Dawkins is a fave? Because if you want to start another thread about RD's 'The Ancestor's Tale,' I'll listen to what you have to say. Long enough. So long in fact, that it would take at least a 10,000 word post just to begin to describe the nuances of my self-experiments with diets, fasting, etc etc. The tests I ran on myself. One food, one beverage, one chemical or vitamin at a time. My testing has been exhaustive. That's part of what led to my current position. I know you aimed that at Ramon, but I think it's fair game to comment on.I would love to get 'scientific' proof of my metabolic type. Do you have a link to these tests or was that hypothetical? I am interested in any test that actually proves someone is a truly a vego. One would think that the body would try to communicate its dislike of meat in some way to the meat-eating persons mind. Do you suppose the same test or similar one would prove that some vego minded people are living in meateater bodies? That would be lulzy. I would have sooo much fun popping people's bubbles with a test like that. /evilgrin I happen to have learned from doing a lot of reading and research, that evolution made our digestive systems most like rats, pigs and primates. Midden remains, decomposing food, roots and grubs, termites and bananas. Our bodies are designed to handle and efficiently process food-of-opportunity that we encounter, just a like pigs, rats and primates. It's genius really. It's what allowed the Eurasian coastal crawlers to go into Kamchatka, come over the Bering Strait, down the West American Coast, become 'Clovis' people and shoot down mammoths and bison with arrows made from chipped stone and bone before they became Cherokees and Navajos and Mayans and started agriculture to supplement hunting and gathering. Proof please? Saying it is so—does not make it so. Do you practice meditation in a humanities 101 classroom or political ashram Paul? Because I did my meditation—literally--sitting by the edge of the American River in Sacramento. Something about using Taoism, to see things as they are—not as things 'should be'—allowed me to appreciate the 'manifestations' happening around me. Like the salmon breaching the river to eat a bug, the red-shouldered hawk seizing a field vole on the wing, the blacktailed deer eating tree leaves. Is the hawk and fish screwed for eternity because they can't see their base nature, realize the error of their ways and evolve? The deer and the vole get a free, all-access pass to transcendence by evolutionary design? Or is it only a human being, saddled with an overactive frontal lobe, that is tasked with (more like burdened with) a need to spiritually ascend and transcend? What's up with that? Hey! Universe! I have a beef to pick with you! Frankly, insects and animals may have the better end of the deal by not having an advanced frontal lobe. They have no idea how much cognitive and spiritual dissonance they are not experiencing just by trying to appease biological energy requirements. Did someone (intentionally?) miss my entire point about being a post-Industrial human, achieving the first two tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy--having food safety and variety--and the attending luxury time to impose judgments on others dietary choices (that would be tiers 3 and 4 in the Hierarchy)?

Did you read my post: "I, Ship" ? That's me listening to the data streams from my amoeba-nature. Your amoeba, your ship, is always always always streaming data at you to listen to. It never stops until your body dies.

I don't eat cow either. My inner-amoebanature has informed me that I just don't like how it makes me feel. And I don't like it's weight in my intestines. Seafood, though, I'll bite your head off if you get between me and my squid tentacles, clams, and salmon. It's not like all I eat ever is seafood and the occasional turkey or duck. I eat vegetarian about 75% of the time? Roughly. I am all about juicing or total fasting for long meditation sits. But other than that--I listen to the amoeba, not the head, for guidance on what the body needs. And yes, I know that the 9000 transcendent dimensions are denied to me. Ah well. Worse things can happen in a person's life. I am sure I've been burned at the stake a few times in lives past for my heresies then too.

Okay. So what? Lol! You don't know me very well if you think I am submissive and conformist to the things going on around me. "The point is you have a choice. You're "Nature" is transient, meaning you're not set at one thing." What does that have to do with the actual practice of sitting and meditating? Sure, let's not masturbate because it feels good and animals do it. Let's not admit to ourselves how good it feels to take a dump or a huge piss. Let's tune out our stomach's euphoria when it upchucks something that was making it sick. Let's ignore the sublime pleasure feedback loop of dopamine and serotonin that evolution hardwired into us so that at least our bodies know when we are doing something right that benefits our survival. Going back to instinct is bad, mmkay. "--We are human for a reason" What is that reason? "--it's because we have intellect" Is this your reason for being human? Or does this statement set up your next point? Interesting. Using your human intellect and formidable reasoning you can figure out whats best for you and using your ability to communicate via text or speech, you are empowered to tell me what is best for me. I see. You are not really interested in my own assessment of what is best for me then. Just on telling me what is best for all. Gotcha. Muslim extremist much? I have no idea what demons, angels or enlightened masters are. I've never seen, smelled, heard, touched or felt the energy emanations of any of them in person. You've totally lost me. Why should I be concerned with any of that? "--And i don't just mean with food, it mean with thought, action, word, etc. We become what we imitate." So, if I told you I've done a lot of chi gung, sitting, dissolving and practicing stillness, that should tell you—what? I don't know how a Buddha should act. I am not a Buddhist. I am not remotely worried about acting like a Buddha. I have no idea what a demon is, never met or seen one. If you are right about the intellect controlling instincts though--I must be in terrible, terrible spiritual shape right now. "--As for the argument of biology...it's seemingly a strong one for those who deny transcendentalism." What the heck is transcendentalism? I don't even know what it is so I can't deny or affirm it. Well, now that you mention it. Yes—yes I am. You do seem awfully concerned with the finer details of the spiritual practices that others are doing. "--My final example will be the sungazing/breatharian accounts. Hira Ratan Manek (HRM) has been observed by scientists on 3 fasts two of which were over 200 days on nothing but water. He showed no signs of deterioration, no deficiencies, nothing. They later observed his brain and found his pineal gland was WAY larger than most peoples (maybe that has something to do with it)." What does Hira Ratan and his pineal gland have to with vegetarianism? Is this a red herring or what? We were talking about vegetarianism, not sungazing or breatharians. It sounds to me like you are awfully concerned about whose spiritual traditions and tenets you should be following in order to reach 'transcendence' (whatever the frak that means). Do you think you get +1 spirituality points by following such codes or ideals? +1 for each point you can regurgitate to others? Sweeping, all-inclusive judgments imposed on others is always a good thing because it furthers two-way communication and an even-handed exchange of ideas. What comfort are you talking about? Are you implying by this that vegetarianism is 'uncomfortable'--while omnivorism is 'comfortable'? If not, then what is 'comfort' by your frame of reference?

It was bigger than 2k words. It was big. It was a huge huge analysis, down to the mineral, in some cases. And I put it on my new blog.Truehope or Truehype? An analysis. I can't. Because I don't have the time right now. There are similar elements to vipassana, no doubt about it. But using intent to dissolve is a chi/nei gung technique that is incorporated with the sitting and scanning. Maybe Pietro, WallaMike or one of the others familiar with it can help you. I intend to write a nice article on dissolving one of these days for use as an article on-site here.

That looks for fine, BG. I thought it was this one. http://www.brainwaveentrainmentforums.com/forums/ The 'Transparent Corp' thing threw me off. Nice clean forum you guys got there. For a second I thought you were trying to co-opt my story as a success with BWE..but I took a look at the forums a bit. I see that it isn't. Well, let's hope it helps. Thanks for thinking of it. Good luck with your forum. Hey fizix, you ever read or encounter anti-AA types? http://truetalesfromalcoholicsanonymous.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/the-anti-intellectualism-of-aa-and-the-12-step-doctrine/

Hi Astral, Re: vegetarianism and spirituality. What I am about to say, may piss some people off. My intention by posting this is not to get some feel good group-love from spreading any specific kind of groupthink around. My intention is to share some observations and thoughts I've picked up during my own cultivation and spiritual quests. I, personally, think that vegetarianism does not equate or have anything to do with spirituality. Not in the least. Spirituality and vegetarianism are concepts that only a highly advanced frontal lobe wielding vertebrate like a human could come up with and dwell on. I think that the idea of vegetarianism being useful (or not) in spirituality is an absolute exercise in mental masturbation. The reason is, only a modern-day human can afford the luxury of moral codes, ethics and philosophy. None of which, jives with the active functioning of the real world happening all around them. Its like, almost deliberate or disingenuous denial of the obvious. And any Taoist who prides themselves on their observation skills of –what is-- really happening in this world would probably agree somewhat with my assessment after some consideration, Have you ever read Dawkins 'The Ancestors Tale'? All of life is in a perpetual struggle for energy. Everything eats to survive. Save for plants that live of off photosynthesis or gas and nutrient exchanges like deep ocean ecosystems. In short: Evolution started with an amoeba. That amoeba had to eat. It found another amoebae and ate it. It ate it and gained energy in the eating, and it grew. Everything after that is history. Only a humans moral frontal lobe could deny the fact of bloody energy devouring as a way of life or imagine that there some kind of sapient value, like 'good' or 'bad' or 'low vibrational' or 'immoral' could possibly be attached to what simply IS the natural way of things. Evolution, ie Nature ie Tao and the ten thousand manifestations that come from the Tao, endowed all living breathing creatures with the need to feed. To secure food, life evolved heat sensors, poison sacks, retractable claws, night vision, increased hearing, ampullae of Lorenzini, projectile digestive acid, serrated teeth, neurotoxic venom, sticky webs, electrical discharges, bioluminescence, grasping tentacles, camouflage, burst sprinting, ambush strategy, delicate nostrils, deep diving ability and echolocation, stinging cells, pack mentality, blood-lust, feeding frenzy—its all part of 'God's' plan or else it wouldn't be here. Nature is not self-conscious of its own criminal and 'unenlightened' nature. And it doesn't remotely give a shit. And when a female Orca kills a false pilot whale or a lioness kills a cheetah to reduce food competition, or a praying mantis eats her mate, this is not murder but nature. No animal grapples with morality as it rips apart its prey, breaks it neck, laps its blood off its paws, cracks its marrow in its teeth. It's normal. Natural. Good or bad can not factor into it, anymore than a black hole is good or bad. It simply is the way it is. We humans, we get stabilized in life, we get Maslow's hierarchy of needs down. We have an abundant and varied food source and we start working on self-actualization needs. One day we are reading philosophy books about the nature of right action and suddenly we are burdened with a consciousness about what we eat? WTF is that? Logic bomb. Must be nice to not live in a crop destroyed area where the berries and fruits got blighted and there's nothing left but hunting and fishing until next sowing season. While you are eating your vegeburger and marmalade toast, keep your eye out for a jumping spider sitting at the edge of your table happily slurping the dissolved contents of the prey bug that it stalked and ambushed to keep its energy going. The spider has no spiritual dissonance. No cognitive dissonance, It never struggles with the spirituality of consumption. It does what its supposed to do and lives in harmony with the Tao because of it. I've done the vegan and vegetarian thing. It's nice sometimes, for a few days--but permanent vegetarianism isn't for me. If you are going to eat, eat what feels good. Learn what feels good by listening to your own amoeba-nature. If you are going to eat meat, love it. Give in to the animal pleasure of it. Lick the fat from your fingers. Enjoy it for you are simply being Human. Don't let your head and those pesky over-active frontal lobes get in the way of your belly. Cultivation is done with the mind. Digestion--by the gut.

The Hybrid is an organic consciousness that inhabits a bio-mechanical transport vessel. She receives thousands of data stream flows and trivial sensory downloads per minute. She is connected physically, electrically, hormonally to every part of her bioship. Hybrid must balance all of this information and keep her mind ordered to keep ships systems intact and on course, everyday, without fail. No hybrid is perfect. And so–sometimes errors creep into the code. They may need to be edited. Too much pressure on one system sends a cascade effect into other systems. Hydraulic, energetic,and emotional imbalances occur, are diagnosed, rebalanced. All in a days work for Hybrid. Hybrid is usually self-correcting because it optimizes positive global function which brings inner harmony to all organic systems and biological sub-processors. Hybrid is the heart-mind of her ship―she is for all intents and purposes―the ship. She is―Ship. And if you were allowed to look at a data log of her stream of consciousness for a few moments, it might look something like this…I, ship