Jetsun

I think this is a misunderstanding of what Zen is trying to do. They aren't trying to change anything. The tormented karmic mind is already arising within and is part of great mind, the wave is inherently part of the sea. Basically we are like fish looking for water, so its not about changing the mind in to something else, its about recogising what already is. My own criticism of Zen is that it can lack heart and can neglect health and support with the energetic side, plus it has acquired Japanese conditioning in many cases which can be limiting, especially on the emotional level.

Its not possible while in a healthy body. Also if coming from an unhealthy place it is likely to only make things worse as repressed sexual energy results in all sorts of undesirable consequences, as I'm sure you know already. But the main advice I have heard with regards to this relates to diet. Basically Nan Huia Chin said in one of his books that the most important thing to reduce sexual craving is to eat only really bland food, so no sugar, spices, stimulants at all.

I know that Wangdrak Rinpoche teaches the 6 yogas but as far as I know its only to women, but perhaps you may find one of his lineage or students who may help.

Well even the Buddhists consider emptiness to have certain qualities which they discuss in their own ways, as is always said emptiness isn't empty, so what is it that makes emptiness not empty? in Buddhism these qualities are less conceptualised and obscure whereas the Hindu traditions personify these qualities into the God's and Godesses as a means of making it easier for us humans to connect to them, but they are still ultimately talking about the same thing if you get down to the root of it. The ultimate reality isn't always just an empty void, it emerges as a loving embrace of compassion or the Divine Mother, as well as the destruction of impermanence or Kali, as well as all the other ways it seemingly manifests.

Bhakti Yoga can help get all the emotional and other motivational energies flowing in the same direction of God/Truth realisation. Even though it may focus on a deity that deity is just a humanised aspect of the divine or emptiness as a means to enable practice to get the energies moving in that direction. For example many people perform devotional practice towards the hugging Saint Amma, but unless they are confused what they are really devoted towards is the "Divine Mother" quality or aspect of emptiness/God/truth not the human form of Amma. Even with Sages like Nisargadatta Maharaj even though he had a very direct one pointed focus on the "I Am" and realising the truth directly his Guru also told him that it was important for him to sing devotional bhajans every day. I think it is basically all about getting all the different parts of you and all of your energies moving in the same direction, then those energies are more likely to be in tune with or at least not in conflict with the kundalini. As far as I can see many of the major religious figures and Saints combined both the qualities of relentless enquiry into the truth of things as well as a devotional aspect, they can compliment quite well as long as there is some clarity arising about what is is you are worshipping so you don't get stuck on the forms. After a time of Bhakti Yoga if it matures it is possible to see that divine quality of the deity in everything, so instead of worshipping the deity directly you can serve it by serving or appreciating the world.

I found it interesting that Chunyi Lin says in his autobiography that he gained his greatest understanding of emptiness growing up in China during the period of the Cultural Revolution. As a child in the beginning everything had a certain solidity but after the revolution everything completely fell apart and mass psychosis took over the country, everything was destroyed and replaced, many of those people who were considered respectable and trustworthy showed themselves to be snakes, while many of those people who were socially shunned or he was previously afraid of were the people who most helped his family even risking their own lives to do so. The impermanent and unpredictable nature of life was revealed to him in the most direct way.

There is a difference between experiencing emotions and preferences and something being negative, negativity is usually a position taken by the mind. You could experience intense emotional suffering and it not be negative, things usually only become negative when you go into resistance against something in your thinking, which is just a form of going to war with what exists, and what exists always wins that fight. Pretty much what the Buddha did was give up the war in his mind against negativity and accepted suffering without trying to escape from it. It seemed to work for him quite well.

It sounds like you are suffering from dissociation, likely as a result of trauma. I don't know if the drink could directly cause such a thing but the rush from it can trigger issues which are likely to be pre existing, but could exist in karmic, childhood or even pre natal areas cut off from conscious awareness. Its common for those energy drinks to trigger panic and the fight flight response, then our brains try to make sense out of what is going on. I might be able to try help you out in a few weeks if your interested, send me a pm.

You are still in conflict with the negativity, which ultimately helps to keep it alive

Pretty much every psychological discipline ever invented is based on the fact that there is a subconscious and unconscious, if there isn't then all the millions of people practising and writing books about psychology, psychoanalysis, advertising, hypnosis, NLP, as well as all sorts of areas are all completely deluded. The fact that most of these things work to a certain degree suggests that they are not. Why else would people act like insane idiots all the time and do all sorts of counter productive stupid stuff if there wasn't unconscious motivations? Its true you can't see the unconscious because it is unconscious, but that doesn't mean you can't see its results in your own and others behaviour and become aware of it when something moves from the unconscious into consciousness. With LoA even if it works its all ego based, say you get the Ferrari it may be the worst possible thing for you at that moment, without greater wisdom you could just be inviting misery.

Different lineages go after different things. Some Taoist lineages pursue trying to preserve some sense of individual identity after death by creating a subtle body or preserving some individualised consciousness in the soul or astral bodies, which can then remain in other dimensions after death, so in that sense a separate individual immortality is aimed at, (even though those sorts of bodies have to perish in the end so they aren't really immortal they just last a really long time). Some Buddhist lineages also create bodies such as light bodies, but getting to the heart of it that sort of pursuit would still be regarded as limited by Buddhists because essentially you are trying to preserve an element of separate ego, so the sense of identity even in those subtle bodies and realms can be awakened out of and transcended into a place of greater freedom. So it can be considered that being at one with existence is the place of true immortality because as long as anything exists you exist, yet it is not an individual immortality it is shared with everything, which is why the ego doesn't like it. Whether true Taoism is about individual preservation or individual immortality or it is about transcending all individualism i'm not sure. Chan masters come out on the transcending individual side but not all Taoist paths do.

Nothing is permanent and anything can heal. You might be better off splitting your issues into two separate realms, 1- there is the energetic physical spiritual problem, 2- There is your mind/psyche reaction to it. Your minds reaction can be worked on and I would recommend doing that first, if you don't want to see a professional learning about how to do self CBT could help, but I think the work of Byron Katie could also be of benefit to neutralise the thoughts which could be keeping the issue in place or making it worse. If the reaction of the mind/psyche is calmed down enough then sometimes that is enough by itself to facilitate healing, if not then some healers might be able to help. I don't recommend doing self energetic healing as you may just make things worse. I might be able to help you myself but only in a few weeks time.

Osho mixed up a lot of teachings which only make real sense on their own, for example Osho was into the Fourth Way teachings of Gurdjieff who talk about "self remembering", but if you bring the terminology and perspective of one tradition into another then things start to get confused even if you are dealing with things in the same general area. In my experience you are better off looking at traditions from their own basis, there is no need to mix them up. Vipassana have their own legitimate teachings with their own way of looking at things.

The herd mind is a form of deep survival consciousness so therefore it is trying to keep you unconscious or you could say on the side of Mara, not that it is bad but any movement towards freedom will eventually mean transcending it as it is old outdated conditioning. Being part of the herd or a group you could say is a substitute for the real thing of unity, yoga, non-duality,enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, but any substitute is ultimately unfulfilling because although you feel less separate in a group you are still in seperation from all that which isn't in your herd.

Edit. Thought this was general not group studies

I don't think many of them had any power or control over what happened to them during that time.

In terms of wisdom traditions to help you live a better life and give you philosophical things for the mind to study both Taoism and Buddhism are rich and have tons of helpful stuff, but in my experience and searching Buddhism has a lot more alive,vibrant living lineages still active in the world today, and to get to the real heart of the matter very few get anywhere without the support of living lineages. Chairman Mao did a pretty thorough job of destroying as many of the masters as possible, so what is left? only a handful of what I would describe as genuine Taoist lineages, most of the rest is just confusion, fragments and people trying to make money out of the fragments. Perhaps there are some masters who escaped China to places like Taiwan or Hong Kong but I don't know of them myself.

Karma is energetic, it has a force, it is the mind which interprets and weaves stories around the energy which keeps it alive and bouncing around. So if you work with the mind you still have the karmic energy to deal with but you are giving the energy an opportunity to release. Or you can surrender your karma to divinity or grace and it can be swept away that way, if it suits what's happening.

True uncontrived meditation is hard to reallly get or understand because it is uncontrived. It is more than contemplating the void or emptiness like standing off at the edge of it as a witness, it is actually becoming it, therefore it is always a movement into the unknown. Essentially it is dying before you die and who wants to die? The ego will do all it can to avoid the unknown or make it known and safe before going there, so all the other paths can just be extra ways to avoid that movement, ways of putting it off and distracting yourself, ways of avoiding enlightenment. Or they can be ways of preparing yourself and bringing you to the cliff edge. Emptiness meditation can involve a disintegration of your sense of identity which potentially involves a lot of fear and confusion , so if you are prepared by studying the mind and knowing the ways it works you are less likely to fall for the stories it weaves which cause the fear. If you have developed your concentration to a high level you are less likely to be taken off by distractions and get stuc half way. If you have developed your energy body then the influx of energy into the body when the identity fixations dissolve will be less disruptive and disturbing Studying emptiness can be a good practice though but only as a preparation. In many Tibetan Buddhist negrondro practices there are various death practices and contemplations. By studying dependent origination the identity of all things lose their solidity. If you firmly recognise that everything is already dying and not very solid or real then you are more likely to let go and submit when it happens to your sense of identity, but if you don't have that preparation then you may struggle which is what causes the suffering. But essentially you are right all you need is emptiness meditation. Im not sure I can prove it except it is basically what many Buddhist masters say, even though most also prescribe a path.

Most of the things you talk about are temoparary experiences and states brought about by spiritual practices, which are fine and enjoyable but ultimately unfulfilling and won't fully satisfy a genuine seekers longings. Only awakening can do that and most other longings are usually just substitute longings for the ultimate one which is to wake up to who you really are. The bells are calling us home and we sense we have somewhere we should really be, but we look outward toward where the sound is travelling for our path rather than turn around and track it back to its source. So my suggestion is to try find out the place inside of you were the desire to seek comes from.

The mind will always try to insist that consciousness is personal because otherwise the separate personality can't exist. But the mind may just be operating out of a survival instinct rather than the truth. What arises within consciousness is usually localised to individual body-minds so what is gong on in my body at all times is differenf from you, yet what that content arises within can't be said to have a location or an identity separate from anything else. In that space the non personal universal experience can be had. I'm not sure the mind can ever really get it or if it can be grasped intellectually but it can be experienced. Experientally if you are no longer identifying with the content of experience and are the space in which it arises then you can look at a thing or even another person and see you. It can actually be quite frightening and disorienting.

Christianity has a violent bloody history, but Christianity in Europe went through a reformation which resulted in states with more liberty and a more progressive social and political structure as well as advances in many other areas. Islam is yet to go through such a reformation and it is debatable whether it is even possible for it to do so. People will march and stand up for the cartoonists even if what they are doing is idiotic because they don't want to go back to the dark ages.

I don't think that makes sense because the kundalini bumps up against your ego, which is why people like Gopi Krishna and many others had terrible problems when it became activated. At the core of all of our restrictions and inner conflicts is a sense of egoic separation and the kundalini can put pressure on those areas while it is moving upwards. Perhaps it can't be fully opened or flow unrestricted while there is a sense of separate me holding identity but that isn't the same thing as it not existing or being activated at all before that.

People can have OCD and it not be a life destroying problem, David Beckham has it and he has done ok. Of course if it is more serious then professional help can be of aid, the easiest and probably cheapest with a good track record is probably CBT, which can be learned from websites or books if you can't afford to see someone in person.

Hakomi is another good method, but I am not sure there are any practitioners in Spain. Ideally the best therapist is one who could hold a non-dual space, but I expect there are probably not that many of them in the world at the moment, yet they are increasing. But otherwise I think it is better to find someone who is trained in a modern person centred form of psychotherapy. Most of the old techniques like Psychoanalysis wont do anything except send you round in circles in the mind and many of the things tried in the 1960's-70's like Primal methods will only give you temporary release. Basically a half decent person centred therapist is simply someone who can hold a compassionate space for your emotional life to be met with acceptance and some degree of compassion,things don't necessarily need to be any more complicated than that.