Jetsun

Can you explain the White Lighting meditation? I have never heard of it

Isn't Kunlun meant to be a downward flow water path, seems that focusing on the head will counteract that and do the opposite. You can activate the energy just by shaking your legs though

When we are young most of us are conditioned by others about what we think, what is acceptable, we are bombarded from a very young age with concepts telling us who we are and what our value is and what our role is in this world. That is just from our carers, then we go through it all with educators pushing us about, telling us what our limitations are. It's no wonder very few people grow up natural as our individuality has been battered by all these things coming at us trying to mould us a certain way or put us in a nice safe box, essentially we are being moulded to be docile, to not rock the boat and cause problems. So some of us go looking for a way out of this situation trying to reclaim what we have lost and find Eastern spiritual teachings which promise to set us free, but then we are told that our problem is our sense of self, our individuality is the root, that same individuality which has been battered its whole life and not been allowed its full expression. Is this not just the same assault all over again but from a different angle? Is it an accident that so many of the great artists and radical thinkers come from countries which value individuality? I was listening to an interview the other day with a Dutch Footballer who plays for the Japanese national team and he says that Japan never produce any really good centre forwards because their whole ethos is about the team and not about individuals, so they never have that man up front who is prepared to produce the bit of magic or individual arrogant brilliance to bring them to the higher level that other countries have. I know that is football but it can be applied to many other areas of life too. So I wonder if the Eastern teachings have been corrupted in this way in order to keep people docile, to not stand out from the crowd and dare to be rebellious and break the rules which keep people in power, as the self and your individuality are the root of all evil aren't they? If you look at the spirituality of someone like Shakespeare it is just as deep as any other yet he explores his individual emotional humanity and his individual thinking and personal expression to greater levels than most other people ever have without developing a megalomaniac ego where he thinks he is a supreme being. So my rant of the day is don't turn Eastern teachings into yet another way to assault yourself and your individuality.

No this isn't a Bourne film http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/9634530/British-ExxonMobil-oil-chief-assassinated-in-Brussels-street.html "Exclusive: A British executive for the oil company ExxonMobil has been shot dead in front of his wife in an assassination-style killing in Brussels. Belgian police have imposed a news blackout after Nicholas Mockford, 60, was shot as he left an Italian restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek, a suburb of the capital. The executive was shot three times, once as he lay on the ground, after leaving the Da Marcello restaurant in Rue de Beyseghem at around 10pm on Oct 14.... Mr Mockford had worked for the company since the 1970s, and was the head of marketing for interim technologies for ExxonMobil Chemicals, Europe, promoting new types of greener fuel.... The Belgian prosecutor's office said last night that there was a "judicial instruction" from Martine Quintin, the investigating judge, that meant they could give no "explanation" and no detail about the killing." So is green energy dangerous business now ?

At first glance I thought it might have been people trying to keep green energy down, but then other sites say it might be "eco-terrorists" who don't like Exxon, but then why would they kill the Green executive? maybe the blame on eco-terrorists is a media led cover up, it's all a bit :suspicious:

Your unconscious is a bit like a computer, it doesn't have a mind of its own and only understands basic inputs and programming, but you are better off wiping the hard drive or doing a reformat or at least a defrag before you add a load of new programs. You don't have to of course but the system isn't usually as stable or efficient.

So do you think you are the one preaching "the truth" around this place ?

You will probably be telling us that you are humble and compassionate next

Not sure if this is what you mean but I once read that historicaly in some traditions and communities the scapegoat was a considered a special spiritual role for maintaining the psychological balance of a community, by holding onto the shadow emotions of the community the scapegoat is the only one with the power to hold this energy until the time people are mature enough to deal with it. For example most communities would have a shaman who would be outcast and feared yet utterly necessary for balance. In Celtic society they had 'sin eaters' who did the same thing. So it could be in modern society there are people still playing this role, you get all the so called spiritual people banging on about being positive while the reality is that the darker negative people are absorbing everyone else's shadow which is being projected onto them, so who is doing the real spiritual service here?

Look below their personality desires and what do you find ? a sensitive person who wants to be happy and not suffer just like you, it is possible to relate to people and love them on this basic human level. Why do you think so many people have been kind to you on this board during your various incarnations ? I'll give you a hint by telling you its not because of the way you have been manifesting your personality, they see below all the crap which you come out with.

I would personally hold him in a much higher regard as a guru if he was

You look deeper than their personality?

Max Kunlun 3 stars - has brought out new book but no new material Bruce Frantzis 4 stars - a non stop production machine of teaching material, one wonders how he finds the time to actually practice, is probably a robot.

The problem comes when you have unconscious intents which conflict with what you are trying to manifest. The conscious mind is just the tip of iceberg.

I don't think that saying it is meant so literally, children are narcissists so you don't want to be like them in all regards. I think it is more to do with dropping all your misconceptions and fixed ideas to look at what's really going on rather than looking at everything with a full mind, which is the same thing as what Buddhists call beginners mind. It's probably also to do with realising how little you really know and understand. But the process of maturation you describe is also a somewhat spiritual process in my view, it is about an opening of the heart and gaining wisdom about what is important, but I don't think it is in contradiction to "becoming like a child"

Trying to escape suffering is one of the principal main causes of suffering. So the wisdom of trying to escape the suffering of samsara is questionable.

Interesting experiences thanks for telling us, im wondering does Sadhguru present himself as more than human? ie someone above the same human struggles we all go through, does he present himself as a master ahead of being a human?

Nan Huai Chin is the guy who seems to understand better than anyone where Buddhism and Taoism meet, how mind meditation and Samadhi affects your qi and channels, so he might be worth looking up. My opinion is that they both lead to the same place, yet I see more evidence Buddhism brings results, but Taoists are better at keeping the body healthy so if you end up going down the Buddhist route supplement it with physical exercise and labor to maintain the body.

I read one of his books many years ago, I wasn't really prepared to listen to what he was saying then though as I was obsessed with fixing and changing myself, he is a psychologist too which might be good if a lot of stuff is coming up so his books might help. But basically what Mingur Rinpoche says about dealing with his own neurosis can be applied to whatever is coming up, if you try to get rid of it it becomes your enemy, but if you let it completely take over it is your boss, but if you avoid both positions and make friends with it then it is a great aid for your meditation. Once he did this the anxiety problems which had plagued him for years left him in three days and he said he missed them once they had gone. So I would be careful with people who tell you what is normal or not because something might be coming up for you in your meditation and if you are told it isn't normal that is likely to make you want to get rid of it, which just puts you at war in yourself which only strengthens the issue.

I can't give any sort of advice about what is normal and what isn't, I expect people will say whatever comes up is normal. In terms of stages of meditation there is a general map of the attainment stages, Daniel Ingram has put it on some free handouts on his website http://integrateddaniel.info/book/ , but if you are just beginning I doubt this is what you are looking for but his book is quite good and free so might be worth looking at. But the book which has helped me the most in my meditation is 'The Joy of Living' by Mingyur Rinpoche. I don't know exactly is coming up for you but Mingyur Rinpoche describes how he had bad anxiety and panic attacks and used all that as the focus of his meditation so he brought his problems onto the path and used them to help him on it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5bpe6fXuPk, he also explains many basic Buddhist meditations in a very good straightforward way in the book and includes a lot of science.

Sunlover embellished the story with his own addition of the middle finger, the story really is about the painful dilemma of being alone in sanity or being in community and with others in insanity, which I am sure is something many of us can relate to.

One of my friends had some bad health problem so I gave him a copy of Opening the Energy Gates of the Body by Bruce Frantzis which has a lot of healing material in it, but he didn't read it or try out the practice to see if it can help as he prefered to just go by what the doctors say as he considers them the ultimate authority on his life. Then a few weeks ago I took him and his girlfriend to see the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard who was giving a talk in my town, I had to buy the tickets and organise it all of course and persuade them to go, but they were genuinely impressed and influenced by it and have asked for other books and information from me afterwards to do with Buddhism and meditation etc. I think the reason is that Matthieu Ricard isn't just a Buddhist monk he is also a world renowned scientist and includes in his talk a great deal or raw scientific data showing without any doubt the benefits of things like meditation and compassion showing all the brain wave data and growth of neural pathways etc. At the moment generally scientists and doctors are regarded as the authorities of life so if you can get enough science behind it people are more likely to start giving it some consideration and respect. Otherwise people will only generally turn to this area if they have some sort of bad shock, deep suffering,a random spiritual experience or chance upon meeting a very advanced practitioner who inspires them.

It also makes you realise that what the majority of people are looking for from their personal relationships is a form of madness, as most look to their partners to make them happy, secure and content, then get angry or disappointed when the other person doesn't fulfil the expectations or the play the role they are meant to play in this drama. Spiritual practice should make you turn inwards to find what you are looking for rather than continue in the insane practice of looking to others to provide what they can't possibly provide.

Ken Wilber says that the basic drive of women is to be full, full of relationships etc while with men it is to be free, which is represented in the way the sexual energy is configured. How this transfers into the spiritual search I'm not sure but it is interesting to contemplate.

Traditionally women haven't been allowed to become priests and spiritual leaders etc because of misoginistic attitudes, so in public they may not seem to be as many women is search but privately that may be different. But what the Dalai Lama has been saying recently is that in reality women have many advantages over men for cultivation in the Tibetan way at least because they have the stronger child rearing instinct which can be used to connect with compassion, so he is always encouraging women to become more responsible and take advantage of this, but really the Tibetans aren't much better for sexist attitudes as there was only ever about one nunnery to hundreds of male monasteries so they can't talk. But it could be that women and men express their egotism in different ways, Gurdjieff used to talk about "Madame vanity and Monsieur self-love" as two of the main expressions of egotism, but you can certainly find many examples of how men are more vain and materialistic these days.