Cheshire Cat

To see a particular Deity as the supreme God from which you are totally dependent is the main tenet of bhakti-yoga, as you know. Since everything comes from the God, then even spiritual accomplishment is a gift from the heavens. Don't know how many people can do it, but the purpose of this yoga is prema which is a quite advanced stuff, imho. In addition, one may add all sorts of magical applications in working with the deity. Don't forget that even buddhists and daoists of today pray and worship deities from dawn to dusk. This is done for a reason.

This looks like a monotheism in cultivation which maybe could be an inaccurate description of the reality of things. Rather, I've heard daoist masters saying that the Dao has many gates.

Hi, what do you mean by saying that they are not real, but symbolic? Is this a daoist explanation? thank you

There's no strain in my meditations: the eyes comfortably placed and very good relaxation triggered in the third eye area where I usually hold tensions. It's not a matter of strain... I had this at first when some of the blank area became red, but after some time I learned relaxation. But after the sitting, it seems that my vision suffers from this. Maybe the fact that I suffer from myopia should be considered.

I practiced the eye-crossing for some weeks. The most evident effect is the relaxation of the third-eye area, but it seems to have negative outcome for the actual eyesight in some way. I should investigate a bit more. Thank you joeblast! :-)

To summon the deities, you should be introduced to them by an active daoist priest or shaman. Otherwise, they probably will not manifest any interest.

This woman and this guy They live together in the batcave

Could you elaborate more on this? Thank you

Because, according to classical daoist alchemical thinking, women reabsorb back much of the fluids produced in masturbation.

To deal with this issue, you should clarify : 1) what you want from meditation 2) how important it is to you in respect to other things

This is very interesting. I've heard some people saying that Longmen Pai retreats are basically QIgong and not Neikung and I want to ask you what do you think about this. I imagine that third eye practices are centered around the famous "Secret of the golden flower" and it seems that WLP has some connections with the Master of Richard Wilhelm. In his translation of the text, he (Willhelm) provides commentaries with specific instructions for fixing the mind in specific body spot. Is it the same with longmen pai practices? Thank you

it reminds ancient Dyonisyan rites

A nice article from http://taoism.about.com/b/2009/12/16/the-shadow-side-of-floating.htm Du-Yin is the yin side of consciousness. Earlier this year I wrote about my flotation tank experiences -- implying, toward the end of the essay, that this kind of experience might be comparable to Taoist dark retreats. But perhaps this isn't necessarily a valid comparison. William Bodhri -- longtime student of Nan Huai-Chin -- has an interesting essay exploring the flotation-tank phenomena, in terms of the Abhidharma system of understanding consciousness. Unless one has a highly-developed meditation practice, what's likely to happen, he claims, is a sliding into the du-yin or "solitary consciousness": "Now the 6th consciousness or 6th "discriminative mind" has a shadow side called the du-yin, or "solitary consciousness." It's called the "solitary consciousness" because it can operate independently of the other sense-consciousness--those belonging to the eyes, ears, nose, taste and sense of touch." Accessing the du-yin is likely to give rise to all kinds of shamanic phenomena which, though potentially quite interesting and/or entertaining, represent something very different from the clear aspect of consciousness that supports a deeply liberating practice. In meditation practice, we cultivate a state of bodymind this is simultaneously relaxed and alert. What Mr. Bodri is pointing out is the tendency, in a flotation tank, to go deeply into the "relaxed" aspect, in a way that eclipses the "alert" aspect. To the extent that this is indeed what happens, while we might still benefit in all kinds of ways from the experience, it can't really be equated with skillful spiritual practice.

Qi can be seen by the Yin aspect of our consciousnesses which can be accessed in dreams, deep trance states and even mere imagination if one trains a little bit. Generally, in cultivation this is not considered an high achievement because it's something that everyone can learn in a few days. It's a sort of additional trick: many people don't care about those things. To see the energy with the yang consciousness is a different matter... imho.

Ok, enough talks for now. Who want to try something?

A man could be sexually attracted to a woman who is totally uninteresting, speaks BS all the time, has idiotic personality and no talents at all... if she's sexy. Being sexy means that you perceive her sexual power. For women it's the same, but it's harder to find men with decent sexual power. For this reason, men play with pua-tricks to generate attraction. Those tricks would hardly work with females outside of our society because this pua-stuff is based on our weird mind-frame. It's a palliative, not the real thing. Imho...

One could say that this is garbage or not, only if you define your goal in life. If you want to achieve certain things, yours are the words of a great sage...

I'm not sure that it was garbage...

In ancient Athens, historians say that there were four slaves for each citizen. Today, in our democracy it's the same: the slight difference is that we don't like to see our slaves all day long... so, they live in very poor foreign countries, working for us and living a miserable life.

Democracy doesn't work without slaves.

This is Samantha

There's an option for eng subtitles

Emotional awareness? What does it mean? Does it mean that one is aware of his emotional state? Is that a spiritual realization?

I like the PUA's state of mind because it's much more balanced (emotionally, etc..) than that of the average guy. It's new-age zen in which one breaks through certain mind frames and think to be the chosen one. Please, consider that if you're doing something, then it's not Zen.