Cat Pillar

What about Max? Can't wait to find out for myself this weekend, hehe.

Great post Scotty, advice I need to take to heart. I have a high paying job but am horrible with my money. Definitely one of the areas I need to work on. But, I AM taking steps, bit by bit, to get better about it. Have any recommendations for good books on personal finances?

I'm not sure how I feel about reincarnation, personally. I had a tarot reader once tell me this was my eighth lifetime. (She also told me to look into Taoism as a spiritual path, interestingly enough.) However, I have no memories of past lives. Therefore, I'm not sure how beneficial a belief in reincarnation is to my path. If I have no memories of past lives, it's likely any future incarnations will have no memories of this one. Reincarnation may or may not exist, but without some kind of continuity between incarnations it really seems like a non-issue. I guess I look at it this way: unless I can apply the information in a practical and beneficial way to my life, I don't care if reincarnation is real or not.

I remember the riverwalk from my trip to San Antonio, it was really cool! It really is a great city...if I didn't have so many good friends in Houston, I'd consider applying at Rackspace and relocating there. I am very happy and grateful to be attending the seminar! An opportunity like this is one I just couldn't ignore...I've been wanting to start on a path of some kind for so long, and to have a teacher come practically into my back yard is serendipitous, especially since Max is one of the teachers I'm most interested in learning from. Have you practiced Kunlun, Scotty?

Thanks for the headsup about the Greyhound station, Vmarco! Guess I can add some substantial cab fare to my travel expenses, since the seminar is being held at the Hilton near 6th street. The music scene is what I like about Austin, although lately I've heard it's been getting harder and harder for local/smaller bands to book shows there. I've experienced the traffic there, and it IS absolutely ghastly. I agree with you about San Antonio...not only is their art scene good, they also have a strong music scene too. Not to mention it's a very fun/pretty city to walk around. Only been there once to play a show, but I had fun walking around downtown and got to visit the Alamo. I live in Houston, and the art/music scene here is practically dead. I'm really surprised that Austin doesn't have some kind of gay district though, even Houston has at least that. Austin is usually thought of as the most liberal city in Texas. I'm just happy that Max is coming to Texas, to a city that I can (relatively) easily get too. Been looking for a teacher for awhile, and Texas is pretty dry when it comes to advanced practitioners. Never been to a Buddhist temple before, I'll have to see if I can fit in a visit!

Yeah, Austin is a pretty cool city! Interested in going to the free Kunlun lecture Friday, March 30th? I waited too long to book my hotel. Now it's going to cost more for my hotel than for the seminar! This is turning out to be quite the expensive trip. Wouldn't be so bad if I had a car/driver's license. Ironically, I'm making out like a bandit on travel expenses. Round trip Greyhound is only costing me $20, hahaha! Oh well...opportunity to learn Ancient Chinese Secrets? Priceless.

Man, I'm glad I signed up when I did! Paid my fee a few days ago, and there were 12 slots open. Checked today, and only 5 left for the Austin seminar! Glad to see the interest is so strong here in TX! The San Francisco one looks like it still has 20 spaces left...kinda surprising!

Yeah, I have to agree with Marblehead. Desires have their place, but they can be harmful if they're directed unskillfully. I don't have to look any further than myself to see the detrimental effects desire can have on someone.

Oooh, fascinating! I seem to remember hearing something about this from a different source a couple of months ago, but my memory is too shot to recall any details. Thanks for sharing!

Awesome! I'm gonna try to make it Friday too, it all depends on my ride situation. Fortunately Houston is a reasonable driving distance away, just gotta find someone I can sucker into taking me. Yeah, I don't have a car... Austin is cool, played a number of shows there a few years ago. Red 7 is where I usually played. Sixth street gets crazy! Ah, the days of HOEX Pizza (known to us as Heavy Metal Pizza) and wild shows.

I second this recommendation, their Neuro-Programmer software is pretty awesome. I bought it several years ago.

I have a hard time understanding disagreements like that between magicians. I guess the gloss of surface appearances really is that attractive? One would think a magician of all people could see the connections beneath the surface.

Great...had me all interested and just had to throw that last part in.

Interesting. Curious, even. I wonder how important method really is...

Horse stance is best pony? By the way, I'm curious...I know horse stance from Wing Chun. Would you say that simply standing in horse stance for a period of time every day is an effective means of cultivation?

Yup, they've got the Friday evening talk planned. I was planning on pre-registering though to save the dough.

Reading about NDE's propelled my interest in studying spirituality in general. I'm envious of the experience, I might be more relaxed and laid back if I had ever experienced universal forgiving love like that. As for coming to terms with death...I think my fears around death are mostly about attachments - mostly I worry about dying before I can get my shit together. For me, it's all about loss, and not what comes next.

Even if you don't study magic, that's a promising response considering the origins of Hermetic magic. I'll probably go to the seminar anyways. I'd be interested in meeting Max regardless if I end up studying under him or not.

Would the practice of Hermetic (Bardon's IIH) magic be considered a fire path? I'm planning on attending a Kunlun seminar coming to Austin this March, but I may have to rethink that. I have a strong interest in both Western magical practices and Taoist cultivation practices, and am hoping that I can find paths in each that compliment each other. I know eventually I'll need to stick with a primary path in order to achieve mastery, but right now it's hard for me to tell where my heart is on the matter. As a practitioner, I'd be very interested in your opinion, Cameron.

I wonder when or if I'll have this kind of realization? To add to your question about "giving back"...I also wonder about any distinctions between seeking and growing...there seems to be a natural drive to grow and learn...is that the same as seeking? What about the drive to create? A fascinating subject of discourse...

Fair warning - this is just an emo rant I needed to get off my chest. --------------------------------- Lately my depression has returned in full, and I've been trying hard to deal with it effectively. Instead of running from it, I'm trying to work through...but it sure is tough. Everything I'm dealing with seems to be heart-centric. That's where all the suffering is centered, and I feel it almost as a physical presence in my chest. I've identified so many things about the...blockages, I guess you could call them...but it's hard for me to articulate them. Loneliness, despair, and fear...those seem to be the core emotions rampaging through my heart. As I try to face these things, it's like peeling a scab off...the pain intensifies, and it feels like there's an open wound. Right now, I can feel it...it's almost like a hole. As I work with these emotions, I try to feel them, sit with them...but experiencing them seems to sap my energy, drawing me closer in to that black and lonely place inside. This despair...it's like an intense longing without an object. Nothing seems to soothe it, and all activities which seem to provide temporary relief appear to do no more than provide a momentary distraction from its experience. When I am alone, and quiet, my attention is always drawn to the pain. I had hoped that by trying to feel, to sit with the pain, it would help to alleviate it, but so far it only seems to make it more present and noticeable. Ignoring it does no good, as then it builds up until it overflows into suicidal longing. I'm not sure how to deal with these emotions. I want to be rid of them, but don't know how to make them go away. It's really hard to be constantly experiencing this level of despair, and I don't know how long I can keep it up. But I'm also afraid that if I don't acknowledge it, if I don't sit with it, it will build up again, and I won't be able to get through the inevitable suicidal phase that always follows a period of running from it. Each time I go through one, it's worse than the last. What makes it harder, is knowing that it's all my fault, and I can't blame anyone for my pain but myself. Knowing that somehow I'm doing this to myself, and that all this despair is just some silly mind game I've failed to see through. I hate spewing my filth onto the forum, especially for something that's entirely my responsibility to deal with...but at the same time, I feel like if I don't express it somehow, it'll eat away at me even faster. Sometimes, I just can't help but feel that I suck at life.

Depression doesn't always make sense, Sinfest. I can see the possibility of chemical imbalance playing a role in my depression, especially since it's chronic. But I can't help but feel that chemicals aren't the answer. Certainly, my depression is not the result of anything bad that has happened to me...I'm sure there were bad times that contributed, but this seems to me to be a purely psychological issue. Right now, I'm finding it's a matter of challenging my assumptions about the nature of the world I live in. I need to open my mind to the possibility that the world is not how I see it...and need to convince myself that it's worth seeing the world for what it really is. I also have to start taking risks. I've played it safe for too long, and it's gotten me nowhere fast. The answers I need will only come from hard work and diligence. My fears have stopped me from testing the limits of my perception, and rather than uncover the truth I have chosen to hide behind uncertainty - as long as the question is undecided, I can rationalize ignoring it...I can rationalize maintaining the status quo. Trusting myself is hard...but I'm coming to see that if I can't trust myself, I'll never be whole. I have to stop being afraid of myself. I have to stop being afraid of BEING myself.

I'd like to thank you all for your responses...making this thread has apparently been very cathartic for me. I think I now see the true source of the despair, and it's not so serious that it can't be worked with. I knew the answers were somewhere within, I just couldn't face them. In a way, it's strange that I was so averse...I understand the fear, but there was never any reason to let it get to me so much. The loneliness and longing, one and the same. Longing to be who I really am, loneliness because that part of me was kept separate and unfulfilled. Adherence to societal common sense and past ways of thinking/being, fear of rejection and great adversity, beliefs about what can and can't be done...all serving to mask the true cause of my instability. I am not being myself...I am being that which I am taught to think I should be. That which I am prone to thinking I MUST be. Honor and obligation, responsibility and ethics...all clever masks to deceive the mind into perceiving something other than what is. Things will never be the way I want them to be...but that doesn't mean that it isn't worth pursuing the essence behind the desire. While the form may never match the vision, the essence is universal. To be true to myself, to live from the inner essence, is the highest of practices I can commit to. Other practices and purposes may come into being naturally as a result, but any practice is empty without the first. I have no need to fear any practice arising from my nature, and no need to indulge in any that are extraneous to it. I have a lot of work ahead of me to integrate all this, but at least I feel like now I have some sort of guidance for what to do.

bah, double post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3nEX-qroUo Lyrics: Research finding pathways in the seamless web In black spaces between words a field unknown Repeat endless mantras of the stored collective drown A surface-world is what the senses show But you cannot taste the essence of your soul Sever all strings to the confined Forget all that has been Sever all strings to mortal life Unveil and see through With every thought you find a sequence has begun And when you trust the senses, peace of mind will never come Through false sensory perceptions of the flesh You paint without colours on a canvas blank Deceived by the history on which we do bestow Based on the past we re-enact what's gone And when all else fails your essence will go on Sever all strings to the confined Forget all that has been Sever all strings to mortal life Unveil and see through With every thought you find a sequence has begun And when you trust the senses, peace of mind will never come All that's been said and done is open to perceive in any way desired Now behold- conflict is gone Whatever you find is never the truth Unless it doesn't die as time goes by Whatever you find you just have to wait All things found will in time be gone Sever all strings to the confined Forget all that has been Sever all strings to mortal life Unveil and see through With every thought you find a sequence has begun And when you trust the senses, peace of mind will never come All that's been said and done is open to perceive in any way desired Now behold - conflict is gone