neimad

a totally fair and nice call. but is it real? perhaps you kind of minsunderstand and think i am saying 'white blood cells' are better than the red ones? not true.... see how long you can live without red blood cells in your body!!!! no better, no worse. just different. and i don't know where you live, but for me it's plenty obvious that there are two (in a very rudimentary and generalistic way) types of people around. those that seek something more (which tend to be the kind of people i attract to me) and those that don't (the kind of people i find i have nothing in common with and bore me greatly). think about it a while and try for yourself. you can feel a fellow white blood cell within minutes of talking to them. there is just a totally different vibe from them, whether they be doing any kind of spiritual practices or not... so it's not a strength in spirit thing. and those that are not 'white blood cells', in all likelihood you will find yourself wanting to dissapear from the conversation (unless of course they are a super-attractive member of the sex you prefer, that is). in nature i think yes there is noone is more spiritual than anyone else. but perhaps what differs is a persons drive or desire to know....?

40 minutes???????? what are you doing all of the programs one after the other? takes me like 15 to do the beginner, which is what i am currently happy to work on. and i love it! it's my morning start, every morning. after that i glide through the day. also from doing it i feel i get warm from inside out, the joints warm up and that seeps into the rest of the body. add to that some shaking, teeth tapping, sacrum and kidney rubbing and some belly laughing and thats my entire morning routine (followed of course by some sitting meditation).

inner smile. quite a few times when i was beginning my foray into meditation and spirituality i experienced something fantastic while doing this meditation. however as time went on my laziness caught up with me, and it was only a few times i experienced anything fantastic... the rest of the time was quite boring. especially mantak chia's 3 lines smile, the winn one is much nicer and spontaneous... so the practice eventually dropped out completely. but my current meditation beats it hands down anyways and there is hardly a time when i dont stand up after meditating and not feel fantastic. i have been intending to bring the inner smile back into play by doing it in bed in the morning when i wake up.... but i forget every single morning!

i'd like to share an idea that may perhaps seem a little unusual and will probably raise a fair amount of disagreement... which is fine by me. anyways taking the microcosm/macrocosm theory and using the human body as a microcosm for the universe (as we so often do, especially in taoism they do) we have a look at our blood and we see we have two types of blood cells. red blood cells and white blood cells. the red blood cells carry oxygen, minerals, nutrients and other stuff around the body. the white blood cells have a specific role seperate to the red blood cells (which make up the mass majority of blood cells) in that they are designed to target and neutralise negative entities (viruses, bacterias, fungus and other parasites) in the body. white blood cells also have a memory. i'd like to apply this analogy to humanity and suggest that perhaps there are two types of humans inhabiting this planet? red cells whose role seems to be to experience physical reality (carrying minerals, etc) and return this to the earth consciousness so that the entire earth consciousness can grow itself spiritually through the return of these experiences. white blood cells who sense there is something more. who have an inbuilt sense or desire to know more, that they have a purpose or something they wish to reach. an example of a white blood cell is anybody posting here on this board. all of you have some kind of desire or even urgency that there is more out there and that you need to find it. if you didn't, then why would you be practicing taoism? a white blood cells purpose is to achieve that state we are all looking for, a reunion with 'god' or the universe or the force or whatever you want to call it. by achieving this, your vibration rises and thus brings up the vibration of all those around you. this in turn helps to disperse the negativity or dark force that pervades this dimension.... fighting the parasites! anyways it's just an idea. the concept fits very well for me and explains a lot, however i still have the feeling that perhaps even red cell humans are capable of this and that perhaps they are further back along their spiritual path than the white blood cells and this is why they have no sense of urgency and are content to just plod along without desire to know more. perhaps in several lifetimes they will be ready.... that is if we experience more than one lifetime! i know that taoists believe we don't, at least not in the sense we think we do. and my teacher also thinks that we don't either. yet i think perhaps we do, there is a higher spiritual body for every person here..... maybe, maybe not. i guess i wont know until i experience it, and i dont really care all that much either.

the next step in the global take-over of human consciousness is to make us as much like machines as possible. thus we have our consciousness stuck in a body through which we have no capacity to reach and connect with our higher selves, thus achieve liberation or connection with the universe or whatever you want to call it. we become virtual slaves to this force that we are not able to directly see, yet operates through such despicable people as the bush family, rockerfellers, rothschilds, rummsfelds, the windsor family.... etc. free will dissapears. earth consciousness falls into slavery and slowly this dimension is engulfed by this dark force. the way to counter it? simple.... achieve what it is you are meant to achieve..... liberation!

yeah i might look at making my own... will ponder it for a while. not so desiring working with kettlebells though, i have enough with bodyweight training already.... just like the look and sound of the clubbells. as for chi, jing, shen... whatever. they are just words. my point was not to get caught up on the name of which energy goes where does what etc.... was just that different forms of the same energy tend to collect in different places and are used to achieve different functions. also that freedom from fear reactivity is not really equivalent to energy (chi, whatever)... it is more a passive/active surrender of the natural flows and ebbs of energy. these are just ideas anyways, that make a lot of sense to me.... but the reality of it is way more complex than we could possibly conceive of with these bulky, slow words running around in our head and the babbler (monkey mind) chattering away ceaselessly about any such crap. that is all. BYE NOW.

effective lineage.... this is what my dad and other buddhists are always talking about. the need to be from a lineage... i don't buy it. what lineage was buddha from? none. same with all the other initial masters. so sometimes i feel too much stock is put on a teachers lineage. i would compare this to judging a person by the job he holds, or whatever other example. it is the quality of the teacher and what he/she has to share, not their lineage, which is important. no doubt we have a teacher within, we all have the cabability to uncover whatever it is we need. we already know everything anyways... everything! we just forgot that we know. sure i agree that having someone to guide you on your path, point you in the right direction, etc, is most valuable... yet perhaps sometimes i feel the emphasis on this neccessity is much too high. the most important is consistancy and discipline in practicing what you may have picked up or learnt. i'm not sure if i would agree with that. i consider chi, especially the kind of chi taoists or martial artists are learning to work with, as being simply a particular form of the universal energy. it has been labelled as 'chi'. i would consider that there are many forms of this energy, e.g. electricty, heat, light, sound, etc. chi is just another form of the energy, yet i believe there are also other more subtle forms of this energy to be utilised by the human body. for example. the toaists always talk about chi being stored in the lower tantien. this fits very well with what i am now being taught also. yet spend some time focusing on the heart chakra, or mind chakra.... the energy pouring in is the same, but inside the particular chakra it is different. the lower tan tien has a totally different energy stored within it than the heart or mind (third-eye). different functions and different uses. perhaps a good analogy would be to consider electricty (universal force, what my teacher likes to call 'prana' and differentiates that from 'chi' which he considers to be just of the lower tan tien). electricty pours out of sockets in one form.... yet depending on the device hooked up to the socket, the electricty is changed in form and gives off a totally different kind of the same energy... e.g visuals, sound, heat, light, movement, etc. i would consider fearlessness, the state scott is trying to obtain and you too and me too are trying to obtain, as actually enlightenment on earth (cos i believe to truly be 'enlightened' or whatever you want to call it, can no longer exist in this physical body... as long as we are on this planet, we are not enlightened. buddha's or teachers or whatever who come here, give up a part of their enlightenment in order to reside in this dimension). total freedom from "fear-reactivity" i would also consider a state of surrender, a state of being with the tao, a state of natural flow.... hence the term 'body-flow'. so you see, scott really is looking for the same things taoists, and myself, and any other person out there seeking more, is looking for. he just uses 21st centuray concepts and science to explain and achieve it. just because esoteric terms are not used, does not limit the possible effectiveness of it. again.... dedication and discipline. however i believe meditation is a most important aspect of this search. learning to quiet the mind and begin to think faster than words is the second key (along with surrender, or freedom from fear-reactivity). for without that ability, how can you ever expect to communicate with your higher self? but i would suggest that to truly surrender or rid yourself of fear, it goes beyond using only the physical (which is undoubtadely excellent in itself) but also ridding yourself of all the mental and emotional garbage you stored in your memories. perhaps working with only the physical may achieve this, but perhaps there is also deeper stuff buried in the psyche that needs to be consciously accessed and released or surrendered or forgiven. no one can forgive us but ourselves! yeah i'm jealous, i want clubbells but they are so expensive here! so GT, they are really worth it that much? would you consider, now that you are bored with 10's already, that perhaps it may be an idea to start with 15's? i'm not super strong.... but i am definately getting there!

yeah it seems like clubbells would be pretty damn fun, which is why i have been pondering so much on getting a pair.... despite the damn price (almost twice as expensive to buy them here in oz than it is over there!). i also get the feeling they may be helpful in rehabilitation of weakened joints. i have a poor hip, knees and my shoulders aint too great either. body-weight exercises are awesome, but also i find can get a bit stressful on the joints. i'm still unsure of whether to fork out the cash for them or not..... you make a good point that what do we need circular strength for, unless training for a particular competitive field..... but then again our ancestors would have utilised such training in their day to day lives, whether it be with a club for hunting and fighting, a hoe for hoeing a field, etc. oh well... still need to think some more.

sometimes in my daily meditations my energy body that is being formed makes itself apparent to me. i try to communicate with it but i communicate at too slow a speed i.e. with words and the energy body does not use words so it's a little strange to talk with. the only time i spoke with it, the responses were just in my head and then i had to convert them to words in order to process them and it was basically "you are not moving fast enough (i.e. not thinking SLOW enough, without words basically) and come back when you can". hahaha im waiting for that day... but it is approaching little bit by little bit. i have stopped trying to communicate with my internal organs though and prefer to let them do their thing. i think it can be relevant though in that the more you communicate with your body, the more you realise it's not actually you and then the more you open up the ability to find out who you really are. we can also communicate with other people, energy beings, etc.... and finally 'god' or the 'universe' or the 'force' or whatever you want to call it, but again this kind of communication does not use words. i am getting results with my practice in this respect though as my empathetic or telepathic abilities are slowly increasing and sometimes i can read my friends thoughts.... in a way. i.e. last night was driving in the car with my friends back from dinner, and had asked one friend previously if he was coming back to my house to which he replied no. about 5 minutes away from my house i sensed a shift though and i knew he would be coming back to my house even though it took a couple more minutes for him to tell me. my other friend in the car who is doing the same kind of practice as me also sensed the shift in his thought. way cool. there are cool games we can play to enhance this ability within us. we used to play them as kids...... HIDE AND SEEK! go to a shopping mall with a friend. one person goes away somewhere and the other person waits for a while and then goes to find them.... but trying to 'scan' for them, i.e. using telepathy to pick up on their unique vibrational frequency to find them. we did it all as kids. im trying to get that back and hopefully looking to organise some people one day a week to get together and play kids games...... a friend of mine just told me also that there is an adult sized play-ground not far from here, going tomorrow! can't wait! hahahaha.

two last questions.... to what extent does the first clubbell dvd show how to work the legs? and would you reccomend getting the book as well as the dvd, or the dvd is enough? cheers.

this: http://www.higherbalance.com/ likely to be met with scepticism and/or ridicule... but i find it very effective and enjoyable. there are more learning modules than mentioned on this page, but they are for people who are already using the initial material. i find it a lot less complex than the HT system. and rather than going internally into your own mini-universe within your body like the HT, we are building up spiritual/energy bodies to travel externally into the universe that we inhabit. i had one more question.... does the clubbell dvd (the first one) cover working with pairs, or only a single clubbell? i.e. should i be getting two, or just one, to begin with? thanks.

thanks for your review. i can see how fun they would be and also how effective they would be for training. i just threw it out here on this forum cos i knew there would be a couple of people on here who use them and i wanted an unbiased opinion (hence not on rmax forum). are the 10's challenging enough to begin with? i'm not super strong, but i aint super weak either (thank you isometric workouts... 10 minutes a day to fantastic tendon and muscle strength! i think iso's and clubbells, which i will incorporate into my jungleman workouts, will complement each other greatly in development). i only have really enough cash to get one set, and i read that 10's are recommended to start with. generally i am a very good reader and i wasn't sure whether to get the dvd or the book, but if you think the dvd is that much better, i'll just go with that. i would love to go through your link to order the stuff, but im in australia so clubbells i will have to order through australian affiliate... and the dvd (or book) i will order from amazon because they are much cheaper with shipping than rmax and also cheaper overall than ordering from australian affiliate too! thanks again for your reply. p.s. i do think clubbells can in some way be considered taoist cultivation, because one of the elements of cultivation is working on perfecting the physical body...... no? anyways i aint really following a typical taoist path anymore anyways, meaning i aint doing any taoist meditations or alchemy or any other such stuff.... i am doing other things, which i have found way more potent. but anyways, it's all ultimately the same i guess.

why would you salivate over it?

why does gravity = heaven chi? .... gravity comes from the earths mass, thus it is earth energy... is it not? gravity is not something pushing from above, it is something pulling from below.... anyways its all energy... whether heaven or earth or whatever label you want to give it. it's all the same energy in different forms... electricity, heat, gravity, electromagentic energy... all the same.

biochemical addictions. left over mammalian instinct with the need to recognise your mother for survival purposes create hormone or biochemical patterns that release feel good chemicals when that particular face is around you. absence of the person in question = no release of chemicals = withdrawl symptoms = cannot stop thinking about the person. biochemical responses are, in my opinion, the slowest form of thinking or being. most people exist at this level. warriors seek to move beyond this kind of thing... living at a faster level of thought patterns, as pure energy or electricty with the absence of words. its harsh but true. gentle detachment is the way to go..... the love most people speak about is fake, just chemicals in the brain... thats all. true love is unconditional and it doesn't hurt!

meditating on the three main chakras (tan tiens). listening to the high pitched ringing. rmax stuff (warrior wellnes, be breathed, body flow... yet to get me some clubbells). dynaflex (isometrics). jungle man workouts. and of course..... sex!

to live we have to die. we have to let go of all the 'i' s we have built up in our life. they all have to die in order to really know ourselves. don juan speaks about this. death is scary, we fear death cos we fear change and giving up our ego/our 'i' s. i am becoming much more aware of all the different 'i's that inhabit my organic brain, that stop me from existing as me.

thinking about the formula for wealth and want to amend it monetary wealth = money earned/found/accumulated/inherited/etc + money spent/used + money flowed onwards (e.g. nourishing food eaten from money, things paid for and used, things given away, etc). or perhaps it is more like wealth = money earned x money spent x money flowed. yeah i think so. so really you are all a hell of a lot richer than you ever possibly thought! wealth is not a static point either, it is ever accumulating and increasing. you can only ever increase in wealth, there is no decrease. you can never unwork, unspend, or unflow... it's not possible! the more money you earn, the more you use it, and the more you change it back into other forms of energy..... the wealthier you are! hmmmm am i approaching borderline capitalism? i personally don't think so, because the emphasis is not on accumulating massive amounts of money or even material goods. large accumulations of material goods represent a stagnation in wealth, because it is not money that is flowed onwards, it pools and stops. it will represent only a twofold level of wealth, however flowing money or good from money onwards takes that wealth up another level..... get it? it's of little concern to me if it makes sense or not, to my mind it makes sense and i just thought i would put it out there as another perspective of viewing money... one that is a lot lighter on your consciousness cos you realise you are wealthy and you will always be wealthy.

i was a student.... the government paid me for no real reason all the while during my studies... just some glitch or something with our system. i have at time began to get short of money, needed a job... and wonderful one will just literally appear to me at the right time. this has happened so many times that i no longer think of it as strange, or coincidence. if you are really really open to winning the lottery, then sure it's highly possible and likely that will happen. but the truth is you probably will not be able to open yourself up to it because you will be thinking that winning that money is not hard earned enough, you don't really deserve it, and so on. if you are open and receptive to finding money, or money coming to you, then it will. however being open to the energies of money does not neglect hard work etc. finding money will likely only be a small part of an income, bank errors etc that can occurr will happen if you are receptive to them. money can find you, i know it. even just about finding the right kind of job. or making the choice to set up that internet business, or whatever, and having it work because you project your energy into it or open yourself up to it succeeding. the truth is the possibilities are always limitless, with regards to everything, not just money. something i have realised is that wealth cannot be accurately gauged in a quantity, rather it is a flowing number... something along the lines of, wealth = money earned/found/etc + money spent i will have to think about this formula a bit more. i know i put a + in there which appears as if your wealth is actually twice as much as what you really have.... but it's kinda like that. money, until it is spent, is meaningless! absolutely damn meaningless! unless you are doing something with it.... it is not worth anything! so your wealth is your flow of money. in other words, i am a millionare.... not because i have millions of dollars, but because it is likely that during my life a million dollars or more will flow through me... get it? hahaha crazy i know, but oh so cool. the universe is infinite potential and infinite possibility.

no, and i will never have to live without it either... cos i CHOOSE not to.

money is as important as you make it. it's just another flow of energy, one you can tap into just like the chi and extract, should you desire. abundance is a choice, it is a matter of perspective on how you view the world. right now we all have millions of dollars flying through us... money has become electronic now and is sent around as signals. we are all millionares. choose to be abundant, and you will be. money is important but it is also irrelevant. the people who make lots of money, are the people who choose to. the people who live in poverty, are the people who choose to. it may not seem obvious with starving people around and poor people and poverty everywhere and who am i to say coming from a middle class family where i never had to deal or struggle with poverty? but that's just the point.... i chose this. i chose not to live in poverty and i continue to choose this. being rich and miserable is better than being poor and miserable isn't it? hahahahahaaha. money used to concern me. money used to be something i hated and wanted at the same time. now it is something i am indifferent to, something i spend because i have lots of it... even when i don't, i still do. and i have never been richer than now, not in $ values... but in flow of money. it's just an energy. let it flow through you, tap into the flow and the flow will happen. there is heaps of money floating around there, heaps and heaps and heaps... just gotta stick out that hand and let it fall into it. spend like you have lots of money, and you will have lots of money. the trick to money is having some. hahahahahahaahahahahaahahahahahahahaha.

a couple of problem with buddhists... in my opinion from growing up in with serious practicioner buddhist parents. 1. they are studying a philosophy/religion with concepts that are discussed through metaphors and analogies that were designed for an entirely different culture thousands of years ago. can they everytime really understand the concept through the examples given? when discussing spiritual concepts, examples must always be given because you just cannot explain it in any other way, and the examples are always metaphors and analogies. in short it's outdated and designed for people who thought differently at a different time. we are 20th and 21st century people in a high stress high technology lifestyle. we need metaphors and analogies that work in that way. not to say that there aren't teachers out there who are applying that, but on a whole thats just the way the religion is. 2. the same problem with all organised religions is that the people into it close themselves off to other ways of thinking about things. they no longer look at other examples from other spiritual teachers outside of their religion... they just view what they study to be right (you kind of have to to feel like you are going anywhere) and don't want to see or think about anything else when looking at a wide variety of ways of explaining concepts will more likely help you to understand them better. buddhists become buddhists and identify themselves with a religion thus creating another tie to this dimension that will eventually have to be cut in order to go onwards. not saying all buddhists are like this, but from my parents and their circle of friends this is my impression. 3. buddhists interfere in other peoples spiritual development. one of the main teaching in buddhism is compassion, or empathy. which is a really cool teaching to get into. however buddhists go a little far in this respect in that they kind of take a vowe not to leave the universe/become enlightened/reunite with god/discover the one/whatever you want to call it, until everyone else does. seems noble.... but other peoples paths are just that... other peoples paths! what other people do and the way they progress and their spiritual evolution is entirely their own choice. wherever a person is in this lifetime is where they need to be to grow. there is no need to interfere in another persons growth. just focus on your own and doing that will undoubtadely help everyone around you who chooses to be helped anyways. no need to go out of your way, everyone is right where they need to be right now. observation is power, judgement is weakness. 4. karma. buddhists notion of karma is so strange.... however i think it relates to the first problem i discussed. the examples don't apply to the way our minds think and thus it doesn't really make sense properly. i think that the way most buddhists view karma might actually be a kind of wrong way of looking at it all. however im not an expert on it but i do have my own opinions... and those of the buddhists just don't make sense, no matter how much i try to stretch my mind around. i think that in order to believe some of the concepts in buddhism you really have to completely flip flop your thinking around... which may not be the best thing. 5. existence is suffering. sure you can give me the four noble truths all day... but if you view living as suffering, then thats what it's gonna be! it's not really such a nice thing to go around living with.... thinking that you are just suffering all the time and have to get away from it. sure there is plenty of suffering. and sure you can give me the argument that what you think is happiness is just less suffering. but personally i just choose not to look at it that way, i would rather consider existence to be about experience, not about suffering. you experience death, disease, old age, anger, depression, etc. and you learn from every single one of these experiences, you learn something valuable that takes you further towards your goal. anyways just a few ideas from me. i guess a buddhist is really a buddhist because that is what they need for their own growth, it just doesn't do it for ME doesn't mean to say it's not right or whatever. i hold no judgement. everyone is free to do think and say whatever they like, as far as i am concerned.

every teacher out there has effectively created their own style. every practitioner creates their own style. you cannot ever practice anyone else style because you are not someone else. so yes i think that were you to open your mind and study a wide variety of techniques and styles that other people teach you will obviously have your own style of each of these but you can go even further and develop movements you created yourself. why not? i mean what is chi kung anyways??? beathing and moving.... breathing and moving.... that's all it is. doing so moves the flow of energy in the body, which you can also do with your mind. what does it matter whether you do it how one person says or another or how you decide to yourself? there are thousands of different styles out there because there are thousands of different people and personalities out there practicing. in the end the way you really move is irrelevant, it's the intent and motivation behind it. the clarity within yourself.... and your karma.

speaking about resorts and luxury, i attended one of mantak chia's seminars in thailand. they put up this thing of their place is oh so luxury... and it is.... except, i don't know why, but our room every single night the smell of faeces (shit) wafted in the window. every night we could smell shit in our room. it seemed all a bit of a scam to me actually and i didn't manage to take anything of value cos mantak chia was so damn confusing and all over the place doing nothing in any kind of logical sequence. i no longer have anything to do with the healing tao, i had to remove all their 'hooks' from me because they were tying me down and slowly destroying my relationship with my girflriend. they offer such a huge variety of techniques that to practice them all you would have no time left for anything else.... one for this and one for that. i mean it's not really all that complex, you don't need so many formulas. and they hook you with all the claims about what each one will do for you, make you stronger, cleanse your bones, your organs, rejuvenate your thymus gland, etc. i got so concerned with trying to make myself healthy that i began to be unhealthy through this junk! what i am doing now is way better and way more simple and enjoyable too. in my opinion, forget winn and chia. i have no judgement for what they are doing, they can do whatever they like... but i don't think it's worth being involved in them because if you look critically at them and their students it is borderline cultish.

what's the difference if you are a westerner and grown up outside of the asian cultural background where buddhism comes from? i don't think it has been around long enough in the western world for all the metaphors and analogies used to describe the various concepts in buddhism to be really clear to 20th-21st century minds. i think a lot of buddhists are actually missing a lot of vital and basic information just because the analogies are so alien to our way of thinking, especially younger people like myself. i believe the heart of buddhism to be true and a great path, but for western practitioners i think comprehension is difficult, even if they believe they comprehend i think it likely they are just struggling with the concepts internally and may even come up with incorrect or slightly off-target interpretations. this, of course, is going to be limiting to their ability to move out of this dimension into others and ultimately touch god or reach nirvana or completeness or oneness or reunite with the source or whatever you really want to call it. just a point of view, from having grown up in a very buddhist house with both parents dedicated practitioners.