neimad

haha thanks freeform. sean you think too damn much! your constantly referring to someone elses point of view, quoting people you have read about and relying on their wisdom while pretending it's your own. it isn't your own unless you are prepared to redirect it to reflect what you truly think. search for truth but realise your the only one who will be able to experience it and understand it. you will never ever read it anywhere. it's not to be found in any practice, book, guru or anywhere else but inside yourself. i couldn't care less who quoted what.... i know some people say it's important to reference the source of knowledge, but i don't personally believe that. i think once you have assimilated it into yourself, understood it... then you are free to reframe it and put it back out there as your own. undoubtadely whoeever said it to begin with did the same thing anyway. nahhh i can't do it. i have no need or urge to go on the attack. even though i don't study aikido anymore, i'm aiki in my defense, i just blend and let the force go around me. come running full bore at me, i'll drop to my knees and you'll find yourself flying head first into the ground i like sean, and i like all the guys on here. a nice eclectic tripped out community. as for my defense of CST. well i know it seems like i am defending it, but really i am just thoroughly enjoying my investigation and exploration of my body through this system. i'm pretty passionate about it and as such i talk about it often. i understand that the system has limitations as it is held to the physical realm only... and thats cool with me, that what i am looking for. i don't believe a complete system exists other than the one you can create yourself and thats what i love most about CST, the overt aim is to become your own master.... i really dig that as there aint many others out there with such an aim its usually "follow me and do it exactly the way i have told you to in the order i have". rather than sit here and pick out where it's limitations lie as a spiritual path (and it never claims to be one) i'd rather just focus on the good stuff, and fill in the gaps myself.... which is what i do. i am an eclectic, like most of you guys here. i don't subscribe to dogma, i don't subscribe to guru's. the only guru i am interested in is myself!!! that doesn't mean i neglect teachings that people have to offer me, it just means i wont prostrate myself before someone and say unto them "i am a piece of clay, mould me". my parents think it's arrogance on my part.... but i have never said i wont acknowledge a divine being and appreciate any teaching they can give me. if they are truly devine they wouldn't care less whether i prostrated myself to them or not. it makes me sick the way some people grovel to their guru's. how could someone ever expect to find truth for themselves if they expect that someone is going to hand it to them like a certificate of completition!?

it's freezing here today. brrrrrr it's getting chillier. winter comes, time for introspection and hot chocolate.

thanks bro. half the time i'm not really sure what i'm talking about and words just tend to fly out of my mouth (or fingers) and then i hear what i am saying or read what i have written and i go "ahh wow, i get it". half the time when i'm having a discussion with someone it might seem as if i'm lecturing, but i'm really just teaching myself... it's kinda weird. i have all my insights through talking or writing. sometimes it's as if something else is talking and i'm just watching and nodding my head. i'm very used to being mostly disregarded though, i'm young and people don't expect that i should know anything (and i'm cool with that. it's not really important to me at this moment for people to listen to me... i just talk cos i like the sound of my own voice hahaha and as i said i learn stuff from what i say). ive been told by several different "psychics" (without me even asking) that i'll write books before anyone ever listens to me. i got no time to write at the moment, but i'm looking forward to the oppurtunity. anyways i find you very intelligent and am really amazed at your ability to consume so much information out there, its pretty remarkable. i try, but i don't think i could even come close to getting through the same kind of volume you do. hey... you live in san francisco bay area, right?

i never cease to amaze myself by stating something that someone else has already written about. i think i don't need to read anymore! *carresses ego lovingly*

i take your point sean and i respect it. it's a little bit of both and as usual there is a happy medium. i think importing of words etc is natural. i agree with you about the whole "us and them" problem with culture. really my point is more with the concept, the actual descriptions the actual metaphors and analogies to explain spiritual concepts. the are complex and can only ever point the finger at truth, but cannot be truth. for a teacher to be able to explain truth they have to draw from the daily life around them and show how examples from this can reflect the concept they are trying to explain. to even think that our daily lives were anything like the lives of chinese, or any other ancient people, a few thousand years ago is pretty ridiculous. in such vein how can we understand their analogies properly without immersing ourselves in what it would have been like to live as they are? anyways its not really important to me or my development. i just like any excuse to have a discussion.

to you sean! actually i had that point of view long before scott ever brought it up. i had it in relevance to my parents buddhist practices. they went on and on about deities and this and that using all kinds of words and so forth to describe concepts. i often thought what they were talking about was ludicrious as the metaphors and analogies used didn't make any sense to me. often now in a conversation with my father, say, i can get a feel for his meaning behind the words but i have to translate it into my own language to make sense of it.... and then i don't really know whether i actually got what he really meant or not. thats my point about importing metaphors and analogies from other cultures, you just have to assume you know what they are talking about..... sometimes you might be off the mark though and accepting it just at face value means you may have really missed something valuable just because your language doesn't mesh properly. there is this back and forth of terminology and because we don't have a common point of reference (he wants to use buddhist terminology all the time) often we rarely agree on anything even though we might be discussing the exact same thing. but then again in this back and forth i often do have my own insights (not sure about him, he is pretty dogmatic and him and my mother seem to refuse to think for themselves upon these matters instead relying solely upon what their teachers tell them or what they read in books.... they begin any dicussion with the phrase "from the buddhist perspective" or something similar.... i often tell them i'm not interested in the buddhist perspective, i want THEIR perspective, but they don't seem to have one.... CULT CULT CULT lol). so my point there is i guess i get what you are saying. it is this discussion around the concepts is where the development can happen. but i strongly hold to my analogy about reading the book though. if you are relying upon translations, you just have to seriously hope the translator is a good one! if he isn't.... you aint gonna understand the story. to use your example of qigong (put aside my CST stuff here, i'm speaking for ME not for scott sonnon or RMAX), what is your translation of qi gong then? how did you come to that translation? was it an experiental one? can you explain what qi gong is to someone who has absolutely no interest or understanding whatsoever in eastern thought? so that is without using concepts such as "chi" or anything else, can you tell me what chi kung is? if you can... then thats awesome, we have just shown that such things can be explained without cultural concepts. if you can't, then you are telling me that chi kung is something unique to chinese culture and out of the grasp of someone who does not study eastern thought? that is unless i am ready to embrace some elements of chinese culture i will never be able to understand or practice chi kung..... get what i'm saying? it's possible to cross-pollinate cultural concepts, and perhaps even a desriable thing for our own personal insights and reflections.... but it's not entirely necessary and it can even be possibly dangerous or deceptive in my opinion. p.s. i don't follow dogma, of any kind. often CST reflects what i thought already, and when it doesn't i won't go with it.... however CST stays in the purely physical and allows me the oppurtunity to reflect and explore the rest on my own providing only concrete practices to enhance the ability to live comfortably in my body. i like that.

cool. i am most interested in charging my brain. keep us posted!

haha cool, sean. is it a good book? i'm one of those people too.... but i am using CST principles to just cycle through my goals one at a time understanding that it's a lifetime of balance. its just way too chaotic otherwise and nothing gets done. i understand Grand Trinity though, he is young and enthusiastic and more power to him! i don't necessarily think zero in.... but make sure you are being productive at least and that progress is being made, regardless of how you make it. buzzing from flower to flower can be great, as long as you are gathering the nectar along the way!

bro... your making me agitated! TM, Wudang, 4D, Healing Tao.... what is it man?

the truth is relevant and there is only one truth, agreed. however the attempts at describing truth (through the only possible mechanisms: metaphors and analogies) are culture specific. using ancient or different cultures metaphors and analogies to try to understand truth, is like trying to read a book in a foreign language. sure the same characters may be used.... but can you understand the words and sentences enough to grasp what the book is truly saying? first you have to learn the language and then perhaps you can understand the book.

if i'm in australia.... sure thing. and turbo, i'm not saying science is flawed, i was saying that the belief that science upholds the truth is flawed. as i said science is exploratory, its not set by any means, its constantly changed and every now and again something new is discovered that turns the whole scientific community on it's head (a lot of these discoveries never get mentioned to us lay people though.... how many of teslas discoveries were revealed? that dude was pretty much erased from the history books!). and my argument was that science doesn't give you truth. regardless of peer review, quality of the experiment, no matter what..... the only truth you can ever know is your own experience. thats my only argument and for me i believe nothing and i disbelieve nothing except for when i have personal experience that shows me one or the other. everything else is conjecture as far as i am concerned. yet i have great fun in believing lots of stuff too even though i don't really believe it. get what i'm saying? and fireblood. what are atoms? who told you they exist? have you experienced what an atom is? and to get really and truly semantical.... what is reality? how do you define it? how do you define it's limits? are they set? it's impossible.... you either know truth or you don't, all else is just belief. sorry... i'm using this discussion (as i always do) to clarify my own points of view. it's good fun. thanks for this.

cool bro... your on it.

detox is a part of everyday. every time you go to poo.... detox. sweating.... detox. farting... detox. burping... detox. sneezing... detox.

the scientologists (not that i am one of them) speak about the energy body as the "genetic entity". my take on the energy body, the one that the healing tao system works with, is that it's a bit of borrowed earth energy blended with a bit of cosmic energy (cosmic dust n all) and it's function is to regulate the physical matter body and hold it all coherent. then us, the soul or 'thetan' come along and inhabit that.... using the genetic entity to regulate the physical and give us a vessal to experience this dimension. playing around with the genetic entity energy too much is a trap, in my opinion. a distraction. it's just something we use temporarily to allow us a vessel to live in. we are so much more than that, and our true potential if we were able to begin to express would far surpess and of the little tricks we could hope to achieve with our genetic entity. the chakras, i think, are also just energy portals.... allowing us to bring into and bring out of specific vibrations of energy from the place where we are really residing. anyways i'm just playing around with some odd thoughts here.

sure. i'm not trying to infringe upon your beliefs. the problem i have with science and the people who follow science is that it IS just a religion, regardless of the evidence. unless you have done the experiment yourself, numerous times with repeated sustained results, anything you quote in the name of science is still just a belief. it's not really true knowledge because you are taking someone elses word for it. how do you know they didnt mess the experiment up? or not consider all variables (which is impossible to do anyway)? or how do you know that they didn't fiddle with the results to get the answer they were looking for anyway (very very very common in scientific practice)? my point is that it's not true knowledge. true knowledge cannot be taught, it cannot be read in a book, it cannot be watched on a dvd, it cannot even be taught by a teacher. true knowledge can only ever be experienced. and as such it is ENTIRELY a personal thing. as soon as you write down and start instructing someone upon what you may have experienced as truth for yourself.... it becomes religion. in that sense, anything you may read about or hear about is nothing more than religion and conjecture. for example i have had an experience that all things are connected. i know two things as truth. i know that i am connected to EVERYTHING in some way that is indescribeable (and as such every action i take influences everything else, and vice versa). and i know for truth that who is me is more than this physical body. there is no evidence for either of these statements, i can tell you about it and you can choose or not choose to believe me.... but regardless of which choice you make it's still a belief. you are either choosing to believe. or choosing not to believe. regardless you believe and you don't 'know'. my point. truth = experience. not science, or spirituality or religion.

i'm interested in creating my own chi kung. not to sell.... but just for me. and updating or changing it to suit whatever i need at any particular time. i think that is healthy.

yeah i feel ya. ultimately it shouldn't matter what we eat as it's all the same stuff anyway. go down far enough into it and the only thing different is the matter in which it's vibrating. however until we can impose our will directly on the vibrations of matter.... we have to go with stuff that vibrates at a higher frequency. there is no ideal diet. there is no balanced diet. there is only where you are right now.

i suggest if you get an oppurtunity to meet with him you take it and find out for yourself. he is arrogant, struts around in either a suit or a pink tracksuit, is constantly on the mobile phone and treats his staff as if they are his personal servants..... very dismissive. when i look at him i think i can see $$$ signs reflected in his eyes. i didn't get a nice vibe from him, and the tao gardens themselves has a very very strange feel to it. thats just my own opinion though, please remember that. i don't take away anything from his teachings or methodology, it just never worked for me and what i want to get out of this life and i had a bad experience at the basic retreat i attended there in thailand (i actually left halfway through from dissatisfaction). but if it works for you, then awesome and go with it. just like you decided rmax don't do anything for you, yet i find it really quite amazing for myself. i see it working from the physical up through to the spiritual (like the up flow of our kundalini) and then i add some meditation and spiritual type activities to that and bring that down and through into the physical and i feel like i got the dual flow going on. i'm refining myself in both directions simultaneously and i feel like its a really balanced approach.

be very careful of chia..... potential megalomaniacs with massive swiss bank accounts need to be watched closely. he's not very nice to his staff either. have you met him?

this is my thoughts too... but this then leads into the question: how/why did we forget our true perfect, infinite nature? i can come up with two possible answers myself. 1. it was a choice we made to have a 'human' experience, and a part of that was us giving up our true nature for a while as we play in the playground of this dimension. 2. when we took this incarnation, the dark-side (the opposite force to the god-force) set sneaky traps looking for us so when we came to this dimension to help raise it's vibrational level we had to wipe our memory first in order to stealthily infiltrate. this gives us the oppurtunity to then wake up and do the job we came here for. (kind of like that movie "cypher" if any of you have seen it). answer 1 supposes that every single person on this planet is in exactly the same boat. answer 2 supposes that there is only a portion of people on this planet that are truly at this place to access themselves (although ultimately everything is made up of the same god-force) and thus become the 'white blood cells' to stave off the attack of the darkside. it's a bit fantastic, i know.... but who can possibly tell what is truth in this crazy illusion!? (read my signature). whichever one it is, i just go about my personal choice of deepening my own personal experience, it seems like its really the only thing one can do...... and hope that along the way perhaps i pick up this enlightenment business. if not, at least i enjoyed myself on my visit here.

hahaha its funny that scott sonnon is now being held up to guru status and being a benchmark to compare against. he's just a person, like all of us including those super-powered qi gongers. CST is a system of self-mastery. so while scott has put it all together and identified certain principles that govern how the body works and certain methodologies and protocols to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of ones training.... it's still all about individual mastery. so it's not really someone following his system, it's someone using experientially proven methods to create their own unique style. since studying i am starting to discover my own chains to release tension in different ways when i have it. i'm exploring my own training to achieve my own goals. i have no doubt that in time i will invent my own yoga flows and even my own chi kung to achieve my needs..... i have no doubt that i am capable of this. on another note, i'm just curious the reasons for wanting to learn practices such as iron shirt? is it for the coolness or 'wow' factor (which i will take as a valid reason, it would be cool to have an iron shirt) or is it for spiritual reasons? if it is for spiritual reasons, what makes it an effective pursuit on the path to self-realisation? or is it for martial reasons? and if so, do you have the years necessary to learn it.... and how would it do against a knife or gun? i'm not critising but i am being critical (in a constructive manner i hope). this whole life experience is one big bizarre mess isn't it? how can we know what we really want and how do we know to go about getting that? for myself i have identified only one thing that is of real drive: deepening my personal daily (i.e. moment to moment) experience. for me this is an integration of enhancing my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual capabilities and living with as much joy and laughter as possible with as little discomfort as possible.

are you a forum member? if so.... sign in to get the threads. if not, subscribe to get access. new forum is not as nice, bit confusing but does have good features (like a "new posts" link that brings up all the posts you haven't read).

hahahaha so i did. *blush* mmmmmm raw biodynamic BUTTmilk. (i really meant buttermilk. i don't do well with the lactose either, but raw milk is not a problem and buttermilk is even better and easy on the liver).

haha sorry bro, didn't mean to be freaky. i have a big problem with soy though.... i see it as the 'matrix' (that global elite who so seek to destroy us) method of dealing with the hippies who generally eat everything else right. i been going to a few alternative festivals lately, and alot of these hippies eat ok, lots of veggies and stuff.... but they all have way too much soy milk and tofu. you don't want to eat meat, is ok.... but soy unfortunately is probably worse than meat health wise. to be a vegetarian have to be very clever about protein intake.... good is to combine 2 of the three: nuts/legumes, grains, dairy... to get the full range of amino acids. something i have observed is young females who drink too much soy have pimples on their faces, regardless of how healthy they eat. i believe this is due to the hormonal imbalance. soy is the biggest grown crop in the world now and as a part of some scheme, all soy growers are required to donate a certain proportion (i forget the figure) of their profits to the promotion of (false) health benefits. i've recently stopped all soy, including miso (except the occassional splash of tamari in a dish.... not more, and frequently less, than once a week). p.s. carob flavoured rice dream = yummy! but i haven't drunk that in a long time either.