DustWalker

Are you in contact with any non-corporeal "teachers"? If so, do you have different "teachers" from different traditions if you mix spiritual paths (say daoism/qigong practice with Native American Path) or are they the same "teachers"/guides in different disguises?

Do regular meditation for long while say a couple of months. Do it before going to bed just like yoda said. After a while you will recognize the same consciousness that you find in meditation while on the verge of sleep.. You can easier go into this consciousness if you lower your awareness-center and move into your chest/stomach instead of your head. Imagine that you are shrinking and sitting inside your head then lower yourself into your chest/stomach and sit there cosy and safe in inside yourself protected by your "house" that your body is. Soon enough you will feel strong energetic currents pulsating throughout your whole body and if you stay in this you will be in a blissful excstasy throughout the whole night. You will not feel as tired as if you hadn't got any sleep the whole night and one night once in a while will rather make you more alert. But more than 2-3 nights of this will make you seriously sleep deprived. Usually the problem for me is not how to get into this consciousness but how to break the meditative awareness and simply "go to sleep" like a normal person.. This usually happens by itself one two nights a month.. Might be connected to the moonphases, usually it's not on fullmoon though. Any other inputs, dear taobums?

Interesting Topic this.. This dodgy russian guy mentions in this text something about it how it can be bad for you to engage in sexual acts with someone who are not "on your level" (whatever that would be) seen from an energetic perspective. But he has written mainly a lot of BS in there.. not too sane dude I'd from analysing his writing. However, maybe there's something to it after all?

Almost finished reading "Autobiography of A Yogi" by Paramahamsa Yogananda. Great lore on Babaji, Kriya Yoga and other things. Almost as good as "Opening the Dragon Gate" but not quite up there.

It's extremely interesting how similar a lot of us here at Taobums think! Virtual Sangha indeed as someone wrote! Affenbrot, you really condensed into words what I have had problems with articulating for a long time! What you wrote above is the main objection I have against some or most of the western magical traditions (although I still think it's an incredible beautiful tradition as a whole). Myself, I started doing the intial exercises from Bardon's first book but had to quit. It's really Headstrong. I believe you really have really clinically pure intentions to commence his work. Something I didn't have at the time, somehow deep underneath I wanted it to help me to attract a possible girlfriend. haha! I see Bardon's work as extremely potent and advice people to think twice before getting enmeshed into it. Ciao.

Cheers guys. Rereading my post I think I come across like a real moron, I guess I simply wanted to share my feelings with you. All of your advices are sound and they are exactly the way I have been reasoning myself, although it can be easier said than done sometimes.

Welcome to the club. My mom thinks I'm mentally Ill!! She simply cannot understand that I am not insane despite viewing the world and its workings from an esoteric point of view instead of the mechanistic materialistic one that most people hold. She thinks these are the signs of me having a psychosis. I just wish I could expand her horizon a little bit. Make her understand. Yes, getting into metaphysics and spirituality have alienated me in many ways. Got any suggestions to easing up her worries?

These personal issues Eric had, just HOW did his "personal drama" came to involve little astral dragons that would fly over to fuck people in their sleep? Sorry for that one.. just curious But really, Cameron, what exactly wrote Eric to you in those strange deranged letters he sent to you.. I for one would like to read some of that stuff. Back on topic. Taoist Alchemy & Sexual energy have been on my wishlist for a long time now.

Isvatn I hear you bro. The girls here in Sweden can be really cruel. Just keep looking (or don't). You're not the only one.

You simply have to read Mike Strong's story about the Inner smile on this page from a thread over at the emptyflower forum. A good one don't you think?

On the other hand.. reading the other comments afterwards, I'm not so shure how true this little story is though. Maybe wishful thinking. Oh well..

Right now I'm reading some books I picked up some books from the university library "The Shambhala Guide to Sufism" by Carl W. Ernst Ph.D. "The Meditative Mind - The Varieties of Meditative Experience" by Daniel Goleman and "The Taoist Body" by Kristofer Schipper The taoist body seems to be one of the better books about authentic taoism according to the celestial masters lineage that Schipper became initiated into during his stay in Taiwan during the late sixties & seventies.. haven't read more than the first chapter or so.. interesting it seems but probably only as interesting as religious taoism goes. Shambhala guide to Sufism may seems maybe a bit to general but seems to be very well written and have a great preface chapter.. Have an easygoing style that is lacking in most academic works on Sufism. "The meditative mind" compares different spiritual traditions meditition teachings with eachother and tries to find similarities and differences and also comparing the different stages of meditation with eachother. Perhaps not easy but he's seems do do quite fine. Bill Bodri's book is probably better than this one but this is a good book for getting a clear and quick overview of different paths. Hindu, Christian, Sufi, Gurdieff, Zen, Vajrayama and TM are some of the paths mentioned and compared. Not my favourite choices atm. but I have to read something most of the time. And since I can't afford ordering any books on my wishlist these will do right now.

Jean Dubois from the now defunct Philosophers of Nature (one of the more serious sources for western practical alchemy & spagyrics it looks like) goes along the same line when presenting an exercise called "concentrating the mirror" in Lesson 2 of their "Fundamentals of Esoteric Knowledge". The first two lessons are available as samples on the site. The relevant document can be found Here. Dubois have an interestingly different approach to western esotericism than what one is used to. And their approach seems very sane. But the mirror thing however.. I'm still don't know what to think of it

A great taichi documentary to download! http://164.58.65.137/othermedia/wayofthewarrior.mov From the friends over at Emptyflower Enjoy

Here it is.. http://www.healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/tpost.pl?smessage=2498

Yeah.. that can be some cool shit for sure.. What are your opinons on this phenomena experienced while staring at your mirror image? (especially if the lights are dim) They say this is a way to meet the "dweller on the treshold" in some western magical traditions.. I know way too little about this phenomena and have always stopped gazing before anything major have happened. After a while one can feel the suction around your third eye as you lock onto yourself in the mirror and your mirror-image begin to shift. Anyone else want to elaborate on their experiences with this? Also, Is there any specifically taoist lore connected to this phenomena? Cheers

Eminent Swedish underground progressive-house dj Erik Sahl's mashing 'em up in the right way plus a few crowd-pleasers we all recognize! Download the mix right now Here! See you on the dancefloor..

There are so many sites out there on the Book of Changes and associated material it is hard to know what's good and what's not. And most of them are very rarely going in-depth on the subject. If you are serious about Yijing (I Ching) I think these sites are excellent startingpoints.. J. S. Marshall's Yijing Dao at Biroco's site. And Bradford Hatchers amazing work at Hermetica Where he freely gives away what looks like decades of personal studies and research neatly collected in 7 or 8 huge pdfs. Here you have his own favourite translation, including a proper matrix translation giving you every possible english meaning of each individual chinese character, so now you can decide for yourself what each line means. If that's not enough he also got an equally nice and thoroughly extensive translation of Daodejing there. This alone should be enough for a couple of months of study - let alone years if you go deep and really explore the techniques and the theories. Enjoy!

Okay, one more before I head for Budapest tomorrow. Here's a cute little story about Lu Dong Bin from Chan Buddhist lore. Enjoy!

Awesome Yoda! Another idea is to try going to a serious grown up techno/trance party in the outbacks sometime and feel the vibe there.. That is something that really can contend with rock'n'roll when it comes to energy. Here's a picture from one amazing dayparty that I attended last week in Stockholm last weekend that was simply amazing.. enjoy.

Actually I've failed twice.. But then I have only pressed each finger once because I missed the part where it says to do it ten times per finger.. so I still have some confidence in it.. Btw. have you seen the webpage this Hsi Lai geezer have put up to hook up white tigresses with jade dragons & others? Mighty Dodgy I must say.. You gotta pay a big sum every month to simply have access to their chat. Doesn't smell very good. Wonder who this Hsi Lai dude is.. the acronym means something like foreigner in chinese apparently, at least according to one review of this book I read.. My guess is on Alve stuart Olsson since they are on the same publishing company and the same webdomain although I'm not not sure since I've never read any of his books and cannot compare their style of writing. Cheers

oh.. by the way.. regarding the topic. Aren't we all shaved & groomed downstairs these days?

Yeah.. got the book about half-a-year ago, and I have to admit.. It's pure crap. Don't get this book folks. There's one thing I've used from the book though.. an acupressure technique for preventing nocturnal emissions. Here ya go: seem a lot more convenient than that strange qigong form flying bird whatever you guys called it. P.S. Yoda! If you manage to increase your "dang-a-long"-size through these techniques described in the book.. you gotta tell us! I for sure don't believe in them.

We have to be careful about what we chose to believe in. If the world is a dream we all are dreaming together.. then Ronny, are you doing something beneficial or harmful to this dream? Let's not meditate chemtrails into exsistence please. Just my 2 metaphysical cents.

Mudras are exciting and I want to learn more!! Especially about the ones within a taoist context.. Here and Here are two intriguing but weird links from a german taichi/chi-gong site translated for your enjoyment... Please give us any further input that you guys might have to share.