Yoda

all those ghost TV shows!!

Deepbluesea, too funny!!! I'm the same way... I love to do things myself and always "try it and see what happens" and in the end it either works (I replaced an ignition coil recently!!) or it really doesn't and go crawling off to a professional. In any case, I always learn something from the experience. Hadn't really "thought it through" on the ghost busting thing... in the past, I've smudged with Dragonsblood or ammonia on occasion with no long term results. I hadn't considered the excellent points made by Ya Mu and Mak Tin Si, though. And I've got the burn it down gene too!!! Your pal, Yoda

5ET, That makes sense, of course, and thanks for looking into that!! Your pal, Yoda

SiliconValley, You know Svoboda and his teacher personally??? Awesome!!! Tell us more!!! What's he like... sounded like a crazy man!! Is he into horses in real life? Do you believe all the stories? Did he end up having students? Is Svoboda an actual student of the guy or just sort of an adopted family member? Are the other Svoboda books worth checking out? A student of Swami Kaleshwar put me onto it and said it was very accurate and just scratching the surface. What did you think of the corpse wrestling part? Did he ever teach you the "real" Gayatri? You obviously know much more about this subject than I. As a fellow K critic and knowing the Hindu territory... I'd be curious on your take on how the "Left Hand of God" path compares to Kunlun? Kunlun seems to me like a left hand path that has blown off course. Your pal, Yoda

Topflight, good idea... maybe 5ET can offer a Kunlun finishing video course for struggling Kunloonies or something along those lines.

5ET, Dang... what a PM to miss, huh??? I'll look for it... if I could get these walls to stop bleeding that would be good. Depending on when you sent it, maybe that would have spared the forum all my boohooing! As it happens, I'm totally off my lunch for anything spontaneous for the next hundred million lifetimes... but I'll keep it in mind!! Seriously, though, thank you very much for unpacking your angle on things. Your pal, Yoda ~~~ Cat, In addition to what 5ET said, my interpretation is that Shiva and his yogis likes to live where life is raw... not the posturings of daily life but where the rubber meets the road between life and death and since his ashen appearance doesn't fit in with most maternity wards, the graveyard it is where real detachment can be cultivated and rubber neckers don't bother you. Last I checked, there was a documentary on youtube called Aghora, aghori, etc about the life of one of them... you get to see him chewing on someone's thighbone and everything!! (all that meditation makes one a bit peckish) The film is a bit more "down to earth" than the book but is still good. The section about "finding the right skull to eat out of" was instructive. Some say that the more wrathful of a Kali you can bear to see the higher you have gone. Some say that the accounts of Ramakrishna have been highly edited to cater to the modern reader but he was extremely aghori in actuality. If I remember correctly, Kali made only one appearance at someone's house in Left Hand of God and she said that if he wanted to see her again, it has to be in the charnal grounds where the dogs fight with the snapping turtles over grandma... she can be herself there or something to that effect. Crazy stuff! Yoda

Aghora At the Left Hand of God says that Shiva loves demons and prefers them in many ways and you can quickly network your way up from Ouija ghosts to higher beings to the gods. The key to travelling down this path safely is detachment... don't accept gifts which forge karmic entanglements. Unfortunately, one might not be aware of one's subtle attachments and could get hooked by enticement in an off moment. They imply that the charnal ground/grave yard is pretty popular for Yogis for this reason and even Paramahansa Yogananda was said to have started his career hanging out with ghosts.

I was pondering that it's quite possible that even the highest amongst us are known to sing the naughty spirit blues from time to time. For anyone interested in this topic, there's a great book out there: "Aghora at the left hand of God" is full of high yogis sparring with demons where they win some and lose some, where one mistake can mean the end of one's path for quite some time. One yogi gets into a physical fight and is flat out killed by a demon trying to make good on a dare by his friend. A beginner got the mantra wrong and was instantly torn apart by a tiger. Another chap had sex with a bad dakini and regretted it in the afterlife. There's a lot of crazy fun and games stories with spirit dudes. If I remember correctly, the teacher decided against passing on his path to the next generation saying that the left hand path is fast but way too dangerous for the vast majority of people who don't have 100% control over their minds. Highly recommended reading about life in the spiritual fast lane if you can deal with some disturbing imagery. From a Buddhist perspective, rumor has it that the Dalai Lama himself decided that an entity whom he had once regarded as a protector of his lineage was bad news and inappropriate for worship in the end. (Some even say that this entity actually channeled detailed instructions to the young Dalai Lama to help him escape the Chinese in his earlier years. ) Yoda

Hardyg, I have no idea, but it appears as if there have been wildly divergent experiences with Kunlun... perhaps this could have something to do with intention? Your pal, Yoda

松永道, Thanks! Your pal, Yoda

btw, there's what I'm hoping is going to be a cool thread on ghost immortals starting up: http://www.thetaobums.com/Immortal-Chung-o...lems-t2583.html I believe that the popular thinking here is that there are numerous ways to work the afterlife for the dark paths *if* they are strong enough and in that sense are "free" from karma but the Buddhist counter is that those afterlife scenarios can last for a very long time, but not forever and then it's payback of the principle and interest. And to have gained and sustained one's power level for these alternative lifestyles there often needs to be large scale energy stealing, so the payback will be considerable.

pm Apepch7. There's some discussion of how the 7 go together in Haich's "Initiation" to form the ark.

Neutralwire and Thelerner are the two Bardonists around here. I haven't seen Newt here in awhile, so you might pm them. Part of the system is to never, ever talk about results... Your pal, Yoda

Welcome to Taobums! There are a lot of Chunyi Lin students here! Your pal, Yoda

He's still teaching but rumor has it that he'll stop soon and just teach small alumni groups.

Easynow, I'm glad you like working with Mak Tin Si. My emotional situation a few months ago was a totally-don't-know-where-to-start type deal and Mak Tin Si has been very masterful at putting together a game plan without making any of the steps too difficult or overwhelming. The problem with most great healing approaches is that they work exactly as they are supposed to but compromise one's ecology in the process. So the whole thing requires real heroism!! I've found the stage one blessing works with my situation nicely without needing to become the caped avenger or anything. Your pal, Yoda

Hagar, I find that if I deal with the subtle energies of life successfully then the car, rent, wife, and diapers all take care of themselves somehow... so the latter seems less real in a way. If one or more of those areas of "real life" under perform, that's a clue for me to look for me to look at the subtle energies that may be contributing to the situation. The challenge is that I'm not all that sensitive to the subtle flows, but it has worked so far. Your pal, Yoda

There's nothing to be done about it. One solution is to go to the advanced google search and search this site for "FU" etc. That'll get everything that's not in the personal practice discussion section. Also, you can go to members and look up Mak_Tin_Si and just read his posts too.

Vajrasattva, Thanks for sharing! Your pal, Yoda

Cat, In my friend's example the vibe wasn't benevolent like subtle surgery or anything, more like Witch's experience. And I'm sure this sort of thing happens in lots of traditions or even a la carte. Your pal, Yoda

Here's an anonymous quote describing one person's experience shortly after going to a Kunlun workshop, used with permission: After the course I had a dream/vision where a bunch of aliens/taoist immortals came and took something from inside of me. After that she decided that the practice wasn't for her! Sounds a bit like Witch's experience. I had a few experiences along these lines too. ~~~ Cam, I'm glad you brought up DMT... good angle. The DMT: Spirit Molecule book covers this issue. The author obtained permission to inject DMT into volunteers in a lab setting and was personally hoping to gain therapeutic stories from doing so. Instead he gathered the same range of experiences we are discussing from happy angelic encounters to creepy ET encounters to very ambiguous encounters where the subject wasn't really sure about whether what just happened to them was good or not. From a bottom line net benefit perspective it was a mixed bag and he says that he'll never repeat this experiment. He speculates that taking a person living in the modern world, sitting them in a laboratory, and giving them a DMT blast isn't going to be beneficial to too many people. If he were to repeat the experiment he would do it in a traditional ayahuasca ceremony type setting with an experienced shaman in a natural setting and he feels that the result of this sort of approach may be more beneficial to its subjects. Yoda

Paul, I haven't the foggiest idea but I like to think that everything works out for the best in the end. You might research NDEs... the accounts of car accident transition stories seem to work out fine. If you feel inspired to do something for them, I'm sure there are lots of traditional ways to help out. Mak Tin Si and Shontonga come to mind as specialists in this sort of thing. Your pal, Yoda

I've talked to way more than a dozen people who have nothing but good stuff to say too. Problems arise in any path, but the negative accounts I've heard are beyond the "self pacing" or "too much power too fast" type problems and include three cases of non-practicing family members developing problems. There literally are people who won't post their bad experiences as they fear supernatural retribution if they do. Even if this is purely crazy thinking, it's still illustrative of the level of negativity inspired by these experiences. The situation is similar to Chia where the majority of people are having positive experiences, but some people aren't and it's a good thing to let people know about it. Yoda

Deparadise, Yoda/Kyle/the green one/etc is cool... I'm deliberately putting myself out there for discussion, not a problem. Vortex, I'd disagree that it's easy to feel the difference between good energies and bad ones and all you have to do is to pray to Jesus, Buddha, etc. Some of these dudes have done their cultivation practices for 100s of years and find it easy to play the good guy and aren't scared off by name dropping. One thing I remember Max saying on the K forum to someone who asked about "miscellaneous" entities floating around their home, he said to just ignore them. Your pal, Yoda