Yoda

Great thread y'all! Inspiring post from Taomeow... her family's experience seems to be different from what I can glean of the American pioneer experience where they didn't seem to be climbing trees at 87! The American pioneers often didn't have access to the fish or the fruits or as many herbs or maybe all of the above. Although cod liver oil and oysters and fruit were prized, they didn't seem to be commonly eaten. It seems as though they had access to tea and/or coffee though and did get plenty of exercise and fresh air. The early Americans on the coast presumably had access to fish, but I don't know what their longevity was. I'm wondering if it's the fish, the fruit, or the herbs or some other lifestyle aspect which might be 'the' secret ingredient here. The vikings ate lots of fish and had tons of zing in their jing (love that phrase!) but hardly any of them made it past 50. My exposure to past cultures is very anecdotal, though. Yoda

cool! I'm surprised how low war deaths are, but I guess there's really not much war going on on the planet as a whole.

Interesting thread on the subject of eye and neck position on myofascial release in the context of the Z Health system, scroll down and start reading the Xray avatar's thoughts. http://somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4088 -Y

I got to the end of the article ready to shell out $19.95 plus shipping and handling on something but all there was was the sound of one hand clapping...

Welcome to taobums! First of all, cut yourself some slack... it sounds like this situation was years in the building so it could take a bit to turn it around your energies. Also, as Esther says, sometimes the empire has to crumble to bring in new ideas too. That's certainly true of me, anyways. As for practice, you can't beat daily meditation and exercise... keeps the yin and the yang flowing to support groovy vibes and intuition that'll help you sort things out. One of the tips from Esther that I have enjoyed is to remember that all external events are merely byproducts of the energy that I sent out first... that's a very liberating perspective... other people can't mess with you!!

Dr Yoda says: "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight!"

The penis and ball size of a bonobo would impress even a jaded critic and is larger than humans, but I forget if that's absolute or scaled against overall body size. As a guy, I make it a point knowing where I stand in the animal kingdom.

Great thread everyone!! I'd agree with Trunk... try all the suggestions in this thread, etc but if you are still having difficulties adjusting, back off on the diet a bit. Witch has done a great job showing which foods are the gas and which are the brakes. Presumably, over time, one can gradually phase in her suggestions as desired. Also, I can imagine that there are situations that a celibacy enhancing diet is more optimal too and these influences can be modified day to day and even hour to hour too. Yoda

Tired of my scatological concerns, Cam suggested I check out some contemplative poetry to ennoble my thoughts a bit... I had always assumed that all the good stuff was Islamic but actually that's not necessarily the case. It turns out that the Christian poets had been pretty tight lipped so they wouldn't get their heads chopped off by saying something nice about Jesus or something crazy like that, but not that the inquisitors are dead, translators like Daniel Ladinsky have re-hydrated their thoughts to great effect, imo. Check out Teresa of Avila: How did those priests ever get so serious and preach all that gloom? I don't think God tickled them yet. Beloved--hurry. Or St Francis: Such love does the sky now pour, that whenever I stand in a field, I have to wring out the light when I get home. From "Love Poems from God" by Ladinsky. (Great book, btw)

From Love Poems from God, Here's Tukaram: I think the moon is pregnant again. I hope she won't sue me this time. ~~~ What part of heaven did she come from? That angel talked like a sailor and she was dressed enchantingly scant. I can't even repeat the things she said, or picture once more the shape of her body. Though I know one thing, My fear of dying has vanished. ~~~ We are too shrewd to trade something for nothing. Death to the ego--trading down--are you a madman? No one kicks a good lover out of bed unless they know they got two more on the way over. ~~~ I could not lie anymore so I started to call my dog "God." First he looked confused, then he started smiling, then he even danced. I kept at it: now he doesn't even bite. I am wondering if this might work on people? ~~~ And from his life: One day Tukaram playfully said to his close ones, "God is becoming jealous of the earth's love for me and He wonders if I would mind retiring from being so cute." Tukaram then informed his wife that God would be sending a taxi for him tomorrow and did she want to come. She declined saying, "Who would take care of our beautiful cows the way I do?" The next day Tukaram invited some close ones to walk partway with him toward Bhandara. About halfway he stopped, held their hands, and kissed each person, then walked off alone and was never seen again.

The benefits of channeled teachings is that they are freer from the past and can sometimes make fresh interpretations of old perspectives. In the case of Esther, her inspiration came into my life when I had gotten myself quite bogged down in some overly moralistic areas of Tibetan philosophy and it was a real godsend and very liberating. The negative aspect of channeling is that there's not much coverage of effective practices that help one actually live in the spirit of the teachings. It's very much like the positive thinking books out there... the how to advice works great if you are already 90% positive in the department in question. (The lack of effective how-to training is a big problem in embodied teachers too, but you can learn a lot just by being around them which can make up for it. If I had been around a Lama on a regular basis, I wouldn't have fallen into the hole that I did.) I think the question of "how helpful" a teacher is is a better question to ask than "how enlightened" a teacher is. I think Esther is very helpful to many people and hence her popularity. Now that she's in best seller territory, it's sort of time for Yoda to move on though. I've pickled myself in her "it's-all-good" philosophy to be able to relax a bit more about my existence but I'm impatient with my practices in their ability to be able to deliver deeper results, so time to mosey on. 250 years ago, Esther would have been burned at the stake but now she's a best seller... that's a lot of progress in society for which I'm very excited about. I think we'll see a lot more progress to come in our lifetime too. Yoda

Taomeow and Todd sure know their Taoism!! It's great to have y'all around!! Taomeow, I dislike the word "ego"... Is there a roughly equivalent term in Taoism that might have more accurate connotations? Yoda

Cool! I've listened to a third of it so far... very nice! I mapquested mid causal, but couldn't find it. Whereabouts is that?

I've been reading about the benefits of "wake therapy" and one thing my reading came across was that wake therapy (reducing sleep) is very effective for people whose mood improves throughout the day, which is me. Maybe I'll try it? Maybe I'll reduce my sleep and add a nap or two. Mbanu, one of the great wizards of taobums, says that it's important to get as much sleep as possible for the sake of longevity, however. Little babies sleep a lot and old folks don't. Speaking of little babies, there was a short lived polyphasic revolt on taobums: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?act=po...;f=1&t=1501 Allegedly, polyphasic sleeping is a way to drastically reduce the number of zzzzs needed, but it's almost impossible to succeed for social reasons. So little babies are polyphasic and sleep a lot... hmmm. Well. -Y

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SrhUDnIsCUM

Mal, I've heard that whatever one's approach, it's best to honor the natural sleep cycles. My guru says that early sunshine is more healing than sunshine later in the day, so waking up to catch the sunrise is best. Yet I like to stay up late too so what's a girl to do? I think some form of napping may be the answer. Yours, Yoda

A favorite visualization of my death is that of riding at the helm of a viking ship through an ocean of blood with the immigrant song blasting away as my predeceased brethren are busy rolling a massive barrel of beer into the hall. My kind of loka!! But don't worry... we've thought it through and invited a live band with Jesus (guitar), Krishna (vocals), Buddha (bass), Kwanyin (drums) so we won't find ourselves in a sucky loka at the end of the bash.

Pero, Actually, I just made the phrase 'loka yoga' up on the fly but what I meant by that is the practice of focusing on a particular enlightened soul, either their image, a memory of them, a mantra associated with them. By loka, I'm assuming Trunk meant was that if you focus on Jesus, Tara, Odin, etc you go to their particular beer hall when you croak. There's a story of Avalokiteshvara (sp?) who taught his student to ring a bell and say his mantra on a regular basis. When she died she started heading towards and iron pot full of molten magma or something but one of the devils foolishly banged his stirring spoon against the side of the pot which made a ringing sound and reminded her to say the mantra and she was wisked off to eat grapes and practice the dharma in a pure land setting instead. The story is pretty ghastly in how it tries to inspire fear. If I remember correctly, that was Avalokiteshvara's own mother too. Yucky stuff, but at least it is instructive how the whole loka business goes. I think it is considered easier to think of a divine soul at the moment of death rather than try to pull off a complicated practice as there may be a lot of confusion or bewilderment at the exposure of such new stimulation. I had recently capsized my canoe in some very cold rapids and it seemed like it took me awhile to get my thoughts together to even begin to attempt the basic how-tos of the situation. And even that was hard. Assuming that analogy has anything going for it, you gotta keep the solution as simple as possible.

Well the colonblow people say to do one treatment every ten days and then do another 3 treatment cycle in 30-60 days and then settle into a long term maintenance program based on your experience. They say that people are either ascenders or descenders which in colonblow means that you either dump most of your gunk in the first treatment or the last treatment, but it's good to do three treatments regardless of your colon's personality type. If you fast, it'll work better. My plan is to repeat every couple of weeks or so until I don't get anything out. I'll probably get a feel for frequency of treatment by then. I got my colonblow in the mail... they gave me a free t-shirt and pens too! Since I'm more than happy with psyllium and bentonite clay, I think I'll keep the kits, shirt, pens unopened and give them out as presents this Xmas!! That'll be too funny!!! The package does say that Senna is one of the herbs second to Cascara Sagrada. Plus prune juice powder and fig fruit.

I just talked to a friend of mine who said his wife consistently got the same results by taking psyllium and bentonite clay every so often.

Zenbrook, The Great Sixth! I need to put a list together. I'm in the process of designating a bookshelf just for poetry and spiritually related philosophy but not for practices... sort of a change of vibe there. Cam, Bless your heart with love and vacations. That was very cute! I've never heard of Pamela Wilson before, I'll have to look her up. Yoda

flax seeds are super yummy... great suggestion!

You gotta do what you gotta do out there, in there, or whatever. btw, my meditation is really nice right now... I don't know if that's related or not. Yesterday I was a bit weak like I just had a baby, but now I have lots of energy. Yoda

You gotta look at the situation from the Colonblow CEO's perspective... he or she wants to make an effective product but needs to make it very safe for even the weakest souls. Therefore he/she (why do I think he's a he??) decided to go moderate but sell the 3 packs so it can have an effect over 30 days without challenging his clients too much. There's this kid on youtube colonblow episode 12, but the results are on 13... the kid was very dismissive about the product... he just got a few "dinner mints" out of the whole process. That's why I urge my fellow hale and hearty taobums to homebrew. Or to consider at least taking some additional psyllium with your colonblow. Just a thought. May the force be with you! Yoda