manitou

Hi 3bob - I went to go grab a bible and read Mk 4:21 in context. I don't think it goes to the point of 'being first with the answers', as much as being an analogy for the fact that all will be revealed, nothing is covert forever, all will be revealed in the light (candle) of spirit. That particular parable is wedged between the one about the seed landing on 3 different types of earth, and the seed growing secretly within one's heart according to spirit's plan. But...on the other hand....verses are always pulled out of any tome and used as justification for that which people want to do anyway. I think the most trite is the Eye for an Eye / Tooth for a Tooth justification.

I absolutely agree. I have straddled Castaneda and the Tao for many years and as far as I'm concerned it's a seamless fit.

So many things can be handled by keeping the Three Treasures of the sage in mind. One of them is Never Be The First. I believe this goes directly to what we're talking about here, to be the one with the answers. To be the kid whose hand shoots up first when the question is asked, to be the know-it-all. This was my pattern my entire life. It still is if I don't keep it tamped down. To never be the first involves a diminishing of the ego, a painful process at best. Life gives us a choice of whether we want to do this voluntarily or involuntarily. Voluntarily is the best. Those who have all the answers or who want to jam those answers down another's throat do not possess that particular treasure. I believe the way to possess that particular treasure is to practice that particular treasure. To practice Never Being The First, which does involve sitting on one's ego and keeping the mouth shut. I sure wish I could follow my own advice better than I do.

This isn't so much a young mind story as a young mind habit. Try laying face down on the grass, which has its own grounding benefits. Then, once you get bored with that, start looking closely at the grass close to you and see all the different little people in there. You can make out a whole society sometimes. Plenty of grass manitou....

Okay, Tao Master. What are you saying? The video shows different types of work. Even the child was doing a child's work. The musicians were doing their work, The ladies in the plant were doing their work. But the concept of In The Meantime could maybe be analogized to the spaces between the particles? The fact that our Work or 'that which we intentionally do' is not the focal point of our lives at all....that the In The Meantime is where it's all happening, where all the chemical reaction occurs and the subtleties happen. In the Meantime is where we gel into what we are. Does this even get close?

Also, it's interesting that kundalini also arises spontaneously on occasion. My husband and I were in an auto accident, it triggered active kundalini in both of us. But we had both been walking the path of spirit for many years. Maybe spirit knows when it's time, even if someone hasn't actively been seeking it. It was sure nothing I asked for, didn't even know about it until a woman I didn't know walked up to me in a coffee house and told me there was a book I had to read, it was about kundalini energy. Somehow she was able to detect that I was 'suffering from it', (which I was at the time and had no clue about the electrical sensations within my spine, neck, head, back along with the odd flashing visions of things trying to get through a blockage and other bothersome returning mental pictures). This went on for a couple years and in fact I can still find that on any given day I may be gently 'obsessed' with a mental vision of a blockage being blasted out, or even a scab being ripped off. This goes way beyond finding the right words to describe some of the stuff I can 'see' in my mind's eye, but always these mental images will relate to a cleansing out process of the vessels within my spirit-body and chakra system. I scared myself nearly to death reading the Gopi Krishna book - that man certainly had an extreme case. j Mine is with me constantly to this day, it's been 6 or 7 years. It has resulted in 3rd eye activation, I am capable of Seeing to a soul depth and breadth that I was unable to previously. It also has set off a chain of other periodic events which could only be described as unusual. I dabble in healing as well. My personal feeling now is that kundalini rising isn't the beginning or end of anything. It's one more thing within the process, as far as I can see. But I'm guessing that about 20 years of reading different translations of the TTC (plus meditation) just did the trick on its own. If one is capable of making the kundalini rise through certain types of meditations, this is wonderful. But the education certainly continues once the K is activated. But it does seem that kundalini activity sets into action other things as well. The other earth energy that is much stronger than the K-energy that circulates, is the electromagnetic energy that comes out of the ground and up into the legs, up the body. I have only experienced this twice, once during a healing, and once when I was handing a pair of metal-toed boots to another woman. We both felt the phenomena coming out of the ground and it absolutely feels like you have your wet toes in a light socket. I'd be interested to know if anyone knows of the connection between the really strong electrical current that can be brought up from the ground, and that which courses through the K-active body?

Sorry, K-active meaning kundalini active. You have friends that get the scrolls too? Do they have the same sense of input, the same sense of access to information they know nothing about? This is wonderful. I've noticed that the information isn't just there for the asking if I'm just sitting there thinking about something. It becomes accessible during conversation and it is as though it was 'drawn out' by the question. It feels like I'm channeling because I have no idea what I'm going to say next but it comes out making sense. I wonder if there is increased access to these things as time goes on. I would suppose that this phenomena has been going on through the ages, but it would be really interesting to know if this odd phenomena is on the increase. At the very least our ability to communicate this phenomenon to each other has greatly increased, so maybe it just seems that psychic activity of this type is on the rise.

Optimystic - I'm loving that CD cover, if that's what it is. Only in America.

Thank you, Ulises - what a wonderful video. I found that his words became like a meditation as the interview went on. Our poor country is definitely collectively asleep; we are in tatters. I like the inference he makes about Western logic being a necessary component to materialism. It does seem to follow. To those of us in the West, Western logic appears to be the shortest and most accurate path between here and there, point A to point B. This is for the person who plans, who wants their route intact before they actually take off on the journey. Those of us who are more rigid in character, more structured. The fastest and surest way to obtain 'things' and try to control an outcome. And yet, we who are trying to find our way out of the Western thought box of materialism discover at some point that Intuition more often leads directly to the desired result, albeit sometimes different than you imagined it would be. Intuition is also a straight shot from point A to point B, but it seems to go through a wormhole of sorts that defies Western logic. I very much like this fellow. I think I'll order a book..

The only kind of meditating I've ever done was to focus on the tiny little vortex whirlpool in the middle of your meditation screen. No thoughts, just watch the vortex, trying to stifle all other thoughts. I did this for years and years. Then, one day, I realized that I was no longer looking at the vortex, and that my mind was resting void in the middle of the screen, almost a sense that it was eminating out. When it rests in the void, there are no thoughts. It's almost like there's an invisible Y on the meditation screen and the ball of consciousness rests at the junction. Time doesn't pass there. The point being, that this was a meditation that I did constantly day after day for many years. It almost seems in retrospect like it was a violent type of meditation, where there is finally a blasting through the rock to the inner awareness after a lot of repetition. I sense that this type of meditation is very good for focus too. There must be thousands of methods - I started back in the 60's and this stuff wasn't so easy to find back then, plus no internet. But I do think the key is repetition. If we keep changing up our meditative style, I'm thinking our inner silence will develop ADD. My thought is to stick with a particular method, or at least a small meditation that you do for this particular purpose on a daily basis. I think it's almost like developing a meditation muscle. That's just my experience. I'll bet there are others here who could really kick butt on this subject of attaining the no-thought place.

I enjoyed the drunken history lesson. Wasn't the guy who played Edison the same one who was the villain in Charlie's Angels? I feel like there's an analogy in that drunken lesson somewhere, and I'm not quite getting it. Are you thinking of the alternating current as being a yin/yang phenomenon? Or was this more within the framework of capitalism not being interested in the alternating current because they had already cast their lot in with the direct current? Seems like there are a couple trees this video could be barking up. Or were you just sharing a cool vid with your Bum friends? Either way, thanks!

My first two dreams were scrolls; I think one read from top to bottom, the other read from side to side. The most recent dream was definitely a textbook. The thing I find really odd is the absence of connecting words in the text. This may be an indication that they are not laid out in a linear fashion, the words seemed to be merely words unconnected to each other. But the words go by fast! Like speed-reading. I too have had one experience with the 'death in the eyes' thing, but I haven't connected it in any way to the scroll viewings. I went to see a lady, knocked at her door, and when she opened the door her eyes were filled to the brim with blood, and the blood was splashing down her cheeks. I looked away in shock, then looked back at her and her eyes were just fine. But she did die of a stroke the following week. I do not traditionally have this type of vision, so this is definitely unusual for me. I expect that you are K-active as well, Penny? My guess is that all this stuff ties in together in some neat cosmic package, lol.

I, for one, think you're really cool. You are one of the compassionate posters on this site, you are always considerate of the feelings of others. I think you have the Compassion thing down, friend. See you on another thread... Barb

"The basic difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge...." Because the warrior (or the Sage) does not live in judgment of things, they see things as they are. Things are neither a blessing or a curse. The warrior does get to a point where emotions are not felt in the traditional way, almost a transcendence of emotion altogether. He merely sees what needs be done and does it. The I in man can be compared to a flame; the flame within us all, a part of the sun. The flame changes in form and appearance constantly, consumes oxygen constantly. But it is all the same flame from the same fire. Yes, man's name is Legion. Knowledge depends on being. As I am, so I see. If I have the eyes of an enlightened one, I will see enlightenment. If I have the eyes of a beggar, I will see poverty. I will always see exactly what I want to see, that's the secret. To observe what a person has manifested in their life is a direct view into their heart of hearts. Thanks for posting those, 9th -

Buy one, be here now. To buy two would be too much The Tao needs only one.

I just think of the Tao love as mutual attraction, whether we're talking about electrical particles or human beings. Methinks you have a memory that must be imprinted to the opposite. If you ever want a little shamanic memory triangulation, just holler...

The Journey - I loved your video. I am smiling at your attempt to put such concepts into sentences, but you did a really good job of it. I was particularly taken by your down-to-earthness, which tells me that you have more than digested that which you were trying to communicate. It takes a real talent to condense most of the material we read - often intellectual tomes - into language that can be understood by the everyday person. In future videos, I would suggest making use of analogy as a tool to try and get the grand and subtle concepts across. I think you did a really good job -

Very nice post - thanks, Marbles.

Getting back to what the true self actually is, I think the true self is found in a child prior to the onset of personality. I'm referring to Personality as a series of habits that formed as the result of reaction to stimuli. To return to true self, maybe the only way is to go back through personality to the mind of the true child. This is the inner journey of self-awareness, which results in self-realization if done earnestly.

Actually, that has been happening, but it's strange to talk about. I seem to have access to answers that I have no business of knowing, like a pool of knowledge that's just there for the scooping. And yes, there is a sense of brain input on the books and scrolls. Have you had similar things happen?

I just love you, TaoBee! You are adorable! What a wonderfully free spirit. My question - did it help remove the residual homophobia? I would think this extreme imprint to the opposite would go a long way. Very creative therapy!!

yes, leave it to me, lol. I'm a militant go-inner. Marbles, I've recently taken to trying to walk around with awareness of the 3 treasures. (Never too much, never be the first, love). If a person is mindful of these three things and practices them, he will end up with them. That is our treasure, those 3 things, if we are diligent. By mindfully keeping things in mind like 'never be the first' or 'never too much', it necessarily means that one would HAVE to 'go in to self' to accommodate this life path. After all, one certainly can't practice 'never be the first' if they always have to be the one on top, the one with the answers. In order to develop this Taoistic tendency, one would have to do a lot of work on ego. Therefore....going in. I don't think any of this is incompatible with a nice, balanced, healthy way of life where we're not always putting ourselves first. Jeez, I love these discussions.

(I don't know how I managed to mess this up so badly - sorry!)

Expanding on this thought, how about: Awareness.... The observation without the element of Time. In our meditations when we're in that crystal globe of awareness, there is no movement from point A to point B, perhaps it's the quantum physics analogy of particle vs. wave. There is supreme clarity, but it is not quantifiable by any of our standard measurements, it is merely a Knowing, not a measurement. Mind, thoughts.... The mind is linear when conscious but not mindful. It thinks one word after the other. (Actually, after I did learn how to actually 'think', I realized that what I had been doing for my entire life was not thinking at all, but Ruminating.) Maybe this is the wave aspect of the quantum phyics analogy.