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^^ i saw them once @ the cow palace on the gemini dream tour. i was sitting in the next to the top row, at the cow place there are no bad seats, acoustically tight place. if i had been any closer i probably would have exploded interesting group to be sure

IMO, TCM is part of the journey of a living path... discovered over millennia, many are called but few are chosen, in a sense. If you're not born into it, then adopting or absorbing it is challenging... if it comes slightly more easy or natural then your path is tracing. If it feels like study and indoctrination, you can still pursue it but it comes with road hazards. My path took me through TCM and I was quite gun-ho to get into acupuncture and meridian theory... was asked to do a single fill-in class at a local acupuncture school, on Taiji, but ended up teaching Qigong by request of the students in the moment. To make a long story short, my Medical Qigong master showed me that TCM is good up to a point but if one is able to sense Qi, then why do you need to know the point when you can feel the point; meaning, deviation is not always exactly at the theoretical point in question. This distinction is more about what leads your interest and path rather than what is right vs wrong. Follow your deepest desire and if it comes with academic instruction, so be it. China is still home to ancient traditions, just go there and with some help you'll find it. Ignore the comments of folks who talk about it from afar. I've meet more ancient wisdom in china than I can recount here or in a book. And most of it is with everyday folks but several about the ancient arts. Try a practice within Taiji or Qigong to get practical application of Qi in the body to understand TCM better... just a thought. Never give up your dream and desire but realize the road is sometimes less traveled and you should just follow your path.

it is but a dream. a dream that i share. it would require that folks would be self-responsible. self-reliant. self moderating(like here on TTB!) it would require that folks genuinely cared about and for their neighbors. not exactly anarchy proper, but a useful model imo is the Iriquios Confederation. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/294660/Iroquois-Confederacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois did they have a perfect system? perhaps not. was it workable? yeppers. -K- does make some good points that would need considered. seemed the iriquois were thriving until those (us) darned europeans started involving themselves into the mix. smaller scale intentional community may be the way to go.

Oh yes I used to do the Middle Pillar ritual as well, it brought intense feelings. But then again it isn't anywhere as close as what I've experienced through deep meditation (even breath meditation) or simple dharani recitation (cundi/avalokitesvara). Yeah, that's the confusion I have. So is what Jenny-Lamb teaches the same as what Max teaches? From his latest book, he teaches: - Refined KUNLUN method posture with yin/yang hand (the ball posture) - Laughing/Smiling - Gold Flower Method of Maoshan - Three Ones Meditation of Maoshan - Taoist Traveling Hands of Maoshan(Dream Yoga) - Maoshan Five Elements (five different postures) It looks to me like they are all mainly maoshan practices. Can you explain to me the relationship between the hormones and Kundalini, if you don't mind? (I'm a little new to this perspective) Isn't jing related to hormones? I thought kundalini (yang chi/sambhogakaya chi) was more of the fire element in the body, while hormones are the 'water element'. So it's fusion at the "Mother Light" (in the heart), right? Basically bringing upper "Child Light" (in the head) down? When I do anapanasati (breath mediation), I get to the point where the breath stops and then there's tons of heat and energy rising throughout my body. Would that be a fire or water practice? According to Nan Huai Jin, this is when yang chi rises when we get into extreme Yin. It's strange because the way Max describes it is that fire is intentionally trying to start up the heat/kundalini, like in Tummo practice/Wim-hof, and water is more of a spontaneous, flow-with-the-moment, vipasssana kind of thing. And breath meditation, translated from Pali is anapanasati, sati meaning 'mindfulness' or simply what people commentarily call vipassana, since it also involves all four mindfulness cornerstones (body, sensations, thoughts, mental qualities). Yeah, I'd like to know that too. Are there any problems that people face by mixing this 'yi gong' and red phoenix? Haha and that also reminds me of SpringForestqigong, because chunyi lin is more focused on healing physical ailments from what he presents, but behind he still teaches higher levels for self-enlightenment. --- Also, if anyone knows or has experience, does anyone know if it's possible to mix breath meditation (anapanasati) with kunlun? Assuming that they are done a few hours apart of course.

Yeah that was when I lived in the city. I am a country boy who lived in the city. haha. Born and raised in the city. But now I live in the country. I am clearing ten acres of forest of the invasive European buckthorn -- brought here by the genocidal colonizers who had a bounty on the Dakota native american indigenous -- driving them out of the state. Yes the Dakota have returned to Minnesota thankfully and are fighting to get back their land and to expose the genocide against them! Minnesota had a concentration camp at the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota river - the sacred origin of the world for the Dakota! But 1200 Dakota were kept there after a forced march across the winter of minnesota -- and then hundreds died there in the camp over the winter and also were tossed out the packed railroad cars when forced out of the state onto reservations. Ah but that was way back in 1862 -- where the largest mass hanging in the U.S. occurred in Mankato minnesota of 38 Dakota men and when Chunyi Lin went there to teach qigong to old people Chunyi Lin saw these giant spirits that were stern and dangerous -- guarding the place. He asked his friend what happened there and he learned of the mass hanging. Chunyi Lin said he didn't dare tell anyone about the spirits that were huge and stern -- watching over him while he taught qigong. He had to be very careful. Yeah the past and the future -- how amazingly they interweave with precognitive visions! When I was doing serious earth first activism I had a dream that came true three years later -- a dream that was more real than being awake! I wrote it down and wrote I thought it would come true. Then I forgot about it until three years later when I saw a photo of my earth first friends with Native Americans -- Dakota -- standing on the roof of a house -- holding a banner -- to protect a wooded area in the city. It was the last remnant of original Big Woods (maple-basswood) in the Twin Cities Minnesota and also the most sacred area for the Dakota. Also that land is still owned by the Dakota -- the 1805 treaty was illegal and invalid. Ah by that's the past. Let's not dwell on the past when we have such a bright future! haha. Nah I say the eternal present is the real deal. haha. So anyway now I do humanure compost - ah but dwelling in my own shit is not a solution is it? YES IT IS! haha. When I visited the most traditional Berber village they relied on humanure to feed themselves -- to grow their vegetables and wheat -- to transform the desert soil into fertile farming. Yeah so now I do humanure compost as my ancient futures salute to the Berber women I met who all raised their fists and shouted when one truck drove by on the new gravel road put in by the government of Morocco. Ah by that was the past -- 1997 - or was it thousands of years ago -- a sustainable culture for thousands of years. Nah now it's being "modernized" -- haha. Modernized -- in 500 years genocide has wiped out half of the world's human languages. Ah but let's not dwell on that except that hundreds of languages are going extinct right now. Ah but that's the past. I mean it was the past when I just typed it. Right. haha. Anyway so I am gardening with my new humanure compost that I also make using biochar -- charcoal that has micropores for the bacteria to live in and was the secret of how the Indians lived and farmed in the Amazon since the soil there has no nutrients since it gets sucked into the trees as the turn over rate is so fast for decay in the forest. Yeah so I turn the evil invasive buckthorn into biochar and mix it with my humanure crap and urine and let it compost and it turns into amazing fertile miracle goodness. then I plant seeds to grow food. I am also planting trees and bushes for nuts and fruits. So my family thinks its foolish but I say -- hey with 7 billion people on the planet the more food the better. There is a new program in the Twin Cities minnesota to plant fruit trees and donate the fruit to food shelves! Yeah why not? haha. So hopefully in five years there will be chestnuts on our land of ten acres but it should only take me two more years to clear the buckthorn and then I'll probably get kicked out by the females living off their spouses' money. haha. It costs $3000 an acre to remove buckthorn and it's a four year project -- but I'm just using hand tools - -a pick axe and hand saw -- no nasty chemicals that kill the bacteria of the forest. I am also harvest mushrooms -- I ate seven different kind so far including Amanita Muscaria! haha. The Soma! Right in our forest -- amazing since it's not known for Minnesota. Yeah we also have the rare Hooded Warbler in our forest -- only three known sites have reproduction in Minnesota. And we had a nest on our land but I couldn't find any new baby bird hatchling brood yet. Last summer just the male returned and called in the high trees looking for a female. Ah well - they spend the winter in Cozumel off the Yucatan Peninsula -- which ironically is where my parents went for their honeymoon in 1965 and returned many times -- probably a dozen. haha. I went there once and snorkeled for six hours a day. Awesome. Yeah last night I dreamt I was underwater with this beautiful young female who had been my coworker and she said my eyes were so bright green and I said - -it's because I eat spirulina all the time. haha. Spirulina is amazing stuff -- I mean it converts -- it's the secret real source for OIL. Just think the world is running out of oil - -but they are starting to make oil out of spirulina because algae is the real source for oil anyway. But still this whole biofuel thing is a scam - there is professor at Cornell who figured out that -- what was the figure -- something like all the solar energy on the planet that creates the energy of plants would only supply two days worth of oil use for current use. Something like that. In other words there's absolutely no way we can replace our extraction of millions of years of stored oil energy with biofuels or solar energy -- to make hydrogen and electricity, etc. http://www.grist.org/article/philpott2 Oh it's David Pimentel - -he says photovoltaics collect ten times more energy than plants do from the sun.... so anyway electricity though is not oil. Nope humans are just sucking up millions of years of energy from life on the planet -- for what -- a fun ride that's what. haha.

Yogananda called what you are referring to as cosmic consciousness. He wrote a poem titled "Samadhi" to give a glimpse of his earlier experiences. Vanished the veils of light and shade, Lifted every vapor of sorrow, Sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy, Gone the dim sensory mirage. Love, hate, health, disease, life, death, Perished these false shadows on the screen of duality. Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, melancholic whirlpools, Melting in the vast sea of bliss. The storm of maya stilled By magic wand of intuition deep. The universe, forgotten dream, subconsciously lurks, Ready to invade my newly wakened memory divine. I live without the cosmic shadow, But it is not, bereft of me; As the sea exists without the waves, But they breathe not without the sea. Dreams, wakings, states of deep turiya sleep, Present, past, future, no more for me, But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere. Planets, stars, stardust, earth, Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms, Creation's molding furnace, Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods, Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come, Every blade of grass, myself, mankind, Each particle of universal dust, Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust, I swallowed, transmuted all Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being! Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation Blinding my tearful eyes, Burst into immortal flames of bliss, Consumed my tears, my frame, my all. Thou art I, I am Thou, Knowing, Knower, Known, as One! Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever new peace! Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss! Not a mental chloroform Or unconscious state without wilful return, Samadhi but extends my conscious realm Beyond the limits of the mortal frame To farthest boundary of eternity Where I, the Cosmic Sea, Watch the little ego floating in me. The sparrow, each grain of sand, fall not without my sight. All space like an iceberg floats within my mental sea. Colossal Container, I, of all things made. By deeper, longer, thirsty, guru-given meditation Comes this celestial samadhi Mobile murmurs of atoms are heard, The dark earth, mountains, vales, lo! molten liquid! Flowing seas change into vapors of nebulae! Aum blows upon the vapors, opening wondrously their veils, Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons, Till, at last sound of the cosmic drum, Vanish the grosser lights into eternal rays Of all-pervading bliss. From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt. Ocean of mind, I drink all creation's waves. Four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light, Lift aright. Myself, in everything, enters the Great Myself. Gone forever, fitful, flickering shadows of mortal memory. Spotless is my mental sky, below, ahead, and high above. Eternity and I, one united ray. A tiny bubble of laughter, I Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself. http://www.yogananda.com.au/pyr/pyr_samadhi.html I think the image you related to that of Satan was actually Lord Shiva.

Fake morality. but then again thats what we idolize. Fake outrage over words caught up in the quagmire of shit throwing until one doesnt know wether they are coming or going. he said she said until the actual platforms either one is running on are nothing but vague shadows in the ether. a nd the beat goes on....no worries. we all can go back to sleep after november and remember or forget it was all a bad dream, or in this case a play. Dance puppets dance!!!

I agree to the terms and request owner permissions. I want to start a new thread about whether Zhuang Zhou believed that we are all living in a dream. It seems in Chapter 2 he implies that.

Hi Christoff, I have too (or had) nocturnal emissions, and by trial-error I found what I told you. The problem with the nocturnal emissions is that we have too much Yang energy in the Kidney-testicles-prostate. Actually if I eat chocolate in the evening or too much during the day I know for sure I will have an erotic dream with ejaculation during the night. According to Chinese medicine chocolate is black so it has the same energy as the kidney. I found out on myself that is too Yang for me so I avoid it. On the other hand I observed that Chinese food especially tofu is very good for me so I learned to prepare myself Chinese food. The main ingredient is tofu and beans because they are Yin. Yin cools down. I do myself bone soups, I buy chicken or pig bones, boil them and use the broil. Chicken is Yang and is used when you have a Yin disease like a cold or flu, pig is Yin and is good for kidney. Beef is Yang too, I personally eat beef only in winter by making beef stew. Beef is good for joints and muscles, also a good stew is oxtail stew. Oxtail is good because it has meat and bones and marrow too. Pork liver and goji berries (wolfberries) is a traditional soup receipt for liver and eyes problems. Goji berries are good also for spermcount. The problem of nocturnal emissions is also related to the liver and gall bladder. If you have too much Yang energy in the kidney the excess energy will go to the liver which will trigger the dream and the emission. So this is why all the Chinese food is white and green and cools down kidney and liver. Tofu is white and belongs to metal, the Yang energy "melts" the metal (you can see tofu as snow or ice) and generates cool water which nourishes the kidney and liver. Anything seafood also is good but be careful, oysters and oyster sauce are Yang, clams and shrimp and scallops are Yin. I agree with Drew that full lotus is the best exercise that makes the alchemical transformations and circulates the energy in the whole body, but believe me (better not, experiment yourself and tell me what are the results), do full lotus meditation when you eat chocolate or mac donalds or whatever you like and do full lotus after you had a traditionally prepared Chinese meal. I agree with everything Drew says but how I see this conversion from sex fluid into energy into spirit for me is like the Aladdin lamp. If you put oil in the lamp, the oil will burn and make light. If the flame is too strong, the lamp explodes. You just have to keep the control of the reaction by being careful what you eat and how much "oil" you have and how big the "flame". Excess yin is when you have so much oil but you have no fire to burn. Then you need to increase the fire to burn the excess oil. Excess yang is when you have too much fire and you finished all the oil. In that case you need a refueling. Chinese cooking is very clever, usually the recipes are balanced Yin-Yang, there are substances that nourish the Yin kidney and liver and other substances that provides metabolic fire for heart-small intestine, spleen-stomach. This is how you have both, oil and flame in the same time. But western cooking provides mostly Yang substances while the Yin is exhausted from an early age. Zhan Zhuang is just a tool, is good to cool down the Hui Yin cavity (prostate area) but only if you do it on earth, grass, wherever you have contact with the static electricity of the earth. Static electricity is yin, it will nourish with cool energy the Bubbling Spring cavity (Youngquan or Kidney 1 point). Breathing is very important how you do it, usually if you breath with a certain intention you only heat up the area where is your intention. In alchemical texts breathing is used like the bellows to make the wind to increase the fire. In your case you shouldn't do that, just let the breathing normal, forget about breathing. That's why it is called embryonic breathing, because it is unconscious, like breathing of a sleeping baby. The breathing should be done through all the skin pores, let the body take or give energy to the universe how it feels good for it. I have experience with all massages techniques, pressure points, feet massage, thai massage. Massage is good to move the blood, dissolve blockages, mainly on the back massage increase the energy circulation (urinary bladder meridians are on the back) it can do good, remove the excess heat from sex but at the end of the day you still have the excess Yang energy in your body so you need to shoot it out. Drew is an exceptional case he can shoot energy through pineal gland but the vast majority in which I am included we're shooting the energy through the natural way which is a leakage, a protection mechanism for overheating. The Yang energy is more intense when full moon. Normally we should meditate all the time and sublimate the sexual energy everyday, but when is full moon the energy is stronger due to the reflected energy from the sun and also from the gravitational pulling. So when full moon energy rises up much more easily, so this is the time when we should increase the Yin gathering, or at least before this time. The meditation in full lotus should be done at midnight at the tzu hour, because then is the time when kidney black energy rises, and this is the energy that needs to be sublimated, otherwise it will go to liver and will create dreams and visions.

I understand... but experiencing an imagination does not make it real, it just means experiencing an imagination. (but it sure can appear damn real, like a dream appears real in the context of a dream but doesn't mean there is any reality, substantiality, tangibility to it) I don't tell myself. I investigate the nature of seeing and discovered it to be so. This seeing is not shakeable even if Buddha or Thusness were to tell me I'm wrong.

I would like to do a second post on Yogananda's autobigraphy: From Preface: The value of Yogananda’s Autobiography is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is one of the few books in English about the wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist or foreigner, but by one of their own race and training—in short, a book about yogis by a yogi. From Chapter: 12 Years in My Master's Hermitage: “All creation is governed by law,” Sri Yukteswar concluded. “The ones which manifest in the outer universe, discoverable by scientists, are called natural laws. But there are subtler laws ruling the realms of consciousness which can be known only through the inner science of yoga. The hidden spiritual planes also have their natural and lawful principles of operation. It is not the physical scientist but the fully self-realized master who comprehends the true nature of matter. Thus Christ was able to restore the servant’s ear after it had been severed by one of the disciples.” 11 Drifting_Throught_Infinity (and everyone else), what is found in Chapter: 14 An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness is super consciousness described? (I pasted the part I chose to paste from the chapter, but read the whole chapter). Sri Yukteswar struck gently on Yoganada's chest to open him up to the, can we call it,"super consciousness"?: Sri Yukteswar seldom indulged in riddles; I was bewildered. He struck gently on my chest above the heart. My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage, and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from my every pore. The flesh was as though dead, yet in my intense awareness I knew that never before had I been fully alive. My sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body, but embraced the circumambient atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my own remote periphery. The roots of plants and trees appeared through a dim transparency of the soil; I discerned the inward flow of their sap. The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive. Through the back of my head I saw men strolling far down Rai Ghat Road, and noticed also a white cow who was leisurely approaching. When she reached the space in front of the open ashram gate, I observed her with my two physical eyes. As she passed by, behind the brick wall, I saw her clearly still. All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like quick motion pictures. My body, Master’s, the pillared courtyard, the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; even as sugar crystals, thrown into a glass of water, dissolve after being shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations of form, the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect in creation. An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being. The sharply etched global outlines faded somewhat at the farthest edges; there I could see a mellow radiance, ever-undiminished. It was indescribably subtle; the planetary pictures were formed of a grosser light. The divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame. By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds passed into diaphanous luster; fire became firmament. I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus to every part of the universal structure. Blissful amrita, the nectar of immortality, pulsed through me with a quicksilverlike fluidity. The creative voice of God I heard resounding as Aum,1 the vibration of the Cosmic Motor. Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in a narrow microcosm. My guru was standing motionless before me; I started to drop at his holy feet in gratitude for the experience in cosmic consciousness which I had long passionately sought. He held me upright, and spoke calmly, unpretentiously. “You must not get overdrunk with ecstasy. Much work yet remains for you in the world. Come; let us sweep the balcony floor; then we shall walk by the Ganges.” I fetched a broom; Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses, while the body performs its daily duties. When we set out later for a stroll, I was still entranced in unspeakable rapture. I saw our bodies as two astral pictures, moving over a road by the river whose essence was sheer light. “It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena,” 2 Master explained. “Saints who realize their divinity even while in the flesh know a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously engaging in earthly work, they yet remain immersed in an inward beatitude. The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of His being. Though they are painfully cramped by the body, God nevertheless expects that souls made in His image shall ultimately rise above all sense identifications and reunite with Him.” The cosmic vision left many permanent lessons. By daily stilling my thoughts, I could win release from the delusive conviction that my body was a mass of flesh and bones, traversing the hard soil of matter. The breath and the restless mind, I saw, were like storms which lashed the ocean of light into waves of material forms—earth, sky, human beings, animals, birds, trees. No perception of the Infinite as One Light could be had except by calming those storms. As often as I silenced the two natural tumults, I beheld the multitudinous waves of creation melt into one lucent sea, even as the waves of the ocean, their tempests subsiding, serenely dissolve into unity. A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. The experience can never be given through one’s mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness. Only adequate enlargement by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare the mind to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence. It comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an irresistible force. The Lord, as the Cosmic Vision, is drawn by the seeker’s magnetic ardor into his range of consciousness. I wrote, in my later years, the following poem, “Samadhi,” endeavoring to convey the glory of its cosmic state: Vanished the veils of light and shade, Lifted every vapor of sorrow, Sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy, Gone the dim sensory mirage. Love, hate, health, disease, life, death, Perished these false shadows on the screen of duality. Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, melancholic whirlpools, Melting in the vast sea of bliss. The storm of maya stilled By magic wand of intuition deep. The universe, forgotten dream, subconsciously lurks, Ready to invade my newly-wakened memory divine. I live without the cosmic shadow, But it is not, bereft of me; As the sea exists without the waves, But they breathe not without the sea. Dreams, wakings, states of deep turia sleep, Present, past, future, no more for me, But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere. Planets, stars, stardust, earth, Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms, Creation’s molding furnace, Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods, Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come, Every blade of grass, myself, mankind, Each particle of universal dust, Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust, I swallowed, transmuted all Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being! Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation Blinding my tearful eyes, Burst into immortal flames of bliss, Consumed my tears, my frame, my all. Thou art I, I am Thou, Knowing, Knower, Known, as One! Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever-new peace! Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss! Not an unconscious state Or mental chloroform without wilful return, Samadhi but extends my conscious realm Beyond limits of the mortal frame To farthest boundary of eternity Where I, the Cosmic Sea, Watch the little ego floating in Me. The sparrow, each grain of sand, fall not without My sight. All space floats like an iceberg in My mental sea. Colossal Container, I, of all things made. By deeper, longer, thirsty, guru-given meditation Comes this celestial samadhi. Mobile murmurs of atoms are heard, The dark earth, mountains, vales, lo! molten liquid! Flowing seas change into vapors of nebulae! Aum blows upon vapors, opening wondrously their veils, Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons, Till, at last sound of the cosmic drum, Vanish the grosser lights into eternal rays Of all-pervading bliss. From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt. Ocean of mind, I drink all creation’s waves. Four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light, Lift aright. Myself, in everything, enters the Great Myself. Gone forever, fitful, flickering shadows of mortal memory. Spotless is my mental sky, below, ahead, and high above. Eternity and I, one united ray. A tiny bubble of laughter, I Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself. Sri Yukteswar taught me how to summon the blessed experience at will, and also how to transmit it to others if their intuitive channels were developed. For months I entered the ecstatic union, comprehending why the Upanishads say God is rasa, “the most relishable.” samsarictravelling

Good piece courtesy of ZH and it says it all really (exactly what people in the UK felt during the Brexit referendum). Even now we are receiving platitudes from our new PM about ' reporting the number of immigrants working in companies' and creating a shame list WTF ! Brexit wasn't about immigration, it was about the growing disparity between one group and another after promises that things would get better, they got and are getting significantly worse. Listened To A Trump Supporter... Now I Understand" Tyler Durden's picture by Tyler Durden Oct 6, 2016 9:14 AM 75 SHARES TwitterFacebookReddit Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Bltizkrieg blog, The following article by David A Hill Jr is simply outstanding. Here are some powerful excerpts from the piece: I Listened to a Trump Supporter I talked at length with a Trump supporter I grew up around. I wanted to understand. I respected her growing up. I wanted to know why a person as kind and compassionate as I remember her is voting for someone like Donald Trump. She was a family friend, a good person. In rural Ohio, everything was tight. Money, jobs. If you really needed quick cash, she’d put you to work doing landscaping. She’d pay fairly and reliably for the area. She’s voting for Donald Trump. I disagree with her choice, but I understand why she rejects Clinton so fiercely, and why she’s been swept up in Donald Trump’s particular brand of right-wing populism. I feel that on the left, it’s increasingly easy to ignore these people, to disregard them, to write them off as racists, bigots, or uneducated. I think that’s a loss for everyone involved, and that sometimes listening can help you to at least understand why a person is making the choices they make, so you can work on the root causes. For her, the root cause isn’t racism. In fact, I remember her as one of the only people in the area who proudly hired black workers, in a place where that was a huge issue. She fought over that choice. But that’s enough background. Let me relay a bit of what she told me. She’s a person who built her business from the ground up. She wasn’t rich, but was very comfortable for the area. She had a nice house, a nice car, and was stable. She achieved the American dream of not having to struggle. Things changed during the housing crisis. A landscaping business requires customers who need landscaping, and people who don’t own homes just don’t need landscaping. In some of these neighborhoods, one in five people lost their homes. That almost immediately turns a successful landscaping business into a struggling one. Then there was a domino effect. She couldn’t pay for her lawn-care equipment leases and loans. That hurt her work efficiency. Then, she lost her car. But that didn’t stop the payments. Then, she lost her house. She slowly had to let go all of her employees, until it was just her, hand-mowing lawns for cash the way you might expect a high school student in the summertime. She told me that every week, it seemed there was another default letter, another foreclosure, another bank demanding more blood from her dry veins. To her, that pile of default notices and demands for payment looked suspiciously similar to Hillary Clinton’s top donor list. She lost everything she worked so hard for. Obama swore he was going to help. The Wall Street bailout did seem to help Wall Street. But it did absolutely nothing for her. She turns on the news and sees how the Dow Jones is doing better than ever. But that didn’t bring her house and livelihood back. Liberals insist that Obama’s made her life better. But, now she’s driving a car that falls apart randomly while having to pay those same banks for a car she doesn’t own and never will. It’s difficult to convince someone whose life is objectively worse that their life is better. And it’s disingenuous to try. You can break down the specifics, sure. But when someone’s hungry, and you’re busy silencing their complaints by telling them how well world hunger is improving, you’re just going to upset them. This is not a person who is stupid or racist. She knows Bush caused the economy collapse with his irresponsible tax policies and wars. But she saw liberals as fighting for the banks’ recovery, to hell with her needs. She sees in Hillary someone who celebrates that approach. Who measures US success by the success of multinational mega corporations?—?corporations who undercut and destroy local businesses. This is a person who grew up in a town with a friendly neighborhood general store, a locally-owned hardware store, farmers’ markets, florists, and auto shops. All of these businesses closed when Walmart moved into town. All their owners now work at that Walmart for a fraction of their previous wages, no benefits, and no hope for something better, something of their own. And now, she sees a free trade supporting former Walmart executive about to come in to office, and it feels like salt in her community’s wounds. This is a wounded person. Insulting her or continuing to hurt her isn’t going to help. She’s swept up in Trump’s message because she feels someone’s finally listening. Right-wing populism is an awful thing. But desperate people with their backs against the wall will grasp on to whatever they feel will bring a change. Neoliberal capitalism is not sustainable for these people. Over the past few years, she tried getting back in her business. But a corporation moved in and is operating far cheaper, using undocumented immigrant labor. I should note: She specifically said she doesn’t hold it against the migrant workers. As she said, “They’ve got to take whatever jobs they can get. Just like we do. It’s not their fault. They didn’t choose to make prices so low that legal businesses couldn’t compete.” She was literally a “job creator”. And she wasbeing priced out by the very people Donald Trump insists are pricing her out. That hurts everyone, and it adds an air of authenticity to what he says. I asked her if she supports Trump’s Mexico wall. She told me, “It doesn’t matter if I do. Hillary wants a wall, too. That wall’s gonna happen.” She wasn’t simply making this up. She’s heard this from many sources, Clinton being one of them. So to her, the idea of a border wall is a non-issue. I pressed her on the issue, and she said she thinks, “It’s a waste of money. If someone wants to cross the border, they’re gonna cross the border.”… A few times, she seemed ashamed of things Trump’s said or done. I’d ask her to unpack her feelings. She said he sometimes upsets her, but “If you wait and wait for a flawless candidate, you’ll never find one.” She said she’d be much prouder to vote for Trump if he’d tone down his rhetoric. This fits into my strongly held belief that people are looking for an excuse to vote for Trump. All he has to do to win is tone down some of his more heinous and idiotic tendencies. I talked to her a bit about Bernie Sanders, to see what she thought of him. She told me, “He seemed like a nice enough guy. But I didn’t pay him much mind because there was no way he was gonna beat Clinton.” I talked with her about his platform, his policy proposals. She lit up. She told me, “It’s a real shame he didn’t make it.” She told me that if she knew him, his record, and his proposals, she’d have voted for him. I said that since the primary concluded, Hillary’s shifted some to adopt policies similar to his, and I asked if that changed her mind. She told me, “It doesn’t matter what she says. It matters what she’s done.” No amount of insulting her from an ivory tower is going to change her mind. No amount of guffawing about her lack of education, her self-deception, her racism, or her internalized misogyny is going to change her mind. The only thing she’ll listen to is a promise of real change to the system that’s hurt her. If the Democratic Party can’t offer her a viable alternative, we’re going to see another neck-and-neck election in 2020, and in 2024, and in 2028. These people need a populist answer. They need someone willing to listen to their very real concerns, and offer solutions that don’t look like Band-Aids on bullet wounds. If they had that on the left, we wouldn’t even be discussing Ohio as a “swing state”. Right now, this is the discourse we’re seeing about Trump supporters. This only emboldens those attitudes. To people like her, this feels like the left is laughing at her for her unwillingness to get in line and support the things that have left her broke and broken. The above excerpts are not the entire piece. You should read the whole thing: I Listened to a Trump Supporter. The more deeply I think about this election, the more I agree that the above sentiments motivate Trump voters far more than feelings of racism or hate. As I noted in a piece published a few weeks ago, The Status Quo vs. Donald Trump: This isn’t about me. This is about the American voter, and the more time passes, the more I understand the motivations of the vast majority of Trump supporters. It isn’t xenophobia or racism, it’s a vote against the status quo and the way they’ve strip mined and destroyed this country. It’s a FU vote and a major gamble, but it’s not as irrational or hateful as you might think. This doesn’t mean that Trump won’t betray his supporters and prove to be the Republican version of Barack Obama, but it does mean that the dominant media narrative characterizing Trump supporters as a bunch of racist, uneducated brutes is pretty much just dishonest, elitist propaganda.

Oops this is spam: Yeah I experimented with salvia as part of my http://breakingopenthehead.com posting. Drugs are electrochemical. So when I smoke salvia I would have say 6 internal climaxes. I really opened up the body channels. The experiment of course was Salvia while on 3rd Eye full-lotus -- who's going to win. So first I chewed. Then I smoked. Then I smoked 10 x standardized. My friends had done every other kind of drug and 10x scared them to death. One hit and that was it -- their spirit flew out of their body! So I'm curious. The Salvia is TRYING to pull my spirit out of my body and it's half way out of my body while I'm in full-lotus. I'm laughing at the 10x. So I then do 17x. The person I buy it from says he smokes 60x. He shows me the gram. He says he just does one hit maybe once a month. Strong stuff. I smoked about 10 hits of the 17 x the first night. I blacked out several times but since I was in full-lotus I would come to while still upright. At first I was completely disoriented - the whole world was a dream, including my life -- all totally unreal. Then the second night I tried less strong hits -- just had tons of internal climaxes, slowly building up the energy. Finally I black out but when I come to I'm not disoriented and I find myself saying: "Finally I've opened my third eye!" Feeling stupid I proceed to check this truth. I hold my palms in front of my face -- I have a black wool hat covering my eyes which are closed in a pitch black room. Nevertheless I can see rainbows around my hands! It was awesome and after every salvia hit -- once I started blacking out -- I kept a journal. I was totally cognizant of this experience. Anyway I tried to replicate it but just kept blacking out with nothing happening -- more internal climaxes while in full-lotus. I go to sleep and have this amazing dream about this art work that was in my breakfast room as a kid. I've NEVER acknowledged this artwork consciously -- I would just stare at it as a kid. This was the first time I consciously thought of it -- it was psychedelic stitch work from the KUNA people of Panama. I posted the link at http://breakingopenthehead.com. Anyway the KUNA smoke pot as their sacred herb and they also drink nonsweetened chocolate every night -- like 3 glasses -- this cures them of all heart disease, stroke, etc. Well I finished off that gram of 17x on the third night -- just more internal climaxes and black outs. I did more research. Blackouts is the highest salvia level -- level 6. There's no going past it. This dude that runs a salvia website tried DMT while on Salvia. He sees "elves" while on DMT and also elves while on Salvia -- only when he did them together the SALVIA elves took over the DMT elves. The Salvia elves were stronger so that the DMT elves had their body parts changed and their clothing changed. Anyway this makes sense as the scientists state salvia is the strongest psychotropic gram per gram yet it doesn't work via the same DMT process. Scientists think it's more like THC -- a carbon-based high. So maybe my dream of the THC-induced art work -- MOLA artwork makes sense! This is the first time I thought of this connection. haha. http://www.galenfrysinger.com/mola_panama.htm In contrast HARMONICS creates electromagnetic fields more than electrochemical fields. Tai Chi makes electromagnetic fields while full-lotus qigong takes those electromagnetic fields and uses them for SHEN or light-spirit travel through the top of the head. The top of the head literally gets soft -- just like a baby's -- and literally opens up. Also you can "breathe" through your palms and the center of your feet -- it's an ionization breathing. Also water is created in your third eye through a reverse electrolysis process -- called the "ambrosia." This is all described in TAOIST YOGA - it's called "immortal breathing." -- around chapter 10. I achieved this for a few days. It's very wild stuff.

I just wanted to chime in that my dream practice is now feeling even more the distinct effects of Flying Phoenix (more can be seen of my overall practice in my personal practice journals). Extracted here: "I then dreamt of Master JR and his ex-wife, and he told me we had to train in a dungeon-like room in his castle. The world was black and white, and his ex-wife took his son while he took his daughter. Eventually, I flew around the castle in a panoramic manner, and looked up to see a larger version of myself doing Flying Phoenix's first seated meditation (5% 60% 80% 40% 30%), and every time the palms turned inwards and outwards, a flash of blue tinted the world." I had indeed been doing that meditation just before sleeping, and even as I am already practicing volumes one and two and just learned Wind Through The Tree Tops, that particular seated basic meditation still resonates with me very strongly for some reason. It was almost eerie to see a larger version of myself dreaming like the Red King of Alice in Wonderland and The Looking Glass, doing form and looking translucent, bringing color to the world, even if only the blue flame of Flying Phoenix.

From Buddhist point of view, lucid dream is far from Enlightenment . From Taoist point of view, even Enlightenment is only half of the job , the spiritual part, you complete; the highest Taoist achievement is to qi-lize your whole physical body , and then consolidate ( materialize ) it at whatever places you like ( ie , teleportation ) , not just in one place, but in many places simultaneously ; you can get many splits of yourself appearing in many locations and doing many things at the same time... Besides, Taoist or Buddhist way is totally different from the scientific one..

I'm not sure why you compare realization with making a decision... if you take it as analogy, maybe there is some similarities (but I can't think of any at the moment) but actually realization has nothing to do with decision making because it is a non-inferred realization of the fact or nature things has always been. Decision is conceptual and inferred - you analyze this and this, and then finally you come to an inferred conclusion of things... like Madhyamaka reasonings. This is very different from realization. So of course it is going to be very different. An intellectual understanding of no-self for example, will not allow you to have NDNCDIMOP - the actual experience of it... but direct experiential realization will make NDNCDIMOP effortless because it burns away the framework you use to view reality and make NDNCDIMOP the natural state. In other words an intellectual understanding of no-self for example will not change your latent view and tendencies and your sense of self will still keep arising as a result of that latent tendencies. Intellectual understanding therefore is not very helpful in itself, except if ou yhave the right practice and contemplation and truly see things for yourself, then with the backing of intellectual understanding it is easier to realize. As an example I have said earlier, you may think "everything is impermanent" sounds very reasonable - everyone does, but it is very different from doing vipassana and truly seeing it is the case. Other people may realize luminosity, which isn't denied. But if they reify luminosity as inherent due to dualistic and inherent framework, thats false. Because the truth is the twofold emptiness. Direct experience of luminosity is not the same as realization of twofold emptiness, and it is only when one has realized anatta and shunyata and not just the luminosity aspect, that one can be considered awakened as an arya in Buddhism. Direct experience of luminosity is most often falsely reified due to delusional framework. You see, you can have any number of realization or direct experience, and still not wake up. Just like you can experience the most amazing thing in the dream and still be deluded in the dream. As long as the deluded framework is in effect, no matter what you experience or realized, will be interpreted through the deluded framework... you are not awake. You have not discovered ultimate truth. Whatever you can realize before waking up are relative truths, not ultimate truth. A realization happens in one moment, but in that moment of seeing a truth, that truth cannot be unseen anymore. For example once you realize in one moment that santa claus is fake, you can never believe in it anymore. Explained above No, no labels are needed, it is a non-conceptual realization about a fact... the nature has always been so. It is a truth about illusoriness, not a non-illusory truth. To realize this however is to be free from delusion (not illusion). The effect is permanent, the waking up is permanent. It is not that there is an unchanging thing which would contradict emptiness (it is a changing eternal as Archaya Mahayogi Shridhar Rinpoche says, or as I say perpetual), but from that moment on, all moments of cognition is correct undeluded cognition - if not all then at least most or much of the time. Actually as I said there can still be residual latent tendencies - but most of it are gone, like for example pouring away the jug may leave a little bit of remnant smell, but the whole lot of the contents are gone, the remnant smell is an analogy for the latent tendencies that can at certain point cause subtle contractions or afflictions and stuff like that. Nonetheless NDNCDIMOP has already become effortless and not really hindered by the remnants.

Yes, but you also agreed that realization is an experience. Perhaps you are thinking of how wrong it is to equate mundane experience with realization. But realization is an experience after all, it happens to you doesn't it, just like any other moment of experience. I mean if it doesn't then you didn't experience it. So what makes this moment of realization any special? That it is about your observations of other moments, their so called nature? But then now we have a moment in which two elements are contained, wherein one moment, other moments are considered. But more importantly we have a reflective moment, both of which are contained in the same medium. If they weren't there would be no way to compare two or more things (an example of this is comparing sizes of apples. You either have to see both in one frame of vision, or remember both in a linked conscious stream, i.e. they must be contained in some unifying element) But you deny the duality of such things, no unifying element underlying moments. So what exactly is you idea of the experience of realization? You forgot a few more entries in that definition of the meaning of substantial. From M-W dictionary. a : consisting of or relating to substance b : not imaginary or illusory : real, true c : important, essential 2 : ample to satisfy and nourish : full <a substantial meal> 3 a : possessed of means : well-to-do b : considerable in quantity : significantly great <earned a substantial wage> When we say something is substantial we usually do not think of a core, but its effects. And this is also how we define "real." A waking state's experience is real and the dream experience is unreal simply because we usually experience the waking state more consistently and more viscerally, the waking experience has more substantial consequences. A dream state, if it began to impose on our waking state (let's say the same monster reoccurs every night to scare the person to wake up at consistently the same hour) it will also be seen as "real." Reality doesn't have to do with searching for something's inner core, but rather its degree of influence in our day to day lives. So imo, you have simply given a very strong conviction and substantiality to the "idea of non-substantiality" which to me merely seem self deceptive and uninsightful. You have basically chosen to give a particular observation of life combined with an experience of life in that way, and given it an ultimatum.

As "Taoist Yoga" states there's one kind of dream that is not a dream but is real and that's the nocturnal emission. You can do full lotus at the computer. I'm in it right now. haha. Chunyi Lin did his first two hour full lotus session while watching a martial arts movie. It's not necessary to do full lotus while "meditating" but, of course, keeping the eyes closed to focus the energy and doing mind yoga helps a lot. At your age if you can do two hours full lotus non-stop then you should be able to sleep less and again you're not really sleeping if you're having nocturnal emissions as those are not really dreams. haha. Or conversely being awake is another type of sleep walking when we don't control the subconscious mental energies. So that's why I sit in full lotus during the day even when I am not meditating -- we are constantly bombarded with lower emotional "attacks" so to speak by outside influences. Again diet is a big factor - so I recommend switching to a vegetarian diet. Ramana Maharshi insists that a vegetarian diet is a minimum for true meditation - when the body is weak then the mind is strong. it's easier to open up the chi channels when you can successfully convert the jing energy. Eating meat just creates sex fluid and if you can't burn it off then it's just a waste of energy. Unless you want to make lots of babies. haha. So to be an energy master the minimum is two hours of full lotus non-stop a day. Make time for it and the extra energy you get will mean less time doing other things -- less time needing to eat food, less time on the toilet, less time needing to work for food, less time needing sleep. Etc. Was that 15 minutes of full lotus to type this message? haha. Hilarious. 15 minutes of full lotus is nothing.

The tree energy? Cool! Yesterday I had this strange urge to hug this old oak tree. I had just been burning wood to make charcoal and as I cut up different wood - maple, buckthorn, etc. I had this new respect for the power of the tree. Previously I had seen a rainbow aura and had a dream about this white bear about two old oak trees in my yard from when I was a kid. After the white bear dream I went to check on the old oak tree and it had just been cut down!! The white bear is a symbol of death/transition. Yeah then i realized those old oak trees were watching over me when I was a kid. haha. So when I was hugging the tree with my arms -- barely touch on the other side -- then I had great respect for how strong this tree was compared to what I had just burned -- how much energy was in it. It just felt good to hug it. Wow too bad googletranslate doesn't give a readable translation:

Cool dream. You might want to check out Fuxi for info on retention and masturbation. There is a lot of good info there. Best of luck to you.

I am off this thread for the time being. The childish remarks are rather telling in regards as to the personality makeup of several incessantly posting here. It is no surprise that when the bait is tossed, the fish bite. The big lie which is larger than life always appears appealing and is so easily assimilated by the vulnerable masses. The incremental lies and half truths are the most insidious. Dream on.

My father used to say, "You can dream about this in your right hand or shit in your left hand and see which fills up faster." It pissed me off when he said it, I mean really that analogy is just vulgar and meant to shock people. I actually started to tune out what you said after that, but decided to put my own feelings about that phrase and people that use it aside and examine the rest. I guess if you follow the bandwagon and believe everything that you've been told is true and infallible, then yeah, no point. Of course you could think for yourself and examine it anyways and figure out if it's a waste of time, then say, yeah it's a waste of time. Now to put it bluntly, you're following the flock, the sheep dog has nipped you on the butt and told you where you can roam. That green valley over there, you can't go there, that's not where the sheep dog wants you to go. So do you keep fearing the sheep dog and stay with the flock or do you one day wake up to the fact that you're just doing what the other sheep are doing and what every sheep that has come before you has done, and simply sneak off in the dark and make a life for yourself? Of course some wolves might get you, or you might wander into a desert, but hey that's the price to pay for freedom. At least that's how I see it, so please, don't feel the need to tell me what I can and can't answer, what I can and can't dream about, it's not your business to tell me, nor was it my fathers. The wise have only told you what they've experienced, not everything that can be experienced. Lao Tzu didn't know about nuclear fission, does that mean I shouldn't believe it exists? Jeesh, when are we going to move into the 21st century? This is like the Christians that still believe that wafer is the body of Christ and wine the blood of Christ. Science can disprove that and I think in the end it will disprove that your mystery is all that ineffable. Aaron

It's not often I disagree with you Taoist Text, but this is one of those times. IMO he is talking only about the difference between physical reality and a dream. And this association can be taken directly into physical reality in that we oftentimes do not know the difference between the truth of reality and our illusions and delusions of what reality is. The "transformation of things" speaks to the concepts of birth/death, creation/destruction, etc.

At least you should look into the available evidence. There is an essay by a fanatical communist that asked the question 'when did you know ?' . It asks the question of his Western intellectual colleagues about their blindness to the situation in Soviet Russia. A lot of intellectuals were wined and dined by the soviets, shown happy children, hospitals, housing projects, schools etc and came back to their countries expounding the benefits of socialism. At one time it was thought inevitable that Russia would overtake the West through the success of communist principles. When the Soviet Union began to collapse-and it would have collapsed a lot earlier if the USA/Europe had refused to trade with it-then these intellectuals went very quiet. They refused to comment on the collapse and their previous enthusiasm for socialism-they wrote many persuasive articles (paid for with soviet rumbles) which found their way into all the major media papers and magazines of the day. The essay I refer to was intended as an admission of ignorance by the author, he decided to stand up and admit he had been badly wrong and to prompt his colleagues to join the condemnation of such a barbaric system. The terrible death toll in Russia alone, thoroughly outstripped any numbers from Nazi concentration camps. Unfortunately, though we accept that fascism is evil because of that butchery and genocide, the terror of Soviet concentration camps and mass murder has been largely forgotten because the Russians are seen as the good guys who helped stem the evil Nazi tide. Socialism should be related to murderous genocide and terrible barbarism in exactly the same way as the Nazi's, but instead, fools go around sporting Lenin/Che tee shirts as if it's cool. Yet these people would not dream of wearing a Hitler tee shirt despite the similarities. If you have 20 minutes to read Eugene Genovese's essay 'the question' I think it might begin some more considered thinking on the issue. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1353953160genovesethequestion.pdf

Here, by 'the transformation of things' ZZ means death and rebirth in a new incarnation. For the purposes of this parable ZZ remembers and recounts his dreaming of being a butterfly, but normally, an ordinary man does not remember his previous dream-life ( "He didn't know that he was Chou".). This sentence "He did not know whether he was Chou who had dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was Chou. " Should read "When he was a butterfly he did not know he was Chou; and when he was Chou he did not know he was a a butterfly" Therefore this parable, as are many others in ZZ, is an argument in favor of reincarnation, undergoing which a man forgets his previous life.