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Parse the difference between unconsciousness and evasive conceptual thought. The mind that is aware there is no thoughts-is conceptualising 'no thoughts'. If one is unconscious then there are no conceptual thoughts. I learned this early on during meditation, that to see a blank screen, is to conceive and be conscious of a blank screen. This is how the witness arises, how to see our thoughts, to see we are never without them until we stop thinking and we only do that when we are unconscious-sleeping. Even then we have dream states and low level thoughts which we can access if that's our wish. I can sit for five minutes knowing that to think the mind is still is to be in error. When the mind is still, it is unconscious.

I'm not :-) I'm a man. A God is omniscient and omnipotent, a God can learn nothing, a God needs nothing, a God creates nothing, a God loves nothing. A God is limited, it has reached its limits due to its indestructible, all knowing nature. A man has no limits as yet defined. A mans consciousness is capable of growth beyond that of any God, it his position as man that gives him wings that Gods could never dream of.

Section E A (master) mechanic, called Shi, on his way to Qi, came to Qu-yuan, where he saw an oak-tree, which was used as the altar for the spirits of the land. It was so large that an ox standing behind it could not be seen. It measured a hundred spans round, and rose up eighty cubits on the hill before it threw out any branches, after which there were ten or so, from each of which a boat could be hollowed out. People came to see it in crowds as in a market place, but the mechanic did not look round at it, but held on his way without stopping. One of his workmen, however, looked long and admiringly at it, and then ran on to his master, and said to him, 'Since I followed you with my axe and bill, I have never seen such a beautiful mass of timber as this. Why would you, Sir, not look round at it, but went on without stopping?' 'Have done,' said Mr. Shi, 'and do not speak about it. It is quite useless. A boat made from its wood would sink; a coffin or shell would quickly rot; an article of furniture would soon go to pieces; a door would be covered with the exuding sap; a pillar would be riddled by insects; the material of it is good for nothing, and hence it is that it has attained to so great an age.' When Mr. Shi was returning, the altar-oak appeared to him in a dream, and said, 'What other tree will you compare with me? Will you compare me to one of your ornamental trees? There are hawthorns, pear-trees, orange-trees, pummelo-trees, gourds and other low fruit-bearing plants. When their fruits are ripe, they are knocked down from them, and thrown among the dirt. The large branches are broken, and the smaller are torn away. So it is that their productive ability makes their lives bitter to them; they do not complete their natural term of existence, but come to a premature end in the middle of their time, bringing on themselves the destructive treatment which they ordinarily receive. It is so with all things. I have sought to discover how it was that I was so useless; I had long done so, till (the effort) nearly caused my death; and now I have learned it - it has been of the greatest use to me. Suppose that I had possessed useful properties, should I have become of the great size that I am? And moreover you and I are both things - how should one thing thus pass its judgment on another? how is it that you a useless man know all this about me a useless tree?' When Mr. Shih awoke, he kept thinking about his dream, but the workman said, 'Being so taken with its uselessness, how is it that it yet acts here as the altar for the spirits of the land?' 'Be still,' was the master's reply, 'and do not say a word. It simply happened to grow here; and thus those who do not know it do not speak ill of it as an evil thing. If it were not used as the altar, would it be in danger of being cut down? Moreover, the reason of its being preserved is different from that of the preservation of things generally; is not your explaining it from the sentiment which you have expressed wide of the mark?'

Yeah, Dream Yoga is amazing. The Sample session at the website is pretty much work, but if you make your way through it I am certain you will be surprised. I totally kicked on it the first time, it was like my soul talking to me and I almost cried. But Im a man, so, ehrem, I didnt Dream Yoga is just amazing. It takes dreamwork to a whole new level. The creator of Dream Yoga lives in Phoenix, Arizona, so maby some of you TTBs have bumped into him without knowing it?

Hello Joeblast, I'm done. You're about as hardheaded as anyone I've met. No we are not agreeing on more than we're disagreeing, although it was kind of you to try to bring this discussion to a close. The fact of the matter is that capitalism doesn't work unless money is projected upwards, if it moved downwards it would require that it be shared with those who may not be deemed to have any fair share in that wealth. The problem is that, no matter how many times you're given an explanation for why capitalism doesn't work, or is broken in America, you seem to miss the entire point. Encephalon gave an excellent and detailed explanation, as did Ralis, and numerous others, but you ignore them, even when they make sense. You're so caught up in your conservative brainwashing, that you can't look past what you've been taught is true and even begin to examine whether or not what other people are telling you is true. You just assume since you haven't heard it from Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'reilly then it can't be true. Here's the problem with capitalism, it's based on the simple idea that some must not have enough, in order for others to have as much as they want. If everyone was able to achieve or have as much as they desired, capitalism wouldn't work, simply because it is an economy based on the ego, in other words it's based on the notion that one can compete and succeed where other's fail, and through that success show others their greatness, and their success with the American Dream. If there was no one to fail, then the American Dream would hold no value, because everyone could achieve it, and then where is the fun in that? So the ills of capitalism are indeed, as Encephalon pointed out, greed, anger, and delusion, and I think he's right, there needed to be these three poisons in the beginning in order for someone to believe that capitalism was a worthwhile system, but even after that these three poisons needed to continue to be present in order for people to experience capitalism and still consider it a good and fair economical system. I can also pinpoint how these three poisons are effecting your own judgement. First one could say you're delusional simply because you're incapable of understanding why there is virtue in being kind and compassionate to someone you don't respect. Second, you obviously place a monetary value on human life, which is shown in your desires to cut social services that help prevent death and suffering, which seems to me to be an example of greed, the desire to hoard one's wealth, despite the fact that others may need it. Third your constant attacks on those who express views that are opposite of your own are indicative of anger and hate, which are necessary to keep the capitalist economy alive. If one does not have an enemy or something to distract the people, then there is a chance people will begin to see the failures in the system and try to change them, of course in those situations you can easily rectify this by making those people the new enemies. Anyways, when I read your responses regarding most of this I also understand much of it has to do with your personality. You honestly believe much of what you express and because you value logic so much, you are incapable of intuitively understanding the need for compassion. Without being able to tap into that reservoir that resides within us, on a deeper level, then it is very difficult to actually understand that what we believe is actually wrong. In fact it would almost take a complete restructuring of your belief system in order for you to actually understand what I am getting at here. I'm not saying this to mock you, by the way, but rather to let you know that this argument is pointless, because I (honestly) can't see the value in what you're saying and you can't see the value in what I'm saying, so continuing to argue the point has no value either. Of course there is a chance that you might end up suffering at the hands of capitalism to an extent that you finally see something wrong in it, but then again I know people who are struggling to make ends meet that are completely bewitched by the Fox News conservative media spin as well, so perhaps that wont happen either. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't really dislike you, I just feel very sorry for you, because I can't see how much joy one can generate when it is dependent on the suffering of others. The negative cycle seems to reinforce negativity, and any happiness that is generated must feel very hollow to the extreme. Aaron

Great stuff. In my opinion it doesn't matter whether it was "really" Max or your psyche/shen manifesting knowledge in a form that symbolizes wisdom to you. The dream helped communicate something to your conscious mind and your cultivation benefited from it. Cool site. I will explore it more in depth when I can make some time. I have the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep on my shelf waiting to be read as well. Veecee, that dream means you are a terrible mother! Teasing of course . I would guess it has something to do with a fear of losing your daughter. If you wanted to delve into the collective unconscious (does anyone know if there is a taoist equivalent?), it's a little bit like the myth of Persephone: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/persephone.html

That's just a conspiracy theory. The MSN are investigative journalists of the highest calibre, individually verifying every claim, of story, that wouldn't dream of simply taking a democratic press release and cut/paste it into their top news slots. It's that alt media that gets it all wrong, that's why they are all slightly out of synch. If they were real news people they would have come to exactly the same conclusions as the MSN, using almost exactly the same words and phrases. Hillary will 'power through' of course she will, the press no precisely how I'll she is-even if they managed not to report it, the little people don't need to know anyway. They need to get behind Hillary and stop rumouring.

Not how we perceive (view) but how we interpret (conceptualise) what we perceive. A dog has no name for a tree, to a dog it just is and it only is once he comes upon it. A dog may dream about a tree, but not in the abstract sense, only as a memory of some familiar object. It cannot abstract 'trees' or 'forests' or the number of species of tree, nor how trees grow, or die, nor can it add other species to creat the abstract 'plant life' or consider a science like botany. The stick in the clear tumbler of water looks like any other stick like object to a dog, it doesn't consider the diffraction to be a significant detail. One human might conceive the stick as physically bent, another may argue the stick cannot really be bent by the water. Both see the stick as bent, but each may have a different interpretation of the phenomenon depending on exposure to other knowledge. One may consider it is magic, or that the water pressure bends the stick, the other has knowledge of diffraction.

And that is why Chuang Tzu never answered his own question regarding his butterfly dream. Both were real to him. However, if he had asked anyone who was in the house while he was dreaming if he ever mutated into a butterfly I am sure they all would have said "No." Yes, our background knowledge and beliefs greatly determine how we understand things that happen to us. Your example above regarding meditating and the feelings and understandings we get from our experiences is a perfect example. But they really aren't different worlds. It is a difference in perspectives - a difference as to how we view the world - the universe.

There is an aspect that I feel to be sadly lacking in this discussion. With any rules, there comes the need to enforce them. In this context, this means that people's private chat conversations are being read by staff because somebody "felt some energy" or had some dream. Is what is to be gained worth the diminished privacy and confidentiality? If so, then I wonder what has happened to the spirit of Lao-Tzu this forum was breathing once.

Well, first, please don't argue between each others with something that is not directly related to the main subject. Thanks Secondly, i m talking about something deeper and something that demand a little bit of thinking and contemplation of the idea,. Because whatever you say is actually relative to you and to what you actually read and believe in as the truth and that is not the point of the thread. in other words, you have to get out of your own beliefs and doubt them for few minutes and contemplate with an open mind to all the vast possibilities. I've done this today and thoughts came into my mind, that we might come from a state of emptiness and nothingness, where no reality exist and at the same time everything exist... It is a state that many people have experienced similar to it in their life some faces of it: lucid dreams or maybe astral projection where whatever your think of or you experience or it appears in front of you. the world starts with the first main belief, The Body, with limitations, senses and filters. followed by the vast majority of sub-beliefs that are different from one person to another but that cannot go beyond the body limitations. for example: a car is built by certain beliefs (sciences..etc) you cannot increase its speed beyond its limit with taping your hands or just thinking like a car created in a lucid dream. Other major beliefs like a Spirit: and we start creating sub-beliefs of energy, healing, chakras, heaven, hell, reincarnation ....etc It is like we make different worlds that are followed by rules, limitation, procedures that creates sub-beliefs. all are real to their believers. a healer can heal himself and maybe others if they believed in healing because it is as real as the world to the scientists. it is like we are worlds creators and we share invites.

A carpenter named Shih, who was on his way to Ch'i, came to Bent Shaft. There he saw a chestnut-leaved oak that served as the local shrine. The tree was so big that several thousand head of cattle could take shade beneath it and it was a hundred spans in circumference . It was so tall that it surveyed the surrounding hills; only above eighty feet were there any branches shooting out from its trunk. It had ten or more limbs from each of which yo u could make a boat. Those who came to gaze upon it were as numerous as the crowds in a market. The master carpenter paid no attention to it, but kept walking without slowing his pace a bit. After his disciples had had their fill of gazing upon the great tree, they caught up with carpenter Shih and said, "Since we have taken up our axes to follow you, master, we have never seen such marvelous timber as this . Why, sir, were you unwilling to look at it, but kept on walking without even slowing down?" " Enough! Don't talk about it! It's defective wood. A boat made from it would sink. A coffin made from it would rot right away. An implement made from it would break right away. A door made from it would exude resin. A pillar made from it would soon be grub-infested. This tree is worthless. There's nothing you can make from it. That's why it could grow to be so old." After the carpenter had returned to his own country, the shrine oak appeared to him in a dream, saying, "With what trees will you compare me? Will you compare me with those that have fine-grained wood? As for the hawthorn, the pear, the orange, the pomelo, and other fructiferous trees, once their fruits are ripe, they are torn off, and the trees are thereby abused. The big branches are broken and the smaller branches are snapped . These are trees that make their own lives miserable because of their abilities. Therefore, they cannot finish out the years allotted to them by heaven but die midway. They are trees that bring upon themselves the assaults of the worldly. It's the same with all things. But I have sought for a long time to be useless. Now, on the verge of death, I have finally learned what uselessness really means and that it is of great use to me. If, after all, I had been useful, would I have been able to grow so big? Furthermore, you and I are both things, so why the deuce should you appraise another thing? You're a defective person on the verge of death. What do you know about 'defective wood'?" When carpenter Shih awoke, he told the dream to his disciples. "If the oak's intention is to be useless, then why does it serve as the local shrine?" they asked. "Silence! Don't say another word! The oak is merely assum- ing the guise of a shrine to ward off the curses of those who do not understand it. If it were not a shrine, it would still face the threat of being cut down. Moreover, what the oak is preserving is different from the masses of other trees. If we attempt to understand it on the basis of conventional morality, won't we be far from the point?"

Victor Mair: Both Confucius and you are dreaming, and I too am dreaming when I say that you are dreaming . This sort of language may be called enigmatic. James Legge: He and you are both dreaming. I who say that you are dreaming am dreaming myself. These words seem very strange. Burton Watson: Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. 'A.C. Graham': Qiu and you, you're just dreams, and my telling you that you're a dream is a dream too. This teaching he told you about is called a conundrum. 丘也 與女皆夢也 予謂女夢 亦夢也 是其言也 其名為弔詭 All translators have problems with 弔詭 because they misread the socalled 'Ji Li story' as one about a bride weeping on her way to her wedding. The term makes no problem to me because I read the story as about a young man and heir weeping crocodile tears when mourning the deceased Duke Xian. The dictionary definitions of the two characters: 弔 condole, mourn, pity 詭 deceive, cheat, defraud That'll say the end term of these two lines relates directly to the little story!

I'm a better note taker and researcher then Understanderer. I took some pretty good, incisive notes from different sources and edited them down a while back. Here's the link: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/37570-golden-flower-thingamabobs/?p=607715 Worth looking at if you're interested in GF. I should probably go back and take a gander, so my queries can run deeper then, it's alot of looking at the nose. from the section concerning the nose: (note this source is from Osha, a very controversial teacher, not one I generally recommend but I found this writing to be clearer and more direct then most) '..THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS an alchemical process. These are the words of those who have known. The Golden Flower blooms in you when you are utterly empty. It is a flower in the void. In the lake of the void the golden lotus blooms. ONE SHOULD LOOK AT THE TIP OF ONE’S NOSE. Now the practical point of the whole sutra – very simple, but try to understand it correctly, because mind wants to distort even simple things. Mind is a distorting mechanism. Why? – because this helps, it brings you in line with the third eye. When both your eyes are fixed on the tip of the nose it does many things. The basic is that your third eye is exactly in line with the tip of the nose – just a few inches above, but in the same line. And once you are in the line of the third eye, the attraction of the third eye, the pull, the magnetism, of the third eye is so great that if you have fallen in line with it you will be pulled even against yourself. You just have to be exactly in line with it so that the attraction, the gravitation, of the third eye starts functioning. Once you are exactly in line with it there will be no need to make any effort. Suddenly you will find the gestalt has changed, because the two eyes create the duality of the world and thought, and the single eye between the two eyes creates the gaps. This is a simple method of changing the gestalt. ONE SHOULD LOOK AT THE TIP OF ONE’S NOSE. BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT ONE SHOULD FASTEN ONE’S THOUGHTS TO THE TIP OF THE NOSE. That’s how the mind can distort it. The mind can say, ’Okay, now look at the tip of the nose. Think of the tip of the nose, concentrate on it.’ If you concentrate too much on the tip of the nose you will miss the point, because you have to be there at the tip of the nose but very relaxed so that the third eye can pull you. If you are too concentrated on the tip of the nose, rooted, focused, fixed there, your third eye will not be able to pull you in, because your third eye has never functioned before. Its pull cannot be very great in the beginning. Slowly slowly it grows more and more. Once it starts functioning and the dust that has gathered around it disappears with use, and the mechanism is humming well, then even if you are fixed on the tip of the nose you will be pulled in. But not in the beginning. You have to be very very light, not a burden, without any stress and strain. You have to be simply there, present, in a kind of let-go. WHILE THE EYES ARE LOOKING AT THE TIP OF THE NOSE, THE THOUGHTS SHOULD BE CONCENTRATED ON THE YELLOW MIDDLE. So don’t concentrate on the tip of the nose or – the second trick the mind can play... The Master is simply trying to make you alert to all the possibilities, to all the games that the mind is capable of. First it will say, ’Okay, so the Master says, ”Concentrate on the tip of the nose.”’ He is not saying, ’Concentrate on the tip of the nose,’ he is simply saying ’Look. Just a very light, effortless look.’ Or the mind can say, ’Okay, if you are just looking at the tip of the nose, then concentrate on the third eye.’ Mind is always in favour of concentration because mind feeds on concentration, lives on concentration. Hence in your schools, colleges, universities, concentration is taught not meditation, because they are all factories for creating the mind; they manufacture the mind. WHEREVER THE EYE LOOKS, THE HEART IS DIRECTED ALSO. HOW CAN IT BE DIRECTED AT THE SAME TIME UPWARD AND DOWNWARD? And then the mind can say, ’Look, this is impossible, the demand is illogical. How can you look in two directions simultaneously, at the tip of the nose and at the third eye? It is not possible, it cannot be done. Don’t be foolish! ’And another function of looking very lightly at the tip of the nose is this: that it doesn’t allow you to open your eyes wide. If you open your eyes wide the whole world becomes available. And there are a thousand and one distractions. If the eyes are completely closed you fall into a kind of reverie, you start dreaming; you become feminine energy, yin. To avoid both just look at the tip of the nose – a simple device, but the result is almost magical. And this is not only so with the Taoists, Buddhists know it, Hindus know it. Down the ages all the meditators have somehow stumbled upon the fact that if your eyes are just half open, in a very miraculous way you escape two pitfalls. One is being distracted by the outside world, the other is being distracted by the inside dream world. You remain exactly on the boundary of the inner and the outer. And that’s the point: to be on the boundary of the inner and the outer means you are neither male nor female in that moment. Your vision is free of duality; your vision has transcended the division in you. Only when you are beyond the division in you do you fall into the line of the magnetic field of the third eye. That is very important to remember: you are not to pull the light in, you are not to force the light in. If the window is open, the light comes in of its own accord. If the door is open, the light floods in. You need not bring it in, you need not push it in, you need not drag it in. And how can you drag light in? How can you push light in? All that is needed is that you should be open and vulnerable to it. And that’s exactly what happens when you are looking at the tip of the nose. Just looking, without any concentration, just looking, without any heaviness in it, without any strain in it, suddenly the window of the third eye opens and the light starts streaming in. The light that has always been going out starts coming in too, and the circle is complete. And this circle makes a man perfect. And this circle makes a man utterly restful, relaxed. This circle makes a man whole and holy. He is no more divided. LOOKING AT THE TIP OF THE NOSE SERVES ONLY AS THE BEGINNING OF THE INNER CONCENTRATION, SO THAT THE EYES ARE BROUGHT INTO THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR LOOKING, AND THEN ARE HELD TO THE GUIDE-LINE: AFTER THAT, ONE CAN LET IT BE. ONE LOOKS WITH BOTH EYES AT THE TIP OF THE NOSE... Remember, you have to look with both eyes at the tip of the nose so that at the tip of the nose your two eyes lose their duality. So, on the tip of the nose the light that is streaming out from your eyes becomes one; it falls on a single point. Where your two eyes meet, that is the place where the window opens. And then all is well. Then let it be, then simply enjoy, then simply celebrate, delight, rejoice. Then nothing has to be done. And remember, not concentrating but just remaining alert, just a slight alertness. Look at the tip of the nose and remain slightly alert to the third eye. In fact, the moment you look at the tip of the nose you will become alert to the third eye, because that is the other pole of the nose. One pole, the outer pole, is the tip, the end; the other end of the nose is joined with the third eye. The moment you become aware of the tip you will suddenly become aware of the other end too. But just remain aware, effortlessly aware.'

my 2c: There is nothing wrong with energy transmission teaching, but it needs to be done with a sense of moral responsibility. I want to illustrate this with a few personal experiences plus the experience of a friend: 1: Qi level: I've had this done to me by a number of people and on different levels. Firstly, the Qi level of energy transmission goes from very simple to very complex, so it isn't that it is one type of event manifestation, but rather different levels and types. The simplest type that I have encountered is hands on, which is similar to what reiki people do, but in the context of a qi gong teacher helping manifest Qi by guiding his hands over my head during practice. Another type of experience of this type that I've had is when practicing Qi gong with teacher and classmates, I felt an overwhelming sense of energy and had to sit down afterward. My teacher asked me if I liked the practice and I said what had happened, he laughed and said "I'm glad you noticed, my teacher Mr.Peng taught me how to do that, to send Qi to the room." I also had this experience while reading Dao Zang on a train in Shandong. An old chap who was sitting next to me started directing Qi in a very condensed way deeply into my body. He didn't say anything, but there was no other way that could have happened at that time. I view all of these practices as "ethical," in that the people doing it didn't try to get anything as a result, but on the other hand, I had a chap in Taizhong send what felt like a hot burning piece of coal into my stomach and du meridian one day and then immediately afterward went on a cosmic rant about how he was taught by the god of the Northern star and that all of his dao fa was taught to him from the spirit realm. He was also making fun of several of his students in the room and being quite dismissive of their questions. I view this type of practice as unethical because he was clearly using it to control people. on a more spiritual level, I had an experience with a Tibetan Lama where he caused me to have a waking dream with a spiritual message through chanting. It was an extremely life affirming and positive experience which also helped me to make some important decisions. On the other hand, a friend of mine during induction into a pseudo-daoist cult was directly given spiritual gifts via third eye communication and then signed into their book of the saved. They go around telling people that they have been looking for them for hundreds of years to train them to be Boddhisatvas. this kind of stuff I'm not too keen on because it is obviously cult like behaviour and preys on mentally weak people. So energy transmission or not really isn't the issue for me, it is more of an issue of intention. When people practice in a pure way, it can do beautiful things for others, but when they practice evil graft in order to control students, it is a bad thing. I notice that the graft method is an epidemic among Taiwanese schools especially. Take it for what it is worth.

Well to go slightly back on topic - what is this obsession with things have to come from somewhere else anyway? It seems to me to go back to old racial theories of superior peoples ... and the rest of us dumb schmucks who couldn't even dream of building a pyramid without an over-lord saying hey 'put one stone on top of another'. This kind of analysis goes back to the old colonials justifying their own presence as 'bringing culture and civilisation to the natives'. And we're kind of stuck with it. Pyramids are the most natural way to build long lasting structures in stone. Big at the bottom and pointy at the top. Very hard to make them fall over really - although they did manage to do that occasionally. And four sided is natural as well because we measure the earth by four directions - not five, six or seven. So to build a square base - why wouldn't you? Align it to the cardinal points to show off a little - yeah. Who needs aliens or Aryans for that matter? Why couldn't different people round the world come up with variations of that?

Long ago I was reading stuff from this agricultural chemist turned biochemist about the food we eat. Now, as advance warning, this guy was -- and sort of hilariously, too -- a bit of a wingnut. He was a preacher who got asked to leave by more than one church for being too metaphysical. He ended up working with human health and, lacking the proper terminology for about a zillion things, simply used terms the way he wanted them, which of course made anybody traditionally educated and looking into his stuff either think he was a lunatic or just lose their minds trying to wrap around it. As if all this wasn't bad enough, he was constantly under attack from official medical groups who back then were not at all against literally killing people and massive bribes to judges, and several assassination attempts failed. (When he did finally die, he was getting older and it was believed to be from complications from shrapnel, from WWII, that could never be dug out of him.) But all that aside. He had what I felt was an utterly fascinating paradigm. He had begun an agri chem guy but said that (even then in the 40s I think it was) he had to hunt down and buy teaching from experts who knew, after schooling, because schooling was run by government and a lot of it was bunk and owned (back then in the "pwned" sense, now it's literally) by chemical companies. He didn't start getting into medical stuff until a friend/neighbor's young boy had a problem nobody could solve. Anyway, this guy is the one who actually first invented hair analysis, as ash analysis (such as being able to tell you how many people or animals, and a little detail, were killed in a fire where nothing is left but ash), oh and also the Brix Refractometer or at least I think... or maybe it was evaluation based on the underlying sugar/carb property of agri... he was a smart guy. To a great degree officially stamped out of anything 'official' you'll read though since he was completely opposed to every 'official' institution (esp. the AMA, FDA, USDA, etc. despite he worked with the latter, with great complaint, for a long time) and as his primary followers have seemed to be vocal evangelist fundamental christians, that hasn't improved anything as you might imagine. He went on and on about anions and cations. He insisted that technically we did not get our energy from nutrients from food but rather, that the anions/cations of our food "interacted with" the anions/cations of our digestive system and that this "interaction" -- the dynamic -- is what gave us "energy." He also had this whole model about how allegedly the liver actually creates every... cell, but I think it's not 100% physical like you already-see-it-under-the-scope, "out of itself" -- of what it has stored or can call in from various parts of the body -- and sends it to the part of the body that needs the new cell, which is in the process (calling for it) and then "divides" with the liver's input basically staffing this doubling in components. (I found that an interesting sync to some of the ancient legends e.g. of the guy getting a piece of his liver eaten every day, but it was 'for' the world.) He had a ton of knowledge "in his head" and not shared with others, which formed a lot of his ability for amazing diagnostics. I didn't know until I read some of his stuff that there were so many different kinds of calcium, and that each kind has different effects, and that you can actually have too much of one kind and be stockpiling it painfully in joints (well esp. if deficient in the nutrients that better direct it) while suffering from lack of calcium in other ways for not having other forms of it. I may be remembering wrong as my familiarity was in passing years ago and it turns out my body wasn't getting very much oxygen or nutrients from my blood for many years, so I am suspicious of my memory of everything. I do have some write-up notes I posted eons ago for some friends here for anybody interested. http://www.palyne.com/carey-reams-rbti/carey-reams-rtbi-pjnotes1.html Anyway, Reams was all about the interplay of anions/cations as it applied to nutrition which I thought was novel. I find the concept of this interesting because in my meditation work (sort of jungian-ish active imaginational-ish -- more an individual process led by identities on my inside, than anything I've learned from the outside), there are a couple of basics... one is that you "seduce it, don't force it," because everything is about 'the relationship of geometries' as I feel it in my gut. The other is that there's no such thing as me-here and that-there because all I ever can perceive is the dynamic interplay between what-I-think-is-me and what-I-think-is-other. So if I see a table, or John, what I'm really seeing is the ever-happening-"event" of the interplay between the energy of me and the energy of the table or john. Obviously if I change me, the dynamic event, the relationship, changes, hence one's ability to change reality intentionally. In accordance with Will as some would say... if you can "bother getting around to it" as I would say, once the psychology realizes the power we have to do so. But so... maybe it is ever thus. That our nutrients and our breath (Reams believed we got a good chunk of energy just from breathing, which is progressive when you consider he was not eastern in approach) and our spirit and other relationships are not about the creative hermitcrab-shells we see as the physical mass part, but the dance of the ions underneath. *** Separate: Don't worry about liability in this case, but thank you. I've been to the doc very recently. My heart problem was fixed (replaced a wrongly-shaped major valve I was born with) so although I'll be in healing mode esp. for the next year that's ok. The other issue is a sort of dysplasia of adipose there is no known solution to (affects over 10% of women to varying degrees but rather extremely in mine. Genetically associated). My kidney tests just taken come out fine. In fact the heart surgeon said that aside from the valve he was replacing, which was a birth issue, and aside from the 'lipedema' which nobody's expected to fix, that I was really healthy. Which is funny because you don't hear of large older women in a cardiac ward being 'really healthy' very often I'll bet. The only problem, aside from side-effects of lipedema of course, is that due to a few years of undiagnosed heart-valve massive leakage, and open heart surgery where they pour a ton more fluids into you, and it takes some time for the body to adapt to the heart's power so solution isn't instant... I have liquid edema too now. Docs say it should go away gradually, but they expected sooner it's obvious. There's a LOT of it, and combined with the lipedema it literally makes it very difficult to stand, and walk, let alone exercise for real. And I NEED to exercise for the sake of my new heart valve, never mind the edema, so basically the problem is preventing me getting to the solution that would solve it, a horrid catch 22. It's imprisoning mobility-wise which is a nightmare, and a long-term one for me, so I'm sure this is some major energetic thing I need to work on spiritually too of course, but probably being so big and in my face, it's completely invisible to me... My body did give me SOME info, which I am implementing now (I was too trashed to do much besides keep breathing, barely, and work via laptop for a living, barely, till I had the surgery recently). One was nutrients: Sulfur and Quercetin. My inner-identities worked very hard to get me this message, the first in a deep male voice, and the second with my Aeons holding up three cards with letters on them, spelling que-rce-tin, that was funny. I happened to put them in search related to cell membrane, after a vision suggested this was the underlying problem of lipedema to me, and turns out they both have research suggesting they're a big deal for that. Who knew! Well I am only just beginning that now. The second was frequency: long ago I had put together something we called a 'Carmi blanket' on the FreX yahoo list (basically this is where you set a frequency generator, and it puts forth to a radio receiver [probably modern iphone could do this now], which puts out to the power cord of an electric heating pad. So instead of plugging the heating pad into the wall (Note: it does not heat, obviously, this way) you're plugging it into whatever 'frequency' you're running. (Being a good documentarian, I did write down what I was doing at the time, found at http://diy-em.blogspot.com/2013/09/carmi-blanket-em-tech.html for anyone interested.) Anyway I was thinking about it one night driving home, and my Aeons pushed into my dream and showed me a new one that was all about 'the legs' (what I was focused on) (this for adipose-edema from Lipedema, not liquid heart-edema mind you), and gave me the specific frequencies: 22Hz mostly; with some 23-25Hz also, and some 262Hz 'for protection.' Now I have no idea what really works in that category for any given thing, but if your subconscious is interrupting your dreams to give you answers that specific I figure they're worth paying attention to. So as soon as I find the bloody thing (my house looks like a hoarder lives here as I have not been mobile to care for it beyond hiring someone to clean for a couple years) I will do that too. My new hobby for the next year is called "getting rid of all the stuff in my house." Here's hoping it's a feng shui analogue to getting rid of all the stuff I don't want in my body, too. :-) RC

@Dawei: Thank you so much! This is very cool! @ Exorcist: Glad to talk with you again too! Yes, that would be awesome. I used to make technical translations for a living, and I would always sit down with an engineer to have the stuff I was to translate explained to me, pick his or her brain regarding the terminology used, and have the thing or process described by the term elucidated. One can't be a specialist in everything-that-is, but knowing a language and teaming up with a specialist who knows the subject wins that battle. OK, let me fess up. My teacher once compared taiji skill of a master to one of those three-legged ding cauldrons -- the three legs being the form, the tuishou, and the weapon. Ding was in use from the Bronze Age and still is today, because it is a kind of thing that is complete and perfect for its purpose -- nothing is excessive and nothing is missing. If any one of its three legs is missing, however, the ding can't stand on its own -- or to get back from the metaphor, the skill is not complete and therefore can't be perfect. But even if all three legs are there yet one or two are shorter, it's shaky and unstable. So, I need to lengthen two of the legs, because my form "leg" is way longer (by years). I don't really need to draw the jian from the back, all I need is practice, there's plenty to work on without getting into any uncharted territory, and yet-- and yet I have a vision-memory-dream, not sure what else to call it, it's not a daydream and not in my head, it's something my body is trying to remember... it's like forgetting how to ride a bicycle and yet knowing what riding a bicycle feels like... so this drawing from the back move is something along these lines, as though something in me knows how to do it but I can't get to it. Weird, huh? Past life? Kung fu movies? Who knows... It itches between my shoulder blades, this unobtainium...

alright then, i guess it is cleared up (like the dissipated exhaled smoke of my morning bowl--which resembles your randian utopian pipe dream) go ahead and implement it. i am ready to see this one true reality.

No, it wouldn't be a random pipe dream, it's common sense. It's simple to put the philosophy behind it, but for most people, well, they get it. Few of us like violence, we get no pleasure from theft or cheating. What you had was in the past. There will always be bad actors that's why we need laws and justice. We have to grow forward. We make mistakes, it's human, but we learn, we adapt, we learn ,we integrate an move on. Your country and mine eventually concluded slavery wasn't moral. Objectivism would have confirmed that truth even before there was slavery. Don't hurt people or steal their stuff.

While we are often diametrically opposed in our views, it's seldom more clear than in this instance mate. Your perception that organisms are individuals striving alone with self generated action, while not surprising or new to me, is still strikingly strange compared to my experience of reality. But such is the limitless nature of perception and expression of tao. There is room for everything. To me... Life is an implicitly and utterly interconnected web of nigh on indistinguishable co-arising conditions which constantly and fluidly combine in the persistent co-creation of what we reduce with language into the word reality. Life and existence, indeed all phenomena are inexorably linked to me via the foundation from which they arise... awareness. Life and death is one fluid process and expression, not opposites, but varied extremes of one unified field of energy which is constantly arising from the foundation of awareness. The lower condensation of vibration is our experience of physical reality, yet it is a mere pinprick of experience when viewed within its woven place among all manner of subsequent variations, vibrations and frequencies on the overall scale. Further, even within our next small sphere of perception, our consciousness is divided into myriad frequencies in a web of interconnected experience on the subtle. The problem solving waking state, appears to dominate, yet is always floating softly on the top of the ocean of our underlying consciousness and awareness. The many states of dream, the variety of meditative states, the trance states and all of those varied again within the context of fluid motion and/or stillness. The shear engine of the unconscious which fuels all the biological processes, oh which many derive the majority of our underlying emotional and hence subsequent types of conscious thought forms. All interconnected. Patterns within patterns, fractal re-expression... as within, without. We are fluid expressions. All of us, including the stones now standing at the beach which will someday be sand and another day be 'living beings'. And while I can point to the spot just beyond the tip of my finger and say 'this is where my body ends' there is no escape from the awareness that the elemental expression of my body, is a flow of constant food, oxygen, sunlight and water from my body to every continent on our planet, my breath is recycled from the dawn of our atmosphere... as are all of my conscious states... there is an unending flow into and out of every aspect of our minds and bodies in the present moment and while our perception seems to compel some to identify as somehow independent, I cannot escape the awareness that while I am composed of many small things, I am one small aspect of that which seems infinitely greater...

I had a strange dream a couple nights back. I was walking normally and then my steps started getting lighter like I was floating. And soon I was swimming in the air. It felt like how the floating Jin feels... Anyone had similar experiences/dreams?

I doubt everyone can personally relate to your situation, profounded - but some of us here can. I am one of them. I know what it is like to be predisposed to intensity, thrills, extreme emotions and sensations and so forth. Along with this is usually something described as an "addictive personality", because obsessiveness is also a key facet of this mindset. There is a much stronger element of fixation involved in such people, because that is simply required to hold on or continue with such "extreme" activities, which are disruptive by their very nature. When you mix in codependency, its a superbad combo - incredibly volatile. People like us gravitate to each other because we know that our combined forces will further amplify the whole situation in an exponential way - as in, the sum is greater than the parts. It all fits together like that. I know a handful of guys that always attract "crazy" girls, much like myself, and being able to observe them has given me the space to see things I would have liked to avoid seeing in myself. Eventually I came to realize all sorts of things about myself and my situation, and by then I had created enough objectivity in my personal situation that I could step out of myself to a certain degree and move on with life by choice, as opposed to by impulse (or reflex... in other words, automatically). This is may help you proceed as well. Perhaps we should go back a bit and relive some of the madness... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cn1Y_XF4E4 I don't think I am what I was before I never watched anyone die before I wish I'd never left home I wish I'd left it alone Temptation is a disease You can never do as you please Your body takes over and your mind don't care Never think twice what might happen... out there Go straight in for the ultimate sin nobody else ever seems to care So I took what I thought was mine And I waited for a very long time And I thought I knew what happened to you you told me exactly what to do I did it right, stayed up all night I Felt like killing myself for you I don't think I think like I did before I never watched anyone die before I felt like I died as well The look the words the smell The way you looked at me As if I'd never be free I remember the words like a favorite song 'cause I cant forget the way things went wrong Faked a picture of perfect health Then I realized I was killing myself I don't think I am what I was before I never watched anyone die before I dream in slow motion and I wake up screaming

In a dream I was told I had to remove my hijackers before I could cross the bridge, and this meant actively working on emotions that overtake my mind such as fear, shame, sadness etc. I have made a practice of looking for and wrestling with these hijackers and removing them one by one, and I have found the results of this to be quite rewarding in the long run as my True Self is slowly revealed, if I had my life to live over again I wouldn't choose any other path

Everything- chill out. Don't put so much pressure on yourself to perform. You're giving yourself performance anxiety, and are messing yourself up. Then you're messing yourself up for messing yourself up, and causing a downward spiral. Chill out. Ever hear that story about the student who asked the teacher how long it'd take for him to be enlightened if he meditated for an hour a day, and the master said "ten years", then the student says what if I meditate for two hours every day, and the teacher goes "twenty years", and the student goes "three hours?" and the teacher says "thirty years"? It's like that. The more you freak yourself out about it, the further away it's going to get. The more you try and tighten your fist around it, the more it's going to escape. It's dreams for fuck's sake, they're ephemeral Try to ham fist your way through it and you'll never get anywhere. thelerner- I know what you mean about the tiredness and stuff. I think it's nerves, really. B.K. Frantzis talks about nerve stress in his book "The Great Stillness". He talks about it in terms of sex, where back in the day even farmers working 12 hours a day could still have sex all night, but in the modern world of 9 to 5 people have ED or can't go on for as long because even though they are working less, everything combined has literally fried their nerves. Same thing happens with sleep. If you fry your nerves through the day, and then on top of that stress yourself out over dream recall, you aren't going to get your rest, and the rest of the next day you'll be tired, even if you objectively got 6 or 8 or 10 hours of sleep. So take it easy. Don't freak out too much about dream recall. To all involved, enjoy the experience Dreams are fun. They're natural. Enjoy it. Play with it. If it happens, great. If not, whatever. Move on. There's a lot of pressure to perform, because if you fail one night, that night is gone, so you really want to make each night count. But when you do that, you set yourself up for failure.