Search the Community

Looks interesting. I like the idea of merging the heart with the 3rd eye as well, as ones sense of transcendent love and compassion or the 4 immeasurables/brahmaviharas will expand beyond the mere physical realm into endless space or vice versa, and one will be able to have compassion in subtler states of consciousness including and during experiences as mundane as the dream realms. Of course the dream realm also does not have to be limited to mundane reflections if you are akin to spiritual contemplation and experience.

Yes of course, good point, although the same problem still occurs. We still need a lot of self-awareness before we are in a position to understand our dreams. Also, in terms of impact, there is a big difference between meeting the anima in your dreams and meeting her psychoid form in reality. I wonder if Jung ever talked about this? Perhaps the dream is a kind of intimation of what is coming - a kind of preparation?

Yeah odor is closely linked to memory -- since the olfactory neurons are just one molecule from the hippocampus memory neurons in the brain. So that's a deep limbic brain stimulation when you remember an odor -- it's pretty common to smell something which then reminds you of another smell -- and then that memory of the smell enables you to "relive" the experience because it's deep brain memory. It's similar to how dreams are based on our subconscious associations during the day -- but the dream is like interacting with a person or spirit even though it was just a subconscious memory during the day. Only with odor this reliving a person can happen while awake since odor is directly a quantum resonance perception in the brain. Odor is the only perception that bypasses the cerebral cortex left-brain reality so that a new smell goes straight to the deep dream perception -- the theta wave brain state.

Had a dream where i was given a puppy anubis by a dude getting out of a black mercedes. I didnt figure out the symbolism until later.

Before I even considered "emptiness" as the ideal stage, I tried painting a picture of a "perfect heaven" in the eyes of me. At first I thought it would be very easy to do so. But the deeper I thought about it, the more "loopholes" would surface. Try to follow my lines of thoughts. We have heard about lucid dreaming. Imagine my espoused "perfect heaven" or "Utopia" is whereby I can indulge in lucid dreaming forever. I want to taste and consume the best food; and it appears and I indeed sense the great sensation in my taste buds. And because it is just a dream, no animal actually suffers or gets killed to satisfy my craving for high-end exotic food. I want to get thrilled by driving a super-car. A Ferrari F40 appears and I drive it without having to feel the pain of any collisions or accidents. The above picture seems indeed ideal and perfect. What else do we want? I can have a 100-storey modern castle with an additional 20-storey basement levels plus other ancilliary buildings. There is no need to do household chores (or getting others to do it) because things can be washed/cleaned/tidied by mere thoughts. There won't be dirt or bacteria to harm us. This can be scary, mind you. Why? I remember reading a graphic novel whereby the leading character had become suspicious in his surroundings. People seemed to be so co-operative that he felt he was "part of a game". Lo and behold, when he dashed to a corner of a street and turned the face of a stranger-pedestrain around, it showed an empty face because that character did not mean anything significant to him. He was just one out of the thousand "items" created to boost the ambience of the setting (i.e. "the game"). If you have watched "The Matrx" movie, you would know exactly what I mean. Why do I raise this? Coming back to the ideal castle that I live in my perpetual lucid dream (i.e. the supposedly "Utopia"). I definitely want my dead dear granny to be living with me, since she had been very close to me when she was alive. However, what form should she appear? In her seventies (when she died), with barely no hair, having to walk with a clutch, etc.? If I grant her wish, she would most likely want to appear as a twenty-something girl in my Utopia plain. But how can I accept my granny to look as though she is my younger sister? To make matters worse, she would be sobbing if she doesn't see her mum (which I had no chance to see at all in my lifetime). So her mum appears. If we extend this, her mum would want others to be in, and this goes on until prehistoric times. What about my cute little toddler son (3.5 years old now)? I know he won't be as cute if he is now 21. Does it mean my son has to remain at this young age till eternity in my dreamscape? This is just one counter example to show that the above can't actually qualify to be a real Utopia. Stay tuned.

Unfortunately there's nothing clear or simple about Jung's psychology - and that's especially the case when it comes to an explanation of archetypes - but here's a passage I like from The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious...... Not for a moment dare we succumb to the illusion that an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, language itself is only an image.) The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. And whatever explanation or interpretation does to it, we do to our own soul as well, with corresponding results for our own well-being. The archetype—let us never forget this—is a psychic organ present in all of us. A bad explanation means a correspondingly bad attitude to this organ, which may thus be injured. But the ultimate sufferer is the bad interpreter himself. Hence the "explanation” should always be such that the functional significance of the archetype remains unimpaired, so that an adequate and meaningful connection between the conscious mind and the archetypes is assured. For the archetype is an element of our psychic structure and thus a vital and necessary component in our psychic economy. It represents or personifies certain instinctive data of the dark, primitive psyche, the real but invisible root of consciousness. Of what elementary importance the connection with these roots is, we see from the preoccupation of the primitive mentality with certain "magic" factors, which are nothing less than what we would call archetypes. This original form of religio ("linking back") is the essence, the working basis of all religious life even today, and always will be, whatever future form this life may take. There is no "rational" substitute for the archetype any more than there is for the cerebellum or the kidneys. We can examine the physical organs anatomically, histologically, and embryologically. This would correspond to an outline of archetypal phenomenology and its presentation in terms of comparative history. But we only arrive at the meaning of a physical organ when we begin to ask teleological questions. Hence the query arises: What is the biological purpose of the archetype? Just as physiology answers such a question for the body, so it is the business of psychology to answer it for the archetype.

Red asparagus? Not sure, we're constantly on the hunt, and can't find it reliably. I've tried quite a few reishi varieties. I like the Purple Reishi the most as a single herb for it's meditative effects, and dream quality enhancement. You might also try Albizia flowers. Calms the heart, but is also very uplifting.

I come across alot of ideas of protection whenever I face groups of individuals who are spiritually awakening and getting to know their mind It is unimportant from which direction the Self is getting approach through the mind, after a few invitations of that spiritual side of Nature (capital N, the One Nature, not earth-only nature) and because one does so from one's own personality, a certain kind of threat is experienced and the idea of protection is raised This threat is only experience through bias of what one does not yet want to see and/or experience, but is part of the whole. Having no concepts yet for it and not seeing that it actually is possible and plausible to live without any concepts at all, shutting it out is natural and pain is experienced. In all honesty, looking at the spiritual evolution of current mankind with the most neutral eyes possible, a minority is only interested in getting to know one's Self directly from or as it's Totality ...and along my journey I have understood why Personality Personality is the only reason why protection is needed. Personality because one wants to achieve something, wants to improve one's Self and show off to others and all the myriads of ideas of seperation, of being unable to (...) in so many ways and needy for something external to complete oneself, participating in this entire false, but apparently necessary, game we play Personality is so easily acquired by just looking at objects, interaction through mind via thoughts and emotions are automatically created and shape the individual. It is the standard program of a human on auto-pilot and which at one point in the evolution of the individual gets questioned and eventually, through conscious action, replaced If there is willingness to know Truth, followed and then acted upon that impulse, the individual will know it's limitations very fast. It will understand that there is an infinite number of personal truths which s/he is constantly facing in this human life and also and most importantly having to face it's own truth based upon mostly unconsciously formed, partially consciously formed, personal beliefs. The individual eventually will realize that in order to know Truth it has to surrender it's personal ideas, for these ideas were always at War with all other individual beliefs and with a greater flow of something that sustained him or her over the years and slowly is vanishing, more pain is experienced. Eventually the individual will surrender it's personal beliefs in a moment of complete exhaustion and in that very moment something will find him or her. And that which will present itself to him or her will be so profound and so vast in power and experience of the perceived energy that all interest in further accumulating of more personal ideas, beliefs and a future lifestyle out of it, is completely discarded. All energetic layers of the individual have been shown what Truth is again. From there on the individuals knows that the uppermost protection he or she can ever have, will be the interest to Know One's Self and to Live From That Place. This can be read as the most ignorant and toxic information but in Truth (with a capitcal T, as The One Absolute) it is the highest truth that you will ever hear and know for your Self: Group-thinking is poluted. Community is poluted. Society is poluted. All ideas we have on this planet right now of co-existing with eachother are totally corrupted. They are corrupted because we do no longer see them from the Source. We see them from an individual perspective that has not yet realized it's totality and can not yet live, both as individual and as totality again. It can only live as individual for now and therefor is a complete imbalance in that very expression. Subject to change of course. The only Reality (again with a capital R, for The One Underlying and Absolute) is that there is only One. This One is both you and me at the same time. Unfortunatelly the nature of the individuals mind, coming from it's personality sees something external to itself and experiences all the lower emotions, from Human Heart downwards, where all ideas of seperation are generated from. If your spiritual understanding grows and you want to evolve into the One, when you reach your Heart, in order to proceed, you have to let go of your personality. To every Ego, surrendering the individual's personality, this sounds like the most frightening and threatening thing, I just have to remember bits of my own past before this personal exhaustion happened, but in essence it leads to the Complete opposite, to complete Creative Freedom as a self-realized, individual consciousness. The freedom to slowly but surely experience your Self as everything And this human body at the same time. With it all ideas and feelings of seperation dissolve. All energies and expressions out of it, abilities, come naturally. Did you had a struggle to walk as young human? Did you have to manipulate your energy in order to perform all the actions you do, with your body? No, you just went with the flow of the natural way of how God creates and experienced bliss in your very young years until more and more blockages from this then forming, personal mind shut it out It is yours to understand Just this and release and evolve with the Interest to get to know your Self. ... I am praised in my skills to express my Self in my mothertongue, german, and I do my best here in English and I can tell you, from the joy I have to do so, to describe the complexity of the transformation happening when you reach it, allow yourself to surrender into it, I say this with full empowerement: It is impossible to descibe it Words end here and words are less and less needed. Spoken word is less and less needed and especially thoughts do no longer interest. For you have nothing to ask anymore. It's just letting the energy that was once used for thought all it's repetitions steadily calm down and be used for finer layer of existance. It is the direct way. And it has no end to it. It is the free will of the individual to approach the Self, as him- or herself, from it's mind or with the willingness of direct experience going beyond the mind and letting the Self present itself to oneself. Without effort, just surrendering and know one will constantly presented more of one's Self and only one's Self. Paradoxically in the beginning phase the most difficult for a mind due to the root and it's fear of death, idea of seperation that in Reality does not exist. There is no stage, it is a direct evolution, a very pure evolution and the ego that will appear and disappear many many times, is constantly be refined. To such a thing degree, that it can be willingly dropped and surrender into the Self, to use the individuals consciousness as a living Sakrament of the Self here in this reality and then stepped out of it and embodied the individual again This Self is you and is me, timeless and at the same time in a time-bound form And it holds the only protection that there is: No protection, a condition that is so fluid and flexible that it can no longer be seen as such It is giving up everything to receive everything. It is living as a transcended being, from human consciousness to God consciousness, freely able to merge at any given time And also able to ascend it's human form to what all of you dream off. But not from a personal, earth-bound, human personality driven by manipulation, but from receiving everything, unfiltered from Source itself. As it. I loved to be a thief, to steal and to manipulate in so many seemingly intelligent ways. Just to stretch my personality to such a disgusting degree that I sheerly destroyed it. You already are this in so many ways. Do it and do it More. Not only bits but with passion! Search for protection, try to protect yourself and find always greater and greater enemies! Until the personal energies of this human vessel is at it's perceived end. Just to reach all of this what I am writing about here... It is reality. This understanding will be yours and deeper and deeper it goes That is why self-realization is the only protection that is and ever will be. Love for one's Self is love for everything, regardless how it appears as one's Self again. That is the reason, the spiritualy-scientific reason that you can accept Why you want to love yourself first. Then you know yourself and what it is that you are actually loving there, then you perceive that you Have and then giving is natural because you are Full of your Self. This energy coming with this realization will show you first hand. All doubts are no more. Free from all concepts, all dislikes, all fantasies and illusion - pure and direct Reality. It is your birthright, take it

Yeah M.D. not medical Ph.D. -- although M.D. is a medical Ph.D. by which I mean medical Ph.D.s are not required to do the same level of intensive research as a normal Ph.D. since the M.D. is focused on more narrow technical training. Yet Sagan's focus on historical research seems more like a normal Ph.D. than a M.D. as he was doing a more liberal arts Ph.D. I just broke Sagan's cardinal rule -- eating in a rhythmic schedule since the astral body is linked with food. So I had stayed up all night in full lotus -- as we had the cleaners invading our house this morning but normally I sleep late so I would not have been awake in time. Before they arrived I headed for the woods to sleep but since it was cool temperature I ate a bunch of food -- a big hunk of cheese, a muffin with butter. Anyway I would fall asleep but then keep having a "wake up and rise and shine" down yonder. I figured it was just a piss hard -- because I had forgot I normally never eat breakfast! haha. I had been drinking more water than usual. Normally I always burn off my food before it turns into sex energy -- I burn it off through my third eye transmissions into my parents as they're low in jing energy. I haven't had an loss of sperm for 6 months because I always burn off my food energy through my third eye energy transmissions. Anyway so I did a brief full lotus session but, as I was really tired, I didn't flex my third eye -- I was thinking about how Sagan says to keep motionless and just build up the energy in the third eye in order to access the astral realm. I can do that and I've done it - definitely the light energy builds up much faster if I don't "flex my third eye," thereby transmitting the energy for healing others. But storing up the energy in the lower tan tien is a pain because you always have to worry about Perv Attacks (which btw are a regular problem on thetaobums due to one Perv posting here under the guise of being enlightened)... it's easier for me to just shoot my extra energy out of my third eye instead of trying to store it up to further open my third eye. haha. So anyway I finally fell asleep into a deep sleep. I had been enjoying the birds -- the song birds migrated a month early this year! But there's a few left and one song I'm still wondering about -- anyway the goldfinches are still here and I had this dream I was watching the bright yellow gold finches and then of course this young female was with me and she made the moves on me. haha. I went into full lotus so that I only lost preseminal fluid -- and that's only the 2nd time that's happened in the past 6 months. Then to make sure the sublimation didn't just go into my prostate making my urine all foamy -- which means it didn't sublimate properly -- I "flexed my pineal gland" so I could easily transmute the extra jing energy into chi-shen transmission. So I sat in full lotus for about 45 minutes then I had to piss real bad. Then I noticed that I had slept right next to a pile of fresh deer dung - I was on the deer trail so it was probably there already. But still I'm pretty friendly with our deer -- I do full lotus third eye transmissions into them -- and they're pretty friendly with me -- they stare back and stay close and follow me and we lock eyes and they wag their tails. haha. It's possible the deer visited me to mark their trail while I was asleep. Not likely but it would have been pretty funny. Well I realized the female I had dreamt about was this long lost experience of unresolved sexual tension when I had done this nude sauna with a young female -- she was probably 19 years old and way heavily endowed, while I'm under-endowed, having low jing due to my 2 year old 24 rabies vaccine mercury shots in the stomach. Anyway I remember it was this weird vibe in the sauna that I couldn't quite fathom at the time. But finally 20 years later I was able to process the true meaning of our nude "eyeing each other" in the sauna routine -- as a dream vision. haha. So it was seemingly innocent at the time but now I know what the energy had been in that sauna. Anyway so that's a good sign because that happened about 20 years ago -- which means I'm going back in time to older energy blockages and then reversing them, resolving them. That's what I was getting at about the emotional possession stuff -- I posted it again on my blog in reference to Sagan's "regression therapy" as the focus of his training. Sagan relies on energy transmissions for his students (he talks about clearing out the possessions) but he also has a new age focus with the whole Steiner deal about the future evolution of humans. Sorry but even though Steiner had his third eye open I'm not sure it was fully open. Steiner was a fascinating Western mystic -- much like Emmanuel Swedenburg http://swedenborg.newearth.org/ -- I like Swedenburg better. But then Steiner was up against the Nazis so his whole Christ evolution of humans schtick certainly makes sense in contrast to the Nazis' fixation on eugenics as spiritual evolution.... I agree with Ramana Maharshi who stated that "there is no evolution." Notice how Sagan doesn't mention the full lotus? Seriously full lotus is standard training for serious meditation yet in the West suddenly it vanishes -- and so you don't get the necessary sublimation and transmutation of the life force energy. Of course if Sagan spent 5 years in relative isolation then maybe he didn't need the full lotus and therefore doesn't teach it to his students. I wonder which "Taoist Master" Sagan studied with? Mantak Chia?

Haha, trolls go way back. N btw, droprate is precentage of a drop. Low precentage gotta translate into more value, ofc. And for mankrik's wife, well you gotta have been a witness on WoW release barrens chat. Specificly Al'akir on EU. lol, haven't played wow for a long time! ^^ About Taoist as observers. Let me bring the dream world into all of this. Have you ever had a lucid dream, where you were suddenly realized you were the observer of all, and in a moment you got control over what you did and did not perceive. This is what the practices allow for you to do in the real world as well, but perhaps trough emotions? Hence the spiritual value instead of intellectual. "Tao cannot be named"

On possession -- it depends how the issue is approached. The emptiness is an eternal transformation of energy -- so that there are energy blockages but those blockages occur in response to something -- and when the blockage is cleared out then the blockage is transformed into a learning tool, which in retrospect was seen as a means to improve oneself. So Chunyi Lin teaches, for example, that if a person has cancer to approach the cancer with kindness because in that state of loving kindness then the blockages are cleared out. The emptiness is impersonal and since we are all energy which is constantly transforming then who we are as individuals can be seen as an open process of energy transformation. Still the means to clear out energy blockages occurs through this resonance of complementary opposites -- the yin and yang working in harmony. From the emptiness then spirit is created as light energy -- but the process of emptiness is a process of spacetime travel as well. So when we resonate with the emptiness then we can change our past by clearing out blockages -- and we can also see the future. Still if a person has a dream which comes true in great detail three years later (as I did) then the question is -- what type of individual self do we have? Is our future predestined? Or can we, by building up our sense of individual self -- as will power -- thereby communicate with our deep desires in our heart, which are actually desires that need to be expressed in our future. For example every day we process information on the basis of light -- at the speed of light -- but all this information is subconscious for the most part. If we experience something through light which is emotionally significant then that experience gets stored in our body as an electrochemical energy imprint. But through meditation then that electrochemical storage of spirit light information can be reversed and the blockage cleared out -- by transmitting light back out of our bodies. In that sense time is also reversed because the stress or whatever energy blockage during the day is no longer stored in our bodies. Usually people clear out these blockages through their dreams -- but in the dream state the processing of emotions is done in an automatic fashion which just stores or imprints the emotion on our lower body. Meditation, on the other hand, will exorcise the emotional blockage so that our minds are peaceful. The electromagnetic essence in our body is our spirit energy but it is focused on the heart -- so that our soul is deep within the heart chakra and that's where the past life spirit information is stored. So an energy master can then read our past lives as well. But this karmic information is also impersonal in the sense that if we do the training of complementary opposites then we can also burn off the past live karma energy blockages. It would take a lot of meditation to do so though -- fasting in full lotus. As we purify the energy centers then the body is transformed more and more into light energy -- and as that light energy intensifies by building up then it can create more physical matter -- so that in the end a new physical body can be created. But even that ability to create a new "yang shen" body can still become a type of energy blockage if the mind is attached to the body. The more spiritual power a person has the more the person resonates with the emptiness as an impersonal process of eternal energy transformation. The more spirit light a person develops the more impersonal the person becomes because the practice relies on this impersonal process of complementary opposite resonance. Still our natural self is in an emotional state of peace and euphoria -- from the heart-mind bliss -- which happens when we harmonize the lower emotional energy to open up the heart and when we build up enough heart chi energy to open up the third eye. After that then the emotional blockages can be released or transmitted out of the body as light transmitted out of the third eye. Still there is also the taking in of the jing life force energy as well -- so that the energy is always transforming, only now as a "macrocosmic orbit" -- going out of the third eye and in through the perineum. This is a type of shamanism so that a person feels in tune with their environment -- and there's communication with the physical matter and other life forms are the person. That's why the "small universe" practice is the best to "build the foundation" to open the third eye since the small universe or microcosmic orbit transforms or harmonizes the energy by cycling it up the back and then down the front. Then the full lotus will do that harmonic complementary opposite transformation only as a larger cycle -- out of the "self" -- into other people and then other peoples' energy back into the "self." The full lotus harmonizes that larger cycle of energy transforming from shen into jing and then into chi and back into shen.

As I've gotten older I've found much of what is wrong with the world happened due to people with good intentions who either didn't anticipate unintended consequences or whose view of what is 'good' was actually a selfish dream. Even when they acted with what we'd consider virtue; for the good of all, they didn't end up with it. I see this in politics quite often. Virtue needs to be more then just trying to do good. Good is nice.. but too slippery.

Actualism is pretty good and their online resource and articles are worth going through, but there are some problems - particularly the over emphasis on the practice. Right view is equally important to achieve Realization. Even though Richard had realized Anatta, he under-emphasized the Realization part, over-emphasized the practice to induce PCEs (Pure Consciousness Experience - which is simply an experience but not the realization of anatta), and over-emphasized his achievement. Also, whatever Richard experienced is found in Buddhism even though he thinks he is the first in the world to realize/experience whatever he experienced due to a lack of understanding of Buddhism (see my 47 pages document titled 'Actual Freedom and Buddhism' about this at http://www.box.net/shared/sbyi64jrms ) I and Thusness do not think Richard has overcomed all subtle dispositions. Richard still actively have sex and have a smoking habit, for example. Though he claims to be above passions, we doubt so. There is a 'grayscale of no self/Self' as Thusness puts it. This grayscale could be the difference between Stream Entry to Arhatship. After maturing the insight of Anatta, afflictions may be reduced to a large degree (but not totally removed) and one may easily over-estimate one's achievement, but without going through all aspects of life, it is best we do not over-claim. As Thusness said, even after maturing the insight of Anatta to a high degree, one still does not eliminate the deeper dispositions. However, Thusness did talk about (from personal experience) transcending sexual lust since many years back. So yes, if you reach a very deep level of enlightenment, you go beyond lust. He also talks about fearlessness, anger-lessness, etc. However he recently told me that these are not totally removed (though reduced to a very high extent). As I wrote in the 'Actual Freedom and Buddhism' document: Update: Thusness just informed me that emotions still arise on some occasions, and that he has as-of-yet not completed his path, however emotions (if and when they do arise) recoils/self-liberates/subsides as soon as they arise. Still, my above mapping of the various stages of realizations and the observation that Thusness does not deny the ‘Buddhist 10 fetters/emotion-elimination model of enlightenment’ still stands valid. He also notes from experience that the momentum of the experience of pure sensate clarity without a self/soul in waking life will eventually carry on into dreams (even though he doesn’t dreams nowadays except when physically ill), and thereby allowing fears and negative emotions to subside in the dream state (PCE continues throughout the dream state and no affective quality/emotions are present therein). Even though he does not deny that there is a link between the experience of Anatta and the ‘freedom from emotions/passions’, he also warned people not to over-claim what they have attained. He seems to think that it is highly possible to be tricked into thinking that one has attained something (like total and complete freedom from emotions) prematurely after the realization of Anatta. He said that one has to go through life (and its hardships) before proclaiming such things, and that there is a ‘grayscale of no-self’ and we have to go through life to experience the many faces of self/Self in the forms of attachments. He thinks that it is very naïve to think that one has overcome all sufferings and attachments when one has not faced with tremendous hardships in life (without the hardships, of course everything is fine) – for example being nailed to the cross like Jesus Christ. We should not make premature claims because we simply have not experienced all scenarios in life. He also said that (after the realization of Anatta), it may seem like complete freedom from emotions where emotions and passions never arises at all, but actually there are deeper dispositions than just a matter of directness. In directness, there is no subject-object division or gap, there is no separation, and without this separation it is simply ‘too short’ to have time and too simple to have thoughts, and one might think that therefore it is final, as stated in the 7 Phases of Thusness’s insights. Nevertheless, Thusness Phase 5 still leaves traces. He also mentioned that in practice, one should be sincere about tendencies because it conveys the deeper disposition. For example, when I asked Thusness for his opinion on Richard’s self-confessed habit of smoking, active sex-life, etc, he talks about them as examples of ‘deeper disposition’ that will not be removed even after maturing the insight of anatta. In fact according to Buddha’s standards, if you are still having sex and smoking, you cannot by definition be an arhant since you have already transgressed 2 out of 9 principles (the third and the fifth) that an Arhant cannot transgress due to the complete end of fermentations and the ‘deeper dispositions’ and any subtle cravings that Thusness spoke of. (see http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an09/an09.007.than.html) By Buddha’s standards (the commentaries, and the modern masters, and Daniel Ingram all have different standards), I would say that perhaps Richard has only reached the level of Sotapanna or likely Sakadagami (first or second out of four levels of enlightenment towards Arhantship (complete liberation): see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sot%C4%81panna , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakadagami , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%C4%81g%C4%81mi , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arahant). Having a realization of Anatta does not mean you have ended the deeper dispositions.

Actually, I've experienced that the people in my dream state are just as real in an entirely different dimension. Sometimes my dreams are merely my personal projection and sometimes they are an interpersonal projection. You get into this when you get a little subtler in your meditation. Sometimes I'm just psychically communicating with people that are living on Earth, but through my dream state. You make a whole lot of assumptions based upon 5 sense perception. For you it's guess work, but there are others with their 3rd eye pretty wide open who can communicate with the dead and even see the dead as they move out of their body. When I saw my Opa (Grandfather) die last year, I saw lots of energy stuff going on, on a 6th sense level and all sorts of dimensions opening up for him when I focused on his eyes and went into his consciousness. There are beings that can, and do do things that you and your brain identity may think is delusion but is actual reality beyond this dimension. You should be more agnostic if you were more open minded. I've had too many out of body and inter-dimensional experiences to believe that. I call this at this moment, mass psychosis, limited identity, limited experience, BS!

That's not correct. First of all, if you shoot yourself in the head in your dream, you likely wake up and to people in your dream you are dead, while to yourself you continue existing in the waking world. If you shoot yourself in the waking world, what happens next depends on who you ask. If you ask some people, to us in this world you are dead, but to yourself, you are reborn in another reality.

That's your experience then, eh? In my dreams I most often have a body, exactly like the body I use now to type. Obviously inside my dream body is a dream brain. Of course I don't see my own brain directly just like I don't see it right now. I assume it's there, just like I assume there is a brain in my head right now, even though I haven't seen it. "God" is a loaded word and tends to mean a whole lot. My object is vastly more modest than proving God. I only need to prove that I am not a brain. That's much easier to do for a number of reasons. First, ultimately I know what I am and what I am not, but I cannot say the same about God. Second, proving a negative is much easier than proving a positive. Thus proving that I am not something is vastly easier than to prove something exists, especially when that something is a loaded and weird term like "God."

I say to you my Lord of mystery! I was in a casket tightly closed, filled with the cold darkness. I was walking around in this contracted contraption, I conceived of as a life, Bumping into walls made of my own mind's projections, receiving painful injuries with each motion of thought, finding support and illogical feedback, from those who shared the same insidious dark dream. Cursing you my Lord with my free will, for putting me here with no light to guide me. My eyes wild with outwardly blaming fear, staring into the perceived nothingness that is a misunderstood life. My awareness externalized, to the point where not even a drop of insight would align with my mind. Finally, filled with anguish, I dropped to the floor and closed my eyes, half heartedly hoping with doubt plaguing my mind, I begged for help with a will broken and hurt. I opened my eyes, and as quietly expected, nothing did change. All I saw was more suffering to experience, more petty excuses to make in order to remain, in this foolish bewilderment of unloving pleasure to pain, with nothing unbreakable, just more dust and disdain. So with re-invigorated intensity, to realize something new, I then again shut my eyes with utter sincerity, and I pleaded with you, My Lord of mystery to help me out of this insanity we call misery! Deep within...my gaze wept for a spark of a something, a fullness for this emptiness that I called myself. Deep within, I traveled past memories of pain's and ephemeral dust-like joy's, which led only to more pain, my being sung a song of a heart wrenching for it's long lost love. Knowing it was seeking for the truth only long forgotten... that which without, life turns horrid and rotten! With pits as hearts spit out on the streets of society cold and stark. I cried, I cried, and I cried with no shame, and no desire to be noticed by a somebody...and In these tears, I let go of everything I thought of as important, I let go of any thought that thought itself was even important. In these tears, I drowned myself, I drowned all sense of me! After a time of unperceived passing, having lost all sense of worldly reference, my eyes opened from within...and from deep within, I could see the door to my enclosure, made of whimsical wishes and accidental desires was cracked open! There before my vision was light, LIGHT! Pouring through a seemingly boundless darkness, a small point of freedom glared clarity and shone brilliantly! It was tiny, yet it's warmth at it's sights touch, made me happy, to receive this taste of something beyond this clutch? What is known. My eyes were magnetically drawn to it, forcing my mind to move my body towards this seemingly impossible dream....of a blessing! I pushed on the door of my hearts perception, as the hinges rustily scraped open, to this light I humbly bowed, and wordlessly asked for encouragement, and to this light I released anxiety never spoken, from this illumination I receive nourishment, and teachings pour into my mind, like a rain storm of brilliant golden tokens, for this luminosity grants me, the knowledge that I need in order to live a life open, not to the petty arrogant, clenched fisted attitude's of the angry masses, but OPEN! To the experience of unconditional joy ever increasing, as my understanding is ever deepening. With this lit love held in the cup of my heart as reference, my journey to liberation from suffering continues... and the process of this lights unfoldment, from inner crevice to outer sky steadily brightens, as each day and each shade of color is made reflective of this, even the darkness which was made of cold contractedness, is now nothing but a black light, full of hidden illumination and harmless, and now if I let it, it offers no hurt or petty plight to shade insight... this that is bright and beautiful and not made by me as I realize that it could never be truly obliterated you see... It is the infinity! So hidden was this that was always within, so hidden under the rubble of my own insanity, I habitually considered normality, Now bright and unbidden are the waves of Love's elixir that pulsates throughout my body, and when my mind turns from habit to open spontaneity? in you... Oh Lord of all Mysteries... I FLY!!

I had a dream about receiving shaktipat last night and I seemed to wake up and still having a feeling of receiving energy. Later I fell asleep again and gave shaktipat to someone else in my dream. Very interesting experience. Anyway, I will be there on next Global Shaktipat.

It's kind of like some conspiracy theories. They give reason for helplessness. Theism does this in a sense as well... "It's all God's will that I'm like this and these things happen to me." More reason for helplessness instead of self examination and transformation. Some people would rather concoct ideas that all my experiences and insights that I have shared here are coming from a fraudulent source and that I make things up rather than question what they can do from within to test the validity of the information I have honestly shared here. I don't know if you read it, but a couple of weeks ago Dwai said that I made up everything. I have not and did not, but this seems to me like a cop out. But, to each their own. I'll continue to debate if I'm inspired to do so. For me, it's more of a revelation of insecurity to go to such extreme ideas about someone you don't know and think that it's based upon "divine insight"... AAAAHHHHHHHH! "My Lord came to me and said, 'VH is a fraud'!" I will say for the record, that I'm just a regular human being who before I spent many years meditating, chanting and reading spiritual texts from all the major traditions, I acted like a fool and ran around on the streets. But, starting in 94' I had an awakening experience that reminded me of many spiritual experiences had as a youth as well. After this I followed very intensely and closely Vedic branches of practice and contemplation under the guidance of a living Hindu adept before meeting an experienced Buddhist scholar online named Malcolm Smith (Lappon Namdrol in the Sakya tradition [The Sakya's are the scholars]) who revealed that all my assumptions about Buddhism based upon Advaita Vedantin conditioning were not complete. We debated, much like we are with Dwai for about 3 years before I really just let go. My responses to Namdrol were much like Dwai's responses to us, with the exact same platform for conditioning, that the primal "I" is absolute and static and all dynamic things emanate from that transcendent experience on a cosmic level. I decided that I wanted to know the truth, not use my experiences, no matter how deep I may think them to be, as an escape from further investigation. So, I really started to contemplate the new teachings and perspectives that were coming at me and I at first started to have dream revelations as I would think about them as I was going to sleep. So, the truth of Buddhas revelations would reveal themselves to me in lucid dream states. This is all a process of course. Then I met a Buddhist Master in person and got blown out of the water. I saw the subtle differences between non-substantial non-duality and substance based non-dualism such as Advaita Vedanta and how incomplete the wisdom of substantial non-dualism is through direct experiences and visions of the 6 realms and intuitive comprehension of the meaning of the 31 realm model in link with the 8 form and formless jhanas. I saw how much subtler a view dependent origination is directly and how it leads to a completely un-obscured view! Because infinite and faceless consciousness is considered an obscuration if identified with as absolute. This really scared me and pulled me apart and I fought tooth and nail within to keep both traditions afloat as one. But, I came to the conclusion through intense experiences of spiritual pain with energy and spirit guides, etc. that both traditions were developing the energy body differently for different purposes as the goals are different on more levels than just philosophically and the two could not be reconciled. At least not yet. A fully developed being can go anywhere and not be influenced externally. But, "they say" when you are still developing that the spirit guides in the astral realm change when you change lineage and tradition and some people who have strong development in the previous tradition actually don't even survive the change. Anyway... I'm saying too much maybe. So, for Dwai to come to a revelation of what we are saying, might be asking for too much. As it certainly was hard for me, for many years. Re-arranging pathways in the brain and mind of spiritual interpretation is probably one of the hardest things to do as these pathways are deep and subtle, transcending the mundane. In Dwai's case his entire family lineage is trapped in Vedic conditioning for this lifetime. So he'd rather call me a fraud and allocate me to the not worth listening to box. I will say that I am still a screw up in many ways in my personal life. But, the experiences and insights that I have shared here do come straight from my heart and my life and no one elses. But to label someone a fraud because their interpretation of spiritual experiences is in disagreement with ones own tradition? Ok... We'll let that speak for itself.

Deep (or perhaps not so deep) inside, almost everybody has a dream or vision of what they would really like to do in/with their life. This is something that emerges from the unconscious inner self. But, sure enough, the conscious self has objections at hand immediately: "You can't make a living that way", "you're too old", "it would take too much time to build it up", "you don't have the funds for that", "you lack the talent", "the people around you wouldn't approve of it", and so forth. Obviously, what we tell ourselves is often the warnings that we once received from others. Yet these "stupid ideas" are messages from our soul; they are meaningful and should be looked at. Neglecting them is often the reason for our depression. Even if we will possibly never be able to put them into action as such, we might find some form of expressing them that will enrich our life experience and give us satisfaction. What is your secret yearning, Nikolai? Maybe you don't want to say it in public, that would be fine. But you really have not the least idea? Pardon me if I don’t quite buy that... However, if it is in fact so, then you must ask your inner self for a vision to guide you. If that works for the American Indians, why shouldn't it work for you.

A few things that have worked for me - 1. No electronic stimulation for at least an hour before bed (more time is better) 2. Don't eat too late at night 3. No alcohol or caffeine in the evening or night 4. Meditation before bed but make sure it is a relaxing, stabilizing type of meditation. Some methods can be quite stimulating and will work against you 5. If you wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep this is a normal rhythm. Take advantage of it - sex if you have a partner is a good idea, meditation, write a poem, just don't go for any electronic stimulation 6. In general, it is the thinking that tends to keep us awake. Thinking about not being able to sleep, why, how it will affect us the next day, and so on... If you can calm the thoughts and relax into your body in an easy and comfortable way, that helps. 7. My sleep was never so good until I began a more consistent daily meditation routine (early in the morning) combined with dream yoga practices 8. Some sort of strenuous physical exercise or work during the day helps but not right before bed 9. A warm bath before bed can help also Good luck

Not really. Although I have contemplated 'taking responsibility for my own death'. So I am going to offer an opposite take on it A few times I have been very close to death ( I mean personally, I have also been close to others death, been with them when dying and had to care for the bodies of the dead ... some in a pretty smashed up state ) , with my own close calls - even to the point of the police not believing me that I was the driver of that car ... they took me over to it and indicated the roof crushed into the drivers seat, asked how I could have survived that and why did I remove the drivers body and where did I hide it ? I couldnt explain it either, I had a bump on my head and got 3 stitches in my thumb ... if a witness had not seen me crawling out the passenger side ..... ? Several more incidents like that - ' accidental ' ... then a few years back a big health one ... on the way out - for sure this time Even the Doc at the Cancer clinic approved my plan (unofficially) to not go into treatment , and be sick on their horrible drugs and have my life extended by maybe 2 - 5 years .... sick in a gerri ward ... he said "you seem like the type that will go bush and take care of things yourself ?" I accepted that ... I have had a great life and already lived longer than I expected, achieved my life's dream and several more I never knew I had ! I entered a state of tripping ecstasy (without drugs ) ... every blade of grass ,,, every insect ... all of life open up into this amazing ..... 'connection' . But then , a 'remission' of sorts ... maybe an extra 20 years ? ( next thing I know I get a gorgeous 26 year old girlfriend who has 3 kids and I am hurled into a world I never experienced before ) .... great stuff ! So, no depression or resignation whatsoever . But I still plan on killing myself when its time ... why should I have to die according to someone else's concept ? The issue is .... as I found out ... the last minute it could all turn around , What a bummer if I bumped myself off too early ! Also, the issue of leaving things too late, so you cant do it yourself. Thats where friends come in ... real friends ... not emotional cling on attachments. I do have pain ... sometimes bad ... but its just physical... and I cant take painkillers because it will unbalance my liver - [ got Hep C , but have kept tabs on it for 15 years with TCM ,,, which surprises the docs ... "why have you not degenerated?" Me; " TCM ! " ... any pain seems better than a failing liver, I know, I have felt that a bit, and I have nursed people dying from that . Docs: <frowning disapproval > 'But you have not degenerated ' .... Me ; " T CM. " .... Docs: <frowning disapproval > ] Pain very day .... for over 6 months now ( and another 10 to go .... awaiting a hip replacement on free government list) but not enough to end it all. Some days , I cant even put weight on it ... still I can crawl around the garden in dirt and sunshine with a nice view and weed the vegies and stuff , occasionally, on a good day, I can limp around at training and still show the guys a trick or two with the sword (cant grapple though ) I hope anyone who has a depression and suffers pain ... so much that it feels unbearable ... passes through it and manages to experience the pure joy of simply still being alive that I can feel at times .

I don't agree. I saw some spiritual concepts throughout the movie. One of the sub plots of this multi faceted movie had you wondering if life was just a dream and when you got killed in that dream, you simply woke up. It was their meditation type training that allowed them to control their realities. "I once dreamed I wad a butterfly. When I awoke, I did not know if I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was a man." - Chuang Tzu

Nope, in my dark place it was not a case of a lack in interest or motivation, but a feeling of there being no hope left. When you're in a stressful situation, there is often a little part of you which stays rational and can tell you that, in the end, you'll be ok. Say you've got some very hard exams coming up, no matter what happens, in time, they'll have passed, and your rational part of the mind tells you this and helps to keep you sane. But, if you're in a place where not even this little rational part can tell you it'll be ok, you lose hope and start to really despair, this was for me when I started entertaining very negative thoughts (in, what felt like, a rational manner). Unfortunately, from this place, it can make me look at your situation and think - 'Man you have it easy', just get off your a*** and do stuff. Now, I know its far from this easy, because it is that very motivation which you are lacking which is preventing you from getting involved in life. There is one way to approach it - get in to a little debt and take a holiday, maybe a dream one somewhere. When you get back you'll want to take another one and, hopefully, you'll start doing stuff to make that happen. You'll also have something to talk about with enthusiasm with others.

" Thing is Jesus and Buddha are just a concept to you an me. Really it means nothing." Jesus and Buddha : both of them are exist .... "I don't think you'll ever find the true science behind all this shit. LOL I saw a guy on TB called esoteric scientist, I saw good luck to him/her! All esoteric stuff is like that. At the end of the day thought can only take you so far. If you think critical thinking is God then just become a scientist and insulate yourself from reality." my master said: "if Ancient civilization and modern science combined, Eastern culture and Western culture combined, Inevitably lead to revolution in the life sciences" "According to Li he has unlimited "law bodies" that can see everything, and can change from the size of a pin point to the size of a building. They reside in some dimension we cannot see because our third eyes aren't open. Has anyone here got their third eye open? Have you seen one of Li's law bodies All esoteric stuff seems to promote that paranoid mindset. Thinking someone has something we don't (special energy, opened third eye). Like that guy in that other thread talking about that homeless guy he thinks is enlightened. Classic paranoia. Believing all that theosophical style shit = paranoid man." everyone has "law bodies" . everyone has 3rd eye, does anyone never have a dream? where those picture in dream come from. "Why the hell would you stick up for the communist party? I don't do it, but seriously I don't see how a group of qigong practitioners deserve the treatment they are being given." true "You asked for it. Li does say its not about healing or health and fitness but about higher cultivation AKA salvation. Personally I thought that was the true purpose of qigong so to create an immortal light body in the physical alchemical laboratory, not some cheesy health and fitness stuff." true, Qigong do give you a health body, fix health problem, if you would like keep going , it is about salvation.