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Hi RookieIAm, This thread would be better in the Buddhist sub-forum than in the Daoist sub-forum but perhaps the subject can be discussed from a Daoist point of view. In my understanding there is nothing in the Tao Te Ching that suggests any form of reincarnation so the question is nullified. Chuang Tzu, however, loved to talk about spirituality and the cycles of life and death. The Butterfly Dream is a perfect example. Some read this as an indicator of reincarnation. I don't but that doesn't matter. But even in his stories he speaks of what I call "transmutation". That is, upon death, what we were will become something else. This something else would not include any of our mind realm, only our body realm. Our brain becomes worm food. However, I must point out that this is only a philosophical point of view. There are other aspects of Taoism that would disagree with me, especially Religious Taoism, as it is Buddhist oriented in the most part.

Here's some things I have liked to do, during bad dreams, etc... If you encounter some scary thing, stare it down. Look at it directly for a long time. Make a point to just glare at it, without any emotion. This helps you face the underlying issue, and develops your will power. You can point your index finger at it, which will help to awaken the alert mind and get you out of the hallucinatory state. Moving to touch it will help also get over the fear. There's a Tibetan mudra for "banishing" that I stumbled upon once, where you cross your wrists and pinkies with the palms facing outward, and point the index fingers and thumbs, while bending the middle and ring fingers to touch the palm. They say lesser spirits are scared of it because it resembles the garuda. It works...I think mostly because of the extended index fingers (awareness) and crossed wrists (symbolizes protection). Someone once said that Ya Mu suggested to hiss at it loudly. Haven't tried this but it sounds good, because it'd help to snap you out of it. Another thing is just simply telling it loudly to "get out"...simple, it works. Like I said, all of these things are simply so that you can become more alert. That's all...no magic. Overall, I view "demons" (internal or external) as products of the mind, essentially the same thing as characters in a dream. I think even calling them demons or spirits is a bit delusional. They have no power, unless you believe they do...then really you're just deluding yourself, and causing your own problems in life. In my life, when I dream, the characters don't actually impact my life. I choose my financial situation, my relationships, etc... These characters symbolize the energies of our lives that we've hidden away...that's all. It's a subconscious interpretation...totally the mind. By facing these things, we can become whole and more open...more capable of being good people and living fulfilling lives. Any beliefs beyond this are delusional.

Whether one can function in non-dualism comes down to whether it is possible for a person to function outside the realm of the intellect mind or thought. The mind itself will say that isn't possible because to admit otherwise is to create cracks in its dictatorship over your reality, which is pretty much the default position of the vast majority of humanity, because they live primarily in their minds it is assumed that it isn't possible to live in any other way. But if you go beyond the mind then you have what Nisargadatta Maharaj calls "direct experiencing" where there is no separation between the experience and the experiencer, I believe people like Nisargadatta spent the majority of their awake lives in that place and would talk to people and interact from that place, there may be times when old conditioning took over and times where the dualistic mind is needed to take over but overall I believe those people who are considered "awake" are like the reverse of most people in that their default position is non-duality and occasionally lapse into being controlled by dualistic thinking. While for most of us it is the other way around in that we are "dreaming" or in other word living in our dualistic minds and occasionally get a glimpse of the real reality which is non-dual. To "awaken" is to make a permanent shift out dualistic thinking to some extent, if it were only a temporary thing then it couldn't be accurately compared to waking up out of a dream. In my opinion to have samadhi experiences isn't the same as waking up, it is just a means to put a crack in the vase.

Actually Karl I'm glad you have detailed what you think is nondualism because I think this is exactly the white male Western enlightenment problem in the meditation scene. Ramana Maharshi says that the first stage of practice is mental concentration, to repeat I-I-I over and over not as a mantra but as mental concentration. So but he says that it just the first stage of practice and in actuality you focus on the source of the light - and he said if you focus physically it is on the right side of the heart - even though nondualism is beyond physicality - so he calls the right side of the heart the pinpoint into formless awareness or the Self. The thing is that this exactly corroborates Taoist Yoga: alchemy and immortality which states that the right side of the heart is the source of the Yuan Qi. So the connection to the heart is actually best achieved by the focus on the feeling of compassion, kindness, happiness. But to see the light internally means that the yin qi has been built up enough to increase the yuan qi which then increases the yuan shen, that originates on the left side of the heart. So mental rumination is a left-brain dominant conceptual exercise - it is not even real meditation which first starts with mental concentration and then goes into light visualization as samadhi. But the focus is on the source of that light through the Yuan Qi which can not be seen but is felt as awareness that guides the energy. The problem is the western male enlightenment scene turns advaita vedanta into what is called neo-advaita - which is just a kind of self-affirmation practice - it is not even real meditation - but it's very easy for Westerners to turn meditation into a psychological therapy kind of thing. Master Ni, Hui-ching talks about this problem in the West also - but even in Japan this happened with Zen as Master Nan, Huai-chin points out. I have this problem also - because the mind rebounds into opposite extremes - so just a bit of enlightenment experience then rebounds the brain into vast left-brain conceptualizations. It's very easy for people to dream up vast conceptual schemas - as Yogananda says the white man gets a taste of enlightenment and then has to write a book about it. But in reality that is only just the beginning of meditation. As Vivekananda states Nirvikalpa samadhi is just the beginning of meditation but in fact most people never even reach it. Or as in Taoism - to get to the Emptiness you need to first fill the lower tan tien with yin qi energy and so you do see light but only when light is seen externally are you then tapping into the nondualist reality. So that is a good physical measuring - seeing light externally means you have enough third eye heart activation to create enough yuan qi - yuan shen energy so that the light travels outside the skull. But in actuality even this experience can just be the yin qi energy that is connected to the yuan shen - what's called the "heart's fire" - in Taoism. So that energy has to be stored up continuously - and that is the downfall of tantra is that it reverses this storing up process. The yuan qi is used up and turned back into yin qi which then travels out of the skull via the pineal gland - and so it creates a Ghost Immortal which as I said is also a type of nondualism - it's just a low level, considered the wrong path or a big mistake in the training. So yeah I made that mistake - which as I said is a mistake in tantra practice which is dangerous but also very fast in results.

Science is always changing, always finding new and better ways to theorize about the universe. I've had a deep appreciation for it due to my Philosophy professor, who's also a Physicist, but even he recognizes that science and ultimate truth just don't go hand in hand since science is created by and interpreted by humans. Science posits theories, not facts and all data is prone to interpretation and conclusions are made out of that interpretation by humans [monkeys with very crude intelligent] How will any data found by physicists ever prove Buddhist metaphysics wrong? All Buddhist metaphysics does is show that everything is interdependent and that the ultimate reality is completely beyond human conception. Buddhist philosophy doesn't pretend to posit any truth, it does the complete opposite and forces you to give up that quest. Science is still on that quest and thus will never fulfill it because it's impossible. "God Particle" is actually just an overhyped media term, too bad you fell for it. It makes Christians excited because it could "prove" a prime mover, a substance that everything depends on, unfortunately that isn't the case. Remember when atoms were discovered? O man, people must've thought they were God's lego blocks! And the big bang? That definitely proved God's creation! So why aren't you converting to Christianity already? Doesn't science have all the answer? No, basing metaphysics off scientific discovery will only lead to confusion when those scientific theories change, they are never conclusive... always part of a bigger picture. Anyway, you haven't explained how Buddhist metaphysics will be proven wrong. Any discovery would only, eventually, prove Buddhist metaphysics right because we see the interdependent nature of particles to the Higgs Boson field, the emptiness of mass. First, I must congratulate you on being old; I guess that makes you an authority figure here. Second, if you're going to try to belittle me, at least add more substance to your response. If my arguments are wrong then explain why. My use of pronouns and lack of including animals into the discussion has no bearing whatsoever on what I said. There's no use of even talking about the animals' worldview since they have no language to communicate what they experience. We can speculate that animals do not think about such ideas as 'objective world' since language and thought is required as well as dis identifying with the self as the center of experience, all of which animals lack the potential of, presently. There is enough evidence to warrant a conclusion that animals have a purely subjective experience full of instinctual response, like many and most humans. I generalize humanity as "we", the exceptions are the enlightened who see through their dream-like subjective experience. And, I don't defer to an external authority. a] there is no such thing as external and b] if you don't learn from others then you are thoroughly deluded in thinking you can figure everything out for yourself. I study philosophy for inspiration, not reliance. I'm on a path because it's a silly idealistic dream that the ego can pick its way out of the cage, much easier to listen to the advice of others that have escaped. What's this obsession with individualism you have? It's as if... it's the cosmic point of view.. and not your own... relative..point of view.

Hi, I consider dreams like that dreams of learning, a blessing. You were in the shower and you could see the ladies, both naked of attachments. Once you noticed, then you started to have clothes and no matter how hard d you tried you couldn't remove the clothes. You are grasping thinking trying to control. Once you stopped part of you became naked again. In the end you were sinking into calm water. Your mind was becoming silent, I.e. The calm waters father/male aspect. It was a dream teaching you how to let go. Very beautiful and blessed. Congrats.

You are conflating me with Ramana Maharshi - he uses the term sattva mind merging into the Self and he calls it the unified triad. So yes the three gunas are from samkhya philosophy - the oldest philosophy of India and a Dravidian philosophy from Africa. Tamil, the language Ramana Maharshi spoke, is a tonal language and a Dravidian language. So yes there is conflation there between Dravidian (African-based philosophy) with Vedic philosophy - and I am pointing out that is what causes confusion about nondual philosophy. The older language gets the more musical it is and therefore the musical tonal language is more precise in communicating emotional intelligence. So for example I just had someone email me a pdf on how non-western cultures that have not been controlled by U.S. hollywood ideology - they use language that focuses the emotions on the body parts, based on the meridian energy channels and how this is perceived via the pineal gland. Science does not understand this - science is aware of the nonwestern common terminology of the emotions to other body parts - but not aware of the origin of this terminology. So for example that in many cultures instead of saying "how are you?" the greeting question is "how is your liver?" Because in those cultures to show anger in public is the greatest shame and so the most important thing is that the liver is not clogged up - since that is the source of the anger. Westerners and Westernized cultures are too left-brain dominant to understand this connection. But with a tonal language that type of question is actually built into the frequencies of the words themselves - just as the oldest Indian language is considered to be Sruti from India - tonal chanting. All modern humans originate from the Bushmen culture which is the language that is the most musical and also has the most sounds used - so it's the most sophisticated language. So we can see that Sruti is going back to this African origin of language. So then we consider someone like Chuang Tzu saying that human language has no more meaning or importance to use then the sound of animals which we think is just gibberish. In fact the healing songs that the Bushmen rely on use as for their lyrics - total gibberish words! Now consider music - I know a lot of people who claim to like music but in fact they place more importance on the meaning of the words then the actual emotional content of the frequencies. But it's been proven that non-western cultures never exposed to Western music can accurately identify what is known to be "happy" or "sad" or "scary" music, respectively major, minor or tritone music intervals. Yes the intention of the meaning of the words is crucial since that guides the electromagnetic or yuan qi energy that drives the music - but that does not mean that music without words can have less important intention! Intention is an electromagnetic force - so many people are controlled by their subconscious intentions. There is a great book called the Haunting Melody by Theodore Reik, a psychologist friend of Freud and Brahms in Vienna - so he documented that many people get a melody in their head and at first they can't remember the words. But when they finally remember the words they realize the meaning of the words reveals the true subconscious intention of the experiences they are having. This is very similar to how old people with dementia can be catatonic and not able to speak but when they have their favorite music put to their head then they come to life, can speak, move and their memories come back in vivid. This is because music activates our reptilian vagus nerve - the cerebellum deep brain that controls emotions, body motion and the left side vagus nerve to the heart where our holographic spirit information is stored. Now that is just western music which is actually very limited in meaning. Ramana Marashi discusses how the real meaning of Nada Yoga is that within the sound is light energy and so by listening to the source of the sound then you create light energy. This has actually been verified by science - it's called sonoluminescence but even more so it's called "sonofusion" or LENR - "low energy nuclear reactions" aka cold fusion. I think that actually Western science cold fusion verifies the secret source of listening - or sound - as an alchemical energy training. My book "Alchemy of Rainbow Heart Music" goes into this in more detail - but obviously only meditation can enable this energy to be resonated and activated for a human as a whole. This has been documented that plants and birds use quantum non-local signalling - instantaneous information as quantum entanglement that corroborates the claims of nondualism - it truly is a field of formless awareness. But science, while it can document nondualism as quantum biology, can not reproduce it as off-the-shelf technology because Nature is just too sophisticated for that. This is why the skeptics reject these claims - and try to ignore quantum biology - it was considered crank science until Scientific American did a cover story on quantum biology back around 2006 and M.I.T. just last year had a conference on cold fusion saying indeed it has been corroborated and should be commercialized soon. But again this is not the same as the nondualism embodiment and enactment of this type of nondual energy into a large sentience organism. There can be a lot of freaky stuff with this energy - like Yan Xin saying how his friend was warned he could pick up the illnesses of the people Yan Xin had healed. There are karmic consequences of playing with the Emptiness so to speak - if you have the psychic intention of taking energy from a spiritual master - that energy could have been used to heal someone of a serious illness - and so then the Emptiness (god, etc.) actually will cause a karmic rebound against the egotistical intention. Or like I did - doing tantra you use up the Yuan Qi energy of the heart while taking in other people's yin jing holographic lower emotional lust blockages. This is what is called "Ghost Immortality" in Taoism - it is a type of lower level nondualism. So actually even the term God comes from the Indo-European root word Gott which means Bull just as Brahman also means Bull - and so this is tied to the plow-based farming from wheat monoculture that the Vedic-Brahmin culture brought with it when it spread into India. This is obviously a huge emotional pressure point - but the science - the new DNA analysis has proven this spread of wheat monocultural farming beyond a doubt and confirms just exactly why Vedic religious terms are the complementary opposite of Persian religious terms. For example my name Drew means Druj in Persian or Druh in Sanskit - one means Devil and the other means Angel or God. I forget which is which but you get my point - they are complementary opposites or you might even say dualistic symmetries. The linear view of time in an apocalyptic sense is based out of the Zoroastrian religion and this is tied to what archaeologists call the "symbolic revolution" - which is a philosophy of containing infinity using written language and right-hand technology. In other words as Westernized technology spreads around the world via plow-based farming and monocultural religion it standardizes space into a logarithmic symmetrical ritual mass sacrifice geometry and it also causes an acceleration of linear time - the apocalypse built into the monocultural religion. Western culture is a religion of nondualistic technology - God or Brahman as Bull spreading as logarithmic technology via symmetric-based logic. In other words left-brain dominant meditation is used to turn space and time around - you use logical inference to go to the Emptiness into an UnDead state and from that Undead state you argue for a contained alchemical infinity that is defined by symmetric tautological logic - "I Am that I Am" and that logic is the basis for ritual geometry technology. So for example the "divide and average" math for the Pythagorean theorem actually originates from 3000 BC Brahmin ritual geometry that was also the basis for centering the wheel for chariots. Chariots then used to spread out the Bull cattle plow-based farming - since the intensive monocultural farming causes plagues and so relies on getting to fresh virgin territory to rape. So written language is very different than older tonal African-based languages which retain a tie to the local ecologies, as David Abram's book "Spell of the Senses" points out or as musciologist Victor Grauer's book documents - in his free blogbook, "Sounding the Depths." Or as Leonard Shlain's book "The Goddess and the Alphabet" points out - as written language developed so did this idea of containing infinity geometrically - along with it patriarchy. Another good book on this topic is "When God was a Woman" by Merlin Stone. So then you have the definition of God as a tautological symmetric logic of a contained infinity, "I Am that I am." In actuality the "I Am" originates from the older Dravidian tonal based languages - or the Srutis - so that AM is more like OHM or AMEN. Or to put it into music ratio terms - I is 1 and AM as OHM is 2:3:4 - the Perfect Fourth and Fifth music intervals. All human cultures intuitively use the 1-4-5 music intervals - and so this is the real unifying definition of humanity. Yang is the Perfect Fifth and Yin is the Perfect Fourth and as I document on my blog - the three gunas are also defined by these music intervals. In other words the "I" is mathematically the number one (which is not a number since it is part of an infinite convergence sequence). This is tied to sacred geometry - so that for example in these early empires the music ratios were actually how the gods and goddesses were defined - but then through divide and average math the ratios were attempted to be "contained" geometrically. In reality the language as a tonal language is an infinite listening process and so the infinity can not be contained geometrically - but the idea of nondualism is that once sahaja samadhi is achieved then it is called "eternal liberation" that can not be undone and this infinity is "contained" within the body of the Jnana. It is true this is a permanent achievement beyond the heart - I just spent several days with a qigong master who can achieve this state of samadhi beyond the heart but I don't think he is there all the time. He said the original qigong master is there all the time but for him he only achieves this deep heart Emptiness samadhi once a month. Again only a half dozen people have even achieved sahaja samadhi on Earth but when the Western white male enlightenment scene picked this up then all sorts of New Agers claim they have achieved this realization. haha. The great ease of the Brahmin ideology is you need no "proof" for achieving sahaja samadhi since only God performs the spiritual powers and so if someone is not healed that just means that have the wrong karma to get healed. And again in terms of Mahayana Buddhism - sahaja samadhi is only the emptying out of the 7th level of consciousness - the ego-mind that originates in the heart - but it is not yet emptying out the 8th level of consciousness of the universe which relies first on emptying out the consciousness of the body, the first 5 levels of consciousness. So even if sahaja samadhi is achieved and it is very rare - that is still not the final level for Mahayana Buddhism "supreme complete enlightenment" and that makes perfect sense in terms of complementary opposite harmonics because in reality everything is based on an infinite resonance of energy - and so it's not just the ego-mind that is emptied out but everything can be harmonized back to its Emptiness origin. For the Brahmin priest they rely on the caste hierarchy to take care of their body which they "cast off" to illness or to protect their body while they do the meditation (no eye contact with females allowed). So I would say that all written language is dualistic but consider for example Burmese, it's actually a Buddhist language and so they don't use any personal pronouns in the language - this is to emphasize that everything is just happening impersonally from the formless awareness. Or for example Ojibwe has several different pronouns for we - so that the personal pronouns are more specific, there is we as in you all and we as in us, etc. In English this misuse of "we" is a hierarchical control tactic as in "we" think this, etc. and it actually means "not you" and the person saying it is using it as a power-over materialistic control technique. Still that is just a reform attempt of language around the use of subjective pronouns or not the use of them. But if you look at the history of anti-semitism it spread with the spread of written language - so for example with Platonic philosphy that has an inherent eugenics built into it - then it was not seen that the Jews could actually truly convert to Christianity in Spain - and this Platonic philosophy was picked up from the Moors. Then with the Austrian Empire they spread Germanic written language and with it the Eastern European countries began converting their spoken languages into written languages. This made the Eastern European cultures much more left-brain dominant and therefore cut off from the intuitive understanding of the right brain and the pineal gland transducing and perceiving the intelligence of the lower body organ emotions - being "possessed" by anger from a liver blockage, for example, or sadness being a lung blockage. Just as in ancient Greek - thymus was the soul as linked to the thymus gland. So what happened is as written language spread into Eastern Europe then the Jews were seen as possessing their own rival secret written language. Anti-semitism is precisely defined by this circular logical tautology - the Jews possess their "Jewishness." It's an empty signifier and only then the word "I" then is self-transcending as a signifier. So originally language was tonal based and more musical and this is documented by the use of the lyre instrument to record the mythologies and histories of cultures - the musical trance enables long memorization. This is documented as the Mozart Effect based on the increase in alpha brain waves from the slow baroque middle movements of sonatas and concertos - a pace of 60 beats per minute, which is the heart beat, as the time interval, the second, was first derived from the heart beat - 60 beats per minute. So by resonating the heart through music this causes a visionary theta-alpha brain wave. Alpha brain waves increases the serotonin bliss while theta is the oxytocin deeper heart love bliss - kicked in during the deep dreamless sleep of delta brain waves. And so musical-based language actually very knowingly activated an increase in brain light - a visionary state for photographic memorization that happens during a trance dream state but this ancient skill has been lost and disregarded in our time. Most people when they hear a slow baroque movement will just fall asleep because modern culture is addicted to dopamine left-brain dominant beta waves - stress addiction from ejaculation addiction - and so people really just need more sleep and are not ready for that visionary state of awareness. haha. So Ramana Maharshi says that the problem with Nada chanting is that it induces a dull trance (it's good to initiate samadhi but causes an egotistical self-satisfaction) and so the yogi then gets caught up in these visionary astral energy realms and the nirvikalpa samadhi of one-pointed concentration on the Emptiness is lost. And so the real origin of the ego in the heart is not achieved in many cases. But this problem can be applied on all levels of consciousness - as the Ch'an Buddhists point out - and so for example Master Nan, Huai-chin says that there is a great need for more critical analysis of the 6th level of consciousness - just the conceptual level of consciousness needs to be emptied out more. Anthropologists and musicologists have proven that the original human culture sings the same trance dance spiritual music from before human language was even developed, 70,000 years ago! So all these "ancient" spiritual traditions of the East are really rather recent in terms of all us biological humans that originate from the Bushmen culture. Genetically the Bushmen are the most diverse human culture on Earth - we all are part of the Bushmen culture. So that is our biological history - and the culture of trance dance spiritual training is from before human language developed. So when we sing we do become right brain dominant and also when we listen to music but Western tuned music inherently traps the sound into a materialistic geometry. The right brain can not "write" words. This is why the Western scale in Indian music is known as the materialist focus of the music. Western trained musicians are more left-brain dominant and just limited to those superficial emotions that I mentioned above. The Westerner thinks that trance chanting music is childish because as was pointed out we are misled to think that if you repeat something over and over and expect a different result this is stupid. On the contrary if someone understands nondualistic nonlinear resonance then the repetition resonates through complementary opposites and so creates constant eternal change of energy - light from sound - and nothing is ever the same - or as Yogananda called it a "Everfresh newness." This is only achieved through this internal listening process that Ramana Maharshi called "Mouna Samadhi" (silence or sigh-lense samadhi) which is really the highest level of nondual samadhi. That is the secret of the unified triad that he refers to - it is more like the intention of the music harmonics.

You came off as snide and full of sarcasm (like a few other posters on here but fortunately most people here are actually pretty chill, laid back and very knowledgable) and I called you out for it. Assuming that wasn't your intention then I guess I'll have to be the one to come out and apologize to you. As far as the name goes I chose it because I been a practicing lucid dreamer for the past few years and it's opened me up to so many different things so it's a more fitting name. Am I proficient at it? Somewhat, when I put in the effort. I do plan on getting to the point where I can achieve "mastery" of my dream worlds by inducing lucid dreams whenever I wish. From my personal experiences I honestly don't think the methods proposed by Stephen LaBerge (the guy who coined the term behind my name) offers any techniques that are practical and make you into a truly skilled lucid dreamer. Besides that Laberge guy is stuck in a spiritual strait jacket built by his own illogicalities and large ego. There really is nothing "heavily meaningful" behind the name I use here and I personally find it to be more casual. You're making it seem like I'm a self proclaimed Tibetan rinponche or Taoist immortal and at this point in time I'm clearly neither. Now those names are the real deal and I never claimed to be either one of them. Again, I apologize for misjudging and I'll look into your post again. Thanks.

No, there are no models. Is like you went to sleep one night and woke up and surrounded by a large field of white luminous light, as far as your consciousness can see. Similar to when you are about to die and what happened to you in your bardo experience. You have forgotten that you have a body. You have forgotten why you were even born on this earth. Your immediate reality is the conscious awareness that you are now living in this large field of white luminous light. There are no ups, sideways, or downs. There is no heaven or earth. Everywhere you turn, is just this white luminous white field of light. I was in this state for few seconds, in one morning while I was in my dream, meditative state. I broke off this concentration because I realized that I have to take care of my parents. It was then, my consciousness moved away from this non-duality and then I became aware that I have a body and still sleeping in my bed. Then, I became aware that I needed to breathe. After that, my chi began to circulate in my body and I experienced all the wind and yang energy running through my channels and feeling very hot. So, my chi actually stopped for few seconds. I have been on my path for over 20 years and this was the only time I actually experienced a genuine rigpa. A non-duality is the objective state of the mind reality. It has been this way eons ago and it would be this way eons later. There are no models.

Greetings.. The objective world exists as a verifiable continuum.. the tree that was in my front yard yesterday, is still there when i awake today.. The dream i had last night has no consistency, no continuum, the dream i had the night before was completely different, no relationship with last night's whatsoever.. Be well..

And Chuang Tzu furthermore said: The Skull The Sage was traveling to the city when he saw an empty skull with a sharp contour by the side of the road. He asked, “How did you come to this? Did you live an extravagant life and abuse your constitution? Were you a condemned criminal and killed by the executioner? Did you do something wrong which shamed your parents and your wife and children and commit suicide? Or did you die of hunger and starvation? Or did you live to an old age and die a natural death?” After saying this, he took the skull and used it as a pillow and lay down to sleep. At midnight, the skull appeared to him in a dream, and said to him, “You talked like a pedant. What you mentioned are the troubles of mortal life. When one dies, one does not have such troubles. Do you want to hear about life after death?” “Yes,” replied the Sage. “In death,” said the skull, “there are no kings and no subjects and no changes of seasons. One is completely free, regarding Heaven and Earth as spring and autumn. Such happiness exceeds even that of a king.” The Sage would not believe him and said, “If I asked the controller of life to restore your body, give you bones and flesh and skin, return you to your parents and family and let all your neighborhood know about it, would you like it?” The skull knitted its brows and deepened its eyes and said, “How can I exchange the happiness of a king for the troubles of the mortal world?”

Well you'll really never know now until you actually set out on the path. There was a time, when this stuff was first contrived, where people had no choice but to learn on their own. There had to be an "originator" of these systems, but the way they learned these things is often way too hard for people to accept as possible. Due to the fact that people are terribly inept at creativity, and are also nestled into a framework of toiling for even small gains, it is nigh impossible for MOST people to learn on their own. However, this is not something that is innate, but rather a learned and inherited way of interaction that folks just accept. If you want to learn on your own, or learn independent of the need for "physical" teachers, you are gonna have to take a chance and go about trying something out that you may not understand fully. Moreover, you might have to start pushing the boundaries on what you think you need so that you can attain what you actually need. You can lucid dream and gain a teacher for everything, but will you accept that you have gotten a teacher who is as "useful" as one in this reality experience? That's up to you to decide, and if you chose to act the same way with physical teacher, your results would be the same. So you can learn anything independent a physical teacher, but if you are going that route, you gotta be willing to use methods that are not generally accepted as "legit" by others.

Scientific experiments all take place within consciousness. Perceiving the thermometer is a mental phenomenon. This is like arguing that dream fire is objective because you can conduct dream scientific experiments on it. My question to all of you who accept an "objective" world outside of consciousness: have you ever seen it?

Maybe this shows how materialistic I can get, but this one point seals the advantage to me, together with the veggie meals. If it's that much cheaper, then there is no doubt it's worth it. I had no idea Goenka retreat was free. I thought there was at least a nominal cost. I think that point alone would seal the deal. Back in my e-sangha days, I've heard mixed reviews from Goenka retreats. However, most complaints centered around the, what some people perceived to be, cult-like and hypnotic figure of Goenka himself. I haven't heard of any complaints as far as the community or meals or the environment go. Plus, many people just plain liked Goenka. This peace of mind is worth something. A lot of this stuff is dependent on the level of interest, the firmness of resolve, and intent (three ways to say the same thing). If your level of interest is very high, there is little or no chance you'll get distracted and there is no need for a structured environment. On the other hand, if your level of interest is flagging, a structured environment will help some and may even boost your interest to the point where later on you could be in a retreat mindset no matter where you were. For example, dream yoga. I know anyone who sleeps can practice dream yoga. So only the firmness of resolve is necessary for this practice. As far as formal walking, standing, sitting, lying down meditations go, I agree this might be a little awkward if your family is not already habituated to such things. This is why I would never keep some things like meditation a secret. What if some day I want to meditate in front of my wife or friends? If I made sure to keep my spiritual life a secret, then I might be in an awkward situation later on. This is why all my family and friends know about such things, so that if I ever do them, there is no surprise.

I think it's great that in that state I can learn instead of just chasing women ....... there's no guarantee I can catch them in my dream either! At least with a book I get something I don't think it is just subconscious information trying to break through, although I understand what your saying, dreams too, often have that element. The books have a distinct character all of their own and you can feel the writers mind coming through it. I do agree the subconscious has a great deal of information to offer though..... but I really don't think everything can or necessarily should be reduced to that. I will say though that's pretty interesting that you can give the information another form, and I can see why you view it therefore as the subconscious. I certainly couldn't prove you wrong, and I guess at the end of the day it only matters that it's useful, no matter what the source. The best part is it was for free right Can you remember what the information was about? Or, like me just the broad subject matter A7? I don't know what you all think, but in my own view I take it as the other/inner part of me doing its own thing. I believe that inner me/you has a life all of its own, existing within dimensions/areas where many things exist, some earthly, some not. It seems to have a life all of its own. Take this example I think almost all of us have had. You're in a 'dream'(which to be honest some of I think is the inner you doing the rounds and parts of the experience filtering back to your 'in body' consciousness)and you're talking to a good friend/s that you have known for years, with all the feelings and recognition that comes with that knowing........yet when you wake you think...'who the bloody hell was that!', the fact is you don't know them, but that part of you clearly does, after a very short while you will forget the face too, although you know for sure you have never met them or know them 'here'. I know it could be said that maybe it's the subconscious and of course you feel recognition because of course the subconscious recognizes aspects of its self, and maybe is trying to show you that for some reason, sometimes I do think that's true, but not always in my view. Not everything is Jungian psychology, and it should be remembered Jung drew heavily from many ancient cultures and systems and tried/made a point of presenting it to the scientific community in a way acceptable to them. Personally, I think Jung kept a lot back, stuff he knew would be a big push for people in general and would call the rest of his work into question. Having said that he definitely pushed the boundaries, especially when he started dealing with synchronicity, that really seems to split the psychology community, one side simply saying it's a psychological effect of cognition, the human mind wishing to group things together, Jung thought otherwise, I'm inclined to agree with him.

And me. I have read through pages and pages of ancient texts in dream and semi-dream states.

psychic abilities is yin qi energy - lunar energy - and mental abilities of the pineal gland - it is not the heart spiritual energy which is much more powerful but with less ego. To see auras is actually more spiritual energy than psychic energy. The New Age community in the West thinks seeing auras is easy but it's actually a more advanced ability - it's just that people can lie about easily, etc. telepathy is also from yang qi energy going out of the pineal gland so it is more of a spiritual ability. Yin qi when built up does enable some psychic synchronicities - when you really fill up the yin qi you see auras more and have telepathy, etc. as the yang qi manifests. So "super psychic" indeed. Children who study qigong will develop abilities much faster, much easier. In fact the qigong master just told me he wants to work with preschool kids as a qigong training program. haha. He was hanging out with my niece a bit and said how they are on the same wavelength. But I did send my niece a lot of energy when she was younger than 2 years old. So I am proud of her - and glad the qigong master liked her energy. At the younger age a person stays in the theta REM brain wave state - like a waking dream - a natural visionary state. So the pineal gland energy is stronger naturally but when puberty kicks in then the unified yuan shen and yuan qi separates. The pineal gland closes down and the reproductive organs increase - as the yuan qi energy of the pineal gland moves down to the reproductive organs and then the yuan qi energy is lost out as fluid when the yuan shen leaves out of the eyes as desire. But before that the strong yuan qi in the pineal gland holds in the yuan shen so that the unified spirit energy can manifest easily - from the heart. So this is a beautiful pure energy for children. this is the qigong I am talking about - a 9 year old does healing with it.

It's as though the world and all the people around me turned to glass, everything seems so transparent and I don't see a reason, or feel a desire/passion to do much of anything at all- I don't see anything to achieve anymore. All goals that pop up once in a while are fleeting/dying constructs of the past. It's been this way for years now, although it's getting progressively worse with each passing month. The lines of demarcation between people are becoming less and less defined, their actions/words all very similar and transparent. I feel like my individuality is in a state of constant erosion, and that state is affecting my perception of/projection onto the world? Life no longer holds meaning for me personally, and that bothers me as the society I live in is very goal oriented and promotes this fierce sense of individuality within people- so I don't quite fit. I'm not having the "time of my life" or "beginning to settle into my career", as many say I should be at this age. I find life becoming more and more simple, though I feel less and less reason to try to "keep up". This causes my family grief and maybe friends of whom I no longer have contact. I tried living for them alone and it always comes to a point where I just collapse from the pressure and from having nothing of my own- no dream, dreams were very important to me, I had a few.

I haven't had a lot of experience with tantra at all, other than just trying to focus massive amounts of sexual energy and letting it cycle through my entire body instead of just staying in the lower chakras. But I'm really intrigued by non-Buddhist and non-Hindu tantric practices, because in my *extremely limited* experience with tantra, it's actually quite difficult physically, it's quite exhausting, and in my experience and people I've talked to about it, you actually start to get a little grossed out by the actual physical act of sex, sex and food starts to become dirty, everything seems so mundane because you are in this higher physical plane, and your concentration is in your inner body, watching your own winds, etc. It seemed unbalanced to me, but the argument that I've heard is that we're so often MORE focused on our lower chakras so the focus on the higher ones brings some kind of balance in a theoretical way. I'm really curious about how the whole lucid dreaming thing applies to women if anybody knows. I've been working on strengthening my control over my dreaming body (aka aura) and trying to move it up and down and around...it's kind of difficult and is sort of wavering a bit and hard for me to do it consistently. But what I'll feel is TONS of chi, and it feels like I've slept for hours even if I just do it for a short period of time...but sometimes I do fall asleep when I do it, and then I'll have like five million dreams--I mean one time I had seven dreams, and they were like dreams within dreams, like I'd have a dream and then try to write it down in another dream and realize I'm still in a dream. It was pretty bizarre. But the content of them (except for the one where I was flying with my basket picking oak trees off of the top of the tree) was fairly mundane.

DA POINT BE NOT JUST TO REMMEMBER DA DREAM, DA POINT BE TO *CONTROL YER ACTIONS* IN DA DREAM. LUCID DREAMMIN BE JUST DA PRE-CUM-DITION, BUT DA BRAKE-TRHU OCUR WHEN YA CAN MAKE DICCISIONS N IMPLEMMENT EM IN YER DREAMS, EVVENTUALY YA CAN SIT N PRACTICE DA CIRCULLATION O DA LIGHT WHILE DREAMIN N THAT BE DREAM YOGA. BUT TO ACCHIEVE THAT YA GOTTA GO LIKE YER VERRY HEAD BE IN FLAMES. THAT MEAN, YA GOTTA MAKE A METTER O LIFE N DEATH OUTTA IT. BYE NOW RJ

parrots are one thing, ravens another.... “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door — Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore — For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore — Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door — Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; — This it is, and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"— here I opened wide the door; — Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" — Merely this, and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice: Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore — Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; — 'Tis the wind and nothing more."..

I don't think I have consciously accepted their decision because I don't want to be a shaman. It is pretty hard and also dangerous. But what I heard from Tujana. She told us that there were many shamans in her line. She was already chosen by spirits when she was born and she didn't have any choice but to accept it. She also didn't want to become a shaman because she wanted to lead a normal life and have children (you can have children as shaman but they are in danger from spirits). But the spirit of her grandpa visited her in a dream and told her that she could only choose between dying and becoming a shaman. She didn't listen to him and after a year or so she had a stroke and half of her body was paralyzed. She was at hospital and couldn't move from the bed. The spirit of her grandpa has come into her dreams again and she accepted the offer of becoming shaman. The spirit told her that there needs to be a ritual done in order for her to be deparalyzed. I do not remember what she told us about the ritual though I know it was quite interesting but I can ask my father who remembers it for sure. But I know the outcome - she was then normal and could move. The spirit visited her again and told her that she has to seek a women with white hair in Mongolia. So they sold their only cow they had and went to Ulanbatar. There they somehow found this women after a week or so (I don't now remember all the details of this). That woman became her mentor. If she doesn't do rituals for some time she becomes anxious and has a pressure in her head too. She told us that in Buryatia it is normal that some people have this syndrome but they can still live with it without becoming shamans. They can for example heal people with their hands to relieve the tension in them. Even their governor does some massages once or twice a week and then he returns back to his work. Everyone is different. She has done our family a huge ritual which was half-day long last month when she was here. When she was in trance she touched my head and the pressure was released. I was fine for a few days. She also told me that now everything would get slowly back to normal and that it would take approximately half a year. I thought that if I would be home for 6 months that I can't be possibly cured. But it seems that some synchronicity is happening now - present events gave me a lot more hope. It seems that all the complexity that happened to me was for a reason.

Did not Solomon of the Bible write about 'purpose'. Well, I have had a pretty good shot at 'trying everything under the sun ' too My palaces were smaller and my gardens vaster, I had less concubines .... but still . I had, I think, much better quality wine. I got to the point where , a hard days work that accomplished something ( that I thought was good) . a glass of wine (or equivalent), and a comfy spot to view the sun go down (and then do my sunset meditation - which is basically; thank you for another day of being alive, regardless of how it was ) was the only real 'satisfaction' or 'purpose' . I am happy at this stage ... Solomon went on, but just here will do fine for me. I want to quote someone else anyway, not Solomon " The grave's most holy peace is ever sure, We fall asleep and never wake again;Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,Whose elements dissolve and merge afreshIn earth, air, water, plants, and other men.We finish thus; and all our wretched raceShall finish with its cycle, and give placeTo other beings, with their own time-doomInfinite aeons ere our kind began;Infinite aeons after the last manHas joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb.We bow down to the universal laws,Which never had for man a special clauseOf cruelty or kindness, love or hate:If toads and vultures are obscene to sight,If tigers burn with beauty and with might,Is it by favor or by wrath of fate?All substance lives and struggles evermoreThrough countless shapes continually at war,By countless interactions interknit:If one is born a certain day on earth,All times and forces tended to that birth,Not all the world could change or hinder it.I find no hint throughout the UniverseOf good or ill, of blessing or of curse;I find alone Necessity Supreme;With infinite Mystery, abysmal, dark,Unlighted ever by the faintest sparkFor us the flitting shadows of a dream. ....

How do you explain your past life visiting you? At first I thought it was a dream... but I was awake... like a streaming consciousness. Even if I fell asleep the same story continued; wake up to same story; sleep to same story. All night and into the morning.

DREAM YOGA BE YOGA PRACTICED WHILE IN LUCID DREAM STATE, SO YA NEED TO SEIZE YER DREAM MIND N GAIN CONTROL OVER YER ACTIONS N YER THOUGHTS WHILE IN DA DREAMS. YA CAN READ BOOKS ABOUT IT, BUT ESENTIALLY YA HAVE TO INVENT DA WAY, THRU BECCOMIN OBSESED WITH IT LIKE IT WAS A QUESTION O LIFE N DEATH (WHICH IN A SENSE , IT BE). RJ