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From the void each day you witness millions of beings coming into being, and each day you see millions of beings returning. I know personally that one day I woke up here in this world, as if waking from a dream, and that someday I will leave it. We can make certain cases for what will happen after death: 1. Eternal afterlife 2. Eternal nonexistence 3. Rebirth Seeing as each day millions come from and return to the void, I think a belief in rebirth is not unreasonable. Out of all these cases, rebirth also is the only one I would want to prevent. As to why mo pai is good at it? Well previous generation masters returning (as physical and visible spirits) to interact with their students should be a tip off there.

Well ill tell you more about my exp and then maybe you will see where im coming from. I head sifu talk about the Jinshen(golden spirit) and buddha belly(internal power generated at the ldt.(sifu always uses terms that others dont) Anywho I got an empowerment from sifu. Sifu told me to get up at 6am to do a particular med. So i got up at 6am did the med and went back to bed. During my sleep I had a dream that i was in my apt and sifu was there. He touched my forehead and all of a sudden a felt this electric energy going thru building and somehow it felt a little golden(best way i can describe it). Then suddenly everything went black and I saw the indigo glow of my third eye and threw the indigo glow I say i grassy field and then I was standing in that field. I heard the masters voice and he said "this the empowerment they would give to the monks at shaolin" and I looked behind me and I seen the shaolin temple. Then I was back in my apt sifu told me i should dress and eat better and then I woke up. I immediately called sifu told him about what happened and all he said was "How did you like it?" My jaw hit the floor. That was one exp. One time i was on the phone talking to someone and i said some good things about sifu and then he beeped in on the other line and said "I like what you just said about me." Another time I was talking to someone on the phone who belonged to another sect and during the phone at sporadic momments i kept seeing sifu's face in my head. Then I just told the person i was talking to that whatever they were doing just to stop. I told them about seeing my masters face in my head. At one point during the convo he saw it too. Later he contacted me again thanking me for warning him because the sect he was part of turned to be not such a good sect and ill leave it at that. Another exp I had happened when I was walking as I like to do. An I passed a church and when I did my shen activated. I contacted sifu who told me that anything with spiritual power will activate my shen. An that you could actually tell how developed someones spiritual power was just by saying their name. Also that there are such objects in this world that hold spiritual that will only activate around someone who's shen power is developed. So when the sun thing happened and sifu explained it and I thought back to the empowerment and what he said about the jinshen it made perfect sense to me. Now to say that I am so great that i can mix 2 powerful systems of cultivation correctly and with success seems a bit incorrect..

Some instructional points to bear in mind relating to actual practice: 2. The basic principles or nature of the Body. In the center of the Transformation-Wheel (Chakra) at the navel and the other main Wheels in the body is pivoted the Central Channel; the upper end and the lower end of p. 158 it, together with other points of the Wheels, are the most important centers. These centers are viewed as vital points and are emphasized in the Skill-in-Yoga-Teachings of Tantra. According to the pith-instructions of Marpa, one should put emphasis on the Heart and Throat Centers during sleeping, and should know the critical teachings on the Navel and Forehead Centers during the practice of Heat Yoga and Karma Yoga in the awakening stage. This is because during these different times the Thig-le upon which the consciousness relies concentrates at these four different centers. According to the teaching of Dus-akor (Kalachakra) the Head Center and Navel Center produce the Thig-le in the awakening stage; the Throat and the Secret Center produce the Thig-le in dreaming stage; the Heart and the Precious Center produce the Thig-le in the deep-dreaming stage. This agrees approximately with the saying that at the end of the navel and genital center, the Thig-le is produced in the four different times. At the time of falling into sleep, the pranas will gather at the Heart Center and the Precious Center. When they are heavily concentrated, one will fall into sleep; thereafter, the pranas in these two parts gradually become thinner and thinner. When (most of) the pranas come to the Secret Center and Throat Center the fleeting dreams will appear; when the pranas have gathered in these two parts for some time the actual dreams (or steady dreams) will arise. When the pranas rise up to the Center Head and Navel Centers, one will awake. From the Head Center the Thig-le drops to the end of the precious organ; as it reaches the different p. 159 centers as mentioned above it will produce the various blisses (or so-called Four Blisses). This is the meaning of the four times: Through the power of the prana the Yogi manipulates in exercise, the Downward-Bliss produces the Dim Innate when it reaches the center of the navel; when it reaches the end of the precious organ the Bright Innate is produced. That these four centers are very important in the meritorious exercises of dream and sleep by no means implies that they are not essential points upon which the exercises of mental concentration should be carried out during the daytime. Among all the centers in the body, the Navel Center is the one upon which the Yogi should begin. One should also know that to concentrate upon the different centers will produce different effects and specific advantages. * I have a detailed link to the preparatory stages and actual practice ritual for the secret yogas of Naropa. Due to the fact that its classified as a mahayoga practice, i cannot post it here, but can do so selectively via PM. Of course this is not my exclusive knowledge as it can be accessed via the net, just that i cannot post the link openly in line with vows taken. Those who know will understand. Maybe its already been posted here in the past, not sure, and i wont be searching anyways.

I am generally an advocate for this idea... because: 1. The PPF is a terrible excuse for controlled threads and very difficult to watch, search, etc. It is "Personal" and that is ok on a very limited basis but not a good idea as a general area of posting. 2. Threads should not get Pitted.... members should be And the Pit has become too PC an idea now... it is beyond debate club to being a fight club excuse. IMO, there is rarely a reason to Pit a thread but many reasons to Pit posts and members... 3. Not everything is a debate. While disagreement is a natural outcome to any thread, it changes colors very fast at times and that is the issue. Spamming, attacking, ganging up, etc. The same posters won't stop. It is the Usual Suspects. The OP should have the highest 'say' in THEIR thread.... if within reason, but there is a catch as to whether they can maintain it 4. Social Media has become a medication for the masses. TTB is no different. The amount of time people spend online is saving them from trips to the psych ward but TTB pays in different ways. People are allowed to go crazy here instead. 5. What's with the male cesspool? I recently pondered which members are the most important contributors to TTB, IMO, and the top 5 where female... So it begs the question or statement: Is the problem an alpha male issue? Dogs want to spray their scent; the mob likes to surround themselves with wiseguys; Apes beat their chest. I no longer need to go to the discovery channel to watch this, I now simply go to TTB for entertainment 6. The "my system is best" has gotten so old that it incredulously seems to continue to pick up steam... if the godfather talks the wiseguys need to come out in mass to clarify this is the only system? I have a dream... that the ego will let go of systems... 7. BS and brown-nosing... several take this to art form levels... continuing the mafia metaphors... someone comes back from a suspension and then says how bad it is to see someone else banned and how much they will be missed? Is that like Luca Brasi saying he would miss the guy he just wacked ? Does a shootout has no collateral damage? The male cesspool continues. Yes, TTB... there is a Santa Claus... and without Lao Zi there is no Tao... someone needs to publish the misinformation we see here and then distribute the proceeds to feed the hungry and poor... --- Ok, enough fun and games... what to do? More folders would not be the answer, IMO... maintaining more areas increases mod work and complicates it... if the idea is to put more responsible control of a thread in the OP, then the thread needs more controls... maybe like settings to say how "directed" this thread will be. But this often requires custom code and is a pain to admins on upgrades... So the idea may be that we ask and expect members to simply respect the OP and the thread and posts... The one reason this doesn't work has been said: The male cesspool syndrome... SO the choice narrows down to giving control to members or software...

Everyone occasionally has nightmares and some people have them quite often. Often its simply human anxiety coming up in subconscious. Saying one 'dreampt of the 2011 Tsunami in Japan years before it occurred in 1993. I had no time marker clues then, or did not interpret any ones that were there correctly.' Means nothing. I have no doubt everyone who lives in Japan has dreampt of tsunamis and has woken up in dread. That because Tsunami's happen to Japan. They happen and they kill people. I'm sure if she'd come up with lots of 2's in her 1993 dream it'd be easy to come up with a huge number of 2's for the Japanese Tsunami event, literally dozens of 2's all over the place because its an easy trick to pull off. Thousands of things happen and you can pin 2's on dozens of them. I wouldn't make to make life changing decisions based on her 'feelings' and visions. But would you? In 2022, will you be changing the way you live because of her writings? Will you or anyone stay away from all beaches in Europe at 2:00 because of her prediction and how important 2:22 is to her? Strangely we had a thread about people always noticing there clock at 1:11 here. We put values on things and once we name a coincidence they tend to pop up constantly in our life. (I find old pennies, just found a 1929 in change!) I tend to think much of that is they always did we're just noticing it now. We see what we look for and our subconscious can be more aware then our active minds. Or in the case of noticing 1:11, we have a pretty good internal clock, that we mostly ignore. Once we key into it, we have control, even subconsciously.

This journalistic piece is well worth reading. Some Folks Say It's the Beginning of the End for the Christian Right -- Dream On, They're Getting More Powerful http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/idea-christian-right-retreat-almost-dangerous-christian-right

I hear what you are saying (and, at least at my level, there IS a "brain" component) but I am trying to describe NOT having mind lead chi. A Lego castle could be built by physically picking the pieces up one by one with your fingers and putting them together, or by telekinetically picking the pieces up and assembling the castle (think of a Jedi pointing at the pieces and levitating each in turn), or by doing an "I Dream of Jeannie" blink and instantaneously materializing a fully-built castle. I'm not talking about manipulating energy (or Lego pieces) but about realizing a state of existence, if that makes sense.

Howdy Captain, Forgive me if I appear woefully ignorant of how to properly address a person of your rank. I've never associated with military men before. As an ex-hippy, brush cuts, clean-shaven and disciplined men in uniforms were the bogey-men to me back in the Sixties. However, reassuringly, I find you're also a man of fascinating insights. (At least for me). I really appreciated your information about both Hume and Descartes. I had had no idea it was Hume who blew Descartes cover, as I've never read anything by him. Only recognised his name as one of the philosophic 'biggees' I also found your explanation of Descartes' line of reasoning behind his famous one-liner , to be equally fascinating. When you explained with such patient clarity the logic connecting each step of his reasoning it helped me to see that there was no inadvertent oversight on his part,... that his ground breaking idea still retains its pre-eminent place in our Western attempts to understand the incomprehensible. Thanks very much for supplying and fitting together all those pieces in the puzzle. You particularly hit a resounding chord of resonance for me when you ended with, " I guess its my destiny to have relationships with folk who want to discuss philosophy." I've long wondered what it is that impels me to hang around sites like this, when most 'normal people' in the world seem to be out and about engaging in this extraordinary experience of life that we're all imprisoned in,... rather than sitting around on our own in some room somewhere, trying to dream up explanations for what it's all about. This kind of activity strikes me as similar to a young lad standing off at the edge of a wondrous Barnum and Bailey circus that's just hit town, trying to figure out how the big tent is suspended, what type of fuel the roller coaster engine runs on, etc, etc. Kind of misses the point, doesn't it ? Pity the poor kid who's so afflicted. Anyway, since we seem to have a considerable overlap in either life experiences, or at least a proximity in where we find ourselves standing now,... perhaps you might be interested in this account by an author whose ideas I still find really intriguing ? Ever since I first came across Nisargadhatta's book "I Am That" and was introduced to those revolutionary-sounding ideas in Non-Duality teachings, I was on the search for Westerners who had had similar experiences. My hope was that they might be able to bring what they had experienced away from those far-off realms of the Mysterious East, and make them accessible to me, sitting here all quiet on the Western front. In the end I found two chaps who did this service for me. On the off chance that you might also find this kind of second-hand experience interesting, below I've added a short extract by the second writer, Richard Sylvester. What I've taken from one of his talks below seems to me to be his way of answering the question you raised in your post above when you asked "If we have the felt experience on the one hand, and the experiencer on the other, what is it that experiences?" * Richard Sylvester wrote : * The word ‘I’ in the sentence “I am happy” has exactly the same force as the word ‘It’ in the sentence “It is raining.” There is no ‘it’. There is no ‘I’. Rain simply falls. Happiness simply arises. Most writing that purports to be about non-duality is absolutely dualistic. As soon as a writer suggests that there is someone who can do something to bring about liberation, you are reading nonsense. (Though often this message will come dressed up as highly articulate, eloquent, complex and persuasive nonsense.) There is no such thing as a teacher of non-duality. No one can teach the mystery of being. Therefore, if someone presents themselves as a teacher, it is not non-duality that they are offering. There are many interesting and useful things that can be taught. During the last forty years, for example, I have taught meditation, self-awareness, personal development, humanistic psychology, counselling and many other things. None of this has anything to do with non-duality. All that can be offered about non-duality is an opportunity to share some thoughts and ideas and feelings, and an inadequate attempt to describe liberation where it has been seen. Nevertheless, for some of us there is a powerful magnetic pull to spend time occasionally with people who want to share in this way. Why this should be is a mystery. As for meetings on 'non-duality and therapy', or 'non-duality and improving relationships', or 'non-duality and self-development', or 'non-duality and tantra', I wouldn't pay any more attention to them than to meetings on 'non-duality and cookery', or 'non-duality and upholstery'. You cannot use non-duality in any way. It has no point or purpose and you cannot bargain with it or profit from it. It is what it is, and it simply reveals itself or it does not. *

I sense the process of awakening from the illusion of 'reality' is similar to becoming lucid in the dream state.

Hi again Aeran, I must say, it looks like, after a lot of verbal jousting, we've actually worked our way around to a point where we are in complete agreement . Amazing, eh ? I've extracted in the quote above, your re-jigged and clarified rendition of what I had missed understanding the first few times around. There's not a word of it I could disagree with. However, for me it all hinges on that one, tiny word. "if", in your opening statement, "if reincarnation is true". After that 'if', everything else hangs together perfectly. Nevertheless, perhaps it's a perversity in my nature but that word "if" holds all the juice for me. Probably since, for well over twenty years I used to believe so whole-heartedly in reincarnation during the period when I saw myself as a Buddhist. The first time I came across a set of ideas suggesting that this explanation was just another attempt by man to bring the reassurance of supposed comprehension to something which is beyond comprehension,... it felt like I was reading words of sheer blasphemy. But, I was bitten. I couldn't stop going back to the book, lifting the covers,... and thrilling myself by looking again at this outrageous example of blasphemy. Now, I've grown so used to the ideas inherent in Non-Duality teachings that I'm afraid, for me, there's now just no way of going back to those comfortable old days of belief in the system of Buddha's doctrine. Such a pity, in a way. It had such a vast and lovely collection of logical answers to seemingly every question I could imagine at the time. But, if you're happy with reincarnation, more power to you, as they say. The current set of beliefs I now carry around certainly hasn't made me one whit a more happy and contented person, so I wouldn't dream of trying to off load them in your direction. My feeling is that for each one of us, our karma takes us where it will. I don't believe that any of us have any choice in the things that we find ourself attracted to and which we may well end up believing in with faith and dedication.

I checked that one out and read the reviews. Got it on order. I looks like a very useful book and not just for the dream yoga. Thanks for the recommendation ST.

Namdrol said many times that the view is only dependent on direct introduction. He must be talking about the practice side i.e. dark retreat, dream yoga, phowa etc.

Early this morning- I got stuck in a cataleptic state OBE - originally from a lucid dream about hemi-synch instruction while stuck in my bedroom, a LOUD Female voice - was not robotic- spoke to me - External I understood it as Yin personified

You are right. But I'm responding to the PUA dream of ugly guys dating hot girls.

It seems to me as if one is in the dream as well as the real world. How deep does the rabbit hole go? What I mean by 'real world' is consensus reality.

Thanks ChiForce. If you say that you you feel your chi active all over your body during the day and it gets stronger at night, then that might make it hard for you to feel much difference overall, energetically wise. I don't see any obvious connection with the dream images you described. Although my main intention was to send postive energy to your entire body, I did focus a bit more in the area of your lower legs and feet, as I usually start focusing in that area and work my way up. Based on your response I think I will have to put this one as a negative result. Thanks a lot for giving this a try!

* This is the final extract that I copied out of William Dalrymple's "Nine Lives". Something in me fell in love with the dream of India many years ago, and this attraction still carries on in these cameo pictures of India's ancient, vibrant, and unbroken spiritual life as it exists today. India has many of what must be the oldest unbroken religious/spiritual/philosophic traditions in the world. They still continue to this day,... though like everything else in this 21st century, some things have changed and some have stayed the same : * * William Dalrymple wrote: THE SONG OF THE BLIND MINSTREL On the feast of Makar Sakranti, the new moon night on which the sun passes through the winter solstice, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, a great gathering takes places on the Banks of the Ajoy River in West Bengal. Around the middle of January, several thousand saffron-clad wandering minstrels or Bauls - the word means simply 'mad' or ‘possessed' in Bengali - begin to gather at Kenduli, in the flat floodplains of Tagore's old home of Shantiniketan. As they have done on this site for at least 5oo years, the Bauls wander the huge campsite, greeting old friends, smoking ganja and exchanging gossip. Then, as the night draws in, they gather around their fires, and begin the singing and dancing that will carry on until dawn. You approach the festival through green wetlands, past bullocks ploughing the rich mud of the rice paddy. Reed-thatched or tin-topped Bengali cottages are surrounded by clumps of young green bamboo and groves of giant banyans, through which evening clouds of parakeets whir and screech. As you near the Baul monastery of Tamalatala, which acts as the focus of the festival, the stream of pilgrims slowly thickens along the roadsides. Bengali villagers herding their goats and ducks along the high embankments give way to lines of lean, dark, wiry men with matted hair and straggling beards. Some travel in groups of two or three, others travel alone, carrying hand drums or the Bauls' simple single-stringed instrument, the ektara. Throughout their 500-year history, the Bauls of Bengal have refused to conform to the conventions of caste-conscious Bengali society. Subversive and seductive, wild and abandoned, they have preserved a series of esoteric spiritual teachings on breathing techniques sex, asceticism, philosophy and mystical devotion. They have also amassed a treasury of beautifully melancholic and often enigmatic teaching songs which help map out their path to inner vision. For the Bauls believe that God is found not in a stone or bronze idol, or in the heavens, or even in the afterlife, but in the present moment, in the body of the man or woman who seeks the truth; all that is required is that you give up your possessions, take up the life of the road, find a guru find a guru and adhere to the path of love. Each man is alone, they believe, and must find his own way. Drawing elements from Sufism, Tantra, Shakta, Sahajiya, Vaishnavism and Buddhism, they revere deities such as Krishna or Kali, and visit temples, mosques and wayside shrines.- but only as helpful symbols and signposts along a road to Enlightenment, never as an end in themselves. Their goal is to discover the divine inner knowledge: the 'Unknown Bird', 'The Golden Man' or the 'Man of the Heart, - Moner Manush - an ideal that they believe lives within the body of every man, but may take a lifetime to discover. As such they reject the authority of the Brahmins and the usefulness of religious rituals, while some - though not all - Bauls come close to a form of atheism, denying the existence of any transcendental deity, and seeking instead ultimate truth in this present physical world, in every human body and every human heart. Man is the final measure for the Bauls. In pursuit of this path, the Bauls defy distinctions of caste and religion. Bauls can be from any background, and they straddle the frontiers of Hinduism and Islam. The music of ‘God’s Troubadours’ reflects their impulsive restlessness and their love of the open road. Travelling from village to village, owning nothing but a multicoloured patchwork robe known as an alkhalla, they sit in tea shops and under roadside banyan trees, in the compartments of trains and at village bus stops, busking their ballads of love and mysticism, divine madness and universal brotherhood, and the goal of Mahasukha, the great bliss of the void, to gatherings of ordinary Bengali farmers and villagers. They break the rhythm of rural life, inviting intimacies and wooing and consoling their audience with poetry and song, rather than hectoring them with sermons or speeches. They sing of desire and devotion, ecstasy and madness; of life as a river and the body as a boat. They sing of Radha's mad love for the elusive Krishna, of the individual as the crazed Lover, and the Divine as the unattainable Beloved. They remind their listeners of the transitory nature of this life, and encourage them to renounce the divisions and hatreds of the world, so provoking them into facing themselves. Inner knowledge, they teach, is acquired not through power over others, but over the Self. Once a year, however, the Bauls leave their wanderings and converge on Kenduli for their biggest annual festival. It's the largest gathering of singers and Tantrics in South Asia. To get there I flew to Calcutta and took a train north to Shantiniketan, determined to see this gathering for myself. But first I had to find Manisha Ma's friend, Kanai Das Baul. Manisha had told me something of Kanai's story when I was with her in the Tarapith cremation ground. When he was six months old, Kanai caught smallpox and went blind. His parents - day labourers - despaired as to how their son would make a living. Then one day, when Kanai was ten, a passing Baul guru heard the boy singing as he took a bath amid the water hyacinths of the village pond, or pukur. In Bengal, the pukur is to village life what the green was to medieval England: the centre of rural life, as well as acting as swimming pool, duck pond and communal laundromat. Kanai's voice was high, sad and elegiac, and the Baul guru asked Kenai's parents if they would consider letting him take Kanai as a pupil: 'Once your parents have gone,' he said, 'you will able to support yourself if you let us teach you to sing.' In due course, many years later, after a terrible family tragedy, Kanai remembered the guru's words and set off to find him. He joined him on the road, learning the songs and becoming in time one of the Bauls' most celebrated singers. Then, after the death of his guru, Kanai took up residence in the cremation ground of Tarapith, where Manisha, Tapan Sadhu and some of their friends helped arrange a marriage for him, to a young widow who looked after the shoes of visitors. Kanai, Manisha told me, had arrived at the Kenduli Mela a few days ahead of me, and had already joined up with an itinerant group of other Bauls. They were all staying in a small house off the main bazaar: to get there you had to leave the bathers washing on the banks of the Ajoy and pick your way through the usual melee of Indian religious festivals: street children selling balloons and marigold garlands; a contortionist and a holy man begging for alms; a group of argumentative naked Naga sadhus; a hissing snake goddess and her attendants; lines of bullock carts loaded up with clay images of the goddess Durga; beggars and mendicants; a man selling pink candyfloss to a blare of Bollywood strings emerging from a huge pink loudspeaker attached to the flossing machine. All along the main drag of the encampment, rival akharas, or monasteries, of the different Baul gurus had been erected, interspersed with tented temples full of brightly lit idols, constellations of clay lamps and camphor flames winking amid the wafts of sandalwood incense filling the warm, dusty Bengali darkness. By the time I found the house - a simple unfurnished Bengali hut - it was dark and Kanai's Bauls were in full song. They had scattered straw on the ground and were sitting in a circle around the fire, cross-legged on the floor, breaking their singing only to pass a chillum of ganja from one to the other. There were six of them: Kanai himself, a thin, delicate and self-possessed man in his fifties with a straggling grey beard and a pair of small cymbals in his hand. Beside him sat a fabulously handsome old Baul, Kanai's great friend and travelling companion, Debdas, singing with a dugi drum in one hand and an ektara in the other. His hair hung loose, as did his great fan of grey beard, while a string of copper bells was attached to the big toe of his right foot which he jingled as he sang. The three men - Kanai, Debdas and Paban - were old friends, and as the music gathered momentum they passed verses and songs back and forth, so that when one would ask a philosophical question, the other would answer it: a symposium in song. The voices of all three men were perfectly complementary, Paban's resonant and smoky, alternately urgent and sensuous; Debdas's a fine tenor; Kanai's softer, more vulnerable, tender and high-pitched - at times almost a falsetto - with a fine, reed-like clarity. As Paban sang, he twanged a khomok hand drum or thundered away at the dubki, a sort of small, rustic tambourine. Kanai, in contrast, invariably sang with his sightless blue eyes fixed ecstatically upwards, gazing at the heavens. Paban would occasionally tickle his chin, and tease him: 'Don't give me that wicked smile, Kanai. . .' The songs all drew on the world and images of the Bengali village, and contained parables that anyone could understand: the body, sang Paban, is like a pot of clay; the human soul the water of love. Inner knowledge found with the help of the guru fires the pot and bakes the clay, for an unfired pot cannot contain water. Other songs were sprinkled with readily comprehensible images of boats and nets, rice fields, fish ponds and the village shop: Cut the rice stalks, O rice-growing brother. Cut them in a bunch Before they begin to smell Rotten like your body Without a living heart. Sell your goods, my store-keeping brother, While the market is brisk, When the sun fades And your customers depart, Your store is a lonely place . . . Later, after dinner, Paban and the other Bauls went out to hear a rival Baul singer perform in the Kenduli market place, leaving Kanai on his own, sitting cross-legged on the rug, singing softly. I sat beside him and asked what he was doing. 'This is how I remember the songs,' he said. 'I am blind, so I cannot read and write the verses. Instead, when I am left alone, I hum a few bars and repeat the songs to myself to help me commit them to memory. It is by repeating them that I remember.' Kanai smiled. 'There are some advantages to being blind,' he said. 'I can learn songs much quicker than other people, and pick up tunes very fast. Debdas says that I see with my ears. When he forgets, I have to remind him, even if it is a song that he originally taught me, or sometimes, even one he composed.' At Kanai's request, I lit a cigarette for him, and we chatted about his childhood, as he filled out the brief picture of his life that Manisha had painted for me. “ I was born in the village of Tetulia,” he said, not far from here, near Birbhum. I was born with eyes that could see, but lost my sight when I caught smallpox before my first birthday. I was ten when my brother was killed in an accident involving a heavily laden bullock cart, and eleven when my father passed away too, from an asthma attack. This left me with the responsibility to feed my two sisters. They were growing girls and needed food. At first it wasn’t too hard. Once I got used to begging from my own friends, from door to door, I found it wasn’t difficult to get enough to fill all our stomachs. We were loved and looked after: I only had to say, “I am hungry” and I would be fed. The door of the poor man is always open – it is only the doors of the rich that close as you approach. If the people in the village came to hear that another family was going through a hard time they would always give them rice or a cow dung cake for fuel. I joined the Bauls partly because it seemed the only way I could make a livelihood. But my guru soon taught me that there are much more important things than getting by, or making money, or material pleasures. I am still very poor, but thanks to the lessons of my guru, my soul is rich. He taught me to seek inner knowledge and to inspire our people to seek this too. He told me to concentrate on singing and did not encourage me to take the path of a Tantric yogi, though I have picked up a lot of knowledge of this sort from other sadhus and Bauls over the years.” “Is it a good life ?” I asked. “It is the best life,” said Kanai without hesitation. ”The world is my home. We Bauls can walk anywhere and are welcome anywhere. When you walk you are freed from the worries of ordinary life, from the imprisonment of being rooted in the same place. I cannot complain. Far from it – I am often in a state of bliss.” “But don’t you miss your home ? Don’t you tire of the road ?” “When you first become a Baul, you have to leave your family, and for twelve years you must wander in strange countries where you have no relatives. There is a saying, “No Baul should live under the same tree for more than three days.” At first you feel alone, disoriented. But people are always pleased to see the Bauls: when the villagers see our coloured robes they shout : “Look, the madmen are coming ! Now we can take the day off and have some fun !” “Wherever we go, the people stop what they are doing and come to listen to us. They bring fish from the fish ponds, and cook some rice and dhal for us, and while they do that we sing and teach them. We try to give back some of the love we receive, to reconcile people, and offer them peace and solace. We try to help them with their difficulties, and to show them the path to discover the Man of the Heart.” I asked, “How do you do that ?” “With our songs,” said Kanai. “For us Bauls, our songs are source of both love and knowledge. We tease the rich and the arrogant, and make digs at the hypocrisy of the Brahmins. We sing against caste, and against injustice. We tell the people that God is not in the temple, or in the Himalayas, nor in the skies or the earth or in the air. We teach that Krishna was just a man. What is special about him in essence is in me now. Whatever is in the cosmos is in our bodies; what is not in the body is not in the cosmos. It is all inside – truth lies within. If this is so, then why bother going to the mosque or the temple ? So to the Bauls a temple or a shrine has little value : it is just a way for the priests to make money and to mislead people. The body is the true temple, the true mosque, the true church.” “But in what way ?” “We believe that the way to God lies not in rituals but in living a simple life, walking the country on foot and doing what your guru says. The joy of walking on foot along unknown roads brings you closer to God. You learn to recognise that the divine is everywhere – even in the rocks. You learn also that music and dance is a way of discovering the Unknown Bird. You come to understand that God is the purest form of joy – complete joy.” Kanai shook his long grey locks. “There is no jealousy in this life,” he said. “No Brahmin or Dalit, no Hindu or Muslim. Wherever I am, that is my home.” For many years now I have wandered the roads of Bengal, spending the rains with my guru, and after he died, in the cremation ground at Tarapith. Sometimes when I have tired of walking, I would work the trains between Calcutta and Shantiniketan. That was how I first met Debdas.” “In a train ?” “He was only sixteen,” said Kanai, “and had just run away from home. He was from the family of a Pundit, and had a childhood in which he needed to ask for nothing. But then he was thrown out for mixing with Muslims and Bauls, and he was innocent of the ways of the world. He had an ‘ektara’ but at that stage he hardly knew any songs. Though I was blind and he could see, it was I who taught him how to survive, and the words of the songs of the Bauls. Although we are from very different worlds, the road brought us together, and we have become inseparable friends.” Kanai smiled, “But I shouldn’t be telling you his story,” he said. “You must ask him yourself.” *

The Egyptian. This morning I awoke to a beautiful day. I poured a pitcher of water over my head and put on a clean white robe. My sleeping wife looked so at peace I left her and went down to the river to greet the dawn. I assumed the position of adoration and held my palms up to feel the Sun's rays and commenced the 'Adoration of Ra’ as the Sun came over the horizon. The ripples on the water glittered red and gold and the day started to come alive. A flock of geese crossed the river high in the sky, a fish jumped and splashed in the water and I, now in ecstasy, knew I was alive inside the body of God. I returned to my house and went inside and greeted my wife, she looked exceptionally beautiful this morning. We ate together, I looked into her eyes and kissed her and went out to plough the fields. Later I came back to rest from the heat of the day. My wife had prepared raisin cakes and barley beer. I ate and drank and then, looking at her, became filled with passion but she held her palm against my heart, gently holding me back and with the other hand offered me the plate of raisin cakes and said, "Last night I had a dream, please take these cakes and offer them in the temple." I looked at her, not understanding, but saw the love was still in her eyes, so I obeyed. I went to the temple and thought to offer the cakes to Ra but on my way to his shrine I noticed an alcove on the side and within stood a Goddess I have never seen before. I could not identify her, so I went through the temple until I found a priest and asked him, "Who is that Goddess in the side alcove of this temple?" he looked at me strangely and replied, "There is no side alcove in this temple." Thanking him, and hoping that he would soon recover from whatever madness had afflicted him I went back and made my offering to the strange but somehow familiar Goddess. Later that night I made love to my wife. Something happened. We have never joined like that before. She was like a new person and my heart was aflame with passion. We thrashed and convulsed in a dark pool of energy whose surface rippled and snaked up in tendrils of darkness and shook and splashed out surrounding us and out of the darkness condensed tiny points of light with the brightness and colors of the gems in Pharaoh's crown. They sprinkled down upon us. My wife lay back seductive, deliciously, yet modestly and I have never seen such a beautiful sight in my life - it healed my eyes. She looked somehow different, yet familiar, it was as if her face had changed, but it was still her face. And then I knew! She had the face of the Goddess in the temple! The next morning, again she slept peacefully, not wanting to disturb her I went to the river to adore Ra in his rising. I picked a blue lotus flower and rushed to the temple to offer it to the Goddess. When I arrived I could not find the alcove or the statue. I approached another priest and asked him about it. "Foolish old man," he replied, "I do not know of any temple around here like that or any such Goddess - go back to your wife." So I did, taking her the lotus, but on the way home I saw a neighbor, "Good news!" he called to me and came over. "As you know," he said, "my wife and I crave for a child and we could never have one, but this very morning the doctor told her she is with child." I saw another elderly neighbor and noticed he had lost his limp. All the sunflowers in the field had opened. Another neighbor - cranky, old Ahmose - was sharing his breakfast with a stray dog. I entered my house and gave the lotus to my wife, kissing her on the cheek. She took it and smiled and looked deep into my eyes and said, "Something wonderful has happened." "I know." I told her. [ No ... it's not for you BKA ... but BOY have I got one for you ! ( 'The Demon Lover'. ) ]

With things of this nature, I get pretty pissy when they remain all diaphanous and abstract... I really strive for something concrete that I can use daily, moment by moment to bring it into action in the now. Here's a game I've come up with for the remain silent portion of my list. Pythagorus' quote: Remain silent or say something better than silence, rang my bell pretty hard some time back and I've spent a fair amount of time sitting with this idea over the last two years. Recently this sitting brought forth a powerful realization about the impact of thoughts on my 'identity' and more importantly on the quality of my experience of life. Sitting with this distilled into an understanding that allows me to consciously put into practice in a very simple way, something I take as the core meaning of this teaching. Words are vibration. Vibration affects all things. Choose my words with greater care. The game is simple: Don't give in to the compulsion to endlessly discuss something I judge to be wrong, bad, fucked up, stupid, insipid, pedantic, childish, lame, harsh, evil... take note of it, but don't wallow in it, don't feed it. I would rather create conscious use of my words as a form of power to affect my life directly, in the now to express joy about that which I most love, cherish, admire, wish to emulate, hope for and dream about. Here's where the game part comes in... to help me remain mindful... I've taken to wearing a string of twelve small silver tonga bells around my neck like some European work horse; their soft tone at each small movement, reminding me to stay mindful of thoughts and words... that and I freaking jingle and it's kind of awesome to have a jingling, positive vibe viking walking around the world...

Interesting ... My dream story ... outside was an event, a lot of people out there ... I walked by, to find a quiet space to practice nearby ..., but I run into something like gray/black fog in the night ... I just turned back and did movements just behind the crowd ... I did not care, if there had been a lot of people ... One girl even asked, what I was doing ...

interesting. i remember doing move number 3 in a dream

You had not previously realised that ? ... or are you just stating that here? Also I imagine it depends, partially, on the 'through whom you travel' * ( try walking through the Supreme Court ... bleeerck ! - Rushes home for 'auric shower' ) Humans, like most animals, are creatures of opportunity. If anything 'rules' or indeed 'orders' 'evolution' - it is 'necessity'. I go to the nearby town and yes, the people there exude that , but it has a good feeling to me; out to get what they can get , it seems expressed in a fair sort of way ... it seems 'natural'. But if I go to the next larger town the main theme (within this aura of self-preservation) is this really false persona being extended. It had (still has ??) the rep of being a 'cool, alternative or even 'spiritual' place. So of course, being their and parading around and playing dress-ups is just going to make one spiritual isn't it ? For some reason this urks me more than 'honest self-preservation'. Some are out to get what they can get ( praise, followers, fellow followers to affirm their beliefs? ).... by extolling some 'spiritual' virtue and practice; some are 'seeking' ... genuine, or seeking some type of affirmation of their mindsets. And sprinkled through that are some real jems .... to them I am instantly attracted ... they have a certain vibe, body language and yes, smell, and then you see it in their eyes ... yet many are attracted to the external glamour ... more and more people are considering glamour (in the modern and ancient usage) important. So Adept, I am sympathetic ... but not as surprised or despondent < shrugs ... mmmhe > but perhaps more cynical. I think it IS increasing and I blame the rise in and focus upon that modern day very socially unhealthy and ever growing concept of 'economic rationalism'. * ' Through whom you travel' - the energy field of those around you ... sometimes I feel need to do it with intent ... thank goodness for all that type of jiyu-waza training I did - move from one corner of the mats to the opposite corner with a bunch of guys in the middle trying to stop you and project, grab, hold etc. ... the aim is, well executed technique, smooth and flowing, minimal effort, least possible 'distraction' to get to the other end, and minimal ' injury' and disruption to the others. [ 4th Dan examination ! ? ] They seem to be seeking some other dynamic here ??? Aside from some obvious 'examination dynamic' going on here (???) - like the guy becoming instantly cornered in the first few seconds ... there are a few moments where he 'glides through' quiet good. It is also good practice for sword work (if one can shift ma'ai ) ... but one cant really walk through town carrying bokkan and bonk people ....( although I wouldn't be surprised if some started dressing up as samurai or ninja ) I never was bothered by bad dreams They never made me afraid But then I never did dream I'd wake up And find me in the freak parade. I guess I had to find out the hard way I shouldn't have been so proud 'Cause here I'm the main attraction Of every giggle in the crowd. So I gotta Take my place in the freak parade See my face in the freak parade. In a world full of freaks You can creep, you can crawl But the world's biggest freak Is the one with no balls. You know you shouldn't poke fun at strangers Or pity their case at all 'Cause there are lots of friends and lovers That take it kind of personal. You might appreciate our position Don't laugh at our freaky ways You might find yourself tomorrow Marching in the freak parade. You better Take your place in the freak parade See your face in the freak parade Get off the sidewalk! " Freak Parade by Todd Rundgren. "

"Noticed" this book in my local New Age bookstore when visiting the owner to wish him merry christmas In the 1st chapter the author unintentionally discovers a teahouse and after trying to learn more from the people then has a dream about a mountain ... (yuan fen as was mentioned) I really think I am going to enjoy this book _/\_

Is it merely attachment to pleasure or negative attachment to suffering to want to end the fabrications? Is there anywhere to go? Anything to attain (besides bliss)? serious question... what is the goal? What if one just lets go and doesn't care where one ends up? Delusional sleep dream with one eye open/one closed?

I'm happy to see that Tao Bums, originally Sean's spinoff from my Healing Tao USA forum, has flourished. I've decided to post some of my material here to give this part of the Tao community exposure to my approach of integrating qigong and neidangong, and my unique summer retreat program and China Dream Trips.