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Since nobody responded , your question looked abandoned. I cant answer it though except to suggest that in dream states ,spinning indicates a loss of control ( no big surprise there) Maybe a pop back up to the top of the list will get your question seen.

It is very cool to hear people using the same book in their practices. I continue to struggle to have a practice routine, but so far this book is even helping me with that. I feel compelled to write a paragraph or two about my dreams the night before, and have been doing this the past four of five days. I'm also taking the book pretty slowly, as it is quite straight forward yet dense. Many of the concepts and terms are new to me, but honestly as I find myself thinking about karma each day, I feel uplifted knowing that this book has already affected me on the day to day level. Last night was strange in a few ways, I woke myself up sobbing for an instant and then once I heard myself I stopped. I have done that multiple times before, it is almost embarrassing when it happens. I think it was out of fear of losing a friend. A second part of my dream was rather symbolic, I was riding the train very far from my home, and got off it finally, and realized I had a long way to walk back. Yet it was IN my dream that I some how consciously understood this symbolism in my life. By the time I awoke in the morning, I already knew the message of the dream. I seem to have these moments of consciously realizing the dream state, or at least the underlying priniciples of the dream, yet I don't become "lucid". Another example is I was in my dream and began relaxing my vision to see clearer (something I do in my day to day life), yet I only remembered this the next day. However, in my dream I thought, oh, this is a dream, i should practice things I practice normally. Perhaps this is just my memory skewering things. Anyway, I do like sharing my experiences on here. This book is truly an excellent guide. Does anyone have any particular techniques they find helpful in dreaming? If I sleep on my right (for males) I kind of get into a more serious mindset about the night, mostly due to the book saying that is a good way to have more positive dreams. It's kind of like me telling myself, hey you're making an effort towards this, hi five.

Thank you for sharing. Fascinating stuff. I can totally understand how that would have a radical effect on your mind and how life is experienced! I've beem watching a few documentaries on Ayahuasca ceremonies now, and it seems like most of what you describe is very common. The voidness is what freaks most people out. Even more than the monsters and demons. So it's as if we are most afraid of ourselves, or our innermost nature. Adyashanty says this is like "treading water on the void". I like his take on that alot. In my own experience, most of the great "trips" as you say, are forgotten, yet is remembered if some energetic component which was present during the experience is triggered again. I held on to my visions and experiences for a long time, thinking that they were the pinnacle of my practice. One time I felt an entire mountain transmitted it's "heart" into mine. It knocked me to the ground. Another time, I had a vision with my eyes open of ascending the same mountain again and again endlessly. It was as a vivid awake dream. Another time I opened my eyes in a meditation with my teacher and my third eye pulsed like a physical heart. I pounded my forehead from within. Another time I opened my eyes and all I could see was light and mist. Another time I felt complete oneness with my surroundings, and everything was HD. I it was like my eyes were looking at stuff as a microscope, and everything was part of my eyes, and all sensations were extremely comfortable. At the same time, I was as "drunk" as I ever had been. It was like I was taken to the earth for the first time, with no prior memory. Such experiences are easy to hold onto and identify with. Only later did I realize that I needed to let them go, and that these aspects of reality are here now, within this moment. They can really be stumbling blocks, because they keep us "in time". My own practice suffered from this for years. Only recently have I "died" abit and suddenly the energy comes from all directions. =) Yet the most important part of what you describe is, as I also feel, is that we really don't have a clue what is happening and why.... Ken Wilber has a great explanation of this here: h

Interesting. Check this out as well. Its a Kabbalistic take on karma and how it relates to reincarnation. If you can get it, you get the complexity yet simplicity of it at the same time: REINCARNATION This weeks Torah portion Mishpatim begins, "And these are the laws." Just as the preceding words (the Ten Commandments) were received from Sinai, these following laws were also received from Sinai. "These are the laws" means “these are the orders (the foundations) of Gilgulim (reincarnation).” Zohar Parshas Mishpatim And then there was the time that the saintly Rabbi Dov Ber (successor to the Baal Shem Tov and later known as the Mezritcher Maggid), asked his teacher and Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov, "Rebbe, would you teach me the sod (spiritual foundations) of reincarnation?" The Baal Shem Tov took him to his study room and told him to close his eyes. Suddenly, in a dream-like vision, Rabbi Dov Ber saw a handsome prince and a friend approach a river for a picnic and a swim. The only other person there was a border guard on duty as the river separated two countries. After a pleasant afternoon of swimming, the Prince and his friend changed to their regular clothes and left. But, unbeknownst to the Prince, his wallet fell out of his pocket while he was changing from his bathing suit. Later that day, a man on horseback came riding by and noticed the wallet on the ground. When he picked it up and saw a large sum of money, he decided not to mention it to the border guard who was still there. When the Prince returned to his palace and realized that his wallet was missing, he thought back to the last time he remembered having it his possession. "That's it," he thought, "it was by the river. The only other person there, besides my friend, was that border guard. I'll take care of him!" So he took a few of his father's soldiers and arrested the border guard. Of course, the border guard denied seeing, much less taking, the wallet. But the Prince was a bit arrogant and didn't believe him. "Punish that thief," he ordered. The border guard received thirty lashes. When the dream vision was over and Rabbi Dov Ber opened his eyes, he exclaimed, "That just wasn't fair at all! Why,” he asked the Baal Shem Tov, "did the Prince lose his money? Also, why did the border guard get lashes when he didn't do anything? It's just not right!" "You asked me to teach you the sod (spiritual foundations) of reincarnation. Now close your eyes again," replied the Baal Shem Tov. Then, as before, Rabbi Dov Ber saw a dream- like vision. This time, he saw a first man approach a second man and say in an angry tone, "It's been a long time and I want you to pay me back the money I lent you." The second man answered, "Listen, I already told you, I never borrowed any money from you." The first man replied, "You're such a liar. How can you look me in the eyes and say 'I never borrowed any money from you'? You leave me with no option, I'm taking you to court before a judge, you miserable creature." Then in the dream vision, Rabbi Dov Ber saw the second man go to the judge and give him a sack of money as a bribe. The second man said to the judge, "Now you understand that no matter what proof that man brings, I didn't borrow any money from him." The judge opened up the sack of money and while he counted out the gold coins that spilled out, he answered, "You have nothing to worry about." Later, during the trial, the first man, the Plaintiff, brought written proof that the second man, the Defendant, had borrowed the money. But the judge wasn't convinced and ruled, "I find for the Defendant (the second man) and hold that the Plaintiff (the first man) didn't lend him any money. When the dream vision was over and Rabbi Dov Ber opened his eyes, he exclaimed, "That just wasn't fair at all. Why," he asked the Baal Shem Tov, "how could the second man get away with not paying his debt? It's just not right!" "My dear Reb Dov Ber," said the Baal Shem Tov, "this is the sod of reincarnation. The first man that lent the money and didn't get it back in the second dream vision was the the border guard in the first dream-like vision and so it really wasn't his money anyway. The second man that borrowed the money and refused to pay it back in the second dream- like vision was the prince and so it really was his money. And the crooked judge in the second dream- like vision was the man on the horse in the first dream -like vision and so he really did deserve the thirty lashes." And so it was. Freely adapted by Tzvi Meir Cohn (Howard Cohn, Patent Attorney) from a story heard directly from Rav Sholom Ber Chaikin.

I got the book after I saw that post on the general forum. I had had a rare lucid dream last week and I decided to ask my lineage ancestor for advice, and the reply was a radio-like voice to get a book on dreaming. So I thought that perhaps this was the book to get. Its pretty good, as you say, in a step by step expanation of dream yoga, preparation practises, and what to do inside of dreams. Alot of this I was practising already, but its good to have a coherent teaching on the subject, not like those wishy washy new agerly type. Another thing is sleep yoga, which I didnt know existed, or read and forgot. This is maintaining the clear light of rigpa during the entire night of sleeping. Thats certainly a goal. Once you have that, after you die you can go from bardo into the clear light. I havent really tried the method yet, using the tigle visualizations, the black hong, and the tibetan A.

Does anyone have any experience with this book? It was a kind of strange sequence of events that led me to purchase this book (losing my wallet, deciding to spend all of my gift card money on my kindle account, finding this book through various searches and recommendations). So far I have been fascinated with how direct, clear, and helpful the theory is. The author is open about how this practice is a journey, and it is not simply philosophy and exercises in this book, but a way of life. I never really had an understanding of karma before starting this book, but now I have been experiencing the last few days with this knowledge that every action i take will produce some kind of karmic seed, that is, if my actions involve any kind of grasping or aversion. Truly brilliant, I have had dreams the past three nights and journaled them as soon as I got up, (product placement) after I took a shot of E3LIVE, of course. Last night I healed a friend using a spring forest qigong technique I saw in a youtube video...i think I shall practice that today. Anyway, tell me about your experiences!!

I feel very much familiar with your experiences. This "physical" reality always seems so heavy, but its not. It is our frequency of vibration that makes it seem so heavy and solid. As you remove resistance, in terms of negative and limitting believes, your bodies potential sky rocket. As you feel the self worthiness and value, you vibrate at higher frequencies. The worldly experience becomes light, bright, effortless, fun, fast, quick, flexible, fluid, etc. Problem is, allot of the resistance in your being is subconscious, because we carry so much bagage. It feels a little overwhelming to look at it all at once. The solution is really simple: You become more sensitive to the resistance. How? You feel resistance everytime you try to do something fun. Like "meeting people" for example. For some people, the thought of meeting people alone raises vibration enough that you become strongly aware of all kinds of resistance in your structured believe system. How? You feel it in your heart as fear or anger. For example, I want to say something to people, and feel all excited about saying it. Then the thought of saying it alone raises my vibrational frequency enough to becoming more sensitive to resistance. I suddenly feel fear and worrying thoughts show them selves! This is how the subconscious reveals itself. The reason I felt fear is because this idea was supressed from my consciousness, to resurface when the timing would be right, like a social situation. Just being conscious of the limitting believe is enough to change it for good. "people don't give damn about what I have to say". Changed to "people do care about what I have to say." Another BIG FUN CHALLENGE! Sometimes, you are blocked from changing a limitting believe. As was for me with believe above. "people do care about what I have to say" seems alien and non-physical to me. Why? Because "people don't give a damn about what I have to say" was attached to a deeper core believe that was still subconscious. As you do imagine people caring about your speeches you raise your vibration frequency, you become lighter, but the resistance is felt stronger. Slowly, you feel a deep fear within you. A fear of "what if I am indeed unworthy?" And you say "I am unworthy." the moment of conscious recognition is the moment of joyoush explosion, because you know that it is not true. You say, "haha, did I think I was unworthy all this time?! No worries man, shout your deepest longings in front of all these stranger, be bold! We have some great time ahead of us, worthy being!" Keep raising your vibration, because it will automaticly clean your being and fine tune your engine. This will allow you to raise your frequency even more and feel lighter and brighter, quick, agile, flexible, responsive, decisive, confident. And as you raise your frequency, more resistance and bagage you are holding on to subconsciously will reveal itself on the surface of your consciousness. Thus, you will have more opportunity to let go of these resistance and heavy bagage. It is not your creation, it was spoonfed to you. It will automaticly teach you allowance and being more like water, if you follow your joy. Thats why people say "follow your bliss in each and every moment." if you feel excited about something, the reason you feel excited, is because that particular subject of excitement is the illusionary limit of your vibrational frequency. Approach the subject of your excitement, engage the challenge, trust that whatever feel fun in any given moment is exactly what you need to do in order to raise awareness and expand your consciousness. You let go of bagage allong the way, so that you raise your vibrational frequency, remove resistance and allow your self to re-member all the diffrent aspects of who you truely are. The more happy you become, the more this life will become fluid like a dream Remember, sometimes the thought alone of doing something fun will make you feel fearful or angry. This is a sign that supressed subconscious believes are coming up to the surface. Allow your self to feel fear/anger and ask yourself what you would have to believe in order to feel this way. Thats how the heart teaches you. Fear is always an indication of a deviation from the truth and light. There is always a limitting negative believe behind it that is kept subconscious. Keep doing this and soon your engine will be so clean, that even gravity becomes outdated. But you'll know that time has arrived when you start feel excited about moonwalking.

I accept your invitation. Three days ago I downloaded a book called The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep for my kindle. The events of the previous days led up to that, but the next day I had a conversation with a new friend who had received the same book years ago on a whim, and was now getting it sent out to him. It may not translate through text, but that was a huge moment of synchronicity. I have also experienced strange occurences upon waking, the most powerful of which I reexperienced through memory no more than 30 minutes ago... I woke, yet remained still and calm, unmoving, as if I was asleep, but only for a second. I shot up sitting at a 90 degree angle as a voice powerful yet unknown asked of me, "who are you looking for?" I felt my body begin to "glow", feeling warm and light as I proceeded to melt into my bed again as I first noticed the immense morning light in my room. I am cautious to make generalization and all-inclusive statements about this time period and our species, but I will say this. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.

No idea what this is, but I felt the urge to post it here. I had a download of information in my awakening from sleep about a piece of text I would come across that linked me towards their website. Sopialove.org is the website for this day. It seems to be some kind of gateway, or big permission slip to ride the wave down the flow, to take a shuttle to the light. I don't recall any dream at all. It is more of an intuitive knowing I felt the moment of awakening. I've never experienced such an instant knowing of this intensity. My personal idea has always been "meditating upon intention of increasing awareness levels of humanity." Yet, I have discovered that over the years, it is insane to desire other people to awaken first, before awakening my self to be an example to others. So I strongly believe this may 5th idea is nothing but a permission slip for people to allow them selves more of what they want, like a teacher teaches you to allow more of what it is that you are wanting. In our desire to define our dedication to detachment, we create such a day. To allow our selves to explore the unseen realms further. To let go of that which no longer serves us. To lift the veils that cover our vision.

Incredible post, Mark, IMO. The reference you make to falling asleep was one that I wasn't getting, because I thought you were always referencing the physical act of falling asleep. I see now that you weren't. My counterpart to falling asleep is to say to myself 'Do Nothing', and this stops time for my brain, allowing it to come back to True Reality, the reality where I know exactly Who I Am and the reality that this is all a dream and I am merely the dreamer. I see it as a huge IMAX theater; all of it is imagined, and I'm really the projectionist. Nothing can harm me, it's a dream after all. As it says in the TTC, 'that which is feared is truly to be feared, but distant yet is the dawn of awakening....' By falling asleep, as you put it, this enables us to face life without any fears, if indeed we can revert to the mindset of a dream. I seem to be going through the grief period of leaving Joe back in Ohio. Every fear I have of truly being Alone in life is kicking in. There are fears there I didn't know existed, at a level so very deep. We had occasion to speak on the phone yesterday for a few moments; in trying to get me back to Ohio, he reverted to a child-like voice (which always worked on me) because the inner child in him and the inner child in me are the very personas that are joined at the hip. Our 8 year old inner selves are both stunted by life in some way; it is these two fearful children that found each other 27 years ago and have been huddled together ever since. After he used that tactic I found myself on the floor, again crying so deep that there was no breath, no sound. It physically felt like a scab was slowly being ripped from my heart or something; lots of bleeding underneath. To willingly turn my back on my own 8 year old and deny her the protection she seeks takes an act of Mothering Myself that is quite difficult because I have indulged her fears for so many years. Not even big fears at this point; just the big one. Being Truly Alone. I'm 65 now - the thought of dying alone perhaps, of living out my sunset years alone. Especially at a time when my left brain organizational skills have come and gone; they are truly gone. I couldn't investigate myself out of a paper bag now. (Actually, I feel like I just did). This final stripping of myself has been so very long in coming. After weeks of this aloneness, it gets a little better each day. But yesterday when I was in that crying state, I was in that state where the tears FEEL like they're old tears and come from a very deep place. And the odd thing is that when the deep tears are gone, the perch is slightly different than the one I was sitting on before. Once the tears are gone, the transcension in this very area can begin. Yesterday's tears reminded me of the Tao Te Ching, where it says something about nature's utterances being violent in nature, but short in duration. This is EXACTLY what happened yesterday within my soul. The tears came out violently; my recent crying spells have been short and violent. And then it's gone. Just like nature. This process reminds me of ripping off old bandaids. I'm so glad you're here, whomever is reading this. I have no one else. Barb P.S. - I've been jerking around with my avatar for a few weeks. The little girl staring at the candle was apparently trying to make a cosmic decision, unbeknownst to me at the time. Well, she made it. When I chose this butterly avatar, I chose it because it felt right, like a transformation of change was taking place. But the avatar I realize is 'mine' is one I can't find. I am looking for a nice Root avatar and I can't find one. The root is me - the cosmic detective, not happy until the ultimate Cause is found. If anyone runs across a root avatar on an avatar gettin' site, I'd sure appreciate the heads up on which site that is. Truly, I'm getting older and more confused as time goes on, and searching for an avatar, which used to be an easy thing for me, is no longer that easy.

Hello Bottoms of all shapes and sizes, I wanted to share a healing experience with you guys. Someone i met over 10 years ago in my early teenage years when i got into Qi Gong, recently contacted me via e-mail, which in all honesty was somewhat surprising. It always is when someone you haven't heard of or seen for that long just contacts you. Either way, it turns out his cultivation has gotten to the point where he can do distance healing, i suppose that would mean his third eye is opened at the least? Said he had a website. So i'm like oh no, here we go. Another one. But here's where it got to me. Just over e-mail he was able to tell me exactly where i had blockages, and honestly it was pretty amazing, because he was spot on. He pointed out everything i already knew, like i just told him or something. The site is currently being promoted so he offered to heal me for free so i figured why not : ) Either way, he did a half hour healing session on me first, but i asked him for more, so he did a 12 hour session. Whenever he tuned in to me, i could feel a shower of energy. It felt like a slow flowing stream of cool sparkling water was flowing down my head through my body and into the ground. Either way, to make a short story shorter, the blockage i had in my throat is diminished considerably. Normally when i fall into deep concentration my throat will light up and i will feel great discomfort there as the energy worked. The feeling of pain has been getting less and less as i've meditated, but the effect after the healing was far more prominent. Also i have irregular heart beats and anxiety. I feel like the anxiety is almost gone, situations which would ordinarily freak me out now i'm mellow as a jelly and my heart rhythm seems to have changed almost entirely over night, i don't get those crazy skipping beats anymore and when i am doing something that is STRESSFUL on a psychological level i cope with it with absolute ease now. I know this sounds NORMAL to someone who doesn't have anxiety, but it's like a dream come true to me lol I can't remember the last time i've felt like this. It's great Another interesting thing is that, he did the healing 3 days ago, but every time i meditate now, i get the same effect running through my body. Is it possible that i am somehow tuned into him now O_o Can anyone give feedback on sessions they have done with Master Chunyi Lin? I want to do some with him. Any positive feedback? Also are there any healers in London? This is the guys site btw: http://chinet-project.com/ He's called the Long Beard Healer : / I don't want to sound like i am promoting it, but i guess i am, he helped me with issues i've been having for as long as i can remember myself and if he can do the same for others i feel a duty to recommend him. Good luck : )

I wrote an account of my recent ayahuasca experiences and it didn't feel wise to write it down, because it's probably highly metaphorical. I remembered some stuff from the earlier ones, but it's the same stuff all the time and I can't make much sense of it. Other people keep talking about how they are shown messages that make sense to them, make them know what to do or recognize the source of a problem, but in my case, it's not like that. All I can do is not focus on any impression, but only on the outcome, and cultivate that. It's almost as if the plant tries to force me into total awakening, and I'm not ready for such a big step. I mean... surely I have a lot of stuff I can work on, but why am I confronted with the same stuff all the time? Is nearly everybody else past the barrier in me? Do I have to break through that extremely frightening barrier before I can receive 'more ordinary' help for living a good life? But it's not like there is no stuff I can take away from the experiences, it's just confusing that no-one seems to be able to give me advice based on my experiences - that it's so unlike anything I've read so far from other people. If I take the things I saw and felt as purely random, only serving a specific purpose, then I can only guess that I have to resolve an issue of being torn, being between two worlds. Who knows... maybe I have to cultivate what I have learned in normal life a lot and reach a breakthrough there, before the ayahuasca visions change. Maybe the plant won't help me with specifics unless it knows what direction I want to go. (Not that I don't know, but another direction might be active less consciously.) Seems there is an imbalance between mind, heart and root. When root and heart are strengthened, the mind can handle more profound insights. So far, I used my powerful mind to dig into the very basics of reality, and despite repeated attempts to overcome the fear connected to it, I failed. I don't even want to talk about the details anymore, because it sabotages my attempts at restoring balance. Now I actually understand the words I spoke to the coordinator: "I see too much. I have been shown everything. I just wish I could forget all that." Let's just say that the colorful dreamer-buddha I saw and called 'the source' was only something my mind could deal with. There was a wholly different level I dug into that was so frightening that I chose to forget about it immediately after the trip. And the recent trips made me remember what it was, but it was still very frightening, and the step coming after that - total self-annihilation - was an impossible barrier in that state. I don't intend to do any more ayahuasca soon, and the same probably applies to other psychedelics. It is unhealthy to (want to) know more than you can handle. The mind should only be used in tandem and balance with the heart. So I realized that there is a profound difference between 1) hearing a statement and deeply BELIEVING it to be true, and 2) KNOWING it is true. Once you attain deep knowledge of a truth, your mind can't fool itself about it, and if the implications of that truth are harmful for the ego or for fears you can't get rid of, then it becomes frightening. Here's an example: You might think that seeing the future is an awesome gift, but if you KNOW that what you see is the future, the implications of that can mess up your whole view on reality and scare you shitless. ... I admire people who are confronted with death in their ayahuasca experience and are ready to face it. (Because it's like in a dream: You don't know that it's 'just psychedelic'. It only works if you are actually ready to die.)

Yes and going back again to master Buddha's infinite wisdom: "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." - Buddha (Dhammapada) This is more important than worrying about food and sex, once you master your "mind", the rest will unfold slowly and steadily to the point of no return. In the meantime enjoy your Chicken Masala Rice. When you start to consciously realise that this physical aspect of reality (life) and the yin side of it (sleep and dreams) are just two aspects of a massive eternal dream (samsara), then you want the final awakening more than ever...but you need to find the right method that leads to it, otherwise change it as it might not be suited to your personal circumstances. A friend of mine is doing extremely well with astral projection and open eye sitting meditation. None of these methods really work for me.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120746516 Along with the threat of the Tea Bagger party is a little known group in D.C. known as 'the family'. This right wing fundamentalist group wields much control over certain members of the government especially the House and Senate. Sharlet's book is a well documented expose' on the dangers of right wing religious fundamentalism. Several names mentioned here are members of the Tea Bagger movement. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power By Jeff Sharlet The Family, or the Fellowship, is in its own words an "invisible" association, though it has always been organized around public men. Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kansas), chair of a weekly, off -the-record meeting of religious right groups called the Values Action Team (VAT), is an active member, as is Representative Joe Pitts (R., Pennsylvania), an avuncular would-be theocrat who chairs the House version of the VAT. Others referred to as members include senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee (the powerful conservative caucus co-founded back in 1974 by another Family associate, the late senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska); Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa); James Inhofe (R., Oklahoma); Tom Coburn (R., Oklahoma); John Thune (R., South Dakota); Mike Enzi (R., Wyoming); and John Ensign, the conservative casino heir elected to the Senate from Nevada, a brightly tanned, hapless figure who uses his Family connections to graft holiness to his gambling-fortune name. Some Democrats are involved: representatives Bart Stupak and Mike Doyle, leading anti-abortion Democrats, are longtime residents of the Family's C Street House, a former convent registered as a church and used to provide Family-subsidized housing for politicians supported by the Family. A centrist occasionally stumbles into the fold, but the Family is mostly conservative. Family stalwarts in the House include Representatives Frank Wolf (R., Virginia), Zach Wamp (R., Tennessee), and Mike McIntyre, a hard right North Carolina Democrat who believes that the Ten Commandments are "the fundamental legal code for the laws of the United States" and thus ought to be on display in schools and court houses. The Family's historic roll call is even more striking: the late senator Strom Thurmond (R., South Carolina), who produced "confidential" reports on legislation for the Family's leadership, presided for a time over the Family's weekly Senate meeting, and the Dixie-crat senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and Absalom Willis Robertson of Virginia — Pat Robertson's father — served on the behind-the-scenes board of the organization. In 1974, a Family prayer group of Republican congressmen and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird helped convince President Gerald Ford that Richard Nixon deserved not just Christian forgiveness but also a legal pardon. That same year, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist led the Family's first weekly Bible study for federal judges. "I wish I could say more about it," Ronald Reagan publicly demurred back in 1985, "but it's working precisely because it is private." "We desire to see a leadership led by God," reads a confidential mission statement. "Leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." Another principle expanded upon is stealthiness; members are instructed to pursue political jujitsu by making use of secular leaders "in the work of advancing His kingdom," and to avoid whenever possible the label Christian itself, lest they alert enemies to that advance. Regular prayer groups, or "cells" as they're often called, have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family's use of the term "cell" long predates the word's current association with terrorism. Its roots are in the Cold War, when leaders of the Family deliberately emulated the organizing techniques of communism. In 1948, a group of Senate staffers met to discuss ways that the Family's "cell and leadership groups" could recruit elites unwilling to participate in the "mass meeting approach" of populist fundamentalism. Two years later, the Family declared that with democracy inadequate to the fight against godlessness, such cells should function to produce political "atomic energy"; that is, deals and alliances that could not be achieved through the clumsy machinations of legislative debate would instead radiate quietly out of political cells. More recently, Senator Sam Brownback told me that the privacy of Family cells makes them safe spaces for men of power — an appropriation of another term borrowed from an enemy, feminism. "In this closer relationship," a document for members reads, "God will give you more insight into your own geographical area and your sphere of influence." One's cell should become "an invisible 'believing group'" out of which "agreements reached in faith and in prayer around the person of Jesus Christ" lead to action that will appear to the world to be unrelated to any centralized organization. In 1979, the former Nixon aide and Watergate felon Charles W. Colson — born again through the guidance of the Family and the ministry of a CEO of arms manufacturer Raytheon — estimated the Family's strength at 20,000, although the number of dedicated "associates" around the globe is much smaller (around 350 as of 2006). The Family maintains a closely guarded database of associates, members, and "key men," but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. "The Movement," a member of the Family's inner circle once wrote to the group's chief South African operative, "is simply inexplicable to people who are not intimately acquainted with it." The Family's "political" initiatives, he continues, "have always been misunderstood by 'outsiders.' As a result of very bitter experiences, therefore, we have learned never to commit to paper any discussions or negotiations that are taking place. There is no such thing as a 'confidential' memorandum, and leakage always seems to occur. Thus, I would urge you not to put on paper anything relating to any of the work that you are doing ... [unless] you know the recipient well enough to put at the top of the page 'PLEASE DESTROY AFTER READING.'" "If I told you who has participated and who participates until this day, you would not believe it," the Family's longtime leader, Doug Coe, said in a rare interview in 2001. "You'd say,'You mean that scoundrel? That despot?'" A friendly, plainspoken Oregonian with dark, curly hair, a lazy smile, and the broad, thrown-back shoulders of a man who recognizes few superiors, Coe has worked for the Family since 1959 and been "First Brother" since founder Abraham Vereide was "promoted" to heaven in 1969. (Recently, a successor named Dick Foth, a longtime friend to John Ashcroft, assumed some of Coe's duties, but Coe remains the preeminent figure.) Coe denies possessing any authority, but Family members speak of him with a mixture of intimacy and awe. Doug Coe, they say — most people refer to him by his first and last name — is closer to Jesus than perhaps any other man alive, and thus privy to information the rest of us are too spiritually "immature" to understand. For instance, the necessity of secrecy. Doug Coe says it allows the scoundrels and the despots to turn their talents toward the service of Jesus — who, Doug Coe says, prefers power to piety — by shielding their work on His behalf from a hardhearted public, unwilling to believe in their good intentions. In a sermon posted online by a fundamentalist website, Coe compares this method to the mob's. "His Body" — the Body of Christ, that is, by which he means Christendom — "functions invisibly like the mafia. ... They keep their organization invisible. Everything visible is transitory. Everything invisible is permanent and lasts forever. The more you can make your organization invisible, the more influence it will have." For that very reason, the Family has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, National Leadership Council, the Fellowship Foundation, the International Foundation. The Fellowship Foundation alone has an annual budget of nearly $14 million. The bulk of it, $12 million, goes to "mentoring, counseling, and partnering with friends around the world," but that represents only a fraction of the network's finances. The Family does not pay big salaries; one man receives $121,000, while Doug Coe seems to live on almost nothing (his income fluctuates wildly according to the off-the-books support of "friends"), and none of the fourteen men on the board of directors (among them an oil executive, a defense contractor, and government officials past and present) receives a penny. But within the organization money moves in peculiar ways, "man-to-man" financial support that's off the books, a constant proliferation of new nonprofits big and small that submit to the Family's spiritual authority, money flowing up and down the quiet hierarchy. "I give or loan money to hundreds of people, or have my friends do so," says Coe. The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February at the Washington, D.C., Hilton. Some 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations and corporate interests, pay $425 each to attend. For most, the breakfast is just that, muffins and prayer, but some stay on for days of seminars organized around Christ's messages for particular industries. In years past, the Family organized such events for executives in oil, defense, insurance, and banking. The 2007 event drew, among others, a contingent of aid-hungry defense ministers from Eastern Europe, Pakistan's famously corrupt Benazir Bhutto, and a Sudanese general linked to genocide in Darfur. Here's how it can work: Dennis Bakke, former CEO of AES, the largest independent power producer in the world, and a Family insider, took the occasion of the 1997 Prayer Breakfast to invite Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the Family's "key man" in Africa, to a private dinner at a mansion, just up the block from the Family's Arlington headquarters. Bakke, the author of a popular business book titled Joy at Work, has long preached an ethic of social responsibility inspired by his evangelical faith and his free-market convictions: "I am trying to sell a way of life," he has said. "I am a cultural imperialist." That's a phrase he uses to be provocative; he believes that his Jesus is so universal that everyone wants Him. And, apparently, His business opportunities: Bakke was one of the pioneer thinkers of energy deregulation, the laissez-faire fever dream that culminated in the meltdown of Enron. But there was other, less-noticed fallout, such as a no-bid deal Bakke made with Museveni, the result of a relationship that began at the 1997 Prayer Breakfast, for a $500-million dam close to the source of the White Nile — in waters considered sacred by Uganda's 2.5-million–strong Busoga minority. AES announced that the Busoga had agreed to "relocate" the spirits of their dead. They weren't the only ones opposed; first environmentalists (Museveni had one American arrested and deported) and then even other foreign investors revolted against a project that seemed like it might actually increase the price of power for the poor. Bakke didn't worry. "We don't go away," he declared. He dispatched a young man named Christian Wright, the son of one of the Prayer Breakfast's organizers, to be AES's in- country liaison to Museveni; Wright was later accused of authorizing at least $400,000 in bribes. He claimed his signature had been forged. "I'm sure a lot of people use the Fellowship as a way to network, a way to gain entree to all sorts of people," says Michael Cromartie, an evangelical Washington think tanker who's critical of the Family's lack of transparency. "And entree they do get." "Anything can happen," according to an internal planning document, "the Koran could even be read, but JESUS is there! He is infiltrating the world." Too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can "meet Jesus man to man." In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it helped the Carter administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. At the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, Family leaders persuaded their South African client, the Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to stand down from the possibility of civil war with Nelson Mandela. But such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s, the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, arranging prayer networks in the U.S. Congress for the likes of General Costa e Silva, dictator of Brazil; General Suharto, dictator of Indonesia; and General Park Chung Hee, dictator of South Korea. "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world," observes David Kuo, a former special assistant to the president in Bush's first term, "is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp."

Yeah right like I can make him do anything, lol. If you were to talk to him he answers in some strange language that is gibberish. But when he makes eye contact with you you are in rigpa immediately. Samsaric mind neutralized, karmic winds exhausted. I've only seen the mandala once but he repeats it every day at the same location. In front of the train station pointing to a large clock and inside a big shopping mall also pointing to a clock. He starts moving like a praying rabbi then makes strange movements with his hand pointing above him. Obviously others can't see the mandala but little children do see something as I've seen them looking transfixed without blinking at the space he is pointing at. I watch him do it every day but I've only seen the living mandala once. Always has an umbrella with him even in summer. Looks like a bum but wears expensive nikes and his clothes are clean so someone is taking care of him. Probably hasn't shaven or cut his hair in 10 years. His 2 fingers are black from smoking. So yeah good luck contacting him. He sometimes appears in a lucid dream and I can understand him but he doesn't communicate with words in real life only gestures, symbols and mandalas if you happen to be perceptive to it. But I've seen the foot prints where he was standing once and these can be observed by all. Possibly a true enlightened being but I won't make a tourist attraction out of it where people come and stalk the man. I have no idea what he's doing or why but I am completely fascinated by the whole thing. Isn't wim hof btw if that wasn't clear.

Here is my theory, we live in a multiverse, and past and future are equally as real as the present moment you now experience, all potential pasts and futures are also equally as real. Out there your idea of a perfect future truly exists, and if by some miracle you could perform all the correct actions at all the correct times, you could navigate to a future where that dream manifests. Really we are all doing this right now via our thoughts and our actions anyway it's just we are third eye blind and so we are stumbling in the dark, we don't see the consequences of our actions before we perform them, and we are flowing down the stream of life so we can't swim back and redo things. The more you awaken the more you can begin to feel which actions you should take, and which you should not to navigate to your ideal future, some call it intuition.

I'm not a Tea Bagger, but as long as Joe isn't here to defend them I may as well take a stab at it. Christianity wise its a mixed bag, I think many founders were free thinkers, exemplified by Masonry and they kept their beliefs quiet and coded. Others were indeed fundamentalists which were the majority of the population. While the majority of Tea Baggers seem to be old middle aged white guys, ultimately its not religious rewriting that gives them power and impact. Its simple math. We spend way more then we bring in, we've been doing it for years, and our economy will end in a train wreck unless we gravely tighten our belts and budget. Thats the message that resonates and is hard to shake. It points to nasty medicine. Still the message has been co-opted by right wing crazies who won't touch the military budget, won't raise taxes (which Clinton & Reagan did successfully) and think in terms of 1950 glory days. Still the main message of tighten our belts because massive borrowing will result in a depression and decline, is one we'd better heed. Its too bad there' s so little will in Congress to compromise. Still I think/hope Obama's policies will make a dent in the deficit while keeping the U.S. safety net functioning. It'd be cool to have single payer universal health care by the end of his 2nd term too (we can dream). Swinging the other way, let me say that the Occupy Wall Street movement gave me new respect for the Tea Party. That's because the Tea Party accomplished things. Not good things, but they got people elected, new legislature written and voted on. The OWS hasn't accomplished much. The thinking ' I'm gonna sleep in the park and march around until some law, somewhere, somehow is rewritten' hasn't and won't' accomplish much. Like it or not, change is gonna come through politics. Votes and new legislature. Get off my lawn hippie, and in the meantime put on a suit, get elected and pass some fair laws.

... and can you catch yourself asleep when you're awake while you're sleeping? Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

There are two types of "can." Can I ever? Or can I conveniently and readily now? The answer to the latter question is "no". But the answer to the former question is "yes." To give you an example of this, suppose you didn't train much, can you then lift a 60kg weight over your head with one hand? Probably not right away. Probably not readily or conveniently. Not by tomorrow morning. But you can ever? Yes, you can. Eventually you can. So what I am saying is that eventually, if you want, you can lift a house off its foundation and float it around the city just by intending it so. So ultimately intent is free. You can do this. There are beings who can do this. There are realms of existence where such transformations are commonplace. This way of thinking postulates that the present is fully arisen from the past. I reject that. Buddha has rejected such way of thinking as well. So has Nagarjuna. The past doesn't fully determine the present and the future. Check this: http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Investigation_of_Time Ignore Tsongkapa commentary. Tsongkapa is an idiot who tends to cloud the issues more than clarify. Nagarjuna is perfectly clear by himself. What happens in the present is a mix of the past plus intent in the now. That's a crude way of saying it and is not 100% correct either, because you can (learn how to) change your past from the present too. So a crude example is me deciding to pick up some paper off my desk. I put that paper there 2 months ago. That doesn't mean that 2 months ago, by putting the paper down, I have set in motion some fatalistic destiny where I will be destined to lift that paper in 2 month's time. Nor is it the case that the entirety of the world's conditions has forced me to act that way (Nagarjuna's logc -- if the past is sufficient to manifest the present and the future, why aren't they in the past? Why is there ongoing-ness? Ongoingness indicates some kind of insufficiency. If the past was fully sufficient, the entire timeline would sprout forth complete, from start to finish. It wouldn't need to slowly unravel ongoingly. So the past conditions are important. But they, by themselves, are not enough to determine what happens next. I see the past as a kind of prejudice or propensity. If you've habituated yourself to act a certain way, chances are you'll keep repeating the pattern. But that isn't a guarantee. That's your propensity. This propensity is not in full control of you. It's like a magnet which exerts a pull on a piece of metal, but doesn't by itself determine where the metal will go. It simply adds the force of the magnetic pull to the totality of forces that will operate. When I say "force" here I mean it the way it's used in physics, and not a struggle on a personal level or something like that. You can! But to do this isn't trivial. You have to open yourself up, move aside, or soften your conditioning, so significantly, it's like being insane. I've experienced such things. They don't happen often, and they seem crazy because they are not normal and they are inconceivable. Generally we remix what was known before. But does that make it a hard law? If something has repeated itself 10,000 times, is that evidence that it repeats itself eternally? Still, we like to play with qualities we have ready access to. But that doesn't mean those qualities are inspired by an external world. What if "external world" is internal to begin with? Then what? Where is your inspiration coming from then? So normally people would think: "saw color red on a bus." "went to dream" "saw red shoes in a dream" "red in a dream inspired by red seen during the day." It's obvious there are holes in this thinking. First the assumption is that the bus is real and the dream is unreal. The bus is external and the dream is internal. All these assumptions can be challenged and reversed. We externalize our inner world so that we see ourselves as hollow, quality-less entities inhabiting a rich world full of qualities. The qualities get disowned. Inside you have nothing, because you gave it all up to the world, which you then severed in your mind from yourself by a delineation. In this state there is very little power still left over for you. Just enough power to reverse this condition, but not to do much else beyond following the rules of the external world. The divide itself is intentional. Because of that, one can chose to stop dividing that way. I can. But doing so deflates other people. If I want to see other people be powerful and capable of surprising me, I have to keep feeding them my power (by me continuing to believe in the independence of others, by honoring the separation and by taking all this seriously). If I lose faith in other people, they go away. You might think they only go away from my world, but how many worlds are there? Do you think we all live in one common world? That would require the world to exist independently of people and mind. Is that the case? Conditioned =/= determined. Intentions do not arise from a cause. Intent is not an effect of anything. Intent itself is the primal and total cause. If intent arises from causes, that means everything is locked down by fate. That means it makes no sense to practice anything, to think about anything, because everything is already determined beforehand. And some people believe that. Think about this. Freedom is expressed through limitations. It's freedom to choose our own limitations. When you program a computer, you inject it with your chosen limitations. As a result, the computer can be endowed with an ability to play a game. This game is a set of limitations. Creativity consists of being able to erase these limitations only to replace them with a new set. Without limitations creativity would have no outlet. Because intent is always a selection of an option, a directional quality, it's always limiting at the same time as it is limitless. So when I am going forward, I am not right at the moment also going backward. That's the limit. But I can turn left. That's freedom. But if I turn left, exercising freedom, I can't at that moment also turn right. Left is not right. Left is only left. That's limitation again. So freedom and limitation are friends. One is used to express another. Thinking that freedom implies absence of limitations is crazy. It just means not understanding the role of limitations. What sucks about limitations is when they get stuck. When you forget how to replace one limitation with another. That's what sucks. So if computer didn't have RAM, which allowed you to erase programs and to write news ones in their place, if it only had ROM, it would be a much less useful and much less interesting computer. It would be a single-purpose device with closed horizons. A computer with RAM is a general purpose device with open horizons. Relatively. And what about mind? So what makes RAM useful? The middle way. RAM is malleable, it's able to absorb change. If RAM was utter immune to change it would lose some of its utility. But at the same time, RAM is also able to maintain state. If RAM was utterly volatile, it wouldn't be able to maintain state, and again it would lose utility. And the mind is like this too. The mind is between totally volatile and totally immune to change. It's even better than that. It's got areas of rapid change. Areas of long term storage. It's fully 100% reprogrammable. An area that was previously be used for long term storage can be made volatile for example. Etc. Computers are pathetic and limited things compared to mind.

I guess the intentions on the surface are all choices, since they are bound by the conditions from which you choose from. You can't simply choose to fly the next moment, or become a millionaire, or grow another pair of arms. But at its depth, what you are saying is more keen to creativity, since you are saying at depths there really is an unlimited variety of choices. In such a case you are not choosing, but creating the next whatever conditions you choose. But even that, creativity seems limited too by the conditions that give rise to the next moment. For instance, you may be aware that you have this limitless potential breaming within you, yet will not be able to imagine a new color, or create complex music, because they are learned responses and extensions of previous knowledge. So the apparent experience of choice, is its own proof of existence. I see, I can accept that. I have had those dreams but they were never entirely separate from the inner habits and conditions from the waking states. I wake up to realize that certain elements in the dreams, no matter how strange it was while I was dreaming, actually are inspired by thoughts or experiences I had the previous day. I have never been lucid enough to remember within the dream that the contents are related to my day's activities. But yes, I have had dreams where I am convinced that the life I have within it is real, that I am a different character. Again, you are really talking about our abilities to imagine. Maybe the fact that we can imagine is itself a good evidence against this idea that we are merely the outpouring of conditions. You "own" them? I think that's extreme. You can't readily change your environment so easily as if you owned them or go from one environment to the next when they are completely different. There's always a relationship from one condition to the the next. You can become more knowledgeable of your environment and navigate within it with more ease and options, but I think it's up to question whether you are changing your conditions actively, or becoming more knowledgeable of your conditions. This bring up the distinction of the internal and the external. Furthermore, if we are to say there are individuals with intentions, and their own perceptions and contexts, the consequence is that there in fact is the divide between the internal being and the external world/other people. Since there is this divide, intentions must be compromised and are not whole, i.e. individual intentions will clash (as is apparent in many daily cases). The relationship between you and other people is imo what a condition is. And you can't own the conditions involving these other intentions, but rather have to adjust yourself accordingly. And adjusting is not owning. Forget holding the stars in alignment but just making someone in front of you do something or understanding something you are trying to communicate is itself a challenge to one's intent. If an intention is truly spontaneous and free to choose from options, then it isn't conditioned by the intentions beforehand. There must be some complete blank state from which the choice is made, which is, as you say, illogical. In fact, that intentions must arise from a cause is what I am trying to say. But when intentions come from a cause, it is conditioned by the multitudes of causes beforehand and so on. This is how we have continuing preferences, have goals, the urge to do something. We must live by some sort of pattern/habit if intentions comes from causes. I'm not sure the examination of your experience of writing necessarily shows that intentions are free. If indeed there is no such thing as free will, and you are simply the conditions being acted out, whether one feels there is pressure to do something or not is irrelevant because that in itself is the arising element. But, as you say, if you are honest about the apparent experience, you are right that it always seems like there are alternatives to choose from. Logically, there really isn't a problem with the earlier statement that we are simply the causes and conditions playing itself out. But experientially, at least those who haven't completely bought in and transformed the style of life to the previous belief, it is not easily acceptable. It feels contrary to our daily interactions where we have choices. That's really interesting. The mind as a mix of being and knowledge. This reminds me of the duality of heart-mind, how the intentions reside or is symbolized by the heart center and the knowledge/wisdom by the upper dan tien in energy practices. But intentions rely more than the contextual knowledge of things, it is heavily engrossed in habit...and knowledge/context doesn't necessarily drive intentions either...hmm..actually I'm not so sure at this point. There seems to be a direct relationship between context/knowledge, intentions, and experience/manifestation. Anyways, this is all I have for now, I'll try to contemplate a bit more on the trio.

I think that it would be a waste of precious moments to use a lucid dream or astral projection for a mere novelty, the experience could help a spiritual practitioner to deepen their study or practice. Although for this to happen it would be necessary to remember the motivation to do it, and then to experience the lucidity there would have to be some training involved, you could very well be lucid on most nights if you train consistently during the daytime hours when you are "awake". That's why I think it's important to start writing your dreams down, as much as you can remember, so that by working your memory in this way, your ability to recall dreams increases every time. Not only that, but you will also have a hardcopy of your dreams written down, this may prove to be invaluable as you may be drawn to review some of them later. By being more aware during the day, and becoming established in a consistent stream of awareness, witnessing all phenomena (both inner and outer) without attachments... lucidity and clarity within the dream experience naturally begin to arise. I offer a link here for anyone who wishes to read more about dream yoga: Dream Yoga

The coming Millennials Makeover in politics- Why Millennials will become far more powerful and achieving than Boomers could ever dream to be- Millenials vs. Boomers- So What happens to American Politics?- Millennials voting in record numbers-

You have elicited a lot of advice, personally, I have been OOB and astral traveling since I started practicing tai chi in 1980, if you want to do it then go ahead, don't be put off by the bs fear mongers or the 'holier than though' types. My best practice technique is to chi breath thru the centre point, Tan Tien, and earth out thru the feet. If I do that I am sure to wake up in a dream, go flying or roll out of my body. It takes some practice, but is worth every effort you make. With practice you will move away from the lower energy levels and not have any negative interactions with anyone or thing. The black hell type places can be real or they could be our own manifestations, but again, with practice, we leave these behind quite quickly. I have only had 2 frightening experiences OOB but both times my Tan Tien kicked in automatically and I left them high and dry. The practice of centering and earthing makes your chi levels very strong and is a very safe technique ideal for astral travel. Good luck and let us know how you go, there are a lot of people who are interested in this topic.

From a neurological perspective, the eyes act as a switch to change brain states. When we close our eyes it messages the brain to switch to 'go to sleep' mode. This means that the brain immediately, within half a second, drops off production of fast beta brainwaves (12-40 Hz) and starts producing sleep frequencies, namely alpha the calm, transition, no activity state (8-12 Hz) followed by theta the dream imagery or lucid state (4-8 Hz) and finally delta deep sleep state (0-4 Hz). Conversely, when the eyes open it does the reverse, sleep frequencies drop off and wakefulness brainwaves begin to dominate (back to the 12-40 Hz). Our human brain evolved from small, quite defenseless creatures, living on the edge of survival. They had to be able to switch brain states (brainwaves) according to their environment. If they had slow waves dominant while awake and walking the savannah, they would be very attentive, too sleepy to notice predators and thus be eaten before they could run away to safety. They also had to be able to switch off their alert active brain at night to get a good nights sleep. The brain evolved to use eyes open / eyes closed to be able to change the 'state' of the being. Meditating, as far as I am aware, has many paths, some are designed for open eyes and some for eyes closed. If you are doing tai chi for instance, you use eyes open and enter an alpha state, calm and relaxed. If we are seeking to gain a deep state of relaxation for insight or astral travel etc then you would use an eyes closed form to reach the lucid theta state. astralc

What is the goal of lucid dreaming? Which technique or methods do you use and recommend? Are there different stages? Pitfalls? ... Everyone who would like to share his/her experience is welcome... Jox,