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I believe you may be thinking of "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (spelling may not be correct). It's solid as far as techniques within that tradition, though they may or may not be useful for you personally. As to your general question, there are lots of resources for that. But seeing as how you mention not having that great of results from the internet, I'm guessing you've probably seen most of anything to link to anyway. As someone who's done a lot of study independent of any personal teachers, I'm going to say that you're going to have to "read between the lines" when you self study. By that, I mean you're going to have to be very self aware about what works and what isn't working. You can't be afraid to do your own thing, and to go with what feels right. Since you don't have a personal teacher to tailor the teaching to you, and all you have is a bunch of "general info", you're going to have to build yourself up on your own. Sometimes you can do this, and sometimes you need outside input. So as you're waiting for a more full response, just keep that in mind. Also, I do believe that dream yoga is much like stuff like sex practices, practices to increase bodily strength, practices to develop other siddhis, etc etc, in that they aren't stand alone practices, but they are parts of a greater whole, and they aren't meant to be done on their own. As in, they should be integrated with the clarity of mind created in meditation. Empowered by the energy gathered through, say, sex practices (but that's not the only practice that can amass energy!), and balanced by the health of the body. I stopped focusing on dream work after years of doing so after an experience I had. There was a week in which I was going to have my apartment all to myself, no roommates or neighbors or family were going to be around. So I stocked up on some food (I'm not really a faster ) and I devoted the entire week to focusing my mind and getting conscious dreams. Well I had some rather interesting experiences, but I realized something- a huge portion of my dream content was unresolved content from my daily life. I saw dream images of thoughts I had had throughout the day. I saw dream content of conversations I had had in the past. I saw dream content from parts of my life. Etc etc etc. Basically, since I had cut off any extraneous sensory input during that week (no tv, internet, music, human contact, etc etc), my mind was able to "keep up" with what I DID have going on- and it was mostly just stuff from my mind. The rest of my dreams over my span of doing dream work, while interesting, was completely unverifiable. So I put it down in the "that was neat" category, but had no reliable way of following up on the matter- particularly not through dreams because my dreams were still very much filled with day to day content. So yes, I do believe that dream yoga and experiences can be very powerful and can ultimately lead to *insert your goal here*. However, I think that they won't be as effective if you are just doing dream work. Sure, you can use dream work to clear out your mental clutter- but you can also do meditation during "waking" hours. You can purify your mind and your energy in other, possibly more efficient ways. You can work on developing your consciousness so it doesn't space out, so you are continually more aware, which would then carry over into your dreams. Dream work is good. Dream work can be very powerful. But it is not the most efficient method of doing everything that (I think) is encompassed in a complete spiritual practice. Anyway, keep on looking for a competent teacher/method which includes everything that you want it to. But I'd suggest you keep what I said in mind. Because unless you've got a decent amount of foundational work in other areas, the most you're going to be doing in dream yoga is stuff you could have done more efficiently using other means.

I had once read about dream yogha. It was too complex. Rinpoche or something. I think I still got the book somewhere in pc if anyone recommends it. I'm not sure if anyone here is experienced with this? I mean we sleep so long in our lives, why not become totally conscious during our sleep aswell? So much to learn and experienced there, so much to explore. The truth lies within, all the time, I believe. That is why conscious sleeping is very important to me. I have found many techniques that help get little results. Especially all the advice out there about lucid dreaming on the internet. I'm not content with these. I just want much bigger results and better progress. Not limited by the limitations of science regarding the leaving your body with your consciousness experiences. Any source of information of real experienced conscious sleeping or dreaming teachers?

Basically, what I consider as emptiness simply means that what dependently originates is empty of an independent, inherent, locatable existence. All appearances lack self-being and hence while appearing is fundamentally empty, thus being like illusions, like a dream, a mirage, etc. The teaching of emptiness due to dependent origination is peculiar to Buddhism alone.

Your post may present an understanding of the aspect of view, but not the realization. The realization is as Namdrol describes how the view dissolves into a wisdom that perceives all appearances as being like a magician's trick, like mirage, dream, form, bubbles, etc. The view aspect is as I describe here: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/07/view.html The View Posted by: An Eternal Now Just posted in The Tao Bums a week ago: I have just come to a new realisation of the implications of views in daily life. I could have misunderstood what goldisheavy meant but I think it has to do with the fields of meaning. I have realised how ideas, beliefs, notions, views pervade our life and causes attachment. I now see that every single attachment is an attachment to view, which, no matter what it is, comes to two basic clinging: the view 'there is' and the view 'there isn't'. I started by noticing how in the past I had a sense of self, body and awareness... That these all seem so real to me and I kept coming back to that subjective sense and this is no longer the case now: I don't even have a sense of a body nowadays. Then I realized that all these clingings are related to view. The view of There is.... Self, body, mind, awareness, world, whatever. Because of this clinging on to things as existent, they appear real to us and we cling to them. The only way to eradicate such clingings is to remove the root of clinging: the view of 'there is' and 'there isn't'. The realization of anatta removes the view of 'there is self', 'there is awareness' as an independent and permanent essence. Basically, any views about a subjective self is removed through the insight that "seeing is just the seen", the subject is always only its objective constituents. There is no more sense of self, body, awareness, or more precisely there is no clinging to a "there is" with regards to such labels. It is seen that these are entirely ungraspable processes. In short the clinging and constant referencing to an awareness, a self dissolves, due to the notion "there is" such things are being eradicated. The realization of dream-like reality removes the view of 'there are objects', the universe, the world of things... One realizes what heart sutra meant by no five skandhas. This is basically the same realization as anatta, except that it impacts the view "there is" and "there isn't" in terms of the objective pole, in contrast to the earlier insight that dissolves "there is" of a subjective self. What I have overlooked all these while is the implications of views and how the thicket of views cause all clingings and suffering and what underpins those thicket of views, and how realization affects and dissolves these views.

All I can say is that I look forward to listening and getting to know all of you.

Thusness Seven Stages makes perfect sense to me. "Everything appears as mere thoughtforms (conceptual constructs)" - actually, not all appearances are conceptual. There are conceptual (ideas, etc) and nonconceptual appearances (sense perceptions), all are equally empty. So emptiness isn't just about realizing the illusoriness of concepts, it is about realizing the illusion-like nature of all appearances be it conceptual or non-conceptual. At this point one realizes all appearances (conceptual and non-conceptual) to be empty, like a dream, like a mirage, like a magician's tricks, etc. Otherwise, there is nothing much I disagree with your statements. update: (Namdrol) ...At base, the main fetter of self-grasping is predicated upon naive refication of existence and non-existence. Dependent origination is what allows us to see into the non-arising nature of dependently originated phenomena, i.e. the self-nature of our aggregates. Thus, right view is the direct seeing, in meditative equipoise, of this this non-arising nature of all phenomena. As such, it is not a "view" in the sense that is something we hold as concept, it is rather a wisdom which "flows" into our post-equipoise and causes us to truly perceive the world in the following way in Nagarjuna's Bodhicittavivarana: "Form is similar to a foam, Feeling is like water bubbles, Ideation is equivalent with a mirage, Formations are similar with a banana tree, Consciousness is like an illusion."

I do feel sensations of extreme sensitivity. Feels like electrical current running trough my heart. I can choose to feel them, I can focus it on diffrent parts of the body. I just got the ability to do that one day, no idea why. I noticed sensitivity to sound with these sensations, when I choose to become sensitive. No idea how I do it, I just make an effort to feel them and eventually I do. I also feel this when trying be more present minded. I perform better on many thing when I do this. When I initiate a dream from a conscious state of mind it feels like my body is tuning in to another frequency, or something like that. I feel vibrations alot. The vibrations slowly calm down and the dream fades in like a tuner reaching a radio station. You even hear the vibrations, bzzz, and slowly fading away the more the dream fades in. Is that what you mean with vibrations or energies? Its funny, cause today I have chosen to feel this allot to explore it further and you ask me about it ^^

It's common knowledge I thought. Here is the 1st one I found. "In your yoga practice, regularly pause for a moment, and look within. There, inside your Heart Center, find the inner smile. This connection with the inner smile leads to a state of unconditional bliss in which external circumstances cannot sway the joy we feel for who we are." http://www.aadilandmirra.com/?tag=bliss Then there is the ever-so-obvious metta or loving kindness. Mettā (Pali: मेत्ता in Devanagari) or maitrī (Sanskrit: मैत्री) is loving-kindness,[1][2] friendliness,[3][4][5] benevolence,[2][4] amity,[3] friendship,[4] good will,[4] kindness,[6] love,[3] sympathy,[3] close mental union (on same mental wavelength),[4] and active interest in others.[3] It is one of the ten pāramīs of the Theravāda school of Buddhism, and the first of the four sublime states (Brahmavihāras). This is love without clinging (upādāna). The cultivation of loving-kindness (mettā bhāvanā) is a popular form of meditation in Buddhism. In the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, this practice begins with the meditator cultivating loving-kindness towards themself,[7] then their loved ones, friends, teachers, strangers, enemies, and finally towards all sentient beings. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, this practice is associated with tonglen (cf.), whereby one breathes out ("sends") happiness and breathes in ("receives") suffering.[8] Tibetan Buddhists also practice contemplation of the four immeasurables, which they sometimes call 'compassion meditation'[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81 Pretty obvious imo. It's on this MCO chart as well. Vajrayana (Buddhist Tantra) The Tibetan theory of chakras plays an important role in all the Highest Yoga Tantras. They play a pivotal role in all Completion stage practices (as opposed to Generation stage practices), where an attempt is made to bring all the subtle winds of the body into the central channel, to realise the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain the 'illusory body' of a divinity .[9] The Tibetan system states that the central channel begins at the point of the third eye, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down the body to the tip of the sexual organ. The two side channels run parallel to, and without any space in between, the central channel, but they begin at the two nostrils: the lunar channel ends in the sexual organ, and the solar channel in the anus. Along the central channel are positioned 10 chakras, of which usually four or five are expounded as being important. They are located in the following positions: 1.Third eye between the eyebrows 2.The wind wheel on the forehead 3.The crown wheel on the top of the head 4.The throat wheel 5.The fire wheel between the throat and the heart 6.The heart wheel 7.The navel wheel 8.The secret place, four fingers below the navel 9.The jewel wheel on the sexual organ, near the end 10.The tip of the sexual organ The channels run parallel through them, but at the navel, heart, throat and crown the two side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat and crown, there is a twofold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. At the heart wheel there is a sixfold knot, where each side channel twists around three times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots. Within the chakras exist the 'subtle drops'. The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death. In addition, each chakra has a number of 'spokes' or 'petals', which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a Sanskrit syllable. By visualising a specific chakra, the subtle winds (which follow the mind), enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realise specific practices, for example, meditating on the syllable 'Ah' in the navel chakra is important for the practice of tummo, or inner fire, the basis of the six yogas of Naropa. Meditating on the 'Hum' in the heart chakra is important for realising the Clear Light of bliss and emptiness. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world, or into another body. In general, the higher tantras, starting with the Guhyasamaja tantra, are very uniform in their descriptions of the chakras, channels and drops. The Kalachakra tantra has a slightly different system, which relates the chakras with astrology. A result of energetic imbalance among the chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fulfillment. When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary; they are interpretations of mental images that are fed back to the individual. When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mental verbalisations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the self reaching out for experience. When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings.[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra

Wow! You sure do talk a lot once you get started, don't you? Much to speak to. Let's see how I do. Therein lies the problem. When stuff happens that we don't understand we say, "WTF?!" But when things happen the way we think they should happen we say, "Ah Ha! There has to be some controlling factor. This is because this is how things happen in our personal life. When things happen the way we want them too we claim that we had control of the situation but when things get all screwed up we balme other factors. I do understand that humans, in general, have a need for unification. The dieties are for becoming one with - unification! No. There are no answers. There are understandings and opinions. But this is why I have stayed so long in this thread. The word "Taoist" was used negatively in the thread title. I will always argue against such actions. It is not necessarily my intention to hyjack the thread but rather to show that Taoist Philosophy is a perfect guide for one to live his/her life to its maximum potential. That, IMO, would be our best expression of Tao. And this is where I differ from Religious Taoists and Taoists who hold to the concept of a consciousness or an intelligence that is universal. There is simply way too much duality of observable consciousness and intelligenc for me to accept that there is any "higher power" controlling, in any way, what is happening throughout the universe. (Unless, of course, this "higher power is schizo.) Yes, we all hear voices. This is our subconscious mind. A natural function of our brain. What we get from it will depend on what we have put in it. "Garbage in = garbage out." If I were to constantly think about my Pegacorn I would have visions of my Pegacorn during my awaken hours and I would dream about her when I was sleeping. And the more I think about her the stronger my visions will become. Self-induced illusions and delusions. Yep. You will get back what you have put in. Our beliefs, both negative and positive will be reflected in our thoughts and dreams. Thing is, our subconscious mind does not work according to any rules. It just throws shit at us. We think we smell like a rose but in reality we stink really bad. There is no "higher" or "lower" self. We are what we are. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. If we practice goodness we will be said to be a good person; if we practice evil we will be said to be an evil person. That's life. I don't know. All I can go by is what I have observed with my senses. I have my opinions and understandings. I share those with others. I will arrgue them with others so that I can either justify my opinions and understandings or find that I have been in error and need to change my opinions and understandings. Taoist philosophy teaches me to do this. It teaches me to observe the universe objectively. Every time we view something subjectively we smudge the picture - we don't see what is really there. The more one thinks about flying saucers the more one will see in the night skies. We need to understand the processes of Nature and the processes of our brain. This will allow us to live a much fuller life. And no, we don't have to give up anything in order to become self-actualized. In fact, giving up things will prevent us from becoming self-actualized. (But I'm not going to talk about excesses right now.)

hahaaha not like i pretend to understand the mother cosmos / creator / whatever but when i first started to get psychic impressions and messages in my body i was working with a shaman (cherokee) and he told me basically that the great spirit communicates with *everyone* in their own way and not to think i was special or fixate on the impressions i was getting, just remember that i should be grateful if i get a message that helps. also, it stands to reason that everything is dao, so i have never had a thought in my life, nor has anyone else, that wasnt a manifestation of dao! haha! seperation from the divine is a very western idea, and so then is the idea of "reconnecting with it"!? To me, life is the dream of godhead, and we are all characters in this great dreaming drama, so this very conversation contains the essence of divinity, as does the poo i just took, and everything else! we are all characters in creator's dream. So nothing, therefore, is seperate from creator, and nobody has ever had a thought which has not been of the origin of creator! how could one ever be seperate from creator, except in their own mind!? haha So when i hear people like tulku say "oh i hear the messages of creator, i am so high level, i am so special" i think to myself "no you have only begun to realize that the creator talks to you. soon you will begin to realize that the creator talks to everyone!"

Kali Yuga, no problem Everything, have you tried OBE and LD technqiues? They are quite powerful. Or i should say tapping into the dream body is quite powerful Deci Belle, Thank you for that very reassuring post, hmm i have to say that i hope its not just "my mind playing tricks on me" i feel that all emotions and thoughts are another form of chi, and that one could make a good meditation just by "believing" or "willing" or causing your body to simply "respond" to your will. No frills involved. However that is more of a technique then concentrating on the infinte nothingness ;p Anyways I cant stand the thought of waiting years and years to feel improvements, actually i cant stand the thougth of a meditation being boring, they are always exciting for me You do totally have a point though, that the mind and emotions and words really tend to overexagerate things. However whether that exageration is always bad is another thing to consider alltogether.

Hello Everyone, I have decided to write a followup review on my second Michael Lomax workshop as well as my experiences within the stillness-movement system. I believe today is my 77th day since my first stillness-movement workshop. I recently attended my second workshop in Terre Haute IN on the 20-22th of August. So far I have been very happy with my personal progress in Stillness-movement. As Michael says, "Somedays are better than others, thats the way it has always been". I find that to be very true as somedays when doing Gift of the Tao the Qi can feel as thick as carving butter and the stillness-movement can feel like a burning fire in my Dantian; while other days the Qi can be much more subtle and almost barely noticeable. I look at those days as almost a built in test to weed out the simple phenomenon seekers from the true warriors who have the patience and perseverance to keep pushing on with their heart. Overall though my personal energy development has been heading in a steady upward direction. The average qigong session when I first began this practice pales in comparison to what I am experiencing now. So while day to day may be very different, I'de say on a week to week basis there is a definite tangible improvement. I will now attempt describe the experience and impression I had on my second Stillness-movement workshop. For this workshop I had much more profound experience of it than my first workshop. Its not that each workshop is dramatically different from the previous one, but your own experience of it can change drastically as one's personal energy awareness increases. Its kinda like a beginner student new to the system may only actually perceive and take in maybe 1% of what really goes on at one of Michael's workshops. While a senior student would probably perceive a much larger spectrum of what Michael really does. I know personally I was able to perceive a bit more from the second workshop than the first as I will describe in this review. This is the reason why I think people continue going back to workshops, as each one exponentially expands upon the last. I remember asking one of Michael's senior students who had already graduated from his system why he still bothered attending every workshop he could make. He replied comically, "Graduation? What graduation, as far as I'm concerned Michael will always be a higher vibration than me so there will always be much more to learn and room for growth. Graduation happens when Michael dies", he said laughing. I thought that was interesting and admired his passion towards the never ending strive to learn. However on the other side of the coin I believe one could progress very far with just a single workshop. I remember the same senior student telling me a story about a a girl who had attended one of Michael's workshops in the past and then Michael never heard from her for several years. He said Michael just randomly met her again and she told him that one workshop had changed her life and she had kept up the practice, apparently Michael tested her and found she had some good power. Then for self growth and awareness, one really just needs to attend a single workshop. I think the people that come back are like myself and really feel a calling to the system and wish to learn the medical aspect. On the first day of the workshop I immediately noticed how much stronger I could feel the qigong movements than from the first workshop I had done, in fact doing Gift of the Tao then was perhaps the most powerful I have ever felt it. The Qi got so thick that was like moving through water almost, or perhaps it was like warping the space around me like playdoh lol. I remember doing this one move that Michael stated was particularly awesome. During that move I felt like I was experiencing the complete definition of Tranquility/Calmness/Peace/Power/Love/Ect... all wrapped into one truly awesome movement. In fact after doing it Michael jokingly asked us how many felt like we had just smoked a Joint because this movement had shifted so much energy that it truly expanded our awareness in a truly awesome way. You would just have to be there to experience it because reading about this will just create an abstract concept of what it could have felt like. I believe sometime after this exercise was when i first started to notice seeing Michael's energy field. I was just serenely staring at him without a worry on my mind when suddenly I began to see this bright yellow/golden outline around him. I thought this was interesting so I casually brought more of my awareness to it and as I did it seemed to grow and Michael's being seemed to get larger and larger as this golden energy field was expanding out from him and filling the room. At one point I closed my eyes and amazingly I found that I could still see him, my vision was black except for this golden silhouette of Michael that was following his movements. Although this may not be such an amazing feat for some people reading this, I personally thought this was very cool and a definite proof for me that I had been progressing in my practice and awareness. The only other person in the room whom I could easily see their energy field was one of Michael's senior students who also had a golden outline but not quite as strong as Michael's. Later we practice stillness-movement and received the energy transmission that Michael does. In the past I usually have some spontaneous movement, however this time I was moving nonstop every which way. In fact the movement was so intense it was keeping me from fully relaxing, until one point I completely calmed down and my body went limp. One of Michael's senior students said he and Michael had projected to me so that I my body could just relax and thats what it felt like, a wave of calmness just overtook me and my body and mind went limp. The projection was a subtle sensation that I couldn't quite explain but one thing I noticed was it felt like a weight had been lifted from my head afterwards. After the first day we all went to Umi Sushi where Chef Qi cooked us up some marvelous sushi treats for a great Japanese dinner . The second day was also a lot of fun. We all took turns visiting this tree to practice tree qigong. On the surface this tree appeared not much different from the rest of the trees around it but MAN did it have strong energy. I remember doing tree qigong the first workshop and I couldn't definitely feel the tree's energy although it was quite subtle, and have practice qigong with several trees around my house which has been a lot of fun, however that tree at this second workshop has by far been the most powerful tree I have ever felt. Its energy field was SO tangible. As we were walking to it I was about 30 feet away and suddenly felt like I hit a strong wall of vibrating energy which got strong the closer to it I got. I was surprised to so strongly feel it from so far away. This time I was also very easily able to feel the different layers of the tree's energy that Michael talks about. Later in the day we practiced rejuvenation qigong and did some more stillness-movement. The stillness-movement session was particularly interesting. As I was sitting there my body gave a great urge lay down so I allowed it to do so and i felt a lot more comfortable. To me, this session appeared rather uneventful and I felt I was having difficulty calming the mind. Next thing i know I feel this HUGE jolt on my Dantian, almost as if someone took a big tomtom and beat my Dantian once like a drum. I was at first actually quite confused, I remember thinking, "What the? Where am I? Why is it dark? What am I doing in this state of being?" I then realized what I was doing and had a vague recollection that something important had happened earlier in this meditation but I couldn't quite remember any of the details, almost like recalling a blurry dream. Pretty soon after that Michael brought us out of stillness-movement and I was still super disoriented. Michael said some kind of funny remark I didn't quite catch about if I was still with them and then one of Michael's senior students right next to me laughingly told me for the last 45 minutes or so I had been in a comatose like state with my eyes wide open and body hardly moving a muscle to even breath, he said that if someone came in on this workshop they most certainly would have called the paramedics on me lol. Hearing this dumbfounded me because I certainly felt like my eyes had been closed the entire time and what shocked me even more was that this qigong session had been nearly 2 hours and to me it seemed like an uneventful 15 minutes . There isn't too much to note about the third day of the workshop devoted to medical qigong besides the fact that everyone who participated did in fact heal their partner by remarkable degrees. I will though describe two interesting healing sessions that I have done since this last workshop. The first healing was actually done the day right after the workshop when I was visiting my family in Indianapolis. It came up that my uncle had pain in his elbows and fingers so I told him what I learned at this workshop and said maybe I could help. He agreed and I worked a little bit on him, after he said he could feel something happening in those areas. What was interesting though was that while I was working on him, his wife right next to him said that she could feel all this tingling on the back of her neck and shoulders where she is usually sore. So I said maybe I could help and I began treating her, she said that she could feel all this energy flowing from her neck down her body and out her foot. The next day she wrote to me and said the pain in her neck was much better which I thought was cool, I never heard back from my uncle. The second healing I did a few days ago on my grandma. She's had this terrible pain in her shoulders for over a year now and has very little mobility in her arms. A week before I treated her she got a steroid shot at the hospital for the pain which didn't do anything and she said due to the pain she was unable to do the stretching exercises that her doctor prescribed. Before I treated her she told me that on a scale from 1-10 her pain was at a 8 or 9. So I treated her for a solid 15 minutes utilizing the medical qigong techniques I knew and giving her quite a bit of Energy. Afterwards she hugged me with a smile on her face and said she felt great. She said that her pain was now down to 0 and I had 100% gotten rid of it! Now thats pretty cool for only having been seriously practicing qigong for less than three months. She called the next day and said that for the first time in a while she had slept very good. I certainly feel I have made a big difference in her life and am proud to have been able to help her. From what I have seen these medical qigong methods work and are truly remarkable. I can't tell you how awesome a feeling it is to be able to truly help make a difference for someone I hope my experiences have not bored anyone . I wrote these accounts to pay my respect to the stillness-movement practice and voice my opinion of what it can accomplish. I can say that after this second workshop I have felt a considerate boost to my energy level and practice. Before this workshop I had could not feel too going on in my Dantian area, but now I can feel a tangible heat and pulsing everytime I put my hands there which can get pretty hot when I'm deep in the stillness-movement. My friend asked me the other day what has been the single biggest benefit from doing this practice and I had to think about that because it works on so many aspects and levels of one's life. After giving it some thought, I will have to agree with Michael that the biggest thing for me is empowerment, I truly feel a deep inner strength at my heart after doing these practices that was not present when I first started this system. I wish everyone good luck on your own personal journeys, whether that path be stillness-movement or not I wish you the best. Peace, SurfingBudda

What you mean is perhaps the nothingness that initiates the light. The darkness from which light originates. In the psyche this can be seen as the subconscious. This pattern of the underworld can be interpreted in many ways. The void might be an interpretation from the emerald tablets of toth, which speaks of the underworld. I personally think this void does have thoughts, it just lets go of external reality. You become a nothing entity in void space, in complete darkness. It is a gateway. From this place you are initiated into life, to be reborn again. Becoming aware in between the dreams during sleep is the key you seek. Deep sleep is like the void. Here dreams and reality is born. The darkness is followed by images and sounds. The dream arises, you enter the dream world. The goal however is to get lucid during deep sleep, for if you can do that you can initiate yourself into life and you become immortal in a sense. You can enter the dream lucid everytime you sleep. The void is spiritual mastery and the light is material mastery. Or something like that. They're part of each other. Experience them appart from eachother, in their extremes, and you can merge them to form a perfect balance. That you may opperate in this life from the void. Thats the alchemical mechanics. This is just my current thoughts about it. Might be complete BS. This samadhi you speak of might be an interpretation of the Halls of Amenti. "A hundred times ten have I descended the dark way that led into light, and as many times have I ascended from the darkness into the light my strength and power renewed." The void, interpreted as deep sleep, is known in science to regenate the body and muscles. Healing. There are many ways to look at it I guess. We all make our own interpretation. I don't know what kind of void you seek. I believe that physical death also plunges you into the void. Perhaps studying darkmatter brings us closer tk the void.

freedom isnt choices, i agree, but i think freedom exists, even though its often misunderstood. Hahah in USofA they hype freedom but really they just take your freedom away if you don't follow the rules to me real freedom is a free flow of energy. When my energies were constricted, i thought and acted in a way that wasn't free, and in many ways was a slave to my lower nature. But as i heal and my energies become loose and expansive, i experience what i can only call freedom! to be fair, i hear where you are coming from, and i am a believer in cause and effect. I had a conversation last week with someone who had a dream that 16 years later was a deja vu for them. So what does that say about the flow of time? I also believe in the validity of astrology, although i would not describe myself as a determinist. i would describe reality as being paradoxically free-willed and fated in the same instant. And i would describe that as just a way of saying things, a koan to push the mind into a non-dual way of looking at things. another way to say it would be that our freedom is destined, and that accepting our destinies is freedom. There are boundaries and constraints but i don't think that means freedom is a total myth. i just think that the freedom that people imagine, like "freedom to do whatever i want without consequenses" is bullshit. But the more we accept our boundaries and limits, the more freedom we experience! So there is a paradox there that i think freedom is part of... just my 2 cents

Wonderful, Adi! Happy to know you like Lhasa too... perhaps you will like Priscilla as much - Her song 'Dream' is one of my favs! and to continue the inspirational and happy theme, here's a little stack of tracks worth a listen or two -

I like to think that Life has no opposite and thus never ends. Birth is the prerequisite for Death, so Death is the opposite of Birth, not Life. I myself have never witnessed any evidence for 'Non Life' as everything feels alive to me. A rotting corpse is full of life. Teeming Living Bacteria is breaking down an old life form, but no where is the Life Force itself absent. Minerals are transforming, trees are breathing, everything is in constant motion. When I watch death, what is it I am watching? The person I knew is gone suddenly, that light I saw in their eyes, that look that was them, is suddenly not there... To me, the body they had is not what made them them, so where did that part go? Their eyes are still there, so is their body, but what was it that carried their body around? That force has suddenly moved on... There is no proof that awareness is limited to the body. We cant really define at all what awareness is. It does not seem to have a substance. there are plenty of cases where people who were hooked to brain machines were declared clinically dead, yet they could give accurate reports of things spoken or events that took place. All while being brain dead. At the same time, we do not want to let the awareness of death [impermanence] really penetrate our lives. We spend so much time imagining that temporary things will bring us happiness, and to me that is our way of protecting ourselves from the vulnerable feelings, that being aware of our Immanent death can bring. Panic. Fear. If we were suddenly told our loved one only had two weeks to live, that loved one would suddenly become very precious to us, we would dote on them, appreciate them, and love every second with them. Our hearts would break open wide. This is so sad to me, as it shows just how deluded we are about our own Impermanence. The reality is we have all been given that sentence. Not by a doctor but by being born. We could die at any second. All our loved ones are going to die also. We have no Idea when or where. The sad thing is that If we were fully aware of Impermanence, we would be fully aware of the precious nature of every moment together. We would really love each other, not just for the two weeks some doctor may one day give us... Impermanence makes us raw and loving and open if we let it. You are fortunate to be having thoughts and doubts about death. Even if death really is the end of us entirely, Living fully with the fact of its Inevitability, will help you really live and really love and enjoy every moment. Then when death comes to you, you will not have the regrets of not having cherished your loved ones, or fully lived your life. You will die bravely and satisfied. For me Buddhism has brought me to this, but there are other paths there as well. Even though I believe in life after death, I think it would entail a massive transformation of sense of self. I would not recommend any path that gives you beliefs that serve to protect you from the truth of Impermanence. Like: "After you die you live in heaven forever, where everything you want you get, and you are waited on by fat flying babies..." This kind of belief lets us falsely believe that everything will work out all right without any suffering. We can be as attached to false things as we want, put of loving our close ones till after the simpsons is finished. For me, as Impermanence sinks through my thick skull, my bad habits no longer seem useful, I no longer seek happiness in things that will not last, and more and more of my attachments just die. This brings a great kind of freedom and happiness. I am now a far better father to my daughter, as I really really appreciate her. I know she could be taken at any second. Its heart breaking and wonderful at the same time. And I am gaining compassion for strangers in ever increasing amounts... [sorely needed lol] I am finding a Happiness not based on things. It comes from awareness itself, when it is clearly seeing reality, clinging to nothing. I believe your partner calls it Rigpa. I aim to Live and Die in this state. It is not my body, my body is like a dream. It is not my mind or thoughts, they are decorations for it. It is the experiencer of everything that will age, change, decay and die. No one can say what it is with any certainty, but without it there is no life, no world, no time, no knowledge, no theory's, no senses, no body... Therefore it is prior to all concepts of the world. The Idea that awareness is limited to the body can only come about because awareness is already there. Awareness is the base of all knowledge. Awareness is always present. Unconsciousness is an experience of a lack of inner and outer sensory data, which includes perception of time. If someone shouts your name while you are in deep sleep you wake up. Something is obviously still there. My experiences of General anaesthetic, and of being KO'd, and from once stopping my heart have showed me that even unconsciousness is a kind of experience within awareness... So why not death? Anyway I have rambled enough. I wish you great Blessings. Love Seth. P.S. Why don't you sign up with your own name?

mate i have had more sex than you could ever dream of .. which is something i deeply regrets up till this very day

hahaha, I should have never brought up the chair How about this lucid dream of yours? I'm glad that you believe that lucid dreaming is real. Have you never wondered why you don't become lucid all the time, during your dreams? You are in a dream, and alot of weird stuff happens, yet you do not see that it is a dream! A potatoe talks to you and you speak with it as if it were a real thing. Isn't that odd? When you're in the dream, the things that happen are real! They really are! The more you increase awareness and question it the more vivid and real they become. The potatoe will have a strong scent, his voice will become clear and his speech will become incredibly wise and emotional. Yet you see something diffrent from usual, you actually think that it is fake because you remember the past life of you lying in bed. Suddenly you have become lucid of the fact that everything is fake. Now you can do amazing things, change the reality by thought alone, as if you live beyond time and space. What if your consciousness existed before you were born, yet you forgot it because your awareness has been lowered? Isn't the dream and reality a pattern, like an electron orbiting and atom? Then if our reality is the earth, we might very well have forgot all about the sun. The higher dimension. Accepting fakeness during waking hours is hard. You cannot do it easily. You can go ahead and try now, as if you are trying out a shoe to see if it fits. You can always take it off. "this is all fake" you simply cannot believe it with your heart, because it feels all so real to you! The more you try to believe, the more your mind tries to seek evidence of everything being real. And that is where the magic begins. The moment the mind becomes so vivid and alert and aware of everything, as a last attempt to prove that everything is real... This is the moment where you actually begin to see that everything is fake and that scares the crap out of me everytime I do it. I can't go further then the fear. I cannot let go of my ego. The fear gets me everytime, it robs me of my breath, it feels like dieing. Just as Tulku says. That aside, if you wish to increase awareness and observe the secrets of this universe, you must be without desire. Your mind has desires, so be without mind, be without self. Just continue to attack your own existance, your core identity untill you will have a mental near death experience. It is enlightening to the least. Mentally dieing? I do not know what lies beyond, I fear to get past that point. For it might be hell out there, it might be heaven I do not know. I'm sure there are alot of couragious people who've been there. They claim it is heaven if you want it to be.

Actually, I typically agree with most all of your viewpoints borne of experience and plus them, lol. So, I personally have nothing against you or your current practice. In fact, HU has been used as a seed syllable in numerous other traditions (lending credence). So, I am not saying that a practice employing this mantra couldn't be an effective means. Just that ultimately, means =/= end. And perhaps your dream was emphasizing this initially small, yet potentially eventually huge distinction. My interpretation was actually thus impersonal, not personal. Not unlike your "Odin interpretation" of Jesus. You personally cringed at his assessment, yet that's simply the "message" that you received. So, who are you to judge? Likewise, I don't care who had this dream, that was simply my interpretation of it. Which I don't claim to be right or wrong either, btw.. Just my .02 opinion! And if I had a beef with your points, believe me, I would have rebutted them a lonngg time ago, lol! I didn't and still don't have a beef with your points, though! Well, thanks for sharing?!

isn't all the patterns in this life, all its predictability, isn't all of that the proof of all fakeness? We can predict everything, change its destiny. We can alter reality. Also, can you proof that this is all real? Why did you choose to believe that this is all real then, when you cannot proof it? Have any of you guys ever had a lucid dream? I can talk about this for ever, but you will never understand what its like unless you have experienced it. This experiemce of letting go of the ego is beyond words.

You believe what you see, yet you do not know that what you believe decides what you shall see. Accepting fakeness of the chair simply puts you into a vulnerable position, a difficult road. With these difficulties come a great reward. The ability to change perception/believes in an instant, for better or worse. You sit on a fake chair, you make one backflip when it breaks, or perhaps he remains in the seated position as the chair crumbles underneath his but. Because you expect the unexpected, are more aware when you let go of ego. You are more vulnerable when you have no reality to stand upon. It is like the description of how a sage perceives things. The person with the ego fals down when the chair breaks and gets angry at the chair, as he is falling down he still is not letting go of the chair, he infacts try to grab it even stronger. I'm still new with this letting go of ego thing. The practice came from lucid dreaming. You have to constantly see fakeness during waking hours so that you can see it during dreaming hours aswell. During a dream you run away from monsters all your life, when you turn lucid, yiu realize that the monster is fake and it becomes fake. You give it coffee and discuss his intentions over a cup of coffee. If you disagree with this fact, you have not yet had a lucid dream. In reality, our perceptions are often fake and limiting. Every single moment of your life has fakeness in it. I've not discovered how it effects your life to see fakeness atleast 20 times a day. I need more experiences to see wether or not accepting fakeness is useful or not. I can not say for sure. I do know that it feels scary at first, that it requires courage. But the rewards have been confidence 100% of the time. It feels great, and it turns your life upside down. You do crazy things that makes your life beter. Your fakeness detector improves,l. Yeah, thats how I call it ^^

This is beautiful, Fiveelementtao. What you have described reminds me of these quotes from Shakyamuni buddha: "All conditioned phenomena are impermanent; subject to decay and disintegration. Work out your own salvations with diligence. This is the last teaching of the Tathagata [buddha.]" Which was said to be given on the day of his "death." And this one from the Diamond sutra: "All phenomena are like A dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow Like a dew drop and a flash of lightning Thus you should view them." You should investigate the nature of this dream further.

Oh, that sounds good. The thing is, when I have to focus on study for example my mind goes chaotic. Everything I read is associated with something else distracting me of my work. During meditation I don't have thoughts at all! Its like empty space up there. I just feel, don't think! The more breath cycles I do the quiter my mind gets. Untill a point where I no longer think words or thoughts but I think in flashing images, then a dream wake initiated lucid dream pops up.

I bought and tried this Shinka Meditation sytem. And I very satisfied with this shinka meditation system. I like "Twilight_wind" track very much. this track make me have better sleep and so nice dream. I only listen to this track and not follow their user guide. lol Wish their can make and release an update that let us to hear the sound without using earphone. I only hear "Twilight_Wind" track, because I get best result with this track. I think they must give more detail explaination on their other tracks. maybe other user testimonials for each track will help me and other user to get some information about the useage for each tracks.

Hi Creation, It can. It does for me. Anyone who has read my book knows that I am a follower of the Gnostic Christ. I even go on to say in my book and my podcast that I believe that if European spirituality had not been hijacked by the altered Imperial version of Christianity (not the actual message of Jesus) and European tribes had been allowed to create their own spirituality organically (instead of having it forced upon them under pain of death) that IMO, I believe that European paganism would have absorbed Jesus into their pantheons in the same way that buddha was absorbed into the Hindu pantheon. I am certain that if allowed to evolve organically modern european religion would be polytheist religion similar to hinduism with Jesus as another supreme deity figure along with Odin, Thor etc..., just as Krishna and Rama today are seen as different aspects of the incarnation of Vishnu. It was the literal dualist dogma interpretation of the Imperial State sponsored church that mandated the destruction of holographic sects of christianity. In fact, I am currently working on the linguistic similarities between the pre-hindu vedic religion and the pre-Christian Teutonic religion. And, the deeper I dig, the more astoundingly clear it is to me that the Vedic deities are the same as the Teutonic ones. The only slight difference is due to the change of pronunciation over time. The hindu religion has no problem with Jesus. The hindu religion is an organic evolution of the Vedic. So, if hindu religion can incorporate or at least accept the validity of Jesus, so can the Teutonic. That is a very common reaction by many people. I often get inquiries from people asking if they can be a christian and practice teutonic shamanism. The answer is absolutely. I had the same feeling as you at first, but after more meditative journeys about this, I have been given the opposite feeling that the Teutonic path and the path of the original Jesus is totally compatible... My experience of the Astral teachers is that there is not the separation that we experience. IME, They do not see religions or lineages like we do. IN fact, I have more than once gotten a reaction of confusion if I ask a question that supposes a division. I have also gotten the feeling that they have had to show alot patience tolerating my limited dualistic human thinking. They allow me to use the "word" Teutonic because they know I and some other humans need to make a distinction in order to have a frame a reference. But the deities do not make such a distinction. IME, All spiritual knowledge from wherever it comes is free to everyone... So, If my experience means anything, there is room for us all. Teutonic shamanism isn't about religion. It is simply a way to interface with the manifested multiverse from within an ancient European world view... You needn't be sad if you don't have any conflict. There is none coming from the deities IME. If humans express conflict, you can make a difference and combine different lineages if it works for you. Let others do whatever they choose. You can be different and set an example. So, I understand your dismay at the separation of religions. This dream I shared is just that - a dream - If it was in fact a shamanic dream, then it may help to meditate on it symbolically rather than literally. The meaning I take from it is to underscore how so many people over the last 2,000 years have clearly misunderstood and distorted the message of Jesus and what a tragic waste it is that his sacrifice was not understood and in fact has been used as a justification for so much bloodshed and bigotry... Deities are often judged by the actions of their followers. I do not personally interpret Odin's message to be directed at Jesus himself but at those followers who have abused his message. Just as many wrongly interpret the Muslim faith as one of violence. For those from outside of Christian countries, Jesus is seen as a bigot and murderer because so many self-proclaimed christians have acted this way. So, I believe Odin was directing his comments at the "false" christians, not at Jesus himself... Another way to look at it is from a polytheist viewpoint which sees the universe as a multiverse where instead of a static peace, there is a dynamic balance. In any dynamic balance, there is conflict. In astrology, the powers of the planets are sometimes in dynamic opposition to one another and we humans see them as being "enemies" but they are just different energies that combine to create the whole. So, from that perspective, it is OK with me if deities have differing viewpoints. They all work together in a holistic fashion... So, there are many ways to interpret shamanic dreams and visions. IME, they are best handled if meditated upon over time. Many times, the experiences can be unsettling, but those emotions get our attention. I was shocked at the term "Rotting Corpse" but that shocking imagery and stuck with me until I was able to get a deeper understanding of the cyclical nature of the Universe... I can't speak for Odin or Jesus, but based on the intended emotional impact and how it forced me to reconcile the divergence within me, I feel confident that Jesus himself would have approved of Odin's message... ( and maybe he himslef Told Odin to share it with me in those words....) I know if I were Jesus, I would be pretty sad if I saw people distorting my message the way so many have with his... Thanks for the feedback...