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Yeah. I suppose if you're a religious Taoist its part and parcel of the religion to acknowledge and celebrate the immortals. I believe there's truth to the legends, if not they make for colorful archetypes. There seems to be a couple of categories of Immortals mentioned in the texts. Just keeping your souls and consciousness intact gives you a low rung on the immortality scale. Though not necessarily a happy one. Still thats the low lying fruit. Kan & Li practices, mastery of dream practices seem to be outlets for attaining it..maybe.

well i have heard that if one can enter into a trance state one does not need sleep for a while like days but i have only heard about this second hand. For me i dont knowtice a difference with energy practices and sleep. I still sleep my 12-15 hours in a 24 hours period. yes i am being serious i have a condition called narcolepsy where i fall asleep fast and sleep alot. i look at it as the fact that in this life time i am ment to do practices like lucid dream and such. As i was typeing that a thought entered into my mind what if in a past life i did not sleep very much and this life is makeing up for it.

If you're talking about astral-projection and Rainbow Body, some people are familiar with it here, though not me personally. I have read about Shamans travelling to spirit worlds and even stars or star worlds, but no experiential knowledge.. Also the dream world might be considered a trans-dimensional portal, especially for Shamans and apprentices, again, of which I'm neither

Mantak Chia described why it is important to seal the 5 senses. Our senses are like antennas which receive waves of vibration,sound and light that come to us. If that wave makes sense, ourbrains will start to think. Thinking consumes more energy than anyother bodily activity. As humans we can not stop thinking, lookingand listing nor stop fantasizing. This sensory-linked brain functionin reaction to the external world is known as the monkey mind Mantak also described the importance of sealing the 5 senses in dark room retreats. All spiritual traditions have used Darkness Techniques in the pursuitof enlightenment. In Europe, the dark room often appeared in under-ground form as a network of tunnels, in Egypt as the Pyramids, in Rome as the catacombs, and by the Essenes, near the Dead Sea in Israel, as caves. In the Taoist tradition caves have been used through-out the ages for higher level practices. In the Tao, the cave, the Immortal Mountain, the Wu San, represents the Perfect Inner Alchemy Chamber. Meditating and fasting in the cave is the final journey of spiritual work. The caves are the Earth Mother and its energy lines. Like the hollow bones, caves contain the earliest information of life stored inside the Earth. Caves contain the vital essence of the Earth Power. The Tao says: ‘When you go into the dark and this becomes total, the Darkness soon turns into light.’ In the Darkness, our mind and soul begin to wander freely in the vast realms of psychic and spiritual experience. When you enter this primordial state or force you are reunited with the true self and divinity within. You literally ‘conduct’ the universal energy. You may see into the past and future, understand the true meaning of existence,and begin to understand the order of things. You return to the womb,the cocoon of our material structure and Nature’s original Darkness. Complete darkness profoundly changes the sensory sensibilities of the body/brain. We are deprived of all visual reference. Sounds begin to fall away as we lose contact with the external world and turn the senses inward. The effect of darkness is to shut down major cortical centers in the brain, depressing mental and cognitive functions in the higher brain centers. Emotional and feeling states are enhanced, especially the sense of smell and the finer senses of psychic perception. Dreams become more lucid, and the dream state manifests in our conscious awareness. Eventually, we awaken within ourselves the awareness of the Source, the spirit, the soul. We descend into the void, into the darkness of deep, inner space As you can see, even the Taoist masters advocate non-indulgence of the senses in order to reach the Void or Pure Consciousness. Nan Huai Chin, the buddhist/taoist master, has also repeatedly asked all to engage in various style of stillness meditation in order to connect with Pure Consciousness. So why anyone would say Taoism is higher than Buddhism or vice versa is beyond me.

Thanks for sharing the dream. Very interesting.

Sounds like a very cool dream. I love symbolic dreams.

Ha! I knew it!!! I am only a figment of your dream. You are the center of reality. NO, no, my friend. I am the center of my own reality. My free will. Okay, my latest. I could have left my garder as it was but I decided to make some improvements in order to attract more birds and butterflies. I now have ten times as many birds coming to my garden than I had before. No increase in the butterfly population but I have heard other people say that there just aren't as many butterflies around this summer as is notmal. Anything I have thought through and taken action on is a result of my free will. Not granted, I am limited as to how far I can extend my free will. I can't decide to stop paying my taxes and get away with it. I am what is called a "self starter". I have an idea (and most of them are a product of myself, not someone else) and I work up a plan, then I take action without considering anyone's approval or disapproval. That, my friend, is free will. Form exists. It is what we Taoists call the Manifest. I know that all Buddhists don't exist. Too bad for them. Real life is such a wonderful things. Sad they are missing it all. I exist. You may not as I have never seen you in person. You may be a computer program. But even that computer program exists. Well, I consider myself to be the most fortunate person on this planet. Now watch - an unfortunate occurrance will enter my life for bragging about being so fortunate. Hehehe. But that's okay, I've seen good times, I've seen bad times. I am just glad that I existed in order to have seen all those times. Ah! Time! When we are young we want it to speed up but when we are middle-age we want it to slow down and when we are old we wonder where it all went.

We had a crash course on what love is (when I was 13) in the music class. Off course I was in group five made to sit far away as I didn't know how to sing. This was the song that decided my fate, as belonging to group five was the worst thing you did to yourself. But as it turns out it worked in my favor, I sat quietly and breathed in and out. My first meditation class. Hahah The Rose Lyrics for you: Some say love, it is a river That drowns the tender reed Some say love, it is a razor That leaves your soul to bleed Some say love, it is a hunger An endless aching need I say love, it is a flower And you, its only seed It's the heart, afraid of breaking That never learns to dance It's the dream, afraid of waking That never takes the chance It's the one who won't be taken Who cannot seem to give And the soul, afraid of dying That never learns to live When the night has been too lonely And the road has been too long And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong Just remember in the winter Far beneath the bitter snow Lies the seed That with the sun's love, in the spring Becomes the rose

Cool. I think I am starting to get my head around the different uses of the word Emptiness. I think of Logic as a sacred process of clearing the mind of obscurations and beliefs. May I ask, when you describe emptiness as not 'just nothin' do you think of it as a void or unmanifest potential or something different? I am not trying to start an argument or hijack the thread with Buddhist thought, I just want to better understand how the term is used... Profound experiences aren't they I definitely see there as being a ground of energy and awareness and potential behind or underlying the world as well, just to me it is all Empty. That to me is great news. I don't have to cling to any element within it, yet I get to enjoy it all. Kundalini certainly has similar effects when it reaches the higher centres, and i am in total agreement about the logic being useful for the rest of the brain... Longchenpa describes the spontaneous creativity of Empty Awareness/presence as being the primary source of all appearances. This would seem to go against E&DO teachings, accept that Nagajuna himself points out the even Dependent Arising is Inherently empty and has no true ultimate reality, but only represents the rules within the dream like worlds we Inhabit. So even Dependent Arising itself is spontaneously arising within Empty Awareness. For me the whole thing is Sacred, form, emptiness, and the fact the world does not even really exist yet still appears for us to enjoy...

It sounds like you are new to meditation, but don't worry, you wont always be able to have 'The Best' meditation every time. Even seasoned meditators still have days where things just wont flow and they just keep getting distracted. It's part of the process of learning about our minds... As for your question, CowTao reccomended me a book round a year ago called 'The Sun of Wisdom' by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso, which is a book on Nagajuna's emptiness teachings, and makes easy going of Nargajuna's normally very hard to read material [at least for me] Nagajuna is definatly not for everyone, as he is basicly a Logic machine which many people have a problem with. For me however he has been wonderful. He uses a series of logical steps to remove any faith or belief in the world as a 'real' thing, or anything other than a spontaneous dream like arising. The world doesn't have the sway over me like it used to have, as I can't take it as seriously any more... For some people, aproaching this through logic is very useful, as it helps get the thinking mind onside, rather than chucking up constant doubts about our deeper intuitive realisations... Seth.

No,...you labled yourself as someone who "shuns new, stimulating experiences and to avoid situations where the outcome is uncertain,...someone with little tolerance for ambiguity." You shouldn't be ashamed if you have an illness like conservativism,...by admitting it, I can adjust my posts to you,...just as I would speak differently to someone who was an alcoholic,...surely was not meant as an insult. Didn't you read the link,...based on 88 different psychological studies. Could there be anything, from a non-conservatives point of view, vague about mc² < c Energy is equal to the mass times the square of the so-called speed of light, which is always less than c, which is energy-less, mass-less and timeless. In other words, as simple as I can say it,..."you" are 186k mps, relatively speaking, slower than the Stillness of Undivided Light. This not a theory, a hypothesis, conjecture, etc,...it is what it is,...it is the changeless principal of duality, for as long as duality is view as duality. All aspects of Duality are perceived, slowed down, crystallized divided light,...a dream which effects its apparent motion upon the fulcrum of Undivided Light. Anything contrary to that is disinformation. "Matter is not made of matter." Hans-Peter Dürr "all matter is frozen or slowed down light" physicist David Bohm V

But,...has any of those mystics actually realized enlightenment? Or just found new ways to play within the dream? Has any theist ever ascended beyond what Robert Monroe called "religious terminus?' It is said, that only honesty can transcend above that dimension. V

As I explained above,...thinking is IRREFUTABLY in the past,...IRREFUTABLY! Your thinking that it is not, does not change that changeless fact. No one, anywhere, can think in the present. Second, from my observation, nothing is faster than the so-called-speed-of-light,...although I would not say that is an absolute truth. I can understand that the sciential minded like to dream up nonsense about energy/mass hidding itself in bubble and tricking Undivided Light that such a condition (the bubble)is not in the Unconditionality of the non-dimension of Undivided Light,...but it's surely ridiculous. I'm not saying that Consciousness cannot realize Undivided Light, that is, cross the threshold into the timeless, energyless, massless, Unconditionality of Clear Light,...but no amount of imagination (which arises from the skandhas)is going to. On another thread I wrote: Although most object-ive scientists often experience revulsion when encountering the idea of universal correlation, that is, the understanding that everything in nature is instantaneously connected with and affected by everything else, Bell's theorem showed experimentally that this is so. If A is instantly aware of where B is, even though they may be located at opposite ends of the universe, this implies that A and B, although perceptively different, have some fundamental sameness. At the so-called-speed-of-light,...nothing travels any distance, in any time, and thus there is no need for speed. Two Baylor scientists are playing with fantasies based upon a String Theory that doesn't exist. This is why I mentioned in the 'What is Light' thread that it is doubtful that science will ever get it,...especially not filtered through their current belief systems. Other than that, I'm not going to repeat here was was posted there. I will say, that it would be of the utmost importance for you to ponder on "thinking",...I worked through it in a univsersity setting some 24 years ago,...even had access to sensory deprivation tanks,...one cannot think in the present. It's irrefutable. With all respect,...If you cannot grasp that, you will not uncover the next level. V

Scotty I am not interested in providing examples. I made an observation perhaps to encourage others to consider the idea. I dont know if there are "people" who may think one way or another I am just one person wondering out loud. Speaking of governments, speaking about the type you can know and see is also not useful in this discussion. It is my supposition that there are forces which profit by helping to keep the general populace asleep. Just as I strongly believe there are those who profit from keeping our (American) education system from being fully functional and would even prefer less opportunity for education and critical thinking. Therefore to address any motives which might exist in my hypothetical scenario I would posit that the rapid dissemination of effective mind/body/spirit training resulting in greater awakening not to mention health, well-being and critical thinking while being unarguably a good thing may be against certain agendas. But it's OK. I am just dreaming this up to entertain myself. Part of my ongoing thought game about a fantasy/thriller/spiritual/mystery work of fiction. But it's all a dream anyway so...

It is interesting how people come to their own ideas about light.,...even more interesting that people have their own ideas about light. My own inquiry into light arose from an "empty mind" meditation. Observing without thought is a whole discussion in itself, and so is the non-physical experience, although whenever I'd experience light in that way, there was first an event of expansion, as if the body becomes infinite. I've wondered if that was where the mistake was assumed, that when enteing the so-called speed-of-light that mass becomes infinite,... I cannot believe that Einstein just dream up relativity, he somehow experienced it. My own research into light, predominately from a Freethought Vajrayana perspective mixed with a strong sacred geometry (incl. holography and enneagram) background, mirrored the book 'Secret of Light' which I recommended for this thread. That's pretty much been a life-pattern of mine,...have an experience, draft it out on paper, and then find that someone else has pioneered the samething, although coming to the same conclusions in a different way. As for Walter Russell, I was, and still am, amazed with how far such a Christian came. Anyway,...yes, it is great to "hear more from other people" about their ideas of light,...but I'd also like to hear from those whom light has given ideas. V

For one, that response could be called trolling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) Second, the thread is intended to about real honesty, not ad hominem. Ad hominem is when one attacks someones character, rather than dialoguing on the question/argument,subject. Seth does present a good example of dishonesty, that of predisposition. He exclaims, "I have not seen you exhibit the slightest trace of any of these qualities in all your boring and Illogical dialogues here." Fair enough. For a different point of view, I have purposefully used highly researched and peer reviewed material throughout my posts,...some by well known figures, like Ki Master Koichi Tohei, Justin Stone, and various PhD's from Harvard, MSU, and Stanford. So, I'm quite comfortable with the accuracy. I was wishful that this thread could be troll free,...but already got at least 3 post on the first page. It would be so awesome if Seth really was "deeply Interested or even obsessed with 'Truth'" Really, really awesome. But he appears to have bowed-out,...prey to his predispositions. It takes a certain amount of waking up to seriously inquire about truth. Jetsun seems to have broke through, but most (speaking of people in the world) don't even want to know. For them, they merely desire dependable descriptions of an objective world that they consider intelligible. Waking up is not necessarily pleasant: you get to see why all this time, you chose to sleep. When you wake up the first thing you will see is Reality does not exist for you, you exist for it. Shocking as it is when you let it in, there is rest. You do not have to labor anymore to hold together a reality that does not exist; forcing something to be real that is not real. You and this life you have been living are not real ... In letting it in, even through the shock... pain... shattering, there is rest. Reality is when all you want to know is what is true ... just so that you can let it in and be true. Reality is not a safe place for you - the you that you have created. It is the only place where you would die; where there is no room for your hopes, your dreams. Once you have let it in, once you begin to re-awaken; to let Reality wake you up, nothing can get it out. That is the beginning of your end. Waking up can be much more painful than the agony of your dream, but waking up is real ... RdeR

Yes, VJ, i am familiar with the reference. The first time i encountered a similarly patterned dawning of this experience, quite like Scotty's, was back in 96. It was during an intensive Yamantaka meditation retreat. I could surmise it as the complete dropping off of all sense of self and other, a fusion of self with all background phenomena - i can recall now that i was postured on a cushion, eyes opened in a kind of Dzogchen stare, just resting the gaze on no particular object, remaining as awareness itself, when gradually this subtle sense of spaciousness simply expanded, and everything contained within the visual field became a hazy whiteness, with beams of rainbow-colored lights piercing thru this haze, and into everything around, including this thing called 'my body'. There was no real, tangible sensation at that particular point. There was no anticipation of anything, and the moment just took care of itself, without a 'me' to direct attention to any particular awareness of any sensation. It was only after the visual field returned to observing all the 'normal' things that made me think that i had 'made it' hahaha. Would this be a fair reference to your understanding of 'emptying the basis'? I later bounced this experience off some of the other retreatants, and also with the retreat leader, and was told its nothing to get too excited over, and that it will happen again and again in line with certain visualization practices undertaken. Was also told that a natural progression from releasing strong clinging to selfhood will also yield similar types of experiences. Later, i got an opportunity to relay this to my mentor, a tulku whom i shall call R, who explained that she was the one who 'empowered' me to that particular unfolding, with the hope that i could learn to rest repeatedly in that non-state as and when it happens again. She encouraged that i should raise awareness around the 'self dropping' part of it, as this will train on, if the practices are kept, to remain more and more lucid during the 'clear light' phase of falling asleep before dreams begin. So apparently its not dreams that we should be lucid about, but that space before dreams begin. She also said that these are the 'symbol-producing functions' of contemplative awareness, and those who has the good fortune to be given Rigpa transmissions will eventually have to get used to them, and repeatedly habituate these functions while learning not to grasp after any of the experiences. This was also a note made by Scotty as well, so the similarities are quite astounding indeed! :) Not too long ago, my partner got hold of a book called Beyond Words. I was flipping thru it recently.... found this quote below, and my heart just dissolved into orgasmic bliss (i'm sure you know the feeling!) :lol: "When one falls asleep, one becomes disengaged from the karmic traces of the material body, the karmic traces of vision, and the karmic traces of of mental functioning. These karmic traces, during the waking state, manifest as one's material body, the external appearances one perceives, and the functioning of one's mind respectively. Why do we speak of being dis-engaged? ... From one's falling asleep right up to the moment when one begins to dream, there is no functioning of the mind and one finds oneself in the real condition of existence. In this, one will experience to a certain degree a merging with what is called the natural, clear light." - - Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

Apparently you are seeking some sort of rise,...as for rapist,...as I spent a few lines to explain,...is something quite common among those "sending" various prayers and hopes to others whom they feel are somehow lacking. So,...in other words,...if I cut out my remaining eye, I can rejoin your valley of the blind,...for only in your blind world are things seen as they are intended to be seen. Interesting paradigm. If you could offer housing and an allowance with that, you may get a few takers. Sorry though,...I'm not available. I much prefer the truth. That's why you doubt what I post,...and rather spin off with your wild distractions and diversions. The truth is quite ...frightening for those as yourself, the fear of loss,...the loss of who you "think" you are. Does that mean I'm better or worse than anyone else,...of course not,...except in yours and CowTao's prideful eyes,...I simply lucked out,...I love truth more than anything else. Waking up is not necessarily pleasant: you get to see why all this time, you chose to sleep. When you wake up the first thing you will see is Reality does not exist for you, you exist for it. Shocking as it is when you let it in, there is rest. You do not have to labor anymore to hold together a reality that does not exist; forcing something to be real that is not real. You and this life you have been living are not real ... In letting it in, even through the shock... pain... shattering, there is rest. Reality is when all you want to know is what is true ... just so that you can let it in and be true. Reality is not a safe place for you - the you that you have created. It is the only place where you would die; where there is no room for your hopes, your dreams. Once you have let it in, once you begin to re-awaken; to let Reality wake you up, nothing can get it out. That is the beginning of your end. Waking up can be much more painful than the agony of your dream, but waking up is real ...JdeR

Hey Aaron, not OT (yet) is a POV ever 'purely' psychological? Or is it only ever that? Somewhere in the middle? As far as GIH's dream goes (to get back on track) and as far as I can remember, the emotions around the rat and maybe the setting are also highly important if you're going to interpret. I'm not even sure that 'subjectivity' functions the same way in dreams as it does when awake. And especially not if you've been fiddling with your sense of subjectivity through practices IMO. I can't say IME because subjectivity feels the same whether I'm dreaming or not but I can't say for sure that it is the same. So GIH, the rat might be you! And you're trying to nix yourself with a gun but you can't. Try buddhism instead

Could be, that's an option I'll look into. Thanks for the suggestion! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything, It would be lovely to be able to sleep for 10 hours...generally, I don't have that much time to allow for sleep. I'm lucky if I get 8, only five or six of which I actually sleep (again, if I'm lucky). Also, my sleeping hours are during the day because I work from 10 pm to 8 am, which is the primary reason it's so hard for me to sleep. (I'd find I have noticed that I tend to remember dreams much more readily at the end of my sleep period. Especially if I wake up and go back to sleep, it's much easier to slip into a dream and remember it. Perhaps it's time to dust off some of those lucidity practices and see if I can make use of that last period of sleep.

I see what you mean. The danger is that those other things are contrary to human identity from your point of view. However, I am not a 100% human. I just like humans but I am also other things. The human body is just one aspect of my body. My real body is the endless cycle. The human body is dead, like a brick or like a shadow. It's something else that is alive. I call it mind. The mind is neither harmed nor improved by anything and it has endless energy in it, the kind of energy that doesn't follow the rules of physics, so it's not a physical energy. It's a mind energy that follows the rules of dreaming, which are different rules. Inside the dream we can enjoy a game of learning and forgetting, improving and worsening conditions and so on. If you think of my body as a wheel, then most of my body is turning. The closer you get to the center the less it is turning. And at the very center it is not turning at all. It is still. There is nothing "out there" that is scary unless you really want to be exclusively human. Being 100% exclusively human is boring and limiting. I've been a demon and a dragon before and it's not so bad at all. There is nothing to fear.

Once again you are not discussing the message, but that the messenger must be wrong because she doesn't agree with your predetermined view of things. Speaking for myself, I haven't been offended, upset, or selfish for at least a dozen years,...thus your comments are puzzling, as if you tell a non-smoker that they are a smoker. Something I wrote on another thread has relevance here,..."Although those on the Long Path's appear to love calling those on the Short Path prideful and such, you really don't have a clue, because any pride has been effortless extinguished as a consequence of entering the Short Path. Thus, your insistent character assassinations is just proof of your own Long Path level,...and attachment to the delusion of humility. "Humility is just a degree of pride" Wei Wu Wei Unfortunately, the immature who see no humility, and automatically prescribe pride, are way too caught up in duality." Your indoctrinated idea of compassion doesn't match my compassion,...and that troubles you,...and that's OK. Of course I'd love to see you liberated from your sentient beliefs,...but it is not a bodhisattvas job to liberate every sentient being by herself,...is a process of cooperation,...and a process, that for many, takes a long, long time. The good news is, not only is time one-thing, but it doesn't even exist, except as people perceives it to exist. The first Absolute Bodhichitta says, treat everything you perceive as a dream. V

Rat is a common symbol in present time for striving in the direction of some sort of economic fulffilment. How is your employment/work place? It seems to be a meaningful dream that is showing you something new.Seed is there already.Most prabably some new understanding will soon surface in waking life.

Totem "Power" Animals: It appears that this indestructible subconscious rat in your dream demonstrated extreme survivability & invincibility in the face of (your) conscious fear. Take home message: Surrender your conscious fears to your subconscious survival "gut" instinct. Because this may serve you well now or in the near future...

I felt annoyed and amazed at the same time. I felt like I didn't resolve my dealings with the rat to my satisfaction. But I also felt a sense of wonder. I've never encountered anything even remotely similar to this rat. Usually things in my dream behave more or less how I expect them to behave. This rat was defying all my expectations.