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I agree with the point you were aking in your first two paragraphs. The story of a woman giving herself a Caesarian, (though interesting in itself),.... is stretching our credibility to suggest that the experience has close parallels to spiritual seeking in our current society. However, I find that your own final statement similarly bears very little resemblance to spiritual truth as I see it. It praises one extreme and spurns its opposite as false and deluded. To me, that process is like looking at the Yin-Yang symbol and extolling the perfection of the black parts. How much better and more relevant it would be without the white parts !! I'm sure you see what I mean. I believe Buddha is quoted as saying something like, "The truth always lies in the Middle Way". From my own personal experience, I followed a Buddhist path with a certified Tibetan master for almost twenty years. The things I saw going on in that organisation amongst many of the supposedly 'most advanced' practitioners,... really almost beggars belief. Believe me, there are NO GUARANTEES with a master, just as there are equally none trying on your own. I think that the best advice on following the spiritual path that I've ever seen is posted here by Sloppy Zhang on a neighbouring thread : "To be honest.... I don't really know I started out with pretty selfish and lame reasons, but those have mostly fallen away.... But I keep walking " Perhaps, if we, ourselves, gradually let go of extremes and just keep on walking, this whole mystery of our existence will simply dissipate like a dream does to a relaxed and contented mind. ThisLife .

Hey Drew, My name is Daniel and I think I was shaving my head back then and chubby. I went through all 4 levels twice with Chunyi Lin, but I had too much emotional pathologies going on to get much out of it, although I did have some amazing 3rd eye stuff happen. I could see others who were doing the same meditation, like a great big human standing on the planet smiling. Lin came in a dream once to work on my back, and I was becoming precognitive. People were treating me as younger. It is amazing stuff. I actually took my first classes with Lin when he was starting out at Turtle Island. Lately with Yan Xin I have been learning to fly, it is akin to a motorcycle rush. I am using YX to deal with parental issues, as the higher steps allows one to see things from their perspective. Better get back to work. Wishing you a happy day.

This one is tricky for me too but I'll take a stab at it. To abide in the Reality that is always attained... I think this means continuously attained which implies that it is not permanent, it's a constant movement. Being in that state of not attaining/accumulating it is the only thing to Attain. All achievements, 'rewards', abilities etc. are illusory like our dreams. They further the though of the permanent self. When we're in the dream it seems real, when we wake up we see that it was just a dream. So can they appear real to someone who has woken up from sleep? No in the sense that it's not 'real', what is True however is that the attainments are illusions but the illusions themselves are not Reality. Can those that are established in Reality be deluded by them? I would suspect not... I think the message here is that attaining an achievement, ability, etc. is not the same thing as being established in Reality. I also think Ramana is trying to tell us that if we're deluded by attainments, if we see them as Real, then we are not abiding in Reality. Anyone else?

Yea it can be damned hard to swallow that your own mind would kill you or sabotage your happiness. For example, one time I had a dream where I was in a fire and I died from asphyxiation in the dream (in that case, instead of switching to another dream, which is what sometimes happens when I die in dreams, I woke up). I've had countless dreams where I was either attacked or exposed to damage of some kind. While dreaming, it sure as heck seemed that the damage was coming from outside of me, but when I woke up, I realized it was all the same one/whole/unbroken mind all along. To say that "it was just my mind" is a way to signify an unbrokenness or the endless continuity of mind. It doesn't have to imply ownership or possession. It's just practically impossible for people to understand what it means for the mind to be whole. It's much more intimate and immediate to refer to "my mind is the whole mind", to use words like "my" or "yours" to make it immediate, intimate, familiar and to demystify it to some extent.

No neurons friend. It's just mind. What's almost impossible to understand, especially for most of the Western Philosophers, is that mind is not something in the brain. It is something primordial and it is not even "something" at all. Most of the Western Philo is strongly rooted in a doctrine of physicalist materialism, and this doctrine blocks the understanding of NDEs. The mind can be structured via different possible (potential) mindsets. Depending on the mindset that's dominating, you appear as various beings. If you have a human mindset, you appear as a human. If you have a formless god mindset, you appear as a formless god (without a body or location in space). If you have a mindset of a squid you appear as a squid, and so on and so forth. Among humans there is a huge variety of mindsets. For example you can be a physicalist materialist, or you can be spiritual (the opposite or a complement of physicalist materialism) and so on. Having a sense of "me" is just one experience. There is also an experience with "no-me", but it works against the potential of "me". In other words, no-me is related and dependent on me. So you know what you expect to find when you look for yourself. When you fail to find any of it, you experience the so-called no-me state of mind. In no-me state, either some or all familiar features are absent, but you are not stupid or in an oblivion, you understand intuitively what's happening, because the mind is ultimately omniscient. Let's go back to the body for a second. What happens when your body changes to the point that begins to contradict your idea of the body-alive? Your mind can no longer associate with it, that's what. Deep in your mind you have a mindset that tells you what it means to be "alive in the body". When your body changes beyond that point, a disassociation occurs. Now, when I say "disassociation", I don't mean your body is left on the side and your mind flies away. What I mean is that the vision of the body either dissolves slowly or spontaneously collapses. The body is not ultimately real, do you see? What happens to your dream body when you wake up? Where is it? The same thing happens to this body after death. Whether you consider NDE real or not depends on your validation framework. Validation framework is a mindset that separates your experience into real and unreal. It's what tells you that something must be a hallucination, "because there is no way it can't be real." Validation framework is something that you can learn to control, but for most people it is something that's a product of their culture and past "lives" or just past time. It's kind of like a mind habit. I hope this helps.

Ok thanks, indeed why should there be something instead of nothing? God is without cause, omnipotent etc, but why indeed would he have created maya? Some say you only dream this maya, it doesn't exists, or you will understand when you merge with the Divine, but indeed I think there could be other answers than these. Right now I just believe I want to know the reason of the existense of maya as an answer for the mind, because the mind always seeks cause and effect. I hope it will just vanish when I reach my englightenment, without reason without cause : )

The answer I have at this moment is: 'good natured teasing'! You know how in a group of friends you light-heartedly tease each other - especially about stuff that you normally take very seriously... There is a specific kinesthetic experience when something I've been holding as all-important, true and clever is being teased - the moment I lose that self-conscious "but that story/truth is my baby" feeling is the moment that it becomes funny, I let go of all the sentimentality and feel freed from its grasp. This is one aspect... Also, I find it very useful to think of thoughts, ideas, stories, understanding as flowers... they start out as undifferentiated seeds... they grow, break through the ground and eventually bloom into a wonderful enjoyable spectacle... then they spread their own seeds, wither and die back into the formless... We as a society see the withering and dying part of the cycle as something to be avoided, so we construct mental illusions, beliefs and values to try and keep that flower permanent, and we effect the environment around us to uphold these illusions... all of this is in vain - because the flower always grows, then dies then another one grows... but we blindly stare at some kind of frozen illusion of its permanence. Yet another way of looking at it involves summoning the power of the trickster/jester/fool... similar to the 'teasing'... it involves turning what seems important on its head... making it completely absurd, but doing it with full awareness. Bradford Keeney suggests taking your most sacred book, open a random page and select the most meaningful phrase you see - then, take an electric drill and make a hole right through the middle of the entire book... next, sing the meaningful phrase through the hole, put the book under your bed before sleep... repeat the singing of the phrase through the hole every night before bedtime for 3 nights and wait for a dream or an unusual thought in the day...

I've gotten into lucid dreaming, and one of the things that I wanted to do in a lucid dream was to contact my spirit guide. The first dream I successfully became lucid in, I said, "where's my spirit guide, i want to meet my spirit guide." Suddenly I met this figure in my dream, I was "sucked" across the room and was standing toe to toe with him, looking right into his eyes. My heart started to beat really fast and I could feel it thumping in my chest, it was quite intense.... then I had a false awakening (you are still dreaming but don't realize it) in which I was trying to investigate the dream. So basically, I got the feeling I should back off, which I did. I started to meditate more seriously, and then did some studying up on western magick, stuff like protection circles, how to defend yourself against psychic attacks. It basically comes down to willpower. If you will for something to not bother you, it won't. But when you are facing spirits or things from the depths of your own mind, that willpower can be hard to pull together. I asked around about this not too long ago on some other forums, and I got a variety of responses. The general consensus is that when meeting someone or something from another realm, or another composition.... well it's not like meeting another human on the sidewalk, it's new, there's a huge element of the unknown. If you walk into a crowded room and everyone turns around to look at you with an awkward silence, your body might start to react (heart pumping). If you meet someone from another plane, your body might start to react! That doesn't necessarily mean it's DANGEROUS, it's just new and unknown. So that advice, coupled with a lot more personal development on my part, led me to try again with lucid dreaming and spirit guides. The results weren't what I expected, but I haven't had (too much) trouble in things freaking me out or anything like that. So I'd say read up on the subject, gather as much info as you can, then mentally fortify yourself, and try again later.

Yea, but the thing is it seemed like I ejac'd in my dream...but NOT in real life. Which is what made it really interesting (if that's what really happened). But I can't really remember now, so I'll see what happens next time..

Well, I did do some drawing while dreaming, basically pulling my dantien back towards my spine, but I was laying on my back. But if this technique is repeatable, then I could have dreams, but no emissions. Cuz having no dreams at all would be a more difficult level, I think. Anyhow, hopefully so, cuz I was very pleasantly relieved to have a sex dream, but no emission for once!

What about when you came in your dream? Normally that's when I would wake up and realize that that part wasn't just a dream, lol... What would be interesting to me is if I could come in my dream...but not in real life at the same time. Basically show some dream/reality disconnect. Although, I guess retaining in the dream and real life both would be a good step too.

Speaking of the latter, I dreamt this morning I was fvcking some chick. I don't remember if I came or not in my dream, but normally this would have resulted in a wet dream. But this time, I awoke before it was quite over with a hard-on, of course...but was surprisingly relieved to find no goo! Somehow, I had avoided dropping a load of jing in my shorts this time! This was a first, and now I'm curious to see why and if I can keep it up.. Has anyone else been able to retain during "wet dreams?"

Sr.Psicoplasma -- that's a very cool report back on DMT. Qigong master Chunyi Lin says it's always best to face water when meditating. From experience I realized that this really meant to face YIN ENERGY -- and the female is actually a stronger source of yin energy. haha. That's the source of the kundalini -- the electrochemical energy -- which powers the lift off of the pineal gland shen (light spirit). Last night I went to sleep pretty tired around 2:30 but without even trying the DMT kicked in again -- it was like a switch in my pineal gland -- and this electric current went through my body breaking through energy blockages with this orgasmic bliss. I thought -- wow this is so cool and finally I feel asleep. Again I had this really vivid dream which was as real as being awake. I was sitting with people and I was describing how my glasses were all bent -- they were wondering why. I couldn't remember -- I said I took something. They seem puzzled. I thought and thought and then I said -- oh yeah I took DMT. And then I woke up -- the thinking had produced self-awareness in my dream -- the DMT reality.

Ta Yoda, If we were looking at the symbolism in your dream I would say that you had something really hard, virile and all encompassing chasing you ha ha. Chasing dreams usually mean too much work to do although reading dreams is not my forte. Tena koe Moonbar and kia kaha koe.

Thanks for posting the Stuart Wilde feedback on DMT. Yes the last comment about purging seems right on. I just was talking with my coworker about this -- I said that my third eye was definitely more open from taking DMT but that, again, it was because I was sitting in full-lotus the whole time, so that the energy was guided. I said it was the deepest esctasy imaginable as the energy blockages opened up further - like my sacrum being split open with orgasmic bliss. I repeated the story about the dude who had seen aliens but then when he saw "bad aliens" he took his shirt off and the bad aliens went away. I said that in fact there's a reason because the images are stored in our bodies and need to be physically exorised through the sweat. I said that early on in the DMT trip I had soaked my two shirts and so I took them off -- but again the visions I had I knew they were just like dream information -- not real. For example at one moment I was WITH chimps -- in the jungle. We were hooting it up together -- in bright deep green of the jungle. It was real but I knew psychologically WHY I was with the chimps -- it was just a flash of a vision -- and I "emptied out the awareness" as the Buddhists describe it -- male pgymy bonobo chimps do not ejaculate during sex (only very rarely). So subconsciously I had been thinking about this connection between the peaceful bonobo pygmies and the Bushmen trance dance shamanism (which used drugs sometimes but relied on the sexual transformation to create ELECTROMAGNETIC fields).

Hi Sr.Psicoplasma: I was thinking about you this morning so glad to hear from you, as I wanted to see if you had read my new blogpost (and you have!). Your manga posts sound great and I look forward to reading them. The publisher of Master Nan, Huai-chin now publishes "Ibis books" according to the bookstore owner I chatted with. I'll look into it more since that publisher of Samuel Weiser was considering my work about 15 years ago. I'm posting a new update this morning in the comments. I'll type it here first for you and then cut and paste it: Before I went to sleep last night I was pondering how I could demonstrate that the beings seen while on DMT were still just images within the brain. I had spent the day watching documentaries while in full-lotus (having the legs cross with the feet up on each thigh) but this time I made sure to medtate in full-lotus for at least half an hour before sleep. My dream was very very vivid, just like being real and as the dream unfolded I ended up in full-lotus having an O at a D with a young female. Suddenly, just before the psychic mutual climax, the several other people in the room with me said -- "No you can't do that right now." I just smiled because I was in full-lotus and I can be in full-lotus since it's my body. Then the young female who was having the psychic mutual climax with me put her hand on her shoulder and said very sweetly: "I want you to talk to me. Say something to me." Again I smiled because I knew I could talk while also having the O at a D in full-lotus. Or so I thought. The first word I heard myself saying was "daisies." Then "violets in a mountain pass with deer, no rabbits." As I thought about what I was saying I realized it was ME thinking the words and so I had woken myself up. Once awake I realized I was NOT in full-lotus and if my young female friend had not asked me to talk to myself I would have lost the alchemical pill -- I would have had an external ejaculation. So I was thinking this while awake in full-lotus and so I then went back into the dream by first pondering why I said the words I had. I was able to, as usual, successfully psychoanalyze the subconscious perceptions I had while awake the previous day -- leading me to realize again that being awake is also another type of dream. Then more of my dream came back to me and something really powerful happened. It was just like I've done lately while watching documentaries in full-lotus. Soemtimes I stop and reverse and playback a part that seems to have a deeper meaning which is subconscious the first time I view it. There's a deeper symbolism then just a direct association. So for example I said "daisy, violet and deer, no rabbit, in a mountain valley" in my dream because I had been watching a movie that featured those words and images. But then my dream -- played back in reverse -- suddenly showed one of my ex-girlfriends sitting across from me. She had two rings on her hand and she said to me - "you don't even know what these mean do you?" I was remembering this part of my dream. Just NOW while I write this (in long-hand at 3:30 a.m.) I realize that Gloria, the John Cassavetes movie character, had two rings on her one finger. When I watched it yesterday there had been an uncanny subconscious perception. The rings were really big diamonds and subconsciously (without my own awareness) I had been reminded of the diamonds my girlfriend had wanted before she had gone into the Peace Corps. I had been telling this story about my ex-girlfriend in Morocco to an Egyptian the same night after I had done DMT -- I had walked to a pizza shop. The Egyptian was intrigued that I had traveled to Morocco but that I was traveling with my girlfriend after she told me she had been seeing another man -- a Moroccan. So as I was in full-lotus playing this dream in reverse -- just like I played the movie Gloria in reverse in my mind's eye just now -- I suddenly remembered that on our trip in Morocco I had urged my girlfriend to throw our rings over a bridge into a river. She had refused to do so and so I did not do it. Later on -- when we met and broke up under mysterious circumstances that I could not tell the Egyptian since he was old and said he visited his wife once a year back in Egypt -- anyway -- my now ex-girlfriend had said to me she wished she had thrown the ring in the river as I had wanted us to do. Not only is this a poignant Valentine's Day dream influenced by the John Cassavetes movie but more importantly it shows how when we dream it's just as real as being awake. While we are awake some people are more aware of certain deeper meanings in real time and even our own subconsious is more aware -- as later revealed in our dreams. This is the DMT reality -- and when it's very intense then the "waking dreams" (samadhi) predict the future or heal our body-mind division (our soul). The full-lotus is the rainbow vortex which enables our soul to travel from the waking state into the dream state and remain self-aware at the same time. I wrote this down, long-hand, while in full-lotus from 3:40 am to 4:20 am.

I once had a dream that I was being chased by a giant Jade Buddha statue... no idea what that meant. welcome to taobums!!

I had one positive experience with it. I saw a hand and forearm come down through my crown and press in my ribcage somewhere. So it seems like the dream world of symbols, and the real world kind of combine with the practice. The key to getting into it is being in the state of mind between wakefulness and sleeping...the hypnagogic state. It's quite an advanced technique so you have to be pretty clear energetically for it to really work...unlike me. It seems like you need to have generated enough kunlun energy, to be able to "take off" too...if there's no "fuel", then no traveling. Just my experience...everyone's different.

Yeah reminds me of last night. I had been sitting in full-lotus most of the day watching documentaries and finally went to sleep around 1 a.m., too tired for full-lotus meditation. So I focus my mind on "Ohm Mani Padme Hum" and suddenly the third eye kicks back into my DMT trip -- and this electric charge goes down to the base of my spine with this deep orgasmic bliss. Then my spirit starts floating out of my body and my brain is floating in the ether-world. Finally I fall asleep but the light in my brain keeps me aware of deep sleep and after two hours I wake up fully refreshed. I take a break back into the dream of waking state and then try again for sleep down time -- same thing happens. Again and again I wake up after two hours of the energy opening up my channels in this deep orgasmic electrical buzz like the sound of a bulb filament in my pineal gland. Then I remember that the chi channels cycle every two hours to a different main organ (just like the circadian rhythms) -- and so the deeper truth emerges.

scattered from that dream you awoke with sleepy eyes found lost in night's daze.

on emerald slabs glow photons of your memories scattered from that dream

I'll look out for their presence bakeneko should they pay me a visit I once saw a shadow thing (kinda shapeless) on the wall as I awoke, I was having a dream and someone in my dream poked me between my clavicle and neck, as i awoke and looked to the wall on the side i felt poked this shadow was there, it then kinda whooshed behind the light on my wall. Was i seeing things? or could it be a feint sign of something like that in the mental plane? with your knowledge and the rest of the guys here can you comment on this experience? I would have liked to ask Rawn to give me a quick analysis or something, is he still around? I think I'm under control of emotions already though, well except 1 i guess Whats the magicians view on romantic love? I guess you're right, if it makes you happy why not do it. But why do some turn to the dark side though, why are they not happy with flowing with the tao?

Self-love is very important, but if you're ever going to avoid the heartbreak when neediness sneaks it's way into your relationships, you have to realize something else: Love DOES come from other people. It's APPROVAL which should only come from within. When enlightened, you will have all the love you will ever need, but having good people in your life is key to getting there. Love people for their perfect bits, those glimpses of the perfect man and woman and soon you'll see those perfect bits are part of ever-changing, perfect wholes. Love others, and you'll have more love returned to you than you'll know what to do with. For example, what you remember loving in that dream wasn't a human woman but the very essence of femininity itself. Ultimately, it's what every man loves in each woman. If you love the femininity of your partners rather than their transient qualities, then it allows for a successful relationship. There is no heartbreak, no falling out of love, because what you love is always there. Love can change forms, and sometimes individuals grow apart, but there is such a thing as a happy, mutual break up. So it's all good news, you can learn to love fully without getting hurt, and you can find that perfectness in each woman. Eventually, with enough time and enough nurturing of that femininity in a particular woman, the baggage drops away and you're left with just love and happiness. Edit: Ever write something then read it and feel like you had nothing to do with writing it? Maybe I wrote this more for myself... I swear it's not narcissism!

I believe the concept of romantic love is a giant fallacy. When you are with some one you are attracted to on a core level the past and the future cease to exist and what you experience is the moment. Being in the moment is characterized as deep LOVE. But we as creatures of the mind link that the PERSON created that feeling of LOVE, but in truth it was simply being in the moment and its just one big misunderstanding. I've been heart broken, like everyone has here, enough times to realize that the sensation of heartbreak does not make sense which lead to my study of love. And honestly, I think its one big misunderstanding. Edited to add: A few years ago I woke up in the morning from a dream. It was delightful, in it there was a woman who I loved. I felt a deep core LOVE for her. It was unmistakable. And I thought, "Wow wouldn't it be great to have a girl who I can love like that." And it wasn't until later on in the day that I realized something huge.... Even though there was no one person to feel deep love towards I felt it towards that girl in my dream, unfortunately, (or fortunately) she does not exist! This means that LOVE comes from within! It has NOTHING to do with the other person. After realizing that I figured out how to live and feel in love without it being directed anywhere in particular, I could just feel it radiating within. At this time I came across something my mind was suddenly open to, "When purely in the moment you experience the sensation of love." Then it suddenly all made sense and this is why I live every day in overflowing love but do not particularly love some one directly. And when I meditate I feel an intensification of it as I sink into the present moment.

Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyai Ripoche Dream Yoga: The Practice of Lucid Dreaming as a Path to Enlightenment (Audio CD) by Tenzin Wangyai Ripoche Excellent!