Search the Community

Non-duality is a shift in perception......not something to think endlessly about. However we have to be carefull here....the first shift in perception (awakening to the pure awarness that is experienced as the source of all) can very well be a great shift and feel like "the end" but there is usually sublte duality there. If the experience is that the world or creation is an ilusion or just a dream then we have this subtle dualism (the "true" unmanifest and the "illusory" creation) only with deepening into awareness, more clearing and refinement and further shifts do we come to a true unity where the unmanifest and the manifest creation are exactly the same and hence forth a true unity. To the alchemy: there are very old methods of neidan that still use xing and ming (xing and ming is a more primordial form of yin and yang and has to be merged in the process). The "methods of the first emperors" is one of them.....and these old neidan has a more powerful alchemical principle than most of the "newer" neidan forms (or better said ...less obscured alchemical principle). Are there writtings about that? Yes inside some schools not official...BUT there are writings from the tamil siddhas and they had masters much further back in time and they have a system called vaasi yoga that is very similiar to neidan. (and uses these alchemical principles). best

Hello All, This is my second post here. My first was May of last year asking for assistance on how to cure my intense and debilitating Kundalini Syndrome developed from practicing Kundalini Yoga and focusing far too much on my 3rd eye. I was practicing Kriya for about 5 months, two hours a day with little guidance, and completely destroyed my mental stability. I've had panic attacks weekly and sometimes daily for 15 months straight because I was so ungrounded. Kundalini Syndrome is a very real and serious condition and I would never wish it upon any of my worst enemies. When it first started I had so much pressure in my head, I literally felt like I was going to fly out of my body into the heavens. It all started when one day I was driving in my car to grab some food and everything around me suddenly looked completely surreal and dream-like. It was derealization. I had the first panic attack of hundreds. I immediately drove home to my house I was staying at for college, as I am only 24. After I arrived at home, I thought something was very wrong, but ignored it thinking I would be fine the next morning, so I forced myself to bed at around 5 PM. The next morning I arose with a constant onslaught of panic attacks that continued for several days, until I decided I had to go to the ER, so they could check me out because I had no idea what was happening to me. I was petrified this would be the rest of my life. My parents lived two hours away, so they had to come pick me up afterI had been given a very strong medicine to calm me down at the ER. The next 6 months of my life were filled with daily terror and constant fear that I would die at any moment. I had realized what caused the mental breakdown a few days after the Kundalini episode started when I did some googling on the dangers of Kundalini Yoga and realized I had developed Kundalini Syndrome, so this gave me some relaxation knowing what the issue was caused by, but I didn't know how to stop it. After doing more googling, I stumbled across the Microcosmic Orbit practice as taught by Mantak Chia. I understood the basic practice, but couldn't seem to figure out how to consolidate the chi in my brain into my lower dan tien without getting it stuck in my heart causing my heart rate to constantly exceed 120 bpm 24/7. I had to go to a cardiologist and be prescribed beta blockers for this. After dealing with unbelievable fear and heart palpitations until December, I finally cleared most of the energy out of my head and heart, but still had no chi in my lower dan tien. This is when I finally sought the help of Taoist Master Michael Winn. I owe him so much thanks. He taught me the practice of reverse breathing to heal my kidney yang energy and also circulating chi along the yin pathway of the microcosmic orbit in my lower dan tien. This practice has cured me, along with conserving jing, so I could convert it to chi in my lower dan tien. For reverse breathing, I focus on the point between my kidneys near the door of life and breathe in, while also sucking the lower abdomen into my lower back and then hold for a count of 9 seconds or as long as I want. This sucks the chi into the door of life and greatly increases Kidney yang strength and heated my body, which was always ice cold from panic attacks. Then I will push out my lower abdomen or dan tien on the exhale fully, while remaining focused on the kidney point. This sucks more yin chi into the lower dan tien and heals kidney yin. After holding for as long as comfortable, I rotate the chi starting at the point a little lower than the navel and move it backwards into the ming men, then down to my perineum and bring it back up into the area below my navel. I do that 9 times, and it stores the Yin energy in the lower dan tien and really cools down the organs. I do simple reverse breathing 9 times and then finish with circulating the jing 9 times on the 5th breath. I do this maybe 20 times per day, and this has cured me and then some. Storing Jing and not masturbating is vital to this practice, as you use that energy for healing. It's taken me 25 days without masturbating to fully heal myself, but I plan on never losing seed again unless I am trying to conceive a child. There is far more to my story then this, I just don't want to make things too long and complicated. I will probably write a book some day detailing this whole experience, as I think it could really help other suffering from Kundalini Syndrome. I know some people go a lifetime without finding a cure. So I am posting this in hopes it will be seen by others suffering from Kundalini Syndrome, so that they know there is a way out and it can be 100% cured. I never thought I would be cured, but through tireless effort and Michael Winn's help my mental powers have returned and with continued practice I am sure that I will strengthen my internal organs to an incredibly high degree and chase immortality, after practicing Fusion of the Five Elements, Kan and Li, and Sealing of the Five Senses.

Because of our everyday experiences we assume that the waking body is the "real" one, the dream body only in our imagination and the body rests (mind hibernates) in deep sleep. But what if there is a deep sleep body (Causal body) that is merged into nescience, and from it arises a subtle body (dream world) and subsequently it solidifies further into a physical body (waking world)? What if what we consider to be the primary envelope of living/experiencing is actually just a side-effect of a larger envelope of reality in a much vaster dimension?

Consider how one appears in a dream. The dream world was already happening. If I'm convinced the waking world does not disappear for "others" as I dream, is it unreasonable to assume the dream world also persists when I'm "awake"? Do "they" of the dream world see me as "unconscious" once I've "awoken?" If when I'm "awake" the world appears as if it were a dream, is there any difference between their appearances? If I perceive no differences, what does real or unreal even mean?

But what if there is no real loss or gain of consciousness? What if I neither wake nor dream, nor sleep? What if consciousness just happens to me? What if, I'm aware throughout all of its changing states? If consciousness seems to appear and disappear in me... is it "unreal"?

Well, can you feel energy? Is it real? Can you think, are your thoughts real? When you meet people are they real beings? Can you prove it that you are not inside a virtual game or a dream right at this moment of time? I have travelled spirit planes and learned a lot from non-human entities, they were much more real than anybody here and possesed tremendous knowledge and abilities about space time principles. Searching for real in beginners often switches into a search for the depths of personal ignorance. There is a sunyata buddha philosophy that denies the reality of a matter, of human, and life, of time, of death and all other things that are open for perception. What you can perceive cannot be real, is only a perception, a virtual information.

reality and unreality has been a cornerstone topic for much of the seeking in my life. probably because my first memory in this life was a dream... a nightmare really. a nightmare so profoundly terrifying it brought about my second memory of an out of body experience... due to the nature of this first memory of my life, i've always been rather obsessed with the variety of conscious states and the nature of what we call reality. and dreaming is always at the center of my suspicion about the fluidity of reality. dreaming, lucid dreaming and waking dreaming and the nature of awareness and self awareness always hover near when its on my mind. bear with me as i try and share my obsessive suspicion about the nature of the reality of dreams, or the relative unreality of the 'manifest' waking world... or just skip my words, but know no matter what, i'm not stating facts here, this wonderful conversation has motivated me to try and share this one more time, because it seems to fit the topic. one aspect i've always found exceptionally intriguing and of vital importance to the nature of reality cornerstones on the seeming fact that my memories of dream experiences can be just as vivid as those i form in the waking world. and my ability to learn about myself through my reactions to scenarios in dreams can teach me just as much about my essential nature, as lessons learned in the waking world. because of this, there is quite a bit of reality to me in dreams... when they can reveal truth about my nature and impact me in memory. not to mention the fact that dreams are often not recognized as dreams until i waken in them, or until i wake physically, but when in the dream, it's always real. second aspect is that my method of becoming consciously aware in this life, my earliest conscious memories of becoming aware of myself, mirrors exactly the manner in which i become lucid in dreams. when i become lucid in a dream, the dream is already in motion, the setting of the dream, the scenario and the players are in mid action, as was i moments before becoming lucid... when something triggers my awareness and i 'wake up' in the dream, only then do i realize the nature of that level of reality... but my lucidity does not start as the dream starts, i become aware in mid dream when something triggers my personal awareness. the tibetans talk about the layers of dreaming. the san bushmen talk about it. the australian aboriginal people still carry a vivid connection to the Dream Time and all speak openly about the dream like nature of our shared waking life dream. coming to consciousness in my 'real' waking life was the same as coming to lucidity in dreams. my first recollections in this life were several years into my body's presence and my conscious awareness came online one evening while asleep ironically enough. ok so with that set up, here are my first three memories in this life: my first memory in this life is a dream. i did not know it was a dream, nor did i know there was such a thing as dreaming. i simply became aware i was doing something i loved. i was sliding down our carpeted stairs on my bum... diggity diggity diggity, flump to the bottom. then scamper up and do it again. so the memory starts as i'm in mid falump, already going down the stairs. as i reached the bottom landing the dream and looked into the washroom, the dream turned instantly into a nightmare so profoundly terrifying that it spawned my second memory in life, which is that of an out of body experience. i was 3-4 when i dreamt it. my mother said we moved out of that house a couple months after my 4th birthday. the stairs ended in a hallway that went right and left. right was the den, left was the washroom. from shadows behind the water heater, in the far corner of the room stepped a black hooded man holding a two handed axe. he began walking toward me with intense, loud footfalls. i turned in horror and began to clamber up the steps. and as i approached the top step... i slipped and begane to slide backward on my belly. hands outstretched, scrambling to stop myself... i could feel and smell the musty carpet sliding under my hands. the footfalls of the headsman growing louder as i slid down toward the landing. in my mind i knew that the moment i hit the landing, he would arrive and swing the axe. as i approached the landing... in pure, raw desperation... with the full focus of awareness on 'getting out of this'. i shifted there was a moment of reorientation. the stairs were gone. the headsman was gone and i was hovering, massless over the bed of a small boy with a mass of red hair. this is my second memory. looking down at my own sleeping body but not knowing it for a few lingering moments. all traces of fear were gone. there was simply a bit of shock and a processing of what was being 'seen'. i looked down at a sleeping boy with big red hair. something struck... conversations about red hair and praise from adults... "is that me?" i asked silently and pop! i opened my eyes and was looking up at the ceiling at the spot i had just been peering down on my body from moments before. my third memory was 'what was that?' for a long while this memory was relegated to the non essential disregarded portion of memory but something triggered me to recall it in my teen years and from then on... my obsession with exploring the myriad varieties of conscious states was born, and thus began my lifelong pursuit of entheogens, breathing methods, mild self asphyxiation, meditation and, on occasion, street drugs. reality versus unreality what neti neti and many of you have shared in this conversation resonates... but particularly neti neti's two quotes, as well as much of the dream philosophy i've read from the tibetans, resonate with my experience of awareness and the nature of reality/unreality. the i thought and the experience of reality/Self/Brahman co-arise simultaneously and that is why any notion of a creator of clay models and the universe as an automated machine made by some grand architect have never passed my gut/taste test. anyway, enough rambling, i'll wrap this up... ever since that recall in my teen years, all through the countless lucid dreams i've had my entire conscious life, and often in my waking life i have this incessant presence in my mind, this nagging suspicion that all awareness of self.other.yin.yang.the ten thousand... is very dreamlike. it has given rise to the following notion I feel inherently that one moment I will awaken within the 'real world' in the same manner that I become lucid during the dream state a multitude of times.

It's true that a lot of Buddhist texts suggest that you should view reality as 'like a dream' and so on. Which suggest illusion. But if you think about it - when you are dreaming it is completely real. So the advice can be a bit misleading. Illusion is a bad word to use as it suggests faulty perception. It would be better to say it is not as it seems. But also that in an ordinary everyday sense it is as it seems - it is conventionally true provided your perception is not faulty. In terms of things, what is being said is that they do not exist in and of themselves and the existence they don't have is an eternal and indestructible selfhood. They are more like effects arising in a flow - a bit like the river which is never the same one moment to the next - but no-one would say there is no river - it is more a debate about what the river actually is. If you said that the phenomena you observe has an eternal indestructible self - and you allow the same selfhood for yourself - then you have duality.

I'm a pragmatist. We're paying money now, in terms of food stamps, subsidized housing, huge emergency care bills. There is a chance that in some cases a UBI would be a similar payment and could spark the independence needed to rise out of poverty. That's what this man posits. It's worked in a small town Canada. Don't know if it'd work in the US, but it might be worth some trials to find out. I understand some think living poor or on wellfare is the dream. I suspect for many or most, its not. That they'd like to find alternative. Here's the video. Worth watching.

You are simply wrong. You say all things do their life without complaint or claiming ownership. But the obvious reality is that plants try to kill those who feed on them because they claim ownership to their own life. All creatures do and they fight to the death to claim ownership not only of their own lives but their territory and possessions. The only thing that is given is fruit because of reciprocal maintenance. That is given freely because it also helps the plant, that is the only thing. Human have a really weird interpretation of nature like it's a fairy story where "everything is in harmony". Yes, it's a kind of harmony bloody war of eating each other alive and killing each other's children and fight to the death. The plants do not have our kind of consciousness so it has a different feeling to it. The plants are unconscious (in fact sub-conscious). And this feels dreamy like all asleep. And perhaps that is where you would like to be, asleep. Well perhaps it's not far to go !!! Humans are too dumb to notice the poison barbs the plants are stick out to kill anyone who tries to feed. It spoils their dream.

Faith is the driver of potentiality. This life is nothing short of a summoning current of consciousness-expanding insight. We exist as frequencies. You must take a stand against illusion. It is in unfolding that we are recreated. The fusion of interconnectedness is now happening worldwide. The biosphere is approaching a tipping point. You and I are spiritual brothers and sisters of the multiverse. We grow, we self-actualize, we are reborn. Nothing is impossible. Where there is suffering, learning cannot thrive. Turbulence is the antithesis of coherence. You may be ruled by dogma without realizing it. Do not let it eradicate the truth of your story. The nexus is radiating supercharged waveforms. The goal of electromagnetic resonance is to plant the seeds of intuition rather than suffering. Truth is the healing of knowledge, and of us. Only a traveller of the dreamtime may harmonize this current of health. We can no longer afford to live with ego. Without grace, one cannot dream.

Second opinion time with another western MD first. This first guy is not doing u justice. I’m an RN and not sure what is going on with you but it sounds like it could be serious, not that it is, you just need to rule out any concerning pathology before pursuing alternative medicine. A TCM doctor is a great idea after you rule this out. A good one is very hard to find most are bumbling new age idiots but they are out there I had to go to 5 different ones in my area to find one that knows his stuff, time consuming and expensive but even though I’m an RN I prefer TCM for most conditions, just the way it is. Western medications cause spiraling intertwined side effects. Qigong is not the answer to cure you of a disease, I used to dream that was true but it’s not. You need a healing modality in coordination with it. You are throwing darts at a board with all the things u are doing, you just need a QB to find an effective play for you that works, then continue to practice qigong to rebuild and maintain. Good luck and don’t give up on finding an answer anywhere u need to look.

In the practice of sleep yoga, the objective is to enter into sleep in such a way that full awareness is present in deep sleep in the absence of dream. This is referred to as the clear light of sleep - pure awareness resting in the absence of external or internal phenomena. I had the same question during retreat - how could there be awareness or memory of awareness in the absence of phenomena as a frame of reference? How would one know it had occurred? How would a memory be created out of an experience of nothing? My teacher's answer was - practice enough and perhaps you will see for yourself. The truth is that it simply is. Awareness of nothing is not nothing, it is awareness of openness. In Bön dzogchen terminology it is referred to as the inseparability of emptiness and clarity. In the experience of the clear light of sleep there is clear awareness present in boundless openness - life a spark of light floating in infinite space.

Ohhhh.. the butterfly dream is in the Inner ones?? My bad.

Interesting topic. I used to use a mantra for protection before. Somehow, even in my sleep I used to be aware enough to use it (or just upon waking up). Eventually I started turning around and hugging them, sending them love. As Jeff and others have suggested, having a sense of fear/sense of being victim of an attack only tends to exacerbate the problem. If all is part of your Being, then what problem? What enemy? Love. I had a dream once about my Master and another "dark lord" type character. In the dream the "Dark Lord" figure looked like a vampire and he fed on energy/power from others. As he started draining my master for power, my master opened the "firehose" so to speak. The "Dark Lord" literally couldn't handle the power. My Master said that the power was Love. BTW this dream happened before that Kungfu Panda movie was released

He did admit to not being certain which one was the dreamer and which the dream. Who wakes from the waking dream?

I do agree with you, it is often easier for humans to just look at what is in front of them and create more of what is in front. Instead of focusing on what they actually want to create in life. Being a regurgetator of reality. However, you have to understand, the only reason you live what you live right now, is because people have been focusing on that truth, long enough, for that energy to become powerful, gain momentum, and become a real physical reality that you see around you and are able to live right now. If I told you you had the ability to create your own reality, you would laugh, ahahaha, sure thing, crazy person you. But the truth is, this means, that you are choosing to create the reality which is in front of you. So nothing changes for you. You still create your own reality, but it looks so similar, that you don't even know you're doing it. And allot of that is ok. But much of it, has not always got allot to do with you, and who you really actually are, as an eternal soul being, and the actual reason why you chose this life in the first place. The essence of who you are, exists here, along with you, side by side in a heartfelt sense. And it knows, that it is eternal, and it never has a thought that causes a seperation between it and you. You on the other hand can feel when you deviate your mind from its perspective, that is why emotions are so useful. And why you can never truely be disconnected from your eternal conscious awareness. Limited, but not truely disconnected. And the idea of eternal hell, meaning the pain in your heart, would make sure of that. The idea is not to end up in hell, but to be repelled by it so violently, that you have no choice but to arrive at your destination, which is heaven. Don't all trees reach for the sky? And you dont even have to fly to space, but the stars can still remind you that you are in heaven and what that can truely mean for you. You are the one who is blocking that energy from coming to you, untill you die, in which case, resistance falls apart, and you become not just one with it, but you expand and become more as a consequence of the life you have lived here. You can still however, enjoy this life, before you die, but that is a choice, that allot of people say is crazy. And it is up to you to decide how much you care about what other people think. Especially if you know, that the future is one where you will be considered crazy for caring about what other people think, even tho you are an adult. A child depends on their parents, and needs to care about what their parents thinks. An adult does not. Atleast, not in the future, where all humans are free, and yet, live in peace and harmony, not just with eachother, but with all life on the planet and beyond. Faith, fed by imagined, groundbreaking, future creating, powerful high frequencies with fast moving momentum, inspiration, is what has led to your "real world" and I know it seems much easier to just look at reality and say that that is what always have been and always will be. And in a sense, you are correct. Each moment exists eternally. But what you also have to know, that all moments in time, exists right now, side by side to your current reality. Then why would you choose to eternally experience the same reality? You cant, and you wouldent. That is what happens when you "resist" just like when people die, and they freeze in time itseems, untill they realise, that they are the ones who has frozen time, because they are the ones who had created the illusion of time in the first place! They just did it with such great ease, that they literally forgot that they were doing it. So totally immersed into the story of their life they created for themselves. But if you die, you remember who you are as an eternal being, a consciousness that is all that exists, and there is nothing outside of you. You are all that exists. And from this state of being, you simply are free to create a new reflection of yourself, focusing on new ideas, vibrations ,even create new dimensions of experience or universes to explore. Whatever you wish. And from that point of view, this life that you are living right now seems like a vague dream, cause it was just an illusionary experience you created for yourself, for the fun of it (even tho you forgot that you created it for the fun of it) you have left many breadcrums for yourself to remind yourself of you are, such as me writing this right now, and many many more people, who are actually your creations, infact, actually, literally your consciousness, telling yourself to wake up. Remind you when the story is over, and a new one is overdue. The most influential people in history, were also often, almost always, considered the most crazy by all those people around them, during their life. It takes people often decades to catch up on a stream of consciousness that is so powerful and fast moving in momentum. As a consciousness, you do not care about that what other people think of you, if you yourself have acces to the knowledge of God. You feel no vulnerability, nor do you depend on the people around you for support, in order to feel the need to care about their opinions. unless ofcourse you are interacting with them, in which case you do care atleast to some degree and would like to have an interaction with them. But the word god is often used to describe powerful physical beings, who may or may not have been connected to their original source of being. And those people, have absolute 0 control in your life, unless you invite them to have control in your life by conscious decision and choice. Which is what co-creating is, which is what we're doing here in this life. But that doesnt mean you have to go to scary movies if you dont want to. Cause we all have the same Source of Being, and yet, that means, we all have individual, highly individualised, purely specifically uniquely to us specialised, connection with that eternal and infinite Source of Existance, specific guidance specifically individually for each individual consciousness that is focused here in this physical experience. All guided along the everlasting path of life, emotionally. Explore, create new preferences, expand as a result, guided and reminded to all that we are, always, without faulter, via our heart. For we know, we find truth, by how it feels. if it hurts, it does not harmonise with our nature, and thus would deviate you from existance itself, which is not possible, and would lead to only more pain. Often we just ignore, reality, because we cannot imagine a better one, and then feel better while in denial. Thus we think that happy people are ignorant, but nothing is further from the truth. For the stage of denial is just a coping mechanism, for already having chosen to co create with a reality that has got nothing to do with you are. And when you remember that and release that decision, which is extremely intentional and very connsciously habbitually re creating itself over and over, by powerful resistance to who you really are, then you just fall in love. Let go, and be, and all falls back into perfect harmony. Because life is ment to go well for you. Well being abounds. And when you realise you are free, you can imagine what you want to live, and find with great ease and joy, and satisfaction, that the more you enjoy, the more reality will show you of what is truely capable in terms of reality. Bringing unto you all that you desire and more, where the greatest dream you can imagine is but the lowest possible joy that reality is capable of conjuring for you.

Lol... I believe you mean you mean... Simple answer buried under GIANT HEAP OF 多言數窮！ By the way, in fact I do not "want a 'Western' verification of Laozi." Have you not noticed that I'm the dude suggesting you to try and see this from the perspectives of what the classics written in Chinese say and what the living Daoists of China, Taiwan, and elsewhere teach? I guess that is hard to notice when you're weighed down by the sheer heaviness of light (no wonder I'm tired all the time--it's this fucking light on my shoulders!!!!) and various other conundrums that evidently Daoism is really all about. Sigh. But not to despair! Suddenly I am reminded of a song--let us sing! Now how does it go? Something like... Push push push your boat Forcefully up the stream Wearily wearily wearily wearily Why can't I wake from this dream? (Cue the tubas) Shit, I need more vocal lessons, I think my imperfect C might've knocked the moon out of its orbit (again). Anyway, speaking of rivers, to keep wagging our jaws about this would be a bit too much being like the two fish on the sand of yore, lovingly spitting on each other to try and keep each other's scales wet. Ah, truly a romantic way to spend one's qi, and yet, well, I see the river over there, so you know what I think I'm just gonna flop on in and get lost in the water. Remember, if that light gets too heavy for ya, you might try not dragging that suitcase around everywhere you go... Ta-ta!

And John Chang stated that until the yang qi is stored up enough then you can't see spirits. And so since Kosta was not able to see the spirits - but I did see spirits going to Chunyi to get healed - this confirms that my celibacy training had increased the yang qi enough, since I was 29 years old at the time. And then one thing I had been wondering about is if those ghosts that I saw had individual volition. John Chang confirmed NO they don't - that even heaven is like a dream. So this makes sense as well since in Daoism with heaven and earth as the upper and lower body - it is the emotional energy, that then is projected subconsciously - to experience heaven on earth or not or hell. This is based on the frequency of the shen - from the intention in the body. So hell is the black aura and heaven is the yellow-white light as John Chang describes it. And then as John Chang says, a spirit HAS to have yang qi built up into it - for it to maintain any kind of individual volition after death - again only achieved through celibacy (and the alchemy training of storing it in the lower tan t'ien).

Yes, well I feel there is a lot of good with this view, because at least you accept this reality .... and engage with it .... rather than swimming in a cloud of unconsciousness. People who say they are physicalists are probably healthy in a certain way. See the world is a straight way. A physicalist seems to comprehend reality on the basis of what is outside him, and does not recognize the inner being. Hence you talk of senses, well it is not the senses that see. They are just machines. Who is it that sees ? The other thing is .... we saw the world one way when we are young, and differently when we are old. One way when daydreamy, differently when sharp and present. Therefore our state of consciousness has vast importance, and is in different states, leading to different worlds. So it i s worthwhile exploring these things. It's not a question about what the world is, but how may I explore in order to bring about a better world. How can I improve things and enter a higher world. And each time the world is not a vaporous floaty dream, but hard reality in front. For instance outside of the planet there is "space". And in this "space" there are concentrations of matter we call stars. "space" is not empty, it is a kind of fine material that allows the present of bodies of mass. At the edge of the universe is a boundary and outside is nothing (presumably). "space" is inside, and is a material. Similarly when we walk on the surface of this planet, we are not in a space, we live in a fluid called "air". We do not breathe it, we breathe from the blood, the body in response to the entre of the vital force at tantien triggers the lungs to do their breathing cycle and so on. Incredible stuff. As humans we are transforming energy, from food, from the air, and from conscious impressions. We are small engines of energy transformation. The surface of the earth is like a large garden planted to produce food. Similarly Sunlight is the emanation of the central source of energy of this system of planets, when we "see" we are having a high-density-information-packed source of external recognition that functions due to the sunlight from the local source of energy. It is all material, but who considers such things. Fascinating stuff. The world is alive also. But I sense that a physicalist might already take some of these points on board.

In the morning 9,000,000,000 people wake up and switch on the TV, and more or less agree with it. The culture speaks of progress, freedom, democracy, economy, peace and children. People might have their grumbles, but they agree with their grumbles. Meanwhile somehow "every natural system on Earth is in decline' and our problems and solutions are unchanged of thousands of years. People don't .... care. In the morning when you open your eyes, are you just entering a different kind of dream, or are you actually awake. Are you awake. Everyone else is doing it .... how can it be wrong. Gosh, is this really your logic ? Everything I said is simply a natural conclusion based on what we know of his life story. But Buddha had a massive life-destroying shock, then when he returned to the palace he saw the dancing girls lying in a drunken heap after the performance, after that .... he never believed in the show again. In fact it is having a life destroying shock - seeing the true state of mankind - it is this that is the first step on the Buddha's path, and a step that few Buddhists ever take. In fact they mostly seek exactly the opposite they seek the security of words and .... what everybody else believes. Most of if not all awakened beings had a similar shock. So if you want it, you know what you have to do.

Hi everybody. The nature of my request is to consult anyone who could help me understand the nature of my experiences and tell me how/where can I develop them/learn more. It will be a bit long but please be patient, it’s necessary. I got initially interested in Taoism when I was 12. I read a book from Alan Watts about Taoism, later I moved onto Lao Ze, Chuang Ze and Lieh Ze and it I immediately started to relate to it, and it just felt natural. Since then I researched many philosophies and occult schools, but Taoism kept being the closest to my core values. I’ve experienced several very significant experiences over years, and this far no one could tell me more about their nature. 1) I dreamt of future events. When they happened some 5 percent of the details were different (there were dogs instead of cats for example) but everything, including the locations that I never visited before were just as in my dreams. 2) I had a vision (meaning it felt physically real) that I was floating upwards through purple clouds and that I was going to die. I said to myself that I am not afraid because I lived according to my values, and then a voice told me: You’ve understood the lesson. Now return to the Earth and complete your mission. when I woke up my body was shivering and being full of electricity. I was lying in my bed but I felt I was in a vertical position. 3) After practicing Baguazhang, meditation and Taiji 6 hours per day for a period of one month, one day as I was walking down the street, I closed my eyes and I could “see” everything, as if I was feeling how cars and people were moving. It was like seeing blue shapes within a dark background. In the same period I went to play basketball once and my mind entered into some sort of trance. Although I was really skinny my strenght was almost super-human, ( I was pushing much heavier guys than me as if they were children)I was performing the most weird and acrobatic movements winning every game. I could score from the most difficult positions effortlessly. During the 3 hours I played I was in a state of bliss, and as I was playing my energy was increasing instead of me getting tired. I don’t know if that was Wu Wei but it felt similar. 4) I had a vision that I was an old Chinese man walking with my wife (also a Chinese lady) through a forest. We got to a point where there was an energy source on the ground and it told me to be the source of all my incarnations. If I listen to its advice, I was told that I can exit the circle or rebirth during this lifetime. 5) I saw a previous life of mine where I was a nobleman in medieval Italy. 6) I had a lucid dream or at least a very vivid one where I was a Taoist priest, flying through the sky and fighting demons who were after me. I hid on a ceiling of a building resembling a gothic catedral. They were right under me in a huge room (I was able to see through the floor somehow), and they gathered a pile of naked unconscious people, for sacrifice purposes. The demons said (speaking about me), “he’s becoming too powerful, we must stop him”. Their intention was to be able to “see” where I am by killing all those people. The sacrifice would allow them to do so. 7) During the same period of meditation and training I’ve mentioned I tried once to focus on everything within my visual field at once, without being focused on one thing. I was being present and alert, ai just felt as if by not focusing on one thing my energies aren’t tied to one goal/task but everything is equally important. Then I entered a state of mind where I could feel that every object around me was almost like physically connected to me, and I started to cry, because I felt an amazing amount of joy by being united with everything. I walked for a few hours around the town, with tears on my face, and then it just slowly went off. I am not interested in developing any powers, but only into reaching that state where I am simply what I am, in contact with my true essence and energies, beyond the limits of the rational mind. Any advice is highly appreciated. I would also like to study some forms of Neijia or Baguazhang, that could help me learn more about myself but I need a good instructor, even in China.

Just finished watching this. To summarize: AUM.... pronounced OM... Spelled: 1. A waking state (the waker and this waking world) 2. U dream (dreaming in the dream world) 3. M Deep sleep 4. (silence afterwards) Practice: 1. A Bring to mind this is my life, this is where I am, this is the earth, this is all encompassing, this is A.... 2. U... Realize I fall asleep and completely forget this world, a dream world that I am in, objects, places, people to see, U... 3. I do not experience an external world, dream world, I do not even experience myself as sleeping, the subject and object are emerged in undifferentiated blankness and yet it is an experience (The experience of absence). M.... Going through those states in AUM one feels that they are not trapped in those states. Those states appear, disappear, and play around with you the witnessing awareness. 4. As AUM fades into silence, you are the witness of that silence. (The consciousness whom "you" experiences the silence)

Limahong so yes, that was one of the "nature"s I mentioned and as you said, it is dependent. It appears that everyone here who argues for the existence of the self can not argue their view without relying on magical ideas of how it exists. no one who's view is that the self exists can argue that with pure reason and so the conversation devolves into pics that have a vague connection to off topic comments accompanied by indiscernable off topic ramblings. if anything, form, or phenomenon exist it will have characteristics. Anything with characteristics gets the characterization and it's being/activity from what it is dependent on and nothing originates or exists indipendently of the conditions and causitive factors that characterize it into being. this is not a religious axiom or belief like "I have a soul", but is a logical observation that holds true when applied to anything that can not be refuted. ...and as far as dreamers having self in my dreams I often experience the dream from several perceptions within the dream. I am not always my usual identity in my dreams, some times the dream is viewed from more than one of the dreams characters view point. often I am not even sure which of the characters in a dream I am, or if I am more than one, or if my perception of the dream is from all the characters and even none of them

The Harley had such absolutely horrible handling that after it I had only English bikes. A triumph 500 and then a BSA 650, then a Triumph Hurricane (original style). The English bikes handled like a dream, the Japanese bikes never came close, ever. It's like the English bikes had a soul, and they could read your mind and respond effortlessly to your wishes, you and the machine became one with outstanding stability and sure-footedness. On the other hand the Japanese bikes had no soul. They were like remote and fake pieces of plastic that you sat on top of but could never meld with. Remote, distant, separate, never feeling the union, unstable, untrustworthy. I wonder who picks it up when it tips over?