Search the Community

Intent, on the whole, doesn't arise or cease. Rather intent changes its character. People naively split up or delineate these changes into separate individual intentions. If we then analyze these fragments of intent, of course they appear to arise and to cease. It's only natural. But if you heal the delineations, the fact that intent is there and changes is still real. In other words, experience is always selective. At any one time you experience a fraction of all possible experience. There is no way to experience everything that could be experienced at once. This lively flowing selectivity of experience is a reflection of intent. Conditioning is never able to fully guide intent. There is always at least a tiny fragment of intent that's liberated from all conditions. When one's mind is ossified by habitual beliefs, then it seems like there is very little power left over to intent. Some people even think there is no power at all that's left over. They think all the power of change resides in the patterns themselves, and none of that power is available to one's person. Let's look at a relatively very hardened experience, mine. I am surrounded by desks, chairs, cups, books, walls, Earth, sky, clocks, streets, and all these things seem very very stable. Let's say they are stable to the point of being locked down. Is there any freedom left for me? Is everything I do determined by my conditioning (internal and external)? To me the clear and obvious answer is: no. I still have the tippy tip of intent left loose. So while I can't readily levitate a house, that isn't a readily or obviously available choice for me, I can still make choices. For example, I can choose the topic of my thinking. I can think about what game to play next. Or I can think about wisdom. And I can think about how to feed myself. To me, these are free choices. People will argue that even these choices are conditioned, but I will disagree. There is nothing in my environment that makes me this way, but my mentality that supports certain ways of thinking is intentional itself. So for example, spirituality can be seen as an escape from the suffering of the world. But there are many approaches to suffering. One approach is to tighten your belt, buckle up, strap yourself in, and dig in. Work more, harder, ingratiate yourself more strategically, build more and more social networks, look for more and more money, etc. That's a valid response to a challenge. Many people choose this response. Another response is to turn away from the game. That's one of the spiritual responses. That's renunciation. There is nothing in the challenge of life that inherently forces one toward renunciation. One can equally as well choose to face the challenge in a totally different way. If everything is predetermined, we'd react to everything instantly. Why then are there situations that demand lengthy thinking and/or consultation with friends? A car engine doesn't stop once in a while to determine whether it should spin another cycle. If there is fuel, air and spark, it spins. It's a simple relationship. Do people's lives resemble this? In my experience, no. People are nothing like this. Sometimes people get stomped. They stop. They don't know what to do next. Finally if you look at the whole of intent, including the submerged aspect of it at the deep end, the aspect that holds the cities and stars together, the mystical aspect, the totality, is what we're seeing the only thing that can be seen? Is our past the only past? In the blink of an eye, intent can change your history and past. It can make it appear as if you never lived this life as you thought you did... perhaps you are a 30 year old person called Flugin on a planet Scoromax, and your past is a long and storied past. This change can happen in the blink of an eye. To know this for sure, or to have a good intuition about how this can happen, you need to have some mystical experience (lucid dreaming and dream awareness help). So if your conditioning is your past, and if your past determines the future, then how is it we can change our past? How is it that (to make this accessible) in dreams an entire array of different pasts can spontaneously emerge? Many people dream they are a character with a certain kind of past, and your dream past can be long and storied and it can have nothing to do with this life on Earth. Your dream environment can also have its own past. I own conditions. I don't externalize them. This doesn't follow for me. How can intent appear from an intent-less state? It would make intent unintentional. Seems absurd, doesn't it? If intent appears without a cause, that ruins all logic. If logic is ruined, then we can say anything we enjoy saying about intent, all arguments stop, there is nothing to talk about. If intent appears from an external cause, then we need to look at internal/external divide. As you are well aware, such divides don't last under examination. And finally we have to confront experience. This is required to be honest. Here I am. I am sitting and typing. I can type anything I want. I don't feel anything external telling me what to type. But the internal structures that guide my typing are themselves intentional. I don't feel them as if they were impositions. I don't feel pressure or a force that pressures me to type this against all resistance. And I am aware of alternatives. If I only ever needed to do what was dictated by some past, how would awareness of alternatives be useful? It would be useless. It would serve no purpose. What's the point of being aware of alternatives, if I am destined to only pick one narrow choice each time? That seems strange, right? This way of thinking would have an unexplained and crazy experiential element left-over, with no place to go or call home, post-analysis. Right. But I am not only my intentions. I am mind. Intentions don't make sense without context. Context is not something that drives intent, it illumines it. So if I shine a light on a car, I don't determine which turn the car will take next. I just make the car visible, I make it possible to apprehend the car, to see it, to recognize it as such, etc... that's what context does. It illumines. Based on one's prior intentions and beliefs (also intentional, but ossified), some of these illuminations can seem to guide choices. For example, if you illumine a hole in the ground, I will walk around it instead of fall into it. Does this mean context has chosen my action for me? Many people would think yes. I don't. Have all options been squashed? Is it even possible? I can walk around. I can look into the hole, get a rope and rappel into it if it's deep. If it's shallow I can step into it or get a shovel and toss some earth into it. I can walk backward instead of around. And if I am a mage, I can levitate over the hole (mages have more options!). If context could destroy options-perception, it would become the guiding force. But it can't. And the more options the person can perceive, the freer the person feels. Ultimately we are all infinitely free. But if people feel no options, they feel trapped. I would even say, if spirituality doesn't endow one with a sense of more options, it's a waste of time. This is why dogma is so antithetic to real spirituality. Dogma closes off options by disallowing questioning and by suggesting that only one path is to be followed.

I don't think he was saying you have no control over your actions so much as the world your actions occurs in is a dream. What I got out my talks with him, is that when you wake up, you are aware you are in a dream, and the person you were was a dream character. The awareness of your experience remains as it always did, Just as you are now. You aren't a physical body but rather the experience of a physical body, the thing observing this experience isn't going to die even if your dream character does. But this is only in the context of some guy on the Internet I met who claims to be enlightened. For all I know he could be the absolute ultimate troll on the Internet. I just liked what he had to say, it interests me deeply, and it fascinates me. Don't lose sleep over it, I subscribe to a more energetic notion of enlightenment than I do a nondual notion. I just think these are some cool ideas to think about and entertain.

A carpenter named Shih, who was on his way to Ch'i, came to Bent Shaft. There he saw a chestnut-leaved oak that served as the local shrine. The tree was so big that several thousand head of cattle could take shade beneath it and it was a hundred spans in circumference. It was so tall that it surveyed the surrounding hills; only above eighty feet were there any branches shooting out from its trunk. It had ten or more limbs from each of which you could make a boat. Those who came to gaze upon it were as numerous as the crowds in a market. The master carpenter paid no attention to it, but kept walking without slowing his pace a bit. After his disciples had had their fill of gazing upon the great tree, they caught up with carpenter Shih and said, "Since we have taken up our axes to follow you, master, we have never seen such marvelous timber as this. Why, sir, were you unwilling to look at it, but kept on walking without even slowing down?" "Enough! Don't talk about it! It's defective wood. A boat made from it would sink. A coffin made from it would rot right away. An implement made from it would break right away. A door made from it would exude resin. A pillar made from it would soon be grub-infested. This tree is worthless. There's nothing you can make from it. That's why it could grow to be so old." After the carpenter had returned to his own country, the shrine oak appeared to him in a dream, saying, "With what trees will you compare me? Will you compare me with those that have fine-grained wood? As for the hawthorn, the pear, the orange, the pomelo, and other fructiferous trees, once their fruits are ripe, they are torn off, and the trees are thereby abused. The big branches are broken and the smaller branches are snapped. These are trees that make their own lives miserable because of their abilities. Therefore, they cannot finish out the years allotted to them by heaven but die midway. They are trees that bring upon themselves the assaults of the worldly. It's the same with all things. But I have sought for a long time to be useless. Now, on the verge of death, I have finally learned what uselessness really means and that it is of great use to me. If, after all, I had been useful, would I have been able to grow so big? Furthermore, you and I are both things, so why the deuce should you appraise another thing? You're a defective person on the verge of death. What do you know about 'defective wood'?" When carpenter Shih awoke, he told the dream to his disciples. "If the oak's intention is to be useless, then why does it serve as the local shrine?" they asked. "Silence! Don't say another word! The oak is merely assuming the guise of a shrine to ward off the curses of those who do not understand it. If it were not a shrine, it would still face the threat of being cut down. Moreover, what the oak is preserving is different from the masses of other trees. If we attempt to understand it on the basis of conventional morality, won't we be far from the point?"

I have actually walked around for one day off and on doing exactly as VMarco often posts - consider everything like it's an honest-to-god dream. After a while...well...it's kinda weird. I started to wonder..."I wonder if what VMarco says is really true? Good Lord...I'm just a dream?! Does that mean if I 'treat everything as a dream' long enough the Dream will 'pop'? What happens if it does?" Man..it gets pretty weird thinking that cause after a while I kinda fell into a state where I was just watching *everything* I thought and did with the curious attitude of 'I wonder what's gonna be my next thought?" and "I wonder what I'm gonna do next?" It *was* interesting to test VMarco's advice out as an actual daily 'awareness' exercise.

I'm in a firm, Don't Know state when it comes to death & afterlife. I'm open to possibilities, with Protector's death as an off switch as likely as any. Working with dreams I've had some, one especially powerful dream where I was dying, realized I'd taken my last breath, realized I was experiencing my last heart beats. A very lucid and realistic dream, I panicked a bit, then decided to relax into the phenomena. I got to re-experience that a bit 2 months ago. I'd gone into my doctors office complaining of chest pain. He did an ekg, it came out normal diagnosed it as indigestion. Next day I went the emergency room for more chest pain, ekg was mostly normal, blood test came back normal, due to pain that morphine didn't fix I was allowed to stay in the hospital over night, which I did at my wife's insistence. Much pain and no sleep that night, in the morning EKG very bad and blood test showed bits of heart protein floating in blood- not good. Bad news, bit of my heart closing down, good news surgery was available in 45 minutes. Not open heart, angioplasty with tubes, cameras, wires and equipment going in through large arteries. They could go in through groin or arm. Since I have 2 arms, I told'em use them. Your drugged but kept awake during the process. Not unlike my dream I heard the doctor say 'This isn't going well'. That was not welcome, its not that far from 'what's the time? let's call it.' I certainly felt, 'this sucks' but I was pretty calm. It could have been the drugs but I quickly fell into a state of thankful for what I'd had and lets see what's next. Often my preamble before meditation is 'I'm not my body, that's what I inhabit, I'm not my thoughts, they're like clouds passing, I'm not my emotions, possessions, past, present etc. etc. ...' I've repeated that hundreds if not a thousand times. When push comes to shove, maybe it was effective. (oh and it was just one clogged artery, others were clear, thus after stint I'm quite healthy, thank you) Anyway I'm still here. Got a hole in the upper thigh. The surgeon had to pull the apparatus's from the hole in my arm and restring it through there. More importantly in life, I faced death calmly and with gratitude. That's something.. no matter what happens, or where you go. I've always felt we meditate to gain enough silence/emptiness to glimpse the unfiltered truth. Certain masters before have, and often reported vastly different experiences. How much do our preconceptions play? What do I think about the afterlife? Dunno. Open minded. Let the universe decide and keep the faith, a measure of hope too, because there's an off chance, you get .. what you expect. And I prefer experienced woman to virgins, but most of all my paradise is a beach on Hawaii with a camp fire, wife and kids, friends, dancing, drinks..

How I do it is... walk there, fly there, or will myself there. I find it similar to a lucid dream actually. You know how you sort of "wake up" in the dream and start to be in "control" of the dream and can do things consciously? With AP, you can also "wake up" and decide how it is going to go. The other option is to go a bit less deep in the altered state that you use with your AP practice.

My belief/ Experience: Lucid dreaming has helped in the awakening to the dream of this here/now. To the point some days it feel as though I am dreaming awake... I would like to know more of Owledge and his experience of falling through the cracks? / out of the matrix? I havn't - that i know of. You learn things more to be of a liquid state... Once you are LUCID < Awakened within - reality becomes like potters clay... and you can manifest/create instantly (depending on focus/ concentration / imagination. Who has seen the movie - what dreams may come? ^ This is in the dream state (what is and isnt dream state?) I think it is good to face the fear of the unknown < you may be happily surprised..or not. I am a novice < No vice? I think if you can master the unconscious / dream state? totally - death no longer. So one never sleeps/ becomes unconscious. Do we project/ shift conscious attention inside or outside ourselves?

So Ive been trying a lot of practices lately...trying the tibetan dream yoga book where you focus on a chakra every 2 hours, do purification breaths, guru yoga and imagine dakinis around you as well as imagining life as a dream all the time... I spent a few days actually following it through..but it seems so controlled. Last night I felt a wave of sadness so I tried to be aware of it, then I tried to develop feelings of compassion, then I tried to just accept the feelings and surrender... But I was reading a section in shaking medicine and it was talking about shamanic conversation is just gibberish and the unconconscious higher mind is smarter than the conscious you and it knows what to heal that so I did that and felt great. I decided to dream spontaneously as well like dreaming whatever I wanted to dream as an expression of fun with no judgement...so I close my eyes..fall asleep while letting the picture come up and from there move to a similar picture or experience...so its a smooth flowing from one picture or experience to another....whilst being aware...I am correct in saying this is lucid dreaming...for me this is like when I took peyote.

Had an experience close to this in my late teens. Had just started meditating and somehow I got really really deep. Had a dream one night that I'd found the holy grail and had drunk from it. I woke up and for the next two days was in a semi enlightened state. The dimensional world seemed like a veneer, like it was painted over a greater reality. I could sense the molecules that made up objects, and my mind was utterly quiescent like the morning after fresh snowfall. Later when this state had receeded, I read a bit more. I'm pretty sure that when I was sensing particles of matter, I was sensing the Buddha fields. And the state of mind was of falling snow. It's been 20 years and I'm still nowhere near my attainment in that week, reached after just a handful of times meditating.

I would say the Tao is easy when you follow the path of gentleness, of softness. Like Thunder said, you follow the path of water, you take the lowest position, and you don't hold positions. When you don't hold positions that bind you, then you are free to drop freely as a snowflake, naturally, guided by the gentle caress of life, of the Tao. The Tao is difficult when you follow the path of hard thought and speed. You have expectations, goals and positions. It's like you engineer chains that bind you and your snowflake falls like a dead weight, because your trajectory is man-made. The spot both snowflakes will land is different. How to follow the path of gentleness ? It starts with your mind, be gentle there. Don't grasp at thoughts. When they come in, don't apply strong force or direction to them. Let them come in as a gentle breeze, as in a day-dream. Don't become serious about them or hold a strong idea about something. When you're stuck in a strong idea, notice the circular pattern. You'll notice you keep repeating the same information - so, just take a step back, and enter the center of that circle. That center is like the hub of your mind, it is neutral. It doesn't care about Yin and Yang or taking sides. Then you can see clearly, and make the right decision from your deepest conscience. And from there, you are free to extend your loving gentle energy to the world, in a way that is unbiased and natural.

thanks for teaching me more. The lesson is definitely coming from you guys, just not in the way your consciousness' believes so. and i now realize i had to go through this. codes = written text codes = what you see with your eyes code = your intellectual ability to remember what a symbol means based on what someone labeled it as. I just slapped myself to make sure i'm not in a dream. I just slapped myself twice. Nope still here. . . . . by now your subconsocius is already looking for a clever/witty combecak in response to me acknowledging of slapping myself. And now, you've stopped because i mentioned it. And now when i ask if you thought about it, you're going to deny it only because you already know based of what i'm telling you. Hope you realize just how programmable you are. done.

When you sleep at night you may have a dream of being someone else, this does not mean that you are the dream character only that you believe yourself to be while sleeping. "Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi." If what he says is true, this is a literal dream, you are attributing who you are to the wrong person or rather thing. The emptiness is the thing dreaming, and observing the dream, according to him.

I'm just writing about my experience here and then if you can share related/similar experiences, it might help in understanding things. Always nice to share our adventures on the path. After my profound ayahuasca experience, I had several trippy (and scary) dreams, and when I woke up from those, I had a moving colors sensation for a minute or so when having my eyes closed. I nicknamed it "the projector matrix". It is a somewhat square-based animation of expanding rings of colors, and it gradually begins to become smaller (meaning more squares in the field of vision) in the time after the dream. I thought it gone, but a few days ago I had another not-really-trippy wannabe-nightmare* and after waking up, there was the projector matrix again. *) It was a dream where I was lying down and had difficulty turning my view around, but forced it and things were kinda shadowy there and then I woke up. That was the second dream recently where I actively and energetically confronted fear upfront, effectively not even acknowledging the experience as frightening, making it feel more like kicking nightmare-butt. ... I was actually disppointed that I woke up. Seems like those cowardly fears are hiding from me, haha.

I post updates in that group every few months. I'm on of the ppl who has extended the challenge well past the 28 days. I am not sure if many ppl in the FB group have had full on kundalini integration, I think many had various kundalini awakenings. His breathing technique, at least the base one is similar to spinal breathing. I've had good experience using some of his ideas with what I've learned from yogic, Taoist, western tradition, hypnosis, nlp and my own made up stuff. My only kundalini awakenings have been from spinal breathing while driving on a trip, doing spinal breathing between breaks while working, and oddly the most powerful one where my spine felt like a strong current don't swim electric ocean during a dream. I get plenty of jolty jolty sensation whenever I do any kind of mental, emotional or energetic practice--- but the electric spine ocean feel for me seems to be elusive to only a few experiences each year-- probably because I constantly quit and restart practice several times a year. It also sucks always feeling like i'm on the edge of something great happening, but then just another ordinary jolty jolty blissful experience but nothing to really write about. I'm a bit grateful because my practice really does help me in life, but I want MORE. Basically, I'm a brat. I just spent 2 hours practicing and I feel great, full of positive blissful energy and a positive attitude, but still dissatisfied. I would love to do a regression type therapy and jump into the submodalities of those past experiences-- I try to do that and I have good sensations, but not as good as the ones I'm trying to replicate.

Thanks! My experience is the same up untill pre conscious. I am aware of my typing now aswell, which I consider to be my consciousness. However, when you say pre-consciousness, you are saying that you will be conscious about something in the next here and now. That is still a thought that exists within your consciousness. Here and now. You may say this thought has a strong expectation or energy momentum and thus power behind it. A certain degree of certainty that you are being conscious about. But you are still being conscious about that within your consciousness, is it not so? For me I experience it to be that way. So as for losing your physical senses, I have lost my physical senses many times and still retained my consciousness. You don't need to be conscious about something physical in order to be conscious. And that is the distinction I make in my own personal experience, of what people call unconsciousness. is simply a non-physical consciousness or awareness from my point of view. I can even be conscious in my sleep, even while dreaming and also when there is no dream and no physical senses or awareness at all. Just simple pure awareness and beingness. And that is also what I refer to the most pure definition of pure consciousness, which is simply beingness or awareness, without the "things" or beyond the "things" that we can or cannot be conscious about. And I have found this consciousness of mine, is always high frequency, pure positive energy, beingness, core indestructable ever expanding ever refreshing and renewing and ever replenishing and ever awakening nature of my unlimitted beingness, as consciousness, simply coming to know all that is being and becoming evermore here and now, within my consciousness.

I've seen reptile eye in meditation - but its rare. Also I had a dream, I was running down a road - the road where I went to school - and the road was full of snakes. I was jumping up and down and running down the hill so as to not land on the snakes. At the bottom of the road, the road curved in semi cycle twice - it does in real life, close to an old ruined mill. Around the bottom of the last curve was a huge lizard in the middle of the road which hissed at me, not allowing me to pass. I awoke due to fear. The dream always puzzled me, and now it makes sense if this lizard was the king of serpents. Energy was streaming up my back when I awoke. It was the only time I had such a dream. The significance of it I have no idea. Have a nice weekend everyone .

good one. hope you feel better. You want to find Shambhala right?. Good luck. they see everything you say, do, and think. But in reality, they see only what's inside. It does exist, and is found when the person's time on the 'inside' is right. Even after everything you've mentioned, i hope you're able to find it. Because from what i see on the surface, for you it seems but a myth and far away dream. i genuinely hope i'm wrong.

The Daily Mail doesn't like my adblock, so I couldn't read the article there, but I know that puma. He was born in a zoo, had health problems, was adopted into the family (wouldn't make it in the wild) and from what I've seen is as eager to "behave" as a dog, far surpassing most cats in this regard. E.g. I could only dream of my cat taking a bath in stride like this: I wouldn't say there's too many domesticated wild cats in Russia, but they occasionally happen. The father of a friend of mine had a cat who was a cross between the common domestic kitty and a wild reed cat, aka jungle cat or swamp cat. His name was Bes (which means devil or demon) and he was rather born to be wild, and even though he lived in a city apartment, he never behaved as a kitty. Cats are weird -- some species can be domesticated and some can't, and reed cats are in that latter category. But this one was half domestic cat half wild, so at least he didn't try to eat the owners. (The guests were always warned to not try to pet him.) I remember him vividly, whenever I visited he was usually sitting in a leather chair pushed away from the desk in the room that served as a home office. A very intimidating room lined with hundreds of books on brain physiology and pathology, with a very intimidating cat guarding it. Outwardly he looked like his wild half, only fatter. You knew I'd bite on any change of subject, gods to dogs and dogs to cats and Sumer to Russia, as long as it winds up being about cats, didn't you?

The 3rd eye chakra is also used in dream practices in a slightly different way. There are 4 categories of dream experiences - peaceful, expanding, powerful, and wrathful (notice the same characterizations are used to describe deities). The 3rd eye chakra is used to help induce dreams of expansiveness and growth. Practices with chakras are a tool to peak inward; each chakra reflects an important energetic aspect of our experience. They all connect to the central channel. Residing in the central channel is a good "tech" skill to work on. Visualizing, then feeling, then being the fundamental inseparability space and awareness that resides there. "The center of the victorious mandala, one's own body. The source of all positive qualities without exception! Is the expanse within the three channels and the five chakras. I take refuge in this body of emptiness..." - Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Prayer of the first refuge, the Body of Emptiness Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche makes the highest level tantric and dzogchen teachings accessible to the Western student. Everything is there, for free, online, if you are fortunate enough to be karmically connected. I think you are right in your other thread, karma is the key - simply seeing the truth in that could make your experience with thodgal worthwhile I should think. There is no greater truth than karma. And you can influence your karma; in fact every action we take is our karma. Showing an understanding of that in our lives through our conduct, that is the next step after seeing the truth of it. Then we actually bring those qualities to life - peace, growth, power, wrath. We manifest the perfected aspects of ourselves. This is the manifestation of the 3 bodies... It's not rainbow body yet but I think it's a start... You may want to look more into sleep yoga. It is a direct method to recognize and connect with the clear light. The clear light is the key to all bardo practices which is fundamentally related to the rainbow body.

Bindi thank you for starting this discussion. Tibetan Ice Thank you very much for all of your research and shared experience knowledge and the reference material. I have just completed reading the 9 pages comprising this discussion thus far and am very pleased and have gained an education into what it is I have been experiencing over the years. For example: Quoting Tibetan Ice When nirvikalpa samâdhi has been practiced daily for many, many years—according to the classical yoga teachings, for twelve years—and the golden body has been built, the kundalini force coils itself in the sahasrâra chakra of the yogî, at the top of the head. This is known as the manas chakra, located about where the hairline begins at the forehead. This chakra eventually becomes the mûlâdhâra chakra, or the memory-pattern chakra, of the golden body. The manas chakra is fully activated when the golden body is fully unfolded. This is known in Hindu and Egyptian mystic schools as the golden body of light, for it registers in the minds of those who look upon it, to their soul body, as a golden ball of light or a golden body. This is something I can speak to and verify as being truthful and correct until reading this I was not entirely certain what the golden body was all about, yes I knew this to be true but to read it so well explained is wonderful confirmation. I do enjoy understanding the mechanics. It occurs to me it would be kind to share this with others so when it happens they will know. As is part of my profile here on this site I do practice Kriya Yoga but not from just one lineage nor exclusively nor dogmatically as I do blend techniques from other traditions such as the Six Yogas of Naropa. Kundalini alone guides my sadhana. For example Navi Kriya is a very poor cousin when compared to Vase Breathing so it is substituted. Oh it also occurs to me that it would be good to share some mechanical aspects, So I will. A little background... I have been instructed in Kriya Yoga from the following lineages in person. Paramahansa Yogananda Paramahamsa Hariharananda Shibundu Lahiri Ashok Chatterjee of India not in person but confirmation that the practices are nearly identical to those of Shibendu which is not surprising since they both learned from Shibendu's Father the Grandson of Lahiri Mahasaya. Finally from the Pranabananda Lineage spending a great deal of personal time with Sri Rangin Mukherjee before and during the time of organizing and bringing him here to the United States with the help of a very good man I call friend. Each of the lineages had very good practices all were convinced without a doubt that their dogmatic sectarian view was the only correct one. Each Lineage is good and worthy of respect. In my life I have been very fortunate and have been taught to initiate and teach others, I have taught very few people and tend to shy away from the idea of initiating others. Initiation is only a temporary boost as others have already shared, I do not share the religious ideas of Initiation but do honor the letter of the law for the sake of being lawful and honoring those who have given so much to me. In this way I think initiation is important. I also accept that people can use a kick start but it is not necessary just helpful. Those I have taught received initiation from another yet did not fully comprehend and I was asked to help them, to teach them again and again until they comprehended each practice and this I have done with love and patience. Sometimes the best thing to do is to leave people alone to practice and figure things out even though you are concerned and want to ask, are you keeping up with your practices? But this does no good as they will feel put upon, so I have found it better to encourage free sharing and let them ask when they feel the need, then I give them all in my heart. Here are the Mechanics of my practice with some explanation of what comes from each one of them and why and the sequence below is very important. I do not practice Yoni Mudra any more as the practice has already served its purpose traditionally though it is to be done last and only at night and only once per 24 hours. It can be done at any time but night time is best for several reasons which do not mean anything until you do it at night and discover the injunction is correct. In short it just works much better. Talabya Kriya: This practice is done on purpose for two reasons and it is not to perform Kechari Mudra. The first reason is there is a calming effect on the mind that leads one to become introverted from the normal extroverted orientation to the outside world. The second reason is to prepare the body so it will not be harmed when one day the Kundalini rises and seeks avenue into the higher chakras the 6th seventh and above. There are accounts of people tongues ripping when Kundalini decides the tongue shall go up and into the skull behind the soft pallet, Yogananda's boyhood friend shares this story I believe it is in the book called Mejda If I recall correctly which was written by Yoganandas brother. When Kechari mudra does come by will of Kundalini everything changes. When it comes by will of Kundalini it is not mistakable during practices one keeps there tongue curled upwards touching the tip to the roof of the mouth or soft pallet or uvula if it will go there without strain. When Kundalini is moving in the spine the tongue will actively try to go up into the skull with out a voluntary effort to make it happen. As the years go by the tongue goes up rapidly during practice and it is very natural. The tongue forming this mudra is a shadow of the astral or energetic body completing a circuit to the higher chakras. To say making the tongue go into this position and the astral or energetic body will make the connection is faulty reasoning. Some cut their tongues to get them to go up and I suppose eventually by the movement of Kundalini eventually the energetic body will make that circuit and then a person could conceivably experience what comes naturally in it's own good time. The next practice is Bastrika 1 or 2 rounds of 100 repetitions followed by keeping the breath outside the body for as long as is comfortable followed by keeping the air inside the body for as long as is possible. This practice is priceless as it stills the mind in beautiful satisfaction this also feeds the body and calms the breathing apparatus The next Practice is called Maha Mudra and there are simple and more complex versions of it. Take your pick as long as the 3 basic locks are performed during the practice they are all equally good. Lock one the Anus, Lock two the Navel, lock three the throat. Without the locks it is just stretching and gives health benefits by keeping the viscera loose and the spine supple. This practice is the one that frees the Ida and Pingali knots as they interact with Sushumna, it is superior to the 9 blowings of the tibetan practice for equalizing the airs. You can practice without equalizing the airs but the practices are greatly diminished which is why this is done first. The next practice is Navi Kriya this practice is meant to gain the safest entry point into Sushumna via the navel chakra. It is a practice that does work but it is weak compared to Vase Breathing & Tummo. I substitute Navi Kriya with Tummo. The next practice is Kriya Pranayam of locating the chakras and tuning into them. This is done moving Kundalini using Mantra using breath and gazing into Kutastha to see each chakra but first you feel Kundalini move then arrive at the chakra then vibrate and revel in the bliss of that chakra all the while observing the glow but I confess the bliss tends to wipe out my senses as I become enraptured within each of these churches. This practice begins in the perineum as the starting point OM is reverberated in the coccyx region at the first chakra this continues up to Medulla then radiates upwards into Bindu and even Sahasrar and this becomes the new starting point on the travel down Om is placed in Medulla then all the way to Muladhar and radiates to Perinium as an out flow of radiation. This is done only once. The Perinium and Bindu do not receive the consideration of the chakras they are more like gathering point before the Kundalini moves forward to interact with the chakras. The next practice is Kriya Pranayam Proper where all of the 6 Chakras are visited on the way up with a single inhalation which is different that what was just described. All are visited during exhalation on the way down. All receive the Kiss of OM This is repeated many times. The bliss experienced and the Samadhi entered are greatly enhanced by first practicing Kriya Pranayam of locating the chakras and tuning into them. The purpose of this Kriya Pranayam is to scrape the sword to purify the path of Kundalini and release Karmic obstructions. So far the purposes line up as follows: Introvert the mind Prepare the body for Kundalini upward travels beyond the lower chakras. Feed the body and calm the breathing apparatus Separate Ida and Pingali from sticking to Sushumna Cultivate and purify with heat and enter Sushumna at the safest region of the navel chakra 4 finger widths below the navel. Traverse Sushumna and interact with the specific frequencies of each center worshiping at each church. Hah what a joke the bliss at each chakra is different and you are like a pleasure seeker enraptured in the greatest feelings imaginable that stall out your mind & emotions and leave you far far beyond where they can ever hope to follow beyond the shores of there existence. Cleansing the path of sushumna and the chakras So as can be seen we are starting from the point of lets say coming home from work after being out in the waking walking world what we do is ease into each layer going ever deeper into the core of our being but preparing the way first. Kundalini is very much in motion from the very start but the path becomes clearer and stronger as each layer is traversed via contrived practiced devised specifically for the stated purpose and Bliss if what gives the impetus to continue on and each contrived practice elevates the bliss to a higher greater fantastic feeling level of incredible ecstasy and deep satisfaction. After the preparatory work has been done and in my case Kechari usually forms during Maha Mudra or Vase Breathing the next motion once Kundalini has come to rest at BIndu during the last inhalation of Kriya Pranayam is to bring the Pineal gland and the pituitary into concert and that is done simply by focusing on the Fontenal and Divine Kundalini knows her circuit home and on the way does this connection for you. Once ones awareness is in the Sahasrar enjoying the bliss of this one inhales and sings / vibrates OM 6 times in the Sahasrar and on the exhalation does the same six times. The breaking of bliss of Kundalini comes in wave upon wave and Kechari which has been firmly in place continues to pump Kundalini up into the sahasrar the breath has already became stilled in Kuval Khumbaka many times during the earlier practices but here it stalls and halts is the most bliss stunend states of awareness on can imagine and for prolonged periods of time awareness becomes stilled. and the trick here is just to abide and not to attempt to control the process in any way just abide and in doing so a zero point of energy is encountered that is beyond imagination as it is every fresh and renewed from it's own stillness and as Jeff described in an earlier post it is just so. When one has experienced everything described and things settle down one continues the practice. The more this is done the more powerful the experience the more blissful and if you do not pierce the Sahasrar you will remain at these levels of awareness. Eventually you simply arrive and abide without modifications and stay like this for as long as you please and when you begin to come down bliss erupts and hold you aloft. If you pierce the Sahsrar you will see the Golden body. The final practice is something I was recently taught and was asked not to reveal for a couple of months so the request will be honored. When I see the Golden Body it is known for what it is in a way words will not convey, so I will share what is seen and the impressions my mind can convey. A Golden Male Body without hair, naked but with no obvious signs of sexual organs, the body is masculine and well formed with good muscle tone. The face is much like mine in my youth between my late twenties and mid thirties but a more idealized and perfect version than this body ever wore. This body sits in a cross legged fashion and it's volume is variable it can occupy the entirety of the bubble universe it inhabits or shrink to a size where entire solar systems can fit in the palm of it's hand, or even smaller. The emotional feelings that emanate from it are feelings of heart felt clear clean pure unalloyed joy and mirth which are conveyed in thought and feeling in a way that I know the joke is life and existence itself. The awareness is so refined and aware of the presence of my lower awareness and I know we are one as I am the dream of myself and this colossus is none other than myself and I am the dream of this great dreamer the play of his consciousness an imperfect fragment of the multidimensional totality of the whole. The Golden Body observed yet I get the feeling that there are those also like this one inhabiting there own bubble universe and these universes are like gestation bubbles and this one is still developing and I am a tool of his development as are these sharing. Furthermore this is not the end of the evolution in being even though it is far beyond human there is even further still to go. I discover the human body calling to me it needs something and I am made aware that I am not breathing at this moment there is some concern and I have a choice I know if I ignore it, it will die, but I really do not care, then I feel and obligation not to let it die as if it would be a great wrongness but still my choice, so I have to return and my vision of this universe my ability to be here know here feel hear recedes and I find myself becoming aware of a human body as I vibrate to its frequency sitting on my cushion in deep silence the awareness reintegrating into this body is not desired it is rough and crude by comparison and do not know if I need to exhale or inhale so I inhale a bit to discover I am very full of air and release it and my mind comes back from a very great distance but it has been changed it now has qualities of what has just happened brought back the atmosphere of that place. There is something I wish to point out before ending this sharing for now. It may be thought that Samadhi is the culmination at the very end of the list of practices. I guess this was true years ago. Now Samadhi is entered into during any of the practices and when it does I can feel it coming it took time to learn to just abide and let it go as it will then when returning continuing the practices. The practices I have shared are as Kundalini has guided they are not strictly traditional Kriya and they may not be appropriate for others to copy so I have left out allot of vital points of the practices on purpose. To learn these things I would advise making the effort to find a teacher and get the instruction on the basic Kriya practice. The basic Kriya Practice has everything anyone could want to get to the point of purification of the energetic body and gaining the ability to feel prana and Kundalini and guide them and then Kundalini will pretty much take over and teach and lead the practitioner to what they need to learn next. Kriya is good for people with a certain affinity for it, or for Tantra which has been so misunderstood and so much garbage written about it on certain websites by so called authorities that it does not even make sense. There is a time when one will feel as if they are mounted by a woman while in practices and when this happens you know the real tantra all other things like visualizing, actually physically performing this seating with a physical human woman, or energetically doing so with a willing partner are not the real thing. When I was a teenager I experienced exactly what Vivekananda did in his book there were some differences but the overall theme is exact. Still there is much, much more road ahead to travel. Again I am grateful for this conversation I never expected to find so much confirmation and explanation of the very things I have lived and it is comforting for the road ahead to know by the confirmation of others that they too have gone this route. Maybe what has been shared will do the same for others. I sure hope so.

Everyone has to learn, through learning one becomes free step by step. There is neither perfect freedom nor perfect bondage. Fear and cowardice leads you to the grave, and you don't exercise whatever small options you might have. Someone of limited possibilities is given limited opportunities; one must prove oneself. It is easier to imagine a world were plates of food are thrust before you to lap up at your leisure ... but who will be making your lunch for you ? All learning requires effort. All accomplishments require effort. One has to participate in the work, not the talk. Do What Thou Wilt means exercise whatever you can right now, and again and again. This leads to self-knowledge, self-power, self-freedom. You do not cower either from yourself or the world, but slowly grow. What is it that you wish to do ? Nor do you "try to help others", isn't it clear this is just an excuse for no-one to take any responsibility for yourself. Even birds and cows look after themselves and don't dream of other people doing it for them, how lazy and stupid people are. Crowley realised as if it isn't obvious that many people too easily hand over the keys to their soul as if they aren't interested ... so how can you save such people ? They don't wish to be saved. The only people worth anything are those who live by doing what they can right here right now and slowly exercise their will growing in power. This is rewarded at all levels, by your boss, by your self-knowledge and by existence. If you live like this you may one day have an excess that you can share, you can share what you have made. Others will have made nothing and done nothing, still imagining some grand organisation will do it and "free the world".

Clearly. All you are saying is that he who knows how to captain a ship should be the captain, he who knows how to swab the deck should swab the deck. If this is done then all will prevail. On some ships the rot has set in, and captain after captain slain, all talk like they are the captain yet none can or do swab the deck. What to do on such a ship ? After all the beer is drunk, after all the merrimaking and indulgences, and partying, you look out at the horizon and see it rising, you know everyone here will perish ... are you yet alive enough to care? The rest will not make it. This is a middle-world, a watershed and special rules are required here. Insincerity is everywhere it comes from delusion and illusion, it comes from boasting and laziness. If you wish to become strong ... how is that done? How is it done on a real ship that is Bristol fashioned? How does a real man grow himself? Then do that. And be sure that the partying will continue and that for most the watershed leads down. Crowley talks of those who have conquered by might or cunning, one must not be naive, and also one must be prepared to do what it takes, and not dream like the others. To climb a mountain is to work, and that work hones the man inside you. The drunk cannot be conquered, they can neither captain a ship or take a shit. They just waste time and are of a different design. Special rules are required in such a land; moving quickly, breathing deeply.

Bakuakid, Interesting question. You're really putting me to the task here... --and here's my answer: Both GM Doo Wai's internal systems under the White Tiger Kung-fu banner and Master Share K. Lew's Tan Tan Pai neigong system are both extremely powerful and COMPLETE internal schools and both provide profound anti-aging benefits and impart longevity. Longevity, however, is only a side effect. One can't really compare and rate the effects of GMDW's Qigong against SKL's qigong because the latter is a monastic tradition that started during the Tang Dynasty and with it goes the monastic lifestyle that changes everything if one were to adhere to it; while GMDW's arts were reportedly developed or distilled to their present form in the 1600's by Feng Tao Teh. the history of these Feng Tao Teh's internal arts before 1600 is unknown. Regarding longevity: in the early 1980's, Master Lew was receiving by letter nuanced modifications to one of the advanced TTP Yogas called the "9 Forms" from his teacher in southern China who was residing in a cave and was 128 years old. GMDW's father was not alive at the time for he had long passed of unnatural causes. So there is no way to say which system is more effective in terms of imparting longevity by seeing how long their source practitioners lived. Around 1984 there was an L.A.Times article about a Chinese farmer who was verified to be 140 years old and still leading an active life. There was a photo ofhim. the article said that he still had nice hair and had grown in his THIRD set of teeth. Chinese historians who questioned him said that they verified everything that he experienced as a young child in the 1850's. When asked what he attributed his longevity to, he said "being a vegetarian all his life, never touching a drop of alchohol all his life, and practicing Tai Chi and Qigong since the age of six." What type of Qigong, the article didn't say. So lifestyle plus Tai Chi/Qigong can make all the difference. My experience: both TTP and BFP systems are complete and powerful schools of Yoga* that can create the structural sensitivity and psychic power to experience and literally "see" all life as an energy process, and both systems when completed will empower the practitioner with at least three times the energy level that one is born with and carries into adult life--thus empowering both healing art and martial art to that much greater potency. They are completely different methods of alchemy--that is, formulas to coordinate the functions of eyes, mind, movement and breath to energize the body and mind and purify the spirit. The TTP system is highly structured to train and develop Taoist priests...who can perform spiritual operations as well as masterfully heal and fight with energy. (This is reflected in Tao Tan Pai's subtitle.) TTP is a highly refined system in that it has specific yogas to empower specific physiological functions. For example, one of the advanced TTP neigung exercises completely changes how one sees and hears. All Master Lew said at the time he taught it was, "this is good for your eyes." (LOL) GMDW's tradition develops the same capacity to perceive and deal with spiritual entities but using a totally different alchemic yoga. Its cultivation of mental and psychic powers is profound and of a very different "flavor" than the TTP method. On one occasion, GMDW had me and a fellow classmate, a good friend, practice the same meditation at the same time but 5 miles apart from each other. That night, we both had dreams, except the modality (format) of the dream was completely switched. I had my friend's style/format/type of dream which I had never before experienced in my life; he had my type/format of dream, which he had never experienced in his entire life. The content of each dream "belonged" to the other person, but each of us understood what the dream subject was and what it meant. Now that is what I call YOGA. UNION. GMDW told me throughout my training with him that "healing was the most important thing." While most of the students who gravitated towards him during his life were more--if not exclusively--interested in getting his incredibly potent martial arts,I found that by practicing the healing arts, my martial art got that much better. And I hope I live that much longer as a result! And with that. I will leave you to redouble your practice. Whatever system you have access to that is complete and authentic, I hope you just do it. Best, Terry Dunn P.S. *btw, I use the term "Yoga" in the greatest sense of the word, as used by W.Y.Evans-Wentz in his 1935 masterpiece tome, "Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines"--and DONT' mean the weak, tepid, downstream, over-commercialized Indian-yoga derivatives in America that is truly next to useless (in that it doesn't even bring any lasting relaxation to practitioners) and that continues to spread like a really bad fad throughout society. Indian yoga practice should return to its mode in the 1960's--an exclusive endeavor under real guru's and not under any tom, dick, or jane who practices for 18 months and decides to open a yoga studio.

There are several different types of sleep. Dreams occur during the REM stage, which is typically the last stage that we enter during sleep. In the REM stage the brain is active and the body is still resting. In stages prior to REM sleep, the the brain is at different levels of functionality, but is pretty much at a lot lower activity than in REM sleep. The body and the mind are resting, so you don't really dream in these stages. You need to get both kinds of sleep. Now, if you are doing dream work, you are really aiming to get that good quality REM sleep, as that is where a lot of stuff is happening. But if you are pushing it for a while, your body is going to need to get those other kinds of sleep, and eventually you will catch up and just go right to a deep sleep, no dreams. Also, as REM stage is the last stage you enter during sleep, the amount of time you spend sleeping is going to affect how many dreams you have/how clearly you remember them. Most people don't enter REM stage until about 3-4 hours after they start to sleep. And even then, not many people recall early REM stage dreams- your mind has just woken up, they are usually pretty fuzzy and not really coherent. Later REM stage dreams are easier to recall because your mind has been active for a while. So examine how much you push yourself to dream, examine how much sleep you have been getting recently, and any sleep patterns. Now in one of B.K. Frantzis' books he mentions that most of the time dreams represent stuff that creates blockages, or are otherwise things you need to let go of through the dissolving practice. What I take it to mean when I hear "high level masters don't dream" is that they have reached a point where they don't hold on to stuff that creates dreams, and their mind is still enough that it doesn't start generating things on its own. When their mind has rested and begins to wake, there is nothing to sort through, it has all been let go, so the master wakes, no need to dream. Needless to say, not a lot of people are at that point

The dream of life is its own meaning, no matter how meaningless things may at times seem to the dreamer. Nightmares become realities by ignorance or suppression of life's everpresent, yet seemingly meaningless, reflected expressions... to include the divine image of an imagined self.