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@dawei As you suggested I moved the topic here

Hi everyone, this is my first post, I'm glad I found this forum. It seems to me there is some confusion around light body/rainbow body and mostly how to develop it. Anyone cares to say something/give some tips and mostly to suggest some real practice to do that? I've been into other traditions and had lots of benefits to say the least, but I've never been into Taoism until recently. It seems there is more than a way to achieve light body in this tradition. Apparently it all comes around building up the energy in the 3 dan tiens. However, as I said and as far as I know, there are different lineages, drama, politics, and the outcome is that it's not clear at all what are the most effective practices to walk the path towards light body. It also seems this is a good place where to ask, so here I am! Of course the best scenario would be to find a good teacher, but as you know it's not that easy and there is a lack of taoist teachers, at least in Europe. I believe we could help each other though! Thank you!

Over the years here at Daobums, I've interacted with a lot of people. All good people (even those who have argued with me most vehemently, and I with them). I've had what many would call an "awakening", but it is really a non-event really as there's no separate entity who wakes up. It is just a shift of perspective. This doesn't really make me a "special" individual, rather it makes it clear to me that I am nobody...nothing. The "I" that lived in the material world just dropped it's hold on my attention. And then I realized that I was never not that which supposedly was "realized" in this so-called "Waking up". It was an apparent waking up, like one wakes up from a dream into waking state. Similarly, we seemingly wake up from a waking state into an "awakened" state. But really, all these states are that "awakened" state, just as all the masters and texts state. It is just that the states of "dream and waking" lose their hold...suddenly things fall into "perspective" -- that all the things that we apparently experience are just happenings and have no hold on us, the root of our consciousness is free, empty (of objective nature), non-spatial and atemporal (i.e. space and time don't have any meaning for it). Call it "Atma jnana", Self-realization or realizing the Emptiness of the Self. There are many many insights that arise from this, for the mind-body complex to navigate the complex and suffering-ridden world. Wisdom (Jnana) that arises by just staying with the presence, that is the root of our consciousness. In the Advaita Vedanta tradition, we say that "the knowledge of the Self or Atma Jnana" and the realization of Oneness (Atman is Brahman or Brahma Jnana) are two distinct phases. There is the non-realization of emptiness of mind-body (staying in the ever-present now) and there is the expansion of the Self to everything-ness. We are taught that the "oneness" is a matter of grace, and eventually we get there, when the time is right. @Jeff and I started interacting a while back (a few years maybe) and our perspectives didn't match wrt. what the "end-game" is. I couldn't understand how what he terms "residing in non-local mind" and "expansion of mind beyond non-local" was any different from just the mind just seeing more objects. What I failed to understand that time is that the expansion that Jeff was referring to, is outside the domain of the local mind. Do I know that now? Yes. How do I know? By taking the plunge (sic. dive) and actually trusting the process and the individuals (all kind, loving and wonderful people). I will try to explain how the non-local mind expansion differs from the local-mind experience. The Local mind is very powerful. But it's primary function is to bind a series of stimuli from the sensory apparatus into a "story"...one that the individual seemingly experiences. The story is the story of our lives, that we are "born into" -- with a body, an ego, a sense of individuality and one that experiences pains and pleasures, emotions, thoughts, is inspired to create wonderful things, is driven to do things - good or bad. In a single word, "samsara". Towards this, I'm going to construct sentences that will imply some sort of "special" doing, but as I have explained before, it is not really "doing" in the sense that the local-mind/body is "doing" something. So, kindly bear with me as I elaborate... When we get to the root of consciousness (the ever-present Nowness aka pure Awareness), we realize that all the happenings of samsara (life as we normally refer to it) happens on its own. It has no bearing on any kind of "doing". Until we get to the root of consciousness, there is doing and there is causality (karma). But after, it is just happenings. Like a few here have expressed before, the old habits and patterns start to lose steam and eventually just stop. If you come from a Hindu (or Buddhist) background like myself, you might have encountered a colorful multi-verse that we pass off as mythology (Westerners seem to study this sort of thing with mild amusement in the form of Greek Mythology). In this mythology are references to gods (devas) and goddesses (devis) aka deities, their realms, different realms (lokas), different rules for different worlds, etc. Most of us modern people scoff at these as over-active imaginations of our relatively primitive superstititous ancestors. I am happy to inform you that, such an idea is abjectly untrue. These beings, realms indeed do exist, and there exist "higher" planes. These are accessible when consciousness expands beyond the "local mind" level. There are many things to learn from these planes and our work in these planes inform us in the local-mind state. It is not the emptiness of Self, but an expansion that starts to encompass many things, including things beyond this mundane samsaric existence of the local mind-body. This is the expansion of the mind from local-mind to Universal mind, to get to the "all is one" knowing. How do I know that these states are beyond the "local-mind"? It is because as the mind/consciousness expands, each of these "planes" are accessible simultaneously, while being rooted in the ever-present now. I will halt my post here. I welcome your thoughts and comments. P.S. -- I'm not the person Jeff was referring to in the post about levels of conscious mind residing BTW.