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In Hinduism, there are 4 goals of life (Purushartha): 1) Artha (material wealth and security), 2) Kama (pleasure and enjoyment of life), 3) Dharma (following duty and religion, right conduct), 4) Moksha (spiritual liberation and salvation). I've always mostly been interested in dharma and moksha, so my spiritual search in sufism, hinduism, buddhism, daoism etc, in the areas of qigong, meditation, rituals etc, have always been in these two areas. Lately I'm feeling quite contented with my spiritual life. This has brought me a curiousity about how these traditions can also be used for upgrading the artha and kama side of life. What are your experiences and greatest hits with using spiritual traditions for upgrading kama and artha? Personally these are some of the things I've tried, which I felt worked: Kama: 1) Dan Rose "Sex God Method" or the "DEVI method" - this book blew my mind, upset me, broke my innocent view of women and sex, yet changed my sex life forever (for the better). 2) Daoist Sexual Qigong (a combination of postures, massage, breathholding and meditation, including genital weight lifting and swinging weights). 3) Daoist Lovemaking (using all of your body along with the art of feeling, knowledge of meridians and qi, as well as stages of arousal and different types of orgasms, to upgrade your lovemaking experience). Artha: 1) I've done a 41 day sufi ritual consisting of daily tasbih (reciting names of God) as well as salawaat (prayers for the prophet). On the 39th day, I got a call out of nowhere, inviting me to a one month job, which gave me 5 months of salary. At that point, I had been un-employed for 1.5 years, my savings were nearing 0, that's why I got so desperate that I decided to try a money ritual. 2) For several years, at every full moon I've done a money mantra from Vethathiri Maharishi. It was given to him by a yogi in astral form, when he had lost his business and had suddenly become very poor. He was great in meditation and spirituality, and had used his business to serve his community. They survived of his wife selling food she made in the streets. After he started this mantra, they built up the "World Community Service Center" and he became a famous Guru, respected by scientists, researchers, poets, celebrities and politicians. He's even on stamps, and his programs are in schools and universities. For me personally, I feel an energy building in my system when I do the mantra. I can't say for sure which results it has given me, but I do feel energy from it. 3) When I did a 41 Ganapati Tarpana (water ritual to the hindu elephant God), on the 39th day, I was called by my aunt, asking if I could tutor her girl friend's daughter in French. It was a few hundred bucks, very easy, 5-6 weeks in a row. On the 44th day of the ritual (I continued it for 3 more days), I got a call from the last place I worked, asking if I could come back for another 6 month project. 4) When I did 41 day Ganapati Yantra Puja, from the 38th day I started receiving inspiration on how to write a book and sell it using social media. Something I never thought of before! I'm still working on this project I can see that selling products online to the English speaking global market has unsurpassed potential for moneymaking, compared to simply working at a 9 to 5 job. Questions for you: What are your experiences and/or greatest hits with using spiritual traditions for upgrading kama and artha? God bless you!

Dear Dao Bums, I would like to ask about your experiences and/or opinions on this topic: "karma visible in our energy field". Let me share some of my stories: 1) Master Zhongxian Wu A fellow student of Master Wu shared something with me: when you visualise your liver as green, that day when you see your whole liver as completely green, that organ is fully healed. As long as there are spots of other colors or dark spots, there remain some potential problem in that organ. Similarly for heart and small intestine as red, lung and large intestine as white/grey/transparent, kidney and bladder as blue/black/purple, spleen stomach and pancreas as yellow, and liver and gallbladder as green. The black spots / spots of other colors are karmas (from ancestors, from yourself or from the universe) remaining in your body, potentially causing you to fall sick later. 2) Chunyi Lin As long as there is a channel that is not open, it means there is a wrong energy blocking it. 3) Danish Mystic Martinus Martinus states that all of our karmas are visible in our energy field or aura. So someone could be walking around with a car accident in the aura, and for the psychic this would be clearly visible. 4) Damo Mitchell In one of Damo Mitchells books (I think it's his big one "a comprehensive guide to daoist neigong"), he talks about supernatural powers. One of the powers is the ability to view the whole qi field around a person. This makes the practitioner capable of predicting a person's future, as it's all visible in the different layers of the energy field. 5) Native American in Peru A coworker of mine spent 1 year in South America in Peru, trying to learn Spanish. When she was visiting a mountain deep in a jungle, as she was descending, a native american approached her. He warned her, that he could see in her aura that some bads things were just about to happen to her, and that it would be quite difficult emotionally, but that after 1 year, things would improve. When she got back to her hotel, her boyfriend called her and broke up with her. The next day she got a call that one of her parents had fallen sick, and that an animal on her childhood farm she loved had died. Everything the man told her came true in the next year, and when she pulled through, suddenly everything improved drastically. 6) My own experience After having a very mentally disturbing nadi reading last week, I went to meditate. I am initiated into Sri Vidya, and sat down to say my daily mantras for each chakra (japa). As I was going through each chakra, I saw some different dark spots and shapes inside each chakra. I intuitively understood what they meant, and understood that it was karmas from past lifetimes. They could be exhausted by experiencing them, and some of them could also be resolved through the mantras and rituals of Sri Vidya. I was happy that there was only one chakra that had a lot of bad karma stored in it, the others were much easier to deal with. However, it's going to take 1-3 years of intense rituals and mantras to clean up the worst and most intense stuff. Conclusion In the end, karma is simply energy. We have sent out energy through our thoughts, words and deeds, and this energy is bound to return to us. However, we can to a certain extent mitigate these energies, by building up opposing energies of sufficient strength. One way to do this is through qigong (posture, breathing, mantra, mudra and visualisation). Another way is through action (being good, serving others, giving to charity, forgiving, helping others etc). It's also possible through deep meditation on each chakra coupled with introspection and improvement of character (as done in SKY). Sri Vidya also gives very simple yet powerful ways of building energy through mantras, mudras and rituals. Depending on how strong your negative karma is, you need to put more energy into trying to cancelling it out. But it all comes to down being able to somehow get access to see and understand what the karmas are before they actually hit you, so you have time to build up the energy to try to neutralize them. Of course, in the end, karma is simply an educational tool of God, so another way is to simply learn our lesson then the karmas get wiped clean (according to Danish Martinus). Question What are your viewpoints, experiences or stories about the idea that karma is tangibly present and visible in our energy fields? God bless you!

Dear Dao Bums, I would like to share some insights about different systems of healing and my own experiences using these. I will go over four systems of healing I've learnt and practiced: 1) Spring Forest Qigong (Chunyi Lin) 2) Talismanic healing (Zhongxian Wu) 3) Islamic healing / sufi healing, 4) "Energy and Chakra healing" (International Academy of Consciousness, IAC) 1) Spring Forest Qigong (Chunyi Lin) I really like the systematic, yet simple method of healing in Spring Forest Qigong. The system is something like this: 1) Preparation 1.1) Prepare the patient 1.2) Prepare yourself 1.3) Detect blockages 2) Healing 2.1) You strengthen the dan tien (open hand) 2.2) You open and circulate the small universe 2.3) You strengthen the dan tien 2.4) You open the blockages (using sword finger mudra) 2.5) You remove the excess/old energy (using an open hand) 2.6) You give healing energy to the places you've unblocked and removed old energy from (using your palm) 3) Closing 3.1) You strengthen the dan tien 3.2) You open and circulate the small universe 3.3) You strengthen the dan tien Mudras are used during the healing for different purposes. This is because mudras generate a certain energy field. This specific energy field is better for different things. Furthermore, you also empower or energize food and water for healing. This could be for yourself or for the patient. I've learnt just one talisman from Chunyi Lin. This talisman is drawn using a specific mudra. Again, it's because the talisman and mudra generate a certain energy. Lastly, Chunyi Lin is very big on massage, cupping and tapping. These are all physical techniques, everyone can use and understand them immediately. 2) Zhongxian Wu The healing I've learnt from Zhongxian Wu is very focused on using your body, breath and visualisation. This is done through posture, breath and visualisation. Posture is your own physical body, as well as the hand mudra you use. Breath is using specific breathing methods, especially mantras are the most important. Visualisation you use your mind to visualise the talismans which connect you to the qi field you need for your healing. The healing I've learnt from him so far is mostly focused on the specific place that's hurt. You use the talismans (one for each of the five elements) with their mantra and mudra to energize the 3 dan tien and/or the 5 organ systems, or the specific place on the body that's in need of healing. Furthermore you give mantras to the patients or exercises accompanied by mantras that they can use every day. Healing water is also used. 3) Islamic / sufi healing Each surah/verse of the Qu'ran has a specific energy. White, blue, black, yellow, golden, green etc. These different colors of energy are good for specific purposes. Some can remove black magic and evil spirits, make a protective circle around yourself and/or your family or your home. Some can energize objects. Some can make people respect you more. Some can give you more charisma, some can improve your aura etc. Some can heal physical diseases, some can help with psychological and emotional issues, and some can help improve relationships etc. You can heal the body, energy, mind or "life". Life understood as money, career, relationships, attract good luck, have more charisma etc. You usually have a system as you do the healing, e.g: 1) Salawaat (this is a way of connecting to either the Prophet Muhammad and/or Sufi Masters) 2) Qur'an (with the help of the prophet or saints you use the particular energy from the Qur'an you need) 3) Du'a (you use a prayer for the healing, or you make your personal prayer) 4) Salawaat (you close with salawaat again) You can then blow on the persons, blow on your hands and touch the persons, blow on water and make them drink it or sprinkle it around the house, energize objects, or blow on your finger and make a circle around yourself or your house. 4) IAC energy and chakra healing There are 3 fundamental energy techniques taught in the IAC, all with the goal of eventually allowing one to have an out of body experience. The techniques are: 1) Absorbing energy 2) Exteriorising energy 3) Circulating energy (called the VELO) For healing, you would firstly absorb a lot of good energy (e.g. from nature, trees, a river etc). Then you would exteriorize energy into the patient (usually using your hands). Geo-energy (from the ground, rocks and stones) they use for the root chakra. Water energy they use for the second chakra. Energy from plants and trees are good for relaxing the mind, as well as the heart chakra. Air energy and fire energy can also be used. The best self healing would be to head to a place that has the energy one needs (e.g. ocean, forest, river, mountains) and absorb as much energy as possible. Then you would VELO for a prolonged time, to circulate the energy as well as clear blockages. EDIT: I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with each system. 1) Chunyi Lin I strongly feel that a very particular qi comes to help when using SFQ to heal. It could be Chunyi Lin's qi, or a "commonly shared" spiritual container of healing energy shared by all SFQ practitioners. Especially I feel my middle dan tien extremely empowered when doing SFQ healing. I've also experienced a strong increase in my energetic perception when doing SFQ healing (especially during the healing). Lastly, the patients I've healed have felt heat, tingling, emotional release, insights about their problem and its cause and especially the taking out of the old/excess energy they feel very strongly. 2) Zhongxian Wu The talisman healing is very strong. I personally feel very, very powerful qi in my system when using the posture, mantra, mudra and talisman. When using it for healing, the patients have felt heat, tingling, electricity, insights about their problem, visions, vibrations and many other positive things. Something very interesting is the use of different healing tools. He is a strong advocate for having your own personal acupuncture needle you use for everything, own personal calligraphy brush, mirror, lamp/light, sword etc. The idea is that by using it everday both for your own cultivation and for healing, the objects themselves slowly get energized more and more. This makes them more powerful over time. Furthermore! You can also send energy using your feet instead of your hands. Feet are more powerful than hands, therefore their healing energy is stronger. 3) Islamic / sufi healing For some reason, I feel this healing is exceptionally strong when it comes to emotions and state of mind. When I've used it on myself or my house, or made others drink blessed water, I've noticed exceptional increase in joy, peace, hope for the future, calm trust in God's plan and the patient gets extremely enthusiastic and energetic. Furthermore, when doing a lot of salawaat, qur'an, du'a and salawaat, people become more friendly, respectful and attracted to you during your everyday life. For depression or other emotional states, this is the strongest I've seen. Especially salawaat. 4) IAC For me personally, going out into nature every single day for 15-60 minutes to absorb and VELO energies was extremely powerful. Once when I was starting to catch a cold, just after I had returned from a seminar (where I learnt the VELO), I did the VELO for 15 minutes straight. It cured my cold! For healing I've done it very little. However, what I experienced was that people could feel the energy going into their body. Furthermore, depending on whether it was geo-energy, phyto-energy or water energy, they could sense how the different energies were different. I.e. phyto-energy felt more peaceful and alive, geo-energy felt more solid, water energy felt more fluid. Conclusion I've seen all these kinds of healing work to a very large extent. However, I haven't experienced miracle-healings. By miracle healings, I mean like Jesus healed people, or some of the stories you hear from Chunyi Lin or Zhongxian Wu, about how people recovered from tumors, cancer etc. In my experience, it simply improves and energizes people, as well as accelerate their healing process. If someone would take 7 days to recover from a very bad flu, with healing it would take just 1-2 days instead. So, because of this, even though people feel energy etc. during the healing, they're not "blown away". Because they usually expect "Jesus-like-healing", with someone laying hands on them, and then everything is immediately healed in one go. However, they can usually tell that the healing has a positive effect and improves their energy. Commonalities All use the body, the breath (including mantras) as well as the mind (visualisation) to heal. Furthermore they use prayer and also healing water. Almost all use mantras and mudras. Even in islamic healing you make the prayers with your hand open (this is also a mudra). Warning What I've noticed in many of the healing workshops I've gone to is that healing is more trouble than healing. This is not to scare people, but simply to make people conscious of it. People simply send their own personal energy into each other, and thereby just mix energies. If the other person has great and pure energy, this is awesome. But mostly, people have their own issues,which also get transmitted with the healing. So, when people at a workshop simply mix their energies with each other, the result is not necessarily good. It's just a mess. Furthermore, with people putting 100% faith in the healer to miraculously cure their issues (which they themselves have caused with bad diet, lifestyle etc), they don't take responsibility for their own life. Therefore the issues (even if truly healed) will simply come back after a number of weeks, months or years (depending on the healing power they got). In my mind the best is always to educate people to take better care of themselves. Diet, lifestyle, good habits, daily qigong and meditation etc. Then, if they of their own free will continue these things, then healing becomes much more valuable. Because then it simply boosts and empowers these people in their own personal healing journey. But I'm still making up my mind about healing. For the past 3 years I've been very sceptical about it (like you can see above). However, recently I'm giving it a go again, to see how it goes. And with the patients being very happy with it, I'm rethinking my attitude. Is it good, is it bad, is it more trouble than healing, or is it to be viewed simply as a boost? I'm experimenting back and forth, and then based on my experiences and observations I'm changing my position Be blessed!

A Christian Daoist asks indulgence for intruding. I have been a follower of the Christ for over 40 years; I never realized how closely the TaoTeChing walks with my traditional beliefs. I must confess right from the start that the reason I have moved from an evangelical point of view to something more flexible. For that reason, I can't subscribe to the idea of Taoist "scripture". Since noone that I've read has been adamant enough to insist that Lao Tzu was under verbal plenary inspiration, I regard the TaoTeChing as a guide, rather than a series of commandments, no matter how subtle those commandments appear (e.g., stanza 27, my own personal favorite).

Can someone give me a breakdown of this mantra. It is From kashmir shiviasm. Om sauh paraayai namah. I know om is the sound of the expanding universe. Sauh is the trika. namah is adoration, recognition of oneness. I suppose my primary question is what does paraayai mean. Is anyone familiar with this mantra and its background. Thanks all.