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Hey all! I have been lurking in the forums for some time now, ever since I first discovered the concept of qi in a real, undeniable way. In short, my journey began when I tried acupuncture to treat chronic pain, was reinforced when I began practicing qi gong daily, and then reached a fever pitch when I heard firsthand accounts of qi healing from my acupuncturist (waving a hand over a pressure point, essentially). Now I'm watching videos purporting to display qi's martial applications. At this point I'm inclined to believe it all may be possible - seeing auras, reading minds, telekinesis, who knows? However, I do find it hard to believe that ONLY the Chinese discovered this phenomenon. Could other practices around the world, religious and otherwise, have used qi in other contexts? For example, the saints of Catholicism all had some sort of miraculous power, accounts of Native American shamans commonly report visions of the future, Indian Brahmins or incarnations' are said to have possession of magical astras, etc. Obviously a lot of this has been embellished and a fair bit surely is bullshit, but I suspect there is a kernel of truth to it all, and that kernel is probably called qi. Or something. Has anyone else had this thought and looked into it further?

Who else is just tired of the nonsense of the world? By non-sense, I mean the non sensical system that we are slaves to that feeds off of us... the entire global financial system. I'd like to find a way to live outside of it, maybe plant a seed to change it someday. Could it be possible if some of us started to exclusively live off the land? " When the tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is morality. When morality is lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos."

I believe this illustrates well the nuanced meaning behind a statement like, "the world is unreal." This leaves too much room for assumptions, the limitations of language strike again. A more accurate one-line expression would be something like... "The world's appearance has no reality unto itself apart from whom it appears to."

Perennial Philosophy/Perennial Technique: Spiritual Thesaurus (copied from a different thread I started, as it seemed worthy of it's own) My vocabulary of terms and practices is pretty much solely western or Indian/Sankrit/Yoga/Tantra, etc. Along those lines, does anyone know of any book, pdf or website (preferably an all in one source) that serves as a sort of spiritual thesaurus between the different traditions/geographical locations? Or a spreadsheet/chart? I believe/know there is a perennial philosophy (Truth is Truth, right?) and like to think that there's a perennial practice as well (hence the similarities between Self Inquiry/Philosophy systems [Jnana, Zen, Buddhism, Advaita, Gnosis, Sufism] and energy work systems [Yoga, Tantra, Neidan, Taoist, Tibetan, Christian Kabbalah, Kabbalah, Dhikr etc; humans are all built the same, right?]). If no such document exists then perhaps this would be an interesting project to take up on here/and through other forums. Part of me that likes to think of universal theory/practice is a bit apprehensive about starting on a new route and coming across potential clashes/dissonances throughout traditions, but I guess this is just ego attachment/fear.