Relaxing Into or Working Towards...?

[Sloppy Zhang]

So one of the meditation/relaxation techniques I've been doing comes mostly from B.K. Frantzis, and in his water tradition methods there is a lot of emphasis on relaxing, delving deeper and deeper, and feeling more subtle energies along the way that are always there, it's just that most people don't realize it. Through this deep feeling you can find your way to a Universal Consciousness, which you are always attached to, but not always aware of that attachment. Zen Buddhism as well focuses I guess on emptiness, letting go, clearing out mental stuff.

 

Another system that I have been playing with in the past couple months is Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics. However, that system, in general, has this energy accumulation approach. You try to increase your vibration to get higher and higher until you can perceive higher levels of energy. Emptiness (as found in Zen), only seems to be useful up to the point that you can then concentrate intensely on one particular thing without other stuff cluttering your mind. Some comparison is drawn to some yoga traditions, raising kundalini and things like that, to unite with some sort of Universal Consciousness.

 

So it seems to me that both of them wind up going to the same place, but they have sort of different views on it. Not necessarily that one is a "downward flowing" practice and one is an "upward flowing" practice, but one has an emphasis on subtlety, relaxing, and feeling, and the other seems to be about gathering, and increasing energy.

 

What do you guys think about this? Is it really just two different ways of getting to the same thing? Or does each one find something different (a relaxed, flowing consciousness vs. a dense high vibrating one)?

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

My meditation is always focused on one condition, Clarity.. to 'still the mind' is to reveal Clarity.. with Clarity, the processes of the Cosmos (macro and micro) are clear, the rest is a matter of choosing wisely.. If energy needs raising, it will be clear.. the process of raising will be clear, too.. with Clarity, rituals are discarded..

 

Be well..

[C T]

Greetings..

 

My meditation is always focused on one condition, Clarity.. to 'still the mind' is to reveal Clarity.. with Clarity, the processes of the Cosmos (macro and micro) are clear, the rest is a matter of choosing wisely.. If energy needs raising, it will be clear.. the process of raising will be clear, too.. with Clarity, rituals are discarded..

 

Be well..

Helloooo Mr TzuJanLi,

 

Hope you are very well.

 

I can appreciate your views very much sir. Have read a number of your posts and found agreement and harmony much to the fore so i thought it is appropriate to write and acknowledge this.

 

Besides Marblehead, i think you are the second bum here that has actually moved me with your simplicity and wisdom... Kudos!

 

Regards,

 

CT

[TzuJanLi]

Helloooo Mr TzuJanLi,

 

Hope you are very well.

 

I can appreciate your views very much sir. Have read a number of your posts and found agreement and harmony much to the fore so i thought it is appropriate to write and acknowledge this.

 

Besides Marblehead, i think you are the second bum here that has actually moved me with your simplicity and wisdom... Kudos!

 

Regards,

 

CT

 

Greetings..

 

Many humble thanks.. i have found simplicity to be a very beneficial virtue.. as for wisdom, i cannot accept recognition, "i stand on the shoulders of giants"..

 

Be well..

[Inedible]

Enlightenment is not a place, a thing, an experience, or a state of consciousness. Anything you can look at or point to or touch is not enlightenment. It can only be described in negative terms, because any terms that could be applied are only part of the picture.

 

As for relaxing into and working towards, it is faster to alternate them than to use one approach exclusively. Your active work and your passive work deepen each other.

[C T]

Just a thought here - I am wondering if, instead of viewing it as working towards emancipation, how about switching perception and view it as working backwards... would this not in some way harmonize and unite the two views?

 

Be good!

[Sloppy Zhang]

Just a thought here - I am wondering if, instead of viewing it as working towards emancipation, how about switching perception and view it as working backwards... would this not in some way harmonize and unite the two views?

 

Be good!

 

What do you mean by working backwards?

[C T]

What do you mean by working backwards?

The way i see it, we all come from the One, and all spiritual/wisdom paths is a journey we undertake to return us to this One. Is this not some kind of *working backwards*?

[Sloppy Zhang]

The way i see it, we all come from the One, and all spiritual/wisdom paths is a journey we undertake to return us to this One. Is this not some kind of *working backwards*?

 

Yeah, it kind of is. But from what I see it, some methods delve deep inside for this connection, and some people build it up by accumulating energy and stuff. Are they really going to the same place, or are they cultivating different things?

 

Or maybe I'm just looking at it wrong

[Inedible]

Oneness and Cosmic Consciousness are nice, but I see them as separate from enlightenment. Just an opinion.

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

It seems that by 'naming it', we establish a separation where none actually exists.. the condition 'named' enlightenment, is perfectly natural.. and, actually doesn't exist.. but, it does make for lively interaction.. my most consistent understanding of enlightenment closely approximates Wu Wei..

 

Be well..

[Sloppy Zhang]

Oneness and Cosmic Consciousness are nice, but I see them as separate from enlightenment. Just an opinion.

 

Yeah, maybe "whatever the end goal you want it to be" should be what we should be talking about . Some people would say or think they are on in the same, others not so much.

 

The end result is nice, but we have talked about that to death in other threads, though still interesting, the method is what I'd like you guys' opinions on

[Inedible]

Working actively stirs things up and you get to them sooner. Working passively helps to release them, so you can move on to the next things. Alternating is good.

[C T]

Yeah, it kind of is. But from what I see it, some methods delve deep inside for this connection, and some people build it up by accumulating energy and stuff. Are they really going to the same place, or are they cultivating different things?

 

Or maybe I'm just looking at it wrong

Speaking for myself, i would say you are definitely not looking at this wrong.

 

Perhaps, viewing this relatively, there does appear to be 2 distinct preferences - some emphasize external cultivation, while others internal, and then there are a few who blend the two. I think cultivation is, like everything else, cyclical, and for the cultivator, it may manifest in phases in accordance with his/her wisdom experiences and age of course.

 

Naturally, on the absolute level, whether internal or external, the fruit is union with Nondescript (God/Tao/Brahman/The Divine/Mother Nature etc). Hence the allusion of *working backwards*.

 

The funny thing is, there is a belief that actually all *spiritual work* is a delusion, all striving is in vain and a waste of energy, because, with deep understanding and realization, at the end of the day, we will see how crazy we have been with all our frenzied activities, since from the word go, we have never ever been separated from that which we are seeking to return to! Isnt it ironical? hehehe

 

Have fun!

[goldisheavy]

Initiation into Hermetics is like a gym workout. If you do it, you'll get stronger, but you won't know why you're getting stronger. In other words, it lacks the wisdom component and just tells you all the hands-on exercises but not the why behind them.

 

Zen Buddhism is just standard Mahayana Buddhism, and as such, it has a wisdom component. This is what an understanding of the empty nature of phenomena is for. All phenomena are empty of inherent existence -- when you understand what this means and what it implies, you have at least some of the wisdom. One of the things this means is that once you understand emptiness your mind cannot be derailed by any phenomena. In other words, you will no longer be automatically buying into appearances as would be a normal thing to do without such contemplation and wisdom development. Normally when people see a car, they think, "it's a car" and that's it. This means their mind is running away with the appearances, taking them in only at their superficial value.

 

So when it comes to Initiation into Hermetics, I think it has a lot of useful exercises, but if you don't have a wisdom aspect to supplement it with, what might happen is you might become more delusional than the normal deluded state. Normal state of human beings is deluded because when they see appearances they only understand that "something is out there." For example, if the rain is falling on their head, they run for cover. They don't understand that rain is just (there is a disclaimer here tho) an appearance in the mind. They think it's actually, honest to God raining. So appearances tend to take on unwarranted actuality and the mind becomes unimaginative and rigid in dealing with such appearances (hence, no magic, for example).

 

So it's enough that we are deluded about day to day appearances. Now imagine you succeed with IIH and summon an entity. Without wisdom, you will think it's an actual honest to God entity there, and your immersion into the delusive quality of the dream will intensify, as you now have to contend with another added aspect in your dream as if it were real. So for example, this entity might not do what you want and might scare you. Without wisdom, you will definitely be scared, because you will think this entity has actuality behind it. Etc... and all hell might break loose from there on.

 

As for BK Frantzis, I can't comment as well as I can on the other two things, because I haven't read much of BK Frantzis. But from what you are describing here, it seems to have the same flaw as IIH -- namely it appears to lack the wisdom aspect. So what will happen is that at some point some amazing experience will develop and you will think "Aha, this is the actual Universal Consciousness". In some sense, this kind of delusion is not as bad as taking various additional entities for real, but in the long term, it's still as bad because the trap hasn't been disarmed. It's like living on a stick of dynamite. All is fine as long as the fuse doesn't go off.

 

Having wisdom is like having a mental immune system. It's a very good thing.

 

So all these methods, in my opinion, will produce amazing results. In a way, as far as getting results, I think IIH and BK Frantzis are actually better than Buddhism. Buddhism has over-emphasis on the wisdom, but not enough work to teach you how reclaim your status as a mage. But if one has to err though, I think it's better to err on the side of too much wisdom and not enough creativity. If you err on the side of too much creativity and not enough wisdom, that can be a lot worse (at least in the short to medium term).

 

As for the disclaimer above, saying "just an appearance" has a deceptive quality. In one sense it's true that all appearances are "just appearances" but on the other hand, this tends to allow people to underestimate the power behind some appearances. Some appearances have apparent inertia, and are not easy to change under certain conditions. So for example, if you are stuck in a fire, you can make it so that you don't burn and don't suffocate... and just because that ability is possible we can say "it's just an appearance." But because doing that is non-trivial under many conditions, we need to have a healthy doze of respect for appearances and not call them "just an appearance" without at least some caution. This respect for appearances should not translate into buying into those appearances though. So there is plenty of nuance here.

[C T]

Initiation into Hermetics is like a gym workout. If you do it, you'll get stronger, but you won't know why you're getting stronger. In other words, it lacks the wisdom component and just tells you all the hands-on exercises but not the why behind them.

 

Zen Buddhism is just standard Mahayana Buddhism, and as such, it has a wisdom component. This is what an understanding of the empty nature of phenomena is for. All phenomena are empty of inherent existence -- when you understand what this means and what it implies, you have at least some of the wisdom. One of the things this means is that once you understand emptiness your mind cannot be derailed by any phenomena. In other words, you will no longer be automatically buying into appearances as would be a normal thing to do without such contemplation and wisdom development. Normally when people see a car, they think, "it's a car" and that's it. This means their mind is running away with the appearances, taking them in only at their superficial value.

 

So when it comes to Initiation into Hermetics, I think it has a lot of useful exercises, but if you don't have a wisdom aspect to supplement it with, what might happen is you might become more delusional than the normal deluded state. Normal state of human beings is deluded because when they see appearances they only understand that "something is out there." For example, if the rain is falling on their head, they run for cover. They don't understand that rain is just (there is a disclaimer here tho) an appearance in the mind. They think it's actually, honest to God raining. So appearances tend to take on unwarranted actuality and the mind becomes unimaginative and rigid in dealing with such appearances (hence, no magic, for example).

 

So it's enough that we are deluded about day to day appearances. Now imagine you succeed with IIH and summon an entity. Without wisdom, you will think it's an actual honest to God entity there, and your immersion into the delusive quality of the dream will intensify, as you now have to contend with another added aspect in your dream as if it were real. So for example, this entity might not do what you want and might scare you. Without wisdom, you will definitely be scared, because you will think this entity has actuality behind it. Etc... and all hell might break loose from there on.

 

As for BK Frantzis, I can't comment as well as I can on the other two things, because I haven't read much of BK Frantzis. But from what you are describing here, it seems to have the same flaw as IIH -- namely it appears to lack the wisdom aspect. So what will happen is that at some point some amazing experience will develop and you will think "Aha, this is the actual Universal Consciousness". In some sense, this kind of delusion is not as bad as taking various additional entities for real, but in the long term, it's still as bad because the trap hasn't been disarmed. It's like living on a stick of dynamite. All is fine as long as the fuse doesn't go off.

 

Having wisdom is like having a mental immune system. It's a very good thing.

 

So all these methods, in my opinion, will produce amazing results. In a way, as far as getting results, I think IIH and BK Frantzis are actually better than Buddhism. Buddhism has over-emphasis on the wisdom, but not enough work to teach you how reclaim your status as a mage. But if one has to err though, I think it's better to err on the side of too much wisdom and not enough creativity. If you err on the side of too much creativity and not enough wisdom, that can be a lot worse (at least in the short to medium term).

 

As for the disclaimer above, saying "just an appearance" has a deceptive quality. In one sense it's true that all appearances are "just appearances" but on the other hand, this tends to allow people to underestimate the power behind some appearances. Some appearances have apparent inertia, and are not easy to change under certain conditions. So for example, if you are stuck in a fire, you can make it so that you don't burn and don't suffocate... and just because that ability is possible we can say "it's just an appearance." But because doing that is non-trivial under many conditions, we need to have a healthy doze of respect for appearances and not call them "just an appearance" without at least some caution. This respect for appearances should not translate into buying into those appearances though. So there is plenty of nuance here.

Excellent observation! Thank you for posting this!

[Sloppy Zhang]

Excellent observation! Thank you for posting this!

 

Yeah gold, that was awesome, thanks

[Spectrum]

Relax towards working into,

 

1. On the way up, align. work towards letting go, full potential to release

0. Release, trust alignment, let it all fall into place.

 

repeat

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

Sometimes.. it's just raining on your head... and, if you understand the actual processes, there is magnificent magic in that simple 'appearance'.. Rain is an energetic event in the physical experience, and there are many 'stories' we tell ourselves about it.. Fire is an energetic event in the physical experience, and there are many stories we tell ourselves about it.. fire and rain don't tell each other stories, i sense they are more attuned to Tao than us..

 

Be well..

[gendao]

One sounds like dissolving blocks - which will increase energy absorption.

The other absorbing more energy - which will clear out more blocks.

 

So, they seem to work in tandem and crossover with each other...