SOT Posted March 5, 2010 I have been a rational atheist all my life up until recently. I grew up in Portugal under the Catholic church, whitch removed from me any spiritual inclination (know/remember the Inquisition?). Most of the spiritual people that came to my knowledge were either a fake or not spiritual whatsoever. I'm an engineer and followed Artificial Intelligence as a work area. Recently (couple of months) I was working on brain models and stumbled upon information about the brain from the inside. Great! First hand experience! Let's see what these Daoists are all about. That's when a spiral of doubt, uncertainty and values crisis came about. I cannot believe that the person which I "thought" was me is far from beeing "me". So I'm mainly here to know myself, whatever that means. And I really can use some help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SFJane Posted March 6, 2010 Welcome You have reached a place where the one major consensus is that there is more than one path to finding out those answers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sifusufi Posted March 6, 2010 Welcome! Thanks for the view. Learned more about world history from drumming than anything taught in school. Obrigado from Chicago Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
erdweir Posted March 6, 2010 (edited) I have been a rational atheist all my life up until recently. I grew up in Portugal under the Catholic church, whitch removed from me any spiritual inclination (know/remember the Inquisition?). Most of the spiritual people that came to my knowledge were either a fake or not spiritual whatsoever. I'm an engineer and followed Artificial Intelligence as a work area. Recently (couple of months) I was working on brain models and stumbled upon information about the brain from the inside. Great! First hand experience! Let's see what these Daoists are all about. That's when a spiral of doubt, uncertainty and values crisis came about. I cannot believe that the person which I "thought" was me is far from beeing "me". So I'm mainly here to know myself, whatever that means. And I really can use some help. sounds like you made a good choice. if you want some advice, i will tell you what i wished i knew when i started with taoist practices. I had all kinds of issues doing the meditations and exercises laid out in certain pop-taoist books. my opinion is that kind of thing is to be avoided. it's true that it got me started, but i dont recommend it to others 1: dont go to the local store and find an internal alchemy of dummies book and blow your head off with it. you can hurt yourself doing that. you have to lay a good foundation first, start out slow and easy. 2: do get whatever books you can find in from the taoist canon, and read them. read them more than once. you will find that there are different schools of taoism and buddhism or whatever. i suggest (in english) the translations of thomas cleary and eva wong. cleary's translations are more of the northern taoist school and ch'an buddhism, eva wong has more southern school texts. the northern school is more mind based, like orthodox buddhism. the southern school is more about body energetics and alchemy, like tantra. they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and are not mutually exclusive. 3: find a good teacher. quality of instruction is more important than what art they teach. go visit all the teachers in you area until you find one who knows what they are doing. in my experience, most teachers are full of it. you just have to trust your intuition. if somethings feels wrong, it probably is. you will know it when you find it if you know how to listen to yourself. 4: If you cant find a good teacher, and need to explore on your own, limit yourself to the mind practices and dont try to mess with your energy too much. mind training is allot less dangerous to do on your own. some qigong might be relatively safe, but taoist internal alchemy is serious shit and i have had some harrowing experiences tinkering with it. if you look at the pages on this site for a while, you will see people coming here with all kinds of chi gone wild crises. educate yourself before you jump in to the deep end of the pool. good luck, and welcome Edited March 6, 2010 by erdweir Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted March 6, 2010 Hi SOT, Welcome! May you enjoy your time here. I don't see a conflict in what you have said. I think you are simply experiencing an expansion. Peace & Love! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Apech Posted March 6, 2010 Hi SOT, Nice to see someone with connections with Portugal. Hope you enjoy Taobums, its a great place to discuss things and to get info on all Tao related topics. Cheers. A. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
trailmaker Posted March 7, 2010 Hi SOT, Nice to see someone with connections with Portugal. Hope you enjoy Taobums, its a great place to discuss things and to get info on all Tao related topics. Cheers. A. Hello SOT, welcome - do you have a Tai Chi teacher? Everyone needs a teacher sometime especially when beginning something. Ask a question around here; you'll find teachers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
