Free flowing chi = enlightenment ?

[Lear]

Hi everyone, this is my first real topic so I hope you will be easy with me .

 

I am on a spiritual path and I've been working for a while on releasing blocks in my energy body with different techniques (meditation on dan tien, on the breath, zhan zhuan, etc.), and I'm very enjoying this since I'm getting more peaceful and happy as time goes by. Now my practice got to a point where I feel I'll be free of blocks (and for this I mean every meridian cleaned and flowing) within few weeks, probably. Now a question came to my mind: is someone completely without blocks enlightened? As to my understanding, one should be always peaceful and happy so it must be some kind of spiritual fulfillment, but I don't know if this can be called enlightenment, or maybe is just one form of lesser samadhi (which is good anyway). What do you think?

 

Peace

[gendao]

I am on a spiritual path and I've been working for a while on releasing blocks in my energy body with different techniques (meditation on dan tien, on the breath, zhan zhuan, etc.), and I'm very enjoying this since I'm getting more peaceful and happy as time goes by. Now my practice got to a point where I feel I'll be free of blocks (and for this I mean every meridian cleaned and flowing) within few weeks, probably. Now a question came to my mind: is someone completely without blocks enlightened? As to my understanding, one should be always peaceful and happy so it must be some kind of spiritual fulfillment, but I don't know if this can be called enlightenment, or maybe is just one form of lesser samadhi (which is good anyway). What do you think?

Opening your ren & du mai = opening your microcosmic orbit.

Opening your chong mai = kundalini awakening.

Opening all 20 meridians = opening your macrocosmic orbit.

 

These are all great steps toward better health & enlightenment, but opening your macrocosmic orbit =/= enlightenment in & of itself.

[Marblehead]

Hi Lear,

 

I'm not sure of what enlightenment is.

 

But I will suggest this: if you attain peace with your SELF, and have no inner conflicts (and destroy all blockages) you probably won't care whether you are enlightened or not.

 

Peace & Love!

[philbowser]

http://kundalini-support.com/bb/index.php?topic=29.0

 

Gopi Krishna and some schools of thought avow that spiritual life and therefore enlightenment is dependent entirely on the awakening of the kundalini. This cannot be the case because there are many traditions (Buddhists, Taoists, Sufis and Christians) and other Hindus whose members attained enlightenment without the arousing of the kundalini. The adept, Da Love-Ananda (Da Free John), put forward the same idea as the Vedantists and Mahayana Buddhists that authentic spirituality is the transcendence of the ego, the body-mind and all experiential states. Enlightenment means there is no separation from Transcendental Reality (The Absolute). He said:

 

You have been contracted upon yourself with emotional force, and no amount of thinking, considering, experiencing, desiring, exploiting, and manipulating yourself in the world can affect that contraction. No awakening of the kundalini touches it. It has nothing to do with the kundalini. You can have kundalini experiences until you are yawning with boredom, yet you will not have touched this emotional recoil at all.

 

Seeing that it is the ego that prevents enlightenment, spiritual practice consists of consistently going beyond the wall of the ego, and reaching out and embracing all life beyond fearlessly, with an open heart. In an unpublished talk dated July 8. 1978, Da Love-Ananda remarked:

 

The lust for the kundalini in the brain is exactly the same as the lust for the kundalini in the sex center. It is using that mechanism in a different direction. But neither direction is towards God…Attachment to the brain through inversion of attention in the kundalini, or the Life-current, is traditionally promoted as the way to God. This is an error that has crept into the spiritual traditions. The way to God is not via the kundalini. The awakening of the kundalini and becoming absorbed in the brain core is not God-realization. It has nothing to do with God-realization. It is simply a way of tuning into an extraordinary evolutionary mechanism. The way to God-realization is the one by which that mechanism is understood and transcended completely.

 

Da Love-Ananda has had many experiences of completely raising the kundalini himself. He advocates the ‘Way of the Heart’ as the means to enlightenment. It begins and continues as taking responsibility of one’s own emotions: one’s lovelessness, distrust, moods, sense of conflict and fear. One then has to transcend the negative and the positive emotions and all psychic and paranormal experiences. The fire is in the heart and not in the perineum or in the brain!

 

Even enlightened humans have to mind their manners and realize that the Atman is the wondrous phenomena they should promote, not their own temporary personalities. Ramana Maharshi had the right approach in this regard, and that is one reason he is still beloved by all. Ramana Maharshi promoted the Atman, the universal cosmic consciousness, but never his own mortal body and mind.

Edited April 13, 2010 by philbowser

[markern]

I can promise you that when those blocks are gone and you have enjoyed being unblocked for a while you will find more blocks. Then they will be removed and you will enjoy feeling unblocked at an even higher level. Then you will once again find new blocks. And so on and so on...You get more and more freely flowing energy. But the block tends to keep coming and keep coming.

[Birch]

Markern, that was extremely well said

 

OT IME (I'm having effects on a regular basis and it doesn't really matter anymore ) Kundalini practice puts the wind up me on an ongoing basis and I believe it depends what I do with that experience that matters. I think there might be a few things worth doing once I'm completely out of my own way. A nail to extract a nail?

[Lear]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

While I also think that kundalini into the brain is a must for full enlightenment, I wonder if by awakening the penetrating vessel (the spine), it will rise on its own or even for a complete open energy body it will need special practices to go up. Also it will be interesting to know if just the entering of chi into the central channel, free flowing, and not the kundalini, will give some kind of spiritual fullfilment. I would appreciate if anyone with experience in this regard can 'enlighten' me.

Anyway, this is only for curiosity, as for now I feel I don't really need kundalini and will be more than happy just without blocks, that to me will be enough for the interior peace and perfect health that I'm seeking.

You're probably right Marblehead!

 

As for the coming of blocks... on what it depends? Maybe the thoughts and negative beliefs one keeps having and storing into the mind that manifest themselves as blocks in the meridians? Anyway I think one eventually will get to a point when there is no other block, to be hollow like a hose... I've learned how to get there, and I'm enthusiastic for it!

 

Peace.

[Sunya]

There is much more to consciousness than what is perceived consciously as blockages, energy channels, and other phenomena.

 

"Maybe the thoughts and negative beliefs one keeps having and storing into the mind that manifest themselves as blocks in the meridians? "

 

Yes the mind is the root of all blockages but it runs deeper than what you are conscious of. You have years and years and years of shit to deal with. Might as well learn to meditate and cut to the source of these tensions if you really want quick results. Insight meditation coupled with Qi Gong is for the win.

[Birch]

I agree with this one too! It's all "gong" to me ;-)

[Marblehead]

There is much more to consciousness than what is perceived consciously as blockages, energy channels, and other phenomena.

 

"Maybe the thoughts and negative beliefs one keeps having and storing into the mind that manifest themselves as blocks in the meridians? "

 

Yes the mind is the root of all blockages but it runs deeper than what you are conscious of. You have years and years and years of shit to deal with.

 

Yea!!! I get to agree with Mikaelz again!

 

Good points Michael.

 

Peace & Love!

[Gerard]

As to my understanding, one should be always peaceful and happy so it must be some kind of spiritual fulfillment, but I don't know if this can be called enlightenment, or maybe is just one form of lesser samadhi (which is good anyway). What do you think?

 

Kind of but not quite right. Attaining enlightenment is a state as thin as flea's hair, it's just passes right before you and if you grasp it stays there with you, otherwise is forever gone until your next cycle.

 

 

I'm not sure of what enlightenment is.

 

+1

 

 

I firmly believe one's enlightenment is perceived by others not by oneself even though you may well have attained that state. Ramana Maharsi fulfilled this category; you can read more about him on this blog.

[goldisheavy]

Hi everyone, this is my first real topic so I hope you will be easy with me .

 

I am on a spiritual path and I've been working for a while on releasing blocks in my energy body with different techniques (meditation on dan tien, on the breath, zhan zhuan, etc.), and I'm very enjoying this since I'm getting more peaceful and happy as time goes by. Now my practice got to a point where I feel I'll be free of blocks (and for this I mean every meridian cleaned and flowing) within few weeks, probably. Now a question came to my mind: is someone completely without blocks enlightened? As to my understanding, one should be always peaceful and happy so it must be some kind of spiritual fulfillment, but I don't know if this can be called enlightenment, or maybe is just one form of lesser samadhi (which is good anyway). What do you think?

 

Peace

 

Enlightenment has nothing to do with chi. Nothing whatsoever.

 

It's like saying "Is the one whose muscles are big and powerful enlightened?" Or "The one with strong bones is enlightened?" And so on. All these are superficial qualities. If you're healthy or not, tall or short, strong or weak, with or without zits, plumber, stock broker, or a thief, is completely irrelevant when it comes to enlightenment.

 

Enlightenment is about wisdom. That's all. If your chi is smooth as silk but you're an idiot, you're not enlightened. To be enlightened you must be wise. To be wise, you cannot depend on any kind of rote exercise, like brushing your teeth every day, or like exercising 3 days a week, it might be relatively good for your person, but it doesn't make you wise.

[forestofclarity]

I disagree with GIH here. If you practice concentration, then it is clear that your chi calms down, your mind settles, and you are better able to see clearly what is happening. On the other hand, if your chi is agitated, it is hard to focus. If your mind is scattered and your thoughts are wandering, you won't see clearly. If you don't see clearly, then you won't realize the nature of things.

 

I don't think that working on your chi itself is sufficient, nor is concentration itself sufficient. But it certainly makes it easier.

[Birch]

GIH, do you consider, might it have something to do with "gong". I wasn't joking when I said "it's all gong to me."

 

When "you" get out of "your head" and into "your leg" (or wherever) what's going on? I may suggest a few things:

 

- you cease (albeit temporarily) your habitual thinking. So rather than playing "puppy sit" or just "watching the puppy", you take puppy for a walk.

 

- while you're off playing with puppy elsewhere, you can't also be engaged in habitual thinking. (Or maybe you can, but I'm not an expert or even very talented.) Anyway, upshot might be that you stop doing some things and engage in others.

 

Veering over:

 

- if the things you engage in through qi-gong are primarily feeling and awareness, hum, that seems kind of Vipassana-ish to me.

 

- if Vipassana is an asana, is it also a gong?

 

Just some ideas. They might not be very good.

[de_paradise]

Lear, if you havent read the book by Bodri and Nan, at meditationexpert.com, the book is called "How to....Spiritual Progress" Its worth the price. You will get weeks of reading pleaure, and then you can come back to your forum post and laugh at it.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Well, you'd be surprised how deep seated blocks can be. Blocks can also be tangled up with each other, so tackling one block will mess up another one, thereby drawing your attention away, only to have a third block start acting up.

 

Also, working on trying to get rid of blocks can actually work as a block as well.

 

It's quite a long and complicated process!

 

And after that, there's always the chance that new blocks reform. How many times have you told yourself, "I'm never going to do that again, I just get messed up every time I do it?" only for you to get back into it a week later? You learned the lesson, but there you are, back at the old bad habits.

 

Just stuff to think about.

[C T]

 

- if Vipassana is an asana, is it also a gong?

 

Just some ideas. They might not be very good.

Hey Kate! Nice thoughts... thank you for sharing.

 

Imo, every action where one is totally present is a 'gong', regardless if its simple or complex. If one can practice mindfulness with the small things, like, for example, trying to eat breakfast with total presence, or when walking, or drinking tea, then these daily actions can be considered wakeful glimpses into the absolute nature of how things are. It sounds easy, but even experienced meditators can lose themselves in these small things which can be effortlessly taken for granted. Cant remember the countless times i have sat thru a meal, or walked from one place to another, without being able to recall how fulfilling or refreshing the meal or the walk was, and there in lies my ignorance. When acknowledged, it always reminds me of being more present now...

 

Have a lovely, present day all..

[Aetherous]

It's quite a long and complicated process!

 

It is very complicated. Read this to get an idea. We always talk about having a lot of "qi", but things aren't so simple.