Questions and Answers about Kundalini II

[Vajrahridaya]

This is definitely true, Quanzhen being a case in point. Since Taomeow practices Quanzhen alchemy, I was wondering why she emphasized the differences instead of the similarities, if she thinks such cross-pollination compromises the fundamental essence of Taoism, and if so why does she practice those methods! I've been wanting to ask her that for a long time now, actually.

 

There was a tradition of marital, healing, and meditative arts in China before Indian importation began. Ledgends say it came from the West, Kunlun mountains and all that. Makes you wonder about a Bon connection? But in so many ways the Chinese stuff is so very different than Indian and Tibetan stuff. Hmmmm...

 

I know why you say Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism have different goals and in one sense I agree, but in another sense I think that they are basically driving at the same thing: liberation, freedom. One tradition goes further than another, or in a slightly different direction because of different ideas about the precise nature of the goal. Even so, many of the ideas are the same. Wisdom is wisdom, you know?

 

Maybe that is the porridge that Taomeow warns against. But it is not only Westerners who feel that way.

 

No it is not only Westerners that feel this way. Many, many Indians do as well. It's part of the Hindu tradition in fact to think that all paths lead to the same end. I don't fully agree. But, I can't disagree with anything that you have just said. It's all spot on in my opinion.

[Vajrahridaya]

My opinion is that the safest way is to focus on wisdom rather than energy.

 

Ah... ok. Thanks for that clarity. I fully agree!

[Vajrahridaya]

The point I usually try to make is this. Whether one has a kundalini experience or even a non dual experience, it is still an experience. True believers have an incessant need to place experiences in hierarchical fashion. In general, this problem is created by the guru to attract students.

 

 

ralis

 

We are made of our experience and the quality of our interpretation of experience is also an experience. There is a hierarchy of experience. There is the experience of suffering and the experience of freedom from suffering. The whole point of the spiritual path is to experience freedom from psychological suffering even if we have to undergo hardship of physical pain, an enlightened being experiences this as bliss. That is much better and a higher experience in the ladder of hierarchy of experience than wallowing in suffering both psychologically and physically due to negative karmas. According to Buddhism, they are all inherently empty of any substance and arise dependently, so one can always change ones view of an experience while it's happening, thus changing the quality of the inner experience of an outer occurrence. Everything is malleable due to emptiness. But, this does not excuse the fact that even emptiness is an experience referencing the emptiness of experience.

 

There most definitely is a hierarchy of experiencing, and it's a very important one to recognize, without getting all caught up in the seeming dualism at the same time.

 

Also a true Guru does not wish to attract disciples. Some Gurus actually really test their disciples to even see if they are ready to receive what the Guru has to teach. Some Guru's only have two or three disciples and that's all that they will allow, and they live in a cave together and the Guru teaches them the secrets of life.

 

Don't mistake negative interpretation as rationality, as it is neither rational, nor wise.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

I thought I should point out that I am not trying to say "It's all the same". I was pointing out that I think all three ultimately spring from a the basic human mystical impulse, the desire to be free in a sense that goes far beyond the ordinary meaning of that word.

 

Of course, that isn't even saying much because a lot of whacked out stuff comes from that impulse. I was merely providing a foil to Taomeow's insistence that Indic vs. Chinese paths are completely and totally different.

 

Yes, this is definitely true for me, they are not totally different in my opinion.

 

Opening the chong mai is not kundalini awakening. You can open a channel in many ways, even the central channel. Chia and Winn send "the pearl" through it. A couple systems I've seen use special postures and mudras that bring energy in and cause it to flow along the desired path. And of course, there is always leading chi back and forth through the channel a great many times.

 

None of these awaken your original chi or kundalini.

 

That is a very interesting thought. I'm hmmmmning right now. Hmmmmmmmmm.

[Taomeow]

About Kate and Taomeow's exchange.

 

I wanted to mention that it is not the dissolving techniques that makes a path Water or Fire.

 

This is correct.

 

What makes a path Water or Fire is the Wuxing dynamics of these phases. To put it succinctly as Taiji Songs do, "water descends, fire ascends." To notice more, one needs to study the behavior of both phases and meditate, meditate, meditate on it to get it! It's not what you name them that matters... it's what they DO, consistently, in accordance with their nature, that matters.

 

What does Water naturally do?

 

It chooses the path of the least resistance, it flows down. It doesn't go up unless forced, unless pressured. Which is why water methods are, generally, safer: no pressure. Occasionally there's upward-mobile water methods used too, these are water's another incarnation: mist, steam, fog, clouds... subtle water. This is used in kunlun, e.g.. Water that goes up but not under pressure, rather under the spell of its own foggy, steamy, misty lightness, just the way it does so in nature. And soon as it hits a hard obstacle (the crown of the head, e.g. -- or even before that, a calcified, clogged pineal gland for that matter, which is what any energy flow will invariably encounter in a modern human, no way around it, we have been imprisoned in our own heads with assorted toxic, physical, emotional, energetic blocks since before birth), it stops. It doesn't "break through," doesn't break anything -- unless you install a pressure cooker in your head and force the steam -- but you need fire for this, right?.. But if you don't mix fire in, keep it cool, the action will be subtle dissolving even though it's not downward all the time... the important thing is, it is not upward all the time, it replicates the circulation of water that turns to mist to clouds to rain to water to mist to rain... ultimately always coming back down...

 

Downward-dynamics cultivation can be strong, fast and powerful -- no less so and on occasion more so than upward-fire cultivation, nothing beats a tsunami, a hurricane, a flood of water power! So it's not that water methods are for cowards. You want them full blast, they are available. All you have to do is open the gates real wide... and the deluge is upon thee. I went through a water method process that was absolutely violent... but only because I burned some gates with fire first, unbeknown to me. What a fire method before a water method is like I know first hand. You get boiling hot water... a deluge of that.

 

Frantzis says in one of his books that fire schools use dissolving, and many fire schools have the student develop the downward flow first for safety before bringing the energy up just like the water schools. The difference is that in a water school, you use awareness and dissolving progressively subtle aspects of your being until you get to pure consciousness, whereas in the fire schools, ramp up the energy and that takes deeper into your being. That is my present understanding, at least.

 

This sounds plausible. I'm not a big expert on systems that bring the energy up because I am opposed to the goal both on a personal level and on the level of what our civilization really needs, which direction for the energy to take. Our civilization has burned with Fire most of our planet's Wood and polluted most of our Water -- this translates into society's values, lifestyles, ideation, aspirations, ideals... Fire ideals, in any disguise -- electricity, combustible fuel, father in heaven, spirit in the sky, firearms, explosives, nuclear bombs, upward mobility, pyramid schemes, hierarchies, elevated beings, light beings and, yes, kundalini... wherever you turn, there's too much of that and not enough of Water ideals, lifestyles, values, processes...

 

Actually, in the video, Tao emphasizes that when kundalini is going up the central channel, you should be relaxing sinking all the chi in the rest of the body as a safety mechanism. And Frantzis' sinking, scanning, and dissolving techniques do just this. So I don't think it is quite fair to say that Kate using dissolving as silly as Taomeow suggested.

I didn't suggest that it was silly and most certainly didn't say it. What I did say was that kundalini and BK's dissolving are opposite processes. They are. If in the video (which I didn't see) they talk about "relaxing sinking all the chi in the rest of the body as a safety mechanism," fine, that's the technique they use, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with dissolving. Besides, words are words, experiences are experiences. You can't be relaxing in the middle of a fire burning out of control, I guarantee it. My own kundalini came complete with a fever of 108 and a heart rate of 140 -- I'd be curious to see someone relaxing that...

[ralis]

We are made of our experience and the quality of our interpretation of experience is also an experience. There is a hierarchy of experience. There is the experience of suffering and the experience of freedom from suffering. The whole point of the spiritual path is to experience freedom from psychological suffering even if we have to undergo hardship of physical pain, an enlightened being experiences this as bliss. That is much better and a higher experience in the ladder of hierarchy of experience than wallowing in suffering both psychologically and physically due to negative karmas. According to Buddhism, they are all inherently empty of any substance and arise dependently, so one can always change ones view of an experience while it's happening, thus changing the quality of the inner experience of an outer occurrence. Everything is malleable due to emptiness. But, this does not excuse the fact that even emptiness is an experience referencing the emptiness of experience.

 

There most definitely is a hierarchy of experiencing, and it's a very important one to recognize, without getting all caught up in the seeming dualism at the same time.

 

Also a true Guru does not wish to attract disciples. Some Gurus actually really test their disciples to even see if they are ready to receive what the Guru has to teach. Some Guru's only have two or three disciples and that's all that they will allow, and they live in a cave together and the Guru teaches them the secrets of life.

 

Don't mistake negative interpretation as rationality, as it is neither rational, nor wise.

 

 

Your arguments are based solely on emotion. Further, the concept of a hierarchy of experience is only your opinion and is not absolute truth. In spite of your vehement pleading in defense of Buddhism as completely understanding human experience and by extension, the intimate workings of the cosmos, your arguments are fallacious.

 

My interpretations are rational and not based on negativity as you suggest.

 

ralis

[Taomeow]

So for Taomeow and Eternal_Student, and anyone else who feels qualified to chime in:

 

Is kundalini used in the Taoist traditions? They had to know about it, and it doesn't makes sense that they wouldn't have used it somehow, but perhaps not in the same way as in Yoga.

 

In yoga they say the reversal of prana and apana (upward and downward flow) triggers the awakening of Kundalini (the primal energy latent in the human body). In Taoist alchemy they say the reversal of water and fire ignites the body's true chi (yang within yin).

 

This sounds pretty similar to me, but not having personal experience with either it's just speculation. What do you think? Is this analogy just coincidental?

In a three-dimensional world, there's an up, a down, and a sideways. So in all traditions you have something going up, something going down, plus a left hand path and a right hand path. End of spacial choices.

 

I don't know of any taoist systems that use kundalini -- doesn't mean they don't exist, but I'm not familiar with them. Indo-European traditions other than yoga do use it, including the most unexpected ones, e.g. the Rosicrucians. Not so unexpected though because ultimately they all share the same core ideology, and by the way our "modern science" is but an incarnation of same. Progress, nevermind at what and whose cost... take no prisoners, you're aiming for higher-bigger-better... you're ditching the mini van for a Lamborghini... you are turning into something super-human, eugenically superior... no looking back, higher and higher, climb that ladder, get to the top of that pyramid, shoot that rocket up, that missile, that obelisk, that phallic symbol of dominance... and of course from up there you look DOWN at whoever is at the bottom of the pyramid. You have no other way to look at them -- you are HIGH and they are LOW and the whole game is about getting up there, wherever it happens to be -- you want to be the CEO, whether in science, politics, religion, or your own body where the head is the part that matters and the whole upward deal is so top heavy it shows in POSTURES, for chrissake...

 

The whole enchilada seems very un-taoist. Evolution, progress, transcendence, etc. -- that's all Indo-European. Return, cycles, back to the source -- that's East Asian. Kundalini is about evolution of man -- pretty much like Also Sprach Zaratustra... taoism doesn't have any use for that. "The way of tao is motion and the pattern of this motion is return." If you don't return, if you "move on," you violate the pattern of tao's motion. Seems shocking to a member of a progress-oriented culture, but taoism shares the belief in original primordial perfection of the fully human human being with many shamanic cognitive paradigms and seeks to access that, not transcend it... or at least not to rush to transcend something never fully experienced.

 

I often think that the whole argument for evolution and progress arises from the empoverished sensory predicament of the modern civilized human. Human condition doesn't seem all that exciting to someone whose ordinary human senses are working at a fraction of a percent of their capacity, in a world supplying only the most meager stimuli. I still remember the brilliant, vibrant, visceral perfection of real things in a real world caressing the perceptions of a real child -- I was blessed to have known what it's like to be fully human -- I doubt anyone who had a glimpse of that will rush to evolve somewhere far, far away from THAT... they will, rather, long to return... as I do. As taoism does, generally speaking...

[Apech]

Just wanted to say - great thread! I want to comment but maybe later when I have more time. Please keep going if you have more to say (everyone).

[goldisheavy]

Yes, I admit ignorance and a cognitive obscuration, if that's the way you prefer to put it, of the method whereby you put the toothpaste back into the tube after you've squeezed it out.

 

Let's be serious for a second. I know the toothpaste example, but you can put the paste back into the tube. You can scoop it up and use a tightly fitting funnel-like attachment with a syringe on the other end to put it back into the tube. Think about this. The factory that makes toothpaste puts it in there somehow. I doubt they dip toothpaste into liquid plastic and then let it solidify around it. I think they actually squeeze the paste into an already-made tube at the factory.

 

A better example would be asking to unbreak a broken egg. This wouldn't be easy to do at all.

 

Maybe you could teach me someday? I am a student of Space-Time-Energy by methods of taoist arts, sciences and practices, but so far my taoist sources both live and written have been making it way complex... so if you have a simple handle on Time for starters, do share! 'cause saying "nothing is ultimately impossible" over an empty toothpaste tube doesn't fill it up, in my humble experience...

 

I can teach you the principle right now, but I am warning you. If you do what I am saying here, you'll be either dead or insane from our POV here, at least for a while.

 

Time is based on signs. Without signs of the time's passage there is no actual time in and of itself. Thus, to reverse time one has to alter the signs. Alteration is done with intent. One cannot produce an honest intent for something that one believes is impossible. Beliefs do not exist in isolation. Beliefs exist in networks of related and mutually supporting and reinforcing beliefs. In NLP, this concept is referred to as "belief ecology" if I remember correctly. All beliefs can be changed through repeated questioning and critical investigation. However, because beliefs exist in networks, questioning one belief often leads many adjacent beliefs to become endangered. This is a scary, scary process that can lead all the way to a complete identity collapse. Meaning a collapse of the world as you used to know it.

 

So unless you believe something is impossible, merely intending a thing makes that thing happen immediately. If you believe that a thing arises as a result of a process, you cannot honestly intend that thing directly. Instead you must intend to enact the process that you believe leads to the arising of the thing. Here it is important not to be kidding yourself about what you actually believe. Brutal and uncompromising self-honesty is required.

 

We all believe some things and pretending for 5 seconds we don't believe something like gravity is not going to enable flying. Some of our beliefs are so deeply engrained and are supported and surrounded by so many reinforcing beliefs in vast belief networks, that changing them all, if you set about doing it, will take many lifetimes and many life and death situations even (blood, sweat and tears, as they say).

 

This means that while ultimately everything is possible, not everything is possible to do in 1 hour or one lifetime. Beliefs have psychic inertia.

 

To really experience your latent omnipotence you have to utterly cease being a human, or even an identifiable sentient being. To revert from this condition, to become a limited human being again, you have to take up beliefs without question (the opposite process) and become more and more vested into those beliefs. It's possible to do this because just like when you are standing in one place, you have a sense of where else you could go, so it is just like when you believe a certain set of beliefs, you also have a sense of what else you could be believing. This sense doesn't go away even if you exercise omnipotence. It means even if you are at the pinnacle of wisdom, you will have a sense of how you could possibly be ignorant. This is because awareness never rids itself of all-potentiality. Every moment is pregnant with every possibility and even during enlightenment there is a latent possibility of ignorance. This is where I disagree with Buddha who painted the process of unbinding as irreversible.

 

Normally we want certain things from life. We enjoy the feelings of our bodies. We enjoy having friends. We enjoy knowing that when we open the door the same familiar street is there, waiting for us to step on it. We like these things. As long as we like them there will always be practical (meaning conveniently and without taking too much time) limits on what can be reversed.

 

However, don't ever confuse practical convenience with ultimate possibility. Everything is ultimately possible but there is no guarantee of convenience.

Edited September 12, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Vajrahridaya]

 

 

My interpretations are rational and not based on negativity as you suggest.

 

ralis

 

[ShaktiMama]

Besides, words are words, experiences are experiences. You can't be relaxing in the middle of a fire burning out of control, I guarantee it. My own kundalini came complete with a fever of 108 and a heart rate of 140 -- I'd be curious to see someone relaxing that...

 

Were you in the hospital? A fever of 108 means imminent brain damage and seizures. A heart rate of 140 is almost impossible to count except by electronic monitoring. It also means there isn't enough blood getting to the brain so perception and awareness are compromised which means confusion and disorientation are the result. Memory recall is impaired.

 

Both conditions are medical emergencies. It would be cruel and ignorant for someone to tell you to relax then so your parasympathetic nervous system could balance out the sympathetic nervous system when death is imminent. I would expect instead for you to be placed on a cooling blanket, be monitored in the intensive care unit, with cooled IV fluids and drugs flowing in both arms. I would expect a 3-5 day stay in the ICU while a workup to rule out causes and get to a working diagnosis.

 

Susan

former specialist in Critical Care Nursing

 

Just wanted to add. This is a typical scenario when someone is found with a 108 temperature.

Edited September 12, 2010 by ShaktiMama

[Apech]

I feel like I'm in an episode of ER!

[ralis]

Also, our goal is to be really grounded in the now, on Earth, right here!

 

 

You can't even keep your story straight. You criticize me for being earth bound and present. Your narrative needs major work!

 

 

ralis

[ralis]

Were you in the hospital? A fever of 108 means imminent brain damage and seizures. A heart rate of 140 is almost impossible to count except by electronic monitoring. It also means there isn't enough blood getting to the brain so perception and awareness are compromised which means confusion and disorientation are the result. Memory recall is impaired.

 

Both conditions are medical emergencies. It would be cruel and ignorant for someone to tell you to relax then so your parasympathetic nervous system could balance out the sympathetic nervous system when death is imminent. I would expect instead for you to be placed on a cooling blanket, be monitored in the intensive care unit, with cooled IV fluids and drugs flowing in both arms. I would expect a 3-5 day stay in the ICU while a workup to rule out causes and get to a working diagnosis.

 

Susan

former specialist in Critical Care Nursing

 

Just wanted to add. This is a typical scenario when someone is found with a 108 temperature.

 

When I was in the military, I was hospitalized with a fever of 104.5. The doctors were incompetent and prescribed no treatment. Within 24 hrs. after admittance, I started having problems with my vision. I knew that if I didn't take care of myself, no one would. I drank all the water I could keep down and 36 hrs. later my fever broke.

 

I knew what to do from having practiced yoga for 7 yrs. and having a mother who taught us how to treat our illness with natural methods.

 

The vision problems were the beginning of me becoming delirious. I can't imagine how much worse 108 would be.

[Vajrahridaya]

You can't even keep your story straight. You criticize me for being earth bound and present. Your narrative needs major work!

 

 

ralis

 

Your interpretation needs expanded context from within.

 

One is grounded but not bound, one sees right through as everything is revealed as transparent. I've said this many times. Rocking chair bandit. Those devoid of right brain capacity lack an open heart, are unaware of their emotions and lack imagination.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Apech]

We are made of our experience and the quality of our interpretation of experience is also an experience. There is a hierarchy of experience. There is the experience of suffering and the experience of freedom from suffering. The whole point of the spiritual path is to experience freedom from psychological suffering even if we have to undergo hardship of physical pain, an enlightened being experiences this as bliss. That is much better and a higher experience in the ladder of hierarchy of experience than wallowing in suffering both psychologically and physically due to negative karmas. According to Buddhism, they are all inherently empty of any substance and arise dependently, so one can always change ones view of an experience while it's happening, thus changing the quality of the inner experience of an outer occurrence. Everything is malleable due to emptiness. But, this does not excuse the fact that even emptiness is an experience referencing the emptiness of experience.

 

 

 

This I can't agree with. It might be a Buddhist view of what the spiritual path is about but it cannot be described as the 'whole point'. Freedom yes/or maybe but not freedom from suffering but freedom to be whatever you have the potential to be.

 

I like the contrast between Kundalini (et al) as evolutionary energy and Taomeow's returning.

 

Is the the spiritual path part of human evolution and what are we to make of the onward and upward view this gives aligned to the idea of 'progress'. I have read many writers who describe spirituality in these terms (as evolutionary) but even these also seem to refer to some kind of 'golden age' in the distant past which implies that once mankind knew its spiritual nature better than it does today.

 

I find Taomeow's view of returning very powerful but I wonder whether when we do return, maybe its not the same as when we never left home (if you see what I mean). Perhaps I am suggesting that the end or goal of both it actually the same after all i.e. when you evolve you actually do so by realizing your own nature and when you return you do so with enhanced wisdom from all that you have gone through in life.

 

The difference is not in the endgame but just in the experience of the path and that there are many paths because there are many types of people who need to hear the message expressed in different ways. (?)

[Vajrahridaya]

This I can't agree with. It might be a Buddhist view of what the spiritual path is about but it cannot be described as the 'whole point'. Freedom yes/or maybe but not freedom from suffering but freedom to be whatever you have the potential to be.

 

Yes, it is the Buddhist view. Liberation from psychological suffering is the goal of the spiritual path according to Buddhism. This has many side effects including the revelation of an individuals ultimate potential.

 

I like the contrast between Kundalini (et al) as evolutionary energy and Taomeow's returning.

 

Her ideas seem more like well formulated imagination than reality. There are plenty on the Buddhist and Hindu paths that experience a downward from up, more water like spiritual awakening as I did until I started messing with things outside of the prescribed path and it's medicine. Also, the Buddhist and Hindu view is indeed that one is merely returning to what one already is and that we have evolved out of this primordial truth. Though the view of both Hindu and Buddhist of what exactly is the truth is different, the idea that we are merely returning is prevalent in both.

 

I personally have a lot of fire in my system already, so my spirituality has been to focus more on water for cooling and calming purposes. My Rinpoche even suggested that I focus on the water element. My experience has been more of a top down progression, or returning.

 

Is the the spiritual path part of human evolution and what are we to make of the onward and upward view this gives aligned to the idea of 'progress'. I have read many writers who describe spirituality in these terms (as evolutionary) but even these also seem to refer to some kind of 'golden age' in the distant past which implies that once mankind knew its spiritual nature better than it does today.

 

Sure there are many references to this concerning a "satya yuga", the cycling of ages. There are references of this in Western mythology as well.

 

I find Taomeow's view of returning very powerful but I wonder whether when we do return, maybe its not the same as when we never left home (if you see what I mean). Perhaps I am suggesting that the end or goal of both it actually the same after all i.e. when you evolve you actually do so by realizing your own nature and when you return you do so with enhanced wisdom from all that you have gone through in life.

 

I agree.

The difference is not in the endgame but just in the experience of the path and that there are many paths because there are many types of people who need to hear the message expressed in different ways. (?)

 

I agree, from a certain perspective. The Buddha said there are 84,000 entrance points to liberation. I don't know if this is just a metaphor or some spiritual mathematical fact?

Edited September 12, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Apech]

Yes, it is the Buddhist view. Liberation from psychological suffering is the goal of the spiritual path.

 

I think this is uniquely Buddhist because of the lack of god, godhead, spiritual essence or substratum ... other paths have other views ... at this point you are expressly forbidden to mention dependent origination...

 

Her ideas seem more like well formulated imagination than reality. There are plenty on the Buddhist and Hindu paths that experience a downward from up, more water like spiritual awakening as I did until I started messing with things outside of the prescribed path and it's medicine. Also, the Buddhist and Hindu view is indeed that one is merely returning to what one already is and that we have evolved out of this primordial truth. Though the view of both Hindu and Buddhist of what exactly is the truth is different, the idea that we are merely returning is prevalent in both.

 

You may have to justify that opening statement ... I'm glad you said 'seem ... like' rather than 'are'. But I will let T speak for herself is she so chooses.

 

I personally have a lot of fire in my system already, so my spirituality has been to focus more on water for cooling and calming purposes. My Rinpoche even suggested that I focus on the water element. My experience has been more of a top down progression, or returning.

 

Yes, have you done this? I think maybe you could divide the human race into two groups top-downers and bottom-uppers. I am the later BUT I know that at key stages you have to change your approach (these are the difficult times) by the end I will have done the whole cycle.

 

 

I agree, from a certain perspective. The Buddha said there are 84,000 entrance points to liberation. I don't know if this is just a metaphor or some spiritual mathematical fact?

 

yes I thought of this when I was typing before .... like you I often wondered if this was a precise number or just one of those 'so many you can't count them' big numbers. Also that is within Buddhism itself. I think we are finding out that we can't take all systems and make a new agey mush ... or if we do we are left with nothing. In my view anyone who is doing any kind of genuinely motivated spiritual work is still better than 99.9% who don't, even if I don't like or get their approach. On the other hand even some of them a fairly odious

[Vajrahridaya]

... at this point you are expressly forbidden to mention dependent origination...

Mutually interweaving cooperative generation?

 

 

You may have to justify that opening statement ... I'm glad you said 'seem ... like' rather than 'are'. But I will let T speak for herself is she so chooses.

 

It's just that she takes certain symbols and her own experience, as well as the limits of her reading as a justification for her view. Which we all generally do. But, there are so many symbols within the Indian traditions like the shree yantra for example that integrates very well with the idea of utilizing the entire spectrum of human capacity in order to realize what all this cosmos "is" in a grounded sense. Also the ideas of transcendence are not really literal in the ultimate sense, as we are merely working to transcend limited views, not transcend what is right in front of us or in us, but see through it and understand completely the power behind seeing and being while on Earth for the benefit of all beings. Muktananda talks about people who have kundalini awakening from the top moving down. My Rinpoche awakens people to awareness first, then discusses energy. Anyway... there are many, many examples which subvert her view IMO.

 

Yes, have you done this? I think maybe you could divide the human race into two groups top-downers and bottom-uppers. I am the later BUT I know that at key stages you have to change your approach (these are the difficult times) by the end I will have done the whole cycle.

 

I haven't fully returned, no. I've had different experiences during Dzogchen practice depending I feel on what is needed.

 

 

yes I thought of this when I was typing before .... like you I often wondered if this was a precise number or just one of those 'so many you can't count them' big numbers. Also that is within Buddhism itself. I think we are finding out that we can't take all systems and make a new agey mush ... or if we do we are left with nothing. In my view anyone who is doing any kind of genuinely motivated spiritual work is still better than 99.9% who don't, even if I don't like or get their approach. On the other hand even some of them a fairly odious

 

Yes, like meditating in a grave yard.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Apech]

 

Yes, like meditating in a grave yard.

 

No I would like a graveyard ... the neighbors would be very quiet.

[Lucky7Strikes]

The tantric process is a complete let-go. When one does not intend to evolve, there is natural evolution which is not evolution, but a formless movement--there is form, but it is without boundary--actually, you can do nothing but evolve towards the center, or rather return, or more aptly, realize. When we see a mandala, the outermost edges show beings suffering and cycling through various forms, from birth, death. Gradually one begins to circle the mandala through strenuous effort towards the center in a spiral, until one is near the center. But the mandala had really been perfectly complete all along, and at the centerless center alighting all aspects of the mandala, there was no center but the circle, the periphery and the center form the mandala as one, so when the view is complete, instead of traveling from the periphery one is already at totality. When in the mind there is no division, no form, no this, no that, then the heart opens on its own accord and the breath resides in the belly, then the skin, then the formless and the universe, when the root is cut, no more effort is needed, ultimately you cannot enter the center without complete renunciation/complete acceptance. It's like you reach the gate to heaven that was in your backyard all along, the rest takes care of itself.

 

This is not mere ideology. I experience this day to day.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

 

This is not mere ideology. I experience this day to day.

 

Cool!

[Taomeow]

Were you in the hospital? A fever of 108 means imminent brain damage and seizures. A heart rate of 140 is almost impossible to count except by electronic monitoring. It also means there isn't enough blood getting to the brain so perception and awareness are compromised which means confusion and disorientation are the result. Memory recall is impaired.

 

Both conditions are medical emergencies. It would be cruel and ignorant for someone to tell you to relax then so your parasympathetic nervous system could balance out the sympathetic nervous system when death is imminent. I would expect instead for you to be placed on a cooling blanket, be monitored in the intensive care unit, with cooled IV fluids and drugs flowing in both arms. I would expect a 3-5 day stay in the ICU while a workup to rule out causes and get to a working diagnosis.

 

Susan

former specialist in Critical Care Nursing

 

Just wanted to add. This is a typical scenario when someone is found with a 108 temperature.

 

No, I wasn't in the hospital, I was in an unorthodox but fully professional and licensed setting, with my vitals monitored, and the whole process not unfamiliar to the people managing it, unlike it would be in the hospital where they'd be sure to kill me by doing all of the things you mention. The people who were handling it in my case call it something other than "kriyas" but they wouldn't have trouble telling the difference between that and a medical emergency. You mentioned "spiritual emergency" in your other post -- I've read both Grofs (husband and wife) on the subject and that's quite a bit closer though not quite there. Still, if you know what it is, you know how counterproductive an ICU can be under the circumstances. The belief that a "spiritual emergency" is distinct and different from a "somatic emergency" is erroneous. A medical intervention that would aim to damp down the latter with no clue as to the former would destroy both when it's this drastic. A process that integrates the two, on the other hand, reveals, among other things, how NOT separate they really are.

 

In my case, not only my temperature and heart rate were as stated, but my respiration rate was that of a distressed fetus in the womb (don't remember how much, it was almost 15 years ago... except the part I remember is, I was told that under "ordinary" circumstances an adult breathing at that rate would hyperventilate and faint within one to two minutes -- in my case it was going on for close to an hour with no signs of hyperventilation), my blood pressure was also in the stroke-out range (before and after it had always been, and currently is, a rock solid 110/70 -- like I said, I had kundalini awakening going on, not an illness.) This didn't happen once -- it was happening on a regular and frequent basis for two years, I learned to control the process eventually...

 

So... did you know that kundalini, not being exempt from the way of tao, is also something we return to, rediscover, revisit rather than first discover when/if we awaken it as adults? Do you know how a baby is born? of any mammalian species, not just a human baby? There's electrochemical impulses that start coming from the base of the spine up the spinal column toward the head. There, they trigger a cascade of hormonal events and the baby releases these hormones into the amniotic fluid, and that's how the mother's body gets the signal to start getting into labor. The baby is the party initiating it, and kundalini is the energy that becomes operational for the first time for the first transition between worlds (as it always does -- which is why it is pointless to awaken it if the transition between worlds is not timely). So, basically, what was happening to me physically, all the crazy vitals, and all the feelings I can't begin to describe that accompanied this, was consistent with what you would get if you measured same in a baby about to be born, in a sympathetic, distressed, drug-free, slightly premature birth, to a first-time mother who is not squatting, in a brightly lit room, with doctors and nurses yelling... in other words, an exact replica of my actual birth which boiled down to barely making it and fighting for my life with all I had and winning. That's what I was revisiting when my kundalini got woken up for the second time. (If someone says the word "imagination" at this point I will simply unsubscribe.)

 

OK... this is the tip of my kundalini story iceberg, I'm sure we could have a nice chat in person about all the rest of it if you were really interested, but writing it up now is totally untimely, so with apologies, I bail out of the rest.

 

Oh, by the way. You CAN close it once it's open. It's not impossible, just very, very difficult, and the know-how is nowhere near all over the place. If you ever feel you need it, look me up...

 

And finally, about that brain damage... I am of the opinion that all modern brains are pretty severely damaged, but clinically speaking, mine is in a good shape, knock on wood... MMPI et al show stellar normalcy, IQ is Mensa level (somewhat better than the requirements), and the only psychiatrist I know is a close friend of the family, no professional relationship. Hyperthermia with no illness, by the way, is nowhere near as destructive to the brain as medical and nursing schools teach their students. I have seen dozens of cancer patients get hyperthermia by way of treatment (a German method, not FDA-approved in this country but successfully used elsewhere)... and where I come from, the sauna is typically heated to... well, if I give you the Farenheits you won't believe me once again... but we baked apples on the upper shelf while baking ourselves on the lower one many times. Mythologies are funny... including modern medical ones.

[Vajrahridaya]

(If someone says the word "imagination" at this point I will simply unsubscribe.)

 

Not that your experience was imagination. I have no doubt that this happened to you. As I've had similar experiences, but coupled with bliss when under the umbrella of my lineage, and then again coupled with extreme pain and visitations of tooooo much information override while not under my lineage guidance. What I was meaning is that your take on Indian paths is an image projected based upon your criteria for information largely within the scope of the limits or expanse of your experience originating your interpretation of symbols and history. Which is fine... but, not the whole truth in my own experience, interpretation and memory of history.

 

I'm saying that there is a wider scope to view all this from which subverts your current standard of interpretation, or rather could expand upon it.

 

That is all.

 

Buddhism for instance is NOT a top down, or bottom up path like most of Hinduism is with a primal source of all that we cycle from and back to in a high to low back to high sense. It's actually a sideways path due to D.O. and E without a primal origin, beginningless and endless on all levels simultaneously. There is nothing to transcend or merge with ultimately speaking. This is an entirely different revelation from the Vedic stuff and not a fire based path.. It is actually more water, especially recognized in it's more esoteric revelations of Vajrayana. Which is why Vajrayana doesn't have so many of these recorded "Kundalini Psychosis Syndroms" which happen so much in the fire based paths. It is also more all pervasive space oriented encompassing a balancing of all the elements for the sake of benefiting all in every moment, at least as an ideal and realized in all Buddhas. Of course this utilization of spacious wisdom is for all elements manifesting uniquely for all diverse types of beings and thus can pop into any -ism if the individual is so ready.

 

The first thing my Rinpoche taught me when I talked to him one on one was how to purify my water element.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[三江源]

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Edited April 27, 2015 by 三江源