Spiritual Maturity

[RiverSnake]

-This post is an excerpt from Bruce Frantzis Relaxing into your Being Vol 1. Rarely will you find any esoteric literature that is so straight forward and well written. I highly recommend it.

 

 

The Way of Liu: Addiction to Psychic Power: The Traps

 

 

"In Taoist Meditation, the initial object is to develop as much energy as possible but not for the purpose of obtaining power. A desire for psychic (or paranormal) power is what in early stages of meditation usually traps individuals--they become energy junkies.

 

My teacher Liu put it very well. He said you would be better off with a vicious, self destructive heroin or opium habit because then you would only need the opium; as soon as one life is over, the drug addiction is finished. But if you get addicted to psychic energy, the desire for that energy will endure countless rebirths. Such addiction will not be something that you will be able to drop with the life that initiated the habit--it goes with you.

 

In Taoist practices, a tremendous amount of energy has to be developed inside the body in order for that energy to be converted to spirit. As your spirit fills it is important that you start to realize the facts about the directions life can take, because when your spirit increases, you naturally gain what is known in the west as "personal power".

 

Through Taoist meditation, you can gather tremendous power, which is often not obvious to others. If you stay focused in this power, then your spirit will never convert to emptiness. Being stuck on the power is considered "the big trap" As a matter of fact that "big trap" is to crave power. The character of the practitioner must be developed so he or she can willingly struggle with this problem and move beyond the trap.

 

Even upon reaching the advanced stage of eighty, many human beings still live out the neuroses of their childhood. They still relive things that occurred to them when they were children or young adults. They never go beyond the basic programmed conditioning wired inside them from youth.

 

During the first level of Taoist water method meditation, people spend a long time learning to become what Taoists call "mature human beings", meaning individuals who can assume responsibility for themselves, who do not avoid consequences by ascribing their own motivations to others. Possessing maturity is absolutely necessary before going further. If you lack maturity when you start moving into the world of spirit, you can become power mad and remain hooked on power. In order to become free, you must throw away whatever power and its benefits you have previously accumulated.

 

The ego of people who acquire psychic power before they mature enough to handle it often inflates beyond belief. An immature person who accumulates large amounts of spiritual energy and a youth who suddenly becomes a fabulously rich rock star can experience negative ego tendencies. Such people frequently abuse their good fortune because they do not know how to productively channel the newly acquired energy, be it spiritual power or money.

 

The rock star frivolously spends millions on drugs and childish whims, the spiritualist squanders psychic energy on simple-minded gratification or domination games. The youth could, but does not, invest the cash, the spiritualist could, but does not, heighten spiritual awareness to compassionately help fellow human beings. Both have the capacity to temporarily get what they want, without considering the effort that has brought them to this moment. They forget that they can fall just as far as they have risen.

 

Adults have to pay the price for their actions, whereas children are often forgiven on grounds of immaturity. In the spiritual world, if you obtain power before you have worked out the dark side of your immature ego, trouble can come your way. You may temporarily get away with all sorts of nonsense, as many gurus do, but when you fall, you become less than what you were before all your years of practice. Maybe you "repent" or "wise up" and practice again, until you reacquire your spiritual power and clarity. But if the deepest underlying roots of your spiritual immaturity are not dissolved and cleared, you can easily find yourself in a continuous spiritual cycle of boom and bust that can be avoided.

 

The guideline is this: Emotional maturity is the absolutely necessary foundation upon which spiritual power must be built."

 

http://www.amazon.com/Relaxing-into-Your-Being-Meditation/dp/1556434073/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1303825768&sr=8-3

Edited April 26, 2011 by Tao Apprentice

[orb]

That was surprisingly good.

[Soar]

He has a blog at www.taichimaster.com with lots of nice free articles to read.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Soar

[RiverSnake]

That was surprisingly good.

 

He has a blog at www.taichimaster.com with lots of nice free articles to read.

 

Thanks for the heads up, i'll check it out.

 

-Just realized i titled the post wrong, just changed it.

[starhawk]

 

 

 

Thanks for the heads up, i'll check it out.

 

-Just realized i titled the post wrong, just changed it.

 

Thanks for posting! This article corresponds to something I was wondering yesterday. Very Synchronous.

 

 

Yesterday I spent a great deal of time thinking about Mr Drew Hempel's O at a D. I also read that his Master thought he was confused. This article shows that even spiritual development can lead to vicious cycles. It almost sounds like O at a D is dual cultivation, but I can't agree with what I know so far. If real, it is certainly not meritorious in that the practitioner feeds on special energy... Perhaps O at a D is a dark side effect-- the alternative to further spiritual development.

 

I think that O at a D is a shade of the truth-- spontaneous love should not require external stimulus of any sort, even at quantum phenomenal action at a distance levels.

 

Does wrong practice eventually consume the practitioner? Yes, and according to this article, for many lifetimes.

 

CHEERS

[Otis]

Good warning!

 

IME, as I gradually awaken, I become more aware of my esoteric senses (siddhis). But these senses do not belong to me, because I am the ego, a separate and limited part of my brain. In order to allow these "powers" to mature and discover, then I can be at best, a gardener, who nourishes and fosters these senses. But I only scratch the surface with these senses, if I insist on being the boss of them. They are no less "me" than I am, so I have to give them the grace to own themselves.

 

In other words, the powers do not belong to me, but I can make friends with them, and enjoy their contributions, thereby.

[InfinityTruth]

Extremely good advice.

[doc benway]

I agree - that was a good book.

[RiverSnake]

Yep, I bump my own posts. Thought this was a good one.