hello, looking for insight on Taoist practices

[RamMan]

Hey guys I am a 23 year old athlete that recent suffered a near death experience after doing a wide arrangement of practices over almost a month.

 

not sure what in specific caused it but id like to get a better understanding of what happened to me.

 

I was doing the fallowing-

intermittent fasting 6 hr eating window-4 large meals

Positive thinking

Seamen retention along with daily cultivation using exercises found in a book by Montak Chia

6 days a week high intensity workouts

Meditation 5-20 hours weekly with focus on astral projection

lots of water

 

 

 

this landed me in the hospital after day 20...

 

 

[soaring crane]

Hello RamMan, and welcome to the forums!

 

Glad you found your way to us, I hope you get some answers!

 

Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started.

 

For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day.

 

Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you,

 

SC and the TTB team

[Brian]

Welcome to the forum.

 

In the hospital with/for what?

[RamMan]

I have no clue, my results came back clear. My symptoms were heavy hallucinations along with my environment moving with complete harmony.

[soaring crane]

I have no clue, my results came back clear. My symptoms were heavy hallucinations along with my environment moving with complete harmony.

 

what kind of hospital was this?

[RamMan]

Regular hospital, they checked my blood, did and mri, catscan and brainwave test. everything came back fine but i was seeing peoples faces wigging out and there eyes looking like lizards

[Aetherous]

intermittent fasting 6 hr eating window-4 large meals

 

Food gives us energy and life. Fasting can be beneficial for certain things, only some times. Stuffing your face during a small window isn't good for digestion, and also diminishes energy and life. It's healthy to eat a normal amount, until you just feel full, and then wait until you're hungry again before eating.

 

Positive thinking

 

Nothing at all wrong with that, unless you're repressing the negative thinking and feelings or being unrealistic. It's normal to feel and think negative things from time to time, and it's beneficial to think realistically.

 

Seamen retention along with daily cultivation using exercises found in a book by Montak Chia

 

Semen retention of any type can increase your inner fire...some would call this the concept of "yin fire"...basically your heart becomes overstimulated by desires that are unfulfilled and not allowed to be released. Semen retention of holding back or blocking off during orgasm brings especially bad results. Don't only listen to me, because I'm not a teacher, but a couple of keys to successful sublimation are: focus on practices that increase your feeling of love in the heart (such as metta practice), and don't cause desire to arise in the first place. Which is hard to do in modern society, because desire happens the instant we look at a woman or think about one.

 

I would skip the Mantak Chia material completely and browse this forum for a while to find something better.

 

6 days a week high intensity workouts

 

High intensity exercise strongly taxes the nervous system, and this is especially true when doing it multiple days in a row. Good exercise is always moderate.

 

Meditation 5-20 hours weekly with focus on astral projection

 

Trying to do astral projection can be disastrous for one's health. Especially if you have techniques that actually work, because you'll cause your spirit, which is supposed to work in harmony with your body, to be wanting to fly out of your body as if it's not a good vessel...this can cause ADHD like symptoms, even to the point of schizophrenia like symptoms. I personally experienced a strong form of this, and I couldn't even listen or hold a sensible conversation with someone at one point, because my spirit kept trying to fly out of my head. I could pick up like two words of what they said, and then my attention was just gone, and then I'd be back hearing another word or two, then gone. Total dysfunciton. This condition can also cause liver qi stagnation, kidney depletion, etc. On a more esoteric level, it's said that negative entities can take possession of your body if you're attempting to travel without a real teacher who can ensure the safety of your out of body experience. I'm not sure, but even the concept of "astral" travel is sketchy. Why would you want to travel in the astral realm, which has nothing to do with reality, and which is said to be below other more beneficial realms? You can't even do anything useful with that skill...if anyone can even do it for real, which I personally doubt.

 

5-20 hours of meditation in a week can be fine, depending on the type, but "astral travel" AKA screwing up your energy body is not fine.

 

lots of water

 

That's generally great, although if you drink too much at one time it can cause hyponatremia, especially when combined with fasting. Not saying that's why you started experiencing weird things.

 

The reason for that, I think, is many of these unhealthy practices combined their effects together, causing a nervous breakdown that interfered with your perception.

 

These are all my opinions, which may differ from what others here say, or what you want to hear...but you asked for insight.

[RamMan]

Thanks for the insight, You pretty much hit the nail on the head with my symptoms