Introduction

[WisteriaWinds]

It's been suggested I introduce myself, so here goes.

 

I had my first self-inquiry experience around age 8 when I found "myself" noticing my mind noticing itself. I realized that all reality is rooted in an indestructible awareness/experience and "I'm" just a body giving that experience a sense of self. From that point on I was driven to re-experience this state. From time to time I did.

 

I also discovered martial arts at age 10, which I practiced formally off and on over the years. That led me to meditation in high school. I started trying anapanasati but couldn't quite get it. Later I joined the Army and started turning every moment into anapanasati by making whatever I was doing my focal point. I got further with that than with anything to that point. One day, laying on my bed, my mind just...stopped. I could exist without thought, just resting in experience. It was also entirely reproducible at will. I felt my consciousness expand massively throughout time and space and eternity became This Moment.

 

When I got out of the Army I was drinking heavily because my disintegrated sense of self and my ability to flow with the present moment gave me a sense of invincibility. Arriving stateside an old friend introduced me to chi gung/nei gung taughg to him by a Chinese woman in Alaska named "Jer"(?). Combined with my ability to internally shut up and go into the present moment my energy grew rapidly. My dan tien became my anapanasati focal point and one day my dan tien began spilling over into my other bodily systems.

 

I ended up meeting Dr. Glenn Morris and Susan Carlson (recently passed on) and studied KAP 1&2. That "finalized" my Kundalini rising which had been awakened for years. Later I decided I didn't agree with the visualization aspects and the Secret Smile, but the program definitely delivered.

 

I've been looking at spirituality from a cross-cultural standpoint for some time now and see commonalities and things of value in many paths, especially the Judeo-Christian perspective which is often unnecessarily maligned by seekers. I also believe "enlightenment" is a process rather than an event.

 

So that's me.

[Marblehead]

Thanks for the very nice intro.  Yeah, the Army can easily lead one to drinking.  Luckily I avoided that.  (I did 20 years enlisted.)