Anyone want to dicuss Taoist Yoga: Alchemy & Immortality?

[MatthewQi]

Hi,

 

Just wanted to see if anyone else started reading or was interested in discussing Taoist Yoga by Luk? (I don't mean as a replacement for the Wong book that the group has decided upon, I mean seperately)

 

I started reading it when it was mentioned as the book the group was going to read and was interested in discussing it with any alchemists that are interested.

 

I have read the preface, which in itself, is comprehensive enough on the practice to discuss in relation to ones own experiences. I see a lot of similarities in experience as well as the techniques used to what I learned.

 

Matt

[Oolong Rabbit]

Hi,

 

Just wanted to see if anyone else started reading or was interested in discussing Taoist Yoga by Luk? (I don't mean as a replacement for the Wong book that the group has decided upon, I mean seperately)

 

I started reading it when it was mentioned as the book the group was going to read and was interested in discussing it with any alchemists that are interested.

 

I have read the preface, which in itself, is comprehensive enough on the practice to discuss in relation to ones own experiences. I see a lot of similarities in experience as well as the techniques used to what I learned.

 

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

 

I started reading it again as well. I made it through the preface and realized why I didn't complete it last time. Some of the concepts are very deep, and very alien to me. That is part of the reason I was looking forward to it being the book club selection. Sort of an incentive to follow through with completing it. I still don't even quite get the gist of the light channel behind the eyes, but he describes an error moving energy up the spine and getting stuck in the head. I think this very issue happened to me last summer. I really believe that even if you don't understand the work completely, you can pull out a lot of little gems out here and there.

[MatthewQi]

Hi Matt,

 

I started reading it again as well. I made it through the preface and realized why I didn't complete it last time. Some of the concepts are very deep, and very alien to me. That is part of the reason I was looking forward to it being the book club selection. Sort of an incentive to follow through with completing it. I still don't even quite get the gist of the light channel behind the eyes, but he describes an error moving energy up the spine and getting stuck in the head. I think this very issue happened to me last summer. I really believe that even if you don't understand the work completely, you can pull out a lot of little gems out here and there.

 

O Rabbit,

 

Yea, that was interesting. I have seen 2 different channels to go through the head in my past. One is the around the top and another is not going through the crown at all but to the medula area through the crystal palace area to the 3rd eye and then down the front channel.

 

Yes, I agree with you that you can pick up gems even if you don't get it all, absolutely. I pretty much know from experience the same stuff presented but didn't use the same techniques with the breath. Did use the wheel of the law. I do yoga regularly now and see that the breath is definitely a wonderful technique and have tried the mo using the breath before as well as have revisited that after reading about it.

 

There are many other things that are involved / can be experienced in alchemy that can indicate "progress" and then there are those things that there are so incredible there is no question about anything anymore. I see a lot of things mentioned in the book but also to me it is incomplete and doesn't go to the next level that is not about doing but about surrendering as one finds their consciousness awakended to deeper levels of self.

 

Matt

[Mal]

[doc benway]

If I can make the time, I'll start reading it again and see if I have anything to offer. It'll be interesting to see how his descriptions compare to my practice.

[joeblast]

I'm a little ways into it, I'm down to participate.

[Buddy]

Matthew,

Take this as you will but maybe better safe than sorry. One of Bruce Frantzis' strongest caveats (I can't stress this enough) was don't go messing around with stuff in your brain unless you have a competent teacher. He said the damage you might do is catastrophic and irreversible.

[doc benway]

Matthew,

Take this as you will but maybe better safe than sorry. One of Bruce Frantzis' strongest caveats (I can't stress this enough) was don't go messing around with stuff in your brain unless you have a competent teacher. He said the damage you might do is catastrophic and irreversible.

I'd like to emphasize Buddy's warning - I would not practice this stuff without a credible teacher. I'm lucky to have found one and over the years of practice some pretty intense stuff has come up. Having someone I have confidence in to reassure me and give me guidance and support has been critical.

[SFJane]

Matthew,

Take this as you will but maybe better safe than sorry. One of Bruce Frantzis' strongest caveats (I can't stress this enough) was don't go messing around with stuff in your brain unless you have a competent teacher. He said the damage you might do is catastrophic and irreversible.

 

 

Been there done that. I did that stuff very seriously when I was 13. I gave myself a ten year case of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

 

Messing with your brain is no nonsense and will make effects. I broke all those rules before I knew they existed and I paid the price for it.

 

If you want to end up in psychiatric hospital in isolation on powerful anti psychotic medications, just start pumping energy into your third eye and configuring the energy gates in your brain.

 

I will say this. Kumar will not come out to your house and fix you if you screw up your brain with chi gung. It took me years to fix my brain on my own studying everything I could. What worked was dissolving for years.

 

I happen to know something about repairing meditation psychosis as a result of this.

Edited February 8, 2008 by SFJane

[Upfromtheashes]

Been there done that. I did that stuff very seriously when I was 13. I gave myself a ten year case of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

 

Messing with your brain is no nonsense and will make effects. I broke all those rules before I knew they existed and I paid the price for it.

 

If you want to end up in psychiatric hospital in isolation on powerful anti psychotic medications, just start pumping energy into your third eye and configuring the energy gates in your brain.

 

I will say this. Kumar will not come out to your house and fix you if you screw up your brain with chi gung. It took me years to fix my brain on my own studying everything I could. What worked was dissolving for years.

 

I happen to know something about repairing meditation psychosis as a result of this.

 

Hey Jane

Would you please elaborate on repairing meditation phsychosis

Thanks

Edited February 8, 2008 by Upfromtheashes

[SFJane]

Hey Jane

Would you please elaborate on repairing meditation phsychosis

Thanks

 

meditation psychosis symptoms and the symptoms of severe manic episodes, schizophrenia/schizo affect disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

 

A. A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least 1 week (or any duration if hospitalization is necessary)

 

B. During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have persisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:

 

1.

 

inflated self-esteem or grandiosity

2.

 

decreased need for sleep (e.g., feels rested after only 3 hours of sleep)

3.

 

more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking

4.

 

flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing

5.

 

distractibility (i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)

6.

 

increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexually) or psychomotor agitation

7.

 

excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., engaging in unrestrained buying spree, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)

 

C. The symptoms do not meet criteria for a Mixed Episode.

 

D. The mood disturbance is sufficiently severe to cause marked impairment in occupational functioning or in usual social activities or relationships with others, or to necessitate hospitalization to prevent harm to self or others, or there are psychotic features.

 

E. The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication, or other treatment) or a general medical condition (e.g., hyperthyroidism).

 

check out

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania

 

as well, perhaps more importantly

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis

 

between 13 and 15 years old I was taught and learned several supposed meditation techniques which were in fact techniques for developing psychic ability.

 

Most of them involved visualizing what amounted to stars (energy gates or mini chakras) in my brain between my eyes, my ears, my throat, my third eye, the back of my skull and the crown chakra. I then connected them by going deep into inner space and literally forging lines of light between my psychic chakras and the central channel.

 

This was my introduction to meditation and energy arts.

 

I poured my all into practicing it because this what I lived for, this is what I had always wanted.

 

Within days I began having lucid dreams both asleep and awake. Nearly every sensory psychic ability turned on simultaneously. The experience was very much like having a super nova quietly go off a million miles deep inside my mind. In the process a babble, a veritable cacophony of voices began to pour through my mind. All the voices were commingled and barely intelligible over a roaring sound, a great wind that circled my head like the clouds of jupiter or a hurricane.

 

The worst of it may have been the constant deja vu and derealizations.

 

first I became *manic*, then I became seriously psychotic, then I became suicidal and nearly died by my own hand several times.

 

I ended up being committed several times for being a danger to myself and others and for my *delusional states*

 

How do you think you would feel if a miniature tornado was racing around your head day and night?

 

My brain felt like fusion reactor stuck on maximum output.

 

I am not going to describe most of the psychic experiences except to say over the months many of you have talked about psychic stuff and it would be of the same ilk.

 

It was not as if I was starting this with no prior mental training. My mother and I use to sit with rosaries and do hours long prayer and devotionals. I use to pray on my own incessantly until I deconverted from that faith.

 

 

There were many attempts by others to bring me back to earth and to sanity and they all invariably failed.

 

I have been blessed and prayed over and had people lay hands on me and it failed.

 

Eight years of psychotherapy and 4 years in mental health institutions as a teenager to no avail.

 

The only thing that ever interfered with my telepathy was psychiatric medications. I was put on one of the most potent *antipsychotics to ever come out of a lab for half a year and it felt as though my mind was dying and it made me more suicidal.

 

I have tried crystal healing and various diets, chanting and music, light and color therapy. I tried reiki and flower essences. There was nothing that could slow down my racing thoughts and nothing that could turn off the noise in my head except combining drugs, alcohol, ativan, pain killers and liberal amounts of marijuana.

 

Without constant drug dependancy I would become explosive and intense within hours and become suicidally depressed shortly there after.

 

The whole affair nearly cost me my life several times.

 

What solved 99% of my mental problems was dissolving down for a bazillion hours and it took years.

 

It took over five years of dedicating my life to dissolving practices and clearing out energy blocks and restoring the natural flows of energy in my mind and body.

 

During that time I did what previously as a teen I could not do. I got the hell away from everyone. I spent long hours in total isolation and solitude until I found the inner and outer boundaries of what in Taoism/Tien tai is called the 8 bodies.

 

The physical proximity of other people's energy, emotions and minds has been overwhelming me for years.

 

When I literally got miles away from a single human being, my mind got quiet all by itself.

 

It was like being in heaven. To taste mental quietude for the first time in my life was better than any drug or sexual or culinary experience.

 

I kept at it because it was working. Gradually I found myself, energy body by energy body by finding where I began, and where I ended. It took a long time.

 

Eventually, close to my 26th birthday, after years of dedicated water method dissolving I found what I was looking for in the greatest meditation/ne gung/ occult experience in my entire life. Afterward I was never suicidal or psychotic again. My racing thoughts were gone. I won't go so far as to say I had The Great Stillness.

 

I can say, that I experienced a level of inner quietude and equilibrium that I had been denied all my life. With it all my fears went away and with it, the rest of my obsessions. I was absolutely and completely calm, relaxed and truly loved myself for the first time in my life.

 

From a psychiatry point of view, I used dissolving to beat schizophrenia and manic depression.

 

I was never plagued by derealizations, out of body experiences, delusional states, feelings of possession ever again. The voices in my head went away. The visions and chronic deja vu went away. The lights and noises in my head went away.

 

That is what I mean by using BKF's water method stuff to cure yourself of meditation psychosis

Edited February 8, 2008 by SFJane

[sheng zhen]

Thank you Jane. You are true inspiration

 

meditation psychosis symptoms and the symptoms of severe manic episodes, schizophrenia/schizo affect disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

 

A. A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least 1 week (or any duration if hospitalization is necessary)

 

B. During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have persisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:

 

1.

 

inflated self-esteem or grandiosity

2.

 

decreased need for sleep (e.g., feels rested after only 3 hours of sleep)

3.

 

more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking

4.

 

flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing

5.

 

distractibility (i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)

6.

 

increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexually) or psychomotor agitation

7.

 

excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., engaging in unrestrained buying spree, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)

 

C. The symptoms do not meet criteria for a Mixed Episode.

 

D. The mood disturbance is sufficiently severe to cause marked impairment in occupational functioning or in usual social activities or relationships with others, or to necessitate hospitalization to prevent harm to self or others, or there are psychotic features.

 

E. The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication, or other treatment) or a general medical condition (e.g., hyperthyroidism).

 

check out

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania

 

as well, perhaps more importantly

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis

 

between 13 and 15 years old I was taught and learned several supposed meditation techniques which were in fact techniques for developing psychic ability.

 

Most of them involved visualizing what amounted to stars (energy gates or mini chakras) in my brain between my eyes, my ears, my throat, my third eye, the back of my skull and the crown chakra. I then connected them by going deep into inner space and literally forging lines of light between my psychic chakras and the central channel.

 

This was my introduction to meditation and energy arts.

 

I poured my all into practicing it because this what I lived for, this is what I had always wanted.

 

Within days I began having lucid dreams both asleep and awake. Nearly every sensory psychic ability turned on simultaneously. The experience was very much like having a super nova quietly go off a million miles deep inside my mind. In the process a babble, a veritable cacophony of voices began to pour through my mind. All the voices were commingled and barely intelligible over a roaring sound, a great wind that circled my head like the clouds of jupiter or a hurricane.

 

The worst of it may have been the constant deja vu and derealizations.

 

first I became *manic*, then I became seriously psychotic, then I became suicidal and nearly died by my own hand several times.

 

I ended up being committed several times for being a danger to myself and others and for my *delusional states*

 

How do you think you would feel if a miniature tornado was racing around your head day and night?

 

My brain felt like fusion reactor stuck on maximum output.

 

I am not going to describe most of the psychic experiences except to say over the months many of you have talked about psychic stuff and it would be of the same ilk.

 

It was not as if I was starting this with no prior mental training. My mother and I use to sit with rosaries and do hours long prayer and devotionals. I use to pray on my own incessantly until I deconverted from that faith.

There were many attempts by others to bring me back to earth and to sanity and they all invariably failed.

 

I have been blessed and prayed over and had people lay hands on me and it failed.

 

Eight years of psychotherapy and 4 years in mental health institutions as a teenager to no avail.

 

The only thing that ever interfered with my telepathy was psychiatric medications. I was put on one of the most potent *antipsychotics to ever come out of a lab for half a year and it felt as though my mind was dying and it made me more suicidal.

 

I have tried crystal healing and various diets, chanting and music, light and color therapy. I tried reiki and flower essences. There was nothing that could slow down my racing thoughts and nothing that could turn off the noise in my heads except combining drugs, alcohol, ativan, pain killers and liberal amounts of marijuana.

 

Without constant drug dependancy I would become explosive and intense within hours and become suicidally depressed shortly there after.

 

The whole affair nearly cost me my life several times.

 

What solved 99% of my mental problems was dissolving down for a bazillion hours and it took years.

 

It took over five years of dedicating my life to dissolving practices and clearing out energy blocks and restoring the natural flows of energy in my mind and body.

 

During that time I did what previously as a teen I could not do. I got the hell away from everyone. I spent long hours in total isolation and solitude until I found the inner and outer boundaries of what in Taoism/Tien tai is called the 8 bodies.

 

The physical proximity of other people's energy, emotions and minds has been overwhelming me for years.

 

When I literally got miles away from a single human being, my mind got quiet all by itself.

 

It was like being in heaven. To taste mental quietude for the first time in my life was better than any drug or sexual or culinary experience.

 

I kept at it because it was working. Gradually I found myself, energy body by energy body by finding where I began, and where I ended. It took a long time.

 

Eventually, close to my 26th birthday, after years of dedicated water method dissolving I found what I was looking for in the greatest meditation/ne gung/ occult experience in my entire life. Afterward I was never suicidal or psychotic again. My racing thoughts were gone. I won't go so far as to say I had The Great Stillness.

 

I can say, that I experienced a level of inner quietude and equilibrium that I had been denied all my life. With it all my fears went away and with it, the rest of my obsessions. I was absolutely and completely calm, relaxed and truly loved myself for the first time in my life.

 

From a psychiatry point of view, I used dissolving to beat schizophrenia and manic depression.

 

I was never plagued by derealizations, out of body experiences, delusional states, feelings of possession. The voices in my head went away. The visions and chronic deja vu went away. The lights and noises in my head went away.

 

That is what I mean by using BKF's water method stuff to cure yourself of meditation psychosis

[SFJane]

Thank you Jane. You are true inspiration

 

 

You are very welcome

[freesun]

 

The physical proximity of other people's energy, emotions and minds has been overwhelming me for years.

 

 

That sounds quite familiar. Do you know what kind imbalance is the cause of that?

[SFJane]

That sounds quite familiar. Do you know what kind imbalance is the cause of that?

 

If you can call be being born that way an imbalance. The psychic sensitivity training increased my natural ability and made me too sensitive.

 

With dissolving you can dissipate those sensations to the point where it is integrated and natural and in control.

 

It may seem to be a vulnerability but in the end it is a strength.There is no more imbalance now. Everything is exactly as it should be.

[Taomeow]

Mal,

'twas a random quote from a random place, it's not THE what's wrong with the book, like I said in an early entry on the subject, there's hundreds of things that I see wrong with it on every page. It was just an example, not the first, not the worst, simply because I happened to flip the book to that page rather than some other page. Like I said, I wouldn't practice anything from this book under any circumstances.

 

What I like about BKF's approach (which I don't need to use myself because I've done what it does by two other methods before I ever heard of his existence) is that it is indeed a Water method, top-to-bottom directed, and indeed it is (to my knowledge) unique in this respect among practices that gained common circulation in the West, which are almost invariably upward-drawing Fire drills. From the point of view of several systems I've been exposed to, there's hardly anyone who can benefit from an upward-directed method today, because if you do succeed in busting all the defenses a lifetime of distorted, repressed, numbed out experiences has installed in you systemically so as to protect you from the onslaught of consciousness spelling out the truth, you will be flooded with all of it or much of it all at once, without the slightest chance of being equipped to make sense of it or process it in any way whatsoever. I submit the only people who escape cultivation psychosis using such methods are the ones who don't work hard enough on it. A friend of mine is a doctor at a psychiatric hospital who's been telling me meditation tales of dozens of her patients for years. They are all alike.

[Buddy]

"I submit the only people who escape cultivation psychosis using such methods are the ones who don't work hard enough on it. A friend of mine is a doctor at a psychiatric hospital who's been telling me meditation tales of dozens of her patients for years. They are all alike."

 

Pshaw. I submit that there are a multitude of people who do the so called (and I say so because there is no evidence that there is a separation of methods) fire methods that do quite well given the proper circumstances. This is what ashrams are for. There, you are under the constant supervision of a qualified teacher who can direct you to the right method.

Your doctor friend is a meditation expert or a symptom expert? Treat the symptom is a typical corruption of allopathic medicine. Just give them the drugs.

 

But it's easy behind the mask.

[MatthewQi]

Jane!!!

 

I didn't realize you were the person in the UTube video I saw a while back until I check out the link in your tag. Cool. You were talking about that amazing experience after meditating for a week. Same thing happened to me a few years ago. It IS totally amazing

 

Since that time I have met a lot of people who had that experience and it is now embedded so to say in them. Lots of amazing things, don't know where I would even start.

 

So glad you shared your story so others can be aware of the dangers of not following a comprehensive well tested system, and even then there are many risks and things that can go south real quick. You suffered a lot, so glad you are where you are now. Sometimes I think it is mostly ming (destiny). Your story reminded me of Gropi Krishna's, Eckart Tolle's, and even St. Francis's in many ways.

 

Adding to what you said, practising from a book, especially guessing at cryptic coded meanings is not a good idea. My perspective and enjoyment now is in discussing the alchemical process and different techniques used and the similarities / different techniques that are used. So many ways to the same place, some extremely difficult, and ultimately even after practicing a system or with a teacher, it is ones own path to be found by oneself.

 

Later,

 

Matt

[Taomeow]

"I submit the only people who escape cultivation psychosis using such methods are the ones who don't work hard enough on it. A friend of mine is a doctor at a psychiatric hospital who's been telling me meditation tales of dozens of her patients for years. They are all alike."

 

Pshaw. I submit that there are a multitude of people who do the so called (and I say so because there is no evidence that there is a separation of methods) fire methods that do quite well given the proper circumstances. This is what ashrams are for. There, you are under the constant supervision of a qualified teacher who can direct you to the right method.

Your doctor friend is a meditation expert or a symptom expert? Treat the symptom is a typical corruption of allopathic medicine. Just give them the drugs.

 

But it's easy behind the mask.

My friend is fairly clueless about meditation, the only side of it she's seen is the flip side -- which you may not have seen at ashrams. I didn't say every fire-drill meditator will go nuts. I said the ones who work on it hard enough. A week's ashram retreat once a year won't do it to them, and under a "real" teacher (but who provides the criteria?..) it's much safer (I suppose, or much more dangerous, depending on the teacher one runs into) --

 

among my friend's patients whose unraveling was triggered by spiritual practices (I don't believe it was "caused" by the practice, the practice is more of an enabler, the material to go off the rocker on is equally available to most modern people if you dig a tad deeper than the surface "normality") --

 

among her patients most were at it with zeal and occasionally fanaticism for some time, while others were just doing it with enough regularity for a long enough time. Typical example: 2 to 12 years of meditation that gives a spiritual "high" and a sense of well-being and profound insights and what have you; followed by that one "bad trip" -- a door opens, can't be closed, all manner of demons start slipping through, and there's no pushing them back. So then they bring to my friend's ward the outcome: e.g., a lovely woman who has cut herself in about three hundred places, deep, to "relieve the pressure of the void." Or a middle-aged family man who's been refusing to open his eyes -- ever again! -- for the past three months, on the basis of the "illusory nature" of whatever he might see if he removes the duck tape from his eyelids. So what d'you reckon she's supposed to do with the "symptom?" Ignore it? You'll be relieved to find out she does. The rest is beyond her power to change, she has a Medical Standard to adhere to which she didn't implement but which she must be slovenly to or lose her license. Anyway, this is beside the point.

 

Can you do me a favor? Try an entry without an ad hominem jab, just to see if you can? at all? Just curious if it is in your power... a simple test of your Xin Jin, the kind that allows people to issue forth benevolent communication with other people?..

[sheng zhen]

That sounds quite familiar. Do you know what kind imbalance is the cause of that?

You can be born with it as SFJane say, but it can also come from not closing down properly after meditation. If you leave yourself open on every level you will be affected on every level. And if your not fully aware on those levels, you will get a lot of subconscious noise and rambling. Ive had this problem for many years until I learned to close down properly. It does not mean shut myself out of the world, but just put on clothes to be comfortable in cold weather, if you see what I mean.

 

Some people believe that protection means to shut out all negativity, because they believe the negativity is outside of them. But it really means to make yourself strong enough to not loose your center in everyday life.

 

And it can come from openings in the aura caused by drug abuse, psychic abuse, childhood traumas, etc. Some people really have trouble with these openings, while others only have subtle problems. Ive only had subtle problems, but I understand it is possible to really get psychotic because of it.

[witch]

Oy. It all has to do with dopamine, at least this sort of thing. Meditation raises dopamine. Cutting raises dopamine. Street drugs raise dopamine. Of course the cat disease schizophrenia raises dopamine too, but just because a schizophrenic and a person with natural healthy levels of dopamine may share some similar traits, doesn't mean the latter is sick.

 

I've gotten a lot of criticism from people saying I am putting women at risk, because of course my diet raises dopamine, and people are worried about kundalini psychosis from it. I warned a little about that in my book. But I think if this rising awareness is tied to a similar rising sexual power, that the person will stay grounded. I think it all depends on how it rises.

[SFJane]

I wish it had all been just a dopamine issue. it would have made a lot of things so much easier.

 

as it turned out it was far more complex than that

 

what proper meditation does is build a circuit of stillness behind the left prefrontal cortex. this circuit is built in the area of the brain responsible for emotional and mental processing.

 

in the last ten years several studies using PET fMRI and other highly sophisticated imaging techniques on tibetan and buddhist monks revealed that that area of the brain is significantly lit up during meditation.

 

the same tests were done on western meditators using similar meditation techniques. the western practitioners had varying degrees of experience ranging from 9 months of practice to 20 years of practice

 

it was found that even the 9 month beginning meditators were activating the same area of the brain although no where near as strongly as those westerners and easterners with 5-10+ years of experience.

 

it was discovered that those that practiced the most had the largest circuit of meditation in their brains and they could access it faster and stay with it longer than those who had not practiced as much

 

this is exactly what I experienced in terms of the 5 + years spent meditating mostly by myself for prolonged periods of time.

 

the symptoms of depression and mania did not disappear suddenly. Even in the beginning there was not much change at all.

 

As time wore on the depression and mania eased off very slowly, very gradually. At some point they went away, then stayed away and never came back.

 

if you are into the chemical imbalance paradigm, then the extreme states coinciding with dramatically lowered seratonin (depression) and those extreme states coinciding with dramatically heightened seratonin (mania) gradually became balanced so the mood swings and energy states were no longer oscillating between two extremes (Bipolar) and instead became completely balanced.

 

there is also much to what sheng zhen was saying, I did not learn to ground energy or sink or drain. I basically turned on all my switches at maximum and kept them that connected full time to everything.

 

the layers of complexity were more involved that all that as well. I was born with several birth defects and I was born to a mother with manic depression as well. the first 9 months of my existence were spent inches away from the heart of a person that wanted to die. a person who chain smoked during her pregnancy with me, exposing my fetal body to waves of nicotine,depression, mania, irritability etc.

 

That all had to be dealt with when I took on the 8 bodies using dissolving methods. It was all there too inside of me way in there like the innermost rings of a tree.

 

suffice it to say that I had issues that affected 7 of the 8 bodies. Unraveling the entire matrix of interwoven problems was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.

 

Jane!!!

 

I didn't realize you were the person in the UTube video I saw a while back until I check out the link in your tag. Cool. You were talking about that amazing experience after meditating for a week. Same thing happened to me a few years ago. It IS totally amazing

 

Since that time I have met a lot of people who had that experience and it is now embedded so to say in them. Lots of amazing things, don't know where I would even start.

 

So glad you shared your story so others can be aware of the dangers of not following a comprehensive well tested system, and even then there are many risks and things that can go south real quick. You suffered a lot, so glad you are where you are now. Sometimes I think it is mostly ming (destiny). Your story reminded me of Gropi Krishna's, Eckart Tolle's, and even St. Francis's in many ways.

 

Adding to what you said, practising from a book, especially guessing at cryptic coded meanings is not a good idea. My perspective and enjoyment now is in discussing the alchemical process and different techniques used and the similarities / different techniques that are used. So many ways to the same place, some extremely difficult, and ultimately even after practicing a system or with a teacher, it is ones own path to be found by oneself.

 

Later,

 

Matt

 

Hi there Matt, yes I suppose there is a lesson from that regarding what not to do when taking on these practices. You sometimes get exactly what you want and it turns out to be much more than you thought it would be.

 

To date I am not sure the immortality angle ever was meant to mean more than living a fairly long lived natural human lifespan with your health and faculties intact.

 

Alchemy on the other hand, is what I what I have always been into ever since I started. It is one of my favorite subjects

 

Congratulations on your experience as well.

Edited February 9, 2008 by SFJane

[voidisyinyang]

That's the problem with the Western meditation studies -- they're testing mind yoga practitioners -- not full-lotus yoga masters, like qigong master chunyi Lin. For example the Dalai Lama has been a big influence on these meditation studies and he's sect is mind meditation -- not actually full-lotus yoga. I even emailed the scientist at UW-Madison, my alma mater, where these MRI meditation studies are taking place -- requesting that he test qigong master Chunyi Lin.

[witch]

I am certain that taoist practices can overcome the symptoms of a disease, just like they can overcome feelings of pain, but I'm pretty sure bipolar disorder is partly caused by malnutrition, specifically a deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids. I'm not picking fights, I just happen to know something about this.

[voidisyinyang]

Then there's "internet addiction" -- did you see the Replacements cartoon episode yesterday? haha