what is next

[Abzu]

ive been focusing on dissolving ego. I can feel myself in layers.

 

I got the golden light to manifest briefly recently, and as it appeared, I saw a holographic tunnel, which I have seen a few times.

 

now, If I relax right, and relax all of my self into one, I can see with my eyes closed very quickly. sometimes on a screen. 

 

before, I would get this black dot with my eyes closed. it has become an oval standing on its ends, which I am able to see through, and get a glimpse of something I cannot make out. very bright light is coming through it. 

 

I am just wondering if there is procedure I should be following, or if I am mostly doing things right already. 

[Abzu]

what im moving towards now is trying to truly discontinue all motion, including the drive to cultivate or refine chi and thought

[Lost in Translation]

3 hours ago, Abzu said:

what im moving towards now is trying to truly discontinue all motion, including the drive to cultivate or refine chi and thought

 

What I'm hearing here is "my cultivation includes the discontinuation of cultivation." Was this what you meant to say? If so, I think this is a discussion topic worthy of discussion.

[Fa Xin]

How do we let go? The question of the ages.

 

What were you doing before you were cultivating?  The answer may be simply "Living my life"

[Fa Xin]

After the ecstasy comes the laundry.

[Abzu]

13 hours ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

What I'm hearing here is "my cultivation includes the discontinuation of cultivation." Was this what you meant to say? If so, I think this is a discussion topic worthy of discussion.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Fa Xin said:

How do we let go? The question of the ages.

 

What were you doing before you were cultivating?  The answer may be simply "Living my life"

the only good way to cultivate is to not

this requires no effort

 

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Abzu

[Fa Xin]

23 minutes ago, Abzu said:

 

 

the only good way to cultivate is to not

this requires no effort

 

 

 

I agree.  

 

Life is the ultimate in cultivation - if we realize it.  Many people forsake their mundane life to meditate, yet the mundane life is the ultimate in potential spiritual lessons and progression.  It's also the hardest sometimes  

[silent thunder]

release totally, unfolding in simple presence.

true nature open...  spotless. unmarkable.

clear.  open as the sky.

 

sincerity of presence emanates.

clarity and peace reveal.

 

aware and present

what else?

 

 

Some time ago, all notions of external seeking and my previously nurtured rigidity of forms, expectations, assumptions and praxis began dissolving in presence and awareness and a turning inward.  Simplicity.  A growing awareness that what arises, arises naturally from tao.  You are this.  I struggled against this natural dissolving for some time, to no small upheaval and angst.  Thankfully energy for such resistance proved fallible and eventually fell away in exhaustion and acceptance of what is.

 

Lately I simply dissolve in presence and simple being.  What bliss!  What is there to seek without that does not abide within?

 

The following quote, when first shared by fellow bum @rene flowed through me like silent thunder;  I encountered it like recalling a deep-seeded memory from infancy, being held to the breast by Mother.  The words settling in familiar awareness, catalyzing and reinforcing the clarifying simple truths that had already begun revealing naturally, bringing another layer of understanding.  They ring with the familiarity of my own heartbeat.

 

It is a quoted conversation between a taoist recluse, Tseng Lao-weng, and a buddhist seeker John Blofeld and is from the book The Secret and Sublime, which I highly recommend.  I saturate and release into its wisdom, settling again in simplicity and smile like a child whenever I recall it:  For me, it resonates through all of my being with the raw, unshakable truth of a candle in a dark room.

 

Quote

Tseng Lao-weng:  'Your going to such trouble to visit me is flattering.  How may I best be of service to you?'

    'You mean, why have I come, Venerable?  I have been longing to meet you ever since I heard our mutual friend describe you as an illumined sage.'

    Tseng Lao-weng sighed and answered resignedly: 'Why to people talk so?  Such words are tedious.  You will find no sages here, just this old fellow and four or five other very ordinary men who are students of the Way.  It must be dissappointing for you.'

    'Do not blame Yang Tao-shih, Venerable.  He wished only to make me see for myself that Buddhists do not have a monopoly of wisdom.'

    'And does seeing an old man distinguished by nothing more than an unusually bushy beard convince you that they do not?'

 

    What could I say that would not sound like flattery, which he obviously disliked?  "Venerable, it is just that, as most of my teachers are Buddhist, I am ignorant about what Taoists mean by such terms as wisdom and illumination, and about their methods of approaching the Tao.'

    He laughed.  'How strange.  Can there be two kinds of wisdom, two kinds of illumination, Taoist and Buddhist?  Surely the experience of truth must be the same for all?  As to approaching the Tao, be sure that demons and executioners, let alone Buddhists, are as close to it as can be.  The one impossible thing is to get a finger's breadth away from it.  Do you suppose that some people -- this old fellow, for example -- are nearer to it than others?  Is a bird closer to the air than a tortoise or a cat?  The Tao is closer to you than the nose on your face; it is ony because you can tweak your nose that you think otherwise.  Asking about our approach to the Tao is like asking a deep-see fish how it approaches the water.  It is just a matter of recognizing what has been inside, outside and all around from the first.  Do you understand?'

 

    'Yes I believe I do.  Certainly my Buddhist teachers have taught me that there is no attaining liberation, but only attaining recognition of what has always been from the first.'

    'Excellent, excellent!  Your teachers, then, are true sages.  You are a worthy disciple, so why brave the bitter cold to visit an ordinary old fellow?  You would have learnt as much at your own fireside.'  (His harping so much on his being just an ordinary fellow was not due to exaggerated modesty, being a play on the words of which his title, Lao-weng, was composed.)

 

    'Venerable, please don't laugh at me!  I accept your teaching that true sages have but the one goal.  Still, here in China, there are Buddhists and there are also Taoists.  Manifestly they differ; since the goal is one, the distinction must lie in their methods of approach.'

 

    'So you are hungry not for wisdom but for knowledge!  What a pity!  Wisdom is almost as satisfying as good millet-gruel, whereas knowledge has less body to it than tepid water poured over old tea-leaves;  but if that is the fare you have come for, I can give you as much as your mistreated belly will hold.  What sort of old tea-leaves do Buddhists use, I wonder!  We Taoists use all sorts.  Some swallow medicine-balls as big as pigeon's eggs or drink tonics by the jugful, live upon unappetizing diets, take baths at intervals goverened by esoteric numbers, breathe in and out like asthmatic dragons, or jump about like Manchu bannermen hardening themselves for battle -- all this discomfort just for a few extra decades of life!  And why?  To gain more time to find what has never been lost!  And what of those pious recluses who rattle mattets against wooden-fish drums from dusk to dawn, groaning out liturgies like cholera-patients excreting watery dung?  They are penitents longing to rid themselves of a burden they never had.  These people do everything imaginable, including swallowing pills made from the vital fluids secreted by the opposide sex and lighting fires in their bellies to make the alchemic cauldrons boil -- everything, everything except -- sit still and look within.  I shall have to talk of such follies for hours, if you really want a full list of Taoist methods.  These method-users resemble mountain streams a thousand leagues from the sea.  Ah, how they chatter and gurgle, bubble and boil, rush and eddy, plunging over precipices in spectacular fashion!  How angrily they pound against the boulders and suck down their prey in treacherous whirl-pools!  But, as the streams broaden, they grow quieter and more purposeful.  They become rivers -- ah, how calm, how silent!  How majestically they sweep towards their goal, giving no impression of swiftness and, as they near the ocean, seeming not to move at all!  While noisy mountain streams are reminiscent of people chattering about the Tao and showing-off spectacular methods, rivers remind one of experienced men, taciturn, doing little, but doing it decisively; outwardly still, yet sweeping forward faster than you know.  Your teachers have offered you wisdom; then why waste time acquiring knowledge?  Methods!  Approaches!  Need the junk-master steering towards the sea, with the sails of his vessel billowing in the wind, bother his head about alternative modes of propulsion -- oars, paddles, punt-poles, tow-ropes, engines and all the rest?  Any sort of vessel, unless it founders or pitches you overboard, is good enough to take you to the one and only sea.  Now do you understand?'

    Indeed I did, though not with a direct understanding firmly rooted in intuitive experience that matched his own; but I pretended to be at a loss, hoping his voice, never far from laughter, would go on and on and on; for, just as his mind when lost in the bliss of meditation had communicated a measure of its joy (on my arrival), so now it was emanating a warmth, a jollity that made me want to laugh, to sing, to dance, to shout aloud that everything is forever as it should be, provided we now and then remember to rub our eyes.

...

Tseng Lao-weng's talk of rivers flowing into the ocean had put me in mind of Sir Edwin Arnold's lovely expression of the mystery of Nirvana, 'the dew-drop slips into the shining sea', which I had long accepted as a poetical description of that moment when the seeming-individual, at last free from the shackles of the ego, merges with the Tao -- the Void.  This I knew to be an intensely blissful experience, but it was Tseng Lao-weng who now revealed its shining splendour in terms that made my heart leap.  Afterwords I wondered whether Sir Edwin Arnold himself had realized the full purport of his words.  At a certain moment in our conversation when Tseng Lao-weng paused expectantly, I translated the beautiful line for him and was rewarded by a smile of pleasure and surprise.  Eyes glowing, he replied:

 

    'My countrymen are wrong to speak of the Western Ocean People as barbarians.  Your poet's simile is penetrating -- exalted!  And yet it does not capture the whole; for, when a lesser body of water enters a greater, though the two are henceforth inseperable, the smaller constitutes but a fragment of the whole.  But consider the Tao, which transcends both finite and infinite.  Since the Tao is All and nothing lies outside it, since its multiplicity and unity are identical, when a finite being sheds the illusion of separate existence, he is not lost in the Tao like a dew-drop merging with the sea; by casting off his imaginary limitations, he becomes immeasurable.  No longer bound by the worldly categories, 'part' and 'whole', he discoveres that he is coextensive with the Tao.  Plunge the finite into the infinite and, though only one remains, the finite, far from being diminished, takes on the stature of infinity.  Mere logicians would find fault with this, but if you perceive the hidden meaning you will laugh at their childish cavils.  Such perception will bring you face to face with the true secret cherished by all accomplished sages -- glorious, dazzling, vast, hardly conceivable!  Thie mind of one who Returns to the Source thereby becomes the Source.  Your own mind, for example, is destined to become the universe itself!'

 

you and i are as continuous with all life and the Tao as one wave is with the entire ocean.

release into that which you are and know peace

emanate your simple presence awareness

 

what else is there?

 

[Abzu]

3 minutes ago, Fa Xin said:

 

I agree.  

 

Life is the ultimate in cultivation - if we realize it.  Many people forsake their mundane life to meditate, yet the mundane life is the ultimate in potential spiritual lessons and progression.  It's also the hardest sometimes  

yes

 

to shield yourself from it through any lens is a waste of what is there

[Abzu]

6 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

release totally, unfolding in simple presence.

true nature open...  spotless. unmarkable.

clear.  open as the sky.

 

sincerity of presence emanates.

clarity and peace reveal.

 

aware and present

what else?

 

 

Some time ago, all notions of external seeking and my previously nurtured rigidity of forms, expectations, assumptions and praxis began dissolving in presence and awareness and a turning inward.  Simplicity.  A growing awareness that what arises, arises naturally from tao.  You are this.  I struggled against this natural dissolving for some time, to no small upheaval and angst.  Thankfully energy for such resistance proved fallible and eventually fell away in exhaustion and acceptance of what is.

 

Lately I simply dissolve in presence and simple being.  What bliss!  What is there to seek without that does not abide within?

 

The following quote, when first shared by fellow bum @rene flowed through me like silent thunder;  I encountered it like recalling a deep-seeded memory from infancy, being held to the breast by Mother.  The words settling in familiar awareness, catalyzing and reinforcing the clarifying simple truths that had already begun revealing naturally, bringing another layer of understanding.  They ring with the familiarity of my own heartbeat.

 

It is a quoted conversation between a taoist recluse, Tseng Lao-weng, and a buddhist seeker John Blofeld and is from the book The Secret and Sublime, which I highly recommend.  I saturate and release into its wisdom, settling again in simplicity and smile like a child whenever I recall it:  For me, it resonates through all of my being with the raw, unshakable truth of a candle in a dark room.

 

 

you and i are as continuous with all life and the Tao as one wave is with the entire ocean.

release into that which you are and know peace

emanate your simple presence awareness

 

what else is there?

 

amazing quote 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

I like me a Red Panda no matter what. The other important stuff has already been said.

[Song of the Dao]

On 3/26/2019 at 5:33 PM, Abzu said:

what im moving towards now is trying to truly discontinue all motion, including the drive to cultivate or refine chi and thought

 

Losing "the drive" seems like a death sentence, but that is just a cultural story, not the Dao. At first people told me I suffered from depression, but really everyone else is manic, so comparatively I was depressed.

 

Food, shelter, some clothing, people; that is all I care about. I watch TV, go for walks around my town, use the internet, all fluff that I enjoy.

There are so many on this forum searching with such drive and making this so complex, so I am glad to come back and read this here.

[doc benway]

What a wonderful discussion!

_/\_

 

 

 

[Pilgrim]

On 3/26/2019 at 5:13 PM, Abzu said:

before, I would get this black dot with my eyes closed. it has become an oval standing on its ends, which I am able to see through, and get a glimpse of something I cannot make out. very bright light is coming through it. 

 

I am just wondering if there is procedure I should be following, or if I am mostly doing things right already. 

There is a procedure, what you are describing is called Yoni Mudra in Kriya.

 

If you will take the time and go to my profile and zoom in on the picture you will see something very similar to your orb.

 

The glowing ring around it is the walls of the tunnel. In Kriya you see these rings they appear in the distance of spaciousness and then they move towards you and over you.

 

The trick is you must keep your focus on the dark center and allow the glow to pass over you.

 

It is a bit like driving through a long mountain tunnel and each ring is like a glowing segment in the wall of the tunnel.

 

You have to focus on the end of the tunnel as your destination or else you wreck paying attention to the lights.

 

At the end of the tunnel is a black orb in its center there is a thin 5 pointed white star.

 

You focus on the white star with full attention and feeling.

 

After that you get sucked in and what you experience would require Disney and Lucas arts to even come close to recreate.

 

Here you will find your immortal body.

 

 

[doc benway]

On 3/26/2019 at 5:13 PM, Abzu said:

ive been focusing on dissolving ego. I can feel myself in layers.

 

I got the golden light to manifest briefly recently, and as it appeared, I saw a holographic tunnel, which I have seen a few times.

 

now, If I relax right, and relax all of my self into one, I can see with my eyes closed very quickly. sometimes on a screen. 

 

before, I would get this black dot with my eyes closed. it has become an oval standing on its ends, which I am able to see through, and get a glimpse of something I cannot make out. very bright light is coming through it. 

 

I am just wondering if there is procedure I should be following, or if I am mostly doing things right already. 

 

On 3/26/2019 at 5:33 PM, Abzu said:

what im moving towards now is trying to truly discontinue all motion, including the drive to cultivate or refine chi and thought

 

Dissolving is an excellent method, releasing all effort.

Looking back especially towards the one who is releasing and seeing through that one, cutting through all those layers of misidentification, limitation.

What’s next is precisely identifying and continuing in that state of rest.

Recognizing when one departs and returning.

Even the most moving experiences and visions are ultimately a departure.

The state is not different from the view, the practice, or the result.

It is important to distinguish the state of resting from all subtle conceptual constructs about it.

It will develop and blossom into something very full and rich with infinite potential, never dull for an instant.

The key is in direct connection.

 

[manitou]

On 4/6/2019 at 11:38 AM, steve said:

 

 

 

The key is in direct connection.

 

 

 

I've recently come to understand this in a useable way.

 

I imagine a whip-like projectile coming out of the top of my head, and I can 'toss' it and connect it with what I want to connect with.  I know it sounds ridiculous...but you can actually feel the connection as a warmth and realization that you are one with the other.

 

The first time I tried this was out of necessity, a horse had jumped his corral and was out running through the corn fields.  I ran to the top of a hill where he could see me, and my immediate thought was 'if he has any memory at all of being roped, I'm going to tap into it'.  That was my set intent.  I started whirling an imaginary lasso  and threw it at him.  He skidded to a halt from a dead run.  I then walked him across the highway, stopping traffic, with an invisible rope around his neck and put him back into the corral.

 

This is something I use when I do the occasional healing.  I connect with the person before starting the ceremony by the same tactic.  It seems to work long distance as well, whether the person knows he's the subject of a healing or not.  My brother had melanoma on his arm and now he doesn't.  Between doctor visits, it just disappeared.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Mani, thanks for that, brilliant horse technique.

[manitou]

4 hours ago, Rocky Lionmouth said:

Mani, thanks for that, brilliant horse technique.

 

 

My mind was in a state of panic at the time - it wasn't a well thought out idea.  It just popped up out of nowhere.

[manitou]

Okay, it's past 4:10 and I usually don't post from 4:11 until dawn the next morning.   But,

 

I'll bet the reason the manifestation of the rope occurred was actually because my brain was in a panic, and I somehow punched between the hole of what is possible and what is not on the particular frequencies that we're on.  That deep, dark presence that we have inside us is common to every one of us in the world....we see in each other's pupils.  It's Awareness.  It's The Intelligence that underlies all.  It may have been beckoned by intense desire to have a rope at that moment.  Somehow 'pretending' seems to blend in there too.  

 

Sure caught me off-guard.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

I think you’re right, you were panicking, needed a solution and the idea came and you tried it unimpeded by such things as usually get sorted out of possibility when your judging mind has the time to put their opinion in, sounds like it belongs in the ”wei wu wei” category of things.

 

SoD, i don’t know why you’re tearing up on what i said but i assure you no malice or ill was intended. We good?

[manitou]

47 minutes ago, Rocky Lionmouth said:

I think you’re right, you were panicking, needed a solution and the idea came and you tried it unimpeded by such things as usually get sorted out of possibility when your judging mind has the time to put their opinion in, sounds like it belongs in the ”wei wu wei” category of things.

 

That makes sense.  In both the Science of Mind and Christian Science methods of healing, the healing done is proportionate to how aligned the HEALER feels to the god-presence inside.  The more emotion that can be mustered within the healer, the more likely a good result.  During the healing of a quadriplegic boy, I had his aunt stare at his picture until she felt absolute love in her heart for him, and told her to switch on the bottom part of a floor lamp (symbolizing his limbs) at the particular moment she felt great love.  She healed him.

 

Apparently emotion has everything to do with it.

Edited April 25, 2019 by manitou

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Word, that makes plentiful sense.

As far as i’ve understood emotion and connection are huge factors in daoist healing and buddhist healing also.

 

Very cool that you managed to create the space in the lady to heal the boy, her love and compassion for him is a great source vis a vis their connection, you’ve obviously got some mad chops to understand these things, lucky for the boy!

[mrpasserby]

My experience in DBs so far has shown me members with different talents. The talents that I have earned for myself have usually come to me on the heals of some need being manifest in my lifes experience, so that I am able to step up from my mundane experiences and receive the rewards of my previous labors.

Just in this thread: I read of one who was able to see/perceive his own solar heart, another who discovered his path to obtain his own solar/immortal body, and still a third who stepped up and obtain the power to manipulate her cable of destiny in order to change the course of events in her life and the life of others, and there are many who have the wisdom to understand these occurrences. DBs Rocks

As for , "what is next" as a *'spirit quester', I recommend the casual practice of spirit questing E.g. checking out the *local genius loci, or visiting a near by relative. Good exercise for your spirit body, 'Just say-en'  

*genius loci

/ˈjēnēəs ˈlōsī,-kī/

1. the presiding god or spirit of a place.

   • plural noun: genii locorum

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by mrpasserby
added content

[manitou]

29 minutes ago, mrpasserby said:

 DBs Rocks

 

 

 

I couldn't agree with you more.  And as a long-term Bum, it has been wonderful to see the spiritual uplift of so many of us.  I think this site is a very important one, as we come from different paths and yet manage to find the metaphysics which connects them all.  I have watched the growth in friends on this site.  We seem to be pebbles in a stream, pebbles that smooth themselves by knocking against each other with different opinions and points of view.  And the end result is the absence of rough edges, the uncarved wood.

 

I also think that this site and others like it are crucial to the spiritual development of the planet, despite appearances to the contrary.  It seems to me that there is a growing enlightenment quietly happening world-wide, and I think the internet has played an incredible role in us finding each other and learning from each other.  Who knows how many people, aside from those of us who post, just get the benefit of reading the threads?

[mrpasserby]

5 minutes ago, manitou said:

Who knows how many people, aside from those of us who post, just get the benefit of reading the threads?

I agree, the internet being a substitute, for the old pyramid system where we all spoke the same language is a real boon to all. One of the ways that the DBs has become special to me is the free flowing Egregore. I have experienced other Egregore but to participate in them a person would have to submit to being bound to untenable rules and receive/except training in faulty logic's. Thanks '