question about inner power

[Pranaman]

How does a person cultivate the inner power, to be emotionally unaffected by any situation or event... i'm tired of feeling like shit for no reason (bickering and arguements in a relationship to be the main portion). My heart closes down, when my mate's heart closes down....

 

thank you

[Adam West]

How does a person cultivate the inner power, to be emotionally unaffected by any situation or event... i'm tired of feeling like shit for no reason (bickering and arguements in a relationship to be the main portion). My heart closes down, when my mate's heart closes down....

 

thank you

 

I would suggest the heart of the matter is making contact with the Tao, or if you prefer, Buddha Nature, true nature, Pure Awareness etc. It is the mind trapped, for the most part, in a sense of separate self or identity that responds with the grosser mental and emotional states. This is mostly unconscious, is very difficult for most people to overcome, try as they may. Misery-suffering is more or less unavoidable over the long run without constant contact with deeper levels of Being or Awareness. Even if congnitive stratergies are employed, over time, one will, through chronic lack of need gratification at the personality level, increasingly respond to our environment from stress, anxiety and anger etc. Of course with the successful application of congitive stergies, one will settle and calm the mind, enabling it to see through its sense of separate self and directly perceive, if only vaguely, one's true nature.

 

Cognitive stratergies in congunction with effective meditation is the most effective key. If you are not experiencing a vague, yet increasingly deep, clear and profound state of peace, bliss, inner power and ineffible majesty every day through direct realization of Tao, then you will perpetually be subject to chronic disatisfation and the stress of a life that relies on cercumstance for gratification. Such environmental dependence is a no-win situation - and by definition, impossible to achieve. Tao is only where one can realize deep, lasting and true happiness and satisfaction. Via a dualistic metaphor, meditation allows one to directly plug into 'Life', which is nothing other than Intelligent Infinity, and the one and only source of happiness. From the non-dual, to realize what you are is to realize your natural state which is necessarily beyond description, but intrinsically is something infinitely beyond what humans would call non-dependent happiness and joy. So, the answer is learn to meditate two or more times a day in such a way that you find real and direct contact with your true nature. Then you will know a joy and peace profound that is unshakable even as circumstance-phenonemna must unendningly change from moment to moment around and within us; to expect otherwise is setting yourself up for failure. Realize the Tao...

 

In kind regards,

 

Adam.

[bindo]

Edited February 1, 2009 by bindo

[phore]

short of enlightenment, you might try some psychic defenses

 

these two are from wicca

 

visualize a shield of positive energy around you, powered by the earth. It only allows positive energy to pass through to you.

 

or

 

visualize a mirror that reflects any negativity back to its origin

 

one from a tibetan tradition for sleeping

visualize 4 light green dakinis (female enlightened wrathful deities) protecting you as you sleep

 

you could find more techniques if you tried, or you could make up your own i guess.

 

[WhiteTiger]

How does a person cultivate the inner power, to be emotionally unaffected by any situation or event... i'm tired of feeling like shit for no reason (bickering and arguements in a relationship to be the main portion). My heart closes down, when my mate's heart closes down....

 

thank you

 

If you really want the answer, it will take A LOT OF WORK...

 

As you can see you wanted an answer to a pretty big issue... or one that seems big or complex (Basically gives you lots of issues)

 

As you can see by the depth and length of other peoples answers you should understand for you... it seems not an easy undertaking to fix the problem... (I said for you it seems, because of course Taoism is going to explain it as the situation is easy and simple to fix which is 100% correct and holds true). Through Buddhism they will say the issue of the big picture only takes some opened awareness of the situation. Here is my big point I'm trying the nicest way to explain to you... It will take lots and lots of effort on your part and if done while attached to desire and passions then most likely when you overcome the issue of emotionally instability will turn into lack of will to follow through with actions... work... school... and so forth.

[seadog]

Be of service to others and realise that any power that you have is a gift,so that you can help others and in doing so help yourself.

[Spirit Ape]

Can I ask you how muscle physcial exersice you do as in Healthy body , strengthe basically are you overweight and if so how heavy are you? Are you into fitness?

 

Just asking!!

 

Ape

[WhiteTiger]

Be of service to others and realise that any power that you have is a gift,so that you can help others and in doing so help yourself.

 

I shall agree with you Seadog, this can definately help you out Pranaman.

 

I don't mean to come across as a Know-It-All but rather that I have some experience and hopefully I can help others... If they are opened to it... Its just good Karma... even Taoists practice virtue... comes from the heart... properly portrayed through rightful use of Te (De) in fact without getting into other schools of practice methods Taoists even believe in helping out others. They most likely understand that a side benefit is them being helped out, in the longer run. Through experience maybe Pranaman you may learn this.

 

I definately hope you do.

[Ryan T.]

How does a person cultivate the inner power, to be emotionally unaffected by any situation or event... i'm tired of feeling like shit for no reason (bickering and arguements in a relationship to be the main portion). My heart closes down, when my mate's heart closes down....

 

thank you

 

As others have stated service can be a true help to situations of the heart.

 

Your practice should be an important part. Remember "the stillness in stillness is not the true stillness". As your practice develops you will be able to take more of the meditation and groundedness with you into all your experiences. This kind of leads back to what I posted about your push hands practice the other day. Working under a good teacher can help lead you out of the wilderness so to speak. But if you are unable to continue on with your teacher for the time being just continue(religiously) with what you have learned. It will help.

 

The other thing you may want to consider is that either/neither you or your mate should be in this relationship. If your relationship is causing you the greatest problems you may want to look into counseling if it is a relationship you are dedicated to or you may want to just "nip it in the bud" if it is still early enough to not be too invested in it.

 

Whatever happens I think you are in a good place as most people, no matter what the age, never have the type of realizations that you are having. Pain sure is a good catalyst for change!

[voidisyinyang]

It's an interesting article and motivated me to register here. I had posted extensively at Daniel Pinchbeck's old website http://breakingopenthehead.com where he and I briefly exchanged comments about this "yoga and psychedelics" issue.

 

First of all you write about yoga from books and your books are actually very limited. For example the teacher of Ram Dass -- if you read his biography -- it's VERY CLEAR that drugs are nothing to him. What I have emphasized over and over to Daniel is that true yoga energy is ELECTROMAGNETIC whereas psychedelics are mainly electrochemical. I, myself, studied with a qigong master who currently heals people of late-term cancer and he's worked with the Mayo Clinic -- Chunyi Lin -- http://springforestqigong.com. I can assure you that when he just looks at you while sending energy into you it's just like a laser that creates this blissful burning. He does long distance phone healing all the time and he sat in full-lotus in a cave for a month straight -- with no sleep, no food and no water intake. Again this is electromagnetic energy and it's almost impossible for a Westerner to even IMAGINE what it's like.

 

Secondly to create this healing and spirit travel energy relies on storing up and transforming the sex energy -- precisely that which is used most freely in the West. So that's exactly why finding a true teacher -- an energy master -- is so rare in the West (instead people read a few books and then rely on teachers who don't have real abilities).

 

As far as tantra goes -- the best book I recommend for yoga is "TAOIST YOGA: ALCHEMY AND IMMORTALITY" by Charles Luk. That book states that even NO SALT must be eaten, along with no "lugubrious" plants like garlic, onions and leeks -- which create sex fluid. The whole point, again, is to CONVERT sex fluid into electromagnetic energy -- through the pineal gland. So in tantra you take in the electrochemical energy directly (instead of sex fluid or food which turns into sex fluid like meat) -- and then this sex electrochemical energy (called N/UM by the original tantra healers, the Bushmen) -- turns into electromagnetic energy.

 

Currently I eat a "normal" diet which means meat and sugar and salt -- but I also sit in full-lotus while doing energy healing (the electromagnetic energy as spirit travel shoots out my pineal gland with other people's electrochemical emotional blockages are sucked in to my lower body, through the full-lotus pressure on my legs). Sometimes I rely on alcohol to counteract the anerobic bacteria from the meat and sugar -- and I have to eat a lot of fruit to have potassium to counteract the salt. Potassium is really the secret to the electromagnetic energy build-up, as CIA-funded psychedelic paranormal research Dr. Andrija Puharich details in his book "BEYOND TELEPATHY." But in terms of classical tantra I literally have to eat at least a bulb of garlic a day to counteract the sugar and meat anerobic bacteria. Full-lotus yoga, electrochemically, relies on ionizing the serotonin in the stomach through ultrasound harmonics (the silence in the brain). Normally serotonin can not bypass the blood-brain barrier but if it's ionized then it does so through the parasympathetic vagus nerve -- along with ANEROBIC BACTERIA. That's why the electrochemical intake is so sensitive and why "purification" is necessary.

 

So diet is extremely sensitive and it's a constant struggle. I, myself, went 8 days on just half a glass of water, yet was never hungry, nor thirsty. During those 8 days of "bigu" as it's called in qigong, I created stronger and stronger electromagnetic fields. I used that energy to do some healing but I also had some powerful electromagnetic spirit "accidents" which freaked people out -- especially considering that you're not supposed to go without food and water for 8 days. haha. The real yoga energy is not only rare but it's dangerous unless under the guidance of a true energy master -- which is why the typical energy master just has one real student. For example I saw Chunyi Lin's student, Jim Nance, get trained into an energy master and now he also can do long distance healing.

 

To compare the psychedelics with the yoga training I took salvia while in full-lotus. My research already indicated that psychedelics work by over-riding the inhibitory role of the thalamus so that the cerebellum directly downloads otherwise subconsious images to the cerebral cortex. Because of my qigong full-lotus training I can already "flex" my pineal gland and it's permanently magnetized with bliss. So I had to keep taking stronger and stronger salvia while I sat in full-lotus -- and what happened is that I would have internal climaxes. I would have about 6 internal climaxes from a good hit of 17x salvia -- or from chewing good leaves. The secret of yoga is for the male to have no ejaculation since male ejaculation activates the sympathetic stress nervous system -- and instead to have internal climaxes which transform testosterone into serotonin and oxytocin and then the melatonin and DMT -- but again real yoga is converting the electrochemicals into ELECTROMAGNETIC energy. So finally I just kept blacking out from taking really deep and many hits of salvia -- hitting Level 6. After several times of waking up while still in full-lotus, I then had a vision where I saw rainbows around my hands -- even though I was in a pitch dark room, with my eyes closed, and a hat covering my eyes. So it was my pineal gland seeing the rainbows. That night I dreamt of the artwork from my breakfast room when I was a kid -- it was the same psychedelic rainbows. I emailed my mom and she said it was MOLA artwork so I googled it and it's from the KUNA people of Panama who smoke pot religously. Then I learned that saliva activates the cannabinoid receptors just like pot.

 

So yes the psychedelic experience was fascinating -- and the salvia even tried to pull my spirit out of my body. In fact I have a friend who has done every type of drug but is scared of salvia because his spirit was pulled into the floor. He just took that one hit and never took another. For me, again I was in full-lotus and the ELECTROMAGENTIC force of my pineal gland was more powerful than the electrochemical force of the psychedelic -- so I literally laughed at the salvia as my spirit was half-way out of my body. In other words if and when there is spirit travel with drugs it's limited by the lack of electromagnetic energy.

 

I've done tons of research all after my masters thesis on this subject -- and I've corresponded with many professors and various other researchers online -- here's my blogbook http://mothershiplanding.blogspot.com plus I have several articles freely available online and my masters thesis linked at http://nonduality.com/hempel.htm

[Pranaman]

Thank you all. I'll re-read this post.

 

Zhan Zhuang does lead to contact with the Tao, currently my body is too weak to reach that state while in horse stance, maybe I should continue with horse and dragon but then end standing like a post.

 

I may be biased towards, or at least definitley lean towards physical, intention, and emptiness based tools.

 

Can I ask you how muscle physcial exersice you do as in Healthy body , strengthe basically are you overweight and if so how heavy are you? Are you into fitness?

 

Just asking!!

 

Ape

 

no i'm about normal weight, i weigh about 158 at 5'10". I'm into fitness, as in, bodyweight strength training(I get a fairly thorough body workout), zhan zhuang. I'm thinking about starting to run, at least jump rope for my heart.

 

I understand it'll take alot of work. But that's what makes a man right?

[WhiteTiger]

Thank you all. I'll re-read this post.

 

Zhan Zhuang does lead to contact with the Tao, currently my body is too weak to reach that state while in horse stance, maybe I should continue with horse and dragon but then end standing like a post.

 

You know of Shoalin Monks sitting in horse stance for hours... They aren't actually sitting in horse stance for hours... In horse stance they are doing Zhan Zhuang meditation (a certain level of it at least)... whats often understood or referred to "Standing like a pole"... ok honestly to me I don't think its a big deal but some people can't even wrap their mind around that...

 

Once your mind is wrapped around that... Understand their are higher levels... A lot of those monks do it naturally... Like they started out doing post standing (high ones) as they got better and better they sunk down more... and more... This stuff gets way deeper then just that... Try not to think of yourself as anything special and just practice practice practice, Observe, Observe, Observe. Also try and realize that the most important thing is not to have your heart filled with desire or passion.

 

When we are have desire or passion it afflicts us because it resides in the heart and in the mind.

Edited February 1, 2009 by WhiteTiger

[mr R Fairchild]

How does a person cultivate the inner power, to be emotionally unaffected by any situation or event... i'm tired of feeling like shit for no reason (bickering and arguements in a relationship to be the main portion). My heart closes down, when my mate's heart closes down....

 

thank you

 

Pranaman, i feel you hit one of the most crucial questions!

 

First i'd like to ask:

Do you think it is the situation/event (a happening outside) that it is the core of the problem or it is something inside you/us that's the core?

 

Probably you will remember on two occasions being terribly emotionally affected by a given situation, and then at another time and state being completely "teflon" dettached from a very similar situation.

 

What i'm trying hit at is that our being is luminous sphere with billions fibers converging into it. The most crucial knowledge the ancient Seers discovered is that what we feel, think, perceive, sense...depends on a small sellection of those fibers that is lit even brighter: a focal point of sorts, they called it the Assemblage Point.

 

The most amazing thing is that this point can move and even a minor shift creates completely different view of the world (mood, feelings included). A further shift can get you even into a totally different world...

 

So, armed with the knowledge that what assembles our perception can be moved we will seek a strategy of moving the Assemblage Point at times when we sense that we feel inside the precourser signs of difficult interaction.

 

First we may want to "map" in a very consise notes to ourselves what are the signs, body position and inner dialogue of such a state. Can be: lack of breath, squinted eyes, feet frozen cannot feel the Earth, mental loops of judging the other or ourselves, etc.

 

Once we have noted those we have actually tracked the signature of the position of our Assemblage Point that accounts for a misaligned energetic state where we are dettached from everything.

 

Now, those Seers noticed that when the assemblage point is square on the surface of the sphere it is trapped in a view of selfreflection. If the point shifted even very gently away from this position one felt reconnected with the Universe and dettached and humorous towards thier own 'me's and those of their fellow men. From the Dettached View they saw all the folly of human conflict as humorous to the point of grotesque.

 

So we are going to use a strategy to move the Assemblage Point away from the misaligned position.

 

To do this we will apply the strategy of Not-Doing:

 

we figured out our signature position of misalignment--like in mycase it is shoulders slightly rise towards the head, eyes tense, no breath at all, inner dialogue: "how did she dare to treat me like this, she will see, i'll show them, i don't deserve that" blablabla (just example...). At this point we apply a key notion of these Seers--they discovered that each habit or habitual position of the Assemblage Point needs ALL of its features in terms to have power over us--if only one element is missing the integrity of the whole structure of the habit is weakened and this gives a chance to shift! To introduce an element foreign to the habit's set of elements and doing is the act of Not Doing.

 

Not doing is very useful because it is almost effortless (since it is only one element change, not the whole thing) but very effective! For example from my signature position i may simply introduce the Not-doing of deep calm slow breath, or gaze with relaxed eyes, or feeling the earth with my feet and connecting to it.

 

And suddenly you will have the power and extra-energy to not-do the doing of the reactive self always ready to defend itself or enter into conflict. This Not-doing will suddenly then transfere to the other person because they will sense a moment of delicate silence and softness that will fill the moment there where before it would have been filled in with instant reaction...

 

...but the most powerful piece of knowledge, i feel, is the knowledge about what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body. Basically the pain body is energetic residue of entangled energy fibers that became entangled troughout difficult interactions or experiences. Most of the time it may sleep but certain events trigger this conglomerate of entangled energy and it feels very very irritating and makes us want to be hurtful to the other or to ourselves. It is like an entity by itself that feeds on pain. It is of course in a position of the assemblage Point and besides (and along with!) the abovementioned strategies one can apply the strategy of Presence, or, Dissolving the Pain Body.

 

This is derived from the following piece of knowledge: your pain body first starts as a silent emotion. Its huge trick is that it will instantly push you to start a inner dialogue loop in your head. Then you suddenly identify with this myserable inner dialogue and instead of being dettached you feel myserable. This is because the pain body trick us to identify with the 'little unhappy me' that is producing this inner dialogue.

 

What the pain body cannot stand is Silent Presence. All it wants is mental loops. These mental loops in turn produce even more than the innitial negative emotions, those in turn produce even more irritating unhappy mental loops, and so on until we are drained. Then some entities feast on our enrgetic outbursts...but that's another theme

 

So, the strategy with the pain body is: the moment you start to feel the negative emotion arrising you just watch it with silent, gentle presence...without judging it. You just know it is the pain body and not you. So like this you deny the pain body it's need for inner dialogue and the consequent negative emotions that it feeds on.

 

The gentle silent presence disolves the pain body: it disentangles the fibers and frees the trapped energy. Besides, it gives us an ability to stand the irritating emotions of the pain body without reacting and with gentleness and we can then apply this ability towards others' pain bodies, thus not creating a chain reaction out of a given situation but rather gently letting the pain body disolve. You can still speak out in a strong voice when needed but it is not with the intent to hurt: you have agknowledged that the other too may be taken by their pain body at this time and it is NOT who they are, not their true beautiful being!

 

Good luck! Surely will practice with you all this !

 

p.s. in the long term the pain body can be made to leave alltogether, but even early in the process you will suddenly find that the world and those around you become more sweet and cooperative, that situations and circumstances arent that hostile (i'm sure they were not hostime to you at all time, just talking in general).

It is because with the extra enrgy that was trapped and now freed, you true being will start to shine through and people will feel it (often in a subliminal way...) and so will the Universe! If challenges come be light and humble and self-humorous !

 

the trick, they say, is: every failure is delicious failure: never to judge yourself or get disappointed if you fail: when the warrior falls she/he gets up and continues --like the great Tao writer said: it's not the destination that counts (not an "end" result), it's rather the journey:)

[soundhunter]

This is what has drawn me to taoist philosophy at first, and then further into the spirituality part of things. I am a mother to small children and a frazzled overtired wife too, and getting my emotions and angry outbursts in check is my life's mission these days. I've been having some success too, catching myself in mid anger and laughing at the situation, which I was unable to do without freaking out a bit until recently. Stillness Meditation has helped and I only have very small increments of time in which to do it, reading and listening to Thich Nhat Hanh, reading Eckart Tolle (I don't agree with everything he writes, but his words definitely help me to takes things in stride instead of being so emotionally reactive), Tai Chi and now listening to t

that has me so inspired, which Scotty shared in a similar thread. I don't even have to know what he's saying, his eyes, voice and laugh demonstrate to me the way to not take these day to day things so seriously. Edited February 2, 2009 by soundhunter

[Mal]

[phore]

But going with the flow and letting D get what she wants continually leaves me basically feeling like a doormat.

 

Im guessing the tao thing to do would be to be the doormat. devotion, love, or something

 

either that or DOMINATE

 

yin or yang

 

?

[zanshin]

I'd think the tao thing to do would be to let things flow, sometimes you might be the doormat, yet you have the ability to dominate. Know the male (aggression and domination), but keep to the female (passive and submissive). So maybe some recourse in knowing you have the ability to take control, yet not doing so is your choice not the other persons. My karate teacher who is ex-military made a comment once about working for a guy who was a real jerk, he said he never got really upset by the guy because he knew he could flatten him if he got annoyed enough, yet he basically humored the guy and went along with him and it never got to the point he choose to do otherwise.

[mr R Fairchild]

There are two ways of interaction in the world of the 'social order' we live in:

 

Power Over

 

&

 

Power Under

 

in the last ego-dominated 3or so thousand years of our history...

 

*

 

those who rid themselves of the Pain Body (see how in the long post above) are free from the 'social order' (in this world but not of it) for the social order is a distortion of our energy fibers within, it is not something that just affect us from outside--the ouside stuff only triggers this distortion/pain body within.

 

Those who are free from this can relate and interact in a third way, beyond the binary 'social order' powerover/powerunder duality, this third --many of us fee--way is the future evolutionary way of humanity, it is:

 

Power With

 

* * *