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I specified that it's about a pine tree brought indoors as a Christmas tree, not a live pine tree in the forest. I love the smell in nature too -- in fact the last thing that still remains of my once profound love of California is the smell of Torrey pines and cedars mixed with the smell of sage and the ocean on a hot summer day. When coming back from somewhere else I used to smell it even just stepping out of the door at the airport, despite many miles of highway fumes in between. BUT a pine tree that's been cut god knows how long ahead of the holidays and brought indoors is a different story. All those terpenes that give it the unique piney smell are volatile -- and largely fizzle out and disappear in transition. Fir trees, on the other hand... I don't know, they are stronger or maybe they were fresher back when I had access to them for the holiday season. That was the New Year's smell (that's what we celebrated) -- fir tree smell mixed with the smell of mandarins hung on it for edible decorations and the smell of fresh snow that intermixed with it every time someone opened the door.

I can provide the answer to your problem straight away: Never learn internal practices from a book/DVD/video/online chat/etc. unless you are an advanced practitioner and keen to learn sometime new to add some variety to the existing solid foundation built upon many years of disciplined and daily practice. You'll likely cause yourself harm if you don't otherwise.

Was in the park yesterday morning, doing dao gong and Tai chi with my friends. We’ve been practicing at this specific park for close to 10 years now, normally from late spring through fall, as winters in Chicago are brutal. As we were doing the meditation, I started to see what seemed like cobwebs of white light all over, all around us. It is interesting it was visible with both eyes open and closed. Very interesting phenomenon, thought I’d drop this pebble in the proverbial pond and see what happens

It seems to me that all substance on every plane is part of a much greater cosmic entity. If so, every body is karmic. This includes the rocks and trees and clouds I was once given a blue crystalline rock. It looked very pretty but my house spirit objected to it - because of the dark spirit flowing through it. So I was going to throw it in the creek over the back fence but the creek elemental did not want it. I walked down the road past some vacant treed lots, and none wanted it. Eventually I went some distance down stream on the creek and there was a lagoon that was indifferent so I threw the stone in, noting the place in case I had to move it again. It seems that all substance is connected to cosmic purpose

All I said was a sprinkle of common sense; it is not related to what I practice or teach. It has nothing to do with spirituality, esotericism, or magic. I would not study prosperity and finances from a homeless beggar, I would not study martial arts and health from an obese cripple, and I would not study spirituality and meditation from a weak, underdeveloped, monkey mind. To have common sense, all you need is honesty and a bit of decency. Do not pretend, do not lie to yourself or others, and do not sustain any kind of delusional belief. People who get triggered by this are revealing their aggrandizing internal problems and disharmony. In diagnostics and treatment, there is a principle called "dial testing." To locate a problem, you send a signal that triggers a reaction. You are merely speculating, and talking crap, to defend your Ego and Beliefs. How would you know what taoist practices are even, if you consider the guy above a taoist master? If he knew anything about Taoist practices he would never end up like this. It is like saying you know all about finances and trading, but your teacher is a nearby homeless beggar, who never had a penny in his pocket. Decades pass without any kind of spiritual progress, siddhis, advancement and evolution, and everyone reaps what they deserve. Many seem to prefer warm swamp of delusions and a social tea club of beliebers. Not my cup of tea.

Dear Dao Bums, Those of you that know me are aware I've been searching for astral travel for some time. The best system I've ever done is Simplified Kundalini Yoga (SKY for short), everything works: the pranayama, the physical yogic exercise, building and transforming sex energy, awakening kundalini, opening the chakras, becoming one with the divine. It's so easy, so simple, yet it all works. It all works due to the grace of the master, Vethathiri Maharishi. He has devised a system of shaktipat were the enormeous energy cultivated by great masters can be transferred to the student, awakening his energy and chakras in minutes. From thereon, ok, you need to put in the work to "level up", but at each initiation you receive more and more power from the masters touch, gaze and even mind power. I finally became a master in this system after 5 years of daily practice, and I was so shocked. Just as easy and simple as my own chakras were opened one by one, just as easy the power from Vethathiri and my teacher comes to help me when opening new peoples' chakras. I was shocked. Everything just works, it's easy, more than 100 people in my country have gotten their Kundalini and chakras opened by now. All is well and good, I'm so spiritually content with SKY. Alas, there is only one thing that ails me, and that is astral travel. It used to be part of the system on the master's level, but has been removed. However, the past 3 years or so, I've managed to slowly build up a network of local masters I know. There is so much politics and hierarchy in India because of poverty and desperation, but there are several "rogue masters" that still teach astral travel. There is also official masters who were authorised to carry on teaching it in spite of the official stoppage. I finally tracked down one of these masters and her ashram in India, pretty close to the official temple. Now the next thing is that you need a local person to take you there, you need an introduction, a formal "he's good" from someone they know and trust, since astral travel is obviously a very powerful skill to have, and even more powerful to have in your teaching arsenal as a master, alongside kundalini awakening and chakra opening. However unfortunately, all the "higher ups" I know don't like this supposedly "authorised astral travel teacher" and won't take me. Further, the masters that do are afraid to be frozen out, because obviously any european there is rumored immediately, and he's afraid everyone will think he's taking me there because he's getting money from me and not because I'm actually a SKY master wishing to pass on the full system, including astral travel like Vethathiri used to do. Then he will lose his job, social status in the community and so on. So now I'm thinking about finding someone that's not "locked in" in that local community to help me. So anyone here on the forum Indian? Tamil would make it easier, as the temple and astral travel ashram is in Tamil Nadu. It would be about 6 months to take all the SKY online courses with about 1 initiation per month. After 6 months and having gotten Brahma Gyanam certificate and having had all chakras opened, this person would be eligible to go to the secret astral travel ashram (I will share name, whatsapp numbers, adress and so on). Then I would be happy to go there with this person anyone know someone who would be up for that? Full kundalini awakening, opening all chakras, learning astral travel through direct yogic shaktipat, even being given the power and blessing to also transfer this siddhi to others, what's not to like? It's a win/win/win

This bit I disagree with. Taomeow never talks “crap”, on the contrary. She merely has another opinion here. But on the whole I agree with your opinion on this one. Once upon a time a long time ago, I did a mindfulness course. The teacher said he had been an alcoholic, but ‘mindfulness’ cured him and had kept him sober since. Now that makes sense to me. I definitely would have quit the course if he still was drinking.

The 'I' lives in a karmic body. But its inherent nature is the same to that which gave birth to it. Look at a plant. It is only there due to the causes and conditions that preceded it. Look at a thought or emotion. It is only there due to the causes and conditions that preceded it. Now look at the nature of your own mind. It has always been there without causes and conditions.

This is not a reflection in the mirror. This is a mystical sci-fi connection of cats across time and space that happened in the home of someone I know, who's the son of one of the Strugatsky Brothers. Who had a cat named Kaliam at the time the sci-fi Brothers wrote "One Billion Years to the End of the World" in the 1970s and made that cat into its main protagonist's pet. It's been a family tradition of theirs spanning decades to name all their subsequent cats Kaliam -- alas, cats' lifespan is shorter than that of humans, so there were several Kaliams. This one is the current one, the photo is of the original one. The scene was not staged and the picture was taken accidentally.

Welcome to the forum, what symptoms do you have?

A very nasty ad hominum indeed; Daniel never was and never will be a "wolf".

Welcome and hope you find the answers you are looking for.

I am from India

I will message you

I just happened to be the prettiest boy around . I know because I got objective opinion on that , my mum told me so . I never used filters at that age , I do now , long ones made up from rolled up lotto entry cards ....... smooooooth . .

@Nungali Why are you the prettiest boy in those pictures? Did you use a filter?

Sad tales, Nungali.

Why not ? Let's Go ; Me Giles ; Limnal Luke Old3bob Taomeow Cobie

There are many more intelligent species than those with physical bodies. They have their own interests/missions to propagate - often using humans Once a fellow asked me about a spirit that would come in his meditation. I had a look and said: It is one of those spirits used in medieval times to find lost treasure. He replied that all his life he had won raffles and lotteries

And may I add, in addition we quite literally create everything we experience in every moment. By create I mean that things seem to be as they are because we are as we are. In other words, we see the world and others not really as they are, although that does contribute, but primarily as we are.

You´re surprised I know that Shadow_Self can overheat? I have many faults and deficiencies. I eat too many donuts and have never been able to do a pullup,; I won´t be any help if our car breaks down on the highway. But one thing I can do is read.

Stranger Things... 😊 Just when I thought I'd got everything solidly nailed down, I came across Sifu Bin Liu (Yuan Tze) and his wife, Melissa and decided to undertake their L1 teacher training course. 😊 Stranger Things indeed... 😊

Be very careful going down that path mate. Always question every experience you have, especially when dealing in the esoteric. Nice strawman.