markern

What a load of crap!!!!

What a load of crap!!!!

What a load of crap!!!!

What a load of crap!!!!

You could use the hamso/soham mantra along with the breath it should make things more easy and powerfull. I think someone on the forum here uses it or has used it and can teach you.

I learnt from a yoga teacher this summer that if you do Kapalabati for more than a minute and then stop, do nothing and be aware of your breath you will notice it has stopped and it will remain that way for 10-15 seconds. You also have to get in enough breaths within the minute to make it happen but the requirement isen`t very high. Aparently very few people know this and few people notice it because they go right on to a different pranayama etc. You have to take a look at your breath to notice it. Superb way to start of your meditation.

Yeah I know it is kind of difficult without the max weights but for that I need to warm up and I think to fit things into my schedual of pilates, yoga, qigong, meditation I don`t think I have any good options besides as a warm up in the morning before doing qigong?? The push up bars were a good idea though. How do you feel doing qigong after excersizing realy hard for 15 minutes?

Sounds like the arising and passing away of vipassana but it can be gone through much quicker and is not that hard on everyone.

Althoguh I argue in another post that Chias system ultimately works int he sence of bringing enlightenment it is true that the proportion of people getting into trouble with it and not getting very far is unusualy high. Compare the amount of trouble of Chias students with that of the average practioner of Tibetan budhism (including varjana energetic meditations etc.) or with AYP students. The difference is huge and there realy is no discussion about that as it has been gone through so thoroughly in the online community over many, many years. It does not help either that much of the problems with the system are there just out of plain stupidity which is why they are so easily corrected by people like michael winn and the most reasonable practioners of the system themselves. By stupidty I am refering to the lack of fundamentals, the incorportaion of a lot of Kan and Li stuff into the fusion practice which aparently created havoc for a lot of people and the forcefull methods used way too soon in iron shirt etc.

Sereblue this is my take on your fears: There are a couple of truly horrible expereinces one can have on the spirutual path. One is the kundalini syndrome and the other is the dark night. One can also in rare instances become psychotic. Kundlini syndrome isen`t realy very frequent although it absolutely happens to some degree. Having contact with KAP people will almost ensure it does not happen or that if it does it can be corrected in a week or two that is their specialty. So cross that of your list of fears. The Dark Night one cannot control like with the kundalini syndrome. For most people it is not that bad at all. Only some people have the realy, rrealy horrible ones like Daniel Ingram. What one can do is delay the likelyhood of entering the dark night by not doing insight practices before one feels ready. The Dark Night happens after the arising and passing away which is a quite high insight stage and you are not likely to cross it without hardcore insight bopractice although it sometimes happens spontainioulsy to even no practioners so there are no guarantees. My teacher who has gone through the Dark Night says that it is not to be feared at all. Although he knows how rough it can be for some people he says that aproached correctly it will be much milder and almost expereinced positively. If you do enter the dark night you can PM me and I promise I will arrange some private lessons on skype for you wether you have money or not. Becoming psychotic from such practices is quite rare and usualy do not last very long. If it does happen it is usualy quite easy to correct by grounding your energy. It is completly different from other types of psychoses by being almost exclusively a result of too much energy in the head and as such fairly easy to treat with the right tools. So fear not, this is highly unlikely and fairly easy to solve. Beyond these there are of course the emotionla releases that often happens regulary and some facing of demons. This can be rough but is mostly something people get through without too much trouble. Painfull yes but no dark night or kundlini syndrome. In general the pleasure and positive things outweighs the bad ones enorumously. I will write you another post about practices for fear, timidness and laying a good foundation later. For now I just advice lots of secret smile, kidney, lung and spleen sound escpecialy and inner smile especialy to those organs. Also check out the Hacka, Haka, Hakka or whatever it is called dance of the Maoris. It seems to me to be the best way to go from timidness to the opposite of Timid in two minutes. I am sure you will find it online somewhere. I will have look myself later. I think it is superb for you and I will explain more of why later.

There are a lot of stuff wrong with Chias stuff and he teaches it poorly and unasafely but that it is all "fake" whatever that means is bullshit. Dirk Al got stream entry (veriified by his teachers) doing Budhist meditation in a Thai monastary but lost it again quickly but then regained it again doing mantak chias stuff. My own teacher has also had huge success with Chias system but from what I can see uses it as a more general energetic support meditation because his main practices has been Vipassana , Dzogchen and other budhist practices. I think what has given these two guys their success in the system is partialy their backgraoun in stuff like vipassana which gave them the concentration necesary to do his stuff easily and correctly and allowed them the stilness somponent that is missing in Chias system. Partialy I think they also, or at least my own teacher I don`t know about Dirk, just did things a little bit differently from Chia. He always does things more yin, more moderate and with more wisdom and more psychology integrated into it. Learning inner smile from my teacher was like learning a completly different practice than when I learnt it from Mantak. Same thing with Iron Shirt. He just naturaly did things in a slightly different way whcih makes it perfectly safe and sound. So there is nothing wrong with the basic alchemy. The problem is one of poor or wrong preperation for the practices in terms of physical health and basic stilling of the mind, adjustments of practices especialy making them more yin and adding a stilness component. Michael winn has largely corrected these things so following his system should probably work out well.

Shinzen youngs breakthrough difficult emotions should be sperb for this.

Findley, everyone her understands perfectly well that there is a huge different between a "dualistic" emotion and the nondualistic enlightened state. Having spent time here for a few years I can tell you with absolute certianity that for the regular bums (some newbies and passers by might be something else) that is like 2 pluss 2 and so your weird ranting about this is completly misplaced and just a fantasy in your head. Numerous threads of late that go in depth on enlightenement, budhism vs vedanta and taoism shoudl have made that abundantly clear. On the other hand YOU do not understand non-attatchement att all and you do not understand the relationship between a non-dual unerstanding and a dual self and the cultivation of that self. The way you are talking you should follow up un it and start doing Dzogchen in the traffic. The point as Santiago has said is to live in both mandalas (and do it well) and for that one also works on dualistic emotions and most certainly on dualistic practicalities. This does not at all hinder either mindfulness in daily life nor the possibility or speed with which one reaches enlightenment. A good example of that is Daniel Ingram which has done it realy fast and would find what you are saying completly ridiculous. Read his blook you realy need to learn this: http://web.mac.com/danielmingram/iWeb/Dani...he%20Blook.html You should also read Shinzen Young. He explains a lot of the things you are confused about very, very clearly. The what is equanimity article should be important for you, so should the meditation:escaping into life article be and these also, Purpose and Method of Vipassana Meditation, Meditation and the Self, Meditation and Pleasure, Meditation and Emptying the Mind. His book on the science of enlightenment is probably better but haven`t gotten that far. A wise heart (about budhist pshycology) by jack Kornfield and a path with heart and after the extacy the laundry by hte same author is will also help you sort things out.

After doing yoga for some years and doing a little meditation I have become very, very sensitive to energy, my own and other peoples. I have started to think completly differently about life, my problems and what to do about them and also what other people could do about their lives to improve them. The problem is almost no one I know understands anything of this. And with those who potentialy can understand and are quite interested I can only give them a very basic understanding because this stuff is quite incomprehenisble without experience. Besides after having figured out all the stuff I have in the last few years I realy want to give people a 50 page brief on how to go about energywork, meditation and mysticism in a good way. (I actualy might write such a brief) for those I encounter who want to get into stuff). In total all of this has made me a complete martian. So what I mostly do is shut up and experience my internal world completle differently from those around me and interperate the external world completly diferently and I find that hard. Eventualy the disparity will get even worse. What if I raise my kundalini and aquire strong healing and shaktipat powers. That would kinda put me in the same category as Gandalf in lord of the rings or any other fantazy figure with magical powers which is as weird as it can get. How do you cope with this disparity between your world and other peoples perspective? Any advice?

Thanks! I like those. Can you be more specific about what you want to hear? I guess healing powers wouldn`t be that bad and shkatipat powers are fun and nice and I want them all but still it feels weird. I do meet some people that realy want to hear and the wind is deffinitively blowing in that direction. !0 years from now I think the general poppulation will be more open and interested because of the spread of yoga qigong and research into meditation. Good point. Just like the Roman generals had wispered into their ears by a slave runing along side when they did their triumph march after big wins. Well being omniscient is a step up from Gandalf I think into something even more weird, almost God like. Of course bineg omniscient I would know what to do about that but still. Anyway true Omniscience is one of the siddhis I don`t realy buy into that much. I can see tendencies towards it being true but I doubt the full thing ever being real.

In some descriptions of the full yogic breath they say start breathing in and expanding the lower belly then the chest and then realy high up in the chest so your shoulders pull back and actualy lift up a bit. Then start breathing out and contracting first the belly, then the chest. However, in other explanations people say to start with the belly then the chest and then start breathing out and contracting first in the bell and then the chest. This confuses me and I realy want to get this down. I am also confused if what is meant by the babys breath/the natural breat and dan tien breathing and belly breathing are also all the same or something different. Sometimes it seems to me what is meant by the later types are just breathing in and out with the belly with virtualy no chest expansion and dan tien breathing sometimes refered to as just belly breathing and sometimes breathing more in and out of the energetic dan tien center rather then just breathing from the general dan tien area without focus on energy. Can anyone clarify for me? And in KAP what version is used there. The description isen`t totaly clear to me there either.

Thanks guys I am going to go with breathing out from the lower belly first.

By you standards any practice that does not itself lead very directly to enlightenemnt is a false practice. Only the practice that itself awakens the kundlini, like Tummo maybe I don`t know, or itself provides the breakthrough to enlightenment like vipassana or dzogchen are worthy pracitces. But in order to make those practices work you need other practices first and simultainiously. Without shamatha (concentration meditation) Vipassana does not work at all. Without the preliminary and surrounding meditations any meditation that is designed particulary to arouse the kundalini is not likely to yield any result because of lack of concentration and no ability to penetrate the energetic kosha and because the chakras and elements are probably completly out of sync with each other. If it actualy did succed in raising the kundalini without the preporatory or surrounding practices one would almost certianly be in for an energetic nightmare known as kundlini syndrome. Further more, enlightenment by itslef does not do everything to balance you out and make you a good and functional person. As far as I know all or almost all traditions have some sort of post enlightenment training to make you a well rounded enlightened being and to work on the personality structure and "ego" which does not disapear but is "seen through" and looses its tight grip on you which is something quite different. This type of work is done prior to enlightenemnt to prepare you for the journey and increase your likelyhood of success and to build something good that is also there once you get enlightened and it is done after enlightenement. Zen does this in numerous ways, Tibetan Budhism does it A LOT, the yogic tradition does it a lot, taoism does it. Thonglen, the Dalai Lamas favorite practice is, as far as I understand not at all anenlightenemnet practice but strictly a compassion practice designed. Loving kindness meditation tought by the buddha is not an enlightenemnt practice, balancing your chakras helps but is not per say an enlightenemnt practice. The secret smile does several things as far as I understand. It prepares very well for kundalini by opening your meridians and making them used to carying large amounts of powerfull emotions and bliss. It makes you happy, balanced and emotionaly healthy which is extreemly important in making kundalini pass through without trouble and in having success in gaining enlightenment because emotional stabilty helps a lot. All traditions stress emotional stability. The first trainings in yoga and budhism are about getting your own basic shit in order and your basic morality in order and this is done almost exclusively because it is consdired necesary in order to have success on the path. If you are an unloving, imoral headcase with manic depressive tendencies getting enlightened is a long shot. The secret smile as I understand it also aproxiamtes the void state which is also helpfull in making you move towards it. Now go read up on wise speach and the Yamas and Niyamas.

Several popes I belive. This has been done in several rounds. In the 30s-40s there was one huge official "pope paper" (don`t know what they call them) written that aproved of quite a large experiementation with stuff from other contemplative traditions. This set off a trend of catholic monks experiementing with Zen etc. The current pope authored the second such "pope paper" but while the previous pope was still in charge so essentially the last pope aproved it but the current one definitively agrees. The did bar some practices but were clear that during something like Vipassana the holy spirit can be active within you and it can be a way to know God. If you google probably words like pope aproves.. vatican paper etc. etc. you should find this.

http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6064 http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6055 http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6063 http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6073 http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5789 You should realy check out centering prayer and father thomas keathing. The pope has actualy aproved the practice of vipassana and similar practices as a way to know god and you could dig up the arguments given for this online. You might find something good written by Bernard Durell about this as he has not only been the abed of a Franciscan (I think) monastary but also a zen practioner and teacher for decades. Thomas mertons writings has a lot about this stuf. Of course check out St. John of the cross, theresa de avila and the cloud of unknowing. On this forum you will find people who know the budhist AND the christian contemplative tradition well: http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/threa...s+of+Meditation There should be some thorough arguments made online by people who have the same perspective as you for why this is right for a christian. Try googling christianity and meditation ok etc.

Mixing the energy of the second chakra with the heart and heart chakra balances both and makes the often difficult to integrate sexual energy more benign. If you have loving sex then this type of alchemy happens largely by itself which helps a lot in every way and certianly is heplfull and balancing and makes retention a lot more easy. You can find the beldning technique on alchemicaltaoism.com

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showto...=tantra+teacher This thread has several important points about retention especially the karezza stuff

To start with Vipassana or something similar sounds like a very good idea. Check out shinzen young and daniel ingram. Another great practice is the inner smile. For me it is superb and it realy does a lot of basic work for healing the particular parts of the body like organs, genitals, intestines etc, develops happiness, optimism, self worth etc. The brilliant thing is once you have developed some "smiling power" you can generate smiling energy in an instant during the day or while doing qigong or as a 1 minute prep for vipassana etc. Secret smile is also realy great and easily aproachable. Michael winn has a 10 minute qiogng sequence that is meant to open the orbit safely in 10 days. Several people whos opinion I trust on this like Santiago and Trunk recomend opening the front of the orbit first and working from the crown or third eye down the front and back up rather then back up first. The advantage of working the front first is that most peoples back channels open before the front and during that time you can get a shitload of energy stuck in the head without getting it down which is the point of the orbit in the first place. Also if you work from the higher chakras down and then up the lower chakras get blended well with higher energies before the energy of the lower chakras are brought up and that is good for several reasons one of which being that the lower chakras energy can be quite crude and dense. Another good tip I found was that one must not let the power of the back channel alone push the energy down the front but let the more gentle, slow and yin blending that usualy happens in the front happen at its own pace. I think this is because then the energy from the back is not blended well at the front but just moved there and that is not so good. In general I think one should do a lot of sessions with realy slow orbiting and study how it blends to get good "blending habits" in the system for when orbiting at higher speed when correcting bad habits is difficult. Check out alchemicaltaosim.com which is Trunks site. Lot of good info there. By the way I think working on correct, slow and deep belly breathing I think is a very important practice. Much more than is normaly recognised. People often leave that practice when they feel they can master more advanced stuff. However, having this basic breathing pattern absolutely perfected makes everything else work a lot better and makes energy flow correctly in addition to giving continuos abdominal massage during the day etc. Glen Morris argues something like this in path notes and it is strongly emphasized in KAP. Realy mastering this breathing and getting it sloooooow will also make mastering the sexual practices sooo much easier. Trunks advice on the abdomen I think is also very important. And since the sexual practices usualy comes up for everyone after a while I recomend looking in this thread as it sums up a lot of usefull stuff

It is not called kundalini awkening process for nothing. In a year or two or three and possibly just a few months if you are especially ready you can expect a full blown kundalini awakening. That is the mother of all mindblowing energetic experiences. Within KAP this awakening is achieved in a very grounding and balanced way that is way smoother than in a lot of other systems but no matter how smooth it is kundalini still is an almost nuclear energy and once awakened will lead to a huge change of perspective, energy and personality. A very positive and good thing but lightyears away from basic stress reduction. Even before any raising of the kundalini there will be strong experiences of bliss and immense love etc. I think KAP seems like a great system and want to do it myself when I feel ready for it and I recomend it to others but it is important to know what you sign up for. If you are reasonably balanced personally I say go for it.

MOnastaries and seclusion ar like kindergarden and your first years of school. Middle and high school are definitively in society.