Michael Sternbach

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Posts posted by Michael Sternbach

  4. Posted · Edited by Michael Sternbach

    Hello folks nice to meet you,

     

    Just wondering where to vote: I'm a student of Jyotiṣa, (Vedic astrology) and as such I believe that the 12 house (bhāvana) are formed principally of the mahatattva or 5 principle elements; by way of the stars.

    Our current detachment from mother earth, and the consequent ecological conundrum; arguably on a parallel with the detachment of the houses from the stars, perhaps due to a lack of the aether element.

    I love Jyotish (light) and the resulting study of astronomy and astrology; however, I must concede, that I am not really sure how to fill in the poll.

     

    All that said, I love to discuss astrology and am very pleased to meet you all.

     

    I'm a Virgo Sun in the Tropical system; a Leo Sun in the Vedic sidereal system ...

     

    Kind regards.

    Hi Iain

     

    I assume that voters generally refer to their Tropical Sun sign so you may want to do that too, even if only for reasons of "scientific" consistency.

     

    The question which zodiac is the "right" one involves an ongoing debate in the astrological community and we will hardly resolve it here - even though we did try in the course of this thread! :D

     

    Personally, I think that both perspectives might be valid - what matters is what you are "tuning into."

     

    Nice to meet you, too.

     

    Cheers,

    Michael

  6. Posted

    I am still open to a more in depth of the concepts of wu wei and wei wu wei.

     

    The way I like to look at it right now is:

     

    Wu wei = non (without) doing (not interfering with the natural flow)

    Wei wu wei = Doing without doing (acting) (without alterior motive) (This would ultimately mean interfering with the natural flow.)

     

    So wu wei would then really mean not taking any action... except perhaps listening to the birds singing and watching the grass grow. :)

     

    But wei wu wei would be acting as a part of the natural flow, wouldn't it? (The non-dualist thingie here.)

  7. Posted

    Hmmm... I thought that Wu wei doesn't really mean non-action (philosophically speaking) but rather, um, let's say spontaneous or intuitive action or, in fact, being one with one's action (no line between the action and the agent). But then, what's the difference to Wei wu wei? :wacko:

     

    Any illuminating thoughts, Tao tigers?

    • Like 1

  11. Posted · Edited by Michael Sternbach

    I think that intimate relationships are powerful vehicles for spiritual growth - where intense love is activated, things that are not in line with it tend to surface. Projection on the partner gets involved. What matters is not so much to avoid these things as to understand what is truly happening and use it to heal what is in need of healing inside you.

  12. Posted

    The capacity to 'tune into' other people is not as special as it may seem. In the Silva Mind Control course, quite average people perform this fairly well after four days of training in relaxation and visualization techniques. Like with anything else, talent helps but I guess people who are interested in that kind of seminar are among the more talented ones to begin with. Most of all, practice is important if you are really interested in fine tuning such skills. After taking that seminar, I gathered a few other attendants in order to practice this regularly. Next, my patients in that psychiatric practice gave me a chance to practice on hundreds of cases with all the feedback I needed. This made it easy to learn to intuit all kinds of consciously still unknown data about people, starting with seeing them in the mind's eye the way they actually looked.

     

    I'm quite sure that you, Woodcarver, would be doing it nicely with a little practice, but if you don't want to pursue this, that's totally respectable. It can bring certain difficulties with it even though there are ways to deal with those. Horus said some really interesting things in this regard.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted · Edited by Michael Sternbach

    Generally, I find it strange how some people seem to see sexuality as contradictory to spirituality. Some clerics will agree. But (Western or Eastern) alchemists, tantra yoga practitioners, Wilhelm Reich, Jane Robert's Seth, and I see this differently.

  17. Posted

    It's natural that we would like our partner to share our view on love and life. But better don't start with this if you can't be too sure to be understood! Maybe they'll be open to your perspective once they know what a nice and desirable man you are (even though the latter may lead to some kind of paradox here...). Or try to make contact with somebody hot in a spiritual seminar.

    • Like 1

  18. Posted · Edited by Michael Sternbach

    I think there is indeed a mathematical scheme underlying the whole of King Wen's order. Some of the links given in this thread make this quite clear. It's also an interesting observation that odd and even numbered hexagrams, respectively, develop on from previous odd and even numbered hexagrams, respectively. But I wonder, in what manner, mathematically speaking? Any illuminating thoughts?

    • Like 1

  21. Posted · Edited by Michael Sternbach

    I've lived my life as an empath and it can be challenging to know ones own feelings among everyone else's. If I tune in very closely to a person's energy I can usually see their perspective and experience in a situation pretty clearly. I've had to learn boundaries because this trait tends to lead to giving up all your energy for others... Esp and including those who prey on your empathy! Not all psychics are empaths, I've discovered. So even people who can see don't always feel the other people that way. It's a blessings and a curse.

     

    The more I cultivate, the more this gets stronger too. To the point that if I send someone a letter or an email out of the blue, I can feel their reaction to it if it's a strong one. I stopped engaging in online discussions about any hot topics because it would tie up my energy emotionally and I could feel people attacking me if I offered some contrary suggestion (my entire thing is all about peace and love, and still people find fault in this haha...) When I'm around someone who is upset and angry I can become overwhelmed with similar feelings or sometimes feel it's directed towards me and get really guilty like I did something wrong and wonder why... Hahaha... So anyway, the answer is yes -- and I am telling you so :)

     

    Sunbeam, I know what you're talking about. I always strongly resonated with other people's feelings (including their disturbances), from childhood on. I didn't always know the source of what I was feeling at that time, it was quite upsetting.

     

    Around age 20, I started consciously developing the ability to "tune into" people even remotely and get all kinds of information about them. This was particularly useful when I was working as an alternative therapist in the 90s. For example, there was that young woman from Yugoslavia who had arranged a session with me for psychological reasons. Before seeing her for the first time, I "scanned" her in my mind. I felt some aches in her lower back as if they were my own. The condition persisted for a couple of hours. When I met her later the same day, she confirmed my perception. I told her that, according to what I had seen by my inner vision, the reason for the aches was a misalignment of her pelvis due to one of her legs being slightly shorter than the other. She said that's what her doctor had told her, too.

     

    I did this kind of diagnosis successfully (and often painfully) hundreds of times. I'm glad that I'm not doing it any longer! But the basic receptivity doesn't vanish. It does take some ego strength to keep it straight.

     

    Yes, unlike some other "bums", I confess that I actually do have an ego! :o And I don't consider it to be an illusion. It's what makes me a psychologically distinct personality in the sea of collective consciousness (the "hive" as I sometimes call it jokingly). My ego's boundaries seem to be a little more permeable than most other people's, that's all the difference.

     

    I also think that training or cultivation goes a long way in enhancing as well as learning to open up and, hopefully, close down this kind of perception at will.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    Thanks for your PM. I think to get the most out of the Seth books you need to read them repeatedly and let their contents sink in well. Seth himself says in "Seth Speaks" that he is addressing the deeper layers of the psyche where the messages would be understood. This also reflects the 'conversational' manner in which the material was conveyed. Surely, Seth himself didn't provide much in the way of summaries. I guess that's partially why some people which I enthusiastically recommended the Seth books to couldn't cope with them well. I struggled myself with putting the jigsaw pieces together to form a coherent picture. There are a few books available along these lines, but they were not written either by Jane Roberts or her husband. Actually, I think it would be an excellent exercise to try to write a summary yourself. Those books are not necessarily an easy read even though an extremely worthwhile one.

  23. Posted · Edited by Michael Sternbach

    GreytoWhite,

     

    Thanks for all these informations.

     

    The video looks very interesting. I'm sure you will make and post a translation from Chinese?

     

    Just kidding... :D

     

    For one thing, you told us that you're rather into Japanese arts like Shinkage-ryu and Daito-ryu... I find the latter particularly appealing, in context with my background in Aikido. I once thought of it as much more "martial"/realistic than Aikido, but having watched some videos and read some books, I'm not so sure about this any more. It rather looks like yet another style of Aikido to me (except that it's older).

  24. Posted

    To me, this is one of the greatest chapters.

     

    I don't take the part about not having desires so seriously, here or anywhere else in the TTC. Desires are a natural and very necessary part of our existence. What such sentences mean (at least to me) is not to let your desires control you to the extent that you loose your peace of mind (aka connection to the Dao).

     

    I read this as an early description of the way of doing things that has been called flow in modern psychology. It's also known in the martial arts.

     

    I think I first consciously experienced this state in my teenage years after I had been reading the I Ching for the first time. I felt one with the world. It was during a holiday in Italy. I went to the beach afterwards together with my sister where we used to play table soccer. Normally, we were quite on equal grounding, but that morning she didn't stand the slightest chance. No goal remained unscored on my part... effortlessly!

     

    This state is no different from Wu wei.

    • Like 2