erdweir

needed a good laugh today! much oblige!

what's even funnier is watching people on this forum suck up to these obvious frauds in spite of their transparent lack of substance.

i don't know about anyone else, but this thread makes me smile in all my warm gooey places.

 

i stopped posting for a long time because of all the gullibility and fairytale seeking that sometimes gets normalized around here.

 

nice to see some healthy skepticism and criticism going on. people aren't tripping over each other trying to buy train tickets to the Dragon Lands. could this mean the Bums are maturing? or is it just that Yudelove made such a public blunder that even the gullible are questioning his legitimacy?

 

whatever it is, i say it's better to be judgmental and critical of this kind of thing than not. there are plenty of non-dubious sources from which to learn. and there are more than a lifetime's worth of teachings to be explored that DON'T make allusions to fantasy and unverifiable authority. but maybe that's just me.

 

either way, i think the criticisms on this thread are a good thing.

I think it's more sad actually, that this is the kind of thing we have to watch out for, but i agree with you, i prefer it to the naive new age gullibility.

and yes people, there are teachers out there who are legitimate, who's claims can be demonstrated, who arent getting arrested, for whatever reason. teachers with authentic lineage transmissions that wont charge you thousands of dollars for seminars. take a look around.

Mantak Chia;

 

"Some people come from a background of what they call their Tao lineage. They have come out from China and started teaching in the West, and they attacked me by saying that I have no lineage and no religion from a Tao Master — or any of the things they do to any person. I answered them that I don't care.! just do whatever I can; I just teach people. If the people like it, they come to me — if the people don't like me, they go.

 

So I said, "I don't care about whether you have a big hat and a big robe on you or a scepter in your hand — or if you come from however many generations of the lineage of theTao master. I just told them that I am not a Master: I just say what ever I have to people. If it is useful to people and if people like me, they support me.That's all.

 

It's just like anything — a baker, or a person from a very poor family can be a president of America. Like President Clinton — he had no father to bring him up. He just made himself, and he became the President.What's wrong with that?"

This is of course a very sly way of answering the charge. how unpretentious, so simple sounding. Its exactly the sort of thing you would expect someone to say who had no lineage.

The deeper issue here is that there have been allot of accusations of fraud, some of which settled out of court, like the one with the indian pranic healer who claimed that chia plagarized large sections of his material line by line. some claim he left the country under less than ideal circumstances, having some legal tax issues.

Every real taoist teacher i have met has no respect for Chia. they regard him mainly as an entrepreneur, not a master. he is held to be very irresponsible in publishing his books, which are dangerous if taken as meaningful instruction. everyone i respect in the field says the same thing. the practices are real, his method of teaching them is not. it all needs to be done under the strict supervision of a qualified teacher. all of the people i have knows who took one of his seminars say he has very powerful energy, but no spiritual substance. he's a businessman, in other words.

all of the healing tao,universal tao instructors i have coma across strike me as new age flakes who are totally delusional. my impression of them is that that are victims of chia's teachings. and are spaced out and out of touch, ungrounded, and unable to teach anything real.

other problems with him, include, from my point of view, the fact revealed by Michael Winn on his forum that Chia had never done the Kan and Li practices in his books. one of Chia's students retorted to me in a discussion of this that Chia needed to build the darkness retreat before this was possible, and now Chia has done the meditations. but Chia's Kan and Li books were published years before any of this happened. How can he publish untested advanced Nei Dan practices with any sort of clear conscience, and tell people they can become immortal through something he has never tried? Michael Winn say he had to receive Kan and Li instructions from heavenly Immortals who visited him, becuase Chia is unable to instruct him. this all sounds pretty bad.

last year Michael Winn boasted in one of his e-mails that Chia had impregnated a 24 year old vietnamese girl, while chia is in his 60's. This is trumpeted as being proof of his vitality and thus accomplishment as a taoist master. to me, it seems more of a testament to what a sleazebag he is. now we hear similar reports here from sparkle (since removed) that Yudelove can do it like a 20 year old. That's great, but how does this pertain to the Tao? sure, you need vitality to cultivate the tao. granted, but do you need to boast of you prowess? cultivating life is and cultivating essence go had in hand. i dont see the essence part of it in Chia's camp. I dont see the stillness, lack of ego concerns, etc. I see old men getting young girls pregnant.

Now we have Yudelove, and these weird stories. I dont know which is worse, that he pulled a sword at a stripclub, or that he is a mercenary with an uzi in his trunk. either way, it's not that kind of Tao I am interested in. What I want to know, and what I think people buying Chia's books, Winn's videos, attending the seminars, etc should know, is what kind of Taoism is this exactly? is there a lineage from white cloud, where he learned Kan and Li, or did someone ust tell him how to do it and he started doing it long decades later? And if Yudelove is a "warrior" taoist, why dont his books reflect this? if someone wants mantak chia, crowley and casteneda, i guess Yudelove fits the bill, and maybe there is nothing wrong with that. But i have found that every person i respect and trust in these matters just rolls their eyes at the mention of these crowley, casteneda and chia, and that is very compatible with my gut reaction too.

now plenty of people here dont agree with me, i know that already. But if I am going to pay a teacher and buy books, i want to know where the knowledge is coming from. these people dont seem to tell a very convincing story about what they are doing, so that's all i need to know.

You mean fill you in. I for one am not interested.

 

I was attempting to relate my comments to the ones posted above by fizix and others, which were directed toward Yudelove's (self?) proclaimed master status.

"awarded master status (for a reason)"? Who exactly delegates/rewards one with the title of master status? I once heard a true master will never acknowledge/ refer to himself/ or even know he is a master; a lovely paradox paralleling the ambiguity of taoism. What exactly is this self-proclaimed master a master of? OH, yes one is still a self-proclaimed master if he embraces the title even if 6 billion others "award" one with this "nobility". Would a "master" engage in an internet feud? Would a master make all sorts of assertions and projections to reinforce his blatant insecurities? OH, the hilarity of the self-proclaimed master. There is much to learn from such a character, as there is to learn from everyone and everything, just make sure you're looking through the lens with the tag entitled "what NOT to do to be a TRUE taoist master". Very simply put, one's fire ego is one's undoing.

I think Mantak Chia told Yudelove he was a master. That's what is related in Chia's introduction to Yudelove's book. I dont know who, if anybody told Mantak Chia he was a grand master either. I dont know what exactly Yudelove would be a master of. I tried to get him to elucidate this, and he told me he was more of a warrior than an enlightenment seeker. But then his books are all about Neidan and Chi Kung, mostly derived from Chia's system as far as I can tell but restructured and re-organized with additional material from other sources. What exactly that all means I am not sure. But at least he has someone else telling him he is a master, so he's not quite a "self-proclaimed" master in that sense.

As far as Mantak Chia goes, he says he studied with a taoist hermit named "white cloud", as well as several other taoist masters i have never heard named. I think he stopped learning from "white cloud" when he was 18 or so supposedly. I have never heard who this white cloud really was, of what lineage, what generation of the lineage he was holding, etc. I have also never read anywhere that Mantak Chia, or Yudelove and Winn either, was a lineage holder in any taoist sect. So I am unclear on what that situation is. Maybe Yudelove can fill us in.

I just realized that Yudelove and Sparkle have withdrawn a number of their comments above, that's kind of too bad. It's a shame we could not figure a way of talking to them in a less confrontational way. I got caught in that position on another thread, but managed to de-escalate. maybe some others would care to do the same. It's obvious that Yudelove is a controversial figure. I dont get him myself. allot of that he says sound kind of silly to me, but we are not going to get to the truth of things by being jerks to him. take it from someone who has made the mistake already.

To quote Carlos Castaneda:

 

"Our fellow men are black magicians. And whoever is with them is a black magician on the spot. Think for a moment. Can you deviate from the path that your fellow men have lined up for you? And if you remain with them, your thoughts and your actions are fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. The warrior, on the other hand, is free from all that. Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible to pay. So fear your captors, your masters. Don't waste your time or your power fearing freedom."

 

There are always those who think they know how you should live your life better than you do yourself. These are the true black magicians. Shun them like you would the plague.

 

Master Eric Yudelove

not a bad quote for casteneda, considering he has one of the worst reputations as a fraud and manipulative creep. that's another thing i havent read much in the last 20 years, but i guess i liked it for a while in my teens, the same time i was reading crowley. but anyway, the black magician metaphor resonates with my non conformity.

i guess i dont have much of a problem with authority anymore, since you rarely find it anywhere. On second thought, fear your captors? we have no captors, no masters. i remember once someone asked me if i thought we should be emancipated. "emancipated from what ?" i responded...

 

 

Hey Erdweird:

I decided to give you a little more info about that newspaper article.

The reason my sword Scaramouche and an Uzi was found in the trunk of my car, had to do with mercenary activity I was involved with at the time. Because of contractual restrictions,I really can't say more than that about it.

You might not know it, but Taoists were once considered to be the world's finest martial artists.

Supposedly, it was a small group of Taoists who somehow got stranded in Japan, that founded the Ninja tradition.

Would you like to go out for a drink with me sometime?

 

Master Eric Yudelove

I dont drink, but thanks anyway

hey look, i dont care about the ninjas and mercenaries and all of that stuff. I guess i dont know how to take your statements, they seem a bit to far out for me, so i am just going to let you have the benefit of the doubt and go my own way. thanks for revealing a bit about yourself though, i appreciate the effort.

I cant say i am compelled to meet with you. unlike some others here, i am not really into the kind of taoism you are practicing. I mean, you say you are more of a "warrior path" kind of taoist. Yes, I know about taoists practicing martial arts. I think that will not be a revelation to allot of people here. I like martial arts too, but i am more interested in spiritual growth, conquering the ego, etc.

I also have little love for Crowley anymore, although i did go in for that stuff as a teenager. that was a couple of decades ago for reference. I find his antics quite repulsive now. I guess that's another reason why we wont be having a drink.. But Cheers! enjoy!

check out this thread for some perspective on yudelove:

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/12865-mantak-chia/page__hl__mantak%20chia

things got a little out of control, but there it all is for better or worse.

I have been a rational atheist all my life up until recently.

I grew up in Portugal under the Catholic church, whitch removed from me any spiritual inclination (know/remember the Inquisition?).

Most of the spiritual people that came to my knowledge were either a fake or not spiritual whatsoever.

I'm an engineer and followed Artificial Intelligence as a work area. Recently (couple of months) I was working on brain models and stumbled upon information about the brain from the inside. Great! First hand experience! Let's see what these Daoists are all about.

That's when a spiral of doubt, uncertainty and values crisis came about.

I cannot believe that the person which I "thought" was me is far from beeing "me".

So I'm mainly here to know myself, whatever that means. And I really can use some help.

sounds like you made a good choice.

if you want some advice, i will tell you what i wished i knew when i started with taoist practices. I had all kinds of issues doing the meditations and exercises laid out in certain pop-taoist books. my opinion is that kind of thing is to be avoided. it's true that it got me started, but i dont recommend it to others

1: dont go to the local store and find an internal alchemy of dummies book and blow your head off with it. you can hurt yourself doing that. you have to lay a good foundation first, start out slow and easy.

2: do get whatever books you can find in from the taoist canon, and read them. read them more than once. you will find that there are different schools of taoism and buddhism or whatever. i suggest (in english) the translations of thomas cleary and eva wong. cleary's translations are more of the northern taoist school and ch'an buddhism, eva wong has more southern school texts. the northern school is more mind based, like orthodox buddhism. the southern school is more about body energetics and alchemy, like tantra. they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and are not mutually exclusive.

3: find a good teacher. quality of instruction is more important than what art they teach. go visit all the teachers in you area until you find one who knows what they are doing. in my experience, most teachers are full of it. you just have to trust your intuition. if somethings feels wrong, it probably is. you will know it when you find it if you know how to listen to yourself.

4: If you cant find a good teacher, and need to explore on your own, limit yourself to the mind practices and dont try to mess with your energy too much. mind training is allot less dangerous to do on your own. some qigong might be relatively safe, but taoist internal alchemy is serious shit and i have had some harrowing experiences tinkering with it. if you look at the pages on this site for a while, you will see people coming here with all kinds of chi gone wild crises. educate yourself before you jump in to the deep end of the pool.

good luck, and welcome

While hanging out on Buddhist forums, and reading Buddhist books, I never saw

emptiness referred to as phase. Seeing emptiness as a phase you need get to

in order to see the Tao, makes more sense to me.

If you read Nan Huai-Chin's work, he talks about it that way. He claims to be versed in Taoism and Zen, but indicates that Zen holds the apex for him.

What I was commenting upon originally was the apparent similarity of Buddhist and Taoist ends, not methods. I'd still be interested in hearing from mikaelz, or from someone else, what the difference is between Buddhist and Taoist realizations of emptiness. I know very little about Taoist philosophy or about the type of enlightenment Taoists aim to achieve, and I would love to be filled in.

I was under the impression that emptiness in the Taoist tradition is often just a phase, a place you need to get to in order to see the Tao, not a final goal. The stillness and emptiness are required foundations that allow you to travel to the upper reaches of the mind. I think this maybe be true in Buddhism as well, although i know less of it than Taoism. This is the impression I have gotten from reading some taoist and ch'an classics, anyway.

Erdweir:

 

Things got hairy for awhile after my 1st wife died from breast cancer. That was more than 10 years ago. That's all you need to know.

As far as any Dark Night of the Soul is concerned, all I'll say is: if you challenge the Devil you better know how to defend yourself.

I only work for the benefit of mankind.

 

Eric Yudelove

Thanks for sharing, Mr Yudelove

Hey sorry for shooting my mouth off, I try not to do that, but I'm obviously still working on it. Apologies. Lets try to put things on a better foot.

I think I speak for a number of people here in saying that we are interested in your story. I would look forward to future posts by you that would share more of what you went through. I think it would have some value to us all as practitioners of the daoist arts and as people too. You could post an article by yourself, or maybe in your next book?

Hey Leon,

There are lots of detox programs out there on the internet, you can buy kits from places like Blessed Herbs or the Pure Body Institute. William Bodri recommends the Pure Body institute one, there is info on his website about detoxing: meditationexpert.com. They contain herbs like dandelion for the liver (which makes your gall bladder release bile, flushing the liver) or nettles for the kidneys, plus the inevitable psylium husk to scour out the colon.

I havent tried all of those programs, but I have taken some cleansing supplements, and fasted as well. i did the "master cleanser" which was pretty brutal I have to say. He tells you to do salt water flushes, which is (i think) crazy. But fasting did do something good for me i think. Taoist fasting practices include Bigo, but i dont know much about it.

Other choices include a raw food diet, and there are these liver cleanse diets out there that have you avoid all processed foods. some have claimed to have beaten off cancer with this. You could also look at the book Healing With Whole Foods which is often in the local library. It gives a TCM based diet perspective. The authors of this book say a raw food diet is too cold or yin, but I have known people who have used it to beat cancer so you have to make you own choice i guess.

Taking a herbal cleansing program with an at least partially raw diet that contains minimal processed foods and some fresh pressed veggie juice is what I would recommend. I am looking into doing that pretty soon.

Detoxing can make you feel pretty weird and spaced out, so be careful driving! I have heard from people who have done lots of exercise while fasting, and I have done it too. It's tough, and you feel pretty bad sometimes, but if you keep going it works itself out.

Why in your wildest dreams do you think that I have to answer to you or defend myself?

 

Master Eric Yudelove

I dont think you have to asnswer me or defend yourself, but I am curious as to what the truth of the matter is. I am just taking the opportunity to ask you what really happened. I am sure others are curious too.

Why not set the record straight? You have already answered halfway anyway.. And if you dont care what we think, why talk to us?

I am genuinely curious, btw. I read your introuduction in the lobby and you made it sound as if you had passed through some kind of "dark night of the soul". It would be interesting to the people on this forum to hear more of what you went through, and hear your perspective for once instead of the dark rumors we hear about you.

dont care? not interested in sharing? ok, no problem, have a good one..

I pulled a sword out of my trunk on a man who was pointing a gun at me as I was standing by my car.He was not the owner of some strip club and it didn't happen in Long Island. He put the gun away. You can't believe everything you read in the newspapers. I was a criminal lawyer for almost 30 years and I never saw a news story reported accurately in all that time. Did you happen to notice that there was never a follow up to that story?

You are better off suspending judgment until you are in better possession of the facts. Opinions and judgments are merely projections of the ego and the ego is ultimately nothing at all.

I approach being a Tao Master primarily as a Warrior, not a Teacher. Have sword will travel. LOL

 

Master Eric Yudelove

ok thanks for the clarification. The article said you had become enamored of some stripper and got in a confrontation with the strip club bouncer/owner.

hey look, sorry for shooting my mouth off about your mental state, your'e right, i dont know you, but word gets around about you carrying on about dragons, pulling swords on people, etc, and you start to wonder. and of course, you are right, Michael Winn has made some comments about your sanity, or lack thereof as well. So excuse me for connecting the dots in the rumor mill..

Perhaps you would like to set the record straight about your relationship with dragons, why the article had you in a strip club, and why M. Winn is saying you have some issues?

for instance:

if you werent in a strip club, where were you?

Why did some guy pull a gun on you anyway?

Who was he?

Why has M. WInn indicated that evil fortune has befallen you for dabbling with sorcery?

and btw, can you keep the thinly veiled sorcery threats to yourself?

Maybe i overstepped by repeating rumors about your mental health, but you arent helping your reputation by carrying on like that..

Word?

Means: "I agree" in ghetto-speak!

 

Thank you Mr. Yudelove, now I know not to read any of your books.

 

Word

Do you know me? What do you know about my mind that would lead you to believe that I lost it from too much sorcery? Maybe from Michael Winn? Well Michael was always a bit jealous. LOL. We're both Senior Instructors in Mantak Chia's Healing Tao. However, I do not teach. I haven't for a long time, except to my wife, who calls me the Dragon Master. Anyway, I prefer to be a sorceror. Sometimes I'm a Taoist sorceror, sometimes not. Sometimes I play with dragons, sometimes I talk to Immortals. Sometimes I just watch TV.

You should always say nice things about a living sorceror. Thanks for your encouraging words.

I was one of Mantak Chia's 1st American students. I am the only person that Chia ever named a Master. I am not a Master in his Healing Tao system, but a Master in my own right for the system I created from his teachings as well as from other teachers, sources and my own input. Chia even gave me a Certificate, which is pretty unTaoist, but we didn't want anyone accusing me of having lost my mind from overdosing on too much Taoism.

 

Master Eric Yudelove

did you not pull a samurai sword on the owner of a strip club on long island?

i saw the news article, it didn't exactly make you look sane.

is that the kind of thing a taoist "master" does?

and all of this boasting and posturing doesnt make you look very well balanced either.

I am well aware you are one of Chia's senior students, and I know your books as well, but in my opinion, a "master" is in control of themselves, their emotions, and their ego. you appear to have none of that going on. sorry to see that, Master Yudelove,

I meant what I said, I hope you feel better

I would like to suggest "Vitality, Energy, Spirit" translated by Thomas Cleary

It's a selection of excerpts from various books in the Taoist Canon. The Taoist Canon, in case you dont know, is a vast collection of mostly ancient and medieval Taoist texts recognized by Taoists as sources of truth.

you should look at "The Primordial Breath" volumes 1 and 2, published by original books. They contain texts from the Taoist canon that will answer your questions.

not yet, lol, but thanks for the tip!

 

What I'd really like is a collection or list of books about esoteric/spiritual/energetic practices in pre-Buddhist China. Got any hot leads?

supposedly the oldest text in the taoist canon that deals with internal alchemy is the triplex unity, i havent been able to find it though, and it is supposed to be kind of impenetrable. It is held in very high regard by serious cultivators, and predated buddhism in China as well. And of course Chang Tzu ..

as far as specific energetic practices, the eight pieces of brocade is supposed to be pretty old, not sure if it predates buddhism or not though. I think there is a scroll with illustrations of what looks to be dao yin that predates the Han dynasty, but i cant remember where i saw reference to it.

here is a page on the buddhist torrents website for a book called "Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China"

I havent had time to read it yet.

http://buddhisttorrents.blogspot.com/2009/02/buddhism-and-taoism-face-to-face.html

Also here is the page for "ancestors and anxiety" on the same website:

http://buddhisttorrents.blogspot.com/2009/04/ancestors-and-anxiety-daoism-and-birth.html

other good stuff there too..

This is much of what I have found, too.

 

Gurdjieff described religion as containing three levels: an external level for the public, manifesting in rites and rituals, temples, ceremonies, moral rules, and so on. There is a mesoteric level, for Taoism, this makes me think of yogic energy work. Then there is the esoteric, or true core. At the exoteric level, there are many differences, just like at the level of the human body. At the core, the heart or true essence, religions, like people, are identical.

Yes, this is very similar to what i was saying.

The Quanzhen masters actually describe these three levels of practice in much the same way. the lower levels are public rituals, the middle levels are energetic practices and so on, the higher levels are all pure transcendence. check the writings of Ancestor Lu, Chang Po-tuan , etc..

It is also sometimes said that all methods are just conveniences...

If physiological alchemy is built on the famous following:

(1) Refining Essence into Breath (lianjing huaqi)

(2) Refining Breath into Spirit (lianqi huashen)

(3) Refining Spirit and reverting to Emptiness (lianshen huanxu)

 

Then I would disagree with quanzhen founders in that this practice does lead to the "end of the road", and is not a lower road, but the road itself. Problem is - there is a Buddhist end and a Taoist end. The emptiness for the Taoist is the "empty luminous mind" of true, essential, diamond-like, eternal nature.

Quanzhen describes these transformations.. actually it did much to clarify them. read the classics, Understanding Reality, the Inner Teachings of Taoism, etc. it's all there. These are amongst the pre-eminent classic sources for internal alchemy.

What I mean by physiological alchemy is taking the mysterious pass to be the pineal gland or something like that. Mantak Chia does allot of this. He mostly conflates the five elements with the internal organs, etc. Allot of people in China had gotten very confused about the truth of alchemy by the middle ages, the Quanzhen movement tried to correct allot of aberrant practices, everything from drinking menstrual blood to mistaking the gold elixir for mineral gold.

A good breakdown of the levels of true, false, and adjunct practices according to the Northern Quanzhen school can be found in the book of balance and harmony, translated by Thomas Cleary. He has translated some Zen work as well.

To get back to the topic of this thread, I think a comparison of Taoism and Ch'an practices should start with Non-Doing. comments?