Sahaj Nath

seems like every other year or so Reiki resurfaces as a topic on this forum. there are a number of Reiki topics that deal with the themes in this thread. as with most topics, i stand with my brother Seth on this one. back when i was new to this message board i had a very negative attitude towad reiki because i had so many silly encounters with practitioners or reiki, EVEN THOUGH MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH REIKI WAS RATHER REMARKABLE. it took me some time to get to a place where i could actually appreciate what is profound and authentic about reiki without rejecting it based on some very legitimate issues i've had with many communities of practicioners, not to mention the misinformation, fragmentation, and missing pieces in what passes as reiki training today. here's a thread i posted about reiki a few years ago. it was sort of my piece gesture with reiki in the tao bums community. http://thetaobums.co...tion-for-reiki/ i appreciate your high standards and critical sensibility. i tend to be the same way. not an easy guy to please. however, there's something i think you might be missing from the video of Wim Hof that you posted. i think it's a bit unfair and unreasoned to claim that others haven't "stepped up to the bat," especially when Wim Hof HIMSELF expresses what a daunting task it has been for him to find anyone who was willing to take him seriously and investigate his skills. he put his skills on display as a circus act for who knows how long before anyone with credibility took notice. it's such a rare occasion that it moved him to tears. i had a back-n-forth with Sloppy Zhang a couple of years ago around a very similar issue of verifiable evidence. http://thetaobums.co...ng/#entry201210 i even offered myself to be investigated by any of the science folks at his University. but he didn't find anyone willing to take it up. i put that on the general culture of cynnicism and mockery that still runs think in the scientific community. and also, even though the intestigators were said to be scientists, there was nothing really scientific about the investigation that was done on John Chang. they went in with some very basic gadgets available at any Radio Shack and did such a simple and basic investigation that just about anyone on the street could have done it. they got more video footage, yes. but their methods of inquery were pretty weak.

yeah, i got the same red flag saying this is an attack site. the data suggests that it is from one or more of the ads on the site. the site itself is not a host, but rather one or more of the links on the site.

this clip was from his series on cognition. i would tell people often that deep spiritual practice serves as a non-violent revolution of consciousness. this was the first time i ever heard it confirmed or supported in any way. LOVE THIS!

devotional practice can be a powerful stabilizing force. Bhakti yoga is a mainstay in Shaivism. my first recommendation would be to find a Master/Guru. someone whom you can love, trust, and put faith in. someone who is NOT just some information resource that you take from. the mandala of the Master/Guru is very healing and nurturing. you'll be able to process all of that turmoil at a much more manageable pace. and in fact, some of it you won't even notice as the Guru and the Lineage clears a lot of the garbage for you. since your awakening came from interaction with the presence of Gabriel Cousens, i suggest that you seek out a master whose lineage flows from Baba Muktananda and/or Bhagawan Nityananda. as per your own experience, distance is no object for the spiritual transmission, so it's perfectly fine if your teacher lives hundreds or even thousands of miles away. if this doesn't quite flow with you... my next recommendation would be to develop a regular, consistent practice that includes: 1.) chanting/singing words of devotion. any tradition that speaks to you will work. even gospel. this can also include worship/prostrations to an image or object representative of a being for whom you have the highest regard 2.) vigorous exercise in the form of shaking, running, kickboxing, or all of the above. something cathartic where you can work out stagnant energy and you are free to go nuts. 3.) harmony exercise in the form of yoga/qigong, or daily walks in nature where you allow yourself to be absorbed in your environment with an air of gratitude. 4.) meditation. keep it simple. vipassana, zen, water method. 5.) selfless service. this can be just about anything, even work, but something wherein you benefit others without any self-centered gain for you. 6.) journaling, either at the end of the day, prior to meditation, or both. let that be a place where you catalog your daily blessings & express gratitude, and also a place where you dump all your heavy issues. maybe even keep two journals, one for gratitude and one for processing & venting. so those are my 6 Jewels of spiritual cultivation, regardless of which tradition is being practiced. if you can find a way to engage all 6 (or at least MOST of them) on a daily basis, your process should smooth out, and your overall development should actually accelerate at the same time. it's a sort of cross-training effect. you'll balance and develop faster in ALL of the areas covered than if you just tried to grind out any one of them alone. the one area that i didn't mention is diet. that one's on you. if you make time for cultivation on a regular basis, you shouldn't have to deal with extremes at inappropriate times. feel free to PM me if you like. i'm happy to help you work it out if you need anything else.

Mark's all about doing your work right here. he didn't accomplish his sadhana in Varanasi or Geneshpuri; he did it in Oakland! but he's committed to serving the people of Nimboli as a tribute to Bagawan Nityananda, and the holy places ARE very powerful, so there's nothing wrong with a pilgrimage. his Fire Mountain Retreat Center in Nimboli is very, very beautiful, and 100% of the money from the center goes to maintaining the retreat and for charitable works in the area, like the clean water project and education. check it out! http://www.hardlight...untain_TMA.html http://www.tmaseva.org/

yes, that's him. he's a beautiful man. the vast majority of his teaching and sadhana is bhakti singing & chanting. he's very unassuming. surprisingly so. the way a friend put it, "he walks the earth like a lamb who doesn't realize he's a lion." a fierce soul, but an incredibly gentle ego. hey, i did it for you! seriously, though. as a student who lives over 300 miles from LA, i really wanted to do this service for those of us who can't sit with him every week. there's also a new yahoo group for Hard Light. i haven't check it out yet, but it was created for those who want to connect other people in the sangha. and it continues to amaze me how intense the transmission can be over livestream, not to mention the videos i've been editing! there was one video that that was so intense it felt like i was on drugs. seriously. there was nothing vague or subtle about it. because of the editing project, i've been getting deeper and deeper into his teachings. i study hours of footage to find the clips that i've been putting on youtube. the man is so incredibly brilliant. in the beginning i thought his lectures where unnecessarily technical and i would just zone out and bathe in the direct transmission. but i've learned SO MUCH just over the past few months. the man is a spiritual treasure! i feel so fortunate and blessed to have him in my life. my deepest gratitude to Trunk, and to Sean for giving us The Tao Bums.

Hey everybody! lots of new videos on the Hard Light YouTube channel. i encourage all of you to check it out, and if you like the videos, SUBSCRIBE. we're gonna be posting 2 to 5 new videos each week. i'm really happy with the latest videos from the dual Darshan in honor of Muktananda's 100th birthday. might even post some of the beautiful singing and chanting from that event. but for now, check out the two talks from Mark Griffin and Gurudev Nityananda. Mark's talk Gurudev's talk

i'm in Northern California. Sacramento. if you can make it here, i'd be happy to work with you & see what we can do. you can pay whatever you can afford. i'm not too hung up on money. send me a PM if you're interested.

nuff said. if you're new to all this, i say keep it messy. try things out without locking into any one way of knowing. allow EVERYTHING to remain possible. and most importantly, explore with a passion. now that you your OWN experience, try not to rely so much on what the Juniors & Seniors have to say. keep an open mind & heart. in a couple of years you'll very naturally have your own ideas and opinions about qigong. PLEASE don't be in a rush to join the crowd of the elites around here. (and if you look up some of my posts you'll see i'm also in that crowd of folks who think they know everything. so yeah, at any time feel free to toss out anything i have to say as well. ) i made a thread back in January with newcomers like yourself in mind. i hope you'll take the time to read through it. and i hope that the conversation within the thread will inspire you to walk your own path, and to dare to be a wanderer. http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/22213-connecting-with-qi-no-system-required/

a worthwhile practice to explore, even for those who are already fairly sensitive. it stimulates the nerve fibers to such an extent that, if you haven't experienced it before, you will very likely be able to tune in and feel your whole body breathing from the pours. i read through it really quickly, so forgive me if i missed it, but i think you left out a couple of key points: 1. the "rubbing" action doesn't require stroking your arm in different directions. it's just a straight pass down the top of your arm and back up the inside or bottom. 2. the practice should be done fairly quickly. there is some benefit to slowly, sensually going through the exercise, but it's generally a vigorous practice that can leave your whole body abuzz with qi. and finally, 3. to maximize benefit, a minimum 100 repetitions should be performed. 200 is better. 300 is ideal. once you get a speed and rhythm going, you can simply keep track of the time. for instance. if you can average 20 cycles per minute, you can simply practice for 15 minutes rather than count to 300. before i got into shaking, blood washing was one of my staple practices. Francesco Garripoli has a milder, slower, standing version which he calls meridian cleansing. i think it's pretty clearly a derivative of blood washing. anyway, i thought these points might help those who may wish to experiment with it. if you're going to perform it with speed, i would recommend sitting on the edge of a chair. and it's totally okay to raise your leg as you pass your hand over the legs & feet, rather than bending all the way over. raising the leg will make your repetitions faster. please to take this as a challenge or anything. i just hope some folks can find the additional info helpful.

Old Green posted a video from Sadguru in a thread i made back in January. it had the kind of truth that can get you into trouble in certain circles. it had MY KIND OF TRUTH! GREAT video.

Hey everybody! it's been a long time. HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin... "The optimum situation is one in which you maintain a sense of identity as the universal identity is brought forth. If a person gets too much energy too fast they lose touch with the world. The landmarks of their reality change so quickly that they can't keep up with them and become disoriented. The Guru moderates the speed of the unraveling of the karma so that you feel more or less like yourself as you go through all this. You feel a constant sense of pressure and change, but maintain a sense of identity and remain connected to the world." wanted to let everybody know that Mark is coming back to the Bay Area for a SECOND TIME this year! the past couple of years he's only come once. so if any of you in NorCal would like to spend a day with a truly incredible being, he's going to be in Sebastopol, August 11th at 7415 Hayden Ave. the Intensive will be held from 10am to 6pm. earlier tonight i was watching a video from one of Mark's 2009 retreats, and his presence came through with so much intensity that i felt just like this guy! genuine, loving relationship. it's the highest sadhana

actually, there's a student of Ratu Bagus in Virginia who might be someone good to know. i could put the original poster in contact with him, but after reading through this thread (thanks for bringing it to my attention, don_vedo), i'm not so sure if that's the right direction to take. there are hundreds of generic recommendations out there, and many of them are going to contradict because the process is not a "one size fits all" kind of thing. none of them are wrong necessarily, but a lot of them are likely to be wrong for you. who you are is every bit as important as what your condition is, and that's why it's such a good idea to have a PRIVATE dialogue with someone who can help you navigate to a better place. it seems to me that you are interested in getting off the ride altogether, and you don't have a lot of interest in discovering where it can take you. in other words, what you really want is to get your life back. if this is true, it's important for anyone who could help you to know this. and it makes a world of difference in terms of what practices/lessons/foods/whatever are going to be best for you. often people are eager to promote what THEY want in your situation without listening well enough to who YOU are what what YOU want. you need to work with someone who is going to take the time to listen and understand the important things about you. someone who is going to ask personal questions. someone who knows how to guide you to where YOU want to go, and who has taken the time really know where that is. of course, this ALSO means that if you want some serious, quality advice, you need to be willing to open up, get personal, and share of yourself. this isn't something you'll want to do in an open forum. i could probably help you, but i honestly don't think i'm the best person for the type of guidance you're looking for. what i CAN say, however, is that SETH ANANDA knows his stuff. and more importantly, he LIVES his stuff. he doesn't just talk the talk. it would be worth your while to start a private dialogue with him and just see where it goes. if all else fails, you are welcome to contact me as well. i will definitely interview you with a series of questions, and if i don't help you directly, i'll at least have the information i need to put you in the right hands. distance aside, my guess is that Seth can do more for you than most of those folks that you could meet in-person. you've got nothing to lose. we don't betray confidences.

as always, it was a great intensive. a few of my peeps attended, just like last year when he came to the bay area. don_vedo and i drove down together. he wrote about the experience in his practice journal. i thought it was worth sharing. http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/23464-may-2012/page__view__findpost__p__337394

SO TRUE!

definitely one of the most overlooked, undervalued practices. totally compatible with qigong, and it makes a lot more sense than taking up Tai Chi for weight loss. you can get a good sweat going in just 10 or 15 minutes, and the practice is 100% adjustable to your physical ability, so the practice can be as intense or as gentle as you need it to be. as far as health benefits go, it does just about EVERYTHING, cleansing and energizing the entire body at a cellular level. and if you're a qigong practitioner already, this practice will substantially increase the overall energetic charge in your body. you might want to try shifting between shaking and spontaneous free flow movement. it'll make the hour a lot easier, and yet just as effective. it's as simple as this, yet surprisingly powerful: santiago breaks it all down, but you can also just let yourself go and in time everything he covers will be done on its own, in its own way. outdoors is nice, but so is indoors with a good playlist. there's really no way to get it wrong. just go with your body.

haven't seen this thread in some time. the writing is actually the first half of Grandmaster Yang's book, Verbatim. it's a short book, but it IS really good! i don't know if the second half of the book is out there somewhere, but it might be. either way, that blog is DEFINITELY a good read. the principles covered are worth reading, even if you don't practice wild goose.

Good lookin' out, Trunk! and for those who live in the area or who might be interested in going, the event is only $35. pretty damn cool, and SO worth the visit!

i don't think this is about non-attachment so much as it is about clarity. we do not see things as THEY are. we see things as WE are. this entire thread is an expression of that. whose view is most clear? most likely the view with least judgment. the view with the least self-contraction. but what do i know. i need to get my hands on some of that pakalolo. haven't heard that in years! they also call it the crip. that was definitely awkward for a minute. you don't ask a black dude from California if he smokes crip! hahaha!

do you get that each one of your questions lacks much relevance? or am i supposed to answer them? and just for the record, the fact that i'm black and they don't see me as the enemy doesn't make me one of them. obviously, their answers to those questions are different from yours. but that doesn't change the situation. the fact that you might think they're wrong doesn't make them go away. i don't need to take a position on their politics to know what they believe and what their motives are. i can be sympathetic to many of their frustrations, however, when there is so much abundance and wasteful gluttony on one side of the island, and locals are left with little or nothing, not just financially, but culturally as well. i understand theirs frustration, but i have no stake in their politics. and the article is from a few YEARS ago, not a few DAYS ago, or even a few WEEKS ago. Hawaii can HARDLY be labeled a dangerous place for whites. most folks won't even notice, and of those who do, it'll mostly be something small like seeing a scowl or being called a Haole once or twice. might taint the otherwise Dinsneyland experience, but not a reason to fear the islands.

you can move chi anywhere in your body. if you're new to this sort of thing, the only warning i think worth heeding is to not strain yourself. don't try too hard. don't force anything to happen; allow it to happen. forcing things can get you into a little bit of trouble, but experimenting is a positive, natural inclination. i say go for it. screw all the warnings. you're probably not moving enough chi to get yourself into trouble anyway. your personal exploration will teach you more than a lot of studying will. lots of studying can load you down with a bunch of unnecessary rules and limitations. some people adopt those rules and limitations even before they have their first experience of chi flow. don't let that happen to you. i wouldn't play too much with the spinal column without guidance, but you should feel free to explore your own body and your own body's connection to chi. and if anything gets uncomfortable, there are plenty of folks here who can help you clear it up. have fun! oh, and if you have a hurt foot, why not practice with that foot? don't worry about meridians or points, just intend for loving, healing energy to be drawn in, and breathe that energy into the foot. breath it right into the skin, into the whole foot. breathe in love and healing, breathe out pain and sickness. nothing forced. playfully. see what happens. and please check out this thread. i made it just for people like you. http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/22213-connecting-with-qi-no-system-required/page__p__316243entry316243

pretty big exaggeration, if you ask me. bigotry is pretty rampant among the locals, but violence? with as many rich people that travel there every year, exploring areas in which they are NOT welcome or invited, you'd think there would be an outcry from the folks who definitely have the means to make a fuss. Oahu has some serious ghettos, but they don't discriminate. those neighborhoods are a threat to EVERYBODY! there is a committed movement among the locals for Hawaiian sovereignty, and they definitely look at white americans as the occupying class. that's true. there's also a HUGE resource gap between the locals and the tourists which fuels the resentment. i was appalled when i went to Kauai for 4 months and saw neighborhoods in 2nd and 3rd world conditions, just 10 miles or so outside of the well-developed tourist areas. as a black guy, i received a lot of love from the locals. they see their struggle as being in line with the civil rights movement and the south African apartheid rebellion. given those affinities, there are some small pockets of radicals who engage in vandalism and intimidation tactics from time to time, but being a Californian, their idea of criminal activity hardly hits the radar screen. when i was there the locals on the island of Molokai refused to let a ship dock because the people were looking to purchase land on the island. they threw rocks at the ship until it left. so that kind of thing happens from time to time. marches, protests, acts of civil disobedience. and a DEEP love and support of one another, and for those who are less fortunate, regardless of color. actually there are quite a few white locals in the movement as well. there's certainly a dark side that doesn't get shown, but that silence is actually to the detriment of the locals who are struggling, NOT the tourists. visitors really have very little to worry about. and if they did, you'd hear about it. that's what i think, anyway.

beautiful and awe-inspiring. it was contemplation on things of that nature which most inspired me as a child to pursue mysticism. my heart ached at the thought that i might never know the far reaches of the universe. thanks for the post. i had never seen that video before.

no need to disparage lifeforce's experience in this thread. he didn't say he was enlightened. he very HONESTLY shared his experience of shaktipat. and that was a beautiful thing. many of us recognize what he was experiencing, and he'll likely be processing that descent of Grace for a long time. i just clicked on the most recent comment, so i haven't read the OP yet, but i do believe that what happened to lifeforce is totally legit. the kind of thing that he himself scoffed at, until it happened to him.