sean

I'm saying be a woman. Be a woman to the fullest. But be more also. Because You .... YOU are not just a human in female form crawling around on the land mass of a planet. Sean

Cool post freeform. Your latter point is exactly why I found the patterns in Structure of Magic so profound. Person A: Men are protective Person B: What are men protective of? A: Men are protective of women. B: All men are protective of all women? A: Uhh, well, no not really I guess. B: Which men are protective of who or what? A: Well ... John in my math class is protective. B: Who or what is John protective of? A: John is protective of me. B: How is John protective of you? A: Well ... when Tim says mean comments to me, John sticks up for me. B: How does John stick up for you? etc.. Through this process, the distorted generalizations of your surface structure connect with the actual visceral experience of your deep structure and beyond. Then I think you can't help but be humbled by how ridiculous it is to try to take the data from your perceptions as one single person in one single context and extrapolate sweeping judgements about entire genders, races, countries, etc. Giant beliefs like "women are emotional", "men are selfish", blah blah blah ad nauseum are rarely based around a quantitative study outside your own experience with maybe a few hundred people in your own country, in your own neighborhood, in your own family. Which is fine. We need labels to communicate and generalizations help simplify our life. But it's important to see things for what they are. Generalizations are just confessions of your personal experiences and the way you've organized them into filters. They are not an actual insight into the inherent properties of reality IMO. Sean.

Lozen, just wanted to say I liked your post a lot. (I read it after my post above). I think in a way we are just approaching a truth from different perceptual positions. I am attempting to speak about reality from positions closer to what I am imagine the Absolute to comprise, whereeas you are speaking more pragmatically from the eyes of your accumulated experience as a person. I do want to comment on one thing though: Personally, I don't see the qualities of nurturing and protection as being intrinsic to being male and female. This get's into the age long nature vs. nurture of course. But if you think about it, human behavior is mostly running on software these days. Software taught to us by our family and cultural traditions. If you stick a few babies in the woods they are just not even going to survive much less have the male baby grow up in some inborn protective role and the female in a nurturing role. It's been shown over and over in studies that male and female babies are treated drastically different by, for example, babysitters who are misled about the actual gender of the child. I mean just really simple stuff, like the boy is given a toy truck and pushed away to go play with it and the girl is nuzzled and spoken softly to. So of course there are going to be statistical differences in gender, but I think intrinsic distinctions between men and women outside of the physically obvious are a bit more elusive. Sure we have different hardware but you can draw the same picture on a chalkboard that you can in the sand. It's the androgynous mind and soul that are breathe life into the body. So honestly, to my ears, saying "women are more intuitive" hits me the same way as if I heard someone saying "black people can sing and play basketball". Maybe (maybe) it's a useful generalization in some contexts, but I think in the big picture it's just a perceptual limitation. Sean.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The Color Purple by Alice Walker Sex by Madonna Go Ask Alice by Anonymous To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton The Pigman by Paul Zindel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Brave New World by Aldous Huxley The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell Ordinary People by Judith Guest American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis Lord of the Flies by William Golding Carrie by Stephen King View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts

Still kungfused. No man can ever "match" a woman at what? Let's complete the following sentence as specifically as possible: In my opinion, humans born in male form cannot match humans born in female form at _______________. I'll go first. Off the top of my head, and perhaps the most obvious: In my opinion, humans born in male form cannot match humans born in female form at getting pregnant and giving physical birth to a child, given the confines of our present level of technology. Sean.

So the point of this quote is basically that one exceptional guy out of a million or so is brilliant enough to match woman's inherent genius? I'll have to think about that one. Will be hard though since me just average stoopid man.

You are too funny man. Well, one advantage I have that I forgot to mention is that I am already half way there. In the only real, physical fight (not with family) I've ever gotten into (that I can recall at least), I was drunk at a college party and ended up wrestling with this guy that had insulted me all over someone's kitchen floor. In our drunken ridiculousness he kept trying to push my face away, and (in retrospect this is my theory) at one point he must have tried to grip my whole jaw and somehow got some finger(s) in my mouth and just really clamped down with his fingernails or something because after we were dragged off of each other I was spitting a lot of blood and had ... drum roll ... a partially severed frenum. Strange but true. Sean.

Hey, I got this idea from another forum I frequent. Whenever we start/finish a book somehow relevant to spiritual cultivation, we can post in this topic what the book title is with an optional snippet summary/review. I'll start. Right now I'm still plodding through Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery but loving it. I keep it on a little bookshelf next to my training mat area and flip through it and try a new visualization exercise. This is a dense one and probably one that I won't finish for awhile. And even then I will likely keep it on my training shelf for reference. I am so proud of this find, this book is a real gem. A book I have in my little reading pile next to my bed is Calm Abiding and Special Insight : Achieving Spiritual Transformation Through Meditation which I read was an excellent introduction to Jhana cultivation within a Tibetan Buddhist context. It's very well written and alternates from author commentary to Q&A's with students which breaks things up nicely. But it's also dense in that the baroque cosmology of the Tibetan path is not shielded like in many of the pop books in this genre. There is some wading involved if you don't have intentions of saturating yourself in this system. (Shelved for now. Too dense with specific Tibetan terminology that I am not interested in at this point). I recently finished The Inner Teachings of Taoism which I frankly found incomprensible. I just personally don't get anything at all out of these old Taoist texts wrapped so thick in what seems like inpenetrable layers of alchemical metaphor. The poetry itself doesn't even touch me in any wordless way. I think this text is probably a masterpiece but I humbly submit that it's way over my head. The Truth Is, is in the mail from amazon. I can't wait. When you hear a review of a book in which the reviewer, a long time spiritual seeker, says she literally threw out all of her other spiritual books after she read it, and another reviewer said that it felt like she ate acid after she read it the world seemed so alive, it's probably one that I want to at least check out. Cheers, Sean.

There was actually a discussion about the "morality of body modification" relating to this very article on AYP over on Jhanas Support Group last week. Kind of interesting back and forth. Anyway, yeah I'm down. But I am taking these AYP practices step by step, very slowly and as recommended. My experiences have been congruent with his warnings on how powerful these practices are, and to only move forward when you have the step you are on under your belt, etc. So I am still just doing 5 minutes spinal breathing with darth vader exhale and 20 minutes IAM meditation twice a day. And just this simple routine is producing experiences that I am having trouble fitting into my typical "Psychological model" ... stuff that is so text-book kundalini that I am either finally going completely crazy or this shit is for real. Sean.

From Ramon Sender. I found his site when doing research on sungazing ... wow, I guess over a year ago now. I read his blog and also his posts on Jhana Support Group where he mentioned the site recently. Such a great find, I want to write him and thank him. Sean.

Thanks y'all! Maintaining the site is my pleasure. Anything to keep this party bumpin'. Sean.

Cool post, cat. I enjoyed your perspective on this.

cool post, cat, I enjoyed your perspective on this.

It's an awesome idea. I've been chewing on how to implement it from a technical perspective since the site's inception. A Wiki approach might be a good idea. But not entirely open to anyone to edit/delete. More like with a core team of articulate, dedicated volunteers.

Simon, try to find the actual poster. If you want I will see if I can dig up the company I bought it from. It was like $12 or something and is beautiful. Re: the "dirtiness" of Western Magick, it's an interesting insight and I've been chewing on it since it's been posted. I have similar intuitions and I'm wondering what the meaning is. I suspect that at least some of it is, as Westerners, we are more in tune with the "bad karma" of our gene-pool. Whereas we might have a tendency to look at the Eastern paths with a certain degree of naivety that comes from unfamiliarity and also from a subtle glamorization of the "foreign mystique". Kind of like a "grass is always greener" ... or "things always look better from far away" kind of phenomenon. The tendency for Westerners to fetishize foreign cultures, exacerbated by the typically serene, beautiful, aesthetic images of the "East" we are presented with by media, particularly spiritual-media. This in contrast to the more nitty-gritty reality of "our people" chanting in English or working with the underbelly of Christian imagery ... the latter seems "tainted" somehow. Perhaps by a hyper-awareness of our own culture's sins and "shadow". Hope this makes sense. Rushed post, sorry, I'm on lunch break. Sean.

My copy is in the mail Yoda. I don't know wether it's just right time/right place for me or inherent value in the AYP practices themselves, but they are deeply affecting me and I'm generating more and more dedication/committment to them. And super bonus is that Lezlie is really digging them as well... Whereas she has been a bit half-hearted with the Taoist work, now we are doing the AYP meditations twice a day like clockwork and are both having what feel like real, tangible experiences with them. I think this is some powerful stuff (at least for us) and it's presented in such a down to earth, simple manner it's a blast. Sean.

A co-worker of mine was really into this guy and felt like the existence of his website proved that there is not unexplainable phenomenon. I am kind of more with freeform on this one, and I've read other decent criticisms of the lose/lose nature of Randi's tests. I also am very skeptical of people who make wild claims though without stepping forward to have them validated, like what spyrelx is talking about ... moving objects with chi, etc. Then again, I also read a decent theory on why much magickal phenomenon doesn't work in the presence of a large presence of disbelief. (I think I read about it in Real Magic or maybe in Liber Null & Psychonaut .. or maybe somewhere else, heh) ... It's kind of self-validating, but also makes sense if you think about it. The substance through which you would produce an effect outside of your body through will would need to be shaped by a powerful amount of will/intent/belief and if there are 10 disbelieving observers they are cancelling out your will. Still doesn't really explain why these feats are not filmed though ... Doesn't really matter to me though. I don't need to believe that awe inspiring feats of external magick are necessary as I'm more interested in scientific approaches to "inner" cultivation. Cool topic though. Sean.

Thank you Munch. Your post touched me. Sean.

Oh yeah! Those are HORRIBLE. My brother is really into those and it's obvious because he is always walking around showing off his damn six pack while I am always a little soft around the center. HEY! ... Really? Well it's actually the first time I ever tried the standing ab wheel, just based off Trunk's short description of what he wanted. Is it really that bad? Sean,

LOL! Lezlie should be so lucky as to have both of us.

The essence of divine experience is unending devastating bliss and an unshakable silent peace. ---Yogani There are various ways to give it all up. You can ignore the physical world and its realities and trust in the universe. I did that, and it was a powerful experience. And one I wouldn't wish on anyone. Surrendering to your inner awareness, however, and its intelligence and practicality in the worlds you live in, is the higher ground. Trusting yourself and the source of your intelligence is a more elegant version of freedom and personal productivity. ---David Allen

You have an ab wheel, right? Gotta get an ab wheel if you don't, Yodaman. You can pick one up for less than $10. Check it out. And who's that dork doing a standing ab wheel? Sean.

I always forget about this aspect of fear reactivity. That it's not neccessarily just not being able to physically do a move, or even being afraid of it ... other symptoms like dizziness and nausea as you mentioned, sudden fatigue, sadness, traumatic memories, etc. Food for thought, thanks. Sean.