Apech

I recall that when I practiced Buddhism the teaching was that every sentient being has been at one time your mother and that you can practice loving kindness and gratefulness by thinking on this and treating everyone as your mother. Having a wicked sense of humor I used to think maybe I should phone them all on their birthday and visit them at Christmas ... but that's me. Also everyone I know has quite a fraught relationship with their mother (particularly women ... its a love/hate thing). Maybe this is because we get so much from our mothers that its hard to be an individual without rebelling a little (or a lot). I have wood/wind element as being about growth + spring while metal is autumnal so they are opposites (in a way). Metal takes up the shape into which it is formed while wood wants to grow freely into a new form ... so maybe we have a kind of tension here.

Yes keep going.

Yea, its not the money exchange that bothers me. I would happily pay for something that works. Its the way in which the marketing distorts the teachings. You're right that only a few people are interested. But if I were to want to make money I would have to say "better luck, better sex, better life, better health" and all with not too much work and suffering. Just to boost sales. All of which is possible except my experience is that long periods of hard work and some pain and suffering are involved. Also real spirituality is something much deeper and profound than lightbulbs in your head. Anyway I don't want to sound too jaded its probably just as it should be, the Tao works in mysterious ways.

Hi Scotty, Could you explain this? I was also thinking of the recapitulation technique - the list of all the people you ever met and your energy exchange with them ... I never thought about my mother ... I suppose I met her first and met her the longest.

Seth, Thanks for sharing this. Did the experience die down naturally or did you deliberately impede it. How did you feel then? Is your alien mate still around?

I think that when the ideas of kundalini came to the west they were seen as some distant inaccessible strange thing which yogis did (old man on hill). In recent years people have realised that it is possible for us westerners to do. I read that paper by Samella (not sure if I got that name right... too lazy to look it up) who said kundalini syndrome had only just started to occur in west ... what he should have said its only just been recognized in the west. So now suddenly we think we can do it and it seems like the thing to do. People are attracted to it ... it gets a money making edge to it ... we get marketing. Marketing distorts it because when people pay they expect results - so the whole thing gets dumbed down and ... I've depressed myself now! Maybe I'm just too jaded.

They did have gold mines in Nubia and the Eastern desert but there is a quote (can't remember who) who said they had more gold than dust. The time line is impossible to verify because we don't really know the date of the flood and even the age of Egypt is disputed e.g. some people think the sphinx is about 10,000 BC ... not the sphinx as we know it today but the sacred hill which forms its body ... Don't know about the sons of God I only study Egypt not the bible.

Hi Mel, Yes Egypt is fascinating and they knew a lot. Alchemy came down through Egypt, that's turning base metal into gold and turning your consciousness into enlightened consciousness ... (outer and inner alchemy). So where did they get that knowledge from? I think the idea that our ancestors were kind of ignorant savages is completely wrong. The people who lived in pre-history held great wisdom ... maybe not in a form we would understand. I think this is where all the old civilizations and their religions start from ... Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and so on ... they took this ancient knowledge and expressed it each in their own way through their specific cultures. Egyptian dynastic culture starts from around 3000 BC and the very first Nile settlements were around 6000 BC ... I think the flood is sometimes thought to be around 10,000 BC so that gives the relative times. Some people dispute these dates so I am just giving the currently accepted ones. John

Ok could be possibly. I don't know and the problem with all this is that there are no diagrams or any real explanation. All the information comes from a few papyri which are themselves fragmentary copies of a complete book which has not survived from antiquity. Scholars from the first centuries AD say the Egyptians had such a book or books and there were doctors (swnw) from the earliest times. Still interested to hear from anyone on comparison with meridians.

Yes ultimately - but on a practical level we are still subject to the tidal flow of energy (for want of a better word). Of course if we are tuned in enough we will just dance with this energy rather than getting submerged. Certainly don't get many Buddhas and Messiahs ... and yes most people seem to be very engrossed in the world at the moment.

Ultimately yes, but I think it is fairly well attested that things like the incidence of the common cold and flu rise in the period of 2 weeks either side of the equinoxs (equinoxi?) and solstices - this is because there is a phase shift in natures energy at this time.

let the inside out... but not in my living room just cleaned the carpet.

See a doctor anyway ... you will at least eliminate medical cause.

Surely its the Equinox that affects our moods. Wiki on Equinox ?

You'll get a free copy if I ever finish it.

Found this in Gospel of Thomas: Maybe Jesus did Stillness Movement?

:lol: maybe - he's not alone of course.

Just a word in support of the mod team. I think you've got it just about right. The people who get suspended seem to want this happen e.g. ~JK~. TTBs seems to go through cycles where it gets very tetchy for a time and then goes back to normal. Some people seem to come her expecting it to be something it isn't - that is a bland calm place for elevated discussion. For me I like the arguments - if you follow the better ones then they really make you think hard about the subject. If this makes it a 'social event' or whatever well then so be it.

Well he seemed to want that. This was a civilized discussion last time I looked. I very much like Taomeows prison break analogy and also if I have it right the Gurdieff inversion - in the sense that maybe that which people seek to get liberation is actually what binds them (have I got that right?). I said somewhere (maybe not this thread) that I thought that true spiritual development (for want of a better name) does not = kundalini or indeed any 'experience' ... we seem to like focusing on the whizz bang flashing lights and fireworks stuff ... when possibly this is just a side show ... or even worse a distraction. People write on here with the language of great authority when I suspect that we are all finding our way in varying shades of darkness. Also there is always more than one way to skin the proverbial ... I think we should remember this. Have we all got a little more tetchy lately? Can we blame it on the Autumnal Equinox? Is that today? I think it might be.

blocking empty mind... the traffic jam of my thoughts I'll take the High way.

OK I could live without that flute playing but .... rebreakable brick! http://www.youtube.c...h?v=91oMFH7Y6sI Thousand sword finger!!!!! http://www.youtube.c...h?v=RYtMyNeAX3M He does his stuff and puts it out there ....no shame ...

No I didn't mean that. You said: I was trying to say its not one under one thought ... its infinite expression of what is beyond thought. Even if you write from personal experience, or especially, you are reflecting on it and the listeners can benefit from the thoughts and feeling you have .... even if its about struggle ... we all struggle and so on. Hope this makes sense (if not ignore ).

You really gave away the ending! Damn.

I would say this. Individuality and Taoism are not incompatible, in fact the more you become tuned into the Tao the more individual you become because the creativity of the Tao is infinite. Oneness with the Tao would be expressed differently in each person. The Tao is beyond definition but in relation to creating form appears to be the origin of everything and in relation what exists looks like its mother. It creates and sustains the 10,000 things i.e. the myriad forms of existence. If everyone tuned into the Tao then their action would be something like an amazing dance, each person with their own style and moves (individuality) and in harmony with the others but not all dancing the same - if you see what I mean. So certainly not uniformity in the usual sense. Anyway that's my thoughts. Cheers.