Apech

"This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

music of dust mights

whispered into sleeping ears

"Time to wash the sheets"

 

(they are so opinionated?)

Time to wash the sheets

That stain looks like Africa

The mark of darkness.

(Errrr! )

Just to add to this thread on the neck and so on. The attached image is of the serpent Neheb-kau feeding the person and restoring his (sexual) energy. This serpent was benign being associated with the flood of the Nile and was said to cure snake bites. His power was derived from his swallowing seven cobras which are related to the neck and probably stood for the cervical nerves which govern the upper body. This image was also shown on what is known as the hypocephalus a circular text placed behind the head of certain mummies. This was all about the Eye of Horus appearing as a flame which burn out impurities.

There is an obvious correlation to Kundalini and so on and the use of energy. I would still like to know if anyone knows of a relationship between the neck and the seven stars/ or even the seven chakras etc.

The word doubt comes from words meaning 'to be of two minds'. If you are in a state of doubt then you have two opposing ideas in your mind with which you have established a certain attachment/indentification. This might be your spirituality versus scepticism for instance. Analysis through comparison of ideas is healthy while being passively confused by opposing and unexamined concepts is unhelpful. So I would suggest that when you have doubts about your practice then you test them as actively as you can, when you find you are passively engaged in practice you challenge this also to see if it is working. This will put you into an active stance instead of a passive one.

In real spiritual work confidence is gained by a pragmatic testing of what you do to see the results. For instance you meditate and notice that you feel a little different afterwards - this proves that there is some effect. Step by step you test things to build more and more confidence. The same goes with establishing a relationship with a teacher - you test it at first (in a friendly way) until you feel that your pupil/teacher relationship is one in which practice and results can mature properly. If you are working alone then you have to do the same with your practice. Give it time but test it, without urgency, is it working? If not are you doing it right and so on.

Here is my answer:

Through his experience,

the sage becomes aware that all things change,

and that he who seems to lead,

might also, in another situation, follow.

So he does nothing; he neither leads nor follows.

That which he does is neither big nor small;

without intent, it is neither difficult,

nor done with ease.

His task completed, he then lets go of it;

seeking no credit, he cannot be discredited.

Thus, his teaching lasts for ever,

and he is held in high esteem.

When the consistency of the Tao is known,

the mind is receptive to its states of change.

It is natural for things to change,

sometimes being ahead, sometimes behind.

That which once seemed full,

may later empty seem,

yet still be unexhausted.

That which once seemed straight

may seem twisted when seen once more;

intelligence can seem stupid,

and eloquence seem awkward;

movement may overcome the cold,

and stillness, heat,

but stillness in movement

is the way of the Tao.

From

The Tao Te Ching

A Translation by Stan Rosenthal

No idea how to vote - everything changes/nothing changes ... you decide.

our flesh made from dust

I Think? ... my drumming neighbor

would make a nice drum

would make a nice drum

if I could, would keep it real

not using cymbals.

and appearance light

light flashes as energies

flow fast between us

flow fast between us

like a charismatic sun

for we are planets.

Where is Way's house then?

Forget the housework and keep your shoes on.

Those are absolutely stunning photos.

Thanks for letting us see.

Trunk,

Glad we agree - more or less. Collapsing spheres? Perhaps I meant the distinction between them ceases to be relevant (or something). i.e. think, feel, will becomes 'be'.

Great thread y'all!

 

 

 

Hi Yoda,

A short version of my thinking about Egypt/assemblage point.

The Book of the Dead describes two cycles. The first cycle is about seeing, understanding and absorbing the experience of the nature of reality. The second is about 'becoming' it. Near the beginning of the second cycle is a series of Chapters or Spells dealing with what are called 'transformations'. These start with Ch. 76 " Spell for being transformed into any shape one may wish to take." This is followed by a series of being transformed into various forms such as a gold falcon, a divine falcon ... a lotus, a swallow and so on.

The word used for transformation is 'kheperu' a word derived from the verb 'kheper' which means 'come into being', 'change', 'occur or happen' and 'bring about' and so on. This creative transformational process is personified in the god Khepera, the scarab beetle of the morning sun. Interestingly this word is also used when talking about the heart - a sacred scarab was placed on the chest of the mummy to protect the heart, and in Ch. 30b of the BoD. it says "O my heart of my mother, O my heart of my mother, O my heart of my changing forms (kheperu)."

So there is a clear link between the heart and this transformational process of changing forms.

This reminded me of the Castaneda books where Don Juan changes into a crow and CC into a cayote. I recalled that this was explained in later books as being about a shift in the assemblage point ... e.g. from the strands of awareness of a human to those of a crow. I saw a connection. To the Egyptian the heart was the centre of the mind, will and character. It was involved in a transformational process at a key stage in the BoD reminiscent of shamanistic shape shifting.

From this I began to wonder if I cold see anything similar in Daoism. So far the results are inconclusive but I still have hope

Thnx to everyone for listening and responding. And hope there is more to be said on this important subject.

Hi Apepch7

 

Do you know about the book The Promise of Power, by Tomas? It's a reference tool for all of Castenada's works. So you can look up the term "assemblage point," and this book tells you how to locate every reference to that term in all Castenada's books up to and including The Art of Dreaming. There are nearly 20 pages of references for the assemblage point, in very small print! Tomas's book tells you the book, page, and paragraph of each reference. More than 700 pages of references (not text!) It's pretty mind boggling.

 

It might not help you with the Daoist connections, but you may get a lot clearer about what Castenada was talking about.

 

Adeha

Hi Cheya,

No I don't know that book but I have the Art of Dreaming which I will look up.

Thanks.

You like it, so you must relate to it in some way...

If you'd start by talking some about how you relate to it, and feel free to ramble if you like,

then I'll chime in, we'll kick it around some.

OK - its does say "This essay is a current work-in-progress; it'll be filling out over several weeks." - so I was encouraging you to do this, but anyway:

"Find the still place in the deep-center

of each of the three centers (power, love, wisdom).

Align those still places.

That alignment opens the central vessel."

What I take from this is that each of the Tan Diens (power - lower, heart - love, upper-wisdom) has at its heart a still centre through which they are linked. This link is the central channel or middle pillar - working with this is about working directly with reality (that is the union of emptiness and appearance, voidity and luminosity or however you express it.) Working in this way means resting in the 'now' in what the Egyptians called 'hotep' (sorry but I don't know the term from other systems). In a way you could say the three centres collapse into each other (this is a way of talking of course).

"Find the light in the deep-center

of each of the three centers.

Allow each center's light to transform and absorb

its own surrounding substance and energies

into its deep-center,

promoting each center's stability

as itself."

The light in each centre is the resident awareness (or primary awareness) which is an attribute of absolute power (reality), naturally arising from its presence, unconstructed and pure. Each centre has around it resonating energies, physical, emotional and so on which constitiute the kind of energy fabric of the being. The centre's light self-emanating absorbs, or rather acknowledges these as children of its own light and therefore links and binds them into a coherent structure which is able to establish its own stability - that is it becomes a kind of self harmonizing whole.

More later.

I just googled Taisha Abelar and it said on Wiki:

"Taisha Abelar, born Maryann Simko, is an American author and anthropologist who was a close associate of Carlos Castaneda. She disappeared shortly after Castaneda's death in 1998."

Is there any explanation as to where she has been for the last 10 years?

Explains why my hair keeps standing on end.

Here's another good book.

My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace

I myself read and reread all of castaneda's works for years. His works had a profound impact on me... Unfortunately there is very credible evidence that he was a fraud. A genius, but a fraud....

I read Amy Wallace's book and found it very gossipy and a little bit spiteful. To be honest an ex-lover is never going to be a big fan.

It seems to me that CC was surrounded by scary women at the end of this life and I have seen on youtube an interview with the three cagoules (or whatever they call themselves) and I find transegrity (?) completely unconvincing. Too tense, too overtly dramatic and would not stand up against any half decent Qi Gong practice.

For me CC's books are very inspiring and no 'fraud' could do that, in that way. They are full of powerful ideas which stand up to my scrutiny (and I am very hard to please!). I don't think he was a genius - I think he encountered one or possibly more than one genuine practitioners and enough rubbed off on him to write the books - but when left to his own devices it all went pear shaped - which is basically what the books describe as the 'three pronged nagual'. So in that sense I would take the books at face value - up to and not including 'Magical Passes'.

they don't need to overlap, you see.

there are various practice and belief system, that are working. their theory contradicts one another. yet they are all working. how do you explain that?

mixing up systems it's not a great idea.

because you cannot take a truth from here, and a truth from there, and make up your own truth.

the truth doesn't exist.

all that there is, is a massive incomprehensibly infinite mass of energy and awareness, everchanging.

practicioners of all walks of life make wild guesses on it, but it still remains a mistery.

 

and now for the explanation i found while researching the same topic:

the energy of the time and the energy of the place where that system was created, allowed for particular features, that you will find nowhere else, in that form.

it's another reason why you cant mix up: every system is made to fit a certain timeframe, spaceframe...

You are right they don't overlap and I am not trying to mix systems - I am completely against that idea. That is my main criticism of most people who write about Egypt and you will see from what I have written on here that I keep within the Egyptian system when talking about it.

BUT you can gain understanding in one system which helps in the other. Also when dealing with fundamentals such as voidity and so on these are in all systems.

Every system is developed in a certain time, place, terrain and from a particular history of experience which makes it unique in that expression BUT because it is dealing with underlying reality if properly understood reveals the same nature of reality and so on.

It appears that the assemblage point is a useful principle in the work that I am doing so I want to compare and contrast how other systems talk about it. I would be very surprised if there is nothing in Daoism which deals with this - but maybe I'm wrong.

By "egg", I mean basically the shape that is in Apepch7's attached diagram.

By "Light" I mean a primordial vast Light that is accessed and integrated in meditation. It is sometimes referred to as the dharmakaya, "pure light". I tend to just say Light or Big Light. (My understanding of how this is done is in a few core vessel essays.)

 

By "Lineage", I mean a group of enlightened beings who hang out together in a heavenly realm. Maybe I should say "Heavenly Lineage" as contrasted to a line of teachers on earth. I use it genericly, because people choose different Lineages to align with. (For instance, Christians align their attention to a different heavenly realm than Hindus.)

 

I think I've come to some sort of capatilazation style that it reminicent of Winnie the Pooh, and that's Not Such a Bad Thing.

Trunk,

I like this:

core centre

care to expand on it as promised

how can this information be of help to you? what do you expect to discover.

I've been a castaneda fan myself over the years, and still think his work is real.

maybe i can help you, but i don't know what are you searching for.

I use other systems to enhance my own work (which involves interpreting Ancient Egyptian religion - I can explain how this fits in if you wish). I want to make sure I have a correct understanding of the assemblage point and was originally looking to see if the Daoist system had anything equivalent.

Thanks for the replies so far and I would like to continue the discussion because its an important subject IMO.

Like many of the ideas from CC's books the assemblage point seems to have spawned a small industry of practitioners - alternative healers who heal by moving the point when it becomes displaced (or stuck). Just google it if you want to see. They seem to place the point in the mid-chest where the heart chakra would be and not behind the right shoulder - which is the point that DJ used to strike to shift CC's attention. I was struck by this diagram:

Whether or not CC's books are 'fact' or 'fiction' does not concern me because (magical passes aside) the ideas in the books are in my view spot on. So whatever their source they are I think entirely valid. The movement of the assemblage point has various uses, dreaming, stalking and the attendant shifts in awareness. When ever we work, e.g. with Chi we are moving it slightly - more extreme movement will result in quite different states of consciousness. But ultimately understanding it and how it works must be a key to liberation.

I am puzzled though why its hard to provide a direct link to Daoist systems - maybe its something to do with the interaction of Shen and Chi (?).

I'm looking for some authentic information on the assemblage point as per Castenada's books. Is there a Daoist equivalent in the sense of a point for gathering lines of attention which can be shifted and so on. Is it the middle Dan tien?

Any links to Toltec shamanism on this?

Thnx.

We had come in peace.

Our intentions were sincere.

From our view at least.

From our view at least

The nature of things is void

and appearance light.

Rather than asking whether visualizations are needed (since they clearly are not essential) it would be more worth while to ask what are visualizations good for. I think the answer is that they promote a certain type of mental awareness. They can be immediate and holistic. They can help with mental absorbtion. In a tantric sadhana they can be used to focus on a yiddam and allow the energy of that yiddam to pervade and so on.

In terms of Chi and healing visualizations can be used to create a certain energy structure to aid health. BUT I agree you do not need to visualize to feel chi.

nice

sex revolution

now once more? It's time again

for Lysistrata

for Lysistrata

Stopping more than just a war

We had come in peace.

What happened to the October 14th UFO prediction?

Nada.