King Kabalabhati

I live in a country house without a bathroom, and it sometimes happens that a week goes by without me taking a shower or a bath. In between I usually have a show where I sing and dance for hours, I do daily exercises like pushups and isometrics, I skateboard on the miniramp.. All of these things get me sweaty. So I should probably smell pretty funky by the end of the week right? Nope, I keep getting compliments for my good odor. I don't use any kind of deodorant/antiperspirant, havent used for years. My (ex)wife says I smell so nice, she says it just about every time I meet her. Just a few minutes ago my daughter said I smell "fresh, like I'd just had a shower". No, I haven't had a shower for a week but I had just done Qi healing on my younger daughter, I wonder if thats what brings such a freshness about? It's not only family members who say that. I once was with this girl I picked up from the club, after an evening of sweaty dancing.. She said I smell "like incense". I had to be honest to her, I said she smelled like.. cigarettes. hahaha

I agree it's a good read. It helped me understand my own crisis concernng the interplay between me/women.

Drinking ice cold water gives a cold shock to the organs, harms the kidneys, dilutes the digestive fire and thus lowers the immune system. This according to Ayurvedic sources like Dr. Vasant Lad's books. It's easy to guess that immunity could benefit from less sugar, less ice cold drinks, Qigong and rebounding. Raw food is probably not necessary but you could increase the amount of raw vs. cooked. After a long life of improper habits it's not a quick fix to lift up your health. Persistence is the key. I liked what Goldisheavy wrote.

Yep this is why a complete Qigong/Neigong system is recommended. You will get a good mix of balancing, cleansing, building and shifting your vibration.

It SEEMS very real indeed. Makes me wonder how much of each emotion I have / have had stored inside. Gone through some pretty intense phases of cleansing myself, now I don't really know if there's a lot of old junk left or not. I guess I should go to mr. Clyman to find out The most often occuring feeling I have (can't identify the emotion for sure, anxiety or worry maybe?) is a "restlessness" in the solar plexus area. I actually feel it right now. My anger has become much more manageable and "lighter" as my practice has progressed. Sadness is not as common as it used to be, usually just before the full moon I get a "blue" day or two. I don't get as many feelings of "release" through Qigong and meditation as I used to.

dbl post

Maybe do some bellows breathing and yoga stretching? And then realising he's late for work he'd grab a red bull and be gone.

Thanks for a most inspiring thread.

Man, that's only Level One stuff.. You'll have to harness the power of the Thunderbolt and that's Level Four. Love, Neigong Nerd

Hang in there brother, keep doing your exercise and try to think positive. For me your diet sounds a bit strange.. I don't think you should try to stay in ketosis. Scoliosis is something to take to professionals but also you can do stuff like the plow yoga position. All in all I would suggest simplicity but I guess once you "know too much" then it's hard to be simple anymore. BTW I have quite skinny arms and wrists, I often meet girls with thicker arms than my own.. It has been an issue for me but doesnt seem to hurt my love life too much.

I think you may be right. But then I have a brother who had no family, no girlfriend, not many friends either. He would do pranayama and yoga but most of the time he spent on the computer. Eventually he ended up marrying. Curiously enough he found his wife through the internet from Brazil. So yes family life will take a lot of your time but it's only one of the distractions that prevent you from being in stillness for prolonged periods. I think conquering loneliness through meditation can be the greatest challenge and maybe impossible for those that aren't "chosen" for it. But I wish you good luck on your path.

This is funny but true. I would choose beer over liquor though. Moderate drinking could also help with finding friends or bonding with them, as long as you don't get (too) pathetic

Oh OK. Full moon again.. I was wondering why I was so emotional these last two days, then all of a sudden, all was well again. Everytime the moon gets full all "symptoms" disappear. There often seems to be a kind of change or a mental step that I take during these days due to the emotional "charge".

Just as an anecdote that touches this subject somewhat... I divorced a while ago. Both me and the ex-wife are at our 30's. Now am seeing a 24-year old girl. Very young eh? My wife's new boyfriend is 21 :D (the lesson: freaks don't care about conventionality, and there's plenty of em out there)

Yes, it's all about me, me, me, isn't it? Sorry couldn't resist.. By all means just crash and burn on the fast lane and see where it takes you. I don't mean to criticize your path, I just don't fully understand your attitude when communicating on a forum such a s TB's.

Yeah.. At the same time I'm very aware that things could be MUCH harder. At least I have SOME time for myself. And my day to day living is usually quite happy with challenges I can handle. It would only take a handicap or another kind of serious health issue to make this a VERY tough situation. And today I get to see my girlfriend who is very good to me.. So yeah I'm blessed. I no longer need to comfort myself with thinking like "but family life IS cultivation of sorts" etc. because it is just what it is.

I am a (single) father of three and ready to admit that family life seriously curbs my practice, making serious Qigong progress next to impossible. Another thing is I'm not sure if I would be practicing at all without this situation since I was really desperately searching for a means to survive and live happy in a challenging reality, surrounded by these... people who want my time, my money, my energy, everything.. And still get mad at me all the time and even call me stupid and lazy though I'm the only one providing for them Family life makes cultivating stressful.. I can never be certain if I can get time for my session or finish it when I get it. Right now my boy has a cough and he's very easily alert in the eary morning so if I try to sneak downstairs he will come running after me. Oh well, today I have a 2-hour train trip I will surely put to use. OK I'm speaking from a single father's point of view. Had I a woman who was into the traditional roles, who would like to cook and clean and look after the kids, then I guess this wouldn't be such a hard path. Depite the obvious limitations and bummers I'm often feeling grateful for the special kind of beauty that this life has shown me. Maybe I can take this experience to my supposed next life (which begins in the next 10 years as the kids grow, haha) and then go for the serious cultivator's path. I sure hope I don't need another family guy experience to move forward

If you don't stand for very long periods and you stand in the relaxed wuji posture then I wouldn't worry about that. Much more critical is the "office desk" or the "home laptop" posture edit: right now I'm in a terrible slouched posture, I gotta get up!

I was also thinking "oh, so he didn't learn anything after all.."

Any style of Qigong / Neigong / meditation that raises the vibrational rate of your energy body should do. These usually involve some form of "emptiness" or "no-thought" meditation. Get a teacher if you can, if you can't you will probably find help from systems like Spring Forest Qigong that can be learned from books/dvd's. Smiling at your heart through the day and "softening" it that way should also help you let go of negativity, the vibration of your smile is relaxing and comforting. Stilling the analytic mind and thus giving more power to your consciousness should speed up the process and possibly make it less painful too. I wish you more love

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Thelerner said: "Same with boredom, shielding ourselves & kids from boredom we hide from understanding ourselves, wasting time on the trivial, because it entertains and distracts us." This I've been pondering.. Now I'm not sure whether I should think of boredom as some kind of pain from lack of inspiration. And whether I should really be inspired all the time or just accept boredom when it comes and also realise that there's not necessarily anything wrong with doing something just for the sake of avoiding being bored, hmmmm... It could be a question of tolerance, I mean my children clearly experience boredom as something a bit painful while I can easily take it to some degree or be entertained by things much less entertaining, if you know what I mean. Wait, did I type all this because I'm bored with housecleaning and want to avoid it? YES I'm outta here

I was going to say something similar. Pain IMO was not "given to man" as a means of enlightenment, although some may find it useful for that purpose. Some will simply be stressed out, depressed, debilitated by chronic pain. It is surprisingly often not cured by western medicine, only medicated for life just to be tolerable.

In the Mo Pai tradition, according to Danaos Kosta's books, an immortal is someone who has succesfully fused Yin and Yang (heaven and earth) Chi in their dantien. This means they can take their Yang energy with them when their body dies, so they take their emotions and personality with them as well. There is no talk of a "spiritual embryo" though. Either it's a different technique or just the terms used are different.

Yeah I agree it's good to have different flavors and levels of teachers around. What Tolle is saying IS in fact kind of hard core if you REALLY put it into practice. I don't believe many of us can, and he himself is probably just an adept of it.