Simon the Gnostic

It's required before being able to post in other forums, so I suppose I may as well write a little. I suppose you could say I've been involved with meditation on and off since my teens, in various forms. I've studied everything from new age traditions and new-age riffs on ancient traditions to vipassana, and jhana meditation. I became involved, about six years ago, with a group called the Thomasine Church which is/was a modern Gnostic body with a philosophy guided by the Gospel of Thomas and the Hymn of the Pearl; we look at these texts as describing a journey from Ignorance to Illumination (much like I suppose one might describe the goal of Buddhism or at least its early/more primitive forms). I learnt and taught a variety of meditative techniques and had many insightful discussions on the nature of the mind, the emotions, concentration & etc. My teacher was also a practitioner of traditional Chinese martial arts and many of the practices he taught within the Thomasine Church seem to have roots in the Internal Martial Arts. One of the first meditative techniques I learnt was called "Luminescent Water," which I've only been able to find reference to in a TCMA context, so I figured I might explore it and see what else is there, as some of the techniques are highly efficacious. I wouldn't describe myself as "spiritual" or "religious" by any means, but I am certainly interested in the human mind and the resolution of, as Jung would say, the Ego-Self dichotomy. I maintain a more or less Gnostic-focused blog at Wordpress. EDIT: I found the Tao Bums while searching for info on B.K. Frantzis. He seemed a little new age to me when I watched some of his stuff, but I've ordered his Water Method books to see if there's anything of interest.

I tend to look at it from the perspective of whether or not the method works or not. On a very basic level, we know that the universe is composed of particles (and things beyond particles), so there is energy. We manipulate energy every day when turning on a computer. As humans, we're also walking biochemical batteries, so whether "Chi" actually exists or not, does employing the concept and using the technique produce a deeper awareness of oneself? I don't really worry about the religious baggage I find in most of these things, but I suppose that comes from my background in a fairly astringent and clinical form of Theravada and also Gnosticism.