Veritas

Thank you dwai.

My main interest is in developing a bhakti practice. The energetic side of my cultivation has been fulfilled.

Four years ago I received shaktipat which initiated a kundalini experience and started a process which has completely changed me as a person.

It started out as a very blissful experience which lasted for many weeks before subsiding.

I was left with confusion, doubt, many episodes in which I (and the people around me), thought I was going mad.

Bouts of depression, intermingled with elation and euphoria are the normal for me now as I've slowly learned to cope with my 'condition'. This has never deterred me from my mission in life, which was revealed to me at the time of my shaktipat, and that is of union with the Divine. I've jumped from book to book, scripture to scripture, in all traditions, looking for answers, which nearly all fall short of my lofty expectations.

I truly believe that my path lies in the ancient Indian texts, but sifting my way through them to find a practice which resonates with me is becoming increasingly difficult and confusing. 

So, basically I'm after some help and advice on starting and developing a bhakti practice which will last me for all my lifetime, and beyond.

Any help which you, or anyone can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

If you want union with god/god realization you should read Ramakrishna. He worships god in the form of the goddess Kali and he was blessed with many visions of her. He says the aim of human life is god realization and he tells you how to attain that. Here's a link to an audio version of the Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna.

http://www.vedantauk.com/Readings.aspx

The link also has Vivekananda's (his chief disciple) commentary on the different yogas: bakti, karma, jnana, and raja yoga. Good luck on your journey!

The same thing happened to me. It goes away. I once asked one of my friends about it and he says that's one of the areas that gets healed first.

How long did it take for it to go away in your case and does the heat come back to the dantian?

It might be a good idea to move the qi around your body.

 

I don't understand your method. When you have the "fire" in your TD, why don't do something with the "fire"?

What am I suppose to do with the fire?

Or you could not make it flow through your microcosmic orbit and work towards getting to level 2 in the mo pai system. The methods for level 1 and 2 can be found on the internet for free

Yeah I've read Jim McMillians level 1 and level 2 mopai. I'm just not a big fan of reverse breathing. It feels unnatural and whenever I use it it's harder for me to get into a deep trance. Also I'm pretty sure Mopai doesn't involve the MCO

So I've been meditating for a while now but for the last half a year I stepped it up and started meditating at least 3 hrs a day. I just do a simple meditation where I would just focus on my dantian. Around 4 months ago I developed heat there whenever I focus on it. In the beginning it was just warmth and then later on it got really hot. It only gets really hot when my mind is completely focused for like at least 10 minutes on my dantian. That only happened a handful of times because for me its really hard to stay focus on one thought for a long time. Anyways last month it stopped getting really hot whenever i focus on it for a long time and I started feeling pain near my testicles.It hurts a little bit but its not super painful or anything but I feel like energy is flowing to my testicles instead of staying in my dantian. Just wondering if anyone know or experience anything like this and any advice on how to get the heat back to my dantian would be great thanks.

I think John Chang puts it best when he said that "religion is like a walking stick. When you are young, you need

help from your parents to walk. When you are old, you need a cane. When you are a healthy adult, you have no need for a cane; if you try to run, it will only hinder you."

You guys wanna take it outside? I feel like you guys should duke it out. Whoever wins will prove that they are at a higher level and that's the person I'm gonna believe

Well I guess Shifu Lin is out of business...

In other news the sky is blue, water is wet, and peaches are fuzzy!

Yin chi is very important, almost everything else does not work with it at all.

Yeah you're right. I have a garage downstairs that I share with my neighbor. I'm going to clean that up and meditate there for now. Hopefully they don't walk in on me during my meditation session. That would be weird as f*** hahah. I was going to buy the metal wire but then I realized I would have to ask my neighbor to plant it in this backyard which is kinda inconvenient since I don't really know them. Sucks living upstairs. Anyways good luck on your cultivation.

Stillness-Movement is neigong and deals with both yin and yang qi integrating into a whole. Do the exercises then no need to even think about any differentiation.

 

You do not have to sit on a wire to gather yin qi, although a person may or may not find sleeping while grounded beneficial - I have heard stories both ways - yes and no. Personally I just touch Earth several times a day. I did experiment with the ground wire about 30 years ago.

 

In the Gift of the Tao movements one can find the exercise "Walking in the Qi" to be as powerful as any other qigong or neigong in "gathering yin qi".

Thanks for the clarification. I always thought what differentiates qigong from neigong is that in neigong when your dantien is filled it's compressed to a smaller size and then sent down into the perineum where it collects yin chi and they both later rise and fuse together in the dantien. This is what I meant when I said combining yin and yang chi. I don't think qigong systems do this.

Well, I guess I'm not on a lei shan dao? (I might be, but lomax is notoriously mysterious and "you'll discover if you practice" about it), but SM does have you differentiate between yang and yin chi, but you don't have to do rocket science with it. I am not at that point though.

 

The practice takes care of itself.

 

So beyond a solid practice, I don't if you are making the assumption you have to be touching the ground(yin) to get yin chi...

 

I believe the book says what you said... and I understand that's what you have to work with till you meet another master who can say otherwise. So good luck with it then.

 

John

The sitting meditation for SM accumulates and stores chi in the dantien. It's a very good meditation. But I don't think SM deal with yin chi though (well not in the book at least) because its qigong not neigong. They don't combine yin and yang chi at the higher levels.

you can really sugar coat this if you want the truth & real results...

 

to build great yin & yang chi,

 

you HAVE to be on High Ground in a Natural environment

Ecology

I guess it's time to move to the Himalayas

There is no reason you can't meditate on the top floor.

 

But yes you will have to be grounded during meditation, to develop correctly.

 

Both Yin and Yang Chi flow easily through metal, so a grounding wire (a wire that is grounded to the earth) connected to the perinium point during meditation is all that is required.

 

Be careful who's advice you buy on here, most people don't know their *** from a hole in the ground.

how thick should the wire be?

I'm sorry I don't mean to be so sarcastic but I really don't know how else to respond to those posts. Of course having a good teacher would be ideal but to say that books are useless and that we should only listen and believe what our teachers say is not only absurd but I think also dangerous.

For a total illiterate a book is only good if its paper is soft and possibly 3ply

 

YM

Comparing books to toilet paper makes a lot sense. You are definitely a very wise man

Seriously 11 hrs? Wow that's really impressive. I practice 3-4 hrs a day and I thought that's alot. You ever consider going up to the mountains and be a hermit?

If you don't have a teacher to guide you you are not "accumulating yang qi into your dantian" but you are just wasting your time on wishful thinking. I suggest you throw away books and look for a teacher, who will tell you and explain you why to stay on the floor or not.

 

YM

 

PS: needless to say, if you had a teacher you would not be asking this kinds of questions here

Thanks for the advice buddy! You know what I'm just go throw away all my books right now because you told me so and obviously no ones ever learned anything from books anyways.

P.S Thanks again!

If you don't have a teacher to guide you you are not "accumulating yang qi into your dantian" but you are just wasting your time on wishful thinking. I suggest you throw away books and look for a teacher, who will tell you and explain you why to stay on the floor or not.

 

YM

 

PS: needless to say, if you had a teacher you would not be asking this kinds of questions here

Accumulating chi in the dantien is a basic meditation that many schools have as their foundation. I follow one of those schools

The thing is I don't feel any difference meditating on the ground as oppose to on the 2nd floor. I do however feel a big difference when meditating on carpet. I can tell that I'm not getting any Yin chi because my body gets warm and my dantien gets really hot. But that's not the case at all when I'm meditating on the 2nd floor. Feels just like like meditating on the ground.

Just curious, what book did you read this information in? And yes, you will not accumulate 'sufficient' yin chi if you are not meditating on the ground, connected to the earth without insulation from synthetic materials. You will still accumulate yang chi in the dantien, but based on the context of your post, I'm assuming you're attempting a particular, condition-based nei-gong meditation practice that involves accumulating both yang and yin chi, in which case yes you must be on the ground.

I'm reading Jim McMillan's book on John Chang. John told Jim that his yin chi was weak and that was the result of him meditating on a trailer 3 feet above the ground. So if I'm not accumulating sufficient yin chi then does that mean I'm also not accumulating the most yang chi possible? Because I know that you're supposed to have the same amount of Yang as Yin chi in your body. Even though they're stored in different places, one in the dantien and the other in the perineum, there's supposed to be equal amount of yin as yang and if i'm not getting sufficient yin then I must also not getting sufficient yang?

I'm doing a sitting meditation to accumulate yang chi into my dantien. I was wondering if it's necessary to meditate on the ground.I live in the top floor of a 2 story apartment so I can't really meditate sitting on the ground. I read in a book that says yin chi comes from the ground and yang from the air and so does that mean I'm not getting enough yin chi because I'm not sitting on the ground when I meditate?

This book will help you

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Yoga-Practices-Lessons-Ecstatic/dp/1478314834/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1347000272&sr=8-4&keywords=yogani

Actually your bunny friend is right on the mark. There's a reason people can sense chi, yet it can't be detected by science. To you it exists, but to most people chi and qi is imaginary. Does it exist? For you it does and perhaps that's enough. After all, must I believe what other people believe?

 

Aaron

Chi exists even if most people believe its imaginary and even if it can't be detected by science. Today's science doesn't have the technology to detect chi yet but eventually it will be detected. That's like saying in the middle age the earth was flat because people believed it was flat or that gravity didn't exist because Isaac Newton hadn't discovered it yet.

I don't think you're supposed to draw the energy up the crown chakra and leave it there. You should loop it down and into your dantien. I skip the crown chakra all together and draw it up to my third eye and then down to my dantien.

Hahaha I know what you mean...I used to read a lot of new age books that talk about how everything is the result of your believes and to be honest I was brainwashed into that way of thinking for a bit I used to go around thinking that if I only think positive thoughts then no bad things will happen to me. Then one day out of nowhere I had a serious illness even though I believed i was healthy and I never had any thoughts about being ill. So now now I really don't even know what to believe hahah. But there are some serious flaws to that way of thinking though...like did the thousands of Japanese that died because of the Tsunami believed that they were going to drown prior to the Tsunami? Did Christopher Reeves believed that he was going to get into that accident and never walk again? It just doesn't make sense...

Oh... why did you have to go there. This is another pet peeve of mine, because I know people who've used these methods without supervision that have caused permanent physical damage to themselves. Any pressure on the perineum and urethra can cause damage. I have a friend who's had two surgeries as a result of applying pressure to perineum in order to delay or prevent orgasm. He will have to undergo another surgery, but is putting it off because the doctor said it only has a 50% chance of removing the scar tissue that occurred.

 

These methods are meant for people at the very end of their qigong practice and the people who were practicing them in China were instructed in person by their teachers. It's not meant to be learned in a book. If you read the books, they have a disclaimer, but very few people take it seriously.

 

Again, if you're trying to delay the natural occurrence of something there is going to be damage eventually. The build up of energy during ejaculation isn't meant to be retained in my opinion, but rather released to a partner. If you're sole purpose for abstaining from sex and retaining semen is to increase your own power, you've missed some of the very basic teachings of Taoism, and obviously have not attained the wisdom necessary to truly gain the benefits from this kind of practice.

 

My recommendation, abstinence is by far less dangerous than perineum pressure and PC muscle control exercises (which have been anecdotally linked to permanent erectile dysfunction).

 

Aaron

Sorry to hear that about your friend. I personally don't know anyone having problems while doing PC muscle control exercises. In fact Mintak Chia have been practicing that for over 10 years and he never had any problems with it. We all know that abstaining and being celibate can be very difficult, so just wanted to let people know that there are other methods out there that will prevent the loss of chi if you do have sex or masturbate. But do your own research. Don't just listen to some guy on a forum tell you what's right or wrong for you.