LCH

still enjoying... :-)

I have much enjoyed the back and forth of this conversation :-)

Thank you both for sharing.

Hello my fellow Ohian! (I'm in East Liverpool, the place of the Point of Beginning for the surveying of the Louisiana Purchase lands, the survey beginning around 1788!)

Ahhh yes :-) I lived north of Pittsburgh my teens.

I'm not sure what the 8 energy rays refers to - I'm currently reading Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike (Freemasonry, all 33 degrees) and it's incredibly symbolic and deep about the different numbers and their supernatural character. Eight was a revered number, as was three, seven, twelve. I seem to recall that it is tied up with infinity (ergo the infinity symbol), which would coincide with the integral path the master refers to. Integral not only in the sense of the chakras and the planets aligning in number and in character (and the 'soul' actually going back through the planets at the time of death until its ultimate reunification with the sun); but integral in the sense of the elevation of man through the 32 degrees of attainment (more accurately, elimination of defects!), resulting in the being-ness of the 33rd degree. Integral in the sense of 'As above, so below' and knowing that if we flow with nature at a very deep level we are in total balance and harmony with What Is.

 

Can we remain in the feeling of the balance of the Tao without purging our innards? Personally, I don't think so. I believe this to be a lifelong work, resulting in (as close as we can get to) total alignment with the Tao. Please clarify what you are referring to when you say energy work? Are you referring to the inner orbits of meditation and awareness? To me, energy work is somewhat different, and it results in healing if you can find the reason for the malady. Although the macro/microcosmic alignment is a wonderful meditation, I think it's temporary if we just go back to being the same maladjusted person we were without removing the selfishness, the prejudice, the hatred, the jealousy, the pride, the separation from the One. The ultimate energy work IMO is to be consciously aligned At All Times with the I Am consciousness, as the Master above is no doubt referring to. Easier said than done,

The easy answer is that every action is some form of "energy work", to me at least. Every thought and intention being the expressive/manifested aspect of "qi".

You are correct in the specific practice of "energy work" in that if the cause of the imbalances are not addressed, the results will be short-lived. I have had a wonderful opportunity to to qi-gong "healing" on other people. Call it whatever you want though. It mostly has consisted of grounding the person, and getting them in touch with their own "spark" of infinity. Nothing special, as I feel we can all do this, but I will say these experiences have allowed me to connect with people on the closest of levels. Such an honor to have the opportunity. This is the energy work with a purpose, since there is a desire to understand the imbalance, instead of just fixing it.

I don't perceive attainment of the "Tao" as being some sort of destination, though it can be seen as such in a life based in linear time. It can be a consistent intended goal to align oneself, but it seems to me to be a bit more like remembering what is "primordial" and forgetting what has been learned. Is it possible to be a functional human in the fast-paced world and still fall into alignment? I feel it is, but as you said, it is not easy sometimes. The illusion of separation is very real to me.

I am reminded of HHC #80 saying that "enlightenment is not the end, but the means".

The question my mind always asks is "how will we know we are ever there?" haha :-)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and giving me an opportunity to share mine.

I was reading through the HHC today and noted I would be curious to pose the question to the "Bums" about this....

Any thoughts on the "8 energy rays"? When I read 8 I think the 7 chakras and the first closest to the head. In a sense, as with the grains of sand observation, this seems to be "fracturing" the "One".

Energy work sets to balance energies, but simply in aligning with the feeling of the "Tao" it seems the energies align themselves.

Any thoughts/feelings about that part.

I did enjoy reading your back and forth on the matter.

Thank you.

How can anyone know who is "diving in" or not? An online forum is inherently intellectual in its means of expression.

I know what you are saying, and I have asked the same question, but becoming fixated on an answer to that question tends to limit the "diving in" potential to me.

Just from my own experience.

Most of my genuine "Taoist" responses to posts on the forum, are never expressed :-)

Outside linear time, the concept of re-incarnating doesn't completely jive as things can be perceived as happening simultaneously in "parallel" existences, until perhaps one aspect of "shen" pulls enough experience together in a single life time to move beyond a karmic condition, perhaps thus freeing all other aspects of the karmic condition as well.

Perhaps some of these parallel existences are not even of the Earthly system.

Robert Monroe speaks of this in his accounts.

It is all pure speculation for me, so I won't spend much more energy thinking about it. :-)

Thank you for your elaboration.

Which MCO are you speaking of? There are multiple. I think your concerns are valid, and I am interested to see others who have consistently practiced the MCO to chime in about their own personal experiences with it.

I will add if someone isn't very grounded, and generally is carrying around a lot of unprocessed emotional energy, this sort of stuff CAN be dangerous.

Qi deviation syndrome is a very legitimate "ailment" in my experience.

I practice the bringing up in the back and letting it fall in the front. I find that this feels very natural to me and it by no means forced. There are others I have learned, but I do not feel compelled to pursue them at this point as they tend to run against my normal qi flow.

Are you of the opinion that it will make an appearance into the collective reality? I hesitate to put a time frame on it.

Do you feel it is inhabited?

Ahh yes, Nibiru...

I have spent enough time slogging through many a rabbit hole to get to the point where I probably won't poop myself if it ever makes an appearance in our skies.

Though there are many different interpretations of it.

Care to share yours, SOTG?

As a former "intellectual predator" I can attest to vampiring qi in order to literally feel better. Only when I discovered my own ability to create enough energetics to be happy and functional did the desire to intellectually intimidate and dominate others go away.

"congenitally incapable of living wholly and harmoniously"

 

 

Cant agree with the above. Habits which give rise to contractive states can be transformed for sure. The idea is to know (i mean really know) when and how to reroute an intention once a particular one come to the fore of consciousness so as to yield a transcended outcome to that same intention.

 

For example, one notices the arising of an emotion which will lead to anger. Instead of diverging into an analytical mode to try to find an understanding of this particular emotive spark, find creative ways to channel that energy elsewhere which could bring a beneficial outcome to oneself and others. Do this often enough, and it becomes a new habit. Then that particular disturbance becomes a sort of protector instead of an enemy. The great thing is one need not even do anything directly to try and exert some sort of forced influence to change one's self. All it takes is a genuine desire to bring some joy and happiness to others. With this as the motivation, every negative emotional spark can be effortlessly channelled to yield a wanted outcome.

I agree, and perhaps Huxley was aware of it, though he definitely takes the position of an esteemed "intellectual" in this passage.

I feel he is lamenting his abundance of knowledge which has not been transformed into a means of "living the way".

Whether he got it or not, is immaterial to me as he is writing about something that often plagues the human mind. Nature/nurture, predisposition etc...

Becomethepath mentioned a Huxley quote above. Huxley was an interesting character, who, I feel had a bit more of an agenda.

I have included an excerpt from his book "Point Counterpoint" (1928). He describes rather eloquently the pitfalls of becoming too intellectual about life and not being able to integrate into society.

I can relate to this excerpt because I have a penchant for intellectualism, and I used it to withdraw from society.

I added the bold to parts I found a particular connection to.

[...] The chief difference between us, alas, is that his opinions are lived and mine, in the main, only thought. Like him, I mistrust intellectualism, but intellectually, I disbelieve in the adequacy of any scientific or philosophical theory, any abstract moral principal, but on the scientific, philosophical, and abstract-moral grounds. The problem for me is to transform a detached intellectual scepticism into a way of harmonious all-around living.

The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchinly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred. [...] Many intellectuals, of course, don’t get far enough to reach the obvious again. They remain stuck in a pathetic belief in rationalism and the absolute supremacy of mental values and the entirely conscious will. You’ve got to go further than the Nineteenth Century fellows, for example; as far at least as Protagoras and Pyrrho, before you get back to the obvious in which the non-intellectuals have always remained. And one must hasten to make it clear that these non-intellectuals aren’t the modern canaille who read the picture papers and listen-in and jazz and are preocupied with making money and having the awful modern “good time”. No, no; one isn’t paying a compliment to the hard-headed business man or the low-brow. For, in spite of their stupidity and tastelessness and vulgarity and infantility (or rather because of all these defects), they aren’t the non-intellectuals I’m talking about. They take the main intellectualist axiom for granted-that there’s an intrinsic superiority in mental, conscious, voluntary life over physical, intuitive, instinctive, emotional life.

The whole of modern civilization is based on the idea that the specialized function which gives a man his place in society is more important than the whole man, or rather is the whole man, all the rest being irrelevant or even (since the physical, intuitive, instinctive and emotional part of man doesn’t contribute appreciably to making money or getting on in an industrialized world) positively harmful and detestable. The low-brow of our modern industrialized society has all the defects of the intellectual and none of his redeeming qualities. The non-intellectuals I’m thinking of are very different beings. One might still find a few of them in Italy (though Fascism has probably turned them all into bad imitations of Americans and Prussians by this time); a few perhaps in Spain, in Greece, in Provence. Not elsewhere in modern Europe. There were probably quite a lot of them three thousand years ago. But the combined efforts of Plato and Aristotle, Jesus, Newton, and big business have turned their descendants into the modern bourgeoisie and proletariat.

The obvious that the intellectual gets back to, if he goes far enough, isn’t, of course, the same as the obvious of the non-intellectuals. For their obvious is life itself and his recovered obvious is only the idea of that life. Not many can put flesh and blood on the idea and turn it into reality. [...] I perceive now that the real charm of the intellectual life – the life devoted to erudition, to scientific research, to philosophy, to aesthetics, to criticism – is its easiness. It´s the substitution of simple intellectual schemata for the complexities of reality; of still and formal death for the bewildering movements of life. It’s incomparably easier to know a lot, say, about the history of art and to have profound ideas about metaphysics and sociology than to know personally and intuitively a lot about one’s fellows and to have satisfactory relations with one’s friends and lovers, one’s wife and children. Living’s much more difficult than Sanskrit or chemistry or economics. The intellectual life is child’s play; which is why intellectuals tend to become children – and then imbeciles and finally, as the political and industrial history of the last few centuries clearly demonstrates, homicidal lunatics and wild beasts.

The repressed functions don’t die; they deteriorate, they fester, they revert to primitiveness. But meanwhile it’s much easier to be an intellectual child or lunatic or beast than a harmonious adult man. That’s why (among other reasons) there’s such a demand for higher education. The rush to books and universities is like the rush to the public house. People want to drown their realization of the difficulties of living properly in this grotesque contemporary world, they want to forget their own deplorable inefficiency as artists in life. Some drown their sorrows in alcohol, but still more drown them in books and artistic dilettantism; some try to forget themselves in fornication, dancing, movies, listening-in, others in lectures and scientific hobbies. The books and lectures are better sorrow-drowners than drink and fornication; they leave no headache, none of that despairing post coitum triste feeling. Till quite recently, I must confess, I too took learning and philosophy and science – all the activities that are magniloquently lumped under the title of “The Search for Truth” – very seriously. I regarded the Search for Truth as the highest of human tasks and the Searchers as the noblest of men. But in the last year or so I have begun to see that this famous Search for Truth is just an amusement, a distraction like any other, a rather refined and elaborate substitute for genuine living; and that Truth-Searchers become just as silly, infantile, and corrupt in their way as the boozers, the pure aesthetes, the business men, the Good-Timers in theirs. I also perceived that the pursuit of Truth is just a polite name for the intellectual’s favourite pastime of substituting simple and therefore false abstractions for the living complexities of reality. But seeking Truth is much easier than learning the art of integral living (in which, of course, Truth-Seeking will take its due and proportionate place along with the other amusements, like skittles and mountain climbing).

Which explains, though it doesn’t justify, my continued and excessive indulgence in the vices of informative reading and abstract generalization. Shall I ever have the strength of mind to break myself of these indolent habits of intellectualism and devote my energies to the more serious and difficult task of living integrally? And even if I did try to break these habits, shouldn’t I find that heredity was at the bottom of them and that I was congenitally incapable of living wholly and harmoniously?

There seems to be times for solitude in the sense of being physically alone, and times to learn from interaction with other humans.

Personally, the "Tao" is easy to see on a hilltop in autumn when no other human souls are around, but can that recognition and feeling be taken into the mall on a Friday night?

Oh, how I have bemoaned the existence and lives of others who just didn't "get it". Of course, it was I who had yet to "get it" as I had yet to fully realize, remember and embody my primordial "beginning". There are still times where I do not embody this awareness, and the disharmony is instantaneous. Not acting on it has become my challenge.

"Karma" is one of those words often utilized in the spiritual vernacular... I am curious to hear the various interpretations of "Karma" and how you apply this understanding in your life.

If you wish to share, that is...

Thank you.

Just from my own observations...

Most any genuine pursuit of "spirituality" is a pursuit of forgotten simplicity and source. With this in mind, the "complex" becomes simple. If you are starting out as a conscious pursuer of "The Tao", keeping it simple is a very good first step, and one to never forget. I try to remind myself of this often as I have a tendency to be pretty cerebral about things.

There are plenty around here that can offer guidance and insight, but it will all come back to you and how you embody your realizations.

If you have confusion about something, seeking the council of others who have been "Walking the path" so-to-speak is a valuable activity.

Ultimately, I have realized that most of the progression "forward" in the experience comes from the act of remembering and forgetting. This is very non-brute force, the usual default approach to getting things done in our material world, so often one has to learn how to do things without doing them.

Enough of all that.

All the best to you, J

Then why even have a screename or come to an online forum where people use words and labels to describe "nothingness"?

:-)

It does take the practice of becoming "something" to realize one is ultimately "nothing".

Thus is the paradox of life, to me at least.

BTW Ren and Stimpy are awesome.

Does anyone know of like a place/person who would accept student to become a Taoist Priest? You know its funny I thought I had this religion thing sorted out. I thought I was a Taoist then a buddhist but now I am leaning more to Taoism again. It is funny.

For what it is worth, I am beginning a two year class tomorrow with an ordained Taoist Priest.

Dr. Ted Cibik

You can google him if you wish and get a general idea of who he is. I am not seeking Taoist priesthood at this point, but he does offer that from my understanding.

 

Why does one have to be one or the other or anything

What do you mean by this?

A very great share, thank you for doing so.

Look forward to more posting of the interview.

Actually, there are elements to the 20th chapter, LCH, that would imply psychological implosion. I'd made a note on that chapter that "people don't see anything without their own minds, whereas enlightening being has no-mind to see with".

I agree, Deci.

#20

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Is there a difference between yes and no?

Is there a difference between good and evil?

Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense!

Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.

In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace,

But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.

Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,

I am alone, without a place to go.

Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.

I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.

Others are clear and bright,

But I alone am dim and weak.

Others are sharp and clever,

But I alone am dull and stupid.

Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,

Without direction, like the restless wind.

Everyone else is busy,

But I alone am aimless and depressed.

I am different.

I am nourished by the great mother.

This to me is a lamentation regarding the process of saying good bye to one's learned personality as well as the possible responses from other people towards someone walking a different path than the collective.

(Translation from Gia Fu-Feng and Jane English)

As mentioned in email to you -- someone I know best described this new perspective mentioned above in previous post :

" It is a start of taking nourishment from Universe " .

(Instead of common mental/emotional foods .)

Deci brought up "The Mysterious Female" in another thread...

Tao Te Ching #20 is a good description of what you speak of, to me at least. I treat this synonymously with "Great Mother", Deci can correct me if she has a different perception.

To Basher,

I tend to recognize "time" as being infinite snapshots of the "Tao" manifesting reality, like a strobe light. In this view, the slate is seemingly always clean, yet our memories seem to not allow that to be so.

It is just a factor of remembering such "beginnings", which to a conscious and capable ego can appear to be psychological suicide.

Maintaining that memory within a temporal setting is the "challenge".

Just what I have come to realize, fwiw.

After a night of contemplation and solitude on this topic, I finally reached a conclusion.

 

I tell myself everyone is scared to be alone, I'm doing something that no one has the courage to. The truth hurts, the truth about reality, and life, it's scary to know the truth, the unknown, where there is no sense of control, and security. Friends are illusions, people are "friends" with each other because they are scared to be alone, in the end we are all alone in this world. Even friends that care about you, they are alone as well, they are scared that's why they are your friend, you keep them secure, like a distraction, and escapism from their own pain. People that are popular, that have many friends, they are alone as well, strip away the materialism, strip away the friends away and they will crawl and curl up, scared to see the truth. Friends are an illusion, a form of escapism from the truth, from reality. But it is amazing how people can meet each other in this world, they can date, they can bond, it's crazy! But in the end, nothing is permanent, the love that was once there is also impermanent. People will feel sadness and sorrow, and thus continue the cycle of suffering, there will be times of happiness, times of joy and laughter but even those are impermanent. Escapism and distractions such as drugs, alcohol, videogames, gambling, working, watching movies blinds you from the truth. Activities that invoke excessive emotion such as adrenaline, fear, esctacy, laughter will also blind you from the truth. I feel like the only way to truly enjoy bliss and happiness is to love oneself, to go into solitude and seek the truth, to see that this world is an illusion, to see we are all atoms and energy connected with each other, to be able to develop the sense of pure love in oneself. Compassion and love is good, compassion and love brings positive energy to this world, although temporary feelings, they are still positive energy the world needs. That's why it's important to go into solitude and mindfulness, to find your trueself and to see the truth, once you love yourself and is in oneness, you'll find permanent happiness (oneness) in this world and beyond thus allowing others to follow your inspiration and create their own paths as well. We live in a prison, in order to be free from the prison we must free our mind from addictions, pain, suffering, attachments and distractions. Amituofo.

Just from personal experience...

There is benefit to external interaction. It can serve as a great catalyst for personal cultivation through the observation of human interactions and the "stealing" of potential.

Not every friendship is based on a fear of being alone. "Real" ones can give you that feeling of recognizing the entire universe/omniverse/all-that-is in the head of a needle. "Real" ones are void of co-dependency and exist over any period of "time".

Having said that, the goal in my practice is to live that time/space illusion in every interaction I have with people. In our modern world, this can be difficult since most every collective expression is branded with an energy to the contrary. People always rushing from here to there, wanting to buy this or that. Who am I to judge them? In fact, observing this behavior allows me to fall more comfortably into my own path.

Often called the path of the fool...

Yes, as one self-actualizes more and more, the need for many friends diminishes because those needy aspects are being satisfied on a personal level. Ultimately, "need" is no longer recognized.

The dynamics of the collectively held belief about inter-personal romantic relationships do not resonate well with someone who is working on attaining "wholeness" within themselves. I can attest to this, and it is one of my longest held programs. One that I have finally gotten under control.

but...

As one becomes more "whole" why not share such a gift with the world? I ask myself this on a daily basis. Sharing without demands or expectations. Through this process, others on a similar path will make themselves known, even if they know nothing of "spirituality" or self-cultivation.

It takes tremendous courage to swim in the opposite direction, and I commend you, BTP. Perhaps you will realize that you can swim against the currents while flowing with the current.

Thus, to me at least, is the paradox of the Tao.

Thanks for the opportunity to delve into this in my own experience.

I want to thank everyone who participated in this discussion.

You can be a part time healer.

 

Passing by someone and smiling at them.

 

May be the greatest healing technique of all time, and no doctorate necessary.

Completely agree.