manitou

I just put that site on my favorites bar. Wow. and the best thing is that this fellow wants nothing in return, he's not selling nuthin, he's not giving classes in anything; he is apparenly doing this because he is Evolved and has that thing in his soul that knows that the only thing left to do is to teach truth to others.

If so, this might be a great forum to swap some ideas. In my particular case, I read this book called Quantum Touch a couple years back, can't remember the author. This person sold in book form what could have been said in about 2 paragraphs: that in order to actually 'run' energy (I guess we'd call it qi here) for purposes of healing many maladies of others, all you have to do is really make your hands gentle and soft and point your fingers at the affected area. I'm actually lol'ing. This is about what it boiled down to. So I tried it. And darn it if it didn't actually start to work instantaneously on hiccups and my old man's horrible muscle cramps that he gets in his legs. I started having a few other successes, sometimes with people feeling a magnetic pull if I pulled my hands up slowly. But here's what I've noticed. First of all, to actually start doing this, you have to be willing to look like an idiot. Maybe it's just because even at my advanced age I still have a shred of vanity to contend with. So that took some getting used to. The ego is always a factor because it wants to believe that 'I' am the healer, when in fact it is the 'I Am' who is the healer, if there's going to be any healing done at all. So the best way to describe myself when in the state where I can remove the 'personality' is that I almost feel more like a carcass, with no feeling at all. Anywhere. The mind has to be vacant, no thinking allowed. The intent has already been set, as Castaneda would say. At that point the book said to get all vacant and soft handed and point your hands at the area you're concerned about, a few inches away, and wait until you start feeling a little tingle in the fingergertips. So I tried that; at first I didn't feel anything and got a little discouraged. I kept trying because joe kept having the cramps. I discovered that the more I practiced this, the more it seemed to be working, and the more I thought I actualy felt the energy running. I thought, okay, maybe they're on to something. But more recently, through reading all the different things that we all have sitting on our nightstands, I've come up with a few further clues that seem to kick this whole thing up - the author of the Quantum Touch book didn't mention these, or if she did, it's just as likely that I forgot them.. That before trying to run the energy, figure out a way to ACTUALLY TRY AND FEEL LOVE in your heart for the person you're treating. It's a physical thing, a recreation of the feeling that your heart has when it loves something. i don't know how to tell you how to do it, maybe everybody's different - but I can sort of develop a lump in my throat at will, which then kicks off a sort of self-pitying heart wrenching sadness that I can talk into feeling like an actual feeling of love, even for someone I didn't know previously. It is possible to do it. The 'love' part of it ensures that there is really some sort of a current running. It is considerably stronger. I can feel it pulliing magnetically in my ovary area, and I've read (I think it was Ken Eaglefeather or the Farmer guy) talk about this same energy phenomena in men, and he claims the magnetic feeling in men is more at the pit of their stomachs. When I can feel his happening (what i interpret this to mean is that I truly am sort of channel at that moment for some sort of healing energy running through me, with my full consent). I do know that this is pretty qigong-ish as far as the running of the qi, and I don't pretend to know anything about that mindset or lineages. I so wish I had taken the time to delve deeply into one of the traditions. So my question is this (and sorry the post was so long) - is there anybody out there who perhaps does this sort of thing and has any further ideas or suggestions for mindset for the more Western and metaphysical mind?

This is a perfect example of the type of 'psychic' healing that I'm talking about, beyond the physical. Why would someone keep stubbing their toe? (assuming no neurological disorder, etc). If we are "God" manifesting from the inside out (which I am fully convinced we are) then this would be an anomaly, to continually stub the toe. It's at this point that one should triangulate whatever else is happening in their life and see if there's a connection and a needed correction in behavior. What does a stubbed toe represent? Bumping up repeatedly against a situation that is unwinnable the way you are currently approaching it? Letting outside thoughts have full sway in your mind so that you are reckless, not looking where you're going? Too obsessed with a particular situation and are manifesting the "insanity" of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I think there is a definite psychic dialogue going on between our outer manifestations and our inner thoughts. I think cancer is a good case in point; obsessing on something to the point where your thoughts and your body are being eaten alive by negativity, obsessive thoughts, or worry.

Frugality seems like an apt word, but if you triangulate it with Yutang's translation, I think there's another aspect. Yutang's translation says "Never Too Much". The sage became the sage by developing the three treasures. I don't think he was born with them; I don't think they were granted to him by anything other than his own hard inner work. I think that Never Too Much can be applied to every single aspect of our lives, and it goes directly to a diminished and honed-down ego. Never too much striving for money. Never too much food. Never too much recognition. Those of us here, particularly in the West, seem to be brought up with exactly the opposite message. Achieve, achieve, achieve. Grab everything material you can for yourself. Money is the god, capitalism is the system that worships it. To get to the point where one can step out of those predispositions and see that true comfort and happiness in life is achieved by practicing the 3 treasures......perhaps one day this will come naturally to us and we will be the sage. Never too much ego. Frugality in ego.

Does anyone see any value in this? I think our body talks to us. It tells us not only what's wrong physically, but more importantly, what's wrong psychically. I need to use a recent example of something that happened to my foot. I got a painful bump under the big toe of my left foot. Then, around the same time, another painful area developed under the same foot, unrelated. My first thought, as it usually is, is "Why am I manifesting this?" I started playing with the words....under foot. under foot. Aah! Underfoot! And then....under toe, under toe.....Aah! undertow! Was I manifesting something in my life that worked as an 'undertow' that was trying to pull me under in some way? There are several possible areas here in my life for me to examine to see if this is the case. When I came to the realization to focus on several things in my life having to do with an undertow, both painful areas were resolved. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

Thank you, my darling. But I'm rather glad you left my bovine appearance out of your post.

My dear Rainbow Vein - you've actually seen me in person. Did I give off the impression of a brilliantly colored tuber? although that's how I feel most of the time. actually, you may be right on target.....

Me too, girlfriend. How are we supposed to look?

My feeling is that what makes our healing abilities better and better is PRACTICE doing it. No one has confidence when they first start doing it. As someone said above, you've got to be willing to look like a goose. And people will assume you're crazy, so the ego thing really needs to be cut loose at the time of a healing. I think maybe it was Buckminster Fuller who repeatedly said that we have to repeatedly 'prove' things to ourselves for us to really internalize them. The way we 'prove' the fact that energy REALLY DOES flow out of our hands, is to just start doing it. Do it on the cat. Do it on the dog. Do it on a friend. When you start to get someone saying 'Wow! I feel better!', you'll start to prove to yourself that you're not 'just pretending'. Not to get all Christian or anything, but I do remember when the Nazarene said that it took the attitude or mind of a child to grasp what he was doing. Pretending? Isn't that what kids do? Could it be as simple as pretending, but without the sense of pretense? To do it with 100% confidence? Maybe that's the ultimate threshhold.

Hi TI - my meditation for 30 years was the same one - I never liked guided meditations. It was the same each time - watching a small vortex in the middle of my mind spinning around and around, finally until one day it was no longer there. Please know that I was brought up to be the most left brained person in the world - I always got a sense that this 'vortex' thingy was drilling through something, like rock. I don't know where I 'learned' about this meditation, I just did it. The result of this constant drilling, one day, was that I no longer feel that I'm 'getting through something'; rather, it now feels like my awareness is like a four-fold stereo receiver that receives input from all directions, if that makes any sense. The awareness is unlimited by anything. Yes, my mundane memory may have suffered from this. But what has emerged, along with the kundalinii activity, is the ability to see in 3 dimensions that I was unable to before. I am able to see in triangles in my mind's eye that show me the dynamics of what I'm looking at. I am a seer. I'm also capable of recognizing thoughs as they arise in my mind and if they are less than kind, I can immediately turn them around. I think the type of meditation I did for so long gave me a certain control over my thoughts. My mom has dementia, I am probably following in her footsteps. although I'm not buying into that too much. I am now telling myself several times a day 'how EXCELLENT my memory is.' The Mary Baker Eddy influence. Thank you for your concern, TI. Your point is well taken, but my personal opinion is that the benefits outweigh the detriment. Besides, life is kinda nice lived One Day at a Time.

Interesting you say that - I seem to feel the same. I spent 30 years meditating regularly and now I don't do it regularly, only when I feel like truly being alone and enjoying it. When so many years of meditation have gone by, it's now possible to blank the mind at will, whether one is engaged in activity or not. Or sometimes I wonder if my inheritance of dementia, early stages, doesn't make it a little easier to void the mind. Seems like you have a nice holistic approach to your own healing.

I can pick up things with my feet.

Very nice, Sanzon. Thank you for your helpful insights. What a wonderful thread this has been. Back to the compassion thing for a minute? There was a young man, quite disabled, who recently did a YouTube video, who was advocating for the fact that without his two fathers adopting him, he and his sister were virtually unadoptable, according to him. He was terribly grateful for the fact that his two gay fathers had adopted and raised him, and was offering up his testimony maybe for purposes of a pending supreme court decision. Did anyone happen to see this fellow? I think his name was Daniel (I'd find it on the internet, but I'm so bad at things like that I'd probably crash the entire TTB site if I tried). I haven't heard a story that poignant in a long time and the compassion welled up inside me so strongly it felt like it came together into a sharp point in my heart. I suspect that any time I have to generate compassion, remembering this fellow would make it easier to transfer the feelings to the one you're working with. It was powerful. It makes me feel good to know that the great ones, the Dalai Lama's, also have to 'generate' this feeling on occasion as well.

Just seems like one in ten is a bit on the high side.

Harmonious Emptiness, that is just about the most explanatory translation I've ever read on that chapter. it seems quite good. Marbles, if I wasn't a little girl I'd be an old lady. I think there's something to HE's comments about not being perceived as a threat, if we can keep our head and put out something other than fear to the creature (like love). That's more of what I was referring to - the Kissing the Bear thing was a tad over the top, perhaps....

Well hello, Mr. MH - I interpret that a different way. I think the sage, when harm appears to be upon him, will revert to the mindset of all phenomena being illusory and that is where his protection will be. Somehow, there is something inside me that Knows this. Yes, the recklessness (or lack of it) thing is very human and the logical answer. I'm just not convinced that's what it's saying. I think it's actually something spookier than not being reckless. Stephen Mitchell has a really nice way of putting the first part of this, having to do with living and dying: The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings (this right here is worth the price of admission!) He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to; no illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body. He doesn't think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day's work. I think he doesn't think about his actions because if he is in a state of Oneness he knows all things are as they should be, therefore he sees no need to change or fix the dynamics. The needed action will come to him and he will see it and do it accordingly, according to the natural flow of the moment. Love or compassion will be at the bottom of his movements. So Marbles.....if you see a headline one day that says 'Ohio Woman Shredded to Death While Trying to Kiss Black Bear', just know that your interpretation was right, mine was wrong.....but what the heck, I gave it my all. I went out trying.....

This is the part you're talking about? Those who leave the womb at birth and those who enter their source at death, of these; three out of ten celebrate life, three out of ten celebrate death, and three out of ten simply go from life to death. What is the reason for this? Because they are afraid of dying, therefore they can not live. I have heard that those who celebrate life walk safely among the wild animals. When they go into battle, they remain unharmed. The animals find no place to attack them and the weapons are unable to harm them. Why? Because they can find no place for death in them. That is an interesting translation. If three out of 10 leave the womb at birth and celebrate life, what do the other 7 do? Do you think this can be an allusion to the bardos? That perhaps 3 out of ten (of livers) and 3 out of ten (of diers) both enter into life and death without hesitation, with abandonment? Is this the formula? (If so, I'd say it's a little generous, because it doesn't seem to me that 3 out of 10 celebrate life at all. Are the other 7 treading water through life? This is possible, I suppose. and the 3 out of 10 that go straight from life to death..this would assume no bardos? I don't know - what do you think? In the Yutang translation, he dwells on he organs of life and death as being 13 (in ch. 50) and he claims that these 13 organs also send man to his death. Then he says 'how is it so?'...Because of the intense activity of multiplying life. Hard to reconcile these two translations, but I love trying to find the lowest common denominator. So the 3 out of 10 that celebrate life are the ones who are unmolested by wild animals, etc. Mu guess is that to celebrate life, one must be in total awareness. I sometimes wonder, when I walk in the woods and one of these days I'm going to come face to face with a big hairy bear.....will I be able to hold my ground and stand 'in awareness of Who I Am', or am I going to run screaming down the trail like a little girl? I hope it would be the former. Could you go a little deeper into your thoughts on this? I'm looking for a different translation to help us triangulate but not seeing it on my desk right now - I'll find it later.

LOL - yes, the non-judgmental stroll in the park. I understand the mindset, I think. No judgment of the condition as to its goodness or badness. Energy just is, and as I interpret it our body is talking to us with our maladies anyway. That thing inside us sure knows how to act out.

Spotless, your words have an awfully nice resonance to them....

Be Here Now.

Joe and I just got back from breakfast at one of the local greasers. We always grab a different book off our bookshelf every morning, open it arbitrarily, and just find something to discuss over breakfast, of a spiritual nature. This morning he grabbed The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche. No thought about it in his head at all. After placing our order, I arbitrarily opened the book and landed on page 200. and started reading out loud to him: Compassion: Considering yourself the Same as Others: One powerful way to evoke compassion is to think of others as exactly the same as you. "After all," the Dalai Lama explains, "all human beings are the same - made of human flesh, bones, and blood. We all want happiness and want to avoid suffering. Further, we have an equal right to be happy. In other words, it is important to realize our sameness as human beings......."If you consider others just the same as yourself, it will help you to to open up your relationships and give them a new and richer meaning" Then he continues later: Compassion: Exchanging Yourself for Others: when someone is suffering and you find yourself at a loss to know how to help, put yourself unflinchingly in his or her place. Imagine as vividly as possible what you would be going through if you were suffering the same pain."....."When you exchange yourself for others in this way, you are directly transferring your cherishing from its usual object, yourself, to other beings. So exchanging yourself for others is a very powerful way of loosening the hold on you of the self-cherishing and the self-grasping of ego, and so of releasing the heart of your compassion" His next paragraph: Using a Friend to Generate Compassion: Another moving technique for arousing compassion for a person who is suffering is to imagine one of your dearest friends, or someone you really love, in that person's place. Imagine your brother or daughter or parent or best friend (I guess this fellow wasn't married. Or actually, maybe he was, lol) in he same kind of painful situation. Quite naturally your heart will open, and compassion will awaken in you. .....Now take this compassion released in your heart and transfer it to the person who needs your help. So it's pretty much agreed that compassion (or love) is the oil that lubricates the healing machine. Synchronicity was with us, I would say.

I think you've put your finger on it here. I do think the current mindset of the bible-belt christians (at least the ones around here) is fear of death. More specifically, I think it's fear of fire, if you really break it down. Their fear is burning. In hell. Forever. Ouch.

Please don't stop now. I've got bated breath over here. Or at least that's what someone told me. Also, do you see a difference between allowing the energy to run from several inches away, or just placing your hands on the person? I've been trying it both ways. and Spotless? Your response didn't seem to come through?

Being a bit on the cerebral side as opposed to the physical side, I guess this is why Mary Baker Eddy's thoughts-on-steroids approach to illness being caused by 'erroneous thinking' appeals to me as much as it does. It truly makes sense, at a theoretical level - matter, at it's smallest component, is illusory; then theoretically we should be able to handle this illusion by corrective thinking. Pyth, I truly loved the video about the young man whose life had been turned around from that horrible epileptic world he lived in by the unconditional love of his healer. And it seems that she tapped into exactly what I talked about in the above paragraph; to turn around his error thinking. although it took a while, her staying on top of the situation for a lengthy period of time got him to fully realize that he had the power to either invite the epilepsy into his body (his "house", as he envisioned it) or to make it stay away. I believe this goes to what we mentioned before. We must TRULY REALIZE what we really are and how powerful our thoughts are. Apparently the repetition of that young man telling himself he was healthy and there was nothing wrong with him was sufficient to get him to REALIZE. Belief is one thing. That is of the brain. Realization is another thing, not predominantly of the brain. It is that sudden flush of awareness, the Aha!, or the Oh, Yeah! that surprises us from the inside; when we finally internalize and make ours what we have taken into the brain previously. It's like reading something heady from a year ago, and then finally having an experience that drives it home, makes it real to you. When invited to try a healing on someone, one of the first things I do is try and determine what the person's present circumstances ARE, not what they say they are. If they say their life is just fine (and besides, what does that have to do with my physical problem??), then I do find it important to look at their surroundings and what they have created for themselves. Is their home a mess? Is their car a mess, or their personal hygiene less than desirable? This tells us something too - it tells us that they are not impeccable within themselves, and sometimes a dynamic can be seen from examining their situation from a distance (perhaps their family dynamic into which they play). Once the circumstance can be seen clearly (this must be done by someone who has seen themselves to the bone and isn't distorted by their own inner clutter) then this situation can be easily used for one point of the triangulation. At least that's been my experience, and it is this triangulation that can be used to find the 'historic instigator' that set them upon this path, this tendency. This of course is added to their own oral history and take on the situation. But it usually takes a set of 'outside eyes' to really see the dynamic; they are usually too caught up in it,. Once this causation can be found, the erroneous thinking can be re-imprinted to the opposite direction or otherwise worked with.

I still think we're barking up the same tree. Unconditional love is the undercurrent, and this undercurrent is available to every single one of us. As I have a loving heart, and you do too, the call of 'spirit' is heard many times throughout the day and my heart responds to it, as do my actions. There is no longer a human being (or animal) which is off-limits for our compassion, once we realize that we are all One and that person is just the other half of us. The man-made emotions, often generated by ego, are not part of this process at all.