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Hi Gerard 😎 Does the "Tao of healthy eating" have anything related to dietary changes specific to age? Or do you have recommendations? As a Vegan some supplements are highly recommended and I find them very beneficial- and at 64 I find other supplements very helpful as well - these have changed over the years. Diet is of particular concern to those in practice as energy levels can increase dramatically and many of the foods of a typical western diet can have effects that run counter to practice on a very base and practice level. I am somewhat reminded that in Qi Gong generally young children are not taught it because they already have piles of energy and a surge in their reserves at that point in their lives would not be helpful - diet in younger "seekers" in practice may consider diet to be somewhat superfluous in their focus but between stimulants, processed foods, poor combining, fast eating and testosterone - the effects can negate practically any headway. Your thoughts and further elaborations would be helpful 🙏🏻

Lets take a group of possible practices from a householder / monk: If one wakes up at 3:30 am and meditates for an hour they will need at least 1 hour less sleep and they will have more patience and overall clarity. If one meditates in the evening say from 9-10pm (and this can very slightly to accommodate schedules, family movie time etc.) they will interrupt nothing in the family and have better sleep. One can easily have a morning practice, afternoon practice and or evening and certainly weekend practice - any one or all of them depending on duration and that duration is flexible to each time frame. Diet can be easily modified to accommodate the householder/monk with no problem and diet changes are a certain need for the more serious. Devotion creates no strain on a householder/monk Loving ones family creates no strain on a householder / monk In times of great need for more practice it is generally easy to practice more in the evening and early morning hours and extend the weekend times. Generally this is not needed as frequently as might be thought. If one has reached a state of consistent Wakefulness - in other words one is Awake while listening to oneself snoring and wife snoring - then getting "up and going" in the morning is non existent - one is already awake and at that point many practices have long since either stopped altogether or they have been greatly reduced or turned into constant practice and often only from time to time require blocks of time. In the initial stages one may attend a teaching one or two or three times a week - possibly more and it is easily done with children - though the total amount would depend on how many children and what the age is and the capabilities of ones wife and if you are able to hire help and also how well the child or children sleep - my son since birth was always a very good and long sleeper - some children are not so easy - so you adapt. Some teachings offer daycare! Many people work at home, many people have their own business and can set their own custom hours. Some companies have meditation rooms. Many jobs do not require travel all over the world and huge time away from your family - this is true of about 98% of jobs and so I am perplexed that this has been a problem that apparently must be overcome for a householder - it is rarely a problem. Also - if a job interferes with your practice and practice is of extreme importance - then you get a job that does not require all the galavanting around the globe - it is never an insurmountable problem - unless you believe it to be in which case it will be. A Monestary / Monk does the following: Early morning, late afternoon and late evening practice/devotion - often with silent work and contemplation and breath in between. A Householder/Monk can easily have early morning and late evening practice devotion - and much work can be done in silence and with breath work - posture work - attention centering and skillful means and mindfulness. Monestary / Monk almost always has a significant diet change A Householder / Monk can just as easily have a significant diet change A Monestary / Monk may have to find a different job than originally given because they are making change that require changes in the daily routine - and Monestaries that are not mired in dogma and punishment will accommodate the spiritual need of a monk. And if this turns into a problem they can change monestaries, teachers or simply wake up and abide in teaching and devotion if this is their way. A Householder / Monk may have to find a different job at one point or another - or perhaps take over the duties for raising the kids during the day - while the significant other works. This means that after taking them off to preschool or regular school he/she may have all day to practice in between pickups and drop-offs. A Monestary / Monk may take a two week intensive within the Monestary. A Householder / Mond may take a two week intensive when their child goes off to a camp - or any number of other scenarios. A Monestary / Monk may take a vow of silence for a year A Householder / Monk may take a vow of silence for a year: I know of one Real Estate developer and architect that did so while working full steam. I know of another that had 5 children - 5 developmentally disabled children to boot! A Monestary / Monk may reach a plateau in which he/she would greatly benifit from a trip or time away but be unable to afford or do such a thing. A Householder / Monk may have considerable means to hire help, take long trips with the whole family, purchase land and buildings for a retreat or retreat center - the possibilities are considerably expanded both for faliure and for practice. Its is also hard to hide in a surrounding of ever changing kids and their friends and noise and wife and business dealings. It can be extremely easy to hide in plain sight at a Monestary - and be a child molester for decades and the like. "Free" workers are often not held to a very high standard other than the simple rules. It is easy to hide, easy to sleep in what can easily become the trance of regimented daily life. The True Monk is a behavioral set that is not limited to monestaries - it is a certain commitment to the spiritual life and practice - and one can be a Monk in plain sight on a corporate board, on a construction site, baby sitting and child rearing, as a mail man or a bus driver. And Monkey Mind can make everything impossible or a great thing to put off until tomorrow.

It is somewhat the same - certainly energy runs up and down the ren and du but WOW what a difference when it Opens! However the chakras have many many things going on in each of them that are not generally known - these function in most people just fine on a great many subtle levels. The base colors are generally in a healthy person clearish crystaline brillinant and they change. Often large portions are somewhat muddled and or cloudy. By base I mean the essence of the energy. There are large variations in all of this and it depends on from what perspective you are looking at in many ways and also the clarity / neutrality of how you are seeing. Leadbeater once had some color plates done that were very well done. Some videos are now excellent as well.

When you can see them - as I do - you will see that they are all to a certain degree working in everyone - particularly if you mean "just open and functioning to a certain degree". And in complex cultures and progressive areas the degree to which they are "just open and functioning to a certain degree" is very considerable - though obviously not always the case. What you are reading about implies a greater opening than "just open and functioning to a certain degree" and is very different and could be stated as "a radical opening" of a chakra and this is very different and far more a factor of the very things I mentioned above - spiritual maturity / neutrality / strengthened energy channels and the like. If you are alive - your basic chakras are all "just open and functioning to a certain degree".

Their is a general misconception around the idea of open and closed chakras - it is not really the way it works. The chakras are largely like aperures - they open and close as abilities are utilized and then retreated from. They look like flowers in a way as they are often drawn and they stem from the main back channel but are primarily seen in the front of the body or on the surface of the skin layers. As one expands in complexity one utilizes more of the growing capacities and the chakras grow in size and in brightness. All of the channels also grow and expand in this same way. The idea of wanting all the chakras OPEN is actually unhealthy in the way it is most frequently understood: in many ways it is like saying I want all the windows and doors to my house open and the heater and air conditioning to be on full blast. Obstructions are also generally not so much the case as are constrictions and just plain lack of use and growth - or in a sense - the right fuel. Meditation creates many of the necessary frequencies to begin to expand and open the lesser chakrams at the extremities and in between all joints and in the nadis - as these reach a pitch - the asanas help to stretch and weave the energies through the nadis and along the sheaths and help to facilitate much expanding in the greater channels. The chakras flourish not from removing blocks so much but by expanding beyond the shackles of timidity and dogma and the judgements that constrict our energies in resistance. We think it is this "brick" here and there and we need to fix That and That and then I will flow better - this is not the case - this is monkey mind leading you to a better victimhood. In expanding within the chakras - one can also easily become lost to the abilities - imagine far greater achievement than achieved. This happens with psychics regularly as well as clairsentients - heart openings can easily become sirens that hold one for decades. This is a touchy topic and often a misinterpreted guidance. We tend to think of one area being higher than another - this is not true - the base is the foundation and without a strong base the head and heart will be weak and seek refuge and pontification. Balance and patience - never ending patience - this seemingly slow route is the most expedient route. The seemingly fastest routes are always the slowest.

Regarding the comparison to baby/young child somewhat but considerably different as well - one does not become lost in the moment. If you have a family and are out in the world "emergency situations" happen - but panic does not ensue - one does not go out into futures of dread and anxiousness or pine for some past or better situation. Getting a drink or taking a sedative is not wanted or needed - ones pulse does not rise unless it is required to for action. It is not a numb state wherein one is detached - one is in Present and in Present the past is not held and extrapolated upon a future or futures as is normally the case.

My response was: "This appears to be mainly a poem on not resisting and being in the present and grateful for the all and everything - it is ten thousand times this and more in the Awakened state." "not resisting and being in the present" is another way of saying "not judging them and allowing them" This is the way of the Awakened state - though one does not do in the sense of "allow" - one is in the Present in which case arising is not throttled but spontaneous.

This appears to be mainly a poem on not resisting and being in the present and grateful for the all and everything - it is ten thousand times this and more in the Awakened state.

Awakening does not preclude emotion - though when you say "engage" it may be a loaded question. The nature of emotions - highs and lows changes entirely - yet I have seen all great filmed teachers shed a tear or become unable to speak - or have read recounting of students of great masters with "moods" and quick flare-ups now and then. In "emergency" situations a general calm is present - gone is any panic. Panic is gone - vested emotion is gone. In India quite a few references to great masters reference such things as "he was a rough man" or "his manner was abrupt" or "he had no suffering of fools" Several are or were known to be quite persnickety about food or flower arrangements. Regarding the so called perfection of masters - it is fine to consider it - but until one has Awakened it does not really matter to much and after one has it does not matter at all. Suffice it to be known that Awakening is in some cases referred to as Enlightenment - if in an Abiding State - it is the end of suffering - and by some definitions this is Enlightenment - so then we see references to Full Enlightenment - and some have many stages to this after Awakening - and before. One can look at the general process in a healthy light as: 1. Read like crazy and get fully excited - you will need to fully believe you are heading in a direction you wish to go (and die). 2. Put down the books and practice - practice and learn well the basics - the basics are the advanced lessons - they are the meat - from there the mountain is built - the secret stuff is nothing - all of that you will come to know on your own. 3. Work to be neutral - to know nothing 4. When Siddhis come do not become them 5. When Awakening arrives - continue practice of some sort or find devotion as you will - seek not to teach until and if teaching comes.

Regarding the idea of Sudden Complete and irreversible - it is never the case: It is possible that one Awaken and be IN full abidance immediately - it is a stunning gut Awakening of monumental proportions! but that does not preclude the possibility of choosing to "loose" oneself and continue to explore obscurance.

Post Awakening - finding abidance and acclimation takes time - the pendulum will swing regarding the degree to which this vast Presence is abiding and if noise has entered / been encountered. But in the general sense - nothing is any longer overwhelming or anxious. Futures are not in the mix of Presence - not in any sense of extrapolation. Plannng has ceased - spontaneity has come forth as well as peace and gratitude - a general gratitude toward no thing - Unity consciousness may come slowly and prior to Awakening - if this is the case it may be mistaken for Awakening. A great deal falls away in the dissolution of competiveness and otherness. So much so that in this liberation and greater landscape it is taken as Awakening and often can be seen in nearly obsessive "heart" teachings. Unity consciousness or Oneness can also blossom at Awakening and after in great expansions of heart ❤️

Quote from Dwai "In my experience, it can be a gradual process of letting go of identities and positions after waking up to our true nature" This is nearly always the case - even in the most extreme cases - without "faint remains" one would have to be fed and bathed and taught how to live again - this is simply not lost. And personality and DNA while no longer making the trance inducing overwhelming noise and inertia - still have pockets - some may big deep pockets. Initially it is extraordinarily helpful to have an Awakened teacher to speak too or a background in this former idea of the Awakened state and hopefully not an overly idealized one.

In general it is "dramatic" in the sense that it is actually very very rare to ease up and into Awakened Realization - one might be easing up into it happening for many life times - but very generally it "happens" fairly suddenly and dramatically as the tensions in the ten thousand finger prisons suddenly do not pull and the prisons no longer hold a grasp and cease to exist. Initailly it may be nearly completely debilitating and doing much more than getting up to eat a bit and going to the bathroom is about all one is involved with. Simply sitting in the endless timeless all and everything - one has no inertia in anything - no back story - it is unlike anything one has ever read in a book - accept that now one can understand what was written in those books. Words are completely inadequate for what transpires. There is one component that is complete and unchanging once Awakened and having come to abidance in the Awakened "state" - the unborn - the Divine Essence - one is more or less abiding in it - it is always there to the greater degree. Personality and investment in personal position has initially fallen almost completely to the wayside if not completely - one can be near fully incapacitated by it and then as has been said "faint remains" emerge here and there as one stands upright more often and engages in more the physical. The physical nature of Awakening is that it is Exteemely physical in the sense of embodiment - but at the same time all automations of the psyche have come to a stop - one is In Present Presence - extrodinarily tangible - with no movement - no inertia's. The non-investment of personality in positions falls away and truth can be seen - not in forgiveness - which would be through the lens of position - but seen almost from an historical perspective as though all is known from both the positions of those involved and no-position non-object. Its almost as though people were playing in a role on a set and fully IN their parts and then the director in the middle of an intense scene says "cut - take a break - get some rest". And then your son comes into the room and says "hi dad"

Adyshanti: "So it is the process that happens after awakening that I want to explore. As I’ve said, for a very few people, the moment of awakening will be complete. It will be final in a certain sense, and there will be no need for a continuing process. We might say that such people had an extraordinarily light karmic load; even though they may have experienced extreme suffering before awakening, one can see that their karmic inheritance, the conditioning that they were dealing with, wasn’t too deep. This is very rare. Only a few people in a given generation may wake up in such a way that there’s no further process to undergo." This is the case - yet many who do Awaken go through profound release of the Karmic compressions to a very great extent. Frequently it takes several years (usually two or more) to adjust or acclimate. My experience in the first two years was one of vast silence. Words only began to trickle in around 2013. For quite some time it was as though all of the person hood that I had been identified with had left entirely. And the identification was gone - but here and there the compressions and fragments of "a story" emerged. - also the gullies from energetic peaks had left a mark in the physical form - I could still get angry - but it would not last and I was not invested in it - it was as though I got a sudden quick minutes long cold and then it subsided. In True Qi Gong the residual compressions or as the Indian traditions call it "faint remains" (I do not know the actual spelling of the word) fall away. This will also happen in True Yoga. Many people are Awakening at this time and many are doing so with very considerable inclination and habituation still remaining - and they are more easily pulled back into the obscured state in rejoining the grasping and positioning.

It is not a teacher - other than handcuffs "teach", a straight jacket teaches. The struggle is as a Chinese finger prison - willfulness is met with restraint and compression equal to the resistance. The legacy of habituation is relentless in it's ease of use and practiced venting and entrainment. The frequencies one is grasped within bare the fruits of what those tuning forks attract to them in like vibration. IN Awakening this falls away. In everyday life this is lite and Light - it is burdenless.

Karma is the habituations and tensions within which the monkey mind is entranced. It is the sum of grasping. It is the inertias of an un-Awakened state and the impelling of ten thousand finger prisons. It is the deep trenches of inculcation from indulgence and obscurance that favors the habituations and the deep DNA propensities.

Karma has no mass, it is not a thing, it is not gathered up nor spent, it has no movement. - essentially it does not exist except within non-existence.

the singularity is both gone and not gone

"Stillness" is often mis-interpreted: It is not lack of movement - or quiet mind - It is non-inertia When at rest not in the inertia of "at rest-ness" and when in action not in the inertia of "in action" - it is a non-identified state in a state of action or inaction. Action from stillness - whether it is inaction or action - is spontaneous and does not carry the momentum of position and identifications.

There are many states that will be progressed through in Awakened abiding awareness - though in the former they appear as wilfull aspirations and resistances, formerly as the cloak of personhood it was a politicalised state of identifications. Freed from these tauntings and springs of resistance and willfulness - initially it takes quite some time to settle - and residual elements of the personhood still remain though one is no longer vested in them - there are no held enertias. One may still find a flare up of temper but it does not last and is somewhat foreign. For some the allure of positioning pulls them back from abidance in the Awakened state and they have only the experience - having experienced Awakening - referred to as an Awakening Experience. There is a grey area in the use of the terms Enlightenment and Awakening - both are the end of suffering (once one is truly abiding in Awakened Awareness). Many references to Enlightenment are more references to Awakening - the falling away of the personhood and the end of suffering. Enlightement is also a misnomer in the sense that it implies a sort of finished state - it is "a sort of finished state" but not actually a "finished state". From Awakened Awareness great emergence will take place - it is Enlightening.

In Awakening individuation is still present and is capable of immense expansion - while the unborn divine essence is ever present and now tangibly felt and abided in. That which was a hundred thousand Chinese finger prisons of position and resistance and enertias and reactions known by its former name "the seeker" falls away and with it the suffering and dissatisfaction. (The Individuation mentioned above is IN oneness - though one may not have reached a unity state - and it is very possible to reach a unity state prior to Awakening. A Unity state or state of Oneness can and is often mistaken for Awakening)

It really depends on what area you are in for any specific recommendation but if you can find a practice area where a heel is not so much of a requirement that would be helpful. A relatively flat sole is best.

In Awakening the illusion that was the student ceases - the seeker cannot Awaken - the Seeker falls away upon Self Realization. That which Awakens is not the facade of positions and held frequencies that "was the identified personality / student".

It is just another philosophy until it is not. If you had been fed intravenously all of your life because you were born without a mouth we could talk about the taste of food and watch all the food channels until the cows come home but you would not experience taste. And the greatest teachers of taste on earth could not make anyone in your position able to understand them. The greatest teachers regarding non-duality have never found an unrealized student that "understood them" - it is not possible. They can only point. One who has even had a strong Awakening experience has only had a glimpse and though they may now move with sureness cannot grasp with real understanding Awakening and Abiding Awakening. Would all the talk and "proof" of the nature of taste, the sensation and flavors be overwhelming proof that it is true and or as remotely good as it is said to be? One could point to the pain and pleasure of touch as an example of physical sensation and say this is an example of the swings in flavors found in taste - one could point out wetness upon the skin and cooling and heating, moisture and dryness. But would the person with no mouth "understand your teaching" - would they come to know/experience taste? Science has just arrived at about the same place as mechanical science was when it discovered the wheel. It was not long ago that Science considered the idea that - the attention of experimenters on an experiment could effect the outcome of the experiement - was a ludicrous absurd and wholly loony madness. A million people of seeming clarity teaching that taste does exist and pointing to what it would be like if you could taste does not mean that it is not some fantasy - but it might occur to one not wilfully jealous that such an outpouring of affirmation that it is real is probable cause to think it might be so and if possible take steps to gain the faculties of taste or to simply admire such an ability.

To Rideforever Prior to what looks like your inevitable expulsion from here - you might want to look a how ridged you are, positioned you are and utterly blind to the teachings you are so bent against. Your positioning and entrenched blindness is inspirational to those that have been so mired - and a testimony to what right effort could attain if given a chance. "Dissatisfaction" much more closely resembles what the Buddha was talking about rather than the translated word "suffering" - just a note since you so easily have derided those that have admired his teachings. Your Fundamentalist structure of unbending authority from the standpoint of belief and mental jibberish not based in experience but rather from shallow mental wandering in a small closet really does bring out the green in you. As a bonified green pea in a sea of limitless light - your tiny identified wave giggling between rocks on all sides is your island paradise and I think we all hope you come out of it soon enough.