Spotless

I think a lot of confusion comes with using the word "mind". Particularly for the sake of this topic, this discussion. "Mind" is a very misty and loaded word - a bit like "god". Trying to settle ones awareness in silence is an honorable engagement and if you "fail" you win in that you see just how little you are able to "do" and how trivial is your will. If you have the magnetic strength to bare with it - you will find the silence comes - not by release, but as what you thought was you falls away. Not much of anything happens as a cause of you releasing anything - we use such phrases because our ego loves the idea that it is doing or at least not dying with this spiritual practice. It loves to implicate its success upon things. Did you "release" your yearning for a Barbie doll or G. I. Joe? Pretty suddenly one day you moved on - no release - your awareness can simply move to a different vibration and whole worlds disappear. One day your "buzz" addictions fall away, on another day your story falls away. Somewhere in there is a you that eventually you will find familiar in a much more organic way than you ever expected. The elegant feel of Qi - becomes elegant when it is naturally not dissipated, not directed into a personal buzz, a group buzz or a planetary buzz. An un-distracted awareness with no inertia.

I have made several watches start working again - one was someone's grandfathers that had not worked for many years. I did not try to fix them, I was just handling them and did not even know they had a problem. Once all in one week, my car radio went out, my tape player went out, I broke the bell housing, got that fixed and broke the bell hosing again, broke the starter and finally asked a good friend to look at what was going on: He asked if I hated my job! I said I could not stand my job, he said my car gets me to work and my telekinesis was off the charts high. I turned down my telekinesis and the problems stopped.

It is a particularly intense "mechanical" practice that I very much enjoyed. I first experienced it by treating myself to several private sessions at the end of a 23 day fast. I was in an excellent space and had no expectation and very little idea of what I would be doing - other than intense breath work which I was comfortable with particularly in what was my state at the time. During my first session by the end my hands were contorted into an odd twisted shape and my mouth and cheeks needed to be slowly worked open again - totally unexpected! I did three private sessions and decided to take a 6 week class. We paired up in class and each week one person did the breathing and the other facilitated - ( helped the breather stay awake and breathing) very little else was done except that after the breathing session we all talked about what had happened. During one of my sessions I went into a clear and vivid scene from an Indian life - three of us were riding our paints in the sage brush - I was completely there! During another session I suddenly had to go into an old inverted yoga pose I had not done in years and did not know I could do anymore. It is the one where you are fully arched with your belly pointing to the sky, hands backward. I found myself breathing through my chakras and they were all opened up very large with a surging flow of energy - they were opened up way beyond their ordinary settings - it was a very powerful experience of power -,I was surprisingly grounded - the Qi force was a moderated explosive flood but unlike any other Kundalini experience I have had. On another note: during the class almost all the female breathers were crying - many were great weeping sobs. I do not recall a single male having this reaction. During the after talks the female comments circled around release. The male comments around past lives, chakras, dream states and metaphysical mystical experiences. I came away seeing this was a very powerful mechanical tool for women to release a ton of pain pictures in a very short time. It recommend it highly to all healthy individuals.

Each step is a re-learning of the first real step - that you know nothing

The replies have pretty much covered it - but one more thing - if you do get a usage warning - call in and add some more space rather than going over the limit and getting charged an absurd amount for overage.

For me they were very different. I have done most forms of Yoga and the approach of Qi Gong is very different. I came to Qi Gong only a few years ago with considerable abilities so my experience with it was at once somewhat very advanced, but in yoga I was never intending to "charge up" my LDT or charge up anything. In yoga it was all about inner discipline and the outer forms that are adjunct to that. Attention, cleaning the vessel, subtle bodies, nadis, chakras, diet, fasting, forms ... The breathing was a cleaning tool, a movement tool, transformative in a gentle passive active way. At this point in time all intentional breathing is remarkably effective, felt, vivifying and typically expansive and electrifying. Qi Gong breathing is much more physical in an athletic sense, and I do not mean that it takes the effort of an athlete, but rather that it is a full marrow to muscle enhancement with an energy that is quite different.

How many people do we have at this point roughly?

LOL! Please humor me (I feel old on this) but what does this mean? QFT may stand for: Quadratic Frobenius test, a primality test QuantiFERON, a test for tuberculosis infection or latent tuberculosis Quantitative feedback theory Quantum field theory, the theory of quantum mechanics applied to fields Quantum Fourier transform, a Fourier transform acting on quantum bits Queen's Film Theatre, a cinema in Northern Ireland In Internet slang, an abbreviation for quoted for truth (used when quoting someone with similar views as yours).

Staying conscious depends on many factors. Awareness of breathing, regulating it, the position of your awareness within your space , your posture and staying out of the lure of trance are some of the main components. As your energy begins to move and you settle-in the lighter blocks and compressions in your space begin to clear and you feel increasingly lighter but you may also experience an increasing anxiousness. Many women will begin to go out of their bodies or fall asleep or stop meditating at about 20 minutes because "pain" compressions / pictures start to vibrate high enough to reach resonance - if held long enough they pop and clear the area and you retrieve energy - if not you go unconscious, leave your body or stop and leave your meditation. The identical thing happens to men but usually about 40 minutes into it. You can also circumvent this by going into trance but this will remove almost all of the benefits of meditation and can result in happy but relatively unfruitful meditation sessions. (I would rather not engage in an argument about "trance") Staying centered in the center of your head is where most of us start and it is arguably the best, however, actively moving your attention to other areas can be very helpful for a wide variety of reasons. This is certainly true for individuals that tend to live in their heads. If you begin to fade breathing is one of the best method to pull up and out of a dive. If it is a real tough time short fast aggressive breathing NOT directed toward the base of your spine but into your awareness can work but most of the time simple increased breathing or alternated nose breathing. Sitting in a chair is also a good position for meditation with feet flat on the floor and spine straight. You can also direct energies with your hands at times or slap yourself lightly with both hands or calmly stroke your head and face. As the vibration in your space brings to resonance core compressions you will have a hard time staying awake but usually only for 5 to 15 minutes. I have typically found the greatest difficulty in the first hour, beyond that I am increasingly aware and Very upright by the 3 or 4th hour and beyond with my back straight and chin tucked. Recently a year or so ago I worked in my LDT, then lately in my higher heart center - this is not the 4th chakra or the MDT but slightly to the right of center at about the same height as the actual heart (but on the other side slightly). I was in these areas because that is where I needed to work for some balancing. I say "work" but it is no effort, just holding my attention in an area until it becomes comfortable and the energy flows with me there. Initially my awareness there might feel numb or like I cannot actually be in it but only just outside. Since I started meditating I have never had much of a problem with falling asleep or getting remotely bored. My meditation was intense and frequent and "by the book" for the first few years. I did not begin doing many of the things I mentioned until later. My meditation is rarely less than one hour and 18 hours is the most I have done in a single sitting. I mention this to give you some background on my meditation. I started with Hatha Yoga and very quickly moved to Raja Yoga, I Had a radical headspace change when I was about 22 that has not left me. About 4 years ago a whole series of new changes began. Meditation is now a more occasional tool and immensely transformational. Qi Gong is a remarkable adjunct to meditation - it stretches and distributes your energy which otherwise tends to favor your personality/ego/sleep/illusion. I think for the lack of a better word the title of this post uses the word "should" - it is always relative.

What an exciting post - it has drawn everyone to a great space

I had a teacher that helped someone off the ceiling - basically talked him down from it. I know it has something to do with the lower dan tien area (for me anyway) and the pelvic region as well. I know it from stuff I have done out of body but I did not peruse it. I vaguely remember it having to do with adjusting attractions to larger inertia's.

Lots of confusion in this group of questions: Qi is not Kundalini in the sense that we use words to distinguish the two. You say "so if it is in the pelvic there may be some sexual effects", this seems incredible flippant. You continue with "if it is in the head you'll get some hallucinations or psychological changes", your perception of kundalini is this weak? I do not know where to start with all of this but so say that if you are doing anything to pop your Kundalini - stop! Not one word of what you put forward would indicate any understanding of what you are dealing with. If the books you are reading have brought you to conclusions and assumptions along the lines you have demonstrated then you need to burn the books and find a teacher. Amping up this stuff improperly is like playing with crack. If you decide to disregard this - keep the following handy so you will have someone to call for help which you will surely need: http://www.kktanhp.com/kundalini.htm

For the most part it is actually quite simple: A diet that is not imbalanced. Removal of processed foods and sugar loading, alcohol, cigarets and other alien inviting dietary aids. I can also sit at the color vibration Brown for a few minutes - that will pop out most freeloaders. A steam bath followed by a cold plunge will make most flee A hot shower followed by a long all cold shower will usually do the trick for light spring and daily cleaning. I can also look them in the eye and ask them if they would like to not exist - and if that does not actually work then I can start to reduce them entirely. Some can become so stuck as to not really exist as a choice of any kind at which point unfortunate consequences may become necessary.

This is a healthy mindset regarding this - but BKA appears to know the ropes. Fear is of no value. I don't fear porcupines or skunks but it is wise to tell those who do not know about them just how surprising the results of an encounter might be.

I don't think I was being evasive at all - I was being polite. The title of the post is a broadcast of ego - and the first sentence compounds the innocence of the poster who like so many has no understanding of the word Philosophy. You then continue along this line of casual dismissal with "those old Chinese thinking are only conceptual..." He then seems to infer that Science is some higher form than philosophy (where do you think higher math comes from) which at their highest forms would put science several miles under philosophy. And then we have the issue of science - the method is good but the habit is catastrophic in regard to this. If you require science for this inquiry to clarify the how's and what's of Qi then you will be eating processed food in the end. They cannot work with this as a whole - certainly not at this point in their infancy. (I hope this is not considered a rude rebuff - if it is taken that way I will remove it promptly)

Several appear to be on boats

Science is still very much in the dark ages. Being a physicist is definitely no advantage at all in understanding - the impression is one can pin it down. When you reach the point you can pin it down you would look to a poet for the words - the idea of contacting a scientist in this day and age is for marketing and outreach. ( everyone keeps going through the motions - and we should )

A great deal of our growth in the arena of expanding our awareness and on the path of enlightenment has more to do with the simple basics and far less to do with the so called "advanced" practices. Advanced practice is reached primarily from basic practice. Basic practice becomes advanced all on its own. As you progress on the path, the simple teachings are in fact by a very long shot the most important and the easiest to skip over - pushing them aside in a race to "master" the basics. It can also be hard to think straight in your teens and early 20s with what for some of us is a raging hormone storm and this may create the feeling of the urgency to "master" the basics aside from the intense desire to do so. Included in the basics are meditation, some breathing techniques, and some posture basics. Often wholly brushed aside is diet - or as is freqently the case - it is an egotistical way of life diet of only organic items and a very full identification with this diet (certainly nothing wrong with the diet - it is a very good diet - but the identification is often so enuciated it should be obviously an area to work on). Also brushed aside in general is the Ego - we see this all across these boards - statements of surety that is so obviously way beyond actual experience, the over use of quotes as though this redeems a lack of thinking or real experience. Almost no desire to consider what Right Thinking actually might mean - little discussion of it if any - an assumed understanding - ["my" understanding] Right view Right intention Ethical conduct Right action Right effort Right mindfulness Right concentration Take right effort: About 99% of the effort is done towards Gain The gaining of advanced practice skills, and the effort to maintain a good practice in order to continue "up" along the path. We indulge in poor food, alcohol, smoking and a limitless supply of energy reducing behaviours and think nothing of it. Even if we eat well, do not smoke and our drinking is none or well within a composed fashion, we attach ourselves to every cause under the sun and compress huge amounts of judgement into them and cast our will about the universe with abandon - often ready to pounce upon any protrusion from our indefatigable indignation. We practice this daily! It is our story and our biggest practice! It is primarily how we die - and how most of us are completely dead by the age of 45 - deadend to our story - our treasured illusion. We come out of it briefly in our old age when it hits us that we have been way off and need to purcase some insurance. Or we do not come out of it - and our after death is quite a delay for us. Another thing we skip over - though this practice is now coming to light - is the mindfulness to those energies we have come to know: If you have come to feel a particular chakra or energy center - try to stay aware of it at all times. This is a primary way to Awaken Say you feel the warmth of your 4th chakra in meditation and everytime you put your awareness on it you can feel it - then put your attention on it and be with it during the day. Slowly but surely it will be present more and more - and with it will come an increase in other awarenesses as well. Soon you will be more in this space than not - perhaps all the time. Practice not venting your energies on your story - stay with your being - notice when you leave your awareness space - you will find it leaves you often during the "you" that you believe you know best (the one you identify with). Many of the most "advanced" practices become your story - your new story - you are identified with your prowess of stretching, your ability to do some esoteric practice - and your ability to use the word esoteric as though you know what it means to be inside the innermost 3rd circle. If you ignore the basics - the balancing basics, then learning the "higher" forms present much more danger than they afford apportunity and growth. Another form of over engineering comes from fear - but this is a long enough beginning for now. Please join this discussion!

It is good to be cautious regarding a great many words used when speaking of Practice. It can also be a very good reason for a group setting because often words and ideas will be very clearly defined. Obviously their are exceptions to the utility of this as some well defined concepts can box in ones thinking if the choices are not well refined. That said - you will find that about 99% of the quotes within these walls are from teachers who had teachers and group settings at least for a time. The word Bliss is one of the most misunderstood words and actually a very real barrier-word for many regarding Awakening. How can an Awaken one claim as they all do (in our translations) that they maintain a bliss state even in the face of the deaths of children, famine etc???!!! Because: "The Sun does not dim because the Earth is having a bad day." (D.Doyle)) Rather than Bliss which connotates incorrectly a quality associated with Good Feeling vs Bad with the addition of a sort of carefree-ness. Think instead of a constant high vibration - it is neither good nor bad - it is a high vibration - so high that it is light. The note is always there - it is a pervading note of light. This note is not recognized as Bliss by a great number of Awakening Beings because the word Bliss is far from the actual texture and tone. And many who feel Bliss - a bliss more in line with the connotation are more frequently not in an Awakening state. "Awakened" is another problematic word but it is not because the teachers have given it such a poor translation. It is because we have given it our typical Christian patina of impossibility like a Virgin Birth. At the same time - a few - a very few - have lowered the bar so far that you might as well say that if you have a body you are already in the process of Awakening. When your past falls away in chunks and you enter into a full phase of no-thought with no effort and a tremendous peace and power within - you could be said to be at least entering upon Awakening. It may be accompanied or preceeded by a massive and immeditate change or a change over a few days, weeks or months - even several years. It will then take you some time for your body to work with this - it is said 3 years at minimum. Meditation This simple thing - sitting and meditating. Yet sitting and doing is the primary practice most have when in what is called "meditation". Or - as is often the case - sitting and leaving the body or going into trance. (trance is another amazing area of misunderstanding but I do not have time for that arguement here) The following clip is one of the best I have seen regarding meditation and the "general whole story". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWttCv0p6WQ Everything needed to Awaken regarding meditation can come from nothing more than sitting in a good posture with your awareness in the center of your head and breathing from the belly. Most of the time our practice is centered on blocks, constrictions and fear that would otherwise not be present with enough meditation. We arrive with certain energy compressions when we start our practice - often it is because of these that we are drawn to our practice. Our first and most primary fundamentals should be properly adjusting our diet, preparing for sleep well, studying and practicing a balanced approach to life within and without, and meditation. What we often see is absurd dieting ideas, over zealous adjustments to everything, fundamentalist viewpoints (meaning I am right and you are wrong), unbalanced practice, advanced techniques above all else and very dangerous breathing exercises. And at all times - we think we "need a HEALING!" (which is code for I am not moving forward fast enough) Much of the time we need a healing from trying to ram a square peg into a round hole - over and over and over again. ----- Being aware of your breathing during the day is perhaps the quickest way to Awakening. Seeing yourself in everything. Know that you know nothing.

Fluidity said: Tremendous amounts of electrical energy can be built up in this process and best of all, this energy is yours to keep, it is You, so keep it, conserve it and share it, but conserve it above all! So true - but conserve it above all! We dissipate so much of our practice. On another note: When you breath - get in the habit of noticing yourself breathing into your surrounding aura. All around you. I have noticed that not only do most people have an aura that is primarily in front of them and dies to almost nothing from the waist down, but even when in a class and bringing in energy from above the crown, they breath it into the energy pattern they have and not into their whole space or a perceived healthy peripheral area. It is as though the notion of breathing into their whole peripheral space does not exist.

It may be a cultural carry over: In one of my Qi Gong classes many of the students are Chinese and some of them have been taking the classes for quite some time. All but one of us is over 50 and she is Italian and about 42. Frequently we have dinner together when the class is over at 6:30, the classes are in Oakland Chinatown at the Chinese Cultural Center with plenty of restaurants nearby. In our talks it became very clear that none of the Chinese were there for the inner discipline, it was exercise. The idea of Qi was practically mythical to several of them. They were curious in asking me questions because the master had said to them that I was "doing very well". In those questions it became clear that their understanding of Qi Gong and Tai Chi was from an exercise standpoint and some health stimulation movements with only a sort of misty awareness of legendary displays of Qi Gong and the enormous power it has. At lunch in their restaurant of choice they have a 60" screen tv prominently positioned in the middle of the large dining area and the Wallstreet ticker tape plays constantly with full sound and news breaks - all in a fine upscale setting. In my other Qi Gong class one of the interpreters that comes to pick up one of the masters is a private Kung Fu student of the master and we have become friends. Though he understands Qi Gong, he is all about Kung Fu and strength - Qi Gong and Tai Chi are viewed more as a health plan though he knows a considerable amount about Qi. Both Qi Gong and Tai Chi are expanding rapidly here - it will be interesting how it unfolds. Yoga here in the US used to be at a much higher level primarily because it was so pure and newly introduced, now it is primarily fitness exercise "yoga" which is not yoga at all. When I started with yoga it was and for me still is primarily meditation and breathing with postures as more of an adjunct.

[{( secretly - and you must tell no one - but I will in fact covertly return to these very pages and print out some of your suggestions and test them - I may even venture to pull out and dust off my ((((French)))) press)}] [{(tell no one)}]

I am actually interested in this topic Could you guys take this debate private and continue with the original post - I am very interested

If you are concerned about cholesterol - you will find the approximate 10 point increase in your number due to not using a filter is well documented by very good science. Also - the general notion that one can view it as a health food (as it is normally served up in 999.99% of the cases) is gravely mistaken. It is possible to mitigate certain pitfalls by purchasing organic fair trade coffee, switching to mild blends not roasted dark and the many other exciting things one can do - but if you happen to love a dark roast and don't mind not increasing your cholesterol - try brewing at 200 and using a drip.