Tensegrity

[KoHsuan]

Is anybody practicing Tensegrity of Carlos Castaneda? Could be good addition to taoist practice...

[sunshine]

Is anybody practicing Tensegrity of Carlos Castaneda? Could be good addition to taoist practice...

 

Learning from more and more and different sources, that it is no good idea to blindly mix practices, I would not suggest it. Further: I once had some material here and is more close to martial arts training than any other practice... further: it is already not that easy to have a true taoist practitioner to train with, but having a true tensegrity practitioner close most likely is even more rare...

 

and do yourself a favor: better not to learn whatever practice just from a book or a video.

 

 

Harry

[Spectrum]

Discuss Buckminster Fullers tensegrity concepts relationship to Taoist expressions about relaxations synergetic relationship to tension.

 

Taoist Wu Ji. A physical state of being. Castenadas use in first book reflects physical postures taught by Don Juan...

 

... there are some distinct universals present here.

 

Spectrum

[sharp-nose]

hi

 

i did practice and studied castaneda for more than 8 years.

you can pick up "the principles of the warrior way" and move on.

all the rest of the sistem is a piramidal sistem deviced to help DJ to escape from the inorganic world.

there is no real benefit to the practicioners, that i can tell until now.

 

i moved on to a sistem that has a live teacher, and i have a local instructor to help me.

apart from the wild philosophy that really ment something to me back then, i realised i dont have the tools for a project that big. and the coordinators of the project were gone, missing, or dead in the action.

 

tao is a shamanic based sistem.

[KoHsuan]

 

all the rest of the sistem is a piramidal sistem deviced to help DJ to escape from the inorganic world.

 

 

Hi Sharp-nose,

 

could you please dwell on source of such a statement?

Edited May 30, 2007 by KoHsuan

[sharp-nose]

I am interested, if you want each other to share experiences form this path, tensegrity.

I was a DJ & CC fan for almost a decade.

They say it all very directly, the source is them.

But we are too stubborn and thrilled to catch the meaning of what they say.

We always think is about someone else, is not our case...

[KoHsuan]

Sharp-nose,

My question was where did you get idea that DJ was caught by inorganic world?

[thelerner]

I remember a long time ago, Michael Winn writing something like, Castaneda's work was a trap to provide fodder for lower spiritual beings.

 

Where he got that, I have no idea. It was a long time ago. I don't even buy into that whole conceptualization.

 

I don't think there was a DJ. I think Castaneda found out early there was more money in newage/pseudofiction then anthropology (his major, note* first book was his dissertation). He may also have had a depth and genius beyond shear hucksterism, but I wish he could have presented his ideas more truthfully. He probably contributed to his early death by setting himself up as a mysterious master.

 

 

Michael

[Spectrum]

I remember a long time ago, Michael Winn writing something like, Castaneda's work was a trap to provide fodder for lower spiritual beings.

 

Where he got that, I have no idea. It was a long time ago. I don't even buy into that whole conceptualization.

 

I don't think there was a DJ. I think Castaneda found out early there was more money in newage/pseudofiction then anthropology (his major, note* first book was his dissertation). He may also have had a depth and genius beyond shear hucksterism, but I wish he could have presented his ideas more truthfully. He probably contributed to his early death by setting himself up as a mysterious master.

Michael

 

I wonder if.

 

So... growing wings yet then?

 

I wonder if Winn ate a cactii in the desert for his dissertation into Shamanic culture.

[sharp-nose]

Hello, KoHsuan

The witches say it very clear, in a couple of interviews.

As I said, I studied this for at least a decade. And I still do.

I have friends that still study this. They wonder how can I go from CC's teachings to something else.

Yes, I can understand this question, because the teachings are so deep.

And their effectiveness is what it gives them life and truth.

In a world of truth and illusion, there is no matter what colour the cat has, as long as it can catch a mouse.

But I couldnt go on with it, for the reason mentioned above.

Still I got something very good out of it.

How can you tell it's true or not?

You just know.

It's instinct.

[gendao]

I remember a long time ago, Michael Winn writing something like, Castaneda's work was a trap to provide fodder for lower spiritual beings.

 

I don't think there was a DJ. I think Castaneda found out early there was more money in newage/pseudofiction then anthropology (his major, note* first book was his dissertation). He may also have had a depth and genius beyond shear hucksterism, but I wish he could have presented his ideas more truthfully. He probably contributed to his early death by setting himself up as a mysterious master.

Michael

So, was this guy a phony or what? And what did he die of?

 

There's some Tensegrity demos

at 20:00 & 32:36.

 

Looks like hard-style qigong.

[Spectrum]

Good stuff Vortex. Thank you. I have never seen this outside of reading the account in the original thesis.

[KoHsuan]

So, was this guy a phony or what? And what did he die of?

 

There's some Tensegrity demos

at 20:00 & 32:36.

 

Looks like hard-style qigong.

 

you have to decide for yourself phony or not...

 

he died from liver dysfunction... probably from intensive dreaming practice... more interesting question is- did he really died..

 

as one of instructors said (not related to Cleargreen) tensegrity is really powerful qigong but very unsafe...

Edited October 22, 2007 by KoHsuan

[Sunya]

have you guys ever seen videos? I have. it looks awkward and silly. the energetic validity of it i don't know, but why bother? tai chi is a proven system with much history, just find a good teacher. i don't practice any moving meditation but i may take up tai chi again someday. i took kung fu this summer and my sifu taught me some tai chi, it works no doubt.

 

imo don juan could have very well existed, or maybe he didn't. that doesn't matter. if you read castanedas books and get past some of the silliness you'll find a lot of wisdom, but be careful. western traditions have much more yang (obsession with power) than eastern systems which tend to be more yin, feminine, in nature.

[voidisyinyang]

Anthropology professor Rodney Needham has an essay on Carlos Castaneda in one of Needham's books. Needham PROVES that Castaneda directly stole his material from a 1950s autobiography by a German who studied Zen in Japan -- the German (a former Nazi) ALSO lied about his training!

 

Anyway looks like the inner circle of Tensegrity was so devoted that they committed suicide after the death of Carlos -- from http://salon.com. this april:

 

At the heart of Castaneda's movement was a group of intensely devoted women, all of whom were or had been his lovers. They were known as the witches, and two of them, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar, vanished the day after Castaneda's death, along with Cleargreen president Amalia Marquez and Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundahl. A few weeks later, Patricia Partin, Castaneda's adopted daughter as well as his lover, also disappeared. In February 2006, a skeleton found in Death Valley, Calif., was identified through DNA analysis as Partin's.

 

Some former Castaneda associates suspect the missing women committed suicide. They cite remarks the women made shortly before vanishing, and point to Castaneda's frequent discussion of suicide in private group meetings. Achieving transcendence through a death nobly chosen, they maintain, had long been central to his teachings.

 

 

have you guys ever seen videos? I have. it looks awkward and silly. the energetic validity of it i don't know, but why bother? tai chi is a proven system with much history, just find a good teacher. i don't practice any moving meditation but i may take up tai chi again someday. i took kung fu this summer and my sifu taught me some tai chi, it works no doubt.

 

imo don juan could have very well existed, or maybe he didn't. that doesn't matter. if you read castanedas books and get past some of the silliness you'll find a lot of wisdom, but be careful. western traditions have much more yang (obsession with power) than eastern systems which tend to be more yin, feminine, in nature.

[Spectrum]

I think the context in which Castenedas postures are used in the book are very believable. What I saw as the postures themselves? <shrug> Not that big of a deal.

 

Spectrum

[宁]

i think there was a completely different experience - living near and seeing CC in action, instead of just reading the books and putting the pieces alltogether, the way you would like them to look.

 

you should take a peak at "Enigma of a Sorcerer", a tribute made by some of the inner circle members of CC

completely disastruous to whatever you thought you knew about CC

 

one more thing

 

 

take this with lemon and salt, cause it's damn cheesy

 

 

...the horror...

[KoHsuan]

you can dwell about personal qualities of Carlos for years but it is nothing to do with Tensegrity...

 

if you investigate on Eastern guru life you will find even more... Tilopa, Osho etc...

 

Needham PROVES that Castaneda directly stole his material from a 1950s autobiography by a German who studied Zen in Japan -- the German (a former Nazi) ALSO lied about his training!

 

do you know how many people claim the same for last five decades??

 

Would be interesting to know opinion of people who practice....

Edited October 24, 2007 by KoHsuan

[宁]

CC has nothing to do with tensegrity?

personal qualities?

you may be right but think about it, it may be the other way around. we may have been attributing qualities that have nothing to do with the real person.

dont you think this is how our mind works? we make saints out of people that are supposed to meet our spiritual demands.

a lot of spiritual figures have the same stories. they started out human and finished as demigods, gods or sons of gods. their personal history - the irony of it - was erased and replaced with mithology.

 

 

 

it's not a deffinitive oppinion

 

[gendao]

I heard CC slid off the path with drugs & women...and I have no idea if he plagiarized his material from somewhere else...but a friend said his writings are GOOD, VERY GOOD. Perhaps some of the best stuff widely-available out there right now. Guess I'll give it a look-see then.

[qijack]

There is no doubt castaneda was a pure geniues with the way he wrote his books.Thats where the whole spiritual journey for me started .I even went as far as putting together a warrior group and we would meet every weekend for intense tensegrity and recap sessions,good times

 

I would think some stuff from his books can be quite beneficial for people and how they manage there lives,the warriors way for example

 

As far as all the other shit goes,its complete nonsence,Moving the assembledge point,entering other dimensions,inorganic beings,the blue scout lol

 

The effects of tensegrity are really no diffrent to kung fu.Good for your body and mental discpline.But you wont awaken powers by doing these movements like what they say in the video's and books.

[KoHsuan]

But you wont awaken powers by doing these movements like what they say in the video's and books.

 

Have you tried to do it together with recapitulation and dreaming work as was instructed in books??

[qijack]

Have you tried to do it together with recapitulation and dreaming work as was instructed in books??

 

Sure did

 

Even had quite a bit of sucsess with dreaming and managed to recap about 90% of my life that i could remember

 

All Castaneda's stuff really did was plunge me into a world of Fantasy of sorcerers and magic and datura,Magic mushrooms:P

 

And then Taoism kind of brought me back to reality

[宁]

Sure did

 

Even had quite a bit of sucsess with dreaming and managed to recap about 90% of my life that i could remember

 

All Castaneda's stuff really did was plunge me into a world of Fantasy of sorcerers and magic and datura,Magic mushrooms:P

 

And then Taoism kind of brought me back to reality

 

Hello Truth

 

I didn't go as far as you did with Tensegrity and Castaneda, but my experience could be summarized by your words,

All Castaneda's stuff really did was plunge me into a world of Fantasy of sorcerers and magic and datura,Magic mushrooms:P

 

And then Taoism kind of brought me back to reality

 

So I see you go all the way by saying the magic part is not real. Maybe cause I stood away from that part, to me it still real. Only high level stuff, things we can't really get a glimpse at, with only tensegrity and recap as tools. The social arrangements of CC was a little cultish, to think of all the chicks he had... he was better than any guru... I still think that his mission, work and means to do what he did, were completely different from what he declared. The lineage boundage was too tight and so it happens in every other part of the world, see John Chang's story. They are given things that we as practicioners couldn't hope to acheive. And then they are merely the tools of a greater self, the lineage egregor.

This is not a final understanding, it still boils in my mind, I studied this "stuff" for a long time, and now I can see where did it fit in my life then, and what gaps did it cover.

You are right, if you find another way of filling those gaps, the need for magic and power slowly fades away.

All I am interested now is in understanding and wisdom, and enough long life to figure out what to do with this marvelous gift of being alive.

 

What kind of practice are you in now, my friend

How did you manage to return to the living world

 

Yo pal,

 

Little

[KoHsuan]

All Castaneda's stuff really did was plunge me into a world of Fantasy of sorcerers and magic and datura,Magic mushrooms:P

And then Taoism kind of brought me back to reality

 

Strange... you probably didn't plunge deep enough... what do you mean by Fantasy of sorcerers?

 

Why some many people pay most attention to Carlos's women group? Mostly because they are envious ....

Mentioning datura and mushrooms just ridiculous ... it is just tiny part of it (pumped up by potheads) and was used only for Carlos PERSONALLY because his energy structure...

 

 

There is not much difference between daoism and nagualism:

1. powerful plants :datura, peyote - daoists consumed much worse than that, nobody blames them...

2. group of women - for paired sexual cultivation, Amy Wallace mentioned this several times...

3. dreaming - essential part of daoism too...

4. recapitulation -- harder to find parallel.. but quite close practice was mentioned in the book about Wang Liping..

5. Tensegrity - chi gong....

 

not to mention practices with natural objects like trees, water, fog...

 

etc.....

 

 

namaste.....

Edited November 16, 2007 by KoHsuan