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Why did no one tell me about chakra's? What else am I missing?
I'm reading a book that says Tantra came to Buddhism and Islam via Christian proselytizing, but not by the kind of Christians we usually think of as proselytizers. It was taken east by Gnostic Christians, who spread throughout the Mid-East, had a community in Babylon, and spread as far as Western Tibet, now Ladakh, or thereabouts. They even got up into Central Asia and the oasis communities around those Buddhist caves north of Tibet.
I don't know if I believe this theory, but it's interesting.
Right, the Taoists had this knowledge, and they also had "longevity practices" (=tantra). I wonder if anyone knows how long they had that knowledge.
To the Taoist remark. Yes... for a long, long time.
To the Gnostic comment? Yeah... take it with a grain of salt. I've studied lots of gnosticism myself, just the books, no initiation or anything. They would have been influenced in my opinion, not the influencers.
Buddhism doesn't call it kundalini because we experience the energy differently. Thus, we are not trying to raise kundalini through the chakras, we are trying to subtlify awareness and empty the chakras of seeds of bondage, or burn them through heat and bliss, as well as insight and wisdom.
"The Buddhist system is more focused on the functions of the energy centers and that which flows through them."ie. , with the transformation of the cosmic or nature-energies into spiritual potentialities."
'Energy' is a quite specific term from the physical sciences that refers to measurable forces (be they potential or active).
The co-option of this term by pseudo-science as in the statements above is an attempt to make something that is complete nonsense sound more respectable: and for extra impressiveness, just add the meaningless yet magical prefixes 'cosmic-' or 'nature-' and whammo! you've struck a gold mine of gullibility. As a writer, it saddens me to see our language so abused.
Oh no. The "Kundalini is nonsense" topic. Maybe give that one its own thread, eh, Daozen? Otherwise this could turn into a real row and we'll go hopelessly off-topic.
Buddhism doesn't call it kundalini because we experience the energy differently. Thus, we are not trying to raise kundalini through the chakras, we are trying to subtlify awareness and empty the chakras of seeds of bondage, or burn them through heat and bliss, as well as insight and wisdom.
"The Buddhist system is more focused on the functions of the energy centers and that which flows through them."ie. , with the transformation of the cosmic or nature-energies into spiritual potentialities."
'Energy' is a quite specific term from the physical sciences that refers to measurable forces (be they potential or active).
The co-option of this term by pseudo-science as in the statements above is an attempt to make something that is complete nonsense sound more respectable: and for extra impressiveness, just add the meaningless yet magical prefixes 'cosmic-' or 'nature-' and whammo! you've struck a gold mine of gullibility. As a writer, it saddens me to see our language so abused.
Have you never experienced kundalini, nor have you experienced even the tingle of meditative absorption? I did the latter by the age of 5, with awareness, and the former by the age of 14, very powerfully.
How else would you describe it? You could say, chemical reactions? Awareness of awareness of the nervous system? Objective science works on a particular dimension within the physical realm. Meditative experience works on the medium of consciousness directly, of which science and biology is still quite confused. They are almost two seperate and distinct dimensions of study between consciousness and matter, while being intertwined. Kind of like how quantum particles are able to be in two places at once, but the experience of 5 sense perceived physical matter is not.
Currently accepted theories of science is "pseudo" if you really think about it, it's a constantly evolving sphere of study. Scientists are still very, very lost... for the most part, and have no idea who it is that is even doing the scientific studying to begin with. The anthropological evidence for the source of humanity is lost in ambiguity, and once they think they know! Some new evidence crops up.
Stop being so left brained dude... you'll go deeper. Just think about it, have a Eureka that deals with a level of information that transcends language and communication, then try to put it into words and see what you come up with... you'll end up using plenty of colloquialisms.
On the flip side 'electricity' means nothing in science. It refers to nothing measurable.
It's an umbrella term for entirely real forces, unlike chakras/cosmic energy, which are umbrella terms for imaginary ones.
From this point of view, the experience of quantum particles are imaginary. Because they keep doing different things dependent upon the observer. Also, once measured, they disappear.
Do you have any realization of how imaginary this so called reality is? How inter-subjective it is? How agreed upon within sentient groups of consciousness' it all is? Conditioned within lifetime after lifetime after lifetime add infinitum within peer groups within a conditioned criteria, also pre-conditioned based upon sentient projections and attachments?
Stop being so left brained dude... you'll go deeper. Just think about it, have a Eureka that deals with a level of information that transcends language and communication, then try to put it into words and see what you come up with... you'll end up using plenty of colloquialisms.
Stop being so no-brained dude!
Ultimately, ALL experience transcends language. But we must try, because that's all we've got if we want to communicate our experiences to others. Just because something is subjective (again, ALL experience is), that does not magically exclude science from the equation. Pain is entirely subjective, yet medical science has found many ways to interact with that experience. Subjectivity is no excuse for false claims.
I understand that, for you, chakras are entirely real. My point is: so are ghosts, UFOs, vampires, and so on for others. And in reality, they all have the same status.
"Stop being so no-brained dude! {jeffrey note...the smiley isn't going to save you every time when you communicate )
Ultimately, ALL experience transcends language. But we must try, because that's all we've got if we want to communicate our experiences to others. Just because something is subjective (again, ALL experience is), that does not magically exclude science from the equation. Pain is entirely subjective, yet medical science has found many ways to interact with that experience. Subjectivity is no excuse for false claims.
I understand that, for you, chakras are entirely real. My point is: so are ghosts, UFOs, vampires, and so on for others. And in reality, they all have the same status."
Exactly Daozen. Which is why the word energy is used. Because most people don't study science and those that do are 'brained' enough to realize that a buddhist center is not the same setting as a meeting of physics students.
Thus 'energy' is used to communicate. I don't understand it as lending 'official status' or borrowing the credibility of science.
I vote for "electricity". It's no secret that the body is electric, that much science knows. Until someone funds research on Kundalini, they'll never know that it's part of the body's electrical system. But it has some unusual properties. It's not scientific to dismiss claims or theories out of hand. It's scientific to research them to see if there's any merit to them.
Stop being so left brained dude... you'll go deeper. Just think about it, have a Eureka that deals with a level of information that transcends language and communication, then try to put it into words and see what you come up with... you'll end up using plenty of colloquialisms.
Stop being so no-brained dude!
Ultimately, ALL experience transcends language. But we must try, because that's all we've got if we want to communicate our experiences to others. Just because something is subjective (again, ALL experience is), that does not magically exclude science from the equation. Pain is entirely subjective, yet medical science has found many ways to interact with that experience. Subjectivity is no excuse for false claims.
I understand that, for you, chakras are entirely real. My point is: so are ghosts, UFOs, vampires, and so on for others. And in reality, they all have the same status.
Ok man. So be it. Still... when you feel the energy of kundalini surging up your spine... what word will you use? Or what phrase? A hot, blissful waterfall going the opposite direction?
You know when you know, and you don't know what you don't know... that is all.
Do you have any realization of how imaginary this so called reality is? How inter-subjective it is? How agreed upon within sentient groups of consciousness' it all is? Conditioned within lifetime after lifetime after lifetime add infinitum within peer groups within a conditioned criteria, also pre-conditioned based upon sentient projections and attachments?
Dude, gravity is not simply 'agreed upon'. It's real. It happens, whether you believe it or not. Unlike chakras etc.
Stop being so left brained dude... you'll go deeper. Just think about it, have a Eureka that deals with a level of information that transcends language and communication, then try to put it into words and see what you come up with... you'll end up using plenty of colloquialisms.
Stop being so no-brained dude!
Ultimately, ALL experience transcends language. But we must try, because that's all we've got if we want to communicate our experiences to others. Just because something is subjective (again, ALL experience is), that does not magically exclude science from the equation. Pain is entirely subjective, yet medical science has found many ways to interact with that experience. Subjectivity is no excuse for false claims.
I understand that, for you, chakras are entirely real. My point is: so are ghosts, UFOs, vampires, and so on for others. And in reality, they all have the same status.
Ok man. So be it. Still... when you feel the energy of kundalini surging up your spine... what word will you use? Or what phrase? A hot, blissful waterfall going the opposite direction?
You know when you know, and you don't know what you don't know... that is all.
"Waterfall" doesn't do it justice. It is more electric, more percolating, yet also aquatic at the same time. Sometimes all encompassing, imagination and physical reality combined...
Sometimes it feels like you just pissed all over your body and the piss feels like bliss coming straight from the heart center, sometimes from lower centers or higher centers.
Ok man. So be it. Still... when you feel the energy of kundalini surging up your spine... what word will you use? Or what phrase? A hot, blissful waterfall going the opposite direction?
You know when you know, and you don't know what you don't know... that is all.
Sounds like the feeling when you pee in your own wetsuit. But that doesn't have the same ring to it as 'my kundalini is rising'
Do you have any realization of how imaginary this so called reality is? How inter-subjective it is? How agreed upon within sentient groups of consciousness' it all is? Conditioned within lifetime after lifetime after lifetime add infinitum within peer groups within a conditioned criteria, also pre-conditioned based upon sentient projections and attachments?
Dude, gravity is not simply 'agreed upon'. It's real. It happens, whether you believe it or not. Unlike chakras etc.
I'm talking about deeper than your experience of gravity in this lifetime... You experience gravity through this physical apparatus, as an agreed upon paradigm due to beginningless lifetimes en group, thus we all experience it together as a concrete reality arising dependent upon all sorts of causes and conditions, both within habit patterned consciousness' as all of us intertwined with material formats which we've collectively projected since the previous universe, and the one before that, so on and so forth.
It's a hard comprehension to nutshell. You'll have to experience the Dharmakaya directly to get a compressed level of information on what I'm trying to reach at through a tiny paragraph.
My therapist believes we have electric fields that shift our being/paradigm every several years... Ph.D.
Cool therapist. We do have electromagnetic fields, all living things do, as well as some non-living things, like rocks. The Earth has its own electromagnetic field. I think it's almost a crime that this basic reality isn't taught in school science classes.
The Beach Boy song good vibrations was written by Brian Wilson who was bipolar and probably experiencing some kind of chakra phenomenon (this is speculation). He used sexual attraction as something everyone could understand. So he said 'vibrations' and also 'excitations' and the whole scene there was inuendo that it was just sexual but I have read BW had some experiences that were hard for others to understand that he wished to talk about. (you do believe bipolar person has an experience I hope, BW was bipolar).
The Beach Boy song good vibrations was written by Brian Wilson who was bipolar and probably experiencing some kind of chakra phenomenon (this is speculation). He used sexual attraction as something everyone could understand. So he said 'vibrations' and also 'excitations' and the whole scene there was inuendo that it was just sexual but I have read BW had some experiences that were hard for others to understand that he wished to talk about. (you do believe bipolar person has an experience I hope, BW was bipolar).
I've felt some experiences but it is a mixture of pleasure and pain Vajraheart. And it feels like I am being crushed. It is quite painful in a way I guess I would say exhausting.
I've felt some experiences but it is a mixture of pleasure and pain Vajraheart. And it feels like I am being crushed. It is quite painful in a way I guess I would say exhausting.
Yes, I've experienced that crushing feeling as well... It's painful and you feel like you have to inflate yourself with the energy of awareness in order to survive the experience.
gut feeling when you're about to get into a car accident and your instincts take over. when you're heart broken the right side of the heart or left side that is facing you..you feel the pain. when there is bliss and unity it is felt in the center of the heart as it expands. how about keen intuition. knowing things or rather being keenly aware of non verbal communication. how about the feeling of a rock in your throat when you have to say something important, yet can't.
gut feeling when you're about to get into a car accident and your instincts take over. when you're heart broken the right side of the heart or left side that is facing you..you feel the pain. when there is bliss and unity it is felt in the center of the heart as it expands. how about keen intuition. knowing things or rather being keenly aware of non verbal communication. how about the feeling of a rock in your throat when you have to say something important, yet can't.
Exactly!!! ENERGY!!! LOL... I don't know... I grew up Hindu with this term in use as a translation of the Sanskrit word, Shakti. I guess you could say, sensation too? Electricity?
The Throat knot is called Granti in sanskrit, which literally means, knot! There are 3, at the base of the spine, in the heart and the throat. The 3 granti's to be untied in order for the "energy" of spiritual awareness to flow freely through the body without fearful hinderance.
I guess we can compare this "kundalini" stuff with today's "modern" science, once you are caught in this kind of brain gymnastic and world views, you need a "technique" to "transform" it, to come one day to the possibility to realize Dharma, its simplicity. For sure it grows hard if 2 undeveloped sciences come together incl. the lastly aim of gaining real wisdom. Maybe its helpful to mix it with chines cosmology also, then we would have endless work in reconstructing and maintaining our flows.
reading up on kenneth folks website about the The Three Speed Transmission. he talks about the path of the arhat as the path of closing the physio-energetic circuit. the non dual awakening that leads to rigpa is awakening from the mind. the path of the arhat through the cycling of insight, which lead to cessation is the path of the body awakening. it makes sense that the chakra system relates directly towards the end of suffering.
but at the same time...chakras fluctuate infinitely based on conditions. so maybe there is a connection, but maybe there isn't.
i do see the chakras as tools for the mind/body. also they are great teachers in that you can access what state your being is in. it also brings natural mindfulness of body/mind. a great object to look at while meditating.
are those the knots that hold energy based on breathing into it?
i've been playing around with chakras. i can feel all seven of them and when i'm sleeping i can feel a lot more coursing throughout the body.
it's a like a continual in and out cycle of energy. my usual resting point has been the third eye, but now its been the heart center.
they're just interesting at best. oh well!
Throat is more where the dream state sits, but yeah, focusing on the 3rd eye is good... and when you get to the heart center, it's more the unconscious deep dreamless sleep state, but also the place where prophetic dreams can take place if awareness is centered there throughout sleep. It's more of a dimension than a place.
reading up on kenneth folks website about the The Three Speed Transmission. he talks about the path of the arhat as the path of closing the physio-energetic circuit. the non dual awakening that leads to rigpa is awakening from the mind. the path of the arhat through the cycling of insight, which lead to cessation is the path of the body awakening. it makes sense that the chakra system relates directly towards the end of suffering.
but at the same time...chakras fluctuate infinitely based on conditions. so maybe there is a connection, but maybe there isn't.
i do see the chakras as tools for the mind/body. also they are great teachers in that you can access what state your being is in. it also brings natural mindfulness of body/mind. a great object to look at while meditating.
Daozen, Kundalini has to be experienced to be believed. There's no reason to believe "in" it, no way of comprehending it, without the reference point of an actual experience of it. And it's not always warm-and-fuzzy, like Vajraheart says. V-heart has had a lifetime of preparation for it, so he doesn't experience the downside. For people unprepared for it, it can be torturous.
There's a scientist by the last name of Becker, who studies electricity, especially the electro-magnetism of living systems. He has the equipment in his lab to study Kundalini. He wired up a healer to study him in the lab, once, and reported enormous power surges. He said, according to our scientific knowledge, this is impossible. But it just happened. V-heart, why don't you write to Becker and suggest he check you out when you're on Kundalini? He's the author of "The Body Electric". If you don't find him online, you can write to him through his publisher.
That's really interesting about Brian Wilson, Jeffrey.
Comments
To the Gnostic comment?
The co-option of this term by pseudo-science as in the statements above is an attempt to make something that is complete nonsense sound more respectable: and for extra impressiveness, just add the meaningless yet magical prefixes 'cosmic-' or 'nature-' and whammo! you've struck a gold mine of gullibility. As a writer, it saddens me to see our language so abused.
chakras are experientially. how can science prove something that is experiential?
don't you see how limiting science is? it assumes a narrow point of view.
But thats what's powering my computer. Maybe the proper word to discuss chakras could be their electricity rather than energy??
How else would you describe it? You could say, chemical reactions? Awareness of awareness of the nervous system? Objective science works on a particular dimension within the physical realm. Meditative experience works on the medium of consciousness directly, of which science and biology is still quite confused. They are almost two seperate and distinct dimensions of study between consciousness and matter, while being intertwined. Kind of like how quantum particles are able to be in two places at once, but the experience of 5 sense perceived physical matter is not.
Currently accepted theories of science is "pseudo" if you really think about it, it's a constantly evolving sphere of study. Scientists are still very, very lost... for the most part, and have no idea who it is that is even doing the scientific studying to begin with. The anthropological evidence for the source of humanity is lost in ambiguity, and once they think they know! Some new evidence crops up.
Stop being so left brained dude... you'll go deeper. Just think about it, have a Eureka that deals with a level of information that transcends language and communication, then try to put it into words and see what you come up with... you'll end up using plenty of colloquialisms.
Do you have any realization of how imaginary this so called reality is? How inter-subjective it is? How agreed upon within sentient groups of consciousness' it all is? Conditioned within lifetime after lifetime after lifetime add infinitum within peer groups within a conditioned criteria, also pre-conditioned based upon sentient projections and attachments?
Or rather what I meant with my sentence you could insert: "the average person refers to the runnings of their car (nama rupa) as electricity"
Ultimately, ALL experience transcends language. But we must try, because that's all we've got if we want to communicate our experiences to others. Just because something is subjective (again, ALL experience is), that does not magically exclude science from the equation. Pain is entirely subjective, yet medical science has found many ways to interact with that experience. Subjectivity is no excuse for false claims.
I understand that, for you, chakras are entirely real. My point is: so are ghosts, UFOs, vampires, and so on for others. And in reality, they all have the same status.
Ultimately, ALL experience transcends language. But we must try, because that's all we've got if we want to communicate our experiences to others. Just because something is subjective (again, ALL experience is), that does not magically exclude science from the equation. Pain is entirely subjective, yet medical science has found many ways to interact with that experience. Subjectivity is no excuse for false claims.
I understand that, for you, chakras are entirely real. My point is: so are ghosts, UFOs, vampires, and so on for others. And in reality, they all have the same status."
Exactly Daozen. Which is why the word energy is used. Because most people don't study science and those that do are 'brained' enough to realize that a buddhist center is not the same setting as a meeting of physics students.
Thus 'energy' is used to communicate. I don't understand it as lending 'official status' or borrowing the credibility of science.
You know when you know, and you don't know what you don't know... that is all.
You are reducing the world to one skanda as the only valid.
Sometimes it feels like you just pissed all over your body and the piss feels like bliss coming straight from the heart center, sometimes from lower centers or higher centers.
It's a hard comprehension to nutshell. You'll have to experience the Dharmakaya directly to get a compressed level of information on what I'm trying to reach at through a tiny paragraph.
when you're heart broken the right side of the heart or left side that is facing you..you feel the pain.
when there is bliss and unity it is felt in the center of the heart as it expands.
how about keen intuition. knowing things or rather being keenly aware of non verbal communication.
how about the feeling of a rock in your throat when you have to say something important, yet can't.
Namaste
For sure it grows hard if 2 undeveloped sciences come together incl. the lastly aim of gaining real wisdom. Maybe its helpful to mix it with chines cosmology also, then we would have endless work in reconstructing and maintaining our flows.
*smile*
are those the knots that hold energy based on breathing into it?
i've been playing around with chakras. i can feel all seven of them and when i'm sleeping i can feel a lot more coursing throughout the body.
it's a like a continual in and out cycle of energy. my usual resting point has been the third eye, but now its been the heart center.
they're just interesting at best. oh well!
he talks about the path of the arhat as the path of closing the physio-energetic circuit.
the non dual awakening that leads to rigpa is awakening from the mind.
the path of the arhat through the cycling of insight, which lead to cessation is the path of the body awakening.
it makes sense that the chakra system relates directly towards the end of suffering.
but at the same time...chakras fluctuate infinitely based on conditions. so maybe there is a connection, but maybe there isn't.
i do see the chakras as tools for the mind/body. also they are great teachers in that you can access what state your being is in. it also brings natural mindfulness of body/mind. a great object to look at while meditating.
http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Physio-energetic+and+Psychological+Models+of+Enlightenment
There's a scientist by the last name of Becker, who studies electricity, especially the electro-magnetism of living systems. He has the equipment in his lab to study Kundalini. He wired up a healer to study him in the lab, once, and reported enormous power surges. He said, according to our scientific knowledge, this is impossible. But it just happened. V-heart, why don't you write to Becker and suggest he check you out when you're on Kundalini? He's the author of "The Body Electric". If you don't find him online, you can write to him through his publisher.
That's really interesting about Brian Wilson, Jeffrey.