Survival plan: more space for practice in solitude, just being, and sleep. It has never been more clear to me that those things are what keeps me alive. I just came back from what very recently was my favorite yoga class. It was torture. I could barely do half of it. If it goes on like this, I'll be back in chronic fatigue in no time. My health and stamina have steadily been decreasing the last few weeks. I must take my autistic wiring seriously. Not doing so kills this mammal, or at least any spark in it. 

Yes, I know. Those voices are full of shit.

The yoga was lovely. It was the kind of teacher that starts with thorough breath exercises before warming up the body. That was exactly what I needed now that my body is recovering. I noticed that directing the energy out through the crown chakra on the outbreath, as I have been practicing according to the Bön tradition, is not just imagery; it means directing the air up to the paranasal cavities behind the forehead and letting it turn around there as it hits the "ceiling" and then seep out through the nose. 

Note to (not)self: Kundalini as spiritual antabuse

Linda, 

I think entirely screwed is the best place. But laughing at it is even better, whatever degree of screwed we happen to believe ourselves to be at any given moment. Humor is the antithesis of crazy. You're good, sweetheart.
love, tim

hey Linda,

acceptance is the fruit of grief--- you are grieved over being overloaded with Mundane Necessities right now, and know those necessities are compelling and real. They take time and--- crucially--- energy. To push hard to keep up your "normal" (by which i mean, extraordinarily intense and time-devoted) practice as well is just not realistic. Grieve that, and accept it in the end as the way irt is. ESPECIALLY with the book, which requires just about everything you've got, as you well know. Let the book ripen, right now. Let yourself let that be. It's not going anywhere. I've written a shitload of books, and every one of them just sat there inertly like a pile of shit until i was done with them. They never got an inch away. They were there when i was able to address them again (usually after recovering from a nervous breakdown, but i digress . . .)

Not that your book is a pile of shit, dear, lol.

Baby steps: mundane baby steps right njow, one practical, real, true, solid, banal check-list task after another, are heroic karma yoga right now. And so, dhaarma yoga as well. Just do it. Put on your pink and blue Nikes and just fucking do it, one baby step at a time. And rest, when you've done the baby steps. Watch Netflix, take a good bath. Your fucking practice isn't going anywhere either. This is a flood, quit trying to hang out your laundry to dry just because of what day of the week it is. You know this. Karma yoga, karma yoga. Baby steps. Take them, and rejoice at each one taken. And let this pace now be your dharma pace.

love, tim

Oh I'm also money-less and always seek those who do it for free or for some small amount. I learned it via a Reiki forum but am struggling to remember its name ... I guess google and see what Universe throws at you  

Yes, indeed, reiki hands on is not about "you" healing but just letting reiki flow from the palms and just be with that (I find it to be Always pleasant) sensation between palms and body part being touched. 

The whole hands on technique takes about 20-30 minutes but time here is a non-issue. One doesn't use timers for this One stays naturally on some body parts and shorter on others. 

"Hey, if you are up to it, you are very welcome to teach me."

I haven't done it since 2009 but I'm sure I could try and find the illustrated hand on positions that I used ... (will need to do some searching). 

I have really disconnected with it from the moment I discovered Shamatha back in 2010 maybe it's time for me to reconnect to it as I'm feeling lots of sadness and feeling of loss off sorts, as of late. Usually off cushion. 

Self Reiki can be a very powerful Metta excercise. 

p.s. as I write this I sense strong pulsating and vibrations in my palms and arms. 

Hi Linda

I'm also getting more sensitive to these kinds of things. For now it's still in the realm of something I notice and don't necessarily follow immediately, but it feels like that's the next development, in a way, and that it's a pretty major area for existence................ So interesting to see this happening to others too.......

Thanks for sharing.

Metta.

I do not know how cancers smells like but I do feel some kinds of sicknesses that people have. At work for example all the people who I noticed had bad aura were later confirmed to have some sort of ilnesses. What was interresting was that intensity was so high for me that I could literally not stand to be around these people and yet others seemed to not notice it at all.

Now I would try to do the things I described to help them. Then however I avoided any energy manipulation as I was not quite sure how to do it. These things are not to be played with when not sure what needs to be done, especially when energy is not very nice.

Pretty much yes, I practice touch visualization since almost twenty years but other than basics which I got from Robert Bruce - New Energy Ways I left myself without any teachers because I like inventing more than learning from others. Not very time efficient way learn things but this is just a hobby of mine and doing this way gives me better knowledge about its inner workings.

I agree with your teacher, energy manipulation is dangerous including everything I wrote
Even freeing energies to Nibbana is dangerous if done intentionally to external energies as it tend to create a kind of energy vacuum which then draws these energies by a kind energy wind. I do however feel that if skill are there and when it is being done carefully then one can and even should try to improve reality.

Thing to note is that even when power level is there it is better to not go overboard and try to do large scale energy manipulations without testing them first on smaller scales. Otherwise one solution might lead to next issue. Some energies balance each-other out and removing one demon might lead to another bigger demon waking up. Not that waking up demons is wrong when you can deal with them but then again you never know if you can until you face them directly. Avoiding large scale manipulations and not disturbing demons is not how I
always do things though... but I am pretty stupid and listen to no one, not even myself. That is why I know "stuff"...

In any case actually maybe it is best to do this Nibbana visualization in remote "well ventilated" place and just let all energies naturally fall in to it instead of focusing on specific energies and moving them around by yourself...

Someone had shared a quote from Bruce Lee (I am not sure it's from him, but it could be. He used to talk like that), that said: "Words are energy and cast spells, that's why it's called spelling". It got me thinking. It's like each word is a shortcut to a whole series of ideas, memories, worldviews, selfviews and a lot more, and by using each word, we let that package to explode into our body-mind.

By the way, I had misinterpreted my teacher's warnings. He doesn't say that energy work of all kinds must be avoided, just that it is very powerful stuff that needs to be approached with much caution, and the more so the more directed and specific it is, and that any energy work requires a skillful teacher and preferably as much awakening as possible before one starts. He said that it is more serious than regulating one's heart manually. 

I think I need to find myself a teacher, someone who knows what they are doing and can minimize harm. Here in Sweden I find that it is very difficult to know who really knows their stuff and who are just playing with fire. Internet searches wade in endless swamps of new age fluff. 

Reiki seems like something that could be wise to start with, as it is very nondirected. I seem to respond well to it too. I can't afford any courses right now, so I guess I'll start with youtube as usual, to learn more about it before I do anything. I probably need to clear out my own shit before I could possibly be of any use to others anyway. 

Before I saw myself on that screen in front of me, I saw my limbs (?) reaching over there. I was so surprised that I had to doublecheck that my eyes were still closed and my body reclining and that I wasn't sleeping. The images were so clear. 

On my way home from an Ashtanga yoga class. Pausing in a park to connect with the elements. I'm feeling a bit detached. I just walked out in front of a bike and scared the crap out of an old man who reacted with rage. Very understandable. The weird thing is that I think I may have seen him but just didn't react to it. 

Yes, it’s a relief (hopefully not in the sense you use the word relief when you advice to avoid relief). Liberating, transcending, even if it’s limited to one body part. It reminds me not to get caught up with and identifying with form in a limiting way. Sometimes I really need that reminder. I have been so stressed out by my life situation now and then lately that I find it a great mercy. And it really is available if I just take that step back. Somehow I still can’t always do that.



Oh, I didn’t see that. Haha! Some people read a lot into that kind of syncronicity. I don’t know what to think of that, but I remember reading in a book by Jung that 4 signifies wholeness, and the number 4 had great significance for me as I grew up, and meta-levels of fours played a major part in my obcessive safety rituals. It still has a very pleasant symmetry to it for me. 4444 is a great number, and it has basically the same vibes for me as the experience described in that post. 



Well, yeah, probably much more than the average person, but not necessarily in the way that people would normally feel them. Also, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I feel the form or the location of them. It’s not entirely easy to distinguish what has to do with the practice or with my wiring here. One aspect that I know has to do with wiring is that I’m extremely sensitive to tactile sensations. I feel the air against my skin even in a room where all windows are closed. There is always movement in the air, and so I feel those changing sensations. I feel the clothes against my skin. I feel an almost microscopically small tic clamp around on my skin. I feel the bacteria tickle my teeth when I need to brush them. Until a few years ago I had no idea that I'm not supposed to feel x-ray. Still, before I took on a systematic practice, including a regular yoga regime, I had great difficulty estimating the whereabouts of my limbs. I always bumped into things and accidently blocked the way for people and stuff like that and had no body image whatsoever when my eyes were closed. I was like a big formless blob, sort of. I had to learn very systematically how it feels when I hold my arm straight up in the air, because as far as I knew it could be basically anywhere. Imagine the dukkha of being totally overwhelmed by sensations and not knowing where they are located!

When it came to balance, people would advice me to look at a firm spot as a reference point, but when I did that, I was in that spot. That didn't help me to keep my body in balance. I had to learn to imagine myself being located inside my chest first. So basically the development has gone from being anywhere and nowhere to having the possibility of being embodied, and now I'm learning to shift back and forth. Something like that. 

When my lips dissolve into an energy field, as I describe it, I still feel them. They just don't feel like lips anymore, and I can't feel whether or not they are touching each other because in my mind they are not separate. It's like that part of space is just a continuum of source. It's both empty and aware. Within that field of space there is no separation. Still there is separation with regard to what is outside that field. Hence there is still duality, of course. Otherwise there would be no experience. And yet it's clear that the duality is an illusion. I like playing with that.



Yeah, if I understand your description correctly, the part of feeling what is other people’s (including for instance my cats) sensory experiences happens to me too fairly often. I can sometimes sort of feel the sensory experiences of objects too, if that makes any sense. I can feel sensations in body parts that I don’t have. I can feel the sensations of the ground against my wheels. Still, most of the time, the sensory experiences of this particular body tend to stand out more than others. I love it when I can transcend that illusion. For me that's rare. I want more of that. I suspect that there is still a need for me to work on the embodiment, though. I came into this backwards. The process seems to be telling me to back down from abandoning the body, if I understand correctly what it is communicating. 


I'm not sure how to interpret any of that. Are you saying that you have to deliberately focus on directing the awareness to your body to experience it as yours? If so, that has happened to me when coming out of deep nondual absorption. 


Enlightened or not, I find your ideas very interesting. As for what I'll use in my practice, that depends on where the process leads me. It knows the way. I don't. Not that there is any I separate from the process, ultimately, but the I that is constructed as separate from the process does not know.