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x.j.
304 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 18 2007 : 8:05:58 PM
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Here's something that you playful folks might have dabbled with: The Elements. I write this entry on a playful note, because who said being a yogi/yogini couldn't be maximum fun? According to Tibetan Buddhism we each consist of these principles that are represented from below to above: Earth, Water,
Fire, Air, Akash. And according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead,
when a person dies, first the Earth element dissolves into the Water Element, then the Water into the Fire element, etc. In fact the
Dzogchen master practitioner, at the end of his earthly existence tells his family to sew him into a tent in the wilderness, and not to come back for ten days. In the meantime, he dissolves his entire body into the constituent elements and his Rainbow body forms out of his earthly body, and in the end nothing is said to remain in the tent but his cloths and his hair and finger/toenails. The rest ascends, just like John Wilder in the AYP novel. I know nothing about Dzogchen practices, but the existence of this possibility is fascinating.
So I believe this is a useful parodigm for us yogi/yoginis to consider. They say that we must master, experience mystically, and understand each of these elements. This is also the principle of Hermetic Science (Franz Bardon is the principle author of this field, now deceased, but his books are facinating reading) A yogi who crosses over between Left Hand Tantric Yoga and Hermetics is the eminent Dr. John Mumford. He is a very nice man. In any case the latter has a number of wonderful books out, and a deck of color cards of the Elements that can be used of Trataka, called Magical Tattwa Cards. For the yogi/yogini this is an interesting practice. Stare at each elemental card while seated in meditation position, using a table lamp to illuminate it. When your eyes start to water, close your eyes and visualize the negative image within. This practice is extremely useful to develop Third Eye development. Furthermore, I sense that a contemplation of the Elements is essential to understand our Human condition. Just my theory. I have always espoused an open to anything experimental approach with respect to yogic practices, since my tiny little opening on retreat those 8 years ago while on Vipassana retreat. Actually, forget about the Tattwa cards, and just attend a week long retreat or a three day meditation retreat to jump start into exploration of consciousness. Vipassana retreats are widely available and provide a wonderful platform for folks to explore this inner reality, regardless of whether you wish to accept the Theravedin paradigm. I speak only from my personal experience. AYP is a fine platform for entry into a meditative practice, but why limit it there? John Wilder in the AYP novel was a great experimenter utilizing his intuition and we should be open to all possibilities that resonate for us, in this wonderful world of human existence.
Please ignore everything I just said. I remain perfectly harmless.
Impetuously yours,
John C |
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x.j.
304 Posts |
Posted - Dec 19 2007 : 7:52:30 PM
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| I was pretty impetuous with the above post. I stand behind those words. I think it is valuable to explore the paradigm of the Elements. In a sense are meditation practice is a preparation for death, to be there then in "witness consciousness" and likewise,to understand the elements now, in good health can bring us an understanding of the dissolution that will be occurring then, and maybe allow us some peace of mind and awareness of that difficult passage. Likewise the technique of Trataka, is extremely valuable as a yogic practice,..it has been for me at least. The Tattwa cards of John Mumford, (of various occult uses in the Hermetic tradition, like Devination for example), from my experience, are perfect for trataka. But most enriching for me, have been meditation retreats, to retire from our busy lives, and concentrate on meditation free from the many distractions of everyday life. Especially in this high tech busy world, where it is so difficult to dissociate ourselves from mass media, TV, computers,and all the other activities of every day life. Maybe AYP practice does not require retreats, but personally I would think that an unfortunate omission since there is so much to be gained with that practice. |
Edited by - x.j. on Dec 20 2007 12:10:09 AM |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Dec 20 2007 : 06:33:10 AM
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John, I don't know why you think you are impetuous. In any case, AYP forum doesn't require adhesion to any doctrines, and you can have your own opinions about what approaches are effective. That doesn't make you impetuous here. We're a loose co-operative here, not a group-thinking body. This 'Other Systems of Spiritual Practice' is the place for material which isn't so much covered by AYP in general.
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sadhak
India
604 Posts |
Posted - Dec 22 2007 : 01:59:08 AM
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Hi John,
Second David on that.
Interesting, what you have mentioned on the elements.
Btw, elements are very much part of yoga. There is a whole practice called 'Tattwa Shudhi' or Elemental Purification, that is done at, I think, a somewhat advanced stage of readiness. It involves staring at drawings of the element symbols, and reciting the beej mantra for the element, and then meditating on the elements in a particular way. There is an instructive book written by Swami Satyasangananda on this called Tattwa Shudhi. |
Edited by - sadhak on Dec 22 2007 10:46:00 PM |
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Gnosis
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 6:00:15 PM
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Wow John, it seems as though you are a great pundit, very well read and experienced in meditation. I have not been to a vipassana retreat, but I will go to one in the future. I ;however, have been to a shaktipat intensive via the siddha yoga foundation. Which was great, not to mention cost effective, 150 for me. My respect goes to gurumayi for activating my kundalini, I remain ever greatful.
The mastery of the five elements is a practice that goes back to the beginning of inner alchemy practiced in all true spiritual paths of raja yoga like hermetic,daoist, vedic, and tibetan systems etc... Mastery of the elements is key in the siddha yoga tradition, this can be seen in the usage of the mantra Om Namah Shivaya. This mantra is to aid in one controlling the elements. In the daoist system the only difference is that they replace the space or akasha principle with the metal, but it is the same thing.
Franz Bardon is a genius that is not brought up enough in yogic practices, he was truly one of the worlds greatest adepts, and one of the most underrated. His book Initiation into Hermetics is a siddha yoga bible. I believe there is a close correlation between the Hermetic magick system and the vedic siddha system.
Even the daoist system emphasizes the cleansing of the 5 elements in a process called 5 elemental fusion: http://www.universal-tao.com/9formulas.html
Control of the 5 elements according to spiritual theory makes one a master of the universe, the siddha purusha or magi in the hermetics tradition. I believe jesus possessed mastery of the 5 elements which is why he could do what he did. Since the body is a microcosm of the universe, when you master your elements in your body, you master the elements of the physical universe via the law of correspondence spoken about in the great Hermetic book the Kybalion, which is worth a read by the way, and it's free: http://www.kybalion.org/kybalion.asp.
I am like you, I take the essence from many different systems, as I don't believe anyone system contains all of the truth. An open source system allows one to accept what is useful, and reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own, this formula is from the venerable Bruce Lee on his theories of Jeet Kune Do.
I no longer believe in believing. My faith is in the The All, the God within as well as without. I do not believe in religion anymore. Because I realize the truth, there are only 5 ways to approach The All.
Bhakti, Raja, Hatha, Karma, and Jnana. I practice a synthesis model for self cultivation based on the 5 aspects of all paths of yoga which can be cultivated in infinite ways, we just have to find what works best for us. The key here is how to train effectively in all 5 paths. If you exclude one, you will not be complete, similar to martial arts. There are no such things as systems. Only the 5 ranges of combat: kicking, punching, trapping, clinch, and grappling. The secret to be a great martial artist is mastery in all ranges regardless where the information comes from, certain religions like martial arts styles emphasize a certain range as being more important, but this is not true, all then ranges are important, like all the 5 paths of yoga. Each range seems contradictory to the other range in a paradoxical way, but one can reconcile all paradoxes with the Kybalion which I cannot recommend enough.
The truth is we all have a physical, mental, and emotional body. The secret is how to use these constituents to the maximum, so there can be no such thing as different religions because we all have the same components to work with. I think it is best to use a scientific pragmatic mind in combination with the intuitive mind, called whole brain thinking. Meditation is a great aid to this since meditation promotes hemispheric synchronization.
If the scientific method were applied to yoga, it would evolve quickly and swiftly like our technology has. Yoga is an art and a science that can take one to extraordinary levels of mastery not understood or believed in our current paradigm of science, but quantum physics is starting to get hip to the fact that the mind affects creation. The physicist William Tiller has great books on the scientific study of psychoenergetics, which we call nei kung or internal alchemy, controlling the energy known as prana with the mind.
Well that's my 2 cents.
Namaste |
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x.j.
304 Posts |
Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 07:47:25 AM
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Thanks Gnosis for your illuminating post. (You really got me started now...) What you and I do is called the Syncretic Approach("anything that works, anything goes"), and I suspect that many people here at AYP are the same, and for that matter, probably more advanced and matured in their explorations than we. We are travelers aren't we?..searching...orphans...heirs to Hermes. We are Hermetic-Taoist-Alchemist-Hindu-Buddhists. In all truth we here at AYP, in fact all of us human beings on this green earth, in different stages of blooming,... are the Buddhas..shamans. Syncretically. And it dawns on us that we are pranic power cells standing on the Earth under a starry Sky. We are creatures of both earth and sky. When we are laying down at night, The Earth energy surging upwards through our feet from the toes(the chakra in the left toe more active than the right), then it moves through the nadis into the chakras at the ankles, then inner calf, then the knees(big chakra there), the thighs,and then into the pelvic circuitry they call the 7 chakras and the spinal circuit. And likewise from above ("As above, so it is below.") prana enter from above, through the crown/Brahmarandra, and then moving downward. At night. A meeting/marriage of the earth with the sun? And then a fullness, a stirring happens,.. a pregnancy occurs, a golden embryo/egg takes shape once in our lifetimes, nurtured in the three cauldrons of Tao Alchemy. It grows into a golden body like a golden envelop, that finally will stand alone when the physical body drops and then that "same old man walks slowly up the hill and over the other side and out of view... We are all of That. We are the elements,the archetypes. Many of us at AYP know this and I would love to hear about it from those who read these posts and remain silent. Speak! Sorry to be repetitious about what we all know, and feel a little strange talking like this. We know all this.
P.S. I bet you AYP folks know something else too: that if you do spinal breathing laying down in the "Corpse Pose" you can circulate the prana all the way from the feet to the head and back again with each cycle of inspiration/expiration. Whereas when doing spinal breathing while in the sitting position, that sitting position constricts the energy pathway coming up from the lower extremities to Muladhara. So that when in the sitting position, the spinal breathing stops at the butt and doesn't breath down into the legs. And that the amount of energy circulation is close to doubled in the corpse position because there's all that extra energy coming up from the legs! (experimental observation.) |
Edited by - x.j. on Dec 30 2007 4:37:54 PM |
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Gnosis
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 3:39:57 PM
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I came to a realization that truth is a pathless land, that was said by Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Just like there are only 5 elements, 5 senses, 5 finger, 5 toes 5 appendages (head, arms, legs) etc... there are only 5 cardinal ways to pursue The All bhakti, jnana, raja, krama, and hatha. Through the skillful combination of all 5 schools we form a symbiotic synthesis model based on the reasearch of thousands of years of spiritual aspirants/scientist as well as our own refinements.
I no longer believe in believing, and I no longer believe in systems or religions. We are just researchers into our own natures. We broke free of the misery of the path of self disempowerment, eagerly awaiting a messiah to save them, when they could save themselves all along.
On the other hand, since i am a pragmatist I have recently found a system of internal alchemy that is suppose to be a very efficient and very quick path to enlightenment, I posted about it. It's is a form of nei gung from the kunlun mountains.
Using no way as a way, |
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x.j.
304 Posts |
Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 4:41:58 PM
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Hi Gnosis,
FWI: Before your last post got posted, I was simultaneously editing my last post which is just above your last post. Sorry about that.
J |
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VIL
USA
586 Posts |
Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 5:00:51 PM
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http://www.swamij.com/five-stages-meditation.htm
quote:
For example, all of the objects with shape and form are built of earth, water, fire, air, and space (bhutas are gross; tattvas are subtle). All of the perceptions and attitudes are experienced by the sensing instruments, which now are themselves objects of meditation and inquiry.
Elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space
The subtle energy flows of the vayus and pranas
The subtle senses (indriyas) are objects of meditation
The four functions of mind, as objects of meditation
The subtler essence of mantra, beyond the syllables
VIL |
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Maatsuah
USA
33 Posts |
Posted - Mar 06 2008 : 3:13:05 PM
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I loved reading your post John C. I have studied with Dr. Mumford and find him to be kind and experienced. I have also read "Initiation into Hermetics" and decided years ago to make it a major goal, before I leave the planet to become intimately acquainted with the four elements and Akasha.
When I came to this site a began practicing this system I did not want to change anything about this for the reasons that Yogani has repeated. I was still, however, intrigued with the idea of working on gaining control of the elements. I compromised by adding the Sutra (elements) at the end of my list of Sutras during Samyama. I do Akasha for 6 minutes after doing two rounds of the elements Sutra at the end of each Samyama practice. I have had problems coming up with a feeling for most of the Sutras but, strangely enough, when I come to the Sutra (Akasha) I am begining to feel more when I get to the Akasha Sutra then I feel with the others.
I came to this site because I did not feel that I could master the techniques in "Initiation into Hermetics". However, since I have been doing these practices, I have gained much more confidense and have what I feel is a lot of opening up. My third eye is responding with a plethora of third eye experiences and lots of other things are happening. I know I should not keep a list of all these blessings, but I am still encouraged by how well this system is working.
When I do my meditations, I always make sure to burn a candle for a while because this is a subliminal reminder of all four elements which I can incorporate into my practice without interfering with the integrity of this system. The candle being earth, the melting wax water, the flame of course is obvious and the smoke being air.
I will be glad to read anything you and others have to say about the elements and will do extensive research on them as well. I am convinced that this period is turning into a Renaissance almost entirely because of the advent of the computer. There is a global sharing of ideas and an exponential increase in the amount of knowledge that is disseminated as a result of this medium of communication. People like Yogani and many others spiritual innovators are infusing this planet with new ideas and practices which are, in my opinion, mind boggling.
If ever there was a time to make a mark on this planet by getting involved in groundbreaking projects, this is the time to do it. Maybe, a few of us can get together and form of site that does research into working more effeciantly with the elements. It doesn't have to be as pragmatic a site as this one. It could just be a site for the love of the research of this topic or it could become something that leads to sound practices using the elements to improve areas of our lives. I say the skys the limit in an atmosphere as liberal and pervasive as the internet.
Looks like I got a little carried away with my feelings, but I can't help but feel great about all the good things happening around us. |
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The Elements/Please totally Ignore this Post
