I'm fairly fit, I can run 30 minutes at a pace faster than jogging, but even I struggle with a long tensegrity session (1-2 hrs).
After about an hour, my feet and legs sometimes need a break, but I'd like to keep going (trying to get silent).
I was intrigued by that post about not-doings the other day. Can you mix something like that with the tensegrity? The only thing I can think of is the episode in the books where Castaneda is listening to the "holes between the sounds". I kinda like listening to the high-pitched tone in my ears, but not sure if such a thing could be mixed with tensegrity.
What do you guys do when your body gets tired?
64 Comments
I wanted to ask, what tensegrity actually means, what kind of practice it is? Thank you 😊
It's also called the Magical Passes. There's a book dedicated to it. You can also find the tensegrity passes here on this subreddit in the Wiki.
Thank you, I tried some of the passes exercises, really good 👍
It’s an architectural term that Castaneda appropriated to define the internal workings of certain aspects of the magical passes:
Definitions from Oxford Languages ·
ten·seg·ri·ty
/tenˈseɡrədē/
nounARCHITECTURE
noun: tensegrity
the characteristic property of a stable three-dimensional structure consisting of members under tension that are contiguous and members under compression that are not.
"tensegrity construction"
Origin
1950s: from tensional integrity .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensegrity
https://www.bfi.org/about-fuller/big-ideas/tensegrity/
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/wiki/tensegrity
20 minutes of tensegrity is enough, as long as you stretch it out long enough for your assemblage point to move, and carefully try to feel the muscle movements (to distract your focus away from fantasizing), while you force silence.
It's not exercises!
You're trying to silence the mind.
Also, caffeine tablets are only 5 cents a piece at Walmart!
I used to chug Starbucks doubleshot espresso in a can, but those are expensive and each one has 100 grams of sugars.
Some say, "Oh no!!! I don't touch caffeine!"
I suppose those people get to be saintly?
I'd rather be awake during practice.
The caffeine won't prevent second attention sights from being very vivid!
If it does anything negative, it's to increase your internal dialogue.
Which is good!
The more obvious it is, the faster we can learn to remove it.
I also recommend, once in a while, Pseudoephedrine.
Mormon Tea.
Má huáng in chinese.
It's how crystal meth is made, but in its natural form it's just a nasal decongestant.
And before the "war on drugs" started focusing on that stuff, it was present in all sports drinks because it "gives you energy".
During darkroom, it can make the puffs very, very vivid.
But only once or twice in a row, then it doesn't help.
So it's not a daily thing.
Just for when you've already found the puffs, but feel very tired and think you'll have a bad practice night.
Take 2 of those (normal dosage), and a single caffeine tablet.
Wait 20 minutes, then practice.
Don't worry about using "help".
Eventually you'll turn out the lights, and the sights will be AMAZING.
Instantly.
Interesting, cheers, I'll look into that.
Do you find that caffeine doesn’t mess with your circadian rhythm? I cut it out years ago for health reasons, but I’ve been struggling with falling asleep during practice as well (namely, recap), and you make a compelling argument… as for OP, it’s typical to do several practices during darkroom (recap, gazing, tensegrity, etc.) so you are good.
I don't follow a circadian rhythm schedule. When I get home from work, if I'm sleepy I go to bed right then. If not, I stay up until I am.
But either way, I get up in the middle of the night to practice.
However, if caffeine keeps you awake when it's time to sleep, that's probably a matter of how fast your liver removes it.
In that case, I suppose it's a problem.
If you're falling asleep during practice light caffeine is a good starting point but other factors should be explored for a more exact solution.
If falling asleep during practice energy may not be balanced enough or intense enough. You may not be sleeping as well as you could be.
A lot of people new to meditation fall asleep during. This is normal and the best thing is to shorten the meditation session to a length you can do without falling asleep. Gradually build from there once meditation produces its own energy. The more we meditate the more it increases our sense of vitality, you should eventually be able to ride the vitality meditation gives you so well that it is actually hard to fall asleep during meditation.
After 30 years of meditation I can meditate straight through the night after a long slightly tiring day of work, all while laying in bed without falling asleep.
Something that can help is to take up Daoist internal alchemy meditations.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for the advice. I just want to add, recap is not meditation. It’s a separate practice…
I suppose it depends on how you define recapitulation. My teacher always placed meditation in 2 categories; those that still and silence the mind, and those that process experience resulting in insights. Every tradition has these 2 forms. Both of these 2 forms have in common what teach called "holding the candle still in the darkness and the wind" i.e. even if the mind isn't entirely silent your mind is held steady, there is something you are mindfully engaging with, and the common result is always increased presence and increased overall self-awareness.
But hey at the end of the day terminology isn't what matters. The question isn't what category does recapitulation fit into, but are you actually doing the work of recapitulating?
Within the terminology I was taught, everything we do on the path is ultimately meditation. The 2 forms I mentioned can be broken down into 5 sub types that correspond with the directions of a compass. North is not-doings, which still involve steading the mind ultimately but through the tactic of shocking us out of habits. This is because our habits are all interrelated and sustain each other, so all habits sustain the habit of the inner dialog.
East is recapitulation and any technique that builds sobriety. These order the island of the tonal, which again steadies the mind.
South is dreaming practices which bring our mindfulness and steadiness into our dreaming body, and also bring all that into the unconscious mind. Note that South is directly across from north; north brings the unconscious into the conscious, and south brings the conscious into the unconscious.
West is the direction of time, death, erasing personal history, and any practices that make us more mindful of our feeling life. This is the home of insight meditations, and all Toltec practices in this direction have profound potential for awakening insight. Remember those who are afraid of their feelings are such because they are in denial of death.
The 5th point is the center of the compass and is the whole point of all the other practices. This is the direction of Centering, the true self, and inner silence.
But don't you want real magic?
It seems like you're willing to accept mental masturbation magic, taught for profit.
Don't you get to walk through portals in solid walls, wide awake, eyes open, completely sober, to go visit another world in your physical body?
Or actually leap across the tree tops? Not in meditation. In your physical body.
Or shapeshift for real.
You do realize that's the level of magic in this subreddit, dont' you?
If your teacher got anywhere close to that, point us to his web page.
We aren't very tolerant of pretending in here, due to how difficult the real thing is, to learn.
Are you responding to my last comment???
I'm a bit confused by your response.
What about what I said is pretending?
I've not said I or my former teacher are capable of anything special. Heck maybe my teacher is amazing, maybe he's shit, both are irrelevant to the information I shared. I just provided a system for organizing the teachings.
What I described is Castaneda's teachings, the only thing I added to them is the equivalent of a filing system.
As for all the powers you described, all of those require shifting the AP correct?
And what does Castaneda say about shifting the AP? It requires energy and inner silence, both of which are achieved through practices Castaneda mentions in his books. AND most importantly nothing I said contradicts anything in Castaneda's books!
So pretell, could you provide some clarity in exactly what your issue is?
Beyond that if you want to know about my teacher, check out his old discussion forum. It's largely inactive now, but a few people still post there including my former teacher Michael. You can also read his book:
https://www.restlesssoma.com.au/soma/
https://buriedshiva.com.au/
For a more direct link to his book:
https://buriedshiva.com.au/michael/index.php
But I didn't reply in some attempt to evangelize or something, Michael isn't even teaching anymore. And I currently am also not teaching. I just thought: "hey I can provide some information that might be of use to someone."
You can take or leave what I said, heck you can kick me from this subreddit if you wish. None of that matters.
Take it or leave it. Peace.
I also think maybe someone could describe to me what this subreddit considers to be meditation...?
It just occurred to me that the specific reply made to me was that meditation is a different practice with an intent that this subreddit doesn't align with.
Which is strange to me, meditation is not at all out of alignment with Castaneda's teachings, all of Castaneda's teachings are different forms of meditation.
Is getting really good at a skill and immersing yourself in the practice or that skill also not in alignment with the intent of this subreddit?
Because getting really good at a skill and immersing yourself in it, that is meditation. And that is also the cornerstone of impeccability.
Genuinely confused.
You've proven yourself willing to pretend your results.
Just go away...
Really... When did I mention results?
I'm very curious 🤨
You know, I just made a simple reply to someone in this group. Are you an admin of this group?
I guess I should have read the rules of the group before posting, I'll admit that I did not. I'll go check now, maybe I unwittingly broke a rule...
Someone started chatting with me in here yesterday and they informed me that this group is a bit different than what I thought it was. Like you guys have this whole interpretation of this path that I was not expecting. Just thought it was a Castaneda subreddit. So started reading up on your posts and now I see you've got this whole thing going; eyes wide open completely sober!
I'll give it to you that what you claim to want to do is totally in alignment with the sort of group I've been looking for. And yet your approach of showing 'pictures', which proves nothing to anyone even remotely, is silly.
Well. I'll leave. This is way more than I thought that one post would result in. I thought I was giving a very basic and somewhat obvious response. Beyond what you claim to be trying to achieve here, I have no interest in what appears to actually be happening.
As such I'll give you a moment to reply cause I'm curious what fun response you might have and then I'll jump ship.
We have to fight off an average of 3 pretenders each week, and have had to do that for 6 years now. Otherwise this place would be destroyed.
If you'd taken the time to study a little, you'd have noticed that.
There's a price to pay for learning real magic.
You have to be honest and work hard.
But you can go anywhere else, and pretend all you like!
They don't care out there in the fake magic groups.
There's Castaneda fake magic groups too. Try Cleargreen, and Discord.
Our people monitor the Discord one, and we have spies in the Cleargreen one.
But our spies have been known to say that they're worried their eyes will fall out, if they read too often in those.
I'm new to reddit, I honestly don't even know where I look for your rules. Like I've been sort of on reddit for sometime, but I don't usually really do much of anything on here usually. I just saw a single reply and thought I'll offer my experience.
So, tell me, is your claim that because I meditate that means I fake my results?
And tell me, how is your darkroom practice NOT meditation?
You'll have to study in here to understand that.
No one in here wants to "teach". Teaching someone this kind of thing is always the sign of a fake teacher.
You've just never been anywhere that the motivation wasn't stealing money from others!
Also, anyone needing as much help as you seem to need, never learns.
At least, in the last 6 years here no one who wasn't self-motivated and excited to finally find real magic, has put in any real effort.
The only motivation of everyone in here, is successes. Defined by people doing real magic that is so cool, no one will believe them.
Read the books of Carlos Castaneda.
We do everything in all 20 of those books.
Ah, my own 'teacher' never called himself a teacher and never charged money. Yes he wrote a single book, which he never advertised to anyone outside our group which was a group of 8 people. And only 4 of us bothered to buy his book. He didn't even promote the book to us. My take is he just wanted to have something of his own system out there in the world. But again he didn't promote the book anywhere. Most don't know it exists. I've never paid for any teachings. I chose to call them teachings.
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/1dyl5hz/magical_silence_vs_meditations_mindfullness/
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/1gzhade/meditation_effects_vs_darkroom_practice/
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/1ketw72/what_is_the_problem_with_meditation/
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/1ach2ib/all_forms_of_meditation_are_a_scam/
https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/14ouv9w/mindfulness/ - Mindfulness is the opposite of what must be done to fully silence our thoughts! We need to let go of the familiar details of our world that center us here and only here, where an internal dialogue has become mandatory as adults; where it habitually runs amok. We must navigate…intentionally traverse to someplace else, multi-sensorially, rather than to “be here now” as in mindfulness. Example: children do not have the same familiarity with the world, or internal inventory, that adults have, and thus their assemblage points aren’t as stuck.
Moving the struggle out of the head and into the body, be it with silence stones, the leather weight, forehead pole, or tensegrity passes is sound strategy, and what the old sorcerers did 10,000 years ago! You are not your brain 🧠....
... We're training the cerebellum to shut off the internal dialogue for us... - "Nobody invented the magical passes." he said sternly. "To think that they were invented implies instantly the intervention of the mind, and this is not the case when it comes to those magical passes. Sorcerers of ancient times, through their dreaming practices, discovered that if they moved in a certain way, the flow of their thoughts and actions stopped."
It's really more about where you focus your attention, than merely words in the brain. - a letting go of the mental death grip we are coerced to place on the aspects of the world we know “to be real.” To let the body relax, the world “sleep,” and retrain our focus.
Everything you said is commendable and makes good sense.
Yet, you didn't say anything that isn't a meditation practice, and that isn't pretty standard for meditation. Getting out of the head and into the body, yah that is what any good meditation instructor would advise.
Mindfulness is the opposite you say... Ok but you aren't defining what you think mindfulness is so I have no idea what that means to you, but it seems pretty clear that it isn't what that term means to me.
When you go in the darkroom, is not the point to become aware of aspects of our experience we aren't normally consciously aware of?
In other words, you are hoping to see energy or what not? I again don't know what you all do, but from watching one of Dan's videos on the darkroom, it sounds like the goal is to become mindful. Not mindful of the breath or mindful of thoughts or emotions, or mindful of muscle tension, but mindful of energetic phenomena. Either way you're training your ability to attend to what you want to attend. I even see Dan use this same language I'm using without the word mindfulness in one of his posts where he says of silencing the dialogue that it enables us to be able to focus on one thing. Which again is the goal of meditation.
That said, if you're saying that you only focus on a certain form of meditation, that you don't engage in meditative practices that stay with the breath, or concentrate on different parts of the body, well cool. Otherwise this is just a misunderstanding when it comes to the use of terminology.
The difference is on the level of Intent:
From the notes for the Omega Institute Tensegrity Workshop - May 26-29, 1995
Part VI - Sunday evening, May 28
A man asked the difference between the intent of Tensegrity and martial arts. Taisha replied, "The intent of Tensegrity is to move the assemblage point, to call back the energy body, and to make us unpalatable to the Flyers while our awareness rises. The intent of martial arts depends on what martial arts we're talking about; they may have a self defense or combat intent. Martial arts practices began as meditation techniques but were quickly turned into a martial practice. Since the intents are very different, it is important not to mix the two."
***
Practitioner experience:
"Another thing that I was left with was the certainty, for myself anyway, that doing the passes and using the paperweight and balls are the most efficacious way to achieve (intend) inner silence as opposed to any variation on eastern meditation."
Clearly you think you're saying something special. But you really aren't saying anything unique.
Yes, tensigrity is the most efficacious way to intend inner silence and it is meditation. And when I talk about meditation the intent is to move the AP.
But I promised I would jump ship, and I keep my word so it you are interested in filling me in with answers to my last questions feel free to message me.
Honestly I'm not opposed to learning more about what you all do here. And I really don't know what your deal is with me. I don't get why I'm being called a faker, nothing I do is fake. But hey, whatever.
From Carlos Castaneda's 1994 interview with Lane Sarasohn, of The Realist
Out-of-Body Experience is Not Necessary
[Google Translated From French]
"What is your take on the various gurus in India and elsewhere whose teachings and meditation techniques are so popular in America?" Castaneda replied that he had spent a year researching these masters, yogis, and self-proclaimed embodiments of God. He had found that they were all, without exception, enraged egomaniacs.
From the notes for the seminar held in Mexico City, Mexico - May 17-19, 1995:
Carlos is always on the look for people that have developed their awareness past their heels, and one day somebody told him that there it was a "guruess" (a woman guru) that lived in LA and that was very popular and had "lots" energy and was having success recruiting many people for meditation. Carlos took the three of us (Carol, Florinda and I) to see this woman, and when we "saw" her we noticed that his awareness was just like everybody else the brightness was only up to her heels, the only different thing that we "saw" was that this woman had a larger than normal assemblage point and this resulted on a big big EGO that made her into an egomaniac so that she could believe and also make others believe that she had powers of "enlightening" people.
From Daniel Lawton's 2012 article "First Attention Social Filter Theory"
People play with it using esoteric techniques, without knowing they're doing that. I believe you could explain most interesting esoteric phenomena by an analysis of that filter's behavior. I'm certain it's the voice some people mention, which tells them things during meditation. That would be a natural consequence of limiting thoughts through a meditation technique....
...Feelings are analog, much of them being generated by combinations of neuro modifiers floating around in the general area, instead of being pure neural signaling events. Included in such feelings is a "good enough", or "true" indicator, which is a feeling you get when you've identified or evaluated something enough that you should stop thinking about that. Without that feeling, we wouldn't know when to move on to the next thing. Incidentally, there's a plant in the mountains of Oaxaca which can suppress that stop signal, which produces very interesting results, such as scene piece replication (generating a kaleidoscopic view of the world). And it can also produce endless deja vu, because the signal to stop applies to every thought that results in analysis, not just images.
Some meditation techniques are designed to stimulate that "true" feeling, which results in a lot of confusion for people who meditate. It's very difficult to ignore the feeling of true, when it's applied to random images or ideas because of a technique which messes with the system. That's why you get weird theories out of meditators, which they'll defend to the end because they saw that it was "true" with absolute certainty. Re-incarnation belief is a prime example. I don't know if there is such a thing as re-incarnation, but the reasons people believe in it are usually naive at best."
P.S. - I'm including these passages, even if it isn't absolutely necessary, so we can point people to another back-and-forth conversation on meditation in the future.
Also, to be clear, I didn't link my former teacher as a way of claiming he can do anything you mentioned. I just linked him because his book and forum are useful resources.
Beyond that, if this group is confused about what meditation is and how it is essential to everything we do then... Well like you said, this path is really hard. And so I don't really have any interest in wasting time with people who haven't grasped the utter basics of this path.
From Taisha Abelar's - Dimensions Magazine - Vol. VII - No. 9 – 1994, interview "The Art Of Stalking True Freedom"
In Conversation with Alexander Blair-Ewart, Part 1.
"...You can use any minor meditation technique that quiets the mind.
I wouldn't say go heavily into Oriental meditation techniques, because you're already doing recapitulation and you don't want to get fixed into any form. All we're doing now as abstract sorcerers is a minimal of technique so that we can get away from the self. We don't want to get heavier in the area of ego and ego enforcement, and "now we're meditators", or "now we're..."
ABE: So you don't want to build up an image of yourself, even as a spiritual person.
Taisha: No, you don't. You don't want to add to that. And when you look at how much you have to get rid of you'll be kind of careful not to add more. (laughter) And you don't want to add more in terms of becoming more important in other areas, just because you're getting rid of some of these old things. But you're putting that energy into fighting with your husband or wife. And that's where impeccability comes in. You want to maintain your daily behavior on an impeccable level, and that means you just do your best, your humble best.
We're no longer interested in reasserting the ego or the self, or defending the self. The brunt of energy really goes into defense of the self, because if it's attacked left and right...I mean, you can't go out of your house...even in your house, there's always something that is threatening, or your boss says something somebody looks at you the wrong way, and they gyp you..."
“I don’t want magic, I’m a record seller!
I want to be beaten so I can be a martyr of meditation!
Everything is meditation!
I’m confused!”
Information (for the rest of the people):
- Combo about angry meditators looking for money, which includes the J Curve Map and The Hike (no shortcuts) to S.K.: https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/175kpv2/comment/k4grl6p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
- Unmissable comment from Athina: https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/175kpv2/comment/k4gy2rk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
- Full post (worth reading): https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/175kpv2/merging_don_juans_teachings_with_vipassana_my/
I'm confused because I really had no idea what this subreddit was about.
And I genuinely don't know how you all define meditation.
And no NOT EVERYTHING is meditation.
Meditation is defined as the practice of increasingly prolonged unwavering attention towards a give, or several given points, that results in a deepening of awareness of your experience.
This definition would include but not be limited to any form of skill development that you fully devote yourself to.
And this is the standard traditional definition of meditation that has been taught in the east for as long as we have records of meditations being taught.
If you all have a different definition that is due to your own misconceptions.
Meditation is not something that only happens with eyes closed, heck that wouldn't even be what is commonly considered meditation in the east. Many many schools in the east teach meditation with the eyes open. Many also teach it while walking, while dancing, while fighting, or while doing art. And that is just some of the more common ones there are hundreds of different forms of meditation in existence across all cultures.
As for the connection to teaching meditation for profit. Who here is trying to make money???? I'm certainly not. I came made a simple basic reply that was actually fully in agreement with everything Dan said as far as I can see. Heck his darkroom technique, wtf, HOW is that not meditation????
Silliness utter silliness
From the collected workshop notes and interviews:
Taisha Abelar - KPFK Radio Interview – February 1993
Interviewed by John Martinez, Abelar speaking:
"And you can't study sorcery or understand what sorcerers do without giving up some of your holdings in the everyday world, without actually altering your ideas on the nature of what it is that you are, what it is that you do in your everyday life. If you're always using those assumptions to interpret what -- let's say Don Juan does -- and this is what happened with Carlos Castaneda's books, those assumptions were used to say oh, he is doing this and like he is doing, because whoever is saying these things hasn't validated for themselves what this other realm takes. But there is other areas of -- like eastern philosophy, they have some of the same concepts again of altering other realities, of being aware of the here and now. They have the term "the great crossing."
In fact, I was going to call my book "the great crossing" but that term is a very specific term used in Buddhist philosophy which is not what sorcery is. Although getting back to your question, on a theoretical level, it may appear the same. They're interested in exploring perception, expanding perception, of awakening the energetic body. Some of the techniques are very similar, quieting the internal dialog, using meditation. But the difference is that -- what a practitioner has to do is relinquish his mode of linear thinking and unless that is done and relinquished, the attachment to the self stays the fundamental obstacle -- and the eastern disciplines talk about that too. But all I can say is that we actually do that.
We spend a lifetime with it and we are still engaged in this procedure of actually doing that very thing, relinquishing the attachment to the world of everyday life, our humanness, that assemblage point into which we were born, and moving away and exploring these other dimensions. So we're doing -- so the difference then, I think that the concepts, yes, that they're there. They're not unique in that sense, but the practices -- you can't just have a concept without actually engaging in doing, because a concept by itself doesn't mean anything. It has to be a bodily experience.
And sorcery is really designed that you do these practices, you get the bodily experience, rather than just talking philosophically about something the way philosophers do or sometimes Oriental philosophers or even the physicists, the new age physics...."
...that is not to say that if you practice Zen meditation you can't quiet your internal dialog.
There's many, many meditation techniques that shut off the internal dialog, but that is not enough, that's one thing I would like to say that just to have it quiet inside is fine, but what happens when you go back to work and you're surrounded by people and an angry boss or at home and your children and people are yelling at you? You want to be able to have silence and equanimity and resolve in any situation, so we were always sent back into work situations, into school, academic situations, where we would practice quieting the internal dialog. Not really sitting in zazen or a cave where you can practice meditation..."
Yeah which is why I develop the ability to silence the inner dialog in all situations.
Where is the proof that eastern practitioners arent doing the embodied work but you folks are?
The arrogance of it all. Sigh. I already unjoined the group, but I think it's time I actually stop commenting. This is likely a waste of time.
You all take Dan to be providing proof cause he makes pictures, sheesh, such a low standard of proof it's ridiculous. I'm done.
The proof's in the pudding. When I started I used to do Zuleica's pass and I got what I think they call an Intent Gift around here.
I was in heightened awareness because the room had a purple ethereal glow. When I was drawing my arm in I saw a copy of my arm trailing it. It freaked me out. I instantly came back to just the everyday vision of my room, the purple just switched off. When they talk about "eyes wide open, completely sober" it's a good description of the lucidity you have in such a heightened state.
This stuff definitely works. You gotta just do it. Like the Nike ad, haha.
Except nothing you just described is unique to what you all are doing here.
Despite what Dan claims people do have genuine mystical experiences, alternate states, heightened awareness etc etc in other traditions. And this is true even for other Toltec/Castaneda groups. So nothing I'm saying is doubting any of that. From the beginning my only serious disagreement is on the definition of what is meditation and what isn't, and on whether or not something "special and different" is happening here vs. anywhere else.
And the seemingly strong push to challenge my understanding of meditation, which is just an absurd argument, is itself strange, and rings of culty behavior.
That cultiness includes the push Dan made to "prove" Ive had experiences. Which, this call to prove myself came completely out of the blue since nothing I had said warranted such a call to proof, since no claims were made on my part. Such a tactic is used by cult leaders to create a dynamic where people are on edge and feel inferior to the leader. In this case he constantly makes himself seem innocent by stressing he doesn't charge money. Never mind many cult leaders haven't charged money. Some go for the sex, some because they genuinely believe their bull, and some just are narcissists who need attention and to feel superior.
He makes claims to shapeshifting and jumping trees and what not, but where is the proof of any of that? That it seems to me warrants proof since he is making claims, yet I guarantee no proof has been provided of even a modicum of any of that.
So yeah I'll hang out, cause being a bit annoyed by this interaction motivated me to get in extra meditation this past week 😂 . Maybe I'll make a comment occasionally about meditation so the response will give me another boost to rebel and do my own practices.
Beyond that, I hope none of you waste too much time with the deception.
I'm not really bothered so much about what IS meditation or what ISN'T. It sounds like an academic's problem and a strange hill to die on, sorry lol but I just really couldn't give a damn.
And this is an appropriate response.
If you are getting the results you desire from this system, then cheers. I also get the results i desire from the methods I apply.
If your response was the response I had gotten, this conversation would have ended right then and there.
Cheers.
"You all take Dan to be providing proof cause he makes pictures, sheesh, such a low standard of proof it's ridiculous. I'm done."
No you don't get the results you desire. Otherwise you'd know that these pictures are a standard of proof :)
😂
You're full of it.
You can't prove something with pictures and that has nothing to do with anyone's experiences.
Let's even say that someone has a given experience, and they see that Dan has to some degree represented that experience with his pictures. Then would this person know that Dan has had the same experience? NO. Because there are descriptions of mystical experiences in all traditions, and such descriptions are sometimes legit and sometimes faked. But the faked ones can sound exactly like the real ones at the level or words. The same level of fakery can be achieved with visual representations. A clever person can even semi-accurately infer from other experiences new experiences that haven't been represented in words or pictures. Then this person can write off any inaccuracies in their representation by noting the inability of representation to fully capture these sorts of phenomena. Which any mystic would easily agree that no representation can accurately cover such an experience, hence my point about this not being a standard of proof.
Now, there is a standard of proof well known among those experienced and truly skilled in this sort of endeavor. I call it the energetic-hyperlink method. The more powerful someone is the more they can leave a second attention energetic imprint on anything they do in First Attention. This wording may not be exactly accurate but the experience is unmistakable to anyone who's ever encountered such an imprint. Suddenly you're reading a text and you get to a word or a set of words and they feel very different, and if you know HOW to read feelings properly this feeling is energy that takes you into an embodied experience of the higher energies the person in question wants to share with you.
This sort of method is how you provide proof. This is how you know someone with power has real power, they can share it in their experiences. And since I started talking to Dan I've been searching his messages for this energy, and have yet to find it. Now perhaps for some reason I'm unaware of he chooses not to leave such an imprint. Seems strange to me for someone so interested in proof, but oh well nothing to do then. But for someone who knows that actually feeling someone's energy is the only way to know then I wouldn't waste my time for any other reason.
Also, I'm big on nuance, so you might want to reread the comment you are replying to. You note that I don't get the results i DESIRE. You make a lot of assumptions about MY desire. Perhaps assumptions of that natures are evidence of your difficulty thinking critically?
Here is an example of how shallow your shift is, that you think that a vulnerability to emotions is a high level of practice. If "feel very different" is your measure, you are shallow at best.
"He said that the new seers were completely different, that they maintain their assemblage points along the midsection of man's band. If the shift is a shallow one, like the shift into heightened awareness, the dreamer is almost like anyone else in the street, except for a slight vulnerability to emotions, such as fear and doubt. But at a certain degree of depth, the dreamer who is shifting along the midsection becomes a blob of light. A blob of light is the dreaming body of the new seers."
I said that you don't get the results you desire because you are shitting on people who do get the results you desire. What is the Chinese thing they say since you like Daoist alchemy? Confucius say: "The man who says he can, and the man who says he can not, are both correct."
It's fun when people type several paragraphs without actually understanding what they are replying to.
Feelings in general overall are not limited to emotions.
Emotions are a subset of feelings. But not all feelings are emotions.
Everything you experience, within the First Attention, is a feeling.
Not everything you experience is an emotion.
Every thought you have is itself composed of feelings.
You think you actually "hear" thoughts in your head??? What ears do you use to hear thoughts inside your mind?
No you feel the thoughts because all experience is feeling at the level of the brain's interpretation. Feeling is very synesthetic, every sense experience is a feeling, so the mind can recreate them out of feeling inside your head without needing sense organs.
You think that you actually experience material objects directly? No you never experience the actual thing, you experience your brain's feeling of it.
Feeling taken superficially tells us very little.
But feeling interpreted correctly is the doorway through the Attention to glimpses of the Second, and Third.
A great example of a methodology for proper interpretation of feeling is Eugene Gendlin's Focusing. You can find the method for free using a simple google search. Gendlin preferred the term felt-sense or in some cases felt-meaning in an attempt to avoid the miscommunication we just had. But honestly people still have this miscommunication even when you use different terms, so I figure it's better to let the miscommunication happen then clarify.
That said, I'm not shitting on anyone. I'm pointing out discrepancies or seeming discrepancies, which in any healthy community should be perfectly acceptable. If Dan isn't a cult leader, then he should have no problem with it. If he is then it will indeed eventually get to him cause his ego won't allow it.
You see there are legit ways to measure and test. The pictures he provides could indeed help as some modicum of evidence, NOT PROOF. Proof is much more rigorous.
Who is typing several paragraphs without actually understanding what they are saying?
Who says there are material objects?
Prove one single thing to me please since you were seeking proof :) Solipsism is the only thing that you have access to, unfortunately, but it is not the only thing there is. The only thing there is are the Eagle's emanations.
😂
No there are no material objects but we do refer to them in common language when speaking. They are also a feature of first attention experience so worth referring to when talking about something that bridges first to other attentions, right? I mean that does make sense correct?
When you mention solipsism I suppose you are pointing at how everything i said about feeling refers to something that takes place in a person's own mind?
If that is what you're getting at then you are sharp for noticing that. What you miss perhaps, is that I'm deliberately talking—this whole conversation you started with me—is about how to discern from a First Attention vantage point if someone has experience beyond the First Attention.
The idea was about a standard of proof. And the comment I made about that was meant for people who haven't had Second attention experiences, or had very few. For those people are the ones who actually NEED proof. Someone who's been there and done that, well that person doesn't really need proof from Dan.
So when talking about a standard of proof what we need is a way to get through to someone who is only capable of certain glimpses. As such proper communication skills demands meeting them where THEY ARE, as such a picture unless it is very well crafted, isn't going to do much. And even if the picture is very well crafted, someone with a good understanding of aesthetics who's done their homework can fake it.
What can't be faked is imprinting higher energy. If the person is ready for a path like this, then they will have some modicum of an ability to be aware (I.e. feel) of such energy. This is direct transmission, well as direct as you can get without physically being in the vicinity of the person transmitting.
I do so wish there was a better word than feeling for what I'm describing... Unfortunately the limits of language and all. That said, you can take what I'm saying and assume it is something superficial as you've been doing, and miss the whole point, and a valuable point it is. Or you can try Gendlin's Focusing technique.
Then once you've experienced what I'm talking about through Gendlin's tool, reread Castaneda's books, while paying very close attention to how you feel. Every now and then something will stand out, almost as if you've stepped one foot into someone else's dream. Once you notice that change in feeling or shift in awareness, whatever you want to call it is irrelevant, then use Gendlin's Focusing on that shift you got from reading Castaneda. Your results should be pretty fantastic.
The proof is in the pudding my dude, everything else is just verbal masterbation.
Again, you think that feelings matter, I am not interested in your feelings whatsoever. Your sensitivity is nothing special and, in fact, is so completely egotistical that you think that Dan is bs'ing. You are, yourself, able to do everything in every one of these pictures, but your foreign installation holds you at bay.
Hear is an example for you, please keep in mind I am a nobody.
Doing tensegrity inside of a pitch black room, everything turned monochrome and clear as day. The only thing that was different about the room was that my arms were replaced with hundred of wires.
And one last piece from Castaneda:
"This sorcerer's description is of course our ultimate nemesis; we don't want to believe that we are being raised for food. In this sense, naturally, the sorcerers' tradition is at total variance with any other kind of spiritual tradition. Sorcerers say, and believe me, not out of cynicism, that every ideal we deal with in terms of spiritual traditions, religions, etc, is a device concocted by the flyers to keep us in a lull. Imagine our disquietude upon examining, weighing and pondering this proposition."
EVERY ideal from spiritual traditions is a device concocted by the fliers. How about you examine, weigh, and ponder this proposition.
You somehow read everything I wrote and still think it has to do with "sensitivity".
Oh well. Why you think I'd bother conversing with someone who doesn't attempt to understand is itself egotistical.
You have a good day then, I'm not one for wasting time, and I got what I was looking for in this particular exchange.
But you are wasting time, you don't have a moment to spare. Come back when you are ready.
To be clear there is utterly nothing you've said that should make anyone believe real magic is happening here. I hear bold claims and see pretty pictures of subpar artistic quality. To think that people believe any of what you say when it doesn't even resonate the way Castaneda's books do is ridiculous. When I read CC's books I didn't think oh wow all these cool powers they describe. No, I thought this feels like some of the mystical experiences I've already spontaneously been having, so I should continue reading. It was the energy behind the words that pulled me in not flashy language and I'm certainly not now going to get excited about half ass pictures. 😂 Ok I'm done. I already unjoined but now Im officially gone.
Hello, sorry to message you like this but today you mentioned womb dreaming and put a video link in a post but it just disappeared on me, can't seem to find it😄, talk about magic and sorcery but seriously if you could send me that link again I would appreciate it 😊👍🙌
You can find all of my videos (I suspect) in wiki links. This subreddit has a wiki on the side.
But nearly all are at that youtube link.
Thank you so much, it's much easier to follow on videos 😊.
And impossible to describe in most cases.
There's stuff the "new seers", meaning the last generation from which we evolved, believed was beyond describing.
"The Abstract" for instance.
By my Ally "Fancy", an untamed and rather "evil" spirit, insisted that sorcerers who claim you can't describe something, are just being lazy.
And she actually proved it to me. I saw something indescribable, and she guided me into making it describable.
Except, what she taught me, actually transformed it into something else, making it not quite what it was when it first appeared.
Still, it was fun to watch. It was every bit as vivid as this picture. Eyes wide open, fully awake, completely sober!
There's a somewhat related "tragedy" in our "new seer" lineage.
Someone found the source of everything, which is often called "The spirit", and learned to visually see it.
Once they did, our entire lineage became stuck seeing only that.
You'll find out about this yourself. How describing something that's far off in sorcery realms, changes it.
Whoever saw it decided that "the spirit" looks like a giant Eagle, which devours our awareness when we die.
Tossing aside our useless blobs of spent awareness.
Which results in our permanent death.
It's a poor description, but it's of something very real.
But it could be "rewritten" with a good video, and even alter that "Eagle which devours us", permanently.
Maybe the "Memory Fairy"?
Who collects your memories for her giant book, and then lets you go explore on your own.
Certainly not an evil clown.
That sounds much better, that last option but to tell you the truth, I'm not much of a seer, I rely more on my feeling and how I experience things from my gut. As far as visions and images go I do get certain glimpses and I see colours but that's about it😄🙂✨
Are you saying that describing the “source” made it take that shape? Does that have an impact on its effect of recycling our awareness?
Absolutely!
Would its behavior change if you described it another way?
Probably not.
But one thing you'll get to see CLEARLY as you learn to move your assemblage point, is that the position of "self", is filled to the brink with suffering.
And the "place of no pity" is free from strife.
So how you describe, or think about things, makes a huge difference.
Thus the description of an Eagle which devours us, is a bit of a "me, me, me" point of view.
Too much of the "self" in it.
It's very helpful when you daily move from endless grief and suffering (our normal point of view), to zero suffering other than actual physical pain.
At first it takes 2 hours to get there.
But each day, a little less time.
Until at some point you can actually "see it", and flip it in seconds.
In Brujería, Tensegrity is the mobilization of visible energy; it is not weightlifting or an endurance exercise. In the dark room, it’s worth trying to “see energy” from the very first second—the room should light up before you sweat profusely... Then you can “change the pace”, go slower, sit down, or lie down to see the show (and take part in it).
Yeah, starting to slowly realise that. I was thinking to just start off with a "not-doing" until the assemblage point is a bit looser.
Some have mentioned mixing in gazing and Recapitulation here, so I'll try adding those things in a session.
Cheers.
Tensegrity is a "not-doing":
"You can practice them any way you wish," don Juan replied. "The magical passes enhance awareness, regardless of how you take them. The intelligent thing would be to take them as what they are: magical passes that on being practiced lead the practitioner to drop the mask of socialization."
"What is the mask of socialization?" I asked.
"The veneer that all of us defend and die for," he said. "The veneer we acquire in the world. The one that prevents us from reaching all our potential. The one that makes us believe we are immortal. The intent of thousands of sorcerers permeates these movements. Executing them, even in a casual way, makes the mind come to a halt."
from Magical Passes
Yes, I was thinking of the not-doing that requires less physical movements. Obviously tensegrity quietens the mind but it wrecks my feet, hah!
Do you think it is tensegrity wrecking your feet? Or something else...
I used to do 200 hindu pushups and 400 hindu squats over the course of an hour, and I am starting it back up again, back to 100 hindu pushups and 200 hindu squats. I still have trouble with tensegrity. Do you really think you getting tired is because of tensegrity physically tiring you, or could it be another reason?
If I put my boot into your face, is the resulting pain because of my kick or the nerve endings in your face?
I can guarantee that there are people weaker than you able to do tensegrity (and also weaker people than me). Don’t cling to your mask of socialization and talk about putting boots in faces. Just do your best, or as Don Juan would say „you must push yourself beyond your limits, all the time”
"(...) why join an ugly belief system which claims we live in a predatorial universe? That's so pessimistic! (...) Men get inspired (...) to greed.": https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/11tkmfy/the_mistrained_head_sweep/
I get your point and the other guy's point. I know I am doing the practice wrong.
I'll have a read through this. Cheers.