Yesterday I woke up with a feeling that my mind had been weakened. So I took advantage and forced silence all morning.
Darkroom, more or less 2 hours from starting:
I was sitted, forcing intense silence. I focused on a beatiful light, that was dancing in front of me. It was greenish.
The silence was getting deeper. At some point, everything changed. The whole room was darker; like a different place. I was unable to think!! My breath COMPLETLY changed: it was very quickly and with my stomach. I would say that it would have been impossible to control it! My stomach was alive 😂.
Very cool feeling. Impossible not to notice the transition. Nothing like any drug effect ive tried. For some reason it only lasted 1-5 minits. Maybe because i got too excited. Ive never experienced something like this in the darkroom. Then i tried to repeat it for an hour but i couldnt.
After the experience, the IOBs got so solid and 3D. I could see them flying in my room! 2 or 3 of them.
I write it now, in case i forget it. Tomorrow, when i have some time i will complete the post.
Now that I know the feeling, I can say that Ive been at the door many times: this month during my practices, and also a few years ago practicing silence. If you experienced something intense when forcing silence, it is very likely that you have been close.
The only advice to give you is to SERIOUSLY force silence, to the best of your ability, and for as long as you can (the whole day if you can!). When you do this a lot of times, you begin to differentiate between yourself and your mind. Its hard work, but it's fun!
Very very very very very happy day for me!
Edited.
42 Comments
Sooo amazing!!
The change of breathing is so crazy. For me it felt like automated, but EXTREME. Like the amount of air I was getting in was enormous.
Could you share your experience with us also?;)
I was referring to this ! https://www.reddit.com/r/castaneda/comments/hvyg71/enlightenment_in_the_dark_room_experiences/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Now, someone please teach me how to fight tiredness. Wasting hours on it..
Thanks for sharing, so it is your experience described there? Yeah, tiredness is a big problem.. I also face it. And laziness as well.
Yess it is! And yep I agree.
The best I found is starting earlier. I have dinner at 9pm and go to the darkroom 22:15 more or less. But if not... sleeping a good nap!
I always start very late so that might be it!! I will definitely try earlier now. 🌞🌞
Thanks Lidaaa!!! you made me get so excited i had to do it 😝
It remembered me to the Holotropical Breathing technique of Stanislav Grof. I tried it a few years ago, but i only got dizzy. But now not, it was natural.
Maybe it is like how babies breath too.
Just cant believe it can change like this!
Congrats! Was it the first time for you?
Yes!!! Thanks! Now i have to repeat it
I first fell into heightened awareness while awake and walking around in public, so maybe I missed out on the initial deep breathing because of that.
Stalking in foreign countries over a week or two is what did it.
For me, the breathing now simply changes to low, only in the stomach, and each breath is like the happy ending of a yawn. In fact, I'm in that state right now, left over from this morning's practice.
Carlos described it as "soothing".
But, when I go very deep into the second attention, which becomes like a journey into a forest eventually, if I find something completely different which takes concentration, my breathing automatically starts to increase.
I'd say it was panting, and it is, but each pant is a full breath.
I can't breath deeply that easily, so it's very odd that suddenly your lungs are like those of a child.
You'd surely hyperventilate doing that, but since it's automatic you just go along with it.
And the breathing seems to somehow suck in yellow light, which makes whatever you are trying to do become possible. Or perhaps, it serves to stabilize the assemblage point at a new and very different position?
Juann might be able to give his thoughts on that soon.
It's as if the body has it's own ideas about stuff, and once you get to heightened awareness and let it do as it would naturally do, it even pays attention to how much air you need for doing something magical.
Juann and Lidotska were doing something magical.
Reaching heightened awareness for the first time, and fully conscious of it.
I suspect that's what caused the deep breathing.
I predict it won't happen more than twice because you'll be stabilized there, and it won't be such a big deal.
I suspect we screw our breathing up totally with out internal dialogue, which has it constantly trying to figure out whether to punch some imaginary opponent, run, or shout something angry in response to a memory.
All that "talking" in the head has to engage jaw muscles and your tongue.
No wonder our body gives up on controlling the breathing, and leaves it to us to suffer in manual mode breathing.
It's as if our internal dialogue practically has a little whip it's constantly beating itself with, messing up the breathing.
Maybe that old cerebellum is more clever than we know. That's the thing that catches a falling glass, before your conscious reflex time. It seems to be 3 times as fast at figuring out something is falling, as your conscious mind.
That means, that "unconscious" part of the brain is actually quite aware of what's going on.
Perhaps that takes over the breathing too, in response to circumstances?
That part of the brain is the "it shot" thing in Zen archery.
In TM, it's the very thing that makes you leap from cross legged position, when practicing the Siddhis.
Some notes: You guys haven't panted yet, but you will.
The interesting thing is, Carlos laid around with his animal Totem, the Saber Toothed Tiger, learning how to breath and pant.
Related?
I don't know. But when I read that it seemed a tiny bit lame.
Now it doesn't.
Also, a lot of what we have in here came from those 2 new women, who ended up taking over the stage, replacing the Chacmools at their first workshop. Carlos dressed them up like harsh female singers in a 90s band, in black with sunglasses.
Those 2 made it to heightened awareness. He told us about it, when he demonstrated that J curve.
By the way, just because those 2 got to heightened awareness doesn't mean we should track them down.
They didn't really seem to understand what happened, when Carlos mentioned it to his private class.
A while later he walked in with one of them, they exchanged something I couldn't hear, and he turned to us and explained about the breathing.
I wish I'd paid more attention!
There were 3 levels of breathing. The 1st was normal crummy breathing, where even the shoulders got involved.
The second was in the chest mostly, and the shoulders got to relax.
The third was low, and stomach only.
That's the heightened awareness breath.
But what is #2?
All this might explain why I piss off some by saying, breathing exercises are pointless.
A placebo.
And placebos make you put off actual practice. You think you're all charged up with your breath, so you don't worry about forcing silence, or recap, or some real practice.
Even worse, charlatans use breathing exercises to steal money from people, with false claims of spiritual growth.
Of course, that's a huge exaggeration.
Some things do in fact require controlled breathing, such as the recapitulation.
But if you have to pay money to learn how to breath, you need another hobby.
Were you forcing silence? or it just happened?
It took me a lot of concentration, but now I feel that it can comes by itself at any moment.
I was forcing silence walking along in the dark in Bangkok, at night.
But mostly it was the stalking that did the job. My assemblage point was already moved, and my normal levels of silence were enough to let it finally move there.
Heightened awareness reached from Stalking can last as long as the stalking lasts!
It's a more complete transformation.
In that case, it lasted 2 weeks.
I lost it from the oppressive heat of South East Asia and no air conditioning.
What type of stalking?
Very cool!!!!!!
I was portraying the grey haired old computer engineer who knows how to do everything and lives only to do that.
In Japan it's called a "mad man", with images of Einstein's out of control hair.
Any Asian engineering company wants one of those.
But they're impossible for Asians to order around. They don't obey the social system there.
So the Taiwanese bosses' son would kick me occasionally, on the leg, when I got out of hand with private lectures of our technology.
We had a third person helping, our Singapore rep.
We modeled it after, "The Three Stoogies", doing our best to imitate a few of the nutty things they did to each other. The bosses' son was Mo, I was the guy who keeps changing, and the Singapore rep played Larry.
The idea was to convince them that a particular Asian company could control a white engineer, who could make anything they desired.
Mostly we were targeting the King's family.
I of course played up the engineer who can't get a girlfriend aspect, and nightly found the 4 youngest and most beautiful bar girls, and spoiled them rotten while I got so drunk and broke, I had to walk back to the hotel.
I even fell into a herd of rats, in the cause. And made sure it was known my drunken antics were dangerous to me.
There's a lot more, but that's the sort of thing.
In my type of stalking, I always end up surrounded by teenage girls in tube tops being worn as miniskirts.
Which is ok! I'm celibate.
I suspect Cholita would not like it though. I'll have to cut that out.
Amazing Dan! That sounds like making ordinary life into a complete adventure. So, so funny!
Some months ago i was thinking about start theather lessons, to learn stalking. Is there another stalking practice? Or it is just being spontaneus?
You have to play to use the 4 moods.
Since you made it to heightened awareness, pretty soon you'll understand stalking.
I don't like it, so I make sure there's barely dressed girls involved.
But you could make sure it included french food if that's your preference.
It's like a trip to the mall with your dad. You have to obey him and stick to the plan, but if you want some toys along the way, that's allowed.
It's one of the good things about stalking.
About the spontaneous part...
While on that trip, I needed to be excessively lecherous.
And I noticed that the Yakuza owns the best girls in Thailand.
Apparently in Japan, the Yakuza are not entirely considered "criminals".
As long as no civilians get hurt, they're thought to be a necessary evil, to control the things which "can't be helped".
Like prostitutes and gambling.
When a Yakuza gets busted, he has to hide in Thailand for 6 months.
Disappear so that it's known he screwed up with the authorities.
But, the Yakuza has bought up all the best girls. They are there only for Yakuza customers, even though they have to work in bars, as if they were just there by coincidence.
I did my best to figure out how that works.
So I did a little side stalking, of the Yakuza.
They have hangouts in hidden fancy restaurants, where they can play with the girls in private.
I even tried to buy 2 of the girls from them.
It was a pair of blond, 16 year old twin Chinese girls who looked like the girl from Kill Bill Volume 2, who swings those wonderful toys around in the air.
They were dead on twins for her, except for the hair color.
Of course, you can't buy Yakuza girls, so it was a perfectly safe hobby.
Hey Dan, which book has the best explanation of stalking?
I'm afraid, Carlos banned me from reading them, and I don't recall that detail.
Searching for ruthelessness, patience, cunning, and sweetness, I found page 38 of the power of silence:
"But isn't stalking taught in deep, heightened awareness?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied with a grin. "But you have to understand that for some men wearing women's clothes is the door into heightened awareness. In fact, such means are more effective than pushing the assemblage point, but are very difficult to arrange."
Don Juan said that his benefactor drilled him daily in the four moods of stalking and insisted that don Juan understand that ruthlessness should not be harshness, cunning should not be cruelty, patience should not be negligence, and sweetness should not be foolishness.
He taught him that these four steps had to be practiced and perfected until they were so smooth they were unnoticeable. He believed women to be natural stalkers. And his conviction
was so strong he maintained that only in a woman's disguise could any man really learn the art of stalking.
"I went with him to every market in every town we passed and haggled with everyone," don Juan went on. "My benefactor used to stay to one side watching me. 'Be ruthless but charming,' he used to say. 'Be cunning but nice. Be patient but active. Be sweet but lethal. Only women can do it. If a man acts this way he's being prissy.' "
There's only one thing we can conclude from this:
JD needs to become a cross dresser.
But seriously, since it's taught in heightened awareness, we can simply learn to move our assemblage points there, remember the basics listed here, and the rest will become obvious with practice.
In heightened awareness, intent whispers in your ear.
They're like sweet promises of nothing, but they still give you the feeling you understand something.
And if you made a mistake, it would let you know that too.
I suppose this quote is highly appropriate and timely.
The new Matrix move, sort of the theme of the workshops, is now transgendered.
My reaction was, "Oh come on! Do you have to preach to me all the time???"
Now I feel guilty for thinking such a non-inclusive thought.
Maybe this heralds a transformation at Cleargreen, the way that female star of the movie already looked and dressed like a Chacmool?
I've been saying Cleargreen is too dominated by women.
I definitely took Power of Silence to be mostly about stalking. i.e. the four Tulios, etc.
And I'm familiar with the four moods. I take stalking basically to be acting outside of your normal tendencies in order to loosen the grip of your first attention. Or using controlled folly to create a caricature in order to shield yourself from other ppls first attention maybe?
But in The Second Ring of Power, Carlos said that stalking was the most complicated aspect of sorcery. Is there something more to it that you could articulate?
Nope, I'm afraid not. But the whole thing is a big not-doing, so it makes the assemblage point looser.
Not-doing and not-thinking, have the same effects.
Besides, I have a prejudice against stalking.
As I just reminded monkey guy, I'm only here for a single purpose.
Stalking doesn't help that purpose.
On the other hand, you can in fact end up in heightened awareness for a long time, as a result of stalking.
You'd just become super annoying.
It's a not-doing, got it, that helps.
Don't miss the part about it's best learned in heightened awareness.
I'm touchy about the subject, because there's still private class members who haven't "given up".
But they claim to be stalkers.
I'm sure I'm wrong about this, but I still believe, "I'm a stalker" = "I'm too lazy to learn sorcery for real."
Hey Dan, trying to buy 16 year old girls is what pedophiles do, it has nothing to do with Castaneda. Quit trying to drag him down with your own perversions.
Ah, a public example of head exploding.
You can join up with Mikhail! He's on a roll today also.
I'm celibate. I don't buy 16 year old girls for anything but having a beer in public.
And only that young because they're safe, and legal in Thailand.
The ones 10 years younger than me (50ish) figure I'm impotent, or I'd pounce on them.
So they try to talk you through it, so you can get a room together.
The ones in their 30s are irresistible. Dangerous.
The younger ones understand that some older men just like fun.
It's very, very Asian. If you do business in Asia, you have girls like that at your table.
It's mandatory.
Guess you never get out much.
So they dance for you!
And don't tell me you wouldn't try to buy 2 16 year old blond japanese girls, owned by the Yakuza, if there were no consequences.
I always hear that from men who are under the control of their wives, until I get them out alone and they're far worse than anything I ever imagined.
Sounds like you're still trapped fully in internal dialogue, trying to use social blackmail and threats to get your way.
Any other things your mama taught you, that you want to pass on?
I'd love to document the exploding head.
Keep going.
It shows what happened to Carlos.
I'd also like those who fell for your rumors of Carlos, to see how you really are.
Did you really claim don Juan taught you in dreaming?
Didn't it ever occur to you that you were harming people, by providing them with juicy gossip, instead of encouraging them to work hard and practice?
Was it all about you in the end?
You could still change. It's not too late.
Dan, I'm sure that people like you know the exact age of consent in every country they set foot in.
It's 12 in Amsterdam.
Taiwan recently outlawed child prostitution, but made an exception in the case of a small group of 10 year olds, for government officials to use.
In Japan, 14 is fair game at the Buddhist temples. Just order up a tea ceremony!
But even here, it's 16 back in the "fly over country".
Good thing you weren't in private classes.
You'd be horrified at what Carlos used to say during lectures. His story about a tall virgin might shock you.
He had a hard time even telling that story. He kept cracking up, anticipating the classroom shock.
He also used to make some men perform naked during infinity theater, to embarrass them in hopes their assemblage points would move.
There were rosemary baths (naked) for some of the new women.
I suspect Julian did a lot worse than that! I get the impression he was dressing male apprentices up like women, and having sex with them.
Certainly don Juan was scarred by it. He explains, wearing female clothing is the only way for men to learn true stalking.
Our social restrictions weigh as heavily on the internal dialogue as anything else, which makes them very dangerous if you navigate into the unknown.
Or play with inorganic beings.
You have to get over those!
Just do right all the time, but forget the rules.
You on the other hand are doubly in trouble. Not only have you not gotten rid of your internal dialogue, but you use it to attack other people, when it's hurt.
You're a petty tyrant who oppresses with...
I can't figure it out.
Probably violence. Certainly you haven't made me sad.
This is kind of fun because it's a good teaching vehicle for the people who read in here.
As don Juan said, if you want to survive dealing with infinity, take on a petty tyrant.
You have to. It's not an option.
I have a doozy, Cholita.
(Whom you surely knew from Howard.)
But more petty tyrants are fine by me.
I get rewarded at night, when intent decides I suffered too much trying to restore Carlos' reputation, and gifts me with superb magic to put things into perspective.
It's that social baggage that holds the assemblage point the most firmly, and provides something for the IOBs to take advantage of.
Which is partly why I argue with you.
I'd rather you just admitted you were doing your best after Carlos was gone, ran some of the most positive web sites, but might have made some mistakes.
And keep reading, so you finally learn what you wanted to learn.
But history in here shows, you will not.
People come in and demonstrate the exploding head every few weeks. I get remarks by others in here, saying they don't know how I put up with it.
I'm silent. That's how.
No internal dialogue, except for necessary traces to work on computers.
So you can't, "push any buttons".
I work for little smoke, and follow intent.
I don't chase happiness anymore. Carlos taught me that.
That's what you try to attack.
The pursuit of happiness and all the rules that go along with it.
You're up to your waist in it.
It's the river of filth where everyone pisses and poops on each other.
You want to piss on me, because your little corner of the universe was offended.
Not by me. I promoted you. And then got warned not to do that, because you were deceiving people.
I believe there's recent notes in here about how foul don Juan really was.
You might want to glance at those if you find my comments about Asian bar girls offensive.
I'll tell them the next time I visit!
They'll laugh. Might even take a selfy and send it to you.
I once explained to an older bar girl, who was now in charge of the hotel bar at On 8, why I didn't have sex with the women.
I included that I'd been taught it was morally wrong.
She didn't understand.
I explained in detail.
She stopped, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Don't ever tell that to a Thai bar girl!"
I asked why.
She said, they'd be terribly upset to hear that you thought what they were doing was so dirty and morally wrong.
It's an american obsession, not a reality.
.
And of course there's aids.
But Asia is a very rough place.
I honestly believe you could learn that social system well, and it could be your "second view of the world", similar to knowing what the sorcerer's view is, so you can slip down the middle and become a "Man of Knowledge".
It is really an alternate view over there!
You occasionally encounter a beggar with no legs, on a cheap wooden platform with little wheels, so he can get around.
His legs were cut off, to make him a more profitable beggar.
The Thai bars are like an eco system.
Some say they're run by the mafia (yakuza), some say by "jews".
An older bar girl told me, they just claim anyone who runs one is mafia. So you can't put much stock in who's in control.
The bar girls, even the 16 year old ones, likely have a ladyboy boyfriend.
And the ones who don't, because they grew up outside the bar system, mostly have already been married.
Their husband beat them. It's common in Thailand. Women were sold as slaves in the market only 100 years ago.
Even the blond twins owned by the Yakuza likely had a ladyboy boyfriend. The Yakuza only cares about public appearances. Who they are seen drinking with.
They don't care if they have a boyfriend on the side.
They have one, because they grew up with the lady boys. Naturally, they'd fall in love with the only males constantly around them.
The lady boys are children of the prostitutes. They all live together.
Starting at age 3, they are given drugs to prevent them from becoming fully male.
I can't remember the details, but they never go through puberty and they grow breasts of their own.
Or something like that.
And if you were to ask them, they probably would not feel like victims in all this.
In at least one big bar there are little apartments above it, where the girls get their hair and nails done, and sleep.
The Japanese are the ones after the children. I won't go into the details, but they seem to grow up being taught sex with everyone around you is normal.
I once saw an important Japanese businessman walk near Soy Cowboy 2, with his female assistant, and an armed guard.
A little girl was selling bundles of flowers to the tourists, so they could give them to their favorite "regular" girl.
A lot of Australians retire to Bangkok, so they can have sex for the rest of their life. They have favorite girls there. Multiple I suppose.
The Japanese businessman I saw reached for the 9 year old flower girl, and his assistant had to say, "No Sensei! No!".
I bought all of her flowers and told her to go home. But unfortunately, there's no telling if she actually got to go home.
The last little herd of 16 year olds I drank with made so much money from me, that two of them flew to their father in Australia, perhaps giving up the bar scene.
It will become more difficult to find such a culture in the future, what with the increasing globalization and exporting of prepackaged subconcious "Western Values" via the adoption of new technology.
It's a slow version of what was done to the children of Native Cultures around the world in the colonial era. I'm referencing assimilation schools.
But this is all dependant on continued global American cultural power. If China supercedes...
Sigh...I wish there were more full-blooded aboriginal techno-shamans working in engineering and IT.
Except that Asian culture is a little more oppressive than western culture.
It's like the "fliers mind" on steroids.
It'll be odd if it's completely absorbed into western values.
Some Chinese will tell you, if they didn't have their oppressive social system there would be chaos in the big cities.
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Not the way I would do things.
Yes. They are two separate "layers."
Care to relate any more internal specifics on how you go about affecting the "switch."
If you knew Techno! I'm getting close every day. It is not something difficult as everyone make it seem. I am very excited with the idea of getting enlightened at will!!
The key is in what Dan says: you have to support the silence with movement of the assemblage point. You can't just be silent and get enlightened.
You have to move it, little by little, until you go deep enough to rest in silence. And for the efforts to be worth it, you have to know the sensation of the assemblage point moving.
It is very particular, but you can feel it. The dark room is great, because you can notice it with the second attention. You don't even have to force it so much, it's almost natural.
For me it's something like this:
First I'm a complete idiot who can't stop thinking. I begin to force silence observing unusual things in my field of view. In about 20-30 minutes I feel that my assemblage point is more fluid. I can already be quieter, and the colors easily get bright. Generally the IOBs are already visible.
And once there: I begin to force the intense silence, feeling how every unusual thing around me drags me. And I notice how my visual field is completely transformed. I come to an intense feeling of silence, about to turn around the J curve, already feeling a bit of the magical bliss. Until there.
But it should be something like this. How are you doing with that? Any tip?
Start and keep with it when you're younger! It gets harder to start/restart when older. Usually more baggage and habits. But some young people have more of both than various old-fogies I've encountered...so it's case by case, based on upbringing.
I actively push it (dialogue) backwards, to the flipside of my consciousness behind my physical body, not down as in that Taoist "brain sinking into the body" method, as a still observer rather than a constant narrator.
Anatomically speaking I know it likely originates in the frontal neocortex, but I try to fuse it to the primitive limbic region, the lizard brain, and task it with being the "eyes in the back of my head."
Leaving the bulk of the rest to focus forward/outward rather than inward.
This is only when I'm not clutching my silence stones!
But I'm searching and open to other ways of achieving it, like focusing on the diaphragm/base of sternum instead. I seem to be somatically oriented for some reason.
And how do you do that? I mean, i cant imagine how it is done. Do you visualize it while you force silence?
Of course!! I think we have to use our AP knowledge. Maybe thats the main advantage of Castaneda knowledge.
Because I read A LOT of enlightened people giving advices on how to do it. Nobody seems to really know. They just dont know what advice to give!
Never heard about a OSHO or Eckhart Tolle follower that got enlightened. But here, Lida and me did it! It must be a better way!
A feeling rather than a visual. I also work at associating it with the feeling of the stones between my fingers, and recall that feeling when I'm not holding them.
I direct the dialogue to focus on holding the stones. That that is all it must/has to do, nothing more.
Where did you get the stones?
I searched for months! I live in an area that was once the bottom of the ocean, flat with hundreds of meters of sediment and no natural rocks to speak of. The first ones I managed to cobble together were sub-par, so I kept on searching for public man-made deposits of suitable stones.
I'm kind of obsessive.
Thats nice! I love this kind of obsessions. Obsession calls Intent. I think it is the true "sustainted action".
Because you have to also feel and think about what you are doing. Not only repeating it.