VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 2
February 2011
Mastery Journal
The International Ezine on Mastery in Qigong, Internal Arts, and Life
Introduction to a Life of Daoist Play
Qigong and Reality
Mark Johnson
Gary Giamboi
Does Mastery Lead to Enlightenment?
The Great Epidemic Part I
Lama Tantrapa
Paul Levy
Tai Chi and Snow Shoveling
Qigong and Creativity
Violet Li
John Munro
February 2011
Volume 1
Issue 2
Letter from the Editor Articles Introduction to a Life of Daoist Play Mark Johnson Does Mastery Lead to Enlightenment? Lama Tantrapa Tai Chi and Snow Shoveling Violet Li Qigong and Reality Gary Giamboi The Great Epidemic Part I Paul Levy Qigong and Creativity John Munro How to Join the
International Qigong Community
Dear Mastery Journal Readers, Can we enjoy our lives more fully by learning to perceive reality more objectively? The quest for a greater quality of life seems to motivate most of the masters in most arts, be that Yoga, Qigong, or Martial Arts, which may be a spiritual quest at the same time. Indeed, knowing whether an objective reality exists outside of our consciousness or we subjectively dream it up can affect every aspect of our lives. This knowledge can provide us with wisdom to think, act and respond to life in the most empowered way.
This issue of Mastery Journal presents two seemingly opposing perspectives on reality. Do we dream up our reality moment by moment or does it exist independently of us? This is a test for resonance that every one of our readers has to undertake in order to find out one’s personal truth. This relativity of truth is another challenging topic to wrap our minds around.
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Publisher: Lama Tantrapa Production Designer: Thomas Pamelia The Cover Photo: Kali Tara Copy Editor: Lucas Meyer Information is correct at press time. Mastery Journal is published monthly by the Academy of Qi Dao in Portland, Oregon. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect the official company policy © 2011. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without permission is prohibited.
When we focus on the real essence of our arts, which is the flow of energy, rather than on external appearances or forms, we become more masterful in our respective arts. Contemplating on the essence can inspire us to understand the true nature of reality… But nobody, even the greatest of all masters, has the definitive answer whether there is such a thing as objective reality. We must arrive to our own conclusions not by following the logic of other people, but by testing, comparing side by side and recognizing which belief system allows us to live more fully and powerfully. How would you like to live your life?
Namaste, Lama Tantrapa
Introduction to a Life of Daoist Play Mark Johnson I was fortunate enough to have known many of the great spiritual teachers of the last half-century. They represented almost every major religious tradition, but I spent the majority of my time with Vedantists, Zen teachers, and especially Daoist masters. My mentors are the treasures of my life, for it was they who showed me how to Play. My present identity as a low-to-middling incarnation of the Divine was nurtured by their endless patience, attention and love over long periods of time. Everything of value in my life came through them and if there is a common theme to their divergent spiritual traditions, it is this: regardless of what you are doing, life can be Play. Filling out your income tax can be a playful experience; you can relax and enjoy chaos and confusion; and you can even accept suffering and death without losing your sense of lightness and being centered. Play, in other words, is not so much about what you do; instead it arises from your perspective and your sense of who and what you are.
The kind of “Play” I refer to (Play with a capital “P”) is certainly not the play of the idle rich, nor is it limited to throwing a Frisbee around on a fine summer day. A child is incapable of this kind of Play for children know nothing of time or consequences. The kind of Play I am trying to encourage can only be manifested by a mature adult who reflects and embodies the playfulness of the universe in its many expressions of spontaneity, novelty, mystery, miracles, paradox, synchronicities, humor and “being in the zone.” If there is an absence of love and
selflessness and any other quality listed above, there is no real Divinity or Divine Play. I chose those particular aspects of the Divine because they are most often absent in people who are trying to be spiritual or trying to appear spiritual to themselves and others. Are all those qualities present in your life? Why not?
Play is also a perspective, and perspectives create our world. Years ago, eclipses of the sun caused mass panic. Today, people go out of their way to view them. Same phenomena, different perspectives, different reactions. The way we respond to things largely determines the quality of our lives, so imagine how our lives would be enhanced if we were in a constant state of Play. I have also observed that growth happens most easily when one is Playing. It seems to be a fundamental survival instinct and my learned friends assure me that it is a necessary ingredient in maintaining the neuroplasticity of our brains. While life seems to flow effortlessly for people who can truly Play, that does not mean there are no challenges in their lives. It is just that they are not as bothered by adverse circumstances because they are not so strongly attached to their egos. The size of your ego doesn’t matter. What’s important is how strongly you are attached to it. It is often more difficult to transcend a small, restricted life than a more expansive one. A lack of attachment to ego is one of the foundations of living a life of Play. Everyone has the potential to transcend ego without denying it or trying to crush it. Only a few people in any era completely succeed, but they do exist.
Play is also knowing the instant-by-instant delight of pure being. A spontaneous person dances for the joy of dancing and for no other reason. Joy is like a good wine and as my often-inebriated uncle used to say, “Wine complements a good meal, and a bad meal demands it.” If you don’t like your present life, then change it until every moment is Playful, joyous and sacred to you.
In its highest expression, Divine Play occurs when you participate in the co-creation of the universe. Similar to states of lucid dreaming, where dreamers are aware they are dreaming and decide to have fun with the dream, a person in a state of co-creation experiences every action as being an effortless, natural response to every circumstance. Within that state, there eventually arises the realization that everyone and everything is oneself and that everything one does is done to oneself. That
How do I know these things? I was speaking with the Divine just the other day and she verified everything I have written. Finding and living with people who manifest playful qualities was always a priority for me and my book is filled with the lessons I learned from each of them.
all-encompassing state of identity with the Other is the origin and foundation of love and compassion. When that realization becomes an abiding state, you are expressing yourself from the depth of your being.
It is even better to BE wise and truly loving yourself. What makes you think you are not one of those remarkable souls right now? I had no idea of my inner spiritual potential when I was young. It is never too late to recognize your innate Divinity, so real-ize it (make it real) by any means that is natural to you. Just be sure that your path is integrated— that your body is healthy, flexible, and energetic; your emotions are appropriate to the situation; your mind is alert, curious, and clear; and your spirit is allembracing and tranquil. While these facets of your being are in the process of integrating with one another, use your mature ego to create benefit for all beings.
The connection between Play and the Divine first occurred to me while I was reading Krishna Dharma’s retelling of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata. The poem refers to the manifest world as the “Lila” or Play of the Lord and asserts that we in our essence are Divine. If the core of our being is Divine and everlasting, and if the Divine is constantly Playing, I wondered, then why aren’t we?
This world is not a cosmic mistake, nor should it be a veil of tears to be endured and transcended as soon as possible. The Divine loves to manifest and Play. When we live life as Play, the world becomes a Divine Playground.
To read about the lives of the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Zoroaster, Milarepa, the Holy Mother, Ramana Maharshi, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. is inspiring in itself, but to have lived with such people and cultivated oneself under their tutelage is quite another matter. How would you feel if you had lived in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus and never met the guy? What a tragedy it would have been to have known the Buddha personally, but, due to religious prejudice or tunnel vision, that person would remain closed to his message of compassion. Seeking the counsel of those you deem wise and truly loving is a great way to live.
I was fortunate to have 20 years of intense self-cultivation under a powerful Chinese Daoist Wizard in the seventies and eighties. That era with my teacher includes a year in Taiwan and the remarkable circumstances of bringing him to the United States. We then trained in the wild and dangerous hills of Malibu, California, in Tai Ji, acupuncture, Daoist exorcism, spiritual sexual practices and how to integrate our three energetic bodies: the physical, the bio-electrical and the Auric bodies. I studied Feng Shui and how different psyches are formed by the topography of their locale.
I have taught Tai Ji to famous contemporary actors and actresses. and my most recent attempts at transcendence have come through ultralight flying. I want everyone to know why nature and enlightenment are both overrated and, conversely, why reincarnation is underrated and how it is an important factor to a life of Play.
If an ordinary person like myself can Play in every instant, then surely you can too. I am hoping you will recognize this place within yourself and allow it to expand. To the extent my life has gone beyond the norm, I hope it inspires you to take the plunge into the unknown in your own life. Think of my story as a spontaneous tour and initiation into a life of Play. So now, join the cosmic court jester and universal trickster as I meander my way to and through a life of Play. Let the mystery, magic and miracles begin! Please download my book Life as Play for free by clicking the image below to learn more about my teachings.
Master of the Month Mark Johnson There is only a handful of Westerners with Mark Johnson’s training in so many Chinese disciplines. In addition to Tai Chi instruction, Mark specializes in Qigong (which is self healing through movement), Feng Shui (which is the study of the energies of an area), the I Ching (which is China’s ancient classic on how things change) and Chinese calligraphy. Mark has integrated these disciplines in creative ways for over 40 years.
He started his Chinese studies in 1970 when he joined the I Ching scholar, Khigh Dhiegh at the Taoist Sanctuary in Los Angeles. During his 4 year stay at the Sanctuary, he studied the I Ching, Taoism, Yang style Tai Chi Chuan and the Chinese language. In 1974 Mark relocated to Taiwan to study acupuncture. While in residence there, he studied with several highly respected Taoist Masters. After a year in Taiwan, Mark moved to Malibu, CA where he continued his Taoist training for 8 more years. During that time, he learned 3 Taoist styles of Qigong Tai Chi and the 8 Treasures. He also studied advanced I Ching, Feng Shui, Calligraphy and enhanced his natural healing abilities.
In 1982, Mark taught Tai Chi to Francis Ford Coppola and the cast and crew of the movie “The Outsiders”.
While with them, his Qigong healing abilities were recognized so he was asked to return to do healing for the cast and crew of “Rumble Fish”. Mark’s students included Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Patrick Swayze, Mickey Rourke, Ralph Macchio and many others. Since 1983, Mark has founded Integral Tao Centers in New Mexico, New York, and California where he now resides. He is a certified Tai Chi tournament judge and has officiated nearly 50 tournaments in the past 12 years. He has produced three videos/DVDs: Tai Chi for Healing,Tai Chi for Women and Tai Chi for Seniors which is the highest selling Tai Chi video in the country (almost a million copies sold and counting).
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Mondays 6:00 pm PST (9:00 pm EST) As the host of this enlightening talk show, Lama Tantrapa interviews prominent experts in the fields of Oriental Medicine, Energy Healing, Meditation, and Internal Arts. He also shares his unique perspectives on the principles and applications of energy awareness. Join us every Monday at 6:00 pm PST (9:00 pm EST) for a friendly and mindful exchange of ideas and “secrets of the trade.� Call in during the show with your most burning questions for our guests at 347-327-9635 or email us at qigongmasters@gmail.com.
Does Mastery Lead to Enlightenment? Lama Tantrapa Do you want to know how to become truly happy and spiritually awake in this lifetime? Believe it or not, I am not talking about achieving fame or fortune (although they may turn out to be nice side effects of you mastering this knowledge), but something much simpler – improvement. If you are like most people, it is not even important for you to be better than others or have a long list of achievements that would prove that you are a master. Just feeling that you are better off today than you were yesterday is the simplest thing that can bring forth lasting happiness and fulfillment. Obviously, different people have different levels of ambition and drive to succeed.
However, if you happen to have one of those really driven, type-A personalities, I have another, even more intriguing solution for you. If you have a passion for any particular art, learn how to do your personal best each time you are at it. I am not talking about merely polishing your skills but developing a real mastery of the art. Remember, I am not asking you to compete with anyone or even compare yourself to others involved in your art form. Competition may be used as a fun motivational tool that can keep you excited to do your best on a more consistent basis. Without comparing yourself to others, you may feel as though there is nothing to strive for and no role models to follow; however, mastery is something much more subjective and internally motivated, requiring no comparison to anyone, except to yourself and the way you performed in the past.
Of course, if you wish to be recognized as a master by others in your area of expertise, you would need to be able to demonstrate your mastery, which is sometimes
difficult to tell apart from showing off or bragging. However, a really clear distinction can be drawn between expressing mastery and showing off: the former requires no desire to impress anyone or impose your power onto others, while the latter is often fueled by exactly those desires. How else can you tell them apart? In the art of Qi Dao that I practice and teach, we learn to distinguish between the modes of “having” and “being,” which can be applied to many different arts, sports and aspects of life in general.
For example, on the most basic level of Qi Dao studies, you learn to experience the shift from the mode of “having attention” to the mode of “being attentive.” I am sure that you have encountered many people in your life, who were stuck in the mode of “having attention.” Was it fun to hang out with such friends or be in intimate relationships with those constantly seeking your attention? I am sure that you felt drained and frustrated after spending time in the company of such people. This is because they actually used you as one of their energy sources. There is a well-known Chinese expression Yi Dao Qi Dao, which can be loosely translated into English as Where awareness or attention goes – energy flows. Simply put, many people have no idea about the tremendous energy resources within themselves, so they unwittingly act as “energy vampires” sucking the vital force from other people by attracting their attention (and thus energy) with their behaviors, attires, cars, etc.
Without being attentive, there is no way to learn anything, since you cannot even remember any of those things you did not pay attention to. Becoming more attentive clears the way to more advanced levels of Qi Dao studies, because being attentive is a prerequisite for learning at a much greater speed. You can quickly gather a significant amount of knowledge and may eventually arrive to the point of being able to see the possibility of shifting from the mode of “having knowledge” to the mode of “being knowledgeable.” Having learned how to experience the initial transition from the mode of “having” to the mode of “being” in regard to attention is the key to the next level of transformation. This is how you can become capable of knowing many things without relying on the past experiences or accumulated data, which is usually referred to as being intuitive. Consider that our art can train you to act and think as though you
are highly intuitive, or even psychic, while being also able to explain the origins of your intuitive knowledge and teach it to others.
Since knowledge is power, as it were, this step in your personal development may enable you to step up to the next level of mastery, where you learn how to shift from the mode of “having power” to the mode of “being powerful.” This transition has apparently proved to be quite challenging for numerous gurus and so-called masters of various disciplines. It is mesmerizing and outright addictive to have a lot of power over others or to be able to manipulate the events in your life, or even the flow of human history, at will. One of the reasons why so many masters get stuck in the mode of “having power” is exactly due the fact that it is very difficult to figure out how to become powerful without mastering the previous steps. There also may be little external motivation to simply enjoy your power without feeling a need for confirmation or even admiration of others. You might be familiar with some examples of power-hungry individuals, who possessed some formidable influence, authority and power, but turned out to be miserable and destructive.
In Qi Dao, there is a wonderful tradition of receiving an initiation into the practice of Empowerment that enables you to feel the flow of Qi in your body and around it, as well as to be in the flow. This unique practice is so profound that it serves as the cornerstone of the majority of the advanced practices and applications of our art. It also teaches you to surrender to the flow of Qi, rather than trying to control or direct it according to your ideas about where and how it should flow. Once you know how to use the infinite power of this flow instead of your individual force, you get close to transforming yourself into a powerful master who is no longer concerned about showing off or even proving his power. This is when you begin to feel the power that requires no confirmation, validation from others, or comparison to anyone else’s power, because it is not really your own power, but the power of the whole universe that flows through you.
The most advanced and sophisticated level of Qi Dao practice empowers you to learn how to live your
dreams. In fact, at that point, there is another transition associated with the highest level of mastery associated with shifting from the mode of “having dreams” that you can manifest easily and elegantly to the mode of “dream being,” which means becoming the one, who knows that, just like in your night dreams, the dreamer and the dream are inseparable. You can eventually arrive to the level of self-realization, where you no longer try to manifest your dreams, as you recognize that you cannot “have dreams” by remembering that, whenever you are dreaming, you are one with the whole dream world. And this realization applies not only to those dreams that you have at night, but also to your daydreams, as well as to the big dream called your daily life. This is where things become particularly interesting, since you may see that “being one with everything” and “being totally in the flow” are exact same metaphors that are used to describe enlightenment. That is why it is also known as spiritual awakening.
Now you can see how the seemingly simple suggestion to be attentive may actually lead you on the path of enlightenment. Notice that I don’t call it the “path to enlightenment,” because spiritual awakening is not a one-off event, but rather a continuous process with its own ups and downs. As they say, even after the most profound awakenings, we usually tend to fall asleep again, so we continue learning how to be more and more awake in this awesome dream called life.
Lama Somananda Tantrapa is the 27th lineage holder of Qi Dao, also known as Tibetan Shamanic Qigong. He has been practicing Qigong, Dream Yoga, Meditation, and Internal Martial Arts for over thirty five years, primarily trained by his Grandfather who was the paragon of the Russian Martial Arts and Qi Dao Grand Master. His background is complex enough to include serving in the Soviet Army’s Special Forces, being kidnapped in the Ukraine and surviving several near-death experiences. Lama Tantrapa was ordained as a Buddhist monk in three different orders and initiated into Subud spiritual brotherhood. In addition to being a Tibetan Bon Lama, he studied with a number of Qigong and kung-fu masters, great teachers of Yoga and meditation, as well as Native American, Hawaiian and Siberian Shamans. He is also trained in Cultural Anthropology, Meta-coaching, Hypnosis and NLP. When living for two years on a small tropical island in the Pacific, 7000 miles away from the majority of his students and clients, he pioneered a novel method of conducting Qi Dao sessions over the Internet called Qigong Coaching. In the last decade, he has provided wellness, peak performance and life coaching to thousands of people of all ages and from various walks of life. He is also a bestselling author of several Qi Dao books, executive producer of the film Qi Dao – Tibetan Shamanic Qigong, creator of CD albums Qi Dao Initiation and The Art of Being in the Flow, publisher of the Basic Qi Dao Home Study Course and other multimedia learning materials available at www. qidao.org. In addition to being the publisher of Mastery Journal, Lama Tantrapa is also the host of the Internet Radio talk show The Secrets of Qigong Masters that you can enjoy at www.blogtalkradio.com/qigongmasters.
Tai Chi and Snow Shoveling Violet Li When I rolled out of bed, looking out the window, I saw there were another three inches of fresh snow on top of the two inches of old snow, which had at least one inch of ice underneath it. The regular snow shovels are useless to deal with the situation. The snow shoveling service cannot come soon enough -- not to mention that they are expensive and couldn’t even get rid of the ice last time we called. If this is your situation, what are your options: do nothing and wait for everything to melt or shovel it yourself?
Well, take a deep breath. Do a few reps of the Tai Chi warm-up routine, especially including the shoulder rotation, waist turning, and knee circling. Practice a few simple silk reeling routines for 5 to 10 minutes. Maybe do a Wuji standing and meditate 5 to 10 minutes so your mind is calm, your body is relaxed, and your hands and feet are warm. Layer yourself well with long johns, sweats, and a coat. Put on a knit cap and a scarf if needed. Get out a garden shovel with a straight blade. Step into the snow with a pair of boots with good traction.
The left hand holds the handle while the right hand grabs the middle section of the shovel staff. Bend your knees. Sit your Kuas (Hip Joint or groin muscle). Shovel underneath the pile of ice and snow while shifting your weight from the left side to the right. Slightly turn your body and shift your weight to the left, then sink your Qi while the shovel is still underneath the pile. As you lift the shovel up with snow and ice on it, let the internal energy (or Qi) raise from the feet, transport through the legs, hips, waist, back, shoulders, arms, and each of your hands. Throw the snow up. Make sure you shift your weight from left to right. Use your waist/core to turn your body to the right side. With these combined motions synchronized, the snow will be thrown sideway. Sometimes the snow and ice can stick to the shovel. To get rid of them, twist your wrists at the very end of the throwing motion. That is when your Qi reaches the extremity. This will cause a jerking motion which forces the snow and ice out. The entire lifting movement is very similar to “Cannons in a Series” (Quan Pao Chui) in
Chen Style Lao Jia (Old Frame) Er Lu (Second Routine). Remember to alternate the process on the other side to keep it even.
Chen Style lineage holder Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang was born into an impoverished family. Furthermore, his family was blacklisted during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He started to work in factories at the age of 13 to help support his family. He utilized the work as a way to train himself. It was said that he maneuvered and accumulated Qi while sawing wood. He used the Tai Chi method to step the mud to mix the clay for brickmaking. Doing this type of hard work, he built up his leg muscles.
In Tai Chi in Your Life, Dale Napier encourages people to incorporate Tai Chi fundamentals into daily life. Tai Chi definitely helps me with snow shoveling.
Bend the knees (Qu Qi), relax the hip joints (Song Kao), turn the waist (Zuan Yao), root, and move Qi. Voila! The snow is done. The shoveling went quickly; I was energized after this Tai Chi exercise. The best part was that I was neither bored nor tired.
Wait, we are not done yet. You need to warm down after the shoveling. Do the following once you get inside the house.
1. Rub your hands together for at least 30 times. Use your hands to massage your knees. Do it slowly and gently. Circle one direction first then reverse the process. 2. Stand on the left leg, pick up the right foot and bend the knee backwards and up. You can stretch out the ligament on your right knee, and hold for a few seconds. Change side. You can do this multiple times until your knees do not feel sore.
3. Take a big step with the right foot forward. Bend the right knee so it is directly above the right ankle -- make sure the right knee does not pass the right toes. Keep the left leg straight. Make sure your upper body is in an upright position. Hold for a few seconds and make sure that your left groin muscles stretched out. Then change sides. Again, you can do this multiple times so your lower back feels relaxed. You may not have sore lower back if you sit Kuas properly during the snow shoveling. 4. Change your clothes if they are wet from sweating. 5. Brew your favorite tea in your favorite teapot or pour a glass of red wine in my case. 6. Sit in front of the window and marvel at the snowdrift. 7. Say softly to yourself, “That’s my trophy for the day” and smile!!!
Violet Li, MBA is an awardwinning journalist, certified Tai Chi instructor, and certified Heart Zone Trainer. She has studied Tai Chi and Qigong with many masters and teachers, including Ming Busalaki, Jesse Tsao, Chen Zhenglei, Yang Zhenduo, Wu Wenhan, Ma Hailong, and Sun Yongtian. She has taught Tai Chi, Qigong and cardio fitness programs to different demographic groups. Her passion for these disciplines motivated her to write articles on the related events, people, theories, techniques, practices, and health benefits. Violet writes locally as the St. Louis Tai Chi Examiner and is the author of over 170 articles on Tai Chi, Qigong and Fitness for with tens of thousands of readership from more than 20 countries.
Qigong and Reality
think of it as a set of breathing exercises coupled with some form(s) of movement that is designed to improve our health.
Gary Giamboi
It is actually much more complicated than that.
Most of us want to believe we have the, or at least a correct view of Reality. For the purposes of this article, let’s assume Reality is very simple.
Let’s take a minute to examine why Qigong is associated with breathing.
The Way Things Truly Are.
Now before some of you who understand quantum physics (much better than I do) say that we have no way of knowing certain things, I say so what? No matter what the probabilities are, they are what they are regardless of whether or not we understand what they are or what they truly mean.
In my humble opinion, something has to understand The Way Things Truly Are. There is no way to get certainty from uncertainty unless the uncertainty is only uncertain to those entities that call it uncertainty.
Luckily for us, those unknowing entities are not the ones who make things happen!
Another way of looking at this is to say that quantum physics is not our Personal Reality. It may affect how our Reality works, but the rules that govern our Personal Reality are not quantum in nature.
The end result of what I have just said is that if Things can only be One Way, then what is true for Qigong must also be true for every other modality which claims to do or accomplish the same things.
Most people who are familiar with Qigong (Chi Gong)
Thousands of years ago people did not know oxygen existed. They could not see it or what it did. However, they could see and experience the act of inhaling something in and exhaling something out.
This something appeared to be intimately associated with living because when you stopped inhaling it, you died. Therefore, the ancients surmised we were inhaling energy we needed to continue living. It was called Qi (Chi).
We were seen as exhaling used or bad Qi (Fei Qi). However, this was generally not given as much importance as the Yang (Cosmic) Qi we inhale.
Later, after the existence of oxygen and its importance became accepted, the word Qi came to mean breath or air, while still meaning Cosmic and/or Life Force Energy.
Qi is seen as having two aspects: Yin and Yang. They are the two complementary poles of the same thing.
Yin is feminine, cooling, solid, condensing. Yang is masculine, warming, fluid and expanding. When energy manifests as matter, it has more Yin characteristics. When energy manifests as heat, it has more Yang characteristics.
Gong is translated as skill. Therefore, Qigong is Energy Skill.
Since the Universe is always working to balance its Qi, and the highest goal of humanity is seen as harmonizing with Nature, the less impact your energy has upon the Universe, the higher your level of Qigong.
This ideal becomes complicated when we may have the choice to try to correct imbalances in the Universe’s harmony created by other people’s imbalances.
However, the purpose of this article is not to discuss the moral or ethical implications of Qigong. It is only to discuss its basis in Reality.
Qigong employs various Physical, Mental and Spiritual means to balance our Qi or Internal Energy. Physical movement, breathing, mental manipulation, spiritual purification and/or any combination of these four actions are employed in most forms of Qigong.
These four actions can be grouped into two classifications: Active Exercise and Inner Health Cultivation.
Active Exercise is best described as a Mind-Body Exercise. This means that aspects of every action are consciously controlled. In order to do this, you must consciously determine and constantly adjust your posture, your breathing, your thoughts, your emotions and your actions.
By the way, I cannot fathom performing any action that is not a Mind-Body Action. Our lives in this Reality are short enough without giving up any of our finite number of moments which are based in this Reality to live in some other reality based in a different space and/or time frame invented by our minds.
Sometimes we call this living in a different time or space Day Dreaming. However, any time we put our consciousness anywhere except in our here and now, we are not living our present moment in Reality.
Did you notice that I did not just say …we are not living in our Reality.
This is because I believe it is literally almost Impossible not to live in Your Own Personal Reality. However, where should we draw the line between what is an acceptable amount of deviation between The Way Things Truly Are and the way we perceive things to be?
Almost everyone believes there should be as little deviation as possible. Yet most people get around this by refusing to acknowledge how much they color The Way Things Truly Are just to suit their own personal agendas.
This brings us to the second grouping of Qigong exercises: Inner Cultivation.
Inner Cultivation can be described as regulating and purifying your Heart, which governs your Consciousness, Thinking and Spirit.
The more you can purify your Heart, the less you will color Reality.
Active Exercise gives us the strength of body and mind to accomplish the more difficult tasks of Inner Cultivation.
In Yoga, the equivalent of Qigong is some combination of Asana and Pranayama. However, in the eight limbed (or steps of) Raja Yoga the first two limbs are the Yamas and Niyamas or, loosely translated, Restraints and
Observances. Which means Yoga starts with the process of purifying one’s Heart.
Like Qigong, Pranayama is also an energy skill and can be translated from the Sanskrit as “Energy Restraint.” Like Qi, Prana also means “Energy, Breath or Life Force.
Asana or the stretching poses which most people often associate with Hatha Yoga is the third limb of Raja Yoga. Pranayama is the fourth limb of the eight limbs of Raja Yoga.
As in Qigong, the physical practice of Yoga normally precedes the energy practice. This rule is followed to make sure that:
1) There is enough energy in your internal system to accomplish what needs to be done without taking energy from the more mundane life processes. 2) The energy system is prepared to handle the additional demands placed on it by the new practices. 3) The Will Power is strong enough to regulate the stronger flow of the additional energy. 4) The Will Power is strong enough not to let our emotions and desires run wild due to the increase in energy, especially sexual energy.
Therefore, Qigong and Pranayama must work the same way regardless of how they describe their own processes. The principles upon which they are both based must be the same.
And the bottom line is: They do!
They have the same goal: to balance the opposite polarities in our Internal Energy system, to come to Balance and Harmony.
One of the confusing points one will notice when trying to compare the two systems is that the Chinese describe energy using only two terms: Yin and Yang. Whereas the Yogis describe energy as has having three Gunas or qualities: Rajas, Tamas and Sattva.
The confusion, in my opinion, is not warranted. All one has to realize is that Tamas corresponds to Yin. It is cooling and more stationary. Rajas corresponds to Yang and is warming and more fluid. Sattva is the Sanskrit name for the state of balance between the two opposites. The Chinese do not make this condition called Sattva or energy balance between Yin and Yang a third unique property or characteristic of energy.
For example, the Yogis’ view of our energetic body has three nadiis or meridians running up the center of our back: the Ida, the Pingala and the Sushumna.
Now let’s get back to Reality.
Since I do not think Reality changes when one crosses the Himalayas, Things must be the Same Way in both China and India. Indeed, they must be the same everywhere, but let’s stick with these two ancient and seemingly different cultures and modalities.
The Ida is our Moon channel and is cooling or Yin. The Pingala is our Sun channel and is warming and Yang. The Sushumna is the channel where only pure balanced energy flows. It is neither warming nor cooling. Therefore, this energy does not change what it comes into contact with. However, it can be changed by what comes into contact with it.
The goal of balancing our Internal Energy can be reduced to balancing the forces of contraction and expansion which are always at work in our Body, Mind and Spirit.
When we are neither expanding nor contracting Physically, Mentally or Spiritually, we are in harmony with our surroundings. We will have no effect on it.
When we are expanding or warming, our surroundings must contract and withdraw from the new space we are occupying and/or it must cool down to offset our warming up. It must also give up whatever we are absorbing in order for us to expand.
Of course, if we are expanding without absorbing anything, we will weaken ourselves by lowering our internal pressure and temperature, or we will weaken ourselves by using too much Internal Energy just to keep our Internal Pressure and temperature constant and/or high enough to sustain our expansion.
Both of these conditions will necessitate using more energy to keep our internal pressure and temperature high enough to sustain our expansion.
Both of these conditions are deleterious to our health and well being.
If we are contracting or cooling, our surrounding must expand to fill up the void we are creating or heat up to counteract our cooling. Likewise, our surroundings must absorb anything we maybe be giving off as we contract.
If we do not give up anything as we contract, our internal pressure will rise and this can cause damage from within. If our internal pressure rises, this in turn will cause our internal temperature to rise also. These
two effects will work to counteract our contraction and cooling.
If we are determined to contract or cool down in spite of our rising internal pressure and temperature, we must apply more and more energy and/or force to continue to do so.
As you can see, both of these possible scenarios have a high probability of being damaging to our reserve of Internal Energy.
Qigong is meant to help us keep these forces in Balance. So is Yoga.
For the rest of this article, I will focus on the part of Qigong which is concerned with Active Exercise.
For example, most of us associate Yoga with stretching. However, not even most would-be yogis realize that in order to safely stretch one part of their body, another part must contract. Forcing one part of your body to expand more that its opposite part can contract is a prescription for injury.
Even if no injury results from stretching in this manner, you will still be subjecting yourself to an imbalanced energy flow for at least the duration that you hold the stretch or asana.
The proper and safe way to stretch is to balance both sides of your body. When doing a forward bend, the proper way to expand forward and down is to pull yourself down using your abdominal muscles and hip flexors while letting the back naturally expand upwards.
Contracting your abdominal muscles can make your back expand if you project the energy you received from contracting your abdominal muscles into your back via your Ming Men, which is the area directly behind your naval center. The Ming Men area corresponds to the Manipuri or Third Chakra.
Another example of these Universal Principles at work can be seen in something as seemingly unrelated to Qigong and Yoga as Weight Lifting.
We have all at least seen weight lifters using external supports to help them lift heavier weights than they can lift without the supports. These supports can be a weight lifting belt, a bench, wrist straps, etc.
If these weight lifters try to move the same amount of weight in any context other than these or similarly supported ones, they may have a real problem.
They have made certain parts of themselves capable of producing more expansion or absorption, whichever is the lifting part of the action, than they can safely project or absorb into the other parts of their structure. Therefore, if they try to lift a heavy piece of furniture or push a heavy truck without the structural supports they are use to, their now unsupported parts may fail due to the unaccustomed stresses.
Let’s move further a field and look at tennis elbow. This occurs when a tennis player is able to project more force into the tennis racket than his elbow can absorb back. This may sound silly, but you can’t get tennis elbow by just by swinging the racket in the air even if you use the same amount of force used in a game.
You can only get it when you hit the ball. This is because the act of projecting force into the ball also sends an equal amount of force back into the racket and you.
Have you noticed that no one gets tennis fingers, tennis hand or tennis wrist. They get tennis elbow. It is no coincidence that the fingers, hand and wrist all line up with the racket and the direction of the returning force. It is at the elbow where the force must make a 90° turn up the arm that the problem occurs. This is because the tendons at the elbow must stabilize the elbow from a 90° shear force.
Tennis elbow is a classic case of developing a problem because we can project more force than we can absorb.
For me, the truest test of a modality and its principles is its Universality. Qigong’s concept of Harmonizing Yin and Yang is truly Universal. Everything we may need to be or do can be accomplished using this Principle.
Gary Giamboi founded The Institute of Asian Arts in 1994 in order to continue the tradition of discovering, nurturing and passing on the wisdom of the ancients. He began his Eastern journey in 1969 and has had the unbelievable good fortune to have become a disciple and personal student of four World Class Masters He has achieved the Rank of Master Level Instructor in Qigong, Taijiquan, Ninpo, Jujutsu, Asayama Ichiden Ryu, Kenjutsu and Yoga in world recognized organizations. He is also certified as a Personal Trainer, as a Pilates instructor, in Ohashiatsu, in Thai Yoga and has several other lower rank Black Belts in various martial arts. He specializes in finding the common thread of Truth in All of these Arts, because at the end of the day “Things Can Only Work One Way.� Even though they use different systems of Internal Energy, Yoga works in China and Acupuncture works in India. Each contains a piece of The Truth or The Way Things Are. It is up to each of us to find as much of That Truth, That Way and live by it as closely as possible. Gary has taught and demonstrated Martial Arts, Qigong, Yoga and Fitness Training in the USA, Japan, China, Canada, UK, Belgium, Germany, and Ireland. He has several articles published a total of over 64 times on various web sites and blogs, produced 2 DVDs on Qigong, 1 on Taijiquan, 2 on Yoga, 1 on Balance and a Point by Point Relaxation CD. He also has two books nearing publication and several new DVDs coming soon. His web sites are www.Genbukan.biz and the new WWwww.Secrets-of-Yoga-Qigong.com
THE GREATEST EPIDEMIC KNOWN TO HUMANITY: PART 1 Paul Levy
In the book Columbus and other Cannibals, indigenous author Jack D. Forbes lucidly explores a psychological disease that has been informing human self-destructive behavior that Native American people have known about for years. After reading his book, it was clear to me that he was describing the same psycho-spiritual disease of the soul that I wrote about in my book, The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis. I introduce the idea that from the dawn of human history our species has fallen prey to a collective psychosis, which I call malignant egophrenia. Speaking about this very same psychic epidemic, Forbes writes, “For several thousands of years human beings have suffered from a plague, a disease worse than leprosy, a sickness worse than malaria, a malady much more terrible than smallpox.” Indigenous people have been tracking the same psychic virus that I call malignant egophrenia for many centuries and calling it “wetiko,” a Cree term referring to a wicked person or spirit terrorizing others. Professor Forbes, who was one of the founders of the Native American movement during the early sixties, says, “Tragically, the history of the world for the past 2,000 years is, in great part, the story of the epidemiology of the wetiko disease.” Wetiko/malignant egophrenia is a psychosis in the true sense of the word as being a “sickness of the soul or spirit.” Though calling it by different names, Forbes and I are both pointing at the same illness of the psyche, soul and spirit that has been at the root of humanity’s inhumanity.
As if performing a magic ritual, in exploring wetiko, we first have to invoke its spirit and enter into a relationship with it. We must contemplate and engage wetiko as objectively as we are able, as if it exists outside of ourselves, lest we get too mixed up with the object of our contemplation. Due to its unique psychic origin, the epidemiology of wetiko is different than any other disease. An intrinsic challenge to our investigation of wetiko is that it is incarnating in the very psyche that is the means of our investigation. Aware of this conundrum, Forbes explains that he is attempting to examine the disease, “from a perspective as free as possible from assumptions created by the very disease being studied.” If we are not aware of the frame of reference through which we are examining wetiko, our investigation will be tainted by the disease, obscuring the clear vision needed to start the healing process. Studying how wetiko disease manifests in others, as well as takes over a certain part of our consciousness, will help us to see it more objectively. Seeing this psychological malady manifesting in the world is the looking glass, through which we can potentially recognize this illness arising within our own minds.
After evoking wetiko, in order to study it as objectively as possible, we have to hermetically seal it within an alchemical container. This ensures that its mercurial spirit doesn’t seep back into the invisibility of the unconscious, where it would act itself out through us. Jung continually emphasized the importance of developing a container or vessel, in which to catch troublesome spirits like wetiko. He writes, “Therefore, if anything is wrong, take it out of its place and put it in the vessel that is between your neighbor and yourself… For love of mankind, create a vessel, into which you can catch all that damned poison. For it must be somewhere – it is always somewhere – and not to catch it, to say it doesn’t exist, gives the best chance to any germ.” Wetiko is an elusive spirit that is tough to pin down. At the same time, it is critical that we attempt to delineate its properties. Unlike a physical virus, wetiko cannot be isolated materially, but its characteristic signature can be detected and seen in the peculiar operations of a psyche that is under its spell. Failing to recognize the existence of this malady – saying it doesn’t exist – allows this psychic infection to act unrestrained. Being always somewhere is to be nonlocal, which means that it is always around, even
potentially, or especially, within us. In calling forth the spirit of wetiko, we create the container, in which we can study this disease, so as to understand what in fact we are dealing with, see how it operates out in the world, in others, and within ourselves. In order to come full circle in our contemplative exercise/exorcise, we have to turn our contemplation inwardly. As if in a dream, where the inner field appears to be without, we can recognize that wetiko that we have been tracking out there, outside of ourselves, is a reflection related to the same process within ourselves. Encoded in the symptomology of wetiko is a revelation, something that is most important for us to know.
A DISEASE OF CIVILIZATION
Wetiko/malignant egophrenia is a disease of civilization, or lack thereof. To quote Forbes, “To a considerable degree, the development of the wetiko disease corresponds to the rise of what Europeans choose to call civilization. This is no mere coincidence.” The unsustainable nature of industrial civilization is based on, and increasingly requires violence to maintain itself. Genuine civilization, in essence, means not killing people. Referring to the lack of civility in modern society, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, Gandhi is known to respond by saying, “I think it would be a good idea.” It makes sense that native people would know about malignant egophrenia, as they were both oppressed by modern civilization although weren’t, at least initially, under its curse. Being under the sway of modern civilization can feel like something foreign to our nature is being imposed upon us, as if we are living under occupation. Modern civilization suffers from the one-sided dominance of the rational, intellectual mind, a one-sidedness that seemingly disconnects us from nature, from empathy, and from ourselves. Due to its disassociation from the whole, wetiko is a disturber of the peace of humanity and the natural world, a sickness spawning aggression and inciting violence toward living beings. Wetiko promotes humanity’s inhumanity. This psychic virus informs and feeds the madness of so-called civilization stirring up madness within each and every one of us.
Forbes continues, “this disease, this wetiko (cannibal) psychosis, is the greatest epidemic sickness known to man.” We, as a species, are in the midst of a massive psychic epidemic, a virulent collective psychosis that has been brewing in the cauldron of humanity’s psyche from the dawn of human history. Like a fractal, wetiko operates on multiple dimensions simultaneously – intra-personally (within individuals), inter-personally (between ourselves), as well as collectively (as a species). “Cannibalism,” in Forbes words, “is consuming another’s life for one’s own private purpose or profit.” Those afflicted with wetiko, like a cannibal, consume the life force of others – humans and nonhumans – for private purpose or profit, and do so without giving anything back. One example that symbolizes our self-destructive, collective madness is the oil companies’ destruction of the Amazonian rainforest, the lungs of our planet. This is literally a full-fledged revelation showing us what we are doing to ourselves. Another example symbolically illustrating wetiko in action is Monsanto genetically engineering terminator seeds that do not reproduce a second generation, thus forcing farmers to buy new seeds from Monsanto for each year’s new crop. This makes survival for many poor farmers impossible, which has triggered a wave of suicides among farmers, as Monsanto grows richer in the process.
“The overriding characteristic of wetiko is that it consumes other human beings, that is, he is a predator and a cannibal;” as Forbes puts it, “This is the central essence of the disease.” Those infected by wetiko turn into predators out of touch with their own humanity, unable to see humanity in others. Instead, they relate to others either as potential prey or as a threat to their dominance. As if a different breed of people that is more like a predatory animal than a human being, someone fully taken over by the wetiko psychosis consumes others lives, physically, emotionally, psychically and metaphysically, beyond just the material body and physical possessions to the level of meaning itself. Wetikos are the anti-artists of our culture, embodying the opposite of what creative artists do. Unlike an artist, who creates life-enhancing meaning and enriches the world without robbing others, a wetiko takes and consumes without giving anything back, continually draining and impoverishing the planet of resources.
We are currently in the midst of the greatest epidemic
sickness known to man. Many of us don’t even realize this, as our collective insanity is so pervasive that it has become the norm. Our collective madness has become our filter of perception, as we see and interpret the world through it, rendering our madness invisible, thereby unwittingly colluding with the collective psychosis that is wreaking incredible death and destruction on our planet. Being transparent, our madness is not apparent, i.e., not visible. Our collective psychosis is invisible to us, as it expresses itself both in the very way we are looking, as well as in the ways we have been conditioned not to perceive. Due to such a cloak of invisibility, we don’t see our madness, a psychic blindness which makes us complicit in the creation of our madness.
Many of us can’t fathom the level of evil, to which fullblown wetikos have fallen prey, and which they are capable of. Our lack of imagination of the evil existing in potential in humanity is a direct reflection of a lack of intimacy with our own potential evil, which enables the malevolence of wetiko to have nearly free rein in our world. In our psychic blindness we are complicit in the spreading of the wetiko psychosis, whose depth is beyond the capacity of words to fully describe. Evil paralyzes the ability to language our experience, creating a seemingly unbridgeable gap between language and the event it is supposed to describe. Rendered speachless, we create a new language that is universal and transcends itself, a language known as art.
itself throughout the field, it must let the host live long enough to spread the virus. If the host dies too soon, the bug would be prematurely evicted and would suffer the inconvenience of having to find a new residence.
Like a cancer of the mind that metastasizes, in wetiko disease, a pathological part of the psyche co-opts and subsumes all of the healthy parts of the psyche so as to serve the pathology. The personality then selforganizes an outer display of coherence around this pathogenic core, which masks the inner dysfunction, making it hard to recognize. In a psychic coup d’etat, the wetiko infection can usurp and displace the person, who becomes its puppet and marionette. Like a parasite, the wetiko virus can take over the will of being more evolved than itself, getting it enlisted into serving its nefarious agenda. Once the parasite becomes sufficiently entrenched within the psyche, the prime directive coordinating a person’s behavior comes from the disease, as it is now the one calling the shots. Just as someone infected with the rabies virus will resist drinking water, which would flush out the infection, someone taken over by wetiko will not do anything that might help them get rid of the disease. Wetikos are phobic towards the light of truth, which they avoid like the plague. In advanced stages, this process takes over the person so completely that we could rightfully say the person is no longer there; they are just an empty shell carrying the disease. In a sense, there is just the disease, operating through what appears to be a human being. The person becomes fully identified with their mask, their persona, as if there is no one behind the mask.
A PARASITE OF A DIFFERENT ORDER ALIEN INTRUSION When people are infected by wetiko, Forbes writes, they are “the host for the wetiko parasites.” The wetiko germ is a psychic tapeworm, a virus of the mind. Just like certain computer viruses or malware infect and program a computer to self-destruct, mind-viruses like wetiko can program the human bio-computer to think, believe and behave in ways resulting in our self-destruction. Wetiko is a virulent, psychic pathogen that insinuates thoughtforms into our mind that, when unconsciously enacted, feed off of and ultimately kill its host (us). It doesn’t want to kill us too quickly, however, for to successfully implement its agenda of reproducing and propagating
Speaking in his own language about the predation of the wetiko virus, the spiritual teacher Don Juan, the hero of Carlos Castaneda’s books, mentions that the ancient shamans called this “the topic of topics.” Don Juan explains, “We have a companion for life… We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master.” This sounds just like the state of affairs being pointed at in the Bible when, for example, The Gospel of John refers
to the devil as “the ruler of this world” (14:30; 16:11), and Paul speaks of Satan as “the god of this world” (Cor. 4:4). The Gnostic Gospel of Phillip, talking about the root of evil that lies within all of us, makes the similar point that unless this evil is recognized, “It masters us. We are its slaves. It takes us captive.” (II, 3, 83.5-30) Speaking about the predator, Don Juan continues, “It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don’t do so.” It is striking how Don Juan’s description of the effects of these predators is being enacted in our increasingly militarized society, as our freedoms and liberties get taken away step by step. It is as if an inner, invisible state of affairs existing as a yet unrealized archetypal pattern deep within the soul of humanity is revealing itself through the outside world.
To quote Don Juan, “Indeed we are held prisoner! This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico.” Don Juan is referring to an energetic fact that I imagine most of us can relate to; i.e., there is something within us that stops us from expressing our true creative genius and attaining our full potential. These predators are “time bandits,” robbing us of the precious hours of our lives, as if we are wage-slaves on a prison-planet “doing time.” Deepening his description of these predators, Don Juan elaborates, “They took over because we are food for them…we are their sustenance. Just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, gallineros, the predators rear us in human coops, humaneros.” The wetiko virus particularly flourishes in overpopulated cities, where people are “coop-ed up.” When we buy into group-think and are indoctrinated into the herd mentality, we become like sheep that are being led over the edge of a cliff, or cattle that are being raised to be slaughtered.
Don Juan continues, “The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind.” It is as if these predators are in competition with us for a share of our own mind. The predator shape-shifts and assumes our form, and if we are unaware of its masquerade, we will identify with its invasive thought-forms as if they are our own, and act them out. We will mistakenly believe that we are acting on our own impulses, with our best interests in mind. This predator, Don Juan continues, “fears that any moment its maneuver is going to be uncovered and food is going to be denied.” The wetiko predator has an inner necessity,
a brute compulsion born out of terror, as it continually has to feed itself so as to postpone its ever-approaching death. Don Juan continues, “Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them [the predators].” Cloaking itself in our form, this predator gets under our skin and “puts us on” as a disguise, fooling us to buy into its false version of who we are. (This is why the shortened name of Malignant Egophrenia is ME disease, referring to a distortion of our identity). Instead of being in our power and serving ourselves, we unwittingly (literally being out of our wits) become the servant of the predator. Instead of being a sovereign being who is creating with our own thoughts, we will then be created by them, as the predator literally thinks in our stead.
Speaking of the predator’s scheme, Don Juan says, “it proposes something, it agrees with its own proposition, and it makes you believe that you’ve done something of worth.” It is as if there is an alien other, a metaphysical entity which is subliminally intruding its mind into ours in such a way that we identify with its point of view and forget about our own. Don Juan refers to this situation as a “foreign installation,” as if some alien race has set up a space station inside of our minds. This is exactly what the Gnostics – the ones who know – are pointing at, when they talk about alien predators called “Archons” infiltrating and subverting the workings of our mind. To the extent that we are not conscious of this alien take over of our psyche, we become drafted into the predator’s sinister agenda, unwittingly becoming its slaves. This state of psychological warfare within is mirrored by the sinister psy ops (psychological operations) being instituted by the powers-that-be in the outside world.
VAMPIRES
Forbes writes, “The wetiko psychosis is a sickness of the spirit that takes people down an ugly path with no heart… After all, the wetiko disease turns such people into werewolves and vampires, creatures of the European nightmare world, and creatures of wetiko’s reality.” Werewolves and vampires are shape-shifting creatures, symbolic representations of the horrific potential within all of us to be taken over by and act out the archetypal
shadow, regressing to an archaic level of the psyche and become like a predatory animal, an inhuman creature. When these psychic energies break through into consciousness without being mediated through consciousness, Jung writes, “they sweep everything before them like a torrent and turn men into creatures, for whom the word ‘beast’ is still too good a name.”
Vampires, considered to be the darkest creature of evil’s arsenal, have haunted our imagination for ages, as they are representatives of a living process that exists deep within the human psyche. A vampire is not a human figure, but rather a being, who has lost its soul. Or if it hasn’t lost its soul, its soul has been damned, which is a soul that is lost. Either way, there’s something missing. Isolated from the world, it has lost any connection with the part of itself that is related to everything else; from its point of view, the world exists simply for its use. Although it has lost connection with its heart and soul, a vampire hasn’t totally lost its mind (although the original mind is gone), as vampires often have clever and incisive intellects that cloak their pathology, making their disease hard to see. This is similar to how a crazy person may have a brilliant mind as well, a genius that can hide the extent of the illness, making the malady hard to recognize. The sharpness of vampire’s mind, instead of being devoted to gaining insight into their malady and healing from it, however, is used for the propagation of the virus.
As in the case of a vampire, in which death takes living human’s form, wetiko is ultimately not a living organism, but rather, a living manifestation of death. Wetiko, like a virus, is dead matter; it is only in a living creature that the virus acquires a quasi life. Members of the living dead, vampires are neither truly alive, nor truly dead. Like vampires, full-fledged wetikos have forfeited their humanity, becoming conduits for the impersonal and depersonalizing wetiko virus to incarnate through them. They are living portals, openings in the third-dimensional fabric of time/space, through which this contagious, higherdimensional virus can spread itself in this plane, both locally and non-locally.
Lacking a sense of soul, wetikos are efficient machines, dedicated to preserving and serving the state, which, to quote Forbes, “is itself a creature of the wetikos who have seized control of its power apparatus.” A full-fledged wetiko has become a robotic automaton, conditioned to react to certain stimuli like a reflex. They have become part of the machine, with neither spontaneity, creativity, originality, nor free thinking programmed in. Dehumanized, wetikos have lost touch with any sense of aesthetics, of appreciating the inherent beauty of life, and have become an-aesthetic, i.e., anesthetized and numb to what it is to be a human being. The emissary of an authoritarian, militarized, patriarchal culture, the wetiko disease breeds fascism, and terror. To quote the great healer Wilhelm Reich, “Fascism is the vampire leeched to the body of the living, the impulse to murder given free rein.” Fascism is the outer, collective political expression of an individual’s ravaged inner landscape that has been crippled and suppressed by the authoritarian civilization.
Like in a vampire, in full-blown wetikos, there is nobody home, which is one of the reasons why, symbolically speaking, vampires have no reflection in a mirror (which, mythologically speaking, is supposed to reflect back the image of the soul). Full-blown wetikos are empty to the core, so there is nothing to reflect. Inwardly there is just a void, a devouring black hole that is feeding on the universe. Their atrophied soul has been emptied out like a piece of wood hollowed out by psychic termites. Full-blown wetikos are so compulsively possessed by the consciousnessnegating form of the unconscious, that they have lost the ability to self-reflect, which philosopher Hannah Arendt claims is one of the primary characteristics of evil. Unable to self-reflect, they can no longer access within themselves the faculty of the psyche the negativity derives from. One of the reasons we can’t see vampire’s reflection in a mirror, however, is because our own inner, unconscious vampire obscures the reflection, which is to say that the unacknowledged specter of our own shadow gets in the way.
A vampire is also supposed to cast no shadow, as it cannot stand sunlight. Not being a living being, a vampire has no substance. Only a thing of substantial existence can cast a shadow. Vampires can’t cast a shadow, however, because they are the living embodiment of and identical with the archetypal shadow. A shadow casts no shadow of itself, as the shadow itself has no substance. There are benefits that accrue to the vampire because of its ability to not cast a shadow – it is then easier for the vampire to hide its true identity, move in the hidden shadows, become invisible, and be able to prey on people. Not casting a shadow, the vampire, a shape-shifter who is a master of camouflage and disguise, is able to easily seduce and entice the unaware, entrapping them using their mental shadows and blind spots. This is to say that disowning of our shadows can lead to vampirism. The vampire archetype gets activated within us when we turn our backs on our own darkness, rendering our shadow invisible to ourselves. We can’t see vampires because we have chosen not to see those aspects of ourselves that are most like the vampire.
In addition to the weak and defenseless, vampires seek out people who are on the verge of a quantum, evolutionary leap in consciousness, but have not yet fully integrated their realizations. These individuals are in an energetically sensitive and charged condition, and their openness and vulnerability invites the vampiric entities to help themselves and gorge on the light of their expanding awareness. The strategy of these predators is to distract us so as to keep our attention directed outwards, thereby stopping us from finding the light within ourselves, which would kill the vampires. If we hold up a mirror and reflect back the insanity being exhibited by those stricken by the wetiko psychosis, we run the very real risk of being accused of being the ones who are crazy. If we do manage to connect with the light within ourselves and try to share it with others, these nonlocal vampiric entities (what I have in previous articles called “nonlocal demons,” or NLD), not bound by the third-dimensional laws of space and time, will try, via their connections to the nonlocal field, to stop us by influencing other people to turn against us. This process can destroy us, or, if we have the meta-awareness to see what is happening
and are able to skillfully navigate our way through, can serve to further strengthen our connection with the light of lucidity, hone our skill of creatively transmitting our realizations, and cultivate more open-hearted compassion. It is as if these psychic, nonlocal vampires are guardians of the threshold of evolution.
Just like vampires, full-blown wetikos have a thirst for the very thing they lack – the mystical essence of life – i.e., the blood of our soul. In consuming other human beings, wetiko disease is a psychic eating disorder, in which the stricken psyche consumes other psyches and, ultimately, itself. Wetiko is thus a soul-eating disease. Savaged by the ferocity of their unending hunger, full-blown wetikos have become possessed by an insatiable craving that can never be filled. This vampiric feeding is an unholy parody on the self-renewal of life. This perverse inner process is manifested collectively by the consumer society that we live in, a culture that continually fans the flames of never-ending desires, conditioning us to always want more. As if starving, we are in an endless feeding frenzy, trying to fill a bottomless void. This process of rabid, obsessive-compulsive consumption is a reflection of a shared inner sense of spiritual starvation. The entity of the global economic system itself is a symbol of out-of-control wetiko disease doing its business.
Viruses like wetiko are all about copying themselves. A virus can’t just replicate itself, however, it has to use some other vehicle as its means of reproducing itself. They need us to be their birthing chamber. To the extent we are not aware of their ploy, these higher-dimensional spirit parasites put us on, wearing us like their third-dimensional space suits. These psychic vampires are compelled to replicate themselves through us so that we can then pass on and transmit the infection to others. This process is analogous to when someone is infected with the rabies virus. In advanced stages of the disease, a rabid animal will be taken over by the irresistible urge to bite other creatures so as to pass on the virus. People taken over by the rabies virus are a living, frothing symbol of what the wetiko virus does in its full-blown virulent stage.
In a vampiric lineage, the wetiko virus’s self-propagation is accomplished through the medium of the family system, as the legacy of abuse (be it physical, sexual, political, emotional, psychological, or spiritual) gets passed down, both individually and collectively, and transmitted over generations. It is through the traumatic shattering of our wholeness that wetiko passes its distorted code into the body-mind of another generation. As if under a curse, our species has been suffering from an inherited, collective form of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Remaking their victims in their own image, the wetikos’ victims join the legion of the damned, themselves becoming holders of an unholy lineage. This curse will continue until we intervene in the spreading of this vampiric mindparasite, and the chain of never-ending abuse is broken.
HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS
Speaking about wetikos, Forbes says, “they are insane in the true sense of the word. They are mentally ill and tragically, the form of soul-sickness that they carry is catching.” Wetiko psychosis is highly contagious, spreading through the channel of our shared unconsciousness. Its vectors of infection and propagation do not travel like a physical pathogen. This fluidly moving epidemic reinforces, feeds off of and into each of our unconscious blind spots, which is how it non-locally propagates itself throughout the humankind. In wetiko, there is a code or logic which affects/infects awareness in an analogous way to how the DNA in a virus passes into and infects a cell. People who are channeling the vibratory frequency of wetiko align with each other through psychic resonance to reinforce their shared agreement so as to uphold their deranged view of reality. Collaboratively supporting their mutual psychosis, groups of people drawn together by the unconscious can potentially become a socio-political force to be reckoned with. When a group of people are in agreement about anything, whether it is true or not, their alignment with each other exerts a contagious, magnetic force field that attracts and sways the unaware.
People taken over by the wetiko virus usually don’t suspect a thing about how they have been conned. The wetiko culture offers no incentive for them to self-reflectively speculate upon their depraved circumstance; on the contrary, the non-local field configures itself to conspire, enable and further cultivate their psychosis. When someone is a fullblown wetiko, the field around them torques so as to protect, collude with, and feed into their psychosis in a way that entrances others around them. Once under the wetiko spell, people lose the capacity to recognize the wetiko pathology in others. In a situation of group narcissism, wetikos at different stages of the disease assume particular postures and roles relative to each other so as to protect and shield themselves from their own insanity and darkness. They feed and reinforce each others’ narcissism because it enhances their own. Speaking about the type of person who is typically susceptible to fall prey to the wetiko virus, Forbes writes that it is usually those “whose strings are pulled by others or who follow a life-path dictated by others. Thus they are ripe for the wetiko infection.” Not in touch with their inner guidance, they project authority outside of themselves and become very suggestible to the consensus opinion of the dominant pack. Losing touch with their own discernment and ability for critical thinking, the afflicted join the mindless herd, whose members co-dependently enable each other to uphold their shared version of the wetiko world. Their group consensus about the nature of reality gets increasingly harder to sustain as time passes, however, as, like a house of cards ready to collapse at any moment, their vision of the world is fundamentally illusory. Strangely enough, people under the collective enchantment of wetiko become fanatically attached to supporting an agenda that oftentimes is diametrically opposed to serving their own best interests. This is an outer reflection of the inner state of being under the sway of the self-destructive wetiko parasite.
It is as if there is an evil spirit that has taken up residence in those taken over by wetiko. They are unwittingly being used as instruments, as covert operatives of this darker spirit to proliferate itself in the wider field. Wetikos’ secret agents are not even privy to their secret mission themselves. As is true for any of us, when we are taken over by something other than ourselves, carriers of wetiko don’t know how possessed
they are. The experience of being taken over by something more powerful than themselves always happens in their psychic blind spots.
The wetiko virus influences our perceptions by stealth and subterfuge so as to hide and obfuscate itself from being seen. It implants its seeds, takes root and germinates within our minds, distracting and deviating us from our true vocation, calling or spiritual path. The alien, and alienating, effect of the wetiko virus, the very thing we need to see, is disguised by the way we think, perceive, and give meaning to our experience. When someone becomes a full, card-carrying member of the cult of wetiko, it is as if their minds have been colonized by the virus rendering them clueless about their own pathological condition. Wetikos don’t experience themselves as needing help; for them, other people are always the problem. They usually don’t mind their disease, or even recognize it, because it is all they know, and their leaders and the society they live in enable them to remain clueless. They have neither recognition of their disorder nor do they realize how sick they are.
Forbes writes, “One of the major traits characterizing the truly evil and extreme form of wetiko is arrogance.” Wetikos are arrogantly puffed up with their own self-importance, i.e., inflated. Instruments for evil, wetikos are arrogantly, ignorantly and self-righteously convinced they are in possession of the truth and working for the highest good. It is as if they are unable to know that what they are doing is evil, unable to register their actions as anything other than good. Forbes concludes, “In any case, the wetiko disease, the sickness of exploitation, has been spreading as a contagion for the past several thousand years. And as a contagion unchecked by most vaccines, it tends to become worse rather than better with time. More and more people catch it, in more and more places, and they become the true teachers of the young.” Wetiko culture gets taught both at home and in the academia, where people become certified in the ways of its world, and are thus accredited and empowered to spread its corrupting ways on ever grander scales.
Speaking about the rapidly spreading wetiko contagion, Forbes writes, “It is spread by the wetikos themselves as they recruit or corrupt others. It is spread today by history books, television, military training programs, police training programs, comic books, pornographic magazines, films, right-wing movements, fanatics of various kinds, high-pressure missionary groups, and numerous governments.” All of the mainstream, culturally sanctioned institutions are in the business of indoctrination, telling us what to think and not think about, as well as how to think. Our mind is continually being shaped by the prevailing culture. Our civilization has become the mouthpiece for the propaganda organ of the disease, entrancing us to buy into its viewpoint as we are bled to death of what really counts most. The culture that informs wetiko illness and forms around it is itself a channel of its transmission, and if we sign on the dotted line and subscribe to its viewpoint, its life-denying culture will gradually subsume us into itself, as we become unwitting agents doing its bidding. This is how the ever-expanding, self-generating psychic empire of collective psychosis works.
Full-blown wetikos may be petty tyrants at home or at work, or may be among the impoverished and oppressed, wielding no real power in the world at large. What Forbes refers to as “Big Wetikos,” are full-blown wetikos who have climbed the ladder, jumped through the hoops, and have risen in the wetiko ranks so as to find themselves occupying positions of power where they can influence and control events in our world to game the system. The Big Wetikos, who control the levers of power, be they the super wealthy, CEO’s of corporations, bank presidents, or leaders of states, are particularly dangerous, as they define the terms of our dialogue, dominating the agreed upon historical narrative. Managing our perceptions through the propaganda engines of the mainstream, corporate media that they control, Big Wetikos in positions of power determine the parameters of our conversation and debate. Wetiko is an ideological virus whose currency is the syntax of ideas. Wetiko deviates our mental syntax, i.e., the rules of how we
form language, thereby distorting the semantics, the meaning we place on the experiences of ourselves and the world. Wetiko is a semantic disorder, as it alters the axioms through which the psyche shapes, casts and “spells” its words, thereby conjuring up our experiences. The thought forms and beliefs that express and represent the wetiko virus act as an intrinisic, built-in control system, defining the limits of what we imagine our possibilities are, as individuals, nations and as a species. Wetiko supports and perpetuates whatever prevailing myths, stories, dogmas and (un)holy books reinforce its nefarious, self-serving agenda. Books, and other forms of information that do not support wetiko’s warped version of the way things are burned (the books of the aforementioned Wilhelm Reich, for example, were actually burned by the United States Government, because by describing what he called “the emotional plague,” Reich was pointing at the evils of the wetiko virus).
We live inside of a world that, like a dream, is an interactive mirror inseparable from our own inner being. A reflection of a condition deep within ourselves, wetiko disease is an unmediated, direct manifestation of the dreamlike nature of the universe, which is the very realization that wetiko is showing us. Recognizing the dreamlike nature of our situation creates a living antibody made out of awareness itself that is custom-designed to neutralize the psychic pathogen of wetiko. This is to say that encoded within the deadly pathology of wetiko is an insight and revelation that is its own cure. Its own self-revelation, wetiko disease provides its own psychic medicine, but in order to receive its healing benefits we have to recognize and more deeply understand this miracle in psycho-spiritual health care. How amazing – the very thing that is potentially destroying us is at the same time waking us up. A potential catalyst for our evolution as a species, we are all co-creating and dreaming wetiko up together. Wetiko is a quantum phenomenon, in that it is the deadliest poison and the most healing medicine co-joined in one superposed state. Will wetiko kill us? Or will it awaken us? Everything depends on whether we recognize what it is potentially revealing to us. The prognosis for wetiko – ME disease - depends upon how we dream it.
Now that we have the diagnosis and prognosis, all we need is to discover the cure, which requires having ‘gnosis’ itself… To be continued in Part 2. A long-time practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, Paul Levy has intimately studied with some of the greatest masters from Tibet and Burma and serves as the coordinator of a Buddhist center in Portland, Oregon. Deeply steeped in and inspired by the work of C. G. Jung, he is an innovator in the field of dreaming (both night dreams as well as waking dreams). He has had innumerable articles published on consciousness, dreaming and spirituality, and has lectured about his work at various universities. Paul is also the founder of the “Awakening in the Dream Community,” a group of people who mutually help each other to wake up to the dreamlike nature of the universe. His work is the inspiration for the “Awakening in the Dream Center,” a psycho-spiritual healing center in Mexico. As visionary artist, he helps create an “Art-Happening Called Global Awakening,” a work of living art in which we, as a species, collaboratively help each other to become lucid in the dream of life. Paul has developed a unique and creative vehicle to introduce people to the dream-like nature of reality that he calls “The Dreaming Up Process,” which is based on the realization that the same dreaming mind that dreams our dreams at night is dreaming our life. He teaches this dreaming up process in “Awakening in the Dream Groups” where people who are awakening to the dream-like nature of reality come together and collaboratively help each other to wake up in the dream together. Paul is also a visionary artist and a spiritually-informed political activist. He is the author of The Madness of George Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis. Feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. Please visit Paul’s website www.awakeninthedream.com. You can contact him at paul@awakeninthedream.com
Qigong and Creativity John Munro It seems that many creative types are attracted to qigong, in fact if you are reading this there is a high probability that you are an artist, musician or engaged in some other kind of creative endeavour even if only as a part-time occupation or hobby. Conversely many people if they are not currently involved in creative or artistic pursuits find that after beginning to practice qigong they soon begin to engage in creative activities as well.
The correlation is remarkable. Personally, when I began my qigong practice I had not previously shown any particular creative talent or been involved with art in any significant way. But shortly after I began my qigong training I also began to sculpt. I did not think much about it at the time, the two were just co-incidental as far as I was concerned, but some years later when visiting my teacher at his house I was surprised to find a selection of oil paintings around his living room all at different stages of the completion. He had never mentioned painting before, but he was obviously quite skilled. When I asked him about it he told me that learning to paint had been part of the training he received from his qigong teacher, along with learning to play music as we I have since gone on to become quite well known for my sculptures, showing at a number of prestigious exhibitions (you can see a selection of my work at my sculpture website: www.johnmunrosculptor.com ). I have also thought quite a lot about the connection between qigong, art and creativity.
The Process Qigong often involves breathing practices which greatly increase the oxygenation of our blood, and sensory awareness exercises that require us to use our brains in ways that we may not have done previously. This increases the electrical activity in parts of our brain and we form new neural pathways in our bodies. As we literally form these new connections in our brains we also begin to become aware of aware of subtle relationships between our mind and body and between ourselves and our environment. This yields new insights that are often not easily explained using our everyday terminology and require metaphor to describe fully.
This process is similar to the creative one where we draw upon perceptions of our lives and the world around us in order to come up with something entirely new. We make connections that may not have been obvious previously and in so doing generate ideas that we wish to express. We often end up using metaphor, symbols and abstraction to describe ideas that we might otherwise find difficult to express clearly and fully.
Chinese Philosophy In terms of Chinese philosophy nature can be divided into two great forces: Yin and Yang. Yin is internal, feminine, creative, nurturing, chaotic, and makes connections between things. Yang is external, masculine, logical, structured, orderly, and divides things into their component parts. The qigong practices most people are familiar with are strongly yin in nature and as they practice they begin to build up this creative internal energy and sooner or later it will need to find an outlet. The more yin qigong practiced the greater the need for an outlet will become. For most people opportunities for creative outlets will come naturally as they go about their daily lives. These outlets do not need to be purely ‘artistic’ they can be things as simple as cooking or taking on new projects at work, the internal energy could also find expression in activities such as martial arts or dance.
For some of us however, our lives have become so yang – structured, logical and regimented that we may find it hard to break out of our habitual patterns and engage in creativity. These people may need to make a special effort to find creative outlets to channel the inner energy they develop from practicing qigong into. Recharge Your Qi and Your Creativity Qigong can be a great way to boost the creativity in your life. If your life is highly structured and regimented, qigong can help to reignite your creative energies bringing new insights, ideas, innovations and enjoyment. For those already involved in creative pursuits it can help to keep your energy alive, fresh and flowing. If you ever feel that your creative juices have dried up, maybe you have writers, painters, musicians or some other kind of ‘block’, try taking some time out to do some qigong. Reconnect with the environment around you, recharge your internal energy and you may be surprised at how quickly your creativity begins to flow again.
John Munro is a Qigong and kung fu teacher based in Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of ‘Qigong: Foundation Practices – Twelve Health Exercises From The Wah Family Style’ and ‘The Tiger Within: Practical Self Defense In A Modern World – How To Bring Out Your Inner Tiger When You Need It Most’. Along with his busy teaching schedule, John is also a qualified personal trainer, traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and an accomplished artist (sculpture). You can contact him through his websites at: www.developyourqi.com www.longwhitecloudkungfu.com www.johnmunrosculptor.com
Events & Announcements
OPEN HOUSE AND INTRO WORKSHOP AT ACADEMY OF QI DAO
QIGONG MEDITATION STUDY GROUP AT 50% DISCOUNT Academy of Qi Dao is offering a 50% discount through March 1 on registration for the six week long Qigong Meditation Study Group that will be starting on March 5 with a free introductory teleseminar. This program is based on the teachings of Tibetan Dream Yoga and Tibetan Shamanic Qigong meditation. As soon as you register, you will receive a Qi Dao Meditation ebook and meditation CD entitled Qi Dao Initiation presenting a unique approach to meditation found nowhere else, except the Qi Dao community. As we are working on filling this group in a very short amount of time, we are offering you a huge, unadvertised discount. The regular tuition for this program is $350, but it is currently available for half the price - $175!
This program consists of self-guided meditation practices following the tracks of the Qi Dao Initiation CD and six weekly teleseminars, during which you will be able to discuss any aspects of Qigong meditation. These seminars can be attended in person, if you live in or near Portland, Oregon. You will also receive one phone coaching session with Lama Tantrapa to fine-tune your meditation practice and ask any questions (a $200 value). At the conclusion of this program, you will receive a complimentary ticket to the meditation workshop on Sunday, April 10 (another $200 value).
Participating in this program will give you a number of important tools and skills for successful use of meditation in your daily life. You will also learn some of practices from the Intermediate and even Advanced Qi Dao programs, so this is your opportunity to boost your practice of meditation at a very accelerated rate.
Please call 503-501-8116 or email academy@qidao.org right away to enroll into this unique program for a half of the regular tuition today.
Take a proactive step to living your life as healthy and empowered as humanly possible. You can achieve that and much more by learning and practicing the Art of Being in the Flow, also known as Qi Dao style of Tibetan Shamanic Qigong. Being in the flow of your life means being in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing. You too can learn how to remove the obstacles that would not allow you to enjoy this incredible experience of being in the flow on a regular basis.
You are welcome to have fun at the Open House and attend the free introductory workshop dedicated to getting familiar with a uniquely harmonious culture of movement specific to the best Qigong masters. You will also see why embodying this culture of movement is much more essential for your wellbeing than learning any Qigong forms.
Where: 3516 NW Skyline Blvd, Portland, OR 97229 When: Sunday, March 20 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm with a potluck lunch afterwards How much: Donation, bring food for the potluck lunch following the workshop.
BASIC QI DAO CERTIFICATION PROGRAM STARTS ON APRIL 20, 2011 Basic Practitioner program offers a unique training that will help you develop greater physical and mental fitness, wellness and self-healing, as well as the first level of Qi Dao Initiation. Skills: ~ Basic body, energy and kinesthetic awareness ~ Exploration of flexibility and range of motion ~ Six Directional Movements with elbows ~ Basic Element of Earth kicks ~ Foundational principles of Qi Dao ~ Identification of Holding Patterns.
Benefits: ~ Developing a reasonable level of energy and body awareness ~ Learning the alphabet of Harmonious Culture of Movement ~ Gaining a basic knowledge of Qigong and Internal Martial Arts ~ Receiving the first Qi Dao initiation ~ Discovering the sense of being in the flow. Please contact academy@qidao.org for more information or to register. The deadline for early bird $150.00 discount has been extended through March 20, 2011.
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***PLAN NOW: SAVE THE DATE*** THIRTEENTH WORLD CONGRESS ON QIGONG/TCM IN SAN FRANCISCO APRIL 29-MAY 2, 2011 now accepting submissions - presenters, exhibitors, sponsors, volunteers
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By popular demand: The Thirteenth World Congress on Qigong/TCM will feature a full day of science and research with Dr. Shin Lin's Science Symposium Sunday morning & concurrent afternoon breakouts Feel the Qi with more experiential sessions! Read about the Twelfth World Congress: http://www.examiner.com/tai-chi-in-st-louis/the-12th-world-congress-onqigong-tcm-was-a-great-success http://www.examiner.com/tai-chi-in-st-louis/winners-of-12-th-worldcongress-on-qigong-tcm-awards Past Congress Videos: http://www.eastwestqi.com/html/qigong_congress/video/video.html EAST WEST ACADEMY OF HEALING ARTS (EWAHA) 117 Topaz Way, San Francisco, CA 94131 eastwestqi@aol.com/eastwestqi.com