Welcome!

I do well, thanks for the warm welcomes all:)

I've run out of things to say. Been busy with projects, chores, holiday planning, and other mundane things. What about you (all)?

OK, I'm up, I'm UP!

I've been busy, too. Even though my Fall term for grad school finished up a couple weeks ago, I'm finding it really easy to keep TCB'ing (taking care of business).

Lately I've been working to simplify and declutter my lifestyle and environment. It's sort of amazing how much environmental clutter and disorganization can have an effect on my state of mind. I find that I am much more calm, happy, and efficient when my surroundings are likewise.

Practice has been wonderful. Mostly just sitting and letting go. Very little effort. Not interested in jhanas, ñanas, or mind-blips. Not worried about discomfort really, either. Very much enjoying not looking for anything or trying to have some kind of special experience. Paradoxically, though, the less I try to enjoy myself, the more enjoyable I find my life to be. The less I seek, the more I find.

I've been reading Trungpa, Watts, the Tao Te Ching, and some of the famous, old, dead Zen guys. It all fits my mood quite nicely.

What's everyone else up to?

@jackson - fascinating how practice shifts and changes. This week has been a bit like that for me, too - just a kind of endless ordinary. I just don't have anything much to say about it. I've been feeling much more interested in projects I'm working on, which range from extricating myself from a contract that wasn't working out to starting new writing projects to finishing illustrations for a book to developing the little meditation excuses generator website. And Christmas shopping.

What is continually interesting [because it is always changing] is how perception works. Lately I am totally averse to big deals, to drama, to high contrast, to regimes, goals: 'winning' and 'losing' seem equally incomprehensible.

This phase will be succeeded by others, no doubt. Just as this one is a kind of state-equivalent of a short, cold, gray winter day-- spring or summer phases will be of a different character. But all of that, just like the hard, fat buds studding the bare Lilac twigs, or the juicy roots left buried under the fallen foliage of the Aralia-- exist as a rumor or story of what will be, not the reality of now.

I think maybe I'm part bear or badger-- or fairly new to a human incarnation-- because this time of year always makes me feel that if I could do whatever I wanted, I would hibernate. I wouldn't go out much, and then only when the sun was up. I'd make soup; I might read-- probably mythological-type deep stories-- a little. When the sun went down, I'd go to bed. I would be interested to see what dreams might come, and how long they might be, coming...

This time of year makes me hyper-aware of how disrespectful of my body, and the natural world, and the cycles of the seasons-- the way I live is. If there's anything left of an impulse to practice, it is the wish to align myself with 'what is given': body, world, time. And then discover what is to be seen, in that condition.

Thanks, Kate.

Hi everyone!

I am very happy to have stumbled upon the Refugee board. I arrived here via a Google search on Jeffery Martin. I am very excited about Martin's research and am biting at the bit for him to release more comprehensive information. I'm not quite sure why he hasn't already, which makes me skeptical of his work some. Nonetheless, I would like to apply his findings to my own life as well as in work with clients. I am starting a business devoted to helping individuals achieve optimal wellness in all domains of their lives and Martin's technique for tailoring tools to a person's level of development would be extraordinarily powerful I feel. If you'd like to read about my fledgling business, you can do so here: http://www.sunyatawellness.com

I have been practicing Zen and Kundalini Yoga for about 8 years. I am student of Shigenori Nagatomo, a religion professor at Temple University and his teacher, Hiroshi Motoyama, a magnificent individual with various hats: Shinto priest, inventor, philosopher, healer, founder of CIHS, a graduate school. Motoyama invented the AMI, a device that electronically determines the condition of the acupuncture meridians. It's an amazing device and its repeatability measurement-over-measurement exceeds 90%. More information can be found at http://www.cihs.edu/whatsnew/ami_info.asp and in Motoyama's book Science and the Evolution of Consciousness. This was the first Motoyama book I read and it really blew open the gates.

A little over a year ago, I resolved to practice at least twice a day for 50 minutes at a clip and have succeeded in doing so so far. My progress has been seemingly slow--I'm coming off some major psychological instability re: major depression and anxiety that set in during high school--and I have not had any non-dual experiences in my meditation. Nonetheless, I charge ahead as I find self-exploration and spiritual growth to be exceedingly interesting and I think part of my genetic character. I'm also very interested in yoga's theory of the bodies (e.g. astral body, causal body) and stages of spiritual development. Only recently have I discovered groups of like-minded individuals with whom I can ramble on and not feel ostracized. I found Refugee to be a nice mix of intellect, humor, open-mindedness, and devotion to spiritual practice that I can identify with.

Happy to be here and look forward to participating!

Jake

Very nice and comprehensive introduction!

Is Motoyama the same person I remember whose stuff on Kundalini shows up alongside Gopi Krishna, sometimes?

Welcome!

Based on your intro, you might find Aurobindo's Integral Yoga interesting. His stuff is all available for free online. He has an interesting approach to the ancient 'bodies' teachings and psycho-spiritual development in general; at least, I've enjoyed checking him out!

Take care--

--Jake

(ha! two jakes )

"... I found Refugee to be a nice mix of intellect, humor, open-mindedness, and devotion to spiritual practice..."

Just what we wanted to hear!

[image]

-cmarti

I second that

Very nice and comprehensive introduction!
Is Motoyama the same person I remember whose stuff on Kundalini shows up alongside Gopi Krishna, sometimes?


-kategowen

It may, but I'm not so sure. (I looked up Gopi Krishna on Wikipedia and he is characterized as a "Kundalini promoter." Guess you could hire him to do your PR if you wanted.) Motoyama's Kundalini methods are derived very closely from Satyananda Yoga, which was formulated by Swami Saraswati. The meditations are essentially chakra-focusing techniques with some visualization thrown in in attempt to expedite growth into the astral world. Saraswati recommends awakening the ajnacakra first because he says the ajna can then regulate any wild karma that emerges in the ensuing awakenings of lower cakras. So I ground myself first in practice by focusing on the svadhistanacakra (the sacral or 2nd cakra), do some techniques to energize the muladharacakra (the 1st cakra) and then focus on the ajnacakra the remainder of the session. I find that more recently I've stopped trying as hard to make progress and just tell myself "I'm meditating" and let it do its thing. I encounter a lot of tension in my diaphragm, upper chest, and upper back and it makes sitting less pleasant and carefree than I wish it would be. I have been looking for a way to release this tension because I think doing so would help me make more rapid progress. That's one reason why I have tried Focusing and EFT as introduced to me by Martin. I had trouble getting a handle on Focusing and didn't experience any benefit from it after two weeks. (Martin says to move on after two weeks.) I have picked up EFT and I seem to be making progress. I also try to keep hold of a "Who am I?" koan at various times of the day and have vowed to myself to do this for at least a year to see what transpires.

Whew. Breath out.

Welcome!
Based on your intro, you might find Aurobindo's Integral Yoga interesting. His stuff is all available for free online. He has an interesting approach to the ancient 'bodies' teachings and psycho-spiritual development in general; at least, I've enjoyed checking him out!
Take care--
--Jake
(ha! two jakes )


-jake

Thanks Jake for the recommendation. Wilber depends on Aurobindo a lot I believe. I've never read his work, but will definitely check it out. I also find Motoyama's work on yoga bodies to be extremely enlightening. He accepts the gross, astral, and causal bodies and assigns them to the first four jnanas. Beyond that, he says you no longer have a body and your karma has been dissolved. This is the world of purusha, which spans the five (or six) remaining jnanas. His book <i>The Buddha's Satori </i> speaks about his experiences at each of these levels and is very helpful.

I am a little hermetic in my choice of readings: I try to pinpoint trustworthy sources before I delve in. I think one problem I had is that I wasn't connecting with similar minds before, so I was not fed as many reputable sources.

Ah, Motoyama sounds interesting; I'll have to check him out.

Yes, r.e. Aurobindo and Wilber, I appreciate a lot of what Wilber is trying to do but am skeptical of his "big picture". At one point (long after entering and leaving a Wilberian phase proper ) I decided to look at his sources, since I had noticed that W has a tendency to make it look like everyone he quotes supports his conclusions, by altering their quotes (replacing their terminology with his own), which produces an artificial sense that they are all tall talking about the same thing (namely, Wlber's Big Picture).

So as part of that critical investigation I looked contacted some people in the broader Integral community and read some of Wilber's sources, such as Aurobindo and Gebser, and it was very illuminating. The upshot, I am deeply impressed with Aurobindo as both a yogi and a theoretician

So as part of that critical investigation I looked contacted some people in the broader Integral community and read some of Wilber's sources, such as Aurobindo and Gebser, and it was very illuminating.


-jake

By "illuminating" I am guessing you find that Wilber is excessively liberal with his interpretation of his sources? I remember reading that he professes as much in A Brief History of Everything. He basically looks at all the forests and disregards their trees. Of course, if you disregard enough trees, you end up disregarding whole forests. Anyway, his AQAL is very useful to me in organizing information, although I don't think you could properly classify his teaching as a "Theory of Everything." It's more like an "Organization of Everything". Everything's still disparate in his theory. I think it's awesome you've actually looked at his sources. I have not read sufficiently on Spiral Dynamics, partly because my first foray into that theory left me perplexed at the display of mumbo-jumbo like "vMeme". There seemed to be very little consistency or at least unnecessary complexity (oh, there's my Zen bent bleeding through). I think it would definitely do me good to read up on Aurobindo, especially in juxtaposition to Motoyama's writings. I'd like to see where they coincide and differ. BTW, how advanced spiritually do you think Wilber is? I've always got a weird vibe from him and that's only from videos. I think it's partly because I feel he's absolutely full of himself. Could definitely be wrong there.

Jumping from idea to idea per usual. Have a happy night.

Jake2

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy New Year!

I suspect Wilber is what Aurobindo would call an "Intermediate Zone Yogi"-- someone with deep insight and powerful energy co-existing with strong egoic stuff. This would explain his penchant for valorizing the same in his choice of Teachers to tout (his track record is pretty superb for picking these types...). I've heard that his politics also tends to run to the authoritarian side, with the odd twist that it is justified with Spiral Dynamics (he was quoted as saying "The Spiral chose W (our last president) for good reason; he's the President we need right now" or something to that effect). I have a friend who says she actually swooned from the "energy" emanating from Wilber when she met him, and she's been around a lot of heavy teachers with powerful transmissions; she's convinced he's deeply awakened.

In corresponding with a few folks from the fringes of the Integral scene I've been told that he is pretty autocratic and dominating, and definitely full of himself, which is a report to be expected from folks on the fringe (although they seemed quite reasonable and capable of critical thinking and constructive disagreement/rational conversation to ME, so...). Some of these people were closer to the heart of mainstream integralism for a while so perhaps they know whereof they speak. Wilber seems to see Integral as his personal contribution to humanity. That's ironic because it's (in his own thinking) a generic developmental level. There seems to be a blossoming of people working on this level in their own ways in the wake of Wilber's withdrawal from such a dominant position; the Orthodoxy is breaking down and the movement is becoming de-centralized (or so I've heard).

I think it would be cool if AQAL and similar integral-level meta-models were made the basis of text books for k-12 education. It is helpful to see different disciplines as complementary. Academic subjects ought to be taught in an integral, multidisciplinary way in basic education, just like the activities of the day should not be limited to academics but should give space for all modes of intelligence to be expressed, explored and developed.

You've definitely piqued my interest about Aurobindo. Do you recommend any particular works? I know you said that it is free online.

I'd agree that it seems that Integral is becoming decentralized, especially as you have more and more thinkers creating "Integral" disciplines. I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where Jay Leno makes fun of how "everything is Integral these days."

Also, Wilber omits entire swaths of at least MY belief system. He does not include parapsychology or the spirit world in any of his work as far as I know. He accepts yoga's theory of the three bodies, but that's as far as he goes. He doesn't discuss how these bodies interact or what the nature of these bodies are once the physical body perishes. He also doesn't discuss the characteristics of mind of these bodies. Based on what I have read, such as Robert Monroe's trilogy, the Japanese philosopher Yuasa Yasuo, and Motoyama's reports, these questions need thorough consideration before formulating any comprehensive theory. I think this is one of the major weaknesses of Wilber's philosophical edifice: he can't tie anything together seamlessly without taking on the nitty-gritty of non-local phenomena and the synchronicity on which they operate. I think this is the key to linking the physical, biological, and psychological worlds.

I might engender some disagreement with this post.

Happy New Year to you too! May the coming year be pregnant with insight.

Jake2

Welcome, Jake2!

Wilber is very hard on Shamanism and other spirits-oriented traditions in my opinion. This is a tricky question. To what extent do these traditions typically include ultimate insights such as are pursued in Buddhist and other contemplative traditions? What is the relation between powerful non-ordinary experiences and powers and awakening? Different traditions have different answers! From talking with people who've travelled to receive teaching from indigenous Shamans and Eastern meditation masters, I'm beginning to suspect that although we represent these traditions a certain way in the modern west, in fact, most Lamas and such do a lot of "shamanic" and other spirit work, as well as ritual stuff for the community and individuals, healing and the like; and likewise lots of Shamanic elders have deep insights into "awareness", "nonduality", "interdependance" and other key experiences of the contemplative scene.

Aurobindo: I think "The Synthesis of Yoga" is pretty good to start. Good overview of how he integrates bakti, jnana, karma yogas (oh and hatha and raja) and relates them to the different dimensions of human body-mind. There is also a fascinating discourse on Shamatha (calm abiding) somewhere which basically encapsulates an entire path of realization from the normal starting baseline through stable nondual realization endowed with positive characteristics like loving kindness).

His whole thing is that we each have all these different dimensions as humans, so it is wise to develop them all holistically. He claims the resulting fruits are more comprehensive and balanced. Another key point of his is his approach to "Mind" as a facet of human being that is basically suppressed by traditional cultures, but is the foundation of the post-enlightenment West. He says the function of mind is to question, explore, etc and that it reveals certain truths like equality, fairness, and various democratic or otherwise egalitarian notions of justice. So he sees an importance in empiricism, democracy, science, etc.

jake1

I'll join the Wilbur topic after I check Wikipedia to find out "Who is this Wilbur guy, and why do so many meditators talk about him?" But seriously, I should familiarize myself enough for cocktail conversation. I'd look forward to such a topic.

Meanwhile, off to proptitiate spirits. Full report tomorrow!