Here.
This stuff is pretty trippy. Scientists poo poo it, but I believe there is something to it. The binaural bets are set to mimic various brain waves: Alpha waves, Beta waves, Delta waves, Gamma waves and Theta waves. Of course you have all of these waves in your brain. So you put in Theta binaural beats and you get more theta waves supposedly. The same with Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, etc. It sounds like a reasonable hypothesis anyway. This stuff is called brain entrainment because supposedly it actually changes how your brain works (via manipulation of existing brain waves).
They also work with your chakras. Chakras are an Indian medical theory. Supposedly you have chakras in your body that do various things and you can mess around with these chakras to achieve desired ends. A lot of yogi types swear that they are true and a lot of folks who listen to these beats have had experiences suggesting of chakras.
For instance, people who listen to the Kundalini beats report that they feel a warmth at the bottom of their spine that goes all the way up to the top of their spine. These people who report this have no idea that this is one of the things that Kundalini is supposed to do.
It is called Kundalini rising because it supposedly turns on the energy levels in your body. The Kundalini is said to be like a snake that moves up and down your spine. It’s all pretty wacky and insane, but who knows, maybe there is something to it. I have no idea if chakras exist or not either but I would not take the word of modern scientistic medicine about whether there is anything to this stuff. There are supposedly dangers that can occur when you awaken Kundalini, but I am not sure about that either. If it’s all nonsense, how could it have ill effects?
I put this Kundalini stuff on very low and then I go to sleep in the other room. I put it on so low that you can hear it but only barely. I also have a fan in my room and often have windows open so there are other noises. I try to make sure that the other noises are louder than the binaural beats. Nevertheless you can sense them if you listen hard because it feels like the whole room or apartment is vibrating in this strange way like the hum you hear of highway workers at night or an electric plant that is nearby.
One thing I noted is that I crash hard as Hell with that stuff on. I sleep maybe five hours and I wake up and think I slept for 18 hours. I get up and feel like a slab or wood or concrete, but that feels very good. It reminds you of the feeling of whenever you had some very good hard sleeps. It’s like as hard as the hardest crash you have ever had.
I also noticed that some of the pains I have in my neck and back diminished after that very hard crash. In addition, the first few nights I had this stuff on, my dreams changed.
It’s a bit embarrassing, but I had sex in my dreams! I know you are thinking so what, but the thing is, I do not know if it is a hangup or what, but I never or almost never have sex in my dreams. Even when I have a girlfriends and we are going at it for hours a day, I still never have sex in my dreams. And with this Kundalini stuff, I had sex in my dreams for maybe four days straight. That’s pretty weird right there.
This stuff might effect you more than you think it does.
Category: Disciplines
Four Stages of Love and Personal Development
You will often see in mythology various things centered around the number four – four of this, four of that, four times four, etc.
Carl Jung states that the nucleus of the Psyche or Self works as a fourfold structure. We will looks at this structure first as it relates to personal development and then as it relates to love.
Four Levels of the Psyche
Psyche Level 1: Purely instinctive and biological relations – man as an animal, the Id.
Psyche Level 2: Romantic or aesthetic pleasure, the appreciation of beauty and the higher senses.
Psyche Level 3: The spiritual level, man as a spiritual animal, the appreciation of the ineffable or indeterminate.
Psyche Level 4: A super-wisdom transcending even the most holy and pure. This is something like the state of satori that the Zen monks talk about. It can also be seen in higher states of consciousness by Indian yogis accessed via yoga and whatnot. This may refer to what Nietzsche was talking about when he discussed the Ubermensch, the man who has transcended all base and earthly passions and has risen above it all.
I am thinking that most people in the West never reach Psyche Level 4 in their lives.
Now we will look at the same structure as it refers to love:
Four Levels of Love
Love Level 1: Sexual love. Pure sex and animalism, sex without love, a biological and primitive yet enjoyable act.
Love Level 2: Romantic love. A step above pure sexual love in that it rises above to the level of romance and passion to where one actually feels an almost religious-like devotion to the other person. However, this is still considered to be “tainted” somewhat by base and primitive passion, as there is usually still quite a bit of animalistic sexual passion here.
Love Level 3: Spiritual love. Here we see love at one of its highest levels – the love of God or the spiritual realm. This rises above even romantic love; it is more all-encompassing, and it is not even grounded on the Earth or in one other person as romantic love is. It can extend to the love of many or all and to love beyond the simple Earthly plane.
Love Level 4: Love raised to its highest level, even beyond spiritual love. Here we are dealing with a type of “Love” or “Passion” that may better be termed something like “Wisdom” that transcends even the most holy and pure spiritual love. In this sense, “wisdom” is the ultimate form of love or passion.
As with Psyche Level 4, I believe that most people in the West never reach Love Level 4 in their lives.
"The Taoist Influence on Japanese Martial Arts," by Dota
New essay from Dota. Very nice!
The Taoist Influence on Japanese Martial Arts
By Dota
The Japanese Samurai Miyamoto Musashi acknowledged a number of influences on Japanese thought, chief among which were Confucianism and Buddhism. Yet not once does he directly mention the Old Master whose philosophy is so entrenched in the martial arts that the Samurai once pursued with inexhaustible zeal. Yet despite this seeming negligence, Mushashi’s epic martial arts treatise, “A Book of 5 Rings“, is laden with Taoist ideas and analogies. Indeed the very nature of the Japanese martial arts has been shaped and molded by Taoist thinking.
In the interest of brevity one can sum up Taoist thought as being primarily concerned with conforming to nature by finding “the way.” According to the very first verse of the Tao te Ching (the poem attributed to Lao Tzu): “The Tao (way) that can be described is not the real Tao.” Indeed, Lao Tzu devoted considerable energy into conveying the indescribable nature of the way. One could not describe the way, one merely walked it or one didn’t. Could one verbally instruct another on how to ride a bicycle? One either knew how to or didn’t.
Philosopher Arthur Danto astutely observed that the Taoists had a deep mistrust of prepositional knowledge, or what one would refer to as the discursive intellect. Taoism isn’t concerned with the knowledge of the scholar, but rather, with what we would refer to as “intuitive knowledge.” Those that knew the way were able to execute the perfect brush stroke or carve a pumpkin with exceptional ability.
To further illustrate this point, Chuang Tzu narrates the story of the old wheel maker. The latter approached a King and told him that reading his book was a waste of time. He explained to the King that true knowledge couldn’t be expressed in words but could only be grasped. He illustrated this point by describing his own trade as thus:
The other secret of my trade has to do with the roundness of the wheel. If I chisel away at the wheel too quickly, I may be able to complete the work in a short time, but the wheel won’t be perfectly round. Even though it may look quite acceptable upon casual inspection, in actual usage it will cause excessive shaking of the carriage…In order to create the best wheels possible in a timely manner, I must chisel at just the right speed – not too fast and not too slow. This speed is also guided by a feeling, which again can only be acquired through many years of experience.
He then concluded his lesson with the following observation:
Your Majesty, the ancient sages possessed the feelings that were at the heart of their mastery. Using words, they could set down the mechanics of their mastery in the form of books, but just as it is impossible for me to pass on my experience to anyone else, it is equally impossible for them to transmit their essence of wisdom to you. Their feelings died when they passed away. The only things they left behind were their words. This is why I said Your Majesty was reading the leftovers of a dead man.
Karate is taught via instruction and perfected through rigorous practice. Form, movement, and balance can be learned by executing a sequence of gestures and movements known as Kata. The master guides the student to the way but the student is tasked with walking on it and not deviating from it. In the first Karate Kid film Mr Miyagi scoffs at Daniel Larusso’s attempt to “learn Karate from book.” Musashi similarly stated in his treatise that “Language does not extend to explaining the Way in detail, but it can be grasped intuitively,” (Water Book).
But what is the difference between those men that follow the way and those that don’t? Those that follow the way properly are able to execute actions with minimal effort. But while effort is minimized the outcome of their actions is maximized.
This is known as the principle of WuWei (literally non doing). WuWei is also often understood as carefully calibrated action. Consider for example, a perfectly executed Karate shoulder throw. By using a lunging opponents force against him, one can disable an opponent with a shoulder throw; a move that would ordinarily require considerable effort to execute. Actions become effortless for those that know the way.
Musashi’s duels typically lasted only a few seconds. Consider his duel with Kojiro for example. He charged at his opponent and provoked Kojiro into making the first attack. Musashi effortlessly dodged the attack and decisively struck his opponent on the head killing him in a single blow. Musashi almost echoes Lao Tzu when he urges martial artists to be like water which is gentle yet destructive. It is the principle of WuWei that gives the Japanese martial arts their characteristic finesse that many have come to admire. The ancient masters would be repulsed by the drawn out UFC slug fests and would dismiss these fighters as not truly knowing the way.
The Japanese word for way is michi, which literally refers to a path through the Cosmos. The Way has no destination, and simply finding the way is an end in itself. Since Taoism is primarily concerned with each pursuing his own way, it stands to reason that every one of us is (potentially) a wanderer. The wanderer is also a common motif in Taoist art – he who walks a path without apparent destination.
I must point out that many of Japan’s cherished heroes were wanderers too, such as Musashi and Yagyu Jubei. Both of these individuals refused to hang up their swords and become artisans during the largely peaceful Tokugawa Period of Japanese history. They wandered the countryside (the Samurai had no restrictions on travel) and dueled several opponents that crossed their paths.
Musashi is said to have won 80 duels during his lifetime. So entrenched is the image of the wandering martial artist that it has left its imprint on contemporary Japanese pop culture as well. The characters Ryu and Akuma of the Street Fighter franchise are wanderers pursuing the way of the martial artist. In a statement saturated with Taoist overtones Akuma proclaims: “For some, it is the path, not the goal,” (Street Fighter Alpha 1).
Ultimately, while the spirit of the Japanese martial arts is obviously Japanese, their character is clearly Chinese.
Juice Fasting
Repost from the old site.
Juice fasting is highly recommended for anyone who wishes to try it.
I just live off coffee, juice, wine and water for a few days. After about four days, things start getting kind of weird. You will start to get a lot more energy, but you will feel strange, like you are on LSD. The increased energy is because your body is not wasting energy digesting food all the time.
You may also find that aches and pains may also go away during the fast. I also found radical diminishment of anxiety and much clearer thinking. But that seems to go away as you start eating again.
Water fasts are dangerous, but are ok for a day or two. Juice fasts work great. Just drink around 32 oz of juice per day for 1-4 days. You can go up to 64 ounces or so. It’s completely harmless. Your body odor will start to stink after a well and so will your breath and your farts. This is probably because you are leaking out toxins.
You can exercise, but be careful as you may faint. Just go real easy. You may find yourself tired a lot. Just lie down and sleep. You can also lose weight this way, and I have lost 12 pounds doing juice fasting lately.
Make sure to drink 40 ounces of water per day. You can continue to drink coffee and alcohol. After all, what does a man need but coffee, wine, water, juice and sex? And maybe a steak once in a while?
In fact, alcohol will get you very intoxicated when you fast. Break the fast after 1-4 days. I don’t really care how I break it, but some say it is important.
Some Good Yoga and Meditation Techniques for OCD, Anxiety and General Peace of Mind
Kundalini yoga works great for OCD and for just anxiety in general. I believe it works for other anxiety disorders, but I’m not sure it’s been documented well.
The following Kundalini yoga technique has been documented well for OCD. I doubt if it’s all that useful if you don’t have the illness.
Kundalini Yoga Therapy for OCD
1. Sit up very straight and tall.
2. Try to clear your mind.
3. Hold right nostril shut with a finger.
4. Breathe in slowly through left nostril for 15 seconds. All the way in, as deep as you can go. Fill your lungs completely to where they feel as if they will pop.
5. Hold breath for 15 seconds. No inhalation!
6. Release breath slowly for 30 seconds, continuing to hold right nostril shut. No inhalation! Release breath completely to where your lungs are utterly empty and you are almost starving for breath.
or:
7. Release breath slowly for 15 seconds, continuing to hold right nostril shut.
8. Then hold breath after exhalation for 15 seconds, continuing to hold right nostril shut. This one is difficult because you’re basically out of breath for 15 seconds.
Repeat.
Good idea to do it for up to 30 minutes a day if you can. I wish there was something to add to it, but I can’t think of any. Notice that each breath takes a full one minute and that you are breathing in and out through only one nostril. Our average breath lasts only maybe 5 seconds or so. So you are breathing 20 times slower than you normally do.
Kundalini Yoga Therapy for Anxiety
1. Sit up very straight and tall.
2. Try to clear your mind.
3. Hold right nostril shut with a finger.
4. Breathe in slowly through left nostril for 15 seconds. All the way in, as deep as you can go. Fill your lungs completely to where they feel as if they will pop.
5. Hold breath for 15 seconds. No inhalation! Continue to hold right nostril shut.
6. Switch finger to left nostril and now hold left nostril shut. Release breath slowly from the right nostril for 30 seconds, continuing to hold left nostril shut. No inhalation! Release breath completely to where your lungs are utterly empty and you are almost starving for breath.
or:
7. Release breath slowly for 15 seconds, continuing to hold left nostril shut.
8. Then hold breath after exhalation for 15 seconds, continuing to hold left nostril shut. This one is difficult because you’re basically out of breath for 15 seconds.
This is one is basically 30 seconds in with the left nostril, then 30 seconds out with the right nostril. This should work well for anyone who wants to calm down or mellow out. You don’t need to have a diagnosed anxiety disorder.
There are some other parts of this therapy dealing with some weird concept called “chakras,” which I don’t understand, but I don’t think you need to deal with your “chakras” for this therapy to work.
You can also do meditation. I prefer what I call Zen meditation. I have no idea if I am doing this correctly or not, but this is how I do it.
You can do this any time, but I often do it at night before I go to sleep while lying in bed. It’s often said that you have to sit up straight to do this, but I don’t think that is necessary.
Simply try to clear your mind of all things except for one thing. I use, “Om,” but you can use any mantra you like. “Om” is a mantra. You just try to fill your mind with “Om,” the thought of Om spreading out across your mind and consciousness and blottiong out all other things. You will find that other thoughts are constantly trying to invade your mind. There is probably no good reason to think about any of these thoughts at this time. So just try to dismiss them or push them towards the outside of your mind so they are smaller. Imagine that your thoughts are like a gigantic sunrise or sunset spreading across your entire mind from top to bottom and left to right. All of this should simply be “Om,” possibly lit up in some bright color or scenery. The other thoughts, as they come in, just push them to the periphery of this brilliant OM sunrise, to where they are smaller and less prominent. Just keep on moving away from them.
Your mind will resist this on various levels. My mind is furious and insists that it has many important things to think about! Why waste time thinking about “Om” when I could be thinking of this or that (what or what?) and solving this or that problem (what or what problem?) or learning this or that? I figure that’s all nonsense. Most of my thinking seems to be a complete waste of time. I would call it mental masturbation, except that jerking off is a lot of fun. Most of my thinking is just stupid and pointless. It may as well not even be there.
You learn nothing by thinking. You only gain knowledge via observation and input. With no input, there is no learning. By thinking, you can work with stuff you already know to try to make more sense of it, but you learn nothing at all. Sure, you can go over memories by thinking, but those memories will be there whether you think about them or not.
Summary is that most thinking, at least the kind I do, is not only a waste of time. It’s actually harmful. Meditation is just about shutting off your mind your mind for a bit.
I have found it very helpful for OCD. It also works great for concentration. When I meditate while listening to talk radio broadcasts, I follow the broadcast a lot better because my mind wanders less. Anyone could benefit from this. You don’t need to have an anxiety disorder diagnosis.
Some Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques For OCD Patients and People in General
I have OCD, but I don’t talk about it much on here because no one wants to hear about it, understandably. If you want to know what it is, check out Wikipedia. I am a “pure O” obsessional. That is, I have no compulsions. Instead, my mind just goes around in idiotic circles a lot of the time, and I worry about all sorts of stupid shit. I also spend a lot of time trying not to think about various things, or trying to stop unwanted thoughts that keep popping into my head.
Personally, I have found that cognitive techniques don’t work very well unless I am good and medicated on a good OCD drug. I take an SSRI called Lexapro, but there are many others out there. In general, you need an SSRI. SSRI’s sort of suck, but so does OCD! Pick your poison. If x dose does not work, you may need to go higher.
Non-SSRI antidepressants, Lithium and Depakote, and antipsychotics are generally useless for OCD. I don’t think anti-anxiety drugs like Ativan and the Valium type benzodiazepines work very well either.
Many if not most psychiatrists and psychologists do not understand this illness very well. I have a number of patients who I work with online, and they are always getting misdiagnosed by docs. Typically misdiagnoses are anxiety and depression, or simply no diagnosis at all.
Many times they are given 3-4 different drugs all at once. Psych drugs are very nasty, and you need to be on the minimum number of drugs. The trend of polypharmacy so in vogue by psychiatrists nowadays is downright sick and almost evil. Furthermore, it’s stupid and pointless. These guys are nothing more than pill-pushers anymore, and it’s the more the merrier with them.
Many psychiatrists have a poor understanding of drug interactions. I have had to warn a number of patients of drug interactions due to the drugs that their moron doctors put them on. I really don’t understand why these docs are so stupid about this stuff.
You really need to be very aggressive with psychiatrists and psychologists. If you don’t like them, just pull up your tent and move along. Be assertive to the point of demanding with them, and don’t back down. Don’t treat them like they are Gods. I’m a horrible patient, but at least I know what I’m doing. You understand your body, and you understand your illness. Don’t let some silly clinician misdiagnose you on the grounds that “they are the experts and you are not.”
Read up on your illness, and read up on your meds. One fascinating thing about OCD patients is that most of them are intelligent, often highly intelligent. The illness seems to be directly related to intelligence. One interesting finding via MRI on OCD patients is that they have more brain cells and more connections than non-patients. Upshot is as we might expect. They think too much.
Anafranil remains the gold standard for OCD drugs, but it’s pretty nasty. It’s an old, dirty drug with lots of side effects. Nevertheless, nothing helped me like Anafranil. I could not have gotten my Master’s Degree without it.
Second line are the other SSRI’s which all seem to be about as good as each other.
It seems like cognitive stuff doesn’t work until you are on the drugs. Otherwise you’re too crazy with OCD to utilize cognitive stuff.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the therapy of choice, and there is much material online about this. I’m not going to bother going on about it.
However, I will say that it’s a good idea to confront the thing that you fear. In my case, there were a variety of situations that I feared, all revolving around a common fear, that, honestly, is ludicrous (And that I will not discuss.). I conquered the fear at at least one level by simply throwing myself into the situations that set off the fear (or the obsessive thoughts really).
I plunged into the deep end of the pool so to speak. For a while there, the thoughts just poured into my brain like a river so I could barely even think straight. The general tendency in situations like this is to run, to get out of there.
But the truth is, “You cannot run from your fears.” If you run from them, you will never get over them. Avoidance makes OCD worse. So you just throw yourself into the feared situation, and stay there while your mind is being overrun by horrible thoughts. Don’t leave, just stay and let the thoughts “flood” into your mind. I call this technique “flooding.” After a while, you simply get sick and tired of being anxious, and the anxiety starts to go down.
Your mind realizes it can’t run away from the feared object, so it just accommodates itself to the feared situation and learns to get used to it. This is how all of us overcame all of our fears in childhood and hopefully even in adulthood. You can’t stay anxious forever. After a while, the brain says, “I give up. Fuck it. We’re gonna stay here and handle this.” In behavioral terms, this is called “extinction.” The fear is “extinguished” through prolonged exposure.
If you get good and stabilized, there are some Kundalini Yoga* techniques you can do. One is alternate nostril breathing. Hold down one nostril and breathe through the other. First breathe through the left nostril and then breathe out through the right. Inhale as slowly as possible and exhale as slowly as possible. Cycles should be on the order of 45 seconds to 1 minute if you can. This is ok for OCD, but it’s mostly an anxiety reducer that works well for anyone.
A specific one for OCD is left-nostril breathing. Hold the right nostril down and breathe in and out through the left nostril. Once again, cycles should be on the order of 45 seconds to 1 minute if you can do it.
Another thing you can do is meditation. This works well if you are already pretty stabilized and want to get better. Focus your mind on one particular spot and just stay there. Think “nothing,” “nada”, “ommmm,” or whatever you want. Try to empty out your mind as much as possible from your obsessions.
If an obsession comes, mark it as an “irrelevant thought,” and just move back to your focus. This method enables you to keep most of the irrelevant thoughts (obsessions) out of your head. This method is best described as cognitive shifting. Research has shown that in OCD there is reduced ability to engage in cognitive shifting due to reduced activity of inhibitory activity in the frontal lobe. OCD patients are like a skipping record.
Instead of thinking “nothing”, you will only be thinking of important things or things you need to think about. It’s also very peaceful and helps you to think loving thoughts.
Most obsessions are pretty much “irrelevant thoughts.” I have one woman who worries about thinking racist thoughts or thinking bad thoughts about others (She’s nice and not a racist). A man and a woman I know worry that they are child molesters (They are not.). One man worries he might be in love with a little girl (He isn’t). I have a guy who worries that he hates people or that he feels superior to people (He doesn’t really hate people or feel superior to them).
They often try to overcome their thoughts with thought compulsions. The woman tries to think good things about minorities and nice thoughts about people instead, but then OCD pops up and contradicts her with racist stuff and nasty cracks about fat people, ugly people, etc.
I told her that really, it doesn’t matter if someone is fat or ugly or geeky or Black or Hispanic, and it doesn’t matter what she thinks of minorities, geeks, fatties or uglies. Who cares? The best way is to just avoid the issue altogether. Don’t think about how the person looks and don’t think about their race. Just focus on “ommmm” and keep that stuff out.
I told the guy that it doesn’t matter whether or not he’s in love with the little girl. He can’t think about this without turning into a rat on a wheel in his mind, so the only solution is to not think of those thoughts. Thoughts that send you onto the rat wheel are automatically “irrelevant thoughts” because you will never accomplish anything on the thought rat wheel. So best not to even go towards those thoughts at all.
With the people worried they are child molesters, I tell them that there is no way to think themselves to a solution of this issue. They just go round and round endlessly: “Maybe I’m a child molester. No I’m not. Yes I am. How do I know I’m not a child molester? I’m terrified I’m a child molester.” You can’t think your way to a right answer here! Best to just avoid the question altogether.
For the guy who worries he hates people or feels superior to them, I said it doesn’t matter whether he hates people or not or whether he feels superior to them or not. But since he can’t think about this stuff without going round and round in circles forever, I said to just avoid the subjects altogether and just think, “ommmm.” He does this and finds he’s nice to most people and doesn’t feel superior to most people either. In other words, meditation allows his true feeling to come out.
You can actually meditate anywhere. I meditate in supermarkets, driving down the street (You have to be a bit careful here), at coffeeshops, and the doctor’s office, etc. If you get good at it, most people will greet you with a smile and will give off good vibes towards you. There are some dangers with meditation, but I’m not really worried about them too much.
In conjunction with meditation, I would recommend studying Zen Buddhism. I studied it for many years, and for a while, I got very, very good at it. The ultimate book ever written on Zen is An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki.
One thing that Zen teaches you is to only think about whatever you need to think about. There’s no need to think about 1000 things at once. When you clear your mind, you will only think of necessary or important things, and extraneous or irrelevant thoughts will become infrequent.
The person living in Zen simply lives his life with a clear mind and few thoughts. He doesn’t analyze his behavior. He just lives and acts naturally. He accepts his true feelings as they come to him. Once you start endlessly analyzing all of your thoughts and feelings, you’re on the road to nowhere. Just live and act naturally and don’t analyze. If you’re sweeping the floor, think about sweeping the floor. If you’re washing the dishes, think about washing the dishes.
These techniques work not only for OCD patients, but for anyone else as well. Meditation, Zen and yoga are great for anyone. Try them out!
*There are supposedly some risks with Kundalini, but I am not worried about them. I’ve been doing Kundalini for years, and nothing bad has happened yet. Sometimes it’s a bit weird though. You can get transported back in time to “previous selves” and “previous eras.” You have to be able to handle stuff like that.
