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Hi,
I’m confused what each of the lesser, greater and greatest kan and li formulas are trying to achieve, and the sensations or experiences that would indicate that it’s time to continue to the next formula. I’m also confused as to which formula would correspond to a full kundalini awakening.
I’ve only practised up to lesser kan and li, and so far, haven’t really had any experiences that make me think that an immortal embryo has formed. How would I know, and what does this even mean?
What is the defining characteristic of forming the immortal embryo? To add to my confusion, Mantak Chia calls lesser kan and li “enlightenment and birth of the immortal fetus” and says this stage corresponds with activating Kundalini energy. Am I to expect full blown kundalini activity, or just as far as the heart or somewhere else? Apparently, this stage is meant to activate internal vision – well, what kind? When I sit, I see golden or purple clouds as i look down into myself, and sometimes little dots of golden or white light. Is this what is meant, or is it meant to be more like full-blown third eye activity, seeing auras, spirits, etc?
One source calls Greater kan and li spiritually birthing the immortal child. Is this a full kundalini awakening?
In one of Mantak Chia’s books, he says that in lesser, the cauldron is seeded with thunder/liver energy “thereby impregnating our soul”. In Greater, he says “our pearl seed was mixed with earth chi from our spleen, and our spiritual embryo was formed”. For Greatest, he says “The spiritual embryo is seeded with … shen. If conditions are right, our inner child is born in our heart-womb”.
I hope this makes sense – I’m just trying to get my head around what each formula is actually trying to achieve, and how I’d know that whatever is meant to have happened has happened.
Just to give you a bit of background, my most profound experience so far happened several years ago, before learning these practices. I’d been doing yogic fire breathing (bhastrika) and solo sexual practices for an hour or so. I’d liberated and circulated lots of sexual energy in the microcosmic orbit, and had made my navel nice and warm. As I sat in meditation, I completely let go of any resistance. My breathing became incredibly shallow, then all but stopped. As I concentrated on my navel, I felt something tickling my perineum. If I paid attention to it, it stopped, so I just concentrated lightly on my navel. Then it felt like my whole energy body was pulsing from my navel, and that I was in fact in an energy body inside a statue, which is what my physical body felt like – solid and hollow. My energy had coagulated/crystalised, and my balls activated. I felt something lazily making its way from my perineum, into my sacrum, then up my spine. When it reached my ming men, it dissipated. I had the most amazing body orgasm, but no long-lasting changes, or autonomous processes began (like lesser kan and li is meant to induce).
I know it’s useless to ‘expect’ things to happen while meditating, but does the above experience sound like the kind of thing that should happen during lesser kan and li practice, or one of the higher practices?
any help would be appreciated.
ela
See https://healingtaousa.com/tao_alchemy_formulas.html
for a description of what the formulas are trying to achieve.
There is no “right” time to move on; just when you are comfortable
adding new material. The intention is to not stop practicing the
old material at all, but just to ADD new material to the mix.
In other words, you should never stop practicing Lesser,
even when moving on to Greater.You keep asking this same question (I remember your post last December).
You’re stuck thinking that you are “baking a cake” and you want to
know when it is done, so you can take it out and do something else
with it. This is the wrong analogy.The discussion about embryos etc. are metaphors describing the
type of consciousness you are trying to entrain. They are
not an end result.The formulas are a CONTINUOUS transformational process.
There is no end result that says “OK, I’m now done.”If you are waiting until you are “done” to move on to the next
level, then you will be waiting forever.Peace,
Sok, thanks, good answer. i thought the practices were meant to be a progression, i.e. you could only give birth to a spiritual child once you were pregnant, so there’s no point moving on too soon.
the more i learn, the more i get the impression that practices from whatever tradition are really about laying foundations, and that the real progress comes of its own accord when the time is right.
>>>the more i learn, the more i get the impression
>>>that practices from whatever tradition are really
>>>about laying foundations, and that the real progress
>>>comes of its own accord when the time is right.This is exactly right.
Best,
Steven“that the real progress comes of its own accord when the time is right”
I have lived the same frustration you have in this process. The changes you seek will eventually come of thier own accord. Don’t try to force things. You have already experienced that letting go and giving control over to the life force is what works best. Congrats on the kundalini experience. I’ve never experienced it that intensely myself, mostly just a warm and tingly glow all over.
The best mind set is one of playfulness–“I’ll just play with this and see what happens”. It doesn’t hurt to ask for help from the life force or any helper being that might be willing to help. Whenever I’ve tried to force things nothing happens or it will initially start and then dry up.
Steven is right, this is a continuous process.
I like Michael’s explanation of the kan and li process that says that though the process is slower than other meditation practices, the results are more permanent in your energy body. Mixing fire and water Qi in your lower dan tien essentially gives substance to the spirit, it creates yuan jing, or neutral force with substance. This is the result of the crystallization process, the “alchemical gold”, or “true earth”.
Over time you will notice that instead of being pulled around by outside forces, they will neutralize themselves from you, you become a neutral center that other forces balance themselves from.
I am not sure, but it seems like a kundalini awakening is spontaneous rising of the Qi up the spine…it seems that this achieved earlier on in the foundation practices of the microcosmic orbit. I believe it IS useful to discuss the results of spiritual practice even across disciplines, because it contributes to the building of a “Spiritual Science”
I agree with both you and steven when you say that it is a PROCESS, and that the results that are achieved are always IN process and grow ever deeper the more one is hardwired into the consciousness of the mind of nature.
These questions really just distract from the coolness that is my outer baby, my website. Ponder that.
I practiced kundalini yoga for many years, eventually becoming a basic instructor, or assistant instructor. I find that the main difference between the kundalini experience and the kan & li practice is that the kundalini practice ascends into higher stages of spiritual development that seem to slowly distance themselves from the physical body, looking to eventually transcend the physical body. In kan & li practice the focus is always on bringing the higher spiritual states INTO the physical body which I think is why there is always a return to the earlier practices and just adding onto them, and not in an exact stage development that transcends the previous stage; kan & li seems to transcend and include the previous stage practice into the current and future practices.
This groundedness is also why I think kan & li address emotional blockages differently, as I have seen in kundalini first hand, there is a blasting through emotional blockages that can be quite violent and emotional, causeing crying or fits of anger or trembling for no reason. Where the kan & li practice seems to be a bit more gentle in its approach to emotional blockages, or really blockages in general, where it seeks to dissolve the blockages rather then blasting through them.
The one other main difference I have seen is that kundalini works by damming or locking energy in one part of the body then letting the energy build in thsat area. Then it blasts the energy through the dammed or locked area causeing any blockages in that area to be blasted apart. It feels more like an explosion; where kan & li flows energy through areas and slowly erodes the blockages more like water on rock. In kan & li practice their is not a locking or damming but rather a flowing through continuesly.
Anyway this is my experience of the differences in the two practices I think everyone else did a great job of answering your original question I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. Until next time
Love & Tao
ShenchiHi,
Just a few side comments . . .
I found your recent log entry interesting.
I’m not sure about the linear progression you suggest
for Taoism, as I think many of the branches developed
simultaneously. However, by putting neigong above
the other aspects I’m not going to complain. 🙂I also enjoyed checking out your website.
It was a fun and interesting read.
I also appreciate the subtle humor in
posting the link in response to Dog’s comment. 🙂Smiles to you, Dog, and all around to everyone 🙂
Best,
Steventhanks everyone, there are some helpful answers here.
i kind of got a bit hung up on the approach that is sometimes floated in some kundalini circles, that basically the aspirant just needs to work on attaining a full awakening, and then letting things pan out from there (aka “just deal with it”). it is a more baking-a-cake attitude and probably trivialises things a bit.
thanks,
elaSteven,
thanks for the comment. Yeah I don’t think things happen in a clunck, clunck fashion, but I did want to try to use the mapping system that the Integral movement is using to show how Taoism fits into it but yeah it is a very narrow view based on my own observations and I mainly wanted to show how you could match certain universal stages of development to different sects of Taoism. I doubt that those stages happened in that order, it was more like here’s the stages does Taoism have any practices that could represent those stages. It was more for fun than for stating an accademic fact. Thanks a lot for commenting though, and for checking out my website. I am also glad you got my subtle joke. Also thanks to eveyone who has been so open and helpful here, I am actually starting to have a new kind of spiritual awakening that has been in part fascilitated by the information that has been shared here, so thanks to everyone.Love & Tao
Shenchi
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