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May 31, 2013 at 1:29 am #40735nomadParticipant
can qigong be helpful for schizophrenia? could there be any problems arising for someone with schizophrenia who is practicing qigong, any contra-indications?
May 31, 2013 at 2:25 am #40736nomadParticipantfor example, in the inner smile practice, should one skip the ‘yin’ stage of it, with the body-dissolving? I tried it these days and felt an immense heart expansion afterward, but then was feeling out of sorts the next few days as i continued the practice.
this article on yoga and schizophrenia says to do more extroverted practice, so perhaps focusing to the ‘yang’ stage of it would be better?
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1997/esep97/schizo.shtmli have no problem sitting in meditation though, no problem concentrating as this article suggests…. then again i have been on medication and stable for a while, but i had a few psychotic episodes and was labled ‘schizophrenic’
May 31, 2013 at 1:25 pm #40738StevenModeratorI would suggest that most people that write such
articles and give such opinions, do not also happen
to be clinical psychologists with the necessary
background to understand schizophrenia fully. Unless
someone happens to have a degree in clinical
psychology and has studied schizophrenia in detail,
I would take such articles with a certain degree of
skepticism.How many clinical psychologists who understand
schizophrenia also do qigong and meditation to a degree
where they can speak about the relationship of
qigong/meditation to schizophrenia intelligently?
I would guess not that many.Even amongst clinical psychologists, their understanding
of schizophrenia has come about through years of
experimentation with various therapies and
pharmaceutical drugs. So theirs is an educated guess
also, albeit much much more informed
than that of an outsider to the field.So I would take all of this into consideration before
making any kind of decisions.That said, here is my opinion:
I think it has the potential to help with the condition.
However, I think it also has the potential to aggravate
the condition as well.My advice:
Take things slower and do things in less amounts than
other people might do. Take careful note of what your
reaction is. If it seems to be helping, then continue
to do it, slowly increasing in time as you feel comfortable.
If any qigong/meditation seems to be aggravating the condition
in any way, discontinue the practice.Since grounding practices (such as standing meditation
and Tai Chi) tend to help stabilize the mental body
in people who do not have schizophrenia, I would expect
the same to be true for people who have schizophrenia.
In particular, I suspect that this could be very helpful
for people who have schizophrenia, but this is just my intuition.
I do not know if, in particular, this would be helpful for you.
You would have to try it and very carefully gauge your reaction
as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.Just like a diabetic who starts an exercise program needs to
monitor their blood sugar more closely to see if
medications and diet need to be adjusted in response, so
should someone who has schizophenia more closely monitor
their medications/therapies to see if they need to be
adjusted. It would be wise to alert your mental health
care provider to your new practices, so that your progress
can be monitored appropriately.In short: Take it slow, and if anything seems to be
destabilizing, discontinue.Best,
StevenMay 31, 2013 at 11:54 pm #40740nomadParticipantthanks Steven for the response. Perhaps my reaction to the inner smile, although great at first, but not so good later, was due to other things going on in my life, being exposed to a crowd one day for example. that’s the other problem, many factors make it hard to know. but I will perhaps discontinue the yin dissolving phase of it and just do the practice suggested by mantak chia where the energy is collected into the navel or below the navel, or try the external yang practice and see what happens.
as for tai chi, i tried it a while ago and practiced for a year, without great results in grounding… this was before I was taking medication though. yiquan standing meditations had good results though.
thanks again
June 1, 2013 at 2:14 am #40742StevenModeratorYes, listen to your intuition, and feel free to
change as you explore more, observing your own
personal reactions.Tai Chi is good for grounding, but stationary
rooted standing practice is typically far better.
Yiquan standing meditations are phenomenal.
I highly recommend them; they are excellent.S
June 1, 2013 at 1:15 pm #40744ribosome777Participantbecause this is the true self
all smiles )
NOT the complex round of hatred, battle, competition, jealousy, lust, and passion
which one might think was as much the true self…
remember: NO ANIMOSITY
June 2, 2013 at 2:29 am #40746nomadParticipanti may try the body dissolving again for a few days because the heart expansion i experienced the first time was so awesome. maybe it was other factors and some other energy work i got done the next day that made me feel bad. if it’s the dissolving i’ll know this time and stop.
question, can dissolving into the golden ball of light in the inner smile be ungrounding?
June 2, 2013 at 11:01 am #40748StevenModerator>>>question, can dissolving into the
>>>golden ball of light in the inner smile be ungrounding?In short, the answer is YES, although typically in practice
it tends not to be.There are two types of grounding.
One is the physical grounding, of being deeply in your body
and feeling physically connected to the ground.
The other is energetic grounding, of being centered and
anchored in your true core self.Typically, when one does “grounding practices” such as
standing meditation, you get deeply physically grounded,
which makes you deeply energetically grounded.However, these don’t have to necessarily go together.
In particular, if you do the Michael’s Yin dissolving
into your energetic body at the end of the internal inner
smile, you are–by its nature–grounding yourself energetically
into your true core self BUT you are most certainly not
physical grounded. In fact, you couldn’t be more ungrounded.
While your body is still connecting to the earth, you are no
longer anchored to your body.For most folks, this is not a problem, because the typical
reason why we get physically grounded to begin with, is to
get energetically grounded into our core true self . . . which
is what we are doing when we dissolve in the Inner Smile.However, there is a definite transition taking place.
You disconnect from your physical body during the dissolving,
and then reconnect to your physical body (supposedly with
a healthier signature) afterward. Not only are you physical
ungrounded in the dissolved period, but when you return, since
your body and energetic signature is slightly different, you
will be less physically grounded than you were before. It’s
like sleeping in your bed after you wash the sheets: it is
still your bed, but it sort of feels a little different than
you are used to and requires a little adjustment.Because of the overall benefit of having a body with a
healthy new signature and the benefit of the meditation of
energetically grounding into your core, for most people
this is a trade-off worth making. The benefits typically
outweigh any temporary physical ungrounding–enough so that
most people don’t even notice it.However, I’m personally not sure what could unsettle or
destabilize a person that has schizophrenia, or in particular, YOU.
Things that most people are OK with, may not necessarily be for you.
It could be the case that the meditation is perfectly fine,
you will get a lot of positive benefits, and will have no problems.
On the other hand, it could also be the case
that you could have a problem. Consequently, I hesitate making
any kind of recommendation that “this is good” or “this is bad”,
especially in your situation.Just take things slowly, observe carefully, and if anything
seems destabilizing or uncomfortable, discontinue the practice.Qi,
StevenJune 2, 2013 at 6:05 pm #40750nomadParticipantok. thanks for the thorough response Steven
June 4, 2013 at 11:44 am #40752c_howdyParticipantThis is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather,
which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in
Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold
letters that say Liber Novus, which is Latin for New Book. Its pages are
made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of
otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If
you didnt know the books vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval
tome.
And yet between the books heavy covers, a very modern story unfolds. It
goes as follows: Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking
for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place
entirely in his head — he finds it again.
Some people feel that nobody should read the book, and some feel that
everybody should read it. The truth is, nobody really knows. Most of what
has been said about the book — what it is, what it means — is the product
of guesswork, because from the time it was begun in 1914 in a smallish town
in Switzerland, it seems that only about two dozen people have managed to
read or even have much of a look at it.
-http://forum.healingdao.com/philosophy/message/19046/In Jewish Kabbalistic cosmology, the Kelipot are metaphorical “shells” surrounding holiness. They are spiritual obstacles receiving their existence from God only in an external, rather than internal manner. Divinity in Judaism connotes revelation of God’s true unity, while the shells conceal holiness, as a peel conceals the fruit within. They are therefore synonymous with idolatry, the root of impurity through ascribing false dualism in the Divine, and with the Sitra Achra (ñèøà àçøà “Other Side”), the perceived realm opposite to holiness. They emerge in the descending Seder hishtalshelus (Chain of Being) through Tzimtzum (contraction of the Divine Ohr), as part of the purpose of Creation. In this they also have beneficial properties, as peel protects the fruit, restraining the Divine flow from being dissipated. Kabbalah distinguishes between two realms in Kelipot, the completely impure and the intermediate.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QliphothIn chapter six of this book he discusses reincarnation and Kabbalah. Here he writes that most mentally ill people are in fact not mentally ill, but are in fact possessed by evil spirits. He commonly refers to these as clippot or blockages.
I know a woman who has been locked away in a psychiactric ward twice because she felt that she was being bomdarded by evil spirits and I can testtify that she is as normal as any who are deemed mentally fit. That definition, in itself, is suspect. I believe that between 70 and 80 percent of all who live display “abnormal behavior” at one time or another and that in most of those cases an invading spirit of evil is the cause. Rites of exorcism might heal far more of the “mentally ill” than all of the drugs and electro-shock therapy employed by the psychiatric community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Berg#Mental_illness_and_possession_by_evil_spiritsSchizophrenia is a condition of the mind that has consequent effects on the body. Perceptions and awareness are altered with the person often hearing voices, feeling persecuted and becoming suicidal. The cause is still a controversial issue. Cultural perceptions in different countries affect the incidence, treatment and possible outcomes for sufferers. Yoga has been shown to give many positive benefits to people with the disease for maintaining balance and harmony in their lives. However, there needs to be a lot of further research and verification of the effects and benefits of yoga for this condition.
-http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1997/esep97/schizo.shtmlThis article is easy to associate with Swami Shivananda Saraswati and Swami Satyananda Saraswati so, to start with, it’s in the healthy direction.
Satyananda for quite reasonable causes have wanted to point out certain similarities between Kundalini awakening and psychotic behaviour or even schizoprenia.
On the other hand I’m not sure how advanced psychiatry is as a science. Many it’s practitioners could be in their own way stupidly arrogant when they actually are still too ignorant. First of all you have to make money.
When Jung started to go crazy, in western occult terms, he simply became a Dweller of the Threshold!!!
Or one could also say that he just met the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold!!!
Sorry fo my broken English.
HOWDY
Ps. DWELLEROFTHETHRESHOLD=BABEOFTHEABYSS?
June 4, 2013 at 12:32 pm #40754c_howdyParticipantJune 5, 2013 at 12:54 pm #40756ribosome777Participantthis is natural selection filtering soft and and hard because hard protects
hard vs soft produces maximum intensity
this is not neutral
it means separating the phallus from the anus.
it also weeds out softness
June 21, 2013 at 2:47 am #40758nomadParticipantonce i activated pure consciousness in the back of the headspace, i can do the inner smile dissolving practice without anxiety. looking forward to experiencing the super heart expansion i felt the first time i did it again
June 21, 2013 at 3:03 am #40760nomadParticipantalso about the “super heart expansion” i felt before, i realized that it did not happen during the yin dissolving, but right after, as i was smoking a cigarette outside (bad habit i know) and smiling into my view, the local neighborhood, and the night sky…….. it was after this that i felt a huge expansion in my heart. so now i’m adding the yang practice into it. just did a yang practice after the yin and can feel a lot more energy around my heart.
June 21, 2013 at 9:09 pm #40762StevenModerator -
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