Messages

Never heard of the guy either, but I agree with Xanth.  If you wanna try it, try it.  If it works it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.  If something helps you, who cares where it comes from.

I used to work for a psychic that I think is a bit of a con man (not that I doubt his ability completely, but he charges a lot of money for private readings and sells the crap out of himself), but he was still very well versed in occult studies and i learned a great deal from him in that regard.

Think about a person who experiences a traumatic experience and is emotionally scarred afterward.  The idea is the same, only that it happened on a mass scale to the whole human race.  Problem is, our history is distorted (intentionally in my opinion) and spotty, so we don't know all the details.  But one theory is the deluge.  Every ancient culture on the plant has a story about a great flood.  So, let's just say it was the flood.  A huge apocalyptic event that wiped out nearly all life on earth would probably be really traumatic to the survivors.  They would have to start all over.  If you consider that people were more advanced in ancient history than modern academia says, maybe to something similar to us as far as specialization of work is concerned, then the survivors probably wouldn't know how to do anything to reproduce their society, which would further traumatize them.  The theory says that something like that did happen and the trauma was so severe that it left "psychic scars" that have been passed down through humanity like it was imprinted on our DNA.  So, deep down, we are all psychologically damaged.

You can find information about it in research by alternative history authors and some psychologists as well.  Michael Tsarion talks about it in his book "Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation", I believe William Bramley talks about it in "Gods of Eden" also.  Those are all ancient alien, alternative history books, so if you don't dig the alien bit, then it might be hard to get passed it to see the other info.  Carl Jung talks about it as well when he discuses the shadow self. 

Others have addressed a lot of your points already, so I won't do that.

But I will say that it took me nearly two years of fairly regular practice before I was able to successfully project for the first time.  Granted I would stop for like a month or so, but I always kept at it in the long run.  But the patience paid off. 

I've got all the popular books on AP, many of the obscure books and tons of ebooks.  I've been a member of this forum for a long time, I've studied all kinds of metaphysics for years.  And I'll tell you that what I've learned more than anything else, is that you really have to figure out the details for yourself.  You can get the basics from a lot of different sources, there are plenty of techniques on this forum, but when it comes to actually projecting, you just have to do it to learn it.  I know it's paradoxical, but it's a personal experience that can't really be described in words.  So while the great teachers try, they can only teach you so much.  In the end, you have to figure out the more subtle parts that really are the keys to success on your own.  But you can, I promise.  Just keep going.

Hi people!

Im a newbie to meditation and AP. Started Meditation a month ago, and been doing it regularly for 20mins a day. What im confused about is are meditation and AP two SEPARATE things? Previously I thought that the sages and saints meditated to be with the Divine, which can mean the astral. But after finding about astral projection and how you dont need to meditate to have a projection makes me confused about why we meditate?

Is meditation there to be in a state from where one can start to project? or the first step for projecting? Because the steps for projecting such as physical relaxation and silencing the mind are exactly what meditation is right?

Also, when should i meditate and when should i try to project?

Meditation is inwardly focused and is used to find the "divine spark" within.  It is the greatest psychological tool we actually posses, though it doesn't receive enough credit in the field.  Through meditation you can speak to the part of God in you and learn to heal your habitual nature and balance yourself.

Astral Projection is a projection of consciousness outward instead of inward to explore the realms outside one's self.  Here you can meet with others, and become a member of the universal culture.  You can learn about the fundamental aspects of reality as it pertains to your perception (because reality is unique to each person, imo). 

Both in and out are infinite dimensions of reality that are mirrors of each other.  You learn a great deal about each from the other.

You can meditate or project at anytime.  It's really about trial and error, discovering what times work best for you.

Just came back from two more successful projections.

I have a good memory of them, but I don't want to rewrite them here.  If you care to read about the experiences you can read it in my journal.

I just wouldn't call it 'forced' slavery... I think we always have a choice, the idea that we are powerless against 'them' is just another illusion that gets spread by the fear spreading conspiracies, the idea that they have power over us, which I think is false, it's more that we give up our power to them, making that choice on some level.

I only say forced because I think there isn't even a feeling of powerlessness, that people are completely oblivious.  The idea of a choice never occurs to them because for most people in the world, "the way things are" is conditioned into their minds at a young age.  It's particularly devastating in the western world because of all the external stimuli that can be used against our minds.  We are raised in a toxic mental environment and choice is completely irrelevant to most people.  They are happily sleeping.

I also understand your point that on some unconscious level we are all aware and we give our power up willingly.  I could talk about that in more depth, but to be honest I just don't feel like it right now because I'll ramble forever.  But I will say that I believe something happened in our past, a global catastrophe that was so devastating that it literally fractured the human psyche.  The effect of which is a deep psychic/genetic feeling of victimization.  I hadn't really thought about this in this context though.  I usually just think about it as an exercise in psychological contemplation.  Whatever the case, I can't deny the possibility of what you say.

The Anomalist is a journal/blog that has been around for years.  If you haven't ever come across it, check it out, it's fun.

There are a couple of free PDFs of their published journals, which are a collection of essays from various authors on various topics.  But you can also buy most of them in paperback or occasionally on kindle at amazon.

In addition to the journals, the site is also a "DAILY REVIEW OF WORLD NEWS ON MAVERICK SCIENCE, UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES, UNORTHODOX THEORIES, STRANGE TALENTS, AND UNEXPECTED DISCOVERIES," as they describe themselves.  So it's a daily blog about the unexplained.  Fun fun.  I've got some of the journals on my kindle and I will say that the essays are extremely varied in content and are just an all around interesting read.

Just thought I'd share.

-PR

I used to love Icke, but I don't trust him anymore.  I still read his books when they come out, just too see what he's got to say now, but bottom line, I don't trust all of his information.  Nor do I trust most of the conspiracy authors these days.  I don't doubt there is one, I like to think it's aliens, but I couldn't say for sure.  Whatever the case, it's all connected.

I'm really into alternative history and ancient astronauts, or at least advanced civilizations living here before some great catastrophe.  I also love a good conspiracy.  So this movie was just fun for me.  I only used Icke as a reference because people are more familiar with him than Michael Tsarion or William Bramley. 

But the fact of the matter is that you just can't deny the existence of daily manipulation of our consciousness.  People are asleep and blind to their forced slavery.  Now, as to who is doing it, there's plenty of argument to be had and I'm not interested in having that argument with anyone anymore. 

But the movie is still a neat one. 

Could be the hormonal changes in the body.  Might effect your brain, making it more difficult.

Many great inventors say they got their ideas from dreams.

I think there are also other influences involved, but that's not a discussion for now.

You can successfully project at night while going to sleep, but it takes a physical anchor to be consistently successful at it.

I listen to a heater or fan sound. This keeps me from completely falling asleep while in the hypnogogic state.

If I can hear the fan sound, then I am in the physical plane. If I am conscious and I can't hear the fan sound anymore, then I am in the etheric plane. I hold this state until I regain sight in the etheric plane.

This leads me to a projection.

I don't use any visualizations. I only use sound.

I've read of a technique where you deprive yourself of water for a while, get really thirsty and then put a glass of water on a table or something on the other side of your room from your bed.  So you use the water and your thirst as a "physical anchor" to draw yourself out of body to get the water.

But I feel you, in the AP book by the Frosts they talk about meditation being inward as opposed to projection being outward.  So I suppose if you try to use your imagination to project at night you're likely to just go inward and fall asleep, whereas focusing on a physical anchor outside of your body might be more successful.  It makes sense.  I'll give it a try tonight, see what happens.

Has anyone seen this movie?

It's from like 1988.  It's really interesting.

It's not an OBE movie or anything, it's totally a conspiracy movie that is in line with some of the alternative history theories out there (especially like Tsarion or Bramley, if you don't know them, think David Icke, but not full of bullcrap and disinformation).

If you're into that kind of thing, its a neat movie.

Here's the IMDb about it, its a John Carpenter movie.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/

Um, don't forget, projecting before bed for a newcomer is practically impossible. I tried and couldn't do it. I have never heard any story of anyone doing it for their first time. I have been saying this for over a year now. No one seems to listen.

I second that.  Even after two years of practice and my ultimate success, with dozens of conscious exit projections under my belt, I still couldn't project before bed.  You're just too conditioned to go to sleep at that time.  There are those lucky people who project at night and remember it (I believe everyone projects every night, hardly anyone remembers though), but most of us don't and it takes time to break the habit enough to project at bed time.

It should be an easy time to project because you're already in a natural hypnogogic state, but most people I know just pass right through that phase to sleep without even realizing it.  To project at bedtime takes some serious ability to concentrate. 

The author John Magnus teaches you to project at bedtime, but he teaches it more like a phasing experience by having you utilize the disassociated state of hypnogogia to visualize a deep sensory environment (his example is walking through a forest, smelling the trees, hearing the forest sounds, touching the leaves, "tasting the air" and of course vividly seeing the world you're walking through).  For some that works, but from the people I've talked too, they just end up falling asleep.  I've even talked to John Magnus about it and he told me that it does take time if you're not used to it and more often than not, you will end up just falling asleep in the beginning, but its about the practice you get at focusing all of your senses away from your body, which is really just full control of your attention.

The algorithm involves techniques of how to extend the experience at least to 3-4 minutes, with a maximum of 15 min. And meditation is the worst thing to do because that's relaxing and relaxing just ends the experience faster.

Meditation aside from my projection practice is how I intend to strengthen my focusing ability, nothing more.  Just spending time focusing my mind on what I want to focus on.

But I'll still look at this algorithm you speak of. 

Thank you Contenteo and Szaxx.
I'm glad to be practicing again.  I had stopped doing anything metaphysical for two years.  No meditation, no tarot (pathworking), no runes (pathworking also), no energy work, no candles, I wasn't even working with or wearing my crystals, which anyone who knows me would be dumbfounded by that because I love my crystals, I always wear at least a couple and have them set up all around my house in different grids and formations for energy purposes.  But over the past two weeks I've started working with the tarot and my crystals along with my projection practice again.  I moved to a new house out in the country (like where I grew up) and finally got out of the city and I just felt more at ease for the first time in a long time.  I got sober and just had the urge to start all my practices again.

more time with physical relaxation first, including eyes/eyelids.  might help.

I've never been able to project in the middle of the night.  I've only ever had success when attempting conscious exit by means of meditation/trance induction.  And like I said, the afternoon has always been the best time for me.

I would like to know:

At what exact point did you seem to lose remembrance? Was it after some period of time
or after having moved some distance from your physical body? Something you did?

While I was in the midst of all the projections I remembered them all, it wasn't until I "woke up" that I lost memory.  Kind of like a dream.  The last projection was very clear and I remember it very well, but it was also on a few seconds long.  By that point I had kind of used up all my "energy" and couldn't stay focused outwardly.  The earlier projections, the first couple, were much longer but they were a lot more vague by the time I was jerked back to my body (lost focus) and when I got up the memories were gone except for the knowledge that I had the experience.  The last projection was just rolling out of my body standing up, taking a few steps in my room and then I was back in my body.

Also, were you able to move all by yourself right from the start or did you at any
projection move "steady-as-a-boat" forward, without being able to change direction
yourself in you nonphysical body?

I felt a little sluggish when I first exited my body, but I was never "pulled" or "forced" in any direction, I had control of myself.

Did you see any part of your nonphysical body? If you touched your hands, were
they solid?

I did not look for my non-physical body and did not see it.  I felt like I had a body but I didn't notice having one.  I may have just been formless consciousness projecting around but habitually felt like I had a body.  Or I could have had some kind of non-physical body that I just didn't think to take notice of.  I was pretty excited to be projecting since I hadn't done it in so long and paying attention to my body didn't cross my mind.  But I can put it in my mind for next time and see what happens.

use them as much as you want.

if you trust them.

I mean, I developed a fairly stable personal technique back when I was actively practicing and had probably a 70% success rate for exiting, but I never put in the time to develop my focus so that I could hold the projection longer a minute or so and I got bored and quit (plus other things came up).  Since my technique still works pretty well, I just need to put time into actual meditation and the cultivation of focus.

Here is an excellent explanation why you should not use drugs to access the  "Larger Reality". The part you want to hear starts at the 24 minute mark and goes for about 5 minutes.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU7jEMMMvhI

I 100% agree that drugs shouldn't be used to access the "Larger Reality" unless you're already very adept at accessing that reality naturally or you're under the tutelage of a trained shaman who has done it all their lives and can instruct and guide you. 

But as for disrupting the energy body in and of itself, I don't know that drugs necessarily cause problems in moderation. 

Just acknowledging the difference between Lion's statement and fourthdimension's post, because they are addressing different concerns.

If feasible, try practicing in the afternoon instead of at night when you go to bed.

But about the medication thing, I have a similar problem and usually what I'll do is take my meds, then have a cup of something with caffeine about 20-30 minutes later, then lay down and practice (which I do around 3-5pm).  I usually drink a small redbull because those don't effect me that much, but it all depends on your caffeine tolerance.  For some it might be coffee, a cup of strong breakfast tea or something like a coke.  That seems to help me when I have to take my meds that make me too sleepy.

chec units?

I don't know what you mean.  I haven't gone, but I worked in a metaphysical store in a city that was close to TMI and a lot of people who went to the program stopped at the store when they were leaving (because the airport was in my city).  So I talked to a fair amount of people about their experience there, so I might be able to answer your question, but I don't know exactly what you're asking.  Can you clarify?

I stopped my projection practices a while back.  I got kind of bored with AP/OBE practice I guess and just quit.  I'm sure I just got really interested in other things for a while, which is true.  Then other things happened.  But I just started practicing again a few days ago and once I actually put the real effort in today I had my first conscious exit projection in two years.  In fact, I had several.  I made the mistake of continuing to go out once I got pulled back (which is a mistake because it makes remembering the projections a lot more difficult).  I did it probably 5-7 times before I finally "woke up".  About the only part of any of the projections that I can remember is rolling out of my body and standing up by my bed.  Each projection probably lasted about 30 second to a minute, so I know I explored my immediate area some.  I have some still frame like images of the farm around my house, but I don't really remember what I did or where I went beyond that.

In addition, I rarely, if ever remember my dreams in the morning, but during my recent projection practice I've been falling asleep and remembering dreams as well.  I just need to get back into the habit of writing down my dreams and projections as soon as I come back.

Anyway, hopefully the success continues.  It was kind of like riding a bike.  I mean, it took me like 2 years to learn to project in the first place, but it only took me like 3 or 4 days of attempts to have a successful projection this time.  I guess those 2 years were worth the effort because my dream recall, projection success and projection recall are all coming back very quickly and easily.  Now I need to spend more time strengthening my focus and attention so I can hold the projections longer and begin my pathworking again (I've still got an unfinished "mind mirror" kingdom out there that needs to be finished and that requires focus and attention).

PR

[The Nature of Dreams]

This is an excerpt from the book "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.  It's a great book that I highly recommend.  I will preface this by making it clear that this is coming from the perspective of Tibetan Buddhism, so the terminology and perception of the processes and events come from Buddhist teachings.  I'm not to keen on Buddhist teachings myself, however, this author is also pretty westernized and he presents the Buddhist teachings in a way that western occult analogues can easily be identified.  So, I decided to post this excerpt because I think that the points made are very important to the practice of what is referred to as dreaming (but really means conscious or lucid dreaming, as well as astral projection).  I feel that these teachings are often ignored and as a result are the source of failure for many people.  I'm pasting a copy of the first couple chapters that I found to be relevant, as well as a link to a pdf version of those chapters. 

Again I highly recommend this book, it has helped me a lot and I think it brings a new perspective to LD/AP.  I met the author when he did a book signing at the bookstore I used to work at, and he told me that not only do the Tibetan Buddhists see dream as more "real" than waking life, but it only makes sense to live all of your life consciously, not just half of it.

Here is the link to The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep on Amazon, which they carry in both paperback and the kindle version.  It's worth buying, though if you're resourceful enough I'm sure you could find a free copy on the internet.

And here is the link to the PDF version  of the excerpt that I have posted here.

Excerpt from "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep"
By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

PART ONE
The Nature of Dreams

1  Dream and Reality

   All of us dream whether we remember dreaming or not.  We dream as infants and continue dreaming until we die.  Every night we enter and unknown world.  We may seem to be our ordinary selves or someone completely different.  We meet people whom we know or don't know, who are living or dead.  We fly, encounter non-human beings, have blissful experiences, laugh, weep and are terrified, exalted, or transformed.  Yet we generally pay these extraordinary experiences little attention.  Many Westerners who approach the teachings do so with ideas about dream based in psychological theory; subsequently, when they become more interested in using dream in their spiritual life, they usually focus on the content and meaning of dreams.  Rarely is the nature of dreaming itself investigated.  When it is, the investigation leads to the mysterious processes that underlie the whole of our existence, not only our dreaming life. 
   The first step in dream practice is quite simple: one must recognize the great potential that dream holds for the spiritual journey.  Normally the dream is thought to be "unreal," as opposed to "real" waking life.  But there is nothing more real than dream.  This statement only makes sense once it is understood that normal waking life is as unreal as dream, and in exactly the same way.  Then it can be understood that dream yoga applies to all experience, to the dreams of the day as well as the dreams of the night.

2  How Experience Arises

IGNORANCE
   All of our experience, including dream, arises from ignorance.  This is a rather startling statement to make in the West, so first let us understand what is meant by ignorance (ma-rigpa).  The Tibetan tradition distinguishes between two kinds of ignorance: innate ignorance and cultural ignorance.  Innate ignorance is the basis of samsara (continuous cycle of suffering; generally considered the antithesis of Nirvāṇa), and the defining characteristic of ordinary beings.  It is ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of the world, and it results in entanglement with the delusions of the dualistic mind.
   Dualism reifies polarities and dichotomies.  It divides the seamless unity of experience into this and that, right and wrong, you and me.  Based on these conceptual divisions, develop preferences that manifest as grasping and aversion, the habitual responses that make up most of what we identify as ourselves.  We want this, not that; believe in this, not that; respect this and disdain that.  We want pleasure, comfort, wealth, and fame, and try to escape from pain, poverty, shame, and discomfort.  We want these things for ourselves and those we love, and do not care about others.  We want an experience different from the one we are having, or we want to hold on to an experience and avoid the inevitable changes that will lead to its cessation.
   There is a second kind of ignorance that is culturally conditioned.  It comes about as desires and aversions become institutionalized in a culture and codified into value systems.  For example, in India, Hindus believe that it is wrong to eat cows but proper to eat pigs.  Moslems believe that it is appropriate to eat beef but they are prohibited from eating pork.  Tibetans eat both.  Who is right?  The Hindu thinks the Hindus are right, the Moslem thinks the Moslems are right, and the Tibetan thinks the Tibetans are right.  The differing beliefs arise from the biases and beliefs that are part of the culture – not from fundamental wisdom. 
   Another example can be found in the internal conflicts of philosophy.  There are many philosophical systems that are defined by their disagreement with one another on fine points.  Even though the systems themselves are developed with the intention to lead beings to wisdom, they produce ignorance in that their followers cling to a dualistic understanding of reality.  This is unavoidable in any conceptual system because the conceptual mind itself is a manifestation of ignorance.
   Cultural ignorance is developed and preserved in traditions.  It pervades every custom, opinion, set of values, and body of knowledge.  Both individuals and cultures accept these preferences as so fundamental that they are taken to be common sense or divine law.  We grow up attaching ourselves to various beliefs, to a political party, a medical system, a religion, an opinion about how things should be.  We pass through elementary school, high school, and maybe college, and in one sense every diploma is an award for developing a more sophisticated ignorance.  Education reinforces the habit of seeing the world through a certain lens.  We can become an expert in an erroneous view, become very precise in our understanding, and relate to other experts.  This can be the case also in philosophy, in which one learns detailed intellectual systems and develops the mind into a sharp instrument of inquiry.  But until innate ignorance is penetrated, one is merely developing an acquired bias, not fundamental wisdom.
   We become attached to even the smallest things: a particular brand of soap or our hair being cut in a certain fashion.  On a grand scale, we develop religions, political systems, philosophies, psychologies, and sciences.  But no one is born with the belief that it is wrong to eat beef or pork or that one philosophical system is right and the other in error or that this religion is true and that religion is false.  These must be learned.  The allegiance to particular values is the result of cultural ignorance, but the propensity to accept limited views originates in the dualism that is the manifestation of innate ignorance.
   This is not bad.  It is just what is.  Our attachments can lead to war but they also manifest as helpful technologies and different arts that are of great benefit to the world.  As long as we are unenlightened we participate in dualism, and that is all right.  In Tibetan there is a saying, "When in the body of a donkey, enjoy the taste of grass."  In other words, we should appreciate and enjoy this life because it is meaningful and valuable in itself, and because it is the life we are living.
   If we are not careful, the teachings can be used to support our ignorance.  One can say that it is bad for someone to get an advanced degree, or wrong to have dietary restrictions, but this is not the point at all.  Or one might say that ignorance is bad or normal life is only samsaric stupidity.  But ignorance is simply an obscuration of consciousness.  Being attached to it or repelled by it is just the same old game of dualism, played out in the realm of ignorance.  We can see how pervasive it is.  Even the teachings must work with dualism – by encouraging attachment to virtue, for example, and aversion to non-virtue – paradoxically using the dualism of ignorance to overcome ignorance.  How subtle our understanding must become and how easily we can get lost!  This is why practice is necessary, in order to have direct experience rather than just developing another conceptual system to elaborate and defend.  When things are seen from a higher perspective they tend to level out.  From the perspective of non-dual wisdom there is no important and unimportant.

ACTIONS AND RESULTS: KARMA AND KARMIC TRACES
   The culture in which we live conditions us, but we carry the seeds of conditioning with us wherever we go.  Everything that bothers us is actually in our mind.  We blame our unhappiness on the environment, our situation, and believe that if we could change our circumstances we would be happy.  But the situation in which we find ourselves is only the secondary cause of our suffering.  The primary cause is innate ignorance and the resulting desire for things to be other than they are.
   Perhaps we decide to escape the stresses of the city by moving to the ocean or the mountains.  Or we may leave the isolation and difficulties of the country for the excitement of the city.  The change can be nice because the secondary causes are altered and contentment may be found.  But only for a short while.  The root of our discontent moves with us to our new home, and from it grow new dissatisfactions.  Soon we are once again caught up in turmoil of hope and fear.
   Or we may think that if we just had more money, or a better partner, or a better body or job or education, we would be happy.  But we know this is not true.  The rich are not free from suffering, a new partner will dissatisfy us in some way, the body will age, the new job will grow less interesting, and so on.  When we think the solution to our unhappiness can be found in the external, our desires can only be temporarily sated.  Not understanding this, we are tossed this way and that by the winds of desire, ever restless and dissatisfied.  We are governed by our karma and continually plant the seeds of future karmic harvest.  Not only does this mode of action distract us from the spiritual path, but it also prevents us from finding satisfaction and happiness in our daily life.
   As long as we identify with the grasping and aversion of the moving mind, we produce the negative emotions that are born in the gap between what is and what we want.  Actions generated from these emotions, which include nearly all actions taken in our ordinary lives, leave karmic traces.
   Karma means action.  Karmic traces are the results of actions, which remain in the mental consciousness and influence our future.  We can partially understand karmic traces if we think of them as what in the West are called tendencies in the unconscious.  They are inclinations, patterns of internal and external behavior, ingrained reactions, habitual conceptualizations.  They dictate our emotional reactions to situations and our intellectual rigidities.  They create and condition every response we normally have to every element of our experience. 
   This is an example of karmic traces on a gross level, though the same dynamic is at work in even the subtlest and most pervasive levels of experience: A man grows up in a home in which there is a lot of fighting.  Then, perhaps thirty or forty years after leaving home, he is walking down a street and passes a house in which people are arguing with one another.  That night he has a dream in which he is fighting with his wife or partner.  When he wakes in the morning he feels aggrieved and withdrawn.  This is noticed by his partner who reacts to the mood, which further irritates him.
   This sequence of experiences shows us something about karmic traces.  When the man was young, he reacted to the fighting in his home with fear, anger and hurt.  He felt aversion toward the fighting, a normal response, and this aversion left a trace in his mind.  Decades later he passes a house and hears fighting; this is the secondary condition that stimulates the old karmic trace, which manifests in a dream that night.
   In the dream, the man reacts to the dream-partner's provocation with feelings of anger and hurt.  This response is governed by the karmic traces that were collected in his mental consciousness as a child and that have probably been reinforced many times since.  When the dream-partner – who is wholly a projection of the man's mind – provokes him, his reaction is aversion, just as when he was a child.  The aversion that he feels in the dream is the new action that creates a new seed.  When he wakes he is stuck in the negative emotions that are the fruit of prior karmas; he feels estranged and withdrawn from his partner.  To complicate matters further, the partner reacts from her karmically determined habitual tendencies, perhaps becoming short-tempered, withdrawn, apologetic, or subservient, and the man again reacts negatively, sowing yet another karmic seed.
   Any reaction to any situation – external or internal, waking or dreaming – that is rooted in grasping or aversion, leaves a trace in the mind.  As karma dictates reactions, the reactions sow further karmic seeds, which further dictate reactions, and so on.  This is how karma leads to more of itself.  It is the wheel of samsara, the ceaseless cycle of action and reaction.
   Although this example focuses on karma on the psychological level, karma determines every dimension of existence.  It shapes the emotional and mental phenomena in an individual's life as well as the perception and interpretation of existence, the functioning of the body, and the cause and effect dynamism of the external world.  Every aspect of experience, however small or large, is governed by karma.
   The karmic traces let in the mind are like seeds.  And like seeds, they require certain conditions in order to manifest.  Just as a seed needs the right combination of moisture and light and nutrients and temperature in order to sprout and grow, the karmic trace manifests when the right situation is encountered.  The elements of the situation that support the manifestation of the karma are known as the secondary causes and conditions.
   It is helpful to think of karma as the process of cause and effect, because this leads to the recognition that the choices made in responding to any situation, internal or external, have consequences.  Once we really understand that each karmic trace is a seed for further karmically governed action, we can use that understanding to avoid creating negativity in our life, and instead create conditions that will influence our lives in a positive direction.  Or, if we know how, we can allow the emotion to self-liberate as it arises, in which case no new karma is created.

NEGATIVE KARMA
If we react to a situation with negative emotion, the trace left in the mind will eventually ripen and influence a situation in life negatively.  For example, if someone is angry with us and we in turn react with anger, we leave a trace that makes it more likely for us to encounter the secondary situations which allow our habitual anger to arise.  This is easy to see if we have a great deal of anger in our lives or if we know someone who does.  Angry people continually encounter situations that seem to justify their anger, while people with less anger do not.  The external situations may be similar but the different karmic inclinations create different subjective worlds.
   If an emotion is expressed impulsively it can generate strong results and reactions.  Anger can lead to a fight or some other kind of destruction.  People can be harmed physically or emotionally.  This is not true just of anger; if fear is acted out it too can create great stress for the person who suffers it, can alienate that person from others, and so on.  It is not too difficult to see how this leads to negative traces that influence the future negatively.
   If we suppress emotion, there is still a negative trace.  Suppression is a manifestation of aversion.  It occurs through tightening something inside ourselves, putting something behind a door and locking it, forcing part of our experience into the dark where it waits, seemingly hostile, until the appropriate secondary cause calls it out.  This may manifest in many ways.  For example, if we suppress our jealousy of others, it may eventually manifest in an emotional outburst, or it may be present in the harsh judgment of others of whom we are secretly jealous, even if we deny this jealousy to ourselves.  Mental judgment is also an action, based on aversion, that creates negative karmic seeds.

POSITIVE KARMA
   Instead of either of these negative responses – being driven in our behavior by the karmic tendency or suppressing it – we can take a moment to stop and communicate with ourselves and choose to produce the antidote to the negative emotion.  If someone is angry with us and our own anger arises, the antidote is compassion.  Inducing it may feel forced and inauthentic at first, but if we realize that the person irritating us is being pushed around by his own conditioning, and further realize that he is suffering a constriction of consciousness because he is trapped in his own negative karma, we feel some compassion and can start to let go of our negative reactions.  As we do, we begin to shape our future positively. 
   This new response, which is still based on desire – in this case for virtue or peace or spiritual growth – produces a karmic trace that is positive; we have planted the seed of compassion.  The next time we encounter anger we are a little more likely to respond with compassion, which is much more comfortable and spacious than the narrowness of self-protective anger.  In this way, the practice of virtue cumulatively retrains our response to the world and we find ourselves, for instance, encountering less and less anger both internally and externally.  If we continue in this practice, compassion will eventually arise spontaneously and without effort.  Using the understanding of karma, we can retrain our minds to use all experience, even the most private and fleeting daydreams, to support our spiritual practice.

LIBERATING EMOTIONS
   The best response to negative emotion is to allow it to self-liberate by remaining in non-dual awareness, free of grasping and aversion.  If we can do this, the emotion passes through us like a bird flying through space; no trace of its passage remains.  The emotion arises and then spontaneously dissolves into emptiness.
   In this case, the karmic seed is manifesting – as emotion or thought or bodily sensation or an impulse toward particular behaviors – but because we do not respond with grasping or aversion, no seed of future karma is generated.  Every time that envy, for example, is allowed to arise and dissolve in awareness without our becoming caught by it or trying to repress it, the strength of the karmic tendency toward envy weakens.  There is no new action to reinforce it.  Liberating emotion in this way cuts karma at its root.  It is as if we burn the karmic seeds before they have an opportunity to grow into trouble in our life.
   You may ask why it is better to liberate emotion rather than to generate positive karma.  The answer is that all karmic traces act to constrain us, to restrict us to particular identities.  The goal of the path is complete liberation from all conditioning.  This does not mean that, once one is liberated, positive traits such as compassion are not present.  They are.  But when we are no longer driven by karmic tendencies we can see our situation clearly and respond spontaneously and appropriately, rather than being pushed in one direction or pulled in another.  The relative compassion that arises from positive karmic tendencies is very good, but better is the absolute compassion that arises effortlessly and perfectly in the individual liberated from karmic conditioning.  It is more spacious and inclusive, more effective, and free of the delusions of dualism.
   Although allowing emotion to self-liberate is the best response, it is difficult to do before our practice is developed and stable.  But however our practice is now, all of us can determine to stop for a moment when emotion arises, check in with ourselves, and choose to act as skillfully as possible.  We can all learn to blunt the force of impulse, of karmic habits.  We can use a conceptual process, reminding ourselves that the emotion we are experiencing is simply the fruition of previous karmic traces.  Then we may be able to relax our identification with the emotion or point of view, and let go of our defensiveness.  As the knot of emotion loosens, the identity relaxes and grows more spacious.  We can choose a more positive response, planting seeds of positive karma.  Again, it is important to do this without repressing emotion.  We should relax as we generate compassion, no rigidly suppress the anger in our body while trying to think good thoughts.
   The spiritual journey is not meant to benefit only the far future or our next life.  As we practice training ourselves to react more positively to situations, we change our karmic traces and develop qualities that effect positive changes in the lives we are leading right now.  As we see more clearly that every experience, however small and private, has a result, we can use this understanding to change our lives and our dreams.

OBSCURATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
   Karmic traces remain with us as psychic remnants of actions performed with grasping or aversion.  They are obscurations of consciousness stored in the base consciousness of the individual, in the kunzhi namshe.  Although it is spoken of as a container, the kunzhi namshe actually is equivalent to the obscuration of consciousness: when there are no obscurations of consciousness there is no kunzhi namshe.  It is not a thing or a place; it is the dynamic that underlies the organization of dualistic experience.  It is as insubstantial as a collection of habits, and as powerful as the habits that allow language to make sense, forms to resolve into objects, and existence to appear to us as something meaningful that we can navigate and understand.
   The common metaphor for the kunzhi namshe is of a storehouse or repository that cannot be destroyed.  We can think of the kunzhi namshe storing a collection of patterns or schematics.  It is a grammar of experience that is affected to a greater or lesser extent by each action that we take externally or internally, physically or cognitively.  As long as habitual tendencies exist in the mind of the individual, the kunzhi namshe exists.  When one dies and the body deteriorates, the kunzhi namshe does not.  The karmic traces continue in the mental consciousness until they are purified.  When they are completely purified, there is no longer a kunzhi namshe and the individual is a buddha.

KARMIC TRACES AND DREAM
   All samsaric experience is shaped by karmic traces.  Moods, thoughts, emotions, mental images, perceptions, instinctive reactions, "common sense," and even our sense of identity are all governed by the workings of karma.  For example, you may wake up feeling depressed.  You have breakfast, everything seems to be all right, but there is a sense of depression that cannot be accounted for.  We say in this case that some karma is ripening.  The causes and conditions have come together in such a way that the depression manifests.  There may be a hundred reasons for this depression to occur on this particular morning, and it may manifest in a myriad of ways.  It may also manifest during the night as a dream.
   In dream, the karmic traces manifest in consciousness unfettered by the rational mind with which we so often rationalize away a feeling or a fleeting mental image.  We can think of the process like this: during the day the consciousness illuminates the senses and we experience the world, weaving sensory and psychic experiences into the meaningful whole of our life.  At night the consciousness withdraws from the senses and resides in the base.  If we have developed a strong practice of presence with much experience of the empty, luminous nature of mind, then we will be aware of and in this pure lucid awareness.  But for most of us the consciousness illuminates the obscurations, the karmic traces and these manifest as a dream.
   The karmic traces are like photographs that we take of each experience.  Any reaction of grasping or aversion to any experience – to memories, feelings, sense perceptions, or thoughts – is like snapping a photo.  In the darkroom of our sleep we develop the film.  Which images are developed on a particular night will be determined by the secondary conditions recently encountered.  Some images or traces are burned deeply into us by powerful reactions while others, resulting from superficial experiences, leave only a faint residue.  Our consciousness, like the light of a projector, illuminates the traces that have been stimulated and they manifest as the images and experiences of the dream.  We string them together like a film, as this is the way our psyches work to make meaning, resulting in a narrative constructed from conditioned tendencies and habitual identities: the dream.
   The same process continually occurs while we are awake, making us what we commonly think of as "our experience."  The dynamics are easier to understand in dream, because they can be observed free of the limitations of the physical world and the rational consciousness.  During the day, although still engaged in the same dream-making process, we project this inner activity of the mind onto the world and think that our experiences are "real" and external to our own mind.
   In dream yoga, this understanding of karma is used to train the mind to react differently to experience, resulting in new karmic traces from which are generated dreams more conducive to spiritual practice.  It is not about force, about the consciousness acting imperially to oppress the unconscious.  Dream yoga relies instead upon increased awareness and insight to allow us to make positive choices in life.  Understanding the dynamic structure of experience and the consequences of actions leads to the recognition that every experience of any kind is an opportunity for spiritual practice.
   Dream practice also gives us a method of burning the seeds of future karma during the dream.  If we abide in awareness during a dream, we can allow the karmic traces to self-liberate as they arise and they will not continue on to manifest in our life as negative states.  As in waking life, this will only happen if we can remain in the non-dual awareness of rigpa, the clear light of the mind.  If this is not possible for us, we can still develop tendencies to choose spiritually positive behavior even in our dream until we can go beyond preferences and dualism altogether.
   Ultimately, when we purify the obscurations until none remain, there is no film, no hidden karmic influences that color and shape the light of our consciousness.  Because karmic traces are the roots of dreams, when they are entirely exhausted only the pure light of awareness remains: no movie, no story, no dreamer and no dream, only the luminous fundamental nature that is absolute reality.  This is why enlightenment is the end of dreams and is known as "awakening."

...

BLIND HORSE, LAME RIDER
   At night, when we go to sleep, we generally do so with little sense of what is happening.  We just feel tired, shut our eyes, and drift away.  We may have an idea about sleep – blood in the brain, hormones, or something like that – but the actual process of falling asleep remains mysterious and unexplored.
   The Tibetan tradition explains the process of falling asleep using a metaphor for the mind and prana*.  Often prana is compared to a blind horse and the mind to a person unable to walk.  Separately they are helpless, but together they begin to run, generally with little control over where they go.  We know this from our own experience: we can "put" the mind into a chakra by placing our attention there, but it is not easy to keep the mind in any one place.  The mind is always moving our attention, going to this or that.  Normally, in samsaric beings, the horse and rider run blindly through one of the six dimensions of consciousness**, one of the six negative emotional states.
   For example, as we fall asleep, awareness of the sensory world is lost.  The mind is carried here and there on the blind horse of karmic prana until it becomes focused in a particular chakra where it is influenced by a particular dimension of consciousness.  Perhaps you had an argument with your partner and that situation (secondary condition) activates a karmic trace associated with the heart chakra, which pulls your mind to that location in the body.  The subsequent activity of the mind and prana manifests in the particular images and stories of the dream.
   The mind is not driven randomly to one chakra or another, but rather is drawn to the places in the body and the situations in life that need attention and healing.  In the example, it is as if the heart chakra is crying out for help.  The disturbing trace will be healed by manifesting in the dream and thereby being exhausted.  However, unless the manifestation takes place while the dreamer is centered and aware, the reactions to it will be dictated by habitual karmic tendencies and will create more karmic seeds.
   We can think of a computer as an analogy.  The chakras are like different files.  Click on the directory "Prana and Mind," and then open the file of the heart chakra.  The information in the file – the karmic traces associated with the heart chakra – is displayed on the screen of awareness.  This is like the dream manifesting.
   Then perhaps a situation in the dream elicits another response that energizes a different emotion.  The dream now becomes the secondary cause that allows another karmic trace to manifest.  Now the mind travels down to the navel center and enters a different realm of experience.  The character of the dream changes.  You are not jealous anymore; instead you are on a street without signs or somewhere very dark.  You are lost.  You try to go somewhere but you cannot find your way.
   Basically, this is how the content of the dream is shaped.  The mind and prana are drawn to different chakras in the body; affected by the associated karmic traces, experiences of the various dimensions of experience arise in the mind as the character and content of the dream.  We can use this understanding to look at our dreams differently, to notice which emotion and realm is connected to the dream.  It is also helpful to understand that every dream offers us an opportunity for healing and spiritual practice.
   Ultimately, we wish to stabilize the mind and the prana in the central channel rather than allowing the mind to be drawn to a particular chakra.  The central channel is the energetic basis of experiences of rigpa (non-dual awareness), and the practices that we do in dream yoga are meant to bring mind and prana into the central channel.  When this occurs, we remain in clear awareness and strong presence.  To dream in the central channel is to dream free of strong influences from the negative emotions.  It is a balanced situation that allows dreams of knowledge and clarity to manifest.

*(All experience, waking and dreaming, has and energetic basis.  This vital energy is called prana.  The content of dream is formed by the mind, but the basis of the vitality and animation of the dream is the prana.) 

**(According to the teachings, there are six realms [loka] of existence in which all deluded beings exist.  Fundamentally, the realms are six dimensions of consciousness, six dimensions of possible experience.  They manifest in us individually as the six negative emotions: anger, greed, ignorance, jealousy, pride and pleasurable distraction.  The six realms are not, however, only categories of emotional experience but are also actual realms into which beings are born...)

shielding for what?

why do you need to shield yourself?










and that is how i shield myself.