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Man of Knowledge

"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with respect and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps."
Don Juan, A Yaqui Man of Knowledge

The way of men of knowledge is perilous and lonely. Strange visions and stranger powers await the visitor to the uncharted worlds of inner space, beyond the reach of physical instruments or physical machines (including the body). The man of knowledge is not content with theoretical treatises or second-hand reports. He must see for himself and transform himself. The door to inner space is the door to the future evolution of mankind (figs. 19, 20).

Ordinary ESP and HSP will become common in the Age of Aquarius.

Further into the future, we shall surpass the Atlanteans and become masters of apportation. Then we shall be like the UFO travelers, visiting other civilizations living in other stellar systems, interacting in unknown ways with civilizations on our own level. But we must learn how to crawl before we can think of flying, and just learning how to crawl may take many lifetimes.

How does one become a 'man of knowledge?' There are no real guidebooks. Lama Naljorpas, Yogis, Brujos, Kahunas and adepts of the golden light (if any still exist) do not broadcast their knowledge, nor do they advertise. As far as I know, only one genuine text for the 'man of knowledge' exists, THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, and it will remain a secret after you read it unless you already know something of the subject matter. We get our preliminary knowledge from a number of anthropologists, particularly Lady Alexandra David-Neel (MAGIC AND MYSTERY IN TIBET), Carlos Castaneda (THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN), and Max Freedom Long (THE SECRET SCIENCE BEHIND MIRACLES) and from one scientific avatar, Rudolf Steiner (KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS).

One can begin by trying to find a guru. Presumably, among the Yaquis, Yogis, and Tibetan Lamas one may still find masters. But if you could find one, he wouldn't agree that he was one and would discourage your discipleship. If you persist, he will set some seemingly impossible task or give you some long and difficult trial period. Don Juan gave Carlos the unknown task of 'seeing' his 'spot.' After one or two hints during the night, Carlos was successful, and found both his favorable (sito) and his unfavorable place (enemy) on Don Juan's porch. But only after an exhausting and baffling night. Most people could not have done it. Carlos must have developed some HSP powers in former lifetimes. Lady Alexandra tells of periods of trial lasting many years before one is even accepted as a pupil.

But Gurus are not strictly necessary, especially for Aquarian age people. Be warned of the dangers to both life and sanity....and even worse dangers. Mircea Eliade's book TWO TALES OF THE OCCULT tells of a man who became invisible (one of many possible attainments) but who did not know how to reverse the process. So either a guru or much careful reading or cautious exploration will be necessary for safety's sake. You must also be prepared to spend years, lifetimes, perhaps, even with the aid of psychedelic substances. Even then you may be unsuccessful.

Two preliminary points. One must shed the skeptical, hostile, show-me attitude so characteristic of American students. Reverence and sensitivity describe the necessary mood. Therefore, you must have grown out of most other needs and ambitions. Sri Yukteswar, one of the three greatest avatars of which we have reliable knowledge, began in middle age, after working his way through normal earthly ambitions. In order to maintain tranquil reverence and sensitivity you must remove yourself from distractions, hostility, anger, lust, fear, bad vibes of every kind. Perhaps that is why the greatest masters appear in mountain wilds, desert wastes or deep in trackless forests.

The second point, harder to grasp, is that one cannot develop spiritual powers without developing spirituality as well. Spiritual growth does not require bottling up hatred, revenge, greed, lust, lying cruelty, and the rest. It means outgrowing them, seeing something more beautiful beyond. Such great-souledness is not necessary for the manipulation of physical powers. But spiritual powers come from the depths of you, and experience shows that such powers disappear (are shut off by the higher centers) when they are used destructively or in a narrowly selfish way.

How to begin? First, what sort of things can you expect to accomplish in the short run? The Yaquis apparently concentrate on HSP 'seeing,' and on making contact with powerful spirit beings such as Mescalito, and obtaining an ally. The Yaqui sorcerers also transform their shapes with the humijo (little smoke of mushrooms and other ingredients) and levitate and apport with Jimson weed. It is very difficult to see how one could possibly proceed down the Brujo path without a guru. One would need to know a great deal about the natural psychedelic substances, both in their physical and in their psychonic aspects. Probably the main thing we can learn from Castaneda's books is that psychedelics can open the doors to spiritual powers as well as forms of perception, and we need to experiment during LSD trips.

For the do-it-yourself man of knowledge, the Yogic path seems preferable to the Brujo path, since we know more about the details of the former.

Nearly all Yogic powers require first mastering certain elementary exercises: one-pointed consciousness, blank consciousness, discrimination consciousness, and prana exercises.

Suppose you wanted to develop telepathy. You would first practice one-pointedness. One exercise for this is to stare at the lighted tip of a stick of incense in a darkened room until you are conscious only of the point of light and can see it as well with your eyes closed as open. (Lady Alexandra, pp. 232 and 266). One exercise for developing blank consciousness is to sit in a garden, examining every detail. When the student has a perfect subjective image of it, he eliminates it, detail by detail.

"Gradually, the flowers lose their colours and their forms, they crumble into tiny pieces which fall to dust and finally vanish. The trees also, lose their leaves...the bare ground alone remains and from it the novice must subtract the stones and the earth. The ground in its turn vanishes..."
Lady Alexandra David-neel, MAGIC AND MYSTERY IN TIBET, p. 274

The third exercise is discrimination of the causes of sudden sensations, moods, memories or even physical sensations. A good preliminary exercise is just to observe all the sensations swarming through the mind. Observe but do not comment or act on them. Then see your own observing of these sensations. If you have learned to recognize the source of sudden moods of thought that cross your mind, you are ready to practice telepathy with a master or another novice. One student practices sending messages with perfect one-pointedness, the other practices a discriminatory blank consciousness, and notes any sudden thought or feeling that arises in his mind. After the session, agreements and discrepancies are noted. By this kind of practice, telepathic ability is developed. In advanced meditation, the student ceases to regard himself and others as separate entities and discovers points of contact in the collective unconscious where only continuous exchanges are perceived (Lady Alexandra, p. 234).

Quite different exercises are required for HSP. During his trial period, Carlos started to develop HSP when he fixed his eyesight about a foot in front of him and began observing changes in the colors of his peripheral vision. Next he became aware of different feelings in different places on the porch. He was very close to true 'seeing' at that point. Karagulla has observed that her HSP subjects see to unfocus their physical eyes when they 'see.' One described a kind of gathering of consciousness to the center of her head before 'seeing.'

To develop HSP Steiner recommends that you meditate first on a leaf or seed and then on a crystal and then both together. You learn to feel with your sight, to become sensitive to the appearance of something to the inner eye. According to Steiner, the grain of seed will be seen-felt by the sensory-spiritual ability as a kind of flame. The center of this flame evokes the same impression as that made by the color lilac; the edges give a bluish tint. (Steiner, p. 65). In this way you will learn to see the kind of patterns photographed by the Kirlians around leaves and crystals, and eventually you may be able to see everything Karagulla's Diane sees. Probably the crucial thing is the first seeing-feeling and allowing this sensation to grow and not be squelched by skeptical thoughts.

For levitation and Tumo (magic heat) one must practice breathing (prana) exercises. One aim of this is clearly to increase the flow of prana in the psychonic body (there are other exercises with the reverse aim). The form of levitation most common in Tibet is the special walking in trance of the lung-gompa. After learning various breathing exercises (which make the breathing very slow and regular, as in sleep), the novice sits cross-legged in complete darkness on a thick cushion. He inhales slowly for a long time, just as if he wanted to fill his body with air. Then, holding his breath, he jumps up with legs crossed, without using his arms. When the novice can jump twice his standing height in this fashion, he is initiated into lung-gompa proper. He is given a phrase (a mantra) to continuously repeat to himself, breathing in, retaining, breathing out, and walking in cadence to this phrase. After the previous training, the rhythmic breathing makes him very light, so that with each step he bounds a very long way. Eventually, the feet do not touch the ground at all.

The Yaqui Brujos learn to levitate and apport by drinking a Jimson weed tea and smearing Jimson weed (Datura) paste on legs and genitals. The Jimson weed must be grown 'magically,' that is, by someone who knows and can manipulate their psychonic reality as well as their physical reality.

Tumo is an art especially useful in the cold Tibetan mountains. With it some adepts live naked in the snows. Tumo was once known to the Hopis, along with levitation along the leys of dragon current.

The Tumo novice has to be able to visualize the pranic distribution system, and perhaps it is necessary to actually 'see' it. As usual in psychic exercises, one first calms the mind. When it is still as a pool, one visualizes or 'sees' the navel chakra. In the middle, shining like the sun, one visualizes 'ram,' the mystic, symbolic seed of fire. Above 'ram' is placed the mystic, symbolic 'ma,' the seed of the second class of beings, below gods and above men. From 'ma' Dorjee Naljorma (a feminine deity) issues. On can then identify with this deity.

The novice-become-female-deity watches the psychonic body from without, while with each breath a smoldering fire grows at the navel chakra. The novice gradually holds the breath more and more while observing the fire ascending the Uma (what Hindus call the Kundalini pipeline, which connects the chakras). The fire rises to the crown chakra (so called thousand-petalled). Inhalations, retentions, and exhalations continue rhythmically and a mythic formula is repeated, while maintaining one-pointed consciousness on the psychonic body and the fire rising in it. On first sees the central vein as a thin thread of fire, fanned by each breath. It gradually grows to the thickness of the finger, then to the size of an arm. Next the entire psychonic body has become a tube of fire and blazing air, finally the body ceases to be perceived and the novice feels himself to be a storm-beaten wave among the flowing waves of an ocean of fire. (Lady Alexandra, p. 223). Beginners go through this exercise faster than advanced disciples. After the ocean of fire, the steps are reversed and the mind sinks at the end into the great emptiness in which the ego disappears. This is one of the preliminaries to Samadhi (or perhaps the Yogis would classify this as a species of Samadhi, since any state of at-onement of polar opposites is called Samadhi). Eventually, the psychonic body performs Tumo automatically when it is cold. This is often a life-saving necessity in the Tibetan mountains.

"The snow, the wintry blast and my thin cotton garment fought against each other on the white mountain. The snow as it fell on me, melted into a stream, The roaring blast was broken against the thin cotton robe which enclosed the fiery warmth, The life and death struggle of the fighter could there be seen And I, having won the victory, left a landmark for the hermits Demonstrating the great virtue of Tumo."
Milarepa, 12th C. Tibetan poet.

This exercise is only one of many, all involving the special breathing accompanied by the one-pointed visualization of the fire, growing in one form or another.

The part of the exercise which involves viewing the body from without is similar to another sort of psychic exercise in which the novice practices identifying himself with a tree, which then practices identifying itself with the novice sitting before it and so forth.

The Tibetans perform a number of interesting exercises, designed to teach the novice the subjective nature of visions of demons and gods. Especially terrifying is the rite of choed, performed near corpses, which the Tibetans cut to pieces and leave for the vultures. The novice blows a kangling (a horn made of a human femur) and beats a deep-voiced drum, while calling up demons to feast on his flesh (the novice's). And they do just that. Eventually the novice recognizes the subjective character of these visions of demons. That is, the demons are the creations of the visionary's unconscious mind.

A somewhat similar exercise, sometimes put to practical use, is the creation of a Tulpa, usually of one's tutelary deity (something like a Catholic's patron saint). Usually, a special kyilkhor (mandala) is used in such exercises. Lady Alexandra herself succeeded in creating a Tulpa, of a fat little monk. She not only succeeded in getting it to come out of the kyilkhor, but even to come out of the Tsam khang (place of seclusion) and follow her around on her travels. It could be seen by some other persons, and gradually took on a life of its own, becoming rather unpleasant. She reports that it took her months of hard work to get rid of it.

A Tulpa is a thought-form, a persistent collective apparition. Experts can create a Tulpa of themselves which is absolutely convincing, which can carry out various tasks, even after the creator is dead. Lady Alexandra gave a remarkable example. The Tashi Lama knew he would die before the dedication of a certain temple (Yogis often know the date of their death ahead of time), so he created a Tulpa to take his place in the ceremonies. The Tulpa convinced everyone of its materiality until it walked into a solid rock of the temple and disappeared. (Lady Alexandra, p. 317).

For the average Westerner, unsure about the reality of Yogic powers and wishing concrete descriptions of methods and results, MAGIC AND MYSTERY IN TIBET is the place to start. The author is a scientist and a Westerner, with a fine critical mind and she personally witnessed many things, and heard many things from the lips of high lamas and Hermits and common people. But for a more advanced course, we turn to THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, an underground Chinese classic of the outlawed golden light religions, which has affinities to gnosticism and alchemy (the real alchemy).

The SECRET is not easy for a Westerner to understand, unaccustomed as we are to dividing the self into parts, nor to giving these parts definite sizes, places and properties. The Chinese talk about the mind and spirit just as we do about bodies. We must first understand these ideas, and then we must put them to the test of experience. To that end, here is a kind of translation of the key terms in the SECRET, in the light of the new spiritual science. The SECRET is a very useful text to master, since many of its exercises and ideas can be put to other purposes than the creation of the 'diamond body.'

"Primal spirit" is what Jung calls the psyche, the bright field on the sphere, of which the ego is a differentiation. "One effective, true human nature" is the entity (Cayce) of Self (sphere in Jung) combined with the psychonic body. "Anima" is the psychonic body, with its chakras and nadi. "Animus is the conscious self or ego of one life. Ordinary consciousness depends on the anima or psychonic body. According to the Chinese, the ego quite literally lives in the eyes (not the eyes chakra), but only by day. By night it lives in the liver. The ego, or conscious spirit is affected by the heart chakra but does not live there. The chakra between the eyes is the "heavenly heart" or "square inch field."

The first purpose of meditation is to concentrate thoughts on this heavenly heart in absolute quiet, until it opens. Within the heavenly heart (eyes chakra) is to be found a number of things, including "the space of former heaven" (door to memories of former lives), and "the dark pass" (gateway to the higher center of the self), and "the god of utmost emptiness." The higher center of the self is also given a definite place, in the navel chakra.

The seven main chakras are called the openings of the heavenly heart. The navel chakra is called "the place of power." After the heavenly heart is entered and the circulation of the light obtained, the primal self (now become the Golden Flower) goes through the "dark pass" to the "place of power" where the crystallization of the light is continued, along with the "melting and mixing" and "washing," until the transformed self becomes the embryo of the diamond body self, a kind of god. Let me quote a passage:

"Keeping the thoughts on the space between the two eyes allows the light to penetrate. Thereupon the spirit crystallizes and enters the center in the midst of conditions. The center in the midst of conditions is the lower Elixir-field, the place of energy (solar plexus)." (p. 38)

"Place of energy" and "center in the midst of conditions" are names for the navel chakra and the higher center which dwells there, respectively.

The first steps of the exercise are these: (1)Concentration of the conscious spirit(ego) and quieting of it. It is concentrated on the 'heavenly heart' between the eyes, namely the 2-petalled chakra. (2)The 'light' is made to circulate by the 'eyes.' 'Light' probably means prana, but it just may refer to nouonic flow.

Both preliminary steps have analogs in Western experience. Diane and other HSP sensitives say they concentrate themselves in the middle of their heads. And the release of the circulation of the light by the eyes is like Robert Monroe's method of raising vibrations preparatory to out-of-body travel.

As the SECRET says, the vital breath is not the physical breath, but is associated with it. There is the same tradition in India and Tibet. The meaning of "eyes" in the SECRET is never spelled out, although there are several statements to the effect that release is in the eyes. As mentioned, the clue to understanding this is provided by Robert Monroe, who gives a psychic exercise for obtaining a vibrational state (energetic state) preliminary to astral projection (Journeys Out Of The Body, p. 212). First he begins breathing through his half-opened mouth. Then he concentrates on extending two 'rods' of psychonic matter, one out from each eye (described as the sun and moon in the SECRET; positive and negative polarity). He has them converge first at a point a foot in front of the forehead. These poles resist being forced together. Overcome this resistance and hold them together. Then move the convergence three feet away (harder), and finally six feet away from the forehead straight in front. Each time the pressure has to be increased in order to maintain the convergence. Once this has been established and held, you stretch this point of convergence upwards, bending and stretching the point upwards in line with the body, and 'reach out for the vibrations above the head.' When you reach the point of vibrations, you obtain the following reaction:

It is as if a surging, hissing, rhythmically pulsating wave of fiery sparks comes roaring into your head. From there it seems to sweep throughout your body, making it rigid and immobile." (p. 213).

He calls this 'reachout, 90 degrees.' The same rigid and immobile state was described by Paramahansa Yogananda in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, when he was 'initiated' by Sri Yukteswar's thumping him on the chest (no doubt imparting prana to him).

Since the conscious spirit lives in the eyes, one can send streams of psychonic matter out from there to do one's bidding. Once the vibrational state has been achieved, Monroe says the vibrations are to be forced into a ring, or forced into the head. Then they are swept to the toes and back to the head rhythmically. The occasional roughness of the vibrations is smoothed out by 'pulsing' them to gradually increase their frequency, and when a high enough frequency is attained, there is the sensation of bodily warmth. This reminds one of Tumo.

The Chinese force the vibrations (the light) into a circulating loop, from the gonad chakra (or the navel chakra, it is not entirely clear) up rear nadi to the thousand petal crown chakra (or the between-the-eyes chakra), opening and closing energy gates, during measured inhalation. During exhalation the energy is driven down the front of the body (presumably through a different psychonic thread, or nadi), back to the origin point, and thus the circulation of the light is maintained. Both the Chinese and the Tibetans place great emphasis on making the breathing soft and slow and rhythmical, and making the circulation of prana united with the rhythm of breathing. The Chinese also cultivate a kind of HSP listening to detect the pranic flow.

The circulation of the light, or some similar form of raising of pranic energy, is necessary in nearly all forms of psychic exercise. Paramahansa refers to meditation as 'dwelling in the light' or 'entering the light' and according to the SECRET this experience of everything being light is one of the confirmatory experiences after one has successfully made the prana circulate. Depending on how this energy is directed, one can make astral trips or experience the 'gods in the valley,' where one can hear and observe people hundreds of yards away. This 'gods in the valley' experience is also described by Paramahansa.

Learning to circulate the light is for pupils in the beginning stages, as an aid in obtaining the master. Does "the master" refer to the guardian of the thresholds? Or to the confirmatory experience of seeing the Buddha-apparition? Or to a preliminary skill one has to have before finding a guru? Castaneda had to show some ability to 'see' by HSP vision before Don Juan would accept him as a pupil; perhaps the golden light adepts only took novices who could make the light circulate. At any rate, learning the circulation of the light completes and important initial stage in meditation, and permits many 'confirmatory' experiences and powers, by itself.

This leads us to the part of THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER called "A Magic Spell For The Far Journey."

Much of this section has to do with the transformations of the self into the Golden Flower. The primal spirit comes from the ultimate which has no polarity (Brahman or T'ai Chi), receives its human nature from father and mother (solar spirit and moon spirit), and by taking on the true essence of heaven and earth (yang and yin) differentiates into the conscious spirit. This conscious spirit dwells in the eyes, by day at least, while the remaining undifferentiated primal spirit dwells in the square inch field, also known as the purple hall in the city of jade (two-petalled chakras). Meditation is to some extent a process of reversal of this differentiation.

During the regime of the circulation of the light (which takes 100 days of concentrated work to begin and six months to reach the 'white snow flying upward'), the conscious spirit has to some extent reunited with the primal spirit in the purple hall of the city of jade within the square inch space. Obviously, the ability of the conscious spirit to leave the eyes and enter the purple hall of the city of jade (2-petal chakra) is one of the key goals of meditation. Significantly, the purple hall of the city of jade is also known as former heaven (suggesting that it is the center between lifetimes, in 'heaven'); it is also known as the ancestral land (the place of memories of former lifetimes), and the dark pass (to the place of power, the superconscious center in the navel chakra), and also as the god of Utmost Emptiness and Life (the Guardian? the primal spirit?). The traditional goals of Jungian analysis and individuation could be described as the ability to enter the yellow castle, alias the dark pass, the ancestral land, and so forth.

As mentioned, during the regime of the circulation of the light, the self lives within the yellow castle, and all the light circulates through it. The light is not just in the body, according to this text, and when the light is circulating, "heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, are all circulating with it at the same time." (p. 33). On the same page we find "..the goal must be to reach the vastness of heaven and the depths of the sea." The light is information as well as energy, and one can attain cosmic perception during the circulation.

There is an identification of the trigrams (or some of them) with important conditions, or stages, or places of importance in meditation. The heavenly heart (the most common term for the eyes chakra) is identified with the Li trigram, which is Clinging, fire, bright outside and dark within. The navel chakra, the place of power, space of energy, center in the midst of conditions, and dwelling of the superconscious center of the higher self, is identified with the K'an trigram, which is the Abysmal, bright inside and dark outside. The activity of Sun (the gentle, wind, the penetrating light above and in the middle, dark below) is associated with the activity of the conscious spirit in the physical eyes, sending out energies to initiate other processes, such as the beginning of the circulation of the light, and the opening of the door to the yellow castle. Chen (shock, wood, thunder, dark above and in the middle, bright below) is associated with the seven chakras, which are described as openings of the heavenly heart. If I'm not mistaken, Ch'ien, the creative is associated with the crown chakra, and K'un, Earth, the receptive, with the chakra at the base of the spine. The diagram on page 72 of the SECRET showing the circulation of the light suggests such an arrangement. This symbolic identification is important, and corresponds to the kind of activity involved.

The circulation of the light through the yellow castle inhabited by the primal spirit as conscious spirit, produces the budding and blooming of the Golden Flower. This is not the end of the processes described in the SECRET, however, but only the beginning, the foundation. The psychic exercises for the far journey are initiated as are the others, by the eyes. The beginning is the illumination of the house of the Abysmal (navel chakra) by directed streams of energy from the eyes. The next stage involves the meeting of the Clinging and the Abysmal and their inseparable union. The primal spirit goes through the dark pass as the Golden Flower and the illuminated Abysmal rises to meet it. This produces the union or Samadhi state known as 'clouds fill the thousand mountains.' (figs. 10, 11).

"There develops an unceasing life; it comes and goes, rises and falls of itself, in the house of the primal energy. One is aware of effulgence and infinity. The whole body feels light and would like to fly. This is the state of which it is said: Clouds fill the thousand mountains." (p. 55).

There exist certain illustrations which suggest that the house of the primal energy is the heart chakra. This is also the stage in which one can make the far journey. It may be that here is the key to apportation and levitation.

As a result of this partial union, this rising and falling of the awakened Abysmal and the Clinging-as-Golden Flower, one can reach the moment of true creative union of the two. This is known as 'The moon gathers up the ten thousand waters.' As the text describes it: "The pulse stands still and the breathing stops...This is the return of the one light, the time when the child comes to life." (p. 55). The child is the embryonic immortal being. Paramahansa experienced this state of 'the moon gathering up the ten thousand waters,' where all time and space are experienced as one.

We are now in a position to understand the magic spell itself, the magic spell for the far journey. Like all magic spells, this one is a sequence of symbols for psychic processes during meditation. The non-conscious parts of the psychic world can only be controlled or understood symbolically. Of course, with this and all other magic spells, mere repetition of the words by the ignorant would have no more effect than repeating a cake recipe would create a cake. Here it is:

"Four words crystallize the spirit in the space of energy. In the sixth month white snow is suddenly seen to fly. At the third watch the sun's disk sends out blinding rays. In the water blows the wind of the Gentle. Wandering in heaven, one eats the spirit-energy of the Receptive. And the still deeper secret of the secret: The land that is nowhere, that is the true home..." (THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, p. 53).

Crystallizing the spirit refers to the creation of the Golden Flower, the results of crystallization of the light to build up the spirit. The eventual result is the true creative union of Clinging and Abysmal in the navel chakra, the space of energy, producing the 'moon gathers up the ten thousand waters.' (fig. 11) On page 58, this state is further described:

"[One has] taken refuge within the cave of energy, where all that is miraculous returns to its roots...One does not alter the place, but the place divides itself. This is incorporeal space where a thousand and ten thousand places are one place. One does not alter the time, but the time divides itself. This is immeasurable time when all the aeons are like a moment."

Four symbolic words describe the process leading to this miraculous state: Clinging, Abysmal, Wind and Shock.

The white snow is a reference to the polar darkness in the clinging trigram, which is stirred to energy by Wind, the eyes. This yin line becomes a moving line and thus Clinging is about to become the Creative. At the third watch, the sun's disk (referring to the Yang line in the middle of Abysmal) sends out blinding rays. It too, is a 'moving' line as in the I Ching, and thus Abysmal is becoming receptive. The flying upward of the snow is said to refer to the Golden Flower, while the stirring to life of the Abysmal in lines 2 and 3 refers to the Sun and Moon, the two eyes, the pole of the Great Wain which set everything in motion.

Clearly it is necessary to meditate on the symbolism here. The gentle penetrating energy of the two eyes initiates the union by turning yin into yang, by stirring the brightness within the cave of energy by the eyes so that blinding rays are sent out from the yang line of Abysmal, and these are purely creative energies which unite with the Golden Flower in the yellow castle. The White Snow flying upwards in the Golden Flower refers to the distillation of the yin into yang in the Golden Flower. Thus the Golden Flower is becoming pure Yang, while the center in the cave of energy is becoming pure Yin. The line "Wandering in heaven, one eats the spirit-energy of the Receptive," is explained in the text: "This shows how the spirit penetrates the energy, how heaven penetrates the earth; this happens so that the fire can be nourished." (p. 59). It is not enough to merely receive the energies sent up the Kundalini pipeline by stirring the cave of energy into power; one must penetrate them by the spirit, trace that energy back to its source, which is called heaven penetrating the earth. This makes it possible to nourish the fire at its source.

In the fourth stage of meditation, the diamond body is formed in the cave of energy, and after a great deal of 'melting and mixing' of older psychonic matter, and 'washing and bathing' the embryo with the light, it is ready to come out of the crown chakra, a being without purpose or polarity, described by the poem of page 77.

"Without beginning, without end,
Without past, without future.
A halo of light surrounds the World of the law.
We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty.
The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart and of heaven.
The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the moon in its surface.
The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear.
Consciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon-disk rests alone."

In Jung's very interesting commentary on THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER he says it is foolish to try to emulate these exercises, because of the vast differences between Eastern and Western minds. In one sense, he is right. I doubt that Westerners (nor modern Orientals, either) would place the 'peace beyond all polarities,' which places it beyond life and evolution, as the ultimate goal of human endeavors. Life has to be exceptionally painful, or one has to be exceptionally world-weary for that. But there is much in THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER that is useful, especially when we can correlate it with other traditions and other experiences. We must also admit that the Western, scientific investigation of psychic exercises and their effects has only just begun. We have only just discovered the psyche as a scientifically verifiable entity. We have been so busy for 500 years transforming the outer world, and filling ourselves with outer experiences that the idea of fundamental inner transformation is new and strange, and perhaps we need to proceed cautiously. But certainly we could follow the SECRET at least to the point of opening the heavenly heart and starting the circulation of the light without any harm or fundamental and irrevocable change in ourselves.

There is one important question which I have about the text: is 'vital breath' to be identified with 'light?' I assume both refer to prana. But it is possible that the circulation of the light refers to nouonic rather than psychonic flow. If so, one may need to decrease pranic flow, rather than increase it. Read the text. Experiment.

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