Greetings .. My take on the Fire Within

[Vrill]

Hi everyone!
I've volunteered to moderate this forum.
So please let me know what you would like to discuss.
I tend to view the idea of "The Fire Within" as Inner Alchemy and possibilities that transformational processes contain.
In traditional Alchemical drawings, there is always a laboratory, our body, with a hearth or fire burning. Operations made upon materials are done with fire, or in the oven or hearth. I will have to post them. They are of course symbolic in nature, not literal.
Alchemists used Fire as the transformational agent.
So what is the Fire?
Awareness is the Fire.
Awareness is the tool.
Now I will go further to say it must be Awareness that has been clarified, or what is called non-dual awareness, or clear Seeing.
Usually our Seeing is colored by Self-Importance. Seeing must be non-conceptual, that is of "what is" without a trace of inner dialogue. If that is happening we approach non-dualistic awareness.
... I have much more to say here about it if anyone is interested.
Of course there is more from the Castaneda canon that can be brought, and you may have your own ideas to contribute, which of course would be welcome.

[chlorella]

hi Vrill
just started reading "the Fire from Within" again
a sentence stuck out...
"Seeing had undermined their [the Old Seers] strength and forced them to be obsessed with what they saw"
it seems it is a mistake to believe,identify,in the perceptions of oneself...which are the perceptions of the world at large ?
"Awareness is the Fire."
"... I have much more to say here about it if anyone is interested."
yes !

[Vrill]

Quote:it seems it is a mistake to believe,identify,in the perceptions of oneself...which are the perceptions of the world at large ?
Not if you question everything!
But yes, absolutely. You are correct. The key word is identify.
Most of the time we think we are paying attention when we are really just sleep walking. So we have to question our operationing assumptions. It's easy to mistake one's daydream for the Path or just daydream that one is awake.
Of course we are all identified, all of the time. It's safe to assume that, otherwise we are kidding ourselves.
When I do a work of attention, I always assume I am more or less completely identified and want to get free of that.
If we keep looking and questioning in the right way, we eventually enter the Path.
If we pursue the Path with an aim, then Seeing becomes possible.
It is perhaps the hardest thing in the world!
Non-Dualistic Awareness, is pure Awareness, that has been clarified of a taint of egoism.
In pure awareness there is no separation of myself and other as "myself" does not exist.
In Buddhist terms, one has a consciousness of a profound "emptiness" or perhaps Ultimate Receptivity would be a better term.
I don't like emptiness as a term, as people think it means a kind nothingness or negative state, when it's not.
The cool thing about questioning is you can always look again and again. I'm a firm believer in doubt.
But, ultimately we have to develop faith and confidence in our own Seeing. It's not a mistake to try. That is the purpose of our life. That's why we are here.
To fully be alive with all of one's senses in the Moment, to experience one's totality, is to go beyond dualistic, identified nature.
Why? Because in that moment, the "I", does not exist.
The beauty of it is, it's very hard to do this for a sustained length of time. But we just have to do this for one moment.
===
Also, I have the book too, so let me read up tonight and see what the grandmaster has to say about it.

[Bob May]

To kindle the fire from within is to start somthing that does not go out.
The Kundalini or "serpent fire", the baptism of fire that John the baptist said Jesus would baptise with, the "fiery serpents" of the Old Tesatament, the alchemical treatise Aesch Mezareph or "cleansing fire" of the Qabala all speak of fire as a cleansing alchemical process. This cleansing or changing of the vessel (our body and soul) is necessary in order to safely touch with certain aspects of Spirit and survive.
This truth is mentioned by Jesus when he said;
"..Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved."
The making of a "new bottle" (wineskin) is an alchemical process that is accomplished within an individual by the fire aspect of Spirit.
It was my teacher's opinion and I believe he was correct, that the Great Pyramid ("fire in the middle") of Giza was not a tomb at all, but that it was built for the sole purpose of initiation into the Greater Mysteries. The sarcophagus in the "king's chamber" being used for ritual burying and rising of pharoahs who considered themselves gods or offspring of gods.
To contact and pull down certain powers from the Tree of Life can be a dangerous endeavor. Especially if the person that contacts these powers does not even realise what he has done.
If you read Gopi Krishna's "Kundalini, the Evolutionary Energy in Man", you will get a feel for just how dangerous that can be. My teacher also had such an experience back in the early 70's and I have touched some of those enegies myself. In my case, it seems it is a more gradual process, but even so, takes it's toll physically. And has lasted sometimes less and sometimes more over the last 26 years.
It is a process that does not stop. My teacher said it was something that changed as time went on. Throughout his life he would say that "..this is something new, something completely different.."
In the boook mentioned above, Gopi describes his first experience as a result of meditating on the "1000 pedaled lotus" as "...seeing the earth as a grain of sand floating on an ocean of energy."
My teacher had the same experience. He was doing the same meditation which in Western Mysticism is called the "Point" meditation. He said his source of Power was Chokmah, the second sephirah on the "Tree of Life" of the Qabala. I, doing the same meditation was pulled pulled up into an ocean of "blue/white liquid lightening" in which I was a part of and one with feeling and being one with that ectacy and power.
It had started as a sound that grew to a roaring in my head and a searing heat in every cell in my body.
I left the body through the crown of my head to escape the certain destruction by heat and sound and was pulled up at amazing speed and distance to arrive at that blue light energy source. Blue/white is the color of Chokmah.
My teacher, when I told him of what had happened in that meditation told me that I had indeed touched on the Kundalini experience. And I have found that my life has changed because of it.
I can only go so far with my meditations at any one sitting or I begin to go there again. I back off for a time to absorb the changes that my body goes through for months afterwards. I also have to function in this world as I have three boys and a wife to provide for. It is very difficult, both physically and psychologically to function after touching with those powers. But my awareness of the world around me is intensified for those months also.
Someday I will allow myself to go further and maybe jump in with both feet.
Bob

[LillyMist]

Hello Vrill,
My name is lilly. So glad you decided to Moderate. Thanks.
I want to see Lone Wolf's forums stay open also and always promise to write more...which really does not happen as much as I would like. Must be a cycle I am in... talk about speechless. Hoping that will change soon.
I can remember in 2003 the CC forums were buzzing with activity, got to wonder if this is not a period of inner contemplation. Even my forum is frozen in cyber space... still I will not close it down. Things can change rather quickly.
All the best.
lilly

[chlorella]

yes...questioning...questioning...questioning
attention...attention...attention
sanity's thread
sometimes when driving for example i drift into daydreams...come too and realise that will never be again
used to curse this in myself...now i laugh with a gentle chide...because the moment i'm in will never be as well
to miss the world dancing in unison with me is something so beautiful that to be absorbed in the closed dream gives a great sense of loss somehow
to me pure awareness is beyond non-dualistic awareness?
another place other than the perceptions of dualism or non-dualism
yes i agree that the term emptiness is misleading
"nothing" could never be so full as to include everything
including nothing
maybe all terms used to describe states of consciousness are misleading
the term meditation certainly seems to be
the inverted concept of a defined meditative practice goes closer or further into a non-defined reality of meditation
err i mean...we are always in a meditative state of consciousness
i like the definition of dreaming-awake as being closer to the reality description i have to use to talk about it
"The beauty of it is, it's very hard to do this for a sustained length of time. But we just have to do this for one moment"
yes...for this moment..but as Lujan Matus guides to...the moment has already gone by the time we know it as a moment
though i agree with what you are saying...maybe the intensity of not knowing every moment as a moment is what the Fire from within is about?
one moment strung together with no dileneation from the previous or the next?
i look forward to the moment your grandmaster meditates on the book and gives his thoughts
our endless endgames starting from somewhere in the middle

[chlorella]

Hiya Bob
"The making of a "new bottle" (wineskin) is an alchemical process that is accomplished within an individual by the fire aspect of Spirit."
i agree...a new skin...and a new wine
fire changes the chemical structure...the atomic structure
one cell alchemy changes all cells...we are just one cell...one atom
i find it interesting that the photon belt Earth is passing through now is changing the vibration and therefore the composition of our cells
a fire from without
yet this universe is one atom so i guess it's a fire from within
mother Earth is our fire our heart our energy
and she is changing
i enjoyed reading your experiences with the Kundalini fire
a few years ago i went through a complete breakdown physically and mentally...this was due i now understand to the activation of the kundalini for which i was not prepared for
but in retrospect it gave a view of something for which i'm deeply grateful
i have'nt learnt much of the old teachings in my life...mysticism etc...so i enjoy learning from others
whatever presents itself is something guiding me...the Spirit talking if one is not in a closed dream
taking certain herbs and modern substances strengthens the body and mind to cope with the changes helps i find
then again...we are always who we think we are... so...
i find it also interesting that we sit complete and perfect with unimaginable energy just behind all the stories we tell ourselves
our purpose to be here now is intertwined with the path back to ourselves and a fluid concept of freedom
we will not go until we have completed this purpose
though we never left that which we progress to
"Someday I will allow myself to go further and maybe jump in with both feet."
yes!
nice to talk with you Bob

[chlorella]

Hi Lilly
ahh yes...the golden years
i was never there but hear a lot about them
perhaps it's because the 'old guard' did not realise they had trapped themselves so completely in repeated cycles of awareness?
the descriptions given in CC's books are really just that...descriptions
like all books talking of a path
what i find fascinating is the answers and warnings are in the books themselves...but of course like anything one cannot see these things unless we drop the descriptions at some point
a point
a point in front of the eyes
LoneWolf will keep this forum open because he sees beyond the points
there is much beauty here...beautiful beings inhabit
it is a fine line to walk...socialising on the forums in ever increasing games of perceived one-upmanship which loses personal power by the gallons feeding our social imperatives...to being a 'lurker' decrying all that is read in the same fixation as the one's posting yet never having the truth of themselves to express their heart
courage
to walking alone outside the social circles however one judges the circle to be
to be or not to be
another form of courage
to being in that strange state of loneliness and enjoying the acceptance that one is fallible and human
the strange juxtiposition of learning from others yet letting go that which is learned
the desire to help others yet that desire is so easily turned into control
the combined intent of forums can nullify any perceived gains by simply pulling the members into endless loops of self description
maybe
well...i seem to have popped outa my speechless stage
though as you say...things can change rather quickly
i would say that Power decides these things now

ps...i always wondered if the Eagle is something of a description of the Earth's electromagnetic energy which sustains us in it's field yet we can somehow keep this energy in awareness when we leave the Earth?
is Intent maybe what could be called Death?

[seeitall]

Quote:Usually our Seeing is colored by Self-Importance. Seeing must be non-conceptual, that is of "what is" without a trace of inner dialogue. If that is happening we approach non-dualistic awareness.
... I have much more to say here about it if anyone is interested.
Hi Vril,
how does the foreign installation (aka flyer) fits
into this concept of non-dualistic awareness.
--------------------
there is always something

[Nagual LoneWolf]

Hello all and Vrill I hope you like the challenge put upon you my me to moderate a forum named "The Fire From Within". (smile).. I would ask those who respond to make separate posts for different subjects so they can recieve more attention. Several topics in one thread often will lose its original intent.
As Chorella speaks...The forum will go on as long as there are those who still will post. A ezboard forum that stays idle after a period of time will be removed if there is no activity.
Also one may never know when other events may affect places like this one also. Say the ezsop has a encounter with Death? Who then will take the helm? Does the ship wander aimlessly in the sea? Does all aboard jump ship? Does the once beautiful ship finnaly capsize and sink?
One lone sailor can keep her afloat with a soft word and perhaps a donation to keep the adds away...
Where else will you find such meaningful hearts mixed with the beauty of the warrior's way?
The fire from within starts with a flame that begins to burn within your human body, how do you ignite it?
What is its fuel?
How much will you burn?
Will it hurt?
What happens after?
These are the questions Vrill will seek to answer with your help. Begin your journey, walk the path, and in the words of the great Merlin "Change, transform!" Lone Wolf

[Vrill]

Thanks everyone.
Lilly:
Nice to meet you!
I too share the wish to keep Wolf's boards going too.
Wolf:
Lots of good questions there, each of them deserves it's own topic. I think you've seeded the board real good.
Thought for the Day:
Quote:My heart burns like fire but my eyes are as cold as dead ashes.. -- Soyen Shaku
Bob:
I used to be a Kundalini Yogi a long time ago and I suffered greatly for it, like your teacher. Believe me I know how bad it hurts I'm laughing now. In some ways going through that private hell taught me a lot experiencially about how to go about healing the psyche.
None of the stuff I do involves the manipulation of Kundalini. So let me just say, that when I speak about Awareness, I mean Awareness, Rigpa, a Tibetan Buddhist term, for non-dualistic Awareness, not Kundalini. Perhaps we can have a discussion about it.
I think if you deal with Mindfulness and awareness there is real no danger. It's only when people use vigorous breath exercises and start moving energy around consciously.
Tai Chi and Hatha Yoga are pretty safe as long as you stay within certain limits, can be quite beneficial.
The problem with Awareness is that it's easy to get a wrong idea, and thus a wrong habit started. Wrong views can of course be damaging.
My experience with techniques like Vipasanna (Mindfulness) is that they are power healing techniques as well and can go long way to bring about what I would call a deep integration of the psyche. It can heal most of the damage caused by stress, drug use, addictions, trauma, negative karma, former lives, childhood trauma, all of that.
So do we get remade? ... yes. We don't know who we are or what we will become, do we?
As Chorella states
Quote:the intensity of not knowing every moment as a moment is what the Fire from within is about
Absolutely, if we can enter the "Cloud of Unknowing" and literally put "the known" on hold for a moment then we can meet the unknowable Self, our Real Self who is an absolute and unknowable mystery.
Not knowing, or as Zen Master Seung Sahn called "Don't Know Mind" is an essential factor.
Because you see when we ask "What is the truth ... " and if we answer truthfully "I don't know", we are being fundamentally honest. Then experientially we open a little crack for the truth to come into the facade, the sham of our paltry, doomed existence.
This blunt honesty with oneself, is also a requisite.
If we do succeed in "getting Here" ... we are some place, experiencing something that's tough to talk about ..
but ... then after all that ... our old friend, the egoic apparatus, will come back of course. But it will be slightly less convincing ... and slightly less scary as well, perhaps our old friend. We even feel a little sorry for it ... I do ...
---
But I'm not by any means an expert, the real experts are the Tibetan Buddhist masters of Dzogchen and Mahamudra, and other Masters of a number of different traditions (like Carlos!) These are people who've spent lifetimes studying this stuff.
They've not only been up the mountain, but they've been up it many times and they can actually speak skillfully and coherently about it. That is so cool!!!
It's such a blessing for me personally to share it.
See it's really not a mystery at all, it's just hidden in plain sight.

[Guest]