You ground you lose?

[wstein]

Its quite possible to receive and transmit at the same time. Many of the hands-on healing techniques do this. Most receive from above or below while sending from the hands, but its possible to choose other access points. Some people also do this to 'flush' their energy system.

I recently experienced sending and receiving from a single palm (to another experienced energy worker's palm) at the same. It felt like a ring around a circle. There is no reason in principle that it can't be done from another single point.

[Tom]

Energy must be kept in motion or it will become stale and moldy. Grounding is a way of keeping your energy circulating so it stays fresh.

Stale, say what?? Energy keeps itself in motion. Where are you storing it?

Storing it isn't my thing, but there are people who think they should not ground their energy because they must continue to build it up within themselves and never let any out. I know that the way to get more energy is by increasing the flow of energy rather than collecting it like baseball cards and old coins.

[CFTraveler]

Kind of like the old saying: "The Universe Abhorrs a Vaccuum".

[wstein]

Energy must be kept in motion or it will become stale and moldy. Grounding is a way of keeping your energy circulating so it stays fresh.

Stale, say what?? Energy keeps itself in motion. Where are you storing it?

Storing it isn't my thing, but there are people who think they should not ground their energy because they must continue to build it up within themselves and never let any out. I know that the way to get more energy is by increasing the flow of energy rather than collecting it like baseball cards and old coins.

Why not both?

I agree that grounding is a waste of energy.
I see no point to continually collecting energy if you never use it (unless you want to explode ).
I also see no point of letting energy flow in, if it just flows out.

Having a high base energy level seems to be a good thing unless you overload.

The balance between flow and storage is probably based on whether you are doing flow based or field based energy work.

[Korpo]

Energy in the body is not free of context.

It is more like energy with added information. Reusing stagnated Chi would require to clean up and refine it.

What you can do with some techniques I've read about is clearing away blockages and releasing the Chi that stagnated there. Reusing it would mean you are building your energy foundation on agitated, impure and stale Chi. The quality of your Chi, its balance of Yin and Yang, and balancing it out is more important than the overall amount.

Hoarding your Chi can make you an energy "messy" - piling up all the stuff you find. More sane is to ground you, flush out released Chi to the ground and below your feet - if you keep the downward Chi flow moving your reserves will be replenished with Yin Chi through your crown. Mostly Western people are too Yang, and therefore benefit from balancing with energy from above instead with energy from below.

Yang Chi feels strong, but that is a deception. When you get the amount of Yang and Yin just right, you enter an equilibrium, the state of T'ai Chi (expressed by the Yin-Yang symbol of the same name). This equilibrium allows good, steady and stable growth while calming and soothing the mind without overexciting it.

If you refine your Chi enough you may even return it to Wu Chi - the emptiness at the beginning. Instead of having your Chi, which is consciousness bound within a certain context, you now have raw, pure consciousness, that can generate a higher level of thought.

The Buddhists and Taoists refine their energy and minds by emptying them from content, experiencing pure and raw consciousness, and building pure, deeper thoughts on top of a clean mind.

Refusing to ground is the opposite. You are risking to get too Yang, on the surface powerful, but unbalanced. Your organs tend to overheat and degenerate quicker. Your mind is more prone to agitation, aggressiveness. This is what happens to imbalanced, especially external-style martial artists, that develop a lot of energy but not balance it. They wallow in their power and become "fighting animals", as Bruce Frantzis calls them.

Pulling your root down is getting into an exchange. You trade what you cannot use for what your system requires. You do not lose Chi, you un-loose your Chi flow. You optimise your system, and thereby increase your awareness of it. You get to know how your energy bodies work, refine the energy you have, assimilate at the rate you are comfortable with.

You cannot heal a person simply by hoarding Chi and uncharge it. To remove the illness the person yourself or a healer must restore balance and flow. Sick muscles, tendons, organs etc. are places where the Chi is not happening. Discharging at them with randomly collected energy not purified with inner calm and not the right kind of Chi to bring balance makes either the sick or the healer a Chi wastebin. The "crap" has to go somewhere... Better down the root, before you clog your organs and body with it, right?

Chi, or the basic vital energies of Jing, Chi and Shen, as the Chinese differentiate them for the tantiens in which they reside, does not come in a single variety. It can be transformed, refined, purified, or you can obtain rather raw, unrefined and impure Chi.

Food for example is a major source of Yang Chi to keep you going. Lots of junk food gives you energy you cannot use for anything useful - impure and overheated. Ever felt hot after gulping down a big, fat meal?

The good message is, you can ground and expunge excess Chi before it manifests negatively in no positive way. I somehow think basic NEW is a bit in risk of this. Yes, you clear up (parts!) of the Small and Grand Heavenly Orbits that are vital vessels of your major energy flows in the body. So far so good. But you draw in excessive amounts of Yang Chi from below to unblock them, then try to store it in the Lower Tantien. This may actually the positive final step that redeems the practice: In the lower Tantien you can mix Earth Yang with Prenatal Yin Chi you received at birth. Whether this is taking place or not I cannot readily verify.

But while you develop the vessels (partially), and some energy centers, you fail to develop more sensitivity for your muscles, organs, etc. You may everyday heat up your body and do more harm than good, because you are already too Yang, and piling Yang on top of it. Or you may add to existing blockages. Or you may even balance out an excessive Yin.. You may never know, because you keep shoveling manure on the field without knowing how much fertilizer is required. Plants die from too much fertilizer. So you too may deteriorate because of too much of the wrong Chi. NEW in the published form has too little context for you to verify.

So, rooting is good if you want a good and stable energy fundament. It does not drain, but balance you.

[xxhealinghandxx]

geeze Korpo, that was a good article . Only nine posts? You should write more. And you should also post that on the ask Robert forum, because now I'm curious too.

I see no point to continually collecting energy if you never use it (unless you want to explode Smile).

People practice qigong to build up strong energy fields that actually benefit health, not make you explode. But Korpo's post has me all confuzed now. I strongly recommend you post that on the ask Robert Bruce section Korpo, unless someone else can figure that out for ya.

Robert Bruce said:

If a full body circuit is done for just a few minutes prior to falling asleep, the extra energy raised will increase the vividness and power of your dreams and lucid dreaming. It can also cause more frequent spontaneous Out of Body Experiences and make these easier to remember. The extra energy provided by these techniques empowers all subtle and dream bodies alike.

Robert Bruce said:

Use increased effort to clear blockages and to overcome low background energy conditions, but not for general energy raising and long term development purposes. And if the flow of energy into the Sub-Navel storage centre does not equal the energy expenditure used to raise it, temporary energetic exhaustion can also be the result. This is though, often an unavoidable side-effect during the early stages of energy body development, while blockages are being cleared, redefined and grown.

Please keep in mind that when a blockage is cleared it can often cause high energy usage, far in excess of the amount of energy available or being stored at that time. This can result in fatigue and temporary physical exhaustion; seemingly for no apparent reason. Often more energy is used to clear and repair blockages than can be raised and stored, thereby causing a temporary energy deficit. This can also cause noticeable energy movement sensations to continue for some time after energy raising actions are ceased. Energy will consequentially sometimes continue flowing into depleted areas because of continuing energy demands therein. Blockages can also clear themselves spontaneously as a result of earlier development work; for no apparent reason. Because of this you may experience energy movement sensations outside of development session times, say in the middle of the night or during the day for no apparent reason. This is a very good sign, however, and shows your energy body is responding well to the overall development process.

http://www.astraldynamics.com/search.as ... enceID=241

[Korpo]

I feel compelled to strongly discern what I have experienced personally, and what I've read in Chi Gung / Nei Gung and Taoist / Buddhist theory.

I'm no rookie energy work, but not very experienced either. I can feel and to a certain amount move my Chi. Dissolve blockages. Feel into the state of parts of my body, often down to the level of blood circulation (strongly connected to Chi movement), muscle tension (Chi stagnation and flow). Sometimes I can feel into organs (especially lung, heart/pericardium and brain) and down to the bone.

Examples of my experiences:

If I dissolve blockages in my etheric body, heat builds up. If I let Chi sink from the crown to the feet and below the feet the effect is cooling. If I dissolve blocked Chi outward and sink it, the warmth will be returned to normal, and in the long run Chi sensitivity will rise, and the ability to clean up that part of body will increase.

If I do not properly sink the Chi from blockages heat builds up. If I continue to sink Chi for too long without dissolving the body cools down.

If I draw Chi from my sexual organs (testicles and penis), it is warm, and in dependance of my arousal, agitated.

If I do standard Buddhist meditation techniques for too long, especially watching the air flow the nostrils, I get nosebleeds. If I do not sink Chi I tend to clog my Chi flow up and get headaches and heated up organs.

Now let's mix some of my experiences with theory:

Where the Chi goes, the blood follows. If you build a capability to move Chi you need to be especially aware where you lead it and how long you have it stay there. When I concentrated on my nostrils for a long time I actually created a Chi-induced high blood pressure situation. Given the often brittle and small blood vessels in the nose the nosebleeds were to be expected. I expect other techniques that move with the airflow or watch the belly don't suffer from this.

If I sink too long, I get cold. This is calling a lot of Yin Chi from above into the body. Yin is cold. If I draw too much male energy I get hot - male is Yang, Yang is hot. Yang Jing Chi from the male reproductive organs is circulated in the Tantric practice I tried. It is drawn up the spine and drawn down the front into the lower tantien.

The lower tantien is the body reserve container of physical Chi. The kidneys supply Yin Chi there extracted from your prenatal reserve. If you mix it with Yang you can get balanced Chi, a perfect and wholesome Chi for supplying the body with healthy energy.

When you draw too much Yang from the Earth through the feet or from the male sex organs and store it there, you tip the balance to Yang. This can lead to the whole body heating up, similar to fever. I experienced that already. When you excessively draw energy through your feet into the lower tantien you may tip the balance as well, feel strong, because Yang is aggressive, strong and full, but at the same time you are overburdening your inner Yin, which is filled from your internal prenatal reserve. You feel exhausted, you feel hot, and you overburden your energy system, preventing growth and creating imbalance.

If you draw Yin from above this does not happen. You can cool down your body, and in order to flush formerly blocked, impure and agitated Chi, you can sink it below your feet. Western, agitated bodies, male bodies especially, are a bit on the Yang side. If you sink your Chi in rooting, you balance it. You start to relax, muscles and tendons soften, organs heal. If you overdo the Yin draw you will feel cold and freeze. The Yang nature of food energy and other influences, or circulating a bit of Earth Chi may balance that, I haven't tried yet.

This is what I think about rooting. It is creating balance, not throwing something away. Else your body will call on its reserves for balancing, and that drains you. That may be very well the cause when you overdo NEW as mentioned by Robert and quoted above. When you free too much of one type of Chi, the body balances with its own, internal reserves from the lower tantien, the organs and bones and tissues. When you draw in or free more energy than you can handle you are actually draining yourself and preventing growth. Rooting can balance Chi, and I think sinking Chi from the crown into the ground is exactly that.

Robert's NEW seems to designed to promote growth by adding a certain, healthy amount of Earth Yang Chi, mix it with prenatal Yin the lower tantien, and allow growth through this more refined Chi. This mechanism stops working when you do it beyond the point that feels comfortable, strain your energy system and especially add too much Yang. Since Yang feels strong by its very nature you fool yourself into believing in powerful growth when in fact you do not experience this at all but drain yourself.

Yang delusions are a strong risk for all external-style martial artists, and Robert warns about this in his books with NEW as well, that overdoing does not actually help growth, but creates brittle structures that form a bad fundament, IIRC.

[xxhealinghandxx]

Korpo, do you know a technique for drawing in Yin qi? If you could post one that would be helpful; Maybe Robert could integrate one in NEW..?

I'm no rookie energy work, but not very experienced either. I can feel and to a certain amount move my Chi. Dissolve blockages. Feel into the state of parts of my body, often down to the level of blood circulation (strongly connected to Chi movement), muscle tension (Chi stagnation and flow). Sometimes I can feel into organs (especially lung, heart/pericardium and brain) and down to the bone.

I was doing all of this within a couple of months of practicing NEW. This is not a testament to my ability, but a testament to Robert's ability to move past the esoteric, hard to understand Eastern philosophies regarding energy and make it easily understandable to the Western mind. I was and am also able to feel movement of all chakras. Robert stresses development of the secondary energy body system before outright attempting to develop chakras. This is to have a safe base from which to develop the primary centers (chakras).

Once I understood chi and was able to move energy easily, it made the Eastern philosophies much more interesting and understandable. He uses the example of calling the lower Dan Tien the "sub-navel energy storgage center". After knowing this, it was easy to feel the "sucking" of moving energy into the storage center as if into a void.

From my understanding, it can sometimes take years to develop your energy system to that level using QiGong and other Eastern methods. If interested, his free, online, NEW tutorial is wonderful. His newest book, out in April of 2007 is all about energy work.

Korpo said:

Refusing to ground is the opposite. You are risking to get too Yang, on the surface powerful, but unbalanced.

I have to agree with this wholeheartedly. *personal experience*