After you go through all the skandhas, and produce the impure and then pure illusory bodies, are you done yet? No, you’ve just started. Within the physical body you must still  keep pouring the dirty chi out of chi channels to complete the purification of the “four (five) elements,” as termed by Buddhism. Buddhism usually just talks about four elements when it leaves out the space element, which is empty. When the chi channels completely empty of impure chi, the body deflates, and a new one is rebuilt. In Taoism this is called “expelling all the toxins from the body.” That’s it, just one phrase to summarize the process.

 

Of particular difficulty at this stage is to open up the chakra at the back of the head where the jade pillow is. When you can do this, you’re almost there to a stage that really means some initial accomplishment that’s worth something. After you can do that, there are several more degrees of purification but a major accomplishment is within reach – you can stabilize the bright points at each of the chakras and you can finally open up the real tu-mai and jen-mai chi channels and start the rotation of the “river chariot” spoken of in Taoism. This is also the chariot sometimes spoken of in Jewish mysticism.

 

Why is this rotation of chi within the major chi channels compared to a chariot? The best way for me to explain it is to have you imagine that you are  rolling up a carpet. You know the feeling as you turn that circular object over and over, rolling it. So imagine a string of chi whose tip points downward and hangs inside your root chakra in your perineum. Now imagine that it is pulled back and rolls up, like a carpet. That’s the sensation of rolling that then proceeds up the tu mai (back) and down the jen-mai (front) channels and through all the extra meridians which are filled with this thick semenlike jing-chi. Actually it’s more like a single impulse or undulation that proceeds around the entire microcosmic circuit in the body, for the whole circuit is one unbroken, fully connected string (stream) of chi. There’s no “tip” of chi – I was just trying to make you understand the feeling of the rotation.

 

This is the stage of the River chariot rotation. It is a “river,” or water chariot because the chi is clear and initially has the consistency similar to jing. It’s like the water element. Hence it is sometimes called the “Waterwheel.” In Buddhism, one of the minor side meanings of the “wheel of the law” refers to this stage of accomplishment.

 

Over  and over again this thick plasticine like chi rolls through the circuit of the channels, like a chariot whose wheels are sloooowly making its course through an orbit. You don’t try to push it out of the orifices as you’ve done in the hundreds of previous stages of transformation, but just let it perform this circulation on its own without any guidance. This is the secret stage that Taoism refers to, and many other mystery schools. This is the real thing for laying an initial foundation for the Tao. As I always tell you, opening up the chakras is not the Tao, but only lays a good foundation for the Tao. This is the stage where you’ve finally reached close to the final shape of the chakras, so you’ve “opened” them but still not quite. Just very close because there are several more transformations to go.   After you’ve reached this far, by establishing the bright points at THIS LEVEL of practice, you’re close to some stage of accomplishment.

 

You can only reach this stage after you had previously established almost permanent bright points on the major chakras from all the prior gong-fu work described in unwinding them, generating impure and pure illusory bodies, pushing out the dirty chi and so on. Previously it might have taken hours to establish a chi flame at one of the chakras due to visualization practice, and then next day you had to start all over again with concentration. Now however you can reignite the bright points quite readily to keep them going. It’s as easy as placing your thought on the location for a few seconds instead of struggling like within the previous stages. They are not “permanent” but I’m searching for a better word.

 

Previous to this, for so many stages  of transformation you poured impure chi out of the chi channels until the real shape of the chakras beneath could be revealed, and then you got them to unwind and expand. They were all wrapped up with layers of dirty filthy chi, and then channels within were filled with layers of chi and embedded in pools of dirty chi. Now they are clear but plasticine, for the chi is thick and viscous but extremely flexible. As time goes on and the River Chariot turns and turns, the chi of the rotation becomes less thick and more refined. I am only describing the initiatory phases of the process.

 

As I said, opening up the chakra at the back of the head is extremely difficult. After this feat, you can establish a nearly constant (easily re-ignitable) bright point at the four major and other minor chakra locations for the first time. You concentrated on bright points, or making tiny visualized images of chi flames at chakra openings and chi channel openings earlier along the way to help push out the dirty chi (transformed the five elements) but now those bright points are running relatively automatically on their own. You still need to watch them, but it’s harder to lose the flames, meaning that the chakra stays open and the circulation within stays unobstructed. This is Success – but don’t lose your semen despite the sexual desire at this stage. Yes, woman achieve these stages as well, so this is not just talking to men.

 

Then two or three days later after opening the Jade pillow chakra and establishing the bright points, if you haven’t lost your semen, then the rotation of the River Chariot will spontaneously initiate – once again due to the unwinding of the root chakra and the other chakras which has finally been reached because you established the bright points. Just prior to this rolling, everywhere within your body you can roll up or retract thick semen-like chi from inside your appendages (fingers, toes, the penis, etc.) and roll it in a lump to be discarded, which is something you’ve learned to do through all these other levels of transformation.

 

When the chariot rotation starts, this is the real meaning of the opening of the tu-mai and jen-mai, or front and back chi channels and the opening of the eight extra meridians in Taoism which comes along with this process. Another big secret revealed so that you can link the stages. The Chinese schools focus on the front and back channels; the Tibetan and Indian schools focus on the middle, left and right channels, but these have not opened just yet – you still must wait a bit. The channels to the feet have even been opened all the way through to get this far, otherwise the River Chariot could not undergo its rotation. In fact, three major channels open in the feet – the heels, and two more in front of it. It is almost impossible to open these chakras unless you get to this stage, which is why one of the respectful names for a Buddha refers to his having opened the great chakras in the bottom of the feet. The heel chakras do most of the pumping for the river circulation.  

 

I’ve told you to concentrate on the feet with the skeleton meditation and it’s extremely difficult to open up all the channels and chakras within it. You’ve also been able to open up channels to the organs (heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, etc.) too in order to get this to happen, though you also could have ignored them through this process. In other words, you don’t have to concentrate on them at all because they open naturally after you open all these other chakras and channels.

 

At this stage, the real tu-mai and jen-mai  chi channels are quite large in diameter (circumference) compared to the thin thread-like chi channels you concentrated on when first trying to open up the chakras when you first started upon the road of the Vajrayana-Esoteric school tantric focus as described by Tsong Khapa and the Six Yogas of Naropa. Of course I’ve explained how to practice this on the website with free articles and blog posts, and must tell you once again that there’s no better full body cultivation method than the white skeleton meditation for the stage of preparation. Of course I’ve gone through other techniques and meditation methods as well. Prior to this you’ve had all sorts of teachings on consciousness, heaven, Taoist transformation, Christian cultivation, Jewish cultivation, etc. It’s up to you to do the work to study and practice. If you don’t lay a foundation of intensified practices, you cannot get this far at all.

 

The rolling of the chi through its channels (the River Chariot rotation) starts slow at first and then speeds up, and eventually becomes smooth. This chi is extremely thick and viscous at first. It’s more akin to jing, and then with rotation, like the churning of butter, becomes  more refined like chi. Thus we have the jing to chi transformations of Taoism. In fact, this IS the real jing to chi transformations mentioned by Taoism. 

 

The jing being pumped by the root chakra over and over again in a circuitous body circulation through the front and back channels, so its origins seem to come from down below. It’s like one long string or loop of chi that is being  recirculated   over and over again to refine it. It proceeds for the root chakra up the back to the top of the head, then down the front, to the root chakra again, through that to the feet, and front the feet upwards through the root chakra again. One big circuit. From within the feet a chakra pumps the chi upwards to the bottom of the root chakra, completing the circuit from below. This is the meaning of the Tao school injunction to breath through the bottom of the feet. It  only becomes true at this stage of attainment.

 

Naturally the body is initially warm to hot as the River Chariot first initiates, and over time the temperature evens out to warmness  rather than any hotness like fierce fiery kundalini. Several hours later, next comes coolness and the onset of subtle bliss. This, I’m describing, are just the first few hours of the process.  The previous practices of kundalini yoga, or kundalini cultivation to open chakras and channels that you started upon ages ago are long forgotten as this is the real thing, the real kundalini bliss.

 

Because of the heat, just prior to this stage sometimes the chi inside the body strips off and curls down off the inner walls of the inner chi layers of the physical body. Also, various full sized human chi bodies wiggle free from within and are ejected out the top, often being stuck at the shoulders from wriggling free. Those are some of the final purifications that happen (toxins ejected) before the River Chariot rotation commences. So many transformations, so many purifications. They’re all just summarized as “expelling toxins” within Taoism or “purifying the five elements” within Buddhism. In Tantra they are called “expelling winds” out of the channels. The vocabulary is different but it’s all the same thing.

  

The opening of the River Chariot — this is how the body should be. This is the  natural state of a truly healthy human being. On top of the head in the center is a little loop, or “flower” or “bud” or “bow” wherein all the chi arrives from down below. This is the “Nirvana Palace” of Taosim and Sacred or Crown chakra of Orthodox Buddhism and the Esoteric School. It is the Baihui location of Chinese medicine. You can feel it is opened, and the channels in the sides of the head open as well. From below, near the perineum, is the root chakra pumping. But it has been so transformed through this process to its original shape that the pumping of the circulation is now smooth  like a rolling wave. A single pulse, a smooth ripple or undulation rides its way  throughout the entire orbit of the front and back chi channels. All the other chakras are opened, so there is nothing that provide an obstruction any longer to the circulation. This is truly the “Yuan” of the Chinese Tao School, the initial fruit of the Tao. Sweet saliva flows profusely. If you want to see what a sage has written about this stage, you can see pp. 78-79 in Tao and Longevity, by Huai-chin Nan (available on amazon.com).

 

The mind starts to enter  dhyana and is quiet, but one must still use wisdom to detach from the sixth consciousness. It’s easier now to realize what the seventh consciousness or thinking mind actually is compared to the sixth consciousness, or grasping mind. Had you only been able to differentiate between the sixth and seventh consciousness earlier, you would have been able to accomplish this much sooner. Such is the way of both Buddhism and Vedanta.

 

The breathing slows and often stops and one can remain that way in a state of Xi. This is why Buddha taught people to enter this stage through practicing the methods of the Anapanasati Sutra. Just that method alone, combined with the white  skeleton meditation and a life of discipline (celibacy, no lust) can get you here).

 

The limbs soften inside and feel light and pliant as the rotation commences. I want to use the word “nonexistent” but you know they are existent, and yet that phrase comes to mind. They are so soft inside as they are being transformed. A subtle happiness spread across the mind as you are entering dhyana. The wonders of the mind are just opening up. 

 

Are there any special powers that come out? No, life is as ordinary as it was before. The bustle on the street, hawkers selling their wares, people shopping and doing errands. Only now one is free and easy in their mind and as their body slowly diffuses into bliss, comfort spreads everywhere.

 

The smoothness of the chi flow, even with the slight undulation or ripple, reminds you of the soft caress of a beautiful woman. The purity of the stage is like a beauty with a flawless, creamy smooth complexion. The yang chi glow of a perfect round white jade comes to mind. It is soft, it is round, it is natural, it is lovely. I can only say “beauty flows to the limbs” or “beauty flows throughout the limbs” or “beauty suffuses everywhere.” This is the stage Mencius called “Beauty,” for that’s the only word you can think of to describe it (and thus you have a linkage to the Confucian cultivation school and its way of describing the stages). It is jing that has not transformed into chi but is suffusing everywhere to soften, moisten and open all the channels, and thus being still yin it is referred to like the feminine. It is a beautious stage, beautiful, a thing of beauty. I can only say that.

 

Softness suffuses everything. The joy bubbles up inside. Even the moon, as pure and round as it seems, is not as perfect as this state. No pearl is as elegant for pearls are hard and gritty by comparison. Accepting of all human beings, kindness, gentleness, softness and humility flow freely as the yang flows. This is the true human nature.

 

Soft, round, full

The worries of the past fall away.

Beauty flows to the limbs,

The body seems as if not there.

 

A fine wine cannot in any way compete,

I offer it, I offer it to everyone,

But how can I share it with you?

Better just to leave it alone.

 

Sexual desire disappears. Who can think of sex at a time like this? Coarse thoughts disappear as if in a dream. The hormones in the body descend like rain from above feeding the flowers below. You wonder – “what types of grasses will grow up from down below (around the root chakra)?” This is NOT the circulation of the jen-mai nor the sweet saliva I’m speaking of at this stage, but a shower of hormones from within the head that falls downward within the body. It’s like a light sprinkling or fine shower of drops that you can see now and then, mostly from the front part of the head. It’s like a light rain or drizzle, and you can sometimes see the droplets sprinkle down. This is the kan hexagram of Taoism.

 

You can feel the wave as it rolls up the tu mai and then down the front. From the heels it ascends upwards, the chakras in the feet pulsing. Eventually the central, left and right channels separate themselves from the back and establish themselves and their circulation proceeding from below and straight upwards. Initially these channels were as stuck or glued to the tu-mai back channel, but now they peel away and free themselves so that they stand erect in the center of the body.

 

What I’ve just revealed is a big secret – people miss these channels because they are attached to the back governor channel and because the chi through them proceeds up to the bud, you don’t notice them. Not until they peel away and establish themselves to go directly upwards. Whenever you feel like there are three channels near the back of the body, with the large one being the tu mai, understand that the left and right channels are trying to peel away so that they can stand erect, and when that happens they will pull the sushumna forwards as well. This is a yoga  secret you won’t  find mentioned in any schools. It also tells you that when you have to do this it means you are not cultivating hard enough because then the channels would have already established themselves. You must ask for protection from the Buddhas (enlightened beings) at these stages as it’s  very easy to lose your progress and because the gong-fu is so rare and fragile.

 

This then is the channel structure described by the Buddhist Esoteric school – first the front and back channels opened, and now the left right and central sushumna next. Up from the root chakra the chi ascends to the bowed loop in the center of the head, down it also then comes again through the left and right channels to return to its source. But the width of these channels is LARGE compared to the tiny channels you concentrated on to get this whole process started many stages ago. The real governor (tu mai) and  jen-mai channels seem almost an inch thick in width, whereas the left-right-central channels are thinner, but still nearly a quarter inch or more in width. They are now full, clear, translucent and unobstructed. Pumping, pumping, pumping flowing, flowing, flowing – this is the true microcosmic, macrocosmic circulation you read about in Tao school and alchemy books. But I don’t think the people who write about these things hardly ever get there.

 

This upwards and downwards flowing chi next to each other is the meaning of “Heaven and earth communicate” or “sky and earth will be joined.” It’s the meaning of the Heaven or sky I-ching hexagram (chien) seeking the earth (kun hexagram) in Taoism and Chinese philosophy.  It refers to the chi ascending upwards in the central channel, and dribbling down the left and right channels while the front and back channels undergo their own circuitous circulation. The central channel sends chi up to the bud because of the root chakra pumping, which is also pumping the chi up the tu-mai at the back,  and at the top there is a little circuit of channels in a loop which allows some it to  fall again through the left and right channels. So there is a jen-mai and tu-mai circulation, and this little left-right-central channel circuit has its own circulation as well. So many secrets, so many secrets revealed.

 

The going up and coming down of the central channel and its flanking left and right channels reminds me of Jacob in the Old Testament writing about his dream of angels going up and down a ladder, and so we have the link to Jewish mysticism once again. Angels don’t go up and down ladders, but the chi ascends and descends this way between the root chakra and the flower bud at the top of the head in a constant circulation, just as the front and back channels proceed in the circuitous motion as well. Thus I have revealed the process in plain language and linked it to the Esoteric school, the Tao school and a single symbolic account from the Bible. No one has ever revealed these secrets before, but now you know clearly what the sages were talking about. This is just the operation of the human body after all the chi channels have been cleared.

 

Two wings or petals, as large as fans, spread out from the root chakra on the left and right sides. The size of these two wings are enormous as they spread across the entire bottom of the pelvic cavity and  are constantly bowed arched upwards and pinned downwards within the cavity because of their size. This is like the Chinese peng bird of old described in Chuang Tzu, whose wing span was said to be as large as the seas.  Slowly these two petals rise and fall like a bellows in motion. Slowly they flap up and down – the pumping of a bellows with the root chakra in the center.

 

The root chakra itself assumes a squarish shape as it rises up out of its base a bit, and this becomes the “furnace” we speak of in Taoism and other cultivation schools. This is the only stage you can probably call the “furnace” even though people practice kundalini cultivation and feel warmth. Initially the chi color is a bright white diamond or silver-bluish point (that’s what a “bindu” is) when the process first starts, but it sometimes flickers  with the red color of the fire element. As soon as it does that it transforms back to silver again. At times it will even seem as if a lack smoke is given off as various chi are burned away, but this is very rare and not to be expected. You should just know that it happens now and then. This raised root chakra is the “li” hexagram of Taoism, and the hormones descending like spring rain (not the jen mai descent, but a virtual sprinkling of water hormones from inside the head falling downwards) is the kan hexagram.

 

You cannot achieve this mixing of li and kan until you reach this stage (after clearing out all your channels as previously described) whereupon it happens naturally. About the time that the bright point of the furnace first flickers to red, a few hours later the color yellow forms in front of the furnace at its base in the lower tan tien. It’s like a field or pool in front of the upraised furnace (because the bottom of the cavity is a bit like a bowl). Later  in back of the furnace the pool becomes filled with purple, blue, and sometimes red. But these are only temporary changes that quickly disappear, as there are far many more transformations to go through. Also at times the chi of the body (sometimes the corwn, and sometimes the whole body) turns yellow, but this also quickly reverts back to the clear state.

 

There are many changes like this in the first few hundred hours after the Chariot starts its rotation. None should be considered permanent. However, understand that this is basically the “field of elixir” in the dan tien. It is just chi that collects around the base of the upraised root chakra, which looks like a square on a pedestal since it’s raised above the base of the floor. Only the Esoteric school calls this the root chakra. To other schools it’s called the furnace, or you can even call it a “celestial pump.”

 

At this stage of achievement, all sorts of higher beings will come to you to ask for help in their own cultivation. Previously when you broke through the conception skandha all the local ghosts and spirits would appear asking for assistance in attaining the Tao. At that stage one could even convert the dakinis who had samadhi attainments. Now beings with heavier gong-fu come, including animals who have been cultivating. For instance, a  lion or elephant Bodhisattva or mahaghora might come  to you because they were having troubles in their own channels at this stage of cultivation, and just needed a little push or assistance to open their own chakras and establish their microcosmic circulations. As you already know all the stages and how to clear out every chakra, this is what a Bodhisattva does to help. All sorts of beings can visit from the entire cosmos. You now have a (very) small set of gong-fu skills that you can grab their chi and help open  some channels or chakras for them, but only for those advanced enough who have been cultivating to this stage of translucent chi and who have enough merit.

 

This is why the Taoists say that they “test” people to see if they are virtuous or not. If someone is not virtuous you should leave them to themselves and their own efforts rather than voluntarily step forward and  help when not asked. If evil people succeed in cultivation it doesn’t make them less evil. You’re just empowering them to do more evil in the world. Hence one has to be careful who they teach or take on as students. This is a rule. You need virtue and merit to succeed.

 

Not everyone is ready because of the lack of virtue and merit, the first stage (I might remind you) of the spiritual path. So just as an example, when I see people who donate even a tiny amount to www.haitiwater.org after hearing of the need and  giant merit bang for the buck,   I already know who can succeed at cultivation and who will just remain an arm chair reader of cultivation books. No matter how much you might argue or think how good or great you are, you cannot succeed without merit  on the cultivation path, and you can never say your merit is great enough. Even the Tao school says you must do 3,000 great deeds (saving a life is one great deed) and 1,000 minor good deeds. Another school of Taoism insists on more than 800 virtuous deeds and more than 3,000 hidden virtues.

 

Buddhism insists on the same requirement of accumulating virtue and merit to achieve success, just as Christianity reminds  you that you  need virtue in order to reach heaven. This is no joke but truth. That’s why I mentioned www.Haitiwater.org for you because a single chlorinator ($265) will serve up to 10,000 people every day for a quarter of a century. Diarrhea, fevers, dysentery, typhoid, malaria, cholera, hepatitis and death all   disappear because of one tiny change you make possible. Since the entire community gets its water from that one source,  you put an end to death and disease in one stroke for one about two hundred and fifty bucks. That’s attaining merit. Do it! Why you even have enough merit to receive these lessons is beyond me as what I’m teaching you is precious and rarely given. In fact it’s NEVER spoken at all. So I’m hoping you’ll do the hard thing and generate the merit.

 

So now with all you’ve been taught, you have the linkage between the Orthodox school of Buddhism with Yogacara and Vajrayana  the Esoteric School. This stage of yoga we’ve reached is an initial stage that Shiva, the great yogi, wants people to cultivate in Hinduism though of course you can reach it through Vedanta just as you can reach it through Orthodox Buddhism. How so? Through the cultivation of  prajna, the dhyana and anapana. We also linked these gong-fu stages to Jewish mysticism,  and now the explanations in terms of Taoism. If you look at western alchemy closely, you’ll see the same thing. Even “pagans” and some bard poets in Celtic mysticism have hinted at this stage of “inspiration.”  It’s non-denominational. If you’re smart and wise, and understand the principles, you can use lots of paths to get here. If you don’t know what you’re doing and don’t put in the practice effort, then you might as well forget it. But I’ve given you all the teachings in our many articles, blog posts and books.

 

Everyone who cultivates goes through these stages, and some schools explain the stages clearly while others don’t. Now I’ve given you an explanation as to where the stages fit into the whole sequence of cultivation practice. All this prior work to get to this level of physical transformation, and it’s still just physical gong-fu and not the Tao. You’re only at the stage of jing transforming into chi. You used concentration to get here, but you have not attained true dhyana. On this path of cultivating form, few reach this far. That’s why Buddha told people to cultivate dhyana directly instead by letting go, and then afterwards to come back and transform the physical body. But I’ve united these various schools together for you to see how it all fits together. You’ve only established  a foundation for mind-only work so that you can attain the Tao and “unite with Heaven” as Taoism calls it. That’s the beginning of the true dhyana attainments such as the first, second, third, and fourth dhyana. You’ve established the physical foundation of becoming a  Taoist “Immortal,” but you haven’t achieved it yet.

 

Remember the Buddha is also known as a “Great Golden Immortal” or “Great Golden Arhat”, which refers to someone who goes beyond this stage of transformation to fully complete the transformation of the physical body so that they can appear and disappear anywhere at will like Taoist Immortals. This is something I’ve actually seen for myself. If you can understand that various Hindu masters have reached this stage, then you can link to understanding yet another school as well. But these are the physical fruits of the Tao which we are talking about, not the Mind-Only attainments. For that we have to study the peak teachings of Buddhism. But anyone who practices can get to these stages if they just practice correctly – they are not the province or possession of anyone school because they are non-denominational.

 

One thing is for sure: you cannot achieve any of this without practice, merit, discipline (sexual restraint), and cultivating empty mind.

 

After many hours, the chi currents are now like milk flowing with honey. With every revolution its constitution is becoming lighter and more refined. How can you understand this  state if you don’t experience it yourself? The sweet saliva flows like a river … this is the “water of  life” spoken of in Christianity. All the religions have this same stage but only if you cultivate. All along the saliva has been sweet at various stages of cultivation progress, but now it flows like water, a gushing stream. Just prior to this you can open up the mouth cavity at the top under roof of the mouth and push the poisons out from this hole. Prior to this, it is not usually used as an exit point for expelling dirty chi from the body, but now you’ve cleaned this out too along with the jade pillow chakra in the back of the head. Finally, after a long time, you can open up the translucent chi channels throughout the width of the tongue, too.

 

Finally the two chakras on the top of the shoulders will open, just as the two fans opened on the left and right sides of the root chakra. The crown chakra now rises out of its base and produces a protrusion out of the skull like the knots on top of a Buddha’s head. Remember, these are the stages of   transformation for the physical body rather than for the pure and  impure illusory bodies whose crown chakra will look extremely different, such as you see in the pictures of other enlightened beings. I am giving you all the secrets of all these schools in hopes you are no longer confused, resolve the contradictions, see the step by step stages, have faith in practice, and actually achieve these states themselves.

 

In truth, this is only gong-fu which lays a foundation for achieving the Tao, but you still haven’t achieved it. You’re just purifying the body and achieving a better state of health in the process. At this point your vitality will return and gray hair will turn to its original color again. The body is experiencing renewal. But this is just a physical foundation. The true Tao is seeing the dharmakaya. You’re just transforming  the body and laying a good foundation.

 

The Tao involves cultivating the mind rather than forms, so people who get stuck in these things and think they’re marvelous will lose their way. The actual efforts should be on realizing the dharmakaya and uniting with it. Cultivating the body was just to make that easier. This is called “cultivating life,” not cultivating the original nature. However, you can bypass this entirely by just cultivating mind in the first place to realize the dharmakaya, and along that avenue or road of practice you have the highest chances of  success.

 

But what about all these bodies and layers of chi within and outside the channels? After the creation and destruction of the universe over and over again for aeons after aeons, these are the many various forms that have developed over time, and must be ejected/cleaned out of your chi channels so that you can attain the most primordial possible form of the five elements. You don’t need to know anything about these processes to succeed in spiritual cultivation other than to let go and cultivate an empty mind, and in this way we can say that Taoism is probably best school in terms of simplifying the path’s gong-fu transformations into a triplex of jing, chi and shen, but so few practitioners achieve anything in Taoism (and most go astray down side paths that amount to nothing, following strange practices according to their own secret wants and inclinations) that you have to doubt the efficacy of the popular teaching methods in this school. Taoists usually confuse different traditions, choose the wrong practices, and typically think all they need is to find some Master who will teach them some secret method so that they can become an Immortal instantly. Look how hard it is!

 

Buddhism has produced the most successes, along with Vedanta, Kashmir Saivism, and some other schools, and within Buddhism you can say that the number of Orthodox Buddhist practitioners who succeeded far outweighs those of the Buddhist Esoteric school (Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana) despite its claims of superiority. As to the western schools, of course some individuals succeed but most do not for lack of clear instructions, and for those that do, this is what they initially attain as the physical basis or foundation.

 

And this brings up the western mystery schools, such as the Rosicrucians, Golden Dawn, Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, Ordo Templi Orientis, etc.  Most of their practices and longings were based on corrupt understandings of Jewish kabbalah practices, which were in turn based on incomplete understandings of Ezekiel  1  - ma’aseh merkavah or “works of the Chariot.”

 

This is already the chariot rotation you have reached at this stage. But go search and you won’t find any kabbalah literature able to explain what I’ve just given you. The practitioners and teachers just don’t know. In fact the western Mystery schools are also always desperately searching for this information and here it s free for all. But can you attain it? You need merit, discipline, concentration, and the right techniques. Frankly it is doubtful that anyone will succeed. In my Teacher’s 60+ years of teaching he always says he’s never found anyone who’s reached the stage of jing transforming to chi. Everyone thinks it’s happening at much lower stages of the path, but this is the real thing and beyond this stage there is even more! Visions of Buddhas, Thrones (Jewish mysticism),  Buddhas with dark blue faces like Lions  (Christian mysticism, Revelations), pure illusory bodies, crown chakra emanations, … are all peanuts compared to this stage, and it’s only the foundation stage for the dhyana.

 

In Hindu culture we have the great yogi Shiva who worked hard at all sorts of yogic techniques to get here and then get the Tao. The tradition of Gaudapada also achieved it. Shakyamuni, who also traveled the yogic path for years, went through all of this as well but after he achieved the fruit he described the path in a different way other than form so that it would live on and  help societies and be transmitted in such a way that more people would attain it (rather than by cultivating form). Nevertheless if you read the sutras and search, you will find that he did explain all the form transformations within his own set of excellent descriptions. So if you follow the form schools – Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Esoteric School, Shingon, kabbalah, western alchemy, Vajrayana, yoga, tantra, western mysticism, etc. – beware.

 

The entire gist of the western mystery schools –  the Rosicrucians, Golden Dawn, etc. — is to actually have you achieve THIS particular stage of attainment, and yet no one gets near it or even understands it. Secret societies  speculate on hidden meanings and mysteries, and so unfortunately speculation is all they ever come to. This is the foundational stage for dhyana attainments you reach — the stage of chakras opening, breaking through the skandhas (or koshas), purifying the four elements, the establishment of the channels, the pure illusory body, the River Chariot rotation, jing transforming into chi. In Tibetan Buddhism they just call this the cultivation of the chakras, channels and bright points (bindus) which are the flame points at the centers of the chakras. In Zen this is the stage of cultivating realization because you’re getting ready to attaint he dhayna and then the Tao. In terms of the five great stages of the path, this is the stage of True Cultivation Practice.

 

I’ve only bothered to explain it from the standpoint of cultivating the body, but warned you that few ever succeed along this path but many succeed along the prajna wisdom – Mind-Only – dhyana cultivation path of Buddhism and Vedanta. Nevertheless, even when you cultivate that route and succeed in enlightenment by realizing the dharmakaya, to be complete you also have to cultivate the sambhogakaya, which is what we’re doing here. As to the nirmanakaya, let’s not talk about this yet. This refers to a high stage of cultivation upon opening your crown chakra, and frankly I don’t think anyone is qualified to hear about it.

 

I admire the Western mystery schools and their practitioners because of their longings and aspirations. In fact, I wish members would familiarize themselves with the materials in my course on Western Alchemy that shows what it’s all about. It’s actually my one favorite product that I’ve produced but few want it, and yet I guarantee you don’t know much of what’s in it. Pity, because the material is so good.

 

http://www.meditationexpert.com/alchemy-fugiens-tapes1.htm

 

Unfortunately for the kabbalah   practitioners and Western mystery schools (Rosicrucians, etc),  ardent and virtuous people get confused in their search for the Tao. It is a pity, it is a pity. I’ve laid it all out for you up to this very stage of jing transforming into chi and the rotation of the chariot. This lays the base for the perfection of the human physical body, an ideal of human perfectability in the manner of Enoch and Metatron of the Bible. When you reach this stage you can choose to cultivate the human body to perfect health and extremely long life, or you can go further and choose the Tao to go beyond the human and celestial. This is the realm of the Buddhas (enligthened ones), otherwise one is simply at the stage of a yogi or rishi.

 

One thing is for sure and becomes perfectly clear when you understand all this and accomplish any of it. The old Jewish idea of human perfection through strict adherence to the law, meaning Jewish rules and regulations, can bring you absolutely nowhere along these lines. Every accomplished sage warns you about the uselessness of rules and regulations in attaining the Tao, but for lack of a cultivation path the Jewish religion has made the “law” into the path for the common man just as Christianity has made “belief” into the path and Islam has also made “adherence” into the path. It is unfortunate that these schools make these and so many other mistakes. Some of the biggest problems in these traditions arose because Moses was not a high stage practitioner (this is easy to tell from dozens of examples int he Bible) but one who, because of his low attainments and low wisdom, therefore interjected many asura types practices into his mission and thus these streams, and thus began centuries of warfare, anger, hate, vindictiveness, revenge, materialism, manipulation, coarse sexuality, the desire for control and conquest, persecution and destruction. To be bereft of the cultivation path is one thing, but to fall into the mentality of the asuras and follow their angry warlike, power hunger and sensual ways only leads to the destruction of culture and civilization in the end. All races, nations, empires, religions and civilizations -  for instance the Assyrians, Aztecs, Mayans, Roman Empires, Egyptian religion, Zorasterians, etc. — die after their merit is used up. The boon of perpetuity is granted to no one; impermanence marks everything. If you therefore want continuance, reform yourself and change for the better. As the prophets of old said, “turn back to God” otherwise following the asura paths means doom in the end and self-destruction due to your own lack of wisdom that you take for cleverness. Who really understands what I’m talking about except the Buddhas?

 

Cultivation of the form aspect of the body is very difficult and only someone of excellent intelligence and extreme merit can do it, and even then only if they have an extremely strong  foundation in the Mind-Only teachings and prajna wisdom principles of the path that have nothing to do with body transformations. This is another reason why Vajrayana practitioners are forced to study for nearly two decades before approaching this path as we’ve described.

 

Okay, so what happens after you establish the River Chariot rotation and a few dozen hours go by? A new set of transformations — After a certain while, the squarish furnace will have a silvery white circle develop around its base, and then the whole furnace will extend itself and rise upwards towards the bud. This sets off a different set of transformations. Yet again the old chi must be ejected and new chi develop at a higher level, just as before.

 

To concentrate on the bright points WITHIN the channels, rather than to concentrate on just the river chariot rotation, to get to the next level is extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely difficult hard beyond compare. At this stage the jing within the channels sticks to the sides, and has to be melted a bit to get it to go. Previously you did not really have to do that. But I’m not going to go into the explanations of these higher stages just yet.

The only thing I’m going to tell you is that all you’ve been doing is cultivating the sixth consciousness. Chi and consciousness are linked. You realized that in breaking through the layers of chi connected with the skandhas. You realize what that means in terms of purifying the chi channels and the five elements. Now you have to realize that the sixth consciousness itself is connected to a type of chi, and you have to SEE THIS, realize this rather than continue playing with form. In fact, you have been making a fundamental mistake of cultivation by bringing the sixth consciousness into the body when it is non-local, it is everywhere. Buddha explains this clearly in the Surangama Sutra to Ananda, and yet most religious people succeed int heri cultivation by cultivating imaginary cognition.

If you want to cultivate higher, you have to turn within — away from the sense organs just as Hatha yoga says — and pass through attachment to the seventh consciousness and then the eighth consciousness (the alaya) and then let go of that. Then you can reach the Tathagatagarbha or Womb Matrix of Pure Buddhahood, Perfect and Complete Enlightenment that jumps out of the Three Realms of Desire, Form and Formlessness. Look how high Buddhism takes you past the stage of realizing Brahma!

So I’ve just given you the SUPREME SECRET. You’ve only been cultivating the sixth consciousness this entire path. It’s not very high. To get to dhyana you have to let go of this consciousness – which also means the chi that’s connected with this consciousness that you’ve been cultivating all along — and then you can reach a higher stage of spiritual attainment. You may not know that what I’ve just told you is worth the treasures of the universe. If you can realize the meaning, you now know how to cultivate. The celestial realms are now open to you if you can detach from the coarse sixth consciousness, but remember that these high realms are still unreality compared to the True Tao. This is why even the Form Realm and Formless Realm heavenly denizens all venerate the Buddha and ask the Buddhas for teachings. You might not know, but THEY KNOW. They can see all the stages of gods and beings, including what people mistakenly take as God the Creator (due to low cultivation achievements and wrong thinking) in various worldly religions created throughout the universe, and with eyes wide open recognize the goal is to cultivate the Fundamental Essence of It All, the essence of the original nature. How can I explain it to you and wash away your misconceptions?

Stay Alert! Stay Alert!
Stay in the aliveness side rather than cling!
You don’t need to know what’s going on [with words]
It [the workings of the sixth consciousness] has all been one big molasses dream.

What’s behind the 6th is the 7th
We cling to the curtains rather than step back
If you could only let go and let function give birth
Most of your troubles would be solved

I’m “alive” when it’s gone
Why have I been so stupid to cling?
I sense that true birth is birthlessness
But my mistake is that I still cling to clarity.

Bright, alive, aware,
Empty, thorough, through
Do you know what happens when you give up the 6th?
The impure chi gets extruded like before
but you don’t have to worry about nothin’  [know it, direct it].
I missed the “ordinary mind” that’s always empty there as the essence,
because I became fascinated by mental movement and excitement
You need to make a fundamental wish to regain your original mind
and then cultivate by giving up clinging.

There’s no such thing as the “passing of days”
That’s just the sixth mind rambling along.
The Middle Path is pure because it does not cling to any Self
And phenomena stay [are] just as they are

 

Accumulate some merit — donate to www.haitiwater.org, or loan some money to www.kiva.org or make a donation to Heifer International www.heifer.org, Orbis www.orbis.org, Smile Train, Operation Smile, Handicapped International, Doctors Without Borders, www.worldvision.org, www.mercycorps.org, and so forth. It’s near Christmas. Give to others who have less, and with some of these organizations your gift can play a role that lasts for a lifetime and even multiply going forwards. Buddhas try to make the world a better place but they need you to make the effort — what did you think they were doing? One of the biggest bangs for the buck and a gift that keeps on giving is donating a chloronator or fraction thereof (they even write your name on it) at www.haitiwater.org. We all need merit to succeed; we’re all here to make the world a better place. If I died tomorrow and said I did one thing, at least I could say I supplied a community of ten thousand people with clear drinking water and banished disease and sickness overnight from my efforts. Never think you have enough merit, never. If you did you’d already be in the dhyana heavens rather than here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Song of Songs (the Song of Solomon or the Canticle of Canticles) has long been recognized as a special book in the Bible. Readers recognize that its themes seem to have nothing to do with the typical religious content of the Old Testament, and yet here it is in the Bible classed among the sacred works called “The Writings.” There must be a reason.

The reason is due to the fact that it’s a cultivation text, but because it is a cultivation text non-cultivators cannot decipher it. Yes, even the Bible contains accounts of higher and lower stages of cultivation, though mostly of the lower sort. You don’t always have to turn East to find the accounts of successful spiritual cultivation.

The earliest Jewish rabbis were certain that the Song of Songs cannot possibly mean what is says literally because it concerns erotic love between a man and a woman. Early Christian scholars agreed with the rabbinical analysis that these verses could not possibly depict worldly love. So how can we find out what it means?

Because it contains erotic imagery, some of the Jewish mystical schools that relied on the kabbalah did not want students to study the Song of Songs until they were mature, and yet this too means that they recognized it as a cultivation text but could not decipher it. It’s said that it was “the most frequently interpreted book of medieval Christianity” (Ann Matter) and the number of medieval Jewish commentaries on it are surprising large as well. Here’s what most of these commentators thought …

According to Jewish tradition in the Midrash and the Targum, the book is an allegory of God’s love for the Children of Israel. In a Christian tradition that began with Origen, the Song of Songs is regarded as an allegory of the relationship of Christ and the Church, or else Christ and the individual believer. Both religions could not understand, so both clothed it in their own dogma. So we have this book in the Bible containing erotic imagery, no one really knows why it’s there but everyone knows it must therefore be important and have some special meaning, and because they don’t know the meaning they interpret it as an allegorical representation of the relationship of God and Israel as husband and wife.

Why can’t they interpret it? Because they have no cultivation gong-fu and spiritual attainments. No matter how brilliant a rabbi or scholar you are, or how profound your understanding of the Bible as a Christian, if you don’t have any cultivation accomplishments you’ll never understand this text. Its meaning becomes perfectly clear only when you start breaking through the conception skandha, and this is beyond most religious functionaries. The theme that it talks about happens over and over and over again once you reach this critical first stage of cultivation. As the Zen school says, cultivation only starts at this stage, at this point in time. Prior to this stage, if you never reach it then all your meditation work is in vain.

In Jewish thinking, the Song of Songs has even been suggested as a messianic text in that the lover can be interpreted as the Messiah. The Aramaic Jewish targums also interpreted the lover as the awaited Messiah.

Nonsense. If you don’t have any cultivation gong-fu or accomplishment you won’t know anything about it’s real meaning of transforming yin chi to yang chi, and thus the references to men and women. The Song of Songs is a cultivation text because it pertains to the physical transformations involved in opening up the heart chakra, transforming yin chi to yang chi, opening up other chi channels in the body, and cultivating through the conception skandha. That’s what it’s about. Let me skip to verse 5.2 which starts referring to the lessons I’ve been recently giving you, which is why I brought up this Biblical text:

2 I sleep but my mind is awake.

Listen! My beloved is knocking:

“Open to me, my sister, my darling,

My dove, my flawless one.

My head is drenched with dew,

My hair with the dewdrops of the night.”

 

3 I have taken off my robe-

Must I put it on again?

I have washed my feet-

Must I soil them again?

 

4 My beloved thrust his hand through the key hole;

My heart throbbed for him.

 

5 I arose to open for my beloved,

And my hands dripped with myrrh,

My fingers with flowing myrrh,

On the handles of the lock.

 

6 I opened for my beloved,

but my beloved had left; he was gone.

My heart sank at his departure. 

I looked for him but did not find him.

I called him but he did not answer me.

 

7 The watchmen making their rounds in the city found me,

They beat me, they bruised me;

They took away my cloak,

Those watchmen of the walls took my robe from me!

 

8 Young women of Jerusalem,

Swear to me that if you find my beloved

You will tell him I am sick from love.

 

9 Most beautiful of women,

What makes your beloved better than any other beloved?

What makes your beloved better than any other beloved

That you make us swear this way?

 

10 My beloved is dazzling yet ruddy.

The chieftest among 10,000 men.

 

11 His head is as the finest gold.

His hair is wavy, black as a raven.

 

12 His eyes are like doves beside the rivers of waters,

Washed with milk and fitly set.

 

13 His cheeks are like a garden of spices,

A garden that produces scented herbs.

His lips are like lilies dropping liquid myrrh.

 

14 His hands are disks of gold set with beryl.

His chest is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.

 

15 His legs are as columns of marble set upon bases of pure gold.

His form is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.

 

16 His mouth is full of sweetness.

Everything about him is desirable!

This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem

 

The phrase, “I sleep, but my mind is awake” is translated a number of different ways in the various renderings of Songs, but it basically means that you have attained samadhi. Only with samadhi can you undergo these transformative experiences, plain and simple. You’re aware but all is quiet, like night. The mind is silent but awake just as in samadhi. In fact, when you achieve the Tao you can even reach a stage wherein while sleeping your mind is just as awake as waking hours because it is clear. But here we’re talking about reaching samadhi in order to initiate these transformations. That’s why scholars cannot interpret this work.

Now here’s the main thrust of the work. This poem is talking about the opening of the heart chakra in the body as one penetrates through the conception skandha. The chi starts to penetrate the heart chakra and the chakra starts to pulsate, which is the throbbing in Songs 5.4. The chi appears white in color, like a dove. Over and over again I’ve told you that in practicing the skeleton meditation you want the chi to be visualized as dazzling white, as that’s what you’ll see when you reach this stage. So you’ll find a lot of refernces to the color white (milk, doves, etc.) and also to a ruddy complexion, for as the kundalini fire opens up the chi channels it restores color to the cheeks, which is a byproduct of the heat. Naturally as it ascends into the head it spreads through the head chakra channels so that the hair (crown chakra’s chi channels or petals) is “drenched with dew.”

So this is the meaning of Songs 5.2 – the heart chakra is opening, the chi is white, it’s ascending upwards into the head because the heart chakra is pumping it, and naturally the channels in the head start filling with this chi and opening. You can also think of the channels within the body as hairs, but the beauty of poetry is that we don’t know which one of these meanings was exactly intended – they both fit.

At this stage of attainment, I’ve previously explained what happens next. You’re cultivating and can see in your mind’s eye another body of yours which is the impure illusory body that develops after your break through the heart chakra and conception skandha. Yes, this is the impure illusory body of the Esoteric school, or Tibetan Buddhism, or tantric yoga. It’s a non-denominational process that it forms – it’ll happen to a Jew, Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Taoist, Tibetan Buddhist, yogi, pagan, agnostic or anyone who cultivates this far enough. Cultivation is just a technology of evolutionary yoga and this is what pops out of the process. To explain why we’d have to go into Buddhism again, but that’s too much for here.

Inside the sheath of this illusory body is blob of unrefined chi that has to be transformed. When the skin falls away from this blob, the chi inside looks like a lump of wiggling clear jelly. Even though this chi looks clear, it’s not purified but does become purified over time as you go through multiple stages of the following reefing process. The same thing happens for petals of chakras at early stages of cultivation.

When the chi inside the illusory body becomes full, the outer covering of the illusory body (which is the shape of your body, like a skin) drops away. It’s like the skin falls off, and this clear jelly substance (chi) is left there and then rises into the sky and departs. If you had to use an allegory, you’d say your robe fell off, or the curtain around a column dropped away, or one of a number of different ways of describing that a covering fell away. They’re all describing the same unmistakable process that happens not once, but over and over and over again.

You cannot mistake it for anything else, which is why this verse is so identifiable. I really cannot count the number of times this happens because the inner chi of this illusory body is being transformed. You cultivate, it fills with chi, when full the chi covering (in the form of your body) drops away, the inside chi rises and departs (like perfume or an aroma), and then you start cultivating and wait for it to start all over again at a higher, more purified level.

After awhile a new illusory body forms made out of slightly higher, more refined chi than last time that’s in the environment, and that’s how it becomes refined. Over and over again this process continues. That’s the meaning of Songs where it says the individual takes off their robe and puts it on again. They have to do this over and over again, and particularly work at sending the chi into their feet to transform it for as all cultivation schools note, it’s particularly difficult to get the chi to reach the bottom of the feet. In Taoism you cannot reach the stage of becoming an “Immortal” unless your chi channels to the bottom of your feet open all the way through. When that happens, Confucianism compares it to “Springtime.” At this stage the whole body, including the feet, gets transformed over and over again.

Next, the hand through the keyhole is a description of the chi running up the sushumna central channel and piercing the chakras, in particular the center of the heart chakra. I always tell you that you have to open up the heart chakra and I’ve taught you to use the Zhunti-Vairocana or Vairocana-Zhunti Tantra to do so which I’ve openly given on the MeditationExpert.com blog and in the site. But of course that tantra is useless unless you’ve first performed the preliminary work of the skeleton method and other cultivation techniques to prep the chi channels throughout your body for this to become possible. It’s all very scientific. It’s all just yoga that you have to aprior perform to somewhat open all the chi channels of your body evenly to finally be able to open the heart chakra.

The chi of your body runs right through the center of the heart chakra – which is the keyhole in this poem. It can only go up if you open the heart chakra, and when the heart chakra opens it starts to pulsate or throb just like Songs 5.4 says. The root chakra is also undergoing pulsation and sometimes the sex chakra at the back of the spine is contributing to the pumping as well in unison. But the main one is the heart chakra. If the root chakra of the cultivator is already unplugged then the actual words of the Songs of Songs in its original language might even be in the form of poetry matching the rhythm of the writer’s pulsation, but because I don’t know the original language I cannot tell. If so, it would truly be a “song” with rhythm and cadence corresponding to the pulsation pumping rhythm, and by reciting it in the original cadence it could help open up your channels as well.

So what’s happening to the rest of the physical body during this time? The heart chakra is pumping the chi throughout your meridians, and it even reaches your fingers and toes which become filled with chi, “dripping with myrrh.” But this process cannot go on forever. After a certain period of time at these initial stages, the pulsation stops, the chi recedes, and you have to wait for it to start all over again. Just as Songs says, the illusory body departs and disappears, and you cannot find it. It’s gone until it reforms.

It’s like when you really empty the chi channels in the toes of all the dirty chi. They seem to deflate, the skin covering falls away, and you have to wait for a new body to form while the root chakra has chi rise out of its center like a pillar to push all this garbage away. The process repeats itself in a similar but slightly different fashion at each and every higher stage of cultivation as regards transforming the physical and illusory bodies.

When everything disappears and there is a pause, through your thought born body you can see the Buddhas (other enlightened teachers watching over you) indicating that you just have to wait and should rest and do forget about it and do something else for awhile. All the meditation work in the world cannot make the new body form faster, so just let go and forget it. One Buddha might indicate this by letting you see that he’s crossing his legs and leaning against the wall while whistling (as if waiting for something), one might act like they’re reading a book and ignoring the rest of the world, another might show himself tapping his fingers on a table as if waiting … or some other image that communicates to you that you just have to wait as your chi becomes full again. Remember that the thought born body can only see, and cannot hear, so the Buddhas have to teach you with symbolic gestures like this and you always have to figure out their meaning. In short, your chi disappears, the illusory body leaves, and you just have to wait while a new body forms of higher grade chi, which is exactly the meaning of Songs 5.6.

This process will repeat over and over this way – the new illusory body forms, you continue cultivating emptiness and letting go (and never lose the semen at this stage), the chi becomes full, the covering (skin, robe, “body like suit”) of this illusory body drops away, inside you see a mass of clear jelly chi that floats away, and then you wait again….

We’ve just described the going ons of your impure illusory body, but what’s happening to your regular human physical body during this time? It’s undergoing tremendous transformation, what Maitreya Buddha called the “big knife wind (chi).” It feels as if every muscle, tendon, joint, and cell of your body is being cut up by the real kundalini chi as it pushes through all the channels and pushes out the filth to purify them. You feel sore, tired, beaten, bruised – just awful due to these tremendous transformations. It’s nothing you cannot handle or should fear. I’m just letting you know what to expect so that you don’t think you’re doing something wrong.

That’s really all you’re doing at this stage – purifying the physical body, which is purifying the illusory body at the same time. You’re turning your physical body into a Reward body, Enjoyment body or sambhogakaya because its chi channels are becoming purified. It’s becoming renewed. Because of these transformations everywhere you feel incredibly sore, as if beaten and bruised, and it’s hard to drag yourself back to your meditation seat to get started at this process again after you’ve rested. Sometimes you even feel like you might die, but you have to do this for all sentient beings. You must start cultivating again and when you do, after a short while of returning to your meditation seat you can start the circulation all over again and the feelings will subside. But this is what happens, and is exactly the meaning of Songs 5.7.

Another aspect of this process is the fact that your sexual desire becomes extremely strong, fierce beyond measure because the real chi of the body is coming up. Whether that’s the meaning of “sick of love” or not, the fact is that your real chi is aroused and the sexual desire is immense. The sexual desire is almost unbearable but like Shakyamuni Buddha warns, if you give in to lust you can never achieve this process in a million years, for it would be like steaming sand to get rice which can never happen. The longing for sex is incredible at this stage, and perhaps this fact is or is not reflected in this poem as well. Nevertheless, sexual desire will try to grab you.

The watchmen making their rounds in Songs refers to the chi circulating everywhere in the body, going through its orbits. Watchmen walk around town checking everything, and that’s a good analogy for your yang chi going through every nook and cranny of your channels pushing this and pushing that. Everywhere it goes the “big knife wind” is transforming all your tissues and cells, and in some cases you feel like you want to die because every part of your body is sore. Every part, and I mean every part! And yet you actually long for this as a type of pleasant soreness because you know this is IT, this is the transformation of the physical nature you need which will produce an internal beautified body, just as Songs says. Not one in a million, let alone 10,000 men achieve this.

When you are also transforming the impure illusory body into the pure illusory body this happens at a much, much, much later stage. That’s the “Afterwards 3×3” of the Wu-cho talk with the Buddha Manjusri which involves cultivating the very difficult space chi of the body. You can look that up on Google for the Manjushri / Wu-cho story. The space chi is very difficult to cultivate and purify, the most difficult of all. In Songs we sometimes see reference to spices, which are flavors, and this simply means the five flavors or five types of chi that are extruded out of the chi channels during this whole process! So that explains a particular aspect of this poem that scholars have never been able to figure out. This means the earth, water, air, fire and space chi which, being chi or winds, are also like aromas.

There’s another big secret that happens when you break through to the Desire Realm Skandha by breaking through the heart chakra. I’ve never spoken of this before but have to spill the beans because of what’s in Songs. A particular Buddha has made a vow to help people reaching this stage, and so appears on the wall of the chakra and demonstrates your major cultivation fault to you (ex. a tendency to violence, clinging to the dharma, etc.) by hitting you with what I call “golden poppies.” They look like special flower buds that just pound and pound upon you without escape. There’s no way you can run away from them, beat them or avoid them. A picture of Zhunti Buddha shows what they look like on the third hand down from the sword. Even if you can think of some way to escape for several aeons from them hitting you and pounding you in unison, you will not win in the end because they will catch up to you and you realize this without a shadow of a doubt. And so by this lesson this Great Buddha Master makes you realize you have no choice but to give up your bad habits in order to progress spiritually. He points them out using his pounding poppies, and it’s up to you to change your attitude and behavior.

At this initial stage he will also let you understand that mental “afflictions” are like black wasps that need to be killed on the path of cultivation. In Buddhism these are called “afflictions” and are symbolized as wasps or pests. When you are cultivating the pure illusory body, a different insect pest is used to demonstrate afflictions and is made of clear chi at a much higher level, so the lesson is repeated again even at that high stage, for afflictions are still present even then.

Lastly, after you make your initial enlightenment vows at this stage to crack open the base of the chakra and move its chi (this is a BIG secret I just revealed – TREASURE it!), the enlightened Buddhas will come one by one and brush your forehead with their hands anointing you. It will feel as if a cool breeze is brushing upon your forehead as they line up and do this one by one to anoint you, or give you this baptism. This is a genuine stage of empowerment, but as my Teacher says it’s still not the REAL one which only happens at the tenth stage Bodhisattva level when a practitioner is ready to become a fully enlightened Buddha.

These are actual experiences that will happen to anyone who opens up the heart chakra and breaks through the conception skandha, some of which are described in the Surangama Sutra or Lotus Sutra. If you want to know the details, you have to read these sutras. I’m sorry to tell you that no other school describes this in detail. It’s not that practitioners of other schools don’t reach this far. It’s just that these school leave no teachings or guidance, so for that you have to turn to the excellence of Buddhism, which is its specialty.

To cultivate the pure illusory body far past this stage (not the impure illusory body, which is described in Songs) is extremely hard, hard, hard, hard, extremely hard, extremely difficult hard, incredibly extremely difficult hard to do, and perhaps one day I’ll write about it. If I ever got hold of Nagarjuna’s Guhyasamaja commentary, which I’m told exists (if someone sends it to me I’d be happy to pay for it), I’m sure we could find some good material to comment upon so that I could give you some teachings to match. The Tibet school locks all these treasures up and thinks they shouldn’t be taught, but this shows their own lack of wisdom. In this day and age, this is PRECISELY the information that should be taught, and you should not need to be Tibetan to learn it. All cultivation schools have secrets, but this is not anything that can hurt you but something you should aspire towards. I’m giving you the excellence par excellence of the Yogacara-Vajrayana traditions.

At this stage of cultivating the illusory body you don’t talk about karmamudras anymore (tantric sex with dakinis, which incidentally might be a method the author used because of the allegories). Instead, to open up all the tiny chi channels in the crown chakra we must talk about making merit offerings. You can open them up by giving merit offerings to the Buddhas in a thousand different directions … you mentally point each chi channel capillary in a different direction and try to push out the chi as an offering. At this stage, it has to be useful to somebody. You can even use Hubble pictures of the many galaxies in the sky everywhere, and imagine a single chi thread extending to each of these realms to make offerings out of its mouth, if that will help. You imagine that the chi pouring out of these tiny thin channels becomes gemstones, medicine, ambrosia, gold, light, and all sorts of precious things you would want to offer to the Buddhas. At the stage of the impure illusory body – heart chakra opening, when the head chakra cannot rotate anymore you can imagine that you have tiny balls of chi and you spin them in a circle on the top of the head, like balls thrown on a roulette wheel, to get it to blaze with fire after it gets stuck, but that special trick won’t work at this very high level. You might have to create your own technique other than the one I created here for you with pictures of galaxies and extending the chakra petals (chi stalks) to make offerings to Buddhas.

You cannot achieve any of this unless your warm kundalini is activated, and it helps to stretch out the chi channels across the universe as you imagine this. If you visualize a flame at the front of the channel you can sometimes lead the chi out of the channel when it seems stuck inside. Typically a piece of jagged chi will get caught in each channel mouth, like a serrated triangle, and you often have to wiggle it free to get it to dislodge. If you practice breathing methods of holding your breath, like the 9-bottled wind, a tiny bit of pressure at your base can help squeeze the impure chi out as well. Typically in Orthodox Buddhism this set of purifications is done automatically just by anapana practices rather than through visualizations, and thus it still gets done without nay need of your guidance. So I’m actually explaining to you the stupid way because I’m a stupid type of guy. Nagarjuna actually expounded the Esoteric school for people who like science and think too much, and because of this bad habit of thinking I have to do something, which I don’t, I’ve fallen into this school’s clutches. Hopefully it’s to your benefit to know these things, but as Buddha explained, if you just let go and cultivate anapana breathing, you don’t have to know anything because ti will all happen of itself naturally. I just like knowing al the details.

No one has revealed these secrets ever before, but you will also find your own individual way to do it if you have the merit or a great teacher. Few people ever make it this far. These teachings are rare, but freely given. The Bible, as I’m explaining, recounts a bit of this but just a small fraction of the events, and isn’t telling you how to do anything. There are no instructions whatsoever, but this is in there because someone recognized that it is indeed a cultivation text. Otherwise it wouldn’t be there. The problem is that people just cannot decipher it.

Another way to open up the head chakra tiny chi channels is to cultivate the Anapanasati Sutra, just as Buddha explained, and concentrate on your breathing rather than illusory body visualizations. This is a different method than concentrating on form, and thereby bypasses the tendency for cultivators to cling to the illusory bodies. Frankly, it’s probably a superior method. Manjushri, Maitreya, Zhunti and Vairocana like to teach tantra, as well as some other Buddhas, but Shakyamuni does not like to as it’s not his high wisdom way. In any case, it’s very hard, very hard, very hard to open the crown chakra at the top of the head. It’s so hard you might not know what to do without a good teacher and it’s of particular difficulty to get the chi started moving there in the first place.

In order to open up the crown chakra and produce the pure illusory body, which involves working with the most rarified of the five elemental chi – the space chi rather than fire, earth, water or wind chi — you need to be making “offerings” and great enlightenment vows. That’s why I’m always stressing that you must make offerings to succeed in cultivation. The pure illusory body goes through many transformations and bodily shapes as it changes, and at several stages the head chakra main stem opens up, splits apart and out ascends a beautified Buddha form of many heads and hands like you see in the unusual pictures. This actually happens. The appearance is quite different than what happened and appeared as you produced a similar impure illusory body crown chakra emanation. On this I’m not going to give details.

So many bodies, so many bodies come out along this path! To explain all the steps in detail would take a book but whereas the breaking through the skandhas and generating the impure illusory body is easy to explain, though a complicated process. This second set of 3×3 purifications is almost impossible to describe with as clear an ordering. Frankly, you’re lucky you have what you have.

Everyone’s pure illusory body looks different due to their merits, the cultivation methods they’ve used, and their vows. The bodies produced are glorious and the process fascinating, not to mention tiring, but a certain stanza comes to mind from the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, which helps explain why Shakyamuni Buddha did not teach this method. No matter how much wealth in charitable offering or however many lives you offer in pursuit of the dharma, no merit is superior to a moment of true emptiness, the dharmakaya. Go read the Diamond Sutra and you’ll see what he says. It takes about an hour – you can find it on the web. So none of these bodies matter and are not worthy of clinging. They aren’t anything ultimate. They really are not the Tao.

Esoteric school proponents (Vajrayana and the tantric yoga schools) always think they have something marvelous that is missing from the Orthodox teachings, just as Jews and Christians and Moslems think they’re unique and special as well, but in the Diamond Sutra, Buddha also hinted at ignoring the Vajrayana process of transformation we’re discussion by saying that enlightenment is not found in a bodily form – whether a pure or impure illusory body. He said, “One who looks for me in appearance or pursues me in sound, follows paths leading astray, and cannot perceive the Buddha [enlightenment].” He also said “All phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow. Like a dew drop and a flash of lightning, Thus should you view them.” Those are perfect descriptions of the illusory body. This is why Buddha disliked teaching these explicit tantric explanations, for as my teacher said, the big catastrophes in cultivation come from those who cultivate the Esoteric school and develop the habit of clinging to form. This happens in Taoism, tantra, yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, kabbalah practice, alchemical practices, nei gong and so on.

Although Shakyamuni said that making offerings of money, life, time and effort are not as good as attaining the Tao, nevertheless, you cannot succeed without merit, good deeds and offerings which is why I suggested that you donate a chlorinator ($265 for 3000+ people and it will last for 20 years – every day everyone in the community will use it as there’s no plumbing in Haiti) or whatever you can afford to www.haitiwater.org (the donate button is on their website) as it’s the biggest meritorious bang for the buck I can find for you. You need massive offerings like this to succeed in cultivation. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. My teacher always says the Esoteric school is extremely expensive because of the offerings required in order to succeed quickly.

In Songs 5.10 onwards, the author starts talking about the beauty of their illusory body and/or transformed inner chi body because this is truly a marvelous cultivation accomplishment. That’s why this Songs of Songs is in the Bible in the first place. Without achieving these attainments themselves, priests, pastors, preachers, reverends, vicars, rabbis, Torah scholars, Bible scholars, laymen, academics, intellectuals and non-cultivators won’t have a clue as to what it’s talking about. You can surround these people with a library of Biblical books and ask them to study, compare, argue and contrast, but thousands of years later they could never reveal this text’s meaning as we’ve done here.

That’s why I tell you that you always have to cultivate (meditate) to succeed in spiritual accomplishment. Ceremonies and rituals are useless, to say you are “chosen” or “saved” or have a “covenant” is ridiculous as well, to just study and take intellectual knowledge as the path is useless, to argue in debate is useless, to memorize is useless, and to become famous or rich through these means under the guise of religion is also useless. When I release my book on Christian cultivation it will certainly upset a lot of people but this is the truth – no practice, no attainment, no understanding of the inherent meaning of the texts. There is much in the New Testament, and Gnostic gospels as well, that speak of stages of cultivation, but the establishment will definitely not readily accept it. Okay, I’ve done my part for you in writing this. What more can I do but offer it?

Now by this time of practice the head chakra starts shining a bit with a golden light and as the chi melts off its surface, it drips down the color of amber honey. Dirty chi pushes out the sockets of your physical eyes and ears as the physical body transforms, a process that lasts days or weeks depending upon the cultivator. It pushes out of every orifice it can find, but you want to especially push it through the bottom of the feet and toes, as well as through the various chakra spoke channels (in the heart and throat and through the third eye especially). As it pushes out of these holes it’s like a snake, worm or living plastic because it feels alive and either exudes straight out, like a bowel movement, or wiggles out like a worm. Because it’s chi, or life force, you always feel like it’s something living.

When you reach this stage, you really should be in retreat so that nothing bothers you or interrupts the process, especially exposure to anything that might cause sexual desire. The sexual desire at this stage can drive you crazy, which is why Buddha told practitioners to practice in a graveyard watching the dead bodies rot, for that would help quell the desire. As the chi traverses throughout the body, it sometime gives off an aroma and the pituitary glands secrete a sweet saliva that you (or someone who kisses you) can taste. Thus, “His mouth is full of sweetness.” You should swallow this fully.

To elucidate upon this text further, which only cultivators who have achieved the requisite gong-fu can understand, the taking off of the robe and putting it on again refers to the outer covering of chi skin that falls away from the impure illusory body like a robe when you reach this stage, which is a particular stage of cultivating through the skandhas when you also begin to recognize the ching-se, or sentient matter. Summarizing again, throughout this stage, each time the outer covering of the chi body falls away, the jelly like chi inside is revealed, rises into the sky when its covering is gone, and a new body is instantly reformed. But this is only just a very rudimentary stage of gong-fu that initially occurs when working through the conception skandha. There are many, many steps to the process and these are just some of the first few. Because the physical body’s chi is transforming furiously at this stage, you feel sore all over every cell of your body. It feels like you are being cut up by what Maitreya Buddha called a “big knife wind.” Thus, it feels beaten, bruised and sore beyond compare. The Bible is only speaking about the start of this process and skipping loads of special phenomena, though I filled in some gaps.

At this time the chi is flowing through your body, including to your hands, and the heart chakra is pulsating to pump the chi through the central channel, like peristalsis of the intestines, in order to push the chi upwards to the head and throughout all the chi channels. After it reaches fullness, the illusory body’s covering drops away, it floats off, and your chi in your physical body recedes to rest. In Song of Songs 6:2 it says “My beloved went to his garden, to the beds of spices, to graze his flock in the gardens and gather lilies. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He is the one who grazes his flock among the lilies.” This refers to the fact the chi returns to its root source, and mingles with the other chakras which the author called “lilies.” Later he says he had become like the “chariots of my noble people” which also refers to the fact that the chakras spin like chariot wheels. In the Jewish tradition, chakras are referred to as chariot wheels, such as in Ezekiel.

The whole point of this lengthy exposition is to let you see once again that the results of cultivation are non-denominational. The Jewish sages were also able to pass through this common experience just as everyone else does who reaches this stage of attainment. No people are special, no race nor religion nor creed nor nothing. That’s just the prejudice and propaganda of each group which it uss to help keep itself alive. So the Jewish cultivation stream is certainly not in any way supreme, and neither is Christianity, Islam, Taoism or even Buddhism for that matter. As I always explain, we simply use Buddhism a lot because it offers the most detailed explanations and clearest guidance, and we skip to other schools when their explanations are clearer.

Where is the guidance in the Bible for what to do? The most we know is that our Jewish forefathers, like Abraham, “went out into the field” to cultivate, but we don’t know what meditation methods they used. That entire cultivation line is mostly cut off. Vedanta doesn’t explain these stages either, and neither does Taoism but tantric yoga practices from India do explain things, though in a pollute manner. Yet what they explain is usually only the opening of the heart chakra, and not anything like this.

So unfortunately modern day rabbis, Christian priests, mullahs and other theologians will have no clue as to the meaning of these texts unless they meditate and start achieving the same states of spiritual cultivation themselves. Remember, the stages are non-denominational, no tradition is supreme. It will be very hard for Moslems, Christians and Jews to take up this road because of a resistance to the personal responsibility it lays upon you, and the fact that most rather think they have a special covenant with God, they are the chosen ones, only they will go to heaven, others are infidels, etc. etc. etc. It’s all unclear thinking which is why 99.9999999999+% of people in the world are not cultivating.

Furthermore, (1) most people of every religion don’t know the right way to spiritually practice (2) those that do know how to meditate or practice don’t put in the requisite time and effort with diligence and consistency (3) people lose their sexual energies without which this transformative process is impossible (4) you need a good teacher and merit for success on this path.

I’ve given you as many wisdom teachings as possible on our MeditationExpert.com site and in our books. What I really hope is that with more explanations you arouse the motivation to practice and lay a foundation for achievement so that you can succeed and help others. Now you know that the Bible, too, contains a bit of the story, just as it should. I never said otherwise, and you’d be surprised what’s in the Gnostic Gospels or how to interpret several of Jesus’s sayings in the New testament according to cultivation knowledge, such as “Jesus answered Nicodemus, “I can guarantee this truth: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” But that’s for another day. So because I was explaining these stages of tantric development, I decided to pull in another cultivation school – Judaism – to show you the same stages explained once again. Whether it can help you or not I don’t know, but at least you have yet another teaching and something to think about as regards the Song of Songs. If you want to fill in the gaps, you’ll have to backtrack and read our blog posts and special articles on tantra, the central channel, chakras, the Zhunti-Vairocana tantra, and many other related posts since last December and early January of this year.