NEW RELEASE JUNE 1, 2014!
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A personal journey in the fascinating realms of Qigong energy and traditions, exploration of the mysteries of the East. Available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, other fine eBook vendors and Gypsy Shadow Publishing at:
A deep and true study of Qigong and Chinese tradition facts and routines helpful to health and understanding many of the mysteries of the world today. Correct positioning as to the everyday life challenges, a powerful weapon for health and self-defense.
Word Count: 154942
Pages to Print: 394
Price: $6.99
EXCERPT:
Finally for the moment, we come to the notion of knowledge. I don’t mean to pretend there has never been no-knowledge presented as real. Yet the term in itself does give some additional certainty as to the real substance of the thing learnt. In addition to that, a disciple having acquired it does suppose a level or a stage from which onward he has become somehow able to build and go on more independently. Knowledge with Qigong would to a greater extent stand for ability to develop further guaranteed by capability to escape the snares of time and people, to solve riddles and deflect seduction. For my teacher these have been qualities incomparably more important than numerous pictures in books about martial arts that would be telling the practitioner nothing at all. Most of the time the students know it subconsciously and that makes for frustrated ones who are the course and reason for the stagnation in the development of Qigong too.
An important aspect of knowledge is its role of a go-between for us and the spirits that recognize our levels and qualities through the knowledge we truly possess. Accordingly, when telling us something important they simply impart it, sometimes through a dream; on other occasions through hints and a sudden feeling or urge to do something or leave it.
This last point is of relevance to another basic principle needed when training in Qigong. That’s the idea of all living things being connected and dependent upon each other. It is an issue discussed in scientific and most ridiculously in political circles where it is used to serve financial and egotist interests. The importance of it could not possibly be logically presented, yet is easily felt and admired in terms of the myriads of forms and beings created to no obvious reason by the creator. One can’t really be serious in thinking the color nuances of plants and animals were created for the reasons of propagating, eating and defense. That is a sphere where the communication between worlds is at work and artists, old people, lovers and children know that only too well. The ones I have omitted are the students of Qi and they take it rather too seriously in practical terms in order just to be mentioned.
It is that deep meaning of knowledge and the subtle ways of getting it that are the bridge between worlds and by constantly crossing it we develop the feeling of Qi and the ability to manipulate it.
As a sea and coast embracing themselves by way of small ripples, as sun and clouds at sunset horizon, as wind of breeze in the midst of blooming cherries, Yin and Yang dancingly overlap in continuous flow of time. When they are in harmony there are no illnesses or storms, we are happy and our parents are healthy. Yet there is a margin in their being at harmony that is sometimes breached. The greatest disharmony between them is seen as conflict by some. In fact it is just a way to go further enough as to be able to unite later on. It is in fact the same cosmic harmony that brought us about and would finish that beautiful dream someday. Caught in between, people do cry and laugh, live and die; some even join a foreign ministry in a small European state. The important thing is to avoid being sad. We are never sad; sometimes just pensive. Or at least that’s how it should be.
These were the extremes of course and the normal fluctuation of Yin and Yang is in a margin that would permit life, even if a miserable one. As with the constant change from day to night, from restlessness to satisfaction, these are margins accepted and tolerated. Yet imagine the extremes of 20 hours sunlight but not in the polar circle, say in Sahara desert instead! I dare not push you into imagining a foreign ministry in a small European state with its moral and professional extremes that would be a bit too much really!
The reason of a training philosophy based upon Yin and Yang is not just to teach one a routine. That could be done without much bothering and is done in most of the practice sessions all over the world. The true one is to take the disciple both far and deep enough as to get a proper feeling of himself being a part of a cosmic order and that is something even the astronauts know nothing about. That is what knowledge under Qigong denotation is meant for. The mere choice to be made here between going for the quantity of the knowledge or its quality is an important one as these are paths normally followed for a lifetime; that is never really long enough.
Another problem is hidden in the nature of progressing through Qigong that makes it difficult simply to face a beginner with such a question. It is on a later stage that the desires and the capabilities of a disciple would lead toward clear proclivities and preferences. Then in an unobtrusive manner, a successful disciple would be treated by a competent master to periods of ever increasing numbers of new routines and others when for months nothing would seem to be happening except for the tedious going about details and aspects of exercises already learned and even mastered to a considerable extent. For one thing, what is the meaning of being really mastered to an extent? Apart from depending upon and differing in accordance with the pupil’s sense of progress it still has one certain feature to be judged after. It is effectiveness. The master would say that the moment a routine or a few tricks turn into a weapon that level has been achieved.
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