Creation and Dualism (article)

I quite enjoyed that video also.
I can tell Almine has a heightened awareness of the truth.

Her stages she speaks of sound very similar to the progression
through the Healing Tao immortality formulas. I was pleasantly
surprised to hear her talk about alchemy . . . and amused
to hear her alchemy/Michael comment. I wonder if Michael
realizes that his name is even linked into alchemy, LOL.
I guess he chose the right job 🙂

I like her comment about her “awakening in stage 2”, where
she says you don’t depend on others’ opinions of you. I
myself have come to this realization recently. It’s so
obvious, but so easy to miss and/or not absorb fully.

Thanks for sharing the video. It was excellent.

S

YOU are the pearl. It’s just your consciousness crystallized
so that it’s easier to identify and work with, as opposed to working
on it in the abstract. You can’t “not” hang on to it. It’s
YOU after all. The two are inseparable. Cultivating the
pearl is cultivating YOU. The point of strengthening, cultivating,
and refining the pearl so that it can continue to live on
consciously after death, is to strengthen, cultivate and
refine YOU so that YOU can continue to live on consciously
after death.

In the strictest Daoist sense, I’m oversimplifying things a bit,
but that’s my style ^_^

If we want to get fancy with language, YOU are the amalgam
of the LING (prenatal soul which exists beyond death normally)
and the XIN (heart-mind; postnatal expression formed by the unified
five shen, which does NOT exist beyond death normally). Then
the pearl is a crystallization of your XIN via an energetic
vessel holding the FIVE SHEN. If this vessel is cultivated so
that it exists beyond death, then together with the already
immortal LING, YOU then continue to exist beyond death; otherwise,
only the LING continues on–which by itself is just a skeletal
version of you, emotionless with no goals, akin to a “Stepford wives”
version of you.

But ignoring all the fancy-schmancy talk using formal lingo which
I usually avoid, to KEEP THINGS SIMPLE, in a nutshell, basically
YOU are the pearl.

Sing it with me now 😉

(sung to “We are the World”)

You are the pearl.
You are the children.
You are the one who makes a brighter day
So now start living
There’s a choice you’re making
You’re saving your own life
It’s true you’ll make a better day
Just you and you

Smiles,
Steven

>>>Can you share your source for the meaning of Ling?
>>>Another one is almost the opposite, Shen is our
>>>essential nature/yuan shen, Ling is a more dense
>>>energy formation in our current form to hold the shen,
>>>the vessel to allow the Shen to stay here, the two are
>>>inseparable in human form. It is the yin/yang aspect of Shen.

Let me clarify what I said earlier.

Prior to birth, the LING exists in the prenatal realm, and
is an immortal object. It is a skeletal version of you; it
has some degree of self-awareness, but no emotions, no goals,
no desires, no memory. Then due to some unknown linking
or association process, the LING links up with the
creation of a new physical human being. As the physical
human “comes online”, as if a radio has been turned on, the
LING puts out an “interdimensional whistle”, and summons
the FIVE SHEN (also immortal) to come to join it. Almost as if an employer
has put out a job posting, and prospective employees show up . . .
The FIVE SHEN are attracted to this interdimensional whistle,
and whichever five shen of the various shen in the nether
regions that show up, get “hired”. They then form the
“soul team” and collect around the LING, with the LING
acting as axis around which they collect. Upon the birth
of the human, the LING grants the “authority” to the FIVE SHEN
to “run the show”. Collectively, the “five member team”
are responsible for the emotions, goals, drives, desires, memories etc.
for the human. The collective “five member committee” forms
a voice called the XIN (heart-mind). Then the LING + the XIN
form everything that is you. Assuming nothing special is
done during life (i.e Daoist cultivation or the like), then
upon death, the “radio is turned off”, i.e. “the interdimensional
whistle stops whistling”, and thus the “magnet” that attracted
the shen originally is no more. Thus the FIVE SHEN scatter,
as their “job” is over. They are immortal, but they separate
to go off and do other things. In doing so, the XIN which was
the assemblage of the five-member committee is no more. It
dissolves. Thus what is left is the LING alone. Thus your
memories, emotions, goals, drives, etc. all evaporate and
much of what you were is cast into oblivion, only leaving
a shell. Under this picture, the point of doing the Daoist
cultivation is to strengthen the energetic vessel in which
the FIVE SHEN collect around the LING axis, so that after
death when the “whistle” is turned off, the FIVE SHEN are
“caged” and are prevented from going off their separate ways,
and thus keeping everything that is you intact in the hereafter.
Of course, this phrasing of the word “caging” is misleading as
it implies a forced prison, when what is really happening is
that the cage is created/strengthened by getting the FIVE
SHEN to realize how compatible they are with each other and
helping them to realize that they WANT to continue to work
together forever. This “wanting” creates a mutual desire
or longing for them to be together, which means a kind
of “magnetic” or “sexual” attraction amongst them develops which is
independent of the “interdimensional whistle of the LING”
(holding them “hypnotized” around the LING’s axis). It is
this “wanting” or “magnetic” or “sexual” attraction that develops that
is really the source of the energetic field creating the
vessel; so yes they are caged, but they are caging themselves
by “choice” of falling in love with each other. Thus–if
the cultivation during life is done to “a sufficient degree”–
then when the “interdimensional whistle of the LING” is
silenced by death, then the “magnetic attraction” of the
FIVE SHEN as manifested by the vessel is sufficient to
keep the FIVE SHEN together as a unit still operating around
the LING axis.

So getting back to your comment . . .

I don’t think this concept of LING is too far opposite
from the other interpretation you mention as it is “holding
the shen” and “allowing it to be here” (I realize I’m using
the word shen differently here than your intention of
shen as essential nature).

As to “my source” for the meaning of LING I’ve given.
I reference the teachings of Michael Winn from his course work,
which I give credit to from his 30 years experience in
Alchemical Daoism–trusting that the information relayed
in his courses is accurate–although to be honest I have
not gone and independently verified his interpretation
through written Daoist sources. To be honest, I’ve felt
no such need. Furthermore, in addition to M. Winn’s
teachings, I reference my own personal interpretation of
his teachings. Thus if there is any discrepancy between
what M. Winn preaches and what I’ve described, then that
discrepancy lies solely with my personal interpretation
of what was taught, although I don’t *think* there is
too much deviation.

Of course, part of the reason I’ve not gone to too much effort
to verify certain Daoist terminology is because I’m not
one to explore the technical Daoist jargon too much. In
fact, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I rarely make
such references in my posts on this list. Owing to the
years of teaching college algebra to students who only
want to know the “bottom line”, I’ve graduated from the
school of “Keep It Simple, Stupid” 😉 Which is why
cutting out the technical philosophy and just getting
to the essence is why I said “YOU are the pearl”. I
don’t think you lose much by looking at the picture from
this simplified perspective, and if anything, I would
argue it even clarifies it a bit. ^_^

>>>A question.
>>>Are we born with a pearl?

As per the previous discussion, the pearl is the energetic
vehicle of crystallized consciousness that “houses” the FIVE SHEN.
This is created with the XIN upon the birth of human life. Awareness
of it, is another matter entirely. I would argue that many would not
be aware of it. The visual image itself of the pearl is just a
visual projection on the mind of the actual manifestation of one’s
consciousness when sufficiently condensed in a certain area–say
the lower dantian. The movement of the “pearl” around the MO say,
is nothing more, nothing less than the physical observation of this
condensed, localized consciousness of the essence of what is you.

>>>If yes is there something about the pearl
>>>that can come into this life but not maintain itself in the next?

My opinion to the answer to this question I believe has to been
answered via the discussion earlier in this same posting about
my “clarification”.

Hope you are well, my friend,
Steven