Bøger af William Bodri

Many people know about the Daoist philosophies of naturalism and flow that characterize a special way of simple living in harmony with Nature. However, they are usually unfamiliar with the deeper Daoist teachings on how to become a spiritual Immortal, which is Daoism's way of signifying that you attain enlightenment. The ideal of the Daoist sage is actually symbolized by the third of the Three Pure Ones - Daode Tianzun who is also known as "The Heavenly Worthy of Dao and Its Power." Like the Bodhisattva of Buddhism, he symbolizes the human being who achieves enlightenment by mastering his inner Qi energy through a process that purifies and refines it to a high degree, and who then works to help mankind by using the universal powers he thereby attains.What is the Daoist path to enlightenment? It involves climbing five non-denominational ranks of spiritual attainment or sagehood - called the stages of the Daoist Immortals (Human, Earth, Spirit, Celestial and Universal). You accomplish this by cultivating virtue and merit to become a good human being so that you are worthy of the Tao and by undertaking special cultivation exercises to purify your internal energy or Qi. If you perform the right exercises sufficiently then you will undergo a twelve-year process of internal alchemy, where your internal energy starts rotating on its own, that purifies your Qi energy sufficiently so that your spirit can finally escape its human frame as an independent life, which then initiates the true path of spiritual ascension because you then become a Daoist Immortal. You can explain the inner alchemical process using the stories of famous Daoists as well as Hindu, Christian, Tibetan, Buddhist, Sufi and other saints since they all go through the same steps of Qi refinement with minor differences.Herein lies many of the secrets to the processes of internal alchemy that have been kept hidden from the public for centuries, as well as little-known Daoist principles on health and healing, anti-aging, repairing your physical injuries, marriage, finding a life purpose, the science of happiness, supernormal powers (such as bilocation), rain making, political and military power, the strongest astrological forces which affect the fate of mankind, martial arts, and the three dantian (and other ways) that section your body for inner energy purification exercises that you will not find in other texts.

More and more people are feeling the pressures of life, being literally overwhelmed in today's accelerating world of constant change. We are all being challenged with the need to relax and cultivate mental peace to counter the growing stresses within our own lives and what we see around us. How do we keep up our energy and stay mentally and physically balanced so that we can maintain our composure and prevent harm to ourselves? How can we return to a road of vibrant health, boundless energy, peace of mind and wellbeing? The answer is through meditation. The ancient practice of meditation teaches you how to calm your mind to find an internal mental peace and tranquility despite all the stresses surrounding you. The benefits of learning how to meditate include the ability to enjoy a quiet empty mind, better health, more energy, and wellbeing. There are not just physical and mental benefits to meditation but profound spiritual benefits as well, which is why meditation has become a foundational practice within many spiritual traditions. Even so, few people know how to meditate correctly to reap all its possible benefits, and even fewer understand how it helps nurture spiritual growth and spiritual strength. In this small book you will learn everything you need to know, including answers to the most often asked questions, to be able to master four of the most common meditation practices found across the world. You will learn how to recite mantras or prayers to quiet your mind. You will learn how to watch your thoughts and behavior with alert awareness, called vipassana mindfulness meditation practice, so that your wandering thoughts calm down. If you learn how to constantly watch your mind and your behavior with an inner mindfulness, you will be continually practicing self-improvement and purifying your consciousness. You will also learn visualization concentration practice, which has been used by many famous scientists, to cultivate the ability to hold visual images in your mind without wavering. Lastly, you will learn the methods of cultivating your breath, or respiration, through yoga pranayama practices and anapana practices that teach you to watch your breathing to calm your mind, and even attain high spiritual states called samadhi. While you will learn how to master the big four methods, other meditation techniques are also introduced that come from not one, but from a variety of spiritual traditions. These methods will not only teach you how to live better, but will also give you the tools for mastering this thing we all have called "consciousness" and learning about the true nature of your mind. The results of meditation practice not only lead to greater internal peace, but physical changes such as the rousing of internal energies that lay the foundation for higher spiritual growth and wellbeing. These physical changes include more energy, the healing of internal illnesses, muscle softening, greater flexibility and longevity. You will learn how to lay this foundation through the meditation practice of quieting the mind, how these internal energies arise and what they do, and how wisdom and merit-making can actually lead you to even higher stages of meditation progress. You'll also find answers to the most typical questions about the diet for meditation practice, sexual discipline, and even how to detoxify the body for better health, all of which may speed your meditation progress. Most of all, you will learn how to set up a practice schedule for meditation that fits into in a busy life. In short, if you wanted just one book on how to meditate for yourself or your friends in order to teach them how to practice, this contains all you need to know.

What is spiritual enlightenment? You often hear the term "enlightenment" in deep spiritual discussions, but it is almost impossible to find anyone who can definitively say what "enlightenment," "awakening," "union," or "self-realization" actually entails. In fact, many religions differ as to their proposals for the highest state of spiritual attainment -- which is often called salvation, liberation or becoming one with God (union) -- that often do not even include enlightenment, or they may simply recognize it under a different name. Enlightenment is the direct realization of our self-nature, source essence, or true self. This awakening constitutes directly experiencing the source and essence of reality, the original dimension of equal identity where mind and matter are one because you have found the ultimate underlying, true nature of all things. Enlightenment means to directly, experientially realize that basic substance of cosmic life where matter and consciousness are the same substance, which then consequently opens up various powers and a universal visage. That transcendental source nature you discover is often called God, Ein Sof, Allah, Brahman, dharmakaya, fundamental nature, Buddha-nature, Tao, Emptiness or Self. Some of the secular designations include Pure Consciousness, pristine awareness, one mind, uncreated light, clear light or infinite universal illumination to denote the fact that It is the ultimate substratum that gives birth to the knowingness of manifest consciousness. The way to this realization is through meditation and other spiritual practices that teach you to stop clinging to states of consciousness. You must always allow consciousness to arise, but should not cling to thoughts to thus become a perfectly free, effortless, natural and spontaneous individual. As your thoughts quiet down because of this practice, your body's chakras and chi channels will open up (you will experience a kundalini awakening) and you will gradually stop identifying your body and mind as your self. In time you can attain a pristine realization of selflessness (a state absent of the ego, I-thought or sense of separate "I-amness") that constitutes enlightenment. Regardless of your religious tradition, when you diligently cultivate spiritual practice you will gradually pass through many transitional stages of progress and particular spiritual experiences. These experiences can include special degrees of one-pointed concentration (absorption) called dhyana and samadhi attainments, which prepare you for enlightenment if you cultivate far enough. Many religions, both Eastern and Western, describe these possible achievements in great detail, and many such experiences that are not enlightenment are analyzed within so that practitioners do not incorrectly assume they have actually achieved awakening when they have only experienced inferior attainments. The various achievement levels to this awakening of self-realization that are explained. This book is the first of its kind to collect not only the rare autobiographical and biographical accounts from many traditions of individuals who achieved enlightenment (because it is a non-denominational accomplishment), but also the relevant passages in each tradition's scriptures that reveal the characteristics of the original nature that everyone awakens to (such as perfect purity, changelessness, infinity, eternality, and bliss). The reader quickly comes to the conclusion that despite sectarian differences, everyone is actually awakening to the very same thing. It cannot be anything else! The pathway to enlightenment is analyzed using many different religious paths and frameworks. Many common errors of spiritual practice and misinterpretations of spiritual states are also revealed to help individuals become correctly oriented so that they can attain enlightenment as well.

Using the Greek story of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, which outlines the progressive stages of spiritual development that spiritual practitioners in all spiritual traditions go through, this book presents full details on the step-by-step progression of the physical transformations that occur to practitioners. Whenever someone starts to consistently cultivate spiritual practice in a devoted way, there are physical changes that will occur to the human body. These physical transformations, called "gong-fu" in the eastern spiritual schools, are non-denominational signposts of spiritual progress. If you cultivate spiritual practice sufficiently then these phenomena will arise. If you don't practice correctly, they simply won't appear. Their appearance is a matter of proper devoted effort. These phenomena include such things as the awakening of kundalini (yang chi) within the body, the opening of the chakras and purification of the body's energy channels, hormonal transformations, the calming of consciousness, the experience of refined mental states described as "emptiness," and various other mental and physical phenomena. Normally people think these phenomena only occur to individuals following eastern cultivations traditions such as yoga, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Vajrayana. However, these phenomena that arise are totally non-sectarian and non-denominational. They equally occur to devoted spiritual followers within Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. If you cultivate spiritual practices sufficiently, these purification transformations will occur and if you don't cultivate meditation or other spiritual exercises, you will not experience them. Your religion has nothing to do with it. All genuine religious traditions employ cultivation practices designed to help you achieve a quiet mind. Because thoughts die down due to these practices, this resulting mental quiet is described as peacefulness, silence, cessation, calming, purity, and emptiness. Your mind empties of busy thoughts and so you begin to experience mental peace. When your mind quiets, proper spiritual practice requires that you remain aware during this experience rather than try to suppress thoughts from further arising. The practice of maintaining awareness while mentally quiet is called witnessing, observing, knowing, or introspection. As the mind quiets, you continue to watch your mental continuum but without attaching to it. The gradual calming of your mind results from successfully letting go of thoughts, and because your body's life force (chi) and consciousness are linked, as you let go of thoughts you also drop the habit of clinging to the energies you normally feel in your body. With proper spiritual practice you learn how to detach from these energies and let them function without interference. Once you learn how to do this, your kundalini energies will arise and their natural circulation will start to transform your body. Those energies will open up your chi channels and chakras and transform your physical body, purifying it. As your chi purifies, so will your emotions and habit energies. As you progressively let go of your chi, it will also revert to its natural circulation which has been suppressed by errant thought patterns. Cultivating a quiet mind leads to your kundalini arising, those energies purify your channels and chakras, that purification leads to a greater degree of mental purity or emptiness, and the two components of body and mind reach ever increasing levels of refinement. This book presents full details on this step-by-step progression of transformations that occur to practitioners on the spiritual trail. It covers the meditation practices that successful adepts have traditionally used throughout history, and non-denominationally links the gong-fu experiences of these practitioners with the stages of the spiritual path and the ultimate quest for self-realization, or enlightenment.

The purpose of this book is to more firmly establish you in the sequence of stages for attaining enlightenment. It is written as if for Buddhist monks and nuns because it can be most useful to this audience, but it can help individuals in all spiritual traditions. By reading this information the members of other religions will be able to realize how their saints are becoming enlightened and this knowledge will help them profoundly in their own spiritual practices and traditions.When Shakyamuni Buddha first taught his students he emphasized the emptiness of our self and phenomena. He clearly taught that all things lack an independent, intrinsic, self-so core nature because they are composite constructions defined by all other things. Therefore they do not inherently exist but only provisionally exist through filial relationships. His entire life he taught the principles of no-self, impermanence, dependent (conditional) arising, and suffering. These basic dharmas have already been sufficiently transmitted to society because now even modern science accepts them. At the end of his life, Shakyamuni surprisingly flipped his teachings because in the Nirvana Sutra he then spoke of True Self, permanence, purity and bliss. Those teachings seemed to be the opposite of his previous lessons on selflessness, impermanence, impurity and suffering but there was a reason for this new approach.The lessons within this book are a form of skillful means because they stipulate the importance of physical cultivation practices rather than just mental cultivation such as meditation practice. During his lifetime, Shakyamuni Buddha emphasized that we must purify our consciousness to achieve the spiritual attainments of dhyana, which are specific stages of Arhatship or Arhat attainment. He rarely emphasized the physical aspects of the stages of spiritual attainment nor that we should engage in acts of service to society to help eliminate the conditions of suffering around us that people commonly experience in life. Nevertheless, "beautifying society" is also a form of physical purification that essentially stands behind the motivations of the Mahayana and Esoteric Buddhist traditions. Because ethics and social morality have advanced since his day and the level of public education and understanding has also advanced, it is beneficial that the dual emphasis on mind and body (mind-body) purification should now be returned to Buddhist practice. In other words, there should be more emphasis placed on body cultivation and inner energy work since this is necessary for enlightenment.In this book you will therefore find an emphasis on these neglected topics in order to correct many of the current deficiencies in Buddhist practice, especially within the Zen tradition, and thus help more individuals attain enlightenment and much more quickly.

Ordinary people often experience unusual mind-body phenomena due to meditation practice such as hearing voices, seeing visions, dreaming colorful scenarios, and feeling inexplicable energy sensations or strange movements inside their body. This book explains all the various different types of experiences that can happen to meditation practitioners. It offers both scientific and transcendental explanations so that people can easily understand what they are experiencing due to their efforts.For instance, covered are explanations for unexpected sensations of warmth or coolness within your body (and thirty-four other types of physical sensations), unusual internal vibrations, changes in respiration, skin problems, emotional outbursts, the hearing of voices and seeing of visions, hearing music within your head, sexual fantasies and psychic abilities. An emphasis is placed on why feelings of internal energy arise within you, and how they appear in various forms due to prolonged yoga, meditation and other spiritual practices.Included is also an excellent primer on how to practice basic witnessing meditation correctly, also known as vipassana. Additionally there are lessons on how to use wisdom analysis and other modern techniques to dissolve stubborn mental a ictions that bother you, and how to change long-standing habit energies. Over thirty types of quieting "emptiness meditation" practices are described along with powerful auxiliary methods you can use to help eliminate nagging psychological issues.In addition to a dozen case studies of meditators who experienced curious phenomena due to their practice, many additional visionary and auditory experiences, both real and delusory, are described that commonly occur to ardent practitioners in many religious paths, including Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Sufi and Buddhist saints. This valuable information can guide you through many normally inexplicable meditation and spiritual experiences regardless of your tradition.

There is a very effective branch of yoga that few people practice - Nyasa Yoga. Nyasa Yoga is a physical yoga internal purification and cultivation practice. It is related to an entire host of yogic exercises for clearing your nadis of obstructions by invoking energies said to "divinize" a practitioner's body. The practice diffuses energy into the body by associating mantras with every part of the body and the whole of it. For the best results you need to stay on each spot to sufficiently energize the prana of that region, and visualizing the targeted muscles helps open up the nadis quicker. When you recite a specific mantra from that location, you should linger and try to feel a full vibration in the area. The result is significant progress towards cultivating a "deva body" (astral body double) that can leave the physical body at will, which is the goal of many yoga texts. Basically, Nyasa Yoga stimulates the body's prana - which is your own latent Qi, spiritual energy, vital energy or life force - into moving and then fully opening your nadis. Through methods that involve mantra and concentration, you generate and then lead your prana from place to place to open various sections of your body, and to create a "shield of divine protection" for the body as a whole. Together with other yoga exercises, Nyasa Yoga results in your channels being purified and a subtle body being generated, which is the first stage of the spiritual path equated with enlightenment. Many Nyasa and related yoga exercises are described that rarely appear in print.Inside are various Nyasa Yoga practices as well as sectional body cultivation techniques from a number of different traditions. There are also discussions on special (and sometimes secret) mantras and holy places in the world that are excellent for cultivation. Special instructions on Mantrayana practice, Yoga Yajnavalkya exercises, how to open up your spinal channels, the real location of chakras in your body, what happens during the twelve-year period of kundalini awakening, how to cultivate the five koshas, and methods to specifically cultivate feminine energy are all revealed as well as a number of other rare and interesting topics. If you wanted just one internal energy ("nei-gong") cultivation book for yoga practice then this is a veritable treasure trove of cultivation techniques that even includes esoteric Taoist and Buddhist Vajrayana meditations that do not require special empowerments.

The martial arts and yoga are both schools that teach physical stretching exercises, and they both emphasize internal energy cultivation, or neijia. The martial arts also emphasize ideal body alignments and physical movements so that you can express tremendous muscle power together with Qi energy for physical attacks or defense. To reach the highest levels of yoga and martial arts you need to learn how to lead your Qi efficiently, and match its power with your physical movements. You need to be pursuing a mental and physical state of flow by cultivating internal Qi movements.There are many techniques that work on cultivating the Qi (Prana) of muscles, organs and bones; meridians or Qi circulatory orbits; muscle force transmission pathways; bindus, marmaor acupuncture points; appendages such as arms and legs; body cavities such as the three dantian, chakra sections and other sectioning schemes; and simple body parts (such as the ears, eyes, teeth, penis, and so forth). In yoga and the martial arts, you normally learn how to cultivate the Qi within all these separate sections via body alignments, specific physical motions and energy exercises until you can sense and control your body as a single energy unit. You can stimulate and cultivate your Qi via special breathing exercises, visualizations, sound vibrations, emotional states, and through your will or special absorptions. Especially within the martial arts, you need to know how to cultivate these various techniques to purify your Yin and Yang Qi to progress to higher achievement levels. Most all of the different ways of purifying your Qi focus on small segments of the body instead of just a single whole body that you attempt to cultivate all at once. As the segments become more purified, this helps to open up the Qi channels within those regions, their Qi flow becomes free of impediments and also becomes smoother. As a result, martial power can be expressed quicker and more fully. All the segments of your body, regardless of how you partition it in nei-gong exercises, and regardless of what techniques you use, must be "washed" with Qi or Prana. At the same time, it is useful to hold onto specific emotions to purify their Yin and Yang composition.Here is a guidebook for how to pursue these types of cultivation, and the unified mind-body state of flow where there is a sense of control over any agency while your mind remains focused, quiet, and alive in experiencing the moment. This is the sat, chit, ananda target of Yoga, the "no mind and no body" target of Zen, and the blissful state of "no extremities" within the martial arts. You reach it when you can finally control the entire underlying energy matrix of your physical body, which is the ultimate purpose of yoga and the martial arts such as in the schools of Emei, Wudang and Shaolin.

Above the gate of the Imperial shrine in Hangzhou, China was a sign that once read, "Husbands and wives were connected in the past. Whether for good or bad those connections never fail to meet again. Children are basically past debts. Some come to give and some come to collect."Soulmates meet again in this life because of their karmic past, and children come into your life on account of a past karmic relationship as well. Some come to pay you back and some come to collect from you. This book teaches you how to find your karmic spouse that you were connected with in the past, how to maximize marital happiness by minimizing incompatibility issues, what lessons to teach your children to raise good kids, and how to band everyone together in a strong family unit that grows closer and happier over time. Drawing on the teachings of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, the Edgar Cayce readings and other spiritual traditions, it reveals various forms of amazing astrology that provide specific details about your future spouse as well as locational and timing indications for the best places and times to look for that spouse, or just a normal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. It contains dozens of mantras used in India to attract a mate, discusses the five major compatibility factors necessary for maintaining a good marriage or relationship, summarizes the modern research on how to maintain a good marriage or relationship to avoid divorce, matches this with lessons from divorce lawyers and marriage counselors, and basically teaches how to create a happy, satisfying relationship.

The path to enlightenment, self-realization, moksha or spiritual liberation is essentially a pathway of Yoga. Specifically, this pathway of "Buddha Yoga" entails both mental meditation practice and inner cultivation of the Qi or Prana within your body via your willpower so that you can attain the first fruit of the spiritual path, which is an independent spiritual body that can leave your physical body at will. Buddha Yoga is also a pathway that requires you to polish your mind and behavior so that you can achieve the purity of virtue in thought, word and deed.Regardless of their religion and hard work at spiritual training, most people won't achieve the initial fruit of the spiritual path because they usually lack the proper instructions and devotion to effective spiritual practice efforts. The most they can then hope for is success in the afterlife, during which time they can choose to become Bodhisattva protectors or guardian spirits for all sorts of earthly activities. Why waste time if you can start training for such a role now?That being the case, this book teaches ordinary people how to properly perform spiritual practices and how they can most effectively train to become a guardian spirit, Buddha or Bodhisattva of their own choosing. This includes spiritual careers as protectors of nations, cities, people's health, wealth, agriculture and so forth. This is a form of Karma Yoga.It reviews common spiritual teachings about the origin of the universe and consciousness, helps you decide upon your own specific life purpose or purposes within life, delineates the Yoga practice methods for cultivating the physical body and stages of emptiness meditation required of Buddha Yoga, goes over several foundational topics of study for becoming various types of guardian spirits or Bodhisattva protectors for humanity, and reveals how religious professionals can better help greater society through certain forms of self-study. A tour de force of countless practical topics, in addition to training guides of various types it also reveals how spiritual leaders can more easily raise money for their centers and efforts.

Providing extensive, comprehensive, and detailed information about a variety of meditation methods from the world''s cultivation schools, this text offers 25 different cultivation techniques, including The White-Boned Skeleton Visualisation method and the left-hand sexual yoga practices of Taoism.