alchimia

Circulation of the Light and the Golden Flower

The circulation of the light is the inclusive term. The further the work advances, the more does the Golden Flower bloom…

circulation of light by pathworking

When the rotating light shines towards what is within, it does not develop in dependence on things, the energy of the dark is fixed, and the Golden Flower shines concentratedly. This is then the collected light of polarity. Related things attract each other. Thus the polarized Light-line of the Abysmal presses upward. It is not only the light in the abyss, but it is creative light which meets creative light. As soon as these two substances meet each other, they unite inseparably, and there develops an unceasing life; it comes and goes, rises and falls of itself, in the house of the primal energy. One is aware of effulgence and infinity. The whole body feels light and would like to fly. This is the state of which it is said: Clouds fill the thousand mountains. Gradually it goes to and fro quite softly; it rises and falls imperceptibly. The pulse stands still and breathing stops. This is the moment of true creative union, the state of which it is said: The moon gathers up the ten thousand waters. In the midst of this darkness, the heavenly heart suddenly begins a movement. This is the return of the one light, the time when the child comes to life.
The Secret of the Golden Flower

Signs of… the Golden Flower

10/01/15 Amin Lascia un commento

Master Lü-tsu said, Your work will gradually become concentrated and mature, but before you reach the condition in which you sit like a withered tree before a cliff, there are still many possibilities of error which I would like to bring to your special attention. These conditions are recognized only when they have been personally experienced […] In meditating, a man must have a sort of conscious intuition, so that he feels energy and breathing unite in the field of the Elixir; he must feel that a warm release belonging to the true light is beginning to stir dimly. Then he has found the right space. When this right space has been found, one is freed from the danger of getting into the world of illusory desire or dark demons.

Meditation, Stage 3: Separation of the spirit-body for independent existence.

Master Lü-tsu said, There are many kinds of confirmatory experiences. One must not content oneself with small demands but must rise to the thought that all living creatures have to be redeemed. One must not be trivial and irresponsible in heart, but must strive to make deeds prove one’s words.
If, when there is quiet, the spirit has continuously and uninterruptedly a sense of great joy as if intoxicated or freshly bathed, it is a sign that the hght-principle is harmonious in the whole body; then the Golden Flower begins to bud. When, furthermore, all openings are quiet, and the silver moon stands in the middle of heaven, and one has the feeling that this great earth is a world of light and brightness, that is a sign that the body of the heart opens itself to clarity. It is a sign that the Golden Flower is opening.
The Secret of the Golden Flower

Possibility of Understanding C. G. Jung

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The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.

I have often seen individuals simply outgrow a problem which had destroyed others. This ‘outgrowing’, as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person’s horizon, and through this widening of his view the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency. It was not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different light, and so did indeed become different. What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of emotion, viewed from the higher level of the personality, now seemed like a storm in the valley seen from a high mountain-top. […] One certainly does feel the affect and is shaken and tormented by it, yet at the same time one is aware of a higher consciousness, which prevents one from becoming identical with the affect, a consciousness which takes the affect objectively, and can say, ‘I know that I suffer.’ What our text^1)↓ says of indolence: ‘Indolence of which a man is conscious and indolence of which he is unconscious are a thousand miles apart’, holds true in the highest degree of affect also…

It would be simple enough, if only simplicity were not the most difficult of all things.

What did these people do in order to achieve the development that liberated them? As far as I could see they did nothing wu wei^2)↓ but let things happen. As Master Lü-tsu teaches in our text, the light rotates according to its own law, if one does not give up one’s ordinary occupation. The art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself, as taught by Meister Eckhart, became for me the key opening the door to the way. We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this actually is an art of which few people know anything. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating^3)↓, and never leaving the simple growth of the psychic processes in peace. It would be simple enough, if only simplicity were not the most difficult of all things…
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1.	↑	The Secret of the Golden Flower
2.	↑	Action through non-action. [C. F. B.]
3.	↑	Often a veritable cramp of consciousness exists.

Scarabaeus The Secret of the Golden Flower

08/01/15 Amin 1 commento

…and thus the holy fruit matures. The scarabaeus rolls his ball and in the ball there develops life as the result of the undivided effort of his spiritual concentration. If now an embryo can grow in manure, and shed its shells, why should not the dwelling place of our heavenly heart also be able to create a body if we concentrate the spirit upon it?
The Secret of the Golden Flower (Tai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih)

Indolence and Distraction The Secret of the Golden Flower

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The awakening of the spirit is accomplished because the heart has first died. When a man can let his heart die, then the primal spirit wakes to life. To kill the heart does not mean to let it dry and wither away, but it means that it has become undivided and gathered into one.

Master Lü-tsu said, The decision must be carried out with a collected heart, and not seeking success; success will then come of itself. In the first period of release there are chiefly two mistakes: indolence and distraction. But that can be remedied…

Meditation, Stage 2: Origin of a new being in the place of power

The two mistakes of indolence and distraction must be combated by quiet work that is carried on daily without interruption; then success will certainly be achieved. If one is not seated in meditation, one will often be distracted without noticing it. To become conscious of the distraction is the mechanism by which to do away with distraction. Indolence of which a man is conscious, and indolence of which he is unconscious, are a thousand miles apart. Unconscious indolence is real indolence; conscious indolence is not complete indolence, because there is still some clarity in it. Distraction comes from letting the mind wander about; indolence comes from the mind’s not yet being pure. Distraction is much easier to correct than indolence. It is as in sickness: if one feels pains and irritations, one can help them with remedies, but indolence is like a disease that is attended by lack of realization. Distraction can be counteracted, confusion can be straightened out, but indolence and lethargy are heavy and dark. Distraction and confusion at least have a place, but in indolence and lethargy the anima alone is active. In distraction the animus is still present, but in indolence pure darkness rules. If one becomes sleepy during meditation, that is an effect of indolence. Only breathing serves to overcome indolence. Although the breath that flows in and out through the nose is not the true breath, the flowing in and out of the true breath takes place in connection with it.
The Secret of the Golden Flower

circulation of the light The Secret of the Golden Flower

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If one practises the circulation of the light, one must forget both body and heart. The heart must die, the spirit live. When the spirit lives, the breath will begin to circulate in a wonderful way.

Children, take heed! If for a day you do not practise meditation, this light streams out, who knows whither? If you only meditate for a quarter of an hour, by it you can do away with the ten thousand aeons and a thousand births. All methods end in quietness. This marvellous magic cannot be fathomed.

Meditation, Stage 1: Gathering the light

But when the practice is started, one must press on from the obvious to the profound, from the coarse to the fine. Everything depends on there being no interruption. The beginning and the end of the practice must be one. In between there are cooler and warmer moments, that goes without saying. But the goal must be to reach the vastness of heaven and the depths of the sea, so that all methods seem quite easy and taken for granted. Only then have we mastered it.
All holy men have bequeathed this to one another: nothing is possible without contemplation (fan-chao, reflection). When Confucius says: ‘Perceiving brings one to the goal’; or when the Buddha calls it: ‘The vision of the heart’; or Lao-tse says: ‘Inner vision’, it is all the same.
The Secret of the Golden Flower

The Secret of the Golden Flower Richard Wilhelm & C. G. Jung

07/01/15 Amin Lascia un commento

The Golden Flower is the Elixir of Life (Chin-tan; literally, golden ball, golden pill). All changes of spiritual consciousness depend upon the heart. There is a secret charm which, although it works very accurately, is yet so fluid that it needs extreme intelligence and clarity, and the most complete absorption and tranquillity. People without this highest degree of intelligence and understanding do not find the way to apply the charm; people without this utmost capacity for absorption and tranquillity cannot keep fast hold of it.
The Secret of the Golden Flower

The Tai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih^1)↓ can be traced back to the seventeenth century as having been printed from wooden tablets. The editor describes having found an incomplete copy dating from that time in the Liu-li-ch’ang, the old street of dealers in books and antiquities in Peking, and tells how he filled it out later from a friend’s book. But the oral tradition goes back even further than that, to the Religion of the Golden Elixir of Life (Chin-tan-chiao), which developed in the T’ang period in the eighth century. The founder is said to have been the well-known Taoist adept, Lü Yen^2)↓ (Lü Tung-pin), counted later by folklore as one of the eight immortals, about whom in the course of time a rich store of myths has gathered…

This sect^3)↓, like all religions, native and foreign, met with tolerance and favour in the T’ang period and spread widely, but, as it was always an esoteric and secret religion, in the course of time it began to suffer persecution because of members being suspected of political intrigues. Again and again its adherents were persecuted by a hostile government, lastly, in an extremely cruel way by the Manchus, just before their own fall^4)↓. Many members have turned to the Christian religion, and all, even if they have not actually entered the church, are very friendly towards it.
Our book gives the best available account of the religion of the Golden Elixir of Life. The sayings are attributed to Lü Yen, whose other name was Lü Tung-pin, or Lü, the Guest of the Cavern. In the book he is introduced as the patriarch Lü, Lü-tsu. He lived at the end of the eighth and at the beginning of the ninth century. A later commentary on his sayings has been added, but it springs from the same tradition.
Whence did Lü get his esoteric, secret lore? He himself attributes its origin to Kuan Yin-hsi, the Master Yin-hsi of the Pass (Kuan, i.e. Han-ku Pass), for whom, according to tradition, Lao-tse wrote down his Tao Te Ching…
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