No practice or manipulation of either body, breath, Prana, Qi or Shen in and on itself lead anywhere closer to God or Liberation.
Many of us should question and enquire the meaning of practicing this or that, Prana or Qi, Atman or Shen, Merquaba, or anything else I now can tell that are actually just corollary, if correctly understood skillfully used and applied are means to an end, a base upon which to build, a crutch to lean on, powerful tools.
Therefore remember practice is practice, nothing more nothing less, in itself does not lead to liberation, yet like anything is tool toward it, each culture and tradition developed a preferred media an expedient and an experience which is the base of choice toward the great breakthrough.
What matter it is not the practice of this or that, but the base upon which the practice is based and the resulting awareness, consciousness and understanding.
This is what makes any practice a tool for liberation.
The Key element is not the practice in and on itself (Chinese, Indian, Atlantidean or extra terrestrial makes no difference) but is: Is the practice effective in generating an insight in the nature of things and yourself? If the answer is yes then any practice is in a much generalized way equiparable, leaving then subjective affinity and need, i.e. what practice is according to self nature better to fulfils potentiality. Now of course all practices will give partial insight, the strictly needed in order to jump beyond conceptuality and myriads of practices fit myriads of individuals, the path to God are infinite its true indeed.
The key element is consciousness, awareness, and understanding.
Does the practice trains and develop these highest faculties of the “mind-soul”? It does so directly or indirectly? Is it enabling you to recognize and apprehend reality and yourself as it truly is, to bring upon peace, and establish one in God presence and in to Love?
In China the first 3 key elements mentioned fall under the vague and indefinite use of the word Yi and its composites, Zhen Yi, Yi Shi and others. The other elements fall loosely under the category of Qing, Xin, De and Shen, but unluckily there are no clear expositions, declination and elaboration of these idea which are extremely abstract, logical and conceptual, and an ideo-semosillabic language and mind form like Chinese is has hard time to express such things. (in this article will not dwell in to definition of contextual and practical use of the 3 elements).
There is no such a thing in Daoism and in ancient Chinese philosophy at large as a practice that directly deals with the above elements in an analytical, systematic and logical way if not till a later date and even then never in pure form, this is partly because of the mind form partly as a result of the fact that as a mass and civilization Chinese (as most primordial societies everywhere) did not develop fully a sense of isolated, individualized, “I”and “Self” and therefore “self-awareness” personal agenda, free will and the consciousness deriving from it. (As alphabetical logical minds we do have some incredible advantages in the practice of the 3 elements, though we have other hindrances to remove such as experiencing the non conceptual).
The solution was to apply tautology that rely on direct experience, so a method base on intuition, apofatic, often using the negative forms of metaphysic and then the use of allegories and metaphors to express the derived insight (problem being that allegory and metaphors are limited by cultural and historical context and in time their meaning becomes altered ascending in to symbolism subjected to interpretation). The good point of the use of tautology relying on direct experience was and is to cut through the conceptual and logic in favor of direct unfiltered experience.
(Essay reprinted with permission from David Verdesi)
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