Category: Transmutation

Use every situation to your advantage.

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 12 min read | 122 views

Many peoples believe that they don’t have time to train in martial arts. For example, it is common to train during ones adolescent years, and at university, and then to stop altogether after that. During this time, there is an increased enthusiasm because you want to build an integrity within the system to withstand the later pressures which are inevitable in many peoples experience. So it is best to use this time as wisely as possible on the one hand, whilst seeing it as an opportunity to bring you beyond these things later. That is, if tomorrow ever arrives.

For many people later in life, training becomes a side activity, and I’m sure that lots of people believe that it’s too time consuming and tiring to bother with. So what was once a central activity, becomes peripheral. I’ve heard many people say this sort of thing, and it’s perfectly normal to feel this way. However, if you train with intensity and desire to improve, then the whole of your life will take on this same quality you once gained from formalised training. Or, it can be the other way round, if you work intensely the rest of the time, then naturally your training will be the same as it always was, enthusiastic and energised. This amounts to the same thing, that you can experience everything you do intensely.

The problem is that if you experience the majority of your time in a dull way, and then all of a sudden you expect to overcome this during the training, then everything else becomes a distraction. It’s not like a child has to force themselves to run around and climb tress most of the time. They do it of their own nature, because they haven’t burdened themselves with more activities which people have told them are more important as priorities. There are too many people blathering on about making time for more important things, or that martial arts is some sort of distraction from responsibility.

This is an age old question, how to overcome distractions, including work and family obligations. Either that, or how to engage in training without it becoming a distraction from other things. On the other hand, if you see everything as a training tool, everything becomes an opportunity to exude intensity and involve yourself fully. It then does matter whether you are at work, with your family, or in the gym. This doesn’t mean unnecessary flamboyance towards everything. What you want is to experience the mundane as profoundly meaningful because of the inner meaning you give to it, rather than let circumstances decide what should be meaningful. Who wouldn’t want that?

Of course, many people claim to be too bored with life to take the mundane day to day tasks seriously as an opportunity for growth. They are too burdened to see the potential in what they consider to be mundane. In other words, people have given up. So they want to experience the full involvement of the senses in martial arts activity, and they do it as an escape from the mundane. So because that’s what you want, you have to turn everything into martial arts1. There’s no other way. Otherwise your efforts will just Peter out after some time. How do we avoid this?

It is not that we lose the fire or passion for things, it is just that it must always gather momentum by swallowing up everything around it increasingly. After all, what does martial arts mean? It means employing your energies, faculties, and skills to overcome inertia and defeat, and to evolve from this. So it is in realising the value of these so called limitations that you learn to use them. Luckily, awareness of how to do this is always active, like gravity, its opposite, which pulls us down5. It took millions of years to evolve from one creature to another, and now nature is just instructing us that this very source of evolution is functioning within us, which includes all life forces and events. There is an old saying that war is not won on the battlefield. In other words, your efforts to improve and progress create an energy in you which establishes the very possibilities you are looking to accomplish by training in the gym. as we will see, it is from this energy that the right potential is realised.

You’re walking down the street. Isn’t this an opportunity to move out of the way of people with control and poise? Are you able to spot threats from harmless individuals2? Or, you’re with your family and an argument breaks out. Isn’t this an opportunity to develop self control as well as long term awareness of your actions and consequences? Many relationships break up because of lack of this awareness of cause an effect. Peoples attitude towards each other can degenerate, and without the necessary attitude the situation becomes something to avoid rather than a stepping stone towards greater balance and interpersonal capability. So they give up when it exceeds their procedural knowledge. It’s often the same as why people stop training: giving up trying to work things out, to the advantage of nobody. So martial arts is like a relationship.

You were born a complete individual, so it’s a case of working things out as you go and moving with the evolving situation rather than giving up because it isn’t what you thought it was. Your work is a training tool, your family situation is a training tool. At some point in your development, you realise that this is inevitable. the so called mundane is where you spend most of your time so it is a question of making the most of it, rather than living these parts of the day in low gear. Then, you won’t be particularly daunted by training to accomplish your martial arts specific goals, because you will already be in high gear energy wise.

People are always telling you that you have to train to fight, to earn a belt, or to become a competitor. Forget about this nonsense. Just use every situation you come without preferential treatment, as it is, in the best possible way.

So when I say “turn everything into martial arts”, I don’t mean turn everything into a bitter war. This is happening around us today. War is a mistake, but it can be turned into an advantage with the right awareness and if the lessons are learnt. Otherwise it’s a disaster. People are turning everything into a competition, a fight, and in an effort to get out on top. When they do this, they end up miserable and depressed, blaming others around them. No surprise there, the energy created compiles certain activity, mainly reactive and compulsive. Here, you might get into the habit of misusing every situation rather than using it effectively.

If the situation is handled properly, everyone benefits, even during disagreements or rivalries because ultimately everything is related. If your martial arts practice is successful, you will look after your own well being by doing the right things. If you slip down the snake, you inevitably climb up the ladder eventually. The roll of the dice is not down to your efforts, it’s the set of circumstances playing out. You just play the game as best you can and develop a certain acceptance and determination to succeed, no matter the outcome. In many other situations, you can influence them more than you might think. If you are making the best decisions to do what is right, even under pressure, then your martial arts activity naturally becomes very determined. So these two considerations, using everything, and doing well in particular situations are complimentary to each other and mutually reinforcing.

Your own success and self mastery is never at the expense of anyone else’s. Yours and someones else success is not separate. If you take advantage of someone, you might live off this for some time before seeing the futility of taking advantage of others. Use this person as your teacher, the lesson being that you only grow in resentment and lose track of what’s actually happening in front of you by dwelling on some past impression of someone who has mistreated you. The same goes if you mistreat them, you see yourself as better when actually, it is a past glorification you are viewing rather than an evolution unfolding. Similarly, if someone takes advantage of you, just see to it that you don’t dwell on this situation as just another excuse to stagnate. so it is about viewing things as they are than as fixed instances spare from wider reality.

In Eastern martial arts, the competitions were only held in the right atmosphere of reverence for the competition, rather than glorification of the individual. There is a lot of wisdom in this. For example, even in recent times, the Japanese Pride fighting championships were held mainly for the fans, who wanted to see a top level contest. They weren’t concerned who won, just that it was done properly. If a guy lost, he would just come back next time provided he put on a good show. Later on, when Western mixed martial arts took off, the whole thing became more of a personality contest. Obviously, this is a simplification but it is true on many levels.

The point is that when the right atmosphere is created, this blossoms in a certain way as a reflection of its own nature. This is why if you treat every moment as a time for self development, your own inner atmosphere will blossom regardless of whether you win or lose an exchange. If a sharp sword is mishandled, the quality of the sword isn’t in question. If a driver can’t drive their car properly, this is not the fault of the manufacturer. In the same way if you mishandle your own apparatus, no matter how well cultivated, it is bound to be of limited effectiveness, even if you’re quite a good driver in many ways. So what I’m saying is to become an active participant in the manufacturing process, not just the driving. Rather than letting the circumstances and events decide upon how your inner system is manufactured, make sure you have a say.

It happens all the time, doesn’t it? You think the situation is not under your command, whether that is the job you do, or the income you earn. This opens the door to massive deception. You then withdraw energy and effort. Instead, if you see these things as a chance to manufacture the kind of system you want to drive, the kind of brakes you have, the shape of the design, then you will be upgrading yourself all the time. So turn up the heat and jump in the forge. Instead of just hoping to pull something out of the bag on race day, the key is to stay in tune with your own system so that you have working knowledge of it twenty four seven, and you are fully aware of all the subtle workings of your mechanism. You then become a creator rather than a creation of somebody else.

So don’t just think about whether you are achieving some short term goal or not. It’s not the result that matters, it’s the constant desire to burn and fuel yourself with everything around you. This is the reason why historically, fighters have abstained from sex before certain events3. In reality, they are not abstaining from anything, it is just that they are using the energy in a different form. According to the integrity one has created within themselves, certain practices are either supportive or not to ones energy state. I’m not talking about moral integrity, because it’s not a question of sinning or not sinning. The integrity is in terms of structural integrity and what the fuel is used for. The same goes for all types of energy, including anger, fear, and joy, for instance. Just use them wisely as you know how. It is not necessary to avoid all these things, just to become aware and use them responsibly.

However, the tendency is for people to see anything unrelated to martial arts as a distraction from training, or they see martial arts as a distraction from their own pleasures. Make no such distinction. All of these various situations are opportunities and tools for your own self mastery and development. It takes a lot longer to get going again if you are distracted by one situation, and then another, and then another, before getting back to what you were doing an hour ago. Instead, see it all as one block moment of variety, and then the momentum you generate will be so much greater.

So it is not a question of separating out experiences and compartmentalising them into different situations as is often done “I will be joyful here, energetic there, and then switch off totally”. That is one way. The other way is to see everything with a single minded passion towards cultivating your ultimate reality. So how to get rid of distractions and focus yourself on the task is to include everything within it. I know very well that lots of people prefer to take themselves away from reality and into the gym, where they can be surrounded by success and greatness. But have you ever met anyone like that? Even at the elite level, many athletes have taken to drugs and chemical aids in order to replace the inspiration they have lost4, because they are unable to manage their own states.

References:

1 Martial Arts in Everyday Life https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2021/07/13/martial-arts-in-everyday-life/

2 Psychology of the knife attacker https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/06/01/psychology-of-the-knife-attack-part-3/

3 Sexuality energy Martial Arts https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/06/04/sexual-energy-and-martial-arts/

4 Conquest at all costs: Drugs and martial arts https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/04/24/conquest-at-all-costs-drugs-and-the-evolution-of-martial-arts-part-1/

5 From knowledge to intuition https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/03/31/from-knowledge-to-intuition-part-2/

Sexual Energy and Martial Arts

Posted on by joeharman8 | 17 min read | 279 views

Note

In the following article, you may find some commonly held assumptions interrogated as well as some unusual perspectives explored. However, take nothing on faith. In the process seeking truth, many preconceived notions become limited, and others get brushed off as hot air. At the same time, all of the information here is easily verifiable with a quick internet search, so it up to you to find out whether these concepts are workable for you. Martial Arts is about fearless self study, and reaching towards an uninhibited life process that you are.

Reproduction

When people think of sex, they probably mainly think about procreation. Procreation is the main driver for survival of the species, which is why its such an enduring process in nature. During the physical manifestation of sex, both parents reach the infinite by passing on their genes to the next generation. In this way, the genetic material lives on even after death. So in many ways, the life force of the parents is passed on to the next generation. At the same time, it can be an extremely enriching process for the parents to bring up their children.

So reproduction is the earliest form of activity alongside eating. It was there from the beginning of evolution, unlike forms of cognition seen later in evolution. In nature there is a certain longing between two to become one. So reproduction is one way. In spiritual terms, this same energy manifesting within has been symbolised as Yin merging with Yang, or the masculine merging with the feminine. A basic example of this interaction is how heat warms water to change its state to more active, or how water cools heat to make it more temperate. Essentially, this is energy finding a a balanced expression through two opposite poles and becoming one. This attempt at merging can be successful, partially successful, or incompatible.

When you remove the psychological and emotional aspects of reproduction, you have an energy expression which has a form of its own. Obviously, this emotional aspect is highly significant in human relationships. On the other hand, the energy expression of the same energy which is referred to a sex takes on a different dimension within the chakra system, or energy body. The energy body, or Chi body as it is known in Chinese Systems, has two polarities within it, the Yin channel and the Yang Channel. This corresponds with the Indian Chakras system of Ida and Pingala, which is talking about the same thing. For simplicity, the Yin Channel is considered the feminine channel, and the Yang channel is considered the masculine channel1. So when a balance is struck within, and the two aspects of an individual begin to function as one, this means that a certain fulfilment and merging has taken place. This is so with or without two people.

Hormones and Energy

When the hormones kick in during puberty and beyond, there is increased testosterone in the system, as well as other sex hormones. It is well known that these same hormones are responsible for athletic performance, motivational states, and other energetic behaviours2. So when an individual starts arriving towards their reproductive prime, there is an influx of new states of energy which is responsible for increased physical and mental power as well as sexuality. This is goes on towards the age of, say, twenty five to thirty years old quite naturally. This is an increased activity related to muladhara, or the root of the energy system. In martial arts it is said that the martial artist must develop a strong root. This can be interpreted in many ways.

Historically in martial arts, it was important to engage the young practitioner in high intensity activity at around the age of thirteen or so, because the root system is highly active at this time. Common experience tells us that around this age teenagers can get despondent or easily distracted if their energies are not usefully employed. On the other hand, they can begin to show exceptional promise in certain ways. So they would be put either into traditional martial arts forms, which had an intellectual dimension, or fighting. This is similar to how in wider society, kids are put into sports clubs or perhaps a more intellectual or creative pursuit like Music or Science, or possibly all of these. The idea is that if the young martial artist can channel the energies into some kind of activity, then these same energies would naturally find an increased expression in this form of activity. Otherwise they would just dissipate at the level of Muladhara, the root, before flourishing within to their full potential.

Developing a strong Root

So activity to do with with the root chakra, roughly related to the pelvic floor and hip region, is strongly related to reproduction and energy generation. The hip and spine are the areas of energy generation for both reproduction and physical work. The root, the instinctive energies, is also related to the pinnacle, which is to say the head or conscious thought. So the whole process of evolution and raising ones energies has to do sending energy upwards from the base. This is why there has traditionally been great emphasis on work and energy expenditure in youth, because at this time the energies go up and down quite naturally as the root is strong. Establishing this root so that an oak tree can grow is a commonly used analogy which is extremely accurate. There is also the same need in later life, however once this foundation is established the later work can develop from this and take on a new dimension. So there is a need for the ground work to take place first.

What we understand as sexual anatomy also has another energetic anatomy in both the Yogic cultures and internal martial arts. The reason it can be important to look at the energy mechanics of sexuality is because this energy takes on a different form once it has been cultivated further up the system. This is why such emphasis has been placed on postural alignment in martial arts, to direct the energy from the root so that it piles up and expands throughout the system rather than just at the root level. In this way, the martial artist can turn an instrintive drive into a force driven consciously from within that takes on an entirely new form. This is all made possible because of the internal longing to evolve and transcend limitations from the ground up.

The Truth about NoFap

In recent years there has been a movement known as NoFap. The idea is that if a person stops sexual activity for a time, then there is an increased level of testosterone, and motivation, as well as general well being. In martial arts, some trainers promote abstinence from a variety of activities before an approaching bout to increase competitiveness and power. One thing that is often overlooked is that it’s not the testosterone or abstinence that creates motivation or power. It is living a healthy lifestyle. So wether or not this is necessary depends on the individual.

Increased testosterone is a stimulus which kind of pesters the system into action, or what the Yogic systems calls Rajas. So the whole point is to change these Rajas into Oojas, which are subtler energies. It is like turning fertiliser into productive soil for a plant. These Oojas are just Rajas transformed and raised to a higher energy pitch. So it is not necessarily that one who has more hormones is more motivated, it is just that it is possible to transform testosterone so that its influence goes down and is converted into oojas through activity in some way. It’s not that it just sits there indefinitely tely. In this way it has become useful whether our not that was the intention.

So bringing physical energies down through work is one way to transform energy. This can be very productive. When a father holds a child, the same thing happens and testosterone goes down. When it goes up, and one engages in work the same thing. So It is being in a stable environment, whether that is within or without, that creates the power and inner clarity to be able to focus and cultivate the energies. So traditionally, sometimes marriage was advocated, whereas at other times, under certain circumstances the disciple remained went to a monastery to work. In both instances either emotional or physical work and effort is going on in a big way.

Sex is just basic biology, and as we have seen there are many expressions of this same life energy elsewhere. Biology is neither something to be denied or glorified, nor does it have to be imagined in any particular way. If it is viewed romantically, the thoughts are different to when it is viewed energetically. It is up to each person in which they they explore it. When it takes on an additional transformed dimension, then this is inner martial arts.

Establishing Stability

When Martial arts takes on an increased inner dimension, it becomes necessary to establish a security within oneself. Traditionally, a person would go to a monastery or temple and remove themselves from certain influences which might draw them towards unnecessary sex content. For example, many of the television and internet influences have a lot to do with sex, in its purely superficial form. So this isn’t always the best place to make attempts to go deeper and to avoid the cyclical nature of fluctuations of hormonal influence. At the same time, there’s no denial of biology, it’s there. When it comes to the biological side of it, there’s no meaning or right and wrong by itself, it’s simply fact.

If you look at India, many of the temples are covered in sexual imagery but they are handled appropriately in a certain environment. These images are on the outside of the temple, the periphery. Once you enter the temple and move beyond this, there is a different ambiance, one of spiritual seeking. So once the way it is looked at changes, there is a shift in understanding first of all. Then there is further development. So it is about seeing the different aspects, to make an informed decision. When it comes to the Karma Sutra, this is a document that was looked at like any other anatomical text, because this is what it is. In the same way, books on Killing written by warriors, as well as Gods of war adorning Chinese temples, were looked upon with “No mind”. This simply means that these things were included in their proper place without undue fixation or obsession. So facts of life don’t need to become an obsession because they don’t have a philosophy or theoretical position attached to them beyond what is basic biology. So how to make a stable position out of this?

So what are these other dimensions of energy we were talking about earlier? When energy circulates and ascends, it is a different experience than that of ignition and dissipation, or start and stop. It is not better or worse, there is just a difference. There are many ways of looking at this. Essentially, when one is able to contain and distribute energy within themselves, having established a certain balance and stability, there is a decreased need to search for an object. This search is going on all the time, whether it is in some kind of conscious martial arts practice, the search for God, or simply in reproduction. The ultimate goal is that one want to find oneness of experience, and this search is limitless. And once there is no object there is no limit.

Reaching the Crown

In Tai Chi, as well as many other practices, when one seeks to expand their consciousness to a higher level, they are looking to awaken the third eye and to reach the crown centre. This is the whole reason behind meditative and inner martial arts practices. This is why the Asian systems insist upon extending the head from the crown, as well as extending the chin down. This stretches the neck, increasing the energy ascension from the root to the pinnacle3. The whole posture is stretched and through the stretched spine, energy transmission is optimised. If this is practiced regularly, then over time one begins to raises their level of awareness, even if they don’t known the exact mechanisms behind it. The goal is a state of no mind, or experience inclusive of everything. This is what is known in Tai Chi as the grand ultimate, or totality of experience. There are many names to it of course. Essentially it means that you include everything in its proper place and in a productive way, around the crown of your experience.

So the energies of the grand ultimate are always trying to come together, either through reproduction or through the spiritual process of universal oneness, love, or whatever you might call it. This is what sex means, and this is what martial arts mastery means. Union of energy is called the merging of yin and yang, or oneness of masculine and feminine energies. This is not some theoretical concept but knowledge which leads to methods of practice. These methods of practice are various forms which encourage harmonious movements and postures, as well as particular attitudes which are conducive to productive behaviour. So all kinds of postures and codes of conduct were established, which essentially are back up systems for the real thing, which is realisation of the ultimate nature.

In nature, the two types of energies take on certain forms which are commonly referred to as a male and female types4. However, these are also considered tendencies which are present in each gender. However, both of these opposite states of energy are really two dualities making up a whole, which is similar to the positive and negative pole of a battery. The two opposites contain power when they unite, which is why there is a strong attraction. This is why it is relevant to martial arts, because these two opposites coming together are at at war as well as drawn together intensely, depending on how you look at it.

When the battery is plugged in, there is an increased energy state which powers the system. For example, when energy particles in distant galaxies create high energy rays, these waves occur far from the Earth. The full extend of these high energy states is not felt on Earth, because they would fry the life on Earth. So, even though they are the most powerful they are tempered by the atmosphere for good reason. In the human being, the earth is the physical body. The Sun is the energy body. So the Earth never feels the full extend of the sun which powers it, because it would be burnt up if it did. The job of the Earth is to make up a protective atmosphere to take in moderate levels of the sun. At the same time, the full extent is felt. There is much confusion about all this. So it is not that if you increase the physical body’s dimensions you get powerful. The best way is to increase its integrity and potential to establish the right atmosphere.

Love

The symbolism of good versus evil and of love are essentially one and the same. The work of the aspiring martial artist is to establish the right atmosphere for successful flowering, or for war to play out as in the best possible way without division. When one achieves love within themselves, if it is not handled appropriately is is like the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. Otherwise it is great. So you could say that what is good and what is evil is a sort of temporary separation of union into a duality. When a balance is achieved there is acceptance and non distinction. In other words, when the two opposite forces within ourselves or the environment finds a common ground, there is balance and stability, which creates harmony. This harmony is a dynamic interplay of intense forces, which is tempered. Balance will be achieved differently according the the individuals type of need. There are many aspects to this.

There is nothing wrong with sex as it is. There is no reason to dress it up into something it isn’t. The various types of physical and psychological forms it takes have nothing to do with the internal side of martial arts. The romantic ideas about it are fueled by imagination and memory, not intuitive sense or direction experiential perception5. This is because in order for sex to become a psychological or biological process, this involves somebody else. However, when these two parts become separate rather than united, they become opposites rather than united. When this happens, all sorts of distinctions can be made between people, as if they are separate species.

If people break up from a marriage, there is an increased emphasis on differences, even if nothing much may have changed. It even sometimes happens there can be an increased attraction, but also an increased separateness. So separateness need not have anything to do with lack of attraction, and two becoming one doesn’t mean necessarily there is an increased attraction. This is because if we stay at the physical level, that is just the front end. In reality, for at least most of the time, there is a lot more which unites peoples than separates them. whichever way allows you to see this is unity between people the right path. When you realise this, you are looking cultivate your relationships with others to reflect this reality.

So when there is an increased separateness, there is a strong opposition, as well as acts of pursuit and avoidance. However, it is a simple biological fact that there is more in common between people than there are differences. The basis of sex is often that peoples differences are exaggerated, which is why there is a powerful urge to get together. These differences are really very minimal and not actually relevant most of the time in our day to day activities. It isn’t enough to make a whole reality out of small differences unless they are worked out properly.

So a very small aspect which separates us has become increasingly the basis of interaction between the sexes in many parts of society. This is largely because differences have often been exaggerated, and many people have become frustrated and alienated from each other as a result. So insecurity and limited identification with differences has gone up. This, in a nutshell, is the problem of modern society, that such a small aspect of life should become such a focus. This has lead to many frustrations. I’m not saying that differences are unimportant, but its just biology, and when you go about your day to day tasks, it’s a small difference.

In martial arts, there is no difference. For example, traditionally at least, every dressed and looked the same in uniforms. Strict social conventions were upheld, not as a way to suppress, but so that everyone looked around and saw familiarity rather than difference. This was the traditional view in its proper context. Normally, it was never about suppression of the individual because everybody knows that suppressing usually has opposite results to those intended. So as a reactionary approach, there was overindulgence. But that too failed to solve the problem of utilisation of energy in its most productive sense. So when you are seeking the best possible way to use your mental and physical energies, this is what martial arts is all about. Each individual will have to address this in some way, but how you go about that and to what extend is down to individual choice alone.

References

1 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/?s=feminine

2 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/04/26/conquest-at-all-costs-drugs-and-the-evolution-of-martial-arts-part-2/

3 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/fundamental-techniques/

4 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2021/04/05/balance-ida-pingala-ying-and-yang-mental-and-physical/

5 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/03/31/from-knowledge-to-intuition-part-2/

Sexuality and Martial Arts

Posted on by joeharman8 | 13 min read | 109 views

The instinctive drive to reproduce has undoubtedly played a part in the evolution of Martial Arts. The laws of the jungle say that certain species are here for two reasons, to hunt and to reproduce. There are other functions too, such as being part of the ecosystem, but essentially the basic drives of animals are to reproduce and to eat. The masculine force is driven towards the feminine, just as Yin interacts with Yang. Most species go about this as part of a cycle, according to seasonal conditions for example. These factors have played a significant role in the evolution of humans, which is now increasingly under conscious control, unlike in the rest off the animal kingdom. So, the difference between humans and animals is that we have a conscious awareness and a certain control over the processes of the mind and body. An animal does not, it is simply alive because nature wants it to reproduce and make way for the next generation. It is driven inn a certain way.

How is sexuality related to Martial Arts? It is not actually related in any way. However, the drive to reproduce can cause animals, including humans, to become hostile towards others they see as rivals. This is an example of how conflict can arise. Conflict often creates a hormonally driven exchange of territorial activity between such rivals. Or, it can be the other way round, and hormones drive people towards certain activity. This is often the basis for fighting in the wild, just as it can be in a nightclub for instance. This instinctive exchange over territory is not really what martial arts is about, even if it is what often drives combat. So it is a part of day to day experience more generally, and certain drives function according to different inclinations.

It is not just a case of enhancing your combat capabilities just to fight over a trophy or territory. Above all, martial arts is a process, and a war against the destructive tendencies which often drive a species towards the the grave ultimately. There have been many codes of conduct in martial arts for this reason. So the tendency to engage in such forms of survival are there within the warrior. Codes of conduct and practices put restraint on potentially desk destructive tendencies. The methods for addressing these forces are varied, depending on the individuals inclinations and expectations of life.

Testosterone is one chemical which is associated with both sexuality and combat. Will testosterone drive action? Certainly it will, but the question is, do you want to be driven by chemicals, or drive them consciously as you would a limb? For the man on the street, this may be what drives him towards attacking somebody or trying to impress or attract a partner. another individual may focus more on channeling this in some way to become a different prospect. In fact, if you get into a heated situation with somebody who is trying to appear dominant in front of a potential mate, then this might go very badly no matter which side you are on due to the volatility of such a situation. For someone who is driven hormonally in such a way, unless they beat the opposition and impress a potential mate in the process, they are unlikely to be satisfied. But that is not necessarily a very good state to be in if you want to become successful in the longer term beyond the immediate situation in hand. So martial arts involves activity which will bring the need to engage in volatile activity down drastically if it is done effectively. There are hormones, but it is not hormone driven.

There have been many ideas about sexuality and Martial arts. For instance, some say you cannot have sex before a competition for example. This is a popular notion in boxing circles, because they believe this will make the boxer more competitive. As I said before, this has nothing to do with martial arts. If a certain pressure is to be maintained within the system, it needs to have the necessary flexibility and circulation. If an electric circuit doesn’t have the right transformers, dampeners, insulation, etc., then it becomes a potential problem. So energy is energy, it doesn’t have a goal, the same energy can power a city of create an electric chair. This is why in traditional martial arts there has always been an emphasis on deep breathing and circulation after intensive bouts of activity, to clear the system of blockages and interference. This fullfills the requirements to make clear decisions. Martial Arts ensures that stagnation of energy is minimised and tension is not held in any particular region. So this is a way of developing balance and tempered fire power, so that the drive for intense activity becomes fulfilled.

At the same time, for many people having the right relationship and family situation can provide the necessary social and emotional support to succeed in martial arts and provide meaning in their life. This is another way of fulfilling unfulfilled needs. So Martial Arts involves building a quality within that utilises everything in its proper place, so that the need to take further action is gone. For some, if their family is with them, or their significant other, this can not only become a psychological boost but also a union of souls so that they are not alone in the fight. But the outcome of a war is not decided based on social factors, but they can be tools in the arsenal contributing to the outcome. It is the same as anything else, it is the striving within to evolve and Bette oneself, by whatever means appropriate to the individual.

Martial arts is not an activity, but a process. So to make sweeping statements about “You can’t have sex” or “You must have sex” don’t mean anything at all. Sex itself is based on the Muladhara chakra region, or the Hui Yin region in Chinese Systems. This is known as the most Yin or feminine centre in the body. The reason for base chakras significance in martial arts is because the tail is related to the head. The Sahasrara Chakra, or Bai Hui in Chinese systems, is known as the masculine or Yang centre, at the head level. So, within the individual, there is a longing of the feminine to unite with the masculine, just as their is in many other ways. This is obviously the same idea of physical union of a couple. This is symbolised by Shakti rising to Meet Shiva in Yogic systems. There are any number of references. Essentially, when the tow polar opposite energies converge, they can meet the highest point and unify. Otherwise, one is said to be too yang, or too yin. For example, a street thug who goes around in an agitated way pulverising people would be considered excessively yang. Others might say they are too masculine in a certain way. Here, feminine does not mean a woman, and masculine does not mean a man. It simply means two polarities interacting to create powerful new possibilities.

Because martial arts is rooted in conquest, it will always appear as though this is what its about. But this is not so. At the root level, Muladhara, there is always a striving to rise. If you were to judge a flower by its roots, you would never see it in terms of fragrance and flowering which was achieved by rising above certain conditions. At the same time, the root is to be studied, accepted, and seen in contrast to the flowers. If a plant manages to master and move beyond the root level, it uses such a platform for growth and stability. When life exists at that higher level, there is an increased nourishment from other sources of energy such as sunlight and oxygen, as well as soil. In the same way, when a martial artist moves beyond the periphery of experience with acceptance of it, they develop new dimensions within themselves. So these new dimensions are established from the roots, but are not experienced at the root level exclusively. This is because, experience can take a variety of directions even though all life follows a common direction.

So it is not a question of this much activity or that much activity. This isn’t how the body works. It is up to each individual to decide the amount appropriate to them. Take the example of food. Some people must eat a certain amount to maintain a certain weight. If somebody else tries this it might not be appropriate to them. The same goes with food types. Some people get on well with one type of food, other people get on with another type of food. There is no standardised amount really, other than guidelines. There are guidelines which apply to the average person, but the truth is that this average person does not really exist in reality. Energy is formless, so to look at the physical properties only is limited. So the more you individualise your own potential, the more of an outlier you will become and the less you represent the average. In other words, the more you realise your own individual strengths and unique qualities, the more of an authority you become on yourself. This all depends on how your energies function, rather than your form.

Take one hundred people who are very different and you will get an average which represents nobody in particular. If someone is stressed this may cause them to lose weight even if what they are eating remains constant. This shows how diverse each persons needs and requirements are in reality. Similarly, if someone does intensive meditation this may cause the energies to circulate rather than stagnate creating the appropriate level of metabolism for them, even if there is not much physical action going on. For another person, they may require intense activity in order to reduce the stresses building up within them. So for one person, sitting still is a way to experience a sense of balance and energised alertness. Here, all problems can then be worked out because by imitating stillness and silence, one may realise that they are not defined by activity. Getting themselves lost is good if it is done consciously. For another, the situation may require physical work so that they work out all the pent up energy and stress.

Saying that you must or must not think about something often has to opposite effect to what was intended. So if you tell a martial artist not to think about sex leading up to a competition, then in all likelihood that is what they will think about. This is why general prescriptions are actually harmful. But sexuality is a small part of the individual which is often blown out of proportion. In terms of energy it represents the roots of the organism. But the root also represents the top in many ways. However, if the roots end up imposing definitions on the head, this is like the army leading the general. The nature of the root is to sink into the earth not take the place of the crown. In Yoga for instance, Shiva does not come down to meet Shakti. The nature of any instinctive drive is activity, and to subside once it has been accepted and worked out. Yoga, martial arts, family relations, and other situations have all been employed as effective channelling methods in this way.

If, for example, you feel extremely angry and do some breathing exercises or martial arts activity, you soon feel as though this instinctive drive has been worked out and channelled appropriately. In a way it has subsided, in another it has transformed. In other words, anger was the beginning of action rather than an end in itself. Of course anger can be used in its original form, but it can also be worked out energetically. This is the nature of an intense energy, it requires activity of some kind to transform it. Lots of people do not realise that like any instinct, sexuality has many potential uses. The key is to engage with deep breathing or meditative exercises, such as Yoga and Tai Chi for instance, so that a transitory state can subside and can be easily transformed in a short time into vigorous energy, or what is known as oojas, in Yogic terminology.

The body is not responding to your instincts or drives, it’s just that the energies of the body have a multi dimensional nature depending on the activity. According to function you assign your energies, that’s where they will expand. So depending on the discretion of the mind and the inclinations of the individual, various energy states can be transformed or set in motion off the bat in one way or another. Energy functions according to not only the space you give it, but also the situation it meets within you according to the work you are doing and the direction of your efforts.

It is easy to get lost in the initial stages of activity without a proper road map or full view of the goal to be attained. Actually, a lot of the time people may have a map but they don’t know how to read it. For example, people get into martial arts because they like fighting. They may think this is because they are bad people, but it might be that their energies have come to the surface and they haven’t found effective methods yet. They only realise this later after some work and self understanding. Other people get into martial arts because they want to develop this urge towards self mastery rather than conquest over others. In terms of experience, there is nothing wrong or right about either way. Individuals are in various states of seeking towards fulfilment. Socially and morally there will be various opinions about it. But what’s important is the individual subjective experience and whether their activity is beneficial or not to their own development.

When you sit in meditation, train diligently with full attention, or simply perform an activity with awareness, there is no experience of sexuality, there is just energy functioning according to the situation. In the Garden of Eden, we have all heard of the tree of knowledge and the forbidden fruit. Knowledge divides things up into good and bad, right and wrong. The idea to pursue the tree of knowledge came because the snake fed Eve that information. Because of that, human life was said to be possible. So the Tree of Knowledge represents a certain kind of idea. The energy addresses this idea by cresting a certain form. In Yoga, Shiva is depicted with a snake at his head. Here, symbolically speaking, the snake and energy has risen to a different dimension to create a different form of expression. This energy is known as Kundalini, or cosmic energy rising. This is to indicate that the same energy which is responsible for reproduction of the species is involved in self realisation. So there is one energy, responsible for many forms depending on what your circumstances and situation is.

From knowledge to Intuition [Part 2]

Posted on by joeharman8 | 21 min read | 93 views

“…become in such a way that masters cannot help but envy you whether you have demonstrated their technical teachings or not. So whichever way, become a full expression of what you are, which is exactly the intention of all martial arts teachings.”

The content of your practice depends on the context. For example, if you are working on technique, then your practice will take on an increased technical dimension. This can be beneficial, if you are working to improve something you already know, or even to pick up some rudimentary skills. Because you have not yet picked up the necessary muscle memory, as it’s known, you will want to imprint it on your system before training under pressure. But technical training can only explain what is unexplainable logically. In other words, the reality of martial arts is not a matter of analysing things to death. It’s just an activity you take care of on the path to self mastery. The technical side of things is necessary but not sufficient to develop intuitive sense, which is instructed by the wider sphere of nature and life.

It is pretty easy to memorise something in the brain unconsciously over time. You just need to repeat it over and over for a few weeks or months, like revising for an exam. It takes commitment, which bis part of the process. This is what technical drills in martial arts amounts to, a commitment to sustained practice. Understanding is another matter. This memorization is just the first step in martial arts. It takes a longer time and more intense energy to imbed this working knowledge into the system so that it works intuitively, even though the brain does not remember exactly how. However, if you just impart in the moment what you have learnt in the past, your expression and energy in performance will become gradually more dull and lethargic.

If you are looking to use up energy, because you have been indoors all day for instance, then you might just train to stop the physiological system from stagnating. This need not have anything to do with technique practice. For instance, if you stay in the gym all day, there is likely to be a deficiency in fresh air, sun light, open space, as well as peace and quiet. This may not seem important, but in my opinion a little of these things can go a long way for many reasons. When you have space and fresh air, you naturally feel more energetic and refreshed, partiularly if you’ve been indoors all day.

Increasingly however, many people are turning to chemical aids in order to improve their health and remain motivated. This is at the very same time as they are relying on too much technical training and burdening the brain with too much information. This is a natural consequence of training in artificial enviornements too much. Both chemical substitutes and over emphasis on technical training, are back up systems or precursers for the real thing. in other words, they boost the system a bit to initiate something it can already do given the right surroundings. However, confusion in this area is to be expected as long as an alternative to artificial practices is not given.

When it comes to technical training, this often involves a focus on the superficial forms. As we have just seen, technical training is a kind of memory drill. It in no way explains how martial arts actually works really. If you tried to explain the reality of martial arts on the inner level, you would just look ridiculous. It is like explaining any important nuanced experience, it’s easy to make a fool of oneself by rationalising it to others. However, technical training is a useful tool. You can be somewhat aware of the technical side of training, whilst immersed in the experience so that you are not looking to control what happens, you just ride the wave. It is as if the technical training instead acts as a reminder or prompt of what to do in particular circumstances. For example, rather than thinking in a step by step manner, you might carry key points in the mind to trigger the expression from within. It is like if you a reading a slideshow presentation. If you knew the subject well, you would just have a few words up there to trigger you and get you going on the subject you understood well. Speaking and expression then becomes natural and inutile knowledge is shared about a discipline.

Like the public speaker, your energies will be involved in the task at hand in martial arts. If you are just reading off the script it becomes subliminally counter productive and undermining of ones capabilities. In this way, it is better if you are just thinking about one thing only rather than trying to overburden the brain with details. For example, once you move into practice in a free flow manner, you could just focus on the centre, to trigger the mind in towards concentrating on the body’s centre of gravity, the Hara Centre. This works for anything. If you were to concentrate and pay attention to just about anything, this would develop the necessary single minded focus and awareness necessary for intuitive performance. The brain should become as singleminded as possible, if the energies as a whole are to function freely and unhindered. This is particularly important from the experiential learning side of things, which we will look at next.

Experiential learning means experiencing what is happening as a whole and adjusting to that reality. This then becomes the basis of experience which you feed off, rather than the scraps of partial experience. It is not just about the individual and what techniques you are doing. Nor is it about practicing from memorised scenarios or drills. These are just smalll parts, however important, of the present reality. For example, you immerse yourself in martial arts practice so that you can become aware of the demands of it rather than the details. Too much memory in this regard is like trying to run a different program at the same time as processing reality. The processor slows down to run several programs at once. However, the processor works fine if it is not syphoning off energy to to and create what it can already perceive.

Imagine you are on the laptop and you want to immerse yourself in a film, yet you’ve got half a window browser open doing some shopping at the same time. This is what many people try to do when they get involved in martial arts, as elsewhere. It’s a kind of fragmented awareness of reality, rather than a total one. When the experience is total, awareness is drawn to it in the present, rather than on what happened in the past. This is because you cannot live in the past, you can only observe it, because the nature of life is not in the past it is in the present. When there is less past, there is more presence. Nevertheless you are able to observe the past from the present only, so bringing the past (technical memory), into the present works better if you are totally involved in the present experience.

When you experience reality as it is, your expectations move beyond just the physical body and what it can theoretically do. Expectations also move beyond what happened yesterday, or the day before in some drill you did. Rather than emphasising the purely theoretical or physical experience of martial arts drills and techniques, you throw yourself wholeheartedly into the experience as a whole. Even if you bring the past in to remind you of some tips, you are still in the present. You have to be in the present to experience the past. If you are in the past you cannot experience the present. But enough musings.

If you are intensely training, the outward bound senses are quiet and still whilst the inner senses are operating intensely. These may seem strange, but if you are intensely watchful of a situation, rather than just reacting to it superficially, you naturally attain outer stillness and inner intensity. You are like the deer who senses a predator, or indeed a predator who is stalking the deer. Of course with animals this state is fleeting, but with human consciousness it can become prolonged indefinitely, even in action. In other words, you are aggressive inside yet calm on the outside. There is no danger in this if it is done properly, it isn’t like holding back expression, it’s just that expression becomes more inwardly orientated. Instead, there is a relaxed outer state in order to transmit energy and power, but an intense energy within. This is why martial arts systems speak of relaxed power, which only seems like a contradiction. If this is practiced, over time the martial artist can become intensely watchful and not rushed or hurried. Becoming too rushed and hurried tends to drain the system and evacuate its energies without sustaining it properly.

It also works the other way round. Say you want to get the energies moving outwardly because you feel stagnant, make sure that you are inwardly calm. If you let your energies go, whilst remaining inwardly calm and not drawn to peripheral concerns, the energies become malleable. In this way, it is then possible to reverse the situation so that the energies can then be drawn inwardly after they have been shaken up a bit outwardly. The need to shake things up comes because of high inner pressure which needs to be dealt with. It is like blowing a bubble, which expands from high to low pressure. Once the bubble has been blown, in other words the contents spread widely and peripherally, the inner pressure lowers and the contents naturally collapses back down. This is why it is not really possible to become relaxed until worked out the energies properly, because a relaxed state is really an expansion of a concentrated energy rather than a state of non being. This has been expressed in various ways in martial arts, for example as treating the big and small as one and the same.

In martial arts, the energies of the body undergo a state of contraction and expansion. Once the energies are back in, you clam the body and mind again and remain inwardly energised with the energy now worked out. It is like when morning due falls to the earth in the morning, having evaporated previously. It undergoes a certain transformation, and this change of state gives the water an enhanced capacity. This is known as the relationship between yin and yang, which involves a pairing of energies, which undergoes continual exchange. This is not a bi polar practice where you are up and down all the time without any real relationship, or even in a self initiated way. Instead, you bring your energies under your conscious will and behave naturally and intuitively as part of an active process of positive change. By naturally I mean as the nature within you is rather than a modification of it according to modern notions and philosophies, which again, although useful are insufficient to explain reality properly. This of course takes time and practice.

There are any number of systems of practice which look ridiculous from the outside, which have been used cleverly to stir up the energies and balance the system out. Today, many people stifle their energies so that they never really express themselves fully, nor do they ever relax. This makes intuitive practice difficult because there is so much taking off that needs to happen first. However, lots of people have no problem getting going when they’re drunk, they let out all their energies and act with more vigour. The problem is, there’s a hangover and a lot of wasted energy. This is because this is all done without conscious awareness and can lead to poor judgement and decision making. To do this without external substances, is known as drunken boxing, or working with the internal elixir. No doubt many masters have become drunk for various reasons, but this has nothing to do with martial arts really.

When a martial artist mimics the state of relaxed free and easy movements that a drinker makes, they are practicing a kind of drunken boxing. When someone is fully conscious of this, rather than having their consciousness suppressed by actual substance use, they instead become playful, relaxed, and unhindered. Have you noticed, that if you start dancing around like a drunk person when you are sober, you soon become slightly intoxicated for a time? Personally, I have done this often. It is true that any sustained state can have an affect on people around you, or even within. Aside from being fun at a party, becoming more playful and relaxed is a good way to diffuse an argument because you don’t give off a stiff unrelenting attitude. This is by far the best strategy for avoiding trouble by diffusing the threat before it happens. It is an extremely effective strategy to infect your opponent with an attitude of joyfulness and ease. And because you’re not actually drunk and are fully conscious, you don’t flip from one extreme to the other or push things too far with bad judgement.

Drunken master style is not really a fighting style. It allows you to play around with movements of any kind that practically speaking would be inadvisable. Drunken boxing is a style of playfulness, where the practitioner is doing it for fun, even if they die in the process. When the energies become playful, you naturally become less of a target for the many people out there who might want to take out their misery on you, knowingly or unknowingly. Above all, drunken boxing is an energy state rather than a practical method. I have not read this in any martial arts texts directly, it’s simply my own conclusion. There are many levels of martial arts, mental, physical, and energetic, for instance. This attitude of reckless abandon, or drunken boxing, can even be done with the most ridiculous looking martial arts forms to make things more lively and joyful. Otherwise it would be pointless to even bother.

The only real impediment to training is losing the joy and energy for it in the end. If the energies remain high and your are enjoying the process, you don’t suffer anything because its all fuel for the furnace. On the energy level anything can be useful. This is why intuitive practice, which aims to orientate the energy levels a certain way, is a useful approach. So from time to time it’s good to get as far away as possible from the serious side of martial arts. In this way you are still training, just a different dimension. For instance, if you turn inward and become still and more meditative, you might be surprised to find new energy for no external reason at all.

You see, people are always looking for external reasons. they think it’s because of this or because of that thing. They think they are only good because they have won somthing. But in my experience, these events happen any way and they just correlate with what everyone experiences on the inner level. For example, if you lost a match, you have still experienced the thrill of competition and the win through somebody else. As long as you are fully engaged with the process, the result makes little difference. This insight can become invaluable if your experience of training has become boring. We tend to think we are bored because we a not succeeding, in the narrow sense of the word. In fact everybody gets bored, regardless of what they are doing. If you win at everything, you will just find another problem. The deciding factor is whether you can extract gold from any experience.

So even if you’re a serious competitor, it will become more relaxed and fluid if you take it less seriously from time to time. It will be more intuitive even if your technical practice has been neglected for a time. This is so long as long as the mind is focused and sensible, even if the exercises and energise are lively and wild.

If you get carried away by your own performances, or too concerned with the outcome, this is known as being beaten by the inner enemy. This is why many of the masters of the past have been considered as mad, they have given up the game altogether. there is nothing wrong with the game. In reality, it is a controlled kind of liveliness which is no different fundamentally from the need to blow of some steam in a nightclub. There are many ways to go about this. Many people, after all, would become a nervous wreck if they were unable to get to the nightclub on a Saturday night! Society has always needed ways of working out energy and relieving tension. This is just one way.

Full on bareknuckle experience is of course dangerous if ones does not know what they are doing. There are often all sorts of unpleasant experiences which go on in nightclubs, which fly under radar of peoples awarenesses. You will see this if you go down there fully sober. This is why traditional martial arts has always looked to cultivate the right attitude as well as the physical tools in preparation for the real thing, because it can become overwhelming without preparation.

Styles such as drunken boxing are usually reserved for students under the tutelage of a master. Once again, I don’t know the formalities of drunken boxing according to Chinese systems, but I know that it all derived from buddhist teachings, which spoke of becoming intoxicated from within. So becoming intoxicated from within, in a natural way, is fostered by supporting environments. This is because the relationship fostered by such an environment prevents indivudals getting caught up in the process of self expression and letting go, avoiding stupid situations. The aim is to prevent too much too soon, and this is why such systems will always be accused of being ineffectual by modern standards where the aim is to experience everything at once. Of course experiencing everything at once is an equally good way of knowing, but according to eastern systems, this carries various dangers. This is where traditionally East and West have differed significantly.

From the purely practical perspective, it makes perfect sense just to endlessly perform physical drills, even taking performance enhancing drugs so you can do more of this. This is the practical and serious side of martial arts. On the subject of external chemicals, one of the side effects of taking steroids is that users have experienced liver problems. This is no surprise, because all drugs have side effects. Another such side effect is the decrease in the natural production of hormones when replacements are over subscribed. In other words, where they are naturally produced, they nourish those areas first before anything else. the situation with performance enhancers is to bypass this and create a demand elsewhere, which can only lead to maintenance issues of the body and its resources further down the road.

When someone values winning over others so much, there is usually a deficit in motivation from within. What this often means for the system as a whole is that something is being syphoned off from somewhere to support a hyper abundance of development elsewhere. For example, there might be an excessive sensory need for stimulus from the outside world, which takes on the job of satisfying the inner life. This obviously isn’t the best solution overall, because it relies on all sorts of factors outside of your control. You then potentially don’t have the necessary means of maintaining long term health because energy is all being borrowed from outside factors, which change over time, to sustain the system. For example, say you have a need for others to love everything you do. This obviously doesn’t drive optimal organ functioning, digestion, or energy circulation to any significant degree. And yet, this is what many people are relying on to survive. In other words, the normal survival process has been reversed, and happenings in life have been mistaken for the source. People have moved from creating to consuming.

This is exactly how steroids work, they encourage growth where it does not usually occur, at the expense of life sustaining organ systems. You consume instead of create. If this becomes the basis of experience, then other areas suffer and a certain stagnancy creeps in. In the case of performance enhancing drugs, it is not that there is too much hormones, it’s that they aren’t necessarily being utilised effectively for health. Hormones are not the problem, it’s how they are used, whether they arrive internal or externally. For example, a strong body is the result of a strong core and a healthy functioning. This is the source of strength. The source has been mistaken for the result, and people start abusing steroids to go straight for the result without working on the source. Once again, they consume rather than create the process, mistaking this for a definitive advantage. It really is that simple. If you work on the source, it will be so busy circulating the energies effectively and intelligently, that you won’t need to throw yourself into work which is unsupportive of this. This isn’t a judgement, as many people are free to take steroids. They are neither better nor worse than natures solution, just different.

When excessive build up of energy in the liver occurs, this can lead to various ailments. There are methods for alleviating this, whether you have taken steroids or not. For example, the Chinese systems of Tai Chi, as well as yoga, have developed various exercises to massage the abdomen and increase circulation around the internal organs. Problems can occur anyway, it is a question of enhancing health. These exercises not only increase circulation, but also the distribution and supply of various health promoting hormones in the body. The problem is that, because these exercises increase vitality and health, they need to be maintained the more activity one does in order to become powerful methods. It is the same with pills, they need to be consumed regularly and with additional life changes. This is particularly so as one gets older and wishes to still train physically to a high level without performant enhancers.

So the traditional practices of martial arts engage the practitioner in exercises which are aimed at establishing health as well as fitness. The goal is also to establish a work ethic which matures later in life, much like a long term investment. There is then not the same reliance on brute force in all transactions thereafter. Establishing the right attitude is needed in the beginning stage particularly, because the young martial artist tends to do everything with reckless abandon. This is why the traditional arts always hold the disciple back, there is no question of their energy only their understanding. Instead, when in martial arts you work towards a high ideal rather than for purely personal reasons, you are setting in motion future possibilities rather than immediate gains. The disciples of old would work tirelessly, often doing back breaking work, and when the energies and efforts reached boiling point, they would become more malleable. Many people believe that this was to manipulate the disciple. This is not so, although undoubtedly, corruptions can happen in all areas of society.

A genuine master has no interest in controlling the disciple, because they don’t want the baggage associated with such a relationship. So after many hours of unrelenting work, the disciple would undergo an inner transformation and would be at ease to change their own form. This was seen as the beginning of inner progress, because when this boiling point is reached, the energies become malleable and easily transformative. Whatever was fragmented became defragmented. This requires dedication and work, as well as commitment between master and disciple. Is a master needed? Not at all. I have already explained some of the methods people have used to transform themselves and their energies. This can be done by anyone, but generally is not. So if you are willing to take utter responsibility for your practice, and not dwell on complaining when it goes wrong, then anything is possible. If you do this properly, you become in such a way that masters cannot help but envy you whether you have demonstrated their technical teachings or not. So whichever way, become a full expression of what you are, which is exactly the intention of all martial arts teachings.

The Benefits of Martial Arts

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 12 min read | 78 views

When you move up to a certain level of attainment, a major pitfall can be getting caught up in that stage because it is far more alluring than continuing on the path. However, if the process of progression is the top priority, then anything which does not bring you a step closer to beyond this is just a side show. This is why various systems have recommended seeking nothingness, which means you just continue up the ladder rather than stop and establish yourself.

Martial Arts is a powerful practice which aims to overcome weakness and suffering by way of self transformation. The goal is inner expansion, and by taking your capabilities to the next level repeatedly, the possibilities are limitless. If you look within yourself to the core, you inner being is trying to do just this. It is a question of allowing the body and mind to synchronise properly to allow it to just happen, whatever your current level of capability and understanding. It is not a theoretical practice, but an active and experiential one, where limitations are decimated by overcoming weaknesses over time.

By remaining fully involved and aware, you open up limitless possibilities for your ongoing progress. This is what Martial arts is, an ever evolving process. Because fighters have founded most martial arts system, their practices are of a physical nature predominantly. But some looked beyond this one aspect of training, and created systems such as Tai Chi and Aikido, as a way of developing inner harmony as well as physical presence. Therefore, the practices of Tai Chi  for instance and the more physical systems such as boxing may seem at odds. However, the practices of Tai Chi, such as the ritualistic forms, are not so much for the practitioners sake, but to keep the culture and sense of devotion that it contains alive. What the practitioner does with the increased vibrancy of their system is their choice.

You must learn to organise your mind and body awareness in such a way that you create an atmosphere of optimal functioning. Whether you are big, small, athletic, fit, or otherwise, it is possible to enhance your functioning according to your present capabilities, and then blossom from there.  It is not about developing super human abilities. It is about continuously moving up the ladder, and avoiding the snakes where possible so you don’t fall flat on your back. In other words, when you move up to a certain level of attainment, a major pitfall can be getting caught up in that stage because it is far more alluring than continuing on the path. However, if the process of progression is the top priority, then anything which does not bring you a step closer to beyond this is just a side show. This is why various systems have recommended seeking nothingness, which means you just continue up the ladder rather than stop and establish yourself.

In trying to play god, many martial artists have stopped half way along the path and by achieving things other people cannot, such as world titles or excessive awards. There is nothing wrong with this, it just isn’t the main purpose.  Realising this, the masters of the past have advocated detachment from this, not because it is good or bad, but simply because if you want to transcend your current limitations, you need every ounce of what you have, and even then it’s still not enough to free you from the process of evolution and moving forward. As you can see, climbing half way up the ladder and then concentrating on how high up you are detracts from the precarious balancing act which is going on up there. This is when people fall or begin to doubt their position. This is why the traditional systems have always emphasised humility and service to others in the pursuit of attainment, to put stoppers on ones ego.

So the real benefit of martial arts practice is to view these successes along the way as indicators that you are getting to the core. In other words, you overcome one adversary as confirmation that you are in battle with the eternal enemy, which exists ceaselessly. Difficulty, and overcoming this, shows that you are doing the necessary work. You chop of one head of the hydra, and others reappear. What this means is that you are battling for existence, that you are earning your place. 

The main purpose of advocating self advancement is to benefit the majority of people who have lost motivation or have no direction. In this way, martial arts systems have helped people achieve more than they thought possible, even if those system lack practical application to fighting. If you can overcome life’s difficulties, as well as attain new skills which enhance health and fitness along the way, then this is doubly beneficial. At the highest level, once you learn how to make every moment into a training exercise towards self realisation, then the martial arts specific forms become less of a preoccupation, but still important in many ways.

When an individual can make their everyday activity into a training exercise, going to the gym and clocking the hours is not so significant. On the other hand, once you have reached a certain level of progress, can you keep up that level of maintenance to keep evolving? How can this be ensured?

Turning your everyday actions into martial arts activity, in other words becoming mindful of your everyday gestures, is one way of ensuring that your mind and body remain connected and switched on to the process which is ongoing and that you have already been through. So we are not talking about maintaining a low base level of activity, we are talking about maintaining the body and mind so that you are fit enough to maintain the process of transformation that you have initiated yourself into. This can only be done if you continue to surpass yourself, climbing the ladder continuously in order to reveal more of the landscape. When this process becomes the norm, you will begin to intuitively anticipate difficulties in advance, knowing when to pay close attention.

The idea is not to create a system of practice or personal bearing which rivals someone else. This obviously happens sometimes, but it is limited in the sense that not everyone can be number one in a competitive system. This is because each individual is built differently. The idea is to live within and experience an environment which is conducive to personal growth. For example, the goal of traditional practices such as Shaolin Kung Fu is to make sure that as many people as possible are not without some method of practice which empowers them. In this way, there is no limit to the amount of pie that can be divided up between people, and things improve the better off more people are. 

Today, well being for all through discipline and work of some kind is very much a possibility, because due to enhanced communication quality of living generally, the resources are not so scarce anymore. There is already a bigger potential for mass well being. Physically, the same old game of winners and losers is still going on largely, but in terms of inner development, well being, and self transformation, the possibility for exapansion is limitless. 

When you eat food, this eventually turns into flesh and blood, through the process of digestion. This involves creating hormones, which is enhanced if your body is in a state of flow and charge. What scientists are now calling bioelectricity, is what Martial Artists have been calling Chi for centuries. Specifically, this is the amount of electrical potential that a cell membrane contains, which increases the aliveness of the organism and its potential for growth. So, if you can train the body in such a way that digestion, breathing, and exercises happen in a natural and optimal way, this creates a certain energy form which orientates the body’s chemistry in the best way possible. In doing so, the martial artist learns to create powerful forms of movement, and becomes vigorous enough to take on opponents if necessary.

The overall goal is to cultivate energy within yourself, not to dominate others, but if this is done properly  you can do a lot with physical prowess. If you are able to dominate others but chose not to then this is a powerful thing. On the other hand, if your system becomes vibrant beyond normal parameters and you are empowered physically but your mind, attitude, and energies are not as they should be, eventually the system collapses, and the practitioner causes immense damage to themselves, limiting the possibilities of those around them as well as themselves. 

Suppose today you became a black belt in this or that style of martial arts. It is similar to eating a big meal. Pretty soon, what you had accumulated will break down in your system and no longer supply you with the same energy or nourishment because it has done its job. You need to eat something new. When you gather many different achievements or ideas about things, slowly these form tendencies of their own. If these tendencies build up without fresh ones coming in, then it is no longer you acting from a position of intelligence, the centre. Instead, you risk becoming like an automaton, who simply recycles past acquisition because you identify with these. 

The mind can be used to cut through things or to get caught up in them unnecessarily. If you cut through ideas and reality with a razor sharp sword – the mind, your understanding will penetrate reality to such a degree that you break it down so that it becomes fuel for your next endeavour. In this way, martial arts is a scientific practice, which allows you to take the process of growth and renewal, and ultimately life and death, into your own hands. There are many instances where, had someone been a littler older or more weathered and frail, they might have died from certain experiences. Realising this, the martial artists realises the the same forces of nature are best kept at bay by keeping the energies at a certain vibrancy, rather than polishing the body and mind. So when your stomach is hungry, you eat. In the same way, when your energies are hungry for more, you just make a plan to nourish yourself rather than becoming overburdened by the mind.

The life energies are switched on all the time. They record everything whether you are aware or not. Take the example of a bad nights sleep. The effects can sit with you the next day, effecting your mood and what you are capable of doing. In this way, the body has recorded everything that happens the previous night, and as a consequence you are tired. But, say you had a good nights sleep, you reap the benefits of increased energy levels the next day. So whether you pay much attention to sleep or not, the body does. This is the meaning behind meditation, to understand the body and become mindful of its ways and signals, which we will cover later in the book. 

The turning arc of the earth is so much bigger at the periphery than from the centre. In the same way, what you are doing on the surface of practice takes so much longer to realise than the idea from which it sprang,

The idea of meditation, or one major aspect of it at least, is basically to work on your mind in such a way that you carry over the minimal amount of accumulated impressions from one day to the next. In other words, you wipe away the mildew as a conscious process. It will happen anyway, it’s just that you make this a personal responsibility.This is so that the body records a night of restfulness and ease, so that the energies renew themselves rather than fight of potential health problems. In this way, life does not ignore anything even if your awareness is elsewhere, so everything you accumulate from the outside becomes held in the body and must be released in some way.

The work of the day, the arguments, the violence done to others can carry over and putrify within if a certain distance form all this is not cultivated in your experience of reality. This can cause damage to the organism and its functioning. This is where meditation comes in. As a meditator, you have not removed negativity from your experience necessarily, but you have not identified it with your experience exclusively either. In other words, who your are and what the body and mind have accumulated are not differentiated, it’s just that these accumulations take on a smaller aspect of the overall being. This is because acquisition is not the goal. The goal is to extend the experience further, not to exclude any part of it, but to see each aspect reach its full conclusion. When you realise this for example, you will see that problems are stimuli to successes which have not yet reached their conclusion. 

When you seek limitless expansion, it is not going to settle down, it is always seeking more. So when you exclude some aspect of yourself, if you are seeking the ultimate, then you will simply end up including that which you have desperately tried to discard. This is what it means to come full circle, you start off on the line and end up back where you started because you are travelling around a central axis. From the periphery as you walk along the earth it looks like a straight line, just as it does to the sailor at sea who is in fact going round the centre of the earth as he heads to the horizon.

The turning arc of the earth is so much bigger at the periphery than from the centre. In the same way, what you are doing on the surface of practice takes so much longer to realise than the idea from which it sprang, that it almost seems unrelated to this inner reality of ideas. So keeping on the straight line means to keep going out from the centre to the periphery. But one can go on about nonsense all day, you simply have to walk and live it.

Aggression, energy, and karma. Tending to your business.

Posted on by joeharman8 | 20 min read | 99 views

Aggression is powerful means of exerting your influence over situations in life. People can fight aggressively, sell a product aggressively, and can even meditate aggressively towards a goal. Aggression takes many forms, but it is the same energy. In martial arts, pent up energy, potential stored energy, can be used in order to land a decisive attack on the opponent. This shows how a potentially volatile energy can be channeled and externalised effectively. This is why people with  excessive energy are drawn towards and tend to engage in military or martial arts training. Whatever the way of life, there is a need to direct and channel energy appropriately in order to give it a direction, or to simply let off steam. The only main difference between the scholar and the fighter is the direction of energy and the form it develops.

In Martial Arts, we say that one must become like water. Water takes many forms. Water can learn how to evaporate from a high pressure state of heat and aggression towards a low pressure state of steam. This is why the Martial artist must also develop the capability to become like fire. The fire heats the pan, which is represented by the Hara Centre and the Solar plexus, so that steam is created and the fighter becomes like air. The Hara centre and the solar plexus is located around the organs of the trunk, and this region contains systems of high pressure, conduction, and insulation. It’s all there to convert gross energy to more subtle forms.The characteristic of evaporated air is constant movement and rising towards lower pressure systems, which is represented by the mind. From here it drops back down again in an ongoing cycle.

Water drops its heavier elements and rejoins them later when it is time to come back down to earth from up high. It is like when you drop your bag and run somewhere else. You pick it up another time and it weighs you down once more. And yet, even when you drop the bag, it is the same you without the added weight. There is a time for carrying the load and working with it, and a time to drop it off. Symbolically, this represents the process of transformation which occurs when the Martial Artists works on their physical training in the day time, and then meditates in the afternoon and evening.

In the process of evaporation, or transcendence, there is shift from the physical experience to the spiritual, the gross to the subtle. In other words, you begin to see that you and the gross aspect of your being, the body, are separate states of experience. This may not be in your actual experience, but it becomes more and more so the more one works on themselves. 

As an individual begins to reach nothingness, or no mind, this itself is the beginning of a new form. Jesus was said to have gone to the mountains after working in society, in order to evaporate all the stress, all the karma he accumulated from others. This is a famous example of how one mans intense activity needed an equal period of meditation and recharging. Not only that, but a person who begins to experience an expansion of consciousness can become disheartened because they are forced to undergo the process again and again. This is another reason why one should not get carried away in the spiritual process, it just demands more and more of us the more we progress. The more someone experiences  an expansion of consciousness, a greater awareness of reality, the more their capacity for growth and development increases. This involves them more and more in their particular mission as their scope for action increases.

During the process of becoming free from physical bondage, or karma, the life energies simply cause a new cycle of life to begin all over again once they have reached the highest point. When the energies drop back down successfully, like morning due, they are infused with a certain increased magnetic charge. There is a new and greater capacity for action.That is what Karma is, a cause an effect, which enables someone to continually work with physical and mental energy. The reward for work is more work. The moment a void is created, it is immediately filled by additional energy, this is the nature of the universe, which is expanding all the time. So you don’t need to worry about reaching nothingness, or losing your identity and becoming a vegetable. 

The highest point  of experience will vary from one individual to another. For some, simply winning a contest or the thought of winning some money will propel them to the heights. For them, supplanting a rival aggressively is enough to get there. For others, they want to draw in a new Karma which is based on fulfilling other kinds of obligations, such as raising a family or reaching states of nirvana for instance. Jesus wanted to take the karma of others and dissolve it.  The Buddha wished to enlighten as many people as possible. It all depends on the inclinations of the individual, but in the eyes of the universe it is the same energy, just a different form of expression. So depending on what direction the energies are given, what high ideal you aim towards, you will orientate towards a particular type of activity. This decides the thought processes which leads to accumulation of Karma, which has a cause and effect relationship towards the strived for ideal. The person who obsesses about drugs eventually ends up taking them. It is a question of becoming absorbed in the right though processes. 

This cause and effect relationship ensures ceaseless evolution in response to a deep longing towards expansion of experience. In a way, this represents death and rebirth, because you end up becoming an individual with new capabilities as if you were totally different. Just like the drug addict who wonders how he got that way years down the line, it is also possible to make informed conscious decisions about the expression your energies take, rather than giving way to compulsions. It is just as possible to become a warrior, or a saint. Such an expansion of consciousness enabling new possibilities usually happens gradually. Say somebody wants to kill somebody else. Usually, they will experience an aggressive urge in order to carry out this compulsive need to wipe out their enemy. This is a survival instinct which to some degree is necessary. 

The energy to kill another person is experienced in response to a need for action, not a need to kill. The same need to kill an opponent can be directed at oneself, so that one feels like committing suicide. If such a person uses their energies to meditate and reflect intelligently, such an urge to kill may evaporate entirely so that the need to fulfil it disappears and their energies take on a new orientation. The urge to kill is often confused with the urge to simply dissolve or evaporate the ego, which is the goal of the spiritual dimension in the martial arts. It is not necessary to kill the aspiration for spiritual growth annihilating someone who dishonours you or any of that nonsense. Perhaps there was a time when war was an everyday reality, but except in particular circumstances this is no longer the case. For the first time in history we can say that the meaning of life for many is now in well being rather than survival.

The instincts never decide the appropriate direction of energy, they just inject you with a certain force. There is no reason to eliminate this force, it is just a question of directing it towards the highest goal possible within you. The instincts are doing their job just fine, you would be dead without them.Now, the highest point within you may not be a conscious reality yet, but you can work towards it by using the imagination to create such an experience. Perhaps you imagine yourself to be a ball of energy radiating outwards. Just aim towards whatever is highest in your experience. In other words, you can imagine a type or ideal reality and this will address the deepest aspects of your core longings, even if you are unconscious of the need to do so. It’s all taken care of if you work in the right direction relentlessly. The key is to meditate and think about expansion of experience and consciousness, which means becoming fully involved and aware of your experiences and reality more broadly. 

It doesn’t matter what you imagine, because this isn’t the point to focus on. It’s a way into an invisible doorway. This is how the imagination can work on the energies indirectly, because even if the imagination bares no resemblance to what physically occurs, the thirst is quenched and fulfilment of the need for expansion is granted on an even higher level. This level is known as the energy body, which extends beyond the physical and mental bodies, and is closely related to the aura, which is influenced by the thoughts and feelings.

Many people experience reality simply on the level of memory. Say for example you want to wipe out an enemy. This is in response to the memory of what they have done to you, rather than what the reality is right now. Perhaps they even did you a favour by letting you see them for what they are, but still you are angry at them. You then imagine all sorts of ways to get your own back. And so your energy is spent engaged in exercises of memory and imagination, of past and future prediction, rather than the moment by moment experience of reality as it actually is. In reality, there is only the present moment, which should be given your full attention. We are not yet even aware of what the present moment really means, or how to live in it really. 

The memory of the past is something like a saved progress of the software you are running in your mind. It is useful to know where you are in your experience of the world, so a backup copy of reality is created. This is so you can save your progress. From there, the imagination is used to project you towards a reality that closely approximates an ideal, which is the best you can come up with in the mind. But it is still limited. Even so, imagination creates a psychological energy boost even if it isn’t an accurate representation of what eventually happens. The energy that this process of imagination creates is the important factor, rather than the particular form it takes.

In the case of aggression, you must learn to put it to work for you, rather than giving in to the dictates of it. It is a tremendous power in the right hands. In the martial arts, raw energy is built up in the Hara centre, which is located in and around the abdomen, the body’s centre. If the energies stay here and are used only to satisfy the instincts, then they are dissipated here and the energy doesn’t function in another way. This is the lowest level of manifestation, and at the same time expert martial artists have mastered this level of activity. However, the Hara centre is also the body’s maintenance centre, which means that if this is excessively externalised and used up there, rather than evaporated upwards towards the higher centres, then health is eventually undermined. Many martial arts have died fairly early because of this. Just as electricity can be used to power an electric chair, the same energy can be used to light up a village. This is why as ones perceptions evolve and reach new heights, such dissipation of life energy becomes less of a priority and lightening up becomes the goal.

Why not direct aggression towards driving out the negative attitude in others around you? Very often if you go the right way about it, you can gain the respect and even admiration of your antagonists, which is a definite possibility. There is no shortage of the need for such work, so you will never be out of the job. If someone antagonises you, remind yourself how ignorant and helpless that person must be to waste their time and energy on trivial disputes, and that they deserve compassion, rather than passion. In other words, you can learn to consciously direct your energy towards them in a harmonious rather than reactive way, ensuring your own inner balance is maintained. Otherwise you run the risk of  creating the same inner disharmony within yourself that your antagonist is experiencing.

Obviously, when someone is insulting you or attempting to drag your name through the dirt, this is no time for idleness. It’s time to show them how strong you are in your whole demeanour and expression, by directing your willpower towards creating the type of persona which is above all this. Usually only desperation, caused by stress, can bring out this possibility. By creating such a personality, an exteriority that others see, you set up the conditions for receiving good karma and future gain. This does not mean you wont experience difficulty, it just means you wont suffer the process of cause and effect so much, or even at all. The key is to suffer moments of stress intelligently so that you do not suffer the process of it, which actually leads to growth.

Karma does not cause the effect of well being, it only responds to the longing, the high ideal of the individual. In other words, the consciousness you have developed determines the energy form you receive. The Karma you experience is related to the inner receivers you have developed, and so what you create within yourself is how the energy will function. The same energy is sent to the maniac and the soldier, because they are both equally charged. But they both work at different levels so their possibilities are different.

Say you work on sending you aggression upwards, towards evaporation and the higher subtle centres, then the form of behaviour you take will be one of compassion rather than anger towards your opponent. It is the same energy converted into a different form, which takes on a particular demeanour and body composition. The nervous system can greatly influence the other bodies. This is why in the spiritual dimension of martial arts, the nervous system is focused on first of all. The martial arts systems aim towards fuelling the energy body, which extends beyond the physical body and crafts it. The energy body seeks a proper relationship to the outside, even using the opponents energy to convert and fuel itself. Otherwise you just waste energy siping out the opposition. Then, you are just fuelling the ego which wishes to destroy an opponent violently rather than make proper use of them as a means of self realisation and transcendence. 

Just having the right attitude and determination can make a potential antagonist powerless. Most of the time this is all you need, because your antagonist will sense that you are superior to them they will see how futile it is to resort to pettiness. And also, you make yourself a hard target for opportunists who may otherwise make a move against you. Finally, since you are not threatening anyone else, you don’t rouse in them feelings of resentment, or competition. 

The next time someone tries to draw you in to nonsense, ask yourself whether there is anything to gain from getting drawn in. For sure, there is likely to be an experience of heat and anger initially, but perhaps it is better to use these states to put on a powerful display of tolerance where you distance yourself from reactivity. It is important to act, but not to react on the same level as the antagonist. 

The aggressor is often trying to make an opponent out of you, a straw man, when really all experience is within. Likewise, your experience is within. For them, a tremendous amount of energy is spent creating this caricature out of you. People get drawn into wasting energy, by playing a game where everybody loses. So one way of dealing with this expression of madness is to cover it up by making others out to be the problem. Another way is to transcend it altogether and evaporate these states, which takes a lot of work too. The only difference is that you end up with a good result the second way. So these are the choices, to battle your own weaknesses or to cover them up and externalise things, depriving yourself of the opportunity of inner transformation and certain powerful states of energy. 

All aggressive behaviour aimlessly directed at others is an accumulation gathered over many years, a karma which needs to be worked out one way or another. For many there seems to be no other explanation other than to burst the build up of excessive energy from time to time in counter productive ways. This is limited. aggression shouldn’t be taken personally, because in a way it is natural for people to get riled up and act aggressively. This is mans lower nature, his animalistic side. Animals act this way constantly because they lack higher reasoning or even a possibility of transcendence.

In todays society, largely due to sedentary life styles which lack physical vigour, energy stays largely at the lower level of existence, the low chakras. The only solution for many is to go clubbing all night and drinking all day so that there is an outlet. Instead, if people were to get into the habit of manual work, chopping wood all day for instance, the body and its energies would be utilised more proficiently, and we wouldn’t have such large scale mental health problems. 

Once you are aware that aggression is a powerful force, a source of raw energy, you produce something from this potent power, rather than letting it overwhelm you by ignoring its wider implications. It is entirely up to you how you direct the energy provoked by hostility and frustration with life events. And the more highly attuned to life, the more likely you are to pick up the early warning signs and act quickly. In other words the most alert and powerful individuals have the most frequent need of intelligently directing their energies. This is the problem with martial arts, you start off trying to overcome difficulties, and you end up with a thousand more difficulties because your scope for action has increased. This is just the way it is, the more capable you become, the more karma you take on. So eventually, you begin to realise the work and intense energy that goes into such apparent calmness and natural suavity that exudes certain Masters.

So next time you get pent up, you could try going off and using this energy to go for a walk or some other type of exercise. After all, there are many martial arts exercises which are aimed at precisely this need. Of course, many people think such exercises lack practical self defence value, but this is largely because the world is going through a kind of neurotic phase of hyper sensitivity to survival needs. This tendency causes people to stop looking for meaning in life to a large extent. But don’t let the opportunities for growth go to waste. And never let feelings of defeat and weakness linger on without action, because then these will have a chance to eat away at you. Go mad for a moment and shout at the punchbag if you have to, and you might see that there is a kind of potential madness in you that is not put there by someone else. Indeed there is enough in anybody to work with already. Hitting the heavybag has a certain theraputic value to it. There really is enough potential raw energy in yourself to power you for a lifetime without looking to others.

Sometimes you will have to argue your corner to avoid being bullied, or to simply demonstrate that you are not going to be walked over. Some situations are unavoidable. However once you have tried your hardest to sustain an attitude of fairness whilst making the most of the situation, sometimes the antagonist almost needs you to take control. They may even thank you for it afterwards. In the end, it is only the emotional and physical level, which can always change. So if you have to do confront someone I recommended exerting yourself in the following way. 

After deciding that you have no choice but to make a stand to put an end to the unfairness of the situation, explain how the behaviour of your antagonist is spoiling things. Then explain what you would like to be done about it and what you are willing to do to support the situation rather than assigning blame. Very often this will be enough to put your antagonist off any future confrontations, since you are behaving reasonably. You have then found a new ally. Many lasting friendships have happened or been repaired this way. In other cases, people simply know no other way than to waste all their energy in pointless battles, so you just leave them to it.

If instead of taking control of the situation, you inspire bitterness in them by carrying on arrogantly and making demands of them, expect never to see the end of it. Make every effort to spare the embaressment of the other person so they don’t come back and bite you at a later date when you least expect it. Because that’s what they feel they will have every right to do if you have inspired such a state within in them.

You must defend yourself but often not by the same primitive means that others tend to use. You can rub your hands together and create heat. This is what two people do when they argue, they heat each other up at a certain level. Instead of reactive force, use intelligence to direct the primitive urge to retaliate immediately towards other regions and dimensions. Most of the time your opponent will be so surprised by their lack of impact and control over you that they will simply have no choice but to move on and find an easier target. In terms of physical self defence, they’ll pick someone weaker and less determined if they even suspect it might be an even fight. 

Above all, martial arts practice isn’t just the raw expression of aggression. On some level it is just that, a way of venting emotion and using up energy. But once this phase is over there’s no going back. In fact, many people who start in the first place do so because they simply would go mad otherwise if they didn’t have such an outlet. This often carries on into later life and it becomes a kind of therapy. So whichever way you do it, it ends up good.

On the deep level, energy must be intelligently managed. Any kind of aggressive volatile energy, which is a kind of anger, should be directed as wisely as possible, to avoid it turning against the user. Obviously this doesn’t mean you will be totally devoid of emotion during a heated exchange. This just shows that everybody, including the most composed people, need to work ceaselessly on managing and directing their energies. The thing to do is to put your aggressive drive to work intelligently and to do this often so that you encourage the interaction between energy and intelligence to become one. This reciprocal exchange then becomes second nature. The more you do this in everyday life, the more likely it will work with you when it matters. The most dangerous encounters are usually unexpected, so it is a case of preparing well in advance.

The Inner Stance

Posted on by joeharman8 | 12 min read | 85 views

Much has been written about the various Martial Arts postures and styles. However, what often remains a mystery is the inner state which the practitioner should strive towards reaching. In my view, the most important factor is the inner positioning, the inner stance. Fortunately, there are abundant traditions which discuss the inner mechanics of the stance, which in turn controls the possibilities of the body’s power. Broadly speaking, stance means attitude or disposition.

Whilst the martial artist should focus on his opponent, he should remain preoccupied with the inner environment and the obstacles he may face there. In this way, external objectives are achieved relatively easily because he is always at the front wheel There is of course a level of developed capability needed before relying on the inner side mechanics of Martial Arts. It is possible to develop this over time in a sensible way, first simply drawing attention to the inner landscape. Indeed it will all seem ridiculous to someone who has not experienced any these matters first hand. It is therefore a practice which requires experiential knowledge rather than technical. In matters of life or death, it is completely foolish to jump into the subtler side of fighting without first experiencing and developing the inner tools. As such it is best to start small and develop a basic awareness before it is possible to master this path.

Lets start with the gaze. The eyes should track the opponents movements, but this is best achieved with a sense of awareness which is free from the hindrance of self doubt, over analysis, and inner conflict. Once this is achieved, vision and clarity are then enhanced. Even at the technical level, the gaze is only narrowed when you are focusing. Until then it remains open to the peripheral enviornment to take in a wide area of surveilance. This is because historically, threats could happen at any moment. 

In Martial arts, a particular inner state is needed, rather than a preoccupation with just outside events. Of course, when one is attacked for the first time, or has experiences any kind of potentially traumatic event, they are overwhelmed by the senses. This can lead to an obsession that such trauma may happen again. It is therefore important to rely less and less on the traditional senses as ones competence level increases, to move beyond this point. This is because the fives senses give us only a peripheral idea of the scene unfolding, and to stay here can become self limiting.

Unmani Mudra, or no mind thinking, is a state of awareness which has traditionally been achieved meditatively. It’s applications apply beyond the sitting postures is it normally practiced ion. Unmani Mudra involves total inner awareness, even when looking around externally. During Martial arts training, once the senses of the body become less and less of a preoccupation, the inner stance or mechanics can be emphasised. This either happens when a particular state of perception is achieved, or during old age when the body itself becomes less reliable as a source or strength or inspiration. It is of course possible to realise this before the body begins to become less and less powerful. 

Does this mean you ignore the body altogether? No, not at all, it’s just that you see past the storm of events and the atmosphere it creates with a different set of senses which can penetrate all of this. You are there but not there, with the body but away from it. More and more it becomes about transcending the body to some degree. This can be achieved the more familiar one becomes with the senses and practices them. There is a natural longing to be free from the senses, so the progression is towards something greater. The more logically this longing is followed, the greater the realisation of this ideal which transcends logic itself. In other words, rather than becoming free of the usual perceptions, you bring down the higher ones to the level of the here and now so that everything is integrated. 

To do Unmani Mudra, direct your attention to the back of the head, between the crown and the middle of the back of the head specifically (at the level of the eyes). Here, there is a tiny invisible dot, or energy point, known as Bindu in Yogic texts. Bindu is a powerful energy centre which is responsible for enhanced bodily functioning, as well as enabling the fighter to become courageous. If the fighter is hit here, he senses are knocked out of him.

With practice, it is possible to work with Bindu to achieve almost superhuman activity. Without practice, it can be activated or triggered anyway, for example to pull the head away from danger in a merely reactive way. Either way, once you are aware of how it works, it is just a question of becoming consciously aware of this energy centre. However it can merely happen in a reactive way, which can lead to exaggerated action. The idea is to become more and more an initiator of action rather than reacting to an event someone else triggers. By conscious awareness, I do not mean controlling it necessarily. Once concentrated upon and experienced in its proper fullness, it merely acts in a liberated and unlimited fashion beyond full mental comprehension. Your job is then just to work on letting this happen and removing impediments in the form of ignorance. You just have to channel the energies properly. This takes work and dedication. 

As you inhale, energy is sharply transferred from the base of the spine to energise the brain at the level of Bindu. This enhances awareness and intuition as you prepare for action. The sensation is like lightning shooting up the spine. This can be constantly maintained for long periods by adepts. There is a sense of excitement, particularly within the intestinal region. It is a similar sensation experience when one is forced to hold urine for a time. There are various yogic methods of training this area, which are similair to sugical methods used for cleaning the inner tubes when disorder arises. However these are not nessessary. The excretory ducts of the urethra, the urinary passage, are drawn upwards with minimal contraction of the surrounding muscular walls of the abdomen. You simply try to lifting them towards the spine. Obviously there is contraction of the core muscles, however the focus is on the inner sexual organs and urinary canal. The surrounding muscles then act in correspondance with this activity in such a way that is not intutively possible by conscious control of the separate muscles.

As you exhale, this energy descends down the spine, towards the body’s physical centre. When this is performed correctly, you will feel the pelvis lifting, tilting, and engaged, as if performing a conscious physical exercise. Howevber it happens intutively. As an exercise in itself this stretches the pelvic floor area.  

Vajra means lighting, and there is a sensation that the hips are elevated as if electrified and charged with a certain energy. This means the Hara centre has been energised. However, conscious awareness is directed directed towards performing unmani mudra, because this is more related to work at the level of the nervous system as a whole, or more specifically, the energy channels. The whole body and system can automatically arrange itself in the appropriate physical stance with practice.

Predominantly the exhale is focused on in combat, because you are externalising energy. The inhale as an exercise of focus is usually reserved for yogis. By inhale and exhale, I am not referring to air. The inhalation and exhalation requires a certain energy flow which posture the body in such a way to receive oxygen. It is not the air that does this or the lungs, but the nervous system. You therefore focus on the expansion and contraction as well as the energy, and the air flow will naturally happen.

There are two interesting points to consider here. As the energy shoots up the spine, towards the brain, the eyes tend to open widely, as if to take in information. This is known as spontaneous pyschic attitude in Yogic texts, and can be seen in tribal displays where the eyes are used to intimidate. That means the system is fired up, even without the need for external stimuli. At the very least then, this means that training alone can become at least as beneficial as training with external opponents, provided this energy is properly utilised. But this is a separate matter. 

As the energy descents towards the hara centre, and towards the base of the spine, the gaze narrows because information has already been taken in at the level of sight and perception. The gaze therefore restricts, and it sometimes looks as if there is a laziness in the eyes.The energy moves from the visual field, and you may find the eyes move of their own accord. Yogis have sat an experienced this state, which has sometimes been called bliss under certain conditions. In terms of survival, it is like the deer who first freezes by taking in oxygen, eyes wide open. When it decides to run off, it has committed to running and energy is sent to the rest of the body for action. Obviously there is an intensity present at both stages, but for different reasons. Broadly speaking, this energy can be used for survival, or enlightenment purposes, as in mediative practices.

As the energy descends down the spine, known as the sushumna nadi in Yoga, there is a tendency to look more downward, towards the centre of the nose. This is why the yogis cross their eyes and look at the tip of there nose, to work at the level of the base of the spine indirectly. It is also seen in boxing, when the fighter ducks down slightly to work with gravity and naturally looks down. However, yogis have always know that to become powerful it is not necessary to become a savage. However, they must posses the power to become violent, if only to direct this potent source of energy towards inner work. This is for the devotee. Remaining weak and powerless is not a virtue, but the choice to shut up and chose non violence by choice can be virtuous. It always comes down to choice. Do you chose to be this way or that, or is it forced upon you without your consent? There is no right or wrong necessarily.

The base of the spine is also related to and directly next to the excretory system. As the Energy rises upwards, there tends to be an upward gaze, converging at the eyebrow centre, which is at the level of the pineal gland, or the third eye. This region is also know as ajna chakra. So, both process, or gazing towards the tip pf the nose, or inwardly drawing attention to the eyebrow centre, are ways of moving the energies of the body. To move them up, think of the eye brow centre, the ajna chakra. To move them down, concentration is focused on the nose tip to work with the region of the Hara centre. 

By now, you may have noticed that different chakras can be moved or activated from apparently unrelated regions. They are therefore mobile rather than fixed. For example, by working at the level of the eyes, it is possible to activate the lower regions of the spinal collumn, related to the hara centre. The Hara centre is not moved, but the activity of the higher centres can be. The higher the centre, the more mobile, generally speaking. This unites and fire up the entire system, from a top down method of control. Otherwise, activity is purely instinctive 

Therefore, it is not necessary to even engage in combat to develop these capabilities. Combat has always been seen by fighters as a way of experiencing physical reality in the full sense. It often happens by circumstances rather than choice. Whichever way it happens, the master martial artist learns to more effectively manage his inner states by switching from a purely survival view of things at the level of instinctive action, towards a more powerful inner state of energy functioning

When the Martial Artist focuses on the subtle energy systems, this does not mean he no longer experiences fear, pain, or loss. Instead these consideration fade into the periphery or experience, particularly as bodily and survival imperatives become less of a basis for existance. They cease to have an all encompassing hold as wider experience enters the fold, or if he imposes a system of self discipline to habituate himself to stress. This is why Fighters have fled to the mountains to experience harshness, so that it becomes a constant thing they acclimatise to. They then forget about it as a hindrance and it becomes a constant companion they just get used to and they no longer shun it. This is one way of overcoming pain and resistance, to simply master it by becoming familiar with it and developing a certain contempt for its power.

Obviously, many chose not to move beyond survival as a priority, or are for some reason they are unable to. It is therefore ridiculous to speak about energy systems to such a person who is faced with constant stress. For them, it is best to make efforts to overcome or meet immediate survival needs. jIn the same way, it is ridiculous to speak of emotional wellbeing to a prisoner in a cell who takes joy in killing people. It is often simply not in their experience or understanding to derive certain experiences from inner means which do not involve exploiting or gratifying instincts.Therefore, there are multiple ways of looking at it. The body and its capabilities can be used and exploited purely instinctively and explosively, or you can use them in a non exhaustive way to flow like water. There is nothing wrong with either way, it is just a question of whether you want to use energy dictated by survival processes, or inner development, or perhaps a bit of both.

The Imagination

Posted on by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 140 views

When training in your mind, get into the habit of imagining yourself as the most powerful being possible. Concentrate, for example, on the light emanating from your eyes, on the brilliant white colours of your clothing, as you destroy and burn away the darkness, so that you begin to identify with this image and correspond to it in your physical gestures and bearing. This is a simple example to start with. Whilst it might do you some good to imagine winning a title and how great you look on television for example, this ideal is not high enough to inspire the greatest inspiration to surpass yourself1.

By aiming at something totally beyond physical possibility, you unleash the powers of the creative imagination. This is what fills the apparent gulf between reality and the unattainable. And you don’t ned to worry that this ideal can never be realised, because it will be realised in the mental world of ideas, which although invisible can have a real effect on the physical life. In this way the invisible reality of thought and imagination is an aspect of the physical reality, which although real, does not have a material existence. An everyday example should surface to illustrate this point.

Imagine, for example, that you are feeling ill and weak. Just by willing yourself to be in a state of harmony, through the intermediary of thought, you can to some extent at least, improve your health. Yes, because every physical reality starts with a corresponding thought which represents an ideal. And from there the effects of this ideal manifest physically, although not immediately. It is only in the imagination that space and time have not hold, so it is here that we can often do the best work. The results may be poor at first, but the more high the ideal, the more powerful the effect, particularly if you are accustomed to doing this habitually.

You might say “We’ve heard all this before, but the effects are so miniscule, it would just be a waste of time”. Whilst its true the effects are very minimal for many, this only proves how little effort is put into mental practice. Because most people think it is a waste of time, they give in to all sorts of immediate needs and neglect this longer term work of forming constructive thought habits. This is why so many people relate instead to misery and low expectation. Something else to understand is that thought itself cannot act on the body directly. However, the high ideal, which imagines a limitless reality can encourage feelings of inspiration and enthusiasm, and it is through these intermediary sensations that the physical effects manifest.

Simply thinking about light, darkness, and martial arts practice isn’t enough. You need to relate to though through the power of the will, which is responsible for directing our motivating energies. Otherwise your thoughts will likely just turn into listless daydreams. For example, imagine you are fighting the forces of darkness, with the weapons of light. By relating to the light and bringing these images to life by willing them into action, this can have an uplifting effect on your feelings and state of consciousness. Once this is understood, it becomes easier to use the will to concentrate your attention on only the most inspiring and evocative ideas.

Ideas inspire thoughts, and thoughts act on feelings, which act on the brain, and which in turn acts on the physical body. The reverse is also true. For example, by engaging in noble and inspiring behaviours towards others, this is a clear pathway to encouraging luminous thoughts and corresponding to the highest ideals, however dimly represented here and now physically. Whilst we are often unable to do much in the under immediate physical constraints, we are under no obligation to do so in the imagination, which can take any form, and represents an aspect of our high self2. The imagination can envisage the most diabolical things, as well as the most luminous.

Physical practice helps us make better mental representations. And Better mental representations help us to build an ideal model, which surpasses us and guides us. You could call it the God head, the higher self, the spirit, Prana, the infinite. Whilst a master or expert may also symbolise such a model, too often such masters are full of the same weaknesses and bad habits as those whom they have taken responsibility to instruct. To be sure, it is not a problem to have weakness, so long as our habits and behaviours are sound. We need a perfect model, an incorruptible model, with which to relate and feel so that it can act upon us and guide us. This solves the problem of our inherent weakness, common to us all. What this model example is will depend on the individuals subjective imagination, and can take myriad form. The important thing to remember is that the imagination is a tool to develop the most inspiring thoughts and ideas so that they can act and course through our every action and gesture.

Hopefully you are beginning to see that the realism of the mental representation does not matter. In fact, it should be deliberately unattainable and inspire the same sort of mimickery, love, and adulation that a super hero does on a small child. Once you have succeeded in imagining such a visualisation, the physical effects upon your health and well being, not to mention your enthusiasm and energy, will be so powerful that the reality of the idea will be unimportant. In fact, your own improvement will be the measure of reality. The objective results of exercises of the imagination, if practiced and developed over time with focus, will power, and attention, will become self evident. What started off as an unrealistic idea, ended up having very real effects.

I once travelled all the way to Taiwan, where I was invited to take part in a grading event where people from across the Country went to receive their 8th Dan black belts and International qualifications from World renowned Masters. Whilst there were some talented individuals there, I was surprised to find such poor role models, who were neither skilled, healthy, or inspiring. There were people breaking wind in the training hall, eating and leaving wrappers everywhere, lots of noise, and nowhere to practice and concentrate before the assessments began. I had come to learn from the Masters of the World and there I was in the midst of all this. I realised I needed to aim higher, rather than adjust myself to this kind of community.

It is often the case than when we try to pursue physical results directly, they allude us. The models aren’t their to nourish our urge to transcend ourselves. For example, by practicing a form over and over again in a technical and robotic manner, we often end confused and unable to perform with any real effectiveness. However, when we imagine ourselves in our minds eye as a great and powerful being, or even in the shoes of a great champion, we can feel we have the enthusiasm to be like them. We do not need to know how they do it, any more than we need to know how to digest food, we just follow their example and it nourishes us. This interplay between the imagination and our physical actions does not produce the same effect from one day to the next, unlike physical mechanical practice, even if our actions look similar.

This process of striving to surpass ourselves, to align ourselves to perfection, transforms and directs our instincts and desires, which are so often squandered on aimless activity, and this transformation can be used to sustain and develop our mental and physical practice. I’ve been doing this for years, and I entrust myself to this process alone, as a refuge from the seductive illusions created by many so called experts. I found early on that giving myself over to systems and icons weakened me by by making me too vulnerable and sensitive to the criticisms and praise of others. I needed to find this essential inspiration from an inexhaustible source within so that I could live it.

What you should remember is that appointed experts are often little more than actors, who have developed a certain allure and use their powers to seduce and encourage daydreaming in their students in a sense. However, by following a high ideal fuelled by the imagination, and perhaps encompassing aspects of genuine experts, you can then be content to move forward without fretting about what exactly you should be doing or learning, because of this strong sensation and guidance. Without this inner guidance you are obliged to simply fret and worry about the details. However, the details take care of themselves in this process driven model.

When we place this high ideal at the summit, our goal directed behaviour is given a much higher ambition than simply gratification of instinctive animal urges. Instincts are the fuel and are at the root of all behaviour. But why stop there? Gratification of instinctive urges, for example aggression, is not an end in itself for me. In the language of logic, instinctive behaviours are a necessary but not sufficient requirement of action.

Often instinctive reactions blind us. When we let anger take over, all we see are enemies and we want to destroy them. When this obscurity takes over this paints an illusory world that Hindu Philosophy calls Maya. This is our lower self, our emotions taking over. These are the real enemy and need to be fought and driven to into submission3. The meaning of Martial arts, for me, transcends mere perseveration of existence. It needs higher meaning. In any case, Killing the instincts is not the way, because they are vital for energy and action, and without them our behaviour is flat and dead. However, so many fighters are driven to waste their energies by simply supercharging their instincts without any high ideal or thought power to direct them intelligently. Personally, this truth has been the most defining factor in my my life and practice.

So, the high ideal inspires the imagination to create the most inspiring images and fills us with certain feelings which are indicative of truth. Our actions are then aimed at corresponding and orientating our energies towards striving to the highest standards if this practice is taken seriously. Obviously, it is up to each individual to decide to what extend this work is taken seriously. But if we concentrate on this, we relate more and more to it ( even imagining ourselves with others also doing this work), and eventually we are able to tell truth from falsehood merely by looking at others example and seeing to what extend their actions and words inspire a similar state within us. In this way the creative imagination is a key to truth.

References

1 The High Ideal https://harmanater.com/2020/07/26/the-high-ideal/

2 The Higher and Lower Self in Martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/04/the-higher-and-lower-self-in-martial-arts/

3 The True Meaning of Martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/18/the-true-meaning-of-martial-arts/

The Economics of Martial Arts Part 1

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 13 min read | 152 views

Economics involves the distribution and use of scarce resources. Now, using up scarce resources so that they don’t materialise into anything more is a waste. We see this all the time, even amongst professional athletes. This concept of using up resources is clear from the simple fact that if we do not use up oxygen effectively we die. Similarly, in Martial Arts Training, if we do not allocate our energies effectively the outcomes will be less than impressive, even if we are trying hard and engaging in intensive work.

It is often thought that to get anywhere in professional Martial arts that you have to cheat and ingratiate yourself with key figures within the industry in order to gain privileges. From there, you are obliged to use up all your energies and resources for short term capital returns, in the form, say a title belt or money. Along the way you get a certain amount of physical abilities, tools of the trade. However, what is the point of all this if you are left impoverished, that is, injured and worm out, by the end of a short career?

In a sense, the organisation you are working for as a professional is like a shop. You are encouraged to spend, waste even, all your resources in the superstore. You are then rewarded with all sorts of membership deals, services, and reward schemes. In another sense, you become an advertising board, or a franchise shop. In yet another sense, you are given the opportunity to surpass yourself as something bigger and better. Depending on how you look at it, all of this is true. The important thing to remember, is that you will naturally want a return on your investment, that is, something better than you started out with rather than being conned into something with hidden long term liabilities. You might say “Well, in this fast paced world we have to just grab any opportunity we can”. Maybe, but it can at least be helpful to have your eyes open.

The thing to do is to use your energies and forces in such a way that you capitalise on the returns. For example, if you work hard what you get back should be more valuable than the time and effort you gave up. Training in such a technical manner as many people now do, you give up all your time and energy and the result is purely technical knowledge. The consequence of such superficial knowledge is often increased laziness and decreased personal initiative, which is a cost. In other words, you may gain some technical knowledge but you undermine the source of your own wealth – initiative, inquisitiveness, discovery, etc.

There is an eternal battle raging between the rich and the poor. The rich are said to keep the poor down, and the poor are envious of the rich. However, the rich don’t always stay rich for long if they hoard up all their resources. This is why you must keep giving away your skills, so that each time your practice is as if for the first time. That is, you must rid yourself of old habits and evolve ceaselessly. In this way, think of yourself as an entrepreneur who is ceaselessly investing his capital into new enterprises which, although you might not know what future developments may bring, end up surpassing the previous ones, even if you lose a couple of investments here and there. It is the daring effort to do this and never give up that is the true wealth.

If for example, you eat too much food and don’t use the resources it gives you, you will grow fat and lazy. Similarly, if you don’t develop your skills but instead live off the existing capital, without expanding your enterprise, you may well end up losing what you have worked for. In the same way, the rich who do not provide much need goods services to the relatively poor will find themselves in trouble. In this way, you should seek to give to the poor, or if you like those in need of your expertise, all that you have acquired. The poor then benefit from the rich and eventually become the rich who help the poor, instead of the rich simply exploiting the poor and the poor remaining helpless as is often the case. Then each individual will be like a nation passing through the industrial period into the new horizons of the future. In other words, weak people may suffer for a time but end up better off if they unite under the right conditions.

People get rich, generally speaking, by working hard and finding a service to provide in the market. Yes people get lucky, inherit money, etc., but generally speaking this is how it works. The mistake they often make is to lose motivation in this as they get more comfortable and lose their edge. The result is that they become lazy, flabby, and unenthusiastic, lose their zest for life, their impetus, and then can no longer enjoy the process of becoming enriched. This benefits no one. All they can then do is sit on their material wealth and squander it on amusements rather than developments, even though that does not bring them the happiness they had as captains of industry, or a leader. In other words, they rested on their laurels and became inwardly poor as a consequence of hoarding wealth. as you can see what happens on the large scale is true for the individual, both on the physical and mental level.

On the other hand, Many people who have never had to work hard or use their initiative to surpass themselves have remained poor and idle all their lives. They were too comfortable, preferring instead to remain idle, self satisfied and comfortable. This is what most people want, time to amuse themselves with pleasures a material gain. The problem is that this way of life kills their spirit and enthusiasm and they settle for mediocrity. And it has such a grip on people that it drives out all memory of anything more inspiring and noble.

What I am proposing is that you use all the motivation and determination to enrich yourself to reach a high ideal. You use all the means available to the capitalist to enrich yourself inwardly according to a glorious ideal, rather than just money a title, or comfortable arrangements. In this way you make the method of the capitalist the goal of your behaviour to reach the ideal of the communist. Symbolically speaking, you become the serpent eating its own tail, by uniting two polar opposites2. The two philosophies are not mutually exclusive according to this perspective.

Instead of the goal being some title and then stagnating after you’ve got it, aim for the stars and beyond using the means of determination, perseverance, and willpower3. These know no limits so there is no need to be ‘realistic’, so long as you are inspired and enlivened constantly. In this way it doesn’t matter if the ideal is unrealistic because the consequence it has on the human psyche has the effect of bringing about greater harmony than simply going with what’s immediately viable. In this way you make your training and development the priority and place the ‘goods and services’ you produce, such as skills and abilities, at the service of this inexhaustible ideal. Unless the ideal is beyond reach it will be realised and progress will stop. And to be inspiring enough humans, I would argue, need a goal which allows them to transcend themselves.

Once you have adopted this attitude, you are then free to become a communist in the true sense of looking out for others, providing for them, and treating everyone as part of a brotherhood. Even those who get in your way force you to develop and evolve, opening your eyes to new challenges4. Your enemies are often your true friends. The capitalist within you gets richer, and you pass on your abilities and skills to others, via the goods and service you continually turn over. Because old ideas are thrown on the scrapheap and you are obliged to evolve with the times, and you are continually required to work and surpass yourself, using your old products as fertiliser and manure for your new fields of production3. So you even also become an environmentalist in your mental life.

As you can see, for me at least, their is no irreconcilable differences between capitalism and communism. They are simple a duality within a unified whole, two polar opposites working for the same cause5, and the more you develop one aspect the more corresponding demand this places on the opposite aspect. It all depends on the perspective you view the whole from.

If you are concerned only with one thing, say, capitalism, then you will probably not look any higher to see how, further up the hierarchy, it springs from the same source as communism. To me this is obvious but it seems most people would rather be at each others throats. Just seeing how upset everyone gets about it says it all. Consider that the more skills and abilities you develop within your capitalist enterprise, the greater the demand there is for a corresponding spirit of communism to share your ideas. Otherwise you’ll just hoard the goods and never get them onto the market and contribute to evolution. And the greater the supply of your work in spirit of community, the greater will be the demand for your products, because others will be enriched, if only by your attitude.

And so, when you are a true capitalist, you are at the same time required to become a communist. If you have a great abundance of wealth and never share it, you just end up despised by others. It is only natural, because you will inspire envy and act as a model of selfishness. You then have to watch your back constantly, because of this. This becomes quite draining and saps you of enthusiasm and will power over time, in other words the source of your wealth. This is why so many fighters lose their edge, because they get so puffed up and look to dominate others, that they lose all perspective. Their own arrogance turns them as weak and vulnerable as someone who has never trained a day in their life. When people accumulate too much, they are often as unhappy as the ones who possess nothing. And if no one likes you or wants anything to do with you, you are obliged to hide away as a recluse because their is no demand for you. Therefore the capitalist mentality by itself is often very counterproductive, even if it appears to be the way to go for a short time.

Or, you might just become so bored and disgusted with yourself, because trampling all over others to get to the top of the pile tends to have a corrosive effect on character and self worth. So it is then that you are required to become a communist, in mentality, by offering a service to others of some kind, if only to selfishly save your own skin. Then you are not depriving anyone of anything, you simply convert the resources at your disposal to the service of others. It then doesn’t matter what people think of you, so long as you stay true to this cause and continue in your work, you are saved and invigorated daily. Why not extend this attitude across your whole life? Leave the others to their whining and boasting.

The best way is the middle ground, where you develop both your capitalistic tendencies and your communist side equally. Inside us there is an inner capitalist who creates wealth, symbolically speaking. This is achieved by working on your skills and abilities, often single mindedly without the community having much of a say. You have then satisfied your selfish tendencies rather than supressing them. The inner communist then distributes these goods to the community. They are often transmitted indirectly, through your motivated attitude and enthusiasm that you bring to the table in the occupation of your choosing, which may otherwise be dull and uninspiring. In this way you will be enriching your own otherwise mediocre day to day life even if nobody is receptive to you “goods” or products.

The capitalist within will want to hoard everything for itself, but don’t listen, the communist side should be in charge of distribution. On the other hand, the communist side will want to distribute before the goods have been made competitive. In other words, the inner communist will be so eager to share that it will want goods on the market which don’t benefit anyone and therefore don’t make anyone’s lives any better. So the inner capitalist must not listen to the inner communist as far as innovation and drive are concerned. In other words our drives and ambitions serve the communist ideal so that they are not purely selfish, but should never be killed off. The communist side leads the capitalist side and directs it. It is like a person riding a horse, they should never be led by the horse but must dominate and handle it, so that they can travel great distances.

On the smaller scale using in the example of martial arts practice, it is not the move that is important but the energy transmitted through it. In other words, if the drive and ambition to produce a powerful attack are there, and the senses supporting this are educated by hard work and knowledge, then the outcome will be a vigorous and lively technique. This is why I don’t personally care about form or technique, a person could never have practiced any form or martial arts and still have adopted the right attitude and I would congratulate them as a true fighter. If an inventor wants to bring an innovative product to the market, he needs inspiration and learning, drive and educated work, to bring it to fruition. The very next day he needs to do the same if he wants to continue evolving, otherwise his wealth, that is his inspiration and drive will dry up, even if yesterday he changed the world. We mustn’t be stifled by the past, but instead should make sure out present conditions are conducive to the future progress we want.

It is absolutely normal to want to posses power, knowledge, wealth, and all the rest of it, it is just the primitive instinctive side that often needs educating to better serve the wider sphere of life. In the true sense, we shouldn’t think of communism and capitalism as two opposing notions. For me this is absolutely clear. For example, I spend half the day working and serving others, and then the other half I spend developing myself and my capabilities so that I can continue to help and apply myself to the benefit of others. I don’t really concern myself with my own little ideas about what I would rather do, this is just the best way to demand the most from my efforts whilst supplying the best of myself, as far as I’m concerned. If I wanted to give without possessing anything then that would be of no use to anyone.

References

1 The High Ideal https://harmanater.com/2020/07/26/the-high-ideal/

2 Signs and Symbols in Martial arts part 2 https://harmanater.com/2020/06/06/signs-and-symbols-part-2-pedagogy-and-the-art-of-war/

3 Will Power https://harmanater.com/2020/05/10/will-power/

4 Self defence without Violence https://harmanater.com/2020/06/14/self-defence-without-violence/

5 Fight in Chaos, Live in Harmony https://harmanater.com/2020/07/12/fight-chaos-live-in-harmony/

Signs and Symbols Part 2: Pedagogy, and the Art of War

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 9 min read | 154 views

The ancient teachers and Masters of old used pedagogic methods involving metaphor and symbolic explanations. In Martial arts you have examples such as “Tiger” or “Dragon” style Kung Fu. For example the dragon metaphor is just another way of saying “Remain poised, vigilant, and dart in from all angles, waiting and stalking”. However, there are many interpretations and applications of the universal Snake symbol, which is known to provoke powerful imagery in the mind. Steve Morris suggests viewing the knife in the hand of an attacker as if it were a snake, to provoke the sense of urgency and danger required of a fight. In symbolism, most of the ancient examples are all quite obscure and impossible to understand if taken literally, and why this is so will become apparent in a moment.

Using the example of the dragon, or serpent, the disciple must shed their skin from time to time, that is, their old prejudices and ignorance. This takes time and happens many times for evolution to take place. All those who fail to make this effort remain at a lower level of evolution. Of course it’s tempting not to bother and stay in the same old familiar skin, but you must contemplate the new skin that awaits you in the form of a greater image. It all starts in the mind, and later takes physical form. Throughout history, man has had to make great efforts to do this in one direction or another.

Yet another illustration of the serpent is the Egyptian symbol of the snake eating its own tail. This means that the disciple must eat, symbolically speaking, their base motivations and passions represented by the tail, with the higher region, that is, brain represented by the serpents head. Another illustration of this was the Egyptian staff that showed two serpants wrapped around each other, representing the higher and lower self: that is the instincts and intelligence, married as one. Only then can disciples master themselves and direct their own forces at will, and move beyond good and evil1. Even ordinary marriage of two people is symbolic of something else.

Of course, this universal language of symbolism is necessary. Because then the disciple can carry about with him an internal method of reflection which requires no external teacher. This is the secret of internal teachings. Moves are not explicitly taught because they must emerge from a foundation. This is how children learn to walk, talk, etc., by watching little animals jumping around, animals who symbolise, in exaggerated form, some form of truth. The disciple must become a child once again, this time to their own intelligence, to learn more important truths later in life, often using the very same symbols they were brought up on in childhood.

Of course there have been endless foolish debates about whether mimicking a tiger or a dragon is effective, but this is besides the point. It seems that these images were invoked to make a powerful impression on the mind, and to teach complex movements by first using some familiar concept. This is an interesting point because this shows that the old Masters had knowledge about how the student can understand something abstract, like a mechanical fighting form, by first working through existing knowledge. In other words it’s always more effective to learn using metaphors and building on existing knowledge and experience.

Of course the situation is very different today, instruction is often devoid of meaning and highly unimaginative. Perhaps you are wondering if the advantages of the internal method are really any good. Yes, they are. By focusing on meaningful symbols, this encourages a creative energy that raises your imagination to its heights. Channeling ones energies is the real goal, to live an intense life whatever you are doing. Beating an opponent will never do this, even if you beat everybody. In this way, even the least gifted athlete can benefit and over time become a great martial artist in the wider sense. This is why I recommended mediating on these subjects for at least a few minutes everyday, and if you can do it for hours, then so much the better.

The process of inner focus triggers motivation from within, rather than from some meaningless external source, such as winning a contest or obtaining a certificate. To be fair, these are not meaningless in themselves, but the point is that vast quantities of these possessions and skills they are often obtained at the expense of quality. The problem is that many people are encouraged to switch off from the thought process entirely, with promises of learning some kind of self defence system within days. They will learn these skills, but their consciousness will have had nothing to do with it. Of course, thought take time and effort, but many people are unwilling to bother on the basis that they don’t get immediate results. Why? One reason is the pursuit of tangible or material results.

The old Masters were keen to put forward systems which neither individuals nor styles were able to refute. A higher Method. Because certain technical points differ from one school of thought to the next, you cannot eternalise a style in physical form. For example, one coach might says to punch from distance, and another might says to fight “inside” at close quarters. There is no point in debating which of these is right or wrong because these are just peripheral details which fluctuate with the times and depend on so many different situations. They often come down to matters opinion, as if an individual were able to refute the process by which we learn. However, you can instead use a metaphor which illustrates a universal point. This is why I don’t advocating learning from some organised system, instead you are better off relying on a method without form.

Take the saying “If the General be skillful, the spirit of his troops is as the impetus of a round stone rolled from the top of a high Mountain” from the Art of War2. In the language of symbols a mountain means from up high, which is where you must aim even though you might fall over, or overheat on the way up. Yes, there are many trials awaiting us before we reach the summit. A stone represents something which rotation occurs around an axis. This could be taken to mean “Sharply drop your centre of gravity into a strike” or “view things from the perspective of higher reason, with the use of natural forces”. It could also mean, in management of people “The leader does not gravitate around the troops, he keeps his distance so his followers are drawn to him. He is careful to not to be drawn to their level”. There are many more explanations of this simple sentence: use your imagination, that’s the whole point!

Even without knowing what they mean, you can begin to contemplate symbolic language and metaphors. This ignites the whole process. Because symbols apply to so many fields and on all levels, they must be kept deliberately obscure and simple. And this only increases their meditative value. Meditation begins by choosing a subject and contemplating it. Soon, the meaningful image you have conjured up quite naturally focuses your concentration. Then, eventually, eventually relate to it. Let’s look at some other examples of this phenomenon taken from the art of War, a classic text on Warfare.

Sun Tzu said “When the fire is at its height, attack or not as opportunity may arise”. This can be interpreted to mean “When the enemy has given themselves over to disorder, they will have lost their ambition and drive”. Equally it can be interpreted as “When you have channeled your inner fires, use them, or if they threaten to destroy you because you have been seized by chaos, then don’t”. But once again, it is not necessary to know the moves in martial arts to begin working with these methods. Some sayings and proverbs have such an impression on the mind that they provide enough motivation to run with them and teach yourself. It is not a question of their literal validity. And with enough motivation it is mathematically certain that you will succeed in your goals, using such symbols as an impetus for learning.

“War should not be undertaken because the Lord is in a moment of passion” Said Sun Tzu. Now many people have interpreted this to mean that there should be no passion behind practice, that their should be a void. But in fact, meaningful action is not possible without passion. Instead this statement can be interpreted to mean “If you are overwhelmed by your pure instincts, which have not been channelled by reason into power, then you will burn yourself”. Truth be told, many athletes, fighters, and other people, have never really wanted to channel their energies into something higher because they remain convinced that they would be unhappy. And for this reason it is impossible for many to see any truth in books like the Art of war.

The concept of Maya in Hindu Philosophy teaches us that what is immediately apparent is often and illusion. And that behind strength lies weakness. These deceptions are what the enemy uses to gain power over you. For example, Sun Tzu said “the Causes of defeat come from within. Victory is born in the enemies camp”. From this it is apparent that our own inner forces are liable to deception3. To overcome this, Sun Tzu said “the skillful in attack push to the topmost Heaven”. This is just another way of saying that the skillful fighter relates to a high ideal and channels his instinctual energies towards it. He notices the chaos around him, but like a laser focuses on the good.

Now the Chinese Divided Heaven into 9 levels. Similarly, the Yogis divided the self into 9 regions, or Chakras, the highest being at the top of the head. The highest point represents the high ideal, in other words perfection. Only by devoting all of ones energies to the highest form of motivation, rather than petty considerations such as ease and comfort (represented by the lower planes), can the fighter ensure intense vigilance and focus. Notice how, in the language of symbols, perfection is born from a foundation containing ignorance, or if you like the snake eats its own tail. This is what the fighter must aim towards: Perfection even if he falls very wide of the mark. Perfection is what inspires. The more powerful the symbol the greater impression it makes on the mind. Always use symbols and metaphors.

References

1 See Will Power https://harmanater.com/2020/05/10/will-power/

2 From The art of War by Sun Tzu

3 See The Higher and Lower Self in Martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/04/the-higher-and-lower-self-in-martial-arts/

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