The following article was written for the Hindu Council’s 3rd national conference in May 2010:

Serving Community through the Tao
Community networking and strengthening bonds from a Taoist perspective

“Through looking at the problems of human beings as a whole,
we can see where our own individual problems lie,
and through working on our individual problems, our lives get elevated.
When our lives are on a higher level,
we can help to deal with the problems of humanity as a whole”.*

THE TAO

“What is ‘truth’? It is following Dao,
following the most fundamental laws of life and the universe.
There is only one fundamental law for each thing.
Everyone may have a different view on this one thing,
so who is right if there is only one truth, one fundamental law? …

It is our job to seek that one truth”.*

The Tao Te Ching is one of Taoism’s foremost authorities on the philosophy of the Tao, or the way of life. It describes how human beings can...

‘Leave emotions and be motionless’
Paramahamsa Hariharananda, Enlightened Kriya Yoga Master

LOOK MA, NO EMOTIONS!

If someone had told me a year ago, or 10 years ago, that it was not only possible, but actually natural, to not get ’emotional’ about things I simply would not have believed them. Recent experiences have has shaken this paradigm to the core.

For the last 20 years I have spent much time and effort in understanding what drives me, my patterns of thinking and emotional reactions, clearing old traumas and non-beneficial beliefs. During that time I have done a whole host of personal development including one-on-one counselling and group workshops covering a wide range of modalities from The Journey, Holotropic Breathwork, Rebirthing, Bodytalk, past life regression, time-line therapy, NLP….the list goes on. Since 2000 however I concentrated more fully on the meditation and Qi Gong practices of the Universal Healing Tao, in particular using...

Hello fellow Qi Gong practitioners. I’d like to share a wonderful story (well, for me anyway) about putting the teachings of Ren Xue Qi Jong into practice.

Since the November retreat last year my life has been quite strange. After having had a massive shift in awareness around emotions, (ie, that we don’t actually need to experience negative emotions at all), and really experiencing from inside my body the reality of how the Qi of emotions damages the organs and drains energy, I’ve been integrating this new information (state) and living more than ever before in the unknown.

One of the biggest lessons I came away from the retreat with was to stay in a ‘calm, relaxed, natural and joyful state’ no matter what. In other words, not be attached to what is happening ‘out there’. After the retreat, I had my quietest month ever with clients; I put it down to Christmas, despite the fact that the year before was my busiest month ever.

The quiet...

Most people have heard of ‘Chi Kung’, which is loosely translated as ‘energy management’. And most people have heard of the Chinese term for life force – ‘Chi’. This article will explain a little bit about our life force, and how, using the tools of the Universal Healing Tao, we can learn to manage and enhance it for our own health and well-being.

Chi

So, firstly, a little about Chi. Whilst it is impossible to put such an esoteric concept into words, it has been described by Gilles Marin, author and Senior Tao Instructor, as ‘the breath of creation’, ‘energy impregnated with information’ and ‘the energy carrying the deliberate intent to promote life and existence’.

And whilst most people are familiar with Chi in general, its multiple origins and forms are lesser known. To simplify, there are three main sources for the Chi we find in our body:

1. Jing Chi – known as our ‘original Chi or inherited...

Centuries ago, Taoist sages in ancient China understood the workings of the Universe, and knew how to look after their physical health, wealth and happiness. By studying nature they saw that a human being was a miniature of the universe, and that by learning to harmonize and balance the forces of nature within themselves they could grow old and stay healthy. Over time, they directed their consciousness inwards and developed a number of practical techniques with which to do so.

Did you know that in ancient China your doctor was considered a failure if you became sick? The best doctors therefore trained their patients to prevent illness by maintaining a high level of health. The promise of these ancient healing techniques still available today is to reveal the methods of how to bring one’s various bodily energy systems into balance and manage one’s own health. For some this can be a major revelation.

For centuries the practices were passed down from teacher to student and...

Back in 1996 I was diagnosed with CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome).

This wasn’t the first time I had been diagnosed with a chronic illness.

Several years before in 1988 I had been diagnosed with clinical depression.

Finding myself unexpectedly ill set me on my journey to find solutions to illness which didn’t involve having to take medication, which didn’t agree with me in terms of the side-effects I noticed, or my growing philosophy of ‘well if I’m ill, there must be a reason, and I’d like to find out what that is, and solve it from there, rather than cover it up with medication, or prop myself up with supplements’.

Making Progress... and not

After working with counsellors after the depression diagnosis, I thought I was on my way to getting better, and whilst in some ways I was, in other ways I wasn’t, but I didn’t know it, because as I was to find out, illness - and the journey back to health - really is a journey of...