Lecture Six

Cultivation Insanity
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        In the world of cultivation, there is a notion called cultivation insanity. This view has a considerable influence on the public. In particular, some people have advertised it so much that a number of people have become afraid of practising qigong. When people are told that practising qigong could lead to cultivation insanity, they become too frightened to try it. In fact, I tell you that cultivation insanity does not exist at all.

        Quite a few people have invited spirit possession because they are not right minded. Their Zhu Yishi ( Main Consciousness) cannot control itself and they regard this as cultivation energy. Their bodies are controlled by evil spirits which make them mentally deranged, and they exhibit shouting and screaming behaviour. Seeing such a form of qigong, people become too scared to practise it. Many of us consider that to be cultivation energy. How could this be practising qigong? This is merely the lowest state of healing disease and keeping fit. But it is very dangerous. If you yourself become accustomed to this way, your Main Consciousness can not always control itself, your body will be likely to be dominated by Fu Yishi ( Paraconsciousness) or external messages, evil spirits, etc.. Then you may exhibit some dangerous behaviours, and this will have a great destructive impact on the world of cultivation. This is caused by a mind which is not upright and has a strong desire to show off. This is not cultivation insanity. We do not know how some people have become so-called qigong masters. They also talk about cultivation insanity. In fact, practising qigong does not lead to cultivation insanity. Most people hear the term, cultivation insanity, from literary works and Gongfu fiction, etc.. If you do not believe it, you may look into ancient classic books or cultivation documents in which there is no such thing. How could there be cultivation insanity? Such a thing will never occur at all.

        It is generally believed that there are several forms of cultivation insanity. What I have just mentioned is also a form. Because of their immoral minds, some people have brought on themselves spirit possession. They have a variety of mentalities such as seeking after qigong status, and showing off. Some people simply seek after supernormal capabilities directly or practise phony qigong. They are accustomed to abandoning their Main Consciousness whenever they practise qigong. They become unconscious and give up their bodies to others. They are out of their minds, allow their bodies to be dominated by the Paraconsciousness or external messages, and exhibit some strange behaviour. Such a person will jump out of a building or into the water if he is told to do so. He himself does not even want to live, and he gives up his body to others. That does not belong to cultivation insanity but to going astray while practising qigong. This is caused by an intentional pursuit of such a state at the beginning. Many people think that wobbling their bodies unconsciously is a practice of qigong. In fact, such a state will lead to serious consequences if really carried out. It is not the practice of qigong, but it is caused by ordinary people's attachments and desires.

        Another case is that a practitioner gets frightened when qi is blocked somewhere in the body or when qi can not come down from the top of the head. A human body is a small cosmos. It will run into such problems especially in the Taoist cultivation system when qi cannot move through the pass. If qi can not go through the pass, it will stay there, not only at the top of the head but also in other parts of the body. However, the most sensitive place is the head. Qi will move up to the top of the head and come down. If qi can not go through the pass, one would experience the phenomena that his head is heavy, swollen as if wearing a thick qi cap, etc.. Yet, qi does not have any restrictive function. It can neither bring about troubles nor diseases at all. Some people do not know what qigong is really about, and have made some incomprehensible statements which result in chaos. People would then think that cultivation insanity or something wrong will occur if qi cannot come down from the top of the head. As a result, many people have become frightened.

        It is only a state of affairs for a certain period of time if qi does not come down from the top of the head. This phenomenon may last a long time or half a year for some people. A genuine qigong master can direct qi down through the pass if that happens. Those whose qi can not rush through the pass nor can it come down in practising qigong should examine their Xinxing, and find out if they have been stuck in that level for too long a time, and should upgrade their Xinxing. Once you have truly upgraded Xinxing, you will find that qi will be able to come down. You cannot just go after the change of cultivation energy in the physical body rather than the improvement of Xinxing. You will not make an overall improvement until your Xinxing makes progress. One will not run into any problems if qi is indeed blocked. One becomes frightened oftentimes due to his own psychological factors, or to the fake qigong master's notion that when qi moves to the top of the head, there will be something wrong. Such a fear may indeed bring him some troubles. Because once you are frightened, it will be fear. Isn't it an attachment? Shouldn't your attachment be discarded once it comes out? The more you fear it, the more ill you will look. This attachment of yours must be relinquished to teach you a lesson so that your fear will be removed, and you can upgrade yourself.

        Practitioners will not feel physically comfortable in their future cultivation as their bodies develop many types of cultivation energy, all of which are very powerful things moving around inside their bodies. You will feel uncomfortable here and there. The reason why you feel uncomfortable is principally that you are always afraid of catching a certain disease. In fact, your bodies have developed such powerful materials which are all cultivation energy, supernormal capabilities, and many living entities. If they move, you will feel your body itchy, painful, and uncomfortable, etc.. The ends of the nerve system are particularly sensitive. There will be different kinds of presentations. As long as your body is not completely transformed by the high energy matter, you will feel this way, and it is actually a good thing. As a practitioner, how can you cultivate yourself if you always treat yourself as an ordinary person and think that you have illnesses? I would say that at that time your Xinxing has dropped to the level of an ordinary person when you treat yourself as an ordinary person in the face of tribulations in practising qigong. At least, on this particular issue, you have dropped down to the level of an ordinary person.

        As genuine practitioners, we should look at things from a very high level instead of the viewpoint of an ordinary person. If you believe that you are ill, your belief will probably lead to illness. Because once you think that you are ill, your Xinxing will be on the same level as that of an ordinary person. Qigong practice and true cultivation will not lead to disease especially under such conditions. We all know that true patients are 30% physically ill and 70% psychologically ill. Oftentimes, one is first of all psychologically down and burdened and has collapsed, which will rapidly worsen the state of an illness. It is usually this way. For instance, there once was a person who was tied up in a bed. One of his arms was lifted up, and he was told that it would be cut to bleed. Then, his eyes were covered, and his arm was scratched once. (His arm was not cut at all.) The water faucet was turned on so that he could hear the dripping sound of water. Then, he thought that it was his blood dripping. The man died a short while later. In fact, he was not bleeding at all. What was dripping was running water. He died because of this psychological factor. If you always believe that you are ill, you will probably lead yourself to illness. Because your Xinxing has dropped to the basis of an ordinary person, an ordinary person would, of course, fall ill.

        As a practitioner, if you always believe that you have an illness, you are in fact asking for it. If you ask for it, the illness is able to squeeze in. As a practitioner, your Xinxing must be high. You should not always feel afraid that you are ill as such a fear is an attachment as well, which could bring you trouble, too. During cultivation one needs to eradicate karma, which is painful. How is it possible to comfortably increase your cultivation energy? Otherwise, how can you let go of your attachments? Let me tell you a story from Buddhism. There once was a person who made a great effort to become an Arhat. This person was going to complete the right achievement and become an Arhat, shouldn't he feel happy? He was going to go beyond the Three Realms! Such a joy is an attachment of complacency. An Arhat should be engaged in active non-action and his mind should not be affected. But he dropped down and his cultivation was in vain. He had to start all over again from the beginning. After a painstaking effort he cultivated to this status again. This time he became scared and spoke to himself: I should not get excited this time. Otherwise I shall drop again. As he grew worried, he dropped again. Fear is also an attachment.

        There is another case that a person may be labelled as having cultivation insanity after becoming mentally disordered. Also there are some people who are even waiting for me to treat their mental disease. I hold that mental disorder is not an illness, and I do not have time to deal with such things, either. Why? Because a mentally disordered patient does not have any virus. His body has neither pathological changes, nor ulceration. In my opinion, it is not a disease. Mental disorder arises when a person's Main Consciousness becomes too weak. How weak is it? It is like one who cannot be his own boss. The Zhu Yuanshen ( Chief Spirit) of the patient is in such a state that it does not want to be in charge of his body. He always remains in a trance, and cannot lift up his spirit. By then the Paraconsciousness and external messages will step in to interfere with him. Since there are so many dimensions of spaces, all sorts of messages can come in to disturb him. In addition, one's Chief Spirit probably committed some wrongdoing in his previous lives, and the creditors may want to harm him. There are all sorts of possibilities. This is how we describe mental disorder. How could I treat you? I say this is how the real mental disorder is caused. What should be done about it? Educate him, and help him lift up his spirit, which, however, will be very difficult. You know that the doctor at the psychiatric hospital can scare the patient into becoming speechless by just waving the electric shock stick in his hand. Why? Because his Chief Spirit will become alert then, and he is afraid of being electrically shocked.

        People usually enjoy continuing the practice when they enter the door of cultivation. Everyone has Buddha nature as well as the mind for cultivation. Therefore, many people will stay with it for the rest of their lives once they learn qigong. No matter whether he could go up in cultivation or not, could attain the Law or not, he has the mind to seek the Tao any way, and he always wants to practise. His colleagues in the office, people living in the neighbourhood and his neighbours all know that he practises qigong. But, please think about it. Who did real cultivation in the past few years? Nobody. Only real cultivation can change his life course. But as an ordinary person, he only practises qigong to heal disease and keep fit. Who can change his path of life? As an ordinary person, it is natural that he may fall ill some day, or run into trouble, or become mentally disordered, or pass away. His whole life will go this way. You may see him practising qigong in a park; actually he is not genuinely cultivating. Though he wishes to cultivate towards a higher level, he cannot make it because he does not know the Orthodox Law. He only has the wish to cultivate towards a higher level. He still remains a practitioner who heals disease and keeps fit on a low level. No one will change his path of life. Then he will fall ill. His illness can not be healed if he does not pay attention to his virtues. Practising qigong does not mean that one will not fall ill at all.

        He must truly cultivate and pay more attention to his Xinxing. Only genuine cultivation can cure illnesses. Because qigong practice are not gymnastic exercises, but something beyond ordinary people, there must be a higher principle and standard which are required of the practitioner. He must act in accordance with them and thus can fulfil his goal. However, many people have not done so, and they still remain ordinary people. Therefore, they will still fall ill when their time is due. One day such a person may suddenly come down with cerebral thrombosis, or catch one or another disease all of a sudden, or become mentally disordered one day. Everybody knows that he practises qigong. Once this person becomes mentally disordered, he would be thought of as having gone into cultivation insanity and be labelled this way. Just imagine, is this reasonable? The laymen do not know the truth. Our professionals including many practitioners can hardly know the truth of the matter, either. If the person becomes mentally ill at home, there might be less trouble from public opinion, though others would say he gets it from practising qigong. If he becomes mentally disordered at the group exercise site, it would be a disaster as this label will be imposed. It would be impossible to remove such a label. Even the newspapers would advertise that practising qigong has led to cultivation insanity. Some people oppose qigong with their eyes closed: you saw him moments ago practising qigong quite well there, and now he has turned into such a state. As an ordinary person, he would run into whatever he is destined to. He may catch some other diseases or run into other troubles. Would it be reasonable to conclude all these are due to practising qigong? Like doctors in a hospital, because he becomes a doctor, he should not fall ill all his life. How could it be understood this way?

        It can be said, therefore, that many people make irrational statements without understanding the truth of qigong, and its principles. Once there is a problem, all kinds of labels will be imposed on qigong. Because qigong has been popular in society for a very short time, many people hold such stubborn views. They do not recognize it, but accuse it and reject it all the time. We do not know what kind of mentality such people have; they are so sick of qigong as if it had something to do with them. They would say it is idealism if the word of qigong is mentioned. Qigong is a science, a more advanced science. It is only because such people are too obstinate in their beliefs, and their knowledge is too limited.

        There is another situation called qigong status in the world of cultivation. Such a person has mental illusions but has not gone into cultivation insanity. He is quite rational. Let me first explain what qigong status is. We know that practising qigong involves the issue of one's inborn qualities. In every country of the world, there are people who believe in religions. There are people in China who have had faith in Buddhism and Taoism for several thousand years. They believe in the principle of "Good will be rewarded with good and evil with evil". But some people do not think so. Such things were labelled as superstitions, and were criticized particularly during the period of the Cultural Revolution. Some people would consider to be superstitious all that they can not understand, all that they have not learned from textbooks, all that modern science is not advanced enough to recognize, or all that they have not discovered. There were quite a few of such people years ago, but now there are fewer. Though one may not recognize some phenomena, they have reflected into our space down on earth. One does not dare to face them, but now people have the courage to talk about them. People also have got some information about practising qigong by what is heard and seen.

        Some people are stubborn to the extent that they will laugh at you from their inner hearts if you mention the word qigong. They think you are going in for superstitions, and you are quite ridiculous. They will consider you to be too ignorant whenever you discuss the phenomenon of qigong practice. Though such a person is obstinate, his inborn qualities are not necessarily bad. If his inborn qualities are good and he wanted to practise qigong, his Celestial Eye might be opened to a very high plane and he would develop some supernormal capabilities. He does not believe in qigong, but he cannot guarantee that he will never fall ill. If he falls ill, he will go to the hospital. If a doctor of Western medicine can not cure him, he will go to see a doctor of Chinese medicine. If the doctor of Chinese medicine can not cure him either, nor can any special prescriptions work. At this point, he will think of qigong, pondering: I will go there and try my luck and see if qigong can heal my illness or not. He will come with much reluctance. Because of his good inborn qualities, he will practise very well as soon as he starts to do so. Perhaps, a master will become interested in him, and that intelligent being of another space will give him a hand. His Celestial Eye is opened at once, or he has entered the state of semi-enlightenment. His Celestial Eye is open on a very high plane and he can see some truth of the universe. In addition, he has developed some supernatural capabilities. How can his mind possibly, in your opinion, sustain all these phenomena when he witnesses them? What kind of mentality will he have? Through the ages, what has been considered superstitious and absolutely impossible, and laughable when other people mention it, now truly presents itself in front of his eyes and he is really in touch with it. Then, his mind will not be able to sustain it. His mental pressure is enormous. What he says is not accepted by others though it is still logical. He just can not balance the relationship between both sides. He discovers that what mankind does wrongly here is oftentimes right over there. If he does something in the way that it is done over there, people will say he is wrong here. People cannot understand him, and thus will say that this person has gone into cultivation insanity.

        In fact, he has not gone into cultivation insanity. Most of us who practise qigong will not become this way at all. Only those very stubborn people might enter this kind of qigong status. Many people here have opened their Celestial Eye. Quite a lot. They have indeed witnessed objects in other spaces. They are not surprised, but feel very good without any mental shocks nor the occurrence of this qigong status. After entering the qigong status, one is very sensible, and what he says is very philosophical and logical. It is just that ordinary people do not believe what he says. He may at one moment tell you that he has seen someone who has passed away and that person told him to do something. How could an ordinary person believe that? Later, he has come to understand that he should keep these thoughts to himself and cannot tell others. It would be all right after he deals with the relationship properly between the two sides. Usually, such people also have some supernormal capabilities. This is not cultivation insanity, either.

        There is another phenomenon called "true insanity" which is rarely seen. What we call "true insanity" does not mean going really insane. It does not mean this. Instead, it means the cultivation of truth. What is true insanity? In my opinion, such a person is rarely seen, perhaps one out of a hundred thousand cultivators. As a result, it is not universal, nor has it made any impact on society.

        There must be a prerequisite for "true insanity", which is that this person must possess very good inborn qualities and must be quite old as well. Because of old age, it will be late for cultivation. Those who have very good inborn qualities are usually here on a mission, and come from the high dimensions. Whoever comes to this society of ordinary people is afraid of it. After his memories are washed off, he will not be able to recognize anyone. When he comes to this social environment of ordinary people, the human interference will make him go after fame and gain. As a result, he will drop downward and there will never be any hope for him to get out of here. Therefore, everyone is dreadful of coming here and everyone will be scared. There are such people who have come. After their arrival, they indeed were not all right among ordinary people, and really started to drop downward. They have committed a lot of wrongdoing in their lifetime. If one lives to compete for his personal interests he will commit a lot of wrong deeds and owe a great deal to others. His master realizes that such a person is about to drop downward, but this person has already achieved his fruit status, and he will not be allowed to drop down casually. What should be done about it? The master becomes worried and has no way to make him pursue cultivation. Where can such a person find a master at that time? He must return to the origin and cultivate so as to go back again. Is it easy to talk about? He is old and too late for cultivation. Where can he find qigong with the integrated cultivation of both human life and nature?

        Only under a very special circumstance if this person has very good inborn qualities, can the method of insanity be applied to him. On the condition that this person has absolutely no hope and can not return to the origin on his own, such a method might be adopted in order to make him really go insane. A certain portion of his brain will be made disfunctional. For instance, our human beings are afraid of cold and filth. The portions of his brain that fear cold and filth will be made disfunctional. After some brain functions have been disabled, this person will become mentally disordered and appear to be insane. Yet, such a person often does not commit any wrongdoing, neither does he swear at people nor beat people. He often does good deeds. However, he is very cruel to himself. Because he is unaware of being cold, he would run around with bare feet in the snow and wear thin clothes in the winter time. His feet may be frozen and bleed. Because he is unaware of filth, he dares to eat human excrement and drink human urine. I once knew such a person who ate horse excrement with relish though it was frozen hard. He could suffer the hardships that an ordinary person would not be able to suffer when he is conscious. Just imagine how much his insanity made him suffer. Of course, such a person often has supernormal capabilities. Most of them are old ladies. Old ladies in the past had their feet bound up to make them smaller but one such an old lady could still jump over a wall of two meters or higher easily. When her family members found out she was insane and always ran out of the house, they locked her up in the house. After her family members left the house, she would unlock the lock by pointing at it with her fingers and get out of the house. Then, she was tied up with iron chains. She could shake them off easily when the others had left home. It was impossible to restrain her. She suffered a lot in this way. Because she suffered great hardship, which came rather violently, she repaid the debts of her wrongdoing very quickly. At most it would take three years, normally one or two years. The misery that she suffered from was tremendous. After that, she understood at once what had happened because she completed her cultivation in this way. As a result, her cultivation energy was instantly developed and a variety of magic powers came out. Such cases are extremely rare, but they have existed in history. People of ordinary inborn qualities are not allowed to experience this. It is known that there were insane Buddhist monks and insane Taoists documented in history, such as the stories of the insane Buddhist monk who drove Qin Hui out of the Temple with a broom and the stories of crazy Taoists. There are many such literary quotations.

        We can definitely say that cultivation insanity (releasing a fire and going mad) does not exist at all. I would say that anyone who could really deliver a fire would be great. I would call it a supernormal capability if he could spit out fire by opening his mouth or could make a fire by stretching his hand, or light a cigarette with a finger which could release fire.