Is it chi?

robb buckland · Post by **robb buckland** » Mon May 03, 2010 8:19 am

If our yogi friend saw the band Silver he wouldn't have to look for 'it' .....

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Mon May 03, 2010 4:45 pm

If you ask me...

I've been in Moscow before. They're no longer on the top of the world. It is officially a very depressing place to be and live. The only thing most of the natives have to look forward to in these hard times are a bottle of Vodka, a story about a Yogi who doesn't have to pay for food and water, and dreams of a scantily-clad Russian hottie.

Pravda is all they have. Wall Street Journal it is not.

- Bill

P.S. They do understand cheesecake though...

f.Channell · Post by **f.Channell** » Tue May 04, 2010 2:23 am

Here it is from the BBC then
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3236118.stm

This is from 2003. It seems he is being watched again.

I would say "shakti" most seems to resemble chi or ki in India.

I just find this stuff an interesting study BTW, please don't believe I buy into it.
http://www.sanatansociety.org/hindu_god ... shakti.htm

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue May 04, 2010 2:37 pm

Two thoughts...

FIRST...

He says he has survived several decades without food or water because of a hole in his palate. Drops of water filter through this hole, he says, sustaining him.

Usually this kind of thing is considered a developmental abnormality, and surgically corrected at birth. But I'm happy he functions well with his. For what it's worth... it is possible to drink water with a hole in your palate without swallowing water down your throat.

SECOND...

The fact that urine in his bladder is "disappearing" may not be such a strange thing at all. POWs in Vietnam who were kept in tiny cages and starved ended up drinking their own urine to survive. It isn't the breakfast of champions, but it allows you to live much longer without water.

AND FINALLY...

People who eat very little actually may live very long lives. You won't be very useful, but you'll be useless for much longer than the average American eater. So being older and healthy isn't surprising. He's a hardy man who lives a disciplined, monastic life.

And he likes to sport a girlie dot on his forehead (a.k.a. tika). Whatever floats his boat!

- Bill

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue May 04, 2010 3:05 pm

f.Channell wrote:
I would say "shakti" most seems to resemble chi or ki in India.

This line of thinking is a problem, Fred.

Shakti is a divine force. Trying to throw it into this big "chi" bucket is the kind of granola-eating logic that's going to get my anti-chi guns out.

Incoming!!!!

The quest for knowledge rarely leads to combining phenomena. Furthermore, divine is just that. We humans are mortal, and live by the laws of Nature.

For what it's worth... Shiva and Shakti are sometimes referred to as the female (emotional) and male (rational) aspects of the brain. It's kind of a yin and yang concept. An illustration is below.

Note the cobra in the middle. So we have right brain, left brain, and lower or reptilian brain. This is not a mystical concept by any means. It actually makes perfect sense.

- Bill

References:

Left Vs. Right - Which Side Are You On?

Right Brain vs. Left Brain

The Right Brain vs Left Brain test (I can make her turn both ways!

)

f.Channell · Post by **f.Channell** » Tue May 04, 2010 9:29 pm

Trust me Bill when I tell ya I know all about dancing shiva with one foot on ignorance. Of course Hinduism has evolved over the last 3000+ years.

If chi-ki not divine? Do we know chinese monks training at the Nalanga University in India did not bring the theory back from India?

http://archaeology.about.com/od/india/i ... -Ruins.htm

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue May 04, 2010 9:54 pm

f.Channell wrote:
If chi-ki not divine?

Chi-sters love to take something they can't explain, and call it chi. Divine is divine. Chi is a word for "believers", people with lazy brains, or for people with insufficient information.

My preference? Rather than throw the "c" word at something and worship it, it makes a lot more sense to me to figure things out. But that's me...

As for your reference...

Nalanda University is the oldest university in the world, dating back to the 5th century BC.

And before the turn of the 20th century AD, US Universities used to teach a lot of stupid things in the name of "medicine."

Trepanning

Medieval blood letting

- Bill

f.Channell · Post by **f.Channell** » Wed May 05, 2010 1:56 am

I don't think anyone knows for sure what was taught at Nalanda but definately reading and writing, and transmission of knowledge between various cultures.

And I'm sure 200 years from now they will laugh at what is taught in our schools today.

F.

f.Channell · Post by **f.Channell** » Sun May 09, 2010 11:19 pm

This is Shiva. In the right hand is a drum which signifies the hum of creation. In the left is fire, the symbol of destruction. Yin and yang?
The foot is on the demon of ignorance.
Around the waist is shakti or the devine energy present in all things (chi?).

The circle surrounding is the universe.
Created during the Chola dynasty, without looking-800 CE?.
For those interested in the possible origin of concepts used in martial arts.

f.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Mon May 10, 2010 2:23 pm

f.Channell wrote:
Around the waist is shakti or the devine energy present in all things (chi?).

Or... maybe the divine energy present in all things.

Even as a dead lump, Fred, you posess energy proportional to your mass times the speed of light squared. And that ain't no chi,

Substances also contain non-nuclear energy in the forms of thermal, kinetic, positional w.r.t. a force (gravity, magnetic), and chemical. And that ain't no chi.

The more I delve into Indian culture, the more rational I find it to be. The same can be said of Chinese culture as well. Those who speak the language fluently and have written on it tell me that something terrible is lost in the translation from Chinese to western martial guru.

- Bill

f.Channell · Post by **f.Channell** » Mon May 10, 2010 11:29 pm

As a scientist Bill you will find this guy interesting.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Aryabhatta,-T ... &id=580066

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue May 11, 2010 2:33 pm

There's another more modern Indian mathemetician, Fred, of equal brilliance discovered from obscurity.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of India’s greatest mathematical geniuses. He made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. He was a poor and sickly Hindu Brahmin from the Tamil Nadu state of south India, who was not lucky to have any fancy degrees. But he was a math wizard and numbers were his toys. His genius was spotted by Hardy, another of the species from England. And the association brought the genius to the eyes of the world through Cambridge.

Ramanujam’s pioneering work is the embryo from which the present day digital world has spawned itself!

A reference is made about him in one of my favorite movies of all time.

Ramanujan referenced in Good Will Hunting

- Bill

f.Channell · Post by **f.Channell** » Tue May 11, 2010 7:13 pm

Yes I think a movie is being considered about him, if not in production.

Nothing worse than a natural born genius when you have to work hard to be lesser than them!

F.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue May 11, 2010 7:19 pm

f.Channell wrote:
Nothing worse than a natural born genius when you have to work hard to be lesser than them!

... unless you're fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with such an individual.

It can be intimidating at times. But then... I just love the possibilities that they generate.

Check out the lifespan of Ramanujan. He died at the tender age of 33. In mathematics - even moreso than in sports - you peak early. It is said that your best work is done by the age of 30. From that point on, it's all downhill.

Testosterone most likely has a lot to do with that. Being in great physical shape (brain blood flow and biochemistry) also is a factor. This leads me to believe that we may be able to extend the genius period of such people when another such legend is born in the future.

- Bill

Is it chi?

If Yogi knew about Silver...