For the benefit of all Information about Himalaya Qi Gong and spiritual development
Only by practising good morality can one experience inner peace. When one has inner peace, good energy can stay in the body. Happiness and improved health will be the result, as well as the increasing ability to contribute to society in a positive way.
Teaching without words The Qi Gong masters in the Himalaya usually teach without words. Alex Wu’s teacher master Fa did not talk much. He just trained his students daily in Qi Gong and Kong Fu (martial arts). It was a very hard training, during the whole day, many times under the burning sun. The students had to do all kinds of exercises. The soft, meditative Qi Gong, stimulating the inner power, in the morning. The hard, active fighting during the rest of the day. The students sometimes had to stand on one leg and keep a specific posture for twenty minutes. Other times they had to touch a glowing iron rod without burning themselves. Or two students had to “fight” using mere concentration, trying to bring each other off balance, standing upright with a house between them. In this way the students developed their inner power, concentration and skills. Many students of master Fa became Kong Fu champions. Alex Wu didn’t like fighting. He studied Traditional Chinese Medicine and decided to use his knowledge and power to heal and cure people. Master Fa also treated patients with his energy. Master Fa is not an intellectual educated man, but a very powerful Qi Gong teacher. Qi Gong has nothing to do with rational development. On the contrary. Alex Wu said: “if you are too clear, you know nothing. Because you put all your energy in your head! Then you don’t have energy to feel your body, to use your sensitivity, your intuition.” Alex Wu experiences that almost nobody in Europe can understand how he works and what Himalaya Qi Gong is about. Therefore he can not teach without words, it is necessary to explain something. Alex Wu also sees the spiritual poverty and emptiness in a rich and developed country like Holland. He wants to share his experience, knowledge and wisdom. He hopes that people can understand the importance of self-development, a healthy and spiritual lifestyle and respect for Nature.
If you want more, you will end up losing more If a sportsman wants to win too eagerly, he often looses his balance and can not perform well. If you spent all your life’s energy collecting more and more material property, you will loose all your spiritual energy. Craving costs a lot of energy. Therefore even craving for spiritual development is a big obstacle for actual development. We say: “the more you want, the more you’ll loose”. Spiritual development is not easy because human being tends to be egotistic and not satisfied with how things are at the present moment. Thus the necessary mentality, inner peace and stability lack. The purpose of spiritual development is to become a better person, to be able to help other people. Only if you manage to change your focus from your egotism into a wide perspective, seeing the needs of the people of the whole world, you have a chance to develop yourself.
Before you can build up your energy, you first have to get to know yourself really well.Developing one’s own morality is first, and most important. Everybody has a good side and a bad side. It is necessary to know your own bad side. If you know it, it has no power over you, and you will be able to choose. You will be able to live a more positive, generous, happy life. Getting to know yourself better means becoming more self-aware. Aware of your body, your energy and the yet unknown corners and deep layers of your mind. By being more aware you can learn more from your life-experiences. Through getting to know yourself better you can also learn how nature works.
To get to know your own bad side is a very unpleasant and sometimes painful process. You will discover things inside yourself that you don’t like to know. It is unpleasant just like it is very unpleasant to clean a place that has not been taken care of for years, a place that is full of dirt and dust, with all kinds of nasty little creatures crawling around in it. All the negativities our minds have produced in a lifetime have created such places inside of us. Also can one easily be influenced by all kinds of negative energy and pollution from other people and the environment. The body and mind need to be cleaned. All the negative influences from the past and all waste products need to be kicked out of the system. How? Just read on and you will discover.
Healing Energy for a cleaning process Himalaya Qi Gong will give you the good energy that pushes the negative energy out, so the cleaning process can begin. When good energy comes in, bad energy has to go out, it cannot stay. The immune system is built up, and you get more energy that can defend against viruses, bacteria and other negative influences. More energy also means more awareness, so if you let your mind calm down you will become more aware of your body. This is necessary for healing and development. During the cleaning period you will become conscious of many old problems, before they can vanish. These can be diseases you have had that have not been fully cured, bad energy, old emotional and spiritual problems. The Natural way of Healing is the following: bad things have to leave the way they came. So you will be conscious of them. This is not pleasant. Many students experience periods of physical pains, fear, doubt, anger, insecurity, etc. According to one’s own history the experiences will be different from person to person, but many things will come up to the surface, that is for sure. You need to encourage yourself to go on, to not give up. It is most difficult to face reality, to know yourself, to feel your body, to see your own mistakes and shortcomings, to learn from them, to change your bad habits. Most people cannot stand this, they don’t like the self confrontation and stop doing Qi Gong. They don’t understand the way the cleaning process works, and its necessity. You simply have to face reality, for reality you can never escape. You cannot fool yourself, you had better see the truth, accept it the way it is and learn from it. To be able to accomplish this you need a lot of self encouragement, understanding, love. You need to strengthen your will and discipline. The benefits of a Natural way of Healing are many: you can cure the root of problems, it does not suppress symptoms, there are no side-effects. Because it is a conscious way you can learn from your experiences and become wiser.
Frustration and acceptation Most likely you will put the negative energy coming out on other people sometimes. For instance you will criticise your teacher and you will probably doubt or hate yourself, or others. Just recognising this will liberate you from this misery. As soon as you accept these kind of problems as your own, as the products of your own mind, they can cure and disappear over time. To accept means not to judge. So be kind to yourself. Be mild. Be realistic. Knowledge without wisdom is really worthless.
The Wise Way Of course Himalaya Qi Gong will give you many pleasant experiences and a lot of joy, better health and a clearer mind. However the process of cleaning your old problems includes unpleasant experiences also. How to deal with those unpleasant experiences? Just let it be, don’t worry about it. The present emotion or pain cannot stay forever, over time it will go away naturally. Just accepting it is the wise way to deal with it. Of course you should take the best possible care of yourself. But if you cannot solve a problem at the moment, you better just accept the situation.
Inner Peace. Why is it wise to accept the present situation? Usually the mind reacts on the circumstances and reacts on how the body feels. The reactions of the mind disturb the body-energy and make problems worse. If you let your mind calm down, naturally all the energy goes inside the body to cure the old problems. With a calm mind the body-energy doesn’t get disturbed and problems will heal much quicker and easier. A calm mind is beneficial, however it is important not to try to stop thinking. If you try to stop thinking you are like someone swimming against the flow. This will only cause frustration. You cannot suppress your thoughts or emotions. If you do that, many more thoughts will come, and suppressed emotions will make energy blocks in your body. Better just accept everything as it comes and goes naturally. Letting the thoughts come and go, meanwhile staying aware of your body is a good way to allow inner peace to become. At first this is difficult, later when you are used to it this becomes easy. By the way, ‘inner peace’ doesn’t mean being inactive, it just means being more aware and stable inside.
Mind and body are One. Trusting your body and mind. The mind is guiding and regulating the flow of energy in the body. Naturally, for instance when we sleep, the cooperation of mind and body is perfect: you don’t loose energy and the body can recover itself. When we are awake the reactions of the mind disturb the natural flow of energy, more or less severe according to our mental habits, the circumstances and the way we behave. The flow of energy can get blocked in certain places, where diseases can arise later on. Practising Qi Gong means learning how not to disturb your body-energy with your mind, this by becoming gradually more aware of yourself, learning from your own experiences. To learn this you need to trust your body’s capacities to heal naturally. If you trust your body and mind, if you are not afraid, you can relax and body and mind can restore their natural harmony. When you relax your body is opening up and Nature Energy can come into your body. When the energy can float freely everywhere in the body, when the circulation is good, when there are no blocks, diseases can not arise. “Streaming water doesn’t smell”, is said.
The right conditions for growth Letting the mind calm down and at the same time feel the body is essential, this is the awareness and inner peace that is also practised during a Qi Gong session. To learn this is not easy and it takes time to gradually become more aware and peaceful inside oneself. Also here: “if you want more, you will loose more”. Qi Gong-development, as any real development, is a natural process that takes time and cannot be forced. One cannot be in a hurry or fanatic in any way. It is like the process of a plant growing: under the right conditions it will grow and flourish naturally. The plant needs enough sun, not too much; otherwise it will burn and die. It also needs water, but not too much, otherwise it will drown. Also it needs nutritious soil, not too much wind, the right balance in everything. Some Qi Gong exercises produce fire-energy, some produce water in the body. Many exercises open the body-meridians; some make the energy be stored inside. In Himalaya Qi Gong we put seeds of energy in the “dan tian”, the energy centre of the human body. Under the right conditions those energy seeds will start to grow, the warm energy will move throughout the body by itself. Each Qi Gong exercise has its specific effect on the body and energy. To provide the right balance one needs the guidance and energy of an experienced master, who is able to sense the needs and problems of the students, who is able to give energy, who is able to make contact with the universal energy and who is able to follow the energy-changes of the seasons during the year. It takes special talents and many years of learning, research and self-development before one can reach such mastery. The right balance is essential in everything : not too much, not too less, not too cold, not too hot, not too much yin, not too much yang.
Avoiding side-effects A restless, judging mind concentrated in the body will cause problems: side effects, blocks, and illnesses. To avoid this, during Himalaya Qi Gong we only concentrate on the centre of the hand palms (“lau gung”), not inside the body or on specific meridians as in other forms of Qi Gong, for this can be dangerous. We imagine ourselves standing in the Himalaya Mountains, the white snow under our feet and the blue sky above, in the middle of nature. In this way we connect to the powerful source of natural energy that the Himalaya is. Also we create a peaceful and secure place to be in our minds. The exercises always have to be performed in a gentle way, never forced, otherwise one makes a problem. During Qi Gong we cannot use any strong ideas: we have to let thoughts and emotions come and go naturally, gently trying to stay aware of our body and energy. Just opening you up for the new energy coming in, trusting the teacher’s ability to guide your energy and mind in the right way is the best thing to do. To avoid side effects it is not recommended to practise yourself at home during the cleaning process. During this period one is not yet balanced inside and might make oneself more unbalanced by practising. In the beginning people are often over-enthusiastic or somewhat fanatic. This is very dangerous, Himalaya Qi Gong can not be approached in this way. Because the exercises can produce and move energy very fast, one needs enough inner peace, concentration, sensitivity and experience to be able to do it in a safe way. With the guidance of an experienced master there is no danger of course. Also one needs time and space to be able to digest the new energy. It is like with a meal, you cannot eat continuously, your body needs time to digest the food. Therefore even Alex Wu does not do Qi Gong every day, the body needs time to digest the energy. If you do too much, you get “burnt out”, you will get sick because you get too much fire energy.
Alex Wu about self-development “How did I develop my energy? I have the talent to do so. I’m always aware of what is happening inside my own body. I always feel my body. In this way I do a lot of research: I learned from my own experience to understand the functioning of the human body. This internal Feng Shui is much more important than the Feng Shui of places and houses people talk about. The Feng Shui of the body, the way the energy moves or gets stagnated in the body makes us healthy or ill. So if you want to develop it is most important to be aware of your body, to feel your body, to listen to your body. I learn from my experiences continuously, I always ask myself: “why?” “Why did this happen, why do I experience this now?” I stay grounded and realistic. Every step I do is grounded. My mind is also flying a lot, but regularly it comes down to the ground and then I do research. Even after so many years of experience, even though I’m already an expert, I still research the body energy system, looking for the best combination of spiritual and physical aspects of life, looking for the best cooperation of mind and body. I still have to be very careful, because energy can go wrong in an instant. So I feel my body, I am aware of my emotions, I reform my way of thinking. If you want to develop your energy, you need to send energy into your body; you need to feel and to develop each cell of your body. Not many people did what I did: slowly digging inside myself, continuously researching, slowly digging deeper and deeper. To develop you need to go inside yourself, you need to get to know yourself really well.
Energy exchange and cleaning yourself With Qi Gong you first have to get to know yourself and than you can start to develop your energy. To develop your energy is not easy. It is like climbing the Himalaya Mountains. You have to do it step by step, very careful, because you can fall very deep. The higher you come, the deeper you can fall. If you get more energy you have to be more careful, because it is easy to loose it and to become instable again. With more energy you become a kind of magnet for other peoples problems and you easy attract people with bad energy, they feel comfortable with you. So you easy take over other peoples bad energy: bad spirits, emotional problems, physical pain etc. You can use the energy you developed to diagnose and heal other people and to do spiritual research. To keep the balance however is a great challenge. Spiritual development is not easy! Many people think to easy about it. How many people in history really developed themselves? In China we only have a few examples of highly developed people: among them are Lao Tze, Tschwang Tze, Confucius and some medical doctors like Hua To and Bien Qiao. Continuous research and self-cleaning is necessary to develop. Because I often get problems from my patients I have to clean my body and mind frequently. To do this one needs a very strong will and mind. Many times I just lay in my bed and concentrate my own energy. I do this a lot. I also use herbal medicine myself to clean my body and build up my inner energy. Herbal medicine can be very effective to clean bad emotions, to clean the organs, to open energy blocks and to stimulate the inner power. Sometimes I cannot sleep because I feel a problem from a patient, I suffer from the patients problems. Of course I could kick their problems out of my body, but I just let it happen, because it helps the patients to recover quickly. Taking over other peoples problems can go so far that you feel like you are not yourself, but the other person. If you really want to help people, you need to suffer for them. Many people, for instance people that do Reiki, say they only transfer Nature Energy. Of course, part of the energy is from Nature, but sure a lot of it is from your own body. If you don’t know how to keep the balance and how to clean yourself, you will get sick. I know many Reiki people that get sick from it. They don’t have enough knowledge, they don’t have enough energy themselves, they don’t know how to clean themselves.
About daily life “Just give yourself a little more time and space to feel your inside, to relax. If the mind relaxes, all the energy goes inside the body, to heal and recover the body. If your mind is relaxed, you can feel your body, also your old problems. This is not always pleasant but necessary to heal and recover. Alternate work and relaxation according to the needs of your body and mind. Respect the needs of your body and mind, don’t go to the limits of what they can endure. So always listen to your body, always feel your body. Listen to your self, to what you really want. Don’t loose yourself into things. Don’t let your energy be influenced so much by other people, go your own way. Most people in this culture are used to put all their energy in their heads and outside their bodies. They always keep their minds busy and focus on the outside world. Most people sometimes let their bodies rest, but never let their minds calm down. In this way the body is neglected. The busy mind is disturbing the body energy and blocks and illnesses are the result. You loose a lot of energy in this way and the body cannot function well. So with everything you do, keep at least some energy inside your body. Don’t do things in a hurry. Do everything step by step. Just enjoy the normal daily activities, learn from the small things of daily life.
Change Everything is moving, changing continuously. Changing from day into night, from hot to cold, from yang to yin in cycles. It is wise to follow these natural movements instead of trying to go against them or force them. You cannot stop the ongoing changes: every second you become older. It is wise to accept it. If you don’t, if you go against it you make your inside chaotic with emotional problems. If you don’t accept the way nature moves, you get sick. If you are afraid, you die earlier.
Alex Wu about meditation “If you want to do anything beside the weekly Qi Gong-session, you could just meditate sometimes. When you meditate, sit upright on a chair, your hands on your knees, palms upwards or downwards. Just feel your hands. At times when your mind is very peaceful just feel your whole body, feel every cell of your body and let your mind enjoy the peace. Don’t meditate too long, 10 minutes is long enough, especially in the beginning. Meditate only when you feel good. When you feel bad, don’t meditate, this will make your condition worse. If you loose energy while meditating, why should you meditate? Sleep is also a kind of meditation, a way for the body to get energy. The body position must always be comfortable and relaxed, so the energy can circulate in the best way. For this reason a lotus position is not recommended. A lotus position makes it difficult for the energy to circulate in the legs.
Busy or repetitive thoughts, depression, restlessness If you feel this way just take a walk outside, if the weather is good, not when it is raining or foggy. It is better to walk outside during daytime than during the night. When you change your environment, the thoughts in your mind will go away. |
