Qigong, Chinese fascination with longevity and immortality

One of the most fascinating things to me in Qigong has been the Chinese fascination with longevity and immortality. Immortality is not living forever in the body you have today, it is to be aware of your eternal nature – before you die.

Interestingly, Laozi addresses this in the context of light in his poem #52, "using your own radiance return to the source of all light, this is the practice of entering eternity."

In Qi cultivation this process is initiated at the practical level of health and healing. However, in the more advanced methods that are explored in the Heaven Phases, healing, longevity and immortality are gained by returning to one’s primordial or pre-birth nature and by merging with the timeless field of universal Qi. Many Qigong practices are focused on reversing time and returning to your pre-birth when there was no stress, no complexity, nothing to know, nothing to plan, nothing to remember.

Very recently, scientists have determined that our usual perception of time is not entirely correct. The arrow of time does not just travel forward in accordance with the clock and the sun, it also travels the opposite direction. I found this out while presenting at the Esalen-Noetic Science conference noted earlier. My roomate was the distinguished physicist Helmut Schmidt, who developed the digital random numbers generator (DRNG) at Boeing in 1969. This device, produces sets of random numbers that allow scientists to investigate non-local and quantum effects. In our conversations I was amazed to find that his work reflected the concepts that were so prevalent in the world view of the ancient Chinese Qi Masters. Talking Dr. Schmidt is a little like talking to Laozi, "When exploring the science of Qi, emphasize the mystery – anything else that you name it is probably wrong." In his research Dr Schmidt has demonstrated that mind or consciousness influence the chance process in nature so that an outcome can reflect your intention. (50, 51)

This was further confirmed by Russell Targ (52, 53) a physicist who conducted the CIA research on remote viewing and Dean Radin of the Boundry Institute. (54, 55)In the discussions with these three luminaries of science it became obvious that there is a significant amount of research data that suggests that an influence can travel from the present to influence the past or from the future to influence the present. It has been found that this influence is potentiated by coherent function, aligning inner resources through mind focus and intention.

The possibilities that arise from this research are amazing. Healing may not actually be simply physiologic. In the light of time reversal, healing could as easily be caused by an influence going into the past and altering the development of health status even before a disease had occurred. This is connected to our discussion on possibility, probability and actuality. The set of "probabilities" that were on track to cause the "actual" disease would be altered by a signal or message that travels into the past to trigger an alternative set of probabilities. This would prevent the disease before it began and established a new history, a new set of "actualities", for the person which begins to manifest in the past but is reflected in the present.

In an applied sense this means that in our practice of Qigong we may be influencing the past to affect the future or that our practice in the future has an effect on our present. Let this sink in. Your practice today may influence the past to alter your future. As your practice advances in the future the more powerful influence may be having an effect on you now. This Qigong effect could translate into new choices or behaviors. Or it could simply inspire us to increase the quantity or quality of our Qigong practice. Essentially, as this picture formed up in the discussions with Schmidt, Targ and Radin it became apparent that as probabilities become actualities it creates what is called our "world line" – a sequential set of probabilities that actualized. The time reverse effect suggests that, through intention an alternative set of probabilities actualize creating a new world line – a new you. This is exactly what the Chinese promise in Inner Alchemy and the cultivation of the Golden Elixir which is a spiritual medicine that creates peace of mind and a direct association with timeless nature of life.