HISTORY OF COSMIC SHOWER IN OUR SCHOOL
Carrying the Moon in an Intensive Chi Kung Course generated a cosmic shower
Question 5
Cosmic Shower is an extremely profound practice, especially when guided under the supervision of a master. It seems to very deeply cleanse and energise the meridians, with mental and spiritual expansion being one of its hallmarks.
Please can you talk about the history and development of this practice; both your own personal experience and what you know of its uses throughout the history of the internal arts.
Sifu Andy Cusick
Answer
For convenience and better understanding, we may classify our chi kung arts into three levels:
1 Basic Level
(a) Five-Animal Play
(b) 18 Jewels
(3) 18 Lohan Hands
2 Intermediate Level
(a) Internal Force
(b) Bone Marrow Cleansing
(c) Cosmic Shower
3 Advanced Level
(a) Sinew Metamorphosis
(b) Cosmic Breathing
(c) Merging with the Cosmos
The main result of these three levels corresponds to:
Overcoming illness, health, vitality and longevity
Peak performance
Highest spiritual fulfilment
Please note that the classification is arbitrary, and there is much over-lapping.
However, if you have advanced skills, you can perform lower level arts at a higher level, like using Cosmic Shower to expand into the Cosmos.
I developed Cosmic Shower from my own dedicated practice of Lifting the Sky and Carrying the Moon. Lifting the Sky was my favourite chi kung exercise, which I have practiced the most frequently.
After years of practicing Lifting the Sky and sometime Carrying the Moon, I felt cosmic energy showering down my body. It was a very pleasant feeling of cosmic shower.
In my early years of teaching Intensive Chi Kung Course, I made use of this discovery and led students to tap energy from the Cosmos and then let the cosmic energy come down as a shower.
At first I found the Cosmos Shower cleanse me thoroughly, making me healthy and full of vitality. Later I discovered that it also cleansed me emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
Spiritual cleansing was confirmed by many students telling me that after chi kung practice during the Intensive Chi Kung Course, they found the world more beautiful. I reasoned that the external world had not changed, but the students had changed internally. Lifting the Sky and Carrying the Moon had purified their spirit, making them see things and relationship more beautifully.
When course organizers asked me for more advanced courses, I introduced Cosmic Shower. At first I called it Golden Shower, as I could feel the energy showering down from above was golden in colour. Riccardo Salvatore told me that golden shower had another connotation. When university seniors forced their juniors to place their heads in water-closet, and flushed down the water, it was called golden shower. So I changed the name of the course to Cosmic Shower.
In my study of chi kung classics, I found an advanced Taoist chi kung exercise similar to our Cosmic Shower. This Taoist exercise was called “Opening of Five Flowers” and was performed seated in a lotus position.
Through years of dedicated practice, an aspirant could open his bai-hui energy point at the top of his head, like the opening of petals in a flower. Vital energy would bubble out and flow down the aspirant, who would be very youthful irrespective of his chronically age.
My continued practice of Cosmic Shower gave me the experience that cosmic shower not only cleansed me but also strengthened me physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I confirmed the results by asking students at my Cosmic Shower courses. More than 80% of students discernibly felt the strengthening physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
It would take a Taoist aspirant more than 10 years to attain the “Opening of Five Flowers”. I took more than two years to attain Cosmic Shower. It is just ridiculous that with my heart-to-heart transmission, our students can attain a Cosmic Shower in a few hours!
Many other people would ask how our students know that they have successfully practiced Cosmic Shower. The answer is actually simple, but very important. It is precisely that many other people do not ask such a question and know the answer that they have wasted a lot of time, and sometimes even have harmed themselves.
Our students know they have successfully practiced Cosmic Shower because they have obtained the benefits practicing Cosmic Shower successfully will give. More than 80% of those who attended my Cosmic Shower courses, for example, reported that they felt themselves well cleansed, and that they could control their emotions and thoughts better than before, which showed their Cosmic Shower practice had strengthened them emotionally and mentally.
Some people who don’t have the opportunity to enjoy such benefits may ask how our students know they can control their emotions and thoughts better than before. In principle, it is like these people asking how do they know they have eaten an orange or drunk some coffee. If they have eaten an orange or drunk some coffee, they would know it, just as our students know they can better control their emotions and thoughts because of their own direct experience.
Grandmaster Wong demonstrating Sinew Metamorphosis at a UK Summer Camp
The above discussion is reproduced from the thread 10 Questions on Cosmic Shower in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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