The next level of the Taoist internal alchemy process is the “Greatest Enlightenment of Water and Fire.” This level of practice involves blending and merging the energies of the Solar System, at the level of the heart.
We think about our heart as the Sun, as we want our heart to shine on every thing. We want to share that love, peace, and joy with everyone. We don’t want to pick and choose; the sun doesn’t pick and choose where it shines, so we don’t want to either. We want to find ways to shine our virtue everywhere we can.
The sun seems like a very yang, very expansive body of nature but it really has just as much of a Yin, magnetic personality that holds the Solar System in balance. It’s a loving embrace that keeps our planets in perfect order as they travel around the Sun.
The yin and yang, from the sun’s perspective, have to do with the Earth and the Pole Star, Polaris. The five elements have to do with the internal planets which are Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury, so that’s a little bit about the Greatest Kan and Li practice.
If we invite the energies of the planets into our body, we experience the tides of our astrology as less extreme.
One of the things I enjoy about the Healing Tao System is that there is a clearly defined map that follows aspects of nature. You don’t have to buy into another human being’s perspective, because nature becomes your teacher. The practitioner learns to hardwire into nature and invite the balance and harmony that we see in nature into our body.
Taoist internal alchemy is ra process of turning the lead of your base personality into gold. External alchemy has to do with taking the literal lead and turning it into gold. It was very popular in medieval times and these ideas are coming back with books like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Emerald Tablet…
The Taoists have a path too (that’s really been alive and handed down over time) of internal alchemy and it is about bringing balance into ourselves and integrating the various aspects of our personality; such as the animal aspects, the human aspects and then the spiritual aspects, and finding a way to integrate those together.