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Important

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What is Qrai?

Qrai is a lesser-known self-training method which aims to develop extreme qualities in humans. These qualities should be visible in our normal, everyday's life, and should deeply impress other people. This sort of visible excellence is called "shining" in Qrai.

The main practice of Qrai is to eliminate systematically certain behavioural and character flaws. The elimination of these subtle flaws should have tremendous impact on our lives and actions.

History of Qrai

Qrai was created by a Hungarian computer scientist. His wish was to remain unnamed. He created several webpages about Qrai on free-webspace-servers. By now, most of the original Qrai pages are gone. Here, I am trying to reconstruct the original Qrai system from my notes and my memories.

Reading is not enough to understand Qrai

There is deep knowledge to explore by practicing Qrai, but not by studying Qrai.

Reading a text like this one might give the illusion that the reader understands what Qrai is. But this is only superficial understanding. The deep truth of Qrai can be understood only if someone is actually practicing Qrai and achieves the Shining.

The idea of Shining cannot be expressed in words, but it is readily expressed in actions.

Truthfulness of Qrai

Qrai is said to be "hypothetical" because its truth must be validated in practice, by reaching its ultimate goal, the shining. If shining is not attainable by the practice of Qrai then Qrai is not a truthful system.

While the teachings of Qrai can, its truthfulness cannot be communicated in words or letters among men. There are so many fake and useless books and systems of self- improvement that words have long lost their credibility. Everyone should try himself and verify the truth of Qrai in practice.

Effortless Qrai

Practicing Qrai is a frustrating activity. While it is easy to induce a temporary "change" in our ways of doing things, it is extremely difficult to maintain this change for a long time, like years.

Nonetheless, Qrai teaches that as long as the "change" appears difficult to maintain it is not the real change, and it will revert itself soon. This is because we cannot maintain excellence by continuous effort: our force has its limit. And true shining lies well beyond this limit.

The Qrai paradoxon

There is an inherent contradiction in all systems that strive to better the human mind and character. If this were possible by simply following any method, taking certain steps or doing some exercises then these methods and steps were already known and widely practiced. The lack of such systems and techniques suggest that there is a great, unsurmontable hurdle in the way of any Qrai-like system, trying to achieve internal excellence.

How can Qrai circumvent this difficulty? If fact, in no way. Qrai does not make life easier, nor does it give any sort of magic that would diminish fear and weakness in our mind. Qrai only teaches how to act much better even if fear, anxiety, and weakness are present in the mind.

Inner weakness and anxiety are natural conditions of our human existence. It is not possible, neither desirable to get rid of them. On the other hand, we should learn that anxiety and the resulting weakness is by no means a disabling condition. Humans can think, work, and act with amazing calmness and efficiency even under strong feelings of weakness and fear. And it is just the action and its qualities that can overcome and diminish fear and weakness in the end.

Qrai drills

Traditionally, there are seven drills or exercises that Qraimen should practice. We should start by the first, but we should not get stuck with it. Later stages of Qrai can solve the problems we encounter at the basics.

1. Fault control

This is the first stage. You make up a list of bad habits, behavioural faults or character flaws that you are trying to change in yourself for a long time without success. It could be things like smoking, being lazy, eating too much, talking nonsense, watching too much TV, speeding, cursing, surfing for porn, etc. Then you try to stop and eliminate any of these bad habits.

At this stage, it is not even the absence of faults that is important in Qrai, but the effort to eliminate them and the experience of its difficulty.

2. Being focused

Develop a calm, focused, centered way of doing things in your everyday's life. You should be poised yet relaxed. It is not easy to describe this state of mind, but it is quite easy to attain; - at least for the first time, when you want to try it.

The difficulty is to maintain this state throughout your daily chores, even when you are tired or weary, when things do not turn out as expected, or when everything works against our concentration.

It should not be only a control of your body and poise, there should be focus and efficiency in your actions, in your work, in your words.

Good focus maintains and expands itself. On the other hand, lack of focus and concentration also maintains and prolongs itself. So break it as soon as you recognize it.

3. Physical training

Qrai does not have its own system of physical exercises. Just pick any sport you deem suitable and "Qrai-like": it should be real training, not simply a game. Eg. golf is not considered as a form of physical training. Weight training, running and swimming is OK, just like martial arts, rock climbing, horse riding�

4. Reading

Reading is like a sport, that you can perform at many different levels: like a beginner, like a seasoned athlete, or as a champion. Reading at the highest level requires broad knowledge, perseverance, and even a sort of courage.

Plan your journey of reading with careful ambition. Obtain rare, highly valued literary and scientific works. Read them preferably in their original language. Be not deterred by difficulties like mathematical equations or chemical compound names � regard them as riddles to solve. By solving these riddles, you gain access to faraway lands of knowledge where few can ever enter.

5. Immediate action

An interesting drill which makes it apparent how much 'strength' and 'weakness' is just an illusion created by your attitude and thinking: when doing something of a certain difficulty, skip all the hesitation, procrastination, preparation, and do it immediately.

In Qrai, the concept of immediate action is also extended to passive qualities, like being calm and patient, avoiding bad habits, etc. These qualities should be attained immediately, without prepondering, without preparation, without any 'method', without being too much conscious about them.

6. Silence

There should be a deep silence behind your actions that reflect excellence. I mean, silence in your mind, in your heart. You should not think all the time of Qrai and the qualities and excellence you have achieved. Actually, you should not think of Qrai at all.

It is difficult to control our actions and habits, but it is much more difficult to control our thoughts. But this is needed for true Shining. We just think too much thoughts that are not only irrelevant and stupid but also disrupt our concentration, our work, and even destroy our happiness.

It is not easy to replace the constant tumult of these worrisome thoughts with calmness and silence. You can never do away with them once for all. But you could diminish their influence, attenuate their loudness, and somehow remove them into a soft background of your mind where they mingle with forgotten, non-sense dreams and irrelevant impressions.

You should practice this calming-of-your-mind during your daily chores, during work, during conversation with people, and not while sitting and meditating. The inner silence attained in meditation is irrelevant for Qrai.

7. Fault control 2, or the Shining

At the upper end of the Qrai ladder of drills we come back again to Fault Control. This time it should be implemented at another level: not by struggling against faults and bad habits, but by letting them slip away as thoughts would slip and sink into silence. Then Shining within will intensify and fill the empty space of this silence.

Create your own Qrai

Qrai is not a rigid system of dogmas. You can create your own version of Qrai: your own set of drills, methods, your own understanding of Shining and Silence. And if you think it worth, write your own Qrai book to transmit your system to others.

I did it.

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