We Can’t Let All of Our Energy Escape

Do we ever think about what a precious commodity our own vital energy is? Energy accomplishes. It makes things happen. It builds, destroys, repairs. What can happen without energy? Not much. Yet we give ours away almost indiscriminately and let it flow always in an outward direction away from our own central being. We may play sports, build bridges, go to the moon, surf the net, wash the car, or maybe just watch TV or read a book, but no matter how vigorous or serene our activity, the energy we expend is almost always outwardly focused. We need to keep some of it for ourselves and turn it inward toward our own interests and self preservation. It can make amazing things happen within just as it does when we direct it outward.

We live in an age when our energy is constantly being drawn outside of us. Perhaps this is because the universe is expanding and our own planet and everything on it, including us, is affected by centrifugal forces that are rapidly accelerating us toward new limits. That’s the times, of course, and we have to ride the wave of the future, but in the meantime, we ourselves need to remain intact. We need to learn how to hold onto some of the vital essence that is constantly going out and away from us, because if we don’t do this, we will feel drained. The only time our energy is exclusively available for internal use is when we’re sleeping. This is when all of our energy goes toward renewing, cleansing, healing, and invigorating us. Sleep is all about us and a good night’s sleep feels wonderful. How could we possibly live without what it does for us?

But we don’t have to be asleep in order to wrap our arms around ourselves and hold on to our own precious vitality. Meditation offers many of the same benefits that we enjoy with a good night’s sleep and more: a feeling of peace, restoration and renewal, yes, but meditation is a fully conscious and purposeful activity with attention to intention. One of the ways it works is by creating a kind of shield that captures our own energy and reflects it back in toward our center of consciousness. Just as with sleep, our own energy (or prana) becomes available for internal use, but it is conscious internal use. We can develop greater awareness, shed more light on problems, better cope, and find the strength to adjust and the vitality to transform. With practice, we become more aware of just how vital our energy is to us: to our awareness, comprehension, development, identity and fulfillment. Meditation gives a huge return on our investment of energy.

Meditation, however, is not a simple matter of closing the eyes. We have to keep our energy and our attention inside ourselves and we need some kind of handle or anchor that prevents us from being pulled back out, especially if outside forces are strong. The mind itself is an energy drain so meditation requires real steadiness. To stay ‘in’ we need to find things that will hold our attention while we are “in” there. And we need to still the mind. Closing the eyes is a tool because it sends us in the right direction. With our eyes closed, we ‘do’ things while inside ourselves in order to remain there. (Eventually meditation becomes a state of mind whether the eyes are open or closed). We do japa as a way to stay focused inwardly, we do mantras, we do deep breathing, and we do the third eye. Adepts and thousands of years of practice have yielded countless techniques to help draw us in and hold us there, because if we let go, out goes our focus and the energy with it. But when our meditation is successful, we feel renewed and more at peace, and with a greater sense of well being. This is because our own vital essence is allowed to work for us. That’s why we can’t give all of it away. It’s too important that we allot a certain amount to our own welfare.

So in the early stages of meditation we usual struggle just to focus inward and resist the outward pull. It takes time and practice for the shield and the pathways to be established so we’re encouraged to hang in there and just do the techniques without expectation. We pretty much start out working in the dark and only notice how good we feel afterward. But the energy within builds and over time gives us a feeling of strength and confidence. It gets easier and better. We begin to understand; acquire self possession; our consciousness expands. Meditation is an acquired skill.

Meditation is also a powerful endeavor. When we direct our energy outward, we see what we can accomplish: vast cities, scientific achievements, medical miracles, journeys into outer space. When we direct our energy inward we accomplish equally astonishing things. We break through frontier upon frontier of consciousness and we penetrate mystery. We unlock human potential, break codes, imagine, create… know. Yogic and Siddhi powers are very real if not easily understood. Because meditation is such an experiential and deeply personal endeavor, we seem to verify in another only what we have experienced ourselves, so the only satisfying way toward discovery is the practice itself. Ultimately, it is our own consciousness that is manifest and transformed, but work requires energy and we can’t give all of our energy to external accomplishment if we want the inner work to be done.

40 day Yoga/Meditation Series

On the date of the Spring Equinox, Tuesday, March 20, 2012, I will start a 40 day yoga/meditation series from 6:00 to 7:00 PM, to help prepare us for the Aquarian age. Classes will be held every evening for 40 consecutive days and end on Saturday, April 28, 2012. Everyone is invited. Registration is necessary. Cost is $40.

The Spring Equinox occurs in the middle of Lent and Lent celebrates the 40 days that Christ spent in the desert. The Equinox, a day of equal night and day, gradually reaches its peak. The 20 days leading into the actual day of the Equinox and the 20 days after it comprise what is known as the season of the Equinox. The period has long been considered a propitious time to meditate. It is customary to do the full forty days but the time is well spent and delivers a valuable experience.

We will do about a half hour of yoga, with exercises that anyone can do, and then we will enter into a meditative state for the remaining half hour. Skills will be developed incrementally so everyone can master them. The techniques we will use are designed to safely and gradually take us very deeply into ourselves.

The Aquarian Age is one of change and we will change or be changed whether we want to or not, but meditation allows our true self to remain centered and intact amidst change. It’s important to commit to the full forty days with this series because, among other things, we learn to steady ourselves in the midst of vicissitudes. There will be days when we love the yoga and meditation, days when it irritates us, days when we wonder how we ever lived without it, days when we wonder why in the world we are doing it. There are days when we can’t wait to get to the session, days when we really don’t want to go, but we must simply do it and do it and do it the entire 40 days. Once we commit we don’t want to go over that territory again. If we ask ourselves every day “if” we are going to do it, we only introduce unnecessary conflict into our lives. We stick with it because it will serve us and that is a guarantee. And…it is only one hour each day, not 40 full days, (in which case we would be awesome).

I don’t have a location for the classes yet because I need first to know how many people are interested, and this is why I am asking for advance registration. I will pick a place that is convenient when I know how much space we need. Send an e-mail to Thelma @appliedyyogasolutions.com if you would like to contact me.

I hope to see you and enjoy with you the transformative experience of deep meditation.

4

Have You Tried To Be a Tree?

If you have, did you discover anything profound? Many Yogis are fond of advising pupils to experience what it is to be a tree. “Go out, find a tree, and then discover what it’s like to be that tree.” Lessons from yogis usually involve some form of personal awakening so I wondered what I might gain by trying this exercise myself. Personally I love trees and notice them all of the time but I never thought to be one. Trees are, well, such a meaningful part of life. They are beautiful, of course, and appear everywhere in our symbolism. On some level they seem to represent what we aspire to be, a mirror, like the Tree of Life. Then too, the Buddha sat beneath a tree. Adam and Eve ate from one. Siegfried’s sword was imbedded in the trunk of a tree.

So, how to be a tree?

I like to take a daily walk in a nearby park and over the years I have developed a relationship of sorts with one of the older trees along one of the park paths. I first noticed this tree because of a smooth curve in its lower trunk that leans into the path like a sexy hip. This made me think ‘female’ although I have no idea if trees have gonads. She is tall and slim, with that pronounced little curve. All of her branches point straight upward and produce a short crop of vibrant leaves. She is completely free of dead wood. There is none sticking out from her sides or anywhere along her body, but she does have large round scars from fallen branches and there are healed gashes on her bark from who knows what. Still, this aged tree has such a neat appearance that I long to be just like her when I am old: nothing dead or non essential hanging on to her… all dispensed with. I do admire this. But that is me looking at a tree from the outside.

How does one go about being a tree?

I begin my exercise by talking with the tree about it. She does not talk back and I do not feel the least bit lonely. Her company is enough for me and I anyway take it upon myself to translate to myself whatever I can glean from her. I do have some insight into her nature because of what I learned in school. I know she has roots that sink into the earth and suck water from it. She draws this water up through her fibers that are composed of tissues and cells. She teases carbon dioxide from the air and draws it into a process of photosynthesis. Her vital interior is protected by a tough outer bark. Well, I pour water directly down my gullet. I inhale oxygen and burn calories. I have a vital interior too and skin to protect it.

But this is not about me. I must try to be a tree.

First and foremost, I find myself stuck in place. No restless walk-about for me. I’m not going anywhere ever, and I can’t even move my limbs. What is this to stand here practically paralyzed? I have great…no… I am infinitely passive. Birds, snakes, ponderous mammals, and climbing ivy have their way with me. Lovers carve their initials into me as deeply as they can cut. Screws, nails, axes are thrust into me for swings, hammocks, and sundry unimportant things. I don’t strike out. I have nothing to do with fairness or justice or doing or willing. I stand unmoved while the logger comes, or the rushing floodwaters. I am battered by the wind, eaten by insects. Raging forest fires advance on me and I stand tall and wide open, my branches in full bloom. Every living thing with feet or wing is racing from the flames while I stand and burn. No fight or flight in me at all.

I ask myself, what idle, vibrant entity, with no inner and no outer conflict have I become? Is it possible to be this laid back? I step aside and look at this tree and I tell it what it is. I say, ‘you are a tree’. It pays me no mind. I tell it, “I can see your structure and function and call you names and definitions. Do you think I don’t know you?”

Like a handful of pebbles thrown into a still pond, my words translate her undisturbed truth into my own reality: “I am not at all what you think”.

Of course you are not my thoughts.

I don’t know what it is to experience water climbing through me from inside the earth, or what it’s like to have a nest of baby birds nestled in some crook, to be stabbed and heal without injury. You eat the sunshine. What is that like? I can’t even taste it. I don’t know leaves the way you experience them and I eat fruit and nuts which you manifest as bursts of your own beauty. You are not what I think you are. You are not a tree at all. You just are.

I guessed that was the end of my exercise.

And I don’t know if I got the lesson the yogis intended but how can any of us be that tree? Surely this was not the point. What we may “get” from the exercise is a look at how we relate to something as familiar as a tree and how little we really know of, or appreciate, what it is to be that tree. Or of what it is to be anything.

Before I left the park I looked out at all of the trees, especially one very old great oak that stood massively alone in an open meadow, and I said to myself to them,

“Perhaps I do know you in this way: it’s not your spindly, barely threaded, inadequate roots that hold your huge trunk and massive teetering limbs upright against howling winds. My physics and calculations tell me that. It’s the strength with which you grip the earth. And how much I know about that!”

Can You Do This Winter Solstice Meditation?

This year Winter Solstice reaches its peak on December 22. The three weeks leading up to this day and the three weeks following Solstice occupy the darkest period in the earth’s orbit around the sun. It’s the perfect time to take a ride on nature’s laid back attitude and close our eyes to the busy world of light and drama… and deeply meditate.

Of course, we earthlings defy the darkness with holiday lights and festive celebrations, but can we also take a little bit of time to join nature as it withdraws from life’s fervor and ventures within to hidden places?

A 40 day meditation that starts now will take us 20 days into, and 20 days out of, the heart of winter solstice and give us an opportunity to go deeply into ourselves and rest within. Forty days constitutes a cycle in which the body and mind make a round trip excursion into our deepest self and carry the experience back out to our conscious awareness. Just as our sleep cycle carries us into and out of levels of sleep, meditation cycles carry us into and out of levels of awareness.

If we decide to meditate, we should aim for a time limit that goes over 3 minutes because we need to do a particular meditation for three minutes before we actually enter into it. For instance, if we do a 7 minute meditation, we spend 3 minutes working our way into it, we get to experience one minute at that particular level of deep awareness then spend 3 minutes coming back out. How deeply do we want to travel? A 31 minute meditation is wonderful if we can give it the time because we can experience cycles within deeper cycles as we spiral down. Achieving some form of heightened awareness is almost inevitable if we can do a 31 minute meditation daily for 40 days. The two big cycles of 31 minutes for 40 days form a broad band.

If you don’t have a favorite meditation, you may want to try this one. It is a meditation technique that uses japa, the repetition of sound, in working with the chakras and is meant to help activate and balance the chakras. The sounds help us to get in touch with different aspects of ourselves and experience their vibrations or character. The effects of the meditation are unique to each practitioner so each of us has to experiment in order to determine its benefits.

The spelling of the Chakra sounds are Lam, Vam, Ram, Yum, Hum, Om, but the
pronunciation for the sounds of the chakras, from bottom to top are:
Laum, Vaum, Raum, Yaum, Haum, Aum. The au is a quick blending of the a and the u.

We do each of the sounds 40 times on one breath for three rounds. Here is the technique:

Do Lam 40 times on one breath. Each lam is not a separate sound, as in lam, lam, lam, lam but rather, there is a long, continuous au… auauauauauau and we just insert the sound of the consonant into the continuous au and it becomes an unbroken sound of
laumlaumlaumlaumlaumlaum etc. If we do a count of either 4 or 8 lams per finger, the rhythm is kind of automatic, however, if counting proves too complicated, then we just take a deep inhale and do the longest continuous laumlaumlaumlaum that we can on one breath.

After we do 40 lams on one breath, we come into the third eye and completely rest for two or three breaths. We allow the breath to regulate itself and gradually imagine feeling the breath connecting to the third eye so that we are aware only of our breath and of the field in our third eye.

We do this with each of the chakra sounds.

We do the lams, then after we passively feel 2 or 3 breaths, we take a deep inhale and do the same thing for 40 vams: vaumvaumvaumvaum.

We rest, and follow the same technique for 40 rams, then 40 yums, then 40 hums, and finally 40 oms (aums).

After a complete round from lam to om, repeat the same round two more times for a total of three complete rounds of all the chakra sounds.

To finish, imagine feeling the breath and the third eye subtly linked to each other, so that your awareness is only on these two things: visual steadiness in the third eye and the experience of your own breath. Maintain this for the necessary three minutes then each time the breath becomes still, be steady in the third eye and combine that stillness to the steadiness.

If you like the meditation, give yourself a chance to master it. Do as many rounds as you like and build on it. Each round will take you deeper. Extend your rest period from 2 or 3 breaths to 4 or 5 breaths. Do 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 chakra sounds per breath. Lengthen the time you spend in your third eye. Allow your breath to be still for longer periods. Blend the stillness of the breath more naturally to the steadiness of the third eye. Give yourself time to become familiar with the territory. For some of us, meditation is like travelling in a foreign country. But what if we spend 40 days in that country? A 40 day meditation can profoundly alter how we experience our lives and the season of Winter Solstice is one of the finest times to travel within.

Thanks for all of your encouragement and comments. It’s wonderful to hear from you.

Trusting One’s Self

Sometimes I teach a meditation where I ask us to go deeply into what we perceive as our heart center and to feel ourselves breathing there. And once we are well established and breathing comfortably (about 3+ minutes or so) in that deep and centered place, I ask us to try to feel where the breath originates within and stay focused on exactly where it seems to start. It’s like catching pure air, but we try. Then I suggest that we go just beyond the border of where the breath actually happens and seek to feel where it may be coming from. It’s just a feeling, an experience we seek. I suggest we reach as far as we can to the source of the breath, hold, and then trust… completely trust ourselves right there.

For people who are used to working with the breath and focusing in this way, the meditation technique itself is not so hard, but when I suggest they completely trust themselves, many are taken aback and later say that trusting the self is really hard to do, and they would more easily trust something else. Easier to trust the source itself, they think. But the self expresses itself as the transition, the bridge, the window between two apparent worlds. The self is the expression itself. I suggest they learn how to revisit that place and trust the integrity that resides deep within the breath.

Trust is a wonderful experience that I can offer to myself and I don’t need to search outside for it. When I meditate on what underlies the breath and occupy that ineffable area within, I am able to rest. I feel safe and at peace with the transience of life. That space within is a dimension of myself that allows me to feel unburdened, free of worries and cares. With practice I am able to occupy that space more frequently and to incorporate it into my very presence.

Is it imagination that allows me to establish such a useful relationship? Perhaps, but it is also a tangible experience for me and allows me to conduct myself with peace and transparency. Other forms of life may be able to imagine things into existence but it’s very obvious that we excel at this. We have built, not spider webs, beaver dams or ant hills, but Gods of Olympus and Holy Spirits. We’re good. And we enter into the illusions we create as if they are houses of refuge from a universe far too awesome to bear. How can the minds of ones so infinitesimal be aware of something so infinite and inconceivable?

It’s hard to discover, and then completely trust in our own identity, especially if we think we own the self. Instead of experiencing life as a river that runs through us, we think our breath belongs to us and we contain it. But it only flows in then out as life and death. We have lots of beliefs about our self but we seldom seek the actual experience of self. To do so we have to go within and be willing to learn.

If we took only 31 minutes a day to link the ineffable to the concrete world, we would transform ourselves into totally living entities. We may find ourselves saying, more often than not, that we don’t know the meaning of our revelations, but not knowing would not prevent us from giving them expression, or more importantly, rob us of the experience they offer.

Think of our private dream world. We may dream that we fly around a room. Some people experience flying to other places. Of course we cannot “do” that in tangible life right now, but we nonetheless “experience” it in the dream. And these experiences are real. The nightmares, the falling, the running, the human interactions and sexual feelings are actual in our dream experience, even if they are only internal events.

Our visions, intuitions, psychic abilities, sudden insights, premonitions, imaginations, and our eureka moments…these are real. We are windows into other realms and we experience these worlds naturally, not as strange or weird, but as home. These insights are our birthright so why diminish their relevance? They are a huge untapped resource building up to the Age of Aquarius: a world full of inner worlds that create a virtual reality we can live with, in case, out of blindness, we destroy our present world.

And why not a new world based on awakened collective consciousness? This would be up to each individual and that’s no secret. All of the great religious teachers directed us to go within where the truth resides… within. It may be easier for some of us to flail about without and pretend there is no inner truth to be discovered, but some of us can truly and deeply trust ourselves and be able to take our own inner journey to knowledge. Those who do take the inner journey may discover how strong and multi-dimensional we really are, and this may lead to a new world that is beyond our present imagination. As always, the answers have to come from us.

What do WE know? We are big toe dipping into the Age of Aquarius when every presence will be as a byte in the collective consciousness. We certainly need to know what WE virtually know, and with more access to each other and more freedom of expression we may tap into a huge internal reservoir that generates new ideas and fresh insights. We may discover new truths that lie within our own psyche and be able to resolve difficult dilemmas about what to do with earth and us. But we have to understand what we mean by the profound question “what do WE know?” It’s a challenge that presents itself in everyday life.

For instance, I once had a miniature black poodle named Tex. He didn’t look impressive but he was 100% pure poodle. His legs were too short, his mustache was crooked, and he was always scruffy looking even after grooming and a bath, but in his own world he was highly regarded…a sort of champion. And friends who knew him said he was a born psychiatrist. There are lots of Tex stories, but I have a few favorites to share as a way to illustrate my own journey about the question of knowing.

My friend Cynthia tells a good Tex the Champion story about how he “saved” her and her own little poodle named Rosie. One early afternoon Cyn took Tex and Rosie for a walk in the park. It was an odd time of day for people to be in the park and they were the only ones walking a path through the trees. Suddenly a strange, wild looking un-collared dog rushed to about 15 feet in front of them. The dog, large and larger still with hackles up, stared menacingly at them, his lips drawn back in a snarl, teeth bared. His back was arched and he was growling strong enough to create vibrations in Cynthia. She was struck with fear for the poodles, and for herself, and was frozen to the spot, not knowing what to do when Tex slowly walked away from her and toward the growling dog. Cyn felt certain that Tex was trying to protect both her and Rosie but the stray dog was so big and dangerous. She was afraid for Tex and called him back but he continued to approach the other dog and when he got in front of him, Tex stood up on his hind legs and licked the snarling dog’s exposed canines. The towering dog stood still and tolerated Tex’s licking then he lowered his hackles and sniffed nose to nose with Tex. Somehow satisfied, the dog went limp and quickly sauntered off. Cynthia was amazed with Tex and exclaimed, “That dog is not a dog!”

Tex was a great soother. Rescuing dogs or people from their own troublesome feelings seems to have been innate in Tex. He once jumped from my lap and out the open window of my moving van in order to reach some crying baby in a nearby parked car.

He had his successes and he had his failures, but he never failed to have an effect.
For instance, there was Rusty who could not be soothed. I had a summer cabin in the woods and down the road a ways my neighbor Pat had a Pomeranian named Rusty. Her cabin sat back a safe distance from the dirt road but when Tex & I walked past, Rusty barked frantically. This went on for years. Tex usually looked at Rusty as if studying him and then walked on, but sometimes Pat waved us up to visit, in which case Rusty was beside himself with staccato-like barks every step we took while Pat laughed in great amusement. I think Tex tried everything to put Rusty at ease. Each visit he patiently used a careful approach. He walked slowly and paused frequently between advances. One time Tex even tried tucking his tail (something he never did, even in his sleep) and lowering his head, only glancing sideways as he moved forward. He stopped and laid down facing Rusty, he lay down not facing Rusty. He stretched out on his side one way, he turned the other way. Tex developed such a concerned look when he faced Rusty that he seemed to be pleading. Nothing worked. Rusty just barked all the more frantically, if that was possible, and never had a close encounter with Tex, but the effort was not completely without results. One year when we all came together for another summer season, Pat called to me and said,
“Look at Rusty. He has a limp. He’s been doing that all winter.”

Because of an operation, Tex had a distinguished limp himself. He would very briefly lift his hind leg just a bit every other step or so.

“Oh no” I said, “What happened? Did Rusty have an injury?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that leg!” she whooped. Can you see? He’s walking exactly like Tex. Ha! Imitation is the highest form of flattery. He thinks he’s Tex!”
So Rusty found a way to be strong after all.

Sometimes ‘what do WE know” has to arrive in just the right context for us to understand its meaning. Then it has its impact.

A year or so after Tex died, I did my usual morning meditation and was in a deep state. My mind, my senses, and my visual field were in a dark and silent empty space when suddenly out of the void a vision of Orion appeared, one leg bent at the knee, the other stretched straight back, sword and shield at the ready, and off he went in that static pose, as if propelled by some internal cannon, and he disappeared far into the vast space. It was so sudden and quick. The image rose and disappeared in a second but it carried a profound and wordless message: this was Tex. He was a great spirit. It literally struck me. Tex was a very great spirit. Not a “spirited” dog or a dog with spirit, but a great spirit as dog. I was profoundly moved. It was as if I had just learned that the Clark Kent I lived with was really superman. I had spent a little over 18 years with Tex, adored and admired him, but who really shared those years with me and with others? Call me crazy. Sure.

One day, soon after my vision, I ran into my friend Terry in the same park where Tex and I once walked every day. Terry was walking her own dogs and we talked as we went around the trail. She brought up Tex’s name because she missed him too, so I told her about my meditation and how I was stunned to learn that he was a great spirit, but then I hedged, became apologetic and dismissive.

“Well, I mean it was just something that came up in my meditation. It doesn’t mean anything really.” And she angrily retorted,

“What do you mean it’s nothing? What do WE know? You don’t know if it means anything or not. We don’t know anything about a lot of things. Tex was special.”
Wow. What DO we know? Or WHAT do we know? What do we KNOW? And what do WE know? What a great response from Terry, and how helpful. It made me think more openly about our own unshared inner revelations and of what a loss they may be to all of us.

Somehow we seem embarrassed by our own private knowing, as if it subjects us to even more scrutiny than our naked bodies. Or will turn people away. We’re embarrassed by other’s naked illusions too, and quickly react, saying “This is too much information. This has nothing to do with me.”, like the reaction to a religious belief. Someone says “God watches over me. I feel it.” and someone else says “Let me out of here. I don’t believe that stuff.”

My sudden impression of Tex as a great spirit took me by surprise. With time it has proven indelible. Because what does it mean to impress? It means to imprint, to stamp. Some things we just think. Thousands of fleeting thoughts come and go every second, while some thoughts make an impression and mark us. But what does this striking mean? Pay attention? I’m highlighting this?

Humanity used to put its greatest value on personal vision and revelation, the source of all creativity and knowledge. Christ, Moses, Muhammad, the Buddha… all men, each undeniably a human being. How seriously we consider what came up to and out of them! What has come out of all the Shamans and Yogis and Medicine men and women worldwide in villages and huts, on back streets and corner churches? What comes from an artist, a poet, a musician? What comes up to and out of me or any of us? It may be only I who knows what I know. Each individual has his or her own little storehouse but collectively our inner knowledge could open a wonder of wonders and give us answers undreamed of. Perhaps the time has come to trust our individual selves.

Hello Dear Viewers,
Thank you so much for your interest and patience. I have been unable to post because we developed a new website, then there was a general upheaval with hurricanes etc. I am so glad to be back with you and thank you for your posts. Let’s begin anew and please do share your thoughts and vision.