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Sunday, May 15, 2016

Conquering Anger



The hardest thing that we face as a species is our habitual tendency to want to shove our emotions down. We are told in many ways that hard harsh emotions are not good.  The solution has been to simply push them away.  This winds up being a much bigger problem than the emotion in the first place!  Psychologists all know about the idea that an emotion that is suppressed only comes back far worse later. This can lead each of us into neurosis-disease of the mind and emotions.  The answer is simple and takes a shift in how you relate to your emotions. 

Anger is a natural emotion, and one of the hardest for us to deal with constructively.  It is also one of the most intense of our emotions because it is so driven by energy.  Anger uses a lot of energy and when it is pushed down, you are pushing a lot of feeling down into your subconscious self where it only festers and gets worse over time.  This can come back as emotional problems like anxiety and depression, or even disease over time. Suppressed anger can change your physiology in ways that you do not notice, small changes, but given enough time, can result in very real physical problems.  Adrenaline and cortisol are two very powerful chemicals in the body that relate both to fear and anger. They can deplete the body of a whole range of very important nutrients.  When this is allowed to go on for a long time, decades, the result is something that can emerge later in life as a chronic problem.  It is important, then, to learn how to deal with anger constructively and not push it down.

When you get angry, let yourself feel the emotion.  When you feel anger, remind yourself that the emotion is not you, it is a phenomenon like the wind blowing through you.  Let it be like the wind and think of it flowing through you.  What you do not want to do is to direct your anger at a person, because this can be hurtful to others.  You also do not want to fall into the trap of defining yourself in relationship to your emotions because this means that you ARE anger.  You aren't.  Anger is an emotion that you feel.  We call emotions because they are in-motion. So let it BE that for you. When you are angry, practice being clear with yourself that this is your reaction to outward events.  It is not who you are. By associating so closely with anger, you allow yourself to be defined by it.  When you do this, you are no longer the master, but the slave.  Slaves will then complain about just how terrible the world is to them.  I ask you: is this a good way to live?  There is indeed a much better way to be.

Do not treat your anger as an entitlement.  You are not angry because someone made you angry. No one makes you.  You make you. You are angry because of your reaction to what someone else has done. Be clear about this one important point no matter how much you might want to make it the other person's problem.  It isn't the other person's problem.  It is yours.  Own it.  The world may be a terrible place with mean hard people, but without you, there would be no reaction to it.  You are simply reacting.  Own your reactions.  When you are more mature and developed, you will grow enough to see that the world is the way it is for reasons that, if understood, would change how you see any "problem" in it. 

By taking offense to something outside of you, you are trying to make your reaction someone else's problem.  It isn't.  The person who was short with you earlier and cut you off in mid-sentence may have had a drama playing out in their lives which you are not privy to.  They might have been hurting inside from something that is happening in their lives, they might have been terribly late for their next appointment. it could be anything.  Try not to let things become so personal.  When you identify so strongly with "I" you have trouble.  Most often, it isn't so personal as you tend to make it.  When you can do this, you will find that your reactions to others is greatly decreased by owning your feelings and letting things go. The other side to this is that you wind up taking a banner against what angers you and you will very soon be using your anger to hurt many people, and you will wonder what is wrong with everyone around you.  After all, your identification with your anger has blinded and blocked you. 

Allow anger to flow but do not direct it at people.  If you do, you will hurt them and then the effort of letting anger flow will have created more problems than they have solved. By letting anger flow, it will move through you and will not become subsumed within.  Do not capture or trap anger or else it will come back in larger uglier forms later. Anger can build up like an account that you pay into each day.  Later, the account will be so full that you will be paralyzed by the sheer mass of your anger and you will feel helpless to the power that you feel it has over you.  Anger will lead to emotional blocks in your body and awareness that can have very troubling effects, from hampering your relationships to harming your physical health.  You will also be very difficult to be around.

Children know very well how to deal with anger.  One minute, they are red in the face, their eyes are filled with rage, and the next minute, they are completely different, wanting to grab your hand and get into your lap, smiling all the while.  They are done with it, you see, and they do not think any more about what had just happened.  This is how we should deal with anger, too. So let it flow. 

By following these simple set of ways of dealing with anger you can allow anger to move through you without hurting other people, and you will not be harmed either.  Let anger be a storm for you, a storm that will naturally pass as all storms do.  When you do, the sky of your inner environment will be fresh and clean after this emotion has been allowed to blow through you. Most of the problems related to how we deal with anger are themselves the very root of our problems, so do not let business as usual capture you.  Like every storm that comes, it will leave you feeling clearer and ready to feel happy again. 

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Energy Awereness & Leg Chakras





When we discuss the concept of chakras, most everyone who knows about them will conjure the image of seven chakras with differently-petalled flowers, all with colors that run through the rainbow hues from red into brilliant white, going from root to crown. 

This is a popular image, but for someone who wants to dig down deeper into what this is about, this popularly held awareness of the seven-chakras is just scratching the surface.  The human body has thousands of chakras. The seven major chakras has persisted so well because they are the easiest to identify right out of the gate.  You might think that each of these seven major chakras might be characterized by the colors they are most often associated with.  There is so much more than this. Some of it you can learn from what has been gathered by seers from the past, but all of this information is also available to you directly through your own inner perception.  Everything that we know about the subtle energy system has been gathered from the inner sensing capabilities of those who have gone before us. 

Through my years of studying energy that we each have this ability in a very native way.  Most people, though, do not know how to bridge the gap between the realm of the outer senses (the physical senses) to touch on the awareness that exists within the sensing ability of the energy body. But really, you can.  I have been witness to numerous people who didn’t think energy as being a real “thing” that a person could see or detect in any sensory way, but I have been lucky to have had an odd habit of having people develop this ability while I am doing a reading of them or others.   

This characteristic of energy means that a wave thus has no mass, and, is a channel for travel through time.

The energy body is made up of over 70,000 channels called by the Hindu as nadi. Some say that they are beyond numbering.   In the Chinese tradition they are called meridians.  There are no chakras conceived in the Chinese tradition.  The reason for this is because the science of acupuncture and acupressure does not affect the chakra centers directly, and because they do not, they have not become part of the Chinese system.  Chakras are the result of an accumulation of forces in a type of vortex, which in the old language was called a spinning “disc.” When each of these nadi cross each other, a chakra exists. 

The number of branches in the nadis means that there are many thousands of chakras in the body.  These are not unlike how capillaries in the body join to make veins and veins join to make larger trunks called aorta.  As the channels join into more channels, the force builds and larger more obvious chakras exist.  Because this system is not made up of dense matter but energy, what governs them is energetic.  As a result, each chakra, every nadi or meridian will have its positive and negative compliment.  Every chakra is thus double-lobed in a sense, of positive and negative energy flow.  In the same way that a magnet has a polarity, so too does prana have a polarity, which is what flows through the nadi channels.  Those who were able to detect these channels and the chakras mapped them carefully so that we have very dependable locations mapped for identifying acupuncture points, for example.  When the mind is clear enough and you can focus on the energy centers, you too can detect these.  To do this requires an openness to detecting prana flow and then an ability to translate this information into some visual form in order to make sense of it.  When it happens it can seem like you are making it up, or imagining it, or grasping for something that you can’t quite see, with images forming in the mind.  This is the cognitive bridge that happens when you use the inner senses.  It is possible, too, that others will experience the process differently.  As westerners who are informed by a materialistic view (everything happens because of physical matter), it is easy for some people to tend not to trust themselves.  If you will relax, chill, and open up to the notion of your innermost capacities you can discover what you are indeed capable of.  If you haven’t caught on yet, I am keen on people being able and willing to inquire for themselves. 

The energy that flows through the whole entire body, while following these paths called nadi are also  made up of energy that is electromagnetic in nature, which means it is not merely a particle-based energy form, but a waveform.

The body is thus made up of a complex web-work of prana that is fed by lines of force.  When viewed with the inner senses, which is how all seers have detected them, they can look like extremely fine webs like spider webs that go all the way down to the atomic level.  Lines of force will at the deepest, most fundamental level go from lines to a kind of mist or “fog” at the lowest subatomic level. This is just how deep all of this goes.  

This system feeds from the extremities and concentrates along the trunk of the body where there are three main vessels or channels for carrying different aspects of alignments of the energy.  One is called Ida, which is thought of as lunar or feminine and resides along the left side of the body, with the Pengali (or Pengala) channel, that is thought of as solar and male, which is on the right side of the torso, but closely tracking, in parallel, to  the spinal column. The central channel, which is very close to the spinal column is known as Shushumna.  This third channel carries an energy that is felt as the sum of the Ida and Pengali channels. Being aware of the energy flowing in this channel leads to Cosmic Consciousness. These channels all branch out throughout the body in a flow of negative and positively charged lines of force. 

Working with clearing these channels is most often done through the yoga of pranayam which involves body movement meant to "massage" these blocked nadi while also using breathing to help to move the prana. Other methods include Qigong, which means "energy work." It is possible also to release blocks with such therapies as deep tissue massage, reiki, and polarity massage, to name a few. Alternating nostril breathing helps to charge and awaken the Ida and Pengali channels in the body, and is an important first step in clearing the nadis.

it is just as important to stimulate and accelerate the flow of these channels as it is to be able to slow them down.  Sometimes by clearing one center higher up in the body, for example, you may need to go back to "lower" chakras in order to clear "new" blocks that seem to emerge, blocks that have always been there but whose presence were blocked in your awareness until another center was cleared.  The clearing of the nadi is, as a result, a dynamic process that has many feedbacks that are the result of one "leg" of work revealing new aspects that had been previously not known or detected.  Like the uncovering of a layer, the new layers come more into focus.  What worked at one point in the process may need a different method or technique in the next.  While sitting and focusing on an energy center may have worked extremely well in the beginning might not work later on where, for example, more aggressive physical movement is required.  What is so helpful is that the energy of prana is itself an intelligent energy and when you can feel its flow in greater amounts, its intelligence has had a tendency to reveal itself to me more clearly.  As a result, by opening myself up to the wisdom in this finely tuned energy, I find my own intuition increased.  You find that you have a teacher within, you see. 

 As a waveform, this means that the energy has what is called nonlocality.

The energy that flows through the whole entire body, while following these paths called nadi also is made up of energy that is electromagnetic in nature, which means it is not merely a particle-based energy form, but a waveform.  As a waveform, this means that the energy has what is called nonlocality.  Nonlocality is hard to comprehend for those who are used to thinking of everything as being made up discreet particles, pieces, and lines of force through which energy particles flow.  Nonlocality is the gift of the nonphysical in a sense, a characteristic of energy whereby particles can emerge seemingly from “nowhere” and everywhere at once.  This means that prana can reach out across vast distances without any travel. This characteristic of energy means that a wave thus has no mass, and, is a channel for travel through time.  Let those who have the ears to hear, hear this!

I know that this might seem to be off the topic a little, but bear with me.  The energy of the wave cannot be controlled by the rational part of your mind.  This also means that for the average person, they rarely, if ever, experience what this “state” of energy is all about because we are all so focused in the linear and the rational. This is itself a central teaching and a discovery that I made in the midst of working through my own awakening and in developing and honing my new sensory awareness that was inherited through the awakening process.  I know it may seem exotic or strange to some, but this is only because it is a larger than normal leap that happens and is a normal facet of awakening (to make leaps instead individual steps). If you are a creative and deductive thinker, you can figure out how to harness this awareness in a way that is meaningful and fulfilling in your own journey of understanding this seemingly “hidden” dimension of our experience. 

So in this vein, I will tell you that In order to support the waveform as an energy that carries your awareness, you must learn how to be in alignment with the different polarities that exists within the energy and how these also correspond to aspects of your own awareness.  This requires moving out of the rational and linear part of your mind and awareness. One hint I will give you is that instead of an analytical state of mind that needs to figure it out,” this is instead the part of you that instead considers a more expansive sense of your being.  Some examples of how this feels is how you become open to new ideas or possibilities.  The excitement of beginning a road trip that has no agenda, just the pure enjoyment of discovery, is one such state that is very similar to this mode of awareness.  It is much more aligned to feeling than analysis, you see, and is one reason why it is missed by many who seek. The fact is, you have it all in you.  We are all beings of amazing potential who are often barely aware of it!

 In another post I would like  to share with you how to anchor or to cultivate this mind and body focus if you are interested. Explaining how this is done in a more complete way is beyond the scope of this article, though.

While the energy body has a positive and negative polarity all through it, these two polarities also align along certain parts of your awareness. Are you familiar with how some anatomists say that thought is partly determined by how our physiology is constructed? The same idea is applicable to the energetic system. The yang or positive polarity tends to align with the rational parts of the mind where the yin aligns more with the holistic right brain. Kundalini is often described as the "kundalini shakti" which points to the shift from one current of awareness to another.  In truth, BOTH currents of the "Shakti" and "Shiva" must be present as they are aspects of each other, not mutually exclusive (remember the particle/wave duality I was telling you about? This is the same; one does not create the other or flows out of the other-they exist concurrently as part of their broader nature).

The earthly ego-mind and the linear parts of the brain that give rise to it cannot handle the scope that the nondual mind offers, and this is, coincidentally, where the infamous Dark Night Of The Soul enters in along the journey of awakening. By learning how to strike a balance between these two in a new arrangement or focus, the self can allow for a better flow of prana and awareness within experience. This is usually more important when the charged force of awakening is churning in the self. On a boat that encounters only mild winds, tuning the sail perfectly to capture the wind  might not seem to be as important to the captain.  But on a boat where the winds are often extremely strong, how the sails are hoisted can be much more critical and their role more obvious. It is the awareness of the self that can lead you to understanding what this energy is all about through inner inquiry, which is how all of these discoveries have been made. Without this inquiry, you are merely taking it on another person’s word that what they say is so, without determining for yourself. As a result, most people are not aware that there are countless chakras. By being aware, you see, you can learn to feel their location and know character.

Take for example the ear chakra.  Most people have never heard of this.  It is certainly not even written about anywhere that I can find.  And yet I and my friend Ali have both experienced these ear chakra activations.  What is most interesting is that as a male, I experience the ear chakra openings as a cool “lunar” energy while Ali, who is female, experiences it as a warm yang energy.  This lead me to the next consideration about chakras and how they are experienced in the body, which has to do with overall alignment to masculine and feminine energy, or yang and yin force. 

The male lingam, or genitalia, is normally polarized in the positive while the female yoni, or genitalia is normally polarized in the negative.  The heart of the male, however, is the opposite from the root. The female heart is also polarized in the positive.  This, in heterosexual couples means that in sexual intimacy, the masculine energy is “received” and transmitted upwards into the heart of the woman, which then transmits the energy back to the man. This is what I call the “short cycle” flow.  The energy in fact can be experienced as flowing beyond the heart up into the crown, which is itself another level based on how the chakras are active and how aware you are of them.  At each center, the energies continue to change vibration as prana expressed through desire, is focused in the body of both people, both probing, and receiving all at the same time.  The heart center of the feminine is initiatory while the root chakra of the male is initiatory.  This short cycle flow circuitry is thus complimentary. Because of their complimentary polarities, spiritual union is possible.  In a similar way as how two merge energetically, each individual has fully merged energy that flows from one polarity within each chakra into the other.  Thus, union also exists within each individual, or the potential of its awareness.  Not everyone is aware of this, but becoming aware of it leads to increasingly higher levels of bliss.  This bliss is a healing force.

Having brought this up, let me explain that while I am speaking in terms of heterosexual couples, there is another level of understanding about this energy that takes in other orientations, so don’t think that my words are in any way exclusive to heterosexual experience.  At all.  Prana is like a very large tent that is like the sky.  It is big enough to let us all in to experience its reality  in a myriad of ways.  I think that a book on LGBT sexuality from a tantric perspective is just waiting to be written. 

When prana is at a high enough level, it is called kundalini. But kundalini itself is only prana in excess.  This is all.  A new threshold is met whereby a self-sustaining “fire” is maintained that is both yang and yin in the individual.  The two polarities are experienced, and thus known, more keenly and this has a powerful effect on the awareness of the individual because of the flow of prana which can confer even greater awareness when one avails themselves of it.



Leg & Arm Chakras

Each leg of the physical body also has chakras and the two currents that flow up the main trunk of the body.  Each toe has the same two currents as do the arms and fingers  and the trunk of the body, with much smaller chakra centers in each.  Because they are so small in appendages like toes and fingers, most do not detect their presence. To detect them requires a focus most often in meditation. The male genitalia and the female breast also have similar lines of force and chakras throughout them.  This is one reason why the hands are so often used for healing as there are terminal points akin to the top of the head where the energy flows from positive to negative, what is often referred to as “zero point.” It is here at this place in the energy that anything can happen.  Similarly the male genitalia has many hundreds of “points” that correspond to points in the female genitalia. In the male these are positive and negative and in the female they are positive and negative as well. Each polarity allows for a continuity of energy in the same way that an electrical circuit is made.  This is the path for higher union spiritually.  The clearer each center is, the broader the experience of this union is.  But having said this, even the skin has a vast network of energy points all across it. Think of every single pore on your skin as being an energy point that is joined to all other points along the surface of the body.  In the same way that the skin is criss-crossed with a vast network of nerves to tell the brain what is happening at that surface, so too does the physical sensory have a nonphysical sensory component.  One flows out of the other and thus each can take information from both to input into their respective sensory system. It is pretty amazing when you think of it. 

In the Hindu system, the chakras in the legs are seen as  both negatively and positively charged centers. That is, they are referred to in a negative and positive light as corresponding to our more animal natures, and are said to belong to the “underworld.” These centers are just like all other centers.  They are neither positive or negative but depend on the emotional, physical, and spiritual energy that have been invested or cast into them.  In the same way that a sacral chakra can convey a lack of good self image and a lack of sensual beauty, so too can the same center be magnetized in the opposite direction. This is so with every single center in the body. 

While you are probably familiar with the Muladhara, Swadhishthana, and Manipura chakras, for example, the chakras in the legs have also been  named. The Patala, located in the soles of the feet, is said to be aligned with malice and hatred as well as forgiveness.  The Mahatala is located more centrally in the foot near the arch and is aligned with a sense of entitlement and lack of conscience as well as expansiveness.  The Rasatala is located in the ankles and is aligned with selfishness and charity, while the Talatala is located in the calves and is aligned with a materialism for the self and an awareness of being conscious.  Sutala is in the knees and is aligned to inadequacy, inferiority, but also self-confidence. Vitala in the thighs aligns with blind wrath while also aligned to forgiveness.  Atala in the hips is aligned to lustful promiscuity and the ability to be healthily sexual. 

The way that each of these centers are charged by your awareness and your feeling, will determine your experience through them.  As with all chakras and the nadi system, blockages can occur in them and removing these blocks is important in freeing the old perception of the self in order to open up to a new awareness of who and what we are. The work of release is the same as with any other part of the body.  There are numerous methods and they can all work for a variety of reasons.  There are posts on the blog that are about these different methods.  Search using tags like “healing blocks”

I hope that this was illuminating and helpful to
you.  If you have questions about other sources, feel free to let me know and I can dig them up or you. I hope that you can find the information served up today will help you in developing a broader awareness in your own life about who you are.  :-)