The Etheric Sheaths

The Hindus call them sheaths.  I experience them as layers which are not always clearly defined like the layers of an onion. This sense or awareness of layers becomes more obvious as you go through awakening and get some time under your belt with this phenomenon.  The material that you shed is that which has stood in the way of your authentic self being able to be present and more fully known. I know it may sound silly; don't I already know who I am? You can tell perhaps that the statement is very relative. Well yes. You do know who you are. There is also more of you to know.  Perhaps it is as though one day someone gave you a microscope and you were able to discover whole worlds of yourself that you never knew existed.  They were of course there all along, and everything you see is mostly no big surprise, for since it is you, it has a certain essence peeking out from within it that naturally makes everything have an air of the familiar.  Familiar, but also new.  Maybe a distant sense of familiarity,  Sometimes, though, and often for me, every time a layer is removed, it feels like a revelations.  And that, at least for me, is exactly what all of this is; a revelations.  A revealing of ourselves to ourselves.  None of them are foreign, and none strike you as new.....you realize it had always been there...somehow it seems as though some essential part of you is rising to the surface of awareness, as though the stuff that never really mattered all that much is suddenly being sloughed off like a snake skin.  Perhaps no surprise, then why kundalini is so often associated with snakes. There isn't a literal snake in you, there is just some things that have a serpentine sensation when it first rises that could be attributed to being LIKE a snake. A skin that gets shed, an ability to make ones self over, or to renew ourselves. 

These layers.  They reside in each chakra center. Many are told that you feel the energy rise from root to crown and you are done. But this is not so. This is just the beginning. The force of awakening continues to move in you.  This is why if you think you have removed an entire layer of material from your etheric sheath, this is just one layer.  We are complicated creatures!  A number of years ago I experienced a heart clearing in my chakra.  During my awakening I knew that the energy was having trouble penetrating that center for some reason.  I didn't know why.  Much of the material that was clogging the heart had been driven down into the subconscious.  Some of what was clogging it came from other lifetimes.  All of this material would be churned up, blessed and forgiven and the center would be opened more and more. The effect for me on the first clearing was feeling an enormous sense of space in my heart. It felt pretty amazing to me at the time. Then, about a year later, I had another heart clearing and opening that was completely different from the earlier one. By this time, I had by this time removed a number of other things from my field of awareness, and now with the heart opening at this new level, the effects were so utterly profound I simply do not have words for it.  What it did for me, though, was to open my soul to the possibilities for feeling on a continual basis. I felt as though someone had hooked my heart into a 1,000kva power line of pure cosmic bliss!  For days after this, I continued to have these heart openings that would cause my body to shake and move.  My head would fly backwards.  I just could not help it.  My body wanted to arc upwards.  I understood in those moments what was meant by kriyas, which are involuntary movements brought on by the movement of kundalini.  Then, a year later, there was ANOTHER heart clearing and opening that was completely different from the previous one that involved a long standing pain I had felt that was being driven or illuminated by the presence of kundalini. Each time this happened, more material was shed. Each time my heart felt different. Each time, there were marked energetic effects that accompanied these clearings, and while I can describe to you how these felt, each was different and I also tend to think each person is going to be different.  Some clearings come reluctantly as the self holds on for dear life.  This can give the energy a completely different quality then, say, complete surrender.  Some energy feels thick and vibrant while others feel incredibly light and buoyant.   How you respond will determine the quality of the energy based on how you participate with it.  Each time there has been a clearing I feel "Ah!  I have finally made it!"  only to realize that this has all happened before, and that this is a steady shedding of old material from my being.  I am, step by step, coming home to myself and the inevitable realization of who I am in the bigger picture.  So, absent having this sense, it is easy to think that with some time under our belt, there is nothing else to do.

I feel that the process is continuous.  There is no arrival, only an infinity of arrivals into the present whereby we are transformed, changed, brought back to square.  Each time a new level or different level and aspect of our complex being is changed.  Forever. And yet, we continue on, deeper in soul, more vital, more joyful, more alive.  Each time these experience seem to put us into contact with essential portions of ourselves that we are just now discovering and whose essence has been tied into the seed or germ of this experience even from the very beginning when things seemed so new and mysterious. We move into the place where we shed this old layer, and it feels like THE release, which it of course is in a way, but once the self settles back ito itself, it is more as though you have just shifted gears.  It is a new gear, yes, but now it is time to start working through THAT gear, revving the cosmic engine ever higher until it is time to shift from THAT gear into a still newer one.  Over and over and over this goes on, and the wonder of this experience is in coming to know your relationship and presence as a divine being with the cosmos which is all interconnected, part of a vast family of being that is just about incomprehensible.  Without the power of love and intuition, I don't know that we'd have the means to wrap our beings around this.  It is a beautiful and wonderful miracle that we do, though.

So feel into each level.  Avoid using the intellect to decide what you think is going to happen next or where you think you are now. Be like a child; be open and embrace the world with as much wonder as you can muster.  Be full of joy that you have been given this life, that it is good enough to simply be happy to just BE. If you can approach all of this in this way, each moment remains fresh, free from weight and burden and there is always something exciting just around the corner to see and explore.  All of this that is happening to you, this awakening, is a good sign, a fortuitous happening.  You are coming into your own.  Instead of building something, though,  it is more like you are tearing something down. How do you build a house by tearing it down?  Only in awakening is this true. Tear it down, burn it down; what remains is essential and important to the soul, to your authentic self.  By removing all that mental jewelry, you can get a better feel for what you are deep down and your relationship with the cosmos, your own divine source of being.

Just let the layers keep peeling away.  Observe.  Observation seems to help in removing material.  The effect of being able to stand back and observe instead of being so bound up in our own little dramas helps in developing the type of perspective that is needed.  It helps you to put things into proper dimension.  Is it really important that someone doesn't like you?  Is it really important that someone is bad mouthing you?  Is it important that someone doesn't like you?  Really, it doesn't.  And the Observer in you can help you to stand back from all the drama in life and find what it important.  What is important is the sheer presence of awareness, the illuminating quality of your own being without regard to position or idea, belief or identification with who said what or how.  Here, you can feel your authentic self, here you can step back and feel yourself become very quiet in the moment.  Suddenly, all the wars and struggles in the world feel like a vast carnival ride.  They have been going round and round like this for ages, and they will likely keep going around like this for ages more. Enjoy the ride, learn what you need to learn or want to learn, but the Observer allows you the ability to laugh at this ride and step off, and begin the process of shifting into a different dimension of experience. 

There is something powerful in our intentional gaze it seems.  By being quiet you can allow something still broader and more powerful to enter your life and make for interesting change.  Good change.  There is no loss, here, only a gain, which I know sounds paradoxical, but you will very soon see and know intimately what I mean.  And it may be that some layers are like fragments of a still larger layer.  I say peel away what you can, let drop what is ready to drop away and do not worry about it.  You are, after all, in very capable hands. Trust and surrender. Peace comes as we remove those things that were a barrier to inner peace and bliss.

Energy will come in pure streams of heavenly bliss that might leave you shaking and amazed.  Energy may course through your system in a turbulent fashion, bringing up precognitions, visions, and insights.  It can bring a sense of unity in your being and thought.  Life suddenly resolves into a perfect holographic diamond where the light of the prime creator shines.  But whatever your experience, even if it is hard, is YOUR experience, and just because it is at variance with what someone else may have described does not diminish your experience one iota.  Claim it, wear it joyfully and if it too must slip away later, then so be it.  

What began as a writhing feeling moving up your core may turn into something that feels like the wind the next go-round. In another round, it could feel thick and hard.  It might get pushed into other centers, while in others, the density feels completely different.  In one layer things may feel quiet while in others there is a brilliant shimmer happening all around your awareness.  Sit back and watch.  There is plenty reason to trust this process. Do not be afraid, keep moving and know the bliss you feel comes from the Prime Creator. You are this being inside of you and digging deep, you will find it.  I know this sounds like heresy to some, but I tell you it is true. But this god/goddess self is not some grandiose being (well maybe it IS grandiose!), it is most often quiet but profoundly powerful.  But trust and Observe. I think you will feel a real sense of amazement in what more could be coming along for you! 

Layers

This experience is one of layers.

The Light Body is seemingly switched on, and with it comes awareness.  With it is a churning effect of the energy of awakening. 

At first, I felt the material fall away quite easily.  These were like the dry buds of a flower. I could feel the energy helping me do this.  I did not have to do anything, they just went.  I was keenly aware that if I was to do anything, it was to observe the things that were being sent on their way.  I recognized them, blessed them, and they were gone.  Just like that.  I could feel myself lighten more. I could feel channels within opening up.  I felt clearer.  Happier.  The energy could be felt deeper.  I felt like something was burrowing into me.  Through the layers. 

I am not one who believes in a process, but I know that this can be very much a process.  I do not contradict myself.  The authentic opening is a process, yes, but in seeking to apply some outside process or method, this does not work necessarily. What works is letting go. This is what it is all about.  The more you can do this, the better things have been.  It is said that the energy must go from root to crown in order for the energy to be raised properly.  Once kundalini or awakening stirs in you, I think it is difficult to not have it change you.  So changed, how can things ever be the same?  the yeanring, the ultimate one, is the love of the divine.  It pulls you along on an ox cart at first through endless towns and experiences until the ox cart becomes a chariot and sets you down by a vast ocean.  This is where it all began, this is where it all begins.  The problem with cleaving to some method or teaching is you could miss some important points.  For example, Awakening does cause a stirring, but it is not always linear.  it is not always so orderly.  It can be orderly, but it can be just what it needs to be, you see?  So trust.  Also, as it goes from root to crown and clears out on its first complete pass, it can begin all over again.  This is just the outer layers. You go deeper and deeper each time.  So on one pass you might have some trouble with one chakra or center in the body in the release of associated energy or karma or knots in that chakra only to find that once the course has been run, you are back in that same chakra again.  What happened?  Didn't I just win some great victory in my life letting of of this material months before only to wind up back in the place again?

Feel into yourself.  Ask yourself if this is the same chakra or the same issue.  In each chakra there are many layers.  Like an onion.  As you work along, you might even have images of layers.  I did.  I had image after image of layers surrounding people, like dense cloaks, many layers. The trick was to burrow down through them all.  Like ripples on the ocean, there are rings or layers.  So do not feel defeated if you wind up in the same place again.  The trouble or issue wont be the same as before.  It will be different.  It might be associated by virtue of what that center aligns to energetically, but it is like a series of dimensions or rooms one nesting inside the other.  Layer by layer you do this releasing as you come closer and closer to something miraculous. Outward these rings expand in ever greater or broader dimensions, into more refined territory of being.  Each layer has the chakra energy flowing or shining through it and yet each layer will have different material.  This is all your awareness.

This is how it is.  This is not a race, it is what you are.  As you move along, you refine more and more.  It is endless.  It is infinite.  There is no end to you, there is no end to this.  There is nothing but a great adventure awaiting you.  It is a discovery of your authentic self. 

So let yourself peel back.  Let those veils or layers fall away.  They are petals that no loner carry life.  Let the suffering of your soul no longer be.  This, I remind myself each and every day.  I hum it in my mind, I think it, I am absorbed by it and am absorbed into it.  It is my prayer, a constant state of being and seeking.  Always returning to the inner self, to the self beyond time and space yet existing within it.  This self is absorbed by love and is love.  The path through this is forgiveness.  When you can forgive yourself and no longer point to something outside yourself as the cause, you will speed along.  Accept your part, and when you do, you will also trigger awareness of what you are as divine. 

Whatever path you take, whatever you believe or decide is true, I wish you the very best of journeys.