* * * New Chakra Series for Shaktipat * * *

[Guest guest]

This is the new Chakra series I had mentioned.

I decided to post it all together with all the

Seven Chakras so that those who would like to

explore this series each day of Shaktipat can

do so. It may not be for everyone. I will not be

posting this daily, just this one time. So keep

it for yourself if you want to follow it.

The daily posting will be the series we've been

using for past Shaktipats.

 

Have a blessed Week everyone!

Love, dhyana

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

We now begin the journey through the chakras.

 

Articles taken from the book:

~Anatomy of the Spirit –

The Seven Stages of Power and Healing~

by Caroline Myss, PH.D

 

When we are born into physical form we set foot on

the first rung of the ladder which is…

 

External Power through the Chakras One to Three

and their corresponding Sacred Truths.

 

We then continue on the ladder with the steps of

Internal Power through Chakras Four to Seven.

 

 

THE FIRST CHAKRA

 

External Power

Level One

 

Tribal Power

 

Sacred Truth of the First Chakra

The Sacred Truth inherent in the first chakra is that

 

~All is One~.

 

We learn this truth and explore its creative power through experiences

connected to tribal or group dynamics. It carries the message that we

are connected to all of life and that every choice we make and every

belief we hold exerts influence upon the whole of life, and that we

are all part of one spiritual community. As part of our spiritual

development and our biological health, this Sacred Truth has physical

expressions in honour, loyalty, justice, family and group bonds,

groundedness, our need for spiritual foundation, and the ability to

manage physical power for survival.

 

We begin to discover that all is One as we start life within our tribe

or family. To be part of a tribe is a primal need, since we are

completely dependent upon our tribe for basic survival needs; food,

shelter and clothing. As tribal beings, we are energetically designed

to live together, to create together, to learn together, to be

together, to need one another. Each of our tribal environments - from

our biological tribe, to the tribes we form with co-workers, to our

tribal bonds with friends - provides the essential physical settings

within which we can explore the creative power of this truth.

 

The power created by the first chakra transits into our energy and

biological systems the sacred Truth ~All is One~. We are

inter-connected with all of life and to each other. Each of us must

learn to honour this truth. This is the tribal chakra resonating to

our need to honour familial bonds and to have a code of honour with in

ourselves. One first encounters the Truth ~All is One~ within one`s

biological family, learning to respect the ~blood bond~. Your

family may also teach you ~we are all part of one Divine family

~All is One~ in your church or whatever place of religious worship.

 

Your bond to your biological family is symbolic of your connection to

everyone and all that is life. violating this energy bond by, for

instance, considering those who are different to us to be less than

us, creates conflict within our spirit and therefore within our

physical body. Acting and accepting according to the basic truth, ~All

is One~ is a Universal spiritual challenge.

 

The energy content of the first of Tribal Charka is ~tribal power~.

The word tribe is not only a synonym for family but an archetype, and

as such has its connotations beyond its more conventional definition.

It also connotes group identity, group force, group will power and

group belief patterns. The first chakra grounds us. It is our

connection to traditional familial beliefs that support the formation

of identity and a sense of belonging to a group of people in a

geographic location.

 

Location

 

Base of the spine

 

Energy connection to the emotional mental body

 

The first chakra is the foundation of emotional and mental health.

Emotional and psychological stability originate in the family unit and

early social environment. Various mental illnesses are generated out

of family dysfunction, including multiple personalities,

obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and destructive patterns

like alcoholism.

 

Symbolic/perceptual connection

 

First chakra energy manifests in our need for logic, order and

structure. This energy orients us in time and space and to our five

senses. As children, we perceive and learn about the physical world

through our five senses. First chakra energy has trouble interpreting

our lives symbolically, for our five senses give us literal

perceptions and cause us to take this at face value. Not until we are

older are we able to seek out the symbolic meaning of events and

relationships.

 

Primary Strengths

 

Tribal/family identity, bonding, and the tribal honour code, the

support and loyalty that gives one a sense of safety and connection to

the physical world.

 

Primary Fears

 

Fears of physical survival, abandonment by the group, and loss of

physical order.

 

Tribal Culture

 

No-one begins life as a conscious individual with conscious will

power. That identity comes much later and develops in stages from

childhood through adulthood. Beginning life as part of a tribe, we

become connected to our tribal consciousness and collective willpower

by absorbing its strengths and weaknesses, beliefs, superstitions and

fears.

 

Through our interactions with family and other groups, we learn the

power of sharing a belief with other people. We also learn how painful

it can be to be excluded from a group and its energy. We learn the

power of sharing a moral and ethical code handed down from generation

to generation. This code of behavior guides children of the tribe

during their developmental years, providing a sense of dignity and

belonging.

 

If tribal experiences interconnect us, so do tribal attitudes, whether

sophisticated perception such as ~We are all brothers and sisters~ or

superstitions such as ~the number 13 is bad luck~

 

Our respective tribes introduce us to life ~in the world~. They teach

us that the world is either safe or dangerous, abundant or poverty

ridden, educated or ignorant, a place to take from or to give to. And

they transmit their perceptions about the nature of reality itself -

for instance, that this life is only one of many or that this life is

all there is. We inherit from our tribes their attitudes towards

another religious, ethnic and racial groups. Our tribes ~activate~ our

thinking process.

 

The tribal beliefs we inherit are a combination of truth and fiction.

Many of them such as ~Murder is forbidden~ hold eternal value. Others

lack that quality of eternal truth and are more parochial, designed to

keep the tribes separate from one another, in violation of the Sacred

Truth ~All is One~. The process of spiritual development challenges us

to retain the tribal influences that are positive and to discard those

that are not.

 

Our spiritual power grows when we are able to see beyond the

contradictions inherent in tribal teachings and pursue a deeper level

of truth. Each time we make a shift towards symbolic awareness, we

positive influence our energy and biological systems. We also

contribute positive energy to the collective body of life - the

global tribe.

 

The Energy consequences of Belief Patterns

 

Regardless of the ~truth~ of familial beliefs, every one of them

directs a measure of our energy into an act of creation. Each belief,

each action has a direct consequence. When we share belief patterns

with groups of people, we participate in energy and physical events

created by those groups. This is the creative symbolic expression of

the Sacred Truth ~All is One~.

 

For example, when we share support for a candidate running for office,

and that candidate wins, we feel our energy and physical support

helped; further, we have some sense that he or she represents our

concerns which is a way of physically experiencing the power of unity

in the truth ~All is One~.

 

The shadow side of this (lower side) is that individuals involved in

~negative~ group action rarely, if ever, accept responsibility for

their personal role and action. This reality is the shadow side as in

fact, unwritten tribal laws hold that the leaders accept

responsibility, not the followers. For example, the Nuremberg trials

following World War II are classic examples of the limitations of

tribal responsibility. Most of the defendants on trial stated that

they were ~only following orders~. No doubt at the time, they were

proud of their ability to fulfil their tribal responsibilities, but

they were completely unable to accept any personal consequences at the

trials.

 

Given the power of unified beliefs, right or wrong, it is difficult to

be at variance with one's tribe. We are taught to make choices that

meet with tribal approval, to adopt its social graces, manner of

dress, and attitudes. Symbolically this adaptation reflects the union

of individual will power with group willpower. It is a powerful

feeling to be in a group of people or a family with whom you feel

spiritually, emotionally, and physically comfortable. Such a union

empowers us and energetically enhances our personal power and our

creative strength - and it continues as long as we make choices

consonant with the group's. We unite to create.

 

At the same time we have within us a relentless congenital desire to

explore our own creative abilities, to develop our individual power

and authority. This desire is the impetus behind our striving to

become ~conscious~. The universal humanjourney is one of becoming

conscious of our power and how to use that power. Becoming conscious

of the responsibility inherent in the power of choice represents

the core of this journey.

 

From an energy perspective, becoming conscious requires stamina. It is

extremely challenging, and often very painful, to evaluate our own

personal belief systems and separate ourselves from those that no

longer support our growth. Change is the nature of life, and external

and internal change is constant. When we change inwardly, we outgrow

certain belief patterns and strengthen others. The first belief

patterns that we challenge are tribal because our spiritual

development follows the structure of our energy system; we clear our

ideas from the bottom up, starting with the earliest and most basic.

 

Evaluating our beliefs is a spiritual and biological necessity. Our

physical bodies, minds and spirits all require new ideas in order to

thrive. Seen symbolically our life crises tell us that we need to

break free of beliefs that no longer serve our personal development.

These points at which we must choose to change or to stagnate are our

greatest challenges. Every new crossroad means we enter into a new

cycle of change and change inevitably means letting go of familiar

people and places and moving onto another stage of life.

 

Many people are stuck between the two worlds; the old world that they

need to release and the new world that they are afraid to enter. We

are attracted to becoming more " conscious " but at the same time we

find it frightening because it means we must take some personal

responsibility for ourselves - and for our health, career, attitudes

and thoughts. Once we accept personal responsibility for even one area

of our lives, we can never use ~tribal reasoning~ to excuse our

behaviour.

 

In tribal consciousness personal responsibility does not exist in well

defined terms, so it is much easier to avoid the consequences of

personal choices in the tribal milieu. Tribal responsibility extends

mainly to the physical areas of our lives, meaning individuals are

accountable for their finances, social concerns, relationships and

occupations. The tribe does not require members to take

personal responsibility for the attitudes they inherit. According to

tribal reasoning it is acceptable to excuse one's prejudices by saying

~everyone in my family things this way~ yet the spiritually conscious

adult, however can no longer utilise tribal reasoning.

 

Challenging Tribal Power

 

From our tribe we learn about loyalty, honor and justice - moral

attitudes that are essential to our well being and sense of personal

and group responsibility. Each of them expresses the sacred truth ~All

is One~…

 

Loyalty

 

Loyalty is an instinct, an unwritten law that tribal members can rely

on particularly in times of crisis. It is thus part of the tribal

power system and if often more influential than love. You can feel

loyalty toward a family member you do not love, and you can feel

loyalty toward people who share your ethnic background, even though

you do not know them personally. An expectation of loyalty from a

group holds enormous power over an individual, especially when one

feels conflicted over allegiance to someone or some cause that holds

great personal values.

 

Loyalty is a beautiful tribal quality, most especially when it is

conscious loyalty, a commitment that serves the individual as well as

the group. Extremes of loyalty that harms one ability to protect

oneself however, qualify as a belief pattern from which one needs to

free oneself.

 

Honor

 

A tribe is bonded not only by loyalty but by honor. Every tribe's code

of honor is a combination of religious and ethnic traditions and

rituals. Rituals such as Baptism or other tribal blessings

energetically bond new members to the group's spiritual power. A sense

of honor radiates strength within us, aligns us with our blood and

ethnic relations, and teaches us the significance of keeping our word

and acting with integrity.

 

A sense of honor contributes a very forceful and positive energy into

our spiritual and biological systems. Without honor, it is very

difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to stand up for

himself with pride and dignity, because he lacks a frame of reference

for his behavior and choices and thus cannot trust himself or others.

 

A sense of honor is part of what a tribe teaches its members about the

fundamental tribal ritual of marriage. The way in which married

partners behave teaches ethical standards to the next generation.

People are taught to treat others with respect; yet parents who do not

show respect themselves produce children who become

disrespectful adults. Without the total stability of a code of

honorable behavior, children grow into adults who cannot create stable

lives for themselves.

 

You have to be able to give your word and keep it - whether it is to

another person or yourself. You have to be able to trust yourself to

complete something and to honor your commitments. When you don't trust

yourself, everyone and everything around you feels temporary and

fragile because that is how you feel within yourself. The absence of

individual honor extends beyond the boundaries of personal tribes

into society in general.

 

Justice

 

Our tribes introduce us to the concept of justice; usually the law of

~an eye for an eye~ or ~do unto others as you would have them do unto

you~, or the law of karma ~what goes around comes around~

 

Tribal justice maintains social order and can be summarized this way:

It is just to seek revenge for harmful actions that are without cause;

it is just to do all that is necessary to protect oneself and ones

family; it is just to assist other family members in actions of

protection of vengeance. It is unjust to put any family

members at risk for personal gain; it is unjust not to follow through

on a tribal command; it is unjust to assist anyone whom the tribe

recognizes as a threat. The injunction against bringing shame upon the

family exerts an extremely controlling force over each member.

 

When a tribal member accomplishes something of value to others, the

other members automatically share an ~energy reward~. It is not

unusual for a tribal member to ~live off the power~ of another tribal

member who has earned a public reputation. " What's in a name? " we

sometimes ask scornfully. But a great deal is in a name - the energy

of pride or shame that is transmitted from a person's first chakra.

Violating tribal justice, on the other hand, can cause a loss of power

to an individuals energy system - so much so that one may feel

permanently ~ungrounded~ and have difficulty forming connections to

other people.

 

The tribe usually believes that there is a ~humanly logical~ reason

for why things happen as they do. such beliefs cause terrible grief.

Some people futilely spend years trying to discover ~the reason~ they

had to endure certain painful events; when they cannot find a

satisfactory reason, they end up living in a fog - unable to

move forward yet unable to release the past. Although tribal law is

necessary to main social order it does not reflect the reasoning of

heaven. By thinking symbolically, one can find a spiritual passageway

way out of the trap of human justice and into the nature of Divine

Reasoning. If we can view our tribal circumstances as ~arranged~ to

promote spiritual advancement, not physical comfort, we can consider

painful events as being essential our our personal development rather

than as punishment for our actions.

 

When tribal justice obstructs our spiritual advancement, we need to

free ourselves from its authority over our individual power of choice.

This challenge is one of the most difficult associated with the first

chakra because it often requires a physical separation from our family

or from a group of people to which we have become bonded.

 

The ultimate first chakra lessons is that the only real justice is

divinely ordered. An example of this is the ~Judas archetype~ the

challenge of healing from a profound betrayal. This is the

understanding that human reasoning and justice always fail us at some

point and that we do not have the power to reorder events in our lives

and remake all things according to how we would want them. The

lesson of a ~Judas~ experience is that putting faith in human justice

is an error and that we must shift our faith from human to Divine

authority. It is to trust that our life is governed ~with Divine

justice~ even though we cannot see it. We must strive not to become

bitter or cling to victim-hood when we are betrayed or cannot attain

what we want. We need to trust that we have not been victimized at all

and that this painful experience is challenging us to evaluate where

we have placed our faith.

 

The spiritual power contained within the First Tribal Chakra gives us

intuition to help us live honorably with each other and to evolve

beyond misperceptions that contradict the Truth ~All is One~.

 

from ~Anatomy of the Spirit –

The Seven Stages of Power and Healing~

by Caroline Myss, PH.D

reproduced with kind permission.

There are far more details in the book

and I would urge readers (if you find

these pages helpful) to read the book.

 

 

***

The next stage of our development is to explore second chakra themes

and the Sacred Truth

 

~Honour One Another~

 

 

The Second Chakra

 

External Power

 

Level Two

 

The Power of Relationships

 

Sacred Truth of the Second Chakra

 

The Sacred Truth inherent in the second chakra is

 

~Honour One Another~

 

This truth applies to our interactions with each other and with all

forms of life. From a spiritual perspective every relationship we

develop, from the most casual to the most intimate, serves the purpose

of helping us to become more conscious. Some relationships are

necessarily painful because learning about ourselves and facing our

own limitations are not things we tend to do with enthusiasm.

We often need to be spiritually ~set up~ for such encounters.

 

The physical energies of the second Chakra symbolize that all

relationships are essentially spiritual messengers. They bring into

our lives, and we into theirs, revelations about our own strengths and

weaknesses. From relationships within the home to those at work to

community or apolitical activity, no union is without spiritual value;

each helps us to grow as individuals. We can more easily see the

symbolic value of our relationship when we release our compulsion to

judge what and who has value and instead focus on honoring the person

and the task with which we are involved.

 

The second chakra's energy has an inherent duality. The unified energy

of the first chakra, represented by the tribal mind, becomes divided

into polarities in the second chakra. This division of forces has been

given many names; yin/yang, anima/animus, male/female. Sun/moon.

Understanding the significance of these opposites is the key to

working with second chakra issues. These dual energies

ensure that we ~attract~ to ourselves relationships that help us come

to know ourselves. Well known expressions such as ~Like attracts Like~

and ~when the student is ready the teacher will appear~ acknowledge

that an energy ~working behind the scenes~ seems to organize when and

where we meet people - and always at the right time.

 

 

The spiritual challenge of the second chakra is to learn to interact

consciously with others to form unions with people who support our

developments and to release relationships that handicap our growth.

 

Location

 

Lower abdomen to navel area

 

Energy connection to the emotional mental body:

 

This chakra resonates to our need for relationships with other people

and our need to control to some extent the dynamics of our physical

environment. All the attachments by which we maintain control over our

external lives, such as authority, other people, or money, are linked

through this chakra to our energy field and physical body.

 

Symbolic/perceptual Connection

 

The energy in this chakra enables us to generate a sense of personal

identity and protective psychological boundaries. As we continually

assess our personal strength in regard to the external world and its

physically seductive forces - such as se+, money, additive substances,

or other people - the second chakra energy of a healthy physical ego

keeps us able to interact with that world without having

to negotiate or ~sell~ ourselves, it is the energy of self

sufficiency, a survival instinct for being in the world.

 

Primary Strengths

 

The ability and stamina to survive financially and physically on ones

own and to defend and protect oneself; the ~fight or flight~ instinct;

the ability to take risks, the resilience to recover from loss whether

of family members, partners, property, occupation or finances; the

power to rebel and re-establish a life; and personal and professional

decision-making ability and talent.

 

Primary Fears

 

Fears of loss of control, or being controlled by another; through the

dominating power of events or conditions such as addiction, rape,

betrayal, impotence, financial loss, abandonment by our primary

partner or professional colleagues. Also, fear of the loss of the

power of the physical body.

 

The Power of Choice

 

The energy of the second chakra helps us evolve beyond the collective

energy of the tribe. Choice is born out of opposites, and the duality

of the second chakra is forever challenging us to make choices in a

world of opposing sides, of positive and negative energy patterns.

Every choice we make contributes a subtle current of our energy to our

Universe, which is responsive to the influence of human

consciousness.

 

Managing the power of choice, with all its creative and spiritual

implications, is ~the essence of the human experience~. All spiritual

teachings are directed toward inspiring us to recognize that the power

to make choices is the dynamic that converts our spirits into matter,

our words into flesh. Choice is the process of creation itself.

 

The fact that our choices weave our spirits into events is the reason

the major spiritual lessons are formed around one essential lesson:

Make your choices wisely because each choice you make is a creative

act of spiritual power for which you are held responsible. Further,

any choice made from faith has the full power of ~heaven~ behind

it - which is why " faith the size of a mustard seed can move a

mountain " . And any choice made from fear is a violation of the energy

of faith.

 

Choice has a mysterious aspect, however for we will never completely

know the full outcome of any choice we make. A primal lesson of the

second chakra is the paradoxical nature of choice ; what seems right

can turn out wrong; what appears good can end up bad. Just when

everything is going smoothly, chaos breaks things up..

 

Paradoxically, while the energy of the second chakra inclines us to

try to control our lives, the lesson of the second chakra is that we

cannot be in control. We are physical beings and energy beings, but

since the physical world cannot be controlled, the task before us is

to master our inner responses to the external world, our thoughts and

emotions.

 

Nevertheless, we all struggle in a seemingly never ending cycle of

disappointments in which we attempt to control our lives. We search

endlessly for the one grand choice that will put everything in our

lives into permanent order, halting the motion of change

long enough to establish final control over everyone and everything.

Is that choice the right career? The right marriage partner? The right

geographic location? In seeking this right choice constantly, we give

form to our fear of the changing rhythm that is life itself.

In looking for this single person or thing that will forever bring us

peace, stability, love and health, we dismiss the more authentic power

that lies ~behind our eyes and not in front of them~. The truth

contained within the paradoxical nature of dualism is this; It is

not ~what~ we choose that matters; our power to influence an outcome

lies in our ~reasons~ for making a certain choice.

 

The challenge of the second chakra is to learn what motivates us to

make the choices we do. In learning about our motivations, we learn

about the content of our spirits. Are you filled with fear, or are you

filled with faith? Every choice we make contains the energy

of either faith or fear, and the outcome of every decision reflects to

some extent that faith or fear. This dynamic of choice guarantees that

we cannot run away from ourselves or our decisions.

 

Choice and Relationships

 

Second chakra energy is extremely volatile because it seeks tocreate.

It is also linked to the issues of physical survival, se+; power and

money, the currencies of relationships. As we set out to carve a place

for ourselves in the physical world, our internal conflict

between faith and fear is often buried under the survival issues that

dominate our thoughts. Can I earn a living? Can I find a partner? Can

I take care of myself?

 

The shadow side of second chakra issues consists of our most prevalent

fears, rape, betrayal, financial loss and poverty, abandonment,

isolation, impotence, and the inability to care for ourselves. Each of

these fears has the power to control us and to direct our actions for

an entire lifetime. In the language of the scriptures, these fears

qualify as ~false gods~.

 

In order to learn about our motivation - to discover our personal

~false gods~ we need relationships. To form a relationship we use some

of our energy or personal power. Once the relationship is formed, we

may ask, often unconsciously: Is this relationship drawing

power from me, or am I drawing power from it? where do I end, and

where does the other person begin? What is my power, and what is the

other's power? Am I compromising myself, in exchange for safety, money

or status. While these questions are essentially healthy, in

most relationships we being thinking in terms of psychologically

divisive and conflict inducing opposites; me or you, mine or yours,

good or bad, winner or loser, right or wrong, rich or poor.

 

Symbolically these conflicts represent most people's relationship to

~God~; my power or Yours - are You really with me on this earth or

must I try to control everything myself? And if a Divine Power is

maneuvering behind the scenes, how do I know what choices to make?

This primary conflict of faith is present in every one of our

relationships.

 

Paradoxically, our challenge in managing these conflicting energies is

to maintain them in the consciousness of the inherent oneness of the

Universe. We being this journey by exploring conflict within

relationships. Relationships generate conflict, conflict generates

choice, choice generates movement, and movement generates more

conflict. We break free of this cycle by making choices that transcend

dualism and the perceived divisions between ourselves and others, and

between ourselves and ~God~. So long as we focus

on trying to control another person and forget that person is a mirror

reflecting back to us our own qualities, we keep conflict alive within

ourselves. Seeing ourselves and others in symbolic unions, however,

helps us accommodate differences.

 

The Challenge of Managing Creative Energy

 

Second chakra energies need to create life , to ~move the earth~, to

make an impression or contribution to the continuum of life. Creative

energy, unlike inspiration - a seventh chakra quality - is essentially

physical, of the earth or grounded. It is the sensation of being

physically alive. Second chakra energy gives us our basic survival

instincts and intuitions, as well as our desire to create music, art,

poetry and architecture, and the curiosity to investigate nature in

science and medicine. Our creative energy draws us into an internal

dialogue with the polarities of the self, our conflicting

inclinations, and it compels us to form external relationships

to resolve these polarities.

 

Creative energy breaks us out of habitual patterns of behavior,

thoughts and relationships. Habit is a hell to which people cling in

an attempt to stop the flow of change. But creative energy defies the

repetition of habit. These two forces, repetition and creativity, are

at odds with each other within the human psyche and impel us to invest

and reshape the chaos of our world with personal meaning.

 

Second energy chakra energy is one of the primary resources we have

for coping with the day to day events of our lives, providing creative

solutions to mental, physical, and spiritual problems or issues.

Blocking this energy can give rise to various physical conditions

including depression. It also interferes with our spiritual

maturation, as if stating, " I don't wish to see anymore, I don't wish

to understand any deeper, I don't wish to interact with the learning

process of life " . If allowed to flow, creative energy will continually

act to reshape our lives and reveal more meaning for why things happen

as they do than we could determine on our own.

 

Because creative energy is so volatile, however and so powerful, one

of our greatest challenges is to use it consciously. We most

frequently utilize our creativity in the privacy of our thoughts, but

creative energies are also present in our interactions with other

people. We may, for example, creatively change the details of stories

we tell others to suit our own purposes, or we may manipulate someone

to get something we want. These are acts that use energy in negative

ways. Gossip and manipulation drain power from the second chakra.

 

Negative acts and negative thoughts originate in fear. To the extent

that the fear of betrayal by another person, for instance, or of

violation within a relationship, or of being taken advantage of

financially has authority within us, it determines the extent to which

we will behave in negative ways. Faith in anything, be it positive or

negative, produces results. Putting faith in fear generates

destructive results beginning with the disintegration of our ability

to relate confidently to the external world.

 

When we are motivated by fear, we can easily be seduced by the false

gods of se+, power, and money and all they represent. Once seduced, we

abdicate our control to the seductive authority; the dysfunctional

personal relationship, the external source of money or security, the

experience remembered long after it should have been put to rest, or

the addiction to drugs or alcohol. Hypnotized by the voice of fear,

one is unable to think or act with clarity, because one is

contaminated with fears that short circuit creative energy and ideas,

which gather their energy from the second chakra. Fear will often

abort a new idea. Some people are afraid to give ideas - or

relationships- the breathing room they need in order to thrive. You

might feel threatened, for instance, when an idea you have reaches a

point where you need expertise other than your own for support. Or you

may assume a position of ownership over an idea and therefore you

control everything and everyone attached to it. Both responses result

in ~energy suffocation~, the smothering effect of a controlling,

fearful parent or partner.

 

Inherent in the second chakra's potential to create is also the

potential for conflict. The sacred truth and theme of the second

chakra ~Honor One Another~ contain enormous spiritual power and the

solution to the management of this spiritual challenge. When we

are in alignment with this truth, we bring out the best in ourselves

and in others.

 

The Challenge of Managing Se+ual Energy

 

Se+uality and all of our attitudes toward it are patterned in the

second chakra. Se+uality is raw power, the power to form strong bonds

and an intimate union with another person with whom we can produce and

sustain life. Having a mate and forming a family, with or

without children, represent stability for us as adults. The second

chakra contains the desire, as well as the ability to create life.

 

Beside creating life, sex is an avenue of self expression, a means of

making a statement about our comfort in relating physically to the

world around us. Se+uality connects us to our own bodies and physical

needs as well as to our potential for exploring erotic and sensual

aspects. Sex+ual eroticism is a form of physical and emotional

liberation as well as spiritual liberation. Erotic pleasure, is by

nature, " in the moment " , an encounter in which we drop most of our

physical boundaries in order to enjoy the full measure of human

contact. Explored without shame, erotic energy can elevate the human

body and spirit into sensations of ecstasy, at times producing altered

states of consciousness.

 

Se+ual eroticism normally produces orgasm, and the release of this

voltage of energy is essential to physical, mental and psychological

health. Orgasm is one way - certainly one of the more pleasurable ways

- of releasing the ~energy debris~ we collect through normal human

contact. Exercise and creativity are other well known avenues of

release. When a person has no release however, this energy backs up in

the system and, without conscious management, can produce reactions,

that run the gamut from depression to violence.

 

Se+ual union, for all its physical pleasures, also symbolizes a

spiritual union of two people. it may well be that sexual energy opens

a current of spiritual energy that forms a transcendent bond between

two people who are deeply in love.

 

The need to strive to ~Honor One Another~ is easily and frequently

eclipsed in se+ual encounters, largely because se+ual energy is so

often controlled by fear or unrestrained desires. Men are made afraid

of not being potent or masculine enough, yet most tribes permit their

boys to act out of control se+ually until they reach a certain

~maturity~. At that point, their capacity to act se+ually responsibly

is expected to kick in automatically. Women however, are still not

given the same license to explore their se+ual natures despite the

women`s liberation movement. They are still required to behave, to

control their se+ual energy, while men still enjoy license. Many women

are made to fear losing control or even being thought of as se+ual beings.

 

The dualism of second chakra energies carries through the societal

view of se+ual energy as out of control on the one hand, and the high

value our tribe places on self control, on the other. We view our

sexuality as a continual threat to our ability to manage ourselves or

control others. Relationships of any kind bring out our need to

protect ourselves, but se+ual bonds bring out extreme fears,

especially of betrayal, a fear so strong that it can threaten

an intimate relationship.

 

The Energy of Money

 

Money, like energy, is a neutral substance that takes its direction

from the intention of the individual. A more fascinating aspect of

money, however, is the fact that it can weave itself into the human

psyche as a substitute for the life force. When people equate money

with their life energy - an often unconscious substitution - the

consequences are usually negative,for every piece of currency a person

spends is also an unconscious expenditure of energy. A scarcity of

money translates into a scarcity of energy in the body itself - again

unconsciously.

 

To some degree we all unite money and the life-force within our

psyches. Our challenge is to achieve, if we can, a relationship with

money which is separate form our life force, yet attracted to our

energy easily and naturally. The more impersonal our relationship to

money is, the more likely we are to command its energy into our lives

as we need it.

 

There is no denying that money does have clout in the symbolic or

energy world. Expressions such as " Put your money where you mouth is "

and " talk is cheap, money speaks " refer to the cultural view that what

people do with their money says more about their motives than any

spoken intention.

 

Money is the means through we make our private beliefs and goals

public. Energy precedes action, and the quality of out intentions

contributes substantially to the results.

 

Beliefs about money affect spiritual attitudes and practices as well.

The belief that ~God~ blesses those who strive to do good by giving

them financial rewards is extremely prevalent, as is the belief that

we ourselves will be protected from poverty. These and many other

beliefs of the same genre reflect the grander notion that ~God

communicates with us through our finances, and, conversely, that we

communicate with God by our financial actions.

 

Whether these attitudes are based on mythology or truth is irrelevant.

We believe these social adages far more than we disbelieve them, and

from that fact alone, we should understand that we have linked money

and faith, the wisest relationship we can have

with money is to see it as a substance that faith can attract into our

lives.

 

Putting faith before money reduces money from its status as leader to

that of servant, its more appropriate position. Faith that transcends

money frees a person to follow his or her initiative guidance without

giving over unnecessary authority to financial concerns. Obviously, so

long as we are a part of the physical world, we must honor its code of

debt and payment and assume a commonsense relationship to money, but

money deserves no more of our attention than that.

 

The energies of the second chakra subtly bring up memories that need

to be released, constantly presently us with the desire to act to

become more whole in body and spirit.

 

Ethical Energy

 

The second chakra is the ethical center of the body. While laws are

connected to the first chakra, personal ethics and morals reside in

the second chakra. These energies spiritually influence us to have a

strong code of ethics, drawing us into one on one relationships and

alerting us intuitively to the dangers of betraying our moral code. It

records all our interactions in which we ~give our word~ to other

people, make promises and commitments to them, or accept their

promises. A strong personal code of ethics radiates a perceptible

quality of energy. It also records the promises we make to ourselves,

such as New Years resolutions and other decisions to ~repattern~

certain behaviors in our lives.

 

The physical order of which the first chakra is in charge makes us

feel safe, and its laws make us feel that control exists within our

environment. The ethics and morals of the second chakra provide us

with a language through which we can communicate what we accept and

don't accept in human relationships. Ethics hold enormous bonding

power; we seek out the company of those who hold the same sense of

right and wrong as we do; when people deviate from their ethical or

moral behavior, we often disqualify them as intimate companions. We

also want our ~God~ to be an orderly god, and we are forever trying to

crack through the Divine code of right and wrong and reward and

punishment, attempting to reason why ~bad things happen to good

people~. We take comfort in believing that if human justice fails us,

Divine justice will see that all receive their ~just desserts~.

 

Because the second chakra harbors all our individual survival fears,

we have constructed an external legal system that supports some

semblance of fair play, which is crucial to our well being. Exercising

legal power, or even using legal vocabulary, provides a release valve

of sorts, for pressures that build up in the second chakra. The legal

system, at least in theory, is a means of determining guilt and

punishing violations; frequently an ~innocent~ verdict is seen as a

matter of honor, and the financial settlements that the victim gains

represents the return of some personal dignity. This dynamic is the

social version of the sacred truth

~Honor One Another~.

 

The need for fair play and law and order is felt in our biology where

we observe physical laws of health, such as exercise, proper

nutrition, the conscious regulation of stress, and a measure of

consistency and order. These laws signal our physiology that we are

physically safe and trust our environment. Instability, by contrast,

keeps our adrenalin going full strength and our ~fight or flight~

mechanism on continual alert. The physical body cannot ensure

prolonged stress without producing negative biological response.

Ulcers and migraines are two of the more common indicators that the

chaos in a persons life has become unbearable.

 

Because humans are, by nature, a species that seeks law and order, we

fall easily under the sway of people who project authority and seek to

control. Our instinct to trust people with whom we live and work is an

extension of the energy of ~Honor One Another~; it is unnatural

to feel you have to look over your shoulder while trying to create

something with others. Yet many people mis-use power to control rather

than support others.

 

Within personal relationships it is normal to create a set of rules

that both parties agree to follow: no extramarital affairs, no

gambling, no major purchases without mutual agreement and so on.

Setting rules in order to control another persons emotional, mental,

psychological, or spiritual growth, however, is energetically

destructive. In general, if a couple cannot expand their original

rules and boundaries to accommodate personal growth,the relationship

disintegrates. Parents sometimes ~violate~ their children spiritually

and emotionally through imposing harsh rules as a way to establish

parental authority.

 

Personal vengeance is yet another misuse of second chakra energy. This

second chakra is our centre of self defense and of weaponry. Although

newspapers are filled with reports of people delivering justice with

bullets, most often acts of ~taking the law into one's own hands~ are

based on personal, psychological and emotional laws of honor, like the

desire to get even with someone who has injured us in some way. The

energy of vengeance is one of the most toxic emotional poisons to our

system.

 

The Personal Power of the Second Chakra

 

While creativity, se+uality, morality and money are all forms of

second chakra energy or power, the desire for personal power also

needs to be discussed. Power is a manifestation of the life

force. We require power in order to live, to thrive, to function.

Illness, for example, is the natural companion of powerless people.

Everything about our lives is, in fact, involved in our relationship

to this energy called power.

 

At the level of the first chakra, we feel a sensation of power when we

are with a group of people to whom we re bonded in some way, like an

electrical current. The enthusiasm of sports fans or of participants

in political rallies - uniting people behind the same team or cause,

exemplifies this type of power. The quality of power in the second

chakra, however, expresses this energy in physical forms, like

materialism, authority, control, ownership, se+ual magnetism,

sensuality, eroticism and addiction. Every physically

seductive form that power can take is energetically connected to the

second chakra. And unlike the group nature of first chakra power, the

second chakra has a one on one nature. Each of us as an individual

needs to explore our relationship to physical power. We need to learn

how and when we are controlled by external power, and, if so, the

type of power to which we are most vulnerable.

 

Power is the life force, and we are born knowing this fact. From the

time we are young, we test ourselves and our capacity to learn what

and who has power, to attract power, and to use power. Through these

childhood exercises we discover whether we have what it takes to draw

power to ourselves. If we do, we begin to dream of what we would like

to accomplish as adults. If we decide that we are unable to attract

life force, however, we begin living in a type of ~power debt~. We

imagine ourselves surviving only through the energies of other people,

but not on our own.

 

For people who are confident of their ability to attract power,

ordinary dreams can turn into power fantasies. Then the reasoning mind

become eclipsed by a desire for power that stretches the parameters of

acceptable behavior to include any and all means

that fulfill this end. The appetite for power can become an addiction

that challenges the will of God. The craving for power for power's

sake along is the subject of numerous scriptures and myths of humans

who are ultimately humbled by Divine design.

 

For all of us the challenge is not to become ~power celibate~ but to

achieve sufficient internal strength to interact comfortably with

physical power without negotiating away our spirits. This is what is

means to be ~in the world but not of it~. We are fascinated

by people who are immune to the seductions of the physical world; they

become our

social and spiritual heroes. Although internal power is certainly

recognized as the ideal, in practice it is less popular than external

power, first because external power is so much more practical, and

second because internal power in some ways requires giving up our

relationship to the physical world.

 

Physical science recognizes second chakra energy as the law of cause

and effect. (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction}

and the law of magnetism {oppositely charged objects attract}. Applied

to relationships, these laws mean that we generate

patterns of energy that attract people who are opposite us in some

way, who have something to teach. Nothing is random; prior to every

relationship we have ever formed, we opened the door with energy that

we were generating. This fact is what makes learning about second

chakra dualism so interesting as the more conscious we become,

the more consciously we can utilize the energy of the second chakra.

 

The core issue in uniting the dualistic energies of our relationships

is to learn how to Honor One another. Using the energy of the second

chakra we can learn to cherish the sacred unions we form with each

other through the days of our lives.

 

So much of the way we respond to the external challenges is determined

by how we respond to ourselves.

 

 

***

In addition to all the relationships we have with people, we must also

form a healthy and loving relationship with ourselves - a task that

belongs to the energy of the Third chakra, and the Sacred Truth

 

~Honour One-Self~

 

 

********

 

The Third Chakra

 

External Power

 

Level Three

 

Personal Power

 

The third chakra completes the physical trilogy of the human energy

system. Like chakras one and two, it primarily relates to a physical

form of power. Where the first chakra resonates to group tribal power,

and where the second chakra resonates to the flow of power between the

self and others, the third chakra relates to our personal

power in relation to the external world.

 

Sacred Truth of the Third Chakra

 

The Sacred Truth of the third chakra is ~Honor One-self~. The energies

that come together in this chakra have but one spiritual goal; to help

us mature in our self understanding - the relationship we have with

others, and where we stand on our own and take care of ourselves. The

spiritual quality is self-respect. We have all

faced or will face an experience that reveals to us our own internal

strengths and weaknesses as separate from the influence of our elders.

The spiritual quality inherent in the third chakra compels us to

create an identity apart from our tribal self.

 

Location

 

The solar plexus

 

Energy connection to the emotional mental body:

 

The third chakra, often called the solar plexus, is our personal power

centre, the magnetic core of the personality and ego.

 

Symbolic/perceptual connection.

 

The third chakra mediates between the primary external (which is

characteristic of the first and second chakras) and the

internalisation of consciousness. The first chakra has an external

centre of gravity and is always located within a group mind. The

second chakra too, has an external gravitational center but focuses on

relationships and their effects on us. In the third chakra however,

the gravitational centre is partly internalised as our focus shifts

from how we relate to people around us to how we relate to and

understand ourselves.

 

Primary strengths

 

Self-esteem, self respect, and self discipline, ambition, the ability

to generate action, and the ability to handle a crisis; the courage to

take risks, generosity, ethics and strength of character.

 

Primary Fears

 

Fears of rejection, criticism, looking foolish and failing to meet

ones responsibilities, all fears relating to physical appearance, such

as fear of obesity, baldness or ageing, fears that others will

discover our secrets.

 

Developing Self esteem

 

All three spiritual currents merge to form the intuitive voice of our

solar plexus. As we develop a sense of self, our intuitive voice

becomes our natural and constant source of guidance.

 

How we feel about ourselves, whether we respect ourselves, determines

the quality of our life, our capacity to succeed in business,

relationships, healing and intuitive skills. Self understanding and

acceptance, the bond we form with ourselves, is in many ways the most

critical spiritual challenge we face. In truth, if we do not like

ourselves, we will be incapable of making healthy decisions. Instead,

we will direct all of our personal power for decision-making into the

hands of someone else; someone whom we want to impress, or someone

before whom we think we must weaken ourselves to gain physical

security. People who have a low sense of self esteem attract

relationships and occupational situations that reflect and reinforce

this weakness. Nobody is born with healthy self esteem. We must earn

this quality in the process of living as we face our challenges one at

a time.

 

The third chakra in particular resonates to the boundaries of the

physical body. Are we physically strong or weak? Able or handicapped?

Beautiful or scarred? To tall or too short? From a spiritual

perspective, any and all physical assets and limitations are illusory,

mere ~life props~. Yet a persons acceptance of, or resistance to, them

is critical to entering spiritual adulthood. From a spiritual

perspective, in fact, the entire physical world is nothing more than

our classroom, but the challenge to each of us in this classroom is:

Given your particular body, environment and beliefs, will you make

choices that enhance our spirit or those that drain your power into

the physical illusion around you? Again and

again, the challenges of the third chakra will cause you to evaluate

your sense of power and self in relation to the external world.

 

Enhancing Inner Power

 

We ~re-order~ our lives when we choose spirit over the illusions of

physical circumstances. With each choice we make, we either become

more involved in the illusory physical world, or we invest energy into

the power of spirit. Each of these seven chakras represents a

different version, or manifestation of this one essential lesson. Each

time we choose to enhance our internal power, we limit the authority

of the physical world over our lives, bodies, health, minds and

spirits. From an energy point of view,every choice that enhances

our spirits strengthens our energy field; and the stronger our energy

field, the fewer our connections to negative people and experiences.

 

The stronger our spirits become, the less authority linear time can

exercise in our lives. To some extend linear time is an illusion of

the physical world, tied in to the physical energy of the first three

chakras. For physical tasks, we need this physical energy, for

example when we need to take an inspiration from thought to form, we

run it through linear steps. But in terms of our belief in our ability

to heal, our concept of time should be re-examined.

 

The illusion that healing takes a ~long time~ holds considerable

authority in our culture. Believing makes it true. By choosing to

believe something, we breathe our breath into that belief, giving that

belief authority.

 

Our culture believes that healing painful childhood memories requires

years of psychotherapy, but that need not be the case. If one believes

it, healing painful memories and releasing the authority they have

within ones life can happen rapidly.

 

The length of healing processes becomes calibrated to the time that

the tribal mind attributes to them. For instance, the group mind

currently believes that certain cancers take six months to kill us,

that grieving a mate's death requires at least one year, and that

grieving a child's death may never end. If we believe these

assessments, we give the tribal mind power over our lives instead of

exercising our personal power. If your spirit is strong enough to

withdraw from the authority of a group belief, it is potentially

strong enough to change your life.

 

Self Esteem and Intuition

 

Most people are in touch with their intuition, yet can completely

misunderstand the nature of their intuition. They can confuse

intuition with prophetic ability ie " intuition is the ability

to foretell the future. " Intuition is neither the ability to engage

prophecy nor a means of avoiding financial loss or painful

relationships. It is the ability to use energy data to make

decisions in the immediate moment. Energy data are the emotional,

psychological and spiritual components of a given situation. There are

the ~here and now~ ingredients of life, not non-physical information

from some ~future~ place.

 

For the most part information that is accessible to intuition makes

its presence known by making us feel uncomfortable, depressed and

anxious - or at the other extreme drifty and detached, as if we were

suddenly cut off from our own feelings. In dreams of an intuitive

nature, we receive symbols of change or chaos. Such dreams often occur

more intensely during emotional crises. Energy of intuitive sensations

signal that we have reached a cross-roads in our lives and that we

have an opportunity to influence the next stage of our

lives, at least to some degree, through the choice we make now.

 

The intuition and the independence of the third chakra together gives

us the capacity to take risks, to follow through on gut hunches. One

should not think that intuition means clear direction rather than

guidance. ie in hoping that one good intuitive ~hit~ will give

the power to reorder lives in complete harmony and happiness.

Intuitive guidance does not mean following a voice to the Promised

Land. It means having the self esteem to recognize that the discomfort

or confusion that a person feels is actually directing him

to take charge of his life and make choices that will break him out

of stagnation and misery.

 

If a person suffers from low self esteem, she cannot act on her

intuitive impulses because her fear of failure is too intense.

Intuition, like all meditative disciplines, can be enormously

effective, if, and only if, one has the courage and personal power to

follow through on the guidance it provides. Guidance requires action,

but it does not guarantee safety. While we measure our own success in

terms of our personal comfort and security, the universe measures our

success by how much we have learned. So long as we use comfort and

security as our criteria of success, we will fear our own intuitive

guidance because by its very nature it directs us into new cycles of

learning that are sometimes uncomfortable.

 

Believing in oneself is required for healing. Faith, together with

self esteem and personal power are all important factors, because low

self esteem reflects ones lack of faith in oneself as well as in the

power of the unseen world. Unquestionably, faith is vital for

managing the challenges of our every day existence.

 

Self esteem and conscious personal power sometimes develop at a

memorable point in life that signifies initiation into spiritual

adulthood. Developing the confidence to pursue goals is one way that

personal power becomes an agent of personal change. At the same

time an equally impressive level of change can occur within a person's

spiritual or symbolic life. Becoming internally powered shifts a

persons center of gravity from external to internal,a mark of

spiritual passage.

 

An empowered sense of self can also develop in stages, over the course

of our lives, in a serious of mini initiations. Every time we advance

in self-esteem, even in a small measure, we have to change something

about our external dynamics. For the most part we abhor

change, but an intuition represents the necessity to change. We may

end a relationship because we have become sufficiently empowered that

we need a stronger partner. We may quit a job because we need to break

out of our safe and familiar patterns and test fly our own creativity.

Too much change that happens too rapidly can be overwhelming, so we

try to manage our own empowerment by taking on only one challenge at a

time. As we do, one by one, the changes we undergo form a pattern in

our journey toward personal power.

 

The Four Stages of Personal Power

 

Self esteem became a popular word in the 1960s, a decade of revolution

and redefined our view of the empowered individual. Only then did self

esteem become accepted as essential to women's and men's health which

was redefined to include psychological and spiritual health as well as

physical health.

 

More than three decades later we are now directing all these energy

patterns towards personal evolution - forming a self that is powerful

enough to be~in the world but not of the world~, a self that can enjoy

the magnificence of the physical world without allowing the world`s

many illusions to deplete its soul.

 

Revolution, involution, narcissism and evolution are the four stages

through which we progress to attain self esteem and spiritual

maturity. A spiritual adult inconspicuously involves her or her inner

spiritual qualities in every day decisions. One's spiritual thoughts

and activities are inseparable from other aspects of life; all becomes

one.

 

A person may spend years in each phase or only months, but regardless

of how long each phase lasts, she will inevitably grapple with its

particular challenges to her character, ethics, morality and self respect.

 

We have to work to discover ourselves, to understand why we keep

secrets, or have addictions, or blame other for our own errors. We

must work to understand why we find it difficult to receive or give a

compliment, or whether we carry shame within us. We need to become

comfortable with taking pride in our character and accomplishments.

We need to learn the parameters of our character, how much of

ourselves we will compromise, and where we draw the line - or even if

we draw the lines. Creating an identity for ourselves is based upon

self discovery and not upon biological and ethnic inheritance. This

first stage of self discovery is revolution.

 

Stage One - Revolution

 

Developing self-esteem requires an act of revolution, or several mini

revolutions, in which we begin to separate from group thought and

establish our own sense of authority. We may suddenly realize we hold

an opinion different from our family or our peers, but in either case

we will have difficulty freeing ourselves from the group's energy,

whose strength depends upon numbers and opposition to most expression

of individuality.

 

The act of finding our own voice, even in mini revolutions is

spiritually significant. Spiritual maturity is measured not by the

sophistication of a person's opinions, but by their genuineness and

the courage necessary to express and maintain them. By courage, it is

not the intractable stubbornness of two people locking horns, that

dynamic is a second chakra power play. Spiritual maturity, in

contrast, is the capacity to stand one's ground as a reflection of a

genuine inner belief.

 

When we develop this kind of inner strength, even in small measures,

we are more capable of introspection and self examination. In learning

to honor ones personal values and have the courage to make the choices

in this way, we gradually replace the influences of our tribe`s group

mind with our own inner or intuitive guidance. Once this process has

begun, the next natural step is ~involution~, the exploration of our

interior self.

 

Stage Two - Involution

 

Every new encounter or pursuit we have asks our inner self " What else

do I believe? What else do I think? I want to know myself better. This

is a request for information " In every new situation information pours

in. We get feelings about new people and new circumstances. In this

phase, involution, we assess our external world and how well it is

serving our needs. Often, this self examination leads us to want to

focus on our relationship with ~God~ and our life's purpose, but we

first need to develop a level of internal stamina that gives us the

strength to handle the consequences of self examining thought. A

common initial response can be in facing this stage though is that

some do not wish to go within as self knowledge promotes choice

and action, and many people feel unready for either. Once that step

has been taken and the ensuing thought processes taken place,

involution is followed by a narcissistic birthing of a new image of

oneself.

 

Stage Three - Narcissism

 

Although the connotation of the word ~narcissism~ can be negative, it

is sometimes an extremely necessary energy for us as we work to

develop a strong sense of self. Giving ourselves a new image,

(hairstyle, clothes, diet} indicates that changes are also occurring

within us. While we are in this vulnerable stage, we may get major

critical reactions from our tribal or group associates, but

narcissistic energy gives us the backbone to re-create ourselves and

our boundaries in the face of opposition. The changes in this stage

prepare us for the more significant internal changes to follow.

 

Being who we want captures the significance of the fourth stage:

evolution.

 

Stage four - Evolution

 

This last stage in developing self esteem is an internal one. People

who can maintain their principles, their dignity, and their faith

without compromising any energy from their spirit are internally

evolved: people such as Ghandi, or Mother Teresa are examples of this.

The world is filled with people of much lesser reputations who have

accomplished this level of self-esteem of course, yet these two people

took charge of their physical environments - and the

environments changed to accommodate the power of their spirits.

 

They were also thought to be narcissistic during some stage of their

development. Mother Teresa, for example was almost forced to leave two

religious communities in her early days because her vision of service

to the poor was much more intense that her sisters could abide. During

that time she was thought to be self absorbed and narcissistic. She

had to go through a period of deep spiritual reflection, and when the

time was right she acted on her intuitive guidance. Like Ghandi she

entered into a stage of evolution in which personality became persona

- an archetypal force from which millions of people could draw

inspiration. As your own spirit takes command, the world will also

yield to its force.

 

Challenges of the Journey

 

There is nothing simple about developing self-understanding,

independence, and self respect. The third chakra is filled with the

energy of our personal ambitions, our sense of responsibility, and our

respect for our strengths and weaknesses, as well as our fears and

secrets that we are not yet ready to face. Because we are

often riven with personal conflicts, we meet the spiritual challenge

to " become empty in order to be made full " to die to old habits and

self images in order to be reborn, with great trepidation. Yet the

path to developing independence and maturity is far more than a

psychological act of health. Becoming adept at the internal process of

self inquiry and symbolic insight is a vital spiritual task that leads

to the growth of faith in oneself.

 

We are all on a spiritual journey one which eventually brings us

independence from our past and fears of tomorrow and brings a deep

faith in oneself. It is necessary to shed the fears that block us from

recognizing the beauty in our lives, and come to a place of healing

and self acceptance. We can take this spiritual journey daily in the

privacy or our own prayers and meditation.

 

Developing personal power feels like heaven once we have arrived, but

the journey getting there can be long and arduous. Life relentlessly

brings us to realize the importance of the words of Polonius ~To thine

own self be true~. For without personal power, life is a frightening,

painful experience.

 

Working with intuition does not allow us to bypass the challenge of

facing our fears. There is no shortcut to becoming a whole person, and

certainly intuitive abilities are not the answer - they are simply the

natural consequence of having self esteem.

 

We are biologically aligned to learning this lesson; our bodies thrive

when our spirits thrive. The third chakra embodies the Sacred Truth

~Honour Oneself~. As we gain the strength and stamina that come from

living with self esteem, our intuitive abilities emerge naturally.

 

 

***

We then move from the three chakras of ~External~ power to the next

rung of the ladder.These are the chakras of ~Internal~ power,

beginning with the 4th chakra, the power house of the human energy

system and

 

~Emotional Power~.

 

~Love is Divine Power~

 

The Fourth Chakra

 

Internal Power

 

Level Four

 

Emotional Power

 

The fourth chakra is the central power house of the human energy

system. The middle chakra, it mediates between the body and spirit

and determines their health and strength. Fourth chakra energy is

emotional in nature and helps propel our emotional development. This

chakra embodies the spiritual lesson that teaches us how to act out of

love and compassion and recognize that the most powerful energy we

have is love.

 

Sacred Truth of the Fourth Chakra

 

The fourth chakra is the power center of the human energy system

because ~Love is Divine Power~. While intelligence or ~mental energy~

is generally considered superior to emotional energy, actually

emotional energy is the true motivator of the human body and spirit.

Love in its purest form - unconditional love - is the substance of the

Divine, with its endless capacity to forgive us and respond to our

prayers. Our own hearts are designed to express beauty, compassion,

forgiveness and love. It is against our spiritual nature to act others.

 

Location

 

Center of the chest - Heart

 

Energy Connection to the Emotional/mental Body

 

This chakra resonates to our emotional perceptions, which determine

the quality of our lives far more than our mental perceptions. As

children we react to our circumstances with a range of emotions; love,

passion, confidence, hope, despair, hate, envy and fear. As adults we

are challenged to generate within ourselves an emotional climate and

steadiness from which to act consciously and with compassion.

 

Symbolic/perceptual Connection

 

More than any other chakra, the fourth represents our capacity to ~Let

go and let ~God~. With its energy we accept our personal emotional

challenges as extensions of a Divine Plan, which has as its intent our

conscious evolution. By releasing our emotional pain, by letting go of

our need to know why things have happened as they have, we reach a

state of tranquility. In order to achieve that inner peace, however,

we have to embrace the healing energy of forgiveness and release our

lesser need for human, self determined justice.

 

Primary Strengths

 

Love, forgiveness, compassion, dedication, inspiration, hope, trust

and the ability to heal oneself and others.

 

Primary Fears

 

Fears of Loneliness, commitment, and " following ones heart " ; fear of

inability to protect oneself emotionally, fear of emotional weakness

and betrayal. Loss of fourth chakra energy can give rise to jealousy,

bitterness, anger, hatred, and an inability to forgive others as well

as oneself.

 

The challenge inherent in the fourth chakra is similar to that of the

third but is more spiritually sophisticated. While the third chakra's

focus is on our feelings about ourselves in relation to our physical

world, the fourth chakra focuses on our feelings about our internal

world - our emotional response to our own thoughts, ideas, attitudes

and inspiration, as well as the attention we give to our emotional

needs. This level of commitment is ~the~ essential factor in forming

healthy relationships with others.

 

We are not born fluent in love but spend our life learning about it.

Its energy is pure power. We are as attracted to love as we are

intimidated by it. We are motivated by love, controlled by it,

inspired by it, healed by it, and destroyed by it. Love is the fuel of

our physical and spiritual bodies. Each of life's challenges is a

lesson in some aspect of love.

 

Learning the Power of Love

 

Because love has such power, we come to know this energy in stages.

Each stages represents a lesson in love's intensity and forms;

forgiveness, compassion, generosity, kindness, caring for oneself and

others. The stages follow the design of our chakras: we begin learning

love within our tribe, absorbing the many expressions of its energy

from our family members. Tribal love can be unconditional,

but it generally communicates the expectation of loyalty and tribal

support; in the tribal setting, love is an energy that is shared among

one's own kind.

 

As the second chakra awakens and we learn the bonds of friendship,love

grows to include " outsiders " . We express love through sharing with and

caring for others to whom we are not connected through blood. And as

our third chakra awakens we discover love of external things, of our

personal, physical and material needs,

which may include athletics, academics, fashion, dating and mating,

occupation and home, and body.

 

All three of these chakras involve love in the external world. At one

time in our civilisation, these three practices of love were all that

life required. Very few people needed more than tribal and partnership

love. With the advent of the spiritual movement, however, love is

becoming recognized as a force that influences and perhaps determines

biological activity. Love helps us to heal others and ourselves.

 

Life crises that have issues of love at their core, divorce, death of

a loved one, emotional abuse, abandonment, adultery are often the

cause of an illness, and not just an event that coincidentally

precedes it. Physical healing often requires, and may demand, the

healing of emotional issues.

 

Loving Oneself as the Path to the Divine

 

The expression " If you can't love yourself, you can't love anyone

else " is commonplace. Yet for many people loving oneself remains a

vague notion, which we often act out in material ways, through

shopping sprees and outrageous vacations. But rewarding oneself with

trips and toys is third chakra love - using physical pleasure to

express self appreciation. While this type of reward is enjoyable, it

can obstruct our contact with the deeper emotional stirrings of the

heart that emerge when we need to evaluate a relationships, or a job,

or some other troubled circumstance that affects our well-being.

Loving oneself as a fourth chakra challenge means having the courage

to listen to the hearts emotional messages and spiritual directives.

The archetype to which the heart most frequently guises us for healing

is that of the ~wounded child~

 

The " wounded child " within each of us contains the damaged or stunted

emotional patterns of our youth, patterns of painful memories,

negative attitudes, and of dysfunctional self images. Unknowingly, we

may continue to operate within these patterns as adults, albeit in a

new form. Fear of abandonment, for example, becomes jealousy. Se+ual

abuse becomes dysfunctional se+uality, often causing a repetition of

the same violations with our own children. A child's negative self

image can later become the source of such dysfunctions such as

anorexia, obesity, alcoholism, and other addictions as well as

obsessive fear of failure. These patterns can damage our emotional

relationships, our personal and professional lives, and our health.

Loving oneself begins with confronting this archetypal force

within the psyche and unseating the wounded child's authority over us.

If unhealed, wounds keep us in the past.

 

Healing is possible through acts of forgiveness. In the Christian

philosophy, through the life and teachings of Jesus, forgiveness is a

spiritual act of perfection, but it is also a physically healing act.

Forgiveness is no longer merely an option for a necessity for healing.

Jesus always healed his patients emotional sufferings; the physical

healing then followed naturally. Whilst Jesus' healings

have been interpreted by many theologians and Sunday school teachers

as a Divine reward for the recipients confession of misbehaviour,

forgiveness is an essential spiritual act that must occur in order to

open oneself fully to the healing power of love. Self love means

caring for ourselves enough to forgive people in our past so that the

wounds can no longer damage us - for our wounds do not hurt the people

who hurt us, they hurt only us. Releasing our attachment to

these wounds enables us to move from the childlike relationship with

the Divine of the first three chakras into one in which we participate

with the Divine in acting out of the love and compassion of the fourth

chakra.

 

The fourth chakra energies propel us further into spiritual maturity,

beyond a parent-child dialogue with the Divine, beyond praying for

explanations for events, beyond fearing the unexpected. The wounded

child sees the Divine as operating a reward and punishment system with

humanly logical explanations for all painful experiences. The wounded

child does not understand that within all experiences, no matter how

painful, lie spiritual insights. So long as we think like a wounded

child, we will love conditionally and with great fear of loss.

 

Our culture as a whole is evolving toward healing from its emphasis on

wounds and victimization. Having entered into the power of our wounds,

however, it is difficult to see how we let go of this negative power

and move head to become ~unwounded~ and self empowered. Ours is a

~fourth chakra culture~ that has not yet moved out of our wounds and

into spiritual adulthood.

 

Awakening the Conscious Self

 

We get out of the fourth chakra by going through it and learning its

lessons. When we enter the interior of our own hearts, we leave behind

the familiar thought patterns of the lower three chakras and

particularly our tribal heart. We are released from the protection of

habitual definitions such as " My priority is the needs of my family " ,

or " I can't change jobs because my wife needs to feel secure " - and we

are greeted at our hearts doorway with only one question: " What about me? "

 

That question is an invocation, drawing to ourselves years of

repressed but well recorded emotional data that, in an instant, can

determine a new path for ourselves. We may attempt to run back into

the protection of the tribal mind, but its capacity to comfort us is

now gone.

 

We begin the formidable task of getting to know ourselves by

discovering our emotional nature - not in relation to anyone or

anything, but in relation to ourselves alone. With or without anyone

else playing a primary role, a person needs to know:

 

What do I like?

 

What do I love?

 

What makes me happy?

 

What do I need for balance?

 

What are my strengths?

 

Can I rely upon myself?

 

What are my weaknesses?

 

Why do I do the things I do?

 

What makes me need to attention and approval of others?

 

Am I strong enough to be close to another person and still honor my

own emotional needs?

 

These questions are different from those of the tribal mind, which

teaches us to ask: What do I like ~in relation to others?~ How strong

can I be while still remaining attractive ~to~ others? What do I need

~from others~ in order to be happy? What will I have to change about

myself in order to get ~someone to love~ me?

 

We don't easily pursue these questions of self-exploration because we

know the answers will require us to change our lives. Prior to the

1960's this kind of self examination was the domain of only the more

peripheral members of society - the mystics, the artists,

philosophers, and other another creative geniuses. Meeting the ~self~

activates the transformation of human consciousness and the

consequences for many artists and mystics have included dramatic

episodes of depression, despair, hallucination, visions, suicide

attempts and uncontrollable emotional turmoil, as well as heightened

started of ecstasy combined in both physical and spiritual

manifestations. It was commonly believed that the price of spiritual

awakening was too high and too risky for most people and was meant

only for a ~gifted~ few.

 

Yet the revolutionary energy of the 1960's led millions of people to

chant ~what about me~ and thereafter the human consciousness movement

drove our culture through the archetypal doorway of the fourth chakra.

It unearthed the secrets of our hearts and articulated details of our

wounded childhood that still shape much of our adult personalities.

 

Not surprisingly, our fourth chakra culture has seen national

increases in divorce. The opening of the fourth chakra has transformed

the archetype of marriage into the archetype of partnership. As a

result most contemporary marriages require a

strong sense of ~self~ for success, rather than the abdication of

~self~ that was required in traditional marriages. The symbolic

meaning of marriage is that one must be in union with one's own

personality and spirit first. After one has a clear understanding of

oneself, one can create a successful intimate partnership. The

increase in divorce is therefore rooted directly in the opening of the

fourth chakra, which draws people into self discovery for the first

time. Many people ascribe the breakdown of their marriage to the fact

that their spouse has given them no support for their emotional,

psychological and intellectual needs, and as a result they had to seek

out a true partnership.

 

The opening of the fourth chakra has also changed our consciousness

about health, healing and the causes of illness. Whereas disease was

once thought of as caused by essentially lower chakra sources,

genetics and germs, we now also have expanded this concept to include

the origin of disease also as stemming from toxic emotional stress

levels. Healing begins with the repair of emotional injuries. Our

entire medical model is being reshaped around the power of the heart

and the shift in thinking on the causes of heart attacks etc.

 

Moving Beyond the Language of Wounds

 

As a fourth chakra culture we have language of intimacy that is now

based upon wounds. Before the 1960's acceptable conversation consisted

mainly of the exchange of information about 1st, 2nd and 3rd chakra

issues, names, places of origin, work, and hobbies. Rarely would

someone reveal the details of his or her se+ual desires of the depths

of his or her psychological or emotional torment. Our culture was not

yet comfortable with this level of discussion, and we lacked the

vocabulary for it.

 

Since becoming a fourth chakra culture, however, we have become

therapeutically fluent, the process creating a new language of

intimacy which one could call ~woundology~. We now use the revelation

and exchange of our wounds as the substance of conversation, indeed as

the glue that binds a relationship. We have become so good at this, in

fact, that we have converted our wounds into a type of ~relationship

currency~ that we use in order to control situations and people. The

countless support groups for helping people work through their

histories of abuse, addiction, battering, to name a few, serve only to

enhance woundology as our contemporary language of intimacy/ Within

the setting of these well meaning support groups, members receive,

often for the first time, much needed validation

for the injury they have endured. The outpouring of compassion from

attentive group members feels like a long, cold drink of water on a

hot, dry day.

 

Wounds as a language of intimacy have found an arena of expression

within relationships as well as in healing support groups. In fact it

is no exaggeration to say that some of our contemporary romantically

bonding rituals practically ~required~ a wound for " lift-off " . A

typical bonding ritual looks something like this… two people meet for

the first time. They exchange names, hometowns, and possibly

some reference to ethnic or religious origins (first chakra data).

Next the conversation moves to second chakra topics: occupations,

relationship histories, including marriage, divorces, and children,

and perhaps finances. Third chakra sharing comes next, usually in

terms of personal preferences in eating habits, exercise, schedules,

off-hour activities and possibly personal growth problems. Should they

want to establish an intimate connection, they move on to the fourth

chakra. One person reveals a wound that he or she is still

" processing " . Should the other person want to respond in a ~bonding~

manner, that person will match the wound with something of the same

magnitude. If a match is produced, they have become ~wound mates~.

Their union will include the following unspoken terms of agreement.

 

" We will be there to support each other through any difficult memories

associated with this wound. That support will include reorganizing any

part of our social life, or even work life,

around the needs of our wounded partner. If required, we will carry

our wounded partner's responsibilities as a way of showing how sincere

we are in our support. We will always encourage our partner to process

his or her wounds with us and to take as much time as

necessary for recovery. We will accept, with minimal friction, all

weakness and shortcomings rooted in wounds, since acceptance is

crucial to healing. "

 

In short, a bond based upon wound intimacy is an implicit guarantee

that weakened partners will always need each other and that we will

have forever open passage to each others interior. In terms of

communication, such bonds represent an entirely new dimension of love,

one that is oriented towards therapeutic support and the nurturing of

mutual commitments to healing. In terms of power, partners have never

had such easy access to each others

vulnerabilities or so much open acceptance for using wounds to order

and control our close relationships. ~woundology~ has completely

redefined the parameters of intimacy.

 

Wounded intimacy has found enormous support within the holistic

healing community, particular in the literature on the links between

emotional pain and illness and between healing emotional traumas and

the recovery of health. Support groups have been created around every

possible type of emotional trauma from incest to child abuse to

domestic violence to grief. Television talk shows thrive on making

public the details of peoples wounds. (Not only do we live within our

wounds these days, we are entertained by the wounds of others.).

The legal system has learned how to convert wounds into economic

power, people are encouraged to consider law suits as a way of copying

with their injuries.

 

Whilst the original intention of these support groups was to help

people experience a nurturing compassionate response to a personal

crisis, no-one expected them to continue until the person was healed

from the crisis. They were intended to simply be a boat across a river

of transition.

 

Yet many members of these groups have not wanted to get off the

lifeboat when they reached the opposite shore. Instead they have made

a transitional phase of their lives into their full time lifestyle.

Once they learned to speak woundology it became extremely difficult

for them to give up the privileges that accompany being wounded in our

fourth chakra culture.

 

Without a schedule for healing, we risk being addicted to what we

think of as support and compassion; we find ourselves believing we

need more and more time to ~process~ our wounds. Because the

supportive response feel so long overdue, support group members

frequently hold onto it with a passion that suggests, " I'm never

leaving here, because this is the only place where I have ever found

support. There is no support for me in my ordinary world. I will

therefore live ~in process~ and among people who understand what I

have been through.

 

The problem with such support systems is the difficulty of telling

someone that he or she has had enough support and needs to get on with

the business of living. In many ways, this problem reflects our skewed

understanding of compassion. Compassion, a fourth chakra emotion and

one of the spiritual energies contained in the fourth chakra. It is

the strength to honor another's suffering while bringing power back

into ones life. Because our culture for so long did not allow time for

healing the heart or even recognizing

the need for it, we have overcompensated for this earlier failing by

now failing to place any time boundaries around that healing. We have

yet to create a model of healthy intimacy that is empowered yet still

vulnerable. At present, we define ~healed~ as the opposite of

~needy~. Therefore to be healed means to be fully contained, always

positive, always happy, always sure of oneself, and never needing anyone.

 

The Path to the Empowered Heart

 

Healing is simple, but it is not easy. The steps are few yet they

demand great effort.

 

Commit yourself to healing all the way to the source of the pain. This

means turning inwards and coming to know your wounds.

 

Once inside, identify your wounds. Have they become a form or ~wound

power~ within your present life? if you have converted your wounds

into power, confront why you might fear healing. As you identify your

wounds, have someone witness them and their influence to your development.

 

Once you have verbalized/affirmed your wounds..observe how you use

them to influence or even control the people around you as well as

yourself. As you observe yourself during the day, note your choice of

vocabulary, then formulate new patterns of interaction with others

that do not rely upon wound power. Recognize that it is often far more

difficult to release the power you derive from your wound than it is

to release the memory of the painful experience. A person

who cannot let go of wound power is a wound addict, and like all

addictions, wound addiction is not easy to break. Don't be afraid to

seek therapeutic help in getting through this step.

 

Identify the good that can and has come from your wounds. Start living

within the consciousness of appreciation and gratitude, and if you

have to ~fake it til you make it~.. or ~talk the walk~. Initiate a

spiritual practice and stick to it. Do not be casual about your

spiritual discipline.

 

Once you have established a consciousness of appreciation, you can

take on the challenge of forgiveness. As appealing as forgiveness is

in theory, it is an extremely unattractive personal action for most

people, mainly because the true nature of forgiveness remains

misunderstood. Forgiveness is not the same as telling the person who

harmed you " It's OK " which is more or less the way most people

view it. Rather, forgiveness is a complex act of consciousness, one

that liberates the soul and psyche from the need for personal

vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim. More than

releasing from blame the people who caused our wounds, forgiveness

means releasing the control that the perception of victimhood

has over our psyches. The liberation that forgiveness generates comes

in the transition to a higher state of consciousness - not just in

theory but energetically and biologically. In fact, the consequence of

a genuine act of forgiveness borders on the miraculous. It may contain

the energy that generates miracles themselves.

 

Evaluate what you need to do in order to forgive others - and yourself

if necessary. Should you need to contact anyone for a closure

discussion, make sure that you are not carrying the message of blame

as a private agenda. If you are, you are genuinely not ready to let go

and move on. Should you need to share your closure thoughts in a

letter to the person, do so, but again make sure your intention is to

retrieve your spirit from yesterday, not to send yet another message

of anger.

 

Finally, create an official ceremony for yourself in which you call

your spirit back from your past and release the negative influence of

all your wounds. Whether you prefer a ritual or a private prayer

service, enact your message of forgiveness in an ~official~ way in

order to establish a new beginning.

 

Think Love. Live in appreciation and gratitude. Invite change into

your life, if only through your attitude. And remind yourself

continually of the message of all spiritual masters worth their salt,

keep your spirit in the present time. In the language of Jesus

" Leave the dead and get on with your life " ..and as Buddha taught

" there is only Now " .

 

The curious thing about healing is that depending upon who you talk

to, you can come to believe either that nothing is easier or that

nothing is more complicated.

 

The fourth chakra is the center of the human energy system. Everything

in and about our lives runs of the fuel of our hearts. We will all

have experiences mean to " break our hearts " - not in half but wide

open. Regardless of how your heart is broken, your choice is always

the same: What will you do with your pain? Will you use it as an

excuse to give fear more authority over you, or can you release the

authority of the physical world over you through an act of

forgiveness? The question contained within the fourth chakra will be

presented to you again and again in your life, until the answer you

give becomes your own liberation.

 

The energies of the fourth chakra continually direct us to discover

and love ourselves. This love is the essential key to finding the

happiness that we are convinced lies outside ourselves but that

spiritual texts remind us is only found within. Too many people are

frightened of knowing ourselves, convinced that self knowledge would

mean living alone, without their current friends and partners. Whilst

the short term effects of self knowledge may well cause changes, its

long term development fueled by consciousness not fear, will be more

fulfilling. It makes no sense to seek to become intuitively conscious,

then work to keep that consciousness from upsetting

our lives. The only path towards spiritual consciousness is through

the heart. That truth is not negotiable, no matter what spiritual

tradition one chooses as a means to know the divine, and the truth

 

~Love is Divine Power~

 

 

***

Give up the need to know why things happen as they do.

 

Trust that the unscheduled events of our lives are a form of spiritual

direction.

 

Have the courage to make the choices we need to make, accept what we

cannot change, and have the wisdom to know the difference.

 

and so we then move to

 

~the Power of the Mind~

 

through

 

The Sixth Chakra

 

~Surrender Personal Will to Divine Will~

 

The Fifth Chakra

 

Internal Power

 

Level Five

 

The Power of Will

 

The fifth chakra embodies the challenges of surrendering our own

willpower and spirit to the Will of ~God~. From a spiritual

perspective, our highest goal is the full release of our personal will

into the " hands of the Divine " . Jesus and Buddha, as well as other

great teachers, represent the mastery of this state of consciousness,

complete union with Divine will.

 

Sacred Truth of the Fifth Chakra

 

The fifth chakra is the centre of choice and consequence, of spiritual

karma. Every choice we make, every thought and feeling we have, is an

act of power that has biological, environmental, social, personal, and

global consequences.

We are everywhere our thoughts are and thus our persona responsibility

includes our energy contributions.

 

What choices would we make if we could actually see their energy

consequences? We can approach this kind of foresight only by abiding

by the sacred truth ~Surrender Personal Will to Divine Will~. The

spiritual lessons of the fifth chakra show us that actions motivated

by a personal will that has trusted in Divine authority create the

best effects.

 

Location

 

The Throat

 

Energy Connection to the Emotional/mental Body

 

The fifth chakra resonates to the numerous emotional and mental

struggles involved in learning the nature of the power of choice. All

illness has a connection to the fifth chakra, because choice is

involved in every detail of our lives and therefore in every illness.

 

Symbolic/perceptual Connection

 

The symbolic challenge of the Willpower chakra is to progress through

the maturation of will; from the tribal perception that everyone and

everything around you has authority over you; through the perception

that you alone have authority over you; to the final perception, that

true authority comes from aligning yourself to ~God`s~ will.

 

Primary Strengths

 

Faith, self knowledge, and personal authority; the capacity to make

decisions knowing that no matter what decision we make, we can keep

our word to ourselves or to another person.

 

Primary Fears

 

Fears related to our willpower exist within each chakra appropriate to

that chakra. We fear having no authority or power of choice within

our own lives, first within our tribes, then within our personal and

professional relationships. And then we fear having no authority with

ourselves, being out of control when it comes to our

responses to substances, to money, to power, to another person`s

emotional control over our well being. And finally, we fear the will

of ~God~. The notion of releasing our power of choice to a Divine

force remains the greatest struggle for the individual seeking to

become conscious.

 

One`s thoughts and attitudes also benefit from accepting higher

guidance. We are always shown that guidance is trying to penetrate

our conscious mind. Understanding the energy consequences of our

thoughts and beliefs, as well as our actions, may force us to become

honest to a new degree. Lying, either to others or to ourselves,

should be out of the question. Genuine, complete healing requires

honesty with oneself. An inability to be honest obstructs healing as

seriously as the inability to forgive. Honesty and forgiveness

retrieve our energy - our spirits - from the energy dimensions of " the

past " . Our fifth chakra and its spiritual lessons show us that

personal power lies in our thoughts and attitudes.

 

The Consequences of Fear

 

The most costly energy consciousness comes from acting out of fear.

Even when choices made from fear lead us to what we desire, they

generally also produce unwanted side effects. These surprises teach

us that choosing from fear transgresses our trust in Divine guidance.

We all do live, at least periodically, within the illusion that we

are in charge of our lives. We seek money and social status in order

to have greater power of choice and so that we do not have to follow

the choices others make for us. The idea that consciousness requires

surrendering personal will to Divine will stands in direct conflict

with all that we have come to consider the measure of an empowered person.

 

 

 

Thus, we may repeat the cycle or fear-surprise-fear-surprise, until we

reach a point of prayer in which we say " You choose, and I,ll follow " .

Once we release this prayer, guidance may enter our lives, along with

endless acts of synchronicity and coincidence - Divine " interference "

at it`s best.

 

Faith

 

The essence of the fifth chakra is faith. Having faith in someone

commits a part of our energy to that person; having faith in an idea

commits a part of our energy to that idea; having faith in a fear

commits a part of our energy to that fear. As a result of our energy

commitments, - our minds, hearts, and lives - become woven into their

consequences. Our faith and our power of choice are, in fact, the

power of creation itself. We are the vessels through which energy

becomes matter in this life.

 

Therefore the spiritual test inherent in all our lives is the

challenge to discover what motivates us to make the choices we do, and

whether we have faith in our fears or the Divine. We all need to

address these questions as a matter of spiritual thought or as a

result of physical illness. We all reach a moment when we ask Who is

in charge of my life? Why aren`t things working out the way I want? No

matter how successful we are, at some point we will become conscious

that we feel incomplete. some unplanned event of relationship or

illness will show us that our personal power is insufficient to get us

through a crisis. We are meant to become aware that our personal

power is limited. We are meant to wonder if some other ~force~ is

acting in our lives, and to ask, Why is this happening? what do you

want of me? What am I meant to do? What is my purpose?

 

Gaining an awareness of our own limitations opens us to considering

choices we would not otherwise have made. During the moments when

our lives seem most out of control, we may become receptive to a

guidance that we would not have welcomed before. Then our lives may

move in directions we had never anticipated. Most of us end up

saying, " I never thought I would be doing this or living here, but I

am, and all is well " .

 

It may help to arrive at the point of surrendering if you can use

symbolic sight to view your life as ~only~ a spiritual journey. We

have all known people who have recovered from dire circumstances - and

credited the fact that they let the Divine take over. And every one

of those people shared the experience of saying to the Divine, " Not my

will but Yours " . if that one prayer is all that is required, why are

we so afraid of it?

 

We remain terrified that by acknowledging Divine Will - by

surrendering our will to a greater will - we will become separated

from all that brings us physical comfort. So we struggle with our

will against Divine guidance; we invite it in, yet strive to block it

completely. Many are in this dilemma of seeking intuitive guidance

yet fearing what that voice will say to them.

 

Remember that your physical life and your spiritual path are one and

the same. Taking pleasure in your physical life is as much a

spiritual goal as achieving a healthy physical body. Both are the

consequences of following Divine guidance in making choices of how to

live and of acting out of faith and trust. Surrender to Divine

authority means liberation from physical illusions, not from the

delights and comfort of physical life.

 

The spiritual energies of the fifth chakra guide us toward that point

of surrender, transferring the Divine energy of greatness through

love, which directs us to be as loving as possible in all

circumstances. Sometimes the greatest act of love is to withhold

judgment of another or of oneself. Again and again we are reminded

that being judgmental is a spiritual error. Developing the discipline

of will allows us to refrain from releasing negative thoughts toward

others or ourselves. By being non-judgmental, we attain wisdom and

defeat our fears. This chakra teaches us to release the need to know

why things happen as they do and to trust that whatever the reason is,

it is part of a grander spiritual design.

 

The act of confession/affirmation reclaims our spirits from the

consequences of our choices. As we learn more about our energy

natures, we realize how much our spirits remain attached to negative

events and thoughts, past and present. In energy terms it is the

acknowledgment that we have become conscious of, and therefore

empowered over, a fear that had previously commanded our spirits.

Symbolically it liberates our spirits from past fears and negative

thought patterns as remaining attached to negative events and beliefs

is toxic to our minds, spirits and lives.

 

Karma is the energy and physical consequences of the choices we make.

Negative choices generate situations that recur in order to teach us

how to make positive choices. Once we learn the lesson and make a

positive choice, the situation does not recur because our spirit is no

longer attached to the negative choice that gave rise to the lesson.

In Western cultures this kind of karmic lesson is recognized in social

adages such as " What goes around comes around " , or " You don`t get away

with anything " . Acts of affirmation signify that we recognize our

responsibility for that which we have created and that we realize the

error in our choices. In energy terms

this ritual liberates our spirits from painful learning cycles and

redirects us into the creative, positive energies of life.

 

The sweet healing energy of healing pours into our energy systems

every time we break a fear`s authority over our lives and replace it

with a more empowered sense of self.

 

Knowing them, that the fifth chakra teaches us how to use our will,

and records the directives we give to our spirits, how do we manage

the lessons of this chakra?

 

Between the Head and the Heart

 

Since the center of the will is located between the energies of the

heart and the mind, we need to learn how to balance our responses to

their urgings. Usually as children, we are directed toward one of

these two ruling energies; boys are usually pushed to use their mental

energy, and girls their hearts.

 

Mental energy powers the external world, while heart energy powers

our personal domains. For centuries our culture has thought that

emotional energy weakens our ability to make quick and necessary

decisions, and that mental energy is virtually useless in the

emotional domain, as noted in the old saying that reason can win no

war against heartfelt choice. For centuries, this separation was

acceptable. Then the decade of the 60's when the head met the heart

redefined a balanced individual to mean one who operates with heart

and mind in unison.

 

If mind and heart are not communicating clearly with each other, one

will dominate the other. When our minds are in the lead, we suffer

emotionally because we turn emotional data into an enemy. We seek to

control all situations and relationships and maintain authority over

our emotions. When our hearts are in the lead, we tend to maintain the

illusion that all is well. Whether the mind is in the lead or the

heart, will is motivated by fear and the futile goal of control, not

by a sense of internal security.

 

This imbalance of head and heart turns people into addicts. In energy

terms, any behavior motivated by the fear of internal growth qualifies

as an addiction. Even behavior that is usually healthy, exercise or

meditation, for instance, can be an addiction if it is used to avoid

pain or personal insight. Any discipline can become a willful block

between our conscious and unconscious minds, saying, " I want guidance

but don't give me any bad news " . We even try to direct the very

guidance we are seeking. We end up living in a seemingly endless cycle

of mentally wanting change but emotionally fearing change at every turn.

 

The only way to break through this pattern is to make choices that

engage the united power of the mind and heart. It is easy to keep

oneself in a holding pattern, claiming that one does not know what to

do next. But that is rarely true. When we are in a holding pattern, it

is because we know exactly what we should do next, but we are

terrified to act on it. Breaking through the repetition of cycles in

our lives only requires one strong choice that is aimed at tomorrow

and not yesterday. Decisions that say, " No more - I will not take this

type of treatment any longer " , or, " I cannot stay here one more day -

I must leave " , contain the quality of power that unites the energy of

both of the mind and the heart, and our lives begin to change almost

instantly as a result of the authority present within that intense

degree of choice. Admittedly it is frightening to leave

the familiar contents of one's life, even though one's life is often

desperately sad. But change is frightening, and waiting for that

feeling of safety to come along before one makes a move only results

in more internal torment because the only way of acquiring that

feeling of security is to enter the whirlwind of change and come out

the other end feeling alive again.

 

Again and again, the challenges we face cause us to ask, What is God's

Will for me? We often think of God's will for us as a task, a job a

means of accumulating power for ourselves. But in truth, Divine Will

will lead us primarily to learn about the nature of spirit and of God.

 

The greatest act of will in which we can invest our spirits is to

choose to live according to these rules.

 

Make no judgments.

 

Have no expectations.

 

Give up the need to know why things happen as they do.

 

Trust that the unscheduled events of our lives are a form of spiritual

direction.

 

Have the courage to make the choices we need to make, accept what we

cannot change, and have the wisdom to know the difference.

 

* * * *

 

~Seek only the Truth~

 

The Sixth Chakra

 

Internal Power

 

Level Six

 

The Power of the Mind

 

The sixth chakra involves our mental and reasoning abilities, and our

psychological skill at evaluating our beliefs and attitudes. The Mind

Chakra resonates to the energies of our psyches, our conscious and

unconscious psychological forces. Within Eastern spiritual

literature, the sixth chakra is the ~third eye~, the spiritual center

in which the interaction of mind and psyche can lead to intuitive

sight and wisdom. This is the chakra of wisdom.

 

The challenge of the sixth chakras are opening the mind, developing an

impersonal mind, retrieving one`s power from artificial and ~false~

truths, learning to act on internal direction; and discriminating

between thoughts motivated by strength and those by fear and illusion.

 

Sacred Truth of the Sixth Chakra

 

The sacred truth of the sixth chakra is ~Seek only the Truth~. it

compels us to search continually for the difference between truth and

illusion, the two forces present in every moment. Separating truth

from illusion is more a task of the mind than of the brain. The brain

commands the behavior of our physical body, but the mind commands the

behavior of our energy body, which is our relationship to thought and

perception. The brain is the physical instrument

through which thought is transferred into action, but perception, and

all that is associated with perception, such as becoming conscious, is

a characteristic of the mind. In becoming conscious one is able to

~detach~ from subjective perceptions and see the truth or symbolic

meaning in a situation. Detachment does not mean ceasing to care. It

means stilling one`s fear-driven voices. One who has attained an

inner posture of detachment has a sense of self so complete that

external influences have no authority within his or her consciousness.

Such clarity of mind and self is the essence of wisdom, one of the

Divine powers of the sixth chakra.

 

Location

 

Centre of the Forehead

 

Energy connection of the emotional/mental body

 

The sixth chakra links us to our mental body, our intelligence and

psychological characteristics. Our psychological traits are a

combination of what we know and what we believe to be true, a unique

combination of the facts, fears, personal experiences, and memories

that are active continually within our mental body.

 

Symbolic/perceptual connection

 

The sixth chakra activates the lessons that lead us to wisdom. We

achieve wisdom both through life experiences and by acquiring the

discriminating perceptual ability of detachment. Symbolic sight is

partly learned " detachment " , a state of mind beyond the influences of

the " personal mind " or " Beginners mind " that can lead to the power and

insight of the " impersonal " or open mind.

 

Primary strengths

 

Intellectual abilities and skills, evaluation of conscious and

unconscious insights, receiving inspiration, generating great acts of

creativity and intuitive reasoning - emotional intelligence.

 

Primary Fears

 

An unwillingness to look within and excavate one`s fears, fear of

truth when one`s reason is clouded, fear of sound, realistic judgment,

fear of relying on external counsel, of discipline, fear of one`s

shadow side and its attributes.

 

Applying Detachment

 

How does one apply detachment, in practical terms, to one's life?

Becoming detached and conscious means getting certain perceptions from

our minds into our bodies. It means merging with perceptions that are

truth and living them so that their power becomes one and the same as

our own energy.

 

Take, for instance, the truth " change is constant " . Mentally we can

absorb that teaching with little difficulty. Yet when change occurs in

our lives, when we notice we are ageing, when people we love die, or

when relationships shift from being intimate and loving to distant -

this truth terrifies us. We often needs years to recover from some

changes because we had hoped that it - whatever ~it~ was -

would remain the same. We knew all along that it would change, but we

can't help hoping that the energy of change will pass by this one part

of our lives.

 

Even when " Change is constant " feels like an enemy that has swept away

a happy part of our lives, our lonely times will come to an end and a

new part of life will begin. The promise of ~Change is constant~ is

that new beginnings always follow closures.

 

Consciousness is the ability to release the old and embrace the new

with the awareness that all things end at the appropriate time and

that all things begin at the appropriate time. This truth is difficult

to learn to live with because human beings seek stability - the

absence of change. Therefore becoming conscious means living fully in

the present moment, knowing that no situation or person

will be exactly the same tomorrow. As change does occur, we work to

interpret it as a natural part of life and strive to ~flow with it~,

as the Tao Chi counsels, and not against it. Trying to make things

remain the same is useless as well as impossible. Our task is to

contribute the best of our energy to every situation with the

understanding that we influence, but do not control, what we will

experience tomorrow.

 

Some people have an interpretation that detachment feels too cold and

impersonal yet that is not accurate perception of detachment. Its true

meaning is the realization that no one person or group of people can

determine your life's path. Thus, when change comes into your life, it

is because a larger dynamic is moving you along. It may look like a

group of people conspired to have you removed from a job (for

example) - but that is the illusion. If you choose to believe that

illusion, it will hold you captive, maybe even for a lifetime. But if

it hadn't been the right moment for you to move on, the " conspiracy "

would not have been successful. That is the higher truth of this life

change, and the symbolic sight that accompanies detachment allows

you to see it.

 

Obviously, none of us wakes up one morning and announces, " I think

I'll become conscious today. " We are drawn into a desire to stretch

the parameters of our minds through the mysteries we encounter. All of

us experience, and will continue to experience, relationships and

events that cause us to re-examine our understanding of reality. The

very design of our minds compels us to wonder why things are as

they are, if only within our personal confusion. By letting go of our

self-perception we can let go of the idea that our power in the

physical world is limited. By following our internal voice we can open

ourselves to evaluating our internal reality. What is

life about? What am I meant to do? What is important to learn?

 

This is how we become conscious - a mystery arises, we take action,

and another mystery follows. The progression from personal to detached

mind, however, can be very easy, once we have affirmed our intent to

take that step.

 

Consciousness and Its Connection to Healing

 

An enormous amount of information has become available on the role of

the mind in health. Our attitudes play a tremendous role in creating

or destroying the health of our bodies. Depression, for example, not

only affects our ability to heal but directly diminishes our immune

system. Anger, bitterness, rage, and resentment handicap the healing

process or stop it completely. There is great power in having a will

to heal, and without that internal power a disease usually has its way

with the physical body. With all these realizations, the

power of consciousness is being given an official place within the

medical model of health and experience.

 

Many people credit an illness as their motivation for turning their

attention inward and taking a lose look at their attitudes and

lifestyle. Inevitably they describe essentially the same process of

recovery - the journey from the personal to the impersonal mind.

 

Initially upon learning of a diagnosis, they are full of fear. Yet

once they have stopped to think most concede that they had already had

a feeling that something was wrong yet dismissed the feeling because

of fear. This is significant because our intuitive guidance alerts us

to a loss of power in our bodies. Once the fear had died down however,

most people turn inward and review the contents of their minds and

their emotional data. This is how to begin the process of becoming

mentally and emotionally congruent, or

conscious of the distance between what we think and what we feel.

Healing requires unity of mind and heart, and generally it is the mind

that needs to be adjusted to our feelings, which too often we have not

honored in the daily choices we have made.

 

One aspect of becoming conscious is to live in the present moment and

appreciate each day. To find something of value each day of our lives.

Not to dwell on yesterday but to appreciate all the good things that

have happened and to release the painful experiences. When we are able

to detach from our past we can create a new life that has meaning and

purpose.

 

Developing the Impersonal Mind

 

and Symbolic Sight

 

How can we work with our own minds to refine our mental perceptual

system and become skilled at penetrating illusion? As with all worth

goals, some form of discipline is required to make any substantial

progress.

 

Developing the impersonal mind is a lifetime task, partly because it

is such a substantial challenge and partly because it takes us into

the depths of our illusions and fears. We have to reconstruct

ourselves from the inside out, a process that always beings about

numerous changes in our lives. As with all matters of the spirit, once

we start along the path, there is no turning back. As we start to

allow the Divine to awaken part of our spirit that contains the

essence of what we are capable of contributing to others as well as to

ourselves.

 

The woman who became known as Peace Pilgrim embodies this spiritual

process of allowing the Divine to open a doorway. Peace Pilgrim,

which is the only name this woman used for the last twenty five years

of her life, lived a humble and deeply spiritual life during which she

prayed to be shown a path of service. At fifty two she listened to her

inner guidance, which directed her to walk across the country

continually on behalf of peace. And so, owning only " the shirt on her

back " she began to walk, and she " walked until given a place to rest

and ate only what she was offered " . Her life became a statement of the

power of trusting God completely to provide for one's needs. During

her 25 year pilgrimage Peace Pilgrim touched the lives of hundreds of

thousands of people, who were awed by her remarkable

rapport with Divine intervention. Throughout her life she had gone

through cycles of learning about conflict. She had to experience

external conflict first then internal conflict. When she had finally

surrendered her life to God, she was blessed with the gift of learning

without conflict. She became a source of endless wisdom, fluent in

symbolic sight and living in completely harmony and trust with the

Divine. Her instructions to others were, in keeping with the

nature of truth, ever so simple.. " I don't eat junk food, and I don't

think junk thoughts. " Translation: Honor the body, honor the mind,

honor the spirit.

 

The following provide a starting point for developing the impersonal

mind and achieving symbolic sight, the ability to see through illusion

and grasp the energy power behind the scenes.

 

Develop a practice of introspection, and work to become conscious

of what you believe and why.

 

Keep an open mind, and learn to become aware when your mind is

" shutting down " .

 

Recognize defensiveness as an attempt to keep new insights from

entering your mental field.

 

Interpret all situations and relationships as having a symbolic

importance, even if you cannot immediately understand what it is.

 

Become open to receiving guidance and insight through your dreams.

 

Work toward releasing any thoughts that promote self pity or

anger, or that blame another person for anything that has happened to you.

 

Practice detachment. Make decisions based upon the wisest

assessment you can in the immediate moment, rather than working to

create a specific outcome.

 

Refrain from all judgments - not just those rendered against

people and situations, but those that concern the size of importance

of tasks. Rather, remind yourself continually of the higher truth that

you cannot possibly see all the facts or details of any situation, nor

visualize the long term consequences of your actions.

 

Learn to recognize when you are being influenced by a fear

pattern. Immediately detach from that fear by observing its influence

on your mind and emotions, then make choices that weaken the

influences of those fears.

 

Detach from all values that support the belief system that success

in life means achieving certain goals. Instead, view a successful life

as a process of achieving self control and the capacity to work

through the challenges life brings you.

 

Visualise success as an energy force rather than a physical one.

 

Act on your inner guidance, and give up your need for " proof " that

your inner guidance is authentic. The more you ask for proof, the less

likely you are to receive any.

 

Keep all your attention in the present moment - refrain from

living in the past or worrying about the future. Learn to trust what

you cannot see far more than what you can see.

 

 

Becoming Conscious

 

There is nothing easy about becoming conscious. Life is much easier

before one knows about the deeper meaning of choice, the power of

choice that accompanies taking responsibility. Abdicating

responsibility to an outside source can seem, at least for the moment,

so much easier. Once you know better, however, you can't get away with

kidding yourself for long.

 

We are forever looking for the easy mediation, the easy exercise, that

will lift us out of the fog, but consciousness doesn't work that way.

Ironically, there is a simple way out, only it's not easy: Just let

go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the

life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.

 

So many people struggling to find their way are in that necessary but

confusing state of waiting. A part of each of them is eager to allow

the Divine will to direct their lives, yet they remain tormented by

the fear that they will lose all comfort on the physical plane should

they actually surrender to it. So they are held in a waiting position

until they are strong enough to release that fear and embrace the

deeper truth that ~All will be Well~ - not ~well~ by our definition,

perhaps, but certainly by God's. When we readily embrace the energy of

wisdom the spiritual forces present in our energy fields are just

waiting for an opportunity to penetrate our consciousness.

 

The journey toward becoming conscious is often more attractive in

theory that it is in practice. Pursuing consciousness theoretically

through books and conversations allows us to fantasize about getting

to the promised land without actually having to make any changes in

our lives. Even the thought that a promised land exists can

temporarily make a person feel great. To some extent, " workshop

addicts " are doing just hat - getting high on conversation, but

returning to their homes and lives exactly as they left them.

 

Eventually, however our minds become overloaded with information, and

the day comes when we can no longer straddle to levels of perception

simultaneously. Try as we will, we cannot forever ~visit~ truth and

then return to illusion. At some point the process of change itself

moves us forward.

 

Becoming conscious means changing the rules by which we live and the

beliefs we maintain. Our memories and attitudes are literally rules

that determine the quality of life as well as the strength of our

bonds with others. A shift in awareness includes a period of isolation

and loneliness as one gets accustomed to the new level of truth. And

then always, new companions are found. No one is left alone for long.

 

Our expansion into the realm of consciousness always uses the energies

of our desire to find our own paths - a path of service that allows us

to contribute the highest potential of our minds, bodies and spirits.

 

***

and finally we move to the Spiritual Connector of

 

The Seventh Chakra

 

~Live in the Present Moment~

 

The Seventh Chakra

 

Internal Power

 

Level Seven

 

Our Spiritual Connector

 

The seventh chakra is our connection to our spiritual nature and our

capacity to allow our spirituality to become an integral part of our

physical lives and guide us. While our energy system as a whole is

animated by our spirit, the seventh chakra is directly aligned to seek

an intimate relationship with the Divine. It is the chakra of prayer.

It is also our ~grace bank account~, the warehouse for the

energy we amass through kind thoughts and actions, and through acts of

faith and prayer. It enables us to gain an intensity of internal

awareness through meditation and prayer. The seventh chakra

represents our connection to the transcendent dimension of life.

 

Sacred Truth of the Seventh Chakra

 

Seventh chakra energy motivates us to seek an intimate connection to

the Divine in everything we do. This spiritual desire for connection

is significantly different from the wish for connection to a religion.

Religion, first of all, is a group experience whose main purpose is

to ~protect the group~, primarily from physical threats, disease,

poverty, death, social crises, and even war. Religion is rooted in

first chakra energies. Spirituality, on the other hand, is

an ~individual~ experience directed towards releasing fears of the

physical world and pursuing a relationship to the Divine. The sacred

truth of this chakra is ~Live in the Present Moment~.

 

Seeking a spiritual connection shakes us to our core. Our conscious

or unconscious prayer to come to know the Divine directly does

something like this: " I no longer want to be protected within the

group, nor do I desire to have a mediator filter my guidance for me.

I now want You to move into my life, directly and remove from my life

any obstacle, be it a person, place, or occupation, that interferes

with my ability to form an intimate union with You " . As Meister

Eckhart wrote in ~The Soul is One with God~, the ultimate aim of the

mystic is identity : ~God is love, and he who is in love is in God

and God in him~.

 

Location

 

Top of the Head - the Crown

 

Energy connection of the emotional/mental body

 

The seventh chakra contains the energy that generates devotion,

inspiration and prophetic thoughts, transcendent ideas and mystical

connections. It is the entry point for the human life force, which

pours endlessly into the human energy system, from the Greater

Universe, from God or the Tao.

 

Symbolic/perceptual connection

 

The seventh chakra contains the purest form of the energy of grace or

prana. This chakra warehouses the energy generated by prayer and

meditation and safeguards our capacity for symbolic sight. It is the

energy centre for the spiritual insight, vision and intuition far

beyond ordinary human consciousness. It is the mystical realm, a

dimension of conscious rapport with the Divine.

 

 

Primary Strengths

 

Faith in the presence of the Divine, and in all that faith represents

within one's life - such as inner guidance, insight into healing, and

a quality of trust that eclipses ordinary human fears, devotion.

 

 

Primary Fears

 

Fears relating the spiritual issues such as the " dark night of the

soul " , fears of spiritual abandonment, loss of identity, and loss of

connection with life and people around us.

 

 

Spiritual Awakening

 

Much has been written about the nature of the personal spiritual

journey, but one of the first works remains one of the best known:

~The Dark Night of the Soul~ written in the sixteenth century by St

John of the Cross. In this classic work the author articulated the

stages of separation from the tribal or group mind that are

necessary in order to form a fully conscious bond with the Divine.

 

Within the Catholic tradition the work of St John of the Cross to some

extent gave permission to individuals to separate themselves from

group religious experiences and seek personal spiritual development.

Monastic life had become a way of transcending the ordinary religious

parameters of understanding God to encounter the Divine directly. In

the centuries that followed, as Europeans

encountered other cultures, it became clear that intense prayer, self

exploration and self discipline led to mystical experiences in all

cultures.

 

In the 1960`s the Vatican Council II was a turning point in the

Western religious world. This gathering of the Roman Catholic

Hierarchy disbanded many centuries old traditions and initiated a new

spiritual freedom for all, regardless of religious background. The

word ~catholic~ alone connotes " universality " of thought - a

particularly potent symbol, considering that the Roman Catholic

religion was the original Christian church. Now through Vatican II,

this original power structure was transmitting a message of universal

spiritual liberalism.

 

People around the world began to challenge the limits of their own

religious traditions and explore the spiritual teachings of others.

women sought ordination, Christians flocked to Zen Buddhist

monasteries and Hindu ashrams, Buddhist and Hindus sought Christian

teachings, religious leaders from Eastern and Western traditions held

official meetings. Barriers between the East and West were being

broken, not only by rebellious lay people, but also by scholars, such

as the late Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who in his classic work, ~The

Asian Journal of Thomas Merton~, articulated the need to explore the

mutual truths of Buddhism and Christianity.

 

For spiritually oriented individuals this new spiritual freedom marked

a turning point in the ability to ~know God~, with revolutionary

implications unparalleled since Marti Luther`s rebellion. As the

~un-ordained~ learned the skills required to interpret the deeper

meaning of the scriptures, the education of lay people weakened the

role of the ordained or official religious leader. Symbolically, the

walls of the monasteries - which had long contained the most intense

form of ~Divine Light~ came tumbling

down. An example is the Chinese invasion of Tibet, forcing the Dalai

Llama to flee his monastic home. While this exiling of the country`s

spiritual leader has been among the most painful chapters of Tibetan

history, the teachings of the Dalai Lama and many other gifted

teachers have entered and influenced the world`s spiritual

communities. The Divine Light was released into the lives of

countless " mystics without monasteries " - lay people who embrace

extraordinary spiritual teachings within the privacy of their personal

lives.

 

This shift from religion to spirituality is not simply a cultural

trend. It is an archetypal reorganization of our planetary community,

which now has access to the universal truths available through

symbolic sight. Symbolic sight includes a sixth sense of intuition

which senses the connections among all living energy systems.

 

This intuitive sense of connection is moving us as a planet towards a

holistic understanding of health and disease, of the environment and

its biodiversity, and of social priorities for service and charity.

This movement toward working as ~one world~ is an extension of the

release of the Divine Light into the world. It seems as though

humanity is ~under orders~ to mature spiritually to a level of

holistic sight and service, and any number of paths of service to

fulfill those orders have opened up to us.

 

 

Spiritual Crisis and the Need for Devotion

 

The ~symptomology~ of a spiritual crisis is almost identical to that

of a psychological crisis. In fact, since a spiritual crisis

naturally involves the psyche, a ~beginning mystic~ may be unaware

that the crisis is spiritual in nature and may describe his or her

dilemma as psychological. The symptoms of a spiritual crisis are

distinct, however, and three fold.

 

The crisis begins with an awareness of an ~absence of meaning and

purpose~ that cannot be remedied merely by shuffling the external

components of ones life. One feels a much deeper longing, one that

cannot be satisfied by the prospect of a raise or promotion, marriage

or new relationship. ordinary solutions hold no attraction. Of

course, some people have never found meaning and purpose in life, but

these people are probably wrongly expecting life to deliver ~meaning~

to their doorstep. Chronic complainers and people who lack ambition

are not suffering from a spiritual crisis. Those who are in a

spiritual crisis, however, have a feeling that something is trying to

wake up inside them They just don`t know how to see it.

 

~Strange new fears~ are the second symptom of a spiritual crisis.

These fears are notordinary, such as fears of abandonment and aging;

they make a person feel as if he or she is losing touch with a sense

of ~self~ or ~identity~. " I am no longer sure of who I am and of what

I want out of life " is a standard report from a person saturated with

the energy of the seventh chakra.

 

The third symptom is the need to experience ~devotion~ to something

greater than oneself. The many psychological texts available today

that describe human needs rarely mention our fundamental need for

devotion, yet we all biologically and energetically need to be in

contact with a source of power than transcends human limitations and

turmoil. We need to be in touch with a source of miracles and hope.

Devotion commits a part of our conscious minds to our unconscious

eternal self, which in turn connects us directly to a Divine presence.

Even brief and fleeting encounters with this presence and its

infinite power help our conscious mind release its fears of life, and

human power ceases to command our attention.

 

Our need to be devoted to a higher power has found numerous

inappropriate surrogates; a devotion to a corporation, a political

party, an athletic team, a personal exercise program, even a street

gang. all these earthbound surrogates will eventually fail the

devotee. You may remain healthy in the process, but you will still

get older. And much of the anguish people suffer when they are let go

from companies they have served loyally for years undoubtedly occurs

because their loyalty contains and unconscious devotion. We expect

our devotion to earthly things and people to return to us a quality of

power that can take care of all our woes, but no human being or

organisation commands such power. No guru, minister or priest can

manage the energy of devotees for long without some form of scandal.

We are not meant to be devoted to a human being, devotion is meant to

be directed upward and to take us with it.

 

The absence of meaning, the loss of self-identity, and the need for

devotion are the three strongest symptoms indicating a person has

entered into the ~dark night~. Certainly these characteristics are

similar to common psychological dilemmas that people experience. Yet

when their root is spiritual, the person ~lacks the motivation

to blame other people~ for causing the crisis. Rather, he or she

realizes that the cause of the crisis is within. The inadequacy of the

external components of the person`s life is a ~consequence~ of the

spiritual crisis, not the ~cause~.

 

A skilled spiritual director can help a person get through the ~dark

night~, many of whose challenges involve facing intense psychological

issues. Standard psychological counseling would seek the cause by

looking into the negative patterns in his or her relationships, from

childhood onward. While identifying these negative patterns is

certainly helpful in spiritual counseling as well, a spiritual

director investigates, as a priority, the content of a person`s

inner dialogue related to matters of the spirit, such as:

 

What questions have you asked that seek insight into your life`s purpose?

 

What fears do you have related to your understanding of God?

 

Have you judged your life as meaningless when you evaluate it within a

spiritual context?

 

What spiritual fantasies do you have? Do you, for example, believe

that seeking a spiritual path makes you superior to other people, or

that it makes God more aware of you than of others who are not as

involved in a spiritual path as you are?

 

Have you asked, in the privacy of your prayers or thoughts, for

insights into the reasons you find it difficult to have faith in God.

 

Do you feel that you have, in some way, failed in the choices that you

have made for yourself?

 

Are you conscious of ever having violated your own spiritual rules.

 

Have you ever desired to be healed?

 

Have you ever desired to know God in a deeper way that you presently do?

 

These are not ordinary psychological questions. One can become more

open to receiving the answers to them by reorganizing one`s life in

ways that remove mental and emotional blockages. That reorganization

will at first make one feel worse as one experiences the ~dark night

of the soul~ through which one comes to know the content of his or her

mind and heart, confronts fears and beliefs, consciously pursues the

shadow side and challenges false gods who do not give up their hold

upon the human psyche without a fight.

 

 

 

Enduring the ~Dark Night~

 

Enduring the ~dark night~ requires faith, prayer, and if at all

possible, a spiritual director. If finding a spiritual director is

impossible, you can turn to spiritual literature for support. Finding

a person who understands the nature of the journey can feel like

finding a life raft. Keep a journal, record your thoughts and your

prayers, and above all, hold on to the truth that all dark nights end

with a light illuminating a new path.

 

Become devoted to a daily form of prayer with which you feel

comfortable. Devotion - not obsession but devotion - is an extremely

healing and comforting force. pray at specific times each day. The

quality of the prayer is not measured in time but in intention. Even

five minutes each morning and evening is sufficient. If certain

prayers bring you a sense of tranquility, then make those prayers a

part of your daily devotion.

 

Prayer represents one`s conscious connection with God. Authentic

prayer does not mean to turn to God in order to get something; it

means to turn to God in order to be with someone. Prayer is not so

much our words to God as our life with God.

 

Our goal while on this earth is to transcend our illusions and

discover the innate power of our spirit. We are responsible for what

we create, and we must therefore learn to act and think with love and

wisdom and to live in service to others and all of life.

 

When we have integrated our soul and personality and thus the link

with ~God~ or the Divine Source of life then we have truly evolved

into complete human ~beings~ on our soul journey through this lifetime.

 

********************

Chakra Exercises

 

Enter consciously into the energy of that chakra and sense the quality

of energy activity increasing that that part of your body.

 

Proceed through the chakras, focusing in the following ways.

 

The 1st Chakra : The Spine

 

~All is One -

 

Focus on the energy and feel yourself connected to all of life. Then

focus on the symbolic meaning and bless the life you have agreed to

live, and the family, both personal and extended that makes up your life.

 

The 2nd Chakra : The Lower Abdomen

 

~Honour One Another~

 

Focus on the energy and sense the energy you have released from this

area of your body into acts of creation. If your energy is

contaminated - filled with negativity and fear - re-examine your

intention. See each person in your life as having a Divine purpose.

Wherever you cannot see that Divinity clearly, ask for the energy to

see through the illusions that are controlling you.

 

The 3rd Chakra : The Solar Plexus

 

~Honour Oneself~

 

Focus on the energy of integrity and endurance. Evaluate your code of

behaviour and whether you have compromised your honour in any way. If

so, meditate on the significance of honour and ask for assistance to

maintaining your personal standards. Then bring into your mind the

energy to the commitment to yourself to honour your own dignity.

 

The 4th Chakra : The Heart

 

~Love is Divine Power~

 

Focus on the energy of love and compassion. Evaluate how well you

extend love to others as well as yourself, including the loving energy

contained within acts of forgiveness. Then focus on the care you give

for yourself and how well you honor this.

 

The 5th Chakra : The Throat

 

~Surrender personal will to Divine Will~

 

Focus on the energy of mercy and judgement and evaluate the quality of

the thoughts you are holding about other people, as well as yourself.

Evaluate the words you have shared with others. And if you have

expressed harmful words, send positive energies to those people. If

you have expressed false words, consciously acknowledge that you

have acted to deceive others, and examine the fear that exists within

you, from which deceitful actions emerge. Ask the Light to enter that

fear and give you the courage not to act in that negative pattern again.

 

The 6th Chakra : The Third Eye

 

~Seek Only The Truth~

 

Focus on the energy of Divine wisdom and understanding and continue to

evaluate your daily life. Request wisdom and insight for the

situations in which you feel confused or frightened. Remind yourself

of the promise of this energy that each of us has a special gift to

give to this life and that each of us is inevitably led to that path.

It is impossible to miss our life's purpose.

 

The 7th Chakra : The Crown

 

~Live in the Present Moment~

 

Focus on the energy of your contact with the Divine, consciously

completely and releasing your unfinished business. Allow the energy of

~God~ to enter into your mind, body and spirit, and breathe that

energy into your being.

 

In addition, remind yourself on a regular basis of the archetype of

the Promised Land. This archetype is not meant to inspire us to seek

out a ~one time~ physical solution to all our problems. It is meant to

draw us into ourselves to discover the power behind our eyes. We can

transcend every dilemma through the power of our spirits: that is a

Divine promise.

 

Above all else, as you learn the language of your spirit, establish a

code of honor for yourself that reflects the spiritual content of your

biology. We are meant to move forward towards self discovery and

spiritual maturity, to be ready and able to live alife that matters to

us and those around us.

 

 

Namaste

 

I honour the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.

I honour the place in you which is of

Love, of Truth, of Light, and of Peace.

When you are in that place in you

and I am in that place in me,

We are One~

[Guest guest]

Thank you Dhyanna...

I love reading new items and this one fits right in for the week.

Wishing you a warm and white Holiday and an eventful Shaktipat...

e