Non-duality and Political Positions

Non-dual awakening is the deep instinctive realization that all of life is One network, One movement of expression from a central Source that has come into form as multiple appearances.  Each of us is an appearance that is unique and has its own dance to do in the world, but all of us are linked intimately through consciousness, vibration, and ultimately, love.  Moments of awakening happen when consciousness wakes itself up in a human system, and the individual loses the felt sense of separation from all that is. remembering its primal source and connectedness with all things.

Politics, by its nature, is divisive, as are most systems created by humans. Minds have many perspectives on how the human community should be managed, each driven by personal and separate needs and desires.  The mind functions through the measure of opposites – as soon as birth there is the appearance of two –myself and others.  We decide what is good or bad, what makes us happy or sad, what is right or wrong, just as consistently as we live with day and night, light and dark.  When we function through thought we are looking at opposites and deciding yes or no with every choice. So it is natural that in our human identities we choose sides and gather with those who seem most in line with our positions.

If transformation is the consequence of a true awakening of consciousness, this has to be a transformation of thought, a collapsing of the patterns of separation and division.  Some people imagine an awakening to bring power and radical gifts such as psychic knowing or charismatic speaking or healing abilities.  But these are only bi-products of energy changes that occur in a few who were destined to make contributions in these ways. These are not what awakening is about. Awakening is about a deep and humbling change in heart and perspective.  When you know your connection with the whole you see how the mind functions through conditioning and blind spots. You see the limitations of your previous positions. When this happens your old ways of thinking become uncomfortable, even painful, and ultimately, they become irrelevant. You know you are part of a mystery, but you sense it emerges from a Source both loving and whole, without division or separation. You discover a part in yourself that recognizes everything in some illogical way is perfect just as it is.

But this is not perfection as human thought would define it. It is more like an underlying rhythm and evolving that has more wisdom than the human mind can gather. It is an intrinsic movement of wholeness, trustworthy like the movement of the planets and stars.  Its source intuited but unknown, apparent but much more vast than the senses can perceive, going far beyond, in fact endless.

And then, after this awakening and this knowing, some of the old patterns of habit recycle. When we are able to see them we can wake them up, one by one, by meeting them with compassion and new insight.  We can also see how others are stuck in their own patterns and beliefs through no fault, but due to condition and inborn tendencies they have not yet seen through.  We can see how every experience we have shapes our minds and thoughts, and realize that our decisions about ourselves and about life emerge from the programming we received. Knowing this supports a new kind of compassion for the limitations and failings of the human species.

So how might awakened minds view political structures?  They appear to be battles between beliefs and positions representing many life programs.  An awakened person, who sees the potential for humans to live cooperatively and with compassion for the needs of one another, will want to support politicians who use their power to  promote the health and well-being of the species.  We see the build-up of arms and munitions as a kind of insanity in humans, a species willing to kill its own.  We see the abuse of anyone as an insane and confused reaction to deeply internalized rage and suffering.  We see those who are driven by greed as overwhelmed by a misplaced idea, one that places power and accumulation above a natural and heartfelt relationship with the planet and with others. We see the neglect and abuse of the planet as a blindness to the natural relationship of the human body to its environment.

When we drop down into our body, we notice a sensitivity to the feelings and vibrations of others who are suffering and we feel compassion, even when there is a knowing of the innate perfection of the universe. The one is not the opposite of the other. We live with the paradox that opposites appear but emerge from the One wholeness.  We learn to listen to our gut about the authentic and unique movement called for in any moment, and on a good day we follow it.There may be moments we hold back, because our humanness has taken hold through an emotion or an old pattern has appeared. But our intention is to move from what feels True.

So this essay was intended to be focused on an election. How can an awakened person support a leader who creates division and encourages violence, who separates children from families, who deplores universal cooperation between countries, who ignores human pandemics and poverty, who uses his power to line his own pocket and who is so wounded in his soul and spirit that he lacks empathy and has no interest in hearing the heartfelt needs of those entrusted to his care?  His behavior represents the human shadow in each of us and the shadow side of this country, founded on higher principles he may not recall, but principles that have never clearly been lived up to. Just as a spiritual awakening makes us see our own shadows, the current political picture has brought much to the surface that is the cost of a capitalistic culture. The opportunity here is for transformation – we cannot change what we cannot see is wrong. The first step is clarity. The next step is intention. Perhaps the next challenge is how we merge capitalism with democracy and with humanity?

If you are awake make a contribution to humanity. Take the time to vote for the deepest truth you know.  Your candidate may not be perfect, but even a small step out of the deep sleep of our collective shadow is a step toward the light. We need to reaffirm our connection with the environment, our inter-relationship with others and our ability to move toward a common good.

We need to recognize that when the leader of a great country is crippled by ignorance and greed, enjoys the promotion of violence, and refuses to see the collective needs, it the great spiritual challenge of the country to wake itself up. Those who have faced these challenges within themselves need to support not what is perfect, which is not available in human form, but what is better and holds more positive potential for the spirit and the possibility of humanity. Our country was founded on the idea of a more perfect union, and today our world is struggling with ill health, on the physical, emotional, financial and moral level. A union suggests the wholeness that underlies the uniqueness of all.

Awakened people may have an acceptance deep within of the inevitable flaws in human thinking and patterning and even the suffering in the world, but still we need to move however we are able toward the awakening of respect for the planet and the god we know is present in all others. The gift of consciousness in a human body is the expression of what we call divine or sacred. Let’s not waste our opportunity to contribute to the whole.

 

 

 

How to Create a Relationship with Kundalini Energy

I recently gave a talk at the SAND conference in San Jose that was focused on relationships, and spoke of how to have a positive relationship with kundalini energy.  Here is a copy of the handout I gave attendees, a part of my speech I did not have time for but wanted to elaborate on.

 You are energy and consciousness flowing through a molecular structure, made of  billions of atoms that are primarily empty space.  Much of your history, beliefs, and patterns are entangled in this energy field and when kundalini activates it is attempting to create a transformation by clearing out all these identifications and reactive patterns, freeing you to live in a more spontaneous and natural way. This is a support for awakening to your true nature, or Self-realization, and for the potential of living from this realization.

 You cannot stop or control the flow of energy in your body but you can get in a cooperative relationship with it so that your conscious mind and your deepest Self work together to transform your life. 

It is akin to the difference between a competitive and hostile marriage and a loving and respectful partnership in marriage.Like any relationship it is improved by listening, understanding, cooperating and seeing that each partner gets what it needs.

Your conscious mind, awareness and energy field need to meet this challenge as a team.

You need to allow time for the energy to release, for the body to relax and be nourished, and make adjustments in your lifestyle to reduce stress and toxicity.

I believe marriages  last because the partners have learned flexibility, mutual respect, loving attention and facing challenges as a team. Navigating a kundalini arising or spiritual awakening process needs the same kind of attitudes.

So I have identified four characteristics useful in marriage, life and spiritual awakening to help you finda better way to live with Kundalini.

FLEXIBILITY – to look within and be honest about any changes you need to make to support this process

MUTUAL RESPECT – for the needs of the body and the spirit and the energy

LOVING ATTENTION – If you can trust and fall in love with the grace of awakening the process will unfold much more gently.  Open your heart to the energy and the changes it is bringing, be curious about what this experience is showing you, love the fact you are human and able to be part of this.

FACING CHALLENGES AS A TEAM – using your mind to understand what is happening and find creative ways to express the intense energy and the changes you are facing

I call these the foundations of creating a thriving relationship with life and with yourself.

 Flexibility:This intensified energy brings changes into your life – you will likely lose your drive and you may lose interest in the kinds of socializing you used to do or in the work you are in.  It’s like getting a reading on yourself – what is authentic, what comes from the heart versus what was something the mind thought you ought to think or do. You may feel very inwardly drawn, or find you only feel good in nature, and you may find the news depressing, and crowds energetically overwhelming.  You need to notice and make adjustments to all of these things. You have to open to change.

Often people who contact me have a history of physical or sexual abuse. After a great sense of Oneness or unity consciousness they fall into intense anxiety. Suppressed memories may arise.For them, flexibility may mean taking time to do the psychotherapy they need and to face pain they have not had the strength to address before.

For someone else flexibility may mean taking time off work or taking breaks during the day to go and sit alone in nature. Many people have told me of spontaneously making major career changes, realizing they were never really happy with their work.

In my own life I was getting a transpersonal psychology degree, and primarily interested in Jungian psychology when kundalini awakened.  It seemed obvious I would focus on my dissertation on this, and then doors kept opening to organizations that wanted to know more about it and I was pulled without any intention into my work with kundalini experiencers. I was exposed to stories of experiences I had never imagined before – and needed to stay flexible in my thinking and response to non-ordinary experiencers.

MUTUAL RESPECT You are spirit, energy, consciousness — but your vehicle is your body.  If you jump completely into mystical states or detachment from life you may damage the biochemistry your body relies upon for good health, and become weakened, depressed , or cause damage to your nervous system. If you do not sleep you will appear psychotic. If you do not eat you will become malnourished. Your hormonal system can he thrown off by the excess energy – you need to be sure your body is functioning as well as it can, under the circumstances.

Several people have told me stories of being found wandering on a beach or on a street in India, not eating or sleeping for several days and being taken to a hospital by friends or by the police. Usually once they have caught up with sleep they are functional enough to be released, often with a heavy psychotic medication that they do not need, but still worrying about their sanity.  I have known people who became so ill in India from not being conscious of their diet that they had to fly home and be hospitalized until their body recovered.

It is very helpful to respect the need of your awakening consciousness to have adequate time for silence and inner peace, respect the need of your body for healthy food and rest, and respect your need to work enough for financial stability.

This is not an easy balance and it is unique for each person, just as each marriage has its own unique conditions.  One person may be financially and emotionally able to follow an impulse to travel or live off the grid for awhile, while another may have a family dependent on them.

One person may have done years of therapy to resolve early childhood issues, and another finds that past traumas are erupting and they need to find a way to resolve their wounds. So it is very helpful to look objectively at what is arising in the moment, identify if you need psychological or physical support, changes in lifestyle, more balance and open time in your daily life, –a major shift in values or perspective, changes in your practice and diet to better support your body, and to value all aspects of your life.

This is obviously not easy, especially if your energy is overwhelming, but to the extent you really listen to your body and intuition you can gradually find the right rhythm through each stage of this process, and it will be unique to you.

LOVING ATTENTION  If you can trust and fall in love with the grace of awakening the process will unfold much more gently.  Open your heart to the energy and the changes it is bringing, be curious about what this experience is showing you, love the fact you are human and able to be part of this transformation, and when your thoughts are dark look instead to the felt sense of awareness that has seen those thoughts, and be willing to suspend belief in thought and ask your heart what does it really want.  What could you have been asking for when the process began for you – did you want the meaning of life, or to know if there was a God, or to understand what was true, or to find lasting internal peace? This process is bringing your answer.

FACING CHALLENGES AS A TEAM  You may have heard that you are not the separate self that you have been identified with. That is afalse image you are maintaining, an illusion. While there is truth to this,holding such a perspective may cause you to undermine the thinking mind and its potential for being an ally in this process. The mind loses its dominance during and after an awakening but it can eventually be refocused as a useful tool instead of a stern and over-talkative director.

You may be someone who wants to be in control or wants integration, and this feels impossible when heat and energy and emotions erupt without any seeming cause. And it is true that you are not in control.  When you contract and try to control this energy you will feel miserable in this process.You need to allow time for the releasing your body needs and find creative ways to express or work through the unconscious material that may arise.

If you try to integrate your old way of being with some new insights you are likely to stay in the division you already experience. – This is about transformation not integration -ultimately you will need to release the desire to hold on to your past –You need to let go – it is not as if nothing you know will survive – but your attachment to it will go –  rather like taking apart a lego structure and seeing someone else reorganize it into something new, leaving many parts behind and adding new pieces you never knew you had available. You will be less attached to the new structure but you can enjoy using it.

Here are a few  ways to work in a loving way to meet the challenges in this process

1. Be willing to let the energy release out of your body – it is clearing out tensions and stresses and beliefs no longer relevant or needed in your life – trying to make you feel very open and free. Lay down on your bed and let it shake you out when needed.

2.  Listen to any intuitive hunches about what you need to eat or stop eating, where you want to go and where you do not want to go. Allow the body to move, dance, sing, draw, write — when it feels like it.

3. Be honest in your relationship –not with random feelings, but with the deeper knowing of the heart about what you need and want and if it is fleeting and changing like the weather, acknowledge that too. Notice how your desires make you unhappy and how the release of any demand or desire for things to be a certain way is a great relief. Accept life as it is and move in response to love

As you learn to listen to your intuitive self, and sit in silence to meet any questions or conflicts that arise, over time your mind will become more clear and your emotional reactivitywill fade away. You will live more in the moment – in the now, as Eckhart Tolle has defined it. There is a no sense of resistance to what is happening, although there can be a movement of response, but it comes from loving care rather than angry pain.

It is as if the deeper consciousness becomes the guide and the remains of the separate self is happy to follow its direction because that is how you feel in the flow in life, at peace.

So by getting in right relationship with your energy, remembering yourself as the awareness that is primordial and changeless, cultivating flexibility and love whether facing energy rushes or emptiness, unbearable bliss or disorienting challenges, you will find yourself awakening into a new way of perceiving and functioning in the world. And you will find the answer to the deepest questions of your heart.

I encourage you to meditate by becoming curious about this awareness that you are, discovering the silence already within you  and resting as that.

Kundalini Phenomena and Solutions

I am planning to speak at the EUROTAS conference near Paris Sept. 25-30 and may also do a program the weekend before in London. EUROTAS is the European Transpersonal Association so you may want to check out this event if you live in Europe.  Let me know also if you would be interested in a London program, as I may arrange a workshop there. You can contact me through my websites www.kundaliniguide and www.awakeningguide, or send a message with your email through Shanti River Center on FB.

Here is a second meeting from my recent webinar. I discussed in the last installment how kundalini is your own life force, and that it awakens from the base of the spine, although it may also first be activated at the 3^rd chakra, the heart or as a downward flow of energy.

Imagine yourself for a moment as an electric grid – yogis say there are 72,000 lines of energy flow in the body, moving out in all directions from the center of the spine.  Part of this process is the clearing out of anything held in this grid of energy.  So there can be spontaneous movements, vibrations, heat, even bliss as various area are trying to clear out, or just as releases.

It is helpful when you have a lot of releasing happening to notice what you were doing that day – were you under stress, what did you eat or drink, did you have a difficult encounter with someone, were you sad or upset about something or with someone else from whom you picked up energy, or in a big crowd – this way you may find some patterns that tell you the activities your body is most reactive too.

The more calm your life is, and the more you are open to releases when they happen, the more manageable this process becomes.

Here are some of the phenomena that arise when energy is heightened

Heat, involuntary movement

A yogic remedy for excess heat is to drink warm milk, with a little melted ghee and sugar in it.  Some find that lukewarm baths with epson salts are soothing. A little alternate nostril breathing can help because sometimes the heat rises because energy is arising up pingala, a nadi or energy flow moving up one side of the spine ,and alternate nostril breathing is a method of balancing energy between both sides to bring it up the center. But do not overdo it or you may rise too much energy.

Insomnia

If you go 2 nights without sleep you will begin to appear disoriented and possibly even psychotic. So try to catch up during the day, try melatonin, do deep relaxation practices or guided meditations that relax you, be sure you are in a dark room and do not use any electronic devices for two hours before sleep. These are a few of general guidelines for insomnia. I also found some tapes by a British group called The Honest Guys (on youtube) to be helpful and there are probably other helpful apps as well.

Hormonal imbalance

Intense energy can overwork the nervous system and cause hormonal issues — Do you need a workup with thyroid, adrenals? If exhausted, depressed – do you need diet changes, lifestyle changes, supplements.

Head Problems

If you have headaches or feel disoriented and spacey,  have a fuzzy brain and are unable to concentrate, this is a common phenomena during this process.  Try bringing energy down below the neck and avoid meditations concentrated on the third eye like mantra and visualization. Get out in nature more and practice walking as presence. Evaluate if you need dietary changes. Move energy into your feet and dance. Learn to move more from the center of your body — called the hara. Avoid situations that distress or overstimulate you. Be honest — do not hold on to conflicts if you can find a way to work them through either within yourself or with others.

Issues with the Heart

Often people feel tightness or heaviness in the heart, or they have an explosive experience as some of the holding breaks open.  Most people have what Wilhem Reich, (an early developer of body therapy known as Reichian therapy), called armoring around the heart.  He developed body work as a way of releasing this holding.

When we come into the world we are wide open and available to life (unless we experienced trauma in the womb). The birth process itself can be traumatic and suddenly being thrust into the cold expansiveness of the delivery room.  But generally a baby is open and sensitive to what is happening around it.  As we develop we experience many disappointments and losses and we tend to shut ourselves down, becoming more protective of our feelings and trying to avoid pain.  Depending on our experiences and our need for defense mechanisms we all have varying degrees of armoring. This is what is trying to release out of our system during this awakening process.

Some forms of meditation, (e.g. mantra meditation) focus on awakening from the  third eye or crown as a way to still thoughts and eventually enter samadhi – an expansiveness and connection or merging that feels like unbounded consciousness connected to everything. ( I know — a poor description of something indescribable!) . It is easy to get attached to this kind of opening, and to be drawn to spend your time alone meditating in hopes of re-experiencing this over and over. But sometimes with this kind of opening we do not bring awakening down into the body or the heart, especially if we are reluctant to feel old feelings of loss or pain or grief or anger that we believe could be there.  It feels easier to avoid.

Some of you may have felt your heart opening anyway, without any practice focused there, but most spiritual traditions have practices for opening the heart in preparation for awakening.  Chanting, singing bowls, prayer, metta or developing compassion, and some yoga and Qigong practices are focused on the heart center.  Sufi turning practices are heart-centered.  In non-duality Ramana Maharshi once said the center of the I thought is in the chest, on the right side parallel to the heart and 3 finger widths from the sternum.  He suggested we put attention in this area when we use the inquiry “Who am I” or What am I?

Sometimes a life event such as a death in the family or a great loss seems to break open the heart and this can initiate an awakening, or deepen it into the body. After the heart becomes more open or the heart chakra more awakened you may feel sudden and inexplicable love for someone irrationally, or for no reason at all; or for the world; or  you may feel more vulnerable to the pain of others you see on the world news or on the streets.You may feel joy or awe more spontaneously and compassion, and have feelings with less self-referencing – that is, it is not about you or not personal but it is arising.

In fact as kundalini arises and disturbs all the familiar conditions of the body and psyche you will eventually discover nothing is really personal — you are a form going through a transformation not for your own benefit or because you deserved it or to give you a greater purpose in the world — it the simply the deconstruction of the illusion of “I” so that the knowing of true human nature can infuse the life you lead. You’ve been called into this, and it can be difficult at times, but it can also be ecstatic and it is leading to freedom.

You can learn more about awakening and the kundalini process in my book When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening, published by New Harbinger – Non-Duality Press division)

 

 

 

 

 

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Ways to Calm Energy

I am holding a webinar on Kundalini and Awakening these days, and I thought I would share notes from a recent session on ways to calm down energy and find your center of stillness.  Kundalini is your own internal energy field, an aspect of prana, but it has become heightened, as if you are at a higher frequency, when it has been activated through spiritual practice, energy practices, trauma or for other reasons. If you have an awakened energy field it tends to get more intense when you are anxious, when your body is under stress, or when you are excited – perhaps around the energy of someone else with awakened kundalini, and paradoxically when you are relaxed such as in the middle of the night when you are trying to sleep.

This new energy is both a transforming and a clearing process so you may find your body shaking or vibrating, or heat rising or emotions shifting or unusual psychic experiences. You can feel disoriented and as if parts of you are falling away.  This is the ego structure coming apart – beliefs and attachments to appearances, drives,  interests, activities that you do because you should but you are not authentically aligned with –these fall away. When the energy is focused on certain areas different phenomena arise.  When it is in the lower chakras you may feel  ungrounded or overwhelmed with sexual energy, and as it moves upward you may lose interest in sex, feel intense heart sensations, or have challenges with your throat.

FIND THE CENTER

The third chakra is manipura,  located behind the naval on the inner wall ofthe spinal column. Although awakening is generally considered to begin at the base of the spine, some yoga systems say manipura, located behind the naval in front of the spine, is the center of awakening, actually where kundalini takes place, and it is the link between the higher and lower planes of existence. It is a pivotal opening in this location, because  from here the awakening is ongoing, and consciousness begins to change.  When it opens here you may feel it like an intense  blast and there is a reorganization of the pranic flow in the body, and this becomes the new base of kundalini.  When energy opens here it is believed you can get glimpses of higher planes of existence.  This causes many of your biases, patterns and beliefs to begin to fall away as a new perspective begins to emerge.  You may have past-life patterns arise, or karmic patterns may become more clear, so they can be released.  You can have discomfort as all this energy is being rearranged.

Ultimately there is a deep inner peace in your center as things settle down.  There is a sense of stillness in the center of the activity of life, and the tendency to get entangled in thoughts becomes less and less.  You can learn to be calm and be centered in this part of the body.  Yogis even say that as this center becomes stable you can be free of disease and have the capacity to create your own life.  I think what happens is you learn to listen to an inner knowing located deeper in the body in the 3^rd and 4^th chakras – you tune yourself to moving from an intuition here instead of the old patterns circulating in the mind.  You might call this presence or a sense of being here now – this part of us lives in this moment, not entangled in the past and future thinking of the mind.  Gradually our perception of ourselves as a separate self diminishes and we feel connected to the world in a different way.

Many people have heart openings and samadhi experiences through the higher chakras that give us glimpses of unitive consciousness before this center in manapura is stabilized.  Energy can move up in meditation or spontaneously and we have glimpses and short periods of feeling ecstatic or dissolved into an unlimited consciousness, but to embody and live an awakened life we have to be  consciously in touch with this center, and allow ourselves to clear out the old conditioning and patterns held in our body.

This is what is trying to happen to you – this is how kundalini is related to spiritual freedom and realization.

BASIC GUIDELINES

Here are some basic guidelines for bringing more calm into this process

Try to release fear, become more curious, and be open to being in relationship with this energy as a helping aspect of yourself, supporting your intention for spiritual awakening.

Orient yourself toward a spiritual awakening – whatever that means to you. Let this longing become more central in your life.

Take good care of your body physically – listen to what it wants and be attentive to what you eat and drink. If possible release stress from your environment. You may find you are more sensitive and less able to tolerate places and situations where there is pain or tension or you pick up the energy of many other people. Your senses are heightened.

Find the quiet stillness in the center of all this change and all the chaos of life.  You do this by breathing deep into the belly, taking time to relax, sensing into this area as the center of your beingness. Imagine you can move from the center — the hara — or even and think from this area.

Write out any conflicts going on in your mind — release the thoughts out of your head and onto paper so you no longer need to carry them around.

Creative expression — art, poetry, music, movement all help in expressing what is inexpressible

You may find using a grounding pad or blanket is helpful, especially when you try to sleep at night.

Some practices on you-tube that may be helpful

IRest Yoga Nidra 20 minutes by Richard Miller

Irest Yoga NIdra. By Richard Miller Yoga of the Heart

Chakra tuneup with Himalayan Singing Bowls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Truth About Kundalini

For many years my work as a therapist  has specialized in people having challenges with an activation of kundalini energy, or the many shifts of consciousness that come with a spiritual awakening.  These events have a profound impact on what we experience and how we think about it, and cause changes in the body, brain and spiritual orientation, as well as the lifestyle.

Sometimes people write to me wanting to know how to awaken kundalini energy, believing it will help them in some way to overcome personal issues or improve their life.  While in the long run (over years) this may be true, the intensifying of your energy field is likely to intensify whatever is happening in your life, making it more difficult, before you experience the peace of spiritual awakening. There are many ways that kundalini can change things and not all of them feel wonderful.  Here are a few possibilities to consider before you opt into intense practices for awakening this energy.

The Honeymoon Period

A few people temporarily experience a great high when they begin taking kundalini yoga practices.  I was once in a kundalini yoga center in Hollywood where beautiful women floated around in white caftans looking disconnected but radiant, although their teacher was serious incapacitated by a stroke and could not walk nor talk coherently. (Kundalini does not mean you will never be ill). Kundalini energy causes your energy to sometimes feel high and more flowing, even blissful, and you may break old habits like using alcohol  or sugar, and make healthier choices.  You might feel more alive and limber, and disinterested in the problems of the world.  This is usually a “honeymoon” period before you enter what I have called the deconstruction state of transformation.  Just as when you remodel a house you first do a tearing down, as you move toward transformation you begin by experiencing the falling apart of old constructed or conditioned patterns.

The Deconstruction Phase

Many people who activate kundalini without any guidance, e.g. on the internet or with a teacher who does not have the whole picture, or spontaneously, seem to enter the tearing down faze immediately – their body shakes involuntarily, there may be rushes of heat, painful old memories arise spontaneously, their brains are foggy and their head aches so it is harder to concentrate on work that involves thought, they feel sudden shifts as if out of their body so the feel unstable in the world, their moods shift inexplicably, and family members may become alarmed and have them hospitalized. They may fear they are dying or going insane.

Kundalini awakening is not a panacea for a life that is not working well.  It amplifies whatever needs to be seen and corrected.  In a few cases it feels as if life is stripped of its stability, and its meaning.  If you are in toxic relationships you will likely  feel an imperative to leave them. If you have been living a life that is not aligned with your authentic needs and interests you will feel pressured to change it.

For all of these reasons it is good to be prepared before you enter a practice that might activate kundalini.  This energy is your own life force.  You already have energy, but when kundalini awakens and moves up from the base of the spine it strengthens the energy field throughout the body, vibrates through 72,000 lines of energy throughout the body grid and runs into blocks wherever a contraction is met.  All of us have many contractions from moments in life when we held back our response or expression or locked into a false belief.  This heightened energy is trying to make us more open, empty and flowing. It is breaking down our holding patterns.

Preparation

Here are some of the ways you can prepare yourself for the changes kundalini brings.

Clean up your diet and loosen up any holding in your body through yoga, Tai Chi or stretching.

Find the calm center within through meditation or deep relaxation practices.

If you know you have trauma in your history do some therapy to heal the impact of any beliefs you have acquired related to the abuse.

Question your beliefs and thoughts – they are not truth, only habits.

Have a stable income, basic security and work habits. You may change your work if it does not feel congruent with new values, but if you are homeless or impoverished you need to find a way to meet basic needs before plunging into physical changes that may disorient you.  There is no practical advantage to awakening kundalini – the point of it is to open you to a deep realization of your true nature, whatever the cost to your peace of mind.  How it will impact you along the way is an unknown, differing greatly from one person to another, and often chaotic for an extended period of time.

How to Awaken

The best way to allow kundalini to awaken is to forget kundalini and seek Truth through a simple and sincere meditation practice. Then, if your energy is going to change and open you to live from an awakened place, it will happen in a natural way, and you will have a stable interior place to rest while it does its work.

People with long-term meditation practices and stable lives have the best experiences when kundalini arises, even if it is strange and disconcerting.  They are able to establish a comfortable rapport with this life force and accept the challenges of the process, which  gradually helps them clear away the debris of past history, opening them to new possibilities in the way they live their lives. Kundalini is the energy aspect of spiritual awakening, which is a radical shift of how consciousness is known. It is the way we embody the knowing that we are not the separate self we thought ourselves to be.

For a more full description of how spiritual awakening evolves, and ways to cope with the phenomena it brings, look for my new book “When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening.”

The Blessing of Impermanence

An advantage in seeing impermanence as the nature of existence is in the knowing that all things pass.  While we often grieve over this passing, there are many blessings to knowing that we are in movement, life is in movement, so even the difficult problems of our culture are in movement.

Many people are stressed by the choices being made by the US, and especially the President, at this time in history.  They seem to be permanently destructive to the future of our country and the world environment.  And yet there have been many dark turning points in this country – beginning with the Indian massacres, forcing Mexico out of California, slavery, the civil war, the depression and the dust bowl, two world wars, Vietnam– to name just a few. Our ancestors have all been through events similar to those that cause us fear.  Nothing has ever been permanent.

 

As a country we are often in turmoil because of the push for power, greed, and the division of minds. Yet there have been gradual improvements in human care and responsibility – freeing slaves, laws against child labor, allowing women the vote, social security, education,  easier transportation and communication,  etc. etc.  Historically, most other countries have known the same or worse turmoil  over centuries (e.g. Germany, Japan, China), but experienced gradual movement to support their people.

It is paradoxical that most of the individuals we know personally long for peace and love within themselves and the world, and are generally kind to one another. They value families and friends. And yet as a collective this is rarely reflected, and positive change seems to be so slow.

We live in a world of opposites, continually shifting and emerging with new perspectives.  An awakened mind can see a larger picture – an expansive, never-ending but always changing movement through time.  We are the movement, the life that brings transformation.  Our pain forces us to see what is needed, and brings many into positive action.  Just as when we are wounded physically we must seek help for the body, when we are a wounded culture we must seek solutions.  It does not serve us when our minds only bring us to despair, and our thinking is clouded with anger and fear.  It does not serve us personally or serve our culture when our hearts close down with bitterness.

Negative thoughts are rarely real and true – they are based on emotional reactions and our accumulated convictions of what ought to be.  They are neurons firing stored information interwoven with our discomfort.  Our awareness becomes entangled with thought, and limited by it.

This is why awakened people often stress living in the now. Now is what is in front of you this moment, and is always present as Now. It may be a beautiful garden. Today for me it is a smoky sky in Oregon hovering over a pond and garden. It is difficulty breathing outdoors. It is the computer before me.  It is also good neighbors and a safe house and good health. Tomorrow it may change.

For you today it may be work that needs to be done, or a child that needs to be fed and dressed, or a piece of art you are inclined to create, or a desire to help in a political campaign. We each stand in a unique place in the Now.  Look around and define what is here for you in this moment. Your presence is part of this Now. Your True Nature is always Now!

We are always in motion in this Now-ness.  The question to ask yourself is will you move from your own center and for the greatest good (either your own inner peace or to assist another) or be contracted by a fearful mind? Will you be what you are fully in this moment, or be entangled by thoughts that bring you down? Yes, you are impermanent, but change can be positive and where you are Now has a big impact on what happens next..

We cannot afford to let the world issues, even those created by our own government, block our freedom to love, enjoy and create a meaningful life.  In our choices and movement we can respond in a way that feels authentic to us, and trust that slowly, since all is impermanent, change will come. When there is smoke in the skies remember that it will be clear again. Be like those firefighters who meet it in service to all of us.

Spiritual Aging

I was talking with a friend today about aging and vitality, and reflecting on what is it that allows some of us to feel contented and vital as we move through our 70’s and beyond, while others seem reclusive and distant and unhappy with their lives.

When I was young a spiritual teacher in her 80’s once warned  me “If you are not spiritual, all you will  think of in old age is your health”  and I think to some extent this is true. There is no point in thinking of ambition or raising children or more accumulation. All of that feels long past. So your need to be attentive to the body can become all-consuming. But what if spirituality can keep your spirits up, and your life rich with depth and meaning, no matter your age and even despite health challenges and limitations?

From what I see among friends who seem contented, peaceful and engaged in life no matter their age, is that there is a spirit – a touchpoint within them that nudges them to awaken with curiosity each day, value the simple beauty in the world around them, and follow a creative or social expression that offers the simple satisfaction of connecting with life.  These movements may feel meaningful or they may be pleasurable, but they are not pursued with the intention of enhancing an image, or adding an accomplishment to a resume, the way they are done when we are young.  This is movement without attachment to results, without hurrying or cramming in more than can be managed in the moment.  It is engagement for the simple pleasure of it.  Sometimes it is being generative —  passing along something you have learned to another, sharing what is meaningful in living a satisfying life.

If you have seriously pursued spiritual awakening you have learned  it is ultimately an inside job – it is an interior search to clear away any life debris that keeps you from knowing who you are, what is true beneath the accumulated beliefs, hurts, complaints and conditioned patterns of your psyche. How did you begin? Who have you always been? Knowing this helps you know who you will always be.  It offers a return to a faith in simply being, like a small child but with breadth and wisdom about the human condition.  It is a trust in the unfolding of life and death. a trust in the flow of our life as part of the whole.

Many people feel they have known so much pain and confusion that they cannot get free – the weight of life has overwhelmed them.  But this simple being, the in-the-moment present experience, when it is free of thought, is always here, just waiting underneath to be re-discovered.  Our lives are movement within a great stillness.  We are energy and consciousness in a continual flow, following the river of creation and culture and life experience.  Every day our very cells are changing, our bodies and minds respond to something new. Our possibilities are immense.  We are part of a great mystery and it is healing to know that this mystery and the movement of our lives within it, are the natural and unavoidable way of the human condition in our time and history. Realizing or remembering we are not this brief passage but the essence of life expressing itself,  will free us from the past, help us live harmoniously into older ages, and keep the adventure of life ever-present.

The mind tries to hold on to the past, as if this would somehow stop the movement, the growth, the every-unfolding movement.  We pretend when we are young that it is possible to have control over what happens next., and mistakenly feel inadequate when we fail.  Aging has taught me about the illusion of control in two ways: the discovery that here I am being elderly, and I cannot image how I got here so fast, because inside I am very much younger; and in looking back I see how all of the significant events in my life were not a result of control but only a random happenstance.  Our birth itself is random. There is an apt saying that “You have no control over when you are born and when you die, so why do you think you are in control of everything inbetween?”

Through some grace a compilation of my life’s work was released this month under the title “When Sprit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening”.  Where it goes and who it will touch is beyond my knowing, clearly beyond my control.  The early chapters speak of our experience of being both consciousness and energy – these are the components of life that exist before, during and after our dance in human form.  They are the real essence of life, propelling our physical forms through the many experiences we enjoy or endure.  They are aspects of the spirit that reveals itself when we deeply seek Truth, or to know God, or to know what we are.  The book is about the journey of an awakening spirit – how it happens, what it brings forth, and where it is going.  In awakening, we also discover we are paradoxically the stillness in which this moment of life happens.

Waking up is knowing the answer to the deepest questions and letting our life relax into its natural course. If you are so fortunate as to know this, then aging does not seem much of an issue – just another way of experiencing and engaging and living. – and you know you are fortunate to be given this extra time.  A deep knowing of our own spirit allows us to relax into life just as it is.

 

A New Book for Awakening People

I am thrilled to announce my new book “When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening” is finally available May 1 everywhere in the US and May 10 on amazon in Europe. This is a reflection of all I have learned through 30 years of listening and supporting thousands of people in an awakening process, and blends my non-dual teaching with my understanding of the energy that arises during a transformative process.

I am grateful for New Harbinger Press under their Non-Duality division to be making it available. I especially hope it falls into the hands of people who teach meditation , yoga, shamanic or energy practices, and therapists who have clients who are coming into awakening experiences. It is designed to help everyone understand what is happening, learn practice ways  to nurture the process, and be inspired by realizing where it is headed. I am so appreciative of the many people who have shared their stories with me and taught me so much, and for Adyashanti’s beautiful foreword. I’d also be grateful for anyone who loves it to write a review on amazon or elsewhere so others will be drawn to read it. It is so past time for people to recognize and value this transition that so many go through during or following dedicated energy practices, deep meditation, the use of psychedelics, Shamanic explorations, following peak stress or grief, and even spontaneously. Few who lead these practices know how to provide optimal support, and even fewer mental health professionals who are called for help recognize the signs of awakening. Experiences ranging from extreme energy rushes, vibration and shaking, physical and emotional upheavals, ecstatic bliss, moments of vast unitive awareness,  the sense there is no “me” and many other phenomena are often part of this life-changing process, and reorientation in the world. Learn how to help yourself and help others in this process.

 

What is Awakening?

Do you know that when you “awaken” personal identifications shift from the foreground to the background of awareness, and there is a realization that pure consciousness is what you are? Many may have other interpretations of what an awakening might be, but in non-dual teachings it is simply the ground of our being arising to be seen.

Momentarily, or perhaps permanently in a few rare cases, this consciousness that is omnipresent and universal and eternal feels itself to be what is lighting up your senses, causing the mind to function, and underlying all the appearances of creation. This is what Oneness alludes too – that there simply is only this.

While such a moment can be a catalyst to positive life changes, because the dramas of living seem to recede as if they are a dream, this event of seeing clearly can also be a trauma to the mind that has organized itself according to the beliefs it has assumed were true throughout our life. So after a glimpse of what it feels like to be unattached to our history and life circumstances, we usually find ourselves in confusion as old patterns and beliefs arise again to take over projecting how we should behave and what we are to believe. People may find themselves gravitating for years from one perspective to another —  caught in the “I’ve got it –I’ve lost it” syndrome.

How Mind Interferes with Knowing

 It has been the mind’s focus (its job we might say) to help us know what to do, and divide our options into right and wrong, good and bad, and all the other opposites that make up our world. The sense of “me” , beginning with the body, forms a framework that causes us to feel ourselves to be a separate identity. To form opinions mind relies on our past experiences and how we’ve been conditioned by our families and cultures, our education, reading and everything to which we are exposed. We may identify either with or against what others have taught us. These thoughts have clouded our ability to know this pure and unchanging ground of consciousness, which is completely aware but neutral. It is like the ocean that holds a teaming variety of life and rises and falls in intensity, but has no opinion about it.

Our human structure is designed to keep us in separation. Probably it is this underlying existence of one consciousness that drives us to seek love and relationship within the dynamics of human development, and to never feel quite complete when we find it. (We can feel this temporarily, but a person cannot fill this gap entirely, because it is within us we must make the discovery of wholeness.)

Eastern spiritual practices are designed to nudge us toward an awakened consciousness. But few people realize what this means, and are surprised at the challenges it brings at the emotional and physical levels. Our subtle body energies intensify as they become rewired with this new perspective, many of our old attachments change or fall away, past traumas may arise to be seen and released from our programming, and the mind may want to discard its brief perception of being “no-one”. Of course in time we must still appear to live as “some-one” even if in our hearts we feel this deeper connection to another reality. And after the clearing of old patterns and emotional reactions are cleared away, people who awaken usually express a uniqueness through service or creative action that seems to move through them without any attachment. If you have seen the oxherding pictures of Zen – this is the final return down the mountain. On the surface life is ordinary again. One does what needs to be done. Awakening is not an escape.

All of Us live With Awakeness

 All of us, spiritually “awakened” or not, are enlivened and aware because of pure consciousness, because this is our true nature and it produces the life force within us. We are its expression and movement in the world. The only difference in someone who awakens is that they realize this not as a thought or because of a teaching, but as a direct internal knowing that permeates every cell; this makes them willing to face and release old patterns that block their ability to feel this freedom and transcend the suffering the mind produces. It often allows them to let awareness move through the heart so that action comes from love rather than conditioned fear or anger. This does not mean there is no pain when there is loss, or no need to face an uncomfortable emotion at times, because there is still a human body/mind that feels these things. But such pain does not become a fixed world view or a limitation. To be in oneness the human must be included in the whole – nothing is left out. When freedom is known however, one is no longer so liable to be trapped in suffering or to allow their perspective in life to exclude the wonder and beauty that is ever-present by its side.

If you are inclined to spiritual texts, and would like the inspiration of an Advaita text that emphasizes this perspective, I recommend The Supreme Yoga: a new translation of Yoga Vasistha. By Swami Venkatesandanda published by the Divine Life Society. If you would like to understanding the process that evolves following an
awakening I suggest my book  The Awakening Guide , available on Amazon and Kindle.

How to Stay Married

We encounter another, we merge, and we form a new dynamic in the world. How do we keep our sense of freedom while creating a real and lasting relationship?Today is my 56^th wedding anniversary so I feel inclined to write a few words about marriage. Maybe I will write a book someday on “How to Stay Married”. So here are a few observations about what has  held us together over the years.  These were never conscious intentions, and are more obvious in retrospect. So I am reflecting here on qualities that may help you endure and thrive in relationship, no matter your spiritual inclinations. If you are long married you may have your own unique list.  As a  counselor I have noticed  no two relationships are alike.

Relationship often seems to take a backseat in non-dual teachings despite the fact relationship issues are often raised among students, who somehow fear it is not good for their spiritual life to love a partner. Waking up is a solitary endeavor, and yet as humans we are in a massive dance of Oneness with others, and need to learn to navigate relationships.  Feelings can still arise that draw us to a unique other. Partnering is a great teacher, and often provides a stability and grounding that serves a spiritual seeker well. Here are a few of the things I have learned about how a relationship may endure over a half century and more.

Supports for Lasting Relationships:

 

•             Having some interests and shared values in common,  but respecting the areas of divergence as well.  When valued, your differences may help to form a stronger team.
•              Being flexible and open to shifts in these interests and values –you are both going to change over 50 years – can you enjoy new perspectives or do you contract at the thought of it?  Open yourself to curiosity rather than staying in old patterns.
•             Having an innate stability inside of yourself. If you walk by the ocean daily you will notice there are often changes in color, intensity, air temperature, highs and lows. Marriage is like this. Can you find the stillpoint or center within yourself that tolerates the shifts in weather, and return to stability, just as the ocean does, no matter what is happening on the surface? I did some years of therapy to heal early wounding and find this center in myself.
•             Staying sober –at least 98% of the time — and never being so badly behaved that you humiliate or abuse your partner. Never abuse or accept abuse.  Be generally kind to one another.
•             Understanding your life together is teamwork and you each have different strengths and vulnerabilities. Never demand the partner think like you or do things your way but find the middle road (this is being Buddha-like!) – negotiating solutions that work for both of you. This is true with all the major issues – sex, money, children, major purchases, in-laws, career changes, etc. You are building strength as a team and are not in competition.
•              Waiting out or walking through the difficult stretches – every life has these. Get help if you need it. Know your partner may experience a trauma very differently than you, and feel helpless to help even if he or she wants to. They may have a different way of feeling loved and appreciated. They may have needs you never imagined having. And these may change from year to year. What you need and want at 20 is very different than what you need and want at 60.
•             Giving up the youthful longing to be completely seen and understood. You will never be seen and understood just as you see and understand yourself — in fact, you are always in flux, you change, you are movement and may not even understand yourself at times. Who are you? It can be very confusing for another person to pin down exactly who and how you are from day to day. There is no such thing as mind-reading your partner and if there were, you would not like it. Appreciate their effort to try, and be satisfied with small successes. Be clear about what you want and flexible in letting it go if it is clearly necessary.
•              Learning to know yourself, and to listen to others. Our involvement in the encounter movement of the 1960”s and 1970’s, and later following psychological healing, and meditation practices in a search to go beyond the personal self, has had a profound impact on our willingness to be with what is, to feel grateful for the life we have shared, and to respect and enjoy the uniqueness of one another just as we are.
•             Remembering your own foibles and that it may sometimes be challenging to live with you!  When I am irritated by something my partner does I remind myself of the ways I can be irritating to him – the things he puts up with – like my past traveling without him to India and Europe, and my general disinterest is cleaning house. On the whole his area of acceptance has had to be greater than mine
•              Respecting and supporting each other’s needs and goals. My husband put up with me going to school off and on for over 20 years. Each of us have had diverse traveling schedules related to his work and for me, a need to individuate and see the world. I have found that resistance is often anxiety – partners need to reassure each other that they will return, you do want to be in the relationship, you are there because they matter to you.

 

Staying Married Means Aging Together

As we age we do not look as good, may not feel as good, and do not have the vitality we had when we first partnered. The question becomes are we going to face this stage of life together, or not? We may have to renew our intention if not our vows. This is where the real quality of character in our relationship comes through – if there has been respect, kindness, significant shared experiences , flexibility, communication, support , some humor and some good times together you may make it through to the end. It helps greatly if you have enough financial stability. a positive attitude about living, and the ability to accept things the way they are, even if you sometimes feel like working to change them. Ultimately we must face the pain of loving, and letting go.

Calming the Dialogue

I’ve learned a few things to say that calm the waters on a challenging day – “I agree”, “What do you need?” “I’d like to do this – how would you feel about it?” “What do you think or feel?”  If you have a spiritual life, that is, a deep intuition of your true nature and its connection to all of life, you will want to stay aligned with this. In relationship this means trying to get under the surface of how a partner feels and what they need, and seeking solutions that serve both of you equally well.  It means owning your own reactivity should it arise. It is not his or her fault. It means moving from the heart when you are able, and finding your way to peace and stillness when it is needed.  This is not easy at times, and you may always be on a learning curve as far as living your spirituality is concerned.  I certainly am.

These are some of the ways I’ve learned over a long haul that love. like any other energy, will not die, but simply keep changing form.