Healing Energy Meditation

Someone recently asked me for a meditation technique which I have written about in the past, but during a search for it I realized it might be easier to have it be at the top of the blog roll.

This is a gentle and healing method that is very simple and was passed on to me from an old friend just before awakening took hold. It was in fact one of several types of meditations that I used that helped to train my mind in how to trigger and sink into the part of our awareness where we process cosmic consciousness in the brain. This is the right brain, and to utilize its native focus requires a big shift in your awareness which I will describe to you as a potential outcome of this method.

It is my experience that this method can be an important prelude to awakening, but there also needs to be several other parts added in order to more fully prepare the energy body for this significant change that can take place once you are properly prepared. This technique is gentle so anyone can do it in order to learn about their powers of consciousness.

To begin, you should pick a time when you can be both relaxed but alert. I have always meditated before bedtime because my body was already trained to become deeply relaxed, a precursor for all meditation work. In Buddhism this is often done very early in the morning and it is done consistently, again, because the body will in time slip more easily into these deep states of calm. I will go to bed early so that I am less prone to just fall asleep. I also like having a quiet house and dim or even darkness to cut out any distractions. You might have times that work just as well with you that are different from how I do it. Do what works for you.

You can sit or you can lie down. Just be in a relaxed position. Place your hands together like you are praying. Do you ever wonder why so many traditions use placing the hands together? Could it be that it helps to bring the mind together in a unified way energetically?

I want you to imagine getting very small and standing in the crevices and grooves of where your hands come together and to focus only on your hands. Feel your hands and keep your focus on them and try to eliminate all thought reactions for as long as you can. You can start with doing breathwork if it helps to settle you and quiet your mind. Long deep breaths, focusing on just your breathing, works wonders for calming and quieting the mind. Breathe deep and long and hold the breath for at least three seconds, four or five might work even better…just don’t do it for so long that it makes you deel out of breath.

So here you are, focused on your hands. Just do that. Settle in. Eventually, your mind might wander, but don’t be upset with yourself. Just bring your awareness back to your hands again. Doing this will slowly train you to have longer periods where you are focused on just your hands and fingers. This is an important first step. Feel and focus on the place where your hands touch. Very simple.

You need to do this meditation for at least two weeks each day in order to see any benefits or results. This takes time in order for the right kind of shift to work within.

Over time, maybe quickly, you will notice that you might move from your usual awareness to an awareness where you lose your focus of self. I liken this to how we dream. We often aren’t aware of ourselves in quite the same way when dreaming. It is slightly….defocused. Have you ever been drifting off to sleep but found yourself suddenly in a kind of blank state, perfectly quiet, but you ask yourself “where am I?” only to jerk back to waking consciousness? This meditation will assist you in cultivating that awareness by letting your mind go blank for periods of time. This is the beginning of the shift I am relating to you.

This state is not a normal observer state and any effort to bring ego awareness into it will break the wave of awareness and any phenomenon that might be arising. This is not your “doer” consciousness, this is almost like dreaming consciousness. It works very differently than your waking awareness does.

Now you might begin having small dreams or visions with this method. Just observe and don’t judge. As you sit or lie with your hands together, just keep your awareness on the space between your hands. Being able to not disrupt the flow of phenomena is itself the challenge of this method.

I know how simple this method is, but it is hard because of how spare it is. It must be, in order to train you to shift awareness, but all the while it is also cycling your energy back into your system through joining the hands together.

It is important to be quiet in your thoughts so the energy can do its work. Its possible to experience a state of presence which is largely devoid of a need to think. If you are familiar with this state I am mentioning, you can use it here. Often we feel this state only fleetingly, but its time base can be stretched so that it lasts longer. Don’t worry if you can only hold this for short periods, this isn’t a race! And if you are unable to do this, concentrate on your hands and put your attention there.

Twenty minutes a day will work for this method, but it is even better if you can go forty minutes or an hour. Do what you can and start with where you are. We are all different.

In time, you will notice things happening. What exactly, I wont say because it can be different for each person, but know that this method is very healing.

Pay attention to your dreams during this time and see if you notice any changes. Do you notice any changes during the day? During the meditation being able to hold on to that state of nonlinear being which is the feeling nonverbal self is key. This part of you can begin to come forward and with it some very interesting things. When I say “feeling” I don’t mean your emotions. I mean your capacity to feel and to feel deeply.

The important thing is to not try and use your rational observer mind during this, but the part of you that sees but does not critically examine and think the way you usually do while awake. I know this might sound impossible to do, but give it a try and don’t worry whether you feel like you aren’t catching on fast. We are each unique and different.

If things start to happen, it just means that it is working well for you. If anything comes up that seems odd or alarming, don’t judge it, never judge, just watch it and observe with curiosity and interest, but let it pass as it does naturally. And if you wind up experiencing something that you don’t understand or are confused by, feel free to leave me a comment. I can see your comments before they get published so if its personal I can not publish your comment and then leave a comment of my own that answers your question. But most of what people experience wont be earth shattering or private, so I welcome your comments or questions.

Now as an aside, once you begin, you want to carry through each day with this meditation for at least two weeks. You will need to give it an opportunity to work its magic. If after the first week you feel like you are getting nowhere, simply stop. It might not be a good match for where you are. But if given time, this method tends to bring very good results when applied in the way described. If this method works for you, you can do the meditation while standing in line at a store by placing just a few fingers together. This helps to concentrate the energy in your body in a very particular way!

As an adjunct to this meditation, being able to learn what your biggest hot button issues are and do the work to bring energy to those places where they normally reside in your body will assist this work later for stimulating a more gradual opening to awakening. Choose something you can do, that is easy enough for you to deal with but that has dogged you most of your life. These are blocks and they impede the flow of this energy that is behind awakening.

For example, whenever you feel your stomach tighten or your heart cramped, these are signs of blocked energy in the body. Learning to know how to release them opens the light body to a better flow of prana or qi (chi). When you remove what divides you, you open yourself more and more to the flow of energy tied to awakening or kundalini. Go slow, take it easy, but also engage your intuition. Going at this with fear is not the way. You need to cultivate trust in the energy. While the energy is strong, stronger than you, it wont ever hurt or harm but seek to heal you even more, even if it all seems a bit much.

Have fun and let me know how it goes!

Advertisement

The Interviews

Sunset over St Marks Nature Preserve, Wakulla County Florida. Copyright Parker Stafford 2018

 

Several years ago I decided to interview people who had experienced awakening for inclusion on this blog.  This was an effort to help bring the perspective of those who have experienced the phenomenon to the fore in order to help others who have gone through this life changing event to gain perspective, understanding, and perhaps greater awareness. I have recently published two of those interviews and they have been given their own page which are located under the header at the top of the page.

 

It is hard to know how much awakening can change your life.  It is like a quantum leap into the unknown.  It is bewildering.  It crowns just as it crucifies.  Navigating it is at once easy, difficult, with old rules now completely out the window.  It leaves many feeling scattered to the four winds sometimes, and yet it is also a saving grace.  It is powerful medicine.  Many awaken without a background in any philosophy or religion to provide a framework for the experience.  My sense, as it was perhaps my own experience, that we have much more to learn from awakening when we don’t have those frameworks in place. This is for the simple reason that we face the phenomenon without preconceived notions of what it is that we are experiencing.  We don’t get “captured” by the “rules” of other groups who, I note, have been unable to glimpse the larger potential that awakening offers us. While the experience happens in every culture and corner of the world, there is also a rising tide within the Christian church, factions of it, who would paint this as an inauthentic experience, what is called a “counterfeit spirit.”  Sadly, there are those who would resist the universality of this experience and they do so out of nothing more than ignorance.  The only way to deal with ignorance is with education, with information, and with what we find to be true (rather than what we believe) from direct experience.

 

There are plenty of frameworks that do speak of awakening and many of them wind up, for me at least, to include just as much belief as they include factual information, which to my mind makes it a mixed bag.  To know the truth, it seems, we have to go beyond what the masses are saying about it in order to learn to trust our own experience.  This is a lonely proposition and can put us at odds with the mainstream (like Advaita or Neoadvaita for example).  While awakening has very specific symptoms and signs, it leads us to an awareness that places us in a whole new kind of mind and heart space.  This can be a lonely road for many of us.  The interviews reminds you that you are not alone, that you are part of what appears to be a growing number of people waking up all around the same time frame.  Curious, perhaps purposeful, we can each learn from each other.  This is my hope.

 

My hope,too, is that we can build a library of these interviews for the assistance of anyone wanting to learn more about the experience, be they curious or an “experiencer” themselves.  If you have had an awakening and would like to add your voice to the chorus, your interview is welcome here.  Interviews are kept anonymous if you wish, but very real people are behind them.  You can simply respond in the comments section and I will arrange to receive your answers to the questions (which are just a jumping-off point) for inclusion here.  I am interested in whatever insight that you feel that you have, regardless of what others may say about awakening (or even myself) because we all have a lot to learn.