Inhabiting the Chakras: Finding Space

Posted on September 21, 2015 by admin

In the previous post we discussed the triune soul as a habitat, a place to live in harmony with the whole of creation, and what is means to begin to inhabit these three realms. Here we will explore the chakras as habitats, ie actual locations with structures, energies, ecologies and relationships. You will need your imagination, the ability to stay immersed in the energetic world for 20 minutes or more, a comfortable pose or place to be, (supported savasana) and some understanding of anatomy. The intention is to evoke new sensations and perceptions, awaken more integration in movement open to the intuitive revelations that arise from the subtle realms of the body.

To inhabit the inner spaces, for a somanaut, requires a deepening increase in perceptual sensitivity. For our work with the chakras, this begins by learning to differentiate the various structures and elements that allow freedom of movement from the inner most layers of the body. An important note about the chakras before we go further: chakras are portals or gateways into ultimate mystery, and thus cannot be pinned down with any meaningful accuracy. What we can do is recognize their possible effects upon the structures, energy patterns and movements, and explore the sensations that arise as we proceed inward. Each of us will have unique experiences, so when I describe what I feel, that is only a starting point for your own explorations. Your experience may be quite different, but equally valid.

It is my own inner experience, and from what I see again and again in teaching, there are certain areas in the body when structures are con-fused, or stuck together. Thus we cannot differentiate the various components that make up that area. From a chakra perspective, the 1st and 2nd are quite undifferentiated, as are the 3rd and 4th, and the 5th and 6th. Our perceptual field and capacity to feel movements does not quite align with the model above. So we will begin by looking at ways to open up some space along the chakra line. The most subtle, but very powerful is to work from the level of ‘field effects’. The magnetic field is familiar enough for all to use, and the basic rules are opposite charges attract and like charges repel. If we imagine the 1st and 2nd chakras both carry a positive charge, the 3rd and 4th both carry a negative charge, and the 5th and 6th both carry a positive charge, some interesting movements begin to awaken.

Lie in a supported savasana, knees elevated to help keep the pelvis neutral. Imagine the legs, femurs to feet slowly oozing away from the trunk of the body. Imagine the pelvic bones releasing laterally very slightly to release the sacro-illiacs and then flowing away with the legs. Finally imagine your tail bone slowly lengthening and releasing in the same direction as the legs. Visualize the central organizing activity of all of these as the 1st chakra being repelled downward (away from the head) by the 2nd or sacral chakra. The sacrum moves in the opposite direction, upwards toward the heart or 4th chakra. Find the space that opens between 1 and 2 and rest in the depths of that space. Feel whatever sensations arise, looking for pulsation, vibration or slow wave motion as clues for the larger energy patterns. What is happening in the fluid body, through the blood vessels and the extra-cellular fluids? What happens to the lower lumbar discs, nerves, vertebrae? What other realms are there waiting to be noticed in the deep background?

Now bring your attention to the center of your diaphragm and imagine the 3rd chakra just below and the 4th chakra just above. Now add a negative charge to each and let them push apart a bit more. Feel the negatively charged 3rd chakra descending toward the rising positively charged second chakra. Feel the negatively charged 4th rising up toward the 5th chakra/throat region. Feel the organs and deep connective tissue structures of the mesentery, mediastinum, coronary and falciform ligaments melting, softening, opening. Follow the blood flow and the deeper rhythms of the body.

Finally, bring your attention to the soft palate at the back of the mouth. Imagine a positively charged 5th chakra below and a positively charged 6th chakra above, gently pushing apart. The positive 5th descends toward the negatively rising 4th, while the positive 6th rises toward the crown chakra just above the top of the skull. Soften inner ears and the backs of the eye sockets. Release the tongue, teeth, gums and jaws. Feel the field generated by all of these penetrating through the cells of the body.

Notice that the 5th, 3rd and 1st chakras are all moving downward slightly. This follows the natural flow of peristalsis and the gastro-intestinal tract energy. By unblocking the first chakra, back pressure is relieved from the anal mouth so grounding can continue at all levels. The unblocking down of the 3rd chakra allows the esophagus (and the vagus nerve) a free run down through the diaphragm at the esophogeal hiatus all the way to the anus to help to prevent or heal hiatal hernias here. At fifth chakra, where swallowing begins, the descending energy helps release tension in the neck and shoulders, the vocal cords, and the floor of the brain.

The ascending currents of the 2nd, 4th and 6th chakras resonate with the cranio-sacral system, with the heart chakra synchronizing with the cranial and sacral regions. In a future posting, we will explore the cranio-sacral system in more depth, including the three layers of the tide. In the overall field of the body, there are always ascending and descending currents seeking dynamic balance and harmony, within and without the body/mind/cosmic field.

Notice also that as the 2nd and 3rd chakras are drawn toward each other, they combine to help strengthen the lumbar region and integrate its movements with the sacrum and thoracic regions. Similar in the cerivical region when the 5th and 4th combine to support and integrate movements of the neck with the rest of the body. Humans seem to be the only creatures who have lost the inherent liquidity of their spinal columns, including flexibility and subtle integration. The upright posture is only partially to blame as we can restore some of the integration by waking up and inhabiting the spine and chakras again.

We can use our supported bridge pose to deepen the sense of space and expansion along the chakra line and through the chakra spaces and we will use a great new prop designed by old friend Randy Dean, the Bhoga Block. These blocks are hollow, making them lighter and easier to move around. They have a squared end for standing upright, and have curved surfaces that allow a much more organic experience of the back-bending support we can use to open 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. Experiment where you place them, and which direction the square end faces. You can use a single block, or a pair, so there are many different possibilities to support, perceive, awaken and integrate.

Here I am using two blocks placed between 2 and 3, the weight of the tail and chakra 1 inviting chakra 3 to follow the downward flow to the feet, opening the liver and root of the diaphragm, among other structures and energies. The feet gently pressing out, following the direction of 1, create a rebound at 2 sending it up toward the heart. As soon as possible, let the repelling/attracting magnetic fields take over the work and you can rest in the stillness between and around the field lines.

With the blocks higher up, three is starting to sneak back up, creating a slight break in the field, but 4 is releasing up lifting the sternum, opening the shoulders. The blockage at 5 is slightly more pronounced leading to redness. Inner adjustments are needed, but the inner glue is beginning to melt. Fire and water are beginning to work more coherently, but it is a work in progress. Finding the magnetic field lessens the strain tremendously.

By removing the blanket under the head, I can get more differentiation at 5-6, especially where the cranial bones sit on the neck at skull – C1, the atlanto-occipital joint. My crown chakra opens into the floor to help 6 open into the back of the skull. 3 still needs to move toward the feet.

To bring in rotation, we can use the basic standing wall twist. Now that we are vertical, the chakra line and gravity have a radically different relationship. The role of the feet in grounding the energy is enhanced when we can relax down into them, receiving Mother Earth effortlessly. The ascending energy is then more internal. In this photo, there is still congestion at the back of 4, the origin of the wings. but there is lift rising up through the skull. In rotation, the chakra spaces expand radially outward, perpendicular to the chakra line that is the central axis of the body. We will look at this more deeply next week. Or soon! Our shamanic weekend at Esalen is coming so the next blog might be about our experiences journeying to new places.

I’m a Soul Man!

Posted on September 8, 2015 by admin

Although the word ‘soul’ is used in many fascinating, confusing, and contradictory ways, soul always seems to imply some form of integration or relationship between the sacred and the profane, the mystical and the sensuous, or to use the advaita terminology, between the formless and the world of forms. My first ‘felt sense’ of soul came from the Soul music that arose in the 1950’s and 60’s, combining elements of Gospel and its spiritual aspirations with the more sexual/sensual Blues. Nothing better than feeling the presence of Jesus through all the chakras! Thank you Sam and Dave! This made a whole lot more sense to me than the Catholic image of soul as an ‘untainted purity’ that was continually being stained by unending chain of sins, and had to be constantly cleansed by some priestly dry cleaner. My soul wanted heaven and earth to dance together as one. But what exactly is the soul?

The outer, objective world of the senses is relatively easy to describe. We can see and feel oak trees, ocean waves and fire. Finding words to articulate the inner subjective world, the domain of the mystic, the shaman, the poet and the somanaut, is much more difficult, but soul is a word seemingly used by everyone. Soul has recently returned to my vocabulary as three very different perspectives on soul have been offered to me and I am digesting, integrating and hoping to incorporate them into my teaching on the spiritual unfolding currently underway.

Adyashanti uses soul in a very Buddhist/Mystical Christian way. John O’Donohue has a Celtic/Druidic view on the soul, and Hank Wesselman and Jill Kuykendall speak of soul from the Shamanic point of view in general, and the Hawaiian Kahuna tradition specifically.

Adya uses soul as a synonym for what in beginning meditation is known as the witness, or witnessing consciousness. For pre-meditation consciousness, awareness and what arises in awareness are confused, or undifferentiated. Entangled in this confusion is also the self identity. I am my psychological content. All the chatter that goes on in the mind is me and this is a highly unpleasant place to be for very long. In level 1 meditation, or mindfulness, we are taught to just notice or be a witness to what is arising in the mind, without getting involved in the story. This begins the teasing apart of Purusha (soul) and Prakriti, creation, that is the foundation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

Mindfulness is not so easy in the beginning as the mental habit is to react to almost everything that shows up and to totally forget about just witnessing. Restraining the urge to react, what Patanjali calls citta vrtti nirodhah, takes discipline, tapas or abhyasa, and patience. We teach self discipline and restraint to children, so it is a basic human practice in the beginning. Also, beginners on the yoga/meditation path recognize that ‘mind’ is addicted to having ‘some thing’ to grasp as an anchor, or place to stabilize itself. Therefore, a second aspect of beginning meditation is added.

Concentration practice, also known as dharana – dhyana – samadhi and samyama in the yoga tradition, helps root the nervous system in the world of form so it can relax, feel safe, and begin to trust in ‘letting go’ into stillness. The biological instinct for survival does not necessarily trust letting go. If you are a bunny rabbit grazing peacefully in a field, letting go into your bunny bliss may lead to becoming someone else’s dinner. An edge of anxiety and fear, just in case, keep the bunny genes alive. We have to learn to override that instinct to find the depths of our soul.

With time, we eventually begin to recognize that witnessing, or awareness is actually different from what is arising in awareness. We open to a deep, vibrant stillness, unbounded in space or time. We discover eternity as being ever-present. This is what Adyashanti calls ‘soul’ level consciousness. This level can also be called the masculine, transcendent, or formless consciousness and its discovery is the beginning of spiritual awakening. The ‘sacred emerges into conscious awareness not as another form, but as limitless eternity.

John O’Donahue uses the word ‘soul’ to describe the deep urge of our embodied self to merge with the infinite and links it with the heart. Soul is “a presence from the divine world where intimacy has no limit or barrier.” And as it is linked to the infinite, it can never be truly captured or held. “All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.”

In this sense, the soul is not an aspect of the physical world, the world we see, feel and directly contact, but it is in the realm of form, as it can change, mutate, grow and evolve. It inhabits the subtle realm, underground, hidden away. Poet David Whyte defines soul as “the indefinable essence of a person’s spirit and being. It can never be touched and yet the merest hint of its absence causes immediate distress.” Depth-psychologist James Hillman adds “the search for the soul always leads into the ‘depths’.” John O’Donohue’s book “Beauty” was written to help nurture the soul. “The human soul hungers for beauty.” And “we feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the need of the soul.” This use of soul is a lot juicier than Adya’s, but Adya uses the word ‘spirit’ to integrate the feminine as a realization of the soul. Same inner experience, slightly different wording.

As yoga students and somanauts, we can dive into the depths of our own souls through the water element, the metaphor for emotions, the inner world and the unconscious mind. Poseidon, or Neptune to the Romans has his trident, the symbol of the trifurcated muladhara/earth element, as he prepares to plunge in the depths of the oceans. The unconscious hold our fears and anxieties, as well as our unrealized higher potentials. If we want to wake up, we must take the plunge and liberate the soul from the habit and conditioning of feeling separate and lost. Mindfulness, or the awakening of “soul”, provides swimming lessons so we do not drown during our dives into the inner ocean. Beauty, awe and delight steer the soul safely through the turbulance of our life experiences. Start in the shallow end of the pool, and work your way into the deeper waters. A mindful and juicy asana practice is even better as it will help you become a very proficient navigator of the water element.

The Shamanic world has a complex view of ‘soul’. Although there are subtle variations on soul among various indigenous cultures across the planet, almost all agree that the human has three souls, or three aspects or levels of soul, that are involved in the reincarnation process and our life journeys. The following is from the Hawaiian Kahuna tradition as taught by Hank Wesselman and Jill Kuykendall in The Spiritwalker Teachings. (Kate and I will be diving more deeply into these waters when we study with them in person next month at Esalen. I find their teachings very similar to my own experiences with yoga and lots of fun to play with.

In the Kahuna tradition, the three souls, the Soul Cluster, are the Celestial, The Body and the Mental, and health and well being occur when all three are aligned and working together harmoniously.

The Celestial Soul, also known as the Spiritual Soul, Oversoul, or Angelic Soul are all names for the Immortal Soul known as Paramatman in the Vedic tradition. It’s essence is infinite light and at incarnation the Oversoul sends a holographic seed of light to awaken and enliven the other two mortal souls. This energy is transferred to the other two souls in the form of breath, or spiritus. Although everpresent, the Celestial Soul remains hidden from the other two until they attain a level of harmonious integration on the mortal plane. Then, seeds of further growth and development can be planted in the mortal souls to bring out higher and higher dimensions of consciousness into the world.

This seed first awakens and engages with the Physical, Earth or Body Soul as breath or prana. The Body Soul comes from two sources, mother and father. Not only do the sperm and egg come together on the physical plane, but also a psychic/energetic field from each of the parents combine to receive the seed from the Oversoul. The Body Soul carries the evolutionary intelligence at a cellular and organic level and handles all physiological functioning, including the urge for continuous growth, healing and development. Memories as well as all of our learned behaviors are stored here. The Body Soul is analagous to a combination of the anamaya, pranamaya and manomaya koshas in the Vedic tradition.

The Body Soul also is involved with all forms of perception, including the inner world as well as the outer. It is always honest, as it perceives without editing, interpreting or assigning meaning. And most importantly for our future explorations, the Body Soul contains the gateways to the inner world of the shaman. Because it is the perceiver, it is the giver and receiver of all shamanic experiences. (This image is from Michael Williams’ web site on prehistoric shamanism.)

Very much like computer hardware, the Body Soul follows directions and can be further programmed and this becomes a possible source of problems, as it operates in concert with the Mental Soul, which has access to ideas, imagination and creativity.

The Mental Soul or Ego Soul tends to remain in the background in young children as they are very much body centered in the early years, but begins to emerge as the child begins to question the world. The Mental Soul is the source of thoughts, creativity and imagination, assigns meaning to experiences, makes decisions and acts to guide the Soul Complex on the life journey. These choices are directed by the beliefs and the self sense that arises in the Mental Soul from our life experiences. This self sense, or ego, (constructed by the ahamkara), responds to both positive and negative experiences. Positive ones build self confidence and a strong sense of personal power, and our life choices flow from wisdom, compassion and creativity. Negative experiences such as various types of trauma can lead to a damaged self sense, emotional pathology, and life choices based on fear, aggression or self loathing. These traumatized belief structures also interfere with the Body Soul’s capacity to sustain health by sending it bad software leading to a debilitation of energy and illness.

The Body Soul can give feed back to the Mental Soul about these imbalances, as it is always honest. But the Mental Soul, in its creativity, can lie to itself. It can distort the direct information the Body Soul to sustain its own belief patterns. The question for healing becomes how do we begin the allow these two Souls to work in synchrony? The Mental Soul has to learn how to listen objectively to the Body Soul, to trust it’s information, and to discover the inherent power in the physiological wisdom that is at the heart of the Body Soul. A key aspect to the wisdom of the Body Soul is the Shamanic Gateway, and we will go into this in more detail in a further posting. When the Body Soul and Mental Soul are in synch, the Oversoul can be seen and heard, and the next level of spiritual growth can proceed.

Patanjali on the Mat

Posted on August 18, 2015 by admin

An embodied yoga practice allows the possibility of decoding the Sanskrit lessons imparted in the Yoga Sutras without too many trips to the dictionary, because yoga is ultimately experiential and not a collection of ideas.

There are two great discoveries offered by Patanjali. First, we are always in direct connection with the infinite Ground of Being, known in the Yoga Sutras as Purusha, or drashtuh, the Seer. In Vedanta, this discovery is known as atma-jnanam, knowledge of the true nature of the Self. However, as humans, we tend to forget this reality, stop feeling whole and at peace, and become spiritually confused.

Therefore, Patanjali’s second great revelation is that there are many psychological, emotional and spiritual practices or disciplines available to us to help dissolve this confusion and help us return to feeling whole. These skillful means or upayas are cultivated by tapping into the wisdom of life itself, awakening the innate intelligence, aka buddhi, and discovering that embodiment of the Divine, whether as a galaxy, a star, or a human being, always involves a balance of complementary forces and energies, known as yin and yang, or the dvandvas. (II-48, tato dvandva anabhigatah)

Patanjali does not spend many sutras on atma-jnanam. He mentions it at the beginning in I-3, as drashtuh svarupe avasthanam, returns to it in the very last sutra, IV-34, and that’s about it. (The Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita offer very rich and metaphorical descriptions of embodying Self Knowledge, so perhaps Patanjali did not feel the need to replicate those.) But he does an amazing job of offering maps and models of the mind states that create problems, and practices to heal the ones that are dysfunctional. Our on the mat practice will be samyama in asana.

The most important sutras come right at the beginning, I-2 through 1-4. We will change the order slightly, (as this is how we actually experience them), and then expand upon them a bit to give us a basic overview before we get into practice. (Please refer to the Yoga Sutras Study Section for the more literal translation and additional commentary to these and other sutras.)

I-4 vrtti sarupya itaratra: Being human is not easy. Our thinking mind complicates the world unnecessarily and this leads to what the Buddha referred to as the state of suffering, or dukkha, where we forget our own infinite spiritual nature. Identification of the self with dysfunctional beliefs and thoughts is the source of this suffering, or to use Patanjali’s terminology, of not being “in Yoga”. This creates a self sense that is inadequate, constantly needing to either add or subtract something in order to find inner peace. This is of course an impossible pursuit and shows up in the body/mind as tension, fear, anxiety, stress and trauma.

I-2 citta vrtti nirodha: This dysfunctional mind activity can be transformed by resolving the energies of these activities back into the flow of aliveness. This harmonious, elegant movement rooted in the eternal is known as the Tao in Chinese and is described in the Tao Te Ching, the famous treatise attributed to Lao Tzu. Patanjali offers many skills and practices that can be called upon to alleviate the distress and shift the self identity and we will focus on one today, samyama, described in Patanjali’s third chapter, the Vibhuti Pada. We are becoming more and more clear about the neuro-science and biology of fear, anxiety and trauma, the roots of suffering, including how they arise and how they can be healed, and we will use this to inform our practice.

I-3 tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam: When the dysfunctional activity ceases, the Infinite Ground of Being shines forth, the “I AM”, the sense of self, dissolves into this, and remains stable there . There is an ‘Awakening’ to the fact that ‘I am wholeness’ that is both unimaginable and indisputable. In the Zen tradition, this glimpse into one’s true nature is called Kensho or Satori. The Japanese character for satori is depicted on the left.

However, the identification process, a specific type of mind activity, (ahamkara) often eventually reverts back to its habit of feeling separate and lacking. Thus the ‘Awakening’ is often unstable in the beginning. It may last minutes, hours, or even days, but can’t quite stick. Thus Patanjali requires the stabilizing of the awakening to be considered “being in Yoga” by using the term ‘avasthanam’. In sutra IV-27 and IV -28, Patanjali returns to the process of stabilizing the awakening.

The spiritual irony of this is that we are always connected to The Ground of Being, because that is all there is, there is only wholeness. We forget, get distracted, and before we know it, are totally lost in delusion (avidya). This is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the “Fall from Grace” as depicted here on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Our practice on the mat is to re-solve the dysfunctional mental patterns that manifest as thoughts and beliefs that have an immediate affect on the cells, tissues and organs. If we carry the water image further, we are dissolving, like salt into water, these patterns of mind activity (citta vrttis) into the feeling of Oneness. It is tangible, visceral opening that emerges when the organism feels totally safe and very awake. Usually our being awake carries fear or anxiety of danger, as this is the biological priming of our nervous systems. Danger lurks, and you will survive if you are on alert. And feeling safe by itself usually doesn’t take us into the spiritual breakthrough. There has to be an openness, alertness, curiosity and intention to stay present to whatever is arising known as mindfulness. Mindfulness, a mind state that gets stronger through practice, will allow us to sustain our practice through the moments when we do not feel totally safe and will allow the samyama in the postures to also strengthen.

Our first exploration on the mat will be finding the balance of weight and lightness.
(Follow the link!) From the perspective of the organism, the first question of safety is ‘where am I’. The first orientation, where to bring attention (dharana), is to the felt sense of weight. Find the felt sense of weight. Stay there. Live there. Patanjali calls this embodied state of being grounded ‘sthira‘ and is deepening our connection to Mother Earth, at all levels of reality.

The second orientation is to the space around me. I need to feel safe in my environment. I find this in movement, and through the felt sense of lightness or levity which allows me to float in grounded-ness, like a fish in water. I become 3 dimensional in perception and action. Patanjali calls this ‘sukha‘. Thus, to be fully embodied is to be both sthira and sukham, as Patanjali describes in II-46. Staying in this dynamic state of balance, of weight and lightness, roots and wings, with action, perception and intelligence flowing as an single stream, begins the samyama.

Take this awareness into the standing poses (follow the link), and we will add one more clue from Patanjali to integrate into the samyama. The first two practices Patanjali introduces, even before samadhi, are abhyassa and vairagya. On the mat these are related to how we use energy in the poses. Abhyassa is the disciplined and conscious direction of your energy towards healing. In asana, it means to deepen the stability of the samyama by bringing more cells, organs and tissues into the conscious flow. It is a choice to bring your attention to a highly refined state. Vairagyam is the complementary practice. It involves withdrawing of energies away from patterns that are hyper-tonic (excess rajas) or hypo-tonic (excess tamas). Where in my body/mind am I overworking? Too aggressive? Overly contracted? Where in my body/mind am I dull, unconscious, asleep? Take from here, add to there, all the while monitoring action and perception to feel how the changes are actually manifesting.

And all the while feeling the ever-present Divinity radiating with more and more brightness from your heart out into the world.