We had a Seinfeld NYE.  Things did not turn out as expected and the sense of humor was not lost on us.  We booked the room almost a year out so that we could view the fireworks display off of the Space Needle in Seattle.  We could view the event from the rooftop of the hotel or else from the room if the weather was inclement.  Simply staying awake until midnight was a victory! We were captured by the anticipation of the dazzling display to come.  The clock struck,  

the fireworks began to burst forth from all sides and from the top of the Needle. The smoke built up, the temperature inversion and deadly still air held the smoke in place, In no less than two minutes into the 19 minute show, visibility had dropped to nearly zero.  No Space Needle, no fireworks to be seen.  Wah wah wah.

Many philosophies give a gentle warning against having expectations about what is to come.  My favorite humorous definition of expectation is ‘premeditated resentment’.  Instead of anticipating an outcome, we are encouraged to take things as they come and simply observe our response.  In so doing, we build awareness of our reactions, judgments and attachments. Of course, as part of a community, we take the appropriate actions to assist in creating a future that we desire but what is the response if things don’t turn out according to our expectations?

Every year gives us plenty of opportunities to react or respond, to grow or stagnate, to observe and change or default to status quo.  I’ve often contemplated why simply sitting and observing the moment is such a powerful agent of inner change.  Anthony DeMello, east Indian, some would say mystic rebel, Catholic priest says, “What you are aware of, you can control.  What you are not aware of, controls you.  Awareness, he says, releases reality to change you and that by simply being aware, all that is false and neurotic within you will drop away.”1

I believe this is one intent of all forms of meditation.  By simply sitting without expectation but with intent to Know Thyself beyond the programming of society, culture, family, religion, the subconsciously controlling mind rises to awareness.  Now we have the power to change the program.

By simply sitting in our own energy field, without agenda or analysis, simply opening the focus to the energy and space around us, will calm the analytical mind and begin to change the quality of how we think and how we feel.  This, in turn will trigger the brain to release its neurochemical magic that will move the body/mind chemistry toward wholeness and health.

The way out is by going in, as we go inward, we expand and as we expand, we include more and more of what used to seem separate from us.  Or we could say that we begin to experience a sense of Oneness. It sounds so simple; it has to be simple so that it is accessible to everyone.  If it isn’t accessible to everyone, it isn’t love, it isn’t oneness.  

We’ll be returning to Zoom Yoga in mid-February.   You can see more details on the zoom class link here. 

Patanjali’s yoga Sutra 34, Book III states in Sanskrit:

Hrdaye cittasamvit

One translation is, “ Perfect concentration on the heart reveals the contents of the mind.”

As a generalization, we probably don’t spend a lot of time concentrating on our hearts unless there is a concern about its health or we happen to be in the throes of new love. To quote Joe Dispenza, “Where we place our attention is where we place our energy”.  Since the heart is literally the driver of our physical life and the seat of our spiritual self, giving it attention can reveal much about our state of mind and the state of our energy.

Feeling and sensing are associated with the heart whereas thought is considered the domain of the head.  Our feeling and emotional states are intimately connected to how we are breathing. Qi gong master Lee Holden observed that anger is associated with resistance to inhaling or taking in another’s perspective.  Angry people tend to sputter and huff a lot.  Sadness, on the other hand is closer to resistance to exhaling.  One may feel choked up, and emote with ragged exhalation or crying.  In either case, even slow deep breathing is the key to restoring emotional balance and energy to the heart.

Love is a felt sense, a state of Being, that is whole.  As we breath slowly and smoothly with attention on the heart, we begin to feel its unique quality of wholeness, its desire for our well-being.  The healthy heart does not oppose or hate or fear anything.  It recognizes that fear and hate are not the opposite of love but are the separation from love.  When we place our attention on the heart and breathe deeply, we clearly see how the mind has created a mistaken identity of duality where insecurity, lack and fear can abide.  By coming back to the heart breath again and again, we move our state of being (mind and heart) from duality to unity.  We overcome our limitations and little by little begin to feel more whole, healthy and joyful.

A simple practice for the next time you are feeling afraid, anxious, nervous.  Recognize where you are and where you would like to be in the moment.  Place one hand over your heart and breathe into it.  Breathe deeply 4-5 seconds in and 4-5 seconds out.  Stay with it for a minimum of 3 minutes.  Feel and sense, don’t try to think about, what is happening.  You may notice the thoughts settling down, the brain and autonomic nervous system switching from stress to ease.   The effects of this simple practice get stronger, swifter and more powerful with repetition.  The insights and fulfillment gained with practice will far outweigh the small effort required to undertake it.   You are literally aligning with love.

Photo by Cathal Mac an Bheatha on Unsplash

BEING    ENERGY    MATTERS

Patanjali Yoga Sutra

• II. 20 The Seer is pure consciousness.  It witnesses Nature without becoming reliant on it.
• II. 24 Ignorance is the cause of false identification of the Seer with the Seen.

“Because of our subconscious programming, the body has become the mind.   As a result, we rely on our known past to create a predictable future with no real change.”

“It is no longer the time to just know, it is time to know how.” (to create real change).
– Quotes paraphrased from Dr. Joe Dispenza

Dear Friends,

Lately I have been immersed in studies of how epigenetics, quantum field theory, and brainwave frequency are validating the practices of pranayama and meditation in their ability to raise our consciousness from a place of survival and separation to a place of unity and creativity.  Dr. Joe Dispenza quoted above, has been a leader in taking thousands of people worldwide out of the ignorance of identification with matter alone (the seen) and teaching them to identify as energy, more specifically, as creative energy (the Seer).

Subjects are taught meditative and breath work while connected to EEGs that are measuring electrical activity in all parts of the brain.  A subject’s mind slows down from Beta frequency (waking active mind state) with the help of breathing techniques and a meditative focus.  The analytical mind becomes quieter.  I was intrigued to hear that scientists referred to the calming of the analytical mind as penetrating a veil.  The yoga sutras say that ” the veil then becomes thin” when we practice pranayama.  In both cases this is the veil between the conscious and the subconscious minds.

With practice, and often after only one session, the mental waves slow to the alpha state where imagination is prominent and eventually to the theta state, where the mind is in a hypnotic or highly suggestible state.  This is where real life change can occur as this is where our subconscious beliefs about our abilities are stored.  Now we are connected to a field of all possibilities, the quantum field.  Here we can make the subconscious conscious, discard the old programs, write and install new ones.

As energy we can affect matter for healing, to evolve and to create.  The results and testimonials of intentional practitioners are revelations of our potential as creators.  We not victims of our environment, not even of our genes as epigenetics tell us. The abundant data show how after as little as one week of practice, novice meditators upgrade their metabolites, upregulate genes associated with health and healing and downgrade genes associated with disease.  The healing miracles we relegated to charlatans and the superpowers we read about in Book Three of the yoga sutras are becoming skills that we can measure and master with dedication and practice.  There are no limits!

Actually, the good news is that there are a few limits.  The frequencies in the field, like radio stations, are tuned to unity, connectedness and Love.  One cannot be in fight or flight, survival mode and enter the unified field. Our stressful lifestyles and agitated minds are what keep us in a perception of separation from the field.

Fortunately we have the tools to open our perception, most readily through the gateway of the heart/brain connection.

In 1991 it was discovered that the heart has its’ own neural network of over 40,000 sensory neurites.  It processes information including thought, feelings and memories independently of the cranial brain.  Heart/brain coherence is a field of study that is being applied to heal trauma among other things. The heart “thinks” not as a polarity organ like the brain that thinks in right/wrong, good/bad, happy/sad, etc.  The heart is a unified organ that does not “hear” criticism or dispense judgment.  Slowing down the breath, focusing on the heart and generating a feeling of gratitude, for anything that has happened or that you would like to see happen is a sure -fire way to increase heart/brain coherence. This in turn resets the vagus nerve, increases resiliency as measured by heart rate variability, and enhances whole body immunity.

I have never doubted that gratitude and love were two of the greatest powers to raise consciousness but it is kind of cool that it is now measurable, repeatable scientific fact!