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Returning to Oneness – the seven keys of ascension is the name of a new series of eight classes I will be teaching in October in San Francisco. Based on and using the book by the same name by Leslie Temple-Thurston, these classes will introduce you to seven keys to open the chakras and allow kundalini, or spiritual energy, to flow through the physical body bringing us into increasing states of unity, peace and oneness.
For more about the profound nature of the keys and how we will use them please see my January 16, 2013 blog post “Returning to Oneness 2013”.
Below is the flier for this event beginning October 1.
If you feel ready to drop your limiting beliefs about yourself and ride a wave of ascension, these classes are for you! I hope to see you there!!
Paul, a student (not his real name), asked “why is it I get in so many car accidents?” After a bit of self-inquiry he was able to name how he has a habit of identifying himself as a victim as he goes through life. We could say he holds the energy of victimhood in his consciousness, and that this energy lives as an energetic field or aura that inhabits and surrounds his physical body. Through the spiritual law of attraction this field acts like a magnet drawing to him people and situations (car accidents!) that victimize him.
I explained that if he were to clear his aura of this victimization energy his life would smooth out greatly. As we dug a little deeper he also noticed that, although he spends most of his time being a victim in life, he can also act out its opposite sometimes. He saw how, when push comes to shove, he can also be a dominator or a perpetrator (the energy of the Tyrant)!
Duality is the operating system that runs consciousness for most of us in the world right now. It is a consciousness divided, and it plays out in our minds and emotions and, in extreme cases, in our physical world as dance of opposites, or polarity. Although Paul identifies primarily with the victim, he was beginning to see how he flip-flops from being a victim to being a tyrant, depending on the situation on any given day. Victim and tyrant, in fact, all polarities, are inextricably bound to one another!
Spiritual law says that any polarized state of mind will in time turn into its opposite; we cannot have one without the other… When Paul is in victim mode this energy dominates his reality, and that’s all he can see. He feels small, inconsequential, needy and deprived. But his tyrant didn’t go anywhere! This character is just not conscious to him, and what is not in the conscious mind lives in the unconscious. Similarly, when Paul is acting out his tyrant energy, his victimhood lies unseen in his unconscious, nevertheless always present and eager to resume its starring role in his life’s movie!
The underlying energy that upholds and sustains the tyrant/victim construct in our minds is the energy of power vs. powerlessness, and like all polarities held in the mind, it is inherently unstable. So, as good as it feels to Paul’s ego to feel powerful, in control, and able to assert its will, it won’t last. Inevitably, tyrants become victims! On the world stage, they’re all too familiar: Look no further than Hitler or, more recently, Saddam Hussein; then there is Mubarak in Egypt, a tyrant to his people for thirty years. Now he sits in a jail with a sentence of life imprisonment; and we all know the fate of Osama bin Laden!
Because Paul is committed to growing his consciousness and living his life from a place of balance, equanimity and inner peace, he must be willing to give up both his inner tyrant and his inner victim. Through a process of self-inquiry Paul’s work is to begin to name and own all of the ways he plays the tyrant and the victim, and to free himself of the exhausting and perpetual dance between them. He needs to make what is unconscious to him conscious, and then be willing to hang up his dancing shoes! He must make a bid for true power by surrendering both aspects of ego. Here is where grace will take over if he asks. In fact, it is the essential piece that will create an integration.
Paul’s consciousness with this polarity is boxed in by the seen and unseen attractions and repulsions he holds around it. I asked Paul to create four lists: 1. Why I desire to be a victim 2. Why I fear becoming a victim 3. Why I desire to be tyrant 4. Why I fear becoming a tyrant. What Paul will discover is that he spends some indefinite amount of time with the consciousness of each of his four lists before he inevitably flips to the state of mind of the next list, and the next, and so on in a never-ending loop of desires and fears.
His flip-flopping consciousness between victim and tyrant is keeping him in a spin of opposites, manifesting adversity in his life and from the peace of mind that he seeks. By feeling deeply into and naming all of his desires and fears around being a victim and being a tyrant, and then surrendering them all back to Source, he will move into greater balance and equanimity with this polarity. And if he continues to scrupulously examine and release even the most subtle ways that he engages these self-defeating personas, he can be free of them. No more victims or tyrants need ruin his day!
How about you? Are you ready to give up the struggle between your victim and your tyrant? Your inner peace and true power await you there beyond all polarity…
I’ll meet you there!
If you could go to a very beautiful place where you find love, compassion, forgiveness and generosity, wouldn’t you go? I know, you’re thinking, “Fat chance, I can’t afford a plane ticket to some pricey island sanctuary in the Bahamas!” But the truth is this place I’m speaking about is closer than that, even closer than a heartbeat! In fact, it is your heart (though, not the physical heart, mind you!)
This place, located right in your body about three inches below the notch in your collarbone, is known as the heart chakra. It is our spiritual heart. Love, compassion, forgiveness and generosity are states that emanate from this place in our energy body. You can test this out for yourself. The next time you can feel and name the of vibration of love, compassion, forgiveness or generosity, bring your attention to your heart chakra and see what you feel. Do you notice a sensation of radiating warmth and expansiveness there? Do you notice how you feel safe and secure and connected to something greater than your small and limited self.
When our awareness rests in the heart chakra we are outside of the right/wrong and good/bad polarities of the limited and judging mind. Through careful cultivation of our consciousness we can come to rest permanently here in the beauty and expansiveness of the open heart, where all of these ascended states are available to us… as well as many more! Wouldn’t it also be nice to live in faith and flow, and trust and harmony? How about balance and equanimity? And let’s not forget JOY!
When the heart chakra is open and fully enlivened, life flows through us in a beautiful way, and we feel balanced and serene, and as you go through your day, your heart leads the way!
The magic is that there is a very simple easy way to access this open heart daily. It is through the practice of gratitude. Gratitude is a doorway into the heart.
More than a perfunctory “thank you”, the gratitude I’m speaking about arises from a deeper place within. Reflect from time to time on the everyday blessings you so readily take for granted. When you notice yourself mired in thoughts about everything that’s not working in your life, or if you are feeling in some way deprived …stop! Remind yourself of all that you do have, like the love of a child or a partner, or a pet. Or the simple satisfaction of having food to nourish you when you are hungry; there are so many that do without…
By feeling and nurturing this gratefulness in our lives we bypass the polarized nature of the lower mind and our awareness rises up into the heart. The heart chakra begins to open like a beautiful lotus flower.
Count your blessings. Live in gratitude. Your heart will sing! And you will find love, compassion, trust and faith, and more! And this is what you will attract. No vacation in the Bahamas required; your heart is your sanctuary. Wherever you go!
Brother David Steindl-Rast has created a beautiful video about gratefulness. Find a quiet moment, take some deep relaxing breathes, and receive its blessing…
<p>Video from <a href=”http://www.karmatube.org”>KarmaTube</a></p>Inspired by the feedback from the series of classes I taught last year on opening the chakras, I am offering the series “Returning to Oneness” once again in 2013. The book Returning to Oneness – the seven keys of ascension by my teacher Leslie Temple-Thurston will be our reference and guide.
The chakras are vortexes of spinning energy that form wheels which sit along and slightly in front of the spine. There are seven main chakras, each associated with a different area of consciousness, which effect our physical, emotional, mental well-being. When our chakra system is open and clear, the kundalini, or spiritual energy, that rises from the base chakra can flow freely up into the heart chakra and beyond where we begin to experience ever increasing states of well-being, love, and connectedness. But, for most of us the chakras are “locked” because we have not cleared the emotional issues that each chakra represents. In the classes we will learn to work with a unique “key” that opens the lock between each of the chakras allowing the kundalini energy to flow freely and bringing us into increasing states of unity and peace.
As an example, the third chakra, located at the solar plexus, is primarily about power issues – egoic issues of domination and control or victimhood. It’s the chakra that has “ruled” the world for the last 5,000 years, and if we look deeply enough into our own psyches we can see where in ourselves we are holding it place. The key to opening the third chakra is “view the ego impersonally.” Before each class we will read the chapter on one of the seven keys, then, in class, we will discuss and process what came up for us so that we have clear understanding of how to work with it. Using guided meditation we will invite the new energy configuration to birth and grow in us.
Members of last year’s class were able to apply this new knowledge quickly and easily into their lives with beautiful results. Here is one comment from a participant:
“…the study sessions have been such a help in my life. (There was ) a situation with a woman physician that I’d been irritated with in the past; however, the keys of gain and loss and the lessons of witness and mirrors fell into place and allowed me to integrate my thoughts and feelings and offer this up. What a wonderful gift…”
Details about the classes in San Francisco are in the flier that I’ve attached here. For me, the circle that our group of eight will create symbolizes the wholeness we seek individually, as well as the Oneness that we all are!
I hope you can join us!
Please join me this weekend, Saturday August 25, and Sunday August 26, for a two part workshop on the Marriage of Spirit processing techniques. I will be co-teaching with my friend Charu Rachlis, sharing with you two simple, yet powerful, processing techniques called Polarities and Squares, which quickly and effectively help us to clear and balance heavy mental and emotional states. Based on the ancient mystical teachings of the unification of opposites and using the truth and power of the “middle way”, these techniques when used consistently over time bring increasing peace and well-being into our mind, body, and emotions. The workshop has the added benefit of being a fundraiser for the humanitarian organization Seeds of Light, with the proceeds going towards building a new orphan center for children in South Africa.
Click the link below for the workshop flier with the location and times. I hope you can make it!
“If you want to shift your life, shift your consciousness”. Leslie Temple -Thurston
I would like to invite you to a two part workshop – “Beyond Negativity, Pain, and Fear” – that I will be presenting this month with my friend, teacher Charu Rachlis. In this workshop we will share with you two easy, yet profound, techniques for clearing unbalanced mental and emotional states. Called Polarities and Squares, these techniques, based in the ancient teachings of the reconciliation of opposites, were developed by awakened teacher Leslie Temple-Thurston to help us to move beyond our egoic limitations of negativity, anger, pain and fear to a place of balance and equanimity. You’ll find complete information on the workshop in the flier linked below. I hope to see you there!
With every thought, emotion, and action our awareness flows through the body either ascending or descending our consciousness.” Leslie-Temple-Thurston
Returning to Oneness – the seven keys of ascension by Leslie Temple-Thurston is one powerful little book, which will be the basis for a series of eight classes I will be teaching in San Francisco at the end of the month. The classes will be a journey and exploration through the seven chakra system in the subtle-physical body or energy body. Each chakra, or energy center, has its own unique tonality in consciousness. Between the chakras are locks where the veils of our conditioned personality constrict and cut off the flow of life force energy through our physical body. It is because this flow of energy is cut off that we feel the negative emotional states such as pain, fear and depression. By working with the keys we begin to open the locks between the different chakra levels and move our consciousness into more balanced states of trust, peace, and equanimity. I’ve used these keys in my own life for ten years and can attest to their power to move consciousness beyond our limitations and into a relaxed and unified state.
As an example for how we will be working, the second key is forgive all betrayals. Working with it will begin to unlock the door that shuts down the heart. We’ll read the chapter on this key ahead of time, then in class we will work with the concepts presented, process any blocks that come up for us in accessing this key, and use guided meditation to have a real experience of the opening in the body.
I am offering these classes by donation. I feel these teachings are priceless and to put a price tag to them would lower their vibration. I ask that you follow your heart in your giving. All are welcome, and every gift is received equally without judgement. I hope you can make it!
Class logistics: Returning to Oneness Flier
Life is a flow of energy: Yin and Yang. Yin moves inward, Yang – outward. Yin introverts; Yang extroverts. The crocus corm dormant and buried beneath the earth comes out of winter hibernation by sending its shoots upward and outward toward the the warming rays of the spring sun. Then, its life cycle complete, it draws its energy back into the earth to await its rebirth the following year. Dissolution and Rebirth. Yin and Yang. Two primary frequencies of existence essential to all life and essential to wholeness.
Unfortunately, the message we get while growing up tells us as that we must choose. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m back from South Africa and a beautiful journey near the mouth of the gorgeous and dramatic Blyde River Canyon in the northeast corner of the country. The new header for my blog is a picture I took at dusk near the rim of the canyon on March 13. Africa – so far away, yet something familiar in me was awakened. My original incarnation in this current cycle of existence, perhaps? Merging with the vast savannah in the silence of nearby Kruger Park I came to know intimately what my teacher calls ‘African Dream Time’. Time stops and one knows implicitly – there is no time, just vast eternal Oneness. The area where I stayed at a botanical reserve at the foot of the sacred mountain of Modimolle, which means ‘place where God resides’, has a very special transcendental energy, allowing the mind to dissolve and one to float blissfully in a sea of expanded consciousness and timeless existence. The Mountain has a powerful way of calling me to attention by instantly aligning my awareness in the vertical axis of the core-light within, and I find that I am in It and It is in me! Read the rest of this entry »
embracingOneness 