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Preface
Although formerly only known by shamans, I
present this knowledge now to spiritual seekers and for the benefit of
mankind.
In 1989, I met a Hungarian Shaman, Joska Soos, in Antwerp,
Belgium, who helped people with his private "shamanizations" and
classes. Over the years I learned a lot, with new information about
shamanism I had never read about in any literature. Among it was the
system of seven levels of consciousness. Although he did not talk that
much about it, it seemed such a useful system to me that I went further
into it myself. I began to understand that some of my spiritual
experiences in my past corresponded with those levels of consciousness.
Furthermore I began to see parallels to the experiences of other shamans
and spiritual seekers. Most religious, esoteric, or other doctrines know
about certain levels but not the others, or emphasize only one level. In
this book I present you with all seven levels of consciousness which are
all inseparably linked together into one whole system of human
experience, and it is open to everyone.
The book is written in the
form of lectures, explaining in depth what each level is about and how
you can experience them.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Personal Consciousness
2. Mankind Consciousness
3. Amphibious Consciousness
4. Spherical Consciousness
5. Crystal Consciousness
6. Light Consciousness
7. Sound Consciousness
The Wheels of Consciousness
Introduction
What makes man different from
animals is that he is aware of himself. He is able to reflect upon
himself and analyze what happens to him, how his environment influences
him and how he can change his consciousness. From prehistoric times man
realized that he was able to shift his consciousness to other states of
being. Hereby he was able to discover and experience other realms, other
beings and other energies. He saw himself as a part of an immense web
the Divine had woven to express itself in a mysterious universe. The
ability to come in contact with the different realms of the universe was
made possible by consciousness.
The Divine is unconditioned
consciousness. It is eternal, at rest, and potential. Divine
consciousness can not be comprehended by the human brain. When the
Divine reflected upon itself, another consciousness, Shiva, arose. It
became aware of its form, its dynamic aspect, Shakti. Thus it recognized
itself as observer and the observed. With this, the creation of the
cosmos, consciousness became conditioned. A polarization took place that
disturbed the equilibrium. The Divine became consciousness in its static
aspect. This static aspect is called Shiva, which is individual
consciousness looking at its dynamic aspect, called Shakti. Shakti is
manifested consciousness. This created the first vibration, the sound of
creation, the Aum, or the Word. This was the beginning of the seven
levels of consciousness. Eventually consciousness found itself in a
human body, in total ignorance, considering itself as separate physical
being in an outer world apparently not related to who he thought he was.
Although the above can be viewed as happening in the beginning of time,
in reality it is happening at every moment. Time is but a physical
manifestation. It also does not happen "out there". It happens
everywhere, including inside of you. All the levels of consciousness are
present in every human being and can be accessed. What is experienced as
the creation can also be experienced within yourself.
The exploration
of consciousness has always been the center of the ancient mystery
cults, of shamans, yogis and mystics. You too are able to expand your
consciousness.
1. Personal Consciousness
Awake, dear one,
awake!
At long last, open your eyes.
Awake! Abandon your sleep of
illusion.
It is foolish to sleep all the time.
Swami Muktananda
You just made the first big step in your spiritual growth. You asked
yourself that most important question: "What am I doing here?" It was a
feeling that was always there, under the surface, making you uneasy at
times. It made you restless. Jesus said: "Let him who seeks continue
seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he
becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
In this life you always have been a seeker. It was predestined. Before
you incarnated, you, as your essence, or your Higher Self, choose to
incarnate into a personality that would lead to a gradual awakening to
the spiritual values in life. You gifted your personality with qualities
of curiosity, determination, spiritual interest and perhaps mystical
experiences. This would bring you eventually to the realization that you
exist. As simple as it may sound, most people are only vaguely aware
that they exist. They live their lives as in a dream. Relentlessly
pursuing material gains, and bodily sensations, they are not aware of
themselves beyond immediate pleasure. Life passes by and before they
know it death wipes out their trivial lives.
Awakening to the
spiritual path starts with those important questions: what am I doing
here, what is life about, what am I? You start to think about your
personal life. This brings you to the first of the seven levels of
consciousness; personal consciousness. Who are you in this incarnation?
In every incarnation you form for yourself a personality. Your
personality is the product of everything that has happened in the
present lifetime. It starts with your conception. The circumstances, the
emotions and feelings of your parents during that sacred moment, put a
most basic energy quality into the primal cell with which your spirit
connected. While your bodily vehicle was growing in the womb, it
registered everything that happened to your mother. Joy and sadness,
anger and frustration, every emotion was felt by your spirit. In the
beginning these impulses were not that important to you as you were
still well connected to the spiritual worlds. For the first months of
pregnancy you were still connected with the cosmos by at least two
thirds. When the heart became stronger only one third of the connection
remained. The beating of the heart brought further independence from the
mother. With your birth, connection with the cosmos was entirely lost.
It is the duty of man to awaken and strive to establish that connection
again.
Birth is such an important event. For nine months you floated
around in the warm belly of your mother and bathed in the soothing light
of the cosmos. Going through the birth canal was a big ordeal, but it
did not prepare you for entrance into the outer world. Suddenly gravity
was pulling on your body, hands were touching your skin, not too gently.
Bright lights were blinding you, harsh sounds deafening your ears. Hung
upside down, they made your spine stretch, which hurt like hell. But
everybody was happy with your pain. They didn’t know better, they had
lost their connection to nature and to themselves. Doctors don’t know
how the baby feels. Doctors have many patients and little time. Thus,
birth was a big trauma for you, making another important imprint on your
delicate soul. Fortunately the interest in a "natural birth", where
trauma is reduced to a minimum, is growing. Many people are doing a
tremendous job in this regard. If you did not have a natural birth, read
Francois LeBoyer’s "Birth Without Violence" for an explanation of what
you experienced when you entered this physical world.
Were you born
with a caul? Then you are one of the lucky who have spiritual gifts.
When the caul, the membrane enveloping the fetus, does not break and the
baby is born with the entire caul intact, the individual is gifted with
strong psychic talents. Most often he is clairvoyant. A normal birth is
difficult and long, and the child can suffer from a lack of oxygen. This
causes the cells responsible for paranormal perception to die; these
brain cells don’t restore themselves. Birth with a caul not only
protects the baby but also prevents these cells from dying. Birth with a
partial caul reaching up to the shoulders, or only covering the head
will result in lesser psychic talents. In the past people who were born
with an intact or partial caul often were initiated by the local shaman
to develop their innate psychic abilities.
Yes, by the time of the
moment of birth your body and soul had been impregnated by energies from
the outside world for a full nine months. Once born and separated from
your mother you became an individual being. The universe made room for
you and provided you with a unique blueprint for your personality in
this lifetime: your horoscope. It is important to analyze your
horoscope. Although it is limited to only the soul, a horoscope provides
valuable information about the tendencies of your personality. Be aware
that there are no positive or negative patterns. It is all relative to
the situation and to what you want. For example, if you are well-spoken
you might make it high up the social ladder, but it also might be
difficult for you to keep your mouth shut when it is required. It is all
about balance and how you use your talents or tendencies. Remember that
the most important things are predestined. Your Higher self chose for
this life before you incarnated. So it is with your horoscope. It was
your Higher Self that decided to be born at that moment, so it could
acquire that particular stellar blueprint. This blueprint, your
horoscope, allows you to explore certain soul qualities. Life is about
learning. Lessons we didn’t learn in past lives need to be dealt with in
this life. This is why we received the horoscope or personality we
presently have. It allows us to recognize our tendencies and problems so
we might balance and harmonize them. Therefore look in the mirror of the
soul, and find out who you are in relation to your personality. Be
honest and be wary of the mind as it plays tricks that will deceive you.
Often you won’t like what you discover and even more often it will be
painful. But remember to ask yourself, what is there too loose?
Many
ways lead to self-discovery. You can analyze your dreams. Dreams don’t
lie. When the body is tired and goes to sleep, the soul processes
events, emotions and thoughts of the previous day(s). Dreams are
symbolic representations of what is going on in your inner self. Every
evening before going to bed program yourself with the following: "When I
wake up I will remember every dream in every detail." Gradually you will
be able to remember more and more dreams, up to seven or eight dreams or
more. Every time you wake up write down the dream on a piece of paper
next to the bed. Later in the day, write down all your dreams in a
journal, with a explanation or comment. You will soon notice that you
will not like some of the dreams, because of violent or sexual content,
or because they revealed dishonest tendencies, or you have had repeated
dreams of being a victim. Dreams are often not flattering. They show you
who you are, where your weaknesses are. In the beginning your mind will
tell you not to write down certain parts of the dream, or to alter it a
little bit. Don’t give in. You need to recognize both the pleasant and
unpleasant parts of yourself. Remember, it is not you, only your
tendencies. You are a divine being, your personality is like a vehicle
you took on for this incarnation. Like a car, it needs constant fixing.
It is important that you write down every detail of the dream. By
writing it down, you bring your hidden, unconscious tendencies into full
awareness. By analyzing the dream and penetrating its symbols you are
recognizing the problem. The next step is to change your dreams. Yes,
you can do that. If you were attacked in a dream, you want to get out of
that pattern of being a victim. Close your eyes, and recreate the dream,
this time consciously. Change the dream, turn around and face your
attacker and kill him. Yes, kill him with love. The attacker in the
dream represent an energy in your soul that is subduing your power to
stand up for yourself. Killing the attacker in your mind is a symbolic
act to dissolve this subduing energy. The attacker will then turn into a
benevolent energy, emerging into a dream friend. Energy cannot
disappear, it can only be transformed. Here we are transforming it into
a friendly energy. Therefore when you kill opposing forces in your
dream, do it with love or at least out of necessity, never with angry
emotions. It will take several tries to change a dream like that, but
result is guaranteed.
Knowing yourself is the key to spiritual
evolution. "Know thyself, and knowing thyself you will know the Divine"
(inscription at the oracle in Delphi, Greece). Everything that happened
to you in the first twenty years of your life is built into the
foundation of your being, for the simple reason that as a child you were
unable to shield yourself against outside influences. Towards adulthood
you learned how to protect yourself, but by then you were already full
of programs put into your mind by your parents, the school and anyone
else who had an influence on you. This also applies to events. Sexual
abuse during childhood, for example, has a tremendous impact on the soul
for the rest of one’s life. The rebirthing process, initiated by Leonard
Orr, is a good tool to come into contact, re-experience and release
emotional blockages of your past. It eventually will eliminate primal
trauma and transform the subconscious impression of birth into a gentle
and awakening event.
Look back at your childhood and what happened in
those days. All your present relationships are based on how the
relationship with your father and mother developed. A child’s character
is formed for a large part by its environment. A child takes its
environment as "this is what the world is like". It thinks that the rest
of the world is the same as what he is experiencing around him. Thus he
forms his character. If a child grows up with abusive parents, he might
think that being abusive is the only way to survive in this world, and
he will become himself abusive to other people later in life. Or he
might himself see as a helpless victim, and will always be taken
advantage of. How did you experience your parents, your brothers and
sisters? What did they do to you that you didn’t like or what
traumatized you. A simple sentence like "You are an annoying brat", "I
never wanted you, you were an accident" can have a devastating effect.
Being wrongly accused, even if the matter was trivial, might instill a
big guilt complex in a child. Search your memories for those forgotten
traumas and discover how they link to your present day behavior. Most
important, forgive the people who have hurt you. It is not always easy,
but if you don’t forgive them, you are holding on to the pain and to
your feelings of irritation, guilt, fear and so on. It is not necessary
to tell them in person. Forgiveness has to happen inside yourself. Be
truthful and sincere towards yourself. When you forgive those who have
hurt you, you have to mean it. Forgiveness is liberation, liberation of
all those negative emotions, thoughts and fear.
Pay attention to this
last word: fear. Who is without fear? Are you? Of course not. You might
think you are, but this is just pride. We all have fears. Your fears are
lurking underneath the surface, grabbing every opportunity they can to
express themselves. Fear of disapproval, fear of authorities, fear of
being hurt, fear of losing your partner, fear of injury, the list is
endless. Some fears are instinctual to guarantee your survival on this
planet. However most of the fears you have created during your lifetime
are of psychological origin. Fear cripples and disables. It takes away
the joy of life. Make a list of all your fears, even those that seem
small and insignificant. Again be honest and accept your fears.
Acceptance is the first step to recovery. Releasing is next. You could
take a psychological approach and use, for example, gestalt therapy. As
fears are also locked in the physical body, especially in the muscles, a
good Rolfing massage might be the solution. Bach Flower remedies or
Homeopathy work on the energetic level. Many other approaches exist.
Choose one you are comfortable with.
Don’t forget that the issues in
your life have a purpose: to make you aware of inner imbalances. You
really have to go to the root of your problems, or your fears, and do
something about it. Healing done by another person is only a temporary
solution if you don’t change the underlying cause. The disease or fear
will eventually come back. True healing can only be done by yourself.
Therefore you need to understand who you are in this lifetime. What does
your personality consists of, what are your imbalances, your fears. Work
on it, work, work, work! Every day you need to work on it. Relentlessly.
It is hard work but the results are worth while: the realization of your
true potential: a light being on Earth.
Now that you have discovered
that you have a rich inner world, although not perfect, it makes you
aware that as an individual you are interacting with and influenced by
other people. People who make up the totality of mankind. No one is
isolated, we are all connected. Now you are ready to progress one step
further on the stairway of consciousness. Let’s enter the level of
mankind’s consciousness.
2. Mankind Consciousness
Mankind is
one,
and all men are alike
in that which concerns their creation.
Bartolome de las Casas
Most people live on an egocentric basis.
Their world revolves around themselves, the pursuit of their own
happiness and the gratification of their desires. You have made a big
step forward by leaving your self-created, protective enclosure. You are
becoming conscious that you are part of mankind. Being part of an
enormous group of intelligent beings is a privilege. The ego tends to
think that everything it does and everything it is results from its own
actions. It takes pride in its accomplishments and successes. When the
ego encounters failures it blames the outside world. It does not
understand that a part of its life is determined by causes outside its
limited range of view. It is important to understand this. The ego might
see itself as separate from all other beings, in reality it is not. You
are part of humanity on this planet, and as such you are linked with all
other humans on both a physical and on a subtle level.
Read the books
of Carl Gustav Jung on the collective unconscious. The collective
unconscious is the reservoir of all the experiences mankind has ever
had. It is present in each one of us. It not only gives you the animal
instincts and desires necessary for the survival of the species, but
also everything that makes us intelligent beings. It is great reservoir
of potentials waiting to be used by those who dare to enter its realm.
Contact with the collective unconscious is made through dreams; by
states of consciousness between waking and sleeping, intuition, trances,
and meditation. But beware, not everything you will encounter will be
the smell of roses. You need to be prepared to encounter the demons of
the underworld. Many people are afraid to face the inner demons of
mankind. It is essential to understand that everything you encounter is
a reflection of your own being. The good the bad and the ugly. Basically
what is encountered is only energy forms. Some of them are pleasant, so
we call them good. Some of them are unpleasant and we label them as
being bad or evil. When you make the unconscious conscious, you must
take the energies for what they are. Nothing in the universe is good or
bad; these terms apply only to our experiences. It is not uncommon to
encounter demons or the devil in meditations, or by other means of
entering the collective unconscious. You have to look through the veil,
through the masks, through the forms, and recognize the energy behind it
along with asking why it is presenting itself to you. Most often you
will encounter forms that represent repressed energies in yourself.
Those are not unique to you yourself however, everybody else has them as
well. Because we all share the same frustrations, the same fears and so
on, we are easily influenced by the emotions and energies of other
people, without even being aware of it. Being human means that you
participate in everything other people experience. You not only connect
with other people and their experiences on a subtle or energetic level,
but you are constantly being influenced by these energies. Carl Gustav
Jung recognized that man is strongly influenced by the archetypes in the
collective unconscious. He understood archetypes as being those
experiences of mankind that had been repeated over and over again since
the birth of humanity.
The ego likes to control and reading this
chapter might make you a bit uneasy. In order to make progress in your
evolution, the ego needs to be dissolved gradually, and consciousness
expanded. There are two levels of mankind consciousness which can be
expanded: genetic consciousness and karmic consciousness.
Genetic
consciousness comprises the entire human experience going back at least
thirty million years. There has been a lot of research in the field of
genetics in the last few decades. As we are presently living in a
materialistic society, the spiritual aspect of genes is overlooked.
Genes also carry energetic information from our parents and ancestors.
Rupert Sheldrake called the energy forms, containing memories and wisdom
from earlier generations, "morphogenetic fields". In this way,
experiences, knowledge, talents and wisdom are passed on from generation
to generation. The Mozart family is a good example. The entire family
had musical talents, and produced many excellent musicians. The same
happens with psychic talents. Clairvoyance and other psychic abilities
are often passed from generation to generation. A European once asked a
Russian why Russia has so many psychics. The Russian answered: "We have
more psychics in the Soviet union because the Catholic Church did not
wipe out wipe out the psychic gene here as it did in Europe."
Genetic
consciousness can be developed by walking on graveyards. The slowly
decomposing bodies build up very strong energies in the graves. Feel
these energies, and what those people were like. Or just feel the
graveyard in its entirety. The graveyard is a testimony of human life.
It comes and goes, and leaves its mark in nature. It is a very
particular energy in graveyards, and regular visits make you more
sensitive to it. Do I need to warn you? Observe and feel the energies,
but do not absorb whatever is hanging around. This applies to any
situation, even in daily life. Don’t be a vacuum cleaner for psychic
energies!
Visiting sacred spaces is strongly recommended, especially
in Europe where the earth’s energy spots were marked by megalithic
stones. A visit to stone circles, menhirs and other sacred stones is
more than worthwhile. Some of these places are still very active, and
their energies can be felt even by ordinary people. Visit the churches
there, especially cathedrals, as many of them were built over
pre-Christian, pagan, holy places. The Catholic Church was also aware of
Earth’s energy vortexes, and built their "houses of God" over them in
order to harness the power for its own benefit.
Find out more about
your own ancestors, and what talents they had, or what traumas.
Discovering your genetic heritage might encourage you develop talents
you never paid attention to. If ancestral trauma is passed on to you
(certain physical diseases or mental illnesses run through an entire
family), it is time to address the issue and work out this unhealthy
energy. You might think it is unfair to work out a trauma that is not
yours. Well, think about it this way: before you incarnated you chose
this family, this body for a reason. Life is a school. In order to
progress in your evolution, you need to learn your lessons. The choice
for your present incarnation is partly based on what you did in your
previous incarnations. Which leads us to the second aspect: karmic
consciousness.
Karmic consciousness has a profound influence on one’s
life. Karma means "cause and effect". The universe is constructed in
such a way that each action initiates an effect which in turn creates
another effect and so on. Whatever you do always create consequences,
good or bad, depending on your point of view. Your actions in past
incarnations created effects that not only shaped your personality in
this life but most of the important events that happened and will happen
to you. Yes, you do have free will, but free will is limited. Your
personality was formed at birth by the position of the planets. You are
destined to meet certain people and undergo certain events in your life
according to you past life actions. You are on the Earth to learn and
grow. As long as you haven’t discovered your true inner self, you will
remain chained to the wheel of karma, ever revolving for the evolution
of living beings. By reflecting on your life, dreams, problems, gifts
and talents, by talking to like minded people and with the study of
esoteric books you can make contact with the energies of your past
lives. The memories of your past lives are deep inside you, in what is
generally called "the causal body". It can also be accessed by people
who are clairvoyant. It is useful to know more about your past lives. It
clarifies certain issues in your present life. Especially when you have
been asking why certain things are happening to you. It can be very
helpful to discover talents you were using in previous lives and develop
them even further. Psychic people more often than not had many lifetimes
with psychic talents. Although psychic talents are appealing to many
people, a warning here has its place. In the past, especially in the
mystery temples of ancient civilizations, a person with psychic talents
was often trained to develop one particular psychic talent in the
extreme. This was beneficial to the priesthood in order to obtain useful
and accurate information, but this created a severe imbalance in the
psychic. Many psychics nowadays are still struggling with an unbalanced
mind. This is part of their karma. Always know what you are doing and
what effects your actions are going to have!
As a human being you
participate in different karmas. Your personal karma encompasses your
present and all of your past lives. Then there are karmas pertaining to
groups of people, like nations and races to which you presently belong.
Humanity by itself has also its own karma as it evolves through time on
this planet. Therefore it is necessary to become conscious of the
history or the evolution of mankind. No, not what you can find in the
history books of school, that is merely a collection of names of worldly
people, dates and places. You need to understand how humanity came into
existence and how man developed himself. Man’s origin on this planet is
diverse. When Earth was cooling of there were already souls on the
ethereal plane undergoing a densification process in order to obtain a
physical body. There were souls taking over an animal form and shaping
it into a human form. Over the course of time man was also brought over
from other planets. Earth has always been inhabited by a slowly
developing humanity and more evolved beings from other planets who acted
as guides and helpers. In Lemurian times, primitive man had awareness of
things and events but did not have a memory. He lived in the moment and
was one with his environment. He sensed, understood and communicated
with nature by feeling what was going on inside the life forms. He did
not have a language but sang what he felt. His song was composed of
primeval sounds derived from nature. Lemurians had open contact and were
guided by the beings, physical and ethereal, from other planets. The
subsequent Atlantean race developed memory and thinking in images.
Atlantean man directed his consciousness outwardly, and began to develop
a language. As the emotional body grew, selfish love and egotism arose
for the first time. The Atlantean population was governed by a small
elite. Their scientists-priests attained a highly developed science. The
laboratories were mostly underground to keep their secrets away from the
population. Although the Atlanteans had still contact with
extraterrestrial beings, the development of the Atlantean intellect
combined with egotism, caused a gradual decline in the acceptance of the
extraterrestrial guidance. By turning away from their guides, mankind
obtained free will. Unfortunately, free will implies the possibility of
error. Mankind lost its paradise. Without guidance, mankind was lost in
the labyrinth of errors, and blinded by his egotism. You are now living
in Post-Atlantean times. Man’s intellect has increased at the cost of
his memory. His self-consciousness has expanded, but also his egotism.
His attention is primarily directed to his physical body and the
physical world. He is hardly aware of the spiritual forces around him
which do influence him, whether he is aware of it or not. At this moment
man is almost completely disconnected from the spiritual worlds.
It
is very important to know the evolution of mankind, because you are the
product of it. You need to know your place and time in this evolution.
Knowledge is power. Nature does not forgive ignorance. It is even more
important to come in contact with the energies thereof. The entire
history of mankind is inside of you. Unlock it. Read the books of Rudolf
Steiner, Edgar Cayce, W. Scott-Eliot and H. P. Blavatsky. They all have
written extensively about the evolution of mankind.
When you finally
feel connected to mankind, its history, its past and present actions,
its emotions, its thoughts and feelings, you are ready to progress to
the next stage of consciousness: the amphibious consciousness.
3. Amphibious Consciousness
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And
a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake
You became aware of
yourself and your personality. You discovered that you are part of
mankind sharing all its experiences. Now is the time to look beyond what
is human. You are part of a vast network of living beings existing in
many dimensions in the universe. The universe is like a net, a tapestry,
woven out of numerous threads. The Divine Weaver weaves his creation on
his loom. All created beings are connected to each other. When the child
is still in the womb, it is linked by the umbilical cord to the mother.
At the same time the child experiences an amphibious consciousness,
feeling itself connected with the entire creation and all the energies
thereof. Take a walk in nature, in the mountains, in the desert, take a
deep breath, and feel connected with what is around you. On the subtle
level you have always been one with it. However, you never paid
attention to it. Everything is alive, animals, plants, even rock and
crystals. Nature is also teeming with numerous spirit beings. You are
part of it. You are part to everything that exists. It is time to give
up the illusion that you are a separate being. Man is not separate and
cannot continue to isolate himself from his environment in order to
master, control and abuse it, as he is presently doing. He is harming
himself, because he is inseparable from his environment, and any abuse
will turn back on himself.
In the past, when man was more in tune
with nature, he constructed many sacred places, like the megalithic
sites on special energy spots and energy vortexes of the planet. These
he used for enhancing his living conditions, to stimulate the growth of
crops, for healing purposes and magical ceremonies. Some of these places
are not only still intact, but the energies are still active. Go to
these special energies spots to not only to make contact with your
ancestry, but also to extend your subtle cords to make contact with
other levels of existence. Earth’s energy spots all connect with each
other to form a giant web encompassing the entire planet. It even
connects to energies from the universe. These sacred places are like
doorways, openings to other places, other realms, other beings, other
energies. In some dolmen a small circular opening in the roof slab can
be found. Folklore has it that the souls of dead pass through this
opening to get into heaven. This is faint memory of the practice of
ancient people who would lie inside the dolmen and look at the opening
for a slightly different reason. Being on an energy spot and gazing at
the opening would facilitate the transition from ordinary consciousness
to amphibious consciousness. By crossing this threshold numerous
patterns in web-like designs present themselves before the eyes. It is
as if one passes through them at enormous speeds. Sometimes it happens
so fast that one will hardly notice them. It is possible to learn to
lower your "speed", then you will be able to see them clearly. These are
not products of the mind, or fantasies, or even dream images. They are
the fabric of the universe, ethereal fibers of energies present in the
entire creation. Passing through them you will then go into other realms
of existence. With amphibious consciousness you experience the
multidimensionality of the universe. Everything in the universe has
structure, and every structure has holes in it. All over the world,
shamans have used these holes to make the transition. The holes can be
in energy spots, in crystals, in the air and so on. When Alice was
falling asleep she fell through such a hole, the rabbit hole, and found
Wonderland.
The totem animal of amphibious consciousness is the frog.
The posture of a frog is used to liberate the vital energies in your
body. When in that position frog sounds can be produced from the ten
locations from which sound can come: the belly, stomach, chest, throat,
mouth, tongue, palate, teeth, lips and nose. Just producing these sounds
is not enough, one needs to feel like a frog. Therefore, assuming the
position of a frog, one moves rhythmically back and forth, moving the
arms as if swimming. When the hands come together clap the hands. It is
important to move from the loins in order to liberate the energies of
the first chakra. Moving the hands from the inside to the outside (like
in swimming) represents leaving the water, the reverse movement
represents entering the water. This exercise needs to be done until a
dry warm energy rises up in the body. Spread this warmth over the entire
body and continue until this warmth becomes radiant and tingling. This
liberates the vital energies in the body. These vital energies are
present everywhere in the universe. They vivify everything that lives
and connect it all together. Through these energies you can make contact
with the entire creation. As with all exercises of this kind, it is very
important that you don’t overdo it.
Amphibious consciousness
corresponds to the stage in evolution when amphibians were leaving the
water and entering the land. It was on land that the body of man and his
sense of separate identity would eventually develop. The water, or the
oceans, connect all life together. Life in the oceans promotes a sense
of unity, of being one with everything around oneself. The amphibians,
with the frog as totem animal, represent the transition between the two
phases. In the exploration of the levels of consciousness you go back
into the oceans, into the water, into the womb. There you will reconnect
with all life in all dimensions, and experience the vital energies
vivifying everything that lives. The frog as totem animal was present
all over the ancient Americas. It was a secret cult because access to
the vital energies of the universe implies a strong responsibility.
Uninitiated persons might destroy themselves and other people with it.
In fairy tales the frog is often associated with a fountain or a deep
well, symbols of the opening to the other world. All over the world the
frog is connected with the vital forces. As an amphibious animal, living
both in the water as on land, the frog connects the vital, ethereal,
spiritual, unconscious energies (symbolized by water) with the tangible,
physical, conscious energies (symbolized by land).
When the
amphibians evolved, the cerebellum, or little brain, developed. It
controls balance and smoothness of the body’s movements, and
continuously monitors and adjusts the progress of an action. On the
subtle level the cerebellum is responsible for psychic or paranormal
perception, and holds the memories and energies of amphibious
consciousness.
Another exercise to liberate the vital forces in your
body is by guttural singing with a low voice, as shamans do, or as the
Buddhist monks sing. Try to sing as low as possible and feel the voice
being generated from your belly. You can use the sound Mu and connect
mentally with the time period of Lemuria when the vital energies in the
body were very strong.
As amphibious consciousness is experienced and
you feel connected to other life forms in the many dimensions of the
universe, you will eventually develop a new way of perception that is
connected to the ocean, out of which the amphibians came. You are now
obtaining what is known as spherical consciousness.
4. Spherical
Consciousness
I am expanding as a sphere,
movement outward in all
directions
at an incredible rate.
My vision is spherical
I can
look within at the very smallest of all places
and now without at the
largest of all places.
Norm Paulsen
As life on this planet
evolved consciousness became more specified and directed. Going through
the seven levels of consciousness is a reverse movement. On the level of
personal consciousness you experienced yourself as an individual with a
specific personality, making you a separate and different person than
the rest of humanity. On the level of mankind consciousness you
participated in the experiences of all human beings. Amphibious
consciousness brought you in contact with the other life forms in the
universe. Here your awareness is still focused in one direction. When
you look with your physical eyes, you see only what is before you. What
is on the left, on the right, above, below and behind is not visible.
The same applies when the spiritual eye looks at the inner worlds, or
the spiritual worlds. Now it is time to make one step further in the
exploration of consciousness.
With spherical consciousness you learn
to observe in all directions at the same time. Spherical consciousness
perceives everything around you. What is in front of you, at the left,
at the right, behind, above and below, at every angle, is observed all
at the same time. You might find it difficult to believe because you
have been accustomed all your life to a unilateral, directional
observation. Practice will prove that you have the capability of
spherical perception.
Spherical Consciousness corresponds to the
period of evolution in which life forms were found only in the oceans.
Fish, larvae, plankton and unicellular life forms have spherical
perception through their entire body. The body itself, and especially
the skin, perceives its environment in a spherical way. The more
primitive the organism is, the stronger is this kind of consciousness.
The senses of these primitive organisms are far less developed and the
only way they could know what is going on around them is to "feel" with
their bodies in a spherical way.
How can you bring about this
spherical consciousness? Identify with the life forms of the oceans.
Feel what their lives are like, how they perceive their environment.
Imagine yourself as a single cell. You don’t have eyes, ears, nose ,
mouth or skin. The only way is to "feel" what is around you. Imagine
that you are a spherical being. Feel in the way of an expanding sphere.
This will give you a good idea what spherical consciousness is. It will
also bring you in contact with your own bodily cells. Bring forth the
sound of a fish, go "wow wow wow" as if you are making air bubbles.
Continue this for a good ten minutes and you will connect with water
beings.
Another good way to develop your spherical perception is to
imagine the five platonic solids in your mind. The five platonic solids,
or polyhedra, are three dimensional solids with equal sides, equal
regular faces, equal solid angles all of which can be inscribed in a
sphere. There are only five of these regular forms: tetrahedron,
octahedron, cube, icosahedron and dodecahedron. These form are found
throughout nature among crystals and among primitive life forms. Start
by copying the platonic solids from a book. Draw them on a piece of
paper and figure out how they are structured and how they are linked to
each another. It is even better to make them out of cardboard. Then
close your eyes and imagine that you are sitting inside one of them and
create the form of the polyhedron you have chosen around you in an
instant. Do not build up the form, it has to appear in the blink of an
eye, and hold this image for as long as you can. The only way to do this
is to exercise your spherical perception and to be clearly aware of
every corner, line and surface of the form at every single moment. In
the beginning it is not easy. Do not give up! Persistence pays off.
Spherical perception can also be developed with meditation. Sit down in
a comfortable position. Hold your spine upright and relax completely.
After physical and emotional tensions have disappeared, imagine a sphere
around you that is your only sense of perception. All of your other five
physical senses are totally quiet. Then expand spherical sense and feel
what is around you. You can limit yourself to your immediate environment
or go as far as you want. Feel your village, your country, the planet,
the solar system, the universe.
Regular exercise will also improve
your spherical awareness in daily life. You will become more aware of
what is going on around you, not only on the physical plane, but also on
subtle levels. You will become more susceptible to energies in your
environment. A person with only personal consciousness is only aware of
himself. The development of spherical consciousness expands your
awareness to your environment (distance is not an obstacle) not only on
the physical plane, but also to all the subtle or spiritual realms with
the corresponding energies and beings thereof.
For a descriptive
experience of spherical consciousness, read John C. Lilly’s "The Center
of the Cyclone". Lilly was a pioneer in the exploration of
consciousness. After taking a dose of L.S.D. he found himself in a
large, empty place with nothing in any direction except light. There was
a golden light permeating the whole space, everywhere, in all directions
out to infinity. He was a single point of consciousness, of feeling, and
of knowledge. In a peaceful space, he had no sense of a body. Certain
mind altering drugs, in the right condition of mind and circumstances,
can promote other states of consciousness, but they keep you to lower
levels. In the past, drugs were used primarily by shamans for specific
purposes. Nowadays drugs are widely abused and misused. The intentions
and circumstances are rarely right in spite of the self proclaimed good
intentions of their users. Furthermore, substances create dependency and
will not improve your power or your personal development. It is far
better to reach the different levels of consciousness by yourself
through exercise, attitude and intention. When L.S.D. was put on the
list of illegal drugs, John Lilly found he was able to reach the same
levels of consciousness without it.
You have gone back in the
evolution of consciousness from a complex human being to the very first
life forms on this planet. Having experienced the spherical perception
of a single cell, the first organic life form, where do you go next?
Well, now it is time to leave the organic realms and explore crystal
consciousness.
5. Crystal Consciousness
By coming to
understand the nature of the crystal,
we will be able to make sense
of the rays and reflections that emanate from it.
Namkai Norbu
Each step on the ladder of consciousness brings a totally new
experience. The transition from spherical to crystal consciousness
brings a completely new level of awareness. At the level of spherical
consciousness your perception is still bound by the senses. Perception
is distorted by the five bodily senses, by emotions and by thoughts. All
information you take in by those senses is always colored, manipulated,
and deformed by the senses themselves. This happens because as a human
being you have impurities of all kinds. Your body is impure because you
don’t eat right. There is always a lack or too much of a nutrient, or
you are feeding yourself with substances foreign to your body chemistry.
Your environment, the climate and the industrial toxins nowadays are
omnipresent, making your body deviate from its pure state. The physical
body is also influenced by the emotional and mental bodies. Who is
totally free of negative emotions? Be honest, examine yourself, and
recognize your anxieties, your fears, frustrations, anger, irritation,
jealousy and so on. They all distort to a great degree what we perceive.
Your mental attitude, your opinions, thoughts, and preconceptions cause
an even greater distortion. As long as you hold on to these impurities
your perception will never be clear.
The transition from spherical to
crystal consciousness is about purification. The first four levels of
consciousness are organic in nature. Crystal consciousness is inorganic.
It perceives without the help of the physical, emotional or mental body.
Crystal consciousness is the state in which one perceives everything as
it really is. Perception is completely pure, undistorted by any senses.
It is pure, direct and complete.
Crystal consciousness corresponds
to the stage in evolution in which the Earth crystallized. Before there
were any primitive organisms, before any cells were formed, only
crystallized matter existed. In spite of what present day science
claims, nothing in the universe is dead. Everything is alive, this
includes matter. Matter is also a life form, vivified by the omnipresent
life energy. Matter has been created, it has structure, it has the
ability to grow (crystals), and it ages. Crystal consciousness brings
you into contact with all matter with its crystal forms, crystalline
structures, molecules, and atoms; and with subatomic particles and
quantum energies.
Shamans all over the world have always had crystals
in their possession. Crystals are popular among pagan and new age
people. The interest in crystals in not limited to quartz. People pay
exorbitant prices for precious stones which have only ornamental value.
Yet they seems to be so attracted to pure, crystalline stones that they
seem to be motivated by an unconscious longing to buy them. Crystals
connect us, even if it is it in an unconscious way, to experiences of
purity, clarity, radiance, brilliance, timelessness and
incorruptibility.
Get a clear quartz crystal and get in touch with
its consciousness. See it as a life form and communicate with it. Still
your bodily tensions, emotions and thoughts as much as possible, and be
one with the crystal. This can give you a lot of insight that normally
would not have come to you because of the organic, sensory filters of
your body. Snow and ice can also bring you in contact with that pure,
crystalline consciousness, especially after a night of heavy snow. Take
a walk in the early morning after a night of snowfall. Don’t think the
levels of consciousness are some remote states of mind. It is around us
all the time. You don’t have to be a shaman. You only have to tune into
it.
An excellent way to tune into crystal consciousness is through
the famous crystal skulls. Some of these skulls are life size and made
out of a variety of quartz. The masterpieces that were made during
Atlantean times contain a lot of knowledge that is accessible.
Information has been accessed primarily by psychics who have tuned into
the psychic energies of the skulls. Much more information could be
obtained by a person who is capable of tuning into crystal
consciousness, because this is the level on which the crystal skulls
really operate. The masterpieces were made by beings, not always human
and not always on this planet, who where able to function on the level
of crystal consciousness. They used technology unknown to present
mankind. The crystal skulls are fascinating objects. Read "Mysteries of
the Crystal Skulls Revealed" by Sandra Bowen, F. R. Nick Nocerino and
Joshua Shapiro, or go to their web site.
The symbol of the crystal is
used in the practice of Dzogchen. Dzogchen, or The Great Perfection, is
the essence of all spiritual practices in Tibet. In Dzogchen one
exercises the mind to become clear and find one’s own inner essence.
This clear state of mind denotes the fundamental ground of existence,
both at the universal level and at the individual level, the two being
essentially the same. To realize one is to realize the other. Crystal
consciousness is in every being, organic and inorganic, and cannot be
destroyed, although awareness of this state is lost when one enters the
realms of dualism. The crystal is used as s symbol to demonstrate the
illusion of the separateness that exists in dualism, where a being
experiences itself as a closed off self separate from a world "out
there". When the sunlight falls on a crystal, it is reflected and
refracted by it, causing the appearance of rays and patterns of spectral
colors. They seem to be separate from the crystal yet they are functions
derived from its own characteristic nature. In the same way an
individual’s own energy is perceived by his own senses as a world of
apparently external phenomena. In reality there is no external world, or
separate energies or objects. Our senses perceive duality, but on the
most fundamental level only unity exists. The crystal ball is used as a
symbol to demonstrate that even images experienced internally, in the
mind, are just reflections of energies manifesting themselves as
seemingly real objects. An object placed near a crystal ball will appear
inside the ball as an image that seems to be a real object, however it
is the individual’s own energy being reflected. When the crystal ball is
placed on a red cloth, it seems to be red, when it is placed on a green
cloth, it seems to be green. The crystal ball itself does not have any
color. Therefore you need to transform its impure vision into pure
vision, by the power of concentration. Then you become aware that your
experiences, both around and within yourself, are only reflections of
your true nature. You need to see yourself as the colorless crystal
ball, in essence and nature always pure and unaltered by the ever
flowing energies of the dualistic world.
To attain this level you
need to relax the mind and feel your own true essence as much as
possible. Clarity and purity of mind need to be exercised not only
during your meditation hours, but also during the rest of the day. It is
not as simple as it looks. We all are accustomed to react to everything
in life with emotions that sweep us away from our center. We constantly
think about a million things, what we did yesterday, what we should have
done, what we are going to do, what others should do. We are never in
the present moment. In crystal consciousness, with clarity of mind, only
the true self can be found in the here and now, in the present.
Therefore be aware of what is going on in the present. Emotions and
thought are fine as long as they are experienced in the moment, for what
they are; at the same remaining constantly in your center. Relaxation is
the key here. When one is truly relaxed, the mind itself shifts to its
natural condition. It is a delicate yet natural exercise, presence of
your natural state is maintained without attempting to fix it to any
conceptual framework or hopes for it to manifest in any particular form.
It has become so difficult to just relax and be your true self because
you are used to doing things in a particular way. Practice will show you
the way. Just relax in an undisturbed condition. In the beginning your
clear state of mind might only last a moment. Do not worry about it. All
the great masters started just as you did. All that is necessary is that
you maintain pure presence of mind without falling into the dualistic
situation where there is an observing subject perceiving an observed
object. It is all about maintaining present awareness without being
distracted by your environment. "The Crystal and the Way of Light" by
Namkhai Norbu is a marvelous book to guide you in a clear and direct way
in the teachings of Dzogchen.
Another way to experience the crystal
consciousness is to sing the sound of crystals, a high nasal "eeeee".
This kind of singing is found in many cultures, from Sufi to shamans. In
aboriginal cultures shamans considered crystals to be solidified light,
light that crystallized itself, which leads us to the next level: light
consciousness.
6. Light Consciousness
Nature emits a light,
and by its radiance she can be known.
But in man there is still
another light
apart from that which is innate in nature.
It is the
light through which man experiences,
learns, and fathoms the
supernatural.
Those who seek in the light of nature
speak from the
knowledge of nature;
but those who seek in the light of man
speak
from the knowledge of super-nature.
Paracelsus
A crystal,
when heated, starts to radiate light. As you rise up through crystal
consciousness you will end up traveling through the white light. This is
the level of light consciousness. Sunlight makes life possible on this
planet. You also receive light of the stars. Have you ever wondered how
long this light took to reach you? Some light in the universe has been
traveling for billions of years before reaching you. During all that
time it gathered information about the universe. Star light contains
information about the nature of things: chemistry, physical properties
and subtle energies. There are other kinds of light coming from other
dimensions. To reach these other lights you can call upon them, or you
can bring yourself into a state of consciousness which is the same as it
is where they exist.
The experience of light phenomena, other than
physical, is quite common. Unfortunately, our present civilized world
does not pay attention it. People who have had such experiences are
often disbelieved, shunned or ridiculed. It is time to restore the
sacred, because it is as necessary to the survival of man as is food to
the physical body. Life on this planet came into being by the light of
the sun. Take the sun away, and Earth is a dead planet in no time. Man
equally needs the light from the subtle realms. Many experiences of
light phenomena present themselves to his mind. This is well known and
well documented in regard to kundalini experiences. According to the
Indian tradition kundalini is a type of energy that is held at rest in a
dormant, potential state in the human body. When this energy is
awakened, it rushes up along the central axis of the spine to the crown
of the head, where it gives rise to a mystical state of consciousness.
Awakening kundalini causes a psychospiritual transformation during which
many psychic and psychological phenomena happen. Light, in its many
forms, is an important aspect of the kundalini awakening, and has also
been reported by mystics of all religious traditions. In alchemical
texts, light is often mentioned as an important experience of the
spiritual alchemist. The alchemists often distinguish between the
"natural light" which is a created light omnipresent in the created
world, and the "supernatural light" which is uncreated and spiritual,
and is present in the spiritual or divine realms. They warned not to go
into the different kinds of colored lights but to continue the
"distillation" or "purification" until one experiences the brilliant
white light, the uncreated Light. The same advice is given by yogis.
Crystal consciousness comprises a purification of perception from the
bodily senses. Through this inorganic perception you can see the created
worlds, physical and subtle, as they really are, unmodified by the
senses. Light consciousness is above the created worlds. It is present
in the spiritual or uncreated realms. These are the worlds in which our
essence, our divine spirit, resides. Here the Beings of Light live and
work. They create and maintain the universe. They look after all living
beings. They are compassionate and filled with endless love. When you
enter the realms of Light you experience not only the living Light
itself, but also it boundless love. The Light radiates an all
encompassing love and a wonderful, all embracing acceptance. Light
consciousness is a feeling of being filled with the Divine, with love,
peace, joy and ecstasy. Although the experience is different for
everyone according to his or her personality, individuality and
circumstances, the Light is always the same for everyone. The Light does
not discriminate, it does not know duality. Everything in the Light is
in unity. In the Light you don’t see other people as separate from
yourself. In the Light we are all connected, and you see the other
person as a beautiful being, no matter what he or she is or does on
Earth. No racism, no politics, no hate. In the Light we are all loving
beings.
Light experiences are not available to the ego, which
belongs to the lower realms of form. The former levels of consciousness
can be induced by will. Light consciousness happens by the grace of your
Higher Self, by the Beings of Light, by accident, or by death. People
who have had near-death-experiences often report going through a tunnel
and entering a brilliant white light with experiences similar to the
ones mentioned above. Sometimes they encounter Beings of Light who help
them to understand what is happening to them and who often guide them
back into their physical bodies. This Light is experienced as spiritual,
all dimensional. Consciousness is very clear and real. The Beings of
Light always radiate a magnificent energy of love. Communication with
those beings happens not through telepathy, but through the sensation of
knowing. People who have had near-death-experiences have gained a
profound insight that on the fundamental level of the universe there is
a Reality without any time or space, where one simply is, filled with
never ending love. In spite of your every day worries and the misery in
the world, always remember that you always have been, that you are, and
that you always will be, the same. You are a Being of Light.
Ask your
Higher Self, the Beings of Light, or the Divine to lift you up to the
level of light consciousness. If the time is right and the right
circumstances present themselves, it will happen. Your ego has
absolutely no say in it. The ego is a fabrication of your mind and has
to be surrendered. It will be left behind when you enter light
consciousness. This does not mean that you must sit back and forget
about light consciousness. A spiritual worker constantly works on
himself. Therefore meditate every day in one form or another, analyze
your emotions, thoughts and actions in order to purify yourself. Always
be aware that you yourself are a Being of Light.
Pay attention to
what is happening inside yourself.
The state between waking and
sleeping is favorable to enter other states of consciousness, including
the experience of different kinds of light. You can experiment with
physical light forms, such as staring into candle light, or looking at
sunlight (don’t look directly into the sun!) through the eyelashes. Many
sun symbols from ancient civilizations and primitive people were derived
from visionary experiences. When you look you shall find, but be
patient. You don’t have to be a saint or holy man to have light
experiences. Many common people do have them, but often they don’t talk
about it, because it is such a personal experience. Light experiences
happen when they are needed or when they can really help you along your
spiritual path.
Although a light experience can be the most wonderful
experience you have ever had, it is not the highest level of
consciousness. Light is at the basis of everything that has been
created, but the Light in the spiritual, or uncreated realms, is still
vibration. When consciousness is raised you will hear the vibration of
Light, because sound is the basis of everything in the created and
uncreated worlds. This leads us to the next level, sound consciousness.
7. Sound Consciousness
Your music causes my soul to dance;
in
the murmur of the wind I hear Your flute;
the waves of the sea keep
the rhythm of my dancing steps.
Through the whole of nature
I hear
Your music played, my Beloved;
my soul while dancing speaks its joy
in song.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Sound is the basis of all that
exists, created and uncreated. In the spiritual doctrines of the East,
the first sound the Divine emanates is the primeval vibration Aum, also
called Shabda-Brahman or the Sound of the Divine. According to yogis and
mystics around the world the Primal Sound is like a swarm of bees. It is
a humming, buzzing, that can be heard through meditation. This sound can
then be inwardly transformed into the inner light. To bask in this
blissful consciousness of light lights up one’s thoughts, hearing the
Primal Sound draws you near to Divine consciousness. In your ordinary
life this sound is not heard, although it is omnipresent. Therefore sit
down, meditate, still the mind, and listen to the sound of the inner
self. Focus on the Primal Sound, and eventually you will hear it. A
shamanic practice consists of a hum with your lips almost pressed
together producing a sound resembling the buzzing of bees. A warning:
when you hear the Primal Sound, or another sound of the lesser realms
that might pop up, shut it down immediately. Like a radio, you need to
gain absolute control over the sounds you hear. Turn it on, turn it off
repeatedly until you have mastered it completely. If you don’t do this
from in the beginning, you might not be able to shut the sound off. You
will hear it constantly, twenty-four hours a day. Not everybody can deal
with this. You wouldn’t be the first one ending up in a nut house.
The Primal Sound is omnipresent can be heard at any moment when your
mind attunes itself to this vibration. It did originate a long time ago
( it is outside of time) as it sometimes mentioned in the holy
scriptures. Sacred texts often state that "in the beginning was the
word", but be aware that time is a physical experience. Creation is an
ongoing process. The Primal Sound is a continuous sound that
reverberates throughout the entire cosmos, creating, maintaining and
destroying it at every moment. You are part of it. You exist as sound at
the most fundamental level of your being. Furthermore all your bodies,
mental, astral and physical, all vibrate and have their own
characteristic sounds. Everything has its sound, living beings,
inorganic matter, energies, even, abstract concepts and psychological
problems.
To attain the full level of sound consciousness you need to
become or realize yourself as a sound being. An enlightened person can
go one step further, and by becoming a sound being he becomes a creator.
The Divine is present in all living beings, and it allows us to become
creators ourselves. It takes a long time to arrive at the sound level of
human evolution. However, it is easy enough to work with sound on the
lower levels of creation. It will help you a lot in your personal
development.
Knowledge of sound is knowledge of the universe.
Therefore you need to understand what sound is about and what you can do
with it. Sound can be used to induce changes. When you keep your
intentions pure you can use sound, or music, to the benefit of yourself
and others. In the past centuries music was divided in three. Musica
Mundana is the harmony of the universe, the macro cosmos, the harmony of
measurement, weight and number (in the philosophical sense), the
seasons, night and day. Musica Humana is the music of the soul, the
harmony of man, the micro cosmos, as a reflection of the macro cosmos.
Musica Instrumentalis is music created by the blessed one, who is able
to receive the cosmic beauty and harmony of the Divine and translate it
to human proportions as instrumental music. The hermetic philosophers
talked about the Harmony of Spheres, based upon their own experiences in
which they became one with Nature in which its music was felt and lived.
Many do not realize it, but you live in a world constantly full of
sounds. Every day you are subjected to continuous sound waves. The alarm
clock wakes you up, you go to work in a noisy car in an even more noisy
road. The car radio gives you the morning news. On your work you are
subjected for many hours to the sounds of running computers or factory
machines. After a tiresome day you arrive home to sit in front of the
television blasted by hyped up sounds of commercials and movies. Even if
you would be in a totally quiet place, you will hear the sounds in the
ears, sounds produced by bodily fluids and other functions. You are
trained to react automatically to certain sounds: the sirens of the fire
trucks, the police, the ambulance, the ring of the telephones. The beep
of pagers and so on. Sounds can have a profound effect. Who is untouched
when a baby cries? The tone in the voice of your boss can set the
atmosphere in the office for the rest of the day. Sounds can irritate or
relax you. Shamans use sound to induce trance states with rattles and
drums.
Music not only uplifts the soul but causes changes on many
subtle levels. It is important to listen to or be in the presence of
harmonic music, or at least music that makes you feel better. Nowadays
there is so much disharmonious music around which creates discordant
energies on the soul level. Especially for children, who are by nature
totally open to outside influences, this can be very harmful for their
development. On the subtle levels, sound and dance beings (dance is an
expression of sound) are extremely sensitive to vibrations and higher
aesthetics. Sound and musical disharmonies and incoherent movements can
make them nauseated and angry. This you should always keep in mind.
Don’t underestimate the importance of these beings because they are all
around. They send out strong vibrations related to the fate of man. A
man who is stupid in sound and movement should not count on cosmic luck.
By his attitude he is disturbing his own aura, and by that it is more
and more difficult for good vibrations to reach him. At the same time he
becomes vulnerable to the wrath of the sound beings and the dance
beings. He becomes a willing receiver of negative forces. Be aware of
what you do to yourself. Sound is a powerful force. This is also
recognized in magic, especially in incantations. Magicians know that
vibrations of the human voice can alter the plastic substance of the
astral light and thus exert influence over spiritual beings and human
beings. Unfortunately a lot of people using magic don’t understand the
consequences of their acts. The ego wants self-gratification and is not
always interested in the consequences. What you send out you will
eventually receive. The sound waves you create will sooner or later come
back to you. Unless you are an experienced magician and you have a clear
insight in the law of cause and effect, it is better to use sound for
your own spiritual development.
To work on a certain problem, first
feel the vibration of it. The problem can be manifold. It can be a
physical, psychological, spiritual problem, a frustration, an emotion, a
problem at work, or with your partner. Whatever it is, you need to get a
feeling of how it "sounds". Sit in a quiet place and start to express it
in a sound. Let the sounds come out in a simple and primitive way. Take
at least half an hour to an hour to develop these sounds in a mantra or
a simple song that will be connected to your problem. This is how
mantras are created. Only the sound is important. Vocals, words or
sentences do not matter. This is how shamans sing. They use guttural
sounds, not words, no classical songs. Singing this mantra daily, with
the right focus and attention, will act directly on the subtle cause of
the problem. A mantra consists of two aspects. The negative aspect is
the blockade in man on the physical, psychological and spiritual level.
The positive aspect is the desire which has not been satisfied, yet. The
mantra dissolves the blockade and stimulates the blocked energy to
liberate itself. Instead of singing the sound, you can also hum.
As
everything in nature and in the universe has its own sound, you can
contact it all by its sound vibration: people, objects, clouds, stones,
crystals, even the cosmic and the Divine. Feel their vibration and
rhythm, and sing, sing, sing. When you use sound you live in a world of
inspiration, independent of the will of the ego. To arrive at this you
have to be open unconditionally. You accept what happens, what you feel,
what you encounter, what you experience without any criticism, without
any judgment, without any opinion. The universe is what it is. It does
not judge, or divide, or categorize, or interpret.
Nature is a
wonderful teacher. Go sit next to a stream and listen to the sounds of
its water flowing by. The stronger the current, the better. A waterfall
is an excellent place. Listen to the sounds, and to the sounds within
the sounds. Listen to and distinguish the different frequencies. Feel
what these sounds do to your body, soul and spirit. Then, listen to the
sounds with a blank mind, accept the sounds without trying to analyze
it. Listen to it as it is. This can be a powerful experience.
One day
you will find your own song. When that happens you will realize the
Divine in yourself.
The Wheels of Consciousness
Then he perceives the manifestations of Spirit,
and passes through the seven
Chakras,
or centers in the spine,
beholding the seven rishis.
Kaivalya Darsanam by Priya Nath Swami (Sri Yukteswar)
Now
that you have a good understanding of the seven shamanic levels of
consciousness, you might have noticed a parallel with the seven major
chakras in the human body. In the Hindu tradition, the chakras are
recognized as major points of power in the subtle body. They are
visualized as geometric figures, as wheels (chakra means wheel, they are
usually seen as spinning), or lotuses. They are spaced on a vertical
axis in the subtle body, corresponding roughly to the spinal column and
brain. The chakras transform subtle energies from the universe into
particular vital energies for the body. Each chakra is responsible for a
part of the body. When the chakras are in good working condition the
body is healthy. By negative emotions, impure thoughts and neglect of
the physical needs of the body, the function of the one or more chakras
is impaired and ailments and disease occur. Chakras are often regarded
as levels of energy, but you need to understand that energy is also
consciousness. It all depends from what angle you look at it. The
chakras are manifestations of consciousness. Each chakra represents a
particular level of consciousness taking care of a particular area of
the body. Information from the cosmos around us is brought over to the
body to keep it alive and functioning.
Earlier we talked about
Kundalini, as being an psychic energy, present in the body. Kundalini is
also seen as consciousness. When Pure Consciousness descended the
manifested cosmos, it left behind a part of its powers seven times. Each
power created a chakra. When the seventh chakra, Muladhara, the root
chakra at the base of the spine, was created it went to "sleep" in this
chakra. Here it is called Kundalini-Shakti (Shakti is the immense power
inherent in the universe). Remember the story of Snow-white? Snow-white
represent Pure Consciousness. When she found the house of the seven
dwarfs (the house is a symbol for the body), she tried out all the
little beds and finally fell asleep in the seventh bed! What happened on
a cosmic level also happens as the human body is being formed in the
womb. Pure Consciousness descends into the physical body, creating the
seven chakras. Each chakra in your body is thus connected to the seven
levels of consciousness. When you do the exercises mentioned in the
previous chapters it is good to simultaneously work with the
corresponding chakra. For this purpose an explanation of the connection
between the chakras and the levels of consciousness follows.
Muladhara or root chakra is the seat of your physical identity. Here,
personal consciousness manifests itself through the issues of survival
in the physical world. Your personality is primarily concerned with
keeping your body alive. On this level it is only concerned with itself.
Hence the root of fear. Everything that threatens the body causes fear:
fear of not having enough money, fear of being alone, fear of not being
able to make it in life, fear of death. As the physical body gets the
most attention on this level of consciousness, it wants to feel good and
thus physical sensations through the senses are pursued. The root chakra
gives you the sense of your body, of its pleasures, of what it has
experienced in this life and what is needed to continue its existence.
Personal consciousness excels in what it has accomplished in this life
and looks ahead what more it can gain in the future.
Svadhistana or
sex chakra is the seat of close contact to the opposite sex. Here is the
drive nature provided to make sure the human race would not become
extinct. No matter how hard cats fight, there are always enough kitties
around. Sex is a strong force, it makes you go out and pursue the
opposite sex. Hereby you make contact with the rest of humanity and what
it experiences. You discover that the experiences of other people are
the same as what you have. Genes are shared, combining to form new human
beings who inherit the biological and morphogenetic blueprint of their
ancestors.
Manipura or navel chakra is where we connect to our
environment and assimilate impressions. It is the web of relatedness
seen in the third level of shamanic consciousness. From the navel chakra
many astral cords extend to the people we know. Strong relationships
form strong cords. Through this connection we feel what the other person
feels. This connection is not limited to other humans, but also to all
the other living beings. Through this center you connect with everything
around you, with animals, plants, our house, the garden, the village you
live in. When you go out in nature and look out over the landscape, you
can feel it through the navel chakra. When you thus consciously connect
to your environment you can develop your feeling and derive a lot of
information from your it.
Anahata or heart chakra is the seat not
only of love, but also of your place in the universe. In the heart
resides the sense of the personal "I", the ego. The ego is the center
and everything else is the sphere around it. Here we observe with
spherical consciousness. The sense of an ego implies that everything
else surrounds him and is different than itself. The ego is like a
pulsing heart beat. It expands like a sphere to connect with all living
beings around it, and then contracts to keep his sense of a separate
being. Its seat, the heart, is the center of the physical body and its
existence. When the heart fails, the body dies. The heart chakra, being
the fourth chakra, is positioned at the center of the seven chakras.
Vishuddha or the throat chakra is the seat of purification of
impressions and experiences. Traditionally it is seen as a
transformation station that gathers impressions and experiences from the
lower chakras and purifies them. The dross is rejected and only the pure
can continue. Thus you obtain crystal consciousness. The four lower
levels of consciousness are organic in nature and are connected to the
body part of the body. The throat is like a bridge between the body and
the head. Starting with the throat and upward, impressions and
experiences are now pure and unaltered. These are inorganic levels of
consciousness. The throat chakra makes the mind clear and pure in order
to function on the physical level in a correct manner. Clarity of mind
is the essential quality of crystal consciousness.
Ajna or the inner
eye chakra is the seat of cosmic consciousness. It controls the entire
personality and harmonizes all its functions. It gives insight in all
spiritual matters. Here you connect to the essence of all living beings,
and the essence is light. In the eye brow chakra lies the potential to
open the door to the spiritual worlds of light. Shamans, mystics, yogis,
at a certain point in their spiritual work they will open this door and
light will fill the head. This light is seen with the inner eye and is
experienced as filling the inside of the head and even of the entire
body. This light will unlock several spiritual qualities like leaving
the physical body consciously, clairvoyance, or being able to read the
thoughts of other people.
Sahasrara or crown chakra is connected to
divine consciousness. Here you experience the Divine in its primal
manifestation, which is sound. It is the center of being in
consciousness or consciously being. The vibration of everything is
experienced in non-duality, as unmanifested It is the seat of your
highest self, your innermost essence. The primeval sound is heard in the
top of the head.
Traveling through the seven levels of consciousness
is like traveling through your own body. Be aware that the keys to
enlightenment are all present in your self. The only thing you have to
do is to turn the keys.
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