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At the Pinnacle of Power is Surrender

In Taoist cosmology, the entire phenomenal world evolves from the interplay of the forces of yin and yang. In both an enlightened society and a healthy individual, these forces are co-equal and in a dynamic state of

Waves of Yin & Yang

balance. Just as a mountain needs the valley, and soft receives hard, impetus needs receptivity to fully empower and balance it. You can’t surf on crests alone, you need a trough to create the wave.

So it is with people. You can’t control your entire life and all of the world. The universe isn’t designed on Yang alone. And it is not wise to turn your power against yourself through resistance. This is an unhealthy effort to suppress, to freeze the flow of yin and yang. In this state you can neither will change nor surrender to it, and it takes the majority of your available energy to engage in this struggle. Attempting to use this stratagem, we eventually become like a pot ready to boil. If we do not remedy this, we are apt to harm ourselves or others through outwardly directed violence, or inwardly directed dis-ease.

“…ultimate freedom is surrender.”
–Vajrama

Many times you have heard that people can’t change. This, of course, is not true. Though it may be statistically unlikely that a person will alter their core programming, people can change. We can evolve. We just don’t want to. More precisely, we are afraid to change our defenses, our ego structure, our perception that it is our resistance that has allowed us to survive. Many of us choose the illusion of safety by erecting a fortress around our most tender parts, denying all access. The promise of joy, freedom, and fulfillment that we have yet to consistently experience is insufficient motivation to let go of the suffering, anxiety, frustration, and defensive / aggressive temperaments that make us feel so safe. Safe because we know these dysfunctions so well. They seem to have allowed us to survive, and we’ll be damned if we let them go. Better to forgo freedom and joy for a hunkered down safety. Look around you, is it not so?

We stop ourselves from surrendering to our spiritual yearning with fear and an unconscious stubbornness. Stubbornness born of our anxiety and belief that we cannot safely Be another way. So we acquiesce to both the protection and prison of our ego and habits. We allow ourselves to remain stuck between resistance and letting go, will and surrender. Between our animal history and our evolutionary future. We enlist our power in resistance, in being scared and stubborn. And a little lazy.

“At the end of our wanderings there is only the soul’s yearning to return to God.”
–Ram Dass

Throughout our lives we have been taught to use our power, our life force, to pursue the material world. We have lusted after romantic love, and for pleasures both gross and refined. At some point, it would behoove ourselves to invest similar vigor in turning our yearning to the care and nurturing of our soul. It takes all our will to journey to the threshold of self-realization. Yet we cannot enter by will alone. We have to surrender.

The mating of spiritual willpower with yearning gives birth to this Divine surrender, this yielding to the Higher Self. True emotional and spiritual freedom is really the purpose of spiritual power and its mate, surrender. Yang begets Yin and, whether directed inward for self-liberation or outward in service to others, power manifests its highest expression in surrender.

Trust. Relax. Let go. Allow yourself to fall into the waiting arms of the Divine © 2008 Keith E. Hall. all rights reserved.

The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Another article on the 3rd Chakra:  Sea of Chi

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Chakra Balancing

The Power, The Key, The Gate
The sense of yearning is a coded message that the soul is sending to our ego. Yearning takes on different characteristics depending on one’s state of evolution, one’s level of consciousness. To the individual awakening to higher consciousness, first the physical necessities must be met. Then desire drives us until the social / emotional domain is filled. Yet a yearning remains. It cannot be satiated by any quantity of money or sex, romance or power. We desire to attain these things, yet when we do we eventually remain unsatisfied. This is like a dirty little secret that we can tell no one.

No matter how great our material achievements are, how sexy our trophy spouse is, how much status and power, there always comes a time when we become aware of a gnawing sense that we are not fulfilled. Why are the wealthy so propelled to accrue more than they could use in a hundred lifetimes, whatever the karmic cost? Why are the socially well heeled secretly so miserable and judgmental, and control freaks so driven to manipulate others? Libertines can exhaust themselves in the pursuit of pleasures that are never enough, and career workaholics are forced by the stress of chasing their own misplaced ambitions and aspirations to dig their own graves. And why do the majority of people who marry their soulmates end up having extramarital affairs? What can be missing?

“The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.”
– Rumi, “Love Dogs”

Sometimes alone in the wilderness, or sleepless in the wee hours of the morning, with external distractions absent, we can feel a longing for something. A vague feeling that we require something or some state of being that we know not. A longing for something that our basic drives cannot assuage. It might appear as a quiet desperation, or perhaps a personal crisis. For some it can be discerned as a yearning of the spirit so deep, so profound, that it moves one to tears.

In spite of the smiley face we put on for others, we secretly know we are not fulfilled. We suspect there is more to life than this, and we often cannot understand what we are yearning for. Our intellect and the desires of the lower chakras are no help in traversing this pit. Like Eliot’s “hollow men”, we are unable to communicate or express what might fill the secret abyss in our gut and heart. We have tried everything the material and social world has to offer; yet the chasm remains. Exhausting ourselves with work, duty, and diversion, we seek an unknown opiate to dull our aching spirit. Alone in this most secret of times, we long for a caress of compassion from One who understands, for we do not. Are we not like dogs, chained and moaning for Love in the dark night, hoping to be invited to our Master’s bed?

“Resistance is futile.”
–The Borg

Desire cannot be safely suppressed. Resisted and turned inward, those energies can only become twisted and concentrated, becoming dangerous to oneself and others. One Tantric approach to desire is to fill any edacity you have, to appease that domain of your consciousness with whatever it desires, within reason. This is not to be done reflexively, but as a meditation, with full attention on what you are doing, while taking responsibility for both your desire and your actions in filling it. This is a middle path, neither denying what the mind, body, and emotions lust for, nor chasing your desire unconsciously until exhausted.

Over time, one begins to notice that less is more. Being fully attentive and karmically responsible elevates your consciousness. You require less to satiate the hunger of the lower chakras, and the processes of attentiveness and self-responsibility become satisfying to some degree, in and of themselves. This is one of many Tantric techniques for Transmutation, the letting go of old programs, and the recycling of life force trapped in those habits. Tethered less to lower agendas, consciousness begins to yearn for more experience of its higher aspects, to agendas of the heart and soul.

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“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.”
– Eugene Ionesco

Will and power both help us meet the needs of the lower chakras, and empower us to maintain a spiritual practice. Ten to twenty minutes of practice each day is enough to make progress, if the technique is sufficiently efficacious. When the yearning for evolution, for a relationship with the Divine becomes great enough, and joins with authentic, powerful technique and pure intention, the gateway is revealed.

The Gate of Yearning can physically be felt at the solar plexus, and this is the key. Turn that key with purity of intention and high Taoist Tantric methodology, and admittance to the next evolutionary level is attained. The intellect, with its concepts, ideologies, and philosophies cannot by itself find the Way. Our dreams of unconditional love, of living in gratitude and compassion, of being fulfilled from the tips of our toes to the top of our soul, have a somatic pathway. This dream, this promise, lies slumbering betwixt the belly and heart, dormant in the solar plexus.

Once an aspirant realizes this spiritual desire, only anguish will remain if he or she stubbornly resists. It is one thing to wander through the desert of an unconscious life, being pushed and pulled by the mandates of the material world and whatever subconscious urge or resistance that bubbles up within us. It is quite another to know that the Promised Land exists and to travel part way, only to turn back. When called to Awaken, we are compelled to let go of our old habits and antiquated self-definitions. The time comes when we must surrender our insistence on suffering, the pretense that we don’t know better, and the illusion that we are powerless to change. Only fools turn back from the Gate of the Kingdom. © 2008 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 9: At the Pinnacle of Power is Surrender

The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Tantric Qigong™

Presencing™: Learn to Be Present

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Empower Your Higher Self

Romance, Eros, Agape

If material acquisition, pleasure, and power cannot fully sate our most secret yearning what can? Romantic love comes closer to assuaging this questing of the soul. It is of a higher vibrational level than the mere competition for survival, status, and advantage inherent in the money and material chase. Over the millennia, a large percentage of art, music, and literature has owed its genesis to the impetus and ideal of romantic love, its power and desirability goes without saying.

Yet, after going through the trials of attaining this ideal in the form of possessing the desired Other, why does it seem to begin to slowly fade? The biologic explanation has to do with pheromone chemistry, survival, and mating instincts. The psychological explanation involves the various processes of the maturing love relationship, and “healing” of inner childhood “wounding.” One spiritual explanation is that if we do not allow the biological, karmic, and emotional energies of romantic love to be transformed into unconditional love, the energy driving us towards this evolutionary goal is thwarted, staying in the lower chakras. If we are paying attention to our internal emotional state, we might find ourselves eventually experiencing disappointment, frustration, ennui, a mid-life crisis, or general malaise. If ignored and left unaddressed, the thwarted energy may busy itself with lower chakra agendas, where it abides until consciousness or grace allows it another opportunity to be transmuted.

In the newly awakening individual, the karmic or energetic process is that, after the love object has been safely acquired, part of the energy inherent in romantic love begins to transform itself into unconditional love or agape. This is the true evolutionary function of Eros, the linking of the biological with the heart, sexus with agape, separation ultimately leading to communion
Romantic love is a high-energy state of pursuit of the love object. Individuals of both genders have their own unique styles of this dance. Agape, though also a high-energy state, manifests itself a little differently - as surrender. Surrender to the heart, to the other, to Unity, to the Divine. To be in romantic love, the love object must meet numerous requirements, physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral to be attractive. To exist in a state of agape, gratitude, and compassion, no such conditions apply. There is simply the act of Loving.

On a very deep level, this is what our soul yearns for - the giving and receiving of spiritual love. © 2008 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 8: The Power, The Key, The Gate

The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Tantric Qigong™  Presencing™

Learning Self Mastery

The Spiritual Function of Yearning

The first three chakras compose a unit; a triad of our animal drives. At this stage in our evolution, it is easy to observe that, as a species, humans are still controlled by these animal motivations. There are certainly many enlightened buddhas, saints, and prophets that have appeared over the millennia, but the vast majority of people are still centered within their animal heritage, though we can see that humans have certainly invented many complex variations of the basic animal instincts. This is why the animal experiments of Skinner can be applied to people. Stripped of our technology and with our rational faculties stressed, most of us still behave much the same way rats would. And, if possible, all too often we use the gift of our higher cortical powers to serve our animal instincts.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t fulfill animal needs as best as we can. Neo-Tantra often glorifies the senses, which are extensions of the body and animal in nature. Certainly, before we can turn our attention to the spirit, our basic needs must be met. This does include the need for pleasure. It is just that we are out of control, using our technology and mental power indiscriminately to sate our animal appetites. We most often do this reflexively, blindly, and with risk to ourselves, others, and the very planet we live on. Still, if one is acutely observant, it can be noticed that however accomplished we are at gratifying our animal natures, a hunger remains.

Beyond what is needed for basic and comfortable survival, the pursuit of material possessions, power, sensuality, and wealth cannot satisfy the desires of our higher consciousness. No amount of money or social status can satiate the spirit’s longing. Inflame the passions of the lower chakras? Perhaps. But liberate the spirit and fulfill the heart’s true desire? Never. Many try at this, all fail. The game of acquisition and dominance does not feed the soul. It can only drive us to conflict, warfare, an ever-faster rate of conspicuous consumption, and the intrigue of political, financial, and technological supremacy. This extends even to the point where we are willing to destroy our selves, individually or collectively, in one way or another. Perhaps this is one expression of Thanatos. Like the mythical rush of the lemmings, we would rather stubbornly fall to our deaths than give up this dance.

So, most people find themselves trapped in this box, the unconscious drives of the first three chakras. Physically this box is described in the lower half of the body. The “lid” of the box is the solar plexus. The life force inherent in both the emotions of pain, fear and anger, and the quests for money, pleasure, and power aspires to connect with the energies of higher consciousness. Yet our vitality seems trapped in this box that we so stubbornly defend, as if it were a great palace instead of the prison that it has become. To begin to join with higher consciousness in the body, life force must literally push off the lid of this box, and physically ascend through the solar plexus. It yearns powerfully to be allowed to do so.© 2008 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 7: Romance, Eros, Agape

The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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Instruction & Coaching

The Tower of Ego
The over compensation for survival challenges and the perception of lack in the material or emotional realms leads to the quest for dominance. This makes sense on the animal level as the best hunters or providers will ensure their own survival and pass on their genetic material. If you are say, a wolf, this can benefit others in your pack because the alpha male really can only eat so much of a kill; the rest is shared by the pack. In the human realm this is often not so. Technology, social, financial, legal, and military structures can allow a few to garner vast reserves of “kill” without necessarily having to share much of the bounty with others. This is an over-compensation for fear of insufficiency; including the material, sexual, emotional, and other domains.

The same principle holds for social status. Those who lust for acknowledgment, recognition, and fame, will overcompensate for the perceived dearth of love and support by seeking solace in the adoration of the masses, or the privileges of the socially elite.

Those who are the most aggressive and successful at dominance often have the most difficulty in personal

Fall from the tower

relationships. This should be a little spiritual hint, a clue from the Tao. Aggression and arrogance do not lend themselves well to sensitivity and negotiation, which are necessary for healthy relationships including the personal, professional, and geopolitical spheres. The will to dominate and control becomes self-limiting as internal and external forces seek to thwart or mediate unbridled aggression. Excessive yang eventually leads to yin, and pride does go before a fall.

Fall from the Tower
Nearly everyone has a secret desire to be the top dog. Many of us would secretly love to be a celebrity. We love to fantasize that we are a movie star or a rock star on stage before a multitude of fans and groupies, even if it is really only a moment at a karaoke bar! Would you rather be the multimillionaire CEO, or the wage slave? The admired and envied socialite, or the geek ignored and sitting in the corner?

We are pretty much programmed by our animal instincts to seek some sort of dominance in some sort of way, however modest. We desire at least a little niche where we are better than someone else. This is a normal state of animal consciousness. Of course, this is greatly mediated by the fear of being cast out of the herd. Even the alpha dog cannot prevail against the will of the entire pack. So there is this tension between dominance and submission on a basic animal level, which rises to rococo intricacy in the human world. There are some elements of this dynamic which both rise to, and serve the spiritual, as we will see.

From an evolutionary perspective, we need to have a strong, almost maverick personality to succeed on any authentic spiritual path that is unbridled by dogmatism. Any process that seeks to achieve a direct religious experience, a personal encounter with the Divine, will require both patience and persistence to consummate.

On the other hand, will, over-independence, or a love of rebellion for its own sake, can be a seductive trap. Fortunately the universe and our higher Selves are pre-loaded with the software to correct this. No matter how huge the ego, a path to a balanced spiritual perspective will eventually be made clear. We will be shown the limitations of the small self, our desires, and self-aggrandizement. This transition from the mundane games of survival and dominance, to the game of knowing Oneself, and oneself in relation to the Divine, is what the School of Life is about.

“You are dying in a prison of your own devise…”
– Jim Morrison, Unhappy Girl

This is what the tarot card known as “The Tower” describes - the earthshaking alteration at the core of your life’s paradigms. Change is inevitable, and whether this manifests easily or with great struggle is up to you and how well you accept and flow with the change. Transcending your ego patterns can be liberating, freeing you from old behaviors and habits; yet it can also be terrifying, heralding the loss of what you perceive as familiar and safe. The only way for you to lose in this process would be if you stubbornly refuse to allow a necessary change to occur, thus reinforcing an old pattern and imprisoning yourself in an obsolete mode of understanding and being.

“I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased;
I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.”
– St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul

Perhaps this transition from ego to spirit centered life may show up in a dramatic form such as a life threatening challenge, loss of someone deeply loved, a near death experience, or some other sort of major life stressor. It may also appear in our consciousness in a less sensational, more subtle and quietly persistent form. The dark night of the soul can be painted in many shades of gray. It is best to pay attention and both seize and surrender to the opportunity. If you are destined to evolve and you ignore it, the universe will only get more insistent. © 2008 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 6: The Spiritual Function of Yearning

The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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Learn the secrets of the Masters!

Presencing™

Characteristics of the animal third chakra
As an extension of the reptilian / mammalian fight or flight reaction, the third chakra manifests the energies of control, manipulation, stubbornness, anger, hatred and violence. These can be directed outwardly or inwardly on energetic or physical levels. We can see various mixes of these manifest in the world as intolerance, warfare, social prejudice, manipulative business practices, control agendas in interpersonal relationships of various types, etc. Turned inward, these energies often produce obsessive / repressive emotional strategies, self-judgment, anger at oneself, resistance to change, and when repressed to the neurological, glandular, and cellular levels; disease.

Characteristics of the enlightened third chakra

As we let go of or reprogram the imprints of the third chakra, we tend to experience less anger, frustration, and desire to control others. Mastery of this chakra creates centeredness, the quiet confidence that comes with knowing who you are, your abilities, the effect of your actions, and the ethical limits of the expression of your power, i.e., Right Action. Spiritual will is a classic example of the manifestation of third chakra power in service to a higher goal. It takes a lot of will and commitment to stay on a path of self-inquiry and spiritual progression, especially in a culture which does not support this. Sometimes social and religious organizations may actually attempt to dissuade one from this process. Ridicule and the threat of judgment in some form are always the tools of those stuck between fear and manipulation. So, a certain amount of personal power is necessary to embark and remain on an authentic spiritual journey. © 2008 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 3: Storing Life Force and the Anatomy of Power

The 3rd Chakra and the Spiritual Purpose of Power Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Balance your Chakras

Presencing™

Tantric Qigong™

The Presencing(sm) Process

The Art of Being Present: Saturday, August 14, Olney Yoga, Olney MD tantricqigong@aol.com

Learn to make the most of each moment in your life!

Do you admire those who say “carpe diem” and reach for all the gusto that life has to offer? Ever wonder how you could learn to extract more meaning and enjoyment from your life?

All too often, we live our lives in anticipation of the future while subconsciously repressing unpleasant aspects of our past. We shuttle back and forth between past and future, robbing ourselves of our life and re-creating old patterns of being.   As Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result!”

Through the Presencing Process for Enlightenment & Freedom(sm) we can release patterns, which no longer serve us and create our lives with joy and fulfillment, exactly the way we wish to!

Who can benefit from this course:

– Busy professionals who find it difficult to unwind.
– Anyone who feels “stuck in a rut”.
– Meditators & Yoga practitioners who want to deepen their practice.
– Persons having anxiety, frustration, or difficulty stilling the mind in meditation.
– Psychotherapists & clients wishing an approach to mind-body-spirit holism.
– Bodyworkers & energy workers.
– Persons wishing more clarity, direction, & creativity in their personal or professional lives.

In this experiential session / workshop we will:

– Open ourselves fully to our present experience.
– Use sensation, emotion, and cognition to guide ourselves to our truth.
– Release negative emotion easily while opening to joy, serenity, and bliss.
– Use the breath to inspire creativity, vitality, and enjoyment of our lives.
– Learn how being fully present in the moment can create perfect fulfillment.
– Heal our past wounding and manifest success in all aspects of our being.
– Learn how to create ease of communication and greater connection and intimacy in our relationships.

Presencing™ is available as a private session and as a class / workshop.

Presence is the Buddha Pearl

Rev. Keith Hall has synthesized the seminal aspects of Breathwork, Bioenergetics, Neo-Reichian, Tantric, Taoist, and Buddhist practices to create the Presencing Process(sm). Presencing (sm) facilitates deep healing, joy, empowerment, and freedom from past limitations so we can manifest clearly what we desire in life. Presencingsm is a simple, yet profoundly powerful process for creating our lives the way we wish to.

What people say about Presencing™:

Thank you so much for teaching me a more effective way to meditate. God Bless you….
- JK, Carson City, Nevada

I really was able to make some progress in releasing pain.
- VF, Falls Church, VA

…much more of an experience than I anticipated.
-BC, Mt. Airy, MD

Great workshop!
- KK, Arlington, VA

The Art of Being Present

What is Presencing™

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Poems to Bring You Present

Tantric Qigong

I want Enlightenment, Empowerment and Ecstasy in my life, how do I get there? Enlightenment is not so much a final destination as a continual exercise in cleaning up our perceptual filters and the resultant judgments and actions that derive from assumptions based on our perceptions. It is more like routine maintenance. One cannot expect to clean one’s house once and have it remain clean forever, dirt will eventually drift back in. The tricky part is that our perceptions are based on our senses, nervous system, and past experience, including social conditioning. Our experiences are received by our perceptions; our perceptions are interpreted by our experience. A neat cosmic Catch-22, eh?

Does a dog have a Buddha nature?

- Zen Koan

One might question whether Enlightenment and true objectivity is possible given the limitations of our human state and social conditioning. Wars have been fought over the definition of the “One True God”. From individual relationships to spiritual communities, to entire nations, we have clashed over what is proper ethical conduct. We indoctrinate ourselves and our children in what we believe as true. We anthropomorphise our perceptions of the divine. We arrogantly assume we know what is right, proper, and desirable, and this varies from culture to culture! From the inside, it doesn’t look good. Yet, if we entertain the concept that humanity is created in the image of the Divine, that everything from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the largest galaxies are connected by a nexus of energy, cause and effect, even consciousness, then it might appear that the sky is the limit! In our continual process of clarifying and expanding our consciousness and self-definition, we can move ever closer to reclaiming ourselves as the Divine.

The vehicles we can use for this journey are numerous. It has always been the intent of all religions and spiritual paths to bring the individual seeker into harmony and consciousness of the Divine. The tools used vary greatly from era to era and culture to culture. It might at first be difficult to see the similarity of Castaneda’s Don Juan, Lao-Tze, Christ, and Buddha, yet the truth within each tradition remains eternal. (Moreover, these guys probably get together occasionally, have a beer, and chuckle over our insistence on there being One True Path, all others being inferior or wrong. To a higher entity, we must seem like a religious version of the Keystone Kops: policing our dogma with a great sound and fury, and continually running blindly into each other and falling down!) The question is what path is most efficient for a given culture and time. This question is becoming more urgent as we insist on moving through our lives at ever-greater speeds.

Most spiritual paths evolved in simpler, slower times. To reach the highest spiritual Enlightenment, one removed oneself from society to live a solitary or monastic life. The purpose of this was to remove oneself from the unconscious reactivity due to constant external stimuli bombarding our senses. Spending hours every day in contemplation and spiritual ritual limited the amount of stimuli taken in by the seeker and allowed for adequate time to internally process one’s Karma under the guidance of a master. It is easy to see that our Western, externally focused materialistic culture doesn’t exactly support this. When was the last time you put rice in the bowl of a penniless sadhu standing on a street corner? How many of us have ever taken off a few months, let alone years, to claim our birthright of clarity, peace, and joy? We are increasingly driven by our careers, status, family obligations, and material desires, and we are expending more and more time, energy, and peace of mind to maintain this. So, it would seem that for most Westerners, there is a conflict between our desire to live a worldly life and the rigors of a traditional spiritual inquiry. Yet, if it is true that we recreate our world daily, we can create a middle path that allows us access to both worlds easily, even simultaneously, by utilizing some of the more powerful eastern and western techniques. © 1998 Keith E. Hall.

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Tantra and Kundalini Yoga

Tantric Qigong™   Presencing™

The Spiritual Journey: Kundalini, Creation, & Enlightenment
Rev. Keith Hall

More and more people are beginning to inquire into Kundalini practices such as Tantra and Kundalini Yoga as paths to Spiritual Evolution and Enlightenment. As the pace of technological innovation and life in general seems to be increasing exponentially, there is a desire among those seeking to balance their worldly and spiritual lives for increasingly efficient tools to achieve that all too elusive balance. Studying and practicing the Kundalini arts holds such a promise.

What is Kundalini?

Kundalini & the Chakras

Physicists recognize that the universe is constructed of energy bundles known as “quanta”. We laypersons can think of these in one sense as particles with an electrical charge. Particles can either be positive, negative, or neutral. All energy or material phenomena observed by our senses are based on the interplay of these particles. In the esoteric traditions the positively charged energies are known as Shiva (solar, male, heavenly Chi or Qi); the negatively charged energies are called Shakti (lunar, female, earthly Chi or Qi); and the neutral is Kundalini. In the Tantric cosmology, all the myriad forms in the universe are created through the union and interplay of the god Shiva and the goddess Shakti. With the balance achieved in their unity, Kundalini is freed.

In the human realm Kundalini can be thought of as the primal energy of the body. We all have some degree of Kundalini activation or we wouldn’t be alive. However, the degrees of activation and the consciousness of this energy can vary widely. Kundalini practitioners are seeking to consciously connect with and amplify their basic life force for the purposes of improving physical health, strengthening the body, and achieving enlightenment through transcending Karma or self-limiting patterns.

What is Karma and Enlightenment?

In Physics it is well known that for every action there is an equal reaction. This is the basic precept of Karma: what goes around, comes around. Our actions, thoughts, and emotions create effects within and around us. Sometimes these effects are dramatic, sometimes subtle. They can be manifested immediately, or sometimes take many years to make their appearance known. Lets look at an example of this on one level. You become angry with someone. The energy of this anger may at first affect your thoughts and emotions, then rapidly it creates physiologic effects. Your body produces adrenaline, your heart rate and blood pressure increase, your stomach begins to churn. If you “stuff” these feelings the energy is driven deeply into your core, creating emotional and physical illness. If you seek to vent this emotion indiscriminately, other people around you begin to take effect from this energy which creates reactions within them. In a chain reaction this “karmic event” can be spread Far and wide from its source, affecting many people’s, thoughts, emotions, physiologic response, perceptions, and actions.

We are all Creators
In considering a larger cosmological view of this process, consider that all functions with a connection to the physical body (including thoughts and emotions) have an electrochemical aspect. Associated with these electrochemical processes are electromagnetic waves (such as radio frequencies, etc.) These waves produced by our bodies’ travel without limit, at the speed of light through the entire universe. Modern physics acknowledges that in actuality our very material bodies are composed of structured energy. We are dense focused energy interacting with and exchanging energy with this cosmic energy “soup” we call the universe. Each thought, each emotion, each bout of indigestion creates it own particular frequency of electromagnetism which will travel the entire universe for all eternity! It is not too difficult, from this perspective, to recognize the link between the individual and the universal. In our own way, great or small, for good or ill, we are Creators.

Enlightenment is sometimes regarded as the goal of the spiritual path. In actuality, it is a process, an evolution towards increasing awareness of our awesome responsibility for our actions, thoughts, and emotions. This is in contrast to the prevalent social consensual reality, where we attempt to externalize and project responsibility on to others. We do others and ourselves a disservice by adopting this view in that we perceive that the external world controls our lives. While it may, at first, feel comfortable to blame others for our circumstances, we are de facto abdicating our empowerment, our very control over our own lives. Conversely, by bringing our unconscious mental, emotional and behavioral patterns into the light of full awareness and responsibility, we reclaim our power as co-creators of our world. Once we own the tremendous power of self-responsibility, we can begin to create what we want rather than what we fear. In Tantra it is often said that if we want to invite ecstasy into our lives, we must be willing to abandon the security and comfort of our pain, fear, and anger. © 1998 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Next: I want Enlightenment

TANTRA: From Ecstasy to Enlightenment
Rev. Keith Hall

What is it with Americans and sex? We appear to crave it, are fascinated by it and simultaneously fear it with every fiber of our being. We use it in advertising to sell everything from automobiles to zucchini, yet often prohibit our children from learning about it, our teachers from teaching it, and ourselves from discussing it publicly in any truly meaningful way. Movies with extremely graphic violence and gore receive an R rating; depictions of erotic play between mature consenting adults often receive an X. Yet the fascination remains. What issue of Cosmopolitan doesn’t promise new ways to attract and keep your lover, to have bigger and better orgasms, to cook, clean, and dress for sexual success? What neighborhood bar isn’t rife with the boys alternately telling ribald jokes and creating a swaggering sexual mythos about themselves?

Shiva and Shakti in Yab Yum position for Tantric Kundalini Awakening

Our fascination and fear stem from the fact that the energy of eroticism is the most powerful primal force within ourselves. The Ancients of all cultures revered and worshipped this force particularly in the form of the Goddess. Lilith, Astarte, Parvati, Isis, Hecate, Mary Magdalene, Venus, Kerridwin, Freya, Ixchel, Tara, the Virgin Mary - all are Goddesses revered in antiquity for bringing forth life, divinity, and wisdom through the mystical power of sexuality. Historically, Tantra arose from the worship of these Goddesses and woman’s innate link with the energies of creation. As Tantra evolved in India, Tibet, Egypt, and China, adepts of yoga and meditation tapped into increasingly powerful and efficient techniques for safely accessing the cosmic forces inherent in sexual energy. What had begun in ancient times as awe and mystery, became a science. Schools arose to instruct initiates in precise methods to awaken this primal life-force and master it’s use for healing, ecstasy, and enlightenment. Later, as war and other forms of technological manipulation increasingly arose in civilization, patriarchal societies developed and Man’s awe of Woman’s fertility and cosmic sexual capacity turned to fear. Out of the desire to dominate rose the need to subjugate and control that which they could not understand - Woman’s overwhelming power to create the Universe as Goddess, her tremendous and mysterious connection to ” the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.”

Next: The Persecution of and Reemergence of Tantra

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