Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

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Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, one of the oldest extant mantras in Hinduism, is considered to be a Mukti (liberation) Mantra. It can be translated as “Om, Reverence to the Lord Vasudeva” This mantra is sometimes represented as a chant or stotra to Krishna or Vishnu. Vasudeva is an alternate name for Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu the Preserver. In Hindu theology, Brahma is the creative force, Shiva the destroyer or agent of change, and Vishnu is the deity of balance, salvation, and preservation.

Some aspirants feel that the mantra can also be translated as something like “Homage to the Enlightened One Within” aka, your inner Divine Self. Swami Kripalu has been purported to have said that Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya could be taken to mean simply “Thy Will Be Done.” This translation would indicate the complete surrender of the individual to the Divine.

On both physical and psychic levels this mantra is used to bring balance to oneself – Yin and Yang, active and receptive, and one’s male and female polarities. It can be used in conjunction with Solar / Lunar practices and Level 2 Cobra Breath, bringing balance to the major spinal nadis. These nadis must be balanced before true Kundalini can be activated safely and without drama.

Those of you familiar with the Sanskrit “Tantric vowels” or Bijas, can map out which of your chakra energies are activated using this mantra. In a sense, this is a good mantra to balance your chakras, spinal channels, and inner and outer divinity. (c) 2012 Keith E. Hall / Inner-tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

It’s a good idea to get a recording of this mantra if you would like to learn it.  I have reviewed hundreds of recordings of this mantra and present my preferences below.

Top Contenders, and the nominees are:

Multi-Colored Chant ~ Chaula Hopefisher

This is perhaps my favorite rendition of Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, the primary reason being that it is eminently sing-able by non-professional singers and tone deaf devotees like me. Ms. Hopefisher does a lovely job of creating a simple tune that anyone can follow in a call and response format. Highly recommended but difficult to find.  Check it out on Amazon:

Multi-colored chant

Mantras for Precarious Times – Deva Premal This is a somewhat fast rendition of the mantra, with a simple tune that most people will be able to sing along with. Very nice.

Divine Melody – Anand Richa

This young artist from India has created a lovely, heart-centered, devotional version of the mantra. Very sweet and pretty easy to sing along with. Some interesting Indian musical accompaniment . Very touching. You can download her album here.

Hidden in the Name – Wah!

You can sing along fairly well with this cover of Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya and it has some interesting electric guitar giving it an unusual electronic jazzy kind of sound. And, a little wah wah pedal, just like the group’s name! Call and response format.

The following are also excellent:

Breath Of The Heart - Krishna Das

Renown on the kirtan circuit, Krishna Das presents an accomplished, masculine version of this mantra.

Pros: Starts out as a traditional sounding devotional stotra. Slow and soulful.

Cons: Some notes are held a long time. About 2 ½ minutes into the mantra the speed picks up and he does a sort of Hindu scat kind of chanting. He adds other mantras and warbles into the mix making it difficult to sing along with. A little over 6 minutes into the chant he adds piano and a fast rendition of the chant. Good for listening, not so good for singing along unless you cut out the middle, and just go with the first 2 ½ minutes and the last 3 ½ minutes. Still, very good for getting you into a wild, free, communal kirtan spirit.

Embrace – Deva Premal

A truly masterful and heartfelt rendition. The only caveat: She sings so well that she may be difficult for some non-singers to follow. Still, great for listening and following along as well as you can.

Sing, Dance, Enjoy! – Henry Marshall and the Playshop Family

A wonderfully lyrical and upbeat version. The CD and MP3 album also contain some other beautiful and powerful chants.

Kirtana – Robert Gass

Beautiful, lyrical call and response format.

The Sound of Om – Thomas Barquee

Pros: Starts with a lovely quiet melody, some nice sitar

Cons: Almost 4 minutes into this the pace picks up and the melody changes making it hard to follow. Probably more music than chanting. Better for listening than trying to chant along with.

MP3 Downloads of Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

(c) 2012 Keith E. Hall and www.inner-tranquility.com. All rights reserved.

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Relaxing, Surrender, and Trust
This is an essential part of Tantric practices, or of any authentic spiritual practice. Will and power are important to start and remain on the spiritual path, however this needs to be balanced by letting go. Will alone will not take you to self-realization. One needs to know when to let go, to surrender the ego’s agenda.

This can be crucial when applying Kundalini techniques to your practice. Shakti prana or Kundalini will seek to purify you. If you are not willing to let go, then the energy gets enrolled in a war with competing, fragmented aspects of yourself. This is never fun and can be annoying, even detrimental to authentic progress. So, when you say “for the most part it runs the show all by itself…it seems to assume a total control all by itself if I let it”, you are obviously trusting, letting go of your resistance, and surrendering to the experience.

Trust
Part of what makes this a pleasurable event for you is a level of self-responsibility, and the absence of fear. Fear changes to anger, manipulation, and stubbornness, resulting in a more unpleasant feeling. Disharmonious, irritating, distracting, perhaps scary. The energy runs around in a circle recreating fear. When one’s resistance is much higher than the available free life force, no kriyas, no streaming occurs. If one is resistant, stubborn, unable to let go, AND running higher levels of life force through one’s body and psyche, the kriyas that occur will be perceived as unpleasant, annoying, embarrassing, or scary. If you have enough trust in your Higher Self, in the Divine, then your surrender will bring anything from a mildly pleasant sensation of streaming or release, to an exquisite energy “orgasm.” This may or may not be interpreted by the psyche as sexual in nature, but tends to be characterized physically by, as you say, being “completely undulating…smooth, rhythmic and steady”. © 2006 keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 3: Mind / Body Unity

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A woman’s Orgasmic Rush, Kriyas, & Arousal

Q. Elizabeth: Just wanted to let you know that I found this exchange ( Orgasmic Kundalini Rush, Tantric Taoist Awakening ) incredibly interesting and enlightening. I occasionally have similar experiences, always either directly upon awakening or when in a completely relaxed state…I have always simply attributed it to some of the best orgasms I have ever had – an incredible gift! Never really spent much time trying to analyze the experiences, just appreciate when it happens and hope like hell I will be blessed with another one again soon! What has always struck me as strange about the whole thing is that I am not aware of sexual dreams/thoughts or feelings prior to or while it happens.

I have learned over time how to lengthen the experience once it starts, but for the most part it runs the show all by itself. It has always been clear to me that while some part of it may indeed be rooted in sexuality, it seems to be generated completely in and/or through the mind…I have learned that sometimes I can “help” to lengthen the experience…the description given by this gentleman described my experiences very closely…

Rev. Hall: So, is this experience associated with or related to any sexual activity, directly or indirectly? Prior to or after?

Elizabeth: Perhaps indirectly, who knows? … But not directly in any way that I am aware of…I do know that there is absolutely no comparison to these occurrences and any orgasm I have ever experienced previously. These are so much more whole and encompassing and involve so much more of my complete self.

Rev. Hall: So, would you say there is no sexual arousal at this time?

Elizabeth: Most definitely incredible sexual arousal, completely different than anything I have ever experienced before. AND – it never begins with sexual arousal; rather, always leads to it as one of the end results. The other end results are feeling completely sated unlike anything ever experienced before, and at the same time completely at peace in every way possible – all is right and harmonic in my little piece of the world, if only for a brief time.

Rev. Hall: Would you say that relaxing into, or surrendering to the experience is a component of how you “help” lengthen it?

Elizabeth: Absolutely – I have learned that it requires a complete surrender of both mind and body – as I said earlier, it seems to assume a total control all by itself if I let it. Just takes me away for a brief time – kind of like a mini-vacation to some unknown destination. There is no sense of time. It has never scared me or seemed negative in any way, as powerful as it may be.

Rev. Hall: Once the experience begins, would you characterize it as sexual in the genital sense, sexual in a more diffuse “all over the body” sense, or non sexually pleasurable energy “flows”?

Elizabeth: Most definitely the entire body…both sexual energy AND energy flows throughout every part of my body and, just as importantly, in my mind. The end result obviously consists of genital pleasure, but that is almost a “side-effect” of the whole body experience. I never have to touch myself in any way, although I always end up completely undulating in some strange fashion – sometimes it’s hard to remember afterward exactly how my body did respond, I just remember smooth, rhythmic and steady movement – which is definitely one of the things that increases the length of the experience. That is one of the aspects of it that has always amazed me – the fact that I do NOT have to touch myself in anyway, but simply surrender to the movements of my body. All I know is that I will be eternally grateful if I continue to occasionally receive what I have come to know is an amazing gift.

Rev. Hall: The parts of your experience that I would like to comment on are your being present with surrender, relaxing, trust, and a sense of harmony and unification of mind and body.

Part 2: Relaxing, Surrender, and Trust

Instruction & Coaching

The Power of Surrender

Being an externally oriented, aggressive culture, we often forget that Yin is equal in power to Yang, and a balance of both is required for health, longevity, and joy in life. It is best to cultivate not only your life force and power, but also your ability to relax and let go. Without surrender we just enroll our vitality in recreating our old patterns more powerfully, stubbornly insisting in consuming our life force in the repetition of old habits, thought patterns, dysfunctional emotions and behaviors.

Some Practical Suggestions. For those whose of us who wish to balance our yin and yang aspects, power and surrender, action and receptivity, the ego and the awakened Self, I would suggest:

1. 1 hour of T’ai Chi, Qigong, Yoga per day. If your resistance and stress levels are high, you need these practices to ground you and balance your energies, especially if you are also practicing Tantra and / or Kundalini techniques. While Tantric Qigong(sm) takes only 10 minutes, those who are in a state of both high energy and high resistance need more, an hour per day minimum.

2. Bodywork. This is a helpful adjunct to further cultivate surrender. Somatic Release, Rolfing, deep tissue styles are preferred. For some, a vigorous Thai massage can also work.

3. Progressive Relaxation. Teach yourself to relax, breathe, and let go with this helpful tape.

4. Breath Coaching. Focus on the continuity of consciousness and the energizing, yet relaxing power of the breath. Essential skills for Tantra and true meditation.

5. Presencing(sm). Similar to breath coaching. Observing the continuity of consciousness and breath, with the mindfulness of recognizing karmic patterns and cultivating the ability to let them go.

Develop Beginner’s Mind. Let go of your expertise, your hubris. Let go on a physical, emotional, and mental level. Let go of your insistence on recreating your karmic habits. Let go and fall into the arms of your lover, your bliss, your Divinity. Copyright 2006, Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved

See also: Orgasmic Kundalini Rush

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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

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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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Part 4: The Mystery of the Solar Plexus

For many years I have seen various charts and books written on the subject of the chakras. There seems to be some general confusion as to the location and spiritual function of the solar plexus. I have seen some charts put its location as low in the body as the navel, or as high as the heart. Its actual physical center is near the end of the sternum.

Like its physical location, the energetic character of the solar plexus also seems a little confusing to many authors and teachers. Some describe its nature as identical to the lower sub chakras of the belly, e.g., will, action, centeredness. At least one school teaches that it controls the sense of the passage of time, which one can see is related to the concept of action. I believe that the confusion over its energetic function has two explanations.

First, is the confused, contradictory, and sometimes arbitrary placement of its location. If it is placed in the location of other known sub-chakras of the third chakra, it takes on the characteristics of that particular energetic “neighborhood.” This confusion might be due to the repetition of ancient disinformation, problems with the translation of texts into English, or it could just be due to ignorance and dogmatism.

While this first rationale relates to an apparently long standing historical confusion, explication number two is: The energetic nature of the solar plexus is changing as we evolve! I have invested quite a bit of time over the last few years meditating on the sensations and qualities of the solar plexus. I have also closely observed its activity in others who are on a path of awakening and I have come to see that the solar plexus is the energetic and somatic frontier in our evolutionary process. If you can perceive it, its essence is dynamic, ever changing, questing, and persistent.

Let me say that it is demonstrably so that, as long as we are incarnate in a physical form, all truth will have its roots in the body. We may lie with our words and thoughts, we may be deceived by our perceptions, by our minds, but the body never lies! It does not know how to. The ultimate truth of our human experience and the fruits of our actions will always be revealed in the body. Sensations, body language, physiologic processes, all are part of the somatic code that can lead us to awakening and understanding. It needs but to be deciphered. The codex is obtained through the practices of receptivity, attention, and silence. © 2008 Keith E. Hall. All rights reserved.

Part 5: The Tower of Ego & The Fall

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

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Prayer to Your Higher Self

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