part0003

I had always seen myself as a very logical and scientific person. I spent a good half of my life receiving a Western, scientific education grounded in inquiry and logic. Later during my postgraduate studies, I found myself steeped in the study of statistics and psychometrics. Like many others, I believed that the intellectual mind and logic was the be-all and end-all of everything. I thought it held the keys to everything we needed to know to have a good life, and had all the answers for humanity. The colleagues I’ve met and worked with believed deeply in the same as well. We were proud of our own intellectual knowledge and thrilled by the tools we had at our disposal.

And so it is no surprise that when I first started on my spiritual journey, I chose to stay away from esoteric books on subjects related to energy centers, chakras or the reading of energy fields. I found myself adopting a more pragmatic and scientific view of away from any of those new-age, energy stuff. But the more I delved into the study of these metaphysical truths, the more I realized how each and everyone of us was always perceiving, translating and moving energy, whether we liked it or not.

To my scientific mind, the idea of us working with energy sounded foreign and abstract. Yet at the most fundamental scientific level… it is the truth! We are constantly interacting with the energy fields around us. Yet these concepts still sounded like they belong to the realm of the New-age, the stuff of psychics or energy healers. Therefore for the first half of my spiritual journey, I avoided using similar words and concepts to describe what I was doing, preferring to go for more scientific and relatable analogies instead.

A few things occurred along the way which sparked a change in direction for me. One of them was the spiritual experience which you read about in the previous chapter, in which I was suddenly given a glimpse of the entire Universe from a macro perspective. Apart from that experience, I had many other encounters on a daily basis in which I would feel incredible feelings of momentum, peace and joy rush over me. I would literally feel a sense of forward-moving momentum, of being propelled forward energetically. I could feel these interesting sensations swirling all over me, and these sensations deepened as I continued with my spiritual practice.

At some point in time, I decided to take a closer look at all of this phenomenon. While I had previously dismissed them as mere pleasant sensations and good feelings under my skin, I now know that they are something more. They point to something deeper. They are in fact, my own perceptions and translations of the energy field we are all immersed in. They are representations of how I am literally perceiving the energy field around me. These feelings are letting me know whether I am aligned with the Universal flow or setting myself up against it.

As I became increasingly aware of my feelings and paid more attention to them, I began to shift more of my conscious waking awareness inwards. I began to notice the subtle details in these sensations, much as how we notice subtle details in a piece of fabric the longer we observe it. These are sensations that have always been there but largely ignored by me in favor of an outer-directed perspective. For the first time in my life, I was really turning inwards and taking a closer look at what happened in my inner state. I was scrutinizing and picking up on the subtle sensations of my inner state, and learning to tell from moment-to-moment how I felt. I was picking up on the cues that the Universe was constantly sending me.

All of this came as a huge surprise to me as I did not know that we have been bestowed with such a rich, inner spiritual world! I had always thought that there was nothing on the inside… and that it merely consisted of a series of feelings and physical sensations! Individuals who meditate for the first time often complain of nothing but “darkness” on the inside. “There’s nothing in there!” they say when told to turn their conscious awareness inwards. But I now know that these physical sensations are more than just mere “feelings”. They are more than mere by-products of our thoughts. These physical sensations hold the keys to our inner world. When we learn how to notice and interpret these physical sensations, we are literally reading and feeling energy.

Before I reached this place of new understanding, I had thought that the feeling and reading of energy was reserved only for the intuitive or gifted. I thought only spiritual masters had that ability. Indeed, individuals with a strong sense of intuition or energy healers often speak of listening to that inner voice within or receiving inner guidance. Over time, these individuals have developed ways of getting messages from their inner and higher selves, which is no different from perceiving subtle differences in the energy field. While modern science has dismissed “guidance” obtained in this manner as unreliable and baseless, I am beginning to get excited by all the possibilities. If we all learned to live in this manner, a lot of the perceived issues that plague humanity will suddenly fall away overnight!

Are you starting to get intrigued by the implications of all this? It means that all of us are constant perceivers and translators of energy, whether we realize it or not! It means that all of us have the ability to work with and directly shape the energy fields around us… whether we consider ourselves to be intuitive, perceptive or gifted in this area. It is a basic human trait. If you have felt pleasant sensations swirling around your body while you meditated, or just a general sense of lightness and joy… you have what it takes to deepen your practice through the techniques described in this book.

I am further encouraged by the stories of shamans and indigenous cultures who have not lost touch with this side of themselves. While many of us in the modern world would consider these indigenous tribes as backwards or uneducated, I see it as living testimony that one does not need to be “knowledgeable” or “worldly” in the conventional sense of the word to live these principles. As mentioned, it is a basic human ability and once we awaken to it… the possibilities are endless.

This forms the basic premise of the book you’re holding in your hands right now. We are going to shine the torch inside and take a good look at our own inner states. It is a basic premise which I have been exploring in my previous few books, in which I constantly remind readers of the need to “do the inner work”. But this book goes beyond all that. It shines a light on what is on the inside so you can notice the richness and beauty that is going on in there. It shows you how to change what is on the inside so that your outer reality can mirror and match up to it. It shows you how to step into a new desired reality, by paying greater attention to the nudges and impulses that are always sent to you by the Universe.

Even if you have always considered yourself to be a scientific and pragmatic individual staying away from all this “energy” stuff, it is still going to be a fun ride. In writing this book, I have stayed away from the conventional framework of describing energy in terms of chakras and the energy centers. The purpose of this is to show you how I arrived at my own understanding of this material. I want to take you step-by-step through the process of how I made sense of all this phenomenon so that you can arrive at your own personal understanding of it, instead of forcing some external framework upon yourself. Nothing is more valuable than reaching a place of new perspective and understanding through your own personal experience.

How does reading and feeling energy relate to the study of manifestations? Some of you may think, “All I want is my stuff! I don’t care about all this energy stuff!” Well, if you followed the techniques and exercises outlined in all my previous books… you are already well on your way to great success. But it is my sincere belief that if you want to deepen your study and understanding of this subject matter, if you want to live your full potential as a free-willed creative being… then this next step is mandatory. Only through mastery of your inner state can you achieve mastery over your outer reality, since as I’ve mentioned many times: Your outer reality simply matches up to your inner state!

Most people have only a vague and nebulous understanding of what really goes on on the inside. They don’t even know how their inner state is like — whether it is clear or whether it needs some housekeeping. After reading this book and going through the exercises, you will have a clear mental picture of what your inner state is like. You’ll also learn how to interpret the impulses and guidance that your inner / higher self is always trying to send you. I’m confident that you’ll end this book as a more intuitive and spiritual person, and that you will place way more emphasis on these feelings / impulses you’re receiving. All of these are key in the manifestation process.

Manifestation is nothing more than bringing things from the non-physical spiritual plane into the physical plane. But we cannot be effective manifestors unless we know what currently exists on our spiritual plane! How is our inner state like? Is it constantly in a state of turmoil and worry? Is it constantly tumultuous? Is it affected by what goes on around us? Is it filled with lots of drama and negative emotions? Most people consider all of this as natural — They accept the ebb and flow in their emotions as natural, and have come to see it as “life”. Perhaps this ambivalent feeling can be best summarized in the saying, “Life’s just like that!” Don’t you sense a feeling of resignation in that saying? Resignation is different from a feeling of deep peace and acceptance. A feeling of resignation means you don’t like many of the things that are going on in your life but perceive yourself as powerless to change them. A feeling of peace and acceptance means you are truly at one with everything in your life, and wishes for nothing to be different. There is a great difference between the two inner states.

Most people walk around with a sense of forced or “faked” acceptance. They say, “Oh it’s alright if things don’t turn out the way I want them to. I accept it.” But that is only at the level of their physical words. What are they really saying or feeling on the inside? Very often, if you could have a peek / glimpse of their inner state, you’ll find that they’re actually not truly alright with whatever is going on. An inner war is constantly raging inside of them where they’re trying to fight against outer reality and trying to change many of the things that are going on in their world. These people walk around with a sense of great injustice and the need to continually correct other’s perceptions that do not match up with theirs. Sometimes this manifests as a sense of feigned resignation or acceptance, but at other times it can also manifest as other types of nasty behavior… such as picking upon individuals who cannot fight back. We sometimes witness this type of perverse behaviors around us. These individuals have developed their own psychological coping mechanisms to make up for the perceived injustice or unfairness in their world, by being mean to others instead! Needless to say, the emotional toil which they are under does not serve them well in the long run.

If you want to be an effective manifestor, you have to give up the need to be right. You have to place feeling good (and maintaining a joyful inner state) far higher in importance and priority than anything else in your life. This means cultivating the discipline to walk away from disagreements if you have to, to stop venting about unwanted situations if you have to… no matter how difficult it is to do so in the heat of the moment! Because of our social conditioning, we often feel addicted to venting or the need to instantly react to arguments. There is an addiction in our culture to winning and proving that we are right! But all of it comes at a cost. It causes our inner states to become tumultuous and inconducive for manifestations. We waste energy in things that are inconsequential in the long run. We are only hurting our own creations.

The powerful premise of this book is that if you can place your own well-being and your own good feelings above all else in your life… then everything else in your life straightens itself out. If you take care of your own inner state, nothing else matters. Your good will come to you in even greater ways than you can ever imagine, and still more will be added unto you! It all starts with understanding your own inner state.