The Subtle Field
of Energy and Consciousness
For those of you ready to transform your family relationships, it’s important to recognize that family life can be a source of strength, joy, and fulfillment for all family members. Not only does family life elicit deep feelings of love and empathy, but also the demands of family life require that parents transcend their limits by enhancing their self-knowledge, self-control, empathy, honesty, selflessness, and respect for the feelings and needs of others, particularly their children.
For a growing child, family is where the soul begins its journey on earth. A healthy family life is the foundation on which character, self-esteem, health, happiness, and success are built and find support. The family and its relationships are the model for all the child’s subsequent relationships, including their relationships to themselves, to other people, to work, leisure, and parenting. Therefore, it’s important to recognize that family members interact in both a physical-material and subtle world of energy and consciousness; and that interactions on the subtle levels have as much or more influence on family dynamics and the quality of family relationships as interactions on the physical-material plane. It’s also important to recognize that every human being is an inter-dimensional being who has a physical-material body and a subtle field of energy and consciousness that interpenetrates it.
Like an electrical grid that provides energy to homes and businesses, your subtle (non-physical) field provides you with all the energy and consciousness you need to function healthfully, to participate in intimate family relationships, and to perform deep healing.
The ancient adepts of both Yoga and Taoism taught that your non-physical field manifests as both a field of pure, life-affirming consciousness and a field of energy with universal qualities.
In Yoga, pure consciousness is called prajnana or vijnana, and non-physical energy is called prana. In Taoism, consciousness is known as the Dao, which manifests as awareness, perception, and bliss. Life-affirming energy is divided into three related forms. Chi (prana) represents the essential energy or life force, while jing represents its essence—how it is manifest in your life. The third essential element is the spirit or original form of the energy. In this book, you will learn to use both consciousness in its purest form and non-physical energy along with its essence to heal yourself and your family relationships.
In addition to consciousness and energy, you have vehicles and organs of consciousness and energy in your subtle field. They go by various names including chakras, auras, dantians, etc. The purpose of these vehicles and organs is to process all the consciousness and energy in your subtle field—so that you can form a life-affirming identity and share your ideas, emotions, and feelings joyfully with the people you love.
Unfortunately, both consciousness and energy with universal qualities can be blocked. And it’s blockages—and the restrictive patterns they create—that explain why, even with all the consciousness and energy people have available, many of them still have difficulty reaching their potential and creating the joyful family relationships they desire. In spite of all this, we are convinced that, by using the information and practicing the exercises in this book, you can release blockages in your subtle field and create a new reality for yourself and your family.
To do this, you will utilize a kit of easy-to-use tools that will allow you to observe the condition of your subtle field and release distorted fields of energy and consciousness that have been interfering with your family relationships.
You already learned to use your awareness to create your personal healing space. In this chapter, you will be introduced to two additional tools which—like awareness—will make healing your family relationships easier than you think. The tools we’re referring to are your intent and mental attention.
It’s the simplicity of our system and its toolkit which has inspired so many people, even those who were skeptical at first, to commit themselves to healing their family relationships. By using your intent and mental attention along with your personal healing space in a systematic way, in a short time you will be able to overcome self-limiting patterns and heal the relationships that are most dear to you.
How to Use the Intent
In deep family healing, your intent serves the same function as a computer software program. Just as a software program instructs a computer to perform a particular task, your intent will instruct your authentic mind, which is composed of your brain, central nervous system, and your non-physical field of energy and consciousness, to perform healing on both the physical and subtle levels of energy and consciousness. Your intent is one of your most useful functions of mind. And if you use your intent properly—without watching yourself, trying too hard, or mixing your intent with sentiment and self-doubt—it will become a valuable tool that you will use in virtually all the healing techniques contained within this book.1
How to Use the Mental Attention
Your mental attention is another function of mind that can have a profound effect on your personal well-being and the well-being of your family relationships. By using your mental attention skillfully, you can bring all of your innate powers to bear on any part of your subtle field and physical-material body. That’s because your mental attention functions simultaneously in all worlds and dimensions in both the physical and non-physical universe. With the intent as a guide, your mental attention can be used to heal even the most divisive and resistant patterns that have pulled you and your family members apart.2
We recommend that you strengthen your intent and mental attention before you begin to use them to heal your family relationships. You can begin to strengthen your intent by using it to bring more joy into your life.
To do that, find a place where you won’t be disturbed. Then sit down, close your eyes, and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. When you’re relaxed, assert, “It’s my intent to feel more joyful.” Then wait. If you don’t interfere with the process, you may be surprised at how quickly your soul and spirit respond to your instructions. Of course, the process won’t work if you attempt to use your intent to make yourself taller or shorter—because that’s not something either your soul or spirit can do. And it won’t work if you watch yourself, try too hard, or mix your intent with self-doubt or desires that emerge from your ego. But it will work if you instruct your soul and spirit to do something they can realistically do. That means you can use your intent to become more patient, more disciplined, more understanding, and/or more intuitive. And of course, you can use your intent to heal yourself and your family relationships.
As your confidence in the process grows, you can begin to use your intent along with your mental attention to activate pleasure centers in your physical-material body and subtle field and center yourself in them. Two pleasure centers that can be easily activated by your intent and mental attention are your human heart and Atman, the thumb sized point on the right side of your chest, where bliss enters your conscious awareness (see Figure 1: The Three Hearts).
To use your intent and mental attention to activate your human heart, sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed. Then breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. When you’re relaxed, bring your mental attention to your human heart. The energetic center of your human heart is two inches (six centimeters) left of the middle point of your breastbone. Once your mental attention is centered, assert, “It’s my intent to activate my human heart.” Don’t do anything after that. Just enjoy the process for as long as you want—because you can’t go wrong by activating your human heart.
In this exercise, you will activate and center yourself in Atman. Activating and centering yourself in Atman will be just as simple as activating your human heart. But the experience may be more intense because it’s not human love that emerges from Atman—it’s universal love. Since universal love is a form of consciousness, not energy, you can’t feel it. Instead, you will probably experience it—at least in the beginning—as a buzz that radiates through your body—often from one body part to another. Sometimes, a sense of inner peace will begin to radiate through your subtle field and physical-material body once you’ve activated Atman and centered yourself in it because universal love is the solution to most of life’s most enduring problems.
To activate and center yourself in Atman, sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed. Then breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. When you’re relaxed, bring your mental attention to Atman; then assert, “It’s my intent to activate and center myself in Atman.” Don’t do anything after that. Just enjoy the process for at least ten minutes or longer if you want—because you can’t go wrong by activating and centering yourself in Atman.
Figure 2: Taoist Subtle Anatomy
You can use these simple techniques to find inner peace whenever the stress of life interferes with your well-being.
Now that you are more familiar with your intent and mental attention, you can use them along with your personal healing space to supercharge your subtle field. You can do that by performing an exercise called the Golden Light Technique. It’s based on the work of Taoist adepts, who were among the first people to address family issues on the subtle levels of energy and consciousness.
According to the Taoists, chi—a form of non-physical energy—was at the center of family life. Chi is identical to prana. When chi was able to flow freely, family members could share pleasure, love, intimacy, and joy with one another without restrictions. When it was blocked, relationships were disrupted because family members lost the capacity to empathize with one another and to express themselves freely.
The center of Taoist teaching was China. It was there in the sixth century BCE where the basic principles were laid out by Lao Tzu. Not much is known about his personal life—but we do know that, like his contemporaries in India, he taught that the physical-material world was the outer manifestation of a non-physical world of energy and consciousness that influenced all interactions that took place within it. According to Lao Tzu and the Taoist adepts that followed him, all this subtle energy and consciousness is processed by a human’s subtle field, which consists of systems and organs designed specifically for that purpose. According to the Taoists, the subtle anatomy of a human being consists of energy centers (acupuncture points), channels of energy (meridians), and cavities that have various names and that serve as reservoirs of subtle energy and consciousness (see Figure 2: Taoist Subtle Anatomy). Although we will delve more deeply into the anatomy of the subtle field later in this chapter, what is most important for us now are the three central reservoirs of energy described by Taoist adepts. From Figure 2: Taoist Subtle Anatomy, you can see that the lowest reservoir is located in the center of the abdomen. It’s called the lower dantian. Located above it, in the center of the chest, is the middle dantian, and located in the center of the head is the third reservoir, the upper dantian.
In the Golden Light Technique, you will increase the amount of chi you have available for all of your daily activities by enhancing the amount of chi you have stored in the three dantians. Having more chi available will do more than just energize you—it will enable you to express yourself more freely and share more activities with the people you love. It will enhance your motivation and fuel your creativity. And by performing the Golden Light Technique regularly, you will build up three reservoirs of energy with universal qualities that you can use to heal yourself and your loved ones.
Exercise: The Golden Light Technique
To perform the Golden Light Technique, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Deep nasal breathing will help you to relax. Once you’re relaxed, assert in a normal voice, “It’s my intent to bring my mental attention to my lower dantian, in the center of my abdomen” (see Figure 2: Taoist Subtle Anatomy). Once your mental attention has been centered in your lower dantian for a few moments, bring your hands up to your chest and, with the palms facing each other, rub the tips of your corresponding fingers together until you feel a golden flame (chi) ignite in the center of your lower dantian. Experience the flame getting stronger until the lower dantian has been filled with its light. Take a few moments to enjoy the effects. Then remove your attention from your lower dantian and assert, “It’s my intent to bring my mental attention to my middle dantian, in the center of my chest.” Rub the tips of your corresponding fingers together again until you feel a golden flame ignite in the center of your middle dantian. Take a few moments to enjoy the effects—which should intensify as more chi becomes available. After you’ve removed your attention from your middle dantian, assert, “It’s my intent to bring my mental attention to my upper dantian, in the center of my head.” Rub the tips of your corresponding fingers together again until you feel a golden flame ignite in the center of your upper dantian. Take a few moments to enjoy the effects. Then complete the energetic circuit created by your subtle energy system by bringing the tip of your tongue to the back of your upper teeth and by putting the soles of your feet together. By completing the circuit, you will enhance the distribution of chi through the organs of your subtle field and physical-material body.
To continue, imagine that all the molecules of your body are being filled by this golden light—and that it expands until it surrounds you on all sides. Continue to float in this pool of chi for another ten minutes. Then return your tongue, feet, and hands to their normal position. After that, count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the exercise.
We recommend that you practice the Golden Light Technique every other day, in the morning before you eat. By making it part of your regular regimen of deep healing and energy work, you will continue to increase the amount of energy that you can share with your loved ones.
The Visual Screen
Now that you’ve learned to use your intent and mental attention to perform the Golden Light Technique, you can use them along with your healing space to create a visual screen. A visual screen is a reliable tool that can be used to examine the condition of your subtle field or another person’s subtle field—while you perform deep healing.
The visual screen you will create should be white and large enough to fit a life-sized image of a person. And it should be located eight feet (two and a half meters) in front of you and raised off the floor—so that you must look up at a thirty-degree angle to see the image on the screen clearly.
To create a visual screen, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Then count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Next, go to your personal healing space. Once you’ve brought your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit, assert, “It’s my intent to create a white screen eight feet (two and a half meters) in front of me.” Once the visual screen has materialized, assert, “It’s my intent to visualize an image of myself on the screen.” Immediately, you will see an image of yourself appear on the screen in a size to fit comfortably. Observe it for about five minutes. After five minutes, release the image of yourself and the visual screen. Then count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the meditation.
We recommend that you practice this exercise every day until the screen appears immediately after you’ve programmed it to materialize—and you can see the image of yourself clearly.
Now that you’ve learned to enter your healing space and to use your intent and mental attention to create a visual screen, you’re ready to use these three tools to take a journey through your subtle field.
Taking a journey through your subtle field will do two things. It will enhance your discernment, which is a form of intuition that healers use regularly to diagnose the condition of their client’s subtle field. And it will give you valuable experience working on the non-physical levels of energy and consciousness.
We originally developed the journey for Petra, a thirty-one-year-old visual artist. She’d been practicing some of our techniques, but hadn’t been able to heal a sleep issue that afflicted her three-year-old daughter Sarah. Whenever Petra tried to center herself and create a visual screen, her mind would wander and she would lose both her center and the screen before she could effectively perform the techniques of deep healing. In order to help her develop discernment and to stay centered, we developed the journey through the subtle field. We knew that this visually oriented journey would be effective for a visual artist—and within a short time, our intuition proved correct. Petra continued to make journeys through her subtle field until she perfected the technique. And within weeks of perfecting it, she was able to observe the organs of her subtle field and use the techniques of deep healing to heal her daughter.
Like Petra, in your journey through your subtle field, you will observe the dantians. It’s interesting to note that Sarah’s sleep problem was caused by a lack of chi in her lower dantian. In our work, we’ve learned that a lack of chi can lead to anxiety and excessive worry, both of which can make it difficult for a child to fall asleep and to sleep peacefully.
After you’ve observed the three dantians, you will proceed to examine six smaller reservoirs of chi located beside them. The lower two reservoirs are located on each side of the lower dantian and are connection to them. They are called the right and left kwas. Above them, located on each side of your midriff, are the right and left midriff cavities. These cavities are directly connected to your middle dantian. And above them, located just below your shoulders, are the right and left armpit cavities. These two cavities are directly connected to your upper dantian (see Figure 2: Taoist Subtle Anatomy). Although there are additional organs of the subtle energy field described by both Taoist and Yogic adepts—including chakras, minor energy centers, meridians, etc.—in this exercise, we would like you to focus on the dantians and smaller cavities that support them.
Exercise: A Journey through
Your Subtle Field
To begin the journey through your non-physical field, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. When you’re ready to continue, go to your personal healing space and bring your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to visualize a white screen eight feet (two and a half meters) in front of me.” Once the visual screen has materialized, assert, “It’s my intent to visualize an image of myself on the screen.” Keep your appropriate organs of perception (sight, hearing, feeling, and intuition) open and active because it’s by turning the appropriate organs of perception inward, on the subtle planes, that you will perceive the organs of your subtle field. Your organs of perception include your senses (which gather physical-material input) as well as your other, non-physical means of knowing, such as intuition.
After you’ve examined your image from eight feet (two and a half meters) away, assert, “It’s my intent to visualize the organs of my subtle field described by the Taoists.” Immediately, the physical image will give way to an image that appears almost transparent. As soon as you view the transparent image, assert, “It’s my intent to project myself inside my subtle field alongside my lower dantian.” Use all the appropriate senses to examine the lower dantian. Reach out and touch it. Feel the pressure and texture of its surface boundary. Pay attention to everything you see and feel. Even your emotional state and your body awareness can provide you with valuable information. If you suddenly feel weak or stressed, or you feel pressure and/or mild pain for no apparent reason, it could mean that the dantian contains distorted energy.
Don’t be concerned if, at first, you experience a featureless cavity in the center of your abdomen. If you’re centered in your subtle field and remain patient, features will begin to emerge. You may notice that the surface boundary is composed of luminous fibers that crisscross each other in every direction. You may also notice that the surface boundary is not uniform and that some of the energy in the dantian is heavier and darker and more active than the background energy within it. The background energy is chi. Since chi only has universal qualities, it will always appear clear and light—and it will always have a uniform quality. On the other hand, distorted energy has individual qualities such as color, weight, density, and level of activity. The heavier, darker, and more active the energy appears to be, the more distorted and disruptive it will be.
After you’ve observed the lower dantian for one to two minutes, assert, “It’s my intent to project myself alongside my middle dantian and to observe its features.” Take one to two minutes to observe the condition of your middle dantian. Then assert, “It’s my intent to project myself alongside my upper dantian and observe its features clearly.” Follow the same routine with the upper dantian that you did with the lower two dantians. Then assert, “It’s my intent to project myself beside my left kwa.” Observe its condition for one to two minutes. Then continue in the same way with your right kwa, left midriff cavity, right midriff cavity, left armpit cavity, and finally your right armpit cavity.
When you’re satisfied with what you’ve learned, assert, “It’s my intent to return to my original position eight feet in front of my visual screen.” Release the image of yourself and the visual screen next. Then assert, “It’s my intent to leave my healing space.” Continue by counting from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes—and bring yourself out of the exercise.
After you’ve taken your first journey through your subtle field, you can refine your ability through repetition. Even if you had only limited success, with practice, your ability will improve—and in time, you will be able to use all of your organs of perception as well as your intent and mental attention to experience the organs and systems that compose your subtle field.
Petra continued to perform the journey through her subtle field for several weeks. Later, she got permission from her partner to perform a journey through his subtle field. (It’s essential to get permission before you enter another person’s field of energy and consciousness). And it wasn’t long before her discernment improved to the point that she was able to observe many additional features of the subtle energy field, including chakras, meridians, and minor energy centers.
After Petra was able to use her enhanced discernment to observe the condition of Sarah’s dantians, we taught her to release blockages and replace them with life-affirming prana and to overcome trauma scars, which you will learn to do later in this book. Due to her efforts, it didn’t take her long to heal Sarah’s sleep problem as well as to enhance her vitality and reduce her anxiety.