THE FREE FLOW OF ENERGY
All the power that ever was or will be is here now.
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS, The Pattern on the Trestleboard
The human mind is infinite. And because of the vastness of our comprehension, we all have certain blind spots in our awareness. They may manifest in the unconscious tone we take when our father rings on the phone or maybe in the rush to smoke a cigarette when we feel overwhelmed. Maybe they appear as the nervous things we say when put into a challenging situation, or perhaps they are what allow us to go through an entire workday and not know what happened, simply moving through the motions all day long. Most of us can also relate to getting lost in social media, not realizing what time it is and being late for something important. Regardless of the item, we have all faced things that rear their ugly heads out of our subconscious mind. We don’t feel fully in control and can sense a powerful battery of stored-up emotions and grievances haunting us from our past. This has become the condition of most of us human beings every day of our lives. We struggle with our internal dialogue and push as best we can to get through our days and make our lives go around. It doesn’t have to be this way.
There is a way to escape this vicious cycle and break free of our mental and spiritual bondage. It is based in an ancient system of Taoist alchemy that is designed to clear the energy fields around us and bring balance back to our lives.
This alchemy is the practice of turning our “lead” into “gold.” The process of turning the material “lead” of our human experience into the “gold” of spiritual awakening is the essence of this ancient science of spirituality. This sounds interesting in theory; however, to make it a reality requires a deep understanding of energy flow and the internal landscape of the human energy field. This knowledge used to be widely understood on this planet but has slowly contracted into obscure circles in tucked-away monasteries worldwide. We fell asleep to the knowledge of our true nature, but now it is time to wake up. The great secret of alchemy has been preserved for thousands of years, and we are quite fortunate to be living in a time when we can be a part of the great re-dissemination of this ancient information.
To begin the process of awakening, we need a frame of reference — a starting point from which to launch. It is this: our bodies are the alchemical vehicles, and our experiences in this world are the proverbial “lead” that will be turned into “gold.” Listen to your body. Don’t ignore it because you’re focusing on some higher spiritual goal; instead, learn to balance your internal energies and harmonize your emotions. This is a very important step in practical spirituality and in living life. A famous alchemical axiom states that heaven is within us and not above us, as many have mistaken it to be. The exploration of our own consciousness gives us a glimpse at the mind of God. The more we come to understand our true nature, the more we will be able to understand reality. It starts with each of us developing a personal understanding of how reality works and how we fit into the picture. To do this, we first need to examine some basic principles in greater depth.
Earth’s Energy Fields
According to modern physicists, chaos is the dominant ruling principle of the universe. All things move toward chaos as it governs and tears apart all things that are manifest. Life, in contrast, is an ordered system. In fact, when organic systems start to fall out of order, they begin to experience deterioration, decomposition, mutation (which leads to cancer), and the eventual breakdown of living systems (aging). Our goal as living beings, therefore, is to support, enhance, and harness the power of life and guard it against the annihilation coming from outside. To better understand this, let’s look at some basic concepts in biomagnetics. Look at the image of planet Earth in figure 1.1.
The lines coming into each pole represent the edges of the magnetic field generated by the polarity of the planet. This dynamic tension is an important interface between the positive (yang, or south) and negative (yin, or north) poles on the planet, which create an energy field wherein all life can be supported. In fact, fluctuations in this field can be very harmful to all life-forms on Earth. The three-dimensional manifestation, called a toroidal field, is the basis of all hyperdimensional physics and energy work.
The distinction between the electric field and the magnetic field is an important one. The magnetic field can be measured by forces acting on certain kinds of materials, such as the element iron. (It is interesting to note that the hemoglobin molecule of our red blood cells is primarily centered around an iron ion to which the oxygen binds.) The electric field can be measured by forces acting on electrically charged particles, such as sodium and chloride. The electric charge of an object is the sum of the charges of its particles. All nerve and muscle functions in our bodies rely on electrical charge gradients that are constantly shifting. Electrical signaling is therefore the body’s internal language of operation. These two fields — electrical and magnetic — always coexist with the same intensity at a given location and instant in time. They are really parts of the same field, which is thus called the electromagnetic field.1
FIGURE 1.1 Earth’s Magnetic Field
The importance of the electromagnetic field to our bodies can be illustrated by what happens to us in its absence. One of the problems for early orbiting astronauts was that their biological systems were beginning to break down while outside of the Earth’s magnetic field; they were feeling sick and weak for no apparent reason — at least, no reason apparent to us. The scientists working on the Soviet space program figured out why this was happening and then shared their findings with NASA scientists, who eventually found a way to mimic the earth’s magnetic field using a frequency called the Schumann resonance. They can now create energy field bubbles for astronauts who are performing outer-space missions.
The lowest frequency (and highest intensity) mode of the Schumann resonance occurs at a frequency of approximately 7.83 Hz, which is just under eight cycles per second. This frequency happens to coincide with the alpha rhythm of our brain waves, which is the frequency closest to the state of meditation and deep connection with our surroundings. Everything tunes to vibrations. In physics, there are particles and waves, both of which seem to have an underlying system of communication we are just starting to understand. The frequency-based phenomena all revolve around waveform. Our bodies can detect and respond to waves of energy just as our ears can distinguish different sounds from waves in the auditory spectrum. There is a resonant vibration with all light, sound, and movement, and these are some of the energies we can sense with our hands and within people’s fields. These particles, or photons, seem to travel through our bodies and trigger a light-based system of interaction between the DNA molecules in our cells. These light particles apparently have something to do with how the DNA zips and unzips in its transcoding of information.2 This knowledge may give us some hints at how the ancients were able to decipher the language of the “coiled serpents” and hear the song of Creation when looking inward (refer to further discussion on this in part III). The flow of energy becomes the fundamental currency for the field of life, which lives in a perpetual array of fields within fields — all the way up to the scale of the entire universe and down to the smallest subatomic particles we can find.
Dynamo theory explains that Earth’s magnetic field is caused not by magnetized iron deposits but mostly by electric currents in the planet’s liquid outer core. The convection of molten iron within this outer core, along with a Coriolis effect caused by the overall planetary rotation, tends to organize these electric currents in rolls aligned along the north-south polar axis. When conducting fluid flows across an existing magnetic field, electric currents are induced, which in turn create another magnetic field. When this magnetic field reinforces the original magnetic field, it creates a self-sustaining dynamo. The dynamo theory, which explains how the Earth’s magnetic field is reinforced,3 is a very important concept in our internal cultivation, because the dynamic flow of blood and qi energy within our bodies forms a microcosm of this same dynamo phenomenon. This theory explains why the smooth flow of energy within the body is vitally important to the integrity of our energy fields. It is almost as if our blood is a microcosm of the molten core flowing inside the planet — both working to generate and reinforce the energy field around the external “body.”
These fields are the foundation of all life. They create a dynamic flow and allow for living systems to exist within them. Each living system has its own energy field that supports the living cells within it, all the way down to the subatomic level and all the way up to a universal level. We are fields of life within one great field, all dependent upon each other and all mutually enhancing the ability of others to grow.4 We affect the Earth’s field with our consciousness, just as the Earth’s changes in field strength affect us daily. The interconnection of the fields of energy throughout the universe creates an environment where a fluctuation in any energy field will resonate and affect all other energy fields in the entire universe. This nonlocal influence seems to cross both space and time and is becoming the subject of much debate in the world of physics.
The ancient sages knew this to be true because they experienced it through meditations and their knowledge of how their own energy fields operated. Being able to sense these things became the fundamental mark of a true gnostic, or a person who found the answers within him- or herself and, because of this, was able to unlock the secrets of the universe. The concepts imparted in this book come from a vast body of knowledge that has been confirmed by hundreds of ascended masters over thousands of years. They found these answers internally and were able to agree on the principles they discovered. They were able to feel the energy running through their bodies and to track its flow through the various organs. They represent an age-old living tradition of seekers who have learned to be the very knowledge they were seeking. These masters learned about the secrets of our luminous bodies and developed an impressive understanding of energy fields well before we had developed any instruments to measure such phenomena with our modern technology.
The Human Energy Field
As a human being, you have a positive “yang” pole at the top of your head and a negative “yin” pole in your perineum (the base of the spine), as well as smaller yin poles at the bottoms of the feet that dip a couple of feet into the ground. The poles create an energy field around your body, with internal “stars” along the spine contained within. These concentrations of energy cascade down like the descending colors of a prism or a rainbow, beginning with white, moving to violet, and going all the way down to red at the base. These internal “stars,” which are called chakras in the Indian tradition and dantiens in the Chinese tradition, represent the areas where the energy of all Creation is differentiated from the crown, which is the highest vibration, down to the root center, which is the densest or most earthly vibration (see figure 1.2). The goal is not to ignore the base centers and run to the crown; rather, it is to bring peace, understanding, awareness, and, most important, balance to each of these centers.
FIGURE 1.2 Human Energy Centers (Chakras)
The harmonious flow of our energy field enhances life and nourishes the brain and internal organs. Any problems with this flow, or impedance, cause breakdowns in this network and lead to ailments on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels, all of which are reflections or octaves of the same energy. Each chakra represents a different archetypal aspect of the human experience, and many of our life lessons are to be learned by harmonizing these centers. We start by forgiving and healing the wounds and perceived assaults that have driven us to create the defense system we refer to as our “ego.” In our ignorance, we take this primitive defense mechanism and apply it to various aspects of our lives, effectively cutting off the free flow of energy available to us. This vital energy flows through nadi (Indian) or meridians (Chinese), which carry it through the entire body and literally bring life to every cell of the body through a comprehensive network of channels. The scope of this network is beyond this book (many great books on this subject already exist), but it is important to know that any energetic blockage will be reflected somewhere in the body, and it will usually hold a mental and emotional charge with it.
The smooth flow of blood and energy in our body helps make our energy fields dynamic, as their intensity varies with time. The human energy field is an accurate reflection of the inner workings of the physical body and mental processes. In fact, all emotional, spiritual, and physical phenomena will be reflected somewhere in this field. We often feel and see lulls and dips in these fields after meals or with the rise of certain emotional content in our lives. In fact, energetic attachments are often trapped in our fields, blocking the smooth flow of energy throughout our body. Herein rests the core issue.
Unexamined emotions and memories that we are not currently willing to deal with are often the cause of these blockages. So how do they do it? These memories and emotions get stored in our bioelectric field (this includes our physical body, which is simply denser energy) and act as a dam, trapping more energy behind. They await a release, which can be very difficult, as it requires us to focus our attention on the dam with forgiveness and love. A whole chapter of this book is devoted to this concept. For now, know that we accumulate these blockages throughout our lives, and these frozen energies are what cause further suffering today. They cut the vital current of our energy and literally make us weak and sick by reducing the free flow of our energy field.
The good news is that you can learn to detect blockages in your field and use certain exercises and techniques to correct the flow of energy. Once you learn to read the signs in your energy field, you can open yourself to a vast inner language of communication within your body; this inner language has always been going on under the radar, but you’ve likely been mostly blind to it. In fact, once you get an understanding of this system, you will expose yourself to a subconscious mind that has been anxious to communicate with you for years! It has always been sending you signals in the form of tingling hands, hunches, sudden headaches, the chills — essentially whatever it can do to get your attention. Once you learn to finally listen to this internal language, you will begin to complete a powerful circuit of personal communication and connection to Source. It is through your subconscious mind that you will begin to interpret the language of your energy field.
PERSONAL JOURNEYS Night Vision
When I was in the thick of my martial arts training, my teacher would have us go into the mountains at night during a new moon. We would spend a short time meditating and then go for a walk along the trails. The lesson was to soften the eyes and learn to see the energy fields of the plants around us. At first, the whole thing sounded crazy. It was dark, and I was stumbling around, wondering if I’d ever grasp this pseudo-Jedi nonsense. I kept trying to see with my eyes and was frustrated.
The lesson was to soften the eyes because seeing with shen, or spirit, requires a more passive form of vision. Slowly, I began to relax into it and started to see “fuzzy stuff” on the tops of the plants. Of course, I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me and I was just seeing the plants themselves or the reflections of city lights. After a while though, I started to see fluctuations in the patterns of this energy. It was almost like the fields shifted as I approached, in an acknowledgment of approaching life-forms.
I conducted this training for many moons until the vision of energy fields of living things became commonplace for me. I could then start to see the energy in the daytime as well. It is incredible to see how powerful an energy field looks in undisturbed nature as opposed to in a city setting. It is as if all the life energy synergistically comes together to compound into a bigger field. I started to see the distinct energy fields of forests and mountainsides, while a particular valley would be alight with its own unique “vibe,” and I would watch the energy shift throughout.
I then started seeing the same phenomenon in people — when they would come in contact with certain people or groups of people, their fields would grow and get stronger. It was as if the entire group had its own characteristic field around it. I also learned to see the opposite. Some people’s fields would quickly shrink around certain individuals or when speaking about a sensitive topic.
Night walking began to take on more and more meaning. I was getting so good that I started trail running during the new moon. This was intense because I couldn’t afford the luxury of a single thought or I’d turn an ankle or fly into the bushes. It became a powerful meditation tool and forced me to be aware and awake because my life actually depended on it much of the time.
I share this story because talking about energy fields is interesting, but it is nothing but talk until you experience them yourself. I was way too intellectual and in my head about this until I actually learned to see it for myself. The occasional flash here and there could be attributed to many things, but being able to do it on call was what really rounded out my knowledge of the matter. It became an experience instead of a belief.
The Big Picture
The truth is that we are beautiful beings of light who are all part of an ever-growing fractal called life. A fractal is generally “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.”5 Apparently, any small piece of the universe has encoded within it the image or signature of the entirety — just like a hologram or our DNA. Thus, everything that we do helps create and further all of Creation. It is all beautiful as it is ever revealing itself to us. It grows around us and mirrors our internal state and mental images back to us. There is no outside versus inside, as we are all One — we are all part of the same fractal, with each part being an exact replica of the whole.
So, you may ask, shouldn’t we be feeling better? Well, yes, but not in the way you may be thinking. Feeling better requires us to exist in a state of letting go, not in a state of feeling desperately bad and trapped and longing to feel bliss. It is also not a state of poverty, praying for wealth. It is a state of letting go and observing, of natural unfolding and healing. The governing principle of this universe, as discussed earlier, is chaos, which is always chipping away at the sanctity and integrity of our energy field, driving us toward death and annihilation. Chaos drives our thoughts to density and allows us to slowly sink into sleep and oblivion — only to be reborn each day to try the lesson again. It becomes a sort of gravity pulling us down into sleep. It is what feeds off the energies trapped in our shadows, and it is what supports the internal “demons” we have created.
As Leonard Orr so aptly put it, many of us are living with a preprogrammed “death urge,” which drives our belief systems to take on aging and disease when we believe it is time. This death urge is both personal and societal, and at this point, it sometimes seems the United States is in a race to the bottom on the international stage.6
Sounds terrible! “Is this my awful fate?” you ask. Only with ignorance and a lot of effort toward sustained ignorance would it be.
But before you think sustained ignorance is a foregone conclusion, remember this — the energy of life is moving toward more life and the enhancement of itself. The key is to enter your natural state and allow life to work through you. Life is moving toward evolution. It is driving living systems to grow and become more and more self-aware, away from ignorance. The balance point of gravity is what I like to call levity — the upward-cleansing movement of integration and transformation. We are to take the “lead” of our daily experience and integrate it back into our lives to make “gold.” This is the true secret of inner alchemy. It is the reconciliation of past memories and emotions back into the free flow of our energy field. It is a release, and there is no effort required in releasing. As a matter of fact, all of our effort and energy is constantly going into holding on so we can release and become whole. As we do so, we forgive our past and heal our wounds. We allow our energy to flow and allow ourselves to evolve and literally “turn on” our energy field.
The energy of all Creation is surging through us at all times; we are the ones who put our own energy into trying to stop this flow because we are not okay with how we feel. Once the Light Body is activated, however, the self-perpetuating light from within eternally sustains our energy field, and we are complete, never to collapse under the weight of chaos again. (Later chapters explain the process of igniting the Light Body.)
As the ancient Egyptian mystery schools explained, when we are enlightened, we are born a “star” and have completed our task in the Earth school. We become a source of light unto ourselves and, once “ignited,” become a beacon for the further transformation and evolution of our species. Once we attain this enlightened point, we no longer need external sources of energy or information, as we have become One with Source and are actually an emanating focal point for that one energy.
There is something that stands between us and our natural state of divinely guided consciousness, though — the nature of our suffering and the way we leak our energy into the shadows of our unconscious behavior. We need to examine and understand this mechanism so we can learn how to unravel our problems. Once we understand the mechanics of this system, we can be fully empowered to change the way we operate, and with this, we can become free. The next chapter is devoted to this understanding.
