Put your hands together in a prayer-like position so that your fingers are the same length.
Awakening Qi Power
The Spiritual Journey
Each of the great spiritual traditions of the ancient world recognized the existence of a fundamental Life Force that permeates the universe and sustains all life, and whose cultivation is intimately connected to a person’s spiritual development. The existence of this universal energy was accepted cross-culturally and formed the basis of every major spiritual worldview. The Egyptian priests called this energy Ka, the Indian rishis named it Prana, the Bible’s prophets referred to it as Ruah, the Greek philosophers knew it as Pneuma, the early Christians alluded to it as Spiritus, and the sages of China called it Qi.
But for some baffling reason, the modern world has almost completely forgotten about it. This energy is even more subtle than the invisible air we breathe, and maybe that’s part of the reason why it has slipped out of our awareness. Or perhaps it disappeared from the radar screen of modern knowledge due to its close association with religion.
If the wisest sages of the pre-modern world were to suddenly materialize in contemporary society and spend a few days examining our achievements, they would most certainly marvel at our technological advances—our cars, cell phones, and computers—but they would be equally perplexed by our blatant ignorance about our own Life Force.
What makes the modern scientific omission of Life Force so incredible is that you don’t need any sophisticated equipment or advanced training to experience it. Within a matter of seconds you can activate Life Force in your own hands, and within minutes you can learn to pulse waves of this energy between your palms or even with another person. Experimenting with Life Force is easy and fun to do, and a little taste of it usually stimulates people’s curiosity to venture further into exploring its mysterious properties.
Speaking from personal experience, I can attest to the extreme potency of this energy. By leveraging its power through breathing, visualization, and meditation exercises, I developed the ability to go into deep, blissful trances that transported me into otherworldly dimensions, and I awakened remarkable spiritual abilities, such as the power to perceive human energy fields, the psychic sensitivity to identify energy blockages that cause disease, and the capacity to remove those blockages energetically.
Many other kinds of spiritual powers can be developed by harnessing Life Force, including the psychic ability to “read” the past, the capacity to influence the future through prayers and blessings, and even more wild, esoteric capacities, such as Xiao Yao’s ability to walk on water. But ultimately, altered states of consciousness and supernatural powers do not constitute the primary goals of spiritual development. There is one spiritual accomplishment that prevails over all the others, just as the sun outshines all the stars in the daytime sky, and that is the attainment of happiness.
What do I mean by happiness?
Genuine happiness is a condition of constant well-being that doesn’t depend on any external cause or circumstance. For example, getting a raise may make you feel temporarily happy. But after the initial excitement wears off, do you still feel particularly happy? Not always.
Genuine happiness doesn’t need an excuse to be. It just is. Whether being promoted or fired, a genuinely happy person is able to maintain an even, steady sense of self-contentment that flows undisturbed, just like an underground freshwater mountain stream that continues to flow even as the sky clouds over and a rainstorm appears.
As a boy I was fortunate to meet my master, Xiao Yao. He guided me up the path to the summit of the most beautiful peak in the spiritual world, happiness. My master learned the way there from his master, who followed in the footsteps of his own master, and so on. Now it is your turn, if you feel inspired to allow me to guide you on this same spiritual journey.
Part 2 of this book—the section you are about to read—is entitled Awakening the Four Golden Wheels. You might be wondering what those are, so I’d like to give you a sneak peek at this next leg of our journey before we begin.
“The Four Golden Wheels” refers to an integrated network of subtle energy centers located inside the human body that are directly connected to your capacity for genuine happiness. When your wheels are awakened and packed with Life Force—or Qi, as I will refer to bioenergy from now on—your life automatically becomes a healthier, more energy-rich, enjoyable, and meaningful adventure in which you can actualize more of your dreams.
I have taught many students how to awaken and empower their Four Golden Wheels, and in this section I will show you how to do it too. I begin by teaching you some basic skills, and then I introduce a series of exercises designed to awaken and empower each of the Wheels. I refer to all these techniques as the master key to happiness, and in Part 2, I offer you this key.
In Part 3, I show you how to channel the awakened energies of the Four Golden Wheels beyond your body and out into the world where you can use them to shape your environment more consciously, like a sculptor molding a piece of amorphous clay into a discernible form. Finally, in Part 4, we consider how to manage the energies of the Four Golden Wheels in the context of everyday life, in intimate relationships, and in the expression of your highest destiny.
The goal of this entire process is to initiate your transformation into becoming a Qigong master—a genuinely happy individual. We all possess that potential within us, and we are about to set out on an exciting, life-changing adventure to discover it. By the time you reach the final page of this book, I am confident that you will experience yourself, the people in your life, and even the entire planet in a brighter, sweeter light.
Now let’s begin our exploration of Qi with a little game …
EXERCISE 1 Lengthening Fingers Using Qi Power
1. Begin by matching the ridge line between your wrists, then bring your palms together in a “prayer-like” position. Notice that your fingers are the same length.
Put your hands together in a prayer-like position so that your fingers are the same length.
2. Rest your left hand comfortably on your lap. Raise your right hand up to shoulder height, keeping it straight with your fingers relaxed and pointing upward. Now close your eyes and imagine that your fingers are growing longer and longer. Think, “My fingers are growing longer, longer, longer, and longer!” Feel your fingers growing, growing, growing, and growing! Visualize your fingers stretching beyond the ceiling, above the clouds, and all the way up into outer space. Continue doing this for about thirty seconds.
3. Now open your eyes and match your palms up together again in a prayer-like position as you did in Step 1, and observe your fingers.
Match the length of your fingers again.
Do you notice that the fingers on your right hand have grown longer? Yes, indeed! Usually the fingers on the right hand will be a little longer than those on the left hand, and sometimes noticeably longer. When I do this exercise in a group, a few people always gasp in amazement.
Let’s analyze the results of this exercise. You didn’t shake your hand or pull your fingers with the other hand to make them longer. You just used your mind to visualize your fingers growing longer, and they did. This suggests that there must be some internal force doing the work that you can control with your mind. There is, and that internal force is your Qi.
There is a Qigong saying: where the mind goes, Qi follows. Exercise 1 is intended to let you experience that principle directly. Although most of the time we are not aware of the subtle relationship between our thoughts and our energy flow, the two are always intimately connected.
Even if your fingers didn’t grow the first time, don’t worry. For some it takes a little practice to get Qi flowing consciously. Simply move on to the next exercise, and try lengthening your fingers again when you reach the end of this chapter.
In the next exercise you will experience your own Qi more tangibly by playing with “Sword Finger.”
1. Make a loose fist with either hand. Then extend your index finger and middle finger outward and wrap your thumb around your ring finger and little finger. Keep the index and middle fingers straight and relaxed, without tension. This hand gesture is called “Sword Finger.” Now visualize a “beam of energy” shooting out from the two extended fingers like a flashlight. That beam of energy is called the “Blade.”
Sword Finger and the Blade of energy.
Video 1—SoundsTrue.com/MasterKeyExercises
2. Aim Sword Finger toward the palm of your other hand. Visualize the tip of the Blade poking the center of the palm. Keep your palm relaxed. Bring Sword Finger a few inches closer and then move it back a few inches. Move slowly and concentrate. Feel the slight, pointed pressure on your palm as you move in closer, and then feel the pressure release as you move away. Can you feel it? This is your Qi. Repeat the movement for thirty seconds. You can close your eyes to amplify the experience even more. Once you are comfortable feeling this Blade of Qi, you can move on to Step 3.
Poke the center of the palm with Sword Finger to feel your Qi.
3. I will now show you how to use Sword Finger to trace lines. First trace a few horizontal lines across the palm of your hand. Feel the Blade penetrating deeply and feel the sensation of movement as the energy Blade glides back and forth across your palm. You might perceive the feeling as a light breeze or heat moving across your skin. Do you feel it? This is your Qi. Now trace a few vertical lines up and down the palm of your hand. Do you feel your Qi in this direction? Good. If not, keep concentrating until you do. When you’re ready, move on to Step 4.
Trace horizontal and vertical lines with Sword Finger.
4. Now let’s trace circles. Use Sword Finger to slowly trace circles around the center of your palm. Feel the movement sensation of your Qi as the Blade goes around and around. Concentrate on this movement for thirty seconds. Reverse directions, and feel your Qi from this direction for another thirty seconds.
Now, what can we conclude so far? At the very least we can say confidently that Qi really exists, that we can control it with our minds, and we can direct it through our hand movements.
Discovering your ability to feel and circulate Qi is like stumbling upon another sensory organ. As this experience develops further, a whole new dimension of reality opens up where all kinds of new and exciting experiences can occur.
Just imagine being able to absorb the energetic essence of a fragrant rose through your palms and then circulating this Rose Qi up through your arm and into your heart, or sensing an energy blockage in another person and sending them Healing Qi through Sword Finger to dissolve it, or soaking up warm, glowing Sun Qi on your face and then sharing that energy with someone through a loving kiss. With continued practice, all of these experiences and many others can become part of your moment-to-moment reality.
Once we recognize the omnipresence of Qi, we become like a fish who finally notices that there is water everywhere. Suddenly the empty air around us abounds with countless currents of energy continually flowing within us, from us, and through us in an endless ocean of Qi.
Does the possibility of coming into a relationship with this more animated version of the universe excite you? Personally, I find it thrilling.
In the next chapter, we will play with more complex energy patterns and deepen your awareness of your own Hand Qi.
