April 28, 2002 in Louisville, KY

Scott Mandelker on Buddhism, Meditation and the Chakras

In many ways, I just realized that with Carla speaking at the start, and I continuing on at this point, you sort of get both the Christian and the Buddhist views joined together. Frankly, they really are quite different approaches, even though the essentials are the same. So what I want to do in my short time here, just half an hour or so, is to give you a sense the path that I myself took that led to my integration of metaphysics and eastern religion. I am also going to present some of the fundamental teachings from RA on personal growth, or spiritual growth. By this I mean their principles, and how they can be integrated with a Buddhist perspective, meditation practice and what may be called "the old way" -- as the Eastern approach is definitely not a new thing.

In many ways, the Christian message and the teachings of Jesus is an approach quite appropriate for the end of 3rd density, as we now move in to 4th density. Probably it is the most appropriate teaching. RA said that Jesus was a late 4th density Wanderer who knew that the world was at the end of its 3D cycle, entering its final two thousand years or the Piscean age. His work was truly to help prepare the souls here for the kingdom of heaven on Earth through his teaching. And so his primary teachings were that of love, although he had wisdom too, and we can consider him an enlightened being due to his advanced spiritual practice and his realization as a child. His is sort of a new dispensation, and definitely is a way to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth.

The Buddhist way is not quite that, frankly. Today it is generally understood as compassion, and thus the Dalai Lama talks primarily about wisdom and compassion. The term "Bodhisattva," meaning an enlightenment being as a blend of wisdom and compassion, is exactly what RA is talking about when they talk about Higher Self, 6th chakra, 6th density, as being a perfect balance of love and wisdom.

RA's primary spiritual teaching is summed up in their phrase, "know yourself, accept yourself, become the Creator." To "know yourself" indicates the work of mind, the wisdom chakra or 5th center activation… To "accept yourself," we have the teachings of love, heart-based acceptance, unconditional welcome to all our personal experience. And finally, to "become the Creator" is to activate the shuttle that Carla spoke about.

This is the same teaching as some other New Age sources if you understand "body, mind, spirit" to be the three central aspects of our triple energy field. The work, as she said, on the spirit field is basically the development of the shuttle between "the upward yearning of body and mind" and "the down pouring force of creative fire and wind" (quotes from RA), the latter two which indicate what they call intelligent energy and intelligent infinity. The spirit field is the joining work, and it is actually what is activated most directly in meditation.

So meditation can be understood in many different ways. One is that it is the temporary suspension or achieved transparency of the mind complex, so that energy coming from the spirit (or we could say, through the spirit from the infinite, through the spirit complex itself), is allowed to come through a transparent or silent mind. This is the achievement of the "steady silence of mind," as a steady state of being. By this I mean time can be passing, but there is no conscious mind awareness of time, and thus no thought, only stillness and mental silence.

Frankly, if we can't get to that point, everything else becomes that much more difficult. This is really the first step in the initiation of mind -- basically being able to (as Alice Bailey wrote) "hold the mind steady in the light." This is the light of soul, the light of spirit, the light of… the boundless awareness beyond all our thought. And so meditation, again, can be seen as a bringing in, or the beginning from a steady state of silence in mind. It allows the spirit shuttle to be activated, allowing creative fire and wind, the infinite potential and intelligent energy as David spoke about, to come through Spirit, into the body -- as RA said, "ennobling the body and enabling the mind." Basically, this is nothing less than bringing raw cosmic power into the body complex, so that spirit and body become fused.

This is the same kind of thing as RA indicated in the third portion of their teaching, "becoming the Creator." But it can only happen after you are able to know yourself and accept yourself. Again, we have the triad of love, wisdom, and will, leading to true spiritual balance. So the Dalai Lama talks about wisdom and compassion as the foundation for all advanced spiritual work.

Interestingly, RA also said -- which you can actually see happening down here on the ground in most spiritual communities and in the case of certain yogis and teachers who come to America -- that our work in the 6th center does not in and of itself, clarify or unblock the lower centers. And so, this is sometimes called "spiritual bypass." This means that one can have certain advanced spiritual powers and yet still be quite stuck in some ways. You see all the time: some teachers and others have great access to spiritual intuition, multidimensional awareness, even some of the powers of mind (called siddhis in India) like reading karma and the ability to do energy healing.

Although these are not quite powers of the mind itself, but rather as RA would say, the activation of the spirit shuttle, they manifest through a well developed mind. Such powers include clairvoyance, reading people's thoughts, moving the body through time and space, conscious out of body travel, past lives understanding, and channeling. And yet, one can have those siddhis and still remain with very significant lower chakra blockages. Of course, we all have lower chakra blockage to some extent, which are our personal patterns of attachment. Working on the 6th center, the spirit shuttle to the infinite, doesn't necessarily clear them, unfortunately!

When we consider the exact nature of these blockages, we find them often related to the third center, the solar plexus chakra. RA explained this in terms of social engagement, our personal relationship to human groups. Blockages generally manifest as anger, ulcers, stomach and digestive ills, anger, frustration, and resentment. Such physical ailments often happen when anger is long held without being adequately resolved through love and wisdom -- which again bring us back to the value of "know yourself, accept yourself."

These patterns of so-called negativity and negative emotions are very much socially related, if we care to analyze them deeply. And so there are two main forms of blockage of the third center. One is of the excessive type and the other can be called deficient. The excessive type of blockage is out and out domination of others, control, subjugation, and you can see it happening in intimate relations between men and women (or any other type of gender relation you'd like). Generally the man is the one subjugating but it does go both ways. It happens very much in the business arena, the social arena of relation between groups, and it certainly happens in the spiritual arena as well.

How many spiritual teachers, including ourselves, can say they never fall into patterns where we override people? We see this all the time when people are talking and the teacher simply cuts them off. It comes from a hidden notion that we just sort of think your stuff is not important, so "I'll tell you the truth" and run over what you want to say. This is a common example of third chakra blockage.

Frankly, we all do that sometimes (teachers or not), and we do it to each other and we do it to you. (laughter) Honestly, we do it all the time... Anyway, the 3rd chakra blockage is very much about anger. The excessive version is control and domination of others, and it is quite strong in human society, all around the world, at this particular time. And when we do spiritual work, the situation can actually get worse…

RA spoke about this, I've found it to be the case in my own personal experience and we can all attest to it, that as one's power increases, one' s distortions can also grow. By this I mean that the mind gets even more quiet, the 6th center opens more fully -- not necessarily in its "doing phase" (like performing the powers of mind), but in its potential for quiet being -- personal problems intensify.

By the "doing" and "being" phases I'm referring to what seem to be two modes of activity of the 6th center -- what we may call the action of doing and the stillness of being. As the center opens, we also find ourselves more capable of simply being with situations, and our own personal process. There is an interesting passage in either Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu, the two main Taoist philosophers, which stated something like this, that "power gathers where there is stillness."

This is actually very subtle, but you can feel it if you do deeper meditation. The steady-state stillness of the body/mind/spirit complex, i.e. through meditation as one technique, allows an expansion of the field of the human being. This is similar to what we can see happening to the Earth today, with the expansion of its 4th density body and all the electro-magnetic shifts.

But as this happens for the individual, one's distortions can become greater, and even monstrous. So one needs more and more discernment to make sure we don't use this greater power (coming from the cosmic and definitely available to the personal, and certainly to our personal distortions) to take advantage of others, even in subtle ways, like cutting folks off in mid-sentence! We can all benefit from keeping this in mind, and it is actually very, very important.

On the other hand, a 2nd chakra blockage is basically about fear, a sense of personal weakness, low self-esteem, emotional upset, sorrow, self-pity (which is somewhat like anger turned inside, but it's "watery' and emotion-based). So in the Hindu system, the material element associated with the 2nd center is water, as the element of 3rd center is fire -- which figures: anger is fiery, sorrow is wet. These are two forms of distortion, very common, and won't necessarily be alleviated or totally removed by meditation, but meditation can give you the quiet of mind to open the heart, consciously, and consciously to allow those feelings to arise in an open heart, self-accepting system.

As for myself, my own path basically involved extreme misery and existential angst when I was a teenager, which I didn't recognize as the symptoms of an early Wanderer awakening. Basically, I had a deep sense of misery and despair about being on this planet, deeply, very painfully. I didn't dislike myself, I just hated the world and didn't want to be a part of it. And of course I felt that I would never find a role in human society, and part of me didn't even want to take such a role. I didn't know what this was, it was just pain deep in my heart, mind and body. My childhood wasn't that bad. So it wasn't your typical childhood trauma or wounding, but something somewhat deeper.

Then at age 18 I went to college and synchronicity brought me a teacher of the old form of Buddhist meditation. This was the ancient breath meditation called anapanasati (in-breath, out-breath sati or mindfulness), which is a extremely simple, boring practice, with nothing to do with ETs, nothing to do with metaphysics, really. You know, just watching the elements of mind arise and pass away. But as you watch, the illusion of a solid self falls away. The first thing that happens, since this watching is itself open heart, open mind allowance, is that this allows your lower center blockages to arise.

It's sort of like laughter. What is laughter but a vibratory shaking out of lower center blockages? Thus laughter is healing. As for myself, I didn't go through a lot of laughter in those days, I went through a lot of misery, including a kind of "bucking bronco' body for months on end, where deep, deep misery was arising through my system and shaking me body in a somewhat volatile way.

Frankly, I understand where this was coming from, because I think I had a very, very painful previous incarnation, including torture in my last lifetime and that was partially worked through, or significantly worked through at the energetic level. I had what we call "frozen, cold energy,' which is deep fear. This was 2nd and 1st center blockage, very deep stuff.

But I had faith from the start, that the self or the essence of my being was complete and whole and perfect. And I have a lot of fire, I have Mars in a very early degree of Aries and a lot of Taurus energy, grounding energy. So I had a lot of earth energy to just sit there unmoving in the pain, and a lot of fire to destroy and burn up (through simply letting go) these distortions.

This bracelet I wear has a Sanskrit prayer to Shiva, written as "Om Namah "" Shiva is the god of yogis, the destroyer aspect, to destroy the obstructions to freedom and enlightenment. It is like Jesus said, that he came with a sword. This destructive aspect of the spiritual path is not well appreciated in this time of the 4th chakra ascent, which focuses on love and self-healing, but it is the destruction of illusion that is needed to really become free. In any case, the only thing that can be destroyed is the unreal, because the real is eternal and will remain after all our attachments and false beliefs go.

Shiva is the God of the yogis because the yogi is the accelerated destroyer of illusion. And when you destroy illusion all you end up with is true being, what's called "the original face' in Buddhism. And so, I had such a profound faith that this really was true that for a while I cursed myself for doing anything but meditation during the day. I felt that I might die any moment, and so I had better keep meditating.

Today, I am not afraid of death, now I somewhat welcome it because I have been back and forth, so it is not a big deal for me. And just to tempt the gods, I live in San Francisco! You know, I'm ready to swim on out there… Anyway, an interesting movie about this is with Johnny Depp, called "Dead Man," and it's an excellent movie for a Wanderer. (David Wilcock: I also recommend "Ghost Dog")

So, instead of getting too deep into drugs, I got deep into meditation. Of course, I used drugs sometimes in high school, but it just opened me up and I knew it wasn't a "Way," meaning, I knew I couldn't go all the way with it. I knew that Buddhism was potentially a way, a real way out. The first time I read the Dhammapada -- the very early teachings of the real Buddha in short verses -- I thought, "ah, could this really be the way out?" Frankly, it is a way out, and though I am not totally emancipated of course, I am sure it is a way out of our suffering and confusion. And all that just comes from holding onto stillness, with faith in the process.

When that happens and you watch your mental/emotional/bodily process, the goal is not to merely watch the mind. The goal is to let the mind unravel, and then one goes beyond even the "watcher." There is no more watcher, because there is no more sense of subject/object in your awareness. Meditation is the path to the realization of unity par excellence.

And in my view, and in any Buddhist or traditional mystic view, it just has to be a formal practice. It is not enough to just sit there, take it easy and ruminate about cool spiritual notions. It is not about channeling and guidance -- it's a very different path. But I can assure you that it goes all the way, because I have seen human beings, yogis and masters that have gone a whole lot farther than I and they are pretty magnificent to be with. And all they did was to just basically let their illusions fall away, through formal practice over a span of many years.

Anyway, I had many realizations along that path, and after the years of agony passed through my system -- which was a major release of lower chakra blockage -- things got much better in my mind. I was dealing with a lot of root and third chakra stuff, not exactly anger to society (which was part of it, but not too miserable), but even heavier stuff like terror, stark terror. Frankly, we carry a whole lot more pain, fear and terror around -- just from living in this domain, in this realm -- than we realize.

And so again, you determine the path of your awakening, whether it is slow or fast. If you want the fast path, the medicine is available, and all you have to do is sit -- as they say, "don't just do something, sit there!" And this is actually a very serious business, as you can get quite distorted if you are out of balance and your practice is uncentered.

A friend of mine, actually two of them in the Zen monastery where I lived for a while, had just such problems. One of them went crazy for a while and basically went out of his mind with paranoia -- and initially, he was a very serious monk -- while the other guy ended up killing himself. Both were very pure souls, the first man was a South American artist -- which may be one reason he went crazy! And the second guy was a Christian mystic, the kind who would ""do the monastic offices," in which he would wake up all through the night and do prayers and penance. Frankly, being so disciplined and tight was probably what killed him, as he just drove himself too hard. And so, with serious formal meditation work you are playing with fire, but of course, you can use it carefully and you don't have to get burned.

Taking another tack, I don't tell people, "you should be careful what you wish for, because you might get it." Frankly, I think we ought to wish for whatever we want, but when you do get it (or some of it) you'll just have to deal with the consequences. And then you'll see if what you received is really what you want, what you originally wished for -- and if it's no good, you can just wish and work for something a little different. This is how we learn: we have desires, we wish and work for them, we get some variation of what we intended, we deal with the consequences, assess the situation, and then we reformulate our desires accordingly.

Also, don't be afraid of anything in your mind. You are greater than your mind. Clearly, you are not your body, of course, but you are not your mind either. Those thoughts you experience are not you yourself, and the patterns of mind and feeling are not the self either. They are actually the activity, according to the Theosophical tradition, of what's called "the mental elemental." In Buddhism, they refer to "the monkey-mind," which is sort of a psycho-monkey -- hopping around and jumping all over the place. You know, this crazy, busy mind is also not you.

The soul covers itself in these sheets, the physical, astral (or emotional), and the mental bodies. Actually, these are considered to be "elemental bodies on the involutionary arc," which is a very esoteric idea. The "involutionary arc" means that these beings (the substance of the energy fields we use for our physical body, emotions and thoughts) are not even in first density yet, they're actually moving into first density. We, as human souls, are moving on the evolutionary arc up to 6th density where formal "soul evolution" ends and universal evolution begins.

That is the level of Higher Self, which has the same qualities as the perfect blending of wisdom and compassion equally balanced in the 6th center. In the Buddhist teaching, this is the state of the Bodhisattva, and in RA's teaching, it is called Higher Self. And so dealing with our mental and emotional patterns is very important to our own evolution.

Coming back to meditation, there's a saying that if you are going to stop midway, it is better not to have started at all. Because meditation is a very heavy duty thing, and it creates a primal division or cut in our awareness, between the absolutely formless and intangible sense of "me" on the one hand -- and everything else that arises our body-mind-spirit system.

If we're unable to complete this dis-identification with transient elements of thought and feeling, and the subsequent (or concurrent) re-identification with the formless sense of true being (which is not exactly a "self" but rather, a condition beyond grasping), then it is very likely that we'll remain in the purgatory of being "half-free, half-bound." Many spiritual seekers have gotten stuck in the later stages of the path, and even RA comments about it.

One can easily come to the view that "my mind is my enemy," which I experienced myself (and still sometimes do), and which was probably partly responsible for driving my monastery buddies to extreme states. For years I didn't trust anything in my mind, and I thought that all the elements of my thinking and feeling process were equally illusory and bullshit. This isn't quite self-hatred because I knew that I wasn't the same as those mental events, but in terms of making decisions I was totally confused.

If everything that arises in the mind is considered equally false, empty, painful or useless, how in the world can we make choices? Anyway, although that may seem obscure, it represents a somewhat advanced realization along the meditation path, and unless you resolve this "equally false" sense of the mind, you could definitely lose it for a while. And that's how some people go crazy, even if they've done lots of spiritual practice.

And so this brings us back to the quote I mentioned yesterday, that, "the mystic swims in the same waters in which the psychotic man drowns." So you do have to be somewhat careful when you get into deep meditation, but frankly, such obscure problems can also develop for anyone who becomes spiritually developed, through any means. Usually, people 't get into such problems unless they work pretty hard and have a lot of will and concentration.

And so, when we understand the promise of meditation, we see that we really shouldn't complain about being stuck in our lives, since we do have a form of spiritual medicine at our disposal. The medicine is available, but we just don't use it, because it does take effort, and 's much easier to just read a book, take a walk, or listen to a CD. And so we come back to the question of will, which RA also talked about. In another elaboration on the same triad, the teaching of "know yourself/accept yourself/become the Creator," they also gave us this one: " "forgiveness of self/acceptance of self/and direction of the will" as essential to the spiritual path.

When we consider what, "acceptance of self" means, then we're talking about the fourth center -- the ability to say that, "I love my hatred, I love my sorrow… I accept my sorrow, I accept my cowardice, I accept my fears, I accept my addictive drives, I accept my pettiness, I accept my rage and vindictiveness." and so on! Can you do it? Why not? Frankly, these tendencies and patterns are also "not you."

As to the next recommendation, "forgiveness of self," is very much an integration of 6th, 5th, and 4th chakra development. This is because forgiveness has some awareness of the whole, a sense that whatever it is, is good, and whatever the condition (happy or sad, distorted or joyous) you face is fine -- it is OK, it is all OK…

Finally, we come to the last statement, concerning the direction of the will. RA said specifically and in no uncertain terms that the will is that which "is powerful in you" as a co-creator, and should never be underestimated on the path. The primary determinant of our spiritual evolution, frankly, is will. That's the fuel and the engine of polarization.

Remember, those on the negative path may be of a higher evolutionary level than those on the positive path, in some cases. Without a doubt, the late 5th density negative entity is higher and much further along the path than an early 4th density positive soul -- even though the 4th density soul has lots of love and the negative 5D soul has none. You may wonder, "how can that be?"

Well, the guy in upper 5th density (whatever the term means to you) has basically a much greater access to the will aspect of Higher Self, divine power, than the junior soul in 4D -- even though they have no love. Same thing with us on earth as we talked about this morning: the "love without wisdom thing" is a real problem. So the teachings of love are essential for those who do not know love, and the teachings of wisdom are essential for those that only know love, and for those that are stuck in wisdom the teachings of unity are the only salvation.

Frankly, unity is beyond anything and everything. And so you know, what I personally have evolved into, what you can call "my crystal to offer," is really a teaching of emptiness, no self, what could be elegantly called a "trans-conceptual fusion with all that Is." At one point in the series, RA talks about the fact that in 7th density "the looking backwards is finished," and this is akin to a dwelling in real emptiness.

In my understanding, there is a lot of 6th density Wanderers here who will no longer be wandering after we leave Earth. This is not only their last human incarnation, but also the last time they'll be incarnating in any dimension below the formless realms. And as RA said about themselves, they are preparing for their next harvest, into 7D, in just a few million years. In 6D, that' s not a very long time to wait.

Now, if you want to keep the big picture, you have to really see your life as just this little sprint -- but not quite a sprint for the fastest speed, but rather, a sprint for balance, to see just how much balance you can keep up in this tiny little human time-frame. Whether it's 10 more years, 30 more or 50 more years here in 3D for us, still, this is just a tiny, tiny amount of time for Higher Self and your infinite being.

And then add to that the fact that you "go home," in a sense, every night. So, if you remember every night when you hit your head to the pillow that home is not far away, your beings and your group are not far away, then you can maybe appreciate better the sort of challenge we find ourselves in this human situation.

But of course, in the heat of the moment it is difficult to see the big view, and take it easy knowing that the temporal is just a flash in the pan of the eternal. And so we all get these little catalysts, right? On this weekend, I lost my address book, Ed lost his address book, we all lose this stuff sometimes. Of course, the fewer the attachments we have the more difficult it may be for Higher Self and your guides to find the places where they can give you hard catalyst -- so I didn't lose cat or dog (since I don't have any), but I lost my address book.

I mean, personally, I don't mind if people around me die (even though I will miss some of them), losing my address book is sort of a real problem for me (laughter). Dying is no problem either -- which means I'll probably have a long life, since I'm not upset to leave right away… But you know, the issue of dying (ours and those around us) is really "the pedal to the metal," and when we're faced with this kind of catalyst in our face it can reveal to us just how well we've really integrated the metaphysics we claim to believe. When people are dying around us, then we get to see just how multi-dimensional we've become, and where we still hold onto conventional 3D notions.

I mean frankly, we ought to celebrate the one who's dying -- they' re the lucky one, they're finished and their lessons are done so they can leave school behind. Which is great for them, in most cases. Its not like we missed the boat and they should have healed themselves, or our healing failed, or their beautiful life was tragically cut short -- when they go to the next realm, then they'll see just how beautiful life can be! Of course, suffering is painful and we don't want anyone to in pain, but physical healing is not necessarily the mark of one's evolution in the sense that they might get healed from an illness; it's not quite correct to assume "if you're doing the right thing you'll be healed, and those that couldn't heal had missed their lessons." In many ways, people pass over because it is simply the right time for them to pass over, and that is good; it is important to pass over at the right time…

So, when we try to bring all this back to meditation, the most important thing I can tell you is that I believe it is the most efficient path that one can do alone. It is not the same as being in relationship with others, but it is the most efficient path that one can pursue alone to accelerate one's unfoldment. It can really be this way for all of us, though some people just find it too hard and drop it.

But for it to be really effective, you need to understand that the progress you'll see will come out over years, and it may be quite slow to appear. Someone asked the Dalai Lama about how we can recognize progress along the path. And he said something like, "well, if you find that you are a little more loving and compassionate than you were ten years ago, then you know that its effective."

Well, you know these guys are from Tibet, right? So they sit in the mountains for 40 years, and time passes around them, but they don't make a big deal of it, and they're not in hurry, as we in the West usually are. So, they look at the big view, and that is the big view -- that if a bit more true wisdom and compassion is born over the time of a decade, you're doing well, and don't worry about it.

RA said that all our 3D spiritual work was like working in darkness with a tiny candle, but that here in 3D, in the midst of such inner and outer confusion and turmoil, "real change can be made." This experience we have here, living "under the veil" or in what could be called veiled consciousness, is like doing our work in darkness. The candle we use is the tiny span or space of our conscious awareness, and once we know the principles of the working -- namely, balanced love/wisdom in service to all -- then we can do a bit better in that darkened room.

And so RA says, the central principles of our work are, "acceptance of self, forgiveness of self, and the direction of the will." We all know something about service to others, we know that the more we are balanced the more we can be a field of balance, acceptance and light for others to further heal themselves. And we also know that when we're off balance or when we have some problems in our mind, that we made these by ourselves, and thus we also have the solution available within us.

RA also said, that "for the perfectly balanced entity, no situation would have emotional charge, but would be a situation like any other in which they could observe an opportunity to be of service." This is also a very important teaching. They're saying that when we're in balance then no situation would be seen or felt to have an emotional charge, and further, that situations in an of themselves are not emotionally charged. Me losing my address book, or your spouse doing what they do is not a charged situation, though you might feel charged, and if you do feel charged it is definitely your own problem.

It doesn't mean we should blame ourselves, but first of all, we need to take responsibility for our side of the situation. So we can definitely learn to take responsibility for everything we need to in our lives, without blaming yourself or anyone else. That's great, isn't it? It's a real challenge, very, very subtle, right? To be able to say that, "I made this personal conflict, or at least I co-created it."

You know, in reality and beyond our illusions of me and you, if you want to speak about evolution from the perspective of the Law of One and true unity, then you have to realize there's no one here but you. And so there can be no "other" out there to do things to you, no matter how much it appears to be so. In the view of unity, the self makes it all, and reality does not fit with the ideas that, "I did this, and he did that, she has this, and they have that."

All these may well be clear and useful karmic reflections, understanding the causal chain of why things happen to us and around us -- but from a non-dual perspective, we 't even say that, "this is my field, and this is yours, we're connected!" Frankly, that's not real unity at all.

In the view of non-dual fusion, the Law of One in soul-awareness, what I call your field is also my field, so you are not a separate "you," but instead, you are of this greater unified field in which all things can be seen as One Thing. And it's the same from you to me: I am Scott, but I am also you appearing as Scott. Of course, if you take this too far that is how people go insane, so you have to be careful with all this talk of unity! (laughter) Such distortion of unity can be called megalomania. I am good at that one.

So, anyway, I hope from this short talk you got a sense of the chakras and a taste for meditation leading to the awareness of unity. You know, meditation is truly the gateway to spiritual power because it is direct work on the spirit complex. It is direct work on the 5th, 6th, and 7th chakras, and from this you might well feel a whooshing in the ears, because in many cases that indicates activation of the etheric channels in the head, which is a sign of kundalini rising. And as Carla said, the "seating of experience" at one of the seven energy center levels, by knowing the meaning of the 7centers and where you are developed and where you are weak, is one way to better know where you generally live, in terms of your ordinary consciousness.

And so, you can ask yourself if you primarily look at yourself and your life in terms of the ability to connect with people, to love them, help them and serve -- which is a "seating" in the 4th chakra. If instead, you're mainly concerned with your ability to communicate, to understand and comprehend people, to make clear and meaningful verbal or written expression, to know and teach and share knowledge, then you're working at the 5th chakra or 5th center.

Or instead, if you can dwell peacefully in a sense of the all-sacred, open to real unity, wholeness, emptiness, quiet being, broad peace and quiet internally, forgiveness of self and other and even the "evil-doers," then you're working and living from the 6th center. Of course, when we're not able to operate in any of these three modes, then we find below them all the personal, mental/emotional blockages we're all familiar with. Despite the fact that such blockages mainly occur in the lower chakras (below the 4th), these centers do have important functions for grounding and human-physical relations on this plane, so we shouldn't try to deny their activity either.

Anyway, why don't we just open things up now for some questions about anything you'd like to ask. Actually, since we're all a bit tired, let's instead take a little break right now and since I am a teacher of nothingness, no questions will be most appropriate! (laughter)