Feel the Energy You Are Made Of

Sit still. Ride the breath into the feeling-tone of you and feel the energy
you are made of. Stillness = peace = joy = love.

Go about it something like this. Select a room where you can sit quietly by yourself and choose a time when you will not be distracted or disturbed. Set aside twenty minutes with the intention of giving your undivided attention to practicing the art of meditation, centering, and mental inner listening. Then sit down in a comfortably erect position, either on the floor with or without a zafu (Zen pillow), if you are comfortable sitting on the floor, or in a chair. You may also do this lying down, but there will then be a greater likelihood of falling asleep. Take your pick.

Assuming you are sitting erect, your first concern is to make yourself comfortable by finding the right alignment of your body. If your alignment is off, if you are crooked or slouched, you will become uncomfortable sooner than you would otherwise. You will experience physical discomfort and uneasiness instead of the pleasures of motionless sitting and inner listening, and this will make it more difficult than it needs to be. The more comfortably upright and erect you are, however, the more comfortable you'll be, and this will make communion more likely. Take a few moments to make sure your body is correctly aligned, and then endeavor to sit as straight as you comfortably can, without being rigid, for the duration of the meditation.

Do this by leaning forward and wriggling the buttocks backward until your two sitting bones are in contact with the cushion. The alignment of your center is now in an exaggerated dog tilt with the pelvis tilting forward. Bring your body to vertical again and delicately draw your belly backward toward the spine in order ever-so-gently to turn your hips under toward cat tilt. It will feel as though you are "plugging" both sitting bones into the cushion or chair, like plugging a light into an electrical outlet. Pay attention to the alignment of your lower back and spine as you do this, and stop the backward hip-turning movement when you sense that your sacrum is vertical, balanced, most weightless. Fine-tune and adjust your alignment here. Make it perfect.

Your center is now in "neutral" - not too much dog tilt, nor too much cat tilt. Let it feel as though you are doing both at the same time, just the right amount of each, so there's a sense of elongation and ease throughout the length of your entire spine and head. The root or base of your spine - your belly, your center, your sacrum, the sitting bones, that whole area - is now perfectly aligned and angled, grounded, which makes it easy and natural for your spine to grow straight upward from its grounded source.

Now, become more and more grounded. Spend a few moments here. Feel where you are touching the floor or cushion, and consciously allow the weight of your body to sink downward more into the floor. Become rooted, gently planted. Do not strain. Be effortless. Do less and less. Feel yourself being supported by the floor. Especially feel yourself grounding through the center of your core, in the area of your perineum, between the anus and genitals. Mentally feel around for the predominant sensation in that area and then allow it to sink farther downward. It may take you a moment to find the feeling. Once you've located it, lock your attention onto it. Don't strain, however; just don't let your attention stray from that particular focus. If it does stray, gently bring it back, over and over. Rest your attention in that area of yourself and experience what it feels like. Become grounded through the center of your core.

Then, starting from the floor, allow your awareness slowly to float upward through your core and body all the way up to the crown of your head. Feel it coming up slowly, at a leisurely pace. As your awareness floats slowly upward, allow yourself to expand and assume a new shape. Allow your chest gently to expand and lift up away from the waist, relax your shoulders back and down, rest your hands where they are comfortable, and balance your head perfectly on top of your spine. Lift or lower the chin until your head feels the most weightless, perfectly balanced. Then close your eyes and sense whether your face is slanting upward or downward excessively - even if it's minimal - and make subtle internal adjustments until it feels perfect to you now.

Allow all of this to happen. Enjoy this part. Make subtle intuitive alignment changes until your posture feels perfect. The straighter you are, the more comfortable you will be. Be comfortable. Then put your awareness at the top of your head, the fontanel, and feel around for any kind of sensation.

Effortlessly move the crown of your head straight upward as far as it will go, and feel your spine and body reconfigure to this upward thought. You'll notice many subtle changes occurring spontaneously in the alignment of your body as you do this, changes you are not personally responsible for, but that you allow to happen. Every subtle change will contribute to your overall sitting comfort.

Now, somehow, open the top of your head from the center of the fontanel. Do this mentally, gently. Let it feel as though the top of your head is opening and merging with the sky above. Take the lid off. Then, starting from the openness at the crown of your head, allow your awareness to slowly filter downward through your body - through your head, through your neck, through the shoulders, all the way down. As your awareness floats down, relax inside. Let go of every sense of holding, every subtle tension, every tightness and contraction. Wash your body clean with your gentle awareness. Soften and relax and feel what's happening - everywhere. Take your time doing this. Enjoy yourself. Savor what you are doing. Let your awareness filter down slowly, without losing the height of the crown of your head, and delicately touch and relax every part of you with your mind.

Notice that your body expands as you relax. It's not that you become limp and unable to hold yourself erect. It's that the contracted parts of you expand as they soften and release, much like what happens when you release a clenched fist. And since you're probably a little tense almost everywhere, it will feel as though all of you is expanding. This new expansion is what now holds you up effortlessly. It will feel as though you are becoming less dense or compacted, less thick, less solid, and you will literally experience more space in your body, more air, more comfort, less physicalness. In fact, it will start to feel as though you are only space, only awareness or Mind. You'll feel wide open, like a conscious sky, and you'll begin to suspect that what you really are is unlimited Awareness or Spirit - that even your physical body is, really, only energy. Inaccurate self-concepts will drop away effortlessly, and the Light that you are will shine more brightly. This is why you'll start to glow.

This is a skill. It is something you can practice. The more you practice being effortless expanded Being, simply being who you are where you are without inhibition or defense, the better you'll get at it. Practice relaxing your body, then, by gently moving your awareness around and through it and by being very sensitive to where you hold muscular tensions. Notice where you are unnecessarily or habitually contracted, and practice letting go. Deliberately relax. Consciously relax. Willingly release every sense of muscular holding, every hint or evidence of being uptight.

The tendency is unconsciously to hold on, and what's needed is the willingness consciously to let go. The more proficient you get at this, and the more relaxed and expanded you become, the more obvious it will be to you where you are still holding, where there are still unconscious subtle tensions that have be- come so ingrained and so familiar you hardly even notice them anymore. As you become internally more sensitive, more aware, more conscious in areas where you were previously unconscious, the more you'll be able consciously to relax even deeper. You'll be able consciously to let go more - not become more limp, but less uptight, less dense, less thick, less congested, more expanded and spacious, more consciously spiritlike. Sensitivity and awareness beget a deeper relaxation, which begets a clearer and more sensitive awareness, which begets an even deeper and more thorough relaxation.

You are now as tall and straight as possible, without being rigid, and as relaxed and expanded as possible. Elongate vertically straight up and down, allowing the crown of your head and your perineum to move away from one another, and effortlessly expand outward in all directions. Now practice being still. Be motionless. Don't move. And practice being still without holding yourself still. Simply be so relaxed that no movement occurs. Let there be no holding anywhere in your body and no physical movement. You're not going anywhere. You're deliberately being where you are. Be here. Be with yourself right here where you are. And be completely relaxed. Be still. And in the midst of this stillness, in the midst of this not-movingness, be aware of the natural movement of life happening within you. Feel your body breathing all by itself.

Put your awareness in your nostrils where you can feel the air coming in and going out, and for the next few minutes simply be aware of your breathing. Feel the breath flowing in and out through your nostrils. There will always be some sensation in the nostrils caused by the movement of air. Be aware of these sensations and notice how they are constantly changing. Sometimes they are stronger and more obvious, sometimes they are barely perceptible. Be aware of your breathing body, savor the "taste" or fragrance of the air, and experience the subtle sense of overall satisfaction that accompanies breathing - of air-hunger arising and being satiated, again and again, continuously. Also notice that the air may be flowing more freely in one nostril than the other. Feel if this is so.

As you do this, be aware of the unconscious tendency to control the breath as you watch it, and instead allow it to flow in and out without obstruction, without your control, unimpeded, strain-free, at its own natural pace. Part of what you're learning in this practice is not to be in control. This is an especially important point that should not be overlooked. You're learning to be where you are, participating fully in your now-experience, without your usual willful control. You're learning to let go of your normal attempts to control what's happening in your life and instead to yield, surrender, be receptive to universal guidance and sensitive to the flow of Life. You're simply practicing here where it's easy.

When you surrender and become receptive to guidance, when you really become conscious of the movement of Life within you, you'll begin to understand that there is already something greater than you in control. There is already an underlying spiritual orderliness to all things. Be alert not to control or manipulate the breath. Practice leaving it alone. Let it be the way it is without intervening. Some breaths will be deep, others shallow. Each breath will be different. Allow it to be however it is, and with conscious awareness simply "ride" your breath.

Ride the breath in and ride the breath out. Feel it loop around gently at the end of each inhalation and exhalation. Be there with it all the way in and all the way out, over and over. Immerse yourself so thoroughly in the natural flow of breath that you establish an uninterrupted mental continuity. The breath is one long continuous ribbon; and so, make your awareness one long continuous watching. Make your awareness as continuous as the breath by watching the breath continuously.

Then, keeping your nostrils as the primary focal point, allow your awareness to expand to include all of you. Feel your whole body ripple with effortless breathing - even your elbows. Feel the obvious movements, and look for the less obvious. There will always be a discernible wavelike ripple somewhere in your body. Feel everywhere. Immerse yourself in the ceaseless flow. The more you're in there, the more fun this is. Do this for several minutes. Rest your undivided attention in the flow. Flow.

Then allow your attention to make a very subtle shift. Shift from feeling the breathing to feeling the feeling. Feel your feeling-tone, what you feel like. Experience you. And immerse yourself so thoroughly in this experience that you're not thinking about anything else. Practice not thinking. Instead of thinking, feel deeply.

For the next few minutes, immerse yourself as fully as you're able in your now-experience of you. Feel the energy you are made of. Feel life vibrating in your body. Feel what it actually feels like to be you. Focus, concentrate, in relaxed and gentle manner, on your feeling-presence. Simply relax, expand, breathe and feel. Shift from thinking mode to feeling mode. Be in the now. Be where you are and feel what's happening. Savor what's happening. Be as unthinkingly in the now as you can, and experience the energy or substance that constitutes your being.

Realize that you are made of something. You are made out of some kind of energy or substance. You do exist. And so, what does that energy or substance feel like? What does it feel like to be you? Experience the fact that you exist, that there is a sense of presence to your existence, and that this existing presence has a feeling to it.

Experience what you feel like physically, feel the space inside your body, but also feel the space around your body. Notice that concepts like "inside" and "outside" have no meaning right now, that either one could be the other. Notice that actually, there is no inside and no outside. There's just the experience of vast open, undivided, indivisible space. There's just Awareness or Mind. And that's what you are. That's your actual now experience. You are Awareness being specifically aware. You are the Observing Self, the eternal constant. Therefore, experience the Consciousness or Mind that you are. Feel the energy that constitutes your being.

Sense into the depths of your energy field, your psychosphere, and notice there are no discernible boundaries or limits to where you are or aren't. Instead you're experiencing yourself as unlimited, infinite, endless - without a discernible boundary of any kind. This is what it can actually feel like! And, therefore, if you are not limited, then you are the space or Awareness in which everything is happening. You are the universe experiencing Itself through you, and you - the universe - are now gently pulsing with what seems to be the rhythm of breath.

As you sit there, then, instead of thinking, feel the energy that you are. Feel it in your relaxed body and savor it with your thought-free mind. Notice what feels it like to have no tension or fear anywhere in your energy field, and be aware of the quality of your consciousness as you do this. Experience what it means to be conscious, aware of what's happening in every way you can.

The idea here is to immerse yourself in the feeling-tone of you and consciously access thought-free wakefulness in order to experience yourself with clarity. The practice is to be so unthinkingly in the now, so present, so involved with feeling what's actually happening now, that you override your conditioning about who you are - giving rise to a new experience of you.

Breath awareness during motionless sitting is one of the very best techniques for this because it effectively puts your awareness exactly where it needs to be in order clearly to experience the feeling-tone of who you are. Watching the breath places you squarely in the now. Each breath you take is only happening in the now. If you are feeling the movement of breath in your body, then your conscious awareness is precisely where it needs to be in order for you to experience with clarity the energy that you are. Riding the breath is a way of immersing yourself in the feeling-tone of you, and that's what you want. You want to feel what you actually are. You want to experience yourself so clearly that there is no longer any confusion or doubt.

Stay with the breath as a way of keeping your conscious awareness anchored firmly in the now, and continue riding the breath into the clearer experience of your feeling-tone. And don't move. He absolutely still. Don't resist the temptation to move, simply let go of it when it arises and become more still. For these few minutes, immerse yourself fully in what you're doing. Get more and more involved. Become thoroughly familiar with what it feels like to be still and relaxed with no holding anywhere.

As you ride the breath into your feeling-tone and feel the energy you are made of, however, you may suddenly become aware that you are no longer with the breath or feeling-tone, that you have gone off on a thought tangent about something or other and are thinking of other things. Your attention may wander. Your interest level may fluctuate. You'll have many, many thoughts. You may feel compelled to get up and do something else, something important, something you really should be doing right now - like washing the dishes or cleaning the house.

When you notice this happening, gently bring your attention back to the breath. Mentally stop doing whatever you were doing and ride the breath, again, into the energetic feeling-tone of you. Consciously come back to the task at hand: Relax, be still, and feel the energy you are made of. Do this as many times as necessary.

As you do this, feel the peace that's beginning to emerge, the peace of stillness, and feel the joy inherent in that peace. Do not fight the thoughts or become upset with yourself for thinking or for the fact that thoughts keep arising, just repeatedly bring your conscious awareness back to the primary point of focus. Be interested in experiencing the peace of centered stillness. Give your attention to that. Be more interested in that. Do this gently, voluntarily, trying not to concentrate too intently. Allow your attention to rest lightly on the breath and feeling-tone. The more you do this the better you'll get at it which means you'll have fewer thoughts distracting you from your breath and feeling-tone and more moments of quiet clarity and peace.

This is similar to what you did with your body when you first sat down. You began the meditation by establishing an erect and comfortable posture and then relaxed yourself physically by sweeping your awareness upward and then downward through your body, letting go of muscular tension. You relaxed your body by letting go of it. You consciously let go of every sense of muscular holding. As a result, you expanded and became more spacious inside. It was not just your imagination.

Do the same thing now mentally. In exactly the same way as you let go of muscular holding, let go of thinking. Relax and expand your mind, become more spacious in your mind by consciously letting go of thought. Do this by being aware of when you are thinking and then deliberately letting it go. Suspend the thought - ignore it - and instead of thinking, feel what's happening. Get involved with what's present to be experienced when you are not busy thinking about other things. Become perfectly one-pointed in the now, fully engaged in experiencing this instant of consciousness, and pay attention to what's happening. Immerse yourself totally in the experience of your now, of you being you, of Consciousness being conscious.

The tendency is unconsciously to be involved with thinking, and what's necessary is the willingness consciously to let that process go for these few minutes. This is how to relax mentally. You willingly let go of your usual worries and concerns, your habitual mental activity, and pay attention instead to the silence between thoughts. You'll find yourself more and more willing to do this when you discover what happens when you do. Consciously accessing thought-free wakefulness gives you peace of mind. It's how you experience the peace of Mind. You'll find it alluring, attractive. It's also what readies your mind for intuitive revelation. It's where you'll find answers to every perceived problem. The "empty" mind has room for something new - a new perspective. You will see things differently, understand things in a new way.

Be aware of when you are thinking, be aware that as psychosomatic tension is released, thoughts will bubble up into your conscious awareness, but especially be interested in experiencing your peace. Be aware that a thought is floating through your mind, and instead of getting involved with it, simply let it go. Let it bubble up, and let it float away. Be more interested in experiencing the feeling-tone of the arena in which all of this is happening. Orient yourself toward the feeling of peace. You can always go back to the thought later, if you wish. For now, simply notice you are thinking, and deliberately - gently - stop. Stop thinking. Relax mentally. And be aware of how you feel as you do this. Experience what thought-free consciousness feels like. Experience the "empty" mind. Experience the peace. Experience what's happening! Go into the Void. Feel the Presence of Awareness. It's not nothing.

Something is happening right where you are. Life is happening. God is happening. God is all there is of you. Immerse your awareness so thoroughly in your feeling-tone that you are not thinking about anything else, and be aware that the energy you are experiencing is not something other than you. It's not you and the energy. The vibrating energy that feels like love is what you are. That's you. You are That. You are the creative God Force Energy in specific expression. And you can feel it right there where you are and it feels good. In fact, it's lovely.

Whenever you notice that you have again forgotten about feeling the feeling and are instead thinking, again practice letting go of each specific thought in order to reaccess the thought-free state. Get back to feeling the feeling. This is like holding a balloon by a string. If you simply release the string, the balloon will float away. You don't have to do anything especially difficult. Each thought form is like a balloon on a string, and all you need do is mentally let go of it - ignore it - in order instantly to be back in the thought-free conscious experience of now.

This is not difficult, eventually, but it does require a tremendous amount of practice. The better you get at it, though, the more you'll want to do it, because this state is where inspiration comes from and where insight occurs. It's where illumination and revelation unfold. The thought-free conscious experience of now gently erupts with clarity and understanding, and thereby eradicates confusion and suffering. It's where you touch infinity and eternity and the birthless-deathless state. And it's right there, right here; it is not far off or elusive. And though you cannot make revelation happen, you can make yourself available to it. All of this will become apparent to you with your very first glimpse of stillness. This will increase your trust, willingness, and desire to pursue the silent mind and lure you deeper and deeper into the thought-free conscious experience of each new moment.

Therefore, in the same way that being relaxed in your body doesn't mean that nothing is going on -  your body doesn't cease to exist, for example - so when you practice "not thinking" or mental relaxation, don't assume in advance that nothing will be there. When you are not busy thinking, you will still be experiencing. You will still be conscious. Your mind will not become null and void or cease to exist simply because it is not busy thinking. Instead it will be more open, more available, more sensitive to the stimulation of insight and guidance. You'll feel more awake than usual, and if you were to open your eyes, the world around you would appear more luminous.

Insight will occur spontaneously when you are in the thought-free now. Clarification will take place. Resolutions to problems will float into your awareness. Wisdom will arise. This will be much more satisfying than being worried or concerned with whatever your previous worries or concerns were. Therefore, practice accessing thought-free wakefulness, and find yourself spontaneously gaining clarity about what to do in any circumstance.

Test this out. See whether it's true or not. Suspend what you usually think in this regard and see for yourself. Suspend everything you think you know about who you are and find out for yourself what's really true. Put forth the small effort required to relax physically and mentally, let go of your usual concerns and habitual thinking, and experience with clarity who and what you actually, divinely are. It's worth the small effort required.

When you experience the energy you are made of, you will feel the love that you are. You will feel deeply loved, deeply nourished, deeply safe - effortlessly. It's effortless because this is what you already are; it requires no energy to become this way. It will also no longer matter that as a child you were not loved as deeply as you needed or would have liked. The fact that you didn't get it then doesn't matter now. You're getting it now. You're being fed now. You're feeling it now. You can therefore let everyone in your past off the hook for not giving you the love you needed. And this feels good. This is forgiveness.

It will therefore be blatantly obvious that if you choose to divert your attention away from the love you are experiencing now - to your anger or regret at not having received it in the past, for example - then, in effect, you're cutting yourself off from it again. When you realize this is what you're doing, you will be in a position to choose voluntarily not to do that - and instead reimmerse yourself in the thought-free conscious experience of you in order to stay present with the truth. As a consequence, you will become more loving. This is what it's all about.

But understand! It's not you and the love you're experiencing. You are the love. That's how you will experience yourself when you let go of every other self-concept and immerse yourself in the thought-free now. You will feel the love that you are. This won't feel phony, either. You'll know it's authentic. You'll have no doubt about what you are experiencing, at least for these few minutes. And when the revelation or clear perception wears off - if it does - and you're back to "normal" consciousness, you will not be as conditioned as you were before the revelation.

This new experience will help you overcome your doubting mind. You'll now have a legitimate argument, a direct and firsthand experience, with which to counter your objections to accepting this new "theory." In other words, it's not just a theory anymore. It's becoming your experience. Therefore, you do not blindly have to accept any of this as true. You do not have to brainwash yourself into believing something you are not ready to believe. You simply have to experience yourself as you are. Be the wave relaxing into the ocean that thereby experiences the ocean within itself. Experience your real Identity. Deliberately let go of everything you think you know about who you are, suspend it all, relax into the thought-free conscious experience of now and experience what's really so with clarity. Then you'll know, one way or the other.

Each moment of clarity, no matter how fleeting, is transformational. Each glimmer of illumination lessens the darkness of your conditioning, making it less dense, solid, and convincing. Every glimpse of Truth will cause you to doubt your previous (false) convictions about the nature of Reality. You'll begin seriously to question your assumptions and conditioned beliefs about yourself and the world, and this will put you in the position of being able to experience clearly what's really so.

Mentally Listen Inwardly