Deepening Techniques, Part 2: Prayer
August 30, 2024 § 1 Comment
We have already partially segued from relaxation into prayer with the affirmations I outlined in the previous post. But I say the affirmations for myself to myself; I do not address them to a divine presence in the way that prayer is normally understood.
But I do pray in the way we normally understand it. I pray to five spirit allies. “Spirit allies” is an inadequate term, but I need a generic. The things they have in common are that they came to me, not I to them; they present themselves to me as “persons” in the sense that they offer relationship and communication; they have distinct “personalities”; and they have brought blessings into my life.
The metaphysics
I’m not going to get deep into metaphysical speculation here. And by that I mean speculation about the nature of the transcendental and about the dynamics behind presence and action in the spirit world, or heaven, if you like: What are these “spirits”? How do humans and spirits interact with each other? How do spirits bring the blessings that they bring to us?
I bring up the subject of metaphysics in order to enlarge the landscape of prayer, to make room for forms of prayer, for understandings or theologies about what’s happening in prayer, and to make room for a variety of addressees of prayer beyond the popular expectation that one prays to God, whatever we might mean by God.
I’m making a case for something like the Roman Catholic approach to prayer, in which you can pray to God and to Jesus, but also to Mary, to angels, and to the saints.
I do think of some of the spirit allies I pray as angels. They have different roles and they came to me in different ways. Some are more active in my spiritual life than others, and they all are more present at some times and less present at others.
Who they are
One is a muse, the spirit that has made my writing life and my spiritual development into one coherent spiritual journey. Another simply reminds me of the joy to be had in this life; sometimes I forget. Two are healing spirits whom I ask for help in my prayer healing work for others. And one is Jesus.
I don’t count myself a Christian, insofar as Jesus has never called me personally and directly into his discipleship. Nevertheless, I have a relationship with him and I invite the spirit of the christ into my spiritual life. I do this for three reasons: First, my deep study of the gospels makes me feel like I know him, that I know the character I see revealed in the gospels. Second, I believe Jesus Christ does exist as a “divine” presence, allowing for an expansive definition of divine; I believe this because of the testimony of so many who know him this way and whose testimony I trust and am not willing to discount or redefine out of some post-Christian sensibility. And finally, I believe Jesus Christ exists because I have had a couple of transcendental experiences in which Jesus seems to have presented himself to me, though not directly to me, but rather, indirectly as—I’m not sure what; it’s a mystery. Still, these encounters have deeply affected me.
Why pray?
Again, my goal here is to open up our understanding of prayer and its possible role in our spiritual lives, because I believe that prayer really makes a difference. Why?
First, conducting one’s spiritual life as a relationship is very different from a spiritual life devoid of personal communication with a presence. Such a relationship gets you outside of yourself. It seems to unlock personal openings and transformations that don’t arise from meditation or thinking or other purely self-centered and self-focused spiritual practice.
Furthermore, these entities, whatever they really are, can do things. I don’t know how, but they can. Or maybe I am doing them with their help. I don’t understand the metaphysics involved, though I can’t stop trying to figure that out; I have my theories. But theories don’t matter. It’s the reality of this mystery that matters.
Praying works. Not all the time, or even very often, in my experience. But sometimes, for instance, my healing prayer has actually healed somebody. And all the time, praying does something meaningful and transformative within me.
So I pray. I address these spirits, whatever they are. I invite them in. I ask them to help me and others. And I thank them.
Deepening Techniques, Part 1e: Relaxation with Focus—Chakras and Affirmations
August 17, 2024 § Leave a comment
During the second countdown, I recite to myself an affirmation as I focus on each body area. The intention of each affirmation is tied to the chakra associated with that body region.
Chakras (a Sanskrit word meaning wheel or circle) are nodes in the spirit-body’s psycho-energetic system. In the physical anatomy, each chakra is associated with a plexus of nerves that radiate out from the central nervous chord to a plex of organs and glands. In the psycho-spiritual system, each chakra is associated with an aspect of consciousness.
Buddhism, Hinduism, and western theosophical systems count different numbers of chakras and different psycho-spiritual associations for them. I subscribe to a seven chakra count and the following psycho-spiritual associations, each with an affirmation I’ve devised for myself. I share mine only as ideas to consider. Each practitioner will want to reinforce their own aspect of their spiritual life in their own way, if you decide to take up affirmations at all.
| Chakra | Body Region | Psycho-Spiritual Aspect | Affirmation |
| 7th | Above the crown of the head (represented by the coiled nob on top of the Buddha’s head) | Enlightenment | No affirmation. I project my awareness out around me, especially to anyone in the house. |
| 6th | The third eye Between the eyebrows | Openings | I open myself to the openings of the Spirit. |
| 5th | The mouth and throat | Truth, Integrity | I embrace the Word of Wisdom and Truth. |
| 4th | The chest | The emotions | I embrace the love and compassion of Jesus. |
| 3rd | The solar plexus | The ego, one’s sense of identity | I embrace my true self, free of ego-investments and habitual behavior. |
| 2nd | The lower abdomen The reproductive organs | Desire | I embrace healthy pleasure and let go of desires that try to hijack my behavior. |
| 1st | The perineum The legs and feet | Fear and direction, destiny | I let go of the fears and anxieties that try to hold me back and walk with path that has been shown to me. |
Notes on the Affirmations
Focusing on real people. With some of these affirmations, I focus on some relationship in my life, in addition to the psycho-spiritual dimension of that chakra, someone with whom this aspect of my spiritual life is especially engaged, in terms of either frequency or intensity, or both.
The Word of Wisdom is one of George Fox’s favorite expressions for Christ and may come from Paul’s treatment of the gifts of the spirit; the word of wisdom is one of his gifts. The Spirit of Truth comes from the gospel of John. For me, the Word of Wisdom and Truth is a spirit of integrity, which I pray will speak through my organs of speech.
The true self. I have a sense of several selves in the life of the Spirit. The true self (for me) is who I am when I’m not running the programs I’ve become conditioned with, or acting out of habit. My public self is how I actually behave most of the time. My higher self is me doing what’s right and not doing what’s wrong.
Walking the path. I end the series of focused affirmations by seeking to align myself with my inner Guide, to sense “where I am going” with my spiritual life and, by extension, with my outward life. I associate “walking” and “path” with the feet, naturally, but I also use this affirmation to sum up the intent of the whole exercise: trying to faithfully follow my Inward Guide as I walk outwardly through the world.
Deepening Techniques, Part 1d: Relaxation with Focus—Counting Down
August 17, 2024 § Leave a comment
Note on the series
I have created a page aggregates the posts in which I describe various techniques for centering down or deepening, shared from my own practice and experience. Here’s the link:
Deepening Techniques for Friends
When the series is finished, I will publish a pdf file for downloading on that page with all of the posts in one document.
Counting Down
I combine the deep breathing and the focused relaxation on parts of the body with two countdowns. Counting down is its own deepening exercise, one often used in hypnosis, and also in some yoga teachings. I learned it from Silva Mind Control. There’s something about the process of counting down.
Moreover, when combined with other techniques, you condition your brain to associate the countdown with the results of the more effective techniques, until the countdown itself helps bring the deepening by its conditioned association, even if you don’t combine it with other techniques.
The exercise is a combination of visualizing the number and saying it to yourself at the same time.
Counting Down: 3–2–1
With the first countdown, I visualize and say to myself the number three three times, then two two times, then one once. With each repetition of the number, I do one of the relaxations:
- 3 : forehead and eyes
- 3 : mouth and throat
- 3 : shoulders and chest
- 2 : stomach
- 2 : lower abdomen and inner thighs
- 1 : legs and feet
So now we’re doing three things at once: breathing once, counting once, relaxing an area—all at once. Takes a little practice, and it may be too much for some practitioners; it may feel overly busy and therefore distracting. Everyone finds their own way.
Counting Down: 7–6–5–4–3–2–1
After the first countdown, I do another, starting with seven
On seven, I project my awareness out into the environment around me, especially to whoever might be in the house with me.
With six, I do the same thing I did with the 3–2–1, but this time, focusing:
- with six on the face,
- with five on the mouth and throat,
- with four on the shoulders and chest,
- with three on the stomach,
- with two on the lower abdomen and inner thighs, and
- with one on the legs and feet.
Deepening Techniques, Part 1c: Relaxation with Fobus—Areas of the Body
August 13, 2024 § Leave a comment
I combine the deep breathing exercise I described in the previous Deepening Techniques post with focused relaxation on discreet areas of my body, starting at the top.
The face
Forehead : I tend to keep my forehead habitually creased, as though thinking or worried. Focus on the muscles of your forehead and let them relax, if they’re tensed.
The eyes : I tend to keep my eyelids habitually squinted or bugged—my eyelids scrunched up. Check your eyes and relax them if you’re doing the same.
The mouth
I tend to keep my lips pursed, my lower jaw in some artificially maintained position, and my tongue in some artificial placement in my mouth. Check your mouth and relax any part that’s not fully relaxed.
Review
Go back and check your forehead and eyes—they might be tensed up again.
Shoulders
Are your shoulders hunched?
Stomach
Is your stomach sucked in?
Lower abdomen
Are your inner thighs or your buttocks flexed?
Feet
Are your feet flat on the ground and relaxed?
Review
Start over and quickly run through all these areas again. You will probably find that some of them have reverted to a flexed state. I don’t dwell on them with the same attention as before in this review; I just sort of go through them in a smooth sweep of attention.
Tips
- When you have the exercise down, you can combine it with deep breaths, one deep breath for each area. This provides a good timing device for the whole exercise.
- It helps to scrunch up the part you want to relax before you relax it. This helps you learn how to narrow your focus and muscle control to that specific body part. It also helps with the relaxation.
- After just a little practice, you will find that isolating and relaxing each area gets easier and happens faster. With enough practice, it becomes second nature, almost reflexive, something you can do anywhere, anytime—a two- or three-second run-through from top to bottom for near-instantaneous relaxation.
Deepening Techniques, Part 1b: Relaxation with Focus—The Breath
August 1, 2024 § Leave a comment
First, a note about brain waves. A commenter has said that my information about brain waves is out of date, and I wouldn’t be surprised. I learned what I passed on in the early 1970s and have tried to update my knowledge since. That’s fifty years of research ago. I should have mentioned that. That doesn’t change the value of using techniques that shift our consciousness more toward the dream state, though.
The words “breath” and “spirit” are the same in Sanskrit, Greek, and Hebrew for a reason. The word “inspiration” means both being inspired and breathing in for a reason. Your breath and your spirit are intimately related.
Breath is the only autonomic function we can consciously control. Taking deep breaths slows us down. Slowing the breath relaxes us.
Deep Breaths
There’s more to taking deep breaths that you might think. We normally breath from the chest, even when we take a deep breath. But it’s better to take a deep breath from your belly. Well, technically, it’s from your diaphragm. Here’s how you do it: As you breathe in, let your belly expand. When it’s bulged out as much as is natural, then switch to the chest and finish the inspriration. Now that’s a deep breath.
Paying Attention
This is the basic element in any breathing exercise: to just pay attention. Just keeping your attention on your breath is a powerful deepening exercise. Your mind will wander off onto something else after a few breaths. When it does, you just bring it back to your breath. That simple. The more you sustain your attention in this way, the deeper you sink. But now for an added element to paying attention.
Letting Go of the Expiration
This utterly simple addition to attentive breathing is even more effective: Pay attention as you exhale and exhale naturally, without force. When all the air in your lungs has been expelled, DO NOT BREATHE IN right away. If you just wait and pay attention, your body will naturally pause between breaths for an amazingly long time. This is a letting go of breath, a letting go, letting . . . until your body naturally starts the next breath.
Allow this letting go, breath after breath, and you will go deep after deep.
Now, sometimes you might feel a little panic while doing this. Your body—and your mind—are not used to this extended pause. If you feel compelled by this little anxiety to breathe, go ahead, No problem. Return to the exercise with the next breath. You might feel the need to make this breath a deep one. Go ahead.
The more you continue letting this pause after exhalation take place, the longer the pause is likely to last, until you reach a floor. It’s at this point that I usually switch to the next part of my practice, if I haven’t already.
Deepening Techniques, Part 1a: Relaxation with Focus—The Eyes
July 31, 2024 § 1 Comment
To start
I sit in a comfortable chair that helps me keep my back as straight as possible, feet flat on the floor. I close my eyes. I take a couple of natural breaths.
The eyes
The brain devotes seventy-five percent of its activity dealing with the outer senses to vision. So just closing your eyes reduces brain activity substantially. But one more eye technique can jump-start your descent into the depths: looking upward.
I was taught that the reason that saints look up in sacred art is because looking upwards lowers brainwave activity. The artists somehow intuitively knew this. Of course, they could also have been looking up toward heaven. Same thing?
Brain waves
Let me get into this a bit. The brain produces four bands of brain waves from different parts of the brain, and these regions of the brain contribute different aspects of our consciousness. The bands of brain waves are named alpha, beta, delta, and theta. All parts of the brain are firing at once pretty much all the time, so we are always producing all of the brain wave groups, but at any one time one of these groups has the greater share of the total brain wave pie chart.
Our normal wakeful consciousness is in beta (so-called because it was the second to be discovered), between 14 and 21 cycles per second (CPS). Alpha (the first to be discovered), between 7 and 14 cps, is the brain in the dream state and in periods of deep relaxation or creativity. Theta (4–7) is deeper sleep and responsible for fight and flight. Delta (1–4) is deep sleep.
Back to the eyes. Looking upward shifts the brainwave balance toward more alpha, less beta.
“Deep up”
You can raise the upward angle of your gaze in three stages. The second stage brings you deep; the third stage is a very powerful deepening exercise.
Stage 1: Just look up, which you will easily do with focused and sustained attention.
Stage 2: Deliberately look even farther up, as far up as it seems “natural”. You will begin to feel a little strain on the muscles controlling the eyes; it’s a little bit uncomfortable.
Stage 3: Look even farther up, with the focus of your gaze up inside your skull deep behind your forehead, where the pineal gland is. This is the third eye.
Doing this feels really weird, and I can only sustain it myself for a moment or two. But that’s all it takes. You will feel a tension in your forehead and in your brain and a mental plunging sensation—I don’t know how else to describe it. When you release your gaze, you will notice a major difference in your consciousness.
Deepening Techniques, Part 1—Introduction
July 30, 2024 § 1 Comment
Download the series
I have created a page aggregates the posts in which I describe various techniques for centering down or deepening, shared from my own practice and experience. Here’s the link:
Deepening Techniques for Friends
When the series is finished, I will publish a pdf file for downloading on that page with all of the posts in one document.
Deepening techniques and spiritual formation
I think that spiritual formation is one of the more important roles that a Quaker meeting should play in the spiritual lives of those members and attenders who want it. By spiritual formation I mean, as Sandra Cronk put it in her School of the Spirit pamphlet Spiritual Nurture Ministry Among Friends, helping people
“grow in relationship with God and become more receptive to the work of the Inward Guide.” In practical terms, I see spiritual formation as efforts to help members to clarify their faith, to identify and mature their spiritual practice, and to integrate both their faith and practice into the Quaker way.
Our meetings don’t do a good enough job of spiritual formation. We don’t usually mentor newcomers. We don’t usually provide programs that expose our members to the various spiritual disciplines that might serve their formation, let alone teach these disciplines. We leave this process of self-discovery and maturation to osmosis, to chance, and to personal initiative.
And when we do focus on spiritual formation, we very rarely pass on techniques for deepening consciousness. The Christian tradition is in general very weak in its understanding of consciousness and the role it could play in spiritual development; Quakerism is only marginally better.
So I want to try to fill this deepening technique gap a little bit. I have a lot of experience with meditation in several disciplines, and I have a settled devotional practice that really works well for me. I want to share it here in a series of posts.
Much of what I will be passing on comes from yoga, which offers a several-thousand-year-old science of consciousness. Most of the rest comes from my time as a teacher of Silva Mind Control, which has a sinister sounding name but is a quite effective self-help and psychic healing toolbox with a quasi-scientific approach centered around brain wave science. Mind Control teaches some deepening techniques and their theory.
These techniques are just what I’ve come to for myself and they won’t work for everyone. We each have our own spiritual temperaments and the whole point of a Quaker spiritual formation program is not to inculcate but to invite, not to indoctrinate but to share, to explore together options that we might find fosters and deepens our spiritual and religious experience.
I feel this is especially important for the quality of our worship. I believe that deepening one’s consciousness is one of the most important things we can do as Friends to foster Spirit-led vocal ministry and the gathered meeting. The more people who have entered a deeper consciousness, the more likely the meeting is to be gathered, and techniques make a difference.
A personal outline of practice
So let me start in this post with just an outline of the routine I use when I meditate, which I’ll unpack in some detail in subsequent posts. My practice progresses through three phases or clusters of technique:
- relaxation with focus,
- starting with the eyes looking up,
- then breathing deeply,
- then focusing and consciously relaxing discreet sections of your body, working from the face down to the toes in concert with your breath; then
- prayer, broadly defined,
- affirmations in concert with with breathing and relaxation,
- inviting in the Presence, however, you define that, and
- projecting out your “mind forms” of healing and blessing; and finally
- meditation proper, that is, sustained inward attention on something that serves your deepening.
In the next post, I will start with the eyes.
Through the Flaming Sword 