AWAKENED LIVING NEWSLETTER Vol 2 11/16/20

Creating Community for Those in the Spiritual Awakening Process

Nov 16, 2020

(Scroll to End of Newsletter for info on Bonnie’s upcoming webinars)

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE

Thanksgiving Day has become a time for gatherings and remembrances of all we appreciate in our lives, even though a shadow is cast by our current understanding of the underlying suffering of Native Americans behind the first Thanksgiving. No matter its source, the ideal of feeling gratitude for the bounty of our food and the support of our families is healthy for both mind and spirit, which is why this holiday has endured over the centuries. Neurological science has shown that human minds tend to produce and retain negative memories much more consistently than positive ones, because in primitive times it was essential for survival. If we want to overcome depression and falling into negative obsessions we need to purposefully concentrate on holding a thought related to a positive experience, and acknowledge gratitude, so that it imprints and endures in our neurology. When something good happens, dwell on it for a while!

From a spiritual perspective taking time to write out what you are grateful for each day supports the opening of the heart and the sense of peace within. It helps the brain create some positive neuronal channels. I have found is also very powerful to remember our interdependence, our obvious human Oneness, by appreciating all the thousands of lives that contribute to everything we do.

I like to use Thanksgiving to acknowledge that my food, my home, all that I own is here because of a vast interactive network. The simplest thing — a glass of milk for example — requires, someone to discover it was drinkable, collect cows, create and provide food or grass for their survival, milk cows, put it in cartons, create the products used at the dairy and packaging, create the trucks needed to bring it, drive the trucks, deliver it to the market, create the roads over which it travels — virtually everything we touch depends on thousands who contribute to it. The fact of inter-dependence is right before us in every moment, even when the mind is telling us we are alone. Look around your home and imagine how many thousands of people have contributed to it. Feeling wonder at this and gratitude to them, as well as to the planet that sustains us and the very fact we get to have a life, can lead us closer to the direct experience of our True Nature.

When consciousness wakes itself up it sees the world through a unique lens, free of your disappointments and suffering acquired through life events. It can see that the world is a bit crazy because of the conflicting demands of conditioned minds, the sense of separation, and the lack of understanding of our universal connections and human interdependence. But it offers glimpses that reveal we are not separate in the way we thought we were, and it lights up with emotions like gratitude for the opportunity to have a life experience, and love for the world that has been created to sustain us. You may see the world as a dream, one more enduring than the nighttime dreams, but just as insubstantial. Yet this dream reveals tremendous creativity, the potential for great inter-connections of body, mind and spirit, and is an experience the heart is grateful to be given, the dance of a human life.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

The Way of Liberation. by Adyashanti

I am featuring a free booklet this week that is a “stripped-down, practical guide to liberation” according to the author, Adyashanti. You can download this little 53-page gem on his website www.adyashanti.org. It describes five foundations, three orienting ideas, and three core practices for anyone who is a seeker of awakening, enlightenment, realization – any of the terms that we have to come to associate with liberation from suffering and contraction in this life. For any of you who have had glimpses of ‘Truth” or moments of the expansive awareness that is part of a spiritual awakening, but feel it has slipped away, Adya offers direction that leads us to a more stable realization and expression of our True Nature. If you wish a more clear perspective of the nature of liberation this book is a good place to begin.

Sometimes when there is lots of upheaval in the kundalini process, too much energy or emotional release, and aggravation over the time it takes to cope with transformation, it helps to have a few guidelines. Adya points out that the phantom self with which we were so long identified exists only in our minds, and is both an obstacle and a doorway through which we pass on the way to a lived realization of our divinity. He offers the way through.

Adya’s website also has other free downloads of his writings and talks, and many recorded meditations and talks available to purchase. Under community and then gatherings on his website you can find a list of groups all over the world that are open to anyone, where his students meet to discuss his teachings, watch videos, and support their mutual awakening process. If you need friends who can understand what you are experiencing this is a great resource.

FEATURED YOUTUBE SELECTIONS

I-Rest Yoga, a deep relaxation and guided process based on Yoga Nidra, is a process developed by Dr. Richard Miller, a yogi/psychologist/non-dual teacher who has trained thousands of therapists and yoga teachers in this practice. His work has had a remarkable impact on the lives of veterans and other populations suffering from PTSD. I have known Richard for 30 years and highly recommend his work, which has been helpful in relieving psychological blocks for many in a kundalini process and teaching deep relaxation. Check out his videos on youtube. Here are a couple of links:

I-Rest Yoga Nidra Dr. Richard Miller Ph.D Yoga of the Heart

I-Rest Yoga Nidra 20 Minute Practice

WRITINGS FOR INSPIRATION

Finding a Living Relationship with the Life Force

Edited from Bonnie’s talk at SAND Conference 2019

I know that most of you have been challenged by the rising and intensifying of energy in your body. You may have activated this energy through yoga or meditation or breathing practices, a near-death experience or emotional trauma. A powerful encounter with someone else who is “awake” can also open up your kundalini energy, that energy of the life force that is dormant is most humans until it is time for them to wake up to the deeper truth of who they are.

Perhaps your response was enthusiastic, or perhaps it was terror. For most of us it is somewhere in between, depending on what we know about the subtle body and its role in spiritual awakening. For me it was initially ecstatic, plunging me into a drive to meditate for long hours, and a sudden shift in seeing the inherent beauty in existence. It was weird at times, often kept me up at night, and pushed me to work on any unfinished psychological issues that appeared when least expected. It reshaped my career after driving me to explore kundalini awakening in my doctoral research and co-create a research organization we called the Kundalini Research Network. Effortlessly, and before the internet, I organized conferences and moved toward supporting others in this process.

I have observed over the years that most who enter this process find themselves directed into new expressions – their talents and training do not go to waste, but new outlets are opened and often new careers.

If you want to have a positive experience with kundalini energy you need to meet it with curiosity and eventually fall in love with it. You need to work through and release fear along with any other conditioned patterns that keep you from becoming free. It helps to understand your energy’s relationship with spiritual awakening and Self-realization. When your energy wakes up it is trying to facilitate a clearing of old patterns and a profound shift in the functioning of your awareness so that you can live in peace with the world and your relationship to it. This is your true nature – a stillness within that is at peace with what is, no matter how much the mind has argued with it. Beneath all these thoughts is quiet awareing – awareness, that accepts completely the human you are without identifying with him or her.

Nisargatta, the great Indian sage, had this to say about awareness

“Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality.

Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience.”

This awareness is what wakes up in an awakening experience – you know yourself as awareness rather than the separate identities you have been living. Think of yourself for a moment as being this primordial awareness, that in your natural state this is what you are -- awareness - An awareness that is total, changeless, and silent.

But this awareness is moving through you as energy.

There is a life force that brought you into the world and your life force is known as kundalini energy, at least in India. Westerners might label it bioenergy. This energy is coiled at the base of the spine while prana or chi flow through the body, allowing movement and activity and carrying the senses.

Another way to think of yourself is as a vibrational structure made of molecules or atoms. Scientists have said that nearly every atom in our bodies is made of basic elements that exploded from the stars billions of years ago, along with a few lightweight elements thought to have formed even before the stars. These pieces of matter are atoms and the average weight body has 7 billion billion billion of these. Surprisingly these atoms are 99.999999% space.

One researcher describes it this way

If all this empty space were squeezed out of all of the people who make up the human race, their bodies would become so compact that all of them could be contained in a box the volume of a sugar cube. (Marcus Crown: Physics.org) So you are mostly space being enlivened by an energy flow and awareness that generates a consciousness of your experience.

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING IS THE REALIZATION OF THIS AND THE KNOWING THAT YOU ARE ONE WITH THIS IN ALL THINGS.

Kundalini awakening is your energy becoming amplified in such a way that your energy field and consciousness can become free of old patterns, so you can feel the spaciousness and openness of what you truly are.

The yogis say there are 72,000 lines of energy flow in our bodies, beginning with a primary flow that goes up the spine and then branches out in all directions. They describe 5 major kinds of circulating energies or pranas that handle everything from the circulation of the blood, swallowing, blinking, digestion, to elimination --most of which is involuntary -- It just happens whether we intend it or not.

So you are an awareness with lots of energy circulating continuously.

When kundalini activates, your life begins to change in ways you never imagined.

You may experience yourself as energy, or as emptiness, as if awareness is becoming the space in your cells.

You may be flooded with vibration or love or fear or old memories that come up from the unconscious. All of the emotion and the memories and decisions of your life have been held in these cells and this energy and they are being released.

As the energy releases it brings the clarity to see what is out of alignment in your life,

And it can produce involuntary movements, heat and emotional outbreaks.

The energy can also bring new experiences such as psychic openings, heightened sensitivity, sleeplessness,

And often there is a loss of drive or interest in the life and the personal self you have been identified with. This can trigger fear, and anger and feeling out of sync with the rest of the world.

Sometimes it triggers great bliss, love and joy and a sense of being in the flow of life.

This is really wonderful for awhile. Usually this is a honeymoon state, where you are meeting briefly your true nature, and then you feel you have lost it and revert back to old patterns and reactions and this is very distressing.

So, this is the path of spiritual awakening, like a hero or heroines journey, interspersed with joy and enthusiasm and challenges and struggles.

You cannot stop or control the flow of energy in your body but you can get in a cooperative relationship with it so that your conscious mind and your deepest Self work together to transform your life.

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Announcing Future Webinars with Bonnie Greenwell Ph.D

LIVING WITH KUNDALINI

We will meet every two weeks for 10 sessions, meeting 10 am to 12 pm Pacific time on Fridays from Jan. 29 until June 4. (notice date correction from previous email.)

This webinar is for people who have done an assessment with me and would like to learn more, want support as they move through the kundalini process, and would enjoy meeting other people around the world who they can share their experiences openly with. If you have been in previous webinars you are welcome to join again, and I will focus on themes of general interest to those in our group, and in building a community with you. If you have not had an assessment and would like one please check my kundaliniguide.com website for info and a contact for.

The fee for this webinar is $300, payable at $100 month for the first 3 months 3 months, or $275 if paid in full before the first meeting. It’s payable on paypal using my email kundaliniguide@gmail.com. If you are unable to pay or unemployed please contact me by email and I will make adjustments. Available to new participants and to any who have participated in the past.

Note: If you are in a role where you would like to support others, this course is a prerequisite to a training program I will offer later in the year. At this time I am planning only two webinars a year, Living with Kundalini, and a training program in the fall.

This is a 10 week in-depth program to help you understand and harmonize kundalini energy and move into the deep realization of your true nature. In this course you will experience:

A clear understanding of the kundalini as part of your process of awakening
A model for understanding the dynamics of kundalini energy

The most helpful practices for harmonizing your energy (fearlessness, breath, psychological clearing, balancing lifestyle, getting in right relationship with it)

Meditations for Awakening to your true nature

Practices for Nurturing the direct experience of Awareness, the key to awakening the Self and exercises to bring more harmony into your life

Guidance on discussing this process with others

To register please email Bonnie at kundaliniguide@gmail.com.

An initial payment to confirm registration can be made through Paypal using the same email address. Or by mail if requested.

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CONSULTING GROUP FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TRAINED WITH ME

If you have completed a training program with me, work with others in this process, and would like to join a consultation and sharing group meeting once a month, please send me an email confirming your interest.

I plan to hold this group from 10 to 12 PST the second Saturday of each month, and may add a group at 5 p.m PST on the second Sunday so that an option is available for those in Australia (Monday morning in Australia). You would be welcome to attend either or both groups. The fee will be $30/session. Please email me at kundaliniguide.com to express your interest and I will send more information in December once I have registration numbers. If you have completed my training and are now offering a web program or any other service that may be of interest to my readers please send me details and I will include this in a future newsletter. In this way we can create a resource list for experiencers. Be sure to send info on how you wish to be contacted by potential students/clients.

This newsletter is written by Bonnie Greenwell Ph.D., a transpersonal psychotherapist and non-dual teacher, author of Energies of Transformation, The Kundalini Guide, The Awakening Guide and When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening. You can contact her through her websites: www.kundaliniguide.com and www.awakeningguide.com. Her books are on Amazon and Kindle. You can see interviews with her on you-tube by putting her name in the search engine there, and read more essays on her blog shantiriver.wordpress.com.

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