Essay Edition
Practice and Consistency
There are all these things that we can do to develop ourselves. We can start eating healthier. We can start exercising. We can start meditating. We can start doing mathematics every day. We can start reading every day. We can start journaling. It goes on and on.
The goal is to integrate these things naturally so they become like eating. It is just a part of your life. When we build that, it is hard to stop doing it. You gain a sort of momentum in that direction.
Routine and consistency are very important in the practice because, in order to become a profound state of mind, powerful, loving, and energetically awakened in all the various ways, you have to live in a momentum. You have to curate the momentum of your life.
Get yourself moving to the point where you meditate an hour every day. It is easy because you do it. It is not a hard thing. Or you read every day for twenty minutes. It is easy. It is not a hard thing. Usually, we have to build those things up, and you have to want to do it. Sometimes it is not the right time. Maybe you are doing something else that is important.
When you meditate, you generate a richness, an inner sufficiency. A great artist is somebody who has the technical ability, and they have something to say with that technical ability. Meditation helps us to deepen in that way. In your work as an artist, you are sharing from that silent reservoir of self within.
Anatomy of the Astral Body
The astral body is very important in this practice, and in a way, this is really the heart of the practice. What are we doing in meditation? We are essentially generating energy and shifting the energetic formations of our body, our being. The body is not just a physical thing. It is also an astral thing, an energetic mechanism. Our faculties are physical, astral, and causal. There are different layers of self.
In this practice, it is absolutely essential to clear, purify, empower, and maintain activation in the astral body in a certain way. Most people are not aware of the astral body at all. Western society, and global society, is not very aware of it. In fact, I think some people would call it myth or magic, but it is very much a part of our biological system.
For each of us as individual practitioners, it is important to become aware of the astral body both exoterically and esoterically. Exoterically means you should know where the spots are, and then you should also begin to feel the spots, cultivate them, and work with them.
This is very much a lifelong practice. Once you awaken this, it is like you learn to walk. You do not stop walking. You learn to talk. You do not stop talking. You are taking on a new consideration that a lot of the world will not understand. If people are not feeling and in touch with their astral body, it does not compute. It does not make sense in the experiential paradigm they are living in.
Part of mindfulness is maintaining activation in the chakras. When I do something, I am not simply doing it carefully with mindfulness, giving my full attention to something mundane. I am also considering: Is my heart open? Am I keeping my heart open? Is it constantly expanding and purifying and maintaining the right energetic flow? That is a part of mindfulness.
We have to bring a lot of attention to these things until they become more habitual. Then you have to protect them and maintain them, and even increase them.
The astral body is comprised of chakras. We have seven chakras. The root chakra is right underneath your pelvis, at the perineum. The second chakra is right where the genitals are. The third chakra, the navel center, is one inch below the belly button. It is called Manipura. The heart center is right in the center of the chest, Anahata. The throat center is at the base of the neck. Then there is the third eye, and there is the crown chakra right on top of the head.
These are bioelectromagnetic vortices. They are aspects of our biological faculty. They do something. They are organs, bioelectromagnetic organs, essentially. They have meaning, but not just superstitiously. They have actual faculty meaning, like your kidneys do something and your liver does something. Your navel center generates willpower. If you find yourself in a moment of decision and you push into something new, or when you overcome an obstacle, you may feel your navel center. You can feel that something happens and it kicks in.
There are other centers called granthis. Granthi means knot in Sanskrit. There is a granthi behind the back of your head called the Shiva Granthi. There is one behind the heart called the Vishnu Granthi. The one at the back of the head is in the base of the skull area, in the center back. Then there is one in that tender spot in the lower back where sometimes you might get back pain. It is a tender spot because there is a nerve center there. It is called the Brahma Granthi.
These three parts are a different energetic order. They are a little more physical. Think of them more as nerve centers and the associated electricity and magnetism, whereas the chakras are more etheric.
Then we have the Sushumna, which is like the spine of the chakras. It is like an astral tube or channel that moves through all of the chakras, and that needs to be cleared too. You have to meditate on the whole channel.
We also have some secondary spots that are very important. The solar plexus is sometimes considered the third chakra in diagrams, but it is not really. This is not the willpower. This is a vortex of cleansing, and you can actually move energy out of it. There is a spot there right at the bottom of where the ribs start. There is another spot about three inches below that, another stomach spot, which is also very important.
There are a lot of spots. These are the big ones, but if you have ever had acupuncture, you will know that anywhere you can put a needle is a little bit of a chakra.
There is also the center of the brain. One of my teachers calls it a brain crystal because apparently there is an actual crystal in the brain. It is right in the center of the head. You can feel it. There is a little chakra, a very significant chakra right there, that has to do with the frequency of your body. Crystals have frequency, like a quartz watch has a frequency. That keeps the frequency of your body.
There is also one not where the crown is, but a little bit back, where a baby has a soft part of the skull. That is a chakra too. There is also the tailbone chakra at the very base of the spine. Sometimes people say that is the root chakra, but I feel it is the perineum area, actually.
There are other important chakras, like those in the palms of the hands and in the center of each fingertip. The tender spot between the thumb and the pointer finger is like a release valve. Another important one is on the inside of the ankle, on that soft spot underneath the ankle. In Chinese medicine, they call it the kidney point. If you meditate on it, you get this nice channel all the way down your leg.
You also have the spine itself. It goes through the granthis in the back. It is not the Sushumna, but it goes down the back. All of these are different aspects of our astral body.
We also have different qualities of energy. We have kundalini. Kundalini is a very etheric substance. Like blood or any of the fluids in the body, it is an energetic analog of those. It runs throughout the body and moves through tubes called nadis.
The Sushumna is like the big nadi. It is the biggest one. But the Sushumna also has two nadis that spiral around it and come out through the nostrils, called the Ida and Pingala. There are also little nadis everywhere. In your body, you have veins everywhere, big arteries and little veins. Kundalini flows throughout the body in a very etheric way.
Then we have a substance that feels very different. It is called amrita. Amrita means nectar, and you can especially feel it in the spine. It feels very thick. It has this very viscous energy. When you move it, it moves slowly. The kundalini can move very fast, but the amrita moves very slowly.
Beyond that, we have the aura, and the aura has nodes in it. Think of it mathematically, like there is a field with vortices or nodes where there are significant points. You can focus on these as well and bring your attention to them.
The aura itself expands very widely, and it has this toroidal structure. A toroid is a donut. A toroid, or something toroidal, is the thing you see in mathematical diagrams that looks like a donut shape. It is like a circle going in a circle.
If you get into a deep meditative state, you can actually see people’s toroids. Seeing auras is very much a part of this practice. I would hope that all of us begin to see auras in some way because, when you are seeing an aura, what is really happening is that you are attuned to the subtle energy currents that are present.
When two auras overlap, they influence each other, just like two electric fields, magnetic fields, or electromagnetic fields influence each other. That influence can be registered as the perception of an aura. When somebody walks by me and I am meditating, I can feel, see, and hear their aura. It sounds like a little lightsaber. It moves through your brain, and when it moves through your brain, you can see it. But you do not see it with the eyes, despite the fact that it is a visual phenomenon.
If you go into light and open your field, you can see everybody walking with a cone on top of their heads. It is like a white cone. Everybody is wearing a hat, and it is the top part of the donut. It reaches out really far. If you see somebody’s aura, it is like a twelve foot thing. It goes out the top of the head and very far.
All of that is the energy body. Each of these things can be felt.
Aura Perception and Energetic Development
Some people notice differences in auras. They generally look the same to me. That just might be the degree to which I have sensitized myself to that aspect of the astral. My teacher says that, when he looks at somebody, he sees their chakras activating in different degrees and different ways. I can see, maybe feel, and intuit it. There are different degrees of development.
It would be fun to be able to see all of that, and I think it would be a sign of heightened sensitivity, but at the same time, it also might not be necessary. What I concern myself with personally is keeping the energy active, flowing, and clear because it feels good. It feels right when my energy is clear.
People’s auras do change. When somebody’s heart is really open, you can feel that. Human beings are so intuitive. We all feel everything, I feel. It seems to be that everybody is aware of everything. The difference is that a lot of people cannot pick it out of the noise. Their minds are too noisy, so they cannot tell. A lot of people doubt themselves.
We are taught to doubt ourselves because everybody is wearing a little bit of a mask. When you confront somebody directly about what is clearly going on, it is a social faux pas. You are not supposed to do that.
In Sangha, in spiritual circles where people love each other and love themselves, you should confront people. You should say that you see what is happening. You should speak it into existence.
There is this tendency for people to metaphorically wear a shirt that says a word, and then everybody is not allowed to say anything about it. This is very much how people work. If you confront a lot of people, they will deny it. They will say that is not what they think. They might even be denying it to themselves.
We feel everything that is going on. It is good to be beautiful and completely transparent. If you are not so beautiful yet, be transparent and love yourself in the process of becoming more beautiful. We are all becoming more beautiful, if we are on the path.
Become more honorable. Become more honest. Become more loving. Become more integral. In the meantime, know that people sense what you are and who you are.
Before I start speaking, I try to get into a state and become beautiful inside. Then I speak from that because I cannot just speak from pretense and pretending. Everybody will know, even if it is not overt. We all know how people are.
We can feel the aura. We can perhaps see the aura. There are all kinds of astral things that you can see. There is a whole occult practice of magic where you can see beings, creatures, beams of light, and all different aspects. There are all kinds of magic that you can get into. It can be useful on the path.
What I am specifically talking about is how to purify and clear your aura so you can make progress along the path to enlightenment. That includes feeling peace, love, intelligence, and all the beautiful faculties of a futuristic human being. They come from energy work.
What makes people change? We change because of our routines. We change because our energetic flows change. Routine leads to different energy flows. If you meditate on your energy, you will be a different flowing energy.
This is a very futuristic consideration. I think of some futuristic society where people are really concerned with the Sushumna. Your son is not doing so well. His Sushumna is a little blocked up. They do not say that in middle school. They say to just pass the test. Most of society is not aware of these subtleties. These are subtleties, but they are also foundational.
How do you become smarter? Activate your third eye. Slow down. Stop. Put the book down. Put the test down. Work on your third eye for a little bit. When your third eye is very active, your energy flow is such that you can think and see more deeply.
Some people wonder how Einstein did what he did, or how Tesla did what he did. They had energy flows that were really beautifully refined.
This whole practice centers on that. Routine fixes your energy flow. Mindfulness maintains and cultivates energy flow. Good karma determines your energy flow. If you are going to yell at somebody in a selfish way, your heart chakra shifts its energetic structure slightly, and you have to go and meditate that off.
You start to become aware of all the different karmic repercussions of all your actions. Then you have to do all this work in energetic practice to remedy anything you did wrong. When I say wrong, I mean anything that interfered with the energy flow that is beneficial, pleasurable, enjoyable, productive, and effective.
Chakra Functions and Energy Flow
The root chakra is right underneath the body, in the perineum. There is a giant tube that goes right up into the sky and right down to the center of the Earth. That is also part of our astral body. You have a whole bunch of chakras higher up, above your head. I would usually call them nodes.
Underneath your body, you have a tube that goes to the center of the Earth. You can reach down and reach up, and all these currents will go back and forth. A bidirectional current will happen through your being. It will run through you like a river running over the little pebbles of your astral vortices.
The root chakra is pure power. Beginners are not really supposed to meditate on it because it can open up unpleasant things. It is like rocket fuel. Beginners do not play with rocket fuel. Rocket engineers play with rocket fuel. It needs to channel correctly.
A good way to access your pure power is through your navel center. It brings up the power naturally, and it channels it through the nozzle of the rocket, so to speak.
The second chakra is right on the genitals. There is something to do with pleasure there, but it also has to do with creativity, family, and safety. Creativity is definitely a big one there. You do not necessarily need to meditate on that one. It is generally recommended that you do not meditate on the lower two chakras. If you do, just do a little bit.
The navel center, however, is very important. That is your willpower.
The heart center’s law is compassion, intuition, and knowledge. It is the knowledge you gain by becoming the other. I know you because I am you. I am you because my heart expanded to encompass both of us. That is the faculty of energetic knowledge.
The throat chakra is your voice. It is supposed to have to do with beauty as well. When you hear somebody whose voice does not project, they could probably meditate on their throat chakra. There is something there about speaking.
What matters most is that we have our own direct encounter with these so they become a self-evident truth, just like in mathematics. We want to know them for ourselves. I focus primarily on the heart, the navel, the third eye, and the crown. Those are the ones I personally focus on most. But one of my teachers is all into the throat and the second chakra. Those are her favorites, and we are very different.
The third eye is mindfulness, stillness, understanding, and perception. Notice I said understanding, not knowledge, which is more of a heart faculty to me.
The crown is self-transcendence. When you meditate on the crown, you feel one. It is the divine, rising above yourself. The spot on the back of the head, the Shiva Granthi, is related to the third eye and the crown.
The spot in the back of the heart is a wonderful place where you want a back rub if you are having a bad day. Somebody who loves you gives you a back rub there. That is a wonderful spot to meditate on for your heart. If you ever feel anxiety or anything, meditate on the heart, on Anahata, and on the Vishnu Granthi behind it.
The lower back Brahma Granthi is a very good thing to meditate on as well. It relates to the three lower chakras and has to do with power.
You can meditate on your Sushumna. Move the energy up and down. There is something called the microcosmic orbit, which goes around through the Sushumna, connects to the spine, and then goes around through the head. It makes a little circle.
When you meditate, use the light to soften and fluidify the density in the astral body, in the auric field. Use the light and use your will. Use your navel to will it.
Use the light to heat it up. You do not just take iron and hammer it. You heat iron up, and then you hammer it. The light is the heat.
Get into the light. Bring the light. Fill your whole body with light, move your energy, clear your heart, and make these considerations in your life.
When I do Tai Chi, I am moving all my chakras. When I walk, I am moving my chakras. It is also cardiovascular exercise. When I do math, it is good for me to pay attention to my chakras. When I meditate, I meditate on my chakras. I also do that when I am sleeping a little bit.
Chakras, chakras, chakras, because that is a powerful astral body. A powerful energetic body makes us happy. It makes our lives feel beautiful subjectively. This is the center of the practice.
Guided Energetic Practice
One way to try to feel your qi, your kundalini, is to put your hands together and try to get the charge going. Feel the charge. When you do this, it is concentration.
You can actually feel it. It is like moving a balloon, squishing a balloon. The air wants to compress. The energy wants to compress. When you move out, there is a sort of suction. It pulls the energy in a different way. This is one of the easiest ways to feel the qi.
Now put your hands down. You can still feel the qi in your hands and fingertips. Activate your hands with your will. Move the energy there, activate the energy, and feel the charge there. Feel the hands and generate the charge. It is a muscle. It is a muscle of your will, of your energy.
Let the energy build. Let yourself become aware of the energetic side.
You can use your hands to activate your chakras. You can pull on your own heartstrings. Usually, I hook with my middle finger. You can feel it in the chest. If you want, you can always scratch, tap, or simply put your finger on your chest.
All of this work is benefited by the light. But opening the chakras opens the doors to the divine. They are doorways. Paradoxically, they help us get into the light.
Once you have activated them with your hand, you can stop. Feel the spot and use your internal will.
Meditate on the heart center for a bit. Explore the dimensions of your own energetic heart. You are learning to work with it, to awaken it, and to feel it.
Move to the navel center. Find a way to feel the spot energetically. You can channel energy through the various nadis that lead there. Move the energy down to the spot around the belly button area. You can move it forward from the back, or you can feel the node in front of it.
Once you feel this spot, work with it. When you really connect with these chakras, you will feel a state of mind shift. When you feel the navel center, you begin to feel disciplined. The navel center gives us command of the whole energetic structure. It is important to activate.
Now move to the root chakra, just a little bit. If you were sitting on the ground, right underneath your body is a center. There is a pelvic floor. You can flex it. That is the spot where it is flexed. You can feel the qi there. It is the very base, pure power. It is good not to neglect any. We just want to make sure we can feel them all.
Move to the throat chakra. Sometimes with a chakra, you are starting from the inside of the body and pushing forward. Sometimes we move up and down. You are pinpointing that energetic vortex.
Learn to use your intuitive apprehension of what these chakras mean. Become your own authority on the qualities that relate to them. Develop a subjective description.
Move to the third eye. Use the light if you feel you have access to it.
Meditate on the brain crystal in the center of the brain. You can feel your qi right in the center there. Take a moment and pinpoint that location. Notice the different quality when we shift our spatial focus to the proximity of a different center.
Move to the Shiva Granthi, farther back. We went from the third eye to the brain crystal, to the Shiva Granthi, right underneath the divot at the back of the skull.
The baby’s soft spot is a little bit behind the crown. Try that one. This one has a nice feeling. Then move to the crown chakra, right on top of the head, the center of self-transcendence.
Move to the Vishnu Granthi behind the heart. This one is very comforting. It is a love tap from your own self.
Now play with the amrita. Start at the Vishnu Granthi and push the nectar energy down to the Brahma Granthi in the lower back. Feel the whole connection between the two, slowly moving the nectar down until you arrive at the sensitive spot in the lower back. Meditate there for a minute. You will feel the power in this one from a different perspective.
Return to the center of the back, the Vishnu Granthi. Feel the love, comfort, safety, and warmth.
It is a cosmic massage from God. It is the universe massaging us, renewing us. Meditation is not just sitting there. We are renewing our energy body until we become absorbed in our essence.
When we work on this energy, it is very pleasurable. It is possible to sit for an hour or two hours doing this, and then walk away revived, powerful, clear, and gentle. People will notice. You will notice most of all.
Pamper your energy. I like to say that. It is like pampering your energy.
Pranayama and Consciousness
Pranayama is a breathing technique, and it generates a charge. There is prana in the environment. It is an ambient environmental energy. When you breathe in different ways, with different nostrils, you generate a charge.
Sometimes, to get your charge up so that you can do a good chakra meditation, you can do pranayama. I was not taught that way, and I never practiced it. Sometimes you can just focus into the light. That is actually quite an advanced access point. If you cannot capture it and get the light, you can always do the pranayama breathing.
Consciousness descends into the chakras. The Sushumna goes into the base of the spine and gets coiled tightly in the root. Most people’s roots are so tightly coiled that they never have the kundalini rise. Once we get our kundalini rising, then we have reached back up.
There is the soul and the spirit. Depending on which word you want to use for which thing, I like to think of the spirit as the thing, the astral body, that goes into the physical body and animates it.
We animate the physical body with life, with the spirit. There is a mechanism there, and I do not like to talk unless I feel like I have direct experience of it. I do not know that much about that.
I know a little bit more about the soul, though. The soul is like the watcher. It is that to whom this is occurring, the Atman. When we become absorbed, we become absorbed in the unknown. We become absorbed in the substance of what we are.
That can watch the whole dynamic of energy and matter, of spirit and matter, which is happening. It is a physical thing. When does a fetus gain the spirit? How does all of that happen? The soul can watch, and I feel like I have more experience with that.
I am not even sure how people have experience with incarnating because they are doing it between lifetimes. They might know just because they are so aware of the structure and how the soul has bound itself to the body.
Another thing is that the heart is the center. While it recoils into the root, there is a sense that the heart is more where the soul connects. That is the center of your being.
You can feel that there is a recoil. There is something that happens in the root that binds us.
When you are fully enlightened, when somebody experiences moksha, they tend to become aware of exactly how all of this works. I am not fully enlightened yet. I would like to be. I am working toward it.
Full Transcript
Practice and Consistency
Adam Wes Namaste, everybody. Welcome. We're missing a couple of people. Andrea, did you text David? It's time to... Namaste, everybody. Welcome. Harrison, can you join us, or turn off your camera if you're not ready? How was your week, everybody? Praveen, how has your study and practice been going? Honestly.
Praveen S Good to be here. Wow. I'm struggling, but I think with the support of the community, I may be able to practice on a regular basis. I have heard your sermons again, Adam, and there was something left from the past. I had joined a few of the Julia set courses, so I was just going through that again.
Adam Wes Wonderful.
Praveen S I've made my notes now. I'm waiting for the next one.
Adam Wes Yeah, we'll be starting that very soon, probably in a couple of weeks. Wonderful. Thank you. Good. How about you, Andrea? Namaste.
Andrea P Good. I have been trying to practice mindfulness in my workouts and running. It helps. I'm training to go by a really big hill, like a high mountain, so I think that will help.
Adam Wes Today will help with the mindfulness practice. I'll discuss mindfulness in context in a little bit, but wonderful. I'm glad you're doing that. That's the theme of the month. How is your reading going?
Andrea P I haven't been reading as much as I wanted to. Well, I have been reading a lot because I'm in too many things, but I haven't been reading what I'm supposed to.
Adam Wes Okay. Well, Krishnamurti will be ready for you when you are.
Andrea P Yeah. Hopefully I will catch up.
Adam Wes How about you, Harrison?
Harrison M Very well, thank you, Adam. I suppose I've been quite busy, but I've been meditating every day. I haven't missed a day, and I intend not to for the rest of my life. It's completely part of my routine now, and I put it on the same level as eating, if not more important, honestly. It's fully changed my life. I don't even know where to start, so thank you, sincerely, from the deepest depths of my heart. I know it's going to help me change other people's lives too, so thank you. I appreciate it.
Adam Wes You're welcome. Your willingness to embrace that, and all the work you've done through your life to be able to be consistent, allow you to drop in in such a way that it feels rejuvenative, healing, wonderful, ecstatic, and all the things that make you able to come back to it over and over again. Wonderful.
And yes, in your work as an artist, you're sharing from that silent reservoir of self within. When you meditate, you generate a richness, an inner sufficiency. You have something to say. A great artist is somebody who has the technical ability, and they have something to say with that technical ability. Meditation helps us to deepen in that way. So, thank you. What a beautiful thing to hear today. It's one of the most wonderful things I could hear from anybody.
How about you, Colleen? Mom?
Colleen When you have wonderful students... I have to say, I didn't do my homework.
Adam Wes You're a wonderful student. She's always on time.
Colleen I'll try and do better.
Adam Wes You're contemplating everything. One of the things that happens with us is that, when we're ready, we're able to build our life in that way. So I'm just pointing, "Hey, when you're ready, you can go that direction."
Colleen I'm looking forward to, I believe, somewhere in April, when I can start that process with the 15 minutes a day.
Adam Wes Wonderful. That'll be amazing. I need to start announcing that soon. I'll probably start March 1st.
There are all these things that we can do to develop ourselves. We can start eating healthier. We can start exercising. We can start meditating. We can start doing mathematics every day. We can start reading every day. We can start journaling. It goes on and on.
The goal is to integrate these things naturally so they become like eating, like Harrison says. It's just a part of your life. When we build that, it's hard to stop doing it. You gain a sort of momentum in that direction.
All right, let's see. I might change the sermon now. I was going to talk about... Well, let's not do that. I'll stick to the sermon I was going to do. But a future sermon is routine and consistency. That's actually a very important topic in the practice because, in order to become a profound state of mind, powerful, loving, and energetically awakened in all the various ways, you have to live in a momentum. You have to curate the momentum of your life.
Get yourself moving to the point where, "Hey, I meditate an hour every day. It's easy because I do it. It's not a hard thing." Or, "I read every day for 20 minutes. It's easy. It's not a hard thing." Usually, we have to build those things up, and you have to want to do it. Sometimes it's not the right time. Maybe you're doing something else that's important.
All right. So today we are talking about the astral body.
Colleen I was just going to say, I have been reading every day.
Adam Wes Oh, wonderful!
Colleen But not your kind of books. Different books.
Adam Wes Well, the whole point of reading is to read scripture.
Colleen Okay, well, I'm not doing that. Sorry.
Adam Wes Focusing on enlightenment. It's satsanga through reading.
Colleen Okay.
Adam Wes But reading is good. I'm glad you're reading. Regular reading is another wonderful thing.
Colleen That's another topic. Okay.
Adam Wes That's wonderful. But the reading I'm talking about is satsanga reading.
Anatomy of the Astral Body
Today we'll be doing the astral body. The astral body is very important in this practice, and in a way, this is really the heart of the practice. Harrison, you're going to love this. All of you are going to love it, but I think Harrison is going to especially love this.
What are we doing in meditation? Well, we're essentially generating energy and shifting the energetic formations of our body, our being. The body is not just a physical thing. It's also an astral thing, an energetic mechanism. Our faculties are physical, astral, and causal. There are different layers of self.
In this practice, it's absolutely essential to clear, purify, empower, and maintain activation in the astral body in a certain way. Most people aren't aware of the astral body at all. Western society, and global society, isn't very aware of it. In fact, I think some people would call it myth or magic, but it's very much a part of our biological system.
For the Sangha, and for each of you as individual practitioners, it's important to become aware of the astral body both exoterically and esoterically. Exoterically means you should know where the spots are, and then you should also begin to feel the spots, cultivate them, and work with them.
Harrison, this is very much a lifelong practice. Once you awaken this, it's like you learn to walk. You don't stop walking. You learn to talk. You don't stop talking. It's actually kind of a big deal because you're taking on a new consideration that a lot of the world won't understand. They'll be like, "Why did you just do that?" They won't understand.
I'll do certain things, and people don't even know why I'm doing them. They can't imagine because, if they're not feeling and in touch with their astral body, it just doesn't compute. It doesn't make sense in the experiential paradigm they're living in. I think some of you have experienced the astral body so far. Perhaps all of us have, but we'll go into it in a little more detail.
Part of mindfulness, Andrea, is maintaining activation in the chakras. When I do something, I'm not simply doing it carefully with mindfulness, giving my full attention to something mundane. I'm also considering, "Is my heart open? Am I keeping my heart open? Is it constantly expanding and purifying and maintaining the right energetic flow?" That's a part of mindfulness.
We have to bring a lot of attention to these things until they become more habitual. Then you have to protect them and maintain them, and even increase them.
The astral body is comprised of chakras. There's a lot here. This is really great. We've got seven chakras.
The root chakra is right underneath your pelvis, between your parts. It's at the perineum. You can look up that word, and somebody will probably have a diagram on the internet. It's just underneath your sit bones.
Your second chakra is right where the genitals are. The third chakra, the navel center, is one inch below the belly button. It's called Manipura. The heart center is right in the center of the chest, Anahata. The throat center is at the base of the neck, in the groove right there. Sometimes I feel like it's a little bit underneath the Adam's apple. I think both of them are spots, but let's just say it's at the base of the neck. Then there's the third eye, and there's the crown chakra right on top of the head.
Those are the seven chakras. These are bioelectromagnetic vortices. They're aspects of our biological faculty. They do something. They're organs. They're bioelectromagnetic organs, essentially.
They have meaning, but not just superstitiously. They have actual faculty meaning, like your kidneys do something and your liver does something. Your navel center generates willpower. If you find yourself in a moment of decision and you push into something new, or when you overcome an obstacle, you may feel your navel center. You can feel that something happens and it kicks in.
I'll go through all of them in detail and explain what they are. There are other centers, though. They're granthis. Granthi means "knot" in Sanskrit, like tying a knot.
There's a granthi behind the back of your head called the Shiva Granthi. There's one behind the heart called the Vishnu Granthi. It's right behind the heart chakra. The one at the back of the head is in the base of the skull area, kind of in the center back. Then there's one in that tender spot in the lower back where sometimes you might get back pain. It's a tender spot because there's a nerve center there. It's called the Brahma Granthi.
These three parts are a different energetic order. They're a little more physical. Think of them more as nerve centers and the associated electricity and magnetism, whereas the chakras are more etheric.
Then we have the Sushumna, which is like the spine of the chakras. It's like an astral tube or channel that moves through all of the chakras, and that needs to be cleared too. You have to meditate on the whole channel.
We also have some secondary spots that are very important. The solar plexus is sometimes considered the third chakra in diagrams, but it's not really. This is not the willpower. This is a vortex of cleansing, and you can actually move energy out of it. There's a spot there right at the bottom of where the ribs start.
There are a lot of spots, by the way. These are the big ones, but if you've ever had acupuncture, you'll know that anywhere you can put a needle is a little bit of a chakra. There's another spot about three inches below that spot, which is also, I guess, another stomach spot. That's very important.
There's also the center of the brain. One of my teachers always calls it a brain crystal because apparently there's an actual crystal in the brain. I guess two of my teachers call it this. It's right in the center of the head. You can feel it. There's a little chakra, a very significant chakra right there, that has to do with the frequency of your body.
Crystals have frequency, like a quartz watch has a frequency. That keeps the frequency of your body.
There's also one not where the crown is, but a little bit back, where a baby has a soft part of the skull. That's a chakra too. All of these chakras are important.
There's also the tailbone chakra at the very base of the spine. Sometimes people say that's the root chakra, but I feel it's the perineum area, actually.
There are other important chakras, like those in the palms of the hands and in the center of each fingertip.
Kira This spot right here?
Adam Wes Between the thumb and the pointer finger, at that tender spot. That's like a release valve.
Kira For energy?
Adam Wes Namaste, Kira. Let's see, what else do we have? I think another important one is on the inside of the ankle, on that soft spot underneath the ankle. That's an important chakra type. In Chinese medicine, they call it the kidney point. I would think of that one because, if you meditate on it, you get this nice channel all the way down your leg.
You also have the spine itself. It kind of goes through the granthis in the back. It's not the Sushumna, but it goes down the back.
All of these are different aspects of our astral body. Kira, the sermon today is on the astral body.
We also have different qualities of energy. We've got kundalini. Kundalini is a very etheric substance. Like blood or any of the fluids in the body, it's an energetic analog of those. It runs throughout the body and moves through tubes called nadis.
The Sushumna is like the big nadi. It's the biggest one. But the Sushumna also has two nadis that spiral around it and come out through the nostrils, called the Ida and Pingala. There are also little nadis everywhere. Just like in your body, you've got veins everywhere, and you've got big arteries and little veins. Kundalini flows throughout the body in a very etheric way.
Then we've got a substance that feels very different. It's called amrita. Amrita means nectar, and you can especially feel it in the spine. It feels very thick. It's got this very viscous energy. When you move it, it moves slowly. The kundalini can move very fast, but the amrita moves very slowly.
Beyond that, we have the aura, and the aura has nodes in it. See what I just did with my finger here? There's a spot here. Think of it mathematically, like there's a field with vortices or nodes where there are significant points. You can focus on these as well and bring your attention to them.
The aura itself expands very widely, and it has this toroidal structure. We should probably talk about that. If you get into a deep meditative state, you can actually see people's toroids. I know it sounds crazy, but seeing auras is very much a part of this practice. I would hope that all of us begin to see auras in some way because, when you're seeing an aura, what's really happening is that you're attuned to the subtle energy currents that are present.
When two auras overlap, they influence each other, just like two electric fields, magnetic fields, or electromagnetic fields influence each other. That influence can be registered as the perception of an aura.
When somebody walks by me and I'm meditating, I can feel, see, and hear their aura. It sounds like a little lightsaber. It kind of moves through your brain, and when it moves through your brain, you can see it. But you don't see it with the eyes, despite the fact that it's a visual phenomenon.
If you go into light and open your field, you can see everybody walking with a cone on top of their heads. It's like a white cone. It's kind of funny. It's like, "Hey, you guys are wearing hats." But the cone is like this, not like this. Everybody's wearing a hat, and it's the top part of the donut. The donut goes like this.
A toroid is a donut, by the way, for those who don't know the math term. A toroid, or something toroidal, is the thing you see in mathematical diagrams that looks like a donut shape. It's like a circle going in a circle.
It's quite easy for me, at least, to see the top part of it. I don't see the bottom as much, for some reason. It reaches out really far. If you see somebody's aura, it is kind of like a 12-foot thing. It goes out the top of the head and very far.
All of that's the energy body. Each of these things can be felt.
Aura Perception and Energetic Development
Andrea P Sorry, I have a question.
Adam Wes Sure.
Andrea P How are they different? When you see them, do people have bigger auras or different colors? What do you see?
Adam Wes I think some people notice differences in auras. They generally look the same to me. That just might be the degree to which I've sensitized myself to that aspect of the astral.
I think you probably can see more. My teacher says that, when he looks at somebody, he sees their chakras activating in different degrees and different ways. I don't particularly look at somebody and think, "Oh yeah, your heart." I can see, maybe feel, and intuit it. There are different degrees of development.
It would be fun to be able to see all of that, and I think it would be a sign of heightened sensitivity, but at the same time, it also might not be necessary. What I concern myself with personally is keeping the energy active, flowing, and clear because it feels good. It feels right when my energy is clear.
But good question. I love your question. Perhaps I'll be able to teach more about that at some point. To me, they're all quite similar. I'm not sure exactly how other people see them.
Andrea P I'm sorry, but I ask because I'm guessing that if someone is working, meditating, and working on their energy, it must change.
Adam Wes Yes, people's auras do change. When somebody's heart is really open, you can feel that.
Human beings are so intuitive. We all feel everything, I feel. It seems to be that everybody is aware of everything. The difference is that a lot of people can't pick it out of the noise. Their minds are too noisy, so they can't tell. A lot of people doubt themselves.
We're taught to doubt ourselves because everybody's wearing a little bit of a mask. When you confront somebody directly about what's clearly going on, it's a social faux pas. You're not supposed to do that. David's laughing. You're not supposed to do that.
In Sangha, in spiritual circles where people love each other and love themselves, you should confront people. You should say, "Oh, I see what's happening." You should speak it into existence and say, "I see what's happening."
There's this tendency for people to metaphorically wear a shirt that says a word, and then everybody's not allowed to say anything about it. This is very much how people work. If you confront a lot of people, they will deny it. They'll say, "No, that's not what I think." Or they might even be denying it to themselves.
One of the things is that we feel everything that's going on. It's good to be beautiful and completely transparent. If you're not so beautiful yet, be transparent and love yourself in the process of becoming more beautiful. We're all becoming more beautiful, right? Well, if you're on the path.
Become more honorable. Become more honest. Become more loving. Become more integral. All the things. In the meantime, know that people sense what you are and who you are.
Before I do my reels and start speaking, I try to get into a state and become beautiful inside. Then I speak from that because I can't just speak from pretense and pretending. Everybody will know, even if it's not overt. We all know how people are.
We can feel the aura. We can perhaps see the aura. There are all kinds of astral things that you can see. Gosh, I could tell you about things. I'm not so into that, but there's a whole occult practice of magic where you can see beings, creatures, beams of light, and all different aspects. There are all kinds of magic that you can get into. It can be useful on the path.
Today, it's interesting for me to make a distinction here. What I'm specifically talking about is how to purify and clear your aura so you can make progress along the path to enlightenment. That includes feeling peace, love, intelligence, and all the beautiful faculties of a futuristic human being. They come from energy work.
I don't know how people think they change. They read a book and learn something. What makes people change? We change because of our routines. We change because our energetic flows change. Routine leads to different energy flows.
Harrison meditates every day now. If he meditates on his energy, he will be a different flowing energy. This is a very futuristic consideration. I think of some futuristic society where people are really concerned: "Oh, Sushumna. You need to go and take some time on your Sushumna."
They don't say that in middle school. "Your son's not doing so well. His Sushumna is a little blocked up." Wouldn't that be something, Kira? They say, "Just pass the test." Most of society is not aware of these subtleties. These are subtleties, but they're also foundational.
How do you become smarter? Activate your third eye. Slow down. Stop. Put the book down. Put the test down. Work on your third eye for a little bit. When your third eye is very active, your energy flow is such that you can think and see more deeply.
Some people wonder, "How did that person do that? How did Einstein do what he did? How did Tesla do what he did?" They had energy flows that were really beautifully refined.
This whole practice centers on that. Routine fixes your energy flow. Mindfulness maintains and cultivates energy flow. Good karma determines your energy flow. If you're going to yell at somebody in a selfish way, your heart chakra shifts its energetic structure slightly, and you have to go and meditate that off.
You start to become aware of all the different karmic repercussions of all your actions. Then you have to do all this work in energetic practice to remedy anything you did wrong. When I say "wrong," I mean anything that interfered with the energy flow that is beneficial, pleasurable, enjoyable, productive, and effective.
Chakra Functions and Energy Flow
The root chakra is right underneath the body, in the perineum. By the way, there's a giant tube that goes right up into the sky and right down to the center of the Earth. That's also part of our astral body. Why are you laughing, Andrea?
Andrea P You look funny doing this.
Adam Wes This? Oh, I look like I'm a cheerleader or something. YMCA.
You have a whole bunch of chakras higher up, above your head. I would usually call them nodes. Underneath your body, you have a tube that goes to the center of the Earth. You can reach down and reach up, and all these currents will go back and forth. A bidirectional current will happen through your being. It'll run through you like a river running over the little pebbles of your astral vortices.
Let's talk about the root chakra for a second. I'm going to tell you a little bit about each of these because you can meditate on them. That's what I'm suggesting.
Praveen, you're late for work because you were meditating on your chakras, and you say, "It was just so good, I lost track of time." Oh no, I'm losing track of time. I'll hurry up and do this so we can get started.
The root chakra is pure power. Actually, beginners aren't really supposed to meditate on it because it can open up unpleasant things. It's like rocket fuel. Beginners don't play with rocket fuel. Rocket engineers play with rocket fuel. It needs to channel correctly.
A good way to access your pure power is through your navel center. It brings up the power naturally, and it channels it through the nozzle of the rocket, so to speak.
There's the second chakra, which is right on the genitals. There's something to do with pleasure there, but it also has to do with creativity, family, and safety, I think. Creativity is definitely a big one there.
You also don't necessarily need to meditate on that one. It's generally recommended that you don't meditate on the lower two chakras. If you do, just do a little bit.
The navel center, however, is very important. That's your willpower.
The heart center's law is compassion, intuition, and knowledge. It's the knowledge you gain by becoming the other. I know you because I am you. I am you because my heart expanded to encompass both of us. That's the faculty of energetic knowledge.
The throat chakra is your voice. It's supposed to have to do with beauty as well. I'm not sure I really see that, but it's supposed to have to do with beauty.
When you hear somebody whose voice doesn't project, they could probably meditate on their throat chakra. There's something there about speaking.
Kira says beauty because it's the thyroid gland. But what I'm talking about when I say that, Kira, is my own direct experience. That's just another naming definition. What's a thyroid gland? What does it do? Why does it have to do with beauty?
Thank you for sharing. What matters most, and Kira knows this, but I'm going to say it right now because she reminded me, is that we have our own direct encounter with these so they become a self-evident truth, just like in mathematics. We want to know them for ourselves.
That's why sometimes I hesitate to say something. I focus primarily on the heart, the navel, the third eye, and the crown. Those are the ones I personally focus on most. But one of my teachers is all into the throat and the second chakra. Those are her favorites, and we're very different.
Then there's the third eye, which is mindfulness, stillness, understanding, and perception. Notice I said understanding, not knowledge, which is more of a heart faculty to me.
Then there's the crown, which is self-transcence. When you meditate on the crown, you feel one. It's the divine, rising above yourself.
The spot on the back of the head, the Shiva Granthi, is related to the third eye and the crown.
The spot in the back of the heart is a wonderful place where you want a back rub if you're having a bad day. Somebody who loves you gives you a back rub there. That's a wonderful spot to meditate on for your heart. If you ever feel anxiety or anything, meditate on the heart, on Anahata, and on the Vishnu Granthi behind it.
The lower back Brahma Granthi is a very good thing to meditate on as well. It relates to the three lower chakras and has to do with power.
You can meditate on your Sushumna. Move the energy up and down. There's something called the microcosmic orbit, which goes around through the Sushumna, connects to the spine, and then goes around through the head. It makes a little circle.
These are all things you can do. When you meditate, use the light to soften and fluidify the density in the astral body, in the auric field. Use the light and use your will. Use your navel to will it.
Use the light to heat it up. You don't just take iron and do this. You heat iron up, and then you hammer it. The light is the heat.
If you can get into the light, bring the light, fill your whole body with light, move your energy, clear your heart, and make these considerations in your life.
I just did Tai Chi for 50 minutes right before I got here. What was I doing? I was moving all my chakras. Right before that, I did a three-mile walk. What was I doing? I was moving my chakras. It's also cardiovascular exercise.
When I do math, it's good for me to pay attention to my chakras. I meditated for an hour this morning. I'm giving you an idea so you can see something to aspire to. What did I do? I meditated on my chakras. I also did that when I was sleeping a little bit.
Chakras, chakras, chakras, because that's a powerful astral body. A powerful energetic body makes us happy. It makes our lives feel beautiful subjectively. This is the center of the practice.
Thank you for listening and being interested enough to be here. I want to have tons of friends with beautifully activated chakras. Harrison, come over. We'll hang out, have our chakras activated, and go out on the town. Everybody will feel that good energy. Let's do it.
Any questions? This could be a five-week course, but we'll just do a quick sermon on it for now. No questions?
Guided Energetic Practice
Harrison M I've got heaps of questions I could ask, but I suppose I've been finding... I'm interested to try to think more about those different spots and focus on them. But the most consistent meditation thing I seem to be experiencing is calming down and focusing on a spot in front of me.
It feels like I've been exploring a torus, or the donut thing, in my art practice. I feel like I'm literally looking at a point of origin, and everything is expanding out of that point of origin, like sands of time, almost, just dropping through that hole. Then it's going this way, and then it's dropping.
I'm not thinking about anything particular, but I feel like, for the donut, it was infinity. It's rolling in on itself. I'm not thinking about my body. I'm just in this infinite spiral of nothing.
Adam Wes Well, that's another aspect of meditation. In fact, it seems like you're looking into astral worlds.
One way to try to feel your qi, your kundalini, is to put your hands together like this and try to get the charge going. In fact, let's get started.
Feel the charge. This charge in your hands can be in any of those spots. Do you see how Kira is going very wide? When you do this, it's concentration.
You can actually feel it. It's like moving a balloon, squishing a balloon. The air wants to compress. The energy wants to compress when we do this. When you move out, there's a sort of suction. It pulls the energy in a different way.
This is a good way to feel. I think it's one of the easiest ways to feel the qi. I recommend you go to all your friends and say, "Hey, can you feel this?"
I remember my first year, and not that all of us are in our first year, but in my first year, and maybe my first five years, I was like, "Everybody, I want to see. Can you feel that?" Because it's magic, right? Feel the qi.
Now, if you put your hands down, you can still feel the qi in your hands and fingertips. Activate your hands with your will. See the difference?
My hands are on my lap here, and I can move the energy there, activate the energy, and feel the charge there. Feel the hands and generate the charge. It's a muscle. It's a muscle of your will, of your energy.
Let's let the energy build. Let yourself become aware of the energetic side.
Okay. Now you can use your hands to activate your chakras. Here, I'm pulling on my heartstrings, my own heartstrings. Usually, I hook with my middle finger. Sometimes people in public see me do this. They probably wonder what I'm doing, but I'm pulling on my own heartstrings.
You can feel it in the chest. If you want, you can always scratch, tap, or simply put your finger on your chest.
All of this work is benefited by the light. But opening the chakras opens the doors to the divine. They're doorways. Paradoxically, they help us get into the light.
Once you've activated them with your hand, you can stop. Feel the spot and use your internal will.
Let's meditate on the heart center for a bit. We're exploring the dimensions of your own energetic heart. You're learning to work with it, to awaken it, and to feel it.
Let's move to the navel center. Find a way to feel the spot energetically. You can channel energy through the various nadis that lead there. Move the energy down to the spot around the belly button area. You can move it forward from the back, or you can feel the node in front of it.
Once you feel this spot, work with it. When you really connect with these chakras, you'll feel a state of mind shift. When you feel the navel center, you begin to feel disciplined.
The navel center gives us command of the whole energetic structure. It's important to activate.
Okay, let's do the root chakra. We never do this. Let's do it just a little bit. If you were sitting on the ground, right underneath your butt is a center. You can feel this one. There's a pelvic floor. You can flex it. That's the spot where it's flexed.
You can feel the qi there. It's the very base, pure power. It's good not to neglect any. We just want to make sure we can feel them all.
Let's do the throat chakra, right about here. I like it. I don't usually do this one very much.
Sometimes with a chakra, you're starting from the inside of the body and kind of pushing forward. Sometimes we move up and down. You're pinpointing that energetic vortex.
Learn to use your intuitive apprehension of what these chakras mean. Become your own authority on the qualities that relate to them. Develop a subjective description.
All right, let's do the third eye. What a nice collection of experiences here today. Use the light if you feel you have access to it.
Let's meditate on the brain crystal in the center of the brain. You can feel your qi right in the center there. Take a moment and pinpoint that location. Notice the different quality when we shift our spatial focus to the proximity of a different center.
Okay, let's do the Shiva Granthi, moving back farther. We went from the third eye to the brain crystal, to the Shiva Granthi, right underneath the divot at the back of the skull.
The baby's soft spot is a little bit behind the crown. Let's try that one. This one has a nice feeling.
Let's move to the crown chakra, right on top of the head, the center of self-transcendence. Wonderful.
Let's do the Vishnu Granthi behind the heart. This one is very comforting. It's a love tap from your own self.
I'm going to try something a little fun with you. Play with the amrita. Start at the Vishnu Granthi and push the nectar energy down to the Brahma Granthi in the lower back. Just try it. Feel the whole connection between the two, slowly moving the nectar down until you arrive at the sensitive spot in the lower back.
Let's meditate there for a minute. You'll feel the power in this one from a different perspective.
This will be our final song, so enjoy. To end the meditation with silence, focus on the center of the back, the Vishnu Granthi. Feel the love, comfort, safety, and warmth.
Namaste.
It is a cosmic massage from God. It's the universe massaging us, renewing us. Meditation isn't just sitting there. We're renewing our energy body until we become absorbed in our essence.
When we work on this energy, it's very pleasurable. I think you can see how it's possible to sit for an hour or two hours doing this, and then walk away revived, powerful, clear, and gentle. People will notice. You will notice most of all.
Pamper your energy. I like to say that. It's like pampering your energy.
Mom, would you like to share?
Colleen Wow. Something really interesting happened when you had us pull our hands together and apart. My thumb started tingling, like pins and needles, almost prickly. Then that developed into the top part of my hand, then my fingers, then the other side, up my arm to my neck, my face, my head, and my hair.
A couple of minutes ago, I had to open my eyes and stop because it seemed to get quite intense.
Adam Wes Wow. When you say tingly...
Colleen It's still prickly. I'm just prickling everywhere, up to about here.
Adam Wes Is it good prickly, though? What is prickly?
Colleen Yeah, it's like something is moving in me or something is activating. I don't know what it is.
Adam Wes Good! I love that.
Colleen Interesting. Also, there's nothing changing light-wise here, but it felt like somebody was putting a light on. There would be a little flash, and it would go away, then a flash, and it would go away. That happened a few times too. So, a new experience.
Adam Wes Wonderful. Light too? Wonderful. I'm glad you felt it. Thanks, Mom. Namaste.
All right, just because we're a little over, does anybody really feel like sharing? Then we'll stop. One more? Namaste. Okay.
Andrea, do you want to give a quick share? I want to hear from Andrea.
Andrea P I don't feel like saying anything, but it was really, really nice. I keep seeing this twist of silver and green light. It was pretty cool. I see it at moments, and I try to catch it, and it leaves. I'm like, "No, no, no, no!" But that's about the fifth time I've seen it. It's pretty cool.
Adam Wes Yeah, wow. Good. Become acquainted with all these things that happen and make them a part of your energetic repertoire.
Andrea P Yeah.
Adam Wes Wonderful. Namaste, Andrea.
I just wanted to let everybody know that I opened my mathematical gallery on the website. You can literally go and buy a poster there. It gets printed and shipped to you, so take a look. If you want to support that artwork, it's really special stuff I've done after many years of doing the prints.
Andrea P I wanted to tell you, you should make a sculpture.
Adam Wes The one that shifts?
Andrea P It's super cool, but I feel like I want to touch it.
Adam Wes You mean the picture?
Andrea P The younger one. I saw it on a poster. You posted it on a poster.
Adam Wes Yeah.
Andrea P You should make it a sculpture.
Adam Wes Oh, I wonder. That's a good idea.
Andrea P With a 3D printer.
Adam Wes That's actually a really good idea. I could 3D print these.
Andrea P I want 10 percent.
Adam Wes Okay, you deserve it. You keep coming up with great ideas.
David, I like your haircut, or whatever you did. He looks good, doesn't he? He looks healthy and stylish. Your meditation looked beautiful too. You were meditating very beautifully. Thank you for that.
Praveen, did you want to say something?
Pranayama and Consciousness
Praveen S Adam, I just wanted to know if I could ask a quick question.
Adam Wes Sure.
Praveen S First of all, amazing sermon, Adam. Thank you. Without getting into the context, I'll go directly into the question.
Is there a connection between pranayama and meditation? In India, people do a lot of pranayama, so I wanted to understand what the connection would be.
The second one is, from where does consciousness come into being? You just explained the system. I was wondering, how does consciousness manifest? From where does it manifest?
Adam Wes These are very advanced, good questions.
Pranayama is a breathing technique, just so everybody knows, and it generates a charge. There's prana in the environment. It's an ambient environmental energy. When you breathe in different ways, with different nostrils, you generate a charge.
I think that charge is kind of like what my mom did. She generated a charge, and then all of a sudden she was able to work with it. Sometimes, to get your charge up so that you can do a good chakra meditation, you can do pranayama.
I forgot to mention that because I wasn't taught that way, and I never practiced it. Sometimes you can just focus into the light. That's actually quite an advanced access point. If you can't capture it and get the light, you can always do the pranayama breathing.
Consciousness. Okay. I'll do my best to answer this one.
I can give you my initial exoteric answer, the kind you can read in a book, which is that consciousness descends into the chakras. The Sushumna goes into the base of the spine and gets coiled tightly in the root. Most people's roots are so tightly coiled that they never have the kundalini rise. That's a term.
Once we get our kundalini rising, then we've kind of reached back up. This is how it apparently happens. You can read about that in Yogananda. Paramahansa Yogananda talks about that a bit.
But let me talk about it from my own, more direct experience. There's the soul and the spirit. Depending on which word you want to use for which thing, I like to think of the spirit as the thing, the astral body, that goes into the physical body and animates it.
We animate the physical body with life, with the spirit. There's a mechanism there, and I don't know if I feel too comfortable talking about it. I don't like to talk unless I feel like I have direct experience of it. It's interesting. I don't know that much about that.
I know a little bit more about the soul, though. The soul is like the watcher. It's that to whom this is occurring, the Atman. When we become absorbed, we become absorbed in the unknown. We become absorbed in the substance of what we are.
That can watch the whole dynamic of energy and matter, of spirit and matter, which is happening. It's a physical thing. When does a fetus gain the spirit? How does all of that happen? The soul can watch, and I feel like I have more experience with that.
I'm not even sure how people have experience with incarnating because they're doing it between lifetimes. What's actually happening there? They might know just because they're so aware of the structure and how the soul has bound itself to the body.
Another thing is that the heart is the center. While it recoils into the root, there's a sense that the heart is more where the soul connects. That's the center of your being.
I hesitate to talk about this because I don't feel I'm speaking from direct experience. Although, right now, as I focus on it, I can feel it so strongly in my root, which is actually quite lovely. Maybe I just don't observe it that often.
You can feel that there is a recoil. There's something that happens in the root that binds us. I hope that answers your question.
Praveen S Thank you.
Adam Wes Namaste. You're welcome.
When you're fully enlightened, when somebody experiences moksha, they tend to become aware of exactly how all of this works. I'm not fully enlightened yet. I'd like to be. I'm working toward it. But apparently there are about 10 or so people in the whole world who are in a moksha state, so there are very few.
There are a couple of well-known ones. Sadhguru is supposed to be. Eckhart Tolle is supposed to be. There are a few people who are. Osho and Krishnamurti were. But there are very few, and usually they're very bright. The world comes to know them. Some people are more obscure.
Does that answer your question, Praveen?
Praveen S Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Adam Wes You're welcome.
Study Resources and Mathematical Art
I want to quickly show you guys something. First of all, just so you know, all the sermons are here. I'm not sure if anybody took a look at the Power sermon. This was from last week, and it literally has the full dialogue and transcript from our whole session.
You can listen to the audio recording and rewatch the video. I even have an essay edition, which is compiled from the transcript. This is basically verbatim from what I spoke during last week's session, but it's in an essay, so it takes out all the dialogue.
I've got a study guide. You can study the Power session and look at all the quotes and key points. It even has an assignment and an actionable focus for the week.
All of this will be up for today's session, so make sure to take a look at the quotes and the transcript. Use this, and maybe even listen to the audio again. I shared so much so quickly today that it'll be an opportunity for you to do that.
Here's the gallery, by the way, right there on the website. Here are the actual pieces. You can order them. I've got this poster right here, and you can order the poster on the website. It'll be drop-shipped to you. There's a $35 one, and there are some fancier versions of it as well.
There are a whole bunch. I like them all, but this one down here is so cool. This is the one Andrea wants to hold in her hand.
Andrea P Yeah, exactly like that. I want to touch it.
Adam Wes It's like a hand sign.
Just so David and everybody know, because David's really into computer programming, and Praveen knows computer programming too, this is an actual mathematically correct rendition of spherical harmonics, which is the way spheres can vibrate in a standing wave pattern.
It was done with the GPU using a shader programming language. This is all pure code. Code made this.
It's one of the most advanced things I've done in computer programming because it's using a very special GPU-based coding language to create it. I'm very excited about it.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you in case anybody was interested.
All right, everybody. Thank you. Namaste. Gosh, we went way over. I'm sorry. Next week, moving forward, I'm going to be really mindful to stop at 7:15. Otherwise, I'm going to let everybody know that it's a longer session, or check and see if people are okay with that.
Clearly, the sermon plus the meditation takes a little longer. Thank you, everybody. Namaste. Have a good week.
David P Bye, Adam.
Adam Wes Bye. Cheers.