Essay Edition
Conscious Environment and Spiritual Practice
We want to curate our space and environment so that it is conducive to spiritual practice and supportive of it. We are creating an ambiance, an environment that supports greater consciousness and awakening. It helps you in your meditation, it helps you sleep differently, and it helps you create insulation against the world so that you can be in your ashram, in your own home. We are creating a space that is conducive to a meditative mindset.
We want to do it in all the different dimensions of self. We have sight and smell. We have all of our senses. We also have things like ideas and the mental space. How does it interface with the mental space? You can also think of them as the five elements of air, water, fire, earth, and ether. The five elements also correspond to the five Platonic solids. The five Platonic solids embody each of the five elements, the elementals.
We are very susceptible. Pavlov rang a bell and made dogs salivate when he rang the bell, whether he gave them food or not. He conditioned them. Usually, in spirituality, we say, do not condition yourself, but we can use these signals. As soon as I smell sandalwood incense burning in the evening, I know it is meditation time. Everything I have done to cultivate a meditative state of mind through consistent practice over many years is intertwined and enmeshed with the smell of sandalwood.
One element is the conditioning factor. Another element is that things hold energy. We want to use things intuitively to evolve our energy and balance our energy.
Feel this. I am going to say a word, and I want you to feel into it and notice how it changes you.
Vanilla.
It is so smooth and warm and sweet. Where did all that come from? It is our understanding of the subtle energies. I like to call it the knowledge of vanilla. Vanilla has an intelligence and knowledge in it. Whenever you have vanilla, it does something. Sometimes you just need vanilla. It has been really harsh out there in the world. Vanilla balances that. It makes you safe and comfortable.
Sometimes you need something completely different. Maybe you need jasmine. Jasmine does something very different from vanilla. It is also maybe best in the summer and less in the winter. You can start to read the templates of existence. They are all there. We all have these intuitive faculties to see what a particular fragrance means or what a particular incense does.
These elements also carry very strong spiritual energy. We live in a world that, for the most part, is not spiritually focused. It is ambition, success, pleasure, and pride. Most people are not trying to let go of all their pride, be austere in their pleasure, be accepting in their state, or be non-ambitious. These are all very much antithetical to the world we live in.
When we create with these elements, we help ourselves feel that we are in an ancient realm, an ancient temple, an ancient space that is consecrated to something beyond the worldly. Then we can turn back and bring it into the worldly as well. But it is nice to have our roots in the spiritual and reach out from there. Then our work becomes divine. Our work becomes empowered in a different way than if we are just working on behalf of our own indulgence.
Let this be a seed of an idea. You can find your own version of this. The fun part is that you get to curate your own energy. This becomes an expression of your own self.
In Sanskrit, there is a word, manatman. Atman means soul. It is like the self. Manatman is the self as it is expressed in physicality. Your body is part of your manatman, but so are your headphones and your collared shirts. They have your energy in them.
If you have had a backpack for a long time, or if you have a pair of shoes or a necklace, these things are manatman, and they hold your wavelength. It is a little strange to give one to somebody else. It does not feel fresh. It feels like it has your energy on it. We are creating manatman in our whole house. It is not just our things. We are creating the manatman of the home, the dwelling manatman.
Fragrance and Plant Intelligence
Incense is really great. Incense is also somewhat problematic for your lungs, so you want to be careful about it. Do not burn it too much. Sometimes you can burn it for just a minute or two and put it out. That is enough to permeate that energy.
Nag Champa is a wonderful incense associated with an enlightened being named Satya Sai Baba, one of the great enlightened beings of the twentieth century. Sandalwood incense is very special to me personally. It has this deep austerity. You feel so consecrated in your practice. It is grounding, austere, strong, and a very beautiful energy.
Dragon's Blood is a wonderful incense as well, and it is very uplifting. It cuts through the impurity. It is very different from sandalwood. You learn to use these things as your swords of spiritual consecration and cultivation. Rose incense is also beautiful.
Then we have resin. Frankincense and myrrh are absolutely delightful resins. Copal is also very good. Frankincense is very sweet, and myrrh is more on the lower tone. You can put a little coconut coal on the stove and make it red hot, and then put resin on the coal. It burns a very pure smoke that purifies the aura.
When you become more sensitive and start to feel your energy beyond your body, you will feel how the resin smoke does something to you when it moves through your aura. It changes you. Perhaps something in the molecular structure interfaces, or the energy or the gestalt of it changes you.
We also have to talk about burning sage. Sage is a dried plant that has a very powerful purification property, even if you burn just a little bit of it. You can feel the world get stuck on you. One thing you can do is shower. Another thing you can do is get some sage and move it around your body. Do it on your feet and hands, between your legs, under your arms, around your head, and on your back.
Sage is almost indispensable. When I travel, I usually bring a little sage with me. Sometimes it feels like an emergency. You need some sage. Do not get too attached, though. Sometimes I wonder if I have become too attached to it.
Essential oils are the spiritual perfume. A fragrance helps you protect your energy or move your energy, but it also becomes an embodiment of you, like your clothing. You might want to have a particular fragrance that produces a certain experience of you in others. The way people experience you is important because they direct energy at you, and it affects your mind and your metaphysical state.
If you walk around dressed one way, you are going to get different energy from people, and have to deal with it or be benefited by it, than if you dress a different way. It is the same with fragrance. It is also part of the impeccable curation of how you show up. But it is especially important as a means of using the intelligence of these plants to move your mind and spirit in different directions.
A plant grows from a seed, and that seed has DNA, which is essentially information. We have the four different nucleotides. It is like binary, but it is not binary. It is quadrinary, or whatever the correct term is. That information expresses into these plants.
Each plant arose. The gift of the rose to humanity and Earth. What would Earth be without the rose? We would be a different world because the rose brings a dimension of possibility with it, as it, an embodiment of it.
Everything has that. Every color has that. This is art. Artists hold an energy, and then express it. The expression becomes a means by which it is transferred. A rose says, be like me. When we have rose essential oil on, we get to be like a rose. We are not only learning from a rose, but stepping into the possibility that is rose.
Rose, frankincense, sandalwood, jasmine, clary sage, vanilla, and lavender each have a different quality. Lavender is calming, soothing, and peaceful. Jasmine is uplifting and vital. Clary sage has a lot of wisdom. Frankincense is purifying. Rose has romance, love, and beauty. It is very heart-centered.
You can bathe with essential oils and put them in your bathtub. You can put them in an air diffuser or a water diffuser. Everything has these qualities. You can sit down with them and ask, who are you, my friend, my vanilla essence friend here?
Fire, Light, Earth, and Water
Candles are very powerful, but burn them safely. Take all kinds of precautions. Have fire extinguishers around. Do not leave candles burning unattended. Put them on a plate and make sure nothing is going to fall on them. Be very careful if you have pets.
Candles have a very ancient quality. It is great to burn candles at nighttime and keep the lights down. It allows you to fall asleep. Blue light wakes up the brain. Candlelight is organic. It is not electrical. It has this quality to it.
Sadhguru calls it a fire wash. If you are burning one candle in a room, that candle will clear your aura. If you burn two, it has a very different effect because you have stereo going. Two points make a line. One point does not make a line. You have a different quality, mathematically speaking.
Burning candles, even just tea light candles, is a wonderful way to work intuitively. Sometimes your aura does not want fire, but sometimes it does. An oil lamp also changes the space and may change the way you sleep.
These are occult metaphysical practices. They seem somewhat mundane, but these things have effects through the occult. Occult means hidden and metaphysical. There are all kinds of things happening. Humans tend to be very materialistic in our modern culture. Materialistic means that if you can see it, then it is real. If you cannot, it is not. But there are many things we cannot see that are happening.
When you burn an oil lamp or a candle, it changes something. You do not necessarily have to understand it, but you can observe the effect. If it helps you, it is good. You do not have to be all physicist about it and understand everything before you try it.
I fell into that trap when I was younger. I thought that if I could not understand it, it was not real. But it is real. There are so many things we cannot understand. Tell me the science of love. You can try to do the chemistry, but there is so much more to it.
A salt lamp is an orange, glowing, giant chunk of salt with a bulb inside. The bulb heats up the salt, and apparently ions come off it and purify the air. It has this warm, deep glow. It is more like a candle, but it is still electric.
It is good to have flowers. Jasmine and rose are wonderful flowers, but choose any flowers you like. Be intuitive about it. Having flowers in the house changes things. You can have the joy of flowers.
Plants are very important. Plants do something for us psychically. They are our allies in the psychic space. They hold an energy, and you can draw on your plants when you are away from home. They provide a kind of psychic pivot and support, and you can develop a relationship with your plants.
Plants are also wonderful because you can love them. You learn to listen to your plant, and this helps you become more empathic. You should know when your plant is thirsty. You should know when your plant is getting too much light. That is a practice in empathy and listening.
A snake plant is a very good plant. It brings a lot of oxygen into the air. Pothos vine is another one. It will keep growing down and down. It is like a beard of plants. It is wonderful.
A fountain is also lovely. The little trickling fountain in your house brings the element of water into the space.
Crystals are important. Selenite is the sage of crystals. Sage purifies, and selenite purifies. It is like invincible purification. It is pure purification. Keeping it on you is powerful.
Black tourmaline absorbs negativity. It works differently from selenite but has a similar effect because it is an absorption. Sometimes you need absorption, and sometimes you need purification.
One of my favorites, especially for math people, is blue fluorite. Blue fluorite has a square crystalline structure that brings clarity to the mind. The blue brings tranquility, too. Rose quartz is very good for Bhakti and the heart. Gentleness. Shells and feathers are also good to have. A beautiful feather helps you connect with the energy of birds and with nature.
Sacred Symbols, Clothing, and Order
Curated sound and silence are good. You can have peaceful music throughout the house, various kinds of ancient music, oming, chanting, or simply your favorite music. There are also bells, chimes, singing bells, and singing bowls. Anything that brings vibration into the air has energy and knowledge in it.
It is wonderful to have a book like the Bhagavad Gita sitting on the table in your living room, or the Tao Te Ching, or any of those wonderful Taoist, Indian, or Japanese texts. These things hold a wavelength. They remind your mind to stay with the sacred. They are little memorabilia, very valuable for that.
Images and photos are similar. You can have a picture of Sadhguru or Ramana Maharshi. You can have a picture of family members who bring a lot of clarity. It is especially good to have pictures of saints or teachers. They are embodying that energy, and it helps you draw from what they have achieved. Part of their value to the world is that they have embodied these things.
Mandalas and yantras, these visual Indian patterns, have a similar effect, as do statues. A Buddha statue, a mathematical statue, or a Platonic solid statue has energy in it as well. Any kind of art that might be conducive to spiritual energy is good. Surround yourself with art, books, and things like that.
There is a problem with the way the world is promoting clothing. The trend is synthetic, synthetic, synthetic. It is very bad for the energy body to be constantly touching synthetic plastic clothing. These are chemically made clothes. It is good to have plant-based clothing: cotton, linen, hemp, and bamboo. It is significant for your metaphysical energetic flow.
White clothing has a powerful energy. Black is good too, but black has a very different effect. Black has an absorption factor, and you will absorb the energy of others. White will reflect and protect your energy and keep your energy pure. Sometimes you might want to absorb the energies, and sometimes you might not.
Black is a very disciplined color. It is focused. White is a little more in the moment, a little less disciplined, and a little more like a peaceful place. Black is a little more warrior. White is a little more pacifist. You can play with it.
I used to wear all black all the time, and I was a very different person. I moved into white, and it changed me a lot. When I wear black, I feel intense. It makes me feel powerful, but almost mean. That is for me. I am not saying that universally. It might be conditioning, but it is not just conditioning. There are energetic factors to consider.
It is good to explore what it would feel like to wear all white. I love to wear white linen from top to bottom. It is a wonderful feeling. Beige, orange, ochre, like the ochre robes of the monks, and bright colors like bright pink or green all have effects. If I need tranquility, I will put my light blue shirt on. I will wear that, and it helps me.
It is good to have a very orderly, clean space. Clear the clutter, keep things minimal, and organize. It is a very Zen sentiment.
As within, so without. What is outside of us is an expression of our inside. What is outside of us also informs our inside. Your mind will be different when your space is different.
You can bring all of this together in an altar. An altar is a little table where you can put certain things in a certain way to store energy, hold energy, and direct energy. You can have a feather, a candle, an incense burner, a book, and a picture of a saint on a little table. You can sit there, and it is a powerful way to direct your energy and hold your practice.
Heart-Centered Meditation
The heart is in the center of the chest. If you were to say, I am so-and-so, and put your finger there, intuitively, you would very likely place your finger on the heart center.
Find this place. If you place your finger there, you bring attention to that part of your body. One can begin to assemble their attention in the center where the heart is.
Bringing your attention is the beginning. It is the beginning of bringing vitality to the heart, physical transformation in the nerves, in the fascia, and in whatever is happening there biologically, to awaken the heart.
It is a powerful practice to shift your habitual focus to the heart, usually out of the head. Move it to the heart.
I am here, in my center.
Keep bringing your attention back to the heart, introducing a transformation in your energy. We are doing something profoundly simple. We are simply feeling the heart.
Move from passively feeling to trying to awaken the heart. Think of it as willing an activation at the heart center. Try to generate love in your heart. What a profound thing.
We sat down and generated love. That is what we can do.
You can feel the warmth. Find a way to create more of that warmth, to the point where your heart literally feels like it is expanding because it is accumulating the substance of love.
One of the most dignified things a human being can do is bring more love into this life and this world. Gently build this reservoir of that substance. With each breath, find your way. Fill the heart with that warmth.
Move your fingers away from the heart. Hold your palm facing the heart center. We feel the spot enough now that we can hold our palm six to twelve inches in front of the chest and hold space for the heart to expand.
Find a way to will that expansion. Generate the substance of love. Open and purify this energetic vortex of the heart.
We only start from where we are, taking that one sacred step toward the highest possibility. We are always taking just a single step.
Now put your hands down and allow the heart to expand well beyond the reach of the arms. Feel that your heart is pulling you into the sky. Evoke that clarification, that cultivation.
A lion's heart. A source of dignity, freedom, peace, love.
Take a deep breath. Take note of the transformation in the heart. That is being centered in the heart.
Take a moment to hear the silence around you, noticing that all time and space exist within the here and now, flowing through it like water through riverbanks.
Turn to the here and the now.
Meditation Reflections and Yogic Insight
Everything is in the here and now. The only reality that we can make contact with is the here and the now. Then you ask yourself, what is the rest of it? We can see that they are conceptualizations: a conception of the past, a conception of the future, and a conception of the created self.
These are deep yogic philosophies that you can explore, come to know firsthand and directly, and use to change your experience of the universe.
Everything is a mental formation. If you stop thinking entirely, there is none of this. In yoga, they call it Maya. It means illusion. We can actually see that the world is because you think it to be. If you stop thinking, there is no self and there is no world. Those are inside of you and created, like a mirage or waves in the ocean.
But the real substance is the substance of being, and being needs no self-identification. It simply is. You can touch it when you get so still that there is only this primordial substance of being.
Yoga describes different qualities of that essence. It is unknowable as a being, though. It is what we are, and we can never not be.
Love is a substance that we can generate. When we sit down and meditate, we are generating love, a substance that will actually grow. The heart becomes full, warm, and fuzzy. It makes me skip and dance, smile at people, see mathematical equations clearly, feel peaceful, and want to sleep or want to run. I just feel so good.
The heart does this because you are getting closer to your center. When you are at your center, you are not in the precariousness of form. You are moving toward that certainty of formlessness. We are going to what we are deep down.
The heart is one of the metaphysical expressions of going to that being. We want to go to the heart, the heart here, and then deeper into the heart, the center of all things, the source of all things.
Full Transcript
Conscious Environment and Spiritual Practice
Adam Wes Namaste, everybody. Welcome! What a nice group we have today.
Last time we talked about silence. I hope everybody had a wonderful week of silence and stillness, contemplating that and practicing it.
I'm excited for our talk today. It's actually unusual, a little bit different from what we normally do. Normally, we have quite an esoteric conversation. Talking about silence is quite esoteric.
I also want to say welcome to the new people. Thank you for being here. Hi.
Today, we'll be talking about something more exoteric. The difference is that esoteric is something that's hard to understand, something more subtle. You can read the words, but it requires a lot of contemplation, meditation, and depth. Then we have exoteric, which is something you can really read, like very specific instructions that you can get immediately.
Today, I'd like to talk about conscious environmental elements. This is a very exciting one, I think, for everybody, because you can really make a big change, and I think you'll find it a lot of fun.
What does that mean? I want to talk about all the spiritual things that you can do to your space to create an ambiance, to create an environment that supports greater consciousness and awakening. There are a lot of things you've probably heard before, but we're just going to go over them. I'm going to share everything that I can in these first 20 to 30 minutes before our meditation, so that you can go on and start curating your space and trying things out.
One of the things I just did is burn resin, myrrh and frankincense resin. Maybe you've never heard of this before, but you can put a little coconut coal on the stove and make it red hot, and then you put resin on the coal. They have different kinds of resins. My favorite ones are myrrh and frankincense. They bring an energy with them.
The whole idea is that we're doing these things to curate an energy. It helps you in your meditation, it helps you sleep differently, and it helps you create insulation against the world so that you can be in your ashram, in your own home. We're creating a space that's conducive to a meditative mindset. A lot of the things that I'm going to share with you today are things that many spiritual people do. You might also see them in temples or ashrams.
I'm just starting with this one example: resin, frankincense, myrrh, and copal. I'm going to give this whole list to everybody, so don't worry about taking notes. You can take notes if you like, but I'm going to make a whole document.
You take these little things and put them on the coal, and they burn a very pure smoke that purifies the aura. When you become more sensitive and start to feel your energy beyond your body, even if you don't feel it, you'll feel how the resin smoke does something to you when it moves through your aura. It changes you. Perhaps something in the molecular structure interfaces, or the energy or the gestalt of it changes you.
We want to curate our space and environment so that it's conducive to spiritual practice and supportive of it. We want to do it in all the different dimensions of self. We've got sight and smell. We've got all of our senses, right? We've also got things like ideas and the mental space. How does it interface with the mental space?
You can also think of them as the five elements of air, water, fire, earth, and ether. There are five elements, which also correspond to the five Platonic solids, by the way, for people who like math. The five Platonic solids actually embody each of the five elements, the elementals.
Let's see, where do I want to start? First of all, David, what do you think of this? I know David spent some time building his altar. He was in the course this summer. You saw the pictures. We're going to go all out and tell you everything I could suggest about building an altar and beyond.
David P I'm very excited that you're going to make this list because, for me, building my ashram, like you said, was a starting point. It was crucial. It was like having a root and circling around that root.
Adam Wes Yes. It holds the wavelength.
We're very susceptible. I don't know if you've ever learned about Pavlov's dogs. There was a psychologist who rang a bell and made dogs salivate when he rang the bell, whether he gave them food or not. He basically conditioned them. We want to condition ourselves.
Usually, in spirituality, we say, "Don't condition yourself," but we can use these signals. As soon as I smell sandalwood incense burning in the evening, I know it's meditation time. Everything I've done to cultivate a meditative state of mind through consistent practice over many years is intertwined and enmeshed with the smell of sandalwood.
One element is the conditioning factor. Another element is that things hold energy. We want to use things intuitively to evolve our energy and balance our energy.
For example, feel this, everybody. I'm going to say a word, and I want you to feel into it and notice how it changes you.
Vanilla.
It's so smooth and warm and sweet, right? Where did all that come from? It's our understanding of the subtle energies. I like to call it the knowledge of vanilla. Vanilla has an intelligence and knowledge in it. Whenever you have vanilla, it does something. Sometimes you're like, "Wow, I just need vanilla. I need vanilla right now. It's been really harsh out there in the world." Vanilla balances that. It makes you safe and comfortable.
Sometimes you need something completely different. Maybe you need jasmine. Jasmine does something very, very different from vanilla. It's also maybe best in the summer and less in the winter. You can start to read the templates of existence. They're all there. We all have these intuitive faculties to see what a particular fragrance means or what a particular incense does.
Another thing these elements do is carry very strong spiritual energy. We live in this world that, for the most part, is not spiritually focused. We're very Westernized. It's ambition, success, pleasure, and pride. Most people aren't trying to let go of all their pride, be austere in their pleasure, be accepting in their state, or be non-ambitious. These are all very much antithetical to the world we live in.
When we create with these elements, we help ourselves feel that we are in an ancient realm, an ancient temple, an ancient space that is consecrated to something beyond the worldly. Then we can turn back and bring it into the worldly as well. But it's nice to have our roots, as David said, in the spiritual and reach out from there. Then our work becomes divine. Our work becomes empowered in a different way than if we're just working on behalf of our own indulgence, which is the case for a lot of societies.
Let's go through each of the elements. I'll give you an overview so you're not wondering, "Where are we going with this?"
Fragrance and air is the first category. Fire and light is the second category. Water and earth is the third category. Then sound and silence, and ether. Guys, that should be the fifth. Then mind and spirit, clothing and color, order and simplicity, and integration.
I'm going to go through all of these. This is quite a rich thing, and it comes from many years of being around certain individuals who did things in their own unique ways, very spiritual people, mystical people, metaphysical people. I've picked these things up, explored them myself, and really integrated them into my own curation, which I encourage all of you to do.
Let this be a seed of an idea. I'm going to give you a list, but you can also find your own version of this. I think a lot of these are very central and you'll want to do them, but the fun part is that you get to curate your own energy. This becomes an expression of your own self.
In Sanskrit, there's a word, manatman. Atman means soul. It's like the self. Manatman is the self as it is expressed in physicality.
Your body is part of your manatman, but so are Sam's headphones. Those are super Sam-manatman, and they have Sam's energy in them. Or David's collared shirts, right? They have David's energy in them.
If you've had a backpack for a long time, or if you have a pair of shoes or a necklace, these things are manatman, and they hold your wavelength. It's a little weird for you to give one to somebody else. It doesn't feel like it's just fresh. It feels like it has your energy on it.
We're creating manatman in our whole house. It's not just our things. We're creating the manatman of the home, the dwelling manatman.
Fragrance and Plant Intelligence
Let's start with fragrance and air. First of all, incense. Incense is really great. Incense is also somewhat problematic for your lungs, so you want to be a little careful about it. Don't burn it too much. Sometimes you can even burn it for just a minute or two and put it out. That's enough to really permeate that energy.
I almost quit incense this year because of the fires in LA. I became aware of the smoke and the way it really does affect the air. I've scaled back a lot. I used to really overdo it.
Nag Champa is a really wonderful incense associated with an enlightened being named Satya Sai Baba. He was one of the great enlightened beings of the 20th century. The brand is called Satya Sai Baba Incense, and Nag Champa is one of the incenses. Perhaps you've smelled it before. It's absolutely lovely and highly recommended. I'm going to put these on a list.
Sandalwood incense is very, very special to me personally. It has this deep austerity. You feel like you're so consecrated in your practice. I love sandalwood. It's very grounding, very austere, and strong. It's a very, very beautiful energy that I personally like.
Jenna, I feel like Jenna is going to love this talk. Hi, Jen.
Dragon's Blood makes me think of Jenna because I've seen that she's had this one. Dragon's Blood is a really wonderful incense as well, and it's very uplifting. It cuts through the impurity. It's very different from sandalwood. You learn to use these things as your swords of spiritual consecration and cultivation.
We've also got rose incense, which is beautiful. I recommend Satya Sai Baba. I think he's got the highest-quality incense that I've found, for the most part. It's also really ubiquitous. You can buy it just about anywhere.
Then we have resin. We've got three types of resin. This is a little more obscure. You probably haven't seen people burn resin before, but I highly recommend it. I got this hint from some friends in Pakistan who have an enlightened teacher over there. They're very metaphysically aware, and we were talking about this years ago.
Frankincense and myrrh are absolutely delightful resins. Copal is also very good. Frankincense is very sweet, and myrrh is more on the lower tone. Remember, it purifies your aura, or does something to your aura.
We also have to talk about burning sage. Sage is a dried plant that has a very powerful purification property, even if you just burn a little bit of it. You can feel the world get stuck on you. One thing you can do is shower. Another thing you can do is get some sage and move it around your body. Do it on your feet and hands, between your legs, under your arms, around your head, and on your back.
Sage is almost indispensable. I can't imagine not having sage. When I travel, I usually bring a little sage with me, even just a little. Sometimes it's kind of like an emergency. You need some sage. That's how it feels. Don't get too attached, though. Sometimes I wonder, "Did I get too attached to this?" I always have my sage with me.
One thing I don't do, but an old teacher of mine used to do, is use feathers. This is less a matter of fragrance. In fact, maybe this should be in a different category. Having a beautiful feather on your altar or in your house helps you connect with the energy of birds and with nature. It's a little bit of a Native American vibe to have some beautiful feathers around. Sometimes you see people really tap into that energy. It's one that I don't do as much, but I'm sharing everything with you guys because some of you might be like, "Oh yeah, totally. Feathers. Nice."
We have to talk about essential oils. Essential oils are the spiritual perfume, essentially. It's a fragrance that helps you protect your energy or move your energy, but it also becomes an embodiment of you, like your clothing.
You might want to have a particular fragrance that produces a sort of experience that others have about you. The way people experience you is important because they direct energy at you, and it affects your mind and your metaphysical state. If you walk around dressed one way, you're going to get different energy from people, and have to deal with it or be benefited by it, than if you dress a different way. It's the same with fragrance. It's also part of the impeccable curation of how you show up.
You can do it for those reasons, but it's especially important to do it as a means of using the intelligence of these plants to move your mind and spirit in different directions.
Sam, what are you thinking? I feel Sam's wheels turning. Do you want to share where your wheels are turning? You don't have to.
Eslam O I love that you labeled this "Conscious Elements." You've been talking about incense and resins with nuance. There's such rich detail and vivid imagery in what you're describing. I can feel the consciousness and awareness that you've imbued into them. You've densified their meaning and their specialness, and they became some sort of attractor for integrity, coherence, and harmony.
Adam Wes Beautiful! I love it. I love how you're receiving this. Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for seeing that.
Eslam O I agree with you. When it comes to plant intelligence, they're hyper-intelligent. They're super-intelligent. Trust me, I work in AI, and I've seen radical intelligence. We cannot compete with thousands of years of planetary Gaian connection, Gaian mind, and mycelium networks.
Adam Wes A plant grows from a seed, and that seed has DNA, which is essentially information. We've got the four different nucleotides. It's like binary, but it's not binary. It's quadrinary, or whatever the correct term is.
That information expresses into these plants. Just like with AI, we have all these dimensions of possibility, all these knobs we turn, all the weights. With those weights, we're able to get somewhere in that metaphysical, metadimensional space, these qualities of existence.
Each plant arose. Oh my God, the gift of the rose to humanity and Earth! What would Earth be without the rose? Think about that. We would be a different world because the rose brings a dimension of possibility with it, as it, an embodiment of it.
Eslam O You said the other day that a plant knows something about the universe that you don't, or it has some sort of intelligence. It gives away secrets to you, and it's sharing them with you. Ever since you said that, I'm looking at every single thing in my day-to-day life and thinking, "Okay, what do you know about the universe? What can you teach me?"
Adam Wes Beautiful. Everything has that. Every color has that. You can also see human beings in things. When I write my computer program animations, they're imbued with something that was an expression of an energy and essence that I was emanating.
This is art, right? That's what artists do. We hold an energy, and then we express it. The expression becomes a means by which it's transferred. A rose says, "Hey, be like me." When we have rose essential oil on, we get to be like a rose. We're not only learning from a rose, but we're stepping into the possibility that is rose.
Colleen, Mom, hi. Yes, you can use a feather to spread it around.
Colleen Smoothly around. Spread it around, yeah.
Adam Wes I've seen people do that before, especially with sage. It's kind of better than waving the sage around while it burns and drops on the floor.
Colleen I just want to say something that's a family thing. Sorry, guys, but your Auntie Lise's two favorite things were myrrh and frankincense.
Adam Wes Oh, wow! Those are two of my favorites. I was just burning myrrh and frankincense to get into the vibe of this sermon today. That's wonderful. Lise, my auntie.
Let's keep going. I'm going to go through a few essential oils: rose, frankincense, sandalwood, jasmine, clary sage, vanilla, and lavender. Frankincense is a resin, but it's also a great essential oil. Jasmine is really lovely. Jasmine is just so, just, oof. Clary sage has a very strong spiritual quality. That one really left an impression on me a long time ago. Vanilla is a wonderful essential oil, and lavender is also very wonderful.
You can also bathe with them and put them in your bathtub. There are lots of ways you can do this. You can put them in an air diffuser or a water diffuser, those cool little things with the lights on them. They're really cheap. You can get them on Amazon. You put the oil in, and it blows out this mist because it turns it into vapor. That's a little better for the lungs.
There's our first category. Let's go on to fire and light.
Just to say, lavender is very calming, soothing, and peaceful. Each one has a different quality. Jasmine is very uplifting and vital. Clary sage has a lot of wisdom. It's hard to say. You can try to put words to these things. Frankincense is very purifying. Rose has romance, love, and beauty. It's very heart-centered.
Everything has these qualities. You can sit down with them and say, "Okay, who are you? Who are you, my friend, my vanilla essence friend here?"
Fire Light Earth and Water
Let's go on to fire and light. Candles are very powerful, but burn them safely. Please be very careful. Take all kinds of precautions. If you're burning candles, you should have fire extinguishers around. You shouldn't leave them burning unattended. You should put them on a nice plate or make sure nothing is going to fall on them. Be very careful if you've got pets. Maybe you shouldn't do that. I'm just telling everybody, please be careful.
Candles obviously have a very ancient quality. It's great to burn candles at nighttime and keep the lights down. It allows you to fall asleep. Blue light wakes up the brain. Candlelight is very organic. It's not electrical. It has this quality to it.
Sadhguru calls it a "fire wash." If you've never watched Sadhguru, by the way, I highly recommend you go onto YouTube and listen to Sadhguru. He's a really lovely man and probably one of the most famous gurus in the world right now.
He talks about a fire wash. If you're burning one candle in a room, that candle will clear your aura. If you burn two, it has a very different effect because you've got stereo going. Those are the stereo candles. It actually changes something because two points make a line. One point doesn't make a line. You've got a different quality, mathematically speaking.
Burning candles, even just tea light candles, is a really wonderful way to work intuitively. Sometimes your aura doesn't want fire, but sometimes it does.
Another thing that I haven't done, but really want to do, is an oil lamp. Sadhguru actually says it's good to sleep with an oil lamp. It'll change the way you sleep.
These are occult metaphysical practices I'm sharing with you here. They seem somewhat mundane, but these things have effects through the occult. Occult means hidden and metaphysical. There are all kinds of things happening.
Humans tend to be very materialistic in our modern culture. Materialistic means that if you can see it, then it's real. If you can't, it's not. But there are a lot of things we can't see that are happening.
When you burn an oil lamp or a candle, it changes something. You don't necessarily have to understand it, but you can observe the effect. You can always observe the effect, and if it helps you, it's good. You don't have to be all physicist about it and understand everything before you try it.
I fell into that trap when I was younger. I thought, "If I can't understand it, it's not real." But it is real. There are so many things we can't understand. Tell me the science of love. You can try to do the chemistry, but there's so much more to it.
Another one is a salt lamp. Does anybody have a salt lamp? Nice, David. Salt lamps are these orange, glowing, giant chunks of salt with a bulb inside. The bulb heats up the salt, and apparently ions come off of it and purify the air. It has this warm, deep glow. It's more like a candle, but it's still electric. I highly recommend a salt lamp.
Let's go on to earth and water. Oh my gosh, it's 6:37. This is going on long. We're supposed to start meditating. I'm going to go much faster here. I'm just going to go right through it, and I'll have this for you.
Earth and water. Flowers. It's good to have flowers. Jasmine and rose are wonderful flowers, but choose any flowers you like. Be intuitive about it. Having flowers in the house changes things.
A while ago, I used to go to this one very wealthy family's home, and she always had her assistant placing brand-new flowers every day. There were flowers everywhere. You don't have to be rich to do this. You can spend $100 a month on flowers, or it depends where you live. That's what it's like in LA. You can have the joy of flowers.
Plants are very important. Plants do something for us psychically. They're our allies in the psychic space. They hold an energy, and you can draw on your plants when you're away from home. They provide a kind of psychic pivot and support, and you can develop a relationship with your plants.
I've got many, many plants, and I use them, and they help me. That's one aspect. Plants are also wonderful because you can love them. You learn to listen to your plant, and this helps you become more empathic. You should know when your plant is thirsty. You should know when your plant is getting too much light. That's a practice in empathy and listening.
A snake plant is a very good plant. It brings a lot of oxygen into the air. Plants also have a very chemical process. Snake plants have long, skinny things that stick up. If you don't have a snake plant in your house, it's a great opportunity to make your air very high-quality.
You know how people can breathe concentrated oxygen and it makes them feel good? Well, this is just more oxygen from having these plants in your house.
Pothos vine is another one. This is the one right here. I love this. It will just keep growing down and down and down. It's like a beard of plants. It's wonderful.
Another thing is to have a fountain. You can buy a really beautiful, affordable fountain for $50, and the little trickling fountain in your house is really lovely.
We could have a whole week on crystals, but I'm just going to mention them right now. Crystals are absolutely so important. If you don't have a piece of selenite, this is the sage of crystals. Sage purifies, and this purifies. It's like invincible purification. It's pure purification. Keeping it on you is so powerful, and it's very cheap.
It's also good to have black tourmaline. Black tourmaline absorbs negativity. It works a little differently from selenite but has a similar effect because it's an absorption. Sometimes you need absorption, and sometimes you need purification.
One of my favorites, especially for math people, is blue fluorite. Blue fluorite has a square crystalline structure that brings clarity to the mind. The blue brings tranquility, too. I love this. It's been one of my favorites for a long time.
Because we're all into the Bhakti thing here, I think most of us are, rose quartz is very good for Bhakti and the heart. Gentleness.
Other things you can have are shells. Feathers are very good to have, too. I think maybe feathers should have been in this section. Whoops.
Sacred Symbols Clothing and Order
Something that I haven't done as much, but that is good to have, is curated sound and silence. Music is very good. You can have peaceful music throughout the house, various kinds of ancient music, oming, chanting, or just your favorite music.
There are also bells, chimes, singing bells, singing bowls, and those sorts of things. Anything that brings vibration into the air has energy and knowledge in it.
Next, mind and spirit. It's wonderful to have a book like the Bhagavad Gita sitting on the table in your living room, or the Tao Te Ching, or any of those wonderful Taoist, Indian, or Japanese texts. These things hold a wavelength. They remind your mind to stay with the sacred. They're little memorabilia, very valuable for that.
Images and photos are similar. You can have a picture of Sadhguru or Ramana Maharshi. You can have a picture of family members who you feel bring a lot of clarity. It's especially good to have pictures of saints or teachers. They're embodying that energy, and it helps you draw from what they've achieved, which is what they want you to do. Or I don't know what they want, but part of their value to the world is that they've embodied these things.
Mandalas and yantras, these visual Indian patterns, also have a similar effect, as do statues. A Buddha statue, a mathematical statue, or a Platonic solid statue, for example, has energy in it as well. Any kind of art that might be conducive to spiritual energy is good. Surround yourself with art, books, and things like that.
Real quick, clothing and color. There's a problem with the way the world is promoting clothing. The Lululemon trend is synthetic, synthetic, synthetic. It's very bad for the energy body to be constantly touching synthetic plastic clothing. These are chemically made clothes.
It's good to have plant-based clothing: cotton, linen, hemp, and bamboo. You can buy these things. They're very affordable. It's very significant for your metaphysical energetic flow.
White clothing also has a very powerful energy. Black is good too, but black has a very different effect. I recommend trying white clothing. Sometimes, if you've never done it, it's hard to do.
I used to wear all black all the time, and I was a very different person. I moved into white, and it really changed me a lot. I liked it. No judgment if people are wearing black. That's cool, but I recommend trying it.
Beige, orange, ochre, like the ochre robes of the monks, and bright colors like bright pink or green all have effects. I guess this is a whole big discussion, so I'll leave it at that, but there are a lot of ways you can use colors in your clothing.
If I need tranquility, I'll put my light blue shirt on. I'll wear that, and it helps me.
Almost done. Minimalism. It's good to have a very orderly, clean space. Clear the clutter. Clear the clutter, keep things minimal, and organize. It's a very Zen sentiment.
As within, so without. What is outside of us is an expression of our inside. What is outside of us also informs our inside. Your mind will be different when your space is different.
You can bring all of this together in an altar. An altar is a little table where you can put certain things in a certain way to store energy, hold energy, and direct energy. You can have a feather, a candle, an incense burner, a book, and a picture of a saint on a little table. You can sit there, and it's a very powerful way to direct your energy and hold your practice.
I guess that was a long talk today. Sorry to the new people who wanted to meditate. I hope this isn't too far from what you wanted. I'd love to see if anybody does something interesting with this and it affects your life in a beautiful way.
All right, let's get meditating. Do you have any questions?
Eslam O Adam, just a quick question about wearing all black versus wearing all white. From my understanding, if you wear black, that means you're in absorption mode, or you're in intake mode, right?
Adam Wes Yeah, there's an absorption factor, and you will absorb the energy of others. White will reflect and actually protect your energy and keep your energy pure. That's one factor.
Eslam O Oh, no, we eat energies for breakfast and transmute them, so I think I'm good. I think it's working.
Adam Wes Well, you'll have to deal with some of the energies you're exposed to. When I say energies, I don't mean energy. I mean frequencies of vibration.
It's something to explore. You might actually want to absorb the energies, and sometimes you might not want to absorb the energy.
Another thing about black is that black is a very disciplined color. It's a very focused person. White is a little more in the moment, a little less disciplined, and a little more like a peaceful place. You can play with it.
When I wear black, I feel really intense. It kind of makes me feel a little crazy, like I feel too intense. I don't like it. It makes me feel very powerful, but almost mean. That's for me. I'm not saying that universally. My mom is the kindest person in the world, and she wears black all the time.
For me, it makes my intensity almost like, I don't know. It might just be conditioning. I mean, it's not just conditioning. These are things to consider, and there are energetic factors to consider.
Eslam O I feel like it makes me closer to chaos, malleability, or flexibility. If I'm being intentional and conscious about it, I think that's a good practice. Like you said, it's intense. It forces you to pay attention and be aware.
Adam Wes Yeah. Bruce Lee wore a lot of black, right? It's a little bit of the martial arts vibe. White is a little more pacifist, and black is a little more warrior. We all know these things, right?
It's good to explore, "What would it feel like if I just wore all white all the time?" I love to wear all white, white linen from top to bottom. It's a really wonderful feeling. It's a very Indian thing to do. They do that in India quite a bit.
Good question. Thank you. I know you look good in black, Sam. You look badass, man. It kind of has a cool quality.
Sometimes I feel too cool in black. It's almost like I don't want to look cool. It's an interesting, weird paradox. Why don't I want to look cool? It's messing with my humility here.
Heart Centered Meditation
All right, let's play some music. We've got a ten-minute meditation. I don't know how this happened today.
Actually, I'm going to go back and start with our regular music in the beginning.
Let's really focus on a heart-centered meditation today. The heart is in the center of the chest. If you were to say, "I am so-and-so," and put your finger there, intuitively, you would very likely place your finger on the heart center.
Find this place. If you actually try placing your finger there, you bring attention to that part of your body. One can begin to assemble their attention in the center where the heart is.
Bringing your attention is the beginning. It's the beginning of bringing vitality to the heart, physical transformation in the nerves, in the fascia, and in whatever is happening there biologically, to awaken the heart.
It's a very powerful practice to shift your habitual focus to the heart, usually out of the head. Move it to the heart.
I'm here, in my center.
Keep bringing your attention back to the heart, introducing a transformation in your energy.
We're simply doing something so profoundly simple. We're simply feeling the heart.
Let's move from passively feeling to trying to awaken the heart. Think of it a little bit as willing an activation at the heart center. Try to generate love in your heart. What a profound thing.
We sat down and generated love. That's what we can do.
You can feel the warmth. Find a way to create more of that warmth, to the point where your heart literally feels like it's expanding because it's accumulating the substance of love.
One of the most dignified things a human being can do is bring more love into this life and this world.
Let's say you're gently building this reservoir of that substance. With each breath, find your way. Just fill the heart with that warmth.
Let's move our fingers away from the heart. Instead, hold our palm facing the heart center. In a sense, we're expanding. We feel the spot enough now that we can simply hold our palm six to twelve inches in front of the chest and hold space for the heart to expand.
You simply find a way to will that expansion. Generate the substance of love. Open and purify this energetic vortex of the heart.
We only start from where we are, taking that one sacred step toward the highest possibility. We're always taking just a single step.
Now we can put our hands down, if you already have or if you want to now, and just allow the heart to expand well beyond the reach of the arms.
Feel that your heart is pulling you into the sky. Evoke that clarification, that cultivation.
A lion's heart. A source of dignity, freedom, peace, love.
Let's enjoy this for the rest of this song.
Take a deep breath.
Take note of the transformation in the heart that we've experienced here. That's being centered in the heart.
Take just a moment to hear the silence around you, noticing that all time and space exist within the here and now, flowing through it like water through riverbanks.
Just turn to the here and the now.
When you're ready, come out of the meditation, feeling gratitude for the opportunity to become more conscious, and gratitude for being ready for that.
Boom. Everything's beautiful. Practices that we can do.
Meditation Reflections and Yogic Insight
Colleen, would you like to share? We'll have maybe three people share quickly, and then we'll be done.
Colleen Very quickly, when you said to move your hand six inches from your heart, I wasn't moving my arm, but my breath was moving my arm. I was absolutely amazed.
Adam Wes Wow.
Colleen There must have been some expansion, or otherwise my mind is working very well.
Adam Wes I love it! The energy or something, your breath, was moving your hand away.
Colleen Beautiful. I just want to say quickly that I saw a red light immediately, and you can see that I'm in the dark. I was amazed that I could actually see this light, yellow and then white. It was momentary, but it's dark, and I did have that experience, as if someone almost switched the lights on.
Adam Wes Oh, beautiful.
Colleen Thank you, Adam.
Adam Wes I'm good at accessing the light. You're welcome. Love you. Good job. Amazing.
How about you, Ariella?
Bless you.
Ariella Oh! That was amazing. I can't even remember the words that you just said, but I felt like I was in, I don't know, in the universe. It was just amazing.
Adam Wes I think you noticed that all of time and space are in the here and now.
Ariella Yes.
Adam Wes Good job. Way to connect with that. I'm sharing something subtle when I say that. You can really find that everything is in the here and now. The only reality that we can make contact with is the here and the now.
Then you ask yourself, "Well, what is the rest of it?" We can see that they're conceptualizations: a conception of the past, a conception of the future, and a conception of the created self.
These are all deep yogic philosophies that you can explore, come to know firsthand and directly, and use to change your experience of the universe. Nice job. You are in the universe.
Ariella I also lost consciousness of this specific space.
Adam Wes Beautiful. Another thing that can happen is that everything is a mental formation. If you stop thinking entirely, there's none of this.
Ariella Mmm.
Adam Wes In yoga, they call it Maya. It means illusion. We can actually see that the world is because you think it to be. If you stop thinking, there is no self and there's no world. Those are actually inside of you and created, like a mirage or waves in the ocean.
But the real substance is the substance of being, and being needs no self-identification. It simply is. You can touch it when you get so still that there is only this primordial substance of being.
Yoga describes different qualities of that essence. It's unknowable as a being, though. It's what we are, and we can never not be.
Ariella Mmm. Thank you, Adam.
Adam Wes Beautiful. Namaste, Ariella. Thank you.
Mark, would you like to share for a moment? Thanks for being here. You don't have to, though. Just keep your thing off if you don't want to.
David, do you want to do a quick share? It's got to be really quick, 30 seconds.
David P Yeah, I keep connecting more and more easily with the expansion of the heart each time.
Adam Wes Beautiful.
David P This is not the first time I'm telling you this, but it's the air. The air is different. I think you mentioned prana. Every time I do this heart expansion, I breathe this different air. My nostrils just open really wide, and it happens without thinking. It just happens.
Adam Wes Yeah, use the energy. There are all different kinds of energy, and opening the heart is a very, very important thing.
David P It's as if I am really generating something here, and then I'm breathing it. It's very powerful.
Adam Wes Yeah. I think of love as a substance that we can generate. When we sit down and meditate, we're generating love, a substance that will actually grow.
My heart feels so warm and fuzzy right now. I don't know if you guys feel this. It's full, warm, and fuzzy. It makes me skip and dance, smile at people, see mathematical equations clearly, feel peaceful, and want to sleep or want to run. I don't even know. I just feel so good.
The heart does this because you're getting closer to your center. When you're at your center, you're not in the precariousness of form. You're moving toward that certainty of formlessness. We're going to what we are deep down.
The heart is one of the metaphysical expressions of going to that being that Ariella and I were talking about. We want to go to the heart, the heart here, and then deeper into the heart, the center of all things, the source of all things.
Namaste, everybody. Good job. If you want to donate, it's obviously always appreciated, even a small donation. You can do that on my website, on the meditation page.
I hope to see you next week. We'll be here every week at the same time. Good job. Thanks for being here. This was really wonderful. I really enjoy connecting with all of you like this. It's really wonderful.
Namaste. Thank you. Bye, Mom!