Essay Edition
Autotelic Practice and Artistic Freedom
To be an artist is to express yourself in utter honesty, to be totally free, and share meaning with life, with the world. It comes through you because of what you are.
Autotelic means to do something for the sake of doing it. If we are engaging in an autotelic activity, it means that we are in the flow. We are sitting here, and the activity itself is the reward.
A lot of times, we do things for the results of our actions. I am going to be disciplined, and I am going to bear with it and complete this action because I want some sort of future result. This is not autotelic. Autotelic means that I pick up the guitar and play because that experience itself is fulfilling to me. It is true to myself. It is freedom.
It is important not to kid yourself, because you may pick up the guitar and say that, but really, it is all about your ego. The question is: Can I live in such a degree of humility that I do what I love to do without thought of egoic reward? That includes reward in the future through money or results of any kind, and inner reward of egoic gratification, like being special, being better, being worse, or whatever it is that you want to be. Instead, act in a state of complete humility and self-abandon.
Autotelic activity is an essential part of spiritual practice because, when you do this, you dissolve the ego. You are doing things that are antithetical to egoic development, egoic calcification.
Autotelic activity needs to be something that you enjoy, but it also needs to be something that strains you ever so slightly. If you are a guitarist and you play the same song every day for thirty years and never challenge yourself, that is not autotelic either. Autotelic means that what you are doing is invigorating to your sense of freedom and your sense of vitality because you are always taking it a little bit further. Not too much further, but just the next step.
When we engage in autotelic activity, we start to develop mastery. We are getting better and better at what we do. Auto means self, like doing something for its own value, intrinsically. Autotelic means that you are doing it at the edge of your ability.
Usually, people have one central thing, or maybe one, two, or three central things. Sometimes they integrate. Usually one of them is really reflected in the others. For me, mathematics is my autotelic activity, but so is writing. I love to write. When I write, I see the mathematics in the writing structure and in the psychology of the writing. Another thing is coding. Obviously, for me, that is very mathematical, so all of these things integrate together.
What is something that you would love to do for the sake of doing it? It could be dancing. It could be writing. It could be drawing cool patterns of geometry. It could be a number of things.
Inspiration, Aspiration, and Integrity
What is the difference between inspiration and motivation?
Motivation means that I want a reward. It is not good to be motivated. It is good to be inspired. From a spiritual standpoint, motivation means that what you are doing is not what you really want to be doing. You just want the result. If we live our lives not doing what we want to do, our energy cannot awaken.
The enlightened being is always being true to themselves. It means that, in this moment, I am doing what I want to do. Not what I want to do in an indulgent sense, but what I want to do in an integral sense.
If you want to eat cookies, and eat more cookies, and more cookies, and more cookies, that has nothing to do with being true to yourself. In fact, being true to yourself might be wanting to have juice every day, make a beautiful juice in the morning, wake up at 7:00 a.m., make it all colorful and beautiful, put on some beautiful Stan Getz music, and feel the freshness of the sun in the food. That is more like being true to yourself. And then, do you do it?
Think about the student who just wants to get into some university. They push themselves. They are very motivated. Then think about the other high school student who just loves what they are studying, and they get into that great university. But they did it because they were honest with themselves. It is more honorable.
The motivated student is really self-serving. Here is the big distinction and why it relates to enlightenment: The motivated student is serving their ego. The inspired student is transcending their ego.
That is what I mean by humility. They love what they do, and they lose themselves in it. They do not care what anybody thinks, and therefore they live in integrity.
There are two more words to pair. We have inspiration and motivation, and we have aspiration and ambition. What is your aspiration? Your inspiration leads to aspiration. I aspire to make this beautiful music come out of the violin. It inspires me, and I aspire to be able to manifest it in total freedom and have it contain these subtle intricacies of music theory that are really fascinating to me, autotelically.
Ambition is having to have it, having to have it all, wanting to be the best. It is not as evolved. It is very much on the other side of the spectrum. I am ambitious. I have to get into the best university. I do not care if anybody is in my way. I will push them aside.
That has nothing to do with being aspirational. The aspirational person wants everybody to succeed. They are in freedom. They are in compassion. They love life. The motivated person, the ambitious person, is not living in love. They are living in deficit, insufficiency.
In inspiration and aspiration, we feel the moment is complete and full and overflowing with joy. In motivation and ambition, we feel the moment is not filled with joy. It is not complete unto itself, and therefore we want something else. We always live in the future, like a donkey with a carrot stuck out from its head, hanging down.
This is all involved in being an artist. When I say being an artist, it means I am being true to myself, and I am growing toward mastery through constantly living in autotelic activity. I am inspired, and I aspire to things that make me smile. I enjoy moving in that direction. I do not care what anybody thinks. I do it for its own sake.
Life brings me people who are meant to be in my life because I am being true to myself, and I will resonate with them, and they will resonate with me.
Mastery, Love, and Spiritual Practice
How do you achieve mastery? Mastery means that you love the basics.
If I am a martial artist, I love the basic punch, the basic stance, or the basic block. It is not that I leave it at a basic level. It is that, within that mastery, I become a master of standing. I know the subtleties.
It is like the pianist who touches the key, and you wonder how they touched that key that way. There is a difference. You can tell if somebody has been playing piano properly for thirty years. They can play a basic song, but when they touch the keys, it is just right. And that is simply how they touched the key.
The master knows how to touch the key. The martial artist knows how to stand. The mathematician knows how to connect with the number three, or four, or five.
The basics, the fundamentals, are an interest, and only somebody who is really autotelic will be interested in the fundamentals. When I count, I get a kick out of it because it is for me. I love numbers. Well, I love quantities.
Mastery includes returning to the basics. The master is a perpetual beginner. The expert is all enmeshed in methods and all the advanced things, but the master comes back to simplicity.
John Coltrane, the saxophone player, started playing the ninth and the eleventh of the chord. He made it work because he saw that it was possible, and he was creating art, avant-garde art, with Miles Davis.
Study artists, people who did this. Look at them and ask why a Steve Jobs was a Steve Jobs, a Miles Davis a Miles Davis, a Bruce Lee a Bruce Lee. Think of the dancer. Think of the writer. Think of Gandhi.
All of this is nice theory, perhaps, and maybe it is aspirational. But then you come to the point where you are trying to do it, and maybe you cannot. It is hard, because it is not just something that you do. It is certainly something you can commit to, but what are the things that prevent this? How can we awaken the ability by navigating or removing those impediments or obstacles?
First of all, love makes this possible. In love, we accept ourselves completely as we are, and we accept everything as it is. We have to practice love, stillness, wholeness, and meditation.
If we feel incomplete without being liked, or incomplete without any of the things that can interfere with our integrity, then we have to be free. Freedom is essential. The artist is free.
Meditation and bhakti are essential to cultivating freedom. Bhakti is the yoga of love. The more love we have, the more we just do not care. Everything is so beautiful. It does not matter if it is a cloudy day or if I am just sitting still. I am overflowing with so much beauty because I have a richness within my heart.
That makes us free. We become completely inwardly independent because we are overflowing with ecstatic bliss.
Meditation is a part of that. Love, loving, being loving, living in a loving way, being kind to others, all those things open the heart. Meditation is being still, being an open channel, a conduit for the divine to come through.
If you are so filled with ideas, like the expert, you cannot be the master and just be the spontaneity. The master has already gone through the expert. There is a kind of curve. The beginner goes up to the expert and then comes back down, and they let go of the rules. But they do not conflict with them. They have transcended the rules.
That is what I mean by John Coltrane. He broke the rules, but he did it right because the rules were guidelines.
So how do we do this? Meditate. Be kind. Meditate every day. This is why it is about routine. If you do your routine, if every day you meditate at the same time until that is a part of you, that is how you can become an artist and achieve mastery.
Also, mindfulness. When you find this thing that you love, that you live for, that is autotelic, recognize it. See it everywhere. Let it be the lens through which you interpret your whole life. Every moment is an act of that thing, and you can start to make it an act of that. Live that completely. This gives us beautiful vitality.
If everything becomes dance for you, even when you are showering or cooking or whatever, then you are living that completely. It becomes a lens through which you see the world and something that you do in every activity.
Let your language become that. I like to use mathematics in my language. I use the metaphor of mathematics, the metaphor of physics, and the metaphor of philosophy in a very particular way. To me, that is living it.
I do not have to use the colloquialisms of the cool kids next door. I use my words, and I do not care if they like me or not because I would rather be true to myself.
Explore what that means for you. How great would it be if all of us were like wildflowers? Every wildflower is different.
Let me see the beautiful gift to the universe that is your unique autotelic aspiration and inspiration. This all relates to dharma. I am talking about dharma from a different perspective.
Excitement and Energetic Integrity
Excitement seems like a good thing, but it is actually not really a good thing. Excitement usually is associated with anticipation, and there is a sense of up and down. This inspiration I am talking about is very steady. Excitement introduces polarity.
The artist is inspired and overflowing, but there is a sense of aloofness about it. It may not be outwardly expressed. What is there to be excited about? My life is one effulgent excitement, independent of circumstances.
What is exciting is that the boat is facing the right direction. The boat may be at any level across the journey. We do not want to miss any year of our lives. Is eighteen better than forty-two? Is it better than three? They are all good. It is unfolding, and we get to experience every flavor of development temporarily in the unfolding of our destiny.
Think about how ninety is going to be. That is going to be cool. Every age is great, unless we start thinking that ninety means we do not have as many years left. But do not think of it that way, because you are just so in the moment. There are no years. There is only now.
That is an aspirational, spiritually developed perspective. But excitement, I have found, dissipates energy.
To really retain the energy, maintain a kind of aloofness, meaning that I am in so much integrity and so much wholeness that I do not care. I am just moving. There is a feeling of charge there.
The charge comes from being true to yourself. “To thine own self be true.” Shakespeare said that. “Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
There is a powerful vitality if you can find that little crack in the universe that is integrity and being honest and true to yourself. A cosmic momentum of power comes through you in every moment, and you are self-fulfilled autotelically through your integrity.
Excitement is tricky. Sometimes it feels good to be excited, but you have to be careful with it. It cannot come from lack.
Chakra Practice and Meditation
Slow down. Bring attention to the body. Scan the body. We want to release any resistance. Soften by becoming aware of any resistance in the scanning process. You can soften and let go.
If you have any energetic pain, just observe it. Try to let it release itself, or accept that resistance, trusting it will soften with this process. We are becoming immersed in the moment, the cosmic substance.
Bring your attention to the heart center, right in the center of the chest. We are revitalizing that spot through attention. You can put your finger there, simply feel that spot within, or even tap the spot.
Now go to the third eye, right between the eyebrows, a little bit above. There is another spot, a vortex of energy. Bring your attention there or focus your energy there. You are looking at that spot. You are managing your third eye. It is a center. Become aware of that.
Now go to the navel center. It is about one inch below the belly button. If you feel this one strongly, it begins to release a sense of heat. But you can also just feel the magnetism or the power of it. This is the power of the will. You can feel that quality of power there. The heart is love, the third eye is vision and clarity, and this is your power.
We need to get in touch with the power. Try to feel this spot and invoke the magnification of that power. If you cannot feel the energy as much, simply feel the spot. There is an energetic aspect to that. You can magnify it in that way, but even just feeling the spot with your attention is energy.
Go back to the heart. This time, try to feel the heart center’s expansion in front of the chest. There is a spot about six inches in front of the chest. Feel the heart arc, like an electrical arc. Feel an intense connection, then relax and let the momentum carry. Do this with gentle intentionality. Do not strain yourself. With each reiteration, you can take it a little bit further.
Move to the third eye, always staying active in the heart, though. It is the center of our practice. Feel the third eye. Feel the spot with intensity, then let go and ride the wave.
Go to the navel center. Feel the spot to start. Triangulate the position with your attention. Now add the power. Feel the intensity, then relax.
Scan the three chakras: Manipura is the navel center, Anahata is the heart center, and the third eye is Ajna chakra. Feel them all active at the same time. You should feel stable from the navel. You should feel expansive, with contentment from the heart. You should feel steady attention from the third eye.
Now is a good time to go into the dissolving state. We do all this work, which is not really meditation. It is more of a precursor to it. We have cleared our space. Now we can let go.
There will be no activity. Become absorbed in the freedom that we have opened energetically. If you begin to see the luminosity, the brightness within the fabric of your mind, let that brightness expand. Let it wash you away into impersonal existence.
Absorbed in the state of the unknown. Being what you are. Not thinking about what you are. Becoming still.
Experiences and Energetic Integration
The chi, the kundalini, gets very dense. It is not supposed to be dense. It is supposed to feel fluid in the body. It should flow like electricity, and it should be very charged. Your hand should have a lot of life-force energy in it.
When you focus on your third eye, doing that together in that way is interesting because you do more than you would otherwise do. Pushing the heart energy, the navel, and all of them dislodges things.
You might feel better, but also not feel better, because something starts to move. You can sense that it is better. It is just processing.
Instead of just feeling love and going into stillness, into light, this is almost like clearing the body so you can go deeper. The body, the nervous system, the chakra system, the nadis, the Sushumna, all these different channels, and the aura, when they get dense, you cannot go as far. This clears it.
A very powerful thing to do is sit and do the metaphysical work. It can be very good, especially if you touch all seven chakras. You go around the back, there are all these different nadis and granthis back there, and there is a microcosmic orbit. There is a lot to do.
When you are done, you feel powerful and clear. The whole idea is that then you just drop in and the mind stops. It is one of the approaches to stilling the mind.
Lunar Perception and Direct Experience
The moon has this charge. It is kind of like catapulting you into the stars.
These are the kinds of things that open your feeling. I feel all kinds of pressure and energy, and I start to see flickering lights everywhere and waves washing through. You could see that if you do a lot of metaphysical work for many years. There is an ambient potential charge in the metaphysical space from the moon.
You have to feel it. If you had told me this twenty years ago, I would have thought you were just believing in something. The point is to feel it. Can you feel it?
Try to get into nature. Sit and meditate. Try to still your mind. Meditate on your chakras. Light some candles, get quiet, turn off the phone and the computer, and listen. Just listen.
I would always let reading about it be an invitation to direct perception. If we read about it, we might realize that we should listen. Then you do, and you can experience it.
But I always take it with a grain of salt. Does this person know what they are talking about? Is it really true? I have to be my own authority, always. Everybody should be their own authority in what they do, which means that I know the truth because I saw it and I experienced it. But it is an invitation too.
We are in the proximity of these planets, and that is, in a way, our body. You are a little speck. You are the Earth. You just rose up out of the clay. We are still part of the Earth.
Full Transcript
Autotelic Practice and Artistic Freedom
Adam Wes Hey, everybody.
While we wait for more people to arrive, I recommend everybody grab some incense or a candle and just curate your environment a little bit.
Let's drop in and really clear the space before we get started. Maybe bring attention to your heart. Let go of all the resistance within. Let yourself start to smile, inwardly or outwardly, with a sense of joy just to be. Invoke that possibility.
We're letting the momentum of activity slow down, the wheel of becoming slow to a stop.
I'm excited to share some really special wisdom concepts with you today that I have found personally life-changing. It may take time to integrate them, so I recommend really reviewing, studying, and considering what we discuss today. But it's truly pivotal.
Today we'll talk about art and mastery. What does it mean to be an artist? What does it mean to achieve mastery? How can that be done?
It's very closely related to love and meditation, and also to mathematics, which I think for a lot of people seems paradoxical because math seems like the anti-art. But that is very much not the case. Math is art. It's the art of the universe, but it is also the art of the self.
To be an artist is to express yourself in utter honesty, to be totally free, and share meaning with life, with the world. It comes through you because of what you are. So your state, your inner state, what you are, can...
One second, I need to close this window.
Well, let's start with a word: autotelic. The word autotelic means to do something for the sake of doing it. If we are engaging in an autotelic activity, it means that we're in the flow. It means that we're sitting here and the activity itself is the reward.
A lot of times, we do things for the results of our actions. "I'm going to be disciplined, and I'm going to bear with it and complete this action because I want some sort of future result." This is not autotelic. Autotelic means that I pick up the guitar and I play because that experience itself is fulfilling to me. It's true to myself. It's freedom.
Now, it's important not to kid yourself, because you may pick up the guitar and say that, but really, it's all about your ego. So the question is: Can I live in such a degree of humility that I do what I love to do without thought of egoic reward? That includes reward in the future through money or results of any kind, and inner reward of egoic gratification, like, "I'm special. I am better. I am worse," or whatever it is that you want to be. Instead, act in a state of complete humility and self-abandon.
Autotelic activity is an essential part of spiritual practice because, when you do this, you dissolve the ego. You're doing things that are antithetical to egoic development, egoic calcification.
Autotelic activity needs to be something that you enjoy, but it also needs to be something that strains you ever so slightly. If you're a guitarist and you play the same song every day for 30 years and never challenge yourself, that's not autotelic either. Autotelic means that what you're doing is invigorating to your sense of freedom and your sense of vitality because you're always taking it a little bit further. Not too much further, but just the next step.
When we engage in autotelic activity, we start to develop mastery, which has a few ingredients itself, but we're getting better and better at what we do.
You may have seen my animations evolve over the years. They actually have evolved quite a bit. I'm always trying to do the next thing. I can't stand staying at the same level. Auto means self, like doing something for its own value, intrinsically. Autotelic means that you're doing it at the edge of your ability.
Maybe everybody take a moment and think: What is the activity that I like to do?
Usually, people have one central thing, or maybe one, two, or three central things. Sometimes they integrate. Usually one of them is really reflected in the others. For me, mathematics is my autotelic activity, but so is writing. I love to write. When I write, I see the mathematics in the writing structure and in the psychology of the writing.
Another thing is coding. Obviously, for me, that's very mathematical, so all of these things integrate together.
Maybe take a moment and think: What is something that I would love to do for the sake of doing it? It could be dancing. It could be writing. It could be drawing cool patterns of geometry. It could be a number of things. You probably already thought of it as I was speaking.
Inspiration Aspiration and Integrity
Let's talk about a few more concepts. What is the difference between inspiration and motivation?
Motivation means, "I want a reward." This is another key term here. It's not good to be motivated. It's good to be inspired.
From a spiritual standpoint, motivation means that what you're doing is not what you really want to be doing. You just want the result. If we live our lives not doing what we want to do, our energy can't awaken.
The enlightened being is always being true to themselves. It means, "In this moment, I am doing what I want to do." Not what I want to do in an indulgent sense, but what I want to do in an integral sense.
If you want to eat cookies, and eat more cookies, and more cookies, and more cookies, that has nothing to do with being true to yourself. In fact, being true to yourself might be like, "Oh, I want to have juice every day, make a beautiful juice in the morning, wake up at 7:00 a.m., make it all colorful and beautiful, put on some beautiful Stan Getz music, and just feel the freshness of the sun in the food." That's more like being true to yourself. And then, do you do it?
So, inspiration versus motivation. If you look at somebody and think, "They're so motivated," think about this student who just wants to get into some university. They push themselves. They're very motivated.
Then think about the other high school student who just loves what they're studying, and they get into that great university. But they did it because they were honest with themselves. It's more honorable.
This motivated student is really self-serving. Here's the big distinction and why it relates to enlightenment: The motivated student is serving their ego. They're self-serving. The inspired student is transcending their ego.
That's what I mean by humility. They love what they do, and they lose themselves in it. They don't care what anybody thinks, and therefore they live in integrity.
Two more words to pair. As you see the mathematics here, we've got inspiration and motivation, and we've got aspiration and ambition.
What is your aspiration? That's good. Your inspiration leads to aspiration. "I aspire to make this beautiful music come out of the violin." It inspires me, and I aspire to be able to manifest it in total freedom and have it contain these subtle intricacies of music theory that are really fascinating to me, autotelically.
Ambition is, "I have to have it. I have to have it all. I want to be the best." It's not as evolved. It's very much on the other side of the spectrum. "I'm ambitious. I have to get into the best university. I don't care if anybody's in my way. I'll push them aside."
That has nothing to do with being aspirational. The aspirational person wants everybody to succeed. They're in freedom. They are in compassion. They love life.
The motivated person, the ambitious person, is not living in love. They're living in deficit, insufficiency.
In inspiration and aspiration, we feel the moment is complete and full and overflowing with joy. In motivation and ambition, we feel the moment is not filled with joy. It's not complete unto itself, and therefore we want something else. We always live in the future, like a donkey with a carrot stuck out from its head, hanging down.
This is all involved in being an artist. When I say being an artist, it means I am being true to myself, and I am growing toward mastery through constantly living in autotelic activity. I'm inspired, and I aspire to things that make me smile. I enjoy moving in that direction. I don't care what anybody thinks. I do it for its own sake.
Life brings me people who are meant to be in my life because I'm being true to myself, and I'll resonate with them, and they'll resonate with me.
Mastery Love and Spiritual Practice
Then there's mastery. Mastery is also an important thing. It's a little bit of a separate topic, but I think they can go together today.
How do you achieve mastery? All of this is involved and applies, but mastery also means that you love the basics.
If I'm a martial artist, I love the basic punch, the basic stance, or the basic block. It's not that I leave it at a basic level. It's that, within that mastery, I become a master of standing. I know the subtleties.
It's like the pianist who touches the key, and you're like, "Wow, how did you touch that key that way?" There's a difference. You can tell if somebody's been playing piano properly for 30 years. They can play a basic song, but when they touch the keys, it's just right. And that's simply how they touched the key.
The master knows how to touch the key. The martial artist knows how to stand. The mathematician knows how to connect with the number three, or four, or five.
The basics, the fundamentals, are an interest, and only somebody who's really autotelic will be interested in the fundamentals. When I count, I get a kick out of it because it's for me. I love numbers. Well, I love quantities.
Mastery includes returning to the basics.
The master is a perpetual beginner. The expert is all enmeshed in methods and all the advanced things, but the master comes back to simplicity.
John Coltrane, the saxophone player, started playing the ninth and the eleventh of the chord. He made it work because he saw that it was possible, and he was creating art, avant-garde art, with Miles Davis.
Study artists, people who did this. Look at them and say, "Why was a Steve Jobs a Steve Jobs, a Miles Davis a Miles Davis, a Bruce Lee a Bruce Lee?" Think of the dancer. Think of the writer. Think of the politician who perhaps did that, a Gandhi a Gandhi.
All of this is nice theory, perhaps, and maybe it's aspirational. But then you come to the point where you're trying to do it, and maybe you can't. It's hard, because it's not just something that you do. It's certainly something you can commit to, but what are the things that prevent this? How can we awaken the ability by navigating or removing those impediments or obstacles?
First of all, love makes this possible. In love, we accept ourselves completely as we are, and we accept everything as it is. We have to practice love, stillness, wholeness, and meditation.
If we feel incomplete without being liked, or incomplete without any of the things that can interfere with our integrity, then we have to be free. Freedom is essential. The artist is free.
Meditation and bhakti are essential to cultivating freedom. Bhakti is the yoga of love. The more love we have, the more we just don't care. Everything is so beautiful. It doesn't matter if it's a cloudy day or if I'm just sitting still. I am overflowing with so much beauty because I have a richness within my heart.
That makes us free. We become completely inwardly independent because we're overflowing with ecstatic bliss.
Meditation is a part of that. Love, loving, being loving, living in a loving way, being kind to others, all those things open the heart. Meditation is being still, being an open channel, a conduit for the divine to come through.
If you're so filled with ideas, like the expert, you can't be the master and just be the spontaneity. The master has already gone through the expert. There's a kind of curve. The beginner goes up to the expert and then comes back down, and they let go of the rules. But they don't conflict with them. They've transcended the rules, man.
That's what I mean by John Coltrane. He kind of broke the rules, but he did it right because the rules were guidelines.
So how do we do this? Meditate. Be kind. Meditate every day. This is why it's about routine. If you do your routine, if every day you meditate at the same time until that's a part of you, that's how you can become an artist and achieve mastery.
Also, mindfulness.
I'm so glad I'm remembering this. When you find this thing that you love, that you live for, that's autotelic, recognize it. See it everywhere. Let it be the lens through which you interpret your whole life. Every moment is an act of that thing, and you can start to make it an act of that. Live that completely. This gives us beautiful vitality.
If everything becomes dance for you, even when you're showering or cooking or whatever, then you're living that completely. It becomes a lens through which you see the world and something that you do in every activity.
Let your language become that. You know how I like to use mathematics in my language. I use the metaphor of mathematics, the metaphor of physics, and the metaphor of philosophy in a very particular way. To me, that's living it.
I don't have to use the colloquialisms of the cool kids next door. I use my words, and I don't care if they like me or not because I'd rather be true to myself.
I'm inviting everybody here to explore what that means for them, essentially. How great would it be if all of us were like wildflowers? Every wildflower is different.
Let me see the beautiful gift to the universe that is your unique autotelic aspiration and inspiration.
This all relates to dharma, of course. I'm talking about dharma from a different perspective.
Any questions? Then we're going to meditate. Guess what I have for today's meditation? A metaphysical workout. A little aura acrobatics. Or not acrobatics, aerobics. Aerobics for your aura.
You see how I'm silly and playful? That's bhakti. Bhakti and math together. That's just being true to yourself. It's hard to do sometimes when you're kind of locked up.
I used to be locked up. I think a lot of us get locked up at some point. I don't know if you guys are locked up, but I know I was locked up at one point, and meditation and energy work changed that for me.
When we do the energy work, the auric aerobics today, this should clear the energy because it's actually in your aura. When you love, your aura purifies. When you meditate, your aura purifies. It's a part of our biology, subtle physical, electromagnetic, but not even the nervous system. It's more auric.
Well, that was a fun talk. Any questions?
Kelly, I'm so happy you're here! And Andrea, yay! Thanks for making time today, Andrea. I love your background. Kelly, so happy to see you. Sending you so much love.
Kelly's cool. She's one of the cool kids. Vinh is like, "So am I?" No, Vinh's definitely one of the cool kids.
Any questions? That was a long monologue. Thanks for listening. I hope it was useful and valuable to you.
No questions? Questions are fun.
Come on, Sam, give me a question. Sam's a deep thinker. I know he's got something to say.
Excitement and Energetic Integrity
Eslam O Hi, Adam. Hi, everybody. I got one for you. How is that related to excitement and cultivating the energetic momentum of excitement by using the felt presence of the moment versus the desired future state?
Adam Wes I love what you're saying. I'm so happy you brought this up.
Excitement seems like a good thing, but it's actually not really a good thing. Let me explain what I mean by that.
Excitement usually is associated with anticipation, and there's a sense of up and down. This inspiration I'm talking about is very steady. Excitement introduces polarity.
The artist is inspired and overflowing, but there's a sense of aloofness about it. It may not be outwardly expressed. What is there to be excited about? My life is one effulgent excitement, independent of circumstances.
What's exciting is that the boat is facing the right direction. The boat may be at any level across the journey. We don't want to miss any year of our lives. Is 18 better than 42? Is it better than three? They're all good. It's unfolding, and we get to experience every flavor of development temporarily in the unfolding of our destiny.
Man, think about how 90 is going to be. That's going to be cool. Every age is great, unless we start thinking, "Well, 90 means I don't have as many years left." But don't think of it that way, because you're just so in the moment. There are no years. There's only now.
That's an aspirational, spiritually developed perspective. But I would say excitement, I have found, dissipates energy.
To really retain the energy, maintain a kind of aloofness, meaning, "I'm in so much integrity and so much wholeness that I don't care. I'm just moving." There's a feeling of charge there.
Maybe that's what you're talking about, but the charge comes from being true to yourself. "To thine own self be true." Shakespeare said that. "Thou canst not then be false to any man." I don't remember the whole quote.
There's a powerful vitality if you can find that little crack in the universe that is integrity and being honest and true to yourself. A cosmic momentum of power comes through you in every moment, and you're self-fulfilled autotelically through your integrity.
Excitement's a tricky one because I've been through phases. Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, it feels good to be excited," but you have to be careful with it. That's all I'm saying. It can't come from lack, essentially.
Wonderful question, Sam. Thank you. Thanks for enriching that. That's a good concept to consider in this whole talk.
Are we ready to stretch out our astral hamstrings? I just came up with a funny metaphor. It's metaphysical aerobics.
Let me get some music going here. A little '80s. I'm just kidding.
Vinh T Can you turn it up just a little bit more, Adam?
Adam Wes Sure.
Vinh T Thank you.
Chakra Practice and Meditation
Adam Wes All right, let's slow down. Bring attention to the body. Scan the body.
David P Sorry, Adam, I cannot understand what you're saying.
Adam Wes Oh, yeah. I guess it's a little too loud.
David P Yeah.
Adam Wes Can you hear, David? Okay, thanks for letting me know.
Scan the body. We want to release any resistance. Soften by becoming aware of any resistance in the scanning process. You can soften and let go.
If you have any energetic pain, just observe it. Try to let it release itself, or accept that resistance, trusting it will soften with this process.
We're becoming immersed in the moment, the cosmic substance.
Let's bring our attention to the heart center, right in the center of the chest. Bring your attention to that spot. We're revitalizing that spot through attention. You can put your finger there, simply feel that spot within, or even tap the spot.
Okay, let's go to the third eye, right between the eyebrows, a little bit above. There's another spot, a vortex of energy. Just bring your attention there or focus your energy there.
We're doing a quick scan of the chakras before we get into the aerobics. You're looking at that spot. You're managing your third eye. It's a center. Become aware of that.
Wonderful.
Now let's do the navel center. It's one inch below the belly button. If you feel this one strongly, it begins to release a sense of heat. But you can also just feel the magnetism or the power of it.
One inch below the belly button, or half an inch below, actually. Apparently, it varies from person to person just a little bit.
This is the power of the will. You can feel that quality of power there. The heart is love, the third eye is vision and clarity, and this is your power.
We need to get in touch with the power. Try to feel this spot and invoke the magnification of that power.
If you can't feel the energy as much, simply feel the spot. There's an energetic aspect to that. You can magnify it in that way, but even just feeling the spot with your attention is energy.
Really nice.
Okay, let's go back to the heart.
This time, try to feel the heart center's expansion in front of the chest. There's a spot about six inches in front of the chest. What I'm doing is putting my middle finger in that spot and feeling the heart arc, like an electrical arc. It will connect a tether to the finger.
We're going to do an intensity hold. Feel it connect to the finger. For 10 seconds, we'll feel an intense connection, and then we can relax for 10 seconds. Ready?
Ten seconds of intense connection with the finger. If you don't want to use your finger, you can also just feel it with intensity.
Okay, now just relax and let the momentum carry.
Okay, 10 more seconds. Ready? Go.
Relax.
We're doing this with gentle intentionality. Don't strain yourself. Definitely give it a pulse.
Okay, 10 more seconds.
Relax.
With each reiteration, you can take it a little bit further.
Ten more seconds, starting now.
Relax.
Now just enjoy what you've earned there. The heart should feel more open.
Let's move to the third eye, always staying active in the heart, though. It's the center of our practice.
Feel the third eye, feel the spot. Just do a 10-second intensity pulse.
Okay, let's ride the wave. Relax. Let go.
Again, a 10-second pulse with more intensity.
Okay, let go.
Next time around, just a little more intensity. Ten-second pulse.
Okay, let's jump.
Notice the heart and third eye are very active.
Let's go to the navel center. This one should be fun. Just feel the spot to start. Triangulate the position with your attention. Now we're adding the power.
Okay, 10-second pulse on the navel center.
Dude! Okay, it's making me laugh. It's a surge of energy. It's good if you can really get it to have a surge of energy. That's a good goal.
Okay, relax. Just enjoy it for now.
Another 10-second pulse, with a little bit more intensity this time. One inch below the belly button. Hold it.
And let go.
Again, more intensity. Ten-second pulse, navel center.
Relax.
Now just scan the three dots here, or the three chakras: Manipura is the navel center, Anahata is the heart center, and the third eye is Ajna chakra.
Feel them all active at the same time. You should feel stable from the navel. You should feel expansive, with contentment from the heart. And you should feel steady attention from the third eye.
That's enough exercise. Now is a good time for us to go into the dissolving state.
We do all this work, which is not really meditation. It's more of a precursor to it. We've cleared our space. Now we can let go.
There'll be no activity. We'll just become absorbed in the freedom that we've opened energetically. I'll start saying a little bit less.
If you begin to see the luminosity, the brightness within the fabric of your mind, let that brightness expand. Let it wash you away into impersonal existence.
Absorbed in the state of the unknown.
Being what you are.
Not thinking about what you are.
Becoming still.
This will be our last song.
With gratitude, when you're ready, come out of the meditation.
That was a little bit different from how we usually do it. Hopefully you guys liked that, or it was beneficial somehow.
Experiences and Energetic Integration
Mom, would you like to share?
Colleen Thanks, Adam. That was really nice.
Adam Wes Did you experience any light? Anything energetically? How did it go?
Colleen It always feels like my head's being tightened. There were lots of swirls of colors, actually, just purple and lime green swirling in and out.
Adam Wes Not like this, but actually twisting around?
Colleen Swirly.
Adam Wes Oh, interesting. Wonderful.
Colleen I feel very relaxed. Thank you.
Adam Wes You're welcome. Thank you. Good job. Ariella?
Ariella Thank you. That was a very good experience. I did have some time at the beginning where I just spaced out, but I really enjoyed the gratitude. Just a wonderful experience. Thank you, thank you.
Adam Wes Thanks, Ariella. Have a nice day.
How about you, Andrea? I'd love to talk with you because I know you usually do your Buddhist meditations, which I'm sure are a little different from what I just did. That was a little more, almost, I want to say, tantric or metaphysical.
Andrea P Yes, very different. This was more intense. Today I had a very heavy day. At the beginning, I started feeling really, really heavy here. Once the meditation kept going, it dissolved.
Then, something like Colleen felt, my head, in the first part. My heart felt tingly here.
Adam Wes Good.
Andrea P It was easier to start the meditation. It was weird. I had never felt that.
Adam Wes Wonderful.
Have you guys heard the words kundalini or chi? The chi, the kundalini, gets very dense. It's not supposed to be dense. It's supposed to feel fluid in the body. It should flow like electricity, and it should be very charged. Your hand should have a lot of life-force energy in it.
When you focus on your third eye, doing that together in that way is really interesting because you kind of do more than you would otherwise do. I was really pushing my heart energy, navel, all of them, and it dislodges things.
You might kind of feel better, but kind of not feel better, because something starts to move. You can sense that it's better. It's just processing. Maybe that's what you're sensing. The tingling in the head is very good too.
Andrea P Yeah, I liked it. It was intense.
Adam Wes Wonderful. Thank you. Namaste, Andrea. Thanks for being here.
Kelly, would you like to share anything? You don't have to share, by the way. We usually... You're like, "I don't want to share."
All right, you don't have to share. It's so nice to see you, though, cutie. Whenever I see Kelly, I want to just give her a big hug.
David, how was that for you? I know David is super into the metaphysical exercises.
David P Hey, Adam. Hey, everyone.
Adam Wes How are your dantians doing?
David P I still feel, I think the word is expansive. I feel like my body is bigger. I feel it bigger.
Adam Wes Wonderful.
David P It usually stays like this for a while. My head feels heavier, right here on the upper part. I think it's a bit of pain. I don't know how to say this.
Adam Wes Pressure.
David P Pressure, yes.
Adam Wes Not pain, right?
David P Yeah, pressure. It's pressure. It's not like a bad pressure. It's a good pressure, but maybe I don't want to use the word pain. It's pressure. It's not good or bad. It's just pressure.
Vinh T Is it tension?
David P It's not the first time that it has happened to me, but this time it is heavier. The pressure and the tingling are all around my head, so perhaps it's related to what you were mentioning.
Adam Wes Yeah, the top of the head tingles. The crown can tingle like that, and you can feel what you call heavy. I would call it gravity.
David P Yeah.
Adam Wes There's a gravitational well to it, because it's not more dense. It's more gravity. Heavy sounds like...
Wonderful, David, assuming that I'm describing your experience. A lot of these things are pretty common parts of the journey.
I also want to add, just so people know, when you do a metaphysical practice, which we usually don't do this way, instead of just feeling love and going into stillness, into light, this is almost like clearing the body so you can go deeper.
The body, the nervous system, the chakra system, the nadis, the Sushumna, all these different channels, and the aura, when they get dense, you can't go as far. This is a little bit like a kundalini yoga practice. It clears it.
Kelly, just so you know, I almost never do what we just did. We usually go into a state of stillness and gratitude. It's kind of a different focus.
But a very powerful thing to do is sit and do the metaphysical work. It can be very good, especially if you hit all seven chakras. You go around the back, there are all these different nadis, granthis back there, and there's a microcosmic orbit. You can spend hours on it. There's a lot to do.
Then, when you're done, you're just like, "Wow, I feel powerful and clear." The whole idea is that then you just drop in and the mind stops. It's one of the approaches to stilling the mind.
Well, we're about 15 minutes over. I guess these classes end up being about 75 minutes if you include the warm-up time.
Vinh or Sam, do you have anything you really want to say, or do you feel good? If anybody has something really special to say, you're welcome to say it.
All right, guys. It was so fun seeing you. I just want to make a little announcement.
Next week, I'm holding my mathematical coding class, which is a meditative mathematical coding class. You might say, "Well, I'm not into coding," or maybe you're into math, but we're expressing math through code. It's a way to connect with the math more completely.
If you're not as into math or code, think of it more as a mantra or a yantra, looking at a beautiful yantra and getting into a trance state. I even say, "Get high on code," because what we're going to do is get that third eye clear, do some coding, and use it to get into a heightened state of lucidity, power, and even heart.
I've had a lot of people say, "Well, I'm not into coding, but I like math." Well, how are you going to make the Julia set without code?
If anybody wants to donate for today, you can do so on the website. It's a $3 to $33 recommended donation.
Thank you, everybody. Namaste. Nice to see you. Thanks for being here. Chill.
Lunar Perception and Direct Experience
It's a full moon. The full moon is tomorrow, and tonight is actually one of my favorite days of the whole month, every month. The moon is coming to its peak right before the peak, which is at 5:00 a.m., in about 10 or 12 hours. The energy has this charge. It's kind of like catapulting you into the stars.
Vinh T Is there a way to feel the moon?
Adam Wes Is there a way to feel it?
Vinh T Yeah.
Adam Wes What we just did tonight, these are the kinds of things that open your feeling. I feel all kinds of pressure and energy, and I start to see flickering lights everywhere and waves washing through.
You could see that if you do a lot of metaphysical work for many years, or even just tonight, perhaps you'll feel the energy. What's essentially happening is there's an ambient potential charge in the metaphysical space from the moon.
You have to feel it. If you had told me this 20 years ago, I would have thought you were just believing in something. The point is to feel it, so I love your question, Vinh. Can you feel it?
Try to get into nature. Sit and meditate. Try to still your mind. Meditate on your chakras.
I like to get a moon tan. If you're not too cold, go out, take your shirt off, and get some moon on your skin.
This is a totally different topic, but you can get things like crystals that you can actually feel, and they can open your energy so you can feel the moon better. I would burn some sage, all kinds of things. I think I had a sermon a few weeks back where I talked about all kinds of things you can do to curate your space.
I would light some candles, get quiet, turn off the phone and the computer, and listen. Just listen.
Ariella It's a very powerful full moon.
Adam Wes Yeah, it feels pretty strong. Ariella, you're feeling it really powerfully? I love that.
Ariella I've also read about it, that it's bigger and brighter than it usually is.
Adam Wes I would always let reading about it be an invitation to direct perception.
Ariella Oh, okay.
Adam Wes Do you understand what I mean? If we read about it, we might say, "Oh, wait, I should listen." Then you do, and you can experience it.
But I always take it with a grain of salt. Does this person know what they're talking about? Is it really true? I have to be my own authority, always. Everybody should be their own authority in what they do, which means, "I know the truth because I saw it and I experienced it." But it's an invitation too.
I like Vinh's attitude. He's thinking, "Okay, Adam." Thank you, Vinh. I feel you honor me. You want to try and feel that, and that's really a beautiful attitude.
It's not like the people who comment on Instagram. They're like, "There's no such thing as a chakra!"
Vinh T Does that give astronomy a little bit more weight?
Adam Wes Astrology and astronomy are two different things that are interrelated, but I want to let everybody go. We could talk about this for a long time. We should do an astrology and astronomy day at some point.
Does it give it more weight? Well, we are in the proximity of these planets, and that's, in a way, our body.
You're a little speck. You are the Earth. You just rose up out of the clay and were made into a Vinh Tran. We're still part of the Earth.
All right, guys. Namaste. Thanks for staying a little longer. We'll see you next time. Enjoy, and thanks, Ariella, for what you shared.
Ariella Thanks.