Spiritual Practices

(December 2, 2025) Magical meditation is not the meditation of the Buddhist tradition which seeks stillness of mind to become more like the divine. Stillness of mind is not the goal of magical meditation but only a means to an end. Mind stillness is used to find those quiet feelings in the background which are covered up by the loud mind chatter of day to day living. Magical meditation is a spiritual listening practice.

Thus magical meditation and divination are two halves of the same coin. Both are ways to check on the state of our emotional/spiritual channels by exposing the unperceived emotional/spiritual currents in our lives. These currents will reflect either our internal state or the external spiritual forces swirling around us. This is due to the Spiritual Uncertainty Principle. We are unable to really tell which influences come from our own brain or come from our spiritual and social emotional contagion networks.  

Divination usually adds various correspondences to the meditation process to focus the emotional/spiritual channeling. At the minimum it uses visualizations.

Spirit walks are another good divination/meditation practice for any level of practitioner. Find a place in nature where you will not be interacting with people and try changing your perception by just feeling and reaching out. Perhaps close your eyes for a bit and mentally or even physically go through the opening stages of a ritual. Then start walking with spiritually soft eyes. See things not as they are but for what they might mean. What are the trees, flowers, and birds saying to you? 

(December 2, 2025) Most people who start Yoga today just want a well balanced exercise regimen which also exercises balance and flexibility. Yet after about 6 months many people notice themselves becoming more aware of their emotional/spiritual flows. When I asked others on a Yoga retreat how they got into Yoga most said this very thing. Its spiritual  benefits came as a complete surprise.

A yoga session, when done in a spiritual way, works by having the student focus on feeling the sensations of their body as they move through the poses. Most of the time we do not consciously feel our body so this is an exploration of self-awareness. The poses are done to the point of feeling something out in the body away from the central core. Pain is never supposed to be felt because that means the student has pushed the pose too far. These generated feelings are "out there" yet they are still a part of our body. Once these "out there" sensations becomes habitual the student can then extend them more readily out beyond the body to others and to the spiritual realm.

At the end of every practice is a short meditation time called "Shivasina." At this time the mind is primed for connectivity and ready for some divination. Try to look out through your eyelids and clear your mind. You may eventually see different colors and patterns triggered by the eyeball's inner floaties. Interpreting these later requires that you know your personal emotional/spiritual correspondences. 

(December 2, 2025) Identifying emotional blockages is difficult. The main emotional conflicts which lead to emotional blockages are outlined by the chakra paradigm developed in India. Chakra means "vortex" as a blockage and harboring of spiritual energy.

The chakra system is based upon the idea that a full connection with the Divine is only possible if a person's conscious emotional/spiritual currents are freely flowing. This produces the maximum spiritual power in a person. This spiritual power is called "kundalini" power in the eastern traditions.

Achieving this full Divine connection requires the removal of all emotional  blockages. These blockages may be put into the chakra correspondence framework in order to aid in their discovery by meditation. 

The word "chakra" means "vortex" or "whirlpool" in Sanskrit because vortices in rivers block straight fast moving current flows. These chakras are associated with different emotional problems (blockages) associated with different regions of the body. The typical associations are:

1. Crown chakra  - is associated with the crown of the head and represents the problems which occur in connecting to the divine realm.

2. Third eye chakra - is associated with our brain and it represents the problems which occur in reasoning and thinking.

3. Throat chakra - is associated with the voice box in the throat and it represents the problems which occur with miscommunication.

4. Heart chakra - is naturally associated with the heart and it represents the problems which occur with feelings of life-growth, that is, the feelings love, romance, self-worth and self-esteem. This is one of the life forces. These are also the cleanliness emotions because if you feel clean and pure you feel accepted and worthy.  Consequently, this chakra is the water correspondence.

5. Solar plexus chakra - is associated with breathing and air as represented by the body’s diaphragm muscle. This represents the life force of movement. Consequently, this chakra represents problems of insight and empathy about the underlying causes and motions of things. This chakra is the air correspondence.

6. Sacral chakra - is associated with the sexual organs and it represents the problems which occur from interacting with heat and fever of our passionate primal emotions. This chakra is the fire correspondence.

7. Root chakra - or the first chakra is associated with the butt which sits us on the ground. As such it represents the problems of grounding and emotional stability. This chakra is the earth correspondence.