by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys published in Shakti Yogi Journal
Prolog
We live now in what the ancient Chinese might call interesting times. In today’s world there seem to be layer after layer of stresses, inner and outer. The outer and the inner affect each other, in many ways they help create each other. In order to find peace in our selves we must learn to separate from the outer and engage selectively only with things that nourish and nurture us. In times like these we may also be interested in how we can contribute to creating a more positive outer world that we share with others. Manifesting positively outside ourselves and taking ownership of our inner life are intimately related, as what we manifest mirrors and reflects our inner state of Being.
The sanctity of our inner being starts with grounding.
Redwoods
On the peninsula south of San Francisco I once lived in a small house full of a varied group of young men. We each had our own way of being, our own intensities, concerns, and joys. These did not always mesh harmoniously. Outside there was a world full of more people, roads, buildings, cars. It wasn’t fully urban like San Francisco but the energy was pervasive and busy, often stressful. To find a clear inner space, I developed a habit of driving up into the hills. There was one place in particular where I could jump a fence and climbing a grassy rounded hill, lie on top, and let the tension and stress of the valley soak away into the earth.
Once I drove further and found myself over the crest, down into the redwoods that grow above the ocean north of Santa Cruz. Walking into the cool, shady, groves I could palpably feel the energy of the towering, ancient, trees. Roots connecting deep into the earth, their calm clear presence created a field that invited my accumulated tension to ground and dissipate. In that naturally sacred place I felt an inner peace and relaxation that matched the fresh fragrance of the surrounding air.
As my being released the energies of the valley that didn’t serve me, that had entered my space in the busyness of daily life, there was room for me to recharge, to fill in with the life force of the earth, of my Self, and of Spirit. An early lesson in the energetics of my personal space; how I can take on discordant energies, especially when I am already anxious, and how I can also choose to clear them out to make space for what does serve me. In those days I hadn’t any formal training or tools that I could use to clear my self, but the redwoods would do it for me when I let them.
Grounding
It is wonderful to be able to visit sacred places, natural or man-made, and let them clear and recharge us. This is the positive side of how we get fogged and drained during time spent in the mundane pursuits of daily life. The outer is determining the inner in both cases. We are all affected by our environment, but perhaps we can learn to manage this, to limit and select what affects us and how? We can learn to do for ourselves what the redwoods so gracefully did for me.
Roots ground those trees deeply into the power of the earth, structurally, biologically, and energetically. On occasion they are also grounded in the electrical sense. Buildings and other structures are grounded with conducting cables. Electrical grounding helps move accumulated charges and electrical tension out of the atmosphere and into the earth. The tension before a thunderstorm is easily felt by humans and animals. It is uncomfortable and may produce irritability. The sense of clearing experienced following a storm is not just because the air is fresher, but also because the electrical tension has dispersed. We can literally breath easier.
Human beings can ground ourselves energetically in a similar way. This grounding brings benefits similar to those that trees provide. The practice of Earthing [1], physically connects your body with the earth, by lying on the grass or walking bare foot on the ground. Using your sacred imagination to create an energetic grounding from the base of your spine into the earth connects your being energetically. When we connect ourselves energetically to the earth, down to its very heart, this connection helps to clear our space of static and tension.
Aura/space
We each have a personal space, called the aura or energy body. You can think of it as an ovoid or rectangular region that encompasses the physical body. Your aura has a boundary. While our physical quantum fields extend mathematically through all space, in practice they merge (not far from your skin) into the general field that we exist in, comprised by the fields of the air, furniture, ground, and other people. Whatever you are in contact with. While this boundary may be conceptual on a physical level, energetically and spiritually it is real. It marks the transition from what is you, your inner personal space, to what is not you, the rest of the world.
In practice you may not pay any attention to this boundary, you also may not claim and own your personal space very well. When I lived in California much of what happened around me entered unfiltered into my space. People’s emotions, the noise of cars, electro-magnetic waves, generally didn’t stop at this boundary. Although I would claim my personal sovereignty in some ways, there were many in which I didn’t or couldn’t. Thus I benefited greatly from my visits to the trees.
We are all inherently sovereign spiritual beings. As spiritual beings we have complete ownership of our personal space. As human beings there are many ways in which we let go of our sovereignty, or allow others to take it from us. Thus all sorts of energies that originate outside of us enter into our space and fill it up. Some stay briefly and others wind up remaining a long time.
Grounding Space
Electrically a container composed of non-conducting materials, or ungrounded conducting materials, can pick up a static charge, a surplus of loose electrons[2]. This is common in the winter walking across carpets in socks or rubber souled shoes. A distribution of static charge on a non-conducting boundary will determine electric fields inside the space enclosed by that boundary. Grounding the boundary will clear its charge and thus the internal fields as well. Fields generated by external charges will also penetrate through a non-conducting boundary and add to the internal field.
A conducting container can also pick up static charge if it is not grounded, but the charges within the container’s walls, being free to move about, will arrange themselves so as to generate new counter fields, canceling out any fields within the container. The interior will be shielded. Shielded from external fields, but not the affects of static charges. Unless it is also grounded.
The boundary conditions determine what outside fields and accumulated static charges can affect your interior space. This is true physically, but also energetically. In learning to work with our personal boundaries grounding helps to clear static charges and to enhance the shielding of our personal space. Think of movies where people use a wire cage in order to shield themselves from electronic observation.
Imagine your personal energetic space, and the boundary of that space. Ground yourself to the earth and notice what happens. Any extra charges or influences on that boundary, which were affecting the state of the energies inside your space, are now shorted out. The boundary becomes neutral, the same potential as the earth. Once the boundary is neutral and your space is shielded you are no longer at the affect of anything outside.
Any existing patterns of foreign energy inside your space will begin to dissipate, as the internal fields flatten out, becoming uniform. Any imposed stresses or tensions will do the same. Your inner space will now become filled with a uniform relaxed field (except for any internal charges). Whatever is going on around you no longer enters into you and you become independent and free. In this clear neutral space that is created something interesting happens. You can begin to experience the subtle levels of Spirit (always present everywhere), of your own Self. This is why the monastic orders lived away from the world, often in silence, because in physical silence they could cultivate emotional and mental silence and begin to perceive the divine within themselves.
This is not a matter of permanently disengaging from the world and life. It is about being able to consciously disengage when you choose to; about being able to own and clear your inner world of external influences that do not serve you, creating space to Be your Self, to become aware of Spirit, to claim your personal sovereignty.
Internal Charges
Internal fields will dissipate once a boundary becomes neutral; unless there are internal charges. These will create a lasting field even when the boundary is grounded [2]. Some of these represent energies that were originally external but have been internalized. Some are our own creations. Some are both. The reduction in external fields clears things enough to allow the identification of held or stored fixed charges (psychic, emotional, or energetic). They may then be examined and released, or reclaimed, depending on their origins and present usefulness. The result is greater harmony and coherence of our self and Self. These processes are part of the spiritual path, in whatever form you are walking it. They are ongoing and layered. In all their variety and detail they occur most gracefully when your space is grounded and therefore not under external pressures.
Manifestation
As we make progress with internal clearing there is space for fresh creation of new charges and fields. These may be aspects of your Essential Self embodying, or the seeds of new external manifestations. To visualize and bring into being the things that do serve us it is useful to have as clear a canvass as possible, to hear only those voices that are truly our own or our guidance. Otherwise our creations are muddied, we may simply pass along what has come from others, or create things that are distorted and ill formed. This is especially true when there is a conflict between old charges (patterns, beliefs) whatever their source (often unconscious) and our present conscious wishes and vision.
The second element necessary for creativity is a flow of energy, like that which comes up the roots and down the branches of a redwood. All manifest systems, structures, and living beings, arise in a flow of energy from source to ground [3]. Usually we draw on external physical sources; air, water, food. We may also learn to draw on emotional and mental sources outside of ourselves. This, however, opens us to external influence and dependence. In the quite of your own being, you can connect to the Source of sources, to Spirit, Divinity, the Life force that supports all existence. As you learn to tap this, letting it flow through you to the ground of the Earth herself, this inner flow allows you, even pushes you, to create from the inside out. Fed by the Earth and the Cosmos, in the quite of a clear heart, we find all the energy and support that we could ever need. This flow of energy drives creation in your inner space; new patterns of being and more efficient ways of managing the ever increasing complexity of the world around you.
Knowing
Inspiration, vision, and creations, arise from the inside, from our Self, powered by Spirit. It is a wondrous thing that the seed, even as it starts to grow underground in early Spring, knows how to grow to become the whole of the plant, even to creating new seeds that continue the cycle. Each manifestation will be a unique individual of its species, but they all will find the light and the air, sprout and put out leaves. A redwood seed will generate a mighty pillar in the forest that may last for over a thousand years.
We have within ourselves this same innate sort of knowing; the potential to grow, to become, to create wondrously and magnificently. Learning to ground and own your own space, your own being, allows this knowing to arise with all the simple certainty of the seed. This creativity comes from Spirit, from Self and the Divine. Our minds are not the source, they are rather the means of execution. All we need is to understand the next step and trust ourselves that the pattern will unfold, step by step, into the fullness of the inherent pattern.
When Life and Love flow through us out into the world we may choose to hold our boundaries a little differently. Clearing inner charges related to old wounds and other external influences, leaves useful charges that represent aspects of ourselves (eg chakras) or visualizations that we are energizing mentally, and in our hearts, in order to manifest them in the world.
Projection
In the case of electric fields internal, charges will create internal fields and structures that can best be calculated by a simple technique. They are imagined mirrored across the conducting boundaries. The field produced by the paired charges will then correctly describe the parts that actually exist within the conducting boundary.
With psychic/spiritual charges we tend to do the same thing. This is called projection, where internal charges are imagined out in the world. This is a common psychological protective process that we almost all do unconsciously with things that are uncomfortable or challenging. We project charged images out into the world, or onto other people, and then engage our conscious attention in trying to fix them, being scared of them, and/or trying to control them. Since the source is actually inside ourselves these efforts are not generally effective. Only by coming back into our own being and working with the true sources there can the things we have projected out be resolved [4].
Creative Projection
While this dynamic is something that we generally want to minimize as part of our spiritual path [5], when we are creating from our Self it is actually useful. If we consciously let our inner visualization mirror out into the world, and then give that “imaginary” external image our attention we can call it into manifestation. Attention creates space for things to manifest from the potential possibilities in the Void. [6] This is the import of “collapsing the wave function” in quantum mechanics. It is how we create our lives. Until we wake up we do this largely unconsciously; being either unconscious that we are creating, or unconscious of what the internal source of the creation is.
Ground your Self; clearing and releasing old tensions feel the flow of love, the qualities of harmony and coherence in your being. From this clear and free personal space you can create powerfully and positively in the world. Take actions and create community, but avoid resistance and fear. These will corrupt your Being again. Muddying your internal space, they will feed the worldly mirrors that you want to change and interfere with what you are trying to create. Come back to center, reground and separate from the external. Find your connection to Self, your inner inspiration and vision. Only then, re-engage.
Your ability to ground and own your personal space, free and clear, to channel Self and Source, is the key to impactful positive creation and manifestation in the world. Know that it is also powerful in itself. To own your space and allow Life and Love to fill it up, is the most powerful thing you can do. These fundamental fields effortlessly radiate out to the corners of the planet. This is what the Dalai Lama and other living sages do. This is what you can do. It is the ultimate meaning of Being the change.
References
1. Ober, Clinton, Stephen T. Sinatra, Martin Zucker, Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? Basic Health Publications, Inc., 2010
https://books.google.com/books?id=DtQVwPcBrr4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=earthing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3tcjjup_SAhVBzFQKHVqICUEQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=earthing&f=false
2. Purcell, Edward M., electricity and magnetism – berkeley physics course Vol 2, mcgraw-hill, 1963.
3. McAllister, Alan, Riding Geodesics, SYJ, winter 2017, https://www.shaktiyogijournal.com/riding-geodesics-jaya/
4. Psychological Projection, Wikipedia, viewed 2/20/17, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
5. Ruiz, Miguel, Janet Mills, The Four Agreements Companion Book, Amber-Allen Publishing, 2000.
6. McAllister, Alan, Listening to Stillness, SYJ, winter 2015.
Action Items
Earthing: walking on the earth barefoot, image reaching into her with your feet, like a lion grabbing the ground with its paws, feel the power flowing up into you. Lying on the grass, breath in the smell of the earth, let anything in your body that you don’t need flow downwards. Open your heart to her, and receive her love into the space you have emptied. Hug a tree, or sit with your back to it and let your being feel and match its connections into roots and branches.
Grounding: using your sacred imagination to do similar things purely energetically. Connect your root chakra, and your whole aura to the center of the planet. Notice how energies that are not yours, or are completed flow downwards and are received by the planet. She does this gladly. Practice when its easy and you have time. Also when its not and there is no time.
Selective Engagement: Practice awareness around what you receive into your space. What do you listen to? what do you watch? who do you associate with? Do these things serve you or not? This is not a binary, yes/no question. Some things may be fine in small doses, or by filtering out aspects that don’t serve to leave the ones that resonate. Choosing joy over fear is highly beneficial.
Sacred Space: Consider your inner being a sacred space. Like a temple that houses your soul. The clearer it is the more your Soul will be present and the better you can experience it. Thus the better your Self can support you, inform and inspire you. Gently notice what your internal charges are, the things that carry old emotional charge. Practice loving mindfulness with them.
Inner Silence: Notice the ego mind, with its anxieties and fears. When it is chattering, it is hard to hear your Self. Practice releasing it and only listening to it when you choose. Find an activity that allows you to become still and quite. It could be meditation, swimming, or hiking. It might be dancing or singing, or gazing into your beloved’s eyes.
