Heaven and Hell: Do they exist?

What do you think? Or rather, what do you believe in?

I believe you can and do have heaven and hell right here on earth: Heaven and hell are states of mind. Not some real places in the far beyond.

Hell
Hell is when you mull over your past and worry about the future incessantly.
Hell is when you beat yourself up for not living up to your goals or expectations.
Hell is when you think that there is a God out there judging each and every action of yours.
Hell is when you think that the concept of sin is real
Hell is when you do something so as to not hurt others but that in turn hurts you.
Hell is when you try to be in every one's good books.
Hell is when you turn to fear instead of love.
Hell is when you think you are only capable of so much - Hell is when you limit yourself, or have limiting beliefs such as 'I am no good' or 'I knew I would fail doing this'.
Hell is when you can't understand why the so-called bad things happen to people.
Hell is when you always see the negative aspects of every situation that you come across in your life.
Hell is when you fear death.
Hell is when you don't recognize the divine within you.

Heaven
Heaven is when you know that there is no reason to fear... ever. Not even death (Look up NDE).
Heaven is when you know that, 'What you believe, you become'
Heaven is when you know that there is no limit to what you are capable of.
Heaven is when you know that your 'thoughts, beliefs, actions' create or determine your reality or how you perceive it, and that the very knowing of this can empower you.
Heaven is when you know that 'Situations, people's behaviors, incidents are perfect as they are and that all you have to do is accept the gift that they bring to you.
Heaven is when you know that you are fundamentally divine. (String theory says that the fundamental essence of matter is energy).
Heaven is when you know that you are here on earth to grow spiritually through experiences.. good and bad.
Heaven is when you know that experiences, especially the bad ones, bring you the greatest life lessons and accelerate your spiritual growth.
Heaven is when you know that life is just a game, and that we are all God essence, pretending to be humans.
Heaven is when you know that nothing, really nothing, that happens on earth has even the slightest impact on who you really are: A god-being.

Observing your thoughts: A meditation technique

I was introduced to this meditation technique of observing the thoughts in a 3-day workshop( by Swami Sukhbodhananda) I attended in India 6 years back.

The only thing you need to do in this meditation technique is just passively observe the thoughts without engaging them. If you get a thought, 'Oh, I have to finish this work by tomorrow' while meditating, just observe it. Don't engage the thought by replying in your mind, 'Oh yeah, lot of stuff to do'. If you get a thought, 'I have to pick up the mail after the meditation', just observe this thought, you are not in a pressure mode here, relax, you will remember what you need to do once you finish the meditation. You see, the only thing that you have to do is be an observer, a passive spectator, see the games and tricks the mind plays, observe how it brings up the past, or the future. The mind does a good job of bringing up past hurts or future worries. See the thoughts the mind brings about passively.
Now, thinking, 'I have to just observe my thoughts, I have to just observe my thoughts' is NOT observing, but participating with the thoughts. So how do you get around this?
Before beginning the meditation, make an intention to just observe the thoughts and not get caught up in the thoughts that surface during observation. You don't have to silence the thoughts. Let them go on, but don't engage them either. Be a passive audience to the thoughts. It takes some practice, but with time, you will begin to not engage the thoughts and start to enjoy the meditation and the silence it brings about.
I personally have had quite a few meditations where the thoughts gradually died down without any effort on my part as the meditation progressed and the ensuing silence (or very few thoughts) was beautiful.

Here's a great article that elucidates this method.
Also, here's a post I wrote earlier on how the meditation practice unfolds.

On Death

Wondeful article on death here.
I am copying the above article below ;)

Summary of the article
1) Death is a transition as is birth. Life is a momentary experience that the soul wishes to have to expand it's perspective and learn lessons. The soul existed before birth and exists after death.
2) There is no reason to fear death. Death is a joyful experience and not a painful one as thought by the masses.
3) You exist.. Forever. During birth, you take on a body, the physical body.
During death, you shed the same body. But shedding one's clothes doesn't have anything to do with shedding one's identity does it? Same is the case with shedding your body. Your identity remains the same after death, albeit the body that limits you is given up. You can think and feel in the same way you did on earth, except that you have more freedom now to explore.
4) Your loved ones are just a heart beat away from you. We are all one, so we are all connected even after death and beyond.


The Article

Dear friends, beloved angels of light, I greet you all. It is from the heart of the Christ energy that I, Jeshua, reach out my hand and extend my greeting to you.

Beloved angel, know that you are cherished. Know that you are loved unconditionally, even now while you reside in a body of flesh and blood, a mortal body. Even while living within the boundaries of this temporary home, you are still unconditionally part of God, the Home for which you long so much. You have never truly left Home, yet you do not recognize the eternal flame which remains alight forever within your being. Get in touch with that light in this moment, cherish yourself, know who you are. A light burns within you, so beautiful and pure. How come you ever doubted this?

Today we speak about dying. Much fear exists concerning death. Fear of annihilation, fear of oblivion, fear of being swallowed up by the big black hole associated with death. As so often the case in the earthly dimension, you tend to turn things topsy-turvy and present them exactly opposite to the way they actually are. In reality, death is liberation, a homecoming, a remembrance of who you really are.

When death comes, you effortlessly return to your natural state of being. Your consciousness blends with the flame of light which is your true identity. Earthly burdens are lifted from your shoulders. Residing within a physical body imposes limitations on you. It is true that you chose to dive into this state of limitation because of the possibility for experience it had to offer. Nevertheless it’s a sensation of bliss to be restored to your natural angelic state. The angel inside you loves to fly and be free, to freely investigate the myriad of worlds which constitute the universe. There is so much to explore and to experience. Once you are born into an earthly body, you more or less lose touch with this angelic freedom and sense of being without limits.

Please join me now, as we go back to the moment just before the dive into your present incarnation. On an inner level you permitted yourself to commence this earthly life. It was a conscious choice. Perhaps you have forgotten about this, and you occasionally feel doubtful about whether you really want to be here. Yet there has been a moment in which you said “yes”. This was a courageous choice. It is an act of great bravery to temporarily trade your angelic freedom and sense of non-limitation for the adventure of becoming human, of becoming mortal. That adventure holds a promise that makes it all worthwhile. Feel the “yes!” that once rose from your soul. Remember also being drawn to earth. Feel how you connected to earth reality, and feel the moment you descended into the embryo within your mother’s womb. You may notice there is heaviness surrounding planet earth, a certain greyness or thickness.

There is much suffering on earth. Pain, loss, fear, negative thoughts are part of earth’s collective atmosphere. And that is what you, as a freshly incarnating soul, passed through. Your light found itself a way through this darkness and in doing so an unavoidable veil of ignorance fell over your original angelic awareness. Feel the sadness of that event, and behind it, your courage and bravery. You were determined: “I am going to do it. Once more, I am going to root myself into this earth reality, in order to find my own light, in order to recognize it, to rediscover it, and to pass it on to this world which is so in need of it.”

Yes, it has been a leap into ignorance. Temporarily forgetting who you are, not remembering your unbound state of being is part of being human. You forget that you are safe and free, no matter where you are. Being human, you set out to reclaim that natural sense of freedom and safety. In your quest, you can become ensnared by powers that seem to offer you what you are looking for, but in fact are making you dependent on something outside of you. You may lean upon judgments coming from outside yourself, telling you how to behave in order to be loved. These false images of Home, these substitutes, tend to sadden and depress you. Indeed, the journey down from heaven to earth has been a tough one. Death, however, transports you back to the plane of eternal love and safety. It is in dying that you surrender to who you have always been. If you die consciously, if you can accept death and surrender to it, dying becomes a joyous event.

What happens when you die? Before you die, you pass through a stage of parting and letting go. It is a phase wherein you say farewell to earthly life, to your loved ones. This can be difficult, yet at the same time it offers you the possibility to reflect deeply upon who you are, and what you have learned and accomplished on earth during your lifetime. In the grief you may sense in letting go of your loved ones, it becomes ever so clear what connects you to them. It is a bond of love which is immortal. This bond is so powerful that it effortlessly passes across the boundary that is death. Love is an inexhaustible source, forever giving rise to new life. Do not fear to lose your loved ones, for it is in the moment of saying goodbye that the bonds of unconditional love are reinforced and given new life. For it is certain: when you part in love, you will meet again. You will find one another again, effortlessly, because the shortest way to another always remains the way of the heart.

If you have loved ones who passed over, you can be sure that they are near to you at the level of the heart. Feel their presence, for they are here among us, extending their greeting to you. They feel privileged and free. They are free from the doubt which plagues so many on earth and they yearn to share with you the love and kindness which is available to you at all times.

Those who remain behind often associate the phase prior to their loved one’s dying with feelings of sadness and loss. It is natural to grieve the departure of a loved one; it is natural to miss and yearn for the loved one’s physical presence. However, we encourage you to try and feel that with their departure a gate toward a new dimension is opened, a dimension where communication is of a nature so pure, clear and direct that it rises above the methods for communication commonly used on earth. You can have direct communication with a loved one after they die, from your heart to their heart. This way, misconceptions which used to stand between you can easily be cleared, once you honestly and openly communicate with the other. Your message will be received, always.

Once you yourself have died, you will view people who are living on earth from a different perspective. You will be more tolerant, mild and you will find yourself with an increased sense of wisdom. You will not be completely balanced all at once, because there are emotions and feelings that you take with you and which need to be dealt with. You will not be perfect or omniscient once you let go of physical life. And that’s not so bad really, for there is still so much to experience and discover on this side! Yet, in most of you there is a new perspective. The dimension of eternity is tangible and this respectfully mitigates your view of what occupied you and the people directly around you during your stay on earth.

Now, what happens to YOU once you pass the boundary of death? Once you have gone through the mourning stage, the stage of saying farewell, you will feel start to feel death drawing closer. The focus of your consciousness now changes. Letting go of the outside world, the people, your body, it will now turn within and move deeper inside of you. Your awareness of the outside world diminishes and this allows you to prepare for the inner journey you are about to embark on. If you consciously accept death, you will experience a “getting ready”, a readiness to truly let go. For your loved ones, this is the moment to let you go, for you need all your strength to turn within and prepare yourself.

Dying need not be a painful process. What actually takes place is of a grand and majestic nature. Dying is a holy event wherein the soul connects with itself in a most intimate manner. During the final stage, the dying person senses the earthly dimension in a detached way: the body, the scents, colours, and other physical sensations. Another dimension is entering their awareness, with a radiance so promising and inviting, that it is not so hard anymore to surrender and leave all things earthly behind. Even the presence of your loved ones will not stop you from going now. The energy of Home - God, heaven or whatever you want to call it - is so overwhelmingly kind, warm and reassuring that it become easy to let go and return your tired and worn-out body to earth.

Once you let go in peace, your soul will rise up from your body gently and fluidly. You will feel supported by universal forces of wisdom and love. If you die without resistance, your immediate surroundings will be filled with warm and loving energy. You will experience an unspeakable sense of relief. You are free, and everything becomes clear. You remember the omnipresence of Love, not as an abstract idea but as a palpable reality. While on earth, you called this kind of love “God”, and you kept a biased, human image of what this God “wanted from you”. You were convinced that there were certain demands made by this God, demands to which you usually did not comply. But here in this dimension, you recall what God’s will truly is: to ensoul you, to inspire you, to experience creation through you and to finally recognize Itself in your countenance. God wanted to become human through you. The goal of the universe’s evolution is YOU: God become human!

God is the source of creation, and you are its fulfilment. You, who have given the light of God human form, are never judged for being human. Instead you are honoured. The idea of a vengeful God is yet another perversion, a reversal of truth instigated by fear. God recognizes Itself in you, regardless of what you do or don’t do. When you are back on this side, you become aware of this again, and a truckload of self-judgment and feelings of inferiority will slide off your shoulders. You will feel the original joy of living again, safe in God’s hand.

Soon after your arrival here, you will perceive light beings around you. There will be guides to assist you and people you knew who passed over before you. Sometimes it will surprise you who you will run into over there: people whom you met only briefly, but who touched your heart deeply, may be there alongside lifelong friends and relatives. Anyone you had a connection with based in love, will come to greet you at some point. Once again, it becomes so clear to you that saying farewell is but an illusion, that the heart-connection is eternal. You will experience a sense of thankfulness and of awe, as you enter this plane of unconditional love and wisdom.

After you arrive on this side, there is a phase of adjustment, in which you get used to your new environment and slowly release your attachment to earth life. You will need to acclimatize. There will be guides to support you who are specialized in this. You will still have a body yet it will feel more fluid than the physical body you were used to. Most likely it will take on the appearance of your most recent physical body. Although there is freedom to take on any appearance that you desire, most people appreciate some continuity for a while. You are also free to create your own living conditions, for instance a beautiful house with a lovely garden, in a natural environment you were fond of while on earth. It is quite all right to live out your earthly fantasies on this plane, which I refer to as the astral plane. This is a dimension or realm of being which allows for much creative freedom, although it still resembles and is closely connected to the dimension of physical earth.

Some people have had difficulty accepting death on earth and their transition to the other side may have been less peaceful. They usually need more time to adapt to their new life circumstances. Sometimes it takes a while before they truly realize that they have passed on. Some people have suffered a long-term illness, and find it hard to shake the idea of being ill. They cannot fully believe they are healthy again, and it often takes the patient and gentle support of a spiritual guide to help them release their old body. The old body can stick to the soul, purely as a concept, as a thought-form. The same goes for emotional habits and patterns of behaviour. They can repeat themselves on the astral plane until the soul discovers its freedom, its power to let go and open up to something new.

Another possibility is that a soul remains attached to the earth realm, to loved ones in particular, because they died suddenly or very young. This can happen in the case of accidents, disasters, or when the person was in the prime of life. These are situations in which a particular soul did not feel ready or prepared to make the departure. Dying in those cases is more or less traumatic. There is loving support on this side for these traumatized souls, as there always is. Sooner or later the soul will reach a state of acceptance and understanding of the situation. There is always a viable reason for what seems to be a premature departure from the earth plane. Dying is never a coincidence.

As your stay on the other side extends, your spirit expands into wider and deeper levels of awareness. More and more will you let go of the ways of thinking and feeling you were used to on earth. Essentially, you gradually go back to the core of who you are, your soul, the divine spark within. The more you enter – or return - to that state of consciousness, the more you detach yourself from your earthly personality and the dimension of earth. You will sense a flow of being which reaches beyond that aspect of you. You will get in touch with other lifetimes you spent on earth, incarnations wherein you embodied other aspects of your soul. You become aware of the boundless space that is your soul and the many experiences you have gathered on your journey through the universe.

When people on earth connect to you now, they will sense a person who has gained in wisdom and spiritual love. In fact, as you are moving closer the core of your soul, you are leaving the astral plane and entering what I call the essential plane, the realm of Essence. Most people stay on the astral plane for quite a while after they have died. They look back on their life on earth and reflect on all the experiences they have gone through. In the astral realm, you can experience both joy and depression, both positive and negative emotions. Your surroundings mirror your inner psychological reality. The emotions you have to come to terms with, take on the form of colours, landscapes and encounters. You often visit the astral realm in your dreams, so you are familiar with this field of awareness. In your esoteric literature, when they speak of many layers or spheres in the afterlife, ranging from dark to light, it is the astral plane that is referred to.

On the astral plane, you get a chance to sort out the emotional luggage you’ve brought along from your recent life on earth. In this you are assisted by several loving guides. At some point, you will let go of all your attachments and emotional pain, and you’re ready to move beyond the astral plane altogether. That’s when you pass on to the plane of essence. When this happens, it is like a second death. You leave behind anything that does not truly belong to you and allow yourself to merge with the greater You, your divine core. The moment you pass on to the essential plane, you will be aware of the immense power that moves you. You will experience your oneness with God.

The plane of essence, the plane of the eternal You, is the seat of the divine consciousness from which all creation originates. I ask you to take a moment to connect to this plane, here and now. It is not far away. It permeates everything, both the astral plane and the earth plane; it permeates the entire cosmos. The presence you sense here is the presence of God, pure and untainted. It may be sensed as a deep silence, completely peaceful yet brimming with life and creativity. From this source springs all of creation and to this source it shall return.

When you reach the essential plane in afterlife, you will be able to make conscious choices regarding your future destination. On this plane you may arrange, with the help of teachers and guides, another incarnation on earth, or plan a different journey, dependent on your goals. You can clearly hear the voice of your soul on the essential plane. It is from this plane that you once said “yes” to the life in which you now find yourself.

Take a moment to remember what it felt like to be on this plane. The more you become aware of this dimension during your life on earth, the easier it will be to die peacefully and, after your death, to move beyond the astral plane into the plane of essence.

Death is nothing more than a transition, one of the many transitions you go through in life. Birth is a transition. Life on earth knows so many moments of transition, of passing through and letting go. Just think of it. The body you now reside in has at one time been very small, a vulnerable little baby. And yet your soul, the divine essence inside you, was already working through you when you were that vulnerable little baby. When you reached maturity, many of you got swallowed up by the demands which life on earth made on you, and you were confronted by fears and doubts. The awareness of your divine core, your soul, got pushed to the background. However, there arrived moments in your life when the dimension of divine awareness opened up again. This often happened at moments during which you had to let go, when you had to say farewell.

Maybe it was saying farewell to a loved one, perhaps letting go of a job; any conceivable scenario. Such events are transitions which resemble dying, not in a literal sense but on a psychological level. You are being asked to let go on a deep level, and it is exactly during those moments of letting go that you can start to feel the reality of your eternal Self, the divine light that burns inside you. This reality remains with you unconditionally, even when everything around you falls away. And so it is when it comes to physically dying. If at that moment you are courageous enough to let go, the plane of the eternal will embrace you and you will experience a very strong awareness of who you really are.

Dying in conscious surrender is a holy event, filled with life and beauty. The majesty of what is enfolding will be tangible for those present. The more the ones who are present have experienced “dying while being alive”, the more they will be filled with awe and reverence about the transition they are witnessing.

With regard to all the transitions available in creation, ranging from physical birth and death to moments of intense emotional detachment during your life, the pivotal question ever remains not whether you will survive, but whether you are able to retain the connection with your own divine core. Can you stay in touch with the plane of Essence, your origins, Creation’s heartbeat? Connecting with the essential plane often during your life is the best way of preparing yourself for death, and for what lies beyond. By becoming aware now - prior to physical death – that the very core of who you are does not depend on the current physical body you reside in, nor on the identity which you assume in the world, do you set yourself free to smoothly make the transition once the moment arrives.

Connecting with the essential plane is a choice you make. Dying in itself won’t get you any closer to it. After dying, you will very much be the same person as you are now, albeit endowed with different possibilities and given a wider perspective. Yet the crucial question ever remains: do you remember yourself? Are you able to consciously connect with that dimension of timelessness which flows through you and which truly inspires you ?

You are un-perishable, dearly beloved angels of Light. Take faith in this. Let yourself be comforted and supported by this knowledge when your hour of death arrives; and now also, while you struggle with the issues of your life.

In order to die peacefully, you are asked to detach yourself on the inner level from anything that ties you to earthly existence. Practice this detachment continually while you are living, and you will be prepared to die.

You may ask: “Isn’t it tragic to detach yourself from life, while you are standing in the middle of it?” The answer is: “No. Instead, it is testament to a truly powerful spirit.”

What does detachment mean? It means that you pay attention to essence, that you do not get caught up in non-essential matters. It means you do not create unnecessary emotional drama; it means you experience joy in the simple things of life. To practice detachment and stay tuned into the plane of essence entails being aware of a hidden dimension, which lies directly underneath and behind the observable. It means to renounce quick judgment in terms of good and bad, and to trust a cosmic intelligence which far by exceeds the human mind.

Many of you are trapped in a thinking fever. You feverishly consider life; how to solve problems, how to accomplish all the things you think you need to do. You are very fixed on organizing life through your will and your mind. Detachment means you take this thinking aspect of yourself less seriously. Is this a tragic thing to do? No. Instead, it brings light and airiness to your life.

It is by your excessive urge for control that life becomes a struggle, tiring and heavy. Detachment brings peace of mind, humour and thoughtfulness. Being aware of the finiteness of life inspires the natural desire to cherish life. And it is there where your divine core can effortlessly flow through you, from the essential plane to your earthly reality. Once that happens, you will have conquered death before you have died.

Interesting review of Vipassana retreat

Came across a nice review of the 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat. You can find it here.

I plan on doing one in June, when the summer break begins. Also, the website for Vipassana courses here.

Holy shit!! - The concept of God, Part 2

Holy shit indeed. I mean it literally.
Let's back up a moment. In the previous post, I mentioned that God being omnipresent means that God is present in every thing imaginable and also everything beyond our imagination. Now, shit is something we see every day and by our previous definition, God is present in shit.

Now, some might look at this as an attempt to deprecate God. To them, I would say, please look deeper into what is being implied. I hold God(which I don't think is a person, btw, I just think of God as a divine consciousness that is the 'Unseen seer' or the 'Unmoved mover') in the greatest of love and awe. Even if I did deprecate God, God doesn't judge. Humans judge, God doesn't. God just observes and thrills in our actions, and responds to our thoughts, beliefs and cocreates our reality with us.
God is a consciousness, and it pervades everything. If you go to a chemist or biologist and ask her to look at the molecular structure of shit, she's not going to say that the molecules look shitty! She might just go into the technical details of what kind of atoms and molecules bond together to form the thing we call, shit.
But the fact remains, that every object in this world has one thing in common.. It's made up of molecules.
Going one step further into the physics of it: String theory says, that the fundamental essence of all matter is energy and energy vibrating at different rates produces different kinds of matter (correct me if I am wrong).
So what we call 'shit', is just the outward appearance, it's fundamental essence is energy.. You could also call that energy or essence, God. And we all know that God is what we call (w)hol(l)y (or whole), and thus shit is also a part of the whole and hence, holy.

Holy shit!!
Here's an associated funny video: What is sacred?

The concept of God, Part 1

Once I encountered a definition of God through spiritual books(not to be confused with religious books) that embodies limitlessness, purity and freedom, I find most of the religious definitions of God to be very limiting, and very 'old'.

I think we can all agree that God is something or someone that is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.

What does omnipresent mean? It means something that is present everywhere. How can God be present in all of universe, unless God is all of the universe? What does that mean?
It means that Universe is not just God's creation, the Universe is also a part or an extension of God, literally!!!

It means that the stone you see on the road has God consciousness. It means that dirt, flowers, shit, water, good, bad, everything has God consciousness. It also means that we, human beings have God consciousness. This is what is meant by saying that everyone has a divine spark within them.

Many religions think of God to be a perfect bodied male!! Why not female?? Why not just consciousness?? Why the heck are you limiting God to be just a male or a female? Why can't God have no form or why can't God be a flower or a tree or a river or the sky? Why not?? If God is indeed omnipresent and Omnipotent, God can be any or all or none of that. God can also be an alien, God can damn well be anything God wishes to be.

This is the concept of limitless God: A God that can take up any form.. Human form, animal form, plant form, a rock form, any form (or no form) that God chooses. God can be a female, male, transgender, anything that it pleases to be.

I mean, think about it. If humans were ants, and not humans, we would be having an ant god. . If humans were dogs and not humans, we would be having dog gods!!. If humans were plants and not humans, we would be having a plant god/goddess and so on.. Thus we are making up the concept of God, based on how we look.. That is the first step to defining God, but a baby step nevertheless, since we have limited God to have the characterisitcs we have, only in a more perfect way.

Man is made in the image of God, but that image refers to the divine spark within everyone, not to the external physical form.
We look at our external physical form(the body) and say, God should also have a human form.. That to me, based on the previous paragraph is an elementary way to define god.

The definition of God that makes God limitless (not restricting God to be a male or a female or any shape or form), all loving and completely non-judgemental is the definition I will take of God. Indeed, ye are all gods refers to the fact that what makes God, a God is present as a potential in everyone of us. It's only our limited understanding of who we really are that makes us think that we are separate from God, or that we are not powerful as God is, or that we are mere bodies.. No, we are not just bodies, we are spirits that are embodied. This understanding can really transform limiting belief systems into a more expansive, all inclusive and empowering belief system. Let's have that on our earth, let's have a new understanding of a limitless, expansive, all-loving, non-judgemental God and a new understanding of who we really are.

Follow up: Holy shit!! The concept of God, Part 2

Experimentation and experiencing spiritual phenomena

As a graduate student, I think I have more flexibility in terms of what I can do with my time as compared to people who have a regular job. At any given time, I can either do research, go for a run, do a meditation, read a spiritual book, or simply experiment with stuff.
I have spent a lot of my time reading spiritual books, trying out meditations, trying to see if the methods described in the book actually work. For example, I read an exercise for viewing the aura on the internet and I tried it out in the library:

Auras
While doing a homework in the Odegaard undergraduate library at Udub, I noticed that infront of me was a small placard with something written on it that I don't remember right now. I then thought of testing out this aura stuff on the placard. I read that every colour gives off its complementary aura.
For example, green reflects a pink aura, pink gives green. Similarly, [blue, orange], [Violet,yellow] are auric pairs. The placard in the library was pink, so I expected to see a green colour. I unfocussed(yep your read it right) my eyes around the edge of the placard, and ka-boom, there was the greenish blur around the edges.. If I tried to focus my eyes, the green would vanish.. That's how you see the aura, you unfocus your eyes around the edge of an object.

What about human auras? I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of my apartment, partly closed the door so that it was darkish inside but with some light streaming in from the bedroom.
I stood gazing at the edges of my head, unfocussing my eyes to see if I detected anything or any colour. A minute later, I was able to see a thin white band around my head. As soon as I focussed my eyes on the white band, it went out of visibility. So 'being unfocussed' was the trick!
I haven't been able to see aura around people though.. As far as my aura, I can only see the whitish etheric laryer around my body in the mirror.

Energies
I began noticing energies first in my hands while meditating. It was like something was buzzing in my hands.. I think energy is a decent term for this buzzing. It was like wow..what is this buzzing that is happening in my hand. Initially, it only happened when I meditated. Now a days, it happens, every now and then, especially if I am totally into a devotional track.
I also started noticing a sprinkling/tingling/crawling sensation on the top of my head when I meditated. Some say this is a sign of the crown chakra being active. It's like there is some sort of a download that's happening at a portal near my head!
During a Reiki session, I had some pretty cool experiences like a sense of floating, feeling spacey, feeling a lot of heat in certain areas of the body, etc. The Reiki philosophy talks about the Reiki healer being a conduit for the cosmic energy to flow through to those parts of the body that require healing. So experiencing these energies personally, made the Reiki philosophy seem pretty credible.


Lights
I also see flashes of lights every now and then (my eye sight is normal!). I also see blobs of pink colour that stay for a few seconds (I think they could be my guides), though very infrequently.

Synchronicities
Synchronicities refer to meaningful coincidences.. That is coincidences that carry more meaning to you than anyone else. For example, I was walking down to the Safeway store one morning to buy some grocery. Going on in my mind, was whether I should lie about something to someone.. I was in two minds, since I always try to say to the truth unless it is very uncomfortable. Entering Safeway, I heard a song that went,'Just tell the truth...'. Now this could just have been a coincidence, but it had a lot of meaning to me at that moment, and hence it's a synchronicity. Synchronicity is an indication of your being guided or your being in touch with your higher self.

Why am I writing about these experiences? One main reason is that you might have stumbled on this blog (through google for example) and might have had a few of these experiences without knowing if it was your imagination or if it was for real. You might also feel a need to know (I definitely did) if others are having these seemingly unusual experiences that you are having and if these experiences have meaning.
I mean it's one thing to say that you have a pranic or etheric body and another thing to even experience the energies or vibrations associated with that etheric body. So yeah experimentation is a great way (or maybe the only way) to validate the spiritual material you have read.

Rhythmic motion during meditation

My daily meditation routine is going pretty good, infact I have a good sense of how important meditation is in shaping my thoughts, my composure and behavior, and hence it's kind of the number one thing I would like to do everyday.
Today's meditation was unique in that right from the point where I closed my eyes, I began to sense a ticking inside the body which grew into a gentle rocking of my body back and forth.
It was as if I was acting out how my upper body would be when I do my running.. Going back and forth rhythmically, only that I wasn't doing this action, it was happening involuntarily. And I found it to be quite a pleasant experience..especially the rhythm involved in the motion. Before I began the meditation, I lit a candle and invoked Amora, a higher conciousness, to aid me during the meditation. Altogether 30 minutes of good rhythm.
I blogged on the same topic last year. You can check it out here .

Update: After writing up this blog, I came across an article that resonates with the content in this blog: Meditation in Motion

Making sense of a few spiritual concepts

While reading new-age, spiritual, religious, self-help books, I came across many concepts that seemed conflicting at first. A deeper examination revealed that they build on each other. For example, there is this concept of 'letting go'. A person who hears this for the first time, might sarcastically comment, 'Oh yeah, let go of your job, it's all good'. And then there is another concept of 'following your bliss or passion'. Do these two concepts seem to conflict with each other?
Now, another concept I have encountered is, 'Nothing matters'. Now you are like, 'that's even worse than letting go'. Well, all these concepts have their contextual frames of reference, where they hold good. So here's my understanding of these concepts:


1. Letting go: Letting go refers to letting go of worries and cares, past hurts, grief, anger, hate, etc. It's not about letting go of your passions or your happiness. This concept comes from the larger than life perspective that whatever is showing up currently in your life in the form of circumstances, people, situations, etc are for your highest good...that essentially circumstances you are currently facing are perfect for your spiritual growth despite apparent evidence to the contrary. It comes from the larger than life perspective that life is meant to be fun, life is a game, we need to enjoy the journey and not worry about the destination. That doesn't mean you don't dream, on the contrary, it means that you could dream as much as possible but don't let your circumstances curtail your beliefs that you can achieve these dreams... As you can see, letting go is in total harmony with 'following your bliss or passions', because you have done away with worries and fears that stop you from pursuing your passion through the process of letting go or surrender.

2. Circumstances don't matter, only state of being matters:
This concept is related to the concept of 'letting go'. This concept is essentially the same as "thought-belief-creation paradigm"[2] or the "Be-do-have" [1] paradigm.
Normally, people look at their cicumstances and say, oh I am having a bad time, if only things were better, I could be more happier and enjoy my life.. This is the 'have-do-be' paradigm. That is, if I have my (fill in: money, skills, time etc), I can do the things I like to do, and therefore be happy. The, 'have-do-be' paradigm comes from the belief that happiness is a product of circumstances.
Now, the new paradigm, the 'be-do-have' paradigm is essentially based on the understanding that happiness is a state of mind and therefore be happy, and your circumstances will change for the better. On the other hand, if you choose to be depressed, worried, fearful,and all the negative states of being, then your circumstances will mirror those states of being..You see this is a vicious circle.
The 'be-do-have' paradigm goes hand in hand with the 'thought-belief-creation' paradigm, which states that your thoughts and beliefs create your reality..literally.
I have tested this concept out, works very well. I thus immediately check myself if I see myself having thoughts that are based on fear or doubt or lack. For example, 'I somehow seem to lack the resources I need to pursue my passion'...This thought is based on 'lack', and by our paradigm, you would get stuck in circumstances that reflect your belief of lack.
Thus, we get this concept of 'Circumstances don't matter, only state of being matters' [3] i.e. to say, irrespective of how good or bad the circumstances seem, they can always get better. For that to happen, stop worrying and change your state of being to happiness or joy or peace and once you change your state of being to joy or peace or happiness, you would then create better circumstances from these positive states of being.

3. Nothing matters
This is the ultimate and one of the broadest spiritual concepts I have encountered.
Though it may be difficult to apply, understanding this concept can keep your boat afloat in the most depressing of times. I have personally come to a realization of this concept through some experiences I had in 2007.
I read about this concept in a book and I asked myself, how can "Nothing matter?". Ofcourse, my grades matter. Ofcourse, money matters. How the heck can you say that nothing matters?
It seemed like I was challenging the universe. The universe responded in kind by giving me a profound experience, where the only way I thought I could get out of the situation was by letting go of my fears, and by understanding that even if the worst possible thing happened to me, that would be ok - Once I came to that level of acceptance of my situation and its worst case possibility, the situation cleared magically and all my fears were unfounded. I then realized that this situation had a lesson for me- Nothing really matters.
The broader spiritual basis for this concept is that death is just a horizon[5] and that you always exist either with a physical body in the physical reality or as a spirit being in the spirit realm[1], which indicates that death is a transition from the physical realm to the spiritual realm; and also that the core of your being or the spirit that you are is a spirit of love, bliss and joy. So despite the seeming travails that you face on earth, when you go back to the spiritual realm, it would seem like you just spent a day on earth, and you are back home, full of joy and full of love.
That is why nothing matters on earth or anywhere, for the core of your being is always untainted and always full of love, bliss and is also eternal[1].


Summary
The three concepts of 'letting go', 'thought-belief-creation paradigm', and 'nothing matters' are in perfect harmony with each other. 'Thought-belief-creation paradigm' is very practical, since once you begin to test this concept out([2]&[3]) (and notice that for example, if you have been thinking of someone all day, you get a call from that person or you get a visit, etc ), you have immediately started empowering yourself with this paradigm. Another way to use this paradigm is to have a list of intentions that reflect what you wish happen in your life and then say those intentions or give thought to those intentions everyday. 'Letting go' is also a useful concept, although, this concept is usually applied in practice once a person reaches a certain level of spiritual growth or if circumstances are such that you surrender to god/goddess/All-that-is and trust that the circumstances are assisting your spiritual growth.
Nothing matters is useful if you want to get the broadest perspective possible on life.. Life is essentially meaningless, it is you who assign meaning to it based on your beliefs and expectations. And circumstances turning out one way or the other doesn't matter, because in the ultimate reality, you are a whole, complete being of love, light, and bliss..you(or we) are essentially god in the ultimate reality. This is explained very well in [1].

References
[1] Conversations with god series. Neale Donald Walsch.
[2] Ask and it's given. Abraham Esther Hicks.

[3] Channeling video by Darryl Anka: Circumstances don't matter.

[4] Spiritual growth. Sanaya Roman.
[5] Autobiography of a yogi. Paramahamsa Yogananda.