| RUNNING INTO MAGIC by Larry Alboher An excerpt from a book in progress The day began with a routine morning jog and ended with my initiation into timeless mystery and mind-bending magic. My esoteric teacher, Don Pablo, and I started to slowly circle the oval track of a northern Mexico spa. Don Pablo, as usual, encouraged me to bring the energy in my body down into my lower half and become fully grounded and connected to the earth. Months later, I would truly learn what this connection felt like and why it was so important. After about six laps, our bodies finally warmed and we quickened our pace. Several laps later, becoming winded, I began to alternate jogging with walking. I was beginning to lag behind. I continued pushing my body forward, one step at a time, breathing heavily in the cold morning air, starting to lose my focus in a mental movie of random thoughts. Suddenly I became aware that I had not seen Don Pablo in some time. Given my slow pace, he should have passed me by now. I looked around the track and couldn't see him anywhere. It was as though he had disappeared! I kept up my snail's pace as I wondered what could have happened to my teacher. Without any warning, I felt a whirl of energy rush by me, but nothing was visible. Something in me sensed the subtle presence of Don Pablo, the trickster. Was he showing me yet another facet of his powers of self-mastery? I had read that highly skilled people, such as Indian scouts, could develop the capacity to disappear. Even though I wanted to believe this, I had assumed these descriptions of supernatural powers were metaphorical, not literal. The prospect that I might have just witnessed such a display was both exhilarating and unsettling. I began to question if I had only imagined the whole thing. Maybe it wasn't Don Pablo at all. I continued around the track another couple of laps. Finally, from behind, he came jogging up to me. He said nothing about where he had gone and acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. We continued together in silence for a while longer. I didn't ask him at the time about my experience, not wanting to risk the embarrassment of being wrong. Throughout the day, I couldn't help wondering about that invisible yet startling burst of energy that had rushed passed me on the track. And where had Don Pablo gone? I wondered if and how I should ask him. My question was answered before I would ask it, as has often been the case in this mysterious relationship. That evening after dinner, Don Pablo, my partner and I walked together in the deepening darkness to a stone gate that opened into a magnificent live oak forest. Don Pablo began to walk with his knees bent and his arms extended slightly out from his body with his fingers spread. I instinctively began to imitate his exaggerated walk, laughing to myself and feeling like one of the Marx brothers. My body soon became so highly energized the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet were tingling with warmth. As we passed through the stone pillars of the gate, I felt even greater intensity inside my body and the surroundings began to emanate a dull glow. We then formed a triangle as instructed, and Don Pablo said, "Expand your energy field out from your body, make yourself porous and let nature clean your field." A short time later, he lifted up his arms pointed one toward each of us and sent out an energy that I could feel hitting me like a warm current of wind. This caused me to enter a waking dreamlike state. With my eyes open, I became simultaneously aware of what was happening both inside and outside my body. My gaze remained fixed on Don Pablo. My body and the forest vibrated faster and faster and everything looked fluid and wavy. He began to appear translucent, like a swirling cloud of smoky light. As this smoky layer engulfed his body, he began to fade from sight -- the forest, sky, and stars becoming visible through his rapidly disappearing form. It was like seeing an episode of Star Trek, with Scotty beaming someone to a remote location from the transporter room. The density of his body continued to fade until he became completely invisible for some indeterminate period of time. He then reappeared and asked me what I saw. Slowly, I described my experience and he gave an affirming nod. After he reappeared, the energy level diminished and things slowly returned to normal. As if they could ever be normal again! The experience I've just described is a poignant demonstration of very real capacities of human beings. These seeming supernatural feats are in fact demonstrations of personal power that can be used to facilitate profound personal transformation beyond what most people believe is possible. Such capacities can be used to heal physical and emotional trauma for oneself and others. I began to discover this potential one day in the office of a counselor who was helping me find out why I was so angry at everything and everyone. I had almost come to blows with a man who cut in front of me in the coffee line at Starbucks. I had done many years of meditation practice with a teacher in India, so I was shocked, disappointed and embarrassed by my behavior. My anger was out of character with who I thought I was and whom I wanted to be! I know that I am not unique in this experience. Many of us have discovered that the spiritual teachings from the East do not adequately address our emotional and personality issues. And this is not surprising, once we understand these teachings are from traditions that are primarily monastic, not worldly. For those of us living in the modern world, these teachings and their teachers often fall short in understanding and addressing our emotional needs. The counselor I was seeing was able to help me quickly and displayed capabilities that were extraordinary, such as easily identifying and dissolving my emotional issues. I later discovered my counselor's alter ego was Don Pablo, the esoteric teacher. I decided to become his student because I wanted to develop these capacities within myself. I knew that these capacities and powers would be useful personally, and in my healing practice with others. The path I embarked upon is a remarkable and often difficult journey, but learning and using esoteric capacities is giving me tools to release painful emotional trauma from the whole gamut of my unfulfilled childhood needs, to the deeper, more primal wound of separation from the core of my being. As a result of this deep emotional clearing, I can now reflect on myself more openly and honestly. This openness and clarity enables me to be more completely present in the moment, and I am able to feel more deeply my own joys, as well as my sorrows. And through experiencing my own pain, I'm able to feel a deeper connection with others, which allows me to be more present with their pain and suffering. This is moving me towards compassion. I know my predicament is no different than most of us; for modern man, much of our spiritual practice needs to be emotional healing. Dealing with the emotional and psychological issues I had ignored for years has spurred profoundly authentic spiritual growth. Authentic spiritual practice is not a soothing salve that covers and hides one's inner pain and turmoil; it shines into the deep and dark places to reveal, illuminate and heal our pain. Buried emotional trauma, left unfelt and unexpressed, becomes the seed of future suffering and disease, both emotional and physical. If we only seek a feel-good experience, we can certainly get that in a workshop or a good read, but you can't take that feeling to the bank when the proverbial "shit hits the fan." Indigenous esoteric teachings are based on a strong connection with the natural world. This intuitive and instinctual connection is made and held with the total body. It is a natural capacity; we are born with it. This connection strengthens and balances our life force, and we can recognize our true relationship with the natural world and our obligation to respect and care for the Earth. The following story illustrates this relationship. Several years ago, Don Pablo suggested I go to a specific place on the northern California coast. He said I was ready to ask nature to teach me. I didn't fully understand what that meant, but I was willing to trust the possibilities. Here is a partial description of this event from my journal. - - - I drove to the suggested spot and parked my car. As I approached the trail where I was to receive my teaching, I bowed to the land and, with an offering of tobacco, asked Mother Earth to give me a teaching that would be appropriate for me at this time. I soon began to feel a very intense energy rising up from the land. The upward flow of this energy caused the life force in my body to rise and I began to get a headache. I struggled to push the energy in my body down into my pelvis and buttocks, to maintain my connection with the Earth and receive its power. As is true with most Westerners, I tend to hold my chi, or life energy, high in my body from years of thinking too much. The trail dropped into a shallow ravine and at the bottom the energy from the land intensified. Holding this intensity in my lower body while grounding to the Earth propelled my awareness upward into what some indigenous people call the upper world, or the realm of extended awareness. I remembered Don Pablo's admonition to "never leave your body." In a few moments, the surroundings lit up in intensity and became less dense. I felt the interconnectedness of all things. I could feel the Earth breathing and feel Her pulse. She is truly alive! I felt like a strong tree: my feet were roots firmly planted in the soil, drinking in its nutrients. My head was a branch reaching toward the sun for life-giving energy. I was a part of the community of nature, fully supported and nourished by earth and sky. This connection completed the circuit of life force flowing between me and the Earth and the sky. In this magical moment, I discovered what it means to be grounded and connected to the Earth! Her breath was my breath. The boundaries of separation between nature and my body blurred. I became intuitively aware that the cranial rhythm of the human body is a mirror of the Earth's pulse, that it reflects our nurturing connection to the Great Mother. The cranial rhythm is a subtle pulse in the body that pumps spinal fluid to nourish the brain and the spinal cord. The Earth's pulse drives this rhythm in our bodies. I was now convinced of the truth of indigenous myths calling human beings the children of Mother Earth. She is indeed alive and we should always stay connected and grounded to Her by an invisible, energetic umbilical cord. Through this cord, we receive life-sustaining energy, which nourishes our being. The Earth is literally the Mother of all healers. - - - Because this Earth connection is not recognized, valued or cultivated in modern culture, it is dying or dead in modern man. When I lived in India, I noticed the joyful gleam present in the eyes of the peasants and rural people even though they lived in extreme poverty. I could not fully understand this contradiction until I became aware of our primal connection with the natural world. Those people are connected. Industrialized humans have become almost exclusively reliant on the conceptual mind and are losing their connection to the vitality and deeper richness of life. We are breaking the circuit of life force. The price for this loss is increasing poverty of the spirit, which manifests as chronic illness, depression and despair. It also manifests through drug addiction, conflict and violence. The Earth is also suffering greatly. I believe we must reestablish our connection to the natural world to restore the broken circuit of life force. We can do this by rediscovering and cultivating our instinctual and intuitive capacities. This connection provides a future hope for humankind to restore a more respectful, healthy and integrated relationship with him/herself and his/her world. Larry Alboher D.C., is a writer, healer and teacher who has spent more than 30 years studying Eastern and Western mysticism, receiving personal initiation into two different wisdom traditions. He maintains a professional healing practice that incorporates esoteric energy healing techniques with chiropractic and cranial-sacral modalities. For further information and to contact the author, please visit www.LarryAlboher.com. Copyright © 2004 Larry Alboher. All rights reserved. |
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July 2004 |
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