The Way of the Buffalo is a balance between our own individual needs and our sensitivity to the needs of others. As these two come into balance, through a growing recognition of their interdependency, our lives become more and more in harmony and there is fulfillment for oneself and others. The Way of Wisdom teaches us to respect our own needs and develop our own power.
Personal power is not necessarily selfish or egotistical, and having individual integrity and self-respect is important. Power is strength inside ourselves and the ability to give of our inherent talents and gifts. We need to have our own firm sense of truth and the strength to stand in this truth and live by this truth. We need to know ourself, and what we need and what we wish for. This is the power of self-honesty and self-integrity. We also need to develop our own power of self-expression, which is the power to an artist in our own way and the ability to give. Without personal power we are too vulnerable to the lower forces and to the conditionings of an imbalanced society. We must find the truth and stand firm on the rock of truth. We must discover our own inherent unique talents and gifts, and express these in the world. If we want to give to life, we must have the power to do so.
The teachings tell us that we each have three basic potential powers, which need to be nourished and developed. The first is vital power, which we can consciously breathe in from the sun and the earth, and accumulate within our bodies. The vital power is also strengthened by healthy exercise and good food. This vital power or energy strengthens our individual energy field and revitalizes the cells and organs of the body. Vital power is needed to project good energy into the world, into the circle of life, and we need vital energy to be creative and giving. So let yourself breathe in and receive all the vital energy you need, and build this energy into your body with exercise, movement and physical work. Also important is to release tensions and disturbed or stale energy within our energy field. We can do this by consciously letting go and breathing out to the Earth compost our tensions, stresses, and all the old stale air which we unconsciously hold onto.
The second power is the energy of sensitive feeling and love, which we can breathe in from the great love coming from Mother Earth or receive from the love feelings of other people or from the trees, flowers and spirits of nature. Love is all around us, if we open ourselves to it. We must first open our hearts and allow the love to come in, and if we sit in a beautiful space, with nature all around us, we can consciously breathe in and let in this great love from all directions.
Allow yourself to be completely filled with this love. It may come to us as a feeling of being cared for, being nurtured, and being accepted, or it may come as a feeling of great peace, or joy, or hope. In this, we may feel the great beauty of life and within nature, and we may naturally feel grateful in the living spirit of life and naturally breathe out this gratefulness, this joy, this peace, and the love within our own heart. Love is the sacred water of Spirit, and we become one with this when we allow it to flow in and through us and flow out from us into the world. Then we are one, in the rhythmic waves of love, and we truly feel the unity of being. When we have the power of love within us, by allowing it to come into us, and allowing it to emerge from within, then the Great Spirit of Love can be shared with everyone and everything we meet.
This unfolds the expansion of beauty in all of life, for as we recognize and receive love and as we share our love, the radiance of Spirit and beauty becomes more and more bright and colorful. The power of love is also the essential power of healing, because deep healing comes from an expanding recognition of the inter-related unity of life and our feeling of being one with this unity. Deep healing comes from our release of separateness and the blocks we have built around us.
* Deep healing comes from accepting ourselves as perfect within the inner core of our natural being, and realizing we are as naturally beautiful as the flowers and trees, because in our essence we are one with Nature. So, this is the power of feeling loved and loving, and feeling at one in the Great Spirit of Love.
The third power is the power of consciousness or the power of awakening wisdom. This is the power of true seeing, the power of true knowing and understanding. We each have the inherent power of seeing into the truth of life and those around us, as well as the power to know and understand ourself. This power awakens as we open up our awareness, opening up our minds, by observing and listening to what is being revealed. We develop this power by seeing deeper into things, by observing more profoundly, and by entering into a quiet receptivity so that we can listen at a very deep level.
The power of consciousness and knowing is also developed by meditation, which is an opening of the mind to more than is usually apparent, and this requires a letting go of the usual chatter in the mind and our usual worries and self-concerns. It requires a relaxed peacefulness in the mind and a receptive state of just listening or just observing. Meditation can be a retreat from the outer world, where one closes the eyes and just listens inside for the emerging spirit within. This is a receptivity from within. And by taking some time to be in this meditation, you will learn how to quiet the mind and become aware of your true nature emerging from within.
Self-integrity
is the strength to stand firm in one’s known truth and personal
intention, and collected in one’s own aura of life-energy and love
consciousness. This aura of integrity can be expansive, but does not
force or manipulate others. And this integrity can be sensitive to
the feelings of others, but does not allow itself to be hurt by the
feelings and opinions of others. We can be open to other’s feelings
and learn from others, but our own feelings and our own understanding
and our own choices are our own responsibility. This is the power of
self-integrity.
One aspect of personal power is
the power of emotional integrity. This
is the power of accepting and owning one’s feelings or emotions.
This means not letting anyone else tell you what you feel or what you
should feel. The person having this power of emotional integrity will
be able to clearly say “This is me and this is what I feel and this
is what I want”, and that person can also respect the emotional
integrity of another.
Emotional self-integrity is accepting your feelings for what they are, and knowing the difference between your feelings and those of others. It is having a good sense of your own emotional space, and having a sense of the sacred boundary between your own emotions and the emotions of those around you. In other words, your emotional energy is self-collected and not disturbed or influenced by others.
Of course you still have the power to feel what others feel, or sympathize with others, but this opening of your boundaries is by your own conscious choice. This power of emotional collectivity is very important, because most people are extremely influenced and reactive to the emotional energies of their surroundings, and this uncontrolled openness or leakage of the emotional energy can sometimes be harmful or depleting.
Having this kind of personal power also means that you are not dependent on others for your emotional well-being or for your self-esteem. Of course, we all need love and togetherness in some way or another, but we do not need to be dependent on any one person or group. Once you feel dependent in this way, you virtually give away your emotional integrity and then you may allow yourself to be emotionally dominated by another or by a group. To collect and protect your emotional integrity, you must feel your own independence and feel your own self-esteem regardless of others or what they think of you. This means being ultimately fulfilled by the love within you, and loving yourself for just who you are, and creating your own self-esteem, so that you will not have to rely on others to give you that love and self-esteem. Then, once you have this power of independence, self-esteem, and emotional self-security, you will be able to receive and enjoy the love given by others, without becoming attached or possibly manipulated.
Another aspect of personal power is the integrity of your own understanding and experience. This means having the power to stand for what you know and believe is true and right. This is the power of the mind to learn from self-experience and reasoning, and to fearlessly and clearly state what one believes is true, rather than merely letting others speak for you or just believing what other’s believe. This is the warrior power of truth and self-honesty. The person with this integrity of belief is not easily gullible or easily manipulated by the opinions of others, but rather is strong in one’s own convictions, which are based on personal experience and inner reasoning. Yet, the person with this mental integrity is not closed-minded nor arrogant in their beliefs. It is only the insecure who are arrogant or need to be closed-minded out of fear of being proven wrong. So the man or woman of this power is strong in how they see things, and yet open to new ideas, to new experiences, and can listen to and consider the truth-value of what others have to say.
So this aspect of personal power is the power of a strong and clear mind, which has at least some definite beliefs that have been gained by personal experience and intuition. The person with this power can say, “I believe”, or “I know this is right”, and will live by those convictions. Take some time to meditate on what you truly believe. What do you believe is true about the world and about yourself? Knowing what you believe is mental and moral strength. And yet the strong mind will not fear considering other ideas or admitting that there is always more to learn. So the power of mind is also the power to learn and the power to be awake to the many lessons of life. Thus, the conscious and inquisitive mind is the powerful mind. It is a mind full of light and ready to receive more light. It is mind which is fully awake and able to collect itself and concentrate on whatever it chooses.
Spiritual power is knowing oneself, loving oneself, having a preserved sacred space of integrity, and being free and able to express one’s creative potentials for the good of the whole. It is the power to express in the world the qualities of Great Spirit, or the unique potentials of the spiritual soul. And though we acknowledge that this power comes from Great Spirit, it still needs to be personally felt and experienced, and it needs to be expressed from the personal center. This power of self-integrity and spiritual expressiveness is neither pushy nor manipulating, nor is it allowing oneself to be pushed around, or allowing our space to be influenced by the negativity or manipulations of others.
The fourth aspect of personal power is the power to bring
forth the spiritual and creative potentials which are within the
inner soul, just as seeds are latent potentials with the ground of
earth. We can call this the power of the creative will, or the
spiritual will to express the inner potentials of Spirit. This is
that power within you which seeks to manifest spiritual qualities and
artistic visions. We can call this the creative or artistic power,
though we should remember that we are all potentially artists and
creative people in our own unique ways. Your unique artistry is in
whatever way you feel inspired to express or manifest the truth, the
love, or the harmony of Great Spirit. This may be through sacred
crafts, healing, teaching, politics, science, farming, or whatever
helps to serve the better life and your personal vision of the Good.
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One of the principles of the Buffalo Teachings is to find, accumulate and express your own personal power. This is the power of your soul, which is part of the power of Great Spirit. It is the power of knowledge, the power of love, and the power of creative artistic ability or the ability to unfold beauty and harmony in life. The reason we say this power is personal is because we need to protect this power from being dominated by others, and the power must come through our own center of being and out into the world.
If your intention is to love and build harmony and beauty, then this is the power which will create a pathway for walking along the Good Road and being able to express the goodness of your soul.
This self-integrity of love, truth and good intention can be strengthened, and the stronger it is the greater is our spiritual expression and expansiveness of god in the world.
Consider also the power of your own inner knowing of truth and the integrity of your own sincere intention to promote harmony and goodness in the world. If your sincere intention is to love and to build harmony and beauty, then this intention creates a spiritual pathway for the Good Earth Walk. Thus, the self-integrity and sincerity of this Good Intention is a special power which will open up pathways for you to manifest goodness and beauty in the world.
The
integrity and sincerity of your intention becomes the power
behind your own personal prayer. Thus, we need to have a clearer
understanding and recognition of our own self-truth. Be honest with
yourself and become more conscious of your deeper intentions and
motives. This is self-knowledge. This is recognizing the creative and
expressive intention of your inner soul, which wants to express
certain spiritual potentials deep within itself. So, discover and
recognize these inner urges of the soul, those deeper intentions
within yourself. There is a great strength and power in knowing
yourself and in knowing your deeper intention or what you truly wish
to express in the world. The more clear and stronger this knowing is,
the greater is your power of self-integrity. And this self-integrity
of intention produces a causal pathway for manifesting that intention
in life. The more you are clear in your inner intention, the more
help you will receive from the Spirit World and the Spirit Helpers.
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Your power is strengthened by four complimenting ways.
The first step is recognition of the force within you which seeks to love. This is a recognition of your good intent. It is not a love for possessions or a possessiveness of others, but is an unconditional love, a deep intention to give love and care for all life. This deep love or intention to love will become your greatest source of power in the world, and it will begin to direct your life with wisdom and guidance. The next step is the decision to love and to express love and truth in life.
First you recognize the love inside you which is given by Spirit, and then you make the firm decision to be this love and express it an all activities. This is the decision to make life sacred and give your love to the great circle of life. The power of decision makes you strong and your path clear, and it protects you from obstructing and distracting forces.
The next step is trust, to trust in the power of your love and in your good intention and firm decision. It is primarily a trust in yourself, that the power is in you and you have the abilities to express this love into the world. This trust and faith brings to you all that you need in the expression of love.
All
the forces of Nature and the Spirit world come to aid you in
this pathway of love. And the final fourth step is to allow the
expression of this power. Allow your power of love and wisdom to
expand into all activities and into things. With trust, you won’t
fear this power or be embarrassed about it. You’ll acquire
confidence in this power freely allow it out into the world and into
your relations with others. Meditate on these four steps to power:
Recognition, Decision, Trust, and Allowing.
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So far I have spoken about the four personal powers mostly in relation to control of energies, self-integrity and protection.
Now, let us go more in depth in understanding how to accumulate and express these energies. The human spirit is responsible for four basic types of energy, which correspond to the four Qualities of Great Spirit - that is, Dynamic Power, Sensitive Love, Intelligent Consciousness, and Creative Beauty. These Great Qualities can be found in the world, and they can also be realized and expressed by the human spirit. The highest meaning of personal power is the developed ability to realize these Qualities or Energies within ourselves and to express them into the world.
The Dynamic Power of Spirit may be experienced as a strong vitality, or maybe as an outgoing expressiveness, or as an energy which wants to do something. We speak here of this as simply the vital energy. We can consciously breathe in this vital energy from the earth and trees. This vital energy is all around us, and there is plenty to go around, so you can receive as much as you can possible handle. Vital energy is also received from good natural food, and it can be strengthened by exercise and hard work. In fact, when vital energy is expressed from us into the world, it flows more easily into us and through us. This vital power also strengthens our individual energy field and revitalizes the cells and organs of the body. Vital power is needed to project good energy into the world, into the circle of life, and we need vital energy to be creative and giving. So let yourself breathe in and receive all the vital energy you need, and build this energy into your body with conscious breathing and good exercise or physical work. Breathe in the vital, be strengthened by the vital, and express the vital out into the world. Keep the vital flow going.
Now, sometimes the vital flow gets stuck, and sometimes we hold onto stale energy which makes the vital energy sluggish or disturbed. Therefore, we need to release from our energy field any stale or disturbed energy, or tensions which deplete the vital. We can do this by consciously breathing out and letting go of these tensions and old energies back down to the Earth where they are composted and transformed. This is why purifying yourself of old energies is just as important as accumulating new vital energies.
The second kind of energy is emotional, which we mostly experience as sensitive feelings and love. The energy or feeling of love can also be breathed in and accumulated within us. This energy of love is comforting and nourishing to us. We all need need this special energy of love. We all need love, and to feel loved.
But it is often hard to find this love in a world full of closed down hearts or in cities where we hardly know anyone. But we can always feel loved from Mother Earth, if we open ourselves up to this love and allow this love to flow into us. You can even feel loved by flowers and trees. Just begin to open to this love, receive the love and feel the love. The love is there. It really is around you in the world of Nature, because nature is made of love, and the Great Spirit of Love flows through the Mother Earth and out to all Her children.
We must first open our hearts and allow the love to come in, and if we sit in a beautiful space, with nature all around us, we can consciously breathe in and let in this great love from all directions. Allow yourself to be completely filled with this love.
It may come to you as a feeling of being cared for, being nurtured, and being accepted, or it may come as a feeling of great peace, or joy, or hope. By opening in this way and consciously receiving love, you begin to actually feel the great love and beauty within nature, and you may naturally feel grateful for all this love and beauty. So breathe in all the love and beauty around you and breathe out your gratefulness for all that is given. Breathe out gratefulness, joy, peace, and the love within your own heart.
Love is the sacred water of Spirit, and we become one with this when we allow it to flow in and through us and flow out from us into the world. Then we are one, in the rhythmic waves of love, and we truly feel the unity of being. When we have the power of love within us, by allowing it to come into us, and allowing it to emerge from within, then the Great Spirit of Love can be shared with everyone and everything we meet. This unfolds the expansion of love in all of life, for as we recognize and receive love and as we share our love, the radiance of Great Spirit Love becomes more and more bright and colorful in its beauty.
The power of love is also the essential power of healing, because deep healing comes from feeling loved, in an expanding recognition of the inter-related unity of life and our feeling of being one with this unity. Deep healing comes from our release of separateness and the blocks we have built around us. Deep healing comes from accepting ourselves as perfect in the inner core of our natural being, and realizing we are as naturally beautiful as the flowers and trees, because in our essence we are one with Nature.
So, this is the power of feeling loved and loving, and feeling at one in the Great Spirit of Love.
The third energy of human beings is mental, or the power of the mind. Our mind is most powerful and most wise when it is empowered and infused by the Universal Mind of Great Spirit. The spiritual seeker seeks to develop the power of consciousness and wisdom, which is to become evermore at one with the Wisdom Consciousness of Great Spirit. This is the power of true seeing, the power of true knowing and true understanding. We each have the inherent power of seeing into the truth of life and those around us, as well as the power to know and understand ourself. This power awakens as we open up our awareness and open up our minds, by observing and listening to what is being revealed by the natural world around us and by the unfolding drama of life. We develop this power of intelligence by seeing deeper into things, by observing more profoundly, and by entering into a quiet receptivity so that we can listen at a very deep level to spiritual lessons and revelations. The power of consciousness and knowing is developed by meditation, which is an opening of the mind to more than is usually apparent, and this requires a letting go of the usual chatter in the mind and our usual worries and self-concerns. It requires a relaxed peacefulness in the mind and a receptive state of just listening or just observing. Thus, in order to develop wisdom one must first develop the ability to quiet and relax the usual mental chatter, and be able to meditate in the silence without distraction. Only then can you hear the wisdom and guidance coming from your inner spiritual soul and from the Higher Spirit World. And only then can you see into the revelations coming from Nature around you.
This is the Aim of what the Native Teachers call the Vision Quest. This new or clearer Vision has an outer and an inner aspect.
It is a greater clarity of the outward seeing and understanding of Nature, and it is also a greater clarity of one’s own powers and potentials and the wisdom within. This new clarity of the mind, or this power of wisdom vision, requires a conscious letting go of conditioned thoughts and beliefs, and the usual patterns of thinking, and becoming quietly open to clear vision and guidance from Great Spirit or from one of the greater spirits of Nature, though in essence it is an opening to vision and self-knowing as emerging from within. Here, from within, we begin to know our true self and our deeper passion in life. We begin to realize our deeper intentions and desires, and our spiritual direction becomes clearer in our mind. This inward meditation is a kind of retreat from the outer world, where one closes the eyes and just listens inside for the emerging spirit within. This is a receptivity from within. And by taking some time to be in this meditation, you will learn how to quiet the mind and become aware of your true nature emerging from within. In this meditation you will soon receive new vision and understanding of your self and your soul direction. Your inner soul, which is your deeper natural self, will begin to be revealed and unfold, and you will receive vision of your true direction in life.
Now, the fourth energy of the human spirit corresponds to the fourth Quality of Great Spirit, which is the spiritual manifestation of beauty and harmony. This fourth energy is also a kind of synthesis of the other three energies. In other words, this last energy emerges from the synthesis of the vital dynamic power, along with the love energy, along with the wisdom consciousness. We can think of this synthesis as the energy of spiritual creation. At your own very essence of inner being is the energy of creativity and expressive vision. You might think of this as your deeper expressive purpose in life, or as an accumulation of many expressive and artistic potentials. These inner potentials are seeds of spiritual and creative expression. They are potentials for being of service in the world, of giving particular gifts to the Circle of Life, and expressing various qualities of beauty, harmony and goodness in the world. These are the various powers of your inner soul, which seek to reveal and express themselves. You feel these powers as deeper creative inspirations, and you may see them in the visionary imagination. These soul potentials are creative or spiritual urges coming from deep within you. And this is what we mean by the soul giving direction to life. It is the inner urge to do something or be something, which expresses a particular form of beauty, love, healing, or truth. It is, potentially, your unique way of being spiritually effective or creative in the world.
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The four aspects of personal power
are each related to energy in some way
or another. So in each aspect one needs to discover that power,
collect and integrate that power, control that power, and
intentionally use that power. This means that you have a personal
responsibility in this, which is why we say it is a personal power.
Each of the powers are available from Great Spirit or from the Universal Source, and yet we each need to consciously work with these universal powers and make them our own. The learned ability to have these powers collected in oneself, and the ability to make use of these powers, makes the universal power personal within us, so that the personal power becomes a reflection of the universal power. This is our aim, that we become a wonderful reflection of the Qualities and Powers of Great Spirit.
These powers can be related to our physical, emotional, mental, and creative aspects of being. Thus, you learn to collect and control your physical energies, your emotional energies, your mental energies and your creative energies. You become responsible for these energies flowing through you, and in how they express through you. This means having a personal ability to control and make use of your vital energies, your emotions, your thinking mind, and your creative potentials. Instead of merely reacting to energies and circumstances around you, you acquire a sense of your own control and decision in directing or expressing the body, the emotions, the thinking, and the creative potentials. For example you can develop the ability to quiet the mind and direct the mind positively, whenever you wish, or the ability to go into the inner peace at any time, or the ability to tap into a certain creative potential whenever it is needed. This is what we mean by personal power -- the ability to concentrate energies within ourself and use them positively, and to be responsible for these energies and abilities and your self-expression. Thus, personal power is your own responsibility.
Power is often seen as negative, because we think of this as the power to dominate others. But power need not be used to manipulate others. Without love and spiritual connectiveness, any power can be harmful, but if the power comes from love and the wisdom of unity, then this power brings love and wisdom into the world.
Remember that power is needed to manifest love and wisdom in the world. And power is also needed to protect ourselves from being manipulated or negatively influenced by others. The spiritual warrior needs personal power, in order to bring forth and expand spiritual love into the world, and to transform or protect from negative influences.
Remember that people unconsciously share their energy and vibrations in the surrounding space. So there is often an unconscious sharing of emotional stress, anger, fear, self-embarrassment, and many other distresses of the emotional and mental life, and these energies or vibrations circulate in the spaces we all share. Some of these unconscious auras are rather large and many are small. Of course, there are many people, as well, who unconsciously share uplifting and joyful emotions.
Everyone has an emotional and mental aura. But our spiritual work is to transform our emotional aura or energy field into a higher, more positive vibration, and consciously radiate the good rather than the not so good.
The fact that many people unconsciously radiate stressful or angry emotions, means that we need protection. There are many ways to protect oneself, but the most important fundamental principle of protection is to feel strong in yourself and trust in the power of Spirit Goodness. Ultimately we need to develop fearlessness and trust. Native Peoples and Shamans often protect themselves with the aide of an animal spirit or ally, or a Spirit Protector. Special crystals or rocks or sacred tokens can also give protection. A protective shield can be made with certain power objects or symbols, either held near the body or held in the mind. The secret of using physical or psychic objects for protection is to discover through a vision, dream or meditation, what object or symbol signifies to you protective power. You can journey up to the Sky World and ask for a Spirit Helper to give you a psychic power object, such as a staff, a tomahawk or a mandala, which can be used for psychic protection. Or you can become conscious of a Spirit Ally who you feel is protective of you. Another method of protection, which is very simple yet most effective, is to realize yourself in the center of the Medicine Wheel, with the great powers of the four directions protecting the circle around you.
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The following is a helpful practice to develop personal power and allow it to expand. It is best to do this in a sacred space in Nature or in your sacred garden space, though you can do this anywhere or in meditation.
Begin to consciously breathe in vital energy from the Earth below. Breathe this energy into your navel power center. Keep accumulating this vital energy and take all you need. The Earth has plenty to give so take all you need. Then, when you feel strong and very vital, and centered in this power, allow the energy to come up into the heart space, and from here breathe out love in all directions. Feel the energy of love expand outward from your center of being, and see this energy as a luminous light expanding into the world around you. You may see this light as a subtle pink or blue color, or whatever color it happens to be, or just pure light.
What is most important is the feeling of your love expanding, and eventually you feel as though your whole being is expanding into the world. As we practice this out-flowing expansion of love, our personal aura, which is the energy field around us, begins to expand and fill a greater space around us. Thus, our own presence of love expands and is shared more with others. We need to come into a trust and allowing of this power of love to expand around us. We expand our aura of love energy into the space around us, in the trust that we are good energy and good medicine to others and to Nature. We grow in a trust that our energy is good, and so we do not fear the expansion of our energy field or feel that we are imposing on the space of others.
You are not imposing. You are sharing. You are not forcing your energy on others. You are just allowing the expansion. And others will have their right to either close off from this or receive this shared energy of love. Remember that the energy of love, expanding from the heart space, is healing and never harmful. Unconditional love can never harm and can never be harmed. Only possessive love can be hurt or lose what it grasps onto.
Personal
power can be understood as the expansiveness of our aura and the
ability to be creative in the world. We must let go of the fear of
this power and allow it to flow and expand. So, begin to trust and
allow the expansion of your love aura, by being conscious of the love
radiating out.
Besides expanding our love aura, we can expand and share our vitality and enthusiasm into the world. Practice this by breathing out vital, strengthening energy into the space around you. Shamans often do this in order to circulate the healing vital energy to those people or places where the energy field has been weakened. In this way we can help heal people, trees, places, etc., which need more vital energy circulated into them. You not not fear that this sharing will deplete your own vital energy, for if you remain conscious of its constant flow into you from the Earth Mother or from the Air and continually circulate it into you with breath, then there is always an abundance to give out. You can give to life in this way, if you so decide. You can practice expanding the vital and healing love energy outward to others and help serve the circulation of this energy around the planet. This also helps to heal you and strengthen your own power, because expression and sharing builds your personal power.
Another aspect of personal power is the power of consciousness, or the light of recognition. This too can be strengthened within you and expanded into the space around you. You can expand your aura of consciousness, expanding your light into the world. Simply extend your consciousness out into the world around you. Be more aware of the surrounding space, and the things and lives around.
So often we close down our awareness or become lost in our own head space of thinking. Our awareness is contracted and turned too much within. The turning within is important at times, but if we do not turn our awareness out into the surrounding world, then we miss a lot of life’s interests and beauty, and we fail to recognize and be sensitive to other relations around us.
So,
practice extending your awareness and senses, and expanding
consciousness outward. When you enter a room or enter a space in
nature, expand your consciousness into the space. Then the energy of
consciousness fills that space, and everything becomes more luminous,
and all which is within that that space begins to awaken in the
light, as the energy of consciousness is shared. This energy of
consciousness is pure light, given to us from the Spirit Sun, and as
it is projected into the surrounding space it helps awaken everything
in that space.
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Shamans and Medicine People know that the spirits of people, trees, rocks and land, all come alive and awake, when they are recognized with consciousness. Your consciousness resonates their consciousness, and so they begin to awaken and resonate light back to you. The energy of consciousness and recognition is a great power. So expand your consciousness and recognition Be more conscious of the space around you, and recognize the lives and things in that space. This helps awaken the spirit in people and things. And this helps in the spiritual awakening of the world, for as consciousness becomes more alive everywhere, there will be a greater recognition of the spirit and beauty, and this awakening will create more respect and harmony in the world. So, expand your consciousness out into the surrounding circle of life, and so awaken life around you.
This
expansion of consciousness is an active energy but it is
not trying to make things or people into something other than what
they are. In other words, this consciousness is truly a recognition
of what is, or a recognition of what was previously ignored. For
instance, in healing others, one can use consciousness to recognize
the potentials for healing and spiritual expression, which are
already within that person, and through this recognition those
potentials begin to come alive.
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Now, it is true that shamans can
use consciousness to direct various
energies, or channel the energies of Nature and the Spirit world for
purposes of healing, balance and harmony. But this is always done in
recognition of true need and not for one’s own selfish ends. There
is a great power in consciousness to effect and change things, and
this knowledge is part of the magical arts of shamanism. One can
visualize energy changing or moving, seeing this happen as one
intends it to be. This is a skill which can be developed, but one
needs to be careful in this kind of energy manipulation, because if
it is not done in harmony with the greater forces and directions of
Spirit, such attempts may cause a kind of battle between the will of
the shaman and the will of nature, and eventually the natural forces
will win even if temporarily defeated. The true shaman asks
permission from Great Spirit before attempting any changes in
energies, or he aligns himself within the greater harmony of nature
and then proceeds to help the energies flow where best for the
greater harmony. Later on, we will speak more on shamanistic
knowledge and skill. For now we should simply abide by the principle
of pure recognition and the allowing of nature to unfold as it will.
This is the primary principle. The secondary principle is that we can
creatively direct the energies of nature toward a beautiful vision.
We can craft and landscape nature in various ways, but we should only
do this in a way which does not create disharmony or disrespect, and
we must first and always abide by the primary principle of
recognizing the love and beauty which already is, and be grateful in
this recognition. Then, we can see even deeper and recognize deeper
potentials in life, which were previously hidden from view, and then
nurture these potentials into beautiful manifestation. This applies
to the nature of yourself, as well as the nature of the world. First
recognize, be conscious, and accept yourself as you are. Be more
conscious and loving of your own being, of who you are and what you
have to give.
Then, recognize even further into your deeper potentials, and then allow these to come forth and direct them intelligently into manifestation. Remember that you are a great and wonderful seed of Spirit, or in fact you are many seeds, and the purpose of these seeds is to grow and become expressive. So feel free to keep growing, keep expanding and keep expressing. Bring out that which is within into the world. Expand. Enjoy. And feel your power. Your power of recognizing Your power of loving. And your power of expression. Know this power is good. The best way to practice the expansion of presence, or the extension of your aura, is in a natural setting, and then you might practice this in a room of people or walking along a street. Or you can practice this with friends, as a way to increase intimacy and healing. But if you merely think about this, as an idea, it won’t amount to much. We need to remember that the Earth Wisdom and the Way of the Shaman is a way of working with actual energies and discovering reality by personal experience. Ideas thoughts, and beliefs cannot substitute direct experience. The Shaman’s Way is to actually try out various methods and practices, in order to acquire direct personal experience and increase one’s abilities to use and work with the energies of nature, mind and the body.
The practice given here is fundamentally important. It is called by many names, such as aura expansion, expansion of presence, or expanding the out-breath. Breath is important. You need to feel full of vital energy, attuned with love, and completely awake.
Conscious breathing helps all of this. The out breath is not a blowing or pushing energy out, but rather feels like a gentle release or gradual expansion. When we speak of the expansion of energy, love, or consciousness, this is not a pushing kind of force. There is no forcing out, and neither is there a forcing upon the surrounding space. It is not a matter of blowing people away with your energy or forcing your love on them. It is more like a gentle sharing of good energy, love and consciousness. It is like a pleasant perfume slowly permeating the space, rather than a whirlwind of forced energy. Shamans will sometimes use their power to produce whirlwinds in a certain space, in order to confuse and defend against an enemy, but practicing this with malicious intent can only bring you harm in the end. Instead, bring gentle peace, love and clarity to your surrounding space. Fill space with your goodness and conscious clarity, expanding outward from the heart and mind. You are sharing the fullness of your being, and if you do not feel that your energy is all that good at the moment, then take some time to clear away the old and let in the new, and then practice giving out your highest goodness.
The expanding aura, or expansion of presence, is an energy substance of a certain vibration. The Shaman can consciously adjust this vibration if need be. Generally, the expansion will be of the highest vibration of love and consciousness which is possible at that time. As you consciously expand your presence, you might remember that you can increase that vibration if you chose, and this will increase the level of power. A higher vibration, of energy, love or consciousness, is a purer and more potent power.
Yet, often the skilled Shaman will keep the vibration at the same rate or rhythm as that of the surrounding space or that of the persons at hand. He gives forth a similar vibration, which gives a feeling of comfort and similar rapport and helps develop trust.
Often, it is helpful to present a vibration just a bit higher than the space or people around, and then gradually raise the energy.
Many people are unconsciously sharing their energy and vibrations in the surrounding space. They are unconsciously sharing their emotional stress, their habitual anger, their fear, their self-embarrassment, and many other distresses of the emotional and mental life. They are not sharing their soul light, which needs to be consciously shared. Some of these unconscious auras are rather large and many are small. Of course, there are many people, as well, who unconsciously share uplifting and joyful emotions.
Everyone has an emotional aura. But our spiritual work is to transform the emotional aura into a higher, more positive vibration, and consciously radiate the good rather than the not so good.
The fact that many people unconsciously radiate stressful or angry emotions, means that we need protection. Different shamans protect themselves in different ways, often with the power of an animal spirit or ally, or a Spirit Protector. Also, a protective shield can be made with certain power objects or symbols, either held near the body or held in the mind. The secret of this is to discover through a vision, dream or meditation, an animal spirit or symbol which signifies to you protective power. Or you can become conscious of a Spirit Ally who you feel is protective of you.
Another way is to realize yourself in the center of the Medicine Wheel, with the great powers of the four directions protecting the circle around you. Two other ways of protection are fundamental in the shamanic way. One is to withdraw your sensitive energy back into your own body space, by concentrating the breath and attention just in the body, or into a tight aura around the body. This is known as a Collected State of energy, which is withdrawing into your own body and feeling your energies concentrated in the breath and body. As part of this practice, one concentrates attention on the body sensation and the earthy groundedness of the body. If any unwanted kind of energy comes into your space, or is still left there, then you can breathe this out into the ground below, as though your feet were a drainpipe for any negative energies. In this way you maintain a groundedness in the body and with the earth, allow anything unwanted or troublesome to dissipate into the earth compost heap. You should practice this Collected State at times of peace, and so develop that power before it is actually needed. And then when you do need this, you will already be skilled at it. The simplest way to practice this is to sit peacefully and just be aware of the breath and the sensations of the body. Bring all your attention to just the body and develop a groundedness with the earth. Then just circulate energy from the earth to the body and back again, through the breath. As you practice this, you become more grounded, as well as protected. After establishing this groundedness, you can then reach up to the Sky Spirits and ask to be protected. You might also receive a psychic power object, such as a staff, a tomahawk or a mandala, which can be used for psychic protection
The other fundamental way of protection is through the expanding aura, already mentioned. If your energy, love, and consciousness is positively outgoing and strong, then this itself is your protection. When energy is expanding there is nothing which can come in, because the flow is outgoing. This expansiveness can be maintained, as the positive aura is developed, and this aura will be your protection. Practice the expansion of your aura, feeling you positive presence expand. Then, imagine negative vibrations or arrows coming at you, and practice stopping them at a distance, or seeing how your outgoing positive energy protects you at a distance. This way of protection is actually the most effective, and it can be combined with Spirit help as well. And it also helps transform any negative or stressful space into a harmonious and peaceful space. For the power of love and light is a far greater power than any other, and it eventually transforms all negativity.
Some shamans throw back arrows when negativity comes their way, either intentionally or not, but this is really a low level of shamanism, and the power of positivity is ultimately the most effective way to transform a fight or disagreement, or anger or hate.
The
reason that many people are negatively effected by others is
primarily because they have weak auras and have not developed
expansiveness of their own positive presence. It is also often
because they hold onto the same kind of emotions, and so attract
similar vibrations to themselves. So part of the answer is to deal
with your own stuff, and refrain from blaming others for your own
negative feelings and reactions. If you are positive and within the
power of love, then any negative stuff thrown about from others will
seem very small and trivial.
---
A very important practical way to develop protection is to develop your own personal psychic strength and the ability to maintain a collectivity of your own energies and your own sacred space. Personal sacred space is important to the Native People, and children are taught early on to respect the personal space of others, and not be imposing on others. But also people need to learn to protect their own sacred space, and not allow themselves to be brought down or drained or negatively influenced by lower energies and vibrations. So you need to develop your own power and be strong in your own light. The following practice will help you be collected in your own sacred space, and then from this self-collectivity you can give to others a higher form of good energy, and also receive from others and allow others into your sacred space when you feel their energy to be good and loving.
First you need to develop the ability to concentrate and collect good energy in your own sacred space. Often our energies and sensitivities are scattered and dispersed all over the place, so we first need to bring these energies back to our own center, which is recollecting ourself. If you ever feel the need for protection and inner safety, this practice will be beneficial to you.
First, withdraw your sensitive and vital energy back into your own body space, by concentrating the breath and attention just in the body, or into a protected aura around the body. This is known as a Collected State of energy, which is being aware of your own power of the breath and feeling your energies concentrated in the body or in the aura around you. You can develop this power of collectivity by concentrating attention on the body sensation and the groundedness of the body. If any unwanted kind of energy does happen to come into your space, then you can simply release this out into the ground below, through your out-breath. In this way you maintain a groundedness in the body and with the earth, and release anything unwanted or troublesome back into the earth compost. You should practice this Collected State and groundedness at times of peace, and so develop that power before it is actually needed. And then when you do need this, you will already be skilled at it.
Practice this now so you get a sense of it.
Sit comfortably and peacefully. And just be aware of the breath and the sensations of the body. Bring all your attention to just the body and the power of the breath, and sense your groundedness with the earth. Breathe vital and strengthening energy up from the earth to the body, sensing yourself as more strong and vital. And on the out-breath, ground your energy deep into the Earth, and feel the release of any disturbed energy. So, on the out-breath you are releasing all impurities and grounding yourself into the earth. And on the in-breath you are receiving the earth’s vital energy. This practice will purify, strengthen and protect you.
PAUSE
Now, continue to remain aware of the breath, while sensing your body. Feel grounded in your body and sense the vital energy of your body. Keep your attention on the sensation of your body, sensing the body from head to toe and back again.
Continue in this sensing.
Now, still remaining conscious of the breath, be aware of your own energy field, the energy which is collected around you. Feel this energy protected and sealed around you. Know that with the power of conscious breath, you have the power to keep this energy collected and concentrated in the space around you. Know that with the breath you can add to this energy, or you can expand this energy into a greater space around you. Feel your own power to self-control and hold this energy collected around you.
Feel the energy around you as vital, and peaceful as well. Feel the power of your breath to maintain this sense of energy vitality, and also the power of breath to calm the energy into a peaceful reservoir of self-collected energy. Know this energy as your own, and feel that nothing can harm or take away this energy. This is your own energy power. Feel strong, collected, and at peace.
Now you are ready to further develop your personal power by expanding this collected energy. Begin to slowly expand your energy. Feel your energy field expand in its strength and power.
Feel your own energy power expand into the space around you. Feel your energy presence more expansive, more than you’ve ever felt before. Let your energy and presence slowly expand more outward on each out-breath. Feel the sense of being a greater power or presence in the world.
Become aware of your inner love presence, the love within you.
Be aware of your love wanting to expand and be shared into the world. Begin to let this love move outward and expand. On the in-breath, feel your love strengthen around you, and on the out-breath let this love expand out into the world. Take in deep slow and breaths, and breathe your love out into the waiting world.
Feel the strengthening of your love, and the sharing of your love.
Feel the expansiveness of your love presence. Let your consciousness expand, to include more and more of the whole world and all the relations of Life. And let your love expand outward with this expansion of consciousness. Breathe out and expand your love consciousness to all the world.
Continue
this practice for as long as you like.
---
This expansion of energy and love and consciousness will increase your personal power of love expression. If your energy, love, and consciousness is positively outgoing and strong, then this itself is protection. When energy is expanding outward, then nothing harmful can come in, because the flow is outgoing. This expansiveness of your aura will be your protection, as you feel your positive presence expand. Practice feeling your love presence expand and sense the strength of this outgoing presence. Then, you might imagine negative vibrations or arrows coming at you, and see how they have no power to enter your outgoing, expanding presence.
See how your outgoing positive energy protects you at a distance.
This way of protection is actually the most effective, and it can be combined with Spirit help as well. And it also helps transform any negative energies into harmonious and loving energies. For the power of love and light is a far greater power than any other, which transforms any negativity.
The
reason that many people are negatively effected by others is
primarily because they have weak auras and have not developed
expansiveness of their own positive presence. Also many people hold
onto negative or fearful emotions, and so attract similar vibrations
to themselves. So you also need to deal with your own stuff,
releasing it or transforming it with love, and refrain from blaming
others for your own negative feelings and reactions. If you are
positive and within the power of love, then any negative stuff thrown
about from others will seem very small and trivial and never harm
you.
------
Now, we have spoken of personal power and expansiveness, and this is the first thing you must practice, but this outgoing power needs to be balanced with sensitivity. These two qualities of being need to come into balance, like the balance of the in breath with the out breath. Our first form of sensitivity needs to be with the Earth Mother, and then with the Sky Spirits, and of course with the Great Universal Spirit as it is known in the heart. Thus, you need to develop sensitivity with the great Life below, and bring in that vital loving energy. And you need sensitivity of the mind to higher vision and guidance from Father Sky and the Spirits of Guidance. And thirdly, you need sensitivity in your own heart to the harmonizing and balancing energy of Great Spirit. Then, in combination with all this, you need sensitivity to other people and natural relations around you.
If we close ourself off to the world, then we miss a great deal. We then close ourself off to the love and beauty and gifts of our relations. We then close ourself off to our relatedness and our wholeness as reflected in the world of people and things. This closing off is where the idea of protection can become fanatical and almost paranoid. It is true that you should protect yourself from unhealthy environments and negative energies. But we should not fear opening ourself to feelings and energies coming from other beings. For with sensitivity to the feelings and thoughts of others, our own being is enriched, and we are more able to give what is needed. Remember that everything and everyone is at least somewhat unique, and thus their needs are unique, so we must develop sensitivity in order to give what is needed.
Sensitivity and outgoing power
needs to come into harmonious balance.
This is one of the major principles of the White Buffalo teachings.
There is no such thing as perfect balance in the world or in anyone,
but all life can come ever closer to perfect balance.
---
It may be useful to consider four basic powers of the person: the power of self-expression, the power of self-integrity, the power of sensitivity, and the power of choice. The power of choice is fundamental to the other three, because we need to make our own choices, rather than let others make choices for us. We can adapt to others and go along with the decisions of others, but this should be by our own choice. All four basic powers need to be strong in the person, and balanced as well.
Often difficult is the balance between expressive power and sensitive power. Though all the powers can develop cooperatively, It is important that the aura of integrity and expressiveness is strong before further development of sensitivity, for if we are weak in ourself then we are vulnerable to any little force along the way.
There is a practice you can do, after you have built the expressive, outgoing aura of energy, love and consciousness.
Remember that this was built from breathing in energy from the Earth and breathing out into the surrounding space. You can practice that breathing out from one of the three major centers, from the power center at the belly, from the heart center, or from the head center, or from all three. Once established and maintained, you can now allow yourself to be sensitive to the energies, feelings, and thoughts from the surrounding space. But instead of just allowing these energies right into your sensitive body, or into your innermost sacred space, you allow the outer boundaries of your aura to be sensitive. It is like feeling and sensing at a distance. Those energies meet your extended aura, and not your body or your sacred space of inner peace and self-truth.
You still feel and sense the energies coming from outside you, but you remain invulnerable. Then, if the energies are felt to be good and loving, you can choose to allow them in closer to you, and possibly into your body, or heart, or into your own thought. This is the key which preserves self-integrity and choice, while developing sensitivity to the environment, and it gives you the choice as to what shall be allowed into your inner sacred space. So you receive impressions and energies at a distance, and then you can gradually allow the good to come closer and finally into you, if you so choose.
Another way to develop sensitivity to energies is by using the hands to feel energies, and then the energies stop at your hands, or just beyond your hands. The point is to be sensitive without necessarily being vulnerable, though if you want to allow energies or feelings into your inner being you can by consciously and choosingly allowing them in. We can actually become sensitive to things and energies at a great distance, by extending our attention and senses outward. You can practice this by focusing attention on a tree, a place, or a person, which is some distance from you.
Extend the consciousness and the senses out to this, then feel it at a distance.
Then try a different way, which is to allow the impression and the energies to come to you. This is then received by the sensitive aura around you. Basically, there are two ways of sensitivity One is to reach outward with the mind and senses, and feel this at a distance. The other way is to allow this impression, this form or spirit, to come to you and meet your sensitive aura. In both ways, the sensitive aura is effected by the impression. But remember that it is your sensitive aura which makes contact, or receives the impression, and your inner core of self-feeling and self-integrity need not be effected. If the energies feel negative or unwanted, then you can repel them at a distance or just let them to dissipate at the boundary edge of your aura. If your self-aura is weak, then any impressions and energies from outside will easily come into your sacred vulnerable space. But if your aura of integrity and sensitivity is strong, then this will catch and filter those energies, and you will have the choice as to how much you want them to effect your inner being. Thus, the degree of your sensitivity, and how close you allow energies to you, will be by the power of your own choice. You learn to check everything out at a distance, and if good or beautiful, then you allow this closer into your sacred space at the most sensitive core of your being.
Being sensitive to that which is outside you is the first step toward further growth and wholeness. By the power of your self-integrity, you could probably remain just as you are, but without sensitivity to other energies and relations, this could turn into self-conceit and stubbornness, and it would hold you back from further learning.
f we observe the world, we find that many people have very outgoing auras and energies, with little sensitivity, while others have weaker auras but are very sensitive. Some people are very pushy, whether they realize it or not. Others are too vulnerable to the forces of their environment, and so they are pushed around a lot, whether they realize it or not. Without sensitivity, personal power can be harmful, and without personal power, the sensitive person may be open to harm and does have the power to help others.
As we spoke of personal power and expansiveness, we distinguished this as a form of giving and love to our surrounding space, rather than a pushiness of our isolated self-desires. Spiritual personal power is different from ego power. The ego tries to accumulate more and more possessions, because it believes that a larger bag of possessions creates more fulfillment. This is false belief. It is not true. Fulfillment comes from a way of experiencing life, and not from acquired possessions. Fulfillment comes from sharing and interrelatedness If not possessions, the ego tries to accumulate self-importance from other people, or seeks to be worshiped by other people. This is just another form of possessiveness, and it usually stems from a lack of feeling loved.
Besides the need for sensitivity in order to best respond to the lives around us, we also need sensitivity in order to receive energies and impressions which add to our self-wholeness and our understanding of creation. We need to open our senses, our minds and our feelings to what is around, especially the natural world. Because through our sensitivity and receptivity, we are able to special energies and impressions which feed our spiritual understanding and growth. The practice is to turn inside out, and open oneself receptively, to the trees, the flowers, the mountains, the lakes, the sun and the sky.
Let yourself be receptive to each living being and to the great Spirits of creation. Receive. Just receive. It sounds so simple, but rarely do people receive consciously. And when there is conscious receiving, there is a natural response of gratefulness, and that gratefulness is the love energy we can give to these beings and spirits. Many good people say they wish to give love to the Earth and to the relations and spirits of Earth. It is good to share love from the heart, and send love out to all things and to the Earth Mother. But let us not forget to receive. For many people giving is much easier than receiving. They find it easy to give their love feelings, their hugs, their counseling advice, and give offerings to Earth Spirits. But receiving is another story. It means you have to open up, you have to allow love in, you have to listen, let someone share love with you. You have to open your own sensitivity and receive whatever is given.
Receptivity is actually a greater challenge, especially for those who consider themselves primarily doers and givers. So open yourself up to receive, and feel what this is like. You may be afraid to open up, maybe because you might be hurt or you might be taken away by the energies and feelings received. People who fearfully hold on to their self-control and are always protecting their integrity and pride, are those who find difficulty in opening up and just receiving from the circle surrounding them. Let yourself feel energies and impressions from things and people. Otherwise you are closing off and hiding in your own cave.
Open
up. Be receptive. Be sensitive. Allow energies and feelings to
enter your space. This adds to
self-wholeness. It helps connect the circle of relations. It helps
strengthen the interrelatedness and the trust within the circle of
life. We need to turn inside out from our own shell, from our
isolatedness, and open up, without fear, in receptivity to the world,
to the whole world of relations and to the spirits of Nature. This is
known as the great Trust. Of course we need to trust ourself as well,
but we also need to trust the world, and we can begin by trusting the
love and energies of Nature. So after developing your own sense of
personal power and your aura of expansiveness, you can now open up,
be sensitive and receive from the world. This is balancing
expansiveness with sensitivity. So once you feel and know your own
integrity of being, your own sacred space, you can begin to allow in
the other energies of life. You can still be cautious, by being
sensitive at a distance, but still you have to at least somewhat
willing to open up and receive. And if it feels good and beautiful,
then let this energy right into your being and let it touch your
sacred space. Let it flow in and touch you and move you. That is a
great step in life, which brings you into a relatedness and a feeling
of wholeness and unity.
Being sensitive also involves being respectful to the sacred space of other beings. We have no right to enter or try to manipulate a sacred space without permission. This relates to sacred places and to people as well. We need to protect our own sacred space and our deepest feelings from unwanted intrusions, and the basic ways of protection have already been mentioned. And we also need to respect the sacred space of others, including the animals, the trees and other relations. Here we need sensitivity.
We should always sense and feel whether or not a particular relation or sacred place is open to receiving us. Go where you are received and enjoyed, and stay clear when you are not. This is the practice of respect. This means that you should not just rush forward to where you want to go to whom you want to be with. You must first ask, or at least sense if there is receptivity. You can practice this kind of sensitivity in Nature, by simply feeling where you are received or welcomed, or to where you are drawn to by the energy outside you. This involves being receptive and sensitive to welcoming energies, and is not the usual attitude of merely going just where you want to go. Of course, many times we have our own need to go in some direction, or we have a need to take food or things from the environment. In these circumstances one should acknowledge the intention or the need, but also ask and be sensitive to where the need is welcomed. This is balancing our own power or intention with a sensitivity to the relations around us.
The Good Road is a balancing of personal power with respect for other relations. And respect for the greater circle of life should always come first before our personal wants and whims.
Let us develop our inherent power to be free creative beings, but also develop and nurture our natural sensitivity and responsibility in caring for others and the greater whole of life.
This balance of personal power and creativity with sensitive caring and responsibility to the greater whole, is fundamentally important in the Good Earth Walk. Personal power and responsible sensitivity are each important virtues, and they both need to be balanced and integrated in the human being. Without his or her own personal power, the human being becomes merely a conditioned robot within the mass consciousness of society, or merely a reactive mechanism to the scattered energies of circumstances. And without sensitive responsibility the human being becomes an isolated ego-power, absorbed in his or her own self-greed and false superiority, which becomes destructive to the overall circle of life.
Authoritarianism arises when the egotism of a self-righteous elite takes over and imposes its selfish will on others. But in the Native tradition, freedom is always respected, though protection of the whole community must always come first. Diversity is thus respected, and the community is nurtured by all these unique gifts and talents. A potential perfection of harmony and abundance is possible on Earth when all these gifts are respected and allowed into expression. But such expression should not merely serve one’s selfish ends, but should be expressions of giving to the whole community of relations. Thus the purpose and motivation for self-expression should be in service to the whole, as well as enjoyment. True self-expression, which is in harmony with the whole, comes from the inner will of the soul.
Know that it is very possible to have a strong sense of personal power, while also being sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. We can have our own self-integrity and at the same time be loving to others. We can share our love and creative potentials in the world, and also be sensitive and receptive to the love and creativity of others. We can be open and sensitive to the feelings of other beings, and nurture them with love, while also protecting and nurturing our own sacred space. Know that this reciprocal balance is very possible. We can be sensitive to the feelings of others, and learn from others, but we don’t need to be hurt by the feelings and opinions of others, because our own feelings and our own understanding and our own choices are our own responsibility.
Recognize two great powers within you. One is the power of personal decision and creative expression, and the other is the power of sensitivity and receptivity to the gifts of life. The first is the power of your freedom and self-integrity. Let this power grow strong within you. Self-integrity is your protection and right to be your natural and true self. This is your own energy-field of self-power and self-truth. Nurture and accept your own self-integrity, your power to be uniquely You. And walk within the integrity of self-power. Also realize your power of decision.
Decision and self-commitment is a great power in life. Firm decision is necessary to direct spiritual energy in the world. Once you make a decision, your own powers are directed in that way, and the powers of Nature and Spirit can then help manifest this decision. If you make a decision to be in attunement with Great Spirit, or to love consciously, or to follow the guidance of intuition, or to manifest your potentials; then, that decision will bring about the aim intended. It all begins with the power of decision.
The other great power within you is the power of sensitivity and receptivity. You have the power to be sensitive and receive from the energies of Nature. You can sense, feel, and receive from the various powers and qualities of nature spirits. You can make an attunement and make friends with the presences and powers of Nature. You can receive into you and assimilate those qualities and powers of the animals, the trees, the flowers, the rocks, and the elements. But first you must develop this power of receptive sensitivity. The secret to this is becoming empty and just receptive in the mind and heart, and allow this world of Nature and its presences to come to you. Become so empty and purely receptive that the healing energies and beauty of Nature flow and merge through you. The thinking mind disappears and only the surrounding space of Nature remains. So, as you let go of your outgoing will and thinking mind, the consciousness is merged into Nature and there is only Unity, rather than a division between yourself and what’s around you. Let all boundaries disappear, and let go into the Unity.
This experience of complete Unity is possible when you are just receptive and surrender into the Unity of Nature. This Unity is realized when you are in the purely receptive consciousness, and then the fullness of Nature’s powers and qualities are gradually assimilated into you. There are two basic modes of consciousness.
One is active and the other is receptive. The active consciousness reaches out to things, analyses and thinks about them. This is also the foundation of creativity and manipulating the forces of Nature.
This active consciousness is useful and important at times, and most people have developed this quite well. But we have generally neglected the receptive mode of consciousness. Here, in this mode, you just receive of the world and allow the outer impression and energies to come into you, just as it is, without thought. Just being empty of self, just being conscious, and allowing life to be just what it is. This is how we can receive and understand and assimilate the powers and qualities of the natural world. And this is the secret to sensitivity and attunement with particular nature forms and spirits. And we can also use this power of receptive consciousness to be sensitive to other people and to spiritual guides and teachers.
So as we develop both the power of active consciousness and receptive consciousness, a greater spiritual balance is achieved.
The active power, which includes the power of decision, commitment, integrity and the creative will, can be seen as the power of the East. While the receptive power, which includes the power of sensitivity and the recognition of Unity, can be seen as the power of the West. As we respect and nurture these two kinds of power, they gradually come into balance and a greater harmony is achieved.
Two other powers can be realized and developed. One is the power of faith and the other is the power of love. Faith, the great power of the North, is a growing recognition and realization that One Great Spirit of Loving Wisdom pervades all of life and is already here within us. This is a faith in the Universal Power of Goodness, which leads all life toward harmony, health, happiness and beauty.
It is also a faith in the goodness of Nature and in the goodness of your own nature. The more we come into the experience of this, the more we are willing to open our hearts and trust in this greater guidance and healing, and the more we open our hearts in trust, the more we experience the Reality of this Great Spirit. Faith unblocks and releases the flow of Great Spirit, which works through the mind and within the life of Nature. The more you trust and the greater your faith in the loving guidance and healing, as this flows through and around you, the more actual and manifest all this becomes.
And the other power, which is love, and the power of the South, is the power within you to help and heal other beings. This is the inspiration to love and be loved, and to live in Unity and enjoyment with all of Life. This is the power within us which wants to serve and give to life, to our friends, to our community, and to the other lives of Nature. This is the Great Spirit of Love within you, and it is the great power of healing in the world. So nurture your love, develop your love and express your love, and live in gratefulness for all that is given. This is how we serve the Great Mystery.
Love is sometimes gentle and sometimes hard. Sometimes love is warm, supportive and gives agreement to the creative expressions of life. But sometimes times love needs to be confrontive and destructive to what is false and wrong in the world. Sometimes love is a warrior in order to protect the beauty of life from those who, in their ignorance, are harming the innocent lives of Nature and the ecological web of life. Sometimes your love must stand firm in the truth, even if others might not like it. This is standing in your integrity of truth. And this warrior stand is sometimes needed, in order to re-establish the true harmony and beauty which is possible on Earth. And then, the gentle love can ultimately prevail.
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Our creative will is the power of our individual soul. This personal will is given by the Will of Great Spirit, and when the mind and emotions are pure of false conditioning and self-egotism, this inner will can be purely reflective of the greater spiritual Will. The great Key to spiritual realization, that is, the realization of being the Great Spirit in manifestation, or of being the Truth Itself, is in the purification and sacrifice of the false ego, so that what remains is the very essence of Spirit. We must first let go of all self-thinking and all self-attachments, and then allow the true inner soul to naturally come forth. Our inner soul is naturally loving, naturally wise, and naturally creative, and in its purity it is reflective of the Great Spirit. The soul is our deeper will and inspiration, which is given by Spirit. This will of the soul has three aspects: the will to know the truth, the will to love and harmonize with all life, and the will to creatively express truth, harmony and beauty. Meditate on these three aspects of the soul, and discover them within yourself. These are the three essential fires of the soul, which lead to greater truth, goodness and beauty in life.
The fire of the soul is not a reactionary emotion, like anger or jealousy It is a fire which cares and seeks the good. The water of the soul is not a gushy sentimentality or a sympathetic sponge for the sufferings of others. It is peaceful acceptance and appreciation for what is given. The air of the soul is not an air of snobbery or self-righteousness or being a know-it-all. It is simply a direct knowing of life’s unity and interrelatedness and the realization that all people must still learn and grow within the unity. And the manifesting energy of the soul is a pushy manipulation of things or people, and it is not a continuous fighting with life to make it just what you want. It is working in cooperation with the existing energies and forces of life, and singing one’s unique heart-song in complementation with the music of Nature. The soul may at times manifest a strength and immovability, in regards to standing upright for the truth of unity and in defending parts of Nature from the domination and aggressiveness of others. But the soul always prefers to make friends and build cooperation and harmony, rather than fight. The true rainbow warrior builds unity, cooperation and harmony, and yet is not afraid to defend the rights of the nature world, and speak the truth in the face of lies and deception. We should not close our eyes and hearts to the troubles in the world and to the destructiveness made by the culture of greed, and we cannot allow the bullies of the world to ruin the potential beauty of a rainbow paradise. So we need the power of the soul, to give us inner strength, inner certainty, and the wisdom of compassion. This knowing our own inner strength, our own love, our own truth and direction, is our self-integrity. This is our power, our inner personal power. It is power which comes from the greater power of Spirit. Yet once we know this Power of Spirit, this love-wisdom and strength inside us, then we can say it is our own.
Once known and completely accepted, this Power, which comes from Great Spirit, becomes our own personal power.
The fire of the deeper will within, that fire of the soul, will guide and direct the whole of our life. And it will harmonize and balance the other needs of the Medicine Wheel. This fire or will of the soul is not so easily found, because our usual experience of the self is either in head thinking or emotional reactions. Rarely do people live from the heart, and so rarely do people experience the soul. An emotionally polarized person will identify themselves with their emotional habits or reactions. While a mentally polarized person will identify with their self-beliefs and ideas.
Neither of these is the soul, and although there is nothing wrong with emotions or beliefs, the attention must be re-directed out of the head thinking and out of the gut reactions, in order to find the soul within the heart. The Native people do not believe that the physical heart is the soul. Rather, the personal soul, or we could say the personal sense of truth and spiritual direction, is found within the space of the heart. The heart is known as the vital circulator of blood, and blood is thought of as the vital spirit of the body. So the heart is the mover of spirit within the person. Also each heart has its own beat or rhythm, which is the right rhythm for that person. So each person’s unique rhythm in life is respected, just as each person is a unique song of the Great Spirit. When the person is at peace in his or herself, their heartbeat is in most perfect natural rhythm with the rhythmic heartbeat of Mother Earth. And as we live in this peace, our self-expression stays in harmony and in rhythm with that of Mother Earth. The unique soul of each person is thus within the inner space of the heart, as the unique rhythm or song directing Great Spirit into personal expression. The soul is essentially our own individual experience of Spirit and the qualities of Spirit, and it is thought to be a special gift of the Great Spirit or a actual piece of the Great Spirit Itself. Essentially we are all of One Spirit, which is why we call this the Great Spirit, and just as all color comes out of one great sunlight, our individual souls are unique combinations of the rainbow colors of pure light, and from this unique color combination of the soul comes our unique talents and gifts, which are unique expressions of the one creative Spirit.
So within the soul are the potential talents, strengths and qualities, and the creative will to express these. Of course, many of these potentials are similar in other people as well, and how these manifest will depend on one’s exercise of them, but we believe that each soul is a unique combination of abilities and Qualities, and each soul has its own particular direction and purpose. Most people never fulfill their unique soul abilities and purpose, because the personality never comes in contact with the soul, and if not known then it can’t be expressed. So we must find our soul, which is the initial aim of the eastern step along the Medicine Wheel. To find the soul, one’s attention needs to come into the heart space and remain there undistracted and receptive.
You won’t find your true soul in your head, nor in your gut. We have said that the soul is the fire of creative spiritual will, but we should distinguish this spiritual will from ordinary willfulness as we might find in pushy, over-assertive, and dominating people.
This pushy or dominating kind of will does not come from the heart.
It comes from greedy stomach trying to get more and more, and thinking that one has to push and shove and control others in order to fulfill one’s needs and wishes. That push and shove kind of will shall eventually back fire on itself. It is a reactionary kind of will, usually based on the false emotions of fear or greed. And it is a kind of will which is supported by a cultural belief system that values greed and domination. But the soul cannot be reached and known, unless the greedy and pushy kind of will is sacrificed and the thinking which values domination is given up. The true will of the soul is cooperative and compassionate, because the soul knows its relatedness to all life, and so would not seek to dominate or assert itself over others. The soul asserts love and not hate, cooperation and not greed, equality and not dominance.
This is the will which comes from the heart space. It is the energy of love expressing itself. It is the will to express the spiritual Truth, and that Truth is the knowledge of unity and the oneness of Spirit. It is the truth that all life is meant to live in cooperation and harmony. The soul is Truth, is Love, and is the Will to creatively express this Truth and Love. The soul has been spoken of as the fire of spiritual will in the heart, yet the fire of will is actually one of the three aspects of the soul. Another aspect is called the Water of Peace and Love, and the other aspect is called the Air of Truth. The soul can be felt as a deep peace within and a deep love for all life, much like a calm lake or an ocean of love. This peace and love is a feeling of unity with the Great Spirit and with all life, and compassion is its natural outcome. And the soul is also an inner knowing. It is the truth within, which is like an air of knowing or certainty, and once this inner knowing has been found, there is no power which can take this away, unless we betray our soul and give up our own self-integrity for false possessions and greed. If you haven’t found your own certainty of truth, which is not something one can tell you but is something you must directly experience, then you must pray for this knowing and search inside for it. It may take some time and patience, but the treasure of self-knowledge and self-integrity is well worth the effort. Thus, the soul actually has the elements of water and air, as well as fire, and so connects with emotion and mind. The forth element of earth is the necessary embodiment of soul, which is our sacred body and also the sacred things and rituals we create which carry our soul within them. The soul begins as a spiritual aspiration to know one’s truth and purpose in life, and the will to be in harmony and unity. It is this fire of the soul which begins a transformation of the mind, emotions and body. Soon, the water element of the soul is felt as a deep peace and faith, and love begins to overflow from within. Then, the air element of the soul begins to clear the mind and reveal itself as truth and certainty of understanding, and wisdom becomes a direct experience. And then, the soul begins to embody into the earth element, in what one does and in what one makes. The soul embodies itself as manifested beauty and harmony. Thus, the soul light of spiritual will, love and wisdom eventually illuminates the whole mind, the emotions and manifestation, and thus there is unity and harmony within the person and in their creative pursuits, which is a unity unfolded by the soul of Great Spirit.
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Practice now a meditation of recognizing and allowing the intention of your inner soul to come forth into the light of awareness. Let the inner will of the soul come out of the darkness and into the light. Allow the deepest you to be known. Allow your deeper intention of self-expression to be known.
Sit comfortably and relaxed, and just be aware of your natural breath. Feel comfortable with your own naturalness, trusting in your spiritual nature, and let the breath find its own natural rhythm. Breathe in as deep as it feels good, and breathe out all tension. Let yourself feel completely relaxed and trusting.
Now realize that deep within you, deep within your heart space, deep in the depth of your inner being, is the light of your soul, the expressive power of your soul. Know that this soul power is mostly hidden, like a seed deep within the earth, and you are now going to nurture this inner seed with love and allow it to emerge from out of the earth and into the light of the sky. You will be completely receptive and allowing, so that this inner soul presence can emerge and reveal itself. Do this now. For a few breaths, breathe out love into this depth of your being, and breathe in the presence of this inner soul.
PAUSE
Allow your innermost nature to emerge from the depths, and cherish this light or this feeling of soul with love and acceptance. Now, be receptive to the inner intention of your emerging soul. Feel what this emerging intention is. What is this emerging intention? What is the deep intention you now feel? What is your deeper intention? Feel what the intention is. Let the intention speak.
You may ask yourself, “How do I wish to manifest creatively and expressively in the world?” “How do I see myself being creative and spiritually expressive?” Allow a Vision of yourself to emerge -- a Vision of what you truly wish to manifest -- or a Vision of how you truly wish to be.
PAUSE
This is allowing the power and vision of your inner soul to come forth. You may hear the inner soul speak. You may feel the special quality of your inner soul emerge. You may become aware of the soul’s vision of self-expression. Do this practice again and again, and the power of your inner soul will emerge more and more into clarity and expression. This is acquiring self-knowledge at the deepest level, as your inner spiritual will is allowed into awareness, with acceptance and love. You become more clear about your soul direction in life. And your unique spiritual potentials are gradually allowed into expression. This is true spiritual freedom, the freeing of your inner spiritual potentials and your inner spiritual intentions.
Allow your inner self to come out into the light of recognition.
Then, stand firm in this self-integrity, in this true knowing of your deep intentions and your recognized direction in life. Feel the power of this soul-intention, and let it grow strong. Then you begin to live from the power of your deep intention and the power of your self-integrity. As this power gets stronger, then nothing can ever defeat it or dissipate it. This is the power of your inner will. First recognize and accept this inner will, and build it strong within you. Then you can begin breathing this out and expanding this out into the world, for it is your personal creative and expressive power of spirit. Become strong in your own will and in your own decision to be, by first knowing and accepting yourself, by accepting and nurturing your creative, spiritual will.
This means accepting and appreciating your own power to be spiritually expressive in the world. And let no one take that power away from you. This power, and your self-expressiveness of the inner will and the inner potentials, is your unique manifestation of Great Spirit.