Anatomy Of The Spirit Quotes

What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body.

We are not designed to be critical of others or ourselves; we think ill of others only out of fear.

Learn to trust what you cannot see far more than what you can see.

How can you live without knowing what your spirit is doing and what your spirit is saying to you?

Let me know what I am able and trust that behind all events no matter how painful there is a reason from which truth can come.

Poem from Rev. Jim Cotter, as listed on the opening pages of “Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss: ~ God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in my eyes and in my looking. God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be in my tongue and in my tasting. God be in my lips and in my greeting. ~ God be in my nose and in my smelling/inhaling. God be in my ears and in my hearing. God be in my neck and in my humbling. God be in my shoulders and in my bearing. God be in my back and in my standing. ~ God be in my arms and in my reaching/receiving. God be in my hands and in my working. God be in my legs and in my walking. God be in my feet and in my grounding. God be in my knees and in my relating. ~ God be in my gut and in my feeling. God be in my bowels and in my forgiving. God be in my loins and in my swiving. God be in my lungs and in my breathing. God be in my heart and in my loving. ~ God be in my skin and in my touching. God be in my flesh and in my paining/pining. God be in my blood and in my living. God be in my bones and in my dying. God be at my end and at my reviving.

your biography—that is, the experiences that make up your life—becomes your biology.

The best thing for disturbances of the spirit is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love and lose your moneys to a monster, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the poor mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.

Love is the fuel of our physical and spiritual bodies.

Our lives are structured around power symbols: money, authority, title, beauty, security.

consistent: live what you believe.

Before you examine the body of a patient, be patient to learn his story. For once you learn his story, you will also come to know his body.

Meeting the “self” activates the transformation of human consciousness,

The spirits of the brain are directly connected to the testicles. This is why men who weary their imagination in books are less suitable for procreative functions...

The wounded child sees the Divine as operating a reward and punishment system, with humanly logical explanations for all painful experiences. The wounded child does not understand that within all experiences, no matter how painful, lie spiritual insights. So long as we think like a wounded child, we will love conditionally and with great fear of loss.

Vibration is the core of the spirit. It is the breath of life.

Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.

Your biography becomes your biology”—if

Grace is the breath of God—an invisible essence beyond intellect that moves swiftly amongst us. It is not only possible to become a living conduit of this powerful force, grace is immediately accessible to us along with the courage to follow divine guidance.

She was thoroughly entrenched in her wounds, so much so that she had converted her wounds into a type of social currency

self-knowledge promotes choice and action, and many people feel unready for either.

Remaining obsessively angry makes you more likely to develop a disease because the energy consequence of a negative obsession is powerlessness.

We do indeed weave our spirit to the events and relationships of our lives. Life is as simple as that.

Always, a shift in awareness includes a period of isolation and loneliness as one gets accustomed to the new level of truth. And then always, new companions are found. No one is left alone for long.

Again, we all have negative feelings, but not all negativity produces disease. To create disease, negative emotions have to be dominant, and what accelerates the process is knowing the negative thought to be toxic but giving it permission to thrive in your consciousness anyway. For instance, you may know you need to forgive someone, yet you decide that remaining angry gives you more power. Remaining obsessively angry makes you more likely to develop a disease because the energy consequence of a negative obsession is powerlessness. Energy is power, and transmitting energy into the past by dwelling on painful events drains power from your present-day body and can lead to illness.

And yet love obstinately answers that no loved one is standardized. A body, love insists, is neither a spirit nor a machine; it is not a picture, a diagram, a chart, a graph, an anatomy; it is not an explanation; it is not a law. It is precisely and uniquely what it is. It belongs to the world of love, which is a world of living creatures, natural orders and cycles, many small, fragile lights in the dark.

yourself at all times as an energy being as well as a physical one. The energy part of yourself is the transmitter and recorder of all your thoughts and interactions. Keep in mind at all times that your biography becomes your biology. Develop the habit of evaluating the people, experiences, and information you allow into your life. Developing symbolic sight begins with intention: consciously and regularly evaluate your interactions and their influence on your emotional and physical power. And

Life in extremity reveals itself in its movement a definite rhythm of decline and renewal. The state of wakefulness is essential, but in actual experience it is less an unwavering hardness of spirit than a tenuous achievement with periods of weakness and strength. Survivors not only wake, but reawaken, fall low and begin to die, and then turn back to life.

As Meister Eckhart wrote in The Soul Is One with God, the ultimate aim of the mystic is identity: “God is love, and he who is in love is in God and God in him.

Again and again I have witnessed that healing is a matter of becoming conscious—not of the illness but of a life-force that the person has never before embraced.

any choice made from faith has the full power of heaven behind it—which is why “faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain.

Gaining an awareness of our own limitations opens us to considering choices we would not otherwise have made.

We remain terrified that by acknowledging Divine will—by surrendering our will to a greater will—we will become separated from all that brings us physical comfort.

When we are in a holding pattern, it is because we know exactly what we should do next, but we are terrified to act on it.

Those who are in a spiritual crisis, however, have a feeling that something is trying to wake up inside them. They just don’t know how to see it.

remind yourself continually of the higher truth that you cannot possibly see all the facts or details of any situation, nor visualize the long-term consequences of your actions.

The expression “If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else” is commonplace. Yet for many people loving oneself remains a vague notion

forgiveness is a complex act of consciousness, one that liberates the psyche and soul from the need for personal vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim.

spirit. These rich curves feel crafted by hand, not computer. Dashing — maybe even exuberant — Baskerville has been known to steal the show, so be sure the content fits it (or doesn’t mind playing second fiddle). Good for: Debonair swagger.

In energy terms, depression literally is a release of energy—or life-force, if you will—without consciousness. If energy is like money, depression is like opening your wallet and announcing, “I don’t care who takes my money or how it is spent.

Of great significance to me was the realization that "healing" does not always mean that the physical body recovers from an illness. Healing canals meant that one's spirit has released long-held fears and negative thoughts towards oneself or others. This kind of spiritual release and healing can occur even though one's body may be dying physically.

The process of curing is passive; that is, the patient is inclined to give his or her authority over to the physician and prescribed treatment instead of actively challenging the illness and reclaiming health. Healing, on the other hand, is an active and internal process that includes investigating one’s attitudes, memories, and beliefs with the desire to release all negative patterns that prevent one’s full emotional and spiritual recovery.

Questions for Self-Examination 1.  How do you define creativity? Do you consider yourself a creative person? Do you follow through on your creative ideas? 2.  How often do you direct your creative energies into negative paths of expression? Do you exaggerate or embellish “facts” to support your point of view? 3.  Are you comfortable with your sexuality? If not, are you able to work toward healing your sexual imbalances? Do you use people for sexual pleasure, or have you felt used? Are you strong enough to honor your sexual boundaries? 4.  Do you keep your word? What is your personal code of honor? of ethics? Do you negotiate your ethics depending upon your circumstances? 5.  Do you have an impression of God as a force that exerts justice in your life? 6.  Are you a controlling person? Do you engage in power plays in your relationships? Are you able to see yourself clearly in circumstances related to power and money? 7.  Does money have authority over you? Do you make compromises that violate your inner self for the sake of financial security? 8. How often do survival fears dictate your choices? 9.  Are you strong enough to master your fears concerning finances and physical survival, or do they control you and your attitudes? 10.  What goals do you have for yourself that you have yet to pursue? What stands in the way of your acting upon those goals?

The chakra system is an archetypal depiction of individual maturation through seven distinct stages. The chakras are vertically aligned, running from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, suggesting that we ascend toward the Divine by gradually mastering the seductive pull of the physical world. At each stage we gain a more refined understanding of personal and spiritual power, since each chakra represents a spiritual life-lesson or challenge common to all human beings.

The feminine energy represents the inner world. This is demonstrated by the anatomy of our bodies. A woman’s reproductive organs are internal, and her creative impulse is held within her center, in her womb. A woman creates in concert with the energy of the heart. The life that is nurtured and cultivated within a woman’s body sits just below the heart and is attuned to its rhythm. A woman’s body is a bridge between worlds. Within a woman’s body, there exists a direct link to the source of creation.

Intuition, like all meditative disciplines, can be enormously effective if and only if, one has the courage and personal power to follow through on the guidance it provides. Guidance requires action, but it does not guarantee safety. While we measure our own success in terms of our personal comfort and security, the universe measures our success by how much we have learned. So long as we use comfort and security as our criteria of success, we will fear our own intuitive guidance because by its very nature it directs us into new cycles of learning that are sometimes uncomfortable.

Spiritual maturation includes not only developing the ability to interpret the deeper messages of sacred texts, but learning to read the spiritual language of the body. As we become more conscious and recognize the impact of our thoughts and attitudes—our internal life—upon our physical bodies and external lives, we no longer need to conceive of an external parent-God that creates for us and on whom we are fully dependent. As spiritual adults we accept responsibility for co-creating our lives and our health. Co-creation is in fact the essence of spiritual adulthood: it is the exercise of choice and the acceptance of our responsibility for those choices.

We that are bred up in learning, and destinated by our parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the grammar-school, which Austin calls magnam tyrannidem, et grave malum, and compares it to the torments of martyrdom; when we come to the university, if we live of the college allowance, as Phalaris objected to the Leontines, [Greek: pan ton endeis plaen limou kai phobou] , needy of all things but hunger and fear, or if we be maintained but partly by our parents' cost, do expend in unnecessary maintenance, books and degrees, before we come to any perfection, five hundred pounds, or a thousand marks. If by this price of the expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our substance and patrimonies, we cannot purchase those small rewards, which are ours by law, and the right of inheritance, a poor parsonage, or a vicarage of 50 l. per annum, but we must pay to the patron for the lease of a life (a spent and out-worn life) either in annual pension, or above the rate of a copyhold, and that with the hazard and loss of our souls, by simony and perjury, and the forfeiture of all our spiritual preferments, in esse and posse, both present and to come. What father after a while will be so improvident to bring up his son to his great charge, to this necessary beggary? What Christian will be so irreligious, to bring up his son in that course of life, which by all probability and necessity, coget ad turpia, enforcing to sin, will entangle him in simony and perjury, when as the poet said, Invitatus ad hæc aliquis de ponte negabit: a beggar's brat taken from the bridge where he sits a begging, if he knew the inconvenience, had cause to refuse it." This being thus, have not we fished fair all this while, that are initiate divines, to find no better fruits of our labours, [2030] hoc est cur palles, cur quis non prandeat hoc est? do we macerate ourselves for this? Is it for this we rise so early all the year long? [2031] "Leaping" (as he saith) "out of our beds, when we hear the bell ring, as if we had heard a thunderclap." If this be all the respect, reward and honour we shall have, [2032] frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia libellos: let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life; to what end should we study?

1. The wilder Beth grew, the bluer her eyes became, and the bluer her eyes became, the wilder she grew. 2. She chewed her nails. She chewed them down to the skin until they bled. 3. When she laughed she closed her eyes and tilted her head backward. She put one arm across her stomach. 4. She could melt Nanna's stony heart with one smile. After her heart was melted Nanna always said, 'What on earth will we do with you?' 5. She ran away often and when she returned we all tried to act as though she had never gone. 6. She felt keenly the pain of insects and then the pain of people. 7. She gave up dancing at thirteen. 8. Parts of her kept disappearing. Small pieces that she gave away. 9. Sometimes she drank methylated spirits with her wine, just a dash. 10. She wanted to save everything but couldn't even save herself.

I expect you’ve seen the footage: elephants, finding the bones of one of their own kind dropped by the wayside, picked clean by scavengers and the sun, then untidily left there, decide to do something about it. But what, exactly? They can’t, of course, reassemble the old elephant magnificence; they can’t even make a tidier heap. But they can hook up bones with their trunks and chuck them this way and that way. So they do. And their scattering has an air of deliberate ritual, ancient and necessary. Their great size, too, makes them the very embodiment of grief, while the play of their trunks lends sprezzatura. Elephants puzzling out the anagram of their own anatomy, elephants at their abstracted lamentations – may their spirit guide me as I place my own sad thoughts in new, hopeful arrangements. – A Scattering, Christopher Reid

Questions for Self-Examination 1. What belief patterns did you inherit from your family? 2.  Which of those belief patterns that still have authority in your thinking can you acknowledge are no longer valid? 3.  What superstitions do you have? Which have more authority over you than your own reasoning ability? 4.  Do you have a personal code of honor? What is it? 5.  Have you ever compromised your sense of honor? If so, have you taken steps to heal it? 6.  Do you have any unfinished business with your family members? If so, list the reasons that prevent you from healing your family relationships. 7.  List all the blessings that you feel came from your family. 8.  If you are now raising a family of your own, list the qualities that you would like your children to learn from you. 9.  What tribal traditions and rituals do you continue for yourself and your family? 10.  Describe the tribal characteristics within yourself that you would like to strengthen and develop.

and endocrine systems; the mind; and the spirit. The asana is not just the final arrangement of the limbs and spine, but is the full

Half knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. Take the notion that jellyfish don't have a brain, for example. When we talk about the brain, we're actually referring to the central nervous system. In case of the jellyfish, the nervous system is not centralized, instead it's spread across the anatomy. So the actual fact is, jellyfish do have a brain, it just doesn't look like one. Even trees have a brain, a nervous system that is. To put it simply, consciousness is the supreme fundamental of life, and it is impossible to have consciousness without having some sort of nervous system, for consciousness is the creation of the nervous system.

9. Are you comfortable thinking about your life in impersonal terms?

Age: 13 [ERROR] / 28 Class/Level: Divine Candidate 1 XP: 0/50 HP: 20/20 Attributes [Free Points 2] Body: 5 Agility: 4 Mind: 10 Spirit: 9 Attunement Moon: 20 Sun: 1 Night: 10 Mana Moon: 54/54 Sun: 16/16 Night: 34/34 Affinities Time: 10 Wood: 6 Air: 5 Blessings Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return Ageless Folio Skills Anatomy: 7 Arcana: 11 Enchanting: 16 Fishing: 1 Herbalism: 5 Librarian: 5 Ritual Magic: 25 Spear: 11 -Wind Spear:8 Spellcasting: 30

Micah Silver Age 16 Class/Level Wizard 1 XP 0/50 HP 10/10 Attributes Body 5, Agility 5, Mind 9, Spirit 8 Attunement Moon 8, Sun 3, Night 5 Mana Moon 5/16, Sun 4/6, Night 1/8 Affinities Time 10 Wood 6 Tier I - Refresh 3, Mending 3 Tier II - Augmented Mending 2 Air 5 Tier I - Gale 2, Air Knife 3 Tier II - Wind Shield 1 Blessings Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio Skills Anatomy 2 Fishing 1 Herbalism 1 Librarian 3 Spear 3 Spellcasting 5

Micah Silver Age 13 [ERROR] / 18 Class/Level-XP HP 8/8 Attributes Body 4, Agility 3, Mind 9, Spirit 8 Attunement Moon 4, Sun 1, Night 2 Mana Moon 8/8, Sun 2/2, Night 4/4 Affinities Time 10 Wood 6 Air 5 Blessings Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio Skills Anatomy 6 Fishing 1 Herbalism 4 Librarian 3 Ritual Magic 2 Spear 5 Spellcasting 10

Age: 16 [ERROR] / 30 Class/Level: Divine Candidate 27 XP: 17,000/60,000 HP: 2542/2542 Class Specialty Chronomancer Attributes Body: 31 Agility: 31 Mind: 63 Spirit: 62 Attunement Moon: 32 Sun: 3 Night: 28 Mana Moon: 2575/2575 Sun: 2517/2517 Night: 2567/2567 Affinities Time: 10 Tier V - Foresight 8, Time Echoes 1, Temporal Transfer 2, Haste 10 Tier VI - Temporal Vortex 5, Temporal Stutter 4 Wood: 7 Tier I - Refresh 11, Mending 9, Plant Weave 12 Tier II - Augmented Mending 18, Root Spears 13 Tier III - Heal 11, Paralytic Sting 6, Explosive Thicket 6 Tier IV - Regeneration 6, Healing Wave 6, Poison Fog 7 Tier V - Panacea 1, Coma 1 Tier VI - Binding Vines 3, Air: 6 Tier I - Gale 8, Air Knife 18, Air Supply 4 Tier II - Wind Shield 8, Sonic Bolt 14 Tier III - Updraft 3, Pressure Spear 8, Sonic Orb 7 Tier IV - Flight 3 Blessings Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio Skills Anatomy: 7 Arcana: 13 Enchanting: 28 Fishing: 1 Herbalism: 5 Librarian: 5 Ritual Magic: 30 Spear: 25 -Wind Spear: 13 -TITS: 7 Spellcasting37

Elephants puzzling out the anagram of their own anatomy, elephants at their abstracted lamentations— may their spirit guide me as I place my own sad thoughts in new, hopeful arrangements.

Achieving health, happiness, and an energy balance comes down to deciding to focus more on the positive than on the negative and to live in a manner spiritually congruent with what we know is the truth. Making those two commitments alone is sufficient to allow the power contained within our Divine biological system to influence the content and direction of our lives.

t o improve the physical capacity of the horse, a trainer must learn to value its qualities and to compensate for its flaws. Physical training of an athlete, particularly a human athlete, requires a deep understanding of the sporting discipline in question. It is in this same spirit that the chapters in this book describing the biomechanics and physical training of the horse as an athlete have been developed. The presentation of these concepts begins with a series of simplified and educational reminders on the biomechanics of the muscles underlying overall movement. The primary body system involved in active physical exercise is the muscular system and the first three chapters focus on the muscular groups and actions of the forelimb, the hindlimb and the neck and trunk, and this leads to a chapter discussing the biomechanics of lowering of the neck. To evaluate the usefulness of an exercise and to understand its mode of action, including its advantages and disadvantages, it is essential to have a basic understanding of musculotendinous functional anatomy. An understanding of these fundamental ideas is directly applicable to the later chapters, which focus on training and the core exercises for a horse. Training a horse for every discipline brings together two specific but complementary areas, which are often worked on at the same time: conditioning and strengthening. The aim of conditioning is to develop respiratory capacity and to improve cardiovascular function. This results in a greater ability to perform with prolonged effort, while also improving the recovery time after this effort. Strengthening of the horse has two main goals: (1) to improve the flexibility of joints secondary to the action of ligaments and muscles (these structures have an intrinsic role in the control and stability of joints) and (2) to develop effective muscular contraction and coordination, making movements more fluid, lighter and confident (1, 2).

How strange, she thought, that there is no word in English for "injustice," for example, that a state of injustice is, to that language, merely the opposite or absence of justice. Whereas the Arabic thulm, which shares its root with thalam, or "darkness," is far more profound. I agreed. And, she went on, there is no word for fu'aad either. The dictionary has it as "heart." But fu'aad is not heart, but an in-between space, the correspondence or communication between the heart, the spirit, and the mind, and therefore it relates not to human anatomy but rather to metaphysics. How the English language can do without such a word, she said, is unfathomable. She also found that the genderless nature of English renders the nouns "antiseptic," that was the word she used, dispossessing inanimate objects of character. When I disagreed, she said, "I would be lost if the moon and sun had no gender.

How strange, she thought, that there is no word in English for "injustice," for example, that a state of injustice is, to that language, merely the opposite or absence of justice. Whereas the Arabic thulm, which shares its root with thalam, or "darkness," is far more profound. I agreed. And, she went on, there is no word for fu'aad either. The dictionary has it as "heart." But fu'aad is not heart, but an in-between space, the correspondence or communication between the heart, the spirit, and the mind, and therefore it relates not to human anatomy but rather to metaphysics. How the English language can do without such a word, she said, is unfathomable. She also found that the genderless nature of English renders the nouns "antiseptic," that was the word she used, dispossessing inanimate objects of character. When I disagreed, she said, "I would be lost if the moon and sun had no gender.

wilderness and Solomon’s temple were mere patterns of the true temple that we are.

Feng Shui and Health, The Anatomy of a Home: Using Feng Shui to Disarm Illness, Accelerate Recovery, and Create Optimal Health.

The body's energy system, like the physical system, has its own organization and so-called energy anatomy. The structure of the energy fields of the body has been defined as follows: The body's energy layers: Physical: what you can see and dissect from the human body Etheric: the energy field connected with the physical body Emotional: the energy field responsible for emotions and feelings Mental: your thoughts and intellect Spiritual: the connection with the divine and the spiritual body.

Every choice we make, motivated by either faith or fear, directs our spirit. If a person’s spirit is impelled by fear, then fear returns to her energy field and to her body. If she directs her spirit in faith, however, then grace returns to her energy field, and her biological system thrives.

I remember clearly the professor who introduced me to Buddhist and Hindu thought. As a final exam, she took all five of us students to a remote weekend retreat facility and issued the rules: no speaking allowed, and no clocks or wristwatches. During the night she would awaken a student, ask the student to assume a yogic position, then ask questions: How does a Christian speak about the nature of God? How does a Buddhist speak about the nature of reality? What is the truth of eternal life? What is the purpose of this life? The questions were deep and penetrating. It wasn’t the quality of our responses that she was evaluating; rather, it was our attachment to any particular school of thought. If she sensed that we were attached to one form of truth more than another, we had failed to learn the lesson of her class: All truth is the same at the level of truth itself. That it becomes “enculturated” is an illusion. For her, this was the essence of what it means to become conscious: to seek truth that is detached from its social or cultural form. In looking back at her influence upon me, I credit her with laying the groundwork for my own abilities in symbolic sight.

their lives in complete harmony and happiness. But intuitive guidance does not mean following a voice to the Promised Land. It means having the self-esteem to recognize that the discomfort or confusion that a person feels is actually directing him to take charge of his life and make choices that will break him out of stagnation or misery.

Tiller’s research has led him to state the following about subtle energies: •​They are manifested by people, as revealed in experiments that show subtle energies can increase electron sizes and numbers. •​A person can direct the flow of this energy through intention. •​This mind-electron interaction is effective even over great distances. Subtle energies follow a different set of laws than do physical energies, and radiate their energy with unique characteristics. There is not just one type of subtle energy, however. Tiller postulates several subtle substances, each of which occupies a different time-space domain. These domains are different levels of reality. Subtle energy flows downward from the highest, which Tiller calls “the Divine.” Each level provides a template for the level below. As the subtle energy enters the next domain, it adapts—but also instructs. The laws differ on each of these levels because the energy gets denser. Tiller’s levels of subtle reality range from the most to the least dense: •​Physical •​Etheric (also called bioplasmic, prephysical, or energy body) •​Astral •​Three levels of the mind: ​Instinctive ​Intellectual ​Spiritual •​Spirit •​The Divine The etheric level is just above the physical level. According to Tiller, etheric subtle energy penetrates all levels of material existence, and through the polarity principle forms atoms and molecules that make matter. Our mind interacts with the etheric energy (and above) to create patterns in the physical dimension. These patterns act like a force field that links us to the adjacent energy level. Tiller’s explanation of the physical level versus the etheric is similar to that proposed by the experts featured in “The Structure of the Subtle Anatomy”. He suggests that the physical realm occupies a positive time-space frame that is mainly electrical, in which opposites attract; over time, potential decreases, and entropy (chaos) increases. The etheric realm, conversely, is a negative time-space domain that is highly magnetic: like attracts like. As time passes in this realm, potential increases and entropy decreases; therefore, more order is established. We might suggest that communication in the physical realm is accomplished through the five senses; to reach into the etheric level (and above), we must use our intuition—the sixth sense. Within Tiller’s model, the meridians and chakras operate like antennae that detect and send signals from the physical into the upper domains. These subtle structures interact between the physical body and the etheric (and other) realms, illuminating higher orders so that we can perceive them from the physical plane.

The organs and elements either generate or destroy each other in a particular pattern. This idea is a reflection of the Chinese principle of restoring equilibrium through balancing opposites (yin-yang) or of wuxing, which refers to the interlocking nature of the five elements. The idea of wuxing explains that each element exerts a generative and subjugative influence on one another. Wood will generate (or feed) fire and fire will generate new earth. Elements also subjugate or destroy each other. A practitioner diagnoses which elements might need to be generated or decreased and will figure treatment accordingly. Understanding this cycle is the key to creating balance within the system. GENERATIVE INTERACTIONS wood feeds fire fire creates earth earth bears metal metal collects water water nourishes wood DESTRUCTIVE INTERACTIONS These are often called “overcoming” interactions, as they involve one element being destroyed or changed by another: wood parts earth earth takes in water water quenches fire fire melts metal metal chops wood The ancient Chinese had a different idea of anatomy than Western physicians. Instead of being characterized by their position in the body, the organs were understood by the role they played within the overall system. They were therefore described by their interdependent relationships and connection to the skin via the blood (xue), fluids, meridians, and the three vital treasures described below. Just as organs flow in five phases, so do the seasons and points on the compass. There are four directions, with China representing the fifth (at the center). Unlike the Western compass, the Chinese compass emphasizes the south. This is summer, the hottest time of the year. It is appropriately linked to fire. West is the setting of the sun and is associated with autumn and metal, while north is winter and water (the opposite of the south). East, the rising sun, is linked with spring and wood. Earth is related to the center of the compass and late summer. If any of these phases are out of balance, the entire system is unbalanced. Blocks or stagnation anywhere can result in problems, as can excess or lack. A proper diagnosis will integrate all of these factors. FIGURE 4.20 THE FIVE CHINESE ELEMENTS THE THREE VITAL TREASURES The Three Treasures, sometimes called the Three Jewels, are keystones in traditional Chinese medicine. From the Taoist perspective, these three treasures constitute the essential forces of life, which are considered to be three forms of the same substance. These three treasures are: •​Jing, basic or nutritive essence, seen as represented in sperm, among other substances. •​Chi, life force connected with air, vapor, breath, and spirit. •​Shen, spiritual essence linked with the soul and supernaturalism. Most often, jing is related to body energy, chi to mind energy, and shen to spiritual energy. These three energies cycle, with jing serving as the foundation for life and procreation, chi animating the body’s performance, and shen mirroring the state of the soul.

Once there was a single consciousness that unified everything. Within this consciousness were two beings: Shiva, the infinite supreme consciousness, and Shakti, the eternal supreme consciousness. Shiva represents time, and Shakti, space. Here is the yang of Oriental medicine, cloaked in the Shiva figure, and the yin shown within the Shakti. These two beings separated, creating a distinction between matter and consciousness within the universe—and within the children of the universe, including people. Shakti lies within us all, coiled within our root chakra in the guise of a serpent. In this form, she is the Kundalini Shakti, the “power at rest.”15 She only becomes manifest, however, when she moves—and that is her ultimate goal, to rise through the denseness of the body until she can rejoin her great love, Shiva, who resides in the seventh chakra. When unified, the two create through supreme consciousness. Shakti is not just an ethereal being. She is seen as the cause of prana, or life force. She has sound and form; she is composed of alphabet characters, or mantras. When Shiva and Shakti join, they create nada (pure cosmic sound) and maha bindu (the supreme truth that underlies all manifestation). What does this mean for the initiate who fuses these two beings—these two parts of him- or herself? The graduate is freed from the confines of the physical body. Innate powers—mystical, magical abilities—awaken. Moreover, the soul is freed from the wheel of life that forces reincarnation. Science tells a similar story, using different words. According to recent studies, the entire world can be reduced to frequency and vibration. As we saw in Part III, we are all composed of the L-fields and T-fields that form unified frequencies. We are all made of the “male” and the “female,” the electrical and the magnetic. If we can achieve the balance and blending of each, then there is harmony, and within that harmony, healing. To follow the path of kundalini is not “only” to achieve an enlightened state of mind. It is to heal the mind, soul, spirit—and body.

Land. It means having the self-esteem to recognize that the discomfort or confusion that a person feels is actually directing him to take charge of his life and make choices that will break him out of stagnation or misery.

healing. I now equate faith with self-esteem and personal power, because low self-esteem reflects one’s lack of faith in oneself as well as in the powers of the unseen world.

friends. She made her spiritual life a priority, and each morning she and her son would visualize their lives as happy and complete—an action that tapped into the spiritual energies associated with the third chakra: endurance, stamina, and self-respect.

God. The notion of releasing our power of choice to a Divine force remains the greatest struggle for the individual seeking to become conscious. Primary strengths: Faith,

. That which serves our spirits enhances our bodies. That which diminishes our spirits diminishes our bodies.

Believe as if it were true now” is a spiritual command from the Book of Daniel to visualize or pray in present time.

The sefirah of Gevurah, meaning “judgment” and “power,” transmits into our energy systems the awareness that we should never intentionally judge another person or ourselves negatively. Negative judgments create negative consequences, both in the body and in the external environment.

revealing. It is unnatural to our Divine design to let our thoughts live for too long in the past; such an imbalance creates time warps that interfere with our ability to live in the present and receive spiritual guidance each day. That

From the sefirah of Keter, symbolic of our connection to the world of the infinite, we receive the knowledge that there is no death; there is only life. No one has gone before us whom we will not meet again—that is a Divine promise. We are meant to rest in the comfort and power of that sacred truth.

Maintaining the health of our individual first chakra depends upon addressing our personal tribal issues. If we feel victimized by society, for example, we should deal with this negative perception so that it doesn’t cause us to lose energy. We can, for instance, get therapeutic support, become skilled at an occupation, seek a more symbolic view of our situation, or become politically active to change society’s attitudes. Nurturing bitterness toward the cultural tribe embroils our energy in a continual inner conflict that blocks access to the healing power of the sacred truth All Is One. Our respective

That afternoon I saw that for an alternative therapy to succeed, the patient must have an internal concept of power—an ability to generate internal energy and emotional resources, such as a belief in his or her self-sufficiency.

You need to become conscious of what gives you power. Healing from any illness is facilitated by identifying your power symbols and your symbolic and physical relationship to those symbols, and heeding any messages your body and intuitions are sending you about them.

As is our habit, he gave me only the patient’s name and age and said nothing about the pain or his own suspicions. In my evaluation I saw that the right side of this patient’s body, around the pancreas, was generating toxic energy. I told Norm that this man was burdened by an enormous feeling of responsibility and that it had become a constant source of anguish for him.

Don’t waste time by thinking, acting, or praying like a victim. Feeling victimized only adds to your illness, and should it become a full-time state of mind, it would qualify as an illness in itself.

Talking does not heal; taking action does. While it is essential to work at maintaining a positive attitude whatever your illness, healing requires dedication and commitment.

In a conventional medical treatment, the patient follows a program prescribed by the physician, so that the responsibility for healing lies with the doctor.

My mind is blown every time I think of how my body is designed. I'm built with such divine mechanics to think, feel, look, and breathe. It's insane!

Enemies were central to the anxieties that helped inflame the fascist imagination. Fascists saw enemies within the nation as well as outside. Foreign states were familiar enemies, though their danger seemed to intensify with the advance of Bolshevism and with the exacerbated border conflicts and unfulfilled national claims that followed World War I. Internal enemies grew luxuriantly in number and variety in the mental landscape as the ideal of the homogeneous national state made difference more suspect. Ethnic minorities had been swollen in western Europe after the 1880s by an increased number of refugees fleeing pogroms in eastern Europe. Political and cultural subversives—socialists of various hues, avant-garde artists and intellectuals—discovered new ways to challenge community conformism. The national culture would have to be defended against them. Joseph Goebbels declared at a book-burning ceremony in Berlin on May 10, 1933, that “the age of extreme Jewish intellectualism has now ended, and the success of the German revolution has again given the right of way to the German spirit.” Though Mussolini and his avant-garde artist friends worried less than the Nazis about cultural modernism, Fascist squads made bonfires of socialist books in Italy. The discovery of the role of bacteria in contagion by the French biologist Louis Pasteur and the mechanisms of heredity by the Austrian monk-botanist Gregor Mendel in the 1880s made it possible to imagine whole new categories of internal enemy: carriers of disease, the unclean, and the hereditarily ill, insane, or criminal. The urge to purify the community medically became far stronger in Protestant northern Europe than in Catholic southern Europe. This agenda influenced liberal states, too. The United States and Sweden led the way in the forcible sterilization of habitual offenders (in the American case, especially African Americans), but Nazi Germany went beyond them in the most massive program of medical euthanasia yet known.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) has so often been accused of being fascism’s progenitor that his case requires particular care. Intended for the Lutheran pastorate, the young Nietzsche lost his faith and became a professor of classical philology while still extraordinarily young. For his remaining good years (he suffered permanent mental breakdown at fifty, perhaps related to syphilis) he invested all his brilliance and rage in attacking complacent and conformist bourgeois piety, softness, and moralism in the name of a hard, pure independence of spirit. In a world where God was dead, Christianity weak, and Science false, only a spiritually free “superman” could fight free of convention and live according to his own authentic values. At first Nietzsche inspired mostly rebellious youth and shocked their parents. At the same time, his writing contained plenty of raw material for people who wanted to brood on the decline of modern society, the heroic effort of will needed to reverse it, and the nefarious influence of Jews. Nietzsche himself was scornful of patriotism and the actual anti-Semites he saw around him, and imagined his superman a “free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-worshipper, the dweller in forests.” His white-hot prose exerted a powerful intellectual and aesthetic influence across the political spectrum, from activist nationalists like Mussolini and Maurice Barrès to nonconformists like Stefan George and André Gide, to both Nazis and anti-Nazis, and to several later generations of French iconoclasts from Sartre to Foucault. “Nietzsche’s texts themselves provide a positive goldmine of varied possibilities.

Pilgrimage is extroverted mysticism, just as mysticism is introverted pilgrimage

realize the importance of the words of Polonius, “To thine own self be true.” For without personal power, life is a frightening, painful experience.

No matter how successful we are, at some point we will become conscious that we feel incomplete

Surrender to Divine authority means liberation from physical illusions, not from the delights and comfort of physical life.

The unconscious life is just that—unconscious. You aren’t even aware that you aren’t aware of anything. You just think about the basics of life—food, clothing, money. It never occurs to you to wonder about for what purpose were you created. And then, once you ask that question, you can’t stop asking it again and again. It always leads to another truth.

The goal of becoming a conscious person is not to outwit death, nor even to become immune to disease. The goal is to be able to handle any and all changes in our lives—and in our bodies—without fear, looking only to absorb the message of truth contained in the change.

allowing the Divine to awaken part of your spirit that contains the essence of what you are capable of contributing to others as well as to yourself.

Recognize defensiveness as an attempt to keep new insights from entering your mental field.

But rewarding oneself with trips and toys is third chakra love—using physical pleasure to express self-appreciation.