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Three levels of mindful intuition

“Teaming up our intuition & rationality helps us trust our natural inner guidance and signals”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article offers some ways of making distinctions around different type of intuition, & beginning to work with them in daily life. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be a focus point of the meditation. 

In the spirit of intuition,

Toby
 


Three levels of mindful intuition
 
What is intuition?
 
For this piece, I’m going to define intuition as a way of experiencing and processing our life in a way that is almost instantaneous, often pre, or trans-rational, meaning preceding logical or systematic thought. Here are a couple of mainstream definitions from the internet that are complementary to mine:

  • Oxford languages: Intuition – using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive; “his intuitive understanding of the readers’ real needs”
  • Cambridge dictionary: Intuition – able to know or understand something because of feelings rather than facts or proof

 
Why is it useful to develop?
 
Reliable intuition is a wonderful capacity to develop, as it enables us to navigate life confidently, experientially, and more successfully. It is a capacity that is complementary to our reasoning, and analytical capacity, rather than in competition with it. If we can make our intuition and reasoning a team, then they can help us to verify choices, navigate confusion and so forth. Teaming up our rationality and intuition helps us trust our natural inner guidance and signals.
 
Three levels of intuition
 
Most often I think about intuition as having three levels; instinctual, mental and spiritual:

Instinctual intuition comes from our biological intelligence. It is the capacity that we share with animals. It is pre-rational, often sensual and sensory. If you quieten the mind and attune to your body-intelligence, then you’ll start to notice this level of your intuition providing you signals and feedback thru-out the day. When you are out in nature, you may notice this level of intuition really coming to the foreground of your awareness, as your animal nature attunes to its environment.

Mental or intellectual intuition is the capacity of our mind to compute answers based on the sum total of our knowledge and experience, before our conscious mind can do it in a linear way. For example, if we are an experienced chess or tennis player, our intuitive sense of the next move or shot will often come intuitively and instantaneously. This ‘feeling’ comes from the capacity of our intellect to make trans-rational calculations based on the totality of our knowledge and experience in this domain.

Spiritual intuition is that dimension of our intelligence that lies beyond both our instinct and our intellect. The intuition that comes from this level is distinct, sometimes characterised as a ‘still small voice within’. In a previous article I describe this intuitive voice as follows:
“What you are looking for is a quieter voice within you coming from a deeper level of your consciousness. Its nature is to be kind, and quiet, strong and wise. It’s easily drowned out by the louder voices of the everyday mind, which is why you need to listen for it closely, in a relaxed frame of mind”
Sometimes referred to as the Higher Self, Soul Self or Spiritual Self, spiritual intuition often feels as if it’s perspective comes literally from an ariel point of view, a ‘big picture’ perspective.
 
If you sit quietly, and recall a particular situation in your life, you can try gently to identify these three voices, attuning to the different information and perspectives they are giving you. Sometimes they will be in broad agreement, sometimes they will be saying different, even contradictory things to each other. It is your job as the conscious self to:

  • Identify these three voices of your intuitive guidance
  • Collate and assess them together, making a decision that you feel is best for you and the situation at hand, all things considered

Identifying and listening to these three levels of your intuition is a part of what I call learning to trust your inner guidance, or ‘inner guru’. Everyone has all three of these, it’s just a matter of putting in a little patient practice to start building your competency!
 
Related articles: Trusting your inner guru
Four ways of working with your inner voice

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
 


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Effortless wholeness – The ocean & it’s wave; not one, not two

“Experience yourself as a wave on the ocean, emerging from and subsiding back into the sea, separate from but at the same time one with the ocean, not one, not two”

Dear Toby, 

This week’s article focuses on a technique to deepen the simple feeling of awareness, making it into a communion between yourself as an individual, and yourself as the One or Universal Self. If you like it, you might like to come along too this week’s Wednesday class, where it will be the subject of the  session!

And head’s up for this Saturday 27th July, 5-6pm – Mantra yoga meditation class: Healing meditation with the Medicine Buddha. If you are interested in meditation & healing, you will enjoy this class.

In the spirit of not one, not two,

Toby

 


Effortless wholeness – The ocean & it’s wave; not one, not two
 
In my previous article, Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology I outlined five ways in which simply sitting in a state of mindful presence starts to activate a feeling of wholeness or completeness. Sitting presently in this way we start to feel:
 

  1. Full, not empty
  2. Empty, not full 
  3. Enough, not not -enough 
  4. Strong, not weak 
  5. Free, not limited

 
To our ‘doing’ mind this can seem a little bit too good to be true, there must be something that we have to do or achieve in order to a state of deep meditation and get all these benefits? Here is a short story from Anthony De Mello’s One minute wisdom entitled ‘Identity’ that is designed to further undermine our addiction to striving:
 
IDENTITY
“How does one seek union with God?”
“The harder you seek, the more distance you create between Him and you.”
“So, what does one do about the distance?”
“Understand that it isn’t there.”
“Does that mean that God and I are one?”
“Not one. Not two.”
“How is that possible?”
“The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song—not one. Not
two.”
 
The useful thing about this story is it helps us to see that we can be at the same time one with the universe, and at the same time different, individual and separate. It is not one, not two, not neither, not both & something beyond neither and both.
 
The story gives the image of the sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, and the singer and his/her song. To explore this, first cultivate basic mindful presence; not lost in thought, not falling asleep, present to the moment, and aware of yourself being present. Then take one of the following as your object of meditation:

  • Imagine yourself as an individual lightray, separate from but at the same time one with the sun. Not one, not two
  • Or as a wave on the ocean, emerging from and subsiding back into the sea, separate from but at the same time one with the ocean. Not one, not two
  • Or as a singer singing a song (perhaps when you actually sang a song), separate from, but at the same time merged with the sound and the song itself. Not one, not two

 
Using one of these images, explore relaxing as effortlessly as you can into the feeling of being not one with the universe, or separate from it, but paradoxically both at the same time. Intellectually it sounds a bit bamboozling, but experientially and using the image, you will find that the experience comes naturally, and without needing to try too hard. It is a nice way to enhance and deepen the simple feeling of awareness and mindful presence, making it into a communion between yourself as an individual, and yourself as the One or Universal Self!
 
Related reading: Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology
Your thoughts as light rays, your mind as the sun
 

​© Toby Ouvry 2024, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


In case you missed it in last week’s newsletter: The remembrance, positivity & mindful questioning training page

This first training page for the Engaged mindfulness book & project focuses on three practices, or mindful positions:

  1. Practical learning from life – Asking & learning from mindful questions
  2. Meditation – orienting around the positive
  3. Mindfulness – improving your conscious remembrance of what you are doing

Reference in the Engaged mindfulness book: Page 4-6, An Introduction to the Art of Mindfulness (Download free PDF, or order hardcopy here)


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Spiritual aspects of healing – The medicine Buddha

“Spiritual healing is the art of bringing a higher, more whole and inclusive dimension of reality to bear upon a lower dimension, in order to bring that greater wholeness, healing and inclusivity to bear upon the lower dimension, thus effecting healing.”

(Link to image source)

Dear Integral Meditators, 

The article below looks at principles of spiritual healing practice in general, and also specifically in terms of Medicine Buddha practice, which is something I picked up in my days as a Buddhist monk, and continue to engage with today. If you enjoy the article & are curious, do join me live or online for the Medicine Buddha Healing meditation this Saturday 11am-12.15pm.

Also, if you know anyone looking to get their meditation practice started, or if you want to get your own practice rebooted, then I recommend this Saturday’s session:Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

 
In the spirit of healing,

Toby

Spiritual aspects of healing – The medicine Buddha

What is spiritual healing? You might think about spiritual healing in terms of this definition:
“Spiritual healing is the art of bringing a higher, more whole and inclusive dimension of reality to bear upon a lower dimension, in order to bring that greater wholeness, healing and inclusivity into the lower dimension, thus effecting healing.”
To practice spiritual healing is then basically learning to meditate (Yes, mediate, or channel) higher, deeper dimensions of energy to people or places where healing is needed. It can be done in different ways:

  • To effect physical or psychological healing for ourself
  • To effect physical or psychological healing for others
  • To direct healing energy to groups of people or places on the planet

What/who is the Medicine Buddha
The Medicine buddha practice is an example of a spiritual healing practice. Sometimes Buddha’s are linked to actual people, but more often these are mythic rather than factual stories, and the Buddha in question is more of an embodiment of a particular enlightened quality, a primal archetype rather than a ‘person’. In the case of the Medicine Buddha, he may be thought of as the healing power of all the Buddhas (and our own enlightened Buddha nature) embodied in a human form, albeit with a blue body (!)
Having been related to in this way for over two thousand years, visualizing the Medicine Buddha and reciting his healing mantra provides a ready-made pathway in the human group consciousness that we can use to access this particular spiritual healing energy from the higher dimensions of reality to bring healing to ourself and others.

Paradigms for understanding disease
In the traditional Medicine Buddha teachings, there are four types of disease/illness:

  1. Illness that we can recover from without medicine (physical or spiritual)
  2. Illnesses that we need medicines to recover properly from
  3. Illnesses that have a ‘soul’ level or karmic cause, and that cannot be healed by physical medicine alone, but can be healed through spiritual healing practice
  4. Illness that is essentially untreatable, spiritually or with traditional medicine, and that we cannot recover from once they manifest.

From this we can see that spiritual healing practices like the Medicine Buddha are primarily helpful for the third class of disease, and as a preventative for helping to avoid the fourth class of disease coming into manifestation. In my own practice of the Medicine Buddha, I primarily focus on:

  1. Daily practice as a future disease prevention. This is a bit like taking supplements to increase immunity(!)
  2. Working to build strength and wholeness in the ‘weak’ spots in my body, again making illness and injury less likely
  3. In relation to symptoms of diseases I get, for example reducing pain and activating healing around a recent gastric flu I had. This was in conjunction with regular TCM type medication.
  4. For others I know who are sick and in need of healing, or who are vulnerable to illness

Healing meditation with the medicine Buddha, 3 ways
The methodology used to do spiritual healing is often deceptively simple, in the case of the Medicine Buddha it can be done in a very simple way by:

  • Generating a compassionate motivation
  • Visualizing him in the space in front of you, setting your specific intention for requesting healing
  • Reciting his mantra
  • Imagining healing light and nectar flowing down from his heart (where the mantra sits), into the person, area of the body or part of the world where you want the healing energy to flow
  • Finishing with a brief period of stillness

The mantra itself is Sanskrit:
TAYATHA OM GATE GATE, PARAGATE, PARASANGATE BODHI SOHA

(Link to image source)

This means quite literally ‘Oh doctor (Gate), doctor, great doctor, doctor of doctors, please grant us the healing attainments!’
The practice may look simple, childish even, but combined with good quality intention and focus, the effects can be felt quite rapidly and easily. It’s a practice I have had for years, if your looking for another dimension to your own healing methodologies, this is one I highly recommend.

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Evolutionary or devolutionary mindfulness?

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article looks at the context in which we learn mindfulness & meditation as something to be examined mindfully, as not all learning contexts are equal!

This week’s Tues & Wednesday class are on the subject of ‘Mindfully healing anxiety, insecurity & fear’, all welcome, live or online. 

In the spirit of evolving, 
 
Toby

Evolutionary or devolutionary mindfulness?
 
Mindfulness as a learning journey
For me the lynch pin of mindfulness practice is the existential level of it. This level is the sense of myself as a rational, independent human being, seeking to make my life a journey of meaning and fulfilment by using my mind to the best of my abilities. For me this level also has a simple but profound ethical level: Objectively I recognise that as an individual I am insignificant compared to the whole (number of humans, Planetary community etc…), and so the practice is geared toward me becoming an effective contributor the this larger whole, my efforts and aspirations flow in that direction.
Existentially then, mindfulness means using your attention, intention and awareness to meet and learn from your everyday experiences, to work wisely with them to make yourself better, and contribute to the whole more effectively. It also involves being dedicated to enjoying that journey, and making it vibrant. If we can do this then:

  • We evolve and grow over our lifetime, a little every day
  • We will contribute to the evolution of the world as we grow as individuals

 
The context of many mindfulness & meditation methodologies
Interestingly, many mindfulness and meditation methodologies are based upon a pre-modern religious (implicit or explicit) context. This means that the techniques are couched in a language and cultural context that is often rigid, conformist and based upon pre-modern belief systems. So, unless you are careful, you can find (and I’ve seen this happen over and over again) people who are essentially at the rational, individual level of development (see ‘existential’ above), who then take up mindfulness, and end up becoming narrower, less inquisitive and less evolutionary as a result. This is not to say that they don’t become good meditators, but what it does mean is that they only become competent within the narrow confines of the belief system that their practice is couched in.
 
Pre-modern mindfulness
When I left my life as a monk back in 2001/2, the essential reason was that I had not been able to find all the answers to my mindful questions in the pre-modern context of the Tibetan Buddhism that I had been practising for a decade. I wanted to explore and develop my mindful parameters by integrating new paradigms, methodologies and being creative. I was deeply surprised (although not in retrospect) how few of my colleagues from the group understood this, and how emphatically they withdrew their support once they learned I had decided to seek a practice that was not exclusively based around their ideas. This is what I mean by the rigidity and conformity aspect of a meditation community.
So, this is just something to consider: Mindfulness is by its nature evolutionary and growth oriented, but the context in which it is couched or learned can mean that it has a rigid, conformist, and devolutionary effect on who you are and what you do.
 
Liberation into evolutionary process
During my time post-monk hood there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of ‘getting lost’ and encountering the new. Thru-out that time my guiding light was the basic principles of the existential mindfulness I described above:
“The sense of myself as a rational, independent human being, seeking to make my life a journey of evolution, growth and fulfilment by using my intention, attention & intention to the best of my abilities”
My confidence as I travelled came not from knowing all the answers, or being in control, but from my trust in my mind, and my ability to work with my circumstances in a benevolent, flexible, and intelligent manner. Wherever I found myself, I knew that I had a reasonably competent, warm, and friendly traveling companion, me!
 
Related article: The dynamic of personal evolution
Effortless effort – Making everything workable

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2023. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com 

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Shamanic meditation – Psychopomping & other non-ordinary adventures

“Shamanic meditation, often described as ‘Shamanic journeying’ occurs mainly in the dream state, which is to say the psychic and subtle levels of mind. You might think of shamanic meditation as a type of ‘conscious dreaming’ done whilst meditating”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article focuses upon Shamanic meditation. The first section is a ‘learning piece’, with the second part being a personal reflection of my experience in the field. If you are interested in this form of meditation then do consider coming along on the weekend of the 25th/26th for the Shamanic meditation workshop retreat. 

Finally, a reminder of the seasonal class this coming Tuesday & Wednesday, Deepavali -connecting to your inner light.

In the spirit of journeying,
 
Toby

Shamanic meditation – Psychopomping & other non-ordinary adventures
 
Three levels of reality, three levels of meditation
 
The great wisdom traditions often divide reality into three basic domains, or levels of consciousness:
The waking state, characterised by the senses and our gross (as in dense) physical environment.
The dream state, characterised by images thoughts and subtle worlds on the level of mind. The lower level of the dream state might be described as the ‘psychic’ realm, the higher and more refined level as the ‘subtle’ realm. The dream world and the world of mind of course also occur in the waking state, but the waking state is characterised by the occurrence of sensory awareness, and the dreamworld is characterised by the temporary cessation of sensory awareness, in the dream-world we inhabit exclusively the worlds of mind.
The dreamless, deep sleep state, characterised by the cessation of both mental and physical forms, and the appearance of a very subtle, almost infinite formless state of consciousness.
Each of these three levels of reality is has its own world and worlds.
 
Shamanic meditation: Working in the ‘dream-world’
Shamanic meditation, often described as ‘Shamanic journeying’ occurs mainly in the dream state, which is to say the psychic and subtle levels of mind. You might think of shamanic meditation as a type of ‘conscious dreaming’ done whilst meditating.
Initially we can practice shamanic meditation to acclimatise to the domain of reality reality that it focuses on. However, part of the point of practising is that we then start to be able to access these states of ‘non-ordinary/dreaming’ reality consciously and at will, even when not in formal meditation. This basically means that we integrate shamanic practice informally into our daily waking life.
 
Foundational elements of shamanic journeying, its purpose and function
Traditionally, Shamanic meditation has five main elements
1. The Underworld Journey – Connecting with Ancestral and Underworld guides
2. The Overworld Journey – Connecting with Spiritual and Overworld guides
3. Soul Retrieval – Recovery from soul loss
4. Meeting and connecting with one’s guardian spirit, or performing guardian spirit retrieval.
5. Non-benevolent spirit extraction or removal
6. To act as a Psychopomp, or guide for the dead and/or lost souls.
 
To practice Shamanic meditation would then mean that each of the above capabilities gradually becomes a part of what you ‘do’ in everyday reality, informally, in the same way that you would go to work, do the shopping, put the kids to bed and so forth…
 
Everyday Psycho-pomping – The Spanish soldier
This story is a simple example of what I mean. As mentioned above, one of the activities of a Shaman traditionally is acting as a Psychopomp, or guide for the dead and/or lost souls. I had some awareness of this before I started doing shamanic meditation, as I had already been a meditator for a while. But once I started Shamanic meditation as a discipline I noticed that increasingly often I would be contacted by deceased or lost souls who needed a bit of a hand transitioning to the next world, they were ‘stuck’ so to speak. Generally, before bed they will let me know that they are around and seeking assistance, and then when I go to bed, I will then expect them to come to me sometime in the night, and we can do what needs to be done. This happens quite regularly, and it is just a part of my daily life activity.
One time when on holiday a village in the mountains of Asturias, Spain, my family and I walked down from our Air B&B to a quiet restaurant with some older villagers inside. We sat outside on a bench that clearly was not used very much, and where there was an old cat to keep us company. After a pleasant meal we walked back to our accommodation, and went to bed fairly soon after.
I couldn’t sleep in the bed I was in with my partner, so I went into a spare bedroom at the top of the stairs. Lying down there I then went into a light reverie, where I saw what looked like an old soldier walking up the street to our house. Understanding what was about to follow, I prepared myself to meet him, and he duly came in the house and walked up the stairs. It was a little comedic, because I didn’t speak Spanish, and he didn’t speak English! But suffice to say he had been killed in the Spanish civil war, and had been in the village since (his favorite bench being the one we had sat on for dinner), and having seen me he saw (and felt ready) for the opportunity to move on. I then helped guide him ‘into the light’ so to speak, and then went to sleep.
That is an example of one of many, it was interesting because it was one that my partner and daughter also ‘felt’ something around, and so for me it was a little bit of a shared experience that we could talk about, rather than one I just do and keep to myself.
 
Related article: Mindfulness, Meditation & Non-Ordinary Reality
 
Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2023. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com 

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Bodies within bodies – Witnessing with your energy bodies

“Liberation in meditation is achieved by progressive, healthy levels of dis-identification with our different bodies, and the recognition that they are ‘in us’ as the witnessing consciousness, rather than we being ‘in them’. This then liberates us into a much more playful, creative and loving relationship to life ourself and others. Healthy dis-identification leads us toward a fuller, richer, deeper experience of life, rather than a blander one!”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article explores the concept & experience of ‘energy bodies’, & the relationship between them & inner freedom. 
If you enjoy it, then the Shamanic meditation workshop retreat on Sat/Sun Nov 25th/26th November is about learning to ‘travel’ in your subtle energy bodies, so that may be of interest.
Also, theIntegral Life Practice Sessions, are very much about working with your different bodies, and getting them all into shape!

Finally, this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday class is the Seasonal class: Samhain – Healing the wounds & receiving the gifts of our ancestors. It’s a nice way to appreciate and capitalize on our ancestral inheritance…
 
In the spirit of inner freedom,
 
Toby

Bodies within bodies – Witnessing with your energy bodies
 
We can all recognize our physical body, and if someone askes you to focus on your physical body you could probably do it for a while with a reasonable degree of proficiency, distractions aside. According to the meditative traditions, we have not just one body, but a series of bodies across a range of energy from gross to subtle to very subtle. There are different ways of describing it, but here is a relatively typical one:

  • The gross physical body, corresponding to the literal weight-&-mass aspect of our body
  • A vital, or etheric body corresponding to our biological life force, that surrounds and interpenetrates our physical body, but it is an ‘energy body’ rather than a physical body
  • An astral or emotional body, subtler still than the etheric, that surrounds and interpenetrates the physical and etheric
  • A psychic or mental body that corresponds to our thinking self, more subtle than the three lower levels, surrounding & interpenetrating them
  • A causal, or very subtle body, made of formless consciousness, that contains all the lower levels

There are ‘levels within each level’ so to speak, but the above gives you a basic idea. You can get a sense of each ‘body’ by observing them in meditation:

  • You can practice mindfulness of the physical body, and the sensations within it. You can further observe the more subtle movement of energy within the etheric or vital body
  • You can get a sense of your astral & psychic bodies by watching your thoughts and emotions, and getting a sense of the ‘body of energy’ that holds and contains them
  • As a slightly more advanced practice you can watch consciousness itself, and get a sense of the very subtle ‘body of energy’ that corresponds to the experience of awareness itself.

Practising all three of the above levels over time, you will get a sense of each body being contained, or held by the next level of energy-body.
 
Combining this with witnessing practice
‘Liberation’ in meditation is achieved by progressive, healthy levels of dis-identification with our different bodies, and the recognition that they are ‘in us’ as the witnessing consciousness, rather than we being ‘in them’. For example, we can observe that:

  • Often it feels as if our ‘I’ is sitting inside our physical body, we are it and it is us. If we take a position of ‘self as the consciousness that witnesses the body’, then we can flip this, reflecting that “I am not within my body, my body is within me”. The physical body becomes an object of consciousness (an ‘it’), rather than the subject (an ‘I’)
  • Similarly, we can notice that often our sense of self is locked inside our thoughts and emotions, we mistake our mental and emotional activity for ‘me’. Noticing this in meditation, we can perform a similar ‘flip’ of perception; “I am not my mind and emotions, my mind and emotions are within me.” Again, here we are identifying the ‘I’ as the witnessing consciousness, not the thoughts & emotions that are the ‘content’ of consciousness
  • A ‘level three’ practice is to observe the formless awareness of our consciousness body, and discern that there is ‘consciousness’ and ‘the observer of consciousness’. Once again, after noticing this we do a ‘flip’; “I am not within my consciousness, my consciousness is within me”.

The above practices gradually lead to a sense of self that is related to but different from our gross body, mind and consciousness. Our ‘I’ becomes liberated from, or ‘free’ from identification with the things that are not it.
The practical effect of witnessing our bodies in this way is that our life becomes much less stressful. Even when faced with challenges, sufferings and tribulations, we can sustain a sense of even-mindedness because we take it less personally. There is less ‘I’ caught up with the drama. This then liberates us into a much more playful, creative and loving relationship to life ourself and others. Healthy dis-identification leads us toward a fuller, richer, deeper experience of life, rather than a blander one!

Related articles:  The body is in you – How to go into deep meditation quickly

Watching & then dropping the watcher

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2023. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com  

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Tree of Life – The union of ego, soul & spirit

Dear Integral Meditators, 

The article below explains a ‘six-pointed star’ meditation that comes from the Tree of life tradition. Its a sample of one of the meditations that we will be doing in the Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree workshop this weekend.
And last call for the Therapeutic mindfulness course  starting today!
 
In the spirit of harmony,

Toby 

Tree of Life – The union of ego, soul & spirit
 
The Tree of Life is essentially a visual meditation key that offers us ways of relating to ourself and the Universe in a holistic, balanced, and dynamic manner. An example of one such meditation is the meditation on the six-pointed star. You can refer to the diagram for a visual.

In this meditation the ‘Soul’ is conceived as a harmonized union of the qualities of ourself as a personality/ego, and ourself as Spirit.

  • On the ego level we can think of ourselves as consisting of a trinity of mind, body, and emotions, see the lower three points of the star on the diagram
  • On the spiritual level we can think of ourselves as partaking of the trinity of justice/will, compassion/mercy and Unitive Spirit/Higher intuition, see the top three points of the star.

In our life, we ‘sit’ in the centre of these six converging forces, and our challenge is to master each well enough to create harmony between all of them. Each of the six forces are big areas of mastery by themselves, so we can see that true mastery on the Soul level is no mean feat! Meditation on the six-pointed star is designed to facilitate this. Here are some basic pointing out instructions for doing it:
 

  • Begin by centring using the body & breathing
  • Visualize a golden, six-pointed star in front of you, about a metre away at eye level. Refer to the diagram to get a sense of the energy spheres at the tip of each point, with their colours and corresponding qualities, with the golden sphere of the soul in the middle. One you can visualize it with some stability, you will feel it affecting the subtle energies of your body as you sit and meditate
  • When you are ready, visualize the star and corresponding spheres around you, with yourself sitting in the middle of the central soul-sphere. Feel the energies of the six spheres around you flowing into the central sphere. As they do so feel the energies of your mind, emotions and body merging and harmonizing with the energies of spirit, willpower, and compassion.
  • Sit in the centre of the six-pointed star in a state of harmonious presence for a period, acclimatizing to this state, and the energy flow.

 
This meditation sets up currents of energy in your body, mind and heart that help to facilitate the real-time mastery of these six energies as you go through your daily life. It aids greatly your capacity to make real progress in this process. It also gives you a simple mental model for understanding what you are aiming for on your path of spiritual and temporal growth. It is a fairly complete meditation in and of itself.
 
 If you enjoyed this article, you are invited to come along to this Saturday/Sunday mornings workshop on Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree. We will be covering this and a number of other practical meditations on the Tree.

Related article: Meditating on the Tree of Life

Article © Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com 
 


In case you missed it, newsletter article this week: Suppression & repression – the difference, & it’s importance
 
Why is it important to know the importance between these two?
Its important to know the difference between these two because one can be used positively and strategically to enhance our effectiveness and wellbeing in life, whereas the other almost always results in longer term inner turbulence and interference in our ability so see and work with our present life as it is.
 What does it mean to suppress? Speaking in emotional terms, to suppress means to be aware that you have that emotion, and to exert self-control in order not to express it in the moment, for example…read full article

Special Coaching Offer for the Month of September – Free 20minute coaching session with Toby

For the remaining two weeks of September Integral Meditation Asia is offering free 20minute coaching sessions with Toby!
If you have been interested in the idea of getting some personal coaching on a particular issue or challenge, and/or want to explore what 1:1 meditation coaching can do for you in terms of both your quality of and direction in life, this is a great opportunity to find out what it is like with Toby. These 20minute sessions can be done on Zoom or via Whatsapp.
You can find read the general write up of Toby’s Life-fullness Coaching here, & his other forms of coaching here.
You can read feedback and reviews from Toby’s coaching sessions here. 

To arrange your 20minute session or for further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com, or W-App65-96750279

Integral Meditation Asia

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Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Inner vision Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques spiritual intelligence Tree of Life

Meditating on the Tree of Life

“Meditation on the Tree of Life aims to balance and harmonize various aspects of the self by connecting with different universal energies represented by the tree’s structure”

Dear Integral Meditators,

I’m just preparing for my upcoming workshop on the Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree, & am placing below an article introducing the idea of meditating with the Tree. The full article is quite long, so I have placed a brief summary below, with the full detailed article beneath.

It’s one of my favorite meditation practices, I hope that by posting it here I’ll inspire a few to find out more about it! When reading, you can use the above picture for reference.

In the spirit of the Life Tree,

Toby

Article & meditation summary:

The Tree of Life is a significant concept in Western meditation traditions. The Tree of Life is represented as a diagram with three pillars and three triangles, each symbolizing various aspects of the universe and individual development. Here’s a brief summary of the key points and stages of the meditation:

  1. Visualization of the Tree: Start by visualizing a beautiful tree in nature. Imagine a pillar of light extending from its roots to the sky, with spheres of earth, lunar, solar, and stellar energies along the central column. Two side pillars also contain orbs of energy.
  2. Merging with the Tree: Visualize yourself sitting at the base of the tree and gradually merging into it, aligning with the central column of light. Feel the energies of the earth, moon, sun, and stars flowing into your being, filling you with light and energy.
  3. Ascending and Descending the Central Pillar:
    • Lunar/Personality Sphere: Move your consciousness up to the lunar sphere, where silvery moon energies strengthen and balance your body,  mind (orange light) and emotions (green light).
    • Solar/Soul Level Sphere: Ascend further to the solar sphere, where golden sun energies balance with your willpower and sense of justice (red/crimson light) and your sense of mercy and compassion (blue/indigo light).
    • Stellar/Spiritual Sphere: Rise to a sphere beneath the stellar sphere, where white stellar energies balance with your feminine energy and presence (dark light) and masculine energy and creativity (silvery-grey light). Achieve balance and harmony between these aspects.
  4. Merging with the Tree/Body Mandala Practice: Descend the central pillar until you’re back at the base, and then expand your consciousness to become the Tree of Life. Your spine and core represent the central column, while your left and right halves embody the energies of the left and right columns. This step integrates the tree’s energies into your being.
  5. Conclusion: Gradually return your awareness to your physical surroundings, relax your visualization, and conclude the meditation.

This meditation on the Tree of Life aims to balance and harmonize various aspects of the self by connecting with different universal energies represented by the tree’s structure.

Meditating on the Tree of Life (full article)

The Tree of Life is a major strand of the western tradition of meditation. It is essentially a diagram consisting of:

  • Three pillars: A central pillar of equilibrium/balance, a right-hand pillar (as you look at it) that is ‘masculine’ or yang in nature, and a left-hand pillar that is ‘feminine’ or yin in nature
  • Three triangles stacked vertically: A bottom one representing the body, mind and emotions, or ‘personality’. A middle one representing justice, compassion & beauty, or the ‘soul’. The third, top triangle represents the energy of primal yin, yang and formless (causal) consciousness, or ‘spirit’

Arranged on the pillars and triangles are 10/11 ‘Sephiroth’ or spheres, each representing a particular universal energy. You can see this depicted in the picture that accompanies this article, which is one that I drew many years ago.

The great thing about the Tree of Life is that it depicts all major aspects of the Universe, and of ourselves as individuals. If we know the Tree, we know where to put all of our meditation practices and other activities, and how to develop ourselves holistically in a balanced manner as a result. Below is a brief meditation on the Tree, traveling up the central column, that is a good basis from which other Tree-practices can be developed.

Basic meditation on the Tree of Life

Stage 1: Visualizing the Tree

Imagine you are facing a beautiful tree, somewhere in nature, if you like pick one that you know and love. Visualizing it in front of you, feel its energy. See a pillar of light extending from the roots up the trunk and into the sky. At the bottom of the pillar, just beneath the Earth, is a sphere of earth-energy. A two/three metres up the column is a lunar sphere made of silvery light. Midway up the trunk us a sphere of golden sun energy. Toward the top of the canopy is a sphere of white, star-energy. Either side of the central pillar you can see two other pillars of light, each with three beautiful orbs of energy along its length.

Stage 2: Merging with the Tree

Now visualize yourself going over and sitting at the base of the tree, with your back resting on the tree trunk. After a while feel yourself moving backwards into the tree, so that you are sitting in the centre of the central column of light, with the energies of the earth rising beneath, grounding you, and the energies of the moon, sun and stars flowing into you from above. Feel your own body glowing with light and energy as this happens.

Stage 3: Ascending & descending the central pillar

The Lunar/Personality sphere

Feel your body ascending the central pillar to the lunar sphere, feel your energy-body being strengthened by the silvery energies of the moon. Feel two streams of light flowing into the sphere.

  • To your right, feel a flow of orange light flowing into the sphere, strengthening, and balancing your mind
  • To your left feel a flow of green light flowing into the sphere, strengthening, and balancing your emotions

Feel your mind, body and emotions coming into balance and harmony as these energies flow together within you.

The Solar/Soul level sphere

Feel your body rising again up the central pillar to the solar sphere. feel your energy-body being balanced by the beautiful golden energies of the Sun. Feel two streams of light flowing into the sphere.

  • To your right, feel a flow of red/crimson light flowing into the sphere, strengthening, and balancing your willpower and sense of justice
  • To your left feel a flow of blue/indigo light flowing into the sphere, strengthening, and balancing your sense of mercy and compassion

Feel your willpower, compassion, and sense of beauty/harmony coming into balance as these energies flow together within you

The Stellar/Spiritual sphere

Feel your body rising again up the central pillar to a sphere of light a little way beneath the stellar sphere. feel your energy-body being balanced by the beautiful white energies of the stellar sphere descending into you directly from above. Then feel two streams of light flowing into the sphere.

  • To your right, feel a flow of dark light flowing into the sphere, strengthening, and balancing your feminine energy and presence
  • To your left feel a flow of silvery-grey light flowing into the sphere, strengthening, and balancing your masculine energy and creativity

Feel your feminine, masculine, and spiritual/stellar energy coming into balance and harmony as these energies flow together within you. At this stage you may like to enter a period of silent awareness for a while.

Stage 4: Merging with the Tree/ body mandala practice

Without being in a hurry, feel yourself descending the middle pillar of the Tree, until you are sitting once more within the base at ground level. Now imagine that your body grows and expands, so that you become the Tree of Life, with your spine and vertical core as the central column, and the left and right halves of your body containing the energies of the left and right columns respectively.

When you are ready, become aware of your immediate physical surroundings, relax your visualization, and bring the meditation to a close.

© Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Trusting your inner signals

Dear Integral Meditators,

We are being given information and feedback from different levels of our perception and intelligence all the time. If we can learn to trust the ‘inner signals’ that we are receiving, this makes it much easier to navigate our life with confidence, and make difficult decisions with a degree of assurance. Below are a few distinctions that can be used mindfully to give yourself greater trust in your inner signals.

If you enjoy the article, you are welcome to come to this week’s Tuesday or Wednesday class, where this will be the subject of our meditation. 

In the spirit of inner signals, 

Toby

Trusting your inner signals
 
We are being given information and feedback from different levels of our perception and intelligence all the time. If we can learn to trust the ‘inner signals’ that we are receiving, this makes it much easier to navigate our life with confidence, and make difficult decisions with a degree of assurance. Below are a few distinctions that can be used mindfully to give yourself greater trust in your inner signals.
 
What you want to know and what you do not want to know
Firstly, it’s useful to become aware that there are some things that you don’t want to know, even if your inner signals are very strong. For example, if I have a business partner whose body language changes suddenly around a business deal. If I am very attached to the deal, I may ignore the signals that my perception is giving me. Part of trusting your inner signals is learning to respect them, even when the message you are getting is not what you want to hear.
 
Your conscious and unconscious
Following on from the above point, it may or may not be clear where your inner signals are coming from.

  • Sometimes we can choose to remain unconscious about the things we become conscious of (See the business deal scenario above)
  • Sometimes we can be getting a clear signal from within, but we don’t know where it is coming from. We are, for now, unconscious of where it is coming from. This doesn’t mean we should ignore it, rather acknowledge it and keep it in mind
  • Quite often we ‘know more than we think we know’ about a situation. If we trusted our inner signals, we would be listening for them, and not pushing them back into our unconscious when they come and tap us on the shoulder

 
Some sources of your inner signals
 
What your body and instincts are telling you – This is the information you are getting from your biology, primal instincts, and pre-rational intelligence. As we identify more and more with our thinking and cognitive self, its easy to lose touch with our instincts. This is a shame, because they are offering us direct, useful information all the time!
 
What your feelings and emotions are telling you – Our feelings and emotions are telling us about how we are feeling about what is going on, and about the emotional temperature between us and the other people involved in any given situation. Even if they are emotions we don’t like or don’t want to have, we still need to listen to our emotions and honor the messages we are receiving from them if we want to navigate our inner life and relationships effectively.
 
What your thinking mind is telling you – A good distinction here is between your rationality and rationalization. Your rational mind and messages are generally reality oriented and evidence based. Rationalization is when you use thoughts and reasons irrationally to backup what you want to be true. Listening to signals from our inner rationality, not rationalizer is the key here.
 
What your observational intelligence is telling you – Be present (or as present as possible) and look. If you do this your direct perception will offer you plenty of signals around what is going on in the moment.
 
What your intuition is telling you – Beyond your thinking mind lies your higher or post-rational intuition. Your body, instincts and emotions all have an intuitive dimension, but here I am talking about our inner signals that come from a level of our consciousness deeper than the thinking self. If you listen carefully there is a wise one within you offering you insights and perspectives beyond your rational mind. Often these insights prove to be true.
 
So, there are five sources of your inner signals, each one of them can be focused on and listened to in order to become familiar with it, and get to know it. If we do this, then over time we can feel more and more confident around the validity of our own inner signals when they arise.

Related article: Pro-activity in the face of life

© Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing, Tues/Weds evening 7.30-8.30pm– Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday July 15th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

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Making yourself big

“It can be helpful to work on changing our idea of our inner self, and the scale on which it is able to work”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Do you have a question about meditation or mindfulness?
If you have a question about meditation & mindfulness, either that you have been wondering about, or you may have asked people before but not received a satisfactory answer? If so then please send me a message with it to: info@tobyouvry.com. I’d like to start integrating some questions into my articles and videos, and it would be fun to do it with questions from you!

New course coming up: Do check out the mindful self-leadership workshop & six week course that I’ll be putting on over the weekend (the workshop), and then beginning next week (six week course).

And finally, please find below the article relating to this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday class. 

In the spirit of mindful questioning, 
 
Toby 

Making yourself big
 
When we get onto some kind of evolutionary path, we start to develop bigger intentions and aspirations. Rather than simply thinking about ourself and our close circle of family and friends in a material and temporary manner, we start to think in terms of benefitting the planet and the evolution of humanity. When this happens it can feel intimidating, ‘What can someone as small as I do in the face of such large forces? Can I really make any kid of significant impact?’
If we continue to identify our ‘self’ as being a small being trapped in a small physical body, then this can indeed feel overwhelming, as there is a mismatch between ‘self’ and ‘goal’. It can be helpful therefore to work on changing our idea of our inner self, and the scale on which it is able to work. A traditional Hermetic meditation technique is to visualize yourself as becoming very big, literally! Here is a source quote from a text called ‘the Corpus Hermeticum’:

“Increase thyself to an immeasurable height, leaping clear of all body, and surmounting all time, become eternal and thou shalt know God. There is nothing impossible to thyself. Deem thyself immortal and able to do all things…become higher than all height, and lower than all Depth…to be everything at the same time in earth and sea and heaven. Think that thou art as yet begotten, that thou art in the womb, that thou art young, that thou art old, that thou has died and art beyond death: perceive all things together…and thou shalt know God. But if thou shuttest up thy soul in thy body, and abasest thyself and sayest ‘I know nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount heaven, I know not what I was or what I shall be;’ then what hast thou to do with God?”

The basic idea here is that, if I identify myself as a small, limited, ignorant being, then I won’t leap beyond that limited idea of myself into my true potential. There are a lot of ideas to work with in the quote, but to make it very simple, as you sit in meditation you could imagine your body becoming larger, to the size of the room, then the house, then the apartment block, then your feet on the floor your head above the clouds, then country-size, then Planet size….You can go as big as you want or feels appropriate. As your body expands, feel your consciousness expanding with it, experience your everyday personal worries as insignificant, and yourself as a powerful effector of positive change on a great scale. If you relax and start to experiment with this, you will find your consciousness, and your sense of who you are and what you are capable of will change significantly. If you do it in a positive, balanced way all these changes can be used for the good.
 
But will I become delusional?
One fear that we may have in doing this is that we will simply become delusional, using this as a way of evading our reality and getting a completely inappropriate sense of who we are and our importance in the world. So of course, everything has to be held in balance here. If we understand the purpose of the exercise is to transcend our limited self-concept, freeing us to work in a way that currently we cannot. Understanding this specific purpose, we can do this exercise safely and get the benefits without falling into any potential dangers. It is also an exercise you can do when your ‘small self’ is simply feeling overwhelmed by life and its challenges. It can change the context of your experience very powerfully for the good.
 
Enjoy working with your ‘big body!

© Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday June 10th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self-Leadership: A Three-hour mindfulness & meditation workshop

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13th/14th – Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday June 24th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology