CENTERING
What Madonna Ministry Members have to say about centering
I take three deep slow breaths and at my Hara point I focus my attention. From my Hara I imagine a point of light travelling down thorough my Hara Line and out through my Base chakra and running into the earth and anchoring me. Hara is your connection to Soul, to Spirit. Hara is between your 2nd chakra and your navel approximately. This is your SILVER CORD if you want. Your connection, It is very different to being grounded. This is were we find our stillness, our center, our Soul, our Spirit.
When I mentioned in my attunement procedure that I took three breaths and centered myself - this is what I meant by centered. Centering is very important. Centering and grounding are important for the practitioner so that energies are not scattered. Especially before the practitioner (Healer) connects to their client. I also use the Hara Energy Meditation to move energy and to increase energy in my body if I feel I need a boost!
I travel with my consciousness from my head, down through my throat and just quietly look and observe what it is I "see" as I travel. I continue to a spot within me where I feel comfortable. It is there that I feel my center and usually it is very white and soft and "fluffy". It really feels good to reside there!! But eventually I must come back to my head in order to function with my mind on this plane. Why do I have to come back??!! But of course I do know why (smile).
For myself, my centre lives deep within my belly. It is a place that I breathe in and out of all the time, as opposed to upper thoracic breathing which the yogis describe as being breath for survival only, while deep belly breathing is called the creative breath.
Centring is more for me than breathing, it is when everything becomes still, present, and focussed. In this space, there are no external influences, no distractions, and because of my stillness, Spirit is able to work with me more consciously.
I personally believe that it is not of such great importance to be in a conscious space of stillness, but to use Ann's three I's, for me it is much more about my INTENTION.
If I intend to be centred, a "little hollow bone" to quote Fools Crow, then it is done.
I like finding that still place within. To that I would add that it is important to me to strive to remain in that place, regardless of what is going on at the "surface" of my life. This doesn't mean that I don't have feelings that are appropriate to my situation, whatever it is at the moment, but it does mean that the underlying sense of stability and connection with the Source is there as well. So to me, centering has three levels.
First, there is that still place within, anchored in the earth, sustained by the Source. The I AM.
Second, there is an awareness of my self: feelings, sensations, needs, desires, hopes, resistances, discomforts and comforts - all of the inner mental, emotional, and physical stuff. What we might call the "i am". However, when I am centered in the stillness and the source, I am aware of the transient, passing nature of all this, and can learn from and deal with it more appropriately without getting so caught up in it. This is the exact opposite of suppression - clearly seeing and feeling, and yet choosing to respond from I AM instead of i am.
Third, from the perspective of centeredness and self-awareness, an awareness of the environment and situations and people that is *not* full of things like projections and transference can occur. From there it is possible to see people and things as they are, instead of how we want or fear them to be.
The thing is, that center is always there It is just a matter of remembering that it is, of consciously being aware of it, and of basing our responses and perceptions on that instead of on the ever-changing feelings, beliefs, and sensations of the personality. We lose our centeredness when we respond from those feelings and sensations as if they were permanent and the only thing that mattered. Worse yet, we *seriously* lose our centeredness and ability to respond with clarity when we get hooked into someone else's stuff and respond as if *that* - their feelings, their desires, their fears - were the only thing that mattered.
I suspect that enlightenment may occur when that second level of personality becomes so illumined by the inner light that it becomes completely transparent at all times and never interferes with the appropriate responses from the center.
In Chienese it is the Dan Ti'en , in Japenese the Hara. Its position is a couple of fingers down from the naval. (there is also one at the heart, and one on the brow chakra, but these are not useually used in martial arts) From this stillnes it is possible to act correctly whithout pause for the normal mental judgements. There is a feeling of being rooted, without being fixed. A moving inward, yet aware, like gazing down a long valley. A feeling of being open, yet safe.
Almost anything in the Tao Te Ching refers to this. Some excerpts: The space between heaven & earth is like a bellows. The shape changes but not the form; The more it moves, the more it yields. More words count less. Hold fast to the centre.
and: Movement overcomes cold. Stillness overcomes heat. Stillness and tranquillity set things in order in the universe.
or: Tao abides in non-action, Yet nothing is left undone.
"I suspect that enlightenment may occur when that second level of personality becomes so illumined by the inner light that it becomes completely transparent at all times and never interferes with the appropriate responses from the center." Reminded me of something Gandalf said of Frodo, I'll need to look it up, .. found it! book 2 chapter 1 Many Meetings: "He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can fortell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can."
|
Website maintained by Bishop Ann Williams-Fitzgerald
Madonna Ministry International Star Council
© 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 - Reproduction in any form is prohibited!
What is Copyright?
|
