The Return Journey

This book is a guide to spiritual awakening, using the Tantric Yoga Chakra system as a map. (According to ancient spiritual teachings, there are seven chakras, or energy centres, in the body. Each one relates to one of our basic human qualities – survival, sexuality, power, love, creativity, insight and transcendence). In this book you will discover practical ways to reconnect with each of these seven centres. Spiritual practice is sometimes called a journey to awakening, although in reality we are not going anywhere. We are already here, where we want to be. And yet calling it a journey is not inappropriate. The fact is that we have already gone somewhere. We have travelled away from ourselves, away from our true nature. And from the here and now. So the journey to awakening is really a return journey. We are coming back to ourselves, back to our true nature. This is where the map of the chakras is very helpful. The map shows us what our true nature looks like. Who we really are is something we have more or less forgotten. From a young age, we are brought up to meet the expectations of others. To follow their beliefs, and fit in with family and social norms. By the time we reach adulthood we have developed a ‘social personality’ and lost touch with much of our real selves. To anyone who is sensitive, or perhaps an ‘old soul’, this disconnect causes all sorts of inner turmoil, anxiety and even depression. The society may then try to ‘fix’ that through medication, to relieve the pain and discomfort. After a few weeks or months of this ‘fix’, you end up in a state that is comfortably ‘numb’, and the disconnect from your real self is more or less complete. Except that you can´t quite throw off this feeling that keeps gnawing away inside you – that life has no meaning and everything seems pointless. If this sounds a little like you, then you might find something of interest in the pages of this book. Even if you have already started this return journey, and done some inner healing work, there is still much to discover in these pages. The map of the chakras points us to our highest potential, which is what the yogis call Sat Chit Anand :– Truth, Consciousness, Bliss. Like all journeys, the return journey starts by entering the vehicle. In this case, the vehicle is the body. Most of us are not really ‘in’ our bodies. We hover somewhere around them, and live mostly up in our heads, or distracted by our smartphones. To enter the body means to start to connect with the feelings and sensations that happen there. To shake off that ‘numb’ feeling, and open up to the actual life of the body. To feelings of pleasure, pain, joy, sadness, sensuality, longing, aching, love, connection, passion. And to the feeling of being yourself, recognizing your needs, and having your own authentic responses to life. That is our starting point. That will connect us with the life of the first three chakras. We reconnect with our sense of grounding, our passions and sensuality, our inner strength and a sense of being personally empowered to live a more authentic life. The first three chakras connect us to our instincts for survival, sexuality and power. Yet even as we do become more embodied here, we are still just living the ordinary life that most people live. A life that is primarily focused on money and/or sex and/or power:- i.e. our needs for survival and some sort of pleasure or prestige. It is no longer numb and meaningless, but it is not particularly uplifting either. It is, however, as far as our cultural and social norms can take us. If we want to go further, and really explore our highest potential, we need to look elsewhere. In these pages we will explore ways in which we can transform the energies of the lower chakras into the more refined energies of the upper ones. i.e. how to the energy of sexuality can be transformed into love, bliss and consciousness. That is what the Neo-Tantra path is all about. Beyond the first three chakras, we find the heart, the throat, the third eye and the crown centres. These upper chakras are more or less dormant in most people. And yet within each of them there lies hidden a special gift. In the chapters of this book, we will discover ways in which we can awaken each of these chakras, and unwrap the gifts they contain. Gifts of love, creativity and insight. And the greatest gift of all - our true nature, which the yogis have called Sat Chit Anand. (Truth, Consciousness, Bliss).