Discussion
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
I was raised with a completely non-religious background. My parents never talked about greater forces, God, or anything of a spiritual nature. I attended church a few times with a friend of mine and that was the extent on my religious knowledge. It was not until a high school humanities class that I got my first chance to look at religious texts. The Christian material didn't hit home on my level, Buddhism was inspiring but too lofty for me, but the Tao Te Ching, a Taoist text written by Lao-tsu, spoke to my heart and soul like nothing else before. This text seemed so simple and natural, yet so profound. My spiritual/religious quest soon began with amazing vigor after I opened up to the wisdom and practices of Taoism.
In college I decided to be a religious studies major because I wanted to better understand the religious impulses that were welling up inside me, and because I wanted to see how religions affected the world throughout history and especially in the present. In Taoism I began to see a beautiful vision of the world where humans were intimately linked to the cosmos. In my vision of the world at this time, I saw a place where humans were extremely disconnected from their environment and especially from the wisdom of their higher Self. Taoism teaches that it is essential for humans to be in touch with the Tao (universal way) in order for there to be harmony within themselves and the universe. Such a beautiful reminder this was for me. But how did one achieve this? As I began to further my studies in Taoism, I found a variety of amazing healing practices, such as Chi Gong, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, and meditation, that were designed to restore balance within. By creating harmony within, the Taoists said that living in the outer world becomes natural, spontaneous, and blissful.
I felt within myself during my college years that I didn't have this harmony with my Self or nature, and I desperately wanted to retrieve it. Where had it gone? It had fallen into unconscious because of my lack of cultivation and because our society in general doesn't teach us to connect to something deeper than our ego. Soon I began to seek out teachers of Chi Gong, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, and meditation. Amazingly I found the little town of Arcata, California to be full of practitioners and teachers of these arts. Also I began to read books by modern Taoists who were able to clearly describe the practices, which were often clouded in secrecy in the past. My first experience in Taoist healing arts was in the practice of Chi Gong during my sophomore year of college. I practiced with a western man who had studied in China and had started a center in Arcata called the House of Chi. When I met him he seemed to be radiating a subtle energy. I felt like I could almost see a glow or aura around his body.
The Chi Gong I began to learn was called The Twelve Jewels, and consisted of twelve different movements designed to increase the amount and flow of chi within the body. I had always been fascinated by the stories of Taoists who said they could feel and even see the chi moving in themselves and nature. I wanted this experience and believed it was possible. Of course there was some degree of skepticism, but that was simply because I had never felt chi before and because no one around me talked about it.
The teacher then gave a simple overview of what we should be concentrating on as we did the movements and some hints on what chi might feel like. He said to feel for sensations like electricity, warmth, movement, and pulsing. I began to get extremely excited at this point and knew something amazing was about to happen. Then the movements began. They were very simple, such as raising the arms out in front of the body and holding them there for some time, or standing poised and relaxed and concentrating on the hands to feel the chi move there. I began to feel myself drifting deeply inward. My mind felt like it reached into every part of my body searching for that intimate connection with my whole being. Soon I noticed my whole body radiating a soothing warmth sensation, especially in my hands. Next we were instructed to feel our feet and how they felt against the ground. I felt rooted to the earth and full of life. Subtle sensations of energy seemed to be pulsating around my feet.
One of the first principles in Chi Gong is to be grounded to the earth and open up the feet energy centers so that earth chi can flow into you and be part of you. I had always thought of the earth as a big ball of energy, but for some reason I didn't think about how I was connected to that energy right below and around me. Those perceptions quickly shifted when I suddenly felt like I was energetically linked to a mass of energy so huge that my mind couldn't conceptually understand it. This was a life changing experience for me. A new connection with the earth was born in me that I knew I wanted to keep with me throughout life. This connection was not intellectual either, which is what it was prior to this, but it was experiential and sensational.
The feeling sensation of chi is something very hard to describe and yet the Taoists so wanted to inspire people that they tried their best to describe a seemingly ineffable experience. The true profoundness of their statements for me though, was how they said so honestly that they felt chi and that so could anyone if they try these simple techniques. I soon found this to be true. I felt chi and all it took was concentration and some simple exercises. Chi is always available for exploration if one simply focuses one’s awareness on it.
The next practice we did in the Chi Gong class was to open up the energy center on the top of the head, which was said to be the place where chi from the universe enters. Placing my mind on the top of my head was easy enough, and once again I felt a tingly warmth sensation. The chi had moved there because my mind moved there. This is another basic Chi Gong principle: energy moves where the concentrated mind moves. Feeling the energy of the universe was harder for me because it seemed so abstract. I didn't have any physical connection to the energies of the universe like I had with the earth, which was easily felt because it was touching me. With time I began to visualize this energy coming into me and I felt like a beautiful little vortex of energy that was a link between the chi of the earth and the chi of the universe. This was an awe-inspiring feeling and was by far the deepest connection with my surroundings that I had ever felt.
After several times practicing Chi Gong I then wanted to try Taoist meditation, which is very similar to Chi Gong but requires no physical movements. My mediation training was learned from the books of a modern Taoist teacher named Mantak Chia. His words were incredibly inspiring and opened me further to the potentials of the human connection with spirit and matter. I decided to practice the most basic, yet amazingly profound, meditation practice called the microcosmic orbit. This is the foundational meditation for all further Taoist meditations. Because Chi Gong had opened up in me the feeling sense of chi, I felt like I was ready for this practice, which as earlier stated is to feel and direct chi in an orbit through the body. Moving awareness to different points on the orbit first starts the meditation. Then once all the points are familiar, you are advised to intentionally move chi to each point in succession and eventually have the chi running smoothly through the orbit without obstruction.
After many months of practicing this meditation I finally was able to feel the chi move continuously along the orbit. It felt incredibly erotic, stimulating, and blissful. All of the energies in my body were swirling together and harmonizing into a unified energy. This was extremely transformative physically, mentally, and spiritually. My body had new levels of energy to work with, my mind was clear, lucid, and uplifted by being intimately linked to my body, and spiritually I began to feel like I was connected to a vast sea of energy that was so much larger than me. I was grateful that this experience was possible and that the Taoist teachers weren't lying.
During my senior year of college I decided I wanted to bring my Taoist inspired practice back into movement, and so I took an introductory level T'ai Chi Ch'uan class. I had seen pictures and movies of people doing T'ai Chi Ch'uan and always thought it looked so graceful and beautiful. In the class we learned the entire Wu form of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, which is one of the main four styles. Performing the movements and feeling my body memorize the form was an amazing experience. All parts of my body were being worked in a slow and gentle way. It didn't seem to be a vigorous exercise, yet after each class I could definitely tell I got a work out.
Having previous knowledge and experience with energetic channels added greatly to my experience with T'ai Chi Ch'uan. When I performed the movements I would move chi into different body parts and also try to feel how the chi moved naturally. I also began to get a sense for the dynamic interplay of the energies yin and yang and how they related to different body movements. This practice further enriched all parts of my being. Also I learned experientially how the concepts I learned through reading actually applied to the body, mind, and spirit. Today, near the end of my senior year in college, I still practice Chi Gong, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, and meditation. These arts have been experientially validated through my own awareness, and I believe they can also be validated by anyone who takes time to study the theories and practice them. My life has been enriched in innumerable ways because of these practices. I am so thankful to all the teachers who have helped me on my path. Also I am thankful for the inspiration these practices have brought to a modern world so out of balance, which is desperately seeking deeper meaning and connection in life.