that increase cranial pressure, and localized tension by way of energy seals, as described in
Technique 9. At first, the current is faint, producing weak spinal magnetism, but with practice its
intensity increases, leading ultimately to superconscious self-knowledge of an eternal
substance.
TECHNIQUE 9
Forming Energy Seals
Energy seals lock the body’s nervous energy to muscles along the cerebrospinal axis that, when
tense, establish the potential for expansive intuitive awareness. An infinite number of seals are
theoretically possible, from the popular hand gestures of Eastern dance that produce a
psychophysiological pattern of awareness to facial expressions causing a psychological pattern.
Practitioners who use this technique to seal energy in the brain venture along a path straight to
the infinite, pantheistic substance of God via the intuitive faculties.
To begin working with energy seals, sit in a chair with your spine erect, chin parallel to the floor,
hands on thighs, chest out, and eyes and mouth closed. While breathing normally, focus on the
motion of your abdomen. After a few moments, with your eyes still closed you may notice your
gaze shifting downward to follow your focus of attention. If so, direct the energy of attention into
your spine and up to your brain by gently lifting your gaze and focusing on the point between
your eyebrows. This spot, at the origin of the nose, has a polar connection to the medulla
oblongata,18 the part of the brain that regulates autonomic functions associated with breathing,
heart rate, and sensory input (see “Anatomy of Intuition,” on page TK).
Now watch the breath as if you were inhaling and exhaling from this spot at the brow. Lifting the
gaze helps in directing energy upward, sealing it in the brain, and gaining control over activities
of the medulla oblongata. The ancients called this dam of awareness Siva’s Seal, because the
practitioner was said to look like the meditating Siva, the god personifying Brahman, the name
given to the infinite substance of self, and symbolizing the perfect yogi.
Another practice for forming an energy seal while watching the breath involves touching the tip
of the tongue to the soft upper palate. With your tongue in this position, continue watching the
breath from the vantage point of the brow. This seal creates tension at the base of the skull,
again locking energy in the medulla oblongata.
A third seal employs the hands to prevent energy from leaving the brain and generating
restlessness in the body. Because we use our hands frequently, they are capable of holding our
attention even when relaxed. To form this seal, bring your palms together at the chest, with
fingers extended upward, while maintaining concentration at the brow. This technique creates a
dam of awareness at the dorsal plexus, impeding the flow of nervous energy on its way down
the spine.
Once an energy seal is in place, the sounds of the outer world begin to recede and those of the
interior activities of the body, and later of the body electric, become audible. At this point, you
can shift your attention from watching the breath to listening as this mesmerizing inner hum
increasingly drowns out the sounds of the sensory world. The humming, produced by the
movement of blood rushing and nervous energy in the spine, liberates awareness from the
fluctuations of a mind busy interpreting in space and time to an engrossment in the soothing
sound of river water. In fact, stories of ascetics listening to the sounds of a river symbolically
represented intuitive scientists listening to the currents of energy in the spine.
To form an energy seal capable of amplifying these electrical sounds in the spine, bring your
shoulder blades together as if endeavoring to hold a comb between them. Maintain this tension
for about ten seconds, listening for sounds in the spine and the medulla oblongata. Release,
then re-form the energy seal again and again while also maintaining the energy seals described
earlier. In time, the internal sounds will become loud, galvanizing more and more of your
attention. Concentrating on this internal roar will eventually cause the nervous energy feeding
your breath, heart, and senses to retire into the spine and place your body in suspended
animation. This state of disassociation rests and recharges the body, promoting good health.
It is possible to again change the center of concentration—this time to the very substance of
self—by realizing that the expanding sense of self is intuited from motions of energy in the spine
and brain. The states from disassociation to infinite expansion mark increasing degrees of
effortlessly controlling the energies that normally feed this motion. The more control you
manifest, the greater the intuitive capacity of your spine and brain will be, and the more solid
your identification with the substance of self that appears before our minds as the cosmos. With
ongoing practice, your sense of self can stretch beyond the intuited motions of energy in your
spine and brain to unite with the broadcast itself, encompassing an awareness of all prana, total
self-knowledge, and the bliss of the infinite substance of self.
I was ecsatic in my late teens when I discovered in printed lessons the technique of lifting the
gaze. Here was a seal, I believed, that could singlehandedly take me to God. Employing a
fatherly mythic image of God at the time, I felt that my awareness would go right to him if I
simply kept the focus of my energies on the point between the eyebrows, called by yogis the
“highest” point of awareness in the body. Practicing it diligently and strenuously, my breath soon
receded and the stillness I felt was unfathomable. Passages from the Bible, such as “Be still and
know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10) came to mind, and coupled with the profound peace and
joy convinced me that I had realized the purpose of my existence.
Of course, if realizing an expansive, let alone an infinite, self were that easy, the human world
would be a very different place; perhaps after devising medical technologies that could induce
flows of nervous energy and awareness that mimicked Siva’s Seal, we could provide facilities
where politicians and billionaires would be regularly hooked up to insure they act from a larger
perspective. A few months after my practice began, numbness developed on the right side of
my neck. I was lifting the gaze too high too soon and for inordinate durations. For the rest of my
life, that stumbling block served as a friendly reminder to take the incremental but sure
approach to shifts in awareness. Even if the psyche can handle sudden vastness, the body may
be unready. It also taught me that printed instruction in pranayama and asceticism had its limits.
So in 1997 I founded The Pranayama Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity which has
provided free and personal instructions, advice, and corrections to practice to visitors from more
than seventy countries.
The path straight to an expansive ideal of God through pranayama practices can be described
as follows. When energy feeding the senses is freed to retire inward, the spine accumulates
enormous amounts of nervous energy, electrifying every cell. In response, the cells stop
producing carbon waste; breathing slows; the heart rests, no longer needing to pump so much
carbon-laden blood; and in turn, the senses switch off even more, pulling additional nervous
energy to the spine. Eventually, the nervous energy that previously fed the breath, heart, and
senses shoots up the spine to the brain. Once that energy is sealed in the brain, eventually
tuning the brain-radio to the broadcast of infinite substance, intuitive self-knowledge obliterates
the world of space-time, the narrow sense of self vanishes, and superconsciousness ushers in
an experience of eternal bliss, or direct awareness of a pantheistic God.
From a psychological perspective, pranayama practices foster a healthier ego, reinforcing the
theory that the substance of finite ego is the ultimately same as the infinite substance of
self-awareness. Initially, the small ego is beset by worries, fears, and insecurities; it is easily
offended and apprehensive of challenges; narrowly identified, it defends itself without
introspection, avoids entertaining different views, and often displays cultic behavior. Its
happiness is contingent on moment-to-moment sensory and emotional gratification. However,
through pranayama methods designed to induce catharsis, such as eye exercises, deep
breathing, and tension-relaxation methods (see Technique 11, on page TK), the small ego
dislodges trauma, guilt, loneliness, anger, low self-esteem, and other electrophysiological
patterns that have been hindering intuitive awareness.
In response to more advanced practices, including those that require one-pointed concentration,
the ego becomes healthier. It identifies with larger groups of people, gains confidence, takes
into account larger time-frames, and acquires an interest in questioning, exploring the unknown,
and self-discovery. As nerve currents recede increasingly from the senses, through inward
concentration and the philosophical investigation of human nature, the ego begins to balance
gratification of sensory appetites with the needs of others, and outer ambitions with inner
happiness.
Sophisticated methods of pranayama then awaken intuitive faculties, encouraging the ego to
engage in service to humanity, positive affirmations, and self-study. Extending itself further, it
fearlessly looks upon life and death as similarly unconditioning circumstances, identifies with
many more portions of humanity, encompasses vast periods of time, willingly questions
everything, accepts no sacred truths based on authority, and relies on fewer material
commodities for its happiness. In developing an intuitive awareness of the eternal bliss of the
infinite substance, the expanding ego-self attains happiness primarily from internal
accomplishments and realizations.
A more highly developed ego is the superego of an accomplished ascetic with expansive
self-knowledge and mastery of energy control. The superego, free from most conditioning, relies
primarily on superconscious realizations to determine the parameters of the self. Still lacking
absolute knowledge of the substance of self and subject to interpretations of a mind, however, it
views the cosmos through a space-time lens.
The most highly evolved ego, the cosmic ego emerging from awareness of the entire cosmos, is
possessed by individuals with infinite self-knowledge and therefore direct intuitive knowledge of
the eternal substance. It is a self so colossal that it not only identifies with all things but sees
only itself everywhere and has no limiting idea of mind or of divisions of space and time.
From the standpoint of the theory of self, the ego, or I- ness, poses no obstruction along the
spiritual path. Rather, it is the only direct conduit to the infinite self. As such, we may call a large
self a lover of humanity and a small self egoistic, but they are both made of the same substance
of self-awareness. Hence a large ego is preferable to a small one as long as it is truly large and
inclusive, and not simply acting overblown to compensate for inadequacies. When the finite ego
then departs, the cosmic self of God enters. A cosmic “I Am”—a direct outcome of going straight
to God through energy control—is the immortal apotheosis of everyone’s individuated ego.
The Self in Society
To know men is to be wise.
To know one’s self is to be illuminated.
—Lao-tzu
East and West, some of the greatest thinkers have attempted to assemble the formative
aspects of human existence—ethics, the psyche, and social behavior—under the canopy of a
single system of thought. Hegel, for example, believed the highest development of the human
race would be to acquire an understanding of conditioning and use of that knowledge to reduce
human history to a science. The theory of self, for its part, asserts that these three aspects of
the self in society can be understood within the context of physiology. Accordingly, the science
of intuition’s impact on ethics, psychology, and sociology, once explored, could help in replacing
religions that have assumed positions of authority in these domains.
The relationship between ethics and organized religions is precarious. On the one hand,
organized religions are believed to be the champions of moral behavior, while on the other hand
they distort ethical considerations. For example, it was at one time moral for Americans to
enslave Africans; uprooting and killing “savage” Native Americans was divinely sanctioned,
according to many European colonials; during the Holocaust, church authorities considered it
unnecessary to speak out against the genocide taking place across Europe; and extremists of
all faiths routinely order the death of nonbelievers who appear to threaten their religious or
socioeconomic security. Perversions of right and wrong occur almost any time centralized
religions project moral codes onto society for their own social and political welfare.
A second problem with centralized religions’ moral systems is that they atrophy the capacity of
adherents to intuit a larger identity. Such degeneration occurs because the systems impose
artificial boundaries on the sense of self that breed a fear of embodying greater expansiveness.
In the process, followers become indoctrinated with moral codes that represent not an inclusive
ethical system realized within but rather the ambitions of religious authorities who draw their
power from a divided, sense-bound humanity.
Another ramification of centralized religious morality is that it propagates behavioral edicts in the
form of unchanging, irrevocable truths. While an unchanging God or substance may be
considered an eternal basis for right and wrong, temporal verdicts can only be determined
moment to moment for they are contingent on context, outcome, and cultural consensus. For
example, while birth control is decried by religions, calling it forever immoral or “ungodly” could
lead to great suffering at a time when overpopulation is an acknowledged source of violence,
scarcity, war, and ignorance. Designating anything as eternally good or bad in this world of
relativity lazily overlooks the changing nature of human circumstances and the many dangers in
predefining “right conduct” for all people throughout their lifetime.
Ironically, in attempting to eradicate evil by imposing fixed perspectives consonant with
antiquated worldviews, fear of divine retribution, and strict as well as polarized limitations on
conduct, religion’s moral systems force followers to adopt untenable extremes in behavior. Most
believers attempt to conform to artificial standards of goodness; and in reaching for the good
while rejecting the bad, they erroneously separate the two, slide into unwanted conduct, and
perpetuate the dreaded evil, when instead they might have set their sights on moderation. In
disallowing people the freedom to experiment, learn from their mistakes, and discover
moderation on their own, religious authorities may be making the greatest mistake of all.
In contrast to the codifications of divinely forbidden acts espoused by organized religions, the
science of intuition recommends adopting a physiological system of ethics that is directed
inward. Ancient philosophers discovered that ethical and unethical behavior is registered in the
body, enabling individuals turning inward to intuitively and instantly weigh right from wrong.
Instead of imposing moral edicts on themselves and others to avoid evoking the wrath of a god,
intuitive scientists therefore focus their efforts on looking within to unravel the idea of self. Some
early societies that sought a standard of ethics concluded that murder, for instance, is unethical
because it arouses feelings of revenge and despair, potentially more murder, and a community
too infiltrated with patterns of reprisal and despondency to function harmoniously or, more
importantly, nourish an expansive sense of self. The ancients took this conclusion a step further,
claiming that such physiomagnetic patterns are unwanted because they narrow the intuitional
bandwidth of reception to the infinite substance of self, the real source of ethical behavior and
goodness.
With the expansive sense of self established as a model for ethical conduct, it becomes each
individual’s responsibility to act in ways that further this expansiveness and thus to investigate
the inner effects of their behavior—especially on the magnetic shifts of awareness that generate
an idea of self. In terms of outer consequences, the theory of self proposes that the more
energy a person focuses in the cerebrospinal axis, expanding her sense of identity, the more
naturally ethical she will be. The inverse is also true: the more a person’s attention is pulled
away from the intuitive centers in the spine and brain, narrowing her sense of self, the more
unethical she is apt to be. Unethical behavior would be seen as an outcome of physiological
patterns caused by fear, worry, guilt, self-loathing, or other reactive emotions; restless habits of
living; lack of receptivity to the inclusive ideas of others; or general disregard for societal
interests. Hence, these patterns would be practically termed unethical not because of a divine
decree delivered to only a select few but because they physiomagnetically limit the intuitive
capacity in a person whose awareness has been distanced from the cerebrospinal axis, further
narrowing the individual’s sense of identity and causing more unethical behavior the more they
are engaged. That narrowed intuitive capacity is then the real source of unethical behavior.
Additionally, since an individual’s physiomagnetism is interwoven with the surrounding society’s,
violent patterns would be seen as both a social disruption and a societal symptom, occurring
when the compelling patterns and influences are present simultaneously in the individual and
society.
This “feedback” interpretation of criminal behavior ignites new insights into crime prevention,
based on the observation that patterns of limited awareness, not the people flooded with them,
require removal from society. One inference is that the physiomagnetic patterns narrowing the
sense of self may not be extinguished through prison sentences since, symptomatic of society’s
ill health, these patterns prevail inside as well as outside penitentiary walls. Another is that
separating criminals, and not concentrating them in isolated facilities, would undermine the
physiological patterns of unethical conduct. Similarly, laws enforced through punitive measures
may fail to prevent crime because they, like religion’s threats of divine retribution, instill a pattern
of fear about being caught, paradoxically increasing the likelihood of discreet and systemic
criminal activity. But if people learn to change their center of awareness through breath
regulation, localized tension, and calm dialogue with others, especially when violent responses
erupt, patterns of awareness that induce crime can gradually be dislodged from the body.
The social offense of lying takes on a particularly interesting meaning when viewed
physiomagnetically. Lying, generally regarded as a falsification of facts, is thought to be
unethical because it engenders distrust, destroys the confidence needed for societies to
function properly, and increases inefficiency with social resources. But when lying is
approached physiomagnetically, it’s unethical because of its departure from an expansive
identity’s mode of expression. To an intuitive scientist, words spoken from the perspective of this
larger identity represent the only truth there is—the infinite substance of self.
Consider the classic example of a Nazi at the door asking if the occupants know of any Jews in
hiding and in fact they do. If the occupants’ responses are influenced by patterns of fear,
bigotry, or apathy, the facts they impart will reflect the untruth of a narrowly intuited sense of
self. But if their responses emerge from a fearless identification large enough to encompass the
Jews in hiding, then even if the occupants falsify facts they will be expressing the truth of the
larger self.
From this perspective, suppressing the truth of the expansive self constitutes unethical
behavior, whereas falsifying, fictionalizing, or mythologizing may actually deliver a truth that
unites all people by magnetically fostering an expansive sense of self. The distinction between
truth and fact is generally overlooked, probably because of the tendency to falsify facts only in
service to the narrow self and the expectation that facts would not be falsified for other
purposes. But since it is sometimes necessary to tell a falsehood in order to speak a larger
truth, especially to those living the lie of the narrow self, falsehoods cannot be simplistically
equated with untruth.
Just as falsehoods do not always represent untruth and facts do not always represent truth,
ethical conduct cannot be codified for all time, recorded in a book, and then dictated to
humanity. In fact, rigid adherence to some biblical commandments, such as not to bear false
witness, may end up corroborating a narrowing of the sense of self and associated outbreaks of
violence. Physiological patterns of bigotry and other manifestations of spiritual myopia that are
not immediately expressed in violence tend to impel unethical thoughts and habits that
eventually do culminate in violence.
Aware of this danger, intuitive scientists do their best to ensure their thoughts and actions
emanate from an expansive sense of self regardless of good intentions. Good intentions, they
note, promote limiting physiological patterns that may eclipse intuitive knowledge—a
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