‘Train, Car, Boat or Plane… Train, Car, Boat or Plane… Train, Car, Boat or Plane… Take me back to the island; I was happy over there…’

Goes the lovely little song from 1957 that popped into my head when I was first inspired to write this article, in fact this series of articles. The ‘island’ is of course ‘Nirvana’; ‘Heaven on Earth’; ‘Eden’; ‘returning back to Source’; ‘reaching the final goal,’ or, to use the most common phrase – becoming ‘fully enlightened.’ There are many paths that will take us back to the island, some short, some lonnnnnnnnnnnnng (like lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes long), and then there are some that are super-duper fast-tracks. As different as these pathways are from one another, they all invariably lead us to the same destination:

Where we experience utter bliss. Total happiness. We know exactly who we are and exactly why we’re here, and what this thing called ‘Life’ is really all about. And then we follow that inner compass of knowing and get down to business!

In this series of articles I want to talk about some of the most effective, tried and tested methods of getting back to the island – the island that is within all of us, no exceptions. I am going to share with you some of my –whole new level of crazy, hard-to-believe, but, I promise you, 100% true— experiences of them, and I will discuss the perks and pitfalls of each one. There will in total five articles, each one on a different way to reach the final goal – we will cover a broad spectrum from religion to psychedelic drugs and everything in between – yoga, meditation, shamanism, psychoanaylsis— all the usual suspects. To help us along the way I will be using my specially created musical, metaphysical metaphorical structure of ‘Train, Car, Boat, Plane, and on Foot’ to guide us on our journey.

Before we start, can I ask you a question: Are you happy?

Sometimes life just ticks along nicely. The days, weeks and months pass by (always seeming to go too fast of course), a few ups here, a few downs there, but la dee dah, swings and roundabouts, overall life is smooth enough to enjoy the ride…. we’re coasting. Other times life is like a fairytale: we are blessed with those utterly blissful moments (or maybe, if we’re lucky, even extended periods) where everything falls perfectly into place. We’re sailing. Maybe time stands completely still when we really connect intimately with another person, even if just for a fleeting second: a romantic partner, a friend, a family member, or maybe even a complete stranger?; Perhaps we’re standing on a mountain top, on a beach, in a field, on a bridge, or at the top of a very tall building and we look out at the world around us and think ‘Wow, isn’t this planet we live on absolutely AMAZING?!’ ‘I am totally in LOVE right now’. Maybe we see a film, a play, an artwork, read a few inexplicably brilliant lines in a book, or hear some incredible music that moves us in a way we simply can’t explain in words, and somehow the essence of it resonates on the very deepest level of our being. Maybe we simply have one of those ‘good hair days’ or go on one of those holidays where it’s just like a dream- one beautiful synchronicity after another? All is right with the world. Ah, this is the stuff life is made of.

Want more of this? – enlightenment beckons.

But what about when all is wrong with the world? What about the ‘bad hair days’ when everything that could go wrong, does go wrong? We’re drowning. When that trip away you’d dreamed about for months turns out to be one disaster after another?; When your relationship breaks down completely?; When you find out you have a serious illness?; What if there is a bad accident?; What happens if someone you deeply care about dies?; What happens if you lose your job?; What happens if you lose everything? What happens when you look around at the state of the world and think, quite rightly- WTF?! ; and what happens if you realise that the ‘life’ you have been living is a complete sham and that in those days, weeks, months and YEARS that you thought were just coasting, ‘ticking along nicely,’ you have been slowly suffocating, following a path that is not the path of your soul—and as such will never make you happy— and you need to break out of it RIGHT NOW before it is too late?! What happens when life is a petrifying roller-coaster and you just want to get off?!

Enlightenment beckons.

Enlightenment is ALWAYS beckoning. It is beautiful and wonderful and absolutely key to the process of becoming enlightened to work out how to expand the ‘good hair day’ moments of BLISS until we can dwell in them more and more often, and even one day, permanently. This is our natural state of being. It must be said however that it’s often easier to hear the call to step on the path when we feel like we have nothing left…when we bottom out…when we feel we’ve lost everything. Sometimes we’ve managed to burn all our bridges and it’s the only avenue left to walk down, and it’s an act of complete surrender, as opposed to any classic idea of ‘seeking’ to become enlightened.

However we get there- the hard way or the easy way- during this act of surrender to something greater- the big questions come knocking: Who am I?; Why am I here?; Why are any of us here?; What is the nature of reality?; What is ‘God’? Why is the world so f*cked up?… 

Need an answer to any of these questions? – enlightenment beckons.

Whether we realise it or not we’re actually all already on this path – we are all destined to arrive at this internal knowing – it is our true nature, no exceptions. Rather than a seeking it is a process of uncovering – a peeling back of layer upon layer until we reach the very centre of ourselves, which is filled with light, no exceptions. So this is happening whether we are aware of it or not, but answering the call and traversing the path consciously REALLY speeds up the process. We are all souls traversing the gauntlet of evolution, we’re all moving towards the same place (that permanent bliss state I’m referring to – where we remember who we are and start living from that knowing (and let me get something perfectly straight from the beginning- this bliss will exist no matter what is happening in our lives or the external world – coasting, sailing, OR drowning. IT IS ALL HAPPENING FOR A REASON. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional? Indeed. We are in human bodies – illness, loss and death are givens – right? Indeed. But what are illness, loss and death? Transformation, rebirth… a cycle that never ends, whether on an individual, collective, planetary, or universal scale.) But here’s the thing: we humans DO have free will, we do choose the rate at which our soul evolves (and that of our planet) and to be perfectly honest, right now our world needs us to hurry the process up if we’re going to be able to turn around this beautiful planet that we have abused and neglected so much, and if we (the human race) want to continue to live on her shores, we better get waking up fast and get walking down that path! Only once we remember who we truly are can we be the people we need to be for ourselves, one another, and our ailing planet to help her to heal. We can choose the easy road or the hard road, up to us, one way or another we’re going to get there.

Want some tips on how to take the easy road?

The only question that remains to be asked is (permit me to get a bit analogous on you): ‘Would Sir, or Madam, like to get there by train, car, boat, or plane (or on foot?)….

Part I: Kundalini Yoga – ‘Train’

Gazing out of the window on long train journeys is one of my absolute favourite things to do. I sit back, put some great music on and delight in the passing fields, hills, trees, clouds in the sky and gaze longingly at farmhouses that I wish I owned… it is a relaxing, hassle-free way to travel and from your seat you get to see everything. You are guided there, there is a driver and he drives the train. It is on tracks, the routes are well planned out and thousands of people travel down these same routes every year. You know you’re going to get to your destination, you’re in safe hands. God bless our wonderful railways!

So. If we were travelling towards enlightenment on the train, what would this equate to in the world of spiritual pursuits? Quite simply it would equate to anything that is taught. Anything that has a syllabus, a rule-book, a teacher… Yoga, Tai Chi, and other systems of body-mind alignment are the train, these are systems that have long been credited with helping people reach enlightenment, and are awesome.

The journey to enlightenment, put another way could be called the journey to perfect alignment. Systems like Yoga and Tai Chi give specific postures, and series’ of movements, that quiet the mind and are designed to, over time, bring the body into perfect physical alignment, not just with itself, but with the mind, and ultimately with the Spirit. When we are guided to perform these postures correctly, it can be REALLY pleasurable for our bodies, and also really chills us out and takes a load off our—often very frazzled— minds. But much more than that, sustained practice can, and does lead to full on enlightenment. Alignment really is enlightenment.

Let’s take yoga. I love yoga. It has been said that it takes around 22 years to reach full enlightenment by a completely DEDICATED daily Hatha yoga practice. So if you do your sun salutations every day, and your bending, twisting and inverting, pigeon-posing and downwards face-dogging, and live and breathe yoga, yoga, yoga, this classic form that focuses mainly on the asanas (postures), will take you to the final goal in roughly 22 years. Now I absolutely love Hatha yoga, and I still do my sun salutations every day, and throw in some bending and twisting etc. but…

 22 years?! Screw that. I want to get there quicker. And that’s why I do Kundalini yoga.

Sometimes I want to take the fast train. Kundalini yoga can do what Hatha yoga does in 22 years in 1, yes, ONE. Let me be clear about something- it is not about developing the perfect ‘yoga body’ and being able to contort yourself into all sorts of mind-boggling positions and posting your feats on Instagram– nope, it is about unblocking the energy circuits in your body so that the energy can flow freely. The energy that flows through the body, circulating round the body’s meridian lines and most powerfully at the 7 main centres that are known as the chakras is the blissful life-force energy that courses through your veins in the enlightened state. Hatha takes 22 years (at its most effective) because it works so much so on the physical body and so little on the energy body, whereas Kundalini focuses mainly on the energy body, but also works the physical, mental and emotional bodies as well: it’s fun for all our bodies- we actually have TEN of them! Hatha yoga is GREAT for the mind and body, and it is wonderful to practice this, but without the Kundalini element, the Spirit remains untouched, and we have to be working on the level of Spirit to get into the enlightened realms.

I want people to experience this so much I teach it.

So how do we learn how to feel it?

The Kundalini energy lies dormant in all of us, like a coiled snake lying sleeping at the base of the spine. The enlightenment journey is the process of the Kundalini ‘waking up’ and then over a period of months or years, making its way up the spine, cleansing and clearing us out as it does so—unblocking all of the chakras – until it can flow unhindered out through the top of the head, and then circulate back into our bodies, bringing with it the ultimate wisdom of the universe (as we are emptied out of all our old rubbish and ready to receive it.)

‘Empty yourself in order to be filled’.

So ‘awakening’ is when we awaken to this energy that is present within our body, and if we start to practice Kundalini, then we begin to learn how to cultivate and circulate this energy around areas of our body as it gets to work unblocking the chakras. ‘Enlightenment’ in the realm of the physical is literally when we have unblocked all of our chakras and we have become able to feel this free-flow of energy move through the body to the extent that it flows freely up the spinal column and up and out of the top of the head – the crown- and connects us to our divinity – where it receives energy from the cosmos (which has always been ours to connect with), then comes down the front of the body and down through the navel point, root and feet and then the energy continues to circulate around the body, like your body is a scalextric set! The central point of this circuit is the heart centre – this is where the energy is to dwell and from which love flows out to the entire universe, to itself, from itself, and we become a clear channel for love, for spirit, an empty vessel filled with divine essence. This is our natural state of being; our mind-body-spirit complex functioning at its optimal level. You know what it feels like when you are standing in the pure air in a beautiful field of flowers in the countryside? ; Or on a mountaintop? That clarity, that purity, that ONENESS with nature, that everything is exactly as it is supposed to be? THAT is a glimpse of our natural state. But does it need only be glimpses? No! The more we know how to unblock, cultivate and manage this energy, it can be permanent! But 99.9999999 % of the time, to begin with, it’s blocked.

So what blocks this energy?: negative thoughts; repressed emotions; physical illness (of any sort); psychological patterns and complexes that have been generated by our upbringing and our society; trauma; buried resentment; karmic baggage we have built up over this lifetime, or in most cases, over many. These blockages can reside in specific chakras: a fear of being abandoned would reside in the root chakra for example, which is situated at the base of the spine and is connected to our sense of belonging and security, and to our early childhood. Another example would be: if we repress our emotions it will likely manifest in the throat chakra, literally blocking our ability to speak our truth. Or there might be a blockage of the heart chakra, which makes us find it impossible to truly love. So we are contending with unblocking ALL of this- whatever our personal baggage may be, and all the collective baggage that we all carry, man, do homo sapiens carry a LOT of collective baggage given the extent to which we have completely forgotten who we are – (fyi we’re God, as is everything else in the universe – this can be fully KNOWN and EXPERIENCED). During this amnesia we’ve destroyed so much of our beautiful planet that we have to add on top of the personal and collective baggage the environmental factors of the polluted world we now live in (through the bad choices we’ve made – free will, remember?) where we are more often than not over-worked, over-stressed, and over-whelmed by the onslaught of stimulation, artificiality and unnatural forces we are faced with every single day. We need to get back to who we are through practices like Kundalini which unlock our true selves, and back to nature, preserving and honouring the unspoilt places on our planet and taking steps to reverse the damage caused across the rest of it. We need to re-find that clarity, and to dump the baggage -and make good choices! The good news is: THERE IS NOTHING THAT CANNOT BE CLEARED when we start honouring who we really are. I really mean that— whether it’s on the level of the mental, emotional, physical- related to the environment, your childhood, or past lives or the planet— THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT CANNOT BE CLEARED. And practicing Kundalini yoga- doing the kriyas: the sets of exercises comprising asana (postures); pranayama (breathing); mudra (hand gestures) and mantra (chanting) is a Divinely orchestrated system that WILL cleanse ALL of this as you develop your practice and will help you to unblock ALL your chakras, reconnecting you to that which you REALLY are, and quickly- amazing, huh?!

As we release the crap through the practice (and I’m not sayin’ this is a walk in the park), over time we free ourselves up of all the weight we’ve been carrying and we attune to feel this incredible life-force energy, this pulsating, moving, alive force of love, light and bliss. Glimpses will be present from the outset, interspersed with periods of deep purification. Once the energy breaks through the crown chakra at the top of the head, we are emptied to be filled, we reconnect back to Source, to our true selves, and the secrets of the Universe are unlocked for us on the embodied level, and we learn how to live in BLISS (fyi— at the risk of labouring the point – this bliss I speak of, THIS is what we really are.) Sometimes I literally feel like if you dropped a penny through the top of my head it would come right out through my foot, passing through my entire body unhindered. But in order to feel this clear I’ve got to keep up my practice- if I let it slide, even for a day or two, I start to get blocked up, and it doesn’t feel good. I get blocked up if I let any negative thoughts take hold. I get blocked up if I’m not getting out into nature enough, the denser the environment the quicker the blocks appear. I get blocked up if I don’t pay attention to my need to rest and clear. It’s hard not to get blocked up given the state of the world we’ve created to live in. It takes upkeep! Enlightenment REALLY is alignment! Keeping in alignment requires a daily cleansing practice, all the more needed now as our world is so far removed from its natural, optimal state. We need to cultivate and maintain our practice to keep the energy flowing smoothly, and when the energy flows, we know what to do to help reverse all this damage we have caused – to ourselves, to others, to our beautiful planet – we learn to heal instead of to harm, and we ACT – we choose wisely and we get down to business, we have a lot of work to do to clear this mess up, but it is POSSIBLE.

This is the energy that we call the ‘Kundalini’ – but that is just a name for it. We could also call it life-force energy, other names used are Chi- which Chinese medicine names the energy that flows through the meridian lines in the body; Ki – the Japanese name… It is the same energy that we work with in Tai Chi, or meditation practices such as Vipassana or the Taosit practice of the ‘Microcosmic Orbit’ – again ‘Chi’. In order to ‘become enlightened’ this energy has to not only move within the body, but break through the crown chakra – where it becomes Divine energy (Shen) which then enables the mind-body-spirit complex to receive ALL the knowledge held in the cosmos. Another name for this energy is when it is shared and amplified between lovers during sacred sexual practices is Jing, or aroused Jing; which is the same energy used in Tantra. Yes, this energy is PURE BLISS, it is sensual, it is sexual, it is pleasurable throughout the entire body, and it is as chaste as chaste can be— sex is sacred, the sexual is spiritual— you will know this as soon as you feel it. (Read these Taoist books for him and her to get going with this from a place of heart and soul in your love life, wow, it is so much fun! And look out for videos in the near future where I will be discussing these ideas.)

So meridians, energy blocks –  these are familiar to many of us- and sure, we can pay an acupuncturist or energy worker to help us to unblock our energy channels, and this is incredibly helpful, and wonderful – but this alone will not bring the AWARENESS that comes with learning to cultivate the energy yourself. It has to come from INSIDE yourself, as this energy IS you. And it is this AWARENESS that leads to enlightenment. People can help us on the journey – sure, but no one else can do it for us; we HAVE to walk our own path. I think the REAL key to enlightenment, is the knowledge that we don’t need anything external to do this – we can do it ourselves. Literally all you need is yourself, a mat, and a quiet space. Oh, and some time. That’s why Kundalini yogis get up really early in the morning. Sometimes even at 4, or 5 am— sounds mental, right? But they know how FILLED with energy they are after doing their ‘sadhana’ practice during the most powerful time of day- during the ‘amrit vela’ where the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and their practice, which is complete even before breakfast, fuels them to be their best self for their day, for their life. And nobody’s perfect – I manage about 7am at my best.

I do have to tell you: the awareness of this energy does not come overnight. It is something that first has to be awakened, and once it has been awakened it also has to be cultivated, and in some cases— and in mine for sure— tamed. It is also very importantly an energy that must be completely HONOURED and RESPECTED. As much as practices like Kundalini provide a fast and effective awakening of this energy in the body— IT will decide how long it is going to take to have its way with you, and the route it wants to take to guide you to enlightenment, back to who you really are. The ego absolutely cannot control the progression of this energy, only the soul can. I remember when I started to feel this energy and it felt so good when it came up my spine (which happened once in a blue moon, then once in a while…) and for a good few months I was egging it on. I wanted to feel it ALL THE TIME. No dice. It decides; you are just along for the ride: it’s the boss. There is absolutely no forcing the process of awakening to enlightenment to happen, it is all one big process of SURRENDER, SURRENDER, SURRENDER. But if you can surrender completely and be patient – following the soul and not the ego, eventually your wish will be answered- you will FEEL it all the time, these days I can drop into it in nanoseconds – sitting, standing, walking… and I continue to work towards cultivating this as continuous experience.

 

Awakening your Kundalini energy through the practice of Kundalini yoga is definitely the wise way to do it. The asana (postures), pranayama (breathing exercises), mudras (hand gestures) and mantras (chanting) serve to coax the energy out of its slumber and create a smooth passage for the Kundalini to rise in most cases in a calm, controlled, yet of course at the same time, absolutely thrilling process, likely a journey of a year+. This is a really reliable, tried and tested, and yet exhilarating train journey with some of the most epic scenery you are ever going to come across. Did I do it this way? No. My fast-train was a bit more like a rollercoaster and I had a few more thrills than most – my Kundalini was very active long before I even knew what on earth it was, which has been a bit of a mixed blessing, but ultimately, now that I have my toolbox of Kundalini and the other enlightenment technologies I talk about in this series I’m sailing a lot smoother now. Your Kundalini can awaken in different ways, but if it has started some other way (drug experiences, NDEs, through extreme meditation or pranayama etc.) and it is proving challenging, do not worry for one second— simply get going with the Kundalini exercises so you can learn to elevate, integrate and circulate. And get familiar with the Taoist ‘Microcosmic Orbit’ (this book is great). Working with this energy is like learning to ride a bike, or drive a car. You need to learn how to manage this wonderful, powerful, life-giving force— finding a teacher, or the teachings, is very helpful! 

When you tap into the energy field of the universe, the Source, you will never feel the same again. Then you have to start to learn to bring this energy down into your body, and use it to heal you, to teach you, and to reside in you and to emanate from you out through the heart so that you can bring this love out into the world and to others, as well as carrying it for yourself. Finding Kundalini—which has given me the tools to do this— has been like finding the Holy Grail. I didn’t know I was looking for it, but you can consciously take that journey by deciding to practice Kundalini from the beginning. Ah, how exciting!

When your chakras are unblocked and your Kundalini flows freely, you ever so slightly steer it around your body, but it very much knows where it is going- this is how it feels on the level of the physical- and THIS order of circulation of energy is VERY important (The Taoists call this the ‘Microcosmic Orbit’) we are working with life-force energy here, it has to be flowing in the right direction: it comes in through the crown of the head, down the front of the body, as it does so it fills your entire body with light- all your inner organs, filled with healing energy, it crosses over at the perineum (between the legs), goes down the back of the legs to the feet, then changes direction, travelling back up the fronts of the legs, crossing over at the perineum once more, and finally travelling up the spine and out through the crown of the head – PURE BLISS— (or touch the tongue to the roof of the mouth to keep it completely within the realms of the physical body to stay grounded and not to go up into the cosmos – both are fun at the right time) then it will circulate again and again and again, allowing you to bathe in this dancing flow of PURE LOVE energy as you vibe out of your chair/off your yoga mat/off your feet- and you feel the TRUTH on the level of the physical body—that our bodies are designed as instruments of bliss, it’s just that we have forgotten how to use them—we have clogged them up, they have been clogged up with mountains of crap, and in order to feel the free movement of this blissful energy, we’ve simply got to clear all that rubbish out – let it release as it wants to – out the top of your head, out of the soles of your feet, out of any part of your body, and intend for it to return to love, intend for this energy that is leaving to remember what it truly is and for it to return to love.

We ARE love. When you become enlightened you will FEEL it. It will course through your veins. Oh my God it is like the best sex you have ever had, throbbing through your entire body— over and over and over. It’s pretty damn exciting. Every day when you finish your practice always be sure to send your roots down into the Earth to ground yourself and finish by bringing the energy to, and storing it, in the solar plexus and the heart-centre. This is where it should dwell, when the energy created dwells in the heart-space you can use it to be effective in the world, emanating love out to all other beings: an embodiment of pure love.

THIS is what enlightenment feels like on the physical level. All the systems lead us here, all the train routes take us to the same destination- Vipassana meditation, Taoist practices- the ‘Microcosmic Orbit’, Reiki or Kundalini. They are different words for the same thing – the awareness of the current of universal energy flowing through your body, and learning how best to channel it, integrate it, circulate it, and utilise it– to feel AWESOME!

So get on the train darling, get on the Kundalini Train.

And visit my website and follow my facebook page as I will be posting videos discussing Kundalini where I will go much more in depth in the near future!

(If you live in Scotland and are interested in working one-to-one or coming to a Kundalini workshop with me do let me know: check out the website www.backtosourcehealing.com and get in touch: sourcesister@gmail.com I plan to hold workshops in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and Forres in the not too distant future. And if you live further afield and would be interested in attending a workshop with me, please do also let me know, I look forward to be able to teach more widely! Check out my website for upcoming workshops.)

And no matter where you live- we can have a one hour one-to-one Skype session where I can assist you wherever you are on your awakening/enlightenment journey. I can give advice and if you wish provide Kundalini exercises, meditations and mantra suited to wherever you find yourself on the path. If this resonates with you please do check out the website and get in touch: sourcesister@gmail.com

Before we finish up I just want to go into the potential pitfalls of taking the train… When we travel by train we are encouraged not to go off piste. A derailed train is not fun. Train drivers don’t like it if you want to go off on a little detour. You can’t stop a train to climb that pretty hill you’ve just spotted from your seat— that is not proper train etiquette. If you’re on the train you abide by their rules, and you travel from A to B. And this is just the way of it— unless of course you’re well versed in jumping on and off freight trains like in the old school folk and blues songs I so dearly love, that, or you decide to be a risk-taker like James Bond, dramatically duelling on the roofs of train carriages as they hurtle through the landscape, always with that hair-raising moment where the train goes through a tunnel and decapitation is imminent (gasp!) but it’s always narrowly avoided.

As I said earlier— we are working with life-force energy here— we’ve got to play safe- respect it, and honour it. But when it comes down to it the teacher is not the Kundalini teachings, or the Tai Chi teachings, the yoga teachings, or any set of teachings for that matter— the teacher is the energy, the teacher is Truth, which you hold at your very centre, IT IS WHAT YOU ARE. These systems are designed to get us to the stage that we can FEEL the energy, then we EXPERIENCE the Truth for ourselves on the physical level— we KNOW we are pure love because we FEEL it coursing through our veins— then and only then can we be a bit more ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ with teachings- because then we’ve plugged directly into the Source, from now on Source is our teacher, and then we can just pick and choose what we want from any of the ready-established teachings.

So I think that given experience we CAN learn to be a travelling vagabond jumping on and off trains, or become a skilled rooftop stuntman. I totally agree that it is definitely advisable to abide by the rules of the train for the most part. But once you start feeling that energy flowing, once your kundalini is active and dancing about inside you – then please let IT call the shots. This energy is life-force energy, IT knows where it is taking you – don’t be afraid, and if you choose to keep strictly ‘to the rules’ of any given system as opposed to letting this energy lead you when the energy is calling to move in a new way – then you might just be sabotaging your own fast-track to enlightenment. I practice Kundalini yoga but I don’t get up at 4am, I get up at 7am (on a good day), and I don’t wear always wear all white, with a turban round my head, as is the ‘Kundalini’ way, if you have a google. (That being said it IS very energetically powerful to wear all white as it incorporates the entire colour spectrum and so provides ultimate radiance!) but colour is so fun and I wear my favourite multi-coloured leotards all colours of the rainbow! And I don’t recite a devotional text every morning as part of my practice in Gurumuki (again the traditional ‘Kundalini Yoga’ way –  no I sit in silence for an hour meditating in direct contact with the Source, no words needed, or I create my own words. I do sing the chants though, wow is chanting in Gurumuki POWERFUL! But I don’t chant a rigid set of chants every morning in the same order and for the same length… no, I chant what I want when I feel like it (often when doing the dishes, out for a walk, or whenever I feel a bit stressy) and I gather with like-minded souls to sing together and share the bliss. I take what I want, I take the Truth, as filtered through my own internal system of what is true, and I leave what simply does not resonate with me. This is the teaching of the Buddha- do NOT blindly follow what I say, but filter everything I teach you through your own internal system, and if it feels true, great. (fyi – remember I am the Buddha, and you and everyone else are the Buddha, no exceptions). In each of us is a seed of Truth, these systems help us to water and grow it, but once it takes on a life of its own, it knows how to look after itself, and it we if let it guide us, then we can go on to share the secrets in our own words so that others can learn how to water their own seed, until they are independently enlightened, and so on –  and let’s hang out – this is a community thing, no longer a solitary individual in a cave kinda thing!

This ‘truth’ that we are able to access is the same truth that has underpinned all religions, before they become indoctrinated and ended up dogmatic and far removed from their original purity. Religion is also the train, but understandably one that most of us have already worked out how to discern the truth from the rubbish. In this day and age we need to design enlightenment technologies that are completely devoid of any trace of dogma so that they can and will reach everyone. It is everyone’s birth-right to learn how to feel this amazing, not just a select few who play by the book. We need new books, no; we need new open source software. The origin beneath all of this is ENERGY, once you feel it, IT is your only teacher; IT is what you REALLY are. Enjoy enlightenment, it’s time to PLAY! Enjoy your reconnection to Source, it has been waiting for you your whole life…. Lives… And when you GET it, work out how best you can share it with others, every new avenue is eagerly awaited!

Love Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If this article resonates with you I’d be deeply grateful if you were to share it!

And look out for the second installment of this series of ‘5 Different Pathways to Enlightenment: Part II – Shamanic Journeying – ‘Car’‘ where I will be discussing reaching enlightenment by entering into the shamanic lower and upper worlds  to meet power animals and spirit guides. and to discover all the riches they hold.