Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 61 Monique Rebelle The above categorization is based on selecting the “raw” states that simply appear and are experienced without any mental analysis of them. The present list is drawn from observation and some data collected from studies (Izard 2009). Reacting to the circumstances of the physical world and being fed by thoughts from the chakra above, the second chakra often contains a cluster of emotions. In the following section I will focus on subconscious and conscious types of practices that help Kuṇḍalinī energy to clear the second chakra from emotions and establish the state of emptiness in order for Kuṇḍalinī energy to move upward. This part will comprise the discussion about the nature of the emotional dimension. For many years, in order to handle the emotional pain, I felt, I practiced subconsciously. Creating visual art, dancing and exercising were my spontaneous and effective practices, without calling them or recognizing them as spiritual. Still, the time came when none of these activities were helpful enough. Depressed for months and eventually suicidal, one day I made a decision to end my life. As my hatred towards myself continued, I instinctively ended up in a bathtub in order to soothe my emotions with shower. The violent urge did not stop, and I needed to find a better way to deal with the overwhelming propulsion. My intuition was telling me to investigate the emotion that was bothering me so much (Rebelle 2021). I was able to look into the emotion and register how it was affecting me, then I gave it a name, depression. Identifying it – even if not with a scientifically precise term – felt like progress, because now the emotion was limited to its name, and I had a grasp on it. I visualized it covering me like a dark cloud. I suddenly realized that the emotion I felt was imposed on me, but I still was free to move away from it. The action I took next was a symbolic step aside from the dark cloud of depression so as to disengage from it. All my attention was on that act, and I was observing what was happening very carefully. Knowing the effect of the emotion on me, having it analyzed and named, allowed for a successful distancing from its content. I knew it was still nearby, but now I was free from it. In its place a new, never before experienced state and space revealed itself to me. I observed how, from the condition of violent, unbearable torment I had now moved into an empty space and felt nothing. But I was not numb, there was just nothing to feel. It was a true escape from the previous oppressive state, but the new sensation was unfamiliar, neither good nor bad. While visually I had in front of me an unspecified landscape without a focal point to locate, physically the state felt a bit like an inward pull, as if there was a vacuum inside of me. I did not even have a chance to breathe as the new condition first appeared. Several seconds later the emotion came back. All I knew to do at that moment was to repeat the process of clearly acknowledging the present emotion and deliberately stepping out of it. This time I knew to make my mind focus on serving as a closed gate and not letting the horror back in. Dwelling in the strange vacuum of no-emotion, I realized that all I had in my life was my breath and that was the only thing to focus on. Eventually the pull of a vacuum began to feel more like relief, the state of emptiness (that could also be called emotional void) and the mind blocking the emotion were a constant in the background of my slow, deep breathing. I remained in this practice for more than a minute or so when I realized that with the emotion not present, in the silence of the emptiness, my thoughts began to sound loud. I focused my attention on them without any further interference from the emotion. Our being is equipped with a natural mechanism that helps us to clear up the congestion in the second chakra. In modern psychology we are taught to get out of the negative emotional state by thinking of something positive, but in my experience, it is only by seeing through the negative emotion, then disengaging from it and remaining in the state of emotional void can one find a complete and effective way to make the negative emotions disintegrate and help Kuṇḍalinī energy to rise. 3.1 Discussing Other Views The practice I call emotional emptiness combined with slow breathing and other breathing techniques is known in spiritual traditions, although not necessarily described in the way I describe it. The closest descriptions are about transcending what is known as ego. In most traditions, classical or contemporary, there is only recognition of chakras as personal vortexes of energy. There is no clear recognition of each chakra as a gate to a universal dimension for all sentient beings. Michael James (2024, 4) writes: It is the nature of ourself as ego or jīva (Sa. a ‘soul’ or ‘sentient being’) to have likes, dislikes, wants, wishes, desires, aversions, attachments, hopes, fears and so on, and to act by mind, speech and body under the sway of such inclinations. That is, we are naturally inclined to like, love, want, desire, wish for, hope for or be attached to whatever we believe to be in some way or other conducive
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