Kali-Yuga, the present dark age of spiritual decline. It is traditionally said to have started with the “death of Krishna in 3002 B.C.E. This idea is fundamental to Tantra, which purports to be a new gospel for the dark age. The word ‘kali,’ often loosely translated as “dark,” derives from the losing throw of the dice, dice playing being a favorite activity of the ancient Indians. — Georg Feuerstein, The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra (1997)

We have reached the apex of this era and the pendulum has just begun to shift into a new extended period of increasing “light.”  Astrologers date the aphelion and beginning of this shift, December 21, 2012.

Sit with legs crossed, hold hands in Grounding (Prithvi) Mudra.

Breathe out twice as many counts as you breathe in. Pause briefly (whatever is comfortable) after you inhale. Complete eight cycles of breathing for each center of focus (chakra).

Focus on the perineum—feel grounded. Feel the energy move up to the base of the spine (eight breath cycles)     —feel the color red.

Focus behind the navel (eight breath cycles)—feel orange.

Focus behind the diaphragm (eight breath cycles)—feel yellow. Form the Sun (Surya) Mudra.

Focus at the heart center (eight breath cycles)—feel green. Form Peace (Gyan) Mudra and hold to end of meditation.

Focus on the base of the throat (eight breath cycles)—feel light blue.

Focus behind the brow center (eight breath cycles)—feel indigo blue.

Focus on the crown of the head (eight breath cycles)—feel a skullcap of ultra violet.

Let attention float above the head (eight breath cycles)—feel a thousand-petalled lotus radiating highlights of all the colors.

Open the arms in a wide arc, swinging up to meet in prayer with arms extended overhead.

Place hands in prayer position over the crown of the head with elbows out.

Place hands in prayer position over the Brow Center with elbows together.

Place hands over the Throat Center with elbows wide.

Place hands over Heart Center with elbows relaxed.

Focus on the diaphragm and Breath Center, then move your attention down the spine: the Navel Center, the Sacrum (spine) Center; the region below the perineum.

Picture a shaft of energy extending 40 feet above you, running down through your spine, and then 40 feet below you.

See your heart as the center of this shaft, radiating beautiful green light.

Interact with the world from your heart.

Inhale and slowly voice a long ‘OM’. Do this three times.

Place the hands in prayer over the third eye again and audibly say, “The Divine in me recognizes the Divine in you and in all.”

Place the hands in prayer back over the heart and say, “Namaste.”

Bow forward at the waist.

Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus, pages 41 and 42

Consciousness beyond the sixth level is completely a matter of grace. All the seeker can do is place an offering of sincere efforts at the feet of God and humbly wait in awe for the Divine to elevate awareness. It is helpful to think about the greatness of the Higher Power within our limited capacity to perceive that which is so much greater than ourselves. The spiritual invitation to sing praises to the Lord. A natural law comes into force: lower life forms’ inability to perceive forms greater than themselves. We are analogous to the beneficial bacteria existing in our digestive tract. Those bacteria are totally dependent on us, the host, for life, but unable to perceive the host other than the bacteria’s interaction with the small world of their immediate surroundings, an inability to see around corners in a curved universe. The most understandable form of energy, sound, because of the slowness of its wavelengths, illustrates the curvature of the physical universe. Do Re Me, a half-step and a curve Fa, So La, half-step and a curve Ti, Do. The octave is the pattern taken by all forms of energy. Our senses just don’t have the ability to perceive that pattern in light, spiritual, or other forms.

The aura prevailing this highest level is an electric neon violet purple. Focus on the hue, listen to the prevailing tone and bask in the Divine. Feel total love and acceptance, knowing this is a perfect universe that is so vast, with so many dimensions, that we can only begin to perceive a most minute portion. It is terribly egocentric to think somehow we, humans, are the peak of evolution. In the vastness of the universe, worlds innumerable support what life forms? The diversity on this small planet is so huge, and existence is so varied and miraculous.

Think of this seventh dimension as an altar where spiritual energy, processed up through the chakras, is offered to the Divine and accepted with unqualified love. The intensity of that acceptance, or love, further stimulates the spiritual oscillations, further refining them, causing their ascent. Imagine love so great, our concept of love doesn’t begin to approach it: completeness, understanding, beauty and joy so transcendent, it surpasses our cognition.

As on the physical plane, a food chain exists with higher life forms taking sustenance from lower life forms. This is the reason for our being, the answer to the meaning of life. Through the efforts we put forth achieving spiritual growth, we refine coarse vibrations into finer energy, nourishment for the gods. The Higher Powers become aware of an individual providing a substantial amount of refined vibrations and actively assist that individual towards their own benefit.

Course energy flows up the spine, becoming ever finer, accumulating at the top of the head, tickling the pituitary. This finer vibration rises, floating through the crest of the skull. The bone of the skull acts as a barrier to the body below Imagine a crescent moon, consciousness on the dark side of that moon, blocked from the light of the dynamo of the physical realm, the sun. During a solar eclipse the heavens appear hundreds of times brighter, simulating our ability to inhabit this realm closer to God. When God is described as being without sin, it is without the false concerns and limitations of the physical plane. To occupy this higher realm we must put the things of the world behind us. Our efforts don’t merit our entrance. Admission is a matter of grace.

We cannot perceive those beings spiritually advanced beyond us, but knowing nature’s tendency to repeat herself, can we draw broad  assumptions? This human ‘father face’ we assign to the Higher Powers is but spiritual shorthand. Mere children spiritually, we use comfortable symbols to express what we intuit. What we consider God, these entities advanced compared to us, are they evolving too? What higher forms constitute their gods? Given what we can see in our small universe, wouldn’t that seem to be the case? One octave flows into another and that into yet another, energy evolving in perpetuity. Creation—ever changing, ever growing in a joyful dance to the Absolute.

There is no reason to reject the myths and language of your upbringing in a false show of sophistication. Embrace them for their power to share. Inspect them for the underlying truths that have become confused over time and telling. Often the opposite of the common interpretation may be real. A great teacher such as Christ tells us he isn’t God, but human like us, his brothers and sisters, who are all children of God—only to have us deify him. Seek and you shall find. So many teachers with so much to illuminate-examine and find truth for yourself.

We feel those efforts being watched from above. That attention is followed up the spine to its apex behind the eyes, to the third eye, seat of consciousness, observing all whether awake or asleep. Seeing not just what’s going on, but what is behind what is happening; not only what we do, but the thoughts and motivations that direct our acts. A coincidence, the homonym ‘I’ and ‘eye’?

Awareness, ever vigilant, where to hide from God (from our self) with every act and thought observed? Take a moment to be aware of the tone, the vibration that has followed your awareness up the spine, getting ever higher in pitch. Glance down the back to the starting point and experience the energy flowing upward with the awareness. The sixth dimension, the pinnacle of the intellect, summit of human experience, cusp of the physical plane. Each level of our development has its own seductiveness and we must not become too enthralled with the illusion of our own cleverness. The siren of the intellect prompts the mystical concern that we can be trapped at the crown of our narcissism, the sixth chakra.

Knowing the true origin of all good, effort becomes efficient as the illusions of human politics are exposed. Many paths, some more appropriate to each individual’s circumstance, offer real freedom. Any situation can be utilized. No sadness, because all souls return eventually to their source. No status, no competition. When compared to the backdrop of infinity, we’re only beginning. Ultimate love, where everyone makes it, no one is lost, all come home. What we’d deemed sin is mere dallying on the way. Our efforts are less important than the sincerity with which they are performed.

At times we feel things are right, somehow connected and positive. At other times in our wandering, we have a sense of aloneness and feel out of sync and disconnected. It is as if a beam were shinning down and we feel love when we’re in its warmth, and loss when we’re outside its light. The soul, traveling through its incarnations, circles ever further from its point of origin. As it gets closer to the source of the beam, the beam narrows and gets more dense. The distinction between being ‘in’ and ‘out’ becomes greater. The traveler no longer circles randomly, but through trial and error finds direction. With intent, a crossroads in development of the soul is reached. The Godhead is actively sought. God, divided into innumerable fragments, formed our existence. God, a part of everything. Now a piece of that everything discovers God in itself and seeks its way back to the whole.

Numerous lifetimes of searching and we locate the exact direction to the source. No longer weaving ‘in’ and ‘out’ we have direction and look out of the heart center up the spine to a star shinning bright, guiding us as the Three Wise Men of biblical myth were guided to an incarnation of the Godhead extant on the physical plane. Visualize that star behind the throat. “I Am” — the word, the way, the path. Effort is made to draw closer to the source of all pleasure, understanding and meaning. Other worldly pursuits aren’t abandoned, but are now seen as tools for learning lessons that will help us draw closer.