Self and spiritual development

My article in the latest edition of Odyssey magazine 

Contemplation

Contemplation

 Dr. Jimmy Henderson

‘We normally keep our minds so busy that we fail to hear the passing whispers of angels’

 J. Henderson

Contemplation is a technique in which we open our minds to incoming impressions, inspirational guidance or answers to problems or questions which we set ourselves.

It is similar to meditation, but in this case we only need a quiet, relaxed, introspective state of mind in which we can allow our thoughts to flow, similar to free association. This is explained as allowing your mind free reign to explore all impressions, thoughts and ideas that spontaneously enter.

Through contemplation we connect to the creative power of our subconscious minds and are able to gain answers, new insights and inspiring thoughts and ideas. This can be useful in business as well as in our personal lives. It can also be used simply as part of your mental development, as it helps you build a working relationship with your subconscious mind. Bringing a certain sense of peace and connectedness, contemplation can also help one heal emotionally.

Although it can be used anywhere, I have found that contemplation works particularly well outdoors during a slow walkabout or nature ramble. In this case I would liken it to a ‘walking and talking’ meditation, combined with a process of free association. Contemplating Nature also brings a sense of presence. When we focus intently on various aspects of our natural surroundings, from the colour of leaves to the smallest insect, we increase our mindfulness of the present moment, of the ‘now’.

Contemplative thoughts can be easily distinguished from day-to-day thinking, as the ideas presented are often philosophical and generally quite poetic in form. 

The process

Find a suitable quiet place to sit indoors or take a walk outdoors in your garden or in a nature reserve. Strive for a relaxed state of mind.

  

Decide on what you are contemplating. It can be a specific problem, an object, a verse or an idea, such as the beauty of Nature. Set an intention to engage deeply and then pose your question to your subconscious mind.

An intention is a precise thought which represents a sincere request or instruction, without any hesitation or doubt, as to exactly what you want from your subconscious mind. It must be simply worded and unambiguous.

          

For example;

‘I open myself to inspiration on the aspect of beauty in Nature.’

Once you have phrased your question and set your intention, let go and move ahead with your next action with the belief that it will be carried out as requested. It is this confident, powerful state of mind that ensures the co-operation of your subconscious mind and which will open you to inspirational guidance from within, or even outside of your own mind.

Now simply relax and allow a free-flow of impressions, thoughts, symbolic ideas and even images relating to your question and set intention to pass through your mind. Initially speak your thoughts out loud. Describe what you are thinking or feeling. This usually comes out as deep and colourful words or possibly even further questions.

For example; ‘I can see the beauty of Nature, but from where does it come?’    

As you continue to express your impressions feelings and thoughts in words, let your subconscious mind take over. You may begin to utter strange words out loud without even thinking.

For example, ‘I see this beauty, it is all around me.’

                      ‘This beauty comes from its source’.

                      ‘There can be only one source to all things’.

                       ‘I am part of this source’

And so on…

Notice how your thoughts become deeper and more philosophical. If they are at first, strange and incomprehensible, write them down and interpret them later.

At the end of the contemplation give thanks and acknowledgement for the guidance received. Once you have practiced contemplation for a while, you may find that you begin to receive messages and revelations much quicker. This means that you have built up a good relationship with your subconscious mind and it is spontaneously releasing information to you.

MIndfulness

                                   

  Mindfulness 

Dr. Jimmy Henderson

Most of us go through life making decisions based on our past experiences without being really mindful of all the issues involved. This can lead to the stereotyping of people and situations and us not always taking the best course of action.

          

          What exactly is MINDFULNESS?

Mindfulness is being fully aware or conscious of what is happening around you and what you are thinking and doing in the moment, in the ‘now’. Simply put, you are mindful when you know the thoughts and feelings you are having about a person or situation and are then able to pause, think and make a more conscious decision.

If it is still not clear, let me describe it as a blend of pure openness, pure observing, and most importantly, ‘a pure feeling of self ’ without any real thinking at all.

          Let us do a little experiment which may give you a better idea   

          A moment of mindfulness

Clap your hands together suddenly, or snap your fingers

At the same time, shout out ‘I’m alive!’

Now be very quiet for a few seconds and focus on your feelings

What do you feel? A little shaken, disorientated or even confused?

What you did was to be briefly, fully mindful of your experience of ‘being alive’.

The sudden clap or snap also opened your subconscious mind for one split-second to allow you to experience this at a very deep level and produce the strange feelings that you may have had.

Now imagine a situation in which you are able to create this experience at will, increase it further, and keep it going for long periods of time.

How is mindfulness useful? 

Mindfulness improves your thinking by giving you better mental focus and attention to detail. It also improves your intuition by connecting you with your subconscious mind and you become more aware of the real issues as well as hidden agendas. This helps with understanding human behaviour and improves problem-solving. You are able to make more conscious and rational decisions in your business as well as private lives.

Mindfulness also empowers one with a sense of well-being and increases moral, human and animal-rights awareness. Mindful people are less judgemental, more empathetic and compassionate, more aware of the consequences of their actions, and able to consciously take steps to avoid hurting others.

It is good for your mental and physical health, relationships and success in business dealings and essential for reaching your full mental, emotional and spiritual potential.

In fact, new forms of therapy try to raise your mindfulness to the point where you can see and deal with past and present issues holding you back and re-connect with your authentic self, that pure childlike part of you before it was ‘programmed’ by your past experiences and squashed by the demands of the world.

Sound good?

How do I become more mindful?

The problem is that most of the time our minds are very active, filled with chatter that takes all our attention and stops us from becoming more mindful and living fully in the present moment.

If you wish to be more mindful, you have to lessen this clutter and clamour going on in your minds and shift gears to a more relaxed state. Brainwave patterns for normal active minds are about 12-30 cycles per second (cps) (the Beta state). You will have to learn to lower it to the Alpha state of 8-12 cps second or even further, to the Theta state of 4-7 cps. This slows down your normal thinking until your brain is just idling or ticking over with no actual thought, but you are still fully aware of what is happening.  

This lowering of your brain activity allows your subconscious mind to become more dominant and you will feel a greater sense of self or ‘presence’.

Exercise

Sit comfortably, close your eyes and consciously begin to relax your body. Move your focus to your breathing. Allow all thoughts to slowly leave your mind. This is a process of ‘letting go’ rather than trying to force it to be quiet. 

          Begin counting in your mind as you breathe in slowly for a count of 5

           Hold your breath for a count of 5

           Breathe out slowly for a count of 5

           Hold your breath again for a count of 5

           Begin the process again, breathing in to a count of 5

           Do this for about a minute. Your mind will soon settle down and you should feel more relaxed. 

                                  

A powerful experience of mindfulness

           Hold your hands in front of your chest palms facing you, Look down at your hands and move your fingers slowly, repeating to yourself slowly over and over:

           ‘I am alive’

           ‘I am alive’

           ‘I am alive’

           Now stop moving your fingers and turn your palms towards your chest. Move your focus to the area between your hands and chest. At this time, change the words to ‘I am’, repeating it slowly and deliberately over and over again.

           You should feel a second shift to an even deeper level of mindfulness (the ‘I’ consciousness). 

           Finally, change the words ‘I am’ to the word, ‘I’ and also repeat this slowly and deliberately a number of times, still focusing on the area between your hands and your chest.  

           Breathe deeply and try to be fully mindful of what it feels to be ‘I’.

          Carry on until you take a sudden, deep spontaneous breath and for one exhilarating

          moment become fully mindful of the fact that you are alive.    

          Do these exercises from time to time. They will certainly quieten the frenzied activity of your minds and increase your mindfulness.

Projecting your consciousness

The projection of consciousness  

‘The birthplace of success for each person is in his Inner-Consciousness. The Inner-Consciousness will use whatever it is given.’
Sidney Madwed
American Speaker, Consultant, Author, Poet

During my many years of inner work with my subconscious mind I have found at a very deep level, a universe of inter-connected consciousness structured in layers, dimensions or spheres in which we can see and experience reality in different ways.

These levels may not even exist at all as a result of our inability to process this inner universe as a whole. However, this approach of discovering the levels one at a time,  makes us able to deal with it in manageable chunks until we are able to fully awaken and grasp the ‘big picture’ of universal consciousness.

Strictly speaking, this is not astral travelling, but rather a conscious projection of our consciousness to any place in the world or the universe which makes it possible to explore different spheres and dimensions in an attempt to raise our consciousness and build up our psychic energy for world service.

This process is similar to exercising our bodies. Huge amounts of psychic energy are needed to keep focus and control over our inner experiences when working with our consciousness at these deep levels, and moving in-between the different spheres of reality as if it were all only a lucid dream. This effort and practice certainly builds up our psychic ‘muscles’ for even deeper work. .  

Energy portals

’Energy and persistence alter all things.’

Benjamin Franklin

We use visualisation during meditation to create, open and enter ‘doorways’ from one dimension to the next or from one part of the world to another. For the purpose of this article, I will call these multidimensional wormholes energy portals.

As our subconscious can be extended indefinitely in all directions, we use the power of our minds to pass through created doorways or portals to bring about profound shifts in our perception and experiences of reality. Using the analogy of a computer, this would be like keying in different commands in order to pass from one level of the programme to the next.

However, at this level of the mind there are a number of important rules that you must remember:

First, once you begin the exercise, never stop it suddenly, as this could lead to confusion in your subconscious mind and you could become completely disoriented. It is also not a good idea to shift your consciousness rapidly between scenes, as you are working at a very deep level and could also short-circuit your neural pathways.

Second, after creating an energy portal or doorway, you need to keep it in sight, as you will have to pass back through it once again to return to normal consciousness. If you do not do this you could also become confused. As with all imagery, the scene you create should always have a sort of ‘storyline’, a logical beginning and end. In other words, if you visualise yourself in a house passing through a door to another level or even historical time, (yes, you can use this method to travel to other times as well), always see yourself coming back into the house through the same doorway before you return to normal consciousness.

It is easier to keep your eyes closed until you are used to this advanced process. After that you can try to open and close your eyes slowly to allow the images to superimpose themselves on the room in which you are sitting.

Finally, this process can be very demanding on your psychic energy and you need to cut it short if you start feeling drained or weak.

Let me take you through the whole process one step at a time.

You need to activate spontaneous imagery (visualisation) during meditation to move your consciousness around inside your created scene. If you do not know how, please read my article on spontaneous imagery before you tackle this advanced exercise.

          To begin, you need to sit comfortably and enter an altered state of consciousness (meditation), one in which you have the full co-operation (and protection) of your subconscious. The reason for this is that you need to set an intention beforehand that any doorways, stairs or portals you create, will lead to another place or a higher sphere of reality. Your subconscious needs to accept this as a command.  

           Once you have created a suitable scene in your mind, create a doorway or a portal and set an intention as to where it will lead, either a sacred place on the planet or simply a higher level of consciousness and reality.

           In the beginning I would recommend a simple doorway or portal which you intend to pass through into your own backyard. Decide beforehand what form it will take and use the finger of your right hand to trace its framework directly in front of you. Using your breath and blowing slowly helps when creating a portal. See it as a shimmering silver mirror-like frame, as if you were looking up under the water at the surface of a swimming pool.

            Now put your hands out in front of you until you think you can feel the energy on your palms. Using only your mental intention and movements of your hand draw the doorway or portal towards you until it is a meter or two in front of you.

            For this example, set your intention for this portal to lead out into your backyard. At this point you need to let go of the scene and allow it to unfold of its own accord (spontaneous imagery). Now using only your willpower (controlled intention), slowly move the portal towards you and allow it to pass through your body. As it passes through, your imagery should shift and you should begin to see images of your yard.  

            Glance around in your visualisation and try to identify the features of the scene. Note the portal behind you and try not to lose sight of it. Try to move around in the scene, looking through projected ‘eyes’ and using projected hands in front of you. Try to touch the walls and objects you see. If you have been successful, you will actually feel something and notice that the walls or objects can be touched or else your hand will simply pass through them, depending on your intention. If you can see images and ‘feel’ objects in your yard, you have been successful in projecting your consciousness. Well done!

            As soon as you begin to tire, stand with your back to the portal and allow it to pass back through you once again. If you do this properly, your perception should come back into the room and you can exit the meditation to find yourself back in your chair. Always leave the meditation slowly by moving your fingers and feet and returning to normal awareness.

Practice with simple familiar settings before trying to project your consciousness to more exotic locations or higher levels of reality. I have found projecting to sacred sites to be very powerful as you can actually feel the energy. It is as if you were actually there.

New business photo

Book publishing by Dave Henderson

Thanks to my son David of Myebook.co.za for the great business photographs. Those of you considering self-publishing should contact him. The SA exchange rate makes self-publishing your book through a South African company so much more affordable. 

The essence of LOVE

The essence of love 

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."- Albert Einstein.

LOVE is one of those things that are difficult to explain unless we can ‘connect the dots’ between a number of earlier thoughts and ideas. In other words, we must allow our minds to drift freely and delve deeply into different dimensions of meaning and perspectives in order to arrive at some idea of the true essence of LOVE.  

Romantics will sniggar at this and say “Oh you fool, this is so simple. Can’t you see that LOVE is a natural feeling, an intense attraction or emotional connection between people?” That is true, but is this the only true origin of LOVE, an evolutionary drive based on physical attraction? This takes us part of the way but still leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

For instance, what about other feelings such as empathy, caring, brotherly LOVE and ‘agape’, the pure, selfless, unconditional form of LOVE? Are these all just old DNA imprints inherited from past generations? Is there not some other principle that can explain the origin of this powerful emotion?

But what tools can we use to trace the origins of LOVE even further and reach a set of undeniable facts? Words have a magical quality in that they are symbols of our thoughts. Words and their meaning also form ideas and if done correctly, one idea can be linked logically to another. Logical reasoning has a valid mathematical basis and so I believe that we can use a critical approach, and by examining the relationships between words and concepts, find a path through the entangled thoughts in our minds regarding LOVE and arrive at an idea of its true factual origin.

So let us begin our journey into the magical world of words and concepts with Theology and see what ancient teachings say about LOVE.

One of the most well-known religious statements is ‘God is LOVE’. Although this sounds very tantalising, it does not really take us anywhere, as it means that in order to know what LOVE is, we would have to know what God is, and I don’t think there is anyone who can stand up and say for sure that he (or she) knows the true nature of God. So we are back to square one. 

Let us now enter the nebulous field of philosophy. Some thinkers may argue that the essence of LOVE is linked to moral principles and specifically the idea of ‘The good’. In other words, LOVE simply means one person treating another in a ‘good’ or selfless way. But if LOVE just means being ‘good’ to someone, we again end up in a situation in which LOVE is the moral ‘good’ and the moral ‘good’ is LOVE. This does not take us deeper into its more basic principles. We just can’t seem to get past these words and concepts to enter the realm of facts. 

So let us jump directly into the world of science and see what it has to say about LOVE. If we look at commonality, we can see that both LOVE and physics point to the idea of attraction. In science, attraction is the affinity between positive and negative polarities, whereas in the human sciences, it is the attraction between people. Let us use this idea of attraction as a starting point and search for more similarities.

As a general rule we could also say that LOVE, as well as the entire physical universe, finds form and expression in relationships. Let me explain. In physics dual potentials attract and form coupled relationships (sub-atomic bonds), which, when brought together, create physical things.

We also see attraction between people as LOVE and relationships (bonds of LOVE) as an ideal outcome. These bonds underlie the forming of families and societies. So in this case we would be quite justified in saying that two principles, namely ‘attraction’ and ‘relationships’ seem to be common to both human LOVE as well as the natural laws of physics. 

Let us now take this one step further. In science the source of this attraction and sub-atomic relationships is the principle of duality, in which positive and negative polarities are formed in nature and attract one another.

We normally explain polarity in human relationships as male and female, but in some cases, attraction and LOVE can occur between persons of the same sex. So we have to move beyond male and female and examine the concept of duality itself.

In order to do this we will have to again engage with philosophy and specifically the role of symbolism in metaphysical philosophy. Symbols also stand in for words or ideas, so there is no reason why we cannot use them. In this case we have powerful symbolism in the form of the apex of a triangle (representing unity) giving rise to two lower points or angles (representing duality). According to this symbolism, it is suggested that a unitary principle (ONE) can separate to form TWO opposing principles, thus giving rise to duality (the tip of a triangle extending downwards to the two base angles). In other words, in metaphysical philosophy, duality (principles of positive and negative), would be said to originate from a singularity which initially contains both in a perfect balance and unity until something causes them to separate.

In the triangle this separation is explained by the notion of extension, in that the triangle extends downwards to form the two separate points. In other words, in order to express itself fully, the first principle (unity) in extending or expressing itself, becomes duality, giving further rise to two distinct principles and subsequently leading to a dynamic interplay and bonding of energies which we could call creation.

However, this is not the end of the story. It is important to note that according to science, when the two polarities are formed, there is a powerful natural tendency for them to return to their original oneness (unity). This we call attraction. The question is now whether we can apply this tendency to return to unity (union) as an analogy to explain the energy or power underlying the notion of LOVE.

So we leave science behind and back we go to the realm of Theology. Here we find the idea of One Source of creation (God) and the question now arises if we can compare the metaphysical principle of the unity of ONE to the Unity and perfection within ONE Supreme Being (God). On the surface this seems a reasonable supposition, especially if we rephrase the scientific principles and apply them to Theology. This would imply that the First Source (God as Unity and perfection), in a similar process of extension and expression, creates the universe in a manner which involves the introduction of duality and the subsequent power of attraction. All that remains is to apply this to the notion of LOVE.  

Conclusions

So if we again pose the question ‘What is the essence of LOVE?, in terms of our long and winding path through the world of connected thoughts and ideas, we could say that LOVE is linked to the idea of an original UNITY within a First Source of creation, whether we choose to call this source ‘Nature’ or ‘God’, and that LOVE can be defined as the powerful urge to return to this unity (union). 

In scientific terms, this would be seen as the natural tendency towards reintegration and order by achieving balance and the UNITY of opposites.

Psychologically speaking, LOVE would arise in daily social situations whenever duality presents itself, whether as male or female or simply the attraction of personalities, and leading to the forming of relationships. 

Morally, this innate drive towards re-unification suggests an underlying brotherhood of man. This feeling of brotherhood, although not always known openly, would explain emotions such as empathy, caring and brotherly love.

Finally, in religious terms, LOVE would represent the soul’s desire to return to union with God as the source of LOVE, explaining the higher and more pure form (‘agape’) of LOVE.

I do hope you have found this discourse interesting. 

Life after death?

            

   

The question of life after death

   Dr. Jimmy Henderson

So what is consciousness? Our human consciousness could be seen as a conscious state which allows us to realise that we are alive and to think, reason and see what we experience as reality. However, it can also give us a clue to answering the important question of whether there is life after death.

We know that our level of consciousness or ‘awake-ness’ can be measured as electrical brain impulses on an E.E.G., so it is not too far-fetched to see it as  an electrically or energy-based phenomenon, and we can use this as part of an analogy.

Science tells us that the electrical current in a circuit will not flow unless the circuit is complete, and if we accept that our present self-awareness is the result of an (energy) ‘circuit’ of  consciousness, any break in this circuit (such as after death) would rule out the possibility of our ever being self-conscious or self-aware at this time. In other words, our present self-consciousness would simply never have happened unless our “consciousness circuit” was complete before we were born.

Let me put it another way, in order to have become self–conscious at this time, we would have to be permanently connected to a circuit of consciousness beyond this life and the circuit would have to be closed.

This means that our present experience of being alive (consciousness) is part of a continuous cycle of consciousness, and it is only the form which changes when we die. However, exactly what we will experience when we pass on is another discussion altogether.