The Yogi from Oklahoma

I was somewhere in my late teens when I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Parmahansa Yogananda. (Wow I can still spell it correctly!)  I actually wanna read it again some day soon.   That book taught this skinny farm boy who lived in no where Oklahoma how to meditate.  A practice I continued ever since.  Chakras, colors, light, visualizations all began with this book.

Before Buddhism I spent about 10 years in the New Age movement.  It was the "very strong glue" I used to put my personality back together after almost committing suicide in 1985.  I honestly could never believe much of it.  Although I do know that it is possible to cultivate such a very acute sensitivity to people that you can almost 'read' them.  That comes with a significant price of being way overly sensitive to people!  But metaphysical?  I have no idea.   My larger focus continued to be meditation.  I became pretty good at the whole kriya yoga thing. (Good being a word that really has no definition since I have no idea how one becomes good at kriya yoga).  It was Oklahoma and there really wasn't many meditation masters running around so I studied everything from Shirley MacLain to the Baghwan Shree Rajneesh.

After a few years of daily practice and focus you can began to feel the chakras.  Its difficult to describe.  Whether its just sensory awareness of the area in your body or are they really lighting up?  I would spend hours just learning to focus on my solar plexus chakra (central sternum area at the xyphoid process) until I could feel it.  Or just a certain spot on your scalp.  You hear of similar concentration exercises still being taught.  I had a book by the Bagwan Rajneesh that was a great meditation manual with a good number of visualization exercises working with chakras.  I did them everyday.

I don't do much of that kind of meditation practice now since I really tend to favor mindfulness/awareness practice.  But that sensitivity to the chakras is still very much there.   And then here comes Tantra.  The extremely mysterious and beautiful practices of Tibetan Buddhism bringing the focus back to the chakras.  Clearing them and undoing the knots in our central channel to allow a more fluid movement of energy is part of the practice known as Highest Yoga Tantra.  (There is a great deal more to it than that!)

The visualizations and such are different than my prior experience.  But much of the theory is the same.  So why am I so unexcited when most Tibetan Buddhist fall all over themselves to get "empowered" to practice these mysteries?  Been there done that?  Or what it a lack of tangible evidence that being able to light up these supposed energy centers did anything?

I'm still here and alive and that is (to quote Gandalf who I always quote.. who doesn't?) "an encouraging thought."  Whether my chakras had anything to do with it is a question.  But meditation absolutely had something to do with it.  It both has AND had everything to do with.  I can't recommend it strongly enough.  And if you can't trust a yogi from Oklahoma (I was actually born in California) who can you trust?


Chad