Gregg Braden - Visions as Quantum Blueprints:
I recently had a big
Inner Alchemy “ah-ha” – sparked by the viewing of a couple of amazing video clips of scientist/mystic Gregg Braden. In an
interview for a Louise Hay program, Mr. Braden talks about the relationship between thoughts, feelings and emotions, in relation to the practice of prayer and creative manifestation. Our conscious thoughts – our visions of what we wish to manifest – are, Mr. Braden proposes, something akin to a quantum blueprint. These visions typically originate in the three upper chakras (crown, forehead & throat).
Activating the Feeling Level of our Being:
While these visions, or prayers, might by themselves be quite beautiful and inspiring, they seem often to remain as just that: internal images or aspirations. But how do we actually bring them into existence within our material world? According to Mr. Braden, we do this by activating the feeling level of our Being, rooted in the lower three chakras (root, sacral & solar plexus).
The Fusion of Vision-Energy with Feeling-Energy:
Generating strongly-energized positive feelings about what we’re envisioning is the key to manifesting these visions. Once we’ve generated this energy - in what Taoist Inner Alchemy calls the
Lower Dantian and
Snow Mountain areas – we allow it to flow upward, at the same time as the vision-energy flows downward. As these two energies meet within the electromagnetic field of the heart chakra, the vision is infused with the life-blood of our feeling-energy – a kind of immaculate conception which births the vision into the manifest world.
The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin:
In the second video –
“The Science of Compassion” – Mr. Braden presents fascinating information about the Shroud of Turin: the cloth which was supposedly used to wrap the body of the crucified Jesus, and left behind then when his body disappeared from the tomb. What has puzzled scientists and mystics alike is the source of an image found on the Shroud of Turin – an image which bears a strong resemblance to the body of a man, and the face of Master Jesus.
The Inner Alchemy of Resurrection:
According to a scientific analysis performed on the Shroud, the “linen was
scorched from within by a high rapid intense heat source of bio-chemical origin unknown to us at this time.” What Mr. Braden suggests is that this “heat source” originated from the alchemical changes that occurred within the body of Jesus as he underwent what we now call the process of “resurrection.” This process involved a rapid influx of
qi into every cell of his body, generating the higher-frequency vibration whose heat left the imprint on the Shroud of Turin.
Immortality & The Science of Compassion:
Resurrection, then, is a what Mr. Braden calls a “phase transition” or “change of state” which is the equivalent to what in Taoist Inner Alchemy we know as the alchemical “marriage” between Spirit/Heaven and the elements of the Earth, as manifest in a human body. This profound shift in the body’s frequency (known in Taoism as
Immortality) is brought about via a “science of compassion,” in which the energy of feeling/emotion, experienced fully in the body, initiates a biochemical shift – an actual reordering of genetic coding.
"Ah-ha!":
Viewing these two videos brought to mind an experience I had a while back, at a meditation retreat. In the context of a practice that our sangha was doing, I generated a mental image of the world surrounded by a matrix of healing light, and the aspiration/prayer that all living beings be free from suffering. As the image became well-formed, and I began to access a deeply devotional attitude, I suddenly experienced, in my lower dantian, an infusion of intensely blissful heat. This blissful heat flowed immediately as a kind of life-blood into the vision/aspiration I was holding, making the prayer and practice as a whole feel infinitely more potent.
Part of my “ah-ha” moment was the realization that what I had experienced at this retreat was a form of the alchemical process described by Mr. Braden in the Lousie Hay interview. It was an infusing of my prayer/vision with the energy of feeling. Another aspect of the “ah-ha” was to see that these processes described by Gregg Bradden, in the language of the chakras and western science, are exactly the same processes described by Taoist Inner Alchemy, in the language of the “Three Treasures” of jing, qi and shen. A third component of the “ah-ha” had to do with understanding in a clearer way how the practice of devotion works. By generating strong positive feelings – say toward a teacher, or toward a lineage/tradition as a whole – we’re actually generating the energetic power needed to transform our spiritual aspirations into a living, breathing reality.
Further Explorations In Taoism:
The Yin/Yang Symbol
Chakras & Dantians
Emptiness In Taoism & Buddhism
Gender & The Tao
Inner Alchemy & Transubstantiation
How Does Qigong Work?
Buddhist Mindfulness Training & Qigong Practice
