THE SEVEN CHAKRAS IN THE LATIFA PRAYER
Amsterdam, 9 oktober 2019
Dear All,
Before we continue with our energy and chakra research, I would like to introduce you to a few very short and simple sentences, which for me represent exactly the core of each chakra. They are my representation of the seven chakras as I once found it in the Latifa prayer *:
IK BESTA – wortel-chakra (eerste chakra)
IK VOEL – buik/milt-chakra (tweede chakra)
IK DENK – zonnevlecht (derde chakra)
I LOVE – hart-chakra (vierde chakra)
IK OPEN MIJ – keel-chakra (vijfde chakra)
IK VERTROUW – derde oog (zesde chakra)
IK BEN BEREID – kruin-chakra (zevende chakra)
If I could, I would put these seven sentences to music so that we could sing them as mantra during our meditation evenings ... I find them so beautiful, they move me over and over again when I say them out loud.
I EXIST - I FEEL - I THINK - I LOVE
De drie/vier onderste chakra’s vormen samen onze persoonlijkheid, ons ik (persona = latijn voor masker). De drie bloemblaadjes dus: denken, emoties en lichaam. Dit is degene die we zijn in de tijd/ruimte dimensie waarin we nu leven.
I LOVE
The fourth chakra, the heart chakra, forms the connecting link between the lower and upper three chakras. That is why she is called both.
I LOVE - I OPEN ME - I TRUST - I AM PREPARED
The top three / four chakras form the heart of the flower, which is beyond time and space. 'I open myself' - the petals open fully, so that the inspiration of the heart can fill them and shine through them. "I trust" - here is the confidence, the "knowing" of the wisdom of the heart, that the mind (the thinking of the personality) is beyond. "I am willing" - this is the surrender to What Is or I Am. It is a surrender full of energy and life, full of waiting for the unexpected, full of the comfort of 'not knowing'.
(o) eva
*Het Latifa-gebed komt uit de soefi-traditie, een mystieke stroming binnen de Islam. Latifa betekent letterlijk ‘subtiel’, en is een van de negenennegentig namen voor Allah/God. (Jan van Deenen e.a. Oefenen in leven, het Latifa-gebed als Gids (2005).
De wortel chakra
Amsterdam, 25 oktober 2019
Dear All,
In the mediation group we have literally and figuratively immersed ourselves in our first chakra, the base or root chakra, in the Sanskrit Muladhara (mula = root, adhara = tail). This chakra is located on the perineum, that part between your anus and your genitals. You are supposed to sit on it. And you do that if you sit straight on your sit bones, (which are located on either side of your perineum). They are of course called 'sit-bones’ for a reason.
We have practiced to sit in our base, on our root chakra, and activate it in this way. We also paid attention to this while standing and walking. It is very special how this chakra can come to life in your experience. And even if you don't feel anything (yet), then the inner trust (which is connected to the sixth chakra – this comes later) can grow, that 'it does work'. I suddenly have to think of a verse from the Old Testament (Bible) – your heritage stays with you - "God gives it to his loved ones in their sleep." And so it is: what receives attention grows / recovers / comes to fruition, even though your physical observation gift is still asleep.
In the conversation mediation we talked about the many meanings of our first chakra. Each energy center vibrates with a certain frequency that depends on the location in the body. Furthermore, each chakra is connected to an endocrine gland. The endocrine glands secrete hormones, which largely control the biological processes in our body. And there are many more connections, of which I will mention a few here.
Thus our root chakra is connected to the earth, with roots, soils, survival of the body, matter, beginning. Her color is red and she has four leaves. Unfortunately, my computer skills are not good enough for me to provide you with a picture here - you should look it up yourself if you want to see what she looks like. Her energy is solid, very compacted. It is connected to the large intestine (the intestines are called our second - earthly - brain), and to the adrenal glands. The gems that correspond with her are magnetite, ruby, garnet, and hematite (bloodstone).
Monday we will continue to investigate our second chakra.
(o) eva
Energie
Amsterdam, 13 oktober 2019
Dear All,
Talking about energy - last week I told our meditation group that my energy is certainly not diminishing, but is feeling more and more 'fragile'. That, ,of course has everything to do with my age, but not it’s not only that. It's hard to find the right words. I could also say 'more transparent'. It is as if my personality is increasingly permeable to the light energy of the heart. Everything also becomes 'more temporary'. I don't look ahead that far anymore. I live more and more in the moment.
For the progress of our meditation group, this means that I propose that we consider at the end of each season whether we are continuing for another season. And that continuation stands or falls with the commitment of a few people, including myself, to include the meditation exercise in the form of the weekly Monday evening in their rhythm of life. So this time we will decide on our last evening of this season, that is on December 16, whether we will continue in January.
Energie is het thema dat onze hele avond omvat. Tijdens de geleide meditatie beoefenen we de energie-kringloop door het lichaam, begeleid door onze adem. Daarna staan we in onze energie en lopen we op ons ademritme. Dan volgt de stilte-meditatie. Na het ‘noemen van de namen van hen naar wie ons hart uitgaat’, zingen we de prachtige mantra OHM NAMAH SHIVAYA (vrij vertaald: ik groet het hart in ons), die omhoog en omlaag beweegt langs de chakra’s (de zeven energie knooppunten in ons lichaam). En tot slot, tijdens de gespreks-meditatie komt alles samen in het uitwisselen van onze ervaringen en verdiepen we ons verder in de betekenis van energie in het algemeen en de energie van ieder van de zeven chakra’s afzonderlijk.
to be continued,
(o) eva
OUR BODY IS ENERGY
Amsterdam, 28 september 2019
Everything is energy: the universe, the earth, our body, our thinking, our emotions ...
Everything is energy: the universe, the earth, our body, our thinking, our emotions ... You can view the universe as being made up of spinning wheels of energy, whether you look at the large galaxies that are thousands of light years away from us, or the billions of atoms spinning around in a grain of sand, or the whirlwind of electrons that, together with infinite emptiness, constitute all matter.
Our body is energy. Such a sentence is worth paying a little more attention to. To meditate on, so to speak. Our body is therefore not only what our senses perceive it to be. It is much more. People have been aware of this since the earliest times.
Let's look at the caduceus, a staff with two snakes wrap ping around the staff and have wings at the top. It is an ancient symbol found in India, Egypt (Pharaoh's staff) and in Mesopothamia. In ancient Greece, the caduceus was the staff of the god Hermes. And now she is known as a form of the ‘esculaap’, a medical symbol.
The staff stands for the vertical column in our body that corresponds to the spine. The points where the snakes cross each other symbolize the seven chakras, which move from the lowest point of the spine to the highest. The chakras are wheel-like energy centers, seven levels of vibration, of vital life force.. Each chakra represents an aspect of consciousness that is characteristic of our lives. The two snakes represent the two forms of energy - the female and the male - in each of the chakras. Energy is one in origin, at the lowest point, below the first chakra. Then she splits into male and female energy. The two meet and become one again at the crown, above the seventh chakra. Energy that condenses into matter cannot but split itself - after all, separation is the hallmark of matter - and the first separation is that between male and female energy. In the creation story in the Bible (where the snake also plays a role), this is described as the separation between man and woman.
The first references to the chakras go back to the Vedas (from 1500 BC), the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. They are in the energetic force field, the aura, which, as it were, encompasses our physical body. The aura appears as a light-colored cloud around the visible body. Chakras are the generators of this aura field. Thanks to modern physiology, we have been able to establish that the seven chakras are close to the seven major nerve nodes that originate from the spine. They correspond with these physical nerve nodes and with the endocrine glands.
The staff, the vertical column in our body, is like a highway along which the life energies ( Sankriet: prana) move back and forth. Numerous secondary roads run through and alongside this highway, such as the Chinese acupuncture meridians and the thousands of other nadis (subtle energy channels) known from the Hindu tradition. Kundalini (Sanskrit: 'the rolled up', namely the rolled up energy at the lowest point) is the energy that is released when the chakras are opened.
Als je mijn metafoor van de Bloem als sjabloon over dit verhaal heen legt, zou je kunnen zeggen de drie bloemblaadjes denken, emoties en lichaam (= onze lichamelijke gewaarwordingen) ons fysieke lichaam vormen, de meest verdichte vorm van energie, waarbij denken de minst verdichte vorm is en het puur lichamelijke de meest verdichte vorm. Het hart van de Bloem kan je zien als corresponderend met de chakra’s, de aura en de prana – dus met de levenskracht, de vitale energie, die door het fysieke lichaam heen stroomt én het omvat.
—
Everything is energy.
Energy is consciousness.
Energie is bewustzijn.
It is how you look at it.
ENERGY, WHAT IS IT REALLY?
Amsterdam, 22 september 2019
In mijn mediatiegroep onderzoeken we dit seizoen wat energie is en hoe wij onze energie beter kunnen gebruiken. Afgelopen maandag zijn we weer begonnen en we hebben verkend wat we onder ‘energie’ verstaan. Ik heb daar een kleine samenvatting van gemaakt en ik vraag je even door te bijten als het nog wat abstract klinkt. Mijn verontschuldiging: energie is ook een zó ontzagwekkend iets…
Het woord energie (ενεργεια) werd voor het eerst gebruikt door Aristoteles, zo’n 2400 jaar geleden. Het werkwoord εργω betekent ‘werken, bewegen’. Energie is dus ‘dat wat werkt’ of ‘dat wat beweegt’. Het is de ‘werk-elijkheid’. Energy = reality = movement.
Aristotle wondered where that movement ultimately came from. Something or someone must have started that movement. And so he came up with the paradoxical concept of 'the unmoved mover'. Other wisdom traditions have found their own words, such as "the peace of God beyond our understanding" (quote from the Bible), or "Allah" (Islam), or "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form" (the Buddhism).
A switch to modern natural science:
With his formula E = MC2 (energy = mass x the speed of light squared), Einstein has demonstrated that mass is a compaction of energy. Our planet is energy. Our body is energy. Our thinking is energy. Our emotions are energy. Everything that exists in time and space is energy. And energy is far beyond time and space - something the wisdom traditions have 'known' for thousands of years ...
The first law of thermodynamics tells us another important thing, namely that energy is never lost. Energy transforms, just as water transforms into ice and gas, but it is not lost. Also something that has traditionally been 'known' for a long time ...
We humans can thus convert our energy. How do we do that? Which energy do we choose to give our attention to? Because what you pay attention to heals and grows. Welke energie bevorderen we in onszelf, in elkaar, in de maatschappij? Hoe kunnen we leren onze energie zo te richten dat we gelukkig zijn, en niet alleen wijzelf, maar iedereen en alles?
januari 2019
"I HAVE BEEN HAPPILY MARRIED TO MYSELF FOR TWENTY YEARS”
We’re all supposed to chase after a long-term monogamous relationship, because singles are seen as objects of pity. But I’ve been happily married to myself for twenty years. Happiness is in my heart. To explain that, I always use the metaphor of a flower. When we search for happiness, we’re essentially searching for the heart of the flower that we are, for our own essence. You might call it your soul, an inner source, or maybe unconditional love. Everyone has moments of contact with it, glimpses of that heart, like a small child’s very pure, spontaneous experience of wonder-moments of contact like that. The three petals of this flower are what I call my personality: my thoughts, my emotions and my body The heart of the flower is inner peace, and you can learn to open up your personality - your thoughts, your emotions and your body - to that peace.
Je kunt het ervaren van geluk niet afdwingen, maar je kunt wel de geluksmomenten koesteren en aandachtig leven zodat je ze eerder opmerkt. Vanaf mijn 35e is meditatie daarom meer en meer mijn leefwijze geworden en sindsdien ervaar ik steeds vaker stilte en geluk diep van binnen.
Een relatie als heilige graal om je compleet te voelen is de norm als je leeft vanuit je persoonlijkheid. Ik heb gemerkt dat die norm verdwijnt als je vanuit je essentie leeft. Dan ervaar je namelijk dat je al compleet bent. In wezen is iedereen compleet – als je het binnen in jezelf zoekt kun je het ervaren. En dan zie je ook dat je persoonlijkheid enkel het instrument is van je hart, niet meer en niet minder.
In plaats van naar binnen te gaan, zoeken veel mensen geluk buiten zichzelf: in relaties, werk, sport, online. Het verdrietige is dat dat soort geluk altijd voorbij gaat. Daar zijn we dan ook bang voor, wanneer we op die manier gelukkig zijn. En terecht. Maar als je ervaren hebt dat het geluk binnen in je ligt te wachten om gevonden te worden, raak je gemotiveerd om je persoonlijkheid te openen zodat je kunt gaan leven vanuit jezelf. Dat kun je leren door aandachtstraining en coaching.
I started out in a traditional relationship. After a while, my husband and I both started thinking about the limitations of monogamy, and we decided to try an open relationship. That was in our hippie days. It was good to explore. It gave us space and freedom. Still, we ended up separating, because it was more complicated than we could handle at the time. Since then, I’ve had two long-term relationship, and meanwhile, I’ve learned more and more about how to live with myself. I also had a relationship with a married man for a couple of years. That was a kind of test: can I take care of myself? Can I enjoy life as it is, without wanting more? I didn’t expect him to choose, and I don’t think I was the only one. That wasn’t what mattered to me. By then, I no longer saw a partner as my property. We had some great times together, and I didn’t need anyone but myself.
Your personality is a biological entity that tries to make connections, and that’s fantastic, but if you become dependent on it for your happiness, you’ll end up disappointed. I’m delighted to have close relationships with other people. They give me a way to express my love. I have terrific connections with my children and grandchildren, as well as with friend, meditators in my group, professional peers, and clients. So what do you mean, I’m single?
If someone comes along who feels the same inner wholeness I do, who doesn’t need me but loves having me around, then that person is very welcome. I feel at home with myself - and if I lose touch with that feeling for a moment, which certainly happens, I always know the way back home.
eva@evawolf.nl
06-21521819
Gijsbrecht van IJselsteinstraat 217
1018 KJ Amsterdam
Drs Eva Wolf
Registertherapeut RBCZ
Lid NVPA
KvK nr. 01168049