UNFOLDMENT

‘A time will come when your innermost voice will speak to you, saying ‘This is my path, here I shall find peace, I will pursue this path, come what may’ If you will persist and are patient, and above all never lose faith, your path will lead you unerringly to your goal’
White Eagle
Well, here we are. Would you like to know just where “here” is? Earth is located in the universe in the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies. A supercluster is a group of galaxies held together by gravity. Within this supercluster we are in a smaller group of galaxies called the Local Group. Earth is in the second largest galaxy of the Local Group – a galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy. Earth is located on a small spur of one of the two Orion Arms of the Milky Way. Here we are part of the Solar System – a group of eight planets which orbit the Sun. We are the third planet from the Sun in the Solar System. I figure you know the rest of the data: northern hemisphere, USA, eastern seaboard, state of Delaware, township of Milton, on Coastal Highway, between the cornfield & the red barn…How does that make you feel? More expanded, right? That’s unfoldment in space. There’s definitely a divine plan to our placement, a divine order to our being here, in THIS place, at THIS time. Welcome to the place of your divinity!

When I mentioned to a couple of you that the name of my talk today is “unfoldment”, I got a few oohs & ahs. These sounded so wise & & understanding, I wondered what YOU knew that I needed to talk about.

We are all here on earth to unfold. As everything is! An acorn will never be an oak tree if it doesn’t unfold. We’ve spent a year next to this cornfield, and we watched it gather up energy from the earth to sprout, grow, bear a harvest, and then release all of that energy after this cycle. Just so do we gather up energy from any number of sources, sprout, grow, bear fruit & return to the energetic universe. Another name for this cycle is “unfoldment”

While life calls us to grow & change, we Humans have free will. We can stop at anytime & dig in our heels & settle down in the place where we are. We can refuse to make a change. What happens when we do this? Seems to me life doesn’t stop & settle in with us for long. Oh, it’ll allow us a little reciprocity, but overall Life expects so much more of us. God expects more of us. WE expect more of us. From a galaxy to a cornfield, we always start from the tiniest place. The Talmud proclaims over every blade of grass there is an angel whispering: “grow, grow, grow!”

Life is always tapping us on the shoulder. Sometimes it’s a love tap, but if we shake off the interruption too many times, sometimes Life heads out the back of the barn & brings back a 2×4 to use for the next tap. Ever had that happen?

Fortunately, our spiritual selves don’t need Mapquest. We get our downloads through grace & express uploads through prayer. Our energetic bodies have this built-in growth app, called the Chakra System. It’s the equivalent of that angel whispering, “grow, grow, grow!” Our unfolding is built-in, authentic, automatic. It’s a surety that is meant to shoehorn us into spiritual growth.

Neil Kramer, a contemporary mystic, philosopher & author says, we live in a “hit & run world.” He says there are fail-safes to keep us from “spiritual stagnation.” I love that phrase: Spiritual Stagnation. But none of us want that to be a description of any part of our lives. He describes unfoldment as continuing to learn, as not giving away our power or burrowing into the sand – or the television – as we do grow.

I believe the only reason we are here is to find the way to God. The simplest path to God is within, so let’s start by taking a peek at the seven chakras. The western world has only started paying attention to the chakra system recently. They are more they are commonly part of the Eastern body of knowledge.

Each chakra has a color, a symbol and its very own sound. Each has a physical body area it helps activate, balance, energize & heal. Chakras are spinning wheels in our energy bodies, our “aura” if you will. I’ve brought along a Kirlian photograph of my aura, which also shows chakras. It shows my energy egg which fortunately is round, like me! That photos can be taken of these lends a lot to their credibility. So come with me as I describe the seven chakras. So pass it along, if you would.

I feel quite safe saying the existence of a human body is to provide habitation for a soul. Our ideal growth pattern is evolution into wise, loving, compassionate extensions of Source. Here’s how the chakras set us up to do exactly that:

The root chakra, Muladhara, is at the base of our torso. (Its symbol is the four-leaf lotus.)

Each chakra takes about seven years to open fully. You know that old saw that every seven years your life changes? This dovetails with that. In some religions, seven is the “age of reason” & when the indicators that we are more than physical beings begin to manifest. In times past, when a child reached seven years, statistical chances of survival rose exponentially. Till then, they were simply too fragile for the world. So during the first seven years of life, the root chakra is all about your being physical being in the world. It’s concerned with issues related to survival, like food, shelter, sleep, protection, & the practicalities of survival. If we don’t remember our first seven years here, we’ve all experienced how powerfully children are connected to survival. Threats are met with some powerful resistance, even if that threat to a child’s survival is not having that ice cream cone right now!

From 7 to 14, the second chakra, Savadhisthana, begins to develop. (Its symbol is the six-leaf lotus.) Second chakra is located about two finger-widths below the navel.

Once called the sexual chakra, now called the “polarity” chakra, Savadhistana is associated with creativity. From 7 to 14, our physical characteristics develop. In the beginning of this developmental cycle, girls & boys separate from each other – like repelling magnets. Life can be all about the body as it radically changes from child to young adult.

From 14 to 21, third chakra is defined: Manipura (with a symbol of the ten-leaf lotus.) Manipura is where we locate the solar plexus in the physical body. Literally, our light begins to shine on the world as we develop social relationships. Our roots are grounded; we have a good idea about our male/female growth patterns. We now relate to others independently. Usually teens relate better to outsiders from the family while family members get short shrift.

21 to 27 brings Anahata or heart chakra (the twelve-leaf lotus) online. After reaching out to society in general, finding our place in the pecking order, we move from general relationships to specific relationships. Often this is the time when a relationship gets “serious.” This is when we relate on a heart-to-heart basis with one other & make decisions about our lives within that loving context. We narrow the broad beam from the solar plexus to the more specific tight beam of the heart. For a long time, this was the time when society expected us to connect romantically, to refine our territory to a one to one.

Around 27, Vishuddha, the 16-leaf lotus, lights up. During 27 to 35, we may change our minds about that one to one relationship. Or that the satisfactions of life cannot be found in the job we have held since graduation. This is where we consolidate our power, refine our definition, state our identity more powerfully. By this time, we stand or fall when it comes to speaking our personal truth. Now the throat isn’t just a voicebox. Remember the chakras are not specific, like stage spotlights; they are general energy centers. What’s in or around your throat? The Thymus (T-cells, immune system) or maybe what are we allergic to in our life? The thyroid is here & that’s about brain development (we are defined by what we say about our thoughts.) Here also are the glands producing digestive enzymes for saliva. So Vishuddha additionally can participate in our tastes of life – food & otherwise, how we break life down into bites to assimilate it and so on. 27 to 35 establishes our power in the world. If our children were born in our twenties, by 35 they are old enough to be on their own pretty much & we are freer to move about in the world, to do our own thing.

35 to 42 is the age span that empowers Ajna, or the third-eye chakra. Our spiritual eye awakens. We rely on subtle perceptions more. The front of the brain is more about perception than reaction. Physically, behind the third eye is the frontal lobe which is about the ability to project future consequences of current actions, it helps us choose between good/bad or better/best actions. We can decide to override or suppress what doesn’t really fit anymore. We determine what’s alike & what’s different between events or things. Frontal lobe remembers emotional memories.

Last, we come to the crown chakra, Sahasrara, right here where the bones join – called “the place of 1,000 meetings” with a thousand-petal lotus. Some will tell you it floats just above the head. Crown chakra is the location where Heaven speaks to us and from which we speak to Heaven in return. Seems only fitting that crown chakra wakes at 42 – the kids are mostly grown, our place in life is mostly established. Remember, not too long ago in history 42 would have been old age. What better time to open communications with what comes next? With our divinity? This is where a monk’s tonsure was shaved – to bare his scalp to a more direct divine contact.

The seven chakras are supposed to open sequentially. But Life is not logical. And our body chemistry isn’t always sequential, especially when stimulated by additives & hormones in the general food supply. Emotional events impact us heavily: a death, a broken heart, or an epiphany can all blow a chakra wide open or dim it down, or even close it off. If you’ve been told you can’t sing, throat chakra may shrink. If you feel like you’re a “loser,” solar plexus may not have enough energy to relate to others well or at all.

In India, when someone has an ecstatic experience & discovers God, they are said to be “God-struck.”, and there are shelters to help take care of them since they may not know how to take care of themselves. Remember, if the lower chakras didn’t open or were ignored in favor of talking to Heaven, those life-skills got skipped over. These people may see God in every cloud, but this can mean they don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

There are exercises to clear or clean your chakras, to re-open them or rebalance them. Energy healers can also help. You can measure your own levels of energy coming from each by focusing your attention on them mentally or even with your hands. Give yourself a chance with this, we are dealing with very subtle energy here.

If you watch an infant sleep, you’ll see that they expand with every breath. They unfold when you simply hold their gaze with love in your eyes. We do the same in the light of a loving Creator who looks deeply, expressively, into our eyes each time we see someone we love, a friend, a pet, or even a leaf opening on our favorite plant or tree. Daily, we drive past unfolding fields. Our magnificent ocean is always unfolding, in the form of waves when the water unfolds into surrender on the beach.

So we, too, rise on currents of lovingkindness to bathe another in our sheer-light beauty – one human unfolding to another. We keep ourselves from spiritual stagnation when we do that which is ours to do.

Unfolding is seen as a guerrilla tactic by the ego which wants everything to stay just the same so it can tell you you’re boring, unbeautiful and ten thousand other untrue things. Ego likes to run in place. Spirit wants to explore, discover, Spirit asks you always to participate more with God & creation.

Ego too serves a holy purpose, but “serves” is the keyword in that sentence. Ego is the servant of your spirit. If we can keep our ego out of the driver’s seat, we hold the space for our heart to steer the way.

Think about ways to encourage your heart and soul to unfold. What can you do to make it so? Instead of picking up the remote, pick up your journey-staff and walk out to the road to meet your world for it was created only for you. While you’re at it, breathe in & feel your soul expand all the way out to that Orion Arm.

Thank you.