This Finding Bliss post ties in with the last in our Detox for the Soul series that we have been working with in yoga classes to start 2022.

Please also read:

Part 1 – Detox the Pineal Gland
Part 2 – Activate Your Pineal Gland
Part 3 – Reconnecting to Mother Earths Heartsong

We are bringing together much of what we have learnt in the first 3 parts, looking within us and to nature, to find out more about who we are and what life is about beyond the 3D reality.

In yoga the state of bliss is known as Samadhi or Ananda, it is the state of complete absorption in focussed meditation, it is Enlightenment, a pure source of Divine Union between the Self and the Universe.

To know bliss, is to know the Truth, Light and Love. It is a state we can all taste, if only slightly, in moments on our yoga mat or meditation cushion when we glimpse that true state of liberation beyond the material dimension, when we witness complete awareness of the self, beyond ego and beyond mind.

Finding Bliss could also simply be called finding happiness, joy and a being in a state of lightness and love. The look of complete serenity and tranquility on the familiar face we all know of Buddha, could be described as pure bliss.

Find out more about what Samadhi means here

How do we find bliss when we live in the world we do? Is it something that seems simple for the ancient yogis living simple lives dedicated to their practice day after day, or the Bodhisattvas who follow the path of the Buddha throughout their lives? Our culture is not designed with bliss at its core? The constant search and struggle to find happiness, takes a lifetime and  is elusive for most.

How do we find our bliss, when society hides it so well?

If our society were a family, the parents would be austere, authoritarian, ambitious, materialistically driven, consumer centred and possibly also abusive, deceitful, intolerant and very critical, but would keep the children comfortable, well fed and entertained. The children in this unpleasant family, would be controlled, obedient, passive, easily manipulated, afraid of abuse and criticism and willing to do anything to be allowed to stay in the home, be looked after and enjoy the benefits and comforts of living in this family.

Sound familiar?

Its not nice to have to admit that we live in an unpleasant world that is very toxic and it seems for millions of people living in our society, its much easier to bury our light and hearts and go along with the way things are. There is great  fear of being ostracised or pushed out and therefore possibly having to struggle to live and lose all our comforts. We love our comforts!

But just as the children living in the family described above, might seem looked after, well fed and very well behaved, underneath they have lost themselves since birth and may never find happiness, because they don’t know themselves or what could make them happy, the inner compass and potential for bliss is lost.

To find bliss, we do have to step out of conformity and regimented ideas of what life is about.

We have to start to question everything and see if there is more to life than what we have been given and told.

There has to be a risk involved in letting go of the old ways of society and a willingness to try something new.

Life is made so complicated and society is designed to feed a toxic desire for more, to risk finding bliss, we have to trust that there is a simpler and more wholesome way.

Bliss is a State of Consciousness

To find bliss we must let go of all desire to make it happen, to create it or to try to fix and control the world into behaving in such a way that we can be happy.

The search for bliss is a futile one, just as a search for anything to come to us from the outside, will always be dissatisfying. Whether its a new car, job, relationship or holiday, we always need more, or the next one, or something to be new, different, fresh or exciting.

We could spend our entire lives searching for bliss, just as the next material gain, or do we instead try to find a new state of consciousness and see what we find within?

True bliss is not subjective to external events and circumstance in our lives. Its hard to connect with as our society teaches us from a young age, that this is absolutely not the case. We are taught that we need a comfortable home, a job, family, nice car, clothes and to be able to keep up with trends, neighbours and continually be moving on an upward trajectory in our career, finances, social life and so must our children in their lives, to prove our own success.

To break out of this programming is true liberation. We look to Eastern cultures and indigenous civilisations for spiritual knowledge and wisdom, but we can find all we need here where we are, just by reconnecting to ourselves and nature. We don’t need to journey to India, the Amazonian jungle or far off lands, to find our bliss.

How can we find our Bliss, when chaos surrounds us?

The search for inner happiness, begins with the liberation of programming and conditioning that the search is outside of ourselves and then moves towards a deeper spiritual connection.

We can go back to what we learnt about the spiritual centre we have within us, the Pineal Gland – Third Eye Chakra, the seat of spiritual awareness and consciousness within, read back over my previous posts here and here.

We can also go over what we discovered about the mysteries of Mother Earth and how she can support us in our search for inner peace and joy, read the post here.

I recently ran a yoga retreat where our theme was Finding Bliss, one evening we held a circle and I asked each guest to share how they found their bliss. Everyone came back to the same simple answer, as well as yoga, meditation and the love of family and friends, the repeated response was nature.

Being in nature takes us back to ourselves, we come home. Natures beauty reminds us that all is well, all is perfect, we are literally surrounded by bliss. More than that, living in harmony with nature is our natural state of being and to be in tune with Mother Earths rhythms, is to be in tune with our own hearts and our soul.

But if bliss is our birthright, for each and every human being on the planet, surely it must be detached from any external circumstance, including access to nature.

We have all heard stories of political prisoners, perhaps locked away for decades, who were able to stay connected to their bliss despite being cut off from all but the four walls that surrounded them. During lockdown of 2020, were we all suddenly refused to be in bliss because many of us were refused access to each other and the outside world? What would happen if we found ourselves confined to a hospital bed or had to spend time away from Mother Earths heartsong in the concrete jungle of a large city?

To truly be connected to the state of consciousness that is bliss, we must be able to remove all circumstance and be able to sit in pure joy and happiness, no matter what.

A Meditation

So lets try:

• Come to sit now, wherever you are, whatever the situation you are in
• Do not try to change the environment you are in, in any way
• If there is noise around you, let it be there, if you are not completely comfortable let that be, etc
• Close your eyes
• Take some deep breaths
• Tune into your breath and really feel it, hear it and enjoy it
• Turn to your body and relax, let go of any tension, recognise tightness and release it
• Look at what is happening in your mind, notice busy, chaotic thoughts, judgements and preferences about where you are and the environment you are in, let go of all of these and tune back to your breath
• Become more deeply aware of where you are, the feel of the surface you are sitting on, the sounds around you, the smells, allow your senses to expand and your awareness to evolve
• Notice the blank screen behind your closed eyes, Chidakasha, the sky of consciousness within
• Don’t force seeing your Chida, just gently allow it to be and watch, softly
• You are completely in the moment
• You are completely tuned into the now
• See what you find there…..

Try these other meditations by the same people who made the Samadhi film series

Allow the Chaos to be there, stay centred in your Bliss

A visualisation

Try this visualisation, this is a beautiful meditation to work with after a yoga practice, after the practice outline above, during a walk in nature, or at any time when life starts to feel overwhelming:

• Stand or sit and tune into your breath and relax
• Close your eyes
• Imagine you are stood in the very centre of a tornado, a whirlwind
• All around you is spinning, complete chaos
• Imagine that within this tornado are all aspects of your life that are overwhelming you
• See the faces of people, family, friends, colleagues, who are stressing you out
• See the places that you are having to rush around too, or you wish you didn’t have to go to
• See all the things in life that you have to do, chores, work, bills, responsibilities, to do lists etc
• Imagine them spinning around you, but stay completely centred and strong within this chaos
• Feel your feet or hips on the surface you are sitting or standing on
• Feel your breath holding you steady and stable
• Bring a half Buddha smile to your face, gently turn up the corners of your mouth
• Tell yourself all is well, in this moment and that this spinning whirlwind can not touch you
• Remind yourself that all is well within you and all chaos is created by the mind
• You can come back to this visualisation whenever you need to remember to be still and to not let life drag you into its drama

Did you know that Mother Earth has a ‘heartbeat’? Its referred to as the Schumann Resonance, flashes of lightning that strike our planet roughly 50 times every second and results in the formation of low-frequency electromagnetic waves. Its thought that these waves could affect human behaviour and even our consciousness levels.

We know so little about our planet and its rhythms, just as in my last two blogs I wrote about how little we understand about ourselves, in Detox the Pineal Gland and Activate the Pineal Gland – Third Eye Centre.

This blog ties us in to a series of Yoga Classes I am sharing during January 2022 as a kickstart to the New Year – Detox for the Soul. See classes in person and online here.

See also Part 1 – Detox Your Pineal Gland, Third Eye Centre.
Part 2 – Activate Your Pineal Gland
Part 4 – Finding the Bliss within, when Chaos surrounds us

What is the Schumann Resonance?

The earth is resonating at a base frequency of 7.83 Hz, this was first discovered in the 1950s by Winfried Otto Schumann. The levels of this frequency go up and down in waves and its known that recently this frequency has been seen to shoot up to really high levels not seen before, in the past 2 years, 2020-2022.

Could this be related or in sync with the mass spiritual awakening that is happening on the planet at this time?

The 7.83Hz level relates to a human beings brain waves and correlates to Alpha/Theta which is the frequency that induces relaxation, sleep, cell regeneration and healing. But what happens to this natural frequency sync between us and our planet, when we are surrounded by unnatural waves of frequency from power supplies, telecommunications, appliances, computers and other devices? For example, the frequency of electromagnetic radiation, powers cell phones, tvs, radio etc, ranges from 30,000 Hz to 300 Billion Hz. Is it any surprise we are so disconnected from our Mother Earths Heart Song, her heartbeat when we are surrounded by these?

It has been proven by scientific experiments that tuning into 7.83Hz, the planet’s own magnetic frequency people experience benefits like enhanced learning/memory, body rejuvenation, balance, improved stress tolerance, anti-jetlag, anti-mind control, and grounding. On the other hand, experiments were done, where Schumann resonance, the exposure of 7.83 Hz frequency was removed from individuals environment. The subjects reported migraine headaches, emotional distress, and other health problems. This shows how important it is to be in tune with the Earth’s magnetic frequency.

We can use Binaural Beats to help us resonate with the frequency of our planet, see my last blog for more details on how to find these and listen to them daily.

Mother Earths Magnetic Field

The earths magnetic field is all around us, yet we do not tend in our daily lives, to think or consider it often. The field can affect our brain and body, here’s an extract from an article published in Discover Magazine:

There’s no escaping magnetic fields — they’re all around us. For starters, the Earth itself is like a giant magnet. A spinning ball of liquid iron in our planet’s core generates the vast magnetic field that moves our compass needles around and directs the internal compasses of migrating birds, bats, and other animals. On top of that, ever-industrious humans have produced artificial magnetic fields with power lines, transport systems, electrical appliances, and medical equipment.

We may not be able to see, hear, feel, or taste the magnetic fields that surround us, but some may wonder whether they can still exert effects on our bodies and brains.

There is much research available online about how the Earths magnetic field affects animals and birds. Scientists know that birds can see the field and use it to navigate incredible distances, but hardly anything is known about how the magnetic field affects us. Much research that is carried out, is often dismissed as a ‘hippie nonsense’ which is a shame as we know that we are no different from other creatures on the planet, we were designed to live here in harmony, so why would humans be the only species that is not affected by the field?

This again, opens up a lot of questions about how we are affected, many hard to answer, Google will not tell us, so lets keep asking!

There has been some research done into cells actually responding to magnetic fields, read about it here in Forbes.

Our Magnetic Field Or Aura

Just as our Mother Earth has a field, so do we. We call it an Aura. Heres an interesting extract from the Centre for Biofield Studies in Pune, Indian:

The presumption of the existence of the “Aura”, is based upon the principle that all mental activity is electromagnetic. While some medical theorists argue that mental activity is chemical, because of the chemical neurotransmitters involved, the fact is that neurotransmitters are created only when electrical impulses induce a voltage in a neuron which exceeds its firing threshold.

In addition, EEG (electroencephalogram) technology shows that mental activity can be effectively analyzed and monitored entirely by electromagnetic principles. In electrical engineering, it is an established principle that all electrical currents produce surrounding electromagnetic (EM) fields. Accordingly, our psychological and emotional activities are sent throughout the body as electrical impulses, radiating electromagnetic fields outside the body, which are characteristic of the mental activity that generated them. Indeed, even the mere movement of atoms will produce a quantifiable electromagnetic field.

This is most clearly observed in the case of charged radioisotopes, but even neutral atoms and molecules will emit a field through valence motion of the charged substructure particles. As proven by Russian Tesla technology experiments in the 1950s, this phenomenon causes prokaryotic organisms to produce an external electromagnetic field, which consists of the combined EM emissions from millions of molecules in the biological body.

Could our own bio-magnetic energy field, or aura, be affected by and connect with that of Mother Earth?

Grounding and Earthing to Mother Earth

Its so simple and we have been working in harmony with the earth for thousands of years, until very recently. Simply taking time to really connect to Mother Earth and walking on bare earth is exactly what we have done for aeons. Until the past decades, we did not have synthetic shoes, concrete, tarmac and were always connecting to the planet.

We can be sure that our disconnection with the Earth is creating all kinds of health problems that could so easily be fixed.

• Take 10 minutes a day to sit or lie on the Earth, on grass, and or rock, without shoes
• Walk barefoot whenever possible
• Lie facedown and enjoy a heart bond connection with our Mother
• Buy an Earthing mat and use it in your bed or at your desk
• Spend time ‘Forest Bathing’ (a fancy way of saying, hanging out in the woods!)
• Get away from power supplies, right out into the fields or woodlands and leave the phone behind too
• Practice yoga and meditation outside whenever possible

Do more research into how the Earth can really support us in our healing, both physical and emotional, spiritual issues. Watch the film Earthing to get really inspired by how simply hanging out on the Earth can heal:

How can Yoga & Meditation Help?

A yoga practice can help us to reconnect with our souls and therefore feel closer and more in harmony to Mother Earth.

Regular yoga sessions can bring a balance that we may not have felt in many years and we start to become more finely tuned to the Heart Song of our Planet. Listening more sensitively to our bodies and minds, the call from within to reconnect with nature, to spend time listening to bird song, walking and spending time outside, removing toxins from our lives and our environment, not only those we can see, but the more subtle toxins like EMFs etc.

Our bodies channels that need re-aligning can become supported by yoga and as our body aligns with itself, it will naturally align with the Earth. We become more acutely connected to the seasons, the moon, the energy around us, we feel and sense more and this results in feeling better on many levels and more positive.

We notice we feel better when we are in harmony with Mother Earth and her rhythms and cycles. We enjoy sunlight more, moonlight more and begin to crave the outdoors!

Working with a yoga practice that helps to balance the Root/Earth Chakra can be very helpful when we feel out of alignment with nature and are craving her. If we are unwell for a period and can’t get outside,  if we live somewhere it is difficult to be in nature or if we have a job that keeps us tied to a desk, surrounded by technology. A yoga session that focuses on the Root can be really helpful and a quick, easy way to feel the Earth beneath us, even if we are on the 20th floor of a tower block.

Here is a link to a yoga practice I recorded in a live stream zoom class during lockdown 2020. Its for beginners and its called Earth Connection with Yoga & Meditation 

Other Ideas to Reconnect to Mother Earth

Try aromatherapy oils, here’s a video during a zoom yoga class I made during lockdown Feb 2021 about using aromas to help you ground.

Look into Earth Energy and Leylines, the earth has meridian channels just as we do, so look into how this works and see if you might have some earth energy around you. Sacred sites, churches and hill forts were always built by our ‘more in tune’ ancestors at locations where earth energy was powerful. If you look on an Ordnance Survey map and can line up at least 5 sites with a ruler, you are very likely to be on a Leyline.

Find out more online and if you live near me in Dorset we are so lucky to be surrounded by beautiful sacred sites that allow this Earth Energy to flow.

Hug trees, they love it and so will you!!

Your Pineal is a tiny gland situated behind your eyes, so why is it so important we focus on ways to activate the pineal gland and on its healthy function?

This blog forms part of a series of yoga classes i am sharing in Dorset and on Zoom in January 2022, please see yoga class times here 

See also Part 1 – Detox Your Pineal Gland, Third Eye Centre.
Part 3 – Reconnecting to Mother Earths Heartsong
Part 4 – Finding the Bliss within, when Chaos surrounds us

What are we missing and how do we know its missing?

The problem with the pineal is that we don’t actually realise there is a problem! We are missing something that we don’t know is missing. How can we, when we live in a society where Divine Connection, living in harmony with Mother Nature and trusting our deep instincts are not considered relevant or a priority for us?

In yoga, we know the pineal as the Third Eye Chakra or Ajna, it is the seat of our spiritual awareness. In Part 1 we looked out how an unhealthy pineal can create sleep problems, stress and disease.

An unhealthy Third Eye centre can result in a feeling of uncertainty, confusion, jealously can be an issue and an attitude cynicism and pessimism can prevail.  When the Third Eye is working harmoniously and is beautifully open, we can have more clarity, trust our intuition, feel empathy for others and be more focussed and decisive in life.

When we work to Activate the Pineal Gland, we can move into even more deep realms of human connection. Feeling more at one with the natural world and a true part of it and beginning to let go of our ego and create a spiritual life instead.

See Part 1 for more information on DMT, secreted by the pineal and vital for anyone wishing to enhance their imagination, visualisations, lucid dreaming, astral projection, meditation and open up the inner portal to higher spiritual realms.

How to Activate the Pineal Gland

We worked with pineal activation meditation and yoga during our yoga classes in January 2022. If you missed the classes try this:

Meditation

• Clear your mind and completely relax
• Breath deeply and connect to your inhale and exhale
• Become aware of the blank screen behind your closed eyes, your Chidakasha
• Imagine a pure white light within your head, behind your closed eyes.
• Hold the inner intention that this light is activating your pineal and the visionary chemicals within

Yoga

• All yoga practice can help the pineal, but some poses specifically target this area
• Anjaneyasana – low lunge – hold – place the palms together and touch thumbs to the third eye centre
• Parsvottonasana – hold – Right foot forwards, left foot back with hips aligned to the front of the mat and hips square, fold forwards, chin towards the shin, gaze to big toe, hands can be behind the back or lower to the floor. Keep awareness to the third eye. Change sides
• Janu Sirasana – sit with right foot tucked into the left thigh, fold forwards keeping awareness to the third eye. Change sides.
• Baddha Konasana – sit with soles of the feet togethe and fold forwards, awareness to the third eye.
• Viparati Korana – legs up the wall, lie with legs up the wall or onto a chair

Sun Gazing

Take time to research this practice further and decide if its right for you. We are discouraged from looking at the sun at all but absorbing the energy of the sun directly into the eyes can have profound effects on the pineal gland.

Qigong

A beautiful exercise practise, Qigong translates to mean “life energy cultivation” or “energy skills”. The movements and flows are designed to increase sensitivity to energy flow with the body, the chi, or qi, we call it prana in yoga. These will all help to activate and flow energy to the third eye centre.

Binaural Beats

Do a search on any music streaming service, youtube etc and find a really good recording that resonates for you. Listen with headphones and listen often.

Binaural beats are a tone created in the brain when it is presented with two different frequencies at the same time.

In 1839, a Prussian physicist named Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that if you play one frequency in one ear, and a different one in the other, then your brain cleverly creates a new frequency, the difference between that in your left ear, and that in your right and focuses on this new frequency. This, the difference between the two, is the binaural beat.

What’s interesting and lies behind meditation music, focus music or sleep music  is that you can use binaural beats to help you find a certain sound to change your state of mind.

You can do this by listening, for example, to a tone of 410hz in your left ear and 400hz in your right ear – meaning your brain will make up the difference and hear an imaginary tone of 10hz.

This tone is the binaural beat.

At that very low-frequency, you can’t actually hear a sound. But you don’t need to be able to hear the sound for your brain to be affected by it.

And if you’re feeling sluggish and need some focus music to up your brain’s tempo and make you fire on all cylinders, then your brain needs focus music that provides an imaginary tone of a high – level frequency to help it do this.

There are five major types of brainwaves:

• Gamma – Your brain produces Gamma brainwaves to heighten your mental ability. At this higher frequency (above 40hz) they are also associated with conscious perception, fear and problem solving.
• Beta – Your brain produces beta brainwaves when you’re a state of high alert. With your beta brainwaves in action, you’re able to do those complicated, analytical tasks at work, make decisions and concentrate well. Beta waves are fast, with a higher frequency (between 15-40 hertz). At the higher levels of this range, beta waves are associated with anxiety.
• Alpha – Your brain produces Alpha brainwave patterns when you’re awake and relaxed, but still alert. Your brain probably reaches this state in your regular yoga class or when you’re in the middle of a creative project, since these Alpha brainwaves are associated with meditation, and also with our ability to be creative. Numbers wise, these alpha waves are slower and lower in frequency (between 9-14 hertz).
• Theta – This brainwave pattern is associated with deep relaxation and with some stages of sleep, including the lighter stages of non-REM (NREM) sleep. REM sleep itself is mostly composed of beta wave and other activity that’s similar to an alert, waking brain. Deep meditation produces theta waves, which are slower and of lower frequency (between 5-8 hertz) than Alpha waves. That murky barrier between sleep and wakefulness, when you’re drifting in and out of sleep, and your thoughts feel dreamlike and difficult to remember? That’s a theta-dominant state of consciousness.
• Delta – When you’re really, properly, deeply asleep, then your brain produces very slow, delta waves (between 1.5-4 hertz).

Working with Binaural Beats will help to activate your pineal gland while you lie and relax.

DMT (N, N-Dimethyltryptamine)

Again, its best to do your own research if you are thinking of working further with DMT, it is secreted naturally by the pineal and many of us are able to activate it through meditation and spiritual practises. There are many fascinating books on the historic use of psychedelics to create this activation and Shamans all over the globe are still actively working with this spiritual connection.

Try books by Graham Hancock, his book Supernatural goes into this subject deeply. Also Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key and Jeremy Narbys classic DNA and the Cosmic Serpent. Also try DMT The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman for lots more on this.