Going Within (16 page)

When I was in Egypt I learned that during the time of the pharaohs the ancient function of crystal gemstones was to heal and to provide amplification of each appropriately colored chakra center while meditating upon it. The value of these gems increased through the ages. They seemed to be precious not only because they were rare but because they were needed as healing tools. The ruby, I learned,
was used to heal problems governed by the red, base chakra. Topaz and camelian were used to heal problems governed by the orange, sexual chakra. Yellow sapphire and citrine were used for the solar plexus. Emerald for the heart. Blue sapphire for the throat. Lapis lazuli for the third eye. And amethyst for the crown chakra. White diamonds, which include the light of all colors, became the gem that usually surrounded the others for even further amplification. The greed for gemstones, then, seemed to be originally based upon the desire for amplified health and balance. The nature of crystals and gemstones had a more intimate connection with our lives than I had thought.

Quartz crystal was thought of as the master gemstone. In its functions of healing, quartz crystal had properties that interlinked with at least three of the seven main chakras: the third, solar plexus chakra; the fifth, heart chakra; and the sixth, third eye or face chakra. With crystal amplification these chakras could interlink more effectively with the crown chakra.

I felt as though I was unraveling the real reasons why so many human beings were fascinated by and driven to possess jewels. They seemed to be unconsciously understanding that these many-faceted gems were a gateway to increased consciousness, possibly tools for health, the light to understanding self. Crystals seemed to have properties that were useful in projecting thought forms and storing thought forms dealing with broad universal consciousness.

In nearly all cultures they had been used for centuries as healing tools. They had been used as a point of focus in meditation and had been one of the primary substances in confirming the vibration and concept of invisible or ethereal energy.

I learned that the use of quartz crystals and gemstones went all the way back to the ancient civilizations of India and beyond, even to Lemuria (a continent that is said to have existed where the Pacific Ocean is now). Then they were regarded as cornerstones for the process of thought amplification, whereby, with applied electromagnetic voltage, one’s brain waves could be broadcast through the ethers. Red crystals contained fire energy. Blue crystals, water energy. Clear crystals, air energy. Crystals with two colors represented a balancing of energies.

Quartz crystals were also planted alongside seeds and when meditated upon would significantly increase the speed and size of the seeds’ growth. Crystals, said the books, had their own rates of vibration, just as everything does. A slow-vibrating crystal was a wonderful tool for deep meditation. Crystals with a faster vibrating spectrum helped people to relate to higher levels of cosmic consciousness.

Quartz crystals were used to increase the effectiveness of many other therapies. For example, if acupuncture points were stimulated by stainless steel needles with part of the shaft coated with quartz crystal, there was an enhancement of the therapy’s effectiveness. This is because the life force stimulated
by the manipulation of the needles would help dispel the negative energy blocking that point.

To attune to the seven chakras more quickly, people would lie down and place a quartz crystal on each chakra desired and tune in to the corresponding color and vibrational frequency. The crystal accelerated the amplification of the consciousness to each chakra.

I became so fascinated with what I learned that I began to experiment with crystals myself. In a darkened room I placed the crystal given to me at eye level on a high table. Then I lit a candle behind it and sat down next to it. I gazed into the crystal and projected positive and loving thought forms into it. I had the feeling that they reverberated back to me. It was very pleasant. Then I tried negative and angry thought forms. I had the feeling that that is what I got back. I became uncomfortable. I made my choice. For an hour I sat in front of my crystal with the candle behind it and just gazed into it with thoughts that were as pleasant as I could conjure up. It was a wonderful evening. And I slept better than I had in weeks. Maybe the crystal was a powerful tool in amplifying the positive thought waves in my mind just as they amplified sound waves in a radio or light waves in a TV.

Another time I asked a friend of mine to try an experiment with me. We sat facing each other in a darkened room with several quartz crystals at eye level between us on a glass table. Again I lit a candle.
This time
below
the crystal. Then I put on some soft music and when we stopped giggling we gazed into each other’s eyes through the illuminated crystals. We attuned to our seven chakras while doing this (he was on his own spiritual search!) and soon we each felt a deeper attunement to the other on an esoteric and spiritual level. Slowly we found we were feeling a more profound understanding of each other’s sensitivities. It was wonderful, particularly when we allowed ourselves to take it seriously. It sort of cemented our friendship, and we have exchanged crystals ever since.

A few couples I know apply this technique. They say they feel they are working directly to harmonize the flow of their chakras and all the emotions that these entail. They say this technique brings them into a truer understanding of the inner nature of each other. Disruptive attitudes disappear. False values fall away, and the emotional sharing that develops as a result of the spiritual honesty allows them to confront difficult issues that might otherwise take them years to have the courage to explore. When these issues are confronted and shared, a cleansing occurs and deeper harmony results.

Now, whenever I am feeling out of sorts, I balance my chakra system with the use of whatever crystal is my favorite at the time. Let me say here that crystals almost speak to individual human beings. They seem to say “I belong to you.” However, very soon one realizes that crystals are not to be owned permanently. They are to be enjoyed and passed on.

It is necessary to cleanse your crystals about once a month to rid them of a buildup of negative energy. (Crystals store negative as well as positive energy.)

The process of cleansing is very simple. Immerse the crystal in salt water (preferably sea salt instead of table salt) and apple cider vinegar and leave it out in the sunlight for about a day.

When working with any healing stone you are well advised to cleanse it even if no one else has handled it.

I have been told that another good use of crystals is to put one on top of your TV. It draws in the radiation that color TV emits. Remove it every three months and cleanse it in sea salt for a day to draw out the radiation. Be careful to pick up the crystal from the TV with a cloth; otherwise, you are absorbing radiation from the TV into your body.

When I meditate for healing purposes, I place a colored stone (gem quality is not necessary, the color is all that matters) on the chakra that requires the most attention. (A small piece of surgical tape will keep it in place.) Then I “breathe” in the color of the stone to the chakra that I feel is blocked.

If I’m emotionally upset over something, I know my solar plexus chakra can use some help: yellow stone. If I’m afraid, my base chakra needs attention: red stone. If I feel a lack of creativity, I use an orange stone and breathe in orange to my second chakra, et cetera…. This is what is meant by holistic healing, or at least it is one of the methods.

Some people prefer to swallow gemstone elixirs, which are derived by placing a stone in clear water for a day in the sunlight. The vibration of the stone is conducted by the water.

However one wishes to use quartz crystals and gemstones, it would be well to realize that the real healing comes with the enhancement of meditation and creative visualization. Don’t rely on the crystals and gemstones to do it for you. The consciousness brought to the exercise is
everything.

The process of aligning the mind, body, and spirit through meditation and visualization with the aid of a crystal makes you an active healer of your own malady. By calming and stilling the mind and by allowing the integration and intervention of the spirit, you become a more fully realized human being, recognizing that you are functioning on a spiritual as well as mind and body levels. Therefore, through the activation of your conscious awareness, you are affecting your body.

With the increase in spiritual awareness, the human being unifies and raises the body frequency, which in turn manufactures an increase in energy flow.

So, meditation with color visualization, meditation with colored stones placed on the chakra centers, and the ingestion of colored-gem elixirs are pleasant and subtle ways of self-healing and aligning the mind, body, and spirit.

But the most immediate and convenient technique
in a crisis is “color breathing.” For example, if you need to understand the reason you have created the dinner to burn just before guests arrive, try turning off the stove and relax for a moment. Breathe in violet or indigo air. Simply picture the air as violet. Let the color live in its vividness in your mind’s eye, relax again, and breathe it in. Not only can breathing violet be calming, but because it is the color of Divine purpose, you might find the cosmic lesson in the burned meat!

I keep a necklace of colored stones with me at all times. If I need to remind myself of the blue of sapphire before I breathe in blue, I lift the colored stone to the sun (a small stone is fine), register the blue in my memory, and immediately translate the blue of the stone to the air I’m breathing.

Breathing pink is extremely calming. Pink is the color of human Divinity. Some prisons—for instance, Attica and Folsom—are now using pink on the walls of rooms that house particularly disturbed criminals. There are those in spiritually advanced circles who claim that a new energy center is developing in the human being located between the throat and the heart. It is being referred to as the “peace” chakra and its color is pink.

Color breathing is as much fun as it is healing. And it is amusing and tender for me to realize that the tools for health and alignment are all at our disposal simply by allowing our consciousness to become aware and to access them. And they are free.

The day after the Cleveland seminar I traveled to Canada to visit the famous Crystal Skull, owned and cared for by the woman who found it in an archaeological dig in South America with her father, Sir Michael Mitchel-Hedges, seventy years before. It is clearly one of the wonders of the world, a museum piece extraordinaire, but Anna promised her father and the natives from whose land it was excavated that she would always personally care for it. All involved understood that the Crystal Skull needed contact and human attention.

I walked into Anna’s living room and saw it there on her coffee table. She gestured for me to pick it up and hold it. I did. It was heavy, about twelve pounds. As soon as I held it I felt as though it responded to me. It was so pleasantly strange. I sat on the floor with the skull in my lap; then, for some reason, rolled it around on the carpet. I could have sworn I felt it laugh with enjoyment. It seemed alive. Anna said everyone who had held it had similar reactions. She smiled at me and very quietly left the room.

I lay on the floor and held the skull up to the light. I thought I saw dimensions and other worlds swim in and out of my mind’s eye as the connection with the crystal amplified my thoughts. (Mitchel-Hedges believed the crystal was an Atlantean relic that has communicated its identity down through the ages.) Finally I lay down and placed the skull on my chest and meditated. Again I felt it communicate to
me. Pictures from other times and other places swam in front of my eyes. It was as though I needed to see them, and somehow on a visceral level I knew I was looking at parts of my past and clearing away emotional debris. I fell into a kind of sleep-reverie and experienced myself in an Atlantean temple of some kind. The walls were crystal and the human beings who sat meditating were androgynous-looking. A perfect balance of male and female. Suddenly there was my father, dressed in a crystal-fabric robe, giving a lecture. He wasn’t speaking, though. He was teaching through thought transference! The lesson was on the importance of balancing the yin-female and the yang-male in every human being. Then he instructed everyone to concentrate on the second chakra, the sexual center. Just as he emphasized the
second
chakra, Anna’s grandfather clock struck two. I came out of the meditation. I had been meditating for two hours! Such alternative realities there are to experience when one allows oneself the adventure.

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Sound Meditation