Navel Gazing 101 – a Mini-Meditation Seminar
Story by: Norma Gentile with Archangel Michael
The Navel Chakra – a quick primer
The primary way that the body generates its own prana (energy or chi) is through the navel chakra and your breath. As you breathe in there are two vortexes located at your physical navel; one in front and in back. With each breath prana is drawn through the back and front vortexes of the navel chakra into the core of your body. To the extent that the navel chakra (both front and back vortexes) are tuned to your soul and body accurately you generate prana that is usable by your body now.
Just like any of the multitude of major and minor chakras in our body, our navel chakra is probably somewhat out of tune with our soul’s journey in our body. One of the most common causes of not having enough ‘get up and go’ or ‘seeing it through to the end’ is having the navel chakra not tuned to your body, to your soul, or tuned into this moment in time. Too often our navel chakra still reflects the umbilical cord connection to our mother or our family. It can also be tuned to generate energy for our body as it existed during another period of our life. Or even be tuned to generate life force for a spouse or other person we deem more needful or more important than our self.
As the navel vortexes, both in back and in front, are tuned to your body and soul in this moment now, energy is generated that is usable by your entire chakra system. This energy is often referred to as prana or chi. Great Masters of various spiritual traditions have the ability to generate large amounts of prana within their body. This amassing of prana allows them to relate to the physical world without being bound by all of the physical world’s rules. They can, at times, choose to use this prana as a means of moving outside of the rules dictated by our physical universe.
Prana exists all around us. Our personal prana, tuned specifically to our bodies, exists within the pranic tube (running up and down in the center of our bodies) and in pranic spheres located in and around our body. We have the ability to store prana that our body can use within pranic spheres located in our head, heart, and navel. There appear to be other spheres of pranic energy above and below the physical body as well. At the present moment I am seeing the three pranic spheres within the body as being the most active.
The pranic sphere related to the body center lies deep within the body at or just under the navel chakra. Its center point varies from person to person. I see it either directly behind the physical navel or hovering an inch or two lower in the body. This lower position is the most common; where the upper part of the pranic sphere intersects with center of the navel chakra.
The pranic sphere located at your navel is the equivalent of your magic ball. It is the basis of the prana within your pranic tube and hence the entire chakra system. It is from this sphere that prana (energy, chi) is distributed to every major chakra in your body through the pranic tube. Sometimes a depletion of energy in your life or body stems from an inability to generate sufficient prana at the navel chakra.
Each of the major chakras has its center within the pranic tube. Each chakra is supplied with prana from the central channel or pranic tube. Each chakra then collects its own appropriate energies by drawing additional energy or prana from the outside into the core of the chakra through the webbing of the vortex that make up each chakra. The prana provided in the pranic tube mixes with the prana drawn in and tuned by the vortex of the chakra. This prana, unique to each chakra, is then dispersed from the chakra’s core into the pranic tube to other chakras and to layers of the aura surrounding and interpenetrating the physical body. In this fashion the prana generated at the navel chakra becomes the basis of all prana available to your body.
If there is a lack of this most basic navel prana, the entire process of creating energies for the body to use at each of the chakras is greatly diminished. In my private practice I am routinely finding that it is not individual chakra issues we are addressing now, but overall issues related to simply not generating enough navel chakra prana in our daily living.
As a singer I am fortunate because I can set aside time to sing each day. As I sing I naturally breathe deeply and generate prana. When I do yoga or swim I am also generating prana. But how often do we give ourselves permission to do something that has us actively engaged in conscious breathing? For most people the answer is never.
Breathing Practice to Build Prana
Let’s change that with a simple conscious breathing practice you can do on your own. This is especially good to do when needing to move out of boredom or stagnation. Don’t do this while driving as it might make you light-headed or distract you. Do try this while seated and in a location where you feel comfortable.
Find your navel chakra. You may need to put your hand on your body to do this. Now imagine or feel where your navel’s pranic sphere might be. You don’t have to know this exactly or even be sure of it. Just let yourself explore the possibility that there is a sphere of energy within your body at or slightly below your physical navel.
Breathe out all the way. Feel the muscles of your abdomen and lower torso move inward. You may feel the upper abdomen directly below your ribs move inward and also upward a bit. This is the diaphragm moving upward and expelling air out from your lungs.
Now relax and allow the air to move back into all of the areas of your body that it just moved out of. While our intake of air is of course limited to our lungs, the process of breathing can involve almost every muscle of our body. For now, let’s focus on our torso, and allowing all the areas that want to move with the breath to be free to move.
Start with a slow count of two.
One – Two breathe out.
One – Two breathe in.
Repeat four times
Now go to a count of three.
One – Two –Three breathe out.
One – Two – Three breathe in.
Repeat four times
Now do the same on a count of four.
One – Two –Three – Four breathe out.
One – Two – Three – Four breathe in.
Repeat four times. You may continue this pattern of breathing as long as you feel you want to, up to ten minutes.
If at any time you feel you are getting out of breath and need to breathe more quickly do so, and start the breathing pattern over again at One – Two. As you practice this you will find that you can slow down the counting more and more. This type of breathing, inhaling and exhaling at the same speed and amount, generates a lovely quality of balance in the overall energy field of your body. It creates prana that is tuned to your own body’s balance. This breathing pattern done daily will help to supply your body with its own source of well refined prana.
After you finish breathing, or even during the process, you may notice that the pranic sphere appears to be growing larger or brighter. For those who do not see energies, your body may feel fuller or warmer around your navel. This indicates you are successfully generating more of your own prana as you breathe.
You may also notice discomfort in your body or a sense of unease. As you are filling the navel sphere and your pranic tube with your own prana there is less space for energies that are not in tune with your body and soul. As a result these energies are pushed up into your conscious. They are often interpreted as odd or repeating thoughts, relatively sudden emotions or emotionally charged memories, heaviness or quickly arising body aches. These are all interpretations made by your body, mind and heart of energies that no longer fit you and your life.
Ask each thought, emotion, memory and body ache if it is really yours. Is it really yours now, in this moment? I find it best to keep as much of your attention as possible on the breathing process and ask the questions silently as the sensations arise. These questions coming from your consciousness indicate to the energy behind the thought, emotion or physical sensation that you are ready to release it onto its own journey now. There is no need to follow it as it leaves, and most of the time there is no need to know what it is.
If there is something more you need to know please trust that you will get it from within spontaneously or from the Universe at a later point in time. This process of breathing is meant to bring you out of your head and into your body…so stay in the body with the process as much as possible.
Why Build Prana Consciously?
To hear your Spiritual Helpers more clearly.
As you breathe you generate more and more energy that perfectly supports your body. This pranic energy acts as a medium that fills the space between your body, your guides and angels, and your soul. The more this space is filled with your pranic energy, the easier it is for you to hear the messages that are coming to you from your soul, your guides and your angels.
I am sure you have had the experience of being faced with a decision. And as you are presented with the possibilities, one jumps out immediately as being the appropriate choice for you. It feels like a fit to you, and often there is a sense of relaxation or expansion when you are presented with this option. As you build more prana throughout your lifetime your soul’s connection into your body is enhanced. The sensation of what fits and what doesn’t fit is magnified by the presence of this prana, tuned to your body.
What doesn’t fit for you eventually doesn’t fit literally within your body or your aura. For myself, I experience options that don’t fit me as a twisting sensation in my gut. Those situations and choices that do fit me feel comfortable, even though they might appear to be physically difficult to undertake. There is an innate expansion in my auric field when I consider a choice that is appropriate to my soul and body. Acting upon this choice results in my creating more of this same quality of prana to fill my aura.
When we are considering different choices, it is our navel chakra that experiences each of the options first. The pattern of each choice is tested within the navel chakra, and our body tells us the resulting ‘yes’ or ‘no’. We can do this while being presented with the choices (by someone speaking to us, for example “Do you want to go see a movie tonight?”), as well as while we are in a meditative state and holding each option within our mind as a thought or mind’s eye as a picture. For most people feeling their navel chakra and body response to different choices is at first a very subtle art, best done in meditation.
Ideally when we sit quietly and breathe we are generating prana which is accurately tuned to our bodies. Then, as we are faced with a decision, enough prana is present in the various layers of our energy field so that we can feel which option fits best. Without sufficient prana, a means to generate it, and an ability to sit quietly, there is no medium to carry the communication between our body, our guides and angels, and our soul.
Sitting in deep stillness and focusing on our breath is one of the ways we build prana. While it seems to be the simplest, the art of meditating on the breath is quite vast.
In our culture we are seldom exhorted to enter into meditation or a conscious state of deep stillness. We are seldom expected to notice how our buttocks are interacting with the chair or surface upon which we are sitting. In fact, we are seldom praised for being consciously within our bodies much at all, especially that part of ourselves below our waists!
As you breathe while consciously aware of stillness, your heart chakras open more. As your upper thymus gland and traditional heart chakras both open, each breath generates prana, tuned to your soul’s journey, which in turn allows a greater ability for you to be connected from your heart with all that surrounds you.
With this meditation you have linked your heart to your body center. You are beginning to regain the conscious awareness of your body that you had as an infant. This awareness of the physical body ceased as you lived within your culture, but it can be regained. As you do regain it you open into numerous possibilities of sensing and feeling connections to others and to all that surrounds you, both in form and not in form.
Validate the changes you have made…this process will continue!
This essay comes out of thoughts and meditations shared during a recent live channeling. The meditative channeling itself is available as a free podcast #37 Breathing Stillness, Generating at Norma’s podcast page www.healingchants.com/podcasts
Norma Gentile
Sound shaman, is a natural intuitive and channel for Mary, Archangel Michael and the Hathors. She trained as both a professional singer and energy worker.
from: http://spiritofmaat.com/magazine/june-2013-midsummer-solstice-issue/navel-gazing-101-a-mini-meditation-seminar/