Awakening Through Our Senses
"Christ said, "I am the Light of the world," and he added, "
if thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light."
Taurus is, as you have heard, the Mother of Illumination,
and the "eye of the Bull" is the symbol
of the eye to which Christ made reference."
- The Tibetan, Esoteric Astrology
As we continue our Soul's journey through the twelve zodiac signs, the 'spark' of light that ignited in Aries, becomes a beam of light in Taurus. The light is sensing it's way into the world of form.
On a personal level, this is an opportunity to become even more familiar with sensing your own experience. As you go through your day, sense the life-force energy that is always flowing through you. Notice what you spend most of your time doing, and whether that is in the nature of your Sun sign.
Pay attention to your emotions. How do you react when you are emotionally charged? Are those reactions in the nature of your Moon sign? (If you're new to this approach refer back to "Your Essential Guide To Soul Astrology" to check in with your Sun and Moon sign descriptions, and whether they feel true in your experience.
Our spiritual journey is all about waking up to the truth of who we really are as spiritual beings and beings of light. The journey of the Soul through the twelve Zodiac signs is a story of descension into form, and ascension into light. But this all sounds very abstract and esoteric unless we can relate it directly to our own experience. And we do that by directly perceiving our own energy. That's where Taurus comes in.
Directly Perceiving
Taurus is the sign of the senses. Sensing, feeling, directly perceiving. Direct perceiving means bringing our experience sharply into the present moment, and being fully present with the whole experience directly. Take anger, for example. Imagine something happens that causes you to feel angry. Most of the time, we are aware we're angry. We might even be thinking, "I'm angry now - this has ruined my whole day"
Yet every emotion is energy that is flowing through us. The Buddha had six planets in Taurus, and he reached enlightenment because of his great capacity for simply sensing, observing and becoming familiar with his own nature, as it is: without judgement, narrative, or labelling any experience as right or wrong.
Our so-called negative emotions are just a natural part of our energy field. They are part of us. As such, we will never come to fully know our true essence, if we are trying to avoid, or push away emotional states that we think are 'negative'. The key is not to act them out, or suppress them, but to look more closely and simply observe the energy that is running through us, as it is.
"The basic nature of negative emotions is the basic nature of the state of Buddhahood. If a meditator seeks emptiness apart from the negative emotions his search will be in vain. If he contemplates the negative emotions as emptiness he is said to be engaged in right practice"
- "The Inconceivable State of Buddhahood" (Buddhist scripture)
Usually we get so caught up in the narrative of what happened to us that we fail to notice the energy that is running through us. Experienced meditators are able to take their attention off the narrative, drop the thoughts about what happened, and place their attention directly on how the emotion feels. Where is it felt? Is it moving? What are we feeling exactly, that we are labelling anger? In this way we become very familiar with our own energy field.
With practice you can become quite skilled at using every emotion as an opportunity for deepening your awareness of the miracle of life-force energy that is flowing through your body, moment to moment. When you truly relax and embrace the flow of energy, without labels, you may even notice that so-called 'negative' emotions can change, and transform into a blissful feeling of well-being!
The Natural Bliss of Being
In his book "The Natural Bliss of Being" meditation teacher Jackson Peterson teaches a yogic practice where one keeps one's attention on the crown chakra at the top of the head (inside your head about an inch or two beneath your crown). He suggests that if we keep our attention there for long enough, in a relaxed state, we will eventually notice a blissful energy flowing through our entire body.*
This blissful feeling is actually the body filling with light. In other words we experience greater illumination. From this perspective we experience ourselves and everything around us as light. There is no separation. We experience ourselves as an inseparable part of a complete field of light. So in this example we can see the direct connection between sensing energy, a feeling of great well-being or bliss, and illumination.
This is the significance of our Soul's journey through Taurus. Through the Taurus stage of our Soul's journey, our senses allow us to experience light as a feeling of well being. This feeling of well being is our own true nature. It is our essence.
Through direct perception we have the power to experience our true essence directly, through our senses. In this way, we experience our entire field of experience as one. In this blissful view of "one experience" we no longer view things as separate. All things are experienced as one.
This is what Christ meant by the "single eye". All is seen and experienced as one. It is at this stage of our Soul's journey that we truly understand, from our own experience, the deeper meaning of the Tibetan's keynote for Taurus:
"I see, and when the eye is opened, all is illumined."
*for specific instructions on how to practice this technique correctly refer to "The Natural Bliss of Being" by Jackson Peterson. People who have taken psychedelic drugs have also reported similar experiences.
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