Does God, your higher self, or the vortices in Sedona exist or not?
Have you ever been to beautiful Sedona, Arizona? I was there recently at the Airport Mesa Vortex. Living in Sedona is like living on a postcard; the scenery is so beautiful that it feels surreal. As you probably know, Sedona has several locations scattered throughout the valley between rock formations designated as vortices. A vortex is a place that exhibits unique geological energies that can increase and enhance intuition, perception, intention, vitality, and even wisdom.
Whether you believe these vortices really exist or not is up to you. Many people come to Sedona to meditate, pray, and perform rituals in the vortexes. These people have deep and profound experiences in these sacred places and absolutely validate their existence. Others come to Sedona with an open mind and visit places out of curiosity just to see if they experience anything; some do, some don’t. And others have no interest in vortices, they believe that they have no power or existence in the real world, and that they are made-up fantasies of slightly “crazy” people.
You don’t have to have an open mind and believe in the Sun to validate its existence; anyone can look up to the sky and see the brilliant ball of light burning. Hello! There is! So what is it about a phenomenon like the Sedona vortices that results in such a wide variation of human experience, from those discovering a profound reality to those who believe it’s all a ridiculous made-up fantasy?
The first reason why there is a wide variety of experiences when it comes to some elements of life has to do with how easy or difficult it is to experience something. Some elements of life are easy to validate as “real” and others are more subtle. Note: this does not mean they are less powerful, just more subtle. Because of this, they are more difficult to access and experience.
Many things in life are very easy to experience: the sun, a cloud, the temperature of the air, the hardness of concrete, the smell of a rose, the sound of a symphony. To experience these things as real, we use normal, established senses. If we can see, touch, taste, smell, or hear something, we say that it is “real,” that it “exists in the real world.” On the other hand, if we can’t, most people would be inexperienced and say it doesn’t exist. But is that really true?
To know if something exists or not, we need to have SOME experience, beyond the thought in our head. Otherwise, it is really just a made up fantasy that has no existence in reality for us. So HOW do we experience the most subtle phenomenon in our world? How can we validate its existence? Answer: We need to improve the power of the senses we have or develop new ones.
Examples of the first method are very common in today’s scientific world. Take the electron microscope. This is a man-made enhancement to our sense of sight. With it we can see things that we normally cannot see with the naked eye. Both the microscope and the telescope, improvements in our sense of sight, have opened up new worlds of experience (and reality) for us.
At this point I want to point out something very important: just because you can’t initially experience something with your normal senses, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just because you can’t see an atom doesn’t mean atoms don’t exist. We know they do. Also, with your normal senses while on earth you can’t see that the world is round, but I bet you think it is round. Obviously, there may be things in reality that we cannot experience with our “normal” senses. All you can truly say is “I haven’t experienced it” or “It doesn’t exist FOR ME”. From there, determining whether or not something is real to you becomes more about seeking the experience of it.
So, back to our question of HOW we experience the most subtle phenomenon in our world. The first is from man-made enhancements to our senses, which we just talked about. The second is by naturally enhancing our own normal senses and developing new ones (for example, the sixth sense). How? Especially paying attention to them. Where attention goes, energy flows. You can expand your senses simply by paying more attention to them. We have all experienced this before. For example, you can improve your hearing by actually listening to someone. To truly listen is to pay attention, to bring your awareness to a point of focus. You can do this with all your senses. You could say that this is a practice of “presence,” the practice of being fully in the present moment. When you are fully in the present moment, all your senses are heightened and you come alive. You see things you haven’t seen before, you hear things you haven’t heard before, and you feel things you haven’t felt before – LIKE A VORTEX!
You see, the main barrier to experiencing the finer aspects of life is being in your head thinking, analyzing, and judging (this is doing human versus being human). If you are in your head, you are not in your body and you are not open and fully present; you are doing-thinking and not being-here. Therefore, you cannot access the finer aspects of the present moment. Heck, most people don’t see, hear, or feel most of the NON-subtle aspects, never mind the very subtle aspects! If you gobble down your food at lunch, barely taste anything, and then run into this vortex in the desert, chances are good that your experience is nothing more than simply standing on a rock, and you naturally conclude, “There’s nothing wrong here.” .
In addition to this natural tendency toward make-think, “normal life” has taught us that we need explosive experiences in order to experience anything. Watch today’s Hollywood movies – the experience is like getting hit over the head by a two by four with 10 million watts of surround sound and 3D visuals that practically hit you in the face. Many people have become so used to this level of “in your face” experience, that unless life gets to this level, they have no experience at all and “nothing happens.”
I have been practicing presence for over 10 years. I let myself fall into my body, out of my head, and fully open myself to the present moment. I bring my awareness to my breath, relax and open every cell in my body. When I first arrived at the Airport Mesa Vortex, I was in awe of the sight, but I wasn’t having any “deep” energy experiences. However, when I found a place to sit, away from others, and slowly moved into my fully present state, I experienced an amazing energy moving through my body, lighting up and opening all my chakras, and it became so resounding with joy that brought tears to my eyes. I experienced an extraordinary integration with nature and everything that surrounded me. I was one with everyone and very happy to be there. I felt dizzy after the experience and somewhat buoyant, it was like walking on air. For me, there was an unusual and very powerful energy available in this Vortex place, but I only experienced it when I became fully present, open and available to it. For me, the Vortex was and is a deep reality, something that actually exists in the real world.
So, does or doesn’t there exist God, or your Higher Self, or Vortexes in Sedona? Are they part of the real world or are they a made up fantasy? The answer is up to you. You can say what is true and real for you.
Try this:
Take a moment and reflect on HOW you determine what is real to you and what is not. How much do you trust what others say? Think about the more subtle and “hard to believe” aspects of your life and your life. Do you automatically rule out the possibility that something exists if you haven’t experienced it yourself? Or are you more open to the possibility and willing to say “I haven’t experienced it, so it doesn’t exist FOR ME yet.”
For those areas of your life that you find hard to believe, see if you can take the more open perspective of “Just because you haven’t experienced it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” and exert your willingness to explore these areas. subtle and more difficult to experience aspects of your life. This is the first step to experiencing them and making them a reality in your life! What an adventure!
Developing your access to the world’s most subtle energies and harnessing the extraordinary power they have to offer is an important key to your mojo!