LEARNING TO SIT FOR SPIRIT
Here’s the thing. You’re a new student of this work with spirit, and you desire to learn how to create a strong connection with the spirit world. You’re fragile because you doubt your own abilities. All the time, you’re being asked by circle leaders to do things that are completely alien to you and your known abilities. You may even decide that you cannot do it after weeks, months and possibly years pulling your hair out with frustration. Can you relate to those statements? I can!
How on earth could I learn to meditate? I have a monkey mind that is constantly filled with thoughts, nonsense, and all sorts of distractions at every moment of my waking day. But I was being told how important it was for my spiritual unfoldment, so I persisted.
I was proud of myself when I first sat for an incredibly long ten minutes without desiring a cigarette or who was in the room I fancied! But my mind wasn’t empty, as some might suggest it should be. It was focused inwardly. My mind’s main attention had shifted from the room around me to the world of thoughts within, behind the skin and bones. That breakthrough session set the precedent for all my future meditations.
The initial difficulties that most inexperienced sitters might encounter when learning to meditate are caused by their expectations and often the demands that are too high for them. They want to experience something deep and meaningful on the first sit. They expect to remain inwardly focused for longer than they can practically do.
Sitting regularly with an inward focus for five to ten minutes at a time is far better than regularly failing to sit with an inward focus for thirty minutes or longer. The key is to start with shorter sessions and with lower expectations. Your intention should be nothing more than to sit for a period of time that you know you can achieve and with no demands for the outcome.
Achieving this by finding a few minutes for sitting every day or so is setting the perfect foundation for learning to sit in the power. But what is this called power? What exactly does that mean?
SITTING IN THE POWER
It is often believed by students of spiritualist unfoldment that sitting in the power is something that only the experienced can do. That is not so. The power being referred to is one’s own energy emanating from the body through chakras – energy centres that include the solar plexus, the root chakra and other such sources throughout the body. It is about inwardly focusing our mind and allowing normality to ‘blur’ into the background.
Maintaining an inner focus on these areas during meditation enhances our ability to recognise the energy and how it makes us feel. In doing this, we create more energy and more power. Apart from the medical benefits of doing this, the process helps us understand and unfold our potential. The immediate benefits of such meditation are akin to recharging our energy levels and reducing our stresses.
This practice benefits our personal attunement over time. Attunement is simply the process of heightening our awareness of our senses. Regular meditation and sitting in the power will open our awareness of our own power. It is considered that working on this ability allows us to appreciate and recognise our own spark of life, our spirit.
Our spirit resides in the spirit world. Really? Of course, it does. Understanding that is very important. It should allow you to eliminate the myth that the spirit world is some distant nation where dead peoples’ spirits and souls return after the body dies. Our spirit doesn’t go anywhere – it remains where it has always been, in the spirit world. It simply continues living without needing the body it has been associated with during that lifetime.
HOW IMPORTANT IS SITTING IN THE POWER FOR THE PURPOSE OF MEDIUMSHIP?
To appreciate the answer properly, one must first consider the person. As we’ve already established, sitting in the power is how we heighten our senses through our awareness. Everyone has had different circumstances and life journeys to get to where they are now.
A few people may have been blessed with heightened awareness from an early age. Their peers and their set of circumstances, their early relationships, their siblings, and so on will have had an effect on these heightened abilities. Therefore, due to these circumstances, some people are already more attuned to their spirit or the spirit world. In the same way that we could all learn to play the piano given the right circumstances, Mozart was born with heightened abilities and circumstances to allow the skill to develop.
Those few with such advanced abilities from an early age might have started working with their abilities for communication with the spirit sooner, especially if their peers encouraged them. Their need to sit in the power or meditate may not be so important because their awareness is already sufficiently heightened to connect to the spirit world at ease.
Everyone has the ability to tap into this power within themselves, but not everyone chooses to. This is why we all hear of mediums claiming not to need to meditate or sit in the power. Their abilities to connect may be stronger than others. But be aware that their circumstances can, and often do, change. We’ve all heard of mediums that claim they’ve lost their ability to connect with spirits for some inexplicable reason. The likelihood is that they didn’t practise sitting in the power.
So, the generic answer to the question is that it’s very important and is a technique that everyone participating benefits from.
EXERCISE 1
Here is an exercise to get you started. You need nothing, except no fewer than five minutes of free and undisturbed time.
Find a location where there are few or no distractions. Somewhere quiet away from the noise of traffic, mobile phones and background sounds. If necessary, use noise-cancelling headphones without anything playing through them. This will help to muffle all the surrounding sounds. Tell anyone around you not to disturb you.
Make yourself comfortable in a seated position. Make a note of the time. Perhaps have a bottle of water nearby. Having a notebook and pen at hand is also good practice.
- When you’re ready to begin, close your eyes and become aware of your breathing pattern. Don’t change it, observe it and remain focused on it.
- Commit to counting the length of the in-breath and the length of the out-breath. Keep doing this with every breath, and observe how your random thoughts slow down as you count.
- Observe stray thoughts, but don’t give them strength by focusing on them. Instead, allow the random thoughts to fade away as you focus more on the counting.
- Allow your mind’s eye to seek out the centre of your body. Keep that location as your focal point while counting the breath in and out.
- Observe how that centre point feels.
- Allow yourself to sense the subtle feelings that this focus on your centre brings to you. Even if your outer mind distracts you momentarily, always bring the focus back to your centre and your breathing.
- Realise that you are already learning more about yourself as you stay with this awareness.
- You are creating a new and important discipline. You expect nothing from this other than to observe your centre and breathing.
- Without switching your focus, become aware of how the outside world has become ‘blurred’ as your focus remains within. The noises are still there, but no longer are you listening to them.
When you find it difficult to maintain the focus, or you feel you’ve sat for long enough, allow your focus to return to the noises in the room. Allow yourself a few seconds to bring yourself back into the surroundings and only when you’re comfortable with them, open your eyes.
It is important to spend a moment of two appreciating what you experienced. From the feelings, the thoughts, the ease or difficulties and the entire session. Perhaps make note of the time and date, how long you sat, what you felt, what your problems were and anything you think is relevant.
Now make a decision as to when you’ll sit again and of how long.
The good news is that you now know the basics of how to sit in the power for unfoldment towards your development for communicating with the spirit world. If you’ve taken the time to do the exercise, you’ve now completed your first ‘In The Power’ session.
When students participate in a meditation as part of a group or circle, a good tutor will leave them in the noise of their own thoughts and perhaps suggest a few prompts now and then, helping them calm their thoughts and maintain focus inwards. Nothing should be expected from these silences other than their own profound experiences with their inner spirit.
When I used to sit in group circles regularly, I was often frustrated and somewhat embarrassed at the end of the sitting. The circle leader would go around the group one by one asking each person for their feedback. I would sit there listening to the most amazing stories from the other sitters as they shared their experiences.
Such tales of flying around the skies with elephants, swimming with dolphins, riding on unicorns, meeting gurus and wizards in exotic locations and all sorts of incredible events that happened within their twenty minutes of meditation.
But when the leader came to me to share my experiences, I was often feeling inferior, like I was missing something when I reported that nothing happened! To save the embarrassment of others in the group perhaps, the circle leaders never gave much feedback to me at that point. I was left feeling a failure.
It was when I grew older and wiser, I learnt that actually nothing significant should be happening when sitting in the power or meditating. The whole reason for the meditation is to allow the silence, the inner mind to reveal the connection with the spirit world through my own spirit. Those that were experiencing all those incredible adventures during their meditation were simply allowing their imagination free reign of the mind – uncontrolled.
WHAT SHOULD BE HAPPENING WHILE SITTING IN THE POWER?
The short answer is nothing significant or noticeable in the beginning. No fairies, no exotic trips, no visitations, nothing!
However, at a deeper level, much is happening, and most of it is barely detectable. Focus should be maintained on the perceived centre, often thought of as where our spirit resides.
With our focus firmly fixed within, we expose our relationship with our spirit. Through regular meditation, we develop a deeper knowing and a greater understanding whilst unfolding a closer relationship with the spirit.
Our own spirit has a voice, and that voice is our voice.
Some people will regularly sit for an hour or longer in expectation of hearing a voice from their spirit. This leads to disappointment when they hear or experience nothing.
Sitting in the power regularly is important. Over time, with practice and commitment, returning to that silent place within becomes easier to achieve. With experience, the time it takes to still the mind will decrease and strengthening the focus will improve. The relationship between your outer self (the outer you) and your inner self (your spirit) will become easier to identify with experience.
TRUST
Trust that your spirit’s voice is your voice. There’s no magic, no hidden powers or profound feelings. It is for you and you only to allow that voice to be heard in your mind at that moment. When you’ve taken time to create a strong inner focus, trust that your spirit’s voice will be your voice.
This is why sitting in the power is so important. It establishes the environment required for you to be in touch with your spirit, which, may I remind you, also resides in the spirit world. The growth in your abilities comes not just from sitting regularly in that special place but from developing trust in your own inner voice, the voice of your spirit.
LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Now that we’ve established that your inner voice is the voice of your very own spirit talking to you in your mind when you allow it to, what should you expect to hear? The answer will surprise you – often, it is nothing more than a normal conversation that you have with yourself. Initially, you may not get messages from the rest of the spirit world. You may not get insights into life on the other side. You are unlikely to receive some miracle of enlightenment. You’ll hear your own thoughts from your own spirit.
CONCLUSION
Sitting in the power is a focused form of meditation. It’s not essential for some mediums, whilst others practice it to strengthen their connection with their spirit and the world of spirit. Frequent sitting in the power is the gateway to deeper connections and the other side.
When sitting for this purpose, your state of mind changes. This is often referred to as having an altered state of mind. The exciting world of entrancement (trance) brings with it greater understanding of our spirit, and the world of spirit we are so keen to communicate with.
Taking the first steps on this exciting journey requires nothing more than a few minutes of your time, regularly devoted to sitting in the power. It costs nothing and doesn’t require anything more than time.
Sit with patience, trust, an open mind and a satisfaction from knowing your unfoldment will improve your mediumship and understanding of the spirit world.
