Opening the Inner Senses

Clearing and Brightening the Mind

How well and how crisply you perceive the world can vary dramatically. Most often, you notice this variation only when you are at one of the highs or lows of perceptual acuity. Sometimes the colors of a flower that you have seen before become especially vivid and nuanced. Other times, when you are listening to a favorite piece of music, you can distinguish the role of every instrument and hear the slightest tremble of emotion in a voice. There are also times when, although the external reality is almost the same, your perception seems wrapped in fog and cotton. In part, this is a result of your emotional state of being, but that is not the only or even the primary determinant.

The clarity and strength of your perceptions are strongly regulated by the amount of attention, or the proportion of your mind's power that is allocated to your attention. This allocation of mental resources is often unconscious, but it can be done with conscious effort as well. When you focus in on a single voice in a crowded room or look closely enough at an apple to see the specks and streaks of color on its skin, your attention shifts the balance of your mental resources and thus your strength of perception. This variability in sensory and perceptual sharpness also applies to your inner senses, although this is not as apparent. Since the inner senses are decoded and interpreted through your physical senses, efforts to focus more of your mental processes on sharpening the physical senses also refine the inner senses. Perception occurs in the mind, and by clearing and brightening the mind, we open more fully to our inner senses. What follows is a sampling of methods that reliably help prepare you for making better use of your inner senses.

Meditation

The suggestion that you make meditation a part of your regular practice is very popular in most magickal and spiritual teachings and traditions. In part, the reason is that meditation supports self-knowledge and encourages spiritual development. Meditation also helps clear and brighten the mind so that you become more aware of your inner senses. In the context of opening the inner senses, my working definition for meditation is the art of changing waking consciousness into a higher active state of being with the goal of expanding our capacity to remain in that state. Although it can start with relaxation or produce relaxation as one of the results, that is not the goal of meditation. Meditation is not intended to be sedation; it is how you exercise and condition the Self.

I have encountered many people who say that they've tried to meditate and that they just can't do it. Their most common complaint is that they can't quiet their mind. Have you ever seen a person in the middle of a bout of hard crying or had one yourself? It is neither easy nor useful to try to stop the crying until it runs its course. For many people, when they try to make meditation a part of their practice, every stray thought and feeling that they have held back pours forth. This is not a sign of failure in meditation; it means that the meditation is working and is a part of the cleansing and purification that come with the work. Others find fault with their attempts because they can't meditate very long or deeply. Meditation is a form of exercise; as such, it is reasonable to have the expectation that your beginning efforts will be short and of low intensity and that over time you will become more capable of duration and depth.

• If you have a hard time sitting still, then try to meditate while standing or walking; alternatively, look into forms of moving meditation such as tai chi, qigong, kinhin, or labyrinth walking.

• If you are worried about falling asleep, don't worry; it happens to everyone sooner or later.

If you are always falling asleep during meditation while seated, try placing your fist against your chin so as to prop up your head for just a moment. Then move your fist away and keep your forearm perpendicular to the table or chair arm. Should you begin to get drowsy, your arm will drop and rouse you. You can do roughly the same thing while lying down, so long as your elbow is supported.

There are many types of meditation, and I encourage you to seek out books, groups, and online instructions. Two of the major branches of meditation are open and focused meditation:

• Open meditation often starts with attention on your breathing, then with a focus on your thoughts and feelings, without judgment, with the goal of being without doing in order to clear away the chatter we normally call thoughts. The aspiration is to become like a transparent, still ball of awareness that senses the whole universe.

• Focused meditation starts in a similar way, but focuses on an idea, a phrase, a symbol to more deeply understand it, or a single external focus such as a candle flame or a simple drum beat.

The intention of the repetition or fixation is not to zone out. It is not the same as a trance, which is a more passive state in which you prepare yourself for receptivity. Also, do not confuse pathworkings or visualizations with meditation. These tend to be tools for teaching, healing, and so on, and the focus is on their content and a process with a specific purpose rather than the refinement of the mind as a primary goal.

Warming Up

Whether it is physical or psychic exertion, warming up to prepare yourself for the effort is a good idea. Often people skip over this step due to impatience, a feeling of being rushed, or the urgency of a situation. My answer to that reluctance is that there are swift and simple ways to prepare for inner work that can be learned and executed quickly. The two methods I share here can be used individually or together. In both cases, a physical action is performed. Some warm-ups use only visualization, but the more levels and parts of the Self you involve, the more the inner senses will be integrated into your awareness.

IAO

The intoning of IAO (Eeee-Ahhh-Ohhh) is used for a wide range of magickal and spiritual purposes. Intoning IAO is an effective and simple technique to awaken your psychism, your inner senses. Before we see how to use it in opening the inner senses, let's look into its meaning and history. IAO has been said to mean numerous things depending on which practitioner is asked.

• Esoteric Christians would tell you...