This is the beginning of a series of posts highlighting a number of simple things you can do to DRAMATICALLY improve your progress with the Ride and future cultivation.
They are not a form of practise, they are best thoughts of as ‘self care’, some are routines, some are habits, and some, like this one, are general advice for how you should live. They will form part of your spiritual Character, when you start to work on that part of your cultivation.
Vast majority of them are to do with your physical body, as your body is an energy machine in every sense of the word, and you need it to function at a reasonable level if you are going to make a success of the Left Hand path, as its based on Energy Work.
Much as these posts will be much simpler than the others, please don’t take this as a sign of their lesser importance. I have known several spiritual types over the years who really struggled to make progress UNTIL these realised they were SABOTAGING themselves by not doing some VERY basic stuff.
So to start we have to nail the first and for most folks the most important – you need to have Bare Feet as much as possible in your life. By this I mean you need to stand, walk around on NATURAL surfaces, closely connected to the ground as much as you can. No shoes, no socks.. your feet must be bare, and preferably dry, but that’s not essential.
The act of this will ‘earth’ you, connect you to the ground and make certain energetic processes work much better. Firstly this helps with hyper arousal, with literally calming you down and allowing you to step back from your Ego much quicker and maintain that state more easily in everyday life. Secondly it acts to increase the energy you take from the earth, indeed without bare feet this is a process that simply does not work at all for most people. Thirdly you build up an awful lot of mental crap in you head and then body over the course of a day, and without bare feet it does not leave you very easily, for a set of complex reasons, and barefoot walking is the easiest way to remedy this.
See there is actually a reason for the ancient practise of removing your shoes and socks in places of worship, it’s not just about humbling yourself, it’s about connecting yourself to that place. Modern shoes all use rubber and socks all have man made fibres than are very good energetic insulator, which stops all 3 of the energetic processes above working well.
To be honest I always think 2/3 of the benefit folks get from a good holiday by the beach come from having bare feet, that wonderful sense of de-stress you get can be replaced at home too, and with any kind of gift much more.
So, when you can, early in morning and at night walk around outside, on the earth or better rock with bare feet. Just stand still with both feet flat on the ground. Don’t worry about the cold or mild discomfort, you are a seeker, toughen the fuck up a bit eh? Try and do this at least 2 or 3 times a day, for as long as you can, walks for hours is great, all day is best, but even slipping off your sneakers for 5 mins to stand on a rock and look at the view is way better than nothing.
In your house there is no reason not to have bare feet all the time, however its effect is dramatically lower, particularly on carpet or wooden floors, as these are themselves an insulator. So focus on doing it outside, in nature if possible or in a park in town, on your lawn, your paving slabs etc.
So you got that – have bare feet outside as much as you can ok?
Quote to end as always, this time from a quiet but very left hand path kinda guy, for his day at least.
I like to walk, touch living Mother Earth—bare feet best, and thrill every step. Used to envy happy reptiles that had advantage of so much body in contact with earth, bosom to bosom. We live with our heels as well as head and most of our pleasure comes in that way. – John Muir.
Later..
TOB
