Sense of Soul - Self-Awareness and Meditation The Return to Self

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul podcast we have Charles Attfield he is a teacher and advanced meditator for over 30 years. He joined us today to share his newly released book, a must-read comprehensive guide for beginners to advanced meditators searching for Self-awareness. Charles has spent most of his career as a teacher in both the UK, where he was born, and Australia. He initially taught geography and later moved on to teach students with learning disabilities. Charles became interested in mysticism while still in his teens. His interest in meditation and Eastern philosophy grew rapidly after his later visits to India. In addition to teaching qualifications, Charles has a master's degree in esotericism (psychology), a graduate diploma of counselling and diplomas in astrology and life coaching.  His particular interest has been in spiritual emergence and the Kundalini. As an advanced meditator, Charles received personal mentoring from a spiritual master for many years. Much of his newly released book Self-Awareness and Meditation, an Advanced Guide for Meditators is based on his own personal experiences. This profound and insightful book serves as a complement to your meditation practice, guiding you towards a deeper understanding of your true essence. Charles draws inspiration from the teachings of renowned spiritual Master Muktananda, who emphasized the importance of experiential knowledge over mere intellectual understanding. By immersing yourself in practical meditation techniques and embracing personal experiences, you will discover that true enlightenment transcends mere knowledge. Visit Charles website at https://charlesattfield.com Learn more about Sense of Soul Podcast: https://www.senseofsoulpodcast.com Check out the NEW affiliate deals! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page Check out the Ethereal Network! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/ethereal-network Follow Sense of Soul on Patreon, and join to get ad free episodes, circles, mini series and more! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Follow Sense of Soul on Social Media! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sos-links  

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken.

Today on Sense of Soul, we have Charles Atfield. He has been a teacher and a meditator for over 30 years. His interest has been in spiritual emergence and the Kundalini. And he's joined us today to tell us about his new book, Self-Awareness and Meditation, an advanced guide for meditators, based on his own personal experiences. So please welcome Charles. Hi.

Hi, Shanna. How are you doing? Glad and you? I'm actually good. It's seven o'clock and a lot of times by this time my brain just takes a plummet. Oh, well, for me it's nice and fresh and reasonably early. Oh, good. Well, then I'll just rely on you to bring most of the wisdom today. Oh, I wouldn't do that.

Thank you so much for joining me. Where do you join me from? Perth in Western Australia. That's why we're meeting at this time. Most people in Australia live over east. They usually think that we're the same time zone as Sydney and well we're not. We're two hours behind in the winter and three hours behind in the summer. Oh. So it's confusing. Your time zone is confusing as well. Oh my goodness and I'm like smack in the middle is it Colorado Springs you're in no I'm in a suburb of Denver so I'm close to the Denver International Airport which has conspiracy I don't know if you've ever heard of the conspiracy around there the tunnels and the yes

yep right down the road from there so I'm pretty close to denver i'm about an hour away from colorado springs yeah it's a strange climate you have there i remember we were there it was 27 degrees and then they said in three days time we've got snow yeah in one day we can have all four seasons we're we're known for that yeah well the conversation that we're about to have a lot of it will be around awareness which I find is key number one it's what really cracked me open and I think that probably the one thing that could maybe save the world. Well, that's basically what the book is about. But of course, I think some of the concepts in there will be particular to a particular path, shall we say.

And I mean, once you get into the deeper self-awareness kind of stuff, you get different viewpoints, like Buddhists might be different from certain hindu philosophies you know and somebody may not totally accept you know i mean i've had a bit of discussion with with a buddhist friend and their concept of the self is very different to like what i've talked about you know so yeah yeah and i guess your listeners are going to come from the full spectrum, the full sense of soul, no matter what that looks like. I love that title sense of soul.

I think it's perfect. What's beautiful today. We can have these conversations where maybe that does look a little different and that, that actually is OK. And it's a beautiful thing because we are all coming from different places around the world and different cultures, different upbringings, you know, different religions. But I think you're right there, too, because consciousness as a whole is evolving. We're very different to what we would

have been 10 000 years ago and it's this evolving consciousness that maybe has reached the point of we need to start looking for a sense of the soul and and getting there yeah it's it's where we're at yeah and actually i was just thinking about that earlier this morning. I just sit outside and ponder on that. You know, this is very much coming into people's consciousness today. And so what happened? Because when I do some research and I read, say, ancient text, you know, there's many of them i've read from all different cultures seems like they knew some of the things that we're just now reconnecting with yeah yeah we've lost a

lot too but i think maybe back then it was the it would be a certain group within that culture that had this information now becoming more widespread there's still a group that's right at the forefront you know but yeah it's becoming more generally it needs more general spreading shall we say and that's what your show does yeah because i think a lot of people are seeking and sometimes they don't really know what they're seeking an awareness is usually kind of the first step you know oh the awareness of oh my gosh i'm more than a meat suit or maybe there's more than i've been told yeah it is like an awakening you you wake up and you're like what and i think what the book tries to point to and it might be difficult for some people to

get a grasp of is and it comes out in the strap line did you see the strap line of the book the that sentence that rather than meditation being something you do meditation reflects who you really are and it's yes it gets to the point where we think we're the doer there comes a point where maybe the soul is prompting us and it's the soul that's really the doer prompting us to seek it so it can reveal itself through you if there's an underlying essence of what the book is trying to get you to consider it's it's yeah as you get more aware of self then the more you realize you're not actually the doer the ego will fall away it thinks it's the doer but it's being prompted and it's yeah that's that's how i see it and that's how i've kind of put it in the

book and that's how my my teacher who I've referred to in the book that's what he was trying to get me to understand and it's hard to understand it's hard to think how can I not be the doer you know but yeah it's it's a difficult concept but it's it's actually as it is. How did you come to you know writing this book? Particularly when you're writing a book you know people think are you trying to be an expert come to you know writing this book and particularly when you're writing a book you know people think are you trying to be an expert in something you know sort of thing but for me it was about 25 years ago I mean I was interested in spirituality and all that I used to go to India and I don't know if you've heard of the guru Satya Sai Baba you know I went to see him a few times I was on that kind of path and then about

25 years ago I came across a course run by the University of the Seven Rays which I think is now based in California it was based in New Jersey so I did that course and at the same time the teacher said you know if you want to use this for work, you really need to get a more traditional training as well. So I did a diploma in counselling to give myself credibility. And that just from there, I had to write a thesis. That's right for the course. And that thesis became is written as a book for counsellors. I mean, never published, but that's how it was written, as a book for counsellors on how spirituality emerges

and how it can be difficult. You know, people with what's called spiritual emergency, you know, having what appear like psychotic episodes and things like that. So it's really a book on how the kundalini works. You've heard of that, i'm sure and uh written for counselors and once i did that i thought you know years later this could this i should expand on this i should do more with this and that was the start so then all the experience came in the

the years of mentoring with master charles who's you know, he's got an ashram. He's passed away now, but he's got an ashram in Virginia. I used to go there. I had direct help from him, direct mentoring. So that forms three chapters in the book, basically. And there's some chapters on the mechanics of consciousness, dream interpretation, and third one, meditation pointers. That's all based on my experience and his explanation of it.

So it could almost be a book within a book. Let me go back to something that you mentioned, the seven rays. Okay. You know, I have the book the seven seven sacred flames by aurelia um louise jones and that book you know it talks about the seven rays and i don't know if it's the same seven rays to be honest with you well i haven't read that so i don't know yeah okay i know that it mentions like and the seventh ray is Saint Germain. All right.

As an actual... They give, they personify it. They give, yeah, personification of the energy. Yes, yes. And then all of his reincarnations. I've heard of Saint Germain and Michael and all this stuff, but I've never actually linked it with the rays. Oh, okay. linked it with the rays but like seven aspects or energies of divinity and everything fits in it's like a tapestry of rays that gives us the experience that we have and uh yeah it's i mean for example i don't know how the book puts it. For example, Ray 1 is will and power. All right.

Ray 2 is love, wisdom. Ray 3 is adaptability or intelligent activity. Ray 4, harmony through conflict. Ray 5, concrete or scientific knowledge. Ray 6, idealistic devotion. And Ray 7, organization or ritual order. And it forms a tapestry of creation, basically, within that spectrum.

I like that. So is it kind of also aligned with the chakras? There is alignment with the chakras, yeah. I think I put that in under the chakras in the book. There's also the fact that, and this, I've only touched on it in the book because I've got books this thick that go into detail, but your personality, as opposed to your soul, everyone's personality is on a different ray.

So the way you are would match that particular ray. Someone that's always got conflict in their lives, you know, drama queens and so on, are probably on ray four, which is trying to get harmony through conflict. So you need the conflict to learn about harmony. Ray six is another example. It's a very idealistic devotion. And each ray has a negative and a positive quality too. So at the negative, it would be the fanatical religious people. They've got that devotion, that idealism, but they're approaching it fanatically. You know, my way is the only way but on the

positive side it would be someone who's just devoted and loving you know in some way they may have a guru or not it doesn't matter but it's that energy that devotional energy in a positive sense so you know we need to move more from the negative to the positive yeah but what i'm leading to is the soul is also on a particular ray so it's not necessarily the same ray so there's conflict between the two and that can cause a lot of the conflicts in your life you're trying to align with the soul and your personality is telling you something different you know it's uh there's quite a and different rays you know each ray is going to have seven possibilities from soul's personality so it's quite complicated but um the personality ray will change from life to life all right and don't keep

that one that one you've got to experience all of them. But your soul ray stays the same. And most people, I say most people, probably have soul ray number two, love wisdom. That's where you're heading. Those people are heading. Someone might be ray one. They're quite rare, but they need this forceful, you know, they need to bring out the power side of things from a soul perspective. Speaking of wisdom, so I've been studying the Gnostic Gospels for a few years now. Yeah.

God, that is a deep dive. I bet. There's so much wisdom in Christianity. So much has been lost, unfortunately. I just read a book on the Essenes and of course they they were kind of along that those lines and it you know I take it with a pinch of salt because it was based on a group of people and their past life regressions and they went back to when they were in the Essenes, they knew each other, and they talked about what the Essenes did.

Yeah, I do find it's fascinating that these books are becoming more popular. And it's funny, because when I did all my research on the Gnostic Gospels, what I did find was that there was groups that knew this wisdom all along. They just were secret societies well when you look even at the way that we can be persecuted if we too outspoken on what we think imagine what it was like back then oh yeah i would have been burned at the state yeah you might have been but so you know you had to be careful and i think some of the wisdom books were probably written with pen names and things like that. Yeah.

I also find a lot of wisdom in some of the Muslim Eastern traditions, like Kabir was one. They write poetry, but you look at the wisdom that was in there. I found that even in my ancestry, a lot of the history that I learned was through books of poetry. I was able to actually learn more about history by just them writing freely about their emotions

and how they felt and their experiences of what they're experiencing there's a lot of wisdom in poetry yeah another one I remembered the other name Heffies you know they're like 13th 14th century mystics the depth of what they write you know yeah quotes that you can get from them incredible i love that kind of stuff i'm all about it i feel like you know it's it's a little untouched by maybe a hierarchy you can find those gems in there that's just true and very raw and i love that today we can be that way again. And if there's like this sovereignty that comes with being able to express yourself freely. Yeah.

And one of the biggest things that throughout my entire journey, it was dreams. And I have received so much in my dreams. It's one of the things that I can say that it's my experience. Like no one can take away my dreams. And I can tell you that Shanna did not know these things. So something in my dreams was revealing this knowledge that in this life in this body that I have never heard of you have a chapter in my book you know yes yeah you know I know my dreams they actually were huge parts of my journey I didn't realize it when I dreamt them. I sometimes realized it like a year later. Yeah. Well, some dreams can be a bit prophetic.

I can use that word. And there's a way, at least for me, that it comes through in a way that some authority figure will appear in a dream, in the dream. It might be one of the people that I've had as a guru, for example, or it could simply be, I think, George Harrison appear in the dream, you know. And so it's kind of saying this is somebody you respect. It's an authority kind of figure. And then they give you a message. And you can kind of trust those messages because they're coming from a higher source and your consciousness just picks, personifies it in some way,

somebody you would respect. It could just be your local doctor. But generally speaking, you know, for someone like me who's had an involvement with gurus, it usually is one of the gurus appears in the dream and tells me something, and that's a message. Other times you'll get dreams which may be a picking on past life experience.

And like one I can remember, I dreamt I was getting married. And the lady I was married to in the dream was as familiar as someone you're getting married to. You know, curly black hair, I think I remember. And as soon as I woke up, it was the face of a stranger. So I take that must have been a past life thing, you know. There are different kinds of dreams. The one that sticks out, I wouldn't say it was profound,

but it sticks out because it has so much symbolism in it. That's what I find is so fascinating, too, is the symbolism. You know, sometimes it's not so black and white. I mean, I've actually also received actual symbols. Your dream doesn't necessarily talk to you in language, because you're coming from the unconscious realm. But certain archetypes or images are universal some perhaps specific to your your upbringing your culture or religion

or whatever but yeah archetypes are valuable i'll try and remember this dream from memory and i was in the garden of my childhood home where I grew up. And that's symbolic as well because I'll go through the interpretation afterwards. And my dashed-in dog's in the garden and she's making a noise. And my dad's sitting in the lounge of the house. And I'm thinking, oh, she's going to disturb him. As it happens, he did get disturbed and he got up. So anyway, we went, I took the dog into the house and the dog had a mouse in its mouth.

It was carrying a dead mouse. We went into the house. My dad was there, but he went upstairs and I wanted to follow because my meditation room's up there, but I couldn't. For some reason, I couldn't go up the stairs and that was the end of a dream and there's so much symbolism in it childhood home usually

I'll talk about myself it might not necessarily be everyone when I go to dream about my childhood home it's usually about conditioning or whatever that I got from my childhood thus childhood home it might be a house more, might be where I'm living now, but usually it shows you where it's coming from. My dog represented my, let's say, ego, but it's a clearing dream. It means that you're processing information, data. You get processing. There's a five-fold cycle, and that's all put in the book as well but you're

you're processing so the dog is your ego you're processing you get to the house and the dog's got a mouse in its mouth now from the tradition that i'm used to which is perhaps more the hindu the man i remember master charles telling me he says and what does the mouse represent i don't know what's the mouse supposed to represent he said have you heard of ganesha yes you know the elephant god but at the feet of the elephant god sits a mouse wow all right so this represents ganesha and he's a remover of obstacles You're clearing and your obstacles are being cleared, thus that symbolism. So I go in the house. I want to follow my dad upstairs.

Upstairs, you know, higher chakras, which you usually try to connect with in meditation. But I couldn't. I couldn't because I was clearing. Now, you can't just go sit down and have a peak experience when you've got all this stuff going on inside so it's a very symbolic dream I've got that's one of my favorites I think for symbolism and it is in that book probably with a better interpretation than I've just given you but anyway it's there so what did you do afterwards so you you realized that you were clearing and that you can get up those stairs

so did you take advantage of the symbolism and maybe go a little bit further with that in meditation or no because you know you're clearing a lot of the time it's a constant thing these cycles can be matter of minutes it may be days you know this five depends what's being cleared uh but the cycle itself is like for example you might sit down in meditation or let's say you go on a retreat and you're really brought to the best you can be you know you reach peak and that leads to an evolution within yourself and that evolution may or may not give you some kind of illumination but that is usually followed by processing because once you've been brought to peak you're more than you've ever been something's got to give because we're carrying all this

baggage around within us all our conditioning all that enculturation something's going to go it's not up to you what's going to go it's just going to surface and then you might feel uncomfortable and you might think i can't do this retreat you know it's too much or and that's the process so you integrate the new level of who you are now this doesn't just happen on retreats you sit and have a good meditation well you're probably something's going to have to give meditations aren't always blissful experiences they can be quite uncomfortable or it might be something happens during the day and you think oh i want to meditate i'm just you know just not feeling up to it. But one thing that does happen, the more you meditate, the more you get into it, let's say, the more advanced you get,

the more you have what's called an integrative peak, the more you actually peak and clear or peak and process at the same time. So you don't get such wild swings swings at least not on the lower level but you know on the higher level and particularly the closer you get to this so-called self-awareness it can be quite really challenging because the ego eventually has to go and the ego is not going to give up easily and and you can have some really difficult times and that's why i put a chapter in the book i've called it the way forward you know i'm not claiming to be enlightened or anything like that i'm just claiming i've had all this experience and research and learning and it

can be of value to others so i put it in a book but in order to say where can this go to, I put the chapter in and I called it The Way Forward, and it's got experiences of Dr B.S. Goel, an Indian guy who's, you know, I got hold of a couple of his books many years ago in India. They're only printed there. And another, and Muktananda was the other one but mostly focuses on dr gold and it gives his whole process that he went through from when he first had a breakdown right through to being enlightened and what he saw in his visions and his experience

he would go for days he thought he was dying you know he'd be lying on a couch he wouldn't want to come out of his room he was convinced he was dying and then he's having a huge opening experience and everything would be fantastic we hopefully won't get that but that's the extreme and i think he felt that he had to go for the extreme to show what happens in the end game. So maybe the more you meditate, the more you focus on improving yourself and becoming more self-aware, the less challenging it may hopefully be if you get to that point. And I always find these stories of people who've become enlightened, I always find them so fascinating, you know, inspiring,

even though they're not always pleasant. It's just inspiring that you're going to get there one day. It's written into your DNA, you know, you have to get there one day. Well, that's my favourite thing to do is hear people's stories of how you know they came to discovery you know their light within I mean how did they you know become aware I mean I think that for myself I mean it was such a you know profound moment I mean and actually in my last episode that I released, I talked about how one of the most, I can, I'll never forget one of the most conscious moments.

One of the first conscious moments I ever had was ridiculously in a bathtub. But it was so profound. It was so profound. I mean, I happened to see a bubble bath, you know, that had been stuck on the side of my tub for probably a year. And I had never read what it said. But what it said was, begin again. And it was this beautiful poem or just writing. And the reason why I remember it was because it was like the first time, one of the first times I was just very conscious. And it was profound. Very aware and in the present moment. Yeah. Totally present. You know, since then, I would say the funnest thing about awareness and being self-aware are synchronicities. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I love synchronicities. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they guide me, you know, and they used to be like, oh, my God, no one's going to believe me. I can't wait to tell people this. Now they happen so often. I'm like, eh, yeah, that happens. And it's a case of did you listen? Did you get the message, you know, or whatever it might be?

Yeah, because otherwise it will kind of hit you upside your head. I think the more you're open to it and accepting to it, the more it will happen um for me for some reason often it happens i'll see a rainbow you know obviously it's raining but it just seems to be the synchronicity at that moment you know yeah Another one that I always think, why did that happen? I went to a barbecue, it was about 35 years ago. And I was at this barbecue and the host of the barbecue came up to me and he said to me, you must meet Bas, an Indian guy. He says, he'll tell you all about Sai Baba. And I'm thinking, why do I need to know about Sai Baba, you know, whoever this guy is. So he took me over to Bas, and he said to Bas, this is Chas. That's my kind of nickname.

He said, this is Chas. He wants to know all about Sai Baba. So, you know, this guy tells me all about this guy side barbara i didn't really believe him i've got an open mind i like to believe i've got an open mind if you've got a book about him i'll read it and i did and it was life-changing you know so that was the universe at play there Yeah, certainly. You know what? I think that when you are open to it and as you are allowing yourself to follow the signs and align yourself, you're aligning yourself with the frequency or vibration

or the ray, whatever it is that you are supposed to be on then all of a sudden you know teachers come into your life and the dreams come into your life and the synchronicities and there is this like evolution of your consciousness there's a popular saying it says when the student is ready the guru will appear and it doesn't necessarily mean a guru it just means it could be your higher self something's gonna you know you're ready for something some higher learning and it will appear to you in whatever way is appropriate for you I love that too I found that especially through that whole journey through the Gnostic Gospels I was kind kind of on my own. There's not a lot of people out there who are, you know, in that study.

And believe me, I seeked out all of them. And I interviewed them. You get the opportunity. But, yeah, that counts for me too. Sometimes I do feel so much alone. I wish I could find a group I could go to or, you know, get some friends with the same interests. But it's particularly when you're stuck in the middle of the most isolated

city in the world, apparently, or most isolated capital city, they say, well, yeah, there isn't a lot. A lot of people. It's very hard to find people on the same wavelength yeah but you know in the same i have also found i could sit here and i could talk about um hangers i'm just going to use like the most random thing and all of a sudden like tomorrow in my inbox will be someone that wants to talk about hangers like energy attracts like energy yeah actually you're talking about that and I'm I'm thinking for some reason it brought up dreams in my mind because I don't mention it in the book we've got something called conscious dreaming.

And if you dream a lot, whatever you're really thinking about or is important to you when you go to sleep often appears in your dreams. You can guide that. You can say, well, you know, I'm going to really focus on such and such a thing. And hopefully it will come up in your dreams. Oh, absolutely. Yes. I had this one dream I I woke up in the middle of the night and I've been tracking my dreams for forever so I have a dream journal right next to my bed and usually I chicken scratch right on it and you can't usually understand what it says in the morning. I'm like, ah,

but I was in like the school and I was like in an auditorium and I could hear the teacher talking. I could even see people, not maybe not their faces, but I remember one girl had a striped shirt on. And so that stuck out to me. But when I woke up, I that's all I had remembered. I couldn't remember what I was learning. But when I woke up, I was on a break. Like I was, you know, like it was lunchtime or something. And I gave up. And, and I was like, I didn't, I was confused, which was real. And so I went back to sleep, I went to the school yeah and and it was it was interesting because I wasn't sure if you know I was so confused I was like which which is the real life like and I forget you know in between it was it was really wild good question which is the real life that's how it felt though it really did because oh that was the other thing so I woke up that morning because I was if I can't

remember I write down how I feel I love taking classes I really do but sometimes at the end of a class my brain's about to explode because I've I have so much information that's how I felt when I woke up. Well, I mean, the fact that you had the school dream, the dream is obviously some learning experience. Yeah, it was wild. But have you ever noticed sometimes you have a really nice dream and you want to go back to sleep to continue it,

but you also know that if you don't write it down, you might not remember it you can watch a dream disappear in front of your very eyes no don't go away i want to remember this i love carl young he has been around every single corner in my journey so i mean when it comes to symbolism even the gn Gnostic gospels, I mean, you know, synchronicity, you know, he had it all. He was a part of all of it. And I feel like I can lucid dream, decide to make decisions in my dream. And once I started to intentionally lucid dream, I, it was, it was really powerful. Cause I'm like, wait a minute, I'm turning this all around. I'm going to make something different happen in this dream. Cause this is, this is a bad dream and I don't want it to go like this. So I'm going to shift and I'm going to make this

happen. But then in the same, like, why, why wouldn't I be able to do that in this life? I should. I do. I could. Well, yeah. Yeah, well, I, yeah, lucid dreams are, they're fascinating. They're so vivid. They're so clear. But have you noticed sometimes something happens or you see something in the dream and you think, yeah, that's there in real life.

You know, this poster and this big billboard in my name. Yeah, that's there in real life. Of course, you wake up, you know, that was a load of nonsense. But elusive dreams seem so real, but you've got to be careful. There's still things in it that in the dream you believe is real, but when you wake up, you realize it doesn't quite fit you know have you noticed that or your dreams really no i mean i've had the craziest dreams ever i mean i have this one dream where

it's the same guy he comes to my dream often kind of like i I mean, it's not a guru that I know, but I believe that he must be very significant. He always brings some sort of little nugget to me and he has a robe on. I can never really make out his face too much. But one time we were at a river sitting next to a river and he holds his hand out and he has this oyster shell. And he holds it kind of towards me and a little bit over the water. And he says, this is the yolk. And all of a sudden, a little raindrop falls onto the yolk and goes into the water. And there's like a tadpole in there.

And then I'm coming out of the dream and I was so mad because I was like who are you I didn't get to ask him maybe one day you'll find out but yeah I mean it was crazy because things did start to add up about that dream. Things would happen. I'd be like, oh my gosh, the dream that same night though, I have two dreams. I was having stomach issues, which is, you know, when you wake up because you have issues, you know what I mean? Like I have hot flashes now. So I'm dreaming a lot. I remember everything. I was having stomach issues back then. And so that same night, this woman comes into my bedroom and she puts her hands on her, on my stomach and she heals me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so nice. You know? And as she's leaving and she's actually just walking to like my bathroom, which is so weird. But I remembered that I didn't ask the guy with the oyster shell

who he was so I asked her wait wait wait who are you and she goes oh I'm the hunter's wife hunter's wife hunter's wife yeah and I was like what like it's so like what and later on the hunter's wife all unfolded for me the hunter's life was I was having all of the synchronicity around the goddess Bridget and her myth there was just all of these things that were coming up. So you found out who she was? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know nothing about the hunter's life.

Usually I find in dreams where there's, let's say, a powerful woman or a significant woman, she represents what's called the divine feminine you know the higher level of creativity you know what what we're in the this this realm but she has many masks you know yes she could be hunter's wife but she may appear to you as somebody else in another dream yeah so it could be the hunter yeah yeah actually you know so that's been my study is the divine feminine and that was one thing that was it it was not in my brain you know our father who is art and who are in heaven i grew up Catholic right to have a mother as a goddess was never anything that I ever thought of and so I had to really shift my perception and kind of really forget everything I thought I knew to accept that and I guess at that that level we give it he she or whatever context but really it's

beyond any of that but we have to be able to try and understand so obviously the father is usually considered the you know the master of the house or something you know and so we've been paternalistic and looked at it being a father god but yeah feminine well it is a feminine god if you take it that whole of creation is is one polarity the feminine polarity and yet the the creator shall we say i mean in hindu is it shiva and shakti but the creator tends to be given a positive polarity which is usually associated with masculine but it's just the association that's given to it positive and negative and ultimately we want to combine the two and be one you know but yeah to Yeah, to be both. The duality in the seven rays. I mean, there's going to always be that duality, it seems like, in everything.

Yeah. But really, when I talk about the dreams in the book, there's two aspects to the dream. There's the dream, the context, which is your psychology coming out, shall we say. But there's the mechanics of consciousness aspect based on the five-fold process but also the positive and negative duality it seems for some reason the positive polarity is usually depicted as masculine and the feminine

polarity is negative now we don't mean negative as in bad and positive as good but we want the balance between the two positive and negative but in dreams the positive polarity shows as male figures father brother male friend or whatever and the negative polarity shows as female figures so the association and positive is better than negative in that you need more positive because we're default negative in the way we are in the way we live in this duality that we're in so you know i'm thinking so i might for example you may have a fee i may have a female figure and it may be more of a a loving relationship because male female me and females would tend to

go that way and i'm thinking what about a woman in her dream and i remember asked about this and it's still females are still the negative priority but the dreams will be slightly different you know that it's a different way that it's shown but it's still that the male priority is shown as the positive is shown as male and the female is the negative and some people why should the female be the negative one but that's just the way it is i did so much research on like the dark mother you know like however you know even look at kalima who is you know transformation or death you know has always looked at so negatively right I mean it's so finite which it is absolutely not

it's the opposite actually from the ego perspective it terrible. It doesn't want to die. It doesn't want to change, right? It doesn't want to change. But from the soul perspective, it's just part of the cycle that it would go through. I mean, what happens if we don't, you know, change? I guess we would be dead. Yeah. And you never really totally get rid of the ego.

This thing where people say death to the ego yeah never it gets re-scripted basically you still have to have some means of living in this world yeah if you become totally soul realized or self-realized the re-scription of the ego would be accepting of that and knowing that it's got a purpose to help you in this life. It's probably better to think of it as the personality that you have, but you never totally get rid of it, not whilst you're living a physical existence. At least that's how I've been led to see it. You know how they say that we're only conscious like i think it's like one or two percent of the time and the other time we're we're not i mean i wonder if you know maybe they should maybe today maybe it's getting a little bit better i mean i feel like i tried to be conscious throughout my day of course

i'm not you know i even have adhd so you know but i'm always coming back to myself and in fact i'm searching for opportunities and moments yeah presence and the more you have them the more you i think the more you do search comes back to the same thing that your soul is prompting you so hard to ultimately to reveal itself through you that you know you're connecting with it more and more and you're just feeling you have to do it and barely you know obviously someone who's totally self-realized it's just a living example of meditation in motion it's not that they have to sit down and meditate they are meditation i had on neil donald walsh not too long ago and he told me about when he would be in the presence of jay nakan his energy would be so affecting to the people around him

because he was so present. Yeah, that's so true. The more you're able to be present, the more you're able to be in that state of awareness, the more power it builds in you. Your wakefulness increases. You become more and more wakeful. And this power can be detected by you know people around you if you've

ever been in the presence of a truly authentic master they don't have to say anything you're being transformed just from their energy you know it's almost like talking gets in the way but yeah the more you build your power the self-awareness book kind of points to the more you can increase the positive polarity, the more you get balanced, the more your power builds. When you're asleep, that increases positive polarity. When you're conscious of what you're doing during the day that increases positive polarity. So as long as you can have more positive polarity than negative polarity, your power is going to build and you'll become more and more wakefulness. And at the end of the day, it's all about being wakeful. In every area, right?

In your relationships, in the way you eat, in the way you receive Mother Earth. I mean, all of these things are so important. I can't think of these things are so important. I can't, I can't think of anything more important than awareness. You know, I'll be, I'll tell you a few months ago, I ended up in the hospital with colitis and it was because I had laryngitis. It's so funny because I didn't realize how I wasn't being aware with my body. I was being aware of my thoughts. I was present with nature and all the things, but somehow my body just fell off. And I was taking all this ibuprofen because I needed to talk, you know, and have these interviews, but it ended up being a blessing in the end too, of course, right? Here we got duality. And in the end, I was so present with myself, the fasting that I had to do in the hospital

and the cleanse that I had to do when I got out I hadn't had that much energy in so long I hadn't felt that good in so long and I didn't even know it so it was a blessing and then I was very conscious about what I wanted to put back into the body now that I was cleansed and clear have you ever one thought that there's a maybe it's a physical reaction to that's where the throat chakra is and the throat chakra is all about communication or putting into words you know what you might pick up through intuitively or whatever through the third eye but it still has to somehow be communicated in this realm so maybe that was had something to do with it i'm not saying it did but and of course and i talk about this a lot in the self-awareness book the kundalini

and that's transforming you from within as well and that can have physical symptoms so you know it could have kundalini working in the throat chakra that led to the physical experience it's a very transformative energy and it always used to fascinate me that's why basically my thesis that way back when i did that thesis for the degree was on basically on the kundalini and i've always been fascinating in this internal energy the fact that everybody has it either dormant at the base of the spine ready for the time when it's time and usually it's on when you're on the evolutionary cycle you know the return journey home shall we say that it gets activated and it transforms you from within literally and

it takes a long time and sometimes it's not not easy but it does and it works through the chakras backwards and forwards it doesn't just do one at a time and um basically it's telling you that what ultimately you know maybe not this life but ultimately you're going to become enlightened and that's your destiny where you're heading and instead of the kundalini is also representative of the divine feminine the feminine fire within you know there's so many um comparisons you know that can be drawn presence being present is also considered the divine feminine yeah you can't rigidly stick something too much in a box but yeah that's fascinating it is you know um the first time i ever heard the word kundalini is is quite funny it was shortly after that bubble bath

but i also at the time was taking a mindfulness class and i was making these rugs and i would crochet them and I'd start in the middle of a circle and it would go out. You know, it was spiral out. I'd crochet them and and I would do it with like with material. So they're like rag rugs. And I mean, they would get really big around me and I'd be in the middle. And it was very meditative, too, because, you know, I'm so focused on it and I, and it was relaxing and I would let go when I wouldn't think about so many things. And I would put on this chant and it was an old Hindu chant. And I didn't know what it was. I didn't know it was an old Hindu chant. I just liked it. And I would sit in my circle and

it would just over and over chant. And then seeing, you know, my whole body is in so much pain. I mean, I had, I went to the doctor, I had a list of symptoms and she's like, we're not going to get to all this. And I was like, well, all of them are very real, all of them. And she's like, well, I think you have fibromyalgia. So here, go home and take all these drugs, you know, muscle relaxers. So when I looked at my symptoms on Google, which was, there wasn't a lot of information on Google, but it was like a little bit over a decade ago. And I kept running into Kundalini awakening awakening every time i put my symptoms in i'd find blog posts about people talking about a kundalini and i call i remember calling my best friend mandy saying what the hell is a kundalini a kundalini i said i think i might got that

might have been better if you use the chinese word p or chi or something like that at the moment which reminds me you know what listening to you talk usually talking a lot uh depletes your energy you know you're trying to increase your energy but talking a lot depletes your energy however if you're talking consciously and you're talking about something like with higher purpose and it's for the benefit of others it actually increases your positive polarity so you're not wasting your depleting your wakefulness or your energy by doing what you're doing yeah i told it a few times and i thought well maybe i should cancel my interview and then i'd say no you know why because i knew the minute i got on the call covid could not stand this energy that would my shakti energy i know i have it

and every symptom would just dissolve the minute I have, you know, this high vibe conversation. There you go. Yeah. So, yes, I guess the bottom line is it's be conscious as much as you can. Be wakeful as much as you can. And that's how we should try to live our days, our lives. When we are aware of everything in the world, sometimes for the first time that it's actually not as beautiful

as we thought it was, or maybe we've just shut out some of the things because we didn't want to see it because they're suffering it's a difficult one but if you accept that everything is let's say divine play everything is oneness nothing is separate from the one then you can perhaps look at it as it's appropriate all right it's everything is exactly as it's meant to be it's just our judgments of what's right and wrong and what should be what shouldn't be but color it differently so yeah everything is exactly as it should be and we're trying to make it otherwise and that is what actually causes us a lot of internal discomfort people shouldn't do that you know or why is he doing

that or whatever if you can just try and accept that it's appropriate it doesn't mean you just leave it there and don't bother with it you it's appropriate to make changes and to do the right thing but this acceptance that all is appropriate i'll give a quote here uh you couldn't be more on schedule if you tried i had someone one time asked me i can't remember even who it was they said is there any way to like go back to sleep i don't want to see everything like this anymore it's too painful yeah yikes yeah I don't really think it's you might temporarily think you've gone back but even that must be appropriate and push you forwards yeah yeah I don't think we can just go backwards not not in the long term a bit like shares isn't it they go up and down but ultimately they always go forwards yeah okay I like that well thank you so much I just feel like you know we I need to have more conversations

about just being and just being aware and just being present yeah yeah and just being one with everything I love how you said that. Because when you were saying that, I thought, well, maybe like the war that's happening right now is just like my colitis. There's another quote I use for my, I often tell it to my meditation group. And it's, you know, the phrase, don't just sit there, do something. When you turn it around and say, don't just do something, sit there. That's very, very good.

Turning it around, yeah. Be, try to be, not do all the time. Or be while you're doing. That's probably a better way to go. But yeah, be present. Well, Charles, will you tell everybody where they can find your book? And do you have a website too?

Yeah, if you go to my website, there's links in there. The website's basically my name. So it's Charles Atfield. Atfield with two Ts. And I will make sure that I put this in the show notes so they can go right to it. The name of your book is Self-Awareness and Meditation. Yeah and it says under that an advanced guide for meditators it's not trying to say it's only

for advanced meditators but it's got a lot of stuff in it so you can go to it as a beginner but you know if you're really a beginner and all this stuff is use it as a reference book if that's the case but there's a lot of stuff in there you know like the dreams for example that would be of value to anyone and there's also at the back of the book the very end there's a supplementary meditation course you know lesson one lesson two and so on and it's based on the book and it's trying to simplify it into a little course so then you might think well what's that and go back to the book and look at it a lot of people say to me that they have a hard time meditating. I have a hard time shutting my mind off.

And that was me too at one point. I thought, you know, my therapist just got done, you know, diagnosing me with ADHD. And then she tells me to go take a mindfulness class. I'm like, what? That is the most common question. I can't meditate. I think too much.

Or another one I get a lot is I'll just fall asleep oh i do that falling asleep is part of the meditation you don't beat yourself up about it you're in a meditation you've been meditating you're falling asleep it's actually the positive polarity sleeping absence is another word for it and i don't know about you but you can come out of that sleep state and actually be quite subtly aware, even after the sleep. But as for thoughts, well, we all thought you can't, we can't stop them. I'm sure Meditation Master can, but you just let them go and don't get attached to them.

And as you practice, if you try and stick to the same time every day, your unconscious is going to begin to realize this is the time to meditate. It will start to help you. It's like a structure that you've built. So sitting properly, picking the right time, same time every day. And this is beginners, of course. Later on, you can do it whenever you want but the structure you know sitting to meditate same time every day just do it that's the first

lesson just do it and does it matter how long you do it because you know some people are like you know i don't have time to do it well That reminds me of a quote. If you can't meditate for 20 minutes a day, then meditate for an hour. Yeah. Just do it. And, yeah, it will be uncomfortable. That's the clearing. All right? You sit down, you try and meditate, and you start to feel restless

and uncomfortable. That's what it's all about basically yeah fearing stuff and becoming more who you really are okay just do it do it yeah and everyone's different you know don't expect it to happen overnight just do it make the right environment nice environment you might want incense you might want relaxing music whatever is a nice environment that will help yeah yeah take what you can thank you so much charles you've brought so much wisdom you've inspired me to want to fall asleep to a great meditation tonight because you know you really do sleep better too you know yeah if you do fall asleep i mean yeah yeah it's got its health

benefits you know sleep better you become calmer more accepting and so on yeah and you might have some really cool dreams and you might do yeah yeah for sure and if you dream when you're in if you dream when you're in a sleep state of meditation you can call it a meditative dream if you meditate before you go to bed maybe your sleep will be more meditative too. Yeah, for sure. Well, thanks, Charles. You have a great rest of your day. I appreciate you coming on. Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support sense of soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.