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Chuck’s Place: The Practical Wisdom Of Positive Suggestions

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The Seven Energy Centers…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

The chakras are the seven energy centers in the human form that ascend from the root to the crown of the physical body. Each energy center radiates vibrationally at an increasingly higher frequency, from the sacrum, the lowest and densest vibration, to the crown, the highest and lightest vibration at the top of the head. Each of these energy centers contribute to the enhancement of suggestions presented to the subconscious mind. Here are their core qualities in ascending order:

  1. Sacrum: Security
  2. Genitals: Sensuality
  3. Solar Plexus: Power
  4. Heart: Love
  5. Throat: Expression
  6. Pineal Gland: Intuition
  7. Crown: Infinity

We live in all these dimensions simultaneously, though we may usually emphasize only one or two main energy centers. For instance, if we are largely preoccupied with concern about, or fear of, survival, we live primarily in the first chakra, the densest energy center, akin to the solidness of life in a physical body.

If we are obsessed with physical survival, which translates to negative suggestions to our subconscious mind, we will manifest physical conditions of lack, and perhaps ill health, in keeping with our mental and emotional preoccupation of mind.

The major teaching here is that we manifest what we think, positive or negative. Practical wisdom instructs us to emphasize the positive so that we manifest calmness and confidence, and so that we attract physical safety and abundance into our lives.

If our thoughts state that we want safety and abundance, but we don’t really believe it possible for us, the suggestion we are really delivering to the subconscious mind is to manifest these negative suggestions. Always better to focus on the positive outcome that you seek rather than even reference the condition that you don’t want.

For example, “I intend good health and wealth” versus “I no longer worry about health and finances.” The phrase, “no longer worry” puts emphasis upon a negative state of worry, whereas the phrase “intend good health and wealth” is completely clear and positive, creating no confusion for the subconscious mind. Positive suggestions only. Good health and wealth also tap into the sensuous desire and needs of the second chakra.

Stating a suggestion is an exercise of  personal power—the third chakra. If we allow the mesmeric whine of negative thinking to dominate our suggestions we spend our personal power generating ambivalence and powerlessness, the self-defeat that negativity calls forth. Let suggestions be constructed toward positive creation versus cessation of negative thinking.

Do not enter into battle with negativity; to do so is to flood the subconscious mind with negative suggestions. Allow negative thoughts to exist; simply don’t play to them or give them permission to be authors in the story of your life. As the wisdom of the I Ching suggests, the best way to combat evil is to make energetic progress in the good, or as Christ would suggest, raise your vibration to love of versus hate for your enemy.

This is also the essence of the Buddhist suggestion of detachment. Let all thoughts live, but exercise your free will to give attention to positive outcomes only. The less we emphasize negative thoughts the less they are attracted to us. Let them go elsewhere to be lived, but offer them the suggestion that they too can evolve into grander stories.

Engaging the heart chakra in a suggestion imbues it with the highly radiant energy of truth, love, wisdom and compassion. Thus, for example, I might add to my previous positive suggestion, “With deep gratitude for all the gifts I am given, I intend good health and wealth.”

The “gifts I am given” also references the intuitions or direct knowledge we receive that issue from the sixth chakra, at the pineal gland. This knowledge fortifies the conscious mind’s faith in its suggestion of gifts being given based on strong intuition. This suggestion is far more powerful than contra autosuggestions that might play to ego doubt.

This construction employs the positive use of power to intend, plus the loving energy of gratitude, to deeply fortify the energetic impressiveness of the suggestion to the subconscious mind.

I might further expand the power of this suggestion by calling in the  immortal connection to Infinite Intelligence at the crown chakra, as follows: “Infinite intelligence, the essence of my spirit, knows how to heal and provide for me. With deep gratitude for all the gifts I am given, I intend good health and wealth. I trust in the Infinite Power of Infinite Intelligence to manifest my intent with Divine Wisdom, in its own time and in its own way. Thank You.”

Finally, we engage the throat chakra to express, via reading or memorizing aloud, the suggestion we have constructed. Your suggestion may be repeated in many circumstances throughout your day.

I highly recommend using a quiet time, perhaps before sleep—when consciousness naturally prepares to go off into infinity in sleep—to be in communion with our spirit at the crown chakra.

The use of autogenic phrases to release attention from physical attachment opens one to the higher vibration of spirit and direct access to the subconscious mind. I also enjoy the use of breathing techniques, from yogic pranayama to Wim Hof, that emphasize some retention of the breath to physically join the spirit with the human self of the body in a truly holy communion.

The subconscious mind is now fully able to take in our suggestion as we drift into hypnagogic sleep. Repeat it calmly, several times.

Whatever be your intent, may it be positive and imbued with the force of all the energy centers available to you, now.

Positive Vibrations,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Transmogrifying Default Karmic Reactions

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Take me to the Oneness of it all…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

At the level of the physical body, karma is simple cause and effect. For instance, if, during dental work, a nerve is touched, pain is the default effect. I discovered, however, that pain is only one interpretation of energy, and so, during dental work, unaided by anesthesia, my mind interprets pain as a sensation that signals me to go deeper into calm. The typical karma of pain associated with dental work has transformed the once dreaded treatment chair into a place of deeply calming meditation.

The ability of breath guru, Wim Hof, to sit in an ice bath for nearly two hours is a very similar phenomenon. Wim visualizes an inner fire, which he then directs to different parts of his body to arrive at warmth rather than frozenness. The default karma of freezing, in response to lying in a tub of ice, is transformed into warmth and comfort by a strong mental impression delivered to, and manifested by, the subconscious mind.

These experiences validate that the threads of karma, which we have generated through beliefs and actions, can be fully transmogrified into positive outcomes. Typically, we manage the discomfort of karma through suppression or repression, which results in the physical body storing a charged experience by restricting the muscles or the breath. Many physical conditions we suffer with are karmic conditions, held in the body, restricting the free flow of our vital energy.

We can unravel these energetic knots through the conscious mind’s imagining, feeling and believing that its intent to heal is possible, as it delivers it to the subconscious mind, for manifestation. Of course, one’s suggestion must be directed toward the purest and highest good for self and other to truly balance out a karmic thread. Suggestions that merely silence a symptom, but don’t address it, actually continue to store it in the physical body with its original karma perhaps more remote, but remaining charged and intact.

Many spiritual practitioners, such as Buddhists, focus most of their days repeating positive suggestions such as loving kindness and compassion to constantly generate positive karma and release negative karma. Such a practice enables instinctive reactions, such as anger at a transgression by another, to be quickly transmuted at a higher energetic chakra, such as the heart center, into genuine compassion for a fellow flawed human being.

The instinct of the heart is to tell the absolute truth. The ultimate truth is that we all share in the oneness of everything. Such a genuine compassionate feeling unburdens one from mentally and physically carrying a charged karma of hatred. One’s vital energies flow freely and radiate a loving energy, to the benefit of self and the greater world.

Of course, if we are fearful of feeling and expressing our instinctual reactions, we must thoughtfully and creatively allow these primal karmic reactions, imprisoned by the body armor, to be safely expressed. Primal screams in the ocean or forest might serve such a need. However, as the energy lodged in these lower chakras is released, our vital kundalini energy moves up the spine to higher energetic chakras for spiritual processing. Our soul is released from the karma of negative emotions by the dissolving power of love and acceptance of All That Is at these higher subtle energy centers.

Though the conscious mind has the power to suggest, it has no power to direct the healing strategy that the subconscious mind will choose to employ. The expression, “let go and let God” is particularly relevant in this context. The conscious mind must have no attachment to the outcome; it must completely surrender control to the wisdom and way of the subconscious mind.

To transmute karma beyond the default effects of karma, the subconscious mind may take us through an energetic journey of squaring with memories we have avoided, or old habits we still cling to. The way of the subconscious mind may take much longer than we desire. We are challenged to remain positive, truly having faith in the power of the subconscious mind to manifest the intent we suggest.

As we master the challenges presented to us at various chakra centers, our energetic viewpoint is broadened widely as we approach the greater truth of our interconnected oneness with all things. From this position we are likely to accumulate mostly positive karma. Negative karma usually stems from stuckness in the polarity of the lower chakras that leaves us feeling offended, victimized and entitled.

Ultimately, we arrive at the awareness that there is nothing to forgive. We take full responsibility for all we have experienced in this life and  appreciate fully all those who have accompanied us on our journey, with equanimity. The karma of such a perspective is total freedom, particularly from old default karmic reactions.

Transmogrifying,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Greatest Love Affair Of All

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The subconscious becoming conscious…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The ultimate love affair, in Hindu cosmology, the union of Shakti and Shiva, takes place within the human body. Shakti, in her energetic form, as Kundalini, rests in the coccyx, at the base of the human spine. Kundalini is the divine manifesting substance and force  of all creation. Shiva, the God of pure consciousness, resides at the crown of the human head.

These divine consorts, situated at the opposite poles of the spinal column, are also oppositely charged. Shakti is negative and Shiva is positive. The resulting magnetic force of attraction of these opposites draws this divine couple irresistibly toward the goal of union.

The union of Shakti and Shiva is the union of Spirit, which is consciousness, and Matter, which is the creative energy of all material manifestation. The progeny of their union is the  world we live in. This dynamic union and creation is expressed in Judeo-Christian cosmology in John’s Gospel, “in the beginning was the word (Spirit consciousness) and the word was made flesh (Matter).”

Upon awakening early one morning, I was contemplating Shakti and Shiva’s relationship when Jan abruptly woke from a dream. She told me she had just been in India, where a very tall ladder that had pointed vertically into the heavens was brought down and positioned horizontally, both balanced and secure, across several buildings.

Jan reflected that the roof is the highest spiritual point of a building that is grounded in the earth. The message of the dream: the spiritual journey that is needed now is not a vertical rise, out-of-body into the heavens, but instead a horizontal in-body journey, as one traverses the challenges of their human life, with all its relationships upon the Earth.

These challenges are neatly laid out in Hindu science, as the path that Kundalini traverses through the chakras, or subtle energy power stations along the spine, en route to Shiva. Actually, each chakra entails its own horizontal journey, which requires mastery as we move toward greater fulfillment in life.

The base of the spine center asks us to find grounding, safety and security. The genital region introduces us to sexual and creative energy, which entail their own developmental processes. The solar plexus introduces us to I, as ego, and the mastery of personal power. The heart introduces us to our connection to our Spirit and deepest truth. The throat is about finding our voice. The third eye brings forth intuition. As Kundalini reaches Shiva, at the crown, consciousness unites and becomes one with all creation. In a human life, the fulfillment of this state is experienced as we relax increasingly deeper into ever-widening equanimous love.

The duality of Shakti and Shiva is also expressed in the two minds of the human psyche: the subconscious mind and the ego.

The subconscious, Shakti, is feminine in its receptivity to suggestions. The subconscious has access to all knowledge and creative possibility, as well as the substance to birth new life, but, without union with the novel suggestions of consciousness, is governed by instinctual programs and habits.

The ego, Shiva, is identified with life in the physical body and is the seat of consciousness. Regardless of gender, ego is masculine in its active thinking capabilities. It is the seat of free will and decision making.

The human ego has many developmental challenges it must master, similar to those identified with the chakras. Ego must establish safety and grounding; be introduced to and master sexuality and its animal self, as well as exercise its own capacity to intend creation; become autonomous and have the power of self-assertion; develop humility and acquiescence to truth and its High Spirit Self; use its voice; see beyond its narcissistic shell; and, ultimately, become one with everything.

The subconscious faces no developmental challenges because the subconscious is completely fluid, it can be anything. In contrast to the ego, the subconscious is attached to no identity; it simply responds to the suggestion it entertains at the current moment.

The challenge in human development is for ego to be in the correct relationship with the subconscious mind. Essentially, the ego is the creator, issuing forth the word or image of intent, whose suggestion fertilizes the subconscious, which then galvanizes its substance to manifest new life. The subconscious, in all of us, is the true mother of creation.

If ego does not master safety, it suggests danger to the subconscious, which then manifests an anxious, vigilant personality. If ego suggests inadequacy, the subconscious may manifest a tightened voice. If ego suggests superiority, the subconscious may manifest a pompous, condescending posture and attitude. If ego suggests entitlement to the subconscious, it may manifest a tendency to violate boundaries.

If, on the other hand, the ego aligns with and suggests the truth, the subconscious will open the eye to greater truth and perception. If the ego suggests true love to the subconscious, it activates an energy that draws to us resonant energy. If ego suggests it stay in alignment with its Spirit’s purpose, the subconscious will synchronistically manifest that yellow brick road.

The guidance here is to remain quite protective of the suggestions one both exposes oneself to, as well as personally presents to, the subconscious mind. We live in a time where highly suggestive messages are bombarding both our thinking and subconscious minds at an unprecedented rate, largely due to our attachment to devices, the self-importance of dings, and well-coordinated efforts to infiltrate and influence our subconscious minds.

At the most evolved level, the relationship between ego and subconscious is equivalent to the love affair between Shakti and Shiva. Ego, acting from the insinuation of its Spirt, joining with the magic of the subconscious, is truly the greatest love affair of all. May we all participate in birthing that dream.

With consciousness and infinite possibility,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Essence of Attraction

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Like attracts like…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The energy of attraction is magnetism. Our subtle states of mental and emotional desire generate a magnetic charge that draws toward it like energy that both reflects and interacts with it. If one is in a joyful state of positive radiance, its impact is infectious. Even the most somber person will experience the activation of its radiant joy within themselves.

When we think of magnetism we generally think of the attraction of opposites, not like poles, as expressed in the principle that opposites attract. To understand the true essence of magnetic attraction, we must look to the primary relationship between the supposed opposites of Spirit and Matter itself.

Spirit, for instance, is a substanceless essence that produces subtle blueprints that draw matter to them, to give them material expression in physical form. In the beginning was the word, and the word drew to it the matter that organized into flesh, according to its design.

Thus, though Spirit and Matter appear as opposites, their attraction is actually one of joining their different states of sameness. Matter without Spirit is void of form. Spirit without Matter is void of expression. Creative expression is the mirror of Spirit as Matter and Matter as Spirit, permutations of states of sameness.

Life itself is an evolutionary process. Life in human form hastens evolution because Spirit, as expressed in incarnate, material form, has a beginning and an end. Evolutionary changes are dramatically, physically expressed through the course of a lifetime, from infancy to old age. Discarnate Spirits lack a material playing field for their discovery process. Spirit form does have its material limitations!

Spirits in discarnate form are empathically drawn to the physically alive to act as both teachers and guides. We attract the spirit guides and teachers that match our energetic essence. Thus, in my work, I might attract the guidance of a Carl Jung or Carlos Castaneda, as I explore and practice their teachings, to clarify and deepen the depth of my own understanding.

In exchange, my research and experience in physical form constitutes a physical playing field, an actual physical laboratory, for resonant Spirits outside of human form to deepen their own knowledge in areas of their own interest, as well as karmic challenge.

As well, I might attract a trickster entity interested in vicariously living and encouraging my many vices. Thus, we can’t blame entities for our troubles, they merely piggyback on our own growth process, slow as it may be, to bathe in and resolve their own issues, latent karma from their own sojourns in human form.

Indeed, our guides and teachers contribute greatly to our potential spiritual advancement as they share their wisdom from a higher, more refined subtle plane. Of course, free will is the essential factor in spiritual advancement. We can only advance ourselves spiritually through our choices, whether in discarnate or incarnate form.

If I choose to live in my vices, the trickster entities I attract are actually reflecting to me the intent I am manifesting, which I might not even be aware of. The shadow of the personality houses many desires that our consciousness may be blind to.

Rather than project blame toward others in our lives, we might do well to discover how we have magnetically drawn them to materially reflect our hidden—especially from ourselves, though generally not from others—motivations.

The subtle energy connection points of the human body, called chakras, rise from the base of the spine to the crown of the head in ascending spiritual subtlety. While the base chakra is concerned with physical groundedness, security and safety, essentially the core needs of the human animal, the crown chakra is the opening to one’s highest spiritual essence.

As we focus on different chakras, according to our spiritual and material unfolding and realization through life, we send out energetic signals of attraction that bring forth guides, teachers, and companions, in both incarnate and discarnate forms.

May we appreciate the guidance they provide, as well as the service our lives offer in exchange, as we all advance through this particular journey of infinite discovery.

Indeed, the ultimate spiritualized essence of attraction is love, total love for all. May the force of your attraction bring deep fulfillment.

And may the force of attraction issue from the most refined love in all of us,

Chuck    

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Innocent Ignorance

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I want to take you higher…
– Artwork © 2022 by Jan Ketchel

The Garden of Eden myth imagines the birth of human consciousness.  Adam and Eve chose to break the law by eating the apple. Consciousness is the awareness of having a choice.

Nature’s laws do not require consciousness in order to be obeyed. They come in the form of archetypes, the programs that automatically determine the actions of sentient beings, and the entire cosmos, without any need for conscious deliberation in order to activate.

The archetypes are nature’s commandments, constructed through many painstaking trials of evolution, that become encoded in the genes and developmental patterns that govern a species. The introduction of the possibility of choice in the Garden, prompted by the snake offering the apple, was the birth of the ego, a center of consciousness having the power to override instinct, as it thinks and chooses for itself.

As a consequence of their disobedience, Adam and Eve were banished  from the Garden and thrown into the desert, left to fend for themselves, with their naive and inexperienced egos in charge of making decisions that would impact their survival. This predicament forced the ego to become an imposter of competence, as the responsibility for leadership fell upon an inadequate ego, which had to pretend to be competent.

Before we get too down on the ego for all its inflated pretense of ability or disability, perhaps we should have compassion for this little prince, abandoned in an unknown world. What other choice is there really but to fake it until you make it? The ego never asked to be born without knowledge; it truly is the recipient of its ancestor’s original sin of skipping over nature’s laws and acting through conscious choice instead.

Ironically, the birth of the ego, with its ability to make decisions, was actually nature’s plot to advance humanity to consciousness, an evolutionary trial to improve on nature’s decision making speed and efficiency. After all, Jung would often ask, who put the snake in the Garden?

The coldblooded snake of Eden is indeed kundalini at the root chakra of the human body, pushing itself upwards toward union with higher consciousness at the crown chakra. To be in human life is to experience the trials and tribulations of growing consciousness as it journeys back to the Garden, the crown jewel. The ego is kundalini’s plaything, companion and student on this adventuresome path called human life.

Currently, the ego has become the number one culprit in planetary mishap. The ego is currently mired in narcissism, caught in the lower chakra dramas of self-importance, possession, competition, and domination. This is mirrored in our polarized world with its charismatic leadership.

Within the individual the ego struggles with nature in the form of powerful needs and emotions, as it worries about survival. The higher spiritual chakras of refined love and interconnectedness are far from the consciousness of the needy ego at this stage, consumed as it is with the challenge of its own survival.

Nature, at this current time, is depositing new snakes in our messy garden, in the forms of viruses and climate crises, to prompt the world ego to rise to new heights, particularly to the heart center, where it can shed its narcissistic wrappings through the fire of love. The ego’s work, at the heart center, is learning to make decisions of right action that then rise to expression through word and deed at the throat chakra.

If nature’s experiment of making the conscious ego the agent of prudent decision making is to advance planetary survival, the ego must arrive at a place of humility, able to acknowledge both its innocent ignorance and its narcissistic leanings.

Fortunately, higher levels of consciousness are readily available to guide a humble seeker. Our time is replete with ethereal bodhisattvas, channelled by earth angels throughout the world, sharing their wisdom and guidance to receptive heart-centered egos.

In any moment, ego can ask spirit guides for signs and affirmations in nature, as it contemplates the right direction of a decision. This includes asking the body for guidance as well, where sensations of all kinds might suddenly respond to a thought, offering either affirmation or cause for deeper reflection.

The body also presents itself as nature, ready to evolve under enlightened leadership. An ego that has lost its self-importance, and incorporates the principles of right action, can suggest to the body new rules of functioning that both heal and lead toward deeper fulfillment.

Acknowledge not-knowing with awe versus shame. Assume full responsibility for leadership despite innocent ignorance. Humbly ask for guidance from the crown, then act in full consciousness with refined love.

Innocently ignorant,

Chuck