The seer and teacher Rudolf Steiner advised that specific 'accompanying' or 'fundamental' spiritual exercises should always be carried out in conjunction with meditation. While meditation is the foundation of any spiritual path of development, it can pose dangers to normal consciousness. These exercises offer a protection, by helping to develop inner certainty and strength. This is achieved, for example, through the first exercise by concentrating and intensifying the powers of thinking, through the second by developing the control of the will, through the third by mastering the outer expressions of the life of feeling, and so on. Florin Lowndes describes the fundamental exercises in thorough detail, giving suggestions as to how they may be carried out. He also relates an important and hidden aspect - that the exercises embody the means for developing and strengthening organic and 'living' thinking, which is intimately related to the enlivening of a new organ of perception: the heart chakra or lotus. Lowndes casts new light on many aspects of this question, and offers encouragement and stimulus to those seeking a modern path of spiritual development. FLORIN LOWNDES was born in Romania in 1938 and had an international career in architectural art and design. In 1970 he emigrated to the United States, where he taught at college level and in Steiner Waldorf schools. Since 1971 he has been engaged in the study of anthroposophy, and has written many articles for journals on related questions. He co-authored The Human Life, and founded the Center of Heart-Thinking in Boston. At present he leads training seminars in the United States and throughout Europe.

Greenia, a massage therapist, explores subtle energy healing and balancing in the new millennium. By blending discoveries from quantum physics with concepts of the powerful energies of the heart center, this book emphasizes the importance of energy therapies. Fully returnable.

How can we best achieve our personal goals – not just to benefit ourselves but also our loved ones and wider communities? Mastering Life introduces comprehensive and effective methods to transform the self, enhanced by the meditative use of magical symbols and sacred words. These help us identify our aspirations, combining goal contemplation, visualization and meditation techniques. Through these processes, we can gain control over spiritual forces that work within our destiny, attracting favourable outer circumstances in everyday life. Dr Gruenewald offers a set of practical tools: · A spiritual symbol and mantra for meditation that can enhance our capacity to manifest harmonic goals. · Contemplation – courageous conversation with our resourceful self – to enrich imagination and willpower. · Resilience-building techniques, active listening, mindful nature observation and transformation of negative emotions. · Harmonization of our goals with the developmental needs of others, in freedom and love. · Contemplative work with the initiatory Temple Legend narrative (featured in the book). In this accessible handbook, the author shows how we can call upon the assistance of spiritual beings and masters who serve the development of humanity – including Christian Rosenkreuz, whose pupils have long used magical symbols and verses for meditative and ritualistic work.

Featuring more than 50 colour images, The Inner Rainbow takes the reader on an journey through time, from Ancient India to the present day. This is the journey of human consciousness – the story of an eternal, metamorphic process. As the author suggests, consciousness is not a self-contained, unchangeable faculty. The way we perceive the surrounding world today – with the potential for sophisticated and exact observation of natural phenomena – has evolved over thousands of years. What was once a blurred and fragmentary perception in the time of Ancient India has evolved to a clear awareness of everyday reality. Using pictures as his starting point, Henk van Oort outlines a remarkable narrative, beginning with the age-old myth of Noah’s Ark, in which a rainbow is presented to the survivors of the Biblical flood. This rainbow in nature, with its seven colours, is mirrored in the ancient teaching of the seven human chakras, also with seven colours. Through a gradual process of change over centuries, this outer rainbow has been internalised into an inner rainbow, shaping a bridge between body, soul and spirit. With its ever-changing consciousness, this inner rainbow is a wonderful sense organ, in process of reaching a new peak of development. Understanding our past – the progressive stages we have passed through – is a prerequisite for optimal use of our consciousness now. Ultimately, then, this book can be seen as a guide for working with your own inner rainbow: to expand, deepen and enliven your picture of the world and your true self.

Start Now! offers an extensive and representative sample of Steiner's spiritual instructions and meditative practices, including meditation instructions; mantric verses; daily, weekly and monthly practices for the development of soul qualities; karmic exercises and meditations for working with the dead, the angelic hierarchies and our guardian angel.

"Beautiful. . . . If you are facing cancer or any other serious illness, I encourage you to allow the wisdom contained within these pages to nurture, guide, and support you."-Deepak Chopra, M.D., from his foreword Return to Wholeness is a revelation. David Simon breaks new ground with the innovative, holistic mind-body approaches developed at the Chopra Center for Well Being. The guiding theme in this book is wholeness, as Dr. Simon demonstrates to readers the value of integrating the best of traditional and alternative medicines with ancient Eastern, Ayurvedic principles and practices in order to forge the most effective path to wellness. Return to Wholeness features advice and recommendations on every aspect of living with illness, including designing a simple nutritional program to purify, rejuvenate, and provide balance; benefiting from the healing properties of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and herbs; facing the toll exacted by chemotherapy and other medical techniques; incorporating various kinds of meditation, creative visualization, and aromatherapy into the larger Return to Wholeness program; and weathering emotional cycles through art therapy, journaling, laughter, and music. "Return to Wholeness is magnificent. Reading this book made me feel embraced and uplifted by all that is healing and true. Return to Wholeness should be kept on the nightstand of everyone who has cancer or another illness or who is afraid of becoming ill." - Christiane Northrup, M.D. author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom "Return to Wholeness is the perfect book for anyone facing the diagnosis of cancer. . . . Powerful, powerful teachings you will not read elsewhere from a medical doctor." -Wayne Dyer, Ph.D., author of Manifest Your Destiny "Gentle, compassionate, and yet thorough . . . a book that awakens the inner healer in all of us." - Louise L. Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life "An excellent source of information and guidance to help one integrate one's life and approach to cancer." -Bernie S. Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles "In every great challenge of life, we need guides who can show us the way. Dr. David Simon is a wise, compassionate physician who can help anyone on the journey through the experience of cancer." -Larry Dossey, M.D. author of Prayer Is Good Medicine and Healing Words

Become a more complete peaceful, spiritual, emotional, and physical individual with this elegantly designed essential guide to chakras. Included inside the back cover is a beautifully illustrated 18 × 24–inch wall chart detailing the main characteristics of the major and minor chakras. Chakras are energy centers in our bodies that act as the seats of our internal functions, such as health, state of mind, and body functions, as well as our external environments, like alerting us when a place feels right for us or when it makes us feel uncomfortable. However, the six major chakras—base, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, brow, and crown—are many times blocked or misaligned, bringing about a host of negative ailments, feelings, and emotions. Thankfully, chakras can be corrected through various healing practices explained in this guide. In Focus Chakra Healing provides in-depth summaries about each chakra, followed by expert advice from Roberta Vernon on how to identify and restore blocked, weak, or closed chakras through common holistic approaches, such as crystal healing, color healing, astrological healing, essential oils, and magic healing. Common ailments addressed: Overeating Digestive disorders Fatigue Allergies Emotional stress Physical stress Headaches The In Focus series applies a modern approach to teaching the classic body, mind, and spirit subjects. Authored by experts in their respective fields, these beginner’s guides feature smartly designed visual material that clearly illustrates key topics within each subject. As a bonus, each book includes reference cards or a poster, held in an envelope inside the back cover, that give you a quick, go-to guide containing the most important information on the subject.

A guide to working with the chakras to heal emotional wounds, release physical tensions, explore psychic abilities, and awaken spiritual energies • Explores each chakra on the physical, psychological, psychic, and spiritual level and explains how the chakras can be understood as an embodied map of the psyche, linked with different stages of development • Details the author’s system of Chakra Therapy, which integrates healing touch with chakra visualizations • Offers practical exercises to nourish and support each chakra as well as practices for daily chakra maintenance In this in-depth guide to working with the chakras, author Glen Park draws on her decades of experience as a Chakra Therapist to explain how the chakras can be understood as an embodied map of the psyche, with each chakra representing a different stage of development from infancy and childhood through adulthood, with the Heart Chakra playing a central role in awakening the spiritual potential of the upper chakras. She examines each chakra individually on the physical, psychological, psychic, and spiritual level, as well as through the lens of the solar (masculine) and lunar (feminine) channels. She shows how the connections between the chakras and developmental stages are paralleled in the findings of Western psychology and neuroscience and how our collective expressions of the chakras influence cultural trends in society. The author’s system of Chakra Therapy integrates healing touch with guided chakra visualizations, offering practical exercises to nourish and balance each chakra so it can be integrated and in harmony with the entire chakra system. She explores how to work with the Heart Chakra for deep transformation and self-healing, including healing emotional wounds from childhood and enabling the psychic and spiritual levels of the Throat and Eye Chakras to develop, with the potential of opening to the divine realm of the Crown Chakra. Sharing case studies from her Chakra Therapy practice, she shows how we gain a richer understanding of ourselves both mentally and physically by working with the chakras, opening ourselves to the potential for deep soul growth and transformation.

If you’ve ever had questions about the inconsistencies between chakra systems or wondered where the names, colors, locations, and other associations came from—you’ll find the answers here, along with 24 tables and 28 black-and-white illustrations showing how the Western chakra system developed from the mid-19th through the 20th century, many from rare and forgotten sources. Based on the teachings of Indian Tantra, the chakras have been used for centuries as focal points for healing, meditation, and achieving a gamut of physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits, from improved health to ultimate enlightenment. Contemporary yoga teachers, energy healers, psychics, and self-help devotees think of the chakra system as thousands of years old. Yet the most common version in use in the West today came together as recently as 1977. Never before has the story been told of how the Western chakra system developed from its roots in Indian Tantra, through Blavatsky to Leadbeater, Steiner to Alice Bailey, Jung to Joseph Campbell, Ramakrishna to Aurobindo, and Esalen to Shirley MacLaine and Barbara Brennan.

In a world of rising tension and stress it is not unusual to feel dominated and overwhelmed by the life's events. Here is a practical guide to gaining a firm anchor and taking control of the situation. It is based on seven contemplative exercises as the author has interpreted from the work of Rudolf Steiner. When practiced diligently, these simple exercises--which may take only a few minutes per day--are powerful tools for personal growth and inner strengthening. The exercises in this handbook help us stay more balanced in emotionally charged situations; see the positive side of any circumstance; gain a more open mind; and develop an inner attitude of gratitude. These exercises also help us cope with the practical aspects of ordinary life--remembering the important details of our day, acting on our intentions, and thinking more clearly. Cohen presents a pathway to help us say "yes" to more of what life offers; we become more open to the abundance of life's experiences. The book is organized so that each chapter introduces a different soul capacity, which in turn can be mastered. Topics include: Review of the Day; Clear Thinking; Intention in Action; Balance in Feeling; Positive World View; Open Mind; and Gratitude. The book also offers clear descriptions of the exercises, a "Plan of Action," and advice on developing a meditative practice.