In mathematics, calculus is the study of continuous change. To many, life is continuous change. Navigating a path through our particular version of these changes can be bewildering at times. My book offers a way forward by reconnecting us to more of who we have always been at our highest potential. My goal is to help anyone follow their path to this elevation by identifying—then repairing or replacing—damaged or obsolete patterns of thought and behavior that may be holding them back. This reconstruction allows them to connect to a more unified and complete version of themselves. This is the Calculus of Life!
My book begins by exploring how to engage our physical presence as a grounding portal for higher awareness. We can start this process by differentiating the physical body through neuromuscular re-education, and the nervous system through Craniosacral Therapy. Successive chapters of the book cover how to identify and integrate the somatic source (the location in our physical body) of our intellectual, emotional, and intuitive aspects of self. These steps alone often spark life-changing awakenings. Next comes identifying levels of being—esoteric layers that animate us in every facet of life—that most people don’t even know exist. These include the Biodynamic Cranial tides, the seemingly magical Torus Field that extends through and around us, and our various primary and second-order centers of function and awareness. Differentiating and integrating these extraordinary levels of being can take us into expansive, visionary states of awareness—including the experience of the 5th Element: the Source Field of unlimited possibility.
Chapter Summaries
Part 1: Fundamentals
Chapter 1: Beginnings
The Calculus of Life developed out of my personal interests and experiences in music, meditation, and various mind-body practices. As an aspiring musician, my frustration with modern trumpets inspired me to improve them. Learning how to build instruments that were more resonant taught me how to be more resonant myself—both physically in
my body, and on higher levels of being. A select group of musicians and teachers supported me in this process, as I discovered a variety of life-changing practices—among them Kundalini Yoga, Raja Yoga, the teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais, and Craniosacral Therapy. Learning and eventually teaching these practices helped me better connect to my life purpose. Combining them into a comprehensive new approach to working with leading musicians, healthcare and Yoga practitioners, and the general public, resulted in the method described in this book.
Chapter 2: Resonance
Resonance is a refined quality of vibration or movement that occurs when something (or someone) is in tune with itself. Becoming more aware of the subtle layers of resonance involved in how we perform a task helps us to be more in tune with that task—and with life. These qualities of resonance can be reinforced when something becomes more
harmonically connected to its surroundings, through a phenomenon called sympathetic resonance. Resonance and sympathetic resonance can define sound, inspire people, and bring more depth and intimacy to our relationships with others—and with ourselves. This can extend into heightened states of shared resonance with all of creation, known
alternately as samadhi, satori, and nirvana.
Chapter 3: Structural Renewal and Rehabilitation
Common aches and pains in our physical bodies often reflect larger challenges in the state of our mental, emotional, intuitive, and higher selves. Our sore backs, stiff necks, and other painful symptoms can stay with us even after the physical injuries that have caused these symptoms have long since healed. Structural renewal through the
combination of neuromuscular re-education, Craniosacral Therapy, and guided meditation can help us release tension we hold that is no longer needed. This allows us to access even more of who we are at our highest potential. Several client session accounts demonstrate how these layers of reconnection can produce therapeutic results
at all levels of being.
Chapter 4: Craniosacral Therapy
Dr. John Upledger developed Craniosacral Therapy to improve function in the central nervous system. This gentle, hands-on practice directs the body’s own healing capabilities through therapeutic touch. The work is a spontaneous, improvised conversation between the practitioner and the client’s nervous system, which can quickly address a variety of acute and chronic health issues. Biodynamic Cranial work is an even more subtle approach to the same end. It allows a source beyond the client or practitioner to conduct the session through a higher “inherent treatment plan.” This practice can include immersion in Dynamic Stillness—an expansive realm of unlimited possibility that is accessed by top artists and mind-body practitioners at peak moments of creative flow and personal renewal. Session accounts document how Craniosacral Therapy addresses common health concerns while providing expansive, often profound elevations in consciousness.
Chapter 5: Emotional Integration
Emotional Integration begins with engaging and refining one’s awareness of their emotional aspect-of-self, which may become disconnected from their other aspects-of-self. For example, anyone who cannot sustain their normal level of expression may be experiencing a disconnect between their chronological age and their emotional age. Such a disconnect can happen to anyone in any life setting when they relive being emotionally traumatized to the point of dysfunction. Many people who are experiencing dis-integration of their emotional self displace or shut down emotionally-charged parts of themselves until they feel safe. A therapeutic reconnection to more of one’s emotional self not only addresses the emotional conflict; it often fuels expansion into more clarity and freedom of expression. This allows them to reconnect to more of themselves as they perform what were previously stressful life tasks. Session accounts demonstrate how one’s dis-integrated emotional self can be identified and re-integrated, with
transformative results.
Chapter 6: Esoteric Yoga Fundamentals
Yoga is a path of personal evolution through consciously exploring physical and subtle aspects of being. Subtle Yoga phenomena define our performance in life, among them the chakras—and the lesser known second-order chakras that exist within each chakra. Yoga philosophy also concerns three dynamics that constantly cycle throughout our
lives: inspiration, inertia, and resolution. The yogic term for this cycle is prakriti. One way to circumvent prakriti is to access and act from spontaneous intuitive guidance, rather than from conditioned patterns of behavior and old habits. This elevation into spontaneity can be facilitated through practices based in the highest form of Yoga: Raja Yoga. Several session accounts illustrate how these elevations can take form and enhance our lives in real-world ways.
Chapter 7: Duality, Tantra, and Unity
The classic Indian Yoga text, the Yoga Sutras, states that the human condition can be defined by separation and unity. Separation is the realm of dualistic experience based in attachment. Duality and attachment constantly play out in the polarities of right and wrong, good and evil, sacred and profane, etc. These polarities often reflect the various ways we think about and act on our differences with others. Unity is the realm in which we can expand beyond dualistic reality—into a state known in yogic philosophy as Samadhi. In Samadhi, we experience connection over separation, with Unity pervading the totality of all things. Following intuitive guidance, and acting on intuitive recognition and validation, helps us better connect to higher inspirations, which can be shared with others. Tantric meditations into Unity consciousness and meditative merger with the earth as a living entity (Gaia) are specific ways to experience various degrees of Samadhi.
Chapter 8: Intuition
Intuition can provide a higher level of knowledge, sourced from beyond physical experience and rational thought. Plato and his contemporaries taught that what one perceives to be learning is often the recovery of what we have forgotten from other times—and that the easiest way to learn something is often simply by “remembering it as inherent knowledge.” Child prodigies live this reality. In therapeutic practice, some advanced Craniosacral practitioners establish a field within the session that allows the client’s “inherent treatment plan” to unfold on its own. They access such treatment by becoming more conscious of intuitive guidance. Recognizing and trusting intuitive vectors of connection can also be part of this process, which in turn can facilitate more synchronicity and abundance in our lives. On the other hand, cross motivations—a form of cognitive dissonance—can prevent us from accessing intuitive guidance and knowledge. The perspective of “I am” consciousness reflects present orientation in the moment—a fundamental key to bypassing cross motivations. The chapter concludes with practical exercises that anyone can use to develop the ability to work from intuitive guidance in mundane and major life pursuits.
Chapter 9: The Golden Grid and the Tree of Life
The Golden Grid is a vibrant, etheric activation that permeates us, sustaining life. My experiences of the Golden Grid—in myself and in clients—have occurred in meditative, therapeutic, and musical settings. I have found that conscious activation of this grid can help anyone connect to more of who they are at their highest potential. As a result, they can immediately enhance the energetics of how they perform any task in life. The grid appears as a web of points and connecting lines that glow with an otherworldly shimmer. Part of the grid is depicted in the Kabbalah Tree of Life. Even more of the connecting grid was carved into the ancient Egyptian Temple of Osiris, in a figure of sacred geometry known as the Flower of Life. Awareness and maintenance of the Golden Grid has immediate, real-world benefits, as described in three detailed client session accounts.
Chapter 10: Expansion, Growth, and Evolution
Heightened awareness experienced as multi-dimensional expansions in our perception can stimulate our growth and enhance our life in profound ways. These expansions include experiences of phenomena that are perceived beyond the physical realm. Events such as these can be seductive distractions that divert us from our higher calling—or they can open the door to larger life lessons and states of Unity consciousness. This chapter focuses on the latter, with a progression of session accounts that culminate in experiences of merger into the Light of ascension consciousness.
Chapter 11: Fields of Transcendence
In exploring the Calculus of Life, it becomes apparent that many fields of being contribute to the totality of who we are—and as such, can be portals to accessing transcendental states. The primary fields that are commonly accessed during sessions range from orientation in the physical field to experiencing Samadhi—the highest state of Yoga. The first session description in this chapter documents how I was introduced to transpersonal compassion and immersion in the Source field—the 5th Element—during a life-changing cathartic experience at Casa Das Minas in Brazil in the 1990s. A second account describes a Raja Yoga session in enhanced integrative grounding with a client who, despite having no prior experience in meditation, experienced a life-changing renewal of their physical health. The final session account describes how a high-profile jazz musician navigated the most advanced stages of Raja Yoga into ascension consciousness—merging with the Light—with grounded integration into the physical realm.
Part 2: Guided Meditations
Chapter 12: About the Meditations
Guided Raja Yoga meditations have helped my clients experience expanded, integrative states of awareness similar to those described in session accounts found throughout this book. Most of the meditations in this book came to me during my personal meditation practice. A few have been inspired by my observations of friends and mentors who share my fascination with Raja Yoga. Tips on meditation techniques, meditative downloads, and instructions for using the physical breath in subtle energetic alignment checks prior to meditating are presented.
Chapter 13: The Conduit of Light Meditation
The goal of this meditation is to experience oneself as a conduit connecting the expansive light of heaven and the grounding power of the earth. By simultaneously accessing and channeling both of these realms, we open ourselves to experiencing heightened awareness grounded into physical manifestation. The transformational effects of this include elevations into higher states of integrative awareness that can be immediately seen and felt in one’s presence. These elevations, as documented in several session accounts, can extend to those we meet and interact with along our path. Acknowledging oneself as a conduit bridging heaven and earth—and then bringing that awareness into more of our daily activities—is fundamental to this meditation and to the practice of this method. This meditation is an ideal warmup exercise for every other meditation in this book.
Chapter 14: Two Short Heart Meditations
Beyond the vital role our heart plays in our physical health, the more subtle emotional heart holds aspects of sympathy, empathy, and compassion with ourselves and others that define much of our lives. These two heart meditations are easy, yet advanced practices that are appropriate for anyone—even beginners. They use hand positions and relaxed breathing to activate the energetic heart as a portal for integrating aspects of compassion grounded in somatic awareness.
Chapter 15: Heart in Your Hands Meditation
The purpose of this simple somatic meditation is to open your heart to yourself—and to others. My adaptation of this meditation takes considerable liberties with how it was originally taught to me back in the 1980s—including optional steps that expand the scope of the meditation to a more global scale. This is a perfect warmup meditation for the Five-Element Cleanse to Gaia Merge Meditation described in Chapter 17.
Chapter 16: Cross Motivation Meditation
Our actions in life are largely determined by aspects of our cognition. Periodically we all experience inner conflicts between seemingly divergent perceptions that can impair our effectiveness in decision making. In psychiatry these inner conflicts are known as cognitive dissonance. Moshe Feldenkrais called them cross motivations. Consciously identifying conflicting agendas that are generated by cross motivations can help us reduce the confusion that often results from holding mixed feelings or false impressions around a given life situation. This can include conflicts between what we believe, expect, feel, fear, need, remember, sense, think, want, and know. Of all these aspects of cognition, what we know is most easily based on higher intuitive knowledge, which may reflect a more objective truth than other perceptions that are based on more subjective aspects of cognition. Clearing old patterns of cross motivation can promote present orientation over dwelling on the past or experiencing anxiety regarding the future. This clearing can help us act more spontaneously in the moment, which in turn can produce more opportunity and adventure in life.
Chapter 17: Five-Element Cleanse to Gaia Merge Meditation
This meditation is a cornerstone in the practice of the Energetics of Performance. It involves meditative immersion in the five classical elements: Water, Fire, Air, Aether, and Earth. Experiencing the nature of these elements individually can provide powerful integrative experiences of renewal. Once one is comfortable with engaging each element individually, harnessing the qualities of all five elements in a single session can provide compelling integrative experiences of transcendental unity with all living things—including experiencing the planet itself (Gaia) as a living entity.
Chapter 18: The Calculus of Life Meditation
By using this foundational guided meditation to identify what we sense as the somatic origin of our thoughts, emotions, and intuitions, we can consciously develop the connections between our physical body and what we think, what we emotionally feel, and what we intuitively know. This can help us become more aware of the constant interplay between these continually shifting aspects-of-self. This in turn helps us enhance and expand our cognition to enjoy more consistency and effectiveness in all areas of life. This process of differentiating our various aspects-of-self to produce higher states of integrative awareness is the Calculus of Life. The real-world benefits of these integrations are described in several client session accounts.
Chapter 19: The Unified Heart of Compassion Meditation
This somatic meditation provides the means to identify aspects of compassion that most people don’t know exist. This is achieved by simply lowering and lifting the hand to sense subtle layers of the heart field extending out from the body. Palpating these layers of compassion produces subtle activations in and around our bodies—from below the feet to above the head. Experiencing the complete sixteen-step version of this meditation often brings one to awareness of their Torus Field and the Cranial Tides, as described in the next chapter. For some, this meditation can bring about awareness of the Source Field—the void of unlimited possibility known as the 5th Element of Aether.
Chapter 20: Exploring the Cranial Tides
As living creatures, we are immersed in extended, rarified fields of being that exist beyond most people’s conscious awareness. These fields contain mechanisms of respiration, animation, and renewal that permeate and sustain us in remarkable ways. These mechanisms are the Biodynamic Cranial Tides: layers of subtle, energetic respiration. Meditative techniques for bringing these fields of vitality and renewal into our conscious awareness can provide access to the highest states of being in ways that are tangible, therapeutic, and often euphoric.
Appendix 1: Enhanced Grounding and Raja Yoga Integrations
Enhanced grounding allows us to become more aware of our physical presence in the present moment. This enhanced awareness can produce a heightened sense of protection, security, and self-containment, which in turn allows us to feel more connection to our home on the physical plane—the earth itself. Enhanced grounding also helps us realize higher integrative connections between our layers of function and awareness. These layers are activated through the energetic portals known in Yoga philosophy as chakras. Identifying the locations of these subtle layers of being as they relate to the physical body promotes grounding into greater degrees of earth connection through higher states of consciousness. These expansions can help elevate us beyond the polarity that separates us from Gaia polarity that keeps us from realizing our divine essence. This elevation is the goal of Raja Yoga, and of all the practices found in this book.
Appendix 2: An Esoteric Overview on the Teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais
Moshe Feldenkrais developed a revolutionary somatic method that uses gentle guided movement and hands-on touch to help people become more aware of how they move—and how they move through life. Esoteric concepts and the experience of heightened awareness that Feldenkrais and his Kabbalist forebears championed inform much of this book. These phenomena are summarized here, with references given to sections that provide more context and detailed explanation of the more enigmatic underpinnings of his work. In the last chapter of his final book, Feldenkrais writes that the elevated states experienced by some musicians during peak moments in performance can be a model of expanded consciousness on which we can all build. Feldenkrais states that the time has come for humanity to expand into new ways of accepting and adjusting for its inevitable evolution; that enhanced awareness and function on all levels of being needs to be popularized as a means for meeting the challenges facing humanity.
Appendix 3: Witnessing Gaia by Niles Eldredge
Evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge takes up where the appendix on Moshe Feldenkrais leaves off, discussing human evolution and the specific causes of the existential challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Niles uses the term Gaia to describe the earth as a living organism. He coined the term “Negligent Gaiacide” to describe the plundering of the earth’s resources that has brought us the ongoing destruction of the world’s ecosystems and the current mass extinction event in which we are immersed. As one of the world’s foremost authorities on human evolution, he points to the evolution and elevation of human consciousness as a hopeful remedy for the unconscious actions that have brought humanity to this moment of truth.