Dear Jay & Gabriele,

Helen here! - Sorry about this - but writing about spiritual experiences is a lot more difficult then I thought. Michael got started but it didn't seem to work out for the general public. There is so much you could say, but it spans many years and the realizations which are born out it have often developed gradually as certain blockages to the divine shakti were dissolved, and the hard edges of the ego slowly worn away.

I am still learning and still working on deepening my experience of the presence of God within, and try as I might it seems difficult to put this into a hundred lines - there are so many different influences which have helped bring understanding on so many different levels. Maybe at a later date we might be more successful.

Here is something I wrote out but I don't think it's suitable for the webpage. It is a very brief history.

I have always wanted to know and feel the presence of God within me. >From the age of 14 this gradually became stronger and stronger. I would often read Joel Goldsmith’s books especially practicing the presence, and as far as I could would really try and make time to sense or know God within me.

I learnt to meditate when I was about 19 or twenty (I am now nearly 41 on April 6th) - and it was shortly after starting meditation that the Kundalini experiences started to occur. At first this manifested as bodily effects - sometimes I would lie in bed trembling for hours, or I would feel that I was just about to have a stroke, my body would feel paralyzed down one side. I also had a very erratic heart beat and massive shocks to the heart. The energy gradually began working on deeper levels of my psyche and one day I began to experience a kind of very deep compassion for all beings, which has really never left me.

At times I would feel as though I was on the verge of insanity, and often experienced panic attacks. However, I learnt to detach myself from the occurrences and always felt at some deeper level that all that was going on was part of a larger process - so this helped me not to worry.

One day just after meditation I lay down to go to sleep and experienced a kind of explosion in my head with a lot of blue light, it was shortly after this that I began to see a tiny blue dot which would appear at several times throughout the day or when the Kundalini energy was particularly intense (it still does).

I spent a year in India when I was about twenty-eight and it was during the last part of the stay that I one day I understood or felt the presence of God within which has acted as an anchor ever since - a kind of still center point.

If in difficulty I try to bring myself back to the simple state of being which really helps a lot. It was also in India that I met Michael. We both followed a similar path and shared the same ideas. Michael first took me to see Sivabalayogi. He has been a stabilizing and very grounding influence in my life.

The energy of the Kundalini has been particularly intense lately and I have experienced a lot of heat throughout the body. I have been having a lot of shocks to the heart chakra, but have been focusing on this center and this has helped move a lot of energy. I can feel the shakti seeming to burn away blockages in the heart center. At times the shocks now happen in the throat chakra with the urge to sing more - I like singing. Recently my brain itself has started to feel more hot yet cool at the same time and I get strange sensations of pressure on the top of my head. I feel as though I have reached a certain level of understanding but have blocks or pockets of resistance which need to be worked through, or modes of perception which need shifting.

I work as an astrologer, shaman and writer. I find astrology a really good tool for getting a sense of perspective on changes at all levels of being. Right now I am being scorched by fire and drowned in water, the effects of both Uranus and Neptune - will be an interesting year which will include a lot of transformation! I really enjoy shamanic work and hope to do more of this as time goes on -this includes teaching people how to journey within the landscape of their own soul and pick up their soul threads - they find their true direction and link with their destiny. I also do soul retrieval work etc. Later this year I hope to do some work on shamanically helping the dying, being present and helping them move into the next world.

I enjoy writing especially as it about things which I love doing. I also get to review all kinds of interesting books. I especially like dreams and shamanic work as this is working with inner images and landscapes which seem to speak very clearly and authentically.

Om Shivaya - Helen mailto:wellbraes@netscapeonline.co.uk