A woman once told me that she had trouble meditating because every time she closed her eyes and went within, her body would start to sway back and forth in circular kind of way. It would get so bad that she felt as though she would fall over. The feeling was uncomfortable, so she preferred to simply sit still with her eyes open and just get quiet.

I suggested that the next time she tried to meditate, she could try a visualization I had used that might calm things down. I told her to see a straight line, perfectly vertical, running right up her spine. At the same time, she was to visualize another straight line passing through the center of her body and extending directly in front and behind, extending outward indefinitely. Along with this, she was to visualize a third straight line passing through the same center extending to the left and right.

Apis the Bull

The next time I saw her, she explained to me that by using this visualization only a few times the swaying problem had completely disappeared. She had no trouble meditating from that time forth.

We are energy beings. Energy moves through us continually. We don’t have to conjure it up or try to generate it; it is always there. Sometimes, as in the case with this woman, it can feel as though there is too much energy coursing through us, and we need to learn how to stabilize it.

End of the Taurean Age

Each astrological age has a symbol that describes the nature of the energy prevalent in that age. In the Age of Taurus, for example, divine power was symbolized as a bull. It was an agrarian era, and cattle were the “horsepower” of the day. Students were taught to cultivate a calm and steady use of spiritual power, harnessing it so that natural forces could be directed towards the arts, turning everyday, utilitarian items into lovely expressions of opulence and beauty. Out of this idea of harnessing divine energy came the practice of yoga, which in Sanskrit means yoke.

The Fisher King

Then, in the Age of Aries, spiritual energy was channeled into physical prowess, athletic skill, the martial arts, and war. The emphasis was on swift, decisive action, almost the polar opposite of the slow and steady Taurus energy. Later came the Age of Pisces, which was the discovery and deciphering of the living energies of the subconscious. The emphasis shifted away from the physical world to the kingdom of heaven, and the idea of losing one’s familiar identity to plumb the depths of the unseen worlds was out-pictured in asceticism and monastic disciplines.

The Sacrifice of Isaac

Now we are in the Age of Aquarius, where spiritual energy itself is the focus, symbolized by flowing water. The glyph for Aquarius is very similar to a cross-section of the human spinal cord, showing that the electrical nature of nerve energy is at the core of life’s expression through human activity. We hear the terms “energy blockages” and “resistance” used to describe how energy flows through us and how we can remove the restrictions we have placed in its path. In meditation, for instance, the energy flowing through our body can itself tell us the correct posture to assume. Energy and the way it moves becomes the wayshower, sometimes overturning established customs and practices of the previous ages.

Whereas in the Age of Pisces the emphasis was on the discovery of the deep currents and eddies of spiritual energies far below the surface of our awareness, now we are to bring these same energies into the light of day, to put them to use in our everyday activities, to spiritualize our lives by bringing the power of God into everything we do. This not only applies to the way we meditate, but also to the ways in which we make our living, our relationships, and our civic responsibilities – all the things that relate to us as human beings. Just as we have harnessed the power of electricity to change our lives, so too must we learn to set patterns of thought and deed, so that we give life to those things we want to see manifested in our world. Action for action’s sake is no longer enough; now our action has to be directed by reason – the rule of law for the good of all, where all are treated equally and are expected to abide by those same laws the same as everyone else.

This is the spirit of the Age of Aquarius, into which we are now entering. Our success is dependent on how well we learn how to control the spiritual energies of mind, our thoughts, and what we give life to.