I keep an ‘energy journal’ and record events that happened that day. This includes things like dreams, or changes in my feelings, or ideas I am pondering. It also may include encounters with spiritual beings, or meditation results, or moments of wonder in nature. My goal is to have a written record of my spiritual experiences and 'moments of awe' so I can remember them, retrieve them, or ponder and learn from them. Keeping a written record has become a way to help me stay focused, as well as provide a means to assess, or even change my path.

I used to manually write things down in a notebook, but it was challenging to try and relocate specific events in a manual record. I then switched to typing everything into the computer and then storing it in 'the cloud'. This allowed me better access from any computer as well as the means to search everything at once with just key words or phrases.

Next, I started to place events that really stood out, on a spreadsheet. This became a summary of highlights and events, helping me to assess trends. Some of those moments were just single events and it helped me appreciate them as gifts. This record keeping and assessment process helped motivate me to keep focused as well as determine new directions to take. 

For me, recording my spiritual experiences has helped me stay alert and keep driving myself on path to search for more awe and wonder.

I have noticed that sensations I have during my meditations have changed and deepened over the years. It is as if the journey of cultivating Qi keeps changing and growing over time.  

In the early years of meditating, my focus was mostly on visualizing my chakras. But then one day, I could sense myself expanding out of my body, and I had a new sensation - being lifted! It was rather startling and a rather pleasant feeling.The sensation and expanding out of my body continued and happened in almost every meditation from then on. This lasted for several years, and I soon was able to exert more control over this, almost as if I could choose when and how to open the door to leaving my body. 

The whole meditation sensation process reminded me of a spiral - starting off small, and learning how, but then with continued practice, expanding skills and abilities, then looping in another direction when something changed.  you start off small, and then with more practice, your skills and abilities grow and improve with each loop. 

Then, this sensation of expanding in my meditations, just stopped. Soon, a new sensation emerged. I was now aware I could solicit input ANYTIME - not just during a meditation. It was almost as if I could get meditation results anytime or anywhere. It was almost as if I was now in a "constant meditation". I no longer had to "step out and expand" to get the information I sought in a meditation - it was now always "there". 

My point is, the meditative process and cultivating Qi will change. It is not a stagnant process. It grows and develops. The process can change, the sensation can change, and how you get results can change, too.  It is like a spiral of energy that changes, and as it moves and grows, so do we. 

When you consistently work on cultivating Qi, something changes. When you first start to cultivate Qi, you will most likely start to have occasional moments of wonder and awe happen in your life. It starts out being an occasional event, but if you consistently put effort in cultivating Qi, those moments of wonder become more frequent. In fact, eventually, you can sense a change, and the moments of awe and wonder are not just "staccato-like" - happening now and again - but become more of a flow. It is as if you realize you are a part of the flow of Qi, and you become aware that instead of these transitory moments of wonder happening in, to, and around you, you realize you part of this interplay of energy, are connected and a part of this flow, and are indeed a spark of awe and wonder in itself.

When you cultivate and work with subtle energy, not only new doors will open for you, but also new awareness and experiences you have never imagined.

You can cultivate the energy of the first chakra and train yourself to develop the spiritual gifts associated with first chakra energy.  This spiritual gift is known as personality sensing. It is the ability to not only sense subtle energy of a person or place, but to go deeper, beyond just sensing, but to KNOW. It is as if you are being given inside information about a person or place so you have a complete understanding or awareness of this person or this place. Often times, with personality sensing, you will be SHOWN and image in your mind about hidden events, or will receive the hidden conversations via a telepathic message, or even sense the actual type of energy you are in contact with in a sensing experience.
 
Often the personality sensing experience is triggered without warning. Because I’m more of a visual person, many of my personality sensing experiences will be displayed as visual images, showing me an actual event that happened with this person, showing me what this person is really up to.
 
Personality sensing may serve as a warning, to be cautious in your dealings with this person, or to just have expanded data.  Other times, the personality sensing may be a type of “pull” to a person that you can not shake. When this happens, it is more than likely your Higher Self letting you know you NEED to be connected with this person because this person is part of your life path.
 
When the spiritual gift of Personality sensing kicks in, it often is INTENSE and IMMEDIATE. You essentially have no control over the feelings, images, thoughts, and data you are receiving in that single experience.None.

In order to develop and cultivate this skill, you begin by using the tools to cultivate the 1st chakra energy so that chakra is vibrant, available, clear, and it is aligned and balanced with the other chakras. Next, you focus on tuning into your IMPRESSIONS and FEELINGS and pay attention to what happens when you meet or interact with different people. As this skill improves, you may then start to experience images of events these people are in, or have been in - almost as if you are in a waking dream. Later, you will receive messages in your mind that are not yours, providing you with much more detail about what is really going on with this person.

Summary
In summary, personality sensing is a spiritual gift associated with the 1st chakra energy. One can cultivate this gift by using the tools associated with the 1st chakra. While one is using the tools to nourish and fortify 1st chakra energy, one practices and develops this gift by

• becoming aware of the personalities of different people (and places)
• tuning into your impressions and feelings about different people (and places) and determining why you feel that way or have that impression
• be open to receiving subtle messages about other people (and places) via dreams, thoughts, or telepathic communication
• pay attention to those subtle messages about other people (and places) 
• be open, tuned in, and react (or respond)  when you receive these messages and thoughts which come into your mind as if from no where

​Sensing Qi is one of the first steps in cultivating Qi. Tuning in paying attention to our feelings is one of the first steps to begin to expand our sensing skills. 

Feelings are one of the first sensing tools we use because our feelings are always with us. As a result, our feelings naturally become our internal navigation device, almost like a compass or our internal GPS system to help us find our life purpose and navigate our life to satisfy that purpose.

Our feelings are the way we learn to maneuver through our life. It is the way we learn to steer which way we want to go, which decisions we should make, and the type of life we want to live. It is our feelings, and being able to tune in, and then learn to interpret and understand the feeling and the message associated with that feeling.  

We have lots of different types of feelings, but when you first start to cultivate Qi and pay attention to feelings to help you learn how to sense Qi, you begin by grouping your feelings into different buckets:

• Positive feelings
• Negative feelings
• Neutral feelings

This helps you identify the type of subtle energy associated with different feelings.

Next, you notice when and why you are having that feeling. For example, “I get a feeling of dread each morning when I get off the elevator and go through the doors at work.”  You then recognize you have a negative feeling, you labeled it as dread, and it happens when you go to work.
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You then bring in your mental skills and begin to analyze and interpret why you are having those feelings. “Is it just in the morning? Is it just on this floor of the building? Is it associated with the type of job you have? Is it associated with someone you work with?”

As you expand your awareness and go deeper into understanding your feelings and why you are experiencing those feelings, you expand ability to sense and interpret subtle message through feelings. This process and expansion improves your ability to understand your life purpose and to get on, as well as stay on, a life path that is right for you. 

When we cultivate the different chakras, we nourish, fortify, clear, and balance that chakra energy so it can be available for us to have spiritual experiences.The energy of the 6th chakra is the energy that helps us gain spiritual knowledge, insight, and wisdom. Because this is spiritual knowledge and understanding, it is easier to gain this wisdom and knowledge on the SPIRITUAL PLANE - the place where our Higher Self is located, and our Spiritual Guides.

We usually call the spiritual plane the ASTRAL plane (or heaven). We usually call the means of getting to the astral plane while we are still alive on the physical plane (or earth), astral travel or astral projection.

So, if you want to develop the spiritual gifts associated with gaining knowledge, insight, and wisdom, the best way to acquire this is to first learn how to get to the astral plane. 

Steps for Astral Travel
There are three phases of learning to travel to the astral plane:

1. The first is to get you out of the body.
2. The second is to obtain and remember the travel.
3. The third is to direct the travel.

Each phase should be mastered before attempting the next. The reason for this is to allow the mind to ease into the experience. As you gain experience, you will know when it is right to proceed to the next step.
 
Step 1 - Getting Out of Your Body Training (Soul Expansion)

1. In a meditation, you can do this: In the meditation, plant in the expectation of travel by visualizing weightlessness or floating or levitation and how nice it feels. As you do this, plant also the thought that you will travel to the astral plane as you levitate or feel weightless.
2. When you prepare for sleep, you can do this: As you lay in bed you first feel comfort and quiet. As you find yourself drifting into sleep, concentrate on these thoughts.  First, “I can fly.  I am weightless. I can leave my body and fly or travel beyond. Plant in the mind the expectation of travel by visualizing weightlessness or floating or levitation and how nice it feels. As you do this, plant also the thought that you will travel to the astral plane as you levitate or feel weightless.

After success in obtaining the feelings of weightlessness or levitation during sleep, one may assume that the soul has traveled but the mind does not recall. Once this has been achieved, add the thoughts about levitating, or weightlessness, or traveling. Focus on opening the mind to receive input and remember. 

1. I wish to meet my Higher Self.
2. I desire to remember this.

Once you recall a travel experience (you will recognize it by its unusual and somewhat nondescriptive feelings) you will begin to feel that you did travel; perhaps not convinced at first, but with practice you become sure.
 
Step 2 - Train Yourself to Remember the Travel
The first step of mind training is to help you improve your ability to recall your astral travel experience and it goes like this: 

1. Begin a meditation as you feel comfortable.
2. Visualize your memory working well.
3. Visualize the chakras in your spiritual body, glowing, being aligned, being balanced.
4. Visualize yourself going to sleep and allowing your mind to wander. Notice how the chakras are still glowing, aligned, and balanced.
5. Visualize sleep coming restfully, quietly upon you as your recite in your mind that you are free and weightless and wish insight into a specific idea.
6. Note that as you sleep, your body relaxes and your mind rests. Note how your soul grows in energy.
7. Note your body, although still in bed, feels light, and that your soul is lifting and traveling.
8. Visualize your soul leaving and contacting other souls, gaining, insight and knowing them.
9. Note how your soul is refreshed and how it gently returns to the body, bringing knowledge and insight to the mind.
10. See how the mind is eager to accept this information and remember the experience.  As it does, you wake with love and insight.
11. End the meditation.

Most astral travel is done while you are asleep, so before you go to sleep, program your mind to recall your astral travel dreams by saying or thinking:

1. I have a good memory
2. It serves me well in sleep
3. It improves with astral travel.
4. I can remember my travel experiences
5. I can recall my travels in dreams
6. I can recall my travels in meditations

 
Step 3 - Train yourself for Astral Projection 

1. The next step is to plant a seed thought so that once you obtain the astral plane, your subconscious can direct the soul in its mission.
2. The first mission should be to meet your Higher Self; and remember.
3. After you are successful with that, you next want to direct your soul to meet with your Spiritual Guide; and remember.
4. After you are successful in those two tasks, you can expand to find answers to questions that may concern you, and bring back the answer.
5. You can also direct your soul to gain insights and knowledge, and bring back to your mind.

Experiences You Can Expect While You Develop this Skill
These are the spiritual experiences you can begin to expect when you start practicing leaving your body and going to the astral plane:

• having an out-of-body experience
• meeting your Higher Self
• meeting your Spiritual Guide(s)
• interacting with nonphysical Beings
• knowing something, but not understanding why or how you know it
• projecting your spiritual self to the astral plane
• gaining knowledge, wisdom, insight

When we cultivate the different chakras, we nourish, fortify, clear, and balance that chakra energy so it can be available for us to have spiritual experiences. The energy of the 5th chakra can be used to help us receive and interpret complex VISUAL messages. These messages often are significant and meaningful dreams during sleep time, but over time and with more practice, these visual communications can expand to become waking dreams and even visions.

Because the spiritual gift development process with 5th chakra energy usually begins with "sleep-time dreams", if you want to develop the spiritual gift of learning to receive and interpret VISUAL spiritual messages, we first need to train our mind to be open to receive these types of messages. Next, we train our mind's to remember the dream message. Then we need to learn how to interpret the dream message.

Dream Training

1. Before you go to sleep, tell yourself you are open to receive communication through your dreams.
2. Tell your mind you want to remember your dreams. This will alert your mind to pay attention and to bring back images, feelings, impressions, and details. Over time, your ability to bring back details of your dreams will improve.
3. Next, when you are starting to wake up, there are moments when you are "in between" sleep and being awake. Use this time to initiate your thoughts to start the recall process. Much of the recall can become engaged in this "in between" time between sleep and wakefulness.
4. Another helpful process is to record your dream as well as your feelings about the dream. Eventually you will start to remember more and more details from your dream.

After you start to receive and remember your dreams, you then need to determine which dreams are messages, and which dreams are just dreams. Dream messages that are considered messages are called REAL dreams or SIGNIFICANT dreams. You can tell a significant/real dream from your everyday type of dream, because it is STRONG, it LINGERS and it FEELS different. It is "sticky". It stays with you. These are different from your everyday type of dream which seems to be fleeting and difficult to recall. The message dreams are clearer and sharper. These are the ones that are messages from either your Higher Self or your Spiritual Guide. 

​Interpreting the Dream and Interpreting the Message (or Insight)
Once you have a real/significant dream, you next need to interpret it.  Here is the process to help you interpret your dream.: 

1. Established an overview of the dream
2. Interpret the overview
3. After interpretation of the overview, then gain the insight and meaning of the dream

In the dream interpretation process, first seek an overview of the entire dream. How do you obtain an overview? You recall the dream in detail. Do not suppose answers during the overview process. Ask questions about the details and seek what may be important or contradictions or unusual or normal events. In other words, what stands out in the dream? (Because a dream is your own, you will have the advantage in its interpretation).
 
Interpretation is what the dream images represent. Interpretation is taking the images and translating them into a message. Sometimes the process can feel like the game of charades - taking images and clues and then piecing them together.
 
Insight is the lesson or the teaching to be learned. The insight can come from the mind or the Higher Self. Generally it is the subconscious trying to inform the conscious. Dreams that seem to standout vividly and have a tremendous impact are generally from your Higher Self.
 
In the interpretation process, maintain an open mind. Once you have thought about an interpretation and have decided that it is not complete, you must be willing to disregard that interpretation. As you explore interpretations to dreams, permit your mind to wander and explore other completely unrelated possibilities.

Waking Dreams
Once you become proficient in receiving messages through dreams in the sleeping state, you may start to have waking dreams where you care presented flashes of images during resting as well as moving meditations. This skill can then progress to experiencing seeing visual messages while awake, or even visions.  

We visualize the chakras as circular orbs of colored light, in our inner energetic body, along the spine. The lower chakras are in the abdomen. The upper chakras are in the neck and head. The lower chakras are mostly associated with the skills of sensing. The upper chakras are mostly associated with mental spiritual skills. 

When we cultivate the subtle energies of the UPPER chakras, the skills and abilities we develop are the ability to receive more complex messages and communication. The lower chakras are more about receiving energy and impressions, but the upper chakras include VISUALS, and CONCEPTS, and COMPLETE interactions and discussions.   

These are the TYPES of interactions that can be developed when you cultivate the energies of the upper chakras: 

• 5th chakra - the ability to receive and interpret the messages from dreams, visions, and energetic visuals. 
• 6th chakra - the ability to receive and interpret concepts, insights, knowledge and gain wisdom 
• 7th chakra - the ability to receive and interpret telepathic messages from the physical or from energetic sources, such as your Spiritual Guide, Higher Self (aka the oversoul), or other energetic sources. It also includes the ability to interact with the Tao with any of your senses.

In order for us to develop and improve our abilities to use these different types of chakra energies, and correctly receive, interpret, and send subtle messages, we would need to cultivate the energies of the upper chakras. 

If we want to develop, and improve, our ability to sense subtle energy, and the messages associated with subtle messages, we need to cultivate our lower chakras. The lower chakras are the SENSING chakras, and if we focus on cultivating those chakra energies, we improve the probability of being able to receive and interpret the subtle communications associated with personality sensing, truth sensing, past life regression, and future sensing.

The tools to help cultivate the lower chakras are food, sex, or sound. And to use these tools, they all use the basic steps o focusing your attention on the tool, then focusing your mind on what you intend the energy to do with that tool, and then bring in the energy of love or gratitude within you. Essentially, the Qi Cultivation uses this process:

1. You are present, aware, and mindful of what you are doing
2. Your mind is focused and giving intention and direction to what you want the subtle energy to do
3. You bring in the a feeling of love (or gratitude) to help send the energy on its way

How to use the Qi Cultivation Process with the Tools of Food, Sex, and Sound?  
Using Food as a Qi Cultivation Tool
When you are using food as a tool to help nourish your chakras, you would be mindful and present while you about to eat, and focus your thoughts on the food you are about to consume. In this moment of pause, you then think of the chakra this food is going to nourish, and as you partake and eat the food, you focus your intention on directing some of the energy of that food to a designated chakra, and direct the energy to nourish that chakra, clear it, balance it, and align it with the other chakras. You then enjoy the food by being grateful for it, or enjoy the flavor, smile, of feel that "mmmmm" sound of pleasure. You can then just enjoy the rest of your food, like you usually do. (To learn more details of which foods are connected to which chakras, you can go here.)

Using Sex as a Qi Cultivation Tool
When you are using sex as a tool to help nourish your chakras, you would be mindful and present while you going to have sex. Your thoughts would be on love and the sexual process, but for a brief moment, you can direct your thoughts of the chakra you want to nourish with sex, and then briefly direct your thoughts to create your desired intention, such as nourish a certain chakra, clear it, balance it, and align it with the other chakras. You then just enjoy the rest of the sexual experience. (To learn more details of what sexual positions help which chakras, you can go here.)

​Sound as a Qi Cultivation Tool
You can use sound as a tool to help nourish your chakras. Drumming as well as music can also be used as a tool to help nourish your chakras. When you use sound as a tool to nourish your chakras, you would be mindful and present when you are listening to music (or sounds). You would focus your thoughts on the sound and then direct this energy to a designated chakra. You would then direct your thoughts to nourish that chakra, clear it, and align it with the other chakras. You then enjoy the music or sound, and add in the energy of love and gratitude as you connect with the music.(To learn more details of what sounds are associated with which chakras, you can go here.)

When you are first starting out and learning how to cultivate Qi for your chakras, focus your attention on directing the energy TO a certain chakra (or all the chakras). When you get proficient at this, after a lot of practice, you can modify your focused intention to direct the energy for other purposes, but initially, keep your focus on nourishing the subtle energies on the chakras to help them get nourished, clear, balanced, and aligned.