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A major revelation came to me recently from the book “Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny” by Sadhguru:

Energy healing systems have grown very popular in the world today. My own take on them is unambiguous. While the intention to help others is a laudable one, it is juvenile to think that you can heal someone else because you have learned to harness a little energy in your hands.

Sadhguru

Given the emphasis I’ve been placing on my remote Reiki techniques lately, this understanding is quite significant to me!

Sadhguru explains that energy healing only deals with the effects without clearing up the causes. Later the karmic causes of an illness just surface as some other problem in the client’s life. The subsequent challenge may not be another illness, it could be any other form of problem.

I see now that if a karmic cause surfaces as a minor illness or pain and the person does nothing to work through this karma, it remains to be reinforced with their new thoughts and actions. They can always do that regardless of clearing up an effect, of course, but if the illness might inspire spiritual practice, using Reiki to provide temporary relief can be seen as a hindrance to their spiritual life.

Not only are there significant challenging consequences for the client, he says the healer will also have their own “calamities” to deal with after attempting to heal others. He says it could be 9 months or more later for either client or healer, but that the suffering will invariably come in one form or another.

Sadhguru recommends offering people solace in the fact that their suffering is avoidable, when it is seen to be triggered by pain, not caused by it. We suffer attachments and the loss of that with which we identify. For example when the tendency to identify with your body is reduced or eliminated, pain can be witnessed as a symptom of a problem rather than a problem itself. It is welcomed and accepted, rather than suffered and/or suppressed with drugs. That way your intention can be brought to investigating and clearing the root cause(s) through spiritual practice.

Sadhguru ends his section on energy healing with:

Do not try to become a franchise for cosmic energy. And do not try to become a miracle worker. My only aim is to help you recognize the miracle of life that you are. Everything else is a distraction.

Sadhguru

He couldn’t be any clearer, and it feels like the section was written with me in mind, because I was envisioning ways to help people connect with others (franchise) to do remote Reiki and yet I certainly don’t want to get distracted from my practice, any more than I already do!

In fact, one of my ongoing challenges since I retired from computer programming in 2012, has been discerning the relative importance of engaging with the world (to encourage spiritual practice, use and teach Reiki) and my spiritual practice. I’ve been clear that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, yet identifying as a teacher entails goals and attachments that certainly are distractions from practice.

This revelation from Sadhguru pushes me over, quite firmly, in the direction of fully retiring.

As I write this it has been several days since I made the decision to retire and I already feel a subtle yet significant difference in my practice. It’s easier to stay with my moment to moment practices, with fewer thoughts of scheduling in time for work, setting goals for task completion, etc.. Lately my work has required a lot of time on the computer, for marketing, writing educational emails, etc. and that kind of work has always been the most difficult for me to integrate with my practice.

When opportunities to support people in their practice present themselves organically, I’ll certainly do so. But I will no longer seek them out, nor actively advertise my availability.

I am going to finish creating the sowandgrowmeditation.org website and email series to support new small meditation group hosts. This project will not require a lot of time from me, once it’s launched. The idea is that I’d only “sow” my own two small groups and encourage them to do the same once they have established their weekly groups. Then I’d let the nature of the intention create the growth that it will, without any attachment to the outcome. It’s really an experiment so just witnessing it feels right, at least in this moment!

At this point I’m planning on doing at least one more foil windsurfing blog, since the footage is in the can and it is just fun! I won’t bother with any encouragement to practice embedded in the video(s), but I do have some ideas to help people learn to foil!

It is a clear reflection of the fact that I have always been future oriented in my thoughts and actions, that I’ve never written a blog post about my dear departed grandfather before. It is high time!

My memories of my grandfather are few and very sweet. The first that comes to mind was when he gave me my cross. He had made a deal with all of his grandchildren, that as soon as they had memorized the Lord’s Prayer and recited it to him successfully, that we would receive one of these silver crosses, several of which he had an artist custom make for him.

We were at his retirement home in Ft Collins, Colorado, which overlooked the reservoir. It was a beautiful sunny morning. I was so proud and pleased!

As an adult, I remember him giving me this somewhat cryptic advice. He said something to the effect of, “There is only one path!” As he said it, he swept his hand upwards in a dramatic motion, palms facing each other, from his waist to over his head. “If you fall off of the one path, you must return to it!” For me this advice, that led to no further explanation or discussion, at least that I remember, has always been like a Buddhist Kōan, something to contemplate but never fixate on one interpretation. Advice to revisit every few years, to see what it brings in the current context.

As a person that was never good at memorizing historical facts, I wouldn’t even attempt to recount my version of his life to you here! Luckily, he wrote his memoirs in Japanese and after he died they were translated into English. There are also lots of wonderful web pages about him. To be honest, I have not read them all to properly curate which links to share here, there are so many!

Since I am so future oriented, I can’t publish this page without proudly including the latest development in my family as relates to my grandpa Kano. My nephew, born Aaron Kano-Bower, has recently married Mia Benjamin. When they married, the decided to take the Kano name. So the Kano surname will continue, to the next generation after all (they do plan to have children, God willing). After they married, Mia completed her Seminary degree and has now been ordained an Episcopal minister! So there is a now new Rev. Kano, doing her best to follow in her saintly great grandfather in-laws footsteps! I couldn’t be happier.

Photos below are of my grandfather Rev Hiram H. Kano and Rev Mia Kano. Note Mia’s cross!

When I heard the news about them taking the Kano name, my heart leaped for joy. I had not known until that moment how important it was to me for that name to continue down my father’s line! You see, my wife and I (now divorced) hyphenated our names together when we married, so my to girls are both Munsey-Kano. I never thought it was a big deal, having the name morph and be “lost,” since rest of my siblings are women and their children were not given the Kano surname. But I guess I felt more strongly about it than I realized!

This practice really is simple: just let the music move you and witness your movements and thoughts as they unfold in the current moment. When you find yourself thinking about the past or future, come back to the dance. When you find yourself thinking about how to move, just gently acknowledge and release those thoughts as well! Concentrate on the music, with the different sub-rhythms, instruments and so on. Repeating the same step or move is great, until the body responds with some different muscles to alter it somewhat, or the music suddenly throws you into an entirely different energy and movement!

Allow, abandon, surrender!

At first you may only witness a few aspects of your movement as being spontaneous and (virtually) devoid of thought. “It’s all good” is the mantra, as you simply enjoy the process of celebrating the movement, the music and the community of dancers that have joined with you in the practice. Just allow whatever happens, as you abandon ego to free your spirit.

The practice of surrendering the thinking mind to the music is more important than how you move. In this practice, we will never use verbal instructions to label the different rhythms or recommend which parts of the body to move in the context of conceptual understandings. The thoughts we are practicing to release, which are often heard in the inner mind as words and phrases, would only be reinforced by these verbal communications. In each moment we just witness the movements as they emerge from the collective consciousness of the people in the room.

Loving Community

The community is just as important as the powerful discharge each seeker experiences through their dance. Making connections to one or more other people on the dance floor is encouraged. Celebrating our relationships by watching and feeling each others movements helps to surrender the illusion of separateness. The intention is to witness how the movements of one are inspired by the other dancers on the floor, and vise versa.

In some sessions, your facilitator may provide simple devices to help communicate whether or not you wish to  partner with others during the session. There may be times you need to withdraw from making conscious connections with others and simply witness yourself join with the music alone. Eye contact and other body language is good and sometimes sufficient, but a simple device such as a bracelet, possibly of different colors, or worn on ankle vs wrist to signify your preferences may also feel worthwhile. In a space where dancing together is encouraged, a device may help people who want to dance alone to feel safer and more easily honored. The specifics of the device(s) and their meanings will depend on the particular session, so please make a mental note of these as they are introduced during the opening circle, or if you are late, through any signage that is posted at the door.

Structure That Supports and Nurtures Community

After a few minutes to stretch and warm up, each Witness Your Dance session starts with a short opening circle, where each person gives their name, a short check-in and/or any intention brought to the dance that day. This would also be the time the facilitator will introduce any (solo/partnered) preference communication devices being used (as described above).

During the dance, talking on the dance floor is discouraged. If your need to communicate verbally is too urgent to wait, please wave the party involved off of the dance floor, until you are both out of visual and audio range of the other dancers before you speak. While spoken language is out, humming, whooping, clapping, singing along, and making other noises are all encouraged! Just think of the vocal chords as another muscle group that may also respond spontaneously to the music.

At the end of the dance session your facilitator will guide you through some final practices to help integrate the energetic benefits of the dance before it is brought to a formal close with another short sharing circle. This may include a short “toning” session, where everyone is encouraged to make some noises together!

Witness More of Your Life

This practice of witnessing your body / mind can be done off the dance floor too. It is similar to what some call mindfulness (meditation) practice, which can most easily be done during simple repetitive tasks. The subtle difference is that of “moving” the awareness out of the body just far enough to “witness it” rather than “be it.” From my experience the benefits of the practice are even sweeter than simply mindfully “staying in the moment.”

How I Started This Practice and Why

In 2015 I started to study and follow the teachings of Sri Nisargardata Maharaj in 2015.  The quote which inspired me to look for more of his teachings, which I saw in the movie “With One Voice” was “Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.”  The main recommendation for practice that he often repeated to seekers who came to him for his advice and insights, was to simply stay with the sense, “I am.”  Not what I am, not who I am, just the undeniable sense of existence itself. This practice, which he learned from his guru, was what he used to awaken to his true Self in just three years. One of the secondary recommendations he often cited was to simply “be the witness” of your human self as it moved about it’s daily routines.

By the time I started practicing spiritual dancing in January of 2017, I was doing as many things as I could with this “witnessing” intention. The activities included doing the dishes, chopping wood, cooking, eating, driving my car, riding my motorcycle, and more. So it didn’t bother me that the dance sessions I went to most Sunday evenings didn’t have any instruction, because within the first couple of sessions I found myself taking this practice in the witnessing mode as well.

Nisargardatta admonished almost everyone that came to him that they are not human beings, that they were never born nor would they ever die! If a visitor to the shrine room in his humble home in India was not ready to hear and at least entertain his radical teachings, he would simply show them the door. Nisargardatta’s teachings were the bare bones of simplicity and elegance and his recommendations for practice were likewise easy to step into, yet challenging to stay with at the level of devotion he recommended, which was every moment of your day! When a seeker balked because of worldly responsibilities, he said something to the effect of, “practice all of your free time then, it will be enough!”

The “Witness your dance” practice described above is inspired by both Nisargdatta’s teachings and my own experience in spiritual dance sessions over the last two years or so. During my first few sessions, I witnessed my mind planing moves, noticing how others were dancing and using their example to morph what I was doing. I seemed to be thinking my way through the process. But at some point I realized I didn’t need to think much at all about how to move. New variations of steps and body movements seemed to be the muscles direct responses to feeling the music. Eventually I realized long periods of time where I had not been consciously aware of any thoughts of how to move! If the thinking mind was involved, it was more often simply noticing how each different step or move was being repeated in the subsequent measures of music. After a couple of months of weekly practice, I came to appreciate dance as the most fruitful opportunity to practice witnessing that I had found. It seems that the synergy between my body, the energy of the music and the other dancers provides a wonderfully dynamic, joyful, immersive experience to witness.

I hope you enjoy the practice and reap many fruits of happiness and bliss through the process!

Flash! Early prototypes of these benches are now on sale on ebay!

I’ve been working on designing and prototyping stacking meditation benches to make it easier and more affordable to create an instant Sangha of practice in any space. I’ll be sharing more information on this project soon. In the meantime you can see and try out samples by contacting me or going to The Center for Transformational Practice in White River junction.