Sensitivity is Your Birthright

It’s so easy to get superstitious here, freak into the mind, become insular and paranoid.

Mystic healers I respect have said we don’t need protection; we are all melted into All of it, and so why defend?

I find this admirable; but at this stage of my life I much enjoy coddling myself like a princess. I love the Human Design model which says we’re all ingesting auras which aren’t our own and we need to withdraw from them sometimes, empty out, and return to our own beings.

The British can be proud of being physically insensitive – how practical it is not to care if you get rained on, are cold, and there is only white bread and chips to eat, washed down with sugary tea! But I heard Osho say, “Sensitivity is your birthright. Become more and more sensitive.”

Everybody’s different. I’m a Princess and the Pea sort, by Design; you might not be. It takes all kinds of people to make a world.

How I protect myself

I wash my hands when I come in from the out-of-doors. Studies show this is the first and best way to avoid getting colds and flus…so we’re talking physical, not metaphysical protection here; but I can’t resist adding in that somebody went to three large cities in the UK and tested a random sampling of people’s hands for bacteria. 2/3 of the people tested had more poo germs on their hands than you find in a toilet. Brits consider germ-concern to be a pathology, and look at you strangely if you mention the subject. There is always plenty of sneezing, coughing, finger-licking, and nose-wiping going on. The lady at the bank who gives me my money has licked her fingers to count the notes. I take my own mug to the cinema (you get cups of tea in cinemas here) because Brits don’t rinse dishes after washing (they do wash them, sort of) and I got tired of the taste of supermarket dish-washing soap.

All those germs carry DNA, and my system rebels at the obligation to process alien DNA. Why should I have to do that? That DNA carries information – of which we all have an overload. In Japan I once gave a session to a prostitute, whose clients, she said, didn’t like to use condoms. I was appalled to see her aura clogged like a poor mucky bathtub with tons and tons, it seemed, of intrusive and random genetic information – so much, in such confusion, she had no hope of clearing it out of her tired self unless she quit her job and did a long retreat.

My dislike of shaking hands with people I meet also has as much to do with their psychic grunge as their germiness. I hate shaking hands! I don’t even like holding hands in a circle after 5Rhythms class. Ugh! I have to go rinse the people’s concentrated thought-load and troubles off afterwards.

I can’t imagine, anymore, making love with somebody: all those hidden sadnesses denied, sitting in the backs of his knees! All that obtuseness, tucked away for me to stumble on, about his ears and shoulders! I’m not saying it will never happen again; but it does seem more and more unlikely.

And yet, hugging seems different…especially sannyasin hugs. Hearts seem to have more chance of staying connected to some vast and pure space than much of the rest of ourselves. I love a good long hug in the Mystery!

I’m alone most of the time, so others’ auras aren’t such an issue except when I go out or spend a week in a group somewhere (when I tend to get a good buzz from those auras till I’m home again, when I do feel myself emptying the others’ influence out.) When I go out I wear an eLybra Protection pendant, because I’ve found it really does give me more stamina when I’m amongst people. I don’t get tired as quickly.

I also keep my inner survival sense switched on – India was great for sweeping any sleepiness out of that one!

After I give a session, I rinse my hands in cold water for many minutes, with my eyes closed, feeling the other leaving my field. (I must do this after reading a photo or tarot cards with my hand as well.) I watch the other’s trips cascading away, into the sea, into a lovely underwater volcano down there…and incinerating. (Volcanoes, it seems, have the alchemical secret of transforming anything unwanted, instantly. Poof!) When in my mind’s eye I see a picture of a very leafy green tree, I know I’ve got myself back again. Then I apply cold water to my aura exactly as if it were Aura Soma. Feels great!

If the session was done in person (as opposed to Skype) and felt toxic, I clean the room energetically using Deep Red pomander and then sometimes Serapis Bey quintessence. You put three drops of the potion on your hands and then aim your palms at the walls, ceiling, floor…puffing your breath out regularly and being very aware of each inch of the space you’re clearing. For severe cases, washing the floor with water with a bit of Clary Sage oil in it – vinegar is good too – is amazingly freshening and clearing.

For very toxic therapy situations I do an epsom salts and honey full-body scrub on myself after…brilliant! Thank you, Mystery School, for that one!

At the pc I wear Tachyon wristbands and a pendant with a copper spiral in it to protect from the em waves.

When I’m on a plane I wear a hat to protect my head from them.

If I meet someone whose energy feels really icky to me – be they taxi driver or bureaucrat – I often expostulate and make noises to myself afterwards as I walk on the street or in the woods: “Yuck! Urgh! Ick! Ickkk!!!” – shaking my hands out. Then I talk to myself out loud about it, which feels very good.

Ha ha, what a fussy old lady I am!

Once in a long while, if I feel I’m in a threatening situation, I’ll ask Guides to protect me, and I feel a sort of energetic cocoon erected around me for a little while. I have also, once or twice, sought supernatural help when in the hands of a dangerous, angry driver (i.e. in Ukraine!) In such a case I’m obliged to be present to, and witness, the disturbance in the other and what Guides are doing to defuse it – perhaps soothing him intricately and deftly, or whatever it might be….He did calm down and behaved himself and we arrived safely.

I’ve heard that someone asked Osho how he became enlightened, and he replied, “I asked all the voices that didn’t belong to me to leave, and they left.” That’s about it…for we are all being invaded, and are invading, all the time. Only when I go very deep in my Self-Healing meditation do I really find the fine discrimination to see what isn’t mine, and never was. And that not-me stuff kicks like a horse for a moment, and then leaves. And I’m left with something that is radiantly personal, and indescribably precious…and so clearly and purely what it is.

Article and illustration by Madhuri