This mediation is intended for you to clear out any blockages in your energy centers. It starts with the Seated Meditation which you may already be familiar with, and then focuses internally, on the energy body.

External Positioning: sit up, back straight, legs placed about a foot apart. Your feet should preferably be bear or just in socks, and they should be placed flat against the floor, toes pointing forward. Lay your hands palms-down on your thighs, shoulders loose and relaxed.

Internal Positioning: Press your tongue up against the roof of your mouth. The tip should be up against the backs of your front teeth and the mid-section should be against your hard palate. Lightly flex the Hu-Yin point at the center of the root chakra. This is a little tricky, as it's a muscle structure we are generally unaware of. In women, it corresponds to the Kegel muscle. In men, it will feel like you're trying not to go to the bathroom. What you are doing here is closing a circuit within your body. By pressing the tongue to the roof of your mouth and flexing the Hu-Yin point, you are forcing the energy to cycle within you as opposed to flowing out.

First Step: Close your eyes and relax. Try not to concentrate too much on the tongue or Hu-Yin point, but keep them in place all the same. Take slow, deep, measured breaths through your nose. Feel yourself breathing in vital energy and breathing out the stress and distractions of the day.

Second Step: Once you feel somewhat relaxed, tilt your head up a little and, with your eyes still closed, turn them as if you were looking at something in the middle of your forehead. This might feel a little strange at first, but basically, the idea is to turn your vision inward. Turn your hands over in your lap so they are cupped, palms-up, fingers slightly over-lapping. Continue to deep, measured breathing.

Third Step: By this point, you should feel a pleasant tingling in various portions of your body. Your hands should feel warm, and you should feel a kind of opening of expanding in the center of your head. Focus on the feelings. Turn all of your thoughts and perceptions inward, to your body. Feel the energy circulating through you, gathering in your hands, flowing from root to center to crown and back again. Feel your feet ground you to earth and feel the energy in your head carrying you upward, toward the universal flow.

Fourth Step: Now that you have focused generally on the energy flowing within you, turn that focus toward a more specific awareness of your energy body. Try to get a sense of the major centers where energy collects and flows out again. These are your chakras. Some may "shine" brighter than others. This is generally because the energy flows better through them. If any of them seem unusually dark or off-color, or if the energy doesn't seem to be flowing through them correctly, then they have blockages which need to be removed. Even chakras that seem to be gathering energy can be blocked with too much of it. In this case, the energy goes in, but then it becomes static and stops moving. This can be as detrimental as a chakra that so blocked it won't let energy in at all.

Self-Cleaning: Once you have gained a good impression of your energy body and any problems there might be, turn your focus toward your Root Chakra. This is centered around the genitals and the base of the spine. Cup your hands around this area, and visualize some of the energy you've gathered in yourself focusing down to this area. Breathe in. As you breathe in, visualize the energy flowing into the root chakra and spiraling around dynamically. Hold the breath for a few counts, and make the energy intensify and "shine" in the chakra. Then breathe out, and envision the energy as it reverses its spiral and flows back out of the chakra. As you breathe out, open your hands outward like you are releasing the energy you had gathered into the chakra. Link this gesture with your breathing so you imagine that you are expelling any blockages or other negative material that was caught in the chakra as you exhale.

Apply this same pattern of exercises to each chakra from the root upward. Cup your hands around the energy center, gathering energy, breathe in and agitate the energy within the chakra with a spiraling flow, hold this for a second or two while the energy intensifies within the chakra, then breathe out, opening your hands to release the energy and also visualizing any negative build-up being expelled with your breath.

You should place your hands at centers a few inches beneath your navel, just under your solar plexus in the middle of your abdomen, over your heart, at your throat, and at your forehead. There is a center at the top of your head which is not exactly in your body. In this case of this chakra, cup your hands loosely around the space it seems to occupy, follow the visualization steps, then open your hands to release.

Coming Back Down: Once you have gone up the ladder of your chakras, you may have a very heady, spacey feeling. This is because a lot of your energy is focused high up in your crown chakra, overbalancing it from the root. You need to ground and come back down.

With your hands still up near your crown chakra, turn them so the palms face you. The index and middle fingers should be mostly straight and held together. The ring and pinky fingers should be bent and relaxed. The thumbs should also be relaxed. Take a deep, cleansing breath and start letting it out through your mouth very slowly. As you exhale, draw your hands slowly down the front of your body, from crown to root. Imagine that as you exhale, your hands are pulling down on your energy, smoothing it out and balancing the flow through all the chakras.

Pass over each of the major areas that you previously worked on, and when you get down to the root, slide your hands over that final center and lay them palm-down on your thighs. Your hands should be warm and very tingly, and some of this sensation should pass into your legs. With your hands on your thighs, feel the energy flowing from your crown to your root, from your legs to your feet and from your feet out into the earth.

Take a few moments just to feel and breathe. When you feel balanced and grounded again, draw yourself slowly out of the meditation. Open your eyes, stretch, and breathe. You may want to get a glass of water at this point to help cleanse your system (weak green tea only lightly sweetened will also do). Don't eat anything heavy or greasy for at least the next hour as your body adjusts to the energy work you just did.