The Chi Machine and Tantric Meditation

As a Tantra Yoga teacher, I put my new students on my Chi Machine if they haven't experienced meditation before. I want them to know the expanded state of awareness they are looking for with the Tantric exercises we'll be doing, which produce similar effects as the Chi Machine when it comes to meditation. My students are always excited to feel a new state of consciousness that a description couldn't help them understand as well as just using the Chi Machine for a few minutes.

The Original Sun Harmony Chi Machine is something I've used for several years. I don't sell them, so I don't make profit from describing here how incredible the meditation effects are, in a Tantric way. But my experience with it, and that of everyone I've gotten to lie down and use it, has been spectacular movements of energy along the body upwards. Much of Tantric meditation tends to be more dynamic, moving upwards most often, the sense of energy traveling strongly, as compared to other forms of meditation which may be more still, subtle, not involving energy movement, but a spreading out of the consciousness that doesn't necessarily involve the feelings in the body. Tantra uses exercises to create the movement of energy along the Shushumna, (also called the Sushumna) the central astral pathway in the body, in the spine. The Shushuma is one of the nadis through with prana flows, moving through the chakras, opening them, unblocking them, developing them, when there is enough energy pushing along.

Dr. Shizuo Inoue, Chairman of Japan's Oxygen Health Association devised the Chi Machine to mimic the movements of fish, which creates a standing wave pattern, as the energy crosses at nodal points. Tantra is very much about the standing wave in the body, in philosophy, in the Universe.

The Chi Machine creates an alpha brain-wave state of relaxation, which is the first stage of meditation, giving a more expanded perspective on the world continuum than the beta brain-wave state of ordinary consciousness, which tells us we are all separate beings encased in bodies. The Chi Machine also loosens the spine to create more flexibility, which the Tantric exercises to as well, focusing on the Ida and Pingala, the nadis that run along the spine and are shaped like standing waves, themselves, crossing at the nodal points of the chakras. The Chi Machine's movement balances those two nadis, and thus the two sides of the self, the female and male, sympathetic and parasympathetic, the intuitive and the linear. These nadis need to be in balance before the energy of Kundalini can rise up through the Shushumna correctly. If they aren't balanced when energy prematurely rises, the Kundalini can go off to one side, which is very destructive.

When using the Chi Machine, you may not feel anything unusual until it stops. It's a nice feeling, but that's about it. However, if you have your eyes closed and pointed upwards above your head, at least towards the end, you'll be training the energy where to go. Then, when the Chi Machine stops, you must remain totally still and just keep your eyes upwards for the meditative effect to continue at its fullest. The makers and proponents of the Chi Machine don't go into this, but I never do it any other way, and it works better this way for my students and friends and family. While the Chi Machine is good for the health, the instant gratification of being thrown into a Tantric Meditation that is intensely enjoyable is good for the soul right away.

When the Chi Machine stops, you'll most likely feel energy moving up your body and above your head, if your eyes are up especially, and your body will feel like a CONDUIT for light that is conscious, blissful. You will simultaneously feel like you ARE that light, and enjoying the Hell out of yourself. You will feel like that light is the very core of the nature of reality, the spine of god, that you are all levels between yourself as a body, and yourself as the all encompassing Divine.

Or not. If you think Tantrically at all, you may feel something like that which you may not have put in those terms, and if you aren't at all Tantric, you may interpret it differently. But that is how the different levels of the self that travel along the octave of the standing wave nest into each other conceptually. The levels of energy mimic each other, and when you are conducting more energy through your body, taking in more oxygen than you are releasing, while lying quietly, paying attention to the moment, you can be the standing wave itself.

This experience can help you feel yourself beyond your story, beyond your own patterns and obsessions and stress and limited view and feel your connection with the outside world. It can stop your mind from going in the usual formats, take you into awareness of the brain-wave patterns you had missed before.

You have choices about what to do once the energy reaches above your head. You may want to use the Taoist Microcosmic Orbit. Tantra sometimes directs us to keep the energy above the head to nourish the level of the self that inhabits the crown chakra. You may do that, but you may want to circulate the energy back down, with your will and intent and visualization. This way is most often the Chinese style, and sometimes the Tantric style. It mimics the flow of energy around a magnet, which we are.

Picture the energy rushing out above your head and then fountaining around your body, and below your feet, and back in through them and up again. This way, you maintain the energy after purifying it in the fountaining into the higher frequencies during relaxation. If you are following the Taoist path especially, you will more often want to leave the energy in the Dantian (Hara in Japanese), in the lower belly, the center of the body. This helps you accomplish what you set to do in the physical plane.

Be sure to drink water before and after, and the more Chi, or prana, you put into the water by charging it, the better it will work. You may want to use Fiji Water, or use a good filter, and then charge the water with your hands, bringing in the levels of the self all the way to the Source, bring the energy down into the water. Feel love for the water, admiration and respect for what it is, and healing, and enhancing, and the water will literally have a visible effect on your aura. This has been demonstrated enough times for me to have no doubt about that. And the water activates the chi when using the machine, and flushes.

I highly recommend anyone wanting to use the Chi Machine for personal use for meditation, or for adding to a practice such as Tantra training, to purchase one. The effect never wears off with years of use, and it's even contagious. Whenever someone else uses it, the point of the Chi Machine stopping effects me too! And there are other people I know well who have the same experience. Somehow, once you've used it at least, you can get the same rush of energy when someone else uses it around you. You've got to love that!