Then it hit me. This Japanese Spa looked and felt like the great white hospital in the Astral World. A huge and brilliant-white building, the Astral hospital is one of the places that recently-departed souls may visit if they have undergone a traumatic or sudden physical death. If we are impacted by a rapid transition from the physical realm into the non-physical, or if we leave the material world disorientated or traumatized, we may find ourselves transported to a triage facility, for immediate help. But, soon after, we will be moved up into the Astral Hospital, for long-term recovery, and for necessary spiritual healing. Physical death can be tough on a soul; sometimes you need time to integrate the life lessons just learned, in preparation for your  return to your next physical incarnation.

The late Robert Monroe, a master in the art of Astral projection, had often referred to this facility as a “Way Station”, a place where souls transition from one life time to the next. I have spent time at this Astral Hospital myself, although I have almost no memory of why I was there. Today the impact of the DHC Spa architecture and ambience was evoking a powerful déjà vu experience for me. Something triggered my animal body to breathe deeper, and I dropped into the Astral Hospital altered state. No effort, no time, and no agenda were present, here in this bone-white healing space. Only rejuvenation awaited, only compassionate release from painful memories, and the preparation for a new adventure and a new body. It was delightfully familiar to me.

Three hours later, we had left the salt-water Spa for a traditional Japanese dinner, ending when our Kimono-clad hostess brought in the final course: fruit jelly, topped with a scoop of cream. The entire meal to that point had comprised of outrageously-fresh seafood, rice, and vegetables. As the dairy in the dessert hit my taste buds, my body woke up anew, joyously impacted by a familiar taste from the West. For the second time in the day I was shocked awake by a memory of the past. Once again my soul dropped unexpectedly into the place of wholeness, and the recognition of what we we gain when we choose to embrace life. In this moment of sensory delight, where novelty danced with the familiar, all was well. We are reminded, again and again, that the shock of any event we can experience in life can ultimately be healed, leading us to regain what we thought had been lost.

The Astral Hospital remains out there still, ready for any of us that may need it should this incarnation thing ever get out of hand.

Sabahan Ethnic Dancer

He shook his head. “No, I not Malaysian. I am Dusun“, he said, referring to the local North Borneo tribe that makes up a third of the native population, the rest being ethnic Kadazan people.

There was something about the way he said it, and the way the Astral world suddenly shimmered around his auric field as he spoke, that deepened my attention. I asked about his family, and where in the world he would like to visit if he left Sabah. “I like see native tribes in America, in England. You have native people in England?”

Malay is a direct language that, when transferred to English, strips much of the flourishes we expect from a conversation. I do like the way it sounds, but I have to practice speaking in simple terms, in order to be clear. It’s not condescending; it’s joining the locals in their utilitarian use of language.

“No, native people no longer there… no tribal people left in England”.

He looked momentarily surprised at this information. Transferring his fingers from my toes to the arch of my foot I silently breathed out in relief. But more importantly I was increasingly intrigued by our conversation, and this rare chance to find out about Dusun people and their lives. I pressed him further about his culture, his traditions. “Young people not interested in Dusun traditions”, he said, as he prepared to move on to my other foot. “Only want TV and mobile phone”. He sounded troubled.

How many Dusun in Sabah? About three million, he replied. I found myself curious about his world, and wanting to know more about the Dusun. What about dialects? “Have many”, he said. “But understand each other”.

He told me about how he learned to hunt in the forest, with his father. “But not with…” he mimicked the action of using a blowgun. “With rifle. Not old way. My grandfather still hunt old way.”

The mystery of the Astral forces around him suddenly became clear. This twenty-something year-old man, working in a mall reflexology clinic, was one of the gatekeepers of his culture. He cared deeply about his traditions. They were in – and around – his auric field. For crying out loud, his grandfather still hunted in the forests with a blowgun! I felt a momentary pang of regret at the lack of such a vital cultural connection in my own life. And sadness, at not being able to have spent time with my grandfather before he passed away.

The session came to an end, and the young man finished by drying my feet with a towel. I gingerly moved to standing, grateful that I had survived the treatment. There was an important Harvest Festival coming up in May, dancing and music, he told me, as I reached for my wallet to pay him. The festival took place over the entire month. Wow. That’s my kind of party.

“We have strong drink”, he smiled, watching me squeeze my feet into shoes that were now uncomfortably tight.  “Local alcohol drink, very sweet. You try it”.

Yes, I replied. I will.

All of us are here to develop our personal and spiritual lives but it is easy to be distracted in the hustle and bustle of our everyday life. In a Muslim country, such as Malaysia, they make it delightfully impossible to forget. The call to prayer is the first thing you hear every day, and then throughout the day. As a non-Muslim I find it inspiring, not invasive. The call to prayer opens my heart.

There’s a line in the pre-dawn prayer that is unique to the five other daily calls: “Prayer is better than sleep”. For myself, as a spiritual seeker, prayer is any decisive act that turns me within, away from mundane worldly distractions. It’s any act that welcomes the divine back into my life and awakens my  true nature. To help shake me out of the daily “sleep” state.

Last night I listened to a very different call to prayer; a strangely powerful song by Johnny Cash, “The Man Comes Around”, with its multiple references to the Biblical Book of Revelations, and the second coming. The ragged voice of the aged country singer, recorded shortly before he died, transmits a sense of the Christian apocalyptic vision. It looks forward, towards the ending of time, whereas the Fajr Adhan eternally embraces a new beginning. As the day approaches, the invitation for turning within is sent out, again and again. “Hasten to prayer”, the Fajr Adhan calls out. It’s a brand new day.

To most people this Ayurvedic Shiro Dara treatment is surprisingly pleasant, but for psychics it’s a unique opportunity. The warm and fragrant oil flows through Agnya Chakra ( aka Ajna), and creates a profound effect. The hour-long session was washing my third eye chakra clean of accumulated astral grime, seemingly penetrating deep into the energetic prefrontal cortex of my brain. Something in my Western mind speculated that the treatment generated a tiny electrical field through combining oil and copper with the kinetic energy generated by falling oil, but I choose to ignore myself and keep the attention on the clearing experience. Man, this feels so good.

In the map used in Relational Energy Healing Agnya Chakra is a part of the energetic structures of the prefrontal lobes of the brain. It allows the inner visual function of the evolving human being to place what is “seen” (or intuited) into a meaningful and relational context. We don’t progress in life if we just know a bunch of facts and memorized rules. We need human wisdom to sift through the raw data of our lives, and to recognize patterns and subtle nuance.  Only then can we practically apply what we see to what we do.  Agnya’s function is to provide us with that unique perspective: synthesizing the complex reality of the everyday world with the hidden realities of the spiritual realms. Everyone has an Agnya chakra, and uses it to some degree. The difference with psychics is that the “muscle” of Agnya – and the prefrontal lobes – are more heavily utilized. We all know any over-used muscle or body part is prone to tension and stress. It will need therapeutic aid, just like an athlete’s knee or a dancer’s ankle. Which brings me back to Shiro Dara.

As the oil swirling across my forehead dropped me deeper into meditation I had a momentary thought that I was in a psychic “Jiffy Lube” drive-in service station, getting my oil changed so I could run another 3,000 miles. Probably not too far from the truth.

I’ve developing teleclasses and recorded lessons teaching how to work with the Astral world, and to gain additional psychic development. Riding a horse is one of the best ways I know to experience close contact with another sentient life form. Learning to relate to non-humans, either living or in spirit form, is a vital study for all energy healers. But you just can’t learn this stuff from books.

We trotted onto the beach, my equine transportation device clearly excited to have the open space in front of him. “Your horse is fast”, grinned my Malaysian riding guide, “He is half-Arabian, named after the Malaysian Sultan’s ritual blade.”

Oh, Great, I thought. My wife, the real rider, gets Tonto’s horse; I end up with The Lone Ranger’s Silver.

Ten minutes of trotting practice later I reigned in my Arabian friend, the sweat dripping off down my brow, partially obscuring my view of the beautiful beach front ahead of us. The whisper in my head, rising slowly in volume the longer I spent riding him, quietly said, “It’s OK, I won’t let you fall. Don’t try so hard to hold on…match my rhythm, instead.” The Arabian waited, patiently, while I gathered myself for the coming adventure. Time to trust, and time to pray. I gave a sharp kick to his side.

We didn’t start with a trot: we went right into a canter, and then almost a full gallop. The ground raced past as my body ached with muscles still learning, and some part of me wondered how sand would feel when I hit it at this speed. But the Arabian, thrilled to be finally racing like Arabians are supposed to race, radiated delight. A delight in being fully alive, powerful and strong, charging across the deserted sand. It was infectious. I forgot about falling off… and we blended together, riding together, as one.

You just can’t learn this stuff in books.

If you are working within your culture-of-origin you already possess much of the social and relational understanding needed to connect with like-minded others. But if you leave your country, or if you need to connect to others from a different land, challenges in connection do occur.

Now that I am old enough to have had experience in several cultures I better understand one important mechanism: each culture possesses a consciousness matrix made up of social, spiritual, and cultural energy. To tap into a culture other than your own you must tap into the energetic consciousness of their unique matrix. Yui Wang first pointed this out to me, as we walked the streets of Tokyo, on my first visit to Japan. I had almost been hit by a cyclist coming up from behind me. I had expected him to be responsible not to hit me. He had expected me to feel him coming, to be aware of the space around us both, and to move out of his way. I didn’t move, and he almost hit me. “You have to feel the Japanese “grid” around you”, said Yui. “The Japanese cyclist expected you to “feel” him coming up from behind, and to “fit in” with him. It’s the consciousness of the village, and not of individual rights.”.

I began to experiment energetically connecting into the social grid in Japan, both personally and professionally. Sure enough, the connections with the culture had a specific experience to relational awareness. But I could also see that you needed to live in the new culture for a while in order to experience it. Both time, an intention to understand others, and experience in talking or working with local people was essential in order for the local social consciousness to gain access to your auric system.  This has recently started to happen here in Sabah, Borneo, where I recently moved. A few weeks ago I felt something “click” into my energy field.  Suddenly, I was in the flow of local life in a new and more pleasurable way. I was no longer stumbling around like a Western tourist; I was a fish amongst other fish. I felt I had somehow just become a citizen of the town. The local social grid had taken me in.

Of course it takes many years (including language acquisition) to truly understand any new culture. Expect this process to impact, or challenge, some of your long-held relational assumptions, such as what is polite and appropriate, personal boundaries, and what is expected from others. The hunter-gatherer Western societies are tremendously different to the rice-growing Asian consciousness, as many well-traveled authors such as Rudyard Kipling have noted. And in an evolving global economy understanding others as culturally different from you will become increasingly important. For those of us who are also on a spiritual quest, and seeking wisdom from other cultures, understanding their social energy grids will help us gain what we seek. Because if we expect someone from another culture to be like us, true connection will not occur. Personal and business needs will not be supported. Relationships will not deepen. And without strong relationships, we cannot heal and grow, learn and prosper, or enter into mutually beneficial arrangements.

The view out of my window is beautiful tonight, as a glorious sun once again sinks into the South China Sea. Tomorrow will be a brand new day. My prayer for all of us is that when the sun rises again we will awaken a little, just a fraction more, than yesterday. May we move ever forward, and less back.

I’m not usually a cruise-lovin’ person, except for a small longing to sail up the Nile one Spring, and see me some pyramids. But as the Princess sidled sexily up to the docks below my condominium I found myself pining for exotic lands far away.  And, later this evening when Yui and I returned home from town we drove past the Princess, lit up like a Christmas tree. Yui made fun of me, checking out Little Miss Nautical Hottie with my binoculars before she sailed away into the night. Clearly, I was feeling better.

I wonder how much a cruise up the Nile would cost us?

This Sunday morning market in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah displays the eclectic mixture of cultures living here, each happily coexisting with each other and thriving in the economic emergence of twenty-first century Malaysia. Even the inconsiderately cleavage-exposing Western tourist is tolerated without hostility, despite the presence of some local women in modest Islamic clothing. But the market people don’t mind; tourists spend big money, and that’s just fine with them.

Occasionally in the fish-shoal experience of navigating through the market stalls I’ll lose Yui, as something interestingly edible catches her sharp, almond-shaped eyes. I happily wait to one side of the ambling crowd, people-watching until she re-emerges into view clutching a new discovery, no doubt some fried rice something, or a banana leaf-wrapped goodie. Then we continue on in that non-goal frame of mind, wandering in blissful silence amidst the hustle and bustle.

It’s been many years since my nervous system has been this relaxed, I now realize. My emotional body began unwinding over the past fourteen months since leaving San Francisco for Hawaii, but it is here in the market that I am deeply aware of the impact left on my auric system of twenty-five years living in America. The dialectical motifs of US culture – “Right” versus “Left”, conservative versus liberal, support-the-troops versus tell-the-truth, corporate agendas versus the needs/legal rights of the citizen – continually erode meaningful human contact, sadly encouraging a soul-sapping suspicion about other people. While this cultural distancing clearly supports the corporate and political agendas in the United States, it doesn’t make for an ideal life for their citizens. Here in this simple, open-air market the populace is happy. Islamic woman walks safely by Christian man, Borneo tribal man walks respectfully by Western woman, and life goes on in a wonderful way. When I leave the market I am filled with the sights and smells of all humanity. I am enriched, and at ease.

Maybe I’ll stay awhile.

The local East Malaysian people are wonderful, and the food is great. Our taxi driver was born to a local tribe and assured us his people had stopped head hunting a while ago. Good tourism move, local people.

The economy here seems to be good (despite high inflation and a recent petrol hike), because the shopping malls are full, day and evening. Or, like me, maybe people are desperately seeking air conditioning and a cold drink. I suspect both are true. The financial investors around here must feel bullish about Sabah’s future, because there is a huge Hypermall (1Borneo) almost completed just north of Kota Kinabalu. This thing looks like the size of a small American town. Oh, boy.

Yui, of course, is in Asian food heaven, buying up every local delicacy – sweet or savory – she can get her hands upon. Occasionally I will make the mistake of parting my lips during one of our market outings, and she will attempt to sneak something unknown past the guardian taste buds in my English mouth. Before I know it I’m chewing on something suspiciously lime green, vaguely moist, and covered in coconut flakes. I contemplate the sensation a few seconds, and then decide to take a chance and chew, usually finding it not so bad after all.

Curious? Of course you are!  Go here for some photos of Sabah and Sarawak.

I’ve resumed my private telephone healing practice, and the phone lines to the rest of the world are as clear as if I’m calling from Japan. Despite a twelve hour time zone difference between Bor.., I mean, Sabah, my working life is back to normal. Now I’m here it seems the end of the earth is no longer so far away.