The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight by James Redfield Page A

you. But there
     are other measures as well.
    “You will feel lighter,” Hanh continued. “The energy will rise up through you and lift you up, as you said, like a string
     pulling you up from the top of your head. And you will feel a greater wisdom about who you are and what you are doing. You
     will receive intuitions and dreams about what is next on your life path.”
    He paused and looked at my body. I was now sitting up effortlessly. “Now we come to the most important part,” he said. “You
     must learn to sustain this energy, to keep it flowing into you. You must use the power of your expectations here, the power
     of your prayer-energy.”
    Here was this word again:
expectation.
I had never heard it used in this context before.
    “How do I do that?” I asked, feeling confused, my body dropping in energy, the forms and colors around me fading.
    Hanh’s eyes got large and he burst into laughter. He tried several times to stop but finally rolled on the ground in uncontrollable
     mirth. He regained his composure several times but began laughing again every time he looked at me. I even heard Yin snickering
     in the background.
    Finally Hanh managed to take some breaths and calm down.
    “I’m very sorry,” he said. “It’s just that your expression was so funny. You really don’t believe you have any power at all,
     do you?”
    “It’s not that,” I protested. “I just don’t know what you meant by expectation.”
    Hanh was still smiling. “You do think you carry around certain expectations about life, don’t you? You expect the sun to rise.
     You expect your blood to circulate.”
    “Of course.”
    “Well, I’m only asking that you try to become conscious of these expectations. It is the only way to maintain and extend the
     higher level of energy that you just experienced. You must learn to expect that level of energy in your life, and you must
     do so very deliberately and consciously. This is the only way to complete the first prayer extension. Would you like to try
     again?”
    I smiled back at him, and we spent several minutes breathing and building up the energy. When I was seeing the higher level
     of beauty I had experienced before, I nodded at him.
    “Now,” he said, “you must expect this energy that is filling you to keep filling you and to flow out of you in every direction.
     Visualize this happening.”
    I tried to hold on to my energy level as I asked, “This outflow—how do I know this is really happening?”
    “You will be able to feel it. Just visualize it for now.”
    I took another breath and visualized the energy coming into me and flowing out in every direction into the world.
    “I still don’t know whether it’s really happening,” I said.
    Hanh looked directly at me, appearing slightly impatient. “You know the energy is flowing out of you because the energy is
     maintained, the colors and shapes stay high, and you feel it as it fills you, then overflows outward.”
    “How does it feel?” I asked.
    He looked at me with incredulity. “You know the answer to that.”
    I gazed out at the mountains again, visualizing the energy flow going out of me toward them. They remained beautiful and began
     to be immensely attractive as well. Then a rush of deep emotion filled me, and I remembered what I had experienced in Peru.
    Hanh was nodding.
    “Of course!” I said. “The measure of whether the energy is flowing out is the feeling of love.”
    Hanh smiled broadly. “Yes, it is a love that becomes a background emotion that stays with you as long as your prayer-energy
     is going out into the world. You must stay in a state of love.”
    “This seems awfully idealistic for ordinary human beings,” I said.
    Hanh chuckled. “I’m not telling you how to be an ordinary human being. I’m telling you how to be at the edge of evolution.
     I’m telling you how to be a hero. Just remember that you must expect divine energy to come into you at a higher level and
     to flow out