When the going gets rough in our lives, where and how do we seek solutions? How do we cope when those difficulties progress into a storm of overwhelm? Within that storm, is it possible to access the calm at its center?

For those of us on a spiritual or self-improvement path, we might turn to a positive attitude, self-analysis, or introspection. Or, maybe it requires sheer willpower. But why does it seem, these days, that our time-tested solutions so often fail to bring the comfort they once did?

A new chapter of world history is being written. When the leader of the free world threatens to bring about “a fire and fury that the world has never seen,” such words have a global impact upon the emotional and physical vibrations of us all. For many of us, these can be difficult uncertainties to bear.

Many of my students, clients, and friends have been tested by this volatile political climate.   At best, our continuously unsettling losses, health challenges, and unexpected life changes have unearthed old patterns of fear, anxiety, and even panic. At worst, mind, body and spirit become exhausted. Without hope, without refuge, our long-time psychological and spiritual practices no longer seem to serve us as they once did.

However, reaching this point—often referred to as a “dark night of the soul”—can herald the opportunity for a major transformational shift. The energy we’ve used to hold everything together (or back) can give way to a flood of what Carl Jung called numinous (or sacred) energy. It is here that the laws of the physical world move into the background. What emerges is what I call, The Realm of Sacred Transformation.

In the ancient Indian Vedic teachings, there is a science for tapping into that numinous energy for powerful transformation. This precise science has been handed down through the centuries in the form of a sacred ceremony to our Divine natures called a puja (which translates to ‘flower’ in Sanskrit, a seminal part of the puja).

In a puja, one first creates a sacred space, and then our Divine aspects are invoked through the ancient art of mantra. In the Flower Pujas that I conduct, participants have an opportunity to surrender that which no longer serves them. In exchange, powerful numinous energy is freed up to enter our awareness, and invite the Heart into a realm of Sacred Transformation.  The opportunity for miracles opens.

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Linda Chan serves on the Spiritual Directions Committee at the Church of Truth, Community of Conscious Living and is a member of the Victoria Insight Meditation Sangha’s Climate Change Group.