Akasha
expanding
Written by Desmond Olubunmi · Founder of Sunya
Removing visual boundaries and exposing the awareness to vastness — sky, open horizon, infinite depth — to dissolve the contracted, self-referential mind and allow the energy body to expand beyond its habitual limits.
The energy body mimics what it perceives. When you spend hours in confined rooms looking at small screens, the field of awareness contracts to match what it is surrounded by.
When you expose the eyes and mind to genuine vastness — the open sky, the ocean horizon, the staggering depth of the night sky — the system responds by expanding to match what it perceives. The separate self, which survives by maintaining tight, defended boundaries, cannot maintain those boundaries when the environment simply exceeds them.
The intellect cannot compute infinity. It can process large numbers, but it cannot genuinely comprehend billions of galaxies or the silence between stars. And because it cannot comprehend it, it gives up — the analytical mind falls silent.
In that silence, the separate self briefly releases its grip, and awareness expands into the openness, touching something that was always already there but that the constant noise of the mind was preventing it from recognising. The Shunya — the pure emptiness that underlies all creation — becomes briefly, directly perceptible.
Not as a concept, but as the lived field in which you are already resting.
Sky gazing (Akasha Dharana). Find an open space — a hilltop, a field, a cliff edge, a beach. Lie down and look up at the sky — day or night. Do not focus on a specific cloud or star. Look at the distance itself, the sheer open space above you. Remain with the sense of vastness. Let your awareness expand into it without grasping for anything. The vast space above mirrors the vast space of pure awareness within.
Horizon gazing. Stand on a high vantage point or before the ocean and look at the far horizon — the furthest visible point. Do not look at the objects in between. Look deliberately at the empty space between and beyond everything visible. Hold this wider, open field of vision until the mind quiets and a natural expansiveness arises.
Stargazing. On a clear night, go to a dark place away from artificial light and look up at the full sky. Allow the weight of what you are actually seeing — the real depth, scale, and age of what is in front of you — to reach you. Let the mind try to comprehend it and fail. In that failure, a profound stillness opens. The Shunya — the pure emptiness that underlies all of creation — becomes briefly, directly perceptible.
When to prescribe Space: Mental overload, obsessive thinking, a feeling of being trapped in the personal. Space is the antidote to the contracted mind — it opens what nothing else can reach.
The Elemental Prescription. Each element addresses a specific imbalance. Learn to read your own state and prescribe accordingly: Anxious, restless, unable to settle → Earth. Get your feet on the ground immediately. Emotionally stuck, heavy, unable to move through something → Water. Immerse, flow, release. Mentally foggy, creatively blocked, feeling contained → Air. Get to open space and breathe deeply. Depressed, lethargic, dimmed, motivation gone → Fire. Find the sun or sit with a flame. Mentally overwhelmed, trapped in the personal, over-thinking → Space. Find vastness and let the mind fail at containing it.
The elements work in combination. On a good day, all five are present in a single walk that takes you from earth to river to open sky.
Occasional writing on the levers, the practices, and how to actually work with them.
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