About
Welcome to The Spiral Journal, the online resource for my company Higher Plane Productions. My name is Paul Sarkes Tootalian and I’m a writer, meditation teacher and Ceremonial Leader. The Spiral Journal offers hundreds of stories and lessons on meditation and the psychology of the human soul, along with a schedule of workshops and upcoming events.
Across a widening swath of the American corporate landscape, meditation, yoga and other practices – pursuits once confined to the bohemian fringes – are emerging as innovative techniques that promote happiness and prosperity. Approximately one-fourth of all major American employers now deliver some version of mindfulness stress reduction, while top executives advocate meditation as a proven competitive advantage, claiming it as key in making them better leaders. The result of grounding ourselves in this new way of being is a palpable sense of peace, inner connection and a happiness no longer reliant on external conditions.
But competent, well-trained teachers of mindfulness and meditation in every area of our culture are still few and far between. Even regular yoga practitioners can benefit from help developing a regular sitting practice, one that embraces silence and the more traditional meaning of asana or yoga poses – “a mastery of sitting still.”
The key to getting under the surface of life and gaining momentum with meditation and spiritual purification is to understand sitting as an internal skill easily developed with systematic practice. With the right guidance, meditation quickly goes from a seemingly ethereal, subjective pursuit to a regular, empowering endeavor that enhances all areas of life. As my own teacher Shinzen Young reflects, “Sigmund Freud once said that with the right therapy, a patient could transform neurotic misery into common unhappiness. But with meditation, ordinary sorrow can be converted into extraordinary states of happiness.”
Higher Plane’s Proven Meditation and Spiritual Purification Techniques will help you:
• Reduce stress and develop a sense of peace or living calmness
• Reduce physical, mental and emotional ailments
• Increase your ability to fully focus in day to day life
• Increase physical and emotional pleasure and bolster health
• Adopt more positive habits and free yourself of negative urges, helping to make positive behavioral changes
• Elevate performance levels at work, in sports and all other endeavors
• Increase your appreciation and zeal for life by deepening your own spiritual understanding and beliefs
Providing powerful tools to increase mental calm and composure, Higher Plane offers seminars, workshops and easy-to-acquire techniques to help cultivate a better world within, tapping the full power of the present moment. And with the recent acquisition of a 20 acre farm in South Haven, Michigan – 1 hour from Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, 2 hours from downtown Chicago and 3 hours from the Detroit area – we’re stepping forward boldly in 2016. After a successful summer organizing One-Day Sacred Sunday Spiritual Retreat Days consisting of yoga, creative teachings on mindfulness and a purification Ceremony, we’re planning an exciting Fall workshop and retreat schedule with details to come. For more information or to find and reserve your spot, contact me through The Spiral Journal blog.
In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about my meditation and spiritual development seminars, Shamanic purification workshops, and audio recordings, scratch about The Spiral Journal. I look forward to connecting and crossing paths with you, as well as assisting you in taking your personal and professional life to the next level.
Aho, Matakuye O’yasin,
Paul Sarkes Tootalian
September 2016