Excerpt from "Landscapes of the Inner Planes"
And the Tibetans were not the only ones. Persian Sufi mystics of the 12th century believed that human beings possess an energetic body which interfaces with the physical one through centers similar to what we now call chakras. Chakras are the places in the physical body where the spiritual self seems to be snapped in. They align neatly with the endocrine system, following the flow of energy up and down the spine.
Taoist adepts have called this life energy Chi, which literally translated means breath. They believe that the Chi is the vital energy of life, and that it travels on the breath. It can also be experienced in a variety of other ways. Their main objective was to feel more alive by removing the obstacles that reduce the chi's flow to each of us. To accomplish this they worked with three principles: matter, movement and the mind.
Hawaiian Kahunas refer to this invisible aspect of each of us as the "aumakua" or the "high self". They believe that through it we can access information about our past, our present or our future, and that by practicing certain visualization techniques we can rewrite our futures for ourselves. Current metaphysical thought moves along these same lines; with books like Norman Vincent Peal's "Think and Grow Rich" having been a best seller for decades. Shakti Gawain's book "Creative Visualization" concentrated specifically on visualizations and rewriting our internal dialogues to reprogram our emotional and mental bodies with a new vision. Doctors like Larry Dorsey, Bernie Seagal, and Deepak Chopra all indicate the life changing effects that such creative visualization can have upon disease.
To quote an interview by Jerry Snider of the African teacher Malidoma Patrice Some', "A few months before birth, when the grand-child is still a fetus, a ritual called a "hearing" is held. The pregnant mother, her brothers, the grandfather and the officiating priest are the participants ... During the ritual the incoming soul takes the voice of the mother, some say the soul takes the whole body of the mother, which is why the mother falls into trance and does not remember anything afterwards, and answers every question the priest asks. In this way the living find out who is being reborn.... |
"Let's begin by taking a look at some of the beliefs our ancestors have held about our inherent spiritual connection to the Universe. Long ago this connection between the visible and invisible realms was well known. Tantric mystics of Tibet referred to the "stuff" of our thoughts as "tsal" and held that every mental action produced waves of this mysterious energy. Tibetans believed that the entire universe is a product of the mind and is created and animated by the collective "tsal" of all beings. Most of us, they say we are unaware that we even possess this power, and because our thoughts are so cloudy, we are unable to hold our focus for any length of time. Tibetan Tantric texts however, are filled with visualizations techniques, called "sadhanas" and it was for this purpose that monks often sealed themselves in cells or caves for such long periods to perfect their abilities. 
The Sufi's held that with visualization, the subtle matter of thought, which they called the "alam almithal", could be used to totally reshape one's destiny. Reality, they said, is divided into a series of subtler and subtler planes, or "Hadarats", and that the plane adjacent to this one is a template for idea images which can actually form into reality itself. The thoughts that we create in this adjacent dimension will determine the course of one's life. That's a pretty potent skill, if one learns to access it. Insightfully enough, the Sufi's also teach that it was not enough to possess the power of control alone. One must also learn to open the heart, or the "himma", as the prerequisite for controlling one's destiny. This is similar to what Jesus taught that Love was the answer to all things. 
With matter, they tried eating, and from this a wonderful cornucopia of medicinal herbs and nutritional balances emerged. In movement they developed programs like t`ai-chi chuan and chi gong to bring in greater chi, or energy, from the cosmos. And with their minds they sought to be free of self-seeking emotions and immerse themselves in stillness. "To the mind that is still, the Universe surrenders," is an old Taoist saying. Thus the human being learns to link him or herself with the Universal intelligence of creation. 
In Native American traditions, the Ojibway Indians believe that a person's life is scripted by an invisible soul or spirit and is laid out in a manner that will promote their spiritual self development before he or she even comes into a particular lifetime! In essence they believe that the Higher Self makes these decisions before the soul incarnates, determining when and to what parents one will be born. In a similar vein the Dagara Indians of Africa believe that a soul knows before it is born why it is incarnating into a particular lifetime. The Dagara often feel that the incoming soul is actually an ancient one, an ancestor of the tribe who has previously died and is returning.