The Upper Rooms

Tom Kenyon, MA

It weighs in at around three pounds and packs in a staggering number of neurons—about 100 billion. These tiny information processors are connected through a complex mindboggling network, and the connections between these nerve cells have been estimated to exceed the number of stars in the known universe. I am, of course, talking about the human brain.

The brain in all its complexity manufactures our sensory, mental and emotional experience of ourselves and the world. Notice I said “manufactured.” Most of us think we are directly experiencing the world, but this is not the case. Our brains synthesize all of our sensory perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories into a type of neuronal mélange that we interpret as the world. We experience the world as separate from us, but in fact, our experience of the world is our brain’s creation.

Your experience of the world is unique to you. No one else experiences “the world” in exactly the same way you do. This is due in a large part to how your brain developed in utero and during the formative period of your childhood.

When you were in utero stem cells migrated to various locations in your brain. And where they wound up determined what types of neurons they would become. The old adage in real estate is also true when it comes to neurological property lines—location, location, location.

For instance, as you may know, the neurons in the back of your brain (called the occipital area) are responsible for your ability to see. It is here where the super-neuronal highway from your eyes ends. The neurological impressions from your eyes enters the occipital area upside down, and it is here in this specialized area of your brain where the image is flipped over right side up. Without this area of your brain, you would not be able to see even if your eyes had perfect sight.

As you read these words, you are not aware of it, but the neurological networks from your eyes as well as your occipital area are very active.

At the same time, another region of your brain, called Wernicke’s area (located in the vicinity of your left temple) is allowing you to make sense of these words and extract their meaning.

Neuroscience is rapidly mapping specific areas of the brain and the neurological regions and networks responsible for our experience of both ourselves and the world.

Let us take a quick look at one area of the human brain that neuroscience is exploring in greater and greater detail. Interestingly, sages thousands of years ago knew about this region of the brain although they called it something else and believed it held a secret to vast expanded states of consciousness.

This area of the brain is referred to by physiologists as the Third Ventricle. Ventricles are openings in the brain, kind of like a neurological Swiss Cheese. And these ventricular openings receive an important type of fluid that is circulated up the spine. It is called cerebral spinal fluid and it has a huge impact on brain function and performance. Yogis and yoginis of ancient India also knew about the Third Ventricle, but they called it The Cave of Brahma.

Note: The Third Ventricle, in the above diagram, is an area that is in the approximate center of the brain. The Pituitary gland sits at the bottom left of the Ventricle and the Pineal gland sits in the upper right portion of the Ventricle.

Brahma is the Hindu god of creation and, according to ancient yogic texts, he created the universe by uttering the sound OM—the fundamental primordial vibration responsible for all things. Although the mythos is different, the Hindu version of creation somewhat resonates with the Judaic Christian version of creation (i.e., “…and God said let there be light.”).

According to yogic philosophy, it is here in your Cave of Brahma (the Third Ventricle) that you create your experience of the world or Maya (the illusion of duality).

From the yogic standpoint, the dance of Shakti (subtle energy) within your Cave affects your perception of yourself and the world. And many of the techniques of yoga affect this flow of Shakti—thereby altering your inner and potentially outer perceptual realms.

Some traditions refer to the Cave of Brahma as The Esoteric Chamber, but the view is similar. There is a dance of subtle energies within the Third Ventricle that creates and can re-create our perception of ourselves and the word.

There are two very important physiological structures within the Third Ventricle—the pineal gland and the pituitary gland. The pituitary is the master regulator of the entire endocrine system—a crucial neurological structure that is vital to our health.

The pineal gland is a bit more obscure for several reasons. Physiologically, the pineal gland is responsible for producing melatonin, an important chemical crucial to restorative sleep as well as our circadian cycles. But some researchers think the pineal gland has other purposes as well.

The pineal is the only gland in the body that is wrapped around a crystalline structure, specifically a crystal made of calcium carbonite. The esteemed 17th Century physicist Sir Isaac Newton fervently believed that the pineal gland was the seat of the soul—an idea that modern neuroscience has rejected.

More recently, a brilliant cell biologist by the name of Bruce Lipton has proposed that the carbonite crystal operates like a type of antenna that picks up higher frequency energies and relays this non-ordinary information to the brain.

His view of the pineal gland and its unusual abilities to pick up higher frequency energies shares a similar view as that held by the sages of ancient India.

Indeed, this idea of the brain as a receptor of higher energies is shared by many diverse yogas, not only those out of India but also those from southeast Asia, Tibet (in the form of tantra or internal energy exploration) and China (especially in Taoism) as well as many indigenous shamanic traditions throughout the world.

For the last several decades I have studied and compared the views and methods of these diverse traditions and while there are distinct differences between them, there are also definitive similarities.

One of these similarities is the belief that we live in a cosmos of subtle energies that we can draw upon to expand our own consciousness and to increase feelings of both health and wellness.

The Upper Rooms

The Upper Rooms is a metaphor to describe higher brain functions including those that originate from the Third Ventricle (i.e., The Cave of Brahma). And as a metaphorical device, the term is highly accurate for there are, indeed, many “Rooms” in the human brain/mind system—meaning unique abilities.

One of the brain’s many unusual abilities is that of seemingly connecting with energies and information outside the realm of the individual person. In my experience, this type of subtle energy and transcendent information is not bound by the limitations of time, place and circumstance but is connected to a vast field of information that transcends our normal perceptions of both time and space.

In 2019 I presented a workshop to share this information because I felt that access to our higher potentials will be crucial as we move deeper into this new millennium. I called that workshop The Upper Rooms.

For more information about this set of workshop recordings, go to the Store at www.tomenyon.com or click here.

I would now like to share with you the basic form of one exercise from this Intensive that activates some of the quantum potentials of your own Esoteric Chamber as well as your pineal and pituitary glands.

The Golden Octahedron

The Octahedron is one of five Platonic solids. Within Pythagorean and Platonic schools of philosophy, these five geometric shapes were imbued with mystical attributes. Students were encouraged to contemplate the significance and use of these geometries to open pathways into other dimensions of consciousness.

In this activation exercise, you imagine a radiant gold octahedron in your Esoteric Chamber (the Third Ventricle). Through the power of intention, you cause the Octahedron to rotate and spin in any direction that feels natural to you. If you don’t have a preference, then spin the Octahedron in a clockwise direction (from the perspective of looking down at it from above. As it does so, it radiates intense gold light throughout the Esoteric Chamber and into the Pineal and Pituitary glands.

In addition to these areas, allow the gold light to radiate through your entire brain thereby activating the intricate network of microfilaments and microtubules throughout the brain’s entire neural network. For those unfamiliar with these terms, a growing number of researchers are proposing that minute channels in the brain—called microfilaments and microtubules—may be involved with the brain’s ability to operate at a much faster and more expanded level of functioning than just the neuronal level—a domain of brain functioning called the quantum level. In my opinion, this quantum potential of the human brain informs many of our spiritual and transcendent experiences.

Note: You can greatly enhance your experience of The Golden Octahedron by listening to a psycho-acoustic recording that increases alpha/theta activity in your brain. You can listen to and/or download a psycho-acoustic recording I created for this general purpose (i.e., altering awareness) by going to the Listening section of the website (www tomkenyon.com) and scrolling down the titles until you see Spatial Cognizance: A Hathor Sound Meditation, which is available to you free of charge. I suggest you listen to this sound meditation with headphones or earbuds for maximum effectiveness.

With each strike of the Tibetan bowl imagine that the impulse of sound from the bowl gently strikes the Octahedron causing it to spin in the center of your Third Ventricle.

You can also view, free of charge, the class handouts from this workshop by going to the Articles section of the website and look up The Upper Rooms – Class Handouts. Included in these documents are links to layperson friendly articles as well as links to scientific abstracts and resources about microfilaments and microtubules.

I suspect that the sages of earlier times who discovered the Cave of Brahma through their powers of deep intuition had, in fact, stumbled into the quantum level of their own brains.

I also think that interacting with and mastering the quantum potentials of our own brains is a prerequisite for spiritual evolution and may also prove to be a key to our survival in a world that is rapidly becoming more interconnected and complex. Indeed, our ability to take advantage of our brain’s quantum potential may be what allows us to see the world in new ways and to create new solutions to the world’s problems.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein