Journal II

In a follow-up to the last posting, today I had a family friend in the studio today who brought with her someone who does healing work in our area.  My friend was saying how she wanted to do a body of work about her experience with kundalini to show at a local gallery.  I was interested in what she had to say because I had conceived of a body of work over the last few years which I had imagined, as a way to anchor it as a show in my mind, to be placed in the same gallery. I just had not spoken to anyone about this idea.  I said how I felt that in making work anchored in the vibration of this awareness of ourselves I felt would be a powerful way to change the vibration, to bring a sense of wonder and awe about who we are within.  I mentioned an incident with Ramana Maharshi and his gaze and how perhaps everything else is just anchoring a vibration which we all feel at the soul level, and that in making work of this kind, I felt that it was enough because it served as a reminder for those who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.  Her friend asked us if we had ever been reading someones words and felt as though they were in the room, as if they were alive and present, even if they weren't still alive.  I smiled and said "That's so funny that you mention that...." and said how just two nights before I had been reading the words of Krishnamurti in the afterlife. Sometimes the words of those long gone do indeed spring alive in new and unexpected ways.  Sometimes a book which we read one day is entirely different from the next.  I have some books I have been reading over and over for the past 30 years and I often see them differently when I set them aside for a few years.  It is less that the writing has really changed as we ourselves have changed. 

As we got to work getting colors laid out for the large globe we were going to blow together, I put on a leather glove and thought to myself "Tatanka" which is Lakota for the bison.  I wished that I had gloves made from bison, I thought how good they would feel.  I turned and as I did my friend explained that our guest had been in Canada spending time with the same band of Indians who were descendants of Sitting Bull who had been given refuge in that country when Sitting Bull was still alive.  It turns out that our guest had been accepted by the group to take part in the Sundance. A good way to bring this up.

With this group, the Sundance is all about the balance of the masculine and feminine in the world.  It was beautiful to hear our guest speak about how this was done, how this balance was honored in a ceremonial context to help keep balance in their culture.  It was a timely talk about how front and center these issues were for them, for the Lakota, and to hear of  this sacred rite.  I wondered how we could have activities that helped to honor the balance of the masculine and feminine in our own lives, even if they were stories, or movies, music, art, or even ritual for those who need it. 

Life is full of these events that serve to reflect and manifest meaningful coincidences that are the larger self speaking to the smaller self.  They can sometimes help to underscore a subject, or to bring the awareness into the moment more fully.  Keeping on the lookout for what the universe, which "speaks" to us, can be a way towards new understanding. Sometimes, too, these serve as reminders along the way.   Life is full of opportunity for learning, while listening to subtle clues for what might be something that is bringing our attention into the moment perhaps as a meditation one moment, a reminder the next.  We may never be completely sure what it is the universe may be telling us, or what our higher selves may be whispering, but time surely will tell. 

The Journal

Last night as I lay dreaming I found myself reading the handwritten words made in a journal.  As I read, I realized that this was a letter to the person, a way to put thoughts and feelings into a form where it is recorded.  As I was reading the pages, looking at the hand that put the words down, I had the realization that this had been written by U.G. Krishnamurti, and that this journal was written after his death.  When I say this, I mean to say that after he made his transition from this life to the next, he went on to live a life not terribly unlike the one he had in physical life. It was a continuation of something.  Maybe we think that once we die, we wind up in some nebulous realm of something very very different.  And perhaps this speaks to our uncertainty about what life will be once we make this transition ourselves, but my sense is that we very much are ourselves but without the body.  We continue and use some of the things that we picked up here as a way to put things into a known context.  Like a journal, for example.  All of this, at its root, are manifestations of energy, but we assemble these energy forms into patterns and we create with these patterns.

I was struck by how the piece was written.  It was his own mind, his own thoughts, but some things had changed.  Some harder edges had been honed and the thoughts seemed clearer.  The fact that he was not addressing anyone also seemed to make a difference.  As I say that, though, I sense that even he was aware that every thought, created, is recorded, and we can all access this vast library of what Jane Roberts' trance personality Seth termed the "World View" of a person.  He described it as being like a living library of a person's inner thoughts, ideas, and perhaps work.  Most often, these existed in this library as an afterdeath journal.  Jane had dictated several of these journals during her work, one being William James and another by Cezanne as a gift to her artist husband, Rob.  These were those things that the personality felt willing to "put out there" for others to access.

I related to this because at one point this effort here was not a public one. It was anonymous, a nice quiet corner where I could record and work through what I was working through during the process of awakening.  Somehow, the writing was itself a way to dream a new way of being into being.  the curious thing about creativity is that it has the ability to break down old barriers or borders in the self, to dissolve conceptualizations that limit our thinking and awareness.  Sometimes I think we are tempted to wonder if what the person thus creating is really real, or if it is somehow a fabrication. Do we really believe in these creations, or are they just nice ideas to talk about, to bat around because we think they make us look a certain way.  Certainly we do things because we think that it is the thing to do without paying heed to the deeper voice within.  Most certainly we get caught up in things that do not serve who we are authentically.  But what is real?  What is our nature?  When you consider the great infinite nature of the higher self, this question becomes increasingly irrelevant.  I mean this because we have been so many things, so many people, so many experiences.  I sense that there is always a sense of self, of individuality no matter how much the sages say we melt into glorious nothingness upon awakening and ascending.  If you know me and what I have written, you will know that I sense that even at higher ranges of awareness, we continue a sense of individuality within that broader context.  there are things that do drive us that may not interest others.  We continue even in our higher forms to pursue fulfillment based on what interests us even if those realities are ones that when we here encounter them, seem like a vast space of cosmic awareness.

What are we, who are we?  This question continues.....not because we do not know, but perhaps because we are ever in a state of coming to it.  Even in awakening, this question, while stilled in one way is enlivened in another.  It is like we ask why we are here as we seek.  We wonder what our purpose is, and once we awaken, we touch this very still presence of our own natures deep within, and it all seems simple. We just ARE and that seems all we need to know.  It is in that knowing that the layers fall away.  We might say we need to do something and certainly there are things you can do that will help you in this journey to embodiment.  But everything that I have encountered serves one thing; knowing who you are.  Beyond the troubles, hitches and glitches.  So HOW do I get there?

Whatever works to help you to be still and know what you are is perfect.  it might be playing music, it might be meditating, it might be walking outside in nature.  It might just be not worrying about your problems and just centering your awareness on this sense of presence.  It might be that using mindfulness on a continual basis to become aware of how your mind works, how hard feelings rise and the nature of your own thought and feeling process in order to identify that the reason why you are now feeling crumpled emotionally is because as you walked through the aisles at the store you saw a product that triggered a memory from early life that was only in that moment half recognized, and because it was not fully felt and moved beyond, it is now dogging you in a kind of low level way.  Mindfulness could be useful in helping you to find where you went "wrong" or how you ended up feeling what it is you are feeling.  It may be that visualizations help to shift and change your feeling and open up for new growth and change.  It is curious how we can use tools that turn ourselves inside out and remake ourselves.  This very much was what kundalini did to me and it seems to do this to most everyone.  there is this sense of the self being torn down and being built back up again.  the image of Isis and Osiris often comes up in people's awareness because this is very much the same idea.  I had an image of sitting on the fallen foundation of an old building or temple that was myself and wondering how on earth it would ever get put back together.  the silent hand of kundalini would pass me a stone and I was, in this new place, to lay it down in a more thoughtful way.  This was an image that showed me or conditioned me for being able to be more supple, more flexible, to let old things that had not served me to go. This is like plowing up hard ground.  the self becomes more succepitble to the needs of the larger self, or to ones deeper nature which may have been denied because you somehow thought it was too crazy or weird or that you had to serve others before you served yourself or a hundred other reasons for not taking care of you first.  Maybe it just seems like we are remaking ourselves.  Maybe we are following a path or trek that has already been travelled and we are just now realizing that this is so.....that we live also outside of time but that our awareness limits our awareness of this fact so that we are surprised when we arive at the perfect place in our lives and wonder how on earth we managed to do that.  Slowly, the veils drop and we become more and more aware of just what it is that we are and the choices we may have already made.  And yet, it seems an infinity of choices were made, already have been made, and it leaves one with a dizzying sense of what is this all about.

Sshhhh! It says.  Be quiet, pay attention to what your essential being is.  The view may be cloudy or less than perfect, but keep your eyes on the prize.

I know that there is an awareness that we all have that allows us to see beyond the debris of our karmas. We can see and know the authentic self perhaps because we ourselves are not ingratiated in the karmas in that person that keeps them from seeing it themselves.  We can so easily see because the signals or noise is not the same, and yet, we may ourselves have trouble seeing our own authentic selves.  Ramana Maharshi once looked at a man after being asked how he could find God.  Maharshi has said just a moment before that he would not find it outside of himself.  So Maharshi gazed at him, his soul speaking without words to this mans own soul.  A reminder, a moment of presence that, on that day served to awaken him.  He was not, just a few moment prior, pleased with Maharshi's insistence that he wasn't going to find it from a guru or from some teaching.  He was looking outward, you see. 

So maybe we just keep our gaze centered on ourselves without expectation of what we will find, but to be quiet and know, to open the universe up in the only real way we will ever know, which is within.  By bearing our own seemingly hidden knowing, we learn to come by a knowing that is beyond all thought or deed. It becomes just what is, perhaps has always been simply because while we are here enmeshed in time, we also exist outside of it.  Whatever it is we think we need to do, has already been done.  In finding this part of ourselves that exist in this place of no-time, a seed is planted, or is germinated where our personalities bloom in the light of what this larger self is. Ineffable, how can anyone describe or explain it properly?  We can say it is the most marvelous thing, the most miraculous moment, sheer bliss.  We can only know it when we are ready to know it, and yet every moment exists trembling with powerful potential for us to realize things that we here would perhaps think incredible.  Yet it is so simple, this key that unlocks us from our old conceptualizations and notions of what we were or have been.  We each know what we are, and many of us have hidden that self under a bushel or lain piles of concerns that never served us while we turned to lives that never really fully satisfied this deeper knowing of being.

So much now is turning back to what Is wordless, and it gets hard to even put words to paper anymore.  What I have to do is what I have to do, to realize beyond this illusion of what seemed.  I lay in bed in the morning, perhaps the bst time for me to do this realization.  Here, I am quiet and feeling.  I am not focused outward but inward.  I am resting in the sea of all I am right now.  I can feel what is missing in me, what SEEMS to be missing, but is only an effect of my awareness.  I can feel my heart, which feels like a pair of lungs, gasping for air.  I ask myself, why does my energy body feel like it is gasping?  I know it is a lack of life force energy, that even now as I am more full then I have ever been, it is still not where my essential self knows itself in its natural state.  I feel into that and I know that I am divided from the feminine energy that moves through me as surely as the masculine does.  I reflect on how this must have effected my behavior in this life and others.  I consider that all of this, this simple little division in the yin and yang, the positive and negative, has played out in myriad ways. I know that I must swim for all I am worth to feel into this part in order to bring the circuit into a fuller sense of connection within.  This, for me, is by allowing myself to feel.  This is the right brain, the right side of my body, the cool, the night, the feminine, the womb, the compassion, the flow.  I searched through my feelings and felt this thing where in some lives I believed I was just male.  I was certainly this, but the universe is composed of this yin and yang in order to fuel it. But in this focus I had, it lost some of what it needed in order to complete. It wasn't that this aspect made him more feminine, it just made him a closer mirror of what or who he was in his larger aspect of being.  His own larger self was composed of a vibration of energy that had a blending of aspects and qualities, and as he sought lifetime after lifetime what this great secret was, he pondered why he felt the way he did.  It is in every single particle, and it is the key and lock that allows energy to flow.  The two energies touch and a third energy arises from their union, which is a sense of transcendent bliss.  It is a gift, and learning to hold onto it and nurture it, is the guru within.  We might not even know what comes next or how to work through the mass of material, but kundalini remains quiet, soft-spoken, yet powerful too.  It waits for the moment when we are ready to reach that next stage of realization, as layer by layer, our vision becomes clearer and more refined.  Something stirs within and the universe serves to manifest in perfect timing just what we need while also bearing the marks of what we have yet to know more fully.  So inch by inch, yard by yard, we move through these layers of realization.  I don't know hat comes next, but in not trying to let my mind work on that problem, I am more open to the universe bringing me something that I may not have even been able to dream of before.  It is this part that perhaps seems like the part where we make ourselves into something different.....yet in a way we are, but only in becoming what we truly are.  By not being confused by what my inner rifts and fractures are trying to tell me, I seek to keep my eyes on what this deeper sense is telling me.  Sometimes, it is beyond my comprehension.....but I think this is the magnum opus being brought to bear.

Our bodies are mirrors, a double-lobed being, bipedal.  We have two brains that carry very different aspects of our expression and experience.  Each align according to this energy as physical representations or expressions of this cosmic bi-poled energetic reality of who and what we are.  When the two brains, the left and right can work together, they can create something greater than the sum of their parts.  

So saying this, it is all so personal.  How can I say to you what will work or what has value?  Only you will know this.  Only you can work through this.  I am more compelled to begin writing in a journal that I keep by my bedside than ever before. And maybe what we are ready to publish we will lay on another shelf, signaling to the universe that we are done with that chapter and are on to the next.  Perhaps we then read the journals of light of others to ponder what another pondered, yet what we each find is our very own as the nucleus of a larger life seeking to rise in awareness in this world as heaven and earth are each wedded to the other.  In that moment, the realization is, heaven never was in some far flung place beyond death, but right here, waiting for us to slip the key into the locks so that we may open to what we are. 

Magnum Opus

What are we seeking?  Is it a better life, a path, a method, a way, an answer to some age old question?  Looking out into the world, letting our senses guide, somewhere there comes a turning, a change, a shift, a question that somehow hits upon something that is akin to a straw snapping under one more pound of pressure, one ounce, or even gram will do it.  It seems utterly mysterious sometimes how it happens, but when it does, seeking is changed.  The focus turns inward, perhaps haltingly at first as the caterpillar grows into the butterfly.  What is this that is happening?  Awake. 

It stirs us deep, it churns us hard, but the fragrance moves from mud to lotus blossoms. As the world is somehow changed, the real change is within us.  One by one, the layers fall away, and then it is all about the landslide that is taking place within.  What else is there but this great work?  You eat drink and breathe this.  Struggling, and soaring, all so human, all so alive.  They say there is nothing to do, nothing to learn, but simply to BE.  And yet, we are these creatures caught in this place with blinders. 

Feel deeply.  Allow yourself to breathe it all in, to feel it all completely.  Do not fear feeling, get used to feeling as one would breathe deeply.  The closet, which seemed to have nothing but skeletons, now clears itself out and is seen for what it is; a gateway to a Narnia, a kind of lost world that was never truly lost but here is found piece by piece. 

We like to think that the brain is the locus of all experience, but we are learning that we think and feel with our bodies. It is here, in the etheric body, a double of the physical one, that all unresolved, all unfelt emotion resides.  We can feel all the knots residing in a thousand different places in accord to their vibration.  Feel into each knot, this awakening says, feel into it completely, and you will free that knot and it will no longer be what it was.  Transmuted or dropped away, the energy of what you are shines through as each dust mote on the window of your soul offers up an ever increasing view of what this other part of you is.  Like a lost world, almost forgotten, but entirely familiar.  So the great work becomes a falling away of all that did not serve you, but what you identified with even while it blinded you.  In not feeling, in not acknowledging it deeply, the lesson becomes that to BE we must feel it all completely. 

So do not shove it down.  Let yourself feel the fullness of your emotion, let it blow through you like a gale or like a soft gentle wind in accord to how it was created within you. Even if it is not something that you feel is right for you to feel.  Do not allow shame to deter you, for in so doing, you set up a feeling of no fear, no shame, and in so doing, lead yourself ever closer to a better place.  What we repress, returns as dysfunction.  Let all that has been shoved down to the surface.  Bless it, and let it go.  Feel it completely, and something miraculous will happen piece by piece, as it is done, you will be returned to the next point of recognition, awareness and being.  For if you do this, what first begins as hard, is itself softened.  It becomes easier to bear grace and refinement through intention.  You don't have to be afraid to slip and fall.  Be human, accept who you are, and in so doing, you also allow for your fuller being to come to your aid, piece by piece, returning, restoring the ancient garden of yours soul. 

This is the great work, the masterpiece that you are, have always been. the greatest method has been to simply be still and know that you ARE.  This is the simplest balm, the most subtle of healers, but the most powerful in its quietness, for we have been shouting for centuries all agendas and positions.  Only in being quiet and feeling that still deeper current, will you be pulled to your Source and you will be on a scent whose path may appear uncertain, but only because of how this has been.  Letting go, your inner divine nature will lead you there as the little part of you which has looked out upon the physical is drawn inexorably to what it must be, has always been. 

The method is in returning by being still and knowing what you ARE.  It doesn't get any simpler than that.  Before this, it is method and technique, and if they work, use them.  But a simple gaze will do it as well as a position or posture or concept.  We become ourselves, like a koan, resolving golden and wonderfilled. 

To No End

We really are fascinating creatures in some ways.  I find that over the course of a number of years, that I have found many different ways to process old stored and blocked energy, and each has worked very well for the time. In fact, I was aware of this energy in me as being like this ball of energy that had intelligence to it and within its essence there was something that was changing incredibly rapidly.....

No, that's not exactly it.  Imagine a ball of energy that has across its surface watery ripples that are always changing, never the same once. Or perhaps a ball of energy with endless images moving across its surface.....but the inner form is just this pure consciousness. What I felt this energy as is the Creator, something I just could not entirely know but that I was aware was itself aware of everything and the images dancing across its surface were all the things it was aware of.  In truth, it was aware of everything....and everything could not register in a mental image, but the idea of this thing moving endlessly, always changing, entirely in flux on the one hand, but steady and in a kind of deep repose all at the same time was the forward edge of this thing I would encounter in my awareness.  In five years or so, the image has shifted somewhat, but not greatly.  I sense or know that what I see in this way is an incredibly shorthand form for something that is likely hard to know.

The idea came flooding in as I stoked the wood stove a moment ago that perhaps what I am experiencing is itself the god of me.  As this popped into awareness, I resisted a bit because what I had been sensing so long has seemed so certainly like the creator.....but as I let go of all that I have thought I have known, this germ of an idea or thought itself bloomed as I came up the stairs.  And as I think about it, it makes some sense to me now.  Which leads me to this whole changing kaleidoscope of experience.

Along one leg of the journey, working closely with the awareness of the energy as an unseen hand in my life was the image that I used to help me to know what remained to be done.  This hand would hold itself into a posture of waiting, of blessing, and I knew that it was saying "I am here at the next thing that needs to be cleared; you now need to recognize this block, feel it, and then let it go."  This worked very well in the beginning.  It was a visualization that served to match what I was feeling.  It was like a symbol for something deeper.  Then, a little later, there was no hand.  One time it would be felt as water cleansing a center, and this would work for that instance, but by the next clearing, it was on to something else, as though there was this sense that for each thing, there was something different that had to be used to match where I was.  Each time, the energy within felt different.  It was like this ever changing form that was always the same, yet shifting in quality and appearance.  Perhaps it was me who was changing as I disrobed from the past things.  Perhaps it felt differently because some part of me had been returned to a clearer space.  The landscape in the beginning changed so rapidly.  Now it deepens.  Now I am quieter, more reflective on issues that now have fewer images and more sense of being with the energy that flows from its source.  I am reminded of a dream I had just as kundalini was first stirring of seeing this creek (my dream symbol for my spirit) that led to its source, which was where I was headed.  the water sparkled, was amazing to look at because it was part water, part liquid light.  It had these sparks of color shooting through it, images almost, but so pure and brilliant I could not help but take off my shoes and stand knee-deep in its waters as that water lapped around my legs and moved up my body.  I had no idea what this water was, except that it was connected to me and was amazing.

I have been going back to that image, back to the very first experiences of the stirring of this energy for in those stirrings were some very clear things that got harder to see so clearly as the knots or blocks in my field became more apparent and obscured, I think, this presence which was marvelous, clear, and amazing.  It felt like the garden of my soul, and it is there that I seek to dwell.  Something in us so yearns for this place that it drives us along even though sometimes we can seem more like we are kicking and screaming all in the midst of dream.

One moment breath work is perfect for what needs doing.  Another moment, a wonderful visualization of the higher self and lower self being integrated in a vast double spiral that move inward and outward, the solar plexus and heart balancing these two forces in the moment where in the crucible of our will and out divine love, all is transmuted.  In yet another moment, the most perfect methods is revealed in simply meditating on the higher self without any expectation of anything. Something emerges out of that method so effortlessly I wondered how that could be.  The giant within just smiles and nods for me to keep moving, poking and prodding me further.  then an ancient form of a thunder bird emerges and I know, there is something here, and its result is entirely unexpected.  the old is made new again in the moment. forms within forms, all taking shape, offering up a nugget of something, then dissolving back into a sea of potentiality.  How wonderful we must be, how alive, breathing in life, breathing out creation.  Each moment filled with wonderful possibility.  All along, higher self guiding smaller self, smaller self feeling as deeply as it can, praying for grace, feeling into grace, so hungry for what it knows it is.  A spiral without end.

What we will be, what we will find, as long as we are brave enough to build on all that has come before, considering the impossible as highly probable, but working this in ways that had not even been considered before, and yet each moment, so different from the next as form upon forms rises and falls, giving hints and clues as step by step, we go deep into the vast ocean of ourselves.  Each time, some part we held sacred is undone as the folly of ego is seen in an ever refining way.  I don't know where this leads, but I know that every sign points to something perfect and wonderful and more me than I could perhaps have ever dreamed.  But the moment I pause to consider this, something pushes me gently but persistently and I know there is another peak to reach, another lost stone to kiss and return to the ocean so it may tumble and roll and become sand for some ancient desert that will one day bear a great river touching its ultimate source.

I dream of this, hold to it, wish and want for it.  I see myself standing on hot desert sand which gives way to a river long in flowing, which touches upon the ocean and flows out into it in one eternal embrace that is not quite one or the other but so much more.  And it is here that roses of the desert bloom and the sky reveals the infinite mystery that is our own revelation dreaming itself.....

It

It seems that there is a process, work to do, things to get through.  But for me, what I see or am knowing is that in truth, It is teaching me how to just be.  It is like jumping off a high cliff in order to soar.  The way to do it is just to do it.  The "work" or "process" winds up just screwing up the courage to jump.

I was reading about how some teachers speak of "there is nothing to do" while others believe in some sort of practice.  If a practice helps you screw up the courage, then it is of use.  Use every tool at your command. But when the moment comes, it comes like death, and we all fear death.  But this death, which is surely that, is not something you really do.  When it comes, it comes.  And when it does, all of the preparation that you made for it, all dissolves into one single thing; surrender to what is.  Each and every healing within has been this way for me, and I have to ask, am I really all that different from everyone else?  If a paractice or method helps you to focus on a goal, then who is to say that there is not some worth in that?  And yet, as I lay down to sleep last night, I just laid down and asked "What is it that I most need to know?  What is it that I need to let go?"  Then, in that moment I saw an image, one very quick image.  A scene, hardly a scene really came before me just long enough to remind me of something that had happeend to me in some past existance.  I don't know when or where, but all I seemed ot need in that moment was that one little jostling of my memory and the memory led me to this place of feeling that I had not been allowing to feel fully.  In that moment, I just surrendered and asked what I could do.  I just needed to remember.  No breathing, no postures....just lying still in bed before going to sleep.  And its funny in a way because most of these clearings have taken place when I am in bed.  This is very human stuff, and lying in bed could be just the thing.  Or sipping tea in the afternoon or maybe sitting in full lotus. 

You can put it off sometimes, but there is an inevitabillity to it.  You agreed to come here, to be born, and so you have also agreed to die.  all deaths, though, will bring you to a birth.  Dying, birthing, dying and birthing again. Dying to what you thought you were to what you are.  Over and over, the old ideas or feelings are shed like small deaths in a day, and life becomes something different than it was before.  Something vital and important to our lives is returned to us.  All of these events, these little conceptual and emotional deaths, are strung like pearls on a beautiful necklace.  No, silly, you do not physically die when you go through this kind of living change.  But someday you will, and when you have gone through enough small deaths, the final one that you think seems to end your physical life here  will be all the more amazing and wonderful, a celebration even, because you will be all the more ready to embrace it without pulling away in fear.   So there may be nothing to do but to simply jump and go, trusting that you will be supported by wind or water or some other mythic force dreamed up in our minds to help us to make sense of something that is entirely mysterious inside of us until we cross over that line between resistance and fear into surrender and new life.

Awakening was like a death folowed by new life.  Ego death was like a death followed by new life.  Each karma released felt like a death only to be followed my new life.  Each release was truly like a revelation, a new life for It carried the very essence of the truth of what life is in it. It is no wonder that carrying karma around for so long is so hard on us. I am ready for death, for the effort seems to be total; stepping off and simply doing it. What makes it seem a process is whatever resistance I still have built up within me that has to be realized and let go.

But don't worry; this is so broad a thing, whatever you bring to it will be perfect for you where you are.  There are many ways, many hearts, minds and souls all taking part in this world.  But if you are going through this, you might consider how when death comes, it is so effortless, so filled with light and promise instead of the dread we feel in our lack of knowing.  It is  the unknown coming to know itself....

Encountering The Higher Self

As I moved through my process in awakening, as I learned how to let go of the old restricting ways of feeling and thought that had kept me pent up in old dysfunctional behavior, something began to happen that was like small thunderbolts of realization in my life experience.  It was a sudden awareness of myself in a higher form, something I knew was akin to a higher self.  I am not versed in much of the eastern material, and had chosen to face my experience without much standing in the way of direct experience.  Through a process of coming to feel into my very essence of who I was deeper down, the very tightly tied laces of my soul corset were coming undone. With it came the release of a lot of old material, which is the result of what kundalini does.  It clears you out and sets the stage for knowing something more fundamental about who you are.

I have since learned that this is the dissolution of the "false self" as it is coined in eastern literature.  My take on this has been that this is not the best way to approach this. The self you know prior to awakening is simply what you have chosen to create.  We may say we have little input into who and what we are since we think we are formed by events early in life that were beyond our control. In awakening, this is seen as simply not true.  It appears you have no control, but in truth, your soul has been making choices based in karma since forever.  Choices.  Which means it is not beyond your control.  You may not have been aware that you were doing this, and in awakening awareness comes forward and begins to reveal to you a very different picture.  It may seem utterly rediculous to some that we would choose the hard things in our lives from childhood onward, and yet, karma demands it in a way.....for karma operates under the Law of Attraction.  This Law is itself not a punishment, but an entirely neutral thing.  It is here to simply govern by allowing you the freedom of choice, but while also keeping the vibration of your intention in place within what you choose to create. Then, by doing so, your choices will adhere to the enerrgy used in creating them.  This creates consistency and also will allow you to reflect on all that you have created and you get to see the results.  Don't like what you created?  You can change that.  With choice and freewill, you have the means to change anything that is not in your highest.  But being aware that you re creating all of this is key, and awareness will lead you deeper and deeper into your life and will illuminate those choices which you felt at first were beyond your control.  The great truth is it is all within your control, and waking up is about learning to take responsibility for those choices as you begin to become aware what the real story has been all along.  This takes a huge amount of personal accountability, and it is no surprise that we often do not want to face such stark realities, and thus hide them even from ourselves so we do not deal with them.  I find this hard to simply call a false self.  It is more like to me that it is our younger self who does not yet see the bigger picture, but will eventually.  In seeing this bigger picture, we begin to come to some new conclusions and perhaps, if we are engaged, to make different choices.  It is here that the higher self comes into play and can begin to guide you.  Some call this the inner guru.  As we listen to this inner guru, we can slowly begin the process of change within ourselves as we learn a new way of being.  For me, I tend to feel that this self is simply not well informed and is not yet ready for the fuller truth or reality of what it is in its higher form, its higher self.

As I became more and more aware of how these old patterns were not serving me, how I had put myself into a very limiting box of being, I felt as though I was beginning to unfurl.  This was gradual and continued over a period of years during the earlier part of my awakening.  Even as I struggled with the old notions of who I was, something in me would not keep quiet and needed very much to know what this something more was.  I knew there was more, but I didn't seem to have a way to get at it.  I was still at this point very much caught in a mental attitude of trying to solve problems and attain knowing the old way, which was very unnatural and hard.  But I continued to try, even if it was not perfect.  I began to have moments of clarity as I began to move with this energy and was taken down into realms  and experiences that showed me how everything was connected into a linked holographic universe.  As this happened, as I pulled against the old notions of what I thought was real to question everything going on around me, I attracted new events and a person into my life that mirrored a very different view.  I was attracting based on a different vibration of being, and the timing was perfect, very efficient, and right on time.   As this happened, as I began to do this, I felt as though what I thought was a very powerful experience move into a whole new level.  The energy of my own depths emerged in such a strong way that I was left scared and out on the edge.  And yet, even then, I sensed that this was very necessary in order to break apart my old vessel in order to see something new emerge.  This became what I would come to know as the Dark Night of the Soul which really was only my own resistance to the flow of truth in my awareness. At the time, it felt like an end to all I knew was true in my old mode of being.  This brought on the collapse of ego and with it, a much better way of feeling and being.  I am eternally thankful that all of this happened even if it was hard.  It woke me up to who I am that I might not have known otherwise.  All of this led me to a place within where I glimpsed something that I can only describe as a pure form of myself.....and saying "pure" is perhaps itself misleading because no words can really describe what it was I experienced. 

As I rose though feeling, which itself is hard to explain very well, I was following a divine current that led me to an increasingly refined sense of awareness.  This brought with it clearer awareness of energy and who I was. It seemed miraculous that I could feel in this way. As I followed this native current, I became aware of an image forming in my mind and it took the shape of a bubble, a kind of perfectly formed orb of pure energy which was itself serving to convey a greater truth or reality.  Within this cosmic ovum was myself in a higher form.  Here there was nothing and everything all at once.  In this place my being was utterly naked of all things except one important thing.  As I watched, my higher self was with another in this egg.  This self was staring into the eyes of his beloved, his divine counterpart, the other side of himself.  This woman was staring deeply into him in a way that was different from the way he gazed into her.  It was different because the two served to create a union of opposites, and these seeming opposites were in no way disengaged.  This was a perennial engagement, a constant meditation that was so direct, so incredibly singular, that it was hard to wrap my head around.  It was like how a person might spend  ages upon ages of the universe simply staring into the eyes of another and allowing that to be their whole existence.  There was incredible purpose in this.  This was not merely a gaze, but a steady state form of mindfulness and worship that had no prayers, no actions save one, which was being completely and totally present in that moment.  As I was aware of this, I was amazed and out of this bubble or egg came words that were spoken directly and simply.  They weren't like my words now.  He said to me "You must love her even if she does not love you in return." Within this simple statement were a host of implications. In saying this it was clear that I had to be true to the one thing that I was, which was this Other who was my beloved.  If I wanted something that would make me better, I would follow this path unerringly and ask no questions but simply follow it since it alone would lead me to where my higher self was.  There was no more information than that.  There were no ifs ands buts or whys.  "Do this," was the command.  Be true to this path, to her, and you will be true to what you are.

I felt myself crumple.  I felt so small, so powerless, perhaps even worthless in that moment. There was so much that seemed to be done, so many questions about who She was and how to get there.  I suspect that in our needing to know details, we can get lost.  The very essence of the becoming is in not needing to ask questions or to take something apart to examine it.  In learning to trust in that very first moment, I was being offered the very gift that I needed to learn to honor which was both who I was in that higher state and which would bring me into a state of perfect uncluttered union where nothing else mattered.  I will admit that I fell into a kind of fugue.  My mind was full of questions all based in my sense of being limited.  Here the great guru within was telling me what I needed to know and do, and instead of a greeting, it was all business. It felt hard, it felt so unbending, perhaps even lacking compassion somehow.  And yet, I also knew that it wasn't that it lacked compassion, but that true compassion would be learned as I stepped upon this path and followed without question.  Then, at the "end" of this road, there simply wouldn't be any question since I would have grown used to how to be so clear within myself that the questions themselves become irrelevant.  I was so caught up in being afraid of being alone or not having love returned or somehow loosing something and feeling like I was chasing after something that would produce no results in this life or any other that I felt like I was falling into a pile on the floor.  What he was asking me to do was to be like a monk, to follow this one star unerringly no matter what.  It seemed like a journey with so many unanswered questions.  I did not do well with following it because I felt like it was asking me to give up all I had held dear.  But what I held dear was not serving me.  What I  held dear was like walking a path with a broken leg and suffering the whole way through a pilgrimage.  No, what I held dear was not working, and even though I was working my way out of that old karmic hole, I was not fully out of it enough to know what it was I needed to know which was itself incredibly simple, direct, and unquestionable. 

I think I have put my entire sense of devotion behind causes in the past which were themselves imperfect mirrors of a still larger reality and have found them go by the wayside, falling from their own weight because they were imperfectly conceived to begin with.  I was afraid that this "order" or command from my higher self represented another one of those, and I was afraid that perhaps I was making this all up. 

But I know I am not. Each time I encountered this self, it was always the same.  It never wavered from what it was from the start. If I was making something up, it was very different from who I have become. But what I do realize is that what I am deeper down is also different from what I am on the surface.  I also know that deeper down, there is an utter lack of indecisiveness that exists that it is hard to  harmonize the two.  This was perhaps what the Hindus call the Atman, although what I experienced was not well described in the old texts.  Perhaps, I think, how could it?  How could such texts even begin to describe the wide variety of souls that exist in this world? 

It seems there is much to heal, much to set straight, more to become if I am to reach a place where I am this self.  And yet, as I say this, I look back on my past and I recognize that there were many instances when this "power" would pour through me.  There were periods in my life when this thing would move through me and when it did, it was always simple, direct, and powerful in its ability to penetrate through the shadow of uncertainty or lack of awareness.  I had felt it in bits and pieces, in visions, in moments of pivotal change, and yet, somehow, I was different.  Why?  Was this this me that was different just the sum total of all my karmas, all that did not harmonize or align to this higher version of who I am outside of time, existing in that bubble, that egg, of pure awareness as he dreams of his beloved in a constant gaze of awareness and engagement?  He does not come to me, for he does not budge from where he is.  I must go to him.  This is the only way.  I suspect that this is the same for others who see God, they see their higher self in this kind of realm or bubble and they command so simply, do not step off their perch or place in order to come down to our level; we aspire to theirs. In a way, he was already on my own level, for it was He who created me in the first place. 

What is so curious is how similar this experience was to a movie I watched in the wake of this experience.  It was the movie The Fountain.  Here, the actors play out a multi-life journey that goes back to their higher selves existing within a bubble that is travelling to the dying Star Zebalba where they will be reborn.  As I watched and saw this man inside this bubble of consciousness, the similarities were perfect for how it spoke to me in my own experience.  Here, the story played out that the higher self realized he could change all time, all time lines if he so wished.  He just needed to know that he could.  And as he did this, his own world changed as he reached a still higher form through what was itself a seeming death, a sacrifice of what he was serving in a limited form in order to realize what he was in unlimited form. 

For all the distractions, the mental and emotional images that come to me, I realize I have had the answer within all along. This now leads me to the god within who is also the goddess within.  "If you are to know her, you must know me" he says. 

There is enough to work on on our own without taking on the concerns of the world.  For as much as I have wanted to help others, I know that this is a false sense of compassion.  Out of my own direct path will flow the right form of compassion, which will meant also reaching always for what we are inside.  Nothing else matters.  For now, all that exists is that star ahead, Zebalba as a great mythic story within a story.

Every story will itself be different and perhaps the same.  Many rivers flow into the One.  How you access your higher self will be yours to know. Being brave enough to ask the question whether what you are is on the mark is perhaps the first step.  Your undoing is the next.  Some may do more, some may do less, but we all undo the past in order to know what is our now. 

Beyond

Come, there is this place, already in position, dwelling beyond time, straddling it, and part of it.  It is a great secret that wont remain secret for long.

This place is both within you and the world.  It is like a silly riddle that wont seem to make much sense as long as you dwell in ignorance.  But we have been gifted with a key anyway despite our not knowing.  It is our ability to dream and create.  It is the very power that brings change.  Coupled with our individuality, we can choose whatever we want to make in this world. And it is most certain that we have.  But this riddle that lasts above all the spheres of our endeavor exists something that we already are.  Already.  We wonder how that could be.  It is like divulging the last few pages of a book you want to read and it seems it is over before it has begun.  Existing out of time, you already are THAT which you so fervently seek.  So what is the point?

We were gifted with freewill. Already, we are infinite, unbounded, existing as all the possibilities and eventualities we could ever dream up.  This is so because we already have.  But it seems that we value freewill so much that we get caught in the riddle of this dream and think it is the only one there is. 

All eventualities exist now, this I am saying. But you are not bound to a given line because all lines are each just as valid as any other and there will be something to be learned from it.  What matters, it seems, is our focus.  What world would you like to know and see before you?  This is the responsibility that we each hold as a gift from the divine.  A great precious gift, so amazing and awesome. Think what we could do with it.  Anything that requires great responsibility will also bear great freedom.

"But I am just one person.  I cannot be all of those things at once.  How do I glimpse this larger realm or world of knowing and feeling?"

Just as you are but one petal on the glorious flower of your being, you also share in a larger life and the parts can and do know the sum itself.  the sum will always be greater than the parts.  And it is in this one little reality that can change your life.  Just as you have one body which will transit through the seasons of what you believe to be your one precious life, you also have this part of you that is connected to the infinite and it is this part of you that can lead you into greater knowing and being.  No, you cannot be all things in this one life, but you can gaze up at that great vaulted ceiling of your inner mystery and receive its sustenance.  You can feel into this part of you and actually feel the sum total of what you are right now seeking to be in all eventualities.  And when it comes, it will be like a mighty rushing river that will at first topple and scare you perhaps, or it might be the most incredible thing, a giant something whose tail you are just now learning to grasp. 

It is your way out of what you think you know that you are.  And while you ARE what you are, perfectly valid and just what you need to be just now, you have this capacity to be so much more.  You can remove those things that somehow do not serve your larger self.  And like children who stamp and yell and scream and cry, we come to this realization with troubles.  Ego certainly makes things hard, but letting ego slip to the side for a bit will allow you a fuller view of this vaulted heaven that is you.  What you are is part of this endless family of being, one petal knowing itself as a larger flower, and a flower coming to know it is in a meadow of other flowers which all share the same sky on a planet that circles a great sun.  And this sun itself is part of a vast field of suns with other worlds with life teeming on some of them.  And all of this is connected in a thread with no beginning nor end. And all of this is what we are a part of. 

So slowly we wake up and realize that what we were is just one small part of what we can become, and what we will be if our own intent is there to make that happen.  Whatever that happening turns out to be because it truly is infinite.  That maybe makes you feel insignificant, but if you dig into this perhaps you will feel just what I have is that EVERYTHING is cherished and is no less than any other.  So the whole point in creation is fulfillment.  What fulfills you yesterday is not the same as what fulfills you now.  What you know today is different from what you know now.  What you will know tomorrow will likewise be different then now.  If you are up for a revolution within you and are willing to see things very differently, I can say with certainty that this is most certainly possible. What does it take?  It takes being willing to see things differently.  As you do this, you begin to change.  You are beginning to create in that moment  a nucleus of something that will grow if you just give it some time and room and a little light from your soul. 

For now, I'd like to say that you may not know what is in your best interest.  I know you know what you think is best for you, and or now, that will be what you know and what you will operate from.  But consider the possibilities.  What are things that limit you?  What keeps you unhappy, discontent, unfulfilled?  And why do these things always seem to happen over and over in cyclical fashion?  If you take this to mean that maybe that how you are looking and feeling about the world is the thing that needs to change, then you are one to something important. And hopeful.  Just HOW you feel is itself the thing that will have the answer.  Let that feeling go and consider that there is something that is better.  All you need to do is to place the intent in the forefront of your mind that you want things to change and then you simply show up.  Right now.  You don't need to know how it will turn out, you don't need to micromanage any of it because all eventualities exist now within you, so all you need do is ask what is in your highest and be willing to let go of what troubles you.  Yes, you will be drawn to all that is karmic that keeps you tangled up, but for now consider that there is a way that you don't even know about yet but that your higher self will be able to show you. 

When the time comes, forgiveness will be needed.  It might surprise you that at its most deepest, you wont be forgiving others but yourself for how you have chosen to take on things that did not serve you or others.  If it means that you beg forgiveness from some higher power, well, that will work too.  All rives run together and join in this sea that moves into the ocean.  Just the intent to do so can make it happen. 

This will become the end of doing and will be the beginning of a new kind of becoming.  Sure, you will still be you, silly, but a you freed from the burden of what no longer serves you.  What this will look like will be up to you, but what it will be will be great because you have traveled a long way to get to this one place.  Right here, now, reading my words. 

This is all a big part of what is happening right now upon the planet.  This is something quite significant, and maybe you don't need me to tell you this, but there is something quite marvelous happening on the planet and it is catching on.  Bubbling up from the ground below our awareness, its life-giving waters can serve to change our world.  It will most certainly be up to us what we choose collectively to make it.  And that, dear reader, is how this all works.  The hand that yields shall be the hand that allows all the waters of the earth to pass through it while the hand that grasps with a desire to control shall lose sight of its magnificent potential.  Now that potential is all around us.  I don;t know about you, but its time to get to work!

The Moon

Lovers are patient and know the moon needs time to become full.

-Rumi

Image Credits:

Moon Phase and Mountains
Moon Phase in HD (wallpaper)

 

The Arcanum

When you awaken you are flooded with energy.  This energy flows into every part of you. It is rich, vibrant, alive. It is warm and cold, it is the yin and yang in one and it gives rise to powerful bliss.  In order to ride the wave of this powerful force requires surrender and no fear. The more you let go, the more you feel into it, the deeper your awareness will go.  This energy is intelligent, highly refined, and though it carries the wildness of the river crashing through the Cascade Mountains or the fire of the Hawaiian island chain, or the winds across the prairies, it is not the kind of force you will have ever tangled with.  Not in this way.  As it moves into you, it brings knowing.  For most, it reveals the implicate order of the universe.  It fills you with things you never realized, or knew, most of it based on how this order operates.  You are now seeing the world, feeling it, from the inside out.  And everything reverses. Your life reverses, your energy reverses, your karma reverses, and your perception of the world begins to reverse. Like a giant clock spring, your being winds itself out and it is quietly rewound in the opposite direction.  You are now birthed as a new person living in the quantum world.  You see things from the inside out instead of from the outside in.  Your life ceased being an accumulation of karmic knots and this coil is unwound.  Your mind is remapped, your synapses enriched by a body that is now producing a different chemistry.  At first, this chemistry may flood you with too much of one side of the experience, resulting in the chemical mirror of fear; adrenaline.  But everything about the experience will tell you where you are.  You observe your light body and feel where pain resides.  As each pain is released you realize this was a stored feeling that resides both within the physical and energy body.  This uncoiling spring, this kundalini, undoes you.  If you are brave and able to surrender completely, it does the work for you as you stand new upon the earth breathing sacred fire and bearing knowing into the world.  Your body becomes a beacon for drawing heaven to earth.  This has been the journey of humankind.  This is why we came here.  Once this is achieved, the world will be a different place.  We will have entered a cosmic community.

The only conspiracy that exists is that of ignorance.  In being ignorant, we have also allowed ourselves to be led by our old outmoded and limiting beliefs.  These have ended to be about separation, about being individual and damn the rest of the world, and I am in this for just myself.  As long as these kinds of attitudes persist, the world will tend to relfect some part of this reality that is within the people here.  But slowly, as we each plant a different garden and allow it to grow, those blocks of hard concrete get replaced by islands of sensitivity and sanity, of inner reflection.  In just the same way that Gandhi took the words of Thoreau to fashion a movement based on civil disobedience, he was able to reveal through peaceful action, just how hard and coarse those in power were, and he effected change in this way.  In the same way, by living a life that seeks inclusion rather than exclusion, you never know who you are going to touch with the life force living in this very much needed feeling of being. The more people here who embody this, the more it will spread.  The world can be over run by compassion rather than dissension.  We begin to say "this is not the world I want" and you cease participating in it.  You seek for openness so that politicians feel the influence of what this new openness brings.  It is a drop by drop method, but this is how the ocean was filled.  Then, as more and more people begin feeling differently, the tide of change happens more effortlessly.  This might take some time to effect, but once it reaches its greater potential, it will be a powerful force much like how Gandhi served to lead a powerful movement for change.  You might even want to say that Gandhi's results did bring change, but its not enough.  I say, keep moving, keep holding this place and do not slip backwards.  As the planet swells in numbers, the power of those numbers will be great.  If you look at how technology is being used just to keep track of people now, you can see how powerful our presence has become.

So reach out and touch people with your compassion, with wanting a world that will mirror this compassion and cease needing to control so much.  This is how all great change is effected.  And it can be done.  So once you realize this, all the ideas of how some elite cleave to ancient rites or rituals for holding onto power become so incredibly transparent. There is no power in those things that we ourselves do not give them.  So do not give them your fear, give them your victory and bravery. This is the only Arcanum that every existed in true power. 

Healing the Separation

I worked with some people today in the studio while doing some last things for the holiday season.  One is an old friend of the family who has gone through an awakening and has been taken through all kinds of twists and turns, including fighting and overcoming cancer.  She originally had wanted to bring a friend who had helped her through some of her tough times as a gift of creating something out of hot glass.  Instead, her friend was busy and she came instead so as not to stand me up.  As the ovens were coming up and the furnace was on its way to full heat, she explained that she wanted to bring her friend earlier in the year at a different time. She spoke of her friend and this led to how in this life we face the challenges that can so often form the greatest of our lessons to release us from old patterns of behavior that have kept us in suffering.

My friend mentioned the work of someone who had written about why we have such problems here, that it is because we entered duality, and came into animal bodies instead of living in the limitless light body.  This all makes sense at one level.  It has been a way that I thought for a long time, too.  And it is true. The energy body is itself unlimited.  But when we come here, we enter a realm of limit and linearity.  All time does not spread out before us in a wondrous tapestry where we see things so differently once we enter the body, or so it seems.  In the light body or soul,  we can see how we resolve issues in one era and how events led up to the realization that was so important.  Looking down on time, it flows like a river.  So yes, certainly we DO have this perspective, but it seems to escape us while physical.  And yet, even as I say or express this sense, I also know that we here have the capacity to view this larger perspective even when we are in the body, which seems bounded and limited by the physical senses.  I know we do.  I have seen examples of this in my own experience.  So for a time this formed the basis of some things that I thought also.

But there is more.

I said that I have observed a current of shame that exists within many traditions on earth.  This shame emerges in Christianity, and it also emerges in the Hindu tradition as well.  It expresses itself as this sense that we are put here somehow for a punishment, or that it is some spiritual backwater, that life here is just horrid and a kind of spiritual slum.

And yes, it certainly can be seen this way.  But it does not exist that way as an absolute creation.  It is a pattern that we all have tended at one time or another to contribute to on a mass scale, but this does not mean that this is how things MUST be. It is just how they are right now in what we are currently thinking and feeling. 

I explained that what I had seen early in my awakening was what I think of this revelation that this energy took me down into. It was like suddenly being taken down into the incredibly small world of atoms and much much smaller, all the way down to something that I can only explain or describe as being the very building blocks of matter.  It was here that "particles" winked in and out of our system of reality so fast that their movement in and out could not be detected.  The speed of this was probably incomprehensible to us right now physically.  I was aware of time slowing way down just to observe it.  But, being in the light body, this is not hard to do.  Since I am not a physicist, I can't tell you what these particles could be, but they were much smaller than even the elemental subatomic particles.  I suspect we will discover these particles if we have not already.  Whatever they are, I suspect they will do things that will alter our concept of what matter actually is.  But again, I am not a physicist, so I can't speak to all of this in the language of science except to describe what it was I saw.

At the very root of space I was shown that everything was ordered on an energy that were these two forces....which could be seen as being like two poles on a magnet; north and south.  These two forces interacted to create huge sums of energy.  One energy behaved like a lock while the other was like a key.  As I found myself being taken back up into still larger scales of size, I saw that this principle existed in everything.  Everything had this within it. Atoms, electrons, compounds, cells, organs, bodies, and all the way up into large scaled forms that weren't life forms. Healing the world was something that took place on an individual level and went all the way down even below the cellular level.  By becoming aware of this unifying principle in the world, I had been given a map for how to undo generations worth of encoding in our very awareness that blurred and blocked our ability to see how we can heal and undo the ravages of our past belief and short-sightedness. 

Everything here is seeded with this energy.  It holds everything together, and it all emerges out of consciousness.  Consciousness is energy.  And this energy is Creator and us.  Seeded into everything is what Creator is.  Like a great cosmic parent, its dna resides in our energy.  There is this energetic principle in everything.  So there is that.

We are gifted with freewill.  We choose.  No one makes us do anything.  The garden of eden exists within all of this material.  We, instead, project our shame and hurt and guilt over being separated from this great thing that we then decide that it must have been some punishment. But there WAS no punishment.  All of this is a creation on our part, a vast projection of consciousness.  So think about what you create.  How is your life?  How does your backlog of material hamper you?  What is causing you to see things as you are instead of AS they are?  The things that are not understood or looked squarely at will be projected by you upon others, and they will seem entirely real and solid, but it is largely an illusion, a creation of your own mind.  You will be utterly convinced that its the world that is bad or hurtful or any number of things. Not only this, but the nature of your very thoughts will attract more of the same, too, so the cycle just keeps running, and the effect of this karma becomes recursive and fills out your life with the baseline material you are feeding into it. But all that is happening is a result of your own freewill. And the Law of Attraction can only bring you what you are.  You will bring abandonment into your life because you never got over feeling abandoned at some point long ago.  It could also be a sense of lack, or some other hurt or trauma that is emblematic of your own inside feelings (even if it seems there is no WAY you would EVER choose to manifest terrible horrible things in your life!)  Even psychologists know that what is unresolved will persist.  Its really quite elementary. 

There was a friend I had who had an issue with approval from her male relationships.  This seemed to start with her father in this life. I knew this person in high school.  I saw what her relationship was with her father.  I then saw how over the years she repeated the same hurtful scenario in others.  She got spooked; how on earth was she attracting these men into her life that treated her so badly?  Well, you either think the world is out to get you or you look deeper.  When you forgive it, it leaves you.  But doing this is supreme and total act of forgiveness.  It means the very root of it leaves and does not come back.  It is like a death and a rebirth.  It is.  Before letting go, it is like you are just going to lose it.  But then it happens. IN a flash, it is gone and the joy of your soul takes its place.  A room just got cleared out and it now shines with your pure essence, uncluttered from all of this stuff.

But you see, the world LOOKS like this horrible place because of how we FEEL.  Not even what we think, for thinking emerges from feeling, and feeling is so primal.  Go back into that very origin and you will go back tot he beginning.  This might take you back in time to another life when this first cause struck you as being hurtful to you.  And you chose it.  You chose to feel a certain way.  For certainly, five  other people faced with the same event would very likely have different reactions.  Many do.  Some may feel the same, yes, but the point here is underlining how what you feel is a choice.  A choice.  When you realize this, when it dawns on you how this is so, you will be so close to what you are, so much deeper than normal, that you will be at the place where you can also let it go.  And when you do, you will see the world a little differently.  Slowly, the scales fall away. Each time this is done, the world is brighter, more brilliant, and less a slum and more a paradise.

If you look into nature, it will tell you all you need to know.  It too emerges straight from the Source of all life.  It is itself a very solid appearing radiation assisted by these particles that act almost like the photons used to project a movie on a silver screen.  It is a living breathing creation. It is what we do; we create.  In order to create, we must have freewill.  And we can each learn from what we create.  Just look.  Look at what you were creating ten years ago and today.  if you learn from what you create, you can reflect on whether that is what you want.  Somewhere inside you know what is right for you, even if you respond in weird ways.  The karma will make you do what you do not want to do and it will keep you from doing what you want to do (Philip said this, a follower of Jesus).  As we begin creating in higher vibration using the divine as a template (and by this I do not mean what teachers have had to say but what your own authentic interaction with the divine is saying to you), your creations can begin to change as you release what some call the "illusion."  This illusion is itself a creation, and by saying this, I am not speaking in circles.  I do not believe this is all illusion.  It is a creation.  So, in understanding creation, what does what you create reflect what you are at the most basic levels?  These creations reflect your biases, beliefs, and limitations.  Your creations will bear that stamp of what you thought was possible.  As you change, those creations will also change.

So this world will itself also change.  We are in truth recreating a whole new world,  piece by piece.  I am doing my piece.  What about you?  Want to put this to the test?  The answer is simple and right inside of you. You can force change upon your environment, but that change will bear the mark of that force.  Try making the change within and then working for the highest in the physical to make it possible for good things to come.  Create space for good things to begin to happen, even if it seems like it is a small patch of green in a sea of concrete.  The only way the concrete is replaced is by your starting with your own small patch.  If it is in the highest, others will soon take notice and will be inspired to do likewise.  When authentic change happens, you will know because your life will change in direct proportion to the change or release you have made within.  Remember; a giant mirror, a canvas.  The choice is yours, you see.  Freewill. 

So if the world seems to us to be our moving from the infinite light body to the limited physical body, then we will see it and experience it this way.  Or, we can assume something very different, and that will tend to conform to our thinking.  In time, bad events will be replaced by good ones.  The old prison where we thought we resided turns into the paradise it always was or could be. Seeded in every particle is the limitlessness that is the cosmic order.  Every atom has the capacity to become anything we wish it to be.  If we wish limit, we will experience that.  Or, we can crack open the cosmic egg and consider the great possibilities.  Give it some time to grow.  All good things take a little time to get a foothold.  What do you have to lose?  Maybe just a sense of separation!

Healing The Energy Centers

You are made up of a truly vast webwork of energy.  You might not see it, and you might not always be aware of it through feeling, but it is there. It is not unusual for people who begin meditation work or some form of quiet contemplation or yoga to begin feeling things that seem to arise from nowhere within them.  This is the tail end of a larger thread of knowing and feeling that can lead you to places within you that can lead to recovering your inner self, your authentic or what I call the Essential Self.  This is part of your higher self, and being in touch with this part of you has many great benefits for human understanding, healing, growth, and fulfillment.

Many people like to be told how to do inner work, and this is certainly understandable.  What are the tricks, the tools, the methods the ways that I can utilize in my own inner work?  My perspective has always been in understanding underlying principles because in knowing these things, I have been able to make inferences about a broader range of issues or possible methods that I could then create on my own.  Imagine that you are a biologist studying lions in the wild. You want to catch a lion in order to get a blood sample so you can learn more.  You could learn how to simply catch a lion with a trap, and that would work for what you have right in front of you to do, or you could understand the habits and nature of lions so that you could understand other ways that you could study the animal. You would wind up knowing even better ways of getting that blood sample, and it might not even include having to trap them.  Instead of one answer or clue to the problem, you could wind up with twenty different and very useful approaches simply by understanding the foundational principles of the lion itself.

So the foundation....

There is in you this vast network of energy inside of you.  It literally connects every single cell in your body while also providing a matrix of energy for thought and feeling.  It isn't any one system or thing, but an incredibly dynamic field that is both electrical and magnetic at once.  It is a vector-based system where impulses flow at the speed of light while also swimming in a field of magnetic energy, which, based on my own experience, suggests pretty clearly, that this field is not based in time, so that it is not rigidly tied to it but can go forward and backwards.  This leads you to precognitive ability and a host of other things that can aid you in understanding what you are inside.  This field and its endless strands connect into the physical system of the nervous system, brain, organs, muscle, bone and more.  It is all tied together.  What we also know is that thinking is not just done in the brain, but is part of this broader webwork of energy that is tied into your physical body.  This subtle body is known to have these central centers that go up the trunk of the energy or light body that are called chakras.  These chakras are like hubs on a vast wheel where lines go out in all directions.  the chakras draw inward and outward all at once so that you can draw energy into your body while also moving it outward.  Many systems of thought from the east tend to make it seem as though the flow of energy is up and down the chakras in a more or less straight line, but what I'd like you to consider is that each chakra is itself a gateway that is bidirectional. Each chakra has the capacity to draw universal energy into itself, through itself while also moving energy up through the other centers.  This does not make for a chaotic flow, but is one that is highly organized and works extremely well when you let go and allow the system to work.  This is why meditation can be so effective in feeling deeper within yourself partly because your mind begins to recede so that you are stopping the need for the ego to be the controlling agent in all matters within you.  It is like a beautiful river of light that will work perfectly if you just step out of the way and cease hampering its flow.

Chakras are themselves a bit like arteries in the vascular system. Connected to them are ever smaller branches or tributaries that flow into them and out of them all at once.  These are indeed pathways that provide a path in physical terms for the life force energy to flow.  What is most interesting is that thoughts also ride on these currents since thought energy is itself energetic and your energy body is....well....energy.

What we know now about this energy body is that thoughts, feelings, and memories become associated with certain parts of this energy system in the body.  This knowledge is not new, but goes back in time and can be seen in the ancient arts and science of energy work such as Chinese Medicine that includes such physical disciplines as Qi Gong (or Gung), Tai Qi, as well as the martial arts.The Hindu/Vedic systems also include an understanding that energy can be moved through the body for healing purposes.  What these systems have found is that by moving energy through the body, you can begin to loosen the blockages that occur in the energy field itself that are tied to old thoughts, feelings, or events in life that were troublesome for you.  Both the Hindu and Chinese systems describe the releases that can occur in the energy body which then result in a clearer flow of energy, be it Qi or Prana in the body.  In a more contemporary example, Ida Rolf discovered that by manipulating the body in deep tissue massage that she could remove old traumas locked into the energetic and physical matrix of the body.  These often would result in the person feeling a sudden flush of emotion, sometimes perhaps including a memory of the incident that had resulted in the blockage of energy in the first place as the old stored emotion was released.  This always results in feeling clearer and a sense of permanent peace. These are like bubbles that rise from the deep ocean of being and never return.  What is left if peace, bliss, and a clearer body and mind, and a much happier you!

The other side to this foundation is the importance of keeping the mind out of the work. I know that this may be hard for people to understand or relate to, but the best example I can give is that you simply have to trust in something higher that will help to effect the change you hope for.  Imagine that you have this genie bottled up inside of you.  It lies deep within and is hidden from your view.  Its capabilities are really vast, so vast in fact that it can do just about anything.  the way to get this genie working inside is to give it the room that it needs.  This room is provided when you simply trust and then let your mind stop gnawing on the problem.  This is how you step out of the way so that more room is given in your light body for this presence to do its work.  Kundalini or awakening is very much the same things working in a person.  This seeming force IS the genie and when people let go and surrender their minds a little, amazing things can happen with very little effort.

The trick is in learning how to cultivate a different posture or focus with your mind.  Your mind ceases trying to work on a problem.  This is where the ego gets in the act, and you very much want this not to happen.  Ego needs to soften and fall back into the background.  Stop trying to work it all out.  Give the task over to your own higher power.  Let this higher power be an utter mystery to you because it is in embracing mystery that you literally let the mind go and simply watch.  This is not surprisingly very much what many methods of meditation teach you to do.  the mind is present, it just isn't working on a problem. It goes increasingly more and more quiet.  This is like allowing your being to become like a plowed field.  You do not seek to plant seeds or pull up weeds.  You simply watch and wait for nature to do its great work.

When you can allow the mind to be neutral and play the role of observer, you are in the perfect place for the next phase of learning to heal the energy centers.  From this point, you could come up with any number of methods or visualizations that feel right to you.  The thing to bear in mind is that the method is not the magic.  What is the magic in the method is how it focuses your intent and awareness while giving this genie some room to do its work.  This acts like your saying "Genie!  Come, come and do your great work!  I am stepping out of the way!  Come!"  So instead of having to be in the kitchen cooking every dish, you now sit on a stool off to the side and WATCH.  Be like a kid who has so much to learn and is content for now with just WATCHING.  Bring wonder and joy to this moment.  It is incredibly freeing.  The child in you does not need to control everything; it is still learning so much it is just this giant sponge.  Be that sponge.  be open to the possibility that there is so much more to learn, to see, to discover.  FEEL that excitement and then relax....and kee your hands out of the pots!

Now before I go on, I have one more element to include and this goes hand in hand with putting your trust in this higher power.  It is the very things that will draw your own inner genie to the issue at hand and will help to bring focus to the moment.  This is achieved by your awareness. Where you FOCUS, where your thinking goes, so too does energy. the more neutral you are, the more open you are to not having an investment in a given outcome.  By so doing, you are open to the possibility that a given center in your body can be COMPLETELY healed instead of only partly healed.  The more open you are, the less you hamper the genie and its work once it gets moving in you.  Now I know this may all sound a little odd to people, but if you can imagine all of this in this way, it really does work, or can work if you give it the means to do so.  The method I am providing you is actually very simple, and it is about stepping out of the way while also placing your focus on a given center for healing.

Let's say that you have some issues connected to a certain center in your field.  Each center has a range of aspects tied to it, and these aspects I have found to be amazingly accurate.  The root chakra, for example has issues related to nurture, and survival tied to it.  The solar plexus is connected to will, among other things.  If you want to know where a given problem is, you can actually look at a chakra chart to identify the given issue and where it most likely resides in your energy field.  Perhaps you feel strain in your vocal chords that corresponds with a deep seated feeling like no one hears you.  This came from some past issue and has been kept in play for years.  You don't need to go down into the old event to ferret it out, you simply feel where your problems lie in your body.  Do you feel a persistent pain that doctors cannot tie to a given malady?  It is very possible that this is a sign of something energetic.   Given time, even energetic problems can manifest as illness in that center of the body.

So let's say that your sacral chakra has been giving you problems.  It has effected your self esteem, it has caused all sorts of problems in your own behavior.  It has made you feel cut off from people and from your own sense of beauty and goodness.  For some, this can be felt as pain in the center. For others, it can be a tightness that is felt, a tension that result from the energy body holding on to this old old pattern of feeling. But whatever the center, I want you to imagine that your point of awareness can get very small and you are going to place your point of awareness in the center of this chakra.  You don't even need to imagine what this chakra looks like. Its just not necessary, and is a lot faster if you simply intend to put your focus there for the time being.  Just imagine being there, and look all around you.  Focus on this place and then ask yourself what the problem is without hearing an answer.  Just ask yourself "What needs to be fixed I wonder?"  Then, let that thought go. Watch it float up like a balloon on the breeze as it goes out into the universe.  Then, I want you to speak to the center and tell it that you would like to see whatever issue or problem that exists, to slip or fall away very soon. Imagine things that loosen. Imagine how it feels to undo laces on your shoes, how a shirt feels when it is unbuttoned, or a giant iceberg as a large piece of it breaks and falls away, sending a giant wave out in all directions as this piece drops of its own weight in the ocean. Imagine this loosening happening in the center that you are focusing on.  What you are doing is placing the magic of your intent in this place, you see.  You are JUST doing that and nothing more.  Be like the camper who goes into the wilderness and leave only their intent behind.  Leave no competing thoughts or worries about it working.  Be simple and exact.  There are others things you can do that will work also, which is to imagine waves from the ocean flowing in and out of this center like a tidal pool that cleanses this center of the negative energy that is there.  You can imagine seeing the ocean cleansing this center as you watch the mud being washed out of  this tidal pool so that it feels smooth and rocky with brilliant clarity all the way to its bottom.  It night be that for a while the water seems very muddy and murky as you do this, but this just is a sign that it is working in a powerful way.  Another way is to breathe into this center.  The interesting thing about breath is that it helps to trigger a flow of energy in the subtle body.  Physical respiration is the same as energetic respiration and they go together even if they serve different ends of the body.

When you breathe, imagine the energy center filling up with air or energy and flowing outward in all directions.  It can be like a balloon, or it can be like taking in water, or simply feeling the air in your lungs which all do a good job of bringing in clear energy into that center.  This is the clear energy of intent, which is the desire to see change, to effect healing. You can also imagine that this energy flows from above when you breathe in and that it goes out of you through your feet as you breathe out.  This might work very well for you, and you can even take several rapid breaths that are shallow and that do not make you fee dizzy or light headed.  As you do this type of breathing, you push each breath out hard as if you are pushing something out.  Sometimes making a "hew" or "hoo" sound on each exhale helps to intensify the sense of release.  I prefer to visualize the energy moving instead of using breath work since for me, this brings the very essence of energy to the center.  For some reason, breathing often moves me out of the direct focus I need in order to feel as though the energy is moving in me.  Everyone is going to have a different way to center intent, and really, that is all that I am teaching you here. But whatever method you choose or create for yourself, you do need to feel comfortable with it and have a sense that it is going to work.  Being certain of how what you are doing is the grease on the hinge of this gateway to change, you see.  Being able to FEEL it is key, and this is really a very simple thing. Just don't over think it!

Now that you have planted this seed of intent within your system, I want you to step out of it and focus on something else.  What I do is I think to myself that I am now letting the genie within to do its work and it only works best when I am not looking.  Watching that genie is like watching a kid at play.  If she suddenly realizes that she is being watched, it breaks the wave of imagination in her.  So we let that glorious wave to its work.

Over the next several weeks, it is a good thing to go back into the center as I have described and repeat your practice.  Don't become too obsessed about it and don't worry if it doesn't seem to work right away either.  You are trusting in things working without needing to know or when.  The point is to give it time to work because in not worrying about it, you give it more room to work.  Each time you do this, end your session with "Thank you."  Speak this to the great universe that will do the work for you, and in feeling gratitude, you also speak to it so that you can begin to come into relationship with it in a new way.  It can also help if say thank you both to yourself and to the universe. 

If you are a very mental person, it may be important for you to include a relaxation practice to help you to get to a very quiet and relaxed place.  You can imagine being on a beach with the warm sun beating down on you as you listen to the sound of the waves as they calm you and put you into a near-sleep like state that never takes you into full sleep.  You might also like imagining that you are lying under a willow tree in a beautiful garden with a pond. The sound of dragon flies zip overhead and you can hear bees as they collect pollen in the flowers nearby.  The world is a marvelous place to simply relax into and feel.  The grass is soft beneath your blanket and you can hear the swaying of the willow limbs as they move to and fro.  Clouds move slow overhead and you are at peace.  What all of these kinds of visualizations do is to help stop the incessant chatter in your head and allow you to feel your own sense of presence and your energy.  To do this, you need to become quiet.  As you do this, you will feel like what it is that leads you to peace and calm.  Learning to cultivate this in your life will lead you to an ever-increasing sense of calm and energetic presence.  The mind stops being so busy except when it has to be to solve a problem in the physical.  It is there, like a tool in your toolbox, waiting for you next time it is needed.  But when you want to feel more connected to your larger world of energy, you have to lay aside the wrench of the mind and let yourself flow for a bit.  Any signal that you can create will actually train your mind to go quiet and each time you do this, it will get easier.

Now, one last bit, and it is based on my own experience.  The last release that I experienced was very interesting because one morning as I awoke, I found myself going into this place where I felt very bad.  Up until this point, I had spent the last few months doing many of the same visualizations that I have relayed to you here.  On this morning, instead of trying to ignore this feeling in my chakra, I just gave myself over to it.  I found that for some reason, some part of me could get right down into it.  My sense was not to pull away but to let myself acknowledge it, so I did.  Then, as I did this, I felt a part of the old karma or knotted feeling slip away.  I had a flash of the person it was connected to, and that this was part of my ancestral karma.  This was healing the family tree.

The most interesting thing related to this event of release was how events began to take a turn. I had not seen this person that I felt the karma was attached to in a year and then before that, it had been over a year as well.  Two days after this, I bumped into this person in the store.  Then, two days later, another family member who was tied to this karma also saw this same person in line at the grocery store.  By then, this person's behavior had changed from what it had been in the past.  My family member called me up to tell me about this happening and expressed how ti felt as though some dam had burst, as if something had changed in this person in an important way.  I smiled and soaked it all up, but I didn't bother to talk about healing the family tree for the family member was talking about it in so many words.  This is what can happen when you allow your field to be tilled with the right intent and then trust in the universe, in your inner genie who is limitless and universal, to do the work for you.  Let nature carry you.  Give it time to work and let your constant probing with the mind cease.  Here, you are sending the signal to the universe that you are ready for it to work.

I hope that this can give you some new ideas for how to go about healing and I wish you the very best as the new year gets underway.