There once was a queen who lived in a magical kingdom.  She was married to a perfect king.  The king and queen always treated each other with respect, love and compassion.  There was no sorrow or pain in their world.  There were no desires because everything was in abundance.  Prosperity was a natural state.  Happiness and innocence permeated the air.

One morning, as the queen was taking a walk on the edge of the grounds, she noticed a beautiful golden deer nibbling some grass in the distance.  “There are many beautiful deer in our kingdom,” she thought, “but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have just one more.” She called the deer over and decided to bring him home with her.

The moment the deer stepped onto the royal grounds, the sky turned dark, and the golden sheen of the deer’s coat became gnarled and gray.  Her head began spinning and she suddenly realized that she was no longer at home on her grounds.  The deer had turned into a horrid monster with ten heads. Each head demanded something of her. One head wanted drugs and it yelled and screamed at her until she brought it drugs.  Another head wanted the adrenaline it derived from horror movies and it yelled and screamed until she showed it horror films.  Another head demanded food from the finest restaurants and it yelled and screamed until it was fed.  Once each head’s desires were temporarily fulfilled, they praised the queen and thanked her for her wonderful work in pleasing the monster.  Without realizing it, the queen had now become a slave to the desires of each of the heads.

Each time the queen fed the desire of a head, the head grew bigger.  After weeks of being a slave to the monster, the queen realized how much it had grown.  As the heads grew larger, their desires grew with intensity.

After a while in this sorrowful state, the queen realized that her mind was full of the monster’s screams and threats.  She had no more thoughts of inspiration and creativity.  She was reduced to listening to the deafening shrieks of the monster.  Each head was using the queen’s mind to fulfill its desires.  Without the queen, the monster would not be able to feed its heads, for the monster did not have a mind of its own.  That is why enticing the queen was so important to the monster.  Without her mind, it would have no way of surviving.  But only the monster knew this.  The queen didn’t realize the power she had over the monster because she was so deeply consumed by the sorrow and misery of her relationship with it.  She had forgotten all about the blissful existence of her life with the king.

In effect, the king knew all of what was happening to the queen.  He had no power to force her to come home, but he did have the power to bring her home if only she chose to return.  For many years, the queen had no memory of her beloved king and their life together until one day she awoke from her sleep and remembered who she was.  She saw the unnatural world around her and the false role she was playing as a slave.  She was a queen of nobility.  Once she remembered her true state, she opened her eyes to the misery of being a slave to the monster and decided she wanted to go back home.

With this decision, the queen’s role had changed.  She was no longer a slave.  She was now an awakened player in the game of ignorance and bliss.  But the monster was too cleaver to let her go back home without a fight.  In order to be freed from sorrow, the queen had to stop feeding the monster until it completely died and was no longer the ruler of her mind.  So, she stopped bringing it drugs and horror movies and fine meals.  The monster reacted in fury and yelled and screamed louder then he ever had before.  This was certainly not pleasant for the queen to experience, but she had conviction and her intention was clear.  She was returning to her place of nobility, and nothing was going to distract her from attaining her goal.

Each time the queen starved one of the monster’s heads, she would hear fewer sorrowful voices. Slowly, she began to hear the voice of clarity that she remembered from her times with the king.  The voice of clarity assisted her in the process of eliminating the monster’s heads with tact and wit.  There were moments when after starving one head, two smaller heads were revealed behind it.  This did not discourage the queen because she knew the significance that one fewer head meant.  It meant more peace within and more will to proceed.  Once all of the monster’s heads were starved to death, the monster no longer existed. She returned home where the king and all the abundance and prosperity of the kingdom were awaiting her arrival.  She was no longer a slave to the monster’s heads.  She was free from manipulation and sorrow.  She was back in the clarity of her essence.

Attaining clarity is a funny thing.  The purpose of attaining clarity is to reach a place of stillness, silence, eternal security, oneness and to essentially become the embodiment of unconditional love.  On the other hand, those are things that do not exist on the material plane and to experience them, one must go ‘in’ and eventually learn to radiate them out.

Is it possible to be in physical form and have multi-dimensional experiences? It is absolutely possible.  What is not possible is to expect to be able to attain such an ability of conscious transmutation while remaining in an environment of a lower vibration – a vibration over-populated by the herd.  If you want to change for the Light-er, you must first purge the metaphysical weight.

Purging the weight is a process of death and rebirth.  It is a process of first accepting and then letting go of perspectives that box you in. Only when you allow these things to die do you create space for rebirth. It’s just like learning how to walk again.

Through this process of acceptance and release, you receive new tools for new purposes.  You can still try to use the old tools to accomplish new tasks, but you’ll eventually find that they don’t work the same way they used to.  In fact, nothing will feel the same as it used to.  The things that once brought you so much joy lead to disappointment and disillusion now.  Once the mind is stretched, it cannot go back to its original form.  You are changed forever.  You may allow the memories of the past to haunt you.  You may choose to try recreating what was once joyful, but nothing tastes nor does it look or feel the same.  All the senses are put to new tests.  The mind is exercised in different ways and the process of change just seems to get faster and more unforgiving. Whoever said that ignorance is bliss had a point.  There’s a temporary bliss connected to ‘not knowing’.

The only time you experience pain from the transformation into Light-ness is when you’ve shifted into a relatively higher vibration while simultaneously continuing to live an existence in tune with a lower vibration.  At this point, it becomes more and more of an effort to ‘balance’ because you’re no longer balancing according to the universal equilibrium. Instead, you’re creating your own scales and conjuring up your own private units of measurement in order to satisfy your egoic desires.  You’re constantly faced with the process of renewal and if you don’t embrace a new perspective of the experiences that come your way, you’ll create pain for yourself. You’ll create a reality of suffering because you will try to exert effort where effort cannot exist.

‘Effort’ is an interesting concept. It’s a deceiving word.  People use the word ‘effort’ with pride.  They believe that it denotes dedication and commitment.  In actuality, effort indicates resistance – it takes place when you’re working against the flow.  If you are working against the flow, you are not working in accordance with the Universal Laws.  You are in opposition to nature.  What is nature’s way of telling us that we are not working in harmony with its laws?  It brings pain.  The source of pain is resistance.

The next time you find yourself exerting effort to accomplish something, observe your mental chatter, ask yourself what you are doing at that very moment, and decide. Do you choose opposition or harmony?

I am amazed when I know what is going to happen the moment before it happens without realizing I knew it in the first place.
I am amazed at the peace and stability I feel after a yoga class, even when I walk into the studio feeling frayed and shaken.
I am amazed at the patience people in my life have with me.

I could just as easily use the word ‘humbled’ to replace the word ‘amazed’.
It is very humbling to realize that something that you didn’t think could exist reveals itself to you unexpectedly.
It is very humbling when people show kindness to you even when you don’t believe you deserve it.

Amazement occurs when the divine is reflected in the ordinary and your heart is touched with the hand that created it.
Amazement is experiencing the hidden magic of the moment that only purity can reveal.

What amazes you?