As we experience our individual yet profoundly interconnected journeys of transformation, we inevitably encounter obstacles, challenges, or, otherwise known as growth opportunities. Thoughts and emotions become valuable tools that can help us become clearer and more attuned to our Higher Selves. Thoughts and emotions also have the potential to assist us in destroying all that we have persevered to attain. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, can quickly become destructive. Through an understanding of how our minds operate, we gain the ability to see why it is so important to be aware of the chatter within. Being aware of this chatter consequently enables us to be conscious of the present moment.

Thoughts and Emotions

For many years, seekers of divine wisdom have studied the importance of protecting our personal energy – the energy that we hold with ourselves in this moment, the energy that has been allocated to us for the purpose of benefiting our Highest Good, the energy that can enable us to serve others if we so choose. One of the ways that we, as humans, expel the greatest quantities of energy is through feeding our constant streams of thought. In this way, most people sleepily go through their lives allowing their minds to control their experiences and influence their choices. In this unconscious state, our thoughts continually control who we are and keep us living in the past or somewhere out in the future. Our thoughts either keep bringing us back to memories that provoke states of anger, resentment and regret, or they coax us into a state of worry, in which we are afraid of something ‘bad’ happening in the future. Choosing to live in either of these mental states means that we are escaping this precious NOW and preventing ourselves from experiencing the joys of the moment.

Our emotions can be another incredible drain on our energy. Some people may feel that they lose more energy through their emotions than through their out-of-control thoughts. Emotion arises at the place where our thoughts and our bodies meet. Emotion is our body’s reaction to thought. We might say, emotions are a reflection of our thoughts in the body.

The moment the body reacts to a thought, an emotion is created. The image above can be interpreted as an energetic depiction of this process.

Let’s look at an example to better understand this concept. A hostile thought will create a build-up of energy in the body that we call anger – the body is getting ready to fight. The thought that we are being threatened causes the body to contract. This is the physical side of what we call the emotion of fear. Research has shown that strong emotions even cause changes in the biochemistry of the body, which represents the actual physical aspect of the emotion. Of course, we are not usually consious of all of our thought patterns. It is often through watching our emotions that we can bring them into awareness.

 

Hostile Thought manifesting into Emotional Response

Sometimes, a conflict exists in which we find ourselves thinking ‘no’ while our emotions say ‘yes’. Just by observing our bodies, we can tune into our higher senses of awareness. The body will always present a truthful reflection of what is happening on the level of our thoughts and emotions. Look at the emotions, or rather, ‘feel’ them in the body. If there is an apparent conflict between your emotions and your thoughts, the thoughts will generally be the lies while the emotions will be the truth…not the ultimate truth of who you are, but the relative truth of your state of mind at the time.

For example, imagine that you are trying to decide between two job offers. You have logically analyzed both opportunities and understand the pros and cons of each option. Yet still, you don’t know which door to walk through next. What do you do? Well, you could try observing your body as you think of one job, and then do the same as you consider the other option. Is your body giving you subtle hints about which offer you would feel better taking? Do your muscles feel tight and your limbs tense when you imagine one job, while with the other you feel yourself relaxing into your chair and taking a breath? Sometimes, the clues are obvious, while at other times you might be so stressed that the Universe’s hints are difficult to sense at first. This is when relaxing into your body as much as you can will help tremendously. No one knows the answers to your questions but you. The key is to pause and listen to yourself instead of looking externally for the answer. You will find your way. There is no need to waste energy worrying about what might happen if you make the wrong decision. Focusing all your awareness on connecting with your Higher Self will bring you to where you want to be. It is that simple.

The ‘knowner’ behind the ‘thinker’

So, when we talk about the ‘mind’, we refer to both thoughts and emotions. It is very important to be aware of both the thoughts and the feelings that we experience and strive to be the ‘observer’ as much as possible. When we are able to step out of the experience of the thought or of the emotion and really SEE it is for what it is, we are taking steps towards expanding our consicousness. We begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, and that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. We also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, and inner peace – arise from beyond the mind.

The mind is a superb instrument if used correctly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. It is not so much that we use the mind incorrectly, for most often, we really don’t use it at all – IT USES US! We believe that we are our mind and this is the delusion – the point at which the mind has taken over us! It is almost as if we are possessed without knowing it, and so we take the possessing entity (our minds) to be who we are. In order to free ourselves from our minds, it is necessary to realize that we are not the ‘thinker’.  We are much more than that! We are the ‘knower’ behind the ‘thinker’.

Within each one of us is that deeper self that immediately recognizes spiritual truth, resonates with it, and gains strength from it. This is why it is so important to ‘watch the thinker’, which will then allow us to ‘feel the knower’ (or inner voice) on a regular basis. We must begin to distinguish these two components of the inner dialogue – the false self that performs a continuous monologue babbling on about involuntary thoughts that he is unable to stop feeding, and the real self, the knower of spiritual truth, that resides within each of us and is trying to re-gain power over the ego (false self). The Higher Self wants to make us whole and complete and bring us into the present moment, into the blissful state of love, peace and joy.

Love, peace and joy are not truly ‘emotions’. They lie beyond emotions on a much deeper level and cannot flourish until we have freed ourselves from mind-dominance.  Love, peace and joy are deep aspects of our inner connectedness with Being. Thus, they have no opposites because they arise from beyond the mind – from beyond duality. Emotions, on the other hand, being part of the dualistic mind, are subject to the Law of Opposites. This simply means that we cannot have good without bad. In the unenlightened, mind-identified condition, what is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure side of the common pain/pleasure cycle that many of us find ourselves returning to regularly. Pleasure is always derived from something outside of us, whereas JOY arises from within. The very thing that gives us pleasure today, will give us pain tomorrow, or it will leave us, and then its absence will give us pain. When true joy is experienced, we settle into an authentic peaceful state that cannot be shaken by the external presence of duality.

So, how can we learn to control our thoughts and our emotions and thus free ourselves from this identification with our minds? How can we learn to separate ourselves from the ‘thinker’ and learn to be the ‘observer’? The good news is that we can free ourselves from our mind by learning to listen to the inner sense as much as possible. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns – those old audiotapes that have been playing in our heads for years. This is what is meant by ‘watching the thinker’, which is another way of saying: “Listen to the voice within and be there as a witnessing presence”.

Listen impartially, that is to say, do not judge nor condemn what you witness, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door! You will soon realize that “There is chatter, and here I am listening to it, watching it.” This I AM realization, this sense of our own presence, is not a thought – it arises from beyond the mind. Therefore, when we listen to a thought, we are aware not only of the thought, but also of our self as the witness. A new dimension of consciousness will have just come in! As we listen to the thought, we feel a conscious presence – a deeper self behind or underneath the thought. The thought then loses its power over us and quickly diminishes because we are no longer energizing it through our identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary compulsive thinking.

Disassociate from the mind

The single most important step on our journey toward enlightenment is this: Learn to disassociate from the mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of thought, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. Enlightenment means rising above thought. In the enlighened state, we still use our thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way. We use it mostly for practical purposes, but we are free of the involuntary internal dialogue. We thus create inner stillness. When we use our mind when a creative solution is needed, we oscillate every few minutes between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power.

A magical thing happened to me this morning. It’s actually still happening to me now as I write this post. You see, I decided to dedicate some of my attention today to going through messages in my inbox; messages that have been waiting for me for some time now; messages that I wasn’t ready for or open to until now; messages that I am nevertheless extremely grateful to have received. Most of them are videos and links to resources sent to me from friends and family – information that they thought I might be interested in coming across. Most of the time, these messages sit in my inbox for quite some time before I feel comfortable enough to approach them. I think to me, that means that they have great power to affect me, and at some level, I know this, so I wait until the time is right so that I can truly give them the attention they, and I, deserve. Today, I happened to come across a sound that stimulated such a profound feeling of something opening within me that I felt moved to share it with you here.

Sounds are very powerful. We’ve talked about them here in the form of mantras and chants. There are certain frequencies that can be expressed in seemingly simple tones, but that when listened to, create an environment in which great awakening can take place. The ones that I would like to share with you today are frequencies that resonate at 741 HZ. The videos that I will include below include these types of sounds. When I listen to them in this moment, I feel something happening in my Third Eye area. The more I listen to them, the more this feeling expands to fill the top of my head, the back of my head and around my temples and ears. Even my neck feels the impact of the sound. It starts off as feeling of pressure between my brows, but not a physical pressure like when you press on your forehead with your hand. No, this is a more subtle pressure, one felt beneath the surface of the skin, that bores into the depths of my inner site. I know this sounds strange but it’s so powerful. My vision isn’t technically affected in the experience, but at the same time, I can feel that my eyes would prefer not to focus on this dimension. It’s as if they’re asking me to look beyond, to look past the physical, to allow them to rest for a moment in another space, a more peaceful, gentle space. This makes for quite an interesting experience while I’m typing! Good thing I remember the position of most of the keys!

I enjoy experiencing unfoldment in this way. It’s almost like an instantaneous repositioning of my awareness into a deeper place of much greater expanse then any place I’ve been on to this planet. Even the most gloriously wide, open space like a wheat field along a dusty highway or the view from atop an ancient volcano can’t compare to the expanse that exists within us. To awaken this sense is such a healing experience to communicate with our Higher essence with the utmost of grace and reverence. To mingle with your soul while still experiencing the physical dimension is a wonderful reminder that we are so much more than our bodies, our minds, our surroundings. We are one with all. There exists no delineation between this and that. There are no borders, do separation between this dimension and that dimension. It is all a fluid flow of tranquility. Enjoy and God Bless!

Understanding our minds is essential in order to be able to manifest in our lives. It is the key to becoming conscious co-creators with God. With the Law of Manifestation, we understand that everything is energy. If we understand this natural principle, then we get what we want in our lives by learning to use our precious energy to manifest what we desire by transferring this energy from one reality to another.

We do this with our minds. The mind is a process, not an organ in the body, whereas the brain is the sensitive instrument of the mind. Each of us possess only one mind, but it is important to recognize it as having three main levels, or aspects of itself: the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the superconscious mind.

A brief outline of what we have been discussing lately follows as a summary aid which you are welcome to refer back to as you progress in your work on the path:

The Conscious Mind

• Our “reasoning mind”
• Utilized through use of our personal power and will
• Used through physical action
• Programmer of our subconscious mind – we decide what we feed our subconscious by being aware of our thoughts 24 hours a day on a conscious level (by pushing out the negative and reaffirming the positive)
• Called the “captain of our ship”
• Referred to as the “President of our Personality”
• It’s task is to use its power of reasoning and discernment in all that we do
• Also referred to as the “gardener” who plants seeds into the subconscious and whatever is planted is what will grow!

The Subconscious Mind

• Our “non-reasoning mind”
• Operates on a more instinctive level
• Serves as a memory bank for every thought, feeling, habit and desire that we possess
• “As above, so below” – what we think and imagine in our subconscious mind is what we will draw to ourselves in our outer world
• Subconscious mind does whatever it is programmed to do
• Think of it as our “servant” – it will supply us with whatever we need as long as we program it correctly
• Most dreams are created through the subconscious mind
• Our physical body will reflect whatever we put into the subconscious. If we worry about getting an illness, chances are that we will create one through constant thought energy, manifesting in the physical.
• Stores our habits, both good and bad
• Stores our developed abilities (e.g.: how to ride a bike)
• Use of affirmations is critical in forming a positive and strong subconscious mind

The Superconscious Mind

• Our “Spiritual Mind” or “Higher Self”
• Our all-knowing mind
• Allows higher level thinking and knowing
• Is the origin of most creativity
• Attuned to Cosmic Will
• Contacted through meditation, some dreams and intuition
• Brings us inner peace and true joy
• When we focus our energies on loving, generous intentions, our superconscious mind will provide us with the continuous flow of ideas and creative energy to help move us closer to our goals

We must utilize our three mind aspects, working in harmony and in unity with one another if we are to become conscious co-creators with God!

Mastering the Law of Manifestation is one of the most essential spiritual practices for a student on the path. Following are many principles that serve as the foundation for mastery of this important law.

1. The first part of the Law of Manifestation is that we must learn to manifest with all three of our minds – the conscious, subconscious and superconscious minds – using them in perfect harmony, balance and integration.
2. Awareness that we ARE the soul and NOT the personality is essential. If we manifest from the consciousness of personality, we will see ourselves as separate from our brothers and sisters – indeed, from creation itself. That is an illusion.
3. Do no be attached to what you are praying for or are trying to manifest, or you will end up repelling it from yourself. Make your choice for manifesting a preference, not an attachment.
4. Surrender your prayer request to God and leave it in God’s hands, accepting whatever comes your way. A very useful mantra that I use to assist me in the process of manifestation is: “In the name of God, I place … on the Alter of the Divine, and ask the Masters of Love and Light to take care of the situation in a way that benefits the Highest Good of All.” With these words, you express your preference, and then surrender to the outcome that is for the greatest good.
5. All that exists is perfection. God created us and we are perfect.
6. The thoughts and images that we hold in our mind create our reality. God’s universe is abundant and limitless. We attract either poverty or abundance, depending on the attitude we hold.
7. Have faith. After we pray, know that our prayer has been heard and that God’s laws have been invoked.
8. Everything in God’s universe is energy, and all energy is God. All we are really doing in working the Laws of Manifestation is changing or transferring energy from one form to another.
9. The Laws of Manifestation operate whether we are consciously aware of them or not. Whatever we give the subconscious, it will use.
10. Every moment of our lives, we are working the laws of manifestation, even when we are not praying, willing, visualizing or affirming. Every thought that we have in our mind as we go through our daily life as well as when we are sleeping is part of this process.
11. It is important to receive as well as to give.
12. Gratitude is of utmost importance. Be humble and thankful for the abundance that God has bestowed upon us, no matter what it is.
13. Failure is not a possibility. How can we fail with God, the soul and our personal power?
14. To have all, give all to all. We must keep our abundance in circulation. When we become selfish and stop giving, then the Universe becomes selfish and stops giving to us.
15. Words have power. Every word we speak is a decree of manifestation.
16. Positive affirmations produce positive results.
17. Love yourself through the entire process.
18. Avoid talking about what you are trying to manifest in your life. This can dissipate the energy.
19. Know that you possess all. Always!
20. Ask only for what you need.
21. Tell your subconscious mind what to do.
22. Be of service and focus your love on humanity.
23. KNOW that miracles happen…trust!
24. Be specific in your visualizations and affirmations.
25. After prayer, comes acceptance. This is essential. After praying, accept your prayer as answered. Don’t just believe that it is answered; rather, KNOW with every cell of your being that it has been answered. SO IT IS!

WE ARE GOD, AND WE ARE ONE WITH GOD. HOW CAN OUR PRAYERS NOT BE MADE MANIFEST?

Everything is energy!

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed!

How many times have we all heard those statements throughout our spiritual journeys? We all manifest energy at the physical and spiritual level every single day. We expend our energy and we gain new energy. We hoard our energy and we give our energy away. When we work on a project we expend energy in useful ways. When we meditate, we also create positive energy in our lives. On the flip side, when we worry or stress over an experience, we let our precious energy drain out of our body, which can lead to negative thoughts, sickness and out-of-balance emotions. Life is a continuous ebb and flow of energy, and the more we learn and understand about the importance of using our energy in beneficial ways, the quicker we can evolve spiritually.

The Law of Cause and Effect states that nothing happens by chance or outside the Universal Laws. This tells us that all our behaviors, thoughts and actions produce either positive or negative results. Every cause creates an effect, and every effect has its origin in a cause. Let’s take this a step further now. When we understand how the Law of Cause and Effect works in our lives, we can begin to incorporate the Law of Manifestation into our lives. Just as we reap what we sow within the Law of Karma, through the Law of Manifestation we work with natural principles and laws in order to translate energy from one level of reality to another. Since all is energy, and energy seeks its own balance and vibration, so does what we send out around us come back into our lives magnified! For this reason, it is imperative that we truly grasp and understand the power that we posses. We have the power to create and manifest all that we desire and deserve. However, in order to truly be able to manifest for ourselves, we must understand the importance of our conscious mind, our subconscious mind and our superconscious mind in this process and how each works. So before we get deeper into the Law of Manifestation, read through the information here about the three levels of the mind so that you’re familiar with the mechanisms that allow them to work with one another, and with us as co-creators.

We ‘have’ and ‘are’ everything already

We have heard for years in our spiritual studies that we ‘are’ and ‘have’ everything already. However, sometimes when we are in the throes of a difficult situation, it can be challenging to believe that we already have all that we need. When we judge our lives strictly through the ‘little i’s’ (our personalities), we lose sight of who and what we are. On the other hand, when we view life through the eyes of the soul, we no longer live in the illusion of separation and negative ego. When we include the superconscious mind in the process of manifestation, what we want to manifest is a part of us already. Manifestation, then, is in a sense just undoing or stripping away that which is already ours but which has been hidden by the delusion of the personality. The soul is not separate from the object that it is trying to manifest, as the personality would have us believe. The object we are trying to manifest is a part of the soul, for soul pervades all things. This is why we ‘have’ and ‘are’ everything already.

A person such as Sai Baba can instantly manifest what he thinks and imagines. The same is true for us, except the process is slowed down a bit. When we create from a soul consciousness, we instantly manifest, except that we cannot see what we’ve create instantly with our physical eyes. Time and space do not really exist (another challenging theory), but know that once we claim our manifestation, it is already ours. We are just waiting for it to come into manifestation on the earthly plane. Again, this can be challenging to truly grasp but it’s imperative to gain an understanding of this process as we progress through the various levels of ascension.

Most people manifest the things in their lives on a conscious mind level through the use of will or personal power. This is creation through physical action. We lead busy lives, sometimes running 18 hours per day, doing the ‘stuff’ that our conscious minds tell us we must do. What actually is our conscious mind? How does it play out in our lives compared to the workings of our subconscious mind? Where does our superconscious mind come into play? Do we make use of these three powerful minds that we each possess, or do we simply operate out of one of our minds and dismiss the power of the others?

Take a moment now to read through the posts on the conscious, subconscious and superconscious minds before you start taking a deeper look at the Law of Manifestation.

Recently we have been discussing the various aspects of the mind. First, we looked at the nature of the conscious mind, noting it’s function as the gatekeeper of all energy that can enter into deeper levels of our mind. The conscious mind is our rational reasoning agent and it uses logic to make sense of our experiences. The subconscious mind is another facet of our mind. It is the filing system that stores all the energetic matter that the conscious mind allows to path through its gate. All energies like thoughts, feelings, emotions, opinions, memories and beliefs are filed away in the subconscious mind and these bits of information are pulled out by the conscious mind whenever we need to access them.

Now we turn to the superconscious mind. The superconscious mind is the spiritual mind. It is also known as the Higher Self. This mind is the all-knowing mind that can be contacted through meditation, through some dreams, through journaling, and through intuition.

When we both talk to God and also listen to God, we begin the spiritual practice of asking God for what we both want and desire and then accepting that it has been done once we have made the request. The outcome is then accepted, whatever it may be. Using the superconscious mind requires a great deal of trust and faith. God, through our Higher Self, hears and answers all prayers. How, when and in what form He answers them depends on how we adhere to the Universal Laws of manifestation in our lives. Why do it alone when we can use our superconscious mind and work with God?

It is of vital importance for us to learn to use the powers contained within our three minds in unity with each other, for then we will begin to bring forth all that we truly wish to manifest in this life. Therefore, it is important for us not only to understand how our minds work, but also how to use them effectively. We are powerful beings in control of our manifestations. We must, however, work with all that we are given and all that is available to us.

The Filing System

The subconscious mind can be understood as the non-reasoning mind. Rather than using reasoning power as the conscious mind does, the subconscious mind operates at a more basic, instinctive level and also serves as the memory bank that files every thought, feeling, memory, habit pattern, desire and instinct that we posses. Since it works 24 hours a day, storing all that we think and feel, it is a very powerful source of either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ usage, depending on what we have filed in it. Sometimes when we think we’re using our intuition, we’re actually accessing information already stored in our subconscious mind that we acquired in a previous experience, but intuition actually comes from other sources, one of which is the superconscious mind.

Beginning at our infancy, we have been programmed by our parents, grandparents, peers, teachers and the media. All of these exchanges of information have been stored in our subconscious minds. Little children are all in a sense victims…meaning that their reasoning minds have not developed enough to be able to discriminate and protect them from negative programming. As small children, we were totally open. As a result, our subconscious minds may be filled with mental poisons, faulty thinking and damaging beliefs. Just as the body can be filled with physical toxins from poor eating, the subconscious mind can be filled with mental toxins from both improper programming and education.

The subconscious mind functions according to the Law of Attraction in that it will draw toward it all that resonates at the same level of vibration. Unfortunately, most people are not aware of what their subconscious mind is actually doing. These people are asleep. Most people…are sleep. By using our subconscious mind as a tool of manifestation in our lives, we are in alignment with the saying “As within, so without” or “As above, so below”. That is, what we think and imagine in our subconscious mind will manifest its mirror likeness in our external circumstances and experiences. We must remember, our outer world is simply a reflection of our inner world, for better or worse, because the subconscious mind does whatever it is programmed to do.

The subconscious mind is an amazing paradox. It has no powers of reason on its own, yet it has an incredible number of abilities and intelligence factors. A great illustration for understanding this is the computer analogy. A computer is an astonishing piece of equipment, capable of performing millions of computations per second, yet it doesn’t care whether it is programmed to solve the problem of world hunger or to create a nuclear war. It has the capability to do either job efficiently, but it doesn’t have the reasoning power not to want to create nuclear war. It is this difference between intelligence and reason that we are primarily concerned with. The subconscious mind does whatever it is programmed to do, no matter what! Therefore, is it possible to SEE why our subconscious mind is SO important??!

To manifest effectively, we must learn to be in control of what is fed into our mind at all times. Many times, the subconscious mind runs us instead of the other way around. Ideally, the subconscious is our servant and will supply us with whatever we need as long as we program it correctly.

Mind and Body

The subconscious mind completely operates the physical body. Hypnosis offers some insight into how this works; for example, some post-hypnotic therapy suggestions are being used to control a person’s physiological craving for nicotine and to help change their internal programming for craving cigarettes. Unfortunately, our subconscious mind is as happy damaging the body with harmful toxins as it is creating good health with the proper foods and nutrients. The subconscious mind has the intelligence to create perfect health or create cancer, but it will create whatever it has been programmed to do, there again depending on what we feed it. Certainly no one consciously programs himself to develop cancer, but many people unconsciously program disease into their bodies through self-hatred, victim consciousness, revenge, giving up, or holding on to pain and feelings of unforgiveness. The key, then, is to constantly program the subconscious mind for perfect, radiant health through good thoughts and intentions.

Mindful Dreams

The subconscious mind also helps to create our dreams every night. There are occasions when the superconscious mind creates dreams; however, most dreams originate in the subconscious. A dream is basically a mirror of the way we think, feel and act during our consicous daily life. A dream is like a newspaper we receive every day, depicting the organization and dynamics of our internal energies. Dreams are in the unviersal language of symbols. To understand our dreams, we must first accept that every part of every dream is, in reality, a part of us. By examining the relationship among the symbols, we can gain insight into ourselves and understand how our thought patterns are manifesting themselves in our lives through our actions. It is very beneficial to have a dream journal to record the many messages and stories being told to us through our subconscious minds.

Mind Over Matter

The subconscious mind can also be termed as our ‘habit’ mind, for it stores all of our habits, both the ones we like as well as the ones were fighting to get rid of! A lot of people think habits are bad, but this is not necessarily true. Generally we want to get rid of our bad habits, however ideally we should be creating good habits insead! It is much more productive to work at creating new positive habits than it is to focus our energies on our negative ones. There again, via Spirituality Class 101, what we focus on, grows and persists! Therefore, let’s focus our light and love and energies on creating new, positive, loving statements of who we are!

Mind as Memory

If you and I did not have a subconscious mind to store our developed abilities, every activity that we chose to perform would always take great amounts of focus and concentration. The subconscious mind’s ability to store personal abilities allows us to grow continually and develop new abilities without worrying about managing old ones. For example, remember the time you learned how to drive a car? For many of us, it was in the high school parking lot with our friends, working SO hard at coordinating our senses. Our reputations were at stake as our friends were watching us with eagle eyes, hoping in a way that we could not do it. However, after many attempts, we became conformable drivers. This is an example of how we can learn a procedure and that knowledge is then stored in our subconscious mind.

When we first learn how to do something, it may take a lot of conscious effort and willpower to master. However, after we learn how to deal with the situation, little conscious thought or effort is required after that point. If we didn’t have a subconscious mind to store our developed abilities, every activity would always take great focus and concentration. The subconscious mind’s ability to store habits allows us to grow continually and develop new abilities without worrying about old ones. We can learn something in a day, but there is a basic psychological or metaphysical law that states that it takes 21 days to cement a new habit into the subconscious mind.

Laws and Abilities of the Mind

The subconscious mind is where the Law of Magnetism and the Law of Attraction operate as well. The subconscious mind continually attracts and repels things according to what has been programmed into it. A Master is someone who uses these laws to his own conscious benefit. Let’s take the example of money and prosperity. If we have the subconscious belief that we will never have money, we won’t!! If, on the other hand, we think that we will, the subconscious mind will attract those opportunities and possibilities to us. Whatever we want in life, we have to affirm or visualize this into the subconscious mind, and the subconscious mind will attract it to us!! It must be strssed here that the power of affirmations – when we focus our energies and thoughts and repeatedly declare what and who we are – we are making incredible advances in our evolutionary process.

The subconscious mind is also the seat of our psychic abilities. The subconscious has five inner senses that are the subtler counterparts of our five external senses: inner sight (clairvoyance), inner hearing (clairaudience), inner smell, inner taste and inner touch. Have you ever noticed what when you dream your senses are available to you? How can this be if you are sleeping? This is because you are utilizing your five inner senses of the subconscious mind. All people have psychic abilities and can develop them further. It is just a matter of practice and proper training, as with any external ability.

Remember…

The subconscious mind was never meant to direct our life. It will run us into oblivion if we let it, not because it is bad, but because it has no reasoning powers. For example, our car has a number of computer systems that help to run it more efficiently. However, just because these computer chips can perform these many functions, that doesn’t mean they are capable of diving our cars. In and of itself, the subconscious mind is divine; however why would anyone let a non-reasoing mind run his or her life? Strangely enough though, this is what most people do.

The key function of the conscious mind is to be the reasoning mind and the programmer, protector and master of what we put into our subconscious mind. Try to imagine the conscious mind as an inner gate that protects us from our subconscious or non-reasoning mind. When a thought or feeling arises, it is the conscious mind’s task to use its powers of reasoning, discernment and discrimination to check that thought at the gate, so to speak. If the thought or impulse is ‘positive’, the conscious mind lets it into our being. If the thought or feeling is so-called ‘negative’, the subconscious mind closes the gates and denies entry. It is as simple and as basic as that.

Psychological good health is the process of letting positive, spiritually balanced thoughts into our minds. Just as in good physical health, where we put good, healthful food into our bodies, so do we put good, healthful thoughts into our minds if we want to be psychologically healthy. This ‘reasoning’ mind (or conscious mind) therefore controls what gets into our subconscious mind! By pushing negative thoughts or feelings out of who we are, we are refusing them energy. This is much like not watering a plant…the plant eventually withers and dies from lack of water (attention and focus).

Once we have pushed the negative thought out, the second step is to affirm the positive or spiritual thought. This can be called positive thinking through positive affirmation. By continually disregarding the negative thought and affirming the positive thought, we can form a new habit which then gets stored in our subconscious mind. The old habit dies because we are not giving it energy, and a new habit, which takes 21 days to form, takes its place. This then is stored in our subconscious mind and assists our conscious mind in making logical decisions.

Another way to view our conscious mind is to think of it as the ‘President of our personality’ or ‘Captain of our ship’. With this metaphor, if the conscious mind is the caption of the ship, then the subconscious mind is the shipmate below decks who follows whatever orders the captain gives. Thus, we are in control of what goes into our subconscious mind and what eventually can control our lives if allowed to.

Yet another way to look at our conscious mind is to think of it as a gardener. The gardener plants the seeds (thoughts) and the soil (subconscious mind) grows whatever kind of seed is planted, be it a weed or a beautiful flower. The subconscious mind will store information and follow orders whether the orders are rational or irrational. The subconscious mind doesn’t care because it has absolutately no reasoning ability.

The Importance of Healthy Bodies

Each of us understands the importance of feeding our physical bodies with healthy food choices, vitamins and herbs, along with getting daily physical exercise of some type. We are constantly being bombarded with articles in our newspapers, advertisements on television and in magazines, advice from our doctors and our parents, etc. about what we need to do to keep our physical body strong and healthy. So much emphasis is put on needing to continually be aware of how we take care of our physical bodies. But, how often do we get reminded about the importance of taking time during our busy days to feed, nurture and expand our spiritual bodies?

Many of us have also been provided with numerous suggestions and ideas from various sources on ways to consciously grow into more loving, balanced, forgiving and accepting human beings through many different spiritual practices, the main one being through daily meditation – that time for conscious stillness when we open ourselves to higher energies. Yet how many of us listen to these repeated suggestions and truly attempt to implement the practices into our daily routines? This is not a judgment…simply a question to ask ourselves to determine if we are taking a consciously active part in our spiritual growth.

Mantras

Many of us know that meditation can be a powerful way to cleanse, clear and center, but how many of us have experienced the power of mantras and prayers? These are also tools that represent very powerful spiritual practices that can help us attune to our pure states of spiritual being. Even by simply repeating the names of God and other powerful words that resonate deeply with us, we can create transformational shifts in our realities that will very likely ripple into the realities of many around us as well.

There is not a single spiritual teacher or Master of any path or religion who has not recommended this practice in some form. The benefits of this practice are unbelievable. Gandhi chanted the name of God as Rama constantly throughout his life, and he said it was one of the absolute keys to his success. Sai Baba said repeating the name of God and visualizing His form is one of the main keys to spiritual success. The idea is to not just do it in meditation but to did it throughout your day, while doing laundry, showering, driving in the car or taking a walk. During the day, it is so simple and so beneficial to repeat the name of God or the word ‘love’ in any project that you are doing, dedicating it to the Highest Good. We can take any simple task and turn it into a dedication to that highest part of ourselves that is grateful for the gift of life.

Power of the Mind

The law of the mind is that thoughts create reality. Energy follows thought. When we chant the name of God, we eventually become that which we are chanting! If we repeat the name of God enough times, it has the effect of cleansing our physical, emotional, mental and etheric bodies to the point that they reflect only God. One of the greatest difficulties that people on the path experience is a wandering mind. I experience this myself, still more times then I notice. But when I do catch thoughts float by that are dark, or that represent a reality that I do not wish to experience, I immediately chant ‘DELETE, DELETE, DELETE’. Sometimes 3 times is enough to bring peace, and other times it takes more than 30 repetitions to erase the thought and its energetic imprint on me. But then it’s gone. This is an example of the power of self-observation, and a power it certainly is!

The chanting of the names of God can also keep our minds focused on higher vibrations. It is not that important whether you focus on visualizing God’s imagine in your mind’s eye, or on connecting to a feeling of peace or love that you create. This process of simply repeating words of such high frequency is enough. It is all that is needed to activate an automatic elevation in your vibration, and in turn, in the vibration of the world around you.

If our mind isn’t on God (whether consciously or unconsciously), then it is likely to float back to the lower self and the many needs of the personality of the little ‘i’. We must learn to focus our attention on the true part of the Self. The mind creates bondage, yet it also has the power to create liberation. This is equally true of the spoken word. Words can harm but words can also heal. Reflect on this…

Any time you feel negative emotions coming on or if you are feeling depressed or angry, try chanting the name of God. If you allow yourself, you will be lifted up faster than you can imagine into a place of greater peace and tranquility. You see, it is not that the process does not work for everyone. It is that we struggle so much, often viewing the world as a cold and difficult place full of obstacles and opposition, that we have come to believe that this is our natural state. So because this has become the color through which so many of us automatically perceive our experiences, it no longer feels natural to be in a state of peace and calm. Sometimes I rise into this wonderful state very quickly when chanting my personal mantras, and if I am far enough detached from the ‘little ‘i”s’, I notice that my first response is a very subtle sense of relief and relaxation, BUT this is very quickly followed by a fear that I have to be on guard and immediately my instinct is to get back into a protective stance. Or sometimes, I get the feeling that this peace is too good to be true and I should get back to a reality of pain. Watch yourself. If you catch yourself creating this same pattern, see it from a detached place of understanding and compassion, and then simply guide yourself back into that place of peace. When I have this interaction with my many facets, I sometimes feel like I’m trying to calm my inner child into coming back into the sun where the light is warm and nurturing. At first, I can understand that the light is overwhelming and if I’m not used to being in it, it can seem very bright. So why punish and judge our reactions? Instead, watch them as they happen from a place of higher knowing, and act accordingly from a place of greater understanding.

Names of God

A few suggestions of powerful words to chant are:

“I Am That I Am”

“I Am God”

“I Love”

“Be Still and Know I Am God”

“Elohim” (Meaning: ‘All That God Is’)

“Adonai” (Meaning: ‘Lord’ in the Kabbalah)

“El Shaddai” (Meaning: ‘God Almighty’)

“Jesus Christ”

“Krishna”

“Buddha”

“Holy Spirit”

The list can go on and on. The key is to use a powerful mantra or a name of God or of a Master that means something special to you; an entity to which you feel yourself drawn or a powerful expression which you find comforting.

As well as the names of God, there are also sacred sounds such as Aum and Om which are the mother of all mantras. These sounds can have a tremendously soothing effect if you are attuned to the range of their frequency. They can help guide your mind and your emotions to a place of quietude. I listen to my Om cd very often when I am facing an experience that frightens me or that makes me uneasy and what happens is that the sound organically brings me out of a place of fear and into a state of peaceful calm which in turn equips me with an improved mind-frame to be able to make clearer decisions. Much power is in this particular sound for it attunes the chanter or the listener to the sound of life intself, or in other words, to God. It brings both invigoration and calm. I believe that the invigoration comes from a state of greater awareness and this broadened consciousness is easily interpreted as a more ‘alert’ or ‘invigorated’ state. The amazing thing about mantras is that many of them exist in the highest dimensions and have been brought forth to humanity by the ancient Indian seers who hve actually heard these mantras clairaudiently.

Names of God can be chanted out loud, whispered, said silently in your mind or written down. Each has its own unique effect. The idea is to not become too mechanical in their recitation. Saying each word with worship and devotion to God empowers it to purify, cleanse and heal all of our bodies. When you chant the name of God, you are programming perfection into your subconscious mind, which then creates perfection in your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies.

It is extremely important to build a strong subconscious mind because what we feed it is what we will manifest in our lives! It takes 21 days to create a new habit, so once we begin using loving visualizations and words of power each day, they will become part of the normal, natural way that we live. Thus, whenever we find ourselves in a stressful situation, it will become much easier to act positively and calmly rather than ‘reacting’ with out-of-control emotions and fear.

An Extra Boost

However, saying all of this to you,  I can also very much appreciate that life can become extremely complicated and sometimes we may want an extra boost of support from the heavens in order to get through the experiences without too many cuts and bruises. Sometimes, when life has drained a significant amount of our force and we have not been actively replenishing to keep up,  we may even get to a point where we feel that we can make it through the experiences, but at a cost to our bodies. Although I know that we are given only that which we can handle and not a drop more, it can sometimes feel that one thing after another is coming at us with growing intensity with no breaks in between to even catch our breath. In these situations, the power of mantras is invaluable because it is a way for us to refuel before the next battle and manifest a state of centeredness that will carry us even in the most fluctuating of times. I have been through some of these challenging cycles, and in the process, I have learned to use another tool that I would like to share with you now. When you feel spiritually tired and perhaps not quite sure if you can handle any more of what this life has to offer, take a breath, and begin to repeat the following:

“God, please heal my soul.”

The power of this mantra can even put you to sleep as you become enveloped by a feeling of mercy. It is as though you are being carried up on wings of divinity more beautiful than the mind can imagine. When we ask for this holy healing, we are actually asking for a healing that each and every one of us receives as we reenter our spiritual home once we leave our physical bodies. There is a process that follows the physical death in which the soul is placed in something similar to what we would call an incubator, and here the soul is supported through a mending process that helps it regenerate back to its fully recharged state. By asking for this process to take place while still in the physical vehicle, you are asking for a healing that incorporates so many levels of your essence that, in turn, you may wish to leave the body through the sleeping state in order to support this process.

What happens…

Chanting mantras helps to build our Light Body which is the body we will use in our ascended state. The more we chant words and sounds of high frequency, the more the energies of the words become the center of our consciousness and protect us from lower vibrations. The mantra is like the seed that will eventually grow into a beautiful tree – the tree being symbolic of God-realization. The ultimate purpose of reciting the names of God is to blend our individual consciousness with God consciousness, thus becoming aware of our true nature as the eternal self. By praying or chanting, we are using ‘the word’ as a co-creator with God, thereby intoning the highest possible vibrational frequencies. Everything is energy, and these spiritual practices assist us in raising our frequencies to a higher state of Light and Love.

For example, if you chant the divine word of ‘Elohim’, which means ‘All That God Is’, then you are attracting to yourself all that which is God. Chant God’s name as you are falling asleep and you will float in your soul body to the dimension and consciousness of the name you are reciting, since where you go when you fall asleep depends on the last thought in your mind. The constant practice of this most holy spiritual discipline builds enormous spiritual force and power in your aura which can then be used as a blessing upon every person you meet…thus we can literally change the world around us!

Can you imagine how you would feel if you could harness the tremendous force of your mind and channel it into a spiritual focus only? Imagine if you used your mind constantly, 24 hours a day, to focus on loving thoughts, words of power and caring emotions…your every thought, word and deed would be of divine origin! This is the ideal – to let your entire life on Earth be an affirmation of God, which is who you really are!

There are so many spiritual disciplines available for each of us to become more balanced and loving and to help us ascend and evolve into higher beings of Light. We can use our meditations, our prayers, spiritual reading, daily positive affirmations, journal writing and physical fitness to help us achieve that inner knowingness and peace. It is also beneficial for us to enjoy spiritual music that soothes our soul and to sing to our heart’s content as this also creates a feeling of joy and bliss for our soul. It is important to create variety in our spiritual disciplines for we need to make the journey interesting and joyful. Just as we are good to our physical bodies, we need to feed good spiritual food to our minds and to our spirits.

A final note…

One of the keys to spiritual and wordly success is understanding the importance of where we put our attention. Where our attention lies is literally where we live…so why not keep our focus on training our minds and bodies to seek inner peace and joy through the various spiritual practices available to us that have been proven to change the world!? This is OUR journey and we have the responsibility to ourselves to be the best that we can be! These many ideas can help us have fun along the way. Let’s stop making excuses that we are too busy or do not have enough time for these practices. We can make these a priority and change our lives…NOW!

All of the above serve as healing balms, not only to us, but to the world itself, as these sounds, words, mantras and prayers move through us and out into the etheric, astral and mental atmospheres. The choice lies with us whether we are going to use words and thoughts to hurt or to heal. It is my fervent prayer that each of us chooses to use the power of thought, word and deed in order to cause as much healing as possible within ourselves and upon the planet. Because whether we recognize it or not, we all really need it!

From the very beginning of time, there was a master plan set down by the Creator which established, within a given time frame, certain progressive steps through which humanity was to move in order to rise to a certain level of spiritual purification. Many of life’s experiences could mesh with wisdom and knowingness so that each soul could emerge with a complete sense of Oneness with the Creator. As we progress through our life experiences, we begin to discover a profound purpose, a logic and glory of a spiritual expression, that which transcends the basic needs of the physical form and the persistent ego that tries to control who we are. We begin to develop a compelling urgency that reaches beyond the mundane to a much richer, fuller existence.

Each lifetime offers us the possibilities of utilizing all of those many qualities that we have accrued from lifetime to lifetime. Our ultimate goal is to strive to release the constrains of the ego and to act in Oneness with all of creation…where everyone is truly equal and where individual gain or distinction is no longer our primary focus.

Is it possible to look at life where it truly doesn’t matter which profession someone chooses, which country one lives in, what the color of ones’ skin is or what religion one practices? What matters are the simple, day-to-day interactions with our fellow man and learning forgiveness and compassion in every human encounter.

There are many avenues in our lives that we can walk on that help us practice unity, sharing, and experience a unifying in spirit for the evolution of our planet. These avenues can be walked along, but remember that they can also be walked as a part of a group consciousness. Most of us in this world are working independently on our spiritual growth and that, of course, is very important. However, another process that assists us in becoming more loving, compassionate souls is through utilizing group energies by working together in groups with a unified focus.

Our ultimate goal as preached from the Heavens, spoken through our souls and known by our entire being is to truly learn to love…to love ourselves, to love our neighbors as ourselves and to love every creature on Earth as a piece of God and of ourselves. Is it possible to love if you are not in relationship with another human, animal or other form of energy? It has been said that “He travels fastest who travels alone.” This may be true in many fields of human endeavor; however when the goal is learning how to love, it follows that such can be done only in relationship with others. When we want a closer relationship with God and are searching for Him in our own way, we are in a relationship with Him during the process. To search for God actually means to “learn how to love.” Even when we love ourselves, we are in a relationship with ourselves and are learning acceptance within ourselves…if we love a beautiful sunset, we are sharing an experience with another form of nature…if we love our homes, we are sharing a relationship with all that the home represents (security, comfort, peace, etc.).

Just as we have relationships with our spouse, our children, our family and friends, we also share a strong relationship with others of like mind. Whether it be sharing a day on the golf course with a golfing buddy, walking through a mall with a friend who is also a shopping fanatic or walking the beach with a special someone, hand-in-hand enjoying the beauty and sounds of the ocean, sharing an experience and common interest with another person can expand the enjoyment of the experience. This is the same as the joys of sharing a spiritual relationship with someone very special. When we are seeking truth and understanding within our lives, it is more profound when it is shared with others on the spiritual path.  Being a part of a focused spiritual group is an incredible opportunity for expanding who we are and how we think and live our lives. We each have a “calling” that has brought us to this world: to share a relationship with those other seekers, by maximizing relationships to achieve a much greater understanding of who we are.

How does a group help us develop a greater understanding of who we are? There are a number of excellent reasons for the effectiveness of work in small groups. They are:

1. Motivational
   All of us may discover when we start on a new activity that our consistency, persistence and interest are strengthened and enhanced by the encouragement, support and interest of others involved in the same activity. When our focus seems to wane or when we get emotionally or mentally out of balance, their encouragement can spur us on; and in turn, when their motivation is low, we can encourage them.
2. Stability & Balance
   We may, at times, become emotional or frustrated about a situation that we are experiencing. When we are dealing with a very complex area of study, in sharing with others we may see the wisdom of a more moderate and balanced attitude. As we begin to study and reflect upon the difficult concepts involved in spiritual unfoldment, we may find that our own way of reading or thinking is quite different. If we share our reflections with others, we discover that there are ways to view certain issues other than our own initial response. As we listen to another person’s perspective, we grow in the ability not only to appreciate the point of view of others but also to establish a more modest evaluation of our own ideas. We gain both as we listen and also as we give of ourselves to others. In sharing the burdens we carry, they grow lighter and we find ourselves strengthened by the response and encouragement of the group, some of whom may have dealt effectively with similar situations.
3. Sense of Humor
   A third way in which a group can assist us on our path is to help us with a “sense of humor” about ourselves. In work as serious as soul development, we need to learn not to take ourselves too seriously. The group may help us see that some experiences that may appear so great or so tragic can be occasions to laugh at ourselves when we view them from a different perspective.
4. Prayer Support
   A most important way in which the group enhances growth is through mutual “prayer support”. In groups that pray for each other, there is given an energy, support and protection that cannot even be properly evaluated in ordinary terms.

It is very important to understand that we all learn not only through self-introspection but also through comparison. This process is especially enhanced in the sharing of viewpoints and experiences in a group. As we listen to another, it is not that we should agree or disagree or try to discover who is “right”, but rather, that as we genuinely permit ourselves a different perspective as offered by another person, there may be a quickening of growth within ourselves. Therefore, it can be said that personal growth may be more enhanced by the dynamics of interaction in a peer group rather than solely in self-study.

Group gatherings may be called study groups, spiritual groups or a school that teaches students how to discover their own deep, personal beliefs. Whatever terms we use, they might better be called groups for the study, meditation and application of learning how to love. It is through this process that we are able to truly understand who we are and what we value and what we believe as truth in our lives. Group discussion, the group energy and the comparison learning can be a tremendous tool in our spiritual growth. We must remember…the spirit of the group is learning how to love…

Some seekers who attend spiritual classes may be disappointed when they find the group failing to be in full agreement with their own viewpoints. Or, they find the group failing to measure up to their expectations in terms of some criterion of social or intellectual status. Such a response misses the point of the group because these criteria fail to reflect the essential purpose of the group which owes its oneness to a shared IDEAL, not necessarily similar IDEAS.

Along the same line, sometimes in a group there is one difficult, challenging individual who you find yourself judging. (On the flip side, you may possibly BE that challenging person to someone else!!) Rather than being a weakness to the group work, this gets us close to the very heart of the purpose of such groups. As we seek to grow personally in all of the dimensions with which the lessons deal, we come in time truly to love and appreciate that person with whom we initially were having the most difficulty. In the process of learning how to love this difficult person in the group, we find the group has been a laboratory in which we have experimented and learned about relationships. We then discover these lessons have generalized into our lives in such a way that we are now dealing more effectively with other “difficult” people, in our families, in our jobs and in other relationships.

The major theme of interest which draws people together in such groups may be the realization that there is more to us and to the meaning of life than we see in our present physical manifestations and circumstances. In our growth in a group setting, we find that we have a new, broader hope in the meaningfulness of life. This, in turn, leads to renewed motivation and the consequent energy that accompanies motivation, a new sense of direction in one’s life and a purpose guided by a clear commitment to ideals. As we seek to grow, we discover that that which stands in the way is generally ourselves. As we come to a growing awareness of the many dimensions of our own being, we gain both a deeper acceptance of our weaknesses and a more humble and thankful appreciation of our strengths. We find that the weaknesses and shortcomings that we have may be, with the thrust of a new spirit, turned into strengths!

As we come to understand our individual beliefs through our study of lessons, grow in attunement to the spirit through meditation, and experience improved relationships with others through daily application, we come to see that beyond all of this is the living force, the Spirit, acting in our lives and bringing about a transformation which no ego-oriented self-improvement program could ever even begin to offer.

We must approach with dignity and with compassion this task of becoming whole in every aspect of our lives. Even though the timing or experiences may differ from individual to individual, the end result is consistent…we must use this external support system to emerge through this process with the strength and understanding that we are not separate from God or one another but are in relationship with Him and all the rest of creation.