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!

CHAPTER 8: Realisation of The Infinite

Link to chapter: click here
Length of chapter reading: 32:02 minutes

We reach the final chapter of Sadhana this week. I hope the journey has been fulfilling and enriching for you. I thank you for being part of it, and for sharing, whether outwardly or silently, your thoughts throughout the experience. And so it is.

“When you know that whatever there is is filled by Him, and whatever you have is his gift, then you realise the infinite in the finite and the giver in the gifts. Then you know that all the facts of the reality have their only meaning in the manifestation of the one truth, and all your possessions have their only significance for you not in themselves, but in the relation they establish with the infinite.”

Can you bare to lose something precious to you? Does the car that you dreamed of owning for so many years and now finally drive enable you to pursue your soul’s desire or your ego’s demand for material wealth? Are you beautiful because of your clothes, or would you know how to radiate your brilliance in a torn piece of cloth? Do your relationships define you, or are they a way to share freely in the experience of life?

The gifts that we are afforded in this life are tools designed to aid us in the pursuit of the discovery of our Selves. To see them as more then that is to empower them and disempower ourselves. If All the World’s a Stage, do you see the props as being the story, or simply as temporary (finite) tools for the actors who happily surrender them when it is their turn to leave the stage?

“The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts to stretch the limits of things which can never become unlimited, to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs of the ladder of the finite. It is evident from this that the real desire of our soul is to get beyond all possessions. Surrounded by things that she can touch and feel, she cries, “I am weary of getting. Ah, where is he who is never to be got?

“We see everywhere in the history of man the spirit of renunciation is the deepest reality of the human soul. When the soul says of anything, ‘I do not want it for I am above it’, she gives utterance to the highest truth that is in her. When a girl’s life outgrows her dolls, she realises that in every respect, she is more than her doll is. Then she throws it away. By this very act of possession, we know that we are greater than the things we possess.”

Possession is a representation of what we have already attained. It symbolises that which we have already discovered within or about our Selves. That is not to say that the act of having is a result of higher understanding or greater awareness, but rather it can often be a consequence of the misunderstanding of what it means to achieve. In this wonderful world, which is represented on this physical plane, it is no wonder that possession is understood as a symbol of attainment, but it is to confuse attainment with obtaining that creates the mess of chronic consumption and ravenous consumerism. To fill the void within (the still undiscovered Self) with material things is like trying to fill the infinite with the finite.

“In the region of nature, which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition. In the spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing ourselves by uniting. Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by its nature partial; it is limited only to a particular want. But being is complete. It belongs to our wholeness. It springs not from any necessity, but from our affinity with the infinite, which is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.”

I have had earth shattering experiences in which the dawning of a greater awareness has felt like the destruction of the world as I know it. Things that I was sure were true and right no longer made sense. My firm beliefs in how I knew the universe to be no longer fit into my understanding.

Imagine for a moment that our spiritual journeys are akin to us building walls. Each brick we acquire along the path we place where we think it best fits as we build our wall higher and wider. Then one day, there is a tremor, or perhaps a full blown earth quake that shakes the foundation upon which we were building our wall. As a result, some bricks shift into different spots, others fall away from the wall and no longer have a place. As we stand back and inspect the state of our wall, we notice that where there were holes, some bricks may have shifted closer together making the wall stronger. In other places, the structure may have completely crumbled to the ground and is no longer necessary. It is the same with new awakenings.

When we reach a point where we see more of the Big Picture, we experience a process of losing a part of ourselves. It is as if we shed a layer of the illusion only to reveal a clearer view of that which is just on the other side of the veil. Through this loss, although it may not feel like it at first, we actually become more complete.

CHAPTER 7: The Realisation of Beauty

Link to chapter: click here
Length of chapter reading: 14:14 minutes

Is beauty pleasurable? Can pain be beautiful? Can beauty that once brought us joy turn into a thing of pain? The realisation of beauty is not a milestone, and once reached, your quest is complete. Beauty takes on an infinite variety of shapes, colours, meanings and stories. To assume that what is beautiful to you is beautiful to everyone else is a common warp of perception, but what of the assumption that all beauty brings joy? We can discuss society, we can discuss culture, we can discuss tribal influences. Beauty is understood just as much as it is misunderstood. Tagore’s seventh chapter provokes ideas that allow his audience to perhaps question what this creature we call ‘beauty’ really is.

“A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy to us.”

This is because joy resides in the heart, and for something of this world to bring us joy, we must have allowed it into our heart.

“…as long as our realisation is incomplete, a division necessarily remains between things known and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant. But in spite of the dictum of some philosophers, man does not accept any arbitrary or absolute limit to his knowable world. Every day his science is penetrating into the region formally marked in his map as unexplored or in-explorable. Our sense of beauty is similarly engaged and ever-pushing on its conquests. Truth is everywhere, therefore everything is the object of our knowledge. Beauty is omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us joy.

Our perception dictates whether we recognise beauty. Perception is not a question of how much are see but from where we see it. Test this last statement with the quote above and see how it fits into your reality. Everything is capable of giving us joy. What does that mean? Can you see joy in starving children? Can you transcend the physical and encompass the beauty of any scenario? If you are using your physical sense, the answer will be ‘no’. Perhaps the human mind is not capable of recognizing beauty in all that exists in this world. Perhaps what we understand to be beauty is, in fact, a misunderstanding. Perhaps it is helpful to start there…what is your definition of beauty?

“As we become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal, and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and love towards the infinite. This is the ultimate object of our existence, that we must ever know that beauty is truth, truth beauty. We must realise the whole world in love, for love gives it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom. We must have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power at the inner-most centre of things and have the taste of that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.”

This, to me, implies that beauty has absolutely nothing to do with physical looks and everything to do with the essence of existence. A woman is beautiful not because of what she is wearing but because of the essence within that she radiates for others to experience. A sunset is beautiful not because it is romantic but because of the essence of life that it inspires.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Not in the ‘eyes’ of the beholder, but in the ‘eye’ – the Third Eye. Beauty can only be seen through the soul. It is the connection of divine to divine that creates the experience of beauty. It is the openness of the heart that allows for beauty. Without faith in the existence of a power greater than our own, beauty cannot exist.

CHAPTER 6: Realisation In Action

Link to chapter: click here
Length of chapter reading: 30:37 minutes

This morning, I saw a man at work. This man was very special. I knew that he had agreed, a long time ago, to meet me in this exact place at this exact time to teach me what I was starting to forget. He sat at his desk, the same small space he fills each day, wearing the same uniform I imagined him preparing each evening for the following day. He worked very quickly, his hands very busy making notes and shuffling papers. Each time a patient approached him, he would look up and, from his serious demeanor, he would shed light on the face looking back at him with a warm and patient smile. He knew that he worked in a place where people were afraid to go. He also knew that he had the power to bring them peace, through his eyes, through his smile, and through the integrity with which he dedicated himself to his work. It is through him that I saw God this morning. It is through his nobility and his grace that I was able to remember myself. It is for this that I am grateful today.

“As some, under the idea that law is the opposite of joy, mistake intoxication for joy, so there are many in our country who imagine action to be the opposite of freedom. They think that activity, being in the material place, is restriction of the free spirit of the soul, but we must remember that as joy expresses itself in law, so the soul finds its freedom in action. It is because joy cannot find expression in itself alone that it desires the law which is outside. Likewise, it is because the soul cannot find freedom within itself that it wants external action. The soul of man is ever-freeing itself from its own folds by its activity. Had it be otherwise, it could not have done any voluntary work. The more man acts and makes actual what is latent in him, the nearer does he bring the event yet to be. In that actualization, man is ever-making himself more and yet more distinct and seeing himself clearly under newer and newer aspects in the midst of his varied activities, in the state, in society. This vision makes for freedom.”

I read something about myself recently that has had an impact upon the way that I identify my ‘character’ is the roles it plays. Because of a number of things, including tools provided to us through astrology (the date and time of my birth) and numerology (my name and the place of my birth), I read that I am destined to have many different jobs in this life. My first thought was one of isolation – with so many different roles, I’ll have to attempt to enter into many different tribes, some that will accept me, and some that won’t. The isolation comes from my perception of my fleetingness, the transitory nature of my journey, going from one place to another, fulfilling my role, and then moving on to where my purpose takes me next.

I have already started to realize this destiny. I have identified the distinct transitions from one role to another and I have begun to understand how to see the beauty and richness in what sometimes feels like quite lonely work. It is actually quite a magical dynamic because in one sense, it is isolating – you sense that the experience will be temporary, yet much important work needs to be done. But during that short period of intense service, intimate connections are made between souls, there is a recognition of the higher essence amongst the souls who are connected through these acts of service.

Why have I written about this self-realisation? Because it is through action within this physical world that I learn such great lessons and experience thoroughly hopeful moments of connection and divine recognition – through others of my Self.

Our journey is not one of systematic predictability. We are not meant to follow the path discovered by out neighbor because we know where it will lead. Our journeys are of a much greater purpose. By having the courage to follow a path that we create with each choice we make, we learn who we are. We get to know our Selves. We rediscover the consciousness that we were when we were planning this life; the consciousness that we are underneath the physical vehicle; the consciousness that is in each breath we take. Action is the process through which to rediscover our Selves. And when we rediscover the truth about our Selves, there is no more a need for fear. That is where freedom comes in.

“…the ideas in our minds are constantly seeking opportunities to take on outward form…”

Action is also the greatest desire of our thoughts, but not in the way that many people think. Thoughts are living beings. We can create thoughts. We feed them into life. When a thought ‘comes into’ your mind, it is literally a foreign entity seeking a source of life. If you choose to invest energy into contemplating the thought, repeatedly going back in your mind and thinking about the thought, expanding on it and playing with what it would look like, it beings to grow. The more you invest in feeding it with energy, the more it acquires a life of its own, until one day, it has the power to physically manifest. This is a very powerful area of esoterica. If you are interested in learning more about it, perhaps you would enjoy The Magus of Strovolos by Kyriacos C. Markides.

“The Upanishad says, ‘In the midst of activity alone wilt thou desire to live a hundred years‘. It is the saying of those who have amply tasted of the joy of the soul. Those who have fully realized the soul have never talked in mournful accents of the sorrowfulness of life, or of the bondage of action. They are not like weakling flowers who’s stem-hold is so light that it drops away before attaining fruition. They hold onto life with all their might, and say, ‘Never will we let go ’til the fruit is ripe!’ They desire in their joy to express themselves strenuously in their life and in their work. Pain and sorrow dismay them not. They are not bowed down to the dust by the weight of their own heart. With the erect head of the victorious hero, they march through life seeing themselves and showing themselves in increasing resplendence of soul through both joys and sorrows. The joy of their life keeps step with the joy of that energy which is playing at building and breaking throughout the universe.”

Some of us will receive the gift of coming face to face with one of these joyous souls that live each moment so nobly and to such a full extent that we forget maya’s hold on us and realise the true opportunity we have been given in this life. It is so easy, so very easy to dwell in the sorrow, and the pain, and the misfortune, and the unfairness of this world. These are tools that are meant to confuse us and to distract us from our true power and our true purpose.

I don’t have an inspirational story to share with this quote, but rather one of shame. For you see, I have been caught up in the throws of maya lately, forgetting all about the beauty and glory of this life, and dwelling instead on the suffering. I have forgotten, until now, as I listened to Tagore’s reminder, that there are SO MANY souls waiting in line just to be chosen to come into embodiment. “Why?” you may ask. Well, it simple. ‘Up there’, we prepare. We study, and reflect, and we get ready for the moment when we will be able to come back into this, or a similar world and apply our new knowledge so that we can discover a little bit more about your true Selves. It is through experiences that we create together here that we can get closer to our true Selves. Some of us have seemingly charmed lives, and others suffer the pain that only heroes could endure. It is not for us to judge why. It is not for us to even question whether we are worthy, for that has been decided long ago. All that is left for us to do is to make each moment count. There is joy in every moment. Find it and you will remember why you are here.

“He who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and where does he expect to meet Him? How far can he fly? Can he fly and fly and fly until he flies into nothingness itself? No, the coward who would fly can no where find Him. We must be brave enough to say, “We are reaching Him here, in this very spot, now, at this very moment. We must be able to assure ourselves that, as in our actions we are realizing our Selves, so in our Selves we are realizing him who is the SELF of Self. We must earn the right to say so unhesitatingly by clearing away, with our own effort, all obstruction, all disorder, all discords from our path of activity. We must be able to say, “In my work is my joy, and in that joy does the joy of my joy abide.”

Hahaha! This made me laugh. If I had a nickel for all the times I would have wanted to avoid the physical world and escape into the comforts of the metaphysical, I would certainly get a few free coffees by now! It is very tempting not to want to do ‘the work’ and to call our avoidance an act of purification or, alternatively, a quest for pleasure. I’ve heard both arguments, and they’re both equally colorful!

I don’t think ‘killing time’ is a sin if, by this, you mean spending time doing something that is fun, without stress and brimming with pleasurable. It is, however, a great loss if, by ‘killing time’, you are attempting to numb the pain of a life devoid of inspiration and passion. The work of Sir Ken Robinson is certainly a testament to the power of following your passion. His latest book entitled The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, will help many people awaken to this truth. Makes you wonder, once our work truly becomes a manifestation of our passions, what are we going to do with all our days off?! Haha!

CHAPTER 5: Realisation In Love

Link to chapter: click here
Length of chapter reading: 42:28 minutes

Duality is not an expression of separation. It is an invitation to embody unconditional love and acceptance for all, no matter whether our minds can make sense of it, no matter whether our beliefs are in line with it, no matter whether our desires are fulfilled by it. Duality is the ultimate union of opposites representing the possibility of wholeness disguised in contradiction. When there is little evidence, where we do not believe that there is enough proof, we can ask ourselves what we do have. This is when we open ourselves to the realisation that through free will, we have the power to choose to see things differently.

“In learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of words, we have gained a great deal. But if we stop at that point and concern ourselves only with the marvels of the formation of a language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices, we do not reach that end, for grammar is not literature; prosity is not a poem. When we come to literature, we find that, though it conforms to the rules of grammar, it is yet a thing of joy; it is freedom itself. The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends them. The laws are its wings. They do not keep it weighed down. They carry it to freedom. Its form is in law, but its spirit is in beauty. Law is the first step toward freedom, and beauty is the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law. Beauty harmonises in itself the limit and the beyond – the law and the liberty.”

Why is it that so often, we reach ‘a’ point and conclude that we have reached the final step in our journey?

“I have found love! My search is over.”
“I have completed a degree. I no longer have to be a student.”

As with the learning of a language, there are many facets to our understanding. We eventually discover that the more we know, the less we understand. The complexity of the universal truth is so intricate and vast that we can easily become entangled in its details. The human mind was not made to grasp all the facts, calculate all the figures and make sense of all the outcomes. It is in the simplicity where we can truly make sense of all in our lives. It is in the silence where we can truly find clarity. If we relate this to the learning of a language, it is when we transcend the words of a poem and feel the essence of the poet that we have come to a point of greater understanding.

“If we happen to be awake then, we question him.”

If we happen to be awake…

“The question is, in what manner do we accept this world, which is a perfect gift of joy? Have we been able to receive it in our heart, where we keep enshrined things that are of deathless value to us? We are frantically busy making use of the forces of the Universe to gain more and more power. We feed and we cloth ourselves from its stores. We scramble for its riches and it becomes for us a field of fierce competition. But were we born for this?
To extend our proprietary rights over this world and make of it a marketable commodity? When our whole mind is spent only upon making use of this world, it looses for us its true value. We make is cheap by our sordid desires, and thus, to the end of our days, we only try to feed upon it, and miss its truth. Just like the greedy child who tears the leaves from a precious book and tries to swallow them.”

Where do you see yourself fitting in the picture Tagore paints in the words above? I used to be one of the frantic. There was a time when I was watching others trying to swallow the leaves and wondering if I should join in. But for some reason, I don’t see a place to fit in anymore. I am disconnected from the traffic, unplugged from much of the noise, and find myself wondering…where do I fit in? Do I try to change the world? Do I try to remind people what they seem to have forgotten? Or do I disconnect even further and ignore the pain and the chaos?

I don’t mean to sound self-righteous at all here. I am sorry if I appear to be. In truth, I feel like an alien, living amongst a people with whom I don’t know how to relate. When I am in the company of others, I often seem to say things that silence the room, but I don’t know what that means. When I am physically alone, I find myself able to reach such heights of mental expansion and seem to be able to best translate and share those moments through technology. I heard somewhere recently that the longer we spend disassociated with the rest, the more others seem unrecognisable. Is my experience a product of the times or a consequence of something else?

“…we can never have a true view of man unless we have a love for him… Man foolishly tries to prove his superiority by imagining his radical separateness from what he calls his physical world, which in his blind fanaticism, he sometimes goes to the extent of ignoring all together, holding it as his direst enemy. Yet the more his knowledge progresses, the more it becomes difficult for man to establish this separateness and all the imaginary boundaries he had setup around himself vanish, one after the other. Every time we loose some of our badges of absolute distinction by which we conferred upon humanity the right to hold itself apart from its surroundings, it gives us a shock of humiliation. But we have to submit to this if we setup our pride on the path of self-realisation to create divisions and disunion, then it must sooner or later come under the wheels of truth and be ground to dust.”

But what if I understand a tree better then I understand man? Or perhaps I should ask why I feel more comfortable with it. And then I’m reminded that when we ask ‘why’, we do not truly see the picture in front of us. So I try to step back to see a bit more of this picture, and then I meet the hermit that resides within. The part of me that identifies more with that which is unseen, with that which is unspoken by most.

In all my wondering and trying to relate, I have realised that this physical world inevitably requires action. Building up the courage to act is a process of facing ones fears, seeing them for the self-imposed illusions that they are, and detaching from that which sells the sense of separateness. “…we can never have a true view of man unless we have a love for him…” And here I am drawn back to myself. Do I love myself? How can I realise the true view of man if I do not see it in myself first?

“Rei meaning “a ray of light” or “universal soul” and Ki meaning “universal life force energy” or “radiating energy”.

When the Japanese characters are combined, they present the concept of “universal life-force energy”.

The history of Reiki is a story of a man discovering his ability to connect to a powerful source of energy and transferring it through himself to others.  Over time, Reiki has become known to many as a healing art.  People associate it with a therapy that involves the ‘laying of hands’ on the body and healing physical ailments.  In many ways, these things are true, but Reiki encompasses much more, and you will learn as you begin to experience the process, that there are many unspoken benefits that must simply be experienced in order to be understood.

What Reiki Does

Reiki works on all levels affecting us. It will naturally begin to assist you in releasing limiting belief structures about yourself and the world around you. Instead of dwelling in the past or worrying about the future, you begin to embrace every aspect of the now and live in the moment. Emotional outbursts stabilize, and you become less vulnerable to the shifts of your ego personality. Your motives and the motives of others become clearer, and you better understand how things happen for a reason. Your thoughts don’t run aimlessly in your mind and you learn how to focus energy specifically on those thoughts that you want to become your reality. Those affected by increased flows of energy often choose to no longer allow fear to run their lives and they gradually detach from dependencies.

When you integrate your mind, body and spirit into one harmonious flow of energy, you begin to leave behind the fears and ego-centred motives of a world of pain, and enter into a higher state of consciousness that brings health and prosperity to all facets of your life.

Physically:

Reiki speeds the mending and recovery process.

Why?
Everything is energy. Your body is simply energy. If there is a blockage through which energy cannot flow freely, an imbalance exists. Your body will (at first) gently tell you that you have created an imbalance by exhibiting pain. When you sense pain, you can choose to ignore it or to heal it. You can also choose to recognize that your body has communicated an imbalance, and with the ability to tap into a greater flow of energy, you can choose to rebalance yourself. When you bring balance back to yourself, any imbalance that existed is released.

Mentally:

Reiki relieves stress (stress=imbalance), and softens a crisis mentality by alleviating the mental pressure without losing the integral importance of the lesson.

What does that mean?
You will see things differently. You will begin to see a bigger picture of any situation: your point of view, the perspective of others, and any other factors that are involved in any situation. You will understand why you are creating your thoughts, the way they develop and how to identify them consciously before you freely release them. You will notice that you have more choice about what you think and do because you will be able to approach any situation at a slower speed (so to speak) and decide what to do before you are in the middle of things and feel like there is no way out.

You will understand why people act the way they do. You will find it easier to be compassionate and understanding. You will catch yourself in a moment of wakelessness and see that you always have the choice to do what benefits the Highest Good. You will ultimately be able to understand why things happen the way they do, and what you can learn from every experience.

Emotionally:

Reiki helps to resolve tangled emotions and purifies your emotional state of being.

Why?
Your emotions are a very big part of who you are. Sometimes it’s tricky to maintain a balanced emotional state, and there are even people who ‘loose their mind’ because they let their emotions run wild. Reiki helps harmonize emotions in two ways. When participating in a session, you subconsciously train your thoughts to calm your emotions. This will allow you to identify your emotions clearly, sensing which feel right and which feel out of place. The unconscious process that takes place when you tap into a more powerful energy flow also works on balancing you while you sleep. The process is gentle and healing.

Spiritually:

Reiki opens us to the presence of the divine. Aligning us with our spirits is one of Reiki’s most profound affects. The process attunes us to our own spiritual being and puts us in harmony with the Creative power.

What does that mean?
This is the most abstract benefit of Reiki. To explain this concept, let us work from the outside in. You have a body, but you are not your body. When you have a feeling about something, or when a creative idea comes into your mind it is not because your finger or your knee told you so. Thoughts of inspiration and guidance come from a very special place. They come from the real you, that little voice inside of you that is heard only when you are still enough to listen. Reiki creates a clearer connection to the real you, connecting you more closely to your spiritual self.

The beneficial affects of Reiki are only limited by the person who is receiving. When you realize the limitless potential of Reiki, there is nothing that can prevent you from achieving what you now see as the impossible.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

William Shakespeare – All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)

I seem to remember going through this already. Why the repetition? I didn’t enjoy it the first time around, so could I just skip through it this time?

I’m born again, and I’m in a new body. The body has to learn how to function so I have to teach it how to walk and talk and eat without the help of others. That part is fine for me to accept, although that isn’t to say that I enjoy the process of maturation that will eventually allow me to pull away from these twits I have to share classrooms with and eat apple slices coated with the most ridiculous paste they call ‘peanut butter’.

They treat us all the same. Why? We are at such different stages of development. Some of us even still remember. Why are they doing their best to convince us that forgetting is the way forward?

I’m having difficulty merging into these experiences. I want this stage to be over. I want to be able to start where I left off last time. I’ve passed these lessons already. Why again? I have so much work to do, so many tasks to complete, but I can’t do them until I’m at a level near to the one I reached before I left last time. Why the repetition?

Ah…patience. I see! I suppose I could have forgotten more before coming into this life, so that means that I’m remembering more than others for a reason. Is it to teach me patience? Alright, fine, but is that really necessary at this stage? I have so much work to do and I can’t do it from this infant-state. I remember more than most of the teachers who are trying to ‘guide’ me. Why are they not listening when I attempt to explain to them the error of their ways? They call it ‘imagination’…“Look how imaginative she is!” Why are they not listening?

Yes, I know, physical reality = illusion. So perhaps it’s been about deciphering what part of my perception is Truth to begin with…

I don’t know exactly at what stage of my awakening I have reached to date – perhaps because I’m only looking into one dimension of my existence. In any case, I sense that I have not yet reached the peak of my clarity – I knew more in other lives, I knew how to tap into higher levels of power before. At least I’m at a point, though, where I have gone through the mundane. Is it wrong of me to see the early stages of the soul’s maturation as mundane? When you go through them so many times, how can they not become mundane…?

“Soul age refers to how a person has grown from experience on the planet, not just to how many lifetimes he or she has lived. … An Old Soul starts each lifetime being born as an infant who experiences Infant Soul consciousness and gradually grows into prior levels of consciousness. … It does not work to stick your nose in the air (or your head in the sand) in an attempt to avoid lessons and gifts from the other soul ages.”

Source: http://www.michaelteachings.com/soul_ages.html

While reading this wonderful piece, I made some notes about specific parts of the reading that resonated strongly with me…you can find them below:

“Seldom doing anything they don’t want to and preferring their own unconventional pursuits, they often seek the path of least resistance as far as work, so that all energy can be poured into spiritual development.”

…the times when I have accelerate most quickly up the ladder at work were times when I had to consciously disconnect myself from my more ‘spiritually minded’ activities. Otherwise, I would quickly loose interest in the working world, and simply be intoxicated by the metaphysical…

“If higher education proves necessary in order to teach, less orthodox schools allowing more opportunities for inner exploration will be favored.”

…hahaha! I consciously seek out the most unorthodox higher education route that I can find! Being unorthodox FUELS me…

“Old Souls may explore many religions and teachings, being most drawn to those emphasizing love and to those they’ve resonated with closely in past lives. But being rule-bound or as orthodox as some disciplines require does not usually last long.”

…this has unfortunately been the case for me. I have had the soulful pleasure of bonding instantaneously with certain groups, but found that their rules were too difficult by which to abide. This eventually led to my silent departure…

“However, some people get uncomfortable once they are here with their aridity and lack of emotional warmth and set out to make up for what their personality seems to lack….A similar situation arises after a person has had materially successful lifetimes.”

…I have been torn in these worlds of relationships and wealth lately. One part of me craves emotionally rich relationships while another part needs solitude to explore and develop a connection to the wisdom within. One part of me wants to dive into the consumerist culture while the other finds infinite peace in making the most of what I have…

“A major challenge of the Old Soul period is mastering self-esteem.”

…and I thought self-deprecation was noble!

“It is never your last life until you like it here; essence would never let you off the hook before then.”

…OH MY! I have some work to do!

“In order to even out your past life choices, as an Old Soul you are often in the body of the sex you least prefer.”

…so THAT’s why I so understand the physical being-ness of the opposite sex so much more…

“Third level people do best when they give themselves the space and time to stay home and be alone as much as they want. Respecting their own proclivities and loving themselves just the way they are always smooths the way for more enjoyment of self and life.”

…well, I think I just gave myself permission to stop feeling guilty!

Love and Light!

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me…unless of course, I decide to let them.

I’m sitting before the panel again. It’s come time to make some choices about my next assignment. My Guide is standing next to me, as always the pillar of calm, strength, clarity and wisdom. I’ve been working a lot at honing my skills and developing some new ones that will help me in this next life. I realize now what I missed last time around. I think I know what to do this time. I’m so blessed to be given another chance.

Whenever any of us up here are told that we’re ready to go back, a sequence of events is initiated to ensure we’re ready when the moment comes. I’m at the point where I have to meet with the Masters and choose some specific experiences that I will have to go through in this next life. The panel will present me with some choices – all designed to prepare me for my next steps toward a higher level of initiation. We’ll also talk about contracts today. You know, those agreements you get into with other souls before you enter into your new body; the ones you all agree to take part in and that no matter what happens, you all have to go through. Anyway, that’s what today is about. Finalizing the cornerstones of my next life on Earth.

I heard something funny once when I was observing some humans. A guy was talking about his perception of this process of choosing experiences and signing contracts. He said it wasn’t fair that we are asked to make such important choices while we’re in our state of bliss. He said that if we knew how those experiences would really feel, we probably wouldn’t agree to them in the first place. Yes, it is true that we eventually attain a state of bliss when we return home, but even when we are embodied, we have a direct connection with home whenever we want it. It is just a case of learning to cultivate that connection – something he hadn’t learned yet.

During my last life, I was meant to develop an experiential as well as a mental understanding of the concept of free will. I brought with me the conscious awareness of pre-destined experiences and sacred contracts, and although I didn’t completely grasp these concepts, I knew from within that I had made choices long ago that were impacting the life I was leading in that body. What I struggled with though, was an acceptance of the relationship between free will and destiny. I walked through a great part of that life asking myself, “How can we have any power to choose when all our choices have already been made?”

Nearing the end of that life, I began to realize that although certain experiences were pre-destined, the way that we choose to respond to those experiences is completely up to us. We have the free will to choose how we perceive each and every experience. And these choices are what dictate how we develop and grow in each life.

Even though I can explain the concept of this lesson to myself, it still isn’t a lesson that I have completely enveloped with my heart, so I shall continue on my journey of understanding in this next life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Masters are waiting…

I read somewhere recently that it’s official: we, as a globally connected society, have become more of an energetic culture than a physically-based culture. The sentiment stimulated many responses from me. Most of all, it made me feel better about myself! The life I lead is becoming more and more electronic and less rooted in the material world. The vastness, the openness and the limitlessness of the World Wide Web and of the technology that supports it and nurtures it is intoxicatingly tempting in which to immerse myself when I compare the alternative – to engage in a world where it still takes hours to get from point A to Point B, where the air is smelling increasingly ‘funny’, and where people are loosing their patience much more quickly then they seemed to 20 years ago (…kind of sounds like a description of Neo’s world…).

The statement also made me wonder how communication will look in the future. Is it all going to be digital? Is sex ‘caveman style’ becoming an extinct pastime as its newer, real-time, instant and anonymous counterpart takes center-stage? Even peering into the neighborhood cafe freaks me out! People are still drinking coffee but instead of making eye contact with other humans(!!), laughing at jokes and talking about whatever it is that people at coffee shops used to talk about, they’re ALL staring into sleek little laptops!

Becoming an energetic culture is the most amazingly connected yet disjointed reality I can imagine. From one perspective, we can reach out and connect with people from across the globe in an instant and build relationships that would otherwise have been very difficult to cultivate. On the other hand, we still (at least partially) exist on a material plane where things are physical and can be touched and can touch back. Social etiquette aside, how are we supposed to evolve as a physical race if we are investing more and more energy in the virtual?