Your Sacred Self Page 6

  The love you activate for yourself within will begin to radiate out as you continue your journey of the sacred quest. Soon, there will be love where blame once was.

  Remember that blaming is futile. Paste this reminder from Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” somewhere so you can read it daily:

  At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

  You see, blaming your surroundings is a futile exercise because wherever you go, you are still there. You must cultivate the inner knowing that everything in your life has been divinely designed by your collaboration with your highest self.

  Be a learner instead of a blamer. When silently meditating, ask, “What do I have to learn from this lesson?” rather than, “Why did he [or she] do this thing to me?” Reexamine the troublesome and traumatic events of your life. These are what you had to go through to arrive at this place on your path. See if you can view current happenings from the perspective of a few years hence.

  You will see that blame or fault-finding is a waste of your energy. All of these things had something beneficial for your development. With this perspective, you will begin sailing through traumas rather than being beached by them.

  When you are inclined to get into the blaming habit, remind yourself that you are abandoning your loving inner presence. If you’ve chosen the way of the sacred quest, you will no longer wish to ignore this part of your humanity.

  Say to yourself, “I do not want to be right, I want to know the truth. I want my higher self to rule. No one is to blame for how I am feeling. It is my feeling and I respect that.” These affirmations will lead you to self-reliance and to the way of the sacred quest.

  Your spiritual soul will then become the guiding light for the remainder of your time in the now-here.

  BELIEF # 3: IDEALISM CAN’T COEXIST WITH REALISM

  “Don’t be such a dreamer—be realistic.” “Forget about your inner vision, look around you at what is happening. That is what is real.”

  Have you heard similar pronouncements often in your life? If so, you probably developed an attitude about what was possible and what was impossible. If the ideals that attracted you were labeled impossible, you probably sacrificed them for a way of viewing your world that was based on what others determined was “realistic.”

  Discarding that old belief about reality can be a major task on the path of the sacred quest. Are you ready to reconsider your view of reality? Perhaps William Blake’s statement will inspire you:

  If the doors of perception were cleansed,

  Everything would appear as it is…infinite.

  Can you imagine your reality in that way? Everything infinite? When your perception is expanded, nothing is real and nothing is imagined. All there is, is perception. When you cultivate this awareness, your reality is no longer defined by the physical world.

  At the tiniest quantum level, time is not a reality. Particles can be in more than one place at the same time, and they appear and disappear according to how we observe them and what measuring devices we use. All of this constitutes a new reality. Always remember, we are made of the same energy.

  Given this perspective, it is very important to hang on to your dreams and ideals. Quietly but determinedly, know that anything that you can conceive of you can manifest in the material world of physical reality.

  If you want a richer experience of your life, abandon the idea that your reality is only what your senses report. Your inner world and all the energy of your higher awareness create a reality different from that which you have been taught.

  In this reality, your higher spirit, the loving presence within you, is dominant and very real. In this world you rely on something quite different than ordinary reality. Choosing the way of the sacred quest means you will learn to rely on this new reality.

  Shift back to being the idealist who had inner inklings about the world of spirit. That idealist within you will happily do the following, according to Buddha:

  Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality.

  Rely on the meaning, not just on the words.

  Rely on the real meaning, not on the provisional one.

  Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary, judgmental mind.

  Suggestions for Releasing Realism and Welcoming Idealism

  Trust your intuition. Quietly affirm that you will define your own reality from now on and that your definition will be based on your inner wisdom.

  Your affirmation does not require you to judge what others define as their reality. Instead, you will see it as the path that they are on. This will help you nurture your idealistic energy, because you are giving yourself and others permission to trust the loving presence within all of us.

  There are no limits within, and within is where you are going from now on for your direction.

  Make a list of all the things you believed in before you were told they were impossible. Writing and drawing about those early beliefs will help to reenergize them.

  My early training convinced me that coincidences had nothing to do with “real” life. However, I now know that when I concentrate on manifesting something, coincidences happen to facilitate that vision. A recent example illustrates what I mean.

  I had gone to the western coast of Florida to work on this book and forgot to bring a portable tape player with me. When I unpacked, I thought of it and mentioned it to my wife in our nightly phone conversation. Before I went to sleep I could see the tape player in my mind and considered calling the front desk to see if one was available. But I didn’t and went to sleep with a vision of the tape recorder.

  In the morning, I was preparing to start writing and I wished I had the tape deck to listen to some taped notes I’d made to myself. I turned on the lamp by the desk, and poof, it blew out. For a moment I felt frustrated, then I reminded myself that I was preparing to write about the divine design in our lives. I called Housekeeping and asked for a new light bulb.

  Within minutes a man named Cliff arrived to replace the bulb. Cliff noticed my books, papers, typewriter and manuscripts strewn around the room and said, “I’ve always wanted to read your later books, especially Real Magic, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Now, I come to your room and meet you in person. What a coincidence!”

  We chatted and I gave him a copy of Real Magic, telling him that I saw it not as coincidence but as evidence of the power of his inner thoughts. Then I thought to ask him if he knew where I might get a portable tape recorder for a few hours.

  His response was immediate. “I have one in my car. You’re welcome to use it while you’re here. It would be my pleasure. In fact, I was noticing it in the car this morning and wondering why I have it there, since I never use the thing.”

  A coincidence? Perhaps. A conversation with my wife about wanting a tape recorder; a vision of it as I fell asleep; a light bulb burning out; Cliff wanting to read Real Magic; his decision to leave the tape recorder in his car, though he didn’t know why. All of these events collaborating with fate?

  In my reality, these events occur synchronistically when I am centered on my inner purpose. Call me an idealist if you want. I know that my reality is not exclusively defined by my five senses.

  Practice experimenting with your new reality. Keep a vision of what you want to occur or someone you want to call you. Anything that is important to you. Meditate on it manifesting into your life. Keep track of all the little things that lead up to bringing it about. After a while, you will notice that your reality has become one in which you play a role as cocreator.

  BELIEF # 4: THERE IS ONLY ONE EXISTENCE AND IT IS PHYSICAL

  As a child, you were aware of a second aspect of your being. Here, I am calling that your double, or your ethereal body.

  As you grew older you learned to discard this sec
ond self and to believe only in your physical self. The second body, your double, is an energy body that coexists with your physical body. This body of energy is not visible or discernible with the ordinary senses. Nevertheless, it coexists with your physical body at all times.

  You have lost touch with this ethereal energy body. That does not mean that it is unavailable to you. Your physical body is what you’ve come to believe is who you are. Yet this body in and of itself is neutral. Your body can bring you neither peace nor turmoil.

  By itself, your body has no purpose. It derives its purpose from the invisible self that is you. Thinking of your body as your reality is a mistaken perception of the ego. Your body is, more accurately, your chosen home for this tour of earth.

  It is almost impossible to make contact with your higher self when you only believe in your false self and the material world. Somewhere within you, you are aware that all of the material world is energy. This energy appears solid from the perspective of your eyes, your perceptual equipment.

  A closer look at the physical world reveals a dance of particles in endless voids of empty space. A closer look at those particles reveals that they are involved in another, tinier dance of more particles in a field of emptiness, ad infinitum until there is only energy and no particles. This is our reality. But we’ve been persuaded that what we see with the limitations of our eyes is the only reality there is. Your body is a part of that perceptual system you have been conditioned to accept.

  Your task is to dissolve the barrier that separates these two aspects of your being. When you do this, you leap into the unimaginable.

  Helen Keller, who lived without the use of almost all her five senses, made a profound observation concerning the ethereal body: “It gives me a deep comforting sense,” she said, “that things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.”

  In childhood you probably could feel things without seeing them, as Helen Keller described. If you were not supported and encouraged to be this way by family or teachers, you abandoned those special feelings.

  In The Art of Dreaming, Carlos Castaneda describes this phenomenon in a conversation with his spiritual teacher. They are discussing these currents of energy that are available to all of us. When asking who experiences them, he is told:

  “Every human being does for that matter, but average human beings are too busy with their own pursuits to pay any attention to feelings like that.”

  “What do these currents feel like?”

  “Like a mild discomfort, a vague sensation of sadness followed immediately by euphoria. Since neither the sadness nor the euphoria has an explainable cause, we never regard them as veritable onslaughts of the unknown but as unexplainable, ill-founded moodiness.”

  On the path of the sacred quest you discover that the world you observe with your senses is not the only world there is. You become aware that you have a band of energy with you at all times, coexisting in every encounter of your life. This energy can help you make that leap into the world of spiritual consciousness.

  Stop paying so much attention to the superficial pursuits of your life. Learn to turn within and know higher levels of awareness. You need to become acquainted with this part of yourself and believe in the energy of the loving presence that is a part of you. You will be able to use it to fulfill your divine purpose.

  Suggestions for Releasing Your Belief in Physical Exclusivity

  Open yourself to the possibility of other dimensions of reality being available to you. Affirm to yourself that this is a possibility.

  Very few people believed in the existence of microscopic life before the invention of the microscope. There were zillions of tiny creatures swimming around in their own pool of reality, independent of anyone’s opinion about them. They exist now in your skin, your eyes, fingernails and hair.

  All of those things that you sense to be solid are alive with invisible activity. Apply the same awareness to this notion. You can’t see it, but you are an energy body and a physical body. Your double would like to introduce itself to you.

  Begin to pay attention to rushes of energy, feelings that you cannot explain, currents that you experience but cannot relate to outer experience. Start to notice the inner reality that you call feelings and try to focus on the invisible currents.

  Everything that you do, everyone that you meet, has an associated exchange of invisible energy. You can learn to store this energy. But first you must let go of judgment and notice the beauty in those people and events. Ultimately this will translate into love.

  Slow yourself down with moments of contemplative silence. Do nothing. In these moments, appreciate your body and all of your physical universe. Just be appreciative and notice the inner waves of pleasure that you are beginning to experience.

  It is like someone tickling you very lightly with a feather. A sense of pleasure. As a child you loved this kind of experience. Try it with one of your children or grandchildren.

  My children often ask me or their mother to tickle them this way. They become ecstatic as they enjoy the waves of energy up and down their backs.

  Relive those experiences in your mind. Create your own inner goose bumps. Soon you will make contact with the energy body that coexists with you at all times.

  BELIEF # 5: WE ARE SEPARATE AND DISTINCT FROM EVERYONE ELSE

  Our education emphasizes believing in sensory experiences. Such experiences seem to tell us that we are separate, unique, special and disconnected from each other. Very few of us learned that there is some kind of unity. The truth is that everything is linked, including you to all other beings.

  While on a speaking tour with my friend and colleague Stuart Wilde in Australia, I had the opportunity to have long discussions with him concerning this matter of our interconnectedness. In The Whispering Winds of Change, Stuart gives an easy-to-understand explanation of our connectedness. Read his words and let them dissolve some of your old beliefs concerning our separateness:

  We are all in a dialogue deep within the collective subconscious mind. That doesn’t mean you can’t be an independent particle out from the wave, it just means that we can communicate with each other…. Everything is linked…. If you come up with an idea that no man or woman has ever considered, the very fact you have had that thought will allow others instantaneously to think the same thing. We are interconnected because we come from the same place. Your body exists in the modern day, but its components are very ancient…. Every human came from that first compressed place as did every galaxy and all of the stars. We are one. We straddle time from its inception to this day.

  Stuart also describes in depth how our bodies radiate heat like solar flares out to about an inch and electromagnetic flares out about three feet. He calls this the etheric energy and believes we can train ourselves to see it in each other.

  The naked eye can be trained to observe this etheric energy by engaging the peripheral vision, which has been weakened over thousands of years of disuse. By tapping this etheric energy and training ourselves to use it, we can see the energy patterns of others.

  Stuart showed me how to do this by tapping into the etheric energy of those who were unaware that he was making this demonstration. Here is an example from his book (I can attest to the veracity of this; I witnessed him doing the same thing in Australia):

  Recently, I was sitting at a hotel in Hawaii. Between the hotel’s restaurant and the sea is a foot path that holiday-makers wander along, going from one end of the beach to the other. Sitting there at dusk with friends discussing the etheric phenomena, I started to lock on to the passersby—what I call “tapping.” I’d point out a passerby to my friends and then I’d tap that individual and make them turn toward me. I counted as I ran through about forty people. Only four failed to turn.

  In The Whispering Winds of Change, Stuart describes how to create this awareness in yourself.

  The notion of being a unified oneness defies our senses and most everything we’ve observed. We look at others and see
a distance. We conclude that because there is space, there is no connection.

  I spend a lot of time walking on the beach. I always marvel at the shore birds as they fly along the ocean surface in large groups. The entire group will turn left and then swerve simultaneously to the right, then swoop up. They appear connected, as if sharing one mind. I know that there is a connection, even though each bird appears to be disconnected. Some invisible energy permits them to move together as one.

  This invisible energy also connects you to everyone else. When you recognize this, you will let go of your sense of separateness. Once you are inwardly convinced of your connectedness to all, you will become aware of your ability to communicate with others through your etheric energy.

  Your knowing will reveal to you that your thoughts can be projected to the rest of the world. Your knowing will also reveal your connectedness to higher awareness.

  While reading the Rig-Veda (Hindu Scriptures) I came across a passage that clarified this better than anything I’d read before:

  Truth is one; sages call it by various names,

  it is one sun which reflects in all ponds.

  It is the one water which slakes the thirst of all;

  It is the one air which sustains all life.

  It is the one fire which shines in all houses.

  Colors of the cows may be different, but milk is white.

  Flowers and bees may be different, but honey is the same.

  Systems of faith may be different, but God is one.

  As the rain dropping from the sky wends its way toward the ocean,

  So the prayers offered in all faiths reach the one God, who is supreme.

  One light, many colors; one water, many thirsts; one essence, many shapes of human. But still we are all connected. Failing to see the connector with our eyes does not mean that it is not there.