Tag Archive for: awakening

Q & A Interview with the Edge Magazine

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I was featured in the March 2018 edition of the Edge Magazine. I’d like to share it with you to give you some background about how I became interested in hypnotherapy. This interview shares details about my work and also who I am as a person.

The article also gives me a chance to highlight the Edge Magazine and the valuable role it has played in my life. It’s a metaphysical magazine that has helped me grow and evolve over the past 25 years. It offers consciousness-expanding interviews and articles of practitioners on the forefront of healing and spiritually awakening.

Please enjoy the Q & A interview here!

 

The Awakened Way

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This earth life offers each of us precise opportunities to grow and evolve to our next level. It is happening whether we are awake to it or not. All the while, there is one master soul lesson, and that is to awaken to our truest and highest nature. One can find many people who are awakening these days if you look for them (hint: check out www.batgap.com). It reminds me of a quote by one enlightened woman, Neelam: “First things first…first awaken to who and what you are, then see if your problems still make any sense.”  Awakening is simply realizing and identifying with the part of you that never comes and goes, that’s always here and now, no matter what spiritual dimension you are on or physical life you are in. One of my favorite teachers of awakening, Adyashanti, says that this realization begins first in the head, then drops into the heart, and finally the gut and you fully know it because you are it. I am sharing with you an answer that was posed to Adyashanti about awakening. Please enjoy reading his response:

What is it like to live an awakened life?

“While the world is trying to solve its problems and everyone around you is engaged in the same, you’re not. While everybody around you is trying to figure it out, trying to arrive, trying to “get there,” trying to be worthy, you’re not. While everyone thinks that awakening is a grand, noble, halo-enshrouded thing, for you it’s not. While everybody is running from this life right now, in this moment, to try to get there, you’re not. Where everybody has an argument with somebody else, mostly everybody else, starting with themselves, you don’t. Where everybody is so sure that happiness will come when something is different than it is now, you know that it won’t. When everybody else is looking to achieve the perfect state and hold on to it, you’re not.

When everybody around you has a whole host of ideas and beliefs about a whole variety of things, you don’t. Everyone on the path is getting there; you haven’t gotten anywhere. Everyone is climbing the mountain; you’re selling hiking boots and picks at the foot in the hope that if they climb it and come back down, they may be too exhausted to do it again. When everybody else is looking to the next book, to the next teacher, to the next guru to be told what’s real, to be given the secret key to an awakened life, you’re not. You don’t have a key because there’s not a lock to put it in.

When you’re living what you are in an awakened way, being simply what you’ve always been, you’re actually very simple. You basically sit around wondering what all the fuss is about.

When everyone is sitting around saying, “I hope that happens to me,” you remember when you did that. You remember that you didn’t find a solution to that. You remember that the whole idea that there was a problem created all of that.

When you’re being what you are, when you’re living the awakened life, there’s nobody to forgive, because there’s no resentment held, no matter what.

The truth of your being doesn’t crave happiness; it could actually care less. It doesn’t crave love, not because you are so full of love, but because it just doesn’t crave love. It’s very simple. It doesn’t seek to be known, regarded highly, or understood. When you’re living what you are in an awakened way, there’s no ideal for you anymore. You’ve stepped off the entire cycle of suffering, of becoming; you’re not interested.

It’s a curious life you find yourself in. You find yourself… where you are. Not where I am, where you are. Where you really are. Where we really are. It’s a curious place to be (especially in the beginning) not to be driven by anything—pleasure or displeasure, helping or hurting, loving or hating. The only thing that will move you (and I don’t mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a tree. It’s simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that’s the way you go. You don’t ask questions anymore. You don’t evaluate why the breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don’t know why. And you know you can’t know why. There’s never been a leaf anywhere that knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That breeze changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment, simply because that’s the way life’s moving. And when you’re living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way it’s moving because it is the same as you are.

And you know that the breeze was always there, from the very beginning, and that it wasn’t reserved for special people. If you didn’t notice it at some point in your life, you know it was because you weren’t listening, or because you thought you had to figure something out before you could listen, or because you thought there had to be some conclusion before you could just listen so deeply, so without agenda, so without hope of a better future that you would feel the movement.

Many of you know what I’m speaking of.

Truth never explains why it’s moving that way at that moment. And if you ask, it won’t give any information. It would be like a leaf asking the wind, “Why are you moving that way right now?” The question doesn’t make any sense to the wind.

But your argument with the way the truth would move—whatever that way is—is no longer there for you. You’re no longer arguing with it. You’re no longer trying to figure it out. Mother Mary didn’t figure it out. Buddha didn’t figure it out. Ramana didn’t figure it out. None of them figured it out. They just became That. Simple. Ordinary—in the same way a leaf is ordinary.

When you’re living in your awakened being and living in an awakened way, power on any level is not an issue for you. It’s not interesting. The power to control another human being is not interesting. Intellectual power is not interesting. The power to control yourself is not interesting. The power that people want to give you is not interesting to you—not because it shouldn’t be; it’s just not. What would you want to do with it? You see that there’s nothing you want to do with it.

You realize, in the truth of your being, that you are the totality itself, but you have no interest whatsoever in doing anything with that knowledge, with using that knowledge.

Finally, you realize that you really don’t want to change anybody, not because you shouldn’t want to change them, because you just don’t. You might not want to be around everyone, but still you don’t want to change them.

None of this is an ideal—it’s the end of ideals. None of this is holiness; it’s the end of holiness. It’s the beginning of wholeness. None of this is something to achieve, because it’s not achievable. It’s simply what is in the truth of your being. It’s just what is. You can’t attain what’s naturally so. And nobody anywhere can ever tell you when or why, or to what degree you’ll let go of untruth; you will let go when you let go, usually when nothing else works.

When you’re living in the awakened way, in the awakened being that you are, you’re alone, and you’re finally comfortable with it. You’re alone, but you’re not lonely at all, because the only one who was ever supposed to meet you where you are—the only one who ever could meet you where you are one hundred percent—was you. Nobody else could ever fully meet you where you are—maybe ninety percent, maybe ninety-five. Nobody can meet you fully but you. When you finally do, then you don’t need anybody else to do it for you. Then you’re alone, more alone than you could ever imagine. And strangely—very strangely—you are more connected, more intimate, more at one with everything. More. And you would have never thought that those two could in any way be together: total aloneness and total oneness. You would have never guessed that that’s the way it would end up. But it does, and it always has.

And finally, when you’re just living in the awakened way that you really are, you’ll never form an image again of what it’s like. Even as it’s happening, you won’t form an image because you’ll know they’re all images, dust. The way it was yesterday won’t be the way it is today.”

What Must I Do To Awaken?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Sages will answer this question differently, such as “there’s nothing you can do to awaken” or “the ‘you’ that’s trying to awaken isn’t what awakens.” The following is an answer from Leonard Jacobson. Leonard is an awakened teacher who has been sharing his simple and direct way of awakening for the past 35 years. His book, Journey Into Now, is one of my favorites. Below is an answer that exemplifies much of the core of his teaching. Enjoy!

Question:

What must I do, what must happen, for me to AWAKEN and be free? How do I do this? Where is the moment from asleep to awake?

Answer:

To live an awakened life requires a deep intention on your part to be present. Every moment you have the choice. Will you choose to be present with what is actually here now, or will you choose to be in the world of the thinking mind, which is an illusory world of thought, memory and imagination. The choice is yours. It is up to you and no one else. No guru can help you. Spiritual practices will ultimately fail. The present moment is always available. It never withdraws and it never gives up on you. It constantly re-presents itself to you. In truth it never goes away. But you have to choose it.

The more you choose Presence, the more grounded you will become in the truth and reality of the present moment. The more grounded you are in the truth and reality of the present moment, the more you will experience the sacred and the divine in those ordinary moments. If your commitment is to being present, then there will come a time when being present becomes your natural state. The present moment becomes your home and you will have short excursions into the world of the mind, but you never go so far into the mind that you will get lost.

Everything that occurs within the world of the mind is of the remembered past or imagined future. None of it is happening now. If you become identified with your thoughts, memories or imaginings, then you take yourself out of the present moment. You take yourself into an illusory world and deprive yourself of the true life, which can only be lived in this moment.

If there are any wounds or limiting patterns or beliefs from the past, which are preventing you from moving into the present moment, then they will begin to surface and it is up to you to bring them into the full light of consciousness, so that healing and release can occur within an environment of unconditional love and acceptance.

If you are still having difficulty choosing to be present, then we will have to examine more closely what your ego is up to. What is it so desperately trying to hold on to? What is it afraid of? What are its tricks and strategies to keep you in its world of the past and future? All of these things will have to be brought to the light of consciousness.

A complete absence of judgment is one of the principal keys to awakening. Examine judgment in your life. It can be very subtle.

You ask where is the moment from asleep to awake. There is only one possible answer. Here!!! Now!!! Where else can you awaken but here? And when, if not now?

Remember that in truth, there is nothing but the present moment. In truth, you can never be anywhere else. The experience of being somewhere other than in the present moment is nothing more than an illusion which is created when you enter the world of the mind, and become identified with the story that is unfolding there.

In a way, it is artificial to imagine that you can awaken in any kind of permanent way. Even permanence is an illusion. There is only NOW. And so the question that constantly arises is “Am I awake and fully present NOW? And of course, that question arises and is answered in perfect silence.

Awakening is the simplest thing in the world. It feels so much better to be present rather than in the world of the mind. The present moment is the doorway to God. The present moment IS God. Why doesn’t everyone choose it?

Befriending an Unwanted Emotion

Reading Time: 3 minutes

It feels almost instinctual as a human being to avoid a negative feeling. If something from the past doesn’t feel good, it’s quite common and understandable to distract yourself from it through any number of ways such as using chemicals, overeating, overworking, etc. This may seem to help for awhile, however, the act of avoidance keeps it locked in your body/mind system, unconsciously influencing you in a limiting way. You may even to decide to deal with the symptoms of the unwanted feeling with medications or coping skills, which can be helpful. But there may come a time when you decide to heal and release the root of it. When you do, a key to releasing an unwanted emotion lies in the last place one would expect to find it…inside the negative feeling itself!

Where would you look to find the unwanted past that has a grip on your underlying feelings and beliefs? Although the past no longer exists, it can have a strong, influential hold on us. The body is a good place to look because it is a storehouse of old, outdated feelings that have not been given a chance to be fully articulated, expressed and/or processed.

In the paradigm of higher consciousness, unwanted feelings are not avoided, but instead viewed more as a small child nagging for attention because they are ready to be liberated from your body/mind system. As this happens, you become a freer human being…a clearer expression of your soul, rather than an expression of the fears from your past programming and conditioning. A negative feeling is simply a guidepost that informs us that we are out of alignment with our soul’s perspective, while a feeling of harmony and joy indicates we are in alignment with our soul’s purpose.

These days there are an increasing amount of emotional healing methods such as EFT, EMDR, Emotion Code, etc. The right fit varies among individuals. It’s important to note that healing is a process that happens in layers. A triggered emotion means you’re ready for the next layer to release. I often use a light trance method that is a combination of effective techniques called the Emotional Healing and Awakening session. It’s a process that’s best done with a guide who can keep your focus anchored in the present moment. When you permit a negative emotion to be your guide, it illuminates the unconscious beliefs it operates from, as well as where it originated. The key is to place your full attention into that negative emotion. As a result, the past is then reduced to a sensation in the body. The moment you fully feel it in the body, you have switched from thinking mode to feeling mode, and you’ve become anchored in the present moment. When anchored in the present moment, you can access the subconscious mind, thus uncovering the unconscious beliefs that this emotion operates from, as well as allowing it to point toward any situations, events or circumstances that contributed to this feeling. With your will and intent, you can send the negative energy out of your body and recover the part of you that was lost when you took on that negative emotion.

Here’s an example: A man came to me with debilitating anxiety. As he fine-tuned his focus on it, he could feel it most in his stomach. Often, I ask the client to give the emotion a voice and let it say what the feeling is. “I feel fear,” is what it said. I had it continue…”I feel most afraid because…I might make a mistake.” Again I had the feeling continue, “And that means…I’ll be judged and criticized.” “And that means…I won’t be loved, and I’ll be all alone.” In this manner we got to the subconscious beliefs which were lying beneath the anxiety, and were fueling it and locking it into place. Next, we allowed the anxiety to guide his awareness to the scenes and situations earlier in his life that caused the feeling. The scenes all related to a father who would not tolerate mistakes, thus it became imperative for him to not make a mistake. These tense energies from early events had been trapped and replayed in his body for years, creating a pressure-cooker effect that exacerbated his anxiety. As he focused and felt the feelings from the past in his body, he could then release them from his body/mind system, and bring in the part of himself that was covered up and lost when he took on the fear-based energy. After then doing healing work on the timeline of his life, his body steeped in the lighter energies of freedom, strength and confidence, and these positive emotions became more strongly embedded in his subconscious mind and in the cellular memory of his body.

Our negative feelings are not who we are, but who we are can observe, understand, release and heal them with intention. As long as we fear and avoid them, they will enslave us. But when we allow them to guide us to what wants to be acknowledged and no longer hidden within us, we can liberate these negative energies from our body/mind systems, enabling us to live from the true freedom that we are as souls, and which we can never really escape from!

What Is Enlightenment?

Reading Time: 7 minutes

I would like to share an article by Neile Donald Walsch, author of the ‘Conversation With God’ series. He has a way of articulating deep concepts and ideas in a simple manner. I enjoyed his thoughts on Enlightenment and I hope you do as well! Here’s Neile:

 

Let’s talk about Enlightenment—that elusive magical mystical experience for which many people seem to be searching.

We have not only been search-ing for Enlightenment, we have been searching as well for a definition of Enlightenment, because we know intuitively that we can’t get to that destination until we know where we are going.

And so the first step for most human beings has been to try to define what Enlightenment is, or what it looks like, or feels like, or what it is like to experience that.

As we look around us in this world we see that many “Paths to Enlightenment” have been suggested, recommended, created, expressed, experienced, shared, and put into the space of our collective lives.

The Buddha said that he knew a way to Enlightenment. Bahá’u’lláh said that he knew a way. More contemporarily, Paramahansa Yogananda said that he knew a way to Enlightenment.

Yogananda taught in the West from 1920 until his death in 1952. He published his life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, in 1946. and created the Self-Realization Fellowship.

When Yogananda, or Master, as he was called, came to America he brought a technique for “self-realization,” which was his phrase meaning Enlightenment.

“When you realize who the Self is,” he said, “you become enlightened.”

You are more aware. You are more at peace with the world. You are internally serene, totally content, and thus, wonderfully empowered . . . in a quiet, gentle sort of way . . . to move through life, to experience Divine Presence in you, as you.

Yet how can we arrive at this place of Self Realization?

Well…God says, “No one calls to me who is not answered.” And I believe that each of us will be answered by that which we call Divine, in the way which most effectively responds to the vibration that we hold and create from the center of our being.

For Paramahansa Yogananda, the way was, chiefly, meditation. But God says that God, or Divinity, or Enlightenment, if you please, appears in the lives of every person in a form that is most appropriate to their background, their culture, the level of their desire, and their willingness.

So there are many disciplines: physical disciplines, mental disciplines, spiritual disciplines, and some disciplines that involve all three — the body, the mind and the spirit.

We spoke of The Buddha earlier. One day Siddhartha Gautama — the man who came to be called “Buddha” — said:

“I’ve tried everything. I’ve done all the physical discipline, all the training, all the exercise, all the starvation, all the diets, all the fasting, and all the meditation. Now I’m just going to sit here beneath this tree and I’m not getting up until I’m Enlightened.”

And there he sat, doing nothing. No exercises, no meditations, no fasting, no nothing – – just sitting there doing absolutely nothing.

Now that is hard for many of us to do, because we think there is something we are suppose to be doing in order to be Enlightened.

Suddenly Siddhartha said with a start: “I’m Enlightened.” And people came to him and cried out, “What did you do? What did you do? Teach us, Master! You have become the Buddha, the Enlightened One. What is the secret? What did you do?”

And the Buddha said something quite extraordinary, which I paraphrase here: “There is nothing that you have to be, do, or have. Simply BE what you have always been . . . and don’t deny it.”

Imagine. After all that time. After the life he had lived and all that he did and saw. After all the luxury and then all the self-denial, after wearing a silk shirt and then a hair-shirt, after thoroughly satisfying his body and then starving his body, after no spiritual or physical discipline and then tons of discipline…after all that time, he realized it was not about doing or having anything, and it was not about not doing or having anything. It was about the middle way.

It was about just living life, non-attached to anything in partic-cular. Not attached to your luxuries and joys, and not attached to your poverty and tragedies. It was not about any of that.

It can be if you want it to be. It can be if that is what suits you. It can be if that is your path, but it is not necessary to be, do, or have anything in particular.

The Buddha said, in effect, “I’m Enlightened because I have realized that Enlightenment is knowing that there is nothing you have to do to be Enlightened. Just be your True Self.”

Isn’t that interesting? Think of all the effort that people are putting in, with years-long programs and trainings, only to find out that Enlightenment requires nothing at all — except letting go of what you are not.

What you are not is anything that is not Love.

I hate to be so simplistic here, so predictable, but Who You Are is Divinity, physically expressed — and what Divinity is . . . is Love.

If you simply love everyone whose life you touch endlessly, unconditionally, with nothing needed or wanted in return (what can God possibly need in return?), you have become Enlightened, you have achieved Awareness. AND . . . you have shown everyone else how they may do so as well — as fast as any other mental system or spiritual discipline that exists, like that.

As fast as Transcendental Meditation, like that. As fast as joining the Self-Realization Fellowship, like that. As fast as taking est, like that. As fast as Brain Education and Dahn Hak and Vibrational Attunement and any other process or mechanism or path you can name.

And if you learn to love yourself unconditionally, as well as everyone else, you will heal your entire self without lifting a finger.

Now I want to discuss this thing called health, because many people believe that you are not enlightened unless you are in good health.

Does Enlightenment mean being in good health? And what is “good health” anyway? Is good health having a body that has nothing wrong with it? Is good health living until you are 90 or 100 or 200 or 500? ?

Ernest Holmes was the founder of Religious Science, and wrote a book called The Science of Mind. He was said to have found the way to create a perfect and wonderful life. Yet he lived only until he was 73. Why did he not live longer, if he was so spiritually “healthy” and aware? Half the people that I know have lived longer!

Is Enlightenment, and “good health”, having no pain and nothing malfunctioning with your physical form? Is good health the absence of anything that is not perfect in your physical experience?

Or — now listen to this carefully — is good health being very okay and in a place of joy and peace no matter how things are?

What is health, what is optimum health, if it is not happiness?

I know people who exercise every day, lifting weights and running and working out, eating well, doing all the right things, and their bodies are in great health, but their hearts and their minds and their souls are very ill and desperately sad. They are incomplete, unfulfilled, unexpressed, and deeply unhappy.

And I know people who are hardly able to lift a toothpick, their bodies are in such bad shape . . . but their hearts and their minds and their souls are bright as a shining star, and they are happy.

I know such a man, whose name is Ram Dass. Do you know of whom I speak? Ram Dass is a Master, and I was vastly privileged to have met him personally. He has taught many people for many years. He wrote a book called Be Here Now, among others.

A number of years ago now, Ram Dass had a stroke. He was a young man; he was only 63 or something like that. I met with Ram Dass after his stroke, in a hotel room in Denver, and I want to tell you something. I’ve never met a healthier man.

I sat in that room with a Master. I said, “Ram Dass, how are you?” And he sat there in his wheelchair and said very slowly and very carefully, “I am won-der-ful.”

He had to pronounce each syllable as if it was a separate word. His mouth, his tongue, couldn’t work any faster than that. But he looked at me and smiled and said, “I-am-won-der-ful.”

Now that’s health…that’s health. That’s peace. That’s joy. And I cried. Not for Ram Dass. Who would cry for a person who said something like that? I cried for myself.

How could I have missed it? How could I have walked right past this wisdom for so many years?

In the end,. We came here to understand Who We Are, and to experience it.

We did not come here to somehow “get better” or to “work on our stuff.” Consider the possibility that all the work you will ever need to do is finished. All you have to do now is demonstrate that. Ernest Holmes left when he left because he had demonstrated what he came here to demonstrate.

So this moment is the moment of your liberation. You can be liberated from your life-long search for Enlightenment. You can be released from any thought that it has to look like this…no, no, it has to look like that, no, no, you have to get to it by this path, by that program, by the other process or activity.

If Enlightenment is outer joy and inner peace, outer ease and inner tranquility, outer consciousness and inner awareness, and you are experiencing that — then you have found Enlightenment.

So set yourself free today. Stop working so hard on yourself that you don’t even enjoy it anymore. Do what works for you, but make sure it brings you joy.

Enlightenment is EnJOYment. It is the pouring of pure joy into Life.

Now here is what I know will bring you joy. Decide that the rest of your life — every day, every moment, every word — is something that you will share with everyone whose life you touch in a way that ensures that they will know there is nothing they have to do, nowhere they have to go, and no way they have to be, in order to be loved by you right now.

Let them know that they are perfect just as they are, just as they are standing there.

Spend the rest of your life giving people back to themselves, that they might love themselves, and know that there is nothing they are lacking, nothing they are missing, nothing they need, nothing they are not.

It has been said that the other is your mirror, and you will see there naught but what you see in yourself. Yet I tell you this. Do not wait to see yourself as perfect before you see The Other as perfect. See The Other as perfect first . . . then you will see perfection in yourself.

Forgive the other first, then you will forgive yourself at last. Do unto others as you would have it done unto you. This is the Law and the Prophets.

For there IS no Other, save You. And when you know this, you save you. You become . . . your Saviour.

What I am talking about here is simply sharing love, which is who you really are. And if you learn and choose and decide to share love — endlessly, unconditionally — with everyone, you will find that there is nothing else to do to seek Enlightenment. You will have achieved it.

So, with that as our determination and that as our choice and that as our decision, let us join together and experience our own ‘Enlightenment’.

The Challenge and Rewards of Ascension

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Here’s a short article I submitted to the Edge magazine regarding the topic of Ascension. Please enjoy!

While meditating, a vision appeared to me: a multitude of people were climbing up the terraced steps of a pyramid-shaped mountain, covering all sides of it. They represented humanity on different levels and places in their evolutionary growth. Some were being helped up while others were turning around and pulling up someone below them as they made their way to the top. I realized this vision symbolized what we are striving to accomplish as human beings on earth…we are moving from the sleep of ignorance to the dawn of awakening of who and what we really are…our journey toward Self Realization. It could also be framed as path leading from suffering to bliss. This is a journey that we are all on whether we are aware of it or not. At this point in our human evolution, most of us are not aware in this moment that we are actually brilliantly free spiritual beings having a human experience, although that is rapidly changing along with so many other things these days.

As I journey on my own path of awakening, guiding some while being supported by others, ascension for me means becoming more fully present here and now in the body, feeling the richness of emotions as well as the myriad expressions of the senses. However, this is impossible to do for long periods of time because our thinking mind mostly operates from the past and pulls us into the future. Overcoming this dilemma of trying to maintain full presence then becomes a matter of proper identification – no longer identifying with our fluctuating emotions and thoughts, but rather with that which never goes away, the deeper sense of life and ‘beingness’ that is hidden within each one of us. Being fully present goes hand in hand with becoming more aware of who and what is always present in the body – our spiritual self.

When we only identify with our human self and the thoughts and feelings that rise and fall within us, we unconsciously operate from the conditioning and programming of our past. Frequently, painful emotions are avoided. However, the act of avoidance locks them in a repeating pattern within the body/mind system, while permitting them to be fully felt allows that emotional energy to pass through. When you know and identify yourself as the life that animates the body, when you know that as a soul you are role playing here and can never ultimately be harmed, then even painful emotions can be fully felt and understood not only as a different vibration in the body, but also as part of the rich human experience. By embracing all of our negative or painful emotions and releasing them in a healthy manner, we no longer are unconsciously influenced by them in a limiting way, and thus a filter falls away as we become clearer and lighter vessels for our soul to shine through. This process is one avenue or by-product of ascension.

After my vision, I wanted to commit it to canvas, but my artistic abilities stop at anything beyond a stick person. However, at a Christmas party, I met Laura Ungs who specializes in painting the concepts that people have in their minds. That beautiful painting now hangs in my office, a fitting place because my therapy practice focuses on guiding my clients to release and heal their limiting beliefs and emotions that were planted in the past, but continue to affect their present. Once the old programs are released or seen through, clients are no longer unconsciously governed by their limiting emotional patterns and they become freer beings. This healing then creates a ripple effect through the interactions of all their relationships.

This reminds me of a quote from Paramahansa Yogananda: “When you heal yourself, you do your part in healing the world.” As we become clearer and clearer vessels, no longer operating from our limited past programming and conditioning, the light within us, our true self, shines through our interactions with others in many ways. Ironically, the further we ascend the more beautiful and safe it becomes to be fully here and now. When we awaken and identify with our higher dimension that transcends space and time, we realize it has always been with us every step of the way…and ultimately it is who we are!

sunbeam

Past Life Regression to BodySound Chairs: Support for Awakening

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Past Life Regression to BodySound Chairs:  Support for Awakening

As human beings, we are in an unprecedented time of awakening and growth. Computers, cell phones, weaponry, you name it, with new inventions obsolete at an increasingly faster pace as we awaken to more advanced ideas and technology. This exponential growth is also apparent in the realm of consciousness, as a significant number of people are beginning to awaken from the sleep-like trance of the ego-identified state of being, and into a natural, transcendent and permanent part of their selves that is not governed by fear and separation. For most of us, this process comes in stages like a slow progression, but on rare occasions such as with Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie, the jump from inner turmoil to freedom can happen quite spontaneously and intensely. For those who aspire to awaken to what they already are, certain tools can assist to realize more fully their true selves that lie beneath the surface of the fears and the illusions of separation that helps create this human experience.

What obscures the connection with our natural free being? It is our identification with the steady stream of the mind — our subtle thoughts and beliefs, both conscious and subconscious. Identification with our mind is normal, of course, but it is also the reason behind 100% of our suffering, according the Buddha. Most of us do not realize that there is an aspect of us that is free from this thinking mind. However, when we finally do, it feels noticeably ‘more awake’ because it can observe this chatterbox mind. As the mind quiets through various practices like meditation and others mentioned below, there can be an increasing awareness of limiting subconscious thoughts and beliefs. As a result, a subtle gulf gets created between ‘you’ and this thinking mind. This slight, elusive shift marks the beginning step in the journey from bondage to liberation. Who or what is this constant observer that can notice changing moods and thoughts whether at 5 or 85 years of age? Who or what am I? This is the ‘self-inquiry’ question which sages encourage us to ask, because, if you seriously inquire, it will stop the thinking mind since there is no answer that the thinking mind can comprehend. What’s left is pure unfiltered presence/awareness…a dimension of our being that is firmly rooted in the eternal present moment. Like a movie screen that holds ever-changing images, this same presence/awareness is a backdrop for the ceaseless flow of content from our minds.

You can find many awakened sages on youtube these days. One of them is Leonard Jacobson, sage and author of Journey Into Now. “We live our lives according to our unconscious beliefs,” says Jacobson. We can’t let go of the beliefs that limit us until we become aware of them. If you want to find a false belief that limits you, you can usually find one under a negative emotion that you’re trying to avoid. Adyashanti, another sage and teacher, suggests that a primary spiritual practice could be to allow whatever has been long repressed and denied within ourselves to be finally seen and felt in the light of our full consciousness. Then, he says, the energy can release from your body/mind system and be integrated into the fullness of your being.

This is where past life regression comes in. It is an effective tool to help in this awakening process because it leads to the discovery of our subconscious blocks if we set an intention for this to happen. PLR is far more than just seeing a past life. It’s about transcending the mind’s tendency to control in order to allow a higher guidance system to give you precisely what will help you move to the next level. You not only see a life that will expose a limiting pattern or belief, but PLR also helps you identify with the part of you that transcends the ego-based thinking mind. First, the information can drop into your awareness only when the analytical mind is ignored or quiet. Secondly, you begin to identify with and experientially feel the soul part of you between the lives after the death of the past life. As a result, a deep silencing of thought is noticed as you become solidly anchored in the eternal Now, free of the mind’s chatter and clutter. What remains is a clear, shining, free being of clarity and awareness. You become like a bright light bulb that has wiped away the mental dirt that obscured it, exposing the still presence of clarity, love and pure creative potential beneath it. During these moments, one can experience what it feels like to be free of their limiting beliefs.

New technology can also help on our journey of awakening. After 17 years of research, local neurologist and inventor Dan Cohen, MD, created a ‘BodySound’ chair, which combines layered sounds and music with synchronistic vibration and magnets. The result of a ‘BodySound’ chair session is profound relaxation with a conscious quieting of the thinking mind, thus increasing awareness of what it feels like to be free of the fear-based identity of egoic consciousness. It opens up the body’s energy system to receive greater flow while simultaneously setting the stage for limiting beliefs and conditioning to be noticed and released. Cohen then founded a non-profit organization, Global Institute of Energy Healing Technology (GIEHT), dedicated to using science and technology to promote the energy healing of humanity through research, education and practice. More information about GIEHT, as well as a symposium on energy healing modalities can be found at www.energyhealingtechnology.org. The symposium is on Saturday, October 18, 2014. The evening prior, I will be doing a pre-symposium event of a group- guided past life regression immediately following a BodySound session.

The common denominator between self-inquiry, past life regression, BodySound technology, and any other process that helps quiet the chattering mind is that it exposes the ego for what it is…a bunch of thoughts. More precisely, a circular pattern of thoughts revolving around an image of ‘me’, created from our programming and conditioning. However, a very real part of us transcends this image. The more we abide in this larger Self, the more our limiting beliefs and repressed emotions rise to the surface to become liberated in the light of our full awareness. As a by-product, we can more easily remain fully present in whatever moment this human experience gives us.

An Eloquent Description of Experiences with Past Life

An Eloquent Description of Past Life Regression

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Recently a client shared with me her narrative of her past life regression experience. I am sharing it with you because it such an articulate description of how past life regression can work. Describing your experience can be quite a challenge. One of the first things people notice after a session is the lack of words there are to describe the experience. There is a reason for this…words and language belong to the thinking mind in this physical dimension, and the entire past life regression experience can only be done when this conscious thinking mind is a silent, uninvolved witness. Therefore, information drops into you as a “download” of intuitive inner knowings and feelings along with some visual impressions, like a strong intuitive hunch. Words can only describe the tip of the iceberg of your experience. In fact, describing what is happening during your regression can feel a lot like multi-tasking. But the most important part is that as the conscious thinking mind gives up control of the process, an entirely new information flow is accessible….the same information flow that might give you a strong intuitive knowing about something. And it gives you precisely what will be of most benefit to you, even if you cannot fully articulate beforehand what that is. This narrative provides an example of this. Enjoy!

Past Life Regression

As a preacher’s kid, and pretty mainstream thinker all my life, I was surprised at 49 to discover a new fascination with the concept of reincarnation and past-lives. I was experiencing some pretty major changes in my life and was not handling them gracefully, so I decided to see if a past life regression would help.  I seriously didn’t expect it to be life changing, and before the appointment, prepared myself to walk away believing that in fact it was a hoax.  I could not have been more wrong.

I did three regressions and a life between lives session over the course of a year, and as time went on, I began to see patterns.  While I generally had specific things I wanted to know, the most valuable insights I received had nothing to do with my questions, but everything to do with what was deep in my heart.  The questions I didn’t know how to ask became the topic of the story.

There were many similarities between the different lives that I found are also themes in my current life.  In three of the four lives, there was a big kitchen table that kept showing up, and significant things kept happening around it.  Even today, I love to cook and feed people. That same big table sits in the center of our home, and life still happens around it.  My current husband was also my husband in two of my lives, and my current sister was my wife in one.  In all the lives, I lived in rural areas, and spent a lot of time outdoors, often gardening, which is also true in this life.

I expected that if this whole past lives thing turned out to be legit, I would find some kind of dramatic wisdom, but in fact, most of the wisdom had an elegant simplicity to it.  In one life, there was an epidemic of some kind in our village, and we had to move.  The major scene in that life was the conflict between my husband and me as we dealt with my fear of change.  By the end of the life, we had happily settled in a new place and raised our family, and I died very happy.  The lesson?  Change is ok.  Relax and go with it.  That lesson is not an earthshaking revelation, but at that moment in time, in this life, accepting change was exactly what I was struggling with, and had been unable to see clearly through my fear.  Experiencing the regression and seeing myself successfully navigate a similar situation allowed me to handle the changes that were occurring in this life.  I found a peace that had been out of my reach before the regression.

The regression that had the greatest impact on me was a life where I was a man who was unable to connect with people.  Because of my self-imposed isolation, when I needed my community to help me save my land, they were not there for me. I lost everything, became a bitter mean man, and finally died alone and depressed. To those around me, I looked like a cranky old man, but inside, I was lonely and in pain, with no clue what was causing it or how to ease the pain.  The heaviness of the depression I felt in the latter part of that life was something I will never forget.

Initially I thought the lesson was about the value of connecting with people and learning to work in teams, which I still believe it was, but there was more.  In the weeks following the regression, another theme also began to emerge.  Visiting that life enlarged my understanding of what compassion really is, beyond sympathy for the poor and downtrodden.  Since the regression, when negative behavior is directed at me, instead of feeling attacked, I see pain and fear.  Having lived that pain, I have a different perspective, and tend to feel compassion rather than anger and resentment.  I can’t change people’s behavior, but I can change my own, and find a healthier and more compassionate way to respond.  It has made a huge difference in how I work with people!

By far the most comforting result of these regressions is that I have lost my fear of dying.  Do I want to die now?  No.  But I have experienced death four times, and I can confidently say that it is not the end; it is just the beginning of another season in the eternal life of my soul.  Death, from the soul’s perspective, is neither difficult nor the end, and the place we return to, whatever you choose to call it, is a place of love.

What it means to awaken

What Does it Mean to “Awaken?”

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There are many ways to talk about awakening. In one sense, “awaken” means to shift from the identification with the ego self to identification with the spiritual self. The ego operates from all of the programming and conditioning learned through life experiences, while the spiritual self transcends the physical reality.

Keep in mind we are multi-dimensional beings…part of us grows and changes physically, mentally, emotionally and also as a soul. However, another part of us does not. What part of you doesn’t change? What part of you can say “I’m sad” when you’re five, and then 50 years later can say “I’m sad”? Who or what is this permanent “I” that can notice  feelings and beliefs that come and go? There’s a dimension of you that transcends your ego-based emotions and beliefs, as well as your body. As we awaken we begin to become aware of this permanent life within and yet beyond the form.

One result of awakening is freedom from the fear-based conditioning that the ego lives from and is governed by. Fear is a major component of the ego. Ego = Separation. It’s true that we have separate bodies, but it’s more true that we are souls using a body, and even truer that all souls come from the same one energy source. To fully awaken means to live from the One Self. Christ consciousness means oneness consciousness, and that is why Jesus was also known as Christ, and preached about treating others as yourself…because ultimately they are your Self.

Therefore, waking up is really a radical shift in identity, according to Adyashanti. To awaken is to begin to live from the vantage point of spirit, which is what you can never really separate yourself from because you ultimately are it. To fully awaken is to understand this first as an intellectual concept, then from the heart, and finally from the gut as an absolute inner knowing.

Another way of deciphering your ego self from your spiritual self is to view it through the frame that author Neile Walsch puts it. He suggests that all human thought and actions are based in either fear or love (ego or spirit). He articulates, “Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals.” He says, fear judges, is intolerant, lies beneath anger and holds onto it, whereas love empathizes, is tolerant and seeks understanding. Fear feels lack. Love feels wholeness, completeness, that all needs are met. Fear separates, divides, and is based on conditional acceptance. Love sees and feels Oneness. Love unites, and is based on unconditional acceptance. The communication of fear is vague, indirect and withholding of truth, whereas the communication of love is clear, direct, honest and specific.

Where does the love in your heart come from? You are not separate from it. It is there at your core when you peel back the layers of the ego-self. You can fully experience this with any deep inner journey experience like past life regression or life-between-lives, because the ego-self is rendered silent during these inward sojourns.

In closing, here is some pertinent wisdom from Tarun Sardana: “We don’t need a reason to be happy. We need a reason to be unhappy. Happiness is our real nature. When a seeker reaches the Self, bliss is experienced, as that is the very nature of the Self. To make a river flow, we need not give any instructions or reasons. We just need to remove the barriers that we have put up and the river will start flowing on its own because flowing is its very nature. In the same way, bliss is the very nature of the Self, one needs no reason to welcome it; just remove the barriers of the ego-self and the Self shall show up as Sat-Chit-Anand (truth-consciousness-bliss).”

To wake up is to know who and what you really are, and then to live from this place. It’s what we are all trying to learn, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Past Life Regression’s Greatest Attribute

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One of the most important insights that past life regression offers is the realization that you are an immortal being. This truth more deeply sinks into the subconscious mind as a result of connecting to the soul part of you that already knows this truth, and the trickle-down benefits are subtle, yet profound. You are a soul here and now, which means that you never die. Something that would significantly help the planet would be for individuals to wake up to their immortality. Evidence of our immortality is reflected in the thousands of cases of accurate past life recall.

As we deepen in the awareness of our immortality, it slowly dawns on us that we are merely role-playing here. The goal of this game of human life is to find lasting happiness. We search outside of ourselves for awhile until a turning point in the soul’s evolution steers our focus inward. As we deepen our search, we can experience peace, lightness and love, until one day we realize that these states are not states at all, but characteristics of the deepest part of our being, available when we’re free of the mind’s buzzing turmoil. Eckhart Tolle points out that the key to this freedom is to take the focus off of the content of our minds and place it on the eternal ‘beingness’ or pure, unfiltered conscious-awareness that provides the backdrop of all of our mind’s content…the part of you that can be aware of a passing mood or thought. Yet forgetfulness happens repeatedly, and again we identify with the human part of us that is burdened with our opinions and worries until we once again remember the truth of our being.

The human experience is one of forgetfulness, and also of getting lost…lost in the world of the mind and all of our beliefs about what’s true, about who we are, and things on the ‘to-do’ list. This is my challenge, as well as most of us.

A natural quality of waking up to the most permanent part of you is acceptance. As we live from surrendered acceptance, we can fully participate in the ups and downs that life offers without wanting to escape or be fearful. There is a natural acceptance of ‘what is’, even if it brings unwanted emotions, because it becomes safe to fully feel emotions. When you know you’re role-playing, any emotion can be a rich, textured experience, even the grief from loss. I know people who won’t allow themselves to love again because of the pain of loss. Past life regression usually unveils the illusion of loss, making it safe to love, and feel hurt, and then deeply love again. It also cuts through the illusion of fear, allowing you to know what it would feel like to securely live from your full potential, free of any limiting beliefs and subtle anxieties that hold you back.

A natural acceptance of other’s beliefs is an important, key by-product of identifying with our true immortal selves, given the diversity on our planet. Nobody’s beliefs or dogmas, including our own, need to be taken personally. It’s recognized that all beliefs are products of the human conditioning process, and who and what we ultimately are transcends all beliefs. Then we can accept one another. We don’t have to agree with or even like each other’s limiting beliefs, but there can be a recognition that beneath all beliefs there is something in common….we are immortal, we come from the same energy source, and we have each blindly forgotten this truth. Yet that’s not a problem, because it’s that way by design. It’s the play of the divine Oneness, also known as God’s “Lila” in the Hindu tradition, that we’re all a part of. The goal of this play is to awaken to who we really are, and therefore out of our judgments of ourselves and others. Adyashanti, an awakened teacher, says the best indicator of our spiritual growth is how accepting and tolerant we are with those of opposing belief systems. From the vantage point of the highest dimension of yourself, there is no effort to accept, you are acceptance itself because everyone and everything else is a part of you, whether they’re conscious of that fact or not. Furthermore, it’s impossible to be separated from this part of you, as it’s the backdrop of your beingness. It merely gets overlooked during the human hypnotic experience. A deep inner journey, whether self-guided or guided, can make this evident.

It has been said by many these days that it is imperative that we wake up to our immortality which transcends all of our worries and judgments about ourselves and others. When we can sense and know the sameness beneath our differences, then we can realize that we are all one consciousness, albeit lost and operating through seven billion unique filters of programming and conditioning, resulting in various degrees of suffering. The natural emotion that arises from this realization is compassion. The differences that divide can be washed away by a mere perception shift towards truth and away from the illusion that is mind-created. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” That which divides is illusion. In fact, the only thing that separates anyone from all of their divine qualities is an illusory thought and perspective. This is not a philosophy, but a truth that can be known only in one’s own direct, immediate experience. Deep inner journeys such as past life regression can help you remember not only the truth of yourself, but also offer a glimpse of the reality behind the trials of human life. What is the next level of evolution that your soul is nudging your personality to experience? Go within and find out.