Moving Toward Wholeness

By Jim Self Published Yesterday Mastering Alchemy with Jim Self Rating: 

 

Together we are becoming a unified consciousness within a global community.  The duality of opposites, black and white, East and West, right and wrong, us and them, good and bad, and male and female is changing.  The dividing lines are becoming less distinct.  We are moving from the third-dimensional experience of separation and extremes to a way of life that allows for many greater possibilities, connected communities and expanding ease and well-being.  We are in a shift.  We are remembering how to live in our fifth-dimensional consciousness while we walk in this third-dimensional world.

Not long ago western medicine was the only option for most of us.  Now complementary therapies such as Acupuncture, Shiatsu, Massage, and Reiki are part of the Mainstream.  Our social networks now include people across the globe.  Micro-credit and fair trade practices have given us relationships with people in Columbia who grow our coffee and others who weave our jackets in Africa.  There are many more avenues to effectively heal and reach physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.  The wisdom of the East is being blended with the knowledge of the West.  What was true yesterday is not necessarily true today.  Our wisdom and knowledge are transitioning into a new ‘Wholeness’.

There is a specific reason you are reading this right now.  You are contributing to this expanding ‘Shift of Consciousness’.  You have a purpose, or task, to accomplish that adds to All-That-Is.  You are a significant player in this unfolding game, and NOW is the time to step up and be the leader, mentor and healer that you came here to be.  

Another Tool for Change

One of the first steps toward fulfilling this purpose is to clear away the false beliefs that keep you from your task.  Many of these beliefs came from truths that were handed down to you by well-intentioned grownups along the way.  These truths never aligned with who you are and have kept you stuck in the third-dimensional game of limitation and mediocrity.

Freeing yourself from these limitations and returning passion to your life is simply a matter of building your awareness.  Ninety-six percent of making any change starts with self-observation, the simple act of becoming aware.  Start by noticing the situation you’re in.  Have a present-time curiosity and awareness of your habits, thoughts and actions.  Just notice them.  The next three percent of making that change is having the ability to laugh at what you discover about yourself.  No self-judgment, just amusement.  The final one percent toward succeeding on your path is to do something different, something very simple and easy.  That simple, one percent movement might be a smile, opening a door, complimenting a stranger, saying hello or otherwise contributing to the well-being of another.  Allow a new possibility, one that feels better, to become the next step on your path.  This starts a flow and invites the change you seek.  As you build a greater awareness, laugh at yourself and allow yourself to make very slight movements toward developing new habits.  The inner dualities and extremes will fall away.  From this new perspective you will begin to make new, clear, intentional choices and anchor the greater, wiser, higher part of your ‘Self' into your daily life.  Merging with the Soul; recognizing the answers to your questions.  You will be operating from a place of ease; and certainty, confidence, and grace will be yours.

A Shift is occurring.  It is grand movement toward a life of integrity, grace and well-being.  The transition between where we are and where we are going may be bumpy and challenging, but it is also very exciting.  Regardless of whether we embrace the changes or resist them, we are moving forward to a way of being that is closer to who we truly are.

      Jim Self is an international teacher, speaker and author. He has been a leader in the field of spiritual development for over 27 years. He offers us the Tools of Mastering Alchemy as a Way of Life.

This work is co-created with the Archangels, Ascended Masters and Teachers of Light. Free DVD and Free Tele-classes are available.

      Jim presents free local evening classes and a weekend seminar ‘Creating the Personal Power Field’ across North America. www.MasteringAlchemy.com (775) 851-8950.

Self-Acceptance and Compassion Using Diligence

From time to time on the spiritual path we find ourselves in a mud puddle of negative thoughts. This can be especially true when we are living in such challenging times. There is actually a gift in this mud puddle of ours if we choose to look more deeply into the murky waters.

Thich Nhat Hanh would call this diligence. In exercising diligence we are able to choose which seeds of thought we choose to water. For example, we might have a common human thought of impatience...perhaps at ourselves or others or both. We also have a seed of positivity and that would be tolerance and compassion for ourselves or others or both. We can choose to water either the impatience seed or the tolerance and compassion seed.

Of course, this decision making process means that we need to be aware of how we are feeling in the present moment. And that process requires that we have a practice of mindfulness. Being mindful and observing what thoughts are moving through us allows us to be the witness of our mind and to not to be pulled down into the mud puddle. 

We can instantly choose the peacefulness of compassion rather than spend time swimming in the mud. Or we can swim in the mud long enough that our aware is triggered and then we come back to the present moment again.......with a smile knowing that we received the gift of feeling impatient and we now choose another more positive thought to water.

My new website is almost ready. I will be offering Mindfulness Classes to those walking a spiritual path. andrea@andreaavari.com or www.andreaavari.com

Abundance

I don't know about you but "The Secret" didn't do it for me.  I found it to be lacking in the connection with my heart.  All the pictures of houses and cars and piles of money just focused on the objectification of money and did not help me to increase my vibration in connection with the Source. 

If you are looking for a program that helps you to focus your perception on the Infinite Presence within and recognizing that you are That, then perhaps it would be worth exploring the book and CD by John Randolph Price.  It is simply called "The Abundance Book."   (The book includes the CD).   He has a 40 day program of meditating on 10 beautiful passages about who we truly are. You repeat the 10 four times.  I am only on day 4 and it has made a profound change already in keeping my perspective in connection with Source.  

Let me know if it helps you.  Perhaps that is part of the gift in these challenging times....the opportunity to really change our thinking patterns.  

Four Sentences to Remember

Show up.

Be present.

Tell the truth without judgment and blame.

Don't attach to the outcome.

From Angeles Arrien's "Four Fold Way." 

Powerful sentences to be with in our practices.  Just breathe each one in and hold in your awareness and release with the out breath.   Beautiful.

The Art of Making Divine Compost of Your Life

Andrea Avari Stevens, Ph.D. 

In the wake of welcoming ourselves into the New Year of 2009 we cannot help but notice that a decaying process is taking place.  Under normal circumstances this process would seem in ecological balance to the rest of our lives.  Death and rebirth are but sides of the same coin.  Each is contained within the other.  But to those of us willing to pay attention to both our inner process and the outer reflected world, the energy seems to be flowing towards the disintegration of those patterns and structures in a way that challenges us not to grip our minds and hearts in fear. 

Normally we try to keep the compost pile out of sight over in a corner.  A beautiful process that is sometimes stinky and not pretty in its slimy disintegration is not something we place at center stage.  We appreciate the good work of the bacteria and fungi in breaking down the organic materials we supply to our pile, but we give them wide stance to do their important work.  

And now the decay is in our faces.  If we turn one way, there it is.  Twisting our head another way, there it is in another form.  Some days it seems as though it is coming from every direction.  We can feel overwhelmed by the rate and depth of decay.  Or we can embrace it.  Just as a compost pile needs to be turned over for aeration in order to encourage the process, so we need to aerate our compost pile of fear with love and gratitude.  

Perhaps we have lost money in the stock market, our home mortgage and/or our job is at risk, or we lost money moving into other currencies.  Financial institutions are failing and we don’t know where to put our money.  Ways of managing money in the past no longer make sense now.  Then we turn on the news and see and hear about people from all corners of the world suffering in some way.  A subtle kind of anxiety begins to surround us as we realize that the labor pains of this decay are deepening in preparation for rebirth.  

What can we do?  Remember who we really are. Know that we are Source.  It is not that we deserve abundance and creativity; we are that.  In our compost pile is the key to a new way of Being for us.  If we calm down and appreciate that what is not needed anymore is falling away from us, our strengths for new ways of creating become obvious.   When you hold the flower you also hold the compost or there would be no flower.  

Be gentle with yourself and others.  We are all the same energy of love at the core.  Have gratitude.  Give what it is that you want to get.  Move your energy by giving whether it be a smile or a dollar.  Recycle your own energy rather than constrict around the decay.  Be that which you would want to see evolve from the decay.  Be it now….Do not wait for other signs of love and peace to begin….this moment is waiting for you to choose.  Check in with yourself often.  Release any self-judgment by drawing it into your heart. 

Move your energy by breathing your composted energy in for transformation and exhale compassion and rebirth for yourself and all beings.  Step inward in meditation and extend your light of love to yourself and all others.  Step out physically and connect with others of like mind for support.  Love your compost.  Your unique flower is seeded within.  

Andrea's new website will be ready in the next few weeks.  She will be offering Coaching for the Awakening Spirit for those who would like support on their unique path of waking up.  There will be a free newsletter and messages from the soul as well as teleclasses and ebooks.  Her new book on creating soulful relationships will be published in 2009.  She is the author of "A Hit of Heaven: a soul's journey through illusion" which is available on Amazon.com.  

  

What is Love?

Timothy Freke, bestselling author and internationally respected authority on world spirituality, explains what Big Love is and describes how to experience the FEELING OF LOVE any time you want. 

What is love?

That is such a big question and so important. For me, my understanding of love is that love is how one must feel when we see through the veneer of separation that seems to divide us and connect with somebody (or with some thing or place or activity) as one with that person or thing. We experience this in our body - there's chemicals, there's good feelings, it's an embodied thing - and it comes from this recognition of oneness. 

I have a child, a little girl of 8 years old, and I love her to bits. Although she's separate from me and she has her own life and is a different person, and that's important, I also connect with her as one. So her joys are my joys, her suffering is my suffering, her dreams are my dreams... I love her. And that's what it's like for everyone that I feel that love with. So me for, love is how one must feel, and where it comes out - particularly with my work as a philosopher - is around a big sense of oneness one can have with life itself. You can come into a state where fundamentally you recognize that we are all one, we are all one with this moment and with the mystery of life itself. 

When you find yourself at one with All, you find yourself in love with All. Suddenly the teachings, that you'll find at the heart of every spiritual tradition from the beginning of time, around oneness and love, start to make sense. 

What the message is, is that if we can see who we really are, we can come into a state in which we are one with everything, and we find ourselves in love with everything. And then that expresses itself through our individual personalities in the way we live, because we live with love. Which means we feel connected with life, we feel embodied, we feel a love of what happens, but we also feel we want to be of service and ameliorate the suffering of life. Because love is much more than just a good feeling. Love is also suffering with others. 

In my own experience, this has made me want to step out and work with people who are dying, and to try and find areas where people are suffering and you can reach out and touch. So for me, love is oneness. "Oneness" on its own can sound dry - but it's not because when it's embodied, when it's a real realization, it comes with a feeling, and it's that feeling that makes it worthwhile. I call it Big Love. That's the word I use, because I love the word love so much. Big Love unites us with everyone and everything. And that completely changes the way that you live your life. 

How can we go about getting that feeling? Maybe some practices or some techniques?
Well, there's lots of things you can do to wake up to oneness and Big Love. One that is coming in through Love itself, is a technique that I use with people when we have our seminars, which is: 

Come into a stillness, come into a state with meditation, and focus on where you do feel that love quite easily. 
I mentioned my little girl, I could also mention my boy or my wife or my friends - people that when I focus on them, and I think about times that my love of them has been very obvious, I can focus in on those particular thoughts. And then the feelings start to arise from that and I can begin to recognize that feeling of love, that is so sweet and so powerful. I would go into Hell for this person because of that! That's how much I love them. 


That's a very powerful experience and as you focus in on it, you start to invoke it, as it were. And then having done that for a little while, once you start getting those feelings, then it become interesting to play... what if you try and expand that. Don't just stay where it's easy but start with somebody I have no feelings about. What about the postman, somebody like that. Someone I walk past in the street. A colleague at work I never speak to. Someone I'm completely different to because I don't have a relationship with them. Could it be that I can extend that feeling of love to embrace them also? I think it's possible. 
If you look at a person, here's a human being, they are full of joy and suffering just like me, they've got a journey just like me, and they are essentially the same mysterious being, their essence is also our one shared essence. If I connect through that, I can start allowing that sense of love to arrive. Now, it's a different sort of love because it's not personal, I don't know them as a person, it's a kind of impersonal compassion, but it's love nevertheless, and it's powerful and very beautiful. 


Now if you allow that to arise for a little while you can ask: what happens if we take this another step? What happens if we try something much more difficult which is to say, could I embrace with that impersonal compassion, that Big Love, somebody that I really find quite difficult, or even someone that I've exiled from my heart, somebody who's hurt me or I've fallen out with? This is a difficult part of the practice but very rewarding - to look at what's holding me separate from this person, really. And I can see that everyone has their side of the story, this person has had an experience of life which has lead them to behave in ways which I may find offensive or difficult. But you can reach back into the person - to the little child that's inside everyone, who could be innocent, who's gone on this life journey and ended up in this mess, perhaps. 
I don't have to approve of them and what they've done or any of that, I just need to connect through everything which is in-between us, in love. And then you can love your enemies, as is said in the Christian tradition. Which is an incredible thing to say, a beautiful thing to say, "Love others as yourself," even to your enemies, because we're all one Self. That's the Oneness. So you can see through it now. 


So you play with that for a while, then finally (and this one is often even more difficult for people) do the same with yourself. What happens if I include myself in that big, spacious unconditional love? OK, there's a whole load of things about myself that I find really difficult, that I don't like and give myself a hard time about, but to reach deep within myself to that innocent child inside, to the essence of a pure being, and say there it is. Connect as one with it and hold "myself," just as I am, in a warm embrace... in that feeling of Love. 
That simple, four-part exercise, starting with something you find easy, then something which is a stranger, then someone who may be exiled from your heart, and then yourself. I find that a very powerful way to open from the love that we find easy to this Big Love. 
Actually each step is like a relief. Anything which you're pushing away, anything that you can't love - the barrier breaks down. And let me make it clear here, I don't mean like - liking and disliking is a different thing altogether - but love, in the sense that I mean the word, which is that which embraces everything just as it is. It's just unconditionally embracing things, because they are, or because a person is. 

The Greek philosopher Socrates said it way, way back. He said you come through personal love, through individual instances of love, until you expand and expand, and eventually you come to Love itself. And I think that is one way of describing the spiritual journey of awakening. 

Is that something you can do every day?
You can do it any time you like! I'm a great believer in integrating these things into your real life. So it's not something you necessarily have to make a practice of, although you can and I have done that, but it's something that if it's part of you, when you need it there it is. And the more you do it the easier it gets. But the key to all of this is that you're constantly moving beyond your separate identity to this deeper Self. 

I had my first awakening experience when I was 12 years old, and I'm now nearly fifty. During that time, my understanding of spirituality and awakening has changed completely - but the one thing that has stayed the same is that I know it's all about Love. That to me is the center. 

If the love isn't there, it's not right. When love's there it will be. It's as simple as that. It's the most important thing and it's the thing that everyone can get. Old and young... yeah, it's love. There's a lovely line in John Lennon's song Mind Games, "Love is the answer and you know that for sure." It's so audacious to say to people, "you know it for sure," but there's something in me that says, yes we do know that for sure. Actually it's the one thing we know. If we are connected to ourselves, then the one thing we know for sure is that this journey is about love. So how we can move into that, is such an important question. 

"Love is the answer," is an old message, it's been there since the beginning of time - people have been saying it, "Love is the answer, love is the answer," and it is, but also though, love is the problem, in a sense. It's important to get that too because so many of the terrible things we do to each other, in our everyday lives and around the world on a global scale, we do because of love. We love our family and want to defend our family and so we're willing to hurt somebody else's. We love our tribe so we're willing to hurt somebody else's. We love our religion so we're willing to hurt somebody else's. 

A love which binds us to separateness can actually limit love. There's something about love that must keep expanding and have no limits, because when it becomes caught in separateness it can actually become it's opposite and it starts to be destructive. There's so many examples but one which pops into my mind right now is the gentleman who was in a wheelchair, Amas in Palestine. He was loved by the people of Palestine and the Israelis bombed him and killed him. He was loved because he set up schools, he cared for the homeless, he cared for the disadvantaged, he loved his people and gave his life selflessly to serve his people. But he also killed Israeli babies and was able to do that because of how much he loved his people. 

That's the contradiction we get stuck in with love: when we limit it there are problems. The love of self, when limited, is selfishness. It all comes down to the question, is our love limited, or is our sense of who we are so expansive and so open that we can love everything and everyone, even with our enemies? Then, Love is the answer. 

So I'd say, Big Love is the answer because it frees us from a limiting, self-orientated attachment that could actually stand in the way of what Love truly is. 



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Holding the Light in Times Like These

Andrea Lee Avari, Ph.D.

“The times they are a’changin”, words by Bob Dylan seem as apropos today as they did years ago. But back then we were under the impression that all that was happening was outside of ourselves. There was a sense of “us” and “them” whether it was the Vietnam War, drugs, feminism, or living the hippie lifestyle. We knew ourselves by the length of our hair. And we knew who to blame for our discontent.

In present time as we are growing our spiritual perspectives every day, we can see that all changes really occur within ourselves. The duality of “us” and “them” was and is an illusion. The global crisis is a reflection of our own inner natures. Self-responsibility asks us to observe how we know our power. How do we see money as a tool of power? How do we see ourselves as the locus of abundance? Do we still see ourselves as undeserving of abundance in some degree? Or do we see that as we are Divine in nature, so are we abundance itself?

Or do we react in fear using only our linear mind to try to figure out how to protect our money. Do we feel victimized by the “crisis situation”? Do we feel as though something has been done to us? Do we look to blame others for our fears? Do we think that our safety lies outside of ourselves? It is important to remember that our power lies in our remembrance of our connection to our soul and therefore, to spirit. Power lies not in the paper money, the gold, the stocks and bonds, the bank but within our own beings. External power is a reflection of that internal process. If we don’t like what we see, we must look within ourselves.

We can know that we are safe by simply remembering who we really are. Zoom our perception out of the small picture of our egoic self ,“I”, that part which is worried about what to do about our money. Breathing the relaxed breath and focusing on our higher selves we begin to feel the loving energy of our soul. As this energy moves through us, we calm into a more peaceful state. In this vibration, we are much more able to access our intuition. This connection assists us in feeling what might be appropriate action to take in any situation, if any, resonates with us, giving us guidance.

Now is a time of the crumbling of the old structures of organization. Many of these structures were built upon unbalanced power, a dominating, patriarchal force that did not seek equanimity for the highest good of all. Because of the continuing influx of light upon the planet, the shadow of lower vibrations is losing strength. Death comes before rebirth and so the new structures are not yet formed. This process can lead to anxiety.

We are learning to trust ourselves in a deeper manner. We come bare and naked to the place of non-attachment and surrender ourselves to that which is. We have become comfortable and habitual around our way of living. We are being asked now to release old ways of being which can confuse us into fear.

As banks close or merge, corporations decline, our accounts diminish for one reason or another, our jobs may be at risk, retirement dreams are imploding, the stress of all the challenges can wreak havoc on our relationships. If we are stripped of all our assets, do we believe, in our hearts, that we will be still be safe? Security is self-love. It is not a fully packed IRA. A new learning for us is to know that we are co-creators of our lives. We are in school to remember to release any degree of thinking that money is power and security.

So what can we do? We can learn to be more present in our Now moments and use all of our senses to see, feel, smell, taste, hear the joy that is within and without us. You might have thought it would be a more grand solution but everyday joy lifts our spirits, connects with our souls, and lights up our smiles. Everyday experiences of joy zooms us out into the big picture of who we truly are. We remember why we are here on this grand experiment called life. It is to love and to live in joy.

Our perspective is our own choice: the furry caterpillar that is crawling across the road and rides to safety on our finger to find his/her fate among the grasses on the other side of the chosen path; the rainbow on the far off island that seems miles wide in its brilliant colors, shining all the way into the water at the edge of the shore. Have you seen the starlight reflecting on the still ocean at night? A beautiful shelf of mushrooms is growing vertically out of the moss on a side of a tree in the driveway. I can feel their peacefulness in doing what they were born to do. We can all have that peace.

But the ego says, how can I find joy in these things when I am worried about my house, my bank accounts, my job, my health insurance and all the other things that are swimming through my head? I need to not waste my time on silly caterpillars and it is important that I figure out what to do. The empty space of soul asks us to surround these worries with welcome. If we do not repress them, we can allow them to be as they are.

With an attitude of lovingkindness practice, we will find that the intensity of their demand for our attention diminishes. In that quiet growing peacefulness, we experience what we can learn from this “terrible” worry. Instead of misery, we can find a calmness in our hearts. In that calmness we accept what is.

We are not in control of all that is. We can be responsible for our state of consciousness. From that acceptance we can feel our perceptions shift into that place of knowing that we will be taken care of, we are safe, and we can find our way out of anything. Focus on the Divine within us and let it expand.

The Universe inside us will show itself to us through our own intuition and decision-making. Perhaps guidance speaks to us through a passage in a book or another person interacting with us. Something new will happen because we have loosened the reins on rigidity of things having to be a certain way. The Universal Energy of divine vibration is now free to create something new for us. The Universe wraps our gifts in surprising packages and perfect timing. What might it be?