Staring Into the Abyss

I’ve always had a propensity to look too deeply into the darkness of the world. It draws me in, and in a sense I love it. Most of us do.

I recall when I was young seeing a bootleg VHS of Faces of Death with my middle school friends. Back then we didn’t have the internet where you can now click a few buttons and see the most disturbing images possible. Simpler times.

Someone recently sent me an email that I can only describe as a proper psychic attack. When I opened it up there was a large image looking right at me. Definitely the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen, and to be honest it fucked me up for a few days.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation about it with a friend that the psychic energy of it began to dissipate, but the experience reminded me of my own lust for darkness, which I believe many of us have. It’s really the only thing that can explain to me why people can be so demented and cruel.

I never thought that taking in images of death and destruction were anything to worry about until in 2013 during one of my first journeys with the shamanic plant medicine Iboga.

Iboga is a fascinating experience, and I’ve described it as a lifting of the veil between the conscious and subconscious mind. You get a chance to see into the abyss within your heart and soul and ferret out the crud swimming around in there. And there is a LOT of crud in there.

During that journey I learned that every image, every negative thought, and every psychic impression you’ve ever consumed sits deep within the soul rotting and festering, coloring you darkly in subtle and not so subtle ways.

So many talk about trauma and the need to resolve the traumatic experiences of your past, but I’ve heard few discuss the traumatic effects of consuming decades worth of violence and death, both the theatrical crap we call entertainment and raw footage of real human brutality.

I’m thinking about this today because I received an email this morning from someone who recently took a job at Google reviewing disturbing content to determine what needs to be censored from the search engine. Her work has her routinely looking at the most disturbing stuff imaginable, and she’s having what I see as a spiritual crisis, and is stuck between the need to have a job and income and knowing that the work is disruptive to her well-being.

Jung talked about the shadow side of man, and how important it is to integrate this part of you in a healthy way in order to live a mentally healthy and stable life. We are shadow beings. We are drawn to darkness, because we are in part darkness. When you’ve learned how to appropriately integrate this energy in a healthy way, the deeper into the abyss you are willing to look proportionately expands your ability to see into the light. It’s a double-edged sword that requires intention and discernment to handle.

In other words, shadow exploration can be a path to personal growth and expansion, but when there is no consciousness to how one approaches the darkness in our world and in their life, it pushes the psyche out of balance, and, as I believe, creates conditions ripe for mental illnesses like anxiety, depression and other neuroticisms.

As a self-sabotage coach, I speak in depth about how the contents and programs in the subconscious mind are the source of your self-sabotaging behavior. The subconscious does not know the difference between reality, what’s on the TV screen, or even what you visualize within your own mind. When you’re consuming darkness intentionally or inadvertently, the subconscious sees it all as real, and you’re adding crud to your programs that will effect the way you feel, think and behave.

Nietzsche figured this out a long time ago…

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” –Friedrich W. Nietzsche

Protect your subconscious minds, people. It’s far important to your health, wealth and happiness than you may realize.

About the Author

Dylan Charles is a self-mastery and self-sabotage coach, the editor of Waking Times, and host of the Battered Souls podcast. His personal journey is deeply inspired by shamanic plant medicines and the arts of Kung Fu, Qi Gong and Yoga. After seven years of living in Costa Rica, he now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he enjoys serving, training, and spending time with family. He has written hundreds of articles, reaching and inspiring millions of people around the world. Follow Dylan on telegram here, and sign up for his weekly newsletter here. On Facebook.

Dylan is available for interviews and podcasts. Contact him at WakingTimes@gmail.com. 

This article (Staring Into the Abyss) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Dylan Charles and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.

Wounds as the Path to Awakening

What an utterly weird, amazing and utterly frightening time we are living through. Many people are walking around with masks on their faces, and yet inwardly we are all being unmasked. We are being confronted with all of the dark shadows inside of us—our wounds, traumas and unhealed abuse issues—that we’ve been able to postpone looking at up till now. All of these shadow energies are not only in our face, but behind it as well, which is to say that we are confronted within our very soul with the darkness of the world we live in, which is a darkness in which we all share. I am curious about how these seemingly darker forces in our world (which we see playing out all around us in the outer world) have to do with our inner experience of being wounded.

I can talk for myself. Since the advent of the global pandemic, I have felt even more intensely both the light AND dark aspects of myself, as if they are interdependent parts of a deeper process wherein one is evoking the presence of the other. Due to the feeling that there’s no time to waste—a sense of urgency—it’s as if the creative light-filled part of me has gotten more vibrant, while at the same time, the deepest darkness embedded in my unhealed wounds also seems stronger. The creative tension between the two—between the light and dark parts of myself—has correspondingly intensified to a practically unbearable degree. As my light increases, the darkness within me is simultaneously coming to the fore, making itself known to the point where it’s getting harder for me to look away from it.

It’s as if the light that I am getting in touch with is illumining everything in me that is not of the light, i.e., that is dark, which makes sense as the purpose of light is to reveal darkness. As I more deeply connect with the light of my nature, my subjective experience is that there is a seemingly darker force within me that wants to prevent me from connecting with my light at all costs.

Maybe this is just me, but I have an intuition that this is an archetypal, impersonal and universal situation. I find myself easily imagining that an analogous process might be going on for many, if not all of us (be it consciously or not). The question is: do we indulge in our coping strategies to keep these seemingly darker and wounded parts of ourselves at bay (food, drugs, Netflix anyone?)—which is ultimately to be avoiding relationship with ourselves—or do we unmask ourselves and turn to unflinchingly face the darker, wounded parts within us?

Our wounds are semi-stable resonance patterns of vibratory energy to which we have become accustomed as existing in a particular way. They are held in place by how we pay attention to and interpret them. If we intentionally start attending to our wounds in a new and different way we change their resonance pattern, i.e., the way they manifest.

Though the moment(s) of our wounding happened historically, in an actual moment in time somewhere back in the past, our experience of our wounds is something that takes place in the present moment. When we get right down to it, our wounds are not a hangover from the past (what in alchemy is referred to by the term caput mortuum - a residue left over after the distillation of a substance). The genesis of our wounds lies in the present moment; they only exist in the present moment. Our wounds are freshly constructed—with our participation—each and every moment, which is to say that it is only in the present moment that they can be “cured.” This is to say that we ourselves are complicit in the creation and re-creation of our present moment experience of woundedness.

At each and every moment that these unhealed, wounded and seemingly problematic parts of myself come up, I am confronted with two options. One is I can turn away, subtly avoiding them, which is to dissociate from a part of my experience (and hence split off from a part of myself). Once I do this, I have unwittingly granted my wounds an unwarranted substantial existence in which I’ve reinforced their “reality” (for if they weren’t real, I wouldn’t have a need to avoid them). In avoiding relationship with this wounded part of myself, however, I am unconsciously colluding with my wounds so as to sustain and perpetuate them over time, thus keeping them alive.

The next time my wounds manifest I then have all the evidence I need that I really have an unresolved problem, for if I didn’t have an unresolved problem, then I wouldn’t feel these wounds, as round and round my story goes. Once I solidify myself as having wounds, however, just like a dream, where the inner and the outer are mirrored reflections of each other, the universe instantaneously reflects back and supplies all the evidence I need to prove to myself that I really am wounded, which further confirms and validates my point of view of seeing myself as someone who has unhealed wounds, ad infinitum, in a self-perpetuating feedback loop whose source is my own mind.

If we can imagine the possible existence of “darker forces” that exist within the fabric of our universe, one of the ways these darker forces operate is to seduce us into getting hooked by our wounds. Once we fall prey to taking the bait and identify with our wounds, these darker forces can then exploit our feelings of woundedness so as to keep us stuck in our wounds. We are then unwittingly colluding with the darker forces that want more than anything else to keep us unaware of the light that we all carry. This process, which takes place in the present moment, is the real tragedy, far more tragic than any personal experience that happened in the past. Once we identify ourselves as being wounded, our wounds then instantly become obstacles to the light of our true nature (or more accurately, we ourselves become our own obstacles), instead of the portal through which we become familiar with our darker half and further introduced to our light.

Conceiving of our wounds as existing objectively instantaneously conditions us to be a separate subject—an object, actually—who is subject to our wounds. The story we weave around our wounds is an expression of how we relate to, experience—and create—ourselves. If we conceive of our wounds as objectively existing over time with their cause in the past, we concurrently conjure ourselves up and believe ourselves to be a wounded person who exists in and over time, and hence, as someone who is bound by time.

In contrast to thinking that our wounds are merely happening to us as passive victims, however, there is another perspective through which we can view our wounds that empowers us and allows us to receive their gifts. We can realize that our wounds are on-going events that we are actively participating in via our awareness (or lack thereof) that only exist—and are only ever experienced—within our present moment awareness.

This insight allows us to relate to our wounds as being ephemeral artifacts of our present perception, existing as momentary displays of our creative process in the moment we are experiencing them. From this point of view, the present moment manifestation of our wounds, instead of confirming our identity as being a wounded person with an objectively true personal history that supports our woundedness, are experienced as releasing and unwinding themselves via the very process of their arising. In other words, we can allow our wounds to manifest in the very moment of their arising as an evanescent, transitory and self-liberating revelation of what the moment before we had conceived of as existing in solid, substantial and "real" form.

A perfect symbol for this process is a mirror and its reflections. A mirror is a symbol for our true nature – it always remains imperturbably and unwaveringly the same, a presence of pristine clarity, unaffected by whatever reflections arise within it. Whereas the mirror symbolizes our higher self or true nature, the reflections, in our example, symbolically represent our wounds.

In the apocryphal text The Acts of John, Christ himself said, “I would be wounded and I would wound.” We could think of Christ being wounded as his appearance via the reflections in the mirror. In saying that he will wound, he is pointing out that our experience of being wounded is a numinous event. The birth of the higher self can oftentimes be a wounding experience for the ego. The problem is when we personalize our wounding, identifying ourselves as being wounded – we then tend to blind ourselves to the deeper transpersonal context in which our experience of woundedness is taking place. The reflections in the mirror, though inseparable from—and the unmediated expression of—the mirror, are not, however, the mirror. In this same passage, Christ reveals his true nature by saying, “A mirror am I to thee that perceivest me.” The mirror is only perceived through its reflections.

The forms of the reflections are imbued with the pristine purity of the mirror, yet if we overly focus on the forms without noticing the mirror which contains them and in which they are suspended, we also tend to not perceive the mirror-like purity of the forms. When we see the reflections that arise in the mirror, we then tend to either identify with them (becoming absorbed into the reflections, thereby thinking we are wounded), contract against them, dissociate from them, judge them, etc. – all of these reactions are investing the reflections (the wounds) with a greater sense of reality than they deserve, and hence, bestowing them with power over us.

If, on the other hand, we recognize the reflections that are appearing as being the impermanent display and unmediated expression of the mirror, and that who we are in all this is the mirror itself, we have then distinguished ourselves from the reflections while simultaneously connecting with our true nature. We have then revealed our mirror-like nature while at the same time creating ourselves anew in the process.

Even if we are momentarily taken over by and identified with our wounds, this embodied experience of self-identity (as a wounded person) is itself an ephemeral reflection arising within the mirror-like nature of our mind that leaves our true nature untouched. Any sense of a particular identity—wounded or not—is similarly a transitory reflection with no substantial independent existence from the point of view of the mirror.

The reflections (our wounds), though seemingly obscuring the silvered surface of the mirror (our true nature), simultaneously reveal it, for we wouldn’t notice the mirror without the reflections. A clear mirror is empty of all qualities except its ability to reflect. Yet, it cannot reflect itself, just like the pure formless state of awareness which underlies and precedes every state of ordinary cognition can itself never be the object of such cognition. If left to its own devices, the mirror would never enter our experiential reality; it needs something seemingly outside of itself (the objects it is reflecting, in this example, our wounds) to reveal itself.

The mirror and its reflections are quantum in nature, existing in a superposition of states, simultaneously obscuring and revealing the nature of the mirror. How the mirrored reflections (our wounds) actually manifest—as obscurations or revelations—depends upon how we relate to them, which is a function of our awareness in each moment.

A polished mirror is open and receptive to the world, invisible by itself were it not for the world seemingly outside of itself that is reflected within it. Interestingly, the philosopher’s stone of alchemy (symbolic of our true nature)—the healing panacea for what ails humanity—is said to be as clear and translucent as a diamond or a crystal, considered invisible to normal vision, called lapis invisibilitatus. The Self as a mirror is difficult to understand not because of its obscurity—it is literally staring us in the face—but rather, because of our unfamiliarity with a dimension of our experience that is ever-present and yet, is practically invisible because of its obviousness.

Just like the reflections potentially reveal something (the mirror) that is transcendent to themselves and is invisible by itself, our wounds are also potentially the revelation of an invisible part of ourselves (the Self) that is transcendent to our wounds. Our wounds contain the true gold (another symbol for the philosopher’s stone) that could not have been found anywhere else.

The reflections are the energy and pristine presence of the formless mirror manifesting and being expressed in form. Hidden, encoded within the conditional appearances that are the reflections, is the doorway to the unconditional mirror that underlies, contains and transcends the reflections. Similarly, hidden encoded within our wounds is the revelation of our true (unwounded) nature in disguise. When we recognize this, we realize that our wounds are not only the doorway to our true nature, but both its covert and overt revelation, simultaneously cloaked in shadow while openly revealing both our darkness and light.

Recognizing this instantaneously dispels the darker forces that are seemingly obscuring our nature, transmuting them on the spot into secret allies. Though our wounds are seemingly the manifestation of these darker forces, by breaking us open they can potentially let in and actively serve the light. Unwittingly helping us to deepen the realization of our true nature, these seemingly darker forces wind up connecting us with a higher form of light within us that transcends the dualistic notion of light and darkness as opposing each other.

We don't cure our wounds. They cure us.

(ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A pioneer in the field of spiritual emergence, Paul Levy is a wounded healer in private practice, assisting others who are also awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality. He is the founder of the Awakening in the Dream Community in Portland, Oregon. Paul is the author of The Quantum Revelation: A Radical Synthesis of Science and Spirituality (SelectBooks, May, 2018), Awakened by Darkness: When Evil Becomes Your Father, Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil and The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis. An artist, he is deeply steeped in the work of C. G. Jung, and has been a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for over thirty years.

Please visit Paul's website www.awakeninthedream.com. You can contact Paul at paul@awakeninthedream.com; he looks forward to your reflections.)

Sacred Agency

“Transcendence is the only real alternative to extinction.” ~Václav Havel, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1994

“We are cosmologizing the human.” ~Henryk Skolimowski, The Participatory Mind

Human consciousness has been on a long journey. Our awareness has shifted from the earlier archaic, animistic mode; to the religious and scientific; and then later to an industrial, mechanistic consciousness. Our ancestors did not live in the same world as we live in now, nor would they have exhibited the same kind of consciousness as we currently do. Consciousness is not a fixed phenomenon or static expression—it changes alongside the flows and fluxes of history, time, and environment.

An integral mode of consciousness began to emerge after the successive industrial revolutions that adapted a “machine style” perspective of control, power, and efficiency; and which eventually propelled global society toward excessive consumption and accelerated growth. This integral consciousness emerged parallel to a new era of technological innovation. That is, a consciousness that reflects dynamics of connection and communication across condensed time and space.

It can be said that we have gone from worshipping faith, then objective knowledge, to finally arriving at an understanding that everything depends upon the subjective self. Throughout this whole journey, like the hero that traverses through the underworld, we have ventured far in search of a mode of being – a state of consciousness and awareness – that can benefit us. A place of conscious self-awareness, which may be termed as sacred, has been present within humanity from the very beginning. It never went away – only we went away. This situation is similar to the behavior of individuals as observed by psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow noted how people step back from doing something important, believing others will do it instead. Somewhere along the way we made an internal agreement to stay back and not to overestimate our abilities. It appears that too many of us for too long have avoided being ‘fully human’ and content to remain as ‘only human.’

Regardless of how we may articulate it, the sacred presence within humanity cannot be denied as it is an expression of the evolutionary impulse. As such, it does not stop at transitional stages but is compelled to push toward ever higher states and degrees of consciousness. We are in the hands of a force that we can barely recognize. Throughout the long journey of our development human beings have been deeply involved in this sacred unfolding (for want of a better expression). What this means is that the transcendental yearning to go beyond one’s present state persists in each of us. All of this, our very humanism, should be an inherent part of our cultural mythology. Or at least should influence how we understand and perceive our reality.

Our experience of reality is never pure, but always mediated through consciousness in its various states of reception. The myths we hold as an individual, a culture, and as a collective species reflects our own state of mind. Unfortunately, humanity has for far too long considered itself separate from the cosmos. We feel as if exiled upon a dead planet somewhere upon the fringes of our galaxy. If we do not fully know ourselves it may be because our cultural myths (our narratives) place us within a cosmically isolated reality. To be truly integrated we must recognize that we participate not only upon the planet but also within a grander mythology. In other words, we should accept our responsibility as having sacred agency. After all, the history of human civilization is the history of ourselves as change agents.

Sacred Agency

The philosopher Karl Jaspers referred to the period from 800–200 BCE as the Axial Age. It was a time that, according to Jaspers, similar expressions of new thinking appeared in Persia, India, China, and the Western world. He indicated also that the Axial Age represented an in-between period, where old certainties had lost their validity and new ones were yet to emerge. The new religions that arose in this time—Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and monotheism—influenced new thinking in terms of individuality, identity, and the human condition. These new emerging religions helped to catalyze new forms of thinking and expressions of human consciousness. And yet, over time, we have seen how they were not wholly successful in establishing permanent developmental change.

Social thinker Duane Elgin has referred to our present time as the Second Axial Age in that religions of separation are being replaced by a new spirit of communion. Elgin says that the world is moving into a spiritual communion and empathic connection with a living cosmos. Maybe we are in need of being reminded that there is nowhere else to go when the cosmos already exists within us. This empathic consciousness that Elgin speaks of can be related to the emerging integral consciousness that reflects our increased interconnectivity through our global networks. This connects with our innate, fundamental drive to seek out communion and coherence. A mode of human consciousness that seeks coherence is itself a reflection of a universal natural order. In other words, it is a self-referencing feedback loop. And so now allow me to speculate.

My suggestion is that a purpose for sentient human life upon this planet is as a driver toward establishing a coherent planetary consciousness. In other words, to act as a channel to ‘bring in’ – i.e., receive consciousness – from the consciousness field and to manifest it specifically (that is, to project it) within our earthly reality. There is a correlation here with Aurobindo’s concept of the Supermind/Overmind, in that a form of higher consciousness can be made immanent upon the material plane. Aurobindo referred to this as human evolution moving towards a suprarational or spiritual age that exhibits an intuitive or Gnostic mode of consciousness.

The finer channeling of the consciousness field would require the adequate preparation of human receptivity. That is, our minds and even perhaps our nervous system would need to be sufficiently prepared in order to successfully actualize this potential. By raising localized aspects of human consciousness through individual perceptions and awareness we may better increase the coherence of consciousness amongst the whole—a form of collective transcendence through species consciousness. And this can be made tangible by local agents – i.e., each one of us – becoming aware and conscious in everyday acts of right thinking, right behavior, and right being. It is a mode of sensitive and balanced consciousness that comes only with considerable effort and discipline. This discipline forms part of the developmental awakening within each individual, and which then influences our perceptions and life experiences.

As such, we can come to recognize that we are no longer either isolated individuals or an inarticulate mass. We are localized consciousness acting through aware individuals who consciously seek to connect, collaborate, and care about the future. Each one of us, as localized consciousness, is a reflection of the grander nonlocal consciousness. And in this way each one of us is also a reflection of the other. No individual lives within a shell separated from everybody else, but each is connected to all through our conscious humanity.

What we are seeing emerge across the world is the early stirrings of a planetary civilization; one that is driving toward diversity and coherence. And as we connect and share our thoughts, ideas, and visions we will be helping to strengthen the signal or reception of consciousness and thus the bringing in of the grander cosmic consciousness. A planetary consciousness spread across the Earth may not only be a real possibility, it may very well be a fundamental cosmic purpose.

Human Purpose in the Sacred Order

Recent scientific discoveries indicate that our reality is coded from beyond cosmic space-time; and as such our reality behaves in a way consistent with what we know as a holographic projection. That is, the totality of our reality is in-formed from a deep consciousness beyond it. The known cosmos thus acts as a nonlocal consciousness field, of which sentient life forms as localized manifestations. It has been inferred through various religious and sacred texts, and various wisdom traditions, that the universe (material reality) came into being as a way for its source to ‘know itself.’ This is reminiscent of ‘know thyself,’ the famous maxim from the Oracle of Delphi. Or, in modern language, we can say that we are the eyes through which the cosmos contemplates itself.

Self-consciousness is generally attributed to those sentient organisms at a high peak of mental development. Self-reflection is one of the prized attributes of self-consciousness. Furthermore, self-realization is something we credit to each attained individual consciousness. A realization of the self is part of the path of human actualization. It is a path in which purpose and meaning are core drivers and potentials. Human beings – or we could say human becomings – are naturally driven by a longing, a purpose, and this signifies a connection with a sacred impulse. In our times human civilization has shifted into an unprecedented era of self-actualization. The psychologist Abraham Maslow, who originated a scale of self-actualization, recognized that one of the characteristics of self-actualizers is that they have far less doubt about what is right and wrong than normal people do, and they act upon this inner knowing.

As we further speculate, what would self-realization upon a greater scale be like? That is, self-realization as a planetary consciousness? Or as a galactic consciousness? What would a fully realized and self-conscious cosmic consciousness operating through all of its localized manifestations be like? This would constitute a state of coherent self-aware consciousness beyond our imagination. We can only speculate, or internally gaze upon the possibility.

As a recap then, human consciousness is a localized expression of the greater nonlocal consciousness field. As sentient beings we receive aspects of this consciousness that pervades our space-time. We are animated by it, and we then manifest this through our own minds and human cultures. Our individual expressions of consciousness also reflect back into the greater nonlocal consciousness field. The greater our individual perceptions and conscious realization, the greater the total realization of the entire holographic field consciousness (as if in a feedback loop). To put it another way, cosmic consciousness is ‘in-formed’ through the emerging awareness of each of its conscious subparts, or components. The art of the sacred then is that we each have a role in bringing the unfinished world into existence through conscious participation.

As each one of us wakes up (to use a common metaphor) the cosmic net shines that little bit brighter. If enough individual consciousnesses awake upon this planet we may catalyze a localized planetary field into collective conscious awareness. In this case, we are each a conscious agent of cosmic realization and immanence. We each have an obligation in our existence on this planet to raise our individual, localized expressions of consciousness. In doing so, we both infect and inspire others in our lives to raise theirs, as well as reflecting back our conscious contribution into the cosmic consciousness. In this way, we can act as both citizens of the cosmos as well as caretakers for the sacred order.

We have now arrived at a place where we can recognize and accept that our reality is not a static affair but an active, fluid realm that makes demands upon us. And in knowing this we are compelled to embrace the obligations and responsibilities that come with this role. We are on a path of completion – of conscious completion and communion – which is the eternal path of the sacred. Through this sacred journey of completion we connect and commune with everything else in our reality, and beyond. As human beings we have been tasked with this sacred endeavor. We can become aware of our creative contribution to reality and this can give us meaning and purpose. Perhaps this will finally provide us with our place in the cosmos. And how can we walk this path?

We can take this journey through our small acts of conscious awareness – our thoughts, attitudes, behavior, and our everyday actions. Upon the next level, our social changes and emerging technologies may form part of this process, establishing an extended mind and empathic embrace across the face of the earth. Magic is alive; magic never died. Everything is ultimately a technology of the soul; and all magic, all science, and all human expression is a part of this soulful technology. And with each step forward we move closer to soulful communion with a grand conscious and sacred order.

The sacred impulse animates the expression of consciousness at the individual, collective, and planetary level. And one day we may witness a grand awakening, unprecedented upon this planet, and this may very well be the purpose for sentient life, as conscious agents of the sacred order. This is likely to be more reality than fantasy. The hidden treasure that is at the very core of our existence wishes to be known – for us to know ourselves – by our individual journeys of self-realization. We are not alone. A great planetary future awaits us, as a great treasure that wishes for communion. Welcome to the new story.

“Truth has to appear only once, in a single mind, for it to be impossible for anything ever to prevent it from spreading universally and setting everything ablaze.” ~Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter

20 December 2017
Kingsley L. Dennis, Guest
Waking Times

About the Author

Kingsley L. Dennis is the author of The Phoenix Generation: A New Era of Connection, Compassion, and Consciousness, and The Sacred Revival: Magic, Mind & Meaning in a Technological Age, available at Amazon. Visit him on the web at http://www.kingsleydennis.com/.

The Top 3 Reasons Why the Shadow System Keeps Perpetuating Itself

The System, The Matrix, The Establishment – whatever name you call it by – seems to keep perpetuating itself no matter what.

Puppet politicians come and go, but the System they serve remains fully in place, long after many of these misleaders and control freaks have used up their 5 minutes of fame by bossing people around.

In many cases, the politicians forward another aspect of the Agenda (i.e. Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, the New World Order agenda) only to disappear into obscurity, leaving us with yet more laws, rules and regulations to strangle our freedom.

Have you ever wondered why nothing ever really changes, despite the fact that so many people spend massive amounts of energy cheering for either a left or right jackboot to come down upon their throat during election circus time?

The truth is that the Government always gets in, no matter who you vote for. It is becoming broadly known that the System is run by the unelected Deep State, Parallel Government or Shadow Government (think about all the COG [Continuity of Government] plans on the books). Elections count for very little in terms of overall freedom.

Yes, the System appears to continue no matter what. Why? The reasons are to be found embedded in our psychology. Our unconscious mental attitudes and beliefs shape the world. To dethrone the tyrant from the outside world, you must must remove him from your mind.

This is where we need to start if we truly wish to transition from a society based on monopolistic governmental force to one based on voluntary exchange and association. Below are the top 3 reasons why the System perpetuates itself.

1. Participate in and Enforce the System – Because One Day You’ll Be at the Top

Exploitative or criminal systems, including financial Ponzi schemes like the entire fiat currency system, have a tendency to cunningly protect themselves by offering to “buy in” people who question them.

For example, people in rigid hierarchical systems (like the military) are encouraged to accept hardships when they enter, because soon, they’ll be advancing up the ranks and will then enjoy the benefits of the System.

Rule me! Rule me! — People holding up the System during a Hitler speech

Have cramped quarters now but later get your own private room. Get poor pay now but later get a big fat salary.

In some cases, this rationale is offered to justify brutality, e.g. if you take beatings and whippings now, later on you’ll get to dish them out.

Fun, huh?

For a less violent example, some rich private schools have a system of “prefects” where selected students are given more privileges and power than others, and the system is kept in place because most people are fooled into secretly hoping that they will be the ones to get selected, so they vote to uphold it rather than remove it.

Put more simply, a system is set up whereby some people get to have more power over other people – then that system is justified by dangling the carrot in front of all people and telling them that if they are strong, smart, beautiful or lucky enough, they will be the chosen ones that get to ascend to the position which affords them power over others.

Meanwhile, those running the system know that it’s a mathematical impossibility for everyone to be at the top. It’s like the line about how Americans are not divided into rich and poor – they are divided into rich and “those about to be rich”.

People are goaded along into accepting an unjust system just because they think that, one day, they will ascend to the top of it.

Besides, even if everyone did get a chance to “be at the top”, what about the ethics of it? Is okay to suffer exploitation because one day you’ll be the exploiter rather than the exploited?

This is the classic perpetrator-victim cycle where yesterday’s victim becomes today’s perpetrator (see Israel).

Albert Einstein, a Jew himself, recognized this concept when he wrote the following about the impending visit of Menachim Begin (former Israeli Prime Minister, warmonger and founder of the Likud Party which rules Israel today) to the USA in 1948:

“Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the ‘Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.” – Albert Einstein, Dec. 4th, 1948

I am reminded of a quote attributed to the Rothschilds which perfectly sums up how they sought to perpetuate their fraudulent money system (fractional reserve banking) and thus became the richest family in the world:

“The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.”

So, in other words, if everyone understands the nature of an evil system, it fails; if only a relatively small amount understand the nature of an evil system, the susceptible ones can be bought off (bribed or blackmailed) to dilute the resistance to it.

2. The Belief in Authority (The Ring of Power)

Following on from the first point above, the System can only perpetuate itself if people agree to its sales pitch.

The System says: “Keep upholding me, and suffer at the bottom for a short time, then soon you’ll get to be one of the powerful ones at the top”.

People only agree to this if they already hold, deep within their psyche, the idea that someone or something outside of themselves has the right to rule. In other words, they harbor a deep-seated belief in authority.

The System relies utterly and completely on belief in authority, 

which is akin to the Ring of Power in the Lord of the Rings

They believe that it’s necessary to have a ruling class, and almost always, that this ruling class is allowed to have extra privileges, rights and powers (including exemption from normal moral laws) that ordinary mortal people are not allowed to have.

Well known anarchist or voluntaryist Larken Rose explains this point beautifully in a speech entitled “So Small a Thing”, where he draws an analogy between the blind belief in authority and the Ring of Power in the fictional series Lord of the Rings.

He highlights how the entire power of the System – with all its guns, laws and surveillance data – hinges on the widespread belief of its subjects that the government has the right to rule them. Without that belief, the government would collapse, because no one would execute, enforce or obey its decrees.

What seems so powerful is actually dependent on a (tiny) belief – so small a thing – a belief which is a lie, since in the ultimate reality, no one has authority to rule you just as you have no authority to rule anyone else.

Larken talks about how the Ring of Power always corrupted whoever touched it. This is a brilliant analogy – evidently the author Tolkien understood that the entire concept of the Ring of Power (the right to rule) is fatally flawed.

No matter how well intentioned someone was, no matter how much they thought they would use the Ring for good, once they touched it, they became evil. The Ring has only one master. The good wizard Gandalf was wise enough to recognize this, and even refused to take the ring, for he knew that it would corrupt him.

Therefore, the humble hobbits (who had no ambition to rule anyone) were the ones who had to take it. Another striking aspect of this analogy was that the Ring could only be destroyed by being taken back to its place of origin and “unmade”.

Perhaps this is a indication that we must dig deep within to “unmake” our false assumptions and distorted perceptions about authority, reality and the world?

Larken says:

“It’s so tempting to look at Washington and say ‘there’s the problem’, look at all those evil people … you don’t have to do anything to Washington DC … what you have to do is take that so small a thing out of the minds of the livestock, so they stop imagining that these rulers have any legitimacy.”

3. Cognitive Dissonance

It is a common moral principle that 2 wrongs don’t make a right, or to put it another way, that the end doesn’t justify the means.

Many people say they believe in this principle, yet also claim to believe in statism (i.e. in authority, in a ruling class and in the legitimacy of government).

There is an inherent contradiction here, because government operates by force and claims the moral right to do what ordinary people cannot morally do. Government routinely operates by forcing people to do things (i.e. pay tax), which is form of theft (the first wrong), to provide services and benefits to others.

Does theft justify generosity? Can the end justify the means?

This is an example of cognitive dissonance, where people hold 2 opposing views simultaneously that contradict each other.

The system depends on our cognitive dissonance

The earliest Western philosopher Socrates was famous for his ability to elicit peoples’ opposing views out into the open during discussions, where they could be exposed (and hopefully resolved).

Some people didn’t take too kindly to being schooled and embarrassed via the Socratic method, and the great thinker was eventually poisoned.

The truth is that, when you look closely, the so-called political authority of government does not bear well under careful scrutiny.

As I explained in the article Getting the Idea of Government & Political Authority Out of Your Mind, there’s really no way to justify the legitimacy of government, regardless of whether you try the arguments of social contract, implicit consent, consent of the majority or consequentialism.

None of them hold up. We are left with the uncomfortable truth that we were born into a System where the ruling class is simply the strongest or slickest gang that holds the monopoly on the initiation of violence in a given geographical area.

Conclusion: Do You Really Want to Play a Part in Perpetuating the System?

The belief in authority is the fulcrum upon which government rests. Remove that, and you remove the government’s last attempt at claiming rightful power. We already know that it is morally, rationally and logically impossible to prove the legitimacy of government.

Yet, without a thorough examination one’s beliefs, it is all too easy to move through life with cognitive dissonance and with unresolved contradictions floating around in your head.

Most people do not only accept the government’s specious claim to rule them; they act as cheerleaders for this tyranny out of some kind of societal Stockholm Syndrome!

They believe in the Ring of Power because they think it can be used for good, or they think their guy or their tribe can get in power and change the world in the way they want to see it changed – even though this necessarily means handing over godlike powers to politicians.

The point is that a coercive ruler-slave relationship is dysfunctional and co-dependent. You can’t have one without the other. It’s an energetic polarity. Change one pole and you transform (and eliminate) the entire relationship.

Hopefully, this article and many others like it will play a small role in jolting people out of their slumber to realize the futility of upholding the System – in their minds. Dethrone the inner tyrant before you dethrone the outer tyrant.

Realize that anarchy doesn’t have to mean chaos. Anarchy means organization and cooperation without coercion, trusting that the voluntary impulses of humanity will lead us to trade and associate in a harmonious way.

To let go of the indoctrination that we have to have rulers is to step into a world without rulers and slaves, where everyone is equal to everyone else, and where everyone is required to act responsibly so as to reduce and eliminate the need for a parasitic ruling class.

By Makia Freeman, Guest author, HumansAreFree.com

Living from Our Deepest Knowing

Experientially, there is no realization without Being, which is a cessation of becoming. Paradoxically, there is no flowering of that realization without becoming, which is our willingness to be transformed by our realization. Realization is not an attainment of ego. It is the end of trying to get somewhere, be somebody, arrive somewhere else. What is realized is what is ever-present, what is here, what we are, and have always been when we are no longer identified with our conditioned mind. What is here now looking out, looking in, aware of this moment’s unfolding?

When we deeply realize the mystery of our own awake being, and do not move away from the Unknown we encounter, our mind ceases its searching, its separation, and its belief that it can end illusion. Egoic thought does not know itself as “pure awareness,” rather it is Awareness that sees egoic thought. The infinite ocean of Awareness awakens Itself within its own expression of being. And it is that same awake beingness that will transform our way of being in the world. If we are looking for a “permanent” state of embodiment, or a knowing of “pure” awareness that is “remembered” every single moment, we are still operating from the mind of separation.

When there has been a true awakening, it is the Mystery and not the “me” that then begins to transform our thoughts, our heart, and our actions. It is at this point that many seekers move away from what they have realized and return to the mind to try to figure out how to live from this truth. However, as soon as we go back to the mind’s thoughts about “how,” we have departed from the mystery of being, which is the source and agent of living more deeply, directly, and simply from what we are. So, this often becomes a source of confusion, and many either return to egoic transformation techniques, which are now directed by a spiritualized ego, or they become passive rather than grounded in being, which is simultaneously alive, present, intimate with the moment, and functioning with wisdom and compassion. In either case realization may not truly flower due to our attempts to either control or avoid acting.

When we begin to realize the truth of what we are, we may feel that we are free, but our minds, emotions, and our bodies may be acting and reacting from old identifications. It is our deep and sincere devotion to truth, and to living from truth that opens the heart and mind and creates willingness for all false views to be deconstructed. Our greatest ally is our own integrity. No one can give us our integrity or take it away. It is ours to care for. The truth within sees untruth, but without self-judgment–seeing, as it does, no separate self to be judged. This process begins when we realize what we are. But how far are we willing to let that realization take us? Realization does not create a new identity; it keeps shedding old ones. In the spiritual life, we are not seeking to transcend our human experience, but to fully express the truth of our Being through it. When we want authenticity more than we want to maintain an “image,” freedom will lead the way.

Enlightenment as intimacy

Zen Master Dogen, considered the 51st patriarch of Zen, once gave a very simple description of enlightenment: “Enlightenment is simply intimacy with all things.”And he went on to say: “Not knowing is most intimate.”

We think we know something when we can name it, pull a word or concept from memory to describe a thing, a person, a feeling, a flower, a self. Without making words and concepts wrong, can we investigate experience before adding the mind’s likes, dislikes, judgments, associations and concepts to the bare and intimate reality of Now? What is our experience when we are deeply present to what is present before us or within us?

Intimacy cannot be a memory because memory is imported from past experience and true intimacy is touching the world exactly as it is Now, without separation. Can we touch with our own intimate awareness the stars exactly as they are, our skin exactly as it is, a feeling exactly as it is, an encounter exactly as it is, without the need to add a story or create a drama, or claim a “self” being intimate? Can we live with the usefulness of memory without using it to prop up another concept about awakening or about a separate “self”? Can we allow judgment to gently be replaced by the intimate experience of Now, knowing that transformation of our habitual patterns of mind do not end with a moment of awakening, but gradually become more and more transparent as we return again and again to the realm of the timeless, to the willingness not to know something only as a concept. “Not knowing,” in this sense, is most intimate, indeed.

Living without a map

To the Western mind, living without a goal, without a map, having “nowhere to go and nothing to do” sounds like sheer madness—boring at best, lazy, irresponsible, uncaring, and an invitation to chaos at worst. But nothing could be further from the truth. It might mean we are finally available for Truth to move spontaneously within us, allowing action to come from the dimension of our being that is at peace. Doing is coming from Being. It does not mean living stupidly, or passively, or being unable to make plans. It means not being attached to those plans. It means being open to what is here now rather than judging it, being curious rather than fearful about this moment’s expression. It means being authentic, real, engaged, and intimate with experience.

To live from our natural state means discovering that there is no map for how to live. The voice that always asked “how?” has been quieted, and we are living more and more directly from the Mystery that is whole and undivided. This mystery of our Being is deeply and unflinchingly present to the moment as it appears, and thus can move with an intelligence, wisdom, compassion and love unknown to the mind that seeks to be in control.

We always imagined we would find peace and happiness when we had perfected our ego. What a shock to learn there isn’t one! We never imagined that what is awake is what is free, not some shiny image of how the world or the “me” should look. The mind that is always attempting to be in control, improve the world, self and the so-called “other” frequently serves as the agent of division—even when it is trying to “help.” When we realize there is no separation, “help” will automatically be transmitted by the quality of our being, not by our assuming a superior role of “helper.” When we have seen beyond a broken world or the dream of a wounded identity to the Wholeness beyond being or non-being, that in itself invites more healing than can be told. Perhaps we can begin to realize that living from our deepest Knowing is being truly alive in the present moment and being intimately aware within it. Maybe life is neither a problem to be solved nor a destination, but an endlessly unfolding creation moment-to-moment.

By all means, if you want to drive to an unknown destination in your car, use a map. But if you want Truth, be guided from the deep silent Source within that gives the mind no security, but rather continually invites it to the Unknown, and to the lifelong adventure of living openly, Now.

SOURCE

Dorothy Hunt is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy, and serves as Spiritual Director and President of Moon Mountain Sangha, Inc., a California non-profit religious corporation. http://www.dorothyhunt.org

There are other ways to meditate besides those that are currently popular

How To Meditate: Tips From Lama Surya Das, The 'Buddha From Brooklyn'

June 8, 2015

(RNS) Lama Surya Das, the “Buddha from Brooklyn,” is one of the handful of Westerners who have been teaching meditation for decades. And yet, he says we’re doing it wrong.

“So many people seem to be moving narcissistically — conditioned by our culture, doubtless — into self-centered happiness-seeking and quietism, not to mention the use of mindfulness for mere effectiveness,” he said. True meditation, he said, generates wisdom and compassion, which may be very disquieting, at least in the short term.

Born Jeffrey Miller, Surya Das has had a spiritual journey that is remarkable in its breadth. He was given the name “Surya Das” by the Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba, made famous by Ram Dass more than 40 years ago. But Surya Das shifted gears in the early 1970s to Tibetan Buddhism, subsequently completing two three-year silent meditation retreats and becoming one of the first Westerners to be authorized as a Tibetan lama.

At the time, meditation was still considered pretty weird: foreign, exotic, hippie-ish. Now it’s everywhere. Meditation — especially mindfulness, which trains the mind to observe nonjudgmentally and attentively — has gone mainstream. In secular forms, it’s now widespread in health care, education, the corporate world, even the military. Each year, 1 million Americans take up the practice for the first time.

Jay Michaelson

Religion News Service

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Activism: The Way to Demonstrate Your Spirituality

June 21, 2016

Activism is what the Earth needs right now especially from conscious individuals, conscious groups and conscious communities. Those who started their awakening process most likely can see that we are living in maya (as the ancient Buddhist teachings tell us), a fake world of deception or a giantMatrix. Many have already begun to see that close to everything is fake, from MSM (Mainstream Media) news to food to scientific research to Government itself. While it is true that to be effective we must address the cause of the problem – the dysfunction of the mind/ego complex inside all of us – it is also true that merely trying to be more spiritual or become enlightened in your own isolated and separate bubble is not going to help the state of the world and alleviate others’ suffering very much. Sure, by focusing on your own enlightenment you can avoid adding to the collective misery and pain, but what is the point of all that enlightenment if you’re not going to do anything with it?

The Enlightened State Recognizes that We Are All One Being

A characteristic of the truly enlightened state is the deep recognition that we are all connected, and that in fact we are literally all one being. Therefore, a natural corollary of becoming more enlightened that you would intuitively feel the urge to help those around you, with whom you are connected by love. How can you truly have inner peace when you look into your brother’s or sister’s eye and see pain and suffering? That is also your pain and suffering, because I am you and you are me.

We are all in this together. Didn’t a great spiritual master of 2000 years ago say that we must forgive our brothers and sisters, and make things right with them, before attempting to enter the temple of God (i.e. go within to feel inner peace)?

Becoming More Conscious = Ending Denial

To me, becoming more conscious means becoming more integrated and whole. It means accepting things as they are and giving up the constant need to judge and complain. It also means ending denial, for whatever you deny, you push away and refuse to look at. This may be the parts of your personality that you don’t like. It may also be parts of what is happening in the world that are too “heavy”, “intense” or “negative” for you to handle. Yet, it is an energetic truth that whatever you deny or repress only grows stronger. It festers and ferments in the shadows and returns, often in an even worse form, when you least want or expect it. One way or another, you’re going to have to deal with it. Why not do it right now?

Can Truly Conscious People Ignore the Worldwide Conspiracy Around Us?

There is a common belief prevalent among those in spiritual or conscious communities – namely that we should leave activism to others, and that we should not worry about the bad state of the world or focus on it too much, because whatever we focus on we create, and obviously we do not wish to create more pain. While this is true, it is also used as an excuse by many to hide behind denial. Part of the enlightenment process is to confront the dark and transmute it – not to ignore and hope with wishful thinking that it will just magical go away.

Remember what the most beloved US President of all, JFK, had to say in 1961:

“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence – on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.”

It is an open secret that JFK was killed not by Lee Harvey Oswald by rather by this close-knit group of powerful individuals who felt very threatened by his desire to end secrecy and expose the conspiracy to light. JFK was assassinated 52 years ago. Have we gotten past our denial and apathy, and gotten any closer to integrating this dark side of our world? Have we confronted the truth that wealthy bankers, businessmen and military-intelligence heads run the Government, not politicians? Have we educated ourselves enough to see through the web of lies being spun by the MSM? Or have we pushed it all to the recesses of our consciousness and thought “someone else can deal with it”? Are you accepting that you can’t handle the truth? Are you conscious enough to deal with the reality of what is happening on planet Earth?

Activism: Enlightened Action is the Complementary Outflow of the Enlightened State

Yes, we must take care of our inner state before we can hope to change the outer state (our society) for the better. However, what the world really needs right now is activism –enlightened action from an enlightened state. We need people to stand for peace and, with activism, challenge the war-loving governments of the world. We need people to stand for justice and, with activism, speak up against ongoing 21st century genocide (as the Zionist regime of Israel is doing to the Palestinians). We need people to stand for clean food by educating themselves about the dangers of GMOs and, with activism, demanding chemical-free food. We need people to stand for sovereignty and human rights in the face of corrupt courts that are happy to take away your freedom to make it easier for corporations and politicians to rule over you.

And so, I put out a call to all people on the conscious road: make activism part of your spiritual path. The joy you will feel from making the world a better place, of making a real difference, will be profound. Remember the vow of the Bodhisattva: to attain complete enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. We need to translate the divine inner peace of our inner states to the concrete action of activism in the outer world to end suffering.

by Edward Morgan

Source: www.wakingtimes.com

Let it go!

Srujana Aedama

The mind is a complex thing. It constantly feeds on the past and future, almost never in this moment. Often, we spend too much time and energy trying to plan, prevent and predict what is going to happen, or what was supposed to happen, that we root ourselves in fear-based living. But what I learned is that when we try to control, it disconnects us from everything else. We close down our hearts and get imprisoned by whatever it is that we are trying to control. It’s not just with people but with life too. Most of the times, we find ourselves thinking about what we should have done differently and how we could have lived our lives, instead of focusing on what we can create in this moment. This impulse to control stems from the lack of trust in life. We believe that if we don’t control, life will fail us and those we love. The thing is, even if we succeed in controlling some things, by distrusting life we become disconnected from life itself. When we are disconnected from life, we are also unplugged from the source of creation. Our fears, worries and insecurities start to gain more power than love, peace and joy. So how can we access a deep connection to life? By trusting in the process of life and letting go. Trusting life does not mean that undesirable experiences will never happen, it means that if they do, you trust that whatever unfolds is for your highest good, and the highest good of those involved. Here are some techniques which help us through this process.

Practice being in the present

Look around you! Look at all the everyday miracles and life that there is. Listen to the rhythmic chirping of the birds when you wake up. Notice the good in people and acknowledge their efforts. Relish the gorgeous sunset on your way back home from work. Admire the moon for its beauty. Breathe in the fresh, flower-scented air deeply on your early morning hike and feel it in your lungs. Pause and listen to your heart beat. This moment is truly inevitable so be grateful and savor each moment for its uniqueness. Peace almost always arises when we can be fully present in the moment. Believe it or not, when we are in sync with all that is around us, in other words when we are in sync with the universe, it immediately brings us back into connection with who we really are. The power of letting go to the source of creation is a powerful way which lets you tap into the oneness and creative flow of the universe. This moment is the only only doorway to the creator and creativity. It means that you are opening up to better things that life has planned for you.

Surrender to the universe

Notice how all of these miracles work in harmony without our meddling? The planets, the tides, mother earth, the sun and the moon, all continue to to carry on their legacy. Even our breath does not wait for a signal. It goes on! The same source that created all these miracles also created us. Doesn’t it seem like the source of life knows what it is doing? The more we try to resist and control life, the more misaligned to life we become. When we lift that control, we allow magical things to happen. So why not surrender and let the universe do it’s thing? By surrendering, I do not mean giving up on your dreams or loved ones but to end any form of resistance. It means putting your heart into what you want to create and then letting go without trying to control the outcome. To surrender to your emotions without resisting them but also being aware of them at the same time. To surrender is to stop fighting the natural flow of life and just let life unfold the beautiful story that it has in store for you. Surrendering is powerful, liberating and life enhancing. When you get to a place of surrender, higher guidance flows freely through you and your creativity will gain momentum.

Accept the moment

We hear a lot of advice around us to make peace with the past, let go and move on. If only life was that simple, sigh! It’s no use denying that past experiences have had no effect on who we are now. Letting go does not mean repressing or pushing away our feelings. People who deny the effect of past experiences can get caught in a strategy of self-protection that involves dismissing or ignoring strong emotions and tend to experience the same symptoms as those who struggle with anxiety. Such things can come back to bite us where we least expect it. I believe that some things had to happen the way they did as soul lessons for our spiritual growth. The best thing to do is to bless them for having served us and let them go in a healthy manner. How do we do this? Through acceptance of the moment. The more we resist the situation which is beyond our control, the more we suffer. But when we completely accept the moment as it is, then there wouldn’t be any suffering. If you think about it, happiness occurs because we are completely accepting something that is happening at that moment. It’s not about external events making you happy but it is about completely accepting the moment the way it is. Accept yourself and the situation, understand how it affected you and how it served you in your growth process. Also make sure to place it where it belongs — in the past.

What is the lesson?

One of the most beautiful gifts we can give to ourselves is the willingness to open up ourselves to understand why and how certain things happened and what is the lesson in it for us to learn. Acknowledging that there is a soul lesson to learn in every undesirable situation is where half of the healing happens. Have you noticed undesirable patterns repeating themselves again and again in your lives? That is the universe’s way of telling us that there is still a lesson to be learned and acknowledged from the situation. The hardest most painful part of our life might end up leading us someplace more powerful. When we are open to life’s unexpected blessings, we are led to what we need.

Release attachments to thoughts

Once the lesson is learnt, the most important thing to do is to let go of all attachments to our thoughts. The secret is to not let our thoughts run or control us. Instead what we have under our control is THIS moment and the power to make different choices, to think in different ways and create the life we want. It is important to let go of negative thoughts and turn our focus into thoughts that empower us to create a happy and content life. By letting go of negative thoughts, you are also releasing the mental and emotional attachments which originate from the thoughts. This can be a very challenging and on-going process but slowly the thoughts will begin to lose power over you. Letting go is not a one-time thing. It is a practice that requires dedication to the process of life until you reach a state of wakefulness. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

“It does not do to dwell on the past and forget to live” -Albus Dumbledore

https://medium.com/@Srujana

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