Ways of Self Protection from Negativity

Posted on September 15, 2015 by marcia

9 Ways to Protect Yourself from Negative Energies

Anna Hunt, Staff Writer
Waking Times

Do you find it exhausting to be around stressed out or negative people? Have you ever left a dramatic situation feeling drained, even if you weren’t personally involved? For most people, the answer is yes. This is because we are constantly absorbing the energies of objects and people around us. Thoughts, emotions and words of other people can have a profound impact on our psyche and physical well-being. Just as spending time in nature or working in a garden can lessen stress and improve our mood, when you’re in a crowded place you will draw in the energies of the people around you, whether you feel it or not.

Here are some tools that to help you clear away negative energy and create a “shield” to maintain your personal energy and keep your psyche clear from the impact of other people and negative situations.

1. Crystals

It is common for people to be skeptical about the healing power of crystals, but one should just turn to science and technology to find proof that crystals are objects of measurable effect. Crystals are used in many objects we use every day including silicon, which is used in all computers and mobile phones and LCD’s, and quartz, a silicate material used in watches and clocks to regulate time. When you consider all of these applications, the effect of crystals on outside energies is undeniable.

Many crystals, especially darker colored ones such as black onyx, obsidian, amethyst, fluorite and tigers eye, repel negative energies and will cleanse your aura. The presence of crystals can also alleviate stress, boost creativity, and contribute to healing and raise levels of consciousness. It is important to remember that working with crystals has much to do with your intentions and your openness to allowing the crystal to work.

2. Smudging Sage

The North American native tradition of smudging by burning white sage bundles has been used for generations to clear out stale and negative energy out of the body and spirit. With the right intent and respect, the smudging process can help you clean your energy field, even if you are unaware of any problems. Smudging may help you clear residual feelings regarding a situation that has past, negative emotions such as anger and fear that linger after an event or interaction, tension and stress felt psychologically or physically, as well as the harmful energies of other people that have latched themselves to your psyche. Smudging is a relaxing way to regain composure and recenter your awareness after experiencing distress.

3. Essential Oils

Using the natural healing properties of essential oils has become more popular as people realize the limitations and detrimental side effects of some modern healing modalities. Essential oils such as sandalwood, niaouli and myrrh all have very power cleansing properties, and smell great. The olfactory sense is more closely linked to our emotional system than any of our other senses, and by using essential oils a link is created between healthy psychic states and the physical presence of the now.

When using essential oils it is important to inhale only the aroma of the oil, either directly or using and oil diffuser (which can be very useful when cleansing and protecting a larger space or several persons). Additionally, you can place a drop of oil in a few specific spots around the head, such as back of the neck, crown of the head and middle of the eyebrows.

4. Incense

Similar to sage smoke and diffused essential oils, incense is known for its purifying and cleansing properties. Incense may not be the best option if you need to ward of psychic attacks when in public, but it is a great tool to use when gathering with others and to cleanse away negative and stale energies around your living spaces. Ensure you use natural essential oil incense, such as Nag Champa and Tibetan Incense Sticks, that does not have any toxic or artificial perfumes.

5. Using White Light Meditation

Science continues to prove that meditation is a powerful healing practice. You can use a very easy and short meditation to protect yourself from psychic attacks. During such a meditation, close your eyes, calm the breath, and then image in the mind’s eye a bright white light forming a protective shield all around your body and any other person or object that you want to safeguard. It is up to you how long you keep your eyes closed and how bright your light will grow, and as you open your eyes continue with the meditation by trusting that your white light will continue to surround, protect and comfort you.

6. Cleansing Shower or Bath

The physical action of taking a shower or bath, with the right intention set in your mind, can help wash away negative energy. Similar to the white light meditation, image all of the negative energy lifting off each part of your body as you submerge into your bath or as shower water hits your skin. Baths also allow for the use of essential oils, Epsom salt, crystals and flower petals, for additional healing.

After you’ve completed your cleansing in the water, apply essential oils to dried skin. You can use some of the oils mentioned above, or other calming oils that benefit the skin such as lavender or ylang ylang. Mixing a few drops of essential oil into your favorite lotion or with fractionated coconut oil is also a nice option.

7. Mantras

Words, even if only spoken in your mind, have a powerful effect in creating your reality. When spoken out-loud, words and sounds can have an even more profound effect because they create vibrations that interact with your energetic body, helping it to fall into harmony or disharmony.

Chanting the following mantras repeatedly may help cleanse you of negative energy:

KRIM (pronounced “kreem”) – Used to stimulate the lower chakras of the body and begin purifying the body.
HUM (pronounced “hoom”) – Used to break down negativity and spread positivity and vitality through the body.
LAM (pronounced “lam”) – Used to cleanse impurities that have collected in your body and clearing any energy blockages preventing your prana from flowing freely through all your energy channels.

You can also create your own mantra with phrases and words that resonate with you and help you shed all negativity. Another option is practicing a spoken Metta loving kindness meditation which will release a wave of positivity that can be extremely healing. See the example below.

8. Sounds

Similar to chanting mantras, sounds of chimes, bells and gongs have been used in practices such as yoga to dispel negative spirits. In the modern world, wind chimes are known for their relaxing effect on a person. The vibrations created by sounds of chimes and bells resonate through the air breaking up stagnant and negative energies. They also vibrate your energetic body and attune you to different frequencies, strengthening your psyche and spiritual power.

9. Amulets

Amulets, trinkets and talismans, with the specific purpose of protecting the human spirit, are most common in religious traditions, including items such as the Christian cross and rosary and the Muslim hamsa. These types of symbols are believed to hold great power, but similar to crystals, they react o your intentions. If you believe an item is worthless, then it will offer you no protection.

from: http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/04/16/9-ways-to-protect-yourself-from-negative-energies/9/

Finding Your Voice

Posted on September 9, 2015 by marcia

4 Ways to Keep From Being Overwhelmed by the Tribe

by Zen Gardner – Sep 9, 2015

Gary ‘Z’ McGee, Staff Writer
Waking Times

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes the tribe can be a bit suffocating. Whether “the tribe” is familial, societal, or cultural, it can make even the most extraverted of us claustrophobic. Sometimes in order to keep from being subjugated and engulfed by the status quo, we need to break away. We need to discover a secret place, a sacred space, where we are free to howl at the moon and bow to the sun without a judgmental eye over our shoulder. Where North is a drumroll, and South is a compass. Where we can count to infinity and surf the cosmic wave without the clanking of steel or the honking of horns in our ear. Where East is a crossroads, and West is a threshold. Where we are free to slap the face of God and dance with our demons, and vice versa, without a disapproving finger-wag or a whiny “blasphemy!” from the outdated crowd. Sometimes in order to discover our true place in this life we must disrupt our lives. Like Charles Simic poetically stated, “He who cannot howl, will not find his pack.” In the spirit of finding our place in the world, our sacred pack, here are four ways to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.

1.) Meditation and Solitude

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity” –John Muir

Mankind is fundamentally connected with the Earth and with the cosmos. Neither the Earth’s problems nor humanity’s problems can be resolved without taking full account of this interdependence. And so it goes with the alienation between cosmos and psyche within the individual.

A powerful way to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe is meditation and solitude. Doing so tears through the veil of ignominy and launches us past the smoke and mirrors of the cultural paradigm. The struggle of independence and codependence between the individual and the tribe melts away into the peace of interdependence, which is why it is usually while we’re immersed in nature that we feel the most alive. As Henry David Thoreau said, “Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him… Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

It is out in the wild places, away from the commotion of the tribe which is incessantly “distracted from distraction by distraction,” where we discover for ourselves what is medicine and what is poison. Solitude and meditation helps us figure out this most basic energy: how to discern between healthy and unhealthy, right and wrong, good and bad, and what to do about it in regards to the self, the tribe, and the world. As Sogyal Rinpoche said, “What we have to learn in both meditation and in life is to be free of attachment to the good experiences and free of aversion to the negative ones.”

2.) Throw Yourself Into Adventure

“If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.” –Frank Zappa

Tired of living a boring life? Sick of walking around in circles within a tiny comfort zone that constricts your way of being in the world? Weary of the yoke of civilization herding you into a life of nine-to-five slavery and daily grinds? There are ways out of boredom: stop being boring. There are strategies for stretching comfort zones: do constructive things that make you uncomfortable. Comfort is as much of an obstacle as the obstacle itself, whatever the obstacle may be. Quit your job and seek out real, sacred, authentic work that makes your soul sing, no matter how scary it might be getting started. Go where the fear is. Test your boundaries. Courage is to fear as diamond is to “in the rough.”

So throw yourself into adventure. Toss yourself into a sacred journey. Chuck your too-conditioned heart into the unconditional abyss. Lob your overly-brainwashed brain into the crushing waves of the cosmic ocean. Hurl your cowardice into the fire of your fear and bear witness as the unstoppable Phoenix of your courage rises out of the ashes. Slip your cover. Discard all masks. Discover the naked vulnerability of your heart-soul pulsing against the hard gravity of an unforgiving universe. Lose your footing. Lose your balance. Fall flat on your face if you have to. Then rise up from the dust with a full heart; with the blood, sweat and tears of your daring marring your overrated reputation. In short, die a small death. Only the death of your ego can give birth to your soul. Like Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

3.) Overcome Yourself

“The real struggle of the heroic individual is not solely to liberate himself from conflict with society, but rather to use the conflict within himself as a source for self-regeneration.” –Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Could there be anything more powerful, more self-evolving, more vitally important to our own time, than the ability to self-overcome? To take in hand the tangled knot of the ego and dare to unravel it? To gaze into a mirror and brave the shattered depths? To peel back layer after layer, security blanket after security blanket, until the soft, vulnerable, baby-Hydra-self is revealed? To gamble with our sense of self and, having won or lost, emerge with the hard-fought-for scars that prove the course of our wisdom. Perhaps Joss Whedon said it best, “Don’t just be yourself. Be all of your selves.”

The best way to maintain vigilance over our inconsistent personality is to simply roll with the inconsistencies by assuming a multitude of personas. One could argue that the more personas we adopt the more likely we are to be individuated. The more masks we don and discard, the more likely we are to achieve a humor of the most high. This is precisely because of cognitive dissonance. Since our personalities are inconsistent and change is inevitable anyway, it behooves us to adapt and overcome to such change rather than deny that the change is occurring. We do this through adopting multiple personas that may or may not be consistent with a dominant persona. This has the potential to increase empathy, humor, and love; in the sense that the more personas we can identify with –like latent shadow personas and darker personalities– the more likely we are to subsume the human condition itself, or at least be able to compassionately relate to other people’s difference as we have already learned how to relate to the plentitude of differences within ourselves.

4.) Amorally Rebel

“All is well with the world, when all is not well with the world.” –Alan Gillis

Look inward and ask yourself: am I caught inside a grand cognitive illusion? Play with the answers until questions emerge. Toy with the ideas that arise until they become ideals, and then crush them like you would a mental paradigm. We are caught between moral and immoral, between left and right, between good and evil, between healthy and unhealthy; between so many illusory dualities that we mistakenly begin to see the world dualistically. But it’s not. Nothing is fixed. Everything is in flux. There is no black and white. There is no permanence. There is only a smeared out Middle Gray blank-slate that we vainly attempt to pigeonhole colors onto. Like Robert Anton Wilson said, “The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed, but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans fought each other to a standstill.”

But there’s no reason whatsoever that you yourself cannot rise up as one of these shamans and fight “whatever” to a standstill, keeping in mind that the “standstill” is the illusion. It’s the “fight” that’s real. It’s the struggle with a universe in constant flux that’s real. It’s between the extremism at either end of the spectrum of power where the real sacred dance is occurring. It’s in the throes of amoral rebellion where we shine brightest. The moralist is blinded by too much light. The immoralist chokes on too much darkness. The amoralist pierces the dark with their light and diffracts the light with their darkness.

Amoral rebellion puts the powers that be on high notice. We will not be pigeonholed into their outdated constructs of power. We will not be placated by bipartisan claptrap. We will not be bamboozled by plutocratic smoke and mirrors. We will not be consumed by the tribe. We will rise above it and self-evolve, dragging it, kicking and screaming through the brambles of our own fruition if need be. We will become a power unto ourselves, a freedom unto ourselves. We will become a force to be reckoned with. Like Bill Plotkin said, “The world was made to be free in: this we know in our bones, and this definitive and fearful knowledge is what both supports us and requires us to turn away from our secure but less-than-joyful lives.”

from: http://www.zengardner.com/4-ways-keep-overwhelmed-tribe/

Re-Thinking Education

Posted on August 12, 2015 by marcia

After A Decade Of Education, Why Are Our Kids So Uneducated?

13th August 2015

By Phillip J. Watt

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

What skills, qualities and information do we need to live an honourable, healthy and happy life? And of those skills and qualities, which are provided and nurtured through the school system? The answer is almost none of them.

It’s clear that we need to redesign our education model.

It is up to the parents, mentors, peers and other societal influences to fill these gaps, but we all know this doesn’t regularly occur. If the guides and teachers in a child’s life don’t have the knowledge and skills to properly inform and take care of themselves, then how can they be expected to share it with others? They literally can’t. To break this cycle, we need an effective safety net to provide the skills and information that our children need to develop into awakened, functional and well-rounded adults, not just well-behaved employees of “The System”.

The education system in western society is not geared towards providing what’s best for each child. Primarily it is designed to produce citizens who contribute to, and consume from, the interdependent global economy. It’s like a factory assembly line; it helps us find which mundane 9-5 job we are best “suited” to, as we grow into stressed out and discontented adults.

It is in this sense that we are indoctrinated through our schooling to uncritically accept the socio-economic system that we are born into, regardless if it means ill-health and discontentment for the individual, and even our society as a whole. The model is simply attempting to shape new generations of children into conforming to the old ways, without recognizing the uniqueness of each child — or that we are undertaking a huge paradigm shift into a new era of human consciousness.

However, it’s not just the systemic box that we’re squashing out children into; our kids are being lied to in many ways. There is also little focus on real education, such as equipping them with the creative, personal, emotional, social and other life skills to properly survive and thrive in today’s challenging society. For example, emotional and social skills are a “different way of being smart” and are extremely important for kids to learn at a young age, so why aren’t they a primary focus? It just doesn’t make sense. Instead, our kids are being medicated with antipsychotics at alarming rates, mostly because their behaviours don’t fit the mould we’re forcing them into. Adding to this problem, up to 40 percent of U.S. schools are now cutting back on recess — the time when children get to go outside and be children!

It all seems too crazy to be true, yet there are some regions and countries doing something about this mess. For example, meditation has been introduced into some schools, having a remarkable impact on the learning and social development of students. In addition, countries like Finland have taken an entirely different approach to educating their kids, proving that less is more.

Ultimately, there are positive changes happening and even though they might not yet be perfected, they’re still not being taken seriously by political and community change agents. Given that our society is evolving on so many levels, we need an education system to reflect those changes; particularly as technological automation is also expected to eliminate many manual jobs from the workforce in the near future.

The Way Forward? A New Six Dimension Model of Education

An interview with Will Stanton

Will is a young Australian writer, researcher, activist and teacher who has worked in a number of primary schools, including a government school in Kathmandu, Nepal. His book, Education Revolution, exposes the challenges and shortfalls of the current system from an insider perspective, and proposes an entirely new model of education; one that frees children from indoctrination and nurtures their innate potential as unique, loving and creative human beings.

In the following interview, Will explores the Six Dimension model he created for a new educational paradigm of our future. He believes teachers are the current system’s best asset, but are underpaid and overworked and are generally faced with a restrictive system that inhibits the highest potential being realised by each child, and each teacher. He also discusses the decreasing investment in education by our governments, as well as ways this funding barrier can be transcended — by moving to new ways of organising our society, economically, socially and politically.

The Verdict

Education is much, much more than conventional subjects and the occasional personal education class. Clearly there are valuable skills and information to be taken from the current system we educate our children in, so a proportion of it should be incorporated into the way we move forward. Yet we have to accept the reality; both culturally and politically, our education model is not only failing our kids’ health and wellbeing, it’s also perpetuating a system of social order that is lethal for our collective and planetary future. We cannot continue to train children in the “old ways”, which clearly are not working for our society or our environment.

Many parents are dissatisfied with the current system, which has translated into an increase in home schooling, and even unschooling practices. This is one way in which an individual family can break the grip of an out-of-date and unsophisticated education system and equip their kids with the kind of education they truly need.

Our children are our future; they need to be educated on the toxic realities of our society, to learn not to repeat or conform to the status quo, and to engage in creating the kind of conscious society they deserve. In addition, the philosophical and societal shifts that we are awakening to need to be deeply embedded into the educational structure, so that we can collectively begin to transcend the dysfunction of our world and create a bright future for both our global society and our natural environment.

Please note: This article is part of the ‘Redesigning Society’ interview series, which you can view in full on The Conscious Society YouTube Channel. This series presents a range of expert perspectives on the current state of societal affairs, as well as the collective changes we desperately need both philosophically and practically. Details of upcoming and past guests and topics can be viewed here.

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2015/08/13/after-a-decade-of-education-why-are-our-kids-so-uneducated/

Towards Conscious Awakening

Posted on July 12, 2015 by marcia

Stages of Conscious Awakening

by Zen Gardner – Jul 12, 2015

Montalk

It is imperative that we awaken from mundane awareness into full spiritual remembrance of who we are. The problem is that even when physically awake, we can still be mentally asleep, unaware of ourselves and entirely absorbed in whatever mechanical impulse or external stimulus captures our attention. This state of confluence, or mental absorption, keeps us in an unproductive dream state.

The common understanding of what it means to be “awake” disguises the truth, which is that despite walking around with eyes open, people tend to nonetheless be hypnotized, dimly conscious, sleepwalking, daydreaming, or in a state of trance. What all these states have in common is that the conscious core of the individual is absent or passive, blowing like a leaf in the winds of environmental stimuli.

In dreams we might make the strangest “logical” associations that amount to no logic at all, have little say in what happens to us, do things impulsively, and fail to question our reality or observe ourselves. Compare this to how people tend to behave in everyday life, the anecdotes and gossip they speak, how they might communicate via recitations of lines from movies or TV shows, speak in trite memetic phrases without conscious thought or originality, engage in ludicrous programmed behavior, engross themselves in petty dramas, and switch between goofy or borrowed personalities. For them, dreams do not end in the morning.

The world is an insane asylum but society is too asleep to notice the insanity. Just as you may not question insane dreams while having them, some people never question their insane lives. The implications of mass somnambulism is obvious: with billions of people asleep, those in power who are awake have the advantage. Sleeping people are easily controlled. Their conscious core exists within a mental prison, harvested for time, labor, and energy. They possess little or no freewill because they have abandoned the awareness necessary to harness it.

The mind and body can be asleep or awake independently of each other. With mind and body awake, one is truly awake. With mind and body asleep, one is dreaming. With mind awake and body asleep, one is lucid-dreaming. With mind asleep and body awake, one is sleepwalking. Gradations exist between these four states, ranging from hypnotism and trance to daydreaming and dim consciousness.

Stage 1: Breaking Negative Confluence

The first step to awakening requires breaking out of this negative confluence by gaining a degree of lucidity, a measure of self-awareness. At any moment you can turn your attention inward and observe yourself, placing your attention firmly in the present moment. You can notice your thoughts, analyze your feelings, pay attention to the sensations in your body, feel your breath, engage in self-examination, and survey your situation and surroundings from a higher perspective.

In doing so, you quickly become aware that all these perceptions ultimately originate from outside of you even if they are playing out inside your own mind. That is because at the very core of your mind is a center of perception that defines the true you, while the peripheral territory of your mind is populated by thoughts that may or may not be your own. This inner core is the silent observer, the consciousness watching through your eyes and thinking through your mind. It is that which experiences, chooses, realizes, and lives. The rest is just machinery.

Becoming lucid depends on being cognizant of your own awareness. Some call this self-remembering since confluence is the state of self-forgetting. Lucidity is as simple as turning within and remembering yourself in the present moment. Remembering yourself stops confluence, and stopping confluence is the first step to snapping out of what suffocates your spiritual identity. It is one thing to know that you are, but quite another to know who you are. In time, the first leads to the second.

Being consciously present in the moment is easy to implement but difficult to maintain. Books have been written on just this task alone. The problem is both physical and metaphysical. Initially, heightening one’s state of awareness requires both vital energy and an adequate supply of neurotransmitters. These deplete after a short period of exertion and one slips back into lowered consciousness. But like a muscle, mental focus grows with training because the physical and subtle bodies adapt to a greater demand for energy.

Maintaining lucidity becomes easier with practice, as with practice one gradually increases the length and depth of focus. By practicing lucidity in a controlled setting, the same state of heightened awareness can more easily be reached and maintained under more natural circumstances. Hence some forms of meditation assist the training of self-awareness.

One common method of exercising lucidity is mindfulness meditation, where you pay attention to your thoughts and sensations by being a calm and lucid third party observer. Unlike transcendental meditation where chanting a mantra for hours leads to self-hypnosis and a lowering of consciousness, mindfulness meditation raises consciousness.

Another practice called Vipassana requires that you relax and then pay attention to every sensation in your body, starting with the top of your head and working your way down to your toes, then back to the top. The primary benefit of this type of meditation is that we become conscious of signals that are otherwise ignored and forgotten. This is useful because in this modern age not only do we normally forget ourselves, but we tend to forget our own bodies. For instance, watching television or using the internet places our attention into virtual bodies that displace our own. This causes a schism between mind and body in addition to the already prevalent disconnection between self and mind. Dissociation of this type is antagonistic to higher awareness. Observing physical sensations goes toward mending the schism, which in turn assists conscious integration between self and mind.

Interestingly, the practice of such lucidity literally changes brain structure over time and increases the activity of gamma brainwaves, which are 40Hz oscillations of the entire brain resonating via quantum coherence.

Additionally, Vipassana and related exercises such as Robert Bruce’s New Energy Ways or the Microcosmic Orbit Meditation of Taoist yoga all have the effect of stimulating nonphysical structures and circuits within the etheric body, which if nothing else can help remove blockages and stagnant energies. If properly executed with sufficient regularity of practice, however, these can also awaken certain extrasensory abilities.

Dealing with Negative Emotions

Becoming mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations is also useful in transmuting internal negative emotional energy. By observing negative emotions as they arise and objectively noticing the physiological sensations they evoke, one keeps from entering into a runaway feedback loop between thoughts and emotions that would otherwise explode into over-reactivity and generate a skewed sense of perception and judgment. In other words, this practice can break your confluence with external provocations.

If the negative emotion is triggered by some button-pushing event, lucid awareness of the emotion itself (rather than where it points, or the person/event that triggered it) is a way of defusing the negative energy without suppressing it. On the other hand, if negativity is more a constant pressure without any specific trigger, then self-awareness helps you stand upright against the pull of this emotional gravity.

In the midst of such storms, through lucidity you will find that you are the eye of that hurricane, an impersonal observer who stands above and beyond. That is the pivot point that disarms and transmutes the energy.

So, lucidity is the key to keeping one’s composure. Only when you have gotten the upper hand over an escalating emotion are you in a position to make an informed choice as to whether to go with it or reign it in; without awareness, that choice is never made and one simply reacts like an animal.

Suppressing emotions by allowing them to fester as you turn to look the other way will cause them to flare up in unexpected ways at unexpected times. This is not healthy; emotions must be dealt with, not ignored. By becoming aware of the raw emotional energy, you can instead harness it — when appropriate. This includes anger in cases where the imminent action fueled by that anger is both wise and necessary, meaning if one is too weak to take care of needed business otherwise.

If a negative emotion and its associated action is not appropriate, then awareness of that energy and remembrance of yourself as the transcendent observer will defuse the energy and transmute it into a higher grade of spiritual fuel for your soul.

Thus whether you harness the energy toward needed action or toward transmutation into a higher form of positive energy, either way you are dealing with it instead of suppressing it.

Stage 2: Positive Confluence

In summary, observing yourself expands the bandwidth of your awareness, breaks negative forms of confluence, and has enhancing effects on your brain and soul. Returning to your center allows you to choose in the moment what to think, feel, or do next. Without self-awareness there is no choice, just a mechanical reaction to a given stimulus. By default we behave like machines, but at any moment we can regain lucidity and disengage the autopilot.

It would therefore seem that self-remembering, mindfulness, or lucidity is all we need to develop spiritually, but unfortunately that is not sufficient. Some esoteric schools of thought stop there and become preoccupied with deprogramming and self-remembering in an effort to pick the weeds of the mind and soul. However, without planting the seeds, adding water and sunshine, what remains is an immaculate but ultimately barren field of dirt.

Notice that by itself, lucidity is merely a state of mindfulness that squelches mechanical reactivity and lets you think on what to do next, but it doesn’t necessarily offer a transcendental or transjective influence to direct you toward the ideal outcome. The sword is liberated from the stone but no map or compass is provided for the quest.

And thus there is need for a second stage in conscious development that goes beyond mere self-remembering. While the first stage aims to interrupt negative confluence, the second stage involves initiating positive confluence with the higher aspects of your being. Speaking from your heart, following your intuition, tapping into your subconscious, virtually “channeling” your Higher Self — these are all examples of positive confluence.

Here, you willingly seek out these higher impulses and let them flow as your self-awareness takes a back seat. Reflect upon times when words flowed from you that must have come from something higher. What you said was wiser and more helpful than anything you could have come up with solely on your own. And while they were flowing, you were unaware of yourself as though in a trance (not unconscious, just not self-aware). This is a state of being in the flow, in the so-called “zone”.

This type of confluence is productive and happens from time to time even without being trained in self-observation. However, self-observation helps you make these connections more consistently and intentionally by reducing interruptions by periods of negative confluence, mainly through your noticing them and nipping them in the bud.

The main function of the second stage is to strengthen your connection with the higher centers, the higher chakras, the uplinks to your Higher Self or Higher Mind. By grooving a conduit to these higher aspects through regular use, their influences become more permanent. This is important because at this second stage, becoming lucid while being in the flow will momentarily interrupt the flow. For instance, speaking from your heart but then suddenly becoming aware of yourself temporarily breaks the connection.

Lucidity hampers all types of confluence, even the positive ones. That is, unless the flow is sufficiently strong such that lucidity does not interrupt it. To illustrate, consider how when we first drift off to sleep at night, if we catch ourselves falling asleep we immediately wake up again. In this case, the initial sleep state is not strong enough to withstand the conscious mind suddenly withdrawing from confluence. However, once one has entered deeper sleep and begun dreaming, it is possible to become lucid and continue dreaming. Those who are unskilled in lucid dreaming have difficulty either maintaining their lucidity, whereupon they continue dreaming unaware, or maintaining their dream state, whereupon they break out of sleep upon realizing they are dreaming. But with practice the state of lucid dreaming can be prolonged.

Stage 3: Positive Lucidity

What does this say about positive confluence? It says that positive confluence is merely a means toward making the connection with one’s higher aspects sufficiently permanent (through repeated exposure and practice, which in turn changes the structure of the brain and soul to create a more hardwired connection) so that one can eventually have self-awareness and not break the connection.

This is the third stage: being simultaneously connected and lucid.

There are two categories of meditation, one lowers consciousness and the other raises it. Both seek to unify the conscious mind with the subconscious and thereby achieve integration of the whole being. But while the first category is regressive, the second is progressive.

Regressive meditation seeks to dissolve the ego into the subconscious so that, in theory, one becomes an unconscious extension of higher sources. If one thereby enters into positive confluence, then that is good.

But with the subconscious merely being a doorway to anything and everything outside the lower self, without deliberately setting a genuine positive destination that doorway could just as easily lead toward becoming a puppet of subconscious complexes, power tripping gurus, or negative entities.

This means that regressive practices carry the risk of losing ego in favor of potentially malevolent influences. Mindless chanting of a mantra, focusing on an external guru, practicing channeling with no filters in place, and slipping into altered states of consciousness for the sake of novelty are examples of things that carry this risk. If you are not engaged in positive confluence with your spiritual core by being and feeling it, then there’s no telling what you’re entering into confluence with.

Some forms of meditation marketed to the West should be called mindlessness meditations because that is precisely what they accomplish: a lowering of awareness into a murky state of unconsciousness that only ends up creating habitual mindless trance states and susceptility to manipulation by delusional or malevolent forces; it works for stress relief the same way psychiatric drugs take the edge off, but it is inappropriate for spiritual development since at best it merely inebriates and tranquilizes and at worst leads to becoming a mindless puppet.

Technically speaking, positive confluence is regressive because it puts us back into the naive childlike state of divine innocence as before the Fall. Self-awareness is lowered into mere awareness as one becomes an expression of a higher will. But as long as this remains a means rather than ends, that is okay. This state has its uses and is better than being in negative confluence, which is the sleepwalking state society seems to be in or the mindless puppet state that certain meditators and channelers enter into.

Despite being regressive, positive confluence is also better than being in a sterile state of lucidity not connected to anything positive, as happens with those who practice self-remembering for years without ever training their capacity for love, empathy, intuition, and other faculties of spirit. They become very lucid but also very cold and hardened, signifying the onset of ossification or Ahrimanization of the soul.

So as a means, positive confluence (Stage 2) is more useful as a stepping stone toward emerging into active divine consciousness (Stage 3). The goal is operating with self-awareness intact so that rather than being an unconscious extension of a higher source, one evolves into that higher source.

In this third stage, one practices self-awareness without interrupting the flow of impressions flowing from the higher centers. This amounts to a passive observation and gentle allowance of the influence your Higher Self exerts over your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.

Why is lucidity important again after it was set aside in the second stage? Because staying lucid while letting positive influences work from within is simply an act of supervising the process so that you can step in as necessary to correct deviations or initiate a new line of inquiry and action.

The problem with Stage 2 is that positive confluence easily passes into negative because one is not always self-aware enough to catch the switchover. Think of a dreamer who is heartful and wise in one dream, then quickly sinks into stress and anger when the dream changes to something negative. There is no consistency. That is why I said positive confluence is fragile, just as Adam and Eve were in a fragile state that was good while it lasted, but ignorance is bliss and that ignorance allowed them to be easily swayed by interceding negative forces.

It is difficult enough to gain lucidity without interrupting the flow, which is why lucidity must at first be passive in the beginning of the third stage, meaning “watch yourself but do not interfere with the expression of your heart.” This, as distinguished from the “express your heart and higher wisdom by forgetting yourself” aspect of the second stage. The latter is a means toward achieving the first, however, so anyone stuck in Stage 1 to the point of having become more lucid but simultaneously colder inside, should practice entering into positive confluence. That means loosening up and absorbing yourself into positive, productive, creative, empathic, revelatory, and generally spiritual activities.

Once the lower self is free of negative confluence and the Higher Self has a clear and permanent communication link (achieved through brain and soul structure enhancements brought about through the aforementioned exercises) and both higher and lower are present at the same time, a mutual flow of communication is possible. The lower self becomes an adept assimilating the wisdom and essence of the Higher Self, thereby rising to its level. In this way, the lower finally merges with the higher and achieves total integration of being.

This is different from the higher sinking into the lower during positive confluence; it is different from annihiliation of ego and the return to a primitive pure state. Rather, it is a forward progression, an entelechy of human consciousness.

Nonlinear Evolution

In practice, these stages of conscious awakening are not discretely sequential like grades in school. Rather, we occupy one of the stages as a primary center of gravity yet can spontaneously spike into the higher levels or drop into the lower.

The higher stages are trickier to access and maintain, but that does not mean we are barred from accessing them, just that without practice we access them less frequently. The glimpses we catch of the higher stages should motivate us to acquire them permanently as our new center of gravity. This is much like regular dreamers being motivated by spontaneous lucid dreams to practice and have them more frequently until it becomes the normal mode of dreaming. Higher awareness happens in flashes, like a fluorescent bulb flickering before fully igniting.

MORE>>

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ZenGardner.com

from: http://www.zengardner.com/stages-conscious-awakening/

Exercises to Open The 3rd Eye

Posted on July 12, 2015 by marcia

Open Your Third Eye And Awaken Your Pineal Gland With These Simple Exercises

bodymindsoulspirit |

by Lapis Links, CureZone Blogs,

AWAKENING I

Please read all of the following;

If you wish to perform this exercise, you need to understand what you will be doing. It is important to follow the instructions as this is somewhat advanced:

The Third Eye is directly related to the 6th chakra — the psychic chakra, located on the middle of the forehead above the brows. It is closely associated with the “pineal” gland. The pineal gland is dormant in most people, as is the true Third Eye.

French Philosopher Rene Descartes believed the pineal gland to be “the seat of the soul” where mind and body met.

In the average person, the pineal gland is atrophied, [calcified] and dormant. The following exercise will change that. Please read this thoroughly, as much of the exercises I write of are very advanced and can cause problems if one does not do them correctly.

The pineal gland is like a pea in size; like a shriveled raisin in most people where it remains dormant.

Opening the pineal gland/3rd eye:

This is done with a specific tone and chant. You only need to do this exercise for 3 days, afterwards, it is permanent.

The mantra to be used is “Thoh,” pronounced “TOE.”

It must be within the correct vibration.

Not deep, not high pitched, in between, like alto range.

You will feel it when you hit the correct tone. So play around and don’t second guess yourself. When you think you’ve got it, you probably do.

1. Sit with your back straight.

2. Breathe in through your nose and hold your breath as long as is comfortable.

Open your jaws so there is a small space between your top and bottom teeth.

Place the tip of your tongue between the space of your slightly parted teeth.

3. Put a very light pressure onto the tongue with your teeth.

This is like the same process of saying the “TH” part of the English word “the.”

Once your tongue is in position, release your breath slowly through your mouth, saying T-H-H-O-H-H in one long exhale.

Say the word one time per exhale. Your tongue will be vibrating between your teeth.

You should feel the air moving past your tongue and teeth.

If this technique is done properly, you will feel a pressure or sensation in your jaw and cheeks. The tone will also vibrate in your third eye.

It may take a few seconds to adjust this, don’t worry, just keep going.

4. Do the above 5 times in a row.

5. It is very important the above exercise be done for 3 consecutive days, 24 hours apart. Then it is a done deal.
________________________________________________

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT:

1. One of the first experiences is a headache or pressure in the center of the forehead. This sensation may also feel like it is originating from within, usually an inch or more beneath the surface of the forehead. This is a positive indication the pineal gland is awakening and beginning to function in a healthy manner.

*Some people can experience a migraine lasting several hours, so to be safe it is recommended that you try this in the evening when you do not have work to do. The severity of the side effects will depend on how atrophied/calcified your pineal gland is to begin with.

2. After the occurrence of headache or pressure in the forehead, you may wake up one morning with a throbbing or tingling sensation in your forehead; it may feel like a goosebump.

The feeling may be very intense, like something is there. The sensation of pulsing or throbbing will continue throughout the day, and you may “hear” sounds coming from within your head, such as light popping or crackling sensations.

These are the final physiological events you may experience after opening up your third eye.
It indicates your pineal gland is awakened, functioning and alive.
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PSYCHIC EFFECTS:

You may experience any or all of these to varying degrees:

Faster, easier learning and retention
Marked increase in intuition
Increased creativity
Psychic gifts develop and become markedly stronger, along with more developed ability to see or sense human auras
Clairvoyance (psychic vision) opens up
Clairaudience (psychic hearing) opens up
Clairsentience (psychic feeling/touching) opens up

This is a very powerful exercise, and as with all powerful practices, your body may go through discomfort in order to adapt.

AWAKENING II

In order for this to work properly, you must have already performed the Awakening I exercise.

I included this above for those who are new.

It is very important to wait for 10-14 days following Awakening I, before you go onto Awakening II, otherwise the exercises won’t be effective. Your body needs time to adapt and get the energy flow going.

This exercise is completely euphoric and intensely pleasurable. Unlike Awakening I, this should be done once a week, and given the blissful effects that are lasting when done correctly, most people will enjoy doing so.

Breath in deeply and hold your breath for a count of five.

Repeat this three times.

This helps you to be relaxed and focused.

Now focus all of your attention upon your third eye.

You should begin to feel a sensation similar to the effects of the Awakening I exercise — a slight pressure or awareness of the spot of your third eye.

Now, take a deep breath as you did for the Awakening I exercise.

Hold it for as long as comfortable — do not push this — and release your breath, vibrating the word “MAY.” This is pronounced like the English language word for the month of May.

It should all come out at one time- M-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay, gradually and slowly.

It is ok to adjust your pitch. The tone should be alto.

Breath in again, and repeat this five times.

You need to hit a certain pitch. You will know when you do, for you will feel this in your head. Do the best you can.

Now, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT:

When vibrating the word “MAY,” feel the energy going into your head, first into your third eye area, then into the middle of your brain, and then to the top of your head where your crown chakra is located.

REMEMBER: Concentrate on your forehead (third eye area), then the middle of your brain, and finally the top of your head.

This is done for the duration of each chant.

1. Breath in.

2. Begin to exhale, vibrating “MAY.”

3. Concentrate on your third eye.

4. Concentrate on the middle of your brain.

5. Concentrate on the top of your head and finish exhaling the vibration.

Repeat four more times.

The effects of this exercise are extremely pleasurable.

A feeling of lightness can occur immediately following the exercise.

Some people may feel energy or tingling inside their heads, or completely covering their heads; a slight pressure in the crown area and intense euphoria is also common.

The blissful state can occur hours and even days later.

This will eventually become permanent and will greatly assist in void meditation, clairvoyance, and the development of other psychic and paranormal senses.

from: http://www.bodymindsoulspirit.com/third-eye-pineal-gland-exercises/

Ram Dass on Mantras

Posted on July 5, 2015 by marcia

Open Heart Extra – Mantras

A mantra is a phrase, or it could be a sound or a phrase. It is a phrase that you repeat over and over and over again. Take for example the phrase Om Mani Padme Hum. This phrase is perhaps one of the most widely used mantras in the world today. In fact in Nepal you’ll see rocks 20 feet long and 10 feet high with Om Mani Padme Hum written in tiny letters all over the whole rock, so you can just read it like a letter. And there are prayer wheels at the temples where written in them ten million times is the phrase Om Mani Padme Hum, and you see lamas going around stupas saying Om Mani Padme Hum.

Now, when you first start to say a mantra, the first involvement is in hearing it outside, through your ears, saying it aloud and hearing it and thinking about it’s meaning. That’s the first game you play with mantra. So, if I give you that mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, you think about it and you think, “Well, what does it mean?” Now, there are many meanings – there’s a whole book written about its meaning by Govinda. One of the ways of understanding its meaning is that Om means, like Brahma, that which is behind it all, the unmanifest. Mani means jewel or crystal. Padme means lotus, and Hum means heart. So, on one level what it means is the entire universe is just like a pure jewel or crystal right in the heart or center of the lotus flower, which is me, and it is manifest, it comes forth in light, in manifest light, in my own heart. That’s one way of interpreting it. You start to say Om Mani Padme Hum and you’re thinking, “God in unmanifest form is like a jewel in the middle of a lotus, manifest in my heart.” You go through that and feel it in your heart – that’s one trip.

Ok, that’s the first, and lowest level of operation of mantra. It’s putting one set of thoughts into your head in place of another set of thoughts. Instead of thinking, “Gee, it’s hot out. Shall I have a milkshake at the next stop? Gee, this engine sounds a little strange. Those new Chevy’s don’t look very good at all. Boy, I’ve been on this trip!” Instead of that, all of that stuff, which is terribly profound and important, but isn’t really that relevant, you go into the mantra. Once the mantra has been going on that way for a while, it starts to change in its nature. You stop thinking about what it means; you just sort of get hooked or addicted on the Tibetan sound of it. And then it starts to move into your head, and then from your head down into your chest, until pretty soon it’s going around like a little wheel, going around inside your chest, just Om Mani Padme Hum, right?

Now, at that point it has stopped meaning anything to you. Any time you want to bring it back into consciousness, you can rerun its meaning, which will do that thing for you again, but you can keep it down in the place where it’s just running off. Now it’s got another quality to it. That is, when a mantra is done sufficiently it gets into a certain kind of vibration or harmony with the universe in a certain way which is its own thing. The conscious beings who evolve certain languages such as Sanskrit specifically evolve the sounds of these languages to be connected with various states of consciousness – unlike the English language- so that a Sanskrit mantra, if you do it over and over again, will take you to a certain state of consciousness.

The idea of a mantra is that it just sits there, and all that stuff goes by. It’s like a bridge on which you stand, looking down into the water in which you see your own life going by. It’s a training device to break you out of your attachments. When I’m driving and doing mantra I’m not attached to my driving. I’m doing mantra, and driving is just happening. So in other words, the mantra is a technique for bringing me into a place in myself which would be called the eternal present; that is, a place where nothing is literally happening at all. It’s a device for calming my mind.

Mantra gets so far out, that after I did it for two days and two nights solid in Nepal once, I stopped to go to sleep and of course it continued going. But instead of it continuing going just in my voice it continued going, what it sounded like was a cross between the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the O Heavenly Day Chorus. It’s that huge of a thing except it was made up of all old voices and they stretched back in time and space in infinite direction, you know, distance. All I heard was Om Mani Padme Hum and the wind was Om Mani Padme Hum and the air conditioner was Om Mani Padme Hum, the whole thing. I had tuned in on that place where that was all I could hear. But it was no longer my voice. I went rushing to a yogi and I said, “What’s happening, I’m going crazy!” He said, “You’ve tuned in on the Om, that’s that place. You’ve tuned in on that place. There it is. That’s where they’re all hanging out.”

– Ram Dass, excerpt from the book Doing Your Own Being, 1973

from: https://www.ramdass.org/mantras/

Latest fr/Hathors Through Tom Kenyon

Posted on May 17, 2015 by marcia

The Fifth Perspective: Transcending Space and Time

A Hathor Planetary Message through Tom Kenyon

Entering into higher dimensions of consciousness requires a fundamental shift in perceived time and space.

This is a crucial shift in perception that we wish to address using a theoretical perspective and a practical technique, which includes the use of a sound meditation we have created for this purpose.

The Theory

There are many ways to view higher dimensions. What we wish to share is a basic schematic of how we view dimensions and the challenges you face as you transit into higher dimensional reality.

Your embodied biological reality (i.e., your physical body) is anchored in the third and fourth dimensions of consciousness as we view it.

You are quite familiar with the third dimensionality of your world. Your nervous system is keenly tuned to this reality. Your brain/mind/body complex is synchronized to the physical reality of your world. Your very biological survival depends upon your navigation of the space around you. Furthermore your body, mind and consciousness are anchored in your perception of time.

Your higher dimensional levels of consciousness, however, are not bound by these constraints. They are free of spatial and time-oriented restrictions. This is due to the fact that your higher dimensional bodies have no mass or physicality and are thus unaffected by gravitational fields.

Time is greatly affected by gravitational fields. Furthermore, your perception of time is affected by conditioning. The combination of gravitational fields and social conditioning has resulted in most human beings finding themselves marooned in the constraints of space and time.

Pragmatically speaking, your experience of “reality” is a result of the vibratory level you identify with. When you identify with higher dimensions of consciousness you are freed from the constraints of space and time, and you operate in a more fluid reality.

When you identify solely with your biological reality you are, for all intents and purposes, trapped in space and time.

In this message we will be presenting a method for you to shift your personal identity from the constraints of perceived time and space to the freedom of higher dimensions while also living your day-to-day life in a civilization and dimensional reality that is bound by these constraints (i.e., space and time).

But before imparting this method we need to delve into the theory a little bit further.

As we view it, time is the fourth dimension. For us space and time are intimately related. Your scientists have confirmed Einstein’s theory that large objects with mass generate gravitational fields, which alter both space and time.

For us the fifth dimension is the first dimension of consciousness outside the constraints of space and time (i.e., the third and fourth dimensions.) And beings in the fifth dimension have no mass and are therefore not subject to the effects of gravitational fields.

While the fifth dimension has no physicality per se, it does have form, or objects. But from your perspective, forms in the fifth dimension seem ephemeral—having no substance or reality.

When you enter the fifth dimension you will still experience yourself as having a form (i.e., a body). And things in the fifth dimension will appear to you as solid as the forms you experience in your current reality. But your experience of space will be much more fluid, and time as a reference point will not exist.

There are those who say that all of your problems will be magically and instantaneously solved when you enter into higher dimensions. This is not our experience. It is just that the challenges are different. The opportunities are also different, because you are not confined by the limitations of space and time as you experience them in your current embodied reality. This gives you greater opportunities for creativity and what we call “dimensional evolution.”

Dimensional evolution is the development of the ability to be aware of, and operate within, multiple dimensions simultaneously. The journey to this state of mastery can indeed be a long and convoluted one, because it involves living in a specific dimensional reality through direct experience. For instance, your current embodied life is—from the standpoint of dimensional evolution—an opportunity to master the third and fourth dimensions. It is also an opportunity to experience higher dimensions while simultaneously living an embodied existence. A life lived in this manner rapidly accelerates dimensional evolution, and this message is coded with multiple levels of information for those of you that have entered this radical way of being.

From our perspective, you possess a form that is human-like up through the ninth dimension. Each successive dimension of consciousness is subtler (less dense) than the one before it. For those who enter the tenth dimension, form, as you know it, disappears completely, and you become more geometric in nature.

When we enter the tenth dimension we become spheres. We are not the spheres that show up in photographs that some people refer to as orbs. True orbs, as opposed to photographic artifacts or hoaxes, are interdimensional beings that have spherical geometry. And if you look more closely these spheres will reveal complex labyrinths inside. The spherical nature of interdimensional beings is a commonality, and many different types of beings have this geometric form.

When we enter the tenth dimension some of us become what we call the Aethos, which we have discussed in other messages.

But let us turn our attention back to you. Collectively humanity is being rapidly drawn into the fifth dimension. This is an inevitable evolutionary shift, one fraught with both danger and opportunity, and we wish now to discuss a few of the challenges facing you as you make this transition.

For the purposes of this discussion we would like to divide these challenges into three broad categories: 1) naturally occurring challenges to transitions in consciousness, 2) manmade influences and 3) alien interference.

Naturally Occurring Challenges

Transitions into higher dimensions are problematic due to radical differences in perception between beings that are gravity bound and those that are not. In other words, at the threshold between your third and fourth dimensional reality and your fifth dimensional reality you are faced with a “wall” of perceptual differences.

Indeed some individuals who experience fifth dimensional reality think they are losing their minds. This is because perceived space and time are temporarily suspended. Perception is more fluid in the higher dimensions, and when you enter these dimensions you stand outside of your own life. It’s as if you are disconnected from the realities and demands of your earthly existence, which can create immense relief or immense distress depending upon your personal psychology.

When your consciousness shifts into the fifth dimension your personal identity changes. You simply cannot identify with your earthly existence in the ways you are used to. This challenge, from our perspective, is actually the most difficult when you first enter the fifth dimension. Transiting from the fifth into higher dimensions is inherently easier because you are already used to the disappearance of space and time as limitations.

Transiting into the fifth dimension (and higher) requires finesse on your part if you are to accomplish the task of living your day-to-day life while accommodating this expanded reality.

One of the future abilities of humanity, collectively speaking, will be the ability to live in third and fourth dimensions—meaning space and time as you currently know them—while simultaneously living in the fifth dimension where space and time are not experienced as constraints.

This dual reality will offer humanity immense creative insights and abilities, but as with most progressions this is a bell-curve. And most likely many of you reading this message are further ahead in this transition than the bulk of humanity. This may leave you feeling like a stranger living in a strange land.

Manmade Influences

Your transition from third and fourth dimensional reality into the fifth and higher is made all the more difficult by manmade or cultural influences.

From the standpoint of dimensional evolution the edifice of your entire civilization is founded upon an illusion. The illusion is that your world is solid and that space and time are unyielding realities that cannot be affected by your consciousness.

While you are biologically compelled to attend to the demands of the third and forth dimensions in your everyday life, paying attention to perceived space and time is different from believing that they are the only reality.

Your territorial-based philosophical, religious and political systems thrive upon and depend upon the perpetuation of this illusion. But in our opinion, the house of cards that you call human civilization will eventually collapse and radically evolve as more and more individuals free themselves from living confined lives that are solely oriented to lower dimensional realities.

Let us turn our attention now to other influences that can, and are, negatively impacting your transition into higher dimensional realities.

Your eco-system is in a downward spiral making it more and more challenging for biological organisms to survive. This is creating immense stress for all animal and plant life including humans. Some of the threats to your ecosystem are cosmic in nature such as solar activity as well as gamma and other forms of radiation from deep space. Some of the threats come from changes in the Earth itself, but much of the degradation of your ecosystem is manmade, including—but certainly not limited to—carbon emissions and the acidification of your oceans.

We will not take the time or space (a private joke) to discuss this further as it is very complex. But anyone who believes that everything is fine with the ecological reality of your planet is in denial.

This leads us to the power brokers, those who empower themselves by disempowering others. We are referring, in this instance, to corporate entities that disseminate misinformation about the ecosystem so that they can perpetuate their income at the expense of your planet’s life forms.

This is an intelligence test for humanity, and if you do not collectively wake up and see that you have been manipulated and taken advantage of by the power brokers—both seen and unseen—your ecosystem will continue to degrade, and you will be confronted with a future not worth living.

Alien Interference

Part of what we call alien interference is genetic in nature and has to do with early genetic tampering by the Annunaki. This alien civilization created what is essentially a slave race for the purpose of mining gold, which they desperately needed to reinforce the energetics of their dwindling atmosphere. A genetic experiment was undertaken in which early primates on earth were genetically altered by the Annunaki to serve as workers, as slaves, for the purpose of mining. Thus, built into the very genetic coding of your biology is a deeply engrained tendency to be subservient and to worship what you perceive to be “divine beings.”

Early humans perceived the Annunaki (and many other galactic and intergalactic travelers) as gods, but these beings were simply so technologically advanced their mere presence and actions seemed like magic to less evolved minds.

The transition point from the constraints of third and fourth dimensional existence into the greater freedom of the fifth dimension and beyond can create an emotional challenge. This is due to the fact that the immense freedom experienced in higher dimensional reality can be temporarily disorienting. This type of disorientation is caused by two factors 1) the disappearance of perceived space and time as reference points and 2) the Annunaki manipulation.

If you have not freed yourself from the Annunaki genetic template of subservience and worship, your experience of the higher dimensions can be contaminated.

This is due to the simple truth that there are a multitude of interdimensional beings, alien and otherwise, who will be happy to fill in the gap—who will feed on your subservience to their will and glory in your worship.

If this is your choice then this will be your reality. We have no judgment as to whether you choose this or not, but we do think that such a choice would be unfortunate.

The nexus of our message is one of personal empowerment and freedom, so we caution you as you enter into the fifth and higher dimensional realities to avoid alien implanted delusions that there are other beings you should bow down to. Honor them if they are honorable, yes. Bow down to anyone? Never!

Death and the Fifth Dimension

When you shift your identify into the fifth dimension your personal history in this life seems like a dream. This is because you have transcended the sensory anchors of your embodied life, and all of your history and all the histories of this universe are experienced as dream-like.

During certain states of profoundly expanded consciousness, this dream-like nature of life can be experienced directly. But for most human beings this experience only emerges through the passage you call death.

There are two types of death we wish to discuss. The first type of death is the psychological and spiritual metamorphosis that occurs when you shift into fifth dimensional reality. This can often feel like a type of death because your habitual orientation to the sensory-based realities of your life disappears. Who are you? What is the meaning of your life? These fundamental existential questions are profoundly affected by transitions into fifth and higher dimensional realities.

And so for those of you reading this who are transiting into the fifth dimension—or higher—we say to you, do not be dismayed by the feelings of your demise. Your feelings of your impending death may be arising within you as a result of your transition into higher dimensional reality and not a harbinger of your physical death.

The second type of death we wish to discuss is the death of your biological reality (i.e., your physical body). At the final completion of the death process you will no longer receive sensory input from your external world, and your experience of space and time (as you currently experience them) will be obliterated. This can be quite disorienting if you are not prepared. It can also be quite exhilarating if you understand the nature of what is happening.

If you fully and completely identify yourself solely as a biological organism the moment of your death can be frightening. If, however, you have already tasted the freedom of fifth dimensional reality or higher your transition through death will be easier.

At the completion of your biological death, from our experience and perspective, you will be confronted with three portals. The first is a tunnel of light. The second is a portal opened through the energetics of a guru or savior. And the third is a portal, or tunnel, that leads into darkness.

The tunnel of light is generated from the pranic tube that runs through the center of your body, which runs from your perineum to your crown, and it is a tunnel-like or tube-like channel. At the moment of death, your consciousness moves upward through this tunnel that opens into another dimension of consciousness through your crown chakra.

On the other side of this tunnel is a bright light, and you may find yourself sensing that you are on a bridge crossing over a stream or a river. On the other side of the bridge will be those persons of your previous life, the lifetime you have just ended. You may sense those who have died before you, including pets you have had, because the animal spirits also dwell in this realm. If there are incomplete relationships or issues still to be resolved with these persons or beings, you may feel a yearning to enter this light, and by doing so you re-enter the wheel of birth and death, and you will reincarnate—most likely on Earth.

The second portal is created by the personal will of a guru or savior. Entering this portal will lead you into the vibratory field of the guru or savior that you have a deep personal connection to. And for those of you on this path, entering this dimension of consciousness will be the completion of a profound desire to be with this being. Our caution here is that you will be entering a realm defined not only by the evolutionary attainment of your guru or savior but also by his or her limitations.

The third portal opens into darkness. And entering this portal leads you into the Void, the creatrix from which all things arise. If you choose this portal and have prepared yourself to deal with this level of freedom you will be freed to explore other dimensions of this cosmos and beyond, meaning states of being that transcend all physical phenomena. In this realm of existence you can become an explorer of other realities as you so choose.

Some individuals swoon when confronted with the vastness of the Void. They rush into choosing a new reality rather than taking their time to rest in the potential of all things. We have addressed this in a previous message called Transition States.

We have no judgment as to which portal you enter through the dimensional shift you call death. But we think it is beneficial for you to know what awaits you beforehand so that you can prepare yourself for the choices that you will be compelled to make on the other side of your earthly experience.

Death is not an ending. It is merely the completion of one journey through space and time. Death is a harbinger of new potential realities, and you will create these realities through the choices you made during your life as well as through the choices you make at the moment of your death.

We will now turn our attention to a simple method for training your consciousness to enter higher dimensions and to enter the freedom of your transcendent reality—unconstrained by the limitations of perceived space and time. This method is based on the use of a simple sound meditation to explore the freedom of consciousness that arises when you shift your self-identity to higher dimensions.

As you experiment with this threshold of consciousness, which we call the Fifth Perspective, we caution you to avoid the temptation of escapism. We are offering this method, not as a means to escape the realities of your embodied existence, rather we are offering it as a means to enhance and enrich your experience of life by giving you access to the fifth dimension and beyond.

Higher dimensional realities, unconfined by the constraints of perceived space and time, conjoined with the realities of your biological existence creates a potent catalyst for dimensional evolution, and in our opinion this is to be celebrated rather than avoided.

For those of you reading this who are, in fact, at the brink of your physical death this sound meditation can assist you to enter a more gracious passage.

The Fifth Perspective

The Fifth Perspective is quite simply the recognition that you are unconstrained by space or time. It is a foyer or an entrance into the fifth dimension and from there into higher dimensions as well.

It is a direct perception, not just a thought or an idea. It is a visceral experience generated through the activation of your right cerebral hemisphere’s ability for spatial mastery.

When you enter into an expanded sense of spaciousness through direct experience, a shift in consciousness occurs. You become a witness to the dream-like nature of your life, your history and all phenomena around you. This sense of freedom, this transcendence of perceived space and time, can allow you to deal with the realities of your embodied existence in more creative and resourceful ways, and this is why we are imparting this method.

As we cautioned you earlier, this is not meant to be a form of escapism. But there is indeed a temptation in the Fifth Perspective we need to address more clearly before proceeding.

When you enter the Fifth Perspective, which is the transcendence of perceived space and time, everything about your life and the world around you seems dream-like. You are detached from it all, and it may seem to you as if your day-to-day life is like a dance in which you have no interest.

If you remain in the Fifth Perspective without engaging the realities of your embodied life you will enter a bubble, but in terms of dimensional evolution you will not be benefitted by such an escape.

We can imagine that remaining in the bubble of the Fifth Perspective would be the best choice for some individuals in very rare instances. But for most persons the Fifth Perspective is best used as a springboard into deeper insight and creativity.

When you work with the sound meditation, you will be training your brain/mind to enter the Fifth Perspective. The spatial nature of the sound patterns will create a response in your brain/mind/body that opens a doorway into the Fifth Perspective, and eventually you will find yourself in an expanded state of awareness. The more you work with the sound meditation the stronger this ability becomes. Ultimately you graduate to a place where you can enter the Fifth Perspective in the midst of your daily activities—and this is the goal.

When you are confronted by a difficult situation in your life and are able to simultaneously reside in the Fifth Perspective, the pressure of the situation decreases. This is due to the fact that your consciousness is less bound by the circumstances. You have a little “wiggle room,” so to speak, and within that inner freedom new creative insights and problem solving abilities will spontaneously arise within you.

The Meditation

We call this meditation A Bridge Between the Worlds. It stimulates a mental state that allows you to experience the freedom of the Fifth Perspective.

We suggest you listen to this sound meditation with earphones or ear buds so the acoustic information is routed more directly into your brain without the presence of other sounds in the environment.

As you begin listening you simply recall the feeling of being surrounded by an immense space. It is the feeling of being surrounded by space that activates your brain’s right hemispheric abilities. Thinking about being surrounded by a large space will not activate this potential. You must kinesthetically feel or sense yourself surrounded by a large space.

If you are an advanced explorer of consciousness you can deepen the experience by sensing that there is no barrier between the external space around you and the internal space of your body. In other words, the boundary of your body temporarily disappears, and there is nothing but space. You simply hold this state of mind as you listen to the sound meditation. When your mind wanders you bring it back to an awareness of space and the sounds you are hearing. When the meditation is complete we suggest you take a few moments to sense what is happening within you.

When you have mastered the ability to enter the Fifth Perspective using this sound meditation, you are ready to graduate and explore using this ability in the midst of your life circumstances. The union of the constraints of your embodied life with the freedom of higher dimensional realities creates a most interesting paradox, and through entering this paradox you will greatly accelerate your dimensional evolution.

The Hathors
April 20, 2015

Tom’s Thoughts and Observations

This sound meditation (A Bridge Between the Worlds) is about 12 minutes in length. But as you begin to experiment with the method of listening to the sounds while entering into the Fifth Perspective (i.e., the feeling of spaciousness), don’t feel that you need to meditate on this sound piece for its full duration. Some people will find that a few minutes are all they can “handle,” and if you are one of these persons I would say to just slowly extend the time according to your comfort zone.

Paradoxically some people will wish that the sound meditation could be longer. If you are one of these individuals, I would just hit the repeat button as often as you desire—up to a point. If you stop doing the things in your life that need to be done, like the laundry and dishes, I think you may have gone overboard and need to reel yourself back in a bit. It’s all about balance.

A link to this audio file appears at the end of my comments.

It is not advisable to listen to this sound-piece or experiment with the Fifth Perspective in situations requiring alertness such as driving a car or operating machinery since the combination of the two is quite mind altering.

Those of you who have listened to The Elevatron will notice strong similarities, and I suggest you read the previous Hathor message, Escalation of Chaotic Nodes and Dismantling of 3 D Reality, to get a sense of what this fundamental harmonic is about.

A Technical Note: For those of you curious about the technical differences between the two sound meditations, A Bridge Between the Worlds is an extended version of The Elevatron with a contoured EQ to enhance its inherently calming effects. Having worked with the meditation in multiple settings, I feel this sound piece is quite effective as an aid to attain the Fifth Perspective.

In this message the Hathors refer to two of their previous messages, The Aethos and Transition States. I think reading both of these would be beneficial, especially Transition States. If you click on the underlined titles above, it will take you to the messages or you can go to the Hathor section of the website (www.tomkenyon.com) and look them up by their titles.

Experienced Explorers of the Mind will be able to enter into the Fifth Perspective quite easily. If you are new to the exploration of your inner worlds, the Fifth Perspective may seem a bit foreign since it stands in such stark contrast to most people’s everyday perception of reality. But the Fifth Perspective is fundamentally a brain skill, a way to activate the spatial intelligence of your brain’s right hemisphere.

And it is through the agency of your right brain that you will be able to explore the vastness of inner space. While the outcome of this brain skill is a seemingly exotic state of mind, like any brain skill it can be developed. It just takes time and experience with the method.

Every time you work with the sound meditation, as the Hathors suggest, you will be building new neurological circuits in your brain that will eventually allow you to enter the Fifth Perspective and transcend space and time with true mastery—even if you have never ever tried anything like this before.

The secret is repetition. The more you work with the Fifth Perspective in conjunction with the sound meditation, the more effective your brain will become at producing this unusual and resourceful state of mind.

Click here to listen to and/or download the sound meditation, A Bridge Between the Worlds.

from: http://tomkenyon.com/the-fifth-perspective-transcending-space-and-time

On Himalayan Salt Lamps

Posted on May 1, 2015 by marcia

The Amazing Health Benefits of Himalayan Salt Lamp

Healthyand naturalworld.com

Have you ever noticed how mentally and physically refreshed you feel after sitting by a gashing waterfall? Or how you experience a boost in energy after spending some time at an untamed seafront? What makes you feel so good in spots of this kind is the abundance of negative ions, which get produced in some natural places.

Now, there is a way to mimic these perfect circumstances in your own home and indoor places where you spend a lot of time. Himalayan salt lamps have the ability to chemically and physically transform a room, and have unique healing effects. Find out how Himalayan salt lamps work, where to use them and what are their health benefits.

Before I can explain to you why these lamps are so beneficial to your health, I need to briefly tell you about positive and negative ions and how they can affect the way you feel.

The Dangers of Positive Ions

We are surrounded by positive and negative ions – these are atoms or molecules that have lost or gained an electron and are electrically charged.

Positive ions are created by electronic devices and have been dubbed ‘electronic smog’ or ‘electronic air pollution’. As we all know, we are increasingly surrounded by all sorts of computers, large screen TVs, telephones, microwaves and other appliances we now deem necessary for our survival and entertainment (although only a decade ago we did perfectly well without most of these).

I have previously mentioned the dangers of Wi-Fi / cellular radiation and how it affects your health.

Studies have shown that your brain gets bombarded by frequencies 20 times higher than its optimal frequency, which results in all sorts of problems, including insomnia, nervousness and allergies.

The World Health Organization calls the electronic smog “one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences” and states that concerns about the health effects should be taken seriously.

In short, positive ions are very harmful to us and need to be neutralized.

The Potential of Negative Ions

Nature produces negative ions to combat air pollution. They attract the harmful particles, which are positively charged, and they balance and neutralize them, so that they lose their damaging characteristics.

In order to breathe in fresh and pure air and protect our health, we want to be surrounded by negative ions. WebMD explains that negative ions stimulate the flow of oxygen to the brain and in this way increase our mental alertness and energy.

What is a Himalayan Salt Lamp?

I have previously written about the amazing pink Himalayan salt. Salt lamps are blocks of pure Himalayan salt, so they come from the same region of the world. Also known as the ‘Vitamins of the Air’, they are made from the salt that came from ancient oceans, and serve as a perfect air ionizer.

Himalayan salt lamps can be solid pieces of salt like this one or decorative baskets filled with large crystals of salt like this one.

The lamp has a small bulb inside and is shaped in a sophisticated way to create a beautiful decorative object of an exceptional health value.

How do Salt Crystal Lamps Work?

Salt lamps emit negative ions.

The bulb inside of the lamp heats the crystal and supports the ionizing effect. Salt itself is hygroscopic and attracts the water from the surroundings. You can often see that the lamp is damp or even wet, especially in more humid environments. Due to the gentle heat of the lamp, the water quickly evaporates and during the evaporation process the beneficial negative ions get created. They go on to bind with excessive positive ions (bacteria, molds and allergens all carry a positive charge) and neutralize the electronic smog in your home.

Moreover, the lamp is a very pure source of light and its multi-colored glow has a soothing effect and relaxes you.

Scientifically speaking, the Himalayan salt lamp achieves the following things:

1 It ionizes the room.

2 It balances artificial frequencies and unnatural electromagnetic wavelengths that originate from electronic appliances.

3 It produces the light waves of the rainbow spectrum which protect your body.

Health Benefits of Himalayan Salt Lamps

People using salt lamps report improvement in their physical and mental well-being soon after starting to light them. They are said to help with:

• respiratory problems (including colds)

• allergies

• skin conditions

• mental and stress-related disorders (including insomnia)

• headaches and migraines

• rheumatism

• blood system disorders.

Due to their calming colors (different shades of orange and pink), they have also been used in color therapy to help treat neurotic disorders and sleeplessness.

The lamps have been recommended for anyone wishing to:

• Improve the quality of air in their immediate environment.

• Achieve a feeling of relaxation and meditation.

• Improve various health disorders and maintain good health.

Himalayan Salt Lamps in your Home: Where and When

Don’t expect massive improvements if you tuck away a single lamp in the far corner of your house where no-one ever goes. These lamps have a limited range. You will achieve best results if you place them somewhere where you and your family spend a lot of time, or where there are a lot of electronic appliances.

It is suggested to have more than just one lamp. You can start with one of course and then add to your collection as you go along. It’s similar to plants – the more the better. You should aim to have at least one in every room you frequently use, such as bedrooms and living rooms.

Think about the following:

• Where do you spend most time?

• Where do you have a lot of ‘electronic smog’ from computers, TVs, mobile phones, etc.?

• Where would you like to enjoy the lamp’s relaxing effects?

Then, place your lamps in these areas.

Another way to improve the quality of air in your house is by frequently airing the place, so the air can circulate. In the winter months or when there are high levels of air pollution, it might be difficult to leave the windows open and sufficiently air all the rooms. That is when the salt lamps can be particularly useful and can help cleanse the air and remove the stubborn winter bugs.

There are a lot of fake and cheaper versions on the market that don’t use Himalayan salt. You should check the origin of the lamp you are purchasing. The real lamp is made from pure, food grade Himalayan salt. Substitutes from rock salt will not provide you with the same benefits.

from: http://spiritofmaat.com/magazine/may-2015-embracing-your-magical-life/the-amazing-health-benefits-of-himalayan-salt-lamp/

Traits of VIsionaries

Posted on April 8, 2015 by marcia

10 Qualities of Visionary Leaders and Healers in Transitional Times

9th April 2015

By Gerri Ravyn Stanfield

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Let’s push it, let’s birth it. Let’s create and heal and risk the pain. I love the way you lead the way, the way you risk that disapproving sneer, the distasteful glare. I love the way you dive right into the fear of isolation and rejection, just to become the truth. Sure, we want to be good and to be loved, but following the rules has never unveiled the joy we seek.

Now is not the time to follow the old rules!

The world is in a great initiation, a giant transition. It’s time to question the (de)construction of every wall. Those of us willing to identify as leaders and healers are uniquely poised to help this process. Surviving crisis is written in our DNA, but this time around, the scale is larger.

Many of us have had the luxury of time spent together in friendship, spiritual or professional community, celebrating the cycles of the planet and imagining the world that is to come. Our intention is sent out to create that world where natural resources are valued, everyone has what they need and our relationships with plants and animals are healthy. We want to recognize the interdependence of our lives with other humans. We are surrounded by people who may have a different view of what is coming or who may fear the events that are unfolding around our climate, racial justice and change in economy.

The Great Turning

In their book, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone outline three paradigms about the way that the world is going right now.

The first is Business as Usual; this seems to be the way that most of Western urbanized culture is going. Governments still recommend economic progress based on overuse of resources; the media still gives the message to consume. No change is recommended anytime soon.

In The Great Unraveling story, it is the opposite. All the dire truths about this time weigh heavy and there is no other direction except for imminent destruction.

The third paradigm, The Great Turning, is about a major transition in lifestyle and actions to shift human culture towards a holistic healing relationship with our planet.

People who are practicing Business as Usual seem to be living in denial about climate changes, extinction of species and extreme economic disparity. When faced with this story, everything can feel hopeless and we find ourselves spending hours searching the internet or distracting ourselves. It is seductive to engage in The Great Unraveling as well. This one feels like we are really doing something by convincing people how bad it is out there. Our urgency feels like the opposite of apathy. Perhaps we grow more desperate, thinking that it is too late for significant change; that we are surely doomed.

In healing leadership, we continue to revisit The Great Turning as a possibility for the future. We share what is so painful and exciting about being alive right now. We remember what is worth fighting for and loving; and what qualities leaders need in the real world to bring The Great Turning to life.

Qualities of Visionary Leaders and Healers

Capacity For Holding Grief.

We are in a time where many things are changing and being lost. Sometimes, the growth on the other side of loss isn’t immediately obvious. Our opportunities to sit with people who are in distress may increase.

In many of the healing arts, there are techniques around energetic shielding to effectively help people process deep emotions without taking them on ourselves. Grief sometimes elicits anger, anxiety or fear which can be difficult to support. The tendency can be to try and ‘fix it’ so the person will stop expressing the emotion we perceive as negative. In Chinese medicine, all emotions move qi (life force) through us. Emotions are in service to our health and they will not be endless. When people feel things intensely, we can learn to give them space and empathy. We cannot fix it and sometimes what people want is to be physically or emotionally held so that they can keep going.

If you do not feel comfortable around heavy emotions, ask yourself what is hard for you about it. How can you grow your capacity to hold people in transformation? What are the resources in your community to help people process loss and anger?

Capacity For Rejuvenation.

Just as we expand our ability to hold suffering, it is also necessary to become excellent at rejuvenation. At a memorial service for my friend, Jim Brandau, we were told that one of Jim’s great mottos was a rule from the Running of the Bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain. “All participants are required to lend to the joy of the fiesta.” Our joy matters now more than ever.

One of the first signs of trouble in an activist campaign is when we lose enthusiasm. As leaders, we are responsible for knowing what brings us pleasure, how we can find respite. Our self care becomes more vital than ever. Because passion and motivation are such wonderful qualities in leaders, we must be ever seeking inspiration.

What are ten practices that refill you? Who are the people or beings who help you relax, reconnect with resources and with yourself?

Ability to Listen and Synthesize.

We all love leaders who have brilliant ideas and communicate them in a succinct way. Even more coveted is the ability to synthesize what has been said. Leaders who release attachment to their own ideas and draw together the passionate opinions of others are needed. One of us is rarely as brilliant as all of us and the marriage of different ideas is a way to achieve innovative solutions. It is great to restate people’s words in a group, ensuring that everyone understands what is being said and allowing individuals to edit their own offering. Crafty leaders also begin to notice when folks are saying similar things and make proposals.

Mediation Skills.

I am an unapologetic fan of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication. His assertion that every human being has the same needs is revolutionary. I have seen his system bring more empathy and ability for people in serious conflict to reconnect than any other. We have conflict when an underlying need of ours is not being met. Leaders can use NVC (or another comparable system) to assess what unmet need is causing the upset in a group and help to meet the need if possible. When leaders seek conflict resolution training, we all have a better chance of moving forward.

Intimate Relationship With Our Challenges.

Thank goodness we are imperfect. It is a lifelong struggle to accept this about ourselves and in leadership, it is amplified. Our ability to be aware of our own challenges and to be kind to ourselves around the ways that we make mistakes is imperative. I recommend making a list of tendencies that sometimes feel like barriers to success. Along with a commitment to work on them, give yourself permission to be an imperfect leader. Ask a trusted mentor to be ‘on call’ to give a reality check if they see your challenges becoming a problem. It can be freeing to give your challenges names, faces and personalities. Now, when I hear my Rigid Controller (RC for short) start to speak inside my head, I have much more empathy for myself and ability to edit what that part of me has to say.

Ability To Laugh At Ourselves.

We are funny monkeys! We do strange and outrageous things. The more we relax and give a good guffaw when we can’t control things, the easier it is to lead others in doing the same. I love it when anyone in leadership asks for a “do over” when they do something that they didn’t intend. The more sense of humor that is displayed, the more my respect grows. Taking ourselves too seriously has got to go.

Ability to Apologize When Our Impact Does Not Meet Intention.

Cedar Barstow emphasizes that even with the purest intention, what we say or do may still feel offensive. We hate that. We want to explain and excuse ourselves. We want people to think well of us. Often, the best thing to do is just apologize. It can be the most disarming thing. More information from you may be welcome after that or not. I will sometimes even get advice about another way that it could have been said or done to achieve the impact that I want. Leading with an authentic apology when something has gone awry, rather than a defense, is one of the best moves a leader can make.

Showing the Vulnerability That Builds Trust.

We want to see ourselves in our leaders. It is difficult to see ourselves in people who appear to be perfect. I consistently get feedback that writing or telling stories about overcoming obstacles in my life or the places where I still struggle are helpful to others. We feel hopeful when we see people we admire be vulnerable. We trust them more. It awakens the mammal in us. People want to know how you arrived where you are. There is an art to sharing your personal stories. Oversharing from the center of your unprocessed painful experience might cause mistrust. However, giving some personal details about what you are experiencing now or what you have been through to get where you are today will help us connect to you.

Embracing Paradox.

Truth is not simple these days. Leaders who can do the mental gymnastics of holding two opposing truths simultaneously are in demand. The ocean levels are rising and there are millions of organizations creating healing and justice in the world. How can we hold disparate realities as being relevant and accurate? There is a way to shift our perception of the world to support our actions and resolve and it will require a strong relationship to holding paradox.

Stress Relief Techniques.

The Dalai Lama recently said that humans are in a pandemic of anxiety and depression. While this may be appropriate given what is happening to our planet, it can keep us helpless. Our ability to feel deeply and move our emotions through us is paramount. What are the ways we can support ourselves and each other in doing this? This is connected to our capacity for rejuvenation but also necessary just to keep moving, to get out of bed in the morning. Our media and our circumstances keep our nervous system in constant sympathetic arousal. We must find breathing techniques, movement, exercise, and relaxation, anything to get us back to our creative brain and out of reaction. What does this for you?

Contributing to the Transition

One of our challenges is to take our wisdom into a world that may not understand what we do. People may be repulsed or frightened by our beliefs or the words we use to self identify. We must not be deterred. The skills we have are desperately needed. People will sense who you are and ask you to assist in their crisis, facilitate their meetings, interpret their dreams, perform their memorial service, create art or ritual for them, settle their arguments, or answer their questions about spirituality or medicine for these times. How will you respond?

Carolyn Raffensperger asks a provocative question in an interview with Derek Jensen. “What is the biggest and most important problem in the world that you can [help to] solve with your unique skills and abilities?” I pose this question to all current and potential leaders and healers. It helps us face the size of the transition with which we are dealing but also to see our distinctive contribution to it.

Sometimes, our protest results in a policy change, our patient recovers, our kids learn something, our client feels better, our students understand; we make a visible difference that we can acknowledge. Those are great moments, but our attachment to having them happen frequently is problematic. Sometimes we have to do the work that is directly in front of us and not see the results of our actions. Instead, we may have to trust that our children, students, or some descendent in the future may be touched by what we do. We can continue to support each other and hold the vision. There is no certainty about where we are going. All we can do is exactly what is in front of us and contribute as much as possible to the joy of the ongoing fiesta unfolding around us.

I suspect we have enough of everything we need to make this transition. Let’s keep going. Squeeze out that last drop of wonder in the tube. Stop clenching and clawing and clamping down. Open your chest, your heart, your lower back, your whole life. Live audaciously all the way to the edge and I will too.

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2015/04/09/10-qualities-of-visionary-leaders-and-healers-in-transitional-times/

The Benefits of Quiet Sitting

Posted on January 4, 2015 by marcia

20 Ways Sitting in Silence Can Transform Your Life

by Elle – Jan 4, 2015

4 33

20 Ways Sitting in Silence Can Transform Your Life

by Samuel McCree

“Silence is a source of great strength.” ~Lao Tzu

For over two years I spent one out of every four weeks in silence. At the time I was living at a Zen Monastery and every month we would have a week-long silent retreat.

During this retreat we sat meditation in silence, ate in silence, worked in silence, and only communicated through hand gestures and written notes.

At first living like this was hard, but over time I learned to grow to appreciate silence. By the time I left I learned that silence was my friend and teacher.

What did silence teach me?

1. Satisfaction

I used to think I needed to watch TV every night. But at monastery I went without and discovered I didn’t need it.

Silence taught me to be happy with less. Pick something that’s weighing you down and let it go. Your life will thank you.

2. Expression

When you can only talk by writing a note, you only say what’s important. Before the monastery I talked a lot but said little.

Silence taught me that a few simple words well spoken have more power than hours of chatter. Think of one simple thing you can say that would help someone feel better and say it.

3. Appreciation

Being able to speak makes life easy, but when I couldn’t talk I learned how much I relied on others.

Silence taught me to appreciate the value of relating to others. The next time you see your friends or family, try to really listen. Deep listening expresses deep appreciation.

4. Attention

Several times at my first retreat I thought my phone was vibrating. But then I would remember I didn’t have my phone. It showed me how my phone divided my attention.

Silence taught me how important it is to let go of distractions. The next time you are with someone you care about, try turning off your phone and putting it away. It will make paying attention easier.

5. Thoughts

I once sat a retreat next door to a construction project. What amazed me was how easily my thoughts drowned out the noise. I realized if my thoughts were this loud, I’d better make them as wise as possible.

Silence taught me the importance of shaping my thinking. Take time each day to notice your thoughts and let go of thoughts that don’t serve you.

6. Nature

Because I sat retreat in every season, I know that the sound of wind in fall is different than it is in winter.

Silence taught me to notice nature. Take a short walk outside in silence and you’ll discover the wisdom and peace that nature has to offer.

7. Body

During retreat I noticed that whenever I got lost in thought, I lost track of my body. And when I focused on my body, my thoughts would calm down.

Silence taught me to be in my body. Close your eyes and ask, “What sensations do I feel in my hand?” Learning to feel your body can calm your troubled mind.

8. Overstimulation

Whenever I went into town after retreat, the world seemed so loud and fast. I came to realize how much our senses have to process most of the time.

Silence taught me the importance of reducing the stimulation. Enjoy some quiet time everyday. The less you see and hear, the more settled your mind can become.

9. Sound

People would come to the monastery and remark how quiet it was. But living at the monastery I knew all the noises, from frogs, to owls, to the sound of sandals on the sidewalk.

Silence taught me that the world is a rich texture of sounds. Sit in front of your house and close your eyes. You’ll be amazed at what you hear if you listen long enough.

10. Humanity

During retreat I was surrounded by imperfect people who were doing their best. Some were happy, some were sad, but all were wonderfully human.

Silence taught me that people display great beauty. Find a good spot to people watch with an open heart. What you see may inspire you.

11. Space

For a long time anytime something difficult came up, I would just distract myself. But retreat taught me that if I avoided something it would never go away.

Silence taught me that space helps me face hard times. The next time you face something difficult, pause and honor whatever’s arising.

12. Love

I used to think love was this big thing. But in retreat I found that I felt love for so many things.

Silence taught me that love can be simple. Think of someone you haven’t said I love you to recently and tell them.

13. Courage

I used to think courage was about facing danger, but during retreat I realized that real courage is about facing yourself.

Silence taught me the courage it takes to be still. When we stop moving everything we’re running from catches up. The next time you are afraid, stop and wait for it to pass. There is immense courage inside your heart.

14. Perseverance

Every retreat reminded me that speaking is easy, but staying quiet is hard.

Silence isn’t flashy, but it has an immense power to endure. The next time someone doubts you, instead of disagreeing, silently vow not to give up. Action is speaks volumes.

15. Faith

I often ask for reassurance or feedback. But living is silence meant I had to trust my instincts.

Silence taught me to have faith in myself. The next time you begin to feel anxious, sit in silence and see if you can find the space of deep faith that lives in your heart.

16. Honesty

I used to lie so I wouldn’t have to explain myself. But when I couldn’t talk I began to notice this impulse and how much it degraded my integrity.

Silence taught me the importance of telling the truth. Notice times where you tell little lies and try telling the truth instead. It isn’t always easy but it’s the first step to trusting ourselves and others.

17. Gratitude

During retreat I didn’t have a lot of comforts. It helped me see how much I took for granted and how much I had to be grateful for.

At the end of every day sit in silence and ask yourself what am I grateful for. You’ll be amazed at the blessings you discover.

18. Simplicity

I used to love drama and conflict. But at retreat I found I was happier when I kept it simple.

Silence taught me that simplicity and joy are close companions. Pick one space in your home you could simplify. Keep it simple for one month and enjoy the ease it offers your life.

19. Connection

I used to think I had to talk in order to feel connected. I realized during retreat that I can feel connected just by being near people I care about.

Silence taught me that words can get in the way. Do something in silence with someone you love. It will be awkward at first but eventually you will see what it means just to be in someone presence.

20. Truth

I studied philosophy in college and I thought I could read about truth. But retreat taught me that truth is found in silence.

Silence has taught me a deeper truth than words ever could. Sit in silence once a week and feel the truth in your heart. It’s there whether you can express it in words or not.

from: http://www.zengardner.com/20-ways-sitting-in-silence-can-transform-your-life/