10 Buddhist Sayings to Help You This Day

Photo: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images.

1. “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” 

You become what you think about or in other words: what you focus on grows in your life and from what you take your focus away from diminishes.

It means that the mind is directing our life in the way we manifest the life around us by the thoughts and directions we take with our mind. Since everything we created around us is first created in the mind, it is the tool or the interface between our self and the material world.

Another quote of Buddha with a similar message here is “He is able who thinks he is able”. This also shows the creative power of the mind and if we are able to consciously use it in that way – avoiding negative thoughts and utilizing empowering thoughts – we use it in a supportive manner.

2. “All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?”

This is the core of personal development. It points towards the need to train and develop the mind and to free it from limits and negativity.

The other quote “The mind is the source of happiness and unhappiness.” makes the same point with the special notion of happiness. The mind used correctly – i.e. constructive, empowering, solution- and action-oriented, positive, truth-seeking – can create happiness. But used poorly – i.e. blaming, egocentric, negative, blinded by ambition or separation – it will create unhappiness for us. Training the mind is the key here.

The quote may also point to a transformation by awakening directly, where the mind becomes the servant of the self and not the creator of a self-image (the concept of the ego) as a replacement for the true self.

3. “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” 

This points to the abundant nature of reality. The abundance mentality says there is enough for everyone, we only have to realize and live by it. It is the opposite of a scarcity mentality, where you have the belief that you always have to fight for your part in a limited world.

4. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” 

The essence of living in the present moment, the Now, is focusing the mind here and take attention away from thinking about past or future. The present moment is all there ever is to experience life directly. Past and future are only concepts of our mind and therefore are good for learning from the past or conceptual planning when it is useful, but after this there is no need for them. Especially not to dwell in them and get stuck there in the mind by constant thinking loops.

5. “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you If you do not act on upon them?” 

Action is what counts. It means to be action-oriented and to actually do what we think, to prove what we believe by applying it in reality. Only if we “walk our talk” we are authentic and truthful to ourselves.

To apply yourself and your ideas in reality is like a proof-test for what we think is right and will work. If there is no action and therefore no testing in reality, the words or ideas themselves are of no real sustainable value.

Another quote for this message is “A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”

6. “Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.” 

This is the essence of Carpe Diem – to seize the day fully means living wisely. It means to live to the highest truth we know and to rise to our highest values and capabilities.

Living wisely also means not to believe every thought that comes, but to live more from the space between thoughts, from our essence.

7. “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

The so-called Inside-Out approach means to look within oneself to find the inspiration and power to act from this place. It means not to look to the outside world for liberation or happiness, but to take the responsibility for oneself and become that what we are seeking.

His second quote here “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” talks directly about this responsibility, response-ability we have inside.

8. “In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

Any perspective we have on anything is only a relative truth. There are always both (or more) sides of any story. An objective perspective or an absolute truth is very hard or maybe impossible to see. But to be aware of this and to be interested to see another perspective from another person can be very mind-opening and valuable.

The matter of perspective (also described in the 7 habits of highly effective people) is a very powerful one and it is the core of most (if not all?) conflicts between people. One things one is right as long one stays in one’s own single perspective – needless to say, the other person has the same reality.

There is a similar quote by The Buddha that fits in here: “In seperateness lies the world’s great misery, in compassion lies the world’s true strength” which shows that if we become able to dissolve the separate perspective to a perspective of oneness with all other, we hold the key to end conflicts and to find solution and agreements suitable for everybody.

9. “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” 

This quote is perhaps the most difficult one to really understand. In the first place, it is not about the beautiful nature of the flower or beauty itself. What Buddha is talking about – in my humble opinion – is to see and get in touch with the life in a flower directly, without any interference by our mind by mental concepts and thoughts of the flower.

Eckhart Tolle in “A New Earth” talks about the flowering of human consciousness, maybe you want to take a look …

10. “The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.” 

If we are not authentic and truthful to ourselves, we build a wall around us that eventually we have to tear down again. It is then literally a resistance to the reality and our own nature where we can hide some time, but life has a way to show us our own faults in the end.

To be true to the best one knows means to come from our own best knowledge and not buy into something outside ourselves blindly, always asking: is this really true to what I know?

In resonance with this quote also is the final one by The Buddha:

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.”

Solfeggio Harmonics 528Hz Miracle - Evolution Through Frequency

There are frequencies or vibrations that reveal, heal, enlighten and awaken. The one featured in this audio/video will align your DNA with alternate dimensions and could be helpful in meditation. However, absolute silence under the correct conditions will also accomplish this.

Sleeping is unconscious meditation. We need sleep to provide energy for our daily functioning. But it is never enough, and that is why we feel tired, confused or stressed. Meditation, is conscious sleeping and provides vastly more cosmic energy and has more healing power than sleep alone. Therefore, meditation, at least one minute for every year you have been alive in this dimension is indispensable to health, happiness, productivity and more importantly, the functioning and evolution of your eternal spirit-self. It's very important. We should be teaching our children how to meditate from about the age of five years.

Great Leap Forward: Conditional

NASA photo

I attended The David Suzuki Foundation's 'Bluedot Tour' recently. If you have not heard about it, I hope you can attend. Very simply, its premise is to work to institute declarations legislated at the local municipal level thru to provincial and then to the federal government level to enshrine the right to clean air, water and food in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms just as 119 other countries on Earth have already done.

Interestingly, the extra-terrestrial species who have been knocking around Earth for millennia are waiting for this, and also for the end to our wars. They're really quite relaxed about it. They even let us develop, test and actually use atom bombs that upset the apple cart here on Earth but also in extra-dimensional universes; so strong is the universal agreement among truly 'civilized' species not to interfere with other worlds the more advanced species will let us destroy ourselves with wars and neonicotinoids rather than mess about with our timeline.

Sure, they may poke and probe us and there's a bit of inter-species DNA floating about, but when it comes to our custodial responsibility to protect our world from bad ideas, it's really up to us. Should we ever attain peace, the hell on Earth we humans have created will almost instantly abate because we will be shown new technologies that will essentially save Earth in the cosmic short-term, allowing us to achieve inter-stellar travel. We prove we will not kill each other with anti-gravity devices and we're good to go. Suddenly, several universes and a few inter-spacial bubbles will be ours to play in. After all, when our Sun goes nova, it's kaput for Earth. We better have earned the Great Leap Forward by then.

What does this all mean? Simple; We stop killing one another, we prove we can use technology to improve our planet instead of destroying it through wars and pollution, and the prize at the fair we get is a Kewpie doll called Utopia. So, what's more important; Peace or an environment that will sustain Human life? Bit of a cosmic horse and cart scenario me thinks. Cleaning things up would be a good way to hedge our bet though. -AN

String Theory predicts a shift to the 4th Dimension

There has been talk for decades about an imminent dimensional shift, as long as humanity can sufficiently raise its ‘vibrations’. But what does it actually mean?

One view is that we are currently living in the 3rd dimension (or vibration), and heading to the 4th. The 3rd dimension is characterised by mass, weight, volume and the lessons of the body’s 3rd chakra/energy centre, representing self-esteem, self-respect, generosity and ethics. The 4th dimension/vibration represents the 4th or Heart Chakra, and involves learning lessons of love and forgiveness.

How does this ‘vibrational’ theory work? Quantum Physics has possible answers to this question, notably the ‘Modern String Field Theory’ supported by many scientists. One renowned physicist is Dr Michio Kaku, whose books on String Theory suggest that the universe started a bit like a guitar string that has been plucked, creating a series of expanding soap bubbles or dimensions all vibrating at different levels. In other words, the subatomic particles that make up atoms are believed to be made up of vibrating super strings, and the notes they emanate then translate into matter. ‘The universe is a Symphony,’ says Dr Kaku. ‘The mind of God is cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.’

Interestingly, Dr Kaku feels that humanity is poised to shift from its 3rd dimensional state to higher dimensions, if it can overcome its self-destructive nature. This entails, one would deduce, an increase in our vibrational state. Is this something that will happen naturally, or do we have to work at it?

Certain activities have been known to raise vibrations, such as singing, meditating, praying, keeping healthy, growing through life’s challenges, and just doing things that make us happy. But it can also happen naturally, usually the result of inner guidance, where we are instinctively drawn to certain foods, circumstances or lifestyles, and repelled by others.

For example, at a higher vibration we usually no longer want to eat or drink certain foods, such as coffee, tea or meat, which are dense and can affect the body’s energy. We may start to avoid chemical cleansers in the home, and prefer to wear natural fabrics against our skin.

Other temporary symptoms can be headaches, reflecting the expansion of the crown chakra, flu symptoms, as toxins are released, nausea and diarrhoea as the solar plexus chakra releases stored fear, anger and resentment. Muscles can ache, if there are blockages preventing the energy flow, emotional upset for no reason as emotional blocks are released, and breathing problems can occur as the heart chakra begins to open.

Heightened sensitivity is also common, to noises, light, smells, tastes, and people. Similarly, some start to develop telepathy, intuition, see spirits and into other dimensions. To explain this further, it is useful to remember that vibrations operate much like radio signal frequencies. In other words, we will see, feel, touch and perceive only what we have tuned into at any particular stage in our existence. That doesn’t mean to say that other vibrational states or worlds don’t exist.

Fatigue can occur, caused by energy shifting through the spiritual body, designed to heal the physical, mental emotional and spiritual bodies. Temporary sleeplessness is common, in cases where the body is unable to store the excessive energy due to blockage and congestion.

Some report weight gain, which apparently helps to anchor and hold grids of light in the areas around where we live. Body fat becomes crystalline, and distributed evenly around every cell to allow the entire body to act as a tuning fork holding a new vibration.

Experts say that the reason given for this discomfort during the transition process is that our higher frequency, non-physical body is shifting out of synch with our denser physical body, causing temporarily uncomfortable sensations. It is an activation of additional strands of DNA (we only use 2 out of 12 at the moment) at a cellular level that causes these changes. To relieve the symptoms, it is recommended to drink pure water, add crystals to energise the water, eat light meals, some light exercise to allow energy flow. When complete separation is made, the symptoms disappear.

Do vibrations rise suddenly? No. We tend to come and go from one dimension to another, until we start to spend more time in one or the other.

By raising our vibrations, we start to live consciously, and open our connections up with our Higher Self, Spirit Guides and higher Light Beings. We start to receive guidance and information from the universal Spirit, which fills our lives with joy, harmony and inner peace. Most importantly, we are preparing ourselves for a more permanent shift into a higher vibration, to a more enjoyable and fulfilled existence, free of the limits and constraints of 3rd dimensional living.

Alphabet for Meditation

zaraskar.deviantart.com

You might use these words and phrases to help with meditation each morning. You could meditate about a single one each day and finish the list in a month with a day off each week before you start the next month... Or you could do all twenty-six every day. Would it make a difference to your focus, your happiness, your balance and your spirit? Try it for a month and see if it has a desirable effect on your life. Email your feedback me.

Achieve that which you believe

Be peaceful

Cultivate love for every being

Deliver miracles to your life and to others

Experience your feelings

Forgive the mistakes of others and yourself

Give unconditionally

Help others, hurt nobody

Indulge lightly

Judge not!

Keep a light within

Learn a new thing every day

Meditate often

Nurture understanding and empathy

Observe  and appreciate beauty

Pray for strength of purpose

Question why

Radiate positive energy

Share what you know

Trust yourself

Unbridle your talents

Visualize your life's mission

Write everyday

X-ray the ‘truth’

Yearn for knowledge

Zone in, not out

Mind Is The Best Traveller

I visit a temple in Tibet every morning. There, I sit before the sun rises with thirty or so Buddhist monks who have become my friends over the past six or seven years.  We chant harmonious overtones and meditate about gratitude, love and peace.

My friends in the saffron robes have only empathy, compassion and love to offer. There is no judging, there is no envy, anger or hatred. There is just peace, and the silence between ‘ohms’ reminding us of the sacred healing power each conscious moment provides when we awaken and listen carefully from within ourselves.

Some years ago, my yoga teacher played a recording early one morning as we meditated. It was the sounds of my Buddhist friends conducting their morning chanting. She had received it from a former teacher and healer on an original real-to-real master tape that she had years before converted to cassette. 

Later in our relationship, she was able to convert the recording to compact disk, and she gave me a copy. I remember it was one of the first digital recordings I managed to copy onto my computer hard drive, and later to various digital devices. This morning, I beamed its signal to a wireless speaker across the room from my cell phone.

No matter what the format, or perhaps how degenerated the sound quality probably is, I can hear my friends each morning as I meditate and chant along with them. The way I listen over the years has changed, but the peaceful essence and powerful effect it has never changes.

Yes, I travel to a monastery thousands of miles away every morning to relax, listen and meditate. Mind is the best traveller.

Good Vibrations

A number of my favourite writers, philosophers and metaphysicians write about the frequency or oscillation of the energy field of beings and things. Scientifically measurable, this field - the etheric if you will, has immense power and can change the course of your life-experience both immediately and over time. It is worth investigating and learning about for that reason alone.

Stuart Wilde is a being I cannot get enough of. The following is from his blog, StewartWild.com 

The oscillations of the etheric force field around has a pulse, a resonance. The higher your resonance the more freedom you have and the healthier you become, you are less confused and tormented. Your resonance is created by the oscillation of your brain cells that give out waves, the slower the waves, like in mediation the more power you have. Then in part, it comes from the flow of blood in your veins and the rest is diet and how you think and of course emotions. The calmer you are, the less emotion you have, the higher your resonance goes.

Emotion causes your etheric field to take on a zigzag edge, like the blade of a saw. The zigzag bounces energy into you in a chaotic way. When you are calm and the edge of your field is clean you get less of the intrusive fields of information and city pulses that can affect you.

Nature cleans your resonance and so does sea water, and animals and love. Sex can raise your resonance if things are kind and normal, or it can degrade you terribly. Porno isn’t good because it is a slaver’s mentality, possession domination, disrespect.

Drugs and alcohol in small amounts won’t affect things up or down, food… learn to eat less and less, remember every meal you have kills you a little bit. Go ballistic on blowing love at people in the street, the trees, animals, and the kids in the park… blow… blow, the more love resonance you express the safer you become. - Stuart Wilde (www.stuartwilde.com)

The Energy of Miracles

Creating miracles in our lives is no more complicated than understanding the metaphysics of the Universal Law. And because that law is indestructible and therefore infinite, we know that the power used by miracle makers in the past is still available today. Yet, in our modern society, we're brought up to believe only in those things we can logically understand. Neither are we taught that the Universal Law has limitless potential or that this power is at our disposal and can be used to work miracles in our own lives.

Understanding the Universal Law

To understand miracles, we have to look at two aspects of the Universal Law. First, there lies deep within all humankind an immense power; and second, the power is impartial and unemotional. Call it the Universal Mind, Christ Consciousness, Conscious Energy, or what you will, but it is this power that allows human beings a recognition of the universal life force that we call "God".

 The life force is eternal, and, because of its limitless capacity, it is a part of all things. Moreover, it's a major part of each of us. Consequently, we all have within us an unlimited power. Creating miracles in our own lives becomes a matter of identifying with the power, understanding its characteristics, and learning to use it effectively. This identification is achieved by knowing that the power is within us and acknowledging that fact by saying, "I am eternal, immortal, universal and infinite and therefore I am beautiful." By doing this, and believing it, we lock into the power source and are poised for the next step, which involves looking at its characteristics.

The Universal Law is impartial and unemotional. It has no way of knowing what you want, nor does it discriminate between your hopes and aspirations, likes and dislikes - it is pure energy. It accepts whatever thoughts, feelings, and actions you project and reflects them back to you unemotionally in the form of events that you experience day to day.

In much much the same wayas electricity illuminates both a brothel and your grandmother's tea party, The Universal Law doesn't differentiate between different types of energy in your life. It will give you anything you believe in - no more and no less. Therefore, the key to understanding miracles is to examine closely the beliefs you express as thoughts and feelings. 

Photo: Rachel Hulan "Fying Baby"

When you were born, your thoughts and feelings are limitless because your mind is a clean slate. What a small child projects to the Universal Law is a natural purity unbounded by the constraints of beliefs. Children often attempt the seemingly impossible: they drive off in the family car or walk on a high ledge. It's only later, through education, that they learn the confines of human expectancy.

But these confines or boundaries are illusions. They're formed by belief patterns - most of them born of ignorance - handed down from generation to generation. This pool of belief patterns, or the "collective unconscious," as Carl Jung called it gains validity as it moves through time, and eventually the concepts that later generations experience as physical reality become rigid and domineering. It's as if the billions of people who preceded you have determined what you're going to experience on this Earth plane, and that's all there is to it.

This rigidity doesn't allow for genius or for the understanding that we're now in an era of rapid unfoldment. Fundamental structures are being swept away in an avalanche of awareness, and we're no longer prepared just to read about great miracle makers; we want to have the same experience. For most people, this isn't possible because they're locked within the limitations of the body and mind; their upbringing is so dominant that it encases their entire evolution, and they experience little spiritual growth.

Understanding Life's Mission 

We are not our bodies or our emotions or our minds or any of the structures and restrictions we experience around us. We are an infinite part of the God-Force, using the physical form to experience spiritual development through a special teaching called "daily life."

When you entered the Earth plane or dimension, the energy that is the real you left isa abode in the higher dimensions of pure light, and entered, by choice, the body you're now in. You chose the circumstances of this life because it was the next step in your infinite evolution, and because this life would allow you to expand what you are spiritually so that you could become an even greater expression of the infinite life force or Living Spirit.

Now you may say: "That's nuts! Why would I choose these circumstances of my life - this family, this society, and this neighborhood? Why didn't I choose a more affluent environment or a prettier body or more intellectual capacity?" The answer lies in a dimension beyond the physical plane. As you entered this dimension through birth, you has within your consciousness a heroic mission - a goal. The nature of that goal is firmly written in the very deepest recesses of the inner you; and what you are today, no matter what you feel about yourself, is actually a part of that goal in various stages of completion.

Your mind began recording events, thoughts, and feelings only at birth. It doesn't know of your heroic mission nor does it understand the Universal Law that interacts with your limitless potential. Why? Two reasons: First, if your mind, feelings and emotions knew the nature of your heroic mission in life, there would be no challenge or quest, and your evolution would suffer. Second, most understanding of metaphysics is based on tribal or religious beliefs that do not totally reflect an accurate perception of the delicacy of energy and the way its ebb and flow affects daily life; no real understanding of the Universal Law has ever been incorporated into the various belief patterns of the world's collective unconscious. 

For example, let's say your heroic mission in life is to learn to love yourself and to accept full cosmic responsibility for what you are. And, let's say, you have had a number of previous experiences on the Earth plane in which you were weak and indulged yourself metaphysically by leaning on others rather than contributing to your own energy or support. If you knew this in advance, you'd begin to favour one course of action over another, You'd intellectualize yourself into positions or feelings that you wanted to achieve, and your mind would dominate your every move.

Evolution doesn't work that way. You can't overcome weakness by fighting it or thinking your way out of it. You overcome weakness by leaving it behind you. This means that you become aware of the inner tendencies that bring you down, that don't support a belief in self, and that don't endorse a love of self, and you say, "I don't want to be that anymore." You then move yourself out of the slovenly ways of the collective unconscious, into a discipline of power. From time to time, you may drift back, but once you decide on the side of strength, the power of the Universal Law will always be with you to varying degrees.

It may be a battle at first because your mind doesn't understand these laws or the nature of your mission on Earth, nor does it understand the laws that govern your potential. It will have a tendency to "advise" you logically from its own experience, and logic is death to that part of you that is the miracle maker.

Understanding the Nature of Beliefs

The next step in creating your own miracles is to look at the nature of beliefs. By reviewing beliefs and feelings, you begin to understand how to use the Universal Law effectively. It's natural to yearn for the impossible, and in so doing, you establish strong beliefs about what can be done and what cannot. You can jump a certain height and no higher, run at a certain speed and no faster, accept a certain position and no better.

Because most commercial aircraft fly at about 600 miles an hour, the shortest time in which you can get from New York to Paris is about six hours. Those are facts in the collective unconscious. But what if we told you of a man who could move his body many thousands of miles in just a few seconds? Your mind would scan its memory banks and draw a blank, whereupon you might think impossible! Then perhaps you might review all the scientific data available and conclude that this feat is unachievable. All scientific knowledge and current thinking are products of the same collective unconscious, and just the fact that a billion people have no concept of a man moving 3,000 miles in a few seconds makes it seem impossible. But the billions of people are wrong.

There is a dimension, right here on the Earth plane, in which such a feat is possible, and there are a few people alive today who know of this dimension and use it. It's a matter of perception and belief. Your ability to work miracles is predicated entirely on how easily and quickly you can give the collective unconscious the slip. It's your attachment to the collective unconscious, or world belief patterns, that holds you back.
Read Stuart Wild's Website. Interesting Stuff!

Conscious Energy 071 - The Energy of Giving

Many years ago, I had a business friend and associate, a British woman who was older and wiser than I was at the time. As our friendship grew, we would often exchange ideas about life and one day she turned to me and said, "Remember to give until it feels good, not until it hurts." If you are motivated to give to others, the greatest thing you can do to perpetuate your ability to give and be your best in doing so, is to first take care of your own needs. When we give from a place of low energy we deplete ourselves even more and this is not honouring to ourselves or to others. Giving to others can never make up for what you are not giving to yourself. If you want to be an exceptional giver, you will search for ways to maintain your own energy and sense of well-being because from this place of feeling whole your giving will actually replenish your energy and ability to continue to give in great abundance.

We can hold ourselves together and strengthen our day-to-day ability to meet life's challenges. This is done by maintaining balance. Balance is all about connecting at every moment with our Authentic Self. It is not enough to know intellectually what healing, awakening or self-actualization is all about if you are not practicing it yourself. It does however, take time and patience.

In the words of Edgar Cayce, "There are no shortcuts to knowledge or wisdom or understanding - these must be lived and experienced by every soul."

Through daily self-care you take the time to consciously hold a loving connection with yourself. All giving, without tending the preciousness within yourself can quickly transform into non-acceptance of self. So, the more you self-nurture the greater your ability is to sustain an authentic connection with yourself and others throughout your day. For example, If you made the self-honouring decision to meditate at least once a day, you would infuse your being with loving energy. The more you do it, the more you become it. When it comes to 'becoming'  there is always a starting point. It's a choice made to do something which will empower your Authentic Self, sustain you and make you stronger, more confident and more loving. From this point, you begin to have a stronger foundation from which to support your giving nature.

I recommend meditation early in the morning when you are rested and your mind is at its most quiet and calm phase of the day; before life's daily 'massage' begins, before all the distractions of the onrushing day begin to challenge your energy and balance. In the same way that a person learns to play a musical instrument by spending a portion of each day in practice, meditation too can be mastered. The benefits to your overall health and wellness are remarkable and numerous. I highly recommend reading 'Creative Visualization' by Shakti Gawain if you are new to the idea of meditation and wish to explore it further.

Meditation is one way I self-honour myself and replenishing my energy so that I come from a more balanced and authentic place as I interact with the world around me. By looking after my personal needs first, I have the energy to give of myself and to others without feeling exhausted or depleted in any way. By putting my self-care first, everyone with whom I come in contact feels the benefits in the way I relate to them. Think about what activities strengthen your connection with your Authentic Self.

Conscious Energy 027 - The Energy of Sanctuary

Living a good life and being kind and empathetic toward other senescent beings - all life for that matter, and deriving a true sense of purpose from your existence requires a deep sense of awareness about yourself and how you are connected with all life and the Universe. In this era of ever-faster moving information, where you are bombarded at almost every moment of the day with sensory stimulus unprecedented in human history, (to our knowledge) encountering the quiet calm needed to become fully aware of yourself can be a great challenge.

Whether you have a space as large as a football field, or as small as a closet, creating your personal sanctuary is prerequisite for finding the inner silence you require before self-actualization becomes a reality. The space you choose must be free from external influences other than those you desire. It must be a reflection of who you are, so be ssure to include the colours, art, objects, lighting and smells that bring you comfort, as you will begin to spend more and more time there reconnecting with yourself.

There have been times in my life where finding a personal sanctuary was very difficult due to travel or new environments. During these moments it is important to understand that a sanctuary does not need to exist on the physical dimension and that there are no boundaries to its size either great or very small. I have had sanctuaries as large as other worlds, indeed as large as multiple universes. And I have had sanctuaries as small as an atom. You are only as far away from your sanctuary as you believe you are, so even when you are abroad, remember; Mind is the best traveller.

If you are fortunate enough to have some physical space somewhere that you can transform into your personal sanctuary it is a positive start to developing a new sense of 'self ' which you must cultivate in order to pursue the virtuous spiritual path of self-discovery.

If you are pressed for space, and cannot find it in the physical world, close your eyes wherever you are, even if just for a moment and envision your sanctuary. Invent the space within your mind, great or small, indoors or out, on any dimensional field or world you wish. Whatever feels right to you is your sanctuary and your starting point to a better, more fulfilling existence.

As you practice spending time within your peaceful sanctuary you will find yourself drawn to it more and more. Don't be confused by this. Spending time alone is not anti-social, in fact it will contribute tremendously toward your ability to be social and to share your experiences and inner self with others. As you think, so shall you be. Take the time to think, reflect, plan, meditate and be creative. The best place to start is your personal sanctuary.

Conscious Energy 023 - The Energy of Contentment

The Tao Te Ching says:

To understand others is to have knowledge;

To understand oneself is to be illuminated.

To conquer others needs strength;

To conquer oneself is harder still.

To be content with what one has

is to be rich...

When we begin to constantly lean into the future, always looking for what could or should be, instead of cultivating a reality of contentment with what we have, we degrade our energy much like adding water to wine. We have more wine but the intensity and flavour suffers.

Take some time today to live in the moment. This may be as simple as closing your eyes and feeling your breath move in and out. Or it may be looking at a loved one as he or she sleeps and marveling at the intense beauty that is animated life. Find a way to draw yourself from the past or the future and experience now.

Here's a good exercise; Sit in a chair. Now, experience the chair. Feel it. Be aware of your body as it is pulled into the chair by gravity. Experience your feet on the ground in front of the chair. Feel yourself as your consciousness increases and begins to experience the 'now' of the chair. You will become weightless. You will realize the chair, the floor, your body, the wall...they are all one experience at one moment. They are all one thing. Try it! Weightless is fun.

As you begin to practice this over and over, you may find the floor and walls around you beginning to take on a sort of soft, elastic, spongy appearance. That's normal. By coming to grips with the now of this dimension, you begin to see glimpses into other mirror universes that co-exist with the dimension that we call reality. You will begin to realize just how easy it is to experience happiness and contentment by being aware of this dimension and you will want to experience it over and over again, just like any pleasurable experience.

Remember these words as you practice being present in the now moment;

Breathe. Relax. Feel. Watch. Allow.

We'll explore those wonderful ideas soon. Now, go find a chair to sit in. And really sit in it!

Conscious Energy 020 - Your Sphere of Positive Influence

You are at liberty to make choices about who influences your life. You may find yourself experiencing circumstances with family members, work associates or an intimate relationship in which you have convinced yourself perhaps through a lack of mindfulness, that you have no choice about who is and is not influencing your life. I am reminded of the often used saying; 'You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family' and although half of that statement is true it occurs to me that surrendering your right to chose those individuals who assist in the formation of your life-experience is nothing less than a cop out.

Sure, you may not be in a position of immediate influence when it comes to your neighbor who has been fixing his roof for years and in your mind is bringing down property values in the neighborhood or that family member who always comes knocking on your day off just when you were looking forward to some quiet time. But, by deciding to surround yourself with individuals who love and nurture you, the individuals and circumstances which do not support you will slowly be eclipsed by the ones who do.

Here is an exercise I have found useful in determining the value of the choices I make pertaining to people I allow into my sphere of influence; Draw a circle on a blank piece of paper. Consider those people who love you unconditionally, and who support your every need to the best of their ability. Do not include people who feel they 'must' love and support you, who may or may not include family members. You want to get at those individuals who love and respect you without question and under any circumstance. You may be somewhat challenged, but hopefully you can think of at least one individual who fits this role. Now, write that person's name(s) in the centre of your circle.

Now, consider the people in your life-experience who love and respect you sometimes, under certain circumstances, especially the circumstances that are going their way, but sometimes offer you negative emotion and energy. These could be people at work who accept your contribution but are critical of your methods, or a family member who says they love you but is very quick to pull their support and communication if they disagree with a choice you have made in your life. Write the names of these people around the outside of your circle.

Take your time with this exercise and once you are done, look at your 'sphere of positive influence' and ask yourself why you are allowing those people outside the circle, the ones who love and support you only when certain conditions prevail, to affect your life-experience. There is very often a common reason we allow these peripheral people into our lives. Most often, it is because we feel a sense of unworthiness toward ourselves. Often subtle and not easily defined, we actually use these people to punish ourselves for unresolved conflicts within ourselves. These unresolved conflicts lead to feelings of 'I don't deserve better' or 'I am powerless to change things' whereas the individuals within our circle exercise who are truly loving and unconditionally supportive are often overlooked and we tend to undervalue their genuine love and authenticity.

Make it a part of your consciousness to evaluate the people you spend time exchanging energy with by asking yourself whether or not a person is genuinely interested in your greater good. Without judging, and through detached observation, you will slowly fill your inner circle with people who do and you will begin to spend less and less time with those on the outside. As you honour your own greater good, you begin to nourish your personal needs in many ways. Identifying the few unconditionally loving people in your life and holding them near and dear is one way. -A.N

Conscious Energy 018 - Mindfulness in Everything We Do

"You must take all necessary time to master your mind. If you master your mind, you will have mastery over your body and your speech. ... Mastery of the mind is achieved through constant awareness (consciousness) of all your thoughts and actions. ... Maintaining this constant mindfulness in the practice of tranquility and insight, you will eventually be able to sustain the recognition of wisdom even in the midst of ordinary activities and distractions. Mindfulness is thus the very basis, the cure for all the day-to-day afflictions of one's life."

We can become so busy scurrying about so quickly in our lives that we forget to stay in touch with who we are, what we are, and what we are doing. In this way, we miss all the beauty; we miss the sadness; we miss the authenticity - reality if you will - or the beautiful texture of our lives. We miss the truth of our experiences, moment by moment. Our lack of mindfulness makes us careless: Often, we hurt others without thinking or even noticing we've done so. And, we hurt ourselves. We keep falling asleep at the switch of our lives, leaving ourselves vulnerable to all manner of accidents, both physical and emotional.

Too often, people think the solving of the world's problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching it and all of its beings gently. Mindfulness is a teacher we cannot do without.

Conscious Energy 017-Beliefs and the Great Leap Forward

When you make a conscious decision to actively explore your personal energy, one thing you will need to do is delve deeply into the beliefs that you have held throughout your life experience. This is no small task. Those beliefs have been taught, infused and forced upon you mostly by well meaning people near to you, and also by not-so-well meaning people who are not physically close to you but attempt to control your thoughts and beliefs and who are fortunately very far away from the Universal energy that governs everything. Whatever the case, your 'installed' beliefs have become a part of your life's conditioning and therefore have an immediate and sustained effect on your ethereal energy. (See Conscious Energy 002)

Your beliefs, such as how far you can jump or how high, how fast you can run, what station in life you can attain; these are all installed within you from childhood onward.

Now, consider this very real example of how wrong our predetermined beliefs can be; Because most commercial aircraft fly at about 600 miles per hour, the shortest time in which you can get from New York to Paris is about six hours. That is a fact or belief of the human experiential collective unconscious. But what if I told you of a man who could move his body many thousands of miles in just a few seconds? Your mind would scan its memory banks and draw a blank like a Google search finding no results, whereupon your conclusion would be; 'impossible!' Then perhaps you might review all the scientific data available and again conclude that such a feat is unachievable.

You see, all scientific knowledge and conclusions as valuable to our human experience as they may appear, are products of the omni-accepted collective unconscious. The mere fact that billions of people have no concept of a man moving 3,000 miles in a few seconds makes it seem impossible.

But the billions of people are wrong! There is a dimension, right here on the Earth plane, in which such a feat is possible, and there are a few people alive today who know of this dimension and use it. It is a matter of perception and belief. Science is invaluable to the sustainability and long-term survival of our species without a doubt. We need it. But we also need to suspend many of our accepted beliefs such as our reality or dimension existing alone, and change that belief to the perception that it is but one of many. Perhaps ten. Perhaps many more, and today, quantum thought is beginning to realize the existence of these other dimensions. It is only a matter of time before humans become able to expose themselves to the seemingly impossible through the processes of energy awareness, meditation and the suspension of accepted unconscious beliefs. Ineed, a time appears to be unfolding in the human consciousness and therefore history wherein a leap from collective conscious to a collective consciousness appears to be immanent.

So the name of the game is to see how fast you can give the collective unconscious the slip and surrender your attachment to the particular illusion or belief patterns that are holding you back. Sure, the aforementioned is an extreme example, but believe me, there are even greater things happening all around you and yet they are no greater than the energy you embody. The reason this is true is that all energy is essentially the same and so, you are able to do anything you want to do. But there is a lot of work to do in order to fully begin to grasp at the immensity of it all and how best to manifest it in your life. That's where most people leave it. It smacks of effort to figure it out. So, they just never do. Yet, it is discovering this energy field of potential that is at the root of your secret life mission. So you have to do the work.

Now, please excuse me. I am leaving Vancouver, Canada to visit a friend at Cathedral Rock. It's just a few seconds away. I won't be long.

Next, I will suggest ways you may want to get to work on deploying conscious energy in your life. Please keep reading. -A.N.

Conscious Energy 016 - Who's Calling The Shots?

Imagine yourself as an energy field instead of a body with boundaries. Because of the fact that your personal energy field interacts with all the other energy fields around you and is therefore directly affected by them, your interconnectedness with all external energies is every bit as important to your health as treating your body well with good food and exercise.

It doesn't matter how clear and unconditionally loving you are, your environment matters. If you are hanging out in low-energy places, or with negative people who are resonating with low vibrational or negative energy, you become very susceptible to the affects of that energy. The question is; Why would you choose to be in conflict within negative environments, people or circumstances if you don't absolutely have to? Who is forcing you?

If you make a conscious choice to manage and protect your energy in its natural, high-vibratory state, you will make self-supporting choices that nourish your desire to have positive feelings of well-being, otherwise known as 'happiness'. This may mean drawing boundaries with yourself, better communicating your needs to others, asking for support or just walking away from certain people in your life who are dragging you down. You can take affirmative steps to create the life experience you want. Life does not just 'happen' unless you feel powerless to make any positive change. Most people in our culture are blessed with the freedom to make choices in everything they do whether aware of it or not. So do you. But first, you have some energy work to do.

If you want to learn how to control your experiences you have to learn to control your energy and become more conscious of what you stir up. Choices can be destructive and disempowering or they can be conscious and self-honouring. This includes the choices you make about the people you spend time with, choose to interact with, do business with and so on.

If someone is causing you emotional pain, you need to remember that it is your choice to allow that person to negatively affect your energy and that you can make a choice to change the energy dynamics surrounding the particular relationship in your life. Don't find yourself in the position of unconsciously allowing others to hurt you. When you do this, you announce to yourself and the world that you believe yourself to be unworthy of better treatment. In reality, all of us deserve love and respect from all those we share common energy with. The best thing to do when you experience energy disruptions and conflict seemingly brought upon you by others, is to accept responsibility for the choices you have made either consciously or unconsciously, come back to 'now' and observe yourself as though you are watching yourself in a film featuring you as the hero. Chances are, you will realize that whatever conditions appear to be dominating your life at any given moment, are actually well within your grasp to change and that you can write your own move according to the choices you consciously make moment by moment.

Now sit back, and make some self-honouring choices that serve your greater good. Take the time. Make it a priority and watch things change. Make a list of the immediate things you can do to change any circumstances in your life that disrupt your natural energy flow. Remember, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change. Start with how you view yourself and your energy environment. Welcome the supportive people and environments and dismiss those that frustrate you, and mess with your positive, natural energy. It all begins with the choice you make about who's going to call the shots in your life. If you choose not to make choices for yourself, there is always someone nearby who will.

Conscious Energy 015 - Redirecting Intentions

It is the noblest intention and perhaps the most difficult one, to move from an ego-centred selfish viewpoint toward one of openness, love and compassion in your life. To live a life of open-hearted love, forgiveness, compassion, patience, and acceptance of others as they are, requires a great deal of inner work on yourself. And yet, there is no choice to be made really, because if you want to experience true happiness you must first seek a path to spiritual enlightenment and that 'intention demands your attention.'

Luminous emptiness; Radiant openness.

Truth and love in everything we do;

I often wonder if all the popular hype these days about the concept of cause and effect or the law of attraction popularized in many writings of the past decade can not be embodied in the practice of wisdom and compassion; that is, truth and love. Are they not the same experience? I believe they are interconnected as one and that the experience of both cause and effect, like truth and love, are also one in the same.

The idea of cause being a different experience from effect is actually false; energetically, they are the same experience just like the experience of truth and love. They are interdependent, mutually supportive and totally inseparable. Each is set in motion simultaneously within your life however the experience of both is sometimes so gradual within your energy that the shifts that take place are often beyond perception. This leads us to experience both as two separate events when in fact they are one. Imagine throwing a stone into a calm pool of water. Think of wisdom as the rock or the cause, and love as the ripples radiating outward in concentric circles on the surface of the water - the effect. It is actually one event. Therefore, the experience of wisdom and compassion - truth and love, is not time or space sensitive. A shift in one, permeates the the entire unified field of energy we experience as our reality to create one event or experience at a time of one kind or another.

Every experience and shift in energy frequency is only ever instant and happening now, regardless of our awareness of it. It is only human experience that is witness to the idea that things and events are separate from one another. Our limited sensory awareness versus the infinite dimensions of conscious energy extend beyond our human perception. However, it remains true that we can begin to experience the infinite depths that the eternal pool of truth and love hold for our life experience simply by making it our intention to jump in.

Conscious Energy 014 - Archetypes: The Costumes We Wear

Here are some examples of Archetypes.

See which ones fit into your past and present. Click on the image to enlarge.

From Nancy Wells, Luminocity One - Hold Me Able: Online Manual and Workbook

Ego archetypes are roles or varying energy patterns we slip in an out of from moment to moment, day after day as though we were changing costumes between scenes in a great stage play . They are part of how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us. Ego archetypes stem from feelings of separateness and invoke fear and therefore a need to be accepted by 'the group' in whatever form that may assume. The problematic aspect of this omnipresent behaviour is that the roles or archetypes we create for ourselves contain a whole set of limiting beliefs that inhibit us from expressing ourselves authentically. As we develop throughout our lives and our perception of ourselves within our life environments evolve or devolve, our archetypes will change to reflect those new beliefs and another stage play of learning begins within each experience.

Archetypes are our shortcut to communicating and referencing our experience. Similar to how different colours have varying energy vibrations, different archetypes also represent varying energy states. Interestingly, as we put forth the varying degrees and intensities of our assumed archetypes depending on what is occurring in our lives, we involuntarily underscore our chameleon-like personas which are nothing more than temporarily worn costumes befitting our ego or impostor-selves.

When I first became conscious of the idea of archetypes and the role they were playing in my life, I was training to become a facilitator for Luminocity One, an energy dynamics course created by social behaviorist and author, Nancy Wells. It is to her that I owe much of my interest in conscious energy and the concepts of authentic versus ego natures. Until then, I had created many archetypes for myself like 'provider', 'artist', 'musician', 'business executive' and many, many others. It was not until my work with Luminocity One began to truly resonate in my life that I started to shed the costumes and embarked on the journey of discovering my authentic self.

The ego is indeed our dark side, in essence our personality. Don't get confused by the ego-personality as something desirable. It is far from the reality of your true, authentic self - that connection you have with the Universe that supports your secret life mission; the journey of your infinite Conscious Energy. Call it what you will, your essence, your soul, whatever you are comfortable with, but please understand that it IS your purpose while experiencing this Earth-dimension to figure out what exactly that mission is and to stop changing costumes according to external circumstances and answering to whatever your ego demands of you. What really matters is your authentic self, the real person, the real you - the same person you were as an innocent child. You are the same, just bigger now, and it has nothing to do with the actor-you that is your personality or Ego. So let it go, walk out of the stage door into the cool, dark and often lonely alley behind the theatre and have a conversation with yourself - your authentic self!

Next on Conscious Energy, I will explore the idea of awareness gained through directing your energy- intention. Once you become aware of your energy, which makes it conscious energy, your vibrational field will become more apparent to you and to others around you. Your moment by moment life-experience will become more liquid, with fewer and fewer energy disruptions. Your life will begin to flow like a cool, clean river that can be stopped by nothing.

Conscious Energy 013 - Relationships: More Than Valentine's Day

Relationships are energy equations. Your energy field interacts with another person's energy field to create a dynamic or blended experience. In the same way that two liquids join to create a third form, or solution, our relationships with others form a delicate balance that we experience as 'the relationship'. With some people in our lives, interaction can be effortless, while with others, no matter how hard we try, it involves confrontation. While it is easy to blame the other person as difficult or undesirable, the truth is that our joint experience of the relationship is a mutual creation - developed no more or no less by one than the other.

The beginning of understanding and improving your relations with others is to come into awareness of the energy you bring to your interactions. While you cannot control others, you have complete command over yourself. There is a common saying that is relevant to this energy dynamic: what is the definition of insanity? The answer: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Think about this. When you change your response, you automatically create a different experience. The very fact that you can control your own thoughts and feelings gives you immediate power to change the experience of your relationships simply because you have shifted one part of the energy equation - you.

Rather than project distortion into the other person and wonder why they are the way they are, the more accurate question is, 'What is it within me that feels discord around this person?' This is why you can have the experience of attracting the same kind of relationship partner in consecutive situations. Your experience of attracting similar partners is created through the same looping energy pattern.

Co-Dependence

In a co-dependent relationship two or more people come together to create a dynamic where each person expects the union with the other person or group to make them feel better about themselves, — less insecure, more protected, or elevated in some way. In other words, co-dependence is when a person forms dependency or reliance on another person to provide his or herself with something they are not able to provide. The illusion is that we can experience self-completion through another; however, only through complete acceptance of ourselves can we experience self-completion.

Co-dependent individuals operate from a place of deficiency which never allows their relationships to flourish. Co-dependent relationships experience constant conflict because the relationship contains dependent individuals who do not feel a sense of self-containment and are therefore unable to provide any real support or respect for the other person in any sustained way. If co-dependent people do not believe in themselves, how could they possible believe in others? The feeling of dependency and need for the other person perpetuates their own feelings of unworthiness.

There are many variations on this theme. Individuals often get into relationships with a desire to control their partner. They want to feel adored and loved, but they are unable to reciprocate because they run the risk of loss or abandonment. They feel unsafe and cannot extent too much of themselves. They unconsciously play this role in order to feel more in control and less insecure. The person on the other side of the dynamic often gives and gives more and more of their energy away in a desperate attempt to gain love and approval, and so the dance of control and desperation continue, affirming their respective limiting beliefs that 'loving is unsafe' and 'I am unlovable".

Although there is less expectation these days in 'forever' relationships, people stay involved with each other even when their feeling of well-being is not enhanced and their life force is being drained. People blindly sacrifice intimacy for protection of self because they prefer to be with someone (anyone) rather than be alone. They fail to see that they can only cultivate peace from within themselves by making self-honouring (self-respecting) choices as opposed to continually compromising their values for outside approval (a no-win situation).

One of the common excuses people use for living in co-dependent relationships is that they are waiting for their partner or situation to change into something better. If you don't fully accept someone the way they are and are waiting for them to change something about themselves, you will always be unhappy with them and with yourself. What do you think will change the relationship? More space, more money, more time, the right job, marriage, children, etc., only provide short-term relief because on an energetic level they fail to address the issue of dependency versus self-reliance. Obligation also marries us to people through how we compromise ourselves. We think the fact that we owe others something gives them the right to treat us disrespectfully.

Conscious Relationships

A conscious relationship is one in which each individual is self-contained and whole unto himself such that they maintain autonomy and responsibility for their own sense of well-being. For this reason, they are free to objectively look to the relationship as an enhancement to their life, not because they feel weak and incomplete. Also, a consciously motivated person only seeks to be in a relationship with someone of the same consciousness. They do not seek to be in a relationship with someone who is insecure or dependent. Neither do they seek to control that other person nor seek their approval. They are self-contained.

In a conscious relationship, each person puts their personal core values before the needs of the relationship and honours those values — they don't justify compromising what is important to them for the sake of keeping the relationship together. That doesn't mean they don't lean on each other from time to time. The difference is that each person commands the support and respect of the other and seeks to respect their partner's choices as they respect and honour their own. Imagine if entire countries operated this way. Every day would be International Valentine's Day.

Photo Credit: Kim Williams

Next on Conscious Energy, I will explore the idea of separation anxiety when you begin to say good-bye to your ego. Please keep reading!