Why Meditate? Pt II

I’m often asked by meditation students what they should be meditating on. They sometimes feel they’re not getting anywhere with their practice, and something different should be happening to make them feel like they’re progressing with it.

It also happens that when students begin to meditate regularly, they find themselves facing a lot of emotions. This leaves them uncomfortable, and they question what’s going on, or if it’s right that they should be feeling so much. They sometimes tell me it was better before they started meditating, when they at least knew where they stood in life. Instead, after a couple of weeks of daily meditation, they’re confused, and overwhelmed with emotion much of the time.

I believe that meditation is about bringing a person closer to their true Self. As time is spent alone getting to know the Self, any feelings from the past that haven’t been dealt with are going to surface. They’re bound to - they’ve been clamouring for attention, possibly for many years - but mostly they’ve been ignored, because there are so many ways to avoid spending time with the Self. Instead, the easy way to deal with feelings seems to be to rationalize them away with expectations of how a person should behave, either for their own sake or for the sake of others. Perhaps they think they shouldn’t be feeling so deeply about anything, or that it’s better to ‘suck it up’ or ‘put on a brave face’, rather than show any vulnerability. This, however, is only the result of a lot of conditioning over time, and can be unlearned.

The bottom line is feelings don’t go away that easily. They don’t go away until they’re allowed to be felt completely. Only then can they be released; only then can we free ourselves from the burden they place on our hearts. My experience has been that it’s very common to feel worse before feeling better when beginning a meditation practice. A lifetime’s weight of emotions carried forward from the past is not going to be an easy thing to deal with overnight. Fortunately, it doesn’t take another lifetime to process all this emotional energy. It takes time and patience, yes; but once begun, the process can move relatively quickly.

The process also requires understanding the nature of feelings. They’re not the Self; they’re created by ego, and are at best messages from the mind via the body that the Self needs correction of some kind. Beliefs about the Self are what cause feelings. When there is a lot of self doubt in a person, many negative feelings result. Expectation, judgment, and a lack of self-acceptance can all lead to the creation of negative emotional energy, and this energy needs to be known for what it is in order to address its root causes; in other words, in order to change the beliefs that result in the feelings to begin with. How can we know what to change about ourselves until we acknowledge what we feel?

When understanding of what feelings are and why they’re present is lacking, it’s all too easy to react to life from a fear of feeling bad, instead of responding to it with the courage of knowing who you are. All negativity is the result of fear, and since no one wants to feel ‘bad’, people can go to great lengths to avoid doing so, or to bury bad feelings away. Why should it be so wrong to feel bad once in a while? How else can we move forward in life if we don’t? Growth of the Self is more likely to occur when we are forced to recognize our negative feelings and the beliefs that cause them, rather than perpetuate a delusion that everything should be okay all the time. Who can sustain that dream? This is the reason self-abuse of one kind or another is so common: it’s far too easy to escape negative feelings than to face them. However, it’s absolutely essential that we do face them as much as possible, not only so we can let them go, but so we can grow and change and become happier, healthier individuals.

Meditation does not have an end goal. It’s a practice that can provide a context within which the Self can be better known, and beliefs about the Self that need addressing can be discovered. It’s only by changing beliefs about the Self that life begins to change for the better. Meditation is a tool to help with this; it’s part of the process, but not the only part. It will not bring enlightenment by itself. Thus, the way to practice it is without judgment, without striving towards some unattainable nirvana. The best way to approach it is to use the time in meditation as a means to detach from thoughts, to allow feelings so they can be let go of (however long that may take), and to grow one’s self awareness. In this way, the downs in life can decrease while the ups get more frequent. Love of the Self can grow, and love for others, too.

If you sign up for the One Self Inspired Learning e-mail newsletter, you’ll get a link to a meditation that covers the material you just read, and that you can use to help move your meditation practice to another level. Love and blessings,

Angus

Accepting Judgments

Why is it so important to practice acceptance of our judgments? Apart from the fact it doesn't feel good when we buy into what they tell us about ourselves, practicing acceptance of judgments helps keep us more present in the here and now, rather than living in a non-existent past or the future. Staying focused on the present means you see more truth in life, and your experience of it opens new dimensions of understanding, joy, and growth.

Identifying with our judgments by acting upon them means we believe they're true; but since they arise from beliefs formed in the past, how can they be true now? They might be, but if we just accept them as true without actually learning if they really are we go through life wearing blinders. We're missing out on new experiences and new possibilities in the present, because the past is causing us to judge it as wanting. That's why you seem to have more downs than ups in life; it's a result of patterned behaviour that you haven't yet 'un-learned', or replaced with new thinking that helps you respond to the ever-changing present. f you want to change things around so you get more ups then downs, all you need to do is to look at life like you did when you were a child: with innocence, without labeling things, and without identifying who you are with whatever you experience. Accept whatever happens with equal attention, without wishing it were different than it is, and with the understanding that everything you experience propels your personal growth. This is true even if you feel lousy about something, and is especially motivating if you've been seriously hurt, or are seriously ill. Put to its right usage, pain of any kind - be it physical or emotional - can help us grow. If you're having pain right now why not try to just accept it as how things are in the moment, rather than bemoaning your state to any available ear, or wishing it would go away?

One of the reasons we judge is because we’re caught up in the stories of our lives. We often have a difficult time separating ourselves from the ‘drama’ of life, of just letting life happen without constantly gainsaying it, or wishing it were different. This is the result of conditioning formed when we were very young, and carried forward into adulthood. It dictates our reactions to situations, and cannot be altered except by force of will. You either decide not to listen to the voice of the past, and take everything in the present at face value; or you do listen, and face everything in life with preconceived notions from a non-existent past that have little or no relevance to the present.

Another reason we judge is that we carry emotions from the past forward into the present. If we haven’t found a way to heal our past and let old emotional energy go, we tend to hang on to it, and that affects our ability to discern truth in the present, as well as allow life to happen without ever judging it as 'bad', or wanting to change it.

Picture yourself standing in a river. Imagine trying to stem the flow of the water as it rushes by. You can't, of course; the river isn’t going to stop just because you want it to. It keeps on flowing, and life acts exactly the same way. You cannot stop it from moving, but you can stop yourself long enough to enjoy its flow, to just take it in, and take it for what it offers you in any given moment. Judging life as good or bad is like cursing the river because it won’t stop flowing. It’s going to flow no matter what you do, or how you feel about it. So why blame it for your feelings? You made the choice to get upset, after all; the river is just doing what comes naturally. So, too, does life, and you alone choose how you feel about it. The question is, on what will you base that choice? On how you felt in the past in similar situations, on how you think you'll feel about a situation, or on how you'll actually feel once you've experienced a situation without buying into your prior judgments of it?

You try to fault things outside of yourself because you hold expectations about what they should be doing for you. Depending on how life meets your expectations, you judge situations as either good or bad. When you get what you think you want from it, life is good. When you don’t, life is bad. If you were at peace with yourself, how would you react to the flow of the river around you? You wouldn’t react at all; you’d let the river be, accepting its presence, enjoying its beauty and seeing the truth of its essence. The same perspective can be brought to life.

Understanding the nature of judgment is essential to learning how to accept it, and to taking more joy from the present. What is judgment but our projections of what we think is good or bad about life? Judgment is not what we think of others, however; it’s what we think of ourselves. When we judge, we’re reaffirming from the basis of our self-beliefs who we think we are; it's aspects of ourselves we see in other people. Since who we are changes from moment to moment (like everything else), how can we even know who we are with any certainty? We think we do, and we cling to our self-images like glue; but when we do we keep ourselves from realizing greater growth, and from realizing our true potentials. 

Judgment is the result of seeing aspects of ourselves that we’re unhappy with, or that we wish we could change. How many times have you cursed someone because they did something you’ve done yourself? How many times have you wondered out loud how a beautiful, rich, and famous person could possibly have a drug addiction? You expect certain things from certain people, and then judge them when they don’t meet those expectations; but all you’re really doing is judging yourself, because your life - and who you think you are in it - doesn’t meet your expectations. Expectations, like judgments, hold us back from living fuller lives, and from the spontaneity of being in the moment, of experiencing more fun and joy in it.

Are you beginning to see how needless judgment is? What point is there to it? It doesn’t move you forward to judge anything as right or wrong, good or bad. In and of themselves, all people and all events are neutral; they aren’t good or bad until we give that meaning to them. Not only that, given that the present is becoming the past virtually instantaneously, when we judge, we’re judging something that’s not even there any more. That’s reason alone to ignore judgment altogether; why would you bother, if you’re judging something that no longer exists? Of course, we cannot stop judging; we do it all the time. So practicing acceptance of this aspect of the self is what's required. You know you're going to judge; can you accept when it happens, realize you don't have to act on judgments, and continue to view life with a neutral perspective?

Judging others based on your self-beliefs also takes away from who other people really are. They’re just like you; many times frightened, at times courageous, trying to find their ways through life. When we judge them based on how we think they should be - or on a past that still hurts us in the present - we remove the chance for those relationships to grow. We automatically assume that they’re going to act a certain way, and so we place limitations on our encounters with them, and lose out on the potential for more positive experiences. Instead of taking someone at face value in the here and now, we take away the opportunity to understand that we’re all the same, we can all learn from one another, and we can all grow together. Only it’s not others you end up short-changing when you judge them; it’s yourself, because when you do it you’ve already lost the opportunity to be who you really are, and left yourself open to more self-recrimination. It’s a vicious circle that can end up quite literally killing you, because when we practice judgment we also create guilt, or self-blame, and sooner or later that will manifest as stress.

Judgment stops us from acceptance of the present, because when we do it we’re eiither caught up in the past, or worried about the future. The truth is happening now, and only now. Being anywhere else is nothing but fantasy. Where is your mind at this very instant? Is it worried about work, or your spouse, or your kids? Or are you remembering something from the past that angered, saddened or excited you? Are you thinking about what might happen tomorrow? Even as you read these words, ego would love to have you be anywhere else but here, because when you’re fully present it doesn’t have a chance to make you miserable, or keep you from knowing the truth of your existence.

What is that truth? You are not a body living in an apparently physical world; you’re a spiritual presence, projecting the dream of a physical world. So, where are you, then? If I'm not here, where's my mind (and well you might ask that of me if you're still reading)? It doesn’t matter where the mind is; it’s certainly not in the dream we call "reality." The mind created the dream in the first place, and everything you perceive in it. As you practice a discipline like meditation, you come closer to the realization that your true Self exists outside of space and time. You cannot be both a physical presence, and a mind that exists without any physical presence at all. You’re either one of the other, and the very existence of the mind suggests that its the true Self.

Judgment is not only meaningless, but counter-productive to accepting your life experience. Yes, we need judgment in order to function at times, like when crossing the street, or to avoid eating spoiled food - but that type of judgment is better termed common sense, because we’re not applying preconceived notions to what we’re doing - we’re simply acting upon prior experience. Apart from that, judging the present based on a non-existent past is like trying to stop the flow of a river with just your hands; it isn't practical, or worthwhile. Once you accept this fact - once you come to accept not only the illusory nature of your so-called physical reality, but the metaphysical nature of your true Self - there isn’t a reason left to believe your judgments about anything, especially yourself. Accepting them as momentary events can help open you up to new experiences, and who you really are becomes more apparent. You find greater joy, peace, and love, and take a giant step toward full awareness of your true reality.

The Function of Karma

Many spiritual beliefs define karma (Sanskrit for ‘deed’ or ‘action’) as being the result of good or evil thoughts, actions, or words towards the self or another person. The basic principle states that thinking or performing positive thoughts or actions will result in a more positive life. The opposite holds true for negativity. However, you don’t need to believe in karma to know that doing good deeds, and having positive thoughts, generally means life is happier and more rewarding.

There is another school of thought regarding karma, and that is our higher, or soul selves, have contracts with other souls to learn certain lessons from one lifetime to another. These lessons are crucial to a soul’s growth, and its ability to fully awaken to its true identity within the one Self (or God). Karma is the terms of the contract; the lesson or lessons that need to be undertaken in order for the soul to complete its human experience. Unfinished karma between souls will re-surface in another lifetime until their contract is completed.

For this reason, the relationships we share with others all involve karma; all have something to teach us about ourselves. In fact, since we create our lives and the people in it, we must do so with karma in mind to begin with, and that is the reason certain people are in our lives at certain times. They exist to promote the growth of the soul, or the Self, with the ultimate goal of bringing enlightenment, or awakening to the true nature of the Self as it exists in awareness of heaven.

Defined this way, karma is not a case of divine retribution, or punishment by the self towards the self. Guilt performs that function quite readily. There’s no reason to learn life’s lessons through ‘bad’ karma, unless the soul has contracted to experience a life full of apparent hardship in its relations with other souls. In that particular scenario, one’s chosen lot is a still a matter of learning the right lessons at the right time. The soul cannot grow at its desired rate otherwise, yet the end goal is the same. Waking up to the true nature of the Self is a process, and one which every soul in this illusory world must undertake at its own pace.

Love and karma are inextricably linked to one another. Through the manifestation of love between two people, the soul ensures that karma will be pursued with greater focus, and will result in learning more important lessons. Love comes in many forms, and even hate is a form of love; while it may seem that a certain relationship doesn’t involve love at all, since love is the creative force of the Self to begin with, every relationship has love as a component. The key to seeing love in all relationships is the belief that love is the only aspect of life that is real; everything not of love is illusion.

This may be difficult to accept given the nature of some relationships. However, if you accept the concept of a loving God, and subsequently the idea that a loving God is incapable of creation without love, then it stands to reason that love exists in everyone, because we all have a soul created with it to begin with. This also means love exists in every relationship, no matter its form.

Sometimes, we experience relationships that are intensely loving, and yet also highly challenging. This is the result of two souls nearing the end of their human journeys, and as they near their completion, it becomes all the more important to unearth the fears and beliefs of the self that do not serve the soul’s growth. Soul mates and other terms used to describe these relationships are symbolic of souls contracted with one another to strive for their final destiny, or awakening.

People can have more than one soul mate, but if the lessons needed from one aren’t learned, they’ll have to be taught in other ways. In some cases, this means repeating a life experience with another soul mate, having the lesson surface in another life, or finding ways to reconcile with a particular soul whose only purpose is to teach us about our deeper truths. When ego gets in the way of learning our lessons from a soul mate, we often find that our connection to them doesn’t go away even after the relationship has ended, and won’t go away because we’re destined through karma to fulfill our contract with that soul. This is especially the case for souls nearing the end of their human lives, and can be determined by the strength of love that is shared between two people, as well as the nature of the challenges they face with one another.

These challenges often take the form of seeing the best and the worst aspects in a partner, in order to learn what beliefs must be changed to further growth. Fear will have to be faced in these instances, because it’s only fear that prevents us from rising to the challenges of a deeply felt, intense love relationship in the first place. Any ego issues will need to be dealt with, or they’ll threaten the relationship’s foundation, and the soul’s ability to learn. If ego comes between two people in a relationship of this kind and it ends before karma is complete, their soul contract means they will manifest serious messages to themselves as the soul pulls out all the stops to get itself back on its chosen learning curve.

This is why the people who challenge us the most are the ones we learn the most from. In love relationships, it’s doubly true; the most challenging relationships have the most to teach us. Avoiding learning our lessons by denying what needs to be changed within ourselves results in feelings of dissatisfaction and incompleteness, and sometimes more dire consequences, like accident or illness. Only until we have faced the fears that another person brings to our attention are we able to move forward at the rate our soul’s desire.

Karma is the way our souls pursue their agendas of growth and enlightenment. Accepting this as true means accepting the challenges we’re presented with through other people, especially those involving deep love of one kind or another. They’re essential to the soul’s progress through life. Learning our life lessons often involves achieving a greater level of self-awareness before we can finish the toughest ones. That means facing our fears and challenges, rather than denying they exist, or running from them. Sooner or later, they’ll surface again, until we’re ready to learn them.

Choice

Life is rarely a ‘walk in the park’, but it can become much simpler to follow its path if one is paying attention to it. This means learning from the experiences of the past, and applying the knowledge towards making choices in the present; that’s what creating the future is all about.

That may be obvious, but it’s often taken for granted in the midst of strong emotional situations, which can also be times of important decision making. Whether we react to events with the melodrama characteristic of emotional outbursts, or respond to them with wisdom gleaned from lessons of the past, determines how easy or difficult life will be.

Why is this so? When we react to life with strong emotion, we carry the energy of it with us, and at some point, that energy needs to be transformed into something positive, or it will eat away at us in the form of guilt, which is self-blame. This can lead to manifesting illness, injury, or one apparently negative consequence after another.

Remember that we create our lives, and thus no one can be blamed for how we feel from one moment to the next. How we feel is strictly a matter of choice; we either recognize how we’ve set ourselves up to feel one way or another, or we blindly barge through our days blaming the world for our troubles. This is a favourite trick of ego, and is used to give the appearance that we’re not responsible for our choices, or how they make us feel. By projecting blame outside of the self, we ‘escape’ accepting our responsibilities. However, it’s an illusory escape; taking responsibility for our choices is the only way to dissolve guilt, or prevent it from occurring in the first place.

Accepting responsibility is not about blaming ourselves, however; that’s only going to create more negativity, and more guilt. It does mean understanding that we’re human, and therefore fallible; we don’t always recognize that the choices we make, no matter how ‘wrong’ they may appear to be, are really moving us forward in life. The key to self-acceptance, and the growth of our self-awareness, is realizing that we’re always learning, no matter how we may feel about a choice we’ve made.

We might not always feel good about our choices, but as we grow in awareness of what they mean for our progress through life, we can at least begin to change our perspective of them, and find comfort in knowing that they’re helping us discover more about ourselves. This eventually leads to a sense of inner calm, and greater presence of mind to bring to the moments of life. We begin to respond to those with increased calm and thoughtfulness, rather than just get lost in our emotional reactions to them. Who doesn’t want to be calmer, more responsive, and less reactive?

Self-awareness is completely individual, and therefore totally subjective. A person can only determine for themselves how deep their self-awareness is, and may be so lost in ego as to not know what it means to be self-aware to begin with. One either knows there’s more to life and the self, or isn’t thinking about it at all. There’s no right or wrong about this, either; we’re all on separate patterns of growth, and acceptance of this fact can make accepting the self, as well as others, much easier. It also helps us make better choices in life, and learn more from them, too.

Healing is in the Mind

People have always used natural remedies to cure what ailed them. Such remedies aren’t limited to what can be found growing naturally, however. The power of mind over matter has also been used to help people heal themselves, and in the modern age it’s accepted as an obvious adjunct to healing of all kinds.

This is especially so in alternative, or holistic healing. The holistic approach considers the ‘whole’ person when applying treatment, and so attempts to address not only the physical symptoms of ailments, but also their underlying spiritual, mental, and emotional causes.

Understanding the nature of reality (as discussed in previous posts) is a key to helping a person with holistic treatments. For example, a hypochondriac isn’t just afflicted with ailments both real and fictitious; they’re suffering from the influence of their beliefs, something every psychiatrist knows. However, the same can be said of anyone suffering from any form of sickness or injury; life as we know it exists only in the mind, therefore a person’s health is strictly determined by their beliefs about it.

The mind exists outside of space and time, therefore all healing takes place not on the level of the body, but on the level of one’s self-awareness. Beliefs about the self are reflected in a person’s body, which is why treatment of afflictions needs to be aimed at understanding one’s beliefs, not just looking at the apparent physical manifestations of them. There’s no shortage of stories relating how people have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to beat some illness, or the limitations of a debilitating injury. Why does this happen? Simply put, the people concerned believed they could heal themselves.

How they did so isn’t as important as the beliefs they brought to aid with their healing regimens. It takes more than a healthy attitude, though that certainly helps. If someone isn’t used to being a positive person, they won’t be able to suddenly tap into some hidden reserve of strength to overcome a serious affliction. They need to have a healthy mind to begin with, and that starts with a positive belief system.

In order to ensure good health, it doesn’t hurt to consider bringing greater balance and awareness to one’s life. This is where such techniques as meditation, yoga, reiki and many others are very effective. They not only help a person change their beliefs about themselves, they help bring all aspects of the self to a higher state of health. Thus, when serious illness or injury does occur, a person who has been practicing or receiving some form of holistic therapy is better prepared to deal with it.

There’s no point in making comparisons between holistic and modern medicine, however. Both are necessary while people believe in the efficacy of either, or both. Any treatment can be effective if a person believes strongly enough in it, but more so if they believe in themselves, and their ability to meet health challenges. This is why a placebo is often just as good a remedy as a real drug; healing is all in the mind. Change your mind, and you can change your life.

Using Daily Affirmations

Self-affirmations are often touted as a way to deal with negativity in life, as well as change how you view yourself, and in certain situations they’re effective. However, by themselves they’re not of much use if you don’t address the underlying beliefs that cause negativity in the first place. Deleting negative thoughts only stops them for the moment; they’re going to keep coming back until you change how you perceive the world, and more importantly, how you perceive yourself.

How do you change what you believe? You have to find out what that is first. Keeping a daily journal is a good start; writing down your thoughts on a regular basis can present a very clear picture of what you think not only about yourself, but about others, as well. A month’s worth of daily entries can be very revealing about what you believe, and provide a baseline from which to address beliefs you don’t like.

You can also ask people you trust and love to tell you what they honestly think of you. The people we love are usually a good source of feedback. After all, they reflect both our best and our worst qualities; that’s why we have them in our lives to begin with. Use them as a tool to learn how they view you, and from there to gain a better understanding of yourself.

You don’t actually have to talk to anyone if you’re not comfortable with the idea. Just hanging out with friends or family, and observing how you interrelate, will tell you plenty about yourself. Do you take to others easily, or do you often find them challenging? Are you loving, accepting, and gracious? Or are you judgmental, argumentative, or opinionated, even just in your own thoughts? The latter are all signs of someone uncomfortable with their self, and suggest a need to reinforce one’s beliefs by attacking the beliefs of others, or defending one’s own.

When we live in fear, we’ll go to great lengths to prove to ourselves that we’re ‘right’ about one thing or another, when in fact we’re running from our own self-doubt. The truth has no need of protection; finding our own truths means no longer running from ourselves, or others. You can discover from your dealings with people, including acquaintances or total strangers, how you view yourself.

All of these methods are meant to be self-revealing. In fact, you’re sending messages about your beliefs to yourself all the time, with everything you think, say or do. Just spend some time observing your own reactions to life; if you don’t like what you see, then maybe it’s time to change what you believe.

Keeping a checklist of your good points and bad points is also an aid to help you keep track of what you want to change, and from there learning which beliefs you hold that do not reflect the person you want to become. If you’re serious about changing who you are, you’ll need to be disciplined enough to do something serious about it. That means sticking to a method of uncovering your truths, and making a real effort to change.

How do you change? This is where affirmations find their best usage. Once you’re aware of the beliefs you want to change, you can focus much more clearly on who you want to become. You can change the habits of a lifetime’s wrong thinking by realizing when you’re stuck in it, and altering how you react accordingly. When you catch yourself reacting to life like you always have, stop and respond with whom you want to be, instead; that’s the key to using daily affirmations.

Bear in mind that since it’s taken a lifetime to become the person you are, becoming someone you’re happier being won’t happen overnight. It takes time, action, and effort to create a new you. Freedom from negativity can only occur when you put your mind to ridding yourself of your own negative beliefs, and focus on creating more positive beliefs to replace them.

This is what self-awareness is all about; learning the truth of who you are, and leaving who you’re not behind. As you grow in awareness of the true nature of the self, the mind begins to shift to reflect the truth of your existence, and the world you perceive becomes enriched with more promise and joy as a result.

We’re all on journeys of growth, and there is only movement forward, no matter how our lives may appear to us from one moment to another. However, there’s a difference between being aware of our progress, and wallowing in the self-despair or self-doubt that characterizes a person under the influence of ego alone. Recognize the events that happen in your life as positive movers of change, and change who you are as a result of your increased awareness of their meaning.

Personal Boundaries

Many a self-help manual suggest that setting boundaries to protect oneself against people deemed “unhealthy” presences in our lives is a positive, healthy step towards creating a positive, healthier you. Sometimes, the suggestion is accompanied by advice such as ensuring you're vibrating at the right frequency to attract only the people you want to your life. Or, you’re told to stand up for what you believe in by addressing it with those closest to you, and ensuring that they know what you will or will not tolerate from them. This may alienate people, however; it may be wiser to earn their respect by setting an example for them to follow by your acceptance of them, and why they're in your life, rather than dictate to them the terms by which they’re allowed to be in it, or not.

Setting boundaries does nothing to address the issues a person has with their beliefs about themselves, which is the basis for finding ourselves faced with challenging people to begin with. It has the opposite effect of keeping a person’s personal issues from being addressed at all. Why would a person ever worry about the behaviour of others unless they were worried about their own?

This is the crux of the matter. There is no need to set boundaries to protect ourselves from the actions or influence of people we find “unhealthy” or otherwise challenging. Setting boundaries does not keep anything or anyone out of our lives; it only keeps us hiding from seeing the truth about ourselves.

No matter the depth of our self-awareness, our higher selves present us with challenges throughout our lives in order for us to learn and grow. When we don’t rise to meet those challenges, we continue to get them until we do. The messages behind them can get more intense the more we ignore them, and sometimes result in serious repercussions to our well-being. This is not because our higher selves want to harm us; it’s because we're hiding from ourselves, and creating unconscious (and sometimes conscious) guilt as a result of our refusal to change our beliefs. Guilt is the most pernicious, pervasive emotion we can harbour, and when we do we can manifest all kinds of punishment on ourselves, as well as on others.

The irony of setting boundaries in our interactions with others is that we’re really setting boundaries against our own growth when we do it. Whatever it is were supposed to learn from a particular person that we find challenging to deal with will simply surface in another person at another place and time until we have received whatever message we’re trying to tell ourselves. Setting boundaries with the goal of preserving our truths in fact limits us from seeing them in the first place.

It’s inevitable that we’ll meet people who challenge us to examine our beliefs about ourselves, and give us an opportunity to grow. The people we find the most challenging to accept are the ones we learn the most about ourselves from; they’re mirrors reflecting some aspect of our beliefs that needs addressing. After all, we cannot set boundaries against everyone, and expect to win wisdom or greater self-awareness by closing ourselves off from the world behind walls of fear. We needn’t worry about attracting people into our lives who don't serve our growth if we’re doing what is needed to preserve the path of it ourselves. The opposite is true; the more we examine and alter our beliefs to reflect our inner truths, the more we’ll attract people into our lives who also reflect those truths.

If we learn from our encounters with people who challenge us, we'll eventually find those challenges disappear of their own accord, because we have moved beyond needing them, and will no longer attract whatever it is they were meant to teach us. It’s that simple. As we grow in acceptance of who we are and the truths we represent, we no longer need fear anyone. Setting boundaries is a mark of living in fear, not courageously protecting the truth. The truth needs no protection; it needs only acceptance in order to see the light of day.

Challenges come from our inner selves; they have nothing to do with anyone else. We create them for ourselves, and rather than shut them out behind boundaries of insecurity, we should embrace and learn from them, so we need not experience the same challenges over and over again. This is the path we need to take to change our beliefs to reflect our truths, and to find greater peace in our lives. Face the fears you have about yourself, and your need to hide from yourself will fade away.

Awareness 101

If the universe and everything in it is a projection of the mind, then everything apparently outside of the mind is unreal. There are mind-blowing implications that result from accepting this concept. For one, it means that life as we perceive it through the senses is only being thought of in the mind, and thus everything we feel is also in the mind. This also means that nothing at all is actually happening except in the mind.

In addition to this, while every mind experiences what it chooses to of life, one of the reasons we tend to perceive the same external, physical reality is because there is only one mind. There is no other explanation possible for our shared experience outside of how we react to what happens in it. Nevertheless, even if the world we see is a similar projection among us all, how we experience it is entirely based on beliefs about the self. These beliefs are the basis for our emotions, and the various ways we proceed through life that we use to describe ourselves as individuals.

Yet, if nothing is actually happening in our so-called external reality, than what are we experiencing? We’re experiencing whatever the mind chooses to create for us, and given that the mind must then exist as a conscious entity outside of our external perception, the mind is not in space or time; it’s in thought.

Now consider that if the mind is in thought, then not only is nothing happening in a physical sense, but nothing is happening outside of thought itself. This raises the question: Why do we appear to be ‘somewhere’ in space and time, if the mind creating us isn’t?

This is where the argument requires a leap of faith in an unified, creative source that represents the one mind of which we are all a part. It doesn’t really matter what it’s called; God, the all-seeing, all-knowing mastermind, the Source; if there is only one mind, then it can only be comprehended through the mind itself, and not through the senses.

This is the reason increasing self-awareness is important. It’s the one route to discovering that the difference between existing solely in the illusion of an external reality, and existing solely in the truth of an internal awareness, is strictly a matter of belief. Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla, Shangri-La; all represent a state of mind, and achieving it is why we have faith in the first place.

Something in our thoughts constantly reminds us that there is more to what we see in life. We not only tend to want to believe it, most of just accept it as true. Why do we have this strong drive to believe in something beyond external perception? It’s not because we want to live forever; it’s because we already do, and we’re trying to remember the fact.

Reality as experienced by the body is a dream of the mind. Were our minds fully aware, we would immediately recognize that we are already in heaven, or nirvana, or any place you care to name that symbolizes not only the afterlife, but the mind’s spiritual origin, as well. The true reality is that we have never left where the mind is; we only think we have.

One aspect of increasing self-awareness is understanding how to return to full acceptance of the mind’s reality, and in so doing wake up to the truth of our existence. How we approach achieving that will be the subject of another post.

Ego vs. Spirit

If the Universe is a projection of the mind, then what is the nature of our existence, and how do we perceive it? First, it helps to understand that perception is a result of what’s going on in the mind, and not of anything that appears to be outside of it. There isn’t any distinction to be made between thoughts and external stimuli; they’re the same thing. What we perceive of the world seemingly outside of the self is created by the mind. If that seems dubious, consider that in a dream state the eyes are generally closed, yet a dream is still ‘seen’. That’s because it’s the mind doing the seeing, not the eyes. The same thing is happening during periods of wakefulness - eyes are not receptors for seeing what’s separate from the self - they’re projectors for seeing what’s inside of it.

It’s taken for granted that the mind interprets what the senses perceive, but the truth is subtler. Yes, the mind chooses what to sense, but it’s already decided what that will be before its sensed anything. In other words, projecting as well as interpreting so-called external stimuli is strictly a matter of choice; all perception is created with the mind. What’s created and how that’s understood depends on beliefs about life, and about the self. Where do the projected stimuli come from? From the two sources of beliefs: the ego self, which comprises most conscious thinking, as well as all unconscious fears; and the spirit self, the part of the mind that guides behaviour based on love, morals, and individual truth.

Both belief systems are within the same mind, but they differ greatly in their goals. Ego is intent on having us envision a world of struggle, dissatisfaction, and disharmony, a place where we must fight to master our fate, only to perish after all the effort. In marked contrast, spirit wants us to grow in awareness, see the true nature of existence, and accept the immortality of the self.

Why immortal? There’s plenty of evidence that people do transcend physical existence, even though they may still appear to be in it. Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and many others provide examples that the body is but a result of the mind’s awareness, and therefore only the mind exists. These were people who fully grasped the concept of a single, unified consciousness, and were able to exist in the mind of the spirit alone. Ego disappears when unconscious beliefs are corrected to reflect the belief system of the spirit self, and fear ceases to be a driving force of thought or behaviour.

How do we interpret truth from everything else? Anything not of God (my choice of metaphor for the One Self, or unified consciousness), or in other words, not created with love, is unreal. God is incapable of creating anything outside of love or truth, since God is the spiritual embodiment of both. Thus, anything that is seen as less than loving or truthful is illusion, since God cannot have created it in the first place. This is something of a leap of faith for many people, but as most of us have some belief in a higher power, it’s not difficult to conceive. It may be difficult to accept, but that’s up to individual experience, and the beliefs of the self to decide upon.

Believing in God or a unified consciousness isn’t a prerequisite to understanding the illusory nature of so-called physical reality; modern science has other explanations for the same concept. For example, it’s common knowledge that all energy is composed of atoms, and that matter is energy transformed. It’s also been proven that atoms are not always fixed in place; they zip into and out of planes of existence regularly. The upshot of this is that everything apparently physical is in a constant state of flux. This makes perfect sense when you consider that the power of creative thought, which is responsible for the transformation of energy into form, is also continually in a state of flux. Nothing is as it seems other than beliefs determine it be one thing or another, and even then nothing remains permanently one thing or another. Everything is changing all the time.

If a person could see only the atomic structure of the physical world, all form would disappear; only energy would be present. This alone is proof that physical reality is not in fact ‘real’ at all, and only exists because the beliefs of the mind sustain it. Change one’s beliefs, and ‘reality’ changes to mirror them.

If beliefs dictate what we experience of the ‘physical’ world, how do we choose which ones serve us best? You only need examine the way your life is going to answer that question. Are you constantly wishing things were different? Do you want things you cannot have? Do you look for happiness to come from others? Do you get upset when others don’t meet your expectations? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you’re following the beliefs of the ego self. The world seems like a place of mishaps, pain and emotional drama.

Conversely, if you’re happy, accept yourself and others easily, give to receive, and understand that love really does make the world go around, then you’re likely experiencing life from the belief system of the spirit self. Life is joyous, supportive, enriching, and rewarding.

The choice you make to follow the limiting dictates of ego, or focus on the greater awareness of spirit, determines the life you create, and reflects the beliefs of either self. Listen to your heart, and you’ll know which one will serve you best.

What do You Believe?

There is a school of thought in the self-growth field that suggests the universe and everything in it is a projection of the mind, and beliefs about the self dictate what perception reveals about it. If true, then we not only create our lives, but also everything and everyone in it we perceive with the body’s senses. In fact, if physical reality is a mirror of our conscious and unconscious beliefs (especially the latter), then it’s only an illusion, and has no basis in reality at all.

This isn’t just a fancy New Age theology. It’s been a running theme throughout some of the recorded history of faith and philosophy at least as far back as Plato, and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, among many others. Modern science - specifically the fields of quantum physics and human biology - continues to find evidence supporting the concept that we are what we believe. Therefore, it can be deduced that if we identify the self with the body, our beliefs affect us on the level of form; whereas if we identify with a spiritual self, our beliefs alter to reflect a different reality than what the body alone perceives.

Any seeker of the spirit self knows it’s not easy to dissociate from the idea that one is not a body, because we spend the bulk of our lives believing it. We’re taught from a young age to accept that ‘seeing is believing’, when we should be taught that ‘believing is seeing’. This state of confusion could be one of the reasons people struggle to maintain their sanity in a world that they themselves have made insane. Of course, it depends on whether or not you ascribe to this particular school of thought in the first place.

If you do, there are many ways available to help discover the depths of your spirituality. Some practices, like meditation, yoga, Qi Gong, and others, have been around for centuries. There’s also a diverse array of conceptual texts on deepening one’s spiritual awareness that offer guided instruction on how to go about it. Deciding which one may work requires some trial and error, but generally whichever is needed at a given point in time will show up in a person’s life when they’re ready for it.

Personally, the teachings of A Course in Miracles rings true for me, being filled with concepts that suggest a spiritual wisdom has laid them out. It may not have the same appeal for everyone, but its logic seems remarkably thorough and it’s approach consistent. I’ve read some criticism of the Course, and have actually chuckled at the attempts of some writers to offer any that are more believable than the Course material itself. It’s a work that’s difficult to refute.

Regardless, the point is that there are numerous, effective methods to help increase one’s self-awareness. I think examining beliefs about the self, and altering them if necessary, can help change the illusion of a chaotic world to one more closely resembling what we all want from it.

I also think it’s safe to presume that everyone is already on their own path to spiritual awakening, whether they’re cognizant of the fact or not, but as more people make a purposeful effort to find greater spiritual awareness, a domino effect of learning will take place. Understanding will grow that the world we see is not one we need feel forced to live in, and greater peace and harmony are possible. If you’re ready to take another step in that direction, the very short reading list compiled below may help get you started.

A Course in Miracles, published by the Foundation for Inner Peace
A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson
Loving What Is, Byron Katie
Living the Wisdom of the Tao, Wayne Dyer
Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, Deepak Chopra
The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renaud
The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton
The Gratitude Effect, John Demartini
Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck
The Places that Scare You, Pema Chodron
What the Bleep Do We Know?, various authors

Reiki for Mind, Body & Soul

A Reiki (“ray-kee”) treatment is a great way to promote self-healing, and ensure ongoing good health. Originally created by Dr. Mikao Usui at the end of the nineteenth century, Reiki is widely known and used. It’s also recognized by Western medicine as an effective, non-invasive treatment that reduces healing time and pain levels significantly, especially in post-operative patients, as well as with injuries or illnesses.

Reiki is a Japanese term meaning ‘Life Force Energy’. It assists with balancing your energy centers, the seven areas of the body’s energy field, or aura, that are commonly referred to as chakras. The seven chakras are called the root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, brow and crown. These centers flow freely with energy when they’re clear, helping support a healthy, happy individual. When they’re blocked by persistent negative feelings or stress, the effects can manifest in many ways. Experiencing pain or illness of any kind is common, whether emotional, physical or mental. Reiki helps clear the chakras of negative energy, treating both its causes and symptoms.

A Reiki practitioner doesn’t ‘perform’ healing; they’re trained and attuned to accept and channel powerful life-force energy to their clients. They may use several Reiki techniques to administer treatment, depending on their training. Some place their hands in various predetermined positions on the body; others keep their hands a short distance away from it. Either technique works; a client typically feels the flow of energy as heat when they’re being treated. A Reiki practitioner with strong intuition can often pinpoint areas of the aura or physical body that are ‘sore’ spots, and focus on them when giving treatment.

Ultimately, guiding the Reiki energy depends on a client’s needs; being intelligent, the energy knows what chakras or areas of the body require it. For example, if you have trouble expressing your needs to others, Reiki energy will concentrate at the throat chakra to help meet that challenge. If you have a broken heart, it will focus on that area to help you heal. If you’re recovering from injury or illness, the energy will support that healing.

Reiki works on all mental, emotional, physical and spiritual levels, restoring balance and a sense of well-being. It’s very relaxing, and aids in cleansing the body of toxins. Anyone can receive a Reiki treatment regardless of their spiritual beliefs; Reiki is non-denominational. Children especially benefit from treatment, and pets like it, too.

The Canadian Reiki Association (www.reiki.ca) lists certified Reiki instructors and practitioners in your area. It also provides FAQ’s, relevant articles and testimonials to the effectiveness of Reiki treatments.

Why Meditate?

Meditation is the easiest way to find peace of mind, and bring balance to your life. There are thousands of meditation methods, and you may need guidance to get started; but it’s not required. You can start your own practice just by taking a few minutes each day to focus on breathing in and out, and experiencing whatever happens in those moments without judgment or expectation. Be kind to yourself; distractions are normal. Minimize any thoughts or feelings by allowing them to occur, and if need be, gently bring your attention back to breathing. Your breathing is your anchor, always giving you something to focus on. Attending to the regular rhythms of your breathing can help both the mind and body relax.

The goal in meditation isn’t to strive for enlightenment; the goal is to not strive for anything at all. This will open your mind to your one true Self, where you will discover a vast space of inner calm. It’s like seeing yourself from a distance, but in fact you move closer to the core of your being, your one true mind. This sense of calm awareness gives you the ability to respond to moments in life, rather than react to them, and experience any thoughts or feelings that arise within your moments as the true you. Discovering your true Self gives you freedom to accept life’s experiences without attaching to them, as they are not of you, but only perceived by a body that you believe is you.

There’s no right or wrong way to meditate, but use these simple guidelines to get you started:

1) Do it daily.

2) Try to do it at the same time each day.

3) Don’t worry about distractions like thoughts, sounds or feelings; these are perfectly normal for everyone. It takes practice to learn how to accept them, and tune them out.

4) If you keep your attention on your breathing while you meditate, it always gives you something to re-focus on when distractions happen; and they will happen.

5) Focusing on results will frustrate you; focus on the moment, and results will follow.

Meditation offers greater emotional and mental freedom to deal with life’s ups and downs. It allows you to see further into who you really are, creating more ‘space’ to accept life as a process, and helping you find your way through it with direction, ease and calm.

There are some common myths about meditation that deserve de-bunking:

Myth: Meditation takes too long.

Truth: Start with just five minutes a day; as you build up your practice, you’ll actually want to meditate for longer periods, and you’ll soon wonder why TV ever seemed so appealing.

Myth: Meditation is for old hippies, monks and New Age types.

Truth: Meditation has universal appeal; without it, the lives we lead - busy, over-stimulated, and stressed out – can result in unnecessary illness, dramatic emotional exchanges with others, and needless guilt about everything. Meditating just once a day can bring more harmony, joy and peace to your existence.

Myth: I can’t meditate without knowing there’s some tangible benefit at the end of it.

Truth: Meditation is not a degree program or race to win; it’s a life-long endeavour that can only benefit every aspect of your being. It cannot hurt you, but it can profoundly change the way you live by reducing stress, broadening perspective, and helping you enjoy each moment without getting caught up in the ‘drama’ of daily life.

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Welcome to the first blog entry for One Self Inspired Learning. May you find some wisdom on these pages, and perhaps we'll help each other to our realizations. Maybe that should be singular; the blog title refers to the Oneness within which we are joined, not as separate identities, but as one mind. There really is only one realization to uncover.

Every person has their own path to pursue, so the process they take is totally individual. How you come to the truth of what you are is yours alone to discover. However, there are guides to help you along the way. They're anyone you meet, anytime, anywhere. Some seem unimportant, others stand out. No matter how you perceive them, every person on Earth is a guide to your Self.

If you are seeking guidance, it cannot help but find you. Maybe that's why you’ve arrived at this web site. Maybe if you take this moment to think about what your heart is telling you about life - just the heart, not the head - a reason will reveal itself.

Still unsure? Maybe I can help. There’s always a reason we attract specific people to our lives. It may not present itself right away, but you can bet it exists, nonetheless. You’re here because you’re meant to be; whether it results in a more worthwhile mutual exchange beyond the fact that you're reading these words is up to you.

This is an opportunity for both of us to heal and grow. I think that’s a healthy way to look at things, at least if or until we communicate directly about what we really need from each other.

I don't have the answers you seek, but I can show you where they are. You have them already; all you need to do is realize it for yourself. It won’t cost you a dime for an hour of my time. If that feels like a nudge at all in your thoughts after everything you just read, then drop me a line.

Love and blessings