Laying Low

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“That each should in his house abide, Therefore was the world so wide.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Sometimes although we feel we want to keep doing what we normally do, whether it’s a specific workout routine, going out to enjoy the company of friends, eating and drinking the things we love, we are almost forced not to and do something different. Why is this you may ask? Our bodies tell us otherwise.

In a lot of cases, our bodies are smarter than we are and we don’t give them their due credit. Although we may not ‘agree’ with our body, we should listen to it for it can tell us things our mind will not. This can be experiencing anything from physical pains to a physical reaction, getting sick, to spontaneously having an aversion to something we normally used to do regularly. I used just ‘work through’ injuries for example when I was younger. Now I kind of question this attitude I used to hold dear.

It seemed if it wasn’t one thing, it was something else that I had to deal with injury-wise from the hard training in martial arts and pushing myself daily in my workouts. I rarely if ever took some time off to really allow myself time to heal, or ‘lay low’ even in the midst of a lot of pain. Sometimes this pain came as mental fatigue as well when I felt something should have went a different way or if I felt I ‘plateaued’ for example.

It’s tough because we feel like we are missing out, or like if we don’t do something we might regress. This is especially true if you are practically addicted to working out and physical activity like I am. It’s very easy to get angry at yourself and your body. This can also happen with the food we are so accustomed to eating. In order to heal, sometimes our bodies need a break from our usual diet to focus more on healing foods and medicines so they can really do their job. lonely house winter

I have learned to let these types of feelings go more and more though. It just means we can and should focus our energy elsewhere, at least for the time being while we are allowing our bodies to heal themselves. A good place to focus this energy is to go inside.

If we can do that, we can dissipate any kind of annoying or negative feelings to practically nil. In fact, we can rather quickly start feeling much better about ourselves. It really can open us up to new opportunities to do things differently as well, learn more about ourselves and discover new concepts and ideas we may have been putting off and always found interesting.

The fact that this is also winter time also helps. This is the best time of year to stay in and ‘lay low’ to not only heal on various levels, but to work on yourself in a more internal way. Just as nature and many animals withdraw for the cold winter months, when we do it as well it feels more natural for us on a deeper level as this is the natural ebb and flow of things.

Meditation is one of the best ways to going inside and delve deeper into ourselves. It also promotes healing on many levels. There are many other methods we can play with and throw into the mix, but meditation should be one of the core foundations to this process. Also practicing chi gong and different types of breathing exercises can be done in almost any state and this also can accelerate the healing process and goes hand in hand with any introspective and healing practice.

So in the midst of this cold winter, I highly encourage you to go ‘inside’ and lay low if you don’t feel well or just not right. Listen to your body and do some research to find a practice that resonates with you or resdiscover an old one you may have been neglecting.

Frequency & Vibration

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“If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration”

~ Nikola Tesla

 

Many people talk about one’s vibration or ‘vibe’. What do they mean? As living beings (and all objects really), we emanate electromagnetic energy, although everything seems solid to us, including ourselves. There really is no solidity to the universe though, which quantum physics has shown us. Energy has a frequency and vibrates. Everything vibrates.

So your vibration could be thought of as your overall state of mind and emotions being wrapped up into one which you project concsiously and subconsciously. Your entire biological system works on the same frequencies that the earth emanates. Keep that in mind.

Our thoughts in of themselves have a vibration obviously as well, which effects our brainwave patterns and can be gauged on an EEG machine. Interestingly enough, when we slow down our thought processes and thus our brainwave activity, we go beyond the active and alert Beta state into the Alpha and even deeper Theta states of consciousness where our brainwave patterns slow down dramatically.

I find the correlation between brain wave patterns and depths of consciousness rather intriguing. There are many factors that can cause these changes in us. From watching TV (they call it programming for a reason), to being in a highly stressful situation, to simply focusing on your breath, and to sleep, our vibes and brain waves can change. rainbow cosmos

For example you can be in what would normally be thought of as a stressful situation at work for example to others, and not be stressed at all, or at least to a minimal degree. Some people can exude that ‘calmness in the eye of the storm’ so to speak. Amazingly, this can have an impact on other people that may be experiencing that same situation so far as to have a calming effect on those around them. This would be an example of someone’s ‘vibe’ influencing those around them.

In the same token, a person with a very frantic and nervous ‘vibe’ can influence those around them as well to move towards that same state. In the least, if you are even just somewhat sensitive or aware, you will notice something about what someone’s particular vibration may be like. Other times, peoples vibrations may be so subtle so as to you don’t notice much of anything.

Our vibration and energy signature is always ‘on’ so to speak, although it can be toned down to where it is almost imperceptible. Our perception picks up these signals, almost like an antenna picking up radio signals. People can train themselves using various tools and techniques to raise and enhance their awareness and perception.

This is an amazing ability we humans have. It also makes life much more fascinating when you can start enhancing and tapping in to your natural, but usually more latent abilities and start noticing things you once did not. Trusting and developing your intuition more, meditating more frequently (and even at certain times), self-hypnosis, chi kung, martial arts, yoga, mysticism, etc., are some of the known ways to do this.

For me personally as an example, I noticed that when I meditate at night right before I go to sleep, this increases the frequency of astral projection and out of body experiences dramatically. It actually happens I would say about 70-80% of the time when I do this. Everyone is different, some people just naturally are able to do and perceive more without any aides or techniques. I encourage you to test and try different things out to see how you can enhance and expand your own frequency and vibration.

Mental Trickery

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The human mind is a funny thing. For example, when we try to remember something we just for some reason can’t, it seems the harder we try, the more we push the memory away from becoming conscious. Then all of the sudden, when we stop thinking about it and are engaged in doing something completely different, bam!, it hits us and the memory surfaces and we remember.

Repetition seems to have a powerful effect on our minds. The more we repeat certain phrases or concepts, the more they become imprinted, hence the power of mantras and affirmations. Our minds are not a straightforward thing, humans have for centuries tried to plumb its depth to gain a more clear understanding of exactly how it works.

Sigmund Freud was the first to offer a model of separating the mind into three levels of awareness or consciousness – conscious, subconcious and unconscious. Some people use the term superconsious instead of unconscious. We can flow in and out of the different levels at almost any time really, although most of us do not have the control to consciously do it as we please.

There are some people who subscribe to the theory that the human mind works like a computer, (or was even modeled after one). If this is the case, it explains a lot. Our brain would be the hard-drive and the mind a form of program, where we can also download other programs and information to enhance our knowledgebase/mindset.

Another concept that I have read about and find interesting is that our minds, brains and really the universe as a whole are holographic in nature, as proposed by neurophysiologist Dr. Karl Pribram. If our minds and reality work like a hologram, this also can explain a lot, especially the non-local nature of our brains memory storage, amongst other many almost seemingly unexplainable mental feats. Feats such as people being able to speak foreign and almost lost ancient languages they never recall learning. Swirling mind

There are other concepts of how the mind may work, but in the end what matters most is what works for us to create the reality we would like to experience. One thing that I have noticed over time with myself and others, it that the idea of mental ‘trickery’ comes in to play quite often. This is especially true when it comes to teaching and learning, as well as with healing. By using trickery in learning, it involves confounding a current belief structure in order to perceive another.

We all have certain paradigms of belief that we subscribe to. Some of us can more fluidly transition from one paradigm or belief structure to another. Those that don’t transition so easily, or even at all for that matter are known to be very stubborn or hard-headed people. Sometimes they won’t see that something (or can’t see the forest for the trees so to speak) that will change they way the look at something even if the hard evidence is staring them right in the face.

They just don’t want to believe it and are set in their ‘ways’.  In cases like these, trickery must be especially employed to help that person evolve and expand their constrained belief structure, and even then sometimes it just doesn’t work. Only time and a mass shift in collective concsiousness and acceptance of that ‘something being what it is’ will change their belief structure or paradigm they hold so dearly on to.

Healing ourselves and are bodies are another very effective way trickery can work and come in to play. The placebo and nocebo effects come to mind. Taken from wikipedia – “Mental states such as beliefs, expectations and anticipation can strongly influence the outcome of: disease; experience of pain; and even success of surgery. Positive expectations regarding a treatment can result in more positive outcomes and this effect is known as the placebo effect, and the opposite would be true for the nocebo effect.

Telling someone you gave them an amazing life saving miracle drug or treatment (when in reality it’s just a sugar pill or just something made up) can have the ability to trick that person’s mind into believing they are healed and their physical body reacts accordingly and actually heals itself. The human mind is super powerful and capable of amazing feats, especially when its ‘tricked’.

The mind works in mysterious ways. Some people have been able to train themselves through various types of hypnosis (and even self-hypnosis), mantras, affirmations, and other forms of mental training to program their minds to work so effectively they see the results on their bodies and in their creative physical reality fairly quickly. One could argue that any of these methods or tools are forms of trickery, to have the mind and body work in desired ways and thus create desired outcomes beyond our ‘normal’ thought process.

How can you use ‘mental trickery’ to enhance your life?

When in Doubt

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When one door is closed, don’t you know other is open?” – Bob Marley, Coming In From The Cold

 

Something that seems to effect most people, even those of us that consider ourselves positive people and that strive to think positively as much as possible is doubt. It seems to creep in on us most in times of stress, or when things are just not going right. This can have a ripple effect and affect our decision making and mood for the rest of the day, if not more even.

There can be many causes for doubt to enter our thinking, such as something not going your way, an expectation of something that does not come to pass, your body seemingly betraying you (getting sick for example), and there are of course others. Doubt can lead not only to further doubt that can pile up and weigh you down, but to even more ominouse things such as beating yourself up and depression if we let it take hold and take over.

One of the first things, that may seem counter-intuitive almost to combat doubt, is getting out of our own way. What I mean by this is first off remembering that you are human and this stuff can happen even to the best of us. Sometimes one of the most effective things we can do is to just lean back and not do anything in particular but observing what is happening.

From here, our higher Self can take over which is not caught up in emotion and we can see things more clearly.  Also we expend no energy doing this, so it is quite effortless and efficient. Doubt in a lot of cases, can be a reflection of what we think others may be thinking of us, or what we think the world is reflecting back on us. We may even start blaming things outside of our own power for our current doubtful situation. This is easy to do also, but counter-productive! water fall into pond

But if you can be aware of this, you can see the negativity you may be directing towards others or the outside world. The more you do this, the easier it is to be doubtful about yourself. Accepting responsibility that you are the only one who can make that change back to a healther mindset will come naturally if you can get out of your own way and see that you are not only the cause but also the solution.

You have to stick with yourself and believe in yourself, this is the only way. No matter how bad something may seem, if you can pull back a bit and take a deep breath, you’ll realize it’s most likely not the end of the world and there is a solution within although it may not be visible at the moment. Sometimes the answer may be not doing something as opposed to doing something. Be open to changing your way of thinking and even how you approach your lifestyle.

Talking to a friend can help as well, even if the conversation is not about the subject at hand weighing on your mind. Sometimes just stepping away from the matter mentally and discussing other totally unrelated things can open up new doorways to seeing things differently even if your friend doesn’t know it. You may also not notice it at first either… the universe works in strange ways like this sometimes.

Taking in to account also the good things you have in your life that you can be grateful for is also a powerful tool to not only help turn the tide on doubt, but will make you feel better and help refocus your energy and heal your mind/body. It may not seem easy at first, especially when in the midst of having doubt, but this is important and more powerful than you think because it will take you out of the vicious cycle that doubt can be.

Also, writing down your thoughts, especially the self-talk in how you talk to yourself in times of doubt can be eye-opening and powerful. Then Re-writing what you might be saying that is putting you in doubt in to a positive light of what great things you would rather see manifest in your life is the next thing you can do.

Undertand that your life, thoughts and mind-set ebbs and flows naturally just like the cycles of nature and doubt can be used as an opportunity for you to see things from a greater perspective in the grand scheme of things.

Unseen Manipulation

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[The victors of WW II] introduced an all-pervasive, ultra-powerful society-shaping drug. This drug was the first of a growing group of high-technology drugs that deliver the user into an alternate reality by acting directly on the user’s sensorium, without chemicals being introduced into the nervous system. It was television. No epidemic or addictive craze or religious hysteria has ever moved faster or made as many converts in so short a time.”  — Terrence McKenna, Food of the Gods

 

We are living in a most interesting time, some call it the information age. But beyond that, the global changes that are occurring at this time on national, political, international, physical and spiritual levels is truly amazing. It really is an amazing time to be alive.

In this time of unparalleled access to information, some of which can liberate and free your mind (if used correctly) that was once hidden, there also is an abundance of deceptive and distorted information. We are also being bombarded with electromagnetic radiation and signals on a grand scale. Most of these signals are unseen to the naked eye, but that does not mean that they are not there. We can’t see all of the x-rays, radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, ultraviolet light, and gamma radiation etc., amongst others that permeate the world around us.

I find it interesting how much we humans rely on our sense of sight. It seems like it is the most primary and dominant of the five senses that we use daily. It almost seems like we take our other senses much more for granted as they kind of fall into a backdrop compared to our vision, which brings us vivid colors, the faces of both strangers and those so familiar to us, and the road ahead which we could not navigate otherwise.

Our seemingly most relied on sense of sight, as wondrous as it is and what it allows for us to see, can only see a small sliver of the total electromagnetic spectrum, as the visible part only makes up a small fraction of it.  To be exact, since less than 1% of all light that reaches us is in the visible spectrum, it comes out to about .0035% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

Taking this into account, it’s not so hard to believe that most of what is around us is unseen, although when we don’t see anything we tend to think nothing is there. Electronic devices of all kinds surround us now more than ever. Because of this, it’s easier now more than ever to be located, tracked and monitored. In this age of convenience, this can be a great thing when emergencies arise, or when we are even stranded somewhere.

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On the other hand, these same devices can be used to invade our privacy, predict our behavior and make us vulnerable to attacks, both physical and virtual. It’s important that now more than ever before that we understand the scope of our own behavior when using all the new gadgets and technology available to us so we don’t fall prey to outside influences (that are both known to be harmful and even those that claim they are not).

This is such a fast time we live in now, for example if you look back only 15 years or so, cell phones were not nearly as common as they are now. Almost everyone has one now, even kids! We are almost guinea pigs in the sense that we are not even sure what this constant exposure to cellular phones is having in terms of a physical effect on our bodies.

Again we are told they are completely safe, but studies have shown that over-exposure can be harmful, especially to developing brains. Just ask yourself how you feel after being on a long phone call with your cell phone, or when you are in front of a computer screen or tv for too long. Personally I feel a negative effect as I start to get antsy, my head begins to hurt and I just feel the need to put it down and walk away.

There is only so much you can do it seems to protect yourself from all kinds of unseen manipulation both direct or indirect that occurs in this day and age, (unless you are living off the grid or close to it, or are a hermit) but we can take steps to mitigate the many harmful effects to our person, both physically, virtually and mentally. Awareness is key, just like it is and always has been when it comes to stopping being manipulated directly from a physical one on one or group dynamic interaction.

This unseen manipulation can sometimes be staring us right in our face, a prime example of this is television which was noted in the quote to start this post. Many people trust much of what they see on television regarding the news and other things such as history and documentaries etc.  There is a reason why they call it ‘programming’.

Remember like anything else, you now have the power to not only fact check, but also have access to different perspectives on topics both national and global thanks to the internet, foreign and alternate news networks, channels, websites, etc.

Getting back to nature more often, like experiencing old growth forests, natural waterfalls, gardening, camping out in nature, and just getting closer to the earth in general and disconnecting as much as possible is also a good way to break from the high tech norm and fill our bodies with much needed negative ions (yes I said negative ions).

Like a good martial artist who develops a physical and mental regimen to ward off attack and defend their person, in this high tech era, the use of new tools, access to a broader range of information than ever, and developing our awareness so we can protect ourself on a level beyond what most others are doing will serve us well.

Learn to Be Still

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What does being ‘still’ really mean? Having some sort of spiritual component in your life is key to realizing the higher aspects of yourself, your life and who you are. You can also call it your Higher Self or True Self, your consciousness is deep and knows no bounds when you start exploring. As for being still, it’s not necessarily the true definition of ‘not moving’, as there is also stillness in motion. It’s the state of your mind I am talking about.

I have talked about previously in other posts how we live in a fast food culture of sorts, where instant gratification and short tempers are the norm these days it seems. We are becoming more and more removed from our true nature when we get caught up in this madness. Many wander from one thing to the next in the guise of making money, paying bills, keeping busy, etc.

This is all needed and part of life yes, but thinking that this is the end and be all of life is where we can become tripped up and fall into the grand illusion that modern society constantly bombards us with. But what also is needed (and I might add now more than ever) is being still … still enough to examine yourself openly and honestly. To be able to let go of the negative that has harmed you, and retain the positive experiences in your life for example. cosmic star

This is easier said than done as most humans seem to do just the opposite! But thriving on our positive experiences in life and letting all the rest go is really so important because it allows and fosters more of those types of amazing and significant experiences to occur in your life. And from these positive, higher vibrations can we only then learn to become still where peace, calm and truth reside.

We all need this, really the world needs this. There is more than enough of the other negative stuff we don’t need going on now. By aligning ourselves with a higher frequency and vibration, we can then start building momentum… and positive momentum at that. This is a major component of the spiritual evolution we need to embrace in order to shift this world in the right direction.

We not only lift ourselves up with a higher, more positive vibration, but also human conciousness as a whole. Beyond the regular mode of perception that most of us know daily and are used to, there is almost a type of secondary consciousness. This secondary consciousness, for lack of a better term is something we can tap into (although it is always there) that connects directly to an interconnected grid or web of being.

From here, we can really see how much of an effect our intention can have on the rest of the world. But we need to start from where we are normally, and we can see it here too… in how we can simply help change someone else’s mood for the better, and how our own mood can change also by non-selfishly helping someone else or by just being kind. And through this basic giving of positive vibration, becoming more still internally happens all by itself.

Don’t Let The World Rush You

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It seems that many people are in a rush these days, like we live in a ‘fast food’ society of instant gratification. From fast food joints, to driving on the highways where everyone is pushing around the next guy to get ahead, to the instant communication tools we have at our disposal in the form of smart phones, tablets, etc., speed is the name of the game. It even seems as if time is speeding up, which if you ask anyone else if this is the case in their own experience, most would agree so.

Also it seems as if there is a pattern we humans have built up to normalize this constant quickening pace of society and life. We have structured time and our work schedules to accommodate this ‘rush’ and speeding up effect. We have even labeled the term – rush hour, to describe the periods of the day when the demands of traffic and business are at there peak.

I guess there is nothing wrong with getting things done faster, or having faster service. Sometimes faster is better in fact depending on the situation.  I don’t think it is necessarily a question of right or wrong, but more of a question of what and why. More of a question of awareness. What are you sacrificing as you rush through your day if indeed you do? Things to ponder.

As the old saying goes, ‘slow and steady wins the race’ or ‘stop and smell the roses’ is another popular one. Many times we rush to go somewhere or get something done that we forget important things in the course of doing so, and even sometimes have to start over. I’ve done it so many times myself I’ve lost count! It also just seems to me that everyone is in such a rush to get ahead of the next guy, or be the first one to get something done, that our society praises these types of people that do, so its no wonder why it’s the norm.

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The other day for example we got hit with a snow storm and I just felt this pressure at one point in the day that I needed to go out and shovel because every one else was doing it, although I didn’t feel quite ready to yet. Maybe it’s just me, but it almost seemed like a race of who was going to get their area shoveled out first. There were people shoveling before the storm was even over. Like I said before, getting ahead is not a bad thing and in a lot of cases can be a good thing. A lot of times we can even miss out if we wait around too long.

So it’s a balance in my opinion. My main point is that we shouldn’t allow others to pressure us into the fast paced rush of the world that is becoming the norm these days. Of course we have to adapt, we all have deadlines and timelines to meet, especially regarding work. The problem lies in when we end up rushing through the things in life that don’t need to be rushed. It starts to affect, and infect all areas of our life.

The quality of our life experiences can take on the form of a blur, where it seems we also miss out. You hear people say it all the time, I can’t wait until… (insert blanket statement). But we end up missing out on the moment and being present when we approach life this way. It seems peoples patience has become shorter as well and many of us just want to rush off on vacation somewhere just so we can slow down and take our time. Maybe we should integrate this type of pace more into our daily lives when possible.

So again awareness is key, and in the rush of the fast paced flavor society has taken on these days, sometimes doing the opposite of what most others are doing and slowing things down can help us tremendously in ways we don’t yet see. So when you can, stop and take a deep breath or a few, take a long look around, smell the air, feel which way the wind is blowing, slow your motions down, take a drive in the slow lane, forget about time, let it all go by you and just observe without judgement.

I think I’ve said it before, but as one of my old martial arts teacher used to say, ‘the slower you go, the faster you’ll be’… I put my own spin on this and say, ‘the slower you go, the more aware you’ll be’.

Chance Encounters

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Coincidence or chance? … Maybe neither? How much do you create that you don’t own or realize? I like to ask myself these types of questions especially when the frequency of ‘chance’ events happen in my life. If you were to break down the mathematical odds of randomly running into someone you know (or know of) in a certain place in time when you are there, I think the answer would be surprising. It would be almost akin to winning a small lottery.

Many factors come into place and have to align for such an event to happen. But what happens when you add intention into the equation? All of the sudden, the chance encounter is no longer random, it becomes more of an outcome of your intention, thought or visualization. It becomes your creation.

The fact of the matter is, we do influence our physical reality with our thought process. It has been even proven scientifically, specifically with the famous double slit experiment in quantum mechanics. Basically, the experiment revealed that matter can act as both a wave and a particle depending on whether or not it is being observed (Wave-Duality Theory).

Although scientists still have mixed opinions about this (which also tells you something), it makes sense that since the smallest microscopic particles that constitute the building blocks of matter can be influenced from merely our observation, our reality on a more macroscopic level can also be as well. To what extent and degree this ‘influence’ can go is anybody’s guess. To me though, that guess is what makes things not only interesting, but can begin to shed the light on just how powerful our minds are… how powerful we are.

In my humble opinion, how far you decide to take this is entirely up to you. Your personal outlook, perception, beliefs, mental training and paradigm all shape your reality and how you decide to mold it. Chance encounters are seemingly just a small part of it, but they can have a powerful effect in building your confidence levels in how quickly and accurately you are able to create certain events, personal encounters and even outcomes. nite silhouettes

Speaking of outcomes, outcomes are seemingly the next level of a chance encounter. How you ask? Well it’s one thing to be able to manifest a chance encounter with a particular person in your life, being able to predictably steer the outcome in a desired fashion is the next level. This is all fine, but what does it mean? Some would argue that it means nothing at all, it’s just a coincidence. Or you can take it upon yourself to accept your role as a creative being and know you had something, maybe even a lot to do with it.

From personal experience, I firmly believe that personal belief and belief in yourself have a lot to do with manifesting certain events in your life, specifically chance encounters. I have been playing around with this and other thought experiments for years. Thought is creative, and the more energy poured into a particular thought, or scenario you play out in your head gives it power. This of course is a double edged sword, as you just as easily can create negative and harmful experiences for yourself, so be mindful!

So if you begin to have more ‘strange’ coincidences in your life, or chance/random encounters with people you may know or know of, look at it as something possibly meaningful. There is most likely a deeper connection there somewhere for you to find, or maybe your mind is refining itself and creating events, and encounters faster.  If you meditate regularly, these types of things begin to happen more often I find as well.

Look inside to see if you thought about that person at all, and if so what was the quality of thought or energy behind the thought you had. What if you could harness this ability even more? Believe it when I say that many have. Here’s a hint – unshakeable belief and practice are the 2 key ingredients.

Creating these types of experiences can be seen as training wheels in a sense, because it could be just the beginning to doing much more if you can firstly, understand that it is your creation, and secondly that you can do it much more often if you choose. But as always, don’t obsess, be carefree about it and treat it as simply the experiment that it is.

The Nature of Your Reality

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“We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences” – Nikola Tesla

 

The blessing and curse of modern civilization lies very much in its technological progress. We now, more than ever are bombarded with electromagnetic stimuli in the form of television and computers including new programs, social media, virtual reality, and new gadgets amongst other things that engage our senses. All of this rapid advancement has made our lives more comfortable, practical and efficient. But this begs the question, what does this mean for our perception of reality?

If we were to travel back in time (and not even that far back) or even encountered a primitive culture residing deep within the jungle somewhere with no exposure to modern man with some of the commonly used machines of today, those people might think it was magic. The ironic part is that the further we progress technologically, the less people think that what is so called ‘magic’ is real. Magic it seems is a term given to explain the unexplainable that we may encounter and we are ‘explaining’ more things now more than ever.

And yet with all of the scientific and technological progress we have made, we really still don’t know who we are and where we came from. These age old questions are the foundation of our deeply held beliefs and the most commonly held version(s) of reality.  There are theories both scientific and theological to explain this; I am not here to argue that age old debate. What I am pointing out is that whatever our version of reality is, stems from ourselves. And really, only from ourselves will we find the truth and real answers. Otherworldly beach

Your version of reality is different then the next person’s. This difference may be small or it may large. Much of this depends on what you were taught to believe and your cultural influences. Your ability to effect your version of reality depends much upon how deeply you probe your own consciousness and challenge your own beliefs. It also depends much upon how deeply you allow outside influences (news, media, friends, family, job/career etc.) to influence you.

Sometimes though, this effect comes from more potent outside forces such as revolutionary inventions and scientific breakthroughs… however these events don’t happen everyday. So it is in your best interest to again look inward, which you can do everyday. Reality is relative, which science has proved. We are beginning to see science and metaphysics merge more and more as science and technology advances.

Quantum physics for example, is starting to prove what mystics and sages have known for centuries; that we are all inter-connected and separation is just an illusion. The trick at the end of the day is proving this to yourself, and not just taking someone else’s word for it. So I say, accept the challenge. Question your beliefs and what others and authority tells you, probe your consciousness, do thought experiments, astral travel, meditate daily, etc. In essence, come to your own conclusions.

When you can look at yourself and know from personal experience that your version of reality is a result of your own consciousness, you can then see beyond all the fancy technology, the programmed societal matrix and the version of reality popular culture constantly tells you to believe. You will only then know at a deep, cellular level that the nature of your reality can still be wondrous and magical because it is truly your own.

Walking The Razor’s Edge

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The balance between where we want to be and where we are can be a tenuous one. On the path of self-discovery and personal evolution it seems the one constant that always comes up again and again is to be present, to be in the moment, to just ‘be’. But what about the future?… What about our expectations?… Do not expecations just lead to disappointments when not fulfilled? Should we even have them?

At least I know now for sure not to dwell in the past, but only to look back to learn and grow from it. As for going forward, the balancing act seems to be more complex. The human mind will naturally dwell, ponder and eventually over-analyze if left unchecked it seems.. a bumper to bumper traffic of thoughts. But is this really our natural state? Why do we have to train or ‘re-train’ our minds to get back to our natural state?

Many questions come to mind, when it comes to the mind. But these examinations are crucial if we are to evolve as quickly as possible. The human mind is a large piece of the puzzle. Many traditional and esoteric schools of wisdom start and end here… but the end is really nothing tangible that can be explained in words really. Hence we need to trust ourselves and our intuition, and not necessarily what is the popularly held consensus or belief or what someone else has told us. tree-sun-reflection-2

So one thing we can keep doing is always question, question our place in the world, question our belief system, question so called ‘authority’… questions are healthy. We may not always get an answer, or the answer(s) we think we seek, but questioning reality can lead us to new perspectives and places we might have not otherwise reached. The more open minded you can be, the more open you can be to new ideas, thoughts and perspectives, the more you can empower yourself and free yourself to be more fluid.

A good way to look at things as well, is like being a ship at sea, of course you should know where you are going but at the same time be fluid enough to change course on a moments notice if need be; Back to the Mind. New perspectives or flashes of insight and wisdom rarely come when actively seeking them or when the mind is ‘full’, especially with pre-existing notions and endless thoughts.

Meditation of course naturally slows down the mind and thought, thus opening up space to allow new insight and perspective in. It is a tool most seekers of knowledge engage in, in one way or another. Looking for the space in between your thoughts, is a process you can engage in almost anywhere, whether you are sitting alone in quietude or in the midst of your day as you go about doing your business. This is one of the best ways to gradually become more mindful and control your thoughts.

This ‘space’ gradually opens up, and becomes wider and wider, seperating the traffic of thoughts. This leads to pure objective observation, or being the ‘watcher’ as it is sometimes called. In this state, we can much more easily be un-attached… unattached to people and things around us and of course unattached to ourselves, which can lead to a different quality of consciousness.

Freedom at the end of the day is state of mind (or no-mind : ).  So as we constantly probe and elevate our consciousness, the gap between where we are and where we would like to be can very quickly become as thin as a razor’s edge.

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