Tag: New Age

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10 Spiritually Transmitted Diseases (reposted from The Huffington Post)

I don’t normally just repost articles, but right now, I’m on leave, and very slow with my writings, and I saw this one that I felt was well worth sharing from The Huffington Post.

Enjoy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html

It is a jungle out there, and it is no less true about spiritual life than any other aspect of life. Do we really think that just because someone has been meditating for five years, or doing 10 years of yoga practice, that they will be any less neurotic than the next person? At best, perhaps they will be a little bit more aware of it. A little bit.

It is for this reason that I spent the last 15 years of my life researching and writing books on cultivating discernment on the spiritual path in all the gritty areas–power, sex, enlightenment, gurus, scandals, psychology, neurosis — as well as earnest, but just plain confused and unconscious, motivations on the path. My partner (author and teacher Marc Gafni) and I are developing a new series of books, courses and practices to bring further clarification to these issues.

Several years ago, I spent a summer living and working in South Africa. Upon my arrival I was instantly confronted by the visceral reality that I was in the country with the highest murder rate in the world, where rape was common and more than half the population was HIV-positive — men and women, gays and straights alike.

As I have come to know hundreds of spiritual teachers and thousands of spiritual practitioners through my work and travels, I have been struck by the way in which our spiritual views, perspectives and experiences become similarly “infected” by “conceptual contaminants” — comprising a confused and immature relationship to complex spiritual principles can seem as invisible and insidious as a sexually transmitted disease.

The following 10 categorizations are not intended to be definitive but are offered as a tool for becoming aware of some of the most common spiritually transmitted diseases.

1. Fast-Food Spirituality: Mix spirituality with a culture that celebrates speed, multitasking and instant gratification and the result is likely to be fast-food spirituality. Fast-food spirituality is a product of the common and understandable fantasy that relief from the suffering of our human condition can be quick and easy. One thing is clear, however: spiritual transformation cannot be had in a quick fix.

2. Faux Spirituality: Faux spirituality is the tendency to talk, dress and act as we imagine a spiritual person would. It is a kind of imitation spirituality that mimics spiritual realization in the way that leopard-skin fabric imitates the genuine skin of a leopard.

3. Confused Motivations: Although our desire to grow is genuine and pure, it often gets mixed with lesser motivations, including the wish to be loved, the desire to belong, the need to fill our internal emptiness, the belief that the spiritual path will remove our suffering and spiritual ambition, the wish to be special, to be better than, to be “the one.”

4. Identifying with Spiritual Experiences: In this disease, the ego identifies with our spiritual experience and takes it as its own, and we begin to believe that we are embodying insights that have arisen within us at certain times. In most cases, it does not last indefinitely, although it tends to endure for longer periods of time in those who believe themselves to be enlightened and/or who function as spiritual teachers.

5. The Spiritualized Ego: This disease occurs when the very structure of the egoic personality becomes deeply embedded with spiritual concepts and ideas. The result is an egoic structure that is “bullet-proof.” When the ego becomes spiritualized, we are invulnerable to help, new input, or constructive feedback. We become impenetrable human beings and are stunted in our spiritual growth, all in the name of spirituality.

6. Mass Production of Spiritual Teachers: There are a number of current trendy spiritual traditions that produce people who believe themselves to be at a level of spiritual enlightenment, or mastery, that is far beyond their actual level. This disease functions like a spiritual conveyor belt: put on this glow, get that insight, and — bam! — you’re enlightened and ready to enlighten others in similar fashion. The problem is not that such teachers instruct but that they represent themselves as having achieved spiritual mastery.

7. Spiritual Pride: Spiritual pride arises when the practitioner, through years of labored effort, has actually attained a certain level of wisdom and uses that attainment to justify shutting down to further experience. A feeling of “spiritual superiority” is another symptom of this spiritually transmitted disease. It manifests as a subtle feeling that “I am better, more wise and above others because I am spiritual.”

8. Group Mind: Also described as groupthink, cultic mentality or ashram disease, group mind is an insidious virus that contains many elements of traditional co-dependence. A spiritual group makes subtle and unconscious agreements regarding the correct ways to think, talk, dress, and act. Individuals and groups infected with “group mind” reject individuals, attitudes, and circumstances that do not conform to the often unwritten rules of the group.

9. The Chosen-People Complex: The chosen people complex is not limited to Jews. It is the belief that “Our group is more spiritually evolved, powerful, enlightened and, simply put, better than any other group.” There is an important distinction between the recognition that one has found the right path, teacher or community for themselves, and having found The One.

10. The Deadly Virus: “I Have Arrived”: This disease is so potent that it has the capacity to be terminal and deadly to our spiritual evolution. This is the belief that “I have arrived” at the final goal of the spiritual path. Our spiritual progress ends at the point where this belief becomes crystallized in our psyche, for the moment we begin to believe that we have reached the end of the path, further growth ceases.

“The essence of love is perception,” according to the teachings of Marc Gafni, “Therefore the essence of self love is self perception. You can only fall in love with someone you can see clearly–including yourself. To love is to have eyes to see. It is only when you see yourself clearly that you can begin to love yourself.”

It is in the spirit of Marc’s teaching that I believe that a critical part of learning discernment on the spiritual path is discovering the pervasive illnesses of ego and self-deception that are in all of us. That is when we need a sense of humor and the support of real spiritual friends. As we face our obstacles to spiritual growth, there are times when it is easy to fall into a sense of despair and self-diminishment and lose our confidence on the path. We must keep the faith, in ourselves and in others, in order to really make a difference in this world.

Adapted from Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path (Sounds True)

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Creating our reality series: Final thoughts or can we move onto something else now?

Al Hirschfeld Theatre, view to the stage 302 W...

Still with me? Thanks for coming this far. I started off with my experience on shifting time lines, and ended up with re-creating reality. Oddly enough, a direction I was not expecting.

So, to finish this off, here are some final thoughts on the subject of belief systems.

It is one thing to create a new belief system. It is another not to sabotage it.

When you begin to create something, you will discover that events will occur which might leave you confused.

People and things will come in and out of your life. Some events may seem like tragedies at the time, but are actually blessings in disguise. (Though you will not see that unless you understand what is going on, or look at it in retrospect.) Remember, the master always blesses those things that happen because they know there is a great gift contained within.

Trust your intuition. It is your guide. It will tell you to do one thing, and your logic, and sense of status quo will scream at you to ignore it. Don’t let fear stop you. If it feels right, do it. The results may not always be immediately  apparent, but remember, we can’t see the forest for the trees, but your intuition can.

Do not resist change. Changing your belief system and then resisting the synchronicities that come your way is a recipe for frustration and misery.

When I created my new belief system, some crazy things happened, and I did things that made people think I had lost my mind.

But I did them anyway, because I had finally learned by that point to trust my intuition, and I did what felt right, even if it looked wrong.

I kept alert for signs and synchronicities and followed them at every turn. My personal life has been amazing because of it.

Every decision I made by this process ended up being the exact one I needed to make at the exact right time and even though there were times when I was going through traumatic shifts, they had to happen so I could come to where I am now.

Without them, I’d still be stuck where I was back in 1995.

Changing your belief system is not easy the first time you do it. There is the tendency to fall into old patterns, play the victim card and enter into a poor me drama, especially when you are just about to make a major shift.

It can also be extremely traumatic.

The reason for this is because when you choose something new, all the things that are no longer needed fall away, and all the things that are needed come into your life. Change can be traumatic.

I got through it because of the Bach Flower Remedies (and yes, I will eventually get onto them!)

But is it worth it?

Gosh yes!

Every one of those points I made in my own belief system came true. All the negative beliefs that I had are no longer present in my life.

According to my guides, I’ve shifted time-lines quite a few times. Some memories feel very unreal to me now, like they were more a dream than something that actually happened. They shifted because I kept on my path with a single minded tenacity. Most of the shifts are very subtle but every so often something will come up that makes me think: Didn’t I hear that this person died? (But he’s still alive.)

Shifting does occur because every time you move to a new level, the reality around you has to change to accommodate that.

And for those who are reading this blog before the earlier ones, I discuss my experiences on this subject in great detail.

Now, you may well get negative thoughts, or situations come up when you change your belief system.

This is because when you declare yourself to be something, everything unlike it comes into your life in order to give you that experience of being what you have chosen to be.

Remember, you cannot know light if all there is, is light.

What do you do about it, though?

There is a wisdom that states: What you resist persists, and what you look at and make your own disappears.

I have found this to be true.

When you resist something, you give it energy and acknowledge its presence in your reality. By embracing it, you accept it as a part of your energies, and the situation tends to vanish.

Whenever you come across something you do not want or you do not like, always thank it and bless it. Either send it on its way or state that it is welcome to join you, as long as it’s from a place of love, or for the highest good.

Yes, sounds new-agey and simplistic, but I’ve seen just about everything shift by doing this.

Also, if you get a negative thought that you do not like, simply state: I do not choose that outcome.

Finally, and most importantly, when changing your belief system, make sure that everything you do is in line with it.

It is said: Be the change you wish to see, and that is very true. When you are that change, all that is around you will start to conform.

It may take a little time, depending on how proficient you are at it, but never give up and don’t give in. Keep on choosing the same thing over and over, and don’t let self-doubts, or naysayers discourage you.

Remember, you are powerful. Don’t give your power away to others. If no one can make you a better offer for your reality, then create your own.

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Creating our reality series: My personal belief system or I’ve finally had enough of failing!

the fact factory [website link]

I’ve spoken a lot about changing your reality, but so far, I’ve not really provided any examples.

So let me share with you my own experiences.

I’ve previously spoken about my dark night of the soul period, which was a very hard and traumatic period of time. This occurred back in 1994, and it was the breaking of old belief systems and the embracing of a new one.

And with the embracing of a new belief system, you would think that everything from then on in would go smoothly.

Not the case.

In fact, all that changed was my spiritual belief system.

However, this did not affect my real life  belief system of my physical world.

On that level, nothing actually changed.

Yes, I was trusting my intuition now, and I was following a path that I was meant to be on, but my belief system of how people treated me and the outcomes had not changed.

There was no reason for it to as all I had done was experience the cycle of rejection time and time again, and deep down, I was convinced that nothing would change.

And so it didn’t. In fact, it was only a few months later, in 1995, where things fell apart, yet again, (and as usual over a lady I was attracted to!) that I had decided I had had enough.

Intuition and synchronicity had led me to the information what I needed to change my 3D belief system, and I was now more than ready to try it.

What follows is taking directly from my diaries from February 1995, and it is very personal, but I publish it in the hope that it may help others who are where I was at.


What’s really been impressed upon me over the last few years and especially over the last few days is that we each make our own reality. We each, by the powers of our mind, shape and form what we believe is going to happen.

What is my reality? Because until I know what I really perceive, I shall keep on going through the same things over and over again. What is my reality?

My belief system.

  • I believe that life is full of strive.
  • I believe that people will always let you down
  • I believe that I will fail in the short term, though ultimately I shall succeed.
  • I believe that when things are going well, misery comes from nowhere to shatter the calm.
  • I believe that life is really a bitch and you just can’t fight it.
  • I believe that I can’t change my reality.
  • I believe that no matter what I try, I shall always fail with women.

What a negative belief system. How horrible and unrealistic. I wrote all that without even thinking about it.

Let’s see what positives I can come up with.

  • I believe that I truly have the power to change things. (But I can’t access the power to do so.)
  • I believe that this may be my last incarnation on earth. (But I could be wrong.)
  • I believe that I’ll never have any money problems.
  • I believe that I can fix up any problem in my body.
  • I believe that I can make a difference.
  • I believe that everything has its purpose and timing.

Now, here’s the catch. This last belief is what really holds me back. Subconsciously, if I fail, I simply use the reasoning that it wasn’t meant to be. Now, perhaps this is the illusion. The only thing that wasn’t meant to be was the fact that I didn’t perceive what could be. (I think this is getting complicated.)

In short; my reality stinks. It is negative and almost self-destructive. This is truly a world of illusion. I make the realities and it’s about time I set down some real belief systems.

  • Fact: I can protect myself and others.
  • Fact: Everything always turns out alright in the end, even when it doesn’t appear to be that way.
  • Fact: I am a true power. I have held myself back for too many years. I’ve been scared, lazy, worried, and just plain afraid that I could not do this.
  • Everything I expect tends to happen to me.
  • I expected that this current transformation would be difficult. It has been.
  • I expect that everyone will let me down eventually. They have.
  • I expect all the wrong bloody things.

               

I AM THE CENTER OF MY REALITY. FROM THIS MOMENT ON, ALL THAT HAPPENS TO ME SHALL BE BECAUSE I INFLUENCE IT. 

MY NEW BELIEF SYSTEM

Everybody, no matter who it is, will do what is right by me. No matter what their intent is, they will have no choice but to do right by me. If they try to do the wrong thing, then they will find that they will be compelled to do the right thing. They will do this because this is now my belief.

I have now released enough of the traumas and negatives in my life to become the light I can be. People will now want to be with me. People will now want to have me around. People will not be able to deny me because I will make them happy and help and enlighten them.

I am no longer unlucky in love, friendship or relationship. This is because I am pleasure to be around. In fact, far from being unable to find the right partner, I will be surrounded by the right people. This is now my reality. I shall have choice. I shall be able to pick and choose. Those who will not become my partners will become my friends.

I can really make a difference to this world. And I shall make a difference. This is so because this is now my belief.

I am a being of light, love and harmony.

I am no longer unhappy. All that happens to me now is positive and uplifting. If something bad happens, I have the answers and the solutions and the way of implementing them. They will come to me and I am able to solve any problem. There are no more problems, only solutions. This is so because this is my belief.

I am now able to develop spiritually and metaphysically. There are no more blockages. The more I learn, the more powerful I become. All my powers are used in the service of the universe and to help people grow and bring them out of the illusion and darkness. This is happening now because this is my reality.

 

THIS IS NOW MY NEW REALITY. SO BE IT.

I printed it out, read it over and over for a few weeks and then one day… everyone on that list was a reality and has become more ever since.

Did it work?

Yes. Maybe just a little too well. I got everything I asked for.

Next:  Think you were done? Think again.

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Creating our reality series: Is our belief system all that is? or Astral versus the third dimension.

English: This is the religious symbol of Ayyav...

Still with me? Great  if you are.

Your belief system does create your reality, that much is true, and you might then ask: Okay then. If that is so, doesn’t that mean we are trapped in a reality of our own making with no way out?

You could argue that, but you would be wrong.

To try and answer this, let’s look at how the astral levels work. Those are the levels that are a different vibrational level, and our soul aspect (which is your soul) lives when you don’t have a physical body.

In a nutshell, whatever you think is created instantly. Whatever you expect is what you will see. It won’t have the same substance of this physical 3D world, but it will still look and feel real to you.

And so it will remain unless another soul turns up that is much stronger than you and chooses to override your version of reality. Then you will see the cracks in your own created illusions.

But for all intents and purposes, if you are by yourself, what you experience is what you expect. You are a product of your own belief system.

This type of thing is very common with those who have passed over. Whatever their belief system was when they died will manifest. Some believe in Heaven and the Pearly Gates, some believe in Hell, and some believe there is nothing, and will be trapped in a void of their making. Some are so drawn to the material objects of this world that they will manifest them, and then guard them jealously, believing them to be real.

If a soul that remember who they are, and more importantly remember who you are comes along, they can help break the illusion, and free them.

That’s how the astral levels work.

To bring it down to this 3D world, the same thing happens, however it takes a lot longer for anything to manifest itself. Nothing is instant, unless you happen to be a master, in which case, you probably already know what you’re doing.

It takes an enormous amount of energy to make something a reality.

Because of this, you can not only experience what you create, but also notice and experience things that happen to be outside of your beliefs.

Someone with an equally strong belief system can come along, and show you that your way is not the only way. You may choose to ignore this, but regardless, you will still notice it, even if you do dismiss it.

In fact the stronger our beliefs, the more likely we are discard evidence from outside that does not match with what we think should be.

More importantly, when we let others define what we should think and believe, we give our creative powers over to them, and ignore everything that shows us that our way is not the only way, in spite of how unhappy our current belief system may be making us.

One of the blessings of a co-created and coessential reality is that we can all experience what someone else believes just by observation, and taking notice of what is really going on.

Rather than dismissing them as wrong, or crazy, look upon it as an opportunity to gain different perspectives, and enhance who you are, and take back your power to create.

You are powerful. Make no mistake about that. There are people who do not want you to know this, but this does not change that fact.

You Are Powerful.

So ask yourself this. Why would you want to give that power to someone else and let them decide what your reality should be like?

And yet, people do this all the time.

I’ve often said, would you still act and do things in the same way, if you knew it wasn’t required by God, or the society you are in?

Personally, I feel doing something out of fear is a poor reason to do anything.

But if you are tired of your life? What then?

Then it will be time to look at creating a new belief system.

Next: Changing your belief system.

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Spirit Guides – Part 3 – Dakini: Even I had trouble with accepting this one.

The following blog  is a 8 part series on Spirit Guides, my experiences, and what you might do in order to contact your own. 

Enjoy

Still with me? Many of my experiences are bizarre, and this one is no exception.

 

Discovering the Dakini – Part 1

As I mentioned, it took me a very long time before I accepted I even had guides, but it took even longer before I worked out who some of them were.

My guides give me the same messages over and over, sometimes for years and years and they don’t stop until I finally understand the meaning behind them. Trust me when I say, it’s a very tedious process.

For the longest time, I would get the messages:  Do you know who we are? and You still don’t know who we are. over and over in my thoughts for many years until I finally discovered the answer.

It started off, curiously enough, in 1999 with the third book in the Celestine Prophecy – The Secret of Shambhala by James Redfield.

The book landed on my desk the day it came out. My mother had gotten a call from the bookshop that I had ordered it and bought it for me.

This novel, arguably James Redfield’s best book so far, was about the search for the 11th insight and the tale of the search of the mythical Shambhala and the Dakini angels that inhabited the area.  While it was an interesting book, there wasn’t all that much that commanded my attention, though I found all the concepts to be intriguing.

After that, I found a chat room on the web site, got involved with the community there, and made countless connections until the room shut down.

About 2006, I was chatting and discussing the books with a friend I had met in the chat room, when she mentioned that James was mad to be messing with the Dakini as they were known, to her knowledge, to be beings you just didn’t mess around with.

As my knowledge about them was zero,  I couldn’t make any comments, though I had to admit that her observations felt right.

I instinctively felt that they weren’t being I would want to tangle with personally.

Thanks for some major events a couple of years before, I had awakened some, and became aware that I was able to trace energies with relative ease.

I can’t really explain how it’s done. The best that I can explain is that once I know what a certain type of energy feels like, I can locate a match for it with my mind. This helps me to identify who certain people are in my life and my past life connections.

I decided to reach out and feel if there were any Dakini present. I wasn’t expecting to feel any, but I got the distinct impression that there were. How I knew what to look for, I also can’t explain. Somehow I just knew.

The impression I got was they hidden and watching me. I also got a strong feeling that I shouldn’t probe any further, so I let it go.

Over the next few months, I would check every so often, and they were always there, though I still felt that I shouldn’t probe.

At the time, I was talking to another lady who I was trying to help recover from psychic attacks, though she seemed fatalistically resigned to leaving this world. She was quite an intelligent and nice person, but claimed that people would always stop talking to her for no reason.

From my own experience, it was more the other way around. She would stop talking to them or leave the online group she was in.

In an attempt to find out if she was under attack, I  used my mind to travel in the astral levels to see if she was being attack and what the source might be. What I found was this large armoured lizard that was standing upright. I didn’t hang around, though once I had seen it. I just left.

As I tend to hate clichés seeing a lizard was not something I wanted to see. I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, and certainly those that abound about shape changing lizards just annoy me greatly. So seeing this vision was something I decided to ignore.

Then one night, around three months after my discussion with my friend on the Dakini, I found myself travelling in my mind through the astral. I tend to do this a lot. It was something that came naturally to me for as long as I can remember. It’s fair to say it’s much less frequent nowadays, though sometimes I will get a strong pull to do so.

That night, I was about to go to sleep when I felt the strong compulsion to do it.

Next: Discovering the Dakini part 2