The Secret of Life

Equanimity

'They ought to make it a binding clause that if you find God, you get to keep him.' - from Valis by Philip K Dick.

In the novel Valis, Horselover Fat, the thinly disguised alter ego of science fiction writer Philip K Dick, had a peak experience which he spent the rest of his life trying to make sense of. Yet the more he sought to find his way back to that experience, the further away it seemed to become.

I understand how Dick / 'Horselover Fat' must have felt. A few weeks ago, I posted rather smugly here about being 'in the zone', about the 'connection to joy' I sometimes experience. The postscript is that the following day, this connection was gone, and I have rarely felt so far away from getting it back.

This should not have come as a surprise to me. I've blogged about a similar experience before. On that occasion, I described what it's like to be 'in the zone' rather well, I think, even though I say it myself:

' The other day, I found the key and turned it in the lock and emerged into that wonderful garden where struggling ceases. The tension inside me faded away and I felt an energy flowing through me, as though everything I'd been raging against was now a part of my own power instead. It was as though I had been struggling against the river of life, but now I had turned and allowed it to carry me forward.'

Yet a few days later, sure enough, I had lost that wonderful connection again. I was 'outside the garden' again - and I didn't know how to get back in.

What I concluded in that previous post, and which I have just discovered again now, is that I couldn't find my way back because I so much wanted to do so. My very wanting was pushing it away.

This shouldn't really come as a surprise to any of us. It's the cardinal rule of what has become known as the law of attraction. I first came across it in Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God Book One . All of us who have read about the law of attraction know about it, but we tend to forget it because it's the awkward bit. It's the tricky sub-clause which means that for much of the time, the law of attraction doesn't actually work the way we want it to.

As 'God'/Walsch puts it: 'You will not have that for which you ask, nor can you have anything you want. This is because your very request is a statement of lack, and your saying you want a thing only works to produce that precise experience - wanting - in your reality.'

So just when we think the law of attraction isn't working, it's actually working very, very effectively thanks very much - it's just not quite what we had in mind when we expressed our needs in the first place. What's happening is that when we want something, we are indeed attracting exactly that: a condition of wanting. The more we want, the more we push it away.

My recent experience of feeling very much connected in to the universe, then losing that feeling and very much wanting it back, yet now feeling further away than ever, has confirmed to me what a powerful mechanism this is. Whatever we want to manifest in our lives, we have to lose our attachment to it first. Otherwise, we're just pushing it away.

This applies to whatever we'd like to see in our lives, whether its a new car, enlightenment, or world peace - the mechanism is the same. If we don't lose the attachment, we're working against ourselves.

It's important to understand that, in contrast, it's fine to have a vision - and to use this vision as an incentive to take the action we need to achieve it - but if we get stuck in wanting something, if we resist not having it, that's where we run into trouble.

It's the same with however we're feeling, whether it's being out 'of the zone', sad, or angry, the more we want to feel differently, the more we reinforce that condition of want. It comes back down to my favorite word, acceptance, though for this post - just to ring the changes - I thought I'd use a related word 'equanimity' instead, just because I like the way it sounds.

Now I look up the definition of 'equanimity', I see that at first sight it's not exactly right. Apparently, it means 'evenness of mind, especially under stress'. So it isn't really right - and yet it is. It actually highlights the enigma which lies at the heart of all this. I'm talking about evenness of mind while feeling angry, evenness of mind while feeling sad or even depressed. Is such a thing possible? Well yes, it is. It's all about calmness in the eye of the storm. It is possible to feel these so-called difficult emotions and feel OK about them. It is possible to feel sadness and equanimity at the same time.

And you know what? When we can do that, when we can be OK with these feelings, the sting goes out of them. It's actually our resistance to them which makes them feel so heavy - and which keeps them hanging around. Because the added bonus is that as soon as we stop pushing these feelings away, as soon as we stop wanting to get rid of them, they're much more likely to go away of their own accord.

None of this is new to The Secret Of Life. I covered it in the Ultimate Truth series of posts - and it's no less the Ultimate Truth now than it was last year. It's just that I don't read my blog as much as I should so I keep forgetting it. So now I've reminded myself, I'm reminding you. Because this is really it. This is the secret. Be OK with what is, however you are feeling, whatever is going on, and you have taken the most important step towards freedom.

As ever, I look forward to hearing what you think about this post but Typepad is still playing up. So if you have a problem posting a comment, please email me using the link near the top of the sidebar and I'll post it on your behalf. I'm hoping to go away for a few days next week, so please be patient if I take a while to respond.

 

These may also be of interest:

The Ultimate Truth

How to Have It All

The Door to the Garden

How Does it Feel to Win a Million?

My New Year Strategies For Spiritual Development

Well, I seem to be keeping to my New Year's Resolutions so far. This may not seem all that impressive, only a short way into January, but it's good going for me. I've normally forgotten them by lunchtime on New Year's Day.

What I decided this year was to put some of the useful stuff I write about in this blog into action for a change. All too often, I'm all full of bright ideas when I'm writing, but they slip out of sight when I switch off the PC.

This year it's going to be different. I'm going to be different...

There are two main simple strategies I'm putting into practice. Simplicity is important, I think, for actually doing stuff. Anything too complicated tends not to be there in the front of your brain when you need it.

The first thing is to deal with some of this great big well of negative emotions inside me. Goodness knows, I've been writing here about dealing with these emotions for long enough, and I have been acting on some of my advice. But it's a big issue for me - as I think it is for most of us, if we're willing to face up to it - and I really need to start doing more.

The hard bit is remembering what's really going on when those unwanted emotions well up inside you, when you get all annoyed or whatever particular emotion is bugging you today. That's the time when it's easy to lose the plot entirely and start getting all caught up in the drama of the situation. And you feel so unspiritual: 'like I've done all this new agey stuff all these years but I'm still like a bear with a sore head when some idiot does something I don't like. I should not be jumping around shaking my fists with steam coming out of my ears at this stage in my spiritual development! It's not fair!'

But it's a question of remembering that when this happens, it is part of our spiritual development: a very important part. These emotions are coming up to be released. I've written about this in more detail, including the various techniques for release in my recent post Letting Go, but the crucial ingredient of my New Year's Resolution is to remember to make the right connection in my head about what these emotions are all about.

When emotions came welling up, the old Simon used to get sucked into the drama of whatever situation had triggered them off, thereby stoking them up even more. If he thought about spiritual matters at all, he would reflect on the unfortunate contrast between the calm, joyful, advanced being he wished to be and the raging inconsolable madman he actually was. Which made him feel even worse...

But when these emotions well up now, the new Simon makes the all-important connection and thinks 'Ah-ha! There is work to be done! These emotions are coming up to be released!' and starts to put the appropriate techniques into action.

The last few days, since I've been doing this consistently, I've felt some really massive energy begin to shift within me. As a result of this, some emotional blocks to doing stuff are starting to fall away at last.

The second prong of my New Year's Resolution is to be in the moment more, instead of spending so much time in my mind. Once again, this is something I've written about a great deal here at The Secret Of Life - and most recently on Harmony's blog - but actually doing it for any length of time (like for more than a few moments) has proved more difficult.

For some reason, something seems to have shifted now, and I'm managing to close down my unnecessary mental chatter for longer periods of time. Partly I'm doing this by stringing along my ego, working to appease the very part of me that keeps those internal thoughts droning on in the first place. I tell the 'little me' inside what a wonderful achievement it will be if I can only switch off my mind for the next two minutes, or until I get home, or until I reach the next lamp post - or whatever suitable marker is in the offing...

It seems to respond well to these challenges and goes along with me at least some of the time...

It's great when this happens: when the chatter drops away and you feel the power of the moment, when you're really present in the now. There's sometimes peace, sometimes joy, always stillness. If you haven't yet connected with this, you may find it's easiest to experience when you're out in nature: out in the country or in a garden. You can read more about it in Eckhart Tolle's books. I particularly recommend the concise, very practical volume Practicing The Power Of Now.

To help stabilize this state, I'm also using a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technique called anchoring. I've picked a word that describes best how I feel when I'm like this: 'joy', which I then repeat to myself when I'm in the present moment and also when I want to get back there. After a while, the mind begins to connect the word 'joy' with this state and so in time simply saying - or thinking - the word 'joy' brings me back there.

A bonus effect is that saying the word 'joy' when I'm in the moment is also a good way to keep the mind occupied. Whereas it could easily drift back into its usual internal monologue, it is too busy instead with its allotted task of repeating this word. (The best way to outsmart the mind is to tie it up in one of its own tricks...)

I don't remember to use these two techniques all the time, but by keeping them simple and, I think, moving them up my subconscious list of priorities, I'm putting them into practice more and more. And the more I use them, the more they are becoming a habit.

To summarize, the two strategies are:

1) Realize that emotions coming up are an opportunity, not a setback: use the techniques to feel and so release them.

2) Switch off the mind and be in the moment. Use the NLP anchoring technique to help to stay in this state and return there.

This strategy is already starting to pay off. I've spent the whole of today 'in the zone', the first time this has happened for ages. I don't know how long I'll stay like this - it's not usually more than a day or two - but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Each time I reach this state, it's subtly different. The all-important connection to joy is there if I pay attention to it, but this time the natural focus is much more on a kind of inner stillness and calm fluid action. The internal dialogue is largely silent - naturally silent, I'm not having to force it right now - and the internal critic, in particular, is keeping its trap shut, which is a cause for celebration in itself. There's a kind of quiet confidence about everything I do. It never occurs to me that I won't be able to do whatever I choose - though admittedly I haven't tried sky diving or bungee jumping yet. My actions seem to flow and be easy. When I've done one thing, I move on to the next, and whatever I'm doing, it always seem to be exactly the right thing for me to be doing right now. There's no self-doubt about it.

These aren't extraordinary things I'm doing: I've done the ironing, written some letters, repaired my glasses, written this blog... How does that famous saying go?  'Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.' That seems to be how it is shaping up in this latest mini-taster of progress I'm having. 2009 feels great so far. And it's still only January...

(P.S. If you're a blogger you may be interested in The Quote Effect, an interesting new project by Davina of Shades of Crimson. This is your chance to contribute three favorite quotes from your blog for inclusion in Davina's upcoming eBook. There are more details here.)

Between One Moment And The Next...

Last time, I was talking about Phil Bolsta's book, Sixty Seconds, in which various people describe brief moments of spiritual awakening, and I asked if any of you have had similar experiences. Thanks to those of you who responded! Now perhaps it's time for me to share an experience of my own...

There have been several occasions when such a thing has happened to me, and I consider myself very lucky to have been granted such revelations. I think it's happened several times because, set in my ways as I am, I've needed a great deal of prodding to grab my attention. The experiences I've had were pretty seismic shifts in consciousness, our everyday world falling away to reveal an altogether deeper truth beneath, but even so my consciousness duly shifted right back again afterwards, a bit like a snail unscathed by a nuclear bomb.

Not entirely 'unscathed' though. I think it was Sue Ann Edwards who described the process of awakening as a bit like a large cargo ship changing direction. It happens only slowly and gradually. Each revelation has made a contribution to this process, but my particular ship has a very large turning circle...

The most profound of the revelations occurred when I was twenty-one. A group of us were on a camping holiday and were staying at a place called the 'lakeside camp site'. This was in Lincoln, UK, which is not noted for its lakes, but I reasoned that the place wouldn't have a name like that if there wasn't a lake somewhere nearby. I fancied a bit of peace and quiet and a short break from my friends, so I went to look for it.

 

I came upon the stretch of water almost at once. It wasn't very far from where we were camping, but the place was extremely quiet, cut off from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the site. I remember spending a pleasant few minutes gazing out across the lake. It was a peaceful location; there were water birds and tall reeds by the shore. It was all very pleasant. But I don't suppose I would remember any of this now except that, as I turned to go and rejoin my friends, something extraordinary happened.

Suddenly, without any warning, my whole perspective was turned on its head. I perceived a unity, a connectedness, in everything: a connectedness which included me, except that I'm not even sure I existed any more, except as a part of the whole. I remember seeing some birds flying overhead and one of them calling out with a hoarse cry. It seemed that those birds and everything else I could see - the lake, the sky, the trees, the reeds - were a part of me: a part of my own vast, limitless being.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come upon me, the revelation disappeared. I was left back in my old perspective, standing alone on the shore of the lake. Yet as I slowly turned and went back to my friends, I was certain that what I had perceived in those few moments was closer to the real truth of things than the ordinary world with which I was so familiar.

So what did I learn from this experience? How did it change me?

To be perfectly honest, I lived the following day in the same sort of way as I had done the day before. In the short term, nothing very much changed. Yet those moments have stayed with me always, and if not for them - and other, similar incidents - I doubt that I would be writing this blog. They have allowed me to understand - or, at any rate, an important part of me to understand - that this unity, this 'oneness' I write about here at The Secret Of Life is real, and not just a theory.

But something about that experience at the campsite has always puzzled me. Why did the revelation come upon me as I turned to go? Why did it not happen earlier, as I was standing there, gazing out across the lake? Surely that is the time when I was at peace, when such a revelation might have been more likely to occur?

I have only recently come to understand what might be the answer to this riddle.

Our minds have a lot of work to do to keep us functioning in this world. This is because the world we see around us doesn't really exist. Nothing we see is solid, not even ourselves. All that exists, science now tells us, is a field of quantum particles, tiny entities smaller than an atom - except that these 'particles' aren't really particles at all. They are waves of probability, which only resolve themselves into particles when they are observed.

Our minds have to interpret this quantum soup which is reality in such a way as to allow us to function, identifying chairs for us to sit on, floors for us to walk on, and even bodies for us to inhabit, every moment of every day, every day of our lives.

But the work doesn't stop here, for our minds have evolved to do more than this. As well as identifying these objects, they have chosen to assign each one an additional significance: a significance which frequently goes way beyond what is really required for us to function. So a piece of paper is not only identified as a piece of paper. It is also attached a significance according to what is written on it. It may remind us of something we have to do a week on Tuesday, for instance - or it may be a goodbye note from a lover. People are also assigned this additional significance. This is my boss. This is my wife. This is the person who looked at me rather strangely as I walked across the street. Frequently, an object is attached a significance which has nothing to do with itself, but because it reminds us of something else which is of significance. So this room is like the one in which my mother scolded me as a child. This rose is like the one which was given to me by that boy who ran off with my best friend the following week. And so it goes on...

Our minds are carrying round this vast weight of information, some of it useful, some of it decidedly unhelpful, all to interpret a physical reality which is really little more than empty space. No wonder we tend to get so tired. No wonder there feels to be such a burden upon our shoulders. We have to work very hard to keep up this illusion...

Which is why it is impossible to anticipate a spiritual experience. If we're expecting it to happen, it doesn't happen. A spiritual experience is a glimpse beneath the woven layer of meaning we call the world. It is a glimpse into the reality which underlies this artificial tapestry. It reveals an aspect of What Really Is: the quantum field itself.

So of course we cannot have such a glimpse when the mind is engaged, when we anticipate, when we expect... At such times, our minds are busy fabricating their own interpretation of reality, poised to assign meanings from a library previously encountered experiences. This is intended for our own convenience, but it can only obscure what is really there.

Only when the mind is quiet, can the truth be revealed. When we look with innocence, like a child, before the layers of meaning have been constructed. Or when we are caught off guard, in mid-breath, our thoughts caught between the last task and the one which lies ahead.

Which is why that experience came upon me when it did, I think. I didn't see the quantum field, but I saw something much closer to that than the world with which we're familiar. Perhaps it was as close to the quantum field as I could get and still have some chance of a glimmer of comprehension. And so it could only come to me when my mind had dropped its own understanding of the lake, and was about to interpret the next object of interest. It could only come as I turned to go. Between one moment and the next.

 

This may also be of interest:

A Sun-Filled Room

Sixty Seconds That Can Change Your Life

I've been dipping into Phil Bolsta's new book, Sixty Seconds (subtitled 'One Moment Changes Everything'), in which forty-five prominent people recount brief moments of spiritual awakening. It's an intriguing and often uplifting book, and as each contribution is short, it's ideal for dipping into when you have a moment to spare.The contributors include spiritual teachers such as Caroline Myss, Joan Borysenko, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch, James Redfield, Gregg Braden, Deepak Chopra, and Bernie Siegel, along with people from other walks of life, including geneticist Francis Collins, movie producer Stephen Simon, and basketball star Trent Tucker. The experiences encompass visions, premonitions, out of body experiences, guardian angels, healings, and - above all - sudden moments of realization.

A recurrent idea I find in them is a falling away of the world we know to reveal a deeper reality within. It's as though we're on a theatrical stage, with cardboard scenery all around us. Then the scenery falls away to reveal the welcome and familiar sight of real hills, trees, and flowers which have been waiting there behind it all along.

In Sixty Seconds, this new world reveals itself in many different ways: as a vision of a treasure chest, as love and compassion, as connectedness, as a sense of 'all-rightness'... The revelations take many different forms, and perhaps people see what they need to see at the time. Yet this begs the question: what exactly is the point of such revelations? What are they for?

For many people in the book, these extraordinary moments have changed their outlook on life. Author Andrew Harvey embarks on a life of 'sacred activism'; Dr Janis Amatuzio becomes more sensitive to her patients; psychic Echo Bodine begins to follow her intuition... Yet I have also heard warnings that such experiences can be an impediment to spiritual development. People can get hung up on trying to recreate these peak experiences and lose sight of the lasting changes which really matter.

Speaking personally, none of my own moments of revelation have transformed me in the short term - perhaps because I'm stubborn and set in my ways! - but they've piqued my interest in spiritual matters and encouraged me to believe that spiritual transformation can be a reality.

What about you? Have you experienced such moments? Do leave a comment if you have - or even if you haven't. What did you experience? And how - if at all - did it change you?

Related links:

Sixty Seconds - One Moment Changes Everything

Phil Bolsta's Blog

Peace Intention Experiment & Earthdance 2008

Here's some information on two upcoming events which may interest you:

September 14, 2008 will see the first in a series of Peace Intention Experiments testing the power of group intention to lower violence in areas around the world.

This could be the largest scientific study in history, with hundreds of thousands of participants sending an intention for peace under highly controlled scientific conditions.

Lynne McTaggart, author of The Intention Experiment, has assembled a scientific advisory body of leaders in consciousness research, to devise a strict protocol and measure violence levels before and after the intention is sent to see if there is any effect.

This team includes:

• Dr. Robert Jahn, former dean of engineering at Princeton University and director of the PEAR Lab 
• Psychologist Brenda Dunne, also of the PEAR Lab
• Psychologist Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona, and director of the Laboratory for Advancement of Consciousness and Health, who has run many healing energy experiments
• Psychologist Roger Nelson, formerly of Princeton University, and director of the Global Consciousness Project
• Dr. Jessica Utts, professor of statistics at the University of California at Davis, considered the world's leading statistician of consciousness research

We're currently building our team of technical experts who will make sure we have a reliable web platform from which to run the experiment - so that you and hundreds of thousands of intenders across the world can join together at the same time via our website.

I mentioned a similar event on this blog last year, World Oneness Day, and we had an interesting discussion in the comments on that post about whether such events actually have an effect. The influence of that event was measured by the Global Consciousness Project at Princeton University and the results - along with those of over 250 other world events - have been published on their web site. (Click on 'Results' and then on number 241 in the list of events.) The trouble is that this is very much a scientific site and you need to have studied statistics in order to understand the results! I hope that the Peace Intention Experiment will produce some more user-friendly information. I shall be taking part myself and I'll watch with interest. You can sign up for it here.

Another upcoming event promoting worldwide peace is Earthdance 2008, described by Time Out London as 'like Live Aid with dance music'. It will take place on September 13th. There will be 300+ events in 60+ countries, all of them joining together in a synchronized Prayer for Peace. Angelbaby has more information here - and she's presented it as a tag so you can help to spread the word...

Alignment

My Dad is 88 and hasn't got much memory left. He spends a lot of his time trying to work out what he's supposed to be doing. I reassure him that he doesn't have to do anything: that he is safe in the home for the elderly where he lives, where they see to his needs and cook all his meals for him. But he can't seem to quite understand this. 'Are you sure I don't have to go out to work?' he asks. 'Yes, quite sure,' I tell him. He looks unconvinced and peers down at the book in front of him, where we write down the things that we do on my visits, searching for 'the answer'.

Perhaps, after all, there is one thing that my Dad still has to do, and I suspect he has been doing it all his life: to teach me. He has always been a worrier, and in him I see my own worries amplified. For I, too, have been searching for 'an answer' - and feeling very frustrated not to find it.

It seems to me it is a Christian idea - though doubtless shared by others - that we all have certain God-given gifts which it is our obligation to discover and make use of. More recently, this idea of finding a life's purpose has also appeared in self-development books. I have always found the concept appealing, though I have started to believe that it can also be a trap.

I used to think it was writing, this thing that I had to do. I have been driven to write since an early age and used to berate myself for writing for fanzines instead of buckling down and writing that novel. So eventually, I buckled down and wrote that novel. And another. And another. I wrote two adult fantasy novels, of a type which turned out to be out of fashion, and a children's fantasy novel which was described by an editor as being 'original but too weird to publish'. I regard having written a fantasy novel that is 'too weird' to be a certain kind of success, but unfortunately it is not the kind of success which makes money or gets readers.

What I found very difficult about all this was that I very much liked what I had written. Clearly, I needed to do better to get published, but how would I know when I was writing something better if I liked the stuff I had written which wasn't good enough? I obviously needed to upgrade my internal critic, but I wasn't sure how to do that.

So, I decided I would write something else entirely. I wrote a spirituality book. And I did what I always did: I gave it to a few likely victims people to read, listened to their feedback, and revised the book accordingly. All of which took me a year or so, by which time my ideas about spirituality had moved on so far that it didn't feel like my book any longer. I had intended to self-publish it and market it online, but I no longer had the heart to do that. I still liked a lot of what I had written but the book's angle was all wrong. It just wasn't the book I would have written if I'd written it today. I could revise it of course, but that would take me a while. By which time...

I should have been pleased, of course, that my spiritual development was moving so quickly that my writing couldn't keep pace with it, but all I felt was frustrated. Here was I with this amazing natural God-given talent for writing (ironic smiley inserted here) and not making proper use of it! What is more, if I didn't find a way to use my writing, I would feel I had failed in my life's purpose, that I had let myself - and the universe - down in some way. And yet what could I find to write? I could no longer think of anything that would 'work'. I was already writing this blog, of course, but my readership here is not exactly vast. (You are reading it, of course, which is what is really important, but we'll get to that a bit later...)

And yet, if I didn't write, what else should I do? My current state of health dictates that everything I do has to be done in short bursts punctuated by rest/meditation breaks, which kind of cuts down the available options.

I couldn't see any way out of my state of frustration.

Or could I?

A week or so ago, I decided to take a look at some of the helpful stuff which I and others write on this blog and came across a quote by Helen about asking for help. So I decided that is what I would do.

But I didn't sit down and explicitly ask for help in finding my purpose in life. I remembered what Joe Vitale had said in The Missing Secret about the importance of aligning your will with that of your higher self, something which is also implicit in a lot of what I've written here myself at The Secret Of Life.

So I asked for guidance to align my will in that way: to put aside my ego-driven desires and declare myself open to whatever the will of the universe might be, to whatever my higher self might have in mind for me.

And the wonderful thing is that I got some assistance in this.

I held various suggestions in my mind one by one and waited to see if I got a reaction. I'll explain exactly how I did this later. One thing came over very strongly: that I should be with my wife Chris. And something else which came up is that I should carry on doing this blog. The idea of writing another book did not get a reaction, and nor did another creative project which I had in mind.

Humph.

Naturally, I queried this reaction. The idea of being with Chris was all very well, but it wasn't very 'grand'. It didn't seem to involve any fame and fortune, for instance. This was me, Simon, we were talking about here, and I had always kind of thought that I had some sort of well, you know, 'destiny'. Was the universe sure that it hadn't got me muddled up with somebody else?

But the universe seemed very sure that it hadn't made a mistake. Being with Chris and writing the blog: that's what I was to do. That was my 'destiny', for the time being at least.

Hmm...

I might have been rather more disgruntled if it hadn't have been for the other things which happened during this process:

1) I experienced a feeling of overwhelming love and compassion.

2) I received healing for my neck, a long-standing problem which had been giving me a great deal of trouble in recent weeks. Since that time, it has been a lot better. I have been lucky enough to receive a great deal of healing energy over the years, but I have never previously experienced anything quite so directly 'hitting the spot' as this.

So overall, I was very happy with the outcome, thank you very much, and any misgivings I had began to fade away as a clear picture began to emerge of what I had discovered.

It seemed to me that the idea that I had some 'grand destiny' to fulfill had been a weight around my neck. Was it any wonder that I had such pain and discomfort in that part of my body? What I was being told was that I didn't have to succeed in these 'great achievements' after all. It was my ego that had laid them upon me, not the universe or God or my higher self or anything else. There were other things which were more important than these grand designs, like simply being a good husband to Chris.

It also seemed to me that the emphasis on 1) my marriage and 2) this blog was telling me something else. It was encouraging me to focus on my spiritual development. Relationships are a great way to work on self realization, because what they are about - ultimately - is recognizing the divine in each other, and so helping us to find it in ourselves. This blog, too, is a guiding hand in this process: hopefully, in some small way, for some of you, but certainly for me, for it allows me to develop my understanding of such things and to maintain my focus on the spiritual part of my life.

It also came to me that I no longer have to think so much about how many readers I get. If people are meant to find this blog, they will find it. It is as simple as that. You have found it after all, and as I have said, that is what is really important. If I only speak to one person, that is enough. Thank you for being here to read this.

Perhaps, too, at some stage, I will find a larger audience. Perhaps I will return to my books and find a way to get them 'out there'. Or perhaps I will write others. But now is not the time, and I think I will only return to such things when I have learned to get my ego out of the way, when I have found my way back to sitting down to write them because that is the thing to do, not because I have some grand vision of a 'me' that I have to become.

To be like that would only to be like my Dad, vainly searching for the thing that I have to do. He and I must both find a way to peace.

There is more I would like to say here, to discuss the feeling of compassion and healing I received for instance, but this is already a long post, so it will have to wait for another time - or perhaps for the comments section.

But one thing I do want to add as a postscript here - as promised - is to say a bit more about the way in which I communicated with the universe or my higher self or whatever it was that gave me all that useful information. This is particularly important because it is something which you may like to try for yourself. I have certainly found it useful, even liberating. Perhaps it will open a similar doorway you.

So, when I held each of those ideas in my mind (my relationship, the books, the blog etc.) and waited for a reaction, how did that come exactly? Did I hear a disembodied voice? You may be relieved to learn that I didn't. What I used was a process I developed some years before, after reading some material by a guy called Bob Scheinfeld.

What Bob suggested was to develop a process of communication with your intuition by simply asking for this to be done: to ask for some kind of physical sign meaning 'yes'. So what you do is sit down and ask your intuition (or your higher self or the universe or the quantum field or God or whatever you think the source of deep inner knowing within you may be) for a sign meaning 'yes' to allow it to share its wisdom with you. Then you sit there and wait for the sign to come.

(It's a long time since I read that book of Bob Scheinfeld's, so apologies to him if I've got his teaching here all scrambled, but I hope I've captured the gist of it.)

I seem to remember that when I first tried this, it took a few weeks for my sign to emerge, but when it eventually came it was a kind of vibration around the eyes. My eyes are very sensitive, so perhaps it is not surprising that this should have happened. Nowadays, the sign is a rather more general vibration or energy, sometimes with flashes of color. So when I put forward each of those ideas, I waited to see if that energy would come. If it did, it meant a positive reaction. If not, then negative.

I'm not claiming that this process is 100% reliable, and it's as well to test any ideas a number of times to see if you get a consistent reaction. I still feel rather surprised that I usually do...

I hope that this doesn't seem too weird. If so, then I'll just trot out the usual mantra: give it a try and see if it works for you. It's really rather similar to the idea of kinesiology, as promoted by Dr David Hawkins and others, which gives you a strong muscle reaction for 'yes' and a weak one for 'no'. The idea is that you are tapping into some deep well of truth within you. It is allowing you to partake in a part of that truth.

 

These may also be of interest:

How Much Do We Really Know?

To Simply Be

Ten Words That Can Heal The World

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the audio program The Missing Secret by   Dr Joe Vitale. Vitale was one of the contributors to the phenomenally successful video about the law of attraction, The Secret. As you might have guessed from the title, The Missing Secret promises to fill in the missing bits you didn't get in The Secret, the bits that meant that the law of attraction didn't work as well as it said on the wrapper.

There's a lot of this sort of stuff around, so I didn't have particularly high expectations when I listened to The Missing Secret. It therefore came as a pleasant surprise to find that it's a sensible, honest and comprehensive guide which happens to echo a lot of what I said in my own series of posts on the law of attraction, The Heart Of The Secret, and which provides exhaustive information on the various techniques you can use to defuse the problems which can get in the way of success.

I still have reservations about the practical use of the law of attraction for those of us who aren't either a) naturally positive people or b) enlightened - and to give him his due, Vitale pretty much accepts its limitations himself. But if you still want to give the law of attraction a go (and why shouldn't you?) then I can't recommend The Missing Secret too highly.

But what really excites me about this program is the third of the six CDs. This covers a Hawaiian technique with the unlikely title of 'Ho'oponopono', which in my opinion has implications of far greater importance than the kind of creature comforts we so often associate with the law of attraction. It has the potential to literally heal the world.

Vitale first came across this technique when he heard about the work of the Hawaiian psychiatrist Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len, who was in charge of a hospital for the criminally insane, the inhabitants of which were generally considered to be beyond cure or redemption. Eschewing all orthodox methods, and without even speaking to the patients himself, Dr Hew Len apparently used the Ho'oponopono technique to cure all but two of the patients to the extent that they could be reintegrated into society. The hospital was eventually closed because it was no longer required. Perhaps surprisingly, this remarkable and heartening chain of events appears to be well corroborated.

The version of Ho'oponopono used by Dr Hew Len was developed in the 1980s by Morrnah Simeona and is based on an ancient Hawaiian practice. Its underlying concept takes the law of attraction to its ultimate conclusion. If we do indeed create our own reality, then it follows that we create everything in our world, even (for instance) the things we hear about on the radio. It entails taking total responsibility for whatever there is in our life.

Yet this isn't about a pointless guilt trip. It is all about healing what has happened. At the heart of the technique, there are four simple phrases: "I'm sorry", "Please forgive me", "Thank you" and "I love you". Through these phrases, the healing (or 'cleaning') can be achieved.

The first two phrases are about expressing regret and requesting forgiveness for whatever in us has created the circumstances we wish to heal; "Thank you" is said in anticipation of the forgiveness we know will be forthcoming; and "I love you" reestablishes the original, natural relationship with God - or 'the Divine', as Joe Vitale and Dr Hew Len prefer to call It. If you have a problem with either of these words, you can of course substitute a word of your choice: the universe, consciousness, the quantum field, the source, whatever you'd like to use instead...

The Missing Secret has a section which repeats these phrases over and over again so that you can play them in the background whatever you are doing; while Vitale himself likes to keep repeating 'I love you' as he goes about his day, which is a powerful exercise in itself. Alternatively, you may prefer to use the phrases to work on specific issues. In earlier posts, I've talked about dissolving away negative emotions using both Nick Roach's approach and my own welcome breath. I still use both of these, but I find that Ho'oponopono usually works even better. I focus on the emotion and then repeat each phrase in turn until the energy changes and the emotion dissipates.

I suggest you try using the phrases in various ways and find out what seems to work for you. If you are drawn to the technique, then do investigate The Missing Secret and/or Joe Vitale's book Zero Limits (which is all about Ho'oponopono) to find out more. Or if you are within traveling distance, consider signing up for one of Dr Hew Len's seminars on Ho-oponopono, details of which which you can find on his web site.

Of course, you may be asking why you should believe a single word of any of this stuff. Given its unlikely nature, this is a fair question. I guess it comes down to the same as everything else on this site. Just give it a try and see what you think. Judge it by its results or any gut feeling you may have about it. I'm impressed by Ho'oponopono because it helps to dissipate my emotions, and I sense a feeling of power when I say the phrases. But you really have to try it for yourself...

You may also be wondering exactly why you should be expected to take responsibility for all this stuff on the news that you never thought had anything to do with you. You may not buy the idea that this is the ultimate consequence of the law of attraction. You thought that the law of attraction was all about getting a nice new house and that sports car you always wanted. You weren't aware of the little-known sub-clause that, along with the house and the car, come total responsibility for worldwide war, famine, earthquakes, crime, anti-social behavior and bad TV.

But the way I look at it is this: if we are all truly One (as I have argued on this blog), all part of a single field of energy, then of course we share responsibility for everything that happens in this world. If we are all interconnected, then collective responsibility follows.

But even if you don't believe in this spiritual stuff, if you prefer to ignore quantum physics and insist that we are all entirely separate from each other, then perhaps you will be willing to accept that we are nevertheless united by chains of cause and effect. Other people are affected by the way we interact with them, and this in turn affects the way they behave with others. Bearing in mind the widely held belief that there are, on average, only six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on the planet, it can be argued that the way we act has an important effect on the world in which we live.

All these actions are stored in memory, and for most of the time - in our current state of consciousness - it is these memories which shape events in our world. It is memory which elects governments, which makes those governments fearful of others, which promotes and prolongs war - because of who did what to whom in years gone by. And if we look in our hearts, perhaps we can come to understand that the emotions which arise within us when we come into conflict with others in our daily lives stem from the same source as those which cause others to kill, abuse, and exploit other people across our planet.

According to Ho-opnopono, all actions arise from one of two sources: from memory or from inspiration. The answer it presents is to heal or 'clean' those memories, to clear away those centuries of accumulated grievances, passed down through the generations, once and for all: to clear away the collective karma of the human race, so that all that remains is inspiration, connection to source, connection to love...

I have written before about the way in which our emotions get in the way of our natural connection to joy. Well, here is more of the same, yet for 'emotions' read 'memories', for it is memory from which those emotions spring.

Remember the four simple phrases: "I'm sorry", "Please forgive me", "Thank you", and "I love you". They can be used to clean away those memories and reestablish our connection to joy.

Find the best way you can to use them. They are ten words that can heal the world.

Related links:

Dr Joe Vitale

The Missing Secret

Zero Limits

Dr Hew Len: Foundation of I

 

These may also be of interest:

A Sun-Filled Room

The Heart of the Secret

Eckhart, Oprah.... And A Giraffe

There's been a lot of publicity, but just in case you hadn't heard, Oprah Winfrey is talking to Eckhart Tolle about his book A New Earth in a series of ten live interactive webcasts on Monday evenings. Each of the webcasts will focus on a different chapter of the book. You can sign up to participate here.

The first of these webcasts took place last week and is now available to download here. The project seems to have been very well planned. There's even a handy reckoner here to work out when the webcast will take place in your particular time zone. It works out at 6pm US Pacific time, 9pm US Eastern time, and 2am here in the UK (where the downloading option is proving rather popular).

Apparently half a million people watched the first webcast live, so it looks like the project will bring this kind of teaching to unprecedented numbers. I know it's shamefully frivolous of me, but I can't help wondering if Eckhart's trademark beige sweaters will become the must-have fashion accessory of 2008.

I have to say that I found the first webcast compulsive listening. Oprah Winfrey's contributions brought an interesting new perspective to Eckhart's teaching and the webcast may be of particular interest to those who are unsure about how to integrate spiritual teachings with existing Christian beliefs. Do let me know what you think...

And finally... What was that about a giraffe, you may be asking? Well, we've recently touched on IQ tests here on the blog and some of you expressed a bit of skepticism, so I though you might appreciate an antidote to such tests. Here's a link to a test of... well, something or other. I think you'll enjoy it. Take the giraffe test here! And if you'd like to let me know how you get on, I'll be happy to hear from you...

Philip Pullman - A Process Of Evolution

Reading an interview with author Philip Pullman in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, I was reminded of a post I wrote a few months ago, in which I argued that a wholesale change in human consciousness will be needed if we are to survive the approaching environmental crisis. Here's what I wrote at that time:

"Only when we come to think of ourselves as first and foremost an integral part of the human race and the universe at large, rather than as separate entities in competition with each other, will we have the perspective needed to sit down as one and work together to find a way out of this mess."

To some extent, Pullman appears to echo this in his Daily Telegraph interview:

"I think we've evolved in such a way that suited conditions on the savannah 500,000 years ago, a way of life that was acquisitive, territorial and combative. The degree to which the processes of civilisation, or socialisation, can overcome that depends on the timescale. In the long term, I back evolution - if we can survive this crisis that we're in...

"It's like going down a river, and about mid-century we're going to go through the rapids, and it's going to be terribly difficult for all of us. But we can survive and if we can get through this... it's going to be wonderful."

How exactly Pullman thinks that this necessary process of evolution is going to happen isn't entirely clear - but then with evolution it rarely is. Don't get me wrong - I'm no creationist - but the small print of evolution has always puzzled me. How did those fish come out of the water exactly? Gary Larson's explanation (in one of his Far Side cartoons) that the fish were playing baseball and evolved legs in order to get their ball back when it landed on dry land seems about as convincing as any other.

All Pullman seems to suggest is that the environmentalists' storytelling skills need to evolve so that they can better communicate the message about what people can do to help the planet. He says:

"People feel helpless when they see pictures of devastated forests cut down and the glaciers melting and the poor polar bear sweating on its bare rock in the sea. 'What can we do, what can we do?' People need to be told what it is that they can do."

I wish I shared his optimism that this will be enough to make a difference.

Pullman, of course, is widely known for the anti-religion stance of his fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, an ancient, authoritarian 'God' being unceremoniously killed in the final volume. Personally, I kind of like these books, such misgivings as I have about them having a lot more to do with the shambolic plotting than with any underlying agenda. I doubt that Pullman would view this blog in such a kindly light however. He has been quoted as saying "I don't think it's possible that there is a God: I have the greatest difficulty understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality'".

So I assume that Pullman would be fairly horrified - or at best bemused - by my belief that the necessary evolution is going to be a spiritual one, a process of evolution in which we come to realize that all of us are One, that all of us - including our planet and all the life forms upon it - are part of something which some might describe as 'God'.

Yet Pullman goes on to say in the interview:

"I suppose the real story, the basic story, the story I would like to hear, see, read, is the story about how connected we are, not only with one another but also with the place we live in. And how it's almost infinitely rich, but it's in some danger; and that despite the danger, we can do something to overcome it."

Are we really so far apart, I wonder, the 'spiritual' me and the 'secular' Pullman?

I hope not, because it seems to me that it is a gap which is going to have to be bridged in our forthcoming process of evolution...

(You can read the Telegraph interview with Philip Pullman here. This in turn is an edited extract from the forthcoming book Do Good Lives Have To Cost The Earth? by Andrew Simms and Joe Smith.)

 

These may also be of interest:

Earth Doomed (see page 53)

Unity is Powerful

Global Financial Crisis - A Blueprint for Transformation?

The Heart Of The Secret 3 - Contemplating Perfection

Earlier this year, The Secret DVD did much to publicize the law of attraction - the idea that we can create our own reality through the power of positive thought. In this series of posts, I'm highlighting what I see as the most useful techniques in The Secret, and the one I'd like to talk about today is one which you may not have encountered before even if you've seen the DVD, because it doesn't appear in the movie, only in the accompanying book.

The reason it didn't make it onto the DVD may be because it will only make immediate sense to those who are already familiar with the idea of being in the moment and connecting with the energy which can be found there. If you read this blog regularly, you'll already know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, I urge you to look at one of Eckhart Tolle's excellent books The Power Of Now or the briefer Practicing The Power Of Now, which will explain all about it.

You could also try taking a look at one or two of my earlier posts. Feeling What Is briefly describes the process of coming to rest and connecting with the moment, while An End To All Abuse contains a visualization in which you imagine being one with the universe, an integral part of everything that is.

Both of these are gateways to the same state of consciousness, in which you realize that you are an integral part of everything: a part of the force of nature, a part of the universe. In such a state, you are able to focus on your own perfection, on your own boundless abundance, for if you are a part of this great energy, then you too must share its attributes, you too must possess its limitless power.

With a focus like this, there is no longer any room for the anxious thoughts which might creep in if you were trying to imagine a new house or a car. Those nagging questions "will it work?" or "do I deserve it?" become irrelevant. Once you are aware that you are part of this energy, that you are one with the universe, there can be no doubt that you share in its perfection. So focus on that perfection - and bring it into your life.

This technique can be particularly useful for working on your health. The Secret DVD suggests that to improve your health, you should imagine yourself being well, but this can be hard to achieve if you are severely disabled or in great pain - or even if you've got a bad cough for that matter! In such a situation, doubts can be hard to dispel. If you feel really ill, it isn't always easy to imagine feeling better again.

If, however, you realize that you are one with all that is, that you are not separate from the life force which puts the buds on the trees and brings the green shoots from the earth, then you cannot fail to understand that on a spiritual level at least, you are perfection. Contemplate this perfection - and feel it seep into the cells of your physical body.

This is a wonderful exercise, but if you have difficulty with the whole 'oneness with the universe' thing, I came across a useful variation at Sue Ann Edwards' excellent blog, Always Embraces All Ways.  This has the rather dull title of Standard Technology (not Sue Ann's name!) but it's a very powerful exercise.

Briefly, what you have to do is to imagine that there's a perfect cell in your body. I think all of us are willing to accept that we have at least one of them! Imagine that cell all vibrant and happy, then set it as the standard for all the other cells in your body. And watch the perfection spread throughout your being...

If you like the sound of that exercise, please go and read all about it at Sue Ann's blog here.

Next time, in the last of this series, I'll be talking about the most powerful law of attraction technique of all. And this one is very, very simple...

(To see the previous posts in this series, please click here: part 1 - part 2)

 

These may also be of interest:

Feeling What Is

An End to All Abuse

Let's Pretend