Monday, October 27, 2008

Through the Looking Glass

In the famous story by Lewis Carroll, Alice goes through the looking glass and finds a strange world where things are distorted from reality.
An image in a mirror is flipped 180 degrees, so although you get a pretty good idea of what you look like, you don’t see yourself precisely as others see you. In fact, many people will tell you that you cannot know yourself as well as an objective observer, for you do not know how your actions affect others. It makes a sort of sense at first glance, for if action is based on thought, your actions are an accurate reflection of who you are.

However, only you can know your intentions and motivations; only you can know your thoughts. There is no one who knows yourself better than you!

“Yes, but you can fool yourself; you can hide your true intent even from yourself,” it is said. “And when that happens, others knows you better than you can ever know yourself.” Sad but true.

When you are not honest and open with yourself, you are like the looking glass: you reflect yourself to others, and to yourself, in a skewed fashion. That which is truly YOU becomes hidden behind a self-created façade. It is no longer exposed to the light, and so it cannot be seen. You become lost to yourself, and you deprive the world of your unique creative viewpoint.

You begin to value privacy more than openness and self-honesty, for a lie, an untruth, even a prevarication, requires secrecy. Thus do you shield yourself from your own light. When you go down this road, others do begin to know you better than you know yourself. This is a position in which you have given up your power to others. It is the state that the general run of mankind has been in for several millennia. It is how so many fall for the absurdities of religious and political dogma, which stifles free will and conscious decision making. It is why mankind has been so childishly easy to manipulate throughout the centuries, and why our species has never matured.

Openness, honesty and transparency are vital in the relationship you have with yourself. Every time you lie to yourself, you encapsulate a part of your life force: there is now a hidden part of you that you have to keep secret. The road to loss of self ALWAYS begins with something trivial.

Let’s say you are on a flex schedule at work, but the rule is that you must put in eight hours every day. You come in at different times each morning, so nobody notices that you are leaving an hour early every day. One day your boss asks you why you are leaving at 4, and you say that you came in at 8 and didn’t take a lunch. Both of these are lies. After that, when people ask you about your schedule, you become “sensitive” on this topic, people can push your buttons. You now have an “issue.” Everyone reading this knows how it goes.

The reason not to lie isn’t because of some moral code, or because the Bible tells you not to, or because some authority figure said so. It’s because operating this way in life simply turns you into a robot. Better to lie, and do it consciously, then to suppress your free will and conscious decision making by mindlessly following rules laid down by somebody else! If you lie consciously, you will be aware of the consequences, and you might even learn something, if you have any intelligence.

Dogma is dangerous because it suppresses the cognitive function.
Dogma says, “Don’t look at this maxim and compare it to your experiences in life; just accept it. People wiser than you know all about this. If you don’t, you will suffer dire consequences.”

Religion is essentially dogma, the oldest established on the planet. Dogma is simply a limited collection of thoughts that is repeated over and over again. In a previous blog I’ve already quoted Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, who said that he could convince anybody that a square was a circle simply by repetition. That’s what religion does, or any dogma: “obey the will of God (as interpreted by our religion) or go to hell.” “A Presidential candidate in the United States must stand for a strong military.” “We must help our fellow man, therefore, the government must bail out those who are holding mortgages they can’t afford.” “You have to love the members of your family.” I’m sure you can think of more, and better dogma’s.

What’s the point?

The point is, that it’s better to be conscious than unconscious, even if you are a liar. Even if you violate cherished and established modes of thought. A liar you can deal with! You can reason with a liar, but not a dogmatist. Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, in his book “The Trouble With Physics,” details a conversation he had with a Christian fundamentalist about dinosaurs. The fundamentalist said that dino’s still exist because Rush Limbaugh said so on his program, or some such nonsense. Smolin blew holes in all of her arguments, but the fundamentalist would not change her opinion, and insisted that a brontosaurus could live in a cave. Such people are not conscious; and cannot learn from experience.

“The few, the proud, the Marines.” My brother-in-law is a combat trained Marine, and I have a lot of respect for that. But Marine commercials essentially show people being trained as robots; killing machines who follow orders from above. It takes all kinds to make a world, as my grandfather said, but self awareness and conscious living is the only way to ensure personal sovereignty. Sovereignty doesn’t come out of the barrel of a gun, or from orders on-high. Sovereignty is integrity. Integrity is wholeness. And wholeness is happiness. It all begins with mindful and conscious living.

Dogma coalesces and entrains thought around it; stifling creative expression and independent thinking. It is how mankind has been controlled for millennia. As times change, dogma becomes more and more outdated and inapplicable. Dogma becomes, essentially, lies, due to changing conditions. The difference between a liar and a dogmatist is that the liar lies consciously, whereas the dogmatist does it unconsciously. Propagandists combine conscious lying with dogma.

The truly great liars are propagandists. Propagandists are experts in persuasion and the molding of human opinions. “We must fight terrorism,” says former President Bush robotically. Congress robotically goes along and passes Patriot Acts, FISA, the Homegrown Terrorist Protection Act, and other traitorous pieces of legislation which destroy our basic freedoms. We know from this that both the President and the Congress are operating unconsciously. Our political institutions have lost their self-awareness, and the will to consciously perform their Constitutional duties. They have become dogmatic, and have lost their integrity. And we also know that the people of the United States, who have voted them into office, have also lost their sovereignty. Our nation is not under attack from terrorists, but from dogmatists. We are in a prison of our own making, which stems from our own unconsciousness.

Propagandists, dogmatists, religionists, politicians, and liars, however, are not dangerous at all. They can be defeated by conscious and mindful thinking. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no substitute for self-awareness. No “system” exists in which you can plug in your mind and put yourself on automatic pilot, while still maintaining your integrity.

It is time for individuals to inspect their belief systems and begin to throw away old patterns and habits of thought. This is what happens when you have a spiritual awakening: you release from old dogmas and see yourself, and the world, from a much broader perspective. The solution to the problems and difficulties of life is not the latest marketing breakthrough, secret code, or ten-step program, but the decision to live life consciously and mindfully. In this way you find your own center, express your own unique point of view, and discover the things that are truly worth learning. I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t get any better than that!

Kenneth James Michael MacLean

http://www.kjmaclean.com
http://www.thevibrationaluniverse.com
http://www.marketingwithspirit.com

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Winds of Change

It seems that the denouement humanity has been looking toward is not 2012, asteroids hitting the planet, or spiritual enlightenment, but much more mundane: a financial crisis that appears to be endangering the world’s currencies and economies. This economic phenomenon is, I believe, simply a reflection of a global spiritual awakening.

Vibrationally speaking, we have had a massive increase in population over the past 100 years: from 1 billion to over 6 billion. This has naturally led to a huge increase in the flow of subtle/thought energy within the species consciousness. All of us can feel it.

Those who turn away from themselves in fear have gone negative; those who have embraced the Light have experienced a spiritual “wake up call.” The condition of humanity is now a sort of “bipolar disorder,” brought about by the increased flow and psychic pressure of thought and consciousness. I look at the effect of consciousness upon the planet, and our individual psyches, like a weather pattern: when the winds of change increase, we all feel it.

What I have realized lately is that when one is centered, it is possible to weather the storm. I have talked about the Still Point in my newsletters: the eye of the hurricane. The Still Point is the discovery of the static nature and power of ones own consciousness.

Consciousness, or awareness, is non–physical: it has no moving parts. It is not “energy” as we understand it. Life is a Creative Principle, something all-powerful, capable of creating and perceiving what it has created, but which cannot ever be harmed by those creations. How can something that is not physical be harmed by something physical? It cannot! However, we are given the gift of vulnerability within our physical bodies: we feel pain, discomfort, and misery. We have created conditions of poverty, injustice and conflict so that we may experience these things, which are impossible to experience in Native State. That is the game we are playing.

The question is, how do we survive and prosper during this evolution of consciousness?

My answer is through the discovery of self.

I have made some important gains during the past week that I would like to share with you.

My life has been in a state of flux for the past 3 years. I have been recovering slowly from mercury poisoning, which has affected my health. I have also been writing, doing personal coaching and readings, and working my contracting business. These activities inspire me and fill me with love, because helping others is a great gift. It allows one to feel that inner connection to Spirit, or God, and this naturally makes you feel wonderful and expansive. Yet there has also been a tug in the opposite direction: I have felt the desire to investigate those forces in government, intelligence, and banking which appear to be bent on creating a sort of dark world dictatorship. I haven’t been able to resolve these two conflicting poles of my life until very recently. I am just like everyone else: I feel the polarity within the human consciousness.

However, I have discovered a couple of meditations that have really helped me out.

The first meditation is a very simple one: I imagine myself surrounded and penetrated by a golden–white light. For me, the color gold evokes a simultaneous feeling of love, power, and certainty that all is well. If you study color, you will discover that different colors evoke different emotions and feelings. This probably varies from person to person. As I have done this meditation, I found that at first, I felt the golden–white light around my body. As I began to do it more, I felt a glow coming from within my cellular structure. Then it began to expand outward from my body and I felt a feeling of expansiveness.

If the golden color does not do it for you, experiment with different colors. Change the field to red, blue, purple, or any other color. Vary the brightness. Eventually you will find a color that resonates with your soul, and it will feel really, really good!

My favorite time for this meditation is just after I wake up in the morning and before I get up. But I do it often during the day when I feel my thoughts turn negative. The feel of that golden–white glow within me and around me is now enough to “turn off” the negative vibration and restore a positive one. For example, I went for a walk this morning. As I turned the corner, I saw my neighbor had a “McCain– Pailin” sign up on his front lawn. I got upset because this guy is very intelligent, and I couldn’t believe he’d vote for the same people who brought us the destruction of Constitution and our economy. That was just my knee–jerk reaction, you see, because both parties are equally responsible for the mess we are in; but I was starting to get more and more angry anyway. So I just put that golden–white field around me and suddenly I felt a rush of positive emotion. I understood that it is perfectly all right for people to make choices that are different than mine! My problem, I realized, was not with my neighbor, but was about what was inside of me: my own personal prejudices coming to the forefront.

Not bad for a simple little meditation that took a few seconds!
Try it! Maybe gold isn’t the color for you. Experiment with other colors.
You will find that as you change the color of your light, you will feel different. I have noticed that my cats respond positively when I am doing this meditation. Apparently. they can pick up on the feeling of love, or perhaps they can feel the golden light as well. All I know is that this light is not like any other from the electromagnetic spectrum, it is incredibly soft and subtle, yet bright and joyful as well.

The second meditation is an earth meditation, and goes as follows:
Imagine you are walking in your favorite place. It could be a forest, or a mountain meadow, or along the beach. You see a tree up ahead, a very large tree with an opening in it. You enter the tree and are transported to the center of the earth, into a large cave with a stone floor. You notice a small stream with bright, golden–yellow water, and you walk up to it. This light is very bright but does not hurt your eyes. If you are wearing shoes and socks, take them off. You can’t wait to go in, for you can feel the beauty of this water. It is filled with the energy of the earth, a powerful, grounding energy that feels light, and you can just feel the well–being. You walk in and the golden–yellow light goes into your feet and up your legs. It feels absolutely delicious. Every cell in your body relaxes, and feels refreshed and revitalized. The energy slowly travels up to your first chakra and you see a beautiful red energy as that vortex is cleansed and revitalized, As the golden–yellow energy travels up through your abdomen, you see a beautiful orange in your second chakra. The energy travels up to your stomach and you see a brilliant yellow energy and you feel wonderful. The energy travels up your arms and to your heart, Around your heart you see and feel a, exquisite green, the most awesome green you can imagine, and you feel a warmth and love for yourself and for everyone and everything. The energy travels up to your throat and you see a beautiful sky blue color, and it seems as if all the positive things you have wanted to say but never did have been said, and all of the things you have said that you wished you hadn’t, have been transformed from something negative to something positive. As the energy enters your head, you see the most beautiful deep blue, and your inner sight opens to Spirit. As the energy exits the top of your head, you see a beautiful deep purple, and you see your 7th chakra open at the top of your head to let in the light and love of God.

Now you feel completely grounded and at peace with yourself, and connected to the Mother earth. You feel her power and delight with you, and you know you are a part of the beautiful tapestry of life, and indispensible to her, and to all humanity.

You walk away from the river feeling more refreshed than you have since childhood. You walk away from the river and see a big tree growing from the rock, just like the one on the surface. You step into that tree and are transported back to the surface. When you walk across the ground, you notice something peculiar and wonderful: there is now a brilliant, golden–yellow cord connecting you with the center of the earth. You know you can access this energy at any time.

I use this meditation a lot while I am walking. I visualize the yellow cord connecting me to the earth, and I can literally feel the grounding energy flowing through me. I also use it as an independent meditation.


http://www.kjmaclean.com
http://www.marketingwithspirit.com