Understanding Enlightenment

by Lynn Claridge -

The following will take you closer to an experience of spiritual enlightenment. Read on to understand more about bringing Inner awareness into your life.

Free yourself from the illusion that you are separate.

Feeling separate and discounted is how you create failure after failure in life. Once you untangle yourself from this belief, you can move on.

All experiences of suffering are created by your minds lack of awareness in seeing who you really are.

Quieting the incessant chattering in your mind.

Your ego is a thought program, like a computer. It just spits out information and computes ideas that are about the past and future. 

The mind/ego is a limited construction of ideas and beliefs about who you are. 

The more you can silence the chattering mind, the less likely you are to become trapped in your ego. 

Only through the constant release of the ego can you live in true spiritual enlightenment. You become aligned with the truth and you infinite spiritual being.

Embrace and release all you fears.

As you may have heard, fear really stands for false evidence appearing real. To find what you are afraid of, open yourself up to intimate conversation. Eventually you will be able to see into yourself again and understand truly what you are running from. 

Once you know what you are running away from, run towards it, and embrace it. It will dissolve the fear from your life allowing you to move forward.

Embrace and release all mental, emotional and physical attachment or aversions to everyone and everything in your life.

As a human being you will become attached to people, you will care about what they say, do or think about you. 

This happens because you have an automatic habit of trying to avoid what is painful and stay with what is pleasurable. 

The problem arises when you become too attached to having what is pleasurable all the time. Pain and suffering is the universe telling you to let go! The purpose of pain is not about creating more suffering, it is about creating change, this change is necessary for you to drop your ego-trip and return to your spiritual source again. 

This allows you to start enjoying your life. You experience pain because of one thing, ignorance. Think of the word ignore add a little dance to it and you get ignorance. When you ignore the truth of your being, your ignorance transmits into suffering. 

To transcend this ignorance and find spiritual enlightenment again, you need to find a deep awareness. With this profound state of consciousness, you can let go. The truth is, all you need to do is to re-discover the truth of who you are.

Freedom from unconscious myths and everyday stories of separation.

What was your story of failure or separation? Usually when you hear your parents and siblings having problems, you attach yourself to it, this is where the separation beings.

Your parents would have sent you off to an education system (which by the way only works 15% of your brains potentiality and capacity), this system is to support and help you learn about life. 

What society never taught you was how to be still inside, quieten your mind and emotions, meditate; focus on who you are or how to achieve inner bliss.

Society leads you to believe that success and truth is all about status, money and career. While these are important, the reality is, success is defined by how fulfilled you are as a human being.

You need to stop thinking that thinking is a way of getting what you want.

Thinking has become the norm. It has become abnormal in society to sit and be silent. 

You might find you run away from meditation because you cannot quieten your mind and you feel you are losing control of it. 

The ironic thing is, that all of the suffering, chaos and illness in life are cause be a lack of control and awareness of the mind. 

Instead of tuning to silence to find the answers, you’re taught to think more and know more, so you can achieve what you want. You are not taught to discover about being in the here and now.

Do not hide from your true power in a safe little fishbowl.

Thoughts are safe, while experiences are real and unsafe. You will find it easier not to take the risk of getting hurt by diving into the ocean of experience in life.

Not only you but also everyone stays comfortable in a fishbowl because it gives you and them a sense of confidence and security. 

Life is like an uncontrollable roller coaster ride because you do not know the future. In other words, you do not know how to respond to experiences that occur outside your fishbowl. Instead, you think about an experience without having one.

Through television, films and books you hide from your powerful spirit and pretend to be complete.

Let go of the need to be right all the time.

Being right can be the hardest ego trip to get off. To get off, means that you need to be wrong sometimes.

If everyone tells you from birth to death that life is a struggle and that it is hard, painful and unfair, you will believe them. 

So how can you relax and let go and trust yourself?

You think you must fight to get what you want. If life is serious, you are probably going to gain love, success and freedom by stepping on or over others. 

The world is a community of beings, it is a playground, a play and a stage where you can choose any role you desire.

Replace with positive.

Lack of awareness (ignorance) of your ever-present connection, stems from a lack of inner peace, power and playfulness, which can create low energy, this means you stay asleep.

When you do not respond with awareness, you just react unconsciously from past habits of being a victim and you create more experiences of being a victim. 

The truth is, you are really a human program. You have the same thoughts day after day. This creates a seriously deep rut in your life and the only way out is through being responsible for your thoughts and by choosing more empowering thoughts to help you move forward.

Choosing to suffer and stay unconscious.

Your society loves people who step out of line. The people around you often criticize you the moment you try to break out of the societal of unconscious living. The unconscious way is acceptable, it’s advertised on the television, films, news, media, radio and newspapers. 

However, we can all agree on one thing, and that is society teaches that everything you need to end your suffering is outside of you, not inside of you!

You may be caught up in the rat race to reach a certain status and to give you the luxury you want, this you believe will rid you of suffering. This never works. 

The cheese you are after just gets bigger. I am sure you are aware by now that suffering comes from constant desire. When you desire less, you remember again how connected you are to your spiritual self.

To have spiritual enlightenment, means waking up from the rat race. It takes a lot of effort to go against what you believe to be true. The great part however is that the universe will not let you down.

mysticalempowerment.com

Activism in the New Story

by Charles Eisenstein -

One of the most triggering sentences of The More Beautiful World... was, 

“Let us be wary of any revolution that isn’t threaded with an element of play, celebration, mystery and humor. If it is primarily a grim struggle, then it may be no revolution at all.”

People find this naïve. Play and celebration seem a bit frivolous in the face of a relentless world-destroying machine that recognizes no logic but the logic of force. We need to get serious and not waste our time in escapist play. And celebration – shouldn’t that wait until we have something to celebrate?

I think it is quite the opposite. 

If we turn the revolution into a contest of force, then we will surely lose against an opponent that far outmatches us. Worse, even if we win, we strengthen the sponsoring world-story that turns us into another version of the enemy we just defeated. 

It is the story that holds us a Cartesian separate selves manipulating an external reality through force. Just as civilization has sought to conquer the Other (nature), so now do we seek to overcome another Other through the same basic methods. 

It is as Philip K. Dick wrote: 

“To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox: whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby, it becomes its enemies.”

There is another way. 

It is more effective and not less in creating change, although one must sacrifice the ego satisfaction of dominating a defeated enemy. 

I received the following example of this other way recently from Daniel Schreiber, of the remarkable Starseed community near Byron Bay, Australia.

It offers a glimpse of the power available from even a last-minute shift from force to play.

When I first moved to Byron Bay 22 years ago, I was friendly with a 'mob' of activists that ran the world’s first successful forest protest. There were strange ideas in the community about conservation which I have now resolved but at the time were intriguing. 

The 'us versus them' played out with all its polarities and dynamics and even though there were victories, the 'beast' seemed relentless, well funded and had all manner of social , legal and political levers to tilt the playing field. 

I have come to realize that if one is an activist and has an emotional investment in an outcome then the challenge is against oneself and it is impossible to 'win' and yet if one can protest without an emotional investment in the outcome, you always win.

I recently participated in a successful anti fracking protest that lasted over two months and engaged as many as 8 thousand of our small Byron community! 

Our lush camp had a 4 berth cappuccino machine, massage, sacred fire, media centre, full kitchen feeding a core of 200 each day and more. 

We held off the miners for ages with many tactics including drone video media production, barriers, towers, 24/7 vigils, writing lawful notices to politicians, police and company directors, training commonwealth public officials and preparing for a showdown where the government decided to send 800 heavily armed police to break up the camp! 

This huge mission was planned and publicized and hotels booked as tensions rose in anticipation of the onslaught. Three days before the arrival of the troops, we heard that all four news channels would be filming from air which would then go out world wide as if this were a full scale 'war'. 

Our camp had planned a strategy to confront the troops and we waited. 

I came up with an idea to paint a giant aboriginal art piece on the landscape that would be seen from the helicopters and would indeed be 'newsworthy' along with a ceremony that would be led by the local indigenous mob that would engage 500 of us with clap sticks , huge smoky fires, all the men painted in white ochre and the leader playing didgeridoo for three days straight! 

There was no precedent for police to break up an Originee ceremony and so I pitched this novel idea to the Originee elder women who had become quite depressed as the conflict approached. They had seen this all before and it always ended the same... all the black fellas arrested along with many white fella supporters, and the miners getting their way. 

The elder women immediately became animated and excited as they looked at the drawings of a proposed 150ft long Goanna and a 350 ft rainbow serpent and started adding dots, Pleiades star system and hand prints. 

The battle now seemed like a giant fun performance and ceremony and got the energy moving. We were given permission to access the sacred ochre pits to get tons of white ochre to begin line marking the giant art piece and I left camp and headed home that evening to get art supplies ... excited.

The next morning, we got a call from camp to say the government had called the conflict off and was going to be investigating the company for corruption! 

I arrived back at camp to a giant party and as My friend Mike and I arrived, the elder women grabbed us and whisked us off to an elder meeting that was taking place. 

An elder auntie grabbed me and looked me in the eye and said that the reason that the conflict was called off was because we had engaged in art and ceremony and she asked for a copy of the diagram to keep for her children so they would remember that day and how to deal with these 'white fella' situations. 

She explained that as soon as we had switched gears from confronting the armed force to art and ceremony, the spirits of the land could now support us and were grateful that we had 'remembered' this tactic in time to avoid confrontation! 

I learned an amazing lesson that day about solving a crises using higher frequency 'technology' of the heart. 

A great opportunity to unite our community and instead of confrontation, offer the gift of shared creative path.

Two phrases of this story have stuck in my mind. 

1) First,

“If you can protest without an emotional investment in the outcome, you always win.” 

What he means here is not to suggest that we cease caring about the land, water and communities we seek to protect. Rather, he is warning against attachment to being the winners or the losers of the conflict. 

When that attachment is present, the outcome will be influenced by the playing out of psychological dramas, because the events of our lives unfold in reflection of our own shadows, fears, unresolved inner conflicts and so on. 

To take a rather simplistic example, if the protesters carry the unconscious motivation of wanting to know themselves as right, valiant, and praiseworthy, then losing the battle and going to jail might be more gratifying than winning. (I’m not saying this motivation is ever primary in a protester, but sometimes there does seem to be a theme of “here we righteous are gathered on the side of Good.”)

Dan is describing an attitude of service and trust. 

We serve an end but we don’t know how it will be attained, and we recognize as well that an even better outcome than the envisioned end is possible as well. Dan is offering an example of using playful means in the spirit of protest, and beyond that, suggesting that we act from a spirit of play as well. In the spirit of play we do not dictate the outcome to the other players. The game itself takes on a life of its own.

2) The second phrase that leapt out at me was,

“She explained that as soon as we had switched gears from confronting the armed force to art and ceremony, the spirits of the land could now support us and were grateful that we had 'remembered' this tactic in time to avoid confrontation!” 

The spirits of the land cannot work if we ourselves insist on being in charge of the situation. Their ways are not our ways. The tactics of play, humor and ceremony give the land spirits an opening in which to operate.

I think for these tactics to be effective, they cannot be merely tactics. The paradigm of force can surreptitiously creep back in, in the form of, “We were just having an innocent celebration and look what those nasty police did anyway!” 

If there is anything of this victim or martyr agenda, then the emotional attachment Dan warns of will be present, and the tactic will not work. The celebration cannot happen in the expectation or the perverse hope that it will be crushed. 

That would be the paradigm of force – shaming the enemy and arousing the bystanders into indignantly rising up against them. 

The celebration, the play, has to be real, drawing from a perception of the world in which celebration and play come naturally. 

Isn’t that the world we want to create?

Charles Eisenstein is a speaker and writer focusing on themes of human culture and identity. He is the author of several books, most recently Sacred Economics, The Ascent of Humanity and The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible .

charleseisenstein.net

How Life is Rigged in Your Favor

by Keith Varnum -

The cards are stacked in your favor. The cards are stacked for your abundance. The cards are stacked for your health. The cards are stacked for your joy.

The very nature of the universe is grace. Your natural state is one of joy, love and peace.

All you have to do is let go into that natural state. When you let go, all your life will be re-arranged in alignment with that harmony and balance.

The basic structure of the universe is unity and cooperation. The Universal Matrix is set up for harmony—for us all to win, for everyone to win. It’s a win-win-win affair.

There’s Nothing You Need to Do

There’s nothing you need to do but let go into the naturally harmonious, giving universe.

• You don’t have to do any practices perfectly, or even right.
• You don’t have to eat the right foods or do an hour of yoga daily.
• You don’t have to worry about choosing the best spiritual technique or approach.
• There’s no right or wrong way to do life.
• All roads lead to Home. You can’t do it wrong.

Let Go of the Maintenance Project

All you have to do is to let go of the maintenance project—all the things you think you have to do to get it right—all the things you think you have to hold it all together.

But you don’t have to hold it all together. You don’t have to make sure it doesn’t all fall apart.

The universe will hold itself together—in a self-regulating dance of change and harmony.

Let Go of the Need to Be a Good Person

You can let go of the need to be a good person.

You’re already a good person. You’ve always been a good person. You’ll always be a good person. There is no original sin. No inherent badness or evil to overcome. We are whole and complete and perfect just as we are.

You Don’t Have to Become Worthy

You don’t have to create being worthy. You are worthy. You’ve always been worthy. You’re ok just the way you are. You’ve always been ok the way you are.

The world is ok the way it is. The world’s always been ok the way it is.

You Don’t Have to Believe

You don’t have to believe any of this. Or think that it’s true. Let go and find out. Just let go and find out for yourself.

Let go of doing everything that you think you have to do. Let go of doing everything that you feel you should do. See what happens!

Discover for yourself the true nature of life.

Let go and find out!

thedream.com

Our Next New Phase

by Kara Schallock -

Ascension Notes: 

What I share is your potential as it exists in the higher dimensions. You are honored right where you are and everyone is right where they belong. 

Some are living their New Lives; others are somewhere in between the New and the old, others are just now awakening and many are still asleep, dulled by the 3D illusion of separation and strife. 

Some will resonate with what is shared here and others not so much. Remember, this simply is what I am guided to share.

One of the most important tools you have is that of Detachment. 

I know of a few people who are definitely in this stage of being. Detachment helps one let go of 3D illusions. This season, that is almost complete, is a great example of this. 

It is rife with separation and many fall back to sleep in order to fit in with the masses. It is the Path of the highly evolved being to stay focused on Who they are; not just in words but in true feelings and true action. 

Being detached helps a being rise in vibration, consciousness and dimension. 

It can feel uncomfortable, because it is not the way we’ve been programmed to feel and be. 

However, as one Sister-friend said, “…the energy is there to blast through the illusion once and for all.” 

Another friend posted on my Facebook Community Page about how strange it feels to be so detached from 3D and how it is difficult to do basic chores and wondered how one can offer anything in 3D when living in the higher dimensions is so free and effortless in simply Being Love. 

Another Sister-friend writes how challenging it is to work at a job that is in 3D, even while sharing her LoveLight. I’m sure some of you, and I trust many of you, can relate. I certainly do.

In the higher dimensions there is no time separation; it simply flows as One; it is time-less. 

So when referring to one year ending and a new beginning, it seems silly to me, for they flow together with no break in between. 

Time and years are human constructs, designed to hold us in an old paradigm. I also encourage us to let go of the word “paradigm,” for it is merely another container, even when called a “new paradigm.” 

When one reaches a particular higher dimensional state of Being, one questions all things including popular notions of spirituality and Ascension. One sees the higher truth in others and in all things. 

Being Authentic

There is no hiding; only being authentic and true to oneself, detached from all expectations of how things are “supposed” to be. 

Detachment is not “not caring.” It actually is a higher form of Love and Freedom. It sets all free to be and choose what resonates within.

As we flow into the higher energies seamlessly, we can also let go of portals and gateways, which also seem separate from the Flow. 

What I have experienced is an infinite, non-stop, steady flow of high dimensional Light. So if there is a difference between the phase we’ve been in and this phase we are now entering is that…Infinite, ongoing Light. 

I know that doing Ceremony heightens our experience, and yet, we needn’t be attached to doing these on a particular day, do we? Just like we needn’t share Love on a particular holiday or get together with loved ones in a particular timeframe. 

Let us be Love every day; in every moment.

Most of us are somewhere along this continuum and we are able to see clearly where we are still attached, what and who we still are called to let go of and how we continue to evolve through our choices. 

There is no deadline and no “supposed-to’s” or “shoulds.” 

There is only this Moment and we can choose to be more or resist and stay right where we are. 

We will continue to receive downloads of Light and we will continue to hone our choices as we continue to evolve infinitely with no time constraint. 

Now is the time to be real; to strip off our many masks until we stand naked in pure Authenticity.

We needn’t explain or define or articulate what we feel is Truth, for that has been done in all the religions. 

What we are to now do is to Be and follow our feelings (guidance). 

How can we articulate our own state of Being, especially as it shifts day by day and moment by moment? For isn’t that then placing it in a box; a paradigm of constriction? 

We can paint a picture and write a story, yet can we truly share how we felt deep within doing so? And each one of you will take away something unique from each picture, story, writing and channeling; even this one. 

This is because each of us has our own experiences and our own perceptions and history, which then filters what is shared so that it is meaningful for our own personal growth and evolution. 

When one sees a tree, another will see the beings in the tree or a forest or the world. As “they” say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Ponder that statement and feel the larger meaning.

We are called to honor who we are honestly and authentically. 

We are called to walk our talk and to be a role model of what we talk about. We teach by being the highest we can be, and as we do that we integrate the New within us and our Light touches all others. 

You can emulate another who stands in their own Light, but do not follow them; be your own Light. This is what we’re called to Be in this New Phase.

It is time that we live our Truth. 

We have integrated enough Light so now let us put it into action. Stay focused on who you say you are and the backward pull into the old 3D duality will become less and less of a challenge. 

Even as you still must pay the rent and shop for food, you can do it consciously without being seduced back into duality. 

Stay centered and grounded and take care of your physical body so that you may be even more of a channel of high dimensional New Life. Remember that we are the ones who have chosen to bring Heaven to Earth and not the other way around.

Remain focused on being your highest self, stay in the Moment so that you can feel your next steps and know that you are incredibly blessed as a Being of Love. 

Know too that you are expanding in all that you are…Creativity, Abundance, Love, Peace, Joy and more. What you focus on is what you attract to you, because what is attracted to you resonates with your consciousness.

soulsticerising.com

Doing the Best We Can

by Mike Robbins - 

I’m sometimes amazed and embarrassed by how critical I can be – both of other people and of myself. 

Even though I both teach and practice the power of appreciation (as well as acceptance, compassion, authenticity and more) when I find myself feeling scared, threatened or insecure (which happens more often than I’d like it to), I notice that I can be quite judgmental. 

Sadly, as I’ve learned throughout my life, being critical and judgmental never works, feels good or leads me to what I truly want in my relationships and in my life.  Maybe you can you relate to this yourself?

I’ve recently been challenged by a few situations and relationships that have triggered an intense critical response – both towards myself and those involved. 

As I’ve been noticing this, working through it and looking for alternative ways to respond, I’m reminded of something I heard Louise Hay say a number of years ago.  She said,

“It’s important to remember that people are always doing the best they can, including you.”

The power of this statement resonated with me deeply when I heard it and continues to have an impact on me to this day. 

Although I sometimes forget this, when I do remember that we’re all doing the best we can given whatever tools and resources we have (and given the circumstances and situations we’re experiencing), it usually calms me down and creates a sense of compassion for the people I’m dealing with and for myself.

Unfortunately, too often we take things personally that aren’t, look for what’s wrong, and critically judge the people around us and ourselves, instead of bringing a sense of love, understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and appreciation to the most important (and often most challenging) situations and relationships in our lives.

When we take a step back and remember that most of the time people aren’t “out to get us,” purposefully doing things to upset or annoy us, or consciously trying to make mistakes, disappoint us, or create difficulty (they’re simply doing the best they can and what they think makes the most sense) – we can save ourselves from unnecessary overreactions and stress. 

When we’re able to have this same awareness and compassion in how we relate to ourselves, we can dramatically alter our lives and relationships in a positive way.

Things you can do and remember:

• Give people the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time people have good intentions.  Many of us, myself included, have been trained to be cautious and suspicious of others, even seeing this as an important and effective skill in life and business.  However, we almost always get what we expect from people, so the more often we give people the benefit of the doubt, the more often they will prove us “right,” and the less often we will waste our precious time and energy on cynicism, suspicion, and judgment.

• Don’t take things personally. One of my favorite sayings is, “You wouldn’t worry about what other people think about you so much, if you realized how little they actually did.”  The truth is that most people are focused on themselves much more than on us.  Too often in life we take things personally that have nothing to do with us.  This doesn’t mean we let people walk all over us or treat us in disrespectful or hurtful ways (it can be important for us to speak up and push back at times in life).  However, when we stop taking things so personally, we liberate ourselves from needless upset, defensiveness, and conflict.

• Look for the good. Another way to say what I mentioned above about getting what we expect from other people is that we almost always find what we look for.  If you want to find some things about me that you don’t like, consider obnoxious, or get on your nerves – just look for them, I’m sure you’ll come up with some.  On the flip side, if you want to find some of my best qualities and things you appreciate about me, just look for those – they are there too.  As Werner Erhard said, “In every human being there is both garbage and gold, it’s up to us to choose what we pay attention to.” Looking for the good in others (as well as in life and in ourselves), is one of the best ways to find things to appreciate and be grateful for.

• Seek first to understand. Often when we’re frustrated, annoyed, or in conflict with another person (or group of people), we don’t feel seen, heard, or understood.  As challenging and painful as this can be, one of the best things we can do is to shift our attention from trying to get other people to understand us (or being irritated that it seems like they don’t), is to seek to understand the other person (or people) involved in an authentic way. This can be difficult, especially when the situation or conflict is very personal and emotional to us. However, seeking to understand is one of the best ways for us to liberate ourselves from the grip of criticism and judgment, and often helps shift the dynamic of the entire thing. Being curious, understanding, and even empathetic of another person and their perspective or feelings doesn’t mean we agree with them, it simply allows us to get into their world and see where they’re coming from – which is essential to letting go of judgment, connecting with them, and ultimately resolving the conflict.

• Be gentle with others (and especially with yourself). Being gentle is the opposite of being critical. When we’re gentle, we’re compassionate, kind, and loving. We may not like, agree with, or totally understand what someone has done (or why), but we can be gentle in how we respond and engage with them. Being gentle isn’t about condoning or appeasing anyone or anything, it’s about having a true sense of empathy and perspective. And, the most important place for us to bring a sense of gentleness is to ourselves. Many of us have a tendency to be hyper self-critical. Sadly, some of the harshest criticism we dole out in life is aimed right at us. Another great saying I love is, “We don’t see people as they are, we see them as we are.” As we alter how we relate to ourselves, our relationship to everyone else and to the world around us is altered in a fundamental way.

As the Dalai Lama so brilliantly says,

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

Everyone around us – our friends, co-workers, significant other, family members, children, service people, clients and even people we don’t know or care for – are doing the best they can, given the resources they have.

When we remember this and come from a truly compassionate perspective (with others and with ourselves), we’re able to tap into a deeper level of peace, appreciation and fulfillment.

mike-robbins.com

Moving Beyond Struggle

 

by Marlene Buffa - 

Struggling. Our culture believes that emerging victorious from a struggle is commendable. The outcome seems irrelevant, yet many times focus is bestowed on the process, rather than the result. 

We look at adversity and challenge ourselves to overcome it. We look at adversity and generate respect and honor to those who rise above it, in spite of all odds. 

Struggle seems to have no limitations: if someone reaches a goal through struggle, we rally around him or her as a hero, a triumphant example of perseverance and persistence. 

When someone is enveloped by struggle and adversity consumes him, we see struggle as the victor and we rally around him or her as a victim. In either case, "struggle," not the individual, remains the radius around which we measure our personal growth.

Yet as we further examine the outcroppings of "success," we find the result of success lies in personal fortitude.

What is fortitude but a different face of faith?

True success and strength lie not in the constant struggle with life, but in the power of knowing that life supports us and the humility to accept the lessons put in our path. 

When I'm faced with a challenge, I take a deep breath and ask myself, "Do I trust God?" Yes. "Do I trust Life?" Yes. 

God didn't put me on earth to get beat up by life. I trust that God intends the best for me and the lessons along the way are just means to an end. 

Sure, I encounter hazards, heartbreaks, even hiccups along the way, but overall, I see these as challenges and choose not to "struggle" my way through them. 

By surrendering the struggle, the worry, the tension, the anxiety and turning the situation over to God for my greater good, my faith rewarded me. 

I found it a LOT harder to hold faith rather than concentrate on struggle. It's mental work. It's work on a soul-level– perhaps the most difficult work we perform. 

When everything I hold dear screams inside of me, "wait - think of what you must endure to achieve this," I turn to the most difficult teacher of all, the power of my faith.

I bought a Christmas ornament last year. Just one. A red sequined "ruby" slipper like Dorothy's in the Wizard of Oz.

This dazzling ornament, alone on my tree, sparkles in the light, reminding me I hold the power all along. 

Like Dorothy's, my slipper represents my ability to use my talents, my mind, my creativity and most of all, my faith to get me through. It's symbolic of faith and most people carry their own symbols with them all along and don’t know how to use it. 

True strength of your character comes not from struggling. Struggling indicates you do not deserve the good things life offers you. 

You feel you must do penance in advance for good to come into your life. If good things in your life constitute your desired results either through struggle or faith, then dare yourself to deserve the good without pre-payment!

Faith and trust. 

Two very difficult concepts for our guarded personas to accept. If you trust God and Life enough to provide for your needs, then struggle is unnecessary. 

Move beyond struggle. Give it up. Release "struggle's" hold on you. It doesn't serve you. Grow into your faith and the fruits of your desires blossom forth. After all, you deserve it! 

wordsofmind.com

Finding Your True Self

 Breaking Down Belief Systems:

by Nikki Sapp - 

Whether we realize it or not our entire identity is formed off of the relationships that we have with the world around us. In fact, our perception that we even exist at all is dependent upon these relationships to people, places and things, in order to survive. For example, in relation to a tree I am a human, in relation to that man I am a daughter, in relation to that child I am a mom, in relation to that lady I am a friend, in relation to this dog I am its owner, etc.

Our whole existence is formed off of who or what we are in relation to the things around us. With each one of these relationships comes a different personality. We have the personality when we are with our family, we have the personality we are with our pet, we have our friend personality, we have our work personality, and we even have the personality of the voice in our head that is commentating on everything.

Going even further down the rabbit hole, within each one of these personalities we have preconceived notions about the way we should behave, the way others should behave and the way life in general should go.

The friend personality has its beliefs of what it means to be a friend, the employee personality behaves in accordance with its ideas about what it means to be an employee, the spouse personality has its own set of rules and regulations on what it means to be a spouse, and so on and so forth.

With all these different ideas, belief systems and relationships that make up who we are, or at least who we think we are, how do we find out who we REALLY are? How do we go about breaking down relationships into labels down to personalities down to belief systems all the way down to our lowest common denominator?

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be, you can’t see how it is.” –-Ram Dass

Before we can break ourselves down to this level we must first ask ourselves, “What IS our lowest common denominator?” 

The lowest common denominator is us at our first level, our most authentic self.

It is the part of us that has not one concept or preconceived anything about anything. It has no thoughts, beliefs, ideas or judgments of how we should behave, or of how others should behave because it exists prior to all labels and concepts of what is “right”, “wrong”, “acceptable” or “unacceptable.”

It can never be upset or offended because it has no prior idea of how things should happen or how people should act. It is our pure consciousness. It is the awareness that literally is the observer of all the different personalities that show up in our day to day existence. Our lowest common denominator experiences life as it is in the present moment.

When we become in touch with our lowest common denominator we experience life as it is. 

We experience people and relationships as they are without getting caught up in the labels in our head of what we believe someone should be acting like. One would dare to say, it is only when we get in touch with our lowest common denominator that we are actually truly living, because when we are not in touch with this pure awareness we are still operating from our thoughts about a situation instead of the situation itself.

To always be in our thoughts is to constantly be judging which means we are not present. The less we are truly present and living in the moment, the less we are experiencing life in its most authentic form. So now that we know WHAT it is, the question still remains, how do we find and connect with this part of ourselves?

“When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself” --Lao Tzu

In order to break down all our beliefs about life and people and become completely anchored in our field of pure awareness, we must turn our attention inward. Once we become focused on what is going on inside of us, we are then able to confront every judgment, criticism, belief and idea head on.

It is only in this confrontation of ourselves that we are able to realize that every single one of our judgments of good/bad, right/wrong, acceptable/unacceptable is based on prior programming, which stems from how we were raised, or where we grew up or what books we read etc… However, our lowest common denominator exists PRIOR to this programming.

Whenever we find ourselves placing judgment on others or on the world we can be assured that we are not operating from lowest common denominator.

We must literally always point the finger back at ourselves anytime we find ourselves becoming frustrated, angry, offended because these emotions are always indicative that there is a preconceived belief of the way things SHOULD be, that is being triggered.

Once we become willing to confront these beliefs we are able to connect with a stream of inner stillness and silence that allows our authentic self to emerge.

Operating from our lowest common denominator won’t always be easy and will definitely take practice at first, especially for those of us who have become very attached to all of their ideas of who they think they are or should be.

When we are brave enough to confront ourselves and question every single belief down to the point that the false self cannot come up with even one more lie to try and make us believe in its validity, we are on the path to our authentic self.

Our authentic self gets to experience the present moment in its purest form, it gets to experience people and situations in their most raw and genuine way, the way they truly are before our thoughts step in with all their judgments and commentary on a situation.

When we start living this way we see the world through brand new eyes, through the eyes of a person who has no prior knowledge or judgment on anything, which means we start to live through our feelings and instincts and consequently the world becomes new and exciting all over again.

cultureofawareness.com