by user_dd | Apr 15, 2020 | Community Conversations
Simply think the highest thoughts you can; feel the deepest love you are capable of; reach up or down to the highest, or deepest, Divinity that you can experience; treat others with the tenderest of kindness and the most caring of compassion that you possibly can; and if you are anywhere near the leading edge of evolution, you will directly, immediately, and instantly contribute to what Whitehead called “an ultimate of the universe”—namely, the “creative advance into novelty.” In other words, you will contribute to evolution itself.
~ pg 219-220 “The Religion of Tomorrow” by Ken Wilbur
I’m reading this book right now. It’s very interesting. The detractor that it weighs as much as a boat anchor is lessened considerably by the fact that I have always been passionate about the contents—consciousness evolution.
I was struck by this quote due to the fact that it makes important commentary in light of the COVID-19 crisis. What this quote is calling for, written in 2017, is even more apropos today.
We all have the ability, through our thoughts, to influence reality.
That’s just a given at this point, so if you haven’t caught up to that, I encourage you to dive into the Upanishads, or better yet the Dhammapada, or some other wisdom teachings that suit you from something older than the NY Times best-seller list. Remember—if it’s still published after thousands of years, there’s probably a good reason. That’s why they’re called ‘wisdom traditions,’ right?
As Lightworkers and harbingers of the New Paradigm (i.e. Shamballah, as we like to refer to it in the Western Mystery Tradition), we have the added responsibility to carefully curate our thoughts in service to molding the kind of future that we want to live into.
We make a choice every day to live in alignment with God, Unity, Source, Creator, Universal Energy—whatever you want to call the highest and most expansive, ineffable power that makes this reality possible.
The dominance of rational thought as a predictor of our lived reality was debunked thousands of years ago, by initiates in the Mystery Tradition, of course. See any commentary on Zeno’s Paradoxes for the weird and unpredictable places that rational thought and logic can take us. In short, rational thought does not lead to a rational reality.
With passion and intention, we increase the power of those thoughts.
Our emotional state has the ability to affect how DNA expresses (see most of Bruce Lipton’s recent work). Metaphysically we know that the emotion of Bliss, specifically, has an impact on how your DNA enfolds/replicates. Long story short, you are more powerful when in a Bliss state because your DNA can enfold/replicate most purely, with less (genetic) information loss, and you are more YOU as each generation of cells replicates.
This is what I really mean by ‘with passion.’ When you are passionate, you are literally and physically more YOU! Your energy flows without interference.
Any delay or obstruction to you being YOU is interference. When there is no interference in your energy flow, there is no loss between information in (i.e. intention) and information out (i.e. manifestation). This is what we mean by creating your reality—matching intention with manifest reality by reducing/eliminating the information delay/obstruction caused by you not being fully YOU.
That’s the metaphysical reason why we say, “Follow your passion.”
I’m Conscious, Right?
But not every part of us is under conscious control. In fact, we are conscious of only about 5% of our cognitive activity. The conscious mind actively pushes information processing to the subconscious to free up valuable cognitive resources for novel information. The subconscious just plays back what it’s programmed to, it’s not creative like your conscious mind.
How much of your thinking each day is novel? It takes less energy to think the same thoughts we did yesterday, and so your body is rewarded for doing so—physically and energetically.
The subconscious and conscious mind work together to mold our experience. It’s just that we spend most of our day responding to the same autonomic thoughts from our subconscious. But when we do interrupt those subconscious processes, bringing a new awareness to our reality, we see things differently.
Whatever the conscious mind focuses on, it can control. Thus, intention is necessary for us to control our reality. What we have control over, we have power over. So intention also increases the power of our thoughts.
COVID-19 is a transformational agent calling on us to create the conditions for a new world—Shamballah.
Yes, of course I acknowledge the tremendous pain and tragedy due to the pandemic. As I write, the outbreak is still getting worse in the USA. The markets are in a terrible state, and you have to arrange your grocery pick-up at least 10 days in advance to have a chance of getting anything on your list. We have to look the truth straight in the face in times like these in order to take empowered action.
I see this time as a transformational opportunity, to slow down or halt certain businesses, cultures, systems and try to recreate a new way of operating coming out of the experience caused by this virus.
As Ken Wilbur notes above, when we can direct our thoughts to the highest energy, deepest love, grandest compassion, we can find something truly novel, something truly evolutionary, something new that this world has never seen.
Are you making choices based on low vibrations of fear and worry? Or are you looking for what you can give? Are you looking to be in service? Are you looking for how you can be open to Spirit? Are you thinking high, deep, and grand thoughts? Or are you thinking small, closed, fragmented ones?
This is a choice you’re making right now that will direct the course of your life for many months to come. Will the new world you create be a slightly modified version of the old, or will you try something completely new this time? Will you stay operating from the old programming of the subconscious, or will you enlist that help of your conscious, creative mind and envision a new way of living?
Meditate on that. I look forward to what you create…
by user_dd | Apr 2, 2020 | Community Conversations
Here’s a dirty little secret…”altered states of consciousness” is a total misnomer.
Altered states of consciousness are necessary and inevitable milestones on the path to enlightenment and consciousness development.
In this series of blogs (this is the first), we’ll dive deeper into why consciousness expansion and altered states of consciousness are necessary on your spiritual path.
Let’s take a look at what’s going on…
What’s actually altering in your brain
Our real-time experience is colored or informed by our prior experiences. Whenever we experience something new, our physical brain ‘expands’ by strengthening neuronal connections, essentially voting for that perceived reality next time our brain has to discern what’s happening to us. If we encounter something similar in the future, our brain will go ‘Aha!’ I have a file for that, and will go activate that set of neurons in the brain.
This happens again and again until we’ve experienced that same experience so many times, we don’t even ‘think’ about it anymore. Our brains quickly fill in the gaps, so much that we’re likely to miss out on details from a new event that reminds us of a past event. If there is anything different about the experience, our brain will actually filter that information out and replace it with what it thinks is happening instead, and we misperceive our reality.
If we do happen to notice what doesn’t ‘belong’, and if our expectations are very different than the actual experience, we experience stress. This is your brain trying to figure out how it possibly could have made a mistake, because in its world, everything should be continuing to advance along a continuum toward sameness, predictability, and stability.
You see, the brain is trying to conserve resources. If we perceived and had to think about every detail of our experience all the time, it would be just way too much information. Our brain is constantly programming the subconscious to be able to take on responses and reactions to our environment so the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain engaged in conscious processing, can focus on more ‘important’ matters, like novel experiences.
What is consciousness?
Consciousness expansion can sometimes be misinterpreted to mean simply paying more attention, or mindfulness by people outside the industry. If you’re a psychonaut, shamanic journeyer, or other regular ‘explorer’ of conscious states, you’ll note that there is nothing really expanding here. We are simply using the full capacity of our current resources to better perceive our environment, ‘raising’ our awareness rather than relying on subconscious processes to navigate reality. Humans are notorious for underutilizing their existing resources.
Consciousness expansion, rather, is about whole new perceptions in the field of information and stimulus around us. It’s not about perceiving what we already CAN perceive, it’s about perceiving NOVEL stimuli we didn’t previously have access to before. It’s like perceiving a new color all of a sudden. The color was always there, yet we didn’t have the faculty to perceive it or discern it from the information field we are accessing through our consciousness. We didn’t see it as novel or unique.
For example, in Homer’s the Odyssey, the color blue is not mentioned once in the book. This is striking in that much of the book is about a sea voyage. Homer uses the term ‘wine-dark sea.’ Blue was also the last color to appear in many ancient languages like Greek, Japanese, and Hebrew (where the oldest sample of anything blue is less than 2,000 years old). It seems that Ancient Egyptians were the first to have a word for ‘blue’ in that they were the first to produce blue dye.
Does this mean ancient civilizations didn’t see blue? Or did they just not perceive it as unique or novel in their environment? I argue that ancient people needed, and we need now, to expand our consciousness in order to experience the full spectrum of what’s available to us as human beings.
So what about this misnomer?
Consciousness expansion is actually about shifting OUT of our consciousness and into pure awareness. Wisdom traditions of old have studied this shift in humans for millennia, and the Tibetan Buddhists, in particular, have extremely well-developed systems for helping humans make this shift.
If we shift too far out of reality into pure awareness, people think we’re crazy. If we never leave our current reality, we cannot grow. This is where NOT having a solid footing in social norms established by shared agreement with other humans can result in various types of psychological diagnoses related to levels of psychosis. If we can’t come back to a shared reality, we get locked up by today’s mental institutions.
Regardless of your ability to come back to this version of reality, however, it’s helpful to have a guide.
So where do I find a guide?
Go no further than the Western Mystery tradition. The reason why we call it a ‘mystery’ tradition is not because power-hungry white guys have a need to keep secrets (they may, but not because of mystical knowledge). On the contrary, we are in the ‘age of no more secrets.’ The information is available to all who would seek further knowledge and Light.
As a Guide in the Hermetic lineage of King Salomon, I’ve given my life to serve those who truly seek ‘consciousness expansion,’ or whatever you think that means. Now we know what I mean by that at least—for me, and for the mystery traditions, it’s about embodying limitless divinity, not doing more mental gymnastics with your brain (such as reading a bunch of books and thinking you understand ritual, or memorizing a bunch of correspondences but not applying them).
The term ‘mystery’ is used simply because no one has the right to tell you, a unique expression of divinity, how you ultimately will perceive reality through your pure awareness because we all have unique DNA. Thus we all have a unique perspective, both physical and spiritual, on the world. The opportunity is for you to discover your own uniqueness. To ‘Know Thyself’ (in the words of the Oracle at Delphi) and to thrive in your unique strengths and proclivities that make for a fulfilling life…for you and you alone to judge (with that know-it-all brain of yours).
Ready to dive deeper into the mystery? Download my complimentary tool, the Rapid Transition Workbook and get started on your transformational journey today!
Tune in next month for the follow-up on this topic.
by user_dd | Aug 21, 2019 | Community Conversations
Conflict is a part of the human condition, and most of us spend our time trying to avoid it. I’m here to humbly offer an alternative: embrace the conflict.
Having just celebrated my second year of marriage, I’m certifiably past the honeymoon phase. So when I forget to take out the recycling or fold the clothes out of the dryer, I can’t just smile and get a pass for being cute. These days I have to work much harder to be lazy.
Of course, there are some things I can’t just talk my way out of in relationships, no matter how much sales training, NLP, and other tricks I have up my sleeve. So when I make a stupid comment like, ‘Your idea is terrible’ to my partner, I get to spend the rest of the evening backing away from the abyss I almost walked right into.
Whether my comment is true doesn’t matter, I still will not get to veg out in front of a movie for the evening if I can’t find some alignment with my partner.
Historic Explorations of Conflict
As early as a few hundred years before Christ, philosophers were working through similar dinnertime conversations to shirk their domestic duties and leave the household chores for another day. If you can prove to your partner that motion is indeed impossible, why should they expect you to get off the couch?
In Zeno’s famous paradoxes, he proves just that. Since there’s plenty of material written to explain what his paradoxes are, I’ll leave your discoveries to other articles on the subject.
I would rather use this space to highlight a few important points about this particular piece of history: 1) Zeno was the student of Parmenides, and 2) he developed his paradoxes to defend his teacher’s then unpopular monisitic view of the world (i.e. “how all reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, and necessary.” I have also quoted Parmenides poem ‘On Nature’ here).
As you may be able to tell from the above, Parmenides was a metaphysician exploring the mysteries of how the universe works. He has been called the father of metaphysics, and his connection to the great mystery schools is evidenced in the overlap of both the orientation of his theory and explanation of reality as we experience it (not to mention our written record of initiates).
Of course, we know the form and content of his arguments had existed long before his lifetime having been preserved by the secret mystery schools from time immemorial.
Conflict Means Someone Cares
The point in bringing this up is simply to say that conflict is germane to our existence. The disconnect between our perceived reality and that of ultimate reality has been documented for thousands of years by the world’s wisdom traditions. You’re not going to be successful in creating a world without conflict. It’s the nature of being human.
What you CAN DO is change your relationship to conflict. I like to view conflict as an effort towards understanding. After all, have you ever had a conflict with someone you don’t care about? The only reason conflict exists is that something important to you is at stake.
So take it as a compliment next time you find yourself arguing about household chores, political views, or whether Black Panther is a good movie. If this person is spending time arguing, they may actually care about you, your perspective, and the topic at hand. Otherwise, why would they waste their time trying to change your mind?
Conflict is a move toward Unity
Conflict is simply a step on the way to Unity. And last I checked, we need more UNITY. What we need LESS OF is apathy. So start showing that you care and argue away (respectfully). You might discover new insights into the nature of the universe, AND be able to finish the next episode of whatever your binge watching on Netflix. I’ll have to catch up later after doing some clean up with my partner.
by user_dd | Jun 19, 2016 | Community Conversations
If everything you owned burned in an inferno, how would you feel?
What if your partner or best friend died tomorrow?
What if you were diagnosed with cancer and were facing chemotherapy, radiation, and the possibility of not making it in the next few years?
Sometimes, we think we have life figured out (not really, but we pretend we do). If we have that car, that job, or that house, we’re golden. If our day goes just the way we wanted it, we score! If we triple our income, we’re on Cloud Nine.
At least, that’s how many of us think in the Industrial West. But why do we have these ideas? Is this our heart speaking, or is it our brain? We’ve been conditioned for so many years. Reflexively, we reach towards what we’ve been told we’re supposed to have. If we have all of the right THINGS, we’re living the Good Life.
So much of what passes for spirituality nowadays supercharges this ego chase, so that we can satisfy what someone or something told us will make us happy. It’s sedating. But spirituality isn’t meant to sedate us–we have enough of that already! It’s meant to break us out of our old paradigms and help us emerge as beings Aware of the nature of Reality. If we’re addicted to our current paradigm, this transformation can feel uncomfortable.
What many of us also don’t realize is that spirituality is the Art of Living. It isn’t something we start and stop on the meditation cushion. ANY experience can enhance awareness, depending on how we approach it.
Pain and destruction raise our perception, if we allow them, if we’re completely present with them and nonjudgmental. They clear away what’s superfluous and illusory, leaving behind the True Nature. When you lose everything, you can realize, in a sobering flash, that those things don’t define you.
The Tibetan Buddhists have a practice called Chod, a ritual that takes place in a graveyard at night, where fierce and horrific entities are summoned and invited to tear apart the practitioner. In the astral carnage, the person loses attachment to the ego and enters the Void of Supreme Reality. Buddhists believe that clinging even to positive things will keep one from attaining the highest vision.
We don’t need demons or wrathful deities to tear us apart, because it seems like life does this enough to us as it is. But instead of running away from the “darkness,” we can embrace it and let it work its power on us, freeing us from our limited perspective.
Truly, what is good and bad is a point of view. Getting eaten by a mountain lion would be awful for us, but wonderful for the starving animal and her cubs. Right and wrong aren’t built into the Cosmos–there’s simply experience.
Sometimes, we just need a bitchslap to wake us up. We’re in a game, and if we take it too seriously, or get sucked into it too much, we’re missing out.
Here are some tips for riding the flames:
1. Let yourself feel your emotions, no matter how “low” or “gross” they are. Observe them and let them pass. No need to hold onto anything.
2. Instead of using your head to think of things to manifest, meditate until you reach some deeper sense of yourself, and let your Heart inspire you. Follow the signs in your life with childlike curiosity, but without serious expectation.
3. When facing a challenging period of your life, don’t struggle to make this or that happen. Allow things to happen as they will, and go with it, keeping an open mind to the possibilities. Things will probably fall away that you won’t realize until later you didn’t need.
4. Don’t be afraid to let go of things you now consider “positive.” At some point, you may start to see them as less glamorous than they appear now.
Be courageous on your Journey!
Let’s hear about your experiences! Please share below.
