Nothing
Is As It Seems
Early
one morning in the late 1980s, I was drinking coffee and having
breakfast at the local fast food restaurant (the one with the golden
arches). Suddenly, I heard a loud voice! It said “I am speaking to
you telepathically, but I can also speak to you with my mouth.”
Startled, I quickly looked around to see if anyone else
had heard it. Obviously, they hadn’t. As I turned and looked
directly behind me, I saw a man drinking coffee, about six feet from
where I was sitting. He was wearing a faded red T-shirt, had a large
pot belly, and looked as though he were taking a break from his truck
driving job. I noticed there were about a dozen of those little
creamers they give you for your coffee, setting on his table.
Something
very unusual had just happened, and I thought to myself, Could
it have been the voice of the man just behind me? It
seemed implausible. I stood up, walked out the front door, went
around to the side door, and then walked back into the restaurant.
From that vantage point I could see everyone in the dining room, but
I still couldn’t figure out who the voice had come from. When I
returned to my seat, I decided it must have been the person I had
thought was a truck driver. I turned again to look at him, but found
he was no longer there. Had he walked out the door? Or, had he simply
vanished? I may never know the answer to those questions. Later on, I
realized he was the man that I have come to know as Babaji. For
whatever reason, for me and for others I’ve talked to who have had
similar experiences, he uses a hit-and-run tactic and never stops to
explain who he really is. A few years earlier, I had read about him
in Yogananda’s book, Autobiography
of a Yogi. It was
published in 1946 and has remained a popular classic to this day.
Yogananda was born in the late 1800s and was one of the first Indian
saints to come to the United States to lecture and teach the art of
meditation.
There
is much confusion around what spirituality actually is. To some, it
may conjure up visions of black magic, voodoo, or even animal
sacrifices. Some
ancient tribes are known to have practiced human
sacrifices in the name of religion. These rituals are, of course,
repulsive. Words like God and spirit have not faired much better.
Down through the ages, they have become distorted and have lost much
of their meaning. We have contemporary words like new age or
metaphysical which are used to label spirituality, but they are
inadequate as well. In his best-selling book, The
Power of Now, Eckhart
Tolle uses the word “presence,” instead of God and spirit. One of
the reasons for so much confusion is that words cannot adequately
describe the force we call God, presence, or spirit. Words are simply
inadequate.
No
doubt, you may have felt the subtle breeze of the unknown and perhaps
unknowable presence, entering into your life. If you are like I was,
you may not recognize that you are being ever so gently turned into
the “winds of change.” The reason for the subtlety is that ego
always resists change and a forceful shove would bring up a lot of
its resistance. There are exceptions of course. Some people who are
about to take this step, will feel like they are being pushed off a
cliff and will not survive. You may not be aware of how much your ego
resists, but it always
resists change. I am going to be talking a lot about my own
experiences, not so much because they may be similar to the ones you
will have, although they well might
be. Many of them are
very unusual and will stretch the boundaries of your beliefs about
the nature of reality, as they did for me. As you begin to explore
the reality of your soul and Higher Nature, you will find that
nothing
is as it seems.
So,
what are you looking for and why are you looking for it?
Dissatisfaction is the reason you or anyone else
looks for change, and in this
regard, dissatisfaction is your greatest ally. Without it, why would
you want to alter your course? You wouldn’t. For an alcoholic who
finds himself passed out and face down in a dark alley, it is about
physical survival. He will die if he doesn’t change his ways. For
you, it may be less dramatic, but nevertheless, you are looking in a
different direction than you would normally look for fulfillment and
satisfaction.
The
reasons for wanting to take a different direction with your life may
vary from person to person, but you know in your heart that you have
been lied to all of your life, and you want to know what the “truth”
actually is. Everyone eventually comes to this point in one lifetime
or another. You are at that point now, or you wouldn’t be where you
are, right now, reading this.
Many
of you have been involved in religion, but found it to be stifling.
You feel the need to look for something less confining. While there
is wisdom in Christianity and other religions, virtually all
of them have lost their way. They have become distorted through dogma
and misinterpretation of the original message. Truth rarely survives
the onslaught of time.
Henry
David Thoreau said that the
masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Buddha said that life
is suffering. The
mystery of life persists. We come and we go and for those few short
years we are here, we struggle to survive and find our way. The
meaning of life remains obscure.
There
are two types of people who will be drawn to this information: those
who have become curious and have one toe in the waters of change, and
those who have read books on the matter and are perhaps already
meditating or doing some other practices. You will be shown exactly
what you need to further your growth, wherever
you are on your journey. You may read this for pure entertainment and
that’s okay, but I’m not interested in having you as a student if
you are not committed to finding truth.
Most
people struggle and suffer throughout life, knowing all along that it
doesn’t have to be that way. Many become addicted to struggle, and
like any
addiction, it defines their lives. If you have become indoctrinated
by religion, you may even believe suffering makes you a better
person.
Many
look to the physical world for fulfillment, yet as you look around
you’ll find few, if any, who have found lasting peace or
fulfillment in the material world. It may look
like some have. Business tycoons and rock stars are paraded before us
on the nightly talk shows as examples of the good life, but many of
them succumb to drugs and alcohol. Their relationships don’t work,
and they are miserable, yet many still seek fulfillment in “things.”
You know that none of this will bring you what you really desire, but
you might be drawn to try “just one more time” to find what you
are looking for, in the “stuff” the world has to offer. You may
think a new relationship will help, a bigger house, a new car, maybe
even a sports car. A better education might just do the trick. You go
back to school to update your education and skills, and then join the
rat race of the corporate world, only to discover that striving
creates a lot more stress than you had bargained for. Many who fall
down this rabbit hole are unable to climb back up, and will succumb
to a lifetime of struggle and suffering.
Most
wealthy people will try to increase their wealth in order to enhance
their feeling of security. This often leads to a never-ending cycle
of accumulating more “things.” There is even a cultural
expression that speaks to this: “the one who dies with the most
toys wins.” Those who think this way are truly lost.
My
own
search for the meaning of life was the result of two decades of
success and subsequent failures. I have always been an entrepreneur.
By my late twenties I was successful in business, however by my early
thirties I lost all that I had achieved. So, I hunkered down and
found a “regular” job. Within a couple of years I found a new
avenue for my entrepreneurial flair and I became successful once
more. Then, guess what happened? I lost
it all again. By this time I had married and had a family to support.
I was devastated by my losses and was very concerned for the security
of my family. I began to experience a deep sense of insecurity,
anxiety, and even depression. Of course those feelings had been there
since early childhood, but they had been covered over by keeping
busy, and of course, denial. One of the reasons everyone feels so
much insecurity is that ego is fear-based. Consequently, most people
feel uneasy and insecure. Can we live a life of peace and fulfillment
without
the anxiety that everyone experiences? The answer to that question is
yes. Just keep on reading and you will discover how.
Because
of my business failures and nagging anxieties, I decided to try
psychotherapy as an avenue for exploring the reasons behind them. By
that time, I had become addicted to prescription drugs and was
drinking too much. While in therapy I stopped drinking and taking
drugs, and my anxieties diminished, but they didn’t entirely
disappear. The therapist explained that my anxieties were my ally,
because they created the desire for a deeper exploration of who I was
and what made me tick. Of course I didn’t really believe him at the
time. Most people are looking for a “quick fix,” as I was. It can
take years to unravel psychological issues that were acquired in
early childhood. If they are not
cleared, they simply keep attracting their own likeness and drawing
experiences that reinforce them. You can see this in your parents
and other people around you. As they get older, they become more
controlling, rigid, and fearful. We tend to see this as normal, but
it isn’t.
After
several years, the therapist began to talk to me about what he called
the “spirit self.” I don’t recall exactly
what he said, but he
gave me a cassette with music by Steve Halpern. Toward the end of the
cassette, there were instructions on how to “dialogue with my
soul.” Dialoging with my soul was a little out of reach for me at
the time, but it opened the door for what was about to come.
Psychology is a statistical science, and my therapist viewed himself
as a scientist. This was quite a leap for a Stanford University
graduate who had earned his PhD in the 1950s. Of course, nowadays,
there a lot
of people who communicate with discarnate souls.
As
I progressed in therapy, I gained insight into how I responded to
people and life situations. There were subtle shifts, but the
underlying anxiety and stress did not abate; even after many years of
therapy, they still persisted. I recently read a magazine article
suggesting that stress is just as detrimental to your health as
smoking. The time I spent in therapy turned out to be very
beneficial. At that time, therapy was a mental
process; it’s now become more body and feeling oriented. The reason
for this is that you actually suppress your feelings, not your
thoughts.
My
turn into the wind started in my forties. Prior to that, my entire
focus had been on the “outer world” and how to make a buck. My
attention was totally on the big three—sex, money, and power. Isn’t
that what all
young men want? Though fame and power over others was never
important to me, I certainly wanted money, not just a little, but a
lot of it. The same went for sex!
Most
people think that having a lot of money will give them the security
they desire, yet most never
feel secure, no matter how
much money they have. What you are really
looking for is peace
and fulfillment; it cannot be found in the accumulation of money and
things. The hole in your heart is caused by not receiving enough love
as a child and in not knowing who you are. It can never
be filled by acquiring more “stuff.”
Some
people are incapable of turning inward, even for a moment. A certain
amount of personal evolution is required before you can make that
turn. It is the maturity of the individual’s soul that makes it
possible. This maturity is usually the result of having many
lifetimes here on earth, but the time it takes for that kind of
maturation is becoming shorter, because the energies here on earth
are shifting to a higher frequency. Ego can never
become mature enough to make this transition. Nor, does it actually
want
to. It’s the individual soul that wants to make this
transformation. The ego is too busy pretending to be in control of
your life and chasing after the “big three.” You can pat yourself
on the back for being mature enough to read and inquire into this
subject. You draw this kind of material to you when you are ready to
hear the message and not one moment sooner. If you were not capable
of understanding and integrating this information, why would you
attract it to yourself? You wouldn’t. It’s like the proverbial
adage “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
The
idea that you attract whatever you experience may be new to you. The
Law of Attraction says like
attracts unto itself.
This means that whatever thoughts, ideas, and beliefs you hold in
your mind (the good, the bad and the ugly), will attract people and
experiences into your life that will reflect them back
to you. Even feelings
will attract their own likeness. This is hard for many to accept and
you
may even think it’s not true. Let’s consider for a moment, the
possibility that’s it’s not
true. The world view
fits nicely into the idea that we are all victims of chance and
external forces; that we are all hapless victims.
Laws
are broken and crimes are committed every fifteen seconds here in the
United States. So, how do those in authority respond? By spending
more money, hiring more police, and creating more laws. At the same
time, individual citizens are installing burglar alarms and are
arming themselves. It’s obvious that none of these solutions are
making us more secure. All of the news programs, talk shows,
political pundits, politicians, and everyone with a microphone are
claiming that we are all victims of something.
It looks like nothing
is working, that the world is out of control and that no matter how
hard we try, nothing changes for the better. When was the last time
you heard a politician or anyone
in authority, take responsibility for their own actions?
Ultimately,
it is you and
only
you who
is responsible for everything you experience. This may be hard for
you to swallow. It is one of the most mysterious and misunderstood
aspects of life.
There
is no way you can change the “outer” world. You have already
tried that with your spouse, relationship, kids, and friends and have
been totally unsuccessful. You have to change your “inner”
programming before you can stop attracting what you don’t
want into your life. But nothing
will change if you continue to accept the world view that we are all
victims.
Perhaps
you have heard this before. So, why are you hearing it again? Because
as they say, you didn’t really get
it when you heard it before. You may have given it lip service and
even nodded your head in agreement, but you are still
not living your life as though you were the only one responsible for
it. You can,
however, regain authority over your life. So, until you
do get it and the
message is integrated into your psyche, you will keep on reading and
hearing about how you and only
you create and
attract absolutely everything
you experience. It is one of the most mysterious and misunderstood
aspects of life.
What I am saying to you is
supported by quantum physics. John Wheeler, a renowned quantum
physicist, says “there is no out there, out
there.” In other words, there isn’t anyone “out there” who
can do anything to
you. It’s all just one big reflection of your own inner
programming.
I
made my initial exploration into this concept some thirty years ago,
and even now, every once in awhile, I catch myself playing the “blame
game.” It takes persistence to change your beliefs. You may find it
perplexing and difficult to actually live this way, but that’s only
because your ego doesn’t want to accept this idea as being true.
It’s like a bulldog. Once it bites into something, it doesn’t
want to let go of it. There is also a collective belief in
victimization at work here; it permeates the energy of our culture
and the world at large. Can you imagine how the world would look if
governments and people took full responsibility for their actions and
for what they create?
The
concept that everything is energy was first put forth by Dr. Albert
Einstein, early in the twentieth century in his famous equation
E=Mc2. Why is this important? Because you are a complex structure of
overlapping fields of energy. The only way to create permanent change
is to raise the frequency of those fields. There is no other way to
do this. Those energy fields make you human and conscious; they
create awareness, intuition, creativity, and perception. Only humans
have those qualities and the ability to choose how we are going to
use them.
As
you explore, acknowledge, and embrace the idea that you are
essentially an energy structure, you will open up to the possibility
that you can intentionally enhance and raise the frequency of those
fields. An interesting fact is that energy cannot be destroyed. It
can only be transformed.
There
are many energy practices you can use to integrate higher frequencies
into your own energies, but the simplest
approach is often the most useful. A number of techniques will be
presented in this blog. That said, as you begin to raise the
frequencies of who you are, you will actually change your energy
signature. You may find that as you grow and evolve, there will be
certain people you feel uncomfortable being around. You may think
that it’s the words they speak, or perhaps something about their
personality, but what is really
going on, is that they are not resonating with your energies. You
will tend to repel those energies you no longer resonate with, and
those who don’t keep up with you energetically may be excluded from
your life. You may be wondering if you will risk pushing family
members away, perhaps even your children. The answer to this is that
you will always have a choice in this regard. Often, in a family, one
person leads the way and becomes a model for the rest of the family.
You
have likely noticed I’ve suggested we have more than one lifetime.
You may be uncertain about this idea, but I am convinced that we have
many
lifetimes. One of the reasons for this is because I remember
some of them, especially the last
one.
One
Saturday morning a number of years ago, I decided to take a trip to
McMinnville, Oregon, where a friend of mine was putting on a
channeling event in a local bookstore. This was something new to me
and I was curious about it. McMinnville is about 200 miles south of
Seattle, where I lived at the time, and 40 miles southwest of
Portland, Oregon.
McMinnville
was a sleepy little town. It had been built around the turn of the
twentieth century. Life centered around a main street consisting of
hotels, boarding houses, and other businesses. Historically,
McMinnville was founded by William T. Newby, who had traveled to
Oregon from McMinnville, Tennessee on the first wagon train, during
the Great Migration of 1843. The town was established by 1882, with a
building boom occurring around the turn of the twentieth century.
Many of the original buildings are still intact today.
The
area around McMinnville is dotted with picturesque vineyards and
colorful fields of blooming clover during the summertime. Another
point of interest is the Evergreen Aviation Museum, housing the
Spruce Goose, the world’s largest propeller-driven airplane. It was
designed and built by the famous aviator and eccentric billionaire,
Howard Hughes. Constructed completely from wood due to wartime raw
material shortages, it made its only flight in 1947.
After
I arrived in town, I decided to take a stroll down the main street.
As I walked past an old, turn-of-the-century building, I glanced up a
stairway leading to the second floor. I had an immediate reaction. I
began to feel strange and uneasy. I felt like I was in the right
place, but at the wrong time. Suddenly I became aware that I had
actually built that
building. Wow! Instantly, I had been propelled back in time to when I
had worked as a building contractor in McMinnville. My name was John
and I had migrated to McMinnville from Montana in the early 1900’s
to become involved in the West Coast building boom. I was a big man,
stoop shouldered, drank too much, and was a philanderer. Walking on,
I continued to feel disoriented and uncomfortable. I returned to the
bookstore a little later to observe what was going on, but the
feeling of timelessness stayed with me. Later that night I had dinner
with my friend and talked about what I had experienced. She said that
she had a similar experience.
Driving
out of town the next morning, I noticed a large, old house that was
about to be torn down. I remembered living in it. Reflecting back on
the experience, I realize I was experiencing a “time warp.” It
was like having one foot in the present and the other in the past. I
have not been back to McMinnville since that time, but I intend to
return sometime in the future to see if I can acquire more
information about that lifetime. According to quantum physics, time
does not actually exist. Time is hard-wired into our brains so that
we can have a linear experience here on earth, but it’s really just
an “illusion.”
All
of the major religions--Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Muslim religion,
speak of reincarnation. Christianity talked about it until it was
taken out of The Bible by the church, at the Second Council of
Constantinople in 553 A.D. The reason the church purged it, was
because they wanted people to focus on the “here and now” and not
be distracted by the possibility of redemption in another lifetime.
This of course, gave the priests more control over their subjects.
In
about 500 B.C., the Greeks began to separate spirit from matter in
their writings, and that idea has been handed down to us since then.
One of the first things the Bible speaks of in Genesis, is man’s
“fall from grace,” or the “separation of spirit from matter.”
It is where God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. But having free will, they went right
ahead and ate that forbidden fruit.
The
concept that spirit and matter are separate has become a belief,
therefore a fact, in modern cultures. All spiritual teachings attempt
to heal this split, but few are successful. The mind is incapable of
repairing this division. The problems created by mind cannot be
repaired by the mind. Thought and thinking do not have any affect on
belief.
Essentially,
all growth is the result of the re-integration of spirit with matter.
The belief that we are separate from our Higher Nature lies at the
heart of all suffering and conflict in the world we live in. All of
the pain, despair, scarcity, and starvation, occur because of this
belief.
This
is the question you must ask yourself: Is this the time and place
for me to begin re-integration? Perhaps at this moment you might not
realize what you are getting yourself into. It may seem a little too
esoteric or “woo woo” for your taste, especially if you haven’t
been exposed to these ideas before, but hold on! Before you acquiesce
to your ego’s resistance to change (and that’s exactly
what it is), give yourself some time to become familiar with the
language and ideas you are being exposed to. You will become
comfortable with them while on this journey.
Ego
despises and fears change because it sees it as annihilation. Even
the slightest
change will bring up ego’s fear of death. It sees its job as being
the guardian of the “status quo.” You may think you embrace
change, but any
attempt to change will always bring up ego’s fear for its survival.
The strategies ego comes up with to keep you from altering your
course will be very clever and creative. Everyone who “turns into
the wind,” fights this battle. Whether you win or lose, depends on
how well you cope with your ego’s resistance to change.
At
this point in your life, ego will still
see change as loss.
Eckhart Tolle says, if you live in the present moment, or the “now,”
you will no longer experience loss. There are very few people who
live in the present all
of the time. It is the ultimate experience, but for now, settle for
less suffering and struggling. If you take the advice given here, you
may indeed stop suffering and struggling, and will experience peace
and fulfillment.
My
purpose is to show you how to raise the frequencies of those
overlapping fields of energy, and how doing so will start your
re-integration with your Higher Nature. It vibrates at a higher
frequency than your ego and mind. As you apply these principles and
raise the frequencies of your energy systems, at some point you will
go on “auto pilot.” You will be unable to stop growing and
evolving. You may occasionally experience some resistance coming from
your ego, but you will be able to handle it easily. It’s like
learning to drive an automobile. Once you learn to drive in your
neighborhood and become comfortable with your skills, you learn to
drive on more challenging roads. Finally, you’ll learn to drive on
the freeway and discover that you must be vigilant at all times. Or,
you will crash. Vigilance is the key to growth and change. Otherwise,
your ego will jump right back into the driver’s seat and take over
once again. It will say to you, “Let’s take a little time off
from all this integration stuff. Let’s just take a break.” Two
years down the road, you find you are right back where you started
from, and give up entirely. This is exactly what your ego wanted
you to do. You
lose!
Commitment
is the only thing that has any influence over your ego’s
resistance. It is not totally
stupid. Sometimes your ego is just testing to see if you are truly
committed to this course. If you are,
it will relent, but it will be waiting just around the corner for
another
chance to test you.