It was a perfect Australian day, clear skies with soft white fluffy clouds. The air was balmy, and we felt good despite the fact that Customs had impounded our Native drums as possible terrorist weapons. Evidently someone determined that raw hides could be used to smuggle in anthrax. We tried to reason with the official that these were tanned hides, but to no avail. They impounded them, and charged us a storage fee. If we wanted to bring them into the country they would have to spray them with pesticides and other chemicals as well as radiation treatments. We chose impoundment.

We spent the night at a B&B cottage and the next morning we packed to head north. Judi noticed an interesting bird in the yard resembling a Magpie, but with different markings. Describing it to our hostess, she said‑”Oh that’s a Butcher Bird.”

I was driving and pulled out of the driveway into the left lane not the right. They drive on the other side of the road than we do in the states, a clear sign that the British Empire had been here.

Judi told me later that she was just about to mention seeing the Butcher Bird, hoping that it didn’t mean someone was about to be butchered. We were on a narrow country road passing by open pastures. To negotiate the curve, I wandered into the far right lane. And then I saw the oncoming car. She was on us before I even had a chance to break.

My instinctual brain took over. A veteran of thirty some years of driving, I had never had an accident, had successfully avoided several and never even had a speeding ticket (except on the day after I got my license at eighteen). My instincts had been honed from these many years of driving, and I pulled hard to the right. There was no shoulder, and I was against a hill. Part of our vehicle was still in the road.

Her instincts told her to pull left, and our cars collided. I remember the whole thing as extremely surrealistic. I watched our cars colliding in slow motion.

The front ends of both cars collapsed under impact and suddenly everything was deathly still. The only sounds were those of fluids leaking from the cars, and the hiss of dust flying in the air. I thought our car was on fire, because I saw smoke everywhere, but it turned out to be chemical dust from the useless airbag. I told Judi we needed to get out of the car. And I went over to open her door which had been crushed by the impact. I managed to open it and help her out. She was shaken, as was I, but she could walk, kind of.

I went to the other car to see how the driver and passengers were doing. The driver was alone and although stunned, had no serious injuries either.

A woman driving by pulled off the road to see if we needed help. Another woman in a house near the wreck also offered assistance. Together we helped Judi and the other driver to the woman’s yard where she offered deck chairs and some water. My head ached, but I noticed that the wrecked cars were sitting precariously in a blind spot. I went out to direct traffic, so that there wouldn’t be another accident on top of this one.

It was then I got a closer look at the cars. By her own estimation, the other driver told the police that she was going about 90 kilometers an hour, and I was going around thirty. That’s a combined speed of 120 kph, and the cars showed it. Both were totaled, and I wondered how on earth we had all been able to walk away from it. From the looks of the aftermath, I figured we should have all died, or wished we had.

I suspect that all our guardians and angels had worked overtime to protect us. Judi’s head had hit the windshield and cracked it, but miraculously she hadn’t cracked her skull. Despite some abrasions, mostly caused by the useless airbag, I was okay I thought. The other driver was also unharmed, except for abrasions from her airbag and some bruises to her arms.

After being released from the hospital, Judi and I checked into a hotel to re‑group and then walked around town to talk about what had happened. We were amazed that we didn’t feel all that bad. We could think clearly, we thought. And things seemed to be okay.

What we didn’t realize was that we were in shock. And one of the side effects of shock is that you don’t feel. The brain has an ancient mechanism that engages when shock sets in. You get very detached from yourself, and many of the pain receptors seem to go numb.

The next day brought the realization that we were not doing as well as we had thought. The numbness had passed, and we could feel what was going on with us. Besides, our luggage told the story about the degree of impact without uttering a single word. The struts had snapped, and the steel locks had jammed. Our Tibetan thangkas that we had obtained in Nepal had been extruded from their PVC cases, the impact having ripped off the caps.

For the next six weeks we were marooned in a surfing town called Byron Bay; too sore and too disoriented to do much more than lie around. We found some gifted practitioners, thank god, and slowly tried to put ourselves back together again. Humpty Dumpty had fallen off the wall, well, slight revision‑Humpty Dumpty had hit a wall… and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men were having a hard time putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

For me the accident was extremely confrontational. Ever since taking Refuge as a Buddhist, I had done my best to practice harmlessness. I had never knowingly harmed anyone, and if I had ever stepped on someone’s emotional toes, I had tried my best to set things right. But here I had hurt two people due to my actions. Not only this, but my actions had totaled two cars.

The rental agent responded to my phone call after the accident in a typically Australian way — “Glad you’re okay, mate. Hell …I’ve been in this business for over thirteen years, and after the first year I stopped crying about a ruined kah. You know you can replace a kah, but you can’t replace a person. Don’t worry about it, mate. If we can help you again, let us know.”

But my conscience still wrestled with my having caused harm. Not only this, but I found myself becoming ever more insular. I was dipping into depression and showed all the signs‑disturbed sleep, no energy, not wanting to do anything, and not giving a shit about anything.

Finally, I began to slowly face my conflicted emotions. I would really like to have told you that I moved through my depression with grace and ease. I mean, after all, I am a psychotherapist and do have the skills to help myself. But alas, understanding the emotional process does not exempt one from going through it. And the weird thing about depression is that you don’t give a shit about having the skills to help yourself. Self‑blame is a fascinating and terrible thing.

The whole affair was made more complex by the fact that Judi and I had both suffered head concussions, not enough to be hospitalized, but enough to make things stranger than usual. Looking back, I think we were both in varying degrees of shock for about five weeks. And during that time I found myself entertaining actions that I knew were not in my best interest, especially during the depression.

I didn’t want to do anything. I certainly didn’t want to do anything positive. In fact, for the first week or so, I ate inordinate amounts of comfort food. I knew this nutritionally useless crap wasn’t good for me, but I didn’t care. You see, I have a “subpersonality” within me I call “the rodent.” He’s kind of like a 200 pound hamster with all the resources and intelligence that goes along with this species, As long as he is eating something, everything is okay. So when the world gets really strange, as it did after the accident, he takes over. I began to find empty cartons of ice cream, trails of peanut shells and other crunchy things, like cookies, strewn about the house.

It’s a damnable thing about being human, but when we are under extreme stress we often resort to un‑resourceful actions-things that are guaranteed not to improve our condition.

Anyway, to make a long story short, with Judi’s help I finally managed to pull myself out of my emotional garbage bin.

I have learned many things about myself through the “accident” and one of them is the power of relationship.

There’s a lot of talk about relationship these days, perhaps because no one seems to know how to do it. The templates for relationship were given to most of us by our parents. And many of us baby boomers grew up with TV companions like “Ozzie and Harriet,” and “Father Knows Best.” But these ways of doing relationship basically suck the big one. They just don’t work. But of course these TV shows simply mirrored the American psyche at the time. And wasn’t this when Naugahyde® was invented, and plastic? I think this was also the time when a lot of people started covering their sofas in vinyl. Emotional honesty was not encouraged, nor was it ever considered as an option in TV’s “Happy Town.”

Negative messages about emotional honesty still abound in our society despite the sexual revolution and putting a man on the moon. And such taboos against emotional truth run deep in many of us.

When Judi and I were finally able to speak our truths and express our painful feelings around the accident, we actually started feeling better.

I don’t claim to be an “ex‑spurt” on relationships, mind you. I can only report what has worked and what hasn’t worked for me. And I have found that being emotionally honest with ourselves and each other is the best medicine for the difficult situations in life.

I was reminded of a comment Magdalen made in regards to relationships just a few days before the accident “The bliss of relationship is the opening of the heart. The work of relationship is what emerges from the opened heart.” And what began to emerge from my heart was a bunch of conflicting feelings-gratitude for still being alive, amazement that no one had been killed, and wondering “why” it had happened.

Now, over the years, I have come to feel that the “why” of something is not as important as what we do with it. Besides, explaining a situation to ourselves does not solve much. Our actions in relationship to the situation are far more impactful.

As I began to talk my way through the morass of feelings, the gray fog that had been surrounding me began to lift. I could think more clearly. And one of the things that began to intrigue me was the instinct thing.

I had swerved to the right by instinct. But my instincts had been wrong, and they had led me to take a course of action that was ultimately destructive.

Now when our life is threatened we go into automatic, and our instinctual mind takes over. In fact, our instincts tend to take over whenever we are taken to the edge of our capacities. This is obvious in situations like car accidents, but less obvious in our emotional lives.

Yet something very similar occurs. Being taken to one’s emotional edge can be triggered by anything, the loss of a job, death of a loved one, a big argument or a national disaster. But I don’t think that anything brings us to our emotional edges faster or more consistently than being in relationship.

Now for some, your emotional edges may come from your current intimate relationship. For others it may come in the form of your friends, your neighbors, your co‑workers, or even your bosses. Those of you who are hermits have perhaps one of the most challenging relationships in your face‑yourself. I mean if you are a hermit, you can’t blame your problems on anyone else, now can you? There is only you.

Relationships are very much like mirrors. We think we are seeing the other person, but in many ways we are seeing ourselves.

This may be one reason why relationships are so catalytic and have the power to unsettle us.

America’s relationship with the rest of the world is at an all time low. And many of us feel quite unsettled by the current turn of national and world events. But America’s relationship with the rest of the world is only part of our problem.

Our relationship with the Earth is in dire straits, and the ecosystem is showing signs of exhaustion. Lemurs in Madagascar disappearing, unable to reproduce due to environmental stresses. And other plants and animals are joining them in a fast race to extinction.

Not only this, but our relationships with each other are strained. Road rage, teen suicides and homicides are on the increase. Senseless savagery is on the rise.

With so many interpersonal, national, international and ecological relationships out of balance, the world is teetering on the edge of disaster. And all of this is deeply troubling, to say the least.

I have a Buddhist friend who recently returned to his home in Asia after visiting the U.S. He was deeply troubled. “The world’s falling apart,” he said, “and my heart aches with sorrow.”

Many of us know this feeling more and more as our spirituality stands in stark contrast to the conditions of the world.

I am always reminded in situations like this by the words of Sogyul Rinpoche, a living Dozgchen master of Tibetan Buddhism

“If your heart is breaking, let it break!”

What I think he means by this is that we can use the moments of our emotional suffering to further our illumination. All beings suffer from time to time. That’s the way it is here. But when the suffering comes close to home, we feel sorrow.

Such sadness creates an opening, even though it is a painful one, and all openings of our heart serve our illumination. The stories we tell ourselves about why we feel such sadness are just stories. What is important in the spiritual journey is the transformation of our obscurations that separate us from life and from our spiritual essence. And sometimes the sadnesses of life can bring down the walls of separation between us and the world quicker than anything.

I do not believe in prophecy nor predestination. I do not believe in the soothsayers and fear mongers who say that the end of the world is upon us. Nor do I believe in the Pollyanna view of our future either. I don’t think that things are going to magically get better or that a mother ship will descend from the skies and protect us from ourselves.

I do believe that we are witnessing the collapse of the old world. And those who broker power based upon the old terrestrial view of politics and economics are pulling out all the stops to keep themselves at the top of the monopoly game. We are in the midst of a planetary revolution with so many fronts and so many diverse issues it is hard to grasp. But all revolutions bring suffering as well as liberation.

When the Computer Revolution moved computerized robots into the work place, thousands of people lost their jobs. Their financial lives were devastated, and some of them never recovered. Some went on to get training in new fields and are now prospering.

As with so many things in life, it is not what happens to us that matters so much as what we do with it.

The crucial thing to remember is that we always have the power of choice in a situation. Whether we are conscious of it or not, or whether we exercise that power or not, is immaterial. It is always present.

When I went numb from the aftereffects of the “accident,” it took me a few weeks to come to my senses enough to realize that I had any choice in my situation. I was in shock, and at my emotional edge. My instinctual mind drove me into isolation, which only increased my depression.

Now depression is really just an attempt to avoid feeling emotions that we deem to be unacceptable or too difficult for us to deal with. So we just put a lid on our feelings. And the effort to keep a lid on our emotions takes a lot of energy, so much in fact, that we feel depressed from the effort. (Note: This is true for those depressions that center around specific life experiences, like the death of a loved one, the loss of job, etc. But this is not true of those depressions caused by chemical imbalances in the brain.)

Like my instincts which told me to pull to the “wrong side” of the road, my instincts were telling me to pull further inside away from the world, and even away from my feelings.

But the world of relationships and the truth of my feelings were what freed me from my emotional suffering in the wake of the “accident.” And I think that being honest with ourselves and with each other about our feelings is a good ally to have in the midst of turmoil.

I mention this because I think that more and more of us are in a kind of cultural shock. The changes and dangers of the world are so vividly in our faces that many of us are going numb. Our instincts are telling us to stop feeling.

Judi and I get emails from all over the world from people reporting that they are at their emotional edge. Life is becoming too difficult. Relationships are being challenged as never before, and many people feel that their lives are unraveling.

Some feel unable to cope with the increasing levels of violence in the world, and others are just fed up with struggling.

But as my high school algebra teacher used to say‑”It’s going to get worse, before it gets better.” And unfortunately, I think this is an accurate assessment of our world situation. The global revolution may wind up freeing the human spirit or imprisoning it. But whatever the outcome, we will probably see a lot more global conflict and suffering.

Perhaps we will slip through the eye of the needle and pass through the next decade unharmed. Perhaps we won’t. One hundred years from now, our moments of angst and greatest torment will mean very little. What will matter is how we lived these moments, not for our progeny but for ourselves.

For in the world of the soul, there is no time. And in the end, it is what we have gleaned from life that matters. The personalities and the situations that we are now so caught up in will return to emptiness from which they came. Years from now all of this will seem like some kind of dream, which it is. It is a dream that we are creating and believe to be real. From the perspective of the soul, the important things of life are not what we take them to be. The qualities of heart and mind that we develop through the act of living is the treasure‑not the things we do or the things we accumulate.

And so at the end of our lives, when we are taken from the Great Wheel of Life, there will only be a few questions. Did we become more compassionate or more hateful? Did we learn to embrace life, or did we run from it?

These are the important questions, I think. It takes spiritual courage to keep one’s heart open, make no mistake about it. But I have found nothing else as rewarding.

Don’t hide your heart but reveal it,
So that mine might be revealed, and
I might accept what I am capable of.
Rumi

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Buddha said that attachment is the cause of all suffering. Whenever we are attached to anything, we suffer. Hence, to let go of attachment is to end suffering. But what does this mean? Why should being attached to something cause suffering? Isn’t it a good and proper thing to be attached to our family, our home, our vocation? ‘Attachment’ is an often misunderstood concept. Let’s delve a little deeper and see what Bhudda meant.

Take hold of a simple object like a ballpoint pen – the type with a retractable point that you control by pressing a button on the top with your thumb. Unscrew it and take out the refill. Take off the button and the spring that enables it to work. Take apart every component of the pen and lay them out. Is this still a pen?

Now imagine something much more complicated – a car. Carry out the same process in your mind. When the car is completely stripped down into its component parts, is it still a car?

The problem with being attached to things is that there is nothing to be attached to. Not really. The things we care about are a kind of mental construction – they are just ideas. When we meditate deeply on the things we care about, we find that they are phantoms, dreams. When we discover the true nature of things, any substance we thought they had just falls apart. This is obviously true of physical things but it is also true – although harder to accept – of other people and relationships.

We create static images of things which are constantly changing. Take someone you know well, for example. When you think about this person, what comes to mind? A list of characteristics, traits, patterns of behavior, tastes, opinions? What kind of feelings to you get? Your image of this person is probably a fairly well defined and static thing. But the person is not a static entity – he is a dynamic, growing, changing person. He is not what he was as a child.

When we seek control or security by creating static images of continually moving things, we suffer. It’s like trying to tie up a flowing river in a package, or put the wind into a box. It simply cannot be done. For a while, we can be comfortable with our static images, but their inherent instability and lack of substance are bound, sooner or later, to cause suffering.

When we see things for what they are, we see that there is nothing there. Control, approval and security are fantasies. Letting go of attachment to these fantasies is effortless when we see the truth – that there is nothing to be attached to.

‘Do not try to bend the spoon – that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth. Then you’ll see it is not the spoon that bends; it is only yourself.’
From The Matrix

Letting go of the things we feel so afraid to lose seems to be such a risk – we fear that, when we do let go, we’ll have nothing left, no support and no safety net. We feel, perhaps, that we might drift aimlessly through life without direction or purpose. Yet, oddly, when we are less attached to the need for power, control, approval and security, we can live a life with greater purpose, able to achieve our goals more easily – they seem to happen effortlessly because we are not using our energy holding on so tightly to these needs.

Letting go is freedom from the energy draining bondage of our psychological dependency on control, approval and safety. We need to stop holding on so tightly.

We can still love our family and our home – we can enjoy the experience of being together and in familiar surroundings. To hold something – to enjoy it – without wanting to possess it, to allow things to be as they are, without clinging, is the secret of happiness.

Mark Harrison is a certified NLP coach and writer on change management. Visit him at http://changeyourlife.net/membership-service/.

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Any person or civilization that does not learn from their past is doomed to repeat it. Control Paradigm interests are, however, served by mass ignorance. Ignorance is disempowering to the masses. This is rather obvious and has been used as a tactic by many tyrants across our history.

All ancient Chinese texts were ordered destroyed in 212 BC by Emperor Chi Huang Ti. Vast amounts of ancient texts, virtually everything pertaining to history, philosophy, and science were seized and burned. Entire libraries were destroyed including the Royal Library. Some texts survived only because scholars and monks hid them in caves and hidden compartments in Taoist temples.

The city of Alexandria in Egypt was founded by the Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great. Alexandria was one of the most renowned centers of learning in the ancient world and was home of a great museum and the famous Royal Library of Alexandria. The Royal Library was reported to have been home to as many as 500,000 scrolls covering all areas of knowledge. History gives three accounts of its destruction.

The first was by Julius Caesar who reportedly set the city ablaze to create a military diversion during battle. That was in the first century BC. The second account of the burning of the Great Library is attributed to the early Roman Christian Church and the emperor Theophilus. This Library was also described as enormous in size and was reportedly housed in the temple of Serapis, one of the last “pagan” strongholds to be destroyed by the waves of “Christian” fanaticism that swept across the ancient world in the third and fourth centuries AD. The third account of the burning of the Great Library is attributed to the Moslem Caliph Omar in the sixth century AD. He reportedly stated that the ancient books were either blasphemous because they contradicted the Koran or superfluous because they agreed with it and so should be burned. The story goes that the scrolls were sent to the bath houses to heat the saunas and that it took six months to burn all of them.

It appears that there may have been more than one Great Library, some perhaps reconstructed after the destruction of their predecessors. They once existed and now do not. Their loss to humanity is incalculable. Some documents may have survived the original destruction and been consolidated with others to form new collections. There were, after all, also people who cared about the preservation of knowledge and they were likely doing everything they could to save as much as possible.

When the Spanish conquistadors invaded Mexico, Central America, and South America, the catholic priests collected and burned the written books and documents of the Mayas, Aztecs, and others.

In recent history a few fragments of ancient libraries have been recovered. The Dead Sea scrolls were buried by an Essene community before it migrated and disbanded. Their remains were discovered in the 1940′s and their contents kept secret until an accidental leak made them available. Many of these documents were incomplete, damaged, or completely destroyed by the ravages of time.

Around the same time, the Nag Hammadi library was found in Egypt. It was buried by monks to save it from destruction by the early “Christian” church, which was aggressively burning all “unapproved” documents. There was a major effort to restrict information to a single authorized source. The Nag Hammadi documents were discovered by goat herders who used many of the pages as kindling to start their cooking fires. Other parts of documents were scattered through the local markets before their importance was recognized and the remaining documents collected.

Many additional instances of book burning, destruction of knowledge and murder of scholars have been documented. For additional details, see this article in Wikipedia Book Burning

The point of these brief snippets of history is not to depress you. While historical records are vulnerable to destruction and alteration, there are other records that are not. The Akashic Records are understood to be a collection of all knowledge that is encoded on a non-physical plane of existence. The Akashic Records are understood to have existed since before creation.

Some Eastern religions and western mystical schools recognize the Akashic Records and train individuals in methods of accessing them. The well known psychic Edgar Cayce was reported to go into an altered state of consciousness and access this area of collective consciousness.

The Akhasic Records are referred to in the Christian Bible as the “Book of Life,” in both the Old Testament (Psalm 69:28) and the New Testament (Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15 and Revelation 21:27).

The ability to access these records is referred to in this manual as a “Spiritual Faculty.” The potential to develop this and other Spiritual Faculties is a God given possibility for those who are willing to engage in the effort to do so.

So, we have the potential to access these same records and recover all that has been lost. That individuals can be trained to do this has already been demonstrated. When this talent becomes common, lies, propaganda, disinformation, and the confusion they cause will become obsolete.

John W Hill is the Author of Changing the Paradigm and creator and genius behind http://1paradigm.org where he offers a comprehensive FREE course – Recommended

A paradigm is a way of thinking with a set of assumptions and boundaries that define what is possible, what is not possible, and how things work. Paradigms are built on other paradigms. At the heart of it all are two core paradigms that explain everything that is destructive in our world and everything that is constructive. From this understanding, a path is presented for shifting the dominant paradigm to the constructive win-win way. This path is one of personal growth and transformation. The book is a training manual for healers, spiritual warriors, seekers and finders. It is a practical course based on the real experiences of real people. The content draws on Judeo-Christian, Eastern, Native American, Mystical and Shamanic traditions. The application of this training is both a personal growth process, and by extension, a method of contributing to a major paradigm shift.

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We meet life, with all of its complex relationships, through what we know. Each daily event, with its dozens of unsuspected twists and turns, challenges us to come up with our best answers. Once our most suitable answer is at hand, we launch it and ourselves into action and watch to see what happens. With each situation this challenge and response process is repeated over and over again, until the condition resolves itself for us, either favorably or not.

The point being made here is that at any given moment we always do what we know. This may seem very obvious, but with closer examination, especially in light of the fact we wish to elevate ourselves and what we are getting from this life, we will discover something very astounding.

Read the next three sentences very carefully. I have separated this trio of important ideas for ease of reading, but they are very much connected to each other. Each higher idea leads to the next one, and when they are absorbed all together, they will tell you a great secret.

Before you can get anything different from this life, you must first do something different.

Before you can do anything different with your life, you must first know something different.

Before you can know anything different, you must first suspect and then confirm that it is your present level of understanding that has brought you what you now wish you could change.

Now let’s reverse the order of these right ideas so that we can see how they work from the other way around.

Until you know something different you cannot do anything different.

Until you do something different you will not get anything different.

And until you really get something different from your life you cannot know what you have missed and how much more there is to understand.

Here’s the point. Trying to change what you get from life without first changing what you know about life is like putting on dry clothes over wet ones and then wondering why you keep shivering. You must stop trying to change what you are getting for yourself and go to work on changing what you are giving to yourself.

It is vital for you to realize that life has not held back its riches from you. The truth be known, which it will be, you have been held back from real life by a false nature which thinks life is meant to be suffered through and that all there is to insulate it from a harsh world is what it can win and possess for itself.

While there is no denying our world is becoming more and more cruel, there is also no denying that we are the world. Neither our individual world nor the global one can change until the connection between what we experience and who we are is no longer denied.

This is why we must have a new knowledge. Spiritual knowledge isn’t something mysterious or out of this world. In fact, spiritual understanding is the most important and practical knowledge a person can possess. It is ultimately what we know about ourselves, about who we really are, that determines the quality of our life.

The truth is we cannot separate our answers from our actions and our actions from their results. They may appear to be individual in their operation because they often occur at different times, but they are really one thing. Intellectually we already know this important concept, but its deep significance hasn’t yet become clear.

Let’s look at the old adage, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Here we can see a new significance in this New Testament teaching. What you sow is seed or, in this metaphor, your knowledge. What you reap is the crop, or your results. This spiritual knowledge shows us the great importance of reconsidering what we think we know. Life is trying to reach us and teach us, through our experience of it, that we need new and true answers. These higher answers serve as a special kind of personal shelter that effortlessly keeps out what is harmful and keeps in what is healthy and life-giving. That is its nature.

Here are five examples of how these higher answers can work for you. You’ll see how each one also suggests a new action and promises a new result. Remember that each complete section, one through five, represents a whole action. In reality, you cannot separate your answers from your actions and your actions from their results. Just as warmth must follow sunlight, so must a higher, happier life follow when inner-light is allowed to flourish.

1. Your New Answer: Real strength is the refusal to act from weakness.

Your New Action: See where you have been calling inner-weakness an inner strength; such as calling anxiety concern, or anger righteousness. Dare to live without these false strengths.

Your New Result: The end of your confusion and pain over why your strength so often fails you. At the same time you will realize the birth of a new and true strength that never turns into its weak opposite.

2. Your New Answer: Have the courage to proceed even while knowing that you are afraid.

Your New Action: Dare to take one shaky step after another.

Your New Result: Freedom from a life of fear because fear cannot exist whenever insight is valued above feeling frightened.

3. Your New Answer: Forgiveness is the personal understanding that except for circumstance there is no real difference between you and your offender.

Your New Action: In spite of all the inner-screams to the contrary, dare to treat your trespasser as you would want to be treated.

Your New Result: When you stop punishing others for their weakness, you will stop punishing yourself for yours.

4. Your New Answer: Compassion is the conscious refusal to add to another person’s suffering, even though it may seem to increase yours.

Your New Action: Dare to shoulder one hundred times the mental and emotional weight you think you can carry.

Your New Result: Contained right within the suffering is the glimpse that there is no sufferer.

5. Your New Answer: Real hope is the fact that there is always a Higher Solution.

Your New Action: See that any time you feel pained or defeated, it is only because you insist on clinging to what doesn’t work. Dare to let go and you won’t lose a thing except for a punishing idea.

Your New Result: A new life that fears no inner or outer challenge since defeat can only exist in the absence of a willingness to learn.

Now that you have reviewed these five new and true answers, you may wish to write down some of your own. This is highly profitable for accelerating your inner growth. Don’t be discouraged if at first you can’t come up with any new ideas. There is great gain in your efforts because even the smallest attempt to find new answers is a new answer! The more you work with truthful principles, the more they will work for you.

Always remember when you work with powerful higher ideas such as these that there are many temporarily unknown parts of yourself that may try to mislead you. They know that your growing true spiritual insight will lead you away from their harmful influence and deliver you to true safety. No matter what the harmful voices within may say, whosoever puts the Truth first will never lose anything except for that which was never real in the first place.

———-

(Excerpted from The Secret of Letting Go, Rev. Edition, Llewellyn)

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. For more information visit www.guyfinley.org, and sign up to receive a free helpful newsletter emailed to your desktop once each week.

Copyright Life of Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Permission granted to reprint with author credit.

The Evolution Ezine may receive a commission if you place a purchase after clicking a link in this article.  This helps us keep the ezine free.  We thank you for your continued support

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2012 is your New Beginning – not just the exiting, starting over – resolutions, standard type of New Year.

THIS New Beginning is the most special, most amazing, most fun, most exciting, most fulfilling, and most demanding of ALL the new beginnings you have experienced in your life, no matter what age group you are in.

Over this series of articles, we have talked about your capacity to create whatever you choose in your life. We have talked about your capacity to run headlong into old blocks and limitations and to use your theta mind to burst their bubble and free yourself from the surly bonds of earth, and fly into your own special existence within the unified field – that vast, great, amazing place of all that is, was and ever will be.

Dr. Bruce Lipton writes about our being in a time of Spontaneous Evolution – our positive future.  He cites scientific proof that we are taking an incredible step forward in the miraculous healing of our planet and of ourselves.

We are planetary stem cells that can support the health, growth and expansion of our world – or not – everything is made up of your choices. We are passing that state of our evolution where we have been in survival, and moving into the space and experience of thrival. All of our spiritual teachers have told us of this coming time, and the time is now. You are making choices to create anew everyday, consciously or unconsciously – and is much more fun making them consciously.

Dr. Gregg Braden writes about the Deep Truth of our times. We are igniting the memory of our origin, our history, destiny and fate – and that includes your personal origin, history, destiny and fate. So many of my clients have been embracing their greater Purpose. They are recognizing the ‘summer of their discontent’ to be their inner urging to fulfill and expand who they Know they are at their spiritual level. The movement they are making is beautiful to see and fulfilling to experience.  What have you been noticing? What has been uncomfortable in your life that is encouraging you to open to new possibilities and expand your life?

Where are you in your process? Are you gaining clarity? Are you asking yourself the best questions, like What is my ‘I Am’? Who am I at the soul level, at my spiritual core, within my deepest Self? And just a hint – the true answer does not include how you look, what you do, or even how you feel. When you say the Words of Your True I Am – every cell in your body vibrates – and you Know Who You Are.

Lynne McTaggart talks about The Field – the Unified Field – that place of all potential and all creation. What will you add to that field and what will you receive from it? The choice is always yours…you just need to remember that truth. Although it may be difficult to remember sometimes, you are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul.

Penny Peirce talks about Frequencies and the shift in our global and personal energy fields. We have all felt the changes, the higher frequencies, the disruptive and yet exciting patterns emerging. These patterns are bringing a greater level of inner peace, and expansion of our thinking into the brainwaves that provide us with the clarity and opening to greater ideas, and the cellular changes that bring you the life you have dreamed of. You know you have been feeling these changes, and they belong to you just as they belong to everyone on this planet.

Now is the time to stop listening to your head and re-experience listening to your heart, just as you did as a child – this is the time to regain your innocence. There are references in our great writings about entering spiritual greatness as a small child. If you still think and view the world through the eyes of wonder and openness and grace of childhood, you can intentionally focus your thoughts toward being the person you intended when you came into this life. Check out your baby pictures, look in your own eyes – see who lives inside. You will be pleasantly surprised – and grateful.

Below is a gift, a poem written by a poet and pilot in the early 20^th Century – he had it right.

Love and blessings, Katie

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high un-trespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

—    John Gillespie Magee, Jr  WWI Pilot

Dr. Katie Lynne Garnett is a 2012 Life Expansion Coach (Rewire Your Brain in 2012) Founder of Unfolding Your Spiritual DNA. co-founder of The Brave Woman Seminars, corporate consultant, university professor, radio host, author, and Certified One Command Practitioner.

Dr. Garnett’s study of the phenomenon of quantum physics, paired with her research in the psychology of human behavior, healing, social change and the significance of the theta brainwave and energy shifts in relation to human potentiality, brings her clients the capacity to reprogram their lives as they choose and align with their spiritual mission.

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If you ever feel like you are caught in a trap with your life, you’re not far off from the truth!  The hamster in the wheel with a big juicy carrot in front of it is a prime example of how most are living these days.  That’s not a judgement or put down, only looking honestly at our society in these times.

Just look at how fearful humans have become.  How fear of loss is driving, motivating them to run that much faster on the wheel to try and escape the nagging empty feeling inside.  People are placing their belief in the illusion that surrounds them and wondering why they feel overwhelmed, confused, frustrated and like their life is passing them by.

If you believe in something that is a mirage, you will always be let down, disappointed and feeling like once again the answer is to run faster, try harder and accomplish more.  Every new experience or plan seems like an oasis that will “save” you from your inner plight.  A brand new start, AGAIN!  It’s like a dog chasing its own tail, round and round it goes, getting absolutely nowhere.  Tiring, frustrating and depressing to say the least.

This condition we are talking about is actually a trap, a self imposed prison.   Read on and you’ll learn exactly how you are participating by being both the warden and the prisoner and how to finally set yourself free.

The liberation of your life is what we are talking about here and it’s worth your time to find out exactly how you are acting as the puppet in your life rather than the puppet master.

The Monkey Trap and YOU…

Deep in the jungles trappers use a crafty technique to catch monkey’s using their own resistance.  It shows exactly how you may be doing the same thing in your life and how letting go is always the answer to all of life’s questions.

They begin by hollowing out a coconut.  Making a small enough hole in the one end, just enough for the monkey to squeeze its flat unclenched hand inside, they then tie a treat to the inside of the coconut and hang it from a tree.

The monkey comes along, notices the treat and squeezes its flat hand inside to grab hold of it.

Once the monkey grabs on tightly to the treat inside, it’s hand is made into a clenched fist and cannot be pulled back through the narrow hole.  As hard as that monkey tries, it’s hand cannot break loose as a fist, so as long as it is intent on keeping the treat in it’s grasp, it is trapped.

What’s really interesting here is that IF the monkey was to simply Let Go of the treat, it would instantly be free.

In this example, the treat is our attachment to our desires or wants!  How we “think” it should be rather than how it is.

The moral of this simple story is that If we hold onto what we think we want we set ourselves up to be trapped but at any moment as soon as we let go, we too instantly gain our freedom from the pain that is self inflicted by our attachment or grasp on our desire.

Let go and watch how love frees you from your pain…

So How Can YOU Learn To Let Go?

Next time you feel irritated, frustrated, angry or depressed, notice what you are paying attention to and focusing on in that moment…

Is it a memory that is streaming a movie of thoughts and images?  Is it something that caught your eye  and then triggered a memory or image that has carried you away into the world of thought?  If you are upset with someone, notice how your mind feeds you with images/movies, voices and feelings that build that emotional energetic state.

The more you focus your attention on what your mind is feeding you, the deeper you sink into that imaginary world.  See if you can observe how your mind tries to involve, lure and catch you in its trap.

The process is as follows…

First the trigger is set off.  This could be anything that brings up a thought or memory of past or future events.  You “see” or “hear” the thought and start focusing in on what your mind is portraying to you.  Each step into that world of thought will take you further into the abyss of negative states and imagination where no solution can ever be found.  So what choice do you have?

Try doubt!  Become your own internal skeptic!

That’s right I am encouraging you to doubt.

When your mind gives you a command, something to think about or carry out, maybe an experience that you perceive as a “problem”, what do YOU do with it?  Do you answer it in some way to ease it’s nagging?  Try to fix, solve or find an answer to what is supposedly wrong?

Have you ever considered doubting it’s authority?  Most are not skeptical at all when their mind tells them to do it’s bidding because they are so used to acting on what they are told inwardly.  Basically, we believe that our mind would not deceive us or lead us astray but this is where we fall down in our understanding.  Our minds are exquisite tools but left to their own devices, can be harsh task masters.

Question, examine and investigate the drivers or motivators to all of your actions.  Be suspicious as to “WHY” your mind is telling you that you feel the way you do.  Ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing and  “Is this action from Love or is my mind trying to run the show here?

If you find that the action does not serve your higher self, let it go and release the need to take any action.  Be patient and the proper forward movement will appear.

Become an observer to these processes and you’ll find yourself being able to drop these negative energies before they take hold.  Let go and stop clinging to what your mind tells you will set you free.  Be empowered by utilizing your mind as a tool rather than the other way around!

Practise being that silent observer to your minds movement.  Listen and watch as it tries to direct your actions and thoughts, then examine them carefully.  Is what you are being told leading you to actions of love, peace or kindness?

If not, you are being fed lies by an inward conspirator and you must not answer this state.  Letting go doesn’t take strength as much as it takes a true understanding of the relationship you currently have with life and that state.

Stop, wait, breathe and examine BEFORE you take any step and you’ll start to realize how much you’ve been a follower in your own life.  Now you can, by observing the inner workings of YOU, take control and allow for your true potential to blossom.

To learn more about how the Transformative Power of Letting Go can Change Your Life forever and to To get your FREE PERSONAL COPY of this life changing e-book, “The Monkey Trap” Please visit http://www.LearnToLetGoNow.com

By Len Wright – Self Realization Author & Speaker. Turn any moment of darkness into a guiding light!  Find out how the Transformative Power of Letting Go can Change Your Life forever by visiting www.LearnToLetGoNow.com

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Have you ever had appear in your mind the image of someone who hurt you, or run a whole mental movie about something that didn’t work out, so that in recalling the event you actually relived the sense of loss? How does such a painful image seem to stay in the mind, especially given the fact of how much we struggle to make it go away? We all know how it feels to try and “fix” such visitations, where we dream up a new solution, tell ourselves what we should have said, hope that something we can think of will make it go away. Of course none of these answers work for one very good reason. Here is the key to unlocking this continuing conflict.

These unwanted images return again and again as they do because something within us keeps recalling them and drawing them to the forefront of our mind. Perhaps your reaction to this lesson is something like: “Impossible! How can that be true since all I want is to free myself of their painful presence?” The answer is self-evident, even though our present senses dictate otherwise.

Since the truth is we do not have to share a single moment with the memory of anything that we don’t want to, this means there is something in our present nature that wants to recall painful past experiences. Such new self-knowledge lends us the light we need to make higher choices for ourselves, based in conscious awareness. Now we can choose to remember what it is that we want to! In other words, rather than allowing ourselves to be drawn into battle with unwanted thoughts or feelings that appear by themselves within our heart and mind, we can do something completely new. We can choose not to focus on what these troubled states want us to; we know that’s the road to ruin. Instead we will choose to remember what it is that we want above all else: the Light of Truth that not only reveals what has been hurting us, but that frees us from these unconscious conditions at the same time.

The Wise Ones have always taught the great gift of remembering the Living Light and the practice of placing ourselves in its presence before we embrace anything else. Of course the elevated nature of this kind of remembrance in the face of our trials requires our deliberate and conscious willing of it; but, to paraphrase St. Augustine, “My remembrance of thee is really an effect of thee remembering me.” Which means that everything about Reality is already set up to help us succeed with our new aim.

So, in that same moment when you realize that something painful from your past has again pressed its way into you, holding you hostage to a hated image or painful regret, here is what to do: right there, right in that Now, instead of capitulating into that familiar state of feeling yourself to be a captive of what this pain tells you that you must remember (along with all of its suggested solutions for ending the suffering), you choose to remember the Light. Here is a quick look at what this new inner action entails.

Instead of being drawn into a struggle with that unwanted sense of conflict, complete with its cast of supporting characters drawn from your past, intentionally withdraw your attention from that stage show. And at the same time as you close the curtain on it, bring all of your reclaimed attention into the Now. Come awake to the sense of your own physical body. Observe what thoughts and feelings are pressing themselves into your awareness and, while working in the Now like this, welcome into you a conscious remembrance of the Light, of God’s Life, of the whole truth as best you understand it.

For instance you might work to remember that the Living Light that has no burden, as opposed to identifying with an old bitterness that is itself the burden that it always blames on others. The key, regardless of one’s individual approach, is to make interior effort based upon bringing your new self-knowledge into a willing watchfulness. To help get you started, here are a few other suggestions. When an angry thought flashes in your mind, accompanied by the fiery sensations born of recalling some injustice done to you in the past, instead of remembering the resentments this little image stirs in you, turn the tables on it. Bring its little troubled life into your remembrance of that greater presence within you that dwells well beyond its punishing power. Work like this whenever you can and, like a pebble tossed into a deep pond, the ripple effects of that past pain will simply disappear into the healing nature of the Now. Instead of a life of endless resistance, you will learn the timeless secret of how to replace any form of darkness with the Light you have chosen over it.

Choose to remember the Light. Let it fight for you. Not only will this Living Intelligence lift you above the fray of all that should be forgotten, but it also will guide you back home to a timeless place in yourself where the past no longer dwells.

———-

(Excerpted from Let Go and Live in the Now, Red Wheel/Weiser)

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of more than 38 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. For more information visit www.guyfinley.org, and sign up to receive a free helpful newsletter emailed to your desktop once each week.

Copyright Life of Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Permission granted to reprint with author credit.

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A couple of months ago, my son and I were staying at my parents’ house. I was going to a retreat that weekend with my spiritual school. While I was gone, my son and parents would play together.

The night beforehand, my father knew that the following day they would be going to a fun amusement park. He asked my son, “So what do you think we’re going to do tomorrow?”

His response:

“I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

My father followed up:

“Well, what do you think we might do?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out.”

I experienced gratitude in that moment because I knew my son understood, at least a little bit, one of the most important life teachings any of us can learn: How to embrace the mystery.

The mystery is where we live 100% of our life. Every moment is in the mystery. We might think we “know” what is coming up, but truly we don’t.

Just ask that to anybody who has had a heart attack, been in a car crash, been diagnosed with cancer, lost a loved one unexpectedly, been fired from a job, had a partner break up with them out of the blue, went to the store to buy something specific and it was out of stock, won the lottery…

Or phrased a different way:

Ask anybody in the world if they can be 100% certain what the next moment holds. I don’t think there’s a sane person in this world, not even the most renowned psychics, who can always state they know with certainty what the future holds.

(even if they can get “many of the moments” right and/or “good enough”)

Yet our mind wants to think it knows what the future holds. We create patterns of expectation based on previous experience. When we get in the car to drive to work we expect to get to work. We’d even bet on it.

When we enter into a new relationship, we already have expectations. What do we need to be in relationship? Can that person give it to us? Can we give them what they need? Will the relationship last long or end short?

When we work, we expect things to go a certain way. In some cases, if they don’t go a certain way we will lose our job or be penalized in some way.

Some of this is conscious. Most of it is subconscious. Our brains have been conditioned to see the world in specific ways according to our past experiences. Sometimes that historical conditioning is helpful. We don’t have to re-learn how to eat, move, or use the restroom.

Unfortunately, historical conditioning also creates expectations about the future that limit our effectiveness to live fully. As long as we expect things to go a certain way we can never see them for how they really are.

Expectations are filters which prevent us from seeing the power inherent in the unknown mysteries of the Universe. Expectations prevent us from experiencing the world in a personally meaningful way.

It’s not our fault that we hold such grand expectations about the world. As a child it was necessary for us to make sense of the world. Few parents can balance giving a child boundaries and a solid foundation with an effective understanding and trust of the unknown. Many parents often try too hard to have all the right answers for children.

Sometimes it’s easier to make up an answer than try to explain something effectively using age-appropriate terms…

“Where do babies come from?”

Sometimes parents fear that kids aren’t ready or can’t comprehend difficult experiences or concepts…

“Why do people kill each other?”

Sometimes parents feel like they have to be ‘all knowing’ for their children (and/or themselves)…

“Why is the sky blue?”

Some parents feel they need to create fairytales so their children can develop a sense of faith and mystery…

“Is Santa Claus real?”

There are many reasons why parents have told little white lies to their children. Those reasons are usually well-intentioned, and they all come down to wanting some degree of certainty in the world for themselves and/or their children. It comes down to not completely trusting the unknown mystery that is inherent in every single moment. Or they just don’t have the first clue how to answer a difficult question, and to relieve their unconscious feelings of helplessness they try to come up with anything that is “good enough.”

Few people living today truly trust and embrace the mystery. It’s just not something most of us were taught. I’m learning this more and more with each passing day.

Fortunately, it’s never too late to choose something different for ourselves and others. Instead of always having the answer, let’s get used to saying things like:

“I don’t know.”

Quietly you can also say in the back of your mind, “And it’s okay.”

You can even follow it up with “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” or “I don’t know exactly how to answer that. I want to, I just don’t have the right words. Let me think about it.”

It’s okay to not know.

In fact, when you truly enter the space of not knowing then you allow your innate natural curiosity to come forth. It’s by not knowing that you can truly embrace and take delight in the mystery that is available to each of us.

For the next week or so, pay attention to your relationship with “knowing” and “not knowing.”

When are you trying to “have an answer?” When do you think you know how things will or should go? When are you trying to cover up the feeling of not knowing something?

And on the other hand, notice what your experience is like when you truly don’t know something. Is it scary? Is it comforting? Is it painful? Is it joyful?

Everybody will have different responses to the unknown.

Here’s the kicker…

As long as you have reactions to the unknown, you’re still using the filter of your past conditioning to look at the unknown!

Your Partner In Transformation,
Chris Cade
Liberate Your Life

P.S. There’s a difference between real “not knowing” and “not knowing within a range of possibilities.” It’s not truly “not knowing” to say “I don’t know if I’m going to get hurt in this relationship.”

Real “not knowing” is being able to step back even further and say, “I don’t know who I am or who this other person is. Let’s start relating and see what we discover.”

P.P.S. If you’d like to systematically let go of some of your past conditioning and live with more strength, courage, willpower, and trust in the mystery, then check out my Liberate Your Life program.

Several lessons look at the specific barriers and blockages we have to embracing the unknown. Then Liberate Your Life helps you discover a deeper peace, joy, comfort, and abundance in your life that can only be found by understanding and embracing the mystery.

Click Here And Learn More About Liberate Your Life

————————

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“I can’t believe my eyes”, people say…

Well, they shouldn’t either. Because you’re eyes don’t actually see.

They’re merely lenses that pass on information to the visual cortex in the brain. And only there do you see.

So you actually see with your brain, not with your eyes. “I saw it with my own brain!” would be a better way to put it.

After all, we decode the visible frequencies of light that our eyes pick up into ‘physical reality’. Your eyes don’t send images to your brain of 3D street scenes or whatever we think we see outside of us.

They perceive frequencies and then send them to the brain in the form of electrical signals. And your brain decodes those signals into an apparent 3D reality that we think is outside of us.

What we see is ‘light’, as it’s reflected by what’s called ‘luminous matter’. ‘Luminous matter’ reflects electromagnetic light, which your eyes can perceive.

But 95 percent (at least) of the mass in the universe is known as ‘dark matter’ or ‘dark energy’. This ‘stuff’ doesn’t reflect light, and therefore can’t be seen by us humans. However, it can be measured by its effect on the part of the universe that we can ‘see’. That’s how we know it’s there.

But anyway, the only light we can see is the light reflected within the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum. And we only see those particular frequencies within that electromagnetic spectrum. And actually, it’s only a fraction of the spectrum that can be accessed by our human vision:

But there’s even more…

The electromagnetic spectrum is only 0.005% of the estimated mass of the universe. And human sight can see only a tiny fraction of these electromagnetic frequencies. So imagine how little of the universe we can actually perceive and decode into ‘physical’ reality!

We’re virtually blind!

The truth is that we only see what the brain tells us to see. And let’s take a quick look at what happens before we actually ‘see’:

• First, light enters the eye by passing through the outer, transparent layer called the ‘cornea’.

• Then it goes on through the pupil, which gets bigger or smaller to allow for more or less light to be let in (depending on the circumstances). This latter process is controlled by the iris (the colored part of the eye).

• Then it goes to the lens to be focused.

• After that, it enters the ‘vitreous humor’, a jelly-like substance behind the lens.

• And then the light (or information) strikes the retina, which ‘captures’ the image like the film in those good old photo cameras. However, this image recorded on the retina is two-dimensional and upside-down!

• The next stop is the optic nerve, which in turn sends the image through the brain to the ‘occipital lobe’. This is where the brain re-assembles the two-dimensional and upside-down image that was delivered by the eyes into the form that we think we are seeing.

So this is really quite a path to travel for what we think is an ‘objective image’ before we actually ‘see’ it. And what’s even more striking are all the things that happen before we actually ‘see’ the image that we think we see.

After all, what we think is a 3D image that situated outside of us is only constructed when frequencies are recorded as a two-dimensional and upside-down image on the retina. It’s only later (when the info reaches the ‘occipital lobe’) that it’s constructed into a 3D image. And this construction happens in your brain.

So does the world outside of us really exist in the way we think we see it? But wait… Here’s another thought-provoking realization:

On the way from the eyes to the visual cortex, the temporal lobes edit and reconstruct up to 50% and more of the ‘light’ or ‘information’ that was perceived by the eyes. In his book The Holographic Universe, the late Michael Talbot [1] writes about the work of neurophysiologist Karl Pribram and others [p. 163]:

“Pribram discovered that the visual information a monkey receives via its optic nerves does not travel directly to its visual cortex, but is first filtered through other areas of its brain.

“Numerous studies have shown that the same is true of human vision. Visual information entering our brains is edited and modified by our temporal lobes before it is passed on to our visual cortices.

“Some studies suggest that less than 50 percent of what we ‘see’ is actually based on information entering our eyes. The remaining 50 percent plus is pieced together out of our expectation of what the world should look like (and perhaps out of other sources such as reality fields). The eyes may be the visual organs, but it is the brain that sees.”

Wow! And then consider this…

What we don’t ‘see’, we make up. Seriously, we make it up! Here’s how…

Our eyes have a blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the eye in the middle of the retina. We can’t see anything with that part of the eye. However, the brain weaves the picture together from the information available and ‘fills the hole’.

So actually, what we believe we are seeing is what we see. Upon constructing the 3D image that we think we eventually ‘see’, the brain filters and tweaks the information received by filling in holes and matching it to its expectations of what there is to be seen, based on its engrained beliefs. And that latter part makes up for more than 50% of the images we actually ‘see’!

That’s quite something! We also describe this mechanism in our free book on the Premises Of Your Own Power (and if you haven’t read it yet, you can get it for free here: Free Ebook )Here are some excerpts of what we wrote:

“Most people will be familiar with overlooking misspelled words. This is because your eyes, or rather your brain, is so accustomed to reading the words in correct spelling, that it simply overlooks a typo. The typo is filtered out of the image by your brain, which causes you to overlook it and see the correct spelling, which is in line with your expectations. This does not happen all the time, but it does happens sometimes, which illustrates the point to make here. Neurophysiologists like Karl Pribram have long been aware of this fact.

(…)

In relation to the example of the misspelled words, your engrained belief system (the correct spelling of the words you see most of the time) caused your brain to filter out the information (the typo) that was at odds with its conditioned worldview (its expectations).”

Here’s another excerpt:

“Likewise, studies have shown that men and women often have trouble communicating accurately with each other, because what one says the other does not hear. Each hears merely whatever supports their belief and prejudice about each other. They pick up only what they want to hear, or what supports their conditioned view of the way things are. This is a psychological phenomenon called ‘selective retention’.”

And here’s a final one:

“The catch is that seeing is not just believing. Apparently, ‘believing is also seeing’.

Because the information picked up by your eyes is edited by your brain according to its engrained belief systems, a large proportion of what you actually ‘see’ is determined by what you believe deep inside to be true. You see what you believe.

And of course, because you see what you believe, you immediately believe what you see, because it supports your belief systems that determined what you saw in the first place. Thus, what you see reinforces your belief system, which causes you to keep seeing things in the way you believe things to be, which in turn again makes you see things in that way. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle!”

You can read more details on that in the book Premises of Your Own Power…

But for now, we’re slowly moving into the point that we want to make…

After all, it’s clear that the beliefs programmed into your brain have a significant effect on the way you perceive ‘reality’… or in fact, on the way you even construct reality and thus what you seem to be ‘attracting’!

The thing is… Your brain is not the center of control that determines what happens and what doesn’t happen.

And that’s good news!

Because it’s still true that you can be the one taking control. You don’t have to be a slave to your body and brain. That is, if you recognize that you are not your body. You need to recognize that you are indeed the essence controlling it and occupying it to allow yourself to experience this ‘3D solid world’.

After all… Consider all this:

There has been this publication of an article in the scientific journal ‘Science’ with the provocative title ‘Is Your Brain Really Necessary’ [2].

This article was a reaction to the description of this British neurologist John Lorber of a young man of ‘normal development’, with an IQ of 126, and an academic degree in mathematics.

The funny thing was that a brain scan of this apparently highly intelligent young man showed that he was a pretty hardcore case of what’s known as ‘hydrocephalus’, or ‘water on the brain’.

Put differently, the head of this ‘IQ 126′, ‘academic degree in mathematics’ young man was filled with cerebrospinal fluid for 95%. What this means in layman’s terms is that his skull was like a swimming pool for his brain, which basically drowned in all that fluid.

His cerebral cortex had a gauge of about 1 millimeter, so there was hardly any brain tissue left. The weight of his brain was estimated to about 100 grams, where 1500 grams is normal for an average homo sapiens sapiens. But the workings of his brain were hardly impaired at all!

The following picture comes to mind:

Maybe we underestimated him…

Anyway, it seems like the brain is not the source of consciousness. And so the good news is that you can exert control over your brain (and thus your perceptions and the way you construct your reality (or what you seem to ‘attract’)) through your own being conscious.

Put differently:

YOU NEED TO WAKE-THE-HELL UP!

Basically, your body (including your brain) is a vehicle for experience, and you’re in the driver’s seat.

You can take control and manipulate your perceptions, and it has been shown that you (being a conscious essence) can even change your brain (being a part of the ‘space suit’ (your body) you’re wearing in order to be able to experience this ‘physical ‘reality’).

And if you listen closely, you’ll see this is true, and you’ll learn how you can benefit from this…

Science has shown during our lives there’s this ongoing process of adaptation in your brain. This happens because your mental, intellectual, spiritual and physical activities influence both the number as well as the locations of the mutual connections between neurons (brain cells). This process of ongoing adaptation is called ‘neuroplasticity‘ or ‘cortical remapping‘.

So basically, because of conscious attention, emotions and active thought processes, as well as due to physical activity and movement, the neural networks in your brain change continually. And as such, the electromagnetical activity in your brain changes all the time as well.

In a recent article in the scientific journal called ‘Progress In Neurobiology’ called ‘Mind Does Really Matter’ [3], neuroscientist Mario Beauregard comes to the conclusion that trust and positive expectations are capable of influencing (changing) the parts in the brain that play a significant role in perceiving, movement, pain and a whole bunch of emotional processes.

So your mental processes (thoughts, feelings, beliefs, but most of all your conscious free will) can significantly influence the functioning of your brain on various levels.

Your conscious and deliberate manipulation of your thoughts and expectations not only greatly improves your feelings of well-being. It also causes a demonstrable biological change in your brain. (Beauregard outlines a whole list of studies that demonstrate the effect of consciousness on brain functioning in his book The Spiritual Brain [4]).

So what to make of all this scientific mumbo-jumbo?

Well, here we go…

By waking-the-hell up from the vicious cycle that you may find yourself in, you can make astonishing changes in your perceived reality.

After all, we’ve seen that you see what you believe. Your brain edits the information it receives based on its engrained belief systems to determine what you see. And then what you see is merely a confirmation of what you already believe. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, and it’s vicious as long as it’s based on beliefs of negativity, being powerless, being poor, feeling guilty, and so on…

But by waking-the-hell up, you can consciously change your perceptions. You can consciously cause significant, demonstrable biological changes in your brain.

Your brain will change, and your perceptions will change. And as your perceptions will change, your beliefs will change. And as your beliefs change into knowing that you have full power over your own reality, your perceptions will change accordingly.

It’s still a self-reinforcing cycle, but not a vicious one anymore. Both your conscious and your subconscious mind will change into a state in which you genuinely believe down to the core of your being that you’re the one in control.

And you can simply pick your beliefs. Your brain, mind and perceptions of your ‘outside reality’ will follow automatically.

Even if you have ‘water on the head’, as you have seen…

So who cares if your brain scan looks like Homer Simpson’s?

It doesn’t matter, because you are not your body. You are a unique representation of all that exists, and you’re awesome. You can choose to make the change. It’s your call.

And here’s how you can.

Revolutiz Your Life

References

[1] Talbot, M. (1991), The Holographic Universe, HarperCollins Publishers Inc.,
New York;

[2] Lewin, R. (1980), “Is Your Brain Really Necessary?”, Science 210, pp. 1232-1234;

[3] Beauregard, M. (2007), “Mind Does Really Matter: Evidence From Neuroimaging Studies of Emotional Self-Regulation, Psychotherapy, And Placebo Effect”, Progress In Neurobiology 81 (4), pp. 218-236;

[4] Beauregard, M. and D. O’Leary (2007), The Spiritual Brain: How Neuroscience Is Revealing The Existence Of The Soul, Chapter 6: Toward A Nonmaterialistic Science Of Mind, HarperOne, A Division Of HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, pp. 125-180.

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Nicholas P. Kidd and Henk J.M. Schram are the instigators of the alleged ‘Great Revolution’, which provides the members with truthful instructions regarding the universal principles of life.

The Revolution is receiving increasingly widespread attention for its straightforward explanations and instructions with regard to complex issues, which are made understandable for people from all walks of life. In essence, the true secrets of the ‘Law of Attraction’ and the other ‘Universal Laws’ are explained in much clearer and practical ways than the ‘enigmas wrapped in riddles’ that usually characterize the descriptions of the Law of Attraction and its application.

More information on the Great Revolution, on joining and on the ‘universal principles of life’ (the true ‘Universal Laws’) can be found by clicking here

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