Consciousness Articles

Below is my complete compendium of consciousness articles. Click on the title of any article to read its complete text. Comments are welcome.

Zero Limits Book Review - The last few days I have been reading through Zero Limits, the latest book by Joe Vitale, written with Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD. The seed that brought this book into fruition was Joe Vitale hearing the story of Dr. Len curing a whole hospital ward of the criminally insane in Hawaii without even seeing the patients. He did it by looking at their files and saying, "I’m sorry; I love you."

Why is God so Cruel? - I often hear people ask, "Why is God so cruel?" And it’s easy to understand why people might think this, especially when they see tragedy befall their loved ones. We live in a world where people are killing people everyday, in wars, in crime, and in accidents. Millions others are dying everyday from disease. And if God is infinite in knowledge and power, why does He allow such a state of affairs to exist?

Prisoners of Identity - We are all prisoners to some degree as we are all bound and limited by false identities. Some of these identities allow more freedom than others, but except for the few souls on the planet who have transcended the mind (which is the creator of all identities), then we are limited by these identities. When people are content with their roles in life, they are trapped in illusion. They never strive to discover the infinity of being. The idea that they are infinite beings, or even more than they experience, never occurs to them. They don’t hear the inner question that is within all of us (some hear it more acutely than others). The question is "Who am I?" And it is this question that propels consciousness to discover greater and deeper levels of it own existence.

Life as Art - I have long held a view of life as art. In everything we do we can communicate beauty and grace, or ugliness and coarseness. Every word, thought and action we give birth to leaves an impression, not only on us, but on everyone within our circle of influence.

Toughts as Inspirations from the Suprerme Intelligence - “If you accept your thoughts as inspirations from the Supreme Intelligence, obey them when they prescribe difficult duties, because they come only so long as they are used; or if your skepticism reaches to the last verge, and you have no confidence in any foreign mind, then be brave, because there is one good opinion which must always be of consequence to you, namely, your own.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essay on Courage)

The Deeper Problem - Forget about the symptom. Focus instead on the deeper problem. It makes no difference whether your problem is an addiction, an inferiority complex, an anger issue, financial predicament, or even procrastination, the issue cannot be resolved until you understand and tackle the deeper problem. The problem is unconsciousness, a disconnection from the source of being.

Intuition -- How to Cultivate It - Intuition is a product of consciousness. As such, it is a way of perception that is beyond the mind. It is closely allayed with feelings. And yet it goes beyond feelings. It is a way of seeing that is activated when we are attuned to our inner essence. The mind, with its rational thought, lives through the ego and attachments, of good and bad as it relates to the self- interest of the ego. Intuition, on the other hand, is a faculty activated when one is free of the filters of the mind and ego. It is objective and it sees the whole.

Source of Being -- The Source of Power - The conscious connection to the source of being – God, the Divine Beloved, Infinite Intelligence -- is the pathway to passion, conviction, and inspiration. This all-pervading energy is the source of intuition, insight and illumination. To the degree that we are conscious of this energy determines our depth of perception and expression of it. The consciousness we have of the all pervading is the determinant of our power in the outer world. Infinite Power is the expression of Infinite Consciousness. Great power is the expression of great consciousness. Lesser power is the expression of lesser consciousness.

New Age Books -- The Top Ten - The marketplace for New Age spirituality self-help books as never been as hungry for fresh material as now. The taste for it in the mass market was acquired several years ago with the publication of The Power of Now, which sold over two million copies, due in some part to Oprah Winnfrey 2002 televised endorsement, stating she read it eight times and keeps it on her bedside table.

Lessons of Life - The lessons of life are awaiting us all. To the impatient, life gives opportunities for patience. To the cowardly, opportunities for bravery. To the distracted, opportunities for focus. Whatever the defect, life will steer us in the requirerd direction to transcend it. We need but pay attention to what the lessons are.

Addictive Demands - I don’t know of anybody who is entirely free of addictions. Sure, not everyone drinks or smokes or does drugs. Those are just the obvious ones. But there are millions more. They take the form of demands. You might want to call them addictive demands. Let me describe what I mean by an addictive demand. They are anything that your happiness or poise depends upon. For example, some people get emotionally upset if their sports team loses. Their day gets ruined. That is an addictive demand. People who get distraught if it rains have an emotional addictive demand. An addictive demand creates pain and suffering when it comes into conflict with what is.

Negativity -- Shining Some Light On It - I woke up this morning in a state of negativity. Knowing this was not conducive to anything but unhappiness, I wanted to transcend it, quickly. But how? A man who focuses on his weaknesses is prone to stay weak. A man who focuses on his negative mental attitude, even if he wishes to rid himself of it, will stay stuck in it. This is the principle of like attracts like.

Peaceful Warrior - Last night my wife and I watched Peaceful Warrior in DVD format, renting it on the first day of its release in video stores.The film is based on the autobiographical novel of Dan Millman. If you haven’t read the book, it’s a story about an older spiritual mentor, in the guise of a service station mechanic (in the film he is played by Nick Nolte) and a college athlete, Dan Millman (played by Scott Mechlowicz) who has trained his body to perfection but has done little training of his inner self. The mechanic, whom the athlete calls Socrates, gradually initiates Millman into new worlds of inner strength and understanding. One of the ways he does this is by telling the resistant Dan Millman "to take out the trash," referring to all the stuff that passes through his head that he doesn't need.

The Essential - Knowledge of the essential varies from person to person. When I was 27-years-old I shared an apartment on Venice Beach, California with an old philosopher, a man who lived life very simply. He had a only a few things in his life that were essential. They were walking on the beach every night, eating organic fruits and vegetables, and focusing on photographs of his spiritual master which he would meditate on for several hours a day.

Harmony with All - "Mankind’s role is to fulfill his heaven-sent purpose through a sincere heart that is in harmony with all creation and loves all things."-- Morihei Ueshiba (Founder of Aikido)

Morihei Ueshiba wasn’t just philosophizing, he was speaking from his own experience. Even when people would attack him, he would find the harmony and love required to create an environment of non-violence. His harmony with all creation was such that he was able to transcend the physical. How? By having consciousness of the subtle realms.

Suffering and Spirituality
-- A Process of Awakening - Last night I attended a reading group. The group reading focused on suffering and spirituality, or more specifically, the role of suffering in the process of spiritual awakening. It seems that suffering is often the precursor to the launching of many people onto the spiritual path. One person said that when she worked as a director of a cancer clinic, she would hear patients say how they wished they had gotten their cancer years earlier, such was their renewed sense of aliveness. Each moment of life had become that precious to them. When her friends would ask if her work as a group leader for cancer patients was depressing she would say no. It enriched her life to see the increased happiness of the patients. There were no more neurotic moments in their lives. Life became real.

Inner Vision - Do you ever think about inner vision and how important it is? Yesterday I had my eyes examined. I received some good news and some not so good news. And although the results I learned are important to me, it’s also important for me to keep those results in perspective. After all, with my eyes I see the outer world. Important yes, but not as important as that faculty that allows me to see the inner world to the extent that I do. For this is the vision that I take with me when I leave this physical realm.

Inspiration and Consciousness - When I tap into inspiration and consciousness, I view it as an opportunity. It's like a caged bird being set free. It offers a whole new world of possibilities and freedom of expression. The only problem is the intensified sense of limitation when the inspiration disappears, which is the equivalent of the bird being put back in the cage.

Personal Magnetism - If you ever need an example of what personal magnetism is, I once read that Henry David Thoreau walked 20 miles to hear Emerson give a lecture. What was it in Emerson that had the power to inspire Thoreau to walk so far? After all, there were thousands of other people much closer who would have been happy to give Thoreau advice. In human relationships, personal magnetism has a healing effect. It soothes, it pacifies, it energizes, it empowers and it enlivens. It does this by aligning all of the energies within you to work in harmony. It's like a laser beam of light, which has all of its light waves aligned coherently. Ordinary light is scattered energy while a laser light is focused, and thus, powerful.

Freedom from Reactions - Freedom from reactions becomes more of a priority when it is seen how often reactions imprison us. Everybody wants to be happy but most people don't give the proper attention to what makes them miserable. So much unhappiness comes from reflex-like reactions to circumstances. Sometimes we react to what people say. Sometimes we react to what happens or doesn't happen. Sometimes we react to what might happen and sometimes we react to what happened in the past. These reactions stem from our mental programming, which includes the culture and society we live in, and from the impressions of our past experiences, even from past lives.

Setting Goals from a Holistic Perspective - Setting goals is necessary to make progress in life. But real progress, holistically speaking, can never be made until we know where we ultimately want to go. It’s important to know if the goal will lead us in the right direction, that is, will it get us to our final goal. Here’s a true story from my life that serves as a metaphor on setting goals. In late August of 2001, I was traveling in India with my wife and daughter. At the time I was an employee of United Airlines, and at that time, United had flights in and out of New Delhi, India. Therefore, with my employee flight benefits, we were traveling on a standby basis. It was time to come home. We were at the Delhi airport and the supervisor at the United counter said we could not be accommodated on the flight to London. The flight was way overbooked and in a denied boarding situation.

Consciousness as a Responsibility - Do you ever look upon your consciousness as a responsibility that extends beyond you and your family and friends to people you don’t even know? Perhaps you can more easily see that responsibility if you consider your level of consciousness as the amount of brightness you are able to shine onto the world. The lower levels of consciousness, people shrouded in shame and fear, live in a self-made world of darkness. The higher levels, that of advanced mystics on the inner planes of consciousness, are characteristic of light and illumination. Famous examples of this would be St. Francis, Ramana Maharshi, Aurobindo, Thomas Merton and Mother Theresa. The principal is that in the presence of light, darkness vanishes. Or you could say that in the presence of light, darkness has no existence. It has no substance in that it has no existence except in the absence of light.

A Viewpoint of Truth - Imagine a culture that stressed the undivided wholeness of the entire universe. Well, if that is a viewpoint of truth you subscribe to, you can start with yourself. As Gandhi so wisely said, "You must be the change that you want to see in the world."

Living in the Present Moment
Enjoying the Richness of Life - I often find that my next step in life is rervealed by living in the present moment, wholeheartedly, enthused, and unabashed. How so? Because it is in those moments that I am free from the limited perspective of my mind. Consciousness takes over control of life from the mind in those moments. If that is too abstract, imagine that you are an amateur chess player competing in a chess match for a multi-million dollar prize against a world champion Grand Master. Sounds overwhelming, doesn’t it? But let’s say you were allowed to have an advisor, such as former world champion Garry Kasparov, sitting by your side. Would you take his advice? You know for a fact that Kasparov is your only chance to win the match. But what if he recommended a move that just went against all logic, like a queen sacrifice? Would you take the advice?

Decision Making - Decision making plays a big part in how successful one’s life is. What to major in at college, what career to choose, where to live, what to invest in, how hard to work, to marry or stay single, to save or to spend. The list is endless as everyday we are confronted with decisions. Some are significant and some aren’t. Some people put a lot of thought into their decisions and some people are spontaneous, or even impulsive. For example, some people put in days deciding what to pack for a trip and some pack in five minutes. What kind of decision maker are you? When you look back over your life, do you wish you had made some different decisions?

Preparing for the Spiritual Path - Preparing for the spiritual path. Those were the words of advice I read the other night in a book that now I can't get out of my mind. Have you ever read something in a book that gets your attention to the extent that you can't sleep? The book is by Marianne Williamson entitled Everyday Grace. It is full of inspired writing about the mystical path. She says just as you make preparations before you go on a journey, so you must make preparations before you go on a spiritual journey.

Rumi and the Inner World of Oneness - Are you familiar with he poetry of Rumi ? He is now the number one selling poet in America. This, despite the fact that he was a Sufi living in Turkey -- born 800 years ago this September. Why is he so popular? I think it's because his words strike a deep cord of resonance within the hearts of his readers, awakening them to the mystery of divine presence.

Self-Esteem -- The Way to Transcend It - Self-esteem gets a lot of hoopla in self-help circles these days, and that's fine. There is no doubt that a person who has a high opinion of him or herself is happier than the person who doesn't. However, there is another dimension to being that reaches so far beyond the limits of one's self-perception that it makes opinions (self-opinion and other people's opinion) irrelevant. This is the dimension of inner presence. It is so precious, so exquisite that any labels or comparisons are meaningless. It is a state of being that is beyond duality. It is a state of being that is untarnished by circumstance. I am referring to the state of being that is sustained by consciousness, that never diminishes, never fades, that is never lacking.

Gun Violence in America -- The Price We Pay - Today 33 people died and more than 30 others were injured from gun violence at Virginia Tech University. The shock and horror of that is so overwhelming that it is hard to think of anything else but the grief the families of the victims must be feeling. I pray that the pain in their hearts will one day be healed. But things aren't getting any better as far as shootings go. Next week, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another 42 young people age 18 and under will die from gun violence. This equates to about 2,200 young people a year dying from firearms.

Conscious Awareness -- The Opportunity of Each Moment - Viktor E. Frankl was suggesting conscious awareness when he wrote, "Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time." I hear a lot of people say they would like a chance to live life over again so they could get it right. OK. What do you want to do differently? Write it down. Bring to conscious awareness the unconscious patterns in your life that you want to eliminate. It doesn't matter if you are 20, 40, 60 or 90 years old. Each moment of life is an opportunity to live life fully.

Purpose of Life - The purpose of life is deeply important. When living with purpose, life works. It gives a certain self-satisfaction. When not on purpose, life has a sense of dis-ease, of discontent, of unrest.

Unworthiness - Unworthiness leads to self doubt. But it's not that we are unworthy. It's that we have a false sense that we are unworthy. This sense of unworthiness is what blocks the beauty of the soul from expressing itself in our daily lives. It is this sense of unworthiness that blocks spontaneity, creativity, and love. The doubt of being worthy is what stops us from traversing the spiritual path. The doubting voice says, "I'm deluding myself if I think I have the making of a spiritual aspirant."

Consciousness -- The Ultimate Purpose - Consciousness is the definer of our reality. I know this from my own personal experience from when I was only 21-years-old. In my case, a brush with death deepened and expanded it overnight. What normally is a long and gradual process happened quickly.

Unable to Sleep Through the Night - Sometimes I wake up at 3 or 4 am and I am unable to sleep. I usually get up for a few hours. Later, because I work from home, I am able to take a nap if I get sleepy. The night before last I woke up at 4 am. I got out of bed and went into my home office and spent some time on the computer, checking my website statistics, reading some stories on the internet, checking e-mail. But within about 15 minutes my wife Maggie called me from the bedroom. "Why are you up so early? Come back to bed."

Wholeness - To live life with a holistic perspective indicates a striving towards wholeness. It's also a striving for freedom. And only when we achieve this are we truly living. And only when we reach that state of wholeness and freedom can we approach death without clinging to a life that was never fully realized.

Contemplation Intensives -- Perspectives of a Modern Day Mystic - I had not heard about contemplation intensives until last month. Since then I had the opportunity to interview a professional man who was transformed by them. He is not your average man. He blends a brilliant mind with a gentle heart to forge a mystical approach to life, seeking the truth. He is trained in martial arts, and follows the path of the Indian spiritual master, Meher Baba. He is also the co-owner of a leading software animation company. He prefers that I refer to him simply as Richard.

Blame Game -- Don't Play It - The Blame Game has no winners - only losers. Everybody loses. It's not beneficial to anyone's consciousness to be singled out as a scapegoat. Nor is it beneficial to the consciousness of the one dishing it out. To the one being blamed, it causes shame and humiliation. A shamed and humiliated person in your life is not helpful, so why would you want to help create one. It causes divisiveness and does not foster cooperation. If the blamed person is a loved one, you are throwing a bucket of water on a fire of love. Your relationship is hurt by the blame.

Humility on the Spiritual Path - We need to be willing to be small. On the spiritual path, spiritual masters such as Hafiz and Meher Baba reveal that there is a veil that separates each one of us from seeing God face to face. The strong willed might think they can just rip the veil apart. But this is a veil that doesn't yield to brute force. All the missiles and bombs of the United States military force couldn't break through this veil. The only way to get to the other side of the veil is to be so small that you can go through it. That is humility.

Awakened Living -- Acceptance, Joy, and Enthusiasm - Awakened living becomes possible when we live with acceptance, joy, and enthusiasm. These constitute "the modalities of awakened doing." according to Eckhart Tolle in his book, A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. So it is not so much what we do, but how we do it. Acceptance, joy, and enthusiasm each represent "a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness." To live in denial of these would be to live in unconsciousness.

Human Being -- Concept or Reality - What does it mean to be a human being on this planet of six billion people? In other words, how many people are truly alive, following the prompting of their hearts? Or how many are so wounded that they are just going through the motions, living mechanical lives? Maybe five out of six? What does that say about life on Earth?

Who You Really Are - Do you know who you really are? Have you ever had an identity shift take place in a crisis? I remember years ago rafting down some white-water rapids and being thrown from the raft. There was no chance to get out of the water. There was no chance to be pulled back into the raft. All I could do was go with the flow. I didn't have a chance to complain, or be afraid. I remember the swift current carrying me across boulder after boulder. I used my hands and feet to guide myself around and over the boulders that were in my path.

Self-Esteem - In that approach, we emphasize the external situations, such as career, status, money, how others view us, what type of house we live in, what type of car we drive, and what type of education we have. And if these areas are lacking, the approach seems to focus on potential.

Patience - Patience is the attribute of the mind that enables one to have clarity, awareness, poise, relaxation, happiness, and purpose. Impatience, on the other hand, leads to frustration, reactivity, stress, fear, panic and confusion. Thus, patience is of extreme importance if we seek success in our lives. Like most people, I experience both of these states--patience and impatience. I realize I have not given patience and impatience enough conscious thought. When I do use consciousness, I have more of a choice in whether to be patient or not.

Kindness -- The Antidote for 100 Million Deaths - Kindness is to life is as color is to a painter. Both are used for the creation of beauty. Both are used as acknowledgements of life. Mark Joiner of Simpleology sent out this e-mail to his subscribers today and he asked that everyone send it out to five other people. I like it so much I decided to put it on my blog. It's from Amelia Earhart: "No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves."

How Thinking Can Change the Brain - The Wall Street Journal had a book excerpt two days ago on how thinking can change the brain. It was a self-evident truth to the Dalai Lama, but an impossibility, according to scientists. The excerpts were comprised of vignettes from the book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain,: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Power to Transform Ourselves. The book is copyrighted 2007 by Sharon Begley. It's classic, really. The Dalai Lama was observing a brain operation and asked the surgeons a question: "Can the mind shape brain matter?" I think he was toying with them. It was as if Einstein was asking a scientist (before he gave the world E=MC2) if time stands still at the speed of light.

Identity Shift to Joy - Making an identity shift was a key component in Steve Pavlina's recent and excellent piece on how to be a millionaire. For instance, instead of carrying $20 in your wallet, you would carry $400 or $500, because that is the mindset of a millionaire. The theory is if you are not open to the thought of carrying $400 or $500 in your wallet, then maybe you are resistant to the energy flow that comes with the package. It sounds like a good idea. And it raises a question: If making an identity shift is so crucial in reaching the goal of becoming a millionaire, then is it required to move into the higher realms of consciousness? How would we act differently?

Effortless Mastery - Effortless mastery in holistic personal development means to become that principle which you are developing in yourself. It means much more than having an understanding of love-it means to become love. It's means to go beyond understanding poise and to actually become poise; It's one thing to understand the importance of living in the present moment; it's another to actually do it as consistently as effortlessly as you breathe. How do we go from having spirituality in our head to actually becoming spiritual? We might think we have all the answers to all of life's problems, but when life spins out of control in a crisis, even the most knowledgeable of people sometimes find their wisdom deserting them.

Books on the Inner Life - Chances are, if you are on this site, you enjoy reading literature and books on the inner life. As a writer who focuses frequently on that subject, I get asked what books I read or recommend. Below is a list of books that have impacted me more than most; that have made their way into my permanent library. Some of these have had such an impact that I would call them life shaking, that have caused revolutions in the way my mind works; books that while reading keep me up all night lost in contemplation, pondering the mysteries of the infinite.

Creativity and Consciousness - Creativity connects me with the source of all. Through creativity, I become acutely aware that everything in the universe comes from an unmanifested state of existence. You can call it our source of being, God, Brahma, or Allah. It doesn't matter to me. I just know that it is consciousness, unbounded oneness, from which everything comes and to which everything goes. Physicist David Bohm describes this process as an eternal unfolding and enfolding between an implicate order of formlessness and an explicate order of form. To participate consciously in this dance between these two worlds of form and formlessness is enlivening, to say the least.

Learning to See from a Blind Man - We arrived before the first set began. Everything so far was a typical night out at a club with friends but that was about to change. As soon as Getz played his first note, Jeff, who was blind, stood up, leaning forward, in an attempt to make sure he didn't miss one note that Getz played, sort of a blind person's version of getting a better view. His ears were his gateway to the world and he made sure that nothing stood between them and Getz's saxophone with its beautiful sound.

Spiritual Retreat Centers - Spiritual retreat centers serve a great function in this over-stressed world of duality. When my life seems fragmented, or stressful, that's where I go. After a few days, I return home rested, relaxed, renewed, and revitalized. It’s a transforming experience that I want to explain.

The Direct Path - There is a lot of emphasis in Personal Development about choosing the direct path to the goal. It seems an obvious enough truth. But life in the 21st century is a life of global distraction. If we want to get to our goal in direct fashion, we better have plenty of focus, motivation, and determination. And we better know what we want.

Transcending Guilt - If you are suffering from guilt, be kind to yourself. Realize that you are a work in progress. No amount of guilt is ever going to heal the past. Only love can heal. Not only can it heal the wounds you have created, but it can heal wounds created by anyone. It can transform consciousness from the superficial and mechanical to a spiritual dynamic power -- restoring itself to the original unity of Being.

Friends Don't Let Friends Sleepwalk - As lofty and high as my intentions might be, I still get tripped up and bummed out-lapses in my conscious awareness. And when my wife Maggie calls me on it, I thank her, because I have given her permission to call me on it. But most people don't give other people permission to call them on it, and we have to respect that. But if you want to be the change that Gandhi referred to, and you're committed to being a whole person with conscious intentions, then ask someone to call you on your behavior.

Was Leonardo da Vinci a Buddhist? - Leonardo da Vinci has always struck me as a Zen Buddhist. Consider the following quote: "In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time." Is that Zen or what? Or how about this: "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." Or, "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." How can anyone explain these words of Leonardo without attributing a Buddhist influence in his thinking? Maybe he was a Buddhist in his previous life. (In the realm of Buddhist possibilities I suppose.)

Unconscious Habit Patterns - Our approaches to life become habitual. Habitual approaches to life give us habitual results of mediocrity, or worse. If we want to improve the results, we have to change our approach. And we can only do this with conscious awareness--examining why we do the things we do. We need to examine how we do the things we do and why we do them that way. Are there other ways of getting the job done? What might the result be with another way?

Beyond the Ego - "Looking out for number one" is the mantra of the ego. Selfishness is its mission statement. Fear and greed are its motivation or driving force. It is more concerned with appearances that with actual being. Its whole existence is based on the temporal and transitory, a house built on shifting sands.

Worry - Have you ever noticed you or someone else getting worried about the outcome of a baseball, football, or basketball game? Do you ever worry at the movies, such as in a suspense thriller? The tendency to worry, even if it involves something illusory as a movie, is tied to the fact that we are attached to the outcome or the result.

Plagued with Guilt - Guilt is tied to the past. It is a binding and limiting energy. It exists due to unconsciousness. The remedy for its elimination is the focus of consciousness. Consciousness is only possible when we are able to live in the present moment, connected to our source of being. That is when our heart is open, when we are able to love, when we are able to make choices. Only in the present moment are we able to respond to life. If we live with our minds riveted to the past, we can only react.

Enthusiasm that Matters - Susan Rabin said "Enthusiasm is contagious. Be a carrier." That's a positive thought. But it's also a scarry thought. Look at how many people were infected with Hitlermania in Nazi Germany. Look at how many people were killed in the name of God by enthusiastic realigious zealouts. How many men became carriers of the contagious HIV virus because of their intense enjoyment (enthusiasm) of gay sex?

Love Body - Today someone asked me if I knew of a tool that could be used to make it easier to listen to the voice of the heart when the mind talks so incessantly--when guilt and anxiety make it hard to experience satisfaction and peace. Two words immediately formed in my consciousness. "Love Body." This seemed to evoke a positive response. She said, "I like it, tell me more." What follows is my explanation, for the very first time, of these two words that were dropped into my lap, from what physicist David Bohm would call the enfolded universe.

A Lesson from Life - Sometimes we just need to let go of how we think things are supposed to be. As Inayat Khan said, "Nothing is good or bad; it's the mind that makes it so." It reminds me of the enigmas of Heraclitus: "That which opposes produces a benefit." New ways of thinking are required. The crisis becomes the opportunity. Flexibility, creativity, resilience, perseverance, poise are all exercised when faced with opposing force. Sometimes it's just a matter of perspective.

Anxiety - When I experience anxiety, I am grateful. That’s right, grateful. Why? Because it’s an opportunity for some inner work. It’s an indication of not living in the present moment, which means not living life fully.

Energy Pollution in Consciousness - In this world that we find ourselves living in at this time, the vast majority of people are sleepwalking through life. We accept the way things are and don't even ask why. Forget about a George Bernard Shaw dreaming about things that never were and asking "why not?" But why is that?

Attractor Energy Patterns - Why are alcoholics prone to staying in the state of alcoholism? Why do people stay in relationships that are painful and difficult? And why do some people go through their entire life complaining how unfair life is? And how do some people detach from all the allurements that captivate most people and experience elevated states of joy and bliss?

Poise--a Game We Play with the Universe - Poise, in our pursuit of consciousness growth, is as important to our success as focusing the lens is to the photographer. Without poise our perception is distorted and our vision clouded. Without poise we are as helpless as a ship without a rudder, and we get tossed around and never get to our destination.

The Map is not the Terriotry - The Map is not the Territory is a concept used in neuro linguistic programming. It is one of the presuppositions of NLP that basically means that things are not as they seem.

Forgiveness as an Avenue of Consciousness - Forgiveness is a major requirement for the ability to live in the present moment and to be free of the limitations and bindings of the past.