Doing something the same way will get what you have always gotten. Who could you be when you try something new?
We are all doing the best we can. If that was not so, we would do better. (wiser choices, better responses). In other words, we can only be as conscious as we are ~ we can’t know what we don’t know. Okay, that’s settled.
What are we supposed to do if we want to change for the better and accept we can’t stay the way we are?
Get to know yourself; even more than you do already. With increased self-awareness come shifts in consciousness. Shifts in consciousness bring more self-awareness. More self-awareness (knowing ourselves) allows us to see what needs to change in our lives and what we need to change about ourselves.
Once we realize we have everything to do with what we experience, we can do something about it. Of course, we must be willing to change.
Nothing in the Universe stops changing. We can choose to consciously participate. When we pay attention, we realize we get glimpses of our possibilities. Something we long for or a way of being that has alluded us. Those glimpses cause us to consider what could be different in our lives. As we become more self-aware, we realize we need to change first.
Odd as it might sound, changing is not about fixing. When we focus on fixing, we imply something is wrong; we’re wrong. There is nothing wrong. It’s just where we are now that will change when we change.
When we have an experience, a result that is not what we want, the wise and productive thing to do is ask ourselves if the result would be different if we had done something differently, if we were different.
We ask ourselves, “What might I need to change about myself and my life for the better?” What would I need to change about me to get a better, more satisfying result? Sometimes, the answers are apparent. Sometimes, the answers are challenging. We have habits and ways of being that we do not want to give up.
We don’t want to leave our comfort zone.
And you circle back to the question, “What do I need to change about me?”’ since I can’t stay the same and have a better result. This time with no judgment, simply observing.
We can practice this Vedic Teaching to strengthen our self-awareness and master the Teaching; if You Want To Change For The Better, You Cannot Stay The Way You Are.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
~ Upanishads of the Vedas
We begin to notice our current thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and how they affect our results. We get to know ourselves better. We recognize our journey is a game where the plays are to increase self-awareness, and the goal is to be clear, transformed ~ happy, and fulfilled.
May We All Walk In Beauty
Ahalya Running Deer
If you loved the article check out the companion video on the Mystery School’s YouTube Channel
When we accept as accurate the saying I’ll believe it when I see it, we are prisoners of our conditioning, counterintuitive to creating something we want that has yet to manifest. Over time, as we become more self-aware, we understand that the truth is You See What You Believe.
If that were not so, everybody would see things the same way. Our biases, beliefs, and conditioning create how we see things. How we see things establishes the pattern of our lives. Change the seeing, the pattern, our lives (our outcome for the better).
Ancient Alchemy was about transforming base metal into gold or prolonging life, even immortality. Today, Alchemy is understood to transform how we think and show up in our lives. We and our lives are the base metal; Becoming more conscious is the gold: Spiritual Alchemy.
Acknowledging that we see what we believe causes us to question our perspective. When we ask if what we believe is what we honestly think or simply conditioning, we are empowered to alter our experience.
A lifetime of self-effort brings us Wisdom, the knowing of ourselves. This Wisdom is what Socrates was saying, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” So, instead of grabbing an affirmation to change something, which is impossible since it’s piled onto an old belief that says otherwise, question your assumptions. Are they compatible with your intent? Expose the conditioning so you can be free from it.
In this process, we can discover our conditioned biases. Like, oh, I see where that came from: my parents, my teachers, my culture, and on and on.
When we discover that we see what we believe, we better understand our life experiences. Then, we can improve our lives because we are more conscious of old patterns and new, more empowering choices.
Discovering our bias is self-knowledge, which increases our self-awareness. Have you ever seen a stranger, and based on how they looked, spoke, ate, or dressed, you made an assumption that turned out to be incorrect?
Noticing how quickly we come to some conclusion is a great way to discover our biases and beliefs. Have you ever seen an expression on someone’s face that made you conclude they were angry at you? You worried about it and then discovered they weren’t mad at you or anyone, simply thinking about something they needed to solve.
Have you ever felt less than or better than someone else? Have you ever used the phrase (in words or thought) “those people,” referring to people different than you, socioeconomically, race, culture, political party, religion, or sexual identity? Where did that come from? Bias’s beliefs, conditioning.
Here’s one example of how beliefs are born:
How to Cook a Pot Roast
Four generations were present at the family gathering. As the children played, the adults prepared the traditional pot roast meal. Grandmother sat on the porch while her daughter prepared the dining table, and her daughter was preparing the food for the oven with the help of her young husband.
He watched as she seasoned the roast and cut off a small piece on each end before placing it in the large pan.
“Why do you do that?” he asked.
“Do what”?
“Why do you cut off the ends of the pot roast”?
“That’s how we do it; my mother did it that way just as Grandmother did. It makes it better”.
Not satisfied, the young husband went to the dining room and asked his mother-in-law why they cut off the end of the pot roast before cooking.
She said, “That’s how we always do it because that is how grandmother did it. It makes it better”.
Not satisfied, he went out to the porch and asked Grandmother. When you did the cooking, grandmother, why did you always cut off the ends of the pot roast?
“So it would fit into the pan.”
I wonder how many things we believe have a similar beginning?
And the following short story shows how whatever our conditioning is, influences our response.
Perspective: Shoes
A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business.
One sends back a telegram saying,
SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES
The other writes back triumphantly,
GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES
My beliefs have changed over my lifetime, some of which I would never have suspected. That process will likely continue. Our journey is about becoming a clearer being who is no longer run by beliefs and conditioning we have outgrown.
If we look at our experiences, ask ourselves, “From where did that thinking and responding come? Is that thinking and responding congruent with what I say I want or who I wish to be? Once we discover that we have a program, a way of thinking and responding that is counterproductive to what we want, we can begin to let it go. As we let go, Shifts in Consciousness happen. Old ways disappear, and new seeing occurs because new believing is present.
May We All Walk in Beauty.
Ahalya Running Deer
If you loved the article check out the companion video on the Mystery School’s YouTube Channel
Stand on your head and you might notice something new.
I read somewhere that the Spiritual Laws of Alchemy originated from ancient Persia. I heard about them from one of my Teachers. It doesn’t matter. They are practical tools for becoming self-aware, and being self-aware is the ticket to knowing yourself, and knowing yourself is the ticket to freedom.
They aren’t dogma or anything to do with have to, must, should.
The term alchemy is about transformation. The term spiritual recognizes that everything is spiritual because we are spiritual beings, learning and growing through our humanness.
Fortunately, Consciousness has heightened since ancient times, so back then, the goal of alchemy was to transform base metals into gold. Now Alchemy is about transforming ourselves into an Awakened and Aware human being; Spiritual Alchemy. Great Gratitude for evolution!
We human beings have a natural impulse to strive for more: more money, more health, more recognition, more achievement, more happiness, and even more spirituality. And we can become quickly dissatisfied. Have you noticed that when we finally get something we want, a car, house, or a new computer, it isn’t long before we consider an upgrade? And once we have gained, achieved, or accomplished, there must be more.
The “more” of Spiritual Alchemy is the longing for something challenging to explain ~ elusive. Sometimes, we don’t know what that something is; we only know we want it, which could be what we think of as more peace and happiness.
More peace and happiness come with personal transformation, greater self-awareness, a more profound relationship with our Higher Self, and a feeling that all is well in my world, regardless of difficulty or challenges.
Alchemy is about transforming something for the better, including one’s self.
All this transformation takes work. We must be willing to consider that we may not know as much as we thought we knew ~ a Beginner’s Mind is required.
Consider what this # 1 Law of Spiritual Alchemy is saying and how to go about experiencing the truth of it. It takes practice (work).
When You Change The Way You Are Looking At Something, That Something You Are Looking At Changes.
Yes, I know, you’ve heard this before. “I’ve got it”, you say to yourself. That’s the problem with this great age we live in. It’s the information age, and we have Google. How far have you gone with this exceptional teaching, which is a tool? What have you been able to change for the better because of mastering it?
It’s important to know that Spiritual Alchemy is not positive thinking or affirmations, although those could come into play in our process of transforming. Ask if you are correct in how you are looking at something or someone. Then, ask what your life might look like if you changed how you look at things; how might you feel better with more peace? Now we’re getting somewhere.
Thinking a person or situation could change because you changed may be challenging. There’s a good chance nothing changed but your viewpoint. Perhaps the perspective you changed was a limited idea, an opinion about how something or someone “should” be, or maybe you were just unhappy.
When we look at a person, situation, place, or thing, we see it through our biases and belief systems. When our belief systems and biases shift into an expanded perspective, what we see changes. It’s like wearing tinted glasses; when we remove them, what we look at looks different.
Here’s a story that’s a great example (as told by Venerable Master Hsing Yun)
There was once an old lady who cried all the time. Her elder daughter was married to an umbrella merchant, while the younger daughter was the wife of a noodle vendor. On sunny days, she worried, “Oh no! The weather is so nice and sunny. No one is going to buy any umbrellas. What will happen if the shop has to be closed?” These worries made her sad. She just could not help but cry. When it rained, she would cry for the younger daughter. She thought, “Oh no! My younger daughter is married to a noodle vendor. You cannot dry noodles without the sun. Now there will be no noodles to sell. What should we do?” As a result, the old lady lived in sorrow everyday. Whether sunny or rainy, she grieved for one of her daughters. Her neighbors could not console her and jokingly called her “the crying lady.”
One day, she met a monk. He was very curious as to why she was always crying. She explained the problem to him. The monk smiled kindly and said, “Madam! You need not worry. I will show you a way to happiness, and you will need to grieve no more.”
The crying lady was very excited. She immediately asked the monk to show her what to do. The master replied, “It is very simple. You just need to change your perspective. On sunny days, do not think of your elder daughter not being able to sell umbrellas but the younger daughter being able to dry her noodles. With such good strong sunlight, she must be able to make plenty of noodles, and her business must be very good. When it rains, think about the umbrella store of the elder daughter. With the rain, everyone must be buying umbrellas. She will sell a lot of umbrellas, and her store will prosper.”
The old lady saw the light. She followed the monk’s instructions. After a while, she did not cry anymore; instead, she was smiling every day. From that day on she was known as “the smiling lady.”
We’re like the crying/smiling lady. The circumstances did not change, only how she looked at them. She didn’t think positive thoughts or affirm, nor did her daughters change; she simply looked at things differently.
Dissatisfaction and longing exist. At some level, different for each of us, we want to be clear about ourselves and our place in the Universe. We may not call it that. We call it peace and happiness or enlightenment. Either way, positive change is needed to have a new experience.
We become more aware when we contemplate this Law of Spiritual Alchemy to see what is revealed about us. In that newfound awareness, shifts begin to happen. So, we start to look at how we are showing up. How are we thinking and feeling in the process of experiencing our experiences? Because the experiences are going to be endless.
And once we accept that we can change our experience by changing how we look at something, we’re closer to freedom. It’s a play of Consciousness about becoming more conscious of who we are and how we show up.
The # 1 Law of Spiritual Alchemy reminds us to pay attention to how we see things and ask ourselves if we are looking at something accurately and what might change for the better if we change that. Our journey is a transformation game, and the game rules are in the Laws of Spiritual Alchemy.
May We All Walk in Beauty.
Ahalya Running Deer
If you loved the article check out the companion video on the Mystery School’s YouTube Channel
We Power Animals show up in many forms, (i.e., bear, snake, ant, bird, fish, marine mammals like whales and dolphins as examples). We come to you in your visions, dreams, and journeys. Think in terms of non-ordinary reality of consciousness versus ordinary reality of our everyday, third dimension life.
We are aware of people thinking it best to have a Power Animal that’s powerfully impressive, maybe even majestic, intimidating or mystical. But, let me tell you, if my Ant brother shows up for you, you are in great hands.
Everyone gets the correct Power Animal. Whether your Power Animal is an Ant or a Buffalo, in time you will understand the benefit. You will see it in the wisdom you gain from your Power Animal’s contribution to you; how that wisdom strengthens a weakness and clarifies a strength. Together, over time, we create a dynamic partnership. That partnership empowers you on your journey of self-discovery.
We love to work with the humans we end up pairing with. Some of them are healers and we do healing work together. Others are simply focused on expanding their view of reality so the work we do together is specific to their growth. Of course, their growth spills over to their relationships and lives, resulting in healing in a different way.
We Power Animals are allies or spirit helpers. We are not a higher power, nor do we have your answers.
We assist you in healing and finding your own answers.
As Allies, our goal is service and support. Our relationship increases your intuition, develops your personal power and expands your perspective of reality. The knowledge and experience we bring to a relationship with you, is an addition to yours so that we can partner in transformation and contribution.
We are a natural expression of consciousness that teaches humanity to tap into Nature as teacher and guide. Working with a Power Animal you tap into Nature through the innate wisdom revealed via traits and attitudes of allies in animal form from non-ordinary reality. We understand and function under the laws of nature and teach our humans how to navigate that same wisdom.
Power Animals and human beings working together. Mysterious. Natural. Wonderful.
Being comfortable is nice. Having a purpose is better. Being Useful in our purpose is best of all.
We human beings have a natural attraction to comfort. That is until we experience the fulfillment of a useful, purpose-filled life. Then our idea of comfort changes.
So, what is being comfortable and how can being attached to it get in our way?
Did you know that a Bodhisattva makes a vow to live in bliss under the sky? Being a former camper when my boys were young, I have a hint of living under the sky. It was for short periods of time and always with a hot shower and flush toilets near-by. Not too Bodhisattva’ish. And of course, that is not precisely what that means.
Being comfortable is much more than the physical. Although that aspect of our comfort needs is useful and an excellent place to measure just how attached we are to things not changing or not wanting to be uncomfortable. For example, I notice how people respond while attending courses or retreats which have a structure and timeline different than they have in their personal lives. With some participants, the discomfort of being out of their controlled routine gets in the way of their experience.
Changing jobs, moving, relationships ending or changing, standing in our truth, taking a deep breathe and moving toward something unknown, all push us out of our comfort.
Getting up earlier to meditate, changing a habitual behavior, choosing a higher and less comfortable response in a usual situation, doing something different than we are accustomed to ~ all of these move us out of our comfort zone.
Moving out of a comfort zone expands us. Brain patterns switch channels; the conscious mind realizes there are more choices, the unconscious records that knowledge fed back to us. Stepping out of our comfort zone lifts veils of limited perspective ~ we see more. We begin to experience we are more, we can do more, and we can Be more. We will never experience our greatness unless we are willing to be uncomfortable.
In time we grow to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and realize it is the only way to live. That is when we recognize the joy of living a useful, purpose-filled life.
Grace under pressure is a saying often attributed to someone who, regardless of what is happening, manages to stay calm, think clearly and respond appropriately. That state of consciousness applies well to one who has developed a healthy relationship with their Thinker and Prover.
As we continue to consider the importance of these two friends that are always with us, the Thinker and the Prover, it would be easy to focus our intention on changing every negative, disempowering thought to a positive one.
That won’t work. For two reasons. One is we are not even aware of all our thoughts and two it would be so exhausting we would soon give up.
So, what can we do to empower ourselves in this relationship? First is to realize we dance with the Thinker and Prover in a rhythm that either empowers or disempowers us. And to remember we do have choice.
We can pay attention and recognize the disempowering thoughts as we become aware of them and stop embracing them. When we grab hold of a disempowering thought we easily go down our personal rabbit hole, affirming what’s wrong with us or the world and then the Prover goes to work.
Second is to learn how we can avoid being at the control of our thoughts. That comes from a meditation practice. The kind that has us allowing the thoughts to pass by like clouds in the sky, taking our focus off of the thought and back to the breath, or counting, or mantra.
Meditation is a practice of not embracing all the random thoughts that are constantly present whether we are aware of them or not. When folks meditate regularly, they build focus and clarity muscles. They begin to be clearer and respond instead of reacting to life. That is a pretty amazing benefit.
Begin noticing when you are having disempowering (negative) thoughts. As soon as you notice, do something to change directions of where that negative thought can take you. Consider the thought and if you want your Prover to go about proving it. That alone could bring a “Yikes! Maybe that is not the direction I want to go.”
Becoming instantly positive, with no problems, or in a state of bliss is not the point. Recognizing that the mind is going to think, with or without our help, is.
Our job is to choose what we will embrace. Choosing can be easier and faster when we consider that what we choose to think, our Prover will prove. Recognizing the validity of the Thinker and Prover could be the perfect motivator for choosing on what to focus.
We have two companions that act as a unit, inseparable. Like the wings of a bird, these two companions are the synergistic values that allow the bird to fly. Or we could say, like waves and the calm ocean dance together as one expression of the same whole. These two companions work in tandem, playing off each other to produce a result. They cannot be separated, just as we cannot have a physical life without breath.
Wisdom tells us we all need to make friends with these two companions. They can be our best friend or our greatest adversary. Our two constant companions are the Thinker and the Prover. We think something and the Prover goes to work proving it.
Consider the impact of the Thinker and the Prover.
Positive thinking helps and is limited because we are not aware of most of our thoughts. We need not be aware of our thoughts the prover is proving. There are many ways to improve our relationship with these two companions to an empowering relationship. The first is to accept they exist. Begin noticing your thoughts. Shifts in awareness automatically cause change within us.
Successfully working with the Thinker and the Prover takes vigilance, paying attention and often Herculean effort. Evolution is Attitudinal Healing ~ becoming a clear human being. It’s a step by step process, like building up weak muscles or changing a bad habit to a good one.
There was an ashram with a pet cat that would always come into the meditation room and disturb the meditators. The Teacher instructed that when it was time to meditate the cat was to be tied to a pole. In time the Teacher passed away. Meditation time with the cat tied to the pole continued. Then when the cat died the students got another cat to tie to the pole.
Spiritual materialism can be like that; getting caught up in form: wearing certain clothes or eating a certain way or specific prayers, mantras, practices, or conducts of behavior. We can tie the cat to the pole and never ask what’s the point? Worse we can convince ourselves that our particular cat and pole are the best.
The point of spiritual practice is to develop a healthy ego. Instead we often feed an unhealthy one with the righteousness of ideology and methodology.
The book I am recommending is Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trumpa.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was an amazing Master Teacher who brought the highest-level Tibetan Buddhist Teachings to the west. He was extraordinary in busting people’s concepts of what “being spiritual” should look like.
My early religious education and experience prepared me to not put too much importance on the outer form. In my teens I went from Protestant Evangelical to Roman Catholic. Since then I have met many Masters from many religious and spiritual traditions. Some wore monastic robes and some wore jeans; some adhered to strict disciplines and some did not.
Although the look, the practices and the rules were significantly different from each other in these different paths, I found great beings in each place. The commonality of all these great Masters was their Beingness; their unshakable presence, an obvious Knowingness that elevated my consciousness and expanded my experience of reality. Some of them didn’t fit my picture of a holy person ~ yet I knew they were.
Every aspect of our existence is spiritual simply because we are first and foremost spiritual beings. We use our human experience to uncover and develop our spirituality ~ our sense of Self and our relationship to the world. This significant book points out the pit falls of getting caught up in “being spiritual” so that we can actually have the experience of “being” spiritual.
It is my hope that you enjoy this book and that you gain an expanded perception.
First came the awareness of being a human being having a spiritual experience. Then Wisdom cleared away that concept to the truth of, we are a spiritual being having a human experience.
What does that mean?
The Wholeness of us is as a spiritual being; we are a spiritual being in the human being life school.
It’s like being a university student. You are a person that is having a university student experience. You might call yourself a student, just like we refer to ourselves as mom, dad, artist, banker, human being. Sort of a label of explanation about what we do, what roles we are playing. Even with the usefulness of these descriptive labels we know we are more than that.
There are no separate parts to us that designate one as a human being and one as a spiritual being. We are one being of Wholeness. We are a spiritual being who is having a human experience.
Living a life in the mundane world as a human being is not separate from our innate spirituality. Mundane versus spiritual is a difficult concept to understand and accept because of an incorrect understanding of what being spiritual is.
Being spiritual is not about always being happy, kind, with no challenges or individuality. Nor walking around as a benevolent being that radiates constant goodness, agreement, and approval. No one gets everyone’s agreement, or approval and goodness is a perception of the perceiver.
We cannot not be a spiritual being because that is part and parcel of the package of humanness. That some people are not aware of their innate spiritual nature and have no manifestation of it does not alter the fact that there is a spark of God within. With some folks that spark is deeply buried.
Who you are is who you are, where you’re at is where you’re at, wherever you go, there you are. You are the common denominator in your existence. How we express ourselves as a spiritual being and how we perceive others as spiritual beings is a manifestation of the level of our clarity, of our evolution.
When we think we are only spiritual when meditating or feeling a state of connection to all that is, that creates some kind of separation, often causing doubt since we walk through life feeling very human. We are spiritual beings when eating pizza or meditating, when angry, sad or happy and peaceful.
Who could I possibly be but me? How could I not be a spiritual being? Our journey of Awakening is about coming to experience ourselves as who, indeed we are ~ a spiritual being, learning from our human experience.
Our life is a hero’s journey of unexpected events, surprising challenges, tests of courage and tenacity ~ and immeasurable possibility.
The following poem by J.R.R. Tolkien speaks of the journey of life. I wondered at the beauty and depth of its words. I first saw it several years ago and it remains for me a message of holding hope and faith for a life unfolding in its own precious time. That we each are a hero on our own journey.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
The poem sums up the quest of Tolkien’s magnificent story. Tolkien’s story is about all of us, our quest, our lostness, our brokenness, our questions and our ultimate victory.
All the beautiful stories of hero’s adventures to solve, restore, vindicate and succeed in their quest for truth and goodness are parallels to our own. Those stories may be more exciting. After all we don’t float by Sirens, fight off a Cyclopes or fight the evils of Sauron. Not exactly.
Yet in our own journey we face distractions, doubts, despair and suffering. In the process of experience we discover what is worthwhile and true for us. Life circumstances test our faith and resolve. If we can see ourselves as a hero on a quest we can understand that no great journey is going to be without great challenges. A hero is a hero simply because he or she is willing to pay the price of greatness. That price will be different for all of us and it will be the same in the demand for us to continue in the direction of that which we seek.
A hero becomes the hero of his own journey when he recognizes that he is the hero who has a destiny to fulfill and accepts the challenge.
First came the awareness of being a human being having a spiritual experience. Then Wisdom cleared away that concept to the truth of, we are a spiritual being having a human experience.