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Summer 2005 Greetings, Friends!
As the heat of summer intensifies, my desire to make things happen
seems to be waning proportionately. I find myself increasingly
The truth is, however, that the only way up and out of the chaos of duality is by being positioned to act on the impulses of Spirit at all times. When you are tied up with the kind of busyness your ego mind might prescribe, you are less available to Spirit. Being relaxed, flexible and available is key to being able to express the Divine Design for Harmony through us. So with summer calling us to slow down and chill out, let’s devote ourselves to obeying the urge to relax as much as possible, knowing that it is a vital step in preparing to be ready when Spirit moves us. Instead of pursuing the ego’s delusions of meaningful activity, let’s allow ourselves to enjoy the pleasures of resting, breathing more deeply, and appreciating the beauty all around us, while consciously allowing the Divine Design to pull us upward in frequency. Therein lies a powerful—and pleasurable—path to greater effectiveness in the world! You’re most likely to find me in my garden this summer, where it’s really easy to align with the Divine Design. Simply by observing and attuning with Nature, I am able to remember that all works in harmony in the realm where no egos and no artificial agendas are involved. Now, if only I can transcend my gardening “to do” list, and truly relax and appreciate! Enjoy your summer!
In Love, In This IssueWho's Driving?You Can’t Get to Paradise On An Ego TripIf you’ve been on a conscious spiritual journey for any time at all, you have likely figured out that there is an aspect of you that is working overtime to keep you out of Nirvana. That pesky entity is none other than your ego. Your ego, however, does not realize it is a problem; instead, it believes itself to be your heroic savior and the only thing standing between you and extinction. Indeed, the ego is correct in this—without your ego, there would be no “you.” Your ego is the aspect of your psyche that maintains the idea that you are an individuated, separate, autonomous being. Laboring under this notion, it attempts to steward your life according to this model, and rebels at the notion that you are actually one with all Creation. Your ego is entirely invested in the duality matrix—the reality model that turns on there being more than one. The duality matrix is not “evil,” it’s just not suitable for human habitation. The problem with duality for human beings is that there is no lasting joy, no contentment, no peace to be found within it. And, because it does not support your full interface with the Source of Life Force, duality is, literally, the realm of death. Your tether to the duality matrix is your ego. If the tether were broken and you escaped the lower frequencies of the duality matrix and re-entered the high-frequency state of Oneness, you would find that there is no “you”—or “I”—there’s only…well…Everything. In Oneness, there’s only un-compartmentalized, pronoun-less, infinite Consciousness and limitless Life Force. As you can see, because your ego depends on the concepts of individuation and separateness for its existence, Oneness is your ego’s greatest threat. But the higher frequencies of Oneness, the realm of your Spirit, is where everything you long for— harmony, peace, bliss, true wisdom, and free-flowing ease—resides! Are you seeing an irreconcilable difference here? And, yet, reconciliation is what is called for. You must disempower your ego by simply refusing to allow it to drive you, and choosing to let the part of you that is perfectly interfaced with Oneness guide you instead. It won’t do to struggle with ego—fighting it is exactly what will keep you in the duality matrix and empower it further. Duality, which is, by definition, two forces in opposition (good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, etc.), is always strengthened by conflict, as conflict is the very hallmark of duality. Forces in opposition do not create peace, harmony, or joy. So fighting your ego is a losing game. In fact, offering Love to your ego, while still refusing to buy into its dramas, is far more effective. Remember that your ego is simply doing what it needs to do to survive, and, like any entity that is fighting for survival, it can be vicious and tenacious. The more threatened it perceives itself to be, the more deeply it digs in. So the trick to disempowering your ego is to observe it, say “thanks—but no thanks,” and re-tune your receiver to the broadcast of your Spirit. Yes—maintaining a sole focus on your Spirit and empowering your Spirit’s full stewardship of your life is the path to rising above your ego, but you will likely find that your ego is doing its best to keep that from happening. So, until you have risen out of the duality matrix to the place where the ego has no power, it is important to observe your inner dynamics to recognize the tune ego is playing and know when ego has managed to cut in on your dance with Spirit. The true saving grace here is that your conscious mind has free will about whose tune to dance to, and you can choose not to respond to your ego. In order to make that choice, however, it is helpful to understand your ego’s modus operandi, to know who is running its show (or, to continue the dance metaphor, who is writing the music it is playing), and to recognize when ego has taken control of the dance floor. While your ego and your reptilian brain, the primitive brain structure that houses your autonomic nervous system and your primal, reflexive instincts, are not one and the same entity, it is instructive to know that the reptilian brain acts as the “puppet master” for the psychological overlay that is your ego. The reptilian brain is the part of us that is consumed with survival issues, thrives on fear, and is continually concerned with the preservation and conservation of self, tribe, and possessions. It is the instinctive part of human nature that snaps into action to protect you without a reasoning process being involved. The reptilian brain is definitely not Oneness oriented, but oriented toward survival of your physical being, and sees status as a key element of your survival. The reptilian brain is not “bad,” indeed, it plays a vital role. Without it, you would not able to stay embodied, and your being in a body is an important part of the Creator’s plan. But your reptilian brain is not meant to be in charge of your life, as it is simply not the aspect of you that is going to take you where you want to be in consciousness, or provide the spiritual freedom you long for. At it’s core, the ego embodies what the reptilian brain embodies—separation and reactive protection from perceived threats (whether they are actual or not), with a “specialty” in status preservation. With this part of you calling the shots, what are the chances for joy, harmony, peace and a sense of free-flowing ease? Your Spirit, on the other hand, is a Oneness entity. It exists above duality, where wholeness, harmony, peace, and flow are the hallmarks of existence. There is no conflict in this realm; indeed, when there is only One, there is nothing to come into conflict. Your Spirit’s identity is Love. Period. Your Spirit has no status issues—status is a duality matter, as status requires comparison, and in Oneness, there is nothing to compare. Your Spirit is the highest frequency aspect of you, and by virtue of its constant, perfect interface with the Source of All, is omniscient and omnipotent. Becoming more fully vibrationally merged with your Spirit is the goal on the spiritual pathway, as it is where everything you deeply long for exists. True wisdom, harmony, bliss, wholeness, and free-flowing ease are accessible only by being interfaced properly with your Spirit. You simply can’t be fully interfaced with your Spirit and experience the perfection of the Divine Design for Wholeness and Harmony that is Oneness. when you are being receptive to your ego’s messages of separation, fear, and paranoia. So how do you begin to consciously disempower your ego, withdraw from duality, and more fully embrace Oneness? First, identify when ego is calling the shots by paying attention to what is going on in your emotional and mental bodies. Emotionally, be aware of what you are feeling. Are you experiencing joy? Or are you experiencing less-than-joy? When your ego is engaged, your feeling nature is depressed or distressed, you feel a shutting down of your solar plexus and your heart center, and anger, sadness, or numbness manifest. When, however, you are properly aligned with your Spirit, you experience varying degrees of joy. Indeed, the feeling response to operating at the higher frequency range that is the realm of your Spirit ranges from simple joy—that light, open, heart-leaping-up feeling that arises when you move upward in frequency, feel more cohesiveness with your world, and feel more Life Force moving through you—to total ecstasy, which is the overwhelming electrical experience of being fully aligned with Source’s awesome power. You might call joy the carrot that the Creator installed in the plan to assure that we are never without a compass to find our way Home, and that we never lose our desire for our authentic state, Oneness. When you are in true joy, it means that you have transcended your ego. If you are not in joy, it means that your ego is engaged. To keep ego from raining on your joy parade, stay present with your mental processes to see what is going on, and make conscious choices about where you will place your focus—in duality, or in Oneness. Duality is a powerful habit, and is thoroughly supported by our culture, but you do have a choice of how deeply invested you are in it. By being mindful, you can begin to pull the plug on its power in your life. Mentally, you’ll know you are immersed in duality and that your ego has taken over when you notice yourself in judgment. Judgment is the crown jewel of the duality matrix. When you are comparing and judging yourself or others, ego is at the helm. If your thoughts are defense-oriented, you know that the reptilian brain is acting through your ego. When you notice this going on, you can simply withdraw your energy from it, and refuse to play ego’s game. You can intentionally shift to Oneness by choosing to relax and be drawn upward in frequency into alignment with the Divine Design for Wholeness and Harmony, and to radiate Love, the primary activity of this Divine Design. You can tap into compassion—for yourself, first and foremost—and remind yourself that only Love will put you where you want to be. Let’s look at a practical example of ego interfering, and some possible ways to handle it. Allow me first, though, to explain that your ego has no concept of Divine Order—no understanding of the larger, cohesive story that is unfolding according to the Divine Design for Wholeness and Harmony that you can align with simply by releasing the stewardship of your life to your Spirit. Your ego’s vision is limited to the world it can observe with the senses, and being embroiled in the duality matrix such that it is, means that the world it can observe is usually not free-flowing, harmonious, cohesive, or orderly, and most often seems threatening. So, it goes into automatic control mode as a misguided means of survival—in fact, it stays there most of the time. Your ego always believes it knows what is supposed to be happening, and when what it observes does not match up with what it believes it should be seeing, it leaps to the idea that things are going very wrong. The discrepancy between what your ego perceives as right, and what is actually aligned with the Divine Design for Wholeness and Harmony is, probably, the single greatest source of frequency-lowering, duality-matrix reinforcement. Okay. Imagine a situation in which your goal is to open a spiritual center. Say you have meditated and prayed and have received a beautiful vision of what this center is to be and what it will provide as a blessing to the world. Imagine, too, that you have found the ideal place for this center, and you have made an offer on it. You are feeling so great about what is unfolding, and you are just certain that everything is falling into place. Your Spirit is soaring! Now, imagine that you are notified that not only has your offer on THE perfect place been turned down, but that this place—YOUR special place—has been sold to someone else—and that someone doesn’t even have a spiritual purpose in mind for it! What is your response? Now, be 100% honest with yourself. If your first thought is anything but an immediate “Wow—this means that something even more appropriate is on the way!” your ego has jumped in. Most likely, your ego immediately assumes that something has gone wrong, that the seller is an idiot, that something is wrong with you, that the world is against you, etc., etc. Whatever its litany, you can be sure that when your ego jumps in, your frequency drops, and you slide right on down the scale, out of the joy space, and into the nether regions of less-than-joy, where, by the way, your vibrational frequency will not likely attract anything very desirable into your experience! (So don't bother looking for another property while in that state of being!) What can you do when this occurs? The most effective thing is to snap out of it, realize your ego has hijacked you, and make “Wow—this means that something even more appropriate is on the way!” your second response. If this just doesn’t fly, and your ego won’t seem to let go of the idea that, indeed, it has unfairly lost out on the perfect place, then what you need to do is surrender to your Spirit, and reaffirm your understanding of the Truth and of the perfection of the Divine Design. If you can’t quite get there, then do anything that will raise your frequency back up to where you can see those things. Since your consciousness is lowered proportionately when you’re at lower frequency, and any Truth that you have ever known always seems to have flown out the window when you’re there, it’s helpful to have a list of a few never-fail frequency-raising activities at hand. Some of the ones that seem to be universally helpful are uplifting music, communing with Nature, meditation and prayer, breathwork, aromatherapy, exercise, and hydrotherapy, but I’m sure you have some personal favorites to add. Of course, a little grieving or other stress release first will greatly expedite the frequency-raising process. The higher your frequency, the less the duality matrix can affect you, and the more easily you can listen to your Spirit’s message of harmony and Divine Order, and thus, tune out the grating voice of your ego. And, in the above example, the more likely it is that the true “ideal place” for your spiritual center will be able to reveal itself to you. Not to mention, you’ll probably find out that the place you “lost” was built over a toxic waste dump or is going to be demolished to make way for a new freeway! But no matter whether you ever know the higher level reason or not, the choice to experience harmony, joy, ease, and freedom is a simple matter of who you empower: your ego, or your Spirit. You can trust that when you empower your Spirit, you will be moving ever closer to Home, the blissful Paradise of your longings. This article is scheduled to appear in the August-September issue of Innerchange Magazine. Power ToolSpotlight on Your Qualities of Origin: The Power of PlayfulnessIf you’ve read Recreating Eden, you know your Qualities of Origin are the energy-expediting tools that you were born with—the equipment you were sent to earth with to do your primary job of being a receiver, circulator, and radiator of Life Force Energy. Utilizing these qualities keeps your frequency high and empowers your effectiveness in the world, but, to a greater or lesser degree, these characteristics have diminished for most of us due to conditions on Earth that don’t support our full use of them. Because they fall under the “use it or lose it” rule, it is necessary to exercise them regularly to retain their full power, though few of us have done so. Reclaiming and regularly exercising our Qualities of Origin is key to raising our frequency and becoming the energy masters we were designed to be. I’m going to spotlight a Quality of Origin that has far more potential to affect energy than most people realize. That quality is one that we use abundantly and with great relish in childhood, but largely abandon as the turmoil and seriousness inherent in the duality matrix begins to rain on our parade. That quality is playfulness. Playfulness is like yeast—it lifts and lightens and keeps energy elastic so that it can easily flow into any conceptual mold you provide for it. As such, playfulness is a particularly great tool for manifesting, and is one of the chief attributes in your “Creativity Toolkit.” Now, when I speak of “playfulness,” I’m not talking about sports, or about games with rules. I’m talking about a light-hearted spirit of free-flowing thought and emotion, and spontaneous, unselfconscious action. It’s certainly possible to engage playfully in sports—and, indeed, it’s more fun if you do—but it’s the spirit behind the action rather than the activity itself that qualifies as playfulness. Playfulness is not just something that human children embody, but is an attribute of all young mammals. In watching wildlife documentaries, it always seems that it’s the scenes of the cubs engaging in play that elicit the most ooohs and ahhhs. We relate to playfulness with great fondness as it is such a pleasurable, universal part of our essential nature. (Pleasure, by the way, is a definite marker that you are doing something you are designed to do.) The playful spirit as power is not a new concept. In Native American spirituality, it is the playful otter that symbolizes the receptive, joyful, lighthearted, creative spirit, and is considered a powerful totem, indeed. One of my favorite personal manifestation stories highlights the power of playfulness. While my understanding of creation, manifestation, and who the Creator really is has evolved since this experience, I believe the following story is still quite instructive. Years ago, when I was a freelance copywriter, working on an extensive writing project that spanned several months, I had used up the advance I had received, and was not due to collect the next payment installment for a couple of weeks. I was in a cash-flow bind, with a couple of bills coming due, but no money to pay them with. I was so deeply immersed in the project, and working to deadline, I really had no time or energy to figure out how to engineer getting the cash I needed. One evening, tearing myself away from the writing to go and pick up a cheap Chinese dinner, I thought of my financial dilemma as I drove to the restaurant. So charged up was I from the rhythm of the writing and the excitement of working to deadline, I found myself spontaneously and gleefully singing a goofy made-up song with an in-the-moment tune that went something like this: “I need some money—some easy money. God, you got lots, and I need some now! I need some money—some easy money. Don’t know how to get it, but you know how! Please, dear God, I need… (I wasn’t sure I remembered the exact amount, so I estimated)…about two hundred thirty dollars now!” I sang this little ditty through, out loud, a few times, dancing in my seat as I drove along, gleefully hamming it up, all the way to the restaurant. As soon as I parked and got out of the car, I promptly forgot about the whole thing and didn’t think of it again until the next morning. Upon arising, I realized that it was getting down to the wire, and that if I did not put the checks in the mail that day, my bills would be past due. I tried to imagine how God was going to present the money to me, and as I went to check the mailbox, I wondered if maybe…just maybe… In the box that morning were two key pieces of mail: a letter from the IRS, and a letter from my mother. First, I opened the envelope from the IRS, and was stunned—and delighted—to find a totally unexpected refund check for $179, accompanied by an explanation that I had failed to calculate in a tax credit that I was due. Goosebumps popped up on my arms. Next, the letter from my mom contained a cheerful newsy note, and a check for $50, “just because”! I had just received, out of the blue, $229—almost $230. JUST what I’d asked for. (Next time, I knew to ask for exactly what I needed—the universe is such a stickler for precision!) To what do I attribute the magical money manifestation? Playfulness, of course! Too, my energy was already high from engaging in an activity that I was in total resonance with, and, after putting my prayer into the pipeline, instead of worrying, I had completely let go and forgotten about it, immersing myself once again in the writing. Total, unselfconscious playfulness, though, stands out most vividly as the key element. A crucial aspect of playfulness is tapping the freely expressive child within you. Therein lies immense power. Another important child attribute that factored in is pure faith. As I sang the song, I did not have any doubt that God was omnipotent and completely willing to act on my request. Though I had no clue whatever how the money would come, I did not question it. I just put the energy out there and assumed there would be a manifestation of what I needed. I attribute this, in part, to the high frequency at which I was operating at that point, being so in the flow with the writing I had been doing. Doing something you love and feel great satisfaction in doing, is an important factor in raising and keeping your frequency high, and adding playfulness to that is potent indeed. When you are at higher frequency, your ability to see higher and your possibility thinking are exponentially increased. Getting in touch with your own essential playfulness and harnessing its power to enhance your life in all kinds of ways is a major evolutionary step. I can’t guarantee it will create instantaneous, measurable manifestation magic —though it’s entirely possible it will. For sure, it will make a big difference in your experience of life right away. And with cultivation, you can surely manifest astounding things through the power of play. Regardless of any manifestation, however, exercising playfulness is its own reward. You just can’t have too much spontaneous glee and light-hearted joy in your life! And it is your joy that will transform the planet. Instant Frequency BoostersLiving FoodsWith the heat of summer upon us, we are naturally drawn to the coolness that raw vegetables and fruits offer us to balance out the energy of the heat our bodies. Did you know that freshly picked fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables carry life force? And that eating freshly picked plants with their full complement of enzymes intact can keep your frequency high, not only by virtue of the Life Force they carry, but by virtue of their not requiring an expenditure of Life Force to digest and assimilate? When you’re needing an instant frequency boost, go out to your garden and pick a tomato, a strawberry, some basil leaves, or whatever you have edible growing there (even some flowers are edible—and certainly, many common weeds like purslane and lamb’s quarters are) and eat it with reverence for the Life Force it is offering you. Not only will the Life Force in what you eat be a blessing, but the reverence and appreciation you offer to the moment are frequency boosters, too! For a powerful, transformational read on the relationship of raw, living foods to physical health and spiritual enlightenment, read Spiritual Nutrition by Gabriel Cousens, MD. Smile!When you need a frequency boost, smile! Not only does smiling create a joyful, frequency-raising connection between you and a fellow Earth dweller, it actually raises your frequency by virtue of it’s action on your physiology. So smiling, even when you are alone, is a powerful frequency booster. Smiling at yourself in the mirror not only doubles that, it has the potential to lift your spirits exponentially in the event it tickles your funny bone! HydrotherapyIs there anything quite so uplifting as a splash of cool water on your face at just the right moment, especially in the summer? Next time you find yourself in need of a quick boost, try a little bathroom-sink hydrotherapy, and while you’re there, you might practice smile therapy with the fresh face in the bathroom mirror! AttunementsAfter quite a few years’ hiatus, Spirit has informed me that it is time to resume offering attunements. (Apparently, it was a timely move—immediately after the attunements page went up on the website, I received my first request for a local attunement from someone who had just discovered the site!) If you’re in the Denver area, you can receive an attunement in person; if not, telephone appointments are available. (Also, when I’m traveling, I will usually have time set aside for in-person attunements wherever I am.) For more on having an attunement, see the attunements page on the website.
©2005 Julia Rogers Hamrick |
wanting to do only that which I am powerfully impelled by Spirit to
do, and nothing more. While this is, according to the reality model
I wish to live by, a desirable thing, it really does freak out my
ego, which believes that a lack of initiative on the part of my
conscious mind is the very path to destruction.
Copyright © 2004-2024, New Realities Publishing |
