Where is Spirit in all this?

Throughout the course of history, there have been numerous wars fought over who has the correct concept of Spirit/God.  There have been a variety of definitions and ideas of how to connect to Spirit. My purpose in this first post is to provide you with another perspective to ponder.

There are some religions that have perpetuated the belief that Spirit or God is an outside entity.  It is a God that rolls the dice and determines what will happen in your life and in the world surrounding you. You are at the mercy of outside forces.  Other religions have gone further to define what actions one must do to connect to Spirit and if you don’t do the prescribed actions, you suffer eternal damnation.   Still there are others who speak about having to come back to Earth to right the mistakes of your past lives. 

In some Indigenous cultures throughout the world, a different concept of God was put forward.  It was one in which the Creator was within all.  Everything and everyone was contained within the whole.  There was however some Indigenous cultures who believed that it was necessary to perform some sort of sacrifice in order to appease the various Gods and ensure survival of the tribe.  In addition, many had Shamans who through various initiations was ‘chosen’ to be the connection for the people in their dealings with other worlds.

In today’s Western world, everyday there seems to be new approaches offered on how to connect with Spirit.  Some have combined some of the Indigenous approaches with New Age isms.  Others have expanded spiritual teachings to include the feminine Goddess.  Others have brought forward the teachings of Buddha or the Tao.  Science is also exploring spiritualism and now talks of Spirit as energy.  There appears to be many pathways to connecting with Source Energy. 

Sacred geometry provides a different clue for where Spirit is and how the world was created.  If you look around, you will find all of nature is filled with these geometric figures.  If you take the opportunity to watch these two videos, you may ascertain that Spirit is within you and is love.  In addition, you may discover that the Old Testament might not be the secular history that we have been guided to believe.  It may be a spiritual story or parable of how our world came to be manifested and why it is still evolving.

In the next post, I will offer you the suggestion of where Spirit is within you and how you can connect or align with Spirit.

Sacred Geometry Part One:

 

 

Sacred Geometry Part Two:



Conscious and Subconscious Mind

Consciousness
Watercolour by Beverly Blanchard

There are textbooks which are written on these subjects. Here is a very simplistic overview of the subconscious and conscious mind so you can have an understanding of how they affect your life.

 

The conscious mind is located just behind your forehead. It stores your personal identity, wishes, desires and beliefs.  It is from this part of the brain that we think, learn, decide, imagine and analyze. It scans our outside world and bodies and provides us with information through our senses. When we choose to use our will to make something happen, take decisive action, or be on our best behavior, we are working at the conscious level of mind.   The conscious mind is not time bound. For most people it operates about 5% of the time.  When it is not paying attention, it is your subconscious mind which takes over.

 

Before the conscious mind evolved there is the rest of your brain which is called the subconscious mind.  Your subconscious mind extends to all your automatic body responses and learned behaviors. It is habitual and operates in the present.  Information coming in from the outside world and the conscious mind is filtered through subconscious mind processes. Here it is correlated to patterns of past experiences and the programmed beliefs stored within.

 

Most of your behaviours and beliefs were downloaded into your subconscious mind by the time you were six years old.  You learned through observation and your parents, teachers and other role models feed you belief systems and programs.  Throughout the course of your life these programs have become your operating system and in some instances you may not be aware of them.  It is why there are times when you are talking or doing something that you all of sudden say, “OMG I sound just like my mother.”  It was a program you pick up unwittingly.

 

Your subconscious mind does not know what is true or false.  It does not make moral judgments.  The subconscious mind does not argue or think.  Once an idea is impressed on the subconscious mind it actively goes about working to achieve it.  Through the power of subconscious mind, your beliefs are projected into the quantum field as electromagnetic thought waves.  The energy of your thoughts and beliefs draws to you circumstances and people to match their vibrational qualities.  Your life is essentially a printout of these programs.

 

In order to change the programming you have to become aware of the programs.  The first way to do this is to listen to the inner dialogues of the mind.  The brain has a tendency toward the negative.  So you must conscious of what you are saying and stop yourself on a continual basis.  It is only through active awareness that you can reprogram the circuits of your brain.

 

The second way is to trick the subconscious mind through imaginal activities.  Since the subconscious does not know true from false, you have to start creating a word picture of what it is you want.  Stop telling the old story and start telling the story of how you want things to be.  In my post entitled Imagination Techniques you can find some methods which can help you do this.

Your Power is in the Now Moment

The Splendor of Mother Earth
Mixed Media by Beverly Blanchard

What is the thought you thinking right now?  Is it an empowering thought? Is it a thought about the argument you had yesterday?  Is it a thought about what you have to do tomorrow?  Is it a thought about what you saw in the news?  Whatever that thought is; you are using it to create your reality.

All time is a suggestion of the mind.  In our world, we project it as a horizontal line in which there is a past, a present and a future.  For many of us, we lock ourselves into internal and external conversations that either rehash the past or speak about a future filtered through our past memories.  Through our dialogues, we tend attract to ourselves analogous circumstances and relationships over and over again.  We change jobs only to be confronted with the same problem employees or bosses.  We get out of one relationship and find ourselves engaged with the same type of person.  At points we ask ourselves: Why am I experiencing this again?  Why do I keep attracting the same thing over and over again?

You are experiencing it because you haven’t shifted your vibration.  If you spend time listening to your internal and external dialogues, you will discover that you are unconsciously creating.  You are using your imaginal abilities to create negatively.  For the thoughts you are thinking in this moment do not recede into the past.  They actually advance into the future to confront you.

If you are continually talking about the problem you had yesterday, you are projecting that onto the screen of your tomorrows. If you are talking negatively about what might happen, you are projecting that onto the screen of your life.  It is through the thoughts you are saying or thinking at this particular moment that puts the whole thing in motion. 

In the middle of your past and future, is the present moment. Most of us neglect this moment because we do not understand that it is our point of power.  It is the bouncing off point.  How you use it determines your next moment and the next moment and the next moment.

To move your awareness to the present moment, you have to release yourself from ‘what is’.  You cannot continue to focus on what it is you don’t like and expect to change your life.  It is your focusing that keeps you locked into a pattern.  I can hear you now...but this is reality!  If you don’t like your reality, then it is time to become a conscious creator.  It’s time to realize that you are the operative power and that power rests with how you use your imaginal abilities in this present moment.

So where do you begin?  You start playing with time and become aware of how you are using you present moment.  Here are few exercises for you to experiment with to get you into the habit of becoming conscious of your moments.

1.  Do a mental roll call.  Throughout the day, stop whatever you are doing and take attendance.  Mentally call out your name and answer:  Present.

2.  Throughout the day, stop whatever you are doing and ask yourself: ‘what time is it?’  Answer:  ‘The time is now and I am here.’

3.  Break out of your routine.  Have dinner for breakfast.  Drive to work a different way.  Go for a walk at lunch time.  Meditate on your coffee break.  Go into the office earlier and leave earlier than you normally do.  Wake up an hour earlier.  

Here is a clip from the movie Groundhog Day.  Watch how he starts to change his thinking.

 

 

 

More on the Heart-Mind Connection

The thought manifests as the word.  The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings. - Buddha

The mind thinks; the heart speaks.  The mind formulates what is said by the heart and you can usually tell which brain you are operating from by how you feel.  If you don’t feel good, you are locked into the head.  Feel good, you are aligned with the heart.  It is really very simple.

Yet in our latte-on-the-run society, we are continually disconnected from our emotions. We have become hard core junkies for speed and our thinking is focused on that which is outside of ourselves.  We check in with our cell phones on continual basis and very rarely do we check in with ourselves. 

All emotions are basically a thought attached to a feeling.  Both are energy.  The only impediment to feeling a feeling is thinking. Once we start describing a feeling we are no longer feeling it.  So in order for you to become more aware of how you are feeling, you need to expand your awareness of the thoughts you are thinking.

Negative thinking is always an indicator of resistance.  It is always of the mind.  This resistance will usually manifest in the body as tightness, aches, pains and disease.  Where it is manifesting in the body is an indicator of your thinking.  For example, if you are experiencing neck pain...you might want to ask yourself who is being a pain in the neck?  Got shoulder pain...what burdens are you taking on that you don’t want?  Skin problems...who’s getting under your skin?

If you take the time to listen to your thinking, you will discover most of it has some root in fear.  You will also discover that the mind has a tendency to react to situations.  It is interesting that when you break down the word react, you end up with re-act which is what the mind does.  It operates from past judgments and information.  In the world of the mind, everything is just a reinterpretation of events.

When you move to living from the heart, you stop evaluating people and situations based on past experiences.  You start responding to events and people based on the moment.  This does not mean that you never get angry or upset.  What it means is when you do get angry, you allow the anger and then you move on.  You do not harbour the emotion.  You do not become attached to the emotion.  You have the option at any moment to change the emotion.  Change the emotion, you change the perception and you change the situation.  All power rests within you.

Here are a few ways to connect with your heart.

 

1.  Smile with your heart or eyes.  It is said when we fall in love our eyes open wider and become softer.  So practice smiling with your eyes.  Pretend there is a happy face on your heart centre. Let your heart centre smile. Try it. You might be very surprised as to what happens.

 

2.  Lead with your heart.  Ask yourself often:  ‘What emotion do I want to feel?’  Perhaps you want to feel confident.  Ask yourself:  what does confidence feel like? What does my body feel like when I am confident?  How do I breathe when I am feeling confident?  Practice occupying that emotion.

 

3.   Suspend Judgment.  Stop evaluating life.  When you are evaluating and judging everything and everyone you are operating from the mind and you relinquish your capacity to respond.  Every situation is new and you have the option to see it that way.  Start exercising your emotional options.

 

Here is a catchy little tune by Goldfrapp...

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting the Mind and Heart

Flowing

Everyone talks to themselves.  Ever followed your own inner dialogue?  It is an experiment you may want to try.  For what you will discover is that that inner banter of the mind is like having a conversation with someone who doesn’t shut up.

Most people are not cognizant of the dialogues that go on in their minds.  It rambles on incessantly creating imaginary scenarios.  I read somewhere that although we listen to 125 to 250 words a minute, we think at 1000 to 3000 words per minute.  While someone is talking we are only hearing 20% of what they are saying because we are consumed with thinking. 

In order to become acquainted with the voice of heart, you need to become aware of what goes on in the mind.  The only way to do that is to become mindful of your thinking.  Start listening to yourself. Become your own watcher.  You will discover your thoughts fall into two categories:  past happenings and future imaginings.  In the world of the mind, we spend very little time in the present moment, and most of our future imaginings are bent toward the negative.

If you really want to find out what is going on in your mind, get yourself a digital recorder.  Go into a room, close the door and for one hour let yourself talk.  You may be surprised to find out just how much garbage is produced by the mind.   Don’t want to do this exercise, just listen to yourself for five minutes.  You may be very surprised by what you are telling yourself.  Perhaps it is time to control the nature of the inner conversations of your mind.

One of the ways to do this is to consciously connect to the voice of heart.  To do this you need to silence the mind and become acquainted with how the voice of heart speaks to you.  Your heart brain doesn’t scream at you. It acts in subtle ways.  It’s a gut feeling to do something.  It comes as a flash.  It’s like you are speeding down the highway and all of a sudden something inside you says, ‘better slow down’ and as you head around the bend in the road, there are the police.  Get to know that voice because it is this voice that works for your highest good.

One of the easiest ways is to strengthen this connection is to take up meditation.  Now I can hear you saying, ‘I don’t have time to meditate.  I got things to do.’  Yes you do have the time.  All you have to do is let go of the assumption that meditation can only be done in the lotus position at yoga.  Meditation is nothing more than conscious awareness.

You have so many opportunities throughout the day to practice conscious awareness.  How many times during the day do you stand in line somewhere?  Learn to utilize that time, and let the voice of the heart speak to you.  You don’t have to close your eyes; you just focus on your breathing.  You can use a mantra if you want.  You can use the words ‘ease’ on the inhale and ‘flow’ on the exhale.  Start with two minutes and before you know it your inner promptings of the heart will change the direction of the mind’s thinking.  A change in the mind’s talking will change the direction of your life.  Try it.  You may be pleasantly surprised as to how your life changes.

Take a break now...here’s something to help you...

The Mind-Heart Connection

The Tree Spirit

Where is your mind located?  Most people when asked this question point to their head.  We have been conditioned to believe that all activity is solely conducted through the brain encased within our head.  It is our brain that controls everything and sends out commands to our body.  It is our body that acts on these commands.  Is this really the way it is?

They say that when a baby is developing in the womb, the first brain that is developed is located in the heart.  This heart brain is composed of about 40,000 neurons that can sense, feel, learn and remember.  Current research has revealed that the heart communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via electromagnetic field interactions. It is the heart that generates the body’s most powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field.   It is this electromagnetic field that makes you more than your physical body. It is also this heart brain that provides you with your connection to the cosmic consciousness.

Your heart field acts as a carrier wave and connects you to the world around you.  It is through the heart centre that you dispense and receive information.  It is why when this centre is open; you seem to be able to pick up the thoughts and feelings of others. You attract more congenial relationships and synchronistic encounters.  It is also why individuals working on a problem in different parts of the world, sometimes arrive at the same solutions at the same time.

If the connection between your heart brain and mind brain is harmonious, you will most likely find that your decision making is better.  You have increased clarity and greater creativity for problem solving.  Your intuition functions at a heightened capacity and you have access to information on other dimensional planes.  In other words, the entire body/mind/spirit/heart connection benefits on all levels. 

If however this connection is split and you are only operating through the head, you end up wasting a lot of your energy and sometimes end up going down the wrong path which usually leads to decisions of regret.  Our negative emotions such as: anger, impatience, stubbornness cloud our judgements and we end up in less than harmonious relationships.  We end up living a life where those critical inner voices in our head take over and we silence the intuitive prompting of our heart. To add to things, we end up with disease within the body.

So how do you strengthen the heart-mind connection? In the next post, I will show you how to strengthen your connection.  In the meantime, here is a video of Gregg Braden discussing how science is now seeing the heart differently.