Clear Vision

In an earlier post, I wrote about what Uncle Dave (a master spiritual healer) taught me about prayers. He also gave me a couple of other useful creative tips.

Setting a vision is the first critical step in getting what you want in life, yet if you are anything like me, you have had trouble at times figuring out what you really want. Maybe you were caught between different options, doubt or you just weren’t sure if you could do what you wanted because you didn’t have the resources. And if you aren’t sure what you want, you will get mixed results.

Uncle Dave gave me a great method for getting clear on what’s most important. Simply write down what you most want to do or create next in your life. Try and write down about a page describing it. (You probably won’t feel much as you write this)

Then, come back to it the next day, and go through what you wrote. Edit and change it if necessary, until it’s what you feel you really want. (don’t use any negative words).

Keep doing this for up to a month, until you have clarity combined with a felt connection to your heart. This is your true motivation. A heart connection tells you that this vision will give you life, whereas fear based vision takes away life. This will help you get past the layers of doubt and fear that the mind throws up. And don’t worry if you can’t see how this will come true yet.

He said we are powerful creators and the heart is the seat of life-giving creation.

The relationships you have in your life are the most powerful indicators of whether you will be successful or not. Relationships that give life and support you empower you, and relationships that take life away disempower you. Uncle Dave said that you must only share your goals with people who will support you, and be impeccable with your speech.

Creation

I spent the weekend with my uncle Dave, a charismatic Christian, the leader of several churches, and with powerful healing gifts.

We were chatting about prayer, and how come so many prayers seem be unanswered, for Christ says in Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." Dave said that all his prayers are answered, and are often answered quickly.

He said that when you pray your heart must be in it. You must say your prayers aloud and say them confidently. And once you have said the prayer, never say anything that doubts or contradicts it as this will break the power of the prayer.

So, for example, if you pray for healing, then it must be your will. You must say, 'Father, I desire healing. Let me be healed' and not 'If its your will, then let me be healed'.

Once you have said it, never say something like 'I am still sick' or 'I wonder if the prayer worked'. Dont cast any doubt. Say something like 'Thank you God for receiving my prayer and I know you have acted on it" And be careful who you tell. If others say negative things about your desires their prayers can influence yours.

He said the battlefield is in your mind. There you must turn all thoughts towards success of what you want, and when you speak, everything you say must affirm what you want. You can use this for anything you desire which you want to bring into your life. Even though you may not see the results you want in your life, the prayer is first answered in the spiritual realm before its bought into manifestation. Negating the unseen result with doubt or the opposite will block it coming in..

Love

Bruce

Blessed Easter

Namaste,

I went to church tonight, and I felt the message of death through suffering and rebirth into innocence. We read Psalm 20. May your trust in the LORD ever increase.

Psalm 20

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.

² May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.

³ May he remember all your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
Selah

⁴ May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.

⁵ We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.

⁶ Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.

⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

⁸ They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.

⁹ O LORD, save the king!
Answer us when we call!

Shakti-Shiva breath

The breath is one of the master teachers. Its the secret to life, and has always been with us.

The in-breath is surrender, allowing in, opening, bringing in new life. The out breath is a release of stored air, a clearing away of the old. The in-breath is Shakti, feminine, welcoming in, getting fuller. The out breath Shiva, masculine, going towards, emptying, releasing pressure.

One is receiving, one is giving back. If you really wanted to breathe, and you contracted all your chest and stomach muscles and didn’t let them move, you would soon start to get desperate and panic.

Its the same with manifestation. When there is something you desperately want, the tendency is for the energy to freeze, to tense up and to try and ‘make it happen’ or ‘force the issue’. You think you will be able to relax once you get what you want. Imagine if you did this with breathing, and only allowed yourself to breathe once you had the air inside you? You probably wouldn’t get very far.

So, you can take the dynamics of the breath and use it to bring anything you want into your life. First, relax (especially when you are all contracted). Second, imagine what you want effortlessly coming toward you and into you on the in-breathe. Third, imagine energy being released on the out-breathe, going out into the universe to find what you want.

Do this for all situations. To manifest, the formula is (intention + energy(emotion) + visualization). Just as breathing-in and breathing-out are both parts of breathing, so relational exchange (energy coming in and energy going out) are both parts of manifesting.

The key is to be relaxed. If you are tense, you freeze the movement of energy, you create blockages, and you are unable to create what you want. Creation is both receiving and giving. Through surrender the female receives the male and gives the him what he wants. Through his purpose the male gives the female what she wants.

If you feel tense, simply feel the tension fully on the in-breathe and imagine yourself releasing it on the outbreath. Dont try and make the tension go away; this will only strengthen it. Allow it be be there until it self-liberates.

Slaying the dragon

I Love these two quotes – thanks, Sparrow.

“The answers are found in living the questions at risk”. Rilke

“Burning your way to center is the loneliest fire of all. You will know when you are there, when there is nothing left to burn." Alice Walker

Friday was the culmination of a long and repeating cycle. The karmic wheel spins around and around until finally we see how to finally climb off. We may have been dragged across the tar and split our guts and patched up a few times before the chains that were binding us to this merciless (or should I say merciful?) cycle are unlocked.

I have always been drawn to the myth of the Hero’s journey as a masculine archetype for the human quest for freedom. I relate best to this simplified version.

‘A young man lives in a village that is terrorized by a dragon that lives in the nearby mountains. All the villagers live in fear of the dragon, and are afraid to leave the village, and if they do, they don’t venture far beyond its walls. Sometimes the dragon swoops by, and takes a sheep or a goat in the fields, or even swoops into the village, killing a child or setting fire to a house. The villagers stay together for safety and security, and together they can repel the dragon if it attacks.

The young man feels stifled by the routine village life and desires his freedom. He wants adventure, and wants to travel away from the village. He knows he will have to overcome the dragon that stands in the way of his freedom, so finally he builds up the courage and goes off to kill the dragon.

The first time he gets beaten horrible, almost killed. The dragon is far stronger and craftier than he could ever have imagined and fights using methods he doesn’t understand. Wounded and broken, he crawls away and retreats. As time passes, his strength comes back, and so does his desire for freedom. He tried to learn from his failure, and when he feels he is ready, he returns to fight.

Again, the dragon is powerful and strong, and weakened by the fight, the man again retreats, fearing for his life. Again, he retreats, heals, recoups his strength, and this time he finds God. He realizes he can’t win the fight alone, and surrenders to a higher power, higher guidance and higher strength. He learns what he can, and when ready, heads into battle, knowing the Lord is his strength, and finally he overcomes the dragon. The dragon, in its death, releases the treasure it has been jealously guarding, enabling the man to now use this as he sees fit.

As I write this, I am amazed by Shakti’s ability to perfectly create the events that are needed so we can fight our dragons. I also write this with respect and gratitude for all the souls that are and have been a part of my journey.

I felt the call to freedom when I was in my mid twenties, a young Master’s graduate with a professional qualification from the top university in South Africa, a job with good benefits and a solid career track ahead. Where I was, was nice and safe, yet also boring. I wanted more money and more time and the freedom to be myself. I was also starting to read spiritual books, which I loved and I was inspired by the teachers of enlightenment.

After two years, some synchronicity bought me in touch with L. L. was a transgender freelance computer programmer, and I was attracted to her lifestyle, with the money, life and freedom it offered. We connected easily, she offered to teach me how to program, and so I left my job, bought a computer, studied code for six months and started working with her.

L. was highly intelligent, her intellect was her power, she had dependency issues and many of her relationships were characterized by dependency of different forms. L. was prone to anger and often dominating. After about a year of doing ok, we undertook a large project intended to make us a lot of money. L. was in charge, and I was still an apprentice. We stopped earning money and worked on the project. I was starting to want to leave the relationship, as there were many negative patterns, broken promises, changing goalposts, shifting deadlines, lack of financial support, financial pressures, and other forms of loss. I was too afraid to leave, as I felt isolated in Cape Town away from my family in Durban, didn’t want to ask them for help as they had their problems, and I didn’t know how I would survive as a programmer if I left. I didn’t have the confidence to leave, I was broke, and the promise of a financial payoff kept me in. I prayed for God to get me out.

Things came to a head on Xmas eve, we had an argument, and I got up and walked out. She told me that if I left I would never come back and I would have nothing. I left anyway. I was in crisis, broke, afraid, shattered after months of working up to 16 hours a day on the project, dealing with family death, heartbroken from unrequited love, and vulnerable. My quest for freedom had backfired and instead of being in a cyle of life, I had been defeated by a cycle of loss and pain and sucked dry.

I left for Taiwan shortly after, and began to study inner transformation as a way of understanding my role in what had happened, with the goal of getting clear on my purpose, aligning my motivation, and making better choices in future. After 4 ½ challenging years of transformational practices in the east, I felt ready to return to South Africa to work as a transformational and life coach. I was back to fight the dragon and find my freedom.

I was drawn to Johannesburg, where I soon ended up renting a room from J. J. was a successful coach/spiritual teacher/trainer, a powerful dominating woman, prone to anger, and like L., fiercely independent. Secretly I thought she could help me attain my goal of becoming an established and successful corporate coach. I had more support this time from other people than when I was with L., yet a cycle of loss also began. There were opportunities to step out and to do other things, yet I was committed to my path, and not being able to see how things would work out and not having faith in God, I tried to keep control. At the start of the time with J., my kundalini awakened with the first shattering spinal sweeps and continued energetic challenges. There had been precursor activity for a year or so, but nothing like this and I had hardly known anything about Kundalini before this occurred. As my money ran out, my fear began to dominate. I finally ran out of money, hit crises, and was offered a job back in the East with my old company.

I returned to the East for another three years. This time was better; I lived in a nicer city, I had a really nice job, good friends and wonderful girlfriends. I went through an intensive healing process with the kundalini, dark night after dark night, bliss after bliss. After every high I would be plunged back down into difficulty again. The stability of my job was a godsend, providing me what I needed to manage this. Every full moon, K. would rise and knock out more of the emotional dirt. During that time I had many spiritual experiences, a dawning of the recognition that I could trust God, and an emerging connection to Christ.

Conditions seemed right to return to SA in September 2009. I went on a type of retreat for a few months, the result of which was a commitment to follow my path as a spiritual/personal growth teacher, and not retreat into regular employment. This was a difficult step, as I don’t have the luxury of savings or a passive income, and no real means of financial support. There were many synchronicities that supported this decision. I managed to hold a few small workshops, and I did a little bit of coaching. December, Christmas day, I experienced the inner birth of the Holy Child as a result of the inner marriage of the Sacred Male and Sacred Female, mistakenly thinking that purification was finished and the major hidden attachments had been released.

In January, an old acquaintance came for a visit. P. is a spiritual and yoga teacher, conscious, intellectually formidable, power-driven and easily dominates in conversations. Like me, he is also trying to emerge with the expression of his purpose, and is trying to use his purpose to support himself and his family financially. I spent a few days with him and gave him clear feedback on an area of blockage in his life, the result of which is that he felt he had a major breakthrough, and wanted to create a business with me. He lived in a different town, and so we communicated on skype each day. He had a history of being a successful entrepreneur, and I felt our skills were complimentary. Feeling that he was sincere about the breakthrough he had made, and not seeing at the time that the breakthrough was cognitive, not embodied, I overrode my concerns and began to work with him. I felt that I could handle his personality, and work with him, not react against him.

We created a ten week course designed to compare the differences between ego (scarcity) and spirit (abundance) consciousness, help people identify their talents, and create a realistic business plan to express their talents, yet also in alignment with the principles of spiritual abundance. Working with P. was challenging, and we eventually produced good work. We began to move into the phase of selling the course and marketing it on the internet, yet a similar pattern was repeating itself. We were working long hours. I wasn’t getting any other money. I was feeling increasingly pulled away from my vision by P. He kept on changing the goalposts, the vision kept on changing, the potential rewards kept getting bigger, deadlines kept getting delayed, and I was starting to feel weakened. Again I was in a cycle of loss, of life being taken away, holding on for salvation through material gain, being pulled into dependence by a power-hungry figure. I was aware of this, staying present, not sure what to do, praying for blessings for everyone.

Two weeks ago, my car was stolen. I prayed for blessings on the thieves and thanked God for the perfection. That week I had shadow dreams of a powerful and dangerous enemy. The culmination was a dream at the end of the week..

I am with Father, and he takes me fishing in a boat. He catches a big fish for me, and we head back to the harbor. Along the way a beautiful woman dressed in bright yellow clothes climbs onto the boat. I find her extremely sexy and seductive.

The following day I had news my car was found, and I would be able to get it back (as of writing, the process is still underway). The day after, I had a recognition that I been disowning my masculine drive for the joy and satisfaction of reaching goals of freedom, and was being pulled into a mode of passivity while someone else did what they wanted. I began to feel into power that had been disowned, and my navel area began to get hot. The area stayed warm for a week, and if I bring light attention to it now, it easily warms up again. I began to feel strong, ready to go into battle.

That same weekend, my sisters were putting a lot of pressure on my mother, trying to get her to force me to follow a conventional life. My mother is supportive of my path, and is currently providing a roof over my head through allowing me to use a small apartment she owns but is not staying in. My sisters, who have a difficult relationship with me (I am okay with them) have no understanding of the spiritual path, and have strong feelings against me not being totally independent, even though this is the first time in 16 years I have stayed at home.

I had an intuition that the time with P. was finished, yet spent a week wondering if this was right to leave the partnership. During the week after the dream of the girl with yellow clothes, I noticed a clear shift in my ability to be assertive, put up boundaries, communicate clearly, and to feel capable of going it alone. I had clear insight that the situation with P. was exactly the same as the situation with L., and with J. Identical dynamics were present, each time I had ended up projecting my power onto an untrustworthy figure and was headed for victim status. The pattern was a generational pattern of power imbalance, and in my family, my oldest sister had (and still is) the power Matriarch. My entire life I have always felt an underlying sense of not being able to achieve what I really wanted and a sense of being held back and prevented from acting. I have acted under willpower and in the face of my fear, always committed to my highest potential and through determination, often been successful.

I was no longer blinded by the shadow and its covering of fear built on the myth of being separate from God. This time I was able to see it clearly, and through the grace of Shakti and the trust in Christ, an increased ability to control my mind and a lot of past healing of fear, I could choose to leave. Even though there was potentially large financial reward, I told P. that I was leaving, and I walked away. I had to walk away from the pattern, walk away from P.’s issues of dependencies and his web of relationships.

I was amazed at Shakti’s ability to create the exact same dragon three times over ten years until I finally learned how to win. The dragon was the same but the players were different. It reinforces the idea that opening and surrendering to life will show you your karma which needs to be overcome before you can have true freedom.

This has been an excellent lesson. We are our relationships. Who we hang out with is the best reflection of who we are.

I have felt clarity and peace about the decision. The last four days Shakti has been healing and adjusting my body, and today I feel a return to clarity, although tired. I am not too sure what will happen now. There is a sense of the dragon having being finally understood, and the treasure of my power regained.

Love

Bruce

Abundance is an exchange of value

 

The paradigm of scarcity is that abundance is the endless ability to accumulate and to consume. Through understanding how to manipulate natural laws or the unconscious behavior of others, clever scarcity consciousness manages to get what it wants. Scarcity is built on an underlying assumption of deficiency, which stems from its perceived disconnect from Spirit, and so fullness and completion is mistakenly tried to be gained through worldly experience.

Abundance is built on a different principle. Through the recognition of the connection to Spirit, abundance experiences a sense of being able to unlimitedly create. New ideas are created, love is created, action is created, knowledge is created, and this is created through a unique synthesis of you and Spirit.

This sense of unlimited creative potential is manifested as a willingness to contribute, in love, knowledge, skill and so on. Abundance is so full that is desires to give of itself. Abundance experiences itself in relationship and knows that it is deeply connected to all that is around, and seeks for the healthiest expressions of this relationship. In this relationship, abundance is also deeply committed to others experiencing the joy and confidence of abundance, and wants to connect to others who are expressing abundance consciousness.

There is a trap of ‘I am full so I can give you to and you don’t need to give back to me’. This is the trap of scarcity, and by not requiring others to give back, this enables them to stay the victim and it creates a cycle of dependency. If someone cannot afford your services, then its okay to do an honor agreement, where they commit to paying you back in the future, when they have the rescources.

As you open into the expression of abundance, you naturally want to connect with others who are in abundance. You want to honor them and bless them for the gifts they are giving you, and in the marketplace, you really want to pay them for what they do. Likewise, you understand that getting paid fairly for what you do is a natural expression of abundance consciousness towards you.

Standing firm for your value is a powerful expression of your self worth. Again, you must be careful. You must have something to offer which will impact people’s lives for the better. You must desire to contribute. You can’t ask for lots of money so you can pacify your underlying feelings of scarcity.

Giving and receiving become different faces of the same action.

Why is a personal philosophy important?

Philosophy: The most basic beliefs, concepts and attitudes of an individual or a group (Mirriam and Webster Dictionary).

Your philosophy is a combination of your personal philosophy and your cultural philosophy. We all have a philosophy; the most important question is whether our philosophy is serving us or not.

Knowing your personal philosophy is critical, as your philosophy determines your focus, and your focus determines your actions. Finally, your actions determine your results. If your life is working well and you are content, there is no need to change your philosophy. However, if you are not happy with how your life is, then you may need to re-examine your philosophy.

Historically, life didn’t change much from generation to generation. Even up to 20 years ago, life seemed fairly stable and predictable. The last 20 years have seen an explosion in the rate of change in human life on planet earth. The internet, a change in economic structures, political and social upheaval have made life uncertain.

Trying to live life with a philosophy inherited from your parents and culture about a world that existed twenty or thirty years ago is going to be problematic, as the world that your philosophy was designed for doesn’t exist any longer. As the rate of change speeds up, unexamined philosophies will become increasingly and more rapidly obsolete.

Furthermore, many of our inherited philosophies were built on underlying assumptions that there were limited resources, that the world wouldn’t change too much, that we had to fight for a limited piece of the pie, individualism, that we had to work nine to five to earn money and that we were disconnected from God. Many of our philosophies were built on ideas of scarcity and struggle.

The philosophy of abundance is that there is enough for everyone if you can learn to contribute using your talents, that abundance is achieved through relationship, that the world is always changing, and that we are not separate from Spirit or each other.

If you want to live life in your own unique way, and if you want to bring the dreams of your heart into reality, you will need to choose a philosophy that is suitable for modern life. You will need to choose a personal philosophy that includes values of openness, abundance for all, creativity, embraces change, and is open to spiritual guidance as a means to navigating the increasing complexity of today’s world. Because let’s face it; the world is so complex and changing so fast that it’s impossible to keep control.

In choosing your philosophy, you have to bring your old philosophy into awareness, and replace it with the new philosophy of your choosing. If you have a unique dream and unique talents, you will have to choose a philosophy that supports your dreams. For example, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you may choose to believe

· I have the ability to make as much money as I want

· I have the ability to turn my talents into a profitable business

· There is enough for everyone to be abundant if they follow the dreams of their hearts.

Once you choose a personal philosophy that empowers, rather than limits you, then you simply begin to act in line with your new beliefs. Choosing your new philosophy is a miracle that will take time, patience, self awareness and self love. It’s done by having a vision, and then changing one thought at a time, one action at a time to align with your vision.

J

Bruce