Category: Spiritual Growth


Anger, Betrayal and Spirituality

Filed Under: Law of Attraction, Manifesting, Relationships, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Anger, Betrayal and Spirituality

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I thought I had attained a certain degree of spiritual awareness, but lately I find myself feeling very unevolved. Instead of feeling kind, patient and compassionate, I feel like everything upsets me these days. In particular, people are so disappointing! Every time I turn around I feel like someone I love and trust is betraying me or disappointing me by acting selfish or dishonest, and it makes me really angry because I would never behave like that. How in the world do I keep manifesting this? One upset after another has left me really dispirited. I used to be spiritual and loving all the time – do you think I’m regressing?
– A.

Dear A.: You are definitely not alone in feeling this way. One of the hardest things for me to make peace with is being disappointed by people I love and want to believe in. When someone I really care about does something selfish or hurtful, or keeps lying even though I’m begging them to be honest with me, I can go into a major tailspin myself.

Here’s why so-called spiritual folks struggle with this issue so much: The more we try to embody our spiritual natures, the less we act from our egos. This means at some point, we do become quite different from most people. Where most live from their egos with occasional flashes of divine wisdom and compassion, someone who has long been devoted to spiritual growth tends be centered in their higher self with occasional fits of ego.

If we strive to be extraordinary people but assume the rest of the world will be just like us, we will naturally get discouraged. Life is a journey of spiritual growth, and none of us are enlightened yet. If we expect people to act like wise, compassionate sages, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.

It helps me to remember that even the most spiritual beings to ever walk the planet had to deal with the same sort of disappointment. The story of Jesus offers us a great example, for He was betrayed by one of his closest friends (Judas), who sold Him out for cash! Then at the hour of His greatest need, the other apostles all abandoned Him. I figure if Jesus can be betrayed like this, none of us are immune.

It’s also quite normal for life to begin throwing us curve balls if we’ve been batting a thousand for a while. This means if we’ve got a nice, smooth vibe going, inevitably something will happen that stretches our capacity for patience and tolerance. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t learn and grow anymore.

It’s like mastering algebra and then moving on to geometry and feeling lost again. If we stayed in algebra forever, life would seem pretty easy, but it would also get boring and we’d never learn anything new. Whether we like it or not, we can’t keep repeating the same lessons over and over again – we have to move on.

One of the first things you need to realize is that it is not “unspiritual” to get angry. I think being spiritual is simply the habit of self-examination combined with the sincere desire to be a good person. The harder you are on yourself about feeling angry, the more likely you will be to deny or repress your feelings, which is the source of all sorts of problems. What you’re working on at this point in your spiritual journey is making peace with your shadow nature.

If you try to never get angry in the first place, you’ll run up against some powerful biology. Whenever we feel threatened emotionally, our bodies respond as they do when we feel threatened physically. We are WIRED to get angry when something threatens our happiness, and it can take days for the adrenaline that was released when we got angry to go back to normal levels. I find this interesting because it’s hard to stay angry for more than a few days – eventually, we let it go.

Most people are denying, avoiding or repressing all sorts of negative emotions. This is why millions of people are taking anti-depressants, and why so many are addicted to things like drugs, alcohol, food, etc. They’re all trying to avoid emotional pain.

When we work to become more conscious of what’s happening within us, it can seem like we’re suddenly flooded with intense negative feelings. (After all, we generally don’t repress positive emotions). It’s therefore common for negative emotions to bubble over when we’re moving into a new level of conscious awareness or a new level of personal healing, and it may indeed seem like we’re regressing at that point.

One of the greatest pay-offs of spiritual growth is the freedom to choose how we will respond to our experience. When we allow others to upset or anger us, we give our power away. When we center ourselves i n our own divine power within, we can choose how we feel regardless of what is happening in our outer experience. So as spiritual seekers, our goal is not to be rid of anger but to consciously choose what we do with that energy. We must learn how to transmute it into something higher like positive change, new wisdom and understanding, or a greater capacity for forgiveness and unconditional love.

While it’s healthy to acknowledge and process our feelings, I’m not a big fan of primal scream therapy or similar ideas, because when we practice anger, we just get better at it. When we send rage out to the Universe, we get rage back. While it’s healthier to let our anger out than to stuff it down, it’s even better to work with that energy consciously and let it fuel positive change. Properly channeled, anger can be transmuted into powerful motivation and creativity.

What works best for me is to simply cultivate what I want instead of anger. So when I’m feeling angry, I might read a spiritual book, take a walk in nature or do some yoga. Other great tools for transmuting anger into new power and healing include vigorous exercise, art therapy, hypnotherapy, meditation, energy healing, spiritual counseling, and the use of divination tools like runes and tarot to sort out the deeper spiritual truths in upsetting situations.

In terms of the law of attraction, the only way to break free of a cycle of upset and disappointment is to choose to stop getting upset over things that would normally upset you. If you truly believe yourself to be a good person who deserves to be treated better than you’re being treated, you have to begin to treat yourself better first. By allowing people who don’t share your values to disrupt your happiness, you aren’t treating yourself well, and when you don’t treat yourself very well, your vibration drops and other people begin to treat you badly too.

To manifest more uplifting relationships, you have to stop allowing anyone to bring you down. You have to be your own best friend – not the friend who is always late, forgets your birthday, and never really listens to you – the best friend you would LIKE to have.

As you do this, you will begin to meet new people. This is no accident. When you become happier, you attract people of a higher vibration. If you begin to love yourself well by choosing to be happy, one of two things will happen: everyone who doesn’t or can’t love you similarly will fade out of your experience, or you’ll bring out something better in the folks who remain.

– Soul Arcanum

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Energy Work Makes him Dizzy

Filed Under: Energy/Vibration, Kundalini, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Energy Work Makes him Dizzy

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

Last year I attended some energy healing lessons, during which I opened my crown chakra. A couple of months after these lessons, I began to feel dizzy all the time. My teacher had warned me that I might experience some changes in my body, but it was a terrible feeling, and I couldn’t wait to get back to normal. I still feel like something is spinning on top of my head, and sometimes my “head spins” as well. What is happening? What should I do?
– A.

Dear A.:

While I see a connection between your spiritual practices and these sensations, it would of course be wise for you to see a doctor and rule out potential physical problems.

That aside, it sounds to me like you need to get “grounded.” When we engage in spiritual practices like meditation, ritual work, spirit communication, energy healing, etc., we focus our energy and attention beyond the physical plane. This can cause us to sort of disconnect from the physical and our physical bodies. We then might say we are “out of it” or not totally “with it,” because on some level, we understand that we are not completely in our bodies.

Our minds are not located in our brains; they are non-physical, so they transcend space and time. Our minds go where we send them via our attention. If we develop a habit of focusing beyond this plane, our minds can begin to disconnect from the physical. You didn’t mention if you continued to work with this teaching or were engaged in other spiritual practices in the period following these lessons, but in any case, it sounds like this experience sparked a new surge of spiritual awakening.

I recommend you research the term kundalini and the various symptoms that can arise with kundalini awakening. Kundalini is just life force energy, of course, so despite the dire warnings you may read, it is in no way dangerous. It is powerful, however, so it demands a careful, respectful approach.

Kundalini is the force carrying us through the evolutionary journey we call life, and things like meditation and energy healing can clear the way for this evolution. Sometimes, this can be an uncomfortable or awkward process, and we may experience “growing pains” as we struggle for a foothold at a new vibration. It’s like our spirits are leading, but our hearts, minds, and/or bodies are lagging a bit behind.

For example, if someone who is engaged in spiritual practice to raise kundalini has a block in their crown chakra, they might experience something like a headache as a result of working with this energy. By contrast, someone with a very open crown chakra who is trying hard to grow spiritually may channel more energy than he is drawing in. He may feel very dizzy during and after spiritual practice because too much energy is flowing out through the crown chakra. I used to get very dizzy when I would try to meditate after a strenuous workout. While this could have been a blood pressure issue, it felt like I was just too revved up (flowing too much energy) to meditate at that time.

During a period of big spiritual awakening, I would also begin to spontaneously leave my body every time I tried to meditate. When my teacher told me this meant I needed to get more grounded, and that I was “top heavy” in terms of chakra development, I gave up my traditional meditation practice and began to focus on getting physically strong, fit and healthy. In terms of spiritual practice, I began to study and work with earthy paths like Wicca and shamanism. This led to new spiritual growth, better balance, and greater well-being. I was more “grounded” in the physical.

It only makes sense that balance would be a key issue here, since when you are dizzy, you naturally lose your balance. It may prove helpful to ask yourself in what ways you are out of balance in various aspects of your life: your physical health, emotional world, relationships, career, spiritual journey, etc.

Also, when you’re engaged in raising kundalini or awakening spiritually, low blood sugar is a common problem. In fact, people who are going through a kundalini experience often crave things like sugar, dairy and refined carbs because their energy is erratic. When they experience a surge in kundalini, they burn through energy quickly, and their blood sugar drops.

So if you’ve been fasting or eating very lightly and you’re getting dizzy, it would be prudent to make sure you’re eating frequently and eating enough. If you are uncomfortable with the dizziness, you could counter the blood sugar issues with protein in the form of nuts, soy or animal products. If, however, you want to work with this shift, you might honor your cravings. In fact, despite our Western prejudice against these foods, dairy products and sweet carbs are said to promote a high spiritual vibration.

Similarly, if you want to work with this surge in energy, you could try moving with it. By practicing something like yoga, tai chi, or chi gong, you can channel and release the energy. If, however, you just want “your old self back,” you could focus on getting lots of sleep and physical rest.

To get back to “normal,” you might also try just doing normal things and hanging out with normal people. This will bring your vibration back down to a level you’re comfortable with. Spend time with people who are grounded in “ordinary reality,” who have good common sense, and are trustworthy and reliable. Do mundane things like cleaning, exercising, spending time outdoors, etc. Simply get physical: feel your body on your chair, focus on the physical world around you, and stay present to the here and now of your outer experience.

You mentioned a teacher who had told you that you might experience some physical changes. One of the greatest reasons to have a spiritual teacher is so you have someone you can consult when you don’t know what to do. Hopefully, if you contact your teacher about these sensations, he will be able to help you find your way to better balance.

There is a note of worry in your question, and I want to reassure you that your dizzy sensations do not mean that there is something “wrong.” It’s more like when you feel tired, and how that just means that you need to rest: feeling dizzy just means you need to get grounded and balanced. Fortunately, balance is natural: everything in nature eventually returns to balance, including our bodies and the rest of our beings.

– Soul Arcanum

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Are You Hung up on the Past and What Might Have Been?

Filed Under: Destiny/Higher Plan, Emotional Well-being, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Are You Hung up on the Past and What Might Have Been?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

Is there some way to find out from Spirit if we made the right decisions in the past? For example, lately I’ve been feeling like if I’d made different decisions over the past seven years or so, I would be on a higher or better path now. Can I find out? I’m a Christian, and at church I often hear that if I don’t do the right thing or act according to divine timing, things will go wrong for me. I believe that we do have to make the best choices for us to manifest good things in our lives, and the problem is that I don’t know if I’ve been making the best choices for me for the past seven years or so, because so much in my life is really a mess. Would my life be better now if I had made better choices? I keep going back to a couple of key junctures along the way, and a couple of key choices I made over and over again, and now I wonder if I was digging myself into a hole. I’m 26 years old and I’m ready to turn my life around, but I don’t know where to start.
– Elena

Dear Elena:

Congratulations – you are on the verge of a major personal breakthrough!

We’ve all known people who keep doing the same things over and over and expecting different results because they have not yet realized that they are causing their own misery. When they DO truly realize this – when they stop waiting for some outside force or person to save them, and they stop blaming other people for their problems – they will change.

Life brings many tests and challenges, and some are like entrance exams to the next level of our spiritual education. When the veil of denial begins to lift and we get an inkling that perhaps our old interpretation of life was somehow false or illusionary, what we do at that point is very important. If we push that thought away because we’re too “proud” to face the truth or because we’re just too lazy to do anything with it, we shift into denial and get caught up in limiting patterns.

If, however, we are ever consulting our hearts and souls and listening for the truth within, and we have the courage to face our faults and mistakes as soon as we catch a glimmer of them, then we’ll move on from false thinking before we dig ourselves into a rut.

There are basically three steps to healing and releasing the past so you can move on to new happiness: First you must face facts, then you must forgive yourself and others, then you’ll be free to focus on what you want for the future.

Step One: Facing Facts

When the past is haunting us, it’s a call for us to question some of the lies we’ve been telling ourselves. Negative emotion is the main symptom to watch out for, as whenever we’re caught up in sorrow, anger, fear, regret, etc., we are not seeing the whole truth. We should therefore question every thought that makes us feel bad.

We also need to let go of the need to judge everything – including the past. It was what it was, and we can safely assume that it was just what we needed it to be, and we did just what we needed to do, in order to learn just what we needed to learn.

To heal on a psychic/emotional level, however, we do have to face the truth about ourselves and our past actions and hold ourselves accountable for them. This doesn’t mean that we beat ourselves up about them forevermore. In fact, just facing the truth will launch us toward healing; the truth will indeed set us free.

When we have absorbed all the wisdom our experiences hold for us, we naturally graduate to a new level of life lessons, so when we’re hung up on the past, it’s generally because we’ve yet to learn something we need to learn. Until those lessons are integrated, the past will tug at us to go back and explore our experiences again. While I’m a firm believer in focusing on what we do want in life, in such situations, the only way to truly move on is to stop and review the past for whatever we seem to have missed.

It’s a bit like having a thread from your sweater snagged on something you’ve tried to walk away from – you have to go back to whatever you got hung up on, free yourself from it, and do whatever repair work is necessary if you want to move forward looking and feeling your best.

To accomplish this, you will have to examine your own choices and behavior and honestly ask yourself how you might have been more skillful. This will involve going back over any memories that hold a strong emotional charge for you. This charge may involve negative feelings about yourself such as shame, guilt or embarrassment, or they may involve negative feelings towards others such as anger, bitterness, jealousy or rage. These feelings indicate that there are psychic wounds that still need healing.

You might also want to explore the possibility that past life issues are at play in this situation. I don’t normally recommend looking for possible problems, but if you feel like the past is tugging at you or weighing you down, past life regression therapy may prove very helpful. (It would also be wise to stop and ask yourself what you may be avoiding in the now with all of this focus on the past.)

Step Two: Forgiveness

Once you have pinpointed those emotionally charged memories, it’s time to forgive yourself and others for anything you perceive to be a mistake or bad decision. While there are some transgressions that may seem unforgivable, it’s wise to understand that EVERYONE is always doing the best they can in any situation.

Granted, sometimes that best is really lame. In those situations, I recommend you do as I do: give thanks that you are not as lost and clueless as that person seems to be. It will help you find compassion for them, which will help you forgive whatever they did.

I’m reminded of when I was a kid and would try to tattle on my little brother, and my mother would wisely say, “You just worry about yourself.” We would all be wise to just worry about our own karma. Besides, when we forgive others, we don’t erase their karma for whatever they did – we set ourselves free from the pain and suffering of living with negative emotion and a heavy vibration.

Further, it doesn’t really make sense to second-guess our past decisions, because if we hadn’t lived what we lived, we wouldn’t know what we know now. So instead of regretting the past, it’s wise to give thanks above all for the bad experiences that led us to new wisdom and understanding.

If you really want to change your life for the better, I thus recommend you seek out everyone you believe you’ve ever wronged and apologize to them and try to make amends. Also, bring everyone who has ever wronged you into your heart and forgive them. This alone will TRANSFORM your life. It will free you from all sorts of negative patterns, send your vibration soaring, and open doorways to a rich assortment of new blessings.

Step 3: Focus on Fulfillment

Once you’ve faced facts and forgiven everyone you can think of, it’s time to start cultivating new blessings. At rudimentary levels of spiritual development, our main goal is to resist temptation and avoid making big mistakes. As we evolve, however, we soon realize that we have endless potential for cultivating wonderful karmic rewards.

Once you’ve healed the past, if you begin to actively strive to be good and kind, you will see miracles blossom all around you. By aiming to do the right thing, performing good deeds, and wishing yourself and others well, you can launch yourself onto a higher level of experience and reap the benefits of your wise habits forevermore.

– Soul Arcanum

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A Dream Rich with Spiritual Guidance

Filed Under: Dreams, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on A Dream Rich with Spiritual Guidance

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

Years ago I had a dream I will never forget. It would take forever to tell the whole thing, but you should know that at this time, I had been experimenting with a Ouiji board, and at the beginning of the dream, a voice told me to stop doing that. Then there were two angels, and each one was trying to get me to go with him. They felt like opposing forces, and it was very confusing. I chose to go with the one that was beautiful. (The other I could not see, I could only hear.) I followed the beautiful one into this light, but then there was chaos everywhere; it was a vision of hell. I think my guardian angel was with me, because I heard a voice in my ear say, “I can’t stay here with you because God has removed his spirit from this world.” Then these beings started chasing me and I ran. I saw the beautiful angel ahead, but as I got close to him, his face changed into something terrible, like a demon. He smiled and said, “Aren’t you glad you came into the light so that we could be together forever?” I was so scared I woke up with a start. Now I think that “going into the light” is a foolish thing to do when we die, for it’s how dark beings try to trick us to go with them. I also have no idea who can be trusted anymore, and as a result, I went through a very difficult experience with a psychic who tried to scam me for a lot of money by saying it was cursed and needed to be “cleansed.” What do you think of this dream and its unsettling effect on me?
– D.

Dear D.:

What an amazing gift! While I can see why this dream was unsettling, I think it’s a wonderful sign that you are being guided spiritually. This dream was trying to teach you a very important lesson so that you wouldn’t have to learn it the “hard way.”

This dream is all about trusting your own inner knowing – the voice of God that speaks to you from WITHIN you, as opposed to listening to supposed representatives of God in the outer world, such as religious teachings, priests, people who say they have the answers, spirits that speak to you through the Ouji board, so-called psychics who want to scam your money from you, etc.

It came to you just as you had begun to explore outside sources of spiritual information (in your case, via the Ouji board.) As you were just getting started, you didn’t really know what you were doing, and you were very vulnerable to being misled by mischievous or malevolent spirits. This dream thus came to warn you that such activity may seem attractive, and that the spirits you encounter may seem wonderful, but this path could lead you to darkness, confusion and suffering.

The beautiful (but evil) angel here represents all the spiritual teachers, paths and pursuits that may seem to promise all the answers, power and control we desire in life, but which ultimately fail to really deliver. The good but invisible angel represents your own inner connection to the divine.

God and our guides and angels speak to us from within. They may not appear to us in visions of blazing glory or deliver their guidance in beautifully bound books or via expensive week-long seminars, but we can always trust our own inner voice to know what is best for us personally. As we grow and evolve spiritually, eventually we all learn to put our own inner guidance above all outside influences.

This dream was also a warning, however, and it could have been about an actual entity that was trying to form an attachment to your aura, or had already done so. By using the Ouji board before you were spiritually prepared for it, you invited any and all spirits to “come on in.” Since you no doubt felt pretty “spooky” about the whole thing, you would have attracted creepy sorts of characters.

There are all kinds of earthbound spirits around us, and they are naturally attracted to people who share their vibration. Spiritual entities both “good” and “bad” only have as much power over us as we give them, but what many people don’t realize is that we can give our power away to other people and spirits on an unconscious level.

Most people are sleepwalking through life; they aren’t awake to what is happening on a subtle energetic level, and they have no idea why they do many of the things they do. When we’re oblivious to subtle energies but curious about psychic phenomena, it’s sort of like opening all the doors to our house, and then (by using a Ouji board or engaging in similar psychic practices) putting a big sign on the front lawn that says, “Open House” or “Come Join the Party!”

Further, even though we all have spirit guides and angels watching over us, one of the distinguishing characteristics of higher level spiritual beings is that they will not try to interfere with our free will. They are always with us and willing to help, but they won’t throw unwelcome guests out of our party of their own accord, or stop them from entering at the door unless we ask them to do that. After all, this is our house, and it’s not their place to decide who is welcome here.

Further, since troublemakers want to crash our party, they usually clean themselves up, try to look attractive, and turn on the charm, just like your “beautiful” angel did. We become susceptible to this sort of misleading influence in the form of both worldly activities and non-physical entities when we get caught up in egoistic desires. It’s all about vibration. If we are hungry for more power, money or pleasure, or (heaven forbid) something like revenge, then it’s easy to get suckered in by people (or spirits) that promise us “the world” if we only follow them.

We have a built in barometer that is designed to help us discern between what is truly good for us and what is not, and that barometer speaks to us through our own inner voice. We are thus wise to be in constant dialogue with our own intuition, and instead of blindly handing our allegiance, faith and personal power over to some religion, teacher, psychic or entity, we must take responsibility for our own lives and for finding our own truth through a direct relationship with the Divine.

Christ taught that we should “pray unceasingly.” By this, I believe Christ meant that we must constantly monitor our thoughts and feelings, question our experiences, and purposefully cultivate divine goodness through right action, compassion, love, forgiveness, etc. If we have impeccable integrity, no one physical OR metaphysical will be able to lead us astray.

Some mystics and paranormal researchers view angels and demons in a remarkable way. They suggest that instead of a battle, there is a harmonious balance in the Universe between good and evil. They see darkness as essential to understanding light, and suggest that life itself is the process of exploring and experiencing both goodness and evil in order to know and understand both, and (hopefully) freely choose goodness ourselves. This is the whole point of our existence: it would mean nothing if we were forced to choose goodness, and it means everything when we are tested and tempted by evil, and decide to choose right action of our own accord.

I feel this amazing dream was designed to remind you that you will encounter all sorts of temptations, diversions and false teachings along your spiritual journey, and that you would be wise to trust above all the invisible voice of divine guidance that whispers within your own heart.

– Soul Arcanum

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Could She be Getting Messages Through Soul Arcanum?

Filed Under: Divine Guidance, Law of Attraction, Manifesting, Psychic Ability, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Could She be Getting Messages Through Soul Arcanum?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum::

I always enjoy reading your column. Do you think it’s possible that I’m getting spiritual messages through your website? I’ve noticed that when an issue arises in my life or I’m thinking about different spiritual matters or questions, the next issue of Soul Arcanum will have an article with the answers I need. For example, I signed a contract for my house at 11:11 p.m., and said to my girlfriend that there are so many experiences of 11:11 in my life, then the next Monday there was an article in Soul Arcanum about the spiritual meaning of 11:11. Another time my dog got sick and the next thing I saw in your magazine was an article on how to meditate with your dog. I could give you a lot more examples. Soul Arcanum definitely plays an important role in my life! What do you think – am I really getting messages this way? Thank you!

– Ellen

Dear Ellen:

You are not imagining things; everything in the Universe is interrelated, and the more conscious we become of that truth, the more we notice connections like those you describe.

The common term for what you’re experiencing is “synchronicity.” It was a favorite topic of Carl Jung’s, who noticed that many so-called coincidences are statistically inexplicable. For example, one of his most famous experiences of synchronicity occurred as he was listening to a patient describe a dream she’d had about a golden scarab beetle. As he listened to her, he heard a tapping noise at the window behind him, and when he turned around to investigate, he saw a beetle at the window. When he opened the window, the beetle flew in, and it looked just like the beetle his patient was describing in her dream. We might say that this experience “blew his mind,” and launched him on a journey of exploration into the nature of synchronicity.

We’ve all had experiences like this that strike us as highly improbable. They’re usually laced with a sense of meaning; something deep inside of us makes us sit up, take notice and wonder at what is happening. Since there is no obvious rational explanation, many people’s minds just shut down and they brush the experience off as a coincidence. Those who are more mystically inclined, however, are able to use their intuition to bridge the gap between common reality and the subtler realities beneath the surface. In this way, we find meaning in synchronistic experiences where others do not.

So how does synchronicity work? Sometimes there are intelligent forces like spirits using such means to communicate with us, but more often, we are simply answering our own desires and questions via the unified field beyond the dimension of time and space. Our conscious minds are tuned into three-dimensional, physical reality, but there are other aspects of our minds that abide in what we might call more expansive dimensions. When we become more spiritually aware, we begin to link our conscious mind with these other aspects of ourselves, and they begin to work together more adeptly because they are more “in synch.”

At a quantum level, the universe appears to be a “magical” place. Things can move from one place to another without traveling the distance in between. Time collapses at this level of experience. This is basically what is behind the experience of synchronicity – when we are vibrationally in harmony with something (such as an answer or an idea) it will come to us or we will be led to it. For example, perhaps you needed the information in that article about 11:11 BEFORE you began noticing those numbers popping up in your experience, and that is WHY you began noticing them.

When we begin to look for signs, we open up a vast new realm of potential ways that we can receive them. If we set an intention of having certain dream experiences or accessing certain information in our dreams, our dream life will blossom. If we look for signs in the spoken conversations of others, or in random books, or any other way, those avenues begin to expand for us.

This leads me to why I am so in love with the internet. The internet is as close as we come in the physical dimension to that vast unified field wherein everything is connected. Nothing tangible actually “exists” on the internet, and it is not an actual “place,” yet we can all visit it and have very real experiences there. We can quickly access whatever we need to know or connect with whomever we desire, even if they are on the other side of the planet! Just as we can access information and understanding by mentally “dipping into” other realms, the same is true of the ‘net. As it is a half step above the level of space/time, the internet is a very powerful channel for synchronicity.

I’m suggesting that you had a certain need or desire that led you to Soul Arcanum in the first place, and that you subsequently defined Soul Arcanum as a great avenue for finding the answers you’re looking for. In this way, Soul Arcanum became a key channel through which you receive synchronous “answers” to your questions.

Now you’re probably wondering how your questions could be answered as opposed to the questions of all the other seekers out there. Here’s where things get very complex but also very interesting. Practically speaking, you probably read a lot at Soul Arcanum that doesn’t “grab you,” and you naturally latch on to those articles that have special meaning for you. Your eyes may glide ride past anything you don’t need and go right to what you’re most interested in.

At the same time, however, it’s natural for you to resonate with most of what you find here. From a higher perspective, those of us who read and appreciate Soul Arcanum are a virtual spiritual community based on our shared interests and experiences. Along what we might call “the spiritual path,” everyone passes through the same territory. It’s like driving from L.A. to Las Vegas: While a few people will get lost or wander off the beaten trail, most people will follow the same basic route, and along the way, there will be various landmarks that EVERYONE passes. (Some will notice some things more than others, of course.) Now imagine that Soul Arcanum is like a travel guide devoted to this journey from L.A. to Vegas, and you’ll see why when you’re reading it, you often think, “Hey! I just noticed that myself!”

Further, since we are in the same virtual “community,” we are in communication at a subconscious, energetic level. The articles I choose to run are thus being influenced by your needs and desires. In fact, long ago I set the intention of choosing articles and topics intuitively; I just go with whatever feels right. So if you’re sending a strong signal, I may just receive it. At the same time, YOU may be picking up on what I’m doing. I work about a week ahead, so it makes sense that articles would either appear shortly after you sent that signal, or you might develop a sudden interest in the topics I’m working on at that time.

It’s exciting to know that the more we look for synchronicities, the more we’ll find. When we clearly define what we want to know or experience and then watch for signs and synchronicities, we weave magic into our lives.

If you’d like to experience even more of this magic (and who wouldn’t?), begin to focus on it and ask for it. Try manifesting answers through other specific sources and see what happens, or try writing down some theme, question or subject you’d like to explore further. Tape it to the wall behind your desk or carry it in your wallet or pocket. Then just watch for something related to this subject to grab your attention, and instead of brushing this experience off as a coincidence, celebrate it as validation that through synchronicity, the Universe can work for us in wonderful, mysterious ways.

– Soul Arcanum

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Yoga and Psychic Ability

Filed Under: Energy/Vibration, Intuitive Development, Psychic Ability, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Yoga and Psychic Ability

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have always associated yoga with spirituality, and I am keenly interested in developing my psychic abilities, so recently I took my first yoga class. While I really liked it, I was surprised to find it basically just a gentle form of exercise. Do you think yoga can enhance our spiritual paths and help us develop psychically?
– Kelly

Dear Kelly:

When I speak here of yoga, I am not referring to the physical practices designed to increase strength and flexibility that most Westerners associate with the term. Yoga is far more than this. Traditionally, yoga (which means “yoke”) is a spiritual discipline designed to lead aspirants to unite their individual soul with God or the Universal soul.

This is achieved through the study and practice of moral and ethical principles, spiritual teachings, meditation, and special bodily and breathing exercises. Where its focus is physical, it aims to purify and transform the body into a vehicle ripe for enlightenment. It also aims to improve our physical health and well-being; after all, it’s hard to focus on spiritual growth when our bodies are causing us pain or discomfort.

Many of the yoga classes available in the United States have been stripped of their more spiritual elements. Yoga has many branches, however, and some are far more spiritually focused than others.

In the yogic tradition, psychic powers are known as “siddhis,” which literally means “perfections.” Accomplished yogis have been known to not only develop telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, and mediumship abilities, but also amazing gifts such as the ability to levitate, bilocate, instantly heal others and materialize physical objects.

As a rule, however, one does not practice yoga in order to develop siddhis; instead, they are viewed as natural “by-products” of general spiritual development. I agree that focusing primarily on spiritual development is wise, for a strong spiritual foundation ensures a safe, sane, positive experience with psychic phenomena.

Further, yoga is a discipline, and discipline is essential to a strong spiritual foundation. If someone has the desire and discipline to practice yoga on a regular basis, then they must be sincere in their desire for spiritual development. People who explore psychic matters who are mentally or emotionally unstable, morally weak, or lacking in character and discipline may have “paranormal” experiences of an unattractive nature, or even experience mental breakdown. Practices like yoga thus ensure a natural and healthy psychic progression, and also offer the immeasurable benefit of a wise teacher.

Many yogis are warned not to get caught up in siddhis because they may just distract them from their higher spiritual aims or ensnare their egos. Others believe that siddhis are blessings that allow us to better know and understand the nature of the divine. Certainly the development of psychic powers generally indicates a higher spiritual vibration, which is at least a sign that one is making spiritual progress.

Though initially I was as enthralled with psychic phenomena as anyone, over time I have come to see that the development of psychic abilities is not an ultimate spiritual goal. While such phenomena may enchant us for a while, in time we will evolve beyond this fascination; we’ll eventually lose interest in such matters and the desire to use the psychic abilities we’ve attained.

The ultimate goal of a yogi is liberation from the cycle of rebirth via enlightenment. Essential to this process is the integration of body, mind and spirit. This is where yoga can be a very special tool for spiritual growth. Unlike practices that focus entirely on our so-called “inner worlds,” yoga incorporates the body as an important aspect of our beings. By opening our chakras, balancing our prana, and raising kundalini, we can both support the spiritual progress we attain through other methods and initiate greater awakening.

A key element of yoga is the practice of focus or concentration. In this way, it is a form of active meditation. Further, as a physical discipline it is so much more than most other forms of sport and exercise, for in addition to what we might call “striving,” it emphasizes to an equal degree surrender or letting go. In this way it mirrors the experience of life itself, which is a practice in learning how to simultaneously create what we desire and accept all as it is.

As I mentioned above, there are many different types of yoga and I don’t have space to go into them here, but if your aim is the development of psychic abilities, then kundalini yoga would be of particular interest to you. Kundalini yoga’s main focus is the raising of kundalini and the opening of the higher chakra centers. Kundalini is a powerful reserve of life force energy that sleeps at the base of our spines, in our root chakras. By awakening kundalini, we expand our awareness and begin to tap more of our spiritual potential.

We each have a habit of viewing life through one of our chakras more than the others; this is the chakra that is dominant for us at that time. Ordinary consciousness is generally perception of reality from one of the lower chakra centers. As we open and move our awareness into the higher chakras, we view life through a more spiritual lens. We also tend to have mystical experiences and gain new spiritual abilities.

Our chakras correspond to our glandular system, and by working on the body (glands) and the spirit (chakras) at the same time, we can harmonize and integrate the two. This leads to higher awareness and the wisdom and freedom to choose from that enhanced perspective. It also generally leads to the blossoming of psychic abilities.

Kundalini is a very powerful force and it must be respected. Many people have awakened kundalini unintentionally through drug use, physical accidents, and casual dabbling in esoteric practices, and had very negative experiences. In order for kundalini to rise through us with ease, our inner energetic channels must be open and clear. If we awaken kundalini before the body is prepared for this level of intense energy, we may have a very uncomfortable experience physically, emotionally, and/or mentally.

Rest assured, however, that we are all flowing a degree of kundalini all the time. This is the force that keeps us “alive.” We are all also evolving spiritually, and the more we evolve, the more kundalini we tap into. Our aim should be a gradual, gentle awakening, one that we are prepared to handle. Yoga is a valuable tool in this regard.

There are some great kundalini yoga DVDs you can start with at home. I recommend DVDs by Ravi Singh/Ana Brett and Gurmukh. There are a number of them available at amazon.com. If you find this practice as enriching as I did, however, then I highly recommend you find a local class that feels right to you, because having a teacher is a great blessing, and you will meet some of the most amazing people on this path.

– Soul Arcanum

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What Will Matter Most in the Afterlife?

Filed Under: Afterlife, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on What Will Matter Most in the Afterlife?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I would love to hear your views on what will be considered most important in the afterlife. Thank you!
– Dale

Dear Dale:

Thanks for this fantastic question!

There is a tremendous amount of writing on this subject, and all the sources I personally trust and respect are in accord. These sources include the accounts of near death experiencers, astral projectors like Robert Monroe who explore the realms of the afterlife while living, and the wisdom of spiritual masters such as Jesus Christ, Edgar Cayce, Emanuel Swedenborg, Helen Blavatsky and many more.

These sources all agree that the most important thing in the Universe is love. As was written in Corinthians 1:13, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” The more divine love we embody while living, the greater our experience will be both here AND beyond.

There are places on this Earth that are rife with violence, ugliness, hatred, poverty and suffering, and the same is true in the afterlife. There are also places on Earth that are rich with peace, beauty, love, abundance and joy, and this is also true in the afterlife.

The inner state of being we have attained at the end of our lives is what we take with us when we die and what determines the quality of our afterlife experience. The truth that like attracts like is direct and obvious in the astral because when we cross over, we can no longer hide our true thoughts and feelings. If we are rich with inner beauty, then we will enter a beautiful realm inhabited by lovely spirits.

By contrast, those souls who are “heaviest” or lowest in vibration may become earthbound spirits. They may not even realize they have died as they hover close to this dimension in a state of endless yearning or confusion. (This is probably where our ideas about hell come from.) If we pass on with strong physical addictions to things like drugs, alcohol, food, sex and so on, we may continue to pursue gratification vicariously through the living. If we cross over with a great deal of fear or confusion, we may also end up lost in the lower astral. There is much help ever available to such spirits, and eventually, they do wake up, turn toward the light and move on.

Many souls skip over the lower astral and enter what some call “the void” when they cross over. This void is actually within us, and throughout our lives we are filling it with all the love, anger, joy, sorrow, faith, fear, wisdom, knowledge (etc.) we experience. (We are forming our own afterlife experience right now!) When we depart this life for the afterlife, many of us go into this void where we begin to purify ourselves of our lowest, heaviest energies first.

During this time, if we have a habit of being self-centered, cynical or unforgiving, we will find ourselves surrounded by other souls who are similar. As we experience our own true self reflected back to us, we will gain the desire and awareness we need to change, and naturally gravitate toward souls that reflect our new and “improved” nature. This is why the greatest spiritual teachers throughout history have advised us above all to “know thyself.”

If we are basically good at heart, we can skip right past the dark corners of the astral and go directly toward vibrationally higher worlds via something that appears to be a tunnel of light. This is when our spiritual knowledge and beliefs become paramount, for our expectations about death, heaven, hell, etc., largely determine where we will end up in the heavens. (There are religious communities in the afterlife just like there are religious communities here on Earth.)

These are illusionary realms where we only see and hear what we believe to be true. Just as ignorance and close-mindedness limit our potential while living, they limit our freedom and power in the afterlife. To set ourselves free of these limitations, we must question everything and search for deeper truths. This is why a key component of spiritual growth is the pursuit of spiritual knowledge and wisdom.

Think about it: people who accept religious dogma without question end up following a bunch of rules that may or may not have any true spiritual value. They may spend entire lifetimes trying to be spiritually “good” and never realize that they’re way off track. For example, the September 11 terrorists sincerely believed that they were attacking “evil” and would be rewarded in heaven. To transcend religious blindness, we must make a habit of questioning everything and keep our minds and hearts open to the divine knowing that can only be found within and through direct personal experience.

In addition to love and wisdom, there is a quality I believe is very important at a spiritual level that is often overlooked, and that is the quality of inner strength or persistence. We tend to view persistence as essential to worldly success, and fail to see how it is also essential to what we might call spiritual success. Perhaps this is because Christianity has made us feel like passive recipients of divine grace instead of the agents of our own healing, “saving” and evolution.

Depression, for example, has come to be viewed as a medical illness, and while it does have physical aspects, it is at its roots a spiritual illness. I used to suffer from depression and I know how “disabling” this state of mind can be. While I believe that modern lifestyles may breed depression, I have learned that it is fueled by self-absorption, which is antagonistic to selfless love.

More and more people are suffering from depression because on the whole, humanity has become less community-focused and more self-absorbed. When we are grateful and loving, we naturally extend our light out into the world and try to uplift others. When we’re depressed, we curl up inside ourselves and become indifferent to others’ needs. It is wise and powerful to be profoundly grateful for life itself, and depression is at the opposite end of the spectrum from gratitude. Feeling sorry for ourselves or viewing ourselves as weak victims of bad luck, biochemistry, or other outer circumstances may thus be as bad for us spiritually as lashing out in anger toward others.

Each of us could come up with reasons why we could be depressed, but people who are wise choose to look on the bright side. When we get down and discouraged we must discipline our minds to think in ways that leave us grateful. When we are frustrated, we must squeeze out a bit more patience. When we are tired and feel like giving up, we must find the strength to keep on trying. When we think we have reached the limits of our capacity to love, we must dig deeper into our hearts for the strength and courage to go on loving. There is no one watching over our shoulders, mind you; only we know if we are doing our bests, and only we will experience the repercussions of our choices. So long as we are honestly doing our bests, we will be happy with ourselves in the end.

We can make tremendous spiritual progress here on Earth, for all we may think we have learned is truly put to the test here. It is wise to simply live in awareness that when we feel dull, lazy, depressed, angry, vengeful or sorry for ourselves, we are creating more darkness for ourselves in the future. When we radiate love, joy, kindness, gratitude and peace, we are creating more light for ourselves in the future. By stretching our hearts to love more, our minds to know and understand more, and our spirits to radiate more peace and light, we raise our own vibration and improve our lives both here and Beyond.

– Soul Arcanum

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Weak Knees, Energy Rushes and Psychic Ability

Filed Under: Chakras/Auras, Energy/Vibration, Intuitive Development, Kundalini, Psychic Ability, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Weak Knees, Energy Rushes and Psychic Ability

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

My name is Daniel, and I am a 19-year-old college student from Tennessee. I am an adventurous person, and enjoy exploring old homes, forests, etc. Sometimes when I’m in an old setting, I have a very strange sensation: my knees get weak and I almost feel as if I am blacking out. At the same time, I feel a rush of emotions that seem so concentrated, I can’t separate them. Although at first I assumed that this experience was connected to the “paranormal” in a “haunted house” sense, I have recently come to believe that it’s some form of psychic ability. Are the experiences I described legitimate psychic ability? I know that everyone is psychic to an extent, but my experiences don’t seem to be very common. Any information on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
– Daniel

Dear Daniel:

I think it would be most helpful to ponder your experiences in light of “kundalini” or life force energy. This will lead us to the most basic foundation for such experiences, because ultimately, everything in the Universe is a matter of energy.

While we could label these “psychic experiences,” I believe what you’re experiencing at such moments are actually surges in kundalini. As we awaken spiritually, we naturally develop psychic abilities, so the relationship between what you’re experiencing and psychic phenomena is sort of like the relationship between exercise and fitness: as you awaken spiritually, you naturally develop psychically, just as when you exercise regularly, you naturally develop greater fitness. All growth spurts involve a surge in kundalini, so whether we are growing physically or spiritually, the basic energy that animates us and gives us consciousness will surge to fuel that growth spurt.

Some symptoms of spiritual awakening/ kundalini rising include: emotional outbursts and strong waves of emotion, which may be positive (bliss and ecstasy, for example) or negative (fear, anger or depression). In the extreme, manic depression often arises from the highs and lows of erratic kundalini flow. This would explain those intense waves of emotions you feel.

Kundalini rising can also cause physical symptoms such as weakness, dizziness, exhaustion, numbness or tingling in the body (especially in the lower extremities), mental confusion, disorientation, visual distortion and psychic experiences. I’ve only named a few of the symptoms one might experience with kundalini awakening to demonstrate that all of what you describe falls within this range.

As kundalini rises into the area of the third eye and crown chakra, tiredness or drowsiness may develop. Physical weakness and fatigue are also natural because a big shift in vibration can be taxing on a body that is not adequately prepared for it. Some even say that a surge in kundalini uses up so much blood sugar that our blood sugar level may plummet, and most of us know how that feels! If we don’t understand what is going on, it’s natural to become worried or anxious about such sensations, which would only hinder the process of kundalini rising further and cause more discomfort.

Dizziness and disorientation in particular often precede some sort of spiritual breakthrough, for these are crown chakra experiences. As kundalini rises from the root chakra up the spine, it eventually makes its way out the crown of the head, so once it’s made it to the crown chakra, we’re on the verge of a breakthrough. If we “black out” at this point, it may be because we simply aren’t yet consciously up to speed with this level of experience.

Since you have these experiences when you’re in what we might term a “spiritual” setting or situation of one sort or another, I’m even more inclined to presume that they stem from a sudden surge in kundalini. If your body was a clear and open channel for this energy, you would probably have either an ecstatic spiritual experience or conscious psychic awareness of what is happening energetically in that situation. With the old forests, for example, you may have some sort of blissful spiritual experience, while in an old house, you may perceive the presence of a non-physical entity or awareness of residual energy that is somehow uncomfortable for you.

Suddenly feeling weak, sick, dizzy, etc., is not always a sign of kundalini surging, so you must view your experiences within the context of the setting and your own feelings at that moment to determine what is really happening. If you’re in an uplifting spiritual situation and you feel blissful or ecstatic, I’d presume you’re experiencing a surge in kundalini. If, however, you’re in a house you think could be haunted and you suddenly feel dizzy or weak, it’s probably a sign that this is not a good place for you to be.

You see, as kundalini rises, it makes us more and more sensitive on the whole. (This is why psychics are also known as sensitives.) If kundalini rising has made someone super sensitive but they don’t pay conscious attention to issues of energy, they may suddenly feel dizzy, weak or nauseous when they walk into a heavy, negative environment like a bar, or interact with someone of a nature that is not good for them. Because they’re not conscious, they wouldn’t know that this is their inner guidance system trying to tell them to get away from there.

Please note that kundalini awakening does not have to be a difficult or uncomfortable process, though we may not have full conscious control over how things will unfold for us personally. The more we work WITH and trust in this process, however, the smoother things should go.

It’s a bit like the growth process of the physical body: if we suddenly notice we’re growing because our clothes and shoes have gotten uncomfortably tight, and this freaks us out, we may resist growing more by doing something akin to foot binding. This will of course cause us far more discomfort. If, however, we trust in this as a natural process and we shed everything that has grown too small or tight for us (including limiting beliefs and perspectives), we can naturally flow into a bigger state of being.

Thus I believe the best thing you can do is to become a clearer, more conscious channel via spiritual practice. This is essentially why yoga developed in the first place; it opens up energy flow throughout the body and integrates us on all levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Meditation, spiritual study or other spiritual practices will also make you more conscious of what is happening to you on all levels. This will empower you to remain in a high vibration as you walk through such experiences and lend you more control over them.

I suggest you view these experiences as signs that you are ready to embrace a more conscious spiritual path in order to clear inner channels for new growth and development. The more conscious you get spiritually, the more you will both understand the true nature of such experiences and be able to facilitate a smooth spiritual journey.

– Soul Arcanum

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Does Romance Interfere with Spirit?

Filed Under: Psychic Ability, Relationships, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Does Romance Interfere with Spirit?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have been working on psychic and energy healing skills for a few years now, and it has been an amazing journey. Some time ago, I met and fell in love with someone. While I feel strongly drawn to him and am very happy in this relationship, he seems to interfere with my conscious connection to Spirit! We broke up for about three weeks once, and during that time, I felt Spirit move back into my life. When we got back together again, however, I lost that sense of connection. I’m getting worried that this relationship may somehow be bad for my spiritual growth. Do you think that this romance could be bad for me spiritually?
– Michelle

Dear Michelle:

Please rest assured that no one feels deeply connected spiritually all the time. After we awaken, we’re not awake 24/7: we all frequently take what we might call spiritual naps. These are usually short little catnaps throughout the day, but sometimes we take longer naps that may last for weeks, months or even years. These “naps” are periods when we’re less focused on spiritual growth and more focused on worldly matters like our careers, families, love affairs, and just having fun. It is entirely normal to go through periods when you feel more and less consciously connected to Spirit.

I also think it’s important to realize that when a relationship affects us in a negative way, the other person is not doing something to us; how we relate to them is the problem. Ultimately, our experience of a relationship is all about us, as it arises from our interpretation of events. We should never blame anyone or anything outside of us for the quality of our relationship with Spirit, for there is nothing more personal in the Universe.

I also don’t see any demarcation between “spiritual” matters and anything else in life – everything (and every relationship) is ultimately spiritual. Our task is to find the deeper meaning in whatever we manifest in life, and relationships of all kinds can be wonderful catalysts for personal spiritual growth.

That said, I do believe that romance can indeed derail us from a conscious spiritual path. Where a conscious spiritual path is all about looking deeply into the nature of our experiences and cutting through illusions, romance is all about reveling in illusion. To keep romance going, we have to allow ourselves to get caught up in fantasy and avoid looking beneath the surface. So a conscious spiritual path and a great romance are fundamentally at odds with each other.

Please note that I’m not saying that “true love” is illusionary. True love is what one feels for one’s child, and hopefully, what one grows to feel for one’s partner. True love is constant and comforting; it’s an enduring, solid foundation that supports our well-being and personal growth. Real love is expansive and enriching; it doesn’t detract from anything good in our lives, but rather adds to it.

By contrast, romance is like standing in the middle of a teeter totter. It’s fun, exhilarating and challenging, and it often leads to someone getting hurt. Instead of adding to our lives on every level, it distracts us from everything else that is important to us. How can we do anything with focus and power when we’re constantly struggling just to maintain our balance?

Here’s what basically happens when “spiritual” people like you and me fall in love and fall off a conscious spiritual path. (Please note again that we are never truly off our path at all, for we’re doing just what we need to be doing in order to learn what we most need to learn.):

As we’re falling in love, we spend a lot of psychic energy fantasizing. We wonder about our lover and how they feel about us all the time. We daydream about the future endlessly. We begin to create a fantasy world in our heads of a life where all our dreams have come true. Our lover becomes our hero or heroine, our god or goddess. As we feel cherished and adored, we also become extraordinarily wonderful in our own eyes. We build a beautiful dream world in our minds, and that’s where we live most of the time.

At the same time, our outer routines usually change markedly. We all know the stereotype of the person who is so madly in love that he can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t focus on his work, never sees his friends anymore, etc. Well, you can bet he isn’t spending a lot of time communing with the Divine via meditation or other spiritual practices either.

We may change a lot of little habits as well. We may rush through meditation in order to get ready for a date, or skip church in order to sleep in with our sweetheart on Sunday morning. We may acquire a whole new group of friends – our partner’s pals. In order to be “nice,” we may go see a violent action adventure flick with him instead of the thought-provoking independent film we’d normally choose.

Sometimes we even put aside our most sacred spiritual pursuits in order to “protect” an important relationship. Lovers can feel threatened by a strong spiritual path, perhaps because they sense that this is truly eternal and far more powerful than anything they have to offer. If we become afraid for the relationship, we may put our spiritual interests aside in order to reassure our lover that he is number one. This is not a long-term solution, of course, because one who has awakened cannot nap forever.

These things are natural, but they tend to derail spiritual journeys, for the energy and attention that we flow into the relationship is energy and attention we’re not consciously channeling into spiritual growth.

On top of all of this, we have to actually stifle our conscious awareness in order to maintain the illusion of blissful perfection. Some part of us is aware of both our lover’s flaws and the emotional foolishness of putting anyone or anything of this world on such a high pedestal, but when we’re in love, we do NOT want to hear about it! So we ignore those intuitions, insights, and inner knowings. We want to believe that this love is magical and will lead us to live happily ever after. We are in denial about the full nature of this relationship, the other person, and even ourselves, and we want to STAY THERE.

By pushing away all but what we want to see and hear about our love, we effectively turn off our own higher awareness. When we tell it to shut up and go away, our conscious connection to divine guidance goes underground.

What’s more, when we believe we have this rare, precious love, we naturally feel very attached to it, and this generates big fear about the possibility of losing it, along with all sorts of issues from the past (and past lives) related to self-esteem, abandonment, vulnerability, intimacy, freedom, security, etc. This launches us into lots of emotional drama, which wreaks havoc with our overall vibration – and we all know that to have a clear conscious connection with Spirit, we must have a high vibration. We might thus say that any relationship that is passionate and/or full of drama is “bad” for our spiritual growth. (Again, however, if we are IN it, there is a good reason we’re there.)

It is possible to maintain both romance and a strong spiritual path, but to do so, we have to remain conscious that we are caught up in illusion when we are feeling “in love.” This is sort of like living in the world but not of it, except in this case, we are living “in love,” but romance is not the whole point of our existence. Some might think this would take a lot of the pleasure out of romance, but I think the opposite is true: it makes romance a much lighter, easier endeavor. When we know that romance is just about having fun, and that ultimately, our happiness and well-being do NOT depend on the state of any human relationship, we can enjoy it a lot more.

– Soul Arcanum

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He’s Attracted to the Dark Side

Filed Under: Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on He’s Attracted to the Dark Side

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have been in the Work for some 30 years, but I have not found the peace or satisfaction one would expect after moving through this spiritual journey’s many trials. In fact, I am increasingly tempted to embrace the dark side, and use what I know for my own fame and fortune. As I happened on your website, I believe I’m supposed to be set straight by something you say to me. I have so much good to say, but I’ve been a voice in the wilderness for far too long, and wonder if I’ve been wasting my time and effort. I cannot just die feeling so far away from any resonance with God/dess and a higher plan. I am highly intelligent, have saved a few lives, inspired a few students and had some wonderful lovers. I feel like I am under some kind of curse and don’t know how to lift it. I was born 20 hours later than Harold Shipman, the English serial killer doctor, and I well appreciate how he got like he did. (I’m a Capricorn with Gemini and Virgo rising, a Saturn/Mars conjunction in Cancer opposing my Sun and Venus, all squaring my Jupiter in Libra.)
– Gary

Dear Gary:

First, I’m no astrologer. While I often see a lot of truth in astrology, I’m a firm believer in not taking it too seriously. Even if you were born under the sign of The Great Evil One on the night of a blood red Moon, you are NOT destined to struggle against your own dark side forever. To free yourself of this supposed “curse” and move on to a higher course of experience, stop comparing yourself to a serial killer!

That said, I’m so glad you mentioned your desire for fame and fortune. Your honesty and self-awareness have illuminated the “problem,” which happens to involve the greatest spiritual challenge humankind has ever faced. While it’s been known by many names (including plain old “evil”), these days it’s most commonly known as “ego” – though we might as well go ahead and call it “ignorance.”

Yes, despite what many well-intentioned New Age folks may tell you, there is such a thing as evil in the Universe. In my book, something is “evil” when it is ignorant of natural spiritual law, which tells us that what we do will come back to us and then some. Thus when we intentionally disregard others’ needs in lieu of some selfish or self-centered desire, we are ignorant of the fact that we will end up hurting ourselves most of all.

When I was first awakening spiritually and spontaneously experiencing amazing psychic phenomena, I assumed that I must be beyond the pull of the ego to have “made it that far.” (Ha!) As you and I now both know, the more “success” we experience in any realm, including the spiritual, the bigger the ego challenges get. This actually just makes sense; the greater our “genius,” the more special we will tend to feel.

Another shocking truth that hit me somewhere along the line was that we don’t have to be “good” to gain psychic powers any more than we have to be truly healthy in order to lose weight. Taking a foolish path to any goal, however, is ultimately self-defeating. You can actually manifest a strong spiritual connection AND fame and fortune, but you have to believe this is possible and be willing to invest yourself in making it happen.

Let’s work with the weight loss example for a moment. Say you would both like to be healthy AND lose thirty pounds. To achieve both goals, you would have to eat healthy food and exercise. If you are impatient or unwilling to make certain sacrifices, you may choose to binge and purge, eat 1200 calories a day of cookies and potato chips, or starve yourself so you don’t have to exercise at all, etc.

Similarly, to cultivate a strong spiritual connection AND enjoy fame and fortune, you would have to resist “unhealthy” temptations and be willing to invest discipline, time and energy in a truly constructive approach. Otherwise, like crash dieters who both ruin their health and end up regaining all their weight, you will end up losing both your spiritual connection and your fame and fortune in the end.

What you really want on all levels is a sense of true fulfillment. Sometimes you mentally associate fulfillment with a strong spiritual connection, and sometimes you associate it with fame and fortune. This thinking is illusionary. In truth, you can either choose Spirit AND the fulfillment of your desires, or a path of endless yearning.

When we choose from ego, no amount of fame and fortune (sex, affection, or any other pleasure) will fulfill us for long. By contrast, when we align with Spirit, we align with inner peace regardless of outside circumstances. So when you are tempted toward the “dark side” in hopes of fame and fortune, you are actually thwarting the fulfillment of your desires on all levels.

The ego does not live in awareness of higher truths, and thus it endlessly tempts us to do foolish and ultimately self-defeating things. If we listen to the ego, in the end we may get what we think we want – be it fame and fortune, a certain lover, or even psychic ability – but we won’t like what we have. For example, those who pursue psychic ability out of ego-driven desires may succeed but then regret it when they are plagued by dark and even terrifying experiences.

Like it or not, it takes a certain amount of wisdom, character and discipline to safely wield “higher” powers. When it comes to spiritual work, which is non-physical in nature, it is especially important to purify the mind and heart and to align with higher forces.

Imagine that in exploring spiritual realms, you are traveling into a wild jungle. If you align with forces of love and light, you are traveling with a vast “army” of entities that are dedicated to protecting you, guiding you and helping you fulfill your aims. If you don’t align with forces of love and light, you’re on your own. Worse, if you align with the “dark side” or are even drawn toward the notion, you move into a camp full of rogues and criminals who would be more likely to steal all your provisions and leave you naked in the swamp than to watch your back.

My point in all of this is that you don’t have to be selfless to find fulfillment in life. While this may sound contradictory, if you are driven by self-interest, it only makes sense to conquer the foolish ego by humbly aligning with higher powers, for that alignment will bring both peace AND the power to fulfill all your desires in a way that harms no one else.

Though I may be able to accurately predict the future and bring through evidential information from Spirit, I am not the amazing one – I have just dedicated myself as a channel for the Divine. I know that if I start to take credit for these wonderful works, my abilities will begin to slip. I have actually seen this time and time again with psychics and mediums: as soon as they achieve a measure of acclaim, their egos kick in, and before you know it, they’re not a fraction as good as they were when they were first getting started, and their success soon slips away.

You seem disturbed that after all this time, you’re still struggling. As I explained, the ego/evil will tempt us all our lives. Every time we show any weakness, we let temptation get a foot in the door; every time we nip weakness in the bud, we gain power over it. This happens both psychologically and literally: every time you succumb to the temptation of dark thoughts, you open yourself up to the influence of dark entities. To free yourself of these dark forces, you must exercise personal strength and discipline.

After 30 years of spiritual work, I imagine you have a firm grasp on the laws of karma. Intellectually, you thus know that bad short-cuts never lead anywhere good. Ultimately and in every way, it always pays to take the high road.

– Soul Arcanum

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