It’s pretty wild to see yourself making every ego mistake in the book… like what in the world!? I thought I got this already!

This seems to be part of the journey from “knowing” something (as in “yeah yeah, I know I know, I’ve read that and heard people say it a million times so I know what’s up”) to “OHHH, now I KNOW that in my own direct experience throughout the totality of my being. Now there’s no longer even a question that this works and that doesn’t.”

Learning from others is an incredibly valuable experience. Anyone who’s ever read a good book or had a great teacher knows this. Yet the thing is that we can’t ride the wave of someone else’s realization and expect it to be entirely sufficient for ourselves. Life just don’t work that way! We can’t skip around our own growth by simply internalizing the concepts. As the saying goes, you can’t just talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.

One of the great things about this human experience is that it provides us with such incredible opportunities to EXPERIENCE all this stuff so that we finally GET IT for ourselves.

“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

-Oscar Wilde

Let me share a video clip with you. It’s from the movie Leap of Faith, a comedy with actor Steve Martin (Jonas, in the movie) who plays a fake faith healer who goes from town to town preaching about Jesus and giving people “healings” (stuff like giving older people who walk in with difficulty a wheelchair and then having them miraculously stand up and walk on stage, haha). Anyways, in this scene the local sheriff is trying to call him out in front of a crowd by bringing up the preacher’s tainted past. The way Jonas responds to the accusations (about 2:30 in the video) is pretty awesome.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnXxUUjAHhk

Ultimately this is about accepting yourself FULLY as you are and no longer running from what is.

HERE I AM.

You don’t “get there” by getting to a “there” that’s somewhere other than “here.” The ironic thing is that when you fully accept the darkness within you here and now, it ceases to hold its power over you, or more accurately you cease giving your power away to it and recognize that it is actually completely powerless and always was.

It seems that what we call “saintliness” is more about loving what is and from that love arises the behavior of a saint. It’s not about running away from your darkness, but being at peace with it and bringing the light of awareness to it which is itself incredibly healing and transformative.

It’s coming out of hiding.

Question:

Dear Ariel,

Why do bad thoughts like anger and hatred to someone pop up in our mind like chains? I don’t want to think these stupid things but it is popping up and it destroys the whole day. Is that the influence of an evil? I started this problem when I tried to transform myself to the enlightenment. I am not getting positive thoughts.

Thanks,

S.

My Response:

Those bad thoughts are present because there is unhealed energy present within your being.

Those unconscious and automatic thoughts arise due to your energy. At the same time, your thoughts alter your energy. They are an inseparable team. Each affects the other. It may seem like a chicken and egg thing, but you can heal any part of the cycle and transform the entire cycle.

Much of our energy and thought is unconscious (we’re unaware of it) and running on autopilot. In this sense, we lack awareness. We have hidden aspects of ourselves from ourselves.

But enlightenment isn’t a self-improvement course. It’s not a positive thinking class. It has nothing to do with your thoughts although the energy of your thoughts may certainly change as a by-product of your awakening and as you progressively let go of the egoic way of being.

Awakening is about bringing awareness to the fullness of what you are and seeing beyond your identity as a limited self. It’s about seeing Reality as it is, not as the mind labels it and perceives it to be.

Awareness itself is the most powerful transformative tool you have.

What you resist persists. Put another way, what you go unconscious to and are unwilling to face and bring awareness to, that’s what persists and seems to be out of your control. On the other hand, what you look at disappears. By shining the light of awareness on your darkness and facing your inner demons and fears, awareness itself automatically transmutes the energy back into light. This we call healing.

So the key is to SEE. Bring awareness to your darkness. See yourself as you actually are, without judging any aspect of what is seen. Accept it and love it. Be open, honest, and sincere about what is. You must want to see the Truth more than you want to be right, feel safe, or be comfortable. You gotta want to see Reality. When you want it bad enough and are willing to face the darkness within, you will see the Light that was always there, the being that you truly are.

Thanks for your question.

So there’s a number of wonderfully amazing spiritual musicians. Here’s a couple that I’ve run across that I’d like to share with you. If you know of some that would be worth checking out, please share with us in the comments!

Deva Premal & Miten

Endorsed by H. H. the Dalai Lama and Eckhart Tolle, their music is born out of meditation and a celebration of life.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZwDqKe-0rQ

Check out their music on their website, YouTube, iTunes, and Amazon.

Here II Here

HIIH is an amazing group I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of seeing perform live several times. I am a big fan of their music, their energy, and their message! They have performed with Michael Beckwith, Byron Katie, Gangaji, the Dalai Lama’s spiritual advisor, and more.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M23ne8bXaQw

Check out their music on their website, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, iTunes, and Amazon.

Marcome

Creating a wonderful collection of pop world music mixed with new age, jazz, & ambient voices and maintaining an active presence on Twitter, Marcome is a divine treat to the ears and the soul.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHN-3CXeyFQ

Check out her music on her website, YouTube, iTunes, and Amazon.

Denise Hagan

After hearing about Denise from Davidya, I hopped onto her site and found myself enthralled by her voice and spirit as she sings with such beautiful love.

Check out her website where you can listen to and purchase her music.

Krishna Das

KD offers some beautifully moving devotional chants that are awesome to sit back and chill in.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1CM5YlQjKk

Check out his music on his website, YouTube, iTunes, and Amazon.

Mike Elias

Mike is a friend of mine who created this hilarious song about spiritual teacher Dr. Hawkins. If you read Hawkins, you gotta check this video out!

Check out Mike’s music on Myspace, Facebook, CDBaby, and iTunes.

Enya

Enya’s got your pretty chill new age vibe goin’ on that makes for great relaxation music.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVnOLiH0FM

Check out Enya’s music on her website, YouTube, iTunes, and Amazon.

Who Do You Recommend?

There’s many many more amazing spiritual musicians out there that have been left out of this list. Who would you recommend we add to this list?

So part of this spiritual path involves moving from fear towards love, becoming more and more loving.

The past few days I’ve allowed myself to be in my ego. To be angry. To feel my deep sadness. To experience this energy that for so long I’ve been trying to run away from, transcend, transform, heal, or in any way shape or form change. This egoic presence something I haven’t experienced in quite a long time, much less embraced.

I’ve decided to stop running from anything that is within me. Whether this fear is me or not me is not of primary importance right now. It is here, and I’m not going to run from it.

Diving into my own anger, I’m noticing one fear arising in particular: If I allow myself to experience my darkness, I’ll somehow slide back into my ego and become totally unconscious again, like some sort of crazed psycho killer or something. (Gotta love how the mind works…) A high degree of unconsciousness basically the complete failure for what one would call a spiritual person.

Looking at this more closely, we see that this fear is actually afraid of itself. It’s fear afraid of fear. The ego afraid of itself. It is a self-sustaining and self-reinforcing mechanism.

If you’re afraid of experiencing you’re own fear, noticing your existing fear will bring up more fear, which will create more, which will create more, and so on.

Acceptance of All of Yourself

Recognizing that I am All That Is, I want to be comfortable embracing the totality of my being. I want to be comfortable with both comfort and discomfort, at peace with both peace and stress. No matter what aspect of myself that is arising, I want to be okay with it.

I’m talking complete, full, and deep acceptance of all that I Am, the good and the bad.

Amazingly, (this amazes me every time it happens) the more I’m willing to sit with my own darkness, whether it takes the form of fear, anger, sadness, frustration, depression, anxiety, or whatever else, the more I can sit with it and notice it as presence, the more it seemingly just evaporates and dissolves right before my eyes.

Nothing needs to be done to fix, change, or rise above darkness. It just kinda takes care of itself.

Again, the following quote is proving itself to be the case:

Your task in life is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and remove all the barriers that you have built against love.

–Rumi

Awareness itself is transformative. The presence of conscious awareness is itself healing.

Unconsciousness is nothing more than not being aware. When you’re aware of whatever processes or fears you were previously unconscious to, those patterns no longer run on unconscious autopilot. Awareness disengages those processes.

The great thing about anger is that you don’t have to go digging deep to find the root of your crud. It’s like it comes to the surface for you and becomes incredibly obvious. What a gift, this anger!

It’s almost like resistance itself is what sustains our inner darkness and demons. As counter-intuitive as it may seem at first, if we allow our darkness to be an integral part of us and give it just as much importance and permission to be here as our light, the darkness just blows away like dust in the wind and transforms into light. The two become one.

This integration process allows for equal value to ALL aspects of the infinite, yet still provides a space for you to choose what aspect of yourself you wish to experience out of your own free will.

In a similar way, all men are created equal, yet you can still choose with whom you wish to interact.

In the Sedona Method, one of the end goals, if you wanna think of it that way, is imperturbability, which is basically not being uprooted by anything that happens in the world. It’s deeply being centered in who you are so that you’re okay no matter what happens. This is what I’m talking about.

It’s about being okay with everything in this world, everyone in this world, and everything inside of you.

Deep acceptance of All That Is.

Question:

Dear Ariel,

You must experience negative emotions, right? If so, how do you deal with them when they arise?

Thanks,

M.

My Response:

Yep, I’m just as human as anyone else. We are human beings. Even when we are “being,” there is still the human side of us happening as well.

Perhaps when we are fully enlightened and have completely healed all our unbeneficial energies, we will no longer experience any negative emotions, but until then, there’s still more healing and transformation work to be done to reconnect fully back to our light, our essence.

Now, with respect to dealing with negative emotions, there are soooo many ways of dealing with them. There’s therapy, journaling, exercising, thinking more positive thoughts, drugs, and so on. I’m sure you’ve tried many methods as well. We all have.

Here’s what I have found works best for me at this point in my life:

Unconditional Allowance

It comes down to this: Completely and unconditionally allow myself to be who I am and to experience whatever it is that is arising.

As discussed previously, EVERYTHING IS THE ONE.

Negative emotions are often given a bad rap because they don’t feel so good. There’s a form of judgment being applied in the mind, as if we shouldn’t feel that way, or there’s something wrong with us. Perhaps we’re not enlightened enough or we’re engaging in unconsious or animalistic behavior. Perhaps we’re just being a baby. Whatever. There’s a sense of something is wrong and arising out of this assumption is a desire to fix what is broken.

I would suggest that nothing is going wrong and nothing is broken.

As we let go of our mind’s judgments and neurotic desire to not allow everything to be as it is, we begin opening up to the possibility of the realization that Everything is the One.

With this shift, we can see that every negative emotion is simply the One choosing to experience itself as a negative emotion. Like a shape-shifter, it can become that. “I am upset,” as if the One is literally upsetness itself. Classic false identification.

It’s nothing evil. It’s nothing bad. It’s nothing wrong. It’s simply the One experiencing yet another aspect of itself.

Seeing this, we can allow the One to experience ourselves in this way.

…and here’s the interesting thing:

When you allow yourself to fully experience whatever it is that you’re experiencing, it often dissolves the struggle right then and there!

Resist Not

If you’re experiencing resistance, just totally allow yourself to resist the heck out of it.

If you’re feeling depressed, completely allow yourself to be the most depressed person who ever lived.

Give yourself the opportunity to fully embrace the emotion, without resisting it.

When you do so, you create an openness for the emotional energy to pass right through you and out on its own.

Energy wants to move. When we block it by resisting it, that’s when we have problems. When we open up and allow it to flow, the energy continues on and flows right out of us naturally.

So it really comes down to accepting yourself fully as you are and allowing yourself to be yourself on every level.

To thine own self be true.

Really. Just be yourSelf. Who you really are. For who you really are is already whole, complete, and well, just as it is. It doesn’t need to be fixed in any way.

All is well.

I used to think Enlightenment was one single event, like winning a billion dollars where once you “get there,” you’re set for life. For some people there is a single awakening that totally changes everything, sure, but that spark is part of a much deeper and eternal journey. In my experience, ascension is very much a continuous process filled with countless changes. You never get to the end of infinity.

There’s SO much more to this process than just recognizing we’re all one, that you are God, that separation doesn’t really exist, and so on. That stuff is bang on, but it’s just the foundation. Enlightenment 101, if you will.

About two months ago I was intuitively guided to the bookstore, walked right up to a particular book, plucked it right off the shelf, sat down and began reading. I bought it that evening. Ever since then the book has been sitting on my nightstand next to my bed and I read it whenever I feel inspired to. It’s literally as if this book was written by a wiser and more experienced version of me, narrating my ascension process, and explaining to me what is going on with respect to all these internal shifts. It’s almost like I wrote this book several years in the future and brought it back in time with me to explain to myself what’s going on.

It fills in soooo many of the gaps for me about what’s going on here beyond simply resting as awareness.

This book is called Oneness, a dialogue received and transcribed by the author, Rasha.

For example, here’s some of the things that have been arising recently that I’ve also found guidance with in the book:

• Noticing that some unhealed energy was here even before I was born in this lifetime.
• Spontaneously remembering past lives and recognizing that that previously mentioned energy originated in those lives.
• Allowing myself to heal my energy now and noticing that I’m actually working on past life energy.
• Feeling like being in two worlds at once, a sort of transitional place. Neither fully grounded on earth, nor rooted in the eternal. Like one foot in each world. There is a duality, yes, that has not fully merged and resolved itself, hence the recognition of a transition.
• The impact of music upon your chakras and how it influences your energy. How sound can impact you and point awareness deep into its own core.
• How to respond to/learn from/support/teach children whose intuitive understandings of the universe and psychic abilities are already quite well-developed.
• The enhancement of your physical senses. Sound now feels so rich, where I can simply sit and listen to the depth of the sound and appreciate it in its entirety, like an acoustic orgasm almost.
• Feeling like someone turned the juiciness knob up on your sense of taste, where everything tastes like heaven. Imagine if everything you ate tasted ridiculously delicious…
• The incredibly fulfilling experience of simply being alive, more fulfilling than any worldly accomplishment ever could be. It’s not a sense of success so much, but rather a sense of deep wholeness and connection.
• Synchronicity and flow to the point where I don’t have to think about what to do and everything in my life falls into place perfectly. People, situations, circumstances, events, timing… it’s as if I can simply do what I love and at just the right time, a whole bunch of things *just so happen* to fall into place where I can keep going and enjoying the flow.
• The undeniably powerful presence of Love and its force as it pushes through the remaining resistances put in place by the dam we sometimes call the human ego.
• The speeding up and/or non-existence of the experience of time such that manifestations begin to happen quicker and quicker, down to minutes, then seconds, and then instantaneously.

What’s been valuable to me is not just it being another “this is what to do” book, although that is definitely covered from many directions. In my experience, once you get to a certain point, everything literally boils down to deeper and deeper levels of surrender. It’s quite simple, actually. Spirit basically takes over and what needs to happen happens.

This book is like a roadmap or a guide to the process, pointing out many of the events and transformations that you may go through in your journey, offering confirmation that you’re on the right path and suggestions on how to make the transitions more smoothly and naturally, without getting stuck. I’m only a third of the way through it thus far and only read it when it feels right to, yet it’s already helping me deal with fears such as, “Ah, what’s going on?? I’ve never experienced anything like this before and am totally confused. Am I completely off track here? Am I doing something wrong?”

If you are also walking your path and this book sounds like it would be a helpful companion, you can pick up your own copy from Amazon.

Enjoy the journey!

Oregon Autumn by Marc Adamus

Most of us have qualities about ourselves that society would judge as less than “ideal”… whatever that is. Maybe we’re not really really ridiculously good looking, maybe we’re overweight, maybe we’re gay, maybe we’ve got ADD, maybe we’re not the smartest cookie in the batch… whatever. Everyone’s got something..

The thing is though, in this lifetime, you’re not meant to be anything other than who and what you really are. You’re here to BE YOURSELF, the unique expression of the infinite you.

You don’t have to box yourself in to some arbitrary idealized standard in order to be lovable, acceptable, and worthy. Nope!

Looking At Our Bad Side

Whatever energy you find within yourself, whether “good” or “bad,” it’s there for a reason. It was created by your energy. There are no accidents and no mistakes. It’s not random.

Whether that “unacceptable” energy is something to be healed and transformed or it’s meant to be something we experience throughout the whole of our lives, whatever role that energy is here to teach us about ourselves, it is what it is and so it’s up to us to accept that energy and allow it to be, without resistance.

If that energy is a block that’s meant to be dissolved, it will be through non-resistance. If it’s something that’s meant to be expressed and experienced in this lifetime, then we’ll allow ourselves to express it and experience it fully without judgment, guilt, or condemnation.

We can allow the energy to do what it needs to do. It’s got its own intelligence. You are that intelligence. It’s not separate from you. You know what to do.

Accepting Ourselves Now

Right now, we simply are the way we are. We may certainly be different later on, yet ironically it’s through full and total acceptance of who we are now that we find ourselves automatically rising up to the healthiest and most loving and natural state possible.

Paradox!

It is by accepting the here and now that we afford ourselves the highest likelihood of transforming what is here and now into something else.

But I Don’t Want More of It!

There’s this fear that if we accept what’s here, the universe will be like, “Oh, you like this? Okay. We’ll give you more of the same then.” and so things won’t change and we’ll just keep getting more of the same.

It turns out… that’s not the case! What you resist persists and what you look at disappears. In your own experience, has this been the case?

Being Yourself, Regardless of Others’ Judgments

When you’re willing to be yourself regardless of what others think, when you’re willing to be the unique expression of All That Is that you were born to be, whether your talents are absoulutely horrendous, or absoulutely amazing, the willingness and freedom to be yourself is what is really inspirational.

(Fun note: I “accidentally” typed absoulutely instead of absolutely. It’s gonna stay that way for now.)

Tools to Help Accept Yourself Fully As You Are

There are some tools and techniques that we can use to help us accept ourselves to ever-increasing degrees.

Two tools that I’d highly recommend are EFT and The Sedona Method.

There are many more tools, and even things that don’t involve tools or strategies. When it comes to self-acceptance, what have you guys found valuable?

The idea of being a “good person” is just another false sense of self that we can buy into. Being a good person is not the point of spirituality, interestingly enough. It is not the goal. It’s not about being some superloving and compassionate saint. It’s about realizing who you really are. With this realization, you may find that you naturally become very loving and compassionate, just like the many others who have done so before throughout history, but that’s secondary. It’s not the primary focus. It’s a superficial change that tends to occur in the presence of the deeper inner realization.

One identity that I’ve been playing for a long time is being “a good person.” I was a good student in school, avoided getting in trouble, was a law-abiding citizen in life, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with any of this at all. It’s simply that none of these define who you are.

self-definition

If you stopped being “a good person,” would you cease to exist?

Well no, of course not. Then it’s not who you really are.

You are not a good person.

But what does the mind do when it hears the phrase, “You are not a good person?”

That’s right. It goes straight to its opposite. “If I’m not a good person, then that means I must be a bad person.”

But is that true? If you stopped playing the part of “bad person,” would you cease to exist?

Again, no. You are neither a good person nor a bad person. You are not definable along any part of the made-up spectrum between good and bad. In fact, you are not definable at all. You exist beyond duality.

Integrating the Dark and the Light

Inside you you have the potential to be a very dark person. A killer and a rapist.

Inside you you have the potential to be a very light person. A healer and a lover.

You have the potential to draw forth from any energy and play any part. You are ALL that is.

Getting stuck in being “a good person” is only half of the story. You are the good AND the bad. You are the light AND the dark. And yet you are neither for you are beyond both entirely.

With this comes the acceptance of the dark portions of yourself and the willingness to face everything and be anything if necessary, for it is all you. With this realization that the darkness is just as much a part of you as the light, any remaining unresolved darkness within may come rising to the surface to be released now that you have stopped repressing it. As it comes up, it’s almost saying, “Are you really willing to face me?”

You may experience fear, powerful emotion, tears, and even the feeling of dying, yet none of these experiences are you. You are the awareness which is witnessing these experiences.

As the darkness arises, it is accepted and loved as it is without being judged or asked to change and thus you are healed as you transmute the darkness directly into light with the Love of the Self. You become lighter. More enlightened. Filled with light.

This is about accepting yourself FULLY as you are, warts and all. It’s about being willing to look directly at all aspects of yourself without running away, no matter what. It’s the willingness to bare your soul and be who you truly are.

Accepting Others Unconditionally

The world we experience basically functions as a mirror to reflect back to us our own internal state of being. One interesting thing about accepting the darkness within yourself is that you find you automatically begin accepting the darkness within all others.

You’ll begin to drop the need for others to change in order for you to accept them. Thus your love flows ever more freely and unconditionally. You no longer hold back your Love for any reason. Your Love becomes truly unconditional.

Is Who You Are Actually Okay?

We have this deep dark fear that if we are who we really are, we won’t be acceptable.

Religions teach us that we are sinners by nature. Original sin, as it’s called. We need to do the right things and be the right person in order to (hopefully) get into heaven.

Advertisers tell us we aren’t good enough by default and need their products to make us better.

As little kids, we play naturally and those around us tell us “no” or “yes, good boy, good girl” as a way to get us to conform to their standards rather than be ourselves. We learn that we’re not acceptable as we are and need to change who we are to fit in and be loved, to be safe and secure and protected.

There’s this movement in our society today for self-improvement, often based upon the idea that we’re not good enough just the way we are and we need to become something or do something or achieve something to become valuable and worthy.

There’s this deep deep drive in our society to be a “better” person, whatever that means to us.

Fear of Surrender to our True Nature

There’s this fear that if we let go totally and just be ourselves, whoever we find ourselves to be, maybe we won’t be good enough. Maybe we’ll act out all those crazy thoughts that our mind thinks if we totally let go of control of resisting.

There’s the fear that our true nature is somehow evil and through surrender we will fall into the darkness, never to return.

Are you willing to find out? In the name of Truth and no longer living a lie, are you willing to be who you really are, at all costs?

Are you willing to face your own death? I’m not saying you need to want to die, but are you willing to face it? Are you willing to face the destruction of all sense of self? Are you willing to lose everything you’re now holding on to and think is real?

Are you willing to let go of being seen as a good person, as opposed to something else?

Are you willing to let go of ALL sense of identity and all beloved sense of self and dive straight into the unknown?

Are you willing to sit here, not knowing, not trying to figure out, not trying to fix it, and not trying to get anywhere to escape who you are?

Are you willing to just be?

Earlier this year I was road tripping across Arizona to photograph the rivers, canyons, slot canyons, landscapes, waterfalls, and all the amazing beauty available in the southwest desert. When I arrived the airport and picked up my rental car to start this adventure, I first wanted to meet up with a friend so I drove to the college campus where we’d be meeting up. I arrived shortly before he did and had some time to spare so I headed over to the main strip with all the restaurants, clubs, bookstores, bars, and everything you would expect as part of the college scene.

I walk along the strip to get a feel for what all is available and as I’m casually strolling down the sidewalk, I notice a bunch of commotion outside some restaurant. As I pass by, I stop and notice a man limply laying back in a chair with his limbs drooping. He had been stabbed in the chest repeatedly, was covered in blood stains, and a medic was attending to him. A police officer was talking to a waitress who was giving him details about what she’d seen and a description of the suspect. I stood back and simply observed what was happening without any reaction. After witnessing this scene for a minute or so, I turned and started to walk away.

I had only taken a few steps when I felt my whole body literally lock up and become incapacitated. At the same time, I felt this incredibly intense wave of energy surge in through my crown chakra, pool into my heart, and like this tremendous current, rush out the body. While it didn’t feel like it headed out in any particular direction, intuitively it was understood exactly what was happening. This incapacitation lasted just 1 or 2 seconds. Intuitively I recognized that this energy had come through me, literally like a straw, and had been sent towards this stab victim to help with his healing.

The energetic transmission concluded and I regained conscious control of my body once again. Recognizing that I had come to this place at the exact perfect time and that my role in this process was now complete, I kept on walking without even a glance back. My job was done.

I didn’t consciously do any of it and there was no volition involved. It was simply a spontaneous transmission of energy. It literally feels like a power flows through this body and “I” am witness to the experience. This body is an instrument to be used by this energy, almost like the pathway of least resistance.

In the Airplane

On one of the flights on this adventure as I did some plane-hopping, I grabbed my seat as we were boarding a relatively empty flight. The man across the aisle from me was in a state of panic. He had lost his cell phone and was from another country so that cell phone was his lifeline back home. He had no idea where it was… perhaps in his checked luggage, or he had left it in the airport. He checked and rechecked all his pockets, the floor of the aircraft, and even got the stewardesses into the action. One went to search around the cabin while the other tried to help calm him down.

I sat maybe 8 feet away and just watched this guy in a state of heart-pounding anxiety.

Sitting in my chair, I suddenly recognized exactly why I was where I was at this exact moment in time. I closed my eyes, leaned back in my chair, and felt the same energy rush down into my body and then dissipate out, again not in any particular direction, yet towards him. As the process completed, I looked over to notice the man feeling much calmer. He was still somewhat uneasy, but the overwhelming feeling of panic had subsided. If he ever found his phone I have no idea.

What Happened?

So what happened here? Was I simply being a pathway of least resistance for healing energy to be received into their being? Intuitively, that’s what I know to be true. Can I prove this? No. Do I take any credit for any of this? Nope. Could this all be in my imagination? Sure. Do I know if either of the guys had actually been healed in any way? No idea.

All I know is that what happened happened. Take it as you will.

Now the experience felt similar to what is experienced when I do reiki, a form of energy healing, but it was intensely more powerful and brief.

Siddhi

Experiences like these, spontaneous spiritual powers, are called Siddhis. Spiritual powers such as clairvoyance, psychic abilities, ESP, and other such powers are simply phenomena that happen when one is open enough to allow it to happen. Siddhis aren’t something you accomplish, pursue, or become attached to. They come and they go as they will, driven by a power far greater than “me.”

So what about you? Have you ever experienced any siddhis?

I have a very special gift for you today.

I’d like to share with you a simple technique to really connect to your own heart. It’s called heart breathing.

Often times we spend so much time in our heads thinking without really getting in touch with this moment and what’s going on in our own bodies. What are we really feeling? How often do we neglect even our own selves?

Let’s honor ourselves and spend a little time coming to know what feelings are really being experienced just below the surface. Let’s accept this often overlooked area of ourselves.

Heart Breathing

• Place both hands over your heart
• Close your eyes
• Relax your body and your face
• Now breathe deeply into your heart and out through your heart
• Really connect to and feel your own heart

Do this for 2 minutes. You may certainly notice changes within even the first few breaths, but keep going and allow yourself to be in this space for a longer period of time. Don’t run away or cut yourself short. Remain in this space and offer yourself this gift.