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I received an e-mail from someone who was feeling frustrated when she tried to talk to her friends. She was sharing with them that she is seeing a world in a state of chaos and potential collapse with climate change, the melting of the polar ice caps, species extinction etc. and that they had better wake up and take notice. Yet, her message was falling on deaf ears. No one seemed to want to hear about it, let alone talk about it. She feels passionate about the urgency of the state of the planet but, at the same time, doesn’t want to risk losing her friendships. She asked me what I think she should do, and we set up a Skype call.
I shared with her that there can be a fine line to walk when sharing one’s truth about an issue with friends which has the potential to shake up their comfortable reality. What I’ve learned about truth speaking is that in order for one’s truth to be received by another we must get out of the way! That is to say, our words must be free of any taint of ego. If others sense we are coming from an egoic place, even a little bit, they will likely shut down. This is where discernment can be our closest ally.
I suggested some questions for self-inquiry:
Am I attached to my point of view? Are you able to have an open discussion about the issues, and if your ideas are rejected, will you take it personally? Are you willing to cede and/or modify one of your positions if a convincing opposing argument is made?
Am I being self-righteous in my tone, however subtle? Are you consciously or unconsciously assuming a morally superior attitude?
Is there some part of me seeking validation? Do you need to be “right” because your sense of self-worth would be otherwise threatened?
Am I playing a savior? Do you feel like it’s up to you to save your friends and the planet from some certain demise?
When we are free of ego we come from a place of neutrality and naturally express our truth from a balanced place in the heart. This makes all the difference. Our passion about an issue remains in place, but there is no attachment to an outcome, and we maintain our inner peace whether our words are accepted or rejected. When we speak our truth from the heart our words will be infused with spiritual power and will create an opening in the energetic field between ourselves and the “other”, which invites receptivity. We trust that our words will be heard and received by those who are ready to hear and receive them. It is these souls with whom we can collaborate.
… and for those who are choosing to remain unconscious? We trust that we have planted a seed in their consciousness that has the potential to sprout and grow. Then, after a time, we may check in to see how our seedling is doing by opening up a new conversation, again, always holding to the non egoic place as the place of our true power. After all, it’s the human ego that got us into this predicament, and transmuting it through the open heart is our only way out. This is the realm of wisdom, intuition, inspiration, and even the miraculous. Nothing else will ever do.
As I write this, I can feel one of the The Hopi Elders tapping me on the shoulder, and I am reminded of their message to us from a few years back. With deep respect for their infinite wisdom, I give them the last word:
We Are the Ones
We’ve Been Waiting For
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
–The Elders Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation
In this five part series we will learn how our limiting beliefs block the energy flows in the body and prevent us from functioning at our full potential. We’ll learn a unique set of keys to open the doorways between the chakra levels and awaken the movement of life force energy through the entire body. When used as a regular practice the seven keys become powerful tools for clearing negativity, fear, anger, and victimhood, fostering mental clarity, emotional balance, and the luminous presence within. The guide for our journey will be the handbook Returning to Oneness – The Seven Keys of Ascension by Leslie Temple-Thurston (available on http://www.amazon.com – paperback or kindle – and at https://www.corelight.org.)
“A river of light, pure intelligence and love flows within each of us. When the river flows fully from head to toes, we feel happy, fulfilled and awake to our true nature as eternal, timeless beings.” Leslie Temple-Thurston
The teleconference will be held on five consecutive Saturdays from 10:00am -12:00pm PST beginning March 5 and ending April 2, 2016. An optional sixth class will be offered on Saturday, April 9 for those who would like the opportunity to integrate the teachings more fully. In the spirit of service the series is offered by donation. Suggested value for the five classes: $100. Please register by email at garyb@fastmail.com and leave your contact information.
*{The calls are conducted and recorded via StartMeeting- a free and easy to use audio conferencing platform connecting by phone or integrated VoIP. International phone numbers are available. Details are provided upon registration for the conference.}
“Thank you for providing the Seven Keys journey for us. It was very powerful, meaningful, and instructive. I felt that you were very in tune with each of us and were able to wisely and gently guide our thoughts, emotions, and questions.” Amy Tirion, Founder of Delight for the Soul
In a discussion group the other day someone asked “Is there any one thing we can do on a daily basis, besides meditation, that will help us grow spiritually?” I felt into the question for a moment and the answer quickly floated into my awareness from my core: neutrality. “Yes. Practice neutrality,” I answered.
In truth, all wisdom, all inner knowing that we seek, emerges from our alignment with our spiritual core. And it is the practice of neutrality that takes us there. Neutrality naturally and effortlessly aligns our awareness/consciousness with a column of golden-white light that exists in our subtle body, or energy body. In Sanskrit it is called the shushumna, and it sits just in front of the physical spine and parallel to it, extending from head to toe and beyond – to the center of the galaxy above, as well as to the earth below. It is the gateway to higher consciousness and to the wisdom that exists outside of ego and our egoic limitations.
So it is through the practice of neutrality throughout our day, moment to moment, that silences the egoic mind with its desires and fears, its likes and dislikes, and allows our awareness to come to rest. Peace, balance, equanimity, trust, faith, and more are the states of being that we find there.
What does it mean to be neutral…practically? How do we do neutrality? As my teacher often says, to be neutral is to be neither attracted to or repulsed by anything. With our Observer as our viewing point we watch the inevitable dramas of life play out, noticing our reactivity, noticing if and how we are pushed and pulled by our thoughts and emotions. Can we hold the higher mind and simply watch what is unfolding without identifying with it? If emotion is present can we allow it to be there without being pulled into reactivity? This is neutrality and the doorway into the peace at our core in the shushumna. By resting here more and more our consciousness will ascend.
Awhile back I was on the phone and verbally assaulted by someone. I was belittled and shamed and essentially told (with many more hateful words!) that I was incompetent and worthless. When I reminded this person that their unhappiness came from the choices they have made in life and not from me, they hung up the phone! Throughout the call I was able to witness the barrage from the higher neutral mind and see that these accusations were projections coming for this person’s inner pain and disconnect. My immediate internal response was forgiveness. That said, my emotional body felt shattered, as you might guess, after such a violent assault. My reaction was to breath deeply to allow the charged energy to dissipate and to go for a brisk walk.
Do you see how I was able to remain neutral, even while my emotional body was activated? If my response had been to go into anger and blame and verbally retaliate in some way, I would have lost my neutral observer. I would have been identified with the story, and by taking a side or a position I would have created a relationship of polarity with “the other”. I would have been in egoic consciousness and had a personal issue to process and clear.
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So by making a commitment to neutrality, putting it into practice as best we can, and processing our shortcomings we strengthen our neutral observer overtime. We begin to spend more time in our core state and with the peace and balance that we find there. Our ascension in consciousness begins and grows from here.
Beyond our desires and fears, our anger and our pain a place of peace, equanimity and love awaits us at the level of the heart and beyond. In this full day seminar you will learn about the beauty and power of living from the heart chakra, or the spiritual heart, and how it serves as the doorway into expanded awareness and higher consciousness.
Our minds are polarized in nature creating the familiar teeter-totter of emotions that we experience daily. We may feel good one moment or on one day, then bad the next in an endless cycle of pleasure and pain. Over the course of our day together we will learn how to walk the “razors edge” between the ups and downs of life and begin to live from the still center of our being and from the love that naturally resides there. Our time together will include guided meditations to ground our new awarenesses.
Topics we will explore include:
the chakra energy system and the shushumna (the core light within)
the Human Imprint and the upward and downward spirals
the Neutral Witness and the path of the Middle Way
practical techniques for clearing the blocks that keep us from our hearts
The seminar will be held in San Francisco at a quiet Outer Richmond district location. Suggested donation: $75. Please bring a lunch. For questions or to reserve your space you may e-mail Gary at: garysnote@bluebottle.com
I invite you to join me as we explore the beauty and power of meditation and how you can begin to incorporate a meditation practice into your daily life.
Regular meditation is a way to increase energy. It helps us to release the stress of the day and to calm the nervous system. And a morning meditation gives us energy and inspiration to take on the day!
On a deeper/metaphysical level meditation cultivates our Silent Awareness, which Einstein called the Unified Field, and our true nature beyond the physical.
In the classes you will learn:
- what meditation is and how it can enrich your life
- a simple but powerful meditation technique for “transcending’, or detaching from the mind
- the practical aspects of establishing a meditation practice and supportive practices
In addition, there will be plenty of time to practice the technique within the group over two afternoons and lots of time for questions and answers.
Classes will be held from 2pm – 4:30pm on Saturday May 16th and Sunday May17th at a quiet Outer Richmond district location in San Francisco. Instruction is offered by donation. Suggested donation for the weekend is $75
To register or if you have questions please send an email to garysnote@bluebottle.com
I hope to see you there!
I had a Skype conversation with someone recently who shared this:
“I’ve been out of work for some time and I’ve looked and looked for a job, but, so far – no luck. I’m starting to feel frustrated and to get down on myself. Feelings of worthlessness are coming up. If I were to win the lottery, I’d be a happy man right now.”
Here is my response:
I recommend Karma Yoga. There have been times in my own life when I was at an impasse with my employment, and each time when I practiced Karma yoga, or the yoga of selfless service, my situation shifted, doors opened and opportunities presented themselves. When we are out of work it is easy to become me focused, self-absorbed, and obsessed with solving our problem; then, the negative ego rises up to take charge of our emotions.
Spiritual Truth: The evolutionary impulse of the Universe is to support us.
But our obsessive inward focusing energy is contracting and blocks this flow. When we do selfless service, we shift our excessive inner focus to the welfare of others, we open our hearts, and and the Universe responds by supporting us. The love that we begin to access changes everything because this love is what charges the Unified Field – our shared higher consciousness – and the source of infinite possibilities!
Selfless Giving (giving without thought of reward), whether it is of our time, our knowledge and expertise, or of our money, opens a flow of abundance into our lives. Paradoxically, when we give, rather than creating a loss of some kind, we open up a space that the Universe is poised to fill. Grace and blessings, naturally and inevitably, flow into our lives.
Once, when I was out of work and with time on my hands I decided to do some volunteer work in the public schools. I was placed in a 1st Grade classroom to support a teacher who was feeling overwhelmed. After two days a visiting teacher took notice and offered me a part-time job (and one that payed!) working one-on-one with at-risk kids at several schools. This job led to another, then another when I happily landed a position as a full-time elementary school counselor.
Another time, while working in this position and feeling grateful for all that had come my way in life, I was inspired to donate some time to the community by volunteering to help prepare and package meals for the homebound. Shortly after, I was bestowed by my spiritual teacher the honor of teaching some on-line courses for CoreLight, which was the next step in my spiritual growth.
Selfless giving is a shortcut out the ego. It takes us away from our pain, our perceived troubles and our feelings of worthlessness, and cultivates the heart. When we are in our hearts feelings of well-being, gratitude, trust and faith, harmony, and unconditional love naturally arise in us and begin to grow. We are in a state of flow with the Universe, and in that flow everything we need comes to us.
Stuck? Out of work? Relax, do some Karma Yoga, open your heart, feel the love, and see how the Universe supports you. It’s a win-win with riches no lottery can touch!
Insights for opening the doorways between the chakra levels
In this eight part series we will learn how energy flows in the subtle- physical body via the chakras, or energy centers, and how our limiting beliefs block this flow. We’ll learn a unique set of keys to open the doorways between the chakra levels and awaken the movement of life force energy through the entire body. As we clear negativity by opening the chakras in this way, we find increased mental clarity, emotional balance and feelings of well-being and connectedness to all of life. In addition to having plenty of time for discussion and questions, each class will include guided meditations to ground our new awarenesses. The guide for our journey will be the handbook Returning to Oneness, The Seven Keys of Ascension by Leslie Temple-Thurston.
Classes, offered in the spirit of service, are by donation and will be held in San Francisco, California at a quiet Outer Richmond district location on eight consecutive Thursday evenings from 7-9pm beginning February 19 and ending April 9, 2015. Classes are limited to seven students. For questions or to reserve your space please e-mail Gary at: garysnote@bluebottle.com
Two on-going meditation/discussion groups have formed with participants that have taken the series previously, and this option is available to you as well, upon completion of the course. I hope you can make it!
“Thank you for providing the Seven Keys journey for us. It was very powerful, meaningful, and instructive. I felt that you were very in tune with each of us and were able to wisely and gently contain and guide our thoughts, emotions, and questions.” Amy Tirion, founder of “Delight for the Soul”, http://www.delightforthesoul.com
This is an invitation to meet and heal the wounded inner child. In our sessions together we welcome these children to step forward and to speak what has been unspoken for so long. We hold a loving and compassionate space for their story, offering them the support they need to feel and move through and release their trauma and pain.
The children who live inside us experienced stressful situations and the confusing emotions that go along with them, but did not have the understanding or the skill to cope with them. Sadly, the wise, loving parent or adult wasn’t there for them when they were so very needed. Children are amazingly resilient; so eager are they to move into play and into the present moment, they instinctively push their pain and wounding aside to move on to more joyful things. After all, their newest friend or toy awaits!
But these traumatized children with their suppressed story and emotions continue to live within us, and we grow into adulthood carrying these unresolved emotional traumas in the unconscious mind and in the body. These stored traumas set patterns in place that limit our ability to embrace life fully, keeping us in contraction, anger, pain and fear.
Our work together may take one of two approaches. You may have a memory of an experience from childhood that still feels unresolved. After establishing an open, relaxed and meditative state together we welcome the inner child who is holding the painful memory in place to step forward. We invite the child to tell their story and to feel fully any emotions that were pushed aside as too painful to experience at the time. With our adult wisdom we parent the child, gently guiding him or her to the understanding of their situation and to the union that they seek with the adult self and to their divine nature.
The second method, called Releasing Frozen Children, is a technique that was shared with me by my teacher. With this approach we petition the support of the unseen realms, specifically, Archangel Michael. Beforehand, we discuss the issue or block that seems to be preventing you from moving your life forward, then Michael gives us the age of the child with whom we will be working and downloads the memory for you. The session proceeds as above.
I have witnessed people have beautiful breakthroughs from a single session with these techniques, and a series of sessions can be even more profound. Here, Sarah A. shares the result of her first experience:
“I am so grateful for your facilitating my release of my inner frozen child. I have noticed differences in many areas of my life. I seem calmer, more settled, resisting the NOW less. In sessions with my therapy clients, I don’t rush to answer their ‘problems’ with a solution. Instead, I sink into the present moment and let the client’s story, expressions, and energy affect my own, and I respond however my energy wants to respond. It feels more like synergy than work. It’s more enjoyable! So, I see all of this as evidence that the clearing of that hurt, scared inner child freed up more energy for giving of myself, which is truly what I want. Thank you so much.”
If you feel like you would like to pay a visit to a wounded or frozen child that lives inside you, I would be honored to facilitate the meeting for you. Please click the “Spiritual Guidance” link at the top of the page for my contact information.
In this eight class series beginning on February 25, 2014, the potent little book Returning to Oneness – the seven keys of ascension by Leslie Temple-Thurston will be our reference and guide.
The chakras are vortexes of spinning energy that form wheels which sit along and slightly in front of the spine. There are seven main chakras, each associated with a different area of consciousness, which effect our physical, emotional, mental well-being. When our chakra system is open and clear, the kundalini, or spiritual energy, that rises from the base chakra can flow freely up into the heart chakra and beyond, where we begin to experience ever increasing states of well-being, love, and connectedness. But, for most of us the chakras are “locked” because we have not cleared the emotional issues that each chakra represents. In the classes we will learn to work with a unique “key” that opens the lock between each of the chakras, allowing the kundalini energy to flow freely and bringing us into increasing states of unity and peace.
As an example, the third chakra, located at the solar plexus, is primarily about power issues – egoic issues of domination, control and victimhood. It’s the chakra that has “ruled” the world for the last 5,000 years, and if we look deeply enough into our own psyches we can see where in ourselves we are holding it place. The key to opening the third chakra is “view the ego impersonally.” Before each class we will read the chapter on one of the seven keys, then, in class we will discuss and process what came up for us so that we have clear understanding of how to work with it. Using guided meditation we will invite the new energy configuration to birth and grow in us.
Details about the classes in San Francisco are in the flier that I’ve attached here. For me, the circle that our group will create symbolizes the wholeness we seek individually, as well as the Oneness that we all are!
I hope you can join us!
In this full day workshop we will learn three powerful, but easy-to-do techniques for clearing the spin of the emotions developed by Leslie Temple-Thurston and introduced in her book The Marriage of Spirit. Based in the ancient teachings of the reconciliation of opposites, the Polarities, Squares, and Triangles techniques help us to clear our confusing mental and emotional states, gently moving us into a place of balance, trust and equanimity.
Sunday, February 2, 2014 10am – 4:30pm
quiet Sutro Heights, San Francisco location
This workshop is offered in the spirit of service by donation. Suggested donation: $75.
Please email Gary at garysnote@bluebottle.com, for questions and to register. Space is limited to eight participants. Please bring a lunch and notebook and pencil
“If you want to shift your life, shift your consciousness”. Leslie Temple -Thurston
