Category Archives: Mind

Truth

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glacier national park

I can define truth as facts yet facts are items of information or data. How we see that data depends on the perceiver. Similarly, truth can be defined as a proposition or idea that is accepted as true. We might call this shared truth. But again, this is relative to the perceivers. We once considered it true that the world was flat and that the sun revolved around us. In a deeper sense, and the way I use the word here, truth is a “transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality.” But even there, what we recognize as truth is relative to … Continue Reading… →

The Inner Child

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Felicia dancing, Maracas fishing village, Trinidad

After we wake up, we become conscious of remaining shadows more quickly. Often we’ll uncover challenges around fear, anger, and a wide assortment of contractions from unresolved experiences. In time, we’ll find they get more primitive and, to the intellect, less defined. The key is noticing reactivity and following it back to its roots to make it conscious. Then it can be resolved. Making it conscious is sometimes the last step in healing. The challenge is in facing our ghosts. If we adopt an attitude of being beyond such things or suppress what doesn’t feel “spiritual,” we will not heal … Continue Reading… →

It’s Not About You

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monumental eclipse

One of the most important lessons of the spiritual journey is letting go of the habit of making it about you, of taking life personally, of thinking what happens is about how it affects you. When we’re identified with our ego or sense of personal me, this taking everything personally is natural. That is how we’re experiencing the world. The ego tries to maintain an illusion of personal control and thus takes everything as mine and about me. Curiously, the ego know it’s faking it but wants to keep this secret from us to feel in charge. It’s another little … Continue Reading… →

The Hard Nuts

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deus-dios-god

As we shift into a greater awareness of our energy and feelings, we can find all sorts of contractions and resistance. But over time, simple awareness allows us to experience, release, and resolve whatever we discover.   But usually there is some crusted areas like the heart chakra, covered for “protection” but thus constrained and made less conscious. There can also be some hard knots or nuts that are more so. Often quite old, these are very tight contractions. They can be so tight they become inflamed, much as a star can light up from intense gravitational forces. This inflammation … Continue Reading… →

Spinning or Seeing

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spiral

There is a simple principle to understand about our life experiences. If there is an experience showing up in our life, it’s there for our benefit. The nasty customer, the meeting going sideways, the crazy drivers; all of it is there to show us something about ourselves or to resolve something in our history. Moving us forward or clearing the past. Yet all too often, we artfully deflect these experiences with narratives that put blame outside of ourselves or on some aspect of ourselves we diminish. We resist and call such experiences bad. This response reinforces and perpetuates what we … Continue Reading… →

Dominant Sensing

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park sunset

Over the years, I’ve written about our Dominant Sense, the sense that dominates our way of relating to the world and our typical style of spiritual experiences. I’ve also written how we actually have 7 primary senses and explored the origin of our sensing. Reading this blog, you may have noticed that the author is visual. I often have visual experiences and use visual language like “lit up” or “seeing” to describe knowing.   Visual people are more mind-oriented and conceptual because sight and mind are driven by the same energy, the gut chakra. Visual experiences may seem fancier and … Continue Reading… →

The Past is Sticky

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sunrise today drama in Hawaii

In discussing some points that came out of the Unbalanced Masculine article, I’ve noticed how sticky memory can be. For example, when we’ve had a long relationship with someone like a family member, we fall into certain styles of relating with them. We know things they enjoy and things they don’t, we avoid certain topics of conversation, or we don’t ask them to movies. These styles become habits and thus somewhat unconscious.   But if that person changes significantly, these habits can become glaring and clash with how they are now. Perhaps your long-single friend gets married or changes their … Continue Reading… →

Curving Back

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mind spiral

I’ve talked regularly of how consciousness curves back on itself, becomes self-aware, and expresses. In my talk at this years Science and Nonduality Conference, I spoke of how the layers of expression unfold from that self-interacting consciousness. But there’s another detail I also (awkwardly) touched on there.  Consciousness folds back on itself over and over. That flow of consciousness curving back on itself continues, and it folds back on itself over and over. Each folding creates a smaller and smaller infinity and density until qualities of consciousness manifest. – On the level of the bliss body, Space manifests and vibration … Continue Reading… →

Offer it All Back

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espana sunrise

Recently, I wrote an article called Offer it Back. It’s an important insight on the spiritual journey as we shift from experiencing ourselves as a ‘me’ trying to control life to an awareness observing life unfold. Often there is some area of life were there is still entanglements, where we feel shoulds or musts that are tied to our life roles (something I explored in the Unbalanced Masculine). As our depth of being opens and we experience life supporting us, we learn to trust and let go of these control memes. This allows us to let go much more deeply … Continue Reading… →

Feelings vs Emotions

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princess pout

On this blog, I use Emotions and Feelings to mean different things, although English is a little limiting. For example, we “feel emotions,” we don’t emote them (although some sure do (laughs)). I use this classification because of how I subjectively experience them. Your experience may vary.   The first thing to understand about emotions is they’re not concepts. Trying to figure them out with the mind is an exercise in futility. This also means we’re not actually feeling, we’re thinking. We may have learned to avoid emotions by staying in the head. And that means we’re repressing how we … Continue Reading… →

To Retire

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nautilus shell

There is a word in the Rig Veda, Nivartadhvam. It means to “twist within” or return or retire.   We retire from the world through samadhi or transcendence. Then we return to the world by retiring from transcendence. This is like the analogy of dying the cloth. To dye a fabric the old way, it was dipped in the dye to soak, then hung up in the sun to bleach. That cycle was repeated until the colour was fast. Too much time in the dye (practices) and the fabric will rot. Too much time in the sun (activity) and the … Continue Reading… →

The Unbalanced Masculine

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dead tree

I often write articles about personal inner work but current events are bringing large shadows to the surface. It’s important to talk about so we have a reasonable perspective on the issues being highlighted.   For a long time, the masculine has been dominant in global cultures. This takes the form of a dominant 3rd chakra. This has led to an emphasis on power, the mind, and in the West, individuality – the personal self. Culturally, we’re like pre-teens focused on me. This is an evolutionary step up from survival and tribal cultures. But if it becomes entrenched, it becomes … Continue Reading… →