December 2006 Newsletter

Hello to all my subscribers

I’m sorry I have not sent a newsletter for quite some time. I’m not trying to make excuses for my tardiness only apologise. I have had ongoing problems with my website. It keeps disappearing for several days at a time, usually after a storm. The website is hosted in an area that is particularly prone to blackouts and apparently something goes wrong with the server each time this happens. I do get my hosting for free so I am not complaining but it does at times make it difficult to get things done! If you visit the site only to find it is not there, try again a few days later! Invariably it does come back again … eventually :-)

Now, the next point. I am not sure how many of you are actually receiving my newsletter. So if you do get it could you please send me a quick reply! Well actually you can make your reply as long as you like as I love getting email but if you are in a hurry a short reply will suffice! Some of you are in the habit of writing to me regularly and I do appreciate that but most of you have never sent me an email and I would like to get to know you :-) You don’t have to have a problem; you can write about your dreams, your insights, your achievements (or failures) or anything at all that you want to share. I might be slow to reply on occasion if a lot of mail comes in at once but I will reply as soon as I can. If I don’t receive a reply to this newsletter by 31st December, I will remove you from the database as there is no point in sending emails to people who are not receiving them.

Feel free to forward my newsletter on to any of your friends who you think may be interested. If this email has been forwarded to you please email me at eyeofthearcher@optusnet.com.au so I can add you to the mailing list. And if you are sick of getting my monthly (or less) emails just reply to this email and put “unsubscribe” in the header.

I seem to be lacking inspiration for a new article! I guess I am in a sort of spiritual hiatus at the moment, nothing new is happening. I have periods of exponential growth and words of wisdom flow easily at those times and then for a while there is nothing! I know I should just relax into the void until the next lesson comes along but that is easier said than done! I suppose that in itself is a lesson, learning to accept the “nothingness” without getting restless, bored or unmotivated! Hmmm … I’ll try to work on that! :-) As a consolation prize for not writing an article myself, I have included two articles written by others who have inspired me.

Articles

If there is one person who has inspired me above all others, it is Guy Finley. If you have never been to his website, take a look here

His books and CDs are reasonably priced and very good value. And if you live in U.S.A. postage is free. Unfortunately international postage adds a fair bit to the price otherwise I think I would have bought everything on his website! :D

Getting Over Feeling Guilty – by Guy Finley

Feeling guilt over what we regret about ourselves makes sense only to a mind that believes soaking in a mud bath is the best way to get clean! Step up and away from punishing feelings!

No one really wants to talk about it, but the truth is there is a kind of evil spell hanging over each of us and our world as well. In fact, part of this global spell is our denial of its existence. It is called suffering. Everyone does it - believing that their suffering somehow benefits them. That's how the spell works. Why else would anyone punish himself with unhappy feelings unless he had been tricked into somehow perceiving self hurt as self help?

Let's examine one of these instances. First of all, to be angry is to suffer. It doesn't help anyone to get angry. Anger hurts whoever is angry. It burns. Anger ruins relationships, causes heartache and regret and devastates health. And yet, in spite of all of these facts, when we are angry it feels right. Somehow, in some unseen way, anger proves to whoever is experiencing its heated feelings that he or she is right even though, in the eyes of reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The same scenario holds true of worry, anxiety, resentment, doubt, guilt or any dark feeling. How can something so wrong seem so right? Here is the answer. All of these negative emotions feel like they are in your best interest because, at the time of their intrusion into your life, they temporarily fill you with a powerful false sense of self. However, this sense of self born out of fierce but lying feelings can only exist without your conscious consent or awareness of its being there. Why? Because this negative self's interests are not in your best interest. This conjured up temporary identity is nothing but a self-of-suffering. No one chooses to lose.

This lesson may seem difficult at first, but with your persistent wish to understand it, you will one day wonder how you were ever tricked into feeling bad about anything. The Truth wants you to know that it is never in your best interest to suffer, no matter how inwardly convincing it may feel to you that you will be betraying yourself or someone else if you don't. The only way that any suffering feeling can prove to you that you need it is to hypnotize you with a flood of itself. Step back from yourself. Learn instead to listen to the quiet stream of higher insight that runs softly through your true nature. It sees through sorrow. Let it show you that suffering proves nothing. If you want to receive some special help for helping yourself escape yourself, always remember to ask yourself this key question: "If I am doing what I want to do, then how come it hurts me to do it?" The Truth guarantees you will stop doing what you don't want to do once you know what you have been doing against yourself.

Here are five powerful ways to snap the spell of suffering. As you read over each one, think about how you can use its insight the next time you are about to be washed by any flood of painful thoughts or feelings. Welcome their higher influence into your life.

1. Suffering doesn't prove that you are responsible. What it does prove is that you have abandoned true self responsibility, or you wouldn't treat yourself so badly.
2. Suffering doesn't prove that you are important. What it does prove is that you would rather feel like a "someone" who is miserable than be a "no one" who is free and quietly happy.
3. Suffering doesn't prove that you are all alone in life. What it does prove is that you prefer the company of unfriendly thoughts and feelings whose very nature is to isolate you from everything good.
4. Suffering doesn't prove that someone else is wrong. What it does prove is that you will go to any lengths, including self destruction, to prove that you are right.
5. Suffering over your suffering doesn't prove that you want to stop suffering. What it does prove is you are afraid of the end of suffering because you think the end of it means the end of you. It does not.

You do not have to accept any inner condition that compromises your happiness. It is never right to feel wrong no matter how right you may think you are to be feeling that way. Feeling one way and thinking another is what it means to live in conflict. Self conflict is really the only suffering there is; therefore, self unity is the only real solution that can snap the spell of self suffering.

Here is an exercise to help you take the first step up and away from self punishing feelings. This exercise is called – “Is this what I really want?”

The next time you catch yourself starting to feel bad about anything, immediately stop everything you are doing for a moment and, as simply and as honestly as you can, ask yourself, “Is this what I really want?” Try to see the whole self picture as it is unfolding. You will discover that your thoughts are convinced that you must proceed in their direction of guilt, worry, revenge or fear but you are the one who is feeling bad. These self betraying thoughts are like a friend who invites you out to a pleasant evening at the fights and then you find yourself in the ring as the main event! I repeat, you do not have to accept any condition that compromises your happiness.

You can and must inwardly say to any conflicting thoughts or feelings that, "You are not what I want!" The clearer this whole picture becomes to you - that suffering is stupid and must never be justified - the stronger your right self assertion for self unity will become. A whole life is a happy one. Choose to have a happy life by choosing what you really want.

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I have also been inspired by Asoka Selvarajah. He has a more metaphysical viewpoint of spirituality than most but provides an interesting comparison. Although I don’t always agree with him, his articles make me think and help me to define my own viewpoint.

His website is here

(But if you decide you would like to purchase his 7GS course, please use the link at the end of his article – BTW I purchased the 7GS course myself a couple of years ago. Although it is a little expensive compared to some resources, it is extremely well researched and comprehensive and I have often referred back to it since I first read it.)

The Sleeper Awakens Within The Dream – by Asoka Selvarajah

When we awaken from dreams, we realize that they were not real, but entirely of our own creation. In a dream, you are the participant as well as the creator of all the other characters and the settings. In like manner, everyday reality can also be viewed from this dream perspective; a dream from which each of us will one day awaken to realize that this too was an illusion of earthly consciousness.

Yet, many things in everyday existence do have apparent reality. There are many things we can all independently agree upon. So, if this is the case, who is doing the dreaming?

The answer may be that we all are - collectively. If we are the universe, as well as essentially being spiritually One - indivisibly part of the Source/God/Creator of all - then we can conclude that we co-create the joint dream reality we all participate in and perceive around us.

It is our spiritual life task to gradually awaken within the dream. At this point, we will be fully spiritually aware, seeing things as they really are and not with distorted perceptions. Then, if we participate in this world of forms and shadows, it will be through conscious choice; a full awareness that make our best present efforts resemble deepest slumber.

But what is the purpose of this complex interwoven dance we call life? Why did we manifest in this manner? The stories of esoteric spiritual teachings can help here. For example, the Garden of Eden story teaches that through tasting the apple of the knowledge of Good and Evil, we lost sight of the Divine Consciousness, and were sent into exile from true reality into this world of dreams.

What is the symbolic significance of the apple of the knowledge of Good and Evil? It represents the choice to live through misperception, and to view life from the standpoint of Duality and Division; Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Life and Death, etc. Instead of participating in Unity consciousness, we choose Duality and are thus exiled from the divine spiritual perspective into this confusing world of ever moving shadows. We live in the world of Effects, without ever seeing the world of Causes.

Division entered and this was the Fall. We divided off from the divine part of ourselves and have ceased to even know it. Instead, we live in the world of shadows, obsessed with duality, and seeing no further than our senses permit. The way back is guarded by an angel with a flaming sword, because the attainment of eternal life is impossible as long as we remain mired in temporal earthly things. Nothing mired in an earthly consciousness can have any share in eternity.

At yet another level, the reality we see around us is the direct result of our individual karma, the group karma of our race and nation, as well as the collective karma of humanity. Life is a huge learning arena, set into play by ourselves for ourselves in order to stimulate our own awakening. However long it takes for this to occur is precisely how long it will take for each and every one of us.

Does this mean that the universe does not exist and is totally a creation of our minds? From an earthly perspective, it clearly does exist and possesses certain objective truths that we can agree upon that can be measured. Yet, even at the earthly level, the universe can be rightly called illusory in the sense that all is not as it appears. It may exist but it is certainly not the way we think it is. For example, the everyday objects we judge as solid are mostly empty space. Our senses do perceive and make sense of what is "out there" beyond our own bodies, but do not define it. A map is not the territory. A cat, a fly, a bird and a human may look upon the same scene and sense entirely different realities. Which is right? In truth, all are nothing more than interpretations of the unknowable shifting realm "out there".

So, from an earthly perspective, the world does have many elements of objective reality, whilst also simultaneously having many illusory sides to it. Ultimately, we may find it is composed of nothing at all except pure Thought and Mind. The universe is increasingly giving this impression at present, as our scientific techniques become ever more refined, and our instruments probe ever deeper in search of the essence of truth.

Spiritually, it definitely does appear that we participate and co-create in what we see around us. It is primarily our duality oriented vision that causes us to see only in terms of right/wrong, good/evil, civilized/ignorant, life/death. From the undivided perspective of pure divine consciousness, all is as it should be. Nothing ever really dies, but merely changes state. Indeed, death is a necessary part of life itself. Life itself would be impossible without death. Seeing them as opposites or antagonists is the classic example of dualistic thinking.

Your purpose then should be to work within the world system, and the lessons it presents, in order to liberate your thinking and achieve the consciousness that sees all things as they really are. Deep pondering can assist this. Meditation will also break down the barriers. A willingness to perceive people and reality as they really are, without any judgments or dualistic notions, will definitely speed up your awakening.

In addition, refusal to participate in unhelpful attitudes or behavior will not only help you, but will subtly alter the fabric of the world we are all co-creating. If you see war outside of yourself, but do not see it in your very heart, you are truly blind to causes. If you see it within and eradicate it, then you make it easier to eradicate without. World change starts with personal change, and a correct perspective on "what is"; willingness to change what you can and wisdom to let be what is beyond your control. What is within you is definitely within your power to control and master.

Copyright 2001, Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.

Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and spirituality and the author of "The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self". His work helps people achieve their full potential, deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and discover their soul's purpose. To purchase 7GS click here