Keep your heart alive with hope, strong with intent, and pure and innocent with love. Though the world around you is fraught with turmoil, upheaval, discontent, and in the midst of inevitable change, remain steady within and from a place of love and kindness do good, first within the self and then in the world you live in. There is great need of positive change in a new direction, but that will not happen if the self is not first in alignment with such a goal and ready to change within to accomplish that which is necessary without. A changed self, acting from a place of love, will change the world.
When change arrives unexpectedly accept it and align with its intent, the intent of evolution. Sometimes it’s easy to accept change, at other times more difficult to do so. No matter the circumstances, when change happens there is no going back. The only recourse is to move forward in the direction change indicates. When change comes it brings with it a new imperative to take a new course and where it leads is where life goes next. Rather than resist change, learn to embrace it and go with the flow. It will make life so much easier.
Behold the beauty and majesty of nature in its slow progress toward evolution, one day at a time, one season and one year at a time, making its way forward toward its ultimate goal. Take a hint and find the same beauty and majesty within and work toward the same goal of evolution within your own life, one day, one season, one year at a time. For you also are nature, assigned the same evolutionary purpose, with the same principles of beauty and majesty inherent in you. Align with nature, and may “Change” be your mantra.
Every time we change we move into a new life. This coming December 9th will mark the 20th anniversary of my wife Jeanne’s definitive departure from human life. Since then, though we remain connected in a different configuration, I have moved into a completely new life. I experience myself and the world from a very different perspective. Though I remain connected to what I once was, I have grown into a totally different person.
I would characterize my change as my soul reincarnating further into its latent potential. Even my body has reshaped itself to support my soul’s current journey. The great Hindu Guru, Sri Sivananda teaches that the physical body is actually the expression and creation of our soul. As our soul ventures into new life it shifts the body to serve that change.
Carlos Castaneda was emphatic that shamans should avoid looking into mirrors. The trap of the mirror is that it literally catches one’s self reflection. Such was the fate of Narcissus, the namesake of narcissism, who became frozen in his gaze, unable to see beyond his own physical reflection.
For shamans, the trap of self-importance is the greatest impediment to human evolution, as is mirrored in the greed apparent in our world’s energy crisis. Despite their contribution to the climate crisis, fossil fuels continue to dominate our energy demands, as we place our self-interest above the true needs of the world. Similarly, our ego’s fixation upon receiving validation of its personal importance absorbs the lion’s share of our personal store of energy, severely underfunding our evolutionary potential.
Practically speaking, the mirror can also serve to reinforce a static view of ourselves that does not allow for the possibility of change. Like the monotonous internal dialogue, the image in the mirror may be typecast to deliver the same old message, i.e., “You’ll never be good enough.”
Of course, we need mirrors to reflect to us the orderliness of our outer presentation. The shamans would suggest only cursory glances to achieve this, avoiding the judgment of sustained viewing. I am actually fascinated with the changes glimpsed in these brief glances. I ask, “Who is that being; he keeps changing!”
Don Juan Matus warned that we should pay scrupulous attention to the agreements we enter into as to who we are, consciously or unconsciously, when we fixate on socialized beliefs or frozen images in the mirror. Transpersonal psychotherapists recognize the power of heredity and archetypes to shape our physical bodies when we believe their influence to be sacrosanct and irrevocable.
Hypnotists stress the power of suggestion to manifest what we become. In fact, the subconscious mind is both the storehouse of all inherited and acquired habit but also the home of every individual’s personal genie. As the body is constructed by the intent of the soul, everyone has the latent opportunity to assume full control of who they will become. It’s all in what we believe and what we choose to tell ourselves.
Even if it be the case that our present life was chosen as expiation for choices made in past lives, we all have the free will to change the course of our development. Once we’ve squared with the reasons for our fixations we are truly freed to release them. Freeing the ego of its self-importance, its routine judgments, and its unnecessary agreements allows it to consciously direct its subconscious companion genie to manifest positive and evolutionary changes in the self.
Our world now mirrors how the power of the beliefs we attach to generate the reality we live in. We live in a virtual marketplace of suggestion, where we see dear family and friends become beings we hardly recognize. The sublime gift of such manifested polarization is absolute proof of the power of suggestion. We can choose to use it for the advancement of self and the greater good.
As don Juan Matus wisely advised, enter into no agreements you have not consciously chosen. As well, freely choose to make new conscious agreements and retire old agreements that are no longer necessary or helpful to your evolutionary Spirit. Join your personal intent with your Spirit’s intent for the ever-unfolding journey of fulfilling life.
Keep your good heart alive and well, truth on your tongue, and right action always in mind. Forging a path of heart entails keeping all those things at the ready, as well as a good dose of loving kindness, for no path of heart is truly that without them.
