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Chuck’s Place: I Am More Than My Ego Identity

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Time for transformation…
– Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

In a dream, my son is my friend. I have no memory of him as my son. Upon awakening I am fascinated at this absolute lapse in memory of such a prominent waking life relationship. This is a glimpse of life beyond the veil.

“What veil?” you might ask. The veil of ego identity. Ego is the part of our soul identified with waking life in the physical body. Ego is the main player in the waking life drama we are fully engaged in. The ego’s veil is its narcissism, though not necessarily pathologically so. It simply only knows itself as all that it is.

The ego is also quite prejudiced with material bias. The physical world is its oyster and all that really exists. This in-body perspective has been critical to keep the focus on the intent, the fated karma of this current life adventure. However, as is more than evident in current world events, Mother Earth is in labor. Her water has broken and full-on contractions have begun.

Birthing is our first rite of passage in this life. The journey into life is a solo voyage fraught with breathlessness, volcanic eruption, violent collision and claustrophobic containment. Arriving into our separateness, at birth, requires surviving the perils of these initiation challenges as we push out into new life. Currently, Earth’s initiation challenge requires us to navigate her violent changes as, once again, we find our way to new life.

New life on this planet is the discovery and integration of life beyond the confines of ego identity, life beyond the veil. Our materialistic focus, with its land-grab mentality, has saturated Mother’s nurturing capacity. She requires now a greater soulful human presence, a maturity beyond the childish dependency locked within the ego’s veil. To achieve this we must expand our knowing of all that we are. To achieve this we must venture into the transpersonal dimension of our being.

My amnesia of my son, as my son, was such a transpersonal journey. The more we cling solely to our relationships of familial association, as our definition of who we are and how we should live, the more we remain separated from the overall needs of the greater whole world. We are birthing into a consciousness that extends family to all, with equanimity.

To experience my son as friend, with no proprietary rights, breaks the illusion of special connection. Yes, of course there is special connection in the drama of this life. That can’t be erased. But to wake up to the greater reality, that all that is is part of that same whole, extends love to all; we are all simply inseparable. With this knowing, we are fully poised to grow beyond the limits of ego narcissism.

This journey to our transcendent selves, as we navigate the violent contractions of now, does require that we suffer the full knowing of our suppressed and repressed selves, what Jung called the shadow of the personal unconscious. This is the work of recapitulation, fully exploring the triggers of daily life, which bring forth our inconvenient truths.

We are aided in this journey by guides and by our Higher Soul, which resides in the transpersonal dimension of our being. Our ego soul becomes our left brain navigator on our voyage of recovery and discovery. Though still engaged in material life, our needs become more soulful and refined. The spirit of a gift outweighs the material gift.

Bob Monroe left us with a set of tools to discover that, yes, “I am more than my physical body.” As we traverse that non-physical reality, the ego discovers that it is part of its greater Soul. Indeed, that I am more than my ego identity. And with that we are truly birthing into new life.

I am more than my ego identity,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Honing Conscious Suggestion

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Locking down & opening up…
– Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

I place my awareness on my calf muscle.  “My left calf muscle is warm,” I state. I notice that a faint warming sensation appears in my left calf muscle.

My thinking mind remains passive; it simply observes. My subconscious mind, however, takes my suggestion as its command and orchestrates the body activity needed to create the sensation of warmth in my calf muscle.

My conscious mind has no clue as to how to create warmth in my calf muscle. Active thinking is limited to abstract thought and reason. In contrast, my subconscious mind holds the keys to the kingdom and can manifest, in some material form, any suggestion presented to it.

For instance, if I actively think the thought, “I can’t hula hoop,” my hips will rigidify and the hoop will hit the floor. In this case, the negative  suggestion to the subconscious is manifested by the body.

Of course, one might protest, quite accurately, that without practice one will be unable to successfully hula hoop. This is true, but once the ability has been achieved, through diligent practice, a trial performance will most likely fail if one negatively thinks, “I can’t do it.”

What we tell ourselves is what we become. What we listen to we become. If I incessantly listen to negative thoughts broadcast from a television station, I will become a negative person. In this case, the thoughts and beliefs I hear expressed become the command to my subconscious mind to generate the emotional body state that creates the negativity of anger, vigilance, and discontent.

Beliefs are highly insulated thoughts. Thus, if we state a suggestion that opposes an ingrained belief we confuse the subconscious mind with opposing commands. In this case, the more exercised and repeated belief is likely the suggestion the subconscious will follow.

For instance, if one holds a deep belief that they are inadequate, the command to the subconscious that “I am competent” may actually manifest as self-doubt and defeat, felt as anxiety and depression. In this case, it is best to acknowledge the underlying belief and perhaps first process experiences that have contributed to that belief, in an effort to neutralize it.

Bob Monroe suggested using an imaginary heavily-lidded box to place one’s negative beliefs in before giving a new suggestion to the subconscious, to allow for an unfettered experiment of exploration. This is akin to a scientist that may not believe something is possible but suspends judgment and submits to legitimate experimental conditions to see what happens.

Thus, for example, one might not believe they can experience their energy body. By placing their doubting mind in their imaginary storage locker, they are free to suggest to the subconscious that they experience the vibratory state connected to their energy body. In this case, with doubt suspended, one becomes open to a new possibility.

So what is the subconscious mind? The subconscious is the mind that used to completely direct the human animal, prior to the birth of human consciousness. When the subconscious ruled, it responded to the world instinctively. All stimuli to the senses evoked evolutionary programs that were automatically selected to respond to a need or challenge. No thinking was involved, simply stimulus and preprogrammed response.

Animals, for instance, know instinctively how to give birth. With the birth of consciousness, humans lost this connection to immediate, direct knowledge, as they added doctors to the birthing experience to attempt to improve on nature’s instinctive programs.

Though our connection to the subconscious is less direct than in the animal world, we are nonetheless afforded the opportunity to volitionally suggest directly to the subconscious in a way not possible for other animals. This is both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is, we can manifest a world that functions more efficiently than our evolutionary programming. The curse is that we can manifest a world based on narcissism, which is unsustainable. This, in fact, is the crossroads that we, and our world, currently find ourselves at.

If one aligns one’s suggestions with the truth of one’s heart, one is sure to manifest a world that cares for all beings and is deeply sustainable.

Process limiting beliefs, or put them in the box, while you experiment with the subconscious mind. This is where one might truly experience a world where all things are possible.

Suggesting love,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Let Love be The Emphasis

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Every slice contains the whole…
– Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The salient feature of a hologram is that every slice of it, no matter how infinitesimal, at the subtlest level of energetic reality contains the wholeness of the hologram.

We simply cannot get away from the basic fact that everything around us is also part of us. We are all part of the same hologram. At the solid material level of reality, the appearance of  separateness and uniqueness belies the hidden truth that all, everything, is one.

What gives us our distinctness in our current life is the specific position our personality currently occupies in the hologram. Although we contain within us potential access to all the positions of the hologram, our ‘personality’ is merely the fixed position, with its unique perspective, that we occupy in this life.

The shamans of ancient Mexico coined the term the assemblage point to depict the distinct position one occupies in the hologram and how, from that vantage point, energy is assembled into one’s perception of the world.

Until recently, the collective assemblage point of humankind was relatively consistent among all members of the human race, which generated a fairly uniform consensus reality. Presently, however, there is little collective consensus of reality, creating the instability, uncertainty and great changes the world is currently experiencing.

A shift in the assemblage point to a new position sends one into another perception of reality, into another world. In sleeping, the assemblage point naturally shifts, as we enter dreams, which take us to alternate positions of the assemblage point where we experience different personalities, often unknown or dormant parts of the hologram, within our reach but not emphasized in our waking, assembled selves.

These minor shifts of the assemblage point may take us into the suppressed regions of the subconscious mind or the unconscious regions of the greater hologram. Past lives may actually be personal in the sense that they are experienced personally when one shifts into, lives, and remembers the history contained in a newly discovered position of the assemblage point. Nonetheless, shifts into past lives are actually also collective, in that anyone who experiences that same position will have the same memory.

Just after WWII, at the formative age of 19, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, later the renowned author of Death and Dying, visited Maidanek, the concentration camp in Poland where many young children had been exterminated. She interacted with a young Jewish girl who elected to stay there rather than leave at the end of the war. This young girl was spared, just prior to liberation of the camp by the Allies, simply because one more person could not fit into the gas chamber. In her horror, Elisabeth asked her:

“…Why do you stay in this place of inhumanity?” She said, ‘during the last few weeks of the concentration camp I swore to myself that I was going to survive to do nothing but tell the world of all of the horrors of the Nazis and the concentration camps. Then the liberation army came. I looked at those people and I said to myself: ‘No. If I would do that, I would be no better than Hitler himself.’ Because what else would I then do but to plant even more seeds of hate and negativity in the world? ….if I can touch one single human life and turn it away from negativity, from hate, from revenge, from bitterness into one that can serve and love and care, then it might be worthwhile and I deserved to survive.” “…Don’t you believe, Elisabeth, that in all of us there is a Hitler?”
–from The Tunnel and The Light, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1999

This young girl had the wisdom to see that indeed, Hitler was just another position of the assemblage point, the position of negativity and hatred. She had been emotionally drawn to shift to this position within herself in the waning weeks of the war. In the end, she acknowledged her own inner Hitler potential and chose to adhere to the position of love, with the intent to shift away from occupying the position of negativity and instead to advance the healing of the world.

The ability to acknowledge that we are all part of the same hologram, that we are all capable of everything, lessens the need for our psyche to introduce us to ourselves through our disowned and hated parts, via projection onto other people.

It may be impossible to not feel the rage and hatred this girl experienced initially; in fact it’s critical to acknowledge it and release the emotions of it. However, to not become possessed by the Hitlerian position of the assemblage point one must intend a different position.

The time we are living in is flush with the negativity of Hitler types. To counter this position one must first acknowledge one’s own attraction to, and capacity for, negativity. From this place of truthfulness, one can accept inherent flawed-ness as a characteristic of the human hologram, as well as accept one’s own personal flaws.

With this self-acceptance, negativity loses its grip and one is freed to just love, the ideal position of the assemblage point within the human hologram.

Find this position within the personal self and contribute to its collective emphasis in our coming new consensus reality. We all have agency. Let love be the emphasis.

With love,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Energy of Consciousness

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What are you radiating?
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

“Consciousness is energy,” asserts Mark Certo, longtime friend of and sound engineer for Robert Monroe and host of the the Monroe Institute’s recent inaugural podcast, Expanding On Consciousness.

I would add to this definition that the energy of consciousness has awareness and volition that can reflect inwardly upon itself, as well as direct its attention outwardly. Shamans define this active state of consciousness as intent, the energy of focused consciousness.

Healers send the intent of healing energy to a patient, often at great physical distance. This focused consciousness travels to its intended destination on the wings of intent. Frequently, we suddenly think of someone who is about to call us from a great distance. This telepathic transmission and reception is fueled by the energy of focused consciousness.

Shamans, such as Carlos Castaneda, hide their true identities, to an extreme, to avoid the impact of outer consciousness being focused upon them. No one really knows Carlos’ real date of birth, name, country of origin, or actual date or cause of death.

These indeterminate facts so infuriated historians that Carlos was written off as a charlatan and is basically forgotten some 25 years after his transition from this world. Carlos, however, is free to travel in infinity unburdened of the energetic impact of the public’s attention.

Toward the end of his time in this world, Carlos emerged from seclusion and launched Tensegrity. This was the time I was privileged to experience him. His reversing of classic shamanic secrecy was an attempt to responsibly prepare the world for greater transparency, the prerequisite for greater mastery of consciousness and evolutionary advancement.

Critical to this advancement is to avoid the trapping of self-importance. This trapping is currently expressed in the insatiable hunger for attention that social media has unleashed within the human species. The energetic impact of such a tide of attention, both coming and going, devours people’s energy, strongly impacts their mood, identity and mental status, and frequently infiltrates their core beliefs about themselves and others.

The sudden conversion into one-sided beliefs, which divides friends and family in our currently polarized world, reflects the impact of targeted messages impacting the consciousness of those receiving them. Repetitive suggestions from political leaders entrance citizens, as they commandeer the subconscious minds and critical thinking abilities of those impacted. When we lose control of our own minds we are no longer in charge, and when we are no longer in charge we lose connection to, and mastery of, true consciousness.

Robert Monroe, a true American shaman (though I’m certain he’d reject that designation!), devised tools to protect the integrity of self from the energetic impact of the focused consciousness of others upon the self. First and foremost, he stated an intent to only interact with beings who could be authentic and helpful, rejecting interactions with nefarious and self-serving, manipulative beings.

That intent was then embodied in a resonant, subtle energy state that he called a REBAL, a resonant energy balloon, as he journeyed in infinity. Everyone can benefit from stating their intent to interact with positive, helpful people, using their imagination and breath to protect their body, physical and subtle, from the intrusion of non-resonant energy that attempts to penetrate their minds.

Intent has its own powerful energy of focused consciousness to fend off the unwanted impact of outside thoughts. In fact, the energy of intent can be turned to the protection and healing of one’s own physical body. However, if one’s belief system rejects such a possibility, it will not be possible to benefit from such an intent. Intent requires unbending focused consciousness to deliver its action.

Disbelief and doubt fragment the energy of intent. The placebo effect demonstrates the power of intent to impact the physical body when one is convinced of its benefits. The benefits of the placebo effect are often immediately erased when the subject discovers they were not given the “real” drug.

If one can suspend the judgment of disbelief and open to the legitimate possibility that an intent can be realized, one might indeed discover the true power of consciousness. Thus, stating an intent, without doubt or attachment to the outcome, is an opportunity to discover its true impact.

Hypnosis demonstrates the power of intent via the focused energy of suggestion. The best use of hypnosis is self-hypnosis, where the conscious mind, though relaxed and peripheral, embraces the suggestion presented to the subconscious. Self-hypnosis preserves the authority to direct one’s life collaboratively, within the confines of the various dimensions of self.

These dimensions of self coexist and yet often remain unknown to each other in the fuller consciousness that holds them together. Thus, a meeting with another at a soul level, in a dream or in waking life, may quickly be lost to memory. Mastery of consciousness requires a remembering that includes encounters we typically forget, like dreams lost upon awakening. Only through training ourselves to remember can we achieve a fuller conscious presence now.

The energy of consciousness is deeply impactful and it behooves us all to assume full responsibility for our thoughts and where we put our attention, keeping in mind the direct impact they have upon the self and the world.

We are currently experiencing an accelerated world war of nuclear thoughts, each day bombarded with new toxic ideas and decisions. Our ability to both protect ourselves from non-resonant toxic thought, as well as to project outwardly the energy of compassionate intent, is our best opportunity to stabilize the world and advance its evolution.

Our choices, rooted in the responsible intent for our energy of consciousness to grow in the direction of love, compassion and kindness, will change the world.

Exercising the free will of consciousness for the greater good,

Chuck

NOTE: Expanding on Consciousness podcast is available wherever you normally get your podcasts. New episodes are dropped every Tuesday.

ALSO: Chuck has written a blog this week packed with plenty of ideas to assimilate and work on, plenty to consider while he takes a break from blogging over the next few weeks. His next blog will appear on Tuesday July 19, 2022.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Mind Your Words

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Practice saying it…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

There are many voices in the head. The most prominent is that of the ego itself, the voice of consciousness that directs thought and decision making in waking life.

Just beneath the ego is the voice of the subconscious, that which stores the knowledge of our personal experiences in this life, as well as our genetic and ancestral knowledge and the archetypal programs that distinguish our species.

The subconscious also houses the split-off complexes formed through traumatic experience, which maintain their own consciousness. The voices of these split-off complexes represent learned beliefs, which exert their influence upon our everyday emotional states and mental functioning.

Additionally, the subconscious houses the soul’s journey through eternity, which includes many sub-personalities that weigh in on current life from their vast and varied experiences in infinite life. These influences, though pronounced, are generally veiled from waking ego consciousness, which spends most of its energy navigating survival and the tasks of daily waking life.

The subconscious is also the powerhouse of manifestation. All humans generate the life they are in via the suggestions delivered to the subconscious mind. The mere flicker of a possibility, housed in the words of a thought, immediately registers in the chemistry and emotion of the human body. The thought, “Did they get home OK?” can generate acute anxiety in the pit of the stomach, as the mind imagines possible accidents.

The shamans of ancient Mexico identified a parasitic, inorganic entity that produces an internal dialogue, which they called a flyer. The flyer influences the subconscious mind with incessant negative thoughts, generating intense emotion, the stuff of its sustenance. This parasitic relationship between species is quite common, as all life feeds upon life on this planet.

Whether the flyer be considered real or metaphorical, the effect of the internal dialogue upon human life is the manifestation of the consensus reality we live in. Essentially, the internal dialogue is a tour guide that cynically, and incessantly, defines who we are and the life we are in. The inner dialogue knows the fragility of the ego’s plight: a stranger in a strange land, cut off from the knowledge of its soul’s fuller journey and resources by the veil of the blank slate, which is installed upon birthing into this human life.

Through the internal dialogue’s generation of constant negative thoughts about the ego’s incompetency, and its negative view of outer reality, the ego easily becomes overwhelmed and thus spends much of life preoccupied with attempting to establish its worthiness. Meanwhile, it remains cutoff from its true royal lineage as a magical being. As a result, all the capabilities of its energy body soul self remain unknown and unavailable to ego consciousness.

The advantage of this parasitic arrangement is that the ego is able to remain fixed in the waking life it is in, thus effectively fulfilling its purpose for being in this life, which, cutoff from its history, it has little knowledge of. Had we full knowledge of our history, we would know of our immortality. Such knowledge would overshadow the time space limitation of this life, which actually motivates our efforts for fulfillment because of those limitations.

The disadvantage of the internal dialogue is the constant negativity it spews to the subconscious mind, which manifests in both anxious and depressed mood states. When we are cut off from our soul self, life can be made to appear nihilistic, foreboding and meaningless, with little possibility for joy and fulfillment.

Actually, the internal dialogue can be viewed as the gargoyle that guards the gates to the deeper knowing of our true selves, until we are able to subdue its influence upon us. Despite its negative influence, we tend to become addicted to the familiar sense of self that its cynical words generate and, regardless of our conscious intent to become more positive, we resist moving away from the comfort of a known self and world, with all its inferiorities and limitations.

Perhaps the greatest suggestion the shamans of ancient Mexico offer to transcend the insidious effect of the internal dialogue is to suspend judgment. When the ego gives this suggestion to the subconscious mind in the presence of an extraneous thought or interpretation, it opens the doorway to the world of possibility. Limiting beliefs are mere hypotheses that needn’t automatically define reality.

If we truly suspend judgment we are freed to open to a world of infinite possibility, with access to our magical selves. We are free to explore the subtle dimensions of the energy body, with its ability to travel beyond the body and communicate with more evolved spirits, who can guide us to latent abilities, such as telepathy and the deeper knowledge of the soul’s journey, with its many relationships in infinity.

The practice of suspending judgment is quite simple. Don’t engage in argument with the internal dialogue. Accept the basic truth of the inferior position of the ego. Rather than get caught in the struggle for proving self-importance, utilize the ego’s ability to approach life with the innocence of a child, in awe with the discovery of life and all its possibilities.

Mind your words.

State the intent: “Suspend Judgment.”

Enjoy the momentary inner silence such a suggestion manifests.

Allow the suggestion that anything is possible to be tested in the experiment of daily life.

Discover the positive outcome of such unbiased exploration. You won’t regret it!

Suspend judgment,

Chuck