“There is nothing that is not divine.” – Aurobindo – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
From a shamanic perspective, the cosmic dance of now lays bare the power of belief in generating the reality we live in. Our belief system is largely shaped by the messages we internalize from the outside world that become the internal dialogue that interprets our reality. The belief system we sign up for becomes our reality.
At present, the mass of humanity is engaged in a civil war of conflicting belief systems. The consequence of such disagreement is an instability of worldview that threatens basic security, both within the individual and in the world at large. Without a collective boundary of belief, the world is subject to a barrage of all that has been suppressed and repressed in the individual and in the collective human psyche as well.
Civilization has, at its root, civility, defined as a politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech. Clearly we are in a time that has overturned politeness and courtesy in behavior and speech. What’s been unleashed is the repressed energy that lies beneath the surface ripple of civilization, what Freud called the Id and what Jung called the shadow. Civilization is currently overrun by the power of these discontented parts of its psyche.
Our fragile civilization is charged with addressing the truth of its discontents. A new balance is called for. This balance must consider the animal within the human being. That animal has long been the sequestered Minotaur, lost in the labyrinth of the unconscious.
That shameful human, with animal head and tail, is filled with rage toward the civilized human it blames for its rejection. Meanwhile, its human counterpart is both terrified by its power and hungry for its passion. Clearly these two spheres of existence have a place in human reconciliation. Domination of the unconscious as a defense strategy to protect civilization is unstable and cuts off a wellspring of vital energy needed for a fulfilling life.
The opportunity of now is to construct a belief system that values and reconciles all parts of being human. Thus the human animal and human spirit are recognized as valid parts of a human being that both contribute to and enhance human life. Both centers of being are valued for their inherent knowledge and creative potential.
Alexander Lowen, Wilhelm Reich’s protege, pointed out that human beings rarely experience full orgasm in their sexual contact because they have lost their connection to their animal core that truly knows how to physically move. Thus, human sexuality is rarely fulfilling, dominated as it is by the ego’s mental control and expectations.
A belief system that incorporates both our inherited nature and our ability to elevate it to the spiritual heights of love, offers a reconciliation of the human condition that may better serve our evolving civilization.
As always, be empowered to begin within. All the forces without that both attract and repel us are also our own projections from within. All that we hate and fear are as much a part of us as all that we love and long for. A belief system that accepts this equation is poised to find true stability and wholeness within. Wholeness within, wholeness without.
Optimistically,
Chuck
NOTE: Taking a week off, so no writings from either Jan or I next week, including Soulbytes. We look forward to reconnecting starting the week of September 14, 2020.
Change is happening all around… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Our bodies are governed by deeply embedded evolutionary programs, the stuff of DNA and archetypes. These programs are housed in the operations of the subconscious mind and operate quite unconsciously through the autonomic nervous system. Thus, the heart beats at a rate governed by its inherent instructions, not by conscious intent.
However, as has been definitively proven by advanced Yogis, consciousness can assume control even over the heart rate. In fact, Yogis have been able, under laboratory conditions, to stop the heart for several minutes, and then resume normal beating.
The operative principle here is the shaman’s credo: suspend judgment and see what happens. If we dismiss attempting to do something because we don’t believe it is possible, then we stay aligned with this now blocking-belief, based on principle.
In addition to these inherited programs are the socialized messages we have internalized as beliefs, which also take up residence in the subconscious mind and automatically influence our body, mind, and emotional states. Thus, being told, for instance, that we have an incurable disease might result in a subconscious acquiescence to such a prediction.
In this case, we are faced with two powerful influences upon the subconscious: inherent and socialized.
The inherent influence might be a genetic predisposition to a disease. The influence of this genetic coding might indeed challenge the body in a predictable way. This is real.
However, as successful placebo interventions demonstrate, the power of suggestion can have an impact on the course and even elimination of a disease. If one is able to suspend the judgment that upholds a blocking belief and engage the power of intent, anything could happen.
The socialized dimension upon the subconscious might be triggered by the power attributed to an authority figure. A doctor is a person of high authority that easily triggers the commandment to honor one’s parents, holders of omnipotent power in our very impressionable childhood years.
Honoring the parents may have generalized to all subsequent authority figures in life. Thus, one may feel too inadequate to question the pronouncement of such an authority figure. Hence, engaging the possibility that one can influence the course of one’s encounter with disease might never be allowed, due to the influence of subconscious beliefs.
It is extremely difficult to talk oneself out of a belief. Once installed in the subconscious, beliefs act autonomously and with a great deal of power, as is easily seen in the intensity of emotions that are aroused when a belief is challenged. Just try having a rational discussion with anybody about their current political beliefs—I guarantee you’ll see a display of emotion!
The best approach to working with a limiting belief is to acknowledge it but not stay under its domination. So, for instance, if I am told I’m dealing with a disease, I will acknowledge that fact, that my symptoms fit a diagnostic category.
Next, I quite definitely would state my intent: “I intend to heal!” Here I am speaking to Intent itself, a power in the universe that I seek to engage in my healing process. If one has no belief in such a higher, independent power I would suggest stating the intent anyway, regardless of doubt.
Intent may be the language that activates one’s link to what physicist David Bohm termed the Implicate Order, the deeper interconnected oneness that underlies our surface experience of separateness in reality. Communication from this dimension utilizes synchronicity to guide consciousness on its journey of change.
The intent to influence the subconscious is critical, as the subconscious is the warehouse of our belief system, as well as the executor of most bodily activity. Taking conscious leadership of the directives we want our body to follow is directly linked to the suggestions we give the subconscious. Never assume a subconscious program can’t be overridden by conscious intent.
Next it is critical to be very patient. Subconscious programs are shrouded in powerful defenses to protect the sanctity of these default positions. We must calmly but incessantly repeat our intentions to the subconscious. If we are impatient we will easily be defeated in our intent.
Furthermore, the course the greater Intent might take us in might be quite counterintuitive. We may need to suffer many surprises that actually might be a course of recapitulation, necessary to journey through to free our energy from the roots of a disease. Perhaps an ancestral problem embedded in a disease may need to be experienced and solved before it can be released.
Finally, and most challenging, we must suspend attachment to the outcome of our efforts. The goal is to be impeccable in stating our intent and meeting the challenges that unfold. Attachment to outcome taxes our energy in wish-fulfillment and depression when things don’t unfold as we expect them to.
Be definite in intent, be patient, and take the journey that is presented, the journey of a lifetime. See what happens!
In this week’s audio channeling we are invited to let go of old beliefs and shift in a new direction by taking back responsibility for our own lives, kind of like by writing a new script for ourselves. We are the players in our own life, but we are also the author and the director too, if we care to see it that way!
Have a wonderful, loving week, within and without!
What does it mean to be living in this time of The Trump Show? This thinly veiled reference to the movie The Truman Show casts no aspersions upon Trump but intends instead to present an incisive understanding of the momentous time we are living in.
There’s a whole new reality out there! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey’s character, Truman, lived his complete life on a TV set, totally unaware that he was the only real character in a fabricated story that the rest of the world vicariously watched on their screens. He naively lived this personal illusion, which was completely supported by consumer interest. The climax of the movie was the moment he discovered the boundary of his illusion, a fake ocean in a flat room, and a three dimensional world beyond it that he had never known existed.
Jim Carrey’s moment of revelation is symbolic of the time when human consciousness was confronted with the reality that the world was not flat, that explorers did not fall off the edge of it on their ocean voyages. At that moment, world consciousness realized that it had been locked into a belief system, like Jim Carrey, that kept it insulated from true reality, largely due to its isolated, confined, narrow-minded view of the world. Once that revelation came, everything changed.
That moment of revelation can be characterized as standing on the edge of narcissism and glimpsing the true nature of someone or something other than the mirror of one’s personal belief system, the lens through which one ordinarily perceives the world. It’s that moment on a date, when the one who has talked about him or herself, non-stop for an hour, suddenly looks up and notices the other person at the opposite side of the table, and asks, “And what about you?” The implication: Something beyond me exists, a startling revelation!
Human consciousness is currently nearing such a moment of revelation. Donald Trump is our Truman, bringing us to the edge of narcissism, to the boundaries of our belief systems that veil a more comprehensive view of reality. In one form or another, we are all players on the set of the Trump Show. The main technology of his show is sheer impulse and unpredictability, and we are all gripped and contained in the fiery energy of the drama.
No longer do we have a comprehensive collective belief system about how people should behave, what news is fit to print, how natural disasters or assassinations should be handled. Instead, we’ve splintered into clusters of opposing views, where even the Commander-in-chief might impulsively, completely reverse himself, at any moment, on any given day.
This plethora of opposing beliefs keeps us locked into warring differences that vie for supremacy, an attempt by each side to install their belief system as the overarching truth. However, the more sublime impact of the Trump Show is the revelation that belief systems are just that, bulwarks of narcissism that veil other truths and realities, and prevent deeper exploration and knowing of those truths and realities.
And now, as we begin to see through the relativity of our limiting belief systems, what is the broader reality that approaches us?
Energetic reality is the new frontier. The Trump Show has laid bare the dominance of the survival drive, at the animal level, as the basis of current decision making. Energetic reality lays bare the existence of spirit as a dominant guiding force for life, in and beyond the physical body.
What all religious traditions have always held space for, is the existence of a soul, an etheric body that separates from the physical body at death to participate in continued life on new terms, without a physical body. Energetic reality offers the means to experience and explore this realm while still in possession of a physical body.
Robert Monroe was a leader in providing a technology of brain hemispheric synchronization that facilitates such exploration. Carlos Castaneda shared a simpler technology toward the same end, that of intent. The potential that each technology offers is direct experience of one’s soul, on an energetic plane beyond the physical body.
This energetic exploration is a means to knowing, versus simply hoping, that life continues beyond physical life. With this knowing, life on the physical plane is no longer encumbered by the fear of death, that which has led to the dominance of the survival drive at the animal level of our human selves.
Opening to energetic reality also exposes us to the true nature of our interconnectedness with all of life, on and beyond the planet, as we encounter the subtler energetic dimensions of being. With this broader view we realize that our thoughts influence others, spoken or unspoken. We discover that we too are deeply influenced by the silent thoughts of others, as well as the collective world thought patterns and beliefs, that on any given day large numbers of people may feel depressed and hopeless, or invigorated and hopeful, as the collective energy is felt on an energetic level.
Energetic reality is transparent and largely nonverbal. In energetic reality, we easily read the intentions of others, as well as ourselves. In energetic reality, the instincts of the human animal are seen, known, and accepted. In energetic reality, with a more honest awareness in place, the human animal is granted life with embodied consciousness. Certainly, in energetic reality, the negotiation of intimacy in relationship has the potential to become one of deeply profound union.
The ability to heal and be healed in energetic reality is exponentially advanced, as the subtler dimensions of thought and intention, as energetic change agents, are incorporated more fully and fundamentally into treatment protocols. The understanding of disease, as indicative of the status of the soul—perhaps being blocked in its intent, or forging its intent through the creation of physical symptoms—will deepen diagnostic and treatment approaches.
In energetic reality, inter- and intra-dimensional travel and communication, with souls no longer in human form, will vastly conserve the dense energetic reserves of the planet, currently being exploited for dense body, physical travel. Obsession with materialistic accumulation will give way to energetic creativity, with its boundless right-brain potential properly attuned with a left-brained attitude freed of egotistic fixation.
Though it may be difficult to imagine these profound changes, as we near the edge of the narcissistic platform that has embodied our beliefs, the possibilities I present are already being experienced by many. One need only decide, in earnest, to experience the soul directly, in an out-of-body experience in dreaming. As the body goes to sleep, the natural time for the soul’s dominant activity in our lives awakens. With but a little perseverance, one will have experiences beyond belief.
And so, with the Trump Show shattering our beliefs, the ground is clearing, as we reach the edge of narcissism and venture into a whole new world of energetic possibility.
At the dawning of each new day allow a new internal dialogue to light the way… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The internal dialogue is the Energizer Bunny that never quits. Where would we be in these unraveling times without the incessant voice within that constantly reminds us of who we are, as it judges and organizes how we see and feel about everything, especially ourselves. For better or for worse, this voice provides us with a consistent sense of self, and other, that gives us a secure basis upon which to hold together as we approach every new day in this life.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico acknowledged the magic of the internal dialogue. They saw it as the core technology that generated a consensual reality, which in fact our world really is. On a collective level we all share in an agreed upon interpretation of energy that molds that energy into the physical world we live in. Without such agreement, as dictated by the internal dialogue, our world would lose its cohesion and disintegrate into energy without definition.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico also pointed out that the single most limiting factor in our accessing the full breadth of our inherent potential is the internal dialogue. It fixates us in a narrowly defined closed system that restricts exploration of our fuller potential. This was why Carlos Castaneda repeated endlessly, and taught, the technology for expanded awareness: Suspend Judgment.
The internal dialogue then, like everything else in our world, has dualistic properties. On the one hand, it shapes and protects our world. On the other hand, it locks us in, keeping us from the freedom to explore our fullest potential.
The fiery energy that sweeps the globe presently is the byproduct of the splitting apart of agreement upon the basic tenets of our consensual reality. For centuries humanity stalked the heart center as its moral guide. The technology that supported this was reflected in Christianity’s technology of sacrifice. The animal in humanity was restrained for the sake of its rising spirit. As today’s newspapers once again report—this time in parishes in PA—the shadow of this technology, sexual abuse, has been acted out widely, with impunity, upon the young and innocent.
Politically, we find ourselves in Gotham City, surrounded by archetypal characters of all persuasions freed to express themselves and enact policies that fly in the face of a heart-centered consciousness. The primal energies of sex and power are freed, with impunity, in a governing elite that has lost its moral compass. The external dialogue of leaders is governing the internal dialogue of many whom are reveling in the possibility of generating a new world more to their liking.
In actuality, evolution has required that we take stock of the illusion we have been living; it’s wearing too thin to house all that we are. We are sexual beings. We are power driven beings. We are spiritual beings. We are energetic beings. The splitting apart we are now undergoing reflects all these released energies acting out in disconnected ways. This disintegration was inevitable. No blame. Every time we lock into a definition, we live in illusion. They may be necessary illusions for a time, but ones that must give way if we are to evolve.
On an individual level, it’s time to examine the myth we have personally lived by. A common example: “I am unworthy of love.” For many people this is the deepest tenet of the internal dialogue. It molds the perceptions of self and other to fit its definition. It delivers a consistent sense of self and protects the self from the potential dangers inherent in stepping out of that reality, thus generating a self-fulfilling reality.
Accessing Carlos Castaneda’s tool, to suspend judgment, we suspend the internal dialogue’s judgment of unworthiness. We study it and appreciate its protective functions to deliver us a consistently reliable sense of self, protecting us from rejection and being hurt.
We acknowledge the true self, held in restraint for so long as it upheld that limiting illusion. We allow ourselves to gently stray beyond the boundaries of that familiar unworthy self. We feel love for the being we are, for the life we are in. We allow ourselves to validate our right to be in this world. We allow ourselves to take in nature, in its myriad of forms, speaking to us, validating our existence.
We allow ourselves to become sexual, powerful, spiritual, and energetic beings, whose new internal dialogue brings all these parts together in a balanced way. This is the internal dialogue of our future consensual reality, one that allows a fuller expression of all that we really are, in a truly balanced way.
Take up the challenge on an individual basis, the tallest of orders indeed. Let this time of disintegration serve your personal individuation by daring yourself to step beyond the limiting beliefs of your familiar internal dialogue. Bring in a truer dialogue. Be empowered; love yourself. See what happens as your new internal dialogue remolds your old consensual reality into a far more fulfilling life.
