Change is inevitable; it happens. Even when you are unaware of it, doing your habitual routine, change is underway. Little by little, one day and one step at a time things are changing. To become conscious of change and to participate in a thoughtful, wise manner is to partake in your own evolution, as well as that of the planet. To make important decisions that support positive change is the ultimate participation in the inevitable. To have experience of what change means and how it impacts is partaking in your own destiny. Consciously be the changing being you already are, and with awareness turn your journey into one of learning, enlightenment and positive, meaningful outcome. It really is all in your hands. Be your own change maker.
Even the Earth manifests healing intent… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The body is formed and functions according to a hardwired set of autonomous rules that don’t involve consciousness. At the subconscious level of the mind these rules are activated and employed to support the daily activities of life with little conscious awareness or input.
The belief that our genetics will basically control our physical destiny is an assumption that underlies modern attitudes toward the body. This is supported by the fact that the genetic makeup of an individual is in fact preprogrammed and if left to its own devices will predictably evolve along the lines of its innate algorithms.
Consciousness has the power to break ranks with these powerfully controlling inner laws. At a simple level, a body predisposed to diabetes may have some control over the manifestation of that disease through the exercise of certain food choices. This same principle applies to many potential diseases that may not activate due to preventative behavioral choices.
At a higher more subtle mental level is the influence of belief on physical conditions. This is dramatically demonstrated with the placebo effect, where mental belief alone might cure or cause a disease. Thus, ascertaining one’s core beliefs, assessing the power of their influence, and considering suspending those beliefs in the service of manifesting a new possibility is a good practice to deepen one’s influence upon the body.
At an even more subtle dimension of the mind is the fact that thought is an energetic entity. Thoughts, in fact, have the possibility to randomly fly out of the head and enter the headspace of another person. The power of directed thought to manifest an action on the physical plane is demonstrated by the healing intent being transferred in a Reiki or Therapeutic Touch session.
At an even deeper subtle mental dimension is the fact that while in human form, that is, alive in a human body, the body serves the evolution of consciousness. Thus, if our growth requires changes in our body to support our spiritual growth, our consciousness might be able to rewrite or take charge of the rules that typically govern our physical functioning.
This level of potential change requires that we are in full acceptance of our body as is, that we can truly say we love it. If we are at war with our body we will have difficulty transcending its limitations, as the energy of change is the energy of love. Our process of change at this stage will require much attention to deep, loving acceptance of what is. The potential of what might be can only be built upon this loving foundation.
With the exercise of free will in choices, in suspending limiting beliefs, in sending positive healing thoughts and love to the body, in evolving overall consciousness, anything is possible. At least until proven otherwise!
Carl Jung defined a psychological complex as a ‘feeling toned idea’ that acts quite autonomously in the human psyche. When Jung was performing his word association tests he observed that certain words triggered delayed reaction times and emotional reactions in his experimental subjects. Something ‘else’ was interfering.
This led to his discovery that there are autonomously functioning parts of the psyche acting outside of consciousness. Jung called these influences ‘complexes’. Freud spent his entire career highlighting the Oedipal complex, which he considered the greatest unconscious influence upon the human psyche.
Today we have terms like alters, ego states, fragmented parts or archetypes to depict these autonomous influences upon consciousness. Robert Monroe took Western psychology a step further with his research into out-of-body (OBE) states, where consciousness discovers non-material parts of the self that regularly influence consciousness from subtler planes of existence.
Monroe’s discoveries concur with Hindu science with respect to the emotional/desire body as the first to be encountered in an OBE state. Many OBE explorers report an encounter with excess sexual desire in their early explorations. Monroe also discovered a preponderance of sexual preoccupation by many travelers who had left human form through physical death, as they remained fixated on sexual activity, though lacking a physical body.
Monroe’s discovery certainly lays credence to Freud’s emphasis upon the overarching significance of sexuality for human beings. Sex may be the major karmic issue that sends disembodied spirits back into human life. Monroe also reported encounters on the astral plane with the energy body of sleeping human beings, equally preoccupied with sex in their dream states.
Beyond sex are the many emotional attachments that humans, in their energy body OBE states, are found to be preoccupied with. Civilization, with its emphasis upon reason, uniformity and conformity, has suppressed and repressed the spontaneous living of impulse. What we previously considered as repressed and contained within the psyche in the physical body may be very actively living on the astral plane outside of human consciousness.
The current polarized attitudinal split in the human race might actually reflect this polarized split within the human psyche, manifesting as an outer collective opposition. If we distill this opposition, it could be reduced to, simply, reason vs impulse. Resolution of this opposition is fundamental to unified progress.
Shamans introduced the practice of recapitulation as one’s individual soul retrieval journey. If one can bring consciousness and reconciliation to all of one’s parts, one can achieve wholeness while in human form. To the extent that this remains incomplete will determine one’s karma. After all, how can one go forward as a fragmented soul. One must first discover and gather together all of one’s parts.
Elmer Green served as his wife Alyce’s shamanic guide in her journey through Alzheimer’s disease. Alyce had spent her entire adult life immersed in the highest of spiritual principles. As her energy body journeyed into the astral plane, as she went the course of Alzheimer’s, she encountered her shadow self, the repressed and unloved side of herself, for the first time.
Besides her memory loss, she became paranoid and rageful much of the time. These experiences were largely driven by her encounters with her unknown self. With extreme patience, Elmer helped her to get grounded and reconcile with her fuller self. This enabled her to enter infinity at an advanced level, well beyond the shadow bardos, when she physically died in this world.
Jung’s choice of the word complex to denote autonomous parts of the psyche truly holds up. Humans are complex beings! The key challenge in human form is to resolve all of one’s complexes and become one’s true wholeness. With wholeness one’s energy is fully united, as everything becomes possible.
“To seek freedom… be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.” – Don Juan Matus, from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
It’s a mighty challenge to be born into this life as an ego, a limited point of consciousness, separated from its greater wholeness. This limitation is the price we pay to exclusively explore one facet of the fuller diamond we are, in a life that begins and ends in space/time.
Ego has risen beyond the control of its own instinctual nature into a being capable of making its own decisions. This evolution beyond the strict control of its subconscious programming has given rise to civilization and human domination of the Earth.
This moment we are now living in is the ultimate exploration of ego’s freedom to consider only itself —its wants and needs— as the basis of its governing decisions. The sky is the limit for the ego of now, much like Icarus, whose intoxication with flying on his wax wings drew him higher and closer to the sun.
It’s inevitable that ego test the limits of its power. Simply observe the toddler testing its newfound powers of locomotion. Caution is thrown to the wind in the thrill of discovery and autonomous movement. This same excitement of power and mastery accompanies ego at all stages of life.
Truthfully, however, underneath it all, ego knows it is inherently inadequate. How could it be otherwise? Ego is but a fragment of its greater wholeness. Ego’s underlying instinctual programming has heralded evolution, devoid of consciousness. Ego’s now conscious ability to negate that programming is a tremendous feat, but ego also lacks the wisdom packed into those archetypal programs. Managing the survival of the planet requires more wisdom than ego can possibly amass in its limited time on Earth.
The evolutionary challenge now posed to ego is to rise above its egoism and discover a higher authority within itself that can teach it the path of right action. Ego must silence its own internal dialogue that incessantly attempts to keep it secure in its knowing of everything. In the silence beyond that chatter is the voice of wisdom that resides in the mature heart.
Ego needn’t feel ashamed of its objective inadequacy. Ego has the unparalleled gift of consciousness, but it must discover how to exercise its powers in the service of the greater whole that it is but a fragment of. Ego is not yet convinced it can’t simply go it alone, hence, it is currently testing the hypothesis that it is all that there is.
After the fall of this experiment, ego, like Icarus will come down to Earth with the humility proper to its status. This is the ego that will accept that it is indeed but a solitary candle amidst the light of a billion stars. However, this acceptance of its smallness, lacking any illusory inflation, is the attitude that will protect that flame from perhaps ever blowing out.
May we all find our way to the smallness of a single candle flame. With such humility, we connect to the wisdom awaiting us all in our mature hearts.
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!
