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Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Odd Couple

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Suggestions in alignment with spirit…
-Artwork © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Suggestions can be likened to sperm, whose intent is to impregnate the egg of the subconscious mind, the mother of manifestation.

Suggestions abound from many sources, such as habits, instincts, and the thoughts and beliefs of others. However, the optimal source of suggestion for the growth of the personality is the conscious ego presenting suggestions to the subconscious in alignment with its soul’s mission in this life.

The oddity of this necessary relationship is that the ego has a long developmental process to arrive at the necessary maturity to optimally lead the personality. This challenge is blatantly illustrated in the power struggles currently riddling the Earth. Rather than address the true needs of the planet, the world ego is stuck in greed, or essentially a narcissistic worldview, which obscures the execution of suggestions of right action to resolve crises.

This same limitation applies to the individual personality, whose narcissistic needs and desires can monopolize habits that impact the health of the physical body, as well as the quality of connection possible in relationships with others.

Many of the suggestions from ego to subconscious result in poor health and failed relationships. It often requires the learning curve of a lifetime for the ego to arrive at the optimal spiritual alignment to truly lead the personality.

At the receptive end is the subconscious mind, whose powers are truly supernatural, yet it lacks the reasoning power of consciousness to select the best suggestions to fulfill. Of course, it has the suggestive influence of the whole of human evolutionary history that expresses itself powerfully in the emotions of instincts, yet even these reactions may not fit with the true needs of life in the modern word.

For example, the instinct of self-preservation might insist upon a prolonged war as the necessary reaction to an attack. As appropriate a reaction to this survival threat as this reaction might be, the more conscious human potential to arrive at resolution through negotiation might prove more effective at finding lasting resolution.

In this case, the ego, with its higher capacities for reason and right action might be the better center for decision making, offering better suggestions to the subconscious mind than the deeply engrained instinctive suggestions that were more necessary at a purely instinctive age of human history.

In contrast to the ego, the subconscious mind does not need to undergo a developmental process. It is fully formed in childhood where its power is quite evident in play. A slight suggestion of a peer as monster, in a game of tag for instance, can preoccupy a group of kids for hours, as they are filled with intense emotional reactions to the easily imagined chasing monster.

The subjective mind in childhood and adulthood can equally take charge of one’s perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and physical actions when a suggestion successfully impregnates it. The subconscious acts as a creative manifester, fully believing and becoming the suggestion it takes in. It remains for the ego alone to reality-test the validity of this activated, or we could even say, possessed, state.

It becomes evident how this odd couple needs each other’s capacities to fully succeed in life. Ego must carefully guard against underhanded suggestions, which abound, from taking root in the subconscious. Energy practices, including stated intentions, can create boundaries against unwanted influences.

The subconscious, in response to ego suggestion, can provide information to the ego similar to the capability of artificial intelligence (AI), which can advance the ego’s problem-solving or knowledge of lived events with its perfect memory. Like AI, however, the subconscious must be monitored and led to exert its influence for the greater good of all. For this, as in all things, one needs a mature adult ego that submits to right action as its guiding principle.

A healthy, intimate relationship between each mind of this odd couple suggests the ultimate evolutionary track for mind during its sojourn in human form. In human terms, it represents the optimal relationship to find fulfillment and individuation in this magical life.

Suggesting wellness,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Reconciliation Of Mind

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Free your wings!
-Artwork © 2023 Jan Ketchel

We are all ultimately One, but the structure of this world that we live in is one of separate objects, with distinct differences.

Christian Science suggests we link our consciousness with our core identity, that perfect Oneness, whereby healing the illusion of disease in a non-existent, separate physical body.

Hindu philosophy calls this illusion of separateness maya. Maya spins and directs lila, the creative divine play that results in the current world drama that we personally experience as the fixed reality of our world. To become enlightened, one must fully engage in the current play yet be aware of the limitations of its illusory solidity, and the fact of its impermanence. That’s what is meant by non-attachment.

The shamans of ancient Mexico call assuming this role of non-attachment stalking. In stalking, we fully embody the character we intend to become, sometimes even temporarily forgetting our true essence as energetic beings when we do so. From a shamanic perspective, our world is generated by fixating our consciousness upon a program that assembles our awareness to perceive a world of distinct solid objects.

Carlos Castaneda pointed out that it is sheer magic to be able to conjure this solid world. He called human beings magical beings because of their ability to so fixate their awareness as to generate such a magical event. However, he truly lamented how this single assemblage point of  awareness had become the sole fixation of human consciousness. We have forgotten that we are indeed magical beings capable of unlimited possibilities.

In my time in Carlos Castaneda’s world, I once observed him personally demonstrate a physical movement to break this fixation of limited awareness. He was a short man. He turned his back to us, performing a kind of shoulder roll.

He keenly stated that we are magical beings whose wings have been clipped. With that he urged us to literally free our wings, demonstrating with a movement initiated from the wing itself; engaging the fullness of the entire back rather than a shallow roll of the shoulder. I saw the profound movement of the depth of his wing.

It’s a simple movement. Imagine the wing. Feel an impulse to move it. Be led by it.

The maya of the human mind is one of duality. We appear to have two distinct minds. That is the divine lila of life as it is played out in the current fixation of the human form. These two minds are the ego and the subconscious. The dance between these two minds is our true inner soulmate relationship in this life, replete with all the agonies and ecstasies of human relationship.

The ego is our objective, reasoning mind. The ego is the seat of consciousness. The ego greatly identifies with life in its physical body. The ego is the home of personal identity; the ego says, “I am.” The ego exercises the directive power of free will, choice, and decision making. The ego is charged with the responsibility of leadership in its human life.

The subconscious is the home of total memory. Every moment of our life is recorded there. While the ego may retain some memory, the subconscious records it all. During recapitulation we experience the relationship of ego and subconscious, as the consciousness of now is reconciled with the full experience of the past.

The subconscious operates through intuition. The subconscious is the remote viewer that can travel way beyond the confines of the physical body and observe events on the other side of the world, or in the cosmos. The subconscious has access to the Akashic records, the collective unconscious history and accrued knowledge of our species.

The subconscious is the seat of telepathy; it receives and can read the thoughts of others. The subconscious runs all the operations of the physical body. The subconscious houses the instincts and is the home of  emotions.

The subconscious is our magical mind. It does not reason; its modus operandi is suggestion. Whatever suggestion it receives, it will fully bring to life. With its vast tools and resources, the subconscious can manifest, to the best of its ability, any suggestion it decides to adopt.

Unknown to us, the ego and the subconscious constantly work in tandem. Thoughts from the ego become directive suggestions to the subconscious, which then turn into a set of habits that automatically control our lives.

The subconscious is also quite receptive to the suggestions of others. We may notice our attitudes, moods and behaviors greatly impacted by our interactions with others. This may largely be the suggestive influence of someone else’s energy upon our subconscious. As opposed to the ego, with its fixed identity, the subconscious does not have a personality. It is an open book that willingly embodies the content of suggestions, wherever they may originate from.

Healthy leadership by the ego, in the quality of its suggestions to the subconscious, creates the ideal relationship between the two minds. This requires the ego to firstly be in alignment with its Spirit as the arbiter of right action. The ego must also accept the existence of the subconscious mind with all its magical capacities. This is often a tall order for the ego to undertake, which clings to its rationality as ruler and dismisses the greater powers of the subconscious mind.

The ego needn’t believe in the power of the subconscious to access it. Merely rotely repeating a suggestion, ad nauseam, is bound to register eventually as a directive to the subconscious. If I notice a headache brewing, I direct my subconscious with the incessant suggestion that the headache is healing, and is healed. If it disappears, as it often does, I acknowledge the fact of the power of the subconscious to heal.

The ego comes into better relationship with the subconscious when it can expand its rationality to include the fact that the subconscious has abilities that appear to defy logic. Exercising the intentional practice of autosuggestion can produce results that broaden the ego’s reason to include the magical potential of the subconscious mind. Rather than dismiss miracle cures as placebo, scientists would do well to study the factual abilities of the subconscious mind to alter physical events in the body through the power of suggestion.

Reconciliation of mind is ego valuing the subconscious, and consciously feeding it suggestions for the greater good of self, other, and world.

When we leave this life in our soul body, our mental body, of ego and subconscious, will leave as one. As we journey beyond the physical body this reconciled mind is our navigator in the great beyond. Use this life now to bring mind into a partnership to truly serve your evolving soul.

Now and then,*
Chuck

*I am blown away by the magic of the release of the modernly engineered Now and Then, the Beatle’s final song, which is #1 on the musical charts. The generation of now is claiming their own rightful ownership of the Beatle’s Aquarian magic, as well as John Lennon’s soulful reconciliation of relationship. May its energy further permeate the world and its reconciliation of relationship.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Greatest Love Affair Of All

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The subconscious becoming conscious…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The ultimate love affair, in Hindu cosmology, the union of Shakti and Shiva, takes place within the human body. Shakti, in her energetic form, as Kundalini, rests in the coccyx, at the base of the human spine. Kundalini is the divine manifesting substance and force  of all creation. Shiva, the God of pure consciousness, resides at the crown of the human head.

These divine consorts, situated at the opposite poles of the spinal column, are also oppositely charged. Shakti is negative and Shiva is positive. The resulting magnetic force of attraction of these opposites draws this divine couple irresistibly toward the goal of union.

The union of Shakti and Shiva is the union of Spirit, which is consciousness, and Matter, which is the creative energy of all material manifestation. The progeny of their union is the  world we live in. This dynamic union and creation is expressed in Judeo-Christian cosmology in John’s Gospel, “in the beginning was the word (Spirit consciousness) and the word was made flesh (Matter).”

Upon awakening early one morning, I was contemplating Shakti and Shiva’s relationship when Jan abruptly woke from a dream. She told me she had just been in India, where a very tall ladder that had pointed vertically into the heavens was brought down and positioned horizontally, both balanced and secure, across several buildings.

Jan reflected that the roof is the highest spiritual point of a building that is grounded in the earth. The message of the dream: the spiritual journey that is needed now is not a vertical rise, out-of-body into the heavens, but instead a horizontal in-body journey, as one traverses the challenges of their human life, with all its relationships upon the Earth.

These challenges are neatly laid out in Hindu science, as the path that Kundalini traverses through the chakras, or subtle energy power stations along the spine, en route to Shiva. Actually, each chakra entails its own horizontal journey, which requires mastery as we move toward greater fulfillment in life.

The base of the spine center asks us to find grounding, safety and security. The genital region introduces us to sexual and creative energy, which entail their own developmental processes. The solar plexus introduces us to I, as ego, and the mastery of personal power. The heart introduces us to our connection to our Spirit and deepest truth. The throat is about finding our voice. The third eye brings forth intuition. As Kundalini reaches Shiva, at the crown, consciousness unites and becomes one with all creation. In a human life, the fulfillment of this state is experienced as we relax increasingly deeper into ever-widening equanimous love.

The duality of Shakti and Shiva is also expressed in the two minds of the human psyche: the subconscious mind and the ego.

The subconscious, Shakti, is feminine in its receptivity to suggestions. The subconscious has access to all knowledge and creative possibility, as well as the substance to birth new life, but, without union with the novel suggestions of consciousness, is governed by instinctual programs and habits.

The ego, Shiva, is identified with life in the physical body and is the seat of consciousness. Regardless of gender, ego is masculine in its active thinking capabilities. It is the seat of free will and decision making.

The human ego has many developmental challenges it must master, similar to those identified with the chakras. Ego must establish safety and grounding; be introduced to and master sexuality and its animal self, as well as exercise its own capacity to intend creation; become autonomous and have the power of self-assertion; develop humility and acquiescence to truth and its High Spirit Self; use its voice; see beyond its narcissistic shell; and, ultimately, become one with everything.

The subconscious faces no developmental challenges because the subconscious is completely fluid, it can be anything. In contrast to the ego, the subconscious is attached to no identity; it simply responds to the suggestion it entertains at the current moment.

The challenge in human development is for ego to be in the correct relationship with the subconscious mind. Essentially, the ego is the creator, issuing forth the word or image of intent, whose suggestion fertilizes the subconscious, which then galvanizes its substance to manifest new life. The subconscious, in all of us, is the true mother of creation.

If ego does not master safety, it suggests danger to the subconscious, which then manifests an anxious, vigilant personality. If ego suggests inadequacy, the subconscious may manifest a tightened voice. If ego suggests superiority, the subconscious may manifest a pompous, condescending posture and attitude. If ego suggests entitlement to the subconscious, it may manifest a tendency to violate boundaries.

If, on the other hand, the ego aligns with and suggests the truth, the subconscious will open the eye to greater truth and perception. If the ego suggests true love to the subconscious, it activates an energy that draws to us resonant energy. If ego suggests it stay in alignment with its Spirit’s purpose, the subconscious will synchronistically manifest that yellow brick road.

The guidance here is to remain quite protective of the suggestions one both exposes oneself to, as well as personally presents to, the subconscious mind. We live in a time where highly suggestive messages are bombarding both our thinking and subconscious minds at an unprecedented rate, largely due to our attachment to devices, the self-importance of dings, and well-coordinated efforts to infiltrate and influence our subconscious minds.

At the most evolved level, the relationship between ego and subconscious is equivalent to the love affair between Shakti and Shiva. Ego, acting from the insinuation of its Spirt, joining with the magic of the subconscious, is truly the greatest love affair of all. May we all participate in birthing that dream.

With consciousness and infinite possibility,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Soulplay

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From soul to Soul to SOUL!

SOUL in its fullness…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

There is indeed a developmental line of soul. Although we are born with the fullness of an immortal SOUL, it takes a human lifetime to bring on line a fully conscious knowing and relatedness of all dimensions of SOUL.

The subconscious dimension of our tripartite SOUL is connected to the physical body at the lower chakras, located beneath the solar plexus. The major intention of the little soul at this first level, as distinguished by a lower case “s” in the word soul, is survival, both at a species and an individual level. Sexual energy is its currency. As Freud rightly discovered, the little soul bridges body and mind, as it stimulates the psychosexual development of the individual and ultimately secures continuation of the species.

This subconscious little soul is not a thinking center; it strictly obeys the spirit laws of DNA, instinct, and the archetypes of the collective unconscious. The subconscious little soul oversees the majority of functions of the central nervous system, through the ancient limbic system of the physical brain.

As well, repetitive conscious behaviors drift into the subconscious little soul and become automatic habits. One obvious example is driving a car, which is largely managed by the subconscious little soul while the conscious mind, the ego Soul (distinguished by an upper case “S”),  floats elsewhere.

Although the subconscious little soul is highly automatic it is equally highly responsive to suggestion. As hypnotists demonstrate, the subconscious little soul can be influenced by conscious intervention. In trance, a hypnotist’s suggestion can become the subconscious little soul’s instructor, as it materializes, in behaviors, the instructions it has been given.

Furthermore, yogis, deep meditators, and shamans demonstrate a high degree of control over such functions as heart rate, physical healing, and shapeshifting, where the actual physical form can be changed via the power of conscious intent, i.e., the Soul’s will, at the ego level, directing the subconscious little soul’s relationship with physical matter.

I suggested in a prior blog that projection is the language of the little soul at this subconscious level of being, where it purposely mirrors itself on people and things in the world that attract and stir the ego—the conscious level of the Soul—to further its primal intent.

The subconscious little soul is equally capable of projecting its will through one’s own physical body. This is the basis of psychosomatic medicine, where ego Soul’s decisions that impact the body are challenged by the subconscious little soul. Essentially, the subconscious little soul creates a dysfunction in a body system to communicate to the ego Soul the error of its ways. Healing then requires the ego Soul to interpret the problem and change its ways.

The second level of Soul (with a capital “S”) is ego-consciousness, centered at the solar plexus chakra, the power center. Likened to the Garden of Eden, the ego Soul is where human beings grabbed and consumed the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, gaining their ability to choose their own behavior, even over the will of the archetypes, the gods of the powerful collective unconscious, rulers of our automatic, subconscious being.

From the furnace of the solar plexus center come the powerful emotions that influence the ego Soul’s will. Regardless of the freedom of choice, at this center the ego Soul’s worldview is largely narcissistic; it cannot see beyond its own needs and being. Whereas the little soul, at the subconscious level, operates via projection, the ego Soul, at the solar plexus chakra, operates through the mirror of self-reflection. Thinking is limited to what one sees in the mirror! World leadership is currently largely fixated at this level, where me only is the dominating principal.

The next level of ego Soul refinement takes place at the heart center chakra. Here the ego Soul cracks its mirror of self-reflection and begins to be able to reflect, that is, think, objectively. At the heart center, the ego Soul can see beyond itself to the true nature of interconnected reality and thus is capable of deep compassion for all beings.

Deep compassion does not mean allowing oneself to be harmed by an attacker. As even the Dalai Lama points out, sometimes we may need to protect ourselves aggressively from attack. Nonetheless, we still hold compassion for our enemy, a vital part of our totally interconnected world. This is the message of the Bhagavad Gita: both sides of the warring parties are God. This guidance appears particularly poignant in the world’s current fixation.

With the ego Soul equipped with interconnected awareness at the heart center, it is fully capable of right action—action that is truly right for our interconnected world. Thus, at the heart center level, decisions reflecting global warming would be in alignment with the overall survival of the planet, as opposed to the ego Soul stuck at the self-reflection level of the solar plexus, which cannot see or act beyond what it sees in the mirror: me!

Perhaps the best characterization of an evolved ego Soul, residing at the heart center, is that of a General following the plan of a Ruler, residing in the immortal third SOUL level, as distinguished in full upper case letters: “SOUL.”

The immortal SOUL is the high self that corresponds to the highest chakras, from throat to crown. Communications from this high center reflect the journey of the immortal tripartite SOUL through infinity. From here, we have access to all knowledge, as was evident in Edgar Cayce’s healing readings from the Akashic Record. From the immortal SOUL comes knowledge of all past life, much as the brain, at a physical level, can be seen as a storage drive for all sensory experience in this current life.

The immortal SOUL communicates via intuition and synchronicity. An ego Soul that has broken the shell of its narcissistic encasement and evolved to the heart center recognizes and resonates with the intuitive promptings of the immortal SOUL.

Synchronicity is the immortal SOUL’s manipulation of time and space, and even matter, to validate, support, and further the ego Soul’s decisions and actions, or, as needed, invalidate or challenge them as well. The immortal SOUL is the ultimate source of manifestation of intent.

Ego Soul does best to align its intent with immortal SOUL’s intent, which would be to solve one’s deepest challenges and find fulfillment in one’s current life on Earth. This alignment is sure to bring positive synchronicities, including positive relationships and resources to complete the necessary tasks of a lifetime.

All levels of our tripartite SOUL selves—from subconscious little soul, to ego Soul, to immortal SOUL—coexist in our human energy body, intertwining with our physical body in this lifetime. To judge and negate the subconscious little soul, due to its lowly position, would be to lose one’s footing in the world. To cling to, or solely identify with, the immortal SOUL would be to live in the heavens, without doing one’s work while in material reality.

To negate the needs and concerns of the subconscious little soul could prove fatal to one’s physical body. To not seize appropriate power at the ego Soul level, and protect one’s person, could prove equally fatal. The ego Soul, at the heart center, must mediate between the subconscious little soul and the immortal high SOUL. As above, so below is the operative suggestion here.

When subconscious little soul, ego Soul, and immortal SOUL are on the same page, all is right with the world! May this coming New Year bring us closer to such alignment!

Peace, alignment, and a whole lot of SOUL to all, and remember to enjoy your Soulplay,

Chuck