Let not the troubles of the world add to your own troubles any more than they have to. Take control of your subconscious mind, of what you allow it to say to you, of what you allow to come into it, and of what you allow it to present to you as truth. Be aware of how the subconscious mind is like a sponge. It will soak up what is presented to it, endlessly. The trick is to stay on top of it, on top of what is presented to it and on top of using your autonomy to conclude something other than the norm. Look forward to freeing your mind of its habitual patterns, of its old beliefs and of its automatic decisions. With an open mind and an open heart turn away from the old and ask to be shown new ways of interpreting life, new visions to supplant old ones, and new ideas to take the place of the old. You do have the capacity to do this type of replacement work within your own mind. Take a moment today to think in a different manner about one important thing that controls your life now. See what you come up with that will help you to shift into a new, more positive mode of mind.
Empty your mind of motives of power and let go of your attachments to the sadnesses of your life thus far lived. Open instead to the idea that you have not really lived at all yet. Turn your mind and your eyes in a new direction now. Take on a different kind of power, the power that embodies responsibility, honesty, truth and humbleness. This kind of power does not show on the outside in material ways but appears as an inner glow. This is the internal experience of your true self. With kindness to yourself, and with a heart-centered desire to finally make the change that is so necessary now, embark on that new journey you have so wished for. If you proceed with an open and eager heart you will be offered all the assistance you need. If you stay stuck in victimhood, in blame and self-pity, you will have to work a little bit harder, until you are ready. But know that new life awaits! When you are ready, take your first real and honest step. You will feel very vulnerable at first, but, as you learn to trust that you are being helped along the way, your confidence will increase and pretty soon you will be flying along. Keep your finger on the gratitude button as you go. That helps immensely!
When you give something away you make room for something new to come into your life. When you let go of something in your mind you open up for new insights to come to you. When you say goodbye to old habits and behaviors that no longer have purpose in your life, you say hello to new and beneficial, healthy habits. When you let go of something that no longer is necessary, on all levels of your being, whether thoughts, habits or beliefs, you allow something new and fresh to approach you. With more room inside you for something new, and awareness that you are only going to let in that which is beneficial to you, you begin to take back your power and to own your own life once again, or perhaps for the first time ever.
In a dream, Jan was given valuable, museum-quality antiques. They were in a white box truck, parked by our orange barn. We were preparing to bring them to a climate controlled storage unit.
Suddenly, though the engine was turned off, sparks shot up from the engine and the truck exploded, destroying its contents completely. The fire trucks arrived, but all was lost. From an indifferent mindset, Jan wondered if insurance might cover the loss.
The fire was ignited by a spontaneous combustion from within the engine itself. Shamans from Carlos Castaneda’s lineage typically, or metaphorically, left this world, at death, through what they called the burning of the fire from within. As their physical body ignited into nothingness, their energy body, or soul, launched into infinity.
In the shaman’s world, this burning from within marked the culmination of the life of an impeccable warrior, one whom had risen above the dualism of this world and was fully prepared to continue the adventure of truth in the next plane of existence.
Our inner fire is generated by our mind’s intent. Though mind is invisible, its thoughts, beliefs, emotions and karmic threads ignite the subconscious mind to transform our lives. It remains for our conscious ego to take command of and direct the subconscious mind to align with the truth of its High Self.
The white color of the truck that contained the antiques suggests purity, innocence and new beginnings. The orange color of the barn foreshadowed the unavoidable fire. These symbols suggest the alchemical operation of calcination where the substance, or prima materia one is seeking to transform, is broken down by fire, leaving behind a purified residue.
The prima materia of a human life is comprised of the karmic threads, desires, beliefs and emotions that bind and define one’s life and obscure access to resolution beyond the fray of the polarities, which dominate earthly life. This dream fire was not a fire of neglect. This fire was a necessary stage in the realization of an intent to grow.
The actual fire consumed the physical form of the treasured antiques, transforming them into spirit movement, as the gasses were released into the air. The risen spirits of these antiques were released from encasement in their solid matter to become active energy forces, made available to address the issues of now.
Antiques may be equated with ancient habits or beliefs that have shaped our attitudes and controlled our lives. Antiques might also reflect the values we admire and strive to live by. However, as antiques, these reflections of spirit remain outside of the self, possessed superficially as owned material objects. To bring them into life, we must take them on as parts of our own self, bringing them inward, reckoning with them, and allowing them to finally be calcined by the flames of our own inner fire, our desire for new life. No longer solid projections, their energy is liberated for other usage.
Tibetan meditation of the Bön Buddhism tradition asks us to neither suppress nor repress the inner fire of our triggers, with their powerful negative emotions. We are asked to remain with the thoughts, emotions and sensations in our mind and body, such as that which is contained in the white truck in Jan’s dream, with the goal of reaching compassion for self and other. Compassion, when reached, causes the energized emotion to fly off like a freed bird, leaving behind full acceptance and neutrality.
Compassion is achieved as we disengage from being possessed by the flame of blame and judgment of self and other. As we burn with the polarities that feed our inner fires, we learn to see all behaviors as part of All That Is. We recognize and own our shadow, as projected onto our neighbor. We now know that we share all the traits of our neighbors and are thus able, as Christ suggested, to “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. We become detached, compassionate beings.
As we enter the fiery month of Leo, in the midst of Mercury in Retrograde, our container is the Earth itself, stuck in the grip of a heat dome of smoldering negative emotions and actions. The threads of the karma of a holocaust are completing in the generation of another human holocaust. On a more comprehensive level, the karma of humankind’s predilection for materialism, with its ever-growing attempt to possess and enslave the Earth, is reaching its own karmic balance in the holocaust to all life on the planet. This manifestation of powerfully destructive forces is being brought to bear upon the antiquated pillars of a civilization that has controlled and defined us for centuries.
We are being shown that the progressive forces that might have been empowered to take us in a positive direction have been denied, because they too would likely become unwitting partners to the antiquated ways of yesteryear. Cosmic Karma is insisting upon a major conflagration of total breakdown before releasing the buds of new life. To arrive at this, it is time to rise above the prejudices of polarity into the clear view of Oneness. We are being delivered to the necessity of a new spiritual attitude to take us forward into new life.
I am convinced that this new spiritual attitude centers on our valuation of, and exercise of, the power of the subconscious mind. Our greatest powers, individually and collectively, are the suggestions we imagine and state, filled with the emotions and passions we deliver to the subconscious mind. Humankind is finding its way to the positive use of this inner power, largely because of the inevitable conflagration of the Earth itself by humankind, already underway, that will require inspired and responsible spiritual leadership to transcend.
The antiques of materialism and narrow rational thinking must now be calcined, as the Age of Aquarius ushers in the power of the imagination and advancing spirit to manifest and direct new life.
Jan’s dream ended with total detachment from the loss of the valuable antiques. Furthermore, there was no attachment to the thought of possible reimbursement from the loss.
We are entitled only to the reactions to our actions, our karmic threads. If incinerated antiques are transformed into money, or available energy, so be it, but no attachment to the outcome.
In the dream, all was purified and fully released to new life. This is the spiritual prize of submitting to the burning of the fire from within: Our purified non-dualistic selves become capable of delivering, to the subconscious mind, the suggestion for new life, led by truth.
Don’t forget to use that magic broom that we taught you about last week. Use it to sweep negativity away, to clear your channels, your inner organs and your energy blockages so that you free up more energy. Use it daily as part of your morning and evening practice, to sweep away anything that might get in your way as you start your day and then at night to sweep away anything that might have attached to you during the day. Sweep your inner house every day and you will begin to notice a change coming over you. Perhaps you will begin to feel clearer in mind and body. And that is certainly good!
