Category Archives: Personal Growth

Destiny? Divine Guidance?

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I was reflecting this morning on how I ended up here in Phoenix.  The decision was made while lying under a pine tree at a park on Crab Cove in Alameda.  I was chanting the Padmasambhava Mantra (although I didn’t know it had a name back then) when there was a glorious shift in energy.  In that moment I understood I had to return to Arizona to pursue a closer relationship with The Asian Classics Institute.  The realization was a combination of what occurred in that moment along with supporting evidence from dreams I’d been having.  Back in those days I called this divine guidance.

These days, I don ‘t look at it the same way.  Last year I had an experience that made me realize what I was calling divine guidance was simply different aspects of my mind.  And those aspects of mind do not always have my highest good in mind.  This wasn’t an intellectual discovery, but a realization of truth.  Realizations are hard to convey to others, since people just start to think about them.

For instance, many of us have heard the fact that solid matter is really just 99% space.  This means that it isn’t really as “solid” as we think.  Now, if I have the realization that solid matter is mostly space, I would be able to walk through walls.  Do you see the difference?  A realization, in the way I am talking about it, changes things.  An idea or understanding doesn’t have that power.  If I tell someone I have realized that matter is mostly space they will want to talk about it (or they won’t be really interested).  Yet, what I’m trying to convey is that I can walk through walls.

What I realized last year was that a fundamental aspect of my spiritual path does not exist.  There is no spirit in my spirit-driven life.  My intuition is clouded by karmic firings of my brain.  When I am attracted to something it could very well be because I have unresolved issues.  This realization rocked my boat a little, but it is indeed one step closer to freedom.

I’ve been seeing this a lot in my consulting practice lately.  People come in with mental afflictions they want relief from.  The mental afflictions appear to be in reaction to their relationships with parents, friends, partners or children.  When I start digging around they claim past life connections with the people involved in these situations.  People often have vows, oaths, and/or debts that they don’t realize.  It is these that are actually driving their reactions and actions.  Once they are released from these obligations, they are free to be in the present with these people.  Fears, anger, and dysfunctional patters just fall away.

I am reminded of a story where the Buddha was doing this same kind of work with a young man.  My version of the story goes like this.  The young monk saw a young woman on the street and could not get her out of his mind.  He goes to the Buddha to be released from his monk vows so he can pursue her.  The urge is so strong, he is sure it is his destiny.

The Buddha show the young man two of his past lives.  In one he is a deer and because of his attraction to this female he is killed by a hunter.  In the other tale he is a fish and because he blindly follows her he ends up in a fisherman’s net while she escapes.  He tells him this is just two of many lives he has ended up dead because he has pursued this same woman.  His desire is not destiny, but just a continuation of the same habitual pattern.

If I was doing ThetaHealing with this monk, I might check to see if he has the vow or belief that he has to give his life for this woman.  He might have made this vow in a past life in a moment of extreme passion, and now it is showing up in a convoluted manner.  If we remove the vow, he might find that the strong urge to be with her just drops away.  The Buddha’s approach is cognitive behavioral approach.  My approach is to cut away the root of the desire.

This is how it goes: someone comes to me with unusual fear regarding a loved one and the fear is telling them something bad is going to happen to their loved one and that they will “die” if this occurs.  Instead we find that fear is based on an unattainable goal that says “I must protect them”.  Once the belief is removed they experience peace.  They can then choose how to be in relationship to that person.  The little mental potential that has been driving their actions and emotions has been destroyed.

Next time you think, “This is my karma, my destiny, my fate, or the divine’s will for me.”  consider the possibility that you are being driven by some old habitual pattern.  Consider the questions:

  • What is for my highest good, given my current goals?
  • Could this be a habitual pattern or reaction motivated by my long dead past?
  • What could I be choosing if I didn’t choose this?
  • How did I create this?

 

Some urges do serve our purpose.  Only you can determine what is best for you.  The answers are within you.  However, even when you get an answer, it only is applicable for that moment.  Keep asking the questions in each moment and avoid locking yourself into a conclusion.

Relationships

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I teach and use in my private practice a healing modality called ThetaHealing®.  Among the many techniques in ThetaHealing is a way to clear DNA knowledge (whatever that is) you have shared with others.  In addition, we can use the method to bring back soul fragments that might have been given to or exchanged with other people.  This is particularly useful to do when someone is ending a relationship.  I have found that sometimes, many years after a person has legally divorced their partner, they still are energetically “married” to them.

We are cautioned to not do this DNA knowledge clearing if still in a relationship.  The result of doing so?  Well, one will go home and find they “don’t know” their partner anymore.  Their partner will “feel” like a stranger.  They will need to start over to build their historical knowledge base.

Recently, I’ve been studying another way of clearing limitations called Access Consciousness®.  In contrast to ThetaHealing, it is suggested by Access Consciousness teachers that you actual destroy and uncreate your relationships everyday.  Since I had studied ThetaHealing first and accepted their “rule” of not swiping clean the historical knowledge of current relationships, I was surprised by Access Consciousness having a completely opposite tenet.

Who is right?

First, there is no right or wrong way.  Each of the methods is designed to give a particular result.  The one to use is the one that matches your personal aims.

ThetaHealing will help maintain your relationship as smooth and predictable.  In a society where “living happily every after” and relationship longevity are valued, the idea of retaining historical knowledge of one’s partner is important. We rely on DNA knowledge to keep our relationships on “auto-pilot”.

ThetaHealing is truly a healing modality.  No strings attached.  The founder teaches people how to see more and change things through connection to source.  What you do with the tools is up to you.  The warning about not clearing DNA knowledge of your partner is based on people being unhappy with the result when they did it.  Most people do not want to have to reinvest the energy they spent learning about their partner.

Access Consciousness, in contrast, actually has more of an agenda for us.  Their tools are “designed to facilitate more consciousness for everyone”.  While Access Consciousness fails to give a clear and complete definition of consciousness they do claim, “Consciousness is the ability to continually awaken to more possibility, more choice and more life”.  They also state, “Consciousness includes everything and judges nothing®”.1  From these statements we can get the gist of what they mean by consciousness.

Access Consciousness encourages choice and free thinking.  Even though “destroying and uncreating your relationships” is a recommendation, one is advised to run it through your filters and decide if it is right for you.  Their recommendation is in alignment with the aim of increasing “consciousness”.

Being totally present is the keystone to “consciousness”.  In order to be present one needs to be in the present and not dwelling in history.  Relationship longevity is not the goal.  Being totally present in one’s relationships is the goal.  Since the “past is dead”, clearing it out everyday provides an opportunity to be totally present.  Having a fixed picture of our partner, ourselves,  or our relationships doesn’t allow as much potential for change as letting go of that picture each day.

REFERENCES
1.   Gary M. Douglas, Access Bars Manual, January 2015,  Access Consciousness, LLC, Houston, Texas.

2.  ThetaHealing

American Bad-Ass Survivalist

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Thanks to my good friend that lent me her “American Bad-Ass Survival Guide” with bonus DVD “Lockpicking Secrets” I motivated to “break” into my crawl space this morning.  My crawl space is the most secure area of my home.

lock

One of two locks on my crawl space opening

It has two monster pad-locks on it that are even hard to open with the key.  (Of course, that was before I inadvertently threw the key away.)  The pad locks secure a metal covered piece of wood that covers the hole to the crawl space.  Why such security?  I don’t have an answer for that.  The crawl space houses two pet rabbits and even the copper pipe has been replaced by plastic alternatives.  Not much of value down there anymore.

While the lock-picking DVD did provide instruction on lock-picking, the method to open a pad lock is simpler and entails the use of a metal shim.  The metal shim is slid down into the area of the locking bar and causes the lock to simply open.  If you are interested, there is a nice wiki on how to make and use a metal shim.

After I made my shim and put them in position the lock still did not open.

hasp

Sawed opening to release lock from hasp

lockhammer

Using the hammer to release the second lock. Aluminum can shims at the top left.

I then remembered how hard these locks were to open even with the key.  I got out my bolt cutters, but, alas, they were too small.  Then I went for the hack-saw.  It seemed to only polish the shaft of the lock.  However, I realized that the metal the lock was attached to was vulnerable.  I sawed an opening in the metal hasp. (Does this mean I am still a bad-ass survivalist?  Or is this a cop out?)

My opening was just a little too small.  So I got the hammer out to free the lock from the hasp opening.  As I banged on the lock, it sprung open.  Damn!  What a wimpy lock after all.  I tried this out on the second lock.  After a couple bangs it too sprung open.

Interesting that this heavy, solid, hard lock was so easily opened.  And the opening occurred when my intention was not to open the lock, but to simply move it through the sawed opening.

Reflections/Clearings:  How many places am I trying to force something open or control a process when the opening could occur by changing my perspective or changing my focus?  Where have I defined something as hard, invulnerable or stuck within me when an alternative view is possible?  Am I willing to give up my personal view of “stuckness” and entertain the possibility that all aspects of myself are flowing and that creating greater flow may be as easy as continuing to turn the faucet head until the valve is completely open instead of interpreting the slow flow after just one turn as stuckness? RWGBPODPOCA9SBB

Something about this experience reminds me of some healing work I did yesterday with my friend, Marvin Knight.  During the session I realized that some of the things I had assumed were stuck were actually not….