Higher states of consciousness are naturally interesting to people because we all inherently know that things are simply easier to understand when we aren’t lost in our usual day to day problems that plague us from day to day.  There are rare experiences when we are able to see the higher meaning of our lives and these moments help us to achieve greater clarity and value in the things we do.

In addition to the higher value and clarity that we can all achieve in a higher state of consciousness, we can also alleviate the negative feelings that come from our normal day to day routine.  Higher states of consciousness transcend all of our negative emotions and leave us feeling as though we were “floating on air” in a perfect state of peace and contentedness.  With such great promise as this, it is a great wonder that these higher states are so rarely reached and that the secret to their achievement often seems so hard to discover.

The reason why the difficulties arise has to do with a fundamental difference between what is called “theory” and what is called “application”.  In “theory”, we know that higher states of consciousness exist and we can talk about them, read about them and think about them to no end. In “application”, however, we find that we must actually begin to do things that are more real and concrete.

Thinking and reading and talking are all very concrete things and yet they often aren’t concrete enough to bring about a higher state of consciousness.  Our thinking and our books can only take us so far until we find that we actually need to transcend ourselves and go even further.  This makes spiritual work seem extremely hard or even impossible for most people.  We often decide to just “give up” and later on we discover that our “giving up” was actually part of the spiritual process which was necessary in order that we approach our task from a new angle.

Having “given up” on spiritual efforts, we discover that there is still a part of us which seeks those same higher states of consciousness that we originally set out to achieve.  With a new strategy and a more open attitude, we reach a proverbial “second wind” which is mentioned in the classic spiritual book The Cloud of Unknowing.  In this book, the anonymous writer explains how an initial effort to reach a higher state of consciousness often fails but that a person who returns to the effort again after years of “giving up” is almost sure to reach those higher states which they first set out to attain.

The basic effort that is required to reach these states has to do with letting go of negative emotions and becoming more aware of ourselves in the present moment.  We can practice these things each day but often find that they are very hard to achieve for any extended period of time.  Letting go of our grief, anger, fear and guilt are all part of what spiritual effort is all about but actually doing these things turns out to be much harder than we first imagined.  Watching ourselves, observing our thoughts and coming to understand ourselves better are also important elements of spiritual effort but these things only come slowly over years of work and long hours of reading, writing and participating in spiritual groups.  The efforts sometimes seem to much for many people after one or two years and they eventually become distracted by something and fall away from their path.

Falling away from the path is a normal part of spiritual growth and can actually be viewed as a positive step forward after some initial effort has truly been expended.  If the person who falls away from their path doesn’t fall too far off course, they can often find a renewed hope in the idea that there is a “second wind”. This second wind is something that often indicates a true spiritual seeker and someone who has come to understand the true meaning of devotion and dedication to spiritual principles.

If you are intent on reaching a higher state of consciousness, it will be important for you not to forget your second wind.  Many people begin on a spiritual path and even reach certain higher states of consciousness in the beginning.  The true spiritual devotee, however, is that person who has come to a seeming end in their path and has actually fallen away for a time to wonder how a higher state of consciousness can truly be reached.  It is only after their second wind that they truly come to see what higher states of consciousness are really all about.  Good luck to you on your path and don’t forget your second wind!

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“The true value of a human being can be found in the
degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”
- Albert Einstein

The mind – body – spirit analogy is probably the most widely accepted model for representing our understanding of humankind and what constitutes our being. These three distinct parts of the Self seems to encapsulate our entire experience of ourselves and our lives. For decades now most of the analysis about human consciousness revolved around some version of the body – mind  - spirit model. But there is another way of analysing the self (one of many) that is equally valid and in many ways more useful as a way of understanding more about our spirituality and how we can live a more conscious life.

Looking things in a new way can be mind opening. We tend to get so stuck in accepted ways of looking at things that we rarely stretch ourselves to new level of understanding that often comes from looking at something from a new perspective. With this in mind, let’s take a look at spirituality from a different angle – from an angle that will help you in your everyday life and in consciously growing in both your understanding and in your evolution of your spirit.

Each and every one of us have two distinct aspects about ourselves. These two aspects are our constant companions on life’s journey and no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape them. Together they make up your consciousness and your very experience of your Self and your life. The first aspect represents our appearance and the face we wear in this world. It’s called the ego and it that part of you that represents you to others and to the world at large. The ego is like a mask you wear, a mask that is necessary for your spirit to be able to ‘live’ in this life. The second aspect of You, is your spirit or your higher self. It is that part of you that’s invisible and that quietly lives in that inner space deep inside your consciousness.

Try and think of these two aspects of your Self not as two people living inside you, but rather as two sides of the same you. Like two faces of the same coin they are inextricably connected to each other. Both are part of the life force, the one primarily concerned with where you are while the other is primarily concerned with where you came from and where you are ultimately going back to.

Although ego and spirit are so closely related, they have vastly different demands on both your conscious and your unconscious attention. Your ego is primarily concerned with maintaining it’s importance in the world. It always wants to be right and is convinced of the fact that it is separate from everyone else. It’s always in competition – always wanting to be better than everyone else. Ego always strives to have more, to be better and to dominate. The ego’s value is determined by comparing itself to others to see how it stacks up – the ego’s point of reference is always outside of itself.

The world is filled with ego driven people. One of the key characteristics of more spiritual people is their ability to focus more on their spiritual aspect. In many ways the needs of spirit is almost the exact opposite and is not interested in any of the demands that dominate the ego. Spirit’s primary need is to be at peace and being right and conquering others is of no concern to spirit. Spirit has no need for more because it knows that it’s value comes from itself and not from what it gains, what it wins or what it collects and accumulates.

Much of our own inner conflicts arise from a conflict between these two aspects of ourselves. It presents us with two vastly different and conflicting sets of demands. Living a more spiritual life with a greater sense of inner peace and personal fulfilment is primarily about placing greater emphasis on the higher self and on giving the spirit a greater prominence in your life. It’s not a process of slaying the ‘evil’ ego, but rather about learning to subdue the ego and it’s demands in favour of the higher self’s demand to be at peace.

The real question is who you are allowing to run things in your life. Is it ego or is it spirit? If your life is driven by having more, being better than, being right and dominating; then ego is in charge. If your life is driven by having a sense of inner peace, by being compassionate, reaching out to others and giving - then you allow spirit to take over. Living from your higher self is about living in harmony with the flow of goodness of the universe and you will rarely encounter any conflicts. Ego on the other hand thrives on conflict – it’s a chance to proof it’s importance and dominance over other people and circumstances.

Renowned scientist Albert Einstein’s quote above reflects beautifully what we are talking abut here. What he meant with his statement is that we will discover a higher value in being human when we learn to free ourselves from the demands and expectation of the ego. The ‘self’ that he is referring to is the ego. The question is who is running your life? Is it ego or is it spirit? Learning to break through the facade that your ego upholds you can live a more peaceful, joyous and fulfilled life.

The 3 Spiritual Dimensions Of Living An Enlightened Life is a self study course that hones in on more of these ideas and looks at some revolutionary ideas for making spirituality part of who you are and helping you to create a richer experience of life. Click Here… For More Info
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(continues from part 1)

In part 1 we looked at some key ideas about inner peace and we defined inner peace as an inner sense of harmony; a feeling of bliss that we feel deep down inside. In part 2 we will look some of the barriers that we all encounter towards living with a greater sense of inner peace.

1. The Ego
Your ego is that part of you that’s like a veil to your spirit. It’s the external façade that we all wear in order to operate in this world. Your ego constantly reminds you about your separateness and how you have to proof yourself by being better than, faster than or stronger than everybody else. Your ego is the source of most of the conflicts in your life. These can be conflicts with other people and even with yourself because the ego is fixated on being the most important person. Much of the anger, resentment and frustration in your life come from the ego’s demands on you

Having a sense of inner peace allows you to be in harmony with everyone and everything. The effect of inner peace is a sense of unity and you start to see both your environment and your fellow human beings as being connected to you in some invisible way.

Although you cannot rid yourself of your ego, you can go along way in subduing the ego’s demands on you and focusing on living from your higher self instead – making a conscious effort not fall prey to your ego and all the millions of demands it places on you every day.

2. Living In The Future
It’s important to realize that wherever your mind is – there you are. If your attention is in the past or the future, then that is what your experience of life will be. So many people waste away their precious time living their lives in a time other than now. Wallowing in the past serves no purpose and no matter what you do you cannot change that which is over. Worrying about what might happen in the future will only cause you to feel an inner sense of turmoil. Worry tends to consume your entire mind, removing you from feeling at peace.

One of the key spiritual realizations is to understand that the only ‘time’ you really have is now. Where your thoughts are now is where you are. If you think that one day when you have enough money or when the right person comes along or when you are fit and healthy THEN you will be happy – think again! Divert your thoughts and your energy to the present moment instead and give up everything that’s over and done with and let go of everything that might be.
 

3. Spiritual Ignorance
There is an aspect to each and everyone of us that is invisible, yet very real. This higher self, your spirit is who you really are. You will continue to feel unfulfilled in life until you recognize and nurture the seeds of divinity deep within you.

It is this spiritual part of you that seeks to be at peace. When you recognize and nurture your own divinity you can start to listen more to your Self and less to the demands and expectations of the world. Knowing what brings you a sense of inner peace is the essence of living a more peaceful life.

By becoming more aware of these three ‘enemies’ of inner peace you can start to make a more conscious effort to stay connected with your own spirituality and live a more blissful life. An inner sense of quiet and tranquility is a very important part of being happy in your Self. Make it your goal in life not to achieve or have more, but instead to be at peace and reorganize your priorities to create an environment within yourself where your spirit can thrive.

Without inner peace no person can survive. Almost daily we see headlines of super ‘successful’ people having to turn to drugs or alcohol just to cope with the inner turmoil they are experiencing. It’s a challenge that we are all faced with and with every experience of life you have the choice: Do you choose peace or do you choose turmoil? Do you choose to win, to be better, to have more, to proof someone else wrong…OR do you choose that which will bring you inner peace?

“People are born for different tasks, but in
order to survive every one requires the same
nourishment; inner peace.” – SRI SAI BABA

What exactly is inner peace? What does it mean to be at peace? People go around using the word peace very loosely and in our current world circumstances for many the word peace simply means to be free from war and conflict. However, peace has a much more profound and much more significant meaning than mere freedom from war. As Sai Baba pointed out to us – inner peace is the very thing that nourishes our spirit.

Although it’s quite hard to define what inner peace really is, we all know what it feels like because we’ve all had times in our life when we experienced it. For many inner peace shows up in their lives as fleeting moments of bliss and more often than not it is something that they cannot really hold on to. One of the greatest blessings that comes from living a more spiritually conscious life is to cultivate a greater sense of inner peace.

Any form of conflict that you experience removes you from that sense of inner peace. Inner peace is a deep inner sense of ease – a sense of inner comfort and stillness that is both joyful and calming. Inner peace will free you from many of the demands and expectations that drive most people over the edge. By living your life with a greater sense of self awareness you can start to cultivate a sense of inner peace and live life with a greater sense of clarity and perspective. A life of turmoil is characterized by immediate demands and shortsighted gains and like a wildfire you can never quite get the best of it.

Living your life with a sense of inner peace is not so much a conscious pursuit as it is the result of living your life in a certain way. It’s not so much in what you do as it is what you don’t do. Your nature – your own spiritual essence (your soul) comes from a place of peace and it’s ultimate pursuit is to be at peace. The challenge that we are all faced with is that our everyday lives tend to distract us from a sense of inner peace.

In part 2 we will look at 3 of the biggest barriers to inner peace. These are some of the biggest things that cause most people to disconnect themselves from this sense of inner peace. (read more in part 2)

(Click here… for The Secret To Living From Your Higher Self – Part 1)

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of
human existence is to kindle a light of meaning
in the darkness of mere being.” – CARL JUNG

We all know that the really important things in life are not what we usually get caught up in – things like bills, arguments, worries…What really matters is that deep inner sense of peace and happiness. It is that inner part of you, your soul or your spirit which is your higher self; your inner self that really matters. It is ‘the’ Self which is much beyond all that you can perceive. On a deeper and higher level you know this.

The problem is that we tend to postpone our spiritual needs for self realization in favor of the demands of daily life. Carlos Castaneda once said that the problem with humanity is that we all know that we are going to die, yet we live as if we are not. When you realize that you come from somewhere and that you are eventually going back there, you can start to see past the trivialities of everyday life and live a more spiritual life.

It’s so easy to loose perspective and forget your higher self in the pursuits of everyday life. Living from your higher self means that you are consciously living a spiritual life. Underneath the veil of physicality there is an infiniteness to life and there is a bigger picture. Until and unless you slow down and look within you will not see the bigger picture and be blinded only by what you see right in front of you. The majority of people are consumed by their sensory perceptions of life; by facts and analytical thinking. Underneath it all there is an invisible force that is the real driving force behind life.

Living from your higher self starts with the spiritual realization that you are not your body or your mind or your personality, but that you are your spirit. Through conscious growth and raising your spiritual awareness you can start to strengthen your spiritual connection. As you consciously live with the awareness of your higher self you will be able to transcend many of the trivialities of life and become self reliant. Divine guidance is available to you at all time. You simply have to look deep within yourself. You will become more able in integrating your life and all the different aspects of the life experience when you realize that all of life is spiritual.

One of the most liberating aspects of living a more spiritual life is an increased awareness of that which is underneath the surface of events and outer appearances. Having a higher awareness starts with recognizing your own spirituality and then living from your higher self. But, what does it mean to live from your higher self? The idea of the higher self is an age old spiritual understanding. It is a universal belief and can be found in virtually every religion and tradition from the earliest times.

5000 years ago cavemen stared up at the night sky and, transfixed by the moon and stars, they realized that there is something bigger than themselves and that there is a universal intelligence behind all of life and creation. Even though primitive peoples had very little technical understanding of life and the universe (compared to what we know now), they still realized their intricate connection to this life force. Even the most primitive people were always seeking ways to connect to God and to strengthen their relationship to That which they felt an indescribable connection to.

Much has changed since then, yet our spiritual ideal remains very much the same. We still want to know what’s beyond ourselves and we want to know ‘what’ or ‘who’ is behind it all. Is there an architect of the universe and what does she look like? Where does life come from, where are we going and why are we here?

One of the great challenges we face in modern living is finding our own unique spiritual path amidst the complexities of life. It seems like we are drowning in possibilities and options and like a dog chasing it’s own tail, we are chasing ways to escape it all. More money, more success, more love, more happiness, greater influence…The irony is that we don’t need more, but less because piling on more and more will only remove us further from a sense of inner peace.

At the turn of the century, spiritual pioneers like Emerson lead a new school of thought know as The Transcendentalists. They believed that living an authentic life was to live close to your Source (God) and that simplicity was the path to connecting and knowing God on a personal level. In our modern life we tend to categorize everything. We have a work life, a love life, a personal life and worse of all a ‘spiritual life’. When we separate all the different aspects of ourselves what we do is to deny ourselves the synergy that comes from being a totally integrated person. Separating spirituality from your everyday life is to deny yourself the divine guidance that is available to you at all times. Divine guidance is available to you in everything you do.

When you separate your spiritual life from your everyday life, you automatically adopt the belief that you are primarily a ‘person’ with a soul or a spirit. The great insight however is that you are not a body with a soul, but that you are a soul with a body. Who you really are, is not your body or your mind, but your spirit – that invisible part deep down inside. Your body is nothing but a suit you have to wear in order to function in this dimension of life. (Continues >> Living From Your Higher Self – Part 2…)

A key is a really cool invention. Even today, with electronic keys these small and unique devices have the power to unlock and give access to something very valuable. We usually only lock something that’s of great value to us. Deep within each and every one of us we hold a key. With this key we can open the door to a higher awareness – an awareness that is beyond the mere perceptions of everyday consciousness.

Each and every person has an aspect of themselves that is invisible, yet very real. This aspect is not a personality trait or a hidden secret, but is a whole other dimension of life. This dimension of ourselves that is such an integral part of each and every one of us has been called many names. The higher self, the sacred self, the inner self - all falling short of sufficiently describing what this dimension really is. Along with discovering your highest and most sacred self comes an inner knowing that probably best describes this mysterious invisible aspect of ourselves. Discovering your highest self is at the heart of living a spiritual life and is the key to higher consciousness.

Since the beginning of time humankind where left in awe at the magnificence of creation. The sun, the moon, the seasons, wind, fire, a flower, the birth of a child…and the list goes on. But as astonishing as these things may seem, it’s the invisible world that has captured our attention even more than anything else. We arrive in this life not knowing why we are here, where we came from or where we are going.  We live our daily lives and go about life in a very permanent manner, yet deep down inside we know that we are not here to stay.

For many people the realization of their spiritual dimension never really dawns upon their consciousness. It seems like our fascination with the physical world has created within us a bias for that which we can see, touch, hear taste and smell. The common belief is that what we can perceive is real and that the invisible is unreal. In spite of this our scientific advances are revealing new truths about this ‘invisible world’ to us all the time. With recent discoveries in the field of quantum physics it is slowly dawning upon us that the invisible world is in fact the only ‘thing’ that is real.

One of the age old spiritual truths is that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. What we really are is not the physical aspect of ourselves, but that non-physical part that is the very essence of our nature as human beings. As you reflect back on your life you can discover just how the ‘you’ never really changed even though your appearance, your personality and almost every physical aspect of yourself changed. With a little introspection you will soon discover that your body is nothing but a ‘garage’ for your soul.

So many people believe that spirituality is something that is to be found outside of themselves and that God is someone they have to go and find in a building, on a mountain retreat or in some organization. The higher self, that invisible part of yourself is nothing but the presence of God within you. Deep within each and every one of us is that Divine spark from where we came.

This invisible dimension of ourselves is connected to a higher reality - to God. When you get in touch with it you will discover that there is a wisdom that is far greater than what exists in the realm of the physical and material world that’s so dominated by rational thinking and analytical observation. When you reconnect with your higher self, you reconnect with your source – you reconnect with God. Higher consciousness is a consciousness and an awareness of your higher self and it is a spiritual consciousness that transcends the limitations of the physical simply because it is not limited to the physical world of perceptions. This infinite world is available to you only when you start to live from your highest self.

Your higher self is not just a part of you, but it is in fact you. The ‘real’ you at least. Everything about you that you can see, touch and feel is constantly changing, but your higher self never ages. It’s always been ‘in there’ looking out – quietly observing. You are a spiritual being. You simply have to quiet your mind and look deep within yourself to discover who you really are. In the New Testament Jesus underlined this great truth when he said: “…don’t you know that ye are all Gods”. More recently an Indian saint was asked whether he was God. He replied by saying, “yes I am…and so are you. The only difference between me and you is that I know it and you don’t.”

Your higher self is that infinite wisdom that resides within each and every one of us. Through your higher self you will soon learn that God is not somewhere ‘out there’ but deep within yourself. Living from your higher self means that you live from your spiritual essence – free from the bias of physical appearances.

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