Living consciously is the single most important thing you can do to develop spiritually or psychically. All of the methods taught are aimed at helping spiritual seekers to experience life in a more conscious way. There is not one class you can take, thing you can read, practice or do that will make a person immediately understand the concepts being conveyed. Life experiences must be paid attention to, felt and processed (through writing, meditation, talking), in order to advance spiritually. The journey is a deeply personal process, that involves, commitment, listening, reading, practicing, writing, practicing some more, and then as understanding begins to blossom, we want to pay very close attention to our egos. We are trying to attune to the subtle energies that exist all around us, and interpret them. As a teacher the best we can do is to point the seeker in the right direction - and discuss and help the seeker stay on a course to optimize their development.
I was listening to The Mystical Kabbalah, and Rabbi David Cooper describes the process so well from the Kabbalisitc perspective (and to get a full understanding of what he says, please do download and/or read his book!). He talks about our physical bodies and emotions as being vessels, that are always full of light. Consciousness is pure light. The more we fine tune, repair, or expand our "vessels" the more light can come in to fill our vessels. This is such a wonderful way to describe spiritual development! Paying conscious attention to life, and consciously observing our emotions, and actions, helps to fine-tune our vessels so that we can let more light in. Some problems can arise when someone is trying to "let more light in" when their "vessel" is not ready for the light, says Rabbi Cooper. What does that mean? If we open ourselves up to developing spiritually, by trying to let more light in before our "vessels" are refined by living life more consciously, we can cause more harm to ourselves and others, than benefit. We see this problem sometimes in people who want to teach others or read for others before they have developed their vessels - the messages or teachings may have some good insight - but may contain a lot of ego, like being overly dramatic or immediately warning of terrible things coming up for someone they are reading for. So the more we develop spiritually, and open ourselves up to light, the more responsibility we have to live more impeccably - with honesty, openness, lack of judgment, no gossiping, working on our vices, listening to those closest to us who we respect, being with our children, our friends in a conscious way, etc. It may start with us acknowledging THAT we need to work on some things - not everyone can admit that they have a problem. But those than can admit it, developing spiritually, and honestly "working on" making it better by being conscious about it, is one of the best things they can ever do. Most programs to help people with addictions and other problems are aimed at helping people behave more consciously.
Exercise:
Find a time when you have about 30-45 minutes of privacy. You might do the 6 minute meditation under the meditations tab (or use your own methods) to get into your energy body at the beginning of this exercise.
Take your journal and write down some things you think you could "work on" or be better at in some way. It can be as simple as "being more conscious about interacting with my children" to "paying more attention to details at my job," to "being more conscious about when I drink alcohol." You can make a list of things as well. The first time you do this exercise, I suggest that you pick something that is less "serious" to work on.
Choose one of the items you identified to work on. Write it down in your journal on the top of a new page. Then write down some recent experiences you had where you were engaged in that activity. For example, if you pick, "being more conscious with my children," think about when you were last with your children in a way that is "less than conscious" and write down what you were doing that made it so you were not so conscious with your children. It might be, "I was reviewing emails on my phone," or "computer" or "I was spinning in my mind about whether I was going to hear from someone," "I was thinking about business or my job," "I was on the phone with a someone" or "I was playing a game on my phone." You get the idea.
Now write down what you could do differently next time so that you are more conscious in this activity. Using the example above, you might write, "I will put my phone down and look at my child," "I will pause the TV and let them talk with me as long as they need to," "I will shut my laptop and look at my child while he/she is talking."
All this work we do to develop spiritually, is about learning to be more present in our lives. It is a continuous process, requiring commitment and patience, and above all things, the willingness to objectively observe our own "egos."
It is often the case that the best advice we get is from the people closest to us.
I was listening to The Mystical Kabbalah, and Rabbi David Cooper describes the process so well from the Kabbalisitc perspective (and to get a full understanding of what he says, please do download and/or read his book!). He talks about our physical bodies and emotions as being vessels, that are always full of light. Consciousness is pure light. The more we fine tune, repair, or expand our "vessels" the more light can come in to fill our vessels. This is such a wonderful way to describe spiritual development! Paying conscious attention to life, and consciously observing our emotions, and actions, helps to fine-tune our vessels so that we can let more light in. Some problems can arise when someone is trying to "let more light in" when their "vessel" is not ready for the light, says Rabbi Cooper. What does that mean? If we open ourselves up to developing spiritually, by trying to let more light in before our "vessels" are refined by living life more consciously, we can cause more harm to ourselves and others, than benefit. We see this problem sometimes in people who want to teach others or read for others before they have developed their vessels - the messages or teachings may have some good insight - but may contain a lot of ego, like being overly dramatic or immediately warning of terrible things coming up for someone they are reading for. So the more we develop spiritually, and open ourselves up to light, the more responsibility we have to live more impeccably - with honesty, openness, lack of judgment, no gossiping, working on our vices, listening to those closest to us who we respect, being with our children, our friends in a conscious way, etc. It may start with us acknowledging THAT we need to work on some things - not everyone can admit that they have a problem. But those than can admit it, developing spiritually, and honestly "working on" making it better by being conscious about it, is one of the best things they can ever do. Most programs to help people with addictions and other problems are aimed at helping people behave more consciously.
Exercise:
Find a time when you have about 30-45 minutes of privacy. You might do the 6 minute meditation under the meditations tab (or use your own methods) to get into your energy body at the beginning of this exercise.
Take your journal and write down some things you think you could "work on" or be better at in some way. It can be as simple as "being more conscious about interacting with my children" to "paying more attention to details at my job," to "being more conscious about when I drink alcohol." You can make a list of things as well. The first time you do this exercise, I suggest that you pick something that is less "serious" to work on.
Choose one of the items you identified to work on. Write it down in your journal on the top of a new page. Then write down some recent experiences you had where you were engaged in that activity. For example, if you pick, "being more conscious with my children," think about when you were last with your children in a way that is "less than conscious" and write down what you were doing that made it so you were not so conscious with your children. It might be, "I was reviewing emails on my phone," or "computer" or "I was spinning in my mind about whether I was going to hear from someone," "I was thinking about business or my job," "I was on the phone with a someone" or "I was playing a game on my phone." You get the idea.
Now write down what you could do differently next time so that you are more conscious in this activity. Using the example above, you might write, "I will put my phone down and look at my child," "I will pause the TV and let them talk with me as long as they need to," "I will shut my laptop and look at my child while he/she is talking."
All this work we do to develop spiritually, is about learning to be more present in our lives. It is a continuous process, requiring commitment and patience, and above all things, the willingness to objectively observe our own "egos."
It is often the case that the best advice we get is from the people closest to us.
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