CHAPTER 5

Where There's Smoke

Perhaps you've wondered why there were no handy techniques included in chapter 4 to help you through the liquefying process. What we are suggesting is a fundamental shift in attitude. Such a shift must find outlets in every facet of your life. Each expression of self, which is to say every thought, word and deed, is an expression of your spiritual being. The choice you make in each moment is whether or not to act out of this attitude about your identity. You have been offered, by the nature of your existence, the right to make that choice in each moment. Know that your experience of happiness is the direct result of choosing to acknowledge and express spirit in the present moment. This acknowledgement need not be some exalted philosophical concept. The simple acceptance of happiness is a most spiritual experience. Whenever you grant yourself permission to heal by feeling, thinking and acting happy, you are calling your soul to align with your sense of who you are. Making that call a conscious choice, however, accelerates your growth into an infinite being. Each act of self-nurturance, of forgiveness and acceptance of self, represents an awareness of the perfection of your being.

If you believe in reincarnation, for instance, or in psychic phenomena or in the power of love to heal or any such hard to physically prove proposition, it is because at some level of your being, you have a direct experience of such. Just as your dreams of yourself are real because in some future time you have realized them, your beliefs in the unseen and unknown blossom from a direct experience. You can build upon this foundation easily, more easily in fact than you might suppose.

The next time you find yourself in conversation, tell yourself that you are very psychic. You can feel this other person's feelings. Open yourself boldly to the flow of emotions through them. Don't judge or hold back. Listen intently to their words while you monitor your own feelings. If the thought, "I can't", comes up, and it probably will, simply replace it with, "I am naturally sensitive". Then go back to listening intently. Again, suspend judgement. There will be plenty of time later to sort out the wheat from the chaff. You see, each encounter with another person is a chance to enlarge your identity. The truth of it is that you and the other person are the same spiritual being in a very real way. You can experience your own essence through your encounters with others. Piercing the illusion of "other" by assuming that all that you perceive in the other is yourself, you can begin to allow yourself to feel the feelings they hold as well as those they express. You may use your intellect to grasp the implications within their expression. Trust that you are getting clues from the very energy of their being. It is energy no different than what makes you alive. Let it enter and pass through, noting what it feels like as it does.

When you first walk away from the other person, you may feel a bit disoriented and even question your identity on some level. You will either integrate or reject this experience in fairly short order. If you integrate it, you will feel yourself expanded by it. With practice you will gather the presence of mind to offer honest feedback from what you gather from their conversation. As your ego stands aside more and you fret less about how they may feel about you if your speak this "truth", it will become easier. Then, you will get to validate your experience. Don't be afraid to be wrong. Assume that whatever you "get" is true either of you or of them. Be as grateful for your misses as your hits. They will show you aspects of yourself that you have objectified into the other person. Most importantly, have fun with the practice. Expanding your identity is a joyous occupation.

Any practice with any form of psychic phenomena offers benefits to the growth of your perception of reality. This is because such experience is out of alignment with your linear view of events. To sidestep the "normal" process of creation forces you to consider that the "Law" of Cause and Effect may well be less accurate than you have supposed. In order to touch the inner reality of another person, you must, in a small way, step out of time. You must compress their expression into a much larger present moment.

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Take a moment now to relax and close your eyes. Place the inner call to your higher self to align with your physical body and relax, releasing tension with each exhale. Create a feeling of inner peace in your heart. Feel this inner peace expand in time by letting the memories of other times in your past flow through your mind. Allow the thought of such peace in your future experience to also permeate you. If you have an event coming up that might spark some anxiety in you, wash your present state of rest through that event. Imagine yourself carrying this attitude throughout the event. See how it creates a joyful experience that fulfills your hopes and dreams in its small way. Now, imagine that this peace radiates outwards into past events that were painful or anxious. Let the feeling wash over your remembered self. Feel how your new sense of wholeness brings forgiveness and acceptance to those events. Imagine now that this peace is expanding into past and future lives, carrying its wholeness into those experiences. You need not have detailed memory of the events of those lives. Ride the sensation of peace and know that it carries healing energy to the entire self which has the experience of all lives.

The present moment is truly all that there is. Even though you seem to have experienced life in a linear series of present moments, one unfolding after another, this complex illusion is merely that, an illusion. The present moment contains all of your soul's experience of life, past and future. You have shut that experience off as you have been taught to do. You have compartmentalized each moment so effectively that they seem distinct.

Imagine for a moment that you are experiencing a dream which is your life. Each passing micro-second from birth to death seems distinct, an individual ticking of a cosmic clock. When you wake up upon your passing off this plane, the whole of your life becomes a single tick of that clock. It is all present and all one pulse of life. Indeed, all the infinite lives expanding from the soul are just this immediate and present. You can experience this directly by being fully present in just this moment. What you are feeling in this instant is radiating outwards into infinity. Every life your soul experiences is created in this singular moment. The feeling you hold now becomes central to each life, past and future. The power which you allow to flow through you with this feeling constructs universes.

When you experience life in your usual linear fashion, you are accepting the direct experience of change. Each minute ebb and flow of the universe creates change within your being. Your individualized ego perceives both that change, creating the perception of time, and it perceives the wholeness, changeless and divine. You have locked yourself into the perception of change though. We urge you to seek the perception of wholeness with these meditative techniques. Because the full infinite wholeness of God exists in the present moment, you have access to both. That experience of both is your purpose here in this dimension.

In practical terms, each moment you experience creates a universe of past and future lives. If you stay in the linear perception, you must follow the path that your present experience creates. Because you seek consistency from your past to your future, in order to hold a stable sense of identity, you condemn yourself to your limited identification with your physical self. Each effort to widen that identity into your spiritual self expands your sense of time. You recognize reincarnation conceptually for instance, when you touch the truth of yourself as spirit. When that identity becomes real enough to you, you see that your past and your future lives are created IN THIS MOMENT as an expression of who you are NOW. When you realize your identity as God, you realize that all of infinity is being created IN THIS MOMENT.

Every step you take to grasp this infinite identity from meditative trance to applying forgiveness and acceptance to yourself as a perfect creation of God, expands you and changes the very fabric of the universe. Set aside your thoughts of Karma, of Cause and Effect, of one moment following another. Open up to your identity as God. You are the creator of your universe. As every act expands into an entire brand new universe, there is no Karma really. If that act is a complete act of universal love, it fills your universe and you are free. Lives past and future are constructed solely on that pure expression of spirit and Oneness is attained.

You can extrapolate this statement into the basic laws of creation. All acts create a universe. Each act contains the full structure of your beliefs so this universe is as complex and conflicted as your beliefs command. When you can act from a single point of source as God, your creation becomes One. All is complete. There is no more Karma, no more time, no more individual, no more pain. All there is, is the wholeness of One. To build yourself to such a grand scale does not require lifetimes of struggle. It is not a step by step process. You do NOT have to balance the "wrong" act of past lives. You do not need to spend years in meditation or perform miraculous feats or have mystical or psychic powers. What you have to do is to accept the wholeness of yourself in one glorious moment. There must be no holds barred in this acceptance, no "yeah, but"s. There are no "should"s or "I can't"s because in this one glorious moment YOU ARE GOD! In this moment you realize that you ARE the infinite universe.

In practical terms we ask that you imagine this glorious moment. In everything you do, bring as much of your awareness to bear as you can. When you eat, pray, urinate, make love, work, speak and dream, bring this giant boundless thought to mind. Expand into it in every way you can. Unplug from the tiny limited view of your self that you hold now. Release your infinite capacity to experience from the bonds you yourself have created. You need not act on your fear. Your every act of conformity is an act of insanity because it denies who you really are. You need not fear that stepping into this vast unknown of Godness is a threat to your sanity. It is an expansion into the very real self that you are. So beat against the bars of your self created cage.

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Intuitively, you know that if you didn't constantly seek stability with routines and habitual behaviors, the infinite unknown would encroach on your experience. Routine describes your life, from rising in the morning to eating at regular times, eliminating wastes in the same mindless fashion, dressing like everyone else, going to work and endless other examples. Routines of the heart and mind are even more subtle and insidious. Notice how differently life was lived in more natural cultures. They followed the natural dictates of their bodies and their environments. These dictates are ever changing, more fluid, inviting a relationship to self more conducive to spiritual growth and self awareness. Such people knew a happiness which eludes modern cultures. It was not so much their simplicity but their choice to flow with natural change that offered them this reward. Notice how, as you open to spirit in your daily life, your normal routines are being disrupted. Notice too, how hard you strive to establish new routines when this disruption takes place. We suggest you refrain from this struggle to create new habits in your life. "Good" habits or "bad", the simple effort to create routine holds you in place while spirit flows onward.

Because each moment creates a new universe, following the flow of that moment allows you to redefine your life. If you steadfastly live out that definition, even a boldly new one, you restrict yourself to the limitations of it. To expand your self definition constantly and expand toward your true identity requires that you drop the old definitions of the previous moment in the moment that follows it. That is a very bold choice and may fill you with fear. Still, this is the fluidity you truly seek. Following the flow of spirit, the Will of God so to speak, means letting go of the old idea of who you are to make room for a new one in each moment. Sometimes the differences will be subtle and sometimes they will seem terrifyingly huge. With practice at letting go of the fear that holds you to the old image of your universe, you can face these changes gracefully.

The willingness to accept change is the most vital ingredient in your quest for your true identity. Every step in your progress towards an awareness of your spiritual self has been made possible by your acceptance of change. We applaud you for each change of perception you have thus far allowed. By taking what life gives you with grace and courage and a firm trust in the integrity of your own being, you make huge strides into the unknown.

We discussed in Chapter two how you can create change in your life. You can use this vision of a new universe to enhance the process. Each time you accept a vision of yourself as a spiritual being, let that vision expand into your past and future. Feel its healing affect on your past experiences and its creative affect on your future. Each statement you make with thought, word or deed is a creative one. Pay attention to just what that statement implies. Is it a bold step into spirit or a fearful step back into your separate individuated physical form? Which direction creates happiness for you?

Perhaps the question has occurred to you that if each moment creates an entire universe and this moment is a really crappy one, how can we hope our future will be brighter than this? Even now though your past experience indicates that even your lowest points eventually reached their limit and you came back to some internal balance point. Creation is not a linear phenomena. Its path is basically spiralic. All downward sweeps of energy eventually swing upwards again. We are suggesting that removing the resistance to the pulsing of life will bring you more into the balance point where, though the spin of the spiral is very intense, the swings of pleasure and pain will be less wild and unmanageable. From the balance point of the spiral of life, the forward movement into spirit is most rapid. Your planetary system is on a very fast track at this time and like a rapidly spinning carousel, those on the outside rim may be thrown off for a while. being close to the center point by not resisting the rapid spin will afford you the chance to stay on the ride to its end.

As you explore the energy systems of your various bodies, you may notice a sensation of spinning. This describes that natural flow of energy to which you will become accustomed. Like a propeller which reaches such a speed, relative to the observer, that it appears to stand still, as you begin to vibrate at the proper speed yourself, your energy field appears to be static and able to be manipulated. This function of fluidity describes how you maintain a stable appearance in your dimension. This natural process is not presently in your conscious control but it will soon be. You are learning to relate to your energetic make up and will come to master the rate of vibration at which you function. When you experience the spinning sensation, do not resist it. Allow yourself to acclimatise to it. It means you are accessing a higher frequency of energy than you have previously been able to. As you adjust, the information that new frequency carries will become available to you. Remember that it is part of your Self and you are perfectly safe. Enjoy the thrill of it as though it was an amusement park ride.

When you find yourself having a painful experience in life, this is the most valuable time to shift your perspective to the view point of your soul. Access your most exalted idea of who you are. Remind yourself that you are safe and secure in a benevolent universe of your own creation. Trust that whatever is happening has been engineered by your spiritual self for your growth and greatest happiness. Try to see the message from your soul in each event and feeling. This attitude will expand into your future bringing you close to your goals. It will expand into your past as well, bringing its light to other painful experiences, changing the traumatic charge there as well. You have weathered many storms in your tenure as human. You are well aware of just how much you can survive. Focus on your faith that each hardship has left you stronger and closer to realizing your identity as spirit.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. By this we mean that the most exalted of your aspirations come from a very real and very present portion of your being. They do not represent the aspirations of that portion of you but the direct experience of the reality of those dreams. When we speak of faith, we speak of touching the portion of yourself that is steeped in the experience of unity. You grow faith like you grow flowers. It is nurtured, fed and watered by experience and validation in your world. Each passage through difficulty in your life offers you proof that your faith in life's goodness is not misplaced. The more you refer to this portion of yourself reflected by your most exalted beliefs about reality, the more you confirm the safety and trust you invest in life.

We have told you that you are God Himself. We tell you that you are that NOW! This is not some far distant goal but an ever present reality. Touch that reality as often and as deeply as you can. Your happiness will grow and blossom.

To Chapter Six